Bretzel liquide

photo : Carolyn Drake
"In the park of Khudayar Khan’s palace, the swirling barbecue smoke obscures a veiled woman, unless it’s the veiled woman who reveals the smoke. Local businessmen, traveling to Mecca, have been bringing back headscarves. Under Soviet rule, ideological committees paid house visits to lecture women on the evils of the veil. When Carolyn’s host, Farakhat, sees women with their faces completely covered, she visits them at home and tells them to cut it out. Carolyn has been reading Ibn Battuta who, traveling through this region in the fourteenth century, described people knocking on doors to call men to prayer. If they didn’t go, they were whipped. A lot has changed, but the doors haven’t caught many breaks."