A Long Forgotten Trove of Junk

Found huge box of my long forgotten world souvenir (aka junk) collection;
while searching for an old laptop which is more likely junk:

A 2003 issue of Asia Money with frontcover
- The Handover - Mahathir shaking hands with Badawi;
A Good Read that does not really hint at the treasure throve beneath.

I forgot I have a collection ready for a mad hatters' party:
A Russian fur hat, an Uzbek farmer's cap, an Ossetian highlander's fuzzy headdress and even fuzzier wild Turkmen tribesmen's hat;
Almost blinded by an ornate Georgian dagger I smuggled back - I wish; but most likely a tacky fakepiece from the Tbilisi bazaar;

You've got lots of junk, V commented;
Yes junk, all in the box I have long forgotten;

I opened the Cuban cigar box -
Inside: a Norwegian carving of a boy in folk dress on a rock-about-horse;
Set of Russian Matryoshka dolls-in-dolls - tacky reminders of a nomadic past nevertheless;
Two Ukrainian easter eggs from an Odessa pensioner by the potholed road side;
A Tajik silver medalllion from the border town of Penjikent not far from the corrupt police;
An Uzbek porcelain townsman in fat blue robe and a smily Krygyz porcelain peasant woman from the Tienshan;
A Moldovan plate with bright red farmers' engravings of eggs, peacocks and babushkas, wrapped in an antique Armenian waist piece from Lake Sevan not far from the Ararat;
Plus piles and piles of rugs, rags and what have you, from Panama, Guatemala, Peru, Laos, Albania and faraway lands, islands, frontiers and never-never-lands.
and a bull of unknown origin;

Yes, sad, of unknown origin. That's when treasure becomes junk, says V;
Give me a few days for some home archaeology, and dive into my carefree days as a nomad...
days that the corporate slave like me can only now envy.
How can I find myself again?

Comments