At one time the Aral Sea in Central Asia was the fourth-largest freshwater lake in the world. Almost as big as Ireland, it covered 26,300 square miles (68,000 km2) and appeared on maps of Asia just east of the Caspian Sea in what was then the USSR (or, if you prefer Cyrillic, the CCCP). If the Aral Sea were still there, today it would straddle the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, it isn't there any more.
It began shrinking around 1960, and its slow disappearance over the last half-century is illustrated in the following map:
Not much remains but the rusting hulls of ships atop the dry desert sands, many miles from towns that once bustled with activities related to the fishing industry .
Although I like to think I keep up with current events, I had no idea that this long decline had occurred. It was off my radar completely.
Did you know that the Aral Sea has a middle name?
Well, it does. It’s Stockra. I made it up just now so that I could mention a book written in 1990 by David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aral Stockra Sea, you know, those people portrayed on Downton Abbey and their friends.
Well, I thought it was funny.
What happened to the Aral Sea is not due to global warming. But it was caused by humans when the government decided to divert the water from the rivers that fed the huge lake to irrigate the land for the growing of cotton. In the process, the Aral Sea has just about disappeared.
Today, on the eleventh anniversary of this blog (yes, friends, it began on September 28, 2007), it is my fervent hope that it will continue for a long time and not dry up like the Aral Sea. I have learned far more from you, dear readers, than you have learned from me during these eleven years, so I will bring this post to a close with a little something from Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I, the opening of a song that Deborah Kerr sang to the children of the king of Siam:
It's a very ancient saying
But a true and honest thought
That if you become a teacher (or blogger),
By your pupils (or readers) you'll be taught.
As a teacher/blogger I've been learning,
You'll forgive me if I boast,
But I've now become an expert
On the subject I like most:
Getting to know you.
At this point, all the children of the King of Siam say, 'Ahhhhhh'.
In this metaphor, sometimes I am Deborah Kerr (no snickering in the back) and you are the children of the king of Siam, and sometimes you are Deborah Kerr and I am the children of the king of Siam.
Now that I think about it, eleven years is a long time not to know from one day to the next whether you are Deborah Kerr or the children of the king of Siam.
But at least we haven't dried up and disappeared like the Aral Sea.
Not yet.
For extra credit, read "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" by John Keats and write a 500-word essay using personificaation to compare the poem to the Aral Sea.
