Hi all, I have been spending the week in Osh with my host sister, staying at the apartment of some relatives. It has been a nice change of pace from doing English clubs and such. I thought I would only be here for a day, but I ended up just staying here because there is a PC conference tomorrow. Running water is great! And so are the public pools that we have been going to a lot, even though they are not chlorintated (spelling?) and I have probably picked up some skin diseases. But what can you do to beat the heat?
Yesterday it was cloudy and breezy so we climed Suliman Too (Soloman's Mountain), a place where a lot of Muslims make pilgrimiges. It was very nice. There was an archeological museum there too that was interesting, if a little bit creepy. There were a lot of really bad examples of taxidermy.
Anyway, more on this later when I have my own computer and can spend some time writing.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
July heat III
July 19, 2009
Wow, am I lucky. What I thought was going to turn into a seriously unpleasant stomach illness was cleared up within hours of taking the first dose of antibiotics. The worst of it was the funny noises coming from my insides. Not so bad. Although I am feeling a little queasy after the supper I just ate. Apa pressured me into trying kymyz again, even though she saw me almost gag when I tried it a few days ago. And all I had to wash it down with was some of the famous natural gassy mineral water from Kara-Shoro, which I also don't like. For the first time since I have come to this country, I started to feel like a picky eater. But I don't think not liking these two things is unreasonable. They are simply nasty tasting.
After she watched me gag down the one sip I agreed to take of each beverage and was finally satisfied, she went to the refrigerator and came back to hand me a leg bone the size of my arm in a manner that made me feel like I should be stepping up to bat, rather than enjoying a meal. I think she took the look of amusement on my face as indication that I love chewing cold, gamy meat off of huge bones. And really, if I can get at the good parts, it is not so bad, and it keeps Apa happy, so I guess it is all for the best.
July 21, 2009
Boredom is beginning to set in. Whereas I used to fill up my downtime with walks into the center of the village (a good time waster as it takes a good half hour even if I don't stop to talk to people, which I usually do) to just get an ice cream cone or a half kilo of apricots or something, it is just too hot to be out in the sun when you don't absolutely need to be. I did actually need to go to the post office yesterday to pick up some mail, and my host sister was horrified that I had made the walk there and back. An ice cream bar on the walk home was probably my salvation. Today I think I will brave the heat and taxi it to Uzgen to use the internet and maybe attempt to send out some mail (we'll see). A trip to Uzgen in the heat will probably just make me feel like a wimp, as I will have to look at all those women in burquas and wonder how they are surviving. I don't think they can even take advantage of the numerous ice cream places (which I will definitely hit up while I am there). Unless there is some trick to eating an ice cream cone that I don't know about.
Anyway, I have been doing a lot of lounging around in a sleeveless sundress that I stole from a volunteer that is leaving. Shoot. I should probably put on some sleeves before leaving the house. I read, listen to music, watch movies in English on my computer or in Russian on TV with my host sister (yesterday I actually watched Free Willy on TV with my 22-year-old host brother). I also write lesson plans for my clubs, but it is kind of pointless since I usually end up changing the plan completely. I feel like a lazy bum. I am learning a few house-keeping skills from Apa, like making jam. Last week, we made a ridiculously huge amount of apricot jam, and then moved onto cherry jam. This is a good skill to know, I suppose, except for that I only know how to make the jam using huge gallon canning jars (we filled up six with apricots and six with cherries!) and two huge kazans (iron cauldron things) over a fire stove: one for cooking the jam, and one with boiling water for sealing the huge jars. It was quite an interesting process, and not really as much work as I thought it might be, since the apricots were just washed and halved and the cherries weren't even pitted (watch your teeth). Yum, love Kyrgyz jam. So tasty.
Wow, am I lucky. What I thought was going to turn into a seriously unpleasant stomach illness was cleared up within hours of taking the first dose of antibiotics. The worst of it was the funny noises coming from my insides. Not so bad. Although I am feeling a little queasy after the supper I just ate. Apa pressured me into trying kymyz again, even though she saw me almost gag when I tried it a few days ago. And all I had to wash it down with was some of the famous natural gassy mineral water from Kara-Shoro, which I also don't like. For the first time since I have come to this country, I started to feel like a picky eater. But I don't think not liking these two things is unreasonable. They are simply nasty tasting.
After she watched me gag down the one sip I agreed to take of each beverage and was finally satisfied, she went to the refrigerator and came back to hand me a leg bone the size of my arm in a manner that made me feel like I should be stepping up to bat, rather than enjoying a meal. I think she took the look of amusement on my face as indication that I love chewing cold, gamy meat off of huge bones. And really, if I can get at the good parts, it is not so bad, and it keeps Apa happy, so I guess it is all for the best.
July 21, 2009
Boredom is beginning to set in. Whereas I used to fill up my downtime with walks into the center of the village (a good time waster as it takes a good half hour even if I don't stop to talk to people, which I usually do) to just get an ice cream cone or a half kilo of apricots or something, it is just too hot to be out in the sun when you don't absolutely need to be. I did actually need to go to the post office yesterday to pick up some mail, and my host sister was horrified that I had made the walk there and back. An ice cream bar on the walk home was probably my salvation. Today I think I will brave the heat and taxi it to Uzgen to use the internet and maybe attempt to send out some mail (we'll see). A trip to Uzgen in the heat will probably just make me feel like a wimp, as I will have to look at all those women in burquas and wonder how they are surviving. I don't think they can even take advantage of the numerous ice cream places (which I will definitely hit up while I am there). Unless there is some trick to eating an ice cream cone that I don't know about.
Anyway, I have been doing a lot of lounging around in a sleeveless sundress that I stole from a volunteer that is leaving. Shoot. I should probably put on some sleeves before leaving the house. I read, listen to music, watch movies in English on my computer or in Russian on TV with my host sister (yesterday I actually watched Free Willy on TV with my 22-year-old host brother). I also write lesson plans for my clubs, but it is kind of pointless since I usually end up changing the plan completely. I feel like a lazy bum. I am learning a few house-keeping skills from Apa, like making jam. Last week, we made a ridiculously huge amount of apricot jam, and then moved onto cherry jam. This is a good skill to know, I suppose, except for that I only know how to make the jam using huge gallon canning jars (we filled up six with apricots and six with cherries!) and two huge kazans (iron cauldron things) over a fire stove: one for cooking the jam, and one with boiling water for sealing the huge jars. It was quite an interesting process, and not really as much work as I thought it might be, since the apricots were just washed and halved and the cherries weren't even pitted (watch your teeth). Yum, love Kyrgyz jam. So tasty.
July heat part II
July 17, 2009
Hooray for discovering new friends that speak English! A cousin is staying with my host family now, and she is studying English at university. It is a nice break, but apa is getting a little annoying with her demands that we both speak English together, but then tell her everything we said to each other. Oh well. I hope she stays for a while, it will be nice to have a friend I can talk to. She has a fantastic collection of late 80's and early 90's soft rock ballads on her cell phone so we had some fun sing-a-longs. I feel bad for her that she thinks this music is more recent than it is. Just like she thinks that the Backstreet Boys (her favorite band—she is 19-years-old and has a Backstreet Boys book cover on her English textbook!) are still together. Apa came into the room when we were singing along to “My Heart Will Go On,” sparking an argument over whether or not Jack was too beautiful for Rose. Apa is of the opinion that Kate Winslet is to big to be an attractive woman. And still, I don't understand the obsession with Leo DiCaprio. Did I write about how almost every family in my training village had a picture of Leo hanging up somewhere in their house like some sort of holy relic?
I have also started Kyrgyz lessons with the English speaking university student who lives down the street. He gave me a pleasant surprise when he showed up to our first lesson with his own white board (his mother is a teacher, apparently) and a prepared textbook-style dialogue for me to practice with. It was great.
I went swimming in the river with my English club girls the other day. It was actually a really nice place to swim, I was surprised. I wish I had thought ahead and brought my shampoo since I wash my hair with river water anyway. I was definitely the oldest person there by a lot, but I should get used to that since all I do is hang out with kids all day anyway.
I have been reading a book called “The Omnivore's Dilemma,” that I stole from a recently departed volunteer's library (I mean he completed his service. He didn't die). This book was the second that I read in a row that devoted an entire chapter to talking solely about Iowa and Iowan culture. The other was a collection of essays about Americans' perceptions of other countries, with the exception of one essay, which was a British citizen's thoughts on Centerville, Iowa, and why it should be considered “America's Hometown.” “The Omnivore's Dilemma” traces America's food from the beginning, which is why it starts out with a corn field in Iowa, where the author makes the claim that the base of most of our food comes from.
Anyway, the bottom line is that it was a strange for me to read so much about Iowa from outsiders' perspectives, especially when I wasn't expecting it. I mean, who would have thought that two random books that I would pick up, and that I probably wouldn't have read in any other circumstances, would have so much to say about Iowa? Nobody ever talks about Iowa! It seems like another one of those tricks on me.
But back to the book. So far, it is really great. You should pick it up. It has made me re-think my opinions of my diet in Kyrgyzstan a little bit, as well. The book talks a lot about feedlots and all the different things processed corn products are used for. While I was aware of these things, I didn't give them much thought. Now, while I daily lament the un-healthyness that I encounter here, I am also beginning to consider the ways in which people here are maybe smarter, or less barbaric, or something, in their lifestyles.
OK, think of it this way: looking at everything I have eaten in the past few days, I can list the processed foods that I consumed right now: peanut butter, granola bars, candy (all from America), instant coffee, and creamer (bought locally) and homemade jam. These are all things (with the exception of the jam) that Kyrgyz people probably wouldn't normally eat. I just eat them because I am used to the tastes.
Meat: While I complain about the taste and texture of the meat a lot, I think differently if I consider the life of the animal that it came from. The tough, greasy mutton that I usually eat was taken from a sheep that spent probably at least a few summers up in the green pastures in the mountains, drinking from clear, cold, mountain springs and being watched over by a kalpak-wearing man on a horse, who maybe spends his nights right there in a yurt. This sheep has already had a productive life, sparing its wool for making culturally significant and practical carpets or cushions. Contrast that with the ground beef in the American cheeseburger or taco. The cow was very young and in close confinement for most of its life, forced to eat food that is unnatural to it, including products from animals of its own species, and pumped full of antibiotics. Which culture sounds more civilized to you?
Although I can't be too preachy, considering that I am on antibiotics myself at the moment for a pesky little infection that, thankfully, isn't doing much more than changing the consistency of my poo (what's new? I don't even know what consistency it is supposed to be anymore) and making my tummy make really ridiculously loud gurgling noises. Is that all you've got Kyrgyzstan? Bring it on.
This also reminds me of something I heard a volunteer say recently: that some Uzbek people believe that outhouses are more sanitary—they don't like the idea of having an indoor toilet because it is in the house. Really, if you think about it, it does make some sense. Why would you want to do your business in the same place where you live?
OK, one more comment. I am finding myself becoming a cynical person. So much so that I annoy myself sometimes. I guess it is just the result of living in a place like Kyrgyzstan. I am going to be such an irritating person in two years, and I apologize in advance. It will be worse than all those “when I was your age...” Great Depression stories, because I chose to come here. But I know it will happen. I am sure that I will be one-upping everyone's complaints. Yeah. I will be that person. Someone will say something like, “Yesterday, the weather was so bad, the electricity was out for eight whole hours!” And I will be like, “Ha, when I lived in Kyrgyzstan, there was hardly a day when the electricity stayed ON for eight hours at a time.” Which is true, and which makes me sad, because this is supposed to be about as good as it gets, electricity wise.
I can also tell that my concept of time is already warped. I have been spending more and more time just sitting around at school, just like the other teachers. I guess the idea is is that they are supposed to make some sort of appearance of working during the summer. This pretty much means showing up, walking around the school a bit, maybe rearranging posters or something, sitting around with other teachers, taking a tea break, and then going home. The concept of “wasting time” seems completely foreign. The other day, I went to the internet cafe to help out my counterpart, but the electricity was out. The guy at the desk said it should be on in one to two hours, and as I started to turn around and head out the door, my counterpart plopped down in a chair to wait, without even a frustrated sigh. We did end up waiting just a little over an hour, literally just sitting, sometimes even in silence. I found myself constantly looking at the clock on my phone, but my counterpart, and even the guy at the desk didn't seem the least bit impatient. I was supposed to meet my English club at my house at three to go swimming, and on the way home I felt bad because I would end up being about 20 minutes late, and they had seemed pretty serious about meeting at exactly 3. I shouldn't have worried though, because none of them even started to show up until about 3:45.
Hooray for discovering new friends that speak English! A cousin is staying with my host family now, and she is studying English at university. It is a nice break, but apa is getting a little annoying with her demands that we both speak English together, but then tell her everything we said to each other. Oh well. I hope she stays for a while, it will be nice to have a friend I can talk to. She has a fantastic collection of late 80's and early 90's soft rock ballads on her cell phone so we had some fun sing-a-longs. I feel bad for her that she thinks this music is more recent than it is. Just like she thinks that the Backstreet Boys (her favorite band—she is 19-years-old and has a Backstreet Boys book cover on her English textbook!) are still together. Apa came into the room when we were singing along to “My Heart Will Go On,” sparking an argument over whether or not Jack was too beautiful for Rose. Apa is of the opinion that Kate Winslet is to big to be an attractive woman. And still, I don't understand the obsession with Leo DiCaprio. Did I write about how almost every family in my training village had a picture of Leo hanging up somewhere in their house like some sort of holy relic?
I have also started Kyrgyz lessons with the English speaking university student who lives down the street. He gave me a pleasant surprise when he showed up to our first lesson with his own white board (his mother is a teacher, apparently) and a prepared textbook-style dialogue for me to practice with. It was great.
I went swimming in the river with my English club girls the other day. It was actually a really nice place to swim, I was surprised. I wish I had thought ahead and brought my shampoo since I wash my hair with river water anyway. I was definitely the oldest person there by a lot, but I should get used to that since all I do is hang out with kids all day anyway.
I have been reading a book called “The Omnivore's Dilemma,” that I stole from a recently departed volunteer's library (I mean he completed his service. He didn't die). This book was the second that I read in a row that devoted an entire chapter to talking solely about Iowa and Iowan culture. The other was a collection of essays about Americans' perceptions of other countries, with the exception of one essay, which was a British citizen's thoughts on Centerville, Iowa, and why it should be considered “America's Hometown.” “The Omnivore's Dilemma” traces America's food from the beginning, which is why it starts out with a corn field in Iowa, where the author makes the claim that the base of most of our food comes from.
Anyway, the bottom line is that it was a strange for me to read so much about Iowa from outsiders' perspectives, especially when I wasn't expecting it. I mean, who would have thought that two random books that I would pick up, and that I probably wouldn't have read in any other circumstances, would have so much to say about Iowa? Nobody ever talks about Iowa! It seems like another one of those tricks on me.
But back to the book. So far, it is really great. You should pick it up. It has made me re-think my opinions of my diet in Kyrgyzstan a little bit, as well. The book talks a lot about feedlots and all the different things processed corn products are used for. While I was aware of these things, I didn't give them much thought. Now, while I daily lament the un-healthyness that I encounter here, I am also beginning to consider the ways in which people here are maybe smarter, or less barbaric, or something, in their lifestyles.
OK, think of it this way: looking at everything I have eaten in the past few days, I can list the processed foods that I consumed right now: peanut butter, granola bars, candy (all from America), instant coffee, and creamer (bought locally) and homemade jam. These are all things (with the exception of the jam) that Kyrgyz people probably wouldn't normally eat. I just eat them because I am used to the tastes.
Meat: While I complain about the taste and texture of the meat a lot, I think differently if I consider the life of the animal that it came from. The tough, greasy mutton that I usually eat was taken from a sheep that spent probably at least a few summers up in the green pastures in the mountains, drinking from clear, cold, mountain springs and being watched over by a kalpak-wearing man on a horse, who maybe spends his nights right there in a yurt. This sheep has already had a productive life, sparing its wool for making culturally significant and practical carpets or cushions. Contrast that with the ground beef in the American cheeseburger or taco. The cow was very young and in close confinement for most of its life, forced to eat food that is unnatural to it, including products from animals of its own species, and pumped full of antibiotics. Which culture sounds more civilized to you?
Although I can't be too preachy, considering that I am on antibiotics myself at the moment for a pesky little infection that, thankfully, isn't doing much more than changing the consistency of my poo (what's new? I don't even know what consistency it is supposed to be anymore) and making my tummy make really ridiculously loud gurgling noises. Is that all you've got Kyrgyzstan? Bring it on.
This also reminds me of something I heard a volunteer say recently: that some Uzbek people believe that outhouses are more sanitary—they don't like the idea of having an indoor toilet because it is in the house. Really, if you think about it, it does make some sense. Why would you want to do your business in the same place where you live?
OK, one more comment. I am finding myself becoming a cynical person. So much so that I annoy myself sometimes. I guess it is just the result of living in a place like Kyrgyzstan. I am going to be such an irritating person in two years, and I apologize in advance. It will be worse than all those “when I was your age...” Great Depression stories, because I chose to come here. But I know it will happen. I am sure that I will be one-upping everyone's complaints. Yeah. I will be that person. Someone will say something like, “Yesterday, the weather was so bad, the electricity was out for eight whole hours!” And I will be like, “Ha, when I lived in Kyrgyzstan, there was hardly a day when the electricity stayed ON for eight hours at a time.” Which is true, and which makes me sad, because this is supposed to be about as good as it gets, electricity wise.
I can also tell that my concept of time is already warped. I have been spending more and more time just sitting around at school, just like the other teachers. I guess the idea is is that they are supposed to make some sort of appearance of working during the summer. This pretty much means showing up, walking around the school a bit, maybe rearranging posters or something, sitting around with other teachers, taking a tea break, and then going home. The concept of “wasting time” seems completely foreign. The other day, I went to the internet cafe to help out my counterpart, but the electricity was out. The guy at the desk said it should be on in one to two hours, and as I started to turn around and head out the door, my counterpart plopped down in a chair to wait, without even a frustrated sigh. We did end up waiting just a little over an hour, literally just sitting, sometimes even in silence. I found myself constantly looking at the clock on my phone, but my counterpart, and even the guy at the desk didn't seem the least bit impatient. I was supposed to meet my English club at my house at three to go swimming, and on the way home I felt bad because I would end up being about 20 minutes late, and they had seemed pretty serious about meeting at exactly 3. I shouldn't have worried though, because none of them even started to show up until about 3:45.
Enduring the Central Asian mid-July heat to bring you a new blog (you're welcome)
July 6, 2009
Yesterday I tried to make a blog post in real time (that is, write it up on the spot instead of copy paste like I usually do) but of course, the connection bombed out on me before the thing was posted and it didn't save. Waste of time. So I will just write down my thought here and post it later:
I mostly wanted to comment on how nice it is when people are nice to you. This weekend I spent some time at a new internet cafe in Osh City. It is a really nice place with cushy office chairs and new computers, and they keep plastic over the keyboards when no one is using the computer. It's not that expensive, either. It is run by these really nice Uzbek guys who speak slowly and clearly and really do seem to appreciate my attempts at speaking, which mostly consists of me speaking Kyrgyz and slightly altering the pronunciation of some words. While I was on the internet, the guys brought out a watermelon, carved it up, and gave everyone in the place a slice on a clear glass plate. It was such a pleasant surprise. Or maybe they are just really smart businessmen, and they know that they have us hooked now and we will be there often.
This weekend, some volunteers got together for a nice little 4th of July celebration. It was a little unorthodox, but we are in Kyrgyzstan, so what can you do? Still, there was cherry pie and deviled eggs, so that made it American enough for us.
Today, I made pizza with my host sister. It was fun, but after we were all done, she told me that she doesn't like cheese. Oooops. The sauce was awesome, despite the crappy Kyrgyz tomato paste that I used, so she just picked off the cheese, which wasn't that hard to do since we didn't have a grater and had to cut the cheese in chunks. We made two pizzas and I almost finished one by myself. My host brother and cousin, who were the only ones home tonight, ate quite a bit, but I don't know if they liked it or not. I think they all might have been waiting for me to go to bed so they could eat some real food. I don't care. I often politely eat their food and then run back to my room and eat peanut butter bread and apricots. Have I mentioned my obsession with apricots? Why didn't I ever eat them in the states? Are they expensive there? Where do they grow them? Maybe I just like them so much because they were the key to once again achieving slightly more regular bowel movements after the fruit and vegetable-less diet in training. Too much information? Too bad.
I must relay a cute story from a few days ago. A frisbee came in a package from home, and when I showed it to my sister and threw it, she got a really funny look on her face and told me in half English that they have a frisbee that my ata had brought from America, but they didn't know what it was at the time. Later, my sister dragged me to the refrigerator, giggling like crazy. Inside, Apa had put a pile of meat on it like a plate. It was hilarious. Of course, later they realized that they had seen people playing frisbee in movies (they recalled a movie they once saw where a dog caught the frisbee in his mouth) but didn't realize it at the time. The frisbee is a hit, and for now I am enjoying feeling like I am more coordinated than everyone else, only because my frisbee throwing skills are the best.. They will probably all catch up to me in a matter of days.
(Update from July 18: My frisbee is gone! It was sitting on a bench inside our compound yesterday, and today I can't find it. My family's frisbee also disappeared. I blame the little boy across the street. He always wears these John Lennon sunglasses, which for some reason makes me think he is a likely suspect.)
July 9, 2009
I don't know why I insist on eating things that make me gag. There is a reason we have a gag reflex, right? This morning my apa gave me a tray of food because she is leaving for the day and locking up the main house. She gave me a big mug full of ayran—a yogurt-y drink that you put sugar in. The last time I had ayran was a few months ago in training, and it made me feel pretty queasy. This batch of ayran seems pretty good, but I can't say that I really like it. Still, I keep eating it. Why? (Note: every time I get served ayran, I start singing in my head “and ayraaaan, ayran so far awaaaay” and it gets stuck for several hours. How annoying.) Last night, the cvet was out (sorry, cvet is electricity. I just think it is a better word, and it is shorter, so I tend to use it all the time now) and we ate dinner in the dark. It was a jumble of boiled potatoes, cabbage, and meat. Usually I am pretty selective about the pieces of meat that I eat, but we were eating by candlelight, so I just grabbed a chunk. I regretted it as soon as I put it in my mouth, because it was obviously a piece of tongue. I know that people eat tongue, but it caught me off guard because it felt exactly like you would expect a sheep tongue to feel. It was a big chunk, so I couldn't exactly spit it out. It took all my strength and effort to swallow the rough-edged chewy chunk. Bleh.
I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but there is one more food here that makes me gag. They are called kooroot and they look like little ping-pong ball sized balls of chalk. Really, they are dried balls of salty yogurt. Sounds tasty, no? People carry them around in their pockets all the time, and are always offering them to me.
On another note, I wanted to talk about language stuff a little bit. I always think it is funny to translate things that people say to me word for word. The question “are you married” for example, is one of my favorite phrases in Kyrgyz. It literally translates to something along the lines of “have you climbed to your life/destiny/fate?” The connotation of the life/destiny/fate part depending, I suppose, on your opinion of marriage. The “climbed” verb is a funny word that relates to going either up or down a mountain (I forget which), either boarding or getting off a marshrutka (again, I forget), or taking a shower.
Peace Corps wanted me to introduce myself to the village government as part of the community entry assignments that they've been giving us to fill up our summer. Luckily for me, the head of the local government and the main secretary came to my school today because my school is a voting site for the upcoming presidential elections. I tried to speak almost entirely in Kyrgyz, and was really disappointed when my counterpart, instead of just helping by translating the few English words that I stuck in there that I didn't know, repeated everything that I just said in more grammatically correct English. I felt pretty stupid.
July 14, 2009
Argh! Not being able to communicate is so frustrating! I am currently waiting for my counterpart to call me so I can go to Uzgen with her and help her with an application online. The problem is, I don't think that she is qualified for the thing she is applying for, not to mention that she definitely won't make the deadline, but I can't seem to get the message across to her. Her English is good, but she is not confident in it, and she is definitely not fluent (a requirement). Most of our conversations are bi-lingual, which often causes problems considering that I have only been speaking Kyrgyz for a few months. We will see how it goes.
Another frustration is that, at long last, I have stomach issues. I seem to be fine now, but it makes me nervous to go to Uzgen where the public toilets are, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook for Central Asia, the worst in the country. I haven't used them yet, but I have also heard testimony from other volunteers, so I'd like to put it off.
The sad thing is is that I think I may have brought the stomach issues on myself by pigging out on American food, of all things, this past weekend when I visited Jalalabad city. How's that for irony? Not much to report about J-bad. It is the third largest city in the country, but it seems considerably smaller than Osh. There are some very nice areas, I saw a nice park, and we ate some excellent pizza by the side of a nice looking public pool. Although, you know you are in a strange place when you have to ask the waitress to hold the dill and pickles on your pizza.
One of the big pluses to J-bad seems to be a cafe that serves fried laghman. It is like really good greasy, salty, takeout Chinese noodles. Yum.
Yesterday I tried to make a blog post in real time (that is, write it up on the spot instead of copy paste like I usually do) but of course, the connection bombed out on me before the thing was posted and it didn't save. Waste of time. So I will just write down my thought here and post it later:
I mostly wanted to comment on how nice it is when people are nice to you. This weekend I spent some time at a new internet cafe in Osh City. It is a really nice place with cushy office chairs and new computers, and they keep plastic over the keyboards when no one is using the computer. It's not that expensive, either. It is run by these really nice Uzbek guys who speak slowly and clearly and really do seem to appreciate my attempts at speaking, which mostly consists of me speaking Kyrgyz and slightly altering the pronunciation of some words. While I was on the internet, the guys brought out a watermelon, carved it up, and gave everyone in the place a slice on a clear glass plate. It was such a pleasant surprise. Or maybe they are just really smart businessmen, and they know that they have us hooked now and we will be there often.
This weekend, some volunteers got together for a nice little 4th of July celebration. It was a little unorthodox, but we are in Kyrgyzstan, so what can you do? Still, there was cherry pie and deviled eggs, so that made it American enough for us.
Today, I made pizza with my host sister. It was fun, but after we were all done, she told me that she doesn't like cheese. Oooops. The sauce was awesome, despite the crappy Kyrgyz tomato paste that I used, so she just picked off the cheese, which wasn't that hard to do since we didn't have a grater and had to cut the cheese in chunks. We made two pizzas and I almost finished one by myself. My host brother and cousin, who were the only ones home tonight, ate quite a bit, but I don't know if they liked it or not. I think they all might have been waiting for me to go to bed so they could eat some real food. I don't care. I often politely eat their food and then run back to my room and eat peanut butter bread and apricots. Have I mentioned my obsession with apricots? Why didn't I ever eat them in the states? Are they expensive there? Where do they grow them? Maybe I just like them so much because they were the key to once again achieving slightly more regular bowel movements after the fruit and vegetable-less diet in training. Too much information? Too bad.
I must relay a cute story from a few days ago. A frisbee came in a package from home, and when I showed it to my sister and threw it, she got a really funny look on her face and told me in half English that they have a frisbee that my ata had brought from America, but they didn't know what it was at the time. Later, my sister dragged me to the refrigerator, giggling like crazy. Inside, Apa had put a pile of meat on it like a plate. It was hilarious. Of course, later they realized that they had seen people playing frisbee in movies (they recalled a movie they once saw where a dog caught the frisbee in his mouth) but didn't realize it at the time. The frisbee is a hit, and for now I am enjoying feeling like I am more coordinated than everyone else, only because my frisbee throwing skills are the best.. They will probably all catch up to me in a matter of days.
(Update from July 18: My frisbee is gone! It was sitting on a bench inside our compound yesterday, and today I can't find it. My family's frisbee also disappeared. I blame the little boy across the street. He always wears these John Lennon sunglasses, which for some reason makes me think he is a likely suspect.)
July 9, 2009
I don't know why I insist on eating things that make me gag. There is a reason we have a gag reflex, right? This morning my apa gave me a tray of food because she is leaving for the day and locking up the main house. She gave me a big mug full of ayran—a yogurt-y drink that you put sugar in. The last time I had ayran was a few months ago in training, and it made me feel pretty queasy. This batch of ayran seems pretty good, but I can't say that I really like it. Still, I keep eating it. Why? (Note: every time I get served ayran, I start singing in my head “and ayraaaan, ayran so far awaaaay” and it gets stuck for several hours. How annoying.) Last night, the cvet was out (sorry, cvet is electricity. I just think it is a better word, and it is shorter, so I tend to use it all the time now) and we ate dinner in the dark. It was a jumble of boiled potatoes, cabbage, and meat. Usually I am pretty selective about the pieces of meat that I eat, but we were eating by candlelight, so I just grabbed a chunk. I regretted it as soon as I put it in my mouth, because it was obviously a piece of tongue. I know that people eat tongue, but it caught me off guard because it felt exactly like you would expect a sheep tongue to feel. It was a big chunk, so I couldn't exactly spit it out. It took all my strength and effort to swallow the rough-edged chewy chunk. Bleh.
I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but there is one more food here that makes me gag. They are called kooroot and they look like little ping-pong ball sized balls of chalk. Really, they are dried balls of salty yogurt. Sounds tasty, no? People carry them around in their pockets all the time, and are always offering them to me.
On another note, I wanted to talk about language stuff a little bit. I always think it is funny to translate things that people say to me word for word. The question “are you married” for example, is one of my favorite phrases in Kyrgyz. It literally translates to something along the lines of “have you climbed to your life/destiny/fate?” The connotation of the life/destiny/fate part depending, I suppose, on your opinion of marriage. The “climbed” verb is a funny word that relates to going either up or down a mountain (I forget which), either boarding or getting off a marshrutka (again, I forget), or taking a shower.
Peace Corps wanted me to introduce myself to the village government as part of the community entry assignments that they've been giving us to fill up our summer. Luckily for me, the head of the local government and the main secretary came to my school today because my school is a voting site for the upcoming presidential elections. I tried to speak almost entirely in Kyrgyz, and was really disappointed when my counterpart, instead of just helping by translating the few English words that I stuck in there that I didn't know, repeated everything that I just said in more grammatically correct English. I felt pretty stupid.
July 14, 2009
Argh! Not being able to communicate is so frustrating! I am currently waiting for my counterpart to call me so I can go to Uzgen with her and help her with an application online. The problem is, I don't think that she is qualified for the thing she is applying for, not to mention that she definitely won't make the deadline, but I can't seem to get the message across to her. Her English is good, but she is not confident in it, and she is definitely not fluent (a requirement). Most of our conversations are bi-lingual, which often causes problems considering that I have only been speaking Kyrgyz for a few months. We will see how it goes.
Another frustration is that, at long last, I have stomach issues. I seem to be fine now, but it makes me nervous to go to Uzgen where the public toilets are, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook for Central Asia, the worst in the country. I haven't used them yet, but I have also heard testimony from other volunteers, so I'd like to put it off.
The sad thing is is that I think I may have brought the stomach issues on myself by pigging out on American food, of all things, this past weekend when I visited Jalalabad city. How's that for irony? Not much to report about J-bad. It is the third largest city in the country, but it seems considerably smaller than Osh. There are some very nice areas, I saw a nice park, and we ate some excellent pizza by the side of a nice looking public pool. Although, you know you are in a strange place when you have to ask the waitress to hold the dill and pickles on your pizza.
One of the big pluses to J-bad seems to be a cafe that serves fried laghman. It is like really good greasy, salty, takeout Chinese noodles. Yum.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
And a month later....
June 1, 2009
Yesterday we visited the Issyk Ata resort about an hour away from here. It was an awesome day. Hopefully I will get a few pictures up to explain why.
Since I came back to my training house, I have been constantly amazing my family. They were astounded by the several full sentences that I threw at them when I came home and talked about my site visit. I have also been taking charge and doing things for myself because the family has been out and about more and I have had the opportunity. My apa and host sister were very impressed with the fire I built to heat up my laundry water, mostly because they thought it only took me a few minutes and I didn't tell them I had started twenty minutes and ten matches ago. What was funny was that they were equally as impressed when I figured out how to heat up a kettle full of water on the electric stove to wash my hair with. My poor host sisters. I get showered with “Azamat!” (Well done!) all day for the most mundane household duties and simple sentences with infantile grammar, and they cook and clean and work in the fields all day and get nothing.
I have been getting a lot of mileage around here out of one of my stories from Osh. It is really not that great of a story, but I kind of unknowingly incorporated a (probably poor) imitation of the Southern Kyrgyz dialect into it. One of the southern-isms that I picked up for the short time I was down there was the fact that southerners (at least the ones I encountered) don't really give directions. They just point and say “Ohniaka” (there) if it is close, “ooohniaka” if it is kind of far, and “oooooooooooooooohniaka” if it is really far. My story went something like this (in Kyrgyz, of course): “I asked my new apa, 'where do you go to get water' and she said, 'ooooooooooooohniaka' and I said, 'oh, no!.'”
My family cracked up, and I was able to imitate a few more words that I heard a lot while down there, which completely killed them. Since then, whenever anyone comes to our house, they ask me, “Ajo, what do they say in Osh?” in the same tone of voice you might ask a two-year-old “what does a cow say?” I do my one trick and am rewarded with candy. Now I have to figure out what northern-isms the southerners will think is funny and ride on that for popularity for the next two years. Wait, what am I talking about? I already have more popularity than I know what to do with.
Right now, I am also looking for an awesome English word to teach to my 7-year-old host nephew to replace his current favorite: “lazy.” I don't think that I am responsible for teaching him this word, but I suppose I could be. As far as I know, all the other English he knows is the numbers one through five, (although he usually skips two, three, and four) and “okay,” which I am sure he picked up from me, because I say it all the time, but where did he get “lazy” from? He is endlessly entertained by screaming “AJO LAZY!” with a really dramatic inflection in his voice, and repeating it with every other name in the family. I thought it was funny at first, but not anymore. What a brat. I would hate him so much if he wasn't so stinking cute.
June 5, 2009
Not much more to report now. It has been kind of a weird week, and I am looking forward to being done with training and getting to permanent site. First of all, I have been just a little bit sick, and though my Apa means well, she doesn't understand that drinking large quantities of tea is not necessarily the best remedy for every ailment. On top of that, one of my fellow trainees left us, making the group headed to Osh a little smaller and making me a little bit sad. Also this week, one trainee's teenage host sister got bride kidnapped. Without going into this too much, I will just say that I am becoming increasingly distressed by the treatment of the whole bride-kidnapping topic by the locals, and even more so by everything that I read about the topic before coming here. The general consensus that I have gathered was that the tradition is not widely practiced and not to be taken seriously. I have only been here for two months, but already I can see that this is a practice that I will not be able to take lightly. I love Kyrgyz people and respect and admire their culture very much, but I think we must agree to disagree on this topic.
June 14, 2009
This morning I was locked in my room for several hours.
The lock is kind of tricky anyway, and I had had some trouble unlocking it from inside before, but I figured that there was a trick to it that I would get eventually. I didn't.
It was like in a movie, when someone is trying to open a door and the handle breaks off. I was struggling with the lock when I heard something fall on the other side of the door, and the handle on my side was loose in my hand. Remember, I live in a separate house, so no one in the main house would be able to hear me if I yelled from my room. The neighbors could hear me, but I had no idea how I could get the message across to them. I don't even know them. I thought, “no problem, I'll just call my host sister and tell her 'eshik ishbait'(the door doesn't work) and she can come rescue me.”
The problem is that the number she gave me 'ishbait.' So, I spent the next hour calling the English speakers I know in the village (other volunteers and the English teachers at my school) to try to track down a number for my Apa or sister. Nothing ever came of it. Finally, I gave in and asked another volunteer, who lives a half hour away, to come rescue me. So at 10:30 I got out. (I had been trying since 8:30). Thank God I didn't have to pee really bad like I usually do in the morning. Small miracles.
In other news, I am settling in well at my permanent site. I really like this area a lot. Yesterday the new village volunteers in the oblast got a tour of Osh City, given by a new volunteers' host sister. I might be speaking too soon, but I think that Osh earn a place on my favorite-cities-in-the-world list. Or maybe my expectations were low because I was picturing something like Bishkek (no offense to all the people in Kyrgyzstan who think that Bishkek is the center of the universe, but I really don't like it very much) but it is much nicer looking than Bishkek, has cooler cafes and way more character.
Osh is home to such interesting things as a crazy mountain smack dab in the center of the city, a huge swimming pool, and the biggest statue of Lenin in Central Asia (or so I hear. It is really huge). It also has several universities (one has an American Center with all kinds of books in English, hoorah!).
Other than that little trip, I have just been settling in at home. Right now the only people around are my Apa and sister, which is nice because I am not as overwhelmed. I am definitely liking my Apa a lot more now. She was a lot to handle at first, but even though she hasn't quite figured out that she needs to speak slowly to me and not just repeat herself louder and louder, I think she will be easy to live with. Also, I feel like I am more a part of the family already. I helped make “ash” (southern plov made with Uzgen rice, which is what the region is famous for, and rightly so) the other night, even though my Apa found my carrot-cutting skills laughable. (By the way, they also have the weirdest carrots down here that I have ever seen. They are yellow and more potato-shaped, and not very carrot-y tasting.) Apparently, my family also has a rice field somewhere (ooooohniaka, of course) and now that I am hearing more about rice farming, I am regretting agreeing to help. Ooops.
June 19, 2009
In my last house, the only water source was a spigot in the yard that only worked most of the time. I never thought that I would take something like that for granted. Turns out my new apa wasn't kidding when she said that water was “oooooooohniaka.” It is a 15 minute walk to the nearest well! My sister has to drag a tank on wheels down the road a few times a week to get all the water we need for drinking, cooking, and washing, and sometimes they get a neighbor to drive down in his car to fill up the tank. Thank God there is an irrigation canal just across the street where we can get water for watering plants and whatever else. Once again, I will have to reassess how much water I actually need as opposed to how much I was used to using in the states.
On the work side, communication is tricky at my school. I set up my first English club for Monday (or at least I think. The arrangement was made in Kyrgyz, so I could have said, “On Monday, I will go to China and buy a yak”). We'll see if anyone shows up. Just as difficult as the language stuff is figuring out the Kyrgyz sense of time. I came to school for a meeting with the school director at 9, and ended up sitting around and occasionally chasing him around when he walked by. The meeting finally happened at 12:30, but at least it happened.
Speaking of meetings, I forgot to tell about when I met the biggest celebrity in the country! His name is Omar and he is a huge pop star. In Kyrgyzstan. He was at the party the American ambassador threw for us at her house after swearing-in, along with a selection of other young Kyrgyzstanis who are way cooler and more successful than any of us. And there were also hamburgers and doritos.
So once again, I found myself in a situation that I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I would find myself in: gorging myself on Cool-Ranch Doritos (a food that I don't even like in the states, but which in Kyrgyzstan is like manna from heaven) and discussing kymyz (a drink made of horse milk that was fermented in a animal skin that still looks like an animal) with the biggest pop star in an entire nation while standing in the beautiful garden of the American ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.
I view it as a career-advancing meeting, because once my new American teacher coolness wears off, I can whip out my picture with Omar to remind my students that I am still awesome.
Someone please tell me where the hell am I and what am I doing here? And why didn't I get Omar's phone number when I had the chance?
June 23, 2009
I am officially the biggest loser of an American. My poor village that they must put up with me. I got stuck in my bedroom AGAIN. This time it was for several hours, because no one was home. My family cracked up the last time it happened, but this time they were pretty exasperated. Seriously. How stupid do you have to be to get yourself stuck in a room twice?
My apa had told me that she would get a new doorknob put in a long time ago, but, in true Kyrgyz fashion, it never happened. Today, I was like, “look. I really, really need a doorknob on my door. I will buy it if you help me and get someone to install it.” She said that no, no, she would pay, and she would go into Uzgen today to get it. I asked if I could go with because I needed to get some things too, and bazaar shopping is always easier with a local. My sister came along and we made it a girl date, complete with lunch at a cafe in the village.
My ata came home from America this weekend when I was in Osh, and he has been gone again to I don't know where, but he left behind all kinds of little treasures to be handed out to friends and neighbors, all packed into Wal-Mart bags. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss Wal-Mart! Especially after a day at the bazaar, which absolutely exhausts me. And this is a pretty small bazaar too.
Although, I have to say that Wal-Mart has nothing on the wide variety of things that you can get in a small amount of space at the bazaar. Between the three of us, we came back with cucumbers, tomatoes, tea, a chunk of meat, paper, blackboard chalk, laundry soap, chicken feed, a pair of shoes for my sister, and a shoe box full of live baby chickens. And yes, the shoe box was the same one that the new shoes came in.
Why we needed more chickens at the house, I have no idea. We seem to have a lot already, but whatever. I will never complain about a constant supply of eggs. It was really good to follow my apa around the bazaar today to hear what a typical bazaar transaction sounds like when people don't keep trying to talk to you in Russian. I realized how much of the language I am actually able to understand when I listened in on the chick buying transaction, which I thought was really funny. It went something like this:
Apa: Why are these chick so expensive? They don't look healthy.
Bazaar Lady: (kicking the box of chicks so they run around and make a bunch of noise) It's hot. They are tired!
(They bargain for a while and then the lady starts scooping up chicks three at a time and throwing them in the box)
Apa: Take that brown one out! It's ugly.
Bazaar Lady: It will be good looking when it is big.
Apa: Give it to me for half-price.
Bazaar Lady: I'll throw in another brown one for free.
Other weird things Apa did included sneaking an extra cucumber into her pocket when the lady was getting her change, licking her finger, sticking it in a bag of ground corn chicken feed, tasting it, and saying it was no good, and then, upon finding a bag that was suitable, sneaking a handful of feed into the shoe box of chicks when the lady had her back turned to weigh her order.
Anyway, after all that, we forgot to get a doorknob. Not that we didn't spend a lot of time looking for one. I don't know what Apa was looking for, exactly. Maybe she just wanted to make sure she went to every single seller of door knobs so she could be sure she got the best price. Actually, I have a suspicion that she regretted saying she would pay for it and took advantage of my being distracted with a delicious ice cream cone (have I mentioned that Uzgen has the best soft-serve ice cream EVER?) to usher me onto a marshrutka and then, once we left the bus stop, she smacked her forehead and admitted that she had forgot the doorknob. Whatever. Who needs a door knob? Actually it is really not that big of a deal if I close my door or not, since I am the only one who sleeps here and the outside door gets locked at night. But still...
July 26, 2009
Yesterday I went to a wedding with my family. I was really excited about it, but as it turned out, it kind of sucked. The best part was probably going to the beauty shop with my Apa and another female relative. I had actually gone to another beauty shop with my sister the day before, and I really enjoyed both experiences. It makes me want to go get my hair cut often (I chickened out both times because I was afraid of ending up with the crazy asymmetrical Russian haircuts that were all over the walls). First of all, it is interesting to note that both these hair-dressers were also wedding/formal dress shops, and that seems to be the trend in most places. It's a pretty good idea if you think about it. Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this was because there was so much chatting going on, and I could just sit in the corner and take it in. It was also interesting to note the differences in language between the two shops, because one was run by Kyrgyz women and the other by Uzbeks. I was fascinated when a gorgeous young Uzbek woman, who had just had her hair dyed shiny black and put into elaborate tiny curls, which were then pinned up with a really cool clip thing, promptly covered up the whole do with one scarf, and then another scarf over that pinned at her throat.
Anyway, the wedding was slightly torturous because I got separated from most of my family (I sat with my host parents' oldest daughter and her husband, who both very nice but not very talkative) so I was mostly surrounded by a bunch of strangers who kept forgetting that I don't speak Russian. Before the wedding party came in, I actually had a nice conversation with some of the serving girls who treated me like a celebrity at first, but were so excited to find out that last summer I had the same job they do.
The rest of the evening consisted of begs from the old men at my table for me to make toasts. I think that toasts may be one of the most dreaded parts of my service in this country. Right now, I have two. The literal translations are as follows: “Health!” (Yes that's it, but I've heard local people say it, so there) and “Kyrgyzstan! America! Together work!”
Here's the other frustrating thing about social situations in Kyrgyzstan. I really feel the pressure to uphold the “good girl” image. And it is a lot harder that I anticipated. I know that people are watching me all the time, and I can feel the mood change immediately as soon as I do something I shouldn't. I feel like they are all little devils on my shoulder trying to trick me all the time, though. That is the problem. They are always pressuring me to drink, drink, drink, and topping off my vodka glass, even though it is full, but none of the other women are drinking hardly anything, and every time I bring the glass to my lips, I can feel all eyes on me, waiting to see how much I will drink, and when they see it is still full, everyone nods their approval. Even worse than this is the dilemma I face every day. Wherever I go, I always have everyone's full attention. Even before they know I am American. It is ridiculous. However, this attention also comes from all the most attractive young men. But I can't flirt with any of them without ultimately getting myself into a situation that I don't want to be in. Why??!!! What a cruel trick to play on me.
Anyway, the good news is that I got rescued and was able to go home early at about 11 with my host sister and her little niece. The bad news is that I was packed into a regular-sized car with 10 people, not counting me and the driver. How this was accomplished, I don't know. It got worse when the woman smashed up beside me, who I had only just met, started breast feeding her kid who, in my humble opinion, was a little too old to be breast feeding. It was uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as staying at the party until the end would have been.
In other news, I forgot to tell about my Ata's trip to America! (By the way, I saw a few Vermont t-shirts at the wedding. Very classy.) I was a little disappointed by his list of complaints, but that might just be his personality. In any case, it made for a very entertaining conversation. Here are some things he doesn't like about America:
-The food (“No bread! I pay $15 for a meal and no bread! Why are American's so fat when they don't eat any bread?”)
-Cold drinks (“Ice! Ice! What is this ice? Cold water, cold cola, cold TEA! COLD TEA!!!! Ugh! Ice! I say 'no ice' in English, and still, they bring ice!”)
-No taxis, busses, or marshrutkas outside of the big cities
-Prices (“In Kyrgyzstan, a beer is 30 som, 40 som. In America, beer is $4.” I nod in agreement. “$4! That's 100 som!” Yes, I say, but it's better beer, don't you think? “For 100 som, it should be the best beer!”)
-Visiting the Statue of Liberty in the rain
Things he likes about America:
-Japanese steak houses
-The Empire State Building
-Boston (one of the tribes of Kyrgyzstan is called the Boston tribe, so Kyrgyz people think that the fact that we have a city called Boston is pretty sweet)
He also came home with the idea that he knows more about American history than me. He tried to tell me that there were 11 colonies, and thought he would prove me wrong by counting the stripes on a picture of an American flag. Ooops. He also is convinced that Abraham Lincoln was the second president of the United States.
Anyway, at first, I was a teensy bit hurt by all his lists of complaints, but the more I thought about it, I think it is probably a good thing that he was able to see all of the great things that America has to offer, but also realized that it has it's downsides and is not some magical place that is better than any other place.
I should probably throw in a word about my work (yes, I am working! A bit). I have had a few English clubs already, and they have gone pretty well. The speaking level of the students isn't quite where I thought it would be, but whatever. I have been trying to keep things informal and teach more conversational bits of English. The result is that these kids' English is fast becoming more full of idioms than of grammar or vocab (they have “going crazy” and “drive me crazy” down, thanks to the tangent that today's club took, but the only food word they know is “apple.” We'll have to work on that.) Here's a problem I am having. One of the 11th year boys has an embarrassingly ridiculous crush on me. When I was helping out with tests last week, he had written “you very pretty are” on a slip of paper and slid it over to me. Today, I was collecting back some handouts I had made to save for later, and on his he had drawn a heart and written “we are very a blakbord.” What he meant by that, I have no idea. The biggest problem is that he is something of a white supremacist. Which is funny, because he is, of course, Asian. Anyway, he has told me that he likes George Bush better than Obama because he doesn't like black people. Also, during one of the clubs, we were playing the change chair game, and while everyone was saying things like “who likes volleyball,” he said “who likes white people.” All the other kids looked around kind of awkwardly and pretended not to hear or understand, so maybe this kid is just weird. I hope. Anyway, he goes to university in the fall, so he will be someone else's problem.
Yesterday we visited the Issyk Ata resort about an hour away from here. It was an awesome day. Hopefully I will get a few pictures up to explain why.
Since I came back to my training house, I have been constantly amazing my family. They were astounded by the several full sentences that I threw at them when I came home and talked about my site visit. I have also been taking charge and doing things for myself because the family has been out and about more and I have had the opportunity. My apa and host sister were very impressed with the fire I built to heat up my laundry water, mostly because they thought it only took me a few minutes and I didn't tell them I had started twenty minutes and ten matches ago. What was funny was that they were equally as impressed when I figured out how to heat up a kettle full of water on the electric stove to wash my hair with. My poor host sisters. I get showered with “Azamat!” (Well done!) all day for the most mundane household duties and simple sentences with infantile grammar, and they cook and clean and work in the fields all day and get nothing.
I have been getting a lot of mileage around here out of one of my stories from Osh. It is really not that great of a story, but I kind of unknowingly incorporated a (probably poor) imitation of the Southern Kyrgyz dialect into it. One of the southern-isms that I picked up for the short time I was down there was the fact that southerners (at least the ones I encountered) don't really give directions. They just point and say “Ohniaka” (there) if it is close, “ooohniaka” if it is kind of far, and “oooooooooooooooohniaka” if it is really far. My story went something like this (in Kyrgyz, of course): “I asked my new apa, 'where do you go to get water' and she said, 'ooooooooooooohniaka' and I said, 'oh, no!.'”
My family cracked up, and I was able to imitate a few more words that I heard a lot while down there, which completely killed them. Since then, whenever anyone comes to our house, they ask me, “Ajo, what do they say in Osh?” in the same tone of voice you might ask a two-year-old “what does a cow say?” I do my one trick and am rewarded with candy. Now I have to figure out what northern-isms the southerners will think is funny and ride on that for popularity for the next two years. Wait, what am I talking about? I already have more popularity than I know what to do with.
Right now, I am also looking for an awesome English word to teach to my 7-year-old host nephew to replace his current favorite: “lazy.” I don't think that I am responsible for teaching him this word, but I suppose I could be. As far as I know, all the other English he knows is the numbers one through five, (although he usually skips two, three, and four) and “okay,” which I am sure he picked up from me, because I say it all the time, but where did he get “lazy” from? He is endlessly entertained by screaming “AJO LAZY!” with a really dramatic inflection in his voice, and repeating it with every other name in the family. I thought it was funny at first, but not anymore. What a brat. I would hate him so much if he wasn't so stinking cute.
June 5, 2009
Not much more to report now. It has been kind of a weird week, and I am looking forward to being done with training and getting to permanent site. First of all, I have been just a little bit sick, and though my Apa means well, she doesn't understand that drinking large quantities of tea is not necessarily the best remedy for every ailment. On top of that, one of my fellow trainees left us, making the group headed to Osh a little smaller and making me a little bit sad. Also this week, one trainee's teenage host sister got bride kidnapped. Without going into this too much, I will just say that I am becoming increasingly distressed by the treatment of the whole bride-kidnapping topic by the locals, and even more so by everything that I read about the topic before coming here. The general consensus that I have gathered was that the tradition is not widely practiced and not to be taken seriously. I have only been here for two months, but already I can see that this is a practice that I will not be able to take lightly. I love Kyrgyz people and respect and admire their culture very much, but I think we must agree to disagree on this topic.
June 14, 2009
This morning I was locked in my room for several hours.
The lock is kind of tricky anyway, and I had had some trouble unlocking it from inside before, but I figured that there was a trick to it that I would get eventually. I didn't.
It was like in a movie, when someone is trying to open a door and the handle breaks off. I was struggling with the lock when I heard something fall on the other side of the door, and the handle on my side was loose in my hand. Remember, I live in a separate house, so no one in the main house would be able to hear me if I yelled from my room. The neighbors could hear me, but I had no idea how I could get the message across to them. I don't even know them. I thought, “no problem, I'll just call my host sister and tell her 'eshik ishbait'(the door doesn't work) and she can come rescue me.”
The problem is that the number she gave me 'ishbait.' So, I spent the next hour calling the English speakers I know in the village (other volunteers and the English teachers at my school) to try to track down a number for my Apa or sister. Nothing ever came of it. Finally, I gave in and asked another volunteer, who lives a half hour away, to come rescue me. So at 10:30 I got out. (I had been trying since 8:30). Thank God I didn't have to pee really bad like I usually do in the morning. Small miracles.
In other news, I am settling in well at my permanent site. I really like this area a lot. Yesterday the new village volunteers in the oblast got a tour of Osh City, given by a new volunteers' host sister. I might be speaking too soon, but I think that Osh earn a place on my favorite-cities-in-the-world list. Or maybe my expectations were low because I was picturing something like Bishkek (no offense to all the people in Kyrgyzstan who think that Bishkek is the center of the universe, but I really don't like it very much) but it is much nicer looking than Bishkek, has cooler cafes and way more character.
Osh is home to such interesting things as a crazy mountain smack dab in the center of the city, a huge swimming pool, and the biggest statue of Lenin in Central Asia (or so I hear. It is really huge). It also has several universities (one has an American Center with all kinds of books in English, hoorah!).
Other than that little trip, I have just been settling in at home. Right now the only people around are my Apa and sister, which is nice because I am not as overwhelmed. I am definitely liking my Apa a lot more now. She was a lot to handle at first, but even though she hasn't quite figured out that she needs to speak slowly to me and not just repeat herself louder and louder, I think she will be easy to live with. Also, I feel like I am more a part of the family already. I helped make “ash” (southern plov made with Uzgen rice, which is what the region is famous for, and rightly so) the other night, even though my Apa found my carrot-cutting skills laughable. (By the way, they also have the weirdest carrots down here that I have ever seen. They are yellow and more potato-shaped, and not very carrot-y tasting.) Apparently, my family also has a rice field somewhere (ooooohniaka, of course) and now that I am hearing more about rice farming, I am regretting agreeing to help. Ooops.
June 19, 2009
In my last house, the only water source was a spigot in the yard that only worked most of the time. I never thought that I would take something like that for granted. Turns out my new apa wasn't kidding when she said that water was “oooooooohniaka.” It is a 15 minute walk to the nearest well! My sister has to drag a tank on wheels down the road a few times a week to get all the water we need for drinking, cooking, and washing, and sometimes they get a neighbor to drive down in his car to fill up the tank. Thank God there is an irrigation canal just across the street where we can get water for watering plants and whatever else. Once again, I will have to reassess how much water I actually need as opposed to how much I was used to using in the states.
On the work side, communication is tricky at my school. I set up my first English club for Monday (or at least I think. The arrangement was made in Kyrgyz, so I could have said, “On Monday, I will go to China and buy a yak”). We'll see if anyone shows up. Just as difficult as the language stuff is figuring out the Kyrgyz sense of time. I came to school for a meeting with the school director at 9, and ended up sitting around and occasionally chasing him around when he walked by. The meeting finally happened at 12:30, but at least it happened.
Speaking of meetings, I forgot to tell about when I met the biggest celebrity in the country! His name is Omar and he is a huge pop star. In Kyrgyzstan. He was at the party the American ambassador threw for us at her house after swearing-in, along with a selection of other young Kyrgyzstanis who are way cooler and more successful than any of us. And there were also hamburgers and doritos.
So once again, I found myself in a situation that I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I would find myself in: gorging myself on Cool-Ranch Doritos (a food that I don't even like in the states, but which in Kyrgyzstan is like manna from heaven) and discussing kymyz (a drink made of horse milk that was fermented in a animal skin that still looks like an animal) with the biggest pop star in an entire nation while standing in the beautiful garden of the American ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.
I view it as a career-advancing meeting, because once my new American teacher coolness wears off, I can whip out my picture with Omar to remind my students that I am still awesome.
Someone please tell me where the hell am I and what am I doing here? And why didn't I get Omar's phone number when I had the chance?
June 23, 2009
I am officially the biggest loser of an American. My poor village that they must put up with me. I got stuck in my bedroom AGAIN. This time it was for several hours, because no one was home. My family cracked up the last time it happened, but this time they were pretty exasperated. Seriously. How stupid do you have to be to get yourself stuck in a room twice?
My apa had told me that she would get a new doorknob put in a long time ago, but, in true Kyrgyz fashion, it never happened. Today, I was like, “look. I really, really need a doorknob on my door. I will buy it if you help me and get someone to install it.” She said that no, no, she would pay, and she would go into Uzgen today to get it. I asked if I could go with because I needed to get some things too, and bazaar shopping is always easier with a local. My sister came along and we made it a girl date, complete with lunch at a cafe in the village.
My ata came home from America this weekend when I was in Osh, and he has been gone again to I don't know where, but he left behind all kinds of little treasures to be handed out to friends and neighbors, all packed into Wal-Mart bags. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss Wal-Mart! Especially after a day at the bazaar, which absolutely exhausts me. And this is a pretty small bazaar too.
Although, I have to say that Wal-Mart has nothing on the wide variety of things that you can get in a small amount of space at the bazaar. Between the three of us, we came back with cucumbers, tomatoes, tea, a chunk of meat, paper, blackboard chalk, laundry soap, chicken feed, a pair of shoes for my sister, and a shoe box full of live baby chickens. And yes, the shoe box was the same one that the new shoes came in.
Why we needed more chickens at the house, I have no idea. We seem to have a lot already, but whatever. I will never complain about a constant supply of eggs. It was really good to follow my apa around the bazaar today to hear what a typical bazaar transaction sounds like when people don't keep trying to talk to you in Russian. I realized how much of the language I am actually able to understand when I listened in on the chick buying transaction, which I thought was really funny. It went something like this:
Apa: Why are these chick so expensive? They don't look healthy.
Bazaar Lady: (kicking the box of chicks so they run around and make a bunch of noise) It's hot. They are tired!
(They bargain for a while and then the lady starts scooping up chicks three at a time and throwing them in the box)
Apa: Take that brown one out! It's ugly.
Bazaar Lady: It will be good looking when it is big.
Apa: Give it to me for half-price.
Bazaar Lady: I'll throw in another brown one for free.
Other weird things Apa did included sneaking an extra cucumber into her pocket when the lady was getting her change, licking her finger, sticking it in a bag of ground corn chicken feed, tasting it, and saying it was no good, and then, upon finding a bag that was suitable, sneaking a handful of feed into the shoe box of chicks when the lady had her back turned to weigh her order.
Anyway, after all that, we forgot to get a doorknob. Not that we didn't spend a lot of time looking for one. I don't know what Apa was looking for, exactly. Maybe she just wanted to make sure she went to every single seller of door knobs so she could be sure she got the best price. Actually, I have a suspicion that she regretted saying she would pay for it and took advantage of my being distracted with a delicious ice cream cone (have I mentioned that Uzgen has the best soft-serve ice cream EVER?) to usher me onto a marshrutka and then, once we left the bus stop, she smacked her forehead and admitted that she had forgot the doorknob. Whatever. Who needs a door knob? Actually it is really not that big of a deal if I close my door or not, since I am the only one who sleeps here and the outside door gets locked at night. But still...
July 26, 2009
Yesterday I went to a wedding with my family. I was really excited about it, but as it turned out, it kind of sucked. The best part was probably going to the beauty shop with my Apa and another female relative. I had actually gone to another beauty shop with my sister the day before, and I really enjoyed both experiences. It makes me want to go get my hair cut often (I chickened out both times because I was afraid of ending up with the crazy asymmetrical Russian haircuts that were all over the walls). First of all, it is interesting to note that both these hair-dressers were also wedding/formal dress shops, and that seems to be the trend in most places. It's a pretty good idea if you think about it. Anyway, the reason I enjoyed this was because there was so much chatting going on, and I could just sit in the corner and take it in. It was also interesting to note the differences in language between the two shops, because one was run by Kyrgyz women and the other by Uzbeks. I was fascinated when a gorgeous young Uzbek woman, who had just had her hair dyed shiny black and put into elaborate tiny curls, which were then pinned up with a really cool clip thing, promptly covered up the whole do with one scarf, and then another scarf over that pinned at her throat.
Anyway, the wedding was slightly torturous because I got separated from most of my family (I sat with my host parents' oldest daughter and her husband, who both very nice but not very talkative) so I was mostly surrounded by a bunch of strangers who kept forgetting that I don't speak Russian. Before the wedding party came in, I actually had a nice conversation with some of the serving girls who treated me like a celebrity at first, but were so excited to find out that last summer I had the same job they do.
The rest of the evening consisted of begs from the old men at my table for me to make toasts. I think that toasts may be one of the most dreaded parts of my service in this country. Right now, I have two. The literal translations are as follows: “Health!” (Yes that's it, but I've heard local people say it, so there) and “Kyrgyzstan! America! Together work!”
Here's the other frustrating thing about social situations in Kyrgyzstan. I really feel the pressure to uphold the “good girl” image. And it is a lot harder that I anticipated. I know that people are watching me all the time, and I can feel the mood change immediately as soon as I do something I shouldn't. I feel like they are all little devils on my shoulder trying to trick me all the time, though. That is the problem. They are always pressuring me to drink, drink, drink, and topping off my vodka glass, even though it is full, but none of the other women are drinking hardly anything, and every time I bring the glass to my lips, I can feel all eyes on me, waiting to see how much I will drink, and when they see it is still full, everyone nods their approval. Even worse than this is the dilemma I face every day. Wherever I go, I always have everyone's full attention. Even before they know I am American. It is ridiculous. However, this attention also comes from all the most attractive young men. But I can't flirt with any of them without ultimately getting myself into a situation that I don't want to be in. Why??!!! What a cruel trick to play on me.
Anyway, the good news is that I got rescued and was able to go home early at about 11 with my host sister and her little niece. The bad news is that I was packed into a regular-sized car with 10 people, not counting me and the driver. How this was accomplished, I don't know. It got worse when the woman smashed up beside me, who I had only just met, started breast feeding her kid who, in my humble opinion, was a little too old to be breast feeding. It was uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as staying at the party until the end would have been.
In other news, I forgot to tell about my Ata's trip to America! (By the way, I saw a few Vermont t-shirts at the wedding. Very classy.) I was a little disappointed by his list of complaints, but that might just be his personality. In any case, it made for a very entertaining conversation. Here are some things he doesn't like about America:
-The food (“No bread! I pay $15 for a meal and no bread! Why are American's so fat when they don't eat any bread?”)
-Cold drinks (“Ice! Ice! What is this ice? Cold water, cold cola, cold TEA! COLD TEA!!!! Ugh! Ice! I say 'no ice' in English, and still, they bring ice!”)
-No taxis, busses, or marshrutkas outside of the big cities
-Prices (“In Kyrgyzstan, a beer is 30 som, 40 som. In America, beer is $4.” I nod in agreement. “$4! That's 100 som!” Yes, I say, but it's better beer, don't you think? “For 100 som, it should be the best beer!”)
-Visiting the Statue of Liberty in the rain
Things he likes about America:
-Japanese steak houses
-The Empire State Building
-Boston (one of the tribes of Kyrgyzstan is called the Boston tribe, so Kyrgyz people think that the fact that we have a city called Boston is pretty sweet)
He also came home with the idea that he knows more about American history than me. He tried to tell me that there were 11 colonies, and thought he would prove me wrong by counting the stripes on a picture of an American flag. Ooops. He also is convinced that Abraham Lincoln was the second president of the United States.
Anyway, at first, I was a teensy bit hurt by all his lists of complaints, but the more I thought about it, I think it is probably a good thing that he was able to see all of the great things that America has to offer, but also realized that it has it's downsides and is not some magical place that is better than any other place.
I should probably throw in a word about my work (yes, I am working! A bit). I have had a few English clubs already, and they have gone pretty well. The speaking level of the students isn't quite where I thought it would be, but whatever. I have been trying to keep things informal and teach more conversational bits of English. The result is that these kids' English is fast becoming more full of idioms than of grammar or vocab (they have “going crazy” and “drive me crazy” down, thanks to the tangent that today's club took, but the only food word they know is “apple.” We'll have to work on that.) Here's a problem I am having. One of the 11th year boys has an embarrassingly ridiculous crush on me. When I was helping out with tests last week, he had written “you very pretty are” on a slip of paper and slid it over to me. Today, I was collecting back some handouts I had made to save for later, and on his he had drawn a heart and written “we are very a blakbord.” What he meant by that, I have no idea. The biggest problem is that he is something of a white supremacist. Which is funny, because he is, of course, Asian. Anyway, he has told me that he likes George Bush better than Obama because he doesn't like black people. Also, during one of the clubs, we were playing the change chair game, and while everyone was saying things like “who likes volleyball,” he said “who likes white people.” All the other kids looked around kind of awkwardly and pretended not to hear or understand, so maybe this kid is just weird. I hope. Anyway, he goes to university in the fall, so he will be someone else's problem.
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