And a month later....

OK, so these posts might get confusing because I have been writing them in advance and saving them up until I get a chance to post them. Sorry. Pay attention to the dates please, because they are all out of order.

3/27/09
Leaving today seemed strange, less heartbreaking, perhaps, than I had anticipated. Maybe it hadn't quite hit me that I was going away from my home for an extended period of time, or maybe my excitement outweighs my anxiety.

I wished that it would have been light out as I flew out of Dubuque. I don't know what I had expected to see out the window – a familiar landmark, my house perhaps, or my family in their black SUV heading back up Military Rd. Instead, I peered out the window as the little plane accelerated and left the ground, seeing not much more than my face reflected in the dark glass. When finally breaking though the bumpy clouds, the cloudscape below seemed a pretty but inadequate imitation of the rolling hills I was leaving behind, already becoming like a dream or a distant memory.

Okay, enough sentimentality for now. Staging was a little dull, but no doubt necessary. Of course, klutz that I am, I managed to trip with all my luggage right outside the airport. No big deal at the time, but now it is starting to bruise and get a bit sore. Go figure. Good thing I brought my ankle wrap!


3/28/09
I am sitting in the JFK airport now, waiting for our 4:30 flight (it is 11:41, yuck). My luggage is REALLY heavy. We had quite a trek up a big long ramp, and now I am pretty pooped. My foot is really sore, but I can walk on it with no problem. I am sure I should be able to go out in Istanbul, which I was worried about. Life is good.

P.S. I love how different regions in the US have such funny differences. The Philadelphia version of a Casey's is called a Wawa. Really??? Wawa???

3/29/09 (wait, I don't actually know what the date is, sorry)
Surprisingly, for having not slept for an approximately 48 hour period, I am not really feeling the effects. We visited Istanbul during our layover here (I am in the airport now). One guy in our group made some sort of arrangement with a stewardess during the flight for a tour bus. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing, the way he told us about it, it seemed kind of shady, but he seemed confident, so we went with it. The stewardess was very helpful and skipped through the line to get the whole groups' boarding passes for us in record time so we could have more time in the city.

It was just a twenty minute bus ride to the drop-off point, and the road followed a scenic coastline walkway with lots of little parks where dozens of families sat on picnic blankets or milled around the elaborate new-looking jungle gyms, enjoying the perfect weather. The bus took us to a point right between the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sofia, which face each other on opposite sides of a large garden square area. We had time to tour both, get lunch, wander the touristy bazaar, and sit for a while on a bench in the fragrant garden where lots of tulips and daffodils were just starting to bloom, and listen to the call to prayer booming on the loudspeakers. It would have been entirely relaxing, had I not been worried that we had been swindled and the bus driver was not coming back for us, taking off with our prepaid fee and a bus full of our carry-on luggage. But, he showed up right on time.

What I saw of Istanbul was not what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with how clean and visitor-friendly it was. I knew that those famous buildings I visited would be beautiful (and even these far surpassed my expectations) but the area as a whole was so beautiful and well kept. Definitely the cleanest big-city famous landmark area I have ever seen. Plus, the best part is that everything is super cheap. I changed $50 dollars to lira, and without being certain of the exchange rate or of the fee at the exchange counter, I can say that I have 4 lira and change left in my wallet. That included paying and tipping the bus driver, tipping the stewardess, buying lunch, a museum ticket, a cashmere scarf, and some fresh fruit juice.

I definitely want to go again someday and spend more time here. But seriously, how often does a person get a chance to take a day trip to Istanbul?

3/30/09
Arrived in Bishkek around 2 a.m., groggy and confused. I slept like a rock on the plane. I feel so bad because there was a lady sitting near me who, I believe, was from Turkey, but runs the library in the American University in Bishkek. She kept trying to pull me into the conversation, but I couldn't keep awake for my life. I feel bad because she was excited to hear I was from Iowa because she has a relative living in Des Moines. Actually, that is quite an amazing coincidence now that I come to think about it, but at the time, I don't think it quite registered. She obviously wanted to have a big conversation about Des Moines, but I just couldn't do it.

It was dark, obviously, so we didn't get much of a view of Bishkek as we drove through. The current volunteers who are helping with our training rode on the bus with us and pointed out invisible landmarks. The trip was still an interesting one, as we were all very groggy and the current volunteers were extremely excited to see us. One boarded the bus and said, “You DO smell like America!” Once at the hotel, I was one of the first to check into a room, and I fell asleep before my roommate had even dragged her bags into the door.

We were able to sleep for a few hours and then had orientation sessions all day. We are pretty much stuck in the hotel for a while until we get with our host families. Being awake now, I can take in the quirky hotel we are staying in. It is old and worn, but clean and quite comfortable. The architecture and décor are 1970's Soviet-style with lots of dark wood paneling on the inside and gray concrete on the outside. It also reminds me a bit of the hotel in The Shining on a smaller scale. In place of the creepy hedge maze, however, it has this strange, Soviet playground/modern art thing in the back. It is hard to explain, but it is basically a weird huge jumble of concrete stairs, bridges, and towers, with a few clumps of metal in a geometric shape that vaguely resembles symbols like eagles. It seems like kind of an all purpose hangout place for groups of kids, romantic couples on an evening stroll, and a woman apparently taking out her two dogs and two cows (?? this is in the capital city, remember) for some grazing in the lawn. A uniformed guard stands by the gate, but I don't know what he is guarding. The place is pretty much falling apart. A current volunteer said that the structures are supposed to represent the journey of the Kyrgyz epic hero, Manas, but I don't get it.

The strangest part of this place is on the other side of the fence. On one side is what looks like the remains of a half-built and long ago abandoned amusement park. Multicolored structures and statues of circus animals crumble in various stages of decay, surrounded by a gate topped with small statues of children or elves, themselves crumbling and often missing limbs and heads, looking something like the puppet scene in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie or like what the It's A Small World ride would look like after someone threw a few grenades in it.

Looking past all of this, a gorgeous view of distant snowcapped mountains looms, and I can't wait to get closer to them.


4/10/09

Okay, this is a long segment. I have been neglecting to type stuff up because I wanted to keep my computer a secret from my family for as long as possible. Too late, my host sister discovered it, but I think it is okay. She was pretty disappointed with my music collection, they are still into most of the music that was popular in the US in the mid-90's, especially Backstreet Boys and N'Sync. Apparently Enrique Engasias (spelling?) made a big comeback that I was completely unaware of. Somehow he has become a big inside joke in my host family since I came. If someone says his name, everyone cracks up. No explanation.

OK, I am going to break this up into topics. First topic:

HOST FAMILY/HOUSE
Love my host family, love my village. Thank God! We got matched with our families on April 1st during a funny little ceremony where the trainees and families walked toward each other across a stage while cheesy music played. It was kind of ridiculous, but also nice. The funniest part was the little reception after the ceremony. This consisted of a chaotic ten minutes where the apas (mothers) and babushkas (grandmothers) shoved food and drinks at the trainees. After the ten minutes was up, there was a scramble to shove the remaining food into purses and pockets. I guess that is just what you do here. Waste not, want not!

My house is extremely nice, at least much nicer than I expected. My bedroom is definitely bigger than my room at home, bigger even than my last dorm room. The house just about like a small house in the states, minus the bathroom (we have an outhouse) and the kitchen (which is a separate building). We eat on a low table and sit on cushions on the floor (the only regular table and chair is in my room). Every house I have seen so far is extremely clean. There might be a lot of dirt and animal poo outside, but inside the house, everything is spotless.

My first trip to the outhouse was an experience, as there was a flock of sheep in the way. My family has several sheep, two cows and one calf, a bunch of chickens, and three dogs. During the day, all the livestock go elsewhere to graze, but around 6 they all come home and hang out in the yard. The yard isn't very big, so it makes life interesting.

We have a pump in our yard and the all-purpose sink is located between the main house and the kitchen, under a kind of roof (hooray for that, some of the trainees have talked about brushing their teeth in the rain). You have to fill up the top bucket with water, and then empty out the bucket that the drain goes to when it is full. And by “you,” I mean the daughter-in-law, who does almost all the work around here.

The family stay is going pretty well. PC is definitely making us take baby steps through this, which is all we can expect because we are pretty darn helpless. In my other trips overseas I never experienced such a severe language gap as I am experiencing now. Not to mention the gap in experience with living in a home without running water. The other night, I asked for some warm water to wash my hair (my host sisters can apparently get through the entire week only washing their hair once, but there is no way I would have been able to make it). It was a much bigger ordeal than I had anticipated, but they wouldn't even let me go get the tub or the bucket. My host mom (hereafter to be referred to as Apa—Kyrgyz for mother) even called my youngest sister, who was at a friend's house, and even with my limited Kyrgyz I could make out that she said “come home so you can help Ajo wash her hair!” (by the way, my name has gradually devolved from Audra to Odra to Aja to Ajo. Which is now what everyone in the village knows me as. Whatever.)

It was nice to have someone to help with the hair washing process, but I really would have rather done it myself. I would have also enjoyed doing a full bucket bath, but apparently that is not appropriate. Instead, my sister took me by the hand out to the outhouse put a watering can of warm water in my hand and closed me in there. It was late at night, by the way, so it was very dark. I don't really know how this was supposed to be a cleanly process, so I pretended to do something and got the heck out of there. Comparatively, we have a pretty nice outhouse, but still, gross.

CLEANLINESS

Speaking of cleanliness, I have to go all the way to Kant, about a 20 minute drive, to take a shower at the public shower house. Quite a few trainees have banyas at their houses that they can use once a week. A banya is like a sauna that you can take a bucket bath in. It sounds awesome, and I am a little bummed that I am missing out. Another option is an outdoor sun shower, but ours is in bad repair, and it has been cold and rainy anyway. They said they would fix it as soon as it warms up. Anyway, on Sunday my host brother drove my host sisters and me to Kant and waited in the car while we all showered. It is just like a dorm-style shower, and you pay at the door to use it. Mmmm... hot running water.

OUTHOUSE

I think that I might have the best outhouse in my village. It is sturdy, not very stinky, and on sunny mornings, I can see the snowy mountains in the distance on my way out there. The view is almost overwhelming when it is early and I am in a hurry to pee. I didn't even see the mountains until about my fifth day here, either because it was cloudy, or maybe because I was only concerned with making my way through the animals. At my house there are three dogs that all chase after me when I go to the outhouse. Dogs here are guard dogs. They are not affectionate and they don't expect affection. It is sad, but that is how it is. Now they are used to me, but they still scare me a bit at night. The biggest one looks distinctly like a coyote, and he freaks me out once in a while if it is dark.

HEALTH AND BABIES

Babies here are probably the cutest babies I have ever seen. They are really fat have really chubby cheeks, but don't tell their mother that, because it is bad luck, or something. They bundle up the babies like crazy, even when it is warm and even when they are inside. The baby cousin that comes over quite a bit is always wearing a winter coat and winter hat and has rags stuffed inside his clothes for good measure, making him even more rotund and looking like a character from South Park. They think that cold is the cause of all illness, and all of us get yelled at by our apas if we leave the house without a jacket. They also tell girks not to sit on the cold ground because it causes infertility. I think I will take my chances.

They may be concerned about the baby's temperature, but they also put hot tea and lots of sugar in his bottle and he sucks it down like he is addicted. That is another thing: I don't know how my family can stand so much sugar in their tea. I almost gagged when I let them put sugar in for me. I have been drinking straight tea ever since, and I know they think I am crazy, but I can't wait until I know enough Kyrgyz to point out that there might just be a reason that everyone in Kyrgyzstan over the age of 30 has several gold teeth. Not that the gold teeth aren't super cool, because they are.

4/19/09

Sundays are exhausting! Right now, it is my only real “day off,” so I had to take care of a lot of home stuff today.

First things first: I slept in, as did my Apa and one of my host sisters, and Apa made her Sunday morning special—these awesome fried donut things served with butter AND fresh cream. The breakfast of champions. But seriously, they are delicious. As a bonus, she also brought out a cold sheep leg bone with meat on it and plunked it right down on the tablecloth in front of me. “Ajo, et je!” (translation: “Audra, eat meat!” You gotta love these people. They get right down to business.) On TV was a nature show, very appropriately featuring a hungry lion tearing at a dead antelope. I politely picked at the tough, grayish meat, but I am afraid that after chowing down on bread fried in fat with fat spread on it dipped in fat, cold sheep meat is not my first choice of a Sunday brunch entree.

Side note about Sunday: In yesterday's language class we learned that in Kyrgyz, people usually refer to the days of the week as first day, second day, etc., rather than the equivalent of Monday, Tuesday, etc. The exception is Sunday, which is called Bazaar Day (Bazar Kuhn). As would be expected, a lot of people do tend to visit the bazaar on Bazaar Day.

Sunday is also banya day. Today I went into Kant again with my sister to use the public showers. I was really hoping to go there today because last Sunday all I got was a bucket bath, which doesn't really work for me. If I understood my family correctly, it is not appropriate to shed any amount of clothing when doing the bucket bath thing, even though I was in my bedroom. You can wash your hair, face, hands, and feet, and then can go out to the outhouse for the rest. I don't find this to be an effective way to be clean at all. To top it off, I had planned to at least wash my hair later in the week, but there was an early blackout on Wednesday and again on Thursday. After that I gave up and decided I could just wait until Sunday. I made it with a little trick I learned from another trainee: baby powder. Sprinkle it on your head and comb it in and it sucks up all the grease, and makes you smell powder fresh! Life saver. Plus, now I know that I can, in fact, make it one week without washing my hair, and two weeks without having a full shower. I will be so happy when it gets hot and they let me use the sun shower.

Sadly, the shower was almost pointless, as we then had to walk for about 20 minutes through dusty Kant and then get on a hot and crowded marshutka to get home. Then I did laundry, which is a much messier job than you would think. Before I could even start scrubbing I had to gather up some twigs and wood and start the fire to heat the water, then haul several buckets of water across the muddy, sheep-y yard. It is a very Little House on the Prairie process.

Apa and my host brother were shearing some sheep while I was washing my clothes, and I would have loved to help out with that instead because I am really starting to love the sheep. My family thinks I am a nut for fawning over the little lambs, but they are so cute! I think we are even though, because my sister was fawning over a squirrel we saw in Kant and freaked out even more when I told her that we have many, many squirrels in Iowa (direct translation of what I said, in case anyone is wondering how I got the message across: “Squirrels, I like me too. My America home in Iowa we have many squirrels, many, many. Run, run they go every day. Very good.”) Though, to be fair, these Asian squirrels are a little more exotic-looking than Iowa squirrels. I am starting to be on good terms with our dogs, but it makes me sad because the dogs don't understand the petting thing, having never experienced it, and they run away every time I reach out instinctively to scratch their ears. Poor puppies.

Mmmm, I am smelling some bulichka baking. They are like a combination of a soft pretzel or a bagel and a dinner roll. There is so much good bread in this house all the time. I will probably get called for “chai eech” (drink tea) time pretty soon. That is both the curse and blessing of living here, I feel like I am chai eech-ing all the time here.

Side note: I was going to ask where our chickens went, as I haven't seen them around lately, but then I realized that we have been eating quite a bit of chicken lately. Mystery solved.

Side note part 2: The acting on Russian TV is horrible. The only thing worse than Russian TV is Kyrgyz TV. More on this at a later date.


4/20/2009

Today I had my permanent site placement interview with one off the program managers. I didn't really know what to ask for, so I suppose that means that I can't be disappointed. If I can get put in a village that I like as much as Kengesh, I will be very happy.

Today the weather was beautiful, and since we had a short day of class, a bunch of us went to the stadium in the afternoon. By “stadium,” I refer to what they call the football field next to the school. And by “football field,” I mean soccer field, sorry. This language thing makes me confused. The Kengesh stadium is extra awesome because we have a basketball court. And by “basketball court,” I mean a corner of the field that has two basketball hoops. No pavement, no nets, but hey, we'll take it.

As you all know, I am not a particularly athletic person, so I was content to sit on the side and watch while the others played soccer or basketball with the locals, but it was not to be. A large part of the field was taken up by the elementary school kids having gym class or recess or something. Unfortunately for me, the class happened to include the little girl who lives across the street from me and her friend, who happen to think I am about the coolest person in the world (or at least in Kengesh). Before I even knew what was happening, I was being physically dragged across the field by a bunch of seven-year-old girls (don't laugh, the kids are really tough here. There really is no resisting them). The teacher, whom I had never met before, seemed thrilled by this. They were playing a kind of game of tag, and when the teacher asked who should be “it” (I am assuming that is what she asked), of course there was a unanimous cry of “Ajo Eje!” so I had to run anyway. As if this wasn't bad enough, one of my little friends that was holding my hand in the circle kept smelling my arm and saying “mmmm, jokshe” (good). I had just put lotion on, and she was pretty impressed with it. She is a little bit creepy, but still adorable.

My tone might be negative here, but I really do love these kids, even when they are snotty nosed and taking a dump right out in the open on the front lawn of the school (no kidding, I have actually seen this occur more than once). They are so darn cute, and how can I not love kids that love me so much?

Anyway, no one can say that I am not integrating into the community. I just talked about this in my interview today. By befriending all these kids (which is extremely easy to do as kids aren't told to not talk to strangers here, not to mention the fact that I don't have to feel embarrassed about my poor Kyrgyz skills when I am around them) I usually end up meeting their parents sooner or later, and in this case, I met the teacher. The amount of relationships that I have started in this village already, even despite my horrible Kyrgyz, makes me embarrassed for having lived like I did in the US, not even knowing the names of many people that I saw in class every day, or that even lived next door to me in my dorm.

Hopefully I can keep up this integration thing in my permanent site. If I can do as good a job as I have been doing, I will be golden. If there was any issue of me coming out of my shell, it will definitely be solved by the time my service is over.

4/21/09

Rainy and wet again today. I thought I might take this opportunity to talk about the school that we are having our technical training at. Last week we had our first active practicum session where we actually practiced team teaching in the classroom. I was in a fifth form class teaching the words for family members. It went well, considering the language gap. The would have been a gap in any case, because several of the students spoke only Russian and not much Kyrgyz, so it was extra tricky. Having younger kids was fun for me, though. They were very sweet.

This Thursday I will do two classes, 10th and 11th form. One topic is the education system in America, and the other is American sports and games. The teacher wants me and my partner to give a lecture about baseball. Baseball, like English grammar, is a deceiving topic to teach about. It seems like it would be simple until you try to explain it to someone and realize how complicated it is. The teacher requested that we limit the vocabulary to 5 or 6 words. Yeah, right, we will see how that goes.

Maybe it was just because it was cold and rainy today, but I think that the school is darn depressing. The toilets alone make me want to cry. They consist of a stone building with a stone floor and two holes side by side with no separation. There isn't even a door, really, just a kind of half wall thing that you can see over when you stand up. There is piss and worse all over the floor, and it is quite a trick to maneuver so that the hem of your pants doesn't hit the puddles on the floor. The playground itself is also pretty sad. None of the structures are really functional as playground equipment: the monkey bars are too high to reach and there is no ladder, and other than that all there is is some gymnastic-type bars. Also there is what we call the “gallows,” which is a really tall tripod-type thing with a long chain hanging from it with a loop at the end. Way creepy.

4/24/09

Hooray, short day today! I have been getting really frustrated with language lately. It seems like so often what I want to say is on the tip of my tongue, and by the time I get it out, the moment has passed. Today we had a “field trip” to the stores in town. We broke up into small groups and went to different stores with lists of questions. I realized that I really need to work on my numbers and food names. Add it to the list along with prepositions, basic verbs and whatever else. I have a huge stack of flash cards on my desk that I need to learn sometime when I get a chance. My problem is that I am always so busy trying to communicate with my family that I don't have time to learn the language. My host sister, bless her heart, always wants to help me out, but giving me the answer on the back of the card before I can think of it doesn't really help. I have to admit though, that I would be in a rough spot without her. She seems to be the only one who understands the concept of slowing down or simplifying a sentence so that I can understand. Not to mention that we have come up with our own elaborate language called “Ch-ch-chah.” We try Anglischah, Kyrgyzchah, and Eruschah (Russian), and when that fails, we revert to Ch-ch-chah. The basic gist of this language involves saying “Ch-ch” in different tones of voice accompanied by a corresponding pantomime performance. As far as I can remember, we have expanded this language to encompass such complex phrases such as “wash hair,” “take a shower,” “go for a walk,” “cook food,” “do laundry,” “bring the sheep/cows in” and “do homework.” This sounds great, but it is gradually diminishing the amount of Kyrgyz that I am forced to speak on a daily basis.

Yesterday was the day of the big baseball lesson in Stansia Ivonovka. It went about as well as can be expected. At least the students picked up somewhere around half of the vocabulary. We actually played a mock game outside with a piece of pipe that my teaching partner found at his house for a bat and some crumpled notebook paper for a ball. The kids understood the pitching and batting thing, but running the bases and tagging players out was a little too complicated for them to catch onto. At least they had a blast for about 10 minutes until it got boring again. The next lesson was on schools in America. We taught some vocab and then had them ask us questions about American schools in small groups. I feel so bad for these kids because they are not at all used to the concept of working in small groups, or even of thinking for themselves. All they know is repetition and memorization.

Even more pathetic than my attempt at starting a baseball game was the brief look that I took at the passage that the students were reading for homework. Some of the passages were something like what follows: “Afro-American children are often unhappy at school because most of the other students are white. They are happier at schools where most of their classmates are Afro-American.” It continues: “In America, children who come from poor families or whose parents are unemployed do not attend school very often.” The copyright date for this book was 2001. I could go on for a while about the curriculum I have seen in my short amounts of time at the school, but I will leave it at that for now.

The best part of the day was hearing about the 5th grade class that I taught last week. They remembered the vocabulary and grammar that we taught them, and were asking the trainees in your class “do you have a sister?” etc. It gave me warm fuzzies inside. Love those kids.

The weather is gorgeous today, and was gorgeous yesterday, too. I heard from a current volunteer that once the rainy season is over, it will be like this almost every day. Nice. Still, my Apa and sisters are crazy about making sure I am wearing a jacket outside. It was probably 80 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, and when I went out to meet my friends at the stadium, my Apa made me go back inside and get my jacket. I came back with it off, and she just shook her head at me. I had a runny nose later that day, and she blamed it on my not wearing a jacket. Arrgh. In all seriousness though, I was worried about getting sick, because a lot of trainees have been passing around a nasty head cold, and quite a few have been having stomach issues. Today I have no symptoms, so lets hope that it passed me by. I can't believe how lucky I have been with health.

I think I hear another musical number coming up on the Bollywood movie that my sisters are watching. I was getting a little bored with the Russian dubbing in between the songs, but I love the song and dance scenes in these movies!