My Two Month Anniversary!

4/27/09
Tomorrow marks the one month anniversary of my leaving home! It seems like it has gone by quickly, but on the other hand, staging in Philly seems like it was years ago, and I remember Istanbul like it was a dream. If I wasn't in my own pictures, I couldn't be convinced that it had actually happened.

Saturday was kind of a play day for us. All the K-17's (my “generation” of trainees) met at our “Hub Site,” which is an orphanage house in another village. We go there every Wednesday for training sessions, but Saturday was our chance to do a little community service for the orphanage, and also to play with the kids a bit. All morning we did odd jobs outside: painting, weeding, planting flowers, and laying a cement path to the outhouse. The kids helped out with the painting. In the afternoon, the kids performed a little dance that they had prepared for the occasion, and then we played games with them outside. Someone brought face paints, and painted the kids faces, but what seemed to be more fun was for them to paint our faces. I got quite a crazy paint job on myself, which I wasn't so happy about, especially because it actually got to be really hot and sunny and my face was all sweaty.

Yesterday was a pretty rough day for me. It was raining and cold in the morning, and I had wanted to do laundry, but of course as soon as I told my host sister that I was just going to hold off until next weekend, the sun came out. Boo.

I pretty much kept to myself for most of the day because I didn't know what to do with myself. I thought that maybe we would go to Kant for a shower, but I guess that is an every other Sunday thing. Double boo. I studied some vocabulary, but I always feel like I am studying the wrong thing. I have a lot of difficulty retaining vocab compared to the other people in my language group, and I am always just behind enough to be really frustrated. However, my stack of successfully learned flash cards is getting really tall, so that is encouraging. When the sun came out, I went for a walk with another trainee but that didn't fill up much time because her host mom had heated up some water for her so she could wash her hair.

When I got home again, there were a bunch of people guesting in the dining room. I was afraid I was going to have to join them, but my sisters weren't in there (the older one was serving tea, but was in and out) and I had seen my brother out in the yard, so I figured I was exempt. Again, I had nothing to do, so I watched a movie and then studied some more. My room is right across from the dining room, and I could hear when they started a round of singing. I love their attitude about singing here. There is very little embarrassment; if someone asks someone to sing, they do it, no problem. I sing to myself all the time, but when my family asks me to sing for them, I get more stage fright than I should. I am dreading the day when I get asked to sing in front a bigger group, and I know that day will come sooner than later. My host mom actually has a really beautiful voice that I never would have expected from her.

We had a late supper of the only entree that I have had at my house so far that I really don't care for. It isn't horrible, I just think it is horribly bland. The good news is that we have this salsa stuff again, which I haven't seen since my first day. Some Tostidos would be great with it, but my apa's bread is so awesome I can't really complain. Before bed I washed my hair, which was wonderful.

Wow, that was really mundane. Sorry.

5/01/09

Happy Kyrgyz Labor Day! Really, it was just a normal day for us with class all day. Tomorrow is a day off for us, so we are going to Bishkek to eat some American food! Hopefully I will achieve a successful Internet visit and you will read this very soon. (**Note from May 25: Haha, I did get to the Internet that day, but apparently this didn't get posted. Sorry for the repetition.**)

Wednesday was a very important day for us because our permanent site placement was announced! There was a little ceremony for these announcements, and they had a huge map of the country drawn on the pavement, and once we all stood in our respective oblasts once it was announced.

So, the big announcement: my permanent site will be in (drum-roll, please).... OSH OBLAST! If you are too lazy to look at a map, it is in the southern part of the country, over by Uzbekistan. Osh oblast was the last oblast that I expected to go to, and although I didn't really have a preference as to regions, Osh probably would have been at the bottom of my preference list just because it is farthest away from here.

HOWEVER, I am really excited about my site. It is, in my opinion, a prime location. By traveling 20 minutes to the nearest rayon center, I can get to either Osh city or Jalal-abad city in about an hour. I think these are the two largest cities in the country, after Bishkek. It sounds like my village is pretty good-sized, with a bazaar and four schools. There have been volunteers in the village before, but not at the school I will be working at, so that will be a nice balance. The part I am most happy about is that there will be another K-17 in my village! It makes me feel so much better to know that someone I already know and like will be right there.

The program manager even told me a little about my host family. My new apa and ata are doctors, and they have a teenage daughter. Sounds perfect!

When I told my present host family about my placement, all they really said was that it is very, very hot there, but the fruits and vegetables are good. I don't really know what “hot” means to my host family, because we frequently have disagreements over whether it is cold outside or not. They were pretty excited about the fact that I will get to take a plane there (I guess they didn't remember that I took a plane to get here in the first place). Even though Kyrgyzstan is not that big of a country the mountains slow down travel quite a bit, so it sounds like the PC pays for plane trips for Osh people. Even though I have heard that the plane ride is kind of scary, it sure seems to beat the 10+ hour taxi rides that people talk about sometimes.

I won't say any more about the site until I get there, and that will be very soon because I have a week-long visit already on May 18!

I think we are about at the half-way point of training right now. It will be so strange to pick up and move and start all over again so soon! A few people in my village now have said that people in Osh speak so differently that I will have a hard time understanding them, but I hardly understand Kyrgyz in general, so I am not that worried about a new accent. Anyway, my language teacher is from the south (she actually grew up nearby where my post is, and says she will come see me in July when she visits her family there! Hooray, because I love her to death) so I just need to start paying attention to all the southern-isms that she mentions once in a while.

(A little later)
Since it has been raining a lot lately, I have forgotten the pleasures of just standing outside the gate of my house and talking everyone who comes by. I swear that people around here have an Ajo radar and they can sense my movements, because a ridiculous amount of people stopped to talk to me in the last hour. Most of these people were kids, who I love talking to. They just keep repeating their scripted questions about America because every time they talk to me, my Kyrgyz gets a little better, and a little more understanding happens. It is a good learning routine for all of us, I think. I managed to find out that the girl who lives across the street turned 13 on the same day as my “real life” sister did. Crazy.

I had a good conversation with some of the little girls that were hanging around, but they kind of killed it when they asked if I knew any n*****s in America. We had been given some literature about how to educate people here about the “N” word, but on the spot and with my limited grammar, I am not sure if I got the message across. The usage of the word here is kind of strange. These girls didn't mean anything derogatory by it, they just think that is what you call black people. I guess the word comes from Russian, or the Russian version is similar or something, and they never got the memo here that it is no longer appropriate. It doesn't help that 50 Cent is super popular, and all the kids around here listen to uncensored rap songs on the radio all the time and repeat the lyrics without knowing what they mean. I said that it was a bad word, and was met immediately with a chorus of “emnege?” (why). How does a person explain this to a bunch of kids, even without a language gap?

(later still...)
OMG! A lot of stuff just happened in the last two minutes while I was sitting here. First, I saw a mouse run across the far wall of my bedroom and out a hole in the wall that I have been wondering about for a while. I didn't see where it came from, and I am praying that it wasn't in my duffel bag, but it probably was. Eeew. A few seconds after that happened, a little girl who I have never seen before barged into my room. Great, my family has guests. Now I have to figure out if I should tell my family about the mouse when there are guests in the house, and if so, how to go about doing that.

(still, later)
Ok, life is good. Apa put some poison in the hole and plugged up the hole. Now I suppose I will have a dead mouse in the wall, but at least I won't be worrying about it crawling into bed with me. It is funny how unconcerned I was to see the mouse run across my room. I would much rather see that than one of the huge spiders I saw at the school, or the scorpions that they told us to watch out for. I have never seen a scorpion in real life, but I am terrified of the day that I will, even though the PC doctor told us that they are “friendly.”

(later again – last one, I promise)
I just watched Shrek 2 on my computer with my host sister and the 5-year-old little girl who is staying here tonight. My sister came and went, but the 5-year-old sat through the whole thing with all her attention focused on the movie, and although she asked me about 5 times if I could put it in Russian, it didn't seem to bother her in the least that it was in English. I can't even sit and watch a half-hour long sitcom in Russian, and she watched the whole darn movie in English. I like this girl. She even picked up the extremely useful word “donkey,” and, as she is excellent at mimicking voices, she says it with a nice Shrek-like Scottish accent. Love it.

After I kicked them out so I could go to sleep, I saw the mouse again. We had a little stare off, and I debated over whether I should just grab him with my hand (since I have all my rabies shots), but I decided not to. He is actually really cute, so it doesn't bother me all that much that he is running around. It looks like he ate the poison, so I will have to clean out my closet to look for a dead mouse tomorrow.


5/10/2009

Great birthday today! Actually, all things considered, I can't even really call it the weirdest birthday I've ever had. It started out kind of miserable with my typical laundry woes (I swear, every week some animal messes with my laundry. This time, the sheep all drank out of my rinsing water and got it all gross) but then I went to Kant to take a shower (it was my one birthday request – oh, how I have changed) and it was amazing. How ridiculous is it that I get excited to be able to take a shower as frequently as once a week? Then I went to the bazaar with Apa and got some veggies and chicken (Chicken! Veggies! Oh, how I have missed you!) for my birthday dinner party.

I had every intention of helping out with making food, since I had invited people to come over, but I was forced to take a nap until my guests came. I didn't argue too much. It was pretty nice. We had my favorite, lagman (a kind of noodle soup with homemade noodles, usually with a little sheep meat, but it was a special occasion, so it was with chicken! I was super happy about it, even though I was there when Apa bought the chicken – it was sold out of a greasy cardboard box, unrefrigerated and uncovered. I try not to think about it too much.) and my friends brought ice cream and Disney princess party hats. My family gave me a little souvenir-type yurt, and my language teachers gave me a Snickers and a really nice homemade card. After everyone left and we cleaned up, I had some alone time that I spent watching a movie and not studying, for once. It was a good day.

5/11/2009
The whole bathing and doing laundry on Sunday thing really makes Mondays a lot better. For one, I feel so clean, and I also realize that I have a whole six days before I have to do laundry again. I must have really gone at the scrubbing yesterday because I got a stain out of the hem of my pants that survived through the last two washes, but I also scrubbed all the skin off my knuckles in the process. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't keep forgetting not to put Purell on my hands. The sting makes me want to die a little bit.

So, I am realizing why we have our training in one village and then move. It is so we can leave behind all memories of us in our pre-language training, pre-culture appropriateness training states. As much as I love my family and village, I am very ready to leave behind one problem that has popped up here. It comes in the form of an unwanted profession of love from a guy who either lives next door or just hangs out there a lot (it is so hard to tell with these people). It all started on one of my first days when this guy was introduced to me by the guy I call “Borat.” Go figure. I had been “talking” with some kids in the street (I couldn't really talk at the time, just smile and nod) when Borat came over and started up a conversation with me in the few English words he knows. I probably started smiling and nodding a lot more because of the English and probably because Borat makes me feel a tiny bit uncomfortable sometimes. At some point he called a youngish guy over and introduced him to me as (in English), “K__ is number one terrorist! Osama Bin Laden's brother!” Great. I am sure that I made the mistake of continuing to be American and doing my whole smile and nod thing, which in this country equals, “hey there, Sexy, how you doin'?” Number One Terrorist then made a hand signal that I (thankfully) was able to recognize from training as an invitation to have a drink, and was able to make a quick retreat.

Another time I was out and about with my host sister, we saw Number One Terrorist coming from a distance and my sister informed me that he is a “bad boy,” and saved me from talking to him. Later, my family was talking about him, also calling him “Number One Terrorist” (I don't know if they know what this means or not). The trainee across the street said she thinks her family said he is a drug user or drug dealer or something. That seems so out of place in this community, but maybe I am being naпve.

I haven't really talked to they guy since, but he always yells “Ajo! Hello!” every time he sees me walk past, even if it is from a long way away. I don't know how he always spots me so quickly. If he is right there, I usually just acknowledge him with a tiny wave and no smile. There have been many times when he is far away and I have tried to pretend that I can't hear him, but he will just keep saying “Ajo! Hello! Ajo! Ajo! Ajo!” until I turn around. One day at supper, my family unexpectedly told me that I shouldn't talk to him. I am under the impression that he had been asking about me. Lo and behold, the next day he came up to me as I was walking home and asked me for my phone number. Luckily, I can pull the whole “What? What? Sorry, I don't understand, goodbye” and escape to the safety of the castle wall that surrounds my house (sometimes, if it rains, there is even a moat!). The next day, the trainee across the street tipped me off that he had been asking her for my number, and he said that he loves me and thinks that I should grow my hair long (why so much concern with the hair, I wonder?). Later that day, when I was trying to shoo a fly out the window, that same trainee's bratty little sister spotted me from outside the open gate and screamed at me that K___ said he loves me.

This wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't paranoid about the whole bride kidnapping situation here. We had a cross-cultural session that discussed the topic (apparently there are two kinds of bride kidnapping: consensual and non-consensual, but it is difficult for a bystander to tell them apart because they both involve a lot of physical fighting between the bride and the female relatives of the groom. (what??!!!)). So far, I have also seen two Kyrgyz movies and a TV show, all of which featured at least one incident of non-consensual bride kidnapping, one involving complete strangers. In one movie that I was watching with my family, there was a pretty violent fight between the bride and a bunch of pretty fierce old women, and my family was cracking up watching it. The bride was crying, and it was not funny at all to me, so I asked something like, “Why you laugh? What is joke?” They said something about the tradition being old-fashioned, and doesn't happen anymore, but then added as an afterthought, “It only still happens a lot in the south.” Great, good thing I am going to the south, isn't it?

All of this put together makes me a bit paranoid, but I really can't be worried about it because, A: My laundry and carrot chopping skills would make me a horrible Kyrgyz wife, and B: As far as I can tell, the only thing keeping the kidnapped bride where she is, besides the feisty chong apas, is the sense of the shame that it would bring on her and both of the families involved, and since I don't have a sense of shame, too bad there. I also know that I can call on the PC safety and security director, who is just as feisty as any chong apa.

5/16/09

Today was a big day for Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan: Culture Day. Trainees and our families dressed in traditional costumes and presented skits and stuff to illustrate different customs in Kyrgyzstan. The day also included setting up a boz ui (yurt), which is quite a process, and a toi (feast) of plov (a rice and meat dish).

My village presented the Kyrgyz tradition that occurs when a baby begins to walk. A toi is held and it includes a really interesting game: the baby's legs are tied up with black and white yarn, and kids race to the baby and the first one to get there cuts the yarn with a knife and wins a prize. In our skit, I played the mother of the baby. I had about six words to say, and go figure, I screwed it up somehow. But, overall, it went well. I wonder, however, in the however many hundreds of years that people have been practicing this tradition, how many babies have lost toes to the kid with the knife.

Many trainees had really fancy costumes for the day (we joked that everyone looked like princesses or wizards), but I did not. Last night, I was given a headscarf and one of the traditional embroidered vests to wear, which I was thrilled about. I had planned on wearing a dress of my own under the vest, and the outfit looked very nice, but a few minutes before we left, my apa handed me a horrible chartreuse, floral-print, polyester mu-mu that I was supposed to change into when we got there. It kind of ruined my morning.

Other traditions included Kyrgyz, Russian, Turkish, and American weddings, some singing, some dancing, and some talk about food. Hopefully I can get some pictures up here sometime.

During the past week, I had a few down days, and this day did just the trick to get me excited again. After, a few of us went to a different village with some trainees that live there, and went to a German cafe/beer hall type place. This was really exciting for the people in my village, because the closest thing we have to a cafe or bar are the little stores that sell pre-packaged vodka shots in containers like pudding snack-packs. My over-enthusiastic reaction to being in such a Western-style place and sitting at a table with chairs and using a toilet inside that has a seat made me a little down about things in general. I anticipate that this will happen more than a few times throughout my service, so I guess I should just get used to it, and know that it will always pass.

5/16/09

Weird day today (haha, which day isn't weird?) but weird because I don't know how I feel about visiting my permanent site. I am excited, but I am also really nervous. I just don't know how I am going to handle all of the situations that I am going to come across with the extremely limited language that I have.

Tomorrow we will stay in the hotel in Bishkek, and we are all super excited about it because of the showers (two showers in two days, wow!). I was able to pack up half of my stuff to take to permanent site.

5/21/09
Permanent site visit!

The first thing I have to say about Osh oblast is that it is absolutely gorgeous! This was the Kyrgyzstan that I have been waiting to see: tall, rolling green hills spotted with sheep and the patient kalpak-wearing shepherd at his post on the very top. Snowcapped mountains. Mountain springs joining together in wide, shallow, rapidly running rivers in the valleys. Old men riding donkeys, their boots almost dragging on the ground, but still looking like the most distinguished old men I have ever seen with their traditional embroidered robe-like jackets and white kalpaks. (Sorry, a kalpak is a Kyrgyz hat, if I haven't mentioned it before.)

My living situation is way different than my training living situation. I am living in (get ready for it) a two story house all by myself! Ok, don't get too excited, I am sharing a toilet, banya, and kitchen with a family. But still. It is crazy. This is what I guess you would call a compound living situation. The big house (my house) has four large dining room/living room type rooms, one of which is my bedroom. One of the rooms is set up with western-style dining room furniture, another with a Kyrgyz-style table, and the fourth is storage. Upstairs is what I am assuming are supposed to be bedrooms, but I took a peek up there and it looks like it is all storage too. The stairs are all dusty at the top, so I am assuming that no one goes up there at all.

The main house is smaller, with just an entryway/kitchen area, a living room/dining room and two small bedrooms. There is another kitchen separate from the house. The family has chickens, and we have eaten a lot of eggs so far. They also have a dog, who is big and scary-looking, but is, my host mom assured me, “good and smart.” He is a very nice dog, and I have been feeding him so he likes me. He sleeps outside my door, which makes me feel safe, so he is doing his job. I have to keep an eye on the chickens, however, because they will come in the house if the door is a little bit open (people in Kyrgyzstan tend to leave the front door open a lot, with just a curtain covering the doorway) and chickens can be really quiet if they want to be, and sneak in on you.

Oh, one downside to my house is that my room has windows, but they are old and can't be opened, and have really thin glass that is covered in paper, so I can't see out. If I could, I would just be able to see over the compound wall and into the neighbor's living area, which appears to be just a roof with curtains for walls. I can hear them talking like they are in the room with me, which is weird. My family says don't be afraid, but I can see how it could get annoying at times. Last night, they were even playing some loud music, but both nights I have been here, they have quieted down and turned out their lights before 11, so that's not that bad.

The family seems good so far, but I am just not sure how this living situation is going to work out. I might end up just cooking all my meals for myself, after experiencing my mom's cooking so far. It isn't bad, but it also isn't the awesome down-home Kyrgyz cooking that I have been used to. We shall see how it goes. We went to the big bazaar in Osh city on the way home from the airport, which was really overwhelming, and my host mom bought a lot of food like hot dogs and ketchup that I am assuming she thinks I would like because I am American. Too bad the ketchup is gross and she serves the hot dogs cold out of the package alongside really runny eggs. Right now they are supposed to be feeding me, but it is weird because sometimes they have called me into the main house to eat, and sometimes they bring food to my house. They leave a tray with instant coffee and sugar and cookies in my room, and at night, they have brought a big thermos-like canister of hot water and left it in my room so I could have coffee in the morning. It is kind of strange, but I am sure that they don't really know what to do with me and it is strange for them, too. I do feel like I have a lot more independence here than in my training house. They show me where everything is and show me how to do stuff instead of just getting it or doing it for me.

Today, after doing stuff at my school (more on that later) I went to the nearest city, Uzgen, with my 15-year-old host sister, A___ (I will omit names in this blog to protect the peoples' privacy), the other new volunteer in my village, and her teenage host sister to open my bank account. After a few language hiccups, I think we managed to get the process taken care of in a pretty painless manner. After that, we visited the city. I love Uzgen! It is populated mostly by Uzbek people, and the whole city has a more exotic feel to it than the parts of Kyrgyzstan that I have seen so far, which seem more Russian influenced. Uzgen boasts a small historical museum complex with some examples of 11-12th century Uzbek architecture. There is a minaret and a mosque, both decorated all over with elaborate stone carvings. From the complex, which is on a hill, there is an awesome view of the landscape. Hopefully I will get some pictures up soon. We each paid 5 som to climb up inside the minaret, but only A___ and I ended up climbing all the way. It actually was quite scary, but I am glad that I sucked it up and went all the way. It was probably the steepest, narrowest, spiral staircase that I have ever seen, and in the middle section there are no windows, so it is pitch black. At least there is a really sturdy railing to hang on to. Afterward, we decided that we all deserved some ice cream (our sisters especially, because they had been doing their best to translate for us all afternoon and were awesome tour guides) and got some delicious soft-serve ice cream at a little roof-top cafe. We also visited the bazaar, which is pretty darn big and a little overwhelming, but it looks like I can get pretty much everything I need there. While the four of us looked around, the other volunteer's sister kept yelling answers to inquiries: “They are American,”; “they come from America,”; “they are volunteers from America.” I guess they don't get many foreigners here. In fact, I think that by moving here, the other new volunteer and I have probably doubled the number of white people here. I haven't even come across a single Russian yet. We get a lot of stares. One girl even came up to us as we were sitting in the village center and talking and shamelessly snapped a picture of us on her camera phone and walked away without a word. So strange.

My host dad was in Bishkek today and yesterday, and just got back now. He is going to America next week! He is the director of a hospital (an occupation important enough to earn him a place on the wall of fame in the school I am working at) and will attend a conference or seminar of some sort in Vermont for about a week. He will be staying in the home of an American couple that served in Kyrgyzstan with the Peace Corps in the mid 90's, so they speak some Kyrgyz. The poor guy's information sheet was in English, so he couldn't really read it. I did my best to translate, and I think I got him to understand everything but “alternative high school,” which is where it says his host works. He is concerned because his sheet says that conference activities are located 20-30 minutes away, and it also says there is no public transportation. I told him that his hosts would probably give him a ride or something, and I hope I am right. I would hate to see him try to hail a taxi Kyrgyz-style (in this country, every car going down the road in your direction is a taxi). I hope he likes America, and I also hope that it will create a kind of understanding between us.

5/22/09

Today I was hit full in the face with a tidal wave of culture.

First, I should explain that the school I will work at is awesome. I haven't met my official counterpart yet because she is at a seminar in Russia (which sounds promising) but another English teacher, G____, has been showing me around and she is wonderful. Obsessively hospitable maybe, but then a lot of people here are. They have definitely been showing off for me a bit, but still, the school seems fairly well equipped with a cinema room with a DVD player (looks like there will be some English language movie days in my classes!), music classroom, dance/gymnastics room with a crazy awesome sound system, really nice gym, etc. What they are sorely lacking, however, is English textbooks in the upper grades. Hopefully I will be able to help out with that. The director (principal) seems great, although I am a bit angry at him for calling together an assembly of the entire school and making me introduce myself to all 600+ students and 40 staff members in Kyrgyz. I was literally shaking as I spoke, but I think it turned out ok. The zavouch (vice principal) is my neighbor, and we will be able to walk to school together. She is very nice and friendly, and I will feel very comfortable going to her with any problems.

According G___, our school is one of the top schools in Kyrgyzstan (I bet everyone says that about their school). This week, the school hosted a special festival/seminar organized by an agricultural NGO. Students came from all over the country to our school because our school won the competition last year. I was able to attend the festival at our village's “club” (actually an auditorium). It was really great! The competition had three parts: traditional Kyrgyz song and dance, another performance (some groups did short plays, others did hip hop dance, etc.), and a presentation on a certain health or environmental issue like AIDS, alcoholism, hand and food washing practices, and pollution. I was so struck with how well run (and hopefully effective) this event was, not to mention impressed with the quality of the students' performances. Later, I found out that Peace Corps volunteers had worked with this NGO in the past. It was really encouraging that programs like this are sustainable without PC volunteers working at them forever!

Today, after a bit of miscommunication, I was invited to go on an “excursion” with the participants of the festival. And by invited, I mean that I was dragged onto a marshrutka packed with teenagers with very little explanation of what was going on other than the work “excursion.” About halfway there, I learned that we were going to a jailoo, which is what they call the place up in the mountains where they take cows and sheep for the summer. We drove for about hour, making one little stop for some sightseeing at some random house with a crazy collection of topiaries, and singing Kyrgyz songs the whole way.

Also, I should note that my camera battery was dead, and I missed a million awesome photo ops today, but a bunch of teenagers from all over Kyrgyzstan now have a ton of pictures with me like I am a celebrity or something.

We drove up into the mountains and stopped at a bridge over a really scary river. Actually, the bridge was almost scarier than the river, because it was basically just a few logs balanced over the banks. I was freaked out about walking over it, but the truck with supplies just drove over it like it was nothing. We walked a ways up the mountain to a somewhat run-down Soviet-era summer camp. The camp itself was nothing special, but the views and the landscape were insanely gorgeous. I couldn't get enough of it, and all the locals laughed at me when I gasped every time I looked out at a new angle.

The festival participants did some closing stuff while I talked to other teachers, and then everyone had free time to explore and play games. I was surprised at the level of interaction between the teachers and students when everyone played volleyball and such together, because there seems to be so much distance and respect in the classroom, but all the ejes jumped right in there to play, head scarves and all.

Later, they rigged up a big sound system (they are really big on playing D.J. here, I have noticed) and there was a big dance party. I escaped with some teachers to help prepare food (but really I didn't help at all, everyone just kept shoving food in my face). They had brought huge sacks full of vegetables and rice, and a whole sheep which they had half-butchered in advance. The process that they use for a toi (feast) absolutely amazes me. First, they served bowls of broth that the meat had been cooked in, with some salads and bread. Then, they bring out the platters of plov/paloo/ash (a rice and meat dish that has too many names) and everyone digs in with their hands. After everyone ate their plov, there was a little concert by the kids, and the cooks took all the leftover meat and sheep parts to make the national dish of Kyrgyzstan, besh barmak (literally “five fingers”), which is noodles with meat that is supposed to be eaten with your hands. At this point, I was already stuffed (I honestly don't know how Kyrgyz people can eat so much!) and after the besh barmak, I was about ready to burst. It was at this point when all the teachers announced that we would go drink vodka. I said that I didn't want to, thinking that maybe it was one of those empty suggestions used simply to be hospitable, but G___, who I had for some reason assumed was fairly religious and wouldn't do such a thing, whipped a bottle of vodka and a jar of jam out of her purse and said with a sad face “But, I brought it especially for you!”

Vodka toasting might sound like a fun day at work, but I was pretty miserable. They take their toasts very seriously, and insisted that I make a speech in Kyrgyz like everyone else. Also, the vodka is horrible and really strong. Some people have said that women can get away with just touching the glass to their lips, but that didn't fly. The weird thing was that they were all watching me to see what I would do, and I was watching everyone else, so it was really awkward. I tried to say that I don't like vodka and bow out, but then the director came and wanted to get in on the toasting. It was really strange. I typically wouldn't think that taking a shot with my boss in view of our students was appropriate behavior for my third day of work, but didn't see a way out of it. As soon as I took the shot, I had about four ejes in my face with spoonfuls of jam, salad, and besh barmak as chasers and then shoved a dipper of murky river water in my face so that I had to drink it. If I don't get sick from that water or whatever else I ate today it will be a miracle.

As we went to join the students again, they were having another dance party, and again, all the teachers jumped right in. As if to top of the weird vodka-drinking with the boss experience, I ended up in the middle of a dance circle with the director and a girl with the word “desire” printed across her shirt in sequins, dancing to “My Humps.” Can someone please explain to me why this area is considered to be super conservative?

This brings another incident to mind: one of the performances in the festival was a girl that danced to a Pussycat Dolls medley. At first, I was shocked by her dance moves and the fact that it looked as if she were wearing nothing under her little blazer. I was wrong, as she did a little strip tease to reveal a tiny little tied up shirt that would never be allowed at a school event in America by any standards. I felt like such a prude when I looked around in horror to see all the ejes smiling and clapping to the beat. I DON'T GET IT.

Anyway, it was awesome to get to go to the festival and on the excursion, and I am very excited about this summer and next school year.

5/25/09

Back home again in my training village now. I really did miss my family a lot, and I will be so sad to move out for good.

The plane ride home was awful and terrifying. For next time I will have to remember to not pig out on breakfast burritos (Yes, I said breakfast burritos. There is an American cafe in Osh city!) before the flight.

Even though my homecoming was greeted with cold, rainy weather and I was reminded of how stinky my training village is, it felt wonderful to come back to a place where everyone knows me and I know them as well, and I am not just the new American pseudo celebrity, a cardboard cutout to take pictures with: I am a person, and my name is Ajo.