March 8, 2010
Happy International Women's Day! Too bad America doesn't celebrate it. My host dad tried to convince me that Americans know about this day and celebrate it, they just don't get a day off work. I told him that I didn't know about it in America, but he says I must have, because the American ambassador said so on TV. But this is coming from the same man who tried to convince me that Abraham Lincoln was the second president after Washington (which he knows because he visited his house in Boston). He also told me that the American flag I have in my room is wrong because it only has 50 stars. He is a veritable expert in all things relating to America.
Today a large group of Osh volunteers celebrated the holiday with a picnic near a gorge about a half-hour ride away from the city. It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect and sunny with a slight breeze. The river was bright blue and the rock formations were magnificent. It felt great. However, today, once again, I was reflecting on how unhealthy my lifestyle has become, despite all of the walking I do and the un-processed food I eat. Not all of these things are strictly a bi-product of living in Kyrgyzstan, so I have made a spring resolution to become healthier. Here is a list of the unhealthy things in my life.
1. On average, I eat about a loaf and a half of heavy Kyrgyz bread a day. It is a staple to the Kyrgyz diet and I am a carb-aholic anyway, but things are getting ridiculous.
2. The soft-serve ice cream stands have opened in Osh. I've had at least one cone for every day that I've been there.
3. Peanut-butter sent from home. I'm addicted. I eat it every day until it runs out.
4. Locally-made chocolate peanut-butter. I just bought some today for the first time to tide me over until the next peanut-butter-bearing package comes. This could be disastrous to me.
5. Some other volunteers were talking about how we're not supposed to swim in rivers because PC won't treat any diseases that you might pick up from the water, but guess where the water comes from that I use every day to wash my hands and face with?
6. Poverty cones. This is the name some volunteer gave to a very cheap kind of ice cream that is especially popular with kids. In warm weather, a lady sells them out of a baby carriage at my school's gates. It is a regular cake cone, filled with ice cream up to the rim, with a circle of paper over the top that doesn't entirely cover all the ice cream. There is no wrapper. Who knows how many snotty nosed kids have touched them, but I eat them anyway.
7. Kids. I don't care what country you're in, kids are gross. Now the winter and lack of vitamin C has caused disgusting open cold sores to pop up all over their faces. Yuck.
8. Poo. There are many very valid reasons why Central Asians never ever wear their shoes in the house. One of those reasons is the outhouse at my school. How much higher are they going to let these piles get above the pit before someone does something about it? In addition, it appears as though several little girls have abandoned the pits entirely in favor of taking a dump or a piss right in the middle of the floor. Its a pain to have to stop and roll up the hem of my pants before I walk in.
Last night we did yet more Osh volunteer bonding over a Kyrgyz pop concert. It was a surprisingly good time! Kyrgyz concerts always tend to be a little long and slow for our American attention spans, but this one was excellent. The singing and dancing was good, and the costumes were great. We were amazed to see the first number by the girl group done in matching traditional Kyrgyz dresses and hats, followed by a solo by one of the girls in a shiny black cat woman suit and stiletto boots. Kyrgyzstan will never cease to surprise me. Of course, one of the performers spotted our row and made some mention about the foreigners. We all stand out on our own, but when there are ten of us in any one place we become a huge disruption.
March 9, 2010
I just got a package in the mail with a few month-old magazines in it (thanks, Mom!) and once again, realized how out of touch with America I am. It gets worse and worse by the month. However, I feel like I have the unique opportunity to look at American pop culture almost from the point of view of an outsider. I figure that I won't have very many more opportunities to do this, even if I do spend more time out of the States, with the rate that globalization is increasing. I thought I would take a moment to comment on my observations:
1. Ellen Degeneres is a judge on American Idol? I am having a hard time just imagining how this is working out.
2. After all that fuss about Leno being replaced by Conan, the change was made and then they switched back again, all in the period of time I have been in K-stan. Who screwed up there?
3. A while ago I was looking through a Kyrgyz magazine and started to skim through an article that was underneath a strange picture of pointy-eared blue people. It was the summary of an American movie called Avatar. I had a vague memory of some people who had been in America over Christmas telling me that it was very popular, so I read on. From what I could tell with my crappy Kyrgyz reading skills, the story takes place in a forest on some planet and is about some guy that falls in love with the chief of the blue people's daughter. I figured I must have had it confused with a different, less-popular movie, but now I see that it is the most expensive and highest-grossing film of all time, in addition to being a nominee for a best picture Oscar. About blue people in space?
4. Who the heck are Taylor and Taylor? And why are there so many references to them?
5. I saw adds for two Love Actually wannabe's, one called Valentine's Day and the other simply called Love. Please tell me at least one of these is a joke. They both look absolutely terrible.
6. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland 3D? Sounds crazy.
7. A movie version of The Lovely Bones came out. The book was so painful to read, I can't imagine how they made a movie of it.
8. Lady Gaga. Need I say more? (This is one aspect of pop culture that we have been able to keep up with, hallelujah)
9. They recorded a new version of We Are The World. Please. Actually, just a few days ago I was watching a DVD with my host sister of Kyrgyz pop star Omar's performances. It included some scenes recorded from a Russian talent contest with singers from all over the world (mostly from Eastern Europe and Central Asia). There were about 20 or 30 singers in all, and they did quite a few group numbers. One of the numbers was (you guessed it) We Are The World. It was sad.
March 20, 2010
The weather is a bit crazy now. Yesterday I was very comfortable outside in just a t-shirt and now it is snowing. Ick. I had some things to do in Uzgen this morning and came home soaked and freezing. Now I am enjoying being all cozy inside the quiet house. My whole family is gone, but they left me a chunk of cold rotisserie chicken and some Russian pancakes with this tasty grass stuff that I forgot the name for. Yum! They also left me a big slice of fat and a piece of what I will call a “sausage” for lack of a better word, but it is really just a bunch of coarsely chopped up parts shoved into an intestine. I don't know why they continue to give these things to me—they know I won't eat it. On the subject of food (one of these days I should calculate the percent of words that talk about food in this blog) I recently tried a new strange food: basil jello. It actually tasted pretty good, but it was so strange to me with the texture and everything, so I didn't eat much. It made me wonder if they would think that our fruity jello is strange? It really makes more sense for it to be a savory dish since the gelatin is an animal product.
Anyway, I am assuming that the special food and the current absence of my family has to do with yet another March holiday—Nooruz, which is tomorrow. Apparently this is the biggie holiday of the year for this part of the world. This week Kyrgyz people have also been celebrating the 5-year anniversary of their revolution. On Tuesday, my school had an assembly to celebrate it, and there was a feature on the news that showed our assembly as well as several students reading essays about the revolution. It was very exciting for our whole community.
Other March celebrations included the Mr. and Ms. competitions that pitted a few boys and girls from each of the villages five schools against each other. I went to both, but my patience didn't last till the end of either show. For the boys' competition, the electricity went off minutes before they were ready to start (which was still an hour later than when it was supposed to start) and after a failed attempt at going on with the show without microphones, everyone waited for the electricity to come back on. My site mate and I were ready to give up and leave at several points, but kept getting convinced to stay. When we finally did leave after waiting for two hours, one student ran out to get us before we even reached the street to tell us that it had come back on. I was surprised to see that the competition included a push-up contest. The girls' show, which happened a few days later, started only 1 ½ hours late and did not include push-ups, but the girls seemed to change into a different traditional Kyrgyz costume every five minutes, so that was fun.
In other news, a new education center opened up in our village offering computer classes and English and Chinese language lessons. It looks like I'll be going there a few times a month to do conversation practice with the English class. We'll see how that goes. Also, I'm on spring break for the next week, or week and a half, or two weeks. Everyone keeps telling me something different. It is perfect timing for a break. I hope the weather gets nice again and this snow and rain goes away!
March 21, 2010
Crazy weather still. It snowed all night and its snowing still. Not flakes now, but light poofy clumps. For New Years, the students had made decorations by tying tiny pieces of cotton to strings and hanging them from the gym ceiling. Thats what it looks like now. I've never seen anything quite like it. It is awfully pretty, but its also warm enough that most of the snow on the ground is melting into slushy puddles, so I'm hanging out inside.
Its the first day of spring break and I'm pretty much bored to death right now. My Apa and sister went to the city yesterday when I was gone and must have decided to stay there because of the bad weather. I saw my Ata and brother outside shoveling a bit when I got up, but they gave up after a few minutes and have been sleeping ever since. The electricity has been out all day so far, and my phone and ipod are dead because I forgot to plug them in last night. I killed my computer's battery before 11 am after typing up some lesson plans and then watching a movie (I'm handwriting this now and will type it later). I can't find my watch, so unless I go into the room where my host dad and brother are sleeping, I can't even tell what time it is. I would just go and hang out with friends in the city, but the combo of the snow and dead phone makes me nervous.
I'm not seeing any of the fun Nooruz stuff that my students have been telling me about. There's a cake in a box sitting out, so I'm assuming there will be some cake-eating later on. And hopefully power too.
Update: the power came on at 7:20 pm! Until that time I managed to sort through all my paperwork and handouts from PC stuff, straighten up the books on my windowsill, clean out my closet, read the first 100 pages of “Absolom, Absolom,” and handwrite five more pages of a story I started writing months ago. Not too shabby! Much more productive than a typical day for me in the village. Also, since the ladies of my family were gone and I don't cook with Kyrgyz cooking equipment, my host dad and brother were forced to make their own food, something I have never seen before. I am still trying to rehydrate myself from the few bites of the extremely oily and salty fried potatoes they made.
March 24, 2010
Another holiday—Tulip Revolution Day! I love March in K-stan. If only it hadn’t suddenly become winter again.
This is Uzgen city from above. Sometimes I forget that I live in a developing country until I see a view like this.
Some old architecture in Uzgen.
This is the pride of my photo collection. The boys are yelling "take a picture!" They are on their way to get water. Even little kids have responsibilities in the village. These two are lucky to have a ride!
