October 15, 2009
Today was an interesting day for me. It seemed like a normal morning, except for that it was really cold. (I can't figure out how to dress in this country! It is always freezing when I walk to school and hot when I walk home. I can't win.) First of all, I only taught one lesson because there was some guest speaker that came, so I sat around and did some planning with my counterpart and then headed home at about 10:30. I started to worry when I saw the good rug spread out in front of the door--indicating that my family would be having guests. If there were any doubts of the seriousness of this guesting, I only had to turn the corner to see my host dad and brother skinning a sheep. I didn't really want to be around the smell of said sheep-skinning since I had been kind of sick on Tuesday after eating what I suspect was a bad melon, so I hid in my room.
Later, I could hear my host mom running around frantically, so I went to help her the best I could. This really was quite the guesting. One of the neighbor ladies was in the kitchen helping to cook, and the table was really set to impress. Once Apa stopped panicking a bit, I finally figured out that my host brother's bride-to-be's family would be coming over to finalize the engagement.
Now, I wasn't quite sure that Nurgaze was actually getting married, even though there had been a lot of talk about it lately. This is just more evidence of how little I understand of my everyday life. Later, after all the guests had gone, I had a nice chat with my host mom about Kyrgyz customs while we cleaned up the table. I guess that when a couple becomes engaged, the bride's family typically comes over to the grooms house where the grooms family kills a sheep, feeds them, and basically grovels at their feet in the hopes that they won't suddenly decide to give their daughter away to someone else. Apa complained about how tired she was and how much work she did that day to make and serve the in-laws food, but she says that it is all good in the long run because now Nurgaze's wife will do all of the work and she can have more time to rest. Lovely.
Anyway, I'm glad I didn't know about this trying to impress the in-laws thing before, because I would have worried that I scared them away. I had been helping in the kitchen, and when there was a lull, I grabbed a bowl of soup and took it to my room for lunch. As I was eating, I could hear the in-laws in the next room finishing up their soup, and then moving around a bit before the next course comes. I knew that they must have been poking around a bit, because, really, who wouldn't? Also, they are Kyrgyz, so they have no concept of privacy. For this reason, they shamelessly opened up my bedroom door to come face to face with this strange white girl sitting at a table by herself, playing sudoku. Talk about a skeleton in the closet.
They very confusedly said hello in Russian, and I smiled, stood up, and said, “Hello, my name is Audra” in Kyrgyz, and left it at that. Serves you right for poking around, I thought. They kind of slowly backed away from the door. Apa came in and said simply, “thats the American who lives with us,” and left it at that. Awesome.
Anyway, I was glad that I had changed my club to an earlier time so that I had an excuse to get out of there. I even brought a book along, planning to sit around in the schoolyard afterward since it was a nice day, to delay my return home a bit. Anyway, there was no need for that because my students invited invited me to what they called a concert, but what I would call a 9th grade dance. Ignoring the fact that the kids set up a typical Kyrgyz feast for themselves and did some traditional dancing at the beginning of the evening, this was pretty much exactly like an American 9th grade dance, which I found to be so surprising. If anything, it was a bit racier, with games like this one where two boys held apples in their mouths and two girls had to race to eat the most out of the apple before time was called. It was really fun to watch, but I can't imagine an American high school allowing their 9th graders to do the same thing.
I left during the slow dance, as the couples were awkwardly shuffling back and forth in what must be the international 9th grade style, wondering how these girls who eat apples out of boys' mouths and dance with them and joke around with them, how do they come to be the girls whose parents decide their future over a dead sheep, signing them up for about thirty years of slavery? And are they ok with this? I just don't know. I can't wait to meet Nurgaze's wife-to-be. I hope we can be friends and I can learn Kyrgyz well enough to ask her.
October 20, 2009
I am trying to figure out how I am still able to stand. Yesterday, the next-door neighbors' son got married and they had a huge party. They dragged in a big sound system and the music started at about three in the afternoon. It continued until 7:30 a.m.
Since my bedroom has a window facing the neighbors' yard, my host mom made up a bed in the dining room for me (she is a master at folding the cushions just right and I can't figure out exactly how she does it), but it didn't make all that much difference as I didn't sleep a bit. This morning when I got up, my host mom asked if I had slept, and I said no, did you? She didn't, but didn't seem the least bit upset by it.
Just as I left for school, a car passed me with the huge sound speakers piled in the trunk. Once I got to school, I told my counterpart why I hadn't slept, and she showed no reaction. “Is that normal for Kyrgyz people?” I asked. “Yes,” she answered in a tone of voice that suggested that it was a stupid question. I told her that in America someone would have called the police. To that she answered, “I think we like weddings in Kyrgyzstan more than Americans do.”
Real time update:
My host mom just came in to get me to go “see the neighbors' new kalin.” Kalin means daughter-in-law, but the position of kalin involves so much more than is associated with a typical western daughter-in-law. In fact, during my first day with my training host family I was under the impression that their kalin was hired help. Anyway, the way my host mom said this, it was like she was inviting me to see their new car. And she was obviously not under the impression that she was going to have to explain all of these traditions to me. She told me to bring my camera, and then as we were heading out the door, she looked at me and said, “What, didn't you bring a joluk (headscarf)? You must bring a joluk to give to the kalin.” Well, how was I supposed to know that?
When we got over to the neighbors' house, the proud mother of the groom told us that the bride was sleeping and she would go wake her up. I waited outside the bedroom door, but my host mom dragged me in and explained that the kalin must stay in the room all day today. The room was divided in half with a curtain hung from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. The mother of the groom called the kalin's name and a girl wearing a white headscarf emerged with her head bowed. She wore sweatpants and ratty old green slippers that had “LOVE” printed on them in English. She held a large white veil over her head and shoulders and bowed repeatedly before us. My host mom motioned that I should drape the headscarf I brought over her shoulders, and I did so. Then I took a few pictures of her and the family. All the time while everyone else was laughing and smiling, the kalin kept her head bowed and her expression serious. As we walked back to the house, my host mom asked, “Did you like her? Wasn't she beautiful?” and I agreed, though I wanted badly to say “well, I never got a good look at her. She kept her head bowed and didn't smile at all, and I find it difficult to decide if I like someone when they don't speak and don't show any expression at all.” But even if I had the language skills to say that, I should recognize that this is simply their tradition and I should respect it.
Ok, on to other things. I might have said this before, but I so often feel like I am doing one of those activities where you have to explain an everyday concept to a Martian, but with some extra complications. Sometimes I am the Earthling and sometimes I am the Martian. My vocabulary is always cut at least in half, and the grammar structures at my disposal are extremely limited. It is a difficult game that my counterpart and I, even though she speaks pretty good English, find ourselves caught in a lot. One time I mentioned “roasting marshmallows” in passing, and she stopped me to explain what both words mean. Try explaining what a marshmallow is, even to a fluent English speaker. Then try explaining why you would roast it. I simply had to give up. We are even though, because at a party I was offered to try a bowl of this dip that was the color and consistency of refried beans, but tasted like cream cheese that has gone bad. I asked my counterpart what it was, and she only got as far as telling me that there is milk and sugar in it before she had to give up.
Today in my 7-8th grade club I wanted to do some Halloween vocabulary. I assumed that they would be at least slightly familiar with Halloween because my host sister and the girls on my street know quite a bit about it and even asked me if we could all make Jack O' Lanterns together. I neglected to remember that these girls go to a different school that has had volunteers for quite a few years. My kids had no idea, other than a vague acknowledgement that they might have seen a carved pumpkin before. Now, try explaining Halloween when your vocabulary is quartered. Poor kids. They were so confused.
October 24, 2009
Right now I am in Osh for a few days helping out with a camp for high school aged kids. Yesterday was the first day, and I just helped with leading some games and team-builders and stuff. On Sunday and Monday I am apparently facilitating some sessions on communication skills and cross-cultural friendship, and at some point I will help them make friendship bracelets. I love the kids at my school, but it is such a nice change to hang out with kids whose English is more advanced. It is a group of mixed nationalities, too, which is a switch from my almost entirely Kyrgyz school. More on this later, I suppose.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
INSANITY
September 27, 2009
Yesterday morning I woke up in the early hours to go the the bathroom. As I stumbled through the hall, I smelled something strange that reminded me of the bazaar. The door to the room next to mine was open, and I glanced into it as I walked by. This room is fairly small and just had a low square table sitting in the middle of it. In the middle of the table was a large mixing bowl full of raw, bloody meat. That explained the bazaar smell. I was reminded of a scene in a movie (I forget what the movie it), where the character has a hallucination that he sees his own brain sitting on the ground in front of him. I stood there and looked at it for a while, trying to figure out why the meat was there and who put it there. It was awfully early for someone to have gotten up and put it there, and I didn't remember hearing anyone coming in the night before. And why in that room? I have only seen them use that room for eating once when they had a huge guesting, and they never prepare food in there. So odd.
I wanted to do some laundry today, but with all of the dust that the house builders kick up, I think it would be counterproductive. Apa brought out the “washing machine” and asked me if I wanted to use it, but I hate that thing, and I would rather take the time to scrub my stuff by hand and get it more clean and not wrecked. Oh well, I have enough clothes left behind by other volunteers that I can just do some underwear and let the rest of it keep piling up for a while.
The builders have been here for at least three weeks now, and I wonder if they are getting sick of being here. They all sleep in the room connected to the kitchen that Apa usually uses as a dough-rolling surface and storage shed for dusty junk. When the place was first built, it must have been intended as a dining room, because it has a built in platform for eating on, which is typical of a lot of Kyrgyz houses. It is kind of gross and dusty, I think, and it has to be chilly at night. The platform has just enough room for the four men to sleep side by side, and they also eat all their meals there. They keep to themselves all the time and I never even see them talking with my host dad or brother, which seems strange to me since we have all been living in close quarters for the past few weeks. The compound isn't that big, and plus, there is only one outhouse, so there is a bit of a mad rush in the morning when everyone wakes up.
I would like to just sit and watch them work sometimes because it is absolutely fascinating, but that is kind of weird, and I always feel uncomfortable when I walk past them and they all stare, probably still trying to figure out why a random American is living here. I wonder if anyone has explained it to them?
Anyway, they have been building this house completely by hand, and it is a very interesting process. I love watching them throw the mud bricks from the ground up to the scaffolding. They have a very practiced rhythm to it, and they make it look like the bricks are nothing more than bean bags. I am excited to see how this house will turn out.
October 8, 2009
I have realized that making frequent trips to the city is essential for my mental health. It’s not like I am completely isolated. I meet up with the two other volunteers in my region during the week occasionally, I have a phone, and then there are the two English-speaking teachers at my school that I can talk to, but there are always these little things that wear me down and make me a little bit on edge. Just now, I was watching an episode of “The Office” on my computer. It was the last episode of season 2, where Jim finally tells Pam he is in love with her. I got choked up. I'm not kidding. I actually cried while watching “The Office.” Another example: last night I was reading a book of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne that I inherited from past volunteers. To be honest, Hawthorne drives me nuts, but I always feel like I should give him another chance, so I am making my way through this book a little at a time. There was this horrible story about a minister who wears a black veil, symbolic of some past sin or something stupid like that. Now, I need to say a bit about this really unreasonable fear that I have. In this area, many women wear full, burka-like garments. At first I could always feel myself be a stupid westerner and stare with my mouth open while these women walked past. Now I hardly notice it anymore. However, there are other women that cover themselves in another manner, with one scarf covering their entire face with another scarf tied over that in the typical Muslim fashion. This never fails to creep me out, and I have had three or four nightmares since I have been here that feature these covered women. Anyway, I was reading this story last night, and I couldn't finish it because I was scared. How ridiculous is that?
OK, now on to these little things that wear me down to the point that I become this nut case. Last week I was in Uzgen to run some errands and hang out with some volunteers for a bit. I ended up heading back to the village in a rush because I spent about a half hour at the post office trying to get an envelope mailed, and I was going to be late for my club. I climbed in a taxi at the taxi stand and hoped that it would fill up quickly so we could go. It did fill up quickly, but unfortunately one of the passengers was a very, very drunk older man, who was deposited into the seat next to me, leaving me squashed in the middle seat of the Tico, probably the smallest car ever made. Anyway, long story short, the man was bothering me so much that I made the driver pull over and I switched seats with the young man in the front, even though the ride is only about 20 minutes and I was in a hurry. I usually don't let things like that get to me, but I realized that I wouldn't put up with that kind of treatment in the states, so why should I let it fly here?
Last Saturday was Teacher's Day, and the other teachers at my school convinced me to stay in town for the festivities. I wasn't too excited about this because there had just been another teacher's party in honor of the director's son's wedding (they find every excuse for a party here, I swear) and it wasn't a lot of fun for me. There were two tables in two different rooms and I found myself sitting at the one with no English teachers, but with the young male teacher that all the women are trying to set me up with. It was a very long afternoon for me. They managed to get me to drink enough so that I participated in their little singing bowl game, and now that they have heard me sing, I am going to have to do it all the time. Great.
However, the Teacher's Day party was great. All the teachers gathered together in the cafeteria, the grounds keeper-janitor guy cut up some brush from behind the outhouse and started a big fire on the playground, and a few moms cooked a ton of food on it. Beside the food, there were games and dancing, and a lot of toasts, which I usually hate, but for some reason it was really fun this time. It might have had something to do with the fact that this party happened to have wine in addition to vodka and cognac, and although Central Asian wine is really horrible and, according to custom, must be drunk in shots out of a tea cup, it is definitely preferable to vodka.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Kyrgyz Humor
September 25, 2009
My six-month anniversary is fast approaching (I left the US on the March 28th, I believe). My language learning, which has been at a steady climb since I started has started to level off a bit without my tutor. I have been getting really lazy with my speaking (the side effect of having a really chatty host mom, I think), but I understand quite a bit. Now one of the teachers at my school has a plan to teach me one Russian word a day in exchange for one English word a day. Sounds like a good plan to me. Also, Peace Corps informed me that I could begin taking Uzbek lessons if I wanted to. Maybe I will take up that offer later, but right now I think learning two languages at once is enough, don't you? Anyway, my fake bazaar Uzbek has served me well so far, so I can just work on perfecting that.
School is still going well. It gets easier every day, but it is so different from American schools that I sometimes feel like I am on a different planet. Things that I would consider universal school practices completely baffle my students. I sprang a vocabulary quiz on my 10th graders, and the concept was completely foreign to them. The idea that copying work is bad is also completely foreign. Students do their classmates' work for them right in front of me and expect to be rewarded for their kindness, and are baffled when I scold them for it. I have yet to have a class where more than four students out of 25 have done their homework. I see this as a lack of interest and motivation, but this doesn't seem to be the case during the actual lesson. In all my classes, hands always shoot up into the air when I ask a question. Today I had my 10th graders write sentences about magazine pictures, and the ones that finished early asked if they could take another picture and write more sentences. It is all one big mystery to me.
Wednesday was a very mysterious day for me. It was National Kyrgyz Language Day, so there was an all-school assembly. There were a few soviet-style processions, and then some kids and teachers read poems and sang songs and there was some dancing. There was a group of kids who sang as a choir and did a choral reading. These kids, who I guess are part of some club or something, all wear these red scarves tied around their collars (the uniform requires a white collared shirt and black skirt or pants), but during their performance they had the scarf draped over their arm held in front of them like a waiter's towel. At some point in the assembly, someone called the teachers to do something and they shuffled me along with them while I asked what we were doing. One teacher just said something about “galstuk” (Russian for neck tie). It turns out that the teachers were supposed to tie the scarves around the kids' necks as part of the ceremony. I didn't get it at all. One of the performances in the assembly was a solo dance by a 4th grade girl. She did a belly dance routine complete with a fringe-y belly dancer outfit that is not age appropriate by American standards. I had seen this kind of dancing by little girls before during training, but I hadn't seen it in the south yet. It is very strange and makes me very uncomfortable. The old teacher next to me, who I had been chatting with in Kyrgyz, asked me if I liked the dancing, and I answered honestly, saying that she is a very good dancer, and American girls don't know how to dance like that. “But is it good?” she asked. “Yes, good,” I said. “Bad.” she said, and I could see she had set me up. She explained that it is ooyat (shameful), and good Kyrgyz girls should cover their bellies. I tried to ask why it is allowed in school if it is ooyat, but my Kyrgyz doesn't reach that far.
Now that I have been here for a while, I feel myself getting teased a lot more. The Kyrgyz sense of humor is completely beyond me, but then I think that my sense of humor is beyond everyone, so we are even. My host dad teases me the most. The other night he pulled a cooked sheep head out of nowhere (this was the third one in two weeks. I don't know where they keep coming from) while I was eating my soup, and carved it up. Cooked sheep heads are pretty gross looking anyway, but they are even worse when they are getting cut up. He wrenched off one of the ears and handed it across the table to me. I politely refused, but as usual, polite refusal doesn't work. Like always, I said I would taste it, so I did (barely) and put it aside. After a few minutes, he cut off the top lip and did the same. After that, he cut out the roof of the mouth and handed the wobbly flap of flesh over to me. I must have looked like I was going to puke, because he said, “tamasha!” (joke!) and took it back. He cut the piece of skin in half and handed part of it back to me. “This is the good part,” he said. I told a tiny white lie here and said that in my religion, we don't eat meat from the head. It was okay, because my host sister came by and devoured the whole pile in seconds.
My six-month anniversary is fast approaching (I left the US on the March 28th, I believe). My language learning, which has been at a steady climb since I started has started to level off a bit without my tutor. I have been getting really lazy with my speaking (the side effect of having a really chatty host mom, I think), but I understand quite a bit. Now one of the teachers at my school has a plan to teach me one Russian word a day in exchange for one English word a day. Sounds like a good plan to me. Also, Peace Corps informed me that I could begin taking Uzbek lessons if I wanted to. Maybe I will take up that offer later, but right now I think learning two languages at once is enough, don't you? Anyway, my fake bazaar Uzbek has served me well so far, so I can just work on perfecting that.
School is still going well. It gets easier every day, but it is so different from American schools that I sometimes feel like I am on a different planet. Things that I would consider universal school practices completely baffle my students. I sprang a vocabulary quiz on my 10th graders, and the concept was completely foreign to them. The idea that copying work is bad is also completely foreign. Students do their classmates' work for them right in front of me and expect to be rewarded for their kindness, and are baffled when I scold them for it. I have yet to have a class where more than four students out of 25 have done their homework. I see this as a lack of interest and motivation, but this doesn't seem to be the case during the actual lesson. In all my classes, hands always shoot up into the air when I ask a question. Today I had my 10th graders write sentences about magazine pictures, and the ones that finished early asked if they could take another picture and write more sentences. It is all one big mystery to me.
Wednesday was a very mysterious day for me. It was National Kyrgyz Language Day, so there was an all-school assembly. There were a few soviet-style processions, and then some kids and teachers read poems and sang songs and there was some dancing. There was a group of kids who sang as a choir and did a choral reading. These kids, who I guess are part of some club or something, all wear these red scarves tied around their collars (the uniform requires a white collared shirt and black skirt or pants), but during their performance they had the scarf draped over their arm held in front of them like a waiter's towel. At some point in the assembly, someone called the teachers to do something and they shuffled me along with them while I asked what we were doing. One teacher just said something about “galstuk” (Russian for neck tie). It turns out that the teachers were supposed to tie the scarves around the kids' necks as part of the ceremony. I didn't get it at all. One of the performances in the assembly was a solo dance by a 4th grade girl. She did a belly dance routine complete with a fringe-y belly dancer outfit that is not age appropriate by American standards. I had seen this kind of dancing by little girls before during training, but I hadn't seen it in the south yet. It is very strange and makes me very uncomfortable. The old teacher next to me, who I had been chatting with in Kyrgyz, asked me if I liked the dancing, and I answered honestly, saying that she is a very good dancer, and American girls don't know how to dance like that. “But is it good?” she asked. “Yes, good,” I said. “Bad.” she said, and I could see she had set me up. She explained that it is ooyat (shameful), and good Kyrgyz girls should cover their bellies. I tried to ask why it is allowed in school if it is ooyat, but my Kyrgyz doesn't reach that far.
Now that I have been here for a while, I feel myself getting teased a lot more. The Kyrgyz sense of humor is completely beyond me, but then I think that my sense of humor is beyond everyone, so we are even. My host dad teases me the most. The other night he pulled a cooked sheep head out of nowhere (this was the third one in two weeks. I don't know where they keep coming from) while I was eating my soup, and carved it up. Cooked sheep heads are pretty gross looking anyway, but they are even worse when they are getting cut up. He wrenched off one of the ears and handed it across the table to me. I politely refused, but as usual, polite refusal doesn't work. Like always, I said I would taste it, so I did (barely) and put it aside. After a few minutes, he cut off the top lip and did the same. After that, he cut out the roof of the mouth and handed the wobbly flap of flesh over to me. I must have looked like I was going to puke, because he said, “tamasha!” (joke!) and took it back. He cut the piece of skin in half and handed part of it back to me. “This is the good part,” he said. I told a tiny white lie here and said that in my religion, we don't eat meat from the head. It was okay, because my host sister came by and devoured the whole pile in seconds.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Try the gray stuff, it's delicious! Don't believe me? Ask the dishes.
August 30, 2009
I have another reason that I can't get married in Kyrgyzstan. In addition to not being able to cut carrots thin enough for ash, , not having pierced ears (they give earrings instead of rings to get engaged. The word for “to be engaged” literally means “to put on earrings) and making my real mother very sad, I can't get a joluk (headscarf) to stay on my head.
Today I won a nice pink paisley scarf for losing a footrace at a neighborhood get-together, and one woman made a big to-do about tying the scarf on my head, and then calling everyone over to feel how soft my hair is and how the scarf just slides off it. Thanks lady. Once the scarf was on, I asked “Do I look Kyrgyz?” Some people laughed, and one person said, “No, Russian.”
The race was part of the tradition that honors a baby taking his or her first steps. At my host niece's party only the little kids took part in the race. (Actually I got a kick out of how my host family was deciding who would run. The discussion was almost identical to the one that takes place almost every year with my real family at Easter, deciding who should participate in the egg hunt. At the end it was settled by Aijamal and me insisting that we really, really didn't want to run.) This party was much larger and included the whole street. The little kids ran first, and then the older girls were supposed to run. Again, I said I didn't want to participate, mostly because I knew they were giving out cash for prizes, and I didn't want them to press money on me. I asked if I could run with the married women, because I assumed that they wouldn't be given cash. In the end, I was dragged to the starting line with the girls, and it was a good thing too, because while we girls each got a scarf and some money (I refused to take it, but they stuffed 20 com into the waistband of my pants. Gotta love these people.) the married women got much bigger prizes. The winner got a big rug, and my apa, who came in next to last, got a more expensive scarf and 100 com. When the men ran, they all got kalpaks, and also things like new dress shirts, bottles of vodka, and pocket knives.
August 31, 2009
First of all an update on yesterday's post:
My hair was the topic of conversation again later yesterday afternoon. My Kyrgyz tutor was telling me about a new business that his family opened up. It is a Uiger medicine store (I hear about these Uiger people all the time, but I know absolutely nothing about them. No offense to them, but its another one of those words that sounds like it comes from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings) that sells natural Halal alternative medicines. My tutor was giving me a sales pitch, and suggested that I could take a medicine that would make my hair grow, since I have few hairs on my head. Nice of him to bring it up.
Anyway,
Today is a Kyrgyz holiday – Independence Day, I guess. Everyone in my house is celebrating by taking naps and watching movies. Nice. We went to a party last night and didn't get home until about 2 a.m., and my poor host mom and sister, who are still observing the fast, had to get up before dawn if they wanted to eat breakfast, so they deserve a nap.
I am getting better at cooking breakfast and lunch for myself in my family's kitchen. My savior is the egg. Eggs are a fabulous food, and they taste the same in any country. Without Apa breathing down my neck in the kitchen, I have been able to come up with some tasty creations, all with eggs, and usually adapting Kyrgyz recipes to my own tastes, like making this Kyrgyz French toast stuff and eating it with jam instead of salt (Apa has already told me she thinks this is very strange), or frying up some leftover ash with an egg and some onions and spicing it up with some hot sauce from home.
Here's a really awesome easy Kyrgyz recipe that is great even without alteration if you have some eggplants laying around (sadly they are out of season here. Too bad, because this was one of my favorite foods, and I have to wait until next year). All you do is dip round slices of eggplant in egg with a little salt and pepper and fry the slices in oil and slices of garlic. Then make a little sandwich with two slices of eggplant and a slice of tomato and some of the garlic in between. Yum! They are best when they are hot, but they are pretty good cold too.
September 1, 2009
Well, I survived the first day of school. At first I was terrified, but once I found out that the first day of school only consists of an all-school assembly followed by homeroom meetings and that I wouldn't be having any lessons, I was relieved. However, somehow it slipped everyone's mind that I was expected to give a speech in front of the whole school. The girl at the podium was making some announcements, and I was kind of tuning out like I usually do when people aren't speaking directly to me, but I picked “...volunteer from America...” out of the Kyrgyz (easy to do because “volunteer” and “America” sound about the same as they do in English. Makes my life a little easier. Just like how I send silent “thank you”s to my real parents all the time for being a “sekretariat” and an “ingeneer” who makes “traktor”s. I love cognates.). The English teacher beside me nudged me and told me I should go up to the microphone and make a speech. “What should I say?” I asked her a bit too angrily as I got up.
“You can congratulate them a happy holiday,” she answered.
“Uhh..., what's the holdiay?”
“It is the National Day of Education.” Her English is very good, but she speaks slowly, and I was already standing there kind of stupidly while the whole school waited for me to move up to the podium. There was some Enrique Englaisias music playing. My grand entrance music, you know. I asked her how to wish a happy holiday in Kyrgyz (luckily it is short) and I ran up to the podium, trying to figure out what else to say. In the end, it went something like this:
“Hello, now I am learning Kyrgyz, and lots I understand, but few words I can speak. For that reason, happy holiday! Okay, that's it.”
I have to say, I was pretty proud of myself for pulling out the present progressive tense and a phrase using “can” under such high-pressure circumstances. I sat back down and asked the teacher on the other side of me, who teaches Kyrgyz class, if I spoke correctly. She said yes, but I think she might have been just being nice.
Really, I just love translating Kyrgyz literally into English. Sometimes the phrases sound like they should have “Confucius says:” in front of them, and sometimes they sound completely idiotic. Like what my host sister said to me just a bit ago to call me to supper: “Walk. Food we eat.” While I was eating, I glanced at a celebrity gossip magazine laying around that had an article about Barack Obama. When my family is done with it, I want to snag it and make a project out of translating it literally into English. I have a feeling it will be very funny, since the information that I picked out of it so far is already ridiculously mundane, such as the fact that Barack is 187 centimeters tall and 7 centimeters taller than Michelle. Wow.
Ugg, I just tried again to wash the fish smell out of my hands from dinner and was unsuccessful. Ata brought home a big smoked fish as a treat (yesterday's treat was roasted horse meat, which was actually delicious!) and the way my family dug into it was a little bit disgusting to me. I don't want to be a snob, but sometimes I wish that my family wouldn't eat things like cavemen. The fish itself wasn't all that bad, but it was so salty it made my eyes water. I set myself up for eating a big chunk though, because when Ata asked if I like fish, I said that I really, really like fish in America, but I haven't had good fish in Kyrgyzstan. He said that he got a really good fish today, and brought out the salty smoked thing. Bleh. I bet Apa will expect me to eat some for breakfast tomorrow, too.
September 3, 2009
Teaching is hard.
Yesterday, I taught all six periods of the school day from 8:30-1:30. They kind of figure out schedules as they go, I gather, so this will not be the norm. It looks like I will end up teaching four periods a day Monday-Friday – much more manageable. But now the assistant director, who is making the schedule, is concerned that it will still be too much for me if I am doing clubs too, but I think it will be okay, as long as I schedule myself a nice break to go home and eat lunch.
Damn it! I just had to chase a chicken out of my room AGAIN, and stepped on a fresh present it left me on the rug in the process. As much as I love having fresh eggs all the time, I HATE chickens.
Anyway, back to school. We (me and my counterpart teacher) started out by giving the kids Anglo-American names. I was going to have them pick for themselves, but the names they came up with were along the lines of Beyonce and Madonna. So, I wrote up a bunch of names on cards and had them draw them out of a hat. It went pretty well, but I never realized how much irregular spelling goes on in English names. I know that more than a few were confused with the pronunciation of their names. One poor girl's real name is Kanekei, and was given the name Christina. The students all wrote their real names on the back of their English name cards, and Kanekei/Christina made a valiant effort to spell hers out in Latin letters like this: Ka Chanekei. Why didn't I just do Kristina and leave it at that? No one would ever know that one spelling is more common than the other.
Its fun for the kids, and it works out for me, too, since Kyrgyz names can be ridiculously difficult. And it seems like if there are easy names, like Eliza or Muhammad, there happen to be two or three in one class, which makes things difficult anyway. I think I did a pretty good job of eliminating doubles, but I had to rack my brains to come up with the huge list I came up with.
Again, my ego is swelling at an enormous rate, since everyone wants to be in my classes. It was also encouraging (but also a bit annoying) to hear the kids who had been in my summer club show off everything they learned to their classmates and also imitate my Audra-isms, complete with my tone of voice: “Okay,” “Hey, guys”(when trying to get attention), and “Oh my gosh!” (Although I am still dismayed that they didn't catch on to “what's up.”) One boy in the seventh grade who I have never met before gave me an apple and won my instant affection, which is, I suppose what he was going for with it.
In a closing note: I have been listening to my itunes on shuffle and it just came across the Urinetown soundtrack. You know, for some reason, I don't find it quite as funny as I used to, now that I don't have access to plumbing. Its a shame.
Later:
I just got finished eating supper, and I was reminded that I need to sing the praises of this new food that I have just discovered. It is probably the strangest food I have ever seen, and against all my expectations it turned out to be delicious(all other weird Kyrgyz foods have turned out to be as disgusting as they should be. Salty yogurt balls and fermented horse milk. Ick). This food is so strange that I don't think that I can properly describe it with words, but I will take on the challenge. When I first saw it, it looked like a square block of damp cement or wet gray sand on a plate. Apa ordered me to eat it, and I was scared that it might be some kind of meat pate or something like that, so I asked what it was. She said a word I somewhat recognized but couldn't place, so I had no choice but to just taste it. Pulling a piece away, I realized that the texture of it was something like cedar mulch, but it was a little bit sticky like sugar. As soon as I tasted it, I remembered what the word was: sunflower. The gray stuff tasted like sunflower seeds and sugar, and Apa informed me that the food is made with sunflower, sugar, and oil or butter or fat (it is all the same word and it drives me nuts), but I have no idea how it works. The texture is so strange, and once you chew it, it kind of melts and then gets hard on you teeth like a Butterfinger. So strange! It’s like space food.
I have another reason that I can't get married in Kyrgyzstan. In addition to not being able to cut carrots thin enough for ash, , not having pierced ears (they give earrings instead of rings to get engaged. The word for “to be engaged” literally means “to put on earrings) and making my real mother very sad, I can't get a joluk (headscarf) to stay on my head.
Today I won a nice pink paisley scarf for losing a footrace at a neighborhood get-together, and one woman made a big to-do about tying the scarf on my head, and then calling everyone over to feel how soft my hair is and how the scarf just slides off it. Thanks lady. Once the scarf was on, I asked “Do I look Kyrgyz?” Some people laughed, and one person said, “No, Russian.”
The race was part of the tradition that honors a baby taking his or her first steps. At my host niece's party only the little kids took part in the race. (Actually I got a kick out of how my host family was deciding who would run. The discussion was almost identical to the one that takes place almost every year with my real family at Easter, deciding who should participate in the egg hunt. At the end it was settled by Aijamal and me insisting that we really, really didn't want to run.) This party was much larger and included the whole street. The little kids ran first, and then the older girls were supposed to run. Again, I said I didn't want to participate, mostly because I knew they were giving out cash for prizes, and I didn't want them to press money on me. I asked if I could run with the married women, because I assumed that they wouldn't be given cash. In the end, I was dragged to the starting line with the girls, and it was a good thing too, because while we girls each got a scarf and some money (I refused to take it, but they stuffed 20 com into the waistband of my pants. Gotta love these people.) the married women got much bigger prizes. The winner got a big rug, and my apa, who came in next to last, got a more expensive scarf and 100 com. When the men ran, they all got kalpaks, and also things like new dress shirts, bottles of vodka, and pocket knives.
August 31, 2009
First of all an update on yesterday's post:
My hair was the topic of conversation again later yesterday afternoon. My Kyrgyz tutor was telling me about a new business that his family opened up. It is a Uiger medicine store (I hear about these Uiger people all the time, but I know absolutely nothing about them. No offense to them, but its another one of those words that sounds like it comes from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings) that sells natural Halal alternative medicines. My tutor was giving me a sales pitch, and suggested that I could take a medicine that would make my hair grow, since I have few hairs on my head. Nice of him to bring it up.
Anyway,
Today is a Kyrgyz holiday – Independence Day, I guess. Everyone in my house is celebrating by taking naps and watching movies. Nice. We went to a party last night and didn't get home until about 2 a.m., and my poor host mom and sister, who are still observing the fast, had to get up before dawn if they wanted to eat breakfast, so they deserve a nap.
I am getting better at cooking breakfast and lunch for myself in my family's kitchen. My savior is the egg. Eggs are a fabulous food, and they taste the same in any country. Without Apa breathing down my neck in the kitchen, I have been able to come up with some tasty creations, all with eggs, and usually adapting Kyrgyz recipes to my own tastes, like making this Kyrgyz French toast stuff and eating it with jam instead of salt (Apa has already told me she thinks this is very strange), or frying up some leftover ash with an egg and some onions and spicing it up with some hot sauce from home.
Here's a really awesome easy Kyrgyz recipe that is great even without alteration if you have some eggplants laying around (sadly they are out of season here. Too bad, because this was one of my favorite foods, and I have to wait until next year). All you do is dip round slices of eggplant in egg with a little salt and pepper and fry the slices in oil and slices of garlic. Then make a little sandwich with two slices of eggplant and a slice of tomato and some of the garlic in between. Yum! They are best when they are hot, but they are pretty good cold too.
September 1, 2009
Well, I survived the first day of school. At first I was terrified, but once I found out that the first day of school only consists of an all-school assembly followed by homeroom meetings and that I wouldn't be having any lessons, I was relieved. However, somehow it slipped everyone's mind that I was expected to give a speech in front of the whole school. The girl at the podium was making some announcements, and I was kind of tuning out like I usually do when people aren't speaking directly to me, but I picked “...volunteer from America...” out of the Kyrgyz (easy to do because “volunteer” and “America” sound about the same as they do in English. Makes my life a little easier. Just like how I send silent “thank you”s to my real parents all the time for being a “sekretariat” and an “ingeneer” who makes “traktor”s. I love cognates.). The English teacher beside me nudged me and told me I should go up to the microphone and make a speech. “What should I say?” I asked her a bit too angrily as I got up.
“You can congratulate them a happy holiday,” she answered.
“Uhh..., what's the holdiay?”
“It is the National Day of Education.” Her English is very good, but she speaks slowly, and I was already standing there kind of stupidly while the whole school waited for me to move up to the podium. There was some Enrique Englaisias music playing. My grand entrance music, you know. I asked her how to wish a happy holiday in Kyrgyz (luckily it is short) and I ran up to the podium, trying to figure out what else to say. In the end, it went something like this:
“Hello, now I am learning Kyrgyz, and lots I understand, but few words I can speak. For that reason, happy holiday! Okay, that's it.”
I have to say, I was pretty proud of myself for pulling out the present progressive tense and a phrase using “can” under such high-pressure circumstances. I sat back down and asked the teacher on the other side of me, who teaches Kyrgyz class, if I spoke correctly. She said yes, but I think she might have been just being nice.
Really, I just love translating Kyrgyz literally into English. Sometimes the phrases sound like they should have “Confucius says:” in front of them, and sometimes they sound completely idiotic. Like what my host sister said to me just a bit ago to call me to supper: “Walk. Food we eat.” While I was eating, I glanced at a celebrity gossip magazine laying around that had an article about Barack Obama. When my family is done with it, I want to snag it and make a project out of translating it literally into English. I have a feeling it will be very funny, since the information that I picked out of it so far is already ridiculously mundane, such as the fact that Barack is 187 centimeters tall and 7 centimeters taller than Michelle. Wow.
Ugg, I just tried again to wash the fish smell out of my hands from dinner and was unsuccessful. Ata brought home a big smoked fish as a treat (yesterday's treat was roasted horse meat, which was actually delicious!) and the way my family dug into it was a little bit disgusting to me. I don't want to be a snob, but sometimes I wish that my family wouldn't eat things like cavemen. The fish itself wasn't all that bad, but it was so salty it made my eyes water. I set myself up for eating a big chunk though, because when Ata asked if I like fish, I said that I really, really like fish in America, but I haven't had good fish in Kyrgyzstan. He said that he got a really good fish today, and brought out the salty smoked thing. Bleh. I bet Apa will expect me to eat some for breakfast tomorrow, too.
September 3, 2009
Teaching is hard.
Yesterday, I taught all six periods of the school day from 8:30-1:30. They kind of figure out schedules as they go, I gather, so this will not be the norm. It looks like I will end up teaching four periods a day Monday-Friday – much more manageable. But now the assistant director, who is making the schedule, is concerned that it will still be too much for me if I am doing clubs too, but I think it will be okay, as long as I schedule myself a nice break to go home and eat lunch.
Damn it! I just had to chase a chicken out of my room AGAIN, and stepped on a fresh present it left me on the rug in the process. As much as I love having fresh eggs all the time, I HATE chickens.
Anyway, back to school. We (me and my counterpart teacher) started out by giving the kids Anglo-American names. I was going to have them pick for themselves, but the names they came up with were along the lines of Beyonce and Madonna. So, I wrote up a bunch of names on cards and had them draw them out of a hat. It went pretty well, but I never realized how much irregular spelling goes on in English names. I know that more than a few were confused with the pronunciation of their names. One poor girl's real name is Kanekei, and was given the name Christina. The students all wrote their real names on the back of their English name cards, and Kanekei/Christina made a valiant effort to spell hers out in Latin letters like this: Ka Chanekei. Why didn't I just do Kristina and leave it at that? No one would ever know that one spelling is more common than the other.
Its fun for the kids, and it works out for me, too, since Kyrgyz names can be ridiculously difficult. And it seems like if there are easy names, like Eliza or Muhammad, there happen to be two or three in one class, which makes things difficult anyway. I think I did a pretty good job of eliminating doubles, but I had to rack my brains to come up with the huge list I came up with.
Again, my ego is swelling at an enormous rate, since everyone wants to be in my classes. It was also encouraging (but also a bit annoying) to hear the kids who had been in my summer club show off everything they learned to their classmates and also imitate my Audra-isms, complete with my tone of voice: “Okay,” “Hey, guys”(when trying to get attention), and “Oh my gosh!” (Although I am still dismayed that they didn't catch on to “what's up.”) One boy in the seventh grade who I have never met before gave me an apple and won my instant affection, which is, I suppose what he was going for with it.
In a closing note: I have been listening to my itunes on shuffle and it just came across the Urinetown soundtrack. You know, for some reason, I don't find it quite as funny as I used to, now that I don't have access to plumbing. Its a shame.
Later:
I just got finished eating supper, and I was reminded that I need to sing the praises of this new food that I have just discovered. It is probably the strangest food I have ever seen, and against all my expectations it turned out to be delicious(all other weird Kyrgyz foods have turned out to be as disgusting as they should be. Salty yogurt balls and fermented horse milk. Ick). This food is so strange that I don't think that I can properly describe it with words, but I will take on the challenge. When I first saw it, it looked like a square block of damp cement or wet gray sand on a plate. Apa ordered me to eat it, and I was scared that it might be some kind of meat pate or something like that, so I asked what it was. She said a word I somewhat recognized but couldn't place, so I had no choice but to just taste it. Pulling a piece away, I realized that the texture of it was something like cedar mulch, but it was a little bit sticky like sugar. As soon as I tasted it, I remembered what the word was: sunflower. The gray stuff tasted like sunflower seeds and sugar, and Apa informed me that the food is made with sunflower, sugar, and oil or butter or fat (it is all the same word and it drives me nuts), but I have no idea how it works. The texture is so strange, and once you chew it, it kind of melts and then gets hard on you teeth like a Butterfinger. So strange! It’s like space food.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Back To School Blues
August 26, 2009
September and the first day of school are quickly approaching and I am terrified. Still, I am doing my best to enjoy the last few days of summer. The sun is still really hot, but there have been some nice breezes in the last few days that make my daily treks to school for teacher meetings enjoyable. The walks have also been more interesting and even slightly treacherous as the street is all but covered with dry harvested sunflowers. The dead brown flowers are piled in huge heaps every few yards on either side of the street, somehow reminding me of the aftermath of a mass genocide (I know its morbid, but that is seriously what went through my head). The harvested seeds lay spread out on the edges of the pavement in perfect rectangles neatly lined by stones, and the heads of the flowers spill all the way into the middle of the street so that cars have to weave around the flowers and seeds like an obstacle course. A few houses have also laid out their homemade mud bricks to dry on the street, and I would hate to see a car weave around a sunflower pile to crash into a pile of bricks.
It is strange to be really busy again. I have been lesson planning all day today, and yesterday I spent several hours on it too, in addition to having a Kyrgyz lesson and helping my host mom and sister do yet more canning (salad this time). I was apparently an essential part of this process because Apa and Aijamal are observing Ramadan (locally called Orozo) which started on Friday. They needed me to taste the salad to make sure it had enough salt, and they couldn't do it without breaking their fast. I told them I didn't know how salty it was supposed to be, since I had never made canned salad before, so they had to call over a neighbor anyway.
I don't know how they are doing this fast. I would have to cheat for sure. It is too darn hot and the days are still really long. They pretty much sleep all day, but still. My host dad isn't fasting because he works at a hospital and needs to keep his energy up all day. I am glad, because I would feel really guilty if I was the only one in the house not fasting. At dinner time we all sit down together and Apa tells me and Ata to eat, but she and Aijamal wait the five minutes, or whatever, until they get the official go-ahead from TV that it is sunset. The TV station shows some footage of Mecca and some Kyrgyz imam in a kalpak says some stuff and then we all omen together. I didn't do it the first time because I figured this was a Muslim thing, and being as I am neither Muslim nor understand a word of what the imam said, I probably shouldn't participate in the prayer, but Apa and Ata gave me the stink eye, so I did it. Whatever, a little extra prayer never hurt anyone, and it is nice that they want me to participate in their family activities.
So, back to me being terrified about school starting. Right now, I am more or less fuming with frustration. I am sorry to say that I expected a lot more out of my counterpart. She had been telling me about all of these conferences and teacher trainings that she attended where she learned new and innovative teaching strategies. I had assumed that I could learn a lot from her about teaching. Yesterday I had to confront her directly about the specific form her lessons usually take (she has been skirting around the topic all summer) and I almost screamed when she told me the answer. She typically writes a text on the board, the students copy it down and note the new words, and then the next day they read aloud the text or recite sections by heart. When I asked how she teaches grammar, she said that she assigns exercises once or twice a month. That is it.
I hoped that we might have had a misunderstanding, so we moved on to lesson planning. She asked me if I had prepared topics for the first two quarters. I said no, because I don't know the level of the students and I also don't know the required curriculum. I suggested that we start out all grades with a review of the basics: alphabet, numbers, greetings, simple present tense, etc. and go from there. She seemed confused, and then I realized why when she showed me last year's calendar of “topics” along with the books that they came from.
The books are absolutely horrible. The problem isn't only that they are old and made up almost entirely of Communist propaganda, but they don't teach anything. There is no explanation of grammar and very few exercises. It is all just short texts with a few translated vocabulary words. The list of “topics” looks something like this: 1. “Knowledge is Power” 2. A.S. Pushkin 3. Anna Rodinova 4. Kyrgyz Folklore 5. Jack London 6. “John Reed: Champion of the Russian Revolution” 7. “For Peace and No Alcohol” 8. “The Moscow International Book Fair” 9. “The Future Belongs to the Youth” 10. “Golden Rules of Etiquette for Children” okay, you get the idea. Do you see any pattern at all? Neither did I. If you continue on, you will find some more Russian authors and poets and a lot of English-sounding names that I have never heard of. Why would Kyrgyz students read about Russian authors in an English class? That's what their Russian literature classes are for. And aren't there enough authors in the English language that they don't have to pick out ones so obscure that a British lit. buff like me hasn't even heard of them?
What is really sad is that these are the good “topics.” Thank God they skipped over the ones in the book like “V.I. Lenin Visits the Orphanage,” or “My Mother is a Member of the Communist Party.” I'm not even kidding you, that is straight from the book. I really need to make a copy of the “Lenin Visits the Orphanage” story. It was the first page I saw when I looked at the books I was going to be using back in June, so it has a special place in my heart.
I hope that all this work I have been doing has not been setting me up to getting taken advantage of. I hate that they are looking at me like I am the expert, but I can't deny that my ideas for teaching must be better than theirs, even though I have virtually no experience. My fear is that the students might be going from getting Russian imperialistic bullshit fed to them from those textbooks to getting American imperialistic bullshit from me. I can only teach what I know, so there is going to be a lot about America in my lessons, and at this point I can't help but believe that I have better teaching methods than the local teachers. So, am I really any better than the Soviets and their atrocious textbooks? Or am I creating a moral dilemma out of nothing? For those of you who like philosophical problems, this would be a good time to use the comments option on the blog. A little discussion might be nice.
August 28, 2009
I'm still terrified about the start of school, but I am beginning to feel better because I decorated my classroom yesterday. It now has a tiny bit of color and at now at least there are a few items in the room that don't pre-date the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Thanks to Ramadan, I am finally getting into the kind of eating routine I initially wanted to get into. Apa is finally letting me fry my own eggs or whatever else for my own lunch. I'm going to try to keep this up because it is working out well for me. Ramadan has also started some interesting conversations with my family about religion. We can't get very far because of the limits of our language, but it is still very interesting. My host dad was trying to make some sort of comparison between Mecca and what he called “Square Time” (Times Square. Remember, he went to America), but I didn't get it. I think it is interesting that several Kyrgyz people who speak a little English have asked me (upon learning that I am Christian) “We Muslims believe in God, who do you believe in?” I find it hard to believe that they don't know enough about Christianity to know that we have the same God, but nevertheless, it is interesting that they ask. Once in Osh, I had a conversation with an English-speaking girl at the pool that went something like this: “We are Musilm. Do you like Muslims? What religion are you? Vegetarian?”
Last night I had a dream that I was walking around in Uzgen when I came upon a Burger King sign. I reminded myself not to get too excited, because there is a Burger King sign in Osh in front of a Kyrgyz gamburger stand (a gamburger doesn't even slightly resemble a Burger King burger). When I got closer, I realized that there was actually a Burger King building behind the sign, but when I got up to the door, it was boarded up. In my dream, I moped away, but around the corner, there was a McDonald's. This time, the door was open and the lights were on. I ran inside, but I was fooled again. It was only a Kyrgyz store that smelled like a Kyrgyz store: stinky fish and greasy kielbasa. I bought some yogurt and woke up.
Now I am eating some yogurt that I bought yesterday at the Kyrgyz store in the center of my village. It tastes like greasy kielbasa because it was sitting next to it in the fridge at the store. Yuck.
September and the first day of school are quickly approaching and I am terrified. Still, I am doing my best to enjoy the last few days of summer. The sun is still really hot, but there have been some nice breezes in the last few days that make my daily treks to school for teacher meetings enjoyable. The walks have also been more interesting and even slightly treacherous as the street is all but covered with dry harvested sunflowers. The dead brown flowers are piled in huge heaps every few yards on either side of the street, somehow reminding me of the aftermath of a mass genocide (I know its morbid, but that is seriously what went through my head). The harvested seeds lay spread out on the edges of the pavement in perfect rectangles neatly lined by stones, and the heads of the flowers spill all the way into the middle of the street so that cars have to weave around the flowers and seeds like an obstacle course. A few houses have also laid out their homemade mud bricks to dry on the street, and I would hate to see a car weave around a sunflower pile to crash into a pile of bricks.
It is strange to be really busy again. I have been lesson planning all day today, and yesterday I spent several hours on it too, in addition to having a Kyrgyz lesson and helping my host mom and sister do yet more canning (salad this time). I was apparently an essential part of this process because Apa and Aijamal are observing Ramadan (locally called Orozo) which started on Friday. They needed me to taste the salad to make sure it had enough salt, and they couldn't do it without breaking their fast. I told them I didn't know how salty it was supposed to be, since I had never made canned salad before, so they had to call over a neighbor anyway.
I don't know how they are doing this fast. I would have to cheat for sure. It is too darn hot and the days are still really long. They pretty much sleep all day, but still. My host dad isn't fasting because he works at a hospital and needs to keep his energy up all day. I am glad, because I would feel really guilty if I was the only one in the house not fasting. At dinner time we all sit down together and Apa tells me and Ata to eat, but she and Aijamal wait the five minutes, or whatever, until they get the official go-ahead from TV that it is sunset. The TV station shows some footage of Mecca and some Kyrgyz imam in a kalpak says some stuff and then we all omen together. I didn't do it the first time because I figured this was a Muslim thing, and being as I am neither Muslim nor understand a word of what the imam said, I probably shouldn't participate in the prayer, but Apa and Ata gave me the stink eye, so I did it. Whatever, a little extra prayer never hurt anyone, and it is nice that they want me to participate in their family activities.
So, back to me being terrified about school starting. Right now, I am more or less fuming with frustration. I am sorry to say that I expected a lot more out of my counterpart. She had been telling me about all of these conferences and teacher trainings that she attended where she learned new and innovative teaching strategies. I had assumed that I could learn a lot from her about teaching. Yesterday I had to confront her directly about the specific form her lessons usually take (she has been skirting around the topic all summer) and I almost screamed when she told me the answer. She typically writes a text on the board, the students copy it down and note the new words, and then the next day they read aloud the text or recite sections by heart. When I asked how she teaches grammar, she said that she assigns exercises once or twice a month. That is it.
I hoped that we might have had a misunderstanding, so we moved on to lesson planning. She asked me if I had prepared topics for the first two quarters. I said no, because I don't know the level of the students and I also don't know the required curriculum. I suggested that we start out all grades with a review of the basics: alphabet, numbers, greetings, simple present tense, etc. and go from there. She seemed confused, and then I realized why when she showed me last year's calendar of “topics” along with the books that they came from.
The books are absolutely horrible. The problem isn't only that they are old and made up almost entirely of Communist propaganda, but they don't teach anything. There is no explanation of grammar and very few exercises. It is all just short texts with a few translated vocabulary words. The list of “topics” looks something like this: 1. “Knowledge is Power” 2. A.S. Pushkin 3. Anna Rodinova 4. Kyrgyz Folklore 5. Jack London 6. “John Reed: Champion of the Russian Revolution” 7. “For Peace and No Alcohol” 8. “The Moscow International Book Fair” 9. “The Future Belongs to the Youth” 10. “Golden Rules of Etiquette for Children” okay, you get the idea. Do you see any pattern at all? Neither did I. If you continue on, you will find some more Russian authors and poets and a lot of English-sounding names that I have never heard of. Why would Kyrgyz students read about Russian authors in an English class? That's what their Russian literature classes are for. And aren't there enough authors in the English language that they don't have to pick out ones so obscure that a British lit. buff like me hasn't even heard of them?
What is really sad is that these are the good “topics.” Thank God they skipped over the ones in the book like “V.I. Lenin Visits the Orphanage,” or “My Mother is a Member of the Communist Party.” I'm not even kidding you, that is straight from the book. I really need to make a copy of the “Lenin Visits the Orphanage” story. It was the first page I saw when I looked at the books I was going to be using back in June, so it has a special place in my heart.
I hope that all this work I have been doing has not been setting me up to getting taken advantage of. I hate that they are looking at me like I am the expert, but I can't deny that my ideas for teaching must be better than theirs, even though I have virtually no experience. My fear is that the students might be going from getting Russian imperialistic bullshit fed to them from those textbooks to getting American imperialistic bullshit from me. I can only teach what I know, so there is going to be a lot about America in my lessons, and at this point I can't help but believe that I have better teaching methods than the local teachers. So, am I really any better than the Soviets and their atrocious textbooks? Or am I creating a moral dilemma out of nothing? For those of you who like philosophical problems, this would be a good time to use the comments option on the blog. A little discussion might be nice.
August 28, 2009
I'm still terrified about the start of school, but I am beginning to feel better because I decorated my classroom yesterday. It now has a tiny bit of color and at now at least there are a few items in the room that don't pre-date the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Thanks to Ramadan, I am finally getting into the kind of eating routine I initially wanted to get into. Apa is finally letting me fry my own eggs or whatever else for my own lunch. I'm going to try to keep this up because it is working out well for me. Ramadan has also started some interesting conversations with my family about religion. We can't get very far because of the limits of our language, but it is still very interesting. My host dad was trying to make some sort of comparison between Mecca and what he called “Square Time” (Times Square. Remember, he went to America), but I didn't get it. I think it is interesting that several Kyrgyz people who speak a little English have asked me (upon learning that I am Christian) “We Muslims believe in God, who do you believe in?” I find it hard to believe that they don't know enough about Christianity to know that we have the same God, but nevertheless, it is interesting that they ask. Once in Osh, I had a conversation with an English-speaking girl at the pool that went something like this: “We are Musilm. Do you like Muslims? What religion are you? Vegetarian?”
Last night I had a dream that I was walking around in Uzgen when I came upon a Burger King sign. I reminded myself not to get too excited, because there is a Burger King sign in Osh in front of a Kyrgyz gamburger stand (a gamburger doesn't even slightly resemble a Burger King burger). When I got closer, I realized that there was actually a Burger King building behind the sign, but when I got up to the door, it was boarded up. In my dream, I moped away, but around the corner, there was a McDonald's. This time, the door was open and the lights were on. I ran inside, but I was fooled again. It was only a Kyrgyz store that smelled like a Kyrgyz store: stinky fish and greasy kielbasa. I bought some yogurt and woke up.
Now I am eating some yogurt that I bought yesterday at the Kyrgyz store in the center of my village. It tastes like greasy kielbasa because it was sitting next to it in the fridge at the store. Yuck.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Fun with language
Hey all,
I am in Osh this week, which means internet access, so I just wanted to share a quick cute story with you while I was thinking about it.
One day in the village, my Kyrgyz tutor was teaching me some new vocabulary for things around the house. He taught me one word that he didn't know in English, and he drew a horseshoe and told me it was something for a horse. When I told him the English word, he was like, "Wait. Horse shoe?? Like a shoe for a horse?" And he cracked up, saying that was the most ridiculous image he had ever thought of. It is so funny how we would never think that this is something funny, but I guess picturing a horse wearing people shoes is kind of silly.
Anyway, I told him he couldn't talk, because the Kyrgyz word for stomach, "ash kazan," literally means "food pot." So there.
I am in Osh this week, which means internet access, so I just wanted to share a quick cute story with you while I was thinking about it.
One day in the village, my Kyrgyz tutor was teaching me some new vocabulary for things around the house. He taught me one word that he didn't know in English, and he drew a horseshoe and told me it was something for a horse. When I told him the English word, he was like, "Wait. Horse shoe?? Like a shoe for a horse?" And he cracked up, saying that was the most ridiculous image he had ever thought of. It is so funny how we would never think that this is something funny, but I guess picturing a horse wearing people shoes is kind of silly.
Anyway, I told him he couldn't talk, because the Kyrgyz word for stomach, "ash kazan," literally means "food pot." So there.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Anaconda
August 6, 2009
I know its cliché, but seriously, be careful what you wish for. I was talking to my real family the other day while they were on vacation, just leaving Custer State Park, I think, and I was lamenting the fact that I never see wildlife around here, except for some pigeons, sparrows, and frogs. I miss seeing squirrels and deer and such. Well, I jinxed myself, because yesterday I saw a five-foot snake. IN THE HOUSE.
I have never been one to be terribly afraid of snakes. I can remember catching little ones and stuffing them into my bug barn when I was little, but this one terrified me. Probably because it was about as thick as my arm.
I was sitting out on the front steps of my house, reading, when some movement just inside my front door caught my eye, and I had to take a double take before I believed what I saw. I wish I would have thought ahead and sat still and let it go ahead out the door, but no, I had to jump up and scare it back into the house. I was glad that I managed to hop over it and close the door that separates the entryway from the rest of the main floor of the house.
It started to slither through a little crack into a Harry Potter-style cupboard under the stairs, and I had the genius idea to just grab it by the tail and drag it outside, but I got scared when it started making angry hisses, and I let go. I immediately started hauling stuff out of the cupboard to grab the snake before it found another crack to slide through, but then I remembered an urban legend that someone told me a few days ago about a taxi going up to Bishkek from Osh. It is about a 10 hour drive, and at some point, they stopped to get some food. Every passenger drank a lot of kymys and then fell asleep for the last leg of the drive. The driver got to Bishkek and tried to wake everyone up, but they were all dead. A poisonous snake had fallen into the sack of kymys as it was fermenting (they hang the sack from the smoke hole of the yurt) and died there, poisoning the drink.
Now, I didn't think much of the story at the time. It sounds like a myth to me, and I can't stand kymys anyway, no matter how many times people tell me it is good for my health. But as I was rooting through the winter boots and whatever else was stuffed in the cupboard, I wondered for the first time if the snake might be poisonous. Even if the story was false, it mentioned a poisonous snake that came in through the roof of the yurt, and this snake probably came from the roof of the house, since at the top of the stairs in the entryway there is an attic open to the roof. If I had been in Midwestern America, I would have figured, “well, it doesn't have a rattle on its tail, so it is probably ok,” but who knows what poisonous snakes look like in Central Asia? I'm not the Crocodile Hunter. So I got my host sister, and she was scared just at the mention of a snake, so she ran down the road and came back with a nice teenage boy with a sweater to tie around his neck (perfect! A Soc to go with my Greasers. Sorry, I don't think I have explained that. Read on, I'll get to it) with the very masculine name of Jodi (or at least that is what it sounds like when I try to say it).
Anyway, Jodi took over and grabbed the hoe I had been chasing after the snake with, and I ran away. He rummaged for a while, then came out with a coiled up extension cord, “is this what American snakes look like?” he teased.
“No, it is there! I saw it go inside!” I insisted, but I could tell he didn't believe me.
After a few minutes of more rummaging, he said something I didn't recognize, but could probably be translated to something like “Holy Shit!”
I forgot my squeamishness for a minute to go in and gloat in my infantile Kyrgyz, “hahaha, now you see. Isn't it big? I said it was big. I grabbed it, before, it runs and I caught it but then I am scared, so I don't catch it and it runs. What you do now?”
Jodi motioned for me to shut up and watch the snake, which had coiled itself up in the farthest, tightest corner of the storage space. He came back with a long stick and proceeded to poke and prod the animal, which started again to make the loud angry hisses and scared me back out the door. I guess I had expected Jodi to coax the huge snake back out the door into the garden, so I arranged myself to let the snake pass by me, but then I heard some commotion, and some banging around, and Jodi called out to me that it was dead, and I should come see it.
Well, it was indeed dead. I don't know how he did it, but Jodi had managed to behead the snake quite neatly with the hoe. He then grabbed the body and flung it outside on the steps, where a crowd of boys began to form, and we all waited for it to stop slithering around. Ick. Jodi asked me if I wanted to eat it, and I told him no thank you he could eat it himself, and he said he would, but I know he just threw the snake away. It was so big that when he took it away, he had to hold the tail up over his head so that the headless end wouldn't drag on the ground. Ugh, I can't believe it was in the house. Here I have been spending all my time worrying about tiny scorpions that I've heard hide in your shoes and stuff, and there is a snake as tall as me just hanging out in the house. I am just glad that I don't sleep on the floor like my host siblings do. Not that a five-foot snake would have any problem getting into my bed if it wanted to.
Ok, so enough of that. Now to explain the other story.
So, I think Kyrgyz names are kind of tricky. There are still quite a few people I see everyday whose names I can never remember, and I figure that asking any more than three times just makes me look like an idiot. Most of these people have made-up names that I only say in my head, that at least help me remember what family they belong to, or whatever else. Most of them are uninteresting, such as The Neighbor Who Drives a Lada, or Nargiza's Sister Who Has The Baby With Shoes That Go Squeak-Squeak. One boy who is about 8 or 9 wears these ridiculous round sunglasses that have earned him the name John Lennon in my head. He is kind of the ringleader for a gang of four little boys, so of course they will always be The Beatles. There is a group of three older boys (jigits in Kyrgyz) that hang out at the end of our street around the time it gets dark, just trying to look cool. I have also seen them pick some fights down by the river (jigits picking fights is an annoyingly common occurrence). These I named the Greasers, after the book “The Outsiders.”
Later:
Yay, my door is finally fixed! Like I had been trying to tell Apa, the job was much more complicated than just replacing the broken door knob. The guy had to take a hand plane to the inside corner on the hinge side and shave off a lot of wood so that the door fit the frame. I am so glad that it has been taken care of, especially after the snake incident, because who knows what other critters could sneak in through my open door?
But that is not even the best part of today. I told Apa I was thinking of buying an armchair for my room, and there was one in the Uzgen bazaar that I had my eye on and was totally affordable, but I needed Apa's help in arranging how to get it home. She told me not to buy one because she had a chair she could give me for my room, I just had to wait for the next time my host brother was home so he could bring it down from the attic for me. For some reason, I assumed that it was a chair to match the couch and other chair that sit around unused in the big dining room next to my room. I wasn't too excited about this because it isn't a very comfortable set, but I figured it I could put some cushions on it or something. Anyway, I was way wrong. The “chair” is a seat from a car. How ghetto is that? I am pretty excited about it. It is an excellent addition to all of the wonderful mismatched-ness of my room. I can't decide whether I want to leave it as is, or get some obnoxious fabric to drape over it.
Oh, and I just got back from swimming in the river, and another snake was spotted there by some boys. I asked some people if the snakes around here bite, and the general consensus was that they might, but there really aren't that many snakes around, so don't worry about it. What the heck! Not that many snakes? There's one right there, and there was a freaking anaconda in my house only yesterday! Sure, there aren't many snakes around here compared to the reptile house in a zoo, but come on. But I guess it is a comfort to know that the monster that paid a visit yesterday was a freak occurrence. Maybe we should have kept it in a giant bug barn to show it off instead of killing it.
I know its cliché, but seriously, be careful what you wish for. I was talking to my real family the other day while they were on vacation, just leaving Custer State Park, I think, and I was lamenting the fact that I never see wildlife around here, except for some pigeons, sparrows, and frogs. I miss seeing squirrels and deer and such. Well, I jinxed myself, because yesterday I saw a five-foot snake. IN THE HOUSE.
I have never been one to be terribly afraid of snakes. I can remember catching little ones and stuffing them into my bug barn when I was little, but this one terrified me. Probably because it was about as thick as my arm.
I was sitting out on the front steps of my house, reading, when some movement just inside my front door caught my eye, and I had to take a double take before I believed what I saw. I wish I would have thought ahead and sat still and let it go ahead out the door, but no, I had to jump up and scare it back into the house. I was glad that I managed to hop over it and close the door that separates the entryway from the rest of the main floor of the house.
It started to slither through a little crack into a Harry Potter-style cupboard under the stairs, and I had the genius idea to just grab it by the tail and drag it outside, but I got scared when it started making angry hisses, and I let go. I immediately started hauling stuff out of the cupboard to grab the snake before it found another crack to slide through, but then I remembered an urban legend that someone told me a few days ago about a taxi going up to Bishkek from Osh. It is about a 10 hour drive, and at some point, they stopped to get some food. Every passenger drank a lot of kymys and then fell asleep for the last leg of the drive. The driver got to Bishkek and tried to wake everyone up, but they were all dead. A poisonous snake had fallen into the sack of kymys as it was fermenting (they hang the sack from the smoke hole of the yurt) and died there, poisoning the drink.
Now, I didn't think much of the story at the time. It sounds like a myth to me, and I can't stand kymys anyway, no matter how many times people tell me it is good for my health. But as I was rooting through the winter boots and whatever else was stuffed in the cupboard, I wondered for the first time if the snake might be poisonous. Even if the story was false, it mentioned a poisonous snake that came in through the roof of the yurt, and this snake probably came from the roof of the house, since at the top of the stairs in the entryway there is an attic open to the roof. If I had been in Midwestern America, I would have figured, “well, it doesn't have a rattle on its tail, so it is probably ok,” but who knows what poisonous snakes look like in Central Asia? I'm not the Crocodile Hunter. So I got my host sister, and she was scared just at the mention of a snake, so she ran down the road and came back with a nice teenage boy with a sweater to tie around his neck (perfect! A Soc to go with my Greasers. Sorry, I don't think I have explained that. Read on, I'll get to it) with the very masculine name of Jodi (or at least that is what it sounds like when I try to say it).
Anyway, Jodi took over and grabbed the hoe I had been chasing after the snake with, and I ran away. He rummaged for a while, then came out with a coiled up extension cord, “is this what American snakes look like?” he teased.
“No, it is there! I saw it go inside!” I insisted, but I could tell he didn't believe me.
After a few minutes of more rummaging, he said something I didn't recognize, but could probably be translated to something like “Holy Shit!”
I forgot my squeamishness for a minute to go in and gloat in my infantile Kyrgyz, “hahaha, now you see. Isn't it big? I said it was big. I grabbed it, before, it runs and I caught it but then I am scared, so I don't catch it and it runs. What you do now?”
Jodi motioned for me to shut up and watch the snake, which had coiled itself up in the farthest, tightest corner of the storage space. He came back with a long stick and proceeded to poke and prod the animal, which started again to make the loud angry hisses and scared me back out the door. I guess I had expected Jodi to coax the huge snake back out the door into the garden, so I arranged myself to let the snake pass by me, but then I heard some commotion, and some banging around, and Jodi called out to me that it was dead, and I should come see it.
Well, it was indeed dead. I don't know how he did it, but Jodi had managed to behead the snake quite neatly with the hoe. He then grabbed the body and flung it outside on the steps, where a crowd of boys began to form, and we all waited for it to stop slithering around. Ick. Jodi asked me if I wanted to eat it, and I told him no thank you he could eat it himself, and he said he would, but I know he just threw the snake away. It was so big that when he took it away, he had to hold the tail up over his head so that the headless end wouldn't drag on the ground. Ugh, I can't believe it was in the house. Here I have been spending all my time worrying about tiny scorpions that I've heard hide in your shoes and stuff, and there is a snake as tall as me just hanging out in the house. I am just glad that I don't sleep on the floor like my host siblings do. Not that a five-foot snake would have any problem getting into my bed if it wanted to.
Ok, so enough of that. Now to explain the other story.
So, I think Kyrgyz names are kind of tricky. There are still quite a few people I see everyday whose names I can never remember, and I figure that asking any more than three times just makes me look like an idiot. Most of these people have made-up names that I only say in my head, that at least help me remember what family they belong to, or whatever else. Most of them are uninteresting, such as The Neighbor Who Drives a Lada, or Nargiza's Sister Who Has The Baby With Shoes That Go Squeak-Squeak. One boy who is about 8 or 9 wears these ridiculous round sunglasses that have earned him the name John Lennon in my head. He is kind of the ringleader for a gang of four little boys, so of course they will always be The Beatles. There is a group of three older boys (jigits in Kyrgyz) that hang out at the end of our street around the time it gets dark, just trying to look cool. I have also seen them pick some fights down by the river (jigits picking fights is an annoyingly common occurrence). These I named the Greasers, after the book “The Outsiders.”
Later:
Yay, my door is finally fixed! Like I had been trying to tell Apa, the job was much more complicated than just replacing the broken door knob. The guy had to take a hand plane to the inside corner on the hinge side and shave off a lot of wood so that the door fit the frame. I am so glad that it has been taken care of, especially after the snake incident, because who knows what other critters could sneak in through my open door?
But that is not even the best part of today. I told Apa I was thinking of buying an armchair for my room, and there was one in the Uzgen bazaar that I had my eye on and was totally affordable, but I needed Apa's help in arranging how to get it home. She told me not to buy one because she had a chair she could give me for my room, I just had to wait for the next time my host brother was home so he could bring it down from the attic for me. For some reason, I assumed that it was a chair to match the couch and other chair that sit around unused in the big dining room next to my room. I wasn't too excited about this because it isn't a very comfortable set, but I figured it I could put some cushions on it or something. Anyway, I was way wrong. The “chair” is a seat from a car. How ghetto is that? I am pretty excited about it. It is an excellent addition to all of the wonderful mismatched-ness of my room. I can't decide whether I want to leave it as is, or get some obnoxious fabric to drape over it.
Oh, and I just got back from swimming in the river, and another snake was spotted there by some boys. I asked some people if the snakes around here bite, and the general consensus was that they might, but there really aren't that many snakes around, so don't worry about it. What the heck! Not that many snakes? There's one right there, and there was a freaking anaconda in my house only yesterday! Sure, there aren't many snakes around here compared to the reptile house in a zoo, but come on. But I guess it is a comfort to know that the monster that paid a visit yesterday was a freak occurrence. Maybe we should have kept it in a giant bug barn to show it off instead of killing it.
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