Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Borsok
Ok, to clear up some confusion regarding the title of the last blog. It was not the date, and it was not a mistake. It only said "Kyrgyz kyz" -- Kyrgyz girl. Nothing too exciting. I just like the way it sounds, and it seemed appropriate, but I forgot to explain it.
I have a new nickname - "Borsok." Borsok is a Kyrgyz donut. I earned this name last night during a dinner with one volunteer's host family in which several bottles of vodka were polished off. I had just come in from the village a little later than usual because I had to help my Apa with a borsok emergency. She had to make a bunch of it for Ata's birthday party the next day, but she threw out her back, so she was having difficulty. So, I rolled out the dough, built the fire, and fried up the borsok. Of course, I brought a huge bag of it to Osh, which I bragged to the family about making myself. Therefore, I was dubbed "Borsok" by the father and I think it will stick forever.
Its almost Christmas! Crazy! Time is going by so fast!
I have a new nickname - "Borsok." Borsok is a Kyrgyz donut. I earned this name last night during a dinner with one volunteer's host family in which several bottles of vodka were polished off. I had just come in from the village a little later than usual because I had to help my Apa with a borsok emergency. She had to make a bunch of it for Ata's birthday party the next day, but she threw out her back, so she was having difficulty. So, I rolled out the dough, built the fire, and fried up the borsok. Of course, I brought a huge bag of it to Osh, which I bragged to the family about making myself. Therefore, I was dubbed "Borsok" by the father and I think it will stick forever.
Its almost Christmas! Crazy! Time is going by so fast!
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Кыргыз кыз
December 3, 2005
Ask and ye shall receive. My school's one and only electric heater has been installed in Informatsia/English room, also now known as Miss Audra's Kabinet. Yay! It still isn't warm enough to take off your hat and coat, but at least my hands won't freeze when I'm writing on the board. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I remembered to turn off the heater when I left the room this afternoon. Ooops. I'd better make sure I get there first tomorrow to check or they might take it away from me.
Today nobody showed up at my club because there was a concert at my school that all my students went to. I actually knew about the concert because they made an announcement during one of my classes yesterday, but so many kids asked me if I was going to have club that I assumed they would come. They didn't. So, there was nothing left but to check out the concert. It was terrible.
They had hung up a big poster above the stage in the little auditorium featuring over-sized glamor shots of the star, a handsome Kyrgyz jigit and “super star” (the poster's words, not mine). He probably sings at weddings on the weekends. When I came in, a young man was singing a popular Kyrgyz pop song, but he was most definitely not the guy from the poster: he happened to be a four foot tall dwarf. He started doing some crazy comic dances and it became apparent that he wasn't singing at all, but lip syncing. To his credit, he did sing a little later (karaoke style, of course, like the rest of the concert). Besides the guy from the poster and the dwarf, there were also two not-so-good-looking guys with mediocre karaoke skills. In between musical numbers there were some comedy routines, almost entirely centered around the dwarf's height. I can't imagine that I would have found the jokes nearly as funny as everyone else even if I did understand them in their entirety.
There was one good part of the concert that was nearly ruined by the shitty sound system that was being used (I don't think it could have made anyone sound good): a song that the poster guy and the dwarf guy did together. It was in Kyrgzy, but it had some Middle Eastern or maybe Uzbek flair to it. If I drowned out the static and feedback I really liked it a lot. During the whole song they did all their movements in unison, including this crazy little dance that I was a little bit obsessed with. I can't explain it, but I have never seen anything quite like it.
Anyway, it was exactly like I should have expected an after-school matinée concert. in the auditorium of a freezing cold Soviet-built school featuring a C-list pop star in a developing country to be like, so I don't know why I'm complaining. They even let me in for free (tickets for the students cost 20 com. Thats about 85 cents and the cost of four ice cream cones for these kids).
December 6, 2009
I'm taking a break from reading a book that I started this morning and haven't been able to put down since. I've never been so sucked into a non-fiction book before. Its called Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, and it is excellent. I've got a full free day ahead of me with nothing to do, so I'll probably just plow through and finish it.
I stayed in the village this weekend at the repeated insistence of my host family. They hosted a guesting last night and really wanted to show me off to their friends. Also, I am sure they were happy to have an extra pair of hands to help out. My host mom asked me to make few pizzas for the guests, and although the sauce was amazing (if I do say so myself), the dough was pretty bad (I'm blaming the yeast) and the cheese that Apa picked out at the bazaar was not the best for pizza, although I'm not sure if there is a good pizza cheese to be found at all in Uzgen.
To prepare for the meal, Apa started baking bread on Friday morning. After I came home from work some neighbor ladies came over to help fry borsok (Kyrgyz donuts), which they always make in ridiculously huge quantities for any occasion and is at least a three-woman job. They showed me how to make and roll out the dough and fry it, insisting that I need to learn these skills just in case I marry a Kyrgyz boy and have to cook for my in-laws. Fresh, hot borsok is the absolute best Kyrgyz tradition, hands down. It also clears up the mystery of why I'm not losing any weight with as little food as I eat. Whenever there's fresh borsok around I gorge myself on it, eating probably the equivalent of six American-sized donuts in one sitting. Its a really bad habit. It was a really good time until they force-fed me bozo (a pinkish-colored milk drink that tastes like sour cream mixed with club soda) insisting that if I drink more of it I will start to like it, and even if I don't, it is good for my health and I should drink it to keep my blood warm during the winter. Bleh.
Everyone went to bed early that night and by the time I got up at 8 in the morning, Apa had already put out two huge piles of ingredients for me to peel and cut up for two different salads. I was also given my usual assignment to peel onions and potatoes. Even though I basically spent five hours cutting vegetables, the whole family was sitting and working and talking together, and there was a nice warm fire going in the stove, so I'll admit that I had a surprisingly pleasant time. I spent the afternoon making pizza by myself and helping set up the table and such. The guests finally came at 6, and my host dad effectively kept me hidden from sight until everyone was there and I could make my dramatic appearance to a chorus of “oooh, beautiful girl!” like he had just unveiled a new work of art. So awkward. Anyway, after the guests were all served I went and hid in my room “babysitting” my little host niece because I knew that my host dad had wanted me to give a toast and sing a song, and I hoped that if he went through enough vodka toasts and I was out of sight he might forget. He didn't, but I told him I would only sing if he sang first, which got a good laugh and let me off the hook.
December 8, 2009
I just want to continue my thoughts on that book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. In a nutshell, it talks about how geography and the layout of the continents, as opposed to physiological differences between the people themselves, led to the differences in when people in different parts of the world had advancements in the areas of food production, tool making, etc. which led to developing the diseases, weapons, etc. that allowed them to conquer other groups in other areas of the world.
Anyway, like I said, I breezed through it, even though it was a pretty big book. It was one of those books where you are reading it and think, “ok, thats great, but what about....?” and then your question is answered in the next paragraph. However, now after I have finished the book, I thought of something that he neglected to touch on. I was walking home from work when I saw a familiar sight, even for three in the afternoon: a man passed out in the mud on the side of the road. I got to thinking, what role did Russia's vodka play in expanding its empire back in the day? I can only assume that its pretty easy to get people to do what you want after a few vodka toasts, especially if you are a big Russian man who has been drinking vodka all his life and you are up some Central Asians who are half your size. Had Kyrgyzstan been swallowed up by China instead, would we still see this problem here? I don't know. Maybe I'm putting the blame on Russia unfairly. Maybe the toasting culture goes back further than that. Maybe if they had some wine and beer that wasn't absolute shit they would drink that instead of nasty cheap vodka. My host dad and I have been engaged in an endless argument over which is better: expensive American beer or cheap Uzgen beer. He'll bring home a half empty bottle once in a while for us to share (most of the beer here comes in plastic bottles—what does that tell you about the quality?), insisting that it is a good bottle this time (the fact that the taste changes noticeably from bottle to bottle should also indicate the quality of beer we're talking about. It ranges from watery, stale-tasting beer to watery, stale-tasting piss). His argument is that Uzgen beer is better because it is so much cheaper: 20 som, compared to the $4 he paid in the states—100 som.
Really, me and my host dad only have had about four conversations since I have been here, and they just keep continuing. The others revolve around pigs, swine flu, and why Christians should take it as a hint to follow the example of Muslims and stop keeping pigs and eating pork; the fact that everything is made in China; and some mystery monument he saw when he visited what he keeps calling “Square Times” in New York (he keeps thinking that if he talks about it enough I'll figure out what he is talking about).
Ask and ye shall receive. My school's one and only electric heater has been installed in Informatsia/English room, also now known as Miss Audra's Kabinet. Yay! It still isn't warm enough to take off your hat and coat, but at least my hands won't freeze when I'm writing on the board. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I remembered to turn off the heater when I left the room this afternoon. Ooops. I'd better make sure I get there first tomorrow to check or they might take it away from me.
Today nobody showed up at my club because there was a concert at my school that all my students went to. I actually knew about the concert because they made an announcement during one of my classes yesterday, but so many kids asked me if I was going to have club that I assumed they would come. They didn't. So, there was nothing left but to check out the concert. It was terrible.
They had hung up a big poster above the stage in the little auditorium featuring over-sized glamor shots of the star, a handsome Kyrgyz jigit and “super star” (the poster's words, not mine). He probably sings at weddings on the weekends. When I came in, a young man was singing a popular Kyrgyz pop song, but he was most definitely not the guy from the poster: he happened to be a four foot tall dwarf. He started doing some crazy comic dances and it became apparent that he wasn't singing at all, but lip syncing. To his credit, he did sing a little later (karaoke style, of course, like the rest of the concert). Besides the guy from the poster and the dwarf, there were also two not-so-good-looking guys with mediocre karaoke skills. In between musical numbers there were some comedy routines, almost entirely centered around the dwarf's height. I can't imagine that I would have found the jokes nearly as funny as everyone else even if I did understand them in their entirety.
There was one good part of the concert that was nearly ruined by the shitty sound system that was being used (I don't think it could have made anyone sound good): a song that the poster guy and the dwarf guy did together. It was in Kyrgzy, but it had some Middle Eastern or maybe Uzbek flair to it. If I drowned out the static and feedback I really liked it a lot. During the whole song they did all their movements in unison, including this crazy little dance that I was a little bit obsessed with. I can't explain it, but I have never seen anything quite like it.
Anyway, it was exactly like I should have expected an after-school matinée concert. in the auditorium of a freezing cold Soviet-built school featuring a C-list pop star in a developing country to be like, so I don't know why I'm complaining. They even let me in for free (tickets for the students cost 20 com. Thats about 85 cents and the cost of four ice cream cones for these kids).
December 6, 2009
I'm taking a break from reading a book that I started this morning and haven't been able to put down since. I've never been so sucked into a non-fiction book before. Its called Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, and it is excellent. I've got a full free day ahead of me with nothing to do, so I'll probably just plow through and finish it.
I stayed in the village this weekend at the repeated insistence of my host family. They hosted a guesting last night and really wanted to show me off to their friends. Also, I am sure they were happy to have an extra pair of hands to help out. My host mom asked me to make few pizzas for the guests, and although the sauce was amazing (if I do say so myself), the dough was pretty bad (I'm blaming the yeast) and the cheese that Apa picked out at the bazaar was not the best for pizza, although I'm not sure if there is a good pizza cheese to be found at all in Uzgen.
To prepare for the meal, Apa started baking bread on Friday morning. After I came home from work some neighbor ladies came over to help fry borsok (Kyrgyz donuts), which they always make in ridiculously huge quantities for any occasion and is at least a three-woman job. They showed me how to make and roll out the dough and fry it, insisting that I need to learn these skills just in case I marry a Kyrgyz boy and have to cook for my in-laws. Fresh, hot borsok is the absolute best Kyrgyz tradition, hands down. It also clears up the mystery of why I'm not losing any weight with as little food as I eat. Whenever there's fresh borsok around I gorge myself on it, eating probably the equivalent of six American-sized donuts in one sitting. Its a really bad habit. It was a really good time until they force-fed me bozo (a pinkish-colored milk drink that tastes like sour cream mixed with club soda) insisting that if I drink more of it I will start to like it, and even if I don't, it is good for my health and I should drink it to keep my blood warm during the winter. Bleh.
Everyone went to bed early that night and by the time I got up at 8 in the morning, Apa had already put out two huge piles of ingredients for me to peel and cut up for two different salads. I was also given my usual assignment to peel onions and potatoes. Even though I basically spent five hours cutting vegetables, the whole family was sitting and working and talking together, and there was a nice warm fire going in the stove, so I'll admit that I had a surprisingly pleasant time. I spent the afternoon making pizza by myself and helping set up the table and such. The guests finally came at 6, and my host dad effectively kept me hidden from sight until everyone was there and I could make my dramatic appearance to a chorus of “oooh, beautiful girl!” like he had just unveiled a new work of art. So awkward. Anyway, after the guests were all served I went and hid in my room “babysitting” my little host niece because I knew that my host dad had wanted me to give a toast and sing a song, and I hoped that if he went through enough vodka toasts and I was out of sight he might forget. He didn't, but I told him I would only sing if he sang first, which got a good laugh and let me off the hook.
December 8, 2009
I just want to continue my thoughts on that book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. In a nutshell, it talks about how geography and the layout of the continents, as opposed to physiological differences between the people themselves, led to the differences in when people in different parts of the world had advancements in the areas of food production, tool making, etc. which led to developing the diseases, weapons, etc. that allowed them to conquer other groups in other areas of the world.
Anyway, like I said, I breezed through it, even though it was a pretty big book. It was one of those books where you are reading it and think, “ok, thats great, but what about....?” and then your question is answered in the next paragraph. However, now after I have finished the book, I thought of something that he neglected to touch on. I was walking home from work when I saw a familiar sight, even for three in the afternoon: a man passed out in the mud on the side of the road. I got to thinking, what role did Russia's vodka play in expanding its empire back in the day? I can only assume that its pretty easy to get people to do what you want after a few vodka toasts, especially if you are a big Russian man who has been drinking vodka all his life and you are up some Central Asians who are half your size. Had Kyrgyzstan been swallowed up by China instead, would we still see this problem here? I don't know. Maybe I'm putting the blame on Russia unfairly. Maybe the toasting culture goes back further than that. Maybe if they had some wine and beer that wasn't absolute shit they would drink that instead of nasty cheap vodka. My host dad and I have been engaged in an endless argument over which is better: expensive American beer or cheap Uzgen beer. He'll bring home a half empty bottle once in a while for us to share (most of the beer here comes in plastic bottles—what does that tell you about the quality?), insisting that it is a good bottle this time (the fact that the taste changes noticeably from bottle to bottle should also indicate the quality of beer we're talking about. It ranges from watery, stale-tasting beer to watery, stale-tasting piss). His argument is that Uzgen beer is better because it is so much cheaper: 20 som, compared to the $4 he paid in the states—100 som.
Really, me and my host dad only have had about four conversations since I have been here, and they just keep continuing. The others revolve around pigs, swine flu, and why Christians should take it as a hint to follow the example of Muslims and stop keeping pigs and eating pork; the fact that everything is made in China; and some mystery monument he saw when he visited what he keeps calling “Square Times” in New York (he keeps thinking that if he talks about it enough I'll figure out what he is talking about).
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Thanksgiving
November 24, 2009
On Tuesdays I don't have class until 11:00, but I usually go in at 8:30 anyway because more often than not there has been a change in the schedule anyway, and if not, I use the time to talk to other teachers, make visual aids, and whatever else. Today, I woke up at my usual time, but when I went to dip my hand into the water can to wash my face, my knuckles hit a half inch of ice floating on top. I decided that was as good an excuse as any to crawl back into my sleeping bag for another few hours, which is where I am now. There's no point in hanging around an unheated school for any longer than is necessary, right?
November 25, 2009
Its snowing again today. The school was colder than ever, and there wasn't any sun to run out and stand in during the breaks. I walked around all day with my new wool coat (thank God I went out and bought one!) buttoned up to my eyes and the hood up. All the teachers laughed at me, asking mockingly, “are you cold, Audra? I thought it was cold in your state.” I think I may have struck some nerves when I told them a little testily that my state gives the schools enough money so that the schools are warm and people can take off their hats and coats inside. I don't want to insult their country, but seriously...
So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which doesn't make any difference to me, really, except for that I am doing the same Thanksgiving-themed lesson in all the grades today and tomorrow. I think my counterpart and I are regretting this, because even though it was easy to plan one lesson rather than four, it is difficult to do the same thing over and over again (six down today, three tomorrow!). I explained the holiday and our traditions to the kids and then they wrote five things that they are thankful for. I thought they would need some help with this assignment since, chances are, they've never answered this question specifically like American students do every year, but they did a great job of it. I ended up being a little embarrassed by my list, which included wool socks and peanut butter from America and was probably the silliest of all the lists. I was surprised that most of my kids in all the classes included God on their lists, since, in my village at least, religiousness is not terribly visible. Most of the kids also wrote “I am thankful for Miss Audra comes to Kyrgyzstan,” which made me feel good, even though I know they are just a bunch of little suck-ups.
After school the snow was really coming down. I had a little bit of shopping to do, so I figured if I was going to wave down a car anyway, I might as well go all the way to the Uzgen bazaar. Bad idea. I am now wet and miserable. I wondered how the bazaar operates in bad weather, and the answer is exactly like it always does. The difference is that you have to watch out above you from the occasional flood of rain water getting knocked off the tarp awning of a stall and below you for the occasional puddle that is a lot deeper than it looks. In my quest to navigate the driest path between the sections I needed to visit, I came across a part of the bazaar that I had never seen before, and I was surprised at how similar it looked to Best Buy. Sometime when it is dryer I will have to investigate. I can't let today ruin my love of the Uzgen bazaar, which I appreciate so much more after doing some shopping last weekend in the Osh bazaar, which is way too stinking big for me to handle.
November 29, 2009
Yesterday we Oshian volunteers and some friends enjoyed our own little Thanksgiving feast. It was fantastic and included almost all of the essentials, with the exception that the turkey was substituted for three rotisserie chickens. The triumph of the evening, in my opinion, was a fantastic green bean casserole made almost completely from scratch. Amazing. I hope everyone’s American Thanksgiving was wonderful too.
On Tuesdays I don't have class until 11:00, but I usually go in at 8:30 anyway because more often than not there has been a change in the schedule anyway, and if not, I use the time to talk to other teachers, make visual aids, and whatever else. Today, I woke up at my usual time, but when I went to dip my hand into the water can to wash my face, my knuckles hit a half inch of ice floating on top. I decided that was as good an excuse as any to crawl back into my sleeping bag for another few hours, which is where I am now. There's no point in hanging around an unheated school for any longer than is necessary, right?
November 25, 2009
Its snowing again today. The school was colder than ever, and there wasn't any sun to run out and stand in during the breaks. I walked around all day with my new wool coat (thank God I went out and bought one!) buttoned up to my eyes and the hood up. All the teachers laughed at me, asking mockingly, “are you cold, Audra? I thought it was cold in your state.” I think I may have struck some nerves when I told them a little testily that my state gives the schools enough money so that the schools are warm and people can take off their hats and coats inside. I don't want to insult their country, but seriously...
So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which doesn't make any difference to me, really, except for that I am doing the same Thanksgiving-themed lesson in all the grades today and tomorrow. I think my counterpart and I are regretting this, because even though it was easy to plan one lesson rather than four, it is difficult to do the same thing over and over again (six down today, three tomorrow!). I explained the holiday and our traditions to the kids and then they wrote five things that they are thankful for. I thought they would need some help with this assignment since, chances are, they've never answered this question specifically like American students do every year, but they did a great job of it. I ended up being a little embarrassed by my list, which included wool socks and peanut butter from America and was probably the silliest of all the lists. I was surprised that most of my kids in all the classes included God on their lists, since, in my village at least, religiousness is not terribly visible. Most of the kids also wrote “I am thankful for Miss Audra comes to Kyrgyzstan,” which made me feel good, even though I know they are just a bunch of little suck-ups.
After school the snow was really coming down. I had a little bit of shopping to do, so I figured if I was going to wave down a car anyway, I might as well go all the way to the Uzgen bazaar. Bad idea. I am now wet and miserable. I wondered how the bazaar operates in bad weather, and the answer is exactly like it always does. The difference is that you have to watch out above you from the occasional flood of rain water getting knocked off the tarp awning of a stall and below you for the occasional puddle that is a lot deeper than it looks. In my quest to navigate the driest path between the sections I needed to visit, I came across a part of the bazaar that I had never seen before, and I was surprised at how similar it looked to Best Buy. Sometime when it is dryer I will have to investigate. I can't let today ruin my love of the Uzgen bazaar, which I appreciate so much more after doing some shopping last weekend in the Osh bazaar, which is way too stinking big for me to handle.
November 29, 2009
Yesterday we Oshian volunteers and some friends enjoyed our own little Thanksgiving feast. It was fantastic and included almost all of the essentials, with the exception that the turkey was substituted for three rotisserie chickens. The triumph of the evening, in my opinion, was a fantastic green bean casserole made almost completely from scratch. Amazing. I hope everyone’s American Thanksgiving was wonderful too.
Friday, November 20, 2009
WINTER
October 28, 2009
This winter is gonna suck.
It was chilly, rainy, and miserable today. Really, it was pretty average October weather for Iowa, but in Iowa I wouldn't have to walk everywhere and the heat would be on inside and I wouldn't be carrying buckets of icy canal water around. Oh yeah, and at the moment, cvet jok. That means the electricity is out, but the Kyrgyz way of saying it is so much more appropriate to the situation, somehow. It's too dark to read or do lesson planning, but not dark enough to break out a candle or flashlight yet, so I will bask in the glow of the computer screen and try to draw some of the warmth into my fingers from its gently humming mechanisms under the keyboard.
Okay, so its not all bad. Actually, it has been quite pleasant and sunny lately, and I have been enjoying the harvest season atmosphere without actually having to take part in any of the harvest activities, which is nice. The fruit and vegetable section of the bazaar has undertaken yet another transformation, acquiring the most beautiful and brightly colored collection of fruits yet. There are tall heaps of deep scarlet pomegranates and an oranger-than-an-orange fruit that I have been told is a persimmon. To me, these fruits seem so new and exotic, but they are cheap and common here. I told my host family that I had never seen a pomegranate until a few years ago and that they are expensive in America, and they thought I was making mistakes in my Kyrgyz. I have been eating at least one pomegranate a day. Yum. Watermelons and white melon are still being sold here and there, but they aren't that good anymore and are slowly becoming replaced with pumpkins and squashes.
I'm a little bit behind on my lesson planning and such, after spending the first part of the week at the camp in Osh. For being what seemed to me to be a last minute operation (it was run by a local organization, so of course), it was an excellent camp. There were 35 high school-aged participants from the south of Kyrgyzstan that were chosen from a pool of 200 applicants. The participants were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (the theme of the camp was diversity) and overall, they were a very bright group. There were a few concepts that we tried to introduce that they had some trouble understanding, but they definitely came away from the camp with some useful skills and a better understanding of how to interact with people belonging to different nationalities. The kids gave me a very Uzbek name, Odina opa, and in addition to facilitating a few sessions, I was somehow put in charge of “Arts and Crafts” in the evenings, which consisted of two nights of making friendship bracelets, which (surprisingly) they loved, and (even more surprisingly) broke down some of the very rigid gender barriers that are in place here. Even the locals in charge of the camp assumed that none of the boys would want to make bracelets, but because I am so awesome, I got at least eight to make and even wear their own bracelets. Me and one other PCV spent a few nights at the camp and entertained the kids with seemingly endless running around games and some very multicultural/multilingual sing-alongs with the other PCV's guitar. Best of all, a lot of the kids spoke really excellent English, which was a nice break for me. Although there were still quite a few who insisted on yelling at me in Russian the whole time. By the end of the camp, they had written and printed a great little newsletter in Russian, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and English about what they did at the camp, and even though I could only understand bits and pieces, I can tell they did an excellent job on it. I made my host sister translate all of the Russian sentences that contained Odina opa because I don't like being talked about when I can't understand!
November 3, 2009
Halloween in Kyrgyzstan was interesting, to say the least. I had a little party planned for my 9-11th graders, and I hauled a pretty good-sized pumpkin all the way from the center of the village back to school so that we could make a jack o' lantern, but no one showed up! It was very sad. Especially because the other volunteer in my village put on a considerably more planned out party and had a huge turnout and it was a huge success. But then, she has students that she can actually have conversations with in English. Not so with me. Still, I was invited and it was way fun, even though the disco party at the end got cut short when the electricity went out.
As for us Americans, we were able to enjoy our holiday by celebrating at a great party put on by a cafe in Osh. We all dressed up and had a lot of fun, though our taxi drivers were probably confused and terrified.
Now, I am enjoying a week off from school (our end of the first quarter break). I stayed in Osh yesterday and I thought that the rest of the week might be a good chance to get ahead on lesson planning and whatever else. So far, no luck. My host family had guests over today, and after sleeping in much longer than the rest of my family (but not that long, because the neighbors are having their wedding party part II with loud music that started at 8 a.m. My host mom told me I should sleep in a different room on the other side of the house for the next few days, because they will be playing loud music all night for a few days. This is worse than living next door to a frat house) I helped prepare only a little bit, and then escaped because I had to go to the bank in Uzgen. I am lazy, so I didn't want to go back home and do more guesting work, so another volunteer and I wasted time by checking out the park on top of the hill in Uzgen. For you Dubuquers out there reading this, imagine a park that is a combination of Eagle Point and Storybook Hill, and then let it fall into disrepair for about 30 years. Then you will have the park in Uzgen. It is on top of a hill and offers a view of the river that is similar to Eagle Point, only with more Central Asian terrain. It also has the remains of some strange playground structures and rickety bridges and what me and the other volunteer think might be an abandoned bumper-car rink. There is also a really dangerous looking ferris wheel that apparently still operates on holidays. In other words, it is an awesome park and I am in love with it. You can guarantee that I will be using that as a time-wasting location in the future when I need to escape the family.
I timed things out well, because when I got home I just had to pass out some rib bones for the guests to gnaw on which signals the end of the meal, and then they left. Apa was mad that I took so long, but then I paid her rent, which shut her up. I thought I might be left alone to chill in my room and listen to the loud music from the wedding next door, but no, I had to actually go to the wedding. Not only did I have to go to the wedding, I had to give a toast into the microphone. And that's not all. The musical entertainment that was going on at the time that I arrived is something that I would find funny if it wasn't so pathetic. It consisted of a guy sitting at a cheap keyboard and playing accompaniment for various guests that consisted of pushing a button to play one of those pre-recorded back-up beats and then playing a few chords here and there. Very classy, to say the least. Anyway, of course, I was forced to sing the one Kyrgyz song I know the words to, and then they held me hostage until I agreed to sing a song in English. I asked the keyboard guy if he knew any English songs, and he said no, but that I should just start singing and he can follow me. I highly doubted that, but I agreed. I sang “L-O-V-E” because someone suggested that I sing a song about love in honor of the wedding and it seemed appropriate. It was the strangest rendition of that song that the world has ever heard. I can't even begin to describe how ridiculous it was. It was all I could to to keep myself from laughing as I kept singing (the keyboardist kept signaling me to sing again and again) and it was more difficult as the neighbor ladies were stuffing money into the waistband of my pants and throwing scarves on my head. Fortunately for me, the whole incident was caught on video by one of my wonderful 11th grade students. Thanks so much for that. That little performance is exactly how I want the people of Kyrgyzstan to remember me.
November 9, 2009
So, I am back in Bishkek for a Peace Corps conference. Back in the same hotel we came to for orientation. It is as creepy as ever, and even more like the hotel in The Shining because now it is snowing! It has been snowing all day and there is a nice white blanket all over the broken down Soviet sculpture garden and the weird Eye of Sauron tower out back that I am admiring from the balcony. Down in the south last week I was walking around in short sleeves, so I wasn't quite as prepared for this kind of weather as I would have liked to be, but I'll be okay.
It is so great to see the whole group of volunteers again, most of whom I haven't seen at all for five months, and hear about the work they are doing and all that. It is like a class reunion. I also realize how lucky I am to be in the site I am in. The south really is the best place to be—no contest. And not only that, but I am able to make it to the coolest city in Kyrgyzstan every weekend, which is a lot more than a lot of other volunteers can say. I will never complain again! (haha, yeah, right).
Anyway, the conference is good, but there's not much to report.
November 16, 2009
Well, I am back at my site. Sadly, winter has come down here as well, and it is darn cold, but at least it is sunny and not quite as cold as it was in Bishkek last week. As a consequence of being stuck in a hotel for a week with a bunch of other Americans with weakened immune systems, I caught the flu. I took the day off today, but I hope I should be back to normal by tomorrow. I am just really glad that I was able to fly back home and I didn't have a long taxi ride. That would have been miserable. The 1 ½ hour marshrutka ride back from Osh was miserable enough.
Besides being sick, I am so glad to be back down in the south! It is just so much more interesting and pleasant here. It was great to be in Bishkek and eat my first real cheeseburger in six months, but it felt just as nice to come back to Osh city and wake up to the call to prayer and the milk ladies' sing-song calls. I wasn't even that upset that the marshrutka back to Uzgen took almost an hour to fill up because I love to hear the drivers calling our their destinations. There is such a rhythm and melody to it that is fascinating to me. Also, it was one of the nicest marshrutkas I have seen that is not owned by the Peace Corps, and I had a seat to myself because no one wanted to sit next to the sick American, so I was pretty comfortable.
November 18, 2009
It is amazing how a little sunshine and recently restored health can change a person's perspective on things. The flu was terrible, but I am feeling completely back to normal already. I have accepted that I am just going to have to put up with being constantly cold for the next few months, and really, it is just a matter of wearing enough layers all the time and drinking a lot of hot tea.
At school, the dress code has been completely abandoned. It is actually colder inside the school than it is outside, and in between classes everyone runs outside to stand in the sun. It is actually kind of pathetic, but no one has the money, time, or interest to properly heat the school, from the sound of things. I seem to distinctly remember that Laura Ingalls had a stove for her school house. How come we've got nothing? My counterpart came to school today looking fabulous with this long purple coat with a fluffy fur collar and cuffs that she might have borrowed from a 1st class passenger on the Titanic and a wool hat in the traditional Kyrgyz style that looks like something the girl in the movie “A Knight's Tale” wore. This was paired with skinny jeans and shiny black stiletto heeled boots. I thought I had on a pretty nice coat and boots, but I looked positively frumpy beside her. I don't think I can properly express the fabulousness of her outfit. You would never find anything like it in America.
Anyway, I am on a successful lesson high right now. Today I was not at all prepared for my lessons because they had a substitute last week and I didn't know what they did. Turns out they all copied down completely incomprehensible texts about the history of the Silk Road and the biography of some Kyrgyz poet, but none of the students could tell me in English or Kyrgyz what the texts were about. So me and my counterpart had to make up a bunch of lessons on the spot. My counterpart disappeared after the morning break like she does sometimes, so I taught the 10th grade classes by myself. A while ago we had done a lesson about professions, so I decided it would be a good idea to talk about which professions use a foreign language. I thought it might be kind of motivating to make a big list, since it would be very easy for a Kyrgyz village kid to think that they would never need to speak English.
As usual, 10b were a bunch of duds and didn't do much but sit and stare at me, but 10a (my very favorite class) did a great job with this and we had an awesome discussion. It was pretty much all in Kyrgyz, but I didn't even mind very much because they had such smart things to say. They went way beyond the list of careers that I had in mind to have some heated debates over whether knowing English could make you a better farmer, taxi driver, doctor, or lawyer in Kyrgyzstan. I was SO proud of them! They really are a bright group of kids. I am glad that I will get to teach them next year, too.
A few hours later:
If sunlight and good health can cause optimism, then cold and darkness can destroy it, and more quickly. When I wrote the above entry, the electricity was out, but there was plenty of sunlight coming in through the window and my room was still warm since my space heater had been on. I also had a giant thermos full of hot water for tea and a belly full of cheap village cafe food. A few hours later it started to get dark and really, really cold, and I came to the conclusion that I will, in fact, die this winter.
Now the power is back on, my thermos is re-filled, and my cold feet in their three layers of socks plus these funny wool slipper things I bought at the bazaar are wedged underneath my space heater waiting for it to get hot. My back and shoulders are all sore and tense from being hunched over in the cold, but as I start to thaw out, I am feeling much better. I suppose this is what I can expect from the rest of the winter, lots of ups and downs.
Hooray! My host mom lit the coal-burning stove in the next room. I love being warm.
This winter is gonna suck.
It was chilly, rainy, and miserable today. Really, it was pretty average October weather for Iowa, but in Iowa I wouldn't have to walk everywhere and the heat would be on inside and I wouldn't be carrying buckets of icy canal water around. Oh yeah, and at the moment, cvet jok. That means the electricity is out, but the Kyrgyz way of saying it is so much more appropriate to the situation, somehow. It's too dark to read or do lesson planning, but not dark enough to break out a candle or flashlight yet, so I will bask in the glow of the computer screen and try to draw some of the warmth into my fingers from its gently humming mechanisms under the keyboard.
Okay, so its not all bad. Actually, it has been quite pleasant and sunny lately, and I have been enjoying the harvest season atmosphere without actually having to take part in any of the harvest activities, which is nice. The fruit and vegetable section of the bazaar has undertaken yet another transformation, acquiring the most beautiful and brightly colored collection of fruits yet. There are tall heaps of deep scarlet pomegranates and an oranger-than-an-orange fruit that I have been told is a persimmon. To me, these fruits seem so new and exotic, but they are cheap and common here. I told my host family that I had never seen a pomegranate until a few years ago and that they are expensive in America, and they thought I was making mistakes in my Kyrgyz. I have been eating at least one pomegranate a day. Yum. Watermelons and white melon are still being sold here and there, but they aren't that good anymore and are slowly becoming replaced with pumpkins and squashes.
I'm a little bit behind on my lesson planning and such, after spending the first part of the week at the camp in Osh. For being what seemed to me to be a last minute operation (it was run by a local organization, so of course), it was an excellent camp. There were 35 high school-aged participants from the south of Kyrgyzstan that were chosen from a pool of 200 applicants. The participants were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (the theme of the camp was diversity) and overall, they were a very bright group. There were a few concepts that we tried to introduce that they had some trouble understanding, but they definitely came away from the camp with some useful skills and a better understanding of how to interact with people belonging to different nationalities. The kids gave me a very Uzbek name, Odina opa, and in addition to facilitating a few sessions, I was somehow put in charge of “Arts and Crafts” in the evenings, which consisted of two nights of making friendship bracelets, which (surprisingly) they loved, and (even more surprisingly) broke down some of the very rigid gender barriers that are in place here. Even the locals in charge of the camp assumed that none of the boys would want to make bracelets, but because I am so awesome, I got at least eight to make and even wear their own bracelets. Me and one other PCV spent a few nights at the camp and entertained the kids with seemingly endless running around games and some very multicultural/multilingual sing-alongs with the other PCV's guitar. Best of all, a lot of the kids spoke really excellent English, which was a nice break for me. Although there were still quite a few who insisted on yelling at me in Russian the whole time. By the end of the camp, they had written and printed a great little newsletter in Russian, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and English about what they did at the camp, and even though I could only understand bits and pieces, I can tell they did an excellent job on it. I made my host sister translate all of the Russian sentences that contained Odina opa because I don't like being talked about when I can't understand!
November 3, 2009
Halloween in Kyrgyzstan was interesting, to say the least. I had a little party planned for my 9-11th graders, and I hauled a pretty good-sized pumpkin all the way from the center of the village back to school so that we could make a jack o' lantern, but no one showed up! It was very sad. Especially because the other volunteer in my village put on a considerably more planned out party and had a huge turnout and it was a huge success. But then, she has students that she can actually have conversations with in English. Not so with me. Still, I was invited and it was way fun, even though the disco party at the end got cut short when the electricity went out.
As for us Americans, we were able to enjoy our holiday by celebrating at a great party put on by a cafe in Osh. We all dressed up and had a lot of fun, though our taxi drivers were probably confused and terrified.
Now, I am enjoying a week off from school (our end of the first quarter break). I stayed in Osh yesterday and I thought that the rest of the week might be a good chance to get ahead on lesson planning and whatever else. So far, no luck. My host family had guests over today, and after sleeping in much longer than the rest of my family (but not that long, because the neighbors are having their wedding party part II with loud music that started at 8 a.m. My host mom told me I should sleep in a different room on the other side of the house for the next few days, because they will be playing loud music all night for a few days. This is worse than living next door to a frat house) I helped prepare only a little bit, and then escaped because I had to go to the bank in Uzgen. I am lazy, so I didn't want to go back home and do more guesting work, so another volunteer and I wasted time by checking out the park on top of the hill in Uzgen. For you Dubuquers out there reading this, imagine a park that is a combination of Eagle Point and Storybook Hill, and then let it fall into disrepair for about 30 years. Then you will have the park in Uzgen. It is on top of a hill and offers a view of the river that is similar to Eagle Point, only with more Central Asian terrain. It also has the remains of some strange playground structures and rickety bridges and what me and the other volunteer think might be an abandoned bumper-car rink. There is also a really dangerous looking ferris wheel that apparently still operates on holidays. In other words, it is an awesome park and I am in love with it. You can guarantee that I will be using that as a time-wasting location in the future when I need to escape the family.
I timed things out well, because when I got home I just had to pass out some rib bones for the guests to gnaw on which signals the end of the meal, and then they left. Apa was mad that I took so long, but then I paid her rent, which shut her up. I thought I might be left alone to chill in my room and listen to the loud music from the wedding next door, but no, I had to actually go to the wedding. Not only did I have to go to the wedding, I had to give a toast into the microphone. And that's not all. The musical entertainment that was going on at the time that I arrived is something that I would find funny if it wasn't so pathetic. It consisted of a guy sitting at a cheap keyboard and playing accompaniment for various guests that consisted of pushing a button to play one of those pre-recorded back-up beats and then playing a few chords here and there. Very classy, to say the least. Anyway, of course, I was forced to sing the one Kyrgyz song I know the words to, and then they held me hostage until I agreed to sing a song in English. I asked the keyboard guy if he knew any English songs, and he said no, but that I should just start singing and he can follow me. I highly doubted that, but I agreed. I sang “L-O-V-E” because someone suggested that I sing a song about love in honor of the wedding and it seemed appropriate. It was the strangest rendition of that song that the world has ever heard. I can't even begin to describe how ridiculous it was. It was all I could to to keep myself from laughing as I kept singing (the keyboardist kept signaling me to sing again and again) and it was more difficult as the neighbor ladies were stuffing money into the waistband of my pants and throwing scarves on my head. Fortunately for me, the whole incident was caught on video by one of my wonderful 11th grade students. Thanks so much for that. That little performance is exactly how I want the people of Kyrgyzstan to remember me.
November 9, 2009
So, I am back in Bishkek for a Peace Corps conference. Back in the same hotel we came to for orientation. It is as creepy as ever, and even more like the hotel in The Shining because now it is snowing! It has been snowing all day and there is a nice white blanket all over the broken down Soviet sculpture garden and the weird Eye of Sauron tower out back that I am admiring from the balcony. Down in the south last week I was walking around in short sleeves, so I wasn't quite as prepared for this kind of weather as I would have liked to be, but I'll be okay.
It is so great to see the whole group of volunteers again, most of whom I haven't seen at all for five months, and hear about the work they are doing and all that. It is like a class reunion. I also realize how lucky I am to be in the site I am in. The south really is the best place to be—no contest. And not only that, but I am able to make it to the coolest city in Kyrgyzstan every weekend, which is a lot more than a lot of other volunteers can say. I will never complain again! (haha, yeah, right).
Anyway, the conference is good, but there's not much to report.
November 16, 2009
Well, I am back at my site. Sadly, winter has come down here as well, and it is darn cold, but at least it is sunny and not quite as cold as it was in Bishkek last week. As a consequence of being stuck in a hotel for a week with a bunch of other Americans with weakened immune systems, I caught the flu. I took the day off today, but I hope I should be back to normal by tomorrow. I am just really glad that I was able to fly back home and I didn't have a long taxi ride. That would have been miserable. The 1 ½ hour marshrutka ride back from Osh was miserable enough.
Besides being sick, I am so glad to be back down in the south! It is just so much more interesting and pleasant here. It was great to be in Bishkek and eat my first real cheeseburger in six months, but it felt just as nice to come back to Osh city and wake up to the call to prayer and the milk ladies' sing-song calls. I wasn't even that upset that the marshrutka back to Uzgen took almost an hour to fill up because I love to hear the drivers calling our their destinations. There is such a rhythm and melody to it that is fascinating to me. Also, it was one of the nicest marshrutkas I have seen that is not owned by the Peace Corps, and I had a seat to myself because no one wanted to sit next to the sick American, so I was pretty comfortable.
November 18, 2009
It is amazing how a little sunshine and recently restored health can change a person's perspective on things. The flu was terrible, but I am feeling completely back to normal already. I have accepted that I am just going to have to put up with being constantly cold for the next few months, and really, it is just a matter of wearing enough layers all the time and drinking a lot of hot tea.
At school, the dress code has been completely abandoned. It is actually colder inside the school than it is outside, and in between classes everyone runs outside to stand in the sun. It is actually kind of pathetic, but no one has the money, time, or interest to properly heat the school, from the sound of things. I seem to distinctly remember that Laura Ingalls had a stove for her school house. How come we've got nothing? My counterpart came to school today looking fabulous with this long purple coat with a fluffy fur collar and cuffs that she might have borrowed from a 1st class passenger on the Titanic and a wool hat in the traditional Kyrgyz style that looks like something the girl in the movie “A Knight's Tale” wore. This was paired with skinny jeans and shiny black stiletto heeled boots. I thought I had on a pretty nice coat and boots, but I looked positively frumpy beside her. I don't think I can properly express the fabulousness of her outfit. You would never find anything like it in America.
Anyway, I am on a successful lesson high right now. Today I was not at all prepared for my lessons because they had a substitute last week and I didn't know what they did. Turns out they all copied down completely incomprehensible texts about the history of the Silk Road and the biography of some Kyrgyz poet, but none of the students could tell me in English or Kyrgyz what the texts were about. So me and my counterpart had to make up a bunch of lessons on the spot. My counterpart disappeared after the morning break like she does sometimes, so I taught the 10th grade classes by myself. A while ago we had done a lesson about professions, so I decided it would be a good idea to talk about which professions use a foreign language. I thought it might be kind of motivating to make a big list, since it would be very easy for a Kyrgyz village kid to think that they would never need to speak English.
As usual, 10b were a bunch of duds and didn't do much but sit and stare at me, but 10a (my very favorite class) did a great job with this and we had an awesome discussion. It was pretty much all in Kyrgyz, but I didn't even mind very much because they had such smart things to say. They went way beyond the list of careers that I had in mind to have some heated debates over whether knowing English could make you a better farmer, taxi driver, doctor, or lawyer in Kyrgyzstan. I was SO proud of them! They really are a bright group of kids. I am glad that I will get to teach them next year, too.
A few hours later:
If sunlight and good health can cause optimism, then cold and darkness can destroy it, and more quickly. When I wrote the above entry, the electricity was out, but there was plenty of sunlight coming in through the window and my room was still warm since my space heater had been on. I also had a giant thermos full of hot water for tea and a belly full of cheap village cafe food. A few hours later it started to get dark and really, really cold, and I came to the conclusion that I will, in fact, die this winter.
Now the power is back on, my thermos is re-filled, and my cold feet in their three layers of socks plus these funny wool slipper things I bought at the bazaar are wedged underneath my space heater waiting for it to get hot. My back and shoulders are all sore and tense from being hunched over in the cold, but as I start to thaw out, I am feeling much better. I suppose this is what I can expect from the rest of the winter, lots of ups and downs.
Hooray! My host mom lit the coal-burning stove in the next room. I love being warm.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Weddings, Engagements, and More Continuous Confusion
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.
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.
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.
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