Talas Life...

Well I am definitely settled in to my permanent site! My new host family is just as great as I remember, and these first few days of school have been amazing! The ride up here was interesting though. We left the Issyk-Kul Hotel in Bishkek at 9:00am in a rented marshutka. I was with four other Talas volunteers and our respective counterparts (the ‘counterpart’ is the teacher that we will be working with or the next two years) riding through the Ala-Too mountain pass with all of our luggage, when our driver hit a turn a bit too fast and blew out a tire going about 30km/h. Granted, it’s not that fast but in the Marshutka that blown-tire felt like a bomb going off! He made us all pile outside while he worked on fixing it but we were all wearing shorts and t-shirts because Bishkek was about 80 degrees, but on the mountain pass the temperature was hovering somewhere between ‘damn-cold’ and ‘fucking freezing’ with a 40mph wind to cap it all off! He finally got us going again in about an hour which was good because I was starting to wonder if the feeling in my hands and feet would ever return. Luckily the feeling did return in time for my warm welcome at my new permanent site!

My new host-family is great. My new host-Apa is an excellent cook, which is a much welcome change from my PST host-Apa who…well, I’m sure you’ve read the other postings on that subject:) I am still friends with Kolya, the gigantic beast of a dog who according to my host-Ata is ‘an excellent dog-fighting champion’…I really don’t even know how he qualifies though because not only does he look more like a bear wearing a dog costume than an actual ‘dog’ but he’s extremely docile and well behaved…when he’s not stealing my left-overs:) We’ve all had some lively dinner-time conversations and my Kyrgyz is improving incrementally by the day; baby steps for sure, but it worked for What About Bob? so I’m sure I’ll get there eventually!

School is awesome! I finally feel like I’m actually doing what I set out here to do. The monotony of PST is finally over and I’m really teaching! Yes, that’s right, I’m really teaching. I was supposed to watch my counterpart teach for the first two weeks before coming up with lesson plans together, but yesterday (24-09-08) she said in her very broken English “James, I am tired. I have to plan our party tomorrow so can you teach this last class?” Me: “Ooookkaaayyy…sure. What should I teach them?” Narjan (my counterpart): “English.” Me: “Right. Okay. English…” Sure enough I went into the 8th grade class and began with introductions, then worked my way from there for the next 45 minutes just by judging what they already knew (not much at all) and what was in the room that I could translate/explain to them. It actually went quite well, and I’ve already got a good grasp on keeping them in order. Once they all figured out that Narjan would not be in there some boys in the back started goofing off so I made them come up and write a sentence on the board. Luckily for me Kyrgyz culture is not as egocentric as American culture so being put in the spotlight is the ultimate humiliation. They were quiet for the rest of my “class.” :)

Now back to the party. As I write this (25-09-08) I’m at home (we actually have electricity past 9am!) waiting to go back to school at 2:00pm for the party. My first class today was scheduled for 10:30 so I arrived at 10:15 to find teachers running all over the place and not a kid in sight. I tracked down Narjan who in very flustered English explained: “No, we no teach today. Today is our party.” Me: “Okay, that’s cool…ummm…when’s the party” Narjan: “Azr”. Now o’ loyal readers is a great lesson in Kyrgyz culture. What Narjan said in response to my query was “azr” which literally translates to “now” and/or “soon”. It’s used interchangeably between the two English definitions and really does mean now and/or soon. By the way, it’s the only word the Kyrgyz even have for “now”. So I of course offered to help prepare for “our party”, but Narjan said that she wanted me to wait in our English classroom because the party would begin “azr”. So I waited. Then I waited some more. Then I took out my deck of cards and had four rousing games of Solitaire, all of which I lost to the dealer. Soon enough (about 4 hours later) Narjan comes back in and says: “Okay, now I leave, but our party will begin azr, you can wait or go home and come back at 4 when our party begins.” “Oh.” I say “the party begins at 4?” Narjan: “Yes, of course, that is what we’ve been planning for weeks!” (I just got here three days ago, remember.) Me: “Oh, yeah, I must have forgotten that tiny all important piece of information from a couple of weeks ago when I wasn’t here…I guess I’ll go home and come back at 4.” The part of my last quote prior to the ellipsis was of course a very funny internal monologue that I repeated for the duration of my walk home.

So there you have it. Kyrgyz culture summed up with one word. The strangest part to me though was the fact that although all of the teachers were running around trying to prepare for the party all of the kids were sitting dutifully in their classrooms waiting for their teacher to appear! When I asked Narjan why the kids were even in school if no teachers were teaching she said: “the children must be in school.” Then I asked why they even bothered going class to class if there were no teachers around? Narjan’s response: “maybe some teachers want to teach.” I guess that tells it all right there. ‘Now’ can also mean ‘soon,’ and when there’s a party going on teaching is purely optional!

I love it here. This style of living fits my personality quite well. I honestly didn’t mind the fact that my entire day was wasted because, honestly, what did I have to do anyway!? I’m really just along for the ride. Lately I seem to have had a crash-course in Kyrgyz professionalism (a bit of an oxymoron, but entertaining nonetheless) and every singly meal I’ve had with my new host family thus far has more than made up for the gastric pain I endured throughout my three months of PST:)