It’s Tuesday night at 8:39pm as I write this. I’m a wee bit tipsy and to be honest a bit enamored with the whole idea of what it means to “be Kyrgyz”. It’s more than a birthright. It’s like a way of life. I could go back to America tomorrow and still employ some time honored tricks to living that I’ve learned from my adopted homeland. (1) When it’s your birthday, don’t just celebrate the day of instead, stretch it out over a week and have progressively larger parties until the final blow-out spectacular that’s actually two days after the calendared day of your birth. My Apa’s thirty-fifth birthday is/was today (November 18). We had a small get-together on Sunday to celebrate the beginning of her birthday but tonight we had the real birthday party replete with presents, vodka, bishbarmark, vodka, music, vodka, dancing, vodka, and a little vodka to make sure everyone had a good time. Then as I was stumbling through my goodbye’s (linguistically and physically) I overheard that the real party is on Thursday (that’s forty-eight hours after my Apa’s birth thirty-five years ago, for those of you playing the home game) at a local café. They’ll have a DJ, vodka, dancing, vodka, more people speaking a language I am just beginning to get a grasp of, and yes, vodka as well. That’s pretty cool, no? (2) When you get paid fuck your job, just DRINK! Today was pay-day at my school. Because I live in a cash-based society the teachers are paid in cash (repetitive? Yes. Needed? I think so…who else gets paid IN CASH as an adult unless you are working for “the union”?) so when I arrived at my school promptly at 9:30 for our first class at 9:40 I walked into the teacher’s lounge to find every single teacher in the school there. They were all milling about and keeping a stern eye on a man I’ve never seen before who was sitting in the corner with a large metal box in front of him. Two things: One, the Kyrgyz have absolutely no sense of what it means to stand in line, so everyone literally rushes forward at the same time in a “may the best man win” type of situation. Two, the man with the metal box turned out to be the banks’ representative. He had every single teacher’s salary hidden in the confines of his large metal box. Sort of makes you appreciate your direct deposit, doesn’t it? As the teacher’s all rushed forward screeching their names to the metal-box-carrying-man hoping that he’ll pay them first I played about thirty-five intense games of Snake. For those of you that have never owned a cheap Nokia phone, Snake is the greatest game in the history of the universe. I could describe more but Google should do it justice. Anyway, as I was playing the last level of the “Campaign” option in Snake (the level is called the “apartment” and it’s FUCKING HARD) I watched a teacher get knocked to the ground. No sooner could I swear under my breath and stand to help her up than other teachers were already pushing her to the back of the crowd so they could yell their names to the pay-box-man as loud as they could. As soon as I saw that the poor lady that was too weak to elbow her way to the front of the melee in front of me was okay I began to laugh. I’d been there for almost two hours and only about six teachers had been paid! If they’d all just waited in line and been ordered about the whole endeavor they would have been in and out in a matter of minutes! But I digress. The reason that this is all so related to number 2 (stated much too far above) is that as soon as my counterpart, Narjan, was paid she grabbed her purse and said “James, let’s go.” Now, being the ignorant American that I evidently am, I took this to mean “James, let’s go teach at least one bloody class today because we’ve just conveniently missed two of the three we were supposed to teach.” How wrong I was. She led me directly into the English Club Room where our director (Kyrgyz equivalent of the American principle) was sitting with two bottles of vodka, a gigantic bottle of beer, meat, cheese, bread, and a ton of candy. Fuck it. IT’S PAY DAY! The best part is that as my director, my counterpart (who happens to be vice-director) and three other teachers were enjoying our pre-noon imbibing and copious sustenance consumption numerous diligent students stopped by enquiring about their supposed lessons! Silly kids. IT’S MOTHERFUCKIN’ PAY DAY, MAN! One by one the teacher’s of the subject in question got up to address these ignorant youngsters and explain to them that IT’S MOTHERFUCKIN’ PAY DAY, MAN!! No self-respecting teacher works on pay day. Silly kids…(3) If you get a phone call in the middle of class, whether you’re a teacher or a student, answer it and make sure everyone is aware of your popularity as you do so. A specific instance of this didn’t happen today, or any day mentioned thus far but this scenario has happened on more than one occasion and therefore I feel that it is duly worth mentioning here. I team-teach with Narjan and yet in the middle of a grammar lesson involving such intricacies of the English language as the distinct difference between “a” and “an” (sarcasm at its finest: every schoolboy knows that “an” is only used to preface an indirect noun beginning with a vowel [basically…you want more? Look it up yourself, I’m tired], but when you’re teaching it to 9th form kids who have been learning English for seven years and they look at you like it’s new information it’s a bit disheartening, nay, ridiculous) she’ll get a phone call that she’ll immediately answer and take outside. This has happened more times than I can count. It’s more than a little distracting, but am I wrong if I also think it’s completely hilarious in its absurdity? Thank you. Finally (4), if someone who is not employed by any health related agency and has absolutely no degree or certificate in medicine has ever given you advice or concluded anything about any health-related matter either directly or indirectly believe it and adhere to it as if it were given to you by the hand of God. One of my favorite myths that every Kyrgyz propagates is that drinking cold water is bad for you. It is. Actually yes, I’m not being sarcastic. Drinking cold water infected with bacteria such as Giardia or the like is actually quite bad for you. I have tried numerous times to tell my host family, both my current one and my PST one, that it’s not the cold that’s bad for you, but the bacteria that (if left un-treated) lives in the cold water that’s bad for you. The Kyrgyz have figured out that if you boil your water and add tea that it becomes okay. They refuse to believe, however, that my “magical distiller-device from America” (it’s Peace Corps issued and not that great, but it does the job) actually makes cold water okay. I have thus been forced to resort to drinking my cold water in private and away from the judging eyes of those around me because of the fear they have of what the “cold” might do to me! That’s right. I’m a closet-drinker-of-COLD-water. Are you as ashamed of me as I am of myself? It’s okay…according to Kyrgyz folklore you’re absolutely in-the-right. However, last night my Apa explained to me that if you don’t want to get sick during the winter all you have to do is SWIM IN A FROZEN BODY OF WATER. Yeah, I capitalized that last bit because I wanted to emphasize how ABSOLUTELY INSANE it is. Okay, so I can’t drink distilled cold water, but I can swim in a frozen-fucking lake and THEN I’ll be healthy? Hell...I’ll believe it. Just give me the activities of six paydays in a row combined into a two-hour time span and I’ll believe anything!
I very well could have broken the above stories into a few different paragraphs and worked on the grammar, punctuation and the like but I neglected to do so because I’m drunk and I like the free-flowing nature of my prose. If you don’t, then FUCK OFF CRITIC! For everyone else out there: Enjoy. Believe me, I certainly am:)
21 November 2008
What an adventure!
Wow. What an amazing weekend! I travelled to Bishkek with 13 other volunteers from Talas braving the freshly snowed mountain pass of the majestic Ala-Too Mountains to meet up with about 20 or so other volunteers from around the country for one entire weekend of hedonistic indulgence. We all arrived in Bishkek at around 3pm on Friday (a Kyrgyz National Holiday, so we all didn’t have school) and checked into three separate apartments that had been pre-arranged for our excursion. After my friend Kristen and I gathered together the bulk of the volunteers to stay at our apartment, summarily named “the ‘party’ apartment” and handed over the keys we made our way to Beta Café. Beta Café is the best place in the city to buy reasonably priced hamburgers that are American style, as well as delicious pizza. After we decimated our bellies with long-sought-after grease we headed to The Metro. The Metro is owned by a British ex-pat and is absolutely the best place in the entire city to go for their wide array of available drinks as well as their stunning and delicious menu of food items, however it is not for someone working on a Peace Corps budget. Luckily I have saved for this trip of indulgences for the past two months so I was prepared to completely let loose. We met up with Nick, another volunteer, and swapped stories for a couple of hours over pints of Hoegaarden and Jack Daniels. One will never have a truer appreciation for American liquor than if one’s been forced to only consume copious amounts of cheap vodka for months at a time. Jack, thank you. After this we headed back to the “party apartment” and drank and talked with the other volunteers that we hadn’t seen (Kristen lives in Talas, we kick it every weekend:) for a month and a half…though after what everyone’s already experienced it really felt like a lifetime of absence.
The we headed to The Golden Bull. This is a nightclub in the center of the city that is popular with American Servicemen and prostitutes alike. Being any American, however, gets you in for free and escorted to the VIP section so it’s worth the hassle…or so I thought. I organized gigantic discotheque club excursions when I bartended in Italy and have been to clubs in Vegas and Hollywood…not to mention some pretty good one’s in Seattle. I don’t know what I was expecting, but evidently not many people travel to Kyrgyzstan to get their groove on because this place was horrible. The prostitutes were everywhere and the American Servicemen all looked like they wanted to fight, not to mention that this was all taking place along with drinking and dancing in a club no larger than the average American garage. I grabbed my friend Tim and he and I left pretty much as soon as we arrived.
With that slight downturn of events the remainder of the night turned out quite well. I got into a very deep and long drunken conversation with my friend Jeanne until about 4am on the stairwell of our apartment and passed out in the hallway. The next day was epic. Saturday morning Jeanne and I went to go get breakfast at The Metro. We split a plate of nachos and she got a chicken burrito which I matched with my own plate of fettuccini alfredo with spinach and parmesan cheese. We both drank some Irish Coffee’s and played FREE POOL for a couple of hours joined intermittently by more and more volunteers who decided to debauch their wallets for the sake of flavor for the first time in five months as well. After that it was about 3pm (did I mention it was a late night the night before?) so Jeanne and I decided to go pick up some more supplies and head back to the apartment to meet up with everyone else. By and by people decided to head out for dinner. I went to this gorgeous Italian restaurant right in the center of town where I ate thinly sliced beef marinated with lemon and a plate of cauliflower and melted swiss cheese. Oh, and I split a bottle of champagne with Kristen!
Terrible foresight can sometimes lead to disaster…but it can also lead to unexpected adventure and excitement—which is exactly what my own forgetting of our apartment keys did! It wasn’t until we were all walking back from our amazing Italian culinary delight when I remembered my mistake. I had left the keys with another group that wouldn’t be back for over an hour. At this point it’s about 30 degrees Fahrenheit and beginning to hail so we all ducked inside a seemingly empty café to wait. Soon enough an old Russian lady comes out and tells us that it’s her birthday in the next rented-out room and that we should all come join her. Fuck it, we’ve got an hour to kill and this lady seemed drunk which means there’s at least something going on in there—why not? We all head in and are greeted like kings. Jonathan and I proceed straight to the dance floor and I dance with just about every single lady over the age of 60. Needless to say that we were such a hit that the DJ even took a second for everyone to recognize the “Americanskis”, and we were given a round of enthusiastic applause before being led back to our table. The table that Francis, Erin, Kristen and Jenna were sitting (not dancing like Jonathan and me) at was soon brought a bottle of champagne and we all toasted our generous host. After that I asked the host to dance and we danced an epic number to the theme from Top Gun…it was indeed as romantic as I just made it sound. She was so enamored that she brought me over to her table and sat me at the head of it. Although I attempted to make inroads with conversation, her husband was not very impressed…though he did toast to my health. Come to think of it I really hope he’s not mafia because that toast could take on a whole different meaning. No matter. After she sat me down she gave me plate after plate of delicious Russian food (really, I don’t know why the Kyrgyz insist on making theirs so disgusting…Kyrgyz food is easily some of the worst culinary disasters on the planet!) and introduced me to her daughter. How nice of her! Anyway, this was towards the end of the night and my stomach was full of great food, great champagne and great vibes so I followed everyone else out. As a thank you for my dancing and I’m sure for bringing every other American to her birthday party the host gave me a huge hug, kissed my cheek and handed me a plastic bag. When I got outside I opened up the bag to find a nice freshly ripened banana. How nice! By this time people were in the apartment and the party there was getting started so we all made our way over, with a great story to tell to boot! The night at the apartment turned out as would be expected with some notable stories and names that shall remain nameless, but it was the Russian lady’s birthday party that made it a great night indeed.
Sunday came and due to the excitement that preceded that morning everyone decided that one final trip to The Metro was in order. We all rolled into The Metro looking every bit the savages we were/are and sat down to more delicious food accompanied by White Russians. After getting a little buzzed due to the dehydration from the night before and being generally delirious from the pizza, potato skins, chicken-burgers and burritos that once populated our table we missed the last available marshutka out of Bishkek! Uh oh. Those that could get back did, but Joe, Nick, Jeanne and I all were forced to wander around until we found a dormitory-style guest house on the outskirts of town. It had amazingly comfortable beds, staff that spoke English and a very nice outdoor seating area. We also met an Australian named Andrew and Japanese named Taki. After the initial hello’s the Peace Corps group headed out to one final epic dinner at the best Chinese food restaurant I’ve ever been to! The portions were huge, the price was reasonable and the atmosphere electric…seriously, this place was amazing! We took our left-over’s back to the guest house and left them outside because the weather at this point was colder than any refrigerator and picked up some vodka and beer to party with our new Japanese and Australian friends! The next morning we all ate the remnants of our Chinese food before we bussed and walked to the West Bus station where we said our goodbyes. Then the weekend got interesting.
Because I was the only one from Talas that over-extended their stay in Bishkek I had to ride a marshutka with eleven other Kyrgyz people all the way back. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the guy next to me didn’t keep nudging me awake with interesting questions like “how much money do you make?” and “what is your name…for the thousandth fucking time?”. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there wasn’t a baby crying the entire time. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the asshole sitting next to me refusing to let me sleep didn’t have a friend with him that kept coughing, spitting, smoking and drinking vodka. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t take 9 ½ hours instead of the normal 6. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t hit the snow in the Ala-Too mountains and almost skid out of control three times. But it especially wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t pulled over to the side of the road on the downhill side of the scariest fucking mountains on the entire fucking earth in time to watch our driver quickly exit the vehicle and run away through blinding snow just as it’s getting dark without saying a word.
When I finally worked through my anger to ask politely “where the fuck did that asshole run off too?” it was explained to me “svet jok.” This translates to “no electricity”, meaning our marshutka has no electricity. It wouldn’t have been so funny if the thought of this crazy guy running off into the night to find more electricity in the middle of a snowy mountain range didn’t crack me up, but the explanation was given to me under the glow of the dome light in the marshutka, which was quite bright and shining with electricity. It’s bad enough I have to teach these people English, but now I was faced with the prospect of teaching them their own bloody language. However I didn’t have time to begin my lesson because the jerk-off to my left interrupted my formation of a brilliant lesson plan with another “hey Los Angeles (his ever-so affectionate nickname for me because he couldn’t remember ‘James’) do you like sheep?”. He meant the meat, not the love that takes place in certain Midwestern American states…but I’d had quite enough of his intelligent probing questions so I just began to pretend like I didn’t speak any Kyrgyz. This worked for a time and he got frustrated with me so I at least got to sleep while freezing my fucking balls off in the middle of a marshutka that doesn’t have electricity, though clearly does, in the middle of a blinding snowstorm on a mountain pass that’s miles from completion surrounded by Kyrgyz Nationals coughing and wheezing. But it was, finally, sleep.
I awoke to the side door being opened and an empty gas can being thrown onto my knees by our missing driver. Oh, I thought, they meant to say that there was no gas…those silly Kyrgyz I thought to myself as I pretended to sleep while getting nudged ever so rudely in the arm by the fool to my left. We were finally on the road again after about an hour and no closer to our destination. It would take another three and a half hours of twisting turns, spin-outs and terrible questioning from my interrogator sitting nearest to me before I would reach Talas. However, by this time it was too late to catch a ride home so I had to crash at my friends’ house.
The next morning I helped with the Flex Testing because I was already in Talas and was treated to dinner by the country recruiter for Flex. I made it home the next day. What a weekend. What a weekend indeed! Now I’m off to school tomorrow at which I shall attempt to explain my three day absence, but it shouldn’t be a problem because that’s just par for the course in this country. Then this weekend I’ll be back in Talas to relive highlights with my good friends there, and next week I’ll be back to my normal schedule eating bishbarmark while teaching and working with with shitty kids. It’s a wonder I still like what I’m doing. But I do, I really do…and that is making all the difference.
The we headed to The Golden Bull. This is a nightclub in the center of the city that is popular with American Servicemen and prostitutes alike. Being any American, however, gets you in for free and escorted to the VIP section so it’s worth the hassle…or so I thought. I organized gigantic discotheque club excursions when I bartended in Italy and have been to clubs in Vegas and Hollywood…not to mention some pretty good one’s in Seattle. I don’t know what I was expecting, but evidently not many people travel to Kyrgyzstan to get their groove on because this place was horrible. The prostitutes were everywhere and the American Servicemen all looked like they wanted to fight, not to mention that this was all taking place along with drinking and dancing in a club no larger than the average American garage. I grabbed my friend Tim and he and I left pretty much as soon as we arrived.
With that slight downturn of events the remainder of the night turned out quite well. I got into a very deep and long drunken conversation with my friend Jeanne until about 4am on the stairwell of our apartment and passed out in the hallway. The next day was epic. Saturday morning Jeanne and I went to go get breakfast at The Metro. We split a plate of nachos and she got a chicken burrito which I matched with my own plate of fettuccini alfredo with spinach and parmesan cheese. We both drank some Irish Coffee’s and played FREE POOL for a couple of hours joined intermittently by more and more volunteers who decided to debauch their wallets for the sake of flavor for the first time in five months as well. After that it was about 3pm (did I mention it was a late night the night before?) so Jeanne and I decided to go pick up some more supplies and head back to the apartment to meet up with everyone else. By and by people decided to head out for dinner. I went to this gorgeous Italian restaurant right in the center of town where I ate thinly sliced beef marinated with lemon and a plate of cauliflower and melted swiss cheese. Oh, and I split a bottle of champagne with Kristen!
Terrible foresight can sometimes lead to disaster…but it can also lead to unexpected adventure and excitement—which is exactly what my own forgetting of our apartment keys did! It wasn’t until we were all walking back from our amazing Italian culinary delight when I remembered my mistake. I had left the keys with another group that wouldn’t be back for over an hour. At this point it’s about 30 degrees Fahrenheit and beginning to hail so we all ducked inside a seemingly empty café to wait. Soon enough an old Russian lady comes out and tells us that it’s her birthday in the next rented-out room and that we should all come join her. Fuck it, we’ve got an hour to kill and this lady seemed drunk which means there’s at least something going on in there—why not? We all head in and are greeted like kings. Jonathan and I proceed straight to the dance floor and I dance with just about every single lady over the age of 60. Needless to say that we were such a hit that the DJ even took a second for everyone to recognize the “Americanskis”, and we were given a round of enthusiastic applause before being led back to our table. The table that Francis, Erin, Kristen and Jenna were sitting (not dancing like Jonathan and me) at was soon brought a bottle of champagne and we all toasted our generous host. After that I asked the host to dance and we danced an epic number to the theme from Top Gun…it was indeed as romantic as I just made it sound. She was so enamored that she brought me over to her table and sat me at the head of it. Although I attempted to make inroads with conversation, her husband was not very impressed…though he did toast to my health. Come to think of it I really hope he’s not mafia because that toast could take on a whole different meaning. No matter. After she sat me down she gave me plate after plate of delicious Russian food (really, I don’t know why the Kyrgyz insist on making theirs so disgusting…Kyrgyz food is easily some of the worst culinary disasters on the planet!) and introduced me to her daughter. How nice of her! Anyway, this was towards the end of the night and my stomach was full of great food, great champagne and great vibes so I followed everyone else out. As a thank you for my dancing and I’m sure for bringing every other American to her birthday party the host gave me a huge hug, kissed my cheek and handed me a plastic bag. When I got outside I opened up the bag to find a nice freshly ripened banana. How nice! By this time people were in the apartment and the party there was getting started so we all made our way over, with a great story to tell to boot! The night at the apartment turned out as would be expected with some notable stories and names that shall remain nameless, but it was the Russian lady’s birthday party that made it a great night indeed.
Sunday came and due to the excitement that preceded that morning everyone decided that one final trip to The Metro was in order. We all rolled into The Metro looking every bit the savages we were/are and sat down to more delicious food accompanied by White Russians. After getting a little buzzed due to the dehydration from the night before and being generally delirious from the pizza, potato skins, chicken-burgers and burritos that once populated our table we missed the last available marshutka out of Bishkek! Uh oh. Those that could get back did, but Joe, Nick, Jeanne and I all were forced to wander around until we found a dormitory-style guest house on the outskirts of town. It had amazingly comfortable beds, staff that spoke English and a very nice outdoor seating area. We also met an Australian named Andrew and Japanese named Taki. After the initial hello’s the Peace Corps group headed out to one final epic dinner at the best Chinese food restaurant I’ve ever been to! The portions were huge, the price was reasonable and the atmosphere electric…seriously, this place was amazing! We took our left-over’s back to the guest house and left them outside because the weather at this point was colder than any refrigerator and picked up some vodka and beer to party with our new Japanese and Australian friends! The next morning we all ate the remnants of our Chinese food before we bussed and walked to the West Bus station where we said our goodbyes. Then the weekend got interesting.
Because I was the only one from Talas that over-extended their stay in Bishkek I had to ride a marshutka with eleven other Kyrgyz people all the way back. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the guy next to me didn’t keep nudging me awake with interesting questions like “how much money do you make?” and “what is your name…for the thousandth fucking time?”. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there wasn’t a baby crying the entire time. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the asshole sitting next to me refusing to let me sleep didn’t have a friend with him that kept coughing, spitting, smoking and drinking vodka. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t take 9 ½ hours instead of the normal 6. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t hit the snow in the Ala-Too mountains and almost skid out of control three times. But it especially wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t pulled over to the side of the road on the downhill side of the scariest fucking mountains on the entire fucking earth in time to watch our driver quickly exit the vehicle and run away through blinding snow just as it’s getting dark without saying a word.
When I finally worked through my anger to ask politely “where the fuck did that asshole run off too?” it was explained to me “svet jok.” This translates to “no electricity”, meaning our marshutka has no electricity. It wouldn’t have been so funny if the thought of this crazy guy running off into the night to find more electricity in the middle of a snowy mountain range didn’t crack me up, but the explanation was given to me under the glow of the dome light in the marshutka, which was quite bright and shining with electricity. It’s bad enough I have to teach these people English, but now I was faced with the prospect of teaching them their own bloody language. However I didn’t have time to begin my lesson because the jerk-off to my left interrupted my formation of a brilliant lesson plan with another “hey Los Angeles (his ever-so affectionate nickname for me because he couldn’t remember ‘James’) do you like sheep?”. He meant the meat, not the love that takes place in certain Midwestern American states…but I’d had quite enough of his intelligent probing questions so I just began to pretend like I didn’t speak any Kyrgyz. This worked for a time and he got frustrated with me so I at least got to sleep while freezing my fucking balls off in the middle of a marshutka that doesn’t have electricity, though clearly does, in the middle of a blinding snowstorm on a mountain pass that’s miles from completion surrounded by Kyrgyz Nationals coughing and wheezing. But it was, finally, sleep.
I awoke to the side door being opened and an empty gas can being thrown onto my knees by our missing driver. Oh, I thought, they meant to say that there was no gas…those silly Kyrgyz I thought to myself as I pretended to sleep while getting nudged ever so rudely in the arm by the fool to my left. We were finally on the road again after about an hour and no closer to our destination. It would take another three and a half hours of twisting turns, spin-outs and terrible questioning from my interrogator sitting nearest to me before I would reach Talas. However, by this time it was too late to catch a ride home so I had to crash at my friends’ house.
The next morning I helped with the Flex Testing because I was already in Talas and was treated to dinner by the country recruiter for Flex. I made it home the next day. What a weekend. What a weekend indeed! Now I’m off to school tomorrow at which I shall attempt to explain my three day absence, but it shouldn’t be a problem because that’s just par for the course in this country. Then this weekend I’ll be back in Talas to relive highlights with my good friends there, and next week I’ll be back to my normal schedule eating bishbarmark while teaching and working with with shitty kids. It’s a wonder I still like what I’m doing. But I do, I really do…and that is making all the difference.
02 November 2008
Kazakhstan!
My host sister didn’t pass the FLEX test. FLEX is a program that sends roughly 60 students from each ‘stan’ country to America for a year of study abroad while they are in high school. We’d been studying together for about a week and the big day finally came on October 28th. I went with her at 7 in the morning to Talas city for moral support as well as to help with the proctoring of the exam. Damn, this test is hard! She was in the first round of students to take it and I got a chance to see the test before it was administered and honestly I don’t know how many native English speakers would score 100% on it! This first round of testing covered English grammar, phrasal verbs, context reading and vocabulary. Had she passed onto the second and third round of testing there would have been essay writing and interviews for her to excel at before being given the chance to go to Bishkek for the final decision. Hopefully she does better next year (she’s actually got two more years of eligibility), and at least in the meantime we’ll know what to focus our studying on.
At my main job in Manas Secondary School I have begun to prepare three girls for the ‘English Olympiad’ that’s coming up in about a month. This is more of an opportunity for the students of each respective competing school to win bragging rights for their school than any real opportunity for themselves, but it will at least give me a better taste of victory than the impossible FLEX test did:) With that said, things are going better here in lovely Kyrgyzstan. It’s now dropped to a manageable yet bloody-freezing degree outside and the days are remarkably shorter, but I’m finally feeling a bit more settled in to somewhat of a routine. The fact that I’ve begun these little side-teaching projects has certainly aided in my continuing sanity so for them I’m eternally grateful. I also have a very supportive group of friends here in Talas. Every single one of the K-15’s and remaining (we’ve had two ET since getting here) K16’s are awesome! Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for better site-mates or a better and more supportive group of great people than the one’s I wound up with!
All in all everything is shaping up to give me a very positive outlook on what my next two years have in store for me here. We’ll see how I feel once the winter really kicks in, but that’s only about 3-4 months of sheer freezing torture so I’m sure it won’t be that bad! Plus, I’ve got so many more adventures coming up already. Today I just got back from my first sojourn into Kazakhstan. As a volunteer in Talas I’ve been given a ‘multiple-entry/exit’ VISA for Kazakhstan because I’m so close and “in an emergency” it’s safer for me to go there than all the way back to Bishkek. So, of course, I’ve already made use of this privilege for tourism purposes:) Taraz, the big city closest to the Kyrgyz-Kazakh boarder, is gorgeous! Anyone who’s seen the movie “Borat” probably thinks of Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan for that matter, as backwards remnants of their Soviet past. While that may certainly be true in small villages and isolated instances Taraz is by far the most glaring exception I’ve experienced here thus far. It has beautiful wide boulevards, three lined intersections and great great great food! My site-mates Patrick, Liz and I all went to eat at a local Georgian restaurant (no, not like ‘Georgia’ in America, but ‘Georgia’ the country…that was a necessary explanation for my American readers out there:)) and split a bottle of vodka at the table while indulging in the best tasting food I’ve had in almost 5 months! Then we walked around, and actually met a Kazakhstan volunteer named Susannah! We’re all going back the first weekend in December and will meet up with her and some other Kazakh volunteers so that was a great connection:) At any rate we caught our taxi back in time and have made it back to Talas for my friend John’s birthday. So far this weekend has been a blast, and next weekend a bunch of volunteers (and yours truly, of course) are going to Bishkek for two nights of Bacchanal debauchery. Between getting my teaching off the ground and all of these extracurricular activities I have planned my time is just soaring by!
At my main job in Manas Secondary School I have begun to prepare three girls for the ‘English Olympiad’ that’s coming up in about a month. This is more of an opportunity for the students of each respective competing school to win bragging rights for their school than any real opportunity for themselves, but it will at least give me a better taste of victory than the impossible FLEX test did:) With that said, things are going better here in lovely Kyrgyzstan. It’s now dropped to a manageable yet bloody-freezing degree outside and the days are remarkably shorter, but I’m finally feeling a bit more settled in to somewhat of a routine. The fact that I’ve begun these little side-teaching projects has certainly aided in my continuing sanity so for them I’m eternally grateful. I also have a very supportive group of friends here in Talas. Every single one of the K-15’s and remaining (we’ve had two ET since getting here) K16’s are awesome! Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for better site-mates or a better and more supportive group of great people than the one’s I wound up with!
All in all everything is shaping up to give me a very positive outlook on what my next two years have in store for me here. We’ll see how I feel once the winter really kicks in, but that’s only about 3-4 months of sheer freezing torture so I’m sure it won’t be that bad! Plus, I’ve got so many more adventures coming up already. Today I just got back from my first sojourn into Kazakhstan. As a volunteer in Talas I’ve been given a ‘multiple-entry/exit’ VISA for Kazakhstan because I’m so close and “in an emergency” it’s safer for me to go there than all the way back to Bishkek. So, of course, I’ve already made use of this privilege for tourism purposes:) Taraz, the big city closest to the Kyrgyz-Kazakh boarder, is gorgeous! Anyone who’s seen the movie “Borat” probably thinks of Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan for that matter, as backwards remnants of their Soviet past. While that may certainly be true in small villages and isolated instances Taraz is by far the most glaring exception I’ve experienced here thus far. It has beautiful wide boulevards, three lined intersections and great great great food! My site-mates Patrick, Liz and I all went to eat at a local Georgian restaurant (no, not like ‘Georgia’ in America, but ‘Georgia’ the country…that was a necessary explanation for my American readers out there:)) and split a bottle of vodka at the table while indulging in the best tasting food I’ve had in almost 5 months! Then we walked around, and actually met a Kazakhstan volunteer named Susannah! We’re all going back the first weekend in December and will meet up with her and some other Kazakh volunteers so that was a great connection:) At any rate we caught our taxi back in time and have made it back to Talas for my friend John’s birthday. So far this weekend has been a blast, and next weekend a bunch of volunteers (and yours truly, of course) are going to Bishkek for two nights of Bacchanal debauchery. Between getting my teaching off the ground and all of these extracurricular activities I have planned my time is just soaring by!
17 October 2008
Hanging in there:)
Thank God for my adult English club! The kids in my school are terrible. I really feel like I should write a personal letter to every teacher I’ve ever had with whom I had poor relations and apologize profusely. Kyrgyzstan is a country in a very strange transition. It is extremely poor by Western ‘standards’, but is one of the wealthier countries in all of Central Asia. Subsequently it also suffers from all of modern societies social ills; namely very passive and just down-right bad kids in school. I hear a lot of stories from other developing countries about the students there being “eager to learn”, or “walking 10 miles to and from school” just to get a basic education. In America I feel like a lot of kids would rather spend their days playing videogames or sports with their friends because American society is so comfortable they truly don’t know how lucky they are. Kyrgyzstan suffers from the same problem. Although their society is about 200 years behind America in general, there’s enough modernity to distract its youth and give them a false sense of security and inevitability. Due to this, and the fact that in this country if they don’t pass into the Lyceum (good High School) in the 8th grade they can pretty much immediately lose all hope for a higher education, most of them genuinely don’t care. So I guess it’s modernity’s social ills coupled with an education system still modeled after the now-defunct, yet still-in-use (just one of many contradictions in this continent) Soviet style that’s been providing so many little pains in my ass for the past few weeks! Sorry for the bitching, but these kids just don’t appreciate the fact that they have an education system period, and it’s hard for me to watch them piss away what future they could have on a daily basis. Wow, and I’ve only been teaching for three weeks…two more years of this could get interesting!
On another note: I am again the “no-strings-attached” James (or “Joey” as my friends Natalie and Tiffany lovingly call me:)) that I was coming into this crazy adventure. Yup, that’s right o’ loyal readers ye, Becky has flown the coop…or to use the technical term, “ET’d”. ET stands for Early Termination, not the lil’ brown Spielberg alien…although that’d be awesome if Peace Corps was in on that secret! As much as I already do miss her, she decided to quit for her own reasons and that’s enough…eh, c’est la vie!
Also, in case you’re curious as to why I posted another blog so soon after my two-fer last time, it’s because I’m in Talas city again this weekend! Thank bloody God that it’s only a 45 som Marshutka ride from my city to Talas…I think I might actually do this every weekend! A bunch of us Talas volunteers are throwing down on a ‘flop’, or shared apartment for us all to use any time we come into town for any reason. Subsequently my friend Kristen and I have decided to kick it there tonight watching Season 1 of Deadwood and drink vodka while making delicious Americanish food. It’s going to be one hell of a night…and considering the time difference, rest assured that by the time you read this, it was one hell of a night!
Well, there you go. I couldn’t very well use the Internet/pay to use the Internet without providing my friends, family and other interested parties back home with a little update, now could I? Although the first paragraph was a bit of a diatribe, rest assured that I am still having a blast here and have even begun to lay the groundwork for my epic plan mentioned in a previous blog posting. Sure as it’s about to get to negative-fucking-freezing here I’m going to master this language enough to give my kids the ol’ “сенин апасын айтып!”…yeah, that’s “I’m going to tell your mother!” in Kyrgyz:) Then again, it never worked for me so…ah hell, I’m screwed!
On another note: I am again the “no-strings-attached” James (or “Joey” as my friends Natalie and Tiffany lovingly call me:)) that I was coming into this crazy adventure. Yup, that’s right o’ loyal readers ye, Becky has flown the coop…or to use the technical term, “ET’d”. ET stands for Early Termination, not the lil’ brown Spielberg alien…although that’d be awesome if Peace Corps was in on that secret! As much as I already do miss her, she decided to quit for her own reasons and that’s enough…eh, c’est la vie!
Also, in case you’re curious as to why I posted another blog so soon after my two-fer last time, it’s because I’m in Talas city again this weekend! Thank bloody God that it’s only a 45 som Marshutka ride from my city to Talas…I think I might actually do this every weekend! A bunch of us Talas volunteers are throwing down on a ‘flop’, or shared apartment for us all to use any time we come into town for any reason. Subsequently my friend Kristen and I have decided to kick it there tonight watching Season 1 of Deadwood and drink vodka while making delicious Americanish food. It’s going to be one hell of a night…and considering the time difference, rest assured that by the time you read this, it was one hell of a night!
Well, there you go. I couldn’t very well use the Internet/pay to use the Internet without providing my friends, family and other interested parties back home with a little update, now could I? Although the first paragraph was a bit of a diatribe, rest assured that I am still having a blast here and have even begun to lay the groundwork for my epic plan mentioned in a previous blog posting. Sure as it’s about to get to negative-fucking-freezing here I’m going to master this language enough to give my kids the ol’ “сенин апасын айтып!”…yeah, that’s “I’m going to tell your mother!” in Kyrgyz:) Then again, it never worked for me so…ah hell, I’m screwed!
12 October 2008
Newer Blog!
This posting is a follow-up to the last one. I wrote the previous blog last week, though haven’t been able to use the Internet until now, and upon reviewing it I realize that the tone is a little bit sarcastic and misplaced. Last week was a pretty stressful week, so that’s why the frustration I was feeling came out through that blog. I haven’t edited it at all, but I want to post this one as well in order to express some positives to balance out the overall tone of my page.
My school celebrated “Teacher’s Day” on Saturday (students are in school 6 days a week, though I only work Mon-Fri) and I was informed by my director that I needed to be at the school at noon in order to attend a concert the children were putting on. I arrived promptly at twelve o’clock, waited around (“Azr, James, Azr” the teacher’s kept saying) until 1:30 before finally making my way to a classroom where the kids sang and performed skits for twenty minutes. After this “concert” the teachers all went back to the teacher’s lounge to wait until three o’clock when the café that had been rented would be ready. During this time the 11th form class (highest class—equivalent to ‘seniors of High School in America) came in to wish us a happy Teacher’s Day and presented everyone with a flower and card. Before leaving one of the most out-spoken of the boys also held up a bag and said “To our beloved teacher’s, please entertain yourselves with this…” he then set the bag down and left. One of the teacher’s closest to the bag opened it to reveal three bottles of expensive Kyrgyz vodka, wine and two 1-liter bottles of Sprite and Fanta soda’s. Wow. Imagine the seniors of your local High School presenting that as a gift to their teachers, in front of the Principal nonetheless! But, of course, this is Kyrgyzstan and all of the teacher’s were very thankful and we went through all three bottles (plus five more) throughout our four-course meal at the café we arrived at around promptly at four o’clock.
I love this country. It’s little nuances of culture like that that keep me smiling to myself. Different school dynamics, and being woken up in bed in order to attend an impromptu dinner at ten o’clock at night surrounded by old women whom I can’t speak with because they all have limited dental facilities are just two of countless reasons for me to just sit back and enjoy my time here! Yeah, the impromptu dinner was interesting…
More than just sitting back and enjoying my time here I feel that I am in a unique position to actually accomplish something beyond the ‘norm’ for the first time in my life. I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea (thank you thank you thank you, Mom and Dad for giving me that book—INCREDIBLE!) and throughout reading it I just couldn’t help but be motivated by every single chapter! I’ve begun to think about ways that I can affect my community beyond the English lessons I currently lead on the side and my daily 4 hour commitment to Manas Secondary School that I fill in the same capacity. I’ve got one idea in particular that is very promising and I’m going to try to meet with the Mayor of Kyzyl-Adyr next week to discuss how feasible it actually will be…sorry, I don’t want to mention it just yet because I really don’t know if it’s possible—more to come, I promise:) On top of that, I feel that throughout these next two years that I’ve committed myself to Kyrgyzstan I will only come across even more opportunity to shake things up a bit…just like in Three Cups of Tea, it’s not skill that counts as much as it is the willingness to succeed that matters in affecting change. I can only hope that my willingness doesn’t falter in times of stress and strife, and that I can walk away from this experience with more than just a certificate.
On another note, it’s my birthday on October 12th. I’m going to be twenty-five years old. Rounding that quarter-century mark in a country I couldn’t even pronounce four months ago is a milestone in itself, but more than that I feel like I’m at a new beginning. For the first time in my life I’m free of every commitment that our modern society places upon its youth; I’m free of credit debt, and have absolutely nothing to live for except every single day that I wake up. What that day brings has been completely different from every single day prior for the past four months, and as far as I can tell that’s only going to continue. I worked in a law office for two and a half years before joining the Peace Corps so I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt—living in the moment of every single completely-different-day-from-the-day-before feels great! A lot of my friends that have turned twenty-five before me complained of the feeling of ‘getting old’ or ‘lost in where their life is going’. I’m sure that this same feeling pervades the festivities of every mid-twentysomething to a certain extent, but I’m happy to say that the thought hasn’t even crossed my mind. I don’t feel that I’m on the cusp of any age, as a matter of fact. I just feel that I’m living day-to-day, soaking it in and trying to get my bearings enough to maybe accomplish a little bit more than the norm. Not a bad feeling at all:)
With that said, if you’d like to send me anything to mark this momentous occasion (goodwill, or as thanks for my entertaining diatribes) all I really would like are Mach 3 Turbo razors, Nivea for Men Sensitive After Shave Balm, and shaving cream. The good-quality American shaving supplies that are available here are too expensive for my meager monetary means, and the local stuff will tear my skin apart before burning it worse than lemon juice in a paper-cut. Yeah, I’m shamelessly begging…but if you have the means or the desire please send anything you can to my aforeposted (now I’m creating words for your benefit:)) address. My face will thank you.
I realized after re-reading my last blog that I didn’t mention anything about the guesting I did with my host family at 7 people’s houses that we did to mark the end of Rammadan, nor did I mention how amazing the lungs were that my Apa cooked up, nor did I mention how my English club turned out! I’m tired of typing, so allow me to sum up:
Although we were supposed to all go to seven houses I only managed to make it to five because I was so painfully full of pretty good food. I got into an interesting conversation with an OLD Kyrgyz man about politics from the Soviet era over plentiful plates of Besh-barmahk (Kyrgyz spelling is: беш бармaк, Google it, if you get a chance:))
Lungs are delicious! I can’t speak for every lung out there, but the two my Apa cooked up were buttery, had the texture of boiled chicken and exploded with flavor of garlic, pepper and onion. Had I not witnessed the method of cooking (and the mouth-to-throat breathing entertainment generously provided by my host-mother) I never would have even known what they were! Seriously, if you’re ever offered lung in Central Asia—try it!!
The English club that Annie and I are running had its first successful lesson on Friday. We both had a blast, and I foresee this being one of my weekly highlights for the next two years!
Well, that’s about it. As always, questions and comments are greatly appreciated!
My school celebrated “Teacher’s Day” on Saturday (students are in school 6 days a week, though I only work Mon-Fri) and I was informed by my director that I needed to be at the school at noon in order to attend a concert the children were putting on. I arrived promptly at twelve o’clock, waited around (“Azr, James, Azr” the teacher’s kept saying) until 1:30 before finally making my way to a classroom where the kids sang and performed skits for twenty minutes. After this “concert” the teachers all went back to the teacher’s lounge to wait until three o’clock when the café that had been rented would be ready. During this time the 11th form class (highest class—equivalent to ‘seniors of High School in America) came in to wish us a happy Teacher’s Day and presented everyone with a flower and card. Before leaving one of the most out-spoken of the boys also held up a bag and said “To our beloved teacher’s, please entertain yourselves with this…” he then set the bag down and left. One of the teacher’s closest to the bag opened it to reveal three bottles of expensive Kyrgyz vodka, wine and two 1-liter bottles of Sprite and Fanta soda’s. Wow. Imagine the seniors of your local High School presenting that as a gift to their teachers, in front of the Principal nonetheless! But, of course, this is Kyrgyzstan and all of the teacher’s were very thankful and we went through all three bottles (plus five more) throughout our four-course meal at the café we arrived at around promptly at four o’clock.
I love this country. It’s little nuances of culture like that that keep me smiling to myself. Different school dynamics, and being woken up in bed in order to attend an impromptu dinner at ten o’clock at night surrounded by old women whom I can’t speak with because they all have limited dental facilities are just two of countless reasons for me to just sit back and enjoy my time here! Yeah, the impromptu dinner was interesting…
More than just sitting back and enjoying my time here I feel that I am in a unique position to actually accomplish something beyond the ‘norm’ for the first time in my life. I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea (thank you thank you thank you, Mom and Dad for giving me that book—INCREDIBLE!) and throughout reading it I just couldn’t help but be motivated by every single chapter! I’ve begun to think about ways that I can affect my community beyond the English lessons I currently lead on the side and my daily 4 hour commitment to Manas Secondary School that I fill in the same capacity. I’ve got one idea in particular that is very promising and I’m going to try to meet with the Mayor of Kyzyl-Adyr next week to discuss how feasible it actually will be…sorry, I don’t want to mention it just yet because I really don’t know if it’s possible—more to come, I promise:) On top of that, I feel that throughout these next two years that I’ve committed myself to Kyrgyzstan I will only come across even more opportunity to shake things up a bit…just like in Three Cups of Tea, it’s not skill that counts as much as it is the willingness to succeed that matters in affecting change. I can only hope that my willingness doesn’t falter in times of stress and strife, and that I can walk away from this experience with more than just a certificate.
On another note, it’s my birthday on October 12th. I’m going to be twenty-five years old. Rounding that quarter-century mark in a country I couldn’t even pronounce four months ago is a milestone in itself, but more than that I feel like I’m at a new beginning. For the first time in my life I’m free of every commitment that our modern society places upon its youth; I’m free of credit debt, and have absolutely nothing to live for except every single day that I wake up. What that day brings has been completely different from every single day prior for the past four months, and as far as I can tell that’s only going to continue. I worked in a law office for two and a half years before joining the Peace Corps so I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt—living in the moment of every single completely-different-day-from-the-day-before feels great! A lot of my friends that have turned twenty-five before me complained of the feeling of ‘getting old’ or ‘lost in where their life is going’. I’m sure that this same feeling pervades the festivities of every mid-twentysomething to a certain extent, but I’m happy to say that the thought hasn’t even crossed my mind. I don’t feel that I’m on the cusp of any age, as a matter of fact. I just feel that I’m living day-to-day, soaking it in and trying to get my bearings enough to maybe accomplish a little bit more than the norm. Not a bad feeling at all:)
With that said, if you’d like to send me anything to mark this momentous occasion (goodwill, or as thanks for my entertaining diatribes) all I really would like are Mach 3 Turbo razors, Nivea for Men Sensitive After Shave Balm, and shaving cream. The good-quality American shaving supplies that are available here are too expensive for my meager monetary means, and the local stuff will tear my skin apart before burning it worse than lemon juice in a paper-cut. Yeah, I’m shamelessly begging…but if you have the means or the desire please send anything you can to my aforeposted (now I’m creating words for your benefit:)) address. My face will thank you.
I realized after re-reading my last blog that I didn’t mention anything about the guesting I did with my host family at 7 people’s houses that we did to mark the end of Rammadan, nor did I mention how amazing the lungs were that my Apa cooked up, nor did I mention how my English club turned out! I’m tired of typing, so allow me to sum up:
Although we were supposed to all go to seven houses I only managed to make it to five because I was so painfully full of pretty good food. I got into an interesting conversation with an OLD Kyrgyz man about politics from the Soviet era over plentiful plates of Besh-barmahk (Kyrgyz spelling is: беш бармaк, Google it, if you get a chance:))
Lungs are delicious! I can’t speak for every lung out there, but the two my Apa cooked up were buttery, had the texture of boiled chicken and exploded with flavor of garlic, pepper and onion. Had I not witnessed the method of cooking (and the mouth-to-throat breathing entertainment generously provided by my host-mother) I never would have even known what they were! Seriously, if you’re ever offered lung in Central Asia—try it!!
The English club that Annie and I are running had its first successful lesson on Friday. We both had a blast, and I foresee this being one of my weekly highlights for the next two years!
Well, that’s about it. As always, questions and comments are greatly appreciated!
New Blog!
What am I doing here? What in the hell am I doing in Central Asia “teaching” English to kids that don’t even care? Today my counterpart again left me to teach a class I wasn’t prepared for because she had to run an errand with our director. I wasn’t prepared because for the first two weeks of class all I’m supposed to do is observe, which I have, but this is the fifth time she’s just left me in charge of a classroom with the vague instructions of ‘just teach the English you know’. Well…this might come as a shock to my loyal readers out there, but I happen to know quite a bit of English so this task is a little bit vague, to say the least! The past few times I’ve been left to wing it in front of a class of Kyrgyz/Russian children that really don’t care (after all, how much did you care when you were in a required class between the ages of 10 and 15?) I’ve been fine, but today I was teaching the 6th grade English class. Not only did the boys all disrupt my class in every way imaginable throughout the 20 minutes I attempted to teach, but they began to throw things and mock my lesson. At this point I had it, and decided to just leave to find my counterpart. Of course, she was nowhere to be found so I found the only other male teacher in the school, a wizened old Kyrgyz man whom I get along with famously despite his 0 English ability and my (for the time being) limited means of Kyrgyz communication. I told him my problem and he went to the class and scolded them. This might have been enough if the boys that were causing all the ruckus were actually present, but they were playing soccer in the hallway and couldn’t be bothered. He told me not to worry and that Narjan (my counterpart) would take care of it. Sure enough, she eventually came back and took me back to the troubled classroom. There she lined all of the boys (about 8 of the little hooligans) in a row in the front of the class and proceeded to punish them. I’ve never witnessed corporal punishment before, and this came as quite a shock to me but I stood by as the ignorant foreigner should while this was being dealt out. Afterwards all of the boys apologized to me in Kyrgyz, which I accepted and she and I pleasantly made our way to the next class with the sound of the children’s humiliated tears fading down the hallway.
After school I was walking home with more stress than I’d felt during all of PST and a new type of anger that I’ve never felt before. This anger and angst that I felt was a combination of being so utterly and blatantly disrespected by children half my size, the absolute disregard for our two week ‘monitoring’ agreement that my counterpart showed me today, as well as the introduction to Kyrgyz school punishment that I had hitherto fore never been exposed that set me to a new and scary limit. As I was walking home I stopped by a creek near my house and sat on a rock to think about it all. I realized that I’m not anywhere even close to considering the thought of calling it quits, but I also just couldn’t stop thinking about all of the positive things I could be doing here. I walked home a little calmer, and with some very clear goals in mind. However, this is at 12:10 and I had the rest of the day to think about the days’ activity.
I’ve been reading Three Cups of Tea which is about Greg Mortensen, a mountain climber, turned Pakistan-school-builder and his incredible struggle to get tremendous things accomplished in this part of the world. It has been a huge inspiration for me. I was reading a chapter about his abduction by a remote tribe of sudo-Taliban in Pakistan in 1996 and how he recovered enough to finish his first school and continue building 51 more when I got a text that turned my entire day around. My friend from PST, Annie, texted me to say that she was in my town with 6 people that she’d been roped in to teaching English. Considering she’s a health volunteer she had no idea what to do so she called me. I reluctantly (come on, I was laying in bed in my PJ’s reading and getting ready for dinner…plus, I just had one hell of a day!) got dressed and met her at the ‘professional’ building she was meeting her group at. This is a building that, I’m sure, in the Soviet era was very nice and well equipped, but to say that it’s a shadow of it’s former self would be a tremendous overstatement. The group she was meeting with consisted of six adults (four more are evidently going to be coming) that all wanted to learn English. At first I was a little put off because she literally just threw this at me with no explanation, but after I spoke to them in Kyrgyz enough to understand who they were, why they were there and what they really wanted to do I could tell that they were serious about learning English…this absolutely changed my entire outlook on the day.
I spent the next hour speaking to them in Kyrgyz about their lives, telling them about mine and discussing what their goals were for our impromptu gathering. After I explained that I had no lesson plan ready because I didn’t know what to be prepared for, we set a time to meet every Tuesday and Friday at 5pm to conduct English lessons. After this gathering Annie and I went to a café to share a beer and talk about it. I can’t express more how absolutely elated I was at the prospect of beginning this class, and considering she hasn’t actually been doing much work in her village because Peace Corps seems to place the health volunteers arbitrarily in situations where there’s little to no organization for them to work with she was more than happy to help me with this endeavor, and expressed it wholeheartedly over our Baltica 9’s.
Since I’ve been here it seems that every single stressful situation has been relieved by a seemingly innocuous occurrence that completely turns everything around. Today I experienced yet another. After that horrible class of little bastards that got the shit kicked out of them in front of me I was feeling lost, pointless, and confused. Today, seeing the looks on these adults’ faces, their expressed willingness to learn what I’m here to teach and the eagerness with which they made their case known has one hundred percent brought me back into the fold.
What am I doing here? On the surface I’m here to teach. A little beneath that open-ended answer I could say that I’m here to share a cross cultural experience with my host family and maybe make a difference in my community with my ‘American’ ability. Today I learned that regardless of the boundaries with which my actual set teaching schedule is confined to there is a wealth of opportunity for me to actually make a difference in this village. There are people here that are eager and willing to learn what I can teach, and maybe throughout this process we can share some culture and I’ll be able to pick up even more Kyrgyz…I just need to be open to every opportunity that comes my way! I’m excited at this prospect, and I only have my friend Annie and her surprisingly random text message to thank for this opportunity. After all, it’s not every day one gets disenfranchised and completely converted to the cause again all in one day!
On another note. Have I mentioned how much I love my host family? Today, before the epic text message from Annie, my Apa knocked on my door saying “James, Azr, cen kel, cen kel” which means “James, now (or later, someday, soon, whatever [see previous blog for explanation]) you come, you come.” Ooookaaay…I got up from my bed where I was reading (thank you Three Cups of Tea, you’ve been a boredom destroyer lately!) and wandered out to our kitchen where she showed me the remnants of a cow that my Ata recently slaughtered. By ‘remnants’ I mean that she held up the throat and lungs of the cow and told me to take a closer look. Now I’ve always held an interest in science and biology. Life in all its forms provides an endless fascination for any curious mind, but having my Apa hold the throat of this freshly killed beast up for me with the lungs just dangling there was almost too much to bare. Then, to be sure I understood what they were, she put her mouth to the opening of the throat and blew into it to expand the lungs. Wow. All I can say is that was AWESOME! I told her that she’d better brush her teeth afterwards and she explained that she doesn’t have to because she’s only using her lips…sorry Ata:) Then she had me pour some milk-like substance into the throat through a funnel she’d inserted and I watched as this entire bucket of liquid expanded the lungs to their full capacity before she had me tie off the throat with a string. Then she told me she’d boil it so we could eat it tomorrow. Wow, wow, WOW. Now (‘American’ now, meaning “at the immediate present moment”) we’re going to eat an actually ‘Americanly acceptable’ meal before I head off to another blissful sleep of wonder at this amazing country!
Oh, and tomorrow classes are cancelled because it’s the end of Ramadan (Orozon, in Kyrgyz) so everyone has to go guesting at seven different houses throughout the day…gotta love these Kyrgyz holidays!
More to come soon…I’m sure:)
After school I was walking home with more stress than I’d felt during all of PST and a new type of anger that I’ve never felt before. This anger and angst that I felt was a combination of being so utterly and blatantly disrespected by children half my size, the absolute disregard for our two week ‘monitoring’ agreement that my counterpart showed me today, as well as the introduction to Kyrgyz school punishment that I had hitherto fore never been exposed that set me to a new and scary limit. As I was walking home I stopped by a creek near my house and sat on a rock to think about it all. I realized that I’m not anywhere even close to considering the thought of calling it quits, but I also just couldn’t stop thinking about all of the positive things I could be doing here. I walked home a little calmer, and with some very clear goals in mind. However, this is at 12:10 and I had the rest of the day to think about the days’ activity.
I’ve been reading Three Cups of Tea which is about Greg Mortensen, a mountain climber, turned Pakistan-school-builder and his incredible struggle to get tremendous things accomplished in this part of the world. It has been a huge inspiration for me. I was reading a chapter about his abduction by a remote tribe of sudo-Taliban in Pakistan in 1996 and how he recovered enough to finish his first school and continue building 51 more when I got a text that turned my entire day around. My friend from PST, Annie, texted me to say that she was in my town with 6 people that she’d been roped in to teaching English. Considering she’s a health volunteer she had no idea what to do so she called me. I reluctantly (come on, I was laying in bed in my PJ’s reading and getting ready for dinner…plus, I just had one hell of a day!) got dressed and met her at the ‘professional’ building she was meeting her group at. This is a building that, I’m sure, in the Soviet era was very nice and well equipped, but to say that it’s a shadow of it’s former self would be a tremendous overstatement. The group she was meeting with consisted of six adults (four more are evidently going to be coming) that all wanted to learn English. At first I was a little put off because she literally just threw this at me with no explanation, but after I spoke to them in Kyrgyz enough to understand who they were, why they were there and what they really wanted to do I could tell that they were serious about learning English…this absolutely changed my entire outlook on the day.
I spent the next hour speaking to them in Kyrgyz about their lives, telling them about mine and discussing what their goals were for our impromptu gathering. After I explained that I had no lesson plan ready because I didn’t know what to be prepared for, we set a time to meet every Tuesday and Friday at 5pm to conduct English lessons. After this gathering Annie and I went to a café to share a beer and talk about it. I can’t express more how absolutely elated I was at the prospect of beginning this class, and considering she hasn’t actually been doing much work in her village because Peace Corps seems to place the health volunteers arbitrarily in situations where there’s little to no organization for them to work with she was more than happy to help me with this endeavor, and expressed it wholeheartedly over our Baltica 9’s.
Since I’ve been here it seems that every single stressful situation has been relieved by a seemingly innocuous occurrence that completely turns everything around. Today I experienced yet another. After that horrible class of little bastards that got the shit kicked out of them in front of me I was feeling lost, pointless, and confused. Today, seeing the looks on these adults’ faces, their expressed willingness to learn what I’m here to teach and the eagerness with which they made their case known has one hundred percent brought me back into the fold.
What am I doing here? On the surface I’m here to teach. A little beneath that open-ended answer I could say that I’m here to share a cross cultural experience with my host family and maybe make a difference in my community with my ‘American’ ability. Today I learned that regardless of the boundaries with which my actual set teaching schedule is confined to there is a wealth of opportunity for me to actually make a difference in this village. There are people here that are eager and willing to learn what I can teach, and maybe throughout this process we can share some culture and I’ll be able to pick up even more Kyrgyz…I just need to be open to every opportunity that comes my way! I’m excited at this prospect, and I only have my friend Annie and her surprisingly random text message to thank for this opportunity. After all, it’s not every day one gets disenfranchised and completely converted to the cause again all in one day!
On another note. Have I mentioned how much I love my host family? Today, before the epic text message from Annie, my Apa knocked on my door saying “James, Azr, cen kel, cen kel” which means “James, now (or later, someday, soon, whatever [see previous blog for explanation]) you come, you come.” Ooookaaay…I got up from my bed where I was reading (thank you Three Cups of Tea, you’ve been a boredom destroyer lately!) and wandered out to our kitchen where she showed me the remnants of a cow that my Ata recently slaughtered. By ‘remnants’ I mean that she held up the throat and lungs of the cow and told me to take a closer look. Now I’ve always held an interest in science and biology. Life in all its forms provides an endless fascination for any curious mind, but having my Apa hold the throat of this freshly killed beast up for me with the lungs just dangling there was almost too much to bare. Then, to be sure I understood what they were, she put her mouth to the opening of the throat and blew into it to expand the lungs. Wow. All I can say is that was AWESOME! I told her that she’d better brush her teeth afterwards and she explained that she doesn’t have to because she’s only using her lips…sorry Ata:) Then she had me pour some milk-like substance into the throat through a funnel she’d inserted and I watched as this entire bucket of liquid expanded the lungs to their full capacity before she had me tie off the throat with a string. Then she told me she’d boil it so we could eat it tomorrow. Wow, wow, WOW. Now (‘American’ now, meaning “at the immediate present moment”) we’re going to eat an actually ‘Americanly acceptable’ meal before I head off to another blissful sleep of wonder at this amazing country!
Oh, and tomorrow classes are cancelled because it’s the end of Ramadan (Orozon, in Kyrgyz) so everyone has to go guesting at seven different houses throughout the day…gotta love these Kyrgyz holidays!
More to come soon…I’m sure:)
27 September 2008
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:)
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:)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
