12:48 24 December 2009

I am currently sitting in Tashkent International Airport of Uzbekistan waiting for my connecting flight to Tokyo Japan in the International Transit Lounge. Yeah, I’m pretty excited about that. So far my trip has gone pretty well other than an unusually long and obnoxious marshrutka ride into Bishkek yesterday. But I stayed at a friends place in the city last night and we ate shashlik (grilled marinated meat on a stick like a shish kabob) and I got duck, which was delicious. I’ve just been so excited about my trip, and getting a badly needed respite from Kyrgyzstan, and of course most excitedly, getting to see Saori!!! I barely slept last night, we went to bed super early because I was tired from the marshrutka ride and I woke up thinking, “Alright! I slept a lot now I am ready to get up and go to Japan!” only to find out that it was actually 2345 and I had a good 6 hours of on again off again sleep to get through before I departed. The departure from Bishkek was good and smooth- it is only an hour long flight from Bishkek to Tashkent but I have a twelve hour layover here which is just passing by with the most cruel slowness… Oh well, as soon as I get on the plane to Japan, I am going to hopefully be able to sleep (Peace Corps Medical gave me Melofonin specifically for that purpose) and then I will be reunited with Saori when I wake up!!! Yay!!! I can’t wait. Seriously. I can’t wait.

19:30 21 December 2009

Uh-oh… I just got sick! And so soon to me leaving!!! I woke up with a sore throat today and it has degenerated into a full hacking productive cough- ewww, I will spare you the rest of the details but I am upset because I am leaving so soon and I don’t want to be sick in transit or at Saori’s place in Tokyo… Yikes. Luckily Peace Corps Medical got me started on some azithromycin, which, if it is bacterial, should ensure that I’m on the mend by the time I get there and, perhaps even more importantly, make it so I definitely won’t be contagious. But I say to my illness- Hey, buddy, bad timing!

In other news today I worked at the rayon-level English Olympiads for which I designed the tests for and I will just say that it was an… interesting experience more on that later I suppose. It was fun working with Holo though, a fellow volunteer that works not too far from me in Jet-Oguz and who I don’t get to see often, and it is always rewarding to see the tests that you designed and wrote used for relatively high-level purposes…

11:20 16 December 2009

I’m home on my lunch break and I have been mulling over in my head an idea for my blog for some time about the cold here and the snow and the ice. My mom recently asked me if there was any black-ice here. But let’s start with some basics- while I don’t live in a terribly northern area, I live at a high altitude (over 6,000 feet) and it is pretty darn cold here- winter lows can be in the low single digits to teens below zero sometimes where I live and even colder (-40 and worse) in places like Naryn. Overall though, it’s a pretty cold country. And with November being unusually cool (as you remember we got a decent amount of snow and the temperature didn’t peak it’s head about freezing for over a week) a lot of people are afraid of the winter this year.

Now some of you that read this blog are in pretty cold places your self- Ithaca comes to mind, and no doubt are there much colder places during winter in the US than even the coldest locale of Kyrgyzstan. However, there are two main differences that I think bear consideration when assessing the impact of winter. The first is snow removal and the second is heat.

I saw the first snow plow in Kyrgyzstan I had ever seen a few days ago. I was stunned. I didn’t know they existed here. Why? Because the roads are pretty much covered with snow from November to March with only the main road (do to it’s traffic) ever really seeing periods of true clarity during the winter. This is because Kyrgyzstan is a very poor country- it can hardly afford to feed and clothe itself so I understand why snow-removal is not a top priority of the country’s government. So what happens when the collected snow isn’t removed and instead is just trampled by cars, horses, sheep, people, etc. Well, it turns to ice. And this is where the problems start. Kids love this, Kyrgyz children have a remarkable sense of balance and it is truly common sight to see kids take a daring running start and slide a good 20 feet. Impressive. Unfortunately, being the klutz I am, I can not nearly as successfully cope with such slippery areas. More often than not, I just fall (which is when I get to experience one of that aspects of Kyrgyz reaction that does actually upset me a little bit- instead of helping me up or asking if I am okay or even ignoring me, if someone falls, the almost universal immediate response is “Should have been more careful” Thanks… That would have been more useful BEFORE I fell…) Regardless, I fall a fair amount here and have learned a few tricks (walking on the toes of your feet, walking super slow, titling your head forward) to reduce the likelihood of my falling while increasing the ridiculousness of how I look.

But I have strayed from my original topic- snow removal is treacherous for pedestrians and also causes a huge amount of automotive accidents each year… I personally have seen vehicles slip off the road, hit each other, and winter taxis and marshrutkas are always at least a bit of a gamble. But in my opinion, winter this year here isn’t made so hard by ice on the roads- it is made by a much more pertinent problem of not having heat.

I live in an apartment that was built during the Soviet Union to house workers at a factory that made construction supplies. During the Soviet Union- this was a really great place- it had a toilet, refrigerator, running hot and cold water, really the works for a village in which the vast majority of people have outdoor toilets and have to fetch their water from a public well or spigot. But nowadays, while they are still good (I still have a working fridge and toilet and the water is on for at least a few hours each day when it isn’t off for three weeks at a time) the central heating system that was providing heat and hot water 20 years ago no longer works. This means that my apartment, other than the Peace Corps issued electric heater, has no heat. This is bad- most mornings I wake up and my kitchen is about 40 degrees (Fahrenheit). Brr… But I have been coping with this problem by using a combination of my Peace Corps heater and what I have dubbed my “Heat Tent 2.0” (to distinguish it from the useful but less successful Heat Tent 1.0). This is a really fabulous invention. It combines the heat of a heater with the heat-trapping ability of a tent to make a livable area in my apartment. I sleep in it and do most of my work in it, I just cook and eat outside of it. Essentially all I did was place some old sheets and drapes over a line I strung over my bed, but boy does it work! It gets right nice and toasty in there! So if you’ve called or chatted with me recently, you probably know how much I like my heat tent, but it really has improved my quality of life in this country and in my apartment.

Anyhow, I am tired of talking about heat and cold and ice and snow for know, but it is usually one of my favorite topics to talk about so feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to reply…

Heat Tent 2.0 4eva!

21:40 30 November 2009

Mmm… Thanksgiving dinner was DELICIOUS!!! We all gathered at fellow volunteer Lynnie’s house and had a pot-luck style dinner complete with stuffing, cranberries, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, veggies, and in place of turkey, four delicious rotisserie chickens. We all went the first round and then chilled out for a while and then had a much more disgusting and more awesome second round that primarily consisted of seven volunteers standing around in mostly silence munching on chicken and scooping up the rest of the fixings… Yum… I have no manners.

After the dinner itself we were planning on going home but in our path was a new club- CCCP (USSR) and with its thumping beats, Soviet decorum, enticing location, and spotlight, it drew us in where we decided to work off that Thanksgiving meal by dancing it all away. I have been to a few clubs in Kyrgyzstan (and honestly, I don’t really know if it is really part of being a volunteer) but this was far and away the best I have been too. Most clubs in Kyrgyzstan are dimly lit renovated sports halls with bad music from somebody’s mp3 player and maybe a disco-ball. But at CCCP, the music was great (still crapping Russian pop for the most part- but I have to admit that it is growing on me) and it was actually spun really well, in comparison to the awkward pauses and silences that plague some of the nightclubs here. The lighting was good, there was a fog machine, and the whole place was made to play off of the old Soviet Union- all the workers wore the Pinoneer’s uniform (the Soviet’s mandatory participation version of the Boy/Girl Scouts). So pretty much, it was a great time dancing and getting rid of the lethargy that was followed by the gluttony of earlier and made what was a good night a great one.

Wow, free and fast internet is awesome. That's why I'm putting up so many pictures...

21:35 16 November 2009

Yesterday I returned again from Chuy oblast for the second time in the month- that’s about 13 hours of sitting on a marshrutka, usually crammed next to a huge older woman that is taking up half your seat, which was really not designed for anyone over the height of 4’10” anyhow- yeah, not so comfortable, but pretty darn cheap (it’s about seven dollars to get a similar distance as Washington to New York, even on a Chinatown bus you can’t do that good)

I digress, the reason that I went to Bishkek for the second time this month is because I was invited to my training host-sister’s wedding. I mentioned in an earlier entry how I had come to visit my PST host family and found out the dual news of my host-grandmother/mother dying but then the happier news of Alyona, my host sister’s upcoming marriage. So despite not having enough funds, I wanted to be there for the family during this happy time and I made the long and expensive trek to Chuy Oblast once again.

While I had been to many Kyrgyz weddings, as you may have remember- I wrote about them, I had never attended an ethnically Russian couple’s wedding. They are different in a whole lot of ways. First of all, the wedding is not just a ceremony and a party- it is an entire process that takes pretty much all day. After staying up late the night before getting ready, we woke up early to go prepare the house that the initial reception of the groom was going to come to. At this house they prepared decorations, food, and a type of event that they call “concourses”. Concourses are very common here and are used for everything from parties to celebrations to English-language demonstrations. They are part games, part presentations, part music… basically they are a variety show on a particular theme- in the case of the wedding they were all love themes. I suppose to describe the actual events of the concourse on this day. As the groom and his party drove up to the house, he exited the car and the bride’s party (including me) stopped him at the entrance way- his first task was to demonstrate his strength by chopping some wood. So, tuxedo-clad, and in mid-teens cold, he did as instructed and proceeded to the gate of the house. The gate was locked and the groom was presented with a three liter jar of tomato juice and his party asked to down it to find the key. Well after the groom and a couple other fellows from his party took turns sipping at the cold liquid, a babushka (grandmother) said something to the tune of “Oh screw this!” and rolled up her sleeve and retrieved the key. As you can see, the concourse was primarily to be a test of Igor’s (the husband) love and dedication to Alyona despite each obstacle placed in his way.

In addition to the test of love, there was another component to the whole action- money, money, money!!! After these first two steps each further one had a financial component. As Igor and his party entered through the gate he was confronted with a poster paper which all the girls (including Alyona) had kissed after applying lipstick- he was required to find her lips and each time he guessed wrong had to pay a fine. Further, he was required to spell her name out in money (something he tried to do initially by taking 5 one som coins and saying “Ah” “Leh” “Yu” “Heh” “Ah”- this was judged unsatisfactory by the bride’s party and they did a more satisfactory job with 10 and 20 som bills…). At this point, there were about 100 people in the courtyard of the house all shouting and yelling and trying to get inside with the bride’s party demanding more money and the grooms complaining about the cold (something we had little sympathy for as we had been outside waiting for them for a good 90 minutes before they came) and trying (with large degrees of success) to get everyone to take shots of vodka. But eventually (after having to spontaneously compose poetry about Alyona and show off his dance skills and shouting his love for her) Igor got inside and this is where the real bidding arose. There sat Alyona (looking absolutely beautiful in her white wedding dress) next to her brother Maksim and it was the groom’s party’s responsibility to “buy” that seat from Maksim so that they could proceed with the wedding. A fierce round of negotiating began with them offering Maksim increasingly large sums of money and asking him to name a price, to which he replied quite wittily, “you keep throwing down money and I’ll tell you when…” after numerous pauses in the negotiation, he continued with “Well, if you don’t want to shell out for her, it doesn’t matter to me, I am sure someone else would be willing to pay for such a beautiful bride.” But eventually a price was settled on- 2,000 soms (about $50) and Igor was able to sit next to his bride as everyone breathed a sigh of relief and took celebratory shots.

Naturally, after shots comes driving- (Haha, joke- the drivers were pretty sober) and we went to the Gost-Register, which unfortunately is not where the ghosts much register, but where civil contracts are made. Because of the USSR, religious weddings are relatively uncommon (though growing) and most couples have the actually ceremony of marriage in a government building. So it was done, in a pretty typical ceremony they exchanged rings, said vows, and popped some champagne. Then it was time to really party!

Well, not yet actually, first we had to do a Bishkek tradition of “walking” despite the flimsy-thinness of the dress, tradition dictates that new couples walk around the scenic areas of Bishkek to take pictures and show of their new love. So we did and as I was the official unofficial photographer, I was on hand to document everything that went on. We figured it was enough when both Igor and Alyona were literally shivering from the cold and unable to hold still for pictures any longer, but we really did get some nice pictures that will make a good keepsake for the couple.

So now, finally, it’s time to party (and eat perhaps more importantly- I was starving!). We arrived to the café where the reception was held at about 1600 and immediately start pouring Papa Kolya’s home-made wine, vodka shots, and home made pear juice, and stuffing our faces with a delicious variety of snacks, salads, breads, and sweets. This is the part of the weddings that I had been to that were Kyrgyz so I expected it to be very similar- and in some respects it was- there was dancing and toasts and all those nice things, but there were a lot of differences. First of all- Russian people are crazy. And I mean this in a totally positive and happy way- they are totally unselfconscious about themselves when it comes to dancing and having fun, and that translates into everything from a fat guy in a cape and no shirt playing a inflatable guitar with an Uncle Sam hat on to me and my host brother and the groom and a bunch of others doing a can-can to American 50’s music. The music was also surprisingly good- while there was a lot of the typical Russian crap pop, there was also a lot of funky old songs and even some, as I mentioned, American oldies, that really pleased me. It was fun, a lot of fun, and there was a lot of dancing (and less toasting, which suited me just fine).

After about eight hours of eating, dancing, drinking, and repeating that cycle, it was time to pack up and go home. I helped my family gather all the left-overs and then traveled home with them in a marshrutka to return and lay down for blessed, blessed sleep. The next morning I left early back to site but left with them the nearly 800 pictures I took- that will be a nice keepsake for them. And for me- well, it was a truly great experience and one that I will certainly never forget in my life.

Images of a Jehova's Witness that lives in my village and always tries to convert me (in a very friendly manner though), the statue of Lenin in front of my school that looks like he is wearing a life-preserver, a shepherd with sheep grazing them through the snow, and the hazards of doing laundry during winter-time...

22:00 10 November 2009

I feel like one can judge the spirit of someone by their reaction to snow. If it is one of giddiness and excitement, they are young and full of hope; if it is gloomy and disappointed, they are old and cynical. Well, I think I have finally crossed that line. Even last year (a year which by everyone’s account was incredibly mild and had little snow) I still got excited whenever it snowed, which even though it was mild, was still a lot more than at home. This winter, by everyone’s account, will not be so forgiving, and so far it has proven to be so.

The first snow of the season (on the lower lands around the lake, it has been in the hills and mountains for a while) was yesterday but was just a dusting that quickly melted. However, as I arose this morning, I found myself mortified looking out the window at about ten inches of snow already on the ground and not far from white-out conditions as the snow fell horizontally. Yikes. It was cold, but not too bad, by the time I got up it was already almost 30 degrees outside, but the wind and stinging snow made my walk to school absolutely miserable. The direction of my walk brought the wind into my into my face exactly; it was so strong and the snow so stinging that I couldn’t even raise my face up and had to continuously look down at the five feet in front of me. Luckily the same wind had intensity (lesser) but not direction for my walk home and so in addition to keeping the snow off my face and myself pretty warm as I walked back, the wind also helped propel me along the slippery way.

Unsurprisingly, outside the yard of a house, snow removal is non-existent and pedestrians are left to wander the roads single file searching for car tracks to trudge along. Often, in the semi-frozen conditions of today’s snow, you are left to step into what is certainly a icy muddy puddle or a fresh snow bank with a mystery at the bottom. The potholes, open manholes, ragged pavement, and uncovered gutters become even more dangerous with the introduction of a concealing layer of fresh powder.

By the time the snow had finally finished this afternoon it lay thick on the ground, up to about a foot and a half in places… That’s a lot of snow for me, more than I have seen in a long time, and I think not much less than the entire quantity we got last year. And while my twenty minute trek to school left me hating life and cursing the cold, once the wind died down and I walked home, I appreciated a little bit that indeed, it was really beautiful outside. So while I can’t say that I am looking forward to this winter, I just have to keep a good attitude and look at the positive sides of this cold and snow- beautiful landscapes and good skiing. Saori, a true hater of the cold though, probably is glad that she’s not here for this one… :o)

(Interesting Post Script: I just looked back through all my entries and apparently last year, the first real snow was on November 11th, just about the same time as this year, and according to that journal entry I was not as excited as I remembered… I guess perhaps even a year ago I was already too jaded to enjoy it.)

21:35 08 November 2009

I just got back from three days in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, and have a lot to report from the trip. First of all, I went during the time of our quarter-end break which was a week long but passed much more quickly. I went for two main reasons, to visit a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a while and to hopefully buy tickets for a vacation this winter. Luckily, I was successful on both accounts. You’ve already read the sad story that was the dark cloud over my trip, but other than that I had a wonderful time.

Thursday night I spent with my youngest host sister Aijan who is studying in Bishkek. I hung out with her, her cousin, and one of her roommates in great Kyrgyz-style, eventually sleeping the four roommates and me all on the floor of a one bedroom apartment. I felt very integrated and treated like family. It was great, and I met for the first time my cousin’s older brother (I have met my cousin many times, she and Aijan both speak competent English but we usually speak a weird mix of Russian, English, and random Kyrgyz that they have taught me when we are together). But the brother used to be a member of an elite Kyrgyz military group and meeting him and seeing the pictures from his service (there was a lot of joint training with US military personnel) was really interesting for me.

Coming to my original host family, other than the sad news I already reported, I found out that my twenty one year old host sister Alyuna is getting married! She has been dating a guy since I have been in training and so amid their sadness there is the joy of Alyuna’s upcoming marriage. I am hoping to go once again this Friday to go to the wedding. Should be exciting and fun and a good event for the family to come together for a joyous occasion. I have been to and chronicled Kyrgyz weddings so I will be excited to see a Russian one, I am sure there will be many differences!

Ah, but perhaps the biggest news from my trip to Bishkek was that I bought tickets for a winter trip to Japan! As you can imagine, I have been missing Saori quite a bit since she left, and I will be overjoyed to be reunited with her in December for a few weeks. I have to admit, that I think that the culture shock will overwhelm me- Tokyo is even more developed than US cities and hearing her stories of the technology there make my head spin (their toilet is button operated and has all sorts of special features like a heated seat and music or something- my toilet flushes with a bucket of water…)

While I went primarily to visit Host Country Nationals that I have been close with, I also was excited my last night there to visit with some volunteers that are from Chuy oblast. I stayed with one of them (the one with whom I played Frisbee when I first got to my training village, if you remember that far back) and it was great to catch up with all of my friends from the capitol region. Also, I one a bunch at poker! Well, actually only about $3.50, but that’s a lot here! All in all though, it was a great trip to Chuy oblast and I am very happy that I was able to go.

20:00 08 November 2009

I was originally going to include this post as part of the one that follows it, but felt that it really should stand alone.

It had been too long since I last visited my original host family. You probably don’t remember, but I lived with my host mom Mama Luba (actually grandmother, but functioned as my host mom as she was the one that cooked for me, got me up, yelled at me when I didn’t do something right, and basically was the biggest person that aided me with my integration into Kyrgyzstan), her husband Papa Kolya, their daughter Irina, and their grandchildren Alyuna and Maksim (20 and 17 years old). The expense and travel restrictions of Bishkek mean that I rarely go to the capital city of the country (from which my old host family lives about 25 minutes away) and the last time I had seen them was before I went to Russia. It had been too long and I figured my upcoming Fall break was a good opportunity to see friends and family in capital.

As soon as I got to the house I knew something was wrong. Irina greeted me at the gate with a friendly but subdued greeting and when I entered I could tell immediately that something was off about the atmosphere. Mama Luba was absent. Papa Kolya was happy to see me, but was visibly disturbed. The atmosphere at the table was quiet, something that in three months of living there I don’t think I ever observed- dinner was usually a cacophony of argument which at first seemed to be hostile and unfriendly but later turned out to be nothing more than silly arguments about the exact location of a café in town, how much eggs were selling for at the bazaar, or whether they should eat raspberry or strawberry jam. It wasn’t until we after finished eating though that my fears were realized. After I saw Papa Kolya petting the dog and asking “Do you miss Luba? I bet you do… It’s boring without her, isn’t it?” I decided to ask “I am scared to ask, but where is she?” to which, he replied, saying what I hoped not to hear, that she died. Apparently she had been in a hospital for a bit, come home, and then died at home a few days before I got there.

The pain visible in the family wasn’t the dull remembrance of a loved one that I remembered from the Koran recitation at my new village host family, but the acute pain that comes with recent loss. Still people in the village were just finding out and a few came to give their condolences and talk about Mama Luba while I was there. She is someone that probably will not be remembered by many people outside of my training village, but I know that she made a big difference in my life and the life of the other volunteers that were hosted by them. She was a strong woman, forceful in her opinion and rarely convinced that she was wrong. She was also an incredibly… I can’t find the English word for it, but she was shustraya- funny, clever, joking, and a little mischievous. She loved to play pranks on the other Pre-Service Training families and would call them up to tell jokes. She taught me how to do laundry by hand and she criticized me for making the bed wrong and yelled at me for helping shovel another families coal. She mended my pants and told me I needed to iron my clothes more than I did. She praised me for my willingness to help out around the house and my language. She was funny, and strong, and perhaps one of the “realest” people I have ever met.

Mama Luba

1946-2009

Goodbye, I will miss you.

16:45 02 November 2009

This last weekend I celebrated Halloween with fellow volunteers in nearby Karakol city. While there were less than ten of us, we managed to have a good time together and were dressed in an assortment of odd costumes that certainly gave the Kyrgyz who saw us on our walk home reason to pause and stare… Haha. As I discussed earlier, I dressed up as Goose from Top Gun and wore the shortest pair of shorts I hope ever to wear in my life. All in all it was a good time though, and a great way to blow of some steam that builds up in the village.

19:35 28 October 2009

Well, Monday I had what I suppose could be called a “mixed success” program with my leadership club. We had what on paper seemed like it could be a good idea, but the implementation for it fell through a lot and it didn’t end up at all how I and Kelechek (the name of the group) hoped it would. However, having a debrief about it at the meeting today was a good opportunity to analyze our mistakes, see what went wrong, and figure out how to correct them in the future. So while it was a bit disappointing for me Monday, I have faith that the mistakes and correcting them will prove to be a positive experience for the future.

Before Saori left, she proposed the idea of holding some type of career festival for the kids of our villages. Career festivals and even the stereotypical parents telling about their jobs day in elementary school are an integral part of many countries’ job and work cultures. Thinking about future professions and seeing the pluses and minuses of each profession is an important process to us but that here seems to get little to no attention. Before attending university or selecting a trade, students have scant opportunities to decide which profession they want to pursue and even less information on how they could go about it. Saori’s idea was to hold a type of training/informational seminar for village kids in the upper classes at schools and have people of different professions come to speak to them about their professions, how they became them, and the benefits and drawbacks about them.

After she left, Kelechek and I began to try and organize the event, first surveying schools to find which kind of professions they would be interested in hearing from, and then organizing the date and logistics of the event. While the first part went well, so well in fact that I probably relinquished too much control to the kids, the latter part was plagued with difficulties and resulted in a somewhat lackluster seminar. I spoke with Saori about how proud I was of the kids and found that my role in the group was diminishing from that of leader to that of facilitator, something excellent for the long-term sustainability of the group and would make the transition easier when I leave next year. I fear that I may have made that move too quickly though, and a discussion post-event with the Director of the Dotz (the organization and place where we meet) where she expressed her disappointment went something like “Yes, they are doing well and are motivated and organized, but they are still kids and sometimes you need to step in and make sure they are taking the proper steps.”

The event Monday was significantly smaller than we hoped. We invited 45 students and about 20 showed up (and more than half of those late). But more importantly, out of the ten people that we invited to speak about their professions, only three showed up and we found two last minute to talk in lieu of the others. Other problems abounded with time limits and the speakers needing to leave early, the questions our kids prepared with sloppy and off-topic, and their was no clear flow of the program as a whole. We had designed this day as an experiment, with the hope of doing school-wide assemblies on the same topic in the future throughout the village. And while it did not go as planned, speaking with the participants after the seminar, it did seem like they still gained some interesting information and knowledge.

I won’t bore you with the details of how we plan to improve it in the future here, but I believe that future events based around the same principles could yield a lot of success and a very under-examined portion of Kyrgyz children’s lives.

11:15 23 October 2009

I’m looking to get some feedback on a new look I’ve been rocking recently. I had a goatee for quite some time ad was decided that it was time for a new look a few weeks ago. So I was just going to shave it all off, and started to, but decided just for fun to leave a mustache for the day, with no intent of showing anyone. I forgot about it however and went to the bazaar later that day with my gloriously sheathed upper lip. I got a few strange looks, and was wondering why that was. Of course… it was because I was wearing a mustache. I decided at the very least that I would keep it until Halloween (I make a mean Goose from Top Gun with a pair of aviators and volleyball shorts) and I planned on shocking and disgusting my fellow Peace Corps volunteers. Admittedly, somewhat to my disappointment, I didn’t receive this disgust… While a volunteer or two gave me the reaction I was hoping for, the majority didn’t notice it and some even said that it suits me! So I am now appealing to you, my readership audience to give me the truth, is it ridiculous? Does it actually look good? Should I shave it the morning of Nov. 1? I heard a rumor that mustaches are coming back in style in the States but I’m skeptical of this at best. Anyhow, I would very much appreciate your input! Thanks in advance.

Pictures of how I celebrated my birthday, on the beach of Issyk Kul with the last remnants of summer still lingering in the air- something I wish we still had now. It's getting cold!

Pictures from my August horse trek that I took with Saori. We went to the high pastures (jailos) and even to a glacier! Loads of fun.

23:30 15 October 2009

Well, I have some good news and some bad news. I bought a new cell phone this last weekend that should theoretically allow me to access the internet from home. This has had a negative impact on my budget for the rest of the month though… Looks like my diet will consist mainly of potatoes, bread, and tomatoes for the rest of the month but it will all be worth it if I can start accessing internet from my house!

So the good news is that probably by the time you are reading this I have obtained internet at home but the bad news is it isn’t today. I bought the phone last weekend but they did not have any USB cables left to sell so I have been waiting anxiously to be able to go back to Karakol to get one. Today was the day as I was in Karakol to cover an English club for a friend that is in the States at the moment and was able to pick up the cable! Hoorah! But it’s not working :o(. Anyhow, something is messed up with my computer so I think I will have to wipe my hard drive and see if I can get it working then.

About the English club though… I have taught a whole lot of English clubs since my service started here, probably somewhere of an average of three a week (so well over a hundred I believe) but this one today I believe was the most successful and most fun one I have ever given. Overall the schools in Karakol are better (urban flight is not the problem here that it is in the States) and the club was given only to very interested students. This meant they were already pretty advanced and SUPER motivated. I used a lesson plan I had written before but it was so much more fun when the kids where as into learning it as I was! It really gave me hope and showed me how much fun teaching English can be at its best. I’m currently applying to the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship program which would, if I am successful, provide me with an opportunity to teach in Russia for a year. Having classes like the one today make me excited at that prospect!

14:30 18 October 2009

This weekend was a lot of fun! I found out that my extended host family (two sisters, brother in law, nieces, and a few cousins) would be in town for a wedding and I was more than pleased to meet with them, I definitely miss having that family element in my life sometimes and it was wonderful to see some of the people I am closest too for a while. Also, the way that I am treated within the family is very much as a sibling… I mentioned last week at the wedding how I felt very much part of the community, well the last two days I have felt very much part of the family. In particular, my host sister Aijan and her cousin Aidai, both of which speak English pretty well are a real riot and fun to hang out with, they are both two years younger than me, but they are really funny girls and I love to hang out with them.

While I just came to visit the family the day of the wedding, being family it was insisted that I also attend the wedding so after I went home and put on a suit, I headed over to the wedding (at the same café that I was at a week ago). The funniest part of the wedding was that the program was EXACTLY the same as a week ago. The menu, the salads, the music, the decorations, and even the games were the same ones that I had seen last week. This was funny because the MC played a joke on the couple where he gave them each a half of a cabbage and told them something was hidden in the folds of it. Fifteen minutes later and without luck, the groom and bride were informed that they just ripped up a cabbage for nothing, as the whole game was a practical joke. Being able to call this despite my host sister’s objections “No! He says that there is a prize inside the cabbage!” was funny. Overall it was just eerie having the same wedding with different people.

All things considered though, this wedding was even more fun than the one last week because of the company I kept. Rather than a few students around whom I felt an obligation to keep my professional demeanor, I was able to kick back and relax knowing I was in the careful and considerate hands of my extended family. While I didn’t drink to excess, it seems like most of the rest of my family did and a good time was had by all.

It was a great time and this morning I went back to play with my nieces and say goodbye to everyone before they headed back to Bishkek. Not terribly surprisingly all of the family woke up with horrible headaches (apparently after I went home they went back and continued drinking). It was funny to sit around and recount the night before, a scene that didn’t seem out of place to me, just it was funnier to be doing it with 40-60 year old Kyrgyz adults rather than my college buddies.

Oh, in other news, I got my internet working! I’m updating from home! Woo! Also, I have google talk, an instant message program based on gmail, and I will be on a fair amount since it is cheap for me (I pay by the megabyte and it used very few MBs). So chat with me sometime!

11:30 10 October 2009

Yesterday I had a really great experience. I was invited to and attended a wedding of the brother of one of my students. While I didn’t know him personally, it was still a lot of fun to attend a wedding, and I was the only non-Kyrgyz person out of nearly 200 (there weren’t any Russians even!). The food was great, we danced the night away, and I felt more integrated than I ever had in this country, I was really treated not as an outsider but as a member of the family. What a great experience!

As with pretty much everything in Kyrgyzstan, it started well after it was supposed to; my invitation said to come at 17:00 to the café and I stood outside for a good 90 minutes before the wedding celebration actually started. While Kyrgyzstan is nominally Muslim and certainly there is a minority of religious Muslims here, wedding traditions seem to stem more from Western/Russian influences as the bride and groom come dressed in the western traditional tux and white bridal gown. There are definitely some marked differences between Western weddings and Kyrgyz ones however.

I think the world throughout weddings are known to be times of excellent and plentiful food- certainly Kyrgyzstan is no exception to this rule and the spread started with about six or seven salads, bread, borsok (Kyrgyz national fried dough), and the obligatory alcohol. This was followed eventually by a “first” dish of a Kazahk soup with beef and noodles and then the main dish of a beef stew with a beet salad, mashed potatoes, and rice. But no Kyrgyz gathering is complete without besh barmak, the national dish which consists of pretty much just meat and noodles and is eaten with hands. While everyone eats a little of this, everyone is already stuffed at this point so people take it more lightly and the more important aspect is that everyone takes home a huge chunk of boiled meat to eat over the next couple days (this is such an established tradition that the waiters and waitresses actually supply each of the guests with plastic bags to stuff full of meat, salad, bread, etc.)

One thing I found interesting about the wedding was the way the cake was served. I don’t know what the tradition comes from, but instead of everyone getting cake, the different tables try and outbid each other to get one of two hunks of cake. Once the auction is over, the money (which at the wedding reached 2,000 som- about $50 and more than a teacher’s salary for a month) is given to the new couple in exchange for the cake- every one else goes hungry… (Not that that is possible given the rest of the food)

Given that I was with several of my students, I was careful to limit my alcohol consumption (I’ve become pretty good at resisting the huge amount of societal pressure when I want to) but that didn’t prevent me from having a lot of fun doing things other than eating. Given the mostly secular nature of most Kyrgyz, the biggest official moment was when the couple both signed the state marriage contract, something very different and much more official and divorced from the love aspect of the marriage, no kiss, no “I do’s”. But regardless, following this there was a lot of dancing, and different silly games played by everyone in attendance. One thing I have noticed about Kyrgyz gatherings and parties is that they usually have to have a program which usually includes unusual activities and games and prizes. While I haven’t been to so many weddings in the States, parts of this one seemed more like a Bar Mitzvah than a wedding but maybe I’m just ignorant.

Throughout the entire night, each of the tables should make a toast to the new bride and groom, with a few representatives from each table getting up and speaking. Despite knowing the bride or groom, but being the only foreigner there, I was asked to give a toast, something which was nerve-racking but also rewarding after I gave it and felt that I did a good job. But, as I said, it was one of the most positive experiences in this country and really made me realize that I was integrated into this communicating more than I realized I was. That’s always a good feeling.

20:35 08 October 2009

The (not so) triumphant return!

So, my friends, I apologize for the long absence from this electronic forum. Actually, that isn’t true. I’ve spent the several months I haven’t been writing here spending time with Saori. Sorry guys, but I was a bit too busy falling in love to keep up with my blog. Unfortunately, Saori is gone. Certainly not from my heart, but from this glorious and increasingly cold country. Her two years finished up a few weeks ago and she is currently back in Japan. Of course, on the net, this is a negative thing for me, I miss her terribly and can’t wait until we are together again. But it does have some positive side effects, one of which being that the time I am not spending with her can be used for other pursuits- like updating my blog for the first time in three months.

I promise you now that I will do a better job of keeping up with this open electronic diary in the future, but I figured a bit of a recap of summer was in order to start things off.

Summer was fun. A lot of fun. And not only fun, it was actually a pretty productive time for me too. While I didn’t have classes, the leadership club that Saori started and that I currently run was still meeting and we had some things going on even then. The most impressive, I believe was a 300 kilometer walkathon between the cities of Balykchy and Karakol. The walkathon was staged over ten days and was staged to raise awareness of the plight of the handicapped in this country (no ADA laws exist here and ramps, good pavement, and wheelchair friendly areas are hard to find even in the capital city). The kids didn’t participate in the marathon, but we partnered with the Kyzyl Suu orphanage to have the kids prepare the welcoming event for the participants. We prepared a huge mural for the welcoming party to write their dreams about the future on (The theme of the marathon was Куда мы идём? “Where are we going?”) and so the wishes for the future were written on slips of paper resembling animal tracks and then pasted on our mural of the world. In addition to this, the kids helped organize the crowd at the finish and half walked the final 5 kilometers (we brought some disabled children along with us that were excited to participate and see how many people lead rich and fulfilling lives despite their disabilities). So that was a really positive experience for me and I believe the children got a lot of benefits from participating in it.

On the fun side of my summer, apart from my trip to Russia, I spent a lot of time at the South Shore beaches, hosted some friends from Switzerland for a week, and went on a horse trek with Saori. The horse trek was a really great time, we went up very high into the mountains behind our village and even got to a glacier and got to hike around on it for a while. It was cool to think that while we were in a completely different landscape (despite the nearly 6,000 ft. altitude, my village is relatively flat) even though we were only about 25 kilometers from where I sleep! I’ll try and put up some pictures of that in the future.

Well, I think that is enough for now, I will have to get used to writing these things again… But know that this is just the first of more frequent updates.

How the Kyrgyz celebrate the 9th of May (Victory Day in the Patriotic War-WWII)

12:45 19 April 2009

I have had nothing but awesome people come visit me off of couch surfing! This past weekend I had this really interesting and intelligent Mexican national come visit, he is so cool! He has worked with National Geographic, written a prize winning book, and even worked with Gabriel Garcia Marquez! We took a great walk around my village on a beautiful day and I showed them all the sites of it. I found a cool new place in my village too, there used to be a PMK, a construction materials collective factory and the remnants of it exist today, including an absolutely huge sickle and hammer symbol. Anyhow, the pictures tell the stories better then the words. All of these are courtesy and copyright of Temoris Grecko.

1530 16 April 2009

I wrote earlier that Spring had returned. Perhaps my mistake was having written that on April Fool’s Day. While this is still true to a certain extent, I was reminded this morning that I still live in quite a cold country. After a few weeks of nice and mild weather, trees beginning to blossom, and the color green being reintroduced to my life, I awoke this morning to a few inches of snow blanketing the landscape. It’s already mostly melted, creating muddy conditions everywhere, but it was still quite a shock to arise in mid April to snow everywhere! Unfortunately, I was also told that the late cold snap after the trees began blossoming might mean that the apricot harvest this year will be severely less than usually hoped for in the summer.

17:30 06 April 2009

I just had a great experience! Some couch-surfing Israeli tourists came to visit and stayed at my apartment for two days! And they couldn’t have come at a better time, it was during Passover and I got to share a very pleasant Shabbat, except for one experience, and it was the first time I really prayed since I was in country. We even made matzoh brie and ate kosher food! It was so exciting. I was surprised and impressed how observant they are staying in spite of the difficulties that come with travelling. They brought a huge bagful of Israeli kosher meat, matzot, and other goodies that they were more than happy to share with me.

In the process of their staying here I learned a lot of cool stuff , my favorite being the Russian card game “Дурок” or “Fool” that is a lot of fun to play. In addition to playing a lot of card games, we also ate even more good food, learned a tiny bit of Hebrew to augment my miniscule knowledge of the language.

In other news, I’ve been slowly but surely making my apartment “my” apartment by putting up stuff, cleaning, and getting all the necessary home items that make it all nice and lived in. I went to a flea market in Karakol and got loads of old Soviet high quality cookware (all the new stuff is poor quality and Chinese made, the good stuff is the old stuff, and it’s also cheaper!). One thing I think is interesting about all the Soviet era products is that the prices were so stable then that they were actually stamped upon the metal products! So I know that my frying pan cost one ruble, my forks were each 15 kolpeks (ruble cents) and my pot was one ruble, 50 kolpeks. All of these are incredibly low prices, and it really makes me understand why, in an economic time of high inflation, high unemployment, and other problems, why so many people here pine for the Soviet Union.

14:00 27 March 2009

Yesterday I did the new apartment dance! I moved into an apartment in my village and I am so pleased! I moved mainly because while I, overall, got along quite well with my family, I missed the freedom of being able to cook for myself on a daily basis, go and leave as I please, and have guests over whenever I wanted. My old host family was really nice and even helped me move by getting all my stuff into a horse cart and taking it over, I was going to hire a taxi but they were really willing to help out and I really appreciated it.

My new place seems like it will be a great location for all of this. It’s located in a really nice, calm, area of town on the first floor of two in a complex that used to house the workers of a Soviet era factory. The apartment has a lot of cool Soviet-y things about, little quirks like a radio that only has one channel on it (during Soviet times, it was used to receive the radio channel, there was no possibility to receive other frequencies) and a commemorative plaque from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Other than these, it’s a pretty typical apartment with two bedrooms and a nice kitchen with a refrigerator! I even have running water and a toilet, though I still have to buy a seat for it. The nicest part of it though is the gorgeous balcony I have out back, overlooking a rose garden that is going to be just beautiful once they bloom, the mountains to the south, and a little glimpse of the lake to the north.

To celebrate my new domicile, I had the JICA volunteers and Emil, an awesome HCN friend of ours, over for a dinner. I got to inaugurate my stove, dishes, table, and chairs in the place that I assume will probably be a hot spot for hanging out in my village, the JICAs both live with host families so it will be easier to cook at my place without getting in anyone’s way. Amid all the good feelings though, I do have to admit that I will miss certain aspects of living with a host family. The cultural integration I had on a daily basis and practice with Russian won’t exist as much, though I am lucky that I have a talkative neighbor to chat with and practice. I also really liked that family in general and hope that I can retain a certain attachment with them in the future.

1400 23 March 2009

After two weeks away from site, first at the Peace Corps Program and Design Management seminar and then the Diversity Week in Naryn, I am finally back in site just in time to enjoy a week off of school! It will have been three weeks since I last taught when we get back into the classroom, I hope I didn’t forget everything I knew! I celebrated Nooruz, a pre-Islamic Turkic spring holiday that is one of the biggest festivals in Kyrgyzstan, in Naryn with some other volunteers and an American tourist that I met there. The celebration consists of concerts throughout the county, eating traditional Kyrgyz food, and in some places the national horse games. While I have viewed riders preparing for the horse games, there were none in Naryn city (there are a few national horse games, the most interesting and famous being Ulak tartysh in Kyrgyz, known as buzkhashi elsewhere, an ancient, intense and violent game dating back to the Golden Horde where mounted riders try to pick up a beheaded goat carcass and deposit it into one of two goals using whatever means possible. It is often referred to as the most dangerous sport in the world as fatalities are not uncommon (and even expected) at the brutal international championships in Tajikistan- Usually the Tajik or Kyrgyz win, but the Afghans are renown for their bravery and frowned upon practice of playing with AK-47s). I was disappointed to not be able to see the horse games on Nooruz but have heard that they are played throughout the spring and summer and so I hope to catch a match at some point during the summer, I promise to upload pictures of the carnage then.

I was surprised and for a bit confused and worried this week however when I found out that my host-sister had been bride kidnapped. I knew that she had been dating one of her former classmates for quite a long time. Her boyfriend being Uyghur, a Muslim Western-Chinese ethnic/cultural/linguistic group, (bride kidnapping is pretty strictly a Kyrgyz/Kazakh) I was worried that some random Kyrgyz guy had kidnapped her non-consensually. I was relieved to find out that this was not the case and that it was indeed her boyfriend who had kidnapped her at the urging of his Kyrgyz friends. While she was unaware that it was going to happen, talking with her about it later made me believe that she was content with the occurrence and she seemed relatively happy in her new life. Bride kidnapping is a complex and controversial issue even here and not something I want to get started talking about in a public forum like this. However, it is often exercised in a cultural manner like with my host sister where the intent to marry was already in place, this I find still a bit off-setting due to my cultural upbringing but have many less intellectual qualms about.

18:45 20 March 2009

The conclusion of Diversity Week was today and, having viewed and participated in the whole thing, I think it was quite successful. I was hesitant the first two days, all of the sessions were conducted in English (the primary participants were students from the English language program at the University) and given the rapid rate of speech of some of the volunteers and some of the slang they used I wasn’t sure the extent to which they were able to follow and understand the proceedings. Speaking with some of the students after the sessions one of the days, however, made me realize with some bit of surprise, that their English was actually quite excellent, and with the exception of some of the slang, they understood pretty much everything.

The sessions I helped lead were ones on university culture, U.S. government, and religion in the States. The latter two were especially dear to me as I spoke about my experience working on the Hill and my experience as a religious minority in the States and then how it effects my identity here. Overall, I think that they enjoyed my sessions, they asked a lot of interesting questions about them, they seemed pretty interested in Muslims in America, it was interesting to them that the Muslims in a non-Muslim dominant country like the States are, overall, much more observant than the Muslims in majority Muslim Kyrgyzstan. I was also impressed with their knowledge of the American governmental system, and it was really fun playing the part of High School civics teacher explaining checks and balances, the branches of government, and what a bicameral legislature is.

In addition to being a positive experience in general, another volunteer and I are trying to start a Diversity Committee within Peace Corps itself. While it would probably also work with individual volunteers and how they can deal with their personal diversities in country (something that can be difficult for some volunteers of different backgrounds to do) we have a goal to hold seminars and trainings through out the country to educate the Kyrgyz public about American culture and how we deal with diversity.

Nooruz celebrations, a bridge over the river Naryn, views from the intense mountain pass into the most mountainous oblast, and the Martian Naryn landscape.

11:30 16 March 2009

As I mentioned earlier, I was coming to Naryn City for Diversity week. I’m here now, but first let me back track a bit. I spent the last weekend after PDM in Bishkek with my girlfriend. It was really wonderful to go out and enjoy real dates, good food, and the big city together. We did everything from eating Sushi and Lebanese food to seeing “Marley and Me” in Russian to going to cool bars to taking strolls in the park. It was so weird, having come from our village, to be presented with so many opportunities of things to do, and it was nice but definitely overwhelming. While Bishkek is no New York or Paris, it does have its share of Western-looking establishments and it is so bizarre to be go to a mall that could be in any American town or to restaurants that have actual ambience and semi-legitimate foreign food.

Nevertheless, it was really wonderful to have an opportunity to enjoy the big city with my squeeze, going out on dates is such a novel concept for me considering we have been together for over three months and we have only been on a few real dates. So I’m happy we had this opportunity to grow closer. She makes me feel wonderful :)

But onto Diversity week, I got here Sunday to Naryn from Bishkek which was an intense drive. The landscape in Naryn Oblast is completely different from my village and oblast and almost in some ways resembles a moonscape. The road to get there was really intense, we came through a mountain pass that was semi-paved and got really high; Naryn oblast is the highest oblast in the country with no land under 1,500 m. The city that I am staying in is the largest city in the least populated and poorest oblast and basically consists of one long road that everything is located on. As I said before, the landscape is very bizarre, the city is flanked on both sides with mountains unlike any I have seen, they are jagged peaks of loose dirt and rock. A morning hike yesterday brought me close to the summit of the smaller mountains and it was some pretty stunning views. Another interesting aspect is how “Kyrgyz” this city is. Unlike my village the Russian presence here is close to nil and I never hear it spoken, some of the kids here don’t even speak it very well. It’s a bit difficult to get around, but all the older folks speak Russian, and I know basic Kyrgyz (numbers, how to ask for stuff, etc.) well enough that I can get by.

The conference itself was interesting on the first day. I am involved with three sessions during my week here: Campus Life, Religious Interactions in America, and US Government and Comparison with Kyrgyz Government. The first sessions today on immigrant life were interesting, several volunteers who are first or second generation immigrants spoke and hearing their stories that I had no idea about was really cool. I also think that the Kyrgyz students here really appreciated learning about the different types of people that live in America and how they got there. I am looking forward to giving the sessions I am involved in and seeing their response.

09:00 14 March 2009

PDM finished up two nights ago and we had a blast. At the last night of it, my friend Daniel, who was a classical guitar major in college, organized a concert for anyone who wanted to participate. While I didn’t bring my axe, three other volunteers did and I think we put on quite a show. The concert started off with Daniel playing several classical pieces, one of which he composed for a friend of his birthday! They were really superb and I was really impressed with the self composed piece. He ended his set with a fun rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” which I really enjoyed. After Daniel, my friend Cameron did a solo rendition of a Bob Seger piece and then Daniel rejoined to play Weezer’s “Say it Ain’t So” which was a real hit with the audience.

Following Cameron’s set, my friend James played three self-composed pieces that were really heartfelt; his production is amazing, he had written them all in country and said he has about seven more! I closed the concert with, at first, a solo piece that I had written the music to years ago but couldn’t find good lyrics to (the lyrics still weren’t good, but I wanted to perform it so I did). I then brought out Daniel so I could play the Beatles’ “Ringo’s Theme/This Boy” which was fun and our solos came out really well. For the end of the concert, I had written the “PDM Blues” in the same spirit that I wrote the “PST Blues” that I mentioned several months ago. It featured some great solo work by Daniel and we also brought up our friend Katie for some harmonica support. It was a big hit with the crowd and I really enjoyed playing it. I’m going to try and get the videos of my performances to my parents, so if you are ever curious about seeing the aforementioned performances, try and hit them up.

1815 10 March 2009

While our PDM has been very useful for me so far, some unfortunate circumstances have caused about 25% of our group to not be able to make it. The Southern Kyrgyzstan volunteers have the option of flying to Bishkek or taking the 10-12 hour long taxi ride. As a group they decided to save money and take the taxi. This would have been all well and good, except an avalanche in one of the numerous mountain passes that exist between Osh/Jalalabad and Bishkek completely cut off traffic as well as killing a few Kyrgyz people. Luckily, the only negative consequence for volunteers and counterparts is their absence at the conference (after the avalanche all the airline ticket got bought up very quickly) but it’s scary to think that that could happen to volunteers in transit too.

One of the more “bad ass” stories from this actually comes from one of the counterparts. This Kyrgyz woman, once her taxi came to the edge of the avalanche and was being directed to turn around, decided to leave with all her baggage and make the several hundred meter traverse across the mountain pass on top of the avalanche snow to the other side where she picked up a taxi. This made sure she was the only CP or volunteer from the south that had taken road transport that made it and also severely showed up her volunteer as he has yet to show up. I’m just thankful that none from our group of volunteers and CPs were hurt though.

21:30 8 March 2009

First of all, I just want to say a big “Happy Women’s Day” to all the fine ladies of the world and my readership today. I know that it is not really celebrated in most countries (despite the fact that according to the Soviets it was an international day celebrated across the world- something that confuses the populace when I tell them it is not celebrated in the States) but it is a big day here. I neglected to mention Men’s Day, it fell during my camp so I wasn’t able to participate in the celebrations, but I received a towel from my school as a present because of my anatomy… Anyhow, for Women’s Day, the traditional celebration includes, of course, men putting on a concert for women and feeding them at a big toy (Kyrgyz party). For my part of this, I got together with my counterpart and sang a few songs on the guitar with her. I found out she actually can play guitar quite well and she performed a song that sounded like a Soviet version of Joni Mitchell. It was very entertaining.

That school celebration was two days ago, and the day before I had an additional celebration where the boys from the leadership club I help run got together and laid a table and put on a concert and games for the women (girls) from the club, Saori, and the Director of the Dotz. I actually enjoyed this even more, because the boys literally did everything for the party, from organizing to set up to clean up afterwards and I was really proud of all the effort they put forth. It was inspiring to see that these boys could really take leadership positions in organizing the festivities.

But for the actual holiday, I am actually at my old host family’s house. While I have a good relationship with my host family at site, coming back makes me really miss some aspects of living with my old host family. First and foremost is that, being Russian, and me being a Russian speaker, I understand far more of what is going on that I do at site with the Kyrgyz/Russian mix I hear. It is also entertaining just to watch this family, when I first got to site I was confused and thought that the family was constantly arguing and hated each other. The more I learned Russian however, the more apparent it became that they were not mad at each other, simply incredibly argumentative. “PUT THE JAM ON YOUR BREAD! IT’S DELICIOUS!!!”, “I DON’T WANT JAM ON MY BREAD!!! I HAD JAM FOR BREAKFAST!”, “BUT IT”S VERY DELICIOUS! PUT SOME ON WITH BUTTER!”, “NO!!!” a typical conversation might go.

I digress, spending Women’s Day with my old host family was wonderful as we ate good food, I gave them some gifts, and we talked about life. I’ve also realized how incredibly liberal they are compared to most here. They just got a house dog! It is so cute, and I don’t know if you understand how incredibly rare having a “Domashnaya Sabaka” is here. It was really exciting to play with a dog that was friendly, bathed, and didn’t want to tear off my face. So yay for Women’s Day!

19:45 5 March 2009

The reason for the aforementioned laundering of all of my clothes was because I am headed to Bishkek soon for our second In-Service seminar. This conference, entitled Project Design and Management or PDM, is centered around us learning how to design projects with our counterparts, how to secure funding for them, and how to run them once we are implementing them. My counterpart at school has a variety of ideas of what she would like to do with potential grant money and hopefully this seminar will give us guidance on whether the projects w have in mind are valuable, sustainable, and viable.

Directly after this trip, I will be taking my first “new oblast” trip to Naryn City to participate at the Diversity Week that a PCV is holding there. I’ve been working with a fellow PCV and Peace Corps staff to try and start a Diversity Committee within PC Kyrgyzstan. I think there is a large need for that here, and ideally we would do something in every oblast aimed at educating the Kyrgyz population about inter-group relations and how they work in the States. There are a lot of misconceptions about race, religion, and sexual orientation in this country and hopefully by showing how things worked in the United States we could encourage tolerance and acceptance within the country.

So while IST (In-Service Training) seems like it was only a week ago (it was actually 2.5 months ago), it will be really great to see everyone again, this is the last opportunity we have to all get together until our COS (Close of Service) Conference.

22:50 3 March 2009

13 socks, 10 shirts, 7 pairs of pants, 4 pairs of boxers, 3 sweaters, 1 towel, 4 hours, 3 blisters, and 1 sore back later I am done with my laundry. Out of all the chores that are more difficult here than I was used to, laundry by far ranks as the most annoying, physically difficult, and most loathed. Usually I wash a few of my clothes at a time, one pair of pants, a shirt and a few boxers and socks for the clothes of the next week but every now and then I have to do one big set of pretty much all my laundry. This sucks. While I am lucky that my family has a laundry “machine” (quotations because the machine is really more of a laundry spin-a-rounder than something that actually cleans clothes), I still have to get all the water, heat all the water, operate the washing machine (shockingly difficult to get it to work) wring out the “clean” clothes with the dirty soapy water that will be used for all of my laundry, rinse all the “clean” clothes in the basin of slightly less dirty water, wring them out again, and hang them out to dry. The really loathsome part is the bifurcated wringing process that leaves my hands red and sore for days afterwards and makes me wish I had the calluses of some of the older ajays (respectful term for older women in Kyrgyz) I have seen washing.

Nevertheless, it is certainly good to have my clothes as clean as they will get for the time being, and seeing the good half inch of dirt at the bottom of the washing machine when I poured out the water was simultaneously disgusting for how dirty my clothes must have been and satisfying for how much less dirt they contain now. But seriously, if anyone has heard of a drop off laundry service in my village, let me know. Come to think of it, it would be a great business proposition for some of my neighbors…

21:00 26 February 2009

I tried sheep brain today. I think that concludes my culinary exploration of boiled mutton. I seriously believe that I have tried on some occasion every single edible part of the fat-tailed sheep. Stomach, intestines, and pure fat cut in slices were some of the first experiences for me that were new. The prized delicacy of sheep face skin, cheek meat, tongue and ear were quick to follow. The true prizes of sheep eyes, hooves and gum meat then secured my place in the adventurous realm. But today was the real treat for me- I had never eaten the brain of another animal that I know of, and the concept of it still bothers me somewhat. The taste wasn’t bad at all really, much like the rest of mutton, but the texture wasn’t terribly pleasant- boiled grey matter has the consistency of very fine but slightly gritty soft jell-o. Sorry if that grossed any of you out…

17:45 25 February 2009

Much like most Americans, I have taken part in or at least witnessed my fair share of International Aid fundraising, clothing drives, used material collections, or other internationally focused aid efforts. Books for Africa, Helping Honduras, and the likes of these organizations aim to get much needed materials to aid in the development of areas of the world that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them for themselves. I’ve helped box books, donated used clothing, and bought a music CD in support of these various efforts, but one thing always remained for me in the past was that I had always been on the giving end of these projects and never had witnessed the benefit of them. Today I had the opportunity to see a truckload of used clothing donated from the Swedish Red Crescent and delivered to my school to be distributed to the community.

I don’t know if I can convey in words the strangeness of seeing this for me. The people that were receiving this clothing are people that I lead a somewhat similar life to now. They are by no means wealthy, but the quality of life here could be much, much worse, and I live at that level now. It made me truly realize things that I had forgotten because I had become so used to living here. People don’t go hungry or naked here, but clothing is frequently old and worn, and most of the items sold at the bazaar are of low quality to make it more affordable. This high quality but slightly out of style Swedish clothing (probably just coming into style in America) was being given away to families and individuals that lead a similar life to what I live. True, most here don’t have a computer, go skiing, or receive semi-regular shipments of impossible to find food here (though shockingly everyone here has a nicer cell phone than me- unfortunately what they spend on the cell phone that save by never buying units and instead my-aking me, an annoying practice of ringing someone and hanging up so they call you back- cellphones here are primarily unit based vs. contract) but my living allowance, living situation, work, and location all put me in a similar socio-economic sphere as the same people that are receiving this free European donated clothing. I’ve always had the fortune to live in a comfortable setting and have never truly wanted for anything. While I still don’t consider myself poor (my $60 a month living allowance here goes a pretty long way), my living conditions, spending habits, and pattern of life all resemble that of poverty in America. Interestingly enough, out of the innumerable stresses and things that I find frustrating here, my economic situation and inability to purchase certain things I might otherwise want ranks very low. I’ve always believed that money couldn’t buy happiness – now I believe it further – lack of wealth doesn’t necessarily mean lack of satisfaction with life.

10:30 21 February 2009

Wow! No kidding, that week passed quickly. As I said earlier, the camp was extremely physically exhausting, the crew of six volunteers and our local counterpart acting as session leaders, team leaders, organizers, children herders and disciplinarians all week. As they say about having fun, time certainly flew, but I am glad it is over now so I can relax a bit and recuperate from having to do so much.

In addition for the camp being fun for us trainers, I think the children really enjoyed it too. They were super enthusiastic and partcipitative which was really encouraging to see. Even in the more information dense serious sessions like HIV/AIDS, Volunteerism, and leadership skills, they were still very attentive and active. I was also very to happy to hear that some of the students liked Frisbee so much that they want me to start a team in my village! This is something I will be happy to oblige them with.

20:30 16 February 2009

With the first day of the camp over, things seem like they are going well. We had a couple of last minute issues with people showing up after they had told us they wouldn’t be able to make it and their spots had been replaced in the roster but it all worked out in the end. All in all, we have forty students from five villages and between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. I was also really impressed with the enthusiasm with which the kids participated. I know if I had been at a camp and they had asked me to do some of the things we asked them to do I would not have been half as willing to embarrass myself and participate.

While I am certainly exhausted from having to deal with forty kids as the highest authority – no passing the buck here, it was a really nice break from a week of teaching. The day of camp was much more physically tiring than teaching, but the monotony of teaching the same lesson plans and dealing with the same frustrations every day in the classroom can be more mentally tiring. Anyhow, I think this week will most likely pass by in a flash, the first eight hour day certainly did, and I hope it will be a benefit for these children as well.

11:25 14 February 2009

Well, I suppose in the spirit of this most Hallmark of holidays, I should announce something that many of you may already know or suppose. For the past two months and change I have been dating Saori, one of the two JICA volunteers that live in my village. Sorry I didn’t announce it earlier, but I felt a variety of discretionary steps should be taken before I made the news of my relationship public with the readership of this blog. She is a simply wonderful girl and I couldn’t be happier to be in a relationship with her. While it came unexpectedly to me, as I said, I am really happy and spending time with her (which due to her fortuitous proximity) is one of the things I most look forward to in my life here. I’ll spare you all the details, I hardly would find this an appropriate forum for the discussion of my love life any way, but rest assured that I am in good spirits most of the time here, and Saori is a large part of that.

Interestingly enough, while Valentine’s Day isn’t widespread in celebration here (it is gaining in popularity though) it falls on the same day upon which the Kyrgyz (and I would assume most of the former Soviet Union) remembers the veterans specifically of the (Soviet) War in Afghanistan. It was interesting to see students marching with wooden mock Kalashnikovs made in shop class in honor of the veterans of the war. It was certainly a type of demonstration that I think would be odd to see in the United States or the West in general, such demonstrations of military among children, some not older than fourteen, seems very out of sync. Regardless it was an interesting dichotomy to see some try and celebrate a day ostensibly about love while many others honored those who had participated in a war.

19:45 13 February 2009

With only three days until the Winter Camp I am helping run starts, surprisingly enough I am feeling well and prepared. Today I went with Lorenzo, the main monetary force behind the camp and its ostensible director, to the Karakol bazaar in order to buy all the supplies necessary to outfit a week-long health, arts and sports camp. The sessions we have planned out include a great variety of different classes, from Mexican folk dancing, First Aid, Dodgeball, Rhythm and “Stomp” to Yoga, Leadership skills, AIDS education, and Proper Stretching. The sessions are being led by an assortment of Peace Corps and JICA volunteers, employees of the Red Crescent Association, and the leadership club I help out with even designed a session especially about health issues which I am excited to watch as I have been too preoccupied with administrative and logistical problems to focus on content issues (ironic, no?).

The biggest problem for me, as the camp is being held in my village, is coordinating the homestay situations for the out of village participants. It is difficult enough to coordinate a camp for forty people, but when thirty of them don’t even live in your village and will need to eat, sleep, and live somewhere during the camp, it becomes a logistical challenge. Luckily, so far it seems as if everything is going quite smoothly and I am looking forward to the camp. The past month has been good but has become routine in teaching, I am hoping the camp in the middle of the longest school session will help prevent my work here from becoming monotonous.

22:00 23 January 2009

Never before have I been able to see with such clarity the reason our forefathers looked up at the night sky and saw grand apparitions of battles, animals, and the gods. Nights in this country, ostensibly due to the altitude, the crisp winter air, and the near total lack of light pollution, offer me unprecedented views of the stars. The familiar constellations like Orion took on new dimensions (did you know he had a bow?) and formations I knew about only from the Horoscopes were recognizable even without a guide. Indeed, if it was difficult for me to find constellations, it was because of so many stars that it was easy to make my own. The past several nights in particular have been incredibly clear and I have gone outside to stargaze, despite the chilly temperature. Really, it is amazing to see the incredibly clarity of the thousands of stars visible to the naked eye

In more humorous news, the inherent stupidity of barnyard animals continues to amaze me. In addition to ever-foolish sheep, I watched with amazement several geese repeatedly try to eat a shadow. The shadow of a chain link fence was cast onto one of the walls of our compound and the gaggle (I don’t think I’ve ever actually used that word before) that we own approach the wall and then futilely try and eat it. Unfortunately, given that our walls are made of mud, this was a destructive in addition to humorous practice. There are now several divots on the wall where our intelligent geese tried to eat the absence of light. Great.

11:35 28 January 2009

Warning: This entry contains graphic descriptions of slaughter in the first paragraph, read at your own risk- the rest of the entry should be fine for all.

For the first time in country, and indeed in my life, I witnessed the slaughter of a sheep. While it was certainly a somewhat traumatic experience, especially since earlier in the day I had chopped the head off my third chicken (I thought it might get easier the second time around but I was wrong- the immense feelings of guilt, queasiness, and horror at my own action remain and I was left trembling for a good ten minutes afterwards- the habits of a decade long vegetarian die hard I suppose) it was also in some ways an oddly beautiful sight. There are relatively few reminders that I live in a Muslim country on a daily basis, I can’t hear the mosque from my house, alcohol consumption is common and widespread (a legacy of the Russians), and Kyrgyzstan is a quite secular country; however, when it comes to slaughter, it is seeped in the Islamic tradition which is actually somewhat similar to the way kosher slaughter takes place. It began with my family and the neighbors who would slaughter standing around praying, the Muslim way asks God for the meat, the role of the slaughter is merely to cut the sheep (linguistically interesting you don’t kill an animal, you cut or chop it- God is the one who allows the blood to spill and the animal to die). After some Koran recitation, it ends in the Omin- Muslim Amen which includes an elongated sweeping gesture over the face, and the sheep’s feet were bound together. The throat of the sheep was then slit and immediately copious amounts of blood spilled like red velvet from the neck and the two men continued to cut until the head was nearly completely severed. While the sheep continued to bleed, it struggled despite the head’s near unattached status in a way that reminded me of the death throes of the chickens I have killed. Because there were two grown men restraining it and the sheep’s legs were bound, it wasn’t as active as the chicken had been, but it still was pretty jarring. Perhaps the most scarring moments were the sheep’s last three or four breaths which consisted of horribly ragged sounds and a bloody spray coming from the newly detached windpipe. After about two minutes, but what felt like four hours, the sheep stopped struggling and resigned itself to death as its neck wound was cleaned with warm water and our neighbors backed off to finish the spiritual side of the slaughter.

What followed this was the most beautiful part of the process. Our neighbor backed off and began to recite lengthily from the Koran, his hands warm and moist from the previous actions held cupped reverently in front of him and steaming from the heat of his and the sheep’s body. Seeing my family and neighbors circled around the fresh slaughter, thanking Allah for providing them for sustenance in the midst of cows lowing, chickens clucking, lambs bleating, and geese… honking? was a haunting but beautiful sight. Nevertheless, as I said before it was pretty jarring and the sounds, smells, and sights are ones that I will never forget.

22:30 20 January 2009

After the last day of the IST conference, which ended in a somewhat disappointingly low-key get together- I think we were all exhausted from an entire week of late nights followed by way to early mornings (breakfast at 7:15), I find it a good opportunity to reflect on some of the changes in my work environment already. If these aren’t just temporary changes, which I desperately am hoping they are not, then I think my service over the next 20 months will be more successful than my original expectations over the first four months of service.

In the first few days following this conference, I have found my relationship with my counterpart incredibly improved. The goal of the TEFL Program in Kyrgyzstan is to introduce a sustainable component by having its volunteers team teach in the classroom, work with the other English educators in the classroom, and introduce skills transfer. We are taught to teach in the communicative method, a method that stresses the learning of the ability to express oneself and understand others in the language above grammatical accuracy, writing, and reading. In general, communicative method can be said to emphasize fluency over perfection and is vastly different from the Soviet-era translation focused method in use in most schools here. While many of the English teachers in Kyrgyzstan have a better understanding of English grammar rules than I do, I often can speak better in Russian than they can English. Hopefully, with my presence in the school and the skills-transfer this brings in working with my counterpart and the other teachers in the school, this will begin to change. In the wake of the conference I am incredibly hopeful of this potentiality. As I began earlier, my relationship with my counterpart has improved to such a degree that we are now lesson planning together several times a week, our lessons are truly being team-taught, and I think the students are learning more successfully. Hooray!

21:00 16 January 2009

It is the last day of our In-Service Training Conference today. It has gone by in a huge blur and has, in my mind, really been a success overall. While, as large conferences tend to have them, it did contain dull moments, the vast majority of the information I was provided with I found useful I think that overall it will make me a better volunteer. At the beginning of the conference was a three day session where we worked in conjunction with our counterparts. In addition to merely giving us an opportunity to better our relationships with our counterparts, it also allowed us to really focus in on the goals of team-teaching (namely making the TEFL English teaching program more sustainable). Since it is a new program, it is difficult for some counterparts to work with their Volunteers in the classroom. I hope and have faith that the workshops of this conference will better my and most volunteers’ work in the classroom.

In addition to being a good experience from a professional standpoint, it was also an incredible opportunity for the K-16 Volunteers who live all over the country, some days from others, to get back together again and socialize as a group with other Americans. Through this experience, I got reunited with many of my close friends, had a great time, and realized to what extent I could become uncomfortable when surrounded exclusively by Americans. I have always considered myself as somewhat of an introvert, but my service has actually revealed to a large extent how deeply I value human contact. However, despite this value, my introvert tendencies towards the end of the week seemed to exert greater influence on me as the some of the stereotypes of Americans began to become too strong.

Nevertheless I consider the past week a big success, both on a volunteer, psychological, and work level. It was a great opportunity to learn more language, more culture, more about ourselves, how to work with counterparts, and the experiences of other volunteers.