pre revolution blog

hey! first off, just want to say that i am safe! all peace corps staff, volunteers, and trainees are in a safe, central location (which I cannot reveal. I feel so incognito). We are meeting in 20 minutes to discuss our next course of action. For the time being, all PC staff are safe. There are food shortages in some parts of the country, and there is a day of mourning tomorrow. I typed a blog entry from my house, and I will copy and paste it here. I will write details about my post revolution experience in the upcoming days. Until then .. enjoy!

4/3/2010

The matching ceremony was really fun. We had a bit of a hectic morning packing our bags and loading up a cargo truck and two buses, but eventually hit the road on time. The ceremy was in a smaller city, and we joked and reflected during our hour bus ride. I had basically forgotten about the ceremony when the bus came to a stop and I saw several Kyrgyz looking excitedly at our buses. We slowly cleaned up and stepped out of the bus to enter the gym. Inside, Peace Corps had set up 8 or 9 different tables, each with a village name written in Cyrillic letters. Our LCFs (Language and culture facilitators. A fancy term for teacher) gave us a slip of paper with our host mother's name on it. We made our way to a gym where some Peace Corps staff made speeches in 3 languages – Russian, Kyrgyz, and English. All of the volunteers sat on the right side of the gym, while the host families sat on the left. We excitedly scanned the opposite sections to scope out our potential host families. Eventually they called my village, which was one of the larger (15 trainees) and we made our way to the stage. I was the 2nd to last person to find my host mother. We left the gym and grabbed some snacks from our table. The Kyrgyz are very generous people – I had cookies, a sandwich, water, and a Fanta in my hand, and my apa (mother) was trying to hand me an apple. Wow! We loaded up my luggage into a taxi and took the bumpy road to my PST (pre service training) village. I was so happy and proud to see fellow trainees getting into the taxis with their new families. Everyone looked so happy and optimistic. I came home to another spread on the table. I met Yrys and Timur, aged 12 and 11, my new brothers. I also have 2 sisters, Aizat and Aqilet. My mom's name is Raya. There were a lot of warnings about big meat spreads at these meals, as well as excessive drinking of vodka. As a vegetarian, I was a bit worried about the meat thing. I was ready for a shot or two though! I explained to my host mother that I was a vegetarian after she offered me some sausage, and everything was fine. After the meal, I unpacked and relaxed a little in my room. It feels great to have my own space and to have everything organized. It feels like I've been living in temporary situations forever.

The village here is noticeably poor – economically speaking. The roads have holes and piles of dirt or rocks in them, fences are made of roofing, old doors, or mud bricks. Most houses do not have indoor plumbing, and there is always an assortment of dogs, chickens, donkeys, cows, sheep and horses in the street. Most houses have an outdoor sink, an outhouse, and a banya (I will explain later). My house has 4 rooms – two bedrooms, a dining room, and a living room. The only furniture is a dining room table, a couch in the living room, and a bed and table in my room. There are beautiful rugs on the floor and hung on the wall. My brothers sleep on a mat in one room, my mother sleeps on the couch, and I sleep in a bed in my room. I actually feel a bit uncomfortable taking my own room and sleeping on a bed, but everyone says that the tradition here dictates that guests should receive the most comfort. .. Still! I feel bad.

Having just said that the village is economically poor, I feel that it has an incredible cultural and social richness. The courtesy and generosity of the people here is beyond belief. The culture of “guesting” is very strong here. It is not uncommon for a family to go out and visit another house, where the family will serve them tea and insist they stay for dinner. This repeats throughout the evening, with families visiting several other families. A few nights ago, another trainee stopped by my house with her sister to play badminton with me (hah!). My apa quickly put on some boiling water, and came out when it was finished to invite us to tea. “Chai ich” means “Have some tea,” and you hear it about 50 times a day here! Deborah, the other trainee, as well as her sister, Adina, came in and had tea with my family. Much to our surprise, Raya apa and Aizat (my sister) pulled out two homemade pizzas from the oven. They were a bit shy, saying that the pizzas weren't like the ones in America. However, Deborah and I were really happy to eat some familiar food! Deborah had to leave for dinner at her house, but her sister insisted that we come with. So Raya apa, Deborah, Adina and I went to their house down the street. We played more badminton until Gulbara (Deborah's apa) came to the steps asking, “chai ich?” We went inside, where we were served tea and orocho (?) which is a very thin, oily bread with cabbage, onion, and pepper inside. We left the house to walk home, when we ran into another trainee and his apa. She insisted we come over for tea, so we went to another house for tea. By this time it was dark, and we decided to head home. Much to our surprise, Aizat had prepared a third dinner for us. To really illustrate the kindness of the Kyrgyz, I was standing and watching Timur and Adina play badminton. I sat down on the steps to relax a little, and Adina quickly noticed, immediately stopped playing, and went to the shed to get me a fur to sit on. The people here truly want to do their best to make you comfortable. And caffeinated.

The village has been out of water for about 3 days, and last night there were donkey drawn carts delivering water from a neighboring village. Saturday is an important day here – laundry and banya! A banya is a traditional Kyrgyz bath. I was looking forward to it, as I was a bit dirty. My apa showed me how to clean my clothes in a metal basin without a washboard. It was fun, and she said I did a good job. I totally have a new respect for washing machines. She explained to me that since I was grown up, I had to wash my own underwear. Hah! I truly believe that the wealthy or privileged would do well to slow down their lives and get in touch with the earth and with real, daily life. We automate and facilitate, rushing through life and seeking convenience, and spend all of our gained free time in front of screens, whether it be a computer, television, or cell phone. Or some weird hybrid that fits in your pocket. Anyhow, after we hung my clothes to dry, I went to the banya. It is a concrete room with a wood burning stove in one corner and a 55 gallon barrel in another. Water is boiled on the stove, which makes the room very steamy. Smoke from the fire gives off a great aroma. The 55 gallon barrel is filled with warm water, and you mix the warm water with the boiling water to an appropriate temperature in a tub in the middle. You then get naked and poor hot water over yourself in a hot, steamy, room. It's almost like a sauna, while dumping hot water over yourself. Amazing. Unfortunately the fire went out and I got a little cold, but they said that next week's will be better. I was just happy that my hair wasn't greasy and my fingernails weren't caked with dirt. My clothes are drying and I've been clean and bundled up in warm clothes all day.

Just a bit about my daily schedule! I wake up at 6 30 am, do some basic yoga and meditate, and then go out to have breakfast with my apa. We have chickens, two dogs, and a cow. Every morning she milks the cow, sets the milk to boil, and walks the cow to the mountains to graze. By the time I am ready for breakfast, she has the food, boiled milk, and tea ready. It is not uncommon for her to gather eggs in the morning and fry them for my breakfast. In the US, I never drank milk or ate eggs for ethical, ecological, spiritual, and health reasons. I feel fine consuming these products here, except for health. I still think eggs and dairy are total cholesterol bombs. Anyhow, I watch my mom milk the cow, and I see that it totally doesn't care. The chickens walk around the yard all day, making weird noises and picking at the ground. After I have breakfast, we meet up with other trainees and their apas, and walk to another house where we have 4 hours of language class. Sometimes it is tough to think about vowel harmony, voiced and voiceless consonants, infixation, suffixes, and vocabulary at 8 in the morning. Putting together words like Charykbuysungbu just doesn't come together that well in the morning. After our language class is finished, the five of us students meet up with the two other language groups (a total of 15) and have a large lunch at one of the host family's house, which alternates every day. The apas are in competition to see who will make the best lunch. We always walk into a long table, stacked with nuts, fruits, bread, plav (a rice dish), among others. After eating, we leave for home. My brothers are always waiting for me outside to walk home with me. We get home around 2, and I will typically play with my brothers for a half hour or so, then come to my room to relax a little. I spend the rest of the day reading, drawing, and practicing Kyrgyz. We usually visit, or have visitors, every evening. I write letters every night from around 10 to 11 pm. I am going to go socialize, as it is getting late, and then head to bed. Tomorrow is sunday, our day off! I plan on working on a painting (ironic that I paint watercolor and the village is out of water), watching a movie, and hanging out with other trainees. So long!

4/6/2010

I must've been tired, because I slept in until 11:30 on Sunday! Not entirely my fault, I get up everyday at 6:30. Plus my alarm doesn't work, and my apa didn't want to wake me up on my only day off. Anyhow, she knocked on the door at 11:30 and invited me to tea. I went out into the dining room, still feeling very much out of it. My little brother asked me if I wanted to play with him after breakfast. I figured it'd be a great way to wake up, so I agreed. 4 cups of tea later, I was ready! So I went outside, where Timur had drawn a large circle on the ground with two lines about 2 feet outside of it. He went to the garage and came running back with a handful of .. sheep vertebrae! This is a traditional Kyrgyz game of which I had no idea. It is actually really fun. Here is how to play (it is similar to curling, or marbles) .. you set up 5 vertebrae in a line in the middle of the circle. Each player stands on the lines outside of the circle and takes turning throwing a vertebrae (each player has one, 7 all in all) at the line of bones in the middle. The object is to knock the bones out of the circle. If you do so, you throw again from wherever your bone landed. If you hit a bone, but don't knock it out of the ring, your opponent gets to stand inside the circle and throw. The winner is whoever knocks out the most bones. Awesome.

Kyrgyz language classes are going well. I am starting to get into a routine here, which is nice. I feel stable, and I know my way around the city pretty well. I have good friends here, and I am learning a lot everyday. I have definitely come close to some of the volunteers in this village. A few of us have really opened up to each other about our personal fears, concerns, and hopes. Living in a situation like this really pulls people together. I am excited that these are people I will probably be friends with well after Peace Corps. We began our technical training (i.e. TEFL, teaching english as a foreign language) classes today at the local school. The school is full of paintings and writings of traditional Kyrgyz culture. The students are cute and mostly happy to see us. We sat in on some classes, which was really entertaining. I sat in on a class full of 8 or 9 year olds, it was surreal to hear them sing bingo in this monumental soviet school building. Wow! The school didn't have any heat or lights on, so it was a bit cold, and some hallways were straight up dark. It felt more like I was sneaking into an abandoned school than sitting in on classes. The bathroom was a brick building outside the school, with a concrete floor and 8 or 9 holes around the perimeter. The holes were about a foot deep and connected underground. It definitely smelled a bit, and the floor was .. questionable. I have heard some good bathroom stories, none of which I will repeat on this blog. Write me for details. Anyways, about the school, next week we are teaching with a local teacher as a practice. I look forward to it!

We had tushqu tamaq (lunch) at my house today. I was so proud of my mom and sister's cooking and decoration! Our house is definitely on the small side, and I was surprised at how well everything worked out. My little brothers went out yesterday and harvested a bag of walnuts. They worked for 3 hours last night with a pair of pliers and a rock, cracking the walnuts and filling up a bowl for lunch today. My mom made oromo, which is a really good local dish. A dough is spread paper thin in a circle, with about a 2 1/2” diameter. Chopped up potatos, carrots, onions, oil, and spices are sprinkled inside. It is then rolled up, arranged in a circle, baked and cut like a pie. Yum! Apa also made buluchu, which are like little turnover rolls without any filling, only light sugar. They are so good, I confess that I probably ate 5 of them at lunch! I sat beside Aizat, who was pouring tea for people. It was a really nice time.

Tomorrow is the first time that we are going to our Hub site. There are 70 volunteers distributed throughout about 8 villages, and we meet once a week as a group to have meetings, get shots, and do other official things. I am very excited to see some of my friends that I haven't seen since the hotel. Plus, we will be able to get cell phones tomorrow! I may wait until Saturday when we go to Bishkek, as they may have a bigger selection. I am really not in too big of a rush to get one. You can get a plan that can call internationally, calling the US is about 8 cents a minute. A lot of folks want cell phones because you can use them to get on the internet. I am doing fine without it! I am plenty busy with Kyrgyz language lessons, learning teaching methodology, drinking tea and throwing sheep bones in our backyard. Plus I dug into my SNES rom folder (i.e. Super Nintendo games that I can play on my computer) and I am totally hooked on Donkey Kong. Don't judge, you gotta take care of yourself! I have done some good value sketches of local scenes, which I will definitely turn into paintings at a later date. I also am feeling inspiration for songwriting. For now I am going to study and head to bed, tomorrow we are getting on a marshrutka at 8 am for our hub site. A marshrutka is basically a sort of arbitrary bus, that drives around the city and yells out destinations. You get on, ride around, and yell when you want off. I hear they are crazy, so I am excited to try it out.