Tales from Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines

Saturday, December 27, 2008

My host siblings and I built a snowman.

My secret santa card- look, it matches my shirt! I found that ridiculous shirt here, I wear it all the time...

Christmas!

Our very fancy Christmas tree.

This is how we sleep on the weekends.

Another snowman, with my host mom.

Ariel and I. We all went hiking.

We decorated for Christmas. Even Tolstoy is feeling festive.

The Turkey Trot. Nate and I raced after Thanksgiving dinner. (I told you I always wear that shirt.)

Preparing for the Turkey Trot, which I lost- I blame it on the shoulderpads.

THe K-15s singing us their Christmas present.

Happy New Year!

This past week was filled with snow and Christmas cheer with the volunteers from the South. The snow started last weekend and it snowed almost every night for the last week.

On Monday evening, my village had its first heavy snowfall. I was going out to the outhouse after dinner, and Aida, the cousin who lives with us, ran out and threw a snowball at my head. That first snowball spawned an epic snowball fight in the yard with my host siblings, after which we built a snowman. This is the first winter that my host family has lived in their house, before May they lived in an apartment near my school. So when it started snowing, my host siblings were really excited to actually get to play in the snow.

My last two days of school were uneventful, and I came into Jalalabad on Wednesday afternoon. Most of the volunteers came in Wednesday; we had a fun Christmas Eve celebration. After epic shopping in the bazaar for all of the supplies we would need, we headed back to the apartment. Ariel, Leslie, and I cooked dinner and baked pies for the next day. The apartment only has four plates, so we had to eat Kyrgyz style; we set up two eating areas and just all ate out of a big communal pot.

The Christmas holiday was a lot of fun. There were nineteen of us celebrating together, seventeen of us from around the area, one volunteer visiting from Talas, and someone's friend from America. We had a secret Santa and then the K-15s sang the 16s a song, "The 12 days of Christmas" with gifts from the Kyrgyz. It was hilarious, and an awesome present. We loved it so much that we already plan on performing it for the K-17s next year.

There are only four conversations that we volunteers ever have. First we talk about poop, a lot: going to the outhouse, eating something that we pay for later, and various parasites that we have managed to pick up. After that conversation we circle around to food; food conversations take up a majority of our time. We talk about what we miss (cheese), what we will eat when we get back to America, what is better than Beshbarmak, and we often plan out elaborate meals for our holiday celebrations. Third, we discuss how we will embarrass ourselves when we get back to America:

Wearing the same outfit for at least three days in a row
Showering every other week
Eating with our hands
Not waiting for everyone to get their food before we scarf ours down
Bad table manners in general
Inappropriate conversation topics at inappropriate places, i.e. poop
Really lame things we think are fun, such as watching two candles burn
Getting super excited about mundane things, i.e. washing our hair
Bringing our own vodka and watermelon to Olive Garden and demanding shot glasses and our server to cut up the watermelon
Not editing or quieting our conversations because we assume that no one understands us

Lastly, we talk about how this is not the Peace Corps we envisioned- which inevitably brings up where we wanted to serve, where we were supposed to serve, and how the Kazakh volunteers think we have it better.

I mentioned this last conversation topic in my last entry. I bring it up again because we discussed it last night at dinner, again. Most of the volunteers who are serving in Kyrgyzstan did not want to serve in Central Asia, and are here begrudgingly. I am one of a handful of volunteers who actually wanted to serve in Central Asia. I came to Kyrgyzstan enthusiastic about my choice of location and six months later I am still happy about it. Most days I wake up and I am still passionate about being here. I'm hoping that my enthusiasm for this country won't wane as time passes. A lot of the K-15s here are a bit disenchanted and feel bitter towards Kyrgyz culture and people. I admit that life here can be difficult, and things can be immensely frustrating, but I would hope that after seventeen months in country my outlook would not be so bleak.

Coming up this week is one of the biggest holidays celebrated in Kyrgyzstan- New Year's! New Year is celebrated with a decorated New Year tree, and presents brought by Santa Claus. I will be celebrating the holiday with my host family and then I think I am going to go to Osh for the weekend.

Happy New Year! And again-buy your plane tickets to come visit me!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

The turkey before it met its fate.

Delicious cooked turkey.

Thanksgiving!

Kyrgyz people love making you dance.

My host mother, a friend of my host sister, and my host sister.

Happy Holidays!

I just got back from a week in Bishkek. I flew up to the capital from Jalalabad this past Sunday for a week of training. About two weeks ago Peace Corps gave us word that we were granted money to host 20 winter camps throughout the country. I was so excited upon hearing this news that I instantly volunteered to participate. Little did I know that I would be chosen to organize and implement the entire camp. At the training were 21 other volunteers from around the country; mostly the group was K-16s, but there were a few 15s there. We spent the weeks going over details about how to organize, and utilize local resources, as well as writing the grant proposal.

While up there I got to eat non-Kyrgyz food: pizza, falafel, kebab, and many other delicious items. I also enjoyed my first snow of the season, and got to see a bunch of volunteers I never get to see. Overall the conference was really fun, and I am really pumped up about winter camp. Our winter camp is for forty students, ages 12-14, from my village and from the neighboring villages. The camp will be in Kyrgyz and we are going to teach Life Skills and HIV/AIDS prevention.

While Kyrgyzstan does not have an alarming amount of HIV/AIDS cases, the country does have an alarming rate of increase in cases, 25-fold in the last five years. The number of cases reported in Kyrgyzstan is around 1000, but the UN and other agencies estimate that that number could be as high as 10,000. Most new infections are amongst injecting drug users. The number of cases reported is low most likely because of the stigma attached to being infected here in Kyrgyzstan. Most people in Kyrgyzstan see HIV/AIDS as a disease that only infects prostitutes and gay men. Hopefully that is one myth we will be able to dispel at our winter camp.

For winter camp I am working with a volunteer from the village over, who's from Atascadero!, as well as a few of my 11^th form students, and various local Kyrgyz people. It's going to be one marathon session after another to get everything done for camp in early February. But at least I will have lots to do while I have no school; I will not have much time to think about how cold it is and contemplate the greater meaning of my existence. Starting this last week, I have various Peace Corps events to go to, teacher-training seminars to give, winter camp to organize and run, and then I'm going to Hong Kong to visit Kari and Patrick.

This coming week is Christmas! I cannot believe it. It doesn't seem like it is time for Christmas already. There's no Christmas music, no decorations, absolutely nothing to indicate that a major religious (secular these days) holiday coming up. I am taking Christmas Eve and Christmas day off, so I only have two days of school left- this Monday and Tuesday- and then it's winter break until March 1^st. A lot of us are getting together in Jalalabad this week for the holiday, which I anticipate as lots of fun.

This past week I had a lot of time to look around and think. And this is not what I thought Peace Corps service would be like. When I envisioned my service, I thought I would be in a remote village, hours away from the next volunteer, without cell phone reception in a desolate area. But that's not what I got. Instead, I have another volunteer across the street from me, I live in a rather big village that has amenities, and I definitely have cell service. Granted, I don't always have electricity, and I don't have running water, but it's not so bad. I see a lot of the volunteers from my area almost every weekend, and internet is only a half hour taxi ride away. I am not isolated at all. There are some volunteers who are not quite so lucky, such as one volunteer in my oblast who is five hours from Jalalabad city. He lives in a small town, two and half hours from the next volunteer and five hours from internet access. Once winter gets really snowy, he will be stuck there until the snow melts.

That's it for this edition. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays! And buy your plane tickets to come visit me this summer!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Thanksgiving

Since I last wrote the temperature dropped significantly and the sun disappeared. It was fairly cold for two weeks. I had to wear more than one pair of tights, gloves, a hat, and a scarf when I was inside and teaching class. My school has an electric heating system, and since we do not have electricity the classrooms are rather cold, usually even colder than outside.

After two weeks of really cold weather the sun returned and the weather warmed up. The South of Kyrgyzstan has enjoyed beautiful fall weather, while the rest of the country got snow.

A few weeks ago I went with my counterpart to two weddings. My counterpart and her family picked me up at 10 am and we went to the first wedding. The first wedding was in the neighboring town at my counterpart's husband's brother's house. People were coming in and out, sitting down for tea and plov, and enjoying various parts of the sheep. At one pint the groom arrived with his friends and family. The women of bride's family tried to keep the groom from entering the house. They took vodka shots, and danced, and the men sang songs. At one point all the men bum-rushed the door and pushed their way inside. After this spectacle we headed to another village and another wedding.

At the second wedding I was abandoned in the groom's room and enjoyed two hours surrounded by 15 eligible young Kyrgyz men. I had to endure many questions about my current marital status and whether I was interested in living and staying in Kyrgyzstan. A few of the men were much more blatant about their intentions…

I missed the actual ceremony, but went to the party after. The party was at a café in Jalalabad- very ritzy for Kyrgyzstan. Finally at 10 pm, my counterpart dropped me off, and she and her family headed back to the other wedding.

By the time that the sun emerged a couple of weeks later it was time for Thanksgiving. I decided that I wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with my host family. I told my host mom on the Sunday before, she was very enthusiastic. I gave her some money and my host mom picked up a turkey, a living turkey. On Thanksgiving morning my host father killed the turkey and my host mother de-feathered and cleaned it.

At school I had a special Thanksgiving lesson. We played games, such as sail from England to America in which the students had to complete obstacles along the way, and give blindfolded students directions. After the lesson the students threw a little party. We ate Kyrgyz food made with pumpkin, and drank tea. The students and I played soccer in the stadium until one of the larger students knocked me over and I went flying across the rocky dirt. I still have the injuries to prove it.

I got home in the afternoon to no electricity, typical, and so started getting everything ready to cook. I made a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a carrot dish, pumpkin pie, and apple bread. The turkey was an interesting experiment. It barely fit in the ridiculously tiny oven, and I didn't have a roasting rack, foil, or a meat thermometer. I just prepared the turkey and tossed in the oven and hoped for the best. It turned out delicious! My host mother was impressed- she had never considered baking turkey. Everyone ate lots of food in true Thanksgiving style. And in traditional Kyrgyz style we danced and had shots. I was very pleased with myself.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving all of the Jalalabad volunteers, plus a few from Osh, got together and we celebrated the holiday. We ate 22 pounds of curried fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and a whole bunch of other things. There were seventeen of us; it was a little tight in the very small apartment. There was no electricity or water all weekend. It was fine not having electricity, but we ran out of water and had to buy some. And because we didn't have water, the toilet room became even more unpleasant. But it felt like an actual holiday, and was really fun.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Guests arriving at the housewarming party.

Some cousins.

A cousin and I are helping? Also- look at my hair, I wasn't that dirty.

Kyrgyz party set-up

How I do work in the evening, by candle.

The booty from the housewarming party.

The family at the Sunday party continuation.

My host sister and mother, dancing Kyrgyz style.

My two host grandfathers.

My students at the Halloween party.

The finished mummies.

Making the mummies.

Two of my eighth form students.

One of my classrooms.

Walnut forest

Enjoying the view during our hike.

Building a fire-thank goodness for the two eagle scouts.

Some of my 11th form students.

My 6th form students at the Halloween party.

Pumpkin Samas

Ariel trying to fold one of the samsas.

Leslie making a Samsa

Umut rolling out the dough

Apparently there's a view of mountains in the background...

Halloween

My job involves me teaching English as well as teaching about aspects of American culture. Most of the time teaching about American culture has taken a backseat, but I just could not resist last week. In all of my classes I introduced Halloween. During most classes it was only for about fifteen minutes or so, but with some of my 11^th form students I threw a Halloween party.

The party was at school, during the last lesson of the day. My students arrived early- it gave them a good excuse to miss class- and started setting up. They blacked out the curtains and put candles on the desks, it was very atmospheric. I carved two jack-o-lanterns, which was the rest of the decorations. With my class we went over Halloween related vocab and then played games. My other classes showed up about halfway through, as well as the other English teachers, and so most of my students got to participate in the games. We played pin the bone on the skeleton, the mummy wrap game, and bobbed for apples. During bobbing for apples, all of the students were afraid to get their faces wet, so none of them could get an apple- I had to demonstrate by dipping my head into the bucket.

After the party I went with several other volunteers to a village on the other side of Jalalabad. The volunteer who lives there, lives in an abandoned boarding school/ orphanage. It was the perfect setting for Halloween. We watched Halloween 4, and snuggled for warmth. When we woke up the next morning we went for a hike through the nearby walnut forest. It was foggy, rainy and cold, but it was worth it. We hiked into a gully and built a fire and ate hotdogs before traipsing under the walnut trees.

On Sunday, I came back to my village, but went over to Ariel's house (the other volunteer in my village). Together with her awesome counterpart, Umut, and the other volunteers near us, Joni and Leslie, we made pumpkin samsas and potato and cheese samsas. I had been planning on staying for only a couple of hours, but didn't go home for six hours. Umut made making the samsas look really easy, but it wasn't. None of us could do it, even after practicing. She was secretly laughing to herself about how inept we were at folding.

After lunch, I headed home to my host sister's 17^th birthday party. The party was in full swing. All her classmates came, they are also my students, and they ate and made toasts with coca-cola, but went to the balcony and drank vodka when they thought no one was looking. The party was in the room next to mine, and only ended at around 1 am because the electricity went out. They were blaring the most ridiculous music, which for the most part was Britney Spears' "Gimme" song, over and over again. They all kept knocking on my door, a few even trying to open it, and screaming at me to come dance with them. I finally relented, but got blocked into the room when I tried to leave after a couple of songs. It took some ingenuity to get out of there.

On Tuesday I did my laundry, which normally would not be an event, but I hadn't done laundry in several weeks. My host mom pulled out this soviet-era washing machine, which does not require a water hook-up. We simply boiled water and poured it in. It was so much better than doing laundry by hand. The only downside, to laundry in general, is that it is now Friday and my clothes are still not dry.

This last week has been a bit annoying on the work front. My counterpart forgot to tell me that they changed the schedule, and my class with my host sister has become uncontrollable- they just blatantly ignore me. And I had to use the school bathroom, which I won't even go into how gross it is, but I was desperate- never again!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Teaching and more parties.

The last few weeks have been interesting. I have finally settled into a bit of a routine. But in true Kyrgyz style- my schedule at school keeps changing, so I am typically caught off guard.

Teaching has been going pretty well. After observing for two weeks, which really ended up being only week and half, I jumped right in. I'm teaching sixth grade, eighth grade, and eleventh grade. All of my classes are gymnasium classes- which basically means I'm teaching all the smart and motivated kids.

My job as a PCV is four-fold here: first and most obviously- to teach the kiddies English, second- resource development, third- community development (this is where my secondary projects come in, hopefully something health related, as well as grant writing), and fourth- teacher development. Part of the teacher development aspect is team-teaching. Another English teacher, my counterpart, and I teach all our classes together. The goal is for my counterpart's English to improve from the benefit of a native speaker, as well as for her to learn communicative methodologies of teaching.

The soviet system of teaching is still very much in place- language learning is strictly through translation, with no emphasis on speaking. As a result, most of my students know hardly any English. A few in my 11^th grade class can speak, but everyone else is on the same beginning level, despite 10 years of English education.

So far there have been a few kinks to team-teaching. My counterpart often disappears on some errand and never comes back, or does not come to our lessons, leaving me to teach by myself. Hopefully we will get that worked out in the coming month.

My favorite class so far is my afternoon 8^th grade class. My students are smart, motivated, and excited to be there, which is awesome. Over the last two weeks we've been focusing on adjectives (comparative, superlative, etc). There are two students who are rather exceptional- I have pegged them as FLEX candidates. FLEX is a program for students from either Islamic countries or former Soviet Union countries (I cannot remember right now) to study in a US high school for a year. It is highly competitive in Kyrgyzstan. Currently there is one student from my village who is studying in Idaho as a FLEX student- her mother works at my school and is always asking about Idaho.

My afternoon classes tend to be my favorite because all my afternoon classes are specialized gymnasium courses. My school's regular schedule is from 8-1:05, so anything in the afternoon is in addition to the students' regular schedule. Also, I get to form my own curriculum, without having to use the national textbook.

I got word today that my school will not be having the traditional fall break, November 1^st- 10^th. This is because school will most likely be cancelled this winter- my school runs on electric heat, and the government is anticipating almost no electricity this winter.

In the past couple of weeks there has been a marked increase of no electricity. The blackouts have gone from a couple of hours each day to about half of each day. Typically the power is on from 6/ 7am- 10/ 11am, 7:30 pm -11pm, and half the time from 1pm- 4pm. The only time I have really noticed is once it gets dark, right now around 6. Temperatures have also dropped significantly at night, so much so that I have had to start sleeping in my sleeping bag.

Autumn is also party season. People have money, because the harvests are in, so of course they throw parties (the concept of saving money here is completely alien). The house I live in is five months old, so now that it's party season my family had a housewarming party. The party, which was this past weekend, was more of an all weekend event rather than one night.

Friday was devoted to cleaning, slaughtering the cow and preparing food- but a bunch of people came over to help, and it felt very party-like. I awoke Saturday morning to the party already having started. And it's not like I slept in- it was 8 am. My family had apparently awoken around 5 and started cooking, with the first guests trickling in soon after that.

Every room, except mine, had been devoted to the party. Every room had been cleared of cumbersome furniture, and set up in the Kyrgyz fashion- a tablecloth on the floor, heaped with bread and salads, shot glasses and vodka, and surrounded on four sides by tushoks.

I headed to the kitchen and hung around for a few hours, flitting in and out of rooms- meeting new people, taking photos at my host mother's insistence. The day was overcast, and cold. Despite the chill, we all tramped outside to dance. Kyrgyz people love dancing, and they will dance for hours. This party was no exception.

The crowds finally thinned out, and I went to bed, only to awaken on Sunday and find out that the party was continuing. It was another day of dancing, drinking, and eating. I took a mid-party break in the afternoon to banya (aka wash myself for the first time in three weeks). When I came back, one of the guests, who had been there the previous day, asked why I looked so beautiful, my host mother retorted- because she showered!