Joined the Peace Corps. BRB.

Apr 26: Homestretch

It’s been a long time coming, but I can finally see the end of the school year. With May’s numerous holidays, the vacation will be upon us soon, thank goodness. Many volunteers have horror stories about their schools, directors, students, and counterparts, but mine have been great for the most part. That still doesn’t change my opinion that it’s time for vacation.

[EDIT]

All that silliness aside, school stuff is actually really good lately. I’ve gotten into a routine of hitting the outdoor courts every day around 6PM to play basketball with the kids for a few hours and they love it. Usually there are several dozen people watching the games every night and it’s been a great way to bond with the kids a little better. I’ve said it before, but I’m not a teacher. Teaching English is my primary job here, but it’s so secondary once you get in a rhythm at site. The most important thing I can give these kids right now is a few laughs and hopefully a good role model.

It is definitely a source of pride for me to know that the more kids that show up to play and watch is that many more kids who are staying away from the local discotheque where they’d be drinking alcohol, doing drugs, or getting involved in gangs. So much of being a young volunteer here is just setting an example that the kids can follow and enjoy. I always stress to the kids that I’m not some dinosaur who they can’t approach, but just someone who’s a few years older than them. I still can’t get them to refer to me using the familiar “you,” they still use the respectful “you,” but I’m working on it.

In the classroom, I’m their English teacher, but on the court, I’m just a guy that likes to ball.

Apr 27: You’re so clever

I borrowed some books from Larry’s American Center down in Osh the other day. One is called Hiroshima by John Hersey. A guy who speaks English at a local internet café saw the book and said in a matter-of-fact way, “Oh, is this about the atomic bomb in Nagasaki?”

What could I say?

“Must be.”

Apr 28: Just the beginning

It’s really freaking hot. Summer’s going to be insane.

Apr 29: Yahoo!

Right on cue, it rained last night. I’m from Seattle, I know rain, but nothing like last night’s thunderstorm. The lightning flashes last night were nearly simultaneous, making the night illuminate in an eerie white glow for several seconds at a time. Even more impressive were the ensuing rumbles of thunder. The ground actually shook from the power of the thunder. It was terrifying, but amazing at the same time. I guess it doesn’t help that I just finished that Hiroshima book and atomic bombs are on my mind.

My host parents have been really busy lately with numerous gatherings to celebrate the life (death?) of my host mother’s father (I misunderstood earlier, her father died, not her mother.). They have come home back 10PM nearly every night for several weeks now, exhausted beyond all reason. We haven’t spoken much lately because of their drained states when they return, but today we talked a little and they asked how my work was lately. I sensed they needed a pick-me-up so I jokingly yelled, “I’m the best teacher in Kyrgyzstan!” Unexpectedly my host brothers and sister started to call out exclamations that I had taught them earlier in the day:

“Yahoo!”
“Wooooooo!”
“Yeah!”
“All right!”
“Hi-ho, Silver!”
“Yes!”
“Hell yeah!”

“Stop! I said not to say that one in front of your parents! And ‘Hi-ho, Silver’ was a joke!”

My host mother turned to my host father and said, “The Soviets were right about Americans,” to which my host father laughed, “I think we just got an energetic one.”

That’s a compliment, right?

Spring’s here and quickly heating up to summer, so here’s a few pictures of spring and bread (what?).


We’ve got a bunch of fruit trees in our courtyard, but I’m not sure exactly which ones. I know there are apricot, apple, and cherry trees because I’ve seen my host brothers pointing them out. For some reason they keep plucking the green fruit when it’s only the size of a nut and eating it. Have some patience!


I used to think I had the coolest house in Kyrgyzstan.


Making bread in the outdoor oven/furnace. My host family let me try once but I let a few of the loaves fall into the ashes because I hadn’t placed them right. They don’t let me near it anymore.

Apr 17: Rhythm

They come every few weeks, always unexpectedly, but the moments where my eyes are opened and I think “Central Asia, huh” are often the more surreal moments of my time here. Things that used to make me stop and stare no longer catch my attention because they are normal here. Cows, chickens, and sheep everywhere. Ancient men riding donkeys. Roads that have more potholes than paved sections. Soviet-era cars. Kalpaks abound. It makes my daily life smoother in a sense that I’m not dazed by the differences between here and home any longer, but it kind of dulls the luster that glowed on my experience here for the first few months. It’s part of the process of moving from excited to entrenched, I start to think more about my work rather than the livestock getting in the way of my taxi. Central Asia, huh.

I’m not a grammar freak or a fascist when it comes to spelling, but I always let out a “Hm...” whenever I get emails from folks whose emails I have trouble reading even though I’m pretty fluent in English. Things like “their, they’re, there” or “than, then” or “whose, who’s,” etc. Via email it’s not that big a deal, but the more I try to express myself here in class, the more I realize how important it is to be accurate and well-versed in your own language before tackling another. One impression I got of a lot of the K12 and K11 volunteers when I first arrived was “Wow, these guys are all huge nerds.” This judgement came solely from their speech patterns and breadth of vocabularies, each one seemed like an English major eager to tear into the 2007 edition of Webster’s Thesaurus. Now that a few months have passed, it’s easy to see that it’s because volunteers are forced to refine their speech to communicate with locals. How could I teach someone how to conjugate the verb “to be” when I didn’t know how to do it myself?

It could also be because of the massive amounts of books we read here. As I said before, each volunteer possesses a library of books ranging from novels, histories, self-help, cooking, and foreign language, and with good reason because much of our time is spent reading. In college I really didn’t have time to read, I had too much basketball to play and ESPN to watch. Now that I’m getting back into it, I feel like I’ve been missing out on lost time and there are stretches where I can’t stop. Case in point: I’m reading Shogun by James Clavell right now. My dad used to assign book reports to me when I was younger (hated it then, appreciate it greatly now) and one of the books was King Rat by Clavell. I didn’t want anything to do with Mr. Clavell again after he ruined part of my summer that year. Now, many years later, I find Shogun to be one of the more exciting books I’ve read here. Not to mention the characters: oh Mariko, the foreshadowing screams that you’re going to be sacrificed! The book is a brick, 1152 pages, but I tore through the first 800 pages in two days.

What can I say? Join the Peace Corps, become a huge nerd in the process.

Apr 19: Seminar

Remember that anti-AIDS song and dance crew I talked about earlier? Today their finale was held in Kurshab and it was pretty cool. Most schools from all over the rayon had students representing their schools in skits showing the dangers and methods of contracting AIDS. Along with the performers there were large contingents of students from each school screaming and cheering for their schools to win the grand prize: a TV. Of course, I was there to scream and yell too. Bektimirov! We got third.

The director of the program lives in Kerben, in Jalalabad oblast, and travels with his little band of singers and dancers all around the country to perform at schools. It’s really an amazing effort by the guy because he just travels with his team in an ancient mini-bus (think VW bus) and rarely takes a break. And what a great cause! It’s cool to see someone taking initiative to promote AIDS awareness in the country especially where such programs are sparse and short-reaching. We ate dinner with him after the festivities and he talked to us about his plans to expand his program across the county with offices in every rayon. It was invigorating to hear the man’s ideas fly from his lips with energized hand motions and laughs. It seemed as if his ambitions were boundless and his energy endless. A man chasing his dreams without any reservations, it was an awesome sight.

Apr 20: Edits

Yesterday our country director called me and we talked a little about blogs. One of the questions he asked me was who my audience was when I wrote and posted pictures. Obviously it’s first and foremost for friends and family because I don’t like sending out mass emails. Can you imagine them getting emails that were 3-4 pages long of just weird stories like those that I post on the blog? The second group would be the volunteers that are coming here in the near future. As I’ve said before, it was helpful for me to read other people’s blogs because it gave me a small glimpse into what Kyrgystan is like and what to expect. Even though I read all those blogs, the experience here is drastically different from what I expected so I try to write my blog by giving small recaps of daily or weekly events that occur here. Think of it as a taste test at Costco.

I don’t mind editing the blog when I’m asked to, I’m not publishing anything and I understand the importance of treading carefully with one’s words. What I dislike is how hyper-intense the focus on blogs has been in this country lately. Phrases and words that I am being asked to change are never critical of Kyrgyzstan or its people, but unfortunately if they were twisted in a precise way, someone could use it as an attack on my ideas or Peace Corps itself. What I’m boiling down to is that I ask you read for your enjoyment and my enjoyment too, but stop trying so hard to read between the lines. There’s no underlying hatred or malcontent, I’m just writing what I see.

The most ridiculous explanations I get are the ones where I’m told that something I write could be misconstrued because a local person does not understand it.

What?

Seriously, what? (EDIT - haha)

The solution is simple. If you don’t understand something or have a question, email me or post a comment. I’ve answered dozens of emails from readers and I am happy to answer any questions or reply to any comments you make to me. The other option? Stop reading. I won’t change the way I write or joke around because a small minority don’t understand completely or are digging for phrases that disparage Kyrgyzstan. Just stop. You’re like flies to a healthy beast, I’m not dead yet.

People here always ask me if America is better than Kyrgyzstan and I always answer the same way, “No. Both have all kinds of people.”

Don’t be a stupid one.

Hey hey hey kids! Only a handful of pictures today, I forgot my camera most days this week.


We had about a bazillion chicks hatch here last week. Give or take a few gajillion (there’s about 8). There’s only one hen that takes care of all the chicks (remember, my host mother killed all our chickens a few months ago) by letting all of them sit under her for warmth. My host brother reached under her and grabbed this one out for the picture, then offered it to me to hold. I declined, but not because the chick was dirty:

“Dude, you just touched a chicken butt. No way.”


Joanie came to visit us. 1...2...3...smile! She had a good time...I think.


Well, I obviously did.

Apr 08: He’s real

The teachers at my school are obsessed with volleyball; they play everyday after class. Turns out they were preparing for the big volleyball tournament that was held today. You see, I never find out about these kind of things until the day of the event, so I wasn’t too surprised to get a phone call this morning to come to school and cheer on the teams. My favorite examples of this kind of scheduling is when I am called back to school for meetings that nobody tells me about. These are the ones I mentioned before where the director berates us for an hour or so while I either: A) Smile at the other teachers; B) Ask myself questions I don’t know the answers to (ie Why are turkeys so ugly? Man, they’re terrifying to look at. I mean, what is that red stuff on their faces?); or C) Say “Good job!” in Kyrgyz every few minutes as if I were in a Southern Baptist Church yelling “Hallelujah!” Oh, the volleyball tournament? Long day short: the women’s team won first place and will compete in a larger tourney next week.

What I really wanted to say is that there’s a real dog in Kurshab. By “real dog” I mean a normal dog, not a Kyrgyz mutt. There’s a black labrador retriever puppy that lives on a street I take to and from school. I take time every morning to play with the pup and nod my head to whatever its owner is saying at the moment, it’s become part of my daily routine. He’s got some Kyrgyz name already, but I never call him that.

I call him, “hey, real dog.”

Apr 13: The difference

There’s a difference between the students of Vanessa’s school, Dan’s school, and my school. It’s not limited to the students’ English level or whether they attend private (Vanessa’s) or public schools (Dan’s and mine). I never thought much about accents or speech patterns in the States until the kids in Kurshab began to mention it to me. Vanessa is from DC and a more formal speaker than Dan or me, so her kids have problems understanding faster speech with lots of slang. Dan is from Michigan (I don’t think they have accents), but he speaks much slower than Vanessa or me. My speech is a little faster and interlaced with slang and conjunctions so it’s always a little bit of struggle for me to force myself to slow down and enunciate every syllable. Especially since the kids were versed in British English, I get a lot of “What?”s and “Speak slower!”s.

We joke around that you can always tell which students belong to which volunteer in Kurshab/Shagym based on their greeting:

Vanessa’s student: “Hello, Miss Vanessa!”
Dan’s student: “Hi, Mr. Dan!”
My student: “What’s up, Sean?”

Or by their questions:

Vanessa’s student: “Oh, Miss Vanessa, are we having English club today?”
Dan’s student: “Mr. Dan, [rapid Kyrgyz speech].”
My student: “Sean, play basketball today. Yes?”

And our responses:

Vanessa: “Aw of course! It begins at two o’clock, will you come?”
Dan: “[rapid Kyrgyz speech].”
Me: “Yea-yuh.”

I guess you could refer to us at the English speaker, the Kyrgyz speaker, and the American speaker.

edit: 7 months in, 20 left.

Apr 14: Remembrance

My host mother’s mother died last week and she immediately went to mourn with her family in Uzbekistan. She just returned yesterday along with a large entourage of family and friends to remember her mother. When someone dies here in Kyrgyzstan, the remembrance gatherings are numerous and frequent in the days, weeks, and months afterward (I mentioned it earlier). I woke up this morning to the cries and voices of all the women who had come to visit. They were sitting together crying loudly, another tradition at these gatherings. Their wailing shrieks and cries were terrifying, but heart-breaking at the same time. My host mother came out of the house later on and offered me her hand to shake when I asked if there was anything I could do, so I took her hand and kissed her on each cheek. They don’t hug here.

We slaughtered a sheep yesterday too. Don’t worry, I got a few nice pictures of them skinning it, but they’re probably a little too visceral for the blog. The sheep’s body was butchered quickly by some of my host father’s friends then used in every imaginable dish. We’ve got a monstrous basin over a fire pit boiling sheep fat soup right now, it’s pretty wild. The choicer parts of meat are being used for ahsh and other rice dishes. Organs too, but I tried to avoid them so that when I eat them later, I won’t know.

I wonder who’ll get to eat the eyeballs this time. You can’t disguise them.

About 90 years old. That's what I'd estimate my taxi driver's age to be. There were moments on the ride down to Osh this morning when I swore he was ready to die and take us along with him. I haven't had such a terrifying ride since the last time I rode with my sister on I-5.

Just kidding, Erin. On to the pictures!

My family told me that they’d be remodeling the house sometime this summer. They started last week. I had two options: sleep with the entire family in a small room or live in a yurt for a few weeks. While I love my host family, I’m not too eager for spoon loving from any of them, so the yurt was assembled and I was introduced to my new home. Can’t say that it’s living the high life, but it’s definitely weird/fun/smells-like-something-strange/cool. Oh Kyrygzstan, you’re so funny sometimes.



Who says Kyrgyzstan isn’t diverse? I had to chase that white one into the picture to make it complete. The people here think I’m crazy.


Dan and Vanessa checking out the damage to my side of the building. There’s a huge underground space that I never knew existed until workers tore away the floor. I still don’t know what it was used for: storage, bomb shelter, underground railway, accommodating residence for the rats? I’ll stick with Choice E: we’re getting an indoor swimming pool!


Sean Thompson. Peace Corps Volunteer. UW Husky. Amateur acrobat. Scared to death.

Should I be wearing a Peace Corps helmet?


Home sweet home. It’s conveniently located across the way from our banya (bath). Now, if the banya was turned on more than once a month... Also, see the camels on the side? There are NO CAMELS in this country, but for some reason it’s a huge part of the designs and touristy stuff they sell here. NO CAMELS.


My first housewarming party. Well, not really. They all just left after this picture was taken. Is that a bear in the background?


Yes. Holy crap.


And White Fang’s back! And he’s returned!


Just checking. Yeah, he’s dead.


Me terrorizing another dog in Kyrgyzstan. They love me, I swear.

Till next time, fans.

Mar 27: Yurt

My host family is remodeling the house. That basically means that they get rid of the chalky walls and crumbling wood floors and replace them with newer materials. This is great because they can seal all the holes to keep out the mice. One stipulation is that I have to move out of my room for a few days, weeks, who knows.

My housing options were to either cram in with my host family in their building or live outside in a yurt. Of course, I picked the yurt. A yurt is a traditional Kyrgyz home (they even call it “Kyrgyz house” in Kyrgyz) that is really just a large, rounded teepee. So my host father called his buddies over today and they put together this thing in our courtyard today. It’s a pretty impressive dome of fur and sticks, so if I get bored I can always pretend I’m inside a big owl pellet. Supposedly I can’t move in immediately because my host father wants to clean it. He’s using the same stuff that we used to spray down his apple trees last week. He calls it disinfectant. I call it pesticide.

Tomato, potato.

Mar 28: New sites

Our program manager came by in the Peace Corps Mobile (a Toyota Land Cruiser) and picked us all up today for new site identification. It was really cool to see other villages, visit potential schools, and meet the students at each site. I wonder which sites will be hosting new volunteers come Autumn.

The day was long and we drove around for hours, but it felt good to be able to give input to our boss as to what we thought of each site, school, etc. On the way back to Kurshab, I stuck my arm out the window and let the wind slide through my fingers. Driving in the PC car, you can reach higher speeds than the usual rinky-dink vehicles we ride around in, so the wind whipped hard as we passed village after village. I could almost feel a ball of air in my hand if I cupped it just right. After a few minutes, our program manager asked what I was thinking about at that carefree moment. What an odd, unexpected question. But I answered anyway, “I’d really like some Taco Bell right now.” Well, she asked.

We all stopped at my house later on to check on my yurt. It’s just about done now, it even has electricity, so we all stepped inside to marvel at my home for the next month or so. Vanessa and our program manager stepped inside to check out my wolf skin and bear fur (not a joke!) on the wall. Dan laughed and said “You’re the coolest volunteer in the country, you know that?”

Not really, but I am the only one with a chandelier in his yurt.

Mar 30: Room

Well, I got a classroom finally. Bektimirov School runs on the Asian school blueprint of teachers moving from classroom to classroom rather than the students moving from the Physics room to the History room to the English room, etc. The school administration tried to give me a closet or two, framing them as classrooms, but I declined and they finally gave me my own classroom. Ironically, it’s the English classroom.

News of my yurt is getting around pretty quickly. My students have stopped by everyday since it went up to marvel at the beast. It’s also funny to get random text messages from volunteers all over the country who ask “Hey I heard you’re living in a yurt? You?” I’ve only told one or two people, so it’s once again a testament to the speed at which volunteers here in Kyrygzstan spread news via cell phone messaging. It’ll be fun to post some pictures for them to see.

My favorite part of this yurt is not the bear skin, wolf skin, fossilized antlers, komyz (Kyrgyz instrument, a three-string mini-guitar), or even the fancy chandelier. It’s the fake deer head hat rack. In a room/building/tent full of dead things, it just seems so out of place. Living inside the house allowed for a sense of escape from the real world that the yurt does not provide to me these days. The cries of animals, sound of the wind whipping by, and the call to worship from the mosque are all unescapable outside. I’m not in America.

I’ve been here almost 200 days, you’d think I’d have noticed that by now.

Mar 31: Trust

My host parents left today to visit some relatives in Uzbekistan and left the kids with me. The grandma is staying at a different relative’s home during the remodeling process, so it’s just me and the kidss tonight. One thing that I’ll always be amazed about here is the maturity of my host sister and brothers. The girl fixes most of the meals these days and they are all superb. She does this without complaint and gets all embarrassed whenever I compliment her on her cooking, manners, or English. The boys are younger, but the ten year old chops wood, cleans dishes, and does much of the yard work without a peep. The five year old runs to me everyday when I return from school just to give me a high five.

Most days, I just listen to music in my room (er, yurt) while I read, write up lesson plans, or make up games to play in class. I was busy doing nothing earlier this evening when my host siblings called out to me from outside the yurt.

“We’re scared, can we come in?” they asked.

I had forgotten that they were just fourteen, ten, and five; kids who missed their mom and dad.

We watched Harry Potter in Russian.

Apr 01: Continued adjustments

One thing I still haven’t gotten used to yet is shopping for food here. Instead of asking where to find products, you always have to ask if they have them. For example, you wouldn’t ask “Where are the tomatoes?” but would instead ask “Do you have any tomatoes?” Supply also affects the pricing here much more than in the States too. For example, tangerines right now are around 40 som a kilo (about $1), but when summer hits, the price should be halved. Maybe I’m just paying attention now more because I don’t eat out at teriyaki places or order pizza and hot wings all the time these days.

Weekends are another part of my life that have changed here. By Sunday evening, I am always a little stir-crazy and ready to start the week again. I don’t know what it is about Peace Corps or living overseas, but sometimes I feel like I haven’t relaxed for one moment since I left Seattle. I sleep, read, listen to music, watch movies, play ball, but I can’t shake the ever present tense feeling. It’s as if I am clenching my muscles at all times, thinking about something constantly, or always looking around, taking in my surroundings.

I’ll probably let go when I return and sleep for a week.

Apr 03: Lessons

My Kyrgyz tutoring sessions began today with my counterpart. It’s really late compared to other volunteers, but since I live next to Genius 1 and Genius 2 (Dan and Vanessa, hey hey hey!), then I’ve been satisfied with picking up bits and pieces from them. We’ve been talking a lot lately about the new volunteers that will be coming here this summer and I realized that I should at least be proficient in Kyrgyz by the time they arrive. Things like “My name is Sean. I am 22 years old. I am a boy. I like gummi frogs.” You know.

She gave me homework! Can you believe it? I was like, “Man, I’m a teacher now. Teachers don’t do homework, they assign it!” But she insisted. I have to write a full page about my Kyrgyz family and then also prepare an oral presentation on my last year of college. Since I spend a lot of time reading random books and thinking of what basketball moves would work on my buddies back home, I figure I have the time to do the homework. Probably.

We went guesting after the session so I ate about 3 dinners tonight. It’s always fun to visit other people’s homes and get a free meal along the way, but today’s guesting was spiced up a bit because we were visiting my students. I have to admit that it was weird being served food that my students prepared. Most were laughing that I actually came over, but some were kind of nervous that their teacher was there talking to their parents. To them, as I left, I said “I’ll be back!”

For the food.

Apr 06: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

I went with my counterpart to Myrzake today for what was supposed to be an AIDS conference. It turned out to be a musical put on by a traveling group that supposedly talked about the dangers of AIDS (dying, etc.). I don’t want to talk about that though, it was kind of boring. On the way home though, my counterpart asked me to name my favorite author. I told her that I like a lot of different books, but not one specific author popped to mind. She told me that her favorite English book was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to which I let her know that it was an American classic. She responded by sighing and lobbing me an easy target, “Hmm slavery seems like it might be a difficult life.” I was too tired to play around though: “Yeah, I bet it was pretty rough.”

That’s like striking out when playing with a beach ball!