First Week, First Impressions

Саламатсызбы! (Hello) Greetings from the roof of the world! As many of you know, my game of geographical roulette has landed me teaching English with the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan. I’m stoked to head back into the English classroom and to learn a new language and culture. I hope to use this blog to share my experiences and insights over the next two years. Peace Corps would like me to remind you that the contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I wrote the following summary of my first impressions of Kyrgyzstan in my first few weeks of Pre-Service Training, which, now 9 weeks later, I am just about to complete. I apologize for not uploading this and the following entries earlier, but it has been impossible with the extremely limited and impossibly slow connections I’ve had on rare occasion. I plan for future entries to be far more timely.

I learned last week that I will be moving to a remote village in Naryn Oblast for the next two years of service. Yesterday I met my counterpart, the English teacher I will team team with. As it turns out, she speaks about as much English as I speak Kyrgyz, but seems super motivated. I am very excited to meet my family today and see my village tomorrow. But first, my firsts…

First sights. We landed in Bishkek at 1 a.m. on a Monday morning after a full 36 hours of travel from Philadelphia. Thus, my first impression of Kyrgyzstan was not of the majestic mountains I’d been promised, but rather of a crowd of weary-eyed Americans in a two-hour trickle through customs—and the curiously upward sloping captain’s hats worn by the customs officials. Two memories stand out of the half-hour bus ride to the hotel: the first, recognizing a стоп sign in the Cyrillic and feeling renewed hope for conquering the language; the second, pondering the strangely white-painted trunks of trees lining the “highway”. At the time, I took the 4 ft. coat of paint at the base of each tree to be a curious highway-specific decoration or maybe an insecticide coat. I’ve since learned (via some kinesthetic practical experience at an orphanage) that the tradition of painting trees white in spring stems from an eccentricity of Lenin’s—but still, no one really seems to know why.

First tastes. A second Peace Corps welcome party met us at the hotel when the buses pulled in at 4 a.m. As we filed in to claim room keys, two staff in traditional dress met us with an offering of food. In the dim light of the atrium, without having any hint of what I was eating, I took a piece of fried dough and scooped onto it at least a tablespoon of fresh butter before popping the whole thing in my mouth—and almost choking. I’ve since become quite familiar with борсок (“boor sok”), the fried bread bites that are a staple of every Kyrgyz meal. A few weeks ago, anticipating a slew of guests the next day, my family and I made literally a bodybag full of the fried dough bits one night from 29 pizza-size rounds of dough, which we individually cut and deep-fried handfuls at a time. Mai (butter) and suu mai (literally, “water butter” or oil) is impossible to avoid in the daily diet. Just about everything is fried and/or coated in it the fat somehow. Sheep fat itself is a delicacy, and turns up in the most unexpected cuisine, the strangest (and most unpalatable for my taste buds, since it lends it certain gamy odor to everything) being yellow cake.

First smells. My first few days of service were spent entirely within the confines of a cold, sterile Soviet-style hotel, but upon reaching my quiet village of 3,500, roughly a half-hour to the east of Bishkek, I was hit with an earthy aroma that will forever cling to the soles of my clogs. Thanks to the entire barnyards that lumber down our roads to pasture each day, our thoroughfares are splattered with cow patties and sheep droppings, which lend a grainy waft to the air of my morning walk to class.

First sounds. There are a few fortunate cognates (or stolen words from Russian) in the Kyrgyz vocabulary, and violoncello happens to be one of them. I mentioned my playing in one of my earliest conversation attempts with my host family, and in the spirit of cultural exchange, showed a video of my quintet playing Schubert’s Trout. In return, I was graced with a concert of my own by my Ata (host father) on the accordion. He is also rumored to play the three-string, plucked koomuz, the country’s national instrument. I have high hopes of learning to play. (Finally, a country with a string instrument!) Unfortunately it appears that koomuz is usually only a pursuit of men, but I plan to play the “strange American” card and find myself a teacher nonetheless.

Singing is also a popular pastime here and watching Kyrgyz music videos has been a source of considerable amusement (especially when my three-year-old nephew raps along to his favorite one). We’re learning a folk song, Кыргыз Жери (Kyrgyz Land), to sing for our swearing-in ceremony as volunteers (we’re still officially “trainees” for another month). Practice has not been going so well; we mumble through a series of vowels that we’re still struggling to pronounce and tone deafness was not something Peace Corps screen its recruits for. The song is in a rather pretty minor key, but needless to say, our daily rehearsal has been very painful—and we have yet to add the Russian speakers who are going to join in our final performance.

First feelings. I arrived in Bishkek very thankful to have totted my wool jacket in my carry-on. It was cold out and no warmer inside the Soviet-era hotel rooms we were checked into. I didn’t sleep much the first night, whether from cold, jet lag, or just excitement I don’t know, but all three continued for my first week in country. Perhaps the strangest feeling from the first days in country was not my impressions of dilapidated Soviet architecture or compete befuddlement at attempts at Russian communication with hotel staff, but rather being told that the 70 random people I was no thrown into a room with would be my best friends for the next two years. I am convinced I will become very close to many of them, but to forecast BFF-ships with an assembly of unknown persons seemed a bit presumptuous, despite what I imagine will largely turn out to be the truth.