Almaty, Kazakhstan's Big Apple

The first Kyrgyz school quarter ended the last week of October, which left me with a week of fall break the first week of November. With three of my closest Peace Corps friends, I took off for the Big Apple—that is, Kazakhstan’s Big A., Almaty.

Actually, Almaty (which means “father apple” in both Kyrgyz and Kazakh) is the birthplace of its shiny sweet namesake. And the apples did not disappoint; my friend Brooke and I each bought one from a street vendor and they were delicious—and huge.

You know you’ve entered Kazakhstan as soon as you’ve crossed the boarder—the mountains turn into gently rolling hills and the paved roads run over them without fault. Almaty itself is a metropolitan mecca: coffee shops can be found almost every other block; we found—and gorged ourselves at—an incredible variety of authentic ethnic restaurants; and the mall rivaled the best in California, complete with classy boutiques, an abundant food court (more on that later), an indoor ice-skating rink and climbing wall, and adjoining supermarket so well stocked I nearly cried.

Our bus ride in was fortunately uneventful (something that seldom happens in Kyrgyzstan). Kazakhstan is pretty flat, so we weren’t missing any sites while we slept. When we got off, another young passenger offered to help us find a place to change money and get into the city. It turns out, he was from Bishkek, but spent 5 years living in New York working for a communications marketing firm. We got his number (and a Kazakh sim card for Annie’s phone so we would have service), and promised to call him later. We then found our hotel, checked into two inexpensive but quite adequate (by our standards) rooms, and headed out for dinner at an Indian restaurant. To say the curry and pad thai was amazing is an understatement. Aaron actually teared up, and not because of the spices.

Our next stop was an Irish pub, where we met up with our Kyrgyz friend and some of his Kazahk-Russian friends. Unfortunately, the pub was out of Guiness (How can they call themselves Irish?), so we were forced to continue our beer quest, but not before we tried the smoked cheese plate, the Kazakh version of string cheese. We found Guiness on tap at the Guiness Pub (it would have been a travesty, had it not been), and all ordered a round. Beer has never tasted so good. (Aaron and Brooke are pictured at left.)

We ended our evening hailing a “cab” back to the hotel. It was actually a limo and our driver, in a sailor’s cap, insisted we call him “Captain.” He was as excited to drive Americans as we were to be riding in his vessel. Through a combination of Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Russian, English and even a bit of Spanish we managed to communicate our jobs, our hometowns, and a bit of random American-ness. Our Captain was quite familiar with our homeland, as it turned out; when Aaron mentioned he was from North Dakota, the Captain immediately put his hand to his mouth in an imitation of a Native American call and said, “Oh, you woo-woo-woo!”

The next morning we woke to seek out our first coffee shop. We spent the rest of the day lazily taking a walking tour northwardly through the city. I say lazily because Aaron had us stop at literally every coffee shop we passed, we stalled for a bit in awe of a Lego store, we walked up and down the aisles of a well stocked grocery store with jaws dropped and drooling for at least 45 minutes (finally settling on just a bottle of wine and some good cheese to share later), and we spent a good while enjoying lunch at the American Bar and Grill, complete with décor a la Applebees and a menu serving everything from steak, shrimp and blue cheese burgers to salads and chicken burritos (my choice)—at American prices, of course.

Of course, our tour also took us pass some interesting buildings and sites, including: the Academy of Sciences; a statue we decided was Almaty’s version of The Thinker, an impressive and apparently world class opera and ballet theatre (unfortunately there were no performances the nights we there); and into beautiful Panfilov Park, the centerpiece of which is the brightly pastel-painted Zenkov Cathedral, built in 1904 entirely of wood. Time was running short, so we gave up trying to make it to the city’s central mosque after we got lost on the outskirts of a sprawling bazaar and instead hailed a cab to a sushi bar.

The next morning we hit the Central State Museum, which houses the Altyn Adam, or “Golden Man,” a suit of golden armor from a 5th century B.C. Scythian tomb east of of Almaty. The suit itself was more like light chainmail and not all that impressive actually. But the rest of the museum had a pretty descent display of other artifacts from such tombs and replicas of fantastically caricatured headstones from later graves.

It was pouring rain, so after the museum we canceled our plans for a picnic in the park, and instead headed to the mall. I never thought a mall would be on my list of “must sees” while traveling in Central Asia, but then again, I’ve never spent 8 months living in a rural, store-less, village as a prelude to a vacation before.

We had lunch at the food court, though we started with dessert—at Baskin Robbins. I had pistachio ice cream in a cone. It was pure heaven. Our options in the food court ranged from mediocre-looking Mexican and Italian to classic American: KFC and Pizza Hut. We went for the later two, and spent most of lunch in silent contemplation of the sheer brilliance of American carbohydrates and unsaturated fats and in awe of the 4-foot chocolate fountain that was adjacent to our table.

It was hard not to buy anything from the boutiques on the floor below, but I decided the conditions in my village honestly couldn’t justify buying cute, pricy clothing. I couldn’t resist getting some gifts in the kids’ toy store, though. I picked up Jenga to add to our collection of games at home. The pieces also double nicely as building blocks.

For our last dinner in the city, we met up with 6 other volunteers also visiting Almaty. The venue was Lonely Planet’s top pick of restaurants, Safran, featuring mouth-watering Middle Eastern cuisine. I had falafel, hummus, and a delicious fried cheese salad with apples and nuts on a bed of lettuce—the first leafy greens I’d had in 8 months.

I took my last blessed shower the next morning, managing to flood the floor and half-soak the clothes I was about to don, but I was too blissfully clean to care.
On the way out of town that morning, we made one last stop at the grocery store for commodity items—in my case, blue cheese—and spent our final hour at our favorite coffee shop. The excellent coffee was only half the draw; amongst ourselves, we bought all three English additions of the Economist and all other English language newspapers off their newsstand rack. And basking in the glory of full 3-G wireless access, I indulgently sat with my Kindle downloading the latest additions of the New York Times, Slate, The New Yorker, and a few books while I sipped a grande mocha and munched a vegetable panini. On our way out, we passed a Rolls Royce parked out front. The café and the car couldn’t have summed up our trip better; Almaty may only be 4 hours from Bishkek, but developmentally oil money has rendered it worlds away.

Back across the border, we sardined ourselves into a marshrutka for a ride to my first host family’s home outside Bishkek. My host sister had prepared plov and we were entertained by my host niece and nephew’s antics over dinner. I spoke with my former host mom and other sister by phone; they’ve moved to Moscow to work. That night, we traded our Kazakh hotel beds for tushuks (futon-ish overstuffed blankets) on the floor and the hotel shower facilities for an outhouse. Still, it felt good to be home.

Good Morning...Donkeys?!

This morning I rose at 7:30, heading to the outhouse in the lingering twilight of the lengthening winter night. I had only to round the corner of the house and see the door of the kitchen wide open to know we had trouble. Sticking my head in, I found myself faced with an ass; or more correctly, the ass of an ass. Two of our of our neighbor’s donkeys had happily spent the night gorging themselves on our winter reserves, and I was interrupting the picnic.

The collateral damage (see right): two 25 kilo bags of four, spilled; 10 kilos of a barrel of barley (for beer) eaten; 3 kilos of carrots chomped without a trace; and one shopping bag of potatoes decimated—not to mention the droppings like icing on the cake (or flour that would never be such now).

To make matters more interesting, the electricity has been on the fritz all day, the switch breaker shooting sparks, shorting the power, thawing the refrigerator so that it leaked all over the floor and cutting off the electric heater in my room (which was still just hanging in at 48 degrees F with the heater on).

So in between classes and English club this morning, I helped my brother clean donkey shit and refrigerator puddles. Why were we stuck with the mess? Well, lets just say this week has been “less than normal.”

My host mother went to Bishkek for work on Saturday, and returned only this evening, Thursday. My host father also had work away from home, so we seldom saw him, once being Tuesday, a holiday, when he came in drunk and went immediately to sleep. Additionally, my “counterpart” (co-teacher) also spent most of the week in Bishkek, for a funeral as it turns out. Monday morning she was M.I.A. for our 8 a.m. class without warning, leaving me plan-less, textbook-less, and otherwise on the spot.
Needless to say, this convolution of events made for an interesting week: bi-lingually teaching grades 3-9 by myself and running a household of six: 3-year-old twins, an 11 and 13-year-old, a 10-year-old cousin who joined us for the week (and my itinerate host father at times).

I must first point out, very thankfully, that I have two incredibly competent and helpful adolescent siblings; Daria, my 11-year-old sister, is perfectly capable of looking after the twins and does so without complaint. However, dinners were all on me.

Fortunately, I love to cook. Unfortunately, I have essentially none of the ingredients I’m used to cooking with at my disposal. In my pantry this week: potatoes, pasta, buckwheat, carrots and peppers. We are past the season for other vegetables. So the first night I made garlic cheesy bread with supplies I bought in the city; the second, fried potatoes—and peanut butter M&M cookies for dessert (huge hit); the third, fried potatoes and pasta (it is totally normal here to mix two starches), the fourth, fried potatoes and buckwheat; and tonight, apple cake. (I say if the donkey’s eat the flour for bread, well, let us eat cake.)

Believe it or not, this amounts to more diversity—and just literally more—than my family eats on a regular basis. Granted, the meals were not without small setbacks. I didn’t make enough potatoes the first night, and the second night I used my own red pepper—no realizing it was twice the usual strength as my family’s—and I couldn’t taste my overdose thanks to a two week sinus infection that has rendered my tastebuds useless. (I actually consider this mostly a blessing.) Wednesday night I left out the red pepper all together, and the (to me) tasteless product was declared “delicious.”

Crazy as it has been, the week hasn’t been without it’s high points, and it’s certainly brought me closer to my siblings. Tuesday morning, all three of my sisters (i.e. the twins as well) joined me in my daily hour of yoga. Three-year-olds doing Sun Salutations might just be the cutest thing ever, though their attention spans are rather short and they were having a blast crawling beneath our Downward Dogs after the first 15 minutes. Afterwards, we all enjoyed Shrek and then Monsters Inc. on my computer. (I’ve watched more Disney and Pixar in Kyrgyzstan on their behalf than I ever saw in the states.) Later, an impromptu dance party broke out to the accompaniment of Michael Jackson and other American pop artists I had given my host brother. An impromtu reenactment of the morning’s excitement followed.

My conclusion at day’s end: I’ve almost reached saturation point with crazy stories, but I guess I can’t complain; my day both started and ended in guffaws. And what would life be without laughter?

Winter Is Upon Me--But So Is My Long Underwear

October 21st – It dropped 20 degrees today. The season’s first snow flurries during 4th period—which were met with cheers from the 5th graders and groans from my co-teacher—signaled the inevitable: winter has come to my edge of the world. Thanks to the thermometer from my parent’s most recent package, I can now verify the 55 degrees my room has been hovering at this week. Fortunately, today my host father installed a second outlet in my room today to plug in my electric heater; I’m now cozying up in my bed in long underwear and sweatpants despite the positively balmy 60 degrees the thermometer needle has risen too.

In our oblast (province) center, the first real snowstorm hit Sept. 18, knocking out still green trees and the power. Rumor had it that some herders still in jailoo (mountain pasture) were snowed-into their yurts. They cancelled school in another rayon so kids could finish harvests and rescue sheep from the drifts.

But with the last yellow leaves still clinging to trees and the freshly snow-capped peaks in the distance, I can’t help but smile every time I step outside into the crisp air, wood smoke wafting from houses’ newly lit furnaces. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion my smile has faded all too quickly when Rex, our dog, has playfully jumped on me in my business-casual school attire with his muddy paws. I only have two pairs of pants and it’s not like I have a washing machine, Dog.

I do have an electric teapot, though, as my source of hot water for doing laundry, taking a bath, and pouring endless cups of hot tea. I also have a zero degree thermal sleeping bag and a coal heating system pumping hot steam in pipes throughout the house. So fear not. Winter is upon me, but so is my long underwear.

The Kyrgyz Taxi Ride (and Variations on the Travel Theme)

I’ve found that while abroad most of my stories inevitably revolve around two general themes: food and transportation. Since many a previous entry has been devoted to pontification on the former, I offer here a compilation of stories on the later.

But first, I feel compelled to define my subject clearly, thus a few definitions:

Taxi (tak-cee): Any moving vehicle willing to stop and pick up additional passengers for a fee. Passenger limit at driver discretion. Animals allowed for no additional fee.

Marshrutka (mar-sh-root-ka): An approximately 15-seater van, usually charging a small fee for short distance travel (i.e. within city). Cheaper than a taxi for long trips. Expect more passengers than seats available. Upwards of 25 people not uncommon. Animals allowed, usually tied under the back seats.

Autovaksal (auto-vaak-saal): Any location formally or informally designated for taxis or other transport to convene to pick up passengers. Includes random unmarked street corners. Do not expect 24-7 availability; transport to remote destinations often happen only once per day, if it all. Taxis or marshrutki leave when filled; expect delays.

To leave my village on any given day, I walk a short 15 minute jaunt to the main road, and then wait indefinitely for any vehicle going in my direction with an open seat. To give you an idea of wait times, I considered myself extraordinarily lucky to get a lift from the first vehicle that passed last time I went into town; I’d only been waiting 45 minutes. So far the most I’ve waited is 2 hours, but I’m told vehicles become even more scarce in winter. The ride’s also not cheap; the round-trip fare into the nearest major city is a tenth of my monthly salary. Needless to say, I don’t do it more than necessary.

Given the virtually pre-historic models of many a Lada or other Soviet-make vehicle I hail and the high frequency of the fender-benders in Kyrgyzstan, many taxis I’ve caught a ride in have had cracked windshields. Tape—the obviously cheaper alternative to a full windshield replacement—is the most commonly employed solution; however, a month ago I found a driver who felt simple scotch was just not enough. Over the epicenter of the fracture, he had glued a sheep’s palate, an orthodontic retainer-looking talisman traditionally tacked to the ceiling of a kitchen for luck—or in this case, the windshield.

Two weeks ago, coming back from the nearest major city, I took my usual stroll to the autovaksal (ours is an intersection just west of the bazaar) around noon to try to find a ride. Taxis (or the very occasional marshrutka) to my rayon usually leave around 1 p.m.; if you miss the time slot you’re stuck ‘til the next day. When I showed up Sunday, I was told there weren’t any vehicles heading out my way, but some investigation turned up a marshrutka heading at-least to my region, if not past my village. I walked over to the van to check it out and chat with the man in the front seat, who appeared to be the only occupant. I was therefore surprised to find a second when I walked around to the open door: a full-grown Bactrian camel sitting behind the first row of seats (the back two rows having been removed to make room).


I wish I could say that I ended up riding with the camel, but alas, after two hours the camel caravan still wasn’t leaving, and I finally was able to get a seat in the back seat of Soviet-era Latta with two other women and their three children. We crawled back to my village at a steady 30 km/hour, stopping only three times for the driver to restart the engine by hand.

In another case of unanticipated delays, on my way to the bank in the nearest town last month (a normally 30 minute jaunt up the road), I was waylaid by a wedding in an intermediary village. We stopped so another passenger (our mayor) could quickly pass on her best wishes, but of course that wouldn’t do, and the family invited us all in to join the pre-wedding day feast. This is how it came to be that I found myself obliged to take shots and give accompanying toasts to a mother-in-law I’d never met on behalf of her soon-to-be daughter-in-law I would never meet in a village I’d never visited before. Climbing back into the car, I could only laugh at the circumstances.

I said at the beginning of the entry that most of my stories revolve around food and transport. Inevitably, one had to be about a bit of both: last weekend, I joined the majority of my family in a pilgrimage up the road to pick this year’s potato harvest (my host father begin absent for what I believe was an oblast-wide volleyball tournament). We took the family car, the constant subject of tune-ups and battery-jumping in our front yard. If at any point in this story you find yourself scared for my safety, just remember that it can’t go over 40 km/hour and there is no traffic whatsoever on the road, excluding the wayward donkey.

I seated myself in the middle of the backseat, my 10-year-old cousin on my left, my host mom on my left, one of the 3-year-old twins in my lap. My 11-year-old sister held the other twin in the front passenger seat, and my uncle drove. None of us had seat belts, but no car I’ve ridden in country does (except the Peace Corps jeep).

The family farm should have been just a 20-minute ride up the road, but just 5 minutes into the ride, the uncle pulls to the side of the road and reaches into the glove compartment, pulling out a bottle of vodka and a shot glass. (For the record, there is nothing else in the compartment. No maps, licenses, flashlight…just vodka.) He then turns to me and asks “болобу?” which means essentially, “May I?” And I’m thinking, I’ve got a 3-year-old in my lap and none of us have seat belts, and you want me to condone a shot? So I turn to my host mom, who just laughs and is already reaching for an onion and a knife to cut pieces to be used as a chaser. He takes the shot and we drive on. However, I the moment for a little cultural exchange, pointing out the differences in Kyrgyz and American driving laws, safety standards, and the reasons behinds them. But no sooner have turned off the road another 5 km along, then he stoped for a second shot, and we commenced off-roading on a roller-coaster of a dirt track in our Soviet jalopy, reaching the river in no time.

So to recap, I’m ridding unbuckled with my 3-year-old sister in my lap, my uncle has been taking shots, and we’re now attempted to ford a flowing river in a Soviet rattletrap. Its the consciousness of my laughter and how none of this really surprises me anymore that makes me wonder if anything in America will ever raise my heart rate again.

Anyway, my cousin hops out to pick the best path through the current, which runs in rivulets around sandbars. Gunning it from sandbar to sandbar, we make it just fine. On the opposite side, we stop to pick up a man of some unknown relation, and he joins my uncle in finishing off the bottle before we pull up to the farm.

We worked all afternoon, digging, then sorting, then hauling the potatoes from the field into the storage room. I’m glad to say, I had a very competent cohort to work with and three shovels among us, which is an improvement upon my last potato digging experience, where as I recall, I had only a digging stick. It was completely dark when we got the last of this year’s potato supply into storage. I’d been hoping to head home shortly thereafter (anticipating my 8 a.m. class the next morning), but we were detained by an impending Kyrgyz “thank you” feast being cooked by an aunt. Thus, at 8 o’clock I found myself waiting for the reward of my labor: non-other than—you guessed it—besh barmak. We finally ate at 10 p.m., by which point I just wanted to go home and had no stomach for sheep and certainly not for sheep’s stomach. The 11 p.m. ride home was much less exciting than the morning’s, except that we now had my host brother and grandmother with us too—which left my brother in the trunk with the potatoes.

So should you find yourself in need of distraction in the next week, may I recommend the following mad lib, or rather a ‘write your own’ Kyrgyz travel saga:

Traveling to (city name) last weekend, I waited (number) hours for a vehicle to arrive. Finally, a (ancient make of car) arrived and we set off on a most (adjective) ride over the mountain pass. I road in the back seat with (number) others; the (animal) road in the trunk. Along the way we stopped for the (animal plural) in the middle of the road, to fix the (car part), and to give toasts to (person's name). I arrived (number) hours late, but no one minded; the besh barmak would not be ready for (number) hours.

The funny thing is, I almost guarantee whatever you plug in, it could happen in Kyrgyzstan. And I must be becoming Kyrgyz, because I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Cinnamon Rolls and Sheep's Butt

If these two things sound like they shouldn’t be in the same sentence, I agree. However, they composed the entirety of dinner tonight, so you’re reading about them now. I think you can guess who made what. (As if you needed a hint, the Kyrgyz palate does not usually appreciate cinnamon, to the extent that many people don’t even know the word for it in their own language.)

Every now and then I get tired of eating plain bread—just bread—for breakfast, lunch, and occasionally dinner. So naturally, I make more bread—or rather, sweet breads, pies, or cinnamon rolls in this case—usually for lack of other available ingredients. Yesterday, I decided I would have a “hands on” tutorial session for my most motivated student, my 9th-grade neighbor and host cousin, Caliah. Thus, the making of cinnamon rolls (and an English lesson on cooking verbs and ingredients). And here I must brag: to say the rolls were delicious is an understatement; they were divine. I ate three immediately, and for obvious reasons to be presently explained, I did not regret the gluttony.

While Caliah, my host brother, and I were enjoying the fruits of our lesson, my host mother was preparing dinner, a mystery soup that boiled away on the hot plate. She was also rolling out dough for homemade noodles, and I hoped we might be enjoying the oily, but edible, noodle-potato-carrot soup we’d had in the past. Unfortunately, I was greatly mistaken. What had been boiling away for hours was a sheep’s butt, only the butt—no meat, no vegetables, just a solid chunk of fat slightly larger than a brick.

So stuffed and satisfied from my baking binge, I sat down to dinner with my host family to find before me a sheep’s butt and a plate of the noodles and potatoes, both coated in the fatty broth. I am usually very courteous about trying whatever food I find before me, but with the lingering sweetness of cinnamon sugar still on my tongue, the thought of consuming cubic inch slices of lard was, well…I have never been happier to give the excuse “I’m full,” and really mean it.

And did I mention that my host father’s mother moved in with us the evening? She speaks Russian and very little Kyrgyz, but regardless of language, couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t try such a delicacy. Then again, she wouldn’t touch my exotic cinnamon rolls, so I must conclude: when it come to fats and calories, to each their own.

Back to (village) life, back to reality...

After a solid 12 hours of travel Sunday, I arrived back in my village exhausted from my week of camp. My family had taken a day trip to jailoo (the mountain pastures), so the house was empty affording me some much needed time to esal (relax). I had some odds and ends to wrap up at site this week, but nothing big planned. Nonetheless, life is never dull in my village. Here’s how the week unfolded:

Monday

Today I made the best apple crisp of my life. I climbed the trees in my backyard to pick the still very-tart apples, then peeled them with my host brother. (He is unusually helpful with domestic chores for a Kyrgyz boy.) Using locally-churned butter, honey I picked up from an apiary stand at Lake Issyk Kul and cinnamon I brought from America, I mixed the apple bottom then a separate oat top together. My host family thought the final product too sweet, but to my taste buds, there’s never been anything better. I still find it hard to fathom how my family can prefer 2 table spoons of sugar in their tea, but not find my desserts too sweet, but then again, they don’t understand my dislike for korut, the ferment dried yogurt balls that are the twins’ snack of choice—so I guess we’re even. Anyway, it just means more apple crisp left for me.

Tonight, for the first time, I broke out the yoga DVD my former site mate, Mike, left me (he finished service a month ago and is now traveling South East Asia, I believe). He stayed in remarkable share, physically and mentally, during his service, and I’m now beginning to see how. The hour workout was the most rejuvenating experience I’ve had at site yet. By the end, I had managed to stretch out all my cramped muscles from the previous day’s travel and refocused my attention from my daydreaming. I never could get into yoga in the states, I think because I could never take my mind off all the work I was putting off to go through the poses, but here, where I have nothing but time and need to keep stressors in check, yoga has proved the perfect medicine. Thanks Mike.

Tuesday

Sun salutations and bow poses started off another excellent day (I’m really digging this yoga thing). This afternoon, I tucked into a new book, a copy of Collapse by Jared Diamond inherited from a departing volunteer. If you know anything about my academic interests, you’ll understand that Diamond’s stories of successful and failed civilizations are right up my alley.

When my host mom finished work (she’s the nurse at the clinic across the street), I lent a hand in the making of black current jam. The hand-cranked food processor wasn’t working, so we resorted to our hands. Fortunately, she’s a nurse and had spare pairs of latex gloves on hand (pun intended, of course) to avoid the juices leaching into our skin as we individually smooshed ever miniscule current to pulp. It took a while, but the product was worth the effort: almost 4 gallons of this jam to last us through the winter—Mmm!

After dinner, my host sibs hit me with the usual request for volleyball. I have never been so thankful for 4 years of high school volleyball playing as I am here; I find the game the easiest way to connect with my students (lacking enough language to do otherwise), and many days I’ve played for hours. Until yesterday, we’ve been using the soccer ball I brought with me, mostly bumping and setting it in a circle in the elimination game of “champion” or its alternative, “potato,” when the player who misses squats in the middle of the circle until another player hits them with the ball. But thanks to my first care package from the parents (thanks y’all!), we now have a real volleyball. In fact, the same one I used all those years in high school.

So a note to travelers: when visiting a developing country, pack a deflated ball and a pump. Don’t give it to the school—they will lock it up to keep it in pristine condition—hand it to a kid, who will certainly share it with his or her friends. No other gift will be so appreciated and well used.

Wednesday

Peace Corps deposits our paychecks into our bank accounts punctually a few days before the first of every month, but it takes a trip to the bank in my region’s center to get the money (and only this bank; I can’t withdraw from elsewhere)—and as today demonstrated, this is no simple errand. This month, because of camp travel, I wasn’t able to make the trip until today, the 10th.

At 8:30, I walked the 15 minutes to the main road to catch a ride the 25 km to rayon center. I was pushing it; by 8:30 I’ve already missed most of the few vehicles that leave my village each morning. I can’t afford to be picky about my rides out here. I hitchhike everywhere; everyone does.

I finally caught a car pulling out of my village, going the right direction, at 9:30. The car was already full by American standards (2 people in front; 3 in the back)—but there are no such limits in Kyrgyzstan. In this case, the mother of the new bride we were taking into town for the 3rd day of her wedding festivities pulled her 20-year-old daughter into her lap to make room for me in the backseat.

By 10:15 I’d made it to the bank queue. Ten minutes later, at the front of the line, I discovered I was in the wrong one, and moved to another window, but other than that the process is seamless: One teller processes your request, prints you a receipt, then sends you to another window to collect the cash.

By 10:45, I was done at the bank and headed to the bazaar to pick up eggs, tomatoes, carrots, sugar, and butter. This was the last of my errands, which put me, as usual, ready to head back to my village a good two hours before any taxi would be going that direction. The other volunteer who lived in the city was out of town for the day, so deprived of my usual company, I started back to the taxi stand to check on my driver.

I didn’t make it. Walking down the road, I recognized a young woman—a “cousin”—who had once had tea at my house. She waved me over, and I explained I’m was going to check on my taxi situation and mentioned the name of my driver.

“Nurchik?,” she asked. “He’s my younger brother.” I should not have been surprised. Of course just walking down the street of town of 10,000 I’m bound to run into the sister of a taxi driver from my village.

She informed me he wouldn’t be at the taxi stand (I knew this, but I had no where else to go). She had me call him instead (its protocol to get a driver’s number and give him yours if you’re hoping for a return trip). I dialed Nurchik to check the time of departure, but promptly pass the phone over to her. If he was surprised that his sister got on the line, I certainly couldn’t tell from this end. A minute later I was following her in the direction of her house for a chai break.

She had made fresh borsok (fried bread) that morning, which made an excellent snack/lunch coupled with fresh strawberry jam. She even had instant coffee to offer me! (I almost never have coffee; tea is the status quo). Additionally, I very much appreciated her conversation attempts and patience. I’d already told her previously many of the details of my family, friends, and American lifestyle, so she was happy to oblige with hers, even breaking out all the family photo albums to illustrate. Her family turns out to be incredibly international; she has sisters in Italy, Turkey, and Dubai.

At 12:30 Nurchick was still nowhere close to ready to leave (we were waiting on the bride and her new husband to take them back to the village, I later learn). Without knowing it, I agreed to run errands with my new sister. Also unbeknownst to me, the first stop was to be the local headquarters for a national political party gunning for the presidency in the Oct. 10th elections. I’m not allowed to be there (for obvious reasons), so when I realized where I was (and saw the cameras rolling), I awkwardly stepped outside to wait…for the next hour and a half. Since I was tethered to this woman (being my connection to my ride back), I had no place to go. So I sat, listened to my iPod, and vowed never to leave my village without a book again. You can’t change the situations you often find yourself in here, but you can always be more prepared for them, I’ve learned.

When my new friend finally emerged (she’d been playing secretary for the meeting), she took me again to the bazaar. As a lovely hospitable gesture, she insisted on buying me grapes. I’m know I won’t be able to wash them before I eat them, so I’d rather refuse, but she won’t let me. (I’m not sure how many times I’ll risk illness for the sake of not offending locals, but the number is steadily rising).
We walk next back the building I found her outside of originally. It turns out to be an architecture firm, where she works. She hands me a book of Russian floor plans to keep me occupied for the next half hour.

She finally gets a call from her brother that he’s about ready to leave at 3:30, so we head back to the house—where he’s not quite ready to go. We have chai for a second time. By this time, I’ve exhausted my Kyrgyz conversation skills, and we’re sitting in silence. Shortly after 4:30, Nurckik finally announces that we’re leaving. He’s picked up the wedding party, and I join them in the backseat and start down the road out of town. But two blocks later, we’ve stopped again. Apparently, there’s one more family they need to see before heading back the village. The groom runs into the house, then comes out two minutes later and motions for his wife to join him. They decide to stay after all, and Nurchik motions for me to join him in the front seat and we finally peal out of town—with the backseat empty, which almost never happens in Kyrgyzstan.

We don’t make it far. Five minutes down the road, we get a call from the groom, who’s left a bag in the trunk. We turn around, deposit the bag, and finally hit the road. It is common for taxi drivers to make conversation with their passengers for the duration of the drive. And certainly, being a foreigner, I’m often asked to explain myself—and my family, my country, etc. etc.

Unfortunately, Nurchik is my age (we established this back at his sister’s), and in Kyrgyzstan it is not common for girls my age to talk much with guys their age out in the villages. Too much talking (and most certainly smiling) can be misunderstood as intentional flirtation. Nonetheless, he was keen to make conversation, and having not had an opportunity to really talk with a guy my own age here yet, I was happy to try to oblige. It turns out he’s a volleyball champion within our province, so we had some shared experience (just the game obviously, not the talent; some of you may recall the time I served a volleyball that came back directly to hit me in the head). He also asked the usual, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and follow-up, “Why not?” (I’m almost past my prime here in Kyrgyzstan; most girls are married at 20 or 21.) I like to answer that I just “don’t need one” to make the point that it’s okay to be a single female with a career. That usually doesn’t get fully accepted, so sometimes I follow up with, “I haven’t found the right guy,” which usually gets countered with, “Oh, but its the guy who finds you.” In this case, I just volleyed the question back,” So why don’t you have a girlfriend?” but I couldn’t quite understand his answer. And when I couldn’t tell if the next question he was asking for me to be his friend or girlfriend, I decided I better stop nodding my agreement to sentences I don’t completely comprehend. We sat mostly in silence for the rest of the ride.

We finally pulled up to my gate shortly after 5:00, almost 9 hours after my departure for a simple trip to the bank. But few things are simple in Kyrgyzstan, and honestly, I prefer it this way.

Thursday

After my return from the bank yesterday, I’d gone to find my director to ask for two signed letters I needed to take to Peace Corps on behalf of two grants (one approved, one in the early stages) for school refurbishment. She’d agreed to meet this morning at the school at 10. It turned out that first we needed to stop by the mayor’s office to pick up this year’s school budget (our mayor is also a wonderfully proactive and competent woman). She took me afterwards on a tour of the school to let me take the pictures of damages I needed to document (the leaking roof and water damage to floors, frayed wiring that hasn’t been replaced in 40 years, and cracks in walls) and give me the letters I needed, signed and stamped. (No document in Kyrgyzstan seems to be official without a stamp.)

I’m very grateful that she’s a patient woman; it often takes me a few tries to communicate my intended meaning. At one point in the conversation, she tried to ask if I needed paper, “barak,” but I heard “barmak”, which means fingers. Of course I have fingers, I replied, very confused.

With my day’s work accomplished by 11 am, I headed back to the house for an hour of yoga, lunch (bread and tea), and in the afternoon, chores. I hadn’t had a bath in over a week, and my hair was beginning to dread, so a bath was the first thing on my list. (It turns out I missed a chance to have a banya—sauna bath—yesterday at a neighbors. Boo.) Still, bathing from a 2 gallon bucket of water suits me. It just takes work.

First, I walked with my neighbor to the end of the road to crank up the water from a well and carry it in buckets back to the house. Next, I heated the water, half gallon at a time, in our biggest electric teapot. Then, standing in a small tub in the dirt floor storage room off the kitchen, I could finally start ladling the water over myself. Surprisingly, I really haven’t minded the lack of bathing opportunities (about once a week, or so). Fortunately, my curly hair doesn’t start showing the grease to badly until about day 5. I hear in the winter volunteers go entire months without bathing however, so we’ll see how I’m feeling about all this in February.

After washing myself, the next task was my laundry. I use the same tub and same method to heat hot water. I re-wear my clothes her routinely; I only have 3 summer shirts and about the same amount of bottoms. I only do laundry when I’m out of underwear, which is exactly ever two weeks.. It takes about two hours every time I do it, but now that my fingers have built up calluses that prevent painful blisters I was getting from rubbing, I don’t actually mind the work. I just put on my iPod and go to scrubbing.

I made carrot dessert bread for my family tonight. Its always a gambol when I make a recipe with cinnamon (its not very popular with the Kyrgyz), but I keep doing it. I love cinnamon, and it’s one of the few spices I have at my disposal (brought from American, but rumored to be found at the bazaar in Bishkek). In this case, the recipe went over well. A double recipe (a baking sheet-full) was scarfed in the mater of a quarter of an hour. I’ll be making this again.

Friday

I’m told winter comes early to Naryn; last year the first frost was Sept. 1st, the first day of school. In anticipation of the snows, and the accompanying food shortage, I planned today to go into Bishkek and visit the bazaar, supermarket—and my host family at my first site—before going to a week of In-Serivce Language Training at Lake Issyk Kul with my fellow volunteers.

I rose early at 6 a.m., not wanting to miss any taxi opportunity out of the village. I was waiting at the road by 7, but as it turned out, there was no need to rush—there were no vehicles. Three other men were also waiting for transport out of the village, so after the first half hour of waiting, they finally called a driver in the village a half hour up the road and told him we had a full load of passengers waiting for him. An hour later, he finally showed up—with two other passengers and a sheep. So we piled in the Soviet era car (VW Beatle size), all 7 of us—and the sheep, which was stuck bleating and shitting in the trunk with my baggage. What we lack in typical forms of entertainment in Ak-Talaa (movie theatres, parks, everything really), we certainly make up for in everyday life experience. Who needs rollercoasters when you have a packed clown car peeling down a pothole-ridden road at 120 km/hr?

When we got into Naryn City, I luckily found a driver to Bishkek almost immediately. It turned out, I needn’t have worried about my delays leaving my village. The lost time was easily made up for by a driver who took every bump and blind curve over the mountain passes without losing speed. I think we spent more time in the wrong lane passing, than we did on the right. The poor little boy in the seat in front of me had lost all of his breakfast by the end of the trip.

But we made it into Bishkek by 2, and the driver let me out in the vicinity of the huge Osh bazaar—and theoretically the Peace Corps office. I promptly got lost trying to meet my friend who had come into town to meet me, but by 3, I’d been found and oriented to a city I’d only seen once before. (The PC office, by the way, turns out to be incredibly nice, complete with garden, fish pond, wifi, and shower—too bad I’ll only visit about twice a year). Ryan and I sat down for lunch at 4 o’clock, and both having not eaten since 7 am, each inhaled a pizza a piece. Yes, pizza (!!), my first in country from a restaurant. Oh my god was it good. Good cheese and vegetables! Ryan was one of my closest friends in PST, so catching up on the last 2 months was a blast.

To finish off an awesome day, I headed out of Bishkek to my first host village to spend the night with my first host family. Walking down my street just as the cows came home was like time travel. I’m happy to report that despite the fact my Kyrgyz vocab range use has certainly declined for lack of use, my general comprehension has improved—far more than I realized. I had wonderful, hilarious, and completely comprehensible conversation with my host mom and sister this evening. Apa let me help make apricot jam, and Kalima made my favorite salad in country—garlic eggplant and tomato stacks. Tomorrow Apa promises to teach me two new songs to expand my Kyrgyz repertoire; she still has dreams of me singing on a national talent show next year. I don’t think I realized just how much I missed being understood completely (Kalima, my sister, is fluent in English so could help out when my language skills broke down). I feel so lucky to be able to have such a homecoming away from home.

Giardia: the newest natural weight loss solution!

Finally, a breakthrough in natural weight loss! This natural biotic will cleanse your system in just 3 days, no special diet or exercise needed! To use, drink contaminated water once, then wait for intestinal flushing and loss of appetite to set in. Continue drinking water and rehydration salts to avoid severe dehydration. [Side effects will include severe stomach cramping, diarrhea, bloating, and terrible burps.]

So yes, unfortunately a few weeks back found me trying this latest PC diet trend… No really, giardia had me pretty much laid out on my bed for 4 days, unable to eat, and listening to the rushing sound of pipes (my intestines) draining every time I turned over in bed. There is of course another side to every coin; blessedly, my condition offered me a reprieve from not one, but two dinners of besh barmak. (Of course, I didn’t get off scotch free; I had to at least “osti”—taste—the sheep stomach.)

Fortunately, thanks to rehydration salts (and the Crystal Light Lemonade packets that made them palatable), I was doing better by the time I had to take the 9 hour ride to camp with my students. However, my intimacy with the outhouse grows every stronger…