Thanksgiving plus

One reason this is so delayed is because my flashcard broke. I will be more consistent starting... NOW.

Anna and Sean, the two other staple volunteers at the Alpine Fund, hosted thanksgiving at their Kruschev apartment. All of the Alpine Fund office folk and English students were there. All together, there were nine of us.

I asked my mother for some good recipes and was blessed to receive a family-friend’s apple crisp recipe. It is always delicious beyond explanation. It was well received in Kyrgyzstan, home of the apple. I also made a simple green salad with polmegranite-raspberry vinegarette. Even after winter hit and the produce prices have climbed, the grand total for all of my relatively fancy ingredients was something like $10. Not bad for salad and dessert for nine.

As I prepared the salad in our office kitchen, (the office was a one room plus bath apartment) Ulan informed me he wanted to be a chef. He has quite an ambitious list going. That I know of, he intends to become an Allam (like an Islamic bishop), work in the US, speak Arabic, Spanish, and English fluently in addition to Russian and Kyrgyz and be a professional chef. While none of those things are mutually exclusive, they are pretty much mutually exclusive. Perhaps Ulan should learn to juggle.

After I instructed Ulan on how to separate lettuce from stem to make “salad,” we headed over to Sean and Anna’s place. They prepared the bird and apple pie. Ulan and Adilet brought traditional Kyrgyz flatbread that they made at home. Our Knowledgeable Director Arianna and her sister Acel brought a variety of Russian salads. These actually lent authenticity to the gathering as the Russian style of picking and salting everything to Kingdom Come pretty much out-relishes any American relish platter. There is one thing, they put chicken in the veggies.

The relish tray and salad received ample attention because the Council of American Elders met for a goodly round of fact bargaining. The oven had taken a few hours to get up to 350 so the turkey warmed up at 325 for about 2 hours before gradually climbing up to 375 for a little more than an hour. The intent had been to cook it at exactly 350 for 2½ hours. None of us had any actual experience cooking a turkey. But we had plenty of perceived and relative experience. I really love those moments when a group of people is forced to resolve a problem with which they have no experience resolving, but they have to do it in a group and “expertly.” Having a car break down in the middle of nowhere or a plumbing problem at College are sure fire opportunities for watching humanity BS its way through adversity. After all concerns had been bargained (or shoulder shrugged) out of existence, we ate turkey. It turned out fine.

It is a bit odd to have two fairly distinct language groups at such a gathering. Much like the young colonies at the time of the revolutionary war, we were split about evenly three ways. The three other foreign volunteers don’t speak English well. Acel speaks English fluently… but a back and forth four person conversation will tire most any fluent speaker. Our Knowledgeable Director is almost as capable. I can speak/understand Russian when I concentrate very hard and the other party works at being understood. Ulan is the same way, the other way around. The other two students have studied English but are not conversational. Furthermore, one student only haltingly understands Kyrgyz, the language of choice for the other locals.

So at times we would all speak together but for the most part the language barrier stood about 1.3 meters.

Salavat, Christine, Me, Ulan, Adilet, Anna and Sean

We ate in Kyrgyz style. It is fortunate that Kyrgyz style involves sitting on the floor because it is almost certain that there would not have been space for any other style. We also ate college student style: on a broken closet door laid flat.

After dinner we set a digital camera to video recording mode so that Our Knowledgeable Director Arianna could tell Ulan that he was enrolled in the American University’s prep year. In one word, his reaction was muted. Destiny’s landscape appeared before Ulan for one of those rare moments when the past, present and future are both clear and endless. Ulan did what anyone would do, he stared blankly. Eventually prompted to respond, he mulled over a goodly silent moment and said “I will use this opportunity.”

Some of the volunteers, those who worked the hardest on arranging this for Ulan, seemed somewhat confused and a little distraught by his reaction. “It’s really true, Ulan.” “We’re not kidding.” So forth. Ulan remained unphased. I think this would be a little bit like someone coming up to you and telling you that you won a house. It’s clearly great… but it is unclear exactly what that means and it is going to be a lot of work.

This should put Ulan on a track towards a professional career. Once he takes the entrance exam, he will almost assuredly get a full ride due to his economic situation. A year’s tuition in Central Asia’s top school, The American School in Bishkek is about $950. That is less than the cost of my Ipod and digital camera combined. Rightfully, this makes me feel bad about how I value things.

The American School is the only school in Kyrgyzstan (perhaps the only in Central Asia) with a contemporary Anglo style curriculum in which the students take a base of classes, select a major and then select classes within the major. All of the other schools hold to the Soviet system. The applying students submit their score to schools with different specialities and once you are admitted into a program, the path is set. The top five scores for each school are given a totally free ride. This is a new reform to prevent rich kids from bribing for the scholarships. Apparently it is a big improvement. It still seems to ignore the advantage rich kids have in preparing for the test. But I suppose it is not too different from the SATs. Except that the scores are binding and the only consideration for getting into university.

On Friday everyone else from the office went to Ulan’s house to tell his family about his scholarship. They were most exuberant. His mother cried. His father hugged all present gratefully. The family lives in a house about the size of my living room at school (or a small cabin at camp). It has two rooms. There are six family members.

Ulan defines his father as “a good man now.” He helps the family and does not beat his kids. If this is the definition of a good father, so be it. Seeing the situations that people deal with here makes me view the concept of Human Rights with renewed skepticism. This is a hot-button issue, but prosethetizing people to another cultures norms of proper behavior seems quite egotistical. Before I can hope to change someone’s behavior I must understand it fully. If a devout Kyrgyz Muslim were to come to my home, kick out the filthy dogs and cats and get irate that I do make my mother and sisters cover their heads. I would react with perplexed awe and hope he would go away.

That said, I do not mean to advocate absolutist relativism. That would be self-defeating. Sometimes you can understand why someone does something and rightfully believe they are wrong for doing it. Torture, for example. People torture others when they see them as less than fully human. I can understand that they have that perspective, but disagree.

Since Thanksgiving, Ulan has asked if various people thnk he could go to football (soccer) school in London. At this school apparently you study, but mostly play football. I would guess that Ulan stands under 5 feet tall. He is not very fast. Bishkek is pretty sheltered and the boys love football. It is hard to gauge how to nudge this particular dream gently away without crushing one of his favorite things.

We are hoping that he plays on the University team. There it should be apparent that while Ulan is not a useless football player, that he is not going to play for Real Madrid.

In other events, I went to the big bazaar in Bishkek. It was quite overwhelming. It stretches great distances in all directions though the actual size is obscured by the laberynthine layout and seasonal variation. I was completely overwhelmed. It was crowded, I had no bearing as to where I had gotten off my transport relative or where I should go. I have learned in these situations to just follow the flow in situations like this and walk like everyone else. That is, purposefully and quickly. I am already one of the few men in Kyrgyzstan with a beard. My clothes are marginally within exeptible norms. But basically, I look like an American. Best to look like an American that knows what he is about. This prevents me from enduring extra-sales attempts and/or scams. Eventually, after walking in a few rapid and purposeful circles, I moved in for the purchase.

The cold weather has arrived, I could wear almost all of my clothes at once to stay warm on my pre-dawn trek to language school. About $50 later, my wardrobe more than doubled in size. I was no doubt moderately ripped off but I am an American, so that is my job. The proximity to China is very apparent on such occasions. No new wool pants though.

The being ripped off is fine by me, within reason. If it seems like a good deal to me, I accept, if I don’t want to pay that much I move on. It seems immoral to drive a hard bargain when a dollar or two is a few minutes work for me and half a day’s wage for successful people here. It is always funny though when I ask for a taxi fare and the driver hesitates for a solid 15 seconds trying to consider what the price should be for the guy who clearly is a foreigner but clearly speaks better than some.

Glory Be!

I received mail today. So that was pretty great. Things are going well. Our previously truant students have not missed class in a week and a half. Though he feels guilty that he has not been to mosque as much as he would like, he was reconsiled with himself by the fact that he got to play football.

My host sister started teaching a class for computer skills. I saw Geisha and had my perfunctory post-romance movie rant in a couple of emails. My host sister liked it. That's good.

There are really interesting self-identification issues among Russians and Kyrgyz here. The Kyrgyz are just Kyrgyz, this is their "homeland." Kyrgyzstan litterally mean "land of the Kyrgyz." The ethnic Russians, however, self-identify as Russians. It is not surprising but it is sort of an odd thought for me as an American. These ethnic Russian may have family ties in Kyrgyzstan that go back a century but they are not Kyrgyz. I joked with my Russian teacher/friend that I was Russian too. I reasoned that I don't speak Kyrgyz, I am white and I live in Kyrgyzstan. By her definition I must be Russian too. She tried to explain that it is just like how I am an American living in Kyrgyzstan she is also a Russian, just living in Kyrgyzstan.

I maintain that a 5 month stint as a volunteer is a little different that living somewhere your whole life. It really hits on the fact that "American" is a non-nationalist identity.

Now, if Americans could just shed the rest of the collectivist bodies that teach offer us the sweet nectar of faithful credulity... Then people would crave another arbitrary identity to give life meaning.

Darn.

A Fulfilling Day

My writing skills have withered to a sickly stick of their former mediocre adequacy. I spent about ten minutes trying to think of synonyms for "explain" today. I caved and ran to dictionary.com like a whiny little babe. I am glad that I wrote my grad school apps during better days.

Despite my whining and the addition of a "Mаниак" (serial killer) to the otherwise humdrum hubbub of Bishkek, I feel energized today. I have found that small achievements amplify in significance during self-imposed cultural exile. Maybe that is why I have continued to move, emotional thrillseeking with reckless abandon for what I have so carefully invested in by the way of relationships back home. Like most anything that is a passion and piece of identity, I think that it is folly to pursue "why" too far. It is. So be it. Speaking of digression into the netherregions of proper grammar and quasi-irrationality.

Anyway, I had my first conversation in Kyrgyz today unaided by a model. I said that my mom was a dentist and my father a doctor. I regailed my teacher with facts about my siblings, such as their existence and relative ages before moving on to profound insights into the professions of aunts and uncles. I moved mountains for a moment. Then just like that, my potential was spent. The words were all used up. The cases one bridge too far.

Whistfully signing, I returned to the routine of exerices and premeditated dialogue followed by relevant (?) question and answer sessions. We had another hour left. I was pretty tired of signing whistfully by the time we finished.

Ulan missed class again today. Adillet too. They said they were going to help with the trip this weekend. I may have to act as de facto interpreter no. 1. That is not a comforting thought. We learned tuesday that he is going to mosque the full 5 times a day. He wants to me an Allam. That is acheived after decades of study. We have the money all lined up for him to get back into school but we have to film it when we tell him, because I guess Oprah gave us the money.

The cat is considered to be dirty in Kyrgyz culture. They have a utilitarian, if respectful attitude toward animals. The are only quasi-domestic. Thus I fear the dog in the yard more than the serial killer. The cat is welcome in my room (the fam said its okay). It sleeps on my neck. I have a single sized bed.

I live in Bishkek. I study Kyrgyz. I make funny noises all day. I yell at children in broken Russian while they look at me wide eyed with bewildered confusion (should I be scared, laugh, or just ignore this guy?). I sleep with a cat on my neck. My name, is Anders.

Somebody gave some money to the Alpine Fund in my name. Thank you, annonymous stranger.

The Fist Weekend

This is my blog entry for the Alpine Fund Site. Pictures are in order and forthcoming.

I arrived at the Voenna Antonivna children’s home at 9am sharp. No one was outside save a groundskeeper. Our Knowledgeable Director had warned me that getting the kids together can be a chaotic affair. I was unready for this unsteady calm. Quickly after hearing the van enter the grounds however, children began to appear. They came from every direction: East, West, North and South. I knew then that there would be no turning back.

As the leader of trip, I acted adroitly, delegated all responsibility and decision making power to Losha, a 16 year old regular at the Alpine Fund in his last year at the orphanage. Far too many of the kids want to come on our weekend trips than we can handle and Losha knows better than I who should come. With a list of attendees in hand, we prepared to leave.

A bristle-whiskered burly woman told us our list of attendees was not up to the orphanage regulations and it looked like she meant business. If there is one thing I have learned in my first two weeks in Kyrgyzstan it is never to contradict, argue with, or try to pull the wool over a bristle-whiskered burly woman who means business. They always mean business. Losha transcribed the names into a format more akin to business letter head, with a politely verbose introductory paragraph. I signed this. Now up to snuff, we prepared to leave.

At this point Arianna (our knowledgeable director) arrived unexpectedly. I was much relieved as my Russian had already been largely exhausted by the redrafting of the list.

We arrived at the Alpine Learning Center and took a moment to ceremoniously exchange Tuffli (shoes) for Tapichki (slippers) before exchanging tapichki for botinki (boots) under more utilitarian motivation. Just like that we set off for our hike. Our Knowledgeable Director Arianna stayed behind to prepare for lunch and learning at the Center. The children and I wandered into the hills.

Make-shift landfills provided us with impromptu sleds. Strong precipitation provided us snowy slopes on the North face. Impromptu sleds and snowy slopes imbued us with steely determination. We hiked up and sledded down various portions of the foothills of the Kyrgyz Range of the Tian-Shan mountains, reveling in the existential glory of our very own adolescent Oedipus complex.

Having had our fill of snow (in our pants) we returned to the Learning Center. There we enjoyed lunch and the downtime after. “Downtime” subtly transmuted into “intense-football-match-in-a-tiny-yard time” over the course of a few moments. We played football; it seemed like the thing to do at the time. The Learning Center’s yard was filled with the last apples of the season. We ate our fill and added the rest to the new compost heap.

After everybody won the football match (yay!) we learned about the first aid in the Alpine Learning Center. The subject was cuts. I gave the talk in English and Arianna, being quite a Knowledgeable Director, translated. We covered how to clean cuts, stop bleeding, dress a wound and assess and deal with infection. Afterwards we broke up into small groups and the kids explained how they would treat a cut in various real-life scenarios and how to prevent and then deal with progressive complications.

Now armed with the proper safety knowledge, we cut vegetables for dinner. I chose a back country favorite of my own from back home, calzones. Everyone got a chance to help in the process and cook their own calzone. Our hope is to get the kids accustomed to cooking, and eventually planning all their meals for themselves.

After dinner we played a few rounds of mafia. I have played this game every summer since I was 14 and I was pleasantly surprised to see it well loved in Kyrgyzstan. We moved on to Taboo (in Russian). All and all it was a great night of good natured hilarity.

The kids woke up around 8am the next morning. After a delicious breakfast of omlettes, we set off for the snowy foothills once more. We spent even longer trudging up and sliding down the mountain on Sunday and staggered back to the dacha for food. After a little bit of grounds keeping at the Alpine Learning Center, we picked up trash from around the river near the dacha for a half hour and then boarded the van to go back to Bishkek.

The kids asked if it would be possible to stay for more like 5 or 6 days. Arianna and I eyed one another wearily and responded with concerns about their studies. They assured us that arrangements could be made… I thought about what sort of arrangements I would have to make to get my hands on some industrial strength 14-year old tranquilizer.

A Quickie

This week has been a roughshod wild ride of linguistic frustration. I am now able to ask about your health and your day in Kyrgyz, however, sometimes. Things in Kyrgyzstan cooled down after they heated up. The President, Akayev, signed the constitution the regional elites wanted. The system will become more parliamentary. I will write more when I learn more. Both sides claimed victory. President Akayev is still President Akayev and the regional elites got a new constitution. There were some injuries on Tuesday after the cops used flashbangs and tear gas to break up some drunken mobbery. Drunken belligerence turned to drunken panic and some people were injured.

One of the students here showed up for the first time in two weeks. He evaded questions about where he was and said he had a new job. After some probing, he revealed that he has been taking classes at the Mosque with the imam every day for many hours a day. The good thing is that he is learning Arabic. I am skeptical of any organization that asks you to overturn your life on a dime, however. We are hoping to find out what this mosque is like and offer the student a scholarship to the American University's catchup year program. Hopefully we can offer some life opportunities.

I will be at the Alpine Learning Institute, better known as the dacha (cabin) with kids all weekend. I am in charge of planning a seminar... which should be an interesting test of my Russian skills. If the weather stays hypothermia-tastic, I think we will learn about that. Other wise, maybe cuts or sprained ankles.

It is difficult to find the happy medium between not being productive and not being reflective. After this month, hopefully I will oscilate back to the middle again.

Borat and Orphanfolk!

Things are moving and shaking in Central Asia as always. Bishkek has hosted an opposition protest for the last week. My host mother has used this for her own ends and has succeeded in worrying about my well-being constantly. The fact that no one knows there is a protest here is a sign that nothing spooky is afoot. When I wanted to go out for the first time on Saturday night she claimed people would see I am a foreigner and try to beat me up and take my money. Now, first of all everyone I have met in Bishkek smiles with delight when I say I am an American. The street vendors want to shake my hand and children ask me questions about pop culture. Secondly, this is just as likely to occur when there is no protest. The people do not need to gather in the hundreds or thousands to mug me. But none of my well thought argumentations could assuage her need to worry so I stayed home. Kyrgyzstan, interestingly, is probably the only Central Asian state where an actual opposition protest could take place, even if the are mostly upset that it is someone else, not themselves, who holds the keys to the palace of cronyism. Kyrgyzstan is seen as the weakest Central Asian state. It is poor and more sort of laissez-faire corrupt than systematically authoritarian.
Borat has put Kazakstan on the defensive. The state is up and coming, newly flush with carbo-dollars. It is trying to present itself as an emerging nation of young professionals, eager to bridge the cultural gap while holding on to it’s unique heritage. As far as Borat goes, I suspect that Sasha Cohen chose the country a long time ago because it is obscure and nobody has heard of it. But local opposition are seizing the opportunity to highlight that the country would not be the object of ridicule if its officials were not corrupt and the government were not repressive. That may be true, but if Cohen had been interested in choosing a truly crazy place out of touch with the world, he would have gone for Turkmenistan. That country has a truly insane leader. The people are dirt poor but he has built a giant lake in the middle of the dessert, written a history of world centered in Turkmenistan, dubbed himself “father of all Turkmen,” and recently completed a theme park worthy of Disneyland for surreality but based upon Turkmen folklore.
Tajikistan just held an election The system is bless/doomed to repeat itself. Like a poopy phoenix rising from the feces of the Soviet Union and civil war. Indeed, it is a crapulent politic. It makes me wonder if the US’s system is not similarly self-replicating. It may be obvious, but is very poignant here: systems, any system, seem adept at procreation. For better and for worse. I think the US is caught in a cycle well rutted enough to make any existential-Buddhist proud.
The economy here is insanely cheap on the service side. I get taught languages by professionals with degrees at an upper-end language school for $3/hr. And they are one-on-one lessons. A midday meal at a café sets me back a dollar. Everything is so cheap and the people are so worthy of my prosperity that I feel very obligated to buy things whenever I have the slightest inkling. I bought a bouquet of flowers from a babushka, kilos of apples from a variety of elderly sellers near my office that were hard to give away and many meat pie things (these are called ‘smiosa’s).
We had our first trip with orphans on Saturday the 4th. The kids had a good time and it was pretty hilarious watching them all bully the youngest in each group into playing the injured party for a first aid practice. A former orphan who works with the Fund went to NOLS last summer and learned first aid. I hope to convince Widji to open a similar space for next summer. They practiced a head-to-toe check. Though coerced into the victim the youngest kids needed no urging to be taken care of. They were constantly being pushed around but looked after by the older kids. We made it to the water fall and everyone agreed it was the poo-poo on the day’s platter.
I finished applying the UW’s Jackson School for International Studies Eurasian program for next year. I think I will be relieved whether I get in or not. Just to know where I stand. Both rejection and acceptance hold a good balance of possibility.
Tonight, I will murder the loud dog in the alley in cold blood.

Кыргызкий, Русский, and more Кыргызкий!!

I apologize for the cyrilic in the titles. Access to crazy keyboards, it turns out is my week spot.

My Visa card came early this time! The Fed Ex man was staring confounded at our office door when I sauntered up to him. Smoothly, I yelled "Fed Ex!?!!" With a Russian-English-Russian accent. My financial independence is once again restored by the wonderful odious system of accumulating debt. All Hail Capitalism!

I no longer have interesting and esoteric things to say because I am now a "busy guy." I again walk very fast by default and look down to make sure I don't trip and lose inertia. I still read a little everyday though, keeps out the riff-raff.

So far Kyrgyz has been interesting. Each value has a partener for life and everywork is to contain only those vowels. 'А' Cheats on 'Ы' however with 'У' who is all too rarely seen happily at home with 'O.' They added some extra vowels and a consonant for fun too. But they are not fun to try and say. Actually, I don't know why they added them at all. As if Russian hadn't done its part with a contribution of eight.

My attempts at do-gooding have produced lackluster results for myself. I am trying to teach english, but the bazaar kids do not show up (hopefully there is not a crisis). So it is just me and one pupil. For some reason she has the power to melt all of my language skills with the raise of a quizical eye-brow. It was really getting to me, all that failure. So I shaved it off.

We are working on prepositions and the future tense. If anyone knows what to do next, let me know. The knowledgeable guy is in Tajikistan and he left only me the inadequate reassurance of consolation, 'There, there. Don't worry.' His flight back was cancelled and now I am worried.

The climbing class was the peak of the anti-climax. We got there an hour late thanks in large part to my misunderstanding the directions I received long ago. The children were gone/unavailable. But now I know. This weekend "we" are taking the kids to a waterfall or something. I think I need to get a cell-phone so that I can find out who the other part of "we" is and make contact.

There is a demonstration today now so I have to go home before it gets dark and my host mother panics. As you can see, she does a wonderful job of host mothering. She tells me constantly not to do things. Like the good son that I am, I always nod my head and understand. All parties are pleased by this arrangement.

Saturday Night Is Hockey Night in Canada.