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.