PST has finally begun to wind down. The weather over here is starting to turn to fall and it really feels nice outside. Chilly, sunny
mornings followed by breezy afternoons with early sunsets here in Kyrgyzstan are very nice. With only one week left we volunteers still have much work to get done. Each training group is required to do a community project in their training host village. My group and I repaired and repainted some of these strange, run-down, gazebo-type structures the elementary school has in their playground. Each structure is made of wood and look like small houses except they have only three walls. Where a fourth wall should be is a huge opening for children to freely run in and out of. They really don’t look like that much fun but they do have some cool paintings of wolves and other sweet animals on the wall. Unfortunately these wall paintings have been scribbled over with Kyrgyz and Russian profanity. We actually had a full language lecture day of Kyrgyz and Rus
sian swear and profanity words so we can now understand what these hooligan teenagers are trying to say when the tag the poor elementary school kids’ play equipment. For the record, there are A LOT of Russian swear words. Plenty for any occasion! Now back to the community project. Our job was to paint over this sick scripture and repair the damaged wooded floor boards on the ground. It appears that Kyrgyz children get some great kicks out smashing their play equipment into oblivion. So the female volunteers of the group, who outnumber us guys (9 girls, 3 guys) teamed up and told us boys to get working on the floor boards while they scrape paint of the walls. When you are outnumbered by that many girls you really have no choice but to do what they tell you to do. I was especially not feeling it because I was still recoveri
ng from a nasty cold I got down in Naryn during my permanent site visit (which I will talk about in a bit) a couple weeks ago. I’m pretty sure that the girls thought they were getting out of some serious work when they told us to work on the floors while they scrape paint. They spent the whole two days staring at a wall and scraping paint off the walls while we boys got some great exercise and serious work done! Although I must give them props for doing that work; they did a good job and scraping paint sucks. At first we stood there not knowing what the hell to do. We looked long and hard and thought. Then we got down on our hands and knees and started doing what we could and after an hour or so we figured it out. With no previous carpentry work before we actually did a kick-ass job repairing those wood floor boards. We were giving permission to tear down a neighboring gazebo thing and use parts to repair the other three. Using saws, hammers, and large crowbar, we stripped that gazebo down and laid some serious floor boards. We were unstoppable. None of our host families had any new nails so we had to straighten and reuse the rusted nails we pulled out from the other gazebo. We started last Saturday and worked for about four hours and on Sunday we worked the whole day starting at 10 and ending at 5! We were killing it! This one local Kyrgyz man came out of nowhere and lent a huge hand. He was a nail-hammering machine! Chris, a fellow volunteer and great buddy, had his little 10-year old host-brother (Samat), to help us out as well. Boy could he take it to those old floor boards! Get em’ little man! Now the girls kept on scraping while we were running around back and forth stripping boards, nailing nails, sawing boards, cursing, sweating; having an great time. We finished replacing all forty-one broken floor boards, stood back, and as the sun started to set, felt nothing but greatness. We stayed and worked an hour and a half longer than the paint scrapers. I think they got seriously bored and called it an early day last Sunday. We still got a full weekend of more scraping and painting coming up which should be a little easier than replacing those floorboards. We volunteers had finally gotten our first taste of actually getting something done this past weekend. Just living here and learning the language, attending countless safety and health lectures, and trips into Bishkek have seemed just so tedious. After two months of self-focus, it felt good to do some real work. Being in the Peace Corps and all this may sound clichй but it was definitely rewarding. Adjusting to the culture, food, language, and way of life is very stressful and realizing our purpose here through this work experience was refreshing. As I mentioned earlier we all got the opportunity to visit our permanent sites last week. We first had another matching ceremony similar to the first one where we met our training host family. Accept this one was a lot less awkward since we could somewhat speak the language. Nonetheless it’s very intimidating. Especially when your new host mom has beefier hands than you. My host mom for the next two years is VERY strong and VERY Kyrgyz. A very kind and welcoming lady in her 50’s, she’s like a lot of Kyrgyz from Naryn. Her skin is dark and weathered; probably from the intense sun, dryness, and wind Naryn experiences. Myself, my host mom, Micah and her host mom (Micah is the only other volunteer in my area), and Dan (the volunteer who just finished his service and is being replaced my Micah) all hoped a marshrutka in Bishkek and started our 8 hour journey. Dan served his two years in my Rayon and had quite a bit advice to give The whole way down Dan and I chatted about life in the Peace Corps, certain challenges, and places to check out here in Kyrgyzstan. Dan, whose face is weathered from the dry Kyrgyz air, had a lot to say about this place. He told me about ways to cope the cold and isolation and to always to keep in touch with fellow volunteers. Straying focused on teaching, getting exercise, reading, and language mastery are essential. It’s a difficult area to serve. The drive down to Naryn is absolutely incredible. From Bishkek you head east on the road through the Chui Valley until you hit Balykchi on Lake Issyk-Kul. From there we went south into Naryn. Northern Naryn is green with huge mountains and enormous rolling hills. Further south past Kochkor you notice Yurts at the foothills near rivers where Kyrgyz families spend their summers with their horses. Vast fields of purple flowers and green grass scatter the countryside. STEEP mountain passes on dirt roads with sharp switchbacks would make anyone wet their pants. Kyrgyz men on horses sporting their Kalpaks are a common site. This is real Kyrgyz country. Dan pointed out the huge semi trucks on the road that come from China delivering goods. Sitting in the rickety van smashed in between Kyrgyz children, time flew by as Dan and I chatted. We had a quick stop in Naryn city and then it off for a couple more hours to my site. Night had fallen and my new host mother and I were dropped off at the village. Before I knew it I was eating radishes, potatoes, and drinking tea with my soon-to-be new host family. “This is where I’ll be living,” I thought. It was a lot to take in. I have a younger sister who’s ten who seems pretty cool. I helped her work on a 500 piece puzzle while I was down there. I have a 27 year old brother who’s married and has a 8 month year old and another along the way. My brother is a school teacher and lives with his wife in another village nearby. He’s a pretty cool guy. He showed me around the village and took me down to the river that flows close to the village. It’s a huge river and apparently has a ton of fish. He said he’ll take me fishing down there when I move in. He’s also got a horse that he rides and he’s a pretty stellar rider. Horses here in Kyrgyzstan are a very sacred animal. Horse riding is HUGE. My host father seems like a funny guy who likes to have a good time. He plays the Komus which is a traditional Kyrgyz guitar-like instrument. My host mother is a kindergarten teacher at my school while my father works the fields. My mother cooks all meals outside our house on an open fire; no electric or gas stoves in this village. Like most homes in the village, my home is made from clay and looks similar to that of a Mexican pueblo. I wonder how warm it is in there in the winter? The outhouse is far away: I have to walk across a small field to get to it. This can be a pain in the winter when I have to pee in the middle of the night; which I do almost every night here. Waking up in the middle of the night and having to trudge through some serious snow just to take a piss sounds tough. Maybe I’ll just pee outside? We have a well out front that has some of the freshest tastiest water I’ve ever tasted. The water is runoff from the nearby mountains that engulf the Naryn oblast. My village is surrounded by orange and yellow hills and jagged rock faces. A lot of Naryn is fairly vegetated but the part of Naryn where my village is it looks more like the Wild Wild West. I am out there. Far away -way out there. The isolation combined with the cold and simple diet is going to be difficult. Right now there are a wide variety of fruits and vegetables available. Come winter Naryn is limited to potatoes, rice, cabbage, carrots, beets and sometimes meat. Yes, sometimes, meat. The Kyrgyz/Central Asian stereotypical diet of meat is true but it’s eaten every once in awhile. Meat is very expensive here in Kyrgyzstan and is usually enjoyed during celebrations and guest events. The other week I had the ‘honor’ of witnessing the slaughter a sheep. Our neighbor next door did the deed. After tying the helpless animal’s legs up he grabbed the sheep by the snout, pulled its head back, slit open his throat, and drained the blood into a bowl. However the sight of this was not as intense as its sound. The sheep was making some blood-curdling groans and desperately gasping for air. Then, with a crunch, slaughter guy finally snapped the animal’s neck back. The sheep was cooked and we ate it for dinner and it tasted pretty descent but I’m still trying to get used to its strange taste. During my site visit I had the opportunity to participate during the first day of school. We had an opening ceremony where the entire faculty and all 200 students gathered out front of the school. Students, who are all required to wear uniforms every day, lined up according to form (Kyrgyzstan still uses the old Soviet method of grade classification: forms). Boys sport all white long-sleeve dress shirts and black pants while the girls wear a black dress and white shirt. Girls also have pigtails and have these giant white fluffy bow things in their hair and it looks pretty funny. During the opening ceremony the principal, or director, said a few words then the Zavuch, or vice principle had a few words to say. The Zavuch talked and mention my name. She told the school that there will be a volunteer from America to teach English for two years. Then she said the volunteer was very handsome but his hair was too long. Just kidding. She really did say I was very handsome though. I do need to get a haircut though. Now it was show time. I was required to give a speech in Kyrgyz and then say it all over again in English. Good thing I prepared a solid speech. Besides a few children laughing at my accent the speech went real well. I said the speech over again in English and it was pretty awkward because out of everyone there only my English teaching counterpart could understand me so there were a lot of confused looks. My counterpart is pretty cool young lady and has a son. Unfortunately we had a rough time communicating in English. I sat in on her fourth form English class (10-year olds) and expected to sit. She gave a quick introduction to the class and then turned to me and said ‘now what?’ What? You want me to teach? I was definitely expecting not to be teaching this trip. But I guess I have mad English skills so why not? I had a pretty bad cold at the time; probably from picking my nose so much from the way dry weather. So I really wasn’t doing any work. I did some improvisation and pulled off a decent little lecture of introducing our names to each other in English. After that we went over some future lesson plans together. Her English isn’t perfect so I’ll have to step it up with my Kyrgyz. This morning I had final language examination and scored an intermediate medium which is pretty good. With Kyrgyz being the only language spoken in these parts of Naryn I should be speaking Kyrgyz fairly well after only a few months. Things should be pretty interesting these next few months. I head to Naryn to start my service next Friday and the real adventure begins. I start teaching with my counterpart on Monday! I’m definitely going to miss my host family that I’m living with right now. My younger host sister is still up to her mischief. My other host brother who I actually just met for the first time is back in town. He’s my age (I’m actually only 2 days older than him) and he’s been working at a grocery store in Moscow. He’s a pretty cool guy and likes my music. I showed him some Allman Brothers Band and seemed to dig it. My host mother seems to be pretty irritated these days. Because my host family practices Islam they are fasting this entire month for Ramadan. My host mother and two brothers wake up at four to eat and don’t eat again until the sun is completely down at 7:45 or so. Having my host mom cook delicious meals for me every day is going to be something of the past pretty soon. She has done a lot to help get used to life her in Kyrgyzstan. She’s showed me how to wash my clothes and properly act at the dinner table during a traditional Kyrgyz meal. I will definitely be missing her. I don’t get good cell phone service where I’m going. Apparently they recently got their first cell phone service tower in the larger town forty-five minutes away. Still phone service is a tossup. Internet is three hours away in Naryn city. I plan on making it out there at least once a month so look for updates every month. I’ll be sure and put an update up next month or so. Also if I’m leaving out any details, be sure and post a comment and I should answer most questions. Keeping in touch with family and friends is pretty essential. I get to talk to my parents at least once a week. They got a pretty sweet calling card deal. Getting emails has never been so enlightening. Just hearing what going on back home is awesome. I was having a rough day not long ago and I got an awesome Facebook message from a good buddy and it totally revitalized my spirits. Truly incredible. I wrapped up my site visit with a day and a night in Naryn city to hang out with some current and new Naryn volunteers. Naryn city is cool place. Not a big place but big enough. The city has got a few great restaurants which should be good for a break from the huge quantity of potatoes and cabbage I’ll be eating. That last night we went out to a cafй for dinner and kicked it. It was the K-14’s last night together and they wanted to make it a good one (their service was almost over and they were getting ready to head home). We went to a small club and I had a few vodka shots. Then I did the worm on the dance floor. A young drunk pregnant Kyrgyz lady came up to dance. Only a little bit disturbing. Well that is it for today. I will do my best to keep the stories rolling on here. Emails are magical. mikechalfin@yahoo.com. Later, Mike
mornings followed by breezy afternoons with early sunsets here in Kyrgyzstan are very nice. With only one week left we volunteers still have much work to get done. Each training group is required to do a community project in their training host village. My group and I repaired and repainted some of these strange, run-down, gazebo-type structures the elementary school has in their playground. Each structure is made of wood and look like small houses except they have only three walls. Where a fourth wall should be is a huge opening for children to freely run in and out of. They really don’t look like that much fun but they do have some cool paintings of wolves and other sweet animals on the wall. Unfortunately these wall paintings have been scribbled over with Kyrgyz and Russian profanity. We actually had a full language lecture day of Kyrgyz and Rus
sian swear and profanity words so we can now understand what these hooligan teenagers are trying to say when the tag the poor elementary school kids’ play equipment. For the record, there are A LOT of Russian swear words. Plenty for any occasion! Now back to the community project. Our job was to paint over this sick scripture and repair the damaged wooded floor boards on the ground. It appears that Kyrgyz children get some great kicks out smashing their play equipment into oblivion. So the female volunteers of the group, who outnumber us guys (9 girls, 3 guys) teamed up and told us boys to get working on the floor boards while they scrape paint of the walls. When you are outnumbered by that many girls you really have no choice but to do what they tell you to do. I was especially not feeling it because I was still recoveri
ng from a nasty cold I got down in Naryn during my permanent site visit (which I will talk about in a bit) a couple weeks ago. I’m pretty sure that the girls thought they were getting out of some serious work when they told us to work on the floors while they scrape paint. They spent the whole two days staring at a wall and scraping paint off the walls while we boys got some great exercise and serious work done! Although I must give them props for doing that work; they did a good job and scraping paint sucks. At first we stood there not knowing what the hell to do. We looked long and hard and thought. Then we got down on our hands and knees and started doing what we could and after an hour or so we figured it out. With no previous carpentry work before we actually did a kick-ass job repairing those wood floor boards. We were giving permission to tear down a neighboring gazebo thing and use parts to repair the other three. Using saws, hammers, and large crowbar, we stripped that gazebo down and laid some serious floor boards. We were unstoppable. None of our host families had any new nails so we had to straighten and reuse the rusted nails we pulled out from the other gazebo. We started last Saturday and worked for about four hours and on Sunday we worked the whole day starting at 10 and ending at 5! We were killing it! This one local Kyrgyz man came out of nowhere and lent a huge hand. He was a nail-hammering machine! Chris, a fellow volunteer and great buddy, had his little 10-year old host-brother (Samat), to help us out as well. Boy could he take it to those old floor boards! Get em’ little man! Now the girls kept on scraping while we were running around back and forth stripping boards, nailing nails, sawing boards, cursing, sweating; having an great time. We finished replacing all forty-one broken floor boards, stood back, and as the sun started to set, felt nothing but greatness. We stayed and worked an hour and a half longer than the paint scrapers. I think they got seriously bored and called it an early day last Sunday. We still got a full weekend of more scraping and painting coming up which should be a little easier than replacing those floorboards. We volunteers had finally gotten our first taste of actually getting something done this past weekend. Just living here and learning the language, attending countless safety and health lectures, and trips into Bishkek have seemed just so tedious. After two months of self-focus, it felt good to do some real work. Being in the Peace Corps and all this may sound clichй but it was definitely rewarding. Adjusting to the culture, food, language, and way of life is very stressful and realizing our purpose here through this work experience was refreshing. As I mentioned earlier we all got the opportunity to visit our permanent sites last week. We first had another matching ceremony similar to the first one where we met our training host family. Accept this one was a lot less awkward since we could somewhat speak the language. Nonetheless it’s very intimidating. Especially when your new host mom has beefier hands than you. My host mom for the next two years is VERY strong and VERY Kyrgyz. A very kind and welcoming lady in her 50’s, she’s like a lot of Kyrgyz from Naryn. Her skin is dark and weathered; probably from the intense sun, dryness, and wind Naryn experiences. Myself, my host mom, Micah and her host mom (Micah is the only other volunteer in my area), and Dan (the volunteer who just finished his service and is being replaced my Micah) all hoped a marshrutka in Bishkek and started our 8 hour journey. Dan served his two years in my Rayon and had quite a bit advice to give The whole way down Dan and I chatted about life in the Peace Corps, certain challenges, and places to check out here in Kyrgyzstan. Dan, whose face is weathered from the dry Kyrgyz air, had a lot to say about this place. He told me about ways to cope the cold and isolation and to always to keep in touch with fellow volunteers. Straying focused on teaching, getting exercise, reading, and language mastery are essential. It’s a difficult area to serve. The drive down to Naryn is absolutely incredible. From Bishkek you head east on the road through the Chui Valley until you hit Balykchi on Lake Issyk-Kul. From there we went south into Naryn. Northern Naryn is green with huge mountains and enormous rolling hills. Further south past Kochkor you notice Yurts at the foothills near rivers where Kyrgyz families spend their summers with their horses. Vast fields of purple flowers and green grass scatter the countryside. STEEP mountain passes on dirt roads with sharp switchbacks would make anyone wet their pants. Kyrgyz men on horses sporting their Kalpaks are a common site. This is real Kyrgyz country. Dan pointed out the huge semi trucks on the road that come from China delivering goods. Sitting in the rickety van smashed in between Kyrgyz children, time flew by as Dan and I chatted. We had a quick stop in Naryn city and then it off for a couple more hours to my site. Night had fallen and my new host mother and I were dropped off at the village. Before I knew it I was eating radishes, potatoes, and drinking tea with my soon-to-be new host family. “This is where I’ll be living,” I thought. It was a lot to take in. I have a younger sister who’s ten who seems pretty cool. I helped her work on a 500 piece puzzle while I was down there. I have a 27 year old brother who’s married and has a 8 month year old and another along the way. My brother is a school teacher and lives with his wife in another village nearby. He’s a pretty cool guy. He showed me around the village and took me down to the river that flows close to the village. It’s a huge river and apparently has a ton of fish. He said he’ll take me fishing down there when I move in. He’s also got a horse that he rides and he’s a pretty stellar rider. Horses here in Kyrgyzstan are a very sacred animal. Horse riding is HUGE. My host father seems like a funny guy who likes to have a good time. He plays the Komus which is a traditional Kyrgyz guitar-like instrument. My host mother is a kindergarten teacher at my school while my father works the fields. My mother cooks all meals outside our house on an open fire; no electric or gas stoves in this village. Like most homes in the village, my home is made from clay and looks similar to that of a Mexican pueblo. I wonder how warm it is in there in the winter? The outhouse is far away: I have to walk across a small field to get to it. This can be a pain in the winter when I have to pee in the middle of the night; which I do almost every night here. Waking up in the middle of the night and having to trudge through some serious snow just to take a piss sounds tough. Maybe I’ll just pee outside? We have a well out front that has some of the freshest tastiest water I’ve ever tasted. The water is runoff from the nearby mountains that engulf the Naryn oblast. My village is surrounded by orange and yellow hills and jagged rock faces. A lot of Naryn is fairly vegetated but the part of Naryn where my village is it looks more like the Wild Wild West. I am out there. Far away -way out there. The isolation combined with the cold and simple diet is going to be difficult. Right now there are a wide variety of fruits and vegetables available. Come winter Naryn is limited to potatoes, rice, cabbage, carrots, beets and sometimes meat. Yes, sometimes, meat. The Kyrgyz/Central Asian stereotypical diet of meat is true but it’s eaten every once in awhile. Meat is very expensive here in Kyrgyzstan and is usually enjoyed during celebrations and guest events. The other week I had the ‘honor’ of witnessing the slaughter a sheep. Our neighbor next door did the deed. After tying the helpless animal’s legs up he grabbed the sheep by the snout, pulled its head back, slit open his throat, and drained the blood into a bowl. However the sight of this was not as intense as its sound. The sheep was making some blood-curdling groans and desperately gasping for air. Then, with a crunch, slaughter guy finally snapped the animal’s neck back. The sheep was cooked and we ate it for dinner and it tasted pretty descent but I’m still trying to get used to its strange taste. During my site visit I had the opportunity to participate during the first day of school. We had an opening ceremony where the entire faculty and all 200 students gathered out front of the school. Students, who are all required to wear uniforms every day, lined up according to form (Kyrgyzstan still uses the old Soviet method of grade classification: forms). Boys sport all white long-sleeve dress shirts and black pants while the girls wear a black dress and white shirt. Girls also have pigtails and have these giant white fluffy bow things in their hair and it looks pretty funny. During the opening ceremony the principal, or director, said a few words then the Zavuch, or vice principle had a few words to say. The Zavuch talked and mention my name. She told the school that there will be a volunteer from America to teach English for two years. Then she said the volunteer was very handsome but his hair was too long. Just kidding. She really did say I was very handsome though. I do need to get a haircut though. Now it was show time. I was required to give a speech in Kyrgyz and then say it all over again in English. Good thing I prepared a solid speech. Besides a few children laughing at my accent the speech went real well. I said the speech over again in English and it was pretty awkward because out of everyone there only my English teaching counterpart could understand me so there were a lot of confused looks. My counterpart is pretty cool young lady and has a son. Unfortunately we had a rough time communicating in English. I sat in on her fourth form English class (10-year olds) and expected to sit. She gave a quick introduction to the class and then turned to me and said ‘now what?’ What? You want me to teach? I was definitely expecting not to be teaching this trip. But I guess I have mad English skills so why not? I had a pretty bad cold at the time; probably from picking my nose so much from the way dry weather. So I really wasn’t doing any work. I did some improvisation and pulled off a decent little lecture of introducing our names to each other in English. After that we went over some future lesson plans together. Her English isn’t perfect so I’ll have to step it up with my Kyrgyz. This morning I had final language examination and scored an intermediate medium which is pretty good. With Kyrgyz being the only language spoken in these parts of Naryn I should be speaking Kyrgyz fairly well after only a few months. Things should be pretty interesting these next few months. I head to Naryn to start my service next Friday and the real adventure begins. I start teaching with my counterpart on Monday! I’m definitely going to miss my host family that I’m living with right now. My younger host sister is still up to her mischief. My other host brother who I actually just met for the first time is back in town. He’s my age (I’m actually only 2 days older than him) and he’s been working at a grocery store in Moscow. He’s a pretty cool guy and likes my music. I showed him some Allman Brothers Band and seemed to dig it. My host mother seems to be pretty irritated these days. Because my host family practices Islam they are fasting this entire month for Ramadan. My host mother and two brothers wake up at four to eat and don’t eat again until the sun is completely down at 7:45 or so. Having my host mom cook delicious meals for me every day is going to be something of the past pretty soon. She has done a lot to help get used to life her in Kyrgyzstan. She’s showed me how to wash my clothes and properly act at the dinner table during a traditional Kyrgyz meal. I will definitely be missing her. I don’t get good cell phone service where I’m going. Apparently they recently got their first cell phone service tower in the larger town forty-five minutes away. Still phone service is a tossup. Internet is three hours away in Naryn city. I plan on making it out there at least once a month so look for updates every month. I’ll be sure and put an update up next month or so. Also if I’m leaving out any details, be sure and post a comment and I should answer most questions. Keeping in touch with family and friends is pretty essential. I get to talk to my parents at least once a week. They got a pretty sweet calling card deal. Getting emails has never been so enlightening. Just hearing what going on back home is awesome. I was having a rough day not long ago and I got an awesome Facebook message from a good buddy and it totally revitalized my spirits. Truly incredible. I wrapped up my site visit with a day and a night in Naryn city to hang out with some current and new Naryn volunteers. Naryn city is cool place. Not a big place but big enough. The city has got a few great restaurants which should be good for a break from the huge quantity of potatoes and cabbage I’ll be eating. That last night we went out to a cafй for dinner and kicked it. It was the K-14’s last night together and they wanted to make it a good one (their service was almost over and they were getting ready to head home). We went to a small club and I had a few vodka shots. Then I did the worm on the dance floor. A young drunk pregnant Kyrgyz lady came up to dance. Only a little bit disturbing. Well that is it for today. I will do my best to keep the stories rolling on here. Emails are magical. mikechalfin@yahoo.com. Later, Mike
