This past week has seen a flurry of activity folks, if for no other reason than my recent trip down to Bishkek, our capital, in the warm Chui Valley. While up in Naryn we’ve endured the ravages of the -30 F cheelde (which has finally chicked) and a powerfully battering of snow, the weather in Bishkek has been considerably less intense. Their winter has been marked by only a little snow, a certain amount of rain, and temperatures that might surprise you. During this trip, while we were still below freezing in Naryn, daytime temps in Bishkek rose to a, granted unseasonably warm, 45 degrees.
Between snow-melt and rain, Bishkek was a grim portent of what spring will be like in Naryn, whenever it finally decides to come. Mud mud mud was the name of the game. Bishkek has plenty more paved roads than in Sunny Naryn, and that bodes poorly for what extremes our mud situation might entail. The high mountains of snow excavated from the neighbor’s driveways and yards leaves me fearful as to how my shoes, socks and pant-cuffs will survive. Thankfully though, that trial is still months away.
I was down in the balmy lowlands for what we call “Culture Committee.” Between myself and a crack-squad of likeminded volunteers, we crafted a book of volunteer stories related to cultural issues and an entire curriculum to be presented to the new batch of volunteers during their training, set to begin in April. We sought to provide a palatable presentation of everything from cultural basics like removing shoes upon entering a house, to more complex, highly emotional issues, like bride kidnapping.
During our meetings, it became clear to me how entirely personal each volunteer’s experience in country can be. We read one submission on the issue of ‘hello.’ This word, one of the most common on the planet, is routinely shouted at volunteers country wide. The article itself was written by a guy in a village who described the practice as overwhelming, often shouted by grown men being intentionally obnoxious.
During discussion of the article, however, it turned out each person in the room had experienced this phenomenon differently. My experience, in the city, was one of children, who seem to be just trying to see if the word they learned in school actually works, and then, lost in their excitement, repeat it ad infinitum. Young women described it coming from teenage boys only once they’d past them, as a weird sexual cut, and the grey haired women amongst us (age being highly respected here) described largely no problems at all.
Alongside work, I spent time with my old host family and other friends, both volunteers and not. I had Chinese food, tasty beer and hot running water. But it was at home, relaxing with my family back in Naryn, that I was truly caught off guard. Upon inspection of a persistent scratching in my luggage, I found a mouse had made a home in an old deodorant tube with my toilet paper rations, and was living quite happily off of my emergency Cliff Bars. As a testament to that company, folks, he sure was hard to catch.
