So, in the Trees for the Khirgeez program, we’re paying a premium for our fruit trees. We’re doing this for a number of reasons, and mainly because quality product, good information and organization out here are scarce commodities, and the NGO we’re working with boasts all of those qualities.
The state of the state out here is that most people don’t have fruit trees. Traditional wisdom has dictated that the climate is just unsuitable. However, I have personally seen homes with thriving trees: apricots, apples, and even cherries. So the question becomes, how come some people can do it, and others can’t?
First I spoke with my homestay family, “where do people normally get their trees?”
“They get them from the forestry department,” my host dad said, “but I just went their with my coworkers, their trees are no good. They’re all dry. You need to buy them earlier.”
This confused me. I had been planting with my host mom in the garden, but she held off our venture, “the ground is too cold,” she had said, “I can feel it.” My friend Rachel and I had gotten similarly rebuffed during our Earth Day subotnik in her village when we tried to plant flowers in front of her school. While people told me that you can plant saplings in Naryn’s cold Spring ground, I imagined this was one of the limiting factors in tree growth.
Next, I headed out to the local forestry service, where folks told me they sell 
trees. What I found was less than promising. There was a narrow building with nice murals but no one to greet us, and then a large lot with some rows of little trees. We poked around for a bit, wondering what was going on, until a security guard came to shoe us away.
“Who are you?” he shouted from across the lot, “don’t take pictures.”
I greeted him jovially, not wanted to raise suspicion. “My friend and I Peace Corps volunteers, we work helping the villages. We are working with trees right now, and people told us we could buy them here.”
“Here? We don’t sell anything here. Look around, what would we sell?” He made a good point.
“So where can we buy trees from?” we asked.
“There are nurseries, in the villages. Uchkun, Jangy Talap and Eki Naryn. You can go there,” He said.
“And they are selling them now? They aren’t too dry?” I asked, echoing concerns I had heard from Kyrgyz people.
“I don’t know! I don’t sell things, I am security,” and he pulled out his ID, “you can go there, and ask them.” Everything was conducted with a smile, but he was intent on showing us the door.
My host mother, conveniently is from Jangy Talap. So, while I was poking around in the garden that night, I asked her.
“We have a park there, but its not a nursery,” she said.
“Do they sell trees?” I asked.
“Well, they sell raspberry bushes. But they sell those at the Forestry Service in Naryn, too.”
“I was there today,” I said, “they said they don’t sell anything there.”
I had also heard that they were for sale in the bazaar, but that these were no good either.
“The roots aren’t supposed to dry out,” one of my coworkers told me, “but in the bazaar, maybe they were pulled from the ground two weeks ago. Who knows? But they won’t grow.” Needless to say, the gentleman I met who sold saplings in the bazaar disagreed with my coworker’s assessment.
This, folks, is the problem I encounter on a daily basis. Everybody tells me things, but they are never entirely accurate. No matter how much my language improves, there are always little mysteries. Whenever I try to get projects off the ground, whenever I try to start things myself, new information inevitably comes to light. I’m working with the wrong people, the prices are wrong, the season isn’t right.
And that’s why I got so excited with this current project. First of all, it was 
pioneered by foreigners. That’s a big deal, because it means that somehow, these people already waded through the same language and cultural barrier I live in. Next, I am working with the same person those foreigners are working with. That means he is familiar with us silly little devils. And finally, I’ve double checked all the details over and over. The prices haven’t changed, neither have the requirements. Just as the details were for the other foreigners, so are they proving for me. This folks, is going to happen.
Tune in tomorrow, and I’ll talk about why our price premium isn’t as significant as it seems.
