Two Stops Past Siberia

I got an interesting phone call last week. It was from my superiors in Bishkek. They had seen the Trees for the Kyrgyz success video, and wanted to show it at their next big event. The event in questions? The Swearing In ceremony for the new class of volunteers.

And so this is how I was introduced to the new volunteers, introduced not by my Christian moniker, but instead as I am apparently known but the staffers in our main office, as Kyrgyz Carl. The reaction, among my compatriots, was positive, though did inspire some gentle ribbing.

“We should drop him off in the mountains somewhere, get him lost,” one of the new volunteers told a friend of mine, “that way we’ll lower expectations on ourselves.”

To which my friend so appropriately replied, “you don’t know how much he’d like that.”

And so it goes. We were the new guys, learning the ways of the experienced crew. Now, it is us who are showing people around, telling them what we know. And talking to them, folks, is different than writing letters home. For instance, during our first meet-and-greet, my friend said, “well, I don’t think anyone has been really hassled out here.”

“Well,” I countered, “there was that time I got into a taxi with a drunk guy, who sped down towards the bazaar, and chased me from his car swinging his fists.”

Whereas here, folks, I focus on the wonderful moments, the ones that extend to the majority of my service, I felt obliged to warn these guys. They know how wonderful it is here, how safe it is. I told them about the time a very, VERY drunk old man grabbed my bag strap, perhaps trying to greet me, as he was to drunk to speak. We pushed him off gently, though, because we didn’t want to knock him over.

And I got to thinking, in those moments of story-telling reflection, how different one audience is from the other. Folks, I give you my world here, in positives and negatives, in the proportions that I see it.

But so is life. And this new crew is throwing me, and many of us in the old guard reflecting. Before we were comfortable with our language abilities, before we had friends in the community. Before we were clear on our jobs and were close to our coworkers.

And in that reflection, it has grown clear how that comfort snuck up on us. Little by little, we grew with this place, and are still growing. And as much as I want to show and teach the new volunteers, I know how much I needed to learn it all myself. This part of Peace Corps, the transition to the new generation of volunteers, is a very real part. The city is now populated with so many more of us, with new personalities and goals. It is an exciting time. More so that those sneaky little feelings would have led me to believe.