This has been a week of celebrity encounters, folks. During the past couple of weeks, a crew from the Kyrgyzstan – New Zealand Rural Trust (KNZRT) have been here monitoring their simple, and continuous mission: to help the poorest of the Kyrgyz poor. The second crew was a two heavy hitters from Peace Corps Washington, shown around by our country director, Claudia.
These two groups, folks, share a common, yet unique goal: to help the locals, and ask for remarkably little in return. Now, when I explain this to locals, their most common response is, “are you a spy?” When Claudia first met the Kiwis, here question was, “are you missionaries?”
It seems, folks, even among the like minded, it is hard to believe more of us exist.
From Peace Corps, it was Country Director, Regional Director, and the Regional Desk Agent; titles aside, these are big, important people. Our first encounter came over dinner, where we filled an insatiable desire for knowledge. We told the group about our lives, our work, what it was like here, day in and day out. In exchange, they also told us about what Peace Corps is like in other countries, a topic we are surprisingly ignorant on. For example, I learned many Peace Corps countries equip their volunteers with bicycles, and, often enough, home-stay situations are simple not the norm. Also, the fact that we are in a cold, mountainous climate is fairly unique: while we have no tropical diseases to contend with, the winter is a serious beast.
The next day after dinner, these big-wigs stopped by the home or office of every Naryn city volunteer in my class. At my house, we treated them to a giant guesting breakfast, including a cake, and my favorite Kyrgyz food, dimdama: a stew-type dish, without the broth. As per usual, these guys fell head over heals for my family, and it even brought my country director to tears.
“Carl,” she said, “these past six months have seen very unique circumstances here in Kyrgyzstan. In spite of all that the country has seen, we have gone to great lengths to keep this program here. We have to be here, the people love us.” It was a bare and honest answer to all the questions we’ve had.
The other set of stars were Tony and Brian from New Zealand. KNZRT is a crew of international developers with more years experience per member than I have been alive. They come here each year, to monitor their development programs, and make no money for themselves. Watching Brian last year was like viewing a sage, the wise man who could show me the way to the career I’d like to have. This year it was more of the same, though with two sages, instead of just one. We toured small cooperatives that they helped start: bakeries, dairy, sewing co-ops. They were introducing quality potato seeds, and quality feed crops. We even held a 1 day workshop in the end, one where I even got to play a little part.
One of the days, I blogged every hour for the whole day. Check out KyrgyCarl.com folks, for the mighty extravaganza.
For the rest of this month, I will be teaching handicraft women about dying their rugs with leaves and roots. Here’s my invitation to stay along for the ride.
