My time here in Sunny Naryn, folks, is desperately, and quite quickly coming to an end.
This last week here has been one of preparation and relax. At the moment, in my possession, are more handicrafts than I can hardly even imagine. Most of these, folks, are for you! Right now, my pride and joy is a little circle rug emblazoned with four reindeer, but designed in such a way that they tessellate into eagles towering over them. Next to that is a brightly colored peacock, made by the cooperative of my friend Andy, the guy who makes silk scarves up on the Lake. Then on down the line are slippers of all shapes and colors, some bright as the dickens with their Bedouin pointy toes, others bearing gentle earth tones and soft, rounded toes.
With the wrap up of Trees for the Kyrgyz, 2011, I have only one project left, and for that, I will draw on all of my skills thus acquired. A private business man, an exotic fibers processor from Ohio, wants, of all things, to move his business, and his family, here to Kyrgyzstan. For those of you who remember, I saw him last year. It was then that we proffered this fabulous little bit of dialogue:
JC: Carl, the wool here is just fine, but significantly undervalued. Why isn’t anyone else working here?
KyrgyCarl: Because, JC, this is Kyrgyzstan.
Somehow, though, that didn’t scare him away, and now he is back, for the second year in a row, further setting the ground work for his eventual transplantation. Now, folks, I have been in charge of planning the Naryn leg of his trip. For this, I have tapped every connection I have, and am bringing together every responsible and relevant businessman I know to come out and meet him. I have used these contacts to arrange meetings with the few Merino wool farmers who still have hung on since Soviet times. To boot, I’ll even be acting as translator. If a thousand fruit trees and lots of handicrafts didn’t cut the mustard, this folks, stands to be my finest professional hour.
And I do make that distinction intentionally. If I have learned one thing out here, lest I be trite, it is that professional life isn’t everything. Leaving my host family weighs heavily on me all the time. I have been impressed with my host parents: they make little jokes about me leaving all the time. I think this keeps that fact in the foreground, so the kids can easily prepare. I spend a lot of time with those kids, be it helping the two older girls with their English homework or just tickling the youngsters. Also, I have grown quite aware that their garden will be a testament to me for the rest of the year. I have planted a tree for them, rows of garlic and green onions, and even demolished their dilapidated chicken coop. If I don’t finish these projects, who will?
Then, of course, their are my friends. These volunteers who I have been around with, thrown together with for the last two years. Most of all, between Anne, my girlfriend and I, there will be a terrible separation. Living, as we have, with the calendrical boundaries of our relationship pre-defined has been taxing enough, but now seeing that final date bearing down before us seems artificial and wrong. But so is our lot.
I have other friends too, folks. Over the last two days, I endured two grueling, 8 hour bus rides to and from the capital city, so as to see off my friend, David and his girlfriend Natasha, the Bishkek expats. It was David who was responsible for my most outrageous days in Biskek, pumping down the streets, listening to 80’s pop songs in the back of his SUV. They’re relocating to Istanbul, and only the Star’s know when we’ll see each other again.
And what, folks, about my returning home? That date is less than three weeks away; an almost non-existent 20 days. My one sister is engaged, the other graduating from college. My parents have plans to sell the house I grew up in, if still a few years down the road. My friends have made new friends in my absence, as they could only be expected to. So where does that leave me? As excited as I am to come back to the people and the places that formed me, I am quite nervous as to how I will fit in. This last week has been slow, and has left me pondering these things.
One thing, though, is comical in my mind, and I am curious to see if my homecoming solves it. That folks, curiously enough, has been crying.
Now, before you get worried, these aren’t the uncalled for tears that signal depression. No, for the last six months or so, I have been afflicted with super empathy, if you will. The first moment came last winter, just as the dark grips of cold came upon us. Anne and I were watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas. During the penultimate scene, when all the little Whos of Whoville, despite their lack of presents and food, gather regardless in the center of town to sing, I teared up, and even know, as I write this, find myself tearing up again. But last winter, as Anne and I watched this together, I let one solitary tear fall from the rim of my cheek, and land on a DVD case sitting on her bed. The hollow plastic of the case amplified the percussion of that single drop, and Anne’s jaw dropped wide open in guffaw.
Ever since then, folks, the slightest hints of sentimentality see my eyes start to well. Thank God there are no life insurance commercials out here, otherwise I’d be a hot mess.
So what folks, of this strange symptom? Have I simply grown into a bonafide softy? Need I only spend a few days in NYC, just enough to harden me up? Or are these the latent signs of homesickness, only the tip of the iceberg, scratching the surface?
Time will tell, folks, and, truth be told, hardly any time at all.
