Archive for category Letters

Hold on to Your Hats! Trees for the Kyrgyz! Reprise!

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on March 8, 2011

That’s right, spring is in the air! Every time the snow falls around here in Sunny Naryn, it is as though it melts the very next day. Folks, spring time means planting time, and planting time means fruit trees. Are you folks ready to plant some more fruit trees?!? To bring another 500 spindly little saplings to another tiny village? Well, God knows I am.

First off, a little back story. For those of you just tuning in, last year around the beginning of May, I learned that high quality fruit trees could be transported down from the beautiful Lake Issyk Kul for just $3.50 a piece. At that time, though, we were already at the very end of the season, and if we were to get any planted, we needed to do it in less than a week. Do you remember this? Because I sure do. (If you don’t, of course, you can see the resulting video here.)

Now, I know it is tree time again because I just finished up the last details of the project from last year. As you can imagine, planting trees is not enough. People need to know how to tend them. Just last week I traveled back to the little hamlet of Orto Nura. This time, however, I came prepared with a professional tree-keeper. He is from Lake Issyk Kul, but lives here in Naryn city, on a contract with the University of Central Asia, teaching the locals to tend to fruit trees. His name is Mr. Gold. We met by chance as I was hitch hiking back from a monitoring trip to a little handicraft cooperative. We talked shop during the car ride, and after discussion of composting, soil preperation, and the details of branch splicing, it became clear to me he really knew what he was talking about. A week later Mr Gold and I went to Orto Nura, holed up in a classroom, and told everyone we could find about how to prepare their trees for the spring, and how best prune them. To boot, we showed them how best to keep the grass around the trees, and even passed out some pruners.

But that was the end of last year’s project. This year you can call me Mr. Experienced. This year, we are planning this not one week in advance, but one month. Next week, when my friend from America, Farmer Dan gets out here, Dan myself and Mr. Gold with go to the little village of Emgekchil to get details on the climate. That will inform us on the best varieties of apple and apricot trees to bring down from the Lake. About three weeks later we will gather all interested families (starting, of course, with the school teachers) at the school, and explain the program. A week after that we will show up with a truck load of freshly excavated saplings. On the day that we deliver them, we will gather the locals to tell them about how to best start their new gardens. We will tell them to face the knot at the base of the root towards the rising sun. We’ll tell them to plant their new trees 4 years apart, and to put some iron in the hole with the apple tree roots.

It will be fast and fun and just as magical as last year. And now folks, this is where you come in:

Despite rising food prices world over, just like last year, each tree only costs $3.50, and the goal is 500 trees. That’s $1,750. Just like last year, I have set up a program with the wonderful website chipin.com Using this site and your credit cards, you can buy a few trees to donate to Emgekchil. My recommendation is just five little ol’ trees. That’s just $17.50. Last year, we reached this goal in less than 1 week. It was amazing. Let’s see if we can’t do it again.

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Complicated Conversation, or There Is No God

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on March 2, 2011

Well, we’ve had an exciting week out here this week! The president rolled through Naryn oblast, stopped a volunteer schools, my host-mom’s hospital, and even one of the handicraft cooperatives that I work with. And I, in true ambulance-chasing fashion, followed right on her coat tails, but with projects of my own.
 
Those particular trips, however, are not really our subject for today. Instead, it is the side effects, the externalities of those trips that have surprised me. Travel, as always, ignites the fires within me, part in seeing new places, but also in meeting new people. On my way on to a very little cooperative in a very little village this past week, I met a old man who made it all worth while. And from the great din of my last week here, I will present only this one conversation, and hope it excites you all, just as it did me.
 
“Who are you,” he demanded in Russian, while putting slips of cardboard in his shoes to help keep his feet warm.
 
“I am an American,” I told him in Kyrgyz, “and I don’t speak Russian, only Kyrgyz.”
 
“You are a spy,” he said frankly, but with energy, “you work for the CIA.” This, while not unheard of statement, caught me a little off guard, thanks most to his tenacity. “What is your nationality?” He asked.
 
“I am American.”
 
“There is no American nationality,” he said with utter conviction, “didn’t you once have natives there?”
 
“Yes,” I said, “but they mostly died.”
 
“You killed them!” he shouted, “just as the Russians tried to kill us!”
 
“I didn’t do anything,” I told him. This situation would earlier have gotten me a little wired, I think. But today my impressions are different. I felt that it was almost a challenge, and his tenacity fueled my calm.
 
“You learn Kyrgyz because you are a spy. That is the only reason. You are a spy,” he was back to this, when I heard a gathering crowd of men start to mumble. They were mostly other taxi drivers, waiting for clients, who had come to watch the show. They giggled every time I said, “I didn’t do any of those things,” but this time almost sprang to my defense. “Gee,” I heard them say, “we should be thanking him for learning our language.”
 
While we waited for more people, of all things, the man started to warm up to me. I think my simple insistence that I was not to blame for historical American misdeeds, rather than defend them, had softened him. “Do you believe in God?” he asked.
 
“Yes, I am Catholic,” I answered.
 
“And what God is that? Is that Jesus Christ?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“There is no Jesus, he is false,” and I was afraid I had a Muslim Evangelist as a car-mate, “there is also no Mohammad. They are all false, lies. There is only The Party. The Communist Party. Do you know about the Communist Part?”
 
I had to work to keep my jaw from hitting the ground. This was the stuff of Communist legends and ghost stories. “Yes, I do,” I said.
 
“Like in America, you have Democrats and Republicans. Parties,” he said.
 
And there, in that one little follow up sentence, I felt the shift. What he wanted to do, really, wasn’t to fight, but to link my world with his. It wasn’t Communism that he was preaching, but how America also had political parties (albeit with a few differences). By the time we were on the road, he was telling me about the philosophy of Hegel and the child rearing suggestions of Dr. Spock. He rattled off the names of some other famous Americans, notable presidents, and then got to the kicker.
 
“I want you to know,” he said, “that 9/11 wasn’t carried out by Muslims.” We’ve all heard the conspiracy theories, and I wanted to know where he would take his, “it was the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren of the Rockefeller’s.” While he never really explained why they would do this, his logic, in a way, was actually somewhat flattering. “You, in America, you have defense planes and protections. This kind of thing simply cannot happen in America unless it is allowed to happen. That is the only way.”
 
I made it a point to take no position on his statements, but only listen. He was not talking to insult me or make me angry, instead, I do believe, he only wanted to edify me, to teach me, to show me ways of the world. “I learned all this myself,” he said, “I studied in school, and at home. I was a Russian teacher in my village.” He lived in a tiny village far off the beaten path. He was going back for just a little visit, but our conversation had warmed him to me greatly. As we prepared to part, he said to me, in English, “How are you?” and “Good day,” just to let me know that he knew a little of my language, too. He told me that he learned to make our “h” sound by imitating the breath you take when you eat a potato that is too hot.
 
“Now,” he said, “here is my phone number. Come to my house, we are Kyrgyz, there is no money. Come visit us, have dinner with us, and spend the night. I will prepare all of these interesting things for you. It will be my pleasure.”

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Salt Mine Hotel, Stale Uranium, and a Visit to Father Ram

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on February 21, 2011

Well, for those of you who remember my humble past as a nameless backpacker, today we’ve a letter that rivals any I’ve written before!

Last weekend I tagged along with a group of volunteers who packed up to a local village to teaching local English teachers how better to teach. My goals, however, were not nearly so altruistic: the village in question was on the cusp of the one region in Naryn oblast that I have yet to visit, and with so little time remaining, I headed out for the great beyond.

My trip started in a drafty Lada with a dangling toy rabbit instead of a rear-view mirror. I entertained myself by trying to blow smoke rings with the steam of my breath. I was heading into the Jumgal valley. This place, a picture-perfect valley in the summer, with low green hills and snow-capped mountains presented a browner, drying side in the winter. I was headed to the city of Chaek, as far by road as Naryn is from Bishkek, but only on account of its formidable mountains. It is less than half th distance as the crow flies. The region’s little villages looked like old-West ranches, big and broad and very, very brown.

The region’s capital Chaek, was unlike any I’d yet seen in country. It was built on the side of a hill, and had a small river running idyllically through it. At the top of the hill were two enormous school, and the center of town was built like the old West: there was no bazaar, but only a long row of shops. The sidewalks were mostly paved and always clean. The little restaurant I found served me lean sheep dumpling and sweet tea with milk and salt.The girls in the kitchen couldn’t stop their giggling, and when they said, “he speaks Kyrgyz like water,” it was clear this place sees few of my kind.

Jumgal region is notable for its current coal mine, and and aging uranium mine somewhere beyond the hills. That means that in Soviet times this would have been a very prosperous place, and while I was keen to stay clear of the radiation, (“when you go there, you get a headache,” my host father said knowingly), I did want to see how the town itself had evolved. This, I imagine, explained why there was not bazaar, and perhaps, why the town was so clean. Furthermore, I was treated to an exception local museum (featuring the pants and hand print of a local giant at 7 1/2 feet tall), as well as an incredibly well run library. When I walked in there, there was a flurry of commotion, and one woman ran back inside saying, “there is a foreigner here! Who speaks Russian?” A woman came out asking what was the matter, but when it became clear I only wanted to visit, she perked up and relaxed, “I’ve studied to be a librarian during Soviet times,” she said, “I’ve been be working here for 32 years!”

Beyond the incredible services, folks, I found a wide park with a giant, carnival swing set, and a horse who nibbled on my back pack.

But I couldn’t stay in Chaek forever, regardless of how much I might have liked to. While spending a night at the volunteer’s house who was hosting the training, I spoke with his host Dad, a knowledgeable old road builder who advised me to take caution of the Chinese. “If they say there are 1.3 billion of them, I bet there are more Chinese that their government has lost track of than there are in all over Kyrgyzstan!” But then he got more worried yet, “they will send their people here, not with guns or with knives. They will not attack us or kill us. They will just come and we will be friendly. Then they will join our villages and work our fields. It will not happen in one year or in ten, but many years from now, they will have repopulated our whole country, watch out.”

But even that conversation had to come to an end. The next day, it was off to an abandoned salt mine, simply called “Big Salt.” This place had seen declining use ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, and in 1999 tried to reinvent itself as a hotel. Despite there being no electricity, we got the caretaker to show us around, seeing the strange amenities, like the movie screen and bar (called Salt Bar) only with the flashlights on our phones and the flashes on our cameras.

From this surreal extravaganza, we headed out to a local shrine, one I had only heard about from an obscure travelogue. The locals called it “The Mecca of Kyrgyzstan,” and had named it Father Ram, after the name of the local town. It was a small hill, rising curiously out of a plane with nothing else around it. We found a little man there who told us to wash ourselves, in Muslim fashion, before he’d lead us on a circumambulation. The ten minute trip around feature many small paths cleared between the stone, most ending in bulbous cul-de-sacs with rock piles in the center. It was ancient Animism meets Islam at its finest.

And as much as I could keep touring the country forever, every great weekend must come to an end. The training was a success, and so were nerves, happy to be on the road, if only as a weekend warrior

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Valentine’s Day, and Handicrafts Homeward Bound

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on February 16, 2011

“Valentine’s Day, do you have this holiday? It is the lover’s day.” Or so said more Kyrgyz people than I could count.

I don’t remember this day making such a splash last year, but the other day Sunny Naryn was a bound with discussions of the holiday. While the typical public signs of holiday were missing, namely cakes in the bazaar and pictures in store windows, conversation was buzzing.

I found the first of it with ten of my village coworkers who had come in to Naryn city for a strategic planning session. While they were in for work, the work simultaneously celebrating the successful year passed, and therefore included vodka. The atmosphere was festive, and while the women sat silent, the men only wanted to know if I had a girlfriend, and how we’d be celebrating.

“We are going to make a chicken marinade,” I told them, “and we have a new movie.” This answer was sufficient, and so we toasted with vodka.

That night, as we were well into our movie, I got a delightful little text message from my host dad. He asked if I’d be coming home, and then wished us a happy evening.

The next day I arrived to a hug from my host sister, and a valentine on my bed. It was a glittering heart, was printed in Russian, and was signed, “from your family.” The front featured a little boy in a tuxedo kissing a little girl. A heart had been drawn around the heads, and “Anne and Karl” had been written over each. I thought I was special, but then my host sister opened up the cabinet where she keeps her school books, to show nearly ten valentines tapped up inside.

“In school we all address our cards in put them in an anonymous bag. Then the teacher pulls them out and gives them to each kid. I got eight.” She was proud and giggly. It reminded me of my own grade school, and I marveled at home similar this whole experience seems to be.

My host dad, on the other hand, displayed a different picture. “This is not our holiday,” he said simply. “Besides, in Kyrgyzstan, we have so many holidays. Our country is poor, we need to develop, and all this celebrating doesn’t help.” He has said this about the country’s myriad of festivals before, but still, I couldn’t help by laugh to myself, and wonder if his wife bought the excuse.

In other news, folks, has I’ve been ruminating lately, my time here is coming to an end. Just as I have been wondering what mementos will help me remember my time here, it has come to my attention that some of you all have been similarly looking for something to remember these two years of letters. So, here comes the pitch:

I’m happy to bring home any of the myriad of small handicrafts that I have been working with all this time, namely laptop sleeves and slippers, and if folks really want, I’ll talk to Andrew and ask about those silk/felt scarves. So, go ahead and check out www.kyrgycarl.com/handicrafts. There is plenty of stuff there to satiate your wildest and most colorful fantasies. Slippers will cost about $10, laptop sleeves about $25, depending on the size, and Andrew’s scarves about $30. If you would like something, just give me a basic idea (men’s/women’s, big/medium/small), then I’ll plan accordingly, send an order to ladies, and get the stuff home.

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Becoming a Former Volunteer

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on February 11, 2011

Now, I must admit, all this talk about my service ending must seem a little strange, being that it is more than three months away. After all, if I were studying abroad, my semester would be just beginning! But here, the transition is a very real, very delicate thing, and it is the subject of my letter again today.
 
Just yesterday, folks, one of the Peace Corps brass came down from Bishkek to survey the potential placements for the next batch of volunteers. She is Lelia, a happy young Russian woman whose Kyrgyz is halting, but graciously makes the effort. She told me that she would be meeting with my organization at 8:30 in the morning, and I said I’d be happy to attend. (My organization, of course, being the rural development NGO that I work with on paper, not the UN office where I spend my days.)
 
Of course, the meeting was postponed until 9, and the the director didn’t show up until 9:30. He took us to his office, in an old Soviet government building, the kind with a Brutalist cement exterior and soft marble floors. He didn’t have the key, so we waited a little bit longer for his accountant. The meeting went on for about half an hour, my organization not having prepared any information, and clearly giving answers on the fly. I had told them repeatedly that I had come upon them by chance, and if they did not get their acts together, I wouldn’t be replaced. While they will surely put a new volunteer here in Naryn city, whether they will be placed with this cohort of yahoos is too soon to tell.
 
From the city it was out to the villages, some of my favorite places on Earth. The first of the two was a little spot called Uchkun, or “Flash.” I have worked with this village before, have done handicraft trainings there and even gotten them a brand new sewing machine. When we strolled into the village government building, it was as if we had stepped into a broken record, but just a little poorer. The building was more dilapidated, and teh floors were cracked cement. But the one heated room smelled like kymyz, and featured bearded old men who nodded solemnly at nearly every question we asked. “Yes, a volunteer could help us here,” they said, and then smiling, “this place is full of problems!” But as I looked around, I could tell Leila wasn’t being shown the kind of thing that makes a community look like it’s ready to grow.
 
So I made some phone calls, and next thing I knew we were on the way to the handicraft workshop and the new sewing machine. The owner is a thin woman with smiling eyes and a sad lips. Her office is covered head to toe with more color than one could imagine finding in a snowy brown village. I pointed out the pride that had clearly be taken in sewing her rugs, and she talked about why she didn’t sell her articles in Bishkek, “we can’t afford to front the money while the souvenirswait to sell,” she said. Then I told Leila, “look around, surely they can, at least a little bit; they just need a volunteer to help them plan.” Just then a man came in, having seen some foreigners around, and tried to sell us a fox fur hat he had made, high quality and a fraction of bazaar prices. I used this as a vignette.
 
“See Leila, there is energy here,” I said, knowing full well that this was not enough organization to support a full time volunteer.
 
But then we moved on to the hamlet of Dostuk, or “Friendship.” It is a little town made up of equal parts single family homes and 12 unit apartment buildings, set on the site of a small damn. In Soviet times it housed electricians and engineers. Today there is a prosperous family there that runs the village government and a handicraft cooperative. They were a little anxious that we were 5 minutes late, and when we arrived, introduced us to the movers and shakers. “This man is my husband,” said the co-op leader, “he is the mayor. This is a Kyrgyz teacher who will teach Kyrgyz language to the volunteer, this is an English teacher who wants to setup some English clubs. These women here work for me, and these other women just want to see what you are all about.” While Leila talked, her posters pinned with sewing needles to a stack of felt, some other women kept sewing rugs and seat cushions in garish pinks and modern browns. It was a community effort, through and through. Finally, I thought to myself, someone I have worked with who knows how to put on a show.
 
But that is only the story of replacing me personally. My projects, for better or for worse, will go on. Most notably, in fact, is the laptop sleeve project by a new volunteer, one placed in a relatively affluent area by the Lake Issyk kul. When he first arrived, we talked a bit about the project, and even tried to sell some stuff together in New Jersey. After I hadn’t heard from him in a while, he shot me a well meaning text message with a website address. Folks, this young man, Andrew is his name, has taken my work and blown me away. Check it out, folks, its well worth a look.

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Reflections in the Snow

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on February 3, 2011

While so much of America was getting pounded with snow this week, so too did we in Naryn get a little bit, though only an inch. While it still took me an hour to clear our whole driveway/compound, it was easy work; easy work that catered well to having a three-year-old helper at my side.
 
Folks, my time here is growing short, and that weighs on me more and more with each passing day. As my host dad stunned me at lunch today, “Carl, I’ve never seen your pictures from home. Would you show them to me?” I complied with his request, and then felt the most powerful homesickness I can recall. There, all of the sudden before us, were the smiling faces of my siblings, the warm embraces of my family; I was shot back to long evenings, falling asleep on the couches belonging to my closest friends.  
 
And at the same time, those feelings brought me back to the present, with a deep intensity. Last night I made paper airplanes and ambushed a screaming host sister, and then I wondered if she’d tell her school friends, “look at this design! It’s how they do it in America.” Later, I helped another host sister with an English paper, assuring her that “200 words or less” didn’t mean a relevant assortment of 200 nouns, adjectives and verbs; but instead a collection of cohesive sentences who’s total component words should total 200. “But Carl,” she said, “it says words, it doesn’t say anything about sentences. 
 
And this morning, as I put off going to work so I could shovel the snow, I made sure my little three year old host brother got dressed and came outside with me. He threw little snowballs at me. And while I batted them away with the snow shovel, laughing together with him, I wondered if he would remember even a single one of our moments together, or if years down the line, the older girls would talk about me, while he just sat quiet, or maybe asked, “did Carl play with me, too?” And later, while he crunched eggshells by the compost, ones I had so gingerly laid out for him, I wondered, how many of these moments, so important to me, will stay in these people’s minds.
 
But that is life for the transient, the temporary guest. My memories are largely my own, for I know that years down the line I will have very few to reminisce with, but so is the path I’ve chosen. But then again, each moment is new, and each brings with it a surprise to turn around my thoughts. 
 
When I broached the subject of a replacement volunteer with my host family the other day, they balked, and it made me happy. “Maybe, if there was another one, a boy, just like you, we could it,” said my host dad. But then he reconsidered as he looked at his daughters. “No,” he said, “we’ve grown accustomed to you. You eat when we eat, you are thirsty when we are. I don’t think we’d want a new volunteer after you are gone.” I smiled and knew I wasn’t a tenant, a source of income for the family. But why did I even need reminding?
 
Or this past Monday, during my weekly banya, I bathed with a guy just a few years younger than me. He said that even though he had no work and no money, he was hopeful, and spent his time going to the mosque to pray. He said he had sworn off alcohol and cigarettes, the real opiates of society. He asked if I was married, and when I would. I asked him if he’d marry for love, or just kidnap a girl off the streets, as is not uncommon.
 
“No, for love,” he said.
 
“Why?” I asked him.
 
“Because there isn’t enough love,” he said so simply.
 
And then, for the next few minutes I basked not only in the depth of his answer, but also its context. Here we were, in a deeply impoverished land, and this young man, with no education, in a community where men want to talk to me about little more than sex and prostitutes, he gave me an answer more profound than I could have imagined. He was marrying for love simply because there isn’t enough love in this world, and he wants to add to it. What better answer is there?
 
And so, these, among so many others, will be my memories. And that leads to the natural question, what will be yours? You, the readers of my letters, when my travels are done, let me be so narcissistic as to ask, what will you all take from all that I’ve shared?

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Pilgramage

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on January 27, 2011

As you may or may not know, my dear friends and quiet confidants, I am a lover, not a fighter, of all things Chicago. Among all the many things within it that I hold dear, one of them is football’s greatest rivalry. That’s right. I said it. Kyrgy Carl isn’t just a slap happy do gooder. No, not at all. I like football. American football. The game with the giant men who make me look tinier and tinier every day.
 
Now, for those of you who didn’t know, there was a grand and momentous game played last week: Chicago versus Green Bay Wisconsin. When I heard of the play-off match-up, the first since WWII, I knew wild horses couldn’t keep me from watching it (a surprisingly relevant idiom, considering my present location…) So, folks, battling a soar throat and the onset of a nasty cold, I mustered all the Chicago grit that I could find, and booked myself one ticket to Bishkek, where a local bar had promised to show the game.
 
Now, seeing a football game in Kyrgyzstan is a little bit harder than in some other countries I’ve been to. In 2007, when I saw the Bears get Super Bowl walloped by the Colts, I was at a crowded ex-pat spot in Beijing, China. I was already living there, so the only special preparations we had to make was buying beers the night before, so we could get good and buzzed when the game started at 6:am the next day. This time, though, it involved a 6 hour ride in a shared taxi on Sunday, waiting in the foreign, big city land of the capital, and then making my way to the one expat bar I even knew of at 2:am.
 
At first, folks, I was afraid I’d have to watch the game alone, lost in the bar crowd throng. But when two volunteers offered to watch it with me, I was only worried that we’d get there in time to find a table. But when we arrived at the bar at 2:10, just missing the successful and devastating first Green Bay drive, we were amazed at what we found: the bar, while open, featured not a soul. Here I was, having traveled 6 hours, with another 6 to go the following day, and no one beyond my motley crew had thought to come out for the game. I wanted to yell from the roof tops that this was a once in a life time moment, that tickets were averaging $1,000 resail in Chicago, but no one was awake to hear me.
 
Then, after a painful shellacking, and a call to my father (a very happy Green Bay fan) and my brother (a gently inebriated Chicago fan), we headed out. It wasn’t what I had expected, but here in Kyrgyzstan, what ever is? My two friends and I then wrapped up the remainder of our morning by watching the Steelers make a very definitive start to their game, and headed out into the world.
 
Not all was lost, of course, we are Peace Corps volunteers, after all. We used our early morning advantage (and the fresh snow) to ambush the Peace Corps staff with snow balls as they headed into work in the morning, at least one member quite aware as to how we happened to be up so early. From there, my heavy head and sniffles worsening all the time, I headed back to the long-distance taxi stand, bought another seat in a taxi, and headed home.
 
It was an easy ride with three men who were transporting TB supplies to a hospital on the way. Conversation went something like, “in America, do the women thrash their men when they stay out late and get drunk? Good, we thought ours were the only ones.” And, “you don’t mind if we smoke in the car, right? We’re all guys here.” And then, thankfully, it wasn’t long before I was home, doing pull-ups with my host sister, and shooing the three-year-old boy off my bed, desperately pleading that he just wear some pants.

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Weight Weight, Don’t Tell Me (or My Mother)

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on January 18, 2011

Weight; my weight; and the weight of a volunteer. These are topics of consternation for all parties involved, not the least of which being parents (just ask my worried mother).
 
Personally, I am fairly characteristic of the Peace Corps norm: I have lost significant amounts of weight since coming to country. Where I rolled in at a very comfortable 180, my most recent scale setting put me 25 pounds below that, and everyone laughed at how absurdly heavy that seemed. At my lowest, I was in the mid 140’s.
 
Now, for the record, I am not the biggest loser, not by far. We’ve got a guy out here who came in at around 200 and now sports a lean, mean 140. He’s in a village, and laments the countless winter dinners of little more than fried noodles, especially when they represent his only meal of the day (I’m not in such dire straits). Furthermore, I am not even close to being medically evacuated for weight loss. In this scenario, which does indeed happen, volunteers (typically male) are sent to America for a couple of weeks just to fatten up.
 
And I say male volunteers see this happen more often, because, well, it’s the truth. Here in Kyrgyzstan, men lose 15 and women pick it up, or so it generally goes. What’s more, I’m told this is a nearly universal phenomenon in Peace Corps world wide. The reason? “In developing countries, diets are higher in carbohydrates, and men are better at processing those.” Or so goes the rumor. Whatever the truth is, my host family has their own explanation.
 
“Carl was fine until the revolution,” they like to say, “it was only then that he started losing weight.” Regardless of the fact that official Peace Corps health records dispute this claim, they’re not so concerned: when I show my host sisters pictures of me from America, they can’t help themselves but to giggle, “you were fat then,” they always say, “you look much better now.”
 
Still though, my impressive weight loss of last Spring caught the eye of my superiors, who then graced me with a rice cooker, and the effects have been transformative. This pleasant contraption sits at my girlfriend’s apartment, and works to feed feed us when I’m there on the weekends and the occasional weekday (and her any time she wants!). Far from just rice, however, we have also used it for pasta, buckwheat, barley, beans, and even grilled cheese sandwiches! Furthermore, this one little tool has helped us branch out into other cooking experiments. What all can you do with rice? we’ve wondered. Where previously weekend meals meant little more than Ramen noodles, we now make up fried rice and stir fry, just ’cause it’s so easy.
 
And then there’s the beans. When I strolled home from Talas last year with 45 pounds of white beans, little did I know what would happen to them: when there were still tomatoes and bell peppers in the bazaars, chili was the name of the game. Now, I have them for breakfast with rice and eggs whenever the situation suits me. In fact, those little guys end up in just about anything we eat recently, including the greatest of concoctions: the bean burger.
 
That’s right folks, when ground beef is expensive and suspect, or you’re simply in the mood for something quite different, the bean burger is definitely a new favorite. Just last week, for the first time, Anne mashed up beans with garlic, onions, carrots, bread crumbs and eggs, dashed in plenty of salt, pepper, and some very tasty curry powder, to make the most flavorful patties this side of the Himalayas. They were so good, in fact, I joined in for another (much larger) batch two days later.
 
And, from that, folks, I feel somewhat confident saying: some basic knowledge of how to turn simple ingredients into tasty food must be the cheapest way to improve quality of life. If only I had known sooner.

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The Great TV Divide

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on January 12, 2011

So, it’s cold here in Naryn, even with our paltry amounts of snow. On the one hand, the city is dry and dusty without its winter snow; on the other, the roads are safer than last year without their 6 inches of caked ice…

Along with the cold, folks, comes indoor activities. While I don’t believe that the girls at my house are spending any more time studying (and God knows they’d never consider spending any less), there has been a definite increase in time spent watching TV. That’s right folks, the boob tube: its a ubiquitous machine here in country, present in even the smallest village houses. The is seldom more than one station available in Kyrgyz, and usually 4 or 5 more in Russian. Most homes, it seems, also sport DVD players. These little accessories make the wonderful world of Korean soap operas a very real phenomenon.

While in China, I had often heard that Koreans were the pretty boys of Asia, and that their television programming was a great export, particularly popular with the ladies. Here in Kyrgyzstan, DVD collections of these series flood the market. In one, four very rich boys gallivant amongst dramatic familial intrigue. In another, a 4 member, all boy, glam-rock band features a member who is a girl, but beneath all the make-up and general androgyny of the scene, nobody knows it. It is all exotic and the kids sometimes stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching it. Unfortunately for me, however, it is all in Russian.

In fact, folks, my family, all being fluent in the language, watch TV almost exclusively in Russian. “There is no interesting Kyrgyz programming,” my host dad had once explained. Unfortunately, of course, that means I can’t really partake. When the family retires to the den, unless I can scratch out a tickle-fest with the toddlers, or a chess match with one of the older girls, I inevitably sink back into my bedroom. Before my computer died, I’d write on it, and now I read, or just visit friends away from the house. This, I have noticed, has created a very real divide. Much of the unstructured social time in our house is dominated by the television, and that means I can seldom participate.

That is, until the other night.

Just the other day, I happened to be home around 6 pm. At this same time, the TV happened to be on (two not infrequent occurrences), but this time, it was the Kyrgyz channel that was playing. Then, out of nowhere, I heard an excited holler from the other room, “Carl!” my host sister shouted, “the news is on, in English!” When I came running, it was true. I had always heard of a mythical Kyrgyz news program delivered in English, but had never really believed it. But there, before my eyes, was a young Kyrgyz woman reading the news, the domestic Kyrgyz news, in English! Then, as I watched, with my host mother and sister in the background, I learned about many things that otherwise would have gone far over my head, including a general strike threatened by the country’s medical professionals.

“Oh, are they talking about our strike?” My host mom chimed in from the background, herself a doctor who delivers babies and performs more c sections than she can count (all for a salary that would make the Ameican professional weep). She is an impeccably smart lady who studied English in grammar school. Between that and her knowledge of English-Latin-Russian cognates from her medical training, can pick up a lot if she’s listening.

“Yes,” I said, marveled.

“They asked us to hold off until the first of February, when they think they will have more money to pay us. I hope so,” she said.

And right there, over just the littlest bit of shared media, we bonded in on a new level. For at least that moment, I wasn’t just a silly foreigner blissfully unaware of Kyrgyz national affairs; I was in the know, and I liked it. But then, as brief as it had come, the fast-talking Kyrgyz news anchors were back, and I was underwater again, trying desperately just to keep up. And, easy in retrospect, I know it is moments like this, thrust out of my comfort zone, that I realize just how many things there are working to divide us, even down to what kind of TV we watch. Needless to say, though, the divides are shrinking, and my host family and I grow closer every day.

Love always, and mind your TVs.

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How Was YOUR Merry Christmas?

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on December 29, 2010

Kyrgy Carl here, writing from my snowy home in Sunny Naryn!
 
In response to many questions I’ve received lately about Kyrgyzstan and Christmas: No, people don’t celebrate it here. Yes, they know what it is, but No, not really. Let me explain.
 
See, one of those weird little quirks in globalization is that every hears about Christmas the way it appears in the media, most often as “Merry Christmas.” So, folks are familiar with this term, in English, but will often not know exactly what it means. This, then, led to one of my favorite encounters this year, when one of my host sisters woke me up one morning after Christmas and asked me so simply, “Sizdin Merry Christmas kandai boldu?” Or, literally, “How was your Merry Christmas?” Needless to say, I let her know that it was very merry.
 
(Other quirks have included one volunteer meeting a local who shook his hand and just said, “Santa Claus!”)
 
So, while for most Kyrgyz people December 25th was just another day, for the volunteer community, it was one of good food and good cheer. This year, we started cooking early, and gathered at one of the volunteer apartments and ate in grand fashion. We had squash and potatoes, veggies and spaetzle, and even two chicken dishes, one generously prepared by my host mom, who only wanted to ensure we had a good time. In fact, the meal was so good, and there were so many leftovers, that on the 26th my friends and I just layed around the house munching, and didn’t even bother to go outside. How’s that for doing it right, American style?
 
In the mean time, folks, Naryn city is gearing up for the real holiday of the realm: New Years. This perfectly secular holiday was a Soviet favorite, and continues to be right up to this day. The bazaars are loaded with beautiful cakes and firecrackers, plus all the fixings we normally associate with Christmas, like little plastic fir trees and sparkly garland.
 
The place is merry and cold, folks, much like much of America. For those of you in the cold weather (especially that snowy northeast) best of luck with the weather, and for anyone down south, keep dreaming of that white Christmas.
 
Now, stay tuned: New Years means high holiday, and I’ll be writing again, with every tantalizing detail.
 
P.S. For those of you wondering about last weeks Speed Bump of Snow: the day of my building it, as it turns out, coincided with a party my host dad threw for his co-workers. That means there was much to do, and little things like speed bumps (or nicely shoveled family compounds, for that matter) flew under the collective radar. I guess that means I escaped this time. Now, the next time the snow falls, who knows if I’ll be so lucky?

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