Down in the sweltering Chui Valley rests the Metropolis of Bishkek, a city of anywhere between 800,000 and 1.2 million, depending on how you ask the question.

I had needed to come down from my mountain home to mail a laptop sleeve sample out to a prospective partner in Germany (hot dog!) and arrange a visa for my impending trip to the deserts of China this summer.

Where we in Naryn are just starting to feel the magical rays of real warmth, Bishkek is basking in it. Even in jeans and a t-shirt, I found myself sweating. Bishkek, folks, is a different world.

First off, there are white people. Lots and lots of white people. I was simply taken aback. As I asked around, the only thing I heard was, “you should have seen 10 years ago!” For whatever reason, it hadn’t struck me during training. But a year later in Sunny Naryn, it was shocking.

This white person prevalence led to another surprise: dramatic insistence that I speak Russian. Here in Naryn, folks just ask if I know Russian, and then go on with conversation. In Bishkek, though, I kept running into, “what do you mean you don’t speak Russian. How is that possible? You must speak Russian.” I even had a drunk man on a public bus simple berate me for lying, until the nearby women came to my defense.

But the real stand-out experience was staying in the heart of the city, with some ex-pat friends. These were information seekers and do-gooders: journalists and NGO directors. They had hot showers, refrigerators, good wine and wireless Internet. At one point, I found myself cruising around in the backseat of an SUV with the subwoofer bumping jams from the 80’s. We went out for Mexican food, where the sangria flowed liberally, and spent another day at a “health resort” that featured outdoor seating, fountains, and a horse riding stable.

“I don’t hear much Kyrgyz,” I told my friend.

“It’s almost looked down on around here, even among the ethnic Kyrgyz.” He said.

There is a real foreigner community here in Bishkek, folks, previously unbeknownst to me. They live at Western standards, though at dramatically reduced prices. But we all got along. We’d talk about the local politics, about development theory, the health of the country, and farming practices. These folks were all tapped into the country, though in a different way than me.

“I feel a bit like a country bumpkin among you guys,” I told my friend, the one who invited me out.

“Don’t worry, man,” he said, “I think these people admire your passion for this place. You are seeing a very intimate Kyrgyzstan, one we don’t really get to see.” It was mutual respect all around.

And then, after these few days of these novelties, the food and the thinking I’m Russian, I got on a public bus for Naryn city. I was the only white face to be found, and people were apologizing for getting in each other’s way. And I knew I was going home.

From my jaunt with Tamerlane in Darkon, I headed east to the center of University and tourist life in the northern country. Set on the idyllic shores of Lake Issyk Kul, Karakol surely ranks among the most wonderful towns in the country. It sports 75,000 people, and gaggle of universities. Many Russians (complete with their money and western mentality) never left the place, and that gives it an air much different than Naryn. This air, among other things, includes night clubs, peanut butter and applesauce.

From there it was to the Wisconsin Dells of Kyrgyzstan, Cholpon-Ata. This tourist town on the north shore of the lake, sports high quality hotels, that, in the winter, go for low low prices. This combination led our PDM to offer a strange bit of high luxury. My room, for example, included a Jacuzzi.

After three solid days of socializing, networking and, in tandem with our local counterparts, learning how to design and manage community based projects, on the boot heels of a giant celebratory bon-fire, the vacation was over. While many headed right home, I made my way back to the metropolis of Bishkek.

I was a man on a mission. I had handicraft samples to buy, high INGO officials to meet, and big groups of volunteers to connect with. I started my trip meeting with a supply chain analyst who works at the UNDP. We finished a proposal together for a central web-based marketplace for Kyrgyz cooperatives country wide, and then rolled on over to the Asian Development Bank to present it. Could this be the project that defines my service here? Only time will tell.

From there it was to an underground bar with no name that we PCVs refer to collectively as The Dungeon. It’s a smoky meeting ground for Bohemian youth of all nations, and it brews its own beer. Along with other escapees from the PDM conference, that weekend also included a gathering of PCVs charged with monitoring our safety, namely, those who hold the title, “warden.” With this collection of great minds from all over the country, there was never a dull moment.

And as with all trips away from home, I’m lucky if I can spend some time with friends I’ve made who don’t travel much. This time, it was my homestay family from Ivanovka. I spent just one night with them. They understand me. My 13 year old sister said, “boy, your language hasn’t gotten much better.” And she was right. We spent the rest of our time playing, or talking, explaining things slowly, helping me learn.

I then left in a cheap van through a worsening blizzard surrounded by my best friends in country. When I arrived at home, my family noted my cough and cold and commanded, “eat this lump of garlic. Drink some boiled milk with honey, and then go to bed. We’ll get you healthy in no time.”

Life. Way to go.

Originally Written January 18th, 2010

This performance, done by a troupe called Kambarkan, taking their name from the first note ever to be played in Kyrgyz, was easily the cultural experience of my time here, and ranking in my whole life.

(Have a listen!!) Zhurögümdöm (From The Heart)

It was a 13 piece orchestral ensemble, made up entirely of traditional instruments. The two percussionists played hand drums, a big wooden xylophone type instrument, and something that sound like a triangle which I couldn’t see. There were a collection of komuz players, the prolific, skinny local equivalent to a guitar. We had two men who were masters of a range of small mouth instruments, and a whole host of people playing what looked like tiny European bridged string instruments, little cellos and the like.

The sound of these instruments played in unison was unparalleled. It was every show I’d seen them in before combined, and their quality top notch. I simply didn’t know anyone got together and played these traditional instruments with this skill. Strikingly, the musicians were all quite young. This did not seem to be a dying art of the elderly. Instead, it was energetic, excited, creative and full of life. The youth were pursuing this, and they were loving it.

The costumes were also of the highest quality I had seen. The men wore black pants and white shirts, but also black velvet half capes dressed in Kyrgyz symbols, sporting the nicest kalpaks of them all. The women wore flowing princess dresses, and from their hats sprouted the fluffy plumes of grass.

Over the course of the evening, there were a few special events. At one point, the mouth instrumentalists plus one of the princess women stepped forward to perform on the Mouth Komuz. This assortment of tiny metal instruments sported little prongs which they seemed to flick to produce a sound similar to a didgeridoo. Some had metal supports with the prong near the mouth, one was operated with a string, and another seemed just to be held in the mouth, and played with a dramatic sequence of hand motions, only half of which ever touched the instrument itself.

During another special, an old man came out, with boots covered in symbols, his cape covered those same symbols,  but in royal colors, and his kalpak more ornate than any, surely, in existence. He carried both a komuz and a small table. It had two levels, the lower of which held two deer. As he played the komuz, by some unseen apparatus he made the deer dance. It was funny, clearly for children, and his confidence in presentation made him a star. At one point, a ram jumped up from the back, to dance on the top level. But he didn’t come up quite right, and got stuck on the table cloth. This confident, jovial old man only giggled with us as he pressed his pedals again, trying to get the ram to mount its little stage. But it couldn’t, and with a casual flick he helped it up. We laughed at the show, at the casual malfunctions, and the comedic ease with which he solved them.

But just as soon as he had finished, and we were sure the silliest part of the show had come and gone, two male performers each produced 6 foot long horns, and brought the show into utter chaos. The horns seemed design only to gather attention, to assure all had their eyes on the stage. Then a man came out, dressed as a shaman, doing some kind of ceremonial dance with a whip, which he pounded on the ground. He left, and the old man who had performed with the deer seemed to be introducing one of the young men performers to one of the princessly women. Before they could be wed, however, to midgets came out to box. It was a suit in which one man, on all fours, made up two sets of little legs, one with his own, one with his hands, and each set of legs paired to a little costume body. These two little people made up of one skilled performer proceeded to fight for our enjoyment. He kicked out his own legs, did flips on the walls, and even spilled off of the stage. By the time he stood up, to show, for the first time, his full stature, the crowd might well have been convinced they had been, indeed, two little people.

Apparently Peace Corps had arranged for us to attend a showing by this troupe that specialized in traditional performances. It warmed my heart to see such uniquely Kyrgyz theatre performed in a venue of high art. The people loved it. The crowd was in uproar during applause. This was not the stuffy theatre of the snooty, but nor was it an underfunded, frowned upon indulgence of the lower class. It was a people who loved and respected their history, and were ready to work hard to give it new life.

I, a Peace Corps Volunteer, am a PCV. I am in the Sustainable and Organizational Community Development (SOCD) program, and most of my friends Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). During Pre-Service Training (PST), the PCVs who had volunteered to Train us were PCVTs and the Host Country Nationals (HCNs) who Facilitated our Language and Cultural learnings were LCFs. I wrote to you all some time ago from my program (SOCD)’s Advanced Community Development Conference (SOCD ACDC) and in a couple of months will write again from the Project Design and Management (PDM) conference. But today, I’m writing about the recently completed Inter-Service Training (IST).

We volunteers get few opportunities to visit the booming metropolis of Bishkek, and fewer yet to all congregate together, so this is a highly anticipated event. A general phenomenon with Peace Corps worldwide is that, by IST, male volunteers lose ten pounds, and girls pick them up. But as we met together, in the glory of the Issyk Kul hotel, dripping with its Soviet grandeur, these physical changes (if they had occurred at all) couldn’t be farther from our minds.

Instead, we gathered and basked in the pleasure community, the comfort of shared experience. None of us came to Kyrgyzstan knowing what we’d find, and as different as our experiences have been, what we have all shared is very real, and the resulting sense of camaraderie profound.

At IST we had daily trainings on language, safety and security, health awareness, and for my SOCD group, organizational planning. During these sessions, we shared all that we had been learning these past few months. But it was after the mandatory gatherings that the real development happened.

We went out to eat together at fancy Bishkek restaurants, we saw a culturally invigorated performance by a troupe named after the first sound in Kyrgyz music, Kambarkan. We shared pictures and we gathered in each other’s hotel rooms, like dorm rooms in college. The urge to be with each other was tangible, tantalizing. Working and living abroad, I believe, can be a lonely experience. But with the PCV bond, no one needed to be alone.

On the last night of the training, we had a talent show. No one knew it would be happening before we got there, yet two guys had come equipped with guitars. We had singers, joke tellers and improvisers. We played there, on the top floor of that Soviet hotel, just enjoying each other’s company. Everyone had a skill, and everyone was happy to see it. It was, in no way, performance for the performer. It was people wanting to be together, and finding every reason to do so. Somehow, I imagined, if JFK, the father of the Peace Corps, could have seen us engaging, so happily, so simply, in that moment, he’d have given us a wink, and just been proud.

I’ve just come back from a professional development conference on cross-sector cooperation. To prove it, I’ve a head full of knowledge, and a fancy certificate.

In the spirit of working within different sectors, the conference, help on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul, was given in two language sectors, Russian and English. However, my language here is Kyrgyz. This meant that in order for my counterpart and I to discuss what was going on, we had to listen in either Russian or English, translated from the other, and then discuss it in my broken Kyrgyz.

When you try to identify all that you take for granted in life, how often do you include, “conversing with native speakers of my language” as one of them?

Now, in the spirit of living in Kyrgyzstan, I took this travel opportunity to do all the guesting I could.

Before the conference, I and two other guys from my training group went to visit our old host families. I brought mine some Kymys (the fermented mare’s milk), and a pyramid of bread. It was like visiting a favorite relative. We talked and caught up, but then their lives went on, and they put me to work. One night, dad got home, and told me to go to the shop and keep the 12 year old daughter, Jildiz, safe after dark while he took a banya, and caught up a little later. It was easy and comfortable, just like visiting family should be.

Then I made my way to Bishkek. I had been warned that Kyrgyzstan’s capital is so Russified that Kyrgyz speakers there can be hard to find. To quite the contrary, while at the gigantic Osh Bazaar, bargaining in Kyrgyz, I got an excellent deal on some well faded, heavily creased, “Dolce & Gabana” blue jeans: the height of Kyrgyz Fashion.

Since the conference ended, I’ve spent this last weekend at my former teacher’s house, Tamerlane the Hero-King. When I arrived, he was picking apples in his back yard. With around ten trees, each brimming with fruit, he was busy picking them and preparing them for sale, and I was eager to help. He gave me a ladder, and I twisted the apples one by one, setting them gingerly in my bucket. I watched the branches spring back towards the sun once I’d gathered their load. Our pace wasn’t the most efficient, and didn’t seem ideal for making money, but it sure was fun.

The next day, we found ourselves at an “Apple Festival” at my teacher’s school, filled with local products and happy people. Among other festivities, this place sported a wide ranging cook-off. While vying for tastes of each delight, I learned that if Kyrgyz people can do one thing quickly, its grab food. God bless ’em.

Love Always,

Kyrgy Carl

P.S. As a result of the conference, I know have a project all to myself here in KG, and I’m gonna try to make it work. I know lots of you folks have been asking about pictures, so I’m going to make an new section of the website dedicated to projects. Photos included. Have a gander.

Originally Written Oct. 3rd, 2009