Posts Tagged friends

Talas, the Russians, and a Very Unwelcome Goodbye

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on April 6, 2011

It has been a whirlwind of a week for Farmer Dan and I. We finished our national training series with a total of twelve sessions, 202 participants (many of whom were teachers themselves) and 15 communities served. I do believe we successfully sapped Dan’s brain of any and all knowledge he was prepared to dispense. Furthermore, his collection of relevant farming literature (all checked out, and soon to be returned to the Madison Public Library) served us well throughout.
 
Where in Naryn we spoke mostly to small groups in intimate places, Talas was all about the classroom. We gave two joint sessions, each serving two separate schools. By the time we were finished, it is no exaggeration to say that we were, officially, famous: the local radio station insisted on having us over for an interview. Through the marvels of mass media, we spread the word about composting: how to do it, and the many benefits. When it was all over, Farmer Dan leaned over to me and said with a grin, “it is as though we are evangelizers for the gospel of composting.” And how right he was.
 
We also had another experience in Talas that rivaled many of the others we had. Since one of Dan’s must-do activities was to bathe in a banya, Corey arranged for us to visit some of his friends, an ethnically Russian family who has one in their backyard. When we arrived there, Corey said simply, “the mother of the house speaks great English, and hosts volunteers for this kind of thing all the time. Still, I don’t know exactly what we’re in for.”
 
First off, it meant, for me, seeing the home of an ethnic Russian for the first time in country. From the first moment, the differences were everywhere. They had two yapping dogs in the backyard, but they were neatly tethered to little wire trolleys running along the foundation of the house. The building’s floor plan was not like a Kyrgyz home at all, but instead quite reminiscent of home. They had a red-headed, freckle-faced boy running around, passionate about showing us his toys and drawings. There were healthy seedlings growing in the windowsill.
 
But then, also like a Kyrgyz family, Nina, the matron of the house, said simply, “when you come to a Russian home, you must eat.” Then she proceeded to display a spread of mashed potatoes, beef stew, cabbage pie, and even a dish of horse radish. I had to wonder to myself, if I had had people like this around me, how vastly different would my service have been? Nina’s father in law was even there, a squinty old grandpa she just called Lyubyoshka. He insisted we match him shot for shot (three with dinner, two after we had bathed), and told great anecdotes, like, “the fall of the Soviet Union can be explained by one Russian proverb, ‘when you need to relax, go to work.’” He also showed us the many paintings he made, and ensured that the banya was incredibly hot.
 
Between dinner and the banya, I wandered into the garden, and my jaw dropped. They had a compost pile, and all their tools were hung neatly on the fence. Every single row was perfectly straight, and they even had over-wintered garlic already beginning to sprout. When we asked if they planned to rotate their crops to a new sport next year, Lyubyoshka just laughed, “I wouldn’t do it any other way.” Farmer Dan, for his part, had trouble picking his jaw up off the ground. “How can it be that these people already know everything I came here to teach?” Surely, a question for the ages.
 
But, folks, the dream couldn’t last forever. Yesterday morning, I dropped Farmer Dan off at the Manas International Airport outside of Bishkek. He had been so agreeable, so interesting, so laid back, such a perfect work partner, I wondered how I had ever gotten along without him, and, moreover, how I would do it once he had left. We had made an incredible team, spreading the word of the soil. At one point, Dan had laughed, “It is funny Car-car, we have never spent anywhere close to this much time together all at once!” And then, it seemed, it was already 5AM, and I was hugging Dan, sending him through the terminal gates.
 
But life moves on, and, in the Spring anyway, it does so with force. Congratulations to everyone who chipped in, as Trees for the Kyrgyz is now fully funded! The date for planting is April 16th, just a short ten days away. And speaking of ten, that number represents about how many more travel letters I’ve yet to send. How will you all ever get along without me?

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Whoa! Helping the Farmers! Lord! What a Ride!

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on March 22, 2011

I am as excited to write this letter to you all as I have been about any in ages. It is the chest-tingling kind of letter that reminds me all about why I am here, and why I love this work so much.

So, folks, I’ve got my delightful friend, Farmer Dan, here by my side, and he has been that way for over a week now. Dan is good natured and patient. He likes my stories. He is six two and built like the farm boys of old. When he walks into a room, he is quiet and respectful, and always waits to see how the locals act before doing anything himself. This, folks, might sound like shyness, but put him in a garden, and he springs to life.

The state of the state this past week has been trainings. We traveled to nine villages in 5 days and taught upwards of 120 farmers the details of composting, and the basics of soil nutrients and crop rotation. We’ve been a monster team: I talk; Farmer Dan answers questions; and my fellow volunteer Corey sits in the background, watching the crowd, answering questions, taking notes, and facilitating the little games that we’ve set up for the participants to play. (Namely index cards with crops on them so the people can practice rotation patterns.) Then, when we get to the end of the classroom portion, I always ask the groups, “Who lives nearby? Let’s make a compost pile!” And that’s when Farmer Dan in his plaid shirts and sandy hair springs to life.

I can’t keep Dan’s hands away from pitchforks, and he can’t help himself but gather fresh manure. He mixes mounds of moldy hay like he’s been doing it since birth, and waters them like they are his own progeny. He explains his actions with the simplest of terms, and then I translate. After we leave dusty villages and snowy ones, I can’t help myself but to beam: for the first time since coming here, I am directly in the field with a concrete skill to offer. No connection building or grant writing. No esoteric goal setting. I am teaching people concrete skills to improve their lives. No more burning leaves, no more smokey spring evenings, just healthy soil. We are making a difference.

But it hasn’t been just me who has been impressed out here. Dan had the great fortune of being here for Noruz, the traditional Kyrgyz (Muslim) New Years, just yesterday. We took two of my host-sisters to the center of town where we bought ice-cream and watched traditional dancing, had lots of fried food, and even listened to a professional teller of the Kyrgyz epic, The Manas. Dan also got to see the famed At Bashy Animal Bazaar. We bid on a baby yak and trudged around in the mud. We ate grilled meat and drank skunked beer and vodka just after noon, and Dan told us it was reminding him all of college.

Furthermore, my host family has been absolutely taken with ol’ Farmer Dan, despite his chewed finger nails and muddy shoes. He came bearing incredibly thoughtful gifts for the family as a whole (sent by our mothers in America), and brought out candied nuts and other healthy sweets for the Noruz celebration. Between all of these gifts and the honesty which brought him here, my host family couldn’t help but to dote. At the present time, much to the jealousy of nearly everyone around, Farmer Dan is happy the owner of his very own shyrdak, or felt rug. This one made by my very own host mother. When they presented it to Farmer Dan, he was speechless.

Now, folks, as Dan and I have been saying, our talk is going national. Tomorrow we head down to the Chuy valley, where we’ll be teaching the skills of composting to the students of two separate farmer schools. We are curious what kinds of things will go well there: will the participants already about crop rotation? Will our samples of finished compost still make them go gaga?

Then, after Chuy, we head up to Corey’s home base, and will deliver the talk four times in villages around Talas. However it goes, it can’t be more of a roller coaster ride than just the trainings we had today. We started in the most desolate of all the villages we’ve seen. Dan has me looking at soil these days, and this place was practically all white, and the residents said they didn’t have any irrigation at all. When we arrived, the community organizer wasn’t there, and we ended up delivering the talk to an impromptu group of 20 VERY drunk men with our posters taped to the back of a car. They did little more than badger me about how I hadn’t brought anything to give them, and only one came out to actually make a pile. But then, in the second village, we found 9 very sober women. They were quiet and curious, and very graciously corrected my Kyrgyz. Theirs was the most productive village we’ve seen yet, and we built the best compost pile there so far. The ladies hung on my every word, and absorbed everything I could say. It was a nightmare of a morning that turned into a paradise of an afternoon.

How will the rest of our weeks together turn out? Stay tuned, and your very own Kyrgy Carl will be sure to tell.

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The Vast and Exciting Land of Kyrgyzstan

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on January 20, 2010

Kyrgyzstan is a vast, exciting and varied country. I spend the vast majority of my time home, in Sunny Naryn, but I’ve just returned for a veritable extravaganza of domestic traveling.

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

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Tamerlane and a Wave of Dumplings

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Bonus Content! on January 18, 2010

So my old teacher, the saintly, scholarly Tamerlane the Hero King invites me to his home to visit everytime I’m in the vicinity. On this most recent trip, we all sat around the kitchen (a pleasent externality of having a cold house) and cooked together.

On the menu was Kyrgyz duymplings called Monty. They are made of shredded sheep meat and shredded sheep fat with bits of potato and onion. The way they are bound together is very important.

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Cold Friends

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on January 11, 2010

So I’m heading out to another Peace Corps Acronym this week, hailed by volunteers as the most valuable of these things, we’re gearing up to be taught Project Design and Management at PDM. This conference will be once again held at the Hot Lake of Dreams, the perpetually unfrozen Lake Issyk Kul. That means travel, and travel on the Peace Corps penny means an excuse to see the country, and visit friends.

This has been my first time out of Sunny Naryn since the winter began, and in the rest of the country, its, different. The main road out of Naryn goes over the Dolan Pass into a region centered around the city of Kochkor (or, Ram). Kochkor is a windy place, and this combined with the surrounding mountains means Kochkor, very much unlike Naryn, was almost barren of snow.

The next stop on the route away from home is Balykchy (Fisherman). Balykchy is a dried up, formerly industrial Soviet city on the south west corner of the Lake. Once prosperous, like an American Rust Belt city, Balykchy has fallen on hard times. Its factories are largely closed, yet it still acts as a transportation hub. Maligned by travelers frequently mistreated by taxi drivers who know their customers have no choice but to come through, and no reason to stay, it exhibits a characteristic particularly reminiscent of home. Balykchy, not cold as Naryn, is nonetheless as windy as Chicago. Biting cold, but nostalgic nonetheless.

My next destination was at the fabled home of my old teacher, Tamerlane, the Hero King. The snow had recently fallen here. Upon arrival, there was no need to call my friend because, as a teacher in town, there isn’t a soul who doesn’t seem to know him, or know where he lives.

I found him hiding in his kitchen, cooking with his wife, watching the two six year olds cavort around like elephants, and his 2 year old take short, choppy steps. Over the next couple of days, we hid inside from the cold, eating, watching nature movies, and talking with his family. Dinner our first night was Kyrgyz dumplings, called monty, made of mutton, fat, onions and potatoes, with a side of pickled garlic and tomatoes. His mother, bedridden, always with something interesting and specific to tell me, was feeling passionate about how Hitler and WWII were terrible, and it was good that we live in peaceful times. Sometimes we’d do chores together, like chopping wood, or stoking his furnace.

And it was one ironic image that I thought would stick with me. My teacher, starting a coal fire, with the torn pages of a book entitled simply “Leninism.” But instead, it was the freshly fallen snow on the road out of town. Thick and unplowed, cars, vans and trucks competing with cows, sheep, and horse drawn wagons for space on the road.

From there, it was off to the Karakol volunteers, and their world of consumer goods, Russian influence, and skiing. Volunteers here do much of what we do in Naryn, though their material life a bit more advanced.

There seems to be nothing happier than visiting good people on cold nights. I wish you all, my friends, this same success.

Originally written Januay 11th, 2010

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High Adventure at 13,000 Feet

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on August 30, 2009

So, in Chicago, the luxury of good friends and close family is vast, while adventure can be thin on the ground. Here in Kyrgyzstan, where all my friends (and family) are new, the luxury of adventure happily tries to fill that void in my life.

This past Wednesday, I got an unexpected call from a volunteer one year deep in his service. “Some guys and I are going to spend the weekend in mountains, traveling to yurts on horseback, wanna come?”

Well, two days later, the five of us were piling into a 25 year old Audi helmed by Mr. Zoo, the one time Himalayan long-haul truck driver, water purifier, and anti-Taliban Soviet sniper. He dropped us off at Tash Rabat, the 15th century, stone, Silk Road pit stop, still miraculously well preserved. On our first night, we tooled around the grounds, basking in the mystery of the structure, the valley, and prefect blue skies.

After a rousing night in one of the nearby yurts, we mounted our steeds (wearing our PC approved bicycle helmets, of course) and headed for Chatyr-Kol, or Roof Lake, reached by a 6 hour, 13,000 foot pass.

The weather was warm and golden, and the scenery was beautiful, defined by big green hills with long spines of stone growing from their crests. Our guide would utter little beyond vague directional’s, otherwise, giving us free range to lollygag, trot or gallop. As we reached the pass, however, we bunched up, and he watched us close as the path turned into little more than the most solid trail of sand and rock, helping our horses ascend the mountain.

At the top of the pass, we saw the 12 by 25 kilometer Roof Lake splayed before us, with the Torugart Pass planted clearly on the other side, just another time in my life where I found myself gazing at the lands of China. That night, as we brushed our teeth next to the stream outside of our yurt, picking out constellations in the clear sky, our guide asked, “so, if it snows tomorrow, can we just spend the night?” “Not a chance!” we shot back, laughing at his little joke.

But he wasn’t joking. The next morning, as the owners pulled the flap off the roof of our yurt, we were greeted by thick clouds and snowflakes. While this crew of adventurous guys somehow knew this might happen, none of us were really quite prepared for heavy snowfall in August. So we donned every article of clothing we had, from camp towels as scarves, to my rain-coat stuff-sack as a mitten.

But neither too were we prepared to see a heard of yaks resting comfortably in the blizzard before a dramatic stone mountain with Swiss-cheese holes, dropped out of a scene from Lord of the Rings. It was wonderful and beautiful and unlike anything I’ve done in my life.

As wonderful and dangerous as that sandy pass was covered in snow, the real test was the last 2 hours, in the pouring rain. I can guarantee you folks, you’ll never be happier to see a yurt with a fire of cow dung, than after a trek like that.

Originally Written August 16th, 2009

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The Hot Lake of Dreams

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on August 30, 2009

So, its been a little while since my last letter, (for those of you who’ve been counting.) The limiting factor here in Naryn City is Internet access. Internet here is served from the second floor of a dark, Soviet building. As capitalism hits this country, creative reuse of structures is common. There is a boxing gym in the bottom of the Mayor’s building and the blocky 3 storey structure with its window-less lobby that houses the internet, also sports a barber shop, bakery, and carnival colored phone booths.

But these past weeks have been exciting to say the least, and have showed me that I really do live here, and in these 4 short months, have, in fact, created a real life for myself.

I headed out last week to the mountain gem of this entire region, Lake Issik-Kul. Kyrgyz songs and proverbs reference this place with reverence. Being there, the cool, humid air, fruit trees and tropical feel leant itself more to lowland, coastal Guatemala than highland, landlocked Central Asia.

The lake itself, called “Hot Lake” in Kyrgyz, is named such because its thin salinity keeps it from freezing in the winter. It feels as big as any Great Lake, but instead of seeing the smokestacks of Gary from the beach on a clear day, to see land you have to gaze high above the horizon to see only snow-capped, mountain peaks.

I was working in the city of Barskon on a Habitat for Humanity project. By day, 10 other Peace Corps volunteers and I would make layer cakes of stucco powder for even mixing, while our donations paid for skilled laborers to actually apply the stuff. After work we’d go to the beach, play charades, and have dinner with the family we were building the house for.

Arguably, one of the peak moments was trading insults with my friend from college, Jared. He learned Russian, and I Kyrgyz, and our hosts are naturally fluent in both. So Jared would say, in Russian, “I went to college with Carl. He never bathed, and the girls didn’t like him.” “True,” I’d say in Kyrgyz, “but Jared can’t read, and he’d always asked me what the teachers were talking about in class.” We would use just enough pantomime so that we’d catch each other’s retorts, but only the locals could really understand it all. It was like our own little tri-lingual comedy routine.

After that week of hard labor in Barskon, another friend and I rolled an hour down the coast to spend the weekend with our Kyrgyz language teacher from training, Timerlan the Hero-King. As his wife set pads out for us to sleep on in the guestroom, and he gave us dinner in his backyard yurt, I realized that I have vacations to take here, and friends to visit in this strange country. Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan has now, officially surpassed the study abroad experience; it is not travel or tourism, it is not even just part of my life; right now, it is my life. Who’d ever have thought.

That’s all for now folks. Turns out, there’s no post cards for sale here in my sleepy mountain town, but I’ve got a batch on its way up from the more touristed south. Do keep in touch.

Originally Written July 23rd, 2009

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Summer Camps for the Children of Tomorrow

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on August 22, 2009

So, summertime in Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan is camp time. Country wide, oblast by oblast, volunteers host a variety of summer-camps for local Kyrgyz school children. They come in different lengths and with different themes.

Currently, we have a “leadership” camp running here in Naryn city, hosted out of a local high school, where 40 kids come from 9 to 5, and do activities ranging from anti-smoking sessions, to dancing in the afternoon, to “English for Fun!” In the mornings, I lead a session on “critical thinking.”

What this means, really, is that for half an hour I encourage the kids to be creative, where they are given problems and every answer is correct. One day, the scenario was, “you have two stools, but three people, what do you do?” One group replied, “we’ll sell the two, and buy three cheaper stools,” another replied, “we’ll play Musical Chairs,” and another, “we’ll all just dance.”

For another situation, I asked the students to explain rather mundane occurrences, like, “the sun is not shining,” in both a realistic, and fantastical way. For this example, one group first replied, “because it is cloudy,” and second, “because the sun is offended.” Needless to say, this has been one of the high points of my work out here.

But along with our 40 students, we also have 10 some odd extra volunteers in town helping us run the camp. For the old volunteers, this means seeing those people who winter makes it so difficult to see, and for us new volunteers, this means meeting the old guard, and seeing how work gets done.

It also means after camp, we all get to hang out together. 10 twenty-somethings in an apartment together, cooking, playing cards, just generally being happy. It all reminds me that I joined the Peace Corps not only to do good work, but also because they work hard to build community among us, the volunteers, and remind you that as hard as it is to live so far away, and for so long, you always have good, familiar people close at hand.

So at 10:30 this evening, after stuffed peppers, whipped-cream pie and more Euchre than a person should play, I came home, ready for anything, and that’s just what I found.

Standing before the single hanging bare-bulb in the garage were three generations of thick Kyrgyz men, staring down the gutted carcasses of 7 cows and horses. The oldest of them was hacking apart a spine with an axe while the youngest was separating the rib cages, and throwing them onto a pile, with one of the hides protecting them from the concrete floor. Some of the carcasses, legs cut off at the knees, we just hanging on hooks on a rack. Like a scene from a horror film, whoever would have imagined that a boy from Chicago, hog butcher to the world, could be so fascinated by a room full of slaughtered cows.

Originally Written July 2nd, 2009

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Barbacue of Diplomatic Proportions

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on August 22, 2009

First of all, a big shout to the Chicago party crew, who put me to shame by eating more of your lamb than I ever have! Brains taste like cream cheese, do they? You’ve one-upped me this time, but I’ll get you all back!

So, just after I wrote my last letter, I sat down with my wonderful Ivanovka family for my last supper. My Dad brought out some vodka for the occasion (a first for us) and then proudly pointed to the meal. “It’s chicken!” he yelled. “Naughty Chicken!” Naughty Chicken in Kyrgyz roughly translates to Kamikaze Rooster in English. That’s right, for my last meal, my family slaughtered that rooster who’d been charging my legs on my way to the outhouse. Ha! Take that rooster!

Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of activity here for the Peace Corps volunteers in Kyrgyzstan. We had a big swearing-in ceremony, hosted by the ambassador herself, and then a BBQ at her house. It featured hamburgers and chips with salsa. Boring? Mundane? Regular, you say? H’ho! Not when you’re living in Kyrgyzstan! These things are delicacies!

Along with the burgers came a couple dozen of the most fluent non-native English speakers Kyrgyzstan has ever known. The ambassador invited “the most up and coming” Kyrgyz youth the country had to offer. There was an Olympic wrestler, a pair of comedians, some super-models, and a man who cryptically referred to himself as a “fixer.” There were lots of young journalists, including one “independent” fella, who sported long hair, horn-rimmed glasses, tight jeans and red Converse All-Stars – basically the best of the 1980’s underground music scene in one living breathing Kyrgyz youngster.

Arguably, the star of the event was a guy who had spent his senior year of high school in the dead center of Missouri. He impersonated rural Americans flawlessly and cursed like a sailor. At the height of his magnetism, during a long comedic rant about everyone thinking he was a British spy, our Country Director walked by. Knowing he had his audience in the palm of his hand, he turned to her and said, “Well, at least you know I’m not a British spy, because you have all their names on a list!” At which point savvy bureaucrat met confident storyteller, two veritable mountains of the backyard barbeque. They smiled at each other knowingly, both too wise to push it further, but too tickled to just play ignorant to the beautiful moment that was happening before us. They let it sit, for just a beat, and then went along their merry ways. What a beautiful place to be, in a beautiful moment, deep in the knot of mountains, that make up the center of the largest land mass in the world.

Folks, I’m happy as a clam out here. Today I’m writing from Naryn City, my new home. It’s cool and mountainous. I’ve been eating lots of mutton, and drinking lots of lightly fermented horse milk, the national drink. What more could a boy ask for.

Originally Written June 14th, 2009

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