Posts Tagged life

The Wilds of Chicago (My Epilogue)

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on May 23, 2011

So, I have been in America almost a week now. Sleep deprivation before and during my marathon 30 hours of travel have helped ensure that my jet-leg has been decidedly light. My flights went off without a hitch, and even the six hour layover in Moscow was made absolutely pleasant thanks to the company of an Austrian guitar player returning from India with a sitar. His name was Peter.

Folks, Chicago is largely as I remembered it, and I have taken great solace in that. My family is still the same: we make the same jokes, share the same banter, and also the same love.

Some things, though, have struck me. I was immediately bowled over when I walked into my childhood home on account of all the wood. Wood door frames, wood floors, wood paneling. Naryn was a mountainous, poor place, where wood came only at significant premiums. I also noticed how tidy everything was. Each picture on the wall and each rug on the floor was so fitted to its spot. Even messes were tucked into drawers and behind doors. All the furniture matched.

Our house also seemed palatial. There were just rooms upon rooms, enough to get lost in, or so it seemed. My mother’s magnificent gardening left me speechless, the yard already flush with colors; my piddling with root crops in Naryn paled instantly in comparison.

Folks, some friends of mine met me at home the day that I arrived, and others were more to come. I have noticed that while my home and family feel like safe zones while I readjust to things that I once knew so well, it is before my friends that I get nervous. I spent a day canoeing on the river with my best friend Matt, and we connected as if there had never been a separation. But when he invited me to a barbeque a few days later, I got nervous.

These were people I had known, but since then I have changed. Prior to attending, I made a series of comments planning my escape from the party, if it got too late. This is appropriate in Kyrgyzstan, where pressure to stay and relax can often stymie other plans. My friend Matt got a little quizzical and just said, “Carl, no one is going to force you to stay if you need to leave. Don’t worry.” When I arrived, I felt almost in a daze, unsure of how to talk with the group, unsure of how to approach people; it was no longer appropriate to seek out every male to shake his hand, and just ignore all of the women. There was no sheep to be slaughtered, and no table cloth on the ground to sit around. No one, even, to insist that I sit down and have some tea.

But there again, came Matt, among those who know me best. He asked his roommate to procure some beer I’d like, and then made me a plate grilled delectables, somehow knowing I was still uncomfortable. He made jokes, wondering if the absence of boiled sheep had left me longing.

And it was here, at this social gathering that I got the first inkling as to the effects of my letters. No one really asked where I’d been, or what I’d been up to. That was common knowledge. Some people used their familiarity with my life to tell me all about theirs, and I soaked it up with relish. Others displayed almost encyclopedic knowledge of my letters, and wanted to know about all the things I must have been leaving out.

Between my family, my home, my closet friends, and these weekly chronicles of my past adventures, it seems I have been gifted with a wide bridge with which to reenter the land of my birth.

Since then, I have attended the two events that dictated the terms of my return home: my older sister’s graduation from law school, and my young sister’s graduation from university. Of all things, it has been these ceremonies that have helped me process much of what seemed so foreign, and so extravagant while I was away.

The professors at graduation, dressed up in colorful wizard robes and funny hats left me feeling that the traditional costumes of the Kyrgyz aren’t really so crazy after all. The overly formal language involved with dispensing diplomas reminded me of all that Kyrgyz language I could never seem to understand. The dreary singing before my sister walked across the stage left me feeling that the average Kyrgyz, singing in groups at parties while out to dinner, are pretty solid vocalists after all. For all the perceived differences I found out there, the American commonalities seemed pretty overwhelming, when looked at with the right kind of eyes.

But more than any other feeling, folks, it has been like putting on glasses again, for the first time in much too long. Things here are just clearer to me than the had been in Sunny Naryn. I can understand (almost) everything that everyone says, regardless of accent or context. I know when it is appropriate to get out of bed, and when it is fine to express my opinion. My jokes translate. It feels like coming home; for that is exactly what it is.

And that is where I am today, relaxing in this palace. I am seeking work in the field of international development, or (perhaps?) writing. I wonder how my instance on doing those things from Chicago will affect my plans. These are the new challenges. No longer will people rain praise before me, simply for speaking their language. That fact that I am living among Chicagoans (with a native family!) will no longer be enough to grant me entrance into just about any room. Once again, I am just part of the scrum. And looking to make my mark here, now a small fish in a very big pond, will be, surely, my next adventure.

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Too Many Tears

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on May 13, 2011

On my last night in Naryn, I came back to my homestay house relatively early. I came in to finish packing my bags. My host family called me in for tea, and the distance was a little strange.
 
It was strangeness compounded on a strange “farewell” dinner we’d have the night before. My host family had cooked dumplings and invited over two women somehow related to them, women I’ve seen many times. We had dumplings and champagne, everyone took turns saying toasts to my parting, mostly wishing me well, and telling me to greet my family back home. I didn’t really feel like the center of attention, though: my host dad was engrossed in a war movie (it being WWII Victory Day, after all), and the kids were coming in and out, enjoying the nice weather. One of the women almost choked me up when she talked about how we had become like family, but when I looked over to find my host mom not paying attention and my host dad slamming down dumpling, the moment largely passed.
 
To be perfectly honest, I was a little worried that I’d really turn into a sobbing shell of a man right there at the dinner table, and so this total lack of ceremony was a bit of a relief, if a little anti-climactic. I received a couple of hats as gifts, being told that they were auspicious, and then the women left, needing to get on home. Then I excused myself from the table to start the packing process. It was all very matter of fact. But that was the night before I actually left.
 
On the actual night, things were even more awkward. When I got home they called me in for tea, and we finished off some of the left over dumplings from the night before. I took the opportunity to mention that I wouldn’t be spending the night at home, but needed to help my girlfriend pack, and would be doing that late into the night. The family kind of looked around at this news, but then just went on eating, so I got up from the table early, again to continue packing. Then I got distracted and set to mulching with some old Peace Corps papers, and spread the rest of our compost around the currants. My host family called me in for tea and grits a little later, and once again didn’t mention anything as I got up and retreated to my room.
 
Then, as I was taking down the maps and photos that have come to adorn my walls, my host dad popped in. We talked a little bit about some family news, and then drifted into which items to focus on packing first. It wasn’t long after we went down that road, though, that my host dad just said, “we can’t talk about this. I’ll start to cry,” and left the room. 
 
Then, as I finished getting the last of my belongings into their bags, my host mom drifted in. I took the opportunity to explain to her about some of the vitamins and various lotions that I’d be  leaving behind. With everything tied up, then, I pulled out a cryptic bureaucratic ritual I hadn’t had time yet to take care of: the form that said I’d paid my last rent check and would be leaving debt free. My host mom thought it was a little funny and said, “where do they ask if you’ve finished all your weeding?” Then, when my host dad swung by again, I told him I needed him to sign was witness. Then I dropped my final payment on the floor, since they won’t accept money from my hands after dark. My host just said, “I don’t even want this.”
 
Then, as the kids crowded around my door, my host dad stood up, and I realized what was behind all the awkwardness of the past days: everyone was really, really sad. My host dad almost melted before my eyes. He stood up, and I could see he’d already started crying. He pulled me in close, for the Kyrgyz style goodbye, where you shake hands and touch heads. But it wasn’t enough, and we fell into full embrace. Then he looked me in the eye, said he’d miss me, and we hugged again. Then, perhaps to be alone with his thoughts, or just his tears, he left the room and I didn’t see him again.
 
My host mom stood up next, and her face was a blotched with red. By this time I couldn’t keep myself from crying either. She pulled me in, and amidst the sadness their was no clear embrace, whether to do a kiss on a cheek, or just have a real hug. She cried when she pulled away, cheeks streaked with red, and moved aside for the girls. Aigerim, the 12 year old, cried without stop. I held her and patted her back. It wasn’t deep conversation or familial bond that she was going to miss. What we had shared was proximity, and the trust it had spawned. I told her not to cry, only knowing that to say, even though we were all crying together.
 
Kalima, the 14 year old, who is a little more mature, and a little more serious, stood further away, leaning against the edge of my door. She told me that there would be no hugs, but I wouldn’t have it, I couldn’t not. It was the first solid embrace that I was sharing with them, and with each hug we seemed to get sadder, becoming more aware of the grief.
 
Aijamal, still only 7, let me pick her up, though she didn’t like it. She kept clutching a toothache. And then it came time for Aidin, the three year old boy. He was my little buddy all winter. He’d help me crush eggshells in the frozen compost and shovel the snow. I had taught him how to play with my cell phone without sending blank text messages. On days when my host dad didn’t come home and Aidin wouldn’t leave the house, I would be the only other male that he’d see. At first, he didn’t seem to understand all my packed bags, the naked walls, or why everyone was crying. So I picked him up, let him sit on the crook of my arm, and just said, “Aidin, I’m going away. I won’t be coming home.” He didn’t reach in for a hug even say goodbye, just, in his toddler’s simplicity, muttered, “you’re leaving me all alone,” and then asked me to set him down.
 
Folks, I knew that my host family isn’t the emotional kind, so I had decided to set this moment for goodbyes. Had I spent that final night, we wouldn’t have been able to set a goodbye moment like this, lest it feel artificial, and then, as everyone left the next morning for work at their various times, it would have felt empty, wrong, absent of formal goodbye. But in this moment of weepy catharsis, things were almost harder. As I finally walked out to the door, no one was there, all still in my room, presumably in tears. My host mom offered my last words, fallen back on the safety of matronly tradition, “I’ll make you some small round bread for the road,” she said through tears, “pick it up with your luggage tomorrow. I won’t be here when you leave.” And with that, she stood by the door, facing away from me. After I put on my shoes and started to walk out, no one was left; just me, walking into the darkness. And with that, left alone, I really started to cry.
 
And that, was, by far and away more emotion packed into fewer minutes that I’d experienced thus far. We had lived together, worked together, come to trust each other, to exhibit the unspoken bonds of family. And, then as it became clear that I’d be going away, and changing those relationships we’d cultivated so slowly, the pain hit all at once.
 
But that was a couple of days ago, folks. Things are quite different now. I’ve been in Bishkek three days already. I’ve been running around, filling out forms, completing paperwork; I even saw my host grandmother, who is in Bishkek with a new grandchild. Officially now, as of one hour and nineteen minutes ago, I have finished my Peace Corps service. I have done what, over two years ago, I so dramatically set out to do. I have less than 6 days left in country now. I’ll be eating out and relaxing, experiencing Kyrgyzstan in all the magnificent danger than comes with being unemployed.
 
And that, folks, after this long email, marks the end of our journey together! Writing these letters has been a labor of love. In many ways, sitting down for weekly reflections has been very healthy for me. In others, when times were tough, I always seemed to have letters of encouragement coming back from you. Some of you responded frequently, others only every so often. Some of you pass these letters along to friends, others read them out loud to people you know. I am honored to have had such a supportive community in my life as you all, and even now, thinking that this relationship, long distance as it may be, brings me to tears.
 
So farewell. In truth, I do intend to write one more letter, from the wilds of Chicago: a post script, if you will. So, please, if you’ve been reading my letter all this while, but not saying hi, drop me a line. Let me know you’ve been reading. I’ll respond to every letter, as always.
 
So, lest I get too mushy, even via the impersonal world of electronic mail, I’ll just cut this off now. It’s been great folks. Thanks for the wonderful ride.

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Another Wooly Success

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on May 6, 2011

Well, my friends of these past two years, I am delighted to say that things came together better than I could have imagined.

So, the folks in last week were a family from Ohio. Back home, they run a mini mill that caters to the exotic fiber industry in America. Through a series of acts of God and other Divine revelations, they decided that they should pack up and move their family, and their mill, to the rural reaches of Kyrgyzstan. I met them last year on a fact finding mission, and organized their return trip last week.

Folks, it was magical. I introduced them to every reliable worker and relevant handicrafter that I’ve encountered over my past two years here. We had a strategic business session, saw a full fledged shyrdak workshop, and then went to the village that, God willing, they will move to within two years time. This year, the crew included mom, dad, and two kids: boys aged 11 and 12. I watched the boys light up at the plethora of local horses, and saw them connect with the local kids, sharing only the international language of play. Mom connected with other village mothers like a champ. At one point, we stopped by a woman who was milling her own wheat. The Ohio mother stopped in to ask why she was separating the wheat germ and gran from the rest of the flower, pointing out that this is where the greatest nutrient lay.

The Kyrgyz mother listened and then said, “if I do what you say, will my sons grow big like yours?” The point was a relevant one: sporting Levi’s that measured 36×30, her 12 year old son towered over nearly everyone else in the village, not hardly to mention the kids his own age. They were like walking advertisements for proper nutrition.

The father, himself a former linebacker, had a moment of his own. Last year, he had met a 70 year old farmer who had stolen his heart, by telling him that he’d love nothing more than to take some American boys under his wing, and teach them about the wilds of his homeland. This year, as we were touring a facility that might house the wool factory, this old man came down from the mountains, on horseback for the sole purpose of reconnecting with the Giant from Ohio. There were hugs and photos all around.

Since their dramatic coming and departure, we’ve really been wrapping up life here in Sunny Naryn. I went on my last hike in our magical hills, and am now delightfully sore, a feeling that I hope leaves me before I get on that plane. I’ve already had a series of going away dinners, and just last night, I cracked out the gift for my host family that I’ve been preparing for so long: a little laptop, packed with as much educational software as I can find.

As I opened the machine last night, my host dad asked first if it was a real computer, or just a gaming console. Then, however, regardless of my answer, his eyes opened wide when I fired up my pride and joy: the complete Rosetta Stone sweet. Every language in one program. All these months of Korean soap operas gave the girls a leg up on basic vocabulary, goofing around with Turkish was like meeting a long lost relative, and they’ve hardly been able to set the English portion down.

As I prepare to leave, I seem to be only concerned with the future. I have these dreams that one day I’ll come back here to find a flowering apple tree and a family with more modern knowledge in their collective minds than I could even imagine.

Now, as I enter the real final stretch, I will spend the weekend with my friends here, doling out our warming goodbyes to this place that has very much come to mean home.

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Wrapping Up; or, The Final Throes

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on April 29, 2011

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.

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Close of Service, and Hi-Ho! Farmer Dan!

Posted by KyrgyCarl in Letters on March 15, 2011

Well, as they say, all’s well that end’s well. And if our Close of Service (COS) conference was any testament to that saying, then I must be vindicated when I write that: all has gone very well.
 
That’s right, folks, this past week saw the final closing ceremony for my class of Kyrgyzstan volunteers. Now, we’re not finished yet, not by a long shot. However, bureaucracy dictates that we must have our big bash sixty days before anyone can actually leave the country. That being that, we had a total ball.
 
This conference, folks, was the last and final hurrah for my group of volunteers. We haven’t had a group-wide meeting in over a year, and this one rivaled them all. Instead of trainings, the sessions were mostly geared towards ra-ra and feedback. We told Peace Corps what we liked overall, and Peace Corps told us what they liked about us. We also had “cultural readjustment” sessions, where we were told about how even if we had no “reverse culture-shock,” unless we take preventive measures, our friends at home are going to quickly tire of the phrase, “Back when I was in Peace Corps…”
 
And beyond the sessions, we also just got our last and final chance to hang out as one big group. And this was, perhaps, one of the greatest strengths of this whole Peace Corps thing. For this one last moment, we were totally surrounded by the very small group of people who, considering the whole experience, we could be totally comfortable around. We had all seen our friends go home early, and we all knew what it was like to see projects totally crushed by revolutions and violence. We could make off-color jokes about the place around us, and everyone knew they were coming from a place of respect and love.
 
But the honeymoon couldn’t last forever, and, as always, there is more work to do. And in my case, the work is among the most exciting kind.
 
That’s right folks, welcome to Composting with Farmer Dan. See, I have a friend in America who works as an organic farmer. He’s been reading my letters these past years, and by the time he saw the Camel Video last fall, he knew that he needed to make the experience real. So, we talked with each other, we talked with volunteers, and we talked with the locals; and then decided on something quite serious: if Farmer Dan wanted to come out and teach the hardworking farmers of Kyrgyzstan but a fragment of the things that he knows, we’d all show him the time of his life.
 
And that, folks, is where we are today. Dan has seen the grand and majestic mountains of Sunny Naryn. He got to see the first formal meeting with the villagers of Emgekchil, as we lay a (much more substantial) groundwork for the Trees for the Kyrgyz project. To boot, he’s also staying with my homestay family and I. The girls are using the opportunity to speak a lot of English, my host-Grandmother is using it to tell dramatic stories of her childhood (“Life was great up until WWII started,” she said), and my host mother harnessed Dan’s cooking skills to make a huge pile of steamed dumplings. Furthermore, when Farmer Dan haulled out the little American gifts he brought for the family, the whole crew lit up. Between the drawing books, the work gloves, and a little tiny Spider Man tshirt for the youngest boy, there isn’t anything but a smile to see.
 
Perhaps, however, until we start the compost trainings in force, Farmer Dan’s strongest contribution has been to the local volunteer community. His first night in town, as he went on about Wisconsin politics and the depth of beet roots, he caught himself and said, “feel free to stop me guys, I could go on about this stuff for days.”
 
“Oh, please continue,” said Anne, ” it doesn’t really matter what you say, since it is essentially the first new thing anyone in this group has talked about in years.”

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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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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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