Two Stops Past Siberia
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Posts Tagged Naryn
The Road Home (To Sunny Naryn)
Beijing to Urumqi, Urumqi to Bishkek, Bishkek to Naryn city. How’s that for an exotic itinerary?
Beijing, it turned out, was a city both very similar, and very different to the one I left in the spring of 2008. Where in many ways, it hadn’t changed at all: big buildings, impressive sights, lots of cars, great subway; I found myself not recognizing much of anything. Beijing, while technically the same city, was all but foreign to this former resident.
But I still have friends there. My old business professor, an eager entrepreneur when I left him, was sporting two locations, 40 employees, a new wife and a very fancy car. I have two classmates who stayed, and they described watching the city change before their very eyes (and sometimes with surprisingly little warning.)
In the end, all the traveling, all the language practice, all the conversations, they pinnacled to one single two hour meal: I went back to my old host family. It was the quiet, safe environment that my language had flourished in its fullest, and being there again, it came right back. I walked right back in to our 16th floor apartment, there across from the Bird’s Nest stadium. Their first words were simple: “you got thin!” We looked at pictures, we caught up. We had dinner and a beer, and talked politics, just like the old days, (though now, I had to explain desperately what on Earth I was doing in ‘Ji-ar-ji-si-tan’) And they were delightfully unaware of the changes I just couldn’t get over. “Nothing has changed in Beijing,” they said, speaking more of their own needs than anything else.
“Yes, we have a subway station nearby now, very convenient.” But still, they just wanted to talk politics, and comment on the heat. I gave them a picture, and they gave me hugs. The food was wonderful. And then, just like that, we were off, China long behind us.
Where I had previously been overwhelmed by the mess they were making of the human rights of billions, this time, it was through the developer’s eye that I looked at the place. There are banks, folks, banks just everywhere. There are public toilets; free ones. I said to my friend there, “boy, in China, things get done. They say a year, they mean a year.” “Sometimes,” he replied, “they mean less.” But it was also polluted. With all the massive and beautiful buildings in downtown Beijing, I could seldom see more than have a dozen in any one direction on account of the smog. “They know it’s a problem,” my friend had said, “they say they will relocate all of the plastic factories here to an island within two years.” In America, you couldn’t even suggest such a thing; in China, it will happen.
And with that, we took the cheap, fast and clean subway to the airport, spent an overnight in Urumqi, and found ourselves back home in Kyrgyzstan, a place I was more than happy to see again. My friend, Matt had left us, one day earlier, in a manner fitting for two urban boys: in a subway station. Of my glorious summer break, only Corey, my fellow volunteer and I remained. At the airport in Bishkek, we pushed off the taxi drivers, and took a marshrutka into town. Home again, at last.
A Meat and Greet Kind of Week
This week, freshly in from America, our Acting Country Director Ben Chapman asked simply, “which volunteers see the fewest visitors?” And with this knowledge as a blazing shield, and his former PC Kazakhstan service as his sword of comfort, Mr. Chapman followed our Safety and Security officer on her oblast by oblast tour penetrating deep into the heart of Sunny Naryn.
Ben was a volunteer’s volunteer. He honed his Russian ten years ago in Kazakhstan, and doesn’t seem like he’s lost it. Our Safety and Security officer had arranged meetings for us with the Mayor, Governor, and local police. During each of these meetings, he charmed folks with his effortless language, and tickled the cops enough that they insisted on a big group photo when it was all said and done.
At the end of his time here, he took us all out to dinner, sat with us, talked with us, and finally observed, “they say Naryn is the harshest part of Kyrgyzstan to serve. But you all clearly are in great spirits.” (An understatement.) “What I have noticed, working with PC as long as I have, is that volunteers who have it easy are often the least satisfied with their service. But the ones who are really working to stick it out, they are the ones who come home the happiest.”
Gosh, I sure wish all of you could have meetings like this with your bosses.
I do wonder though, when will all this tough talk about Naryn materialize? Maybe when the temperature drops to -40º this winter?
But in the meantime folks, I’ve had not one, but three “guesting” experiences this week.
Guesting, you see, is something a little more than coming over to visit. I’ve gone into grand detail up on the website about one encounter, and I’ll give you a brief taste here:
The tables are always set to look like still life paintings from Renaissance art. Dramatic fruit displays in cut glass bowls, salads, breads and syrupy jams. Generally, the events go late into the night.
During the first one this week, we had Kyrgyz friends in from Naryn and Moscow. They arrived around eight, and my dad wasn’t to be home until midnight. So (for the first time) I was invited to the table, and given the job of pressing the booze. So, between accusations that I was a spy and questions about how much things cost in America, I refilled shot glasses and insisted on toasts.
The second was a birthday party for a neighbor. These folks had hosted a volunteer before, and conversation was a little more laid back: my work here, Kyrgyz vs. American culture, silly stories. When toast time came here, I recited a long, poetic series of blessings my tutor had me memorize. These folks were very impressed, quietly repeating some of the prettier lines to themselves. This in stark contrast from the first time my family heard this, when all they replied was, “Gee! How much do you drink?”
The final visit this week involved my Dad dropping off a car he bought at his family’s house in the village. This event, exciting enough for a letter on its own, culminated as I was chowing down on tomatoes, while my Kyrgyz compatriots demolished minced meat, carrots and onions all jellied together with ground horse hooves and cow skulls. How’s that for a difference in palate?
Anyway, it’s been a long letter folks, I hope I haven’t bored you.
Originally Written September 14th, 2009
Clustr Map
Kyrgy Carl, Making Waves!
