april

April showers bring new government powers. If you haven't seen Kyrgyzstan in the news in the last couple weeks, look it up. I've been removed to a safe place, and now I'm just waiting for news.

march

I’ve learned to speak many new languages here, while at the same time sometimes losing the ability to converse in my mother tongue. First of all there’s the Kyrgyz language. I haven’t mastered it by any means (and perhaps my level of Kyrgyz being higher than most of my students’ English level, when they’ve studied for years and myself only officially instructed for about two months, may show I have not mastered my teaching job either), but I get around okay doing normal things: shopping, getting a taxi, ordering in a restaurant, stepping over bound chickens for sale on the ground. But I do this while speaking Kyrgyz.

I have learned more than Kyrgyz and the odd ends of Russian required for anyone looking like a permanent tourist. My previous employment at the fruit company showed me that big businesses speak a language of acronyms, and the government is a big business. I regularly spout off lines such as: “Some PCVs from the K17 PST will go to the ToT for PCVTs.” (Yet just the other day I said, “My hair the back a little longer to cut.” That’s the approximate word order in Kyrgyz, but I was speaking English). While not an entirely new language, those unfamiliar with it may as well be listening to Brad Pitt in the film Snatch.

As if I wouldn’t return to America incoherent enough, a tight knit group will often form new vocabulary or phrases that contain situational signification that, to those external, it conveys little or no meaning (the inside joke, but I prefer to think of our humor as more unique than that).

Small children have an unfortunate trait of often becoming larger children, but while walking in the bazaar recently, we found cell phone baby. Cell phone baby was just a baby talking on a toy phone while intermittently looking back at us. Unintentionally, as we were just following our shortest path out, we tagged behind cell phone baby for about five minutes weaving through many sections of a large bazaar. Since two groups would unlikely be going this exact zig zag path we decided that she was probably using the phone to call the militia to report the tourists trailing her. She eventually went one direction (through means of parent carrying her), and we turned the other and headed home. I don’t remember exactly what we bought at the bazaar that day, but we still talk about cell phone baby.

So be warned. When you next see me in America (or you could visit!) I might only speak slow simple sentences that insult your ability to understand English, it’s also possible I will only be able to form disjointed English, or I could rant about PST and VRFs while expecting knowledge of the incomprehensible meanings behind the mancave, Jordan, and winter pants parties. But at least you’ll understand cell phone baby, a little bit.

22 feb

The blogger website is back online after not being able to connect here for quite some time. Winter might have broken yesterday. I got rain in my village last weekend (not snow). The city has no snow left. It's still cold, but Spring is at the end of the tunnel. It's a holiday tomorrow so I don't have class today or tomorrow. Not a lot of news right now. Just making sure this was working again.

january

19 jan

Back to school. After not quite a month off of school, I'm back in the classroom. The freezing cold classroom. December had been pretty cold, but near the end and the beginning of January the weather was actually pretty nice; the snow was nearly gone from my village. Now it has turned cold again. This weekend poured down feet of snow and accompanying cold air.

The last week of December brought Christmas, my birthday, and New Years. Christmas decorations went up in shop windows and everywhere, but despite the English stating "Xmas Merry," people insist they are New Year's decorations. Even the tree is a New Year's tree. Even with my Christmas lesson, I don't think my students believed that Christmas and New Year's are not the same thing. I spent the holiday in Jalalabad then proceeded down to Osh for New Years. The actual event wasn't spectacular, but the entire weekend was full of costume parties, pictures, and inside jokes taking place mostly in the location dubbed the Man Cave.

Last week our K17 group met up on Issyk Kul Lake for our final big group training on projects, grants, etc. It was nice to see everyone again, but it's the last time I'll see many of them until our Close of Service conference over a year from now. Also we southern volunteers get the added bonus of doing double time on the traveling. After all that car/bus/plane time I'm ready to stay down south for as long as possible.

Back to work. Most of my first lessons will probably be repeats of previous lessons. At least most of the students can still say hello. I'd ask for mail, but I've not received anything in months. Either it's backed up or there are some happy postal workers somewhere on the line.

31 january

I have had a hard time getting a solid connection to post updates. Things that were once strange when arriving in this country have become pretty normal to me now, and life is pretty regular and routine. The postal mail is still working, though a bit slow. Send me a postcard or an email if there are any specifics questions about my doings here. February update coming pending internet connectivity.

fairy tale of jalalabad

I taught my first Christmas lesson today. I think I did it just to remind myself that Christmas is actually coming up soon. It's hard to imagine an American being able to forget that anytime after Thanksgiving (or is it Halloween?). In the local stores of Jalalabad city there are no carols to be heard; the radio is not inundated with jolly melodies; the halls have not been decked. The irony is that growing up in a desert I'm actually surrounded by snow this time for the holidays.

I discovered that I have virtually no Christmas music or films with me. I never appreciated not being able to escape its presence when turning on the TV or buying a Big Gulp, but the complete lack of the holiday is nearly as shocking. I think there must be a happy medium somewhere.

In my lesson I showed a couple scenes from Fred Claus. Kevin Spacey's character shut down the toy factory and told the elves to "go back to Elfastan or wherever" they came from. I think I enjoyed that line better than the writers could have imagined.

Winter break is coming soon as well. This means an entire semester will be complete. I think I'll celebrate by keeping my heater on whenever the power is on.

nov update

Earlier this month was our inservice training. All our K-17 group went to Bishkek for a week. It was right when the weather turned bitter cold. I didn't even leave the hotel for the first three days. I finally ventured out for some fast-food hamburgers. It started to warm up a little by the end of the week, but I was already sick. I came back south to where it was still cooler than I left it, but a good 20 degrees warmer than Bishkek. It has since snowed in my village though.

After several days of Thanksgiving lessons making me hungry, I had two Thanksgivings this weekend. The first was on Thursday. I joined in with the Jalalabad City crew for our day-of celebration. We had two turkeys, and the whole meal was just like America. After three plates of dinner, I had pie.

Friday night we had a sudden brown out situation with the power. It was still too early for bed, but our main concern was cooking the next day. Friday was a holiday in Kyrgyzstan so it was doubtful that anyone would be coming to fix it anytime soon. After consulting with the neighbor we discovered that the transformer down the street had blown. Three Americans joined the neighborhood down at the transformer with out flashlights. One of the four main connectors was visibly damaged. Only a few strands of wire were reaching out each direction from their bunches. This would be the end in America, but we're in Kyrgyzstan. The neighborhood decided that we all wanted power now, so we'd fix it. We joined in the discussion and added our flashlights. The grid was disconnected, and someone jumped up on top with some pliers. Not a power company employee, just one representative of the neighborhood. After some twisting and bending, the switch was cranked back over to on. Full power had been reestablished. Imagine that in America next time the power goes out.

With the power still running the next day, all of our Jalalabad volunteers joined together for fried chicken, and of course, more pie.

I came back to the snow in my village. It snowed last week here, but the city must be a bit lower elevation because there was none there. I cleaned, played my guitar I just bought a week ago, and watched a movie. Now time to read for little bit before the power goes out. Back to the work routine tomorrow as December approaches.

4 nov 09

Halloween was an adventure. This week is fall break, and next week I'll be in training with all my k17s in Bishkek. Small random group of photos have finally been uploaded. enjoy

Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/luckygarnett/Kyrgyz?feat=directlink