In for a Penny, In for a Pound

Salut, 

So, I think that’s how the phrase goes? In for a penny, in for a pound? I’ve been trying to teach my counterpart acronyms and idiomatic expressions. She said the only one she knows is FB for Facebook haha. We’ve reached the end of the first quarter of school (technically, it’s this week, but I have a lot to cover in this blog post so sorry). 

So, two major things happened this week. Firstly, the Peace Corps has descended into Jalal Abad these last two weeks. Saltanat eje, I forget her official title, but she’s the one in charge of managing the English teaching we do, she’s the liaison between the schools and the ministry and PC and us volunteers. She’s been traveling across the country for the last several weeks, and last week, it was our turn. Again, because there’s another volunteer in my village, it made the schedule wonky. Saltanat came to my village on a Tuesday, where I have classes in the afternoon, for a meeting with my counterpart and director. I wasn’t sure what the meeting was supposed to entail. Do you know what she did? She said, "Sit down, and have a conversation with your counterpart and director about problems in the school, and I’ll watch"! Ugh. So I used the best of my Kyrgyz (and the amazing help of my counterpart) to talk to my director about problems in the school.

I’m immensely lucky Baku eje speaks such good English. 

The other Jalal Abad volunteers and I got the chance to go to the Jalal Abad sign. Hollywood style, it sits upon a hill we hiked up and took a picture in front of. We were a little dumb and took the pathway through the trees and not the literal paved driving route, and we ran into a barbed fence and had to walk around it. While up there, we ran into a gaggle of young boys who walked back down with us. They even gave us sunflower seeds. I’ve been to the city several times in the last week. The regular times I go on the weekend, but I also went with Baktygul to get Halloween supplies and another time for host family training.

After Saltanat eje’s visit, Almaz and Nurlan came and visited me. Saltanat had nothing but nice things to say about my lesson with Baktygul, but maybe it was the critic in me who thought it was on the worse side. As we are still getting in the groove and figuring out how to work together, lesson plan, and schedule time to plan (accommodating her busy schedule too), I would say ⅓ to ¼ of our lessons are what I would consider bad or in need of improvement, and ½ are okay and maybe the last fourth are really good. Considering we give 19 lessons- perhaps 8-10 distinct lessons- per week, I consider that okay. Even teachers get burnt out, and even sometimes teachers put greater focus on the big long-term picture instead of the individual lessons. 

I remember one particular day when I started a class while waiting for Baktygul to arrive, and then the Zavuch came into the room and grabbed me. We went into the teachers' room, where ALL the teachers were congregated (granted, it’s like 10:30, in the middle of the school day), and eating meat and bread, and throwing a small party. I repeatedly said I was in the middle of giving a class, but all the teachers told me it was okay! I asked, “What are the students doing?” while hearing loud shouts, and the sound of running footsteps coming from outside the door. “They’re learning,” one teacher told me, with a dismissive wave of her hand. You know… *jashoo ushundai* (such is life). 

Back to Almaz and Nurlan. Almaz, my regional manager, stopped by my house to visit. For the second time, it rained when a Peace Corps staff member visited me. I’m convinced whenever PC visits me, it will rain, which is a shame because I think my house is its prettiest in the sunlight. Nurlan, our program manager, tagged along, not with my knowledge. So I happened upon Nurlan and Almaz chai eeching with my host family. Almaz talked my head off for a few hours, asked for a bunch of forms, told me we would visit my school… and then he forgot to collect said forms, and we never went to my school. So.. ? Love Almaz, he’s so funny. He hosted host family training in the city last Thursday, which meant I missed a ton of classes this past week, which I felt bad about. It was nice to hear that the other volunteers are also doing a lot of reading. 

Thank god for Almaz, though, because through him, I learned my host father used to be an ambulance driver for several years? He has told me he was a driver for a long time, and I always assumed it was a taxi driver (he did that too, I think). I should mention a specific funny story with my host father. Our taxi driver that takes us to Jalal Abad city every week comes from Osh every weekend (Osh is 2-2.5 hours away, and Jalal Abad city is 30-40 minutes away). My host dad, rightly so, thinks that’s ridiculous, so every week, he jokes that he’ll take over, he’ll drive me and the other volunteers because he needs the money! When winter comes, so he says, he won’t have a job, and there won’t be any work. In the days leading up to Almaz’s visit, I told him, “Take it up with Almaz!”, and he agreed. My host parents love Almaz, he’s their connection to the Peace Corps, and have known him for years, so they always ask me when he’s coming and visiting. Unfortunately, Almaz quickly shattered my host dad’s taxi dream, as PC has strict rules about their taxi services. 

I attended my first Julduk, жылдык, a remembrance celebration. As I’ve been told, a Julduk is hosted one year after a family member’s passing (there are additional gatherings in later years). We attended one of the LCF’s Julduk, and it was my first one. Not all tois or gatherings are the same (a Julduk isn’t a toi), but I’ve found it so interesting the similarities and differences. Lots of blessings were given, and there was a Quran reading. It was shorter than other gatherings I’d been to, it was about an hour and a half. 

A key part of Kyrgyz culture is packets, these reusable colorful plastic grocery bags, that the host of any toi/celebration/guesting/gathering event gives to all the guests. At the end of the gathering, when the bags come out, everyone descends upon the table and takes whatever is left home. There is always a lot of food, so it is by design that you will take food home. Usually, that means extra candy, bread, soda drinks, fruit, and even meat. So everyone leaves with bags in hand. The story I’ve been told behind this is that the Kyrgyz people were nomadic for a very long time and set up боз үй (yurts) to live in. The leaders or hosts of events/gatherings would give the other visiting nomads food to take with them to ensure they didn’t go hungry. Now, the bags and collection/scramble for food are a remnant of that. 

Something I was thinking about a while ago, and I think you might enjoy this analogy, Mihica. Joining the Peace Corps and being in a host family feels like being dropped into a book. You have to learn all the context; there’s a whole wealth of history, background, and knowledge to understand and grasp. I’m temporarily the main character in my own story, being the person everyone looks at, but then… just like that, the story is over. Our character arcs play out, our goals succeed or fail, and then the book ends. I leave, but the story isn’t over. 

Sometimes it’s that feeling of being an outsider that I constantly have to reconcile with, the reality when my host family shows me all their photos, that my host family has decades lived through, mass arrays of photos and memories that existed long before I was here and will exist long after. It’s easy to feel that way about a place, but maybe I just don’t completely process the object permanence of it all. Being so closely knit now with this family, it’s almost like, how did I not know them before? But of course, I didn’t, I’ve dropped in, and it’s not even been three months yet. 

Everything I see, all their routines, their lives, all of it will be the same. I’ve picked up doing chores now. I do the dishes at night, vacuum, and help fold down the blankets for my host parents to sleep. It’s alleviating for my sister-in-law, I’m sure, but it’s also something that once I leave, they’ll continue doing. I feel that way about everything; I’m dropping in, witnessing all their customs, all traditions, and they’ll still do the same when I leave. I’m not saying this as if I want to or desire to see a change. I think I’m thinking of this in ways I didn’t when I lived in Nigeria or studied in Rome, but I think it’s all the same right? The bazaar seller I run into and buy socks or school supplies from will still be there when I leave. The cafeteria cook will still make compot and samsa, and my host mother will still make ash and yell at the box of birds every night. I haven’t had that sort of constant permanence in my mind. We moved three times in Texas, and then we moved to Nigeria, and then we settled back in Texas for the longest time (5 years), and then I moved to Austin for college for 3 years, and now I’m here for 2 more years. I haven’t moved as much as you have, Mihica, but I’m used to lots of constant movement every few years, and I like it. 

These last few weeks I’ve eaten lots of lagman, thank god. I love lagman so much. I ate it with Baktygul when we went to the city, and I had it twice at a cafe I went to with the other volunteers. Rahima eje, my local Kyrgyz tutor, brought me lagman after her daughter made some the night before, as she knew that my host family never makes lagman (mostly to my chagrin). She asked the cafeteria cook to heat it for me, and so Baktygul and I ate lagman in our classroom before the students came running in. 

For the last few weeks, there have been random men around the house undergoing construction work. One’s from Uzbekistan, as my host father told me. This past Saturday, after the Julduk, I came home to a large party happening, where like 15 of my host dad’s friends were visiting. My host mom and dad watch this Uzbek soap opera, though I have no idea what’s going on. 

I’ll go more in-depth on Halloween once it’s over, but we’ve been in full-swing prep for it. Baktygul and I bought streamers, and we’ll be playing charades and having students make a mummy using toilet paper. The other day I went on a wild goose chase to plug in a printer. While Baktygul was teaching, I needed to find a printer to print out decorations, and I had to ask way too many people to help because someone had taken the plug-in extension cord. First, Baktygul, then Acel eje, who used it, then Gulzara eje, my school director, who was supposed to have it in her office. Then when I found her, she said she didn’t have it, and then I had to ask the zavuch using the black and white printer, who had to go and find it for me. But as I said, such is life. Navigating challenges in Kyrgyz is not always easy, and I have a penchant for overexplaining rather than using clear and concise language. Kyrgyz has forced me to be more concise and find creative ways to say things. 

The last most interesting thing was that my host family has surprised me sometimes out of nowhere by the things they ask or their thought processes. Firstly, I know next to nothing about their thought processes, so it’s often built upon mountains of assumptions. However, I find most interesting what they remember or what they focus on. I tend to point out really obvious things or make jokes to them because nuance or contemplation is hard to articulate. This was a few weeks ago, but I told my host mom about the food the cafeteria cook makes. Then, many hours later, or the next day, as it was my host mom and I just sitting there in silence while my sister-in-law made food, she asked out of nowhere how much money I spent on the cafeteria food? It threw me off by its abruptness, though even in English, I’m familiar with the sentiment. My second example is that like a month ago my host dad mentioned maybe going to the mountains on a weekend or Wednesday (my day off). We didn’t go, and I didn’t ask much of it (here, plans are not real plans until they happen- except gatherings/tois). Then, this past week, during Almaz’s visit, he told Almaz that he felt very regretful that he never took me to the mountains, as he had promised me. My host dad is such a character; I envision him in another life with a glass of beer and a pack of cigarettes because it so fits his vibe, but we’re in the South, and he’s religious, so he does neither of those things. He watches really random manual instruction videos on his phone and lounges while we all clean the house. His driving scares me every single time. His and my host mom’s curiosity and humor are something I love very much. I was surprised, and even a little bit touched, that he remembered the promise that didn’t bother me and one I quickly forgot. 

At the end of the first quarter, there’s a break- I think it’s ten days- and then we return to school. What can I say to wrap up this quarter? I’m nowhere near done, I still have a lot to do (haven’t started my English club yet!). I’m happy that the days feel long but pass in blurs. It’s not as exciting or thrilling as maybe some other volunteers are having, but I find even a little over two months into being at my permanent site and over 4 months since I first arrived, I cherish the time, the stars- always- and the constant laughter. My room feels like a home, my own little world. It’s not permanent, nothing ever is, and I relish that in some way. It’ll be mine for as long as I’m here, and this family is my family.

À Bientôt,

Grace

Music!

1. Зари- TONI, Andro, ELMAN
2. БСББ- Jax
3. Bul Mahabbat- RaiM & Erke
4. Эта Девочка- Galymzhan & Adil
5. 1989 - Taylor's Version, obviously!!