Honesty

Salut,

There’s something in Kyrgyzstan called суботник (cybotnek), which is a Russian word and derives from the term for Saturday, but generally refers to a time for cleaning. Spring here feels like a time of renewal, and my surroundings certainly reflect that. On Fridays, students do суботникик which means they skip classes, go outside, clean the front courtyard, and plant trees. Students here have always been free labor (teachers instruct students to move their materials/books around, send stuff between classes, move furniture, etc.). In spring, the flowers come back, and that usually means lots of chores for students. More time outside. It feels hot, not as hot as Texas thank goodness, and yet sometimes it can be relaxing to stand outside and feel the wind blow by. Rain comes and goes of course. 

Recently, my village celebrated the hospital workers/nurses who work in our village. I think my village is unique in having a full-scale mini hospital of sorts, or at least substantial staff. Several schools came to our village center. Besides celebrating the medical workers, it also manifested as a sort of day to celebrate exercising and fitness. The schools each performed a “flash mob” as Baktygul called it; mostly an amalgamation of TikTok dances, and my school called our frequent power ballad singer, Alihan, to come to sing Cherri Cherri Lady for the 100th time. My school always has the 4th and 5th-grade girls dance the same dance, and he always sings the same song at events. It’s repetitive in a mildly irritating, mildly sweet way. After the dances, they had everyone do a “march” down the village road before departing. 

Nurlan Agai, the PE/physical sports teacher, caught wind that I have been hosting a chess/checkers club, so one Tuesday, after my club ended, he got me to play him. I beat most of my students, but he check-mated me very quickly. He said he’s been playing since he learned when he was in 10th grade (and he’s like in his early 50s). For those who do play chess, he’s a very aggressive queen player, which Ben says is how lots of other Kyrgyz adults play. 

Turrabek Agai, our Kyrgyz language teacher, has been prepping students for a future Manas presentation. (Agai translates to male teacher, but it’s the equivalent of Mr/Mister. Here, we don’t use surnames when speaking about teachers- Students call me Grace ejeke) (Manas is an epic poem, probably the longest ever composed and recorded, about the legendary/possibly real but probably not folk hero Manas). Манасчы (Manaschu) are bards essentially who memorize large portions of Manas and recite them at tois/events/for tourists, etc. Students learn Manas (I mentioned in an earlier post that I got the chance to watch a Manas competition) starting quite early. I have been interested in learning to recite Manas since I saw the competition, and I am currently memorizing a portion that the students are prepping for. We received an English translation, so I’m currently trying to do both, but the Kyrgyz is much harder for me (as one would expect). I think it sounds better in Kyrgyz because it just flows off the tongue. Performing Manas, you usually do it alone or in large groups. Alone, you sit down, and it usually involves a more guttural pitch and lots of gesticulating. In large groups, the hand waving remains, but the cadence is slower. It’s not about speed, it’s more about cadence and keeping rhythm. Baktygul and I have been teaching a select number of students to perform it in English, too. 

Speaking of school, we’ve had school staff changes. Our music teacher, Dustan, left without much warning or fanfare, and most of us didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. His departure meant we got a new music teacher and schedule changes. My 5th graders all miss him, and he had lots of young hip energy (he was like early 30s probably and always had his handy accordion with him). I forgot to mention but some time ago we also got a new Russian language primary teacher, Aizirek. She’s the school director’s daughter-in-law as she married her son last summer. Aizirek attended our school, and I learned she’s even younger than me (My Kyrgyz language teacher said she’s a 2005 baby!). 

This past week, I was also able to go to a bridal toi during school hours. Tois sort of happen whenever, and sometimes teachers just leave school and go to tois. The other teachers continue to refer to me as a “guest” which I find sweet, but I’m always their appointed dancer at every toi. I only got the chance to dance a few songs, but the toi itself was super fun. Lots of food to eat, always, and some of my 7th grade students’ relatives ran the toi, so I saw some of them. 

Jalal-Abad city recently got some new city buses! Our city has marshrutkas, which are vans and annoyingly cramped (also they only have one door), but Bishkek recently donated several green trolley-like buses. It’s much needed because Jalal-Abad is a triangle shape and not the most walkable. We also got the chance to meet a Nigerian expat living in Jalal-Abad who we met at a cafe. According to him, lots of international expats live in Jalal-Abad, usually working as teachers within the city. There’s been much talk about FC Barcelona clubs and academies within Jalal-Abad, and he mentioned helping out at one. Jalal-Abad to me has never felt as if it had a very international alluring appeal; in Naryn, several other organizations send volunteers (JAIKA is basically Japanese Peace Corps, and I’ve heard of Korean volunteers in Naryn, too. Fulbright also has sent volunteers to several cities but not Jalal-Abad). In some ways, it’s nice to see there are more people here who we can meet. Out here, sometimes you can feel dreadfully alone when the number of people who speak fluent English can be counted on around two hands. 

So I won’t really mince words, but I had a terrible Orozo Ait or Eid. I said in the beginning that I wanted to be honest and open about some of the experiences I had here, so I hope you’ll allow me to detour and speak on that. The last Ait, you can read about, it occurred during training, pretty early on. Ait is all about guesting, going to visit other people, family, friends, etc. I mentioned last post that my family didn’t celebrate Norwuz, and it also rained horribly. Yet on Ait/Eid of all days, I was so incredibly sad that my family wasn’t celebrating. Or rather, they did celebrate, but without me. My host parents went to guest at other houses, leaving my sister-in-law, my host brother, and the kids with me at home. They were great company, but I had realized that in eight months, I had never once been invited to go guesting or to a toi with my own host family. A total mind-bending idea compared to other volunteers, who I know regularly attend tois/go guesting with their family. My host parents have said that I’m too young and that my Kyrgyz isn’t very good. In many ways, I had written it off to myself; I went to a good number of tois with teachers, nor did I expect to go everywhere with my family. 

I came to Kyrgyzstan to learn about Kyrgyz culture, to learn Kyrgyz, and to be a resource to my school and community. Yet it is an inescapable reality that I, and maybe other volunteers too, often feel useless, that we feel our work is worthless, or question what we’re doing. There is a Peace Corps volunteer cycle, a graph they showed us at orientation that discussed common highs and lows in emotions/thoughts volunteers feel. The honeymoon phase in the beginning, the questioning, the despair, the renewal, all of it. Not even just uselessness, but also feeling as if we, or in this case, me, feel that we’re doing worse than other people, or better. Comparison is the thief of joy, and yet I have 34 other volunteers to compare myself to, who are more or less, all doing similar things as me, perhaps worse or better. This is all to say that it came to a head when I broke down crying inside the bathroom on Eid during mid-day. At that moment, I felt like I had accomplished nothing at site, that I wasn’t learning anything, that I was a much worse volunteer than others who create social media videos for the PC TikTok, or those who were, at that moment, guesting to 10 houses with their families. My Kyrgyz is awful, I thought to myself, less students attend my club, my family doesn't invite me to tois, I haven't done enough work on my grant project, etc. I have a whole blog featuring every interesting thing I’m doing and have been doing for months on end, so why would I possibly feel that I’ve done nothing? 

My site placement is better than most; I know that because I have little to no issues with my school director, my counterpart, my host family, my actual village, and its conditions. In that, I am more fortunate than most, others who face hostile or apathetic communities or host families. Comparison truly is a thief of joy, but it does feel unavoidable sometimes. The other day, I practiced reciting Manas in front of Adelya, who mostly looked at me funny while she sorted through her drawer of things, and I was thinking to myself, “Am I actually saying this right now? Am I actually speaking these foreign words I’ve memorized, and am I actually currently sitting in Kyrgyzstan with a family that’s not my own?” Sometimes none of it feels real, and I can’t always believe what I’m doing. The strive for perfection, to achieve and do the absolute most while you’re here is high. Some of it comes from age and inexperience, feeling like an imposter who surely doesn’t know enough to make a difference or contribute anything meaningful. It feels that way when students don’t listen or when taxi drivers speak garbled Krussian and I can’t understand. 

Some things you can’t change; I can’t force my family to celebrate holidays, nor can I force students to care about English if they don’t. The key is to control what you can, but it’s okay and inevitable to break down or be upset or frustrated anyway. I’m not a hopeless optimist, but I do have enough faith in what I’m doing. In the quiet moments, when it’s mid-day now in spring, underneath the tree in my house whose flowers are now regrowing, I sit alongside Adelya and Alihan on the new swinging bench my host father installed. I see the cows and sheep grazing in my neighbor’s yard, which I can see through the thin silver fence. 

I remember a Washington Post article people were sharing on Instagram about something called JOMO, or Joy of Missing Out, rather than the obvious FOMO. Neuroscientist and Journalist Richard Sima said, “The world is too rich, vast, and varied for one person to experience in a lifetime, no matter how hard we try not to miss out.” Of course, that doesn’t make me less sad that I didn’t get to go guesting at all on Eid, but it did make me happy that the very next day, I went to the toi with the teachers. Every day for the past month, since around Spring Break, I have been trying to watch one movie at night, trying to eat into my growing movie watchlist on IMDB (I watched Pam and Tommy tv series, Sharper, Logan Lucky, The Bronze, etc (which I liked because of Sebastian Stan 😂). And this year, I’ve been more intentional about trying new music and listening to new genres. It doesn’t stop the FOMO when I see college acquaintances on their spring study abroads across Europe. And to people reading this, I miss Mexican food, I miss having a toilet I don’t have to squat to use, I miss constant water flow (I have to go outside and hit the pipes with a makeshift hammer every time it turns off), I miss well-constructed Woodlands roads, and I miss being able to drink tap water, so the FOMO can work both ways. That’s okay; it’s human to be envious or insecure, but it’s also human to find joy anyway. 

À Bientôt,

Grace

PS. Music!

1. Is It Love- Loreen
2. Praising You- Rita Ora
3. Around Venus and Jupiter- Eli Ran
4. Who Am I- Besomorph & Riell
5. Brother- Kodaline
6. Nothing Is Lost- The Weeknd
7. Slow It Down- Benson Boone
8. My Oh My- Ava Max

Plus some movie recommendations: Sharper, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Trainspotting, Baby Driver, You Can Live Forever, Pamela: A Love Story