Manas, the Rise and Fall

Salut,

I had originally given this post a funnier title, but life has a way of hitting you, sometimes literally. This post originally was supposed to be more uplifting than the last, which was rather sad and morose on my part. It will be uplifting until it’s not. 

I mentioned in my last post that our music teacher left; our schedule changed, which I really hate. I used to have back-to-back classes and now have an awkward gap on Fridays of 2 hours to kill time. The new music teacher has some interesting teaching methods; in the afternoon, I spotted her in the upstairs entryway having 1st and 2nd graders dance to Shakira in large groups for exercise!

There’s been a rifle laid out on an extra dining table we don’t use and thought it was fake as I’ve basically never seen it be used (and guns here just aren’t a thing). But the other day, my host brother, Meder, grabbed it and said he used it to shoot feral dogs? Okay. 

Now that it’s spring, Adelya and Alihan like to go out of the house, and lately, they’ve been visiting our neighbors. Two of the children, Maryam and Yazmina are my students (they have a few other siblings, one 2nd grader who attends the school). They have this adorable little swing that hangs from the ceiling in their courtyard that Adelya has become enamored with. Adelya and Alihan will shuffle over to our neighbor’s house in the afternoon, carrying a large soccer ball their father bought them. My host parents admit to not liking some of the neighbors (I think my host mom doesn’t like how unreligious their father is or something? Idk). I’ve never seen a group of siblings look so obviously related; Maryam and all her siblings, their faces are all spitting images of each other despite being as much as 10 years apart. 

I got invited again to go to American Corner to speak with students (American Corner is a US embassy-affiliated and funded organization that supports English learning, amongst other things). Each time, it’s a rotating class of people; I’m usually never with the same set of students twice (on occasion, I’ll recognize one or two students). During my most recent time, I met some of Manas’ (the director) older students, whose English was marginally better than most of the students I talked to and spoke with. After a speaking practice club, the students and I (plus his assistant Roshana), we trekked up the Jalalabad city mountain (it’s a 1 hour leisure hike up and down). 

Peace Corps regularly holds what they call a “consolidation drill”. If there ever is an emergency in Kyrgyzstan (ex: a revolution, particularly awful natural disaster, epidemic, etc.), then they consolidate volunteers to our oblast/regional centers (ie we travel to our nearest big city). Everyone knew that the drill would be in spring. Peace Corps never told us when, of course, they would call it on a moment’s notice and you’d drop everything, grab a night bag, and go. I have been expecting it since late March, but with lots of major events, and major flooding down here in the south, I simply wasn’t sure when. Yeah, right, the flooding. Jalal-Abad, Osh, and Talas have all been experiencing some level of flooding due to lots and lots of rain. My village has been relatively safe (not all other volunteers can say the same, unfortunately). 

Anyway, the drill ended up being called April 26, annoyingly at 9 am when I had just walked into my Kyrgyz language tutoring session. I don’t have a ton to say about the drill itself. We all raced to Jalal-Abad with ease (Bogdan, a volunteer in Arslanbob, much further from our consolidation point, had a harder time, as his power had been out due to the flooding and couldn’t receive or send messages for hours). Emily’s birthday was that Sunday and Ben’s friend from the Netherlands was visiting, so we ate some good food, visited the city park and ate ice cream/boba tea, drank some celebratory wine, and chatted. I was not the only one miffed they decided to have it on April 26, as it interfered with lots of people’s plans. My host sister, Kuz Saykal, turned 1 year old that day, and I missed it! I brought her back from the city some toy-colored blocks to play with as a gift. 

During the drill, we talked about Kyrgyz superstitions. Several well-known ones back home apply here. Knocking on wood. Don’t walk under a ladder or break a mirror. One superstition I grew up with that I rarely see people point out is opening an umbrella inside, which I do very often. Emily pointed out a few more, namely don’t look in the eyes in a broken mirror. The big one we notice in Kyrgyzstan is the obsession with the cold. Don’t drink anything cold or else you will get sick and die, so they say. Also, if you open up both windows on both sides of a vehicle, you get “crosswind” and will get sick and die. I forget the exact superstition but if three misfortunes happen, you have to sacrifice an animal (goat or sheep). That one in particular is amusing because Peace Corps pointed out that we had a hotel fire at a training, and then later, an earthquake during a different training. So they were ready to sacrifice a goat if push came to shove. 

My host father is incredibly social. I mentioned a long time ago that he had Uzbek construction workers living in our guest house back in the fall, and now they’re back (not sure if they’re the exact same people, I can’t remember). My host father is paying them a huge sum of money to build a two-story house next to ours (which will be my older host sister’s when she comes back from Russia?) My poor sister-in-law is in charge of making them (and us) food every night, and their appetite dictates our meal too, so we’ve been eating a lot of the same thing for the last week. Anyway, on April 27, the day after the consolidation drill, my family was hosting a gap. 

A gap has many names, but that’s the term my family uses (it’s also called an oturuch, a sheerin), but it’s basically a big gathering of friends and relatives where everyone eats. (A toi is a general term for a party that’s in some way related to a wedding, like a bridal or groom party, and a toi also means the actual wedding itself. A gap is just a regular party, and they happen very very frequently, as people switch off and change hosts). I remember a long time ago I complained in a post about the last big gap my family hosted (not the iftar one, the one from last fall), because of just how much dirty dishes and work it takes to host a gap. Women, for any iftar or large gap, arrive early the day of, and immediately begin to clean and cook food and serve the table. Outside, I watched a group of three or four men slaughter a sheep and then skin and cut it for the plov we ate. 

I originally had intended to call this post “Third Times the Charm?” In my last post, I mentioned that we have been preparing for a Manas recitation presentation/competition of sorts. It’s not exactly a competition, more like a large-scale fun party celebration event.  It’s a local raion (county/district) competition, so our whole school district was preparing for it. In preparation, I had been practicing reciting it in English and Kyrgyz several times every day. During the week, we would have our students come after classes finished to practice and memorize it. Constant constant repetition, as the English one is less intuitive than the Kyrgyz version. My Kyrgyz language teacher, Rahima, forced me to perform it in front of her 9th grade class and then the teachers, which wasn't my favorite thing, but I'm glad she forced me. 

Emily, Ben, and Tahmin’s Manas competition was April 26, so they missed it due to the consolidation drill, unfortunately. Ours was supposed to be the same day as theirs, but the rain delayed it. In Jalal-Abad, the weather has been volatile and raining cats and dogs, which isn’t ideal for an outside party. Then, the second time, on April 30, it got delayed again, again because of rain. Delays here don’t happen quickly or fast. Call time was 7:30 am, so that morning on the 30th, at 7:30, I was finishing breakfast (because I live 30 seconds from school and call times are loose suggestions). At 7:35, we got notice of the delay, and I heard lots of students were diligently already at school. As such, it turned into a regular Tuesday, but the students’ disappointment was palpable; many left school for the whole day and were dejected in class. 

The Manas competition finally arrived on May 2, and it was beautiful and happy until it wasn't. The day before, May 1, is International Worker’s Day/Labor Day (for most of the world actually FWI Americans), so we didn’t do anything, and I was recovering from being pretty fatigued/feeling in the dumps anyway. It looked sunny and bright, and it remained until Thursday. Thursday, I went to school, and it was barely controlled chaos. Our school only had two marshruktas (vans) and a few cars to use to get 200+ people to the mountains, so it went and came back. Later, I learned that Frank’s old school had SIXTEEN to get their 400+ students. Just a microcosm of the discrepancies and differences in the way my school is treated and the bigger, nicer Russian school in my village is. I got plunked into Nurlan Agai’s (PE teacher) car with a bunch of 4th-grade girls who speak Russian. We raced to the mountains, but Nurlan Agai dropped us off far beneath the mountain. I definitely brought the wrong shoes for the event, slip-ons, and we had to climb through some very dodgy trees full of mud from the rain before. Definitely destroyed my shoes. 

Once on the mountain, it felt like I was on top of the world. Mountains tend to do that. I asked Bekzat, one of my best 5th graders, how many students he thought were there: he said 10,000. I then asked Baktygul, and she said 3,000. My best guess is probably around 4,000-5,000. 23 schools from our raion (district) came, each bringing hundreds of students. It was nearly impossible to keep track of anything, everyone was wearing similar outfits. A wall of cars near the foot of the higher-up mountain. Our event occurred up on a large open field on the mountain. My 10th graders brought me ice cream, and we got to pet some cute horses lounging around. 

The Manas event was a lot of things; a celebration of Manas, Kyrgyzstan’s folk hero, but also a wider celebration of Kyrgyz national identity. Students performed Manas in English and Kyrgyz, not Russian, an interesting choice to me (considering students are all fluent anyway but clearly not in English). The event, unsurprisingly wasn’t quick to start, we arrived at 10ish (the official start time my director said was 9:30?), and it officially officially started around 12-12:30. I had been practicing Manas for so long, and suddenly, being in front of 4-5 thousand people made me incredibly nervous. I didn’t realize I would necessarily do it in front of everyone, maybe judges? But no, it was in front of everyone. There were around 10 or so participants who recited different sections of Manas; I did the standard one all the students were reciting, much to the MC’s chagrin (“She’s an American, she’s a volunteer,” my teacher and director insisted to him, so he allowed it). Of course, I can’t describe the stupid decision to perform in a language I’m not fluent in, in front of thousands of people who are. Nevertheless, we waited an obnoxiously long time (when we first arrived, teenage boys were assembling the stage) and the stage was facing the sun. I got the beginnings of a sunburn. 

In usual fanfare, they invited several speakers and distinguished guests to talk and speak. I particularly felt bad for my 10th-grade boys, who donned this soldier costume but had to stand on the stage for over 2 hours. The MC had students practice Manas in English and Kyrgyz, but he slowed the cadence down considerably. The rhythm of Manas really varies and depends on the person, but the “more advanced” ones tend to be more guttural (and to me, less understandable). I finally delivered my Manas recitation. I felt nervous the whole time, but I imagined myself nearly alone, reciting it to my little sister Adelya or to Tatina, one of my 7th-grade students with a camera on the grass recording me. 

After the individual Manas performances, thousands of students performed Manas in Kyrgyz a few times, and the students in English once or twice. Then, they brought out the hordes, somewhere between 40-60 horses, with scores of teenage boys riding in, jeering and holding large Kyrgyz flags. The Kyrgyz people are historical nomads, riders through the steppes and it’s at a place like this that reminds you of how inseparable it is from their national identity. After the entrance of the hordes, some of the men and boys participated in competitions. A simple jousting. A wrestling competition. Then, they raised the flag. Hundreds of students stood and held a humongous Kyrgyz flag, singing songs, as the wind tousled and moved the red flag, its sun and tribal symbol in the center. 

There’s drone footage of the accident that came next, what none of us expected, and you can see it all online. From my POV though: I’m sitting beneath the stage, in front of me maybe 100-200 students sitting together who sang English Manas, and behind them, sitting in one long line, all the other thousands of students. The event was probably almost over. Two large yurts to my far right, and adults to the left, taking photos, with lots of bags sitting underneath a large tree, providing shade. Of the 100-200 students, most of them are standing, holding the Kyrgyz flag as the MC says stuff about Kyrgyz identity and greatness. Cars and horses during setup had been moving around, transporting stuff and food. A large truck from the north side of the field is descending down the hill, and my first thought was that it was a manned truck transporting food, if not for unusual timing. It wasn’t that. An unmanned truck, speeds down the field, ramming straight through layer upon layer of the right flank of students. Yelling, and screaming, as large swarms of students begin to run, the flag obscuring some of it, as students jump to their feet, some veering and clammering away successfully, others the truck ram right into or over, as adults from across the field sprint fearlessly towards the truck, which crashes straight into one of the yurts. 

I actually don’t know if anyone was in the yurt or not, but regardless, panic and shouting immediately ensued. All the adults descended to the site of the crashed truck. (It was a Hyundai Porter truck, not just a pickup, a sort of flatbed almost). My school began a headcount immediately and getting all the students together, and two of my 8th graders ran to Baktygul, crying about how they had witnessed one of our 8th-grade boys get hit. My students sat together with their classes, many of them completely sobbing, and others still in shock. We were far, sort of in the mountains, and an ambulance eventually came. I have mentioned seeing people at funerals in grief and feeling powerless. It wasn’t grief, but it was surreal nonetheless. A student asked me why I wasn’t crying, and I know I don’t process anguish or sorrow the same, I just felt confused and empty, shocked at what was happening around me. It was hard to know what had happened, if anyone was dead, how many people were injured, the crowd was far and it felt disrespectful to try to look. Vanessa later told me she witnessed the medics pull severely injured bodies into the ambulance. 

Two of my students were hit or injured (1 9th-grade girl and 1 8th-grade boy), and as of now, no one has died. An exodus to leave began, and I contemplated, as many do who see tragedies or accidents, how something could be beautiful and then turn so terrible. The Porter truck was selling ice cream, so I’ve been told, and the drone footage looks as if something pushed it or something happened when it was otherwise stationary to push it down the hill.  News came out that the driver had not correctly used the brakes. (I dislike news reporting as a “runaway ice cream truck” because then you imagine an old decrepit American ice cream truck, which it wasn’t). Within hours, what happened reached the local news, and I had to go home and tell my family what had happened. The news reported that 29 people had been injured, 18 who were taken to the hospital, 7 in the ICU, and 3 in critical condition (I’d heard one or two accounts that it was > 30 people who were injured). My director went with our two students who were hurt to the hospital. Teachers at my school shared with me videos I didn’t need to see, of students covered in blood on the ground, being carried to ambulances by medics. 

In the evening and into the next morning, it made headlining national news. The Chuy and Naryn regions delayed or outright canceled their own Manas competitions, both out of respect and out of caution. The drone footage was first reported by local outlets and then republished internationally. I looked, and it even made NBC News, and I also saw it on Radio Free Europe, and the Sun. There is a disconnect in my brain between the accident itself and the news that broke, and I was surprised at all, considering Kyrgyzstan itself rarely ever makes it onto international publications outside of Central Asia. It’s never good to witness something that makes the news. This and last week, I have been seeing my people back home, back in Texas as they make news at the University of Texas, as my friends, those who protested and those who were jailed, make it onto the front pages and Instagram posts of Al-Jazeera and the New York Times. There is something surreal about pointing to something in the news and saying, “I was there, I saw that”.  Even further, to see all the things the news left out, the mass panic and attempting to comfort so many of my students, many of whom were having panic attacks and struggling to breathe. 

I think my counterpart, bless her, was insensitive to the students’ panic and their crying. “They just saw blood, that’s why they’re crying,” she said dismissively. They’re young and students as young as 4th grade or even younger were there. Many of them had probably never witnessed a vehicle accident or car crash. Yet I remained in awe of some of their composure, their getting everyone together to leave. As a constant consumer of news (and often very violent and distrurbing news), I forget how traumatic it can be, particularly for young people, and how big the difference between hearing about and seeing something is. 

In the last few days, it has been a storm of reporting on national news channels, with the high profile organizations sending constant updates. A few of the children had to be transported and flown to Bishkek from Jalalabad for care. Various ministries at local and top levels have been speaking out, meetings held, and accountability being taken. The government has given some money to the families and children affected. Rage at the driver in the comments of all new updates. In the following days, I haven’t wanted to leave the house, feeling a sense of emptiness I can’t quite explain. Some of it’s still lingering shock, those most affected weren’t from my school. I’m still recovering from being sort of sick or ill, so together with general apathy, I’ve been sleeping outside on the swing or locking myself in my room. My host parents went to a funeral today, one of the first times I was so very glad to not be going out anywhere with them. 

I have talked about this already extensively with many other volunteers, but not with any friends or family back home, mostly because I wasn't ready to. So, I'm sorry if this is the first time you're hearing this, a few days later, I just didn't want to talk about it. I felt conflicted between under and overreacting, wondering why I wasn't crying but also why I couldn't get myself out of bed two days after, why I can't stop myself watching the drone footage over and over and over again, despite having been there and myself being disturbed they published it in the first place. I pre-emptively notified Peace Corps that Vanessa and I were all right, and so many parts of me wish I could back to the moments before. 

Another volunteer told me that she felt bad that the day it happened she had had a near-perfect day with her family out guesting. I asked her why she could possibly feel that way, and that even if I understood the sentiment, it’s not anyone’s (but the driver’s) fault (who was arrested). I spent so much time talking about the event itself because when and if you do read the news, it obviously leaves out so much, and even more importantly to me, it was so beautiful before it wasn’t. I didn’t have my phone because I gave it to my counterpart, who took a lovely video of the students raising the flag and singing right before it happened.  Before the accident, it was awe-inspiring, and I felt alive, on top of the world in green rolling hills and fields with snow capped mountains in the background. 

À Bientôt

Grace

What I’m Listening to

1. Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me- Taylor Swift

2. But Daddy I Love Him- Taylor Swift

3. Give Me Something to Hold On- Jack Black, Themba, and David Guetta

4. Gladiator- Zayde Wolf

5. Oblivion- Zayde Wolf and Neoni 

6. Eyes Closed- Imagine Dragons

7. Unrecognizable- Saysh

8. I Know Places- Taylor Swift

9. Look What You Made Me Do- Taylor Swift

What I’m watching and would recommend: Dumb Money, The Menu, Turning Red, Thank You For Smoking, Anomalisa, Chicago (2002), 127 Hours