Hit the Ground Running

Salut,

Parts of this blog post will sound reminiscent of my blog post from this time last year. With a second year now in full swing, my blogposts will have to get creative lest it just be repetitions of holidays and ceremonies recurring readers have already read. 

  

 Anyway, I had my last first bell ceremony. For new readers, a bell ceremony is the first and last day of school in Kyrgyzstan, so named because the 1st graders and 11th graders ring a bell, signaling the beginning and end of their education. Unlike in the US where the vast majority of schools are separated into elementary, middle, and high schools, my school, like most others in Kyrgyzstan, has grades 0-11 (0 is like Kindergarten I’m told, it’s sort of real education) all in one building. So at my school, 1 1st grade boy, 1 1st grade girl,  1 11th grade girl, and 1 11th grade boy are chosen to ring the bell. The ceremony was much the same as last year. I love my students, but the ceremonies are wildly uncreative and often rehash the same dances at every ceremony, despite the difference in occasion. I’ve seen the same 10 4th-5th grade girls dance the same dance on 7-8 different occasions. That’s not to say the girls themselves aren’t creative, 5th-8th grade girls at my school love TikTok dances, but for ceremonial purposes, it’s all the same. Last year, the first bell ceremony was overwhelming, with it being my first day at the school, the first day with my students, none of whom I knew. Frank had been teaching three blocks away. After the ceremony last year, we went to a cafe in my village and ate and danced. This year, we did the same. 

    

This year, Baktygul asked me to sing Ala-Too. Ala-Too is a famous Kyrgyz song, the song we sang last year at our swearing-in ceremony. She asked me to sing it three months ago at the graduation/last bell ceremony, and I prepared it a week in advance. Unfortunately, they didn’t slot me into the schedule or something, so I didn’t sing it. This time though, she insisted I do it, but she asked me to prepare the day before. It’s not a super long song, but it definitely does not roll off the tongue super easily, so I had only memorized a line or two. I asked if I could sing it without music (I hadn’t practiced with music) and with my phone. I sang the song not to a lot of fanfare, though all the teachers made sure to tell me I sang well afterward. Our music teacher stole the show. She first had a group of young kids dance to some Bollywood music, and then she sang two iconic Kygryz songs (I forget their names), and the crowd went wild. It’s a tradition at first bell ceremonies to bring flowers for teachers. Students bring huge bouquets, sometimes single flowers. While she sang, over the course of 3 minutes, she received so many bouquets from students, she couldn’t hold them all while she sang. An older student came and took them from her to hold. After the ceremony was over, a student gave me some flowers, and later the Russian teacher gave me one of her bouquets. 

    

Something I don’t think I mentioned in my last time recounting this ceremony is that after the ceremony, all the parents crowd into the first-floor first-grade classrooms to watch the teachers give the first lesson to their students. The official start of their education. Last year, I got shoved into the teacher’s room and played solitaire on my phone until Baktygul said it was time to go. This year, I roamed around more, seeing hundreds of kids running through the hallways. On the first day, there were only 1 or 2 lessons that actually happened, and most of the older kids immediately left. Baktygul is often forced by the school to cover for teachers (which isn’t overtime), and that day, she had to cover a 2nd-grade Russian class. The first-floor 1-2nd grade wing was swamped. After much hustling and bustling, the teachers and I all went to the new cafe right across the road from Frank’s old house. I went there with the teachers when school ended in May. It’s a new favorite, and they have an actual venue that resembles the ones used for toi celebrations. 

    The first three weeks of school have been unsurprisingly very chaotic. Schedules changes galore. In between, I was feeling not amazingly well. This year, they moved 6th and 7th grade to the afternoon. Last year, it was 0-5th grade in the afternoon and the 6th-11th in the afternoon. Due to the sizes of classes and for other reasons, the 5th is now in the morning, so my schedule is clunky. It looks as if this year I will get most of Monday off, though I will most likely have to have a club that day of some sort. Thursday looks to be my most busy day with possibly 6-7 lessons. In between classes, I’ve been buying Samsa (I’m having a weird Samsa fixation right now) and back to my usual compot. In some ways, it’s been easy to slip back into the old routines from last year. 

During the first week of school, I went with Baktygul after classes to Jalal-Abad city. Baktygul and I frequently travel to/through Jalal-Abad together, and this time she needed to visit the bank and go to the hair salon. I went with her, also because I’d never been to the local hair salons. Barber Shops for men are common and easy to find in villages but salons are reserved for raion/city centers. There are many hair salons in the bazaar, and we went to one right near the entrance. Baktygul ended up not having time to do her own hair due to her needing to buy stuff and the bank, but I got mine down. My hair has been a rat nest and some has fallen out. I suspected the water and diet were causing my hair to be this way, and it’s been bad for a while. The hairdresser was excellent, and I got my hair washed, colored, and cut. At first, I thought she cut it a bit too short for my liking but it grew on me by the time I left. I also paid about $13-$14 in total at the salon (I’ve never had my hair colored before or gotten it washed at a salon but that together would probably be $75-$100 in the US). My host family approved, and on the way home, one of my old 6th-grade students immediately complimented me 😀.  

  

 Once again it has been a crazy birthday season in my family. Three birthdays pass in a week in my host family. Adelya’s birthday is on 9/11. I had classes that Tuesday morning. My family told me they were going to go to Jalal-Abad city, and I told them I couldn’t because of work. My host dad insisted I don’t go and skip classes. In the morning on Tuesday, during the first lesson, I told Baktygul that it was Adelya’s birthday and jokingly told her what my host dad said. She immediately agreed, and we went to Gulzara, my school director, who agreed and gave me permission to skip classes for the day and go with my host family to the park. We did. After lots of lingering. Getting the whole family ready and in the car to go anywhere, especially the kids, takes over an hour. We went to Jalal Abad city and the amusement park. I’m proud that I’ve been so many times. My host sister Dinara is still here as is her 20-year-old daughter Aidana (yes, there are two Aidanas at my house). The young kiddos had fun at the amusement park. We got there pretty early in the morning, as it flourishes the most in the afternoon. We had a snack in the small cafe there, while the kids played in a huge inflatable obstacle course/slide, like those slides from Pump it Up! when I was a kid. Because the kids are small, we tend to ride the small rides, though I paid for us all to ride one of those rides that swings you around and raises you in the air (when we rode it, I sat with Alihan, while the other adults each took a kid to sit with). 

We ate lunch at Kok-Jangak, a popular cafe. I’ve been several times with my host family and once with Baktygul. Eating with so many people is always a large feast. It reminds me of when I was younger and the rare times I’d eat out with my cousins and my grandparents. My host family bought sushi, pizza, chicken wings, shashlik (shish kebab), two bottles of Pepsi, tea, and bread, and we all shared it. Adelya is six now! She didn’t know that, because when I asked her she wasn’t sure. She also still can’t count (she sort of can in Russian), nor can she read or write her name, which I think is sort of crazy. 

    

Alihan’s birthday was next on that Sunday. We went back to the amusement park, and when we went it was more bustling that time around. While the kids had fun on a kid's ride, Aidana and the other Aidana and I got on a rollercoaster (a small one). Amusement parks are scarce in Kyrgyzstan. There is one in Osh and one in Bishkek (I visited it last summer, you can find it somewhere in my blogposts), and I think there might be one in Karakol (Issyk Kul), but I can’t remember. I remember asking Jacob and Alex if Naryn City had an amusement park, and they laughed in disbelief. The kids also went fake fishing, and after, we all went to a bazaar I’d never been to before. At the bazaar, they bought Alihan a fake machine gun. During these escapades, my host father and my host brothers have been absent (one will drive and drop us off, then dip) due to work around the city. Dinara and her children have stayed at the house while their own home continues to be under construction. They make routine visits to the city and their house, and when we went to the amusement park, we stopped and visited. As such, the men have been largely awol or out with friends for the last few weeks. During our trip to Kok-Jangak, they dipped in for 15-20 minutes to eat before leaving. 

My host family’s tradition has always been for every major holiday if they decide to celebrate, a cake and juice/soda to consume after a regular dinner. It’s simple and predictable. My host mother’s birthday was the 17th, so soon after. We didn’t do anything during the day, but later in the evening, we all piled into the van, and we went to a huge cafe in the city, also one I’d never been to before. This time, they ordered french fries, more pizzas, and chicken wings, hamburgers, borsok, etc. Alihan that day had been in a bad mood. In the morning, I found him sitting on the top of the stairs all melancholy and looking very sad (his stomach had been hurting). So, when at the cafe, he asked with his bright and sad eyes for a toy from the front candy counter, which was upcharged, and I bought it for him. At the cafe, they brought a cake out and sang for my host mom (in Russian, I think the Russian version of Happy Birthday is far more common to sing than in Kyrgyz). No one was hungry to eat the cake, so they brought it back home. 

This month has been a whirlwind, not just with holiday celebrations. I’m currently in the process of applying to graduate fellowships and other job applications that are open now for next year. Yes, this year I have to actively start the job search process for when I leave. I lived in bliss the first year not having to think much about that. Trying to explain networking like LinkedIn to my host family is hard. Kyrgyz culture here has its own form of “networking” and connections, but the concept of the “work grind” in white collars jobs (like the resume, interview, and application process) is foreign to them. I’ll send updates along the way, but it’s a slow process. I’ve spent the last few weekends in Jalal-Abad city working on applications. The deadlines for some of them are around now, so I have been busy with that. 

In addition, I helped my student Aitolkun through the process of applying for FLEX. FLEX is a high school international exchange program that sends a limited number of students to the US for 1 year to learn English and learn about American culture. FLEX sends students from all over but grabbing a FLEX spot is a major source of clout for schools (in addition to Olympiad). Some schools want American PCVs purely to increase their Olympiad or FLEX chances. Having a PC volunteer can be a huge advantage in both. I didn’t aid any students last year, because I didn’t teach 9th grade last year and no students in my 10th were interested, nor did any have very good English. You’re not supposed to be fluent but some basic knowledge is good. The FLEX program has several rounds, but it only sends less than 10 students usually every year from Kyrgyzstan. I helped Aitolkun set up her account and sent her the essay prompts. She composed her own essays on paper in Kyrgyz and then translated them into English, and I typed her responses up (as it would take her eons being unfamiliar with the English keyboard), though I didn’t edit or revise it for her (her grammar was not great, but the content was more important). 

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Bishkek for another training, Mid-Service Training to mark 1 year into service, and the FLEX deadline and the fellowships all had deadlines creeping up on me to finish before I depart. Before departing, I also conducted the Baseline exam again. The baseline exam is a diagnostic test of sorts; we give it in September and then again in May to compare and observe improvements. The baseline has listening, reading, writing, and speaking sections. Last year, students most improved in writing and speaking. I changed the baseline from last year, but my 9th grade A students are the best class (9th grade has two classes at my school, 9A and 9B). 

Personally, I’ve been watching a ton of movies. I keep the tradition of watching a movie (usually a short one, 90-100 minutes) at night before I go to bed. I also got inspired to rebuy and redownload Minecraft to play with Carolyn from back home. I stayed up late, and we began building a Spanish-style mansion. I may have progress (or not) in my next blog spot. I also finally finished the last season of The Crown (I started watching the first season in 2016/2017, so it’s been a journey). 

Toi season and the social season should be in more full swing soon, or at least I hope so. The birthday outings have been enough for me. I haven’t yet restarted my Kyrgyz lessons with my Kyrgyz language teacher due to my hectic schedule and otherwise busy plans. I’m still in the process of applying for a grant, too, which I’ve had many delays and starts and stops working on. But we’ll get there!

In regards to K-30, they lost two more volunteers, so their numbers stand at 19 volunteers (they left America with 22 I believe). One for medical and one for personal, I believe. I had the pleasure to talk to a few of them, though unfortunately only briefly. After summer closes and adventures are largely over, sidelined in favor of getting back to simple routines, it was easy to settle back into them. Last year was the year of firsts, and now everything is the year of lasts. I suspect I haven’t fully processed that quite yet. I was most concerned with my blog that I would have less to say the second year, naturally because it’s a lot of repetition and what could I add? This year is a continuation of course, but it also is a chance to give a second look. That is one reason I like the Peace Corps, and it is something a program like Fulbright would not provide. For programs like theirs that are only 1 year old, once a holiday or month has passed, it’s over and not coming back. This second year affords the opportunities for redos, the chance to see things twice, and through a new and more comfortable set of eyes. I get to see my students grow, though I still haven’t settled into them being older and grown. Most of their English is still only okay. This year, I’m also working more with the other English teachers at the school. 

These first few weeks have been busy, and we hit the ground running! I’m excited and so are my students, because Halloween is on the calendar, and they’re already asking about it. Life was fast and slow in summer, and now we’re running, and somehow the next 9 months will pass in the blink of an eye. I’m happy and sad about that. 

À Bientôt,

Grace

1. Oh Cecilia- The Vamps
2. The Door- Teddy Swims
3. Goodbye’s Been 
4. Better Love- camylio
5. Running- camylio
6. Growing Up is Getting Old- Teddy Swims
7. Hammer to the Heart- Teddy Swims
8. Leonard and Marianne- Bastille
9. See you soon- camylio
10. World’s greatest ex- Emlyn
11. Ava- Natalie Jane
12. If You Died Today- Natalie Jane

Movies I watched I thought were good: Edward Scissorhands, Singing in the Rain, When Harry Met Sally, Paper Moon, Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2, Notes on a Scandal, Source Code, Easy A, Juno, She’s the Man.