When the Night Changes

Salut,

The last three weeks have felt very disjointed. As opposed to my previous blog post which had a semblance of cohesiveness, and as such it might seep into the writing. 

There’s something morbidly fitting about this post being both about life and death, happy events and sad events. Balance always. Fall feels like a time for deep introspection before the holiday season brings endless Christmas music. I have gotten the song Night Changes stuck in my head. That and Story of My Life have always been my two favorite One Direction songs. Unfortunately, I never was a huge 1D fan, mostly because my younger sister was enough of a fan for both of us, constantly blasting their music during middle and high school. Rather than seeing them as big pop heartthrobs, I choose to remember their two best songs, the ones that remind me of 7 Years by Lukas Graham, the ones that contemplate the passage of time and the meaning of life. Such moving songs are between their more popular Steal My Girl and What Makes You Beautiful. The night does change. 

This was something I mentioned to Mihica that feels morbid, but what is a blog post about life and death if not a place to be introspective, especially while alone in a faraway place? Eight years ago, I was a freshman in high school. I remember it well; it was an election year, and I had only been back home in the US for about a year. 2016 was a crazy year and a crazy time to be 14. I watched The Voice and eight years ago, a crazy fan murdered Christina Grimmie. She had been one of my favorite singers at the time and a rising star. So much time later, this week, I am now older than she was when she died (she was a few months past her 22nd birthday). I still listen to some of her songs. I am older than Cameron Boyce was when he died, and one day, if I am lucky, I will grow older than Liam Payne. People die all the time, so why focus on celebrities? I’m not sure. Just making it past twenty is a huge accomplishment. One of my favorite YouTube videos comes from John Green, who did an excellent video on this subject. I’d recommend anyone to watch it (it’s short, only 4 minutes long) and it’s now two years old, and I was 20 at the time. A young student was killed (in a car accident) in another volunteer’s village. I discussed funerals in an earlier blog post, but people out here in the village die young. Not super young. My host parents are constantly going to funeral parties for people who’ve died in the village. My village is around 15-20,000 people, and they go to funerals at least once every other week. The large funeral I discussed back in April was for a man who died in his mid-40s. Kyrgyzstan is not unsafe, in fact, it has very low crime rates, and I’ve almost never felt in danger of serious crimes. The biggest danger out here is car accidents and one’s own health. Physical back-breaking work and meat and sugar-heavy diets. All this to say that we often forget how fragile this all is, at least I do.

I attended two back-to-back weddings. One on a Thursday, the other on a Saturday. The last real venue wedding I went to was around a year ago. Toi season starts in the fall. I have been to many bridal tois. Bridal tois are house parties before weddings meant to celebrate the bride. The closest analog is a bachelorette party or pre-wedding dinner, but those aren’t perfect equivalents. Anyhow, I was invited to the history teacher’s son’s wedding. I went back to read my old blog post from last year when I wrote on the subject of the wedding. Now, having been to three, I feel more authoritative in describing what they’re like. The third was probably the most different from the first two, though in general, weddings here in Jalal-Abad are very similar in nature.

Most events I go to at large venues are with my fellow teachers. Jalal-Abad City has several large venues, restaurants, and wedding halls, and I’ve been to several of them. I got to go to a new one for the first toi. Tois notoriously start late. Gulbara, the history teacher, wrote on the invitation at 6 pm, but it started at 8. I’ve gotten used to this fact of life. With the teachers, they pack me into one of their cars, and we’re off. Huge arrays of food (in the spring, at the alumni dinner, we had a delicious array of fruit, but because it’s fall, there were fewer options). Nurzat, our music teacher, was hired to sing at the first wedding. At some weddings, if there is a contracted singer, he or she will sing during the couple’s entrance. Modern weddings here are much like American ones, the woman dressed in white, with the man in a tux. I’ve never been to a real house wedding, though I’ve heard they’re common in much more remote places. We’re so close to the city that everyone has their toi in one of the like six venues. Anyway, the couple sits on a raised platform against the back wall, flanked by the best man and the maid of honor. The parents of the couple speak, and there might be a dance or song, and then rings are exchanged. Something I noticed as a recurring theme, now having been to several weddings, is that the main couple usually don’t talk much or at all. It was only at the third that the couple said anything to the crowd (and just brief words, as they were involved in a game). If there are vows, they are said under quiet breaths, because I certainly didn’t hear any. (I spoke to another volunteer who corroborated my claim). Like my first post, weddings are very community and family-centered, rather than focused on the couple themselves. 

After the exchange of rings, the parents give more wishes, and then dancing begins. The parents dance, and guests stand and give them money, either pushing it into their hands, or sticking it into their coats, or under a man’s kalpak. Community members kiss and hug the parents, and at that moment, a huge wave of men begin to leave the hall. I’ve seen it happen twice at the same moment. The men all chill outside, chatting (some drink, and presumably a few smoke, but smoking and drinking are both much less common in the South). 

The venue turns off the lights, and people dance. After 20-30 minutes, the lights come back on, and the MC welcomes rounds of people to the stage. Each time, it’s related to how the guests know the couple. For example, the first round is the parents, and then the second is guests of the parents, then the neighbors, then the coworkers, then the school friends, then always last, the close friends and siblings of the couple (so people who would make up the bachelor or bachelorette party). During each round, the MC may offer gifts or prizes to anyone who speaks and gives a toast to the couple. Prizes are often silverware and glass dishes, tea holders or teacups, irons, maybe a bedspread, umbrellas, a clothing rack, etc. Many of the older guests will sing a song, perform a poem, or do a dance. Just like before, if guests like what they see, they will give money to the performer, often 100-200 com bills. 

As each “round” of guests toasts/performs, the parents of the couple will be on the sidelines, and after their toasts are finished, the guests give the parents joluks (headscarves) and kalpaks (men’s hats). It is etiquette to cover the woman’s head with the scarf or place the kaplak on the man’s head. A family member or friend collects all of them. As I learned a long time ago, the best gift to give a woman here is a head scarf. 

In between dances and toasts, the MC calls on guests to play games. Sometimes it’s dance-offs and singing competitions. Another volunteer said there was a tug-of-war game at one of the tois he went to. It’s all good fun. The toi usually ends with the bride and groom departing. Like all tois and times to eat, people get out the packets and swarm the table, evenly divvying out the fruit, bread, meat, and drinks to all take home. 

The one with the teachers was a pleasant and long affair. I was gifted a mug which now sits on my dresser. My sister-in-law’s brother’s toi was an entirely different affair. I didn’t think it was possible to really be late to a toi, but apparently it is. We took forever to get ready. Getting 12 people out the door, including 5 children, is no easy feat, and we arrived when it had already started, with the bride and groom already entered and the parents giving blessings. We were the family of the groom’s sister and yet there were no tables available. The hall was full to the brim, and I had never seen as many people at a venue as I did that night. We split off, myself and Aidana sitting at one table, with the “grown-ups”, the older adults, sequestered at a table much closer to the dais. The kids sat at an empty table, and they stole food from my table. There were many kids there, and I saw some of my students there, some who knew the bride’s family. My host little siblings ran off, Adelya dressed in a tutu and pink coat, running off to play and steal flowers. 

Two tois in quick succession is a somewhat surreal experience. I think going to many can make you feel “desensitized” to a toi. I suppose what I mean is that it’s easy to forget when you go to several that a toi is a real wedding and that it is the most important day of someone’s life. The tois last long and there is much less of a fixation on the couple's love, vows, or anything of the sort. The importance can get lost in all the food and random games. 

My extended host family has returned to Russia; they didn’t even tell me, I just woke up the next day and they were all gone. I have sincere doubts I’ll see them again before I leave (I most likely will leave in late July or early August). 

Baktygul’s husband has returned to Kyrgyzstan. He’s been living overseas for a while. She told me he was in Germany, and previously, he lived in Bulgaria. I’ve never formally met him, as I’ve only seen him through her face-timing him nearly every day. I did some math and asked her warily about how long he’s been abroad. He’s lived in Russia, in Germany, in Hungary, in Bulgaria, in Qatar, and has passed through Kazakhstan and Turkey. To be so well-traveled for a Kyrgyz person from Jalal-Abad is very impressive, though altogether he’s been abroad for more than 4.5 years total. “So half your marriage?” I asked her. She laughed and said her own family had pointed this out to her. “How does he get all these job opportunities?” 

“Oh, because of me. I send him the opportunities, and I help him with paperwork. I sent him overseas, I told him he needs to gain experience and travel around.” I burst out laughing and asked “Do you like that? That he’s always abroad?” She smiled but didn’t answer. 

It’s cooler at night now and sometimes freezing. No snow yet. The boots have come back on due to cold fronts that bring a deluge of rain. I do really love the rain, though my umbrella is broken. It gets unbearably hot sometimes inside the house with the fire my host mom stars.

Most recently, I started hosting an English-speaking club at Modern International University in Jalal-Abad. I only do it sometimes, once or twice a month, as I did with American Corner. It’s a nice excuse to get out of the house and have an opportunity to be in the city on a weekday. The university is out of the way from common marshrutka and taxi routes, which isn’t my favorite thing in the world, and in general, a lot more inconvenient than American Corner.

I don’t remember if I told this story but in Naryn, I asked Alex how the food in Naryn has been. He told me the besh barmak had grown on him. I told him he had inevitably been forced to grow used to bad food, and he agreed with me. We all miss the food back home, and I have been asked and asked others what their first meals back home will be. I think that with limited options, I too have been forced to accommodate food in America I’ve never liked. Examples: watermelon, Pepsi, fish, melon, and sushi. I have grown to like fish, reluctantly. But when I get home, I want a fresh Chick-fil-A sandwich, and I want to go to one of our local Mexican restaurants and eat beef tacos with chips and queso.

I made a master list and catalog of the new English books I received from Darien Aid. I gave them to the librarian. The library is hardly ever open while I’m there, so I went more exploring this time around. I noticed that two entire shelves of books are donated by USAID. US AID is a huge beneficiary and donator of materials and books to schools around the country, and I've seen donated materials from USAID around other schools. The books were in Kyrgyz and were short children's books.

Kids, particularly my 6th and 7th grade students, love taking photos with my phone. Older kids too, but the 6th and 7th graders will literally steal it and run out the door with it. Yasmina, my neighbor, runs through the hall with my phone, taking selfies in front of the mirror by the front school door, creating videos introducing herself and the school to my American family, and photographing the chaos that is her class. I teach 6th graders on Tuesdays in the afternoon, and while I wait for my co-teacher to come (not Baktygul, I work with a different teacher too), all hell breaks loose. I am not expected to control the class or school discipline (which I fail at in general because most students don’t listen and the older ones don’t take me seriously. They take my English seriously but not as a disciplinary figure, which I’m fine with). As such, I let them run around and be chaotic. It leaves me with some fun photos anyway. 

At home, life is much the same. It’s so cold at home that the outdoor porta-potty the little kiddos use is put inside. My house is a compound/courtyard-style layout and my bedroom is right by one of the doors leading outside. So, I have opened the door a number of times to see Alihan right across from my door, sitting and smiling on the portapotty. He stinks up the place, and I told my host mom who totally laughed.

Alihan has a total phone addiction. As time passes, I grow concerned and worried for the kids’ brains and their health, as Adelya and Alihan are 6 and 5 respectively, but neither are in school and are chronically watching reels/TikTok videos. Alihan has it the worst; he refuses to eat many meals and will sit by himself on the couch watching videos. He's so unsocialized. It can’t be good for him; I point this out, and my host family says I am too on my phone, which is true, but I had a phoneless and less screen-intensive upbringing (I had a Blackberry until I was 12, and I read the news and read books on my phone, not mindless scrolling). 

Personally, no updates on the Minecraft Spanish house, but I have been big on movies. With two months of the year left (which I will update again in December before the year ends), I have had an excellent year of movies. I saw two movies in theaters (Inside Out 2 and Dune Part Two), and I’ve watched 140+ movies in total (in addition to nearly 100 books). And before you ask for more details, I work 25 hours/week and have lots of free time plus I put the time and effort into reading and watching movies. I recently watched a slew of Studio Ghibli movies (not all of them, but over 80%). I watched Ponyo and the Secret Life of Arietty and Kiki’s Delivery Service growing up, but I had missed many of them. Unfortunately, I watched what I thought were the best ones first, so all the ones after were good but didn’t reach the same height. In the postscript, I’ll share my favorites, in addition to some of my other favorite movies I watched in the last 3 weeks. I haven't had a great year with books; I've only given one book 5 stars all year.

I have started my English clubs again. With 6th and 7th grade classes now in the afternoon, as I predicted, it has been a huge inconvenience in regards to scheduling clubs, but I’ve managed somehow. My mom gave me a gift for my host siblings, a pack of card games. My host siblings are far too young to understand card games, and they’re more likely to rip them apart than understand how to play Go Fish. So, I brought the card games to my students, and they ate the games up. The card games are geared towards younger kids, so are not played with traditional playing cards, but instead with stylized animals or food as symbols. But it’s helpful for learning English, as we played Old Maid. Old Maid is an American card game, but there is a Russian equivalent my students know with an interesting twist. In both games, there is no winner, just one loser. In their version, the loser has to paint their face black, which is… interesting. I also had them play slap jack, which all my students, from 5th to 8th grade all got really into. Instead of jacks, it’s a stack of pancakes on the card. I’ve been preparing for Halloween in the meantime, which is coming up soon. I’ll say how it goes in the next post.

The last thing is a grant update! My grant has been mostly fully processed, and in the next two weeks, the Peace Corps will send me a ton of money my community and I will use to buy new projectors, printers, smart boards, books, posters, etc. Simultaneously, my community is raising money (25% of the total budget) towards the project. 

I apologize that it’s disjointed, but life has been crammed and disjointed too. In between One Direction songs, there were weddings and sheep meat. Studio Ghibli movies and dirty toilets. Gifts and pancake cards. Pink umbrellas and samsa. Fresh bananas and Pepsi. Cold rain and scrabble tiles. Oh how the night changes. 

À Bientôt,

Grace 

Music!

1. Teardrops- Liam Payne
2. Night Changes- One Direction
3. AVA- Natalie Jane
4. The Top- Natalie Jane
5. What Your Father Says- The Vamps
6. Still Dancing- Henry Moodie
7. What Happened to Maggie- Emlyn

Halloween Songs My Kids Love

1. Calling All the Monsters- China Anne McClain

2. Sweet but Psycho- Ava Max

3. Bones- Imagine Dragons

4. Bloody Mary- Lady Gaga (Trinix Remix with Wednesday)

5. Heathens- Twenty one pilots

6. Die For You- The Weeknd ft Ariana Grande

7. Play With Fire- Sam Tinnesz

8. Look What You Made Me Do- Taylor Swift

9. Thriller- Michael Jackson

10. This is Halloween- Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack

11. Sweet Dreams- Eurythmics

12. bury a friend- Billie Eilish

Good movies!: My favorite Studio Ghibli movies are Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle (the latter is a steampunk Beauty in the Beast, at least I think). Anyway, other movies I liked are Whisper of the Heart, My Neighbor Totoro (iconic), The Wind Rises, Tale of Princess Kaguya, Only Yesterday, and When Marnie Was There. Non-Studio Ghibli movies I like are Wolfwalkers, The Wild Robot, The Mitchells vs the Machines, and the Peanuts Movie (and Beetlejuice, just in time for Halloween).