The Amazing Adventures of Kyrgyzstan and Col

Chapter Three: August and Everything After

August 6, 2006

I’m listening to the Counting Crows’ Holiday in Spain. It’s a musically beautiful song. If you can get past Adam Duritz’ whinny voice, that is. I dig it. Anyway, I’m in my new compound. I just ate my first cooked dinner by myself. I even opened a bottle of white wine I got from a bike/wine tour J. and I took in Vienna. While I do miss my previous Kyrgyz family, I’m a lot more comfortable on my own, here. I have to do a quick recap of Part II, III and III.5 of my European Adventures, so here goes: Wait, let me paint a picture for you as to what I look like and what I’m doing this moment.

A twenty something female, dressed like she came in after a long day spent on southern California’s shores, wearing Hawaiian-print board shorts with disheveled long wavy hair, sits on her cherry red bed, covered in blankets a blind Kyrgyz grandmother could have made. She is happy. She is alone. But she doesn’t feel so if she doesn’t think about it. She doesn’t think about it. She has just eaten her fill of tomatoes and green peppers steamed with olive oil, cheese slices and a hardboiled egg. She washed it down with a glass of white wine, straight from the Viennese countryside. With the amenities of 21st century technology, she is writing on her laptop, listening to late 90s rock tunes. Her cell phone just rang. It is her mother calling on a sunny summer Sunday in Chicago. She is overcome with emotion as she answers, happy to be in her new place, aware that she hasn’t seen her beautiful mother for almost a year. She misses her tremendously. She has become her. She won’t say a thing about that.

Whew... moving on. And so I begin with Part II.

Vienna with J.
- Went on a bike and wine tasting countryside tour
- Saw The 3rd Man and then reenacted the famous Orson Wells entrance scene, sans feline
- Attended the Vienna Film Festival: Horror Shows
- Drank the Original King of Beers
- Jumped on a very large trampoline
- Discovered another foreign city without the help of locals

Innsbruck with brother S.
- Saw the high jump that was used during one of the winter Olympics… or something
- Went to a zoo and saw bear and wolves and an eagle and a group of Japanese tourists
- Did an Irish Car Bomb at a local Irish pub
- Proceeded to speak in an Irish accent for the rest of the evening
- Decided to go get some gelato across the border

Across the border with the same cat.
- Ate gelato
- Took another international train ride
- Bought a leather coat. That was dumb. And expensive. Crap.
- Went to the Leonardo da Vinci museum… BTW, that’s not what it’s called.
- Saw some Michelangelo. And because S. was so generous with his time, got to see the replica of the David instead of the real thing.
- Ran into another K-13 PCV outside a football jersey shop

I really like my brother. He's something special.

Anyway, I’m back in Jety-Oguz now. Things are changing. People are leaving. People are not coming back. My best friend from as long back as I can remember received a wedding proposal. I have a jump rope.

Later this week I’ll head to my school, talk with my director, paint my classroom white and eventually organize the Darian Book Aide library collection that was sent to me. Things need to start getting done.

August 8, 2006

I’m in my room, jumping rope. And I’m fairly certain that the little boys are spying on me. I just finished a bottle of vodka with Bakut, my host-father/brother, and Tokton, my host-mother/sister, and her sister and her husband. It may sound like I drink a lot; this is not the case. Don't worry about it, I was just present for the last drops in the bottle. My Kyrgyz was pretty sweet though. I ate too many calories, so I am working out to burn them off before I hit the hay.

And no, I don’t know when I got so cool.

August 16, 2006

Time is flying. I have about two weeks left of my summer vacation, then it’s on to my first full-year of teaching the hopefully enthusiastic students of Jety-Oguz village. I’ve been painting the school and doing random repairs along side other teachers, but tomorrow I’ll focus mainly on my own room. I have books and posters and all sorts of goodies to add to my cage.

I spent this past weekend in Bishkek, celebrating birthdays and going-aways and excuses to go dancing at The Golden Bull, Bishkek’s finest dancing establishment. As much as it’s nice to take a break and just be with other Americans, I need to be back in my village home, doing things like walking to the well to fetch water and doing laundry by hand. Bishkek is a strange, strange place. And to be honest, whenever I go there, I find people stir up drama just so that there’s something to do and talk about the next day. God love us, but enough is enough.

The new volunteers are finally in country. Because I was on my European escapades during their site-visits, I only met one of them. It was in random passing, and as far as I could tell, it wasn’t the girl that I heard packed a penguin costume and wore it during staging. I don’t care what you say, penguin costumes are funny.

Anyway, I welcomed the first visitors to stay in my new place the other night. I took them hiking in the mountains back where I live. We walked the entire way up to the waterfall, and then back to my compound, where my host-family was not awaiting our arrival with the Kyrgyz national dish and tushiks for their sleep. I had to give them my hummus and peanut butter and strip the covers from my bed so that they had something upon which to sleep. I just rewrote that sentence so that it didn’t end in a preposition. All in all, it was well worth the side sauce sacrificing.

I think I could just continue to write about how strange it feels to still be in Kyrgyzstan, but I’m not sure that’s what you all want to read about. I can’t help but think about it every single day. It’s a weird phenomena: Wanting to be home with all you champs, but then consciously deciding not to leave because there are still things to be done here. I hate wanting to be in two places at once. It’s even weirder to know that I have little over a year before I get to come home for good as well. I know it would be cool of me to surprise you, but turns out I’m not that cool. I have a very important wedding to attend on June 23rd, 2007, so I will be back in the hood for a brief stint next summer, pending the world doesn’t end before then. Look out because I’m in the market for a hot date to walk me around... That's also pending I get a "Plus One". Oh, and just so you know, I’ve become quite the dancer. I’ve spent countless boring hours teaching myself how to get jiggy wit it. If anything, Kyrgyzstan has given me that.

I know it’s going to go fast, and that you guys probably don’t really miss me all that much, but know that not a single day goes by where I don’t think about what and who I left behind. Maybe I’m just being paranoid that by the time I do get back to the States, you’ll all be indifferent to me. Maybe I need to listen to some Ryan Adams to really get me going.

“I’m all alone now, I can do as I please.
I don’t feel like doing much of anything…
Please do not let me go. Please do not let me go.”

One of my new host-sisters just came in to give me some apricot nuts. Who knew that you could eat the fruit and then with a hammer crack open the seed and inside is a tasty nut? I had no clue. She asked me whether she could borrow a magazine and then asked me if I could teach her to sing sometime. I had to ask her five times just to be sure that’s what she was asking. Apparently she heard me singing along to iTunes and thought (God help her) that I was really good. I had to explain that she had it all wrong and that in fact I am what English speakers refer to as “tone-deaf” and that I really am not the lady she wants to be taking voice lessons from. She insisted that I was incorrect, and that no matter what I say, she wants to practice singing along to the radio with me sometime. She has no idea what she’s in for.

I should really take the time now to write some emails. I owe people.

Pictures to come. Now I have to eat meat on a stick.

posted by C @ 12:31 PM