Erika directed me to this web site with wonderful photos of Kyrgyzstan:
www.osland.net.
(click on the name of a city or region to see a large collection of photos, which will each open in a new window when you click on them.)
www.osland.net.
(click on the name of a city or region to see a large collection of photos, which will each open in a new window when you click on them.)
Kyrgyzstan "Statehood" Festivities A Potential Source of Interethnic Tension
"Festivities in Kyrgyzstan designed to mark the 2,200th anniversary of nationhood are to culminate with an Independence Day gala on August 31. Opposition politicians and journalists have criticized the ceremonies, suggesting that they are stoking inter-ethnic tension.
President Askar Akayev’s administration has designated 2003 as the Year of Kyrgyz Statehood. Throughout this year, the government has sponsored a variety of events intended to honor the country’s cultural heritage. Independence Day festivities will actually commence August 27 with the arrival of representatives of Kyrgyz communities abroad for a national convention, or kurultai, to be held in the resort town of Cholpon-Ata along the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. Cultural exhibitions and performances will be also part of the Independence Day festivities."
To read the full article, click here.
"Festivities in Kyrgyzstan designed to mark the 2,200th anniversary of nationhood are to culminate with an Independence Day gala on August 31. Opposition politicians and journalists have criticized the ceremonies, suggesting that they are stoking inter-ethnic tension.
President Askar Akayev’s administration has designated 2003 as the Year of Kyrgyz Statehood. Throughout this year, the government has sponsored a variety of events intended to honor the country’s cultural heritage. Independence Day festivities will actually commence August 27 with the arrival of representatives of Kyrgyz communities abroad for a national convention, or kurultai, to be held in the resort town of Cholpon-Ata along the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. Cultural exhibitions and performances will be also part of the Independence Day festivities."
To read the full article, click here.
9-11. August, 2003
The “Creative Arts Week” in Pokrovka finished last night with the talent show. I’m pleased with the outcome. Megan invited older students to come to her camp, and they speak the best English that I’ve ever heard from students here. The activities we did were the same as what we had done with the other camps, but we were able to do everything in English, and we were able to have more discussion. I will try to send more of Loren’s digital photos. I taught a few songs to the students, including “This land is your land” and “Row your boat.” J But the best was that because they are such good singers, I was able to teach them “Dona Nobis Pacem.”
Did you try to call a few weeks ago at my house? My family spoke with Americans several times. Did you also try to call last night in Pokrovka? We had gone to the “videosalon,” a room in the back of someone’s house, where you can pay 15 som to watch a video. (We can buy cheap pirated movies in Bishkek and Taraz.) The TV is miniature, you sit on a hard bench, and there are mice in the room, and but it’s still rather exciting to watch movies. We displaced the usual customers, who come to watch porn and drink beer.
One sad story: Many of the students here in Pokrovka applied for Accels’ study abroad program. This program is funded by the U.S. government, and it sends a lucky few to study in the U.S. for a year of high school. One of Megan’s students was actually selected. His name was Kubanich. Megan told me that the day the news arrived at school, everyone literally wept with joy for him. Everyone knows what a miraculous opportunity this is. However, Kubanich had no identifying documents because the man he knows as his father is actually his stepfather. Without finding his real father, he had trouble obtaining documents. Megan talked with Accels and explained the situation, and was told that the problem was resolved.
Accels told Kubanich that his visa for the U.S. had been approved by the Kyrgyz embassy, the U.S. department of state, and the Moscow embassy, all of which are prerequisites for actually going. Megan helped Kubanich through all of this. She even gave his mother some money so that he could buy clothing; he had only the pair of clothes on his back! Two hours before Kubanich got on the bus for his flight out of Bishkek, Accels called to inform Megan that Kubanich’s visa had been denied by the Office of Homeland Security. So no America for Kubanich. And, he missed the deadlines for study in Bishkek, so he’ll be studying in Talas City in the fall, not exactly an opportunity rich place.
I’ll be traveling to Bishkek this week, and then to Issyk-Kol! I’m very excited to be traveling. Megan’s brother is coming for a 5 week visit. She, Loren, and I will go to Bishkek together, and then Loren and I will travel to Issyk-Kol and maybe meet Megan and her brother there.
Yesterday, Megan, Loren, Sarah, Megan’s students, and I went on an “excursion.” We walked about forty minutes to one of her students’ home. It was a lovely place. There were lots of trees and thus shade, and a pond, and picnic tables! So it was a nice place to relax. It was good to spend time with her students, they speak such amazing English that it’s easy to converse with them. When I came home, I had to take my first dose of malaria prophylaxis because I’m going to Osh (in the south, where there is apparently some danger of malaria) for a teacher conference that Peace Corps planned. It doesn’t seem to be affecting me too badly, just a little dizzy. The symptoms should go away after a day or so.
I think people think my daily life is more noble than it is.
Let me tell you about my time since I returned from Pokrovka. The first task was to do my laundry, outside by hand as usual, before collapsing from traveling in the heat. Then lunch with the family: pelmeni, a Russian dish that my family sometimes buys ready-made. I like this meal, and it helped me ease back into Kyrgyz food after two weeks of cooking excellent vegetable-filled dishes with my fellow Americans. Then a nap and unpacking and cleaning my room. Dinner is always late in the summer, around 9 o’clock. My host-parents went guesting to another village, and the boys and Chinara, who are newly un-shy around me since seeing me interacting normally with all those American girls who came for the camp, grilled me about the camps and various questions about America (Do Americans all believe in God? Are they like the Russians? Do they cross themselves like we see on TV?) We even covered some current events, for the first time. No one ever talked about the war here except to say it was “bad,” but last night we talked about how Arnold Schwarzenegger is up for governor in California. There was a ten-minute news story about it, complete with extensive clips from his various blockbusters. I had to explain that his lengthy acting resume doesn’t necessarily qualify him for governorship. Does Arnold now that the polls in the third world strongly support his candidacy for governor of California? I wonder if that would help or hurt his campaign.
Today, I had to go to Talas city to get my Peace Corps money out of the bank. I left the house at 9, but stood at the street until 10:15, with another woman who was going in the same direction. Waiting there in the hot sun (most shade trees and burnable bus stops have long been chopped up for wood) for some vehicle to pick me up made me wonder for the hundredth time why I ever go to Talas city. Things got even better when a bus finally came, stuffed to overflowing. Some people on the bus knew me (though I couldn’t place them, a common occurrence) and asked me about where I was going and why and who I would meet and when I would come back. Another woman had me translate some mail for her (hoax/junk mail from the U.S. somehow! It was hard to explain.) I stood for the first 20 minutes crammed under someone’s armpit. Because Kyrgyz people are mostly shorter than me, this meant I actually had to crouch under the armpit. The person whose armpit it was had to hold on to a pole, which was why I had to stand under his armpit. One old man was dropped off in the middle of no where after getting into a shouting match with the busdriver’s wife, who was collecting the fares and didn’t want to give him a discount for being a senior citizen. I suppose I should have had empathy for him, but mostly I was annoyed for the disturbance over two Som (4 cents), and also annoyed for the hundredth time that people will give up their seats instantly for old men (someone did for this man) but never ever for old women.
At the bank, I was again amazed by the lack of customer service and general disorganization. First, the bank workers ignored me as I stood patiently at the window while they continue hunched over their paper work which is all over the place. Then they rooted around for ten minutes looking for my bank account file. Then they sent me to the cashier who noticed they filled out the form wrong . She sent me back to the first window, then gave me all my money in tiny bills so that I had an enormous wad of cash to carry home, discreetly. No receipts- I think they are still big into paperwork being really secretive. Then off to the post office, to accomplish the mission of mailing my letters. Pushing past the disgruntled pensioners, I went straight to the woman with the stamps, who mails my letters almost every week, but still has to consult her post office book to ascertain that letters to America do in fact cost 16 som. After complicated calculations with her calculator to figure out what 16 times 6 is, and helping several other people in between who apparently have more important stuff to do, I finally hand over the money and am ready for the next mission. At the tailor I needed to get a pair of pants fixed, and this was kind of the redeeming feature of my trip to Talas. All the women there were charmed to talk to me and to speak Kyrgyz with me. I went through the usual dialogue of how old are you, where are you from, what do you do, where do you live, how many brothers and sisters do you have, are you married, will you marry a Kyrgyz man, come back soon to talk to us, etc. The star factor of being an American saves the day again. I stopped by Colin and Sarah’s, then headed home by taxi this time. (Taxi means finding a guy who is going your way, who will leave when as many fare-paying passengers have been crammed into the car.) In Ming Bulak, I went straight to the post office to get my mail, then stopped at Aizada’s to deliver the pictures I had taken at her son’s birthday party. So many people want me to take pictures for them now, I have had to start asking them to pay if they want them. Only half the people ever pay, but it’s hard to say no… I never thought that half of my job as a Peace Corps volunteer would turn out to be photographer.
The “Creative Arts Week” in Pokrovka finished last night with the talent show. I’m pleased with the outcome. Megan invited older students to come to her camp, and they speak the best English that I’ve ever heard from students here. The activities we did were the same as what we had done with the other camps, but we were able to do everything in English, and we were able to have more discussion. I will try to send more of Loren’s digital photos. I taught a few songs to the students, including “This land is your land” and “Row your boat.” J But the best was that because they are such good singers, I was able to teach them “Dona Nobis Pacem.”
Did you try to call a few weeks ago at my house? My family spoke with Americans several times. Did you also try to call last night in Pokrovka? We had gone to the “videosalon,” a room in the back of someone’s house, where you can pay 15 som to watch a video. (We can buy cheap pirated movies in Bishkek and Taraz.) The TV is miniature, you sit on a hard bench, and there are mice in the room, and but it’s still rather exciting to watch movies. We displaced the usual customers, who come to watch porn and drink beer.
One sad story: Many of the students here in Pokrovka applied for Accels’ study abroad program. This program is funded by the U.S. government, and it sends a lucky few to study in the U.S. for a year of high school. One of Megan’s students was actually selected. His name was Kubanich. Megan told me that the day the news arrived at school, everyone literally wept with joy for him. Everyone knows what a miraculous opportunity this is. However, Kubanich had no identifying documents because the man he knows as his father is actually his stepfather. Without finding his real father, he had trouble obtaining documents. Megan talked with Accels and explained the situation, and was told that the problem was resolved.
Accels told Kubanich that his visa for the U.S. had been approved by the Kyrgyz embassy, the U.S. department of state, and the Moscow embassy, all of which are prerequisites for actually going. Megan helped Kubanich through all of this. She even gave his mother some money so that he could buy clothing; he had only the pair of clothes on his back! Two hours before Kubanich got on the bus for his flight out of Bishkek, Accels called to inform Megan that Kubanich’s visa had been denied by the Office of Homeland Security. So no America for Kubanich. And, he missed the deadlines for study in Bishkek, so he’ll be studying in Talas City in the fall, not exactly an opportunity rich place.
I’ll be traveling to Bishkek this week, and then to Issyk-Kol! I’m very excited to be traveling. Megan’s brother is coming for a 5 week visit. She, Loren, and I will go to Bishkek together, and then Loren and I will travel to Issyk-Kol and maybe meet Megan and her brother there.
Yesterday, Megan, Loren, Sarah, Megan’s students, and I went on an “excursion.” We walked about forty minutes to one of her students’ home. It was a lovely place. There were lots of trees and thus shade, and a pond, and picnic tables! So it was a nice place to relax. It was good to spend time with her students, they speak such amazing English that it’s easy to converse with them. When I came home, I had to take my first dose of malaria prophylaxis because I’m going to Osh (in the south, where there is apparently some danger of malaria) for a teacher conference that Peace Corps planned. It doesn’t seem to be affecting me too badly, just a little dizzy. The symptoms should go away after a day or so.
I think people think my daily life is more noble than it is.
Let me tell you about my time since I returned from Pokrovka. The first task was to do my laundry, outside by hand as usual, before collapsing from traveling in the heat. Then lunch with the family: pelmeni, a Russian dish that my family sometimes buys ready-made. I like this meal, and it helped me ease back into Kyrgyz food after two weeks of cooking excellent vegetable-filled dishes with my fellow Americans. Then a nap and unpacking and cleaning my room. Dinner is always late in the summer, around 9 o’clock. My host-parents went guesting to another village, and the boys and Chinara, who are newly un-shy around me since seeing me interacting normally with all those American girls who came for the camp, grilled me about the camps and various questions about America (Do Americans all believe in God? Are they like the Russians? Do they cross themselves like we see on TV?) We even covered some current events, for the first time. No one ever talked about the war here except to say it was “bad,” but last night we talked about how Arnold Schwarzenegger is up for governor in California. There was a ten-minute news story about it, complete with extensive clips from his various blockbusters. I had to explain that his lengthy acting resume doesn’t necessarily qualify him for governorship. Does Arnold now that the polls in the third world strongly support his candidacy for governor of California? I wonder if that would help or hurt his campaign.
Today, I had to go to Talas city to get my Peace Corps money out of the bank. I left the house at 9, but stood at the street until 10:15, with another woman who was going in the same direction. Waiting there in the hot sun (most shade trees and burnable bus stops have long been chopped up for wood) for some vehicle to pick me up made me wonder for the hundredth time why I ever go to Talas city. Things got even better when a bus finally came, stuffed to overflowing. Some people on the bus knew me (though I couldn’t place them, a common occurrence) and asked me about where I was going and why and who I would meet and when I would come back. Another woman had me translate some mail for her (hoax/junk mail from the U.S. somehow! It was hard to explain.) I stood for the first 20 minutes crammed under someone’s armpit. Because Kyrgyz people are mostly shorter than me, this meant I actually had to crouch under the armpit. The person whose armpit it was had to hold on to a pole, which was why I had to stand under his armpit. One old man was dropped off in the middle of no where after getting into a shouting match with the busdriver’s wife, who was collecting the fares and didn’t want to give him a discount for being a senior citizen. I suppose I should have had empathy for him, but mostly I was annoyed for the disturbance over two Som (4 cents), and also annoyed for the hundredth time that people will give up their seats instantly for old men (someone did for this man) but never ever for old women.
At the bank, I was again amazed by the lack of customer service and general disorganization. First, the bank workers ignored me as I stood patiently at the window while they continue hunched over their paper work which is all over the place. Then they rooted around for ten minutes looking for my bank account file. Then they sent me to the cashier who noticed they filled out the form wrong . She sent me back to the first window, then gave me all my money in tiny bills so that I had an enormous wad of cash to carry home, discreetly. No receipts- I think they are still big into paperwork being really secretive. Then off to the post office, to accomplish the mission of mailing my letters. Pushing past the disgruntled pensioners, I went straight to the woman with the stamps, who mails my letters almost every week, but still has to consult her post office book to ascertain that letters to America do in fact cost 16 som. After complicated calculations with her calculator to figure out what 16 times 6 is, and helping several other people in between who apparently have more important stuff to do, I finally hand over the money and am ready for the next mission. At the tailor I needed to get a pair of pants fixed, and this was kind of the redeeming feature of my trip to Talas. All the women there were charmed to talk to me and to speak Kyrgyz with me. I went through the usual dialogue of how old are you, where are you from, what do you do, where do you live, how many brothers and sisters do you have, are you married, will you marry a Kyrgyz man, come back soon to talk to us, etc. The star factor of being an American saves the day again. I stopped by Colin and Sarah’s, then headed home by taxi this time. (Taxi means finding a guy who is going your way, who will leave when as many fare-paying passengers have been crammed into the car.) In Ming Bulak, I went straight to the post office to get my mail, then stopped at Aizada’s to deliver the pictures I had taken at her son’s birthday party. So many people want me to take pictures for them now, I have had to start asking them to pay if they want them. Only half the people ever pay, but it’s hard to say no… I never thought that half of my job as a Peace Corps volunteer would turn out to be photographer.
27. July, 2003
I had an enchanting few days in my village, from the time that Loren and Megan and Sarah left on Sunday until Thursday. We still had no electricity at my house. (After two weeks, it finally did come back.) I spent one evening with my host sister Chinara and Nurbek, the youngest of my host mom’s nephews who work at my house. We talked for hours about all kinds of things, like what we thought of each other when we first saw each other. And it was all in Kyrgyz, and they were good enough and patient enough to have this long conversation with me.
We had a lot of guests at our house since Elderbek got back from the hospital. It’s a tradition that when someone gets out of the hospital all relatives must come with gifts of money and well-wishes. It’s something really interesting about the economy here, that I would like to learn about. People have NO money, really, but they can always dig up enormous sums of money to give away on these various occasions. We volunteers talk about how this is an illogical waste of money. Why give away what you have when you don’t have enough to eat? It’s true, but I also know that it has to do with the fact that it is a different conception of money, what it is for and what you need it for. I recently rode a bus with a woman whose son lived in the states for a while. She had more nuanced ideas about the differences between here and there than the usual “In America, life is easy for everyone!” She said something about the fact that in Kyrgyzstan, you give away your last piece of bread to your parents/relatives. I think it is true.
I had an enchanting few days in my village, from the time that Loren and Megan and Sarah left on Sunday until Thursday. We still had no electricity at my house. (After two weeks, it finally did come back.) I spent one evening with my host sister Chinara and Nurbek, the youngest of my host mom’s nephews who work at my house. We talked for hours about all kinds of things, like what we thought of each other when we first saw each other. And it was all in Kyrgyz, and they were good enough and patient enough to have this long conversation with me.
We had a lot of guests at our house since Elderbek got back from the hospital. It’s a tradition that when someone gets out of the hospital all relatives must come with gifts of money and well-wishes. It’s something really interesting about the economy here, that I would like to learn about. People have NO money, really, but they can always dig up enormous sums of money to give away on these various occasions. We volunteers talk about how this is an illogical waste of money. Why give away what you have when you don’t have enough to eat? It’s true, but I also know that it has to do with the fact that it is a different conception of money, what it is for and what you need it for. I recently rode a bus with a woman whose son lived in the states for a while. She had more nuanced ideas about the differences between here and there than the usual “In America, life is easy for everyone!” She said something about the fact that in Kyrgyzstan, you give away your last piece of bread to your parents/relatives. I think it is true.
August 10, 2003
Yesterday, Megan, Loren, Sarah, Megan’s students, and I went on an “excursion.” We walked about forty minutes to one of her students’ home. It was a lovely place. There were lots of trees and thus shade, and a pond, and picnic tables! So it was a nice place to relax. It was good to spend time with her students, they speak such amazing English that it’s easy to converse with them.
Yesterday, Megan, Loren, Sarah, Megan’s students, and I went on an “excursion.” We walked about forty minutes to one of her students’ home. It was a lovely place. There were lots of trees and thus shade, and a pond, and picnic tables! So it was a nice place to relax. It was good to spend time with her students, they speak such amazing English that it’s easy to converse with them.
a photo of beshbarmak, which Erika referred to as the national dish.
photo by Loren Kupferschmid, PCV
photo by Loren Kupferschmid, PCV
August 9, 2003
The “Creative Arts Week” in Pokrovka finished last night with the talent show. I’m pleased with the outcome. Megan invited older students to come to her camp, and they speak the best English that I’ve ever heard from students here. The activities we did were the same as what we had done with the other camps, but we were able to do everything in English, and we were able to have more discussion. I will try to send more of Loren’s digital photos. I taught a few songs to the students, including “This land is your land” and “Row your boat.” J But the best was that because they are such good singers, I was able to teach them “Dona Nobis Pacem.”
Last night we went to the “videosalon,” a room in the back of someone’s house, where you can pay 15 som to watch a video. (We can buy cheap pirated movies in Bishkek and Taraz.) The TV is miniature, you sit on a hard bench, and there are mice in the room, and but it’s still rather exciting to watch movies. We displaced the usual customers, who come to watch porn and drink beer.
One sad story: Many of the students here in Pokrovka applied for Accels’ study abroad program. This program is funded by the U.S. government, and it sends a lucky few to study in the U.S. for a year of high school. One of Megan’s students was actually selected. His name was Kubanich. Megan told me that the day the news arrived at school, everyone literally wept with joy for him. Everyone knows what a miraculous opportunity this is. However, Kubanich had no identifying documents because the man he knows as his father is actually his stepfather. Without finding his real father, he had trouble obtaining documents. Megan talked with Accels and explained the situation, and was told that the problem was resolved. Accels told Kubanich that his visa for the U.S. had been approved by the Kyrgyz embassy, the U.S. department of state, and the Moscow embassy, all of which are prerequisites for actually going. Megan helped Kubanich through all of this. She even gave his mother! some money so that he could buy clothing; he had only the pair of clothes on his back! Two hours before Kubanich got on the bus for his flight out of Bishkek, Accels called to inform Megan that Kubanich’s visa had been denied by the Office of Homeland Security. So no America for Kubanich. And, he missed the deadlines for study in Bishkek, so he’ll be studying in Talas City in the fall, not exactly an opportunity rich place.
The “Creative Arts Week” in Pokrovka finished last night with the talent show. I’m pleased with the outcome. Megan invited older students to come to her camp, and they speak the best English that I’ve ever heard from students here. The activities we did were the same as what we had done with the other camps, but we were able to do everything in English, and we were able to have more discussion. I will try to send more of Loren’s digital photos. I taught a few songs to the students, including “This land is your land” and “Row your boat.” J But the best was that because they are such good singers, I was able to teach them “Dona Nobis Pacem.”
Last night we went to the “videosalon,” a room in the back of someone’s house, where you can pay 15 som to watch a video. (We can buy cheap pirated movies in Bishkek and Taraz.) The TV is miniature, you sit on a hard bench, and there are mice in the room, and but it’s still rather exciting to watch movies. We displaced the usual customers, who come to watch porn and drink beer.
One sad story: Many of the students here in Pokrovka applied for Accels’ study abroad program. This program is funded by the U.S. government, and it sends a lucky few to study in the U.S. for a year of high school. One of Megan’s students was actually selected. His name was Kubanich. Megan told me that the day the news arrived at school, everyone literally wept with joy for him. Everyone knows what a miraculous opportunity this is. However, Kubanich had no identifying documents because the man he knows as his father is actually his stepfather. Without finding his real father, he had trouble obtaining documents. Megan talked with Accels and explained the situation, and was told that the problem was resolved. Accels told Kubanich that his visa for the U.S. had been approved by the Kyrgyz embassy, the U.S. department of state, and the Moscow embassy, all of which are prerequisites for actually going. Megan helped Kubanich through all of this. She even gave his mother! some money so that he could buy clothing; he had only the pair of clothes on his back! Two hours before Kubanich got on the bus for his flight out of Bishkek, Accels called to inform Megan that Kubanich’s visa had been denied by the Office of Homeland Security. So no America for Kubanich. And, he missed the deadlines for study in Bishkek, so he’ll be studying in Talas City in the fall, not exactly an opportunity rich place.
