Nothing to report

I've just been working the last week. No crazy stories, nothing strange eaten, no brides offered. It's good to be at work again. Starting clubs next week. Today is a religious holiday and everything is closed; Jbad is kinda dead (which is appropriate since the holiday is a remembrance day for the deceased.) Only thing worth posting is the story of a fellow volunteer (at the lake?) who is also an English teacher. Turns out he is alergic to chalk. Sorry Luke, but, come on, it's pretty funny...That's about it. I just wanted to say I'm still alive.

Sean

P.S. I'm cold.

And we're back...

So I started back at school today, and in a rare display of forethought (and effort) I actually wrote a lesson out beforehand. It went a lot smoother than my usual “show up and think of something on the spot” routine. I covered singular and plural nouns and started in on my favorite: pronouns. After teaching the same lesson to three classes, I’ve decided I hate grammar…

With the new school year I hope to break out of the lazy funk that I fell into during break. I have started running at the stadium (dilapidated yes, but safer than the pothole strewn streets surrounding my apartment.) and it’s going well despite the fact that I come from a long line of people that only run if something is chasing them. Also I’m going to start reviewing my past Kyrgyz notes, and should start tutoring next week sometime. AND, I should start teaching an after school English club next week as well. I plan on playing lots of music and showing movies to the club. Also I want to start discussions about current events and maybe start a debate club with other schools in the district. Contrary to the students in my actual classes, there are some students here that speak English very well and would benefit a lot from a advanced class.

Speaking of class. During a break I was walking back from the teachers lounge and I noticed smoke coming from a nearby classroom. I opened the door and found a group of 6th graders huddled around a student who had lit a sparkler in the classroom. He grinned and held the sparkler higher, exclaiming “New Year!” A little late kid. I should be glad it wasn’t a roman candle.

And today I got a package of Christmas cards sent to me by my former 4th grade teachers current 4th grade class. I agreed to start writing to them about my experiences here and this was the first I’ve heard from them since I left. It was so great to get the cards and hear the questions they had about Kyrgyzstan. My favorite card was signed “From Curtis, the coolest person on Earth.” Nothing wrong with that kid’s ego. I’ll try to write back as soon as I can, I promise.

Bizarre bazaar story: I went to the bazaar yesterday to get a few things and as I was leaving I noticed a large group of people gathered around the entrance where all the taxis and busses park and pick up passengers. In the middle of a large circle was a woman yelling hysterically while her friend attempted to restrain her. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, in fact I couldn’t even tell if she was speaking Kyrgyz or Uzbek, she was speaking so fast. The only word I did catch was ‘machina’ which means car. Her friend finally talked her down and she walked away. Thinking it was over, I started to leave until I saw the woman walk back to the entrance, this time carrying a large stone in each hand. She started towards a nearby minibus and threw the first rock, denting the hood, and the second, which shattered the windshield. She screamed and screamed until some guy came over and dragged her to the side of the road. Everyone stood around wondering what the hell was going on when suddenly a man, apparently the owner of the minibus, sprinted out the bazaar. He hopped in and sped off a fast as he could with the woman, who noticed his escape, in hot pursuit. I still don’t know what the whole thing was about but it was fun to watch.

In other news… It seems as though two more volunteers from my group (K12’s) are on their way home. We lost two volunteers during training, one to illness and one to a more gainful graduate program. The two leaving now are a couple and according to the PC gossip line (which despite technological disadvantages, is blazingly fast) they plan on staying together once back in the states. Either way, good luck to both of you.

Beyond that, I’m counting the days till my girlfriend Elise will come down to visit. We started dating during training but we haven’t seen each other in a month since she works at a school in Bishkek, 11 hours away. She should be here next weekend and I can’t wait to see her. I miss you, kid.

Ok, that’s it. I’ll keep everyone up to date on my progress. I hope everyone is doing well at home, and at your sites.

When does school begin again?!?

When I thought about all of the situations and factors that would make living in Kyrgyzstan difficult, boredom never came to mind. Yet, of all the things I did think of (language, climate, food) this is probably the most pressing problem. Take today for example. I have done nothing today but read and play around on my computer. Nothing. I went to school for a half hour, expecting my counterpart to be there and hoping I could get into our resource center so I could plan some lessons (I can’t work in my apartment, see above: reading and computer.) Anyway, Aleysher wasn’t around and neither were any other teachers. I cleaned my classroom a little and I made a poster describing California. That’s it. I walked back home (which took me longer than it took me to make the poster) and I did stop to play soccer with some kids who greeted me with the ubiquitous “hello!”. Everyone knows “hello!” and “I love you”. I’m glad that they yell the former. I got home and spent a good number of hours reading or playing solitaire. Oh, and drying my underwear on the heater. I woke up this morning and found that the laundry I hung on my porch the previous evening had frozen during the night. I’ve been drying them inside since. Exciting day, huh?

I have to start studying Kyrgyz. Or exercising. Or learn how to juggle. Or bend spoons with my mind. Something has to change. Living here gives you such an opportunity for laziness that it’s very hard to get anything done. I have to become more active or I’ll go nuts. I’ll start tomorrow.

Tomorrow, actually, I’ll be busy. I’m going into Jalalabat in the morning (if your reading this post, then I made it safely) to do internet and a little shopping. In the afternoon we’re having a banya party to celebrate the birthdays of two other volunteers. A banya is a Russian steam bath, and there are public banyas you can rent by the hour. We’re going to hang out in the steam room and drink and then head to the attached café (?) for dinner. It should be a good time.

I start back at school on Wednesday, and sometime before then I have to plan my lessons. And my English clubs. I’ll start Monday. I promise.

Ennui

So this is the New Year. I’m lounging around my apartment with a few friends, and none of us can muster the strength to get up and brave the cold, twenty minute walk to the bazaar to buy ingredients to make pizza as we had earlier planned. We are all pretty tired from last night. I went to a party at my counterparts house. I stayed up till 2am, an unheard of hour, drinking wine with my colleague and his family all while trying to remember how to speak Kyrgyz. We went outside at midnight and set off fireworks in the street. Then we went back in a drank and ate more. Good times.

My counterpart, Aleysher, and his family insist that I am in need of a Kyrgyz wife. They believe that I can’t cook (true), I can’t do my own laundry (partly true) and that I can’t take care of my apartment (very much untrue). I countered this by telling them that I am fine living alone and that recently I sewed my own curtains. Yeah, that’s right. I sewed my own curtains. I’m the Central Asian Martha Stewart.

Speaking of curtains, (check out this segue) our Country Director Joseph Curtain will be resigning in a few weeks. He is the one who instituted the Big Brother-esque out of site policies that require all volunteers to submit in writing our overnight plans. They must be approved by our program manager a few days before hand and anyone caught spending the night in an unapproved location could be sent home. The K-11’s who have lived here for a year under the policies of Joseph ‘The Iron’ Curtain have been pretty vocal about how much they dislike this system. It really hasn’t effected me since I’ve been here such a short period of time, but I do hope the policy changes with the new director. Who that person will be, we still don’t know.

Quickly:
1.) I bought an oven for my apartment. Now I can bake cookies and pizza. Its amazing. I think this is how people felt when the wheel was invented.
2.) Last week I asked some students to write two things that they dislike and one student listed “Saddam Hussein and predatory animals”. Best answer ever.
3.) While throwing snowballs at chickens last week on my walk to school, one chicken dashed away and slipped on a patch of ice. Hilarious.
4.) My friend and fellow English teacher, Umut, asked me today what a ’tool’ is in American slang. As in, ‘that guy is a tool’. We spent a good half hour trying to nail down a definition. It’s tough. Try it at home.

Ok, I have to go lay on the floor by my heater and read. The new year looks surprisingly like the last year.