Happy Men's Day!

“What’s Men’s Day”? you might ask. I’m not exactly sure myself, but I know it gets me out of my classroom and into Jalalbat for the day. Half class yesterday and no class today, the Kyrgyz don’t screw around when it comes to holidays, even if the holiday is an obscure holdover from the Soviet era. I’m told that this is the first year that school was canceled for MD, but after all, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. So MD is more of a Memorial Day of sorts. A day to remember the thousands of heroes who bravely fought for democracy in the 1940’s, of those thousands probably 12 of whom were actually Kyrgyz. No, that’s not fair. I have no knowledge whatsoever of Kyrgyz involvement in WWII and shouldn’t poke fun. As far as I know they turned the tide of war and are responsible for the freedoms that we all now enjoy.

So I’m in the city for the day and it looks to actually be a nice day. It’s been hot here (I’m wearing three layers instead of four. Whew! When will this heat wave end!). It’s actually been a great week, made greater by the fact that I am barely teaching this week. Monday I allowed some teachers to persuade me to skip my afternoon course in favor of lunch and shots of brandy in a local café. This is how things work here. If a teacher doesn’t want to teach, they skip. Having a few shots of vodka during lunch is not unheard of. This is, however, the first time I have let them talk me into ditching class. But, come on, it’s two days before Men’s Day! It’s justified! My 11th grade students took a cue from the teachers and skipped their class as well and threw their own party in the same café. I asked them why they were celebrating on Monday when MD was on Wednesday, to which they replied: ”But we don’t have class on Wednesday, a party today means we get to miss class…”

So no class today, and after my morning class tomorrow I’m hopping on a mildly well put together airplane and flying to Bishkek, lovingly known as the ‘kek. Good food, expensive drinks in real bars, and tons of stories from northern volunteers. It’s going to be great as long as my airplane’s wings remain attached during the flight...Should be a fun time.

Quickly. I got a haircut this week from my friends, the un-understandable Uzbek kids. During the haircut, the assistant kid, probably 16 or so, donned a Muslim prayer hat (see: Yarmulke) and poured me a cup of water. He told me to drink it and said it was water from Haji, or religious pilgrimage. I drank the water and Ailey, who was with me, also drank some. We wondered later if it was safe to drink, and if the possible parasites it contained were holy. The kids then asked if I studied or had been to the local Mosque. Saying that I didn't understand (which wasn't far from the truth) I kept silent. I really don't like to discuss religion when someone is holding a pair of scisors a few inches from my head.

Ok, that’s the latest. Now, I’m off to sip coffee and read all day at Terry’s. Talk to you later.

Great Story

I wanted to get down one of the best stories I’ve heard yet in country…

My friend Karl lives in a village near the lake. I heard from Elise a few weeks ago that he was in Bishkek on medical. She told me that he thought his back might be broken. Turns out, his back was hurt, but thankfully not as badly as had been earlier thought. The way he hurt is back is the interesting part.

It starts out with Karl coming home from work and his host family telling him that they have sold their home and plan to move to another village. This leaves Karl literally in the street. He tells PC and they recommend some guy who has a spare room in his apartment. He’s told that the owner of the apartment is young and has a girlfriend who occasionally stays in the apartment. Karl moves in and, from what I hear, was really happy with the setup…Until he is woken up in the middle of the night by someone pounding on the front door. From his bedroom, Karl hears the door open, then people yelling, then the sounds of someone being thrown around and furniture breaking. The girlfriend is screaming the entire time. Karl doesn’t know what to do, and can only listen behind his locked door. Suddenly, whoever was in the apartment begins pounding on Karl’s door and yelling hysterically. With only minutes before the door is broken down, Karl is faced with the possibility of getting the shit kicked out of him. In what I admire as a ballsy move, Karl takes the only slightly less dangerous route, and jumps out of his second story window. He lands in a patch of snow, seriously hurting his back. He is able to limp his way to the local militzia who contact Peace Corps. Karl doesn’t learn who the assailant was until a few days later. Turns out it was the girlfriend’s husband.

I don’t really know what happened to Karl afterwards or where he is living now. I can only hope he’s doing better now.

What else is new? Just heard from the PC gossip line that another volunteer is going home. That makes 5 from our group in the last 3 months, and added to that is another 3 volunteers from the K11’s. The first winter is supposed to be the hardest time, and the numbers seem to prove it…Beyond that, I’m going to be in Bishkek next week. I’m flying up on Thursday to visit Elise and see some other friends. I kinda hated Bishkek during training but I’m looking forward to a weekend in the big city. What I’m not looking forward to, however, is the hour long, Kyrgyz Air flight. An hour in the air is much better than the 12 hour taxi ride through icy mountain passes, but I’ve heard bad stories about flying in this country. One friend told me the airplane door opened during the flight, which prompted the stewardess to calmly get up and shut it again. Her control implied that this sort of thing isn’t uncommon. Wish me luck.

Ok, hope everyone is well. Check my link for new pictures…I’ll talk to you later.

How much for Electricity?

You know, it’s just not a trip to the bazaar unless one of the kind old women who work in the stalls out front offer you her daughter’s hand in marriage. Not wanting to offend (especially since the daughter is standing behind her mother) I explain that I’m seeing someone and that in America, 22 year old men don’t take 16 year old girls as wives. Its just one of the many cultural differences you come to appreciate here in Kyrgyzstan…

Let’s see, there’s also the local teenage boys who have started a cute little “steal money from the hapless American club”. My counterpart at school owns the apartment I live in and he told me that someone would be coming by to collect some money to pay for water and trash. He said it would be about 100 som ($2.50). Sure enough, a few days later a kid came by with a housing register and asked for 120 som, payment for the last three months. I gave him this and he gave me a receipt, that had the totals on it and looked very official. The kid then turned and asked money from my neighbor, who also paid and received a receipt. A day later, however, the kid came back, again with the register and asked for an additional 200 som. I asked why and he kept saying it was for something different and showed me my name on the register with 200 next to it. I said ok and paid him and again got a receipt, but it was different this time, it was in Russian and I couldn’t read it. I gave both receipts to my counterpart and asked why the second was different. Turns out the second was fake and that the kid had made off with my five dollars! I was pissed, but impressed by the scam itself. The next day a different kid came by, again with a fraudulent register and when I opened the door he was busy checking my electric meter. This time they asked for 450 som to cover electricity. I saw my friend, the water and trash kid lounging out in front of my apartment. Despite my bad Kyrgyz, I was able to tell them: “I will not give you money. I will never give you money. I am not a fool.” With this the kid took off pretty quick, taking his shady friend with him.

I figured this would be enough, but that night the first kid came back. He was really weird. He asked if I had a guitar, then an accordion. “No. What?” I replied. He then motioned to his shoes and asked if I would give him 50, presumably to buy new shoes. I almost admired the kid’s tenacity when I slammed my door in his face.

Beyond the young extortionists, I’ve just been working. Classes are great, but I’ve decided to start cracking down a little more. Gone are the days that I teach Ultimate Frisbee instead of English vocab. Tardiness and lack of homework are the most common complaints. It’s hard to discipline kids that I actually like to hang out with. Today I chatted about Kyrgyz vs. American politics for an hour with my English Club. Despite outer appearances, there are actually many similarities between the two countries. One country is ruled by a president who wields considerable power over a unquestioning population, offering little explanations as to his rather befuddled and foolish policies. The other is ruled by Askar Akaev. There is an election in October and Akaev has been quoted as being afraid of something like what happened in Ukraine could happen here. I could be a witness to an actual birth of true Democracy baby! I could watch as this country is transformed into an example of freedom and peace for the rest of the Central Asian nations. I could behold a brand new Kyrgyzstan, free from corruption and greed, a country that throws off the oppressive chains of ‘post-soviet-hood” to become prosperous and successful… More than likely however Akaev will run for a fourth term, despite the constitutional ban on being president for more than 2 terms, and win by an overwhelming (read: purchased) majority. Only time will tell.

Nothing huge

Hey everybody. Nothing really big happened this week so this is a short entry. I started teaching the 8th form instead of 10th and I love it. This was by far my favorite week teaching...I was told (thanks dad) that both my phone nunmber and my address were incorrect on the blog so I fixed those. It would be awesome if you guys at home would give me a call. Check out www.uniontelecard.com, where I think rates are $20 for three hours. Hearing from people at home would make my week.

Speaking of people from home. Congrats to Matt on the UN Tribunal job, that's awesome buddy. Also huge thanks to Miss Wendy (Moira Angela Darling) Lee for the Christmas package. It was such a huge surprise. I got it Monday and already I've burned through the box of hot chocalate and the Corn Pops are long gone. Thank you so much.

Ok I hope everyone is well. I'll talk to you later.

Hakuna Mattata

I flipped out today...

This week I gave tests to my two tenth grade classes. Yesterday was 10A, and, as predicted, they did horribly. One could argue that the test was too hard. 10 questions, mostly multiple choice and fill in the blanks. Also a few grammatically incorrect sentences that needed to be fixed: “I am student”, that kind of thing. Maybe the test was too difficult, but after a month of study, one would hope that the students can fill in the blank for “I ______ an English book”. It was amazing how many “I am an English book” responses I received. This is the same test I gave to my 11th graders last week, and they all did well on it, despite one student changing “Mr. Sean have a blue coat” to “Mr. Sean have a blue cat.”

Today, however, I saw a record number of blank stares. We reviewed the material two days before the test, and gave them practice examples taken from the actual test minutes before the exam was handed out. I explained the kinds of questions that the test would have, saying in English and Kyrgyz that these are the same questions that will be on the test. “Do you all understand?” “Yes, Mr. Sean.” “Does anyone have questions?” “No, Mr. Sean.” I handed out the test and spent the first five minutes trying to make them understand that that they have to write their names at the top of the paper (“Yes, please, in English.”). I took one student’s test away from him for cheating, having explained earlier that looking at others papers would not be tolerated. One student kept repeating to me, in Russian, the only language he speaks, that he doesn’t understand. No shit. The test (10 questions) took the better part of half an hour. When I had finally collected all the tests, I was shaking I was so frustrated. I immediately turned on “The Lion King” and had them watch that for the rest of the period. I graded the exams and was amazed at their performance. The average was a two, the Kyrgyz equivalent of a D. This obviously didn’t help my mood, but some of the responses were great.

One of my questions was “Mike ________ engineer” with three possible answers, the correct being “is an”. I explained in English and Kyrgyz, that ‘Mike’ is an American name and ‘engineer’ they knew, since it is a Russian cognate. Later in the fill in the blank section, I had two sentences “A lemon _____ sour” and “Basketball and Baseball ________ sports”. All the students had to do is chose from the list on the right, either is or are, and write them in the blank. One student, in an amazing display of misunderstanding wrote: “A lemon mike sour” and “Basketball and baseball mike sports”. WTF?!?! How he came to these answers I have no idea, but it when I read that I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically and then slump down onto my desk. My students could tell that I was on edge and nervously continued watching “The Lion King”. For twenty minutes I stared out the window at the falling snow and contemplated everything from quitting and going home to saying screw it and teaching my 10th graders Spanish. Obviously they are getting nothing from my teaching and would use Spanish about as much as they will use English anyway. While contemplating switching to una lingua nueva, Timon and Pumbaa started singing ’Hakuna Matata’. “They have a point,“ I thought, “No worries sounds pretty good.”

I decided their and then that I won’t teach 10th grade anymore. Since we are not actually employees of our schools, volunteers can pretty much demand schedule changes at any time. I told my counterpart that I can’t teach those kids anymore. He asked that I give them another chance, since it wouldn’t be fair to deny them the opportunity to work with the American volunteer (this from the teacher who hand picks his students, taking the advanced speakers, and leaving the other teachers with the leftovers). I told him flat out: no. I won’t waste my time any longer teaching students with whom I can barely even communicate and who frankly don’ t care about English anyway. I want to work with the students who have an interest in the language. I do fine with my 8th, 9th, and 11th grades because they speak some English. Those grades have English lessons twice as often as the 10th grade and it shows. I can do fun activities that emphasize conversation and vocabulary. I can communicate to the other classes. I don’t have the Kyrgyz skills necessary to teach 10th grade, most likely never will. My job is to teach conversational English to kids who will actually use it, not grammar rules and parts of speech. I love teaching my other classes, especially the advanced English club, but if I have to keep teaching 10th form I’m going to flip out and eventually end up on an early flight home.

WHEW! Ok, that’s really enough bitching about 10th grade. They are good kids (for the most part) and I really wish I could help them, but I’ll be much happier if I never teach them again…Beyond that, nothing really new to report. Elise visited last weekend and we had a great time. Only seeing her one weekend a month definitely doesn’t help my stress level. Also it has started to get bitterly cold. We are halfway through a “childaire” which I’m told is Kyrgyz for “forty days of ass-cold weather”. It’s freezing here now, and lots of snow has fallen. I can’t wait for spring. This weekend, I’m off to a remote village a few hours north of here to hang out with a some other volunteers. Should be the usual drinking, eating way too much and bitching about why this country sucks. Should be fun… (2-6-05 addition: Party was great, very cold though, and I just ate it on a patch of ice...)
Ok, I hope everyone is well. I’ll keep you up to date on the latest. Later.