Words, words, words! I'm so sick of words!

23:30 11 July 2008

Peace Corps Corporate Headquarters told me to expect a lot of ups and downs with my service. Volunteers in Kyrgyzstan have told me to expect to poop my pants. Well, PCHQ was certainly right and more on the other topic later. Over the past two days and even the past few hours I have had some pretty big swings. First the positive:

Language classes are great. I’ve never learned in such a small group so intensely, and the results are clearly paying off. We have class from 8:30-14:00, a total of four theoretical hours of class time, but with extended chai (tea) breaks and the Kyrgyz slow pace of life, it really only adds up to about three and a half hours or so. But as I said before, the results are already astounding. I already had about 20 hours logged in Rosetta Stone that gave me a general introduction to the sound, alphabet, and feel of the language along with a solid base of a few key words. The improvement over the past two days has been fantastic. I have gone from being able to label things (as I did incessantly as a kid) to label more things, construct and understand basic questions and answers, greet and exchange formalities, count, say and read the alphabet at a rate fast approaching fluidity, and my vocabulary has expanded greatly to about 200-250 words (slovda). Wonderful.

However, while great my language classes are going, I am constantly reminded by my surroundings that I do not know this language or this land. My increase in skill has also increased the knowledge of how far I have to go to get passable. Scary. This has led to some frustrating language situations. There were a lot of times when I felt stupid and isolated because my family couldn’t communicate something with me (it took about 10 minutes for them to ask how much my plane ticket to Bishkek cost, and after finally understanding, I had to admit I did not know.

I introduced Chalida (soft ch like the ich in German) and Jalil, the Turkish neighbors that live across the way with fellow Trainee Laura (Lau-u-ra) to a Frisbee and they loved it. That was yesterday afternoon, and today Jalil wanted to play again but had to spend a good five minutes trying to explain to me Frisbee in Russian before I understood what he meant. Eventually I figured it out and we did end up playing. These kids really are incredibly cute, and the fact that they are a first time host family seems to make them really excited to have Americans around, they are always pointing and telling me the Russian words for things.

Despite my language struggles with Jalil and my host family, Mama Lubov and her daughter Aliyoona were quizzing me and helping me out. Aliyoona knows a bit of English, so that helps when I study with her and I encourage her to practice English (though she much prefers correcting me when I am wrong or mispronounce something than the other way around). Don’t we all. I have more to write, but I am tired and I want to sleep since this is by far the latest I have been able to stay up yet. Yay adjustment!