Kyrgyzfornia

07:25 31 August 2008

Yesterday I made the six hour journey to my permanent site village. Really, I am stunned, it is incredibly beautiful and I think I am really lucky to be here. More on this later. Let me begin with the permanent host-family matching ceremony:

We traveled back to the Hotel Issyk-Kul (where we first stayed in country). I went back and read what I had written about the place when I got there. I was most struck by “[it being] a stunning representation of 1970s Soviet architecture, complete with a crumbling façade and concrete block construction.” It’s amazing how much my expectations and worldview have changed over the last two months as when we got there this time I was almost equally impressed by the (sometimes) hot water, the windows that opened and closed, the clean indoor toilets, the consistent electricity, and the pretty darn good food. I didn’t understand how it had been considered a luxury institution until I had lived like ordinary people in the country.

The matching-ceremony was much less formal than the initial one, but it was still exciting. I was one of the first ones called, and coincidentally had been sitting next to my would-be host mother which elicited a surprised “oo!” from her. We immediately began speaking where I learned that she is a teacher at the school I will be working with. She was also impressed with my Russian, which I was happy about, she speaks a minimal amount of English, but she said she wants to learn more and I will be happy to oblige her. She was also fond of saying (in English) to other trainees and host parents “My son beautiful”. It was adorable. After the ceremony, we all ate dinner together and then most of the host parents and families went to relax and the trainees relished a rare night out where we could hang out together past 7 o’clock.

The next morning, we left early (and the returned five minutes after I realized I had forgotten to give my roommate the key) and got to the large taxi stand in Bishkek. From here depart taxis to every corner of the country, and it is an intense area of bargaining fares, comparing rates, and trying to get the best deal. We eventually decided on one (we joined up with a trainee who will be living quite near to me which was nice) and departed for the long journey. The trip reminded me of a combination of Colorado and California, two of my favorite states. The mountains are as tall as (and in some cases thousands of feet taller) than the Rockies, and driving through them was exciting (the roads were not as bad as I had feared they might be, though there were some areas where the theoretically four lane highway was reduced to a single line). Seeing the gorgeous lake for the first time was stunning. The road hugged the edge for the most part of it (the mountains on the south shore leave little more than a few kilometers of navigable grades) and the route really reminded me of Route 1 along Big Sur in California. The lake is so large that the only thing we could see on the other side was the snow on the mountains (it was cloudy and slightly rainy yesterday). Simply stated, it is one of the most beautiful places I have every seen in my life.

After we arrived, I got to meet my new Kyrgyz family. All in all, I have three sisters, though but none of them seems to live consistently at home, the oldest is in her young thirties and is married with three adorable children and traveled from Bishkek to meet me and visit the family-she will stay a while, the middle daughter was not there as she works for Komptor, the massive Canadian gold mining corporation and couldn’t come home yet. The youngest daughter, who also speaks English quite well, is nineteen and a design/architecture student in Bishkek.

My new home is very nice, my room is bigger here and the bed is quite comfortable. I’ll post pictures soon.