16:30 27 November 2008

Yesterday I had banya for the first time in a week. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. I hadn’t felt clean in about 5 days and it was so good- my hair was so greasy that even with its incredible curliness, I could comb it and it would stay parted and in place. Scary. But now, for the next day or so I get to feel clean and my head won’t itch with dandruff! It’s good to celebrate the small things in life.

Speaking of which- Banya is undoubtedly one of the things I am thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. My host mother is preparing delicious lagman for me and one of my JICA friends today (the other couldn’t come) and we are making pumpkin bread- a suitable alternative to pumpkin I feel. I am currently coming up with a list of A-Z what I am thankful of both as a volunteer in Kyrgyzstan and, as a volunteer what I will be thankful for upon my return, and I will share it with you as soon as its completed. Due to incredible stupidity on my part, I accidentally left my laptop charger at a friends apartment in Karakol, and it will have been two weeks since I return so I have been rationing my battery over the time span. Luckily tomorrow I get a nice full charge and hopefully won’t forget it again.

Lulaby on Broadway

14:45 23 November 2008

I got dragged to a leadership club that my friend Saori holds in our village at the Dotz (Dietskovo Tsentr- Children’s center that caters to under-18 extracurricular activities of a wide array) to help lead a session with her but instead got roped into a much larger project. When we got to the club, five of the members (of the six there) were engrossed in conversation, upon inquiring Saori and I were informed that there will be an oblast-wide (An oblast is administrative region like a state- there are 7 in the country) Children’s Issues conference in Karakol shortly and that they had been tasked with coming up with a creative way to introduce our Rayon (county) to the conference in under five minutes. They had a variety of songs, raps, and recitations that they wanted to perform and amazingly solicited the “expertise” of Saori and me to offer feedback on what they had so far.

I was amazed at the faith that they put in the suggestions that Saori and I put forth, considering that I had just met them less than an hour ago. I guess that something that comes with being a foreigner, and more importantly, a volunteer, is an assumption of outside expertise and knowledge that can be useful to them. Fortunately, in this case, they were at least somewhat right. I drew on my previous musical theatre experience and helped them do some basic choreography to compliment their stage presence and introduced an idea that they liked so much they decided to close their presentation with it- an acrostic poem to Жети-Өгуз, the name of the Rayon, there are eight total people making the presentation to I recommended they each have one of the letters under their coats an reveal them all at the same time.

It was a small thing to do, but it was really nice to see the incredible respect I was afforded and actually see my ideas come into effect (I met with them again yesterday). It can be frustrating being a teacher, often times I feel like my student make little to no tangible progress and it was nice to have some I could see the difference I had made. Needless to say, it was an immensely satisfying activity and I hope to be able to see the actual presentation.

Blog po-Jonathansky

21:15 20 November 2008

There is an interesting facet of the Russian language that allows any noun to become a adjective. This has lent itself to the naming of many dishes. Many dishes are named “(Main Ingredient) Po-(adjective of choice)”. Thusly, “Miaso po-Franzoosky”, “Spaghetti po-Italionsky”, and “Makaron po-Flotsky” are all popular dishes- literally translating to “Meat by French”, “Spaghetti by Italian”, and “Pasta by Navy-y”. More accurately translated these would be “French style meat”, “Italian style spaghetti” and “Navy style pasta”.

I digress, the reason that I brought up this interesting linguistic attribute is because I have started using this form to describe various dishes I have prepared without good translatable names. Some of the better ones- “Bliny po-Ivritsky”- Jewish style pancakes (latkes), “Kapusta po-Venersky”- a nameless cabbage dish my sister Venera prepared, and “Macaron po-Voluntorsky”- a pasta and creamy pumpkin sauce I made with the two JICA volunteers in my village.

Anyhow, it is fun to name dishes in this manner (at least to me) and cooking with my JICA friends is always really fun. It’s amazing when I am with them and any Host Country National- our conversation is held quadrilingually between Kyrgyz (the JICAs and HCNs know Kyrgyz), Russian (I and the HCNs know Russian), English (Saori and I know English and Chika studied it somewhat), and Japanese (both JICAs of course know Japanese). The hodgepodge that results, with HCNs talking to them in Russian and to me in Kyrgyz and getting confused as to who know what, is highly comical. Regardless friendship prevails and usually one way or another the point gets across.

Besh barmak... Yum?!?!

18:30 18 November 2008

After butchering our own sheep yesterday, we departed to go guesting at my host-mother’s brother’s house. It was at this event that I realized the extent I have gotten used to Kyrgyzstan and my taste preferences have really changed. At the guesting, we were treated to a full round of besh barmak. In principle, besh barmak is a simple noodle, bullion, and meat dish eaten with one’s hands- the name comes from “five fingers” in Kyrgyz because of the manner in which it is eaten, but in reality the process of it is much more ceremonial and complicated. It begins with a ceremonial hand washing with everyone seated on tishooks- large pillow mattresses- on the floor and then the passing around of giant hunks of meat and fat. Each person is expected to eat a bit of the fat and meat and take the rest home with them for later consumption. There are also the best parts of sheep, namely the eyes, brains, gums, and cheek meat, which are diced up from the roasted head, placed in a cup with bullion and passed around. Then the preparation for the central dish commences, out of the large chunks of meat everyone has been provided with, knives are passed and everyone begins chipping the meat into very small pieces which are placed in the central bowl. Finally, noodles and bullion are added to the chipped mutton and, voila, you have besh barmak. It is eaten, as stated with ones hands from the communal bowl and is followed by another hand washing (a child comes around with a pitcher of warm water and a basin) because by this point your hands and face are covered in a film of sheep fat.

While the first time I ate besh barmak, I found the whole process pretty disturbing and the unseasoned, simply boiled, taste of mutton and sheep fat hard to stomach. Like I said, my preferences here have changed quite remarkably and I not only tolerated but actually legitimately enjoyed the most recent round of besh barmak. The central dish was pretty tasty to me and even the cheek meat and gums (no eyeball this time) were relatively tolerable. I think that in addition of just my time here, my appreciation for the process of butchering and preparing a sheep that I witnessed earlier in the day helped my palette acclimate better to the Kyrgyz national dishes.

Sheep head on a stick, anyone?

16:00 17 November 2008

I can now say, with complete sincerity, that I have roasted a sheep head impaled on a stick over a fire. Somehow I doubt the majority of my readership can say the same and while it was undoubtedly an interesting experience, don’t consider yourselves too unlucky. I returned home today after spending a night in Karakol to attend an alleged AIDS education session at a club there. While I thought it was a good idea, getting young people to come to a club at night and then educating them about AIDS and other sexual health issues seemed like it would attract more people than a daytime seminar held at the local Red Crescent. However, despite the planners (some of my friends here) and their good intentions, it seemed like a normal night at a club with the difference being free condoms handed out- I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

Regardless, I arrived home the next day in time to witness the butchering of one of our sheep. We are having a guest come in a few days so it was being slaughtered in preparation for her arrival. It was the third animal but first sheep I have watched being butchered in this country and I still find it quite a fascinating lesson in anatomy- regardless of the fact of its goriness. The traditional Kyrgyz method of cooking a sheep revolves around the highest national dish- besh barmak which I believe I have written about before but it is a multi-step process to prepare the entire sheep- and they really does prepare the entire sheep, hardly anything goes to waste. The majority of the sheep meat is boiled to make bullion but the hooves and head are preserved to be roasted- this is where I came in.

My youngest host sister- a 19 year old who usually is in Bishkek attending university but speaks pretty good English- was visiting for the weekend and the task of building a fire and roasting these choice parts was given to us. The fire part was easy, and then I sharpened a large stick upon which to impale the head. That was quite the interesting process, it took quite a few violent jabs at the severed head to get it properly mounted on the stick The hooves were stuck onto the prongs of a large pitchfork and then the roasting began.

Despite having given the sheep head a haircut post-mortem, there was still a fair amount of fur on it, this promptly burned and left the stench of burning hair/flesh firmly entrenched in my clothes. Wonderful. It was still fun to hang out with Aijan and speak English around the house, a rare luxury for me and I think I gained a deeper appreciation for Kyrgyz culture by participating in the process.

Later in the afternoon, I again got to help Aijan with the unenviable task of cleaning the digestive organs of the sheep. Not surprisingly, and I pardon my vulgarity, it smelled like shit and has left my hands stinking for what my sister has assured me will be no more than three days. I definitely don’t regret it though, on the whole it was an interesting to participate in the process and while it is not a skill I believe I will ever utilize in the states, I can now say that I know how to prepare at leas the choicest parts of the Kyrgyz fat-tailed sheep.

5th formers

5th Form is one of my favorites to teach, the kids are still young enough to get really into stuff just because its a game- this makes them some of the more enthusiastic learners. These pictures are from two lessons I held- the first on body parts and the second on articles of clothing. Can you find the mistakes that they made? They're pretty funny!

Pictures of my community

Here we have a field near my house, my street, one of the public water faucets, ice forming around it, and the outside of my school- how many people paid by the American government work in buildings with statues of Lenin?