Today was never-ending, but I am recovering. Having six hours of back to back classes requires the patience of a Buddhist monk and much stamina. I have been really taking it easy during the last week and predominantly hanging around my house, trying to transition to my abode and carve out a place of my own. I baked peanut butter cookies and made some granola from scratch this weekend. I have been eating really well and reading, awaiting the arrival of Spring. In not socializing with the Americans recently, I have started to forget or lose my English. It is a peculiar experience when you start thinking in someone else's tongue. I spend most of my day speaking someone else's language, not feeling acutely conscious that I'm speaking another language. I was practicing piano today and, when I made a mistake, I was reprimanding myself in Kyrgyz. It is weird when it happens. When I first got here, I was really aware of when I was speaking Kyrgyz and rearranging my mental space to deal with the new culture. Now these things are natural and unquestioned features of my quotidian experience. I never thought that I would forget how to spell words in English, but that's slowly happening as well. Previous volunteers, especially the English teachers, told me that they started losing their language and speaking some weird, teacher's English as the time went on. Not looking forward to all that per se.
We are on the verge of what Newsweek has called a "meltdown" in Kyrgyz due to the upcoming elections. Americans here have to be on alert in case of a political emergency, basically a revolution. We aren't really supposed to travel until next week after it is clear that we are safe. There were many concerts and gatherings over the last few weeks, and the energy has been building up for the elections here. I don't really think that anything crazy will happen, and most of the volunteers reading that Newsweek article felt fairly dismissive about it. I did too. I think that the presidential election later this year should be the event we are really bracing ourselves for. What happened in Ukraine could just as easily happen here. As the Kyrgyz look toward different leadership, the present power structure and organization will have to find a new way to exist. Askar Akaev, the President now, has been President here since independence from the USSR. It should be interesting to see what happens as the Kyrgyz people make decisions for the future of their state.
Coinciding with election fervor was Men's Day, a celebration of everything about men but mostly concentrating on the glories of war. Next month, we will have Women's Day to counterbalance the masculine vibe. I found myself in the notorious basement of the school (note the entry around New Year's about the vodka, starting in the basement of the school). I was hanging out with the Kyrgyz men drinking vodka and eating cured beef fat and pickles. We gave toasts and drank, pretty typical of a Kyrgyz holiday or basically everyday for some people here. The female teachers beckoned us upstairs and they distributed small gifts to us in appreciation of us being men. I don't know how I feel about a holiday like this, but dare I protest vodka and gifts. I had another encounter with my drinking buddy, the 300 pound Russian math teacher (see that previous entry). We drank few more shots, and he handed to me a bit of wisdom:
Pointing to his shot glass, he said "Man and monkey." He then explained how drinking a lot makes us akin to monkies and having the power to restrain situates us closer to Man. He repeated himself about five times perhaps indicating he was somewhat more of a monkey after his last shot. The advice was well-received and I stuck to eating more cured fat and skipping out on the drink. The Russian guy, Sasha, and I went back to his house. He showed me around his estate and we drank some of his homemade moonshine. It was delicious. We, now including his wife, ate some bulgur wheat and cured fat and had tea. He passed along to me a biography of Stalin completely in Russian for what reason I am unsure. I consider it one of those goal reads that you have when you start a new language. The book features the picture of a monkey in a funny, clown suit on the back cover (the emblem of the questionable publisher). The book's sitting on my table at home now.
Upon leaving his house, I met up with one of my older students. I, being tipsy, invited him over to the house for tea. He then recommended that we go over to a student's Men's Day party. No one was at her house, so we proceeded toward the "discoteka" at the school. I ended up dancing with my students for a few hours with a buzz. They really liked that I showed up, and the music was dancable and, at times, relatively decent. I felt like Drew Barrymore, do excuse the low art allusion, in that movie "Never Been Kissed" where she does an article on what high school is like now. I think that she throws up all over the dance floor or something to that effect. Have you ever noticed how if, in a movie, an actor(-ress) gets really drunk and pukes, they never look like shit in the morning? When I make my first movie, someone's getting sick (for real) and we will postpone the shoot until the next day to capture all of the misery of a horrible hangover.
Besides Men's Day life has been kosher and stimulating. In effort to conserve my funds, I will abruptly end this entry. -MJ
