Friends, family, and readers:
I know that you are all extremely busy with the demands of the developed world. You all have many responsibilities to maintain your professional lives and everything it takes for you to live in your hectic, urban space. This is not patronizing as much as it is a preface. However, if any of you are interested in working with me on some small-scale projects, I would be more than open to your help. The following are simple projects that will have huge impacts for my community:
1. Reading Glasses Drive
This project would require you to place a box at the register at your local supermarket where people could place their used reading glasses. Many of my students as well as the general public here really need glasses, but they are unable to afford them. You can also place the receptacles in your church, temple, yoga studio, gym, &c. If you would like me to make a flyer that you could print out for the box, I would also be willing to work on this. I got this idea from a Peace Corps manual for community development. I could arrange to get money for postage to Kyrgyzstan once you get enough pairs together.
2. Oral History Project
The goal of this project is the preservation of a disappearing history by recording the life stories of the elderly member of my community. Many of the elderly have lived during a time before the Soviets, through the Soviet period and are now watching the transition toward democracy. The Kyrgyz take great pride in their history and culture. Often when you sit down with an elderly person, they will try to tell you their life story anyway so I might as well have a tape recorder. I want to work with my students to put the project together and donate it to our school’s “museum” or the Cholpon-Ata library. If anyone has background in oral history projects, please email me. I would probably just need some cassette tapes and to track down a tape player.
3. Postcard Scrapbook
I had mentioned this idea in a previous blog entry. You send me a postcard from where you live. Postcards generally feature fantastic photographs, which the kids really enjoy. I will put your postcard in a scrapbook so that the students can see where my friends live. It also works as a motivation for learning English to see places where people speak English. I will have my students write notes back to you, too. My students will feel more globally connected through your simple act of sending them a postcard. It’s significant but small.
4. Music Library
I will be writing a grant during this summer for a Technology Initiative for my school. I am hoping to get a television, one good computer for my classroom for work related to English, DVD player, some sound equipment, and a digital camera and, then, teach the teachers how to use these multimedia devices in their classrooms. I would love to develop a CD music library for the English classroom. I naturally am attracted to English-language music because I can use it in my class, but classical, opera, and world music should be included as well. I know that it doesn’t take that long to burn a couple of CDs and send them out (with a postcard, for example). Please include a playlist for the next volunteer who comes to my school or in case I do not recognize the music.
I am really busy with work now. I am helping with the United Nations Development Project on developing an ecological program. I will be away from my site from the end of July until sometime in the middle of August. I will work with UNDP volunteers and members of the community to show them techniques for living more ecologically aware and sustainable lifestyles. I will be showing them how to compost horse and/or cow manure in one of my lessons to enable them to use the fertilizer on nutrient-drained soil. I will be a camp counselor, starting next week for a week, with female youth at a Gender Development Camp for a week. In July, some of the volunteers who serve near me and I will be hosting a Healthy Lifestyles Camp twice each time for two days before I go to Bishkek for training for the UNDP project.
Outside of work, things are coming together as well. I have been in good health long enough to not be interrupted on concentrating on my work. In our garden, bouquets of vibrant red roses hang in clumps off the rose bush. The snow has melted off the mountains and brought green to the Central Asian steppe. We have started taking tea and our meals in an outdoor gazebo where we sit on Kyrgyz rugs for hours and converse in the dark, refreshing night. We have watermelon, strawberries, and cherries. My host father will take me to a waterfall tomorrow, and we will drink mare’s milk, komuz, in the mist of the waterfall. When my host father’s friend came from somewhere in the Middle East and saw the waterfall, he apparently fell into an ecstatic prayer session, quoting passages of the Koran impromptu. The sand on the beach is warm by eight in the morning and invites my pale, skinny being to lounge under the repressive strength of the Alpine sun. The water of Lake Issyk-Kul, though still slightly cold, is swimable. Some tourists from Europe, mostly Germany, have arrived. I’m excited for the summer and the upcoming projects and finally feel like my service has a direction. I have a clearer vision of where I am going with my work than before and the confidence and courage to make my mental image a reality. I feel strong and motivated.
I would like to remind everyone about my contact information:
Kyrgyzstan
Issyk-Kul Oblast
Issyk-Kul Rayon
722314 c. Kara-Oi
Sovietskaya 245
Michael Jacobs
Кыргызстан
Иссык-Кульская Обл.
Иссык-Кульский Рн.
722314 с. Кара-Ой
Советская 245
Майкл Джэйкобс
michaelljacobs@hotmail.com
tel. 996502482663 (cell) and 996394354068 (home)
If you are interested in helping me with those projects, I would really appreciate anything you would be able to do. With love. -MJ
