Today was the beginning of the Girls’ Development Camp in Karakol, on the side of the lake closer to China. This camp was organized by two of the volunteers with whom I trained (and now revere), Mahima and Amy. Their camp includes various discussions of topics that relate to being a woman in Kyrgyzstan and other activities like the arts, sport, and healthy cooking. I am working with a volunteer, Nicole, who has come all the way out from Talas, as a counselor; it takes nearly ten hours to get here with a quality marshrutka. I have rarely seen Nicole since training, and we had similar interests for using ecology in the classroom during training. Spending time with Nicole has been a nice opportunity to catch up.
We started the camp today with three of the alleged 11 girls with whom we were supposed to work. We also had a translator and her friend show up. The morning consisted of mostly getting to know each other and introducing the camp. We had a third girl show up, whom Amy found in the hall of the school where we are working this week. Her name is Natasha. Whereas the other two girls possess a remarkable command of English, are extroverted, and Kyrgyz, Natasha took pride in her “modesty” and consciously avoided making eye contact with me during the first few hours. Natasha was wearing a yellow t-shirt that features the two protagonists of the Brazilian import soap opera (that recently ended) but over which people continue to obsess, “Klon.” She seemed intimidated by the group from the start, but I tried to use some of my Russian to ease her social awkwardness to no avail.
We had a photo scavenger hunt. We walked around the city and tried to find unique ways to fulfill the objectives of the hunt. This lasted an hour. We took a couple of interesting shots, including one of Natasha making a forced, funny face and giving the yuppie pistol fingers to the camera. In another one, I was “Flashdance” kicking while holding one of my camper’s hands in order to represent Equality. I can’t attest to the artistic integrity of the photos, but I can to how much fun it was to walk around a Kyrgyz city with a digital camera and solicit strangers for weird favors.
After lunch, our group of three was assigned to play sports. Our group is the smallest. We even had more translators and counselors than campers, but we played mean kickball. That was until an unfortunate, though perhaps feigned, sports injury occurred. We were up on the other team by at least three points deep into the third inning. Natasha approached the plate with more resolve than I had noticed in her before. She seemed confident despite her platform heels, which she wore with red socks. I have never seen women in Kyrgyzstan without wearing socks with sandals and open shoes such as those Natasha was wearing. When her foot hit the ball, the left shoe shot up into the air at a height of at least seven meters. She waited for the shoe to return to the ground before, powered by adrenaline, she bolted for first. Having arrived at first, she indicated “modestly” that she had hurt her ankle. We quickly ushered her off the playing field. She was taken upstairs and examined before being put into a taxi and sent home for the day. There were, I must report, some doubts about the seriousness of the injury, but the injury was treated with all seriousness. Then we were two.
The rest of the day went as we had expected. We all made our way to the kitchen where two male volunteers, Andy and Nick, had taught some of the girls how to make salad and dessert. We all ate together and reflected on the day. We took a group photograph shortly after and made our way home.
Over the last couple of days, I have gone out with volunteers hiking. We went on a hike outside Karakol for about five hours on Saturday. Nicole remarked how similar Kyrgyzstan’s wilderness compares to Switzerland. Yesterday we went to Jeti Oguz. “Jeti Oguz” means seven bulls, which the red crags at one time must have resembled, a congruity long gone or best understood riding on a horse having drunk a bottle. After hiking in for about two hours, we made it to the Valley of the Flowers where yellow wildflowers were exploding from under the moist earth. We also saw a traditional Kyrgyz yurt with a Jeep parked in front of it. We spoke to the residences, and a few courageous volunteers with refined palates managed to imbibe “komyz,” fermented mare’s milk. We sat under the sun and ate a simple lunch. It was good.
Today I have a wicked, wicked sunburn. I foolishly forgot to wear sunscreen and exposed myself to the sun for most of the day. It feels really different seeing the volunteers for me this time. Being around fewer volunteers than during our recent training, I have had a better chance and more time to understand where people are coming from, their experiences, problems, and successes. I see parts of myself in the other volunteers. I am filled with a sense of comfort. Sometimes it becomes really clear that there aren’t many Lisa Frank unicorns and cupcakes in Kyrgyzstan. I notice a juxtaposition of a few good things in everyone’s lives against a trying, at times hostile, backdrop. Those few students, families, landscapes, conversations, and realizations continually feed our souls and keep us here.
For my upcoming birthday, we are going to have shashlik (kebab) on the beach for the Fourth and my birthday. My host family wants to spend this day with me. The Tajik baker wants to drink some wine and dance to European techno as we did on my little host sister’s birthday. We will probably swim and play games in our swimming suits while consuming, celebrating. I don’t really mind having my birthday abroad. Maybe when I come back, people will forget that I aged at all (not likely). In the last year, I had a potential long-term relationship disintegrate, wrote a 300-page thesis, took a degree, tried out some other not-so-long-term relationships, stopped using products, was evicted from a hippie community, stopped buying Diesel, lived through a revolution in a small, post-Soviet Central Asian republic, had scabies for three-quarters of the year, learned two new languages, and traveled around the world into the unknown to live for two years.
For the entire next year of my life, I will be living in Kyrgyzstan. Maybe last year was the year of transitions. I wish that I could call Ms Cleo to know what’s next. Love. -MJ
