When I first moved to Darkhan, I had a lot of complaints about my host mother. She always had this cold stare and disposition that was incredibly offputting. Honestly, I thought she hated me. Well, I was dead wrong – she really did care about me. She gave the stiff upper lip to everyone she cared about, and I really happened to be in her inner circle. But, thanks to my bad Kyrgyz language skills, I really didn’t know what was going on.
I almost feel bad now posting this, especially since I complain so much about my host mother (Elmira), but in retrospect she was a wonderful woman who I still miss very much.
6 October 2007
I am so angry right now – I haven’t been this angry in a long time. This is Day 13 in the “I Haven’t Bathed Countdown”, but today my host family made banya – they made banya while I was gone at a Teachers’ Day party at school! I’ve been waiting for a fucking banya for two weeks now, and they decide to make one while I’m gone at a party. By the time I got home (I got home very late because they told me not to go home alone, so I waited for the ENTIRE party to finish to get someone to take me home), the hot water was gone from the banya. Who knows how long it will be now before I get a banya? Maybe next weekend? I am so pissed off right now – all I’ve wanted these past two weeks was a banya or even something resembling a banya, and they have one, knowing full well that I’m not around to use it. Tomorrow morning what I’m going to have to do is to just get two buckets of warm water (heated up on the stove, of course), go out to the banya, and just give myself a shower – I have no choice at this point. I haven’t shaved for two weeks, I’m beyond gross right now, I can’t take it anymore!!!!
Why do I get the suspicion that this is my host mother’s doing?
Anyway, aside from missing my chance at washing myself, today went OK. This morning I helped my host mother’s sister Aizat make canned “salad” for the winter. She’s an English teacher, and she wants to speak English to me to get back in the rhythm of English (she’s been out of school to raise her two children). I think she’s about my age, but I haven’t asked. She’s extremely friendly (unlike her sister), and she’s interested in what I have to say. I showed her pictures of Kelly yesterday and told her we’ve been together for almost nine years – I told her that once I go back to America, we’re going to get married. Aizat was amazed that 1) we’ve been together that long, and 2) we know who we’re going to marry. From what Aizat told me, she was bride-kidnapped, and didn’t meet her husband until the day they got married. She said it like it was nothing, like it was no big deal – of course I had no answer for her. She seems really happy, even with her husband – I don’t understand how people could get married and have children when they meet for the first time on their wedding day (I’m not even going to approach the bride-kidnapping thing, which is appalling to me and most people outside Kyrgyzstan).
I had to leave to go to the school around 3:00 this afternoon for the Teachers’ Day party. I’m one of the new teachers, so I was definitely obliged to show up. Not so for Temirlan, who skipped out on another day at school by saying he had to dig potatoes (he called me before I left for the party). It ended up being a lot of fun, not to mention one of the best opportunities I’ve had since I’ve been in Darhan to make friends and bond with my coworkers. From a Peace Corps standpoint, it was absolutely necessary for me to be there. For starters, I was able to convince my vodka-drinking fellow teachers that I don’t like vodka – one teacher went out and bought beer specifically for me (if you’re wondering, yes, they did serve alcohol at a school). They introduced me as a new teacher and gave me a small notebook as a gift – it was unexpected and very nice. There are two other new teachers, and they all had speeches prepared – no-one (I’m thinking Temirlan here) warned me that I was going to have to give a speech, so I sat up front looking very nervous in front of a large crowd of people. They told me I could give my speech in English (and luckily one of the English teachers was there to translate for me), so that’s what I did. They appreciated it, though. I got a chance to show off my dance moves – they played music on the DVD player from the English classroom while a bunch of people danced. I was even awarded “best dance”, which I thought was pretty funny. It was funny tonight – on one of the CD’s that someone brought in there was Panjabi MC, who I like a lot. I asked them to play that song. They listened to it for about thirty seconds and changed it (I loved it – I thought it sounded great). Instead, people were dancing to mostly Kyrgyz, Turkish, and the occasional American hip-hop track (nothing’s funnier than watching 50-something year-olds get down to 50 Cent). And of course they played “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee – I really thought I had left reggaeton at home on El Zol 99.1FM – Siempre De Fiesta!
I have to mention this while I’m writing. My host brothers have a Kyrgyz song called “Exguse Me” on DVD as a video clip. Yes, I know it’s misspelled – that’s what the name of the song is. Anyway, it’s a Kyrgyz rap song, but the only English they use is “excuse me.” Ever since then, I’ve been hearing my host siblings and everyone else say “excuse me” – Aizat explained it to them before I had a chance. Whenever kids see me at school or even in the street, they just blurt out the only English words that they know – it’s mostly “hello” and “goodbye”, but sometimes they change it up with “good morning” or “I love you” (I actually haven’t heard that yet, but many PCV’s hear that). And now I get to hear “excuse me” all the time.
It turns out there are now five English teachers at Saaliev School – Temirlan, Apal, me, Elvira (who translated my speech for me), and Munara. Apal is leaving next week to have her baby (she’s pregnant now), and I don’t know how long she’ll be gone, so that leaves four English teachers. Munara and Elvira are primary English teachers, while Temirlan, Apal, and I are secondary English teachers (Peace Corps Kyrgyz Republic shut down their primary TEFL program about a year or two ago). Temirlan, Elvira, and I are going to be taking Apal’s students while she’s gone, adding to our full plates already. Munara is new this year to Saaliev School – come to think of it, so am I! Anyway, Elvira always seems to keep her distance from me, Apal I never see anymore (and won’t for a while), but Munara seems pretty nice (probably because she’s brand-new there). But all this makes me wonder (again) why they need another TEFL volunteer at Saaliev School if they already have four English teachers (including Temirlan, who speaks English fluently). Taylor wondered the same thing, too, apparently.
Everybody left about 8:00pm, but about 7:30pm Aizat called me to tell me not to walk home alone, to wait for an escort. That’s fine, it was after dark, there are NO street lights in Darhan, and the Peace Corps tells you to heed such calls from a personal security standpoint. So I waited like a good boy for a ride or an escort home. I got one, at 11:00pm. In other words, the party really wasn’t over at 8 – there were three more hours of hanging out with mostly female teachers (and their husbands, who showed up later) and drinking with them. I did find out that one of the teachers there was Corrine’s host mother (and she was super-nice).
Let me tell you the story about Corrine. She was a K-14 PCV who was supposed to replace Taylor in Darhan. She stayed in Darhan for a grand total of four days before she decided she’d had enough and went back to America. Taylor was still there, and helped Urmat (the school’s director) file another request for a PCV (and that PCV is me). Corrine apparently complained that Darhan brought out her allergies, and that she couldn’t breathe. She also said that Darhan was too rural, that she wanted an urban assignment. Tonight I found out she was from Indiana. The old “I hate the Indianapolis Colts” rant welled up in me as this teacher was telling me where Corrine was from, but luckily for her my Kyrgyz language skills aren’t good enough to explain why many football fans from Baltimore hate Indianapolis and the state of Indiana for sneaking the Colts out of Baltimore in the middle of the night in 1984 (that’s a mouthful in English). All I could tell her was that I didn’t like Indiana.
Okay, my host parents just came home from a night out (this is the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve seen them out this late). My host father asked me how I was doing and what time I came home – in typical fashion, my host mother just handed me a bag of meat from the party they went to and didn’t really say anything else. I mean, what is her problem? Do I just expect her to be friendlier than she is? I’ve been really trying to integrate into this family, and she will not budge from treating me like a total asshole. I don’t get it – but, in situations like this you have to tell yourself, “Welcome to Kyrgyzstan.” In this country, you have to expect the weird – just when you think you’ve figured out Kyrgyz people, they turn around and do something that makes you just shake your head and wonder what the hell is going on.
Maybe that’s what I should be doing about the banya instead of steaming about missing banya – who knows, maybe my host parents didn’t get one either.
