10 October 2007
I just had a spider (actually, looks like a couple right now) do something for me that I would have done myself – kill a fly. Aizat put my clean clothes in my room, and there was a fly still alive on my clothes. The fly warmed up and started buzzing around my room, and then I heard a faint buzzing sound coming from the top corner of my room (where my desk is). The fly got caught in a spider web above my desk – the spider showed up in no time to finish it off. Normally seeing something like that would freak me out (a spider in action), but as many flies as I’ve had to deal with in this country, I would say the spider was doing me a favor.
I’m still on the Cipro, and it sounds like there’s a battle going on in my stomach nonstop. My meals have still been pretty basic today, but my host family had kesme (noodles with vegetables), which I happily ate. Then, someone decided to spoil the entire meal by slapping a bunch of sheep meat on top of it – I was done eating. My host father asked me if I would eat some meat, but I told him not today. They all laughed – they said I essentially ate three sheep this weekend.
I went to Karakol today with Temirlan. He was going to Karakol anyway today, and I’ve been keeping him updated on the banya issue at my house (this is Day 17 in the “I Haven’t Bathed Countdown”) – he decided to show me where the public banya is in Karakol. He told me that Kyrgyz people don’t put as high a priority on a full bath as Americans – the Kyrgyz were traditionally nomadic, and during winter the water source was frozen, so they could go for months without washing. They wash their faces and arms, and sometimes their heads, often, but not their full bodies. He said Taylor had the same issue living with Temirlan’s family – they might go for a couple of weeks without making banya. So they showed Taylor where the public banya was in Karakol, and he would use it when he felt he needed it. He said I could use it if I wanted, but I decided to try to do the bucket-of-warm-water-in-the-banya thing (which I have still not been successful with – today the power was out from around 10am until 6:30pm, and they were using the banya to wash other clothes).
I’ve decided there are a couple of pieces of clothing I would like to get at a bazaar. First, I need a pair of squishy pants – athletic-type pants. There’s no need to iron them, they can look dressy (my host father sports them, and makes them look like office clothes), and they can be used out in the fields. All you have to do to clean them is to brush the dirt off (unlike jeans). Also, I would like a local-type sweater. There are sweaters here (some zip-up, some not) that look like they’re strong work clothes (and good for school as well), so that’s next on my list. My final big thing is probably a good pair of rubber boots, if I can get my feet to fit into them. During the fall and spring this town is nothing but a big mud slick, and wearing knee-high boots could help save some of my pants from getting constantly dirty.
My host family seems to mention the color of my eyes more often than I could just dismiss it as dinner conversation – for example, they mentioned my dark eyes (black eyes, according to them) at the party on Sunday. I asked Temirlan if there was any particular cultural significance to the color of my eyes. He mentioned the argument I heard before I came to Kyrgyzstan about my looks. Essentially, the stereotype among most Kyrgyz people is that Americans are blond-haired and blue-eyed. I would say that fits the stereotype of Russians, perhaps (Russians are a lighter lot of people than other people in Europe). But, he says that my looks don’t fit the stereotype of Americans. I remembered that they do bring up the fact that my great-grandparents were born in Italy (which I told them a while ago), so when they discuss my looks, they mention that I have Italian ancestry. Now I think I understand. But it’s funny that I would hear the same thing from Kyrgyz people that I heard from people at my old job in the US who stated that I looked more “ethnic” than most people in the area.
Now I’m just looking gross – I haven’t shaved in almost three weeks.
