Kelly (my ex-fiancee), during the course of her studies, was given a research task about games. Her then-fiance was lucky enough at that time to be living on the other side of the world, so she contacted me and asked me to do some research for her. And, as I explain below, I was able to accomplish that task.
I did not explain toguz korgol at that time, probably out of simple laziness, but I’ll try to explain it a bit here. It’s a bit like the gem stone board game many people play, where the object is to get rid of all of your stones. The board (a carved-out wooden board) is the same, but the pieces are not. Instead of gems, they use apricot seeds.
The name toguz korgol literally means “nine sheep pellets” in Kyrgyz – this game was originally played with hardened sheep pellets (do I have to explain what I mean by “pellets?”), which can be found in any field in Kyrgyzstan.
13 October 2007
Toguz Korgol game at my school
It’s Game Day in Darhan today! I feel like I’ve been caught in an endless sea of games, whether it’s playing games, researching games, or writing about games. Kelly started the Game Day this morning when she called me. She told me she was going to be doing a small presentation in one of her classes next week on children’s toys and games in Kyrgyzstan, and that her professor was particularly interested in this (considering that her student Kelly’s fiancée is presently living and working in Kyrgyzstan). Of course this meant that Kelly needed my help. Kelly was correct in noting that, when she told me this, it began to stress me out – it felt like I was about to do another CCA (Community Contact Assignment) for PST, which involved similar research and work in a small amount of time. But at the same time, what else was I going to do on a fine Saturday? And to be honest, reading stuff off the Internet about Kyrgyz toys and games is not nearly the same thing as having someone on the ground in Kyrgyzstan living and breathing this stuff. Anything that will make Kelly shine in class (and above the rest of the trust-fund hipsters she goes to school with), I will gladly participate in.
Not long after Kelly called, Temirlan called me and told me I needed to come to school to help with the computers the faculty was receiving. The computers weren’t there yet, but we needed to go to Kyzyl-Suu to retrieve some educational software from a teacher’s computer in Kyzyl-Suu. We went to Kyzyl-Suu, but apparently the teacher wasn’t there and we couldn’t access the computer – the teacher had just had a baby, and was out at the hospital. So all we could do was to head back to Darhan without the software (they needed me there because of my flash drive – they were going to load the software onto my flash drive and install it from my flash drive onto the new computers). Once we got back to our school, we were told we had another half hour before the computers got there. So, I asked Temirlan about Kyrgyz children’s games. He mentioned toguz korgol (I’m not going to explain how to play the game here – I just finished a three-page paper on children’s games in Kyrgyzstan), and said that there was a board at school for us to play. He couldn’t remember exactly how to play, so he grabbed another student and brought him into the English classroom to show us how to play. I picked it up fast – I beat Temirlan and the student who showed us how to play.
After I beat the student in the game, Temirlan (who had left about fifteen minutes before to help another teacher with something) called me and told me the computers were here. I went upstairs and saw two Russian guys and one Russian girl working on installing the computers. The computers aren’t bad at all (there are three new computers, or at least they have new components), and the printer/scanner is really nice. The vice-director got his own computer too (I hope he knows how to use it). The Russian girl spoke English (my Kyrgyz wouldn’t have worked on her anyway), and we talked a little bit about where I was from. She mentioned that she had helped another American on the other side of Lake Issyk-Kul install new computers. She said one thing that stood out in my mind, and that I hadn’t heard in Kyrgyzstan until today: “There are so many people here that want to go to America, and yet you want to come here.” She was particularly surprised when I told her I would be here the next two years in Darhan.
So, once the Russians left, we got to really see what was on these computers. There was educational software on the computers, to be sure (all of it in Russian and fairly unintelligible to me), but there was a lot of other stuff, too. Music, movies (yes, movies), and photos. And not just pretty pictures of landscapes or cars, either – pictures of girls, celebrities, some girls half-naked, and some girls just plain naked (nothing hardcore, but fur could be seen). I tried to tell Temirlan that this stuff was on the computers and that some teachers could be offended, but it took Temirlan finding it for him to understand what I was telling him. He just went “oh”, smiled, and moved on. The way Temirlan explained it, none of the teachers really knows how to work with a computer – the likelihood of them finding it and being offended is low (this includes the IT teacher at my school).
Temirlan didn’t care about that, anyway – what he was excited about were the games installed on the computers. There were a fairly good bit of games, too – Zuma, Mario Forever, and Counter-Strike. Temirlan was particularly interested in Counter-Strike, and immediately started a game that I joined with him (this was my first time playing Counter-Strike). It was a lot of fun running around and shooting at each other (reminded me of my friends’ Goldeneye tournaments years ago). But, I wanted to see what else was on the computers. I found a lot of good music, including Panjabi MC. At this point I’m just glad that there are good computers other than my laptop available to me, and particularly available to my fellow teachers – maybe we can start getting some of this hand-written crap currently at school into some type-written format. The first thing is getting the teachers to learn how to use the computers (and yes, this includes the IT teacher here).
So, I got home and spent the rest of the night hanging out with Aizat and the rest of my host family. And, I did what I needed to do – I asked them about Kyrgyz children’s games. I spent the next hour writing down the Cyrillic spelling for the games, jotting notes down about the games, and then running upstairs to churn out a small paper for Kelly to use as a reference in her presentation (and I did it in both Word and PDF format!). I might send it off tomorrow, but the determining factor is whether my host family decides to have a banya tomorrow (today will mark Day 19 in the “I Haven’t Bathed Countdown”). If they have banya, I’ll probably wait until Monday to send it – if they don’t, I’m heading to the public banya in Karakol tomorrow (and Internet in Karakol). I am beginning to smell myself outside of my clothes, and that’s a really bad sign (there’s already a stain in my pillow from my nasty hair).
