15 October 2007
The big news today would have been that in a few short hours my official “I Haven’t Bathed Countdown” will come to an end (Salamat is preparing the banya now) if something else hadn’t happened at my school. Today we had a group of tourists from Australia come and visit our school.
Temirlan and I were in the computer room checking out the new computers when one of the students came in to tell Temirlan that there were tourists outside. He left, and I didn’t think anything of it. Then, about ten minutes later, he showed back up in the computer room and introduced the first white non-Russians I’ve seen in person since Colleen came to deliver my Cipro a week ago. It was mostly a group of older people who definitely looked the tourist part. One older guy was even walking around with an Australian flag pin on his shirt – apparently he didn’t want to stand out as a tourist. They were really nice, and asked the typical tourist questions. When I asked them where they were from, they said Australia, and then they said “it’s very far away from here.” I replied back, “America is even farther away from here,” and then told them that I was an American. They had a Kyrgyz-language tour guide with them, but Temirlan was able to do the translating between my vice-director, some other teachers, and the Australians. They told me they were traveling through central Asia with a tour company called Wallawoo Tours (I hope I have the name right) out of Sydney, and on the 20th of this month they were heading to Uzbekistan (good luck with that – Peace Corps has all but told us PCV’s to avoid Uzbekistan at all costs). There was one younger woman with them who asked me how I liked Kyrgyzstan, and of course I told her what any PCV would – it’s a beautiful country, there are so many wonderful people, and it’s a great place. She told me that Kyrgyzstan wasn’t necessarily her favorite place in the world, but she said she respected me for coming out here to live and work for two years. Really, I was just happy to talk to some native English speakers for a change.
Inside Saaliev School's museum
We took them into the school’s museum (every school has one – they vary in interest, but ours has a lot of cool stuff) and showed them around. I tried to talk to them about what was in the museum, since they seemed to keep looking to me, but I totally screwed up my facts. Their tour guide took over, and I felt like a complete jackass (OK, maybe my history major didn’t work out so well with some regions of the world). There was one incorrect impression they had that Temirlan and I were able to correct. They kept saying that Russian and Kyrgyz were similar, but we told them the two languages are really nothing alike – the only thing they share is their alphabet. But, they maintained their smiles and seemed to enjoy themselves. They did mention that they ran into another PCV in Kochkor near Naryn, and they mentioned that he said he had been here only three months – he’s definitely a K-15 PCV, but I don’t know who and they didn’t remember.
I guess the biggest thing about the Australian tourists coming to my school was that it made me realize that I’m becoming a local, that I’m slowly becoming Kyrgyz. Just like all my other students, I was gawking at the tourists who showed up, and I was excited to be talking to them. And just like the locals, I would be staying here while the tourists move on and eventually make their way back to their home country. I’ve watched all these videos before of tourists and celebrities going through small villages in some far-away Third-World country, and watching all the children get excited and follow the foreign “guests” as they butcher the language. Only this time I was on the other end – I was one of the locals watching the tourists parade through their village like explorers or something. They even took the typical tourist photo of the locals at the school (this photo included me in it). I felt a little protective of my students as they followed the Australians back to the marshrutka they were traveling in – I didn’t want the Australians doing anything to offend my students. I overheard some of the Australians telling each other (as my students are trying to talk to them in Kyrgyz – they should know better by now) “I think they’re trying to tell us something.” Temirlan was excited about the fact that they thought he was an American at first (and had to tell them he was Kyrgyz), but I am an American. They even mentioned that they wouldn’t have guessed I was an American until I opened my mouth – telling them my mother’s side of the family is Italian cleared things up for them (is my beard that out of control now?). It was just a really surreal experience for me.
Ancient Scythian/Saka bal-bal (stone figure) found in Darkhan and housed in the Saaliev School museum
Other than that odd interruption, it was another confusing day at Saaliev School. I came into class with a phone call from Temirlan telling me that he was going to be late to class, and as I was about to go get my students, Elvira Eje (one of the other English teachers) showed up with my class and told me we were going to team-teach now. OK, I said, having no lesson plan or clue as to what she was going to be teaching. Luckily, another student showed up from another class and told us that there was no teacher to teach their class (would any American student really say that?), so I went to teach them. That class went pretty well, as I was pretty comfortable with the material. The second class we had was team-teaching with three teachers (Temirlan, Elvira, and I), but this time I was able to break out a photo of my parents and ask them who I look like. I tried to get them to say that I looked more like my father so I could surprise them and tell them that he’s actually my stepfather and we’re not blood-related, but there wasn’t enough time and they’re typical “I don’t give a f$#%” teenagers (teenagers are teenagers, no matter what part of the world they’re from).
I’m still having problems with the way my school is organized. There just doesn’t seem to be any organization at all. I walk in every day to school, and every day I think I know what to look forward to, but I don’t. Every day is a new experience for me, every day is another schedule change or change of plans – it can get pretty exhausting after a while. Temirlan says that once I can walk into class and just ask the kids what they did for homework, not because I want to see the homework but because I don’t know what I gave them for homework the last time, that’s when I’ll become adjusted to life at Saaliev School.
