In which I meet the other American in the area

July 9, 2013

Classes on Monday went well, although my voice was still obviously scratchy. In Group 3, we made it about halfway through the lesson when Rita showed up and informed me that I needed to end the class right then because we were going to the lake. Um, okay. But hey, she’s the director and I was worried about my voice. I ended the lesson, changed my clothes, grabbed my shower things (in hopes of hot springs access), stuffed my camera and my kindle into my bag, and we set out.

Again we were crammed into a van filled with all sorts of building supplies, electrical gear, and cooking supplies. I should also mention that this can is in a permanent hot-wire status; the wiring has been pulled out of the original ignition and routed into a pseudo-ignition contraption. To start the van, one must insert a flat-head screwdriver into this contraption and twist it like a key. Brilliant! After a brief stop to collect more people and more supplies (during which time I befriended an adorable, shy, elderly spaniel) we made it to the lake.

This guy was really shy, but super sweet.

My first order of business upon arrival at the shore was the hot springs, having missed out on the experience the previous day. It was glorious! Sure, it’s located in a dank, moldering concrete shed into which the thermal waters are piped… but it has a shower!!! The room into which I was sent contained two tubs in which one could luxuriate in the ‘healthy’ waters, and in the corner of the room, there was a shower. I was able to take a thermally-powered hot shower and it was wonderful. We were supposed to limit ourselves to less than 20 minutes in the water, as apparently any longer is bad for your heart. I was, in fact, told by Rita that “The hot water is bad for your heart but good for the rest of your organism.” Honestly, it seemed right about the temperature that I prefer my hot showers, and I certainly could have stayed in there for longer than 20 minutes.

Hot springs building

Hot springs paradise

After I had finished cleansing myself and had re-dressed, I was told that I shouldn’t immediately go outside; it would be healthier for me to relax in the waiting room for a while first. I chatted with the ‘guard’ (the son of the fellow from our rained-out picnic at the beach who had told me that I was at a “genuine Kyrgyz picnic”) and a few other locals relaxing post-springs. The guard (named Azamat) asked me to translate a sign that was posted in both Russian and Kyrgyz and which contained information about the hot springs into English so that they could offer that information to English speaking tourists. I took a picture of the sign and told him I’d bring him a translation, as there were several words for which I’d need to consult my dictionary. In thanks, he gave me a bottle of Barbulak drinking water – the thermal waters, filtered and carbonated.

While Azamat and I were talking, a woman came out of one of the other springs’ rooms. As with me, Azamat told her that she should sit in the waiting area and relax. She said that she didn’t have time; she had to go straight to her car as she had a plane to catch in Bishkek. It turned out that she was from Ukraine – and of all places, she was from Dniepropetrovsk! She seemed really confused that there was an American in the waiting room – especially when said American delayed her run to her car by telling her all about her 2011 trip to Dniepropetrovsk. (OK, so I didn’t mention the metro party, but…) After the Ukrainian made her escape, I figured it was time for me to return to the yurt.

In my absence, the yurt had been filled with a glorious assortment of feast-foods: salads, breads, candies, fruits – the usual suspects, but in greater abundance. I later learned that Ramadan (or Ramazan in the Turkic languages, including Kyrgyz) was beginning the following day, making this the last pre-fast feast. However, at the time I was rather confused by the fact that we spent something like 10 hours of what I’d taken to be an average Monday feasting.

Feast!

Shortly after my return to the yurt, a large, orange marshrutka arrived. It had been rented for the day by Kuban’s numerous relatives from Balykchy who had come to partake of the feast. About thirty minutes or so after their arrival, the nurse from the Bar Bulak clinic arrived… with an American fellow in tow. He turned out to be a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Kara Koo, the next village down the coast from Bar Bulak, where he works as a health-program volunteer. He is also from Florida. Apparently he had met the Bar Bulak nurse when she’d stopped in at the Kara Koo clinic, and when she’d learned that he was from the same state as me, she’d invited him along to the feast.

PCV-A (as I’ll call him; his blog is here, btw) was a pretty nice guy, a recent college graduate who has been in Kyrgyzstan since April of this year. He’ll be spending two years in Kara Koo, and seems pretty excited by the opportunity. PCV-A has never studied Russian, although he has been studying Kyrgyz intensively since April. As such his Kyrgyz is much better than mine (let’s face it, mine is pretty close to non-existent), although he knows no Russian whatsoever other than a few of the cognates that appear in modern Kyrgyz. The locals, who have grown accustomed to communicating with me in Russian were pleasantly surprised to discover that they could (sort of) communicate with PCV-A in Kyrgyz – although they frequently forgot and spoke to him in Russian, leaving him feeling rather confused.

This was the first time since May 25th (when B left) that I’d spoken English with a native English speaker. (He, meanwhile, hangs out with his PCV buddies fairly regularly and as such gets to chat with native speakers far more often. He’d also spent the Fourth of July at the US Embassy eating hamburgers and hot dogs, while I spent my Fourth confined to my bed with no voice, awaiting a shot in the ass.) On the one hand, it was great to be able to speak with another native English speaker, especially one who grew up so close to where I did. On the other hand, when I’m the only English speaker around, I can wander off by myself and do my own thing (like look for things to photograph or curl up under a blanket with my kindle). However, when there’s one (and only one) other English speaker around – especially one who didn’t know any of the people at this shindig and who spoke only elementary Kyrgyz – I felt rather obligated to spend the day chatting with him. He was a nice guy, so this wasn’t terrible by any means, although by the end of the day we’d pretty much exhausted every possible topic of conversation, and I was fairly convinced that I was losing my voice again.

PCV-A
It was one of those rare gorgeous days in which you could see the mountains on the other side of the lake.

The day – which for PCV-A ended at 8pm, and for me 9pm – was much better weather-wise than the previous day. We watched the locals hand-rig electrical wire from the nearest official-looking power pole, through some very unofficial looking power poles, and down into the shack and yurts. We ate numerous courses of feast-food, drank uncountable cups of tea, and watched the locals swim in the lake. At least I had another Floridian with me to join me in my assertion that the waters of Issyk Kul are COLD.

No feast is complete without beshbarmak.
And a sheep's head.

That night, as my host family and I drove back to our home, I learned that pretty much all of the locals were convinced that PCV-A and I were going to fall in love and get married – after all, we’re from the same state and are both volunteering in the same are of Kyrgyzstan! It’s fate! I put a stop to such speculation by pointing out that I am 13 years older than PCV-A. They all seemed quite disappointed.

Not a good day to recover

July 7, 2013

The past few days I have been so unbelievably bored and frustrated at feeling mostly better but yet being confined to my bed. Other than the fact that I couldn’t speak (other than the occasional croak) I felt okay, but I was expected to stay inside and in bed until I was fully recovered. Now, spending the day lying around with a good book is actually one of my favorite activities; however, there’s just something about not having any other alternative that makes me cranky. As such, I was quite relieved today, when my frog-croaky voice and I were finally deemed healthy enough to accompany the family down to the shore to watch them set up their yurt. I was also told to bring my shower supplies, as I could bathe in the hot springs.

Now, I had been told that “Bar Bulak” (the name of the village) meant “hot springs.” Turns out that it both does and it doesn’t. For those of you who are not familiar with Kyrgyz or any other Turkic language, ‘bar’ (бар) is from the Kyrgyz verb be, and it means there is/are. For example, мыщык бар means ‘there is a cat.’ Bulak (булак) means spring (as in water, not the season or the things in your bed). Now in Kyrgyz, the verb comes at the end of the sentence, so the correct rendition of there is/are spring/s would be something along the lines of булак бар (bulak bar). However, there are a lot of small springs around here, keeping the valley lush, feeding its river, and (of course) providing water to Issyk Kul. I’ve been told by some of the locals that the village derives its name from the fact that there are so many springs here. But, another meaning of bar is steam. As the hot springs here are supposedly extremely hot, ‘steam springs’ could be an apt description – and likewise a plausible translation for the name Bar Bulak.

Returning to our story: I grabbed my things and we – along with quite a few of the neighbors – squished into vehicles packed with yurt-assembling goods (I rode in a van with a tunduk – the top piece of a yurt) strapped to the roof) and set off for the shore. 

A tunduk is the central top portion of a yurt's frame.
This is what one looks like when it's strapped to the roof of a van.

The hot springs themselves are (as you might expect if you’ve been following this blog) enclosed within a rather ancient looking, squat, concrete building. I have no idea what it’s like inside the building as today it was packed with tourists. Kyrgyz tourists. They apparently come from all over the country to ‘take the waters.’ Weekends are the busiest days for the hot springs, and I was told that it would either be a four hour wait, or I’d have to come back another time. Sigh.

There are a couple of decrepit looking ‘hotels’ near the springs in various stages of construction which may or may not be resumed at some point in the future. There is one completed hotel. I have yet to see inside it, but I will in a few weeks. It is owned by the London School, and they are giving me a week’s free stay there as part of my compensation for spending my summer volunteering. Additionally, there is a yurt camp. In the summer, locals set up yurts as well as temporary shacks to house small shops and cafes. In the yurts they place beds, which they rent out to tourists (most of whom are Kyrgyz) who come to enjoy the lake shore and hot springs during the (allegedly) hot months of July and August.

Yesterday, my host family, along with their friends and relatives had built a temporary structure that will serve as their café. Today they set up two yurts. One was a pre-fabricated deal made in China – metal poles and plastic covering. It was assembled quickly and easily, but the interior had an overpowering stench of plastic and other chemicals. The other yurt was a traditional Kyrgyz yurt of wood and felt. It took several hours to assemble, and the process seemed rather difficult; however, it did not have an interior odor whatsoever.

Watch a yurt being assembled in 42 seconds :-)
Host 'mom' Rita in front of the newly assembled yurts.

Unfortunately, I picked the worst possible day for my first foray back into the world after falling ill. During all the days I was stuck in bed, the weather was (for the most part) warm and gorgeous, with little more than a few sprinkles here and there. Today, in contrast, started out overcast and cool, and morphed into very cold and rainy. I remember sweltering during my Kyrgyz summer of 2008, but I have yet to swelter this summer, that’s for sure! I had shelter inside the future café, so I was dry. Plus I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater, socks, shoes, and a felt hat… and I was still freezing and miserable. When we finally returned home around 3:30 in the afternoon, I crawled under the covers with all of my clothes on and took forever to warm up. I hope this doesn’t set back my recovery, as I plan on teaching tomorrow!

In sickness, in Balykchy, and in the ass

July 5, 2013

This has been a wasted week.

Sunday evening, after I last wrote, I began to develop a sore throat. Sunday night I came down with something very flu-like: fever, chills, aches all over, nausea (so that I couldn’t take a NyQuil), and an extremely sore throat, such that swallowing was quite painful. I spent most of the night tossing and turning and feeling thoroughly miserable. I did not teach on Monday, and instead spent the day in bed.

Tuesday morning I felt mostly better, although my throat was still sore. I taught classes, although by my second class I was starting to lose my voice. About twenty minutes into my third class, Rita knocked on the door. The family was going to Balykchy to use the banya, but if I wanted to go I’d have to end class early because they were going right then. I didn’t really understand why we needed to leave right away, but Rita was the school’s director, I hadn’t showered in twelve days, and my throat was killing me. We ended class early.

I grabbed my shower stuff and a change of clothes (although I neglected to toss in deodorant in the mistaken thought that we’d be headed straight home after banya-ing) and we promptly set out for Balykchy. Balykchy is a former industrial and fishing town located at the western tip of Issyk Kul, about half an hour’s drive from Bar Bulak. The fish and the factories have left, leaving a community struggling to figure out what to do with itself. I have to admit, it didn’t look as depressing as it did five years ago (or in the photos on the Desolation Travel website), although I wouldn’t go so far as to say it seemed prosperous.

It turned out that we were picking up Kuban and Rita’s son, Sabyr (8) from summer camp, and the camp closed at noon – there really was a reason why we had to leave so urgently. After picking up Sabyr, we hit up one of the Balykchy banyas, and by 1pm I was squeaky clean. It was a wonderful feeling. It didn’t last.

When we left the banya, we headed for a TV repair shop. We then spent an hour and a half sitting in the car while Kuban took their TV inside to be repaired. Granted, we had the doors open, and it was only about 75 or so outside, so it’s not like sitting in a car in Florida in early July for an hour and a half… but by the time we left I was definitely regretting not bringing along any deodorant.

Once the TV was fixed, we visited Kuban’s mother. She’s the same age as my mother, and like me and my mom, she is a teacher (although she teaches math). We got along great, even though I could tell I was losing my voice as I spoke with her. After leaving Kuban’s mother’s house, we went to the Balykchy bazaar. Normally, setting me loose in a bazaar does bad things to my wallet, although I have to admit that the Balykchy bazaar is not a happening place at 4pm on a Tuesday. Most of the stalls were closed. I couldn’t find anything I wanted to buy. In contrast, Rita and Kuban hit up the home-goods section where they spent several hours (!!) and dropped a small fortune on things like a meat processer and a microwave. While at the bazaar, I began to feel headachy. And seriously lacking in deodorant. When we finally loaded back into the car, I thought for sure that we’d be headed home, but alas… we stopped at someone else’s house for dinner. It wasn’t until 7:30pm that we began driving back towards Bar Bulak. I really wouldn’t have minded the delays (well, the 2+ hours at the bazaar was a bit much) had I felt better, but between how I felt and my lack of deodorant, well, I was ready to be on the road.

By the time we started heading home, I had a splitting headache, had almost completely lost my voice, and of course, promptly began feeling carsick. Aaaargh. Then, halfway home, we stopped at a farm that Kuban either owns or manages (they grow some kind of plant that’s made into some sort of medicine), and we waited in the car there for a good half an hour while Kuban spoke with the workers. By the time we got home I was seriously feeling rough. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that things became very unpleasant for me health wise, and I had to take one of my two remaining Imitrex as well as a lot of Imodium.

When I awoke in the morning, I couldn’t speak at all. Nothing above a whisper. I could barely communicate with Rita, much less teach. If I my students were more advanced, I could give them written assignments, but given their low levels there’s no way we could have a class in which I couldn’t speak. It would be a waste of everyone’s time. So, no work for me until the voice returns. Unfortunately, I’m prone to losing my voice when I get sick, and it’s been known to stay gone for a week or so. Crap.

Rita insisted that I see the village nurse in the tiny village clinic located pretty much directly across the street from our house at the foot of the barren, scree-covered hills. She was a kind, older woman who diagnosed me as having laryngitis and who prescribed cough drops, throat spray, and a twice daily injection of ampicillin mixed with novocaine into my ass for the next five days. Wait – what? Yep. Shots to the bum to be administered twice daily by Rita. Also, I must wear socks at all times (except for when I’m soaking my feet in hot water, which for some reason I must do) and I must drink hot milk before going to bed. (I think the hot milk is worse than the shots, as straight up milk makes me gag, whereas the novocaine numbs the injection site pretty rapidly).

I’ve been spending nearly all of my time in bed with Котчик and my kindle, even though aside from a bit of a cough and some sinus stuffiness I feel fine, because there’s not much else I can do – especially when I’ve essentially taken an entire week off from work. I’ve done some lesson planning, but as most of what I need for class I already created when I was in Toguz Bulak, there’s really not much to do until I get better and can get back to work. Besides, the nurse also told me that I needed to stay in bed until I recovered my voice, and everyone seems intent on making me follow all of her instructions. Sigh. So here I am, with my socks on, waiting for another shot in the ass…

A walk to the lake

30 June 2013

What should one do when one hasn’t bathed in ten days? Take a very long walk in the very warm sunlight, obviously! Haha. Today was beautiful, and I didn’t want to waste it, especially after having been confined indoors so much by rain the previous day. I told Rita that I was going to go for a walk, in the vain hope that she might say “No, don’t go! We’re going to the banya!” Instead she told Aidai to go with me, to make sure that I didn’t get lost. I doubt my Shadow would have kept up with me the entire way had she not been instructed to do so, as the route I’d decided to take was fairly long – down to the lake and back, a walk of several miles. To her credit, she didn’t complain too much, other than a couple of “Are you sure you want to go to the lake? It’s really far!” type comments.

The main drag of Bar Bulak
The local mosque


The first distant view of the lake

About 3/4 of the way to the lake, we passed the home of a friend of hers (and one of my students) named Akbermet, who decided to join us. At that point, Aidai became a lot more excited about the prospect of a walk down to the lake and back.

Aidai and her friend Akbermet
Almost there!

There were several springs along the shore.

Issyk Kul
Issyk Kul
Aidai and Akbermet
Akbermet and me

When we finally reached the water, the girls swam while I relaxed on the shore. I contemplated using the lake as a banya-substitute to somewhat clean myself off a bit, but despite the warm weather, the water was just too chilly for me. I couldn't bring myself to wash more than my feet.

Eventually, we decided to head back. When we reached Akbermet’s house, her parents invited us in for tea, which was quite wonderful, since at that point I was VERY thirsty. The girls decided that Akbermet would spend the night at our house so that she wouldn’t have so far to walk for class in the morning. We headed home, and made it inside just before the afternoon rains hit.

Akbermet's parents outside their home.

New School and No Banya

29 June 2013

This morning, Rita and I walked up to the new school building. It has apparently only been open for two years, so it is really quite new. Inside, the building is just as lovely as it appears from the outside. The classrooms are large, well lit, and well-equipped, making up for its inconvenient location. During the summer the school (like most Kyrgyz schools) is closed for ремонт (that wonderful word which can mean repair, reconstruction, remodeling, or maintenance). As the school’s director, Rita needed to check in and see how the ремонт was going and I got to tag along in order to check out the inside of the school. While it is a really great building, I don’t regret my decision to teach in the old school, given its convenient location. Also, it might have been somewhat challenging to teach at the new school amidst the paint fumes and other ремонт efforts.

Okay, so I posted this picture before, but I wanted to remind you what the exterior of the new school looks like.
And then there's the interior: And there I am :-)
The view from the school's front porch, looking south

After leaving the school, we stopped at the first house down the hill to request use of their banya later that day. Unlike my hosts in Toguz Bulak, my hosts here in Bar Bulak do not have their own banya. While they do actually have a nicely tiled indoor shower… there is no running water or plumbing, and as such it is essentially used for storage and nothing else. Sigh. As such, they must either rent a banya from one of the local families who have one, or they must travel to the town of Balykchy (about a thirty minute drive) to use one of the public banyas. I was very excited at the prospect of using the banya, as it had been nine days since my previous banya experience. Unfortunately, shortly after we returned home, it began to rain. For some reason that was unclear to me, the rain canceled the banya. Ahh well. Such is life in the village.

I spent the afternoon in bed with Котчик – what else is there to do when it’s raining? – except for the brief interlude of an hour or so when we popped over to the next-door neighbor’s house for tea. “Tea” of course, is pretty much always a full-fledged meal. This meal consisted of oromo, a pastry and vegetable dish of which I had heard but previously never tasted.

Котчик

By the end of the day, I had eaten four meals, and I’m pretty sure that the family had eaten one before I awoke. Sitting around with friends and family, drinking tea and eating is such a huge part of Kyrgyz culture. My stomach is too small to keep up! The thing is, while most of them are (shall we say) fairly solid, I’ve yet to see a single morbidly obese person here, unlike in the US where they abound. I’m guessing this has a lot to do with the lack of preservatives and other unnatural chemicals in the food here, combined with the amount of hard work these people do every day. During the school year, Rita, her coworkers, and their students walk the steep kilometer or so to the school every day. In contrast, I’ve seen my neighbors in Orlando drive across the parking lot from their door to the mailbox instead of walking.

Internet, Six Kids, and a Donkey

June 28, 2013

After lunch today, I went for a walk around the village. There are definitely fewer homes/people/roads here than in Toguz Bulak, although each family here seems to have a pretty substantial piece of land compared to the folks in Toguz Bulak. I walked up to the brand new school building. It’s very nice looking, and at least twice the size of the old school in which I’m teaching. Unfortunately, it’s located on the far northwestern corner of the village, atop a fairly steep hill. It’s about a 1km walk for many of the students, and would certainly be quite challenging in mud or snow.

The view from the hill where the school is located is quite spectacular. You can see Issyk-Kul, the village of Bar Bulak, and the surrounding desert-like rocky areas.

The hill behind the school
The view from the hill

I also had a full cell-signal up there, meaning that I’d probably have a full internet signal up there, too – although I can’t really see myself lugging the laptop all the way up there except in case of emergency. (NPH!!) I hiked back down from the school and took a different route home (there are really only two possible ways to go; there are few roads here). An old cemetery is located on a hillside above the old school. Just above the cemetery, at the top of the hill, is a bench. While sitting on the bench, I also had full bars on my cell. This bench is much closer to home than the new school, so I decided to return home, grab the laptop, and see if the internet signal was just as strong up there as my cell signal.

From the bench in the cemetery

When I picked up my laptop, I left my camera behind, as I really didn’t want to carry both of them. I really should have brought the camera, though, as a foreigner with a computer is pretty much the pied piper around here. I ended up with six children and a donkey crowded around me (although the donkey was not there by choice), watching in fascination as I waited five minutes or more for Gmail to load. I can’t imagine much that would be more boring to watch, especially as none of them could read any of the text when it finally loaded, but they were utterly fascinated!

(I later figured out that if I sat at the western edge of my room near the center of the wall, and held my laptop roughly 3 feet off the ground – a feat usually achieved with a stack of pillows and blankets – I could acquire a weak signal. It wasn’t great, and it only worked about a third of the times that I tried, but it beat having to lug the laptop up the hill!)