A Homecoming

July 28, 2011

 

I'm baaa-aaack.  So, I took a month long hiatus.  I left my village to help with summer camps and visit friends. Then I rounded out the month with a much-anticipated family vacation.  My Dad called it the "Siege of Paris."  All Flakers came to the city from a different angle (North, South, East, and West, we covered them all!). Total chaos and total bliss!  There are some things that can never be replaced and the love and comfort of family is one of them.

 

Anyways, back to business… I'm blogging about Kazakhstan.  In case you didn't know this, France is a pretty well-to-do place.  I flushed my toilet paper down the toilet and everything!  Then I came back to Kazakhstan and remembered that I joined the Peace Corps. Things aren't quite the same.

 

My plane landed at 7AM and I was glad to be back in a country where I spoke the language as I hitched a taxi to the bus station.  Perfect timing! The bus was almost full and ready to pull out, so I wouldn't have to wait to hours to begin the trek home. The bad news: There was only one seat left. In the very back row. Good news: It was cheap. Seven bucks for a seven hour bus ride. 

 

I tossed my oversized-bag under the bus and made my way to the long bench in the back. Lucky for me, I was dead-tired from traveling. Otherwise, I would have been insanely aware of the two portly men on either side of me, obviously unaware that their tickets paid for one seat, not one-and-a-half.  I rested my head on the seat in front of me (the one with a babushka leaning her seat back as far as it would go… until it hit my knees) and drifted off as best I could.

 

Things went well from about 9:30 to noon.  I slept.  Then the sun turned the bus into a toaster-oven.  Forty degrees Celsius.  No air-conditioner.  No windows.  We did have two ceiling vents, but there was a woman on board with an infant and she insisted the wind was bad for her baby's health. (But heat strokes aren't an issue? Okay.) So the oven door stayed closed.

 

After five more hours in broil mode, I bid farewell to that bus, and made my way home.

 

First thing's first, go to the water pump outside and get fresh water.  Nope, scratch that, the water isn't working today.  Use the reserve water under the kitchen table.

 

Next, unload the bag and plug in an almost-dead cell phone.  No, you can cross that off too.  The electricity is out.

 

Okay, well, some things are solid. Use a dust rag and broom to wipe a month of grime from my house.  Then use the gas-burner to eat a meager egg-and-yogurt dinner. 

 

Last, make time to laugh at yourself. This isn't Paris, and it's not convenient.  But this is exactly what I signed up for, and I can definitely be happy here.

 

Lessons in Life

June 19, 2011

 

I consider myself many things, but "domestic" isn't really a title I can boast. However, last week I moved out of my host family's home and into a teacher's guesthouse.  That means it is now my responsibility to cook and clean and generally care for myself like a big girl.  Oh boy… this is gonna be a bit of a challenge.  In a week alone, this is what I've learned:

 

1. Milk goes sour in 2 days time if you don't have a refrigerator.
2. Pasta noodles are darn cheep, but apricots taste way better.
3. You can't bake cookies on a stove (I don't have a working oven either.)
4. It's a really good thing my mom taught me to fry a chicken starting with the whole chicken because I'll probably never find frozen chicken breasts at the bazaar- but I have some rudimentary knowledge of how to cut the thing whole.
5. If you cook with garlic, it keeps flies out of your house at night.
6. When they don't have the correct change at the shop, they will give you boxes of matches to make up the difference.  I LOVE THIS!!!  When you use a gas stove, matches are infinitely valuable!

 

All this and it's only been a week… good gracious! Think of where I'll be in a year!

Eyebrows

June 11, 2011

 

I saw a two-year-old at the bus stop who had a faint blue line drawn across the bridge of her nose between her eyebrows.  Her mom didn't seem concerned, and had no desire to clean her daughter's face.  After seeing my inquiring eyes, my friend gave me a crash course in Uzbek culture.  Apparently, the blue ink stimulates hair growth. 

 

Wait a minute, a blue line drawn between your eyebrows to stimulate hair growth?  That's gonna give you a UNIBROW!!! 

 

Part two of the lesson: To Uzbeks, thick unibrows are a symbol that God smiles upon you.

 

Well, that's new!

Uzbek Immersion

June 10, 2011

 

Bet you didn't expect to see that blog title, huh? Probably thinking, "Wait, I thought Anne was in Kazakhstan?!?!"  Well, you are right, I'm still here. But in the summer, if you're an education volunteer, you pretty much scatter to the four winds to lead summer camps.  This week I landed in a town in South Kazakhstan with a huge Uzbek population.  Seriously, I feel like I left the country!

 

Uzbek and Kazakh culture are closely related, but there are obviously gonna be some differences.  Uzbek houses are kinda like Spanish haciendas:  The house is divided into several compounds and they all open into one main courtyard.  In the courtyard there is an elevated platform with a roof… maybe like a simplified gazebo, except not at all.  Anyways, people eat and sleep on the platform in the summer when it's too hot to be inside.  I love that!

 

Just like Kazakhs, Uzbek people are enormously hospitable.  Even though I'm not from this neck of the woods, I managed to get an invite to an Uzbek wedding.  The party started with an open house at the groom's house. Many times, the whole ceremony is at the house and people congregate in the courtyard. But for this wedding, we went to a reception hall after the house party.  When the bride and groom arrived, four men blew ten-foot trumpets with some choreographed movement.  There was a microphone to amplify the noise, but I have no idea why they did that.  I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be deaf for the rest of the day. 

 

After the bridal party entered, the wedding was pretty standard: Eat, dance, eat, eat, dance, give a toast, dance, eat.  There were fewer toasts than I've seen at my Kazakh parties (as in, I didn't have to give one.  Bummer J), and the music was definitely not Kazakh.  It would probably take a few months for me to master Uzbek wedding dancing if that's the music they play every time!  But it was an awesome experience.

 

Southern Kazakhstan has a lot of Kazakh pride, but if you move around a bit, you manage to find little pockets of diversity that you would never expect.

Haiku

May 24, 2011

 

A year or three ago, my family was on vacation and my mom told us every girl could pick one activity and the whole family would participate.  We were all adult-ish people by this time, but I don't think it ever crossed our minds that we were strategizing vacation just like we did when we were eight.

 

The suggestions were all pretty standard until Corri proposed that we all compose haikus.  I remember thinking that sounded like a far cry from fun.  Good thing I didn't complain out loud because I would have had to insert my foot in my mouth.  It was hilarious and wonderful. 

 

Since that time, the occasional opportunity has presented itself in which the only way to fully express myself has been through those 17 syllables of verse.  This is my Shakespearean masterpiece for the night:

 

Midnight Run

 

Phone falls in outhouse

Three parts scatter in the dark

Searching hands feel pee.

Outhouse

May 21, 2011

 

You know, I thought the outhouse thing would really bug me.  The idea of tramping across the yard at midnight in the dead of winter was less-than-appealing.  Plus, having to squat and balance over a vat of fecal matter sounded like a recipe for disaster.

 

These past nine months I've realized that those concerns are pretty trivial.  Middle-of-the-night potty runs can generally be prevented with some strategic tea restrictions.  As for balancing… okay, that still provides reason for caution.  But I trust moldy scaffoldings a lot more these days.

 

What I'm having a little trouble adjusting to is walking the length of the yard, saying "hello" to all my neighbors and students working in their gardens as I venture toward the lavatory.  For some reason it feels a little strange to pause for a chat with Mrs. Smith and little Johnny while I do the potty dance. 

 

Nothing like advertising all your bodily functions.

Best. News. Ever.

May 15, 2011

 

It's been getting a little toasty in southern Kazakhstan these days.  The thermometer is topping off in the 80s and 90s.  I have absolutely no complaints about that.  I love the heat.  The issue is my clothing.  I live with a pretty conservative older couple in a rural village.  They are convinced that if I don't wear a jacket in 70-degree weather, I'll probably die. Not to mention they are always telling me about village scandal or some girl's supposedly skanky behavior- following it up with "But not our Anne!  She would never do something like that."  No pressure or anything, right?!

 

When the temperature broke 90, I started sweating bullets, but I remained true to my long pants. 

 

Well, today I was washing my clothes and I felt like I'd die of a heat stroke.  Seriously, the only thing to do was sit in the house and read a book until the sun went down.  It was just me in the back yard, scrubbing away at my clothes.  In a moment of desperation I decided to ditch my concern for honor.  I hiked up my pants around my thighs, creating makeshift shorts.

 

About that time, Beisikul (host mom) came back from the outhouse.  She looked at me and kinda scrunched her nose.

 

"Anne…" Here it comes. "…you need shorts!"

 

If the heat didn't kill me, I'm pretty sure that news about did.  Holy Kamolie!  I can wear shorts here?!?!  Praise the Lord! 

 

I did a little dance by the washbasin then ran to my room for some much needed relief!  Oh my dear shorts, I've never loved you so much!