Spring and the Lies I Tell

Spring is here!!! It's coming and the reason I know is that everything is melting. While I was teaching class last week a huge chunk of ice fell of the roof past the window and crashed to the cement courtyard below. The entire class stopped amid gasps of awe and wonder. A mini avalanche, just for us! Because its spring and because spring is about new beginnings, I have some confessions to get off my chest. The first one is that I hate Askar Akaev. He is a shitty, corrupt president running a farce of a democracy and, also, he has a unibrow. The second one is that I'm beginning to hate my site-mate, Sean. If you read this Sean, that's right, you suck. The third and most heavy confession I have to make is that I have begun telling lies to win arguments. The first occurence was during pre-service training outside of Bishkek. I and volunteer-to-remained-unnamed were having our usual daily fight, this time about Uggs and where they originated. Volunteer-to-remain-unnamed said, "Uggs are from Australia and were originally used as surfing shoes. Sheepskin is an excellent way to warm you feet." Of course, he was right and I knew that he was right. But because I was sick and tired of his rightness, sick and tired of his all-knowingness, sick and tired of the way he pronounced information gleaned from Newsweek and CNN.com as if it were direct information from the head of the KGB himself, I told a lie to make him feel bad. "Oh no, my friend, that's simply not true." The lie spilled out of me like juice out of a ripe pear, "Uggs are from New Zealand where the shepherds created them to keep their feet warm during mid-summer blizzards." "Are you sure?" he asked. "Yes, I'm sure. I looked it up on the internet before I came here." My heart was beating faster from the success of my lie. It was exhilerating! Later, in the privacy of my room, I laughed long and hard - what a stupid lie to tell. But then, last Sunday, I found myself doing it again, this time to win an argument about why the Kyrgyz government paints the bottom half of the city's trees white. "It's to protect against insects," I said, which is true. "I simply don't understand," my friend replied. "In America we have many trees and the bottom halves are never painted white." "That is where you are wrong!" I yelled. "I have SEEN trees painted white in America! In Georgia they paint all the trees white to protect against insects." This is totally untrue. Actually, I don't know, because I have never in my life been to Georgia. I also have no plans to ever find out, I'm simply saying I lied to win and I won. Is this a bad thing? Perhaps I should become a politician. I don't know if I should work on correcting this new habit of mine, or hone it. Which will be better for my future career path? Anyway, I'm going to go outside and enjoy this fresh spring rain. At least its not snow and ice. Bye for now.

Why I hate Running in Kyrgyzstan

I live in a city of approximately 60,000 people and I am the only one who runs for exercise. Other people run to catch the bus, or run when someone is throwing free plov out the back of a moving truck, but never for exercise. I am also the only natural blonde in a thirty-mile radius and this makes me an oddity; some might even go so far as to say 'a freak.' I love running, but I hate running in Kyrgyzstan and this is why: women lugging heavy sackfuls of potatoes to the bazaar will stop and stare, cars will honk, buses will pass and all the passengers will press their faces to the windows, just to watch me run. I have had snowballs thrown at me by otherwise peaceful side-of-the-road squatters. One time two drunk Kyrgyz men marched after me yelling "One, TWO. one, TWO!" in heavily accented English. I have had mens quat beside the track to watch me complete lap after lap as if a single person running was a spectator sport. One man showed me his penis. What are these people thinking, I wonder? Does their inner-dialogue sound similar to a sports-commentator? "And she's running, she's starting a little later today than yesterday. She seems to be favoring her right leg - could the old hip-flexor be acting up again? Oh, she's picking up speed . . . she passing us now . . ." Why do people look at me like such a freak? Maybe they should consider their not-so-hopeful average life-expectancy (~54) and think twice about throwing snowballs, yelling marches like a total post-communist, or flashing certain body parts. I'm just an innocent woman trying to protect my health. The diet here consists of potatoes, vodka (also made from a potatoe), and cigarettes (I'm not sure about this one, but could have some potatoe components) and, though my students always claim to have 'done their morning exercises,' they didn't and are only lying to please Stalin, who's dead anyway, so just who are they kidding? I should be more fair, running in Spain was also an adventure, though slightly different. People there never threw things (too lethargic from siesta? too much vino with lunch?), but they did make plenty of comments. Old men on park benches would watch as if you were some kind of free soft-core porn deposited on the streets for their viewing pleasure. "Hola rubia, que piernas!" followed by a hacking smokers cough was common. But at least in Spain there was the comfort of other runners. Usually they were secret runners, such as myself, completing their laps during the two hours siesta so as not to be seen by the normal people who were at home, drinking red wine and watch Corazon, Corazon. There are no secret runners in Kyrgyzstan, so I am resigned to my solitary, freakish runs. Just so long as people don't throw rocks. Snowballs I can handle, but rocks are just too much. I am haunted by the story of the volunteer who had a slab of concrete slammed against his head by a drunk local and later was found to have pieces of skull in his brain. Granted, small rocks are hardly slabs of concrete, but you know how these things escalate. For now I'll take my chances. I'm not kidding, though, one rock and I'm done.

Claiming Dibs

It turns out that a Dutch ex-pat will soon be relocating from Osh to Jalalabad. This news was relayed to me by Vanessa who has met this man and claims that he is "nice." After giving the information, V then proceeded to claim dibs and, even though I have never spoken to or seen this man in my life, I immediately became extremely defensive. "I'm sorry, did you just say 'dibs'?" I couldn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "This is a person we're talking about, not a sweater at a JC Penny sale." V then sheepishly retracted her dibs, at least vocally and I felt weirdly placated. Is it the lack of available men that is making us so crazy? I mean, claiming dibs, getting pissed about someone claiming dibs . . . what does it all mean? And why should I care if V claims dibs anyway? I'll probably meet this Dutch ex-pat, this "nice" guy, and find that, in the way of the Dutch, his jeans are too tight and his shirts a little too stylish to be considered attractive by any self-respecting American girl from the West Coast. Give me baggy jeans! Give me t-shirt over t-shirt! Give me beenies! Anything but style. I wouldn't know what to do with a Dutch man and his french fries dipped in mayonaise anyway. If I ever meet this "nice" guy, I will probably make some Pulp Fiction joke about 'Royale with cheese" and he will think I'm lame. What I'm getting at is that I'm a little ashamed for making V retract her dibs. If she wants him, she can have him. Unless, of course, he looks like Jude Law. Then it is every girl for herself.

What a chest cold!

I don't have anything to report right now, other than the fact that I have a chest cold and it sucks. Oh yeah! I also heard some exciting stories about a certain volunteer residing on the lake (to remain unnamed - you know who you are) who lept out of a two-story window in order to escape the wrathful husband of his roommate's girlfriend. Given the options of a) facing drunk and scary Kyrgyz man bent on revenge and b) leaping Batman-esque out of a two-story window, I would definitely choose the window. What's a back fracture compared to years of night-sweats and dreams that such a man is coming after you? This is my opinion on the matter. Also, I have started my secondary project and it is called Increasing Tourism in Kyrgyzstan by Convincing Friends to Visit Me. What do you think of the title? Here's what I can offer you if you come here: a week-long horseback riding trek through the nature preserve! Really, really cheap food, the likes of which you have never even dreamed of! Unlimited hiking through unsettled mountain country! Also, will offer myself as your personal guide and champion at taxi stops and on marshukas for free. What a deal! So consider it, and think of the underprivileged country that you would be helping out with your powerful American dollars. Alright, that's enough for now. I'm going to go and feel sorry for myself and dream about chicken noodle soup. I'm also going to cough a lot. Bye for now!

Kerbenanza

What's happening, readers of my blog? I just got back from a weekend trip to Kerben, the coldest place on earth. Our friends live there and always complain about having no visitors (Kerben is basically IN Uzbekistan). It was awesome, though, because we arrived after our four hour taxi ride to find Jungle Juice prepared and Mario Brothers on the Chinese Nintendo knock-off. So we played some video games and waited for our other friends, Liz and Victoria, to arrive from Osh. They had to sit in a marshuka for basically an entire day over bumpy-ass roads and along treacherous cliffs. It sucks. I know because I just sat in the same marshuka for five hours on the way back. We went to Kerben because beautiful mountain vistas were promised and, going along with these mountain vistas, awesome sledding. So, on Saturday morning, we set out with two circa-1750 sleds complete with metal runners and plank wood seats for the best sledding known to man. We walked for two miles through thigh-deep snow (this is not a joke) pulling those damn metal sleds and contemplating death the entire way: "If we got stuck here, how would we shelter ourselves through the night? What would we eat?" Someone decided that I would get eaten first, but they had no arguments to back that up. "Does this remind anyone of a death-march?" Sean said, falling into a snowdrift chest-high. "If you fall here, you die here!" Kyle shouted from the lead. He wasn't pulling a sled. After an hour, we finally made it to a slope. Rob was the first to try the sled out. He started at the top of the hill - we waited, tense with anticipation. The sled began to move, the runners cutting smoothly into the snows upper-crust. It was kind of like art, kind of like nature at its finest. But then, because the sled had metal runners and a plank wood seat, it sunk into the snow (knee-deep snow) and Rob fell off. I think that the sled covered a total distance of three feet. To be quite honest, the sledding sucked, but I like to call our trek a "snow hike," which has a much nobler sound to it. "Snow hike." If you say it really slow and dramatically, it kind of has a ring, huh? But anyway, Kyle and Rob's friends made us fresh lagman last night, which was delicious and then we all pretty much passed-out. It was a good weekend that could only have been topped-off by almost being left by the marshuka in God-knows-where-town in the middle of the mountains while you are peeing. This almost happened to me and would have been terrible today, but probably pretty funny in about five years. Well, I'm pretty tired from our adventures at the Kerbenanza and must return to, as Kyle so aptly put it, "The Sucktopolis of Kyrgyzstan," otherwise known as Bazar-Korgon. Please stay posted for next week's update and more adventures from Kyrgyzstan.