50th Birthday Bash!

A month or two ago I had the opportunity to attend the 50^th birthday celebration of my host mother’s daughter’s husband.  It was a neat and exhausting experience.  My family was in a rush to leave, but I had to go to my first women’s club.  It was our first club and I could not bail on them.  It was a grey cold morning and the electricity was out village wide.  Giving the circumstances only 5-6 women showed up for our introductory meeting.  After starting about 30 minutes late (normal) we did our introductions, pre-tests, and then I gave them some freshly baked apple bread.  Every time I cook in this country and share it with people it blows their minds because I am a male and I cook.  Now that it has become a regular thing it still surprises them. 

After our club I rushed home and gathered my things since I’d be staying in Karakol for another week, for a winter camp, after the party and had all of my winter clothes packed.  My brother’s friend Maxat came over with his mini van, we piled in and took off.  It was snowing lightly when we left but it was mighty cold.  We picked up another passenger and dropped them off in Balakchy.  I slept most of the way there but was awake for the part when we hit some wild bird.  My brother and Maxat then proceeded to find the dead bird and put it in a plastic bag and put it in the car.  I have no idea why they did this because in Balakchy they brought it into a gas station and left it with the clerk.  I thought they were going to cook up some road kill stew or something but no such luck.  This was the second time I had been in the car with my brother when we hit a bird and they proceeded to find it.  I have no idea what happened with the bird the first time so maybe it did end up as road kill stew.  In Balakchy we met up with some other relatives and my family said their greetings while I sat awkwardly in the back seat and just waved at them. 

 

My sister in law with her daughter.

Getting ready for the Besh Barmak

Rockin' out accordion style

Sitting in the young people room!

When we hit Cholpon-ata (about half way between Balakchy and Karakol on the North shore of the lake) and it started snowing heavily.  Maxat started driving excruciatingly slow.  It was really annoying how slow he was going but we arrived alive and that is all that matters.  During the snowy stretch we stopped and attempted to put snow chains on the tires.  It took about 30 minutes for them to put them on then another 15 for them to adjust them properly.  They had no idea what they were doing and being from Florida I was definitely no help.  After a drive that took about 2 hours longer than it should have we arrived in a village right on the outskirts of Karakol.  We hopped out and ran inside.  I was thrilled there was plov (rice dish with carrots and meat) and not that many people.  I was hoping for a small crowd and not Besh Barmak and I thought I had gotten it!  NOT!  After being at this house for about 15 minutes we are hurriedly rushed out the door and load back up in the cars and drive another 20 minutes down a side road to the village where we were actually going.  It’s now about 6 pm and we have been on this journey for about 6 hours to reach the final destination so I was happy to finally be there.  When we pulled up there were numerous cars parked out front, I saw big speakers, and some meat was being boiled.  Everything I was hoping against was coming true.  Inside there were 3 rooms set up with tables loaded up with salads, fried bread, regular bread, candy, and fruit, all of the normal Kyrgyz treats that go along with a large gathering.  I’ve learned not to eat too many of the table items because there are usually 2-3 dishes that will come out along with everything that is on the table.  First up is some soup.  The soup was normal, nothing weird, not too fatty, just regular soup.  It was nice.  While we are having our soup a lady comes in with the birthday Man and proceeds to talk about him and give a toast.  I am not exactly sure but I believe they paid this woman to be the MC for the night because she talked a lot and was not his wife or a family member.  We took our first round of shots because people were cold and we had to get warmed up.  The challenge of refusing shots of horrendous vodka had begun. 

 

High quality Kyrgyz dancing

My brother far left, his eldest brother middle, and his friend Maxat far right.  My lil' bro (nephew) in the middle

My host mom in the bright green bandana busting some moves!

They will use every reason and excuse to try and make you drink.  I’ve learned to either just take baby sips, because if you take it all they will give you more, and more and more.  If you take none they will hound you and not stop.  There really is no wining when old Kyrgyz men and women try and make you drink.  After our first course is finished it’s dancing time.  Everyone heads outside into the snowy sub zero temps to dance.  Kyrgyz people hate the cold but when they are drunk and it involves dancing the cold will not get them down.  In fact it is just more reason for them to drink more.  The drunker they get the more they want you to dance.  Being the stranger doesn’t help either.  The old drunk ladies are relentless and vicious in grabbing you and trying to make you dance.  I hate dancing!  So I would refuse as much as I could but would occasionally wiggle a little bit then run off and hide where the young guys are boiling the meat or head inside.  When I went inside there was the room full of the younger ladies.  They were sneakily taking shots of wine while their parents or elders were outside so it would not be shameful.  Generally it is looked down upon for younger females to drink, while for everyone else it is looked down upon if you do not drink.  Yay for gender and age discrimination (sarcasm)!  When it came time for the second course my Apa (mother) called me in to sit with her, but the room with the younger people told me not to go and they were right.  I realized I had been stuck in the old people room with the distinguished guests, aka the no fun room.  For the rest of the night I stayed with the people my age and actually had some conversation and people I could relate with for once while guesting.  I’m normally guesting with a bunch of old ladies or my brother’s friends who are drunk so it is not that fun.  We had musical entertainment by 2 guys who were singing and playing an accordion.  We ate some manti (meat and potato filled dumplings) then proceeded to dance round 2.  More of the same, bad loud music, bad singing, cold weather, horrible vodka, and drunk ladies trying to make me dance.  It was entertaining but got old really fast.  One part I did enjoy was the two guys on shot duty.  In America at clubs we often have scantly dressed young ladies running around trying to sell shots to people.  In Kyrgyzstan we have two drunk guys.  One man is wielding a shot glass that gets used by everyone and a bottle of vodka, the other man wielding a bowl of cold salad to be used as a chaser.  They poor you a shot, then the salad man takes a scoop of salad on the spoon, same spoon for everyone, and feeds you a spoonful of salad.  Despite how gross the vodka is, and the fact that countless people have used the same spoon and shot glass it is impossible to not appreciate that moment when they come to you. 

 

Shot girls in America 

The Kyrgyz version

The Kyrgyz version

The night is dragging on, we’ve had dance offs, shots, the first two rounds of food, and now we are waiting on the besh barmak.  I even received a pen as a gift, I’d call it a prize but lets be honest, I didn’t win any dancing contests.  I am cold, tired, and anxious to leave and head to my friend’s apartment in Karakol where I am hoping to stay for the night since we are leaving early the next morning to go skiing.  It is now 1 am and still no Besh Barmak and I have no idea how I will get to Karakol.  I call my friend and throw in the towel, I figure I am stuck here for the night since we haven’t even eaten yet and I have now idea how I will get back to Karakol.  Not soon after we finally eat around 2 am and by 2:30 am someone tells me they are heading to Karakol then back to their house.  I had a ride and got to escape sleeping in a full house on the floor.  By this time the snow is pouring down. I had never been in a car at night while it was snowing heavily.  It was weird.  It reminded me of a scene you’d see in a movie of a space ship traveling a warp speed.  I finally arrived at my friend’s apartment around 3 am, ending my 8+ hour birthday extravaganza.  I passed out and dreaded having to be up in about 4 hours to go skiing.  It was worth it in the end as it was the most snow and best conditions I experienced of the season. 

It was a beautiful day for skiing with fresh snow everywhere.

Kyrgyzstan Wins Again

Kyrgyzstan Wins Again

It’s Friday, time to head out of the village for the weekend.  This past week was probably my busiest week of work in Peace Corps.  I’m in the process of working on a grant for a summer health camp and I’m putting the finishing touches on it.  On Fridays my Counterpart and I do a women’s club.  This week we were talking about gender in Kyrgyzstan.  I wake up Friday morning, tired and grumpy, my normal for mornings that begin before 10.  My 4-year-old brother is screaming and crying, also normal.  I head to the club, and we start about 45 minutes late and 7 women showed up.  Things are going well until my counterpart asked the young (25-35) women how many of them had been bride kidnapped.  3 out of 7 of them raised their hands.  Depressing.  Today is women’s day in Kyrgyzstan and I don’t want to go in depth about how messed up gender relations in Kyrgyzstan are but to put it shortly it is bad.  Check this article out by a fellow volunteer who can express much better than I can. http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20140217/NEWS01/302170020/Britta-Seifert-column-Women-Kyrgyzstan-fight-gender-oppression

 

Nothing Says Happy Women's Day Like Plastic Flowers and Cognac 

Woo Women's Club

After our meeting we have a quick little party at the hospital in honor of women’s day, shots of cognac, and some other tasty treats.  By this time I am ready to head to Bishkek for the weekend.  I’m tired and not looking forward to sitting on a crowded bus so decide I’ll take a taxi it is only 100 som ($2) more expensive and I figure it will be much faster.  A guy drives up who is heading to Bishkek and I agree to go with him.  We just need to wait on one more person.  About 5 minutes later another driver asks if anyone is going to Bishkek but I’ve already told this guy I’ll go with him so I stick with him.  The other guy drives off.  For the next 20-30 minutes no other people come, no buses drive by, and no other people driving to Bishkek come by.  So I keep waiting patiently but my patience is running out.  Finally 2 people who were heading to Balakchy (a town about 40 minutes from my village) get in the car and we leave.  I fall asleep during the 40-minute drive and we get to Balakchy and drop our passengers off.  My driver then drives up to the line of taxis waiting for people to head to Bishkek.  He offers a better price to some people and essentially wins their business from some other drivers.  They did not like this at all.  About 7 guys proceeded to surround our car, one guy tries to force my door open but I slam it shut on him and lock it.  The 2 ladies who decided to come to our car started yelling at the guys telling them to leave and that it is their choice to get in a different car.  They were even threatening to hit the men.  Finally our driver gave the *ssholes 50 som and they left.  I just wanted to sleep and instead Kyrgyz men had to resort to bullying and the threat of violence when faced with a better businessman.  Kyrgyzstan is still working on its transformation to capitalism and the concept of lower prices to gain more business is slow to set in.  Even at the bazars in Kyrgyzstan you can go to 10 vendors that have the exact same product and not a single one of them will offer you any sort of incentive to buy there’s over some one else’s… It’s annoying.  So we finally escape the Balakchy taxi station with 3 new riders two women and an older man.  I give the old man my front seat and get in the back with the ladies.  All I wanted to do was sleep but the back seat was squished and uncomfortable.  The old man was also slightly drunk and very friendly and kept talking the whole time.  About an hour or so into our drive he has the driver pull over near the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border to buy vodka.  We then spend the next 20-30 minutes giving toasts and accolades along with shots for the two women for women’s day.  We proceed to stop and do this two more times before reaching Bishkek.  Fortunately we had a responsible driver and he wasn’t taking part.  When we finally got to Bishkek the old man was getting off first.  He took about 10 minutes to say his goodbyes, and take farewell shots.  On any other day I would just laugh and appreciate the Kyrgyzness of this experience but of course it had to be on the day I am exhausted and just want to get to Bishkek.  By the end of the trip it took almost 2 more hours than the ride would have taken on a bus and cost 100 som more.

I guess looking back the day after I can’t help but laugh at the experience and appreciate the overly friendly drunk old man.  It is also entertaining that almost every time I try and do something quickly or be in a rush in this country it bites me in the butt.  The never-ending quest of going with the flow in this country continues and Kyrgyzstan keeps winning.  The sooner I accept this the better off I’ll be! 

Индияга Бардым (I went to India) part 3 Jaipur, Mumbai, and Kerala

Jaipur, Mumbai, and Kerala

We got to our train station in Agra and read that our train was slightly delayed.  Maybe it was an hour or two we forget.  We set up camp and began waiting… and waiting… and waiting.  In the end our train was almost 6 hours late.  We sat miserable in the train station cold, hungry and sick of hearing the food vendor next to us yelling for an hour for people to come eat.  It was one of the lows of the trip.  You can see our excitement in the photo. 

Train Station Misery

Our Train that was supposed to get to Jaipur around midnight got in around 7 am.  We made a plan to meet up around 9 after a short rest and try not to lose the whole day from our extended train station stay.  To no one’s surprise we didn’t get up till around noon.  When we all awoke, tired, sleep deprived, and somewhat sick of India we made our way off to the amber fort.  When we arrived we were blown away by the size of the fort and all of the surroundings.  The fort is situated in the hills around Jaipur and has an elaborate set of walls and smaller fortresses surrounding it.  We spend several hours wandering around the fort.  After the fort we spent sometime walking around the shopping district in the pink city being constantly harassed by shopkeepers who would give us a good price for “their friend”, when in reality they all had the same stuff as their neighbor and nobody gave a better price.  We had planned to do more in Jaipur, but because of our delayed arrival we only had one full day.  The next morning we headed to one of my favorite places of the trip.  The monkey temple. If it has another name I don’t know it.  We took our tuk tuk out to the temple, bought some peanuts and spent the next hour feeding monkeys.  Along the way we met this one hindu man who reminded me of a dread headed hippy you may find living on the beach.  He just smiled and was as happy as he could be.  After enjoying our morning of monkey business it was off to Mumbai, only a 24-hour train ride away.

Drake walking Stoically from the Amber Fort

Our Tour Guide at the Amber Fort

Monkey Fist Bump

Monkey with a Peanut

You do not want to mess with him!

Jaipur as seen from the Monkey Temple

We were terrified to get back on a train after our last experience but this one turned out to be much better.  Yes it was longer but fortunately Jaipur had some of the cheapest beverages we could find in India so we bought a bottle of two of cheap Indian whiskey to help us along.  The train was much more comfortable than expected, despite the screams of the train vendors every 5 minutes selling something.  The chai masala on the trains was amazing though and costs maybe 10 cents a cup.  Before boarding the train we stocked up on food from KFC.  It was an amazing choice.  Kyrgyzstan offers no international fast food chains and being Americans we took advantage of Dominos, McDonalds, Starbucks, Subway, and KFC during our 2 weeks in India.  This train also ended up being delayed by an hour or two because of a train fire that occurred on a different train.  We arrived to Mumbai and headed to our hotel.  We found a nice little place in the center of the touristy area so walking everywhere was easy.  Mumbai was a nice change.  It is a bit more built up, and offered more modern amenities.  If we were coming from America we wouldn’t have cared but we weren’t, we were coming from Kyrgyzstan.  We went to the beach, checked out the gate of India, and at one point even went to Starbucks.  Our first night there we also splurged and found a nice rooftop restaurant way out of our Peace Corps budget but scraped up the change to buy one overpriced drink as we watched the sun set over the ocean. It was a success.  We met back up with Kara’s friend and we all headed to Elephanta Island.  We relaxed on a 1-hour ferry ride out to the island.  The island contains a series of old Hindu temples built into caves on the Island.  The Island contains numerous large sculpted images of Shiva, a Hindu god, within the caves.  We also couldn’t resist stopping by the Taj hotel in Mumbai.  The hotel is gorgeous and there were no obvious traces from the horrendous terrorist attacks that took place there in 2008.  Mumbai was a very nice city and the only touristy city we visited that I’d have any interest in visiting again.  After Mumbai we said bye to Becca who left us to travel with an old friend from India for a few days. The rest of us headed to the train station for our 2^nd 24 hour plus train ride.  We were leaving from a train station about an hour outside of Mumbai to save on costs.  This train station was sketchy.  I studied abroad in Ethiopia, I live in Kyrgyzstan, it is hard for me to feel uncomfortable or out of place but this train station made me feel that way.  We received a lot of unwelcomed looks, people were sleeping on the ground all over the train station in the middle of the day, and there were cops roaming around with assault rifles.  It was odd.  We were even told we should leave the waiting area where we were because it wasn’t safe.  No incidents happened and we uneventfully got on our train headed south. 

Gate of India

Mumbai is Classy

Oh the Irony

Elephanta Caves

Not long after we got on the train I started feeling funny.  I was tired, sore, and just wanted to sleep.  This is what I did.  I passed out around 7 pm and slept through the night until a rumble in my stomach woke me up.  To put it as not graphic as possible I spent the next 48 hours having to use the bathroom on an hourly basis.  It was horrible.  I was heartbroken.  I was looking forward to this part more than any other for all of the fresh seafood I planned on eating.  I still had a decent amount but not nearly enough to make up for the food I have to eat in Kyrgyzstan.  On the bright side, it was hot, humid and reminded me of home.  We spent 2 full days at the beach getting pummeled by the waves and enjoyed the first bit of peace and quiet we’ve had since being in India.  The hostel Kara and I stayed at was modeled after a traditional Keralan house, the staff and food there was amazing.  I highly recommend it if you ever go to the area, heritage haven www.theheritagehaven.com.  My only complaint was it was during their local thanksgiving type celebration.  This meant fireworks and really loud music coming from the church a block or two away through out the night.  The other nights we stayed with the rest of the group a little farther from the beach.  On our third day we decided to take a backwater tour.  I was hoping to get to paddle ourselves around but instead we ended up sitting on a canoe while our guide did all the work.  It was a neat experience seeing how all of the people live along the canals washing their laundry, and making a living from the water.  We also got more delicious food on the tour served up on a banana leaf, and my body was back to normal so I ate a lot.  We spent our last day in Kochi the capital of Kerala taking care of last minute souvenir shopping.  Thanks to my awesome parents we even got a real hotel for the last night that had a pool, free room service, mocktails, and airport shuttle service.  It was a great way to end our trip and relax for the coming madness that was travelling back to Kyrgyzstan. 

Hanging out in the Ocean

Delicious food on a leaf

Taste like home

The Crew at the Beach

Crusin' the Backwaters

We woke up at 4 or 5 am to head to the airport.  We get there plenty early enough but because of the idiocracy of Indian airport security we just barely made it on our flight in time.  Our first hurdle was they do not let you in the airport without proof that you have a flight.  They do not even let you go to the ticket counter where you would check in for your flight, so if you didn’t print something before hand you are in a pickle.  The Indian airports also make you receive a tag for your carry on luggage showing that it has been scanned.  However they didn’t tell us this and they forgot to give us ours so we ended up scrambling around to find some or they would not let us on the plane with out carry ons.  You would think they would be competent enough to know that if you are on the other side of security your bag would have been checked and by finding a stupid tag that you could get on the other side of security is preventing nothing.  We took off from the south and headed to Delhi to catch our flight back to Kg.  We get there with maybe an hour or an hour and a half to spare.  We first had to travel a mere 3 to 4 km from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.  After haggling with the stupid taxi drivers and doing our best to not get ripped off by them for a super short drive and making sure we caught our flight on time, we got the international terminal.  We proceed to the airport entrance and they don’t let 5 of us in.  We don’t have proof of our flights…  Fortunately Kara was prepared and was the only person in our group to have one.  They allowed her in and she had to track down an airastana staff who then had to track down our flight list, bring the flight list to the security guard at the door, and he then had to find every one of our names and quadruple check our passports and the list before letting us through.  We make it through.  We are now down to about 30 minutes and are facing a long security line.  At this point there was nothing else we could do.  Our hope was they just wouldn’t leave without 6 people because we were going to be late.  Becca got questioned for having a 1 Liter bottle of juice in her carry on which didn’t help us move any faster.  Finally on the other side of security we here a lady asking if anyone is flying on our flight and we all yell, “we are” and begin our mad dash through the airport.  Our gate was literally the second furthest away from the security checkpoint. We ran for about 8 minutes until reaching our gate sweaty and out of breath.  We made it!!!  We sat down and the amazing flight attendants even brought us water after seeing our sweaty red faces.  Thinking we would for sure be the last ones on the flight, to our amazement we weren’t and we sat there for almost another 30 minutes waiting for other late people.  The last leg of the flight was uneventful until we were landing in a snowstorm.  We took off the morning from Southern India and 80 degree weather and landed in a mild snowstorm.  That’s Kyrgyzstan for you! 

We went out in style, Thanks mom and dad!

My big takeaways from the trip

-India is very very big, almost 3 days on trains and we barely saw anything

-You will get harassed in India

-Trains are great when they work properly and are the worst thing ever when they don’t

-Don’t go to big cities in India if you want to relax

-Fly Airastana if you are ever in central Asia

-Indian airports are the worst ever

-The Taj Mahal is overrated and the Monkey temple is underrated.

-You will get sick