April 12, 2007
6:40 AM
The constant flow of questions I receive from my fellow villagers and friends seems to growing due to very important factors. First of all, my language is a lot better than it has and I can understand most of what they are asking me these days. Second, many of the people who first were scared of the new American in the village have now found out that I am not such a bad guy. A lot of people seem to feel much more comfortable to sit down with me now and have a conversation.
Granted, there have been plenty of people here that wanted to talk with me the second I arrived in the village. But for the majority (not all, but most) of those people saw me as a walking dollar sign. I remember being berated with requests for cigarettes and vodka from America from a good amount of the village drunks in my first week here.
The people that now feel comfortable enough to sit down and have a real conversation are the people that are truly interested in me, why I am here, and the world beyond Kyrgyzstan. It gets tough sometimes, though, when I get asked questions about different countries from a person who I know has never traveled beyond the closest town (which is 20 km away).
It’s a weird feeling because the more questions that friends here ask about the world, the US, and my life the more I feel ashamed of my money. This tends to be a feeling that rotates through my head every few weeks. Sometimes I get in a really angry mood and find all of the bad reasoning behind many of the problems here; and then sometimes I circle back to see all of the problems out direct control of the people here that cannot be solved very easily.
Last yesterday afternoon I was driving back with my host father and brother after retrieving water from one of the local canals and it hit me. All of the problems of the village, and indirectly a large part of the country, started scattering around my head. I looked at the 13 year boy in the field watching his flock of sheep and wondered why he wasn’t at home studying, why he wasn’t out playing with his friends.
But it just isn’t that way. School ends around noon here so that the younger students can then come in to study in the afternoon. But if the school really wanted to, they could have all of the students attend classes at the same time throughout the entire day. But the village schools really don’t have an option. If they tried to change classes to happen in the afternoon, I can guarantee that a majority of students would not come.
The afternoons are needed for the necessities of living in a village. Whether it is preparing the ground canals for the water soon to come from the mountains, tending to the animals, baking bread, prepping the fields for farming season, the list could go on. The point is that for people work to survive here. It is a very foreign concept that is not often thought about back in those lands where I am from.
People back home work to provide, work to live, and often work to indulge. It is not a bad thing, in many ways the way of life that we have in America has come about due the struggle and sacrifices of our ancestors. I sometimes will sit down and just run through the circumstances that lead to the vast differences in the ways of life that people in my village have here and good ol’ Des Plaines back home.
It is an overwhelming and very daunting thought process that often leads me to needing a drink. I do not have the intelligence or mind power to weed through all of the problems here and start searching for solutions. I am doing my best to find some of the most obvious issues (lack of school resources and running water) and seeing how I can help with these situations. But in many ways helping to develop the school or bringing secure running water to a few locations in the village will only slightly alleviate the pressure that this village feels.
So I help develop their English classroom and modernize it a bit. But will that really help the fact that there are still students in the village who family cannot afford to pay for their children to attend school (there are no school fees, some families just cannot afford to spend money on notebooks, pens, and the required school uniform). So I teach some of the students and teachers the benefits of using small amounts of technology for lessons and how to incorporate them into lesson plans. That still doesn’t help out the fact the majority of the teachers at my school cannot afford to purchase a phone in their home.
I don’t want to go on too long in this “so…but” theme, it will just perpetuate what Tim likes to call my “cycles of blog writing.” I just can’t help it, sometimes I am overwhelmed by these thoughts here. Sometimes I question how much help I can actually give to my village and the people of Kyrgyzstan. Many of times the thought has crossed my mind as to why am I really here? What help can I really give to the people here? I always bring myself back to ground with some thoughts of the friends I have made here. But it is inevitable.
It is a thought that I sure any conscious human being has thought about at least one in their lifetime. The thought that the world is filled with some much hate, so many problems and struggles that to truly fix them all would take nothing short of a collective flood. That is not reality though, there is hope, everywhere. It is just hard to see it sometimes.
April 12, 2007
7:30 AM
Where are all those people who save the world?
All those people that wear tights under there suits;
Those unknown folks that come from worlds we’ve never
heard of, worlds we’ve never thought possible.
Do they really exist? Can they really exist?
If they are here, can their powers be manipulated?
Can we steal their powers for the major issues?
How about Captain Planet and Superman give it all
To us.
April 12, 2007
7:40 AM
When worlds collide…
…sometimes we get beautiful planets…and sometimes we get dangerous asteroid fields.
I was asked by a fellow teacher the other day what I was holding. I replied, “It is a water bottle.” To which he asked, “What for?” I smiled at the question, thinking the answer was given in its name. “I put water in it from home and bring it to school to drink.” He replied simply with an, “Oh.”
In his follow-up question he asked me if I knew anything about the Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz relationship.
Enough said.
April 14, 2007
10:30 PMIt is fun to watch the communal ins and outs of life here. There are some days when I feel like I am living in a great socialist community that lives and works for the greater good of the whole. There are other days when I feel like I am watching first hand the birth of capitalism.
From students to village neighbors, water canals to main roads, people here display a very funky and unique lifestyle.
Recently one of my counterpart’s dads died. He was very young and it caught a lot of people surprise. Without even trying to go into the long and elaborate descriptions of funerals here, it is safe to say that funerals are a very big deal here. Boz Uys (Yurts) are constructed, animals slaughtered, and family miraculously from all ends of the country appear in less than a days time.
One day I will do a thorough description of the funerals events in this blog, but for now the one thing I want make clear is that funerals here (traditionally a three day event) are long elaborate and rapidly organized events. The problem is that funerals here quickly become very expensive. For the first time in country though, I was able to see first hand how friends and neighbors help out in times of need.
My host parents are really good friends with my counterpart and were “translating” (a.k.a. simplifying the events into language I could understand) everything for me. Eventually I found out that many of the close friends, no matter their financial situations, were giving large amounts of money to help out with the cost of the funeral. Some people, my host parents included, gave large amounts of money ever day they attended the funeral (which for them was three days).
It didn’t catch me by surprise that this was happening, but it did make me feel warm. It was nothing for friends, who by all means could not afford to give the money they were giving, to give nearly two months salary to a friend in need. One of their own was in need and they helped. It surely was not out of the ordinary for them. As is it would not be for any of my good friends. But it still made me feel warm.
Then of course comes the middle of the line scenario: Cheating. One of the biggest problems for all TEFL PCVs here are the students at our schools cheating. Many students will attempt (very poorly) to try and find a way to write answers on their hands, open the notebooks when you are not looking, stare at their neighbors test, etc. The problem with this, besides the obvious, is that in many ways the acts of cheating by my students are very individually driven.
There has been more than one occasion in my classes where when I caught someone cheating they were very quick to point out everyone else in the classroom who was also doing it. Even some of their best friends sitting next to them would be sold out if it meant that they would not take all the punishment themselves.
This is where it gets confusing for me. On the one hand, the cheating and drive by my students to find short cuts comes from a very heavy pressure by parents and teachers to acquire high marks and to do so at all cost. If studying doesn’t always get you there, then find another way to make sure that a 5 (A) ends up in your grade-book. I have some very driven students who put in the time to study and have dreams far beyond the village the currently live in. In short, they are very capitalistic dreams and in many ways break the boundaries of their culture.
To dream to leave the village, the family, and your roots, for good, is still a very foreign concept to people in my village. Sure, many parents want the best for the children; but the best means heading off to another country possibly, working and making a lot of money, and then returning to the village to support the family.
I have students that acknowledge this part of the culture and in some ways straight up say they want to move beyond it. But then there is the part when a student is driven to cheat in the classroom. When they are caught (as they always are in my classroom), they quickly revert to “IF ONE GOES DOWN, WE ALL GO DOWN!” It scared me the first time it happened to watch one of my best students get caught cheating, and then proceed to sell-out all of his friends and fellow classmates who were also cheating.
Then, in the end there comes examples of life here where there seems to be a complete lack of both ends of the spectrum. A capitalistic drive is lost and the socialist attitude is now where to be found.
My best example here comes with the set of water canals that run from the mountains to the village. These canals, which basically provide the entire village with water, are in horrible condition. They are falling apart, clogged in many spots, and in some small cases are missing sections, letting water flow everywhere but to the village. The funny part is that no one seems to care. I have asked people when the will be fixed, and they just smile and say they don’t know.
It might be some type of running joke that I don’t know about, but to me it’s not funny. In a situation when they should all be banning together to “socially” fix their source of water, they are all just sitting back and hoping for what I do not know.
Sometimes things can just be very confusing here. Very confusing.
April 17, 2007
7:30 AM
It is a desire for a few, maybe even a passion for some people, to be able to step into someone else’s body. Not in an attempt to leave their body, but more so to be able to see what it feels like to feel life through someone else’s body. To see what they see, to try and understand what goes through their head. To find out how they differ from you and how similar they are.
I have felt this overwhelming felling everyday of my life here. I stare into the eyes of my neighbors, my students, my host family and it hits me. I want to jump into their bodies, grab a hold of their heart and see where it is guiding them. What is it that affects them, drives them, inspires them, or enrages them? I have had very powerful moments here where I was floored by simple realizations of what was happening behind the eyes of the people I live with.
I look into the eyes of my students and can’t help but notice how similar and vastly different they are to Americans my age. I have a group of 11th form (grade) students who will be heading off to university next year (there is no 12th grade). More times than I can count I have looked at them and suddenly realized they are all the same age as Matthew. It’s weird because every time the realization hits me it crosses me like new every time. I watch can’t help but seeing Matthew when I watch them.
But invariably as I am skimming my eyes across my classroom of students it hits that I wonder what is happening deep down inside Matthew’s heart, Casey’s heart, anyone’s heart and soul that I have crossed, known, loved, or seen? I do not wish to step inside people in some kind of mystical or role switching magical way. I simply have this burning desire to feel what they feel, if only for a minute.
I have this same feeling here when talking to my teachers. While talking with many of the women at my school I find myself stepping outside of my own body many days. I drift to the back of the room and watch myself talking to the teachers. I wonder what they are thinking while talking to me. What do they see in me when I talk with them? Am I a young, odd, American that does things weird and seems to drink to much coffee? (Mom, Dad, Tim, Andrew Paul, do not answer that question.) Do I look like a walking dollar sign?
Do they look at me and wish they could have led a different life? I have caught this from a few teachers (my host mother included) from a very simple, yet powerful question: are men and woman equal in America? I am always careful with my answer to this question. Careful because it is not, and will never be, a straightforward answer. It’s kind of like being asked does racism still exist. You can never answer no, but answering yes is too simple of an answer.
When they ask me this question is about the time when I usually start floating away from myself and become an outsider in the conversation I am part of. I watch the women I am talking to and wonder what their dreams are. Did they once have dreams that were crushed by the pressures of their culture? Do they like teaching for teaching or are there other motives behind their being at school? Is school an escape for them, from home, from social roles, from reminders of a lost childhood?
I can’t help but looking at some of the teachers, both men and women, and wonder if they once had dreams that are now merely fantasies joked about with their friends. Did they ever dream of writing a great novel? Did they read a book about aliens when they were in secondary school and suddenly realize that there was an entire universe they knew nothing about? Did they once dream of becoming a great Olympic athlete or a superhero?
Yeah, good Jason, questions, questions, questions, and more questions.
This has been, and is now, one of the most challenging parts of life for me. Everything that is part of my life I eventually will form a large box of questions for.
What holds him down, why is he scared of pulling up the anchor?
Do they look at me and respect me, but secretly hate what I am doing?
Why is she afraid of it so much?
Does Marquez know who he really is?
Did that little girl ever get the ice cream?
Why has no one else discovered us yet?
Will I look back ten years from now and see a life I am proud of?
Will my kids look at softball pictures of me in my twenties and make fun of my hair?
Do both them know how much I miss them?
How does she do it without hating it?
Can she hear me when I talk to her?
Do they miss me?
What if we are all really in a deep sleep, waiting for the Awakening?
Will things ever really change for them?
What is she doing right now?
Have they been watching us and waiting for us to understand?
If we cut out the lower 75% of Hollywood, could we solve world hunger?
What is it that makes people not care?
Does she really exist?
Where did Turtle and Dolphins really come from?
When will the next kingdom fall?
If the entire human race opened their eyes at the same time, would we see the truth?
Is it really 2007?
And the answer is…
And the inevitably I drift from my questions of life, back into individual people; the people I am trying to help the most in life right now. Do my students now have the same dreams my teachers once had? Do they believe they can become something more? What is holding them down, what is driving them forward? Am I showing them the possibilities of their future; or am I showing them a treasure they will never touch or feel?
I hate and love these questions. I need them, but I could live without them. Answers come and go like the wind. Sometimes I feel like I have stumbled across an answer or a realization and then like the wind it is swept away by another question.
I honestly try every day I am alive to find the soul of the life I am living. I want to feel the pulse, I want to understand it. I want to see what motivates my students, what is it that guides their hopes and dreams. I want to step behind the eyes of my brothers and see what it is that they want or desire from life.
I want to know all of this because in my head I know that in some way I can have an affect on them all. I can help guide, help inspire, and help grow. I want to feel the passions of the people in my life and make them my own. I want to become the enabler for the dreamers in my life to discover hope where once they thought was none. I want to fill the holes before they fall into them and I want to help them build a bridge over rivers that once looked impossible to cross.
I want to change the world.
Can I change the world?
I want to affect the world.
How exactly can I affect the world?
I want to give myself to the world.
Is the world willing to take me?
