Long overdue...

July 27, 2007

5:00 PM

Quote of the month: “What do they start revolutions with here, candles?’ - APL



August 14, 2007

8:30 AM

Ok, so where do I start?

I have not posted or written in a while. One culprit for this has been the hustle and bustle of summer. I have been moving a lot visiting other volunteers, projects, and countries. When I do get a time to sit and rest in the village, it is has been spent enjoying the weather, taking care of the garden, and catching up on some reading and planning for life beyond Peace Corps.

Honestly, though, the biggest culprit for my lack of writing has been due to going through my toughest time mentally here since I have entered the country a year ago. Seeing family and friends in Prague was incredible, but it was also a stark reminder of how much I missed all of them. Seeing all of them was incredible; leaving all of them was physically painful. Leaving Prague hurt; and then the final pain came as I drove away in a taxi leaving Andy and Matt at their bus.

It took everything I had to not break down and start balling in the bus ride back to my village from Bishkek. For the past year I had grown to accept the distance between my life here and my life back home. But it all came rushing back to me and at the same time it was invigorating it was also a very heavy weight set into my heart. The few weeks after Prague and Andy and Matt’s visit led me down some very dark tunnels in my head and for the first time ever in country I had serious thoughts of leaving everything I am a part of here and heading home.

I spent a few long runs on my favorite run to the lake getting lost in my thoughts and slowly letting the world around close in. I would leave my house and the first person I saw would enrage me. Pictures of home would crush me, literally take me out physically for a few hours. Even music would stumble across a song that would connect me to something and send my world spinning.

I really started questioning my role here as a volunteer. It is very obvious that there are some major problems in this country. There are problems in every country. And the problems in this country we are here as volunteers largely to help the Kyrgyz citizens move up and past them.

It is a noble thought to think I am here to help this country solve all of it’s problems. But that noble idea was a very distant thought in my head as I was walking through my village battling my own emotions: the vodka circle on the corner that I usually wave and smile at send me into a furry; a taxi driver trying to haggle me into paying 20 extra Som, something I usually laugh at and thrive on the interaction, sent me into a screaming match with the taxi driver in front a huge crowd of locals; the fourth day (out of five) without power in my village, which usually meant just another day, sent my mind into a string a nasty thoughts and curses about what is wrong with the structure development of my village.

After about two weeks of this my mind was muck. I was mentally tired, physically sick, and emotionally lost. I couldn’t see things straight; my thought process of logic and reason has disappeared and taken a turn towards irrational and uncontrollable. I had never been down this road. I have had moments of rage and irrational outbursts, but never did my emotions ever near the point of uncontrollable. I honestly think if I would’ve had a few more days in my village to allow my thoughts to continue their descent, I would be writing this in Chicago right now.

It sounds weird to talking about this since it was such a short time ago, but I can do this now because I have taken a few weeks now to really climb out of the ditch. For some reason I have this image stuck in my head of the Smashing Pumpkins music video for Bullet with Butterfly Wings. All of little thoughts simultaneously began to fight their way up the walls of the hug pit. The more we climbed the muddier the walls became, and the muddier they became the harder my thoughts fought to get out.

Oddly enough, the spark that helped me kick this ascent into gear was a presentation I was scheduled to give to the new group of PCVs in country (the K-15s). My presentation theme was “Culture Shock and Adjustment Cycle.” The theme of the presentation was not so much the spark, but the entire idea of presenting to a new group of incoming volunteers. I found myself rolling back to my first days in country and then even further back to the days leading up to me leaving the States. Eventually I stumble across one of my biggest reasons for joining Peace Corps:

I needed to be tested. I wanted to face the challenges. I had reached a point in the states where I wanted to grow, but I wasn’t mentally ready to challenge myself. I am not the kind of person who can challenge himself to explore the depths of his mind and fight the demons on his own accord. My challenges and demons need to be dragged out of me by the world around me. I find myself in the moments of nothing that is myself. My demons have always waited for me on the battlefield. But the battlefield had to be found.

I joined Peace Corps because I knew there was something I had to give to the world in order for the world to give back to me. I wanted to find myself, and to do so I needed to have everything I have ever known about myself questioned and challenged. I have faced my first major battle with myself since I have been in country and I believe that I have come out victorious. The war is far from over, but I feel much more equipped and ready now to face the remainder of the battles.

After giving my presentation to the K-15s I returned to my village with a new vigor, and new outlook. The upcoming year has lost its feeling of distance and length and returned to the wonder in my head if it is enough time for me to get done what I want/need to. The beauty of life has returned. I know that I was far from the struggles that many people have to face around this world. But my battle was real and it was necessary to allow me to return to my role as a soldier fighting for others. I still have many struggles with my own battles ahead in my life; but this past month has been an incredible experience to really prepare me for them.



August 21, 2007

6:30 AM

An update to my life here, in APL Format…

Simplified:

Ok, well let me get into bullet points

• June
o The Village – Hung out and did some reading, running, relaxing.
o Karakol Summer Camp – Served as a camp counselor for a week long camp given to students from all over Lake Issyk-Kul’s villages.
• July
o Almaty – Took off with Amy to Kazakhstan for a few days to explore their very westernized city. Amy took the GRE there and then after that we just wandered and hung out for a little while.
o Prague – Spent an amazing week in a beautiful European city with my some of my best friends, my family, and Amy; it was like a dream for a week. A bit overwhelming, though, with the splash of western society, family, and friends (all whom I have not seen in the year leading up to the trip).
 I also owe a huge thank you to Rob and Vicki for…
• Coming up with the idea to meet in Prague.
• Spending money to come and meet us in Prague.
• Arranging most of the week ahead of time.
• Reminding me how much I love my friends.
• Dealing with me in Prague.
o Andy and Matt in the KG – Andrew and Matthew Lewis came and spent a week in the beautiful lands of Lake Issyk-Kul. It was really cool to be able to show someone from back home a firsthand perspective of my life here. I try to write and post pictures describing my life here, but in the end, feeling it, smelling it, and hearing it changes everything. I am glad they came and wish I could have the opportunity to show everyone from back home what they saw.
• August
o PST – I went and presented to the new group of volunteers (K-15) on the topic: Culture Shock and the Adjustment Cycle. It was an uplifting and enlightening experience that got me back into my groove here.
o Habitat for Humanity – I joined eight other volunteers to head to a village on the south shore of the lake (Barskoon) to provide manual labor assistance to a local Kyrgyz family. In two separate groups we gave our help to two different houses Kyrgyz-style (mud, dirt, and wood everywhere!). My group got our butts kicked with all of the work, but we had a great family to work with and had a great time helping this family near the completion of their house before the winter months come around.
• Random
o Hiking – I have taken some incredible day hikes on the lake this summer. There is breathtaking beauty all over the lake’s mountain ranges and I have had the opportunity to a very small percentage of it. I have seen waterfalls, incredible valleys that seem to go on forever, and peaceful mountains pastures that all serve as a constant reminder of how beautiful of a place this is where I live.
o Books – I recommend anything by Haruki Murakami. I read his book ‘Kafka on the Shore’ this summer. It has been the best book I have read since being in country.
o My Garden – The little garden I build in my host family’s yard was a true experience in experimentation and lessons learned this summer: 1) Some spices should be researched before planning them (for prime growing conditions and for what they look like when they grow). 2) Planting peas cucumbers, and pumpkins within a foot of each other is a really bad idea (vines plants tend to, you know, grow and start wrapping themselves everywhere. 3) Two eight foot long rows of lettuce cannot be consumed by one person, let alone thirty, in a summer.



Village Life:

With the one year mark’s arrival and quick passing, I have found myself taking on a very confident inspired approach to life. This has immediately translated into taking control of my full responsibilities around the house.

For my entire time in the village so far, my host family has been cooking meals for me (and I have been paying them monthly for it). In the beginning of August I sat down with my host family to talk with them about cooking. Basically it was decided that I would no longer pay them for food and I would start cooking for myself. To be entirely honest, I could not have done this a year ago. I guess if I had no other real option I could have handled it. But this past year has been spent learning an entirely new life, including cooking in a different country.

I was so used to the pre-packaged and prepared meal preparations from the States when I got here that I was kind of in shock. I had to learn how to cook from scratch. This would seem to be simple at first thought, but I know that the last year took a lot of growing pains to relearn how to cook.

Fajitas take on a an entirely new meaning when you have to make the tortillas from scratch, boil an entire chicken to then dice the meat off the bone, and bargain for pico de gallo ingredients from the bazaar . It sounds so American of me to, but we live in a very different world when it comes to cooking sometimes. Everything is fresh here, so food generally has to be purchased the day of cooking to ensure it doesn’t go bad.

Coming from the world of preservatives, it caught me off guard to see how fast food goes bad when there are no preservatives in it. Along the same lines, the past month has really shown me the difference in some American staple foods. The most obvious has been the size of fruit, vegetables, and eggs. The reason: hormones and fertilizer. There are a few, if any at all, chickens in this country that are raised on chicken farms and pumped full of hormones as they grow up. Thus their eggs are about half the size. Same with the fruit and vegetables; everything is just a little bit smaller (apricots and apples are the most obvious). No one has the money to use fertilizer here, and those that do aren’t selling their products to anywhere in Kyrgyzstan.

Long story short, the shock and adjustment to food cooking and shopping in Kyrgyzstan has been a year’s lesson well spent. I now feel confident enough to take on this duty myself now. I will still do my best to have chai (tea) with my host family every once in a while; but most meals will be in the solitude of my food and a magazine.

Besides cooking, there is not a whole lot new in the village. With the impending departure of the K-13 group in November (which also means Amy, whom I will discuss later), I have slowly been acquiring large amounts of things. Amy imparted to me most of her cooking ware and other K-13s have been passing off things here and there as they start to pack and prepare for their departure in a little over two months.

Along with cooking ware, I have acquired an obscene amount of books. There is no way I will be able to get through the books I have now in a year, but I will surely be trying. My current conquest: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Good book, though kind of cluttered in the middle I about two-thirds of the way through the book so far and I can say that I’ve felt a resurgence in philosophical thought (whatever that means) and have also rekindled my inner desire to own a motorcycle one day. ( Another one of the many books I obtained in the mass hand-off was The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Motorcycles. I have started to simultaneously read that with Zen; I will fully geared up by the end of these two books.)

The motorcycle life is a long while away, for now, I will stick to things I can afford (I couldn’t afford a helmet right now) – like listening to music. The most played on iTunes these days:

• Lucky Boys Confusion – ‘Live and Acoustic’ (I was at this show!)
• American Taxi – ‘Demo’ (APL, I love them, they/I need more)
• The Grateful Dead – Everything (I have discovered a love for them)
• The Killers – Everything (Always on rotation)
• Dashboard Confessional – ‘Dusk and Summer’ (Better than ever!)
• Mika (I love this guy’s voice)
• India Arie – Everything (This woman’s voice is mesmerizing)
• Ozzomatli – ‘Embrace the Chaos’ (Discovering some of their old work)


Kind related to the music is my new found passion (really, it is a passion) for running. I have found an incredible running course (no idea about length) that takes me on a beautiful run through the fields. The run heads towards the lake (with mountains as the backdrop) and then circles around to bring me back to the village (with mountains as a backdrop again).

I have been trying to eat a lot healthier and really be conscious of what I am eating. I have combined my running with healthy eating and some random workouts a week to start and get back into shape. Since I have begun to eat better and workout more frequently I have felt a lot better in general. A little more perk in my step and bit more smiles on my lips.


School Life:

Well, the past few months we have been on summer break, so not much has been happening there. Besides the summer camp in Karakol at the beginning of the summer, I have not been doing much work with students throughout the summer. I honestly miss school and really look forward to classes beginning in September (the 1st is right around the corner!). My students (as I have stated a thousand times) are my inspiration here and give me hope for the future of this country.

I am in the process now of preparing my lesson plans and activities for the school year. I really want to head into the school with a flow in order. I want this school to have a constant rhythm to it, a flow that, even if unnoticeable to the students, will allow for a gradual growth throughout the year.

Another thing I hope to implement at the school this year will be a new classroom. My Peace Corps Partnership grant is online now currently collecting money to help the reconstruction of the English classroom at my school. While I don’t suspect I will be able to fully use this new classroom for my own, I do plan to have it finished by the end of this school year. The reality is that I hope to have this project completed (and all of the books received from AU!) by the end of the school year. Then, inshallah, there will be at least one more volunteer to come to my site (K-16) and she/he (I will be pushing for a female volunteer) that can both utilize the new classroom and also really teach my school how to effectively use it.

For now I am just being patient and letting time move along and the project will soon fall into place.


Projects:

Besides preparing for the school year, I am also helping to organize and prepare a series of monthly seminars to happen throughout this upcoming school year. The basic concept of this is to hold a seminar/event at a different school every month for eight months. The themes of the events will incorporate different American holidays throughout the year and then use the holidays as a platform to discuss some heavy topics (Love, Diversity, Religion, Health). The goal is to be able to provide students across the lake with opportunities to meet different volunteers, possibly travel to other villages and meet with other students, and allow different schools and teachers to be exposed to and help with the creation of a big event at their school.

At each event, the volunteer at their respective school will work with their teachers and students to prepare for and run a day-long event on a specific theme. This is a huge project, but one that all of the volunteers on the lake are really interested in doing. This will take a lot of work, but the benefits of this are countless. I will be sure to keep random updates on the events posted up here.



The Future:

I am in overwhelming and stressful period of researching graduate schools now. I have chosen two that will be applying to soon: 1) University of Austin-Texas and 2) University of Denver. I am still researching a final one, which will be somewhere in the Midwest. (I was looking at the University of Chicago. While it is a great school, it is not the school for me.) I am looking at programs that will allow me to explore deeper my newfound love for cross-cultural education and a cross-cultural approach to teaching. While there are many things I love about Kyrgyzstan and the Central-Asian culture, my heart is still in Mexico.

I am going to do my best to explore and learn as much as I can about the culture I am living in now; but I long for a return to the Latin American cultures. So that is what I plan on being my cultural focus at which ever school Amy and I (she is looking into clinical social work) end up at.

For now I am preparing with every free moment I have for my future endeavors. I have just begun a study CD-Rom program by Kaplan for the GRE that I plan on taking in early November. I took a diagnostic test the other day and WOW, I need to really study. Suffice to say, my math has not improved since High School.

I have also taken up beginning lessons in Spanish to try and refresh my mind. I am and will still be studying Kyrgyz while I am here, but most of my studying for Kyrgyz is now through conversation. My language skills are decent enough now to either ask what a word means and understand the explanation using other words I know or to just listen for new words in a conversation, take some notes, and look it up later in a dictionary. As for Spanish, I have a few language CDs, a copy of a Rosetta Stone CD-Rom, and a Mexican-Spanish phrasebook. Those will be serving as my teachers for the next year.


Besides grad. school and preparing for it all, here are some other things coming up in my near future, both Peace Corps and beyond realated:

September
• First Bell
o September 1st rings in the new school year!
• Visitor in the Second Week
o The son of a co-worker from Aurora University will be visiting Kyrgyzstan and my village for a week in September. He is studying different aspects to Central Asian culture, and asked if he could visit in September. I love guests and told him that he was more than welcome. It will be interesting. I have never met him, but his mom is cool, so we’ll see.
• The K-15s Arrive
o The end of September will bring the arrival of the new group of volunteers to all over Kyrgyzstan. It looks like we will be getting five new TEFL volunteers on the lake and then an unknown number (at this moment) of Health and Business volunteers.

October
• Matthew’s Birthday
o The infamous arrival of number 18!
• Seminar Series Begins
o The seminar series I talked about above is slated to start towards the end of October. This will be the start of something wonderful!
• Celebrate the Cubs World Series Win!
o They are in first place right now. It is so, so possible!

November
• K-13s Depart
o A large group of my friends will be departing all throughout November. This all means Amy, who I am not looking forward leaving. We will be fine, but we will have a few months of letters, emails, and phone calls.
• GRE
o Not looking forward to this. The plan is to head to Almaty, Kazakhstan for a few days to take the oh-so exciting Graduate Record Examination!
December
• An American Christmas
o I am planning a two-week trip to the States for the holidays this year. The tentative dates are December 12-28. This will be a whirlwind tour of family, friends, and life back home for a few weeks. I will be meeting the future in-laws, seeing friends I haven’t seen in forever, and maybe having a slice of Giuseppe’s Pizza with a nice cold Fat Tire.
• A Kyrgyz New Year
o I loved the New Year here last year and I look forward to returning back to Kyrgyzstan to hangout and experience the turn of the year.

Spring
• March
o The plans are in the works to try and meet Amy in the Philippines for my Spring Break. We wanted to find a way to break up the six months we will be apart, and this has popped up. Amy has two friends (a couple) who are Peace Corps Volunteers in the Philippines. The plan would be to visit them and be able to see each other.



August 22, 2007

8:40 AM

Coffee and Trail-mix for breakfast this morning. I woke up really wanting an orange, but that faded.


Me: Fiona, how you doin’?

Fiona: Good. Just watching life take place outside of this window.

Me: You don’t have much of a view.

Fiona: On the contrary my young human friend. From this window I can see a most of the good and bad in this world.

Me: How is that possible?

Fiona: Vision is rarely your only tool in seeing. To see the world you need to feel it. If you really want to experience the world around you, you need to let yourself go. Seeing anything with only one sense is, well, senseless. From your “window” you may see a chicken coop and wood room with a broken down (as you, young man, seem to believe is all I have to see outside of my window). But that my friend is what you see only using your eyes. You have four other senses, why not use them.

Close your eyes once and look. You will see black and random specks of light that can squeak in through your eyelids. If you “look” farther you will feel the sunlight, smell the breeze carrying the lake’s scent, taste the pollen from the flowers in the air, and hear the birds’ morning conversation. There is a lot to “see,” and it is always changing.

Me: But you’re a flower. You don’t have eyes, ears, a nose, a tongue, or fingers.

Fiona: You’re an idiot.



August 22, 2007

9:15 AM

Quote of the Month:

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence it. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogma or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
- Robert M. Pirsig, ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’