Looks like I’ve got about five days to cover since my last post. That’s ok, it’ll force me to be more succinct (I hope). Let’s see, I guess I left of with Wednesday. Teachers at the London School have Wednesdays of usually, so I had most of the day off until later on when I had to observe “talking club,” but I’ll get to that later. I took the opportunity to check out downtown Bishkek for the first time. Some of the other teachers had mentioned going out for coffee on Wednesday, but I hadn’t heard a time or place and non of them had my phone number (I had only gotten it the day before), so I figured I’d just head out on my own and hopefully get in touch with them somehow. I rode a trolleybus for the first time (In Bishkek, that is) to the city center, and was surprised that there is no “konduktor” who collects your money like on the buses and trolleybuses in St. Petersburg. Instead, you pay the 3 Som fare (about 11 cents) to the driver as you exit, which seems a lot less efficient, but whatever. I got off in the center and just started wandering around and taking pictures. I found a lot of the sights I had read about, including the Erkindik (Freedom) statue, the White House (the center of the Kyrgyz Government), and Ala-Too Square. There were some cool parks I wandered around in to. One is called Dubrovy park and has lots of cool traditional Kyrgyz statues made of stone. As I was coming out of Ala-Too Square, two policemen approached me. One of them said, “Hi,” and I kind of acknowledged him but tried to keep walking. The started walking after me and I knew I couldn’t really get away from them now, so I turned around and went up to them. Anybody who knows about my run in with the militsia in St. Petersburg will understand why I’m a bit paranoid about the police in foreign countries (and to an extent in the US). So I was kind of freaked out here. One of them asked for my passport, which I luckily had with me. He was friendly enough. He asked if I liked it in Bishkek and why I was there. I kind of half intentionally and half unintentionally stumbled over my Russian while talking to him (I was nervous, you understand). While still holding my passport they told me to follow them across the street to where another police officer was standing, which made me even more nervous. They handed the passport to the third guy, who thumbed through it, found my Kyrgyz visa, checked it out and then handed it back to me. That was it! I said thanks and was quickly on my way. It was much less painful than I anticipated. I didn’t even have to bribe them or anything! So, I walked around some more, around the White House and in a park full of rusting carnival rides that are out of operation in the winter, and over to Kievskaya street, one of the main drags in downtown Bishkek. I found a “Shmel” internet club, which was the same as another one I had been using close to the London School, and I went in to get on the internet only to find that the internet was down, and after waiting around for a few minutes to see if they could get it working I gave up and set off to find some food. I found a cluster of stands around the corner of Sovietskaya and Kievskaya and bought a couple of hot Samsas (meat-filled pastries), followed by a shaurma (which turned out to be one of the worst shaurmas I’ve ever had). Just as I was paying for the shaurma my phone started ringing, but I didn’t answer it cause I was in the middle of a transaction. After I ate part of the shaurma and threw the rest away, I called back the number. It was Nargiza, one of the office workers from the London School. She said that the teachers were trying to get a hold of me, and that I should meet them at a restaurant called Fatboy’s, which I had heard about before. The place was close, so I beat them there and got a table, A few minutes later, Jane, Katy, Nick, and Jessica arrived, so I got to chat with all of them really for the first time. Since I had just eaten I only ordered a beer, but it was nice just sitting around and getting to know people. Fatboy’s apparently serves diner-style breakfasts with eggs, hashborwns, etc., so I’d definitely like to come back for a meal sometime. At some point Jane’s Norwegian friend showed up and sat with us. She’s apparently on a never-ending trip that’s taken her all over the world, and she had just flown into Bishkek from Thailand. She was about to start traveling through Central Asia, and is apparently shooting for Afghanistan. She kept name dropping all these places she had been, which of course made me jealous. Once we were finished I had to get over to the school to sit in on talking club, but instead of riding in a marshrutka with some of the other teachers I decided to walk, since I hadn’t seen the area between downtown and the school yet. It’s about a half hour walk. When I got to the school the power was out again, which wasn’t a problem until it got dark out and we had to have talking club by candlelight. Talking club is something the school does every Wednesday evening to let students have an opportunity to get more English speaking practice, all on a volunteer basis. They get a different teacher to guide the club every week, and this week it was this guy named Carl, who's an older British guy who seems like he's done a lot of cool stuff (apparently lived in Russia, Ukraine, and Mongolia for extended periods of time, probably more places too). I just sort of sat in and listened, offering a little help here and there. The topic of the first group was cell phones, and the topic of the second was honesty. There was one older student there who made the argument that cell phones destroy families because the radio signals destroys the area between your waist and your knees, as he put it. He was pretty fun to listen to, actually. Before I left for home, Kenje, the director of the school, pulled me aside and explained that one of their teachers had a family emergency and had to go home to Turkey, and that she needed me to fill in for his classes. This would mean starting teaching over a week earlier than originally planned. I said ok, and started psyching myself up to teach beginning on Friday. I walked home in the dark and hung out at the apartment for the rest of the night after that. Thursday was a weird day. I don’t really remember the whole day chronologically, but the gist is that the realities of my responsibilities while on this internship kind of hit me all at once, coupled with the fact that I felt like I was having some extra pressure being put on me at the school, but I don’t really want to nor am I really supposed to get into it. Also the minor everyday annoyances of living in a new place (especially in a weird place like this) kind of caught up with me too (like, having no power when I got home), and I just felt kind of crummy most of the day. I talked to mom just before going to bed, so that was nice. I guess that’s all there really is to say about Thursday. On Friday I had to be up bright and early for my first class at 9:00. I was able to catch a Trolleybus, and got to the school with about 10 minutes to spare. My first class is at the pre-intermediate level. It’s pretty much all 10-13 year olds, and I think they were pretty apprehensive about having a new teacher, but I think they warmed up to me after a little bit. I taught the next section of the series that their regular teacher was using, which made planning the class somewhat simple. They were all pretty quite in that class, but I would be too at 9:00 AM. I think they’ll warm up to me some more in the coming days. After that class I had something like a six hour break until my next class, so I used most of that time to prepare my next three class lessons, all of which were also already decided by the regular teacher. I actually kind of like preparing the lessons, though it does take me a while at this point. I’m sure I’ll get faster pretty quick. Once I finished with the lesson plans I popped over to an internet club to do some interneting, with a brief stop at a samsa shack on the way over. I finally got to see the last Tim and Eric episode, which had been dying to watch. I had luckily been placed at a computer that was set up for skype and had headphones plugged in. The connection there is super slow, so I had to wait about 15 minutes for both halves of the episode to buffer on youtube. Just as I was finishing the first half, the power cut out for a second and everybody’s computers shut off. I was pretty pissed, but determined to see the rest of the episode, so I loaded it all up again and watched it the second time without interruption. It was definitely worth it. But anyways, the rest of my classes went pretty well except for the fact that the power went off again just before my second class, and by the end of my third class I was teaching by candlelight. The second class was mainly teenagers, and some of them seemed to have a bit of an attitude but most of them were welcoming enough. There is one 9-year-old Afghani boy in that class, which I thought was pretty cool, Near the end of the class his dad was standing outside the classroom liking in through the all-glass walls. Apparently it was too much for some of the girls in the class, and they couldn’t keep from cracking up whenever they looked over at him. He was wearing a funny hat, I suppose. The third class was probably my favorite so far, just because everybody was very welcoming and enthusiastic about having a new teacher, so they were a lot of fun to teach. These guys were mostly teenagers too, with one older guy thrown in for good measure. Everybody in that class was just so sweet, and I’m most looking forward to teaching them more this next week. My fourth class of the day seemed far less enthusiastic and excited about being there. Part of it was probably that the class was so late (7:00), and that the power was still out and we all had to huddle around candles, but a few of the students seemed to have a bit too much of an attitude. Apparently they had already learned a lot of the stuff we covered too, so that probably didn’t help. There are a couple college students in that class, but again mostly teenagers. During this class my host mom started calling me, and after the third time I decided to interrupt class to answer. I had forgotten to tell her that my classes would be late, and she was apparently really worried about me. After class I walked home, arriving around 9:00. I was scolded a little for not telling her that I would be home late, but she was glad I wasn’t hurt or anything. The rest of the night I hung around my room and watched Mr. Show. Saturday came next, and it was nice to sleep in a little bit (until about 10:00, to be exact). Bubuzainap was out, so I had a little bread and butter (my usual breakfast, as it turns out), watched a little more Mr. Show, then decided to take advantage of the sunny weather outside and do some exploring. The weather has been really cold this last week. It’s been at least 0 degrees F (actually that would be “at most,” I guess”) most of the time, and just like when I was in St. Petersburg, people are saying this is one of the coldest winters in 50 some years (though Carl assures me that people always tell you that when you go to new places). However, on Saturday it was nice and sunny, with the temperature a balmy 10 or 15 degrees (I’m guessing, I’m not really sure at all though). It was definitely good walking around weather. I rode the Trolleybus to the center and tried to find this store I read about that sells maps. I tracked it down on the third floor of an anonymous building, only to find out that they are closed on the weekend. I wandered some more, this time going north towards a major street called Jybek Jolu. I found a cool Russian Orthodox church next to a big empty lot filled with rubble and scavengers picking through it. I wandered around in the back allies of some neighborhood where kids were playing in the snow, and I got the feeling that these back allies in poor residential neighborhoods are the true heart of Bishkek. I took some cool pictures and kept moving. I walked down a tree-lined path back towards the center, where a group of kids playing on a play structure saw me coming and had me pinned as a foreigner right away, cause they started saying “Hi!” to me as soon as I walked by. They were all really curious and eager to try out what little English they knew. They let me take a picture of them, which I was excited about because I really want to take more pictures of people. I kept walking and stumbled upon the American University of Central Asia, and the obligatory Lenin statue. I eventually found my way over to Victory Square where there’s a big arch and an eternal flame. One of those ever-ubiquitous wedding parties was there (This is when a newly married couple and all their friends drive around the city and get their picture taken in front of all the city’s most famous monuments), and I took some pictures of them under the arch / around the flame. I then wandered over to TsUM, which is the big central shopping center for all of Bishkek. It’s about five floors of whatever you might want, from cell phones to appliances to cleaning supplies to souvenirs to house ware to pirated CDs and DVDs. Guess which section I went to! The prices here weren’t as good as I know they are in outdoor markets and other places, but the quality is better and you can even watch some of the movies in English! I ended up buying three pirated movies: The Simpsons Movie, Hot Rod, and I’m Not There. I ended up paying $16 for the three of them, but they checked them all on the DVD player to ensure that they were in English as well as Russian, and they all looked good. I left TsUM and walked past some street vendors outside. I bought a power strip for me room, so now I can use my laptop from the bed and keep it plugged in (there’s no outlet near the bed). I had a shaurma for a late lunch (better than the first, but still not great), and headed home to watch a movie. I took a marshrutka back, and let me tell you, the marshrutkas here are insance compared to the ones back in Petersburg. There, once all the seats are full they won’t bother stopping to pick you up. Here, all the marshrutkas have a standing area in the front, and so the drivers let as many people as want rides cram in, regardless of whether or not there is any room. These things would be a nightmare for anybody with claustrophobia, especially if they are as tall as me. These things are basically big vans, so the roof is only about 5 1/2 feet from the floor inside, so my head is crammed up against the ceiling. There’s never an open spot, so I always have to stand, which means trying to squirm around people who are trying to get in or get out while also trying to grasp on to a handrail cause it is after all a moving vehicle. The worst part is that since my head is crammed up against the ceiling I’m not able to see out the window at all, and so I have no way of knowing where I am at any given time. I have to estimate how far I am from my destination and yell out a stopping place to the driver when I think we’re getting close. This time I got off at a point when I thought I was pretty close to home, but I actually had quite a ways to go, so I had to walk the rest of the way. It’s insane. Anyways, I got home and chilled out by watching the Simpsons Movie. There was talk amongst the teachers of going out to a nightclub on Saturday, and so I eventually got a text message from Nick saying to meet them at their apartments at 9:00. I was originally planning on going, but as 9:00 approached I started getting pretty tired, and sent another text back saying I was gonna stay in. I was practically tucked in when Nick called and urged me to come out with them, and after a lot of pleading I finally decided to go. My host mom and bother were already in bed, but my host mom got up to call a cab to take me to their place. She’s very sweet. The cab came and took me to the other teachers’ apartments (which are right next to the school). Nick, Jess, and Katy were in Katy’s apartment with a few of their friends from around Bishkek (some American and some Russian), and they were all giving Katy dreadlocks. We hung around the apartment for a while before we called for a couple cabs to take us to this place called Promzona, which is out in the middle of nowhere a ways east of town. I was somewhat apprehensive about going to the place, but once we got on I saw it was actually pretty nice. We managed to find a table for all of us (7, plus some others who came later). We snuck in a bottle of vodka because it was apparently really expensive here. I had a couple beers and some vodkas with Coca Cola, and I was feeling pretty good. There was a live band that did a bunch of Russian and American cover songs. They even covered a Kino song (Vosmeklassnitsa, for those who were wondering), which I of course got really excited about. I danced around a bunch to them and to the recorded music that they played after the band (which included another Kino cover [Videli Noch]). This Bulgarian girl who had been one of the teacher’s students and who I had met at talking club came to meet us with her German boyfriend. The bill for every table came in a hard hat for some reason (The place was industrial-themed, I guess), so I wore that for a while. I ended up having a really fun time, and I was glad to get to talk with the other teachers some more. Around 2:00 I rode back to town in a cab with Nick and Jess, and ended up paying a little more for the than was probably fair, but it was only a matter of 75 cents or something, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I got home safely, at least. I slept in until about 11:00 on Sunday, and later on in the afternoon I went with Adik (host brother) to the Orto Sai market, about a 15 minute walk away. This place was pretty big, and had all kinds of junk you might want to buy. There was lots of clothes, cleaning products, produce, CDs/DVDs, etc. There was even a row of pet vendors selling fish, birds, and even some guinea pigs. I didn’t buy anything, but Adik bought some meat for diner, a bag full of apples, and a new hook for the bathroom. Actually, I did buy some blinis from the blini stand, but they were pretty bad. I miss the blini stands in St. Petersburg, but I think I know where I might be able to find a good blin here in Bishkek. I’ll let you know how that turns out. I got my first real look at the mountains south of town while we were walking to the market, and they sure are impressive. They’re huge, and they’re only about 10 or 20 miles out of town I think. My host mom said we’ll take a trip out to Ala-Archa Canyon south of the city sometime maybe next month, so I’m pretty excited about that. The rest of the day Sunday I hung around in my room, watched Hot Rod, and relaxed. I showed Zainap and Adik some pictures of my family, and gave Zainap some informal English lessons (she’s learning pretty fast). I worked on Monday’s lesson plans, talked on the phone to mom and dad, took a shower, and then started writing this post up. And now, 3672 words later, I’ve gotten all caught up. It’s 1:44 AM now, so I better get to sleep. Thanks for sticking this one out. Oh, and check out the flickr page if you haven’t already, cause there should be about 40 new pictures up by the time I post this. Peace!
-Austin
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