Back in the Midwest.

A few weeks ago, a Kyrgyz friend explained to me that Toktogul is neither in the north of Kyrgyzstan nor the south, east nor west. Its identity, its culture, reflects this position in the middle of the country. I told her that was pretty funny, because both Max (the other volunteer stationed here) and I are from the midwest United States. It seems that, 6460 miles away, we’ve found ourselves in the “midwest” yet again.

I’m coming up on three weeks in the town that will be my home for the next two years. I love it more with each day. According to Wikipedia, Toktogul is a town of about 15,000 people - but I’ve also heard 5,000, so who really knows. I do know that it’s small enough that I can walk from my house on the edge of town to the city center in about 15 minutes. There’s not much traffic, very little trash, and lots of tree-lined streets. We have a bazaar where you can buy anything from a cow’s head to clothes hangers (though not for less than 20 som each, which seems steep to me). There’s a lovely park next to the bazaar, with a “stadium” in which Max and I have been running, and from which you get a great view of the lake.

Toktogul is surrounded by mountains, which means you’re never without a stunning vista, and which also means that weather changes fast. As I write this, the second thunderstorm of the day roars outside my window. In between the two storms, it was sunny and clear. The mountains also mean that the heat and humidity stay relatively low, though it’s been quite warm enough for me recently. I’m excited to see what each new season brings here.

South-ish of town is the lake – or, to be more accurate, the reservoir. It was created by the Soviets in the late 1960s as part of a project to build what is now the largest hydroelectric dam in Central Asia. Apparently, the old city of Toktogul is actually under the water. The lake is giant – at least 40 miles by my guess – and brilliant blue, edged by mountains. I swam in it about a week ago, an experience that cinched my opinion of Toktogul as the best place on earth.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this blog post is my attempt to convince you to visit me and experience this paradise for yourself. Let’s see – what else? There are apricot and apple trees everywhere, with fresh fruit you can grab as you walk down the street. Toktogul is reputed to have the best meat in Kyrgyzstan (which is saying something), and is famous for its honey. There are fun remnants of Soviet rule, like a hammer-and-sickle statue I came across recently, scattered around town. I live here.

Are you convinced? When are you coming?

There's that lake.

A few blocks from my house.

The walkway next to Lenin Street, the main road in town.

Town square, near the bazaar.

Outside of the city. 

I do not live in a yurt.

When I first found out I was going to Kyrgyzstan, I did a lot of Googling. I learned about bushkazi, goat polo, and kimiz, fermented horse milk. I saw pictures of round, ruddy-cheeked Kyrgyz babies and wide, mountain-edged plains. I began to craft a beautiful vision of my life for two years - taking shelter from the elements in my cozy yurt, eating lots of strange sheep meat and maybe riding to work each day on my trusty horse. 

I do not live in a yurt.

About a week ago, I arrived in Toktogul, my permanent site. We pulled up to my new house, and I was surprised to find a brick, two story building. Inside, there was furniture that could have come from Ikea, a toilet, a sizeable TV, a washing machine. This definitely was not the yurt fantasy. It wasn’t even the life I’d been living for two months in the village near Bishkek, where I’d dashed outside to use the outhouse and washed my clothes by hand.

For the first day or two, I felt really uncomfortable with it. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for, wasn’t what I had wanted. I’d joined the Peace Corps, after all.  I was required to live with a family for three months. Maybe after that, I thought to myself, I’d find something more….er….Kyrgyz.

Over the course of the past week, however, I’ve fallen in love. My family consists of a mother, father, a 15-year-old sister, a 14-year-old brother and the wonderful 3-year-old Malika. They have been beyond kind and generous to me, respectful of my space but incredibly inviting. It turns out that my host father, a livestock man by day, built every inch of this house himself. My host mom makes amazing food, and vegetables are a regular thing. I’ve played Frisbee with my host brother, Adilet, and hung out with Jibek, my host sister. Malika and I have had some really excellent tea parties.

To say that this family isn’t Kyrgyz because they have indoor plumbing is to say my family back in the States isn’t American because we don’t eat hot dogs on a daily basis. Expecting to come here and have a quintessentially “Kyrgyz” experience is just as arrogant and foolish as expecting everyone to speak English and know about American culture.

For me, the verdict is still out on the effectiveness of the Peace Corps as an instrument of international development. I will report back in two years. However, in terms of cultural exchange and creating friendships between people of different nations, I think the Peace Corps accomplishes a lot. I have the opportunity to build a relationship with a very wonderful family, and that is far more significant than any romantic life I could imagine for myself on the rugged plains of Kyrgyzstan.

I feel very lucky right now. Toktogul itself is beautiful – so beautiful that I need to devote another whole blog post to describing it. I’ve met many welcoming people so far, including the people I will work with and, most certainly, the people I am living with. I don’t know what the future will hold for me over the next two years. Maybe I’ll spend a night or two in a yurt. But I’m guessing I will be spending the majority of my nights in a two-story brick house in Toktogul.

Malika, age 3. The appeal of stickers, it seems, is universal.
Shortly after this she realized that putting stickers on ME is a lot more
fun than putting them on a piece of paper. 

View from the edge of Toktogul.

The street where I live. 

The view from my bedroom window.

The house, with trusty guard dog Panda on the watch. 

Sworn in!

This Tuesday was “Swearing In” for my group of trainees, the K’21s. After 7+ weeks in country, after hours upon hours of Peace Corps training sessions, after passing our language proficiency tests and managing not to mess up too badly in any other ways we took an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, and officially became Peace Corps volunteers.

The week leading up to Swearing In was a whirlwind. I had my language proficiency interview, an oral test measuring ability to communicate, functionality over precision. I talked about my family in America and described how to make pizza. I managed to score “intermediate mid,” which seems a little optimistic to me, but I’ll take it!

We also spent the last week saying goodbye to our wonderful host families. Six of us Peace Corps volunteers lived in Gavrilovka, and our mothers worked as a team to keep us healthy and happy. We ate meals at each other’s houses, played with each other’s host siblings and learned about Kyrgyz life from all the “apas” (mothers). On our last Sunday in town, we cooked an American feast for the apas – fried chicken and bruschetta, meatballs, cole slaw, a giant salad and brownies for desert. It was a hit.

And soon enough, we found ourselves packed into a crowded auditorium in Bishkek, on the brink of beginning that “real life” in Kyrgyzstan that I’d heard much about. The Ambassador spoke and administered the oath, several of my fellow K’21s gave excellent speeches in their new languages, a dance troupe organized by a K’18 performed a pretty wild montage, and my friend Max did a stunning job playing both Kyrgyz and American songs on his mandolin. Our host families from the Bishkek area attended, as well as our new host families and counterparts. A video of the ceremony is on the interwebs, and should be available for at least a month at: http://www.justin.tv/pckg01

After the ceremony, we said our goodbyes, collected our embarrassing amounts of luggage and hopped into vehicles bound for our new sites. Toktogul is five hours and two mountain passes south of Bishkek. The drive was gorgeous. I had been told all throughout my training that the Bishkek area is a strange bubble that doesn’t really represent Kyrgyzstan, but in my mind I nonetheless equated Bishkek with the whole country. As we drove south, I realized that I was finally seeing the real deal. Herds of horses grazed in the hills, women squatted over cooking fires outside their yurts, and everywhere, everywhere those staggering, sky-scraping mountains. 

As we came over the second mountain pass, my host mother pointed to the land spread out below us. “It’s Toktogul,” she said. The town was nestled between mountains, with a large lake on the far end of the lush little valley. The low evening sun gave it all a warm glow.

Real life didn't look so bad.
 

Erin preparing the world's most giant salad.

I'm still obsessed with this baby.

American feast!

...and the apas loved it.

He'll grow into it.

My host siblings in their K College swag.

My language group before the Swearing In.

Last picture with my host family.

En route to Toktogul.

The real deal.

Real Life

“PST is nothing like your real life here,” I was told recently, by a volunteer who arrived in Kyrgyzstan a year ago. My pre-service training – aka PST – is drawing to a close. In less than a week, I’ll leave the my little village outside Bishkek and the host family I’ve come to love, the cozy bubble of other volunteers and Peace Corps staff, my excellent language teacher and cultural guide, Temirlan. So much energy has gone into adjusting to this place, to settling into this new world – it has been easy to forget that my “real life” here hasn’t begun yet. I’m looking forward to moving to the town that will be my home for the next two years, to meeting the people who will be my friends and colleagues. At the same time, I’m trying to soak up every last minute here in Gavrilovka and enjoy the wonderful people around me now.

The past month has been busy! There have been a few downs – getting bit by a dog was a big one, for sure – but many ups. My Kyrgyz language is coming along, and every conversation with my host mother or a random stranger on the bus, every word that pops into my head just when I need it, is a small victory. Last week was “Culture Day” for Peace Corps trainees, and I made my harmonica performance debut, showcased my burgeoning knowledge of Kyrgyz customs in a skit and got to wear traditional Kyrgyz clothing. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know other volunteers, and feel very lucky to have scored such a great group.

On June 11, I’ll be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (provided I don’t really screw something up in the next few days) and move to my permanent site – a town called Toktogul, in the further-south province of Jalalabad I will be working at a Health Promotion Unit, essentially a local health department. Right now, I don’t know the specific projects I will be working on – that will depend on the needs identified by my counterparts – but I do know that my work will be fairly unstructured and, consequently, self-driven. My counterparts don’t speak English, so my Kyrgyz language will be forced to come along. It’s definitely intimidating, but I feel increasingly ready to take on that “real life” I’ve heard about, the ambiguity and challenge that I knew I was getting myself into. It’s all about to begin. And it’s very, very exciting.

Language class portrait, minus Max, plus a host mother (aka "apa") and Medina, World's #1 Baby.
Seriously, I am deeply in love with this baby. 

Sydney, apa and Medina

Ok, just one more picture of Medina.

My host mom making oromo, which is a coiled dumpling filled with potatoes, veggies, meat....and a little extra animal fat for good measure. (She's wearing a mask because she had a toothache)

Oromo, ready for the eating! And of course, it wouldn't be a complete meal without a side of fresh bread.