What I didn't know 12 hours ago...

What I didn’t know would happen only 12 hours ago:
I woke up this morning at around 7am. The day seemed as if it would be a normal day. I went to school and taught my club and halfway through my counterpart called me and asked me to bring my camera. That’s a normal thing because I’m the only person at my school who has a camera. I already had it with me at school so everything was great. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was not for school, I had my services offered up by my director to go to a neighboring village and take pictures for this man who designs banners. Not at all what I was expecting. Also, I was told 2-3 hours tops and that is also not what happened. Now I have lived in this country for almost 13 months and I now know that things don’t go as planned (ever). So I thought maybe it will be like 4-5 hour but not much more. I ended up coming home 9.5 hours later. Let’s start from the beginning.
I went out to meet the men and we waited for about 15 minutes for the taxi to come. While wait the designer got a call saying that the driver couldn’t find his license plates. Last time I checked those usually should stay on the car. We got a ride to the center and waited for him there. After about 1.5 hours we were off to Ak Moiun. At this point I’m still not sure why I’m there or even what is going on. But after living here for as long as I have I’m so used to that that it didn’t really bother me. Well it turns out this man has been travelling all over the country designing banners for people and schools. They were carting around a full desktop computer, but please tell me how they are doing that but somehow don’t have a camera of their own to take pictures. Well, this school wanted pictures of all their teachers and so they needed a camera so they could do that.
While on our 15 minute trip to this village the designer man decides that he has taken a liking to me and wants to bride kidnap me. He leans over at one point and whispers into my ear that we should get married and I could stay in Kyrgyzstan and be his wife. Sadly, that is not even close to the first time that has happened to me. The thing that was new was that he said he was going bride kidnap me and I would be his. He kept linking arms with me and making the man in the front seat take pictures of us. While all of this is happening the other people in the car are just laughing and telling me that I need to stay. I keep telling him that it’s not possible and that I’m going to go back to America and that I miss my family too much. Pretty much just telling him everything that I can think of to get him to stop.
At the school they set up the computer and start to design posters and other things. I try to avoid being any part of it. I let the younger guy take my camera because he seemed pretty computer savvy and I didn’t want to be near the other guy. I did pretty well staying away until we went to eat lunch. He made me sit next to him. He tried to force me to eat more and more while asking me if he was skinny or fat, strong, beautiful. I played along for most of that because it got him to stop faster.
After lunch I went into the corner of the room and just sat and read my book. I am so glad I brought a book because that is was saved me. 9.5 hours of sitting and doing nothing would have driven me insane. The crazy part is that I didn’t even get mad at all until the ride home. It took the guy so long to come to the car so we could leave. While in the car he goes back to bride kidnapping me. He asked me what I would do if he would take me and I said I would leave. He told me I couldn’t but jokes on him their cultural things don’t work on me. I won’t be shamed if I leave. HAHA, jerk. He kept linking arms with me and I don’t know if this was intentional or not but he kept touching my chest too. I was livid at this point. He also took my phone and called his phone with it so he could have my number. I will be changing my number if he calls me.
There is a point in the road where it splits and you can go down the hill to by village or the other way to Naryn City. Well the driver turned away from my village. That is when I started yelling. I said I need to go home and take me back. They told me they were getting gas and I kept saying take me back. They did just get gas. I was almost to the kicking and screaming stage (and for those of you who know me… that’s not a pleasant stage for anyone involved). They did ended up taking me back to my village after that but I refused to talk to anyone the whole rest of the way home. When we got to At-Bashy I told them to stop way before my house and I would walk the rest of the way home. I didn’t want this guy knowing where I lived. They let me out and thanked me and I just walked away.
My family was so worried about me and when I walked through the gate they were all standing there wondering where I had been. They guy told my host sister (because she is an assistant principal at my school) that it would only be 3-4 hours and I finally came home 9.5 hours later!
Today is now named worst day in country!
Disclaimer: I just want to say that not all people/men in this country are as horrible as this man. Actually on a daily basis I interact with many men who are wonderful and helpful. This is just one isolated incident and he is a jerk just like there are jerks in America. I am actually just as mad at the other people in the car who were just laughing and making jokes out of it. When I got home I told me host sister and she was not happy. She said it was shameful and wrong.

My trip to Bishkek

It’s been a while. I have been really busy with traveling around the country, doing work, and preparing for summer. The new trainees came to country 4 weeks ago and they are going through training right now. I went to Bishkek to talk about what I do and what life is like for me. The first thing I talked about was being a teacher and try to give them an idea of what it will be like when they start their service. Then I helped the medical staff give a session on mental health. Yeah, I know… am I really the person to be giving advice about mental health? But it was fun. I opened with a dance party to help loosen them up and show them one way to distress when things get a little overwhelming. It was great and they started a congo line and danced around the building. It was really awesome to see that they still had energy even after everything they are going through.
Also, when I was in Bishkek I watched a few soccer games with some friends. It was so great to watch sports again. The Barcelona vs. Real Madrid game was at 2am our time so when it finally finished and I got to bed it was 5am. But I still woke up at 8am and went to sports day with the new training. I was so tired and found myself spacing out much of the sports playing. But we played ultimate Frisbee, soccer, and American football. Felt so good to play sports and be active. All in all it was awesome to be able to spend time with the newbies. They are a great group and I think they will do great things here. I am excited for them to come to site and see which ones will be near me. Only two weeks away.
Yesterday I took the long trip home. I have done this trip in anywhere from 4-12 hours. The sad part about those times is that one of the fastest times was in the winter with snow on the roads and the slowest was in the summer and the car broke down and we had to wait for another one to come. Well this trip took 7 hours. So it was in the middle, but it felt like forever. I try not to talk on the long rides because it is inevitable that some guy will want to talk to me and ask me the same questions over and over again. The guy in front of me was the guy this time. I’m not sure if he was drunk or just annoying. He started by talking to me in Russian and I just shook my head like I didn’t understand. Then I made the mistake of saying “рахмат” (thank you). I spent a good length of time of that trip trying to stop talking to him. It would not be as bad to talk to people, but I can tell exactly how the conversation will go: I get asked what my name is, where I am from and what I do (none of that is bad). Then we get into me being asked if I will go somewhere with them. Be it the lake, America, anywhere. Then I get asked if I am married or have a boyfriend and no matter what my answer I get told that I need marry their son to be their daughter-in-law. I will then get offered some horrible food or drink that most other people in the car have eaten off of. No matter how much I refuse they keep insisting. All of this happened and more.
Also, one more thing that has become a trend with at least 80% of my rides to or from Bishkek… someone pukes. Mostly small children and it smells horrible. This time it was a very small child and it missed my by inches. The worst part is that it went all over the floor and no one cleaned it up. So I sat next to a pile of vomit for at least an hour and half. It has to be the windy bumpy roads that causes. But they never learn. The kid will puke and then the parent will give them some more food to eat and the whole cycle starts over again. Not my favorite Kyrgyz experience!
So there you go. A little update of my past few weeks.
Brooke