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.