Wanderlustress

Family Feud Uzbek Style

Ahhh...the process of discovery makes for so many adventures and misadventures, and sometimes there are more than one a day! For me, they all seemed to converge last week. I'll leave it up to you to do the math:

1 dead mouse (in trap) + 1 live mouse (eating left-over bread in trap) + 1 bed (on floor 5 ft. away with me in it) = 0 patience

1 sleepless night + 1 looming oral Uzbek exam + 2 bratty host-sisters + 1 noisy television = 1 major argument

2 embarrassed host-parents + 2 concerned Peace Corps staff + 1 telephone = a few long conversations

1 American + 6 Uzbeks + 1 house = tolerance with a big T

But now, everything is back to almost normal, each of us learning how to live with one another better...typical of any family, really.

P.S. The second mouse was finally trapped, underneath my desk, as I was sitting there studying for my Uzbek exam. I'm just glad it hadn't nibbled on my big toe. *fake smile*

On the Road to Samarkand

As part of our training, everyone in UZ17 got to visit a volunteer at various sites throughout Uzbekistan. It seems like ages since my two day visit to Kitab City in the southern region of Qashqadarya, but it was actually just 10 days ago.

Getting out of the city was a lesson in itself. I was very thankful to have one of the language instructors helping us negotiate the taxi rate for a 5 hour drive. With our limited Uzbek, we would have been minced lamb among 15 hungry Uzbek taxi drivers who immediately swarmed us upon our arrival to the taxi terminal on the outskirts of the city. We negotiated prices for about 15 minutes, but I mainly looked at their faces to see who I trusted most and that was who I wanted to go with, no matter the price. In the end, my fellow trainee and I got our very own Daewoo Nexus taxi (with the trusted driver) for about $12 each one-way, which was considered to be a rip-off, but it was worth the extra bucks to know that the taxi would not stop to pick up any strangers along the way.

The drive south out of Tashkent and through the Sirdarya and Jizzakh regions was not very interesting except for whatever little excitement we got from being stopped at a couple of check-points. The officers never asked to speak with us as passengers, but mainly asked to speak to the driver. We would patiently wait until he came back and hoped that everything was in order. At one stop, an officer did ask us to roll down the window, at which point my colleague and I used some classroom Uzbek to impress him. Satisfied, he sent us on our way. No problems.

The most spectacular part of our journey was knowing that we were travelling along the road to Samarkand, that our route was centuries old and travelled over by trade merchants, dynastic armies, by Moguls, Arabs, Turks, by Alexander the Great, Amir Temur, and other great leaders. It makes me want to really dive into the rich history of this region so I can appreciate even more the depth of the place that I am calling 'home' for two years.

As we approached the Samarqand region, we travelled along a corridor of mountains. Once we passed the turn-off to Samarqand to the west, we drove straight into a wall of mountains, up and up along switch-backs in the road, reaching snowy peaks, and down again into the valley where Kitab City is nestled, surrounded by mountains on all sides. The beauty of it made me think about being in God's hands. And I knew that over the opposite mountain range due south, in less than 120 miles, was Afghanistan.

Due east of Kitab City, are the western mountain ranges of Tajikistan, the dangerous and inaccessible peaks that was the last stronghold of the Talibans as they were driven out of Afghanistan. The Peace Corps security officer told us that this mountainous boarder area is off-limits for hiking by volunteers. (It is not my intention to sensationalize my visit to Kitab City. I only want to contextualize the significance of the place I visited.)

What struck me the most over the two days was how absolutely gorgeous this mountainous region is. I marvelled at every panorama, and caught glimpses where I could between the rain showers, and fog. I feel lucky to have been in this place and only wished that I hadn't been so shy to take out my camera. For certain, the images of Qashqadarya will remain in my memories for a long time.

Anomalies Abound

The official temperature today in Tashkent is 23C/73F!!! It is really unsual weather, and a nice alternative to cold and rain...or so I thought. When I expressed my exuberance to one of the Peace Corps language teachers, she replied in Uzbek that it's a terrible day!

Turns out that the unusually warm and dry weather we've had ever since I arrived will jeapardize this spring's fruit and vegetable crop. And it's no wonder that they are loathing these fair winds since they spend most of the summer canning enough fruit and vegetables to last through the following winter. This warm weather will tempt fruit trees to prematurely blossom. If frost sets in again, the flowers will die and there will be no fruit to eat, never mind can for next winter. They also have severe water shortages in winter without a healthy dose of snow, so just imagine what summer will be like...thirsty and starved of produce.

Its too harsh a life here to be exhuberant about fair weather I guess.

Trans-illiterate Travails

I have spent most of the past month learning to speak Uzbek and write in Cyrillic, right? This makes sense since 90% of the population here ARE Uzbek, right? So you'd think that I would be all set to go about town with relative ease, right? Well...no. Life couldn't possibly be this easy for a Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan.

As expected, there are many Soviet legacies which remain in Uzbekistan. Russian is spoken in most of the larger cities here. Tashkent, the capital, is the fourth largest city of all the ex-Soviet republics. There are a lot of Russians, I mean Uzbeks, Russian?, Uzbek? ??? Ok. They ARE Uzbek now that Uzbekistan is an independent country, BUT they look Russian, and they ONLY speak Russian. Sometimes they also speak a little English, but no Uzbek. Most Uzbeks on the other hand, speak Uzbek but no Russian, nor English. See where I'm going here?

Wealthy families can afford to send their children to Russian schools. Russian is considered to be an economically advantageous language to learn because most large businesses and internationally oriented organizations conduct their business in Russian and English.

All of this (and more) makes my sojourns into the capital city a joyful occassion of utter confusion. EVERYBODY speaks Russian to me and I constantly have to remind them to speak in Uzbek. (Did I mention the two languages are not at all related?) Asking them to speak Uzbek generally works, unless of course they don't speak it at all at which point I say, "Thank you." in Russian and find what I need elsewhere. Even if they do speak Uzbek, their eyes cannot coordinate with their ears, which are hearing Uzek words coming out of my mouth. This is because they think I'm Korean since there are a lot of Uzbek-Koreans here (an anomaly which I'll explain later), and Koreans here speak Russian. Also, people here assume that all foreigners here speak Russian, just to add another layer of cultural barrier between the eyes and ears.

All this confusion not only surrounds verbal communication. On top of this, I am learning how to write and read in Cyrillic, which the government plans to abandon to adopt the Latin alphabet in one year's time. Great, huh? For next year perhaps. For now, I prepare for my day, beyond the gates of my house or the confines of Peace Corps training, by studying my Tashkent Metro map written in Latin. I make my way to the Metro station to find all the signs in Cyrillic, but I go with my instincts. When my instints don't work, I inevitably get lost switching back and forth trying to find the exchange junctions to get on the right Metro line. Once I am thoroughly frustrated, I get off the train. Then in my most polite and clear Uzbek, I ask a woman for assistance and she turns to me and says in Russian that she only speaks Russian. So I turn to someone else who, luckily, understands my pantomime and is able to lead me to the right train...

After these kinds of days, I go home and envision the confusion when I am placed in a different region of Uzbekistan for my two year assignment. Not only will I be challenged by Russian speakers, but I may be faced with an Uzbek dialect, or even a third language barrier, Tajik!

I can only take deep breaths and remind myself that I am not in Kansas anymore...right Toto?!

C'mon Toto

The ironies of an unfamiliar culture enter my thoughts as I ride on a crowded, lumbering bus on my way home...and I know I'm not in Kansas anymore...

My host-family has vodka but no milk.

The sidewalk is lined with baby strollers, with nan (bread) for sale in them.

This is a predominantly Muslim country, but I've not seen any mosques.

Smart women labor over housework all day while their lackluster husbands bribe university professors for high marks.

Women are shamed for life if she is known to have sex before marriage; young men are offered prostitutes to make sure they "know how" to do it.

My host family has gold teacups and fine china, but we have an outdoor toilet with no plumbing.

Children say they want to go to America, but they skip school half the week.

Uzbekistan has water resource problems, but their national crop is cotton and they also grow a lot of rice, two very thirsty crops.

The logic, if any at all, of how this country and its people operate will no doubt come to me, slowly, if ever. The trick will be to find ways to operate within it. This should prove to be very interesting, and potentially very frustrating, once I am placed in the NGO for my permanent assignment.

It will either work out, or I start clicking my heels for home.

Going With the Flow

As you can tell from recent posts, I'm doing quite well here in Uzbekistan. I've gotten used to the food. It all actually tastes the same, although I still refuse to eat chunks of pure fat. The dreaded pit toilet has become tolerable, except in the extreme nauseating cases. And I have enough of the language under my wings to get around on my own. This freedom has made a tremendous difference in my waning spirits despite the continuous rigour of the training schedule. At least when I can, I feel able to get 'away'.

I've not been sick in the slightest, but they do say that diarreah and the like are seasonal illnesses. So it's bound to happen in the spring and summer months. It comes as no surprise seeing slabs of meat hanging, unrefrigerated, outdoors for sale, as well as the open plates of left-over, re-served, food in the family fridge...not to mention eating shared plates of food by hand with everyone reaching, licking fingers, and double-dipping into each plate. *sigh* These are cultural issues more than they are hygiene issues. This is how they eat, live, and are Uzbek. To change it is to preach cultural change, which are, as we all know, generational. Perhaps my children will one day be able to come here and eat off of their own plates with a fork, spoon and knife with an Uzbek family, and not just at the Western restaurants in Tashkent.

Of course there is much more to tell, like my recent trip to visit a volunteer in Kitob City, just 120 miles from the Afghan border, so stay tuned...

Diplomatic License

Being in the Peace Corps, I might have fantasized that we would get to attend an American Embassy function, if we're at all lucky. I NEVER thought we would get the run of the Ambassador's house on Superbowl Sunday, which, might I remind you, took place at 4am in this time zone!

Yes indeed! The new (2 months) ambassador came to speak to UZ17 a few days after we arrived, and we charmed him into inviting all 48 of us to view the Superbowl at his house on direct satellite cable. He even chartered a bus to pick us up, and on the night (3am), 25 sporting Peace Corps volunteers were invited in by the ambassador himself who was awake and alert. We toasted to the kick-off and enjoyed the rest of the game with cases of Heineken beer and Pringle's chips that he provided and shared with us. We were welcome to roam through his huge mansion, into his kitchen, and even through his bedroom to use one of his bathrooms (yes, it was white, and ceramic, and clean...sigh).

Needless to say, this night is a keeper on the roster of unforgettable events. I mean, the ambassador made coffee for us as we stumbled out into the morning light and to our language classes at 8am the next day. How gracious, how luxurious, how utterly priviledged...and I have a gold embossed embassy-emblem knapkin to prove it!

The Reality of Relativity

Cheap is a .30 cent bowl of Osh (rice dish) for lunch, cheaper still is a .10 bus to the .13 metro.

Expensive is $1.40 an hour for internet.

Clean is washing my hair more than once a week, and bathing more than twice a week.

Variety is changing my outfit after three days.

Luxury is a $10 nicoise salad, margarhita pizza, and Coke at "Bistro" in Tashkent.

Convenient is an indoor toilet (where you can actually flush the paper).

Fantasy is a clean, white, ceramic toilet bowl (indoors or out).

Notice

Just a quick note to say that I've updated a few minor details on my address, and have also added my telephone number. So if anyone has a burning ache to talk to me...you can!!!

Click here for the update.

Thanks to everyone who have written so far. I treasure your letters and emails. Both mom and Rich have called. Those days are the BEST days of my life here...xoxo.

How could I forget the NAN?!?

In my previous post on family life and the Uzbek table, I neglected to include the revered nan! Shame on me. Like the family is central to Uzbek life, nan is central at every Uzbek meal or whenever food is offered or served. Uzbek nan is a somewhat flat bread, round in shape with a depressed middle often with a floral impression design. The meal is only started when an elder says, "Oling, oling!" and breaks nan into several pieces and sets them in front of everyone at the table. Very traditional families will begin the meal with an "Oman", cupped hands and an upward motion around the face to make like washing water over yourself. "Oman" is sometimes done with a 'prayer' or good wishes, similar to saying "grace". It is mostly done at the end of the meal, when things come to a 'close' and the three-hour-long meal is done, when a guest wants to leave, or when you excuse yourself from the gathering. It is not necessarily a religious practice to do "Oman". Personally, I think it is a very nice tradition and a graceful way to leave the dinner table.

Back to the nan. It IS sacred. Even if you are not hungry or want anything to eat, if offered, you must at least break the nan and take a bite to show your respect to your hosts. When handling nan, there is a flat side that it bakes on and it must never be place with that bottom side up, or 'upside down'. NOW I understand how bread can be upside down! And you NEVER throw the nan away. If there are leftovers, they are placed in a plastic bag to be served at the next meal or the following day. Even partially eaten pieces are saved. Some families make croutons for soup with very stale non. If it has dropped on the floor it is placed in a separate bag (that is kept off the floor, sometimes above head-level even), and saved for animals to eat, or to give to your neighbors if you don't have animals to feed.

Nan is sold everywhere! Along the main road piled on makeshift stands, covered with cloth, and if you're walking along and see nan hanging in front of someone's front door/gate, it is not some taboo ritual to attract hungry ghosts or anything bizaar like that. It just means that the family who lives there sells nan from their kitchen. When visiting or "guesting" it is custom to bring nan, if you don't have anything else to bring, but you must make sure to bring even numbers of non, not odd numbers. I believe odd numbers are only given at funerals. Nan, nan, nan...everywhere a nan, nan!

To me, nan can be a life saver in several situations. The "Oling, oling, ying, ying!" ("Take, take, eat, eat!") I mentioned earlier can become overwhelming after a few hours, especially after they keep piling your plate with food you don't recognize, or worse, you DO know what it is and you just don't want to eat it. I've learned to eat in tiny bites and only when someone is looking, which can leave me pretty hungry when there is nothing I like. But since there is always nan, I can use it to dip into the tasty sauces surrounding the questionable meat, and get full on that. Other times, when my fingers get greasy after peeling fat off of a piece of meat I think I can eat and there are no napkins around, I (forgive me) use the nan to wipe my fingers under the table. Sometimes I can even sneak a wipe of my greasy mouth with it!

So I've learned to respect the nan and make it work for me. I think I'll be ok here ;)