Kybs's Xanga

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:17:56 GMT

I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

Journal Entry - May 4th, 2006

Thu, 04 May 2006 04:37:27 GMT

My name is John. Ok, so maybe that's not the name my parents gave me, maybe it's not the name my friends call me by, and maybe it's not even the name that is on my driver's license and passport. Despite all of this, my name is still John. I know this because of the two friendly local guys who sit at the base of Suleiman Too between 6:40 and 6:50 every morning and who helpfully call out my real name to me as I run by them on my way down the mountain back to my apartment. At first, in my ignorance, I wanted to stop and correct them of what I perceived as their error in identifying me. However, as time passed and the ritual repeated itself, I began to wonder if maybe, in their ignorance of what was enscribed on my birth certificate, they had perhaps unwittingly stumbled onto some deeper truth about my identity. Maybe in this time and this place I no longer present to the world as Bryan, but instead as John. And if, in reality, a name serves as no more than a particular grouping of sounds in the air or scratches on paper meant to identify an individual to those around him, then who was I to judge that my name was not John. Being trapped inside my own mind and body and unable to truly perceive how I appear to others, I in fact am the worst judge of what my name should be. So, my name is John.

Feeling artsy... so some (bad) creative writing

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:26:15 GMT

I wake up to the sound of a siren rising urgently up from the street below my apartment. At first I barely recognize it; my brain, still befuddled by sleep, frantically searching my memory for a similar noise in its history to compare this strange high-pitched shreaking to. Finally something clicks, and I identify the vibrant pulsing as a siren. Still struggling to pull my consciousness back from the edge of sleep, I hazily wonder if the siren is police, fire, EMS... Has something happened to someone I know? Is my building on fire? Has there been a shooting? As these questions rush through my foggy mind, like homebound ships desperately trying to reach port ahead of a storm, the siren cuts off abruptly. As my brain struggles valiantly to cope with this new development, the room I am laying in starts to come into focus in the steel gray light of early morning. Wardrobe. Couch. Two ratty old chairs. A small TV in the corner. Suddenly it all makes sense. The odd tones of the siren. The way it ended suddenly. The siren was no emergency warning at all. At least, not an emergency as I would think of it. Rather, it was the modified horn of a marshrutka, one of the cramped and often crowded mini-buses that serve as the main form of public transportation in Central Asia. Finally the light goes on in my head as the sun slowly stretches its own tendrils of light over the horizon. It is 6 a.m. And I am in Kyrgyzstan.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 04:54:11 GMT

New Years Pictures (C Novym Godom!)

Here are some pictures from a New Year's party I went to with my Russian tutor Tolkun and a bunch of his friends - this definitely is not what I was imagining when I joined the Peace Corps!

So at least now Peace Corps can't accuse me of not doing my part to increase recruitment - this picture has got to be good for at least 100 new male applicants looking to come to Kyrgyzstan!

Sometimes after a few hours of dancing you need to go outside and take a group picture in the first real snow of winter!

I don't remember whose idea it was that climbing Suleiman Too at one in the morning in the middle of a blizzard would be a fun activity to conclude our evening with.... but they were right! If only the girls hadn't given up on our summiting attempt halfway and made the rest of us all go back down with them...

Monday, January 09, 2006

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 09:08:09 GMT

More Pictures - Work!

I can't complain about accomodations at Rainbow - I get my own office and desk, complete with a deskmate! (Our part-time accountant, Erkin, seen here reading a pornographic newspaper. Personally, I prefer the cup of Nescafe sitting on my side of the desk to help me get up in the morning)

Fatima and Dilshad, my director and counterpart. Aren't they cute together?

Fatima and Dilshad, in the their more usual positions of hogging two of our three computers... err... I mean, doing extremely important work

As you can see, keeping our kitchen clean is a high priority at Rainbow!

Our volunteer room at Rainbow, occupied by an actual volunteer!

Our activity room - a.k.a. the coldest room in the office. Notice that there is no one in here; that is true from about October to March.

Conference room - where all the real work of Rainbow happens

Monday, January 09, 2006

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:22:08 GMT

More Pictures!

Tana is even more popular in Kyrgyzstan than she was in America!

The road I walked to language training every morning for 11 weeks

The dichotomy of Kyrgyzstan - beautiful country, lousy infrastructure

Obviously, PETA's Sheep Division has yet to get through to the people of Kyrgyzstan, as Usubaly is rolling up his sleeves to make short work of our woolly friend on the ground. I ended up eating part of one of the eyes and one of the ears (as well as more conventional cuts of meat). Yummy!

Yes, I really can work a camera, thank you very much!

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 02:58:37 GMT

Pictures that I am sure you have all been eagerly looking forward to from staging and PST

Above: Two pictures of us getting ready to ship out of our hotel in Philly (note the George Costanza sighting in the first picture)

Picture of New York's ever-scenic JFK International Airport

This is why Peace Corps didn't hire Bohee as an extra baggage handler for our trip

What? Mountains? In Kyrgyzstan? You've gotta be kidding me...

Sunset over Manas Park near Bishkek (the view from my hotel balcony - jealous?)

Ok, I gotta run right now to make sure the little street kids we're training don't break anything in the office, but more pics will be up soon!

I really need to learn some Uzbek dances...

Mon, 26 Dec 2005 10:07:59 GMT

There are definitely times when you will be doing something in Kyrgyzstan and it really hits home what an incredibly random, unique experience this Peace Corps gig is. For me, one of those moments happened today when I was sitting at the guest of honor at an Osh law school Christmas party/concert/play/trivia contest/art contest/etc. (if you hadn't noticed yet, the Kyrgyz are big on multitasking). After the festivities were over an hour late in starting (which is still early in Kyrgyztime), I was treated to a front-row seat for almost two hours of Christmas music, break-dancing (or attempted break-dancing), a three-person tall cheerleading pyramid of Kyrgyz guys in jeans a couple sizes too tight, Christmas skits, a Christmas trivia contest, and last (and most certainly least) my dancing solo to some Uzbek music in front of the entire party of around 100 students. This experience did give me an answer to one of my previously unanswered cultural questions. I am no longer curious about whether the Kyrgyz whistle or not – I can testify that it is a definite fact that they do, and do so quite loudly! During the festivities I also judged a Christmas tree decorating contest, seeing how, as an American, I am obviously an expert in that field (right!). While I gave it the clichéd “110%” I couldn'’t keep a straight face for the entire party, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to tell my hosts that I wasn’t laughing at their efforts but rather at the incredible randomness of seeing a stereotypically gaudy Christmas-pageant style production… in a predominantly Muslim country in the middle of Central Asia!

In less positive news, as of today our K13 group has been reduced by one more, taking us all the way down to 58 volunteers from our initial contingent of 66, with our second consecutive involuntary medsep (medical separation, for those of you not familiar with Peace Corps lingo). Jordan - we’ll miss you man, the south won’t be quite the same without you! I should note that if we continue at this rate of exodus, the entire K13 group will be gone from Kyrgyzstan by about July of 2007 – or about 4 or so months before we could start officially COSing (more Peace Corps lingo – COS is Completion of Service). Keep your fingers crossed that the bleeding stops soon; I’m getting tired of losing friends back to the U.S.!

Another posting soon, and this one will include pictures… promise!

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 07:58:37 GMT

Russian polka music... that's really the only way to describe what I'm listening to as I type this post at an internet cafe near my office. I really don't know why I'm so surprised by this after watching Russian television though - their "hot" pop music stars all remind me of Weird Al, so obviously they already had the polka thing covered if the surplus had managed to leak into the pop genre. Ok, I have obviously jinxed the music by writing this, as we have now switched over to Michael Bolton played at a rather uncomfortable volume (which, for Michael Bolton, is any volume at which I can hear it).

Anyway, moving on to more important things (for the rest of you at least). Things are still going well here in Osh, despite the fact that I have been battling a sinus infection since Sunday. The weather has been pretty nice, sunny and not incredibly cold, so it's been really frustrating to be more or less cooped up indoors trying to recover! I think I can trace this particular illness back to the freezing cold nights spent at the hotel (phoenetic Russian - gostinitsa) in Kochkor-ata where I stayed last Thursday and Friday nights while on a roadtrip with Rainbow to give a STD/sex ed seminar to students at the technical college there. Fortunately, it was a memorable experience for far more than just the legacy it left my immune system to deal with! Highlights include singing Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight," Bryan Adams' "All for One" and John Lennon's "Imagine" in a bouncing marshrutka on the rather horrible road between Jalalabad and Osh with my coworkers, while toasting with vodka and all of this on a cheap guitar that busted its G-string (no jokes, please... that's just in bad taste) a few minutes into our drive. Also included are the time I was asked, out of the blue, to explain what oral sex was to a class of around 20 (primarily female) Kyrgyz college students - understanding of course, that they have absolutely no concept of it! I managed to stumble through a basic, and I thought rather tasteful, explanation in English, which they all seemed to understand because as I talked they all started giggling and turned bright red (actually, in most cases, they simply turned a brighter shade of red than they already were). Afterwards, I have to say, I realized that I cannot begin to imagine a more unique Peace Corps - Kyrgyzstan experience than to be a male PCV in the south teaching Kyrgyz girls about safe sex - and not getting into trouble for it!

After two full days of the seminar, it was nice to come back to Osh on Saturday night and go out with a bunch of other volunteers to celebrate both Carol's COS and Raabia's (http://lilraabs.blogspot.com) 22nd birthday. While I showed up to the party a little late, I have to say it was definitely worth going, and in my estimation we gave both Carol an admirable send-off and Raabia a resounding welcome to the over-21 crowd. Hopefully, my actual physical voice will return soon, so that I can come and talk to the English clubs and classes that other PCVs have invited me to this week.

On that note, I am gonna go and rest some more and hope things continue to improve, talk to you all soon!

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 08:54:16 GMT

Ploxoy (Bad) Bryan! Ok, so I have been officially "encouraged" to tone down my blog and not put up any information that could be construed to have a political meaning - therefore, today's planned posts on my impression of Hitler as being slightly less than enlightened in his dealings with Jews and my discussion of why I consider Ghengis Khan to have been a less than a magnanimous victor have been cancelled.

What I can tell you, however, is that I have finally managed to "swear in" as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), and now am living at my permanent site of Osh City. The swearing in part of training actually turned in to be much more difficult than I expected it to be. Not because it was a hard ceremony to go through, but because the "culture house" in Tokmok that we swore in in was freezing! I watched my hands turn blue during the ceremony, and was starting to consider emergency options for creating warmth when we finally finished the ceremony! Even the Ambassador wanted to put a hat on, as she told us later at a reception for us at her house. Fortunately, we were able to warm up later, as some of us went out to a dance club in Bishkek and danced out some of our pent-up frustration from PST - after doing a little bowling downstairs. While I can't say that the bowling center/dance club mix really makes sense to me, it certainly worked that night!

On a more serious note, I will start work on Monday, working for Info-Center Rainbow (more info on Rainbow can be found in the post below). I really like the organization and my director and coworkers, so I am excited about being able to help. Of course, with all that excitement comes a lot of nervousness about my ability to contribute, and, of course, my ability to continue to enhance my language skills. Now that I am in Osh, those language skills will have to start including Kyrgyz and Uzbek as well as Russian, a triple-threat I am not currently feeling all that confident about. While the grammer for Kyrgyz and Uzbek is much simpler than Russian, learning them involves learning new sounds for letters that I learned for the first time only three months ago - not a task I am relishing. On the positive side, the weather in Osh is really nice at the moment, sunny almost every day and warm enough to go out without a jacket despite the fact that it is December. I will spend most of the rest of this weekend walking around the city, trying to get a better feel for where things are located, and just enjoying the relative warmth here compared to Bishkek and the rest of the north.

Anyway, time for me to get out and start learning my new home better!

Oh, before I forget - this blog is now available in all its glory at http://bsinky.blogspot.com . The content is the same as on this site, but the format is slightly different. Oh what we go through to reach a wider audience...