After about 7 weeks of intensive training the Peace Corps has sent me to my permanent site about two hours East of Bishkek. There was a nice swearing-in ceremony administered by the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. The ceremony was followed by a slightly awkward moment where I had to say good bye to my training host family while loading my bags into my permanent host family's car. It was a moment of sadness and excitement, like leaving the US for Kyrgyzstan but not to the same degree. The sadness was tempered by the fact that I'll be spending another two weeks with my training host family in September. The excitement was coupled with the knowledge that I have my work cut out for me these first few weeks especially.
My language is good for being here for just two months, but it's not good enough to move along smoothly in conversations at work. Every day at work is an exhausting and slow process of attempting to communicate so I can begin to understand the business. Never the less, I was invited to a big meeting for work the other day with over 60 of my organization's 1080 members. Near the end of the meeting, quite to my surprise, I was asked to take the microphone and give an impromptu speech. So...that happened.
Oh, and my host family got a puppy!
Enough about me, now to what you're really reading this for: Kyrgyz Culture!
I love it, and you should too! To start, Kyrgyz is pronounced kyr like curtain, and gyz like gizzard. There are several other ways to pronounce it, some offensive, some just depending on what ancestry you come from, but the Kyrgyz pronunciation if Kyrgyz is this way. (Btw, apparently everyone who works for the embassy is too scared to tell the Ambassador she pronounces it wrong.)
Kyrgyzstan is a collectivist culture. This means it is in many ways different from US culture, primarily in the sense that individual acts in the US are done instead in groups here in Kyrgyzstan. "It takes a village to raise a child" is taken very literally here. From what I understand, a unique aspect of Kyrgyzstan's collectivist culture is the practice of guesting. A simple explanation of guesting is you, or your entire family, go to someone else's house for an afternoon or evening (or both the afternoon and the evening) and socialize, drink lots of tea and eat lots of bread, and most likely eat a meal.
The other day I was guesting at a neighbor's house and was asked by my host "Which is easier, Kyrgyzstan or America?" A loaded question perhaps. My initial thought was, well doing laundry is certainly easier in America (I had just spent the entire afternoon washing my laundry by hand.) It's true having a machine wash your clothes is physically less demanding than washing by hand, but I wasn't happy with that as y answer. I then thought about how easy it is to socialize in Kyrgyzstan. Guesting is really an amazing practice, you can give notice or not and either way you'll be welcomed as a long awaited guest into whichever home you enter. This is not just because I'm American, I've seen the same generosity from my own host family when we've has unexpected guests. How great is it to have a culture in which it's so easy to stop by your neighbor's house for a few hours whenever you'd like? That's rhetorical, but the answer is it's really great. You might be thinking, well if you live in a nice neighborhood in America you can do the same. You may be right that neighbors often visit each other in America, but here it happens to a much greater degree. Guesting occurs often throughout the week and every weekend. Even if you stop by for just a minute you'll be offered osti, a taste of bread. (Photo hopefully below)
If you stay a couple minutes longer you no longer have a choice, you'll be getting tea, or as we call it among the PCVs, you'll get chai itched. No hellfire will be rained on Kyrgyzstan for a lack of generosity to travelers, that is certain. If anything the generosity can be too much at times, while guesting my host often insists I have seconds, thirds, fourths, and even fifths. Despite my protestations and a full plate, I'll be given another couple spoonfuls of whatever dough based food we're having, maybe another slab of pure fat to go with my noodles? But it's the socializing that I am beginning to really enjoy and plan to take full advantage of while I'm here. Without any important reason and without much notice if any, I can go over to a neighbor and drink tea and socialize. After the initial shock my hosts have from realizing I don't put spoonfuls of sugar in my every cup of tea, I can talk to them about family, work, needs, joys, plans, trips, and so on. It's a perfect way to get to know the village and country, it makes my job easier.
So that thought led me to my answer. In Kyrgyzstan, it's easier.
That's probably enough for now. Please add questions you want answered in the comments. I'll try to write again soon!
