Culture

Live in priorities, not schedules

How are those New Year’s resolutions going?

Mine are going great! The secret to making your resolutions last into February is to not make them until Jan. 31st. (My secret’s up.)

New Year’s resolution time is always very exciting for me because I really like lists. I have all kinds of them taped to my wall, saved on my computer, jotted down in the notebook I carry in my pocket and on sticky notes on my desk. I love shopping lists, packing lists, and to-do lists—I love them all! But the lists I love the most have to do with future plans. I love brainstorming career paths, degree programs and grad schools. I love new teaching semesters because I get to schedule out my week in neat little tables. And I love making plans for my day. The problem is, my future doesn’t take orders very well.

imageOh joy! A list identifying and intervening on my Peace Corps induced problems!

I’ve complained up and down during Peace Corps service about things not going to plan, time being wasted, and unexpected things popping up for a year and a half and yet, until the middle of my second year I still had a detailed schedule hanging on my wall of everything I would be doing each hour of the day.

—

6:00am               Wake

6:00-7:00          Fire & Breakfast

Boil water, put on work clothes, headlamp, take out ashes, bathroom, get bucket of sheep poop, light fire, monkey with it, reboil water, wash, eat breakfast, monkey with fire again

7:00-7:30           Scripture, Prayer & Journaling

7:30-8:30           Get ready for the day

Brush teeth, dishes, straighten, food prep, empty water bucket, pack bag, restoke fire, get dressed, short phone calls

8:35                   Out the door

9:00-3:00         Work in all its unpredictable glory

Classes, clubs, lesson planning, project work

3:30pm             Arrive home

3:30-4:30         Light fire, eat, exercise.

4:30-5:30         Study Kyrgyz

5:30-6:15         Nap or writing or guitar

6:15-6:30         Prepare bag for evening. Print, etc.

6:30                  Leave house

6:45-8:45         Work and drink tea

8:45                  Excuse myself. Thanks for the evening!

9:00                  Arrive home, stoke stove

9:15-9:45         Scripture, type day’s reflections

9:45-10:00      Bathroom, straighten, brush teeth, eye drops

10:00               Lights out

—

I don’t think I ever followed this for a single day.

It was completely unrealistic to think I could keep a schedule when there are so many variables and unforeseen hiccups and other people’s schedules to deal with. Or their lack of schedules to be more precise. If I were to keep a schedule it would be better to look something like this:

—

Sometime in the morning:      Wake up

Day time:                               Do some things

Evening:                                 Potentially back at own home

Night:                                    Sleeping of some sort

—

Though I might be getting a little too detailed with that Evening slot.

The fact of the matter is, it’s a bad idea to live in schedules because you’re never going to get everything done, and this can be frustrating and disheartening. There will always be un-ticked boxes and line items that get carried over for another day (week, month). Yet—there are still really important things on that schedule that need to be accomplished. So how is this done?

As always, it can be solved with another list:

—

My priorities

1. God – hang out time with Jesus, scripture, journaling, showing people grace

2. Lay down—Get up schedule

3. Dialing America and other volunteers

4. School – classes, lessons, clubs, teacher trainings

5. Project work

6. Kyrgyz study

7. Writing

8. Reading

9. Hanging out with friends

10. Chores

11. Travel

12. Everything else

—

Live in priorities. This way, when you lose your way along the crazy twists and turns that each day takes, you can pull out your priority guide for direction. It won’t always be perfect because—hey—the world is not a perfect place, filled with both disappointing detours and serendipitous scenic routes. Yet, if you resolve to live in your priorities, you will always know that what you’re doing lines up with your deepest beliefs and desires. And that’s a resolution worth keeping.

How to make a man fall in love with you

They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. From my own travels around the world through various cultures and times let me propose this common path to love has missed a bit low: it’s really through his ears.

I was waiting for a friend one day outside a library so I decided to sit down and take out my guitar. Some volunteer friends and I are in a band that performs Kyrgyz music and we had a show coming up so I figured this was a good chance to practice in public to see how my nerves would stand up. Just as I got to the part where the song goes, “I love you, truly from my heart…” a man happened by, stopped, turned, crouched down, put a hand on my knee, and gave me the biggest love-struck smile I’ve ever seen. For a moment my voice faltered and then I thought, “No! The show must go on!” and completed my love ballad to this swooning stranger.

He was so happy. I was more happy to turn my guitar over to him.

I think he’s winking at me

I’ve never really liked music. Sure, I have thousands of songs on iTunes playlists ranging from 90s alt to mash-ups to Mozart. I was even in a ska band in high school. But I think music has been more of a cursory enjoyment than an integral part of my life. I’m not that person who lists all the live shows he’s been to on his “about me” section of Facebook. The list wouldn’t be more than a line long anyway. I do enjoy music, but compared to a lot of other people it might seem I don’t like it at all.

This may be why it’s taken me so long to find the secret to making men fall in love with me. As a straight dude, this is a lesson I could have gone a lifetime without learning. I suppose this lesson could also apply to making women fall in love with me, but so far this hasn’t shown out through experience. I have much more luck with the guys.

Our little Peace Corps band has played at several shows around the country, and was even showcased on one of the national TV channel’s New Year’s Eve program. I’ve been struck and humbled by all the people who are attracted to our music, women and men alike. And though people are impressed by the fact Americans are learning their language, I believe it’s the universal language of music that’s the biggest draw. You don’t even need to speak it well to communicate great volumes. Show up to a party with a refrain and a verse of almost anything and for a moment you will captivate a soul, tying a cord between yours and his, the song’s vibration dancing along this string, igniting desires and emotions within. Why else would they say it tugs on the heart strings?

This lesson learned may not be the best help in my own quest for love. But who knows, maybe you’ll be more lucky. Choose a song that you’ve fallen in love with and sing it out with all your heart. You might just make someone fall in love with you.

How to slaughter a sheep

I was hanging out, having a cup of tea with my neighbor when he pointed at my leg and said, “That’s horse blood.”

I said, “Yeah, you’re right – I helped kill a horse this morning. How did you know?”

“Every animal’s blood is a little different color. You can tell the difference between sheep, horse and cow blood stains quite easily.”

I thought about that exchange this afternoon as I looked down at my pant cuff, freshly spattered with the blood of my own first sheep. I had helped with half a dozen sheep slaughters before, but this one I had bought at the market, tied down, slit the throat and cut up into its 12 ustukans for serving guests, mostly on my own. I wondered if my neighbor could match this color of red correctly.

I had the help of my landlord, Bolot-baike, only a couple years older than me, but still old enough to receive that respectful brother-title baike. I was adamant on doing each step on my own, with directions only. I may speak Kyrgyz like a 7-year-old, I may even look funny, but with two days shy of 30 years under my belt, there are a few things I’ve learned to do. Like which end of a knife to hold.

“You hold it like this, Baatyrbek,” Bolot-baike showed me, using my Kyrgyz name.

“Oooohhhh, thanks Bolot-Baike!” I answered enthusiastically, “I thought I was supposed to hold it with my butt. So, I learned something today.”

Truth be told, I did learn a little more than that. Like how to find the cartilage between vertebrae under half an inch of meat. Or how to rip out the hip sinew with my teeth. And I did make a few errant cuts; the guests may grumble a bit about that hunk missing from the side of the spine. But then again they’re my guests, and they would be grumbling about the host.

imageHow to slaughter a pumpkin (not quite as bloody)

Turning 30 is a bit of a milestone. Every year is I suppose, but I’ve spent so long defining myself as a “twenty-something” that I’m not sure how this fourth decade is going to go. The thirties are a whole new ballgame. Or, slaughter, or whatever.

It felt almost like a rite of passage. Like I had been turned loose in the jungle with nothing but a loincloth and a stick and I had come back with a tiger. Except I was standing outside my front door, wearing a jacket and holding a knife over a tied up sheep. Sheep are quite possibly the lamest adversaries in the entire animal kingdom. You really get the sense that God was not giving us a compliment when he had Jesus continually refer to us as such.

So my sheep laid down its life for our little bit of humanity, my friends, my neighbors, the people I’ve grown so much to love over this past year. Plus now if I’m ever lost in the woods and a sheep walks by, I know I’ll be ok.

I am America

If you’ve done a little bit of digging into becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer you’ve likely come across the Ten Core Expectations. Think the Ten Commandments but rendered much less memorable through the government’s uncanny ability to make simple communication incomprehensible.

It’s the kind of stuff that seems profound and important, but for the life of you, the moment you’ve set the list down, you can’t recall a single expectation in any detail. You know there’s something in there about being a good person and serving well, so thinking that’s enough you put it aside until you’re told to read it again. Unfortunately this usually doesn’t come until a warranted prompting from persons somehow aware of what you may or may not have been doing the other week when you thought no one was watching. And then you’re like, “Hmm…maybe I should have paid more attention to that bit in #5 about being responsible 24/7…”

Since we’re talking about slaps-on-the-forehead, let me now recall Core Expectation #9: Recognize that you will be perceived, in your host country and community, as a representative of the people, cultures, values, and traditions of the United States of America.

Note the polysyllable, representative. It’s nice to think that people will see me as a delegate, a passageway so to speak, through which American culture and values freely flow allowing perceptive considerations and weighing of differences through acute perspective. But in reality, my relationship with America is much more intimate. I am America. For many people in my village I’m the only American they have ever interacted with, and every little quirk about me gets laid on every other American like a kind of itchy, stereotyped blanket. “Why are all Americans a bit pudgy about the middle? Why don’t Americans iron their shirts? And why do they look so funny riding horses?”

My only redemption lies in the fact that the good things can settle too. Maybe I am a bit weird. Maybe we all are. But if after I’m gone people think, “Americans aren’t so bad. In fact, despite their inability to slaughter sheep properly, they are kind of nice and helpful,” I’ll consider my Core Expectations fulfilled.

imageWear them proud

Grandpa really did walk uphill both ways

There’s this old man living in our house. He’s been here a few months now. We call him Chong-Ata or “Big-Father.” He’s my host grandpa and recently celebrated his 84th Birthday – no small feat in a country with a current life expectancy of 65. Until recently, I didn’t know much about him other than the envy I have for his life of quiet leisure.

Over the past few months our conversations have been mostly limited to “How did you sleep?” and “Pass the sugar.” For a man who spends most of his time napping and drinking tea these are actually quite useful phrases; however, I began to work up the courage to ask a few more questions. My chance came one evening when we were all around the dinner table, sipping our last cups of tea.

Grandpa Jumabek was the oldest male of eight children, and when his father passed away, the responsibility of caring for his family fell literally on his shoulders. It was the late 1930s and food was scarce in the Kara-Suu Valley where the family lived. To the north over a mountain range lived his aunt, and knowing her family had food, he decided to make the trip to ask for help. Wearing a thin pair of shoes, Jumabek trekked for three days up and through a narrow pass, arriving in the Chui Valley on the other side. After staying a couple days, his aunt sent him back up over the mountains with two sacks of flour and a donkey in tow. Returning home, he was exhausted, having worn off a layer of skin on his feet leaving them bloodied and raw. Jumabek was only nine years old.

At nine years old I was proud of making my own sandwich. Being the breadwinner for an entire family is so much more badass.

My awe for this man grew, as did his stature. A broad and imposing man, I had to look twice to realize he’s actually several inches shorter than I am. It’s amazing what high regard can do for a person through the eyes of the admirer.

So the next time you see a man surrounded by a gaggle of admiring grandkids spinning tales with “back in my day,” think twice before you disbelieve. He might just be telling the truth.

imageOnce shouldering a injured horse, Chong-Ata now shoulders three generations.