pcv

It’s about the people

As Peace Corps Volunteers we sometimes find ourselves saying, “I could do my job if it weren’t for these damn people.” It’d be so much funnier if we could catch ourselves in the irony. But we get caught up, rather, in the frustrations of trying to get things done in the ways we want to do them, on our time, under our conditions, for our own goals.

I believe every volunteer is here because they want to help people. I can think of about 187 other places I could go to take a two-year vacation, and despite their obvious draws and benefits, I’m also not here for the sheep fat dinners, pit toilets or bi-monthly bathing sessions. But I do enjoy shooting the breeze around a meal, digging a hole with a neighbor and the occasional back scrub at the local sauna from a newfound friend.

The give and take is found here too – it starts here in fact, in the day-to-day stuff that makes up so much of our experiences. In order to help people we first get to know who they are, what they want and how they want to go about getting it. It’s their goals we’re after, and if it’s through our methods, then we have adapted them to make sense to the people whom they benefit. The Peace Corps wouldn’t be here if there weren’t things that needed to be changed, but we have to remember that in the end it’s not about procedures but about relationships. Yes, it’s going to be frustrating at times. But that’s because we’re working with people. And that’s why we’re here.

The usefulness of being able to communicate with another 0.06% of the world’s population

I speak Kyrgyz. Or, at least strange sounding syllables spill from my mouth that occasionally result in shared meaning. It might be the gestures though. It’s amazing the number of things you can get by simply pointing and grunting.

They say if you learn Chinese you can instantly communicate with another 1.3 billion people. The only catch is they’re all in China. (Well, if we’re speaking percentages, mostly anyway.) There’s nothing wrong with China, but you have to have pretty specific business to make the language knowledge worth it. Now take Kyrgyz. We’re talking 5 million, tops. You have to have a very specific reason to use that long term, like marrying a Kyrgyz person or being locked in a Kyrgyz prison for drug trafficking.

From the beginning I only had two goals for my Peace Corps service: make friends and learn the language. These come slowly for me and especially the language half – I have to study the same things over and over again until they stick. Yet, I’ve never regretted a single moment spent studying. Despite the persistent question of future usefulness, I guarantee you that every little thing I learn now is immediately beneficial. And learning the language helps make huge strides with making friends, too.

And that’s why I spend the hours and the energy, and soak in the sweat that drips from concentration and embarrassment alike. I do this to make my time effective, to make my time worth it and to grow these relationships. The Kyrgyz might only be one tiny fraction of the world, but they’re the whole world to me.

imageA lesson in vowel-harmony zen from Bakyt-Baike, our fearless tutor

Call your family

You are driving in a car with your wife and mother on the way to a party. While crossing a river, another car swerves and causes you to go careening off the edge into the water. As the car is sinking you realize you only have time to save one person, either your mother, or your wife. Whom do you save?

This question was presented to us in a cultural anthropology class I took in college. It was a scenario from a study that had been done some years before. I still remember the Saudi men’s overwhelming majority answer: Mother, of course. You only have one. You can always get another wife.

While I can’t say that answer would come so easily for me (sorry mom?), I like to think the Saudi men’s answers show a deep devotion toward family more so than a lack of concern for a drowning wife…?

As Peace Corps volunteers we’re given 48 days of leave that can be used throughout the two years of service. This time can be used to travel in country, but most people use a lot of their time for out of country travel to neighboring “far-off” places since plane tickets are cheap and, heck! we have the time. At Christmas break and after seven months in country, I was one of only two volunteers who made the trip back to the States. The reasons for not going back were varied: insufficient funds, too soon, rather go somewhere else, and not wanting to see what is being missed. I don’t think there’s a single Peace Corps Volunteer who doesn’t miss friends and family they’ve left behind, but for me, those reasons simply couldn’t hold a candle to how much I missed people back home.

My parents will be my parents for life. My sisters won’t ever stop being my sisters. And because they’re family I want to keep getting to know them and continue these very significant relationships in my life. It was really hard to leave again and return to Kyrgyzstan, but I am so happy for each memory we made back home.

I try to live by few mantras, and “Let the wife drown” certainly hasn’t made the select list. Yet, a piece of paper ripped from a notebook is taped to the wall above my desk. Scrawled there bubble letters it reads, “Call your fam.” It’s a decision I never regret.

Life is really, really hard. And then it gets harder. And then you die.

Several years ago I came up with a relative definition of “adult.” The more responsibility you have, the more of an adult you are. This definition is not based on age, or even experience, but rather on a level of assumed responsibility. That means a 22-year-old with a spouse, two kids, full time job and house payment is more of an adult than the 35-year-old living in an apartment with a part-time job and an xbox. (As if that was hard to tell.) But I think the definition works for more nuanced situations as well.

Horses don’t just slaughter themselves, you know

Life is going to be hard whether you live as a 22-year-old producer or 35-year-old siphon. That’s the short of it. Yet the more responsibility you take on, the more complicated and difficult it becomes. Add to that a determination to live for God and you have a divine edict promising it will be.

Life is really, really hard, and then it gets harder, and then you die. This is actually a hopeful realization. It means that the difficulties in life are to be expected and that there isn’t full joy until we see Jesus face to face on the other side of this life. It allows us to not get frustrated when what we thought would bring us joy just ends up being a burden.

The joy comes not in the things themselves, nor in the work itself. Our tilled earth is cursed and nothing grows without toil. But just as God promises hardships, he also promises a measure of joy surpassing the hardship when the work is done for Him.

So keep working. And don’t let the work be done in vain. Life is really hard with or without God. But with God, there is hope.

Fables only sound ridiculous when they’re not your fables

The presumed father of all Kyrgyz people is this man called Manas. I wanted to write “legend” instead of man, but people here really believe he was a real person. And maybe he was, before the stories grew.

Manas is like what Paul Bunyan would be if he had founded a religion and was also the moral center of the government. The stories surrounding him are epic. I’ve even climbed a mountain he built with his bare hands.

image Newly-wed photo shoot under the watchful eye of Manas

There’s this million-line poem too about him called The Epic of Manas and some people devote their entire lives to memorizing huge stretches of it. It’s spoken in a kind of trance verging on the spiritual and indeed, the times of old must have been. Us foreigners chuckle in vindication when we read the history books that say much of what is known of Manas was compiled a hundred years ago and then systematically disseminated by the Soviets.

But the thing is, we have fables too, even if we don’t label them as such. Like self-esteem or six o’clock dinner. We just can’t see them because we’re so entrenched. And even if someone opens our eyes to our own absurdities we grow indignant and feel attacked.

Now sometimes I feel like I have the right to be defensive. I’ve given up a lot to be here and have adapted and changed so much I feel like a chameleon who’s forgotten his true color. I don’t want to abandon self-esteem or six o’clock dinner. I happen to know they’re cultural and that right there has a big deal to do with why I like them, thank you very much.

My host mother told me a few weeks ago, “You’re the one who came to Kyrgyzstan so you’re the one that needs to change. Get used to it.” While that’s not the most accommodating sentiment I’ve received since coming, it might be the most realistic. It allows me to see a little better what others go through when they reach our shores. “This ain’t ching-chong China, bud. We do things the right way here.” We think they should change – they must follow the rules. But unlike human rights, most rules pour from culture and don’t make sense to those who haven’t been steeped in it their whole lives.

So we hang on to our own and yet change and adapt. We see both sides and feel the pain as we twist and stretch to try and be in both places at once, both mindsets at once. I’ll never get used to eating at 10pm and then going to bed. Or my stomach won’t, anyway. But I might be able to listen to a story or two of Manas before I drift off to sleep. He was a pretty incredible man.