New Phone

I was in Bishkek today with a few of my friends. We went to the Hyatt to use the ATM and change money. We were walking through the lobbies like starry eyed kids because everything was so clean and pretty. Six months ago that wouldn’t have phased me. Now I notice every detail. We were so excited to use the bathrooms too, they’re just like the ones in America. I confess that we stole some toilet paper. I felt so low class, but that didn’t stop me. I was impressed by how nice the people were. They knew we weren’t going to spend money, but they didn’t treat us bad like they would in the U.S. We relaxed for a while and had a cup of American coffee. It was delicious, but expensive. The cost was 90 com or $2.25, but these days that’s a lot of money.

We had our language proficiency interview a few days ago. Peace Corps hired a woman who used to teach Russian to volunteers, but wasn’t invited back due to bad reviews. Anyhow, she came to our village and we each had a 15 minute interview. She was horrible. She didn’t smile at anyone and didn’t respond to our jokes or questions. Lemon Face (the nickname we gave her) gave me a low score, but my Kyrgyz learning has been going very well. My teacher went in after I came out and explained to her that the score does not reflect my ability. Lemon Face changed my score, but it still doesn’t reflect my language skill. I was so upset, that I had to walk out on her to keep my temper in check. It felt like Lemon Face undermined all of the work I’ve put into this language with a 15 minute interview. And I have a lot of pride, which made me angrier when I didn’t score higher than everyone else. I came home and cried in my room for a long time. When my Apa realized how upset I was, she went to my teacher’s house and asked her why her daughter was crying. My Apa says I speak Kyrgyz well and the examiner was wrong, and then she brought my teacher home. Apa even put her teeth in before she went to my teacher’s house. Now that’s love. I didn’t think my family had grown too fond of me, but I guess they just have a different way of showing it.

I hope everyone at home had a great Thanksgiving. It didn’t feel like Thanksgiving here. I went to a café with some other volunteers for our feast. We had a great time. I got some of my friends to do the Turkey Dance to a techno song. The tradition lives on! Then I had everyone singing any song we knew. We sat in that café singing for a few hours, which I absolutely loved. I hope Christmas goes as easily as Thanksgiving did, but I doubt it will. The Kyrgyz people thought that Friday was a holiday as well, and we couldn’t figure out why. They saw footage of people mobbing the stores for the Day After Thanksgiving sales, and thought it was a holiday of some sort. The worst things about American culture are the ones that get exported on a mass scale. I constantly have to negate misperceptions people get from watching movies. And they also think that all black people are bad. They rarely see them in Kyrgyzstan and see bad characters on TV. That’s one of the things that bothers me the most, but I can’t change them. I can only offer a little insight that skin color doesn’t matter, and hope they take it to heart.