Manaschis, or how I ended up at a lecture in Kyrgyz

A listserv that I've subscribed to recently advertised the following event:

"On Writing the History of Women in pre-modern Central Asia:Issues and Approaches" Dr. Nurten Kilic-Schubel, US Fulbright Fellow in KyrgyzstanApril 16, 2009, 4 PM University of Central Asia Meeting Room, (207 Panfilov Street, 3rd Floor)

I arrived at the University, had some problems getting through "security" because I made the mistake of stopping to sign in instead of just walking past like everyone else. Finally they let me go when I gave them my hospital ID card from Bangkok because they didn't know what lecture I was talking about and didn't know what to do with me.

I got to the room the lecture was supposed to be in, but it didn't seem right. Everyone was speaking Kyrgyz. I assumed they would start speaking English when the lecture began, but soon I realized that the lecture had begun, and the lecture was in Kyrgyz. When a man started chanting and singing in the traditional Kyrgyz hat (that some have uncharitably likened to an embroidered dunce cap), I realized I was in the wrong place. What are Manaschis? I'm lazy, and don't know much about them myself, so let's cut and past from Wikipedia, shall we?

The Epic of Manas is a traditional epic poem of
the Kyrgyz people.
Manas is the name of the epic's hero. One recording
of the orally transmitted poem, with close to half a million lines, is twenty
times longer than
Homer's Odyssey and Iliad combined, or
about twice as long as the Mahābhārata. The epic tells the story of Manas, his
descendants and his followers. Battles against Kitay and Kalmak enemies form
a central theme in the epic. Although the epic is mentioned as early as the 15th
century, it was not set down in written form until 1885.
Different opinions abound regarding the origin of the epic: the 7th—10th
centuries, the 11th and 12th centuries and the 15th through 18th
centuries.
Manas is the classic centerpiece of Kyrgyz literature, and parts
of it are often recited at Kyrgyz festivities by specialists in the epic, called
Manaschi (Kyrgyz:
Манасчы). Manaschis are usually called to their profession in a dream. In this
dream, they meet Manas or other characters from the epic, who tell them to
become Manas narrators. If they do not obey, they believe they will fall ill or
become crippled. Manaschis tell the tale in a melodic chant unaccompanied by
musical instruments.

I was the only person in the room who wasn't Kyrgyz and understood almost nothing.

Labour for the benefit of Motherland brings happiness

Before I came to Bishkek, I was planning to work part time as an English teacher, both to offset my costs here and to get a better feel for the place. Once I arrived, however, I got a bit lazy, and decided that the meager salary was hardly worth my limited time in the country.

So far my fair share of free time and minimal responsibilities have prevented me from regretting this decision. Yet from time to time I hear a story from the teachers here that actually makes me wish I taught a class or two (for a moment, then the feeling passes). The local students at the school here seem to treat the foreign teachers quite well: they give them chocolates, home-made baked goods, flowers and other gifts. Some invite the teachers to restaurants, cafes, museums or even their hometowns.

All this I can pass up. But one of the teachers recently hit the jackpot, and I am jealous. Daniel was given this book, printed in 1978 by a student. The name of the book is something like The City of Frunze. Frunze is the capital's former name, after Russian military officer Mikhail Frunze.

I love the colors, I love the pictures.

Who will win? (Oodarysh wedding)

Students

Goods with the trade-mark "Made in Kirghiza" are known all over the world.

New apartment blocks in Sovietskaya Street.

Alexei Nikolaevich Kosyghin in Kirghizia.

Labour for the benefit of Motherland brings happiness.

A view of the Central Department Store "Aichurek."

(This is the 1978 version of my 2009 neighbourhood. The department store is still there but now called Tsum Aichurek, or just Tsum. You can see the circus in the background - it is the thing that looks like a flying saucer.)

Russian 102: Запор

Russian 102: Запор

Запор (n): Constipation. Even has its own entry in Urban Dictionary.

Is anyone planning on sending me a care package? If so, could you please include one or more of the following: prunes, Fiber Drinks, whatever is the opposite of Immodium AD?

Here it is a bit “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.” The markets and bazaars are overflowing with tasty, fresh produce, but when you eat in a restaurant or in someone’s house, the closest thing you’ll get to a vegetable-based dish is borsch or a pickled salad. Last night as I ate the meat/potato/oil soup cooked by my new roommates, I had the first and hopefully last pang of desire to become a raw foodist. This abundance of fat and oil and lack of fresh produce has left me a bit uncomfortable and irregular.

Yet this very problem is culturally anticipated, and both of the households in which I’ve lived have provided remedies for this and other maladies with a cute selection of Chinese tea cups filled with an assortment of homemade preserves.

(Yes, those are dead mosquitos)

“This one,” Aika said, pointing to the red one, “is for gripp, you know, when you are ill, like cold. The purple one is from a purple fruit. It is for zapor. Do you know zapor?” Yes, I know zapor. I am on very intimate terms with zapor. “The orange one is for the opposite of zapor.” While I enjoy putting these preserves on my bread in the morning, both Aika’s family and the student trio prefer to stir their chosen remedy into their tea.

This reminds me of a story a friend from University, Jamie, related to me after her summer internship at an English language learning publishing house in Japan. She was to repeat every phrase they gave her in the cheeriest, brightest English possible. Some of the phrases struck her as inappropriate for English, but her objections were ignored. My favorite out of her examples, and the only one I can remember now, happens to be none other than: “I’m feeling constipated today!”

How I found a new place

Although there were many things I loved about the homestay (Aika’s kindness, the family’s hospitality, the Sunday banya, the Russian practice, the endless inspiration for new blog posts), some things quickly started to wear on me (the constant power outages common outside the city center, the lack of bathing facilities outside of Sunday, the mother’s not so subtle mockery of my Russian, the war the food fought with my stomach).

Of course all these could be chalked up to cultural experiences. But when I learned the school pocketed half the $300 monthly rent, I was sufficiently annoyed to explore other options. Of course, moving back to the schools “flats” – more like dormitories next door to English classrooms – would be even worse.

One of the English teachers at the school – a fellow Mid-Westerner named Kole – told me about a local student who mentioned she would love the opportunity to have a foreign roommate. I sent her a text message and we met the next day. She invited me to her flat where I met her other two flatmates. To Google-proof my present and future gossip, I will rename them Alya, Berma and Amira. The three of them all grew up together in Jalalabad, a city in the south near Osh and Uzbek border.

When the other two were out of earshot, Amira described their personalities as if they were some new Kyrgyz twist on Betty and Veronica. Amira saw herself as studious, intelligent, but a little impractical and forgetful. She characterized Berma as the mother of the three, who due to her excellent culinary skills ended up doing most of the cooking, and Alya, who I think Amira doesn’t really like, as the party-girl who rarely studies.

We sat in the kitchen drinking tea, and Berma said to me, “We’ve made you our National Dish Besh Barmak, because we thought you would like it.” Yum.

They showed me the apartment: the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room and the vacant room. It was quite big, with a double bed and a large row of three identical wardrobes. I was a bit confused, and I didn’t think the apartment had more than two bedrooms total.

“Where will you sleep?” I asked Amira. She brushed off the question and I pressed. She opened a door across from the vacant room, which had two desks, a computer, and a few rolled-up Kyrgyz bed mats on the floor. She quickly explained that they don’t sleep on the bed anyway, because they all have problems with their backs, and they prefer to sleep this way.

Before I left, Amira and I sat down and talked about our “schedules, hobbies and routines.” She told me some details about the house and asked if I had any questions. I asked how much the room was per month. She looked at me, astonished. “No!” she said, both surprised and emphatic. “You are our guest!”

I insisted that I must pay something, and suggested we split the rent four ways. I asked her why she didn’t want to let me pay. She looked at me, confused and perhaps slightly annoyed with my persistence. “Did you pay the other family to live with them?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That is very strange to me! It is not our custom. Maybe it is because I am from the south, and this is Bishkek, a big city. But it is not our custom to charge foreign guests when they stay with us. Sometimes I do not understand people from Bishkek.” She added, “It is my dream to live with a foreigner for 11 years.”

Maybe it is rude, but I had trouble accepting this, and she eventually agreed to let me pay something, which we have yet to iron out. I decided to stay with them, despite the American guilt weighing on me. The girls were all very nice, but I felt a bit strange about how excited they were about living with me. I am so exotic and interesting that a young girl in Kochkar asks for my autograph and gives me a lollypop in return, and in Bishkek three university students want me to have their only real bedroom.

Of course the more critical view is that I am just an average American who has managed to save up a few thousand dollars to take advantage of the extremely low cost of labor in Kyrgyzstan (remember: 4 dollars an hour for private Russian lessons), a country with comparatively few Western tourists, and am being rewarded with kindness and hospitality even though I don’t really deserve it, as the main reason I chose Kyrgyzstan over Moscow or St. Petersburg was the cost.

I haven’t been asked “Is it true that everyone in America has their own car?” but I have been asked “Is it true that in America everyone has their own bedroom and children sleep in beds?”

The Feast

As I approached the house walking back from class the other night, I saw a good number of guests through the kitchen window. I tried to sneak upstairs to do my homework and relax, but Aika sat me down at the kitchen table with a bowl of tea. The guests were in and out of the kitchen and my homestay mother rolled out dough on the counter. Pointing to her mother’s rolling pin, Aika asked me, “Do you do this in America?” I said yes, and mentioned my mother’s excellent bread, pizza crust and baking.

“No,” Aika clarified in English. “This isn’t for bread, this is for…like spaghetti! Do you make spaghetti at home in America?”

I had to admit that no, most people purchased ready-made pasta. I wanted to say that only yuppies made pasta at home, but this seemed like it would be too difficult to explain. “In Kyrgyzstan, many people are like in America nowadays,” she explained. “They are lazy and they don’t make spaghetti at home.”

She finished rolling out the pasta and disappeared into another room. I found myself staring at Aika’s sister across the table, not really understanding why. Then I suddenly realized she looks just like my aunts Kathy and Karen. I told her and Aika this, and she was very pleased. Aika said, “My sister looks like American?!”

“Many people say I do not look like a Kyrgyz,” her sister explained, smiling. “My hair and eyes are light. Kyrgyz people used to be beautiful, and European. Then the Mongols came through and gave us these Asian eyes and dark hair.” “Like mix!” added a cousin in English. I suppose anyone can claim European heritage these days.

Finally the food was ready and I followed the crowd into the living room. I was given a place on the sofa next to two very large aunts. Aika and her mother disappeared, and I was left with the relatives I had just met. This was especially disturbing as Aika is the only one in the family who speaks English.


The big people’s table

The aunts and I exchanged pleasantries for awhile and I learned one of them had been to New York. Her son had moved there years ago and she had visited “before September 11th.” She said now it was much more difficult for Kyrgyz people to visit and emigrate to America. I am not trying to make political commentary by retelling this, it is just the only thing that came out of her mouth that I understood. Then we began the plow through the usual questions. Do you like Kyrgyzstan? What do you like about Kyrgyzstan? I gave the only answer I could think of, which was “Yes, I love the food, the people and the mountains.” What else could there be to like? Even the travel guide admits that there are only 2 or 3 manmade attractions in the entire country. But this answer was obviously insufficient. One of the other aunts huffed, “Aren’t there mountains in America?” I was saved by a cute little 2 year old who ran up to us chewing on a sheep’s foot mumbling something in Kyrgyz.

Everyone persistently cut and chewed away at the sheep that had been cooked, chopped up and piled on a variety of platters. The head sat upon one, but now Aika’s brother-in-law was busy cutting and serving up the intestines in bite size chunks. They somehow looked tasty. This was the first time I had ever been around Kyrgyz people who left their tea pot to go cold as they focused exclusively on the sheep. They picked at the besh barmak noodles sitting in bowls at either side of the table.

I nibbled away at the kimchi and biscuits to justify my presence at the table, but this did not fool them. “Is it interesting to you how we eat meat in Kyrgyzstan?” asked Aika’s mother, who was momentarily sitting on the chair of the sofa next to me, laughing and holding a bone in her hand. I didn’t know if the answer should be yes or no, so I smiled. I suppose I should have said “Let there be good digestion.” An uncle told me, “One day you will be an old babushka and you will tell your grandchildren how Kyrgyz people eat meat with their hands!” Another asked if I wanted to take a picture. I guess this is all only fair. Little did they know I wouldn’t wait until my babushka days to tell my entire family about the night via blogger.com. I feel a bit guilty.

Aika appeared from the kitchen and invited me to join her and some of the younger members of the family. “Are you ok? Are you uncomfortable or embarrassed?” she whispered in English. I said I was fine, but took my leave and followed her anyway.


The kids' table

Hanging out in the kitchen made me feel a lot more comfortable, but I suppose there is always less scrutiny at the “kids’ table”. I sat there with Aika, The cousin hung on every stab of my broken Russian as I answered his litany of questions. Of course the first question is usually: Where are you from in America? Of course I don’t expect Kyrgyz people to know what or where Michigan is as I am sure the vast majority of Michigan’s population is similarly unaware of the Kyrgyz, so I said I was from Detroit. There was a bit of recognition in his eyes, so I followed up with “Eminem.”

“Oh, yes!” he said. “Eighty Meters, da?” Yes, Eight Mile, I said. He was very impressed that I came from the same place as Eminem, so he asked me what other famous people were from Michigan. I mentioned Henry Ford. “Cars. Ford Cars.” He found this interesting, but was disappointed when I told him Ford had passed away many years ago.

Is Gollywood a state or a city? Do you like Arnold the Terminator? Where does Jennifer Lopez live? Had I seen such-and-such film? Where is Hillary Clinton from? Where is Hawaii, and is it really a part of the U.S.? Where is Obama from? Where do the Indians (of the subcontinent) live in America? Where do the Irish live? Is Florida a prestigious state? How much is the minimum monthly salary? How much is an apartment in Gollywood? How much does a gamburger cost? Where is Chinatown?

He asked me my profession. I said I taught English in the past, but will go to grad school next year, and hopefully find a new profession. “Like what?” I said I wasn’t sure, maybe I would work in a firm, in the government, or for an NGO. He said, “Yes, but what profession? Teacher? Engineer? Doctor?” Good question. We called Aika over, and I tried to explain to her in English that even though my liberal arts Bachelor’s Degree had gotten me nowhere, I was now going to get a Master’s Degree in something similar and hope some employer would take an interest in me. The only thing she could relate this to is the people who make nature documentaries on the Discovery Channel. I said yes, kind of like that, but I don’t think I’ll make any movies. The cousin didn’t really like this idea, and recommended that I become a bookkeeper. “If you are a bookkeeper, then you get the most money, after the boss. You give everyone their salary and then you get to give yourself your own salary! I studied bookkeeping.” He has a point.