Thanks Kevin!

This is a rather short post of something that a Facebook update just wouldn’t cover. Let’s rewind about 2 months ago, our (John, Meghan, and myself) friend Kevin (who is also coincidentally from flagstaff, hooray!), had a camp on the north shore of Issy-Kul. Now, let me also preface this with the fact that not all volunteers live with host families, after the 3 months volunteers are relieved from their probationary period and are allowed to find their own housing accommodation, usually an apartment. This is not an option for some volunteers, who live in villages where there are no apartment complexes, yours truly. But Karakol is a relatively large city, so 90% of Karakol volunteers live on their own.

Kevin has a very nice apartment in Karakol, and is also one of our favorite places to crash at during our weekend trips into the city. Now Kevin was going to be gone for a month at this camp, so what does he do? Does he take his keys with him? Does he tell us all to stay with other volunteers? No, he handed us the keys to his apartment and tells us to have fun. Not expected, but very cool nonetheless. So far every volunteer in the city has been super cool with us staying at their place for weekend excursions but handing keys over with the only caveat being don’t burn the place down. Downright awesome!

John, Meghan and I were obviously very impressed by Kevin’s generosity, and felt we had to make it up to him in some way. So upon his arrival back from camp, we made him a feast of Mexican food. Now what maybe cheap back in the states, costs a fortune over here. I swear canned beans and flat bread (tortillas) were a majority of the cost. Not really, but were outrageously expensive. We went all out for this meal, we bought a whole chicken (cost us 2 full days of pay), rice, beans, and even chocolate for an amazing mole sauce. We go to a specialty cheese and meat shop and buy 200 grams, almost half a pound, of cheese. Then decide that 200 gr is not enough and buy another 200 to bring our total for the meal to about 1500 som. 33 dollars is a lot of money for one meal over here mind you… Now we go back and make a masterfully crafted Mexican feast, complete with beans, rice, and the first chicken enchiladas I’ve had in country, and they were amazing! So Kevin comes over just as the enchiladas were all gooey and fresh out of the oven. We all sit down and start eating our amazing meal, we all give our thanks to Kevin for his generosity with the apartment, and what does he say? “Guys, I’m a vegetarian.”

Go Buckeyes!

As with most developing countries, Kyrgyzstan has some of the most interesting written English you will ever see. Chinese imitation clothing is just about as popular as breathing in the KG. Shirts that have Latin script letters just for the sake of having letters are pretty popular, as are the Adidas fakes. The rip-offs are absolutely shameless with their copies. Words like ‘Trademark’ or ‘Copyright’ might as well be in… well, in English. You don’t see the off brands here where the colors are a little bit different or they use 4 stripes instead of 3 like in the states. Everything is exactly the same, everything except when some poor Chinese worker has to write in English. I have seen so many Abibas, Adibas, Addidas, and Ebbibas that seeing an actual pair is quite shocking.

Armani takes a close second for trendy Kyrgyz brands, I myself, recently purchased a nice pair of brown stretchy corduroys with fleece lining at Osh Bazaar made by the popular and most reputable, Armmannill of Shanghai. The sad truth of the matter is that the English language is by large associated with prosperity and affluency. And generally it is at the cost of grandmothers wearing shirts with large print curse words or manly men with shirts that say things like ‘sports girl’. Another reason I am glad to be teaching English on the side.

Another favorite are Kyrgyz toys. In Bishkek a while back I saw a nice little white and pink toy horse, any little Kyrgyz girl would love to play with. That is, until she finds out her ‘My Little Pony’ actually reads ‘Demon Donkey’ in nicely coordinated light blue lettering. A while later In Karakol I also found a toy gun emblazoned in bright red words a not-so-nice, ‘Kill! Kill! Kill!’. No wonder the boys are all so tentek here. Parents will soon be telling their children that their bad behavior is spawned not from watching too much television but from reading too many English words.

Coming from a place where even the cars are rumored to be Chinese rip-offs, the occasional real shirt makes for a huge and generally random surprise. Today I came home to my Apa wearing an Ohio State University shirt, it has the correct school colors, Ohio State logo and no misspellings- a true OSU original. I still have no idea where she got it. But needless to say, I completely lost it. We’re talking doubled over laughter, lost it. Go Buckeyes!