Letter chronicles life in Kyrgyzstan for Peace Corps volunteer

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Special to The Vindicator/Sarah Legow TEACHING ASSIGNMENT: Ben Legow, a Liberty native and Peace Corps volunteer, is living in a village in northern Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. He is teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) to young students there for two years.

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TRAVELING MAN: Ben Legow was photographed earlier this year by his sister, Sarah, while they were traveling through Central Asia before he headed for his assignment in Kyrgyzstan. He says his term as a K-17 volunteer in the Peace Corps is an opportunity to travel out into the world and be useful while doing so.

Editor’s note: Liberty native Ben Legow has been writing home of his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in northern Kyrgyzstan, and his family has agreed to share his letters periodically. Here is a recent one:

“So let me begin by pointing out that karma is an absolute bastard. I, being a typically gracious Midwesterner, have been poking fun at my fellow volunteers’ complaints of ‘cold!’ for weeks now.

“Our village is playing host to ten Americans, only two of whom are from either north of the Mason Dixon or east of the Rockies. It’s a very sunbelt group, which, whenever the mercury fails to top 65, (which has been all but about two days here) results in a constant stream of bitching and moaning and praising of the importance of wearing thermals and boots.

“I’ve done my part to terrify my fellows when possible (Wait, did Ben just say it can get too cold to snow? What!?) and have generally felt a warm glow of self-satisfaction that I don’t whine like an 8-year-old whenever the sky clouds over and the wind picks up. Mmmm. Midwest pride, it’s what keeps me warm at night, folks. And in my defense, it’s not like there’s snow on the ground. Yes, it has been rainy, but it’s never dropped below 40 during the day since we’ve been here.

“But as I mentioned above, at a certain point the seasons get the best of us all, and after weeks of drinking in the misery of my weather-impaired fellows, now I’m enjoying a fine full-bodied cold, with distinct overtones of hacking cough and froggy throat. Vengeance has been served cold, indeed. (Man, overwriting is fun, isn’t it?)

“So, in short, I’m sick. Woo. Another of the benefits of international travel, besides interesting people, sites and food, is the whole array of new and often permanent diseases one may encounter. Although I suppose these days, you don’t have to leave home to run into weird-sounding maladies. What’s storming around home these days, swine flu? We spent a decade freaking out over avian flu, and it turns out that the pigs were out to get us all along? Well, it would be nice if you all didn’t contract it and die, so work on that.

“So far, it seems that being a Peace Corps Volunteer Trainee (PCVT. Peace Corps has never met an acronym it did not love.) in a remote village in Central Asia has kept me free from the outside influence of this dastardly (?) malady. Then again, it’s also kept me free from the influence of pretty much anything not originating within the borders of the Kyrgyz Republic. Being a person who generally prides himself on having a pretty good idea of what’s going on the world, I’ve felt fairly cut off recently. Seriously, I have no idea what’s going on anymore. The only news of America I’ve heard in the past month is that everyone’s being murdered by sick pigs and the Cavs swept Detroit.

“Oh hoh, yes, the truth comes out at last. ‘Why,’ you may have asked yourself, ‘why, pray tell, hasn’t Ben dumped one of his patented I’m-Abroad-And-Gonna-Tell-You-Everything letter bombs on me yet?’ Well, I suppose I could say that I haven’t had time, which would be more than slightly accurate. I could also point out that there isn’t a functioning public modem within 20 kilometers of me (due to the fact that the close one was stolen the week I arrived). Since arriving in this country (Kyrgyzstan, in case you forgot. I’ll get into the details in a bit.), I’ve hit up the Internet three times. The first resulted in a brief letter to y’all (or most of y’all, anyway). The third attempt, yesterday, turned into an epic failure, during which I tried twice to read my e-mail, only to have the connection cut out on me, and finally when the connection settled down to let me start writing, the power cut out. Hurrah.

“Ahh, but the second? The second visit to an Internet café was when I had ample time and suitable electronic capacity to write to you, oh dear reader, and overwhelm your work day with accounts of low flying Soviet aircraft, angry donkeys, and glory of banya? All I can say, is that when you travel, it’s the little things that help keep you sane. Little things like reading up on how Cleveland and it’s noble Cavaliers smacked the ever-loving hell out of Detroit. Oh yes, they did. Mmmmm, little things.

“OK. Now that all that noise is out of my system, a bit on where I’m actually at. For the past month I’ve been living in a village in northern Krgyzstan, situated in a broad valley, probably about 10 miles wide, flanked by fairly impressive mountains to the north, some truly serious mountains to the west and positively ridiculous mountains to the south. On clear days, of which there are relatively few, the Ridiculous Mountains blaze white, snow capped and glorious over our village, and when I walk to language class, sometimes I’ll pause and stare and have an ‘Oh crap, I’m in Kyrgyzstan’ moment. Yet the locals take almost no notice of them, or when the giant chunks of rock on their doorsteps are brought to their attention by amazed foreigners, the locals give a contemptuous shrug. ‘Those? Those aren’t mountains. Go to Naryn (another oblast/state), that’s where the mountains are,’ my host mother informed me the other day with a cluck and a wave of her hand.

“For the record. these peaks are over 15,000 feet tall.

“Other prominent features of town include the sizable reservoir that has no water in it but plenty of goats, plenty of concrete housing, both occupied and abandoned, and three rotting relics of Soviet industry. The two concrete plants and textile mill have all been abandoned and fallen into highly photogenic, if economically unfortunate, states of disrepair since the Soviet collapse.

“Also, it’s a good way of bringing up home with the locals. ‘What’s Ohio look like? Funny you should ask.’

“Kyrgyzstan is poor, but it’s an odd sort of poor. We tend to think of absolute poverty in terms of what one doesn’t have. In this way, parts of India were easy to think about because they were incredibly rural and simply didn’t have any infrastructure at all. But while much of the world falls into the ‘have not’ category, Kyrgyzstan, and the other post-Soviet states, I imagine, sink into the ‘used to have’ section.

“Speaking of which, my host parents, Appa Maria, the wonder of the ages, and Atta Temurbek, who, while very nice to me, seems to be largely worn out from work and has little time to bother listening to me butcher his language (unless he’s been into the vodka, of course, Then it’s handshakes all around.). Appa and atta are the Kyrgyz words for mother and father, and are not to be forgotten. Neither are baike or eje, which translate as older brother and older sister. These things are important, because Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyz language are highly attuned to matters of status and title, with particular regard to age.

“Whenever I forget to use the formal ciz (akin to vous in French) with an elder, I tend to get a reproachful nod along with my correction. Little children use ciz with me and I’m supposed to use cen with them, and God help you if you use cen with an eje (literally your older sister, but really any older or old woman).

“For the time being, Appa Maria’s main concern in life seems to be making sure that I drink at minimum 10 bowls of tea per day. ‘Ben chai ich’ she will tell me. (‘Drink tea.’) Chai ich could well be the national motto, as it’s a phrase I probably hear at least eight to 10 times per day. If you do not drink tea, you’re liable to attract all sorts of maladies, such as my current condition, which Appa Maria blames on my unhealthy habit of drinking water that has fallen to room temperature.

“Let’s see, everything above was written about three days ago, and now I’ve largely recovered from above-mentioned cold, and have since learned that I’ve been assigned to actually do my volunteer work (as opposed to my current training) in Naryn Oblast.

“This will put me roughly at the center of the country and smack in the middle of a region featuring winters that can be harsh and long. Temperatures dipping to minus 50 degree Celsius are not uncommon. Sweet. Six to eight months of winter shouldn’t be too much more than living in Minnesota, right? I bet there’s still ice on Lake Calhoun.

“Naryn is remote, cold and largely free of Russian influences. And that’s largely the reason I requested to be sent there and happily was. Nothing against our former Slavic overlords, but I’m really not interested in having to deal with multiple foreign languages at once. Having to remember that in Kyrgyz, comparative adjectives ending in consonants require one right vowel shift and two left shifts, unless the word ends in an unvoiced consonant, which requires that it be switched for it’s sound pair (k for g, and p for b, and vice versa), is enough, thank you.

“Heh, honestly though, Kyrgyz isn’t all that complicated, and in a lot of ways is much more simply structured than English. There are grammar structures to be learned, but once you get your hands around the rules, they are invariably exception proof.

“Unlike English or that bane of my existence, French, which feature constant rule-breaking and spelling pitfalls. Take one look at the word ‘laugh’ and try to tell me our language isn’t needlessly over-spelled.

“With Kyrgyz, by the end of two months I’ll probably have at least covered pretty much the whole language structure. And then it’ll be two years of vocab crunching and trying to make myself sound reasonably comprehensible.

“Most important of all is learning enough Kyrgyz so that I can actually communicate with my future students. Some TEFL trainers claim that it’s possible to teach a new language entirely free of a student’s original tongue, but after 45 minutes of desperately trying to convey the concept of ‘library card’ to wholly uncomprehending Kyrgyz 7th graders who are far more fascinated in the fact that you’re simply present to care much about whatever it is you’re babbling, I think it’s fair to say said trainers are full of it.

“In my defense, the lesson, on ‘The Library’ was chosen from a (years? decades?) old Soviet English textbook, which has interesting ideas about British fish and chip consumption and promotes a largely cowboy-focused economic viewpoint of the United States. But still, gotta get this language down or one useless volunteer will I be.

“After the disaster in library description, I’ve since had some success in explaining the difference between is and are, and providing structure for physical descriptions, so I’m not totally drowning in the classroom. And this is actually sorta fun. To go from blank stares to the point where the lights click on is kind of exciting, and I’m looking forward to some moments like that from students of my own. However, it may take me months to deprogram it. But so help me God, they will not do their creepy welcoming chant to me. The process goes like this:

“Teacher: ‘Good afternoon students.’

“All students (in Orwellian unison): ‘Good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon to you! Good afternoon, dear teacher, we are glad to see you!’

“This is repeated before every English class, and, try as I might to get them to sit down beforehand, our Kyrgyz counterpart would always have them rise and deliver. I’ve no idea whose idea this little ritual was, but it absolutely freaks the hell out of me. I’m not exactly sure why, but it’s partially to do with the fact that outside of the song, a fair number of the students wouldn’t be able to reproduce and understand any of its words. How much more emblematic of wrote learning can you get? Also, the whole event for some reason brings to mind the twins in ‘The Shining.’ ‘Come play with us dear teacher! For ever and ever and ever and ...’ Damn, where’s your Big Wheel when you really need it?

“I swear to God, just a couple more notes and then I’ll let you be, I promise.

“So one fun thing about my current village is that it’s located near a Russian Airforce base. This is interesting for two reasons, the first being that you get to play the ‘Spot the Soldier’ at the local bazaar. The second fun bit about our neighbors is that every once in a while, if you listen carefully you can hear a deep rumbling noise, which very slowly seems to draw closer and closer, until suddenly you realize that it’s aimed directly for you and that blue green jet that had been in the distance is no more than 150 feet in the air and OH MY GOD. IT’S ONLY 150 FEET ABOVE ME!!! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“And then the locals get to laugh at you.

“But, what the hell, man. I could see the PILOT. How close do you need to be to see the freaking pilot?

“And finally, I would like to point out that our house (well Maria’s house) is defended by the most ferocious donkey the world has yet known. All tremble in the presence of Guard Donkey. Guard Donkey likes to flash his teeth at me. Those are not grass-eating teeth. Those are volunteer eating teeth. All fear the Guard Donkey.

“OK, that’s enough for now. There’s seriously tons more I could drop here, about food and animals and quality of life and volunteer culture and interpersonal relations and the quality of Kyrgyz teeth, but I’ll have to get to that another time.

“I hope everyone is well, I’ll try to write more often and in more digestible chunks.

Take Care,

Ben

“PS: Oh, crap. I forgot about the banya! OK, real quick, a banya is basically a squat steam room and is really the only way to bath here. Once a week (your body gets used to not bathing fairly easily. And don’t roll your eyes at me, the female volunteers say that too), Appa Maria loads up the banya oven with wood and the week’s garbage (better than dumping it in the street, I suppose) and gets the hot water tank in the room boiling and pumping steam. Once the room temp is up around, God, I dunno, it feels like 100 with equal humidity, you undress, set up your wash and rinse buckets, lock the door behind you, sit down and sweat for the next hour. The time issue is of critical importance. If you get out of the banya before at least a half hour, your appa will yell at you, and you have to go back inside it again. Not that you’d much want to get out in the first place. Banya is glory. I’ve got the “Wild Bunch” on my computer, and there’s a scene in there when William Holden and his folks are in a steam room and he says ‘I’m gonna build me one of these and live in it.’ This sentiment is generally shared by all the volunteers. Nothing is as clean, or fresh or as cool and delightful as the moment you step out of the banya and the breeze hits you. Mmm. Sweet, sweet banya. Plus, sitting in there is a moment of total and complete calm in a largely confusing and semi-incomprehensible country, so that’s good too.

Don’t Die,

Your Man in Stan

“So what have I been up to recently? There’s been much in the way of teaching and attempting to convey the English language. This, while initially terrifying sounding (here you are, you don’t speak the language and the kids are all staring at you like you’re from the Black Lagoon. Make ’em speak English), this is actually a pretty fun process and so far have transmitted fun concepts such as ‘myself and my description’ and taught the kids how to do fun things like ‘How old you are?’, which comes in handy because the Kyrgyz have absolutely no compunction about asking you the most personal of questions, ‘How old are you?’ ‘How heavy are you?’ ‘How many children do you have?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Why aren’t you married?’ ‘Is there something wrong with you?’ ‘Someone call the police. This guy is obviously some kind of deviant.’

“Also, I will mention that I’m living in a house that has indoor running water, but no indoor washing or toilet. This, especially regarding the lack of indoor toilet, seems confusing, given that we have a working sink. Why not the rest? But I wasn’t even expecting plumbing of any kind whatsoever, so I’ll take whatever I can get. The issue of lack of indoor bath really isn’t so much of a deal, due to the presence of the banya.

“Kids and neighbors are nice enough, and especially small kids will yell out hellos and salams. I’ve also got a gang of boys who have occasionally asked me for money, but when I turned it back on them and asked for a few som (the Kyrgyz currency) they all had a pretty decent laugh and will amble over and try to communicate when we see each other. There’s lots of stumbling and pointing in Kyrgyz, but my language is slowly, slowly slowly getting better, to the point that by the time I leave in two years, I might just be functional. We’ll see.

“Oh right, also there’s the issue of food. As mentioned above, Appa Maria makes delicious plov, which is best described as a cross between pilaf and biryani. Essentially it is a whole heap of rice with meat and onions peppers, carrots and whatever else you want to throw in there mixed in. Some folks add raisins, some folks add spices. It’s a very manipulatable dish, so good times there.

Finally as I briefly mentioned that I’ve been assigned to work in the Oblast (state) of Naryn (cold), I will add that I’ve also discovered that there’s some cool ancient silk road archeological stuff in my neighborhood, so now all of you are required to come see me and check stuff out.

Take care all, and don’t let the pig flu kill you (or did that turn out to be not a big deal? I got sick around the time the Kyrgyz News was reporting on it, and my host family liked to joke that that’s what I had and I was going to die. Good times.

Take care,

Ben