The Beginning of the End

Year two is officially and fully underway, both as a full-fledged volunteer and my general time here in Kyrgyzstan. I know it's been a while since I last wrote on here -- there's a reason for that. My August was pretty wrenching, as things I thought to be were not (sorry for this ambiguity, I'd rather not lay my heart and soul out here) and I underwent a rather harsh period, probably my all-time emotional low in country. Feelings of isolation and abandonment kept rational thought at bay and a longing which was not to be quelled by the circumstances of the month. Things have since calmed and become better, but I can tell I am a changed person for these happenstances.

With August behind me, September started, and along with it the school year and the initial chaotic fury that accompanies it. The main challenges at the beginning of my school year are A) the schedule and B) students not showing up to class. First, the easy explanation -- children are out working in the fields, and since Fall is prime bean-harvesting season (of which Talas is particularly reputable) we get an inordinate amount of absences from classes. I'm told this isn't the case with all volunteers' schools or classes, which may be due to the presence of previous volunteers and their influence, or that other volunteers teach at specialized schools and not the local high school -- both instances are not applicable to myself, really, though maybe I can begin an influence towards the former for any future volunteers (or just the school in general). Second, the schedule...

This year started off using last year's schedule. This is an inherent problem for English classes as last year the 7th, 10th, and 11th grades studied the subject, so this year the 8th and 11th grades are studying (the previous 11th grade having graduated). The other grades (above 5th grade level) study German. So now I have to figure out which of my 8th grade classes are held at what time by deciphering the Cyrillic schedule and finding "Немецча" (Nemets-cha), using that as my guide -- the previous 8th grade, which is now the 9th grade, studies German. If all this wasn't enough, a few days into classes the school decided to switch the morning sessions with the afternoon sessions in an attempt to get more of the older children, who were working in the fields, to come to class. So now I not only have to transmute German into English, but I also have to metamorphose this schedule to find the right combination of times and days, which have all gone topsy-turvy. Oh, and I forgot to mention -- all the classrooms have changed too, so the listings on this old riddle of a guide only served to befuddle the mind. Another volunteer friend rightly told me that this sounds like some kind of Da Vinci Code nonsense, that I don't have my decoder ring (and the appropriate dates/keys to go with it), and that I should just sit and wait till they clean the thing up before bothering with classes. I stuck it out until the new schedule came -- and heavy rains (for Kyrgyzstan, which is to say a rather less-than-normal amount by my account for Connecticut) have ruined a good deal of the bean harvesting, so more children are showing up. And, thank Pete, the times normalized so morning classes are now in the morning and afternoon classes in the afternoon.

My one grievance with the new schedule, which hopefully (and should, but who knows if it will happen) will change soon, is the placement of English classes on Saturday. Now, I don't mind working on Saturdays, but this year I've come off right from the start and said I'm not working on the day (due to get-togethers et al tending to be weekend events), yet classes which I teach along with my counterpart were still slotted for the day. When I brought up the grievance with the vice-principal (the guy ultimately in charge of the schedule), he laughed, gave me the usual run-around, and said my counterpart can just teach the classes. Part of this is conforming to the rayon (district) English class schedule, which all have the same days of work and rest; part of it is pushing around my counterpart, a young woman who has a difficult time with getting results in this setting; and part of it is undoubtedly attributed to putting it past the American who will most likely forget and go on with things. Luckily my PC Program Manager came in from Bishkek a week later and the issue got brought up in it's entirety (discontinuity of classes being taught one way with one teacher present then another way when my counterpart and I team-teach, and the resulting confusion theretofore, me only having 9 hours of classes with the current schedule - stark contrast to last year's 36 - when I should have 18, and the majority of the classes are what I consider my students -- the ones I taught last year and who I actually want to teach) before the school's director. This actually got a little bit of a result in that she said the schedule would change and all the Saturday classes would be moved to Monday, but a week later change has yet to occur.

The other major thing I brought up with my director when my PM came out was the fact that over the summer pretty much all my teaching-oriented supplies, sent as gifts from the States, had been stolen. The situation is as follows: before the school year completely ended last year, I left aforementioned supplies in the room given to us to be the English classroom. Before even all that, I went out and bought a lock for said classroom, so only the vice-principal and myself have the keys to the room. Prior to the end of the school year everyone asked me when I was going home over the summer, and every time I said I'm not going home. About halfway into the summer vacation, the school started repainting everything inside (with the same colors, doesn't really look different or fresher in my opinion, and I believe it a needless task). Needless to say, when I went to the English classroom about halfway through summer, everything was gone -- under the pretext of having repainted the room, of course. My first thought went to the supplies -- where were they taken. The caretaker in charge of storage at the school had no answers, and anybody my counterpart and I asked either didn't know or gave a half-answer. The people and houses we went to were all big run-arounds to dead ends. Everybody, despite me telling them I wasn't going anywhere, had complete looks of shock on their faces when they saw that I was telling the truth and was actually in my village and not in America. After a lot of toil, and even paying a visit to a fortune teller to try to figure something out (the beans she read had promising news, but I don't put much stock in it, though my counterpart does), there's been absolutely no progress. In my session with my PM and director they basically chocked it up to "That's the way we are" saying it's shameful and they're sorry, but also having a bit of a laugh about it at the same time. I was and still am mad about this whole incident -- however, I'm placing the blame in three instances here. First to the perpetrator(s) themself(ves), for taking what was a donation intended for the school and particularly intended for the children (logic does defy the intention behind this act, as there is little to no practical use that people can get out of these materials here). Second to the school and general community, for both letting the perpetration occur (particularly when the school should have been watching such things) and for a seemingly universal reluctance to help and acceptance of shame in such matters. Third and finally it's to myself for having thought a locked door could safeguard the classroom's belongings and my naivety in such matters -- it would have been better if I had stored the materials in my own room (despite it being quite overflowing with my personal items and things that are ready to go into the classroom, if and when it ever gets completed) and anticipated the remodelling, which is a universal thing here. Despite my Program Manager and director trying to assuage me otherwise, I truly felt that this was an act to indicate that my village does not want or need a volunteer. At the time I did not believe it, but upon further reflection, introspection, and actual experience, I find it to be true, although perhaps not in the capacity they meant.

Currently I am in the process of working on two different grants/projects, trying to put together a Halloween concourse for my oblast (as the volunteers who did it last year are gone and I seem to be the only volunteer with initiative to undertake such a task), teaching classes in an improved capacity, and in general just trying to better my situation and purpose here. The first project is for the classroom, which we're writing a grant for through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, where I will be asking family and friends from the States to donate money for the cause. Currently my counterpart and I are working on the details, and though it's going slow it's actually going (it's taking time to get this new method of thinking and writing answers down, and I can't tell how aggrivating the "But, when it will be finished, what will we put on the walls? They will just be plain" comments are -- me always responding well yeah, that's what happens when what would have gone up on the walls gets stolen). Obstacles and aggrivations aside, I hope to have this done as soon as possible -- the biggest hurdle will be getting someone to go to Bishkek and get an account of prices, as my counterpart is prohibited by her family to do so and me doing so would be about the worst idea possible (being an American I'd get highly inflated prices, and it needs to be part of the community doing this work). The other grant will probably also be done through PCPP, but my good friend would be utilizing his own friends and family. This project is smaller but a pretty good idea and investment in my opinion -- my host eje, a seamstress, wants to get about four new sewing machines. With these she intends to both open a school for local girls to learn how to sew (which appears to be a reasonable and productive occupation for women in Kyrgyzstan -- men would generally never do such work here), and to improve her own business, particularly as the machines she has now are old and slow. Despite past misunderstandings and misgivings, I've come to realize my host eje is at heart a good, hard-working person and she's a step apart from the norm here -- I'm more than willing to help her out with this project. Currently we need to translate applications and get some examples of previous projects along similar lines (both of which are prospects at the moment, but are quite feasible).

The Halloween concourse is sort of a by-product of my desire to improve myself, my work, and my volunteerism for my second year here. This particular concourse came about as part of my intention to have major themes/events and involve my students/school related to the English language and American cultural events. Halloween is also a work-in-progress, but I have a frame to go off of from last year -- and it will be an oblast-wide event, so I'm looking at about 40-50 children or so showing up (maybe 5-10 of which will be mine). I'm also interested in holding some sort of presentation/re-enactment given by my students for Thanksgiving, and I'd like another event for Christmas (though what that could be I don't know).

As for work, things are going ok. Aside from the schedule and stolen materials issues, there's nothing too major. This year I started off from day one with a strict set of rules (which stunned a lot of my students -- and good for that! they need it in my opinion), laying down the law and letting kids know that this year will indeed be different than last. I'm utilizing a stick and carrot approach, with more stick than carrot at the beginning -- good kids will be rewarded, bad kids will fail class and/or be sent to the vice-principal for punishment (which, though despite my reluctance to endorse rectifiability of the physical nature, will hopefully serve more as a deterrent than something actually enforced). I have a lot of work ahead of me, especially with trying to shift the focus from teacher-domination to student-oriented methodologies and activities from my counterpart. But I'm actually optimistic about this year.

Which leads me to me actually sitting down and finally, after these past few months, finding the motivation to write. My counterpart recently fell ill and today I taught all our classes on my own. With the older grades it's fine, I'm used to them and welcome the relief of having my counterpart biting heads off when students are too scared to speak in English from fear of her reprisal. But this also left me with my fifth graders, who my counterpart sort of started taking as her own class, preferring for me not to show up to them (I believe). I was somewhat daunted at this task, both for not being well prepared for class and at the prospect of teaching the younger kids on my own (lord knows how badly that made me want to quit last year) -- not to mention I had two sessions to teach for the same class, which is quite unusual at our school for one day. However, I came in with a shakey plan built off of suppositions and hastily-gained half knowledge which I gleaned from my counterpart before she quickly departed this morning. Things started off alright, with me following through on their homework - which was 'learn by heart the vocabulary.' Then I decided to utilize the task/game I came up with to build off of the homework - a game we know as hangman. I don't think I've ever seen a class so excited, and they actually listened to me. About two or three tries into it, our first session ended, and they had math next before going back to English. So I went into the teachers' lounge, sat and chatted with the director and another teacher for a little bit (the director asked me something about Obama, to which I answered "I can't watch the news here -- I live with little kids who always watch movies so the TV isn't free" -- to which the other teacher asked 'so then why don't you buy your own TV' and got my standard I'm not rich answer -- then I badgered the director a bit about the schedule not being changed to which I got a hasty answer and a quick retreat). Anywho, after that I went back for the final lesson of the day, again with my 5th formers. At the beginning everyone was asking to play the "dead person" game again -- I said only if you're quiet and don't behave naughtily. For this session I brought in my (at the school) trademark crayons and paper, and had them write namecards, upon which had one sentence of what they like and a picture to correspond to that. Although a little bit of a hassle, and me losing my voice in the middle of explaining what to do, it was, I believe, a hit with the class (and only two of my crayons broke, somewhat miraculous for them being distributed to 13 children) -- although one boy hit a girl and made her cry, so I had to scold him for that. Then we played some more hangman until the bell rang and the day was done. After class everyone wanted their namecard graded (I gave a 5, the best grade, to everyone who did it -- two boys decided not to), and a gaggle of girls stayed back. Mostly they were asking me to give them pens, threatening to cry if I didn't (to which I replied 'I'm not a store, and I'll cry too' -- which got a good laugh). As we left, two girls gave me their pencils and another gave me a wooden stone...uhh... thing -- when I asked why they did this they said they were for me for letting them draw the pictures. They then followed me out of the classroom, asking me questions about this and that, and one girl was even holding onto my arm as we went to the teachers' room. Outside the lounge they had unrelenting questions, to which I mostly jokingly replied (and garnered some friendly smiles from surrounding teachers and students), and then they departed.

This moment is very profound. What started as uncertain dread became a great session with kids melting my heart and holding my arms as I left school. I'm slowly realizing that when competency and compassion mix and work together great and meaningful things can happen. My purpose here is becoming clearer -- it's not about being a great teacher or having the most projects or changing things the most or whatever we, myself included, as idealistic volunteers or people may have in mind. It's about how, despite me wanting so many times to call it in over the tough times, to see little to no progress in my work and actions, to reply to my friends and family every time they say I'm doing great work that I'm really not, that I'm still here... I didn't quit, and I'm still standing. It's not about being the best, but being different, being a role model, standing where so many other people would have (and in many cases actually have) fallen. It's how, at the end of the day, despite those people who wish you harm or to be gone, despite being laughed at as what you're doing to help is snatched out from under you, you can finally see and feel a real want for your presence. I realize now that vengeance would only come to hurt those I am here to serve, and I must look past my grievances, put aside my pettiness, and strive to be a better person... not for myself, but for these people I'm giving part of my life to. For when you come to such a realization as what I have right now, and you have tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat because you've come to learn that despite the seemingly desperate struggle there's meaning in this action, what power does an aggravator have? This is my place now, this is where my heart is, and I can call this home. And when my little angels who impart such hope, albeit unknowingly, ask me to give them pens, what else can I do but oblige? The dawn may rise slowly, but when it does...