ab Chasing Kate: August 2006

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Birthday Madness

My birthday here was better than I could have ever expected. It might have to do with the fact that I went dancing 3 nights in a row. It might have to do with the fact that I had friends come up from all over the country to see me and help me celebrate. It might have to do with the fact that I got 4 (4!) birthday packages from home and lots of birthday wishes from friends and family. Or maybe it's all of those things put together.

On a completely unrelated note, I had one of those "wow-I'm-really-in-the-Peace-Corps" moments today. I am not exactly what you would call clean, my clothes have been worn for a week straight (Smoke and Disco sweat and all) and my hair has enough grease in it to fry an egg on it. This morning, I gave myself a Baby Powder Shower, I doused my hair with "Psssst" powder on to soak up my hair grease, and I sprayed my unwashed clothes with Febreeze. After all that, I felt as fresh as if I had just taken a real shower.... I have no idea why Peace Corps volunteers have a reputation for being dirty.

Anyways, here's some shout outs:

The Sugarman and Sledge Families: Thanks so much for the package from the beach, I loved the book you made me, it was great seeing you all. Especially the picture of you, Jess "Peace Suckas!"

Anthony, Barb, Matte, Hallie and Lindsay: Thanks for everything, I don't think the Swedish Fish even saw the light of day. I loved the books and that will keep me from staring at the wall for at least a week!

Ang: Thanks for the Mac and Cheese, I had actually been craving it for quite awhile and I tried to make it from scratch but artificial cheese is not easily replicated. It'll definitely keep me well fed through the winter.

Mom and Dad: Thanks for the clothes, it was almost like Christmas, I'm wearing the black skirt right now and it's sooo comfortable! In fact, it's the only clean thing I'm wearing.

Kathy: I loved the jewelry! The earrings are so rockstar. I feel so obnoxious wearing something that's almost the size of my face, you know me too well. Love it.

posted by Katie P. at 1:35 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 07, 2006

New Kids on the Block.

First let me explain something about Pre-Service training in Peace Corps. Its usually a drag for the trainees because they days are long and tiring and you get all this information that you don’t even know how to use yet. So Peace Corps likes to invite volunteers who are so-called experts in a particular field to come and talk about their own personal experiences and how it relates to their service here. (This is usually the best part of PST because volunteers usually stray from their assigned topic after 5 minutes then talk about whatever is they feel is personally relevant). So anyways, I was the very first volunteer to show up at Training and I was lucky enough to talk about diarrhea.

At first I was like no, I can’t talk about that, it’ll ruin any chances I have of getting a K-14 boyfriend. I’ll be forever known as that diarrhea girl. But I had nothing else planned and I was dying to see the new kids so I thought, what the hell. Besides, my talk was pretty funny but then again it’s impossible to talk about diarrhea and NOT be funny. My first impression of the new group was that they looked like clean and healthy little puppies. A little wary but still really eager. I figured my talk would change all that right away.

I regaled them with tales of giardia, worms and I.V.s and as their eyes widened I could see them shooting side-ways glances to their buddies about what this crazy girl was still doing in country. In fact, I may have done the same thing once or twice. I told them that there’s a saying that you’re not a Real Peace Corps Volunteer until you poop your pants, which is absolutely true. I am now a Real PCV three times over. My favorite question came at the end of the session when my talk was over. You could tell the guy was hesitant to ask it but wanted to know the answer anyway. He inquired, “So, were you like, in the outhouse, and you missed? Did you like, have bad aim? Or what?” my response was, “Oh no no, my dear sweet child, shitting your pants happens only when the outhouse is a complete afterthought.” Once my talk was over I expected standing ovation but it was more like uncomfortable laughter and the forced slow-clap. Regardless, I really feel like I inspired some trainees that day and even if it’s not an accident, I can see a 100% turn out rate for the K-14s being Real PCVs.

posted by Katie P. at 4:38 AM 1 comments

Camp!

I re-read my last blog and I sounded like a snotty little biatch because summer really has been a vast improvement in living here. As always it’s really easy to complain about things but at some point you have to stop complaining and actually do something about it. The highlight of my summer so far was the camp that one of the volunteers, Brian, put on in a Southern village on the lake called Saruu. It was an all girls Diversity camp and it was such a hit between the girls and all the camp counselors. We played ultimate Frisbee, we made piñatas, we did tye-dye, and everyday they had individual sessions put on by other volunteers and locals who have traveled to America. On volunteer taught sign language, another taught basic Chinese, and two girls did one on stereotypes and gender roles. The girls were really involved and I really think they benefited from the camp because Brian did an awesome job of putting everything together.

My personal favorite session was when Tana, Jenny and I choreographed a dance to Britney Spears then broke the moves down and taught it to them. It was like my true calling. I felt like one of those stereotypical, crazy dance instructors, “ I saaaaid to the LEFT!!” It was even worse when I started yelling in Russian, “Again! Again! (Apyat, apyat)” At one point I almost threw my clipboard down and left the room, but then I remembered that these girls have no previous dance training and let them try again (kidding, I’m not that bad). Their practice totally paid off and they did a performance on the last day and I was so proud of them when they got an encore. On the last day of camp we also went to the hot springs in Saruu and even though they were only about 30 minutes away and most of the girls have lived there their whole lives, they’ve still never been to them. So we went on a hike to a waterfall, which was the perfect way to end the camp.

By the time we were saying our goodbyes, the girls didn’t want us to leave and I didn’t want to leave either. In four short days we all got really attached and I really do want to make it back there to visit them sometime again. Plus it inspired me to put on my own camp for next year so I’ve got a lot of time to figure out what I want to do.

posted by Katie P. at 4:35 AM 1 comments

Busy?

I’ve been trying to recall what exactly I’ve been up to for the last 2 months but I keep drawing a bunch of blanks. I know I haven’t been sitting around so what have I been doing?

First of all summer is not the utopia I expected. Instead, summer has kind of been the ultimate practical joke…. on me. We were supposed to have a lavish garden with all sorts of exotic fruits and vegetables. And by exotic I really just mean your standard tomatoes, cucumbers, and cabbage, whatever. Well all the irrigation water was redirected to the big commercial fields so we had no water and all of our plants died, which means not only do we not have an all-access pass to vegetables as I was promised but now we won’t be able to can anything for the winter. Potatoes and pasta it is. Again. For 8 months. Again.

So I’ve had running water for about a total of 2 weeks since the summer began. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue but our main village source of water was also shut off for a while which means really bad news. When water does run from the main source that means I have to take our rickety-ass, rusty wheelbarrow uphill, barefoot, both ways (do I sound like one of your grandparents yet?) with a water jug that doesn’t completely close, which takes a lot of maneuvering to make sure that all my hard work isn’t spilled out on the semi-paved roads. Mind you this is all in the blistering heat of about a billion degrees. So that’s water.

On one particular day, during our housecleaning session when I was hauling water several times, I saw ahead of me something that elicited what I can only describe as Cart Envy. I stood awestruck and almost perplexed by the guy who was getting water ahead of me. He had a dolly with a platform and on the platform there was a huge pail; it fit perfectly on the spigot; filled completely, and then he did something I hadn’t seen before; capped it with a cover and off he went, not a drop lost on the way, the big wheels not even noticing the ruts in the road. As I filled my wheelbarrow, it was the first time in-country that I was like, “I WANT one of those, Now!” He had the SUV equivalent of a water cart. When he finished I realized that I had been staring at him, open-mouthed the entire time and I even had to wipe a little drool away when he was done. Back in America I assessed cute clothes and nice cars, here a nice, sturdy water cart makes me jealous.

Electricity is another thing. I forgot everything I’m supposed to know about circuits that I learned from the 8th grade but the idea comes back pretty quickly when one person on the street doesn’t pay and the entire street gets shut off. I expected not to have electricity for over a month but luckily it was only for two weeks. I’m guessing someone got hassled by the neighbors. My plan was to take vacation leave and go to Lake Issy-kul but the day I planned to leave, the electricity and water was running again. How’s that for timing?

One thing I cannot complain about is how cheap the vegetables are now. You can get a kilo of tomatoes for about 7 som (about 10 cents) and a lot of other stuff really cheaply. But with no electricity, it was hard to cook anything, and when it’s super-hot the last thing I want to do is eat. Plus my body wasn’t used to getting vitamins and nutrients so my bowels were definitely not in check either. On the other hand, the fruit here is sweeter, fresher and tastier than any fruit I’ve ever had before. I’ve never been a big fan of apricots but here they’re juicy and sweet and I ate an entire kilo (around 2 pounds for all you metrically challenged kids) of them in one day. And the raspberries too. Little old grandmas sell them on the side of random streets for 40 som for a liter. Those suckers did not last long. Before I knew it I finished the entire liter and my lips and fingertips were stained raspberry red for a good 2 days.

I had my third I.V. since being in country, any more and I’m going to start to show track marks. After nearly 5 hours of exams and tests, it turns out that I had bacterial and viral infections at the same time and also worms. Yup. Worms. Not even the awesome kind where you get to eat whatever you want and not gain weight. Just the plain old nasty ones. One more test though and I will be completely worm-free. I love my doctor and she takes really good care of me, but she said the most unintentionally funny thing I’ve ever heard. When they took my stool sample she came back in and was like, “that is definitely not normal. That smells really bad.” You know it’s bad when you can gross out your own doctors.

posted by Katie P. at 4:34 AM 1 comments

Thursday, August 03, 2006

What Happened?

Back in June, I figured my summer would be cake. I would siesta all day and read all night. I would catch up on my journal and reflect on my last 10 months here. I would do my lesson plans in advance, figure out my schedule for next year and get a head start on vocabulary lists and on top of all that, be fluent in Russian by the end of the summer. I've got a month left and I've done absolutely none of those things. Summer is not as slow as I thought it would be and actually I've been busier than I ever anticipated. The time has flown by and it's hard for me to recall what I've actually been doing this entire time. But here's a starter...

For two weeks in July our house was an absolute mess. We did what we call in Russian a "Remont" which directly translates as "repair". We repainted all the rooms, scrubbed the floors and cleaned every rug in our house. It doesn't seem like a lot of work but it took two weeks for everything to be finished. My sisters originally estimated 2 days. Way off. I don't want to go into detail because I still haven't recovered emotionally but let me just name the tools that my sister picked out to clean the rugs and you can get an idea for yourself as to why I am scarred for life and will never clean another rug again as long as I shall live: A shoe polisher, a paint roller, a lint remover and a vacuum cleaner attachment. I almost suggested I bring my tooth brush because it actually had the word "brush" in it. For all you "do-it-yourselfers" I wouldn't recommend any of the above to clean over 16 rugs in 4 days without running water. Just go buy the scrub brush for wampum or whatever it costs and consider it a long-term investment.

I'm going to take some deep breaths now and I promise I'll update again soon.

posted by Katie P. at 12:16 AM 0 comments