Brothers

Two weeks ago we had our In-Service Training which is basically four days of meetings with all the volunteers. Four days of information, and gossip, and pure-English-speaking fun. Just enough time to fall in love with everyone again, and then we’re back alone at site. So now we’ve made a quick trip to the city to “soften the blow” as my site-mate put it.

I’ve been getting letters asking about my “daily life” and “how are things different?” and I’m not entirely sure where to start. One small difference is that I have brothers. I’ve never had brothers before. I remember just after my sister was born, I wrote a song (and accompanied myself with a triangle) about how we wished she had been a boy. I sang it for my dad, because he is a boy, so obviously he would sympathize. Instead I got a “Jessica! We are glad Danielle’s a girl!” and thus, at the tender age of 4, ended my career as a songwriter. Anyway, since I will be moving at the end of this month, I’ll devote this post to some memories of my brothers.
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Maxat got home just minutes after I did. “Jessica! I was running and shouting ‘Jessica! Jessica!’ and you didn’t hear me?” I held up my MP3 player, “Sorry.” He looked relieved that I wasn’t just avoiding him in public.
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The wrestling matches usually turn into loud races around the house. First you hear a rumble of bodies falling to the floor, then scrambling as one gets away and runs while the other follows. Eventually one winds up in my room saying “Jessica! Tell him to stop!” Clearly, I have no power here. However, my room has become something like a safe zone. Once one is here, the other doesn’t come in, but waits outside like a cat waiting for the mouse to come out of its hole.
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Maxat and I were watching the Shawshank Redemption tonight. I recognized the music and ran into the room and told him “I love this movie!” (I’m really good at saying simple things like that in Russian). So we were watching it, but the phone kept ringing and he kept leaving, and I kept getting frustrated because he’s missing it! He’s not going to see just how amazing it really is!

Today we re-watched the Shawshank Redemption, starting where the first phone call interrupted, and I feel better knowing that he understands that I love a really good movie.
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The phone rings off the hook for these boys. They’re 15 and 17, and just starting to get girlfriends (and I’m still not sure what that means here. From what I can tell they mostly just talk incessantly on the phone). Anyway, I now know how to say “I’m sorry, but Maxat/Mierjan is not home now” in Russian, and in Kazakh. I can also give a variety of answers as to their whereabouts, such as “He is at school” or “He is outside.” And I’ve found “I have no idea where he is” is also effective. I think a really funny answer (and one that would get the phone to stop ringing) would be to say “I think he’s at his girlfriend’s house” but they probably wouldn’t think it’s that funny.
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With the power out, the computer games are not keeping Mierjan entertained when he should be doing school work. So he pulled out the checkers board and asked me if I wanted to play. I said sure, because checkers is easy enough… Halfway through, I realized that the rules here are TOTALLY different than they are in the states. So I lost. Then we played chess, and I was pleased to find that not only are the rules the same, but that I have what it takes to best a 15-year-old boy in a game of real strategy. I feel vindicated. Maxat watched as his brother lost and taunted him with “Ha ha! This is a smart person game! You have to THINK! THINK!” (Please note, he did not offer to play me either.)
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Suddenly I heard music playing outside. Oddly enough, it was all the songs that Maxat and Mierjan usually listen to in the house. But it was not coming from inside, and it was definitely too loud to be coming from a car stereo. So I walked outside to find that they had taken the DVD player and some speakers and plugged them into the banya outlet so that they could shovel the hay and have a dance party at the same time. Those are my brothers, dancing with the pitchforks. About 20 minutes later the neighbors called and told us to keep it down.

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For the record, I’m happy now that Danielle is a girl.