(Sorry for the cliche) But Seriously: Lost in Translation

Let me explain a bit about my site. It is mostly Kazakh, so I stick out like a sore thumb... as a Russian. And since most of the people there speak Kazakh as their first language, they don't necessairly realize immediately that Russian is not (at all) my first language. So as I walked home from the center with a bag of eggs, a man stopped me and said:

"Where did you find a place with eggs? Most places are closed today [insert words I don't know here]" So I tried to answer the first part, and told him where I bought the eggs. He got a little angry and said.

"No! No! [Again, insert words I don't know]." So I said that I was very sorry, but I didn't understand. Then he was really mad. I'm not entirely sure, but I think maybe he thought I was trying to insult him by saying I didn't understand what I am sure is really very good Russian. "I AM ASKING YOU IN PLAIN RUSSIAN [and again, the words I don't understand, only louder]." Then his friend tapped him on the shoulder and told him that she isn't Russian, she is our American English teacher.

"American?" Then he bent over and laughed so loud and long that I could still hear him half a block away. "She isn't Russian! Ha! Ha!" That's a good one.


It's time for a vacation.

Right now I'm in the office in Almaty, looking through other blogs and I'm super-jealous of the new colors and designs people have. I'll have to look into making this blog look better when I get back. It's 9:15, 6 hours to go! I can't wait to see everyone/speak English in the streets!

Cab Gossip

There were five of us PCVs trying to get a taxi into the city, so I got into another cab with three men who had no idea why there were so many foreigners in their village. As I sat in the back, I couldn't help but listen to the converstaion...

Where do you think they were from?

I think they were speaking English.

Are you sure? I thought they were German.

I think they're American.

American?! What would Americans be doing here, stupid?

Dogs

Little language lesson for you: “Ata” = Grandpa, “Apa” = Grandma. Otherwise known as my landlords.

I only post every time I have e-mail access, so you have to wait in suspense to read what is happening in my life. That way you get a small taste of the suspense I have to deal with, waiting to find out what is happening in your lives! (Moral of the story: SEND SNAIL MAIL. It comes in three, four weeks tops. This last spell of no-e-mail lasted almost 7?)

On with the show. I now live in my own apartment which is pretty cool. It’s actually an extra “house” attached to an older couple’s house, so I still get a banya, Russian/Kazakh practice, and an occasional free meal. It’s also pretty safe, since I live on the same compound as a family I know and trust, and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better living situation.

A few times a week, it is nice enough now that I can go out and run for awhile. This usually gets me stares from the locals, and chased by dogs who think that anything going faster than walking speed must be worth chasing. I try to limit my path to roads through fields, avoiding humans and dogs when at all possible. But this last week, out of nowhere, this furry black mass ran up from behind me. It was Akhtose, my family’s dog, and he is the laziest dog I’ve ever seen. I was so surprised to see him running with me. I was feeling really proud of the fact that I got the lazy dog to come with me, when I realized that I was taking the trash bag out to the trash field (seriously) and that was really the only reason he tagged along – to inspect the contents of the bag.

But a couple minutes later, he had cut across the field (the trash didn’t have anything edible, all food trash goes in a bucket for the cows) and came with me! Sure, he would get distracted by piles of what could have been food, or sheep carcasses, but for the most part he stayed with me until we reached a small stream. Then, I lost him. There was just so much down there that he needed to take more time investigating. Ordinarily, I would just let the dog find its way home. That’s what dogs do, right? Then I started thinking about everything that happened in the last two weeks…

***** TWO WEEKS AGO*****

I came home to hear Ata screaming at Bebarse, the other dog. Bebarse was large and ferocious, and tied up. The perfect home security system. He barked at anything that moved, and at night when he wasn’t tied up, he would jump at strangers (only to knock them to the ground and lick them on the face, but strangers don’t know that). “You stupid dog!” Ata kept yelling. Apparently Bebarse had been digging in the potatoes the night before, and Ata was waving his shovel in the air and pointing to the mess. One afternoon, after three straight nights of this behavior, there was a knock at my door. It was a man with a horse asking me for help with Bebarse.

Apparently he was afraid of the barking dog, and he needed help untying him so he could “come with me to watch the cows.” I stalled as much as possible, because Ata and Apa weren’t home and I couldn’t just give the dog away to this man with a horse. But the conversation reached a certain point where I had no choice but to give the man Bebarse on his leash. The man kept saying “Bebarse always comes with me!” And he rode off dragging a reluctant Bebarse with him.

20 minutes later I went outside to check my laundry on the line when I saw Ata by his garden. “Ata!” I started, “Bebarse-“
“Bebarse is gone!” He proclaimed triumphantly. “Now my potatoes are safe!” Then I thought more closely about what the man with the horse was saying, and he wasn’t saying ‘Bebarse always comes with me” but “Bebarse is coming with me for always.” So I casually asked Ata when Bebarse was coming back, and he said “Never! Ha ha!”

30 minutes after realizing that I had, in fact, given the family dog away, there was another knock on my door. It was Apa, tears streaming down her face, and she asked “Where is Bebarse?” I said maybe she should talk to Ata, but that a man with a horse came and took him away to watch cows. I tried to say that I didn’t understand what was happening (like that makes it better). Then I explained that Ata probably asked his friend to take Bebarse because of what happened to the potatoes. She grew indignant, “He was only playing… He was such a beautiful dog. A good dog. He always barked… Such a good dog… At least we still have Akhtose, AKHTOSE!” And she left calling her second-rate, not-so-beautiful-or-ferocious dog.

***** ONE WEEK AGO *****

Since Bebarse’s departure, Apa has been really depressed. Her typical answer to “Good morning, how are you?” is “Fine. Bebarse is gone…” So I wasn’t so surprised to get the same answer today, but then she followed it with “He was so sad without us, he died.” We sat and remembered the good dog that barked at strangers.

Ata later expressed his true feelings in saying “Now the potatoes are really safe!”
*********
Like I said, ordinarily I would just let the dog find his own way home. But we were kind of far away, and near a large road and if anything happened to him, and I was the last person to see him… There was no way I was returning without that dog. So I lured him with rocks that looked like food, pretending there was something I was chasing, anything. When we finally got home, I was exhausted, but he made it back and I knew I did everything I could to make sure they didn’t lose the lazy (but doesn’t go through the potatoes) dog. And I know he probably would have made it home ok anyway, but I think Akhtose appreciated having someone to play with.

And now he sleeps on my porch.

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.
____________________________________________

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.
**
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.)
***
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.

__________________________

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

Rings, A dress, and maybe one thousand dollars

It's springtime in Kazakhstan! This means the snow is finally going away and I can stop wearing long underwear! I didn't prepare a good post for this internet trip, and for that I apologize. But what I do have to share is interesting, I promise. A couple days ago was Nauryz, the Kazakh new year. My town had yurts set up in the center, and they looked really beautiful. My sitemate and I got to eat and drink some *interesting* things and then watch a concert. For the most part, just a good time in the yurts.

Later that night, my family had guests over, and two of them are the parents of my host brother's roommate in the city. They were asking how old I am, and I told them 24, and they gave me that look, up and down, figuring "just how much more time do you think you have to get yourself married?" So they told me they have a son, and that my family needs to start considering what they will buy for my Kazakh wedding (they were maybe mostly kidding...) So we agreed that my family needs to provide rings, a dress and maybe one thousand dollars, and they will provide the candy, the horse (to eat), and vodka for the ceremony. I'm not familliar with the price of horses, but they are a delecacy, and mom, dad, I think we sould consider their offer.

I'm not getting any younger here.