Ensuring a manly man day

Check out my Man’s Day post at the Kiva Fellows Blog – it has some great eagle hunting shots!

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2011/03/03/ensuring-a-manly-man-day/

The Infamous Hot Spring

Like they always seem to, my blog posts have slithered off into a dwindling trickle. After my last wallowing pice of dark humor (The Bottom Five), I am pleasantly surprised that you came back for more.

I have been busily working on completing a set of borrower verifications – Kiva checks to make sure that Kiva money is going to the people it is supposed to and there is no fraud – but decided to take a break to check out some local hot springs. It was the day before Man’s Day, a post-Soviet equivalent to the upcoming women’s day and I was looking forward to a little pampering. A few friends and I made the hour drive and hiked up to the curiously barb wired pool. It was a small pool and the water was generally warmish unless you were right at the rusted feeder pipe, where steaming hot water flowed. The only problem was that there was a flock of shower cap clad elderly Kyrgyz women keeping a tight grip on the primo spots. After about 20 minutes of patiently waiting, I realized I was going to have to act. During a changing of the guard on one of the better spouts I sidled in and hovered contentedly.

Spout Battles

After a few minutes of enjoying the hot water the women began to try and talk with me. While I couldn’t speak Kyrgyz, one of my friends helped to translate. The conversation went something like this:

Kyrgyz Woman #1: Where are you from?

Me: The US, Chicago.

Kyrgyz Woman #2: Oooooo, very nice.

Kyrgyz Woman #2: You shouldn’t stay in the water for more then 20 minutes or you will become impotent.

This caught me off-guard. I had to consider whether this was a tactic to get me off the good spout or if she was imparting some real wisdom.

Me: Oh yea? How long does it last?

Kyrgyz Woman #1: A day

Me: That shouldn’t be a big problem then.

Round #1 to Charlie. After about an hour we decided to hike to a nearby waterfall. I quickly ran across the icy cement to a changing stall. While I was changing the gentleman in the next stall was intent on passing some vital information along. My limited Russian was catching ‘not work’. I obviously wasn’t getting it so he decided to come into my stall, point to my underwear clad nether regions and make a big X with his hands. Apparently the ladies in the pool had been correct, and my man’s day would be decidedly less manly.

Base of a frozen waterfall

Winter Wonderland (Please let winter end soon!)

In case you don’t make it to my Man’s Day post, here are some eagle hunting shots:

Maybe it’s better to leave it to the professionals (Credit for photo goes to Aaro Ylitalo)

The Real Eagle Man (credit for photo goes to Kai Viinikka)

The Bottom Five

I would be lying to say it has not been a tough few weeks.

Grey winters indicitive of living above the 42nd N parallel couple with soviet architecture in a particularly soul crushing way. Along those lines I will shower you with a bottom 5 list (in no particular order), to counter my previous top 5 from a few months ago:

1. Assault – In all the guidebooks for Bishkek you read that it is not safe to go out at night. Usually I am one of the first to ignore these warnings, and I tend to think general street smarts can get you out of most situations. That said I would be hesitant to embark on some of my solo journeys if I was female, just the simple facts of life in the world today. Unfortunately these facts proved Lonely Planet correct the other night. After leaving out flat around 1 am, and insisting that she walk the 10-15 blocks back to her flat, a friend of ours was beaten and mugged. I will spare you the details but will add a bit about the taxi trip to pick her up after it happened. When I heard my phone ringing and saw it was her I thought maybe she left something, but when I picked up I could tell something was wrong. She let me know that she needed help and my roommate and I jumped into action. Running out the door we grabbed a taxi and implored him to hurry up beacause our friend was in trouble. Nouns are given a gender here and so it translated into our female friend was in trouble. In response the taxi driver pulled a handgun out of the waist of his pants and uttered ‘padyom’ or ‘Let’s go’. Needless to say we didn’t utilize the help, but in general it epitomizes the underbelly and chaos that exists close to the surface here in Bishkek.

2. Laptop no more – After traveling and living abroad for several years, usually with some sort of computer, I never had any problems with theft – until last summer. In Costa Rica out rental was robbed and my laptop was stolen. I recovered and was chugging along with my new netbook until a two weeks ago. It was a fairly sunny day and I was in a good mood. That mood got a bit worse when in a crowded mashrutka someone swindled a netbook out of my bag. Mashrutkas are the public transport here, minibusses running all over the city, usually filled to the point of sexual intimacy. I mourned my netbook and moved on (minus significant portions of my music and recent fellowship work).

3. Visas – The visa process here in Bishkek is harrowing. I know there is a tendency for Europeans and North Americans to complain about visa procedures whilst ignoring the onerous processes on our own countries. All I am saying is that I have absolutely no intention of illegally emigrating to Kyrgyzstan.

4. Kyrgyz Police – The police here in Bishkek are something to avoid. My first day here I was waiting for a friend to pick me up and had a policeman harass me. Out of pure luck I had a good stretch with nobody bothering me. That stretch ended and I consistently get stopped by police, some in uniform, some undercover, who demand documents and usually try and get you into an alley. Check out http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/central-asia/201-central-asia-decay-and-decline.aspx for an interesting perspective on underfunded public services and the problems this creates. That said, I am not keen to fill the funding gap.

5. Weather + Soviet Architecture – Bad weather is something I am accustomed to. Yet there is something uniquely depressing about gray, cold days coupled with geometric, gray architecture. The compounding factor is tangible. I suppose I should have known what I was getting into when I signed up to live in Kyrgyzstan for the entire winter. Summer in the states is looking plush.

After the winter comes the spring and among the rough times Kyrgyzstan offers moments of brilliance. Here are a few pictures from a recent climbing trip into Kyrgyzstan’s beautiful mountains. A break from the Bishkek smog, and mashrutka madness.

Being pulled out of a crevasse (Don't worry, only practice!)

View of Ak Sai range on the way up 4600M Uchital (Teacher)

Осторожно! Watch out!

Oh hello - Our morning visitors

Lots of love, Charlie

P.S. Credit for all photos included with this blog go to Dan Pousette, our photographer, guide, and friend.

Legacies of a varied past…questions for an unknown future

Sorry for the long delay. I have been out of the country (on a visa run to Kazakhstan) and under the weather (sick as a dog)! I hope all of your holidays were great.

As might be expected in a country that has endured two revolutions in the past 5 years, I have noticed a general feeling of uncertainty among the population. Some of this certainly relates to the constant presence of corruption (http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/12/28/kyrgyzstan-post-revolution/)

This general feeling manifests itself in a staggering number of ways. One of the most surprising occurred the other night while at a company dinner. The tradition here in Kyrgyzstan, as it is in a variety of Asian countries I have been to, is for very formalized toasts lasting the majority of the meal. In this case the entire top management was at dinner so the toasts promised to be lengthy. I have picked up a few good toasts while here and my toast went off without a hitch. At some point, amid the mostly Russian toasts I began to pick a word out that I understood. The woman toasting at the moment was repeating Stalin…Stalin…Stalin… I questioned my closest English speaking colleague and he confirmed that the woman was reminiscing about the times when Stalin controlled Kyrgyzstan. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Didn’t she realize that Stalin supervised one of the greatest genocides in human history? One of his most famous purges happened right here in Kyrgyzstan (http://www.rferl.org/video/4894.html)!!!While I did not phrase my question as such, I did ask for some clarification of her admiration. To her, the small town we had visited that day was basically devoid of industry in the post-Soviet era. When Stalin reigned there had been an enormous light bulb factory placed there, the results of a centrally planned economy, producing bulbs for homes as far as Kiev and an abundance of jobs. Pensioners make up 10% of the Kyrgyz population (Elderly Assistance in Kyrgyzstan) and the value of their Soviet pensions has drastically dropped while the cost of living continues to rise (http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/11/12/hows-the-weather/). Food prices alone have risen over 50% in the past two years (Source). Underlying all of this is the intangible but pervasive personality cult here in Kyrgyzstan. Power is without a doubt or a question admired. This is typified by the fact that a large proportion of University students pay professors (anecdotally confirmed by many sources)  for their grades, copy their final exams, and pay others to write their final papers. The most interesting thing about this is not that it happens but how open people are to admit and even boast about their participation in this currupt system. For in a culture where corruption is everpresent, the ends trump the means.

While I certainly don’t plan on toasting Staling anytime soon, the fact that he is being toasted raises quite a few concerns about the current situation here in Kyrgyzstan.

On a lighter note – Bear Down Chicago Bears this weekend! Wason my computer until 3 AM Sunday night watching the Seattle game. That said, here is a Wisconsin shout out for all my friends in the land of cheese, in Russian brat means brother…enough said

6 weeks deep and sinking fast

First and definitely foremost is the fact that someone has determined the answer to a big question, at least for me – Who is Charlie Wood?

http://alpinefund.org/blog/2010/12/09/who-is-charlie-wood

Definitely check out alpinefund.org if you are interested in grassroots, small, committed organizations walkin the walk on the ground.

Otherwise check out this rousing video, please ignore the copyrighted music, I mostly put it in to cover a couple inopportune f-bombs (sorry if these slip though)!

If you are under 10 I would stay away from this one anyways as there is a sheep slaughter as well. Welcome to kyrgyzstan when you walk to work after consuming an ungodly amount of piss-cheap vodka the night before to find the CFO of your partner organization slaughtering a sheep within 2 meters of the entrance to headquarters. Gotta…..love it?

In case I hadn’t thrown down the video gauntlet hard enough in this post (I acutally got quite a bit of gruff for my 2 second clip in the last post), here is an example of the fun to be had at the infamous Anton’s.

peace and love (especially to the sheep among us)

cw

The glory (and the horror) that is Anton’s

Hot off the press check out my latest entry on the Kiva Fellows Blog:

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/11/30/kiva-loan-products/

I am sitting in the back of a ‘corporate’ inspirational speech by the CEO of the microfinance institution I am working with in Kyrgyzstan. If there was any chance of me being inspired it vanished when I learned the lecture would be in Russian…and that I would be following him to 5 such lectures in 3 days. I did get to contribute an icebreaker awareness game from my time as a leadership facilitator to this one, so I feel justified to pull out my laptop in the back and do something productive as opposed to staring in my usual ‘concerned and understanding’ look I give for long monologues in languages I do not understand.

Motivating

Motivated!

With that rousing intro I will tell you about my experience at Anton’s the other day. I have been member of couchsurfing for a few years. It is the 21^st century version of SERVAS, an organization that connects people from all over the world by setting up host/guest connections at no cost to either party.  You set up a profile with your languages, interests, places you have been, etc. and each time you stay with someone they typically give you a reference as to whether you were normal enough to live with for a couple days. I have hosted in Chicago and ‘surfed’ in Bangladesh, Turkey, Japan….and now Kyrgyzstan. When I got here and was looking for an apartment I stayed with a really nice Canadian guy for a few days. Feeling my couchsurfing spirit revived, and not knowing many people here in Bishkek, I decided to try and start biweekly meetups at a bar. The first of these was the other day and I decided to host it at Anton’s. I had been told about Anton’s by that same nice Canadian guy I had couchsurfed with, Amadeus.  He referred to it as the ‘bomb-shelter’ pub. I understood what he meant when I got there.

The entrance to Anton’s is near the corner of Sovietska and Gorkava, a large bustling (for Bishkek) intersection quite near my house.  From there things get interesting. A bit off the corner is a metal gate enclosing a courtyard, not unlike many private courtyards adjacent to homes around the world. Once in the courtyard you head to the furthest back door on the right, which is a large, metal, unmarked door. Next to the door is a tiny doorbell, which you ring on arrival. Soon you hear rustling and a lock being opened. Anton (literally ANTON) opens the door, ushers you in from the cold, and most disconcertingly, locks the door behind you. Let me pause this vivid description to remind you that I am organizing 15-20 strangers to meet at this bar – a bar where the metal door is locked behind you. Anton guides you down several flights of decrepit stairs and a winding hallway covered in peeling paisley wallpaper to a series of smoky rooms. The furniture is on its last legs (literally, I think my chair had 2 legs left) and the décor is soviet era mountaineer chic. The beer is 75 cents a liter and they charge extra for wiping down your table (not really but Anton’s mom gives you a staredown that makes you wish they did). I was in heaven.

The event went well. A lot of people came and we had a good time. At some point, admittedly a few pints deep, I decided to order the dried fish someone was telling me about. I got Anton’s attention and in my limited Russian (greatly expanded for as I said, I was a few pints deep) asked for ‘one fish please’. He responded with a question in Russian which threw me off. Seeing my lack of comprehension a friend near me told me that he asked “which fish?” Thinking this meant which type of fish, I told my friend to tell Anton, “Whatever type you like best” my go-to response to questions I have no idea how to answer regarding food. He wasn’t satisfied so grabbed my arm and marched my up to the small bar. There, hanging above the bar on a half-dozen rusted hooks, twice smoked by the copious cigarette smoke hanging in the air, were the dried fish. Anton wanted me to tell him ‘which one’. I held back a chuckle and picked one. The process of eating these fish was no less dramatic. Apparently the Soviet traditional way to eat them is to whack one as hard as you can on the table to loosen the flesh before eating it. In the end, this part was more fun that the actual eating. They tasted like a salty cigarette, with an overpowering fishy aftertaste. I suppose if it was a vodka night at least they would cover the taste of the alcohol.

From the sound of mass synchronized clapping (CLAP…CLAP…CLAP…CLAP… whenever people clap here I feel like I am at a Bulls game) this presentation is done, so I should wrap up. All I can say is that I will be back to Anton’s, but I will not be coming for the fish.

Bazaar in Batken, Kyrgyzstan. Proceed to Google Earth

Roadside Melon Stand....mmmmm

Blinchinki.... My closest experience to home

Fresh hot khlep (bread)...classna (excellent)

Listing it up

First off I wanted to let you all know that my first ‘official’ blog entry recently went up at fellowsblog.kiva.org so check it out!

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/11/12/hows-the-weather/

Now here is some of the juicy stuff that doesn’t make the fellows blog. For this entry I am going to put together a little top five list of my experiences so far in Kyrgyzstan:

Menu at the Cafe I frequent near my office

1. Eating in restaurants by myself – I know, I know, this sounds really sad, and it’s not like I don’t eat a lot of meals with other people. But whenever I eat by myself it is like Russian (no pun intended) roulette. First off my ability to read the cyrillic is basic at best. Next, even if I could read the menu my Russian is even more basic than my cyrillic. Hence my usual method of pin the tail on the menu to order my dish. I suggest you try this sometime, as it makes meals much more exciting.

Working it at training #1

2. First football (soccer) training – I must admit, I was a little wary at first upon being invited to join the company football team for their biweekly trainings. In patriarchal cultures such as Kyrgyzstan my experience is to stay away from too much competition as it can get to be a country v. country battle I want no part of. I even shirked out of the first training, deciding to work on a project at the office. Yet as you can see from the picture, I had a great time. Even the soviet-era coach, constantly lining us up for drills and tooting away on his whistle, was an experience. I plan on making the trainings a part of my routine while I am here in Bishkek.

Would you like a steak with that DVD?

3. Bish barmak at a housewarming party – I wish I had a picture of this feast, but I don’t really like busting out my camera at family events I am invited to as a guest. They do housewarmings big here. In my case they cooked an entire sheep, literally cooking an entire sheep in a big pot, bought a few bottles of vodka, and invited the family to come over. Needless to say I ate a few new foods, included the greatly underrated sheep’s brain. Meat is definitely the main course here. I never will consider American food meat-centric after a fellowship in Kyrgyzstan.

4. First shot of vodka truly from Russia – Number 3 also bleeds into number 4. I have yet to make it to a country that has nearly as long toasts after each shot as I have found here. Expect at least 10 minutes a shot, and in my case 10 minutes in a language you know 10 words of.

5. Going to the mountains/Plans for the future – I got a chance to venture a bit into the mountains last weekend. They are very close to the center of Bishkek and their white-tipped peaks have been beckoning me. I can’t wait to get some fantastic hikes/snowboarding trips in while I am here.

Hope you enjoyed today’s top five.

Be well,

Charlie

And so it begins…

Hello and welcome to my blog following the Kiva fellowship I recently embarked upon. Please feel free to subscribe  if you want to receive notices that I have updated the blog. The link to subscribe in on the right side of this page.

Now to my first entry.

As I sat down to write my first post to this personal blog the other day, I realized I was writing the same thing I had written before several other big trips I have taken. Basically that I was nervous but excited, and that I wasn’t sure what to expect. While the feeling was the same the fact that it felt familiar made it more comfortable, sort of like an old friend. As I write this I am at a small restaurant in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan eating my lunch of steaming hot noodles and vegetables. While the abundance of fresh bread, homemade noodles, and tasty kimchi has kept me satisfied, it seems the dominant Russian food manual lost the chapter on spice. I find myself frequently unloading generous amounts of chili sousam (chili sauce) just to get some interaction with my food before I swallow it. I suppose I can’t complain as the large plate in front of me, including bread and tea, will run about $2, and those are city prices.

Besides the food I am settling well into my position with Mol Bulak Finance, the 4^th largest microfinance bank in Kyrgyzstan. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much responsibility they have given me so far. The main thrust of my first several months looks like it will be to help them manage their social performance research. Social performance management is the new hot item in microfinance. Basically it looks to quantify the social benefits borrowers are receiving by taking microloans, receiving microinsurance, or initiating microsaving.  My project will be to research industry best practices, determine which of these indicators can be efficiently and effectively measured within the specific context on Mol Bulak, and work on implementing the changes in data mining needed to satisfy the requirements of the approved indicators. I could not be more excited. I also have been charged with several PR projects (who knew I could do PR?!) focusing on creating a campaign to expand an educational initiative the bank has started and creating a template for quarterly reports to attract and inform investors. With the outpouring of support from my friends and family to support me going on this fellowship, it feels great to be utilized and effective in helping while I am here.

Well, my goal with these blogs is to keep them short and sweet, as opposed to the last few novellas on my travelblog. Also, I will probably use this space to write more goofy/funny/sad/happy stories about living in Bishkek and use the Kiva Fellows blog to write about fellowship work (I know, I know, all I talked about here was fellowship work. What can I say, I’m excited!). As I start to write blogs on the official Kiva Fellows blog I will put the links up here.

Also, while I alluded to it above, I want to make sure that I am loud and proud about thanking those that supported me in this endeavor. I raised over $8,000 and had my plane ticket donated! To each of you I hope you choose to follow my work here in Kyrgyzstan and that I am able to provide real returns on your investment…in me. I also will use this to remind anyone reading this that would like to donate to my fellowship fund, I can certainly use it. There is a PayPal donation button on the right side of this page. The more money I have the longer I will be able to keep doing this volunteer work.

Love,

Charlie Чарли