The most important thing on my desk

Someone here in Kyrgyzstan asked me what the most important theories in the field of student development were.  I didn't have a great answer.  But after thinking it over for a day or two, now I do. "I don't know which theories are the most important in the field of student development," would be my answer.  "But I know what's the most important thing on my desk."

The best insights I've received from colleagues, the most heartfelt conversations I've had with students, much of the most necessary information I've received from the people I have interacted with have all been gathered from the interactions that have taken place around the bowl of chocolate on my desk.  How often has it happened that someone has popped into my office to raid my chocolate bowl "for just a second" only to stay for an hour to tell me a story that needed telling?

It can be in Arkansas, it can be in Kentucky, it can be in Kyrgyzstan, it can be in Italy, it can be in the Netherlands. The culture you're in doesn't matter.  If you have a bowl of treats in your office that's available for everyone you will learn much, get to know people, especially students, and gain insight beyond what you might ever expect.

No, it's not much in terms of a theory.  Nothing scholarly or learned about it.  But, the most important thing on my desk is my bowl of chocolate and that bowl has mattered more than any theory I could ever imagine.

The face of the (former) enemy

When I was a kid, everyone was afraid of the Soviets.  They were the Evil Empire, the Red Menace.  I can remember people at church, as they were sitting in the social hall sipping their coffee, talking about how horrible the Soviet people were, how they lived simply to kill us all and take over our country.  Now that I am living in Kyrgyzstan, I reside in what was the old Soviet Union.  Many of my friends, neighbors, and co-workers are former Soviets, the old Red Menace.  I am living among these people who I was told, back in the day, would slit my throat as I slept in my bed if they had even half a chance.

Well, I have met the former Red Menace in person and they are surprisingly kind and gracious.  Let me introduce you to Myrza, my co-worker, who is one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet.

Myrza, in our office kitchen, making us coffee as he does each and every morning.

Myrza served in the Soviet Army in the 1980s as a military chemist.  His job was to go around East Germany and train Soviet troops on how to survive the inevitable nuclear attack they thought would be launched by...of all people...you and me.  Hmm, perhaps we were the "Blue Menace?"  After his time in the army, he was so highly thought of by the Soviet Apparatus that he was chosen to teach "Scientific Communism" to party leaders in his part of Kyrgyzstan.  When the USSR fell, he was excited, because he felt it would usher in a better era in Kyrgyzstan; as is usually the case with most people, Myrza was a father, a husband, a Kyrgz, a human being, an educator much more than he ever was a political ideologue.  He went to Minnesota for his graduate studies and has worked tirelessly the past two decades to improve education in the region.  He has even served the U.S. government working for USAID in Afghanistan for several years.  Since I have arrived in Bishkek, Myrza has gone out of his way to show me hospitality and kindness and is no more menacing than one's kindly uncle.

So far, I have managed to evade the sinister influence of the Red Menace.  I laugh every time I think about this term.  But then I don't.  In this election year, listen carefully.  Train your ears to hear the voices of candidates who use harsh terms to describe the "enemy."  Identify which candidates are condemning and attacking entire groups of people as an evil monolith.  Those stirring passions against groups of "enemies" are the people who are the greatest threat to our democracy; beware of those who attempt to gain political power by dehumanizing others.  The politicians who spread hate and advocate things like carpet bombing entire regions, these are the menace that should fill our hearts with fear.  And these spreaders of hate should be resisted with all our might.

Me, I am enjoying my time chatting with those who formed the old Evil Empire, the ancient Red Menace.  I wonder which group it is that those who feared the Red Menace in my childhood church are hating on now?

A guide for the day after March 22

Yesterday, I heard the news of the terrorist attacks in Brussels and it sent a shiver down my spine, not just because it was a cruel and terrible event, but also because it was a frightening reminder of one of my past lives.  For many years I worked in study abroad, often on-site in Europe.  Whenever terrorists struck, it was a horrible day for those of us at study abroad sites, even if our campus was thousands of miles from the attack itself.  Yes, we felt sorrow for the victims, but we also had to work to assuage the panic of students and parents who would become quite freaked out, even hysterical, fearing for their own lives and for the lives of their children.  How many parents did I have to talk through their intense panic, however understandable?  Your child is safe and sound, yes I'll have them call you, no they don't have to stop their studies and return on the next flight home, yes it will be OK.  During that worst semester, that time I was at NYU in Florence when the 9/11 attacks were unleashed upon us, I had the responsibility of fielding all the phone calls from worried parents from across the globe for the rest of the semester. One parent called because she had heard that the Italian Red Brigade of the 1970s had re-formed as a response to 9/11 and was bent on harming U.S. students in Florence and she wanted me to move her son from an apartment off campus to a room on campus that would be safer--this turned out to be an assertion in which no one in Italy could find one ounce of credibility.  Another day, a small plane crashed into the Pirelli Tower in Milan.  Within minutes, dozens of calls flooded my cell phone and our office, certain that a round of Islamic terrorism had been unleashed in Italy.  Turns out it was just a pilot who had a medical issue or some sort of non-terroristic problem.  Yes, their concern was understandable, but at what point do we choose to become brave?  At what point do we refuse to become terrorized even if we might face risk to our own personal safety?  At what point do we reject the calls of those who wish to take out their revenge on even peaceable members of a particular group or religion?

Coincidently, today I received my online version of Portland Magazine, quarterly magazine of my alma mater.  In it, I think, just might be some words that could inform us during these times, help us to consider our response to these events.  In this newest edition (Spring 2016 issue, page 3) accessible from the front page of the UP website (up.edu), is an article written by Michael Bendine, UP Class of 1968, who is the retired Director of the Cambridge Muslim College in Cambridge, England.  In light of recent terrorist events, I think it's an article that every American should read, every Christian should read; it is an article that serves as an essential reminder of truths with which many of us may or may not be familiar. Below is a link that can also connect you to the article (which was originally printed in the Winter 2009 issue of the same publication).

https://www.up.edu/portlandmag/2009_winter/islam_txt.html

After reading Bendine's article, consider this:  What response should we take toward March 22?  Do we follow the guidance of those who advocate torture or police action against entire neighborhoods of a particular religion?  Or do we follow the path of Bendine, of Gandhi, of Martin Luther King Jr.?

What should we do when faced with evil and violence and the hopelessness and despair which spring from them?  I don't know exactly.  But, I do know what we should not do.  Let us all struggle to find the path that leads us to what we ought to do as ethical, peace-loving people and fight with whatever courage we can muster to avoid mimicking our enemies and surrendering to the temptation of committing the kinds of atrocities that those who believe in goodness must never advocate. 

Happy Nowruz!

Today is Nowruz, a national holiday in Kyrgyzstan.  It can be simply described as Persian New Year.  It coincides with the first day of Spring, which is an event everyone celebrates after a long Kyrgyz winter.  Even though the Kyrgyz are not Persian in origin and despite the fact that there aren't a great many Persian peoples residing in the country, it is still a tremendously important holiday that people celebrate with great gusto.

I went to the main square of Bishkek to witness the celebrations.  People dress in traditional clothing and groups sing and dance old traditional songs.  It's also a bit of a multicultural day as people from all cultures also participate and give out samples of their new year's foods.

Nowruz is an extremely old holiday that predates Christianity and Islam--it actually has its roots in the ancient Zoroastrianism religion which began in Persia.  The peoples of modern day Iran and all the nations of Central Asia have such a strong connection to Nowruz that the fundamentalist Islamic efforts to de-emphasize the holiday have been resoundingly ineffective.

The following link gives a much more complete explanation of Nowruz:

www.vox.com/2016/3/20/11265872/persian-new-year-nowruz


Below are pictures of Bishkek's national celebration of Nowruz, celebrated under clear skies and mild temperatures. I guess it really is Spring, so Happy Spring, Happy Nowruz!

Two ancient Kyrgyz celebrating an ancient holiday

In the main square, behind the performance stage and yurt

Young dancers preparing to go on stage

Bishkek Television interviewing cultural fair food providers: notice the yurt logo on the microphone

Tajik dancers

Concert of mountain horns

Shops near my apartment

When going out to get groceries, or simply when wandering, I run across many businesses which catch my attention.  Below are three that interested me today.

Even though the logo suggests that it might be a distant cousin, BFC (Bishkek Fried Chicken) is not related to KFC.

Hmm, maybe my waist could actually use a little training as it seems to have a mind of its own.

Whatever it is the Brutal Shop is selling, I think I'm afraid of buying.

The view from my office window

Confusion with Cultural Geography

When I taught English in Japan, I often encountered students who made assumptions about what I did in the United States that were wildly erroneous.

"You mean you don't drink Fizzy Melon Soda?  Everyone in the U.S. drinks Fizzy Melon Soda," my students would tell me.  After I reassured them that Fizzy Melon Soda did not exist in the U.S and I had never tasted the stuff, even in Japan, they still wouldn't believe me.  The ads for Fizzy Melon Soda that tied the product to the U.S. were far more powerful than my word, that of a genuine American.

"Where are your guns?" would be something else my Japanese students would ask me.

"What do you mean?"  I would reply.  "I don't have any guns.  Besides, you can't have guns in Japan."

"But you must have guns," they would say.  "Everyone from the U.S. has guns; we've seen it on television."  I would attempt to reassure them, tell them I had never owned a gun in my life, but somehow I always had the feeling they were visually inspecting me, trying to gauge if the pockets of my jacket had some bulky item protruding from them that would confirm their suspicions of me as a typical American, gun-toting, junior John Wayne.

Yes, it was a problem of confused cultural geography.  The difficulties with cultural geography seem to be everywhere.  Just check out the ad for Nathan's of Kyrgyzstan I got my hands on.

You can see each borough of New York, its spelling in the Cyrillic alphabet and the signature snack with which the borough is associated.  According to this ad, Manhattan loves the "Manhattan hot dog" which is a frankfurter in a bun with bacon shreds and pickles.  I hadn't remembered ever seeing a hot dog like that in any of my visits to Manhattan so I Googled "Manhattan hot dog" and found no traces of this culinary delight ever existing in New York's glitziest borough. In fact, the only specific entry I found on Google for "Manhattan hot dog" is a company called "Manhattan Hotdogs."  And that company is a fast food chain based in France and their notions of what a Manhattan hot dog is happen to be quite different than what it is in Manhattan or at the Bishkek Nathan's.

As you can gather from this culinary map of New York, the other boroughs are also victims of confused cultural geography.  I didn't even need to use Google to know that the folks in Queens aren't spending their Friday nights preparing tasty batches of Queens french fries with cheese sauce and mushrooms.  Only my father's borough of birth, Staten Island, comes away relatively unscathed as I could actually imagine him and his fellow Staten Islanders eating a hot dog with mustard in their home borough.  However, I don't think a plain hot dog with mustard is a distinctive specialty of Staten Island or anywhere else for that matter.

No doubt future generations of American English teachers in Kyrgyzstan will be wondering why their students are asking them if they enjoy Manhattan hot dogs, that wonderful treat of a frankfurter smothered in dry bacon and pickles.  And generations of young Kyrgyz students will be wondering why their American English teachers are so dimwitted and ignorant of American cuisine.  Even worse, very few people realize that much of what they perceive about the rest of the world and its cultural geography comes from marketers and the mass media and is as accurate as saying the moon is made of green cheese (which some people a hundred years ago speculated might be the case).  More troubling is my personal observation that the people I have met who are most certain of their knowledge of cultural geography and make the strongest judgments based on their knowledge are often those who are the most confused. It's all relatively harmless when we are talking about foodways and other such things.  Unfortunately, much of our other cultural geography, on far more important issues like religion or sexuality, that we consume from the media--and worst of all from politicians and other nefarious sorts who are trying to persuade us--is equally as suspect and radically inaccurate as Bishkek Nathan's take on New York snacks.  Most unfortunate of all is that we vote, and make decisions, and judge individuals and entire groups of people based on the ignorance that springs from the confused cultural geography we assume is truth.  How much of the bigotry, racism, and hatred on this planet is fueled by confused--and often malevolently constructed--cultural geography?

If I ever I decide to eat at Nathan's in Bishkek I will order a Manhattan hot dog and some Queens french fries and I will marvel at the fact that the human race is somehow still intact despite the troubles that arise from its infinite confusion with cultural geography.

Random Remnants of the Soviet Era II

The vodka aisle at my local grocery store

Bishkek Park is not a park

"Have you been to Bishkek Park?" one of my co-workers asked me.

"No, but now that the weather's warmer, some time in a park sounds nice," I replied.

My co-worker laughed and informed me that Bishkek Park is actually a mall and was surprised that I was oblivious to its existence as it is situated only two blocks from my apartment.  I had no idea it was even there--evidently I had been auditioning for a role on The Walking Dead, every time I had passed by previously.

So, I entered Bishkek Park the next time I walked down Kiev Street.  I think one of the very few things common to the 30 or so countries I have visited is that they all have malls.  And they draw lots of people.  And the malls in every country seem to all look about the same.  You could plunk Bishkek Park down in the center of Managua and it would resemble the other malls I've seen in Nicaragua.  And if you took the malls I've visited in Central America and plunked them down in the middle of Bishkek you would think you were simply visiting another version of Bishkek Park--as long as you just switched the language on the signage your deception might go unnoticed.  And they all have lots of stuff you really don't need.  And almost all of this stuff is all the same stuff you can find at all the other malls.  And much of it is priced beyond the reach of average folks. And most everyone in these malls is madly in love with their cell phones.  And after wandering through these pretend parks designed to create never-ending wants, I have come to the conclusion that malls, no matter the locale, could possibly be the least spiritual places on our planet.

Ice skating in Bishkek Park 

Shoppers crowd around the special deals set out on the walkways of Bishkek Park to celebrate Women's Day

Sorry, Donald, haven't seen any hatred here

One of the great joys of living in Kyrgyzstan is the fact that I am 10,000 miles away from the current U.S. Presidential campaign.  Oh how fantastic it is to be able to avoid Donald Trump and Marco Rubio talk about the size of their hands if I so choose.

However, Donald Trump said something in the last day or so that I found troubling…well actually almost everything he says is troubling, but this particular troubling item is something I feel I am qualified to comment on.  The great theologian Trump blustered, "I think Islam hates us. There's something, there's something there that's a tremendous hatred."

Kyrgyzstan is an Islamic nation.  I have not encountered even a hint of hatred towards Christianity and the West.  In fact, virtually every person here has treated me with kindness and decency.  No one has tried to evangelize me…can't say that about some of the people in Arkansas I met who were always checking, questioning, asking me where I went to church, probing to figure what kind of Christian I was, to see if I needed to be saved.  Tajikistan is a more conservative Islamic nation than Kyrgyzstan.  Again, everyone I encountered there knew where I was from…no hatred, no harsh words, nothing of the sort.

Oh, and by the way, my employer is a very large foundation headed by the leader of the Ismaili group of Shia Muslims.  Every Ismaili I have met has been kind to me and their ethos of helping educate and provide services to the world's poor could serve as a model for Christians.  The Ismailis provide education and care to all people regardless of their religion.  In fact, the university I work for, despite its Ismaili financing and sponsorship, will be completely secular when it opens. No public space will be provided on campus for prayer or religious observance; students and staff must observe their faith in private or off campus--and no religious studies or classes will be allowed.   It's a school James Madison would approve of and is actually more in accordance with the philosophy of our Founding Fathers than much of the religious dogma that is currently being spread across the American airwaves.  I find it incredibly strange that the Islamic institution I work for has a philosophy of secularism and religious tolerance more closely aligned to that of the U.S. Founding Fathers than the majority of the Christian institutions I have encountered in the U.S.

So who truly is it, Mr. Trump, who is filled with malice and is inspiring hatred wherever he goes?   Yes, there are practitioners of hatred in the Islamic world, just as there are in the Christian world (refer to Holy Wars, Christian Inquisitions, the KKK, in case you have forgotten).  But remember, the vast majority of the Islamic world is not hate-filled and actually believes in kindness and charity and tolerance…words you seldom hear in certain Presidential campaigns.

Besh Barmak

Let's say you enter a restaurant in Kyrgyzstan with your friend.  You both can't speak Russian or Kyrgyz and none of the wait staff speaks English.  There are no menus for you to read.  Your server can only say, "Besh Barmak."  You don't know what that is…but you are starving and you have no choice but to accept this dish for your dinner. Ten minutes later your server brings you this and proclaims "Besh Barmak":

Your meal looks wonderful and smells delicious, but you are not certain what you have ordered. Your conversation with your friend would probably go like this:

FRIEND:  "It's very tasty but I can't quite tell what it is.  Is it beef?
YOU:  "No.  It tastes somewhat like beef, but it really isn't."
FRIEND:  "It's not pork or mutton.  But, it's tender and not particularly gamey.  It's not deer meat."
YOU:  "No, it's not.  It's really not like anything I've ever had."
FRIEND: "The broth is tasty and the noodles are really tender and delicate."
YOU:  "It tastes a little like the ox tail soup my old German grandmother made once.  But it's not that either."
FRIEND:  "Well, the closest thing I've ever had to this might be reindeer, but that's not what it is."
YOU:  "Hmmm.  I'm stumped. Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it."

After your dinner you might head back to your hotel, where you might Google the term "Besh Barmak" and find that the restaurant you have visited is known for serving a horse meat version of this dish and that horse had been the unidentifiable protein you had been enjoying for dinner.  Now, if you are from the United States, and maybe from several other countries, you might be slightly dismayed at your discovery as horse meat is one of the strongest food taboos present in much of the world today (if the intense reactions to the European IKEA and McDonald's horse meat scandals are any indication).

My experience at dinner this evening was a bit different than the imaginary dialogue I constructed in only one way: in my case, I intentionally ordered the Besh Barmak with horse.  And I found it to be tasty and pleasant and exactly as described in my imaginary dialogue:  somehow like beef or something similar, but really not quite the same.  What does it taste like?  It tastes like horse.  By that, I mean it does have its own distinct flavor, which I might be able to recognize if I ever were to eat it again.

One of my Kyrgyz friends at work has been encouraging me to try horse, so tonight I finally had the courage to do so.  He told me horse meat has 1/2 the fat of beef, less cholesterol, fewer calories, and more iron.  And it's free of all antibiotics, he bragged.  He told me horse is not consumed on an everyday basis by people in Kyrgyzstan.  He said in his family they just have it on very special occasions.

Why do we European-based folks avoid horse meat?  The roots of this taboo can possibly be traced to Pope Gregory III, who announced a papal ban on eating horse flesh in 732 because the practice was associated with Paganism.  Additionally, the horse's function as a laborer made it more valuable for other purposes than consumption as food.  Today, though, I think it is our culture's love affair with horses and our close bond with these creatures that make the thought of consuming horse meat so upsetting to many.  However, when I lived in the Netherlands, I traveled through Belgium and France rather frequently and did notice a butcher shop or two in those countries that did advertise horse meat as the taboo against this practice is weaker in those two nations than in much of the world.

Before you condemn me for my dinner, think about this.  Every night in Arkansas in the summer I would sit on my front porch and watch the chicken trucks go by, headed to the processing plant and I would observe the chickens crammed together cruelly in their horribly confined pens.  And when the wind was coming from the right direction and I could smell the stench emanating from the chicken plant as they were processing those mistreated chickens to make nuggets and other products, I wondered if eating a chicken nugget was such a great idea after all.  Tonight I will not judge the Kyrgyz for eating his horse, nor the Arkansan for eating her cruelly mined chicken nuggets, nor the vegan for drinking the California almond milk that comes from the trees that use far too much of their region's precious water supply, and will simply observe that we should always be mindful that very many of our culinary choices come with cultural, economic, political, and ethical dimensions that should always be contemplated.  And sometimes when we leap outside our comfortable and familiar foodways and directly encounter our personal food taboos it can help us reconsider our own practices of mindful eating.

Viewing the Portland Pilots

The first time I moved abroad was in 1987, long before the internet and social media.  I lived in the Italian city of Mantova.  We had no U.S. media, except the international versions of the USA Today and Herald Tribune newspapers.  If I wanted to know who won a particular basketball game on Sunday, it wouldn't make the Monday edition of the paper, so I would go to the train station on Tuesday around lunchtime after the morning train from Milan would arrive with the daily periodicals, so that I could buy the Tuesday version of one of the U.S papers so I could figure out what had happened in the world over the weekend.  That is, unless there was a train strike or a printers strike, then I might just not ever find out who won any of the games as there was no other source of this kind of news. Nothing. Occasionally, I could pick up Armed Services radio, broadcast from the Aviano airbase about 80 miles away if I stood in the kitchen of my apartment and held the radio antenna with one hand, but the reception was so poor, that it was seldom a viable option.  And that was it.  

Fast forward to today in Kyrgyzstan.  I was flipping the dial through my Russian and Asian television stations at my apartment when I found this.

It was my alma mater, the University of Portland Pilots playing the team from my hometown, the Gonzaga Bulldogs; the game was being shown live on Viasat, Russian sports satellite channel.  It is during these kinds of moments when you realize how the world has changed in 30 years.

But then again, if you look at the score on the screen you'll see that my school, Portland, is getting crushed by Gonzaga.  I believe it's the 26th loss for Portland in its last 27 games against the evil Bulldogs.  Perhaps there are some things that actually never do change.

Happy Women's Day!

Officially, International Women's Day is celebrated on Tuesday, March 8 in Kyrgyzstan. Because there is no official work at our office on Monday or Tuesday, we celebrated the holiday today. Each woman was greeted by the office's men when she arrived at work and was presented with flowers.  The men then provided a lunch which they personally served to the women.  The Head of the UCA Board gave a speech honoring the contributions of all UCA women. And finally, each woman received a gift box of lotions and other fun items. Throughout the next few days there will be concerts, lectures, and other events honoring women in the city. For those of you residing in places where Women's Day is not celebrated, let me provide my well wishes for a Happy Women's Day! (I guess if you live in the U.S. you will have to wait for May and Mother's Day to have your moment in the sun; however, if you are a woman who is not a mother, well, I hope my humble and completely insufficient greetings will not be the only acknowledgement of women you hear this calendar year.)

Women's Day decoration in UCA elevator

UCA staff listening to Board Director's speech, hot buffet (served by UCA men) in background

What I am doing here

Just a very quick word on why I am here.  I am working for the University of Central Asia, which is part of the Aga Khan Development Network.  We are in the midst of a massive project to assist mountain communities in Central Asia by developing higher educational opportunities for students. Our first campus will be completed in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan in August.  Two additional campuses will open in Tajikistan (2017) and Kazakhstan (2019).

I am currently on the team developing the Naryn campus's student life program and will move up to Naryn just before the campus opens to manage student life operations there.  If you are interested in learning more about this remarkable endeavor, feel free to follow the link below and you will be able to find out more about this project.

ucentralasia.org