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| A view of the Red Mountains from the Naryn campus, right after sunrise. |
Saturday, December 17, 2016
A Brief Hiatus
Life in the Stans will be on a brief hiatus until the middle of January; thanks for visiting this blog during the past year. Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful holiday season. May the year 2017 be filled with peace and joy, despite however improbable the likelihood of that might seem at the moment. Let us go forward with great courage come what may.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Pineapple Dreams
We had a gathering on campus yesterday and I was sitting with a couple of Expats and inevitably we discussed what foods we would be bringing back from our home countries when we returned from our winter breaks in January. Someone mentioned obtaining a range of vegan products unknown in the sheep-eating land of Kyrgyzstan. I proposed almond butter and rooibos tea as potential stowaways that might find their way into my luggage.
Longing and desire are constant companions of those who live far from home. In casual conversation we dare not name some of the subjects of our yearnings, so we settle for sharing descriptive accounts of the delicious and tasty items that we cannot seem to find anywhere. This is why almond butter is talked about like a beloved cousin who lives in a distant land, whose companionship is sorely missed. It is also why we eagerly share our stories of finding rice milk in Bishkek at five times the price one would pay at home--even when we aren't particularly fond of milk made from grains. Longing and desire cause us to seek out different comforts than we might otherwise and pay a steeper price for them.
When winter descends upon the Kyrgyz mountains a biting cold accompanies the season. Sometimes I am huddled on campus for days at a time, never leaving the cocoon in which I live. I seldom remember my dreams while living in this frigid land and I suspect that it's a good thing. But as the chill grows deeper across the landscape, the fog of my slumber has been lifted and fragments of dreams stay with me and accompany me as I climb out of bed. These new dreams are unlike ones I've ever had: images of pineapples, coconuts, and mangos drift across my consciousness and contribute to the murky haze of my morning until they are banished by my first cup of tea.
Unlike the land of my dreams, there are no mangos cultivated in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Apples and potatoes and carrots are the bounty of this place. As wonderful as they are, eating them in copious amounts has not been the antidote to this obsession that seems to have overtaken my sleep. I find it peculiar that a person as pale as a sheet who can barely tolerate an ounce of sun has a mind suddenly fixated on this tropical fare.
Then, this past Saturday, I wandered through the Naryn produce market to buy some pears and apples and the occasional banana that somehow finds its way to every corner of the world. While contemplating a burlap sack crammed full of local carrots, I spotted it, hiding in a bin of onions at the very back of the adjacent produce stall. It was a golden, prickly pineapple, with a forest of spiked green leaves protruding from its top. At that moment it seemed unreal, as if it had tumbled from my dreams onto a random pile of onions, a mirage in Naryn Market.
The sharp thorns that stabbed me when I grabbed it was proof of its realness and greedily I bought that pineapple, despite the fact that it cost more than all the other produce I had purchased combined. Longing does that to you.
That night I ate half my pineapple, the fiercely sweet and burning sensation darting through my mouth, then settled into bed in a state of tropical bliss.
When I woke up the next morning, my mind was empty, no memory of the tropics or of anything at all. At first I was very pleased to have escaped the odd dreamscape that had been confounding me. Two more nights passed and still no recollection of anything--just more blank and uneventful sleep. My pineapple dreams had vanished, which left me wondering which was better: the empty memories of a sleep whiter than the snow-draped Kyrgyz mountains or the puzzling images from a colorful equatorial illusion?
When all of us living here go searching, for whatever it is we are looking for during our holidays, we will be trying to live out our elusive pineapple dreams. Then eventually we will return to the blazing, white Kyrgyz mountains and may still be left wondering which reality we might prefer.
Longing and desire are constant companions of those who live far from home. In casual conversation we dare not name some of the subjects of our yearnings, so we settle for sharing descriptive accounts of the delicious and tasty items that we cannot seem to find anywhere. This is why almond butter is talked about like a beloved cousin who lives in a distant land, whose companionship is sorely missed. It is also why we eagerly share our stories of finding rice milk in Bishkek at five times the price one would pay at home--even when we aren't particularly fond of milk made from grains. Longing and desire cause us to seek out different comforts than we might otherwise and pay a steeper price for them.
When winter descends upon the Kyrgyz mountains a biting cold accompanies the season. Sometimes I am huddled on campus for days at a time, never leaving the cocoon in which I live. I seldom remember my dreams while living in this frigid land and I suspect that it's a good thing. But as the chill grows deeper across the landscape, the fog of my slumber has been lifted and fragments of dreams stay with me and accompany me as I climb out of bed. These new dreams are unlike ones I've ever had: images of pineapples, coconuts, and mangos drift across my consciousness and contribute to the murky haze of my morning until they are banished by my first cup of tea.
Unlike the land of my dreams, there are no mangos cultivated in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Apples and potatoes and carrots are the bounty of this place. As wonderful as they are, eating them in copious amounts has not been the antidote to this obsession that seems to have overtaken my sleep. I find it peculiar that a person as pale as a sheet who can barely tolerate an ounce of sun has a mind suddenly fixated on this tropical fare.
Then, this past Saturday, I wandered through the Naryn produce market to buy some pears and apples and the occasional banana that somehow finds its way to every corner of the world. While contemplating a burlap sack crammed full of local carrots, I spotted it, hiding in a bin of onions at the very back of the adjacent produce stall. It was a golden, prickly pineapple, with a forest of spiked green leaves protruding from its top. At that moment it seemed unreal, as if it had tumbled from my dreams onto a random pile of onions, a mirage in Naryn Market.
The sharp thorns that stabbed me when I grabbed it was proof of its realness and greedily I bought that pineapple, despite the fact that it cost more than all the other produce I had purchased combined. Longing does that to you.
That night I ate half my pineapple, the fiercely sweet and burning sensation darting through my mouth, then settled into bed in a state of tropical bliss.
When I woke up the next morning, my mind was empty, no memory of the tropics or of anything at all. At first I was very pleased to have escaped the odd dreamscape that had been confounding me. Two more nights passed and still no recollection of anything--just more blank and uneventful sleep. My pineapple dreams had vanished, which left me wondering which was better: the empty memories of a sleep whiter than the snow-draped Kyrgyz mountains or the puzzling images from a colorful equatorial illusion?
When all of us living here go searching, for whatever it is we are looking for during our holidays, we will be trying to live out our elusive pineapple dreams. Then eventually we will return to the blazing, white Kyrgyz mountains and may still be left wondering which reality we might prefer.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Moments of Epic Wonderment
I have a very good friend who is a work colleague stationed in Bishkek with whom I usually communicate with via Email once or twice a day on business. Sometimes, I conclude my communications with a whimsical or peculiar closing salutation. Today, in my salutation, I wrote that I hoped her day had "moments of epic wonderment" as my day seemed to contain nothing of the sort.
She wrote back and told me that she had experienced a moment of epic wonderment today. And then I realized I had too. Epic wonderment. It's a "state of awed admiration or respect." It can also be defined as the "surprise and admiration caused by something beautiful, unexpected, or inexplicable." After considering these definitions, it's not astonishing that many of us go for days or weeks without perceiving that we ever experience a moment of epic wonderment. It seems as though lately our surprise and amazement has been caused by unexpected or inexplicable events of shocking ugliness, rather than those of profound beauty. Yet they are here to be grasped, these positive moments of wonderment, if we can somehow find them.
My moment of epic wonderment today was the feeling of surprise and awe I experienced when I considered an unexpected friendship that has enriched my life more than I might have imagined months ago. I also feel wonderment, when I look out my office window at the stark and beautiful landscape and consider the unexpected nature of life that caused me to somehow end up living in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Almost every moment in our lives contains the possibility for wonderment when we realize that a state of awed admiration and respect should not solely be reserved for the remarkable or the unusual, but also for those things which are embedded in our daily lives that are often overlooked and ignored. Whether it is the spectacle of the night sky, or the warm and gentle touch of someone's hand, uncountable sources of wonderment like these surround us, despite our obliviousness to them in our hurried and unreflective lives.
Each day I witness much that fills me with concern. The state of the world is alarming. Aspects of my existence are sometimes troubling and I fail to grasp the intricacies of the challenges those around me face in their own lives. Then I must stop. It is at that instant, when I need to search outside myself for the surprisingly beautiful and unexpected. It is in these moments of epic wonderment where meaning and insight most intensely reside and where some small strength to continue onward can be obtained.
She wrote back and told me that she had experienced a moment of epic wonderment today. And then I realized I had too. Epic wonderment. It's a "state of awed admiration or respect." It can also be defined as the "surprise and admiration caused by something beautiful, unexpected, or inexplicable." After considering these definitions, it's not astonishing that many of us go for days or weeks without perceiving that we ever experience a moment of epic wonderment. It seems as though lately our surprise and amazement has been caused by unexpected or inexplicable events of shocking ugliness, rather than those of profound beauty. Yet they are here to be grasped, these positive moments of wonderment, if we can somehow find them.
My moment of epic wonderment today was the feeling of surprise and awe I experienced when I considered an unexpected friendship that has enriched my life more than I might have imagined months ago. I also feel wonderment, when I look out my office window at the stark and beautiful landscape and consider the unexpected nature of life that caused me to somehow end up living in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Almost every moment in our lives contains the possibility for wonderment when we realize that a state of awed admiration and respect should not solely be reserved for the remarkable or the unusual, but also for those things which are embedded in our daily lives that are often overlooked and ignored. Whether it is the spectacle of the night sky, or the warm and gentle touch of someone's hand, uncountable sources of wonderment like these surround us, despite our obliviousness to them in our hurried and unreflective lives.
Each day I witness much that fills me with concern. The state of the world is alarming. Aspects of my existence are sometimes troubling and I fail to grasp the intricacies of the challenges those around me face in their own lives. Then I must stop. It is at that instant, when I need to search outside myself for the surprisingly beautiful and unexpected. It is in these moments of epic wonderment where meaning and insight most intensely reside and where some small strength to continue onward can be obtained.
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| A source of wonderment: the view outside my office window |
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