The Season of Mud

I think, quite possibly, winter is over, although we had some snow flurries a couple days ago and additional snow is forecast in the next few days. Yet, spring, I feel, has not really arrived either.

There are encouraging signs. When it does snow, the snow isn't sticking and each day more of the five month accumulation is melting. When walking outside I can hear birds singing for the first time since Obama was president and we had no idea what perverse fate awaited us. Oh, those were innocent, carefree times.

Still, though, nothing is blooming and only a few blades of grass have dared peek their heads out of the ground to begin the task of forming a campus lawn. I have entered this short month between winter and spring not knowing what to call this interlude. But after spending last night cleaning off my shoes, this mini Kyrgyz season I have decided to name: The Season of Mud.

Everywhere I walk, mud abounds. It is in the streets and on the paths. On the trail to the garbage bins, gobs of mud await. Naively I walked on the gravel path between the dorm and the academic building only to sink my shoe into mud 10 centimeters deep. It is like crossing a minefield, some of my footsteps land on solid ground, others are swallowed up as though the earth were a hungry teenager devouring a midnight snack.

I have heard that in the lowlands near our campus, there is an archeological dig site where remnants of an ancient civilization have been found. I now am quite certain these artifacts were left behind during The Season of Mud, the earth swallowing up pots and clothing and even the Kyrgyz ancestors themselves, helpless to escape the jaws of the muddy bog.

As is the case with the seasons, The Season of Mud will soon depart and we will look forward to the blossoms on the trees, the brisk May wind and the next interlude that inevitably follows all Seasons of Mud which I'm sure will carry the name: The Season of Dust.

The muddy streets of Naryn town

The muddy walk to the garbage bins

Where my foot got swallowed up on the gravel path to the academic building

The Joys of Spring Break

It is now Spring Break on campus and many of the students have returned home for the week. Most of the staff and faculty are also away enjoying a well-deserved rest.

But don't feel sorry for those of us still on campus. One of the nice things we are able to do in our smaller group is share our cooking skills with each other. Today two students from Pakistan, AlyNa and Ali Zain, made a heaping pot of absolutely delicious Chicken Biryani to share with us. And one of my colleagues created a supremely tasty Asian Stir Fry.

Cooking food is a way for those of us from different lands to learn about each other's cultures. But even more important, the act of cooking and sharing a meal has always struck me as being as altruistic and genuine an act as humans can undertake. Providing sustenance to those in our community shapes our identities, serves as a measure of our kindness, and defines who we are as people.

Although a persistent snow falls across our Kyrgyz mountains on this day, my heart is filled with warmth after receiving the precious gift of a meal served in a spirit of generosity.

Restaurant quality Chicken Biryani, served up on our campus

What St. Patrick's Day looks like in Kyrgyzstan

It actually looks like every other day of the past four months: white and snowy. Actually, I hadn't even remembered it was St. Patrick's Day until just now, after dinner, when I noticed mention of the holiday by some Americans posting on Facebook. It's amazing what vanishes from one's consciousness when living in the Kyrgyz mountains.

It is no great tragedy that I have forgotten this day. St. Patrick's Day in America for most seems to be little more than an excuse for drinking copious amounts of green beer and eating plates of corned beef and cabbage. The two times I've visited Ireland and have asked people there about how they celebrate the holiday, they growl and curse at how we in America have erroneously appropriated leprechauns, invented culinary disasters like Shamrock Shakes, and have generally made a stereotypical mockery of Irish culture while simultaneously forgetting the importance and history of Ireland's patron saint.

I have probably also forgotten the holiday because of the slender thread of Irishness I possess. I am exactly 3 1/8 % Irish, probably represented by the reddish hue my beard used to have. Nevertheless, that 3 1/8 % probably makes me the second-most Irish person on campus of a total Irish population of two; but I must admit I am making assumptions about my colleague, Robin Higgins, based strictly upon her last name. If my assumption about my colleague is incorrect and I am the only Irish among us, then it must be depressing to the Hibernophiles reading this that a person with the last name of Krauss, who didn't even remember the significance of the 17th of March until he looked at his Facebook page, is the sole guarantor responsible for the observance of St. Patrick's Day in the Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan.

Instead, it is Nowruz, the Persian-originated celebration of New Year's that's been on my mind. Somehow it seems much more wonderful to celebrate the new year on the first day of spring rather than on the first day of January. Nowruz has been much more my focus as I've been engaged in activities like working with the dining staff to organize an appropriate meal for our students on that day. It's surprising how quickly one's cultural references can shift.

So, as I sit at my dining room table, I have decided that there will be no green beer, no digging my green shirt out of the closet, no singing of Danny Boy, or cooking up of cabbage. I won't even root for Notre Dame in the NCAA Basketball Tournament as the "Fighting Irish" enjoy more support than they deserve. Instead, I feel, there's nothing more that can be done on this St. Patrick's Day than to brew up a pot of green tea and to contemplate the great distances one can travel across the years.

If you are a German and your truck is missing...

One of the interesting things about living in Kyrgyzstan is observing its multitude of little quirks. A favorite of mine is the small utility trucks that many Kyrgyz businesses use for their commerce. It's not the trucks themselves that fascinate me, but the advertising on the side of the trucks. You see, almost none of these trucks advertise the Kyrgyz business operating the truck; instead the side of the truck might have a giant advertisement for Schmidt's Flower Shop of Berlin. Or for Bauer's Laundry Service of Munich.

Now how these trucks formerly representing German businesses end up in Kyrgyzstan is anyone's guess. I have two theories: there's a robust market for second-hand German vehicles that pass through Russia, eventually ending up in Kyrgyzstan. Or there's a robust market for stolen German vehicles that pass through Russia, eventually ending up in Kyrgyzstan. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow Donald Trump is involved in this German/Russian/Kyrgyz truck business and it's one of the things he's hiding from us in his unreleased income tax returns. Maybe Donald Jr. is operating this enterprise? At this point, it wouldn't shock me at all.

It's not just German trucks that find their way here. Just the other day, a truck representing the Raadsveld Company of the Netherlands was unloading stuff here at the Naryn campus. I somehow doubt that the Raadsvelds made the 6,000 kilometer trek from Holland to deliver produce to our university. And I've seen French and Danish trucks around the country as well. Perhaps Kyrgyzstan should have an additional nickname added to its collection. Not only are we the Switzerland of Central Asia, but also The Land of Exiled Trucks.

So, if you're the Manfred Ende from the northern German city of Westerstede who does plaster and cement work, and your truck is missing, you might want to send me a message. I know the street in Bishkek where it's always parked.

Manfred Ende of Westerstede, here is your truck.

The Raadsveld truck from the Netherlands, somehow ending up on our campus.

Either Kadow and Riese have opened up a branch of their sheet metal forming company in Bishkek or their truck is in voluntary or involuntary exile here.

Happy First Day of Spring?

One of my Kyrgyz co-workers gave me some wonderful chocolates as a gift today. "What's this for?" I wondered as I noticed the confections sitting on my desk.

"Happy First Day of Spring!" the note said.

When I saw my co-worker, I thanked her for her generosity, but asked her, "It's the First Day of Spring, really?"

She assured me that, yes, even though the Spring Equinox is March 20, that Kyrgyz people consider the first of March to be the beginning of Spring. Being a person who never refuses a gift of chocolate, no matter how questionable the reason, I happily took possession of my treats. But a look outside my office window made me wonder a bit about the Kyrgyz and their sense of timing.

What I saw was a meter of snow still on the ground. In fact, we've had snow on the ground in Naryn perpetually since Halloween, I think.

And the temperature. It was -15 (5 degrees F.) when I got up this morning. We've only had one or two days where the temperature has gotten above freezing all year. By my calculation, and the chill in my bones, it was certainly not the First Day of Spring, but rather the 120th consecutive day of winter that I was experiencing on this day. Just from my observation of the weather and all meteorological data at my disposal, and plotting the current trend lines, I have come to the conclusion that the First Day of Spring will actually arrive in Naryn on June 1st. I think this March 1st hoax is just a convenient excuse for eating chocolate, not that it's a bad thing really.

As I sit and heat up a pot of tea this evening and look out into the frozen darkness, I realize that the Kyrgyz are an optimistic people. One must be optimistic to survive winter in the Kyrgyz mountains. And to believe that March 1st is the First Day of Spring.

Naryn, today, on the "First Day of Spring"