Dear Lord, WHY Do I have So Much CRAP??!!

Seriously, why? I feel like I'm locked in a logic puzzle with no answer: you have two checked bags up to 23 kg one 10 kg carry on and a personal item. Fit everything in the universe that you don't even need without going over, or have airline personnel make you cry and then throw out your crap anyway. I am NOT paying $50 to $150 dollars to bring this stuff home. I just can't decide what to get rid of.

But seriously, I think I have a problem. I'm near tears thinking of the two storage lockers of stuff I have waiting for me at home. Who needs so much stuff? Why don't I get rid of it? How can someone as permanently broke as I am have so much stuff?

I think the lesson of this, my friends and family, is to not give me anything. Ever. I'm not responsible enough to handle gifts. I think I might be a hoarder in training. I think there's a TV show about people like me. Please don't make me go on it. Please steal all my stuff and burn it before it gets that far.

Oh, and the sibling getting a gift from me can count him or herself lucky that I'm not giving anything made of felt. Just not enough room for the extravagant Kyrgyz memento I had in mind.

Nearly Final Thoughts

Here's the text of an email I just sent to my parents. They'll probably read it here first, anyway. It adequately sums up how I'm feeling at the moment (totally crazed) and doesn't require additional effort from me, so I can get pack to figuring out how I can turn 30 kg into 22 through willpower and magic. If you have suggestions, let me know.

The email:

Can you just let me know for sure that you have my info and know how
to find me on Thursday? I won't have a phone, but should be at the
baggage claim area for my Aeroflot flight from Moscow by 4:30 at the
latest, barring any delays (that's giving myself an hour to get off
the plane and through customs). If I don't see you I will just sit and
wait until you find me or another family adopts the poor orphaned
stray.

Remember almost 10 years ago when you picked me up from my first
living abroad experience? It was probably JFK and not Dulles, but I
was broke and exhausted, and that's how I'm coming home this time,
too. If we stop for hamburgers, sorry, but you're buying (I'm having a
conflict with my landlady about the fact that she is estimating twice
what I think I owe for utilities. I broke their lamp, so I'm probably
going to let them cheat me, which takes care of every last bit of
cash. If I'm overweight on baggage I'm in a LOT of trouble at the
airport). At least this time I won't be hungover and super skinny.
Actually, the super skinny wouldn't be all bad, but I think those days
are behind me.

Tonight I'm packing and a friend is coming to pick up the clothes and
kitchen stuff I am donating to a local DV shelter, then I study for my
exam. Tomorrow I desperately try to find a box (who knew it would be
so hard? I didn't. I should have) to send stuff to myself, have a
lunch with a friend, take my final, buy some souvenirs, meet my RA for
the last time (she is all of a sudden moving to Dubai in two weeks, so
things are kind of crazy on that front, too), re-pack, clean, have
another friend over to order pizza and have her laugh at me while I
prove, once again, how terrible I am at the whole "travel" part of
being a traveler. People keep giving me stuff, which isn't helping.
Last night my RA's family had me out to their place for dinner and to
see the person they've heard all about, and of course I came home
loaded with goodies that I can't take into the US and can't pack even
if I could.

See you soon! If you forget, I'm the really pale tired and bloated
looking one with the reddish hair that everyone assures me has turned
brown with age. I'll be wearing glasses and a red coat. Can't miss me,
although I'll be less conspicuous than I have for the past year. Can't
just say "red headed and foreign looking" as a description anymore.

Some Random Work Pics

This is Going to End Well

I'm really, really tired. I'm supposed to be getting a final lesson on the making of plov right now, but I've re-scheduled for tomorrow night. I actually have a bit of a break this weekend, which is kind of a mistake. I slept 14 hours last night, woke up four hours ago, and want to go back to bed.

As you all know from my constant complaining, I have health problems that really affect my energy levels. So I'm always tired. But when I really have to, I can generally do whatever I need to do with a cocktail of pain-killers, sleeping pills, caffeine, and sheer stubbornness. I'm out of pain-killers, but other wise going strong these past few weeks. And given my incredible immune system, outstanding overall health level, and general luck and ability to avoid disasters, I have a feeling that running all over the country getting wet and cold and then hanging out in unheated health clinics with lots of people with the flu and TB and stuff is going to end really, really well for me. I've already requested a library trip from my Dad to pick me up trashy historical fiction (I especially love me a good costume drama/mystery hybrid) and warned my parents that I plan on sleeping for about a week when I get back to their house next Thursday.

Um, but things are going well. Yesterday was more interviews and Kyrgyz class. Most of the very important expert types I'm interviewing in Bishkek don't want to be recorded (whereas most people who don't get interviewed as often give me their full names and biographical details even after I've promised confidentiality and that I will not reveal their identities to anyone), but the ones who agree to recording tend to just go all out, naming names and making their dissatisfactions clear. I think that pretty much no one really believes in this idea of confidentiality, so people are basically speaking on or off the record. I had a crazy awesome conversation with someone yesterday who basically went through people in various positions having to do with my topic and told me why they are inadequate. She is not a lady who is afraid of any consequences of her words.

I should have spent today at the National Library, but I didn't. The plan is to see if it's open tomorrow, and then to go to TsUM to pick up enough Russian music and videos to get me through however many years before I leave for foreign shores again, and then go make plov. Monday I have only one interview scheduled so far, but that could change at any moment (I had to run out of a cafe having just gotten my cappuccino the other day, because I finally got through to someone I've been calling and calling and she told me to come in RIGHT THEN), and I have my last Kyrgyz class before my exam, and I'm having tea with my RA's aunt, and then Tuesday all day in Panfilovka, and then Wednesday final and packing and who knows what and probably a last day in the library and then Thursday at 4 AM I leave for the airport. I still can't get anyone at the Russian Embassy to pick up the phone and confirm that I'm good on the visa (you don't need a transit visa if you are going to be there for under 24 hours and not leave the international terminal of the airport, but I fear visa officials nonetheless, and would not be shocked if my outgoing flight were switched to a different airport, meaning that I could not get it. I mean, it's not likely, but it's the FSU. Stuff happens.), but I should be fine, and after a mere 25 or 26 hours transit time, I'll be back on US soil.

Which I'm really excited about. Obviously, I can't wait to see my family and friends. Despite the wonders of email and Facebook and whatever, I feel really disconnected from the lives of most people at home, because unless you're my parents and have called me at least once a week for the past 14 months, I am just not as up on your life as I would be if I were at home. I'm super excited to go to a grocery store, although the memory of the variety contained therein is actually freaking me out, so I can't even decide what kind of food I would like to have in the house. But it will be a big adjustment to settle back into life in TX, and it's a little scary despite being exciting. And I'm a little sad that I will no longer be living the exciting expat life--I have no idea when next I'll be taking off for potential adventures. I mean, I don't actually do anything, and am probably the most boring traveler to ever get a stamp in her passport, but for the past 14 months, there has at least been the potential for crazy foreign adventures, a potential that is ending.

So, yes, very tired, a little emotional, kind of stressed, excited, nervous, and overall just feeling kind of weird. So I'm coping by taking today to do nothing but eat bad local cookies, dance around to mixes created by iTunes, and catch up on Glee watching. I should be catching up on notes and work (I'm missing a grant application deadline and have basically decided to TA next year instead of applying for grants, which is a decision I'll probably regret when my paychecks stop coming in May), but I'm too tired to care right now.

Rookie Mistake

So, um, apparently it's illegal to interview a government official without special permission from the Ministry of Interior Affairs. Oops.

Well, I'm not in jail and no one has arrived to deport me, so I think I'm OK. I'm glad this is Kyrgyzstan and not any number of other countries I can think of. Maybe I'll check up on the legal code next time I'm doing research.

One Week Left

I can't believe that in 8 days I'll be back on US soil. So much to do before then. I need another month. Do you think they'll reschedule Christmas, my parents' anniversary, and the end date of my visa in order for that to happen? Probably not, so I guess I should be glad I just have to keep up this pace for another week.

Getting stuff done in KG is very different than in the US. For example, scheduling. No one likes to do so in advance. So you call for an interview, and they tell you to call back on such and such a day to see if they'll be free, and then they ask you to come in RIGHT NOW and you're on a minibus on the way to a village near the Kazakh border.

Today I almost throttled my RA when she was half an hour late meeting me at the station for the bus to Chaldovar, which is at an entirely different station than the buses to Kara Balta, despite the fact that the bus to Chaldovar goes THROUGH Kara Balta. There's basically one road west, and every place I have to go is somewhere on this road. So I was standing in the snow at 7:30 AM and watched two buses leave while my feet froze. The bus we eventually got on had no heat, and then just randomly stopped for a while, so by the time we got to the clinic where they were expecting us, which should have been a two hour trip, it was 10:30, I was losing all sensation in both feet, and the doctor was on her way out the door to a meeting somewhere. We did get to talk to a bunch of nurses. They didn't want to be recorded, which makes my job much harder because I only have notes and not transcripts to rely on, but boy did they let loose. Their attitude was basically "Family medicine sucks. Good if people aren't going to fund us any longer, because all we get is more work, not enough money, and maybe they'll go back to the old way" (They won't. There's no money for the old way).

Tomorrow I was supposed to go to a meeting of the heads of the Village Health Committees in Panfilovka, then rush back to Bishkek for a meeting at 2 with the Director of FOMS, which is sort of semi-analagous to Medicaid. Sort of. But she called and asked to switch to Friday at 10, so now it's the head of the cardiology institute, and I can't make it to Panfilovka at all, because another department head at MinZdrav wanted to meet today, but agreed to tomorrow at 10 instead. So my poor RA gets all the VHC people. That will actually be more interesting than what I'm doing, but it will mostly be in Kyrgyz, while my interviews in the city will be in Russian, so there's no choice in who goes where. Plus, in a hierarchical society like KG, one can't really send one's RA to meet with the MinZdrav types. It's bad enough that I'm not showing in person for the VHC people, as often outside of the city, people enjoy meeting foreigners. Some guy on the bus this morning asked me to come visit the kids at the juvenile detention facility he works at, but my schedule isn't going to let that happen before I go. So hopefully things will go well for IT (those are my RA's initials, I'm not referring to her as a giant it thing) and if anyone really wants to meet me in person, I'm in Panfilovka all day next Tuesday.

So, sometime between meetings and so on tomorrow, I need to do my Kyrgyz homework, because I thought I was going to be on a bus to Panfilovka at 8 tomorrow so re-scheduled class for 5 PM. And then I have a goodbye dinner with a couple of friends at 8:30. And then class on Friday at 8, so I can make my interview at 10 and then go harass a Family Medicine Center into letting me interview their staff on Friday, Saturday and Monday. Also, I should really check on my whole transit visa situation, because I may need to spend some time online at the Russian Embassy if I want to make my plane to the US in Moscow rather than being held in a transit detention center.

So far I've got interviews with around 50ish people, although not all separately. So I should have 70-80 respondents by the time I'm done, if things continue to go well. It's very difficult to evaluate who is speaking openly and who is putting on a good face for the foreigner, as there is a long tradition of that here, and many people remain unconvinced that I am not from an organization, MinZdrav, or some other group that wants to judge them. And when I do convince them that I'm just doing this on my own, they have no idea what the point of me is. But I do think that the time I've spent going back to places again and again, getting to know people, getting to know the country, not having to go through a traditional interpreter (when we work in Kyrgyz, IT summarizes in Russian at points for me. While many people don't feel comfortable speaking Russian, most understand, and will often interrupt to expand and clarify, which gets me much more information than if she were to translate into English), and so on do give me a different perspective from what most international types can get, so I'm hoping that I can say something interesting and perhaps even useful in my dissertation.

Um, that's all for now. See, I left you alone for so long that now I'm making up for lost time with lots of detail about my exciting and glamorous job: long bus rides on smelly freezing minibuses, hanging out in unheated clinics with people with TB and the flu, and writing lots of notes.

Also, Happy slightly early Birthday to my eldest sister!

Internet at Home!!!!!!!

That's the whole post. But isn't it exciting? Now idea how long this will last, but the next 10 days are full enough of running around like a mad woman, so not having to go to an internet cafe, and being able to look up info I need, is kind of a big deal.

I got in from Osh Sunday night, and by 7 Monday morning I was off to Panfilovka. Today I had class and was supposed to meet with someone from the Ministry of Health Press Center, but she re-scheduled for Monday, which is bad, but gave me time to run some errands. I'm getting tons done, but of course need more time. I always need more time.

Tomorrow is on to a village named Chaldovar in Panfilovskii Raion, where I'll be doing interviews with the Family Group Practice there and some of the locals. Thursday I have to be in Panfilovka (the central village in Panfilovskii) for a meeting with the heads of all the Village Health Committees in the Raion. It's a two hour trip each way,and I have to leave my research assistant there to finish while I get back to Bishkek to do another interview. I'll be working in the city Friday, Saturday, Monday and Wednesday, but Tuesday is one last trip out to Panfilovka to go to a meeting of all the GSV (Gruppa Semeinei Brachei, or Family Group Practices) heads for the raion (a raion is like a county).

Right now it's on to lunch with a friend I won't see again, and then at 3 I have a meeting with the head of one of the MinZdrav (Ministry of Health) department heads.

Oh, and some time in here I'm having a "master class" in plov making, getting a haircut, hopefully buying some new glasses, although I kind of spent all this month's money already (the trip to Osh was crazy expensive)and it's the 8th of the month, which is bad, and finishing up this semester of Kyrgyz, which involves a big exam of some sort. Fun!

GAH!!!!

I'm back in Osh, and just getting out of a serious cash crunch. Like, a making my RA choose between having dinner and having breakfast cash crunch. But all better now!

I'm in the midst of craziness. I spent last weekend baking mounds of cookies and now am giving them away all over southern Kyrgyzstan. We spent Monday in Aravan raion center, at the family medicine center and visiting some households, today at the Chek Abad Family Group Practice, tomorrow at an Osh FGP, Thursday back to Aravan center, Friday here in town, Saturday morning back to Chek Abad (a village in Aravan raion) for a meeting with the Village Health Committee, Sat night or Sun morning fly back to Bishkek (my nerves couldn't take another 12 hour trip with 7 other people in a station wagon with no seatbelts on icy mountain roads, and at $25 for a seat in said station wagon vs. $50 for a seat on a 45 minute flight, flying won over financial responsibility), Sun sleep, and then Monday start the whole process over out in Panfilovskoe. Which beats Osh because I get to sleep at home, but loses in that it's a two hour multi marshrutka ride away, so I get to huddle in the cold winter wind while it's still dark and then get the sweet smell of marshrutka in the morning all over me.

But, yeah, things are good, can't believe I'm leaving in under three weeks. I'm really excited to see my family and friends again, but most of my fantasies at the moment involve food and my bed. I can't wait to eat something not flavored with mutton fat and then curl up on my wonderful mattress and box spring with a fitted sheet and my gloriously abundant pillows. Which will only happen after I oh, find a place to live and so on, but will indeed happen. I can't decide if its imminence makes my current sleeping conditions more or less bearable.

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. Mine involved chili, cornbread, apple pie, and trying to give away all my current possessions, only somewhat successfully.