Voice of America
The other day I was interviewed by Carolyn Presutti from Voice of America, you should watch it.
http://www1.voanews.com/english/video-audio/
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/VOA-Interviews-Man-in—90395544.html
Kyrgyzstan - My Experience
Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic. Thursday, April 8, 2010 1 a.m. local time
Sporadic gunshots ring out as I sit in my Bishkek apartment with my American roommate, Lyla, and Kyrgyz friend, “Art.” We’re watching the local news, which the opposition gained control of and is now looping footage of the riots from earlier today.
Kyrgyz citizens have overthrown Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his party. Coming to power in 2005 after the comparably peaceful “Tulip Revolution” Bakiyev promised democracy and to stamp out the country’s corruption.
After fraudulent elections Bakiyev is accused of: cracking down on domestic media belonging to the opposition; dramatically raising energy prices, suddenly causing some people to spend 75% of their salary on utilities; and handing over key government positions to his family and friends, with his son, Maxim Bakiyev, taking some of the most lucrative.
I went to the main square, a mile from my home, around 3 p.m. with my two friends and another boy named “Fifty.” The streets were packed with cars and busses as those who worked in Bishkek fled to their homes in the outlying micro-districts.
Art explained that many of the rioters were from outlying regions, like Talas, which was overthrown early Thursday morning, and didn’t live or work in capital.
I stood on Kiev Street, staring at the main square. A large cloud of smoke was building from a car that was surrounded by people; I could only hear the guns and see the gas that police were shooting at them.
I looked behind me, Fifty ran. I turned back, everyone was running and screaming from the square. We bolted.
No one knew what was happening. Cell phones weren’t working, TV stations were cutting in and out and local websites weren’t saying anything. We didn’t know who was in charge, what was happening and what would be next.
Suddenly one station worked, Bakiyev’s station. “All protesters will be arrested,” “anyone on the streets will be searched,” “all media equipment will be taken.”
Art was suddenly getting calls from his family, telling him to stay inside not to go anywhere. A few minutes later his cousin came over and we went back.
A few hours had passed and the streets were completely different, everyone who wanted to leave Bishkek was gone.
People gathered outside government buildings, setting cars ablaze sending black smoke into the air. Police were now confined behind gates. Protesters waved confiscated assault rifles and teargas cannons.
Walked down to the Kyrgyz White House, after hearing gunfire small stampedes broke out, only to stop seconds later as rioters regained their confidence.
Wounded rioters were thrown into an ambulance and taken only a few feet away to the hospital I stood next to. The official death toll was 12.
Louder shots rang out, a sniper had been spotted on the roof of the White House, people were screaming about the use of real bullets. If this were true, Art said, “Bakiyev is done.”
They stormed the Department of Defense across the street, taking an old car from the garage, driving it to the White House, and setting it alight.
We walked to the main square.
People were running towards us, a boy was holding a computer tower and a small statue of a golden tiger.
The General Prosecutor’s office was raining its contents out of its windows: computers, electric heaters, clocks, a small stapler, the looting had begun.
It was getting dark. We walked home.
Store owners grabbed taxis off the street, packing them with merchandise, and covering the store windows with cardboard. Then hanging signs that read, “We’re with the people,” praying their store would be spared.
The police have set up a “People’s Militia” to stop the looting but many of the stores are burning tonight.
Local news states that Bakiyev has resigned, the military has stopped shooting and Roza Otunbayeva will now lead the Kyrgyz temporarily as people from all over the country flock to the capital to establish a new government.
a month
Well, it’s been more than a month, and everything is still going swell.
I got a job at the local English paper, The Times of Central Asia, and quit after twelve hours. I applied for a part-time tourist-reporter position and ended up getting hired as an editor. I was stuck editing Google translations of Russian articles. They kept bugging me to work, so I quit. I didn’t come to Kyrgyzstan to be an editor at a paper.
I’ve started taking Russian lessons, with the Dead of Students at AUCA’s daughter. She comes by the house and we move at my pace, which is nice. It’s a lot easier that I expected, I think that’s due to the fact that I have a better grasp of English than I did when I took French or Spanish (I know what an “adverb” is now!!!). The Alphabet isn’t really that hard, you just have to realize that all the symbols make difference noises (except travoideesenak and mackeyeesenak, but who doesn’t know about those?).
I’ve met a taxi driver who’s become my friend. We trade English lessons for rides and he’s kind of my Production Assistant. He’s learned how to white balance, zoom and focus. I plan on writing an epic about him later.
I made this when I woke up from a nap using Dalton’s pocket camera. Sorry it’s shaky.
Take the train. It’ll be a better experience.
So I met this gringa, Danielle Koehler, about 2 days before she left for Bolivia and I left for Kyrgyzstan. Our Mutual friend Jenni Marsh introduced us and we’ve been following our journeys since. She wants to make films about people. Cool. I like films.
Just like a good gringa, she also wants to help people, by building them websites. You should follow her travels.
1. How did you first get interested in Bolivia, Argentina and South America in general? What keeps you in the Western Hemisphere?
I started traveling to Latin America every summer when I was 15. The first three years I went to Casa Bernabe Orphanage in Nicaragua with my church, staying about two weeks each time. I kept going back because I loved the kids, the dirt roads, the farm animals everywhere, just everything about the culture. When I was 18 I went with another organization to the Dominican Republic and painted a mural on the cement wall surrounding a squatter community.
Two weeksish
Hello everyone,
Sorry I haven’t been in contact with anyone recently, Kyrgyzstan has horrible internet and I’m still working on finding the best connection.
We left BWI right on time and flew to Memphis. Short trip, not much to talk about, then soon after I hopped on a plane to Amsterdam. Everyone around me spoke this strange European language, and they refused to chitchat with me in American, though they could read the Wall Street Journal.
The airport at Amsterdam was really nice, everyone speaks American and they use Dollars. We had a few beers at this authentic Irish pup. They don’t believe in tipping and they love playing bad American music and old IRA songs. I couldn’t help but think of my mother.
Then we flew to Almaty, Kazakhstan. I sat next to a nice Kazakh girl, Nurlugul, who said we could visit her in West Kazakhstan, which we might do. We arrived in Almaty around 5 a.m. local time (6 p.m. EST) and spent a good hour getting our visas. They charged us $30 but the receipt they gave us said they charged us $15. This was my first experience of a government official stealing from me. They didn’t even give me the 5 day visa I asked for. The place is not as awesome as Boядt makes it seem.
We hired a Taxi driver to take us across the border. He was an old man who drove a Benz. He drove us around town and gave us delicious Russian candy. I kept the wrappers, I’ll try to scan them.
We spent the night at a hotel and stayed up all night watching MTV Russia. They were playing reruns of the MTV movie awards that were horribly dubbed. They play one Russian video for every five American, but at least they play music videos. There’s no sort of Black of Hispanic population in this country, but they are all over television. That’s the nice part of my culture being exported, but for the most part it’s annoying seeing “LINKIN PARK” graffiti everywhere.
The toilets here are supper low flow, the toilet paper is like thick party streamers and there’s a little trash can next to the toilet.
Bishkek is awesome. It’s a small city that is completely different than anywhere I’ve ever been, (except Pennsylvania). The pollution is kind of bad, your nose is really a great filter. Everyone drives like a mad man, there’s no wrong side of the road you just drive as fast as you can to get where you need to go. It’s kind of fun, but there are always car accidents.
Stray dogs are everywhere. On occasion you see a rottweiler or a german sheared, and it’s obvious that a westerner left their guard dog on the street. For the most part they keep to themselves, though you can here them fighting at night. They certainly keep the cat population down.
The city doesn’t believe in street lights so most people go home by 9. Taxi’s are cheap but they can tell we’re Americans so they always charge us a lot.
They sell this strange milk everywhere, and everyone likes it. They get it from the kurds when you make cheese, so it’s a really think liquid. Then they bottle it and let it ferment like beer, so it’s carbonated and alcoholic. I’m not really a big fan, but I’ll try to warm up to it.
We live in an apartment that’s near some intersection. They don’t have a postal service so we don’t get tons of junk mail, but I don’t know how to get anything else. I don’t even know how to say my intersection. I just got someone to write it down for me, so if I get lost, I show someone my note pad, and they point me in the right direction.
Everyone AUCA has been extremely helpful. I’m one of 6 Americans there, the rest of the population comes from the neighboring countries. Everyone is beautiful and skinny, it’s kind of strange.
I take classes in English, though I have to help the teacher on occasion because English is her 3rd language.
Everything here is in Russian or Kyrgyz, which is confusing because they use the same alphabet. I’m start private Russian lessons in February, but in the mean time I’ve picked up a little bit to get around.
I really like it here, it’s like nothing I’ve ever imagined. I don’t know what they mean by culture shock, but the worst I’ve experienced was trying to explain to 5 store clerks what a coffee filter is, only to learn that they don’t use those in the country because they aren’t pointlessly wasteful like we are.
