Minor tumbles in the Kyrgyz hills

My dear readers and friends, I’m afraid I’ve been overcome with a minor case of both writer’s bloc and inertia. And, I have to admit, on more than one occasion have I thought about throwing in the towel altogether with this [at times wretched] blog: technology has almost got the better of me, but for now I persist and The Layman’s Guide to International Relations lives to see another day. No further details necessary just now.

Revisiting nature and Kyrgyzstan’s outdoor splendours

Last weekend saw me escape to the countryside for a couple of days of good, clean, rollicking fun. Day one was Burana Tower, a school-sponsored trip (that was very kind of them) which even the Lonely Planet struggles to describe in flattering terms. Amongst the more imaginative adjectives used are ‘interesting’ and ‘ancient’. In more concrete terms, it’s a ‘1950s Soviet restoration’ of an ‘11th-century monument that looks like the stump of a huge minaret.’ If that kind of thing doesn’t excite the senses then absolutely nothing will.

The tower and its surroundings were fairly nondescript and bare little merit of further description. But it certainly falls into the kind of category that would warrant the ‘what a waste!’ remark that my father has employed on more than one occasion. So many places we’ve visited over the years have ended in a desultory ‘well, that was a waste!’ comment. Most of the time it’s been used to apply to a fairly turgid football match (though he has used it for the occasional 3-3 thriller) but every now and then it gets applied to some tourist attraction that most people deem worthy of their time and attention (such as St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin: and he’s Catholic!). Not so for my father’s more discerning tastes. It comes from the well-known ‘you mean, that’s it?’ school of ancient ruins appreciation.


You mean, that’s it?

But no matter: we found other sources of entertainment, such as bombarding the two new teachers, Brian and Kristen, a couple from Texas, with an avalanche of snowballs. From the tower itself there was little to amuse us, other than trying to launch snowballs into a rubbish bin on the ground below. When this proved unsuccessful, my fellow travellers - Kole and Will – and I thought it would be more fun to try and hit the newbies as they made their way down and out of the tower. Kristen wasn’t thrilled when Kole pelted her in the back as she made her way down the tower, down precarious, narrow, winding steps in almost total darkness. Brian wasn’t amused when Kole nailed his camera as he was attempting to photograph Kristen coming out of the tower. Neither were pleased with us as we rained a torrent of snowballs on them on the landing from up above. And then as they made their way across the field away from the tower and towards the small on-site museum, Kole launched his final assault: a line drive snowball from a good 50 metres away that plunked Kristen square in the back, eliciting no reaction whatsoever from either of them. They made their way quickly through the museum and then escaped to the relative safety of the waiting minivan. The three of us wondered if we’d really upset them and decided that the best way to address the situation, in lieu of apologising, was to simply let things fester and wait for a reaction from them. And boy, did we get one.

After spending the better part of an hour rummaging through the museum with our gold-toothed, fur-clad Kyrgyz guide, and a bit longer wandering the area examining the ancient Turkic balbals (totem-like stone markers honouring the dead), we made our way back to the minivan, where Brian and Kristen had been eagerly awaiting our arrival. Upon getting into the van, Brian asked, ‘what took you guy guys so long?’ whereas we muttered something about ‘how interesting’ the museum had been. And then came the classic, one of those ‘you had to have been there to fully appreciate it’ moments, where Brian uttered his epic lines: ‘So, whoever threw that snowball…it knocked the wind out of her and her back still hurts…good job being an asshole’. We were stunned. Will and I sheepishly slunk away in the back of the van while poor Kole took one for the team, turning around and offering a meek apology. We had decided on our way back to the van that we’d take collective responsibility for our actions (though in fairness, Kole had launched all the controversial shots), but once in the van I cowered in the bank and couldn’t suppress my snickering. The ‘good job being an asshole’ line quickly achieved legendary status and since then, all of the teachers have been quoting it ad nauseum. It has thus far failed to get old and is probably a good indication of how pathetic English teachers abroad really are when the crassest form of low-brow humour becomes our most entertaining form of amusement. Or maybe it’s just what living in Kyrgyzstan does to people.

As a disclaimer, I must emphatically state that in no way, shape or form does this little incident mar my feelings towards the new teachers. In fact, they are wonderful people whom I like very much, and I’m very glad for their arrival.

Sunday offered the chance of more excitement in the form of a skiing excursion to one of the Bishkek area’s ubiquitous slopes. Unfortunately, it was a tumultuous day which resulted in an unpleasant injury for your dear author. I’m no expert on skiing, and I fear my ignorance of the correct terminology, as well as my expectations of the standards expected in the third world versus those of the more modern world, will expose me as a bit of a fraud. But do I care? Of course not.

Cutting right to the chase: don’t ski in the third world. Or, consider alternative forms of entertainment

In previous skiing encounters, I was spoilt for choice: numerous slopes of varying degrees of difficulty to choose from, modern equipment, excellent facilities and an overall pleasant experience. Not so at Polytek, where there was really only big, steep slope: going up the hill one could alight at one of three stops on the way up. But essentially, it was one enormous slope down, not so good for amateurs like me, and even worse for my travelling companions, all beginners.

My downfall has always been getting up the slope on those ghastly T-rope bars (the right terminology?). Because my coordination and concentration are so lackadaisical, I’ve always had the most trouble getting up the hill intact. Fitted out with Soviet-style retro-70s skis that just weren’t very secure for my already-two sizes too small boots, I had little hope of getting more than 10 metres up the hill without collapsing into my own private little heap of mangled arms, legs and skis. It was only on my 4th attempt that I managed to make it up the hill to the first stop. Compounding the problem was the archaic T-bar/rope system employed: every skier had to carry his own little waist bag containing rope and a block of wood, attaching the metal clip onto the wire, propping the block of wood against your backside, and then trying to maintain an upright stance as it jerked you upwards. If you were lucky enough to make it to the top in one piece, you had only a few seconds to take off the clip, reel in the rope and put it safely away before the next advancing skier was on top of you. I really struggle to describe this accurately and I only hope that my readers will fully accept and trust that it was indeed a logistically futile Sisyphean task trying to get up the hill. I felt better seeing that I was far from the only one having difficulty with this. Along with my companions, good deals of the locals were struggling mightily as well, though I must admit that the vast majority of the stragglers were children under the age of 10. Still, judging from the prone, crumpled bodies littering the slopes on the way up, one would think that a sniper was hiding in the hills taking potshots at all the little kids and foreigners attempting to get up the slope. Eventually I got the hang of it, though I was tempted to throw in the towel and spend the afternoon in the tiny café and its leaking ceiling drinking pots of tea and drowning my inadequacies in cognac. I’m a terribly impatient, easily flustered person and this was proving to be dangerously close to that ‘more trouble than it’s worth’ type of endeavour (much like making homemade croissants). I also lack any willpower whatsoever in controlling my language. The more I fell, the more I swore. And when I get frustrated, I swear in just about any language I can think of: English, Russian, Spanish, French and Italian. After one particularly nasty attempt to get off the starting blocks, I unleashed a torrent of foul language directed at all onlookers, with loudly audible gasps from the crowd doing nothing to deter me. It was after this, as I sheepishly made my way back to the start of the queue, where I once again spent 15 minutes trying to get my skis back on, that an elderly woman approached me and said in excellent English, ‘ah, so you are an English teacher?’ I’m glad the locals can appreciate the fine linguistic talents of those of us here to educate Kyrgyzstan’s youth. She remarked on the fine range of vocabulary I had employed, though I’m not sure if it was in disdain or in wry amusement.

At least the view was nice

At least the snow was soft

Have I mentioned how nice my companions were? (L-R: Janat, Karlien, Nicola, Will, author)

On the plus side, I did have some excellent runs down the slope. On the minus, there were way too many frustrating ones, such as the run where almost immediately after alighting, one ski fell off and travelled unaccompanied all the way down to the base, almost decapitating a little girl in the process. Throughout the day, I was pleasantly surprised about how helpful and concerned were the locals. Whenever I took a nasty spill, the nearest skier so kindly interrupted his run to enquire whether I was alright. I resisted the urge to swear at them and instead meekly smiled and nodded.

But alas, a nice souvenir for my troubles

And most unfortunately, your dear author failed to escape completely unscathed from the afternoon. On my final run, going out in a blaze of glory, I took a nasty head-first spill, resulting in what I believe to have been a minor concussion and a badly damaged thumb, which swelled up to double its size. Even now, over a week later, I’m battling through the pain, though I’m hopeful that it’s merely a bad ligament strain and nothing more serious.

By now it must be clearly evident that I am not built for the great outdoors, though considering I spent almost all of my childhood in the Boy Scouts, I hardly know how this is possible. My father would clearly be ashamed, though I’ve seen him attempt to ski and he was even more hopeless than I. Deep down, it was a fun day out, but to repeat something I learned during my fraternity pledging days, it was probably ‘the most fun I never want to have again’. At least it wasn’t a complete waste.