For us, going home to our 75-square meter house after a long trip normally requires that we hold a stiff upper lip, put on our big boy and big girl pants, and take the plunge. At this point, it’s just what we do. That doesn’t make it easier, but you do what you gotta do. That’s because normally we’re coming home after traveling in the U.S. or Spain. This time, however, we were heading back home with a rather different perspective.
You see, the previous two nights we had slept in a village in the south of Kyrgyzstan at 3,500 meters up. Someone told us there were 5,000 residents, but we guessed the current number was quite a bit lower, probably due to all the people who had left to work in cities both local and abroad. The guest house had indoor plumbing thanks to an outdoor tank filled daily by a donkey and an electric pump that sends the water through the pipes and into the house.
But wouldn’t you know? The days we were there, there was a problem with leaking pipes, meaning the toilet and shower were out of service. I can get by with no shower. Outhouses aren’t that bad either. What I really miss though is running water to wash my hands.
Houses in the village were simple mud-brick structures, built by hand, one brick of a time. There were a couple of shops in the village that sold the most basic household items and nonperishable food of limited variety. And at least in the couple stores we went in, they didn’t even sell bread. That’s probably because the young woman working at the guest house told us nothing save potatoes grows at 3,500 meters. The altitude would also explain why there wasn’t a tree to be seen in either the village or anywhere else on the vast plain that stretched on for miles in all directions on which the village sat. Even in May during daylight hours, it was cold outside. Donkeys and children roamed the streets beneath a usually gray sky. In the afternoon it’s not uncommon for the wind to pick up and blow huge clouds of dust off the plains and into town. Then it often starts raining.
The same woman who told us about the potatoes also told us that she had been married for less than a year and was expecting her first child in a few months. She was from another village but, per cultural norms, lived in this village in her in-laws’ house. She had married the family’s youngest son, meaning that it was her and her husband’s duty to care for her aging mother- and father-in-law. And in addition to tending to the needs of the foreigners at the guest house where she worked, looking after her in-laws was exactly what she was doing. Alone. Her husband was away working in another city because there was no work in the village except mining coal from a nearby mine or taxiing foreigners up to the towering mountain peaks to the south.
In light of all we’d experienced in the south of Kyrgyzstan, then, this trip back to Bishkek was quite different than other trips. When we got back to the capital, variety seemed to scream at us wherever we looked. Compared to the small shops in the village, our mom-and-pop shops are stocked to the hilt. We can walk to one and buy fresh fruits and vegetables and bread and even Coke. And if that weren’t enough, we have multiple, full-fledged grocery stores, one of which is only a few minutes’ drive from our house. Can’t find something at a grocery store? We’ve got bazaars literally square-kilometers in size. If you can’t find it there, it probably doesn’t exist.
Development also slapped us upside the head something awful. Even since we moved to Bishkek just five years ago, we’ve seen several new malls pop up downtown. They’ve got Levi Stores and shoe stores that sell Eccos, Crocs, and Clarks. We’ve even got movie theaters that show movies in English. And if you want to stop by a KFC or a Papa John’s before the movie, be my guest.
While the village at 3,500 meters was still stuck back in late winter or the earliest weeks of spring, the capital was gearing up for summer. Flowers were in full bloom, the grass was green, and temperatures were high enough you could sleep with the windows open at night.
Yessir, this homecoming was quite a different experience. It seems where you’re coming from has a marked impact on your experience of the place you’re going to. A little perspective goes a long way. Oh, for the clarify afforded by such perspective more often.
When I taught at Biola University in California, I’d often have students who’d done a year of overseas work in a 3rd world country before starting college. Their perspective was radically different from the 18-year-olds fresh from upper middle class communities.
Getting way, way outside of your own context will do that. It’s like you move far enough away from the world in which you grew up and suddenly you’re able to see that world through the eyes of an outsider. It’s a strange, terrible, wonderful, confusing experience!