Showing off my (lack of) language skills

After spending my first day or two in Osh catching up on some much-needed sleep and responding to emails from friends and family curious about my whereabouts, I've used my time since wandering aimlessly around the city.  Because I've chosen to walk most places, the extent of my interaction with drivers has been:

"Taxi?"

"Nyet." And then I continue walking.

Now, I think this is a remarkable display of language ability, and I'm very proud of myself.  However, where I truly shine is at restaurants.  As of the time I'm writing this, I have gone to zero restaurants with English menus or English-speaking staff.  How in tarnation do you manage that?, I can hear you say.  Well, there are a couple of different approaches:

1.  I ask the waitress whether she speaks Tajiki.  She stares at me, and then she says something in Kyrgyz.  After this initial interaction, I continue speaking in Tajiki.  I have consistently employed this technique through all my interactions with waitstaff in Kyrgyzstan.

2.  I skim the menu and look for an item I recognize.  Oftentimes, this item is lagman.  Easy!  That's what I order.  Done.

3.  Unless it isn't done.  If there isn't something that I recognize and like (I often recognize things, but—and I apologize for this—shashlik just isn't for me), or if I order it and they don't have it, I try to prompt the waitress to order for me, a target which has me performing Charades at the advanced level.  This has about a fifty percent success rate.

4.  Lastly, I order off the menu.  As mentioned above, I speak Tajiki through all of these exchanges.  As a result, I have learned that "thank you" and "egg" are the same in Kyrgyz and Tajiki.  One day, I ate four eggs over the course of the day.  And I was very thankful.

Some of you may wondering if the people who work at these restaurants think I am just some foreign fool who has come to their country ignorant and unprepared, which I think would probably be a fair stance.  However, that is not the case!  Everyone in Kyrgyzstan has displayed nothing but the greatest hospitality.  I have been greeted enthusiastically everywhere I've gone, and the waitstaff seem to think my wild arm-flapping, shrugging, and "harasho, harasho" are endearing.  On the occasion or two when I've returned to the scene of the crime, I've been remembered and welcomed.  At every restaurant, from small, dingy joints to larger establishments, everyone has been hospitable and accommodating.

Still.  I should probably learn that Russian.

Crossing the second 'stan off the list

So, here I am in Osh, Kyrgyzstan!

Why?, you might be wondering.  That would be a fair question, since I told most of you I was moving to Tajikistan, and fewer of you, that I was going to hang out in Istanbul while  waiting for my new visa.  And to one or two, I mentioned the slight possibility that I'd be back in the States. So if there's any confusion floating about, I can maybe see its origin.

But enough of that! I'm in Kyrgyzstan now, and that state will continue for twelve more days, after which I will be back in dearly beloved Dushanbe.  But how did I get from there to here? Story time!

At the last minute—meaning two days before my visa's expiration date—I realized that the Istanbul plan was fatally flawed, and I needed to come up with a quick replacement. Meaning, I needed to get to a country where I either didn't need a visa or could get one on arrival, and it had to be cheap.  However, I found myself in a bit of a pickle when I couldn't find a flight on the appropriate day to any places that fit the criteria.  Uh-oh.  What to do? Beg for help!

A team of the greatest people in Central Asia took pity on me and united forces to get me out of this predicament:  the friend who suggested to abandon travel by air and just take a series of cars over land and then organized the entire chain, the group leader who rolled with my sudden change of plans and helped me get approval, the friend who helped me look for return flights on crazy websites who refused to turn from Russian to English even when I kept clicking that damn button, the driver I met a year ago who remembered me and ushered me to the places in his city I needed to go, the friend of a friend who met me when I arrived in an unfamiliar city and made sure I ended up in the right places at the right times, more!  Heroes, the whole lot of them!

Ok, time to stop gushing and get to the actual story, I suppose. Anyway, to get from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to Osh, Kyrgyzstan, you've got to do a bit of hopping about.  So, first, I had to ride from Dushanbe to Khujand, about a five hour trip.  The morning before my visa's expiration, I went up to where the drivers to Khujand hang out.  As soon as they saw me coming, I was surrounded.

"Where are you going?"

"Are you going to Khujand? Come with me!"

"Panjakent?  Panjakent?"

In the midst of all this, I feel someone grab my arm.  Unacceptable.  Utterly unacceptable.  I start to turn, son of a b—and it's a face I recognize.

"Hello, hello!  Do you remember me?" The driver reaches to shake my hand.

"Of course I remember you!" I accept his hand and we shake enthusiastically.  "You were with us last year in the Pamirs!"

"Where are you going? I'll take you!"

We exchange phone numbers and the necessary information, and then I head back down to where I came from, feeling satisfied that the sole leg of the trip that I had to organize myself was taken care of.  Victory!

I spend the rest of the day running all over Dushanbe, heading to the airline office to purchase my return ticket, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to my host family's, in and out of the American Councils office, dragging the luggage I planned to leave in Dushanbe down streets and into the backs of shared taxis.  Smelling good and looking pretty.

When the time finally comes to head to Khujand, I call the driver.

"Hi! I'm ready to go. Where are you?"

"Oh, hello! I'm in Khujand."

"You're already in Khujand?" Well.  The one part that was my job, and it's fallen through.  Now what do I do?

"Yes, yes, but it's ok.  I have a friend who is driving.  I'll call him and he'll call you."

He hangs up, and I wait.

After half an hour, I'm getting nervous.  He should have called by now.  I call him again, and he seems confused.  "What do you mean?  My friend didn't call you?"

"No."

"Ok, hold on."  He hangs up again.

Not five minutes later, I get a call from an unknown number.  "Are you going to Khujand?"

"Yes, yes.  Are you driving?"

"Yes."

"When do you leave?"

"Right now.  Half an hour."

"Right now?  Or in half an hour?"

"Yes, right now in half an hour."

What?  Whatever.  "Ok, fine.  I'll be there."

Well, I guess that's taken care of.  I guess?  Then I get another call from the original driver.  What could possibly be wrong now?

"Hello.  Did he call you?  Did you talk to him?"

"Yes, I did.  I'm meeting him in half an hour."  At least, that's when I'm going up.

"Good.  I told him you had to sit in the front so you wouldn't be uncomfortable in the back.  And I'll meet you up here and take you where you need to go after that."

And just like that, he was completely forgiven for veering off from the plan!

Despite the surprise change, I arrive in Khujand with no problem.  The first driver meets me, shows me some statues, buys me a meal, and then takes me to the area where I'll get the car to Isfara, the next stop on my journey.  When I try to pay him, he refuses and says, "We're friends!  Friends help each other."

I get in the cab to Isfara, continuing to follow the plan my friend/unofficial travel agent organized for me.  When I arrive, his friend is there to meet me.  I'm a couple hours early for the next car, so he takes me to Isfara's American Corner
to hang out for a while.  There, I ate tons of watermelon, spoke with students eager to practice their English with a native speaker, and helped write messages on the awards they were decorating for the participants of one of their camps.  When my new friend finally said, "Ok, it's time to go," I wasn't ready to leave.  But, what must be done, must be done!  And I got in the last car, the one to Osh, Kyrgyzstan.

Not long after, we arrive at the Kyrgyz border.  I'm feeling a little nervous about my lack of relevant language skills, but what can you do?  I wait in line for a minute or so behind two Kyrgyz women and then it's my turn to talk to the border guard.

He looks at me with doubt in his eyes.  "Ruski?"

"Nyet," I say, and with that one syllable I've exhausted half of my Russian.

He holds out his hand and I give him my passport.  He starts flipping through and after a minute asks, "New York?"

"Nyet.  Pennsylvania."

He's quiet, and then he calls another guard over to consult.  They speak, and the first guard hands my passport to the second.  Now it's his turn to take a look. After a pause, he asks, "Pennsylvania?"

"Da.  Pennsylvania." There goes the rest of my Russian.

Next, he says something that I can tell is a question, but I have no clue what he wants to know.  I take a guess.  "...America?"

"America!" The second guard looks incredulous.  Ok, so that clearly wasn't the right answer.  He waits for me to supply an answer that makes sense, and when I don't he flaps his arms and repeats, "America?"

"Oh! Nyet, nyet," I say and laugh.

The guards laugh too, which I take as a good sign, and then the guard asks, "Osh?  Bishkek?"

I reach up over the counter, which is to my chin, and point to an imaginary map.  "Osh, Bishkek," I say, trying to communicate my travel plan with gestures.

They all smile, and then the second waves his arm as if pointing to a far off destination and says something that I interpret as meaning, "And then America!"  

I'm still smiling, smiling wide, and I redraw my imaginary map, "Osh, Bishkek, Dushanbe!"  And then I wave my arms pointing at an even farther point than the guard and say,  "Then America!" 

All three of the guards are laughing, having a great time, this is so much fun!, and—hold on.  There's three of them now.  When did the third one get here?  He's got my passport.

The three of them are talking to each other now, and I stand there, straining to listen, thinking maybe I'll miraculously catch on to what they're saying.  Finally, the first guard is holding my passport again and flipping through it.  He goes to the page with my picture on it and holds it up right in front of my face.  He squints, looks at me, back at the picture, back at me.  The third guard finally speaks.  "Tourist?"

"Da, tourist! Da!"

They all repeat, one at a time, "Tourist."

The first guard picks up a stamp and sets it back down.  He picks up a second and turns to the second guard.  They seem to be uncertain about which to use to mark my passport.  Finally, they settle on the first stamp.  The guard tenderly sinks it into the ink and then presses it on a page of my passport.  He considers his handiwork and then shows it to his two friends.  It appears that they all agree, it looks pretty good.  Finally, the guard hands me my passport.  I take it with my right hand, left hand over my heart, and do a little nod.  That ought to convey the message.  I start to turn, but the first guard calls back my attention when he smiles, waves, and cheers, "Obama!"  I answer with the same, and they all wave as I walk away.  That's it, I say to myself.  Time to learn Russian.

After that, the trip went pretty smoothly.  When we arrived in Osh about four hours later, there was a bit of trouble finding the hostel, but it eventually turned up and I checked in.  Last night I shared a dorm with a bunch of Europeans fresh from the Pamirs, and today I did a little walking around and lots of nothing.  I'll stay in Osh for a couple days and then head to Bishkek, where I have a flight back to Dushanbe on the 20th.  So, there you go!  Explained.