On The Inside

I guess what I want to write about today is how great the Fulbright program is, or any such long-term abroad experience is that puts people "On The Inside..." What do I mean by THAT? Well...

This has been a week of explosions in Kyzyl. I can think of five (5) right off the top of my head:

1) A Baby was born
2) An uncle mysteriously died
3) The apartment we rent just went on the market
4) There was a dirty, emotionally tense election at the University
5) International Women's Day is tomorrow

Whew! Looking at that list, it's easy to see why I feel as wiped as a dishrag. I guess I'll give a little more about each of these events.

I. THE BABY

One of the interesting aspects of my time here in Kyzyl has been enjoying the experience of being an artificial член ("member") of Namdolmaa's family. I.E. "The Blond Sister." As mentioned in previous posts, extended family plays a central role in Tuvan cultural life. People help each other and live in each others' homes. I attribute to this also the miraculous generosity with which I was adopted; adopting young relatives is pretty frequent Tuvan behavior.

Before this year when I lived with Namdolmaa and her daughter, it was her younger brother who lived with them. This year he began his studies in Novosibirsk, so here I am! Anyways... Namdolmaa's brother got married and his wife just gave birth to a new baby a couple days ago. So it's been a joyous, baby-sock buying last few days. I've been really surprised by how much of a family event the birth of a child is here. There's a tradition where the new mother is greeted by a crowd of family members as she steps outside the hospital, and they all drink champagne on the street, even if it's super cold. Also, the newborn baby goes visiting and at every new house it visits the baby's forehead is smeared with ashes, so that all future visits to that house will be safe. Also, the gift giving rituals are especially intense for visiting houses where there is a mother breast feeding a child. It is absolutely required that all guests bring the mother milk products and sweets or fruit. It's even more unacceptable than usual to arrive empty-handed.

II. THE UNCLE

Kind of gruesomely, spectacularly, and tragically, a close member of the family died the same night that the baby was born. A common health problem in Tuva is high blood pressure. I hear more about it here than I ever did in the states. Earlier I 'wrote it off' as a manifestation of the rather unique relationship Russians have with their health. Home remedies, herbs, superstitions, obscure causes of infertility, and strange maladies caused by drafty rooms are all fair game here. Sometimes I wonder if people don't just make themselves sick by talking about it so much! (everybody should read this mind-blowing NYtimes article:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html)

Clearly I can't write a whole sociology of the Russian body and attitudes toward health right here on my blog, but I'd love to read one someday. It's really a fascinating topic: how people here relate to the physical self.

Anyways; this uncle had high blood pressure. He didn't treat it. He was stressed and working too hard. His wife came home and found him lying dead on the floor, blood running from his nose.

The family, like for births, gathers for deaths. The funeral goes on continuously for forty days. Relatives gather all night long, for weeks, cooking, remembering. I'm going to ask more questions about this, because the rituals sound pretty intense. Of course it's a tragedy for the family. A shockingly high percentage of families here have lost their fathers. Work-related injuries, automobile crashes, alcohol, and violence seem to be the leading causes of death.

III. THE APARTMENT

Another big piece of news this week was that the apartment I share with the family might get sold out from under our feet. This is a touchy topic with a lot of back history, but it is pretty revealing about the system here as I have observed it. The apartment belongs to a sister of Namdolmaa's husband, so everything has to do with family and clan politics.

The apartment is a fairly new acquisition. Apparently the Auntie bought it using 30,000 Euros she somehow obtained through credit. Well, the Auntie needs to pay back the Euros, so she's going to sell the apartment. Before she sells the apartment, she needs to renovate so she can raise the price. And before she can renovate the apartment, she needs it empty.

The crappy part of the situation is that she gave Namdolmaa a lease until July but is just changing her mind all of a sudden. I have never rented/leased an apartment in the US, but I think this kind of thing is frowned on. Certainly, it's annoying, but Namdolmaa is a sweetie, and isn't angry at all. She just said that "Well, I can understand why she wants to sell it," and "Something will work out." I believe her. Something will. It's unsettling to find out our happy little routine might be changing unexpectedly... But until we get some kind of definite information we're just going to keep on living like normal. Perhaps soon I will be able to write a blog post about what it's like to haul a refrigerator and washing machine around Kyzyl!

IV. THE ELECTION

This is the most unpleasant thing I have to write about, and I'm going to keep it kind of vague because it concerns dirty politics at my university. However; one of the primary benefits of doing a program like Fulbright as opposed to other study-abroad/travel opportunities is that we live, work and breathe the whole of life in Russia. What I mean by that is, we see all the dirty laundry and get to clean the bathrooms, too. I think that this is probably one of the most fascinating aspects of my experiences here, though definitely its not pleasant all of the time.

Anyways, the basic plot of the election boils down to some bad blood between my Department Chair and the Dean of our college. The Dean found a willing teacher who was brave enough to try and take over the Department Chair's job and they, together, engaged in a really dirty slander campaign against our Department Chair. They even tried to interrogate me and get me to take their side, but I explained to them that it really had NOTHING AT ALL to do with me, and accused them of trying to start a duel, Pushkin style, and they left me alone. But there was a lot of secret meetings, politiking, figuring things out, and (above all) GOSSIP.

Well, eventually there was an election, and the teachers of our department voted unanimously to retain our current department chair (she is a not a perfect woman by any means, but she has some good qualities). However, there will still be two more elections (on higher levels of the administration), and the whole issue won't be settled until the end of March. It's a big cluster F&*% of politics and kind of corrupt politics, but it was heartening to see our department chair prevail, at least so far.

But the effects of the election won't go away quickly; the experience was pretty stressful and unpleasant for everybody. The day of the election was probably the grimmest day of work I've had all year. One thing that people do here that they don't do so much in the US is talk about the health of the "Collective." I may be a foreigner and all, but I think I can definitively state that the election, and all the politiking by the Dean and her teacher buddy, was bad for the health of the collective. Observing their selfish campaigning was a real big 'dirty laundry' moment. I guess I have heard words like "corruption" for a long time; but actually witnessing what that means in terms of a group of people I know well, seeing how people make a decision like this and take sides and all was pretty interesting.

V. THE HOLIDAY

Well, this is probably the most pleasant of the explosions (after the BABY, that is!). Women's Day: the Russian equivalent of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, the female counterpart to Defender of the Fatherland Day (Man's Day) as celebrated a couple weeks ago.

Women's Day is pretty much like Mother's Day. You buy chocolate, cards, and flowers for women. Men clean the house (sometimes) or cook things. The official date is March 8th. Once again, Russia continues to daunt me with its glut of holidays...

AND IN OTHER NEWS...

Last week I joined together with the expat community of Kyzyl (A dude from Canada, a girl from Japan, and a Mongolian-Tuvan girl) and we gave a comparative presentation about how the New Year is celebrated in different parts of the world (the guy from Azerbaijan didn't show up, but he would have talked about the Muslim New Year). I made an advent wreath which was fun. I found some green plants, pink and purple candles, and an old candy box covered in white paper and it turned out pretty legit. The best part was that nobody had heard about an advent wreath before, and I got to explain the symbolism of the colors, etc. My favorite part of Christmas is the candles, so I felt like I was adding something mutually meaningful to people's understanding of Christmas. This celebration was probably the high point of my week!

There was a bit of a shadow cast over the whole event because the wonderful librarian who organizes these foreigner-panels at the library might lose her job soon because of clan politics in Kyzyl; Every time a new guy becomes the mayor of the city he installs his own relatives as Ministers, and then it slowly trickles down to all sorts of official posts, as those relatives put their own friends and relatives into power. But in answer to the fragile situation of her own future, the librarian pulled out all the stops and did a great job pulling things together. She even knitted a stocking to hang on the wall and stuffed it with candy! We gave interviews for the paper and radio afterward. They asked us--because next year is the Year of the Tourist in Tuva--what we found unpleasant about life in Kyzyl. Everybody agreed: the coal smoke, the drunks, and the trash. I added stray dogs to the list, but the Japanese girl didn't agree. She thinks they're harmless. I agree that they're harmless, but I just don't like watching them eat each other and reproduce in broad daylight. I guess I will always be an American in how I look at dogs... The Japanese girl is probably smarter than me.

That's all from Kyzyl for this week. Later gators!