The Narodny Principle: A Case Study

We’re coming to the end of the first week in Kyrgyzstan, and I’d say a major part of this week has consisted of getting to know public transport in this neck of Bishkek.  So right here and now, I’m going to lay down an idea that has been forming in my mind about navigating new cities.  It might have a name already, but for my purposes I’m calling it the Narodny Principle.  I have a good reason for that, which I’ll explain shortly.  

When you begin the process of familiarizing yourself with a new place, you naturally want to find landmarks that you will remember.  The trouble comes when you pick a landmark that is familiar without realizing that it is simply familiar because there are multiples of the same thing and you see it all the time.  This is the essence of the Narodny Principle. Your brain, which is starving for something recognizable, latches onto that thing (a stop sign would be a little too obvious, but that’s sort of what I’m getting at) and feasts on it.  And then you take the wrong bus and stop at the wrong version of that thing and have to take a taxi home after dark in a strange city in the first three days you are there.  At least, that’s what happened to me. But I’m getting ahead of myself.  

I’m sure that the Narodny Principle does not apply to all of you because different people have different ways of memorizing directions. Ahem.  But I’m sure that some of you would own up to it if pressed for the truth.  It’s tricky.  I was thrilled when Mira Eje took me to this nice grocery store a street over from our flat, adorned with a big, clean red sign that said “Народны” on the front.  There were big posters outside with grocery sales, it was well lit, it was noticeable.  After she accompanied me to school and back once and I had made a solo run in the morning, I was feeling pretty good about the whole deal.  Hop on the marshrutka, grab the rail before it starts moving, pay, peek out the window, note your stop, ask to stop, get off, cross the street, etc. etc.  Not too bad.  

So I figured I could ride down to the mall on Tuesday evening, since that was the most familiar place besides the school, and camp out at a nice coffee shop there to use internet and stuff.  I did that.  It was great.  Mira Eje said the buses would go till 10:00pm.  So to make sure I got the bus, I packed up my stuff a little before 9:00 and crossed the street to where the buses usually come.  The two buses she told me were good to take were 110 and 210.  In the morning, they seemed to come at random every few minutes, lots of them.  So I waited, but nothing showed.  Waited some more.  Lots of buses were coming and I was craning my neck to see the numbers in the glare of lights, because by this time it was after dark.  It is a busy, well lit area with lots of people.  Night life, but of a wholesome kind.  But no 110 or 210 marshrutkas in sight.  Well.  I scanned my brain for the other numbers I had seen on that info sheet because I knew that there were more buses that went by my house.  And I was almost certain that 100 was one of them.  Almost.  

It had been fifteen or twenty mintues and I thought maybe the 110 and 210 were done for the night.  But there were so many 100s.  Yes, that was it.  There was a moment of decision and I got on the bus, handing the driver my 10 som and clinging for dear life as the bus lurched on down Sovietskaya street.  The trouble at this point was that I couldn’t remember which way we needed to turn onto my street.  And I couldn’t remember the name of the street either.   Which now that I think back on it, is the kind of information traveling students should tattoo on their palms before leaving the flat.  I’m not going to make excuses for myself.  

Well, we turned alright.  And we went down down down another street.  And after we had gone down just a little too far, I felt, and things were not looking as familiar as I would have liked them too, I saw a sight that made my heart leap for joy.  Hapодны!  The Narodny store, in all its respectable red grocery store glory, shining like a beacon in the night.  I asked the driver to stop, please, and got off.  But then.  Then I had a small knowing feeling inside.  Because as comforting as the sight of the Hapодны store was to me at that moment, I knew it was a false familiarity.  Where was the kolbasa store?  Where was the cross street?  I suddenly had my first very real application of the Narodny Principle in which I saw the flaw of my choice in landmarks.  The whole city of Bishkek is crawling with Narodny stores.  It’s the Walgreens of Kyrgyzstan, more or less.  More, probably. 

At this moment, for the record, I made some good decisions.  I checked for the street name on the side of the building.  Unfortunately, that didn’t help because I didn’t recognized the name.  Which wasn’t a good sign.  However, I also chose not to panic.  Because that doesn’t help and people can smell fear on you, making you an easy target if there do happen to be any sleazy characters around.  I’m learning a lot about projecting positive energy.  At that point I decided to take advantage of the light and safety offered by Narodny.  I called Mira Eje and we covered the basic facts in Russian.  I was lost.  I was on such and such street.  She covered that basic fact that I needed to get a taxi.  But there my Russian petered out.  

I looked around and engaged my intuition to find a good person to ask for help.  Behind me was this couple who looked friendly and in love in a fun way, the kind of way that makes you happy to help people so long as you get to do it together.  The girl had straight, short black hair in this cute flapper-like haircut.  So I asked her for help, and since it was a little difficult to explain, I ended up just handing her the phone and letting her and Mira Eje sort it out.  The girl got off the phone just laughing and laughing.  The guy was just smiling.  They called the taxi and then stood outside and waited with me.  They stood arm in arm just laughing and laughing.  I laughed too.  The taxi came and they made sure I was all settled before it drove away. It was about a 7-10 minute drive home and cost 110 som, which is about $2.50.  Worth the learning experience I think, and the entertainment provided to the couple at the store.  The taxi driver was a little, well, disdainful.  I don’t blame him really.  All I know is I learned a lot.  Since then I have walked up and down both streets and taken several more buses by day, arrived securely at both the post office and the central square on my own, and even braved the Vefa Center trip again at night, sticking with the appropriate bus this time and keeping my eyes peeled for the appropriate Hapoдны store, of which I will always have fond memories.   

With Love From Vefa Center

I'm going to be learning the art of 15 minute blog post.  At this moment I'm enjoying the peace of a comfy coffee shop in the mall in Bishkek about two minutes from school and twenty minutes from home by bus.  The mall is called Vefa Center, and it is one of three or four places I know how to get to at this point.  It's my first solo outing besides the ride to school this morning, and I am relishing it. 

Mira Eje, my host mom, will be eagerly awaiting my call before I catch the marshrutka home for the night.  In two days I've made huge progress from being her rebyonok, her little baby as she called the students she has hosted, to kind of the second grader venturing to school on the bus.  I think in the course of the day I've worked up to high school level.   My whole brain is consumed with memorizing bus routes, improving communication in my personal dialect of caveman Russian, and the triumph I feel at having discovered the location of the post office. My tummy is full of pelmeni and tea.  My heart hungers to become a friend and not a stranger.  

I understand myself more as a person now, and I understand that I crave a certain amount of conversation in my native tongue per day.  Even ten minutes, if it's quality.  So along with my Russian and Kyrgyz goals I am including that habit.  Languages are good tools and I am going to be as resourceful as possible with them.  Baby steps.  Until next time...    

Pillow Fights and Honey Milk

Tonight I leave for Kyrgyzstan and I just uploaded some pictures from the past two weeks hanging out at the Crowe house with my seven Other Siblings.  It's been such a pleasant time.  Bronwyn and Broderic have grown into people I now consider my good friends.  Brent and Tucker...wow, off to Ukrainian school soon!  Clark and Noah didn't remember me very well after three years because they were only two and four when I left, but after a few days of lurking around corners and forgetting my name they warmed up.

A big snuggly pillow fight expedited the process one morning...

Clarky Smile

An Uncharacteristically Soulful Look from Noah

Trounced!

  And I have to say that among the funny moments of the week the best was when we were making toast (which we did a lot).  Noah was eying mine in its precarious location on the edge of the counter.  I told him it was mine.  His response?  "Well, I accidentally walked by it and my lips got on it."  Well, my lips were accidentally gonna get on his face. 

Typical Noah Face.

Incorrigible.  Now, at the end of the trip, Noah knows me not as Cassie, or even Cass, but as "Honey Milk," which also serves as a ritual chant when he sees me.  I made them a simple drink of warm milk with honey one night and stuck somewhere in his consciousness.  I am charmed.

(Almost) Everything I Know About Ukraine I Learned From Masha Stratiichuk

It's true.  I only say "almost" because we lived only in Rzishchiv and that isn't exactly all of Ukraine.  But Masha is a very dear friend to me, and after spending some time with her in the past few days, it seems time to tell you about her.

Masha and Cassie at the Dnieper River, Rzishchiv, Ukraine

Four years ago over a cup of tea this girl invited a bewildered foreigner to live with her in the little blue and white house on the other side of town.  This bewildered foreigner didn't know the difference between light switches and air fresheners.  She didn't know the appropriate time to cross a frozen river.  She would forget to remove the forks from the dish tub before throwing the dishwater out into the snowy garden.

But Masha saw that she needed a place to live and extended friendship.  Some days she woke up wondering if the foreigner was going to make it and was she ever going to remember to put on a scarf properly???  Some days she was impatient but many times she just shook her head and smiled, and tucked the scarf in, and sent the foreigner on her way. She taught the foreigner how to use water efficiently, how to salt the icy path to the outhouse, and what Ukrainians should eat.  There were countless cups of tea.  And when the foreigner was homesick, she let her cry on her shoulder (for a whole minute!) but mostly she told the foreigner that she was a strong woman and she was going to be okay.  No buts about it. She put up with no whining, but she would make pancakes.  

And in the spring, when the snow thawed and the forsaken forks appeared in the yard like some alien breed of daffodil, something had happened to the foreigner.  She felt much less bewildered, and she felt like she had a home.  And although I know that Ukraine would still be a very dear place to me without Masha, I believe it is because of the firm and strong love of this friend that the foreigner today feels at home in Ukraine.  It's not that I have become Ukrainian at all, but I do feel a sense of home here.  And I am thankful for that.

Winter in the Blue and White House

That was a long rant, but it's all true.  On Tuesday night Masha built a campfire outside and we sat for hours on the hill drinking tea with lemon and eating chocolate.  Milk for her, dark for me.  We would lay back in two nests of tall grass the stood up around our heads like crazy hairdos, and there were the stars.  All over the sky in black velvet.  We saw shooting stars and talked about everything in the way that only two gals can. 

Yesterday we took a long walk up to the cliffs by the Dnieper and sat on the edge, sipping cups of K'vas from the nearby store.  K'vas is a wonderful beverage similar to beer but without much alcohol to speak of.  But it's absolutely yum and perfectly refreshing on a summer's day. 

The Perfect Summer Afternoon

 This has been the best of visits.  My life has changed so much since I was here before.   Not the circumstances so much, though they have!  But the heart.  Peace instead of bewilderment.  Joy instead of sadness.  And friendship that runs deeper over time, even after years apart.   

Rest by the Main

It's been a week since I left home and found myself on a 13 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany.  I see layovers as orphaned hours lost in space, wanting to be found.  And as soon as I arrived I made way to the bottom level of the airport where the train station was, got a ticket, and boarded.  I was surprised at how natural it felt and yet realized that metros are kind of all the same and I'm getting used to them.  Even from traveling in the states.  

I love train station maps so much I would frame one and hang it on my wall.  I think I will.  It all happened when I watched the Helvetica documentary and realized that I'm not the only person in the world to have a serious love affair with the alphabet.  This is an interview (from the documentary) with Erik Spiekermann, who designed (or at least had a large part in designing) the typeface for the German rail system. He is one of those people that comes to mind for me when people ask the "what celebrity would you like to sit down to dinner with" question except that he isn't really a celebrity.  But he should be.   

      

How can you not be impressed by a man who has favorite letters of the alphabet? And I really agree with what he has to say about culture:  "That stuff is what makes a nation's culture, the visual surroundings.  Good architecture, good food, and good timetables or good announcements on the walls of stations."  There is more to culture than this, but it's true that the visual details make a lasting impression to the world. 

Am I the only person who walks through train station thinking, "Thank God for Erik Spiekermann?"  

Ok.  I can deal with it.  Anyway, so I was walking through the train station going, Thank God for Erik Spiekermann and enjoying the peace of mind that orderly station notices bring and wishing that someone would attend to the public toilets next.   

In my usual wandering way I found the river.  I sensed it, smelled it maybe, a block away, even when I wasn't entirely sure it was the right direction.  But there it was, lined with a nice park full of runners and cyclists and one old man playing an accordion.  

Across the bridge I was delighted to find the Stadel Art Museum.  I was so thrilled.  The museum had about 700 pieces, including (less well-known) ones from well-known artists like Delacroix and Monet and Cezanne.  Oh boy.  It was bliss.  I loved art history but there is always just this projector that can only feebly echo the world of textures and colors on that canvas.  Now it was real and rich and my eyes drank it up.  I am not so interested in the people or places the paintings represent.  It's the fabrics, the patterns, the look of velvet without being velvet, the look of water without being water, the look of light without being light. 

Afterwards I recrossed the bridge, smiling at the amiable-looking accordion man, and went in search of food.  I had just enough Euros from my return train and didn't want to change more, AND none of the yummy looking Turkish restaurants were taking my debit card.  So as a last resort I bought a long piece of pizza where this girl and I waded through the purchase with about equal offerings of English and German (I remembered how to ask for the pizza, but why oh why didn't I learn the numbers?)  Paying for it is important.  Well it was to her.

I got my pizza and traced the same path back to the river, and there, relieved of my over sized backpack that makes me feel like a turtle with its home on its back, I settled in for a fabulous picnic.  I thought about the people I had just left and the people I was about to see and how odd it is to be stranded between them, even for a few hours.  How beautiful it is to be alone, and yet how much better to be together.  The time I spent out of the airport enjoying art and nature refreshed me far more than any of the ten hours I spent trying to sleep on the plane.  Soon it was back to the train and onto a plane and through the skies again. 

A Day in the Life

I knew that today, as the day before the big trip, would not be a good day for a sit-down blog.  So I wrote an itinerant sort of blog to catch the moments today because they are leaving me like water leaves a sieve.   

7:00am

Gentle jungle noises drift into my consciousness from the direction of the phone alarm on my nightstand and I hit snooze...twice.  I always hate the jungle at this time of day.

8:00am

Finds me in the kitchen coaxing the once-upon-a-garage-sale waffle iron to life because I've promised Ethan I would make him waffles.  Mom is frying bacon and Ethan himself is grating potatoes for hash browns.

9:00am

We are around the table, our family.  When we finish breakfast I tell Ethan I love him.  "I know you do," he says, because of all of this." He motions to the food spread over the table.  His eyes are big, his nine-year-old soul satisfied.  Good, now I can get a shower.

10:00am

I am not showering or packing.  I am on the phone with the bank and the airline. 

11:00

Showering has been postponed in favor of packing.  This is the moment I begin to have grave doubts that

This:

Will fit into 

This:

But there is no going back.  I consider a larger suitcase but my vertebrae collectively scream out a resounding "NO!" and I am persuaded. 

Noon:

I will not be taking hiking boots.  They weren't in the picture anyway because I could not find them.  I believe this is a sign from God.

1:00pm

Lunch with grandparents.  Grammie spreads and elegant feast of chicken salad and fruit.  Paw Paw hugs me hard as ever.  They are some of the hardest people to leave because time passes differently with them and I treasure every minute.

2:00pm

Finishing our coffee and cranberry bread.

3:00pm

I embark on a "quick" Target trip to obtain three (3) items I am lacking.  I need little presents for certain people. 

4:00pm

Still getting little presents.  A lot more than three little presents.  And I find the yellow jeggings I searched for all last semester.  I buy them too.  

5:00pm

I am getting gas at Green Top because I think I can say bye to my friend Sujan, whom I suddenly realize I have not really seen all summer.  He is not there but his sister is and she will give him the message. She smiles at me, shy. 

6:00pm

Back to packing. The suitcase is full.  Flotsam and jetsam litter the living room rug and I am industriously consolidating my toiletries.  Someone will not be getting oreos.  I'm sorry.  The oreos go to Dad, who will not complain, I'm sure.

7:00pm

Again we are eating together.  Mom has made a beautiful meal and Connor and Jessica are over.   

8:00pm

My suitcase is still not quite packed.  It appears to have vomited all over the living room.  The pile of items I am not including nearly exceeds the pile of things that fit.  But it's getting closer, and Mom, Mattie, and I make a quick trip with Jessica to see her newly decorated classroom.  On the way back, a storm hits and we reach home just before the hail, just before the clouds burst and the house blacks out.  It is beautiful and powerful and the I remember the fear I had as a little child of the colossal wave of pines above our house, a fear now replaced by awe.  Well, I wanted to see rain before I left. 

9:00pm and After

I finish packing by candle light.  Quiet fills the living room.  Everyone goes to bed except for Dad, and we both hope the night will bring sleep.  Then, with blinks and starts, the lights come on and the air conditioning returns.  Back to life.  I survey my packing job and think the zipper will hold. 

And I am here writing, drawing the day by its strings and hoping for rest before tomorrow.   

Ice Skating: A Small Experiment With Movement

 Mattie and I went ice skating yesterday in Dallas.  It was our summer sister date, something we've been planning since I got my car in the spring but not done till now.  All day we talked and laughed.  Shopped for nothing and finally made it to the skating rink.  Both of us have skated there before but I think I was twelve or something.  So for a few seconds, as a watched from dizzying height of the third-floor railing above the rink, I wondered if this idea I had that I could skate was just a fantasy.  Because you know, a surprising lot of people can't get off the rail at all without busting their tailbone.  

But we had to try.  After all, we had been planning this all summer.  Sure enough, after about a minute on the wall I began to glide gingerly across the ice.  Soon it wasn't gingerly any more, it was...fast!  Mattie got her bearings too, and we went round and round the rink for about 45 minutes, growing steadier and happier, wearing blisters into various parts of our feet and roses into our cheeks.  I felt at once five years old and as grown up as I've ever been.  And really, most of the people out there were about five.  All these cute kids with mom or dad or a trainer, some of them really good.  I saw a trainer set a stuffed animal on the ice and get the kid to skate to reach it.  Slippin' and slidin' everywhere.  There was a lot of clinging for dear life.  And that's how learning is.  But there they were, getting to know how their bodies work.  And on some level I was doing that too. 

It was a reconnection with my body that I needed.  Sometimes I realize that I am holding my breath. I realize that I am holding myself so still because I'm afraid that eventually someone will catch me in the act of living. It will be Messy and Awkward and Someone Will Have to Pay.  But now I know that I am free of that, so how should the new person that I am be acting?  Skating was a small experiment with movement.  When you are skating, posture is everything: remembering how your body wants to hold itself and what it can do when it is free, balancing, moving boldly against and into space, uninhibited.  Each movement a small act of faith until they flow together and you forget to think.

Tinkering

In the last post I mentioned "tinkering" with languages (a term that linguist Michael Erard uses briefly in his book Babel No More).  Tinkering with language is no more or less than playing with words, experimenting with them.  Certain images come to my mind with the word. You tinker like an old man in an old cap, taking apart grammars like small engines and rebuilding them.  You learn without pressure and only for delight in the simultaneous beauty and functionality of things.  I love this tinkering not only because it is fun, but because it forges brain connections that can come in handy later.

I was inspired to learn Hebrew when when my mom made friends with Israeli 20-somethings selling Dead Sea products at the mall.  They came for Thanksgiving and, to my delight, burst into spirited Hebrew exclamations over our dinner table every time they got excited about something.  My head was swimming.  At fourteen I was too shy to invite myself into their world. However, the next summer found me pacing the dining room with a copy of Hebrew for Dummies and a glass of milk, attempting to prime my vocal chords for pharyngeal fricatives...which I simply knew at the time as that sound my cat makes when she's got a hairball.  All that to say, I didn't get far with Hebrew, but the experience prepared my vocal chords in some small way for what they would encounter when I began studying Russian.

Then there was my discovery about Kyrgyz.  Since I am going to Kyrgyzstan I have been learning a few phrases, and one of the first things I looked at were numbers.  I had heard that Kyrgyz and Turkish were part of the same language family, but I imagined them to be sort of cousins that visited each other on holidays.  To my great joy, I found that the numbers I studied looked more like fraternal twins! Below are the numbers 1-10 in Kyrgyz and Turkish, taken from Turkey Travel Planner and the Kyrgyz Phrasebook on the School of Russian and Asian Studies website.

Number	Kyrgyz	Turkish	Pronunciation
1	бир	bir	bir
2	еки	iki	eki
3	уч	üç	uch
4	торт	dört	tort
5	беш	beş	besh
6	алтй	altı	alty
7	жеди	yedi	jeti
8	сегиз	sekiz	segiz
9	тогуз	dokuz	toguz
10	он	on	on

Native speakers might see a big difference in pronunciation, and I don't know enough about the languages yet to tell if the numbers are indicative of the two languages as wholes.  BUT that little light of recognition going off in my brain was exciting.  To strike out into the dark unknown and smack up against something familiar...that is good.  And that familiarity would not have been possible without the funky urge I had to learn those Turkish numbers several years ago.  Because of that little connection, I suddenly felt smart and able, maybe even falsely proficient!

You never know when those three phrases of Indonesian you learned on a whim in high school will make someone's day.  So I see my eventual goal (besides actually settling down and becoming fluent in one of the languages I'm interested in and/or studying) as having a Mary Poppins bag of phrases with me wherever I go.  To tinker with and delight in, and to make bridges with people around the world.