How does a musical act achieve longevity? You know, get past album slumps, appease adoring fans and not-so-adoring critics, and find their sound – that musical style which sometimes can't seem to be different enough to remain original-yet-familiar and other times seems to be so different that it seems affected or just plain idiotic. Perhaps after a few forays into the experimental, many intelligent acts look to score a sure-fire winner. And how do they do so? By releasing a Greatest Hits album. Many add a few new tracks to the original cut so as to appear to have not lost their game. Michael Jackson's re-release of Thriller with tracks featuring Will.i.am and Kanye West is one recent example; he's probably hoping that people will stop thinking about tabloid photos of his increasingly interesting clothing choices and ever-morphing facial structures and remember that, hey, Jacko really is one hell of a performer.
Forgive my poor imitation of Rolling Stone writing…but this Greatest Hits thing is about the closest approximation I can find to describe my experience last week having my family visit Kyrgyzstan. To be honest, the good ole KR had been acting kind of like Radiohead on Hail To The Thief: still recognizable and theoretically interesting, but hard to grasp and generally lacking in those qualities which originally sparked my affection – a lack of mojo, if you will. I needed to be reminded that this place is actually pretty cool - and that I haven't been wasting my time for the past year and a half.
And a family visit proved to be just the thing. Despite my initial premonitions about the trip (especially re: giardia), it ended up being nothing short of lovely. Mom, Dad, and Ben all proved to be excellent sports, willing to consume one more pile of rice or cup of tea; to look a little ridiculous in traditional Kyrgyz clothing; to shun bathing for days on end; to play with children with whom they shared nary a common word save "hello;" to dance with persons 5, 10, 20, even 30 years their junior or senior; really just to roll with the punches dealt out by this most unusual of vacations.
This was perhaps best illustrated – at least to me – by our attempt at driving from Bishkek to my village in Osh. The weather had been perfect up til our day of departure…and, initially, the cloudy skies and steady rain didn't faze me. It wasn't really until we could barely see 5 feet outside our SUV due to the snow, fog, and wind that I realized that I had potentially led my family to their deaths. When news of a baby avalanche came, we turned around and took the plane to Osh instead. Throughout the ordeal, though, my parents and brother were champs.
The highlight of their trip for me, though, was getting to watch my real family interact with my adopted one. I kind of had this actively-passive role -- I was talking all the time because I was translating all of their questions and comments, but not really saying many of my own thoughts. This translation process can be exhausting and annoying...but can also be pretty empowering. If someone says something that I think is inappropriate or uninteresting, I can tone it down or jazz it up a little without the involved parties being any the wiser. I stupidly told my brother, however, about the liberties I occasionally took with translating... During Nooryz (the Central Asian new year which my family celebrated with my entire freaking village), we were dragged in front of several thousand people from my village and forced to give little speeches on the platform. After Dad gives an appropriate speech thanking the village for welcoming us with open arms, my darling baby brother uses his turn to muse about the waving flags, green trees, etc etc. Basically, he got up there and, knowing that I'd just translate it as whatever I wanted, started describing what was in his immediate line of vision. Not so appropriate...so I told everyone that he said, "Allah has truly blessed us today as we can see by the beautiful weather," thereby giving Ben major points with the pious old ladies and village elders (and giving myself a private laugh). Anyway, my host family and real family got along amazingly well. I mean, one afternoon, I passed out from exhaustion and awoke to my host siblings' delighted shrieks as my parents and Ben were running around the yard, playing 'horsey' with them. My host mom told me that she had been really worried about my family coming because she was concerned that they might be haughty or condescending...but then she met them and realized that they were actually a lot like her own family. Hallmark, eat your heart out.
So now I'm back on my own in my village...only, after my family's grand appearance last week, I have now lost all traces of anonymity while walking around. I get stopped twice as much by guys in donkey carts asking about my parents' health, giddy schoolgirls asking if my brother is available, and -- once -- a photographer asking if I wanted to buy the photos he'd taken of my family in their Kyrgyz garb.
Also -- my school has FINALLY started remodelling the club. I've been spending part of each day for the past week doing errands with various maintence men and builders...them doing the actual dirty work while I trail along paying for everything (kind of like a mob accountant). I'll send pictures once it's finished so that our very generous donors can see what they did with their money.
That's it for now. Take care, now.
Terri
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