Oh The Things You’ll See:

It is Saturday morning. I’m waiting for the instructor to arrive to open the classroom door so that we can start the morning class. After this class, I’ll meet with about 18-20 university students.

This trip has been hectic; the schedule busy but productive. I’ve not quite gotten into the swing of the time change—12 hours. The good thing is that I’ve adopted a strategy my friend Bojan recommended in Serbia: when you get back to you’re hotel, lie down and rest—sleep if you can. Then start your evening activities.

Last night I had a rare social experience. I met up with two AUCA faculty members and some of their friends for an evening of food, beer and conversation. There were seven of us—one Kyrgyz, a German and five Americans. Originally, we were going to a rock club a short distance from town but when were arrived—Sam, Aiday and me—we found out the band playing that night, a group of Russian Rockers, commanded the high price of 500 Som to stand and 1,500 Som to sit and listen. That’s about $15 to stand in a crowded, smoke-filled room and have your eardrums melt. I was glad we picked another option.

We went to a restaurant-club called “Sweet Sixties” that featured a cover band that knew about 10 songs. Smoke on the Water, Blue Suede Shoes and Cocaine were three of the songs that I remember. There were some other ballads that I vaguely knew. Even though the songs—Blue Suede for example—are almost 50 years old the crowd of young and old Kyrgyz danced and sang along as though they were current hits.

The restaurant's menu was glued to old LPs. The flip side of one record didn't have amenu page so you could see the Russian LP title which roughly translated, "We're proud to be Communists." Oh the irony of this record now being used to present the menu of this capitalist restaurant featuring Western cuisine and rock music.

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Ultimate Frisbee
I tagged along with Sam to the AUCA Ultimate Frisbee Team practice session after class. (A few months back, the team played another school for the Central Asia Championship and won both matches. Of course, there are only two CA teams so I suppose the defeated team hold second place.) Sam tells me the game is especially popular in Central Asia. When he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan, people played the game and thought of it as American. Like football, there are end zones for scoring. There’s a throw-off (kick-off). The Frisbee possession continues down the field if your team successfully throws the Frisbee from person-to-person without a drop. If dropped, the other team gets possession and reverses course down the field. It was fun though the guys I played with (and against) were less than half my age. They were great to meet and really impressive not just in Frisbee but they were smart, articulate and well traveled. One journalism grad of AUCA had completed a semester at Syracuse and a Scripps-Howard internship in D.C. (Trust me, that’s a highly competitive internship.)

I met the son of an American missionary couple—they’re in South Africa--he's here and part of the Frisbee team. Todd was born in Zimbabwe and is working on some youth recreation projects in Kyrgyzstan. We compared thoughts about Robert Mugabwe. I can’t imagine finding someone in my usual circle to have this kind of talk with.