more on Zhupar Alzhan

I stopped by Zhupar Aizhan’s after my classes yesterday, as I do about once a week. I go about once a week, at lunchtime these days, because it’s dark by 5:30 and there’s no one to walk me safely home. During the summer and early fall, I’d go in the evening, like a guest. She gets excited when I come. Retirement chafes a bit – she, a sanguine by any personality scale, finds herself with only a husband to talk to and a whole cow to grind by hand. She and her husband both speak to me at once, as if the other one weren’t there. It doesn’t bother them that I seem confused about whom I should be looking at. Maksot Aga’s gaze never goes away from my face, (he’s a 100% eye-contact speaker). In spite of this, there are silences, during which Zhupar counts years on her fingers and Maksot Aga, with his eyes rolled up, tries to think of words like “vengeance.” They both speak very good English. Set off by the same event/topic, they each take it in very different directions. These directions, if pursued long enough, always lead (from Zhopar’s side) to her travels in Eastern Europe and from Maksot Aga’s side, to conspiracy theories. I am always told to sit and watch tv, like a good guest, and I do for only about 5 minutes, unless it’s Marty Stauffer. When a nature program’s on, as it often is during the day, we sit and watch it together. We all love nature programs. In Zhopar’s words, “we are biologists!” She was thrilled to death to teach biology in English with me last year. She bought a Kelly green housecoat with lizards and fish all over it. I think there are birds, too. She got a good deal on it at the bazaar because her argument was “Come on, who else will buy this? You’ll never sell this to anyone but me.” She makes me wear it when I cut onions. If there are no nature programs, I sit with her in the kitchen to peel, chop, and talk (really, to listen). When the food is ready, she dumps a bit of the crazy strong vinegar on the dirty silverware sitting in a cup, wipes it off with toilet paper and hands it to me.

Soghum

Meat is everywhere. ‘Tis the season to slaughter large animals – they won’t go bad if you leave them outside. Zhopar is making ground beef with the same hand-cranked contraption she makes jam with in the summer. Her entryway is clogged with ¾ of her cow, the one that was a pain to milk. They’re out of places to store meat. She doesn’t know what to do. My own freezer is full of meat, enough to last me for a month or two. One of the impressions I have of Kazakhstan is that it is a place with bones everywhere. There are more and larger bones out than usual – a cow’s shin bone and hoof were in the middle of the sidewalk a few days ago. I expected it to be there for years, but someone or something moved it – probably a dog. I just had horsemeat besbarmak at Dilda Apa’s house. She and her sister are sitting on the floor, making lumpy horse sausage from petal pink intestines.

hiccoughs

I blundered through another Russian lesson, then I walked with my tutor around the corner to the drug store where they make copies (I needed ch’s 10 and 11). There was a very tall man with awful posture. His spine must have been shaped like a ski. He came in and stood silently for a few minutes, then hiccoughed. It was loud and high, and threw his shoulders back on his frame for a moment. The frequency of the hiccoughs increased during our time there, so that when we left, the poor man could hardly say “excuse me” before the next one overtook him. He seemed thoroughly ashamed of himself. I very much wonder what he bought. If he wants a good scare, I know a street that's slippery enough to make a brave man squeal - the problem is that it could cure hiccoughs, but he'd probably have to go to the hospital.

9th graders

I’ve been doing Thanksgiving lessons for three weeks because there’s not a scrap about it in the textbooks, something I consider a serious omission. So, I told them about Massasoit and putting corn seeds in fish and traditional foods besides pizza and hamburgers. In every class, I made them say “I’m thankful for __.”
The 8th graders, always eager, started saying thank you to each other before I finished explaining what we were about to do. Which was, in a way, sweet. And, in another way, depressing. “I am thankful to Shnar, because she gave me the answers to the physics test.” “I am thankful to Shnar because she let me say her homework was mine.” Shnar has a lot of friends. I can’t remember if Botagoz said anything about flying saucers, which she usually does. (She really loved the unit I did on Things in the Sky.)
The 9th grade boys (I teach a class for the boys and a class for the girls, which has isolated the goofiness factor) told the hapless New Kid to say “I am thankful for you,” to me. They giggled and then all said it. They asked me what I was thankful and I told them “I am thankful for you, the zoo,” which made Monkey fall out of his chair laughing. They all have animal nicknames (the dormitory kids give everyone a nickname. I don’t know mine) – some nice, some not. Donkey wants his changed. Giraffe doesn’t. Wild Pig, said “I would be thankful if you let us out early.” But I’m afraid I let them out late.

10th graders

The 10th graders, particularly the boys, enjoy activities that involve getting out of their chairs and looming over their teachers. Activities like, for example, tests. I wish I had one of those mallets from the Chucky Cheeze gopher game. I was team-teaching with Gulvira, who sighed, “What a boy!” as some kid with hair over his eyes stood over her. “What did she say? What did she say?” The kids asked me, because they know Gulvira is completely unresponsive. “Kandai bala,” I said translating into Kazakh, but my voice was soft and broken by my cold, and the boy misunderstood me and promptly bit the girl next to him. “Cannibal!” he cried gleefully. Kandai vocabulary.
And later the same day, they were coming to school for their afternoon lessons as I was coming for my mail, in jeans and hiking boots (I had been walking aimlessly just to be out on this ideal winter day). “Oh, Susan, Susan,” said pretty Moldir, hanging on someone’s arm. I’m not sure what she meant. Those girls make me feel a little bit like I’m the batty teacher with the big glasses in Clueless and they’re Emma and her friend.