Weekend in Samaipata

Yesterday, together with several colleagues, I made my first weekend excursion out of Santa Cruz. We came to the town I'd heard most about, Samaipata. It's a mountain hideaway, snuggled amidst tropical green hills, with a cool, fresh air and an enveloping scent of flowers, ferns, pines and herbs. It's also very quiet. One feels the night when the blackness falls here, which led me to bed early. And thus, I appreciated the morning, the fresh greenness, the sound of the birds and the crickets, even more.

I shared a station wagon with three other passengers, 2 male and one female. As we began to drive out of town, it felt good to be heading somewhere new. And it was nice to be with people other than my colleagues, to hear about some different topics and opinions.

The passengers were an interesting enough bunch. The man in front was from La Paz. He is in town to check the radiation levels emitted from cell phone towers, to make sure they aren't harmful to human health.

"In reality, they never reach even half the level of the limits set by the FCC," he said. "The bigger problem is holding the phone up to your head. They should ban that."

The other two passengers got into an impassioned discussion about societal problems.

"The most important thing is liberty," said the man.

"Yes," agreed the woman. "Democracy. We should help the poor with education and health. Because a person with a bit of education can defend himself. Instead of spending money on stupid things, like sheets and paintings, we should spend money on schools, hospitals and churches. The churches helpas well, because a person without values, who isn't afraid of anything, isn't good for society."

"That's the most serious," said the man. "We live in Santa Cruz, where we live well, and we forget that the rest of the country lives in a different world."

"But Santa Cruz as well used to be without water and light," argued back the woman. "But who brought those things. The village did it itself." She complained about how the local rich take their money and spend it in Europe and the States. She thinks it should stay here, to help the local economy. "What do Europeans do?" she asked. "They collect taxes and invest it in their country. We also have brains, but we have bad customs and habits. We need to do this ourselves. Everyone who has the ability has the obligation to teach, educate, help."

Shortly after she left the taxi, the man threw a plastic bag with the remnants of his snack onto the mountain ride, a nice example of a bad habit.

The drive was beautiful. Leaving Santa Cruz, we saw women selling stalks of sugar cane, and little baggies of peeled, individual-sized pieces. Fifteen minutes outside of the city, it already felt open, more free, greener. Donkeys pulled carts on the side of the road, a man rode an umbrelled bicycle with a canister in front filled with a local drink for sale, and white geese waded along the mudded, wet brown roads. As we traveled further, I had vast, wild views of tropical green trees. As the road became smaller, the trees came closer and we entered a countryside of green field, green trees, and green misty mountains. Small village cemetaries were marked by a tall, colorful oval of flowers atop each white tomb.

We made our way into the mountains and I suddenly felt myself back in Kyrgyzstan - the windy roads following rivers below, the sheer rock faces emerging from mountains, and portions of road that just disappeared into the canyon below. We were stopped by an avalanche, which caused us to pause for close to two hours while they cleared the roads.

"I don't know what we are waiting for," the radio tower guy said. "The rocks will continue falling. It's like a lottery."

We saw several falls during our wait. During the first one, a rather large boulder rolled down the hill and across the road. It could have done quite a bit of damage to whatever might have been in its path. Most the others were small rocks. But no one knew when another large fall could come. We watched two motorcycles risk it. They got across OK, but several rocks fell behind them. The rest waited until the crane cleared the way. Then a parade of vehicles came through, one by one. Giant trucks and buses wavering on the rough road, then picking up speed and gunning across as fast as they could.

"I've been to Samaipata 11 times and this is the first time I've come across an avalanche," my colleague Maria said. It made it all the more an adventure.

The rest of the journey was along a windy road, through thick greenery and a gorgeous landscape of red soil, rolling mountains, and cliffside white homes with red tiled roofs, fronds, flowers, cacti and trees. We crossed a bridge over a sheer rock waterfall, and within a couple of kilometers, were in the small town of Samaipata. The central square is the prettiest I've seen, dense with flowers, greenery, stone arches and sculpture. It has a speaker's corner, modeled after London's Hyde Park. When one stands on the circular platform and speaks, you can hear your voice amplified. The central streets are made of cobblestone, making it sound like we were driving over a washboard.

We stayed at an organic farm called La Vispera. It has a spectacular setting on a hillside, the air rich with the heady scent of lavender and tropical flowers. I had a gorgeous little cabana called the Sweet. I could look out at pink bouganvillea, at cacti, rhubarb, herbs, and all kinds of tropical flowers - blue, yellow, red, white - that I didn't recognize. They also serve organic, vegetarian food at their cafe. Only problem was the service. They say their food is slow. But when my pancakes didn't appear after an hour and 45 minutes, I had to leave. I'd forgotten my camera in the taxi and had to go try to find it before the driver returned to Santa Cruz (luckily, I got it back). They said they'd leave the pancakes for me and I could have them for dinner. When I returned at dinner, no one knew where the pancakes were. The kitchen had already closed, at six. I asked if I could have something simple and cold, like bread and cheese, because I had nothing to eat. Nope, the kitchen closes at six. So I was unhappy to spend much of the afternoon and evening hungry.

This town has a serious fixation on the healthy. The sugar is brown, the tea is herbal, the bread is wheat, and meat can be hard to find. When I sought out lunch in town, I went to a place that I heard had good hamburgers.

"Would you like a vegetarian or meat burger?" the waitress asked me.

"Meat."

The hamburger came accompanied by lettuce, grated carrots and grated beets. I was so hungry I didn't notice at first, but it soon became apparent that my burger was greenish and the texture soft. It looked like I'd gotten vegetarian - like it or not. There is lots of great, homemade stuff for sale here - from herbs and herbal teas to cheeses, sliced ham, chutnies, james and marmelades.

While some of my colleagues went to visit some nearby ruins, I stayed on the farm to participate in an outdoor yoga class, to walked up to the golden throne (a thrown made of rock under a flowered arch up high on the hillside), and to listen to the crickets and watch the butterflies, sip lemon-orange herbal tea, and enjoy the tranquility.

The value of hot water, transport and communications

Sometimes I forget about the everyday realities of poverty here. It can be hard to remember that people who appear to be educated and urban are surviving on pennies.

I met a student named Vika during aerobics who told me that she lives in a dormitory and doesn’t have a phone. After class, she undressed and prepared to take a shower. Someone asked why she was showering in the evening.

“They have hot water here and I don’t have that at home,” she said. “We just have a teapot and gas.” I thought back to the year I spent washing with a teapot and understood what a treat a hot shower could be.

I left the health club and tried to take a marshrutka home. At the bus stop, people waiting there told me that buses to my neighborhood weren’t running at that time of night and I’d have to walk to a different stop. That stop wasn’t far away and I was going to walk there. But I met a couple of girls who said they were also going to my neighborhood.

“We’re moving and have heavy bags, so it would be hard to walk to the other stop. But we don’t have money for a taxi, so we’re trying to figure out what to do.”

One of them suggested to me, “Maybe if you could chip in some money we could get a taxi together.”

I agreed, they negotiated a price with the driver and I got in together with the three girls and their belongings, wrapped in blankets. One was a computer science student, another had a degree in English and was working as an English teacher. I figured they’d expect me to pay more and I was prepared to pay more than half. But they all got out before my stop and didn’t seem to have contributed anything.

“Did you give anything to the driver?” I asked.

“You’re paying,” the driver said, looking at me.

“No, not yet,” the English teacher told me. “We don’t have any money.”

“Can you give him 15?” I asked, asking them to contribute less than half. The money wasn’t really an issue, I just couldn’t tell if they were trying to take advantage of me or not.

“We only have small money,” she said. “We were preparing to just seat one girl in the marshrutka.”

I really didn’t know what to think. I resented being used to rent a taxi for all of them, when I myself was planning on taking a marshrutka. But if they were so poor that this girl only owned two blankets full of belongings and couldn’t afford a 30 cent contribution to a taxi, I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it.

“I’ll be your free translator for a week,” she told me.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll send someone to bring you the money.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Both the girl taking the shower and the girls who couldn’t afford a taxi reminded me of the real poverty here, so often disguised by educated speech and a middle-class appearance.

On another topic, someone asked about language here. I use Russian as my means of communication. Those who have studied English are eager to practice with me, but given that I need a really high level of Russian for my work, I try to avoid speaking English when possible.

In Bishkek, a much more Russified city, Russian was undoubtedly an acceptable means of communication. Sometimes local staff would communicate with clients in Kyrgyz. Usually those people understood Russian, but were more comfortable in Kyrgyz. But that was more the exception than the norm. I sometimes heard Kyrgyz on the street, but heard at least as much Russian, if not more. In our headquarters office, no one, including the ethnic Kyrgyz, are fluent enough in Kyrgyz to be able to speak and write.

In Osh it’s different. Not only are there very few Russians, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans and others who would primarily use Russian, but there is a sizeable Uzbek population. Most within Osh speak and understand Russian, but I hear Kyrgyz and Uzbek much more frequently. In fact, one afternoon I was standing in the market area, waiting for a ride, and I realized that not only was I the only Caucasian within sight, but that I wasn’t hearing any Russian spoken in the commotion around me.

The program I work for uses Russian as the language of operation, so all local staff are required to speak Russian. Therefore, I have no problem communicating with people at work. But the local staff here frequently speak with clients in Kyrgyz or Uzbek.

I haven’t had a chance to travel much, but my guess would be that I could have problems communicating in the rural areas around here. While in the small town of Uzgen, the site of fierce ethnic conflict between Kygyz and Uzbeks in 1990, killing 300, I stopped in the market to buy Uzgen red rice, which I’d heard was supposed to be really special. I bought half a kilo and asked the vendor how to prepare it, but she didn’t understand me. I asked those nearby if anyone spoke Russian and no one spoke it well enough to be able to tell me what ratio of water I should add to the rice.

So the obvious question is why don’t I learn Kyrgyz? I asked my boss about learning Kyrgyz and she said to not waste my time. I’m not sure I agree it would be a waste of time, but it depends on where I end up living. Certainly, anywhere in the south or in more remote areas, it would come in handy. And since it seems likely that I’ll end up in the south or in a remote area, I would like to learn something.

The second problem was finding a Kyrgyz language book. I’d looked overseas without luck and I looked in Bishkek without luck. I had easily found good books for English speakers to learn Latvian, Swahili, Bengali and Vietnamese. But there is nothing I know of for Kyrgyz. The only thing I could find was a thin book for Russian speakers that used the formal, grammatical method popular among the Soviets. I didn’t think I could get anything out of that. I needed big, round type and pictures to go along with basic vocabulary, not grammatical theories.

When I met some Peace Corps trainees, they told me that they had a great Kyrgyz language book that was written by Peace Corps employees. I called up the Peace Corps and they kindly agreed to sell me a copy. It is a beautiful book, with the nice, simple style I was looking for. Once I get settled somewhere, I’d like to find a teacher and start studying. Until then, I still have some progress to make in Russian. I’m not doing any formal study, but I carry around Russian-English vocabulary cards, try to speak Russian whenever possible, only watch TV in Russian, and read every third book in Russian (I’ve only read one book in Russian so far, the first volume of Harry Potter. It took me ages and I was really frustrated by the slow pace, but it felt like quite an accomplishment to finish. Now, after enjoying two books in English, I’m starting Chekhov’s Ward Number 6.).