Kyrgyzstan through my eyes 3.Arriving

Have you read previous episodes?

1. Before it all started 

2. On board 

Which do you prefer, take-off or landing?

I heard landing has more risk than taking off when it comes to comparing the possibility of an accident on a plane. Please go ahead and check the fact if you want to figure out which is right.

Nothing can make me feel more alive than having the moment of landing and feeling the impact of the plane which frictions its tires against the concrete of the aviation ground. I feel the impact coming through my seat: a similar feeling when I experienced a fairly big earthquake with a magnitude above five. I know I am not going to die but still, a little fear of crashing comes to mind.

To answer the question myself, my answer is landing.

Those who have taken an airplane might know the feeling of excitement and relief when arriving in an unfamiliar country or home. Isn’t it simply amazing? And when they open the door for you and you walk through it, you detect the temperature so different from that of your country and sometimes sense the moisture rising towards the sky.

It is the impact of arriving that tells your arrival.

It is the announcement by the captain that tells your arrival.

It is the cabin attendant who says thank you in their native language that tells your arrival.

It is the very first step from the aircraft that tells your arrival.

It is that man with a grumpy face at the passport control that tells your arrival.

It is the time when you wait for your luggage unpredictably that tells your arrival.

Sometimes it is someone who waits for you at the gate that tells your arrival.

After over 20 hours of flying and layover, we stepped into the land of Kyrgyzstan. It was a long journey in that we stopped in Korea for about 12 hours but overall bearable. I’ve heard some of our colleagues lost their luggage on their way to Africa, but we got all our luggage safe in our hands luckily enough not to experience lost luggage.

We were welcomed by two JICA staff members, or maybe it was three... It was not until the realization of being in Kyrgyzstan hit me when one of them spoke to us in Kyrgyz. We barely managed to mumble some words.

Do two weeks of not speaking any Kyrgyz possibly put the language away from our minds?

I assume it is possible, but this is not the only reason why it was so hard to take a word out of our mouths. We were used to following what our two teachers speak back in the training. They made it easier for us to understand them and selected words that we have learned. If you suddenly encounter unfamiliar words you have never heard before, you easily get lost and have no idea what to say. That is what I think happened to us.

It was freezing outside the airport, but it was not as cold as I expected it to be. I was glad and relieved to know that I would not die in the coldness, for I searched for the weather in Kyrgyzstan and found that it could get down to -20 degrees Celsius. So is true in some parts of Kyrgyzstan, and expectation and reediness of coldness would do no harm.

We were guided to a parking lot, where we expected to see our drivers. We successfully put our luggage in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Van, which is pretty popular and everywhere in Kyrgyzstan for transportation in cities and between cities. We were all ready to leave the airport and headed off to our accommodations.

Even before coming to Kyrgyzstan, I knew that Kyrgyzstan was a former U.S.S.R. and just that little piece of knowledge helped me grasp how Kyrgyzstan would look like when seeing the scenery and landscape of the country. The road we took from the airport to the inner city of Bishkek was paved with concrete and fairly in good condition as I look at it through the window in the darkness.

I live in Japan and have been to some developed countries such as America, Germany, the UK, Russia, and Taiwan. In these countries, cities and towns are well organized and you see infrastructure is no doubt developed, not knowing how dusty your car would get without it.

I have also traveled through South East Asia and visited Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines. You would more likely to fight with gyrating dust caused by vehicles and motorbikes. I was expecting this to happen there in Kyrgyzstan, too.

It made perfect sense though, learning that Kyrgyzstan used to be a part of the Soviet Union, which strongly focused on the progression of infrastructure equally throughout the Union. Catching the sight of the seemingly everlasting road as straight as an arrow, I wonder if Kyrgyzstan was a “developing country” at all. Even now, I have no answer for that little wonder. 

Economically speaking, Kyrgyzstan is far behind the developed countries and regarded as a country with a weak economy. According to Trading Economics, as of 2018, GDP per capita in Kyrgyzstan is approximately 1,100 U.S. dollars, comparing it to Japan with about 49,000 U.S. dollars. That is why I was expecting the country with a situation 40 times worse than Japan, knowing the economic bias made me think that way.

I guess I was wrong.

Partly developed infrastructure is the legacy of U.S.S.R and discussing what “developing” means is more than just looking at the money. So, I have to keep thinking about it if I want to continue to contribute myself to unprivileged areas.

Before reaching our destinations, we stopped by at a supermarket to get some food for the night. I don’t remember what I had but it was no use recalling it because I was too hungry to discuss the taste of my first Kyrgyz dinner.

We had seven people, two ladies and five men, in our volunteer group including me. We were scheduled to stay in Bishkek for a month to learn the language more, take some training sessions, and acclimatize to life in Kyrgyzstan. One of us was assigned to work in Bishkek even after one month, so he got to stay alone in his apartment. Then we got to gather in pairs, living in different apartments.

The accommodation I was given was cozy and more than expected.

I made up my mind and swore to myself that I would make the most of this privileged environment to acquire the language and prepare for the next and foremost destination.