How To Call Your Senator Or Representative In Congress

On January 28th, I penned a Facebook status that went a little bit more than viral – it had over 17,000 reactions, 1,400 comments, and 32,000 shares.  But it had nothing to do with Central Asia or my current work: It was all about how to call your senator or representative in Congress. Continue reading “How To Call Your Senator Or Representative In Congress”

Music Obsession: Quando Bate Aquela Saudade by Rubel

South America introduced me to all kinds of new music, almost all of which has been Spanish pop and Tango.  But I’ve also discovered a love for another genre from Brazil, which my Brazilian friends have called “Brazilian folk,” but might be best described as a sort of acoustic singer-songwriter genre in Portuguese.  All of the music is beautiful and chill, and is the sort of music that might be played in a beachfront resort.  Of all of this music, I have a favorite song right now: Quando Bate Aquela Saudade by Rubel from their album Pearl.

OK, so watch and listen and try and tell me that you don’t already know what the song is about and the emotions it is discussing.

But in case you couldn’t figure it out from the title, the song is about saudade, which is one of those incredible loanwords that simply cannot be translated from its original Portuguese.  Saudade is an emotion that I can best describe as a profound sadness (all the online definitions use “melancholy” but I’m trying to sound less elitist than I clearly am) that comes from missing something, someone, or a time that may or will never return.

Picture a woman in the 1500’s sending her husband, a sailor, on a year-long voyage to explore the world.  There’s no certainty that he’s going to come back or that he’ll be the same.  There’s no certainty that they will regain the happiness they had before.  That emotion of nostalgic sadness is saudade.

You probably know this emotion much better than your realize, even though English lacks a word to describe it.  Supposedly, it is a defining emotion of Porguguese and Brazilian people.  The closest translation in English might be “the blues” in AAVE.

So, back to Quando Bate Aquela Saudade.  Listening to the melody, can you feel that emotion I’ve just described?  Good, now let’s look at the lyrics.

Quando Bate Aquela Saudade by Rubel

É você que tem
Os olhos tão gigantes
E a boca tão gostosa
Eu não vou aguentar

Senta aqui do lado
E tira logo a roupa
E esquece o que não importa
Nem vamos conversar

Olha bem, mulher
Eu vou te ser sincero
Quero te ver de branco
Quero te ver no altar

Não tem medo, não
Eu sei, vai dar errado
A gente fica longe
E volta a namorar depois

Olha bem, mulher
Eu vou te ser sincero
Eu tô com uma vontade danada
de te entregar todos beijos que eu não te dei
E eu tô com uma saudade apertada de ir dormir bem cansado
E de acordar do teu lado pra te dizer
Que eu te amo
Que eu te amo demais

Olha bem, mulher
Eu vou te ser sincero
Quero te ver de branco
Quero te ver no altar

Não tem medo, não
A gente fica longe
A gente até se esconde
E volta a namorar depois

Que é você que tem
Os olhos tão gigantes
E a boca tão gostosa
Eu não vou aguentar

Olha bem, mulher
Eu vou te ser sincero
Eu tô com uma vontade danada
de te entregar todos beijos que eu não te dei
E eu tô com uma saudade apertada de ir dormir bem cansado
E de acordar do teu lado pra te dizer
Que eu te amo
Que eu te amo demais

Eu tô com uma vontade danada
de te entregar todos beijos que eu não te dei
E eu tô com uma saudade apertada de ir dormir bem cansado
E de acordar do teu lado pra te dizer
Que eu te amo
Que eu te amo demais

I know you all read Portuguese fluently, right?  Just kidding, here they are in English:

Quando Bate Aquela Saudade by Rubel

It’s you who has
Those big eyes
And that delicious mouth
I cannot resist

Sit here by my side
And take off your clothes
Forget what doesn’t matter
Let’s not even talk about it

Take a good look, woman
I will be honest with you
I want to see you in white
I want to see you at the altar

Don’t be afraid, please don’t
I know, it won’t work
We’ll stay away
And we go back to dating after

Take a good look, woman
I will be honest with you

I want so goddamn much
to give you all the kisses I couldn’t
And I’ve been missing so much going to sleep tired
and waking up by your side
To tell you that I love you
That I love you so much

Take a good look, woman
I will be honest with you
I want to see you in white
I want to see you at the altar

Don’t be afraid, please don’t
I know it won’t work
We even hide ourselves
And we go back to dating after

It’s you who has
Those big eyes
And that delicious mouth
I cannot resist

Take a good look, woman
I will be honest you

I want so goddamn much
to give you all the kisses I couldn’t
And I’ve been missing so much going to sleep tired
and waking up by your side
To tell you that I love you
That I love you so much

I want so goddamn much
to give you all the kisses I couldn’t
And I’ve been missing so much going to sleep tired
and waking up by your side
To tell you that I love you
That I love you so much

(lyrics from LyricsTranslate.com, with some corrections by me)

They basically speak for themselves, don’t they?  This song is so quiet but so beautiful.  Does it evoke the same saudade for you as it does for me?  Because something about this song connects for me and I can’t stop thinking about it or listening to it.  Let me know what you think about Quando Bate Aquela Saudade the comments below!

What Is Tango?

I’ve been living in Buenos Aires for a little over a week, and I just finished the first week of classes at DNI Tango, a tango school here renowned for its focus on technique.  And it has been nothing short of MAGICAL.  First of all, though, before I dive into life here, I should dive into what exactly tango is.

 

When you think of tango, what do you picture?  Raise your hand if you picture this:

🙋🏽‍♂️

OK so technically tango is a social floor dance, but these are the photos I have of me doing what you might think of as a stereotypical tango.  But, since I’ve arrived here, I’ve learned a whole lot more about this dance in its purest, most Rioplatinese form. (also spoiler, the third photo is actually from a rumba-bolero-we-arent-sure-what-to-call-it!)

Tango is a form of social dance traditional to the Rio de la Plata, which forms the border between Argentina and Uruguay, but it was also modified and influenced by a few other countries and cultures along the way.  At first, it was a working-class dance between men in warehouses and other places in Buenos Aires and Montevideo.  In fact, the word “tango” was supposedly in use in 1789 referring to parties thrown by slaves.

The dance itself has been influenced heavily by the cosmopolitan nature of Argentina as a country of immigrants, with visible influences from France, Italy, Cuba, Spain, slaves, and others.  One of the single biggest influences came in 1910, when the first bandoneón (the “tango accordion”) arrived in Buenos Aires from Germany.

The dance stayed super localized until the 1900’s, when a series of orchestras from Buenos Aires traveled around Europe, igniting a craze that swept Paris, London, New York, and bizarrely, Finland.  As it became fashionable in Europe, so did it among the upper classes of Argentina as well.

Tango, in its original Argentine form (I’m going to refer to it this way for clarity, even though the origins of the dance are shared with Uruguay), is danced in the so-called “close embrace,” the abrazo cerrado, which is similar to a hug where the dancers maintain contact in the chest, with one hand in hand and the other arm around the back of the other dancer.  This connection in the chest means that the dancers are literally dancing cheek to cheek.  This embrace (it is never called a “hold” or a “frame”) is one of the hallmarks of the dance and creates its powerful introverted intimacy.

Close Embrace

Now imagine how that went over in high society in 1910, a society that was previously scandalized by the waltz.  WALTZ.

So naturally, the dance was spun off into the more “acceptable” ballroom style, doing away with the close embrace and replacing it with a more standard set of ballroom holds, standardized steps, and so on that is still practiced today as the ballroom tango in the American and International styles.

Unlike the standardized ballroom dances, though, the Argentine tango has no set steps.  It has no basic step, and no standardized combinations of steps that are pieced together and have been the same for decades.  Instead, the entire dance is improvised, each time that it is danced.  And unlike the tangos of figure skating, these tangos have passion, introversion, humor, and yes, even some playfulness, far more levels than are explored in the ballroom and ice tangos. Now watch this video from the 2012 World Championships.

Yes, that was IMPROVISED.  In fact, the entire dance is taught using “structures” and elements, and then teaching you to combine them in different ways, with different entries, exits, tempos, feelings, and such.  With all of this, the dance itself has actually continued to evolve, and a different style emerges between individual dancers and between different couples.

And perhaps another major difference: the Argentine tango is still chiefly a social dance, as evidenced by the preponderance of milongas in Buenos Aires, a tango party where a live band or a DJ will play different styles of dance music with strict social codes for asking to dance and continuing for a certain number of songs, and so on.  People of all ages come to dance everything from simple intimate walks to dramatic quick changes of direction with sweeping ochos and boleos and pauses in perfect time with the character and timing of the music.

This improvisation and individualization mean that every couple will have their own feel for the dance, their own favorite steps and combinations, and their own look – and when they trade partners over the course of a night out, new figures and characters will again emerge.  In fact, there are people who attend milongas solely to watch the dancers as they create and recreate new and old shapes and steps.

And therein lies the magic… every dance contains a surprise and something delightful and new with each new measure of music.  A pause, a quick step here, a moment there, all focused inward creating a dynamic magnetism that makes it impossible to stop watching… and makes it that much more magical when you are dancing it yourself.

 

Mile 25: It’s Over. Finally.

This post was written in real-time on May 23.  I apologize for the delay in uploading!

I’m sitting at the airport in Bishkek.  It’s 5:30AM.  Over the next 31 hours, I will fly almost 10,000 miles to my parents’ house in Seattle, the last of the 67,067 miles I will have flown on a total of 74 flights during the past two years.  I’ve been free of Peace Corps for 12 hours.  And the sense of relief is overwhelming. Continue reading “Mile 25: It’s Over. Finally.”

The Russian Banya in Central Asia

Across the world, people have come up with a variety of ways to keep clean, from the humble bucket bath familiar to Peace Corps Volunteers across Africa to fancy shower rooms and face masks of South Korea.  In Kyrgyzstan, many are surprised to learn that most locals have adopted the Russian banya, a type of sauna, as the bathing solution of choice.  But what exactly is a banya? Continue reading “The Russian Banya in Central Asia”

Swarm Of Earthquakes Strikes Chong-Alay Region

It didn’t make headlines internationally, but the Chong-Alay region that I’ve been doing so much work with has in the past week has experienced a swarm of 11 earthquakes above 4.5 magnitude (out of 16 total recorded).  The largest of these, around 5.9 magnitude according to USGS (initially reported as 7.0 by local authorities, now said to be 6.5) on May 3rd, was strong enough to evacuate some buildings in Osh, and several of the aftershocks have been up to 5.8 in magnitude.  Technically, they were centered in Tajikistan, but their heaviest impact has been felt here. They may not have made international headlines or even local headlines, but they have been devastating nonetheless.  I want to share with you a bit of what I’ve been able to learn about the situation. Continue reading “Swarm Of Earthquakes Strikes Chong-Alay Region”

Book And Movie Club: The Day Lasts More Than A Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov

This is a guest post by my epic sitemate and fellow blogger Colleen Wood, who writes the amazing blog Prekrasno.  Let’s be honest, she’s way better at this than me, bringing incredible depth and humanity to each of her interactions with locals that she documents on her blog.  Her posts are insightful and incisive, and I love reading every single one of them.  Last week, I published a guest post at Prekrasno about Jamila by Chingiz Aitmatov, and this week, Colleen is writing here about another of Kyrgyzstan’s most famous works, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov.  You can grab a copy here if you’d like to read along!

Kyrgyz people are often confused when I can’t list off the national clothes, national drink, or national food of the United States (though, to be honest, I just always say that hot dish is our national meal). The idea of a national “everything” is very important here, and these symbols of Kyrgyz(stani) culture are fairly fixed: kymyz is the national beverage, kara jorgo the national dance, and besh barmak the national food (though, as a resident of southern Kyrgyzstan, I’d make a case for ash).

When it comes to Kyrgyzstan’s “national writer,” arguments could be made for various poets and authors, but it would be pretty hard to beat Chyngyz Aitmatov. His short stories and novellas have been a joy to read, but nothing so far compares to his 1980 novel The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years.

The book takes place in the course of a single day: villagers of the Boranly-Burannyi rail station learn of the passing of a respected elder, Kazangap, and go on a journey to bury him. The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years gets its name from the weaving together of several stories: some intense magical realism involving a pair of Soviet and American astronauts who make contact with an alien planet, the fallout of Stalin-era purges on a man and his family, the main character’s relationship with his feisty Bactrian camel, and two Kazakh folk tales (3, if you’re reading the original Russian).

The fate of Central Asian traditions and identity is a focal point of the novel, highlighted by the efforts of Yedigei, an old man who made his home at the rail station, to bury his beloved friend and fellow railworker Kazangap. Yedigei is determined to bury Kazangap in the Ana-Beiit cemetery, but is frustrated with the perceived lack of dedication and care on the part of the other, younger men in the burial party:

“Looking at his young companions on the tractor, Burannyi Yedigei was genuinely distressed and sorry to think that none of them knew a single prayer. How then could they bury one another? With what words, covering the beginning and end of a life, would they sum up the departure of a man into the unknown, into non-existence? ‘Farewell, comrade, we will remember you.’ Or with some other sort of nonsense?” (97)

The Ana-Beiit cemetery is off limits to the villagers, who decide to bury Kazangap in a random patch of the steppe instead. Ana-Beiit, which means “mother’s grave” in Kazakh, appears in the landscape of another fairytale told throughout the novel, that of the “mankurt.” According to Central Asian legend, mankurts were prisoners of war, tortured by roaming Chinese tribes, and turned into zombie slaves with no memory of their former village, family, or identity.

The movie adaptation (available on YouTube) of The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years focuses solely on this sub-plot, entirely ignoring the more magical threads of the novel’s narrative structure. Shot in 1990 in Turkmenistan, the movie (aptly called Mankurt) follows the fate of a young soldier, Yolaman. Yolaman is captured by Chinese bandits and is tortured with a piece of camel flesh tied around his head; as other captives die of starvation and dehydration, Yolaman slowly loses his mind and all his memories.

The Day Lasts More Than A Hundred Years Movie Screengrab
Yolaman, still taken from the 1990 film Mankurt

Yolaman’s mother, Naiman, is waiting impatiently with in the canyons; on a hunch, she decides to head out to the steppe to fine her son and bring him home. Naiman is devastated that her son can’t remember who he is; as she shouts “Dorunbai! Dorunbai!”, the name of Yolaman’s father, a bird picks up the call and repeats the name over and over as the encounter turns tragic.

This same bird circles overhead as Yedigei tries to gain entry to Ana-Beiit, the final resting place of Naiman herself, calling out Dorunbaiiii, dorunbaiiii. Here, the bird doesn’t speak to recall a forgotten father, but instead forgotten traditions. Aitmatov uses the novel to make a statement about this generation of people, fully transformed Homo sovieticus, who are disconnected from the language and cultural staples of their ancestors.

In a eulogy for Aitmatov published in Harper’s, Scott Horton writes, “One of the great charms of Aitmatov’s life was that he charted first the decline of the Central Asian life and identity, and then participated in its resurrection as the Soviet Union collapsed and as the Central Asian states regained, quite unexpectedly, their autonomy and footing on the world stage.”

It’s fitting, then, that Aitmatov, a Kyrgyz man, wrote this book that takes place on the Kazakh steppe, and a team of Turkmen filmmakers picked up the mankurt tale. The struggle to protect and pass on traditional ways of life persisted in many areas of the Soviet Union, and Chyngyz Aitmatov was able to give voice to the way that played out not only in Kyrgyzstan, but all across Soviet Central Asia.

Reading this book, I couldn’t help but wonder at how these works – The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years and Mankurt – were produced and distributed before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The film portrays the danger of losing grasp on traditional mores, and the book advocates individualism, wariness of state authority, and Islamic rites. Somehow by the grace of glasnost, it made it through, and thank goodness for that.

Check out more of Colleen’s masterful writing at Prekrasno, and if you’re interested, pick up a copy of The Day Lasts More Than A Hundred Years here!

Let me know what you think of both The Day Lasts More Than A Hundred Years the book and Mankurt the film in the comments!  And don’t forget to like Monday Bazaar on Facebook and follow on Instagram for the latest updates!

Chernobyl Liquidators and Kyrgyzstan: A Surprising Connection

One day not too long after moving to Osh, I was walking through a park next to our World War II memorial.  Off to the left and up a small path, we came to a second monument covered in names, but we weren’t quite sure what it was for.  Then we looked at the banners behind it and saw the unmistakeable image of Mil Mi-26 Halo helicopters hovering over the destroyed shell of Reactor 4 at Chernobyl.  But what was this monument to the Chernobyl liquidators doing here, in Osh, Kyrgyzstan over 2000 miles away? Continue reading “Chernobyl Liquidators and Kyrgyzstan: A Surprising Connection”

Book Club and Movie Night: Jamila by Chingiz Aitmatov

Hey everyone! I’m super excited to announce a special exchange with my friend Colleen’s blog Prekrasno!  This week, I wrote a guest post on her *fantastic* blog about Jamila by Chingiz Aitmatov, his first significant work first published in 1958.
Continue reading “Book Club and Movie Night: Jamila by Chingiz Aitmatov”