On a hot Thursday one year ago, just over a week before I left Kyrgyzstan, I made a small piece of Peace Corps Kyrgyz Republic history: I became the first volunteer in nearly two decades to lead a project in Batken Oblast. It doesn’t sound like a big deal if you don’t know Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan very well, so let me start from the beginning with an overview of what Batken is and why it’s so cool. Continue reading “Back In Batken Oblast”
Kyrgyzstan has become a popular subject as of late for some amazing amateur and professional filmmakers who have accidentally or deliberately stumbled upon its splendor. I’ve been wanting to share some of these for a while, in the hopes that they’ll spark more interest in visiting the region. Continue reading “A Few Stunning Videos Of Kyrgyzstan”
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”
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.
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.
I’m new! I want to say I’m just a little stuck on you…On Wednesday, the next of my adventures began when I took a one-way ticket from Seattle to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I’ll be staying to study tango for the next two months. Wait, what? Continue reading “What’s New, Buenos Aires?”
Last week, I got to return for probably the last time to my favorite rayon in Kyrgyzstan, the high and remote Chong-Alay region, which is the southernmost region in Kyrgyzstan. As the crow flies, it’s only about 65 miles southwest of Osh (a 20-minute flight in the Soviet era), but thanks to the majestic Alay mountains, the drive is 300km and takes 5 hours on a good day. It’s remote, but as I had learned from my previous visits, it’s one of the most welcoming and hard-working places in the country. Continue reading “Winter in Chong-Alay”
Kazakhstan is fascinating to me. It is the most developed of the Central Asian countries in the cities, with prosperous jobs, one of the world’s top-rated airlines, and even several Starbucks. And yet, the rural areas hang on to beautiful manifestations of Central Asian history and culture. More than any other place in Central Asia, this push and pull is visible in Kazakhstan. And we got to see it first-hand. Continue reading “Kazakhstan: A Journey Across The Steppe”
2016 is over, and I made a point to go outside and take photos during every month. And it was awesome! At the end of 2015, someone decided that it would be fun to create a website that would find your most-liked photos on Instagram. It turned out pretty awesome and I edited it together to make this post. So I went back to the same website and got this result:
I love it, but…there’s just one problem… 6 of the 9 photos are from a single week in December that I already featured in my post of photos from December yesterday! So, I decided to do things the old fashioned way and go digging through my old photos for my favorites from this year. And so I decided to summarize my year in photos instead.
#1 Berovo, Macedonia
Last January, I took a quick detour from a trip to Europe to visit my dear friend Gwen in her little hill town in eastern Macedonia. And boy, did I fall in love with it. Macedonia is small, affordable, and spectacularly beautiful no matter what time of year or weather. I hope to go back again soon.
#2 Almaty, Kazakhstan
Almaty oozes a sense of winter and excitement, and I had a great trip there last February, which helped inform my Almaty Destination Guide. I’m looking forward to going back for the Winter Universiade.
#3 Rural Bishkek
This is a photo from guesting with my Kyrgyz language teacher on the outskirts of Bishkek, where life is a bit slower and the houses seem to be more of a village style than city. I just love the way that the light and the snow play together in this photo with the mountains peeking from behind the smog.
#4 Kurshab Afternoon
These two shots of the afternoon sun and of me riding in a truck are from a trip to the Kurshab Reservoir back at the very beginning of May. Some friends invited me out to spend the day relaxing, eating, cliff diving, and swimming in the lake. All in all a great way to welcome the summer!
#5 Hill Exploration
In early May, I also got invited out to a farm in the hills outside of Osh with some colleagues. These two shots came from that day, which I wrote about here.
#6 Marathon Number Six
Last May, I finished my sixth marathon, running the Run The Silk Road Marathon in beautiful Issyk-Kul. At an altitude of over a mile, my time was more than 90 minutes off my PR, but this represented a huge achievement to me that I’m very proud of.
#7 Meeting Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet
When outgoing Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet first became Director, her very first task was safely evacuating volunteers in my site, Osh, Kyrgyzstan, during a period of unrest here. In May, she finally got to visit Kyrgyzstan and Osh, where she came to one of my offices to hear about our work. I respect and thank Carrie so much for the work she has done to improve the Peace Corps, and for her mentorship ever since.
#8 In And Around Osh
My most popular posts have been my post about hats and my Osh Destination Guide. Last summer, to prepare for that post, I spent the summer watching for and taking photographs of Osh, especially Suleiman Too from different angles. Here are some of my favorite shots.
#9 Seasons of Osh
My favorite shot of Osh has got to be this one, which includes the former ruler of Alay, Alimbek Datka, trees, a museum, and Suleiman Too, four of my favorite things in Osh all framed in one photo. I managed to get a nearly identical photo in two very different seasons, proof that Osh is always amazing.
#10 Sary-Tash
On my way out to Chong-Alay for the first time, I snapped this shot through the windshield of the small crossroads of Sary-Tash with the massif of the Pamir Mountains behind it, the westernmost wisp of the Himalaya. Sary-Tash is an important crossroads on the Pamir Highway – East the road leads to Kashgar, China, a critical trade route. North leads to Osh, and the world markets. West leads to Dushanbe, albeit across a closed border, and South is one of the only roads to access the interior of the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, the legendary Pamir Highway.
#11 Team Osh Takes Arslanbob
This has to have been one of my favorite weekends of my time in the Peace Corps, a weekend where local friends whisked us away to the fairytale town of Arslanbob.
#12 Hiking Pride
Another of my favorite photos of all time, this was taken at the peak of a hike last summer with several dear friends who were visiting from Switzerland.
#13 Harvard Takes Kyrgyzstan
When my friend Nico from Geneva and Harvard came to visit, we had to get hiking. So we hiked, we showed our Harvard and Swiss pride, and, of course, we ate plov. We ate SO much plov. Easily one of the best parts of my entire time in Kyrgyzstan!
#14 Beach Vacation, Kyrgyz Style
Kyrgyzstan, of all places, has got to have some of the cheapest and most beautiful beaches anywhere in the world. If you are willing to be frugal, you can even swing a beach weekend from Bishkek for less than $20, if you can believe it. These photos are of me doing yoga in Fairytale Canyon on the South Shore, and of a beach near a friend’s guest house in Kajy-Sai village.
#15 Squad
Just another selfie of me with some of my favorite colleagues in the world.
#16 Horse Games 2
I haven’t gotten a post up about this and I still feel guilty.
#17 Sary Chelek
We had a fantastic trip to Sary-Chelek, including a few of these great photos. One of our friends took a *perfect* photo doing a hair flip so naturally we spent nearly an hour and several degrees of body temperature trying to do the same.
#18 Mom And Dad Take Kyrgyzstan
My parents came to visit and it was perfect.
#19 World Nomad Games
There are too many good photos from the World Nomad Games for me to put them here, but this is one of my favorites.
#20 Uzbekistan
I let myself pick three of the nearly 1000 photos I took during my trip to Uzbekistan. Check out more on my post about that trip.
#21 White House, Headquarters, and America
I still can’t believe that I was named one of 8 winners of the 2016 Peace Corps Blog It Home contest, and that I got to spend a week in Washington, D.C. talking to young people about my experiences and learning from the best and the brightest at the White House. Pinch me please!
#22 The 16 Girls Of 16 Days
This post was one of my favorite projects I got to work on this year, and it even got translated to German. In case you missed it, my colleague Josefin guest-wrote a post where she interviewed 16 young women around Osh about their lives and their goals as a part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. Be sure to check it out here!
#23 More Toguz Korgool
I got to represent the US again and carry the flag for the Asian Championships of Toguz Korgool!
#24 Osh Under Snow
No caption needed, just pictures of Osh looking amazing in the beautiful winter weather.
#25 Happy New Year
And a Happy New Year 2017 from me, Lenin, and everyone else here in Osh. Can’t wait to keep on going in 2017!
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Editor’s note: This post is a partnership post written by Josefin Åström, a Swedish colleague of mine who works with a local youth centre here in Osh through the Central Asia Solidarity Group, a Swedish NGO that supports civil society across Central Asia. The post was translated from Swedish by Josefin and I together, and is part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. From 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign is a time to galvanize action to end violence against women and girls around the world. You can learn more at the UN Women Website. -Mark
This project started out of curiosity on what girls and young women in Kyrgyzstan find important in their lives. I believe that the chorus of their voices can provide an interesting snapshot of Kyrgyz society today. As a young woman myself, I gathered that approaching the topic through the lens of fashion could be a non-intimidating way of getting access to this group in the street to start a conversation about themselves. This is why the project has been carried out in the format of a street fashion project. Continue reading “16 Young Women, 16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence”
It’s going to take me a little while to process the incredible week that was my week in Washington, D.C. at the Peace Corps Top Bloggers’ Tour last week. As I’ve mentioned a few times, I was one of 8 amazing bloggers from across the Peace Corps world who won the 2016 Peace Corps Blog It Home blogging contest this summer, which earned me a trip to Washington this week to participate in this tour of trainings, professional development, and the chance to share the cultures of our countries with middle school students and Girl Scouts from across the DMV. I’m pinching myself so hard, because in the past six months, things have just gotten more and more amazing. Continue reading “America Again: The Peace Corps Top Bloggers’ Tour”
