number Nine: There is resilience.....but is there hope?

It is not quite 9 AM Saturday morning. I am getting ready to go to the university to work on symposium papers and the program with Svetlanya, Head of the American Studies Department. I started my laundry, confident I had enough time to get two loads done before I left. With no dryer, I need enough ‘air’ time to dry. Just made hot water for my coffee and popped some bread in the toaster for my breakfast. My quiet time became even quieter when all of a sudden, again we have lost electricity. This totally outside of the expected 2-6 PM and midnight to 6 AM……but the second time in as many days as I have been here outside the scheduled times. I am told this is to be expected…..all these ‘emergency’ issues. Perhaps another car hit a utility pole?

Grateful again to my computer for its backup battery, I tm typing this in semi-darkness, grateful also I took typing lessons in high school and know the keyboard! One of the things I had planned on talking about was how universities in Kyrgyzstan need to engage with university classrooms in the United States to truly have an impact on American Studies. I envisioned two classrooms across the great geographical and cultural divide reading perhaps the same poem in literature class for open discussion; observing public opinion polls, letters to the editor and media coverage in mutual elections; comparing constitutional documents of governance; debating the influence of western TV programs and its relation to globalization. When I talk about this with faculty and students, eyes light up! Yes, that would be fabulous. They are hungry for this type of engagement. Almost all of the students know about facebook and you tube and not surprisingly their teachers do not. In Bishkek, the students in one of the classes asked that I put the videos I took of their class on you tube so they could easily get to it….even telling me how to name the video for easier identification. These students are sophisticated enough in terms of the technology. It is a question of access and speed.

Lack of electricity only plunges Kyrgyzstan into a modern from of the ‘dark ages.’ A major cause of ‘rationing’ stems from the abused and excessive sale of hydro power which is in abundance in Kyrgyzstan’s glacial mountains to flat and dry Uzbekistan…..by of course one of the President’s relatives. I am certain that the homes of government officials are not in darkness.

But even if Kyrgyzstan was lit up 24 hours a day, would it be enough that Kyrgyzstan’s teachers and students want to connect with their ‘American cousins’? I am going to post my keynote speech if you are curious to my use of this old expression. Professor Alan DeYoung is perhaps the most knowledgeable academics regarding the state of education in Central Asia with a deep understanding of its Soviet history and teaching methodologies. He is in large part responsible for my being here, suggesting to the American Embassy that I be invited. I told him that one of the things I wanted to do was find projects for Global Visits…..linking up Kyrgyz classrooms with classrooms in the US via the Internet and a high tech social utility. I guess he figured that I would soon enough upon arrival see the technology challenges, but reminded me also that there would be resistance among the educational bureaucracy. And right he was. I am working with the Chair of the American Studies Department at Osh State University. There is one computer in her office that is to serve her 22 teachers. The Vice Rector made a surprise visit to her office, accompanied by the Dean, a very nice person who has been to the US on a Fulbright grant. The Dean told me she was hoping to persuade the Vice Rector of the need for a faster modem. Svetlanya was surprised at this rare visit and seized the moment to make a plea for at least one more computer to be brushed aside with the comment that “one was enough.”

Is there hope? If enough teachers, administrators and students get opportunities to study in the United States then return to their homeland with a positive vision for their countries future and a true reality that they can make a difference. If Putin does not siege Kyrgyzstan back in his tight grip pushing away any such opportunities. If a true civil society can emerge out of this stifling bureaucracy fanning a free press, free speech, free right of assembly and free and fair elections. Tall order. But as an old high school classmate reminded me on facebook (hello Steve!) it has been now a few decades since Eastern Europe moved toward this order of civil society when they freed themselves from Soviet domination and a decaying society, and today they still struggle forward. Their proximity to Western Europe helps to some extent……remember, we are in the middle of the earth!!

Ah….just as I finish……lights on again!