Hello again, Springtime.

It’s suddenly warm out. You know what that means? It means Frisbee and scavenger hunts, juicy reds and greens in the bazaar, dry feet in our boots (soon the disposal of boots altogether), catcalls in the morning, accordions in courtyards, gynormous centipedes that skitter out of nowhere, and ice creams after English club. It means the return of all the things that make life amusing and wonderful here in this place that’s beginning to feel like home again.

*

A week ago the snow melted clean away to reveal a not-so-clean layer of crushed aluminum cans, shattered glass and foil wrappers that had crusted over Turgen under the ice. We’ve crawled out from beneath our rocks into the sunshine and try not to look down as we carefully pick our paths to work.

Thank goodness there are days of the year designated to rectify the misdeeds of those who have been too cold to care to find a trash bin. For the past two days, Turgenites have set to the streets armed with huge rice sacks and rakes to scrape clean the roadsides and riverbanks.

At my apartment complex, we have no dumpsters. You can imagine the lengths people have to go to rid their homes of trash. We all assumed personal territories which are our duty to tidy up before the flowers and leaves return. My territory consists of a small balcony in front of my flat which, I’ll admit, had accumulated more than a just few bags of non-organic rubbish that I couldn’t dispose of without raising too much speculation. Large dump trucks (who knew they existed??) came out of nowhere to collect what was impossible to burn.

I just came in from one of maybe seven street side bonfires lining Zheltaksan, the road that I live on. It’s nearly eight in the evening as I write this. Car stereos are blasting; crazed children are shrieking and scampering around thick pillars of smoke. Young men and boys are shoveling mounds of dead grass and paper into the fires while babushkas circle authoritatively like sharks (after all, somebody’s got to regulate this operation).

However right or wrong this system of waste management is, it is our only means of public sanitation at the moment. My heart warms to see the community rallying together for a common cause. The remarkable thing is that I’m part of a minority here who thinks of this as a “cause”— everyone else simply sees it as tradition. I haven’t heard this kind of laughter in the streets in months. I’m thinking that more than just roadsides and riverbanks are being restored tonight.

*

Today is the penultimate day of the term. I’ve been administering tests for the past week, and haven’t been too pleased with the results. I can see and hear progress in my students, but proving their progress on paper has been more difficult than I thought it would be.

One of our primary goals here is to teach English in interesting and innovative ways that are more conducive to learning than the older methods. Sometimes I've felt as though I have come all this way to watch students not do their own homework and cheat on exams. (FYI, attitudes on cheating are much different here than in the States. What we would consider cheating is what they would consider helping one another). If I keep this same attitude up until the end of my service, I wonder how I will feel about my Peace Corps service as a whole.

Come test time, my counterpart and I walk around and around the classroom snapping books shut, confiscating cheat sheets, chastising whisperers, and prompting answers in ways that aren’t as bad as straight-up cheating. Their pretty smiley faces shrink into tormented scowls, their brows furrow and their little foreheads wrinkle up in total concentration. In English class they will test the right way, and for months I’ve felt pretty smug about enforcing this. I haven’t tolerated cheating under any circumstances despite our differing attitudes about it.

Today I tested my eighth graders. They’re a great group. Relating to fourteen-year-olds isn’t very hard for me. Their emotions are live wires. The girls burst into tears over the slightest thing, the boys are obnoxious and distracted. They are all obsessed with things that most adults would consider to be unimportant. This is the age group that I seem to get along best with, but this is also the group that challenges me most. Finding new ways to motivate them is something that keeps me awake at night.

Today I circled the classroom as usual, checking inside desks for anything that might encourage cheating, and to my astonishment found nothing. For forty-five minutes, they sat in silence, each of them in total agony. I looked over their shoulders as they worked, and I counted so many incorrect answers. All term they’d appeared to be working hard and had done their homework, but come test day everything they’d learned had already slipped away. The bell rang and no one budged from their chairs.

“I finish, no!” one boy, Vova, said scribbling franticly.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Time’s up. Give me your tests.” They reluctantly handed in the papers as they walked out the door; some of the girls were almost in tears. I had to laugh, even though I felt a little ashamed. “Relax,” I said. “It’s only English class. Don’t worry, be happy.” I said, mimicking lyrics from the song they all know.


I’ve always understood that my strict no-cheat policy is something completely new to them. Teachers often tell them to think for themselves, but don’t reprimand the “cheaters.” I’ve pushed this new system onto them and have been punishing them with very low marks if I catch them with roaming eyes.


After the last student left the room came the revelation: Life for these kids will ultimately happen outside of the classroom. On top of everything that they have to deal with as young teenagers living in a village in a developing country, it's possible that this particular group has been brainwashed by yours truely into thinking that proficiency in English is vital to their livelihood. Of course, it isn’t vital at all. No one needs to speak English in Central Asia.

Today I felt my 8th formers’ pain as they walked out of the classroom with their tails between their legs. None of them had cheated, and in the end all of them had failed. A year ago when they all cheated and made high marks I was outraged. Now I’m angry at myself for being such a crabby old schoolmarm. Maybe this is why I get along so well with fourteen-year-olds: I take myself and what I do too seriously. When I mess up, I totally freak out. What I would give for a time machine! I’d travel back to last March and beat into my brain exactly what I told my poor, panicking students today: Relax. It’s only English class.