My Early Homecoming

Hello All,
I'm back! I'm writing this email from my home in NJ. After about 31 hours of travel in 2 taxis, a bus, 4 planes, and my parent's car, I arrived at good ol' 30 Fredonia Rd. around 11pm on June 1 and promptly feel asleep. After sending this email, I plan to eat a bagel, drink some orange juice, and unpack. Most things beyond that immediate future are a blur and I've decided to put off thinking about them until tomorrow.

That being said, I can tell you that I'll be "re-upping" with the PC in Moldova (a small country sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine) in mid-September. They speak Romanian and a little bit of Russian there, so I'll be able to continue improving my "Rusky." The political landscape is vastly different from Uzbekistan, with a more Western-leaning president and a government that enjoys a good relationship with PC and the US Embassy. The physical landscape is different too - rolling hills filled with vineyards instead of dessert filled with sand.

I'm looking forward to the opportunity to see another country. Plus, this time I know how to pack and I'll be the cool PCV who's done it all before. I can make up all kinds of stories about what I saw and did in Uzbekistan and no one can ever prove me wrong!

Other plans include visiting friends, finding some kind of gainful employment for the summer, perhaps subletting an apartment somewhere, taking in a Red Sox game or two, and finding a Russian and guitar teacher (not necessarily the same person).

Other members of my UZ-18 class went immediately to a new PC country (Mongolia, Moldova, Romania, Azerbaijan, El Salvador), or are waiting like me for a few months in the States for their programs to start (in South Africa, Moldova, Surinam, Ukraine), or they're finished with PC, or they're waiting to see what other options PC can come up with. All of these transfer options were developed very quickly over Memorial Day Weekend, when everyone in the PCHQ in DC was on vacation. Though none of us were happy to leave a place in which we had begun to build our lives, I think everyone is excited about new opportunities - and now we know people all over the world and can go visit on the cheap...

[Oh yeah, my big plan to surprise my parents failed completely because my brother let the cat out of the bag. He was visiting my folks in NJ and checking his email there and yelled out to my parents, "Hey, I've got an email from Brad." So they came over and started reading it together - and to be fair, I only wrote "DON'T TELL MY PARENTS" at the end of my letter.]

That's all for now. If you'd like to read what I had started to write for my next update - prior to learning that I would be leaving Uzbekistan - see below. Some of the things are just reminders or notes to myself to mention certain things.

So here I am, pretty much settled in. I don't really get ripped off in the bazaar anymore, have made some local friends, and know where most things are on account of a map I made (because there are no city maps available for purchase in this country) by spending a day just trying out all the different marshutkas (minivan buses). I did wind up switching host families to a Russian speaking one and I'm certain that was a good move for my language skills, though perhaps not the best choice for my culinary palette. Most meals here consist of cabbage and potato soup or plov (rice, carrots, oil, and a little bit of meat). I've started to supplement my diet with eggs, cheese, bananas, sausage, and other assorted goodies from the bazaar. Ironically, my first bout of diarrhea since arriving in Uzbekistan came before I switched families. Maybe there's something to this bland food after all...

Some of you may have heard about the violence that took place in Andijon, one of Uzbekistan's 12 regions (a region is similar to a state in the US). For now, over email, suffice to say all PCVs are and always were safe. You back in the States probably have a better idea of what happened than I do because many of the news services were cut in Uzbekistan. I live on the other side of the country from Andijon, and life here was completely normal. Peace Corps was on top of the situation, sending us up-to-date information by phone and email, and should the situation have escalated, would have taken appropriate actions to secure all PCVs' safety.

Funny story of the month:
I, like all PCVs, have a bank account into which PC deposits our monthly living allowance. And from time to time PCVs must go to the bank to get said allowance to do said living. And therein lies the problem. The bank (and there really is only one bank in this country) doesn't like to give out money. I have both an ATM card and a bank book. Knowing full well that oftentimes the ATM machine doesn't work or is simply out of cash, I thought I'd be bold and attempt to use it anyway. [Point of interest: everyone's card - and I mean everyone's card in the whole country - has the password "1." Though you can change your password - and I have so you can forget about stealing my $100 life savings - few people actually do. So, for the most part, if you steal someone's card you'll have no problem accessing their account.] So I try the machine and it says my card is not acceptable. Turns out the bank is in the process of changing from one kind of card to another kind of card. I have the newer card and the program for this card will not be installed on the ATM machine for 3-4 months. So I go to get money the old fashion way: from a real person... or really I should say from a whole team of people. First I go into one room where I get a document like an IOU from the bank for the amount of money I wish to withdraw. Then that document needs to be signed by a higher up person. I happen to get the VP of the bank to sign mine, but he wants to chat first and practice his English that he learned during a trip to NYC. We have some tea and I tell him about Boston and he tells me about living in Brooklyn and so it goes for about half an hour until I decide I've schmoozed enough and say I really have to be going so could he please sign my IOU so I can get my money? So then he signs it and I go to a 3rd room where the cashiers work. About three dozen people are waiting for their money but because I'm American I'm ushered straight to the front of the line where I knock on a little wooden door in the wall. The door opens and I hand the man my signed IOU, he closes the door, and 2 minutes later hands me 25,000 sym ($25). I'm told future transactions will be faster and hour-long runaround only took so long because it was the first time. We'll see. For now, I'm inclined to take out as much money as possible each time to lower the frequency of bank trips.

Went to a Cinqo de Mayo party with 30 PCVs - had my only case of diarrhea in Uzbekistan the whole time I was at the party

Was supposed to teach music for 2 weeks at a summer camp
finishing organization assessment - what is says. Really interesting community advocacy work going on - first of its kind - people here are waiting for the government to fix everything, but the government isn't going to - those days of the USSR are gone, so it's difficult to get the people to realize they must speak up for themselves - It seems that previous campaigns have been more about trying to berate or force government officials to do what the people want, rather than give them hero opportunities to make them look and feel good - which is ultimately a better way to get things done because it provides for a better future working relationship.