.grimy faces were never seen

Last bell ceremony was today.

It is what it sounds like... a celebration of the supposed last bell of the year. I say "supposed," because this year it's no such thing... due to the extended winter holidays because of the electricity shortages, they're actually extending school until the middle of June. It makes sense (even though we're actually not making up all of the school we missed in January/February... we'd have to go through July to actually make everything up), but celebrating last bell and then having like fifty seven more bells just doesn't really compute with me. At the beginning of the year they have first bell ceremonies, which is, well, exactly what it sounds like.

May 25th is traditionally the last day of school, so it makes sense that the school system mandates that they all have their end-of-school ceremonies on the same day, generally speaking. However, now that we've had our last bell ceremony, I am very curious as to how many students are actually going to show up to the remaining classes. Supposedly this week is the last week of full-on teaching, with next week being exams for the eleventh-formers. The week after that is exams for everybody else... meaning that school will probably end on the 13th of June. But I've also heard the 17th. Basically: nobody knows.

The last bell ceremony itself was pretty simple, but overall quite enjoyable to watch. The only thing that kind of cheapened it was that, well, it's not actually the end of school yet. It would be like having high school graduation in the middle of May and then not finishing until June. But, you know, such is.

I got to the school by nine this morning, which was a nice respite from the usual 8am. I hung out in the teacher's room for about half hour, shooting the shit and finishing up Dante's Inferno before we all went outside. Nothing like reading about all the ways people could suffer in eternal damnation to gear up for end-of-year parties. Woot.

In the back of the school is a small courtyard. I'm moderately familiar with it since the English classroom makes up one wing of the courtyard's walls. I'd never really been in the courtyard, but had spent quite a bit of time gazing vacantly out it and cursing its existence since the courtyard blocks all the sunlight coming into my classroom, making it a friggin' meat locker even when it's relatively nice outside.

But the courtyard is also ringed by pavement, and painted with numbers saying where the classes should stand. They stand around the small path and the door from the school, which is leveled up off the pavement into stairs, acting as a stage.

The ceremony itself was pretty predictable... speeches, some singing, some certificate-giving, you know, the norm. I actually got some flowers... there was a part where the eleventh class got up on the stairs/stage and read little poems about their different classes, and my best English student gave me some white lilies. Very sweet.

The only thing about it really was that I (and everybody else) spent the entire time being cold as hell. The courtyard is shady to begin with, and the day had moderate cloudcover... not to mention a brisk wind and two tall pine trees blocking out most of the sun. I spent most of my time hovering around the back of the crowd, trying to chase the lone patch of sun across the courtyard. Brr. Damn you, unseasonably cold weather.

After the ceremonies had ended, I spent some time posing for pictures and congratulating the kids on... well, on not finishing school yet. But afterwards I ended up in the teacher's room, where for some reason the table was absolutely covered with flowers, and I ended up with some yellow irises and pink carnations to add to my lilies. Then we all voted on whether or not we wanted to go to a cafe tonight to celebrate the "end" of school... most teachers wanted to go, because, I mean, an excuse is an excuse. To be honest, I don't really have the money to blow on a heavy cafe excursion tonight, but I figure I should be social at least some of the time.

Which is part of the reason why I came into the city today... this has been an extremely expensive month. I went to Naryn at the beginning of it, bought an electric hot plate, bought some skirts and clothes, and I finally got around to closing that grant that the previous Volunteer in my old site had left for me. This ended up costing me money because the bastards who work at the Chinese bazaar forgot to write down the purchase of a television antenna I made on the reciept, thus I was short about 200 som and had no way to prove where the money went. Peace Corps suggested I go back to the bazaar and see if they had any other records, but, come on, they don't. Besides, 200 som is a little less than four dollars. In the grand scheme of things, that's nothing at all and it's certainly worth not getting a migrane over going to a bazaar and trying to speak in my third language to somebody who speaks Russian as a second language (Chinese as the first) to try and get some kind of documentation. Over four dollars.

But in the immediate scheme of things, it's all beggared me for this month. When I got to town today, I had sixty som left for the rest of this week, which is less than a dollar fifty. Fortunately I still had some money locked up in Tenge, or Kazakh currency, from when I was in Almaty. I had 4500 tenge, which seems like it would be a lot, but tenge is worth even less than som, and plus the woman wouldn’t accept my 500 tenge bill because she said it was dirty. Ugh. Whatever. It ended up netting me about 1100 som, which is fine for the week.

I’m still trying to save money, though, because next month is going to be pricey as well, from what I forsee. I need to get over to Karakol at some point so I can plan out the lessons we need to do for this FLEX PDO, which is probably going to cost in the realm of 2000 som, all things said and done and drunk. I also have plans to do some major gluttonizing and head over to the Hyatt Sunday brunch buffet. The Hyatt runs one of these every Sunday, and it’s about 30 USD, or roughly 1000 som. Expensive, even for the States. But it’s unlimited food, good food, imported food like salmon and caviar and all sorts of things. Unlimited real coffee. Possibly mimosas. It’s my I-made-it-through-one-year present to myself.

I figure that summer in general is going to be more expensive than not, which is fine. I’ve managed to stick to my Peace Corps-given budget almost eerily well: I’ve never had to dip into my personal reserves/ask good ol’ Mom and Dad to Western Union something to me. I’ve also only exchanged money in Central Asia three times: once from dollars to som during PST when I was buying a cell phone, once when I was in Almaty from dollars to tenge, and once today, from tenge to som.

I’ll likely afford myself some extra leeway over the summer, since I’ve done so well this past year. ...the only thing I’m moderately worried about is getting used to having the extra leeway, but I’m relatively frugal and I don’t travel too often during the school year, so I should be back on my short leash when the grind starts up again. (Maybe.)

But for the rest of this week, I’m looking to essentially be a recluse, and not come back into the city until Friday, when we (hopefully) get paid. I’m trying to save at least 500 som of the 1100 I have for the breakfast buffet next month. Today I bought some peanut butter, and I’m also going to pick up some eggs and bread. I’ve got some honey at home, as well as the requisite supplies of coffee, tea, and cocoa, and this will probably be my main source of repast for the next few days. I also lucked out and found a bag full of books in the resource center, from a K-15 who dropped off a bunch of random things after the COS conference.

The thing about the resource center is that it does have a library... of what is probably a motley collection of the world’s worst books. Or at least the most inexplicable ones. If you’re after some harlequin bodice-ripping romance novels from the 1980s, I suppose you’d be pleased with the collection. That or weird creepy “find your spiritualist self” manuals.

If you want actual good books, you have to talk to the other Volunteers. We all tend to hoard the good stuff. I have been lucky occasionally in the resource center... I did find a copy of The Satanic Verses, which I had been wanting to read out of its sheer notoriety. But most of the good books I’ve gotten here are direct from my friends... I’ve actually been on more of a French literature kick recently, since one of my friends here is hardcore into Balzac and Zola.

I had just finished Dante’s Inferno, so it’s nice that I was able to stumble on a bag of books. Some of it was just dross, but I got a copy of The Brothers Karamazov, Three Cups of Tea, and Mary, Called Magdalene. I’ve at least heard of all of these books, and had been actively looking to read The Brothers and Three Cups for a while. Wasn’t expecting to find the Magdalene book, but I’ve at least heard of it and it doesn’t have a picture of some bare-chested Nordic dude on the front with his long hair blowing in the romantic wind with some red-headed woman in a poorly-arranged dress draped over his arm. I’m sold. And it will give me something to do over my week of exile.

Moral of the story: the end of the school year can’t come fast enough, and I’m poor. Nothing new, I suppose.