May 16: Talant

I spent most of my day off today working outside with Azat's younger brother, Talant, who's been living in Kazakhstan. Talant is 25, unmarried, and always smiling and joking. He speaks no English, only Russian, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh. He likes to go to Bishkek with his friends, and when he tells me about it, he always dances around and sings the word, ''Yeah,'' and talks about girls.

The night he showed up, his family brought out all their old photo albums and reminisced. He showed me some pictures of himself without a shirt on and said, ''Semiz bala,'' or fat boy. I liked him immediately.

One night Talant saw me working on my laptop and said that he can buy a wire in the city and use his phone as a modem so I can get on the Internet from the house. I knew it wouldn't work, but I didn't know how to tell him that without just saying,
''No,'' which was not what I wanted to say, because that would be rude. So, I feigned interest in his plan, just to see what would happen.

The next day, he came home with the wire, which had cost him about 200 som, about seven bucks, US. I plugged his phone into my MacBook, fired up the bluetooth, made some progress, but then came up short, as expected. He needed to call his ISP to find out what number to call to gain access to the Internet, but I didn't know how to communicate this with him. He called his friend to ask for help, and I opened up a chess game on my computer. Talant started playing me, and quickly beat me, while he was talking on the phone. He knows a few English words.

''Check mate,'' he said.

Since then, I've played Talant in chess, on his board, a number of times, and have never won. I think that if I ever win, it will be because he let me.

Talant, like many Kyrgyz people, has a different notion of privacy. For one thing, he goes to the bathroom with the outhouse door wide open. One day I almost walked in on him, but at the last second, a caught a glimpse of his hand near the ground as he was squatting. The other thing is, it's normal for him to open my door and walk right into my room, if my light is on and he knows I'm up.

''Kandai,'' he says. How you doing? I'm usually studying, so he asks me how my studying is going. I need to practice speaking, so I ask him where he's been.

''Kaiakka bardung?''

''Shaar,'' he says. The city. ''Yeaah.'' Then he says something about work, even though he doesn't have a job. This happens just about every day. I haven't been able to grasp what he's talking about.

So anyway, I was working with him outside for most of the day today. He wanted to tear a section of the roof down that was covering a small room filled with some random junk and old cobwebs. Talant ripped two-by-fours down with a pry bar, and I piled them up neatly against the house. We worked well together. He taught me a few words, and my broken Kyrgyz began to flow a little better, after a while. We took frequent breaks to sit and talk.

Spending time with Talant was a great opportunity to practice speaking and listening to Kyrgyz. It also felt good to show him that Americans can do physical work, too. In fact, a few days before, I had helped him break rocks apart with a sledgehammer, for a different home improvement project. That was dangerous, since there were pieces of rocks flying in all directions, and we weren't wearing eye protection. Also, there had been neighborhood kids standing around, watching us, easily within striking distance. At one point I guided Emir, my three-year-old host brother, out of the way. The Kyrgyz have different standards of safety.

Sitting in his back yard, Talant asked me where the Peace Corps was going to send me for the next two years, and I told him that I didn't know, but that I was hoping for Issyk-Kul. He told me that next week, he could drive me there, to check it out.

I told him that I couldn't, that the Peace Corps wouldn't allow it. He said that he could drive me there on Sunday. I replied that I couldn't do it. Then he said, again, that he could drive me there next Sunday. As he was talking, I found myself bewildered, looking up into the sky, trying not listen, hoping that he would stop. I had heard of this, that in their culture, Kyrgyz people often extended invitations three times. Frustrated and confused, I raised my voice and said that the Peace Corps says no!

''Jak shi, Brandy,'' Talant said.

Our break was over. We stood up and got back to work.