Arriving at the home of my host I suddenly realised there were a lot of other volunteers. I had the impression that the opportunity did not gain much attention. The next day I got my first chance at helping out. Filip, a Swiss who was also volunteering, and I headed over to the school. The children were prepping for their IELTS exam in June.
On arrival, I was asked to give a quick introduction to myself. The first thing they all noticed was my accent. A native British accent is always tricky and whilst my accent is relatively neutral, the speed at which I speak isn’t! I had to slow down and enunciate my words more clearly. Our host had to leave, so Filip and I took over. We played a little hangman and I added in a few tongue twisters to help with pronunciation. It was fun but very tiring.
Nursery rhymes, songs and the lack of books
We also helped out a nursery, helping the children learn English through singing. Mainly songs involving lots of verbs and nouns; think ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes.’ This is fun but I also learned that they get no books read to them. This is down to two reasons, first Uzbekistan does not have a reading culture and secondly, they have no books to be read! Something our host was working on resolving.
Our host was building an English Books Library, not just for her students but for the wider community to use. Coming from a culture where you can easily find books everywhere and cheap was difficult. We learn so much from books, so not having them easily available must limit understanding and development. Importing books into Uzbekistan was expensive and the only bookstore where I saw English books sold, actually it was the only bookstore, was in Tashkent and very expensive.
The final type of lesson was helping out at the Medical College and helping the doctors and nurses learn English. The main objective here was to raise the standard of care through attending conferences and training in other countries, which was almost always held in English.
The bad side of Uzbekistan
It seems odd that I am writing about this now after spending almost 1.5 months travelling through Uzbekistan. However, from the first stay Julia and I had at the farm south of Muynak, you could notice the level women were held in society. The wife was being controlled by the husband. He would get annoyed at the littlest of things and why there was no violence, you could see the wife react.
Whilst volunteering I learnt that in society the youngest son is expected to stay home and provide for the parents and his wife to be the servant to her new parents-in-law. This will continue until they die. Afterwards, the house goes to the eldest son. They get nothing. It was quite hard to believe this was still happening; however, on the way back from assisting in the Medical College we were invited into the courtyard. All the houses here are large enough to have a courtyard!
On entering, you notice a young woman with a newborn baby but as soon as the parents invite us to sit down she goes into service mode and starts bringing tea, chocolate, biscuits and bread. Even a small cooked dish of chick-peas was provided. We later found out that she was the daughter-in-law of their youngest son who was working at the family butchery, something he does all day.
And now the ugly side
I also found out that my host was staying in a side house from her brother after leaving her husband, who had just left jail for rape. After leaving jail, after serving just half his sentence, he started a campaign of constant messaging to get the host back to his house. Including describing violence he was willing to commit. He started turning up where the host was, whether teaching at school, hairdresser or going for a walk in nature. The youngest son was often used by him to find out where she was.
This culminated one evening when he turned up at our host’s house. We were eating outside in the courtyard. He had had alcohol; he came in fists ready, eyes fixed for one thing. He stopped on entering. I don’t think he expected to see 3 volunteers at the property; 4 had left earlier in the day. Our host disappeared into the house and a little hiding place. He followed a few minutes later and the youngest son said to us that he thinks he is going to beat his mother. Something no child should have to think, let alone say.
Two volunteers went next door to get the brother and I went into the house. I introduced myself; a simple trick just to put their mind in a different place. The brother turned up and managed to convince him to leave. The eldest son barred the door to the courtyard and we could all relax. You could hear a tense conversation just beyond the door, but he eventually left.
This event would be the first time our host would call the police and within 24 hours he has a restraining order against him. I wasn’t expecting the police to take the matter seriously but they seemed to be much more responsive than the police back home.
A happier note
My last couple of days in Beshariq was spent teaching English and preparing my route through Tajikistan. However, the medical students invited us to their annual awards ceremony. There was a lot of traditional dancing, singing, and a lot of badly done lip-syncing as well.
It went on for over three hours with the awards spread out over the whole time. It did create a bit of a party atmosphere in the end with the medical students standing up and dancing towards the end. Whilst a small number of other locals and internationals sat in their seats, not sure what to make of the situation!