Ak-Terek

Ak-Terek is a small village nestled on the shores of lake Issyk-Kul about a fifteen or twenty minute marshrutka ride away from Darkan. This past Saturday I sat in a marshrutka for six hours while making the trip to Ak-Terek. The next day, Sunday, a supposed day of rest, I sat in not a marshrutka but a taxi for an equally long and grueling trip from the lake. Transportation in Kyrgyzstan has not gotten better over my five years although many other things have. Ak-Terek has, however, remained asuringly constant.

My trip to Ak-Terek was to celebrate Nagima Eje's birthday. Nagima Eje is Aida's mom. Although short, I enjoyed my time in Ak-Terek. I arrived in Ak-Terek at about eight o'clock on Saturday, just as the village was shutting down for the night. There wasn't much to do except for what the unmetropolitian Kyrgyz do almost every night: sit in the main room of the house, drink tea, maybe have a light dinner, watch tv, and talk. Nagima Eje, Kydyrbay Ava, me and, periodically, Ernest (the twenty-five year-old youngest son) sat (not in a chair but on the floor) at the kitchen table engaging in all of the activities of the evening. An American may think this dull and I'm sure if repeated night after night it would get as such, but when sparingly sampled it can be rather relaxing. When bedtime came I brushed my teeth at their outdoor metal sink and slept under what seemed like ten pounds of tushoks. The next day I had to go back from the clean air of the village to the smog filled air of Bishkek and I did not want to make the trip. The calm and serenity of the village, with the sounds of a multitude of sheep making their throaty croaks is held in stark contrast with that of the bustling city with all its cars, trucks and cacophony of horns. But I got to experience the solitude of Ak-Terek one last time before heading back to the confusion. Early on Sunday morning, Ernest and I took a relitively short walk to the Chong Terek or 'big tree' from which Ak-Terek gets its name (Ak-Terek means 'white tree'). I've been there once before, but never with one who grew up in the village to explain to me all the words and excintricites of nature that I found so facinating. On our way to the tree, situated all alone in an expansive field, we stopped by one of Ernests' relitives' houses located on the outskirts of town. We drank cup after cup of tea (with milk), ate fried eggs laden with salt and talked with his relitives. After a brief round of frantic picture taking, we set out on our way again. We arrived at the Chong Terek, a tulip poplar, as the time was nearing noon. It's the largest tulip poplar that I've seen, large enough for four or five full-grown people to lock hands around. It's location in an expansive field only adds to it's size and, when you see it, you can see why this little town of two-thousand five-hundred people is called Ak-Terek.

Now, as I sit in an internet cafe in Bishkek amidst the sound of clicking keys, I long for the peace of the lake and those quiet people living all around it. But I have to go and teach to half-a-dozen impatient Russian-speaking Kyrgyz kids in a while, so I'd better go and prepare. I will brave the traffic, angry taxi drivers and oppressive sounds of this metropolis and leave thoughts of the countryside behind.