Ryan Heriot was working as a Peace Corps volunteer in a southern Kyrgyzstan village when she got orders Sunday to move to a town near the capital
UO grad watches Kyrgyz make history
By Diana Elliott
The Register-Guard
While Marylou and Jeff Heriot of Springfield wait for news about political unrest in Kyrgyzstan, their daughter sits in a Soviet-built apartment half a world away and waits, too.
Ryan Heriot, a Springfield High and University of Oregon graduate, was working as a Peace Corps volunteer in a southern Kyrgyzstan village when she got orders Sunday to move to a town near the capital.
The Peace Corps was consolidating volunteers in a few cities around the country to make evacuation easier in the event such a move would be warranted.
Political unrest erupted this week after protesters, claiming widespread corruption and rigged elections, surrounded government buildings demanding the resignation of President Askar Akayev.
Demonstrations grew from drawing hundreds early in the week to thousands on Thursday, when Akayev fled the country to an undisclosed location.
In the chaotic aftermath, gangs were looting stores and government buildings in the capital Bishkek, while oppositionists were trying to restore order.
Meanwhile, Heriot, 23, was holed up with a half dozen other volunteers in a small town outside the capital.
"Right now we are awaiting word from Peace Corps. We are just waiting," Heriot said in a telephone interview Friday morning.
She doesn't know what will happen next - whether she will stay in the country and continue working as an English teacher in a secondary school or whether she will be sent to another, more stable country.
Barbara Daly, Peace Corps press director in Washington, D.C, said Friday afternoon that volunteers would remain at their consolidation locations until the situation settles down. All 106 volunteers had been accounted for; eight were outside the country and were not allowed to return immediately.
On Friday, an evacuation seemed unlikely, Daly said.
"It does appear things are stabilizing somewhat," she said.
But she acknowledged that could change.
"It's very fluid," she said. "It all depends on what happens."
Ryan's town is a 15-minute drive from Jalal-Abad, the hotbed of the anti-Akayev protests, which began last month following the first round of parliamentary elections and swelled after the March 13 runoff that oppositionists said was flawed.
"At first it was just large groups of people, a few hundred people, in front of the government offices," she said. "Eventually they got loudspeakers and they were saying things like the election wasn't fair and saying things against Akayev."
In weekly e-mails to her parents, she described how elections in the former Soviet state were a far cry from what they are in the United States.
"When they started the election process, we heard from her that it's so different," Marilou said. "People had loudspeakers in the streets; they buy votes."
Still, it didn't seem like revolution was brewing, Marilou said.
"Things calmed down for awhile, so it was shocking that they erupted again with these protests," she said.
She worried for her daughter, especially since Ryan moved to a place where she no longer had access to e-mail.
Marilou hasn't heard from her daughter since the move, but stays in touch with the father of another volunteer who lives in San Diego and talks to his son by phone.
On Sunday when Ryan reported that she was leaving her village of Oktyobrskoye, her mom gave her some advice. "I told her be smart, be safe and keep your head down."
So far, she's been heeding that advice.
Ryan said she didn't participate in the protests, which would be a violation of Peace Corps policy. And she hasn't left the apartment where she's been staying.
Ryan earned a master's degree in education with an emphasis in English as a second language and special education from the UO last spring.
She entered the Peace Corps in September and was sent to her village in December.
She never imagined the tiny country of 5 million people would garner front-page headlines around the world.
"I expected it would be a pretty calm, laid-back country," she said. "I certainly wasn't expecting political unrest."
