In Naryn, there’s a tradition of bridal kidnapping - “a man, especially from a remote area, can see a woman on the street … and say, ‘Oh I’m gonna take her,’” Doby said. And because there are so many rules about respect and shame, it’s virtually impossible for the woman to escape. “They can fight to a certain extent,” Doby said, but if the man succeeds in getting the girl back to his house and keeps her there for the night, then they’re married. To keep the girls there - and they are girls; one of Doby’s 17-year-old students was threatened with a kidnapping shortly before she left Kyrgyzstan for good - the men will have their mothers stand in doorways because it’s disrespectful to harm an elder. Doby said she’d tell her students to put up a fight and call the police, but in reality, most of the policemen in Naryn had procured wives the same way. “There’s such a brotherhood of men there,” she said. Seeing all this helped Doby choose what her next step will be. Since she got back from Kyrgyzstan, she’s been applying to graduate schools with Human Rights programs and eventually wants to enter that field.
Peace Corps Volunteer Allyson Doby says getting used to women’s role in Kyrgyzstan culture proved challenging
Working in Central Asia
By Casey Gillis
cgillis@newsadvance.com
December 18, 2006
Caption: Norkuz -- a kidnapped Kyrgyz woman -- resists entering her future in-laws' home in the Kyrgyz village of Soviet.
Among the Kyrgyz people, Allyson Doby stood out like a sore thumb. “I wore so many bright articles of clothing,” said the Lynchburg native. “There I was, with blonde hair shining like a beacon. (They all knew), there’s the American.”
A little over two weeks ago, Doby, 24, came back home to Lynchburg after spending two years in the Peace Corps. During that time, she lived and taught English to high schoolers in Kyrgyzstan, a small country in Central Asia that was formerly part of the Soviet Union.
“I wanted to go see the world from a different perspective than what I was used to,” she said.
Doby first left in September 2004 and spent three months in a Peace Corps training camp in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where most of her time was devoted to learning the language and how to be a teacher.
Her host family knew maybe a dozen English words, so it was important for Doby to learn Kyrgyz.
After training, she was off to the small town of Naryn, in one of the most isolated and impoverished regions of the country. It has a population of about 40,000 and 60 percent unemployment.
Her host family was more well-off than other families in the town and had running water.
Still, life there was different, as were the attitudes of the people who lived in Naryn.
“It was really oppressive,” she said. “Women are supposed to stay in the homes and cook for their husband and kids. … We’re so equal here (in America), I didn’t even think it (would be) an issue.”
At one point, Doby said she was standing in town with two male volunteers when a Kyrgyz man came up to them and shook both of their hands, but barely even glanced at her. She got that a lot, but didn’t put up with it.
“If a man didn’t shake my hand,” she said, “I put out my hand.”
That wasn’t the only thing that was different from the life Doby was used to.
The home she stayed in had an outhouse. She could only shower about once a week at a Banya House, basically a public shower, and she’d wash her hair three to four times a week in a basin - “I wore a lot of hats,” she said with a laugh.
“It was kind of strange,” she said. “But I was so excited to be seeing these things and doing these things (that it didn’t matter).”
Doby had to be extra careful with her clothes; if she tore her jeans, there wasn’t an American Eagle or Target down the street to replace them. For the first year, she hand washed all her clothes in a basin, but by her second year, the town got a Laundromat. Even so, she learned to wear her clothes for days at a time before washing them.
The food, which consisted of mainly meats, potatoes and fried foods, proved problematic for Doby, a vegetarian.
“A sheep would appear in the yard one day, and two days later, there’s a head on the table,” she said.
Her host family was understanding, though, and served her eggs, beans and soup. Vegetables were hardly a staple.
“It’s so cold and so remote that they couldn’t grow their own vegetables,” she said.
The region experiences about six to seven months of winter every year. “When it snows, it snows a lot and it will never melt,” Doby said. “It starts snowing in late October, early November and doesn’t stop until April. It’s like a swamp there in April because all the snow is (finally) melting.”
When the weather was warm enough, Doby liked to go hiking in the mountains or running through town.
But that kind of weather was rare. Often, she found herself indoors, reading (she read 101 books while there) or hanging out with other Peace Corps volunteers and her host family, which had three small children.
Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to live the life of the locals, so Doby was given $100 a month while in Kyrgyzstan. Even that is big bucks compared to the $30 a month her host dad brought home, and he’s a doctor.
Bringing her laptop was one of the best decisions Doby said she made. She’d go to a local place in town that had Internet to send e-mails home and blog about her experiences. She’d also watch DVDs, and said she’d seen the fourth season of “Seinfeld” more times than she’d like to admit.
In the Peace Corps, if you don’t have a background in business or economics, you’re automatically an English teacher. Doby spent about 13 hours a week teaching, and said she found her experiences in the classroom frustrating at times.
“The mentality is if I have something and you don’t, I have to share it with you,” she said.
Basically, in school, the good students feel like they have to help the bad ones, so Doby often found them cheating on tests.
“They’re so concerned about appearances,” she said of the parents and the people in charge of the Soviet-era school system. “They just want it to look like the child is doing well. They don’t actually have to be doing well. … It was very frustrating because they don’t care what the kids are doing.”
Getting used to women’s role in the culture also proved challenging.
In Naryn, there’s a tradition of bridal kidnapping - “a man, especially from a remote area, can see a woman on the street … and say, ‘Oh I’m gonna take her,’” Doby said.
And because there are so many rules about respect and shame, it’s virtually impossible for the woman to escape.
“They can fight to a certain extent,” Doby said, but if the man succeeds in getting the girl back to his house and keeps her there for the night, then they’re married. To keep the girls there - and they are girls; one of Doby’s 17-year-old students was threatened with a kidnapping shortly before she left Kyrgyzstan for good - the men will have their mothers stand in doorways because it’s disrespectful to harm an elder.
Doby said she’d tell her students to put up a fight and call the police, but in reality, most of the policemen in Naryn had procured wives the same way.
“There’s such a brotherhood of men there,” she said.
Seeing all this helped Doby choose what her next step will be. Since she got back from Kyrgyzstan, she’s been applying to graduate schools with Human Rights programs and eventually wants to enter that field (she graduated from James Madison University in 2004 with a degree in International Affairs and Spanish).
“This is important,” she said. “These hardworking women who want to have jobs and contribute to their communities can’t because they’re being kidnapped (and forced into marriage).”
While Doby did have some frustrating experiences, it wasn’t all negative, she said.
“Every time I had this little bratty kid harass me or a taxi driver try to overcharge me, a nice shopkeeper was around the corner,” she said. “Or I’d go home to my host family, and they’d say ‘Oh, he’s a jerk anyway’ (about the person who’d been mean).”
As the end of her time there neared, Doby was counting down the days. But when it actually came time to leave, “I found it hard to say goodbye.
“It was really strange. (I was like), ‘This is my house (here in Naryn). I don’t know how to behave in America.’”
Coming back was an adjustment. “I didn’t know what to make of anything,” she said. “I went to the grocery store, and was like ‘Oh my God, I can buy anything I want.’”
“I’m kind of a freak,” she added, “with the simple pleasures right now.”
