The life of a social anthropologist's wife

Having a husband working as a social anthropologist in his field is quite different compared to being married to a 9-5 office worker. One extraordinary situation happened last night. After Philipp had been out all day to get work done with his assistant, he announced that he would have to meet someone else at night, when he got back. Originally we had thought about meeting the guy (Kyrgyz of Russian origin, 27) together with his wife (28), so I would also have the chance to meet people and go out. But his wife was working, so Philipp ended up going by himself. Before he left, we at least managed to go to the supermarket together, which appeared to be our quality time that day. I was looking forward to a relaxing TV evening, taking down my makeup and putting on my sweatpants.

Two hours later (at 9 pm) my cell phone rang. Philipp told me that the other guy had spontaneously invited his wife to join them after work and that she'd be there in 15 minutes. To keep the balance of the meeting, Philipp asked me to also get ready and be there in 15 minutes! At first I wasn't crazy about it, but I got his point. So back into the bathroom, make-up on again, sweatpants off, nice pants on [...] and I arrived after, let's say, 18 minutes (including a 10 minute walk to the café!). The other girl beat me, she already was there, when I arrived.

Anyway, we stayed with them until midnight and it was really fun talking to them. We had some good laughs. And the communication was nice for me as the guy new some German and had been to Germany several times. So with him throwing in some German sentences and Philipp translating (which unfortunately got worse after the 4th beer, when he started translating the guys's German sentences) I was pretty much involved in the conversation. I almost broke down laughing at one point, when I thought he said, he had forgotten his guitar in Germany. When I asked about it, because I was wondering why he was telling us this, it turned out he had said "I forgot all the German that I once knew just like I forgot how to play my guitar." It was hilarious!

You might think, wow what a great job Philipp has - simply hanging out with people, talking to them and having lots of beer together - awesome! But let me tell you, that last night I (once again) witnessed that it's not only fun. They told us very intersting things about their lives and the culture of Bishkek and Kyrgyzstan. But at the same time you need to be polite and can't say no, if the guy orders one beer after another for both of them. So imagine you have to exactly remember 5 hours of talking (you could as well call it informal interview) so you can transcript it the next day - AFTER having had 6 beers (= 3 liters) by the end of the night! While getting my husband home I really didn't envy him for his job... and I told him to ask his employer for a danger bonus. ;)

Nevertheless, we of course love our life here and feel very fortunate to get this once-in-a-lifetime chance! I know it's a very big achievement of Philipp (and eventually me too hopefully) that he established all those relationships and that we are allowed to live so closely with locals here and get accepted by them. I've realized that many many foreigners who live in Bishkek for work, never really get in touch with locals or rather superficially - either because there are less occassions to get to know them (I know some really do try), because they don't speak Russian or simply because they are rather interested in their projects that brought them here than in the local culture. So I know the way we live here is something very special and I'm very thankful for it, because people allow us insights into their real normal way of life.