Our neighborhood pool

This morning I got curious, because I heard some cheering and official sounding announcements from the pool in our neighborhood. Usually it's rather quite and only some young neighborhood boys have fun in the pool (unfortunately I have never seen someone our age there, otherwise I'd love to hopp in also!) and also rather in the afternoon. So I went there to see what was going on. It was a competition of different neighborhoods. I have never seen so many people there. And for the first time I also saw girls swimming there - I believe they must have been 15 or 16. Since I always wanted to take pictures there, I went back home to get my camera. I love watching kids play! Unfortunately the competition ended soon after I got back with my camera.

While sitting there, I started talking to some young girls. You can't imagine how hard it is for me to remember their Kyrgyz names. To me they either sound all similar or they include a letter combination I can't pronounce. Philipp always tells me I should simply concentrate more. But I do and I really care, but still I have trouble with it. So we chatted in a mix of Russian and German. They both go to the Kyrgyz school in our neighborhood, where they major in German. They have 7 classes a week. That's quite a lot, I think. So since the swimming competition was over, they invited me to join them for a dart game. Only later I got to understand, that this also was part of the competition and that the girls must have taken part in the swimming competition earlier also. After swimming they did some running around the school building and later darts. They competed with a team against other neigborhoods.

Anyway, I was proud of me talking Russian, but at the same time ashamed of it, as I always have to realize that once I get a chance to talk, my brain is empty. I know that I've learnt the words and grammar before and I should be able to get it right, but then I just can't do it. Anyway, I still think it's more important that locals realize that I really am interested in their language and culture and that I'm putting much effort in it. No matter, how bad my Russian ends up. I'm the wife of a social anthropologue - can you tell? ;)

It was also funny, because the girls of course asked, how old I was and since when I had been living with my husband. For them, of course, living with the husband equals being married. So I explained that I have known him for more than 8 years, that we have been living together for about 5 years and that we got married half a year ago. I literally had to explain it 3 or 4 times, because they thought they must have got it wrong, also they hadn't (I heard them discussing it in Russian). Living together without being married is impossible for Kyrgyz people. And they were also very surprised that we don't have any children. This one girl's sister is 18, married and already has kids (I forgot to ask how many, but it sounded like more than one). A conversation like this is very typical. It happens to us all the time. And it makes me feel really old! So I always try to explain the average age for women to get children in Germany (which is 30), to make me feel a little younger again. So there, I have 3 more years!