Photograph of Naryn by Flickr user urbangarden (CC-usage).

As Kyrgyzstan is retreating from international headlines, so too are international headlines retreating from Naryn. While Roza Otunbayeva and her team fastidiously work to build a new government, the traffic cops here are once again writing tickets. Life here, having returned to normal not two days after the revolution, now, except for the gossip about Bakiev’s whereabouts, seems as though nothing ever happened.

Spring is here, officially. These days, I wear a cardigan to work, and it feels like a dream. The bazaar is full of seeds for all manner of vegetables, and the tap water has a tinge of brown, thanks to muddy snow melt from the mountains. Spring time is also animals sheering time, and here in Naryn, this is big business.

“Тыбыт алынат” signs abound, and cars cruise the villages looking for it, cashmere, the soft winter undercoat of goats. It’s bought by the kilo for around $25, and then sold to China.

“In China they’ll clean it,” one merchant told me, “and then make it into yarn and send it to England. In England, they’ll make it into coats and sweaters.”

“Do Kyrgyz people buy those?” I asked.

“No! They are so expensive!” he said.

“How come no one in Kyrgyzstan makes it into yarn?” I asked.

“Some do,” he said, “but not many. We just don’t have a lot of machines. You should do it! It would be a very good business!”

Similarly, sheep pelts, sold for leather and wool, go for around a dollar apiece.

Everyday in the Spring lasts for a year…

… so goes the Kyrgyz proverb.  Along with the copious amounts of farm work (to which, I imagine the proverb refers) there is also the Soviet tradition of subotnik. This is essentially forced volunteerism for students, somewhat akin to community service required for high school graduation in America. Here, though, the cleaning events appears to be organized through the schools, and the classes all go out together.

They clean all kinds of stuff. They sweep public parking lots, clear dead grass from the parks, and gather it all for big, smoky bonfires. It lends the air around town the smell of campfire.

The spirit of subotnik has been so wonderful, it has started in me an urge to do some good manual labor. First off, I wanted to build a compost bin in my backyard. My host father looked at me funny, though. So, I figured, I needed to prove myself.

“What about that tree stump,” I asked, “can I dig it out?”

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s dead, right? It should come out.” I said simply, “and we can make the yard bigger.”

I figured with this easy notch on my belt, he’d see that I was capable, and let me make the composter. What I had failed to understand was that the stump would be 2 meters tall, including the root, and the pit we’d dig to excavate it would grow to nearly 2 meters in diameter, and at least a meter deep. With the help of a fellow volunteer, of strong Midwestern American stock, we broke the pick-ax handle, the shovel handle, and had to re-sharpen the hatchet. It took us two days, but in the end, we impressed them all.