I'll never forget the 18 angry Russian women on their march to the culture department. We heard on December 27th that our school was to be 'liquidated' by the 31st. People were in shock. Everyone except our newly-appointed director, appropreately a Turkmen man with little actual talent besides making unmarried women feel uncomfortable. He had gone to a New Years party the night before with the department that was firing him, got immensely drunk, and we haven't seen him since.
So in the custom of people who have fought for their survival under one Stalinistic regime and are now fighting against another authoritarian regime, the women got ready. Coats and hats on, potent messages on posters, extremely discouraged--and we started off. On the way I heard the usual complaints--
"I'm not Turkmen, but I'm not Russian either. I have nowhere to go."
"I have 3 kids and no husband."
"It just gets worse and worse every year."
"I just feel sorry for the kids that won't have any music."
We got to the culture department and were, of course, herded into an office and told very vague answers to all our questions, which after the past month have even turned out to be very vague lies.
All teachers are fired.
No one gets offered any other jobs.
The kids won't be studying further.
We don't know why.
We don't know what will happen with the building.
Of course that was as much crap as the accusations that our friend was hiding 3,000,000$ in a suitcase in his house. He's since been arrested. We're hoping to find out if he's alive sometime soon, but lawyers aren't allowed to contact him, let alone friends.
The art school, which has a more 'traditional' program took over our building immediately. They moved all the furniture around and have smug smiles on their faces. I took almost everything from the music library (except the folders that already cover the music) that I put in. I now have an 'unsuccessful' grant in my opinion and no one to help me fight for the school. Peace Corps dissapproves of my work there.
I've kept in touch with my one private student, and we started lessons again. One down, 347 students to go!
