To quote a new Tumblr friend:
“Bottom line – be prepared. The elections ARE coming up. If it will get hairy, it’ll be pretty quick. Don’t trust the police. You know first time when they trashed half of the city back in 2005 there wasn’t a single cop on the streets for almost a week. Kyrgyzstan is not Rwanda yet, but it’s getting bloodier with each riot.”
Uhh. Let’s review Kirstin’s wild-n-crazy Election Day experience. After lying around the apartment, teaching Mamadjan to play fetch (no joke! it’s adorable!), I finally changed out of my pajamas around noon as Farrell and I decided to brave the unknown outdoors. We found some fresh batteries for my Flip video camera (the only recording device the thieves left us with) just in case we got caught in the middle of any hardcore rioting and I felt like selling some sweet footage to the BBC.
So… we walked around. We saw a somewhat sketchy gang of volunteer patrolmen called “Patriots” who were supposed to help monitor for election fraud or whatever problems that could’ve pop up. They must have done a superb job because let’s just say the day was quite uneventful.
Either that, or Kyrgyzstan just said, “You know, I think we’ve been through enough with the violent political uprisings. Let’s just chill today.” I’ve been watching Russian news for about an hour now and other than an interview with some bland-looking Kyrgyz election official, there has been no mention of rioting or other exciting events.
So we chilled. And we found an Italian that had excellent bresaola and olive oil. And because the Korean channel was playing mostly reruns, I watched several hours of Kyrgyz music videos.
Yes, they’re just as ridiculous as you would imagine.
Early election results are expected tomorrow. I plan on grilling as many classmates as I can about their thoughts (hopes, dreams, fears, etc) on the day’s events. They’re the future of this country, hopefully I’ll get some interesting feedback.