Odyssey Guide to the Kyrgyz Republic

If you are thinking of visiting Kyrgyzstan I can recommend the Odyssey guide to the Kyrgyz Republic.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kyrgyz-Republic-Heart-Central-Odyssey/dp/9622177913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222266223&sr=8-1

The third edition has recently been put together by dedicated authors Rowan Stewart and Susie Weldon and was launched last week at Daunt Books in London.

I am especially excited about this guide because some of my photographs have been used in it. After years of taking hundreds of photos and wondering whether I could ever do anything with them apart from stick them in my own albums, it's great to see some published.

If you are interested in finding out more, Rowan, Susie and I are speaking about Kyrgyzstan at Stanfords travel bookshop in London on Wednesday 22nd October 2008.

http://www.stanfords.co.uk/events/rowan-stewart-and-safia-farr-an-odyssey-evening-kyrgyzstan,129,EV.html

Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov

For anyone who is interested in experiencing a flavour of Kyrgyz life I can recommend Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov. It is a short but poignant love story, wonderfully evocative of Kyrgyz rural life. His descriptions transported me back to the huge expanses of valley, sky and mountain in Central Asia, the true remoteness and stillness of countryside untouched by our fast, modern world.

Chingiz Aitmatov is Kyrgyzstan's best known modern writer, described as a "great writer, thinker and humanitarian". Many of his books are renowned for his descriptions of life in the Soviet Union.

Jamilia is widely available in the UK and on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jamilia-Chingiz-Aitmatov/dp/1846590329

Starting School

My eldest son has just started school. It is a new era, life changing for all of us. He has been fantastic, so brave. After a few nerves on his first visit he now walks ahead of me up to school, swinging his book bag singing “big school big school” to himself. He’s proud to look smart in his uniform, proud to tell me about the new rules and routines – “ you have to say ‘please may I go to the toilet’” – and he’s already into the new language, telling me about “Year 1’s” and “Year 2’s” as if it’s something he’s been aware of all his life.

It seems to be harder for the rest of us to adapt. Younger brother took some persuading to go to nursery on his own and looked lost at first without big brother to trail after. He has a matching polo shirt, his “uniform” which he insists on putting on and changing out of when his brother does. “We’ve never been split up before,” T said rather touchingly, feeling lonely while he hung about with me waiting to go to afternoon school.

I feel I’ve spent the whole week in the car - he’s only doing half days. There are also rules and regulations which I have to get right. I live in fear of being late to pick him up. I feel claustrophobic about being locked into the school timetable for the next twenty years. Most of all it’s difficult letting go of my little boy.

It’s very strange watching him walk away from me into class. He looks very new and small, as if he’s shrunk slightly inside his uniform because I bought sizes to last. It’s such a relief when two hours later he runs out smiling, the hovering mothers closing in to receive their children. “So, what did you do today?” I ask brightly. I want to know everything without seeming to give him a grilling. I know I’ve overdone it when he replies “oh no, not that question again,” on day two. But he actually tells me quite a lot, proud to recount the day’s routine and perform a rendition of a song they’ve learnt.

Some things he says make me feel sick. “Someone tripped me up in the playground” he reported casually and I went into turmoil, imagining older children thinking it funny to pick on the new, little reception boys running innocently around. He seemed so vulnerable, let out alone into the big, bad world of the playground. Eventually, through careful probing questions – I wanted to find out what went on without him realising I was concerned – I learnt he’d tripped over someone’s game, purely accidental. I’m now trying to think positively about the event, to be pleased that he feels able to enter that huge, new environment, cope with a fall, pick himself up and carry on and be very matter of fact about it. In paranoid moments I’m hoping his bravery is not a front hiding fear inside. In rational moments I’m proud that he’s growing up and coping well with independence and new, intimidating situations.

Starting school is as much about me letting go as T entering formal education. As I was tucking him in tonight he said “I love school” and that’s what matters.

What are you scared of?

In many things my boys are the same - especially because No. 2 copies and mimics No. 1. In their fears they are very different, as I discovered today. No 2. son was sitting on the carpet doing puzzles when a huge spider lumbered towards him. He whimpered and shied away. I whacked it with a magazine. Sorry. No. 1 son would have picked it up and carried it out of the door. But No. 1 son is scared of the dark, he insists on a light being left on and in his nighttime vision, bags of toys metamorphose into scary monsters. I'm scared of the cliche - how would I cope if I lost one of them?

The controversial debate of boys and guns

On Sunday my two year old was playing beautifully with “Bristol Builder”, a construction toy with wooden blocks, sticks and circles. He turned to me with an “L” shape he’d made and said, “look mummy, a shooter.”

What to do in this situation is a question many parents ask. Of course, guns are not nice things, they kill people, so the natural reaction is to say “no dear, it’s not a shooter but a lovely flower.” But every time you say no to a child they want it more so that’s not necessarily a productive answer.

The issue is complex and controversial. Until recently there was no debate: guns were bad toys and the existence of one in a toy box would be tut-tutted about by other parents. If my son made a “shooter” at someone else’s house there would probably be disapproval and I would be embarrassed and mutter apologetically about how I’d no idea where he’d learnt about such things. And I have no idea where he’s learnt such things. Guns are not part of our daily conversation and I’m not sure my children have ever seen one. Because of this, watching my two sons hold fingers up and say “tsch tsch” as they shoot at each other, I wonder if this desire is somehow inherent in their male make up.

Others, it seems, agree and apparently fashions are changing too: the official line is that playing with guns is now no longer completely taboo. Government advice, I read in an article provided by my sons’ nursery, is that “boys should be encouraged to take part in role-play involving superheroes and toy guns.”

Don’t be shocked. This is not some crazy policy but a sensible acceptance of our modern society and a child’s exposure to it. “Images and ideas gleaned from the media are common starting points in boys’ play and may involve characters with special powers or weapons. Adults can find this type of play particularly challenging and have a natural instinct to stop it. This is not necessary as long as you help the boys to understand and respect the rights of other children and to take responsibility for the resources and environment.” Okay, so there’s a bit of government babble but the basic idea is that you don’t have to make a fuss about boys playing at guns if a sensible discussion about what they’re all about goes with it.

I think this makes good sense. It would be lovely to give children a world without guns but that is not our world. Death and violence is sadly all around us. At three my eldest son asked me what “killed” meant after listening in the car to a brief news bulletin on our local radio station: with the War on Terror the word is used almost every day. I didn’t shy away but gave him a full explanation, including prison for the perpetrator. Many people would tell me to turn the news off but I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful, or realistic, to spend your time isolating them – and therefore you – from the world out there.

When my disapproving friends react I will feel slightly culpable – I let my boys watch Power Rangers and they are fascinated by the Daleks. Power Rangers are “goodies” but they still fire at the baddies; our superheroes are inherently violent. “You be the red one and I’ll be the black one,” my four year old told his younger brother then they ran around blasting each other.

It’s reality – these are the games they love, an acceptance my friends with only girls find hard. We are listening to High School Musical in the car to dilute our diet of Spiderman, Daleks and Power Rangers. They love it but nevertheless, when it comes to make-believe in the garden, I suspect shooting aliens from outer space will be chosen over singing and dancing.

The article quoted is “Let boys play with guns, says DCSF” – Nursery World, 10 January 2008

The shame of a modern parent

We have just returned from two wet weeks in Cornwall. However, the hardest thing was not the weather but the sad realisation that my four year old declared he was bored on the beach. "What do I do now?" he whined, "I want you to play with me". Despite having a fantastic imagination, and moments of wonderful independent play, what he really wanted was our attention. If we dutifully started building sand castles, he would watch and give instructions. I felt deeply ashamed, failed as a parent because I'd produced a child who could not play on the beach. What had I done wrong?

I'm learning that what I've done wrong is doing too much. The four year old is my first child and from discussions with friends we've seen that our first children are all the same - demanding of time and not as good at independent play as younger siblings. Having all arrived at motherhood from full time jobs we threw ourselves into our new roles, thinking we were being "good" mothers by responding to every need.

Today's children have so many distractions - television channels constantly playing programmes for them, toys which beep and stimulate, special clubs and sporting activities designed just to help them develop and "helicopter" mothers who hover over them squeaking enthusiastically about how well they are doing.

I was delighted to read an article by Joseph Epstein which eloquently summed up my feelings and reassured me that I wasn't the only modern mother who had fallen into the trap of over stimulating and fussing my child. He writes children have moved "from the background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centred on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments". Their parents "seem little more than indentured servants", the children given an inflated sense of their own significance.

Too late have I learnt this lesson. My second son is much more placid, having had less fuss as his older brother was taking up a disproportionate amount of time. It's very difficult for parents today. We are bombarded by books and programmes telling us the correct way to raise children and offered a plethora of activities and entertainments which it's implied are good for our children and which we, as good parents, should be providing. But I think that this is suitable example of where "less is more" and that a bit more of life like the good old days when children were seen and not heard and sent off to play with mud and sticks in the garden would be healthy.

That seems an idyllic scenario but there is a balance between giving your children some time and focus and them learning to entertain themselves. I worry that I have lost that equilibrium, distracted by the hectic schedules we give ourselves. When my four year old recently asked me to help build a train set and I refused, being busy cooking them something suitably nutritious, his response was "you always say later". Of course I felt guilty. In racing around trying to keep my children happy do I never actually give them some decent attention and sit down and play properly with them? Is that the real reason he's always asking?

As a modern parent it's a brave step not to opt in to all the extra curricular activities and stimulation. But having seen my child flounder on a beach, a place supposed to be a haven of pleasure for children, I think I am paying the price for today's world of instant gratification and will now focus on guiding them towards independence. Peversely, that actually means stopping and spending five proper minutes with them every now and then. I hope this will then give them the courage to do their own thing as well.

Three is easier than Two

I've not written for a while because four weeks ago Baby 3 was born. Since then I've been ignoring the call of technology, emails and blogs which sap your time, and enjoying her newness.

I've made a surprising discovery - that three children are easier than two - at the moment anyway. When Baby 2 was born, T was a terrible two and rampaged while I was pinned to the chair feeding. Now, with Baby 3, B and T entertain each other while I am feeding. Okay, so they're often fighting each other but at least they're not throwing the TV remote control at Baby 3's head.

Baby 3 is also very well behaved and far less demanding than her brothers. Some people tell me this is simply because she's a girl. Some people say it's because a third time mother really knows what she's doing - or just doesn't have time to fuss.

I must admit I feel much calmer and despite all the demands on my time, am really enjoying three children. Circumstances were quite complicated when Baby 2 was born and I think some of his babyhood was lost in the darkness of deep winter. Baby 3 was planned as a spring baby and it makes such a difference. The sun is shining, leaves are bursting open and it's light and birds are singing when I feed at 5am. The optimism of spring is seeping into our family making it a very special time.

While I was pregnant I sometimes wondered whether we'd made a mistake and three children were going to be too much but, as with many things, so far the anticipation has been much worse than the actual event. So, to anyone reading this who is contemplating a third but anxious whether they'd cope, I'd say, go for it, but preferably in the spring!