Joseph Pierre came to Kyrgyzstan from USA for the first time. He married Nazik Ibraeva from Kyrgyzstan five years ago, and came to get to know her family and see the country in which she was born and raised. The man told that he had little time to discover the republic. He wants to come back again and even open a business.
— Please tell about yourself. Where were you born? Where did you study?
— I was born in Haiti. In 2000, my father brought us to America. I was just finishing my studies. I had one level left to get a classical education. We lived in Florida, Miami. In 2001, I moved to Delaware, where I lived for eight years. This is where I got my high school diploma.
I also lived in Paris for three years and then returned to the USA. Now I live in Dallas, Texas with my family.
— What do you do for a living?
— I have my own business in Texas. I transport equipment, food. In 2021, I transported cargoes from California and Nevada to Texas, Georgia.
— Is it your first time in Kyrgyzstan?
— Yes, this is my first time in Kyrgyzstan. This the homeland of my wife. We met online after my first wife passed away. I have a daughter from my first marriage. She was six years old at that time. After meeting Nazik online, we met in person and got married, now we have two sons.
— What are your impressions of our country?
— I have traveled a lot in my life: from Haiti to the USA, then I visited every state from California to Vermont, from Miami to Montreal and Quebec (Canada). I have traveled to many states, saw many places that are similar to Bishkek and Kyrgyzstan.
I found out for myself that Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is a very peaceful place.
I know that sometimes there are some political issues, but compared to many places I have seen, Bishkek is peaceful for me.
Joseph Pierre
When you are sleeping at night, you don’t hear guns shooting, you don’t hear anybody crying. People can live their lives, run their own business, which is very good. Law and order in the city and in the country is what gives people peace of mind, the opportunity to do their own thing. I had the idea to create a business here so that there would be even more jobs in Kyrgyzstan.
We also went to Issyk-Kul. The mountains are very beautiful. They bear some resemblance to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Salt Lake City in Utah, and Idaho in California. There are also some mountains there, but they are flatter than here. The impression is very good, very nice.
The culture of driving here is similar to driving in Haiti. This traffic...
— Is it terrible?
— No, it’s not terrible, but compared to the United States, where there is more order, people in Kyrgyzstan drive like in Haiti.
— Is there anything in Bishkek that reminds you of your hometown?
— Yes, this is the way of driving, as I have said, and unemployment. It reminds me of Haiti.
The mountains also, the beauty of nature, snow. They remind me of many places in America. For example, there are many mountains in Idaho, like in Issyk-Kul.
And, of course, these are the people as well, who want to do something, want to work, keep themselves active... But there are not so many opportunities, there are very few of them. They cannot, like in Haiti, achieve much, even if they really want to.
— What thing did you like the most about the Kyrgyz people and what did you dislike?
What I liked the most about the culture is that the people are very welcoming, hospitable, generous and willing to share what they have.
Joseph Pierre
My wife’s family welcomed me warmly, they accepted me despite our differences. Despite the lack of translation sometimes, we have a special bond, communication, I feel that we understand each other.
Criticism is good, but a solution needs to be found. If I could, I would build, invent, create something to improve the lives of people here.
— Were you shocked by some of our cultural features, for example, way of meeting guests, feasts? Have you already attended a feast?
— When I studied at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, I learned a lot about the culture of different countries. Every country and people have their own. We all came into this world to change something. Culture is what we learn from our parents. I can’t say that something shocked me in Kyrgyzstan, I just learned something new that I didn’t know before. Nazik and I did not have enough time to share the peculiarities of our culture, all the details. I see the culture as an opportunity to learn something new.
— My mother-in-law has already treated me to a sheep’s head, it didn’t shock me. I understand that this is a sign of hospitality and respect. I traveled a lot and living with Nazik, person from a different culture, I got used to the cultural features. She goes to a Russian store, buys Russian products, cooks different dishes.
— What national Kyrgyz dishes do you like?
— At home, my wife often cooks national and European dishes, I like them. For example, plov. All the ingredients of this dish are familiar to me since childhood. It’s rice and beef, and in Haiti we love and eat a lot of rice. But carrots and beef are added to rice sauces there, and they are not mixed together, as in plov. I also like samsy, they are very tasty. I recently tried beshbarmak here. The ingredients are the same, familiar to me, but the dish is prepared differently, I liked it.
— Do you have a favorite place in Bishkek?
— I have not yet had an opportunity to walk around Bishkek, and I did not see much.
I liked the time spent there. I would like to come back again. Relatives, mother, brothers, aunts, uncles of my wife live here. This is a new culture for me that I would like to explore. We will come as soon as possible. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I believe and plan that we will be able to come back again.
