As some of you might know, I've spent the past 2 years studying international sustainable tourism for my graduate degree. My focus was the Kyrgyz tourism group CBT Kochkor. The study is a program evaluation of their progress over the past 13 years with recommendations on how they can improve. I'll be posting chapters from my thesis for the next month as I finish my final revisions. Go to http://mytourismstudies.blogspot.com/ to check it out.

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on my blog during 2005-2007. Your encouragement helped me continue to cronicle my experiences in Kyrgyzstan. There will no longer be any posts on this blog. But the good news is, I will be returning to Kochkor this summer.

I've been fortunate enough to get funding to return for my graduate research into the Community Based Tourism of Kyrgyzstan.

If this sounds like something you are interested in, goto:

http://mytourismstudies.blogspot.com/

If nothing is there yet, be patient. FYI- it will be research based writing and at times dry. You were warned.

I would like to wish good luck to the Kyrgyzstan Olympic Swim Team;

Vasilii Danilov http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=63809/bio/index.html

and

Iurii Zakharov http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=63810/bio/index.html

These two athletes have placed in the top 8 in previous Olympic competitions and I hope that they bring the gold back to Bishkek this year. Micheal Phelps? He's a wuss.

We're done with our Peace Corps service and are thankful to be home once again. We will always remember our experiences and the friends we made. We love and miss you all! Instead of writing something, here's a little slide show of our trip back from Kyrgyzstan to the States. The first set of photos are from our trip in Moldova with our friends Scott & Leslie. Then we move to Romania and then London. Finishes in Washington D.C.

Fin.

Early on the 31st, we got ready to leave. Our landlady arrived at 7:45 AM, 15 minutes before or taxi was to pick us up. We handed over our keys and waited for the car to arrive.

We had arranged for a new volunteer's host father to take us up and take us to Bishkek. He worked for CBT and had driven us to the mountains in August. So we knew his car was in good condition and he was a safe driver (being so close to the end, we didn't want to take any risks and die before we left Kyrgyzstan). At 8:30 AM, I sent a text message to Erin (car drivers volunteer) and ask where her father was. She replied, " he is drinking tea". I asked her to remind him that he needed to pick us up. At that point, I was reminded of what Ted Rall said in his book Central Asia,Silk Road to Ruin, "In Central Asia, time doesn't matter. Especially yours."

By 8:50 AM, Erin replied that her father was now warming up the car. At 9:10 AM, she told us that his wife needed to be taken to work at the hospital across town. So, I didn't expect him for another 30 minutes. 2 minutes later, he arrived at our door with his wife and he told us that she was coming with us to Bishkek.

The car he was driving was a Lada, and they are not known for their ample accommodations and I knew that with all of our baggage only Rejoyce and I would be able to fit. Unfortunately, I had made a number of cultural assumptions. Just because Erkin (our driver) was normally professional with taking tourists to the mountain's. But, that didn't mean that his family would not avail themselves of a free ride to Bishkek. But please do not misunderstand, they weren't taking advantage of us because we were foreigners, they would have done this to any of their relatives too.

Eventually, after a 10 minute trip to the hospital so that his wife could tell her coworkers she was going to Bishkek, we were on our way without the spare tire.

On October 31st we were allowed to close our service a week earlier than the original date of November 6th. First, our lease was up on the 1st and our land lady was planning on some of her distant family moving into our place. But our biggest motivation to get out was the fact that we had been without power for 14 days.

If this had been the previous winter, it wouldn't have been a problem cause we had bought 2 metric tons of coal to heat our house with. But since we hadn't planned on extending our service into Winter 2008, there was no incentive to buy more fuel.

Prior to loosing power, we had been keeping warm with our GI electric heater (which became a useless 10 lbs. door stop). Luckily, we had just enough wood and dried manure to last us at least two weeks. Unfortunately, on day 6, I came home to find that someone had stolen our poop and we were down to one week of fuel.

I wasn't too worried. Surely, the power would return within a day or two. Power outages were a normal occurrence in rural Kyrgyzstan. The electric system was always down due the constant grafting and jury-rigging of Chinese components to the post-Soviet infrastructure.

I soon learned that the issue was worse than usual. It seemed that the transformer had blown up and been removed. All that was left was an empty box with wires sticking out. One square block of our village was without power and it was the responsibility of our neighborhood to raise the funds to replace the unit.

We waited in the dark, dreading and worrying that we would have to fork over 1000 com (approx $35) of our money set aside for our November travels. But, when the day came (on the 30th of October) it was only 100 com we had to pay because of the high concentration of homes on our block. But to this day, we still don't know if the power had been switched back on.

(This is a vignette I had to write for PC, since I never really wrote much about the rodeo I'm putting it here too)

In 2005, I was assigned by Peace Corps to be a Sustainable Community & Organizational Development volunteer in the Kyrgyz Republic. My placement was in a large village called Kochkor with the Altyn Kol Women's handicraft cooperative. We frequently sold souvenirs to travellers who would then export them overseas.

One of our best clients was another NGO from Jackson, Wyoming called Vista 360. Its founder, Candra Day, would visit us twice a year and almost buy out our entire stock. She would then return to the States and sell the product to fund Vista 360's projects, which comprised of cultural exchange programs between international cowboy cultures like the U.S, Brazil, and Kyrgyzstan.

On her third visit during my service, Candra told me that Vista 360 recently received funding from the U.S State Department to bring a small group of cowboys to Kyrgyzstan for a travelling cowboy show and she wanted my help in arranging the first show to be held in Kochkor.

I eagerly grabbed this unique opportunity and began planning the logistics. I was a little nervous, having never planned an event of this size before. But I had three months (and I needed every day of it!)

During those three months, I was able to interact with all of the community leaders, from the village mayor to the moldo at the mosque (a moldo is the religious leader of a mosque). By the end of preparations, we had twenty other Peace Corps volunteers coming to assist in capacities like: Animal Handling, Cultural Presentations at two local schools, Sound System setup, and Cooking Chili for the support crew and cowboys.

The day of the rodeo came and the cowboys arrived. They were seven folks from the Triangle C Ranch in Wyoming. There were three men who would be doing rope tricks, bronco busting, and kids games; and also three singing cowgirls performing musical entertainment.

Two weeks prior, we had ran an ad in the local newspaper informing everyone the valley of this free event. Because of the rodeo being so close to the end of Ramadan, we were worried that only at most three hundred people would show up. When I walked into the open-air stadium with the cowboys, around eight hundred Kyrgyz people lined the concrete bleachers.

Everything went as smoothly as possible and the Kyrgyz had a great time. The cowboys were also able to use their experiences at this rodeo to prepare for the other coming events around Kyrgyzstan. Personally, I learned a lot about working as a team with my fellow Peace Corps volunteers and that I was capable of accomplishing unexpectedly large goals.

I wrote this back in June, but Blogger hasn't worked well lately in Kyrgyzstan, enjoy!

Water is always an issue when serving the Peace Corps. This is how we normally get water: we have two plastic buckets that hold around 8 liters that we keep in the kitchen area. With dishes, drinking water, cooking, and washing hands we use this amount in little more than a day. On weekends, we go through 4 buckets on wash day. Also Kyrgyz Peace Corps Volunteers have to be housed within 25 meters of a water source.

Lately, this distance has been in flux. Two months ago, the local water department decided to 'repair' the pump located in intersection down the street. For the past year, there was no handle on the pump and if your wanted water you had to make a tool called a 'baskich' (Kyrgyz for 'pressure'). A baskich is basically a piece of wood with a stiff length of wire on one end twisted into a loop. You would attach the loop to hook on the front of the pump and press the wood on a nub at the top of the pump. Presto! Water flow!

However, wood is difficult to come by in a country with almost no trees, so not everyone has a baskich. This problem at the pump was remedied by jimmying the nub into the pump housing so the water would continually flow. The water department didn't like that however and decided to 'fix' the pump. First, they replaced the innards of the pump and made it so stiff that the nub could no longer be pressed down with the normal baskich (which usually measure 1.5 feet). So, for a week, no one could get water from the pump. Then, one creative neighbor took a straight tree branch about 4 feet long and made it into the biggest bakich in the country. With it, you could achieve the pressure needed to get water. Until the branch broke.

One week later, the water department welded a hinged piece of pipe onto the pump so that everyone would have a baskich! This worked nicely for a week until 1- local kids decided to fill the pump housing with rocks and 2- someone unhinged the pipe and stole it. Rejoyce and I got a little nervous about our situation then. We can handle pooping in a hole, irregular electricity, no plumbing, no radio, no phone, no TV. But no water? That is a basic survival issue. So I decided to ask the neighbors where they got their water from now.

The first place they showed me was outside our front gate! Buried under a light layer of dirt was perhaps the only manhole cover left in the village! (most had been stolen and sold as scrap metal after the fall of the Soviet Union) The neighbor's little boy lifted the cover and there was a water main! They had attached a hose to the side and stopped up the hose with an old engine valve from a Soviet era 2 ton hauling truck. Whenever they needed water they just filled up 2 huge milk cans.The second water source is located inside the courtyard of a series of houses built in a square.

When spring came this year they decided to run a line into the courtyard from their water main with PVC piping. In fact this morning I found out that they had even run the line into one families house, so I had to wake them up to get our buckets filled. It was weird standing in some guy's bedroom at a kitchen sink filling up my buckets. The sink is loosely mounted on a mud brick wall, so I was worried that the weight of the water in the buckets would break the sink off the wall.So, with these two variable waters sources, we manage to stay hydrated. Which is good, because at one point we were collecting rainwater that had run off the roof. Mmmm.

Endnote: We used up all the water that I got this morning, so I went out again to the neighbor's house to refill the buckets. Music was pplaying inside as I knocked on the door. The music shut off, but behind me on the other side of the courtyard an Eje came out and said that the kalyonka (pump) was working again. "How's it working?", I said, "It still looks broken." She took me out and showed me how a local kid came by and jury-rigged a new pipe to the water main under the pump. It now sticks out underneath the pump shooting out high pressure water. I filled both buckets in 10 seconds!

Us at the tomb of Manas in Talas Oblast.

Being eating by the dragon in Kara Kol.

The Dungan Mosque in Kara Kol

Us with our friends Tanya and Alex.

Finally, I am able to write about what happened this past week so all of you aren't worrying. This past Monday, I went to Bishkek with my director to assist her in filling out paperwork for her going to a handicrafts festival in Santa Fe this summer. I was also FedExing some application documents to an International Fellowship at University of Pittsburg for my friend Akjol. If he is chosen, he will attend U Pitt for a year to study things like International Development.

Rejoyce, later that day, went to visit another volunteer in a village called Tamchi (Raindrop) to help with classroom management. We both had a great time and felt very successful in accomplishing our intended projects.

However, when Rejoyce got home, our gate was not only padlocked but also bolted from the inside! (For those of you who don't know, our host family is in Bishkek selling stuff at the bazaar. This is normal this time of year for them, they usually return from Bishkek when Spring thaw comes so the can irrigate their garden from the melt runoff.) This was not normal, so she went to our neighbors to ask for help. The girl next door jumped over the wall and unbolted the gate. Upon entering Rejoyce saw that our kitchen window had been removed and replaced backwards (most traditional windows here are framed panes of glass set into frame and can be removed during hot weather and replaced by screen). She knew that it was backwards because the inside of the window frame is white and outside is blue.

Upon entering the house, she saw that the plastic sheet that was nailed to the inside of the frame was gone along with the half-curtain that was hanging before. She texted me and called Peace Corps to notify them that we were broken into. They called our local Militia (Police) and notified them, they told Peace Corps that they would be sending some officers over investigate.

Soom after that, I arrived home (I hadn't heard my phone beep, so I didn't know what was going on) and Rejoyce explained to me what happened. We went through our stuff to see what was taken:

Red CD Case with 10 DVD's, 5 software disks & 5 music disks

Purple & Gray CD Case with 10 DVD's (our friend Rebecca's)

1 plastic bag of markers (assorted colors)

Nokia Phone Charger

Flashlight, 'Mini Maglite' Blue

Meat grinder (for making Peanut Butter)

T1 Computer cable

modem computer cable

T1 notebook computer card

Small rectangular green metal box with all of Rejoyce's earrings

At least $220 dollars in US money:

Two $100 billsTwo $10 bills And possibly $50 in small bills

Hairdryer

We called our host family in Bishkek to let them know what happened, but they didn't understand what we were saying. So we called Peace Corps and asked them to call our host family to explain what happened.

About an hour later, the Militia (pronounced Militsia here) arrived and checked out the yard and ask questions. Fortunately, Rejoyce was able to explain what happened (her Kyrgyz language skills are far better than mine).

During this time, our family called the daughter-in-law's family on the other side of the village, and told them to go the house. They arrived and were questioned by the police as well. After everyone was questioned, the police told us to come to the station tomorrow to fill out a report around 2 p.m.

Exhausted and sad, we went to bed.

The next day, Rejoyce went off to work and I began to straighten up the house. Suddenly, people came into the courtyard and I went out to see who it was. It was CSI Kochkor! A couple of guys in uniform, one guy with a forensic kit, and one very authoritative police detective. They began to search around the yard for evidence (after many people have tramped around the previous night) and fingerprint the window (which we hadn't touched) and the wardrobe (which we did). They managed to get some fingerprints and they did find some conspicious foot prints that didn't belong to anyone in our house. Now, they did have the proper measuring devices for the footprints (so that when photographed you can see the size) but they had no camera. I had taken photos of our window for the Militia the night before, so I joined the forensic crew and became their photographer.

OUR WARDROBE AFTER FINGERPRINTING

When all was done at our house, they told me to come to station in 30 minutes with my volunteer contract and rental contract (it was only around 11 a.m.) for the report. So, there went my plans for the day. I went to work and my friend Dinara and my director Mairam Eje went with me to the station to begin a process that would take 5 hours. Eventually, Rejoyce, finished with her day, joined us for the first round of information review. Basically, we were re-answering everything from last night for a whole new crowd. They asked us, "Who do you think did this? Do you let strangers into your house?" "Of course not! The only people who visit us are our students, and they would never do this!" "Where do these students go to school?"

We gave them the names of the school thinking that they would go to the schools and talk to the kids. One hour later, we were released so we could go eat and told to return at 2 p.m. for more of the same, only this time they would type everything up in Kyrgyz. As we were walking out of the station, a line of our students were filing in. My mouth dropped open and they smiled and waved with enthusiam, "Hello Mr. Trent, hello Ms. Rejoyce!"

Our sitemate, Rebecca, met us outside and we had a lunch at the nearby cafe. Then Round Two! We sat in a room with one of the officers from the night before (who is a cousin or something of our friend Akjol) and with the help of Dinara again, we watched him type up everything that was said before with a request at the end asking them to proceed in the investigation. While doing this, the authoritative detective came in, this time wearing his good uniform and asked me, "Can come to my office and take a picture of me that I can have on my computer?"

Everyone in the office rotated their head to look at me, "Er. Maybe after this please?" "Okay! Okay!", he said excitedly with a smile.

Thirty minutes later we were standing outside the station, waiting to be interviewed by the actual officer who was in charge of the investigation. He then proceeded to ask us the same questions again, and asked us again, "Have we let any strangers in our house" and... "Tell me who these students are." In the middle of the interview, the chief detective popped his head in, "Can you take those pictures yet?" I answered him shortly, "Azir!" (In a minute!), while pointing at the work we were doing.

Finally finished, we thanked Dinara, the detective went with Rejoyce to get more information on her students (who we think are unlikely suspects) and I tried to sneak past the authoritative detective's office. He was waiting for me though and pulled me into his office and ushered out two men. And I proceeded to capture the magnificence of the detective.

The next day was oddly more stressful than the last, I couldn't help but be a little paranoid not knowing who came into our house. My first job that day was to fax off the incident report to the Peace Corps office. To my knowledge, the phonelines at work were down, so I tried to get a free fax at my friend Akjol's office. They were like, "Sure! After we are done with the internet." No problem I said. After twenty minutes, I told the secretary I had to go. "Just five minutes, sorry!" So I waited five more minutes and I heard the internet dial-up. Didn't they say AFTER they were done with the internet!?!? I grabbed my stuff and stormed out of the office and headed to the Fax Office.

At the front desk, I asked, "Eje, how much for fax?". "Seven com for one minute." Knowing that Rejoyce had problems with her previously, I timed the fax. Just over one minute, I put ten com on the counter, which should have covered it. "No! Twenty com!" "No! One minute seven com!" She said something else, but I just grabbed my reciept and papers and walked away. The Eje yelled at me further, something like 'don't ever come back here', and threw the money at me.

Finally, I get to the office. Exhausted, I finally stumble into Altyn Kol and collapse on a pile of shyrdaks. Tears in my eyes, I tell Dinara about my morning. "Why did you not use our fax?" "Isn't is not working?" "No, it works". I couldn't help but laugh and cry.

The day got better after that, I was finally invited to learn how to make shyrdaks on Monday. A regular customer of ours is going to visit from the UK and take one of our handicraft seminars. I asked if we could make the big borsok (a special fry bread you make after living though stressful or bad events to thank God that you are still alive). My friend Burul said, 'So are you wanting to become Muslim?" "No, no. I've just been living here for so long it feels like the right thing to do. You could read from the Koran and I could read from the Bible." They all thought it sounded like a great idea.

It's now Saturday and Rejoyce and I are feeling better. We told Peace Corps that we don't want to move because we love our host family and its not their fault that this happened. Also, we are in the middle of several projects and moving would be harmful to our finishing them. (Sometimes they have volunteers move after things like this). But we said that we need to have bars on the window and that Peace Corps needs to pay for it, because our family can't afford it AND we recently had a loss of cash.

Interior of Basillica Cistern. Underground water source now tourist spot.

Rejoyce demonstrating her knowledge of art history, "This is the Hagia Sophia".

Cuddle moment in the Hagia Sophia.

The Blue Mosque, slightly blurry but pretty.

The Hagia Sophia at night with moon.

Rejoyce enjoying tea on the Marmara Sea ferry.

So, in case you haven't heard, yes Kyrgyzstan had an earthquake on Christmas, well the day after anyway... it would still be Christmas in America. It hit at 2 am in the morning and woke me up screaming. My screaming woke Rejoyce up. It only lasted about 30 seconds but it was somewhere on the 5.5 scale. But everyone here is blowing up the amount to 6 or 7. Who knows?

No one was hurt, but many of the houses in the outer villages of our valley were severely damaged. Our place is okay, but Justin's (the new volunteer) place is uninhabitable.

Now, we are presently on vacation! Tonight we go to Istanbul for a week! I'm really excited! After the earthquake I need some time off. We will be posting pictures later this week.

The cowboys at Rejoyce's school.

Getting ready to chase the calf.

The calf doesn't want to be caught.

Brenda Parker in her element.

Cowboy songs too!

November 1st, 2006

This morning I went to work and there was a large crowd of people from the Community Based Tourism office (we share half of the building with them) standing outside the compound of my NGO's building. In the middle of the group was the land lady looking extremely upset. I didn't want to bother her, so I went inside the compound. Things didn't seem right, there was another crowd of folks outside the CBT door as well and an unusual smell in the air.

Standing in the doorway was an old friend from the Internet Cafe I goto (she had been working in Bishkek during the summer), so being glad to see her, I walked up to her and gave her a playful punch on the shoulder. She whipped around with an angry and upset look on her face. I then saw what was behind her, the CBT office had caught on fire during the night. Someone had left a heater plugged in all night and the cheap outlets they use here melted and set fire to a stack of Newsweeks.

All the improvements they had worked so hard on during the summer, the information boards, the maps, the brochure center, and the English library, were all gone.Their computer room was sealed off from the main room where the fire occured, so all their equipment was relatively untouched with only a minor layer of smoke on everything.

I ran next door to see what had happened in the Altyn Kol office. Dinara, the shopkeeper, said that our side was okay. Before this summer, Altyn Kol and CBT completly shared the building, but they decided to divide it and sealed off the doorway that connected the two offices. They built a shelf to occupy the passage and this prevented the fire from coming into the storage area where we had all our shyrdaks for the upcoming Exhibition.

Luckily, no one was hurt. Normally, the land lady likes to sit in the offices at night and fall asleep listening to the radio. But her head was hurting that night and she went home to rest. This headache saved her life.

It was creepy standing in the room where the fire was. You could look and see where the flames danced over the mud brick walls and ceiling. Kyrgyz village buildings may be a bit shakey at times and cold to boot, but they are well sealed and fire resistant. A house in America would be cinders after that. The houses here just burn slowly until the flamable stuff is burned up and the oxygen is gone.

The cowboys also returned today to buy shyrdaks from us, it was good to see them all and I look forward to visiting their ranch someday when we return. I tagged along with them after they finished their shopping and Candra (the lady who brought the cowboys to Kyrgyzstan) showed us the other place that she buys shyrdaks from in Kochkor.

It was a small privately owned museum / handicrafts shop that also provides entertainment for the tourists who come by buses. I was in awe! I had never heard of this place! It was very professional in it's set up. I kept thinking, why hasn't anyone at work told me that this place was here? For one thing, this was my NGO's biggest competition in the village. They had a bigger space and a wider selection of items to purchase from. I talked to my director about it later and she said that shop was not so much. I don't think they are aware of what the place is like. I personally feel that they need to aspire to what these people are doing. I will return to that shop and get a better idea of what's up.

November 2nd, 2006

Repairs have already begun. The Kyrgyz have a affinity for home repair and improvement and mud mud brick is a very versatile building medium. Everyone has pitched in to help clean the office.All the furniture has been pulled out into the courtyard and they are wiping it down to remove the layer of soot that is on everything. They will take the computers to the local internet cafe and have their IT specialist perform what they call 'prophilaxis' (what we would call preventative maintanence, they got quite the laugh when I told them what it means in English.

At noon, all the ladies of both the CBT and Altyn Kol offices cooked the sacrificial fry bread and had a meal to give thanks to God for sparing Tolkan-Apa's life and for not allowing the damage to go further than it did.

The response to this event is quite a contrast from what I've experienced in America. People would ask if the owners had fire-insurance and cluck their tounges when they heard that they didn't. Everyone they know has come out to console the owners and to lend a hand if they can.

November 3rd, 2006

The repair crew have completely stripped the walls of the old plaster and today will lay on a new layer. The land lady, Tolkan-Apa, has fully recovered and is bustling about shouting orders and exhibiting lots of energy. The repair men say they will be finished with the restoration next week Friday. Its amazing what you can do in a country that has no housing inspectors.

It’s the day after Orzo Ait (the end of Ramadan) and I’ve finally been able to get some rest after the rodeo. It was the most intense and involved thing I had ever done in my life.

I feel privileged to have been given this opportunity to give back to the community of Kochkor Valley for all it has given me. First of all, I’d like to thank all those K12’s, 13’s & 14’s who were involved. Your presence and combined efforts helped the rodeo run smoothly.

Thanks to:

Megan Stout & Rebecca Terjal for providing their services as pinch-hittin’ waitresses.

Mike & Brenda Parker and James Connors for keeping the reigns tight on the animals.

Rhonda Ferns & Farhat Niyazov and Kay Starr for cookin’ up the chili.

Rick Gothwald, Leslie Reed, Roselle Agner, Cat Marshall, Charlie Moyer, and Kathleen Petersen for visiting the schools.

Justin Streen, Carol Bontekoe, Brandon Ester, Zack Haugen, Karina Janicka, and Nick Martin for setting up the stadium.

Special Thanks to Carol Bontekoe, Brandon Ester and Justin Streen for assisting the cowboys with the handing out of prizes to literaly hundreds of children. You are very brave! The cowboys appreciated your efforts.

And most of all, thanks to my wife Rejoyce for helping me get through the times when I felt like none of this was going to work out.

So, how did this work out? As many of you know, my NGO (Altyn Kol) makes shyrdaks and sells them to tourists and overseas buyers. One of our frequent customers is a woman named Candra Day from an NGO called Vista 360º in Jackson Hole, Wyoming that specializes in cross-cultural exchange between America and other countries that have mountains and cowboys.

They also provide internships to people who live in the countries they work with (contact information below). On a visit to the Altyn Kol shop this summer, she asked me to help her bring a rodeo to Kochkor. I agreed and began a journey that took me through the ins and outs of the Kochkor political and civil structure.

Since the beginning of September, I’ve met Kochkor’s Ail-ukmutu (thanks to Risbai Saribaiev the director of Kochkor’s Information Center), the head of the Militsia (with the help of my friend Omar Suyunaliev), the directors of the stadium and the sports complex, and even the Mulah when there was a sudden confusion on exactly which day Ramadan ended.

With the help of my NGO’s director (Mairam Umurzakova) and the regional director of the NGO LARC (Akjol Bazarov), I was also able to get two advertisements in the local newspaper. Thanks also to my counterpart Burul Jakipova, my friend Dinara Nurmanbekova for always being on hand to help me with translation and information.

The cowboys arrived in Kyrgyzstan Saturday the 21st at 5 am and rested until Sunday morning. They then arrived in Kochkor around 5 pm, along with the 18 visiting PCV’s and 2 tons of coal that my family ordered to heat our house this winter. Once everyone was settled in the PCV’s moseyed on over to meet the cowboys to head out for dinner and then dancing at the famous Мен Диско.

So, who were the cowboys? They hailed from the Triangle C Ranch in Dubois, Wyoming, run by Cameron W. Garnick and his family.

The actual rodeo included his daughters Savannah, Jessica and Vanessa singing original songs and while their husbands (Rocky & Damon) performed rope tricks and herded a hundred head of rambunctious Kyrgyz schoolboys for games while Tristan their photographer documented everything.

The next day begun at 6 am for the animal handling crew, Mike & Brenda Parker and James Connors and me went to the stadium hoping to find all the animals that had been requested and a very elusive sound system, so that the cowboys could practice. By 10 am, we had 5 of the 9 horses and 2 amps (but no microphones or sound board) and I had to get the cowboys to their assigned schools and get the chili crew to the house we were to all eat at later. So I left the situation in the most capable hands of James and the Parkers.

The cowboys and I piled into a minivan and we discovered that someone was missing! One of the interpreters was in the village center and we had to go and find her.

Along the way, we were going to pass by the regional government building, but the driver pointed out a large crowd of about 100 people standing in front of the Lenin statue. The last time this happened Kyrgyzstan had a new government so after. I told the driver to head down another street and prayed that I wouldn’t have to consolidation 18 PCV’s in our tiny two room summer house (Later I found out from my friend Akjol that they were having a send off for the local boys joining the Army). We found the stray interpreter and the cowboys made it to their schools and the chili crew went on their way.

The students at the schools were quite prepared for us. The cowboys were split into two schools and each had questions and entertainment on-hand. Much later, the cowboys would tell me their visits to the schools really made their day.

Once the school visits were through, I headed over to my director’s house (where the chili was being prepared) to relieve the chili crew so they could eat. As I sat over the 30 litre kazan, I had to struggle to keep awake and not fall into the chili. Thankfully, my director fed me lunch with what they jokingly called Kyrgyz chili (fried macaroni and mutton sweet-meats), it was tasty and revived me. I was ready for round 2 and went back outside to stir the chili again.

I found Kay Starr had returned from lunch before the other crew and was ‘taste-testing’ the chili. I will never forget her sitting there with a big-ol’ cooking spoon and tomato sauce all around her mouth.

Finally, 2 o’clock came around and we went to the stadium. I had no idea what to expect. Would people even show up? Will we have animals? What about a sound system? As we approached the stadium gates, I saw around 700 people milling about the stands, a Russian flatbed truck with a full sound system set up on it and next to the soccer goals; 9 or so horses and 6 calves (no sheep however, oh well).

The rodeo began. It was chaotic, windy, the animals didn’t want to cooperate, but the people of Kochkor loved it. Afterwards, people still are asking where are the cowboys and can they get some music?

The kids were able to participate in several games, the most memorable of them for me was the Ribboned Calf Chase. One calf had a ribbon tied around its tail. It was released and about 25 schoolboys set off after it. The ones who caught it and got the ribbon off received a prize later. The calf was not very happy about being chased and was not willing to get caught. Eventually, three boys managed to stop it before it ran out the front gate of the stadium.

The cowboys also arranged several competitions for adults as well. Nine guides from the local tourism organizations CBT and Shepherd’s Life came out to see who could best pass an apple from neck to neck while remaining horseback

The cowgirls closed out the show with a few songs and prizes were handed out… near the front gate and far, far away from the sound system and props. If one thing could have been changed, I would pick that moment. I won’t go into detail, but at least it got the crowd near the exit.

The day finally wound down and the PCV’s and Kochkor folks who helped out went to eat some very tasty chili with cheese. Candra Day thanked all who helped, especially Azamat Kubanov, a local student and horseback guide who offered his services as interpreter for the rodeo.

So, from Kochkor Village, Naryn Oblast (Salute!), Yee Haw and Thanks Ya’ll!

Contact Info

Vista 360°

PO Box 4772

Jackson Hole, Wyoming USA 83001

(307) 733-3082

canday@wyoming.com

Triangle C Ranch

3737 Highway 26

Dubois, Wyoming USA 82513

(307) 455-2225

(800) 661-4928

http://www.trianglec.com

info@trianglec.com

PHOTOS TO COME ONCE I GET TO HIGH-SPEED INTERNET IN BISHKEK

I'm attempting to send this via email instead of by posting on blog site, hope it works! The Rodeo Journal October 11th, 2006 Twelve days to go till the rodeo. Logistics are a pain. We’ve got 13 people from the rodeo party; 8 cowboys & girls and 5 support people. 13 PCV’s will come to help out with the school talks, roadie work, chili cookin’ and animal handlin’. I’ve already stated I think that we will be having a pre-rodeo party the day before. I’m presently trying to scrounge up enough country music and Kyrgyz pop for the music. At the party we will not only have the PCV’s and cowboys, but the Kochkor volunteers and the locals who’ve been helping out. Total: 55? The numbers keep rising. Luckily, I’ve put a cap on the PCV’s coming. They can still come, just not for program travel. We’ll cook around 150 liters of chili. We just don’t know if it will be sheep or beef flavored. The biggest issue it Public Address. There is no electricity at the stadium, so we will have to use ingenuity to speak to a crowd of innumerable size. The advertisements have been to show in the papers and people are pointing it out to each other. A successful number of people would be 100. The problem (?) is that Kochkor is a town of 15,000+ with 10 villages on the outskirts. It would be amazing for the stadium to fill up. I just wouldn’t know what to do if that happened though. One thing is for sure; this will be the talk of the town at least until I leave. Is this a good thing? October 17th, 2006 Like I said, the number keeps on rising. Present count for the party has jumped to 65 people. The girls at work say that maybe only 60 will come though. PA system problem has been solved; I’m not doing it! Candra (the person actually bringing the rodeo to Kochkor) said that she has sound system connections in Bishkek that she can bring. Whew! The number of PCV's coming has jumped too. 17 are coming now. It will be cool to see our friends from around the country. Also, I sent a text message by phone to our old host family to let them know about the rodeo and to be nice and invite them. They called a week ago and said that they will be coming! This will be interesting because when we told them we would be serving in Naryn Oblast they were afraid for us, “Oh Naryn! It’s the Texas of Kyrgyzstan, its too wild!” The word is spreading around the region and the director of Rejoyce’s school said that he thinks that around 1000 people will probably come. The head of the regional education department said that she would tell the schools to send around 500 students!!! I went to the stadium today to check and see how much clean-up will is needed for Friday with my friends from the Information Center. The grounds-keeper was already there with his grandson (who was using a small tree to sweep the ground); they had already cleaned the stadium of trash! He said he heard about the rodeo and he came to get the place ready. He said he would leave the gate open for us on Sunday and Monday (God-willing this will actually happen). One weird snag though, I finally get to work and my director said that someone called the office and said that she had recently purchased the stadium and that if we want to use it we have to pay her. My Kyrgyz friends are angry and confused, “What? The stadium is public property!” My friend Akjol, who is a land law lawyer, said that he had heard of no such purchase and that if we are to pay this lady (who did not even tell us her name), she must provide proof of purchase. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. October 18th, 2006 Met with my director at the regional government house this morning to talk to her connection there, Rosa Eje. Rosa Eje said that no one has purchased the stadium (but I think she did say that it was for sale: 150,00 com / $3750). She also said that she would talk to the people at the sports complex (who have some sort of connection with the stadium) and tell them to not bother me about the rodeo or stadium. Right… Today is my day off, mainly doing laundry so that we will have space for the 6 people coming to stay with us. Rejoyce just sent me a text saying that she picked up our medical resupply package at the post office today and that the medical secretary sent a cowboy pin along with our medical supplies. It’s a boot with lights that flash when you turn them on. I may have mentioned to ya’ll that we are going to have a party on Sunday with all the cowboys, volunteers and locals who are helping out with this event. Elmira Eje (the owner of Men Disco is very excited, she normally hosts PCV events). I want everyone to be able to share their own party culture so I’ve created an international play list for the music; it’s a mixture of country, Turkish pop & rap and American pop & rap: The Songs 1) Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs - Orange Blossom Special (used to listen to this with my dad)2) The Chemical brothers – Galvanize3) Moby – Honey4) Kings of Leon – King of the Rodeo5) Johnny Cash - I've Been Everywhere6) Arash featuring Rebecca – Temptation7) Black Eyed Peas - My Humps (check it out!)8) Chet Atkins & Les Paul - San Antonio Rose9) I forget the name of the next song, “Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee…”10) Some Turkish rap group who thinks they are 2Live Crew – Chuchuka11) Usher – Yeah12) Red Nex – Cotton Eyed Joe13) George Strait - Big Ball's in Cow Town (I just love the name!)14) Mark Chesnutt - Going Through the Big D (and I don’t mean Djalalabad!)15) Dudaga - Bu Kadar16) The Gasolina song17) Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy (hey Roger who sings this one again?)18) Mark Chesnutt - Bubba Shot The Jukebox19) George Strait - All My Ex's Live In Texas20) One of the many versions of Habibi21) The I Like To Move It song from Madagascar22) I’m In a Hurry to Get Things Done23) It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere24) J.Lo - Jenny From The Block25) Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha26) Sawyer brown - Old enough to know better27) Sawyer Brown - I Like My Women On The Trashy Side28) Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean - My Hips Don't Lie29) Mugu - Chernie glaza30) Modern Talking - No Face, No Name, No Number (one of the most popular English speaking bands in Central Asia… that’s okay I’ve never heard of them before either)31) Rehab - Gin and Juice (Bluegrass version, this one is up there with Ben Folds Five’s rendition of the classic Bitches Ain’t Shit)32) (And then some sing-a-longs) Marty Robbins - El Paso33) John Denver - Thank God I'm A Country Boy34) Loretta Lynn & Patsy Cline - Rocky Top35) Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire36) Pasty Cline – Crazy All in all a good 2 hours of some crazy songs. Boot scootin’ and Turkish twirling! Thanks to my old boss, Roger Widener, for exposing me to the good and bad of country music!

October 20th, 2006

Yesterday the Country Director of Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan came with his secretary and Murat our Safety & Security Coordinator. Let me tell you, Murat is the man with his finger on the pulse of Kyrgyzstan. He knows everything that happens here. He also has an affinity for English idioms.

So, I asked him, "Murat, I think maybe 1000 people will show up at the rodeo. Do you think I should ask the local police to provide security?"

"Oh yes! I think this would be very important, because when cat is far away the mice can be rambunctious and play around."

So, today I went with my friend Omar to the Militsia (Police) office and with his help we have arranged for 4 officers to be at the stadium… just in case.

October 21st, 2006

Volunteer count has now jumped up to 19. And some guy who is the "Director of the Stadium" (yeah, right) came by to talk to me. I wasn't there thankfully, my director Sveta Eje said that she will "take care of him" for me. I worry for this guy.

Tomorrow's the big day. I won't have any more posts until next week when I go to Bishkek. So wish me luck!

Monday, October 23rd, 2006

14:00

Kochkor Village, Naryn Oblast

Kochkor Stadium

American Cowboy Rodeo!

Horse Riding & Cow Roping

Singing Cowgirls

Contests & PrizesFree Admission This is my latest project. I'm working with an NGO from Jackson Hole, Wyoming in helping them bring a rodeo to Kochkor. Their name is Vista 360, they specialize in cultural exchanges between cowboy cultures around the world. Learn more about them:http://www.planetjh.com/read_2005_12_14_360.htmlhttp://www.vista360.org/ (website under constuction at this date) To make a real full blown event, I've invited other PCVs from the midwest to give talks about cowboys and rodeos at local schools. Also, at the local disco we will have a small party and hopefully do line-dancing and turkmen dances. I'll keep everyone updated at to what is going on from time to time. So far, here's the schedule:Sunday 22nd: Cowboys and PCVs arrive, disco at 8Monday 23rd: PCVs give talk in morning, Rodeo at 2pm, Chili cook-up afterwards (sheep based? I don't know)Tuesday 24th: The last day of Ramadan, this is the X factor to the whole plan. How it will affect the whole thing, I don't know. But the local Mulah at the mosque says it shouldn't be a problem. The mulah was an interesting guy. I had to go see him about the rodeo because after doing all this planning (and adverstising in 2 papers) I heard that the last day of Ramadan might coincide with the Rodeo. I almost had a fit that day and it didn't help that everyone I asked gave differing answers as to which day was the last day of Ramadan (called Orzo Ait in Kyrgyzstan). So, I decided to go to the mosque (called a menchet here) and speak to someone with authority. It was the newest one in town and still under contruction. A boy coming back from school and dressed in his school suit walked and said to me in English, "Yes may I help you?" I spoke back to him in Kyrgyz, "Can I see the uh... the uh..." I had forgotten what the called the leader of a mosque (was it Imam? Muldah? Mulah?) "You want see Mulah?", he said."Yes! Thank you!""He inside" I was led inside and met the mulah and his assistant, "I am Peace Corps Volunteer, I live in Kochkor and work at Altyn Kol. I business volunteer." "Yes, very good, " he replied in Kyrgyz, "Please sit down, how can I help you?" "This my project, it rodeo. Maybe I have problem? This day Orzo Ait?" "Oh, no, Ramadan ends on Tuesday the 24th." "This not problem?" "No problem at all!" He then asked me what city he came from and I said Richmond, Virgina. "Is that near Chicago?" "Eh...no?" I then learned that his assistant and he just came back from an Inter-Faith Concert in Chicago and proceeded to show me pictures from their August trip. They went to the Mississippi River and a Turkish Cultural Festival in Chicago. I was a bit jealous. He soon had one of his 'parishoners' come in for council and advice and I had to leave. I told him that he was welcome to come to the rodeo and he said if he had time he would come. It was like going into a pastor's office back in America.

So, this month Rejoyce & I have marked our first complete year in country. But we’ve been observant and have noticed some things about our Kyrgyz friends that we’d like to share:

1) The Kyrgyz Love Meat – There are some vegetarian Kyrgyz, but they only live in Bishkek. They don’t even count a full percentage point. But this is okay with me, I’ve really come to appreciate meat. Not just your typical cuts, but stomachs, livers and intestines as well. The Kyrgyz are never wasteful with their food. Like most developing countries, they find a use for every part of the animal. Even in their yurts, you sometimes even see sheep bones hanging from the wall for good luck.

Here’s a joke a Kyrgyz professor once told me (it seems to be a favorite among the Kyrgyz because I’ve heard it more than once): There is only one other type of people who love meat more than the Kyrgyz – wolves.

2) Mike Tyson – Yes, Mike Tyson, America’s favorite wife-beating ear-eater. The Kyrgyz love him, but not for the aforementioned faults, people in Central Asian tend to admire someone with powerful attributes. Don’t believe me? You can buy Mike Tyson Vodka here.

Twice in the past year, Kyrgyz guys have just randomly asked me, “What do you think of Mike Tyson?” I’ve been honest in my opinion of him and none too flattering. As one other volunteer put it, “It’s like they just sit around at night and just say, ‘Hey what about that Mike Tyson, he’s something eh?’”

3) Shrek – Well, not the character Shrek, but rather Donkey. “Have you seen Shrek?” they ask, “I love Donkey he is so funny! Hey Donkey! Donkey!” They love Donkey. They think Donkey is much more funny. Why is simple, the Kyrgyz own and ride donkeys.

4) Sunflower Seeds – Everyone with teeth eats them, mostly when they are standing around with nothing to do. They eat them one seed at a time by hand. They are not salted like we have in America and only lightly roasted, this leaves them sweet and a little oily.

You can buy a cup for about 1 or 2 com pretty much anywhere in the country. Little old ladies sit on street corners with wash-basins full of the things and sitting on top of the pile is a water glass full of seeds ready to be sold, just for you!

One of my favorites moments was when I taught my Kyrgyz buddies how to eat sunflower seeds the American way by popping a handful in the mouth and cracking them one at a time with the backs of your canines.

5) Anything “Useful For the Health” – One of the Kyrgyz’s favorite sayings is “Den-Soluku Paidalu”, Useful For The Health. This could be applied to almost anything really and I’m usually caught off guard once a month at what they might say is “Useful For The Health”.

Things the Kyrgyz have claimed to me that are “Useful For The Health”:

· Vodka – Drink it, gargle it, mix it with black pepper and rub it on that bump that has mysteriously appeared on your face, there are so many household uses!

· Rendered puppy fat – Take one vial of this and mix it with hot tea or vodka and drink it. Used to cure tuberculosis. I never believed this particular cure existed until I was at a bazaar one day and we met a lady who sells “home cures”. On her table was a rack of small one ounce glass vials with wax stoppers. They were filled with a innocuous looking greasy white substance.

· Things that in America we consider “Un-useful For The Health – Meat, Lard, Butter. I’ve been told that it is important for anyone who lives in Kyrgyzstan to eat large quantities of these things. The reason why, it protects you from the radiation that blows up from Lake Issik Kul on windy days. Interesting note, I’ve been eating large quantities of these things and I’ve still lost 20 lbs. since I’ve been here.

· Unpasturized Mare’s Milk – Now anyone who has read a bit about Kyrgyzstan has read of Kymys, fermented horses milk (also considered useful for the health). But this summer I learned of Samal, this is mare’s milk straight from the horse’s udder. If you drink this milk, it acts as a violent laxative/purgative and you are stuck near the outhouse for most of the day.

You would think that people would stay away from such a volatile drink, but one of my friends who has been suffering from an ulcer for the past year was told by his doctor to go to the mountain pastures this past summer for a week and drink Samal every day.

· Hot Spring Baths – This seems to be a universally healthy thing around the world. What you use it to treat depends on the chemical make-up of each individual spring. The hot springs we went to, Bar Bulak ( lit. trans. Fire Spring), had a high sulfur and iron content and according to the sign posted on the wall of the spa it can be used to treat, “Problems of the Skin and the Digestion, Also Useful for Treating Women’s Problems”.

It actually was quite stimulating and our skin was very healthy for the following month. But you have to be careful about which spring you bathe in. Near Kara Kol, one of the more popular springs has Radon in the water.

· Jalalabad Bottled Water – This is a very bad tasting bottled water. It has a high sodium content and they make it fizzy. So its like drinking gassy ocean water. But according to the commercials, “It is Useful For The Health”. This was affirmed to by one of Rejoyce’s students during a party one night. “Ms. Rejoyce, do you like this water? It is very Useful For The Health”.

Rejoyce with Elisa (Aika's mom) on right, Aika in lower middle and Aika's aunt on leftAika again, her father's friend holding her on left, her father Mars in middle and Talent on left.

Hello everyone back home! Summer is coming and we are busy busy! I'm presently in the town of Balikchi where my NGO and Kathleen Petersen's NGO are having a crafts training seminar. This past weekend we spent time at a hot spring on the shores of Issik-Kul lake with the members of my NGO. Here are some quick photos:

A cool and windy day on the shores of Issik Kul

Really, its not that bad. It's only the iron in the water. The springs are said to be very useful to the health. We can actually see some improvement in the quality of our skin.

And if you didn't know, there are herds of camels roaming the countryside of Kyrgyzstan.

Hello my name is Trent

Once thing about me (if there were actually one thing) that has been very difficult for the Kyrgyz to deal with for the past eight months hasn't been my inadiquate grasp of their language nor my failure to use the formal personal pronouns when speaking to al-axakals (elder men) or chong apas (grannies). The greatest difficulty I presented them with has been my name.

When people do ask me my name I try to say it using the Kyrgyz pheonetics, which sounds just like my actually name but I roll my R. Still, hearing my name causes people to look puzzled as to why would any mother would name their child such an awkward sounding name instead of something more pleasing and poetic like: Akjol-toi, Zalumbek or Sirkahk. Since I have been here, I have been called; Trench, Tent, Terench, Trenz, Teren, and Tourist (the latter usually from little kids wanting money). Lately people who do know my name have settled on Tren.

Calam menin atim Talant

To curcumvent this problem, when I now meet new people and they ask me my name I just tell them 'my name is Talant' or literaly translated 'my name(mine) Talant'. They hear it and their faces light up! I'm sure they are thinking, 'Wow! An American with a real Kyrgyz name! Amazing!'. I chose this name as my Kyrgyz name because it is what many people have mistaken my name for. 'No, he couldn't have said Ter-rentch, he must have said Talant'. It seems to work out well with the adults, the children however are a different matter. I get no end to the variety of their reactions.

However, since the establishment of my Kyrgyz name, a dichotomy has formed with my daily walks around Kochkor and interactions with its pleasant residents. They are always so eager to talk with you and ask you if you have parents or children, but I often have this nagging thought, 'Who do they know me as? Terenk or Talant?'

The other male volunteers in Kochkor valley who were here before me also took to themselves Kyrygyz names. The infamous 3J's as I call them, John, Jake, and Josh. They renamed themselves: Jonabek, Jekshembek, and Joshrabat. To whom I hear unending praise of how great they were as volunteers and how wonderful they spoke Kyrgyz (My response to this barrage of high standards has been to just give up studying Kyrgyz and move on to Russian).

The problem with my choice is that Talant is a somewhat standard name here. At least three times a week when passing through the taxi stands, I will hear a 'Hey Talant!' Totally different than in America, if I heard my name being shouted there I knew when to run.

Much like every Kyrgyz handicraft, it takes a community to raise a yurt. It is a grand social affair that involves men and women, both young and old. Family members come from all over the valley to help with the cooking, sewing, weaving and spinning. Because this process involves so many techniques, the yurt is the pinnacle of Kyrgyz handicrafts.

As children run through the stacks of yurt frames neatly piled in the courtyard and bread is being fried by the new daughter-in-laws, grandmothers gather around piles of raw wool to separate the fibers and hand spin thick coils of rope to be used in fastening the roof struts (called yüük) to the accordion like walls (kehrehgeh) of the yurt.

One grandmother takes a measure of wool that has been stretched to a thick bat about a foot long. She wets it and twists it into a single coiled strand and tosses it to a pile next to another woman who picks one from the pile, sets her foot into the strand like a stirrup, and proceeds to twist a double stranded coil of rope from the strand on her foot. All the while, added more and more strands to the length on her foot until she has fashioned a meter length of rope.

The size of the yurt dictates how many meters of rope needed. A small yurt will have around forty-five roof struts, each requiring one meter each. A medium will have around fifty-five struts. A large yurt will have seventy-five.

Once the ropes are strung through the holes on the curved ends of the roof struts, the family then stretches out two of the accordion walls leaving a meter space in the middle of them. The eldest males of the family then assemble in that gap a post & lintel doorframe (bozogo tahyak) and lash the walls to it. Once the walls have been properly stretched out and all have been lashed together with colorful straps ornately woven from homespun wool, the roof cap (tündük) is brought out and blessed by the family by smearing it with fat.

The men then mount the roof cap upon a forked pole and balance it with wide woven straps. It is raised high so that the rest of the family can insert the straight pointed tips of the struts into holes cut in edge of the cap. The curved ends of the struts are then lashed to the walls of the yurt with the handspun rope. Soon, the frame is complete and freestanding. To assist in the settling of the structure, a sandbag is tied to the straps connected to the cap. Large rolls of woven strap are then used to further strengthen the frame by being woven through the struts and around the walls.

The women then bring out two large, rolled up reed mats (chi), tie one end of each to the doorframe and then wrap the walls with them. The mats are decorated with intricate traditional symbols that are made by wrapping colored wool around each reed, then sewing the reeds together.

Once the chi has been wrapped, it is time to fasten the many layers of raw felt (giiz) to the frame. This felt is made by laying down short-cut wool fibers on a chi mat and while pouring hot water on the wool the mat is rolled up. Once rolled, the mat is covered with burlap cloth and bound with rope. Another long loop of rope is passed under the mat and is used to control its rolling. Five to six people then line up on one side of the mat and the rope puller on the other side.

The line of people then begins to kick and stomp the mat as the puller rolls the mat to the other side of the courtyard. Once there, everyone steps on top of the mat, gives a little jump up and steps off onto the other side to return the mat to where it began. After enough water has been stomped and kicked out, the mat is laid on top of wooden rails and more hot water is poured on top. The puller then navigates the steaming mat back and forth across the courtyard to make sure water is evenly distributed throughout the wool.

This is repeated three or four times, upon which the bundle is unwrapped and unrolled, revealing a large, tightly matted length of felt. This is taken to a large rectangular pile of rocks covered with stripped branches. There the felt is laid out in the sun to dry.

This whole process is repeated over and over until around 100 square meters of tan and brown felt have been produced. Once all this felt is dry, it is gathered up in the courtyard and expertly tailored into panels that fit the curves of the yurt. These panels are then lashed to the yurt frame, lower panels first then upper, until they overlap each other to create a warm, windproof interior.

sorry if this blog is odd looking. i had to send it

through my email. i can not access blogger.com because

our village computer is infected with turkish pornIt was a warmer morning than usual as I made my way

back from my morning trip from the outhouse, so I had

decided to risk not wearing my long johns for the

first time in three months. As I stood in our

courtyard, waiting for Rejoyce to finish getting ready

so we could walk to work together, I looked up into

the branches of the apple trees that surrounded the

walls of the house. Little buds were forming on the

tips.My heart stirred and I felt really happy because the

trees knew spring was coming. Apa came in from the

back yard and saw me staring at her apple trees. I

turned and smiled at her, "Apa! Spring coming! Spring

coming!"She just smiled, nodded, and went back inside. I'm

sure she was starting to think twice about having some

odd American live in her house who stares at trees.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~If you live in America, then you probably have never

heard of International Women's Day. Sometimes you may

see it on the odd calendar, inhabiting March 8th. It's

kind of like Boxing Day. You look at it and go, "Hmm,

I wonder where they celebrate that?"Well, Kyrgyzstan is one of those places that celebrate

it (Women's Day, not Boxing Day). Here, they

congratulate women on being… women and the men in

their lives give them gifts and sometimes cook for

them.But unfortunately, Women's Day eclipses an even more

important holiday that is also on the 8th of March,

our Apa's birthday. I'm sure if more people knew about

it, they would do as we did and forego Women's Day to

focus their efforts on the Birthday of Jamila Apa, the

most amazing woman in Naryn!We decided to give Apa a bottle of champagne and a

picture frame for her birthday (with the option of us

taking a family photo to fill it). The frame was a

simple, golden, baroque wood frame with the ubiquitous

sample photo of some random white child in a jumper.

Rejoyce lovingly wrapped it in tissue paper that said,

'Happy Birthday!' and we presented it to her.She smiled and gave us each a kiss on the cheek.

'Thank you, you're good kids', she said and put the

gifts on the kitchen table. She then went to the next

room to read her paper. We stood there puzzled as to

why she did not open it. She was just as puzzled as to

why we gave her a square thing wrapped in paper with

foreign writing all over it. So thinking she was

saving it for later, we went off to meet a friend for

a Women's Day party. One hour later, we come back and the gifts we still

there on the table. We shrugged and went to our room.

As we lounged around reading, we could hear a

conversation in the next room:'Apa, why haven't you opened your gift?''What did she say?''It's a present Apa, you are supposed to unwrap it'(sound of crinkling paper)'What is it?''It's a picture frame Apa''Who's the boy? Why did they give me a picture of this

boy?'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There seems to be a sort of mental algebra that

happens when you learn a new language. As we study how

to verbally butcher the Kyrgyz tongue more, we seem to

be able to speak our first language less.It's like there is only so much bandwidth in our

brains to squeeze out the words we know. Our storage

capacity is suddenly surprisingly large, but to shift

gears with our mouths seems to be increasingly tricky.

Example:(Apa comes into our room)'Won't you drink some tea?'I blink a few times as I process this phrase I have no

doubt heard around 555+ times. I look at Rejoyce as my

brain connects the context:'You want drink chai?' I say in an abysmal Pidgin

English.She looks back at me, 'No, I'm not wanting to drink

chai now, later maybe?'I look back at Apa and try to conjugate the reply for

about 10 seconds. She just shakes her head, 'Don't

worry, maybe later then'.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~One month ago, I was sitting at my desk at work,

compiling my Kyrgyz language notes into a spreadsheet.

I was very proud at the progress I was making, after

one week I had almost all three of my notebooks in

digital format. If I only understood how to actually

use all those adjectives, nouns and verbs properly.

It was around 11 in the morning and some of the

crafts-masters had come to talk to my director. One

became quite agitated as she spoke and began to cry.

Like any capable man I did what came naturally, I

continued to stare at the computer and tried to

pretend that I wasn't there. After ten minutes, she

finally calmed down.My director went to the next room and opened the safe.

She dug around the back of it and produced a pine

bough and a box of matches. She then set the branch on

fire and waved the smoke around the store. It was an

eerie thing because everyone in the room became still

and calm.Later I learned from my tutor that they did that to

quote, 'send Satan out'. You know, that seems

completely reasonable to me.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Last week, I returned from a Peace Corps seminar in

Bishkek. I came to work and waited for people to

wander in while I typed my Kyrgyz grammar tables.

First my counterpart came in and we began discussing

ideas for projects I had while at the seminar.As I began to explain how we could write a grant to

get funds for mobile phones to give to the regional

managers (because land lines are not dependable here),

the shop manager came in and began to set up a

hotplate next to my desk.She then put a metal basin on the element and filled

it halfway with unfiltered cottonseed oil. On the

larger desk, she began to make dough as the oil heated

up. She cut the dough into little squares and began to

fry up boorsok, a traditional bread of Central Asia.I looked over at her and then back at my counterpart.

'Burul,' I said for that is her name, 'are we having a

party today?''Did you know,' she replied, 'that here at Altyn Kol

we have been having some problems?'I nodded, remembering the events last month.'And do you know Tokan-Apa?'I nodded; she is the landlady of the store and our

resident fortuneteller.'She said that last week while you were gone that she

saw the spirit of the woman who used to live here.'I nodded, not knowing what to say. Didn't know that

this used to be a house.'Tokan-Apa, she said that we were to make the boorsok

and that the smell would make the woman happy.'I nodded, for I had come to a great distinction

between our cultures. I knew that this was the point I

had to show respect for what they believed to be true.

I knew I couldn't say anything that was running

through my mind, things that were ingrained by my

culture, without causing their feelings to be hurt.I cared about these people. I enjoyed working with

them. They were talented and caring individuals with

the capacity to do great things for their village and

their country. If they wanted to cook a light snack

for someone who was dead, who was I to tell them

otherwise? Besides, who doesn't love the smell of

fried food?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tuesday March 21st, 2006Note how I actually used a date for this entry,

because today is Nooruz the Muslim New Year. I can

really appreciate a New Year where you can go out

during the daylight and not freeze your nethers, which

is what we did. The dirt was that there is a big to-do

down by the Culture Palace, the biggest building in

the whole region.So, we hung around the house so that we would be

fashionably late. At 11 we put on our Spring finery

(clothes without long underwear) and promenaded down

to the park, to meet Rebecca Terjal (the volunteer who

is stationed just outside of Kochkor). Little green

sprouts of grass were poking their heads out of the

ground. If it were any more ideal, I would have begun

singing Cole Porter songs. Luckily, I don't know any.Halfway there, I sent a text message to Rebecca,<How goes Nooruz?>

<Good I'm at your park>

<Maybe we see you? Yes?>

<where are you?>

<coming to the gate now>We rounded the corner and saw a massive gathering of

locals, even greater than a Saturday at the Animal

Bazaar. <Oh my God!>, I declared.The main crowd was bottlenecked at foot of the stairs

leading to the Culture Palace. At least a thousand

people! I so realized that it would be a challenge to

find Rebecca and her counterpart.<where r u?>, I asked.

<at the stairs of the building on the right>

<so are we>No sign of her though. We looked and looked. Suddenly

the crowd opened up and there they were! Five feet

from us. We chatted for a few minutes and took photos.

Soon, Rejoyce's school director, Mirzabek, intercepted

us and insisted that we come and see his school's

cultural presentation.We were escorted through the crowds and to a partition

that had student crafts adorning the walls and little

branches sticking out from behind them with little

flower shaped pieces of paper napkins attached to

them. The affect intended was to be like a forest of

apple blossoms, I think. It was very striking and

beautiful.Lined up in front of the partition were four tables

that displayed the ethnic foods of Kyrgyzstan. The

first was a small table bearing a few Dungan dishes;

Ash-Lan-Fu, Lagman noodles, and a few salads. The

second was Uzbek food; plov with raisins, piroshkis (a

bit like a potato hot pocket), boorsok, and some sort

of flat fry bread that reminded us of funnel-cakes.The third table was as large as the first two put

together, the Kyrgyz spread. There laid out before us

was plov with meat, piroshkis, boorsok, Lagman

noodles, and what can only be called food sculptures.

Only they were made from the stomachs and intestines

of sheep. One was a duck made from a stomach with

carrots for eyes and a beak, the other was a snake

made from an intestine that used a sheep's hoof for

the snake's head. Very creative.Table number four was Russian food. Now, we were used

to Kyrgyz food and many of the things we saw at the

other tables we had already eaten over the past six

months. But Russian food was still a mystery to us!Standing behind the table was the Russian Zavuch (read

assistant principle) from Rejoyce's school welcoming

us and looking much like the White Queen straight out

of Narnia (only nice and not wanting to turn people

into statues), wearing a green full-length winter coat

and a matching wide brimmed hat lined with green fur.

She invited us to eat food we had never seen before;

Verninki made from whole wheat flour (like potato

pirogues, not peroshkis, but they were also there),

some sort of potato pastry shaped like a fish,

pickles, beet salad, and a low casserole dish filled

with some sort of gelatinous pudding. Soon Rejoyce

uttered the words:'What's that?'

'Try it!'

'What is it?'

'It comes from the head of a cow, please try it.'No backing down now, Rejoyce partook of the headcheese

pudding and smiled.

Later we sauntered further into the park and many

people we lounging on the grass eating and drinking.

Near the south end of the park are some old

dilapidated swings and something like a carousel. I

had always felt that they were sad things that had

fell into disuse, but I was wrong! Kids we swarming

over them, using them as monkey bars… that moved. The

swing set, which was not anchored to the ground, bore

about twenty kids on three swings that used to be

shaped like boats. The whole contraption rocked back

and forth from the stresses put upon it. All we could

do was stare and wait for children to die.Fortunately, some mother came over and berated the

children for their efforts. The boys jumped off in

mid-swing and ran over to the former carousel.

Climbing upon this rotating death trap, they joined

about fifty other kids already enjoying its slow

kid-powered rotation. The height to which they climbed

depended on the age of the child. The oldest, say 13,

tended to either perch on the hub or hang from the

rim. The youngest, 1, sat on what used to be the seat

of the gondola while their moms trailed behind eating

sunflower seeds.Potential lawsuits that would never see the light of

day flashed through our minds' eyes'. These children

were living to their heart's content on their carousel

and I have to admit, I was a little jealous of their

freedom. Never in America would we ever see such a

thing or would our children be allowed to approach. We

could only watch for so long before we realized, that

no matter how long we looked at the sight, we could

never get used to it. So we moved on to a café for

some lunch.Approaching the main square we saw yet another

anomaly, a camel. We knew that during holidays, people

set up little photo stands so that you could

commemorate the occasion with you family. It's like

going to the mall to get pictures with Santa or the

Easter Bunny. Here, you can be photographed with

anything from a camel to giant stuffed animals to

memorialize your Nooruz.Rebecca grinned, 'I want my picture taken in front of

a camel!'So after lunch, we paid our 30 som and stood in front

of the hairy quadruped. Questions like: Don't camels

spit huge gobs of phlegm at least 50 feet?, came to

mind. The photographer snapped away and we walked away

phlegm-free. We were told to come in 6 days to pick up

our copies. A fitting reminder of our first Nooruz.__________________________________________________

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Clipping My Nails 1/30/2005 5:10 PM

Today, I decided to cut my fingernails. They were long and getting kind of dirty. I pondered for a few minutes on whether or not if I should scrape the dirt out first then cut them or cut them and then clean the dirt. I decided to perform the later act. So, I went to the area in our room that contained our supply of toiletries. I had to dump everything out of the container, because things like nail clippers and scissors tend to fall down into the bottom. I soon found them and went to my side of the bed. I decided to take a risk and cut my toenails as well. I removed my socks and placed them by the side of my bed. I could tell it was time to cut my toenails also. They weren't dirty, but they had grown very long in a short amount of time. They seem to grow twice as fast as my fingernails.

I usually begin with my left thumbnail. I am left handed, but I tend to do tasks that require manual fingertip dexterity with my right hand. The clipping came off in about three snips. It had a thickness of about three millimeters. A slight collection of fingernail dirt remained for later.

After finishing my thumb, I then usually move down to my little fingernail, saving my index fingernail for last. My little fingernail and ring fingernail grow differently than my thumbnail, index fingernail and middle fingernail. The little fingernail and ring fingernail grow almost square. While the thumbnail, index fingernail and middle fingernail grown slightly rounded. They say that people who have squarish fingernails make good hand models for television commercials and magazine ads. If you took the ring finger and little finger of one hand and the thumb, index and middle finger of the other and switched them around, you would have almost a perfect hand for hand modeling. Except that it would be malformed and only have four fingers. The other hand would be twice as malformed with four fingers and two thumbs. I also could only cut the finger nails on the semi-perfect hand while the freakish hand's finger nails would continue to grown into dirty claws. So, maybe the career of a hand model just isn't for me. I just couldn't handle not being able to cut my fingernails on both hands. My feet would be okay though. But I don't know if I could be a foot model though. Considering I had a serious fungal infection on my big toes for a couple of years before they invented the anti-foot fungus pill. It worked though, but I was afraid of having a damaged liver for a couple of months.

So after cutting the little finger nail, I cut the ring fingernail. They had more dirt than the thumbnail. They usually do. Another thing they do more frequently than the other fingernails is fly across the room when cut. They seem to have more elasticity than the thumbnail, index fingernail, and middle fingernail. It can be a trial to stop in the middle of cutting your nails and have to search the room for a stray clipping. There is also the possibility of upsetting the pile of recent clippings near your feet. Then when you are done, even if you think you’ve found them all, you wind up stepping on a particularly sharp one.

Finally, after finishing the first three fingernails, I move onto the middle fingernail. Now, one thing I didn’t mention about my thumbnail, index fingernail and middle fingernail is that they are very bumpy and thick. When I used to work with a laser microscope, I would look at them and see a topographical map of keratin and cuticle. You could also see the beginnings of hangnails and those funny little bits of skin that sometimes peel away from the skin near the cuticle. I don’t know what they are called, but those are sensitive little things, let me tell you! Sometimes I wonder if one day I might get a exceptionally strong one peeling off my finger and while pulling, it would run up to my knuckle.

I then cut off the index fingernail. I’m never satisfied with the performance of nail clippers. They always leave jagged edges and pointy angles. My wife says that I should just file them down, but that takes too long. As I said, I have very thick nails and also wear down emery boards quite quickly. I have tried to file them down before, but I tend to do it in strange social situations resulting in my male friends giving me odd looks. So now I do a combination of first clipping and then filing afterwards. When that’s done, I then clean the dirt out.

After I finished my other hand (thanks to the miracle of opposable thumbs), I moved on to my feet. Now, like my hands, I start with the largest digit on the left. I used to have to be really careful when I had my fungal infection. Sometimes it would make the nail soft underneath while being hard and brown on top. I would have to scrape the brown stuff out with the sharp wanna-be file that was so handily built into the clippers.

Now, I’m not trying to be gross. This was just how my feet used to be before I received the treatment. They are much cleaner now and I don’t feel so self-conscious about them. But in the winter, their nails can get a bit long when it’s too cold to remove your socks. Luckily, the weather is warming up and I can cut them more frequently.

Unlike my hands, I cut both my big toenails first. But again, like my hands, I move next to my little toes. It’s similar to how I read the newspaper. I start with the front page, and then I read from the back to the front. I never understood why I do it. I’ve never really tried to change it. Once I finish the first page, I’m so involved in the process that I don’t even think about what I’m doing.

What still worries me now, even after taking the anti-foot fungus pill, is the small toe next to the little toe on my right foot. What do you call that toe anyway? You can’t call it a ring toe. I’m not saying that you can’t wear rings on your toes, but when people do they often wear them on the first toe next to big toe. Do toes have names? Do you call that toe an index toe even though you can’t index with it? I’m sure you can call the middle toe a middle toe, that’s more a location than a description. What if we just named them after recent U.S. Presidents? Once the President wins an election they become the big toe. I imagine podiatry would become more interesting and politically involved. But I have an odd feeling that the Republicans would try to have all big toes permanently named ‘Ronald Reagan’. Forgive me for being so controversial.

I digress, that toe next to my little toe on my right foot, its nail sometimes splits down the middle. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but once I finished clipping that nail I almost have nothing left but about four millimeters of nail left. Have you ever seen other people’s little toenails’? They can often be oddly small. It is a weird thing to see, especially on men. We have these little toes and almost no nail. Women often have it worse. They have these tiny little toes and almost no nail at all, mostly cuticle.

Once I finish cutting my nails, I have that fore-mentioned pile of clippings. They look so lifeless lying there. Cold. Clustered together for warmth. Knowing that their fate is to be soon led to the darkness of the corner wastebasket. Honestly, sometimes when I look at them, I am repulsed that they even came from my fingers and toes.

This weekend we returned to Ak-Beshim to visit our first host familly and thier neighbors. It was Rejoyce's first trip out of the village since swearing-in, so she was rather excited about this adventure. The ride out of Kochkor wasn't bad, it rarely is. For some reason, when your travelling downhill out of the mountains it's never as bumpy as going up.

We arrived at the bus station three hours later and headed to the bus stop for the village bus. It turned out that we had 40 minutes to wait till it arrived. So we went over to the taxi stand. I never even got a chance to say where are you going, the first taxi driver who walked up asked if we were going to Ak-Beshim. I said yes and asked how much, he offered 25 com per person which was the correct price for going to our village.

"This is odd," I thought, "I didn't have to haggle and he didn't ask for an outragious price". Suddenly, I recognized the driver as one of our old regulars and said,"You're Rahat aren't you?"

"Yes! How are Melinda and Brenda?"

"They are fine, Melinda is in Talas and Brenda is in Issyk-Kol!"

We arrived in the village soon after that and said good-bye to Rahat. As soon as we stepped out of the cab, we saw Tamara, the host-mother of our language teacher slogging through a foot of snow, driving cattle out to the fields. We waved and said hello, she caught up with us and hugged us. She told us that we had to visit before we left, we told her that we would be leaving tomorrow and would stop by tonight.

We made our way back to our family's house to a white village. Snow was everywhere! Kochkor is notorious for having little snow during the winter. It had just snowed there last night, but only about 3 inches. Here, they had snowdrifts and you couldn't see the mountains for the snow clouds. Little flakes began to fall as we walked downt he street. I was excited! I was going to get to see our family and I was anticipating what they might make for dinner! My heart was set on ragu, a savory stew of potatoes, carrot, spices and meat.

We made there and saw the latest efforts my brother Eldiar had made on this huge piece of scrap metal he bought 2 months ago. He buys old metal and cuts it to a managable size and resells it in Bishkek. His latest project was some sort of storage tank, 18 feet long and 9 feet high. When we left in December, this thing was a giant steel albatross around his neck. He didn't have the proper equipment to cut into the metal. I told him that he would need some sort of electrical welder, like a TIG welder. That was difficult to get across with my limited language skills, but either he understood me or someone else gave him the advice in a more comprehensive manner, because the tank had been sliced into smaller sections and you could see the tell-tale marks of an electrical welder.

We walked into the courtyard and Ata came out and hugged us, we were quickly ushered inside and greeted by everyone. They were so happy to see us! They said that we had gotten too thin, but that was okay because they had alot of food for us. They showed us to our old room and we dumped our stuff and quickly presented gifts to the family. We then sat down and our sister Venera placed a giant steaming plate of ragu on the table, with entire cooked and rendered chicken! A large smile beamed across my face, after eating plain noodles with sheep fat for the past two months with our new host family, I was eager for this! My mouth watered and we dug into the dish, I even found a chicken liver!

We sat, digested and talked for about an hour. We feel like our Kyrgyz hadn't gotten any better, but they were impressed. We are now actually able to hold a light conversation about what going on in our lives. They were thrilled and had so many questions for us. What are our jobs like?(it's good to work, but we'd like to do more) What's our new home like?(very warm, but our room has posters of cars all over it) Do we eat a lot of horse in Kochkor? (yep, but we mostly eat sheep)

About an hour later, we went to go visit the other host families in the village. Shiar-Apa (Andrew Zilm's mom) was surprized to see us! She was sitting in the kitchen cranking away at a hand operated milk seperator. We drank tea and ate bread with fresh cream and answered many questions. What are our jobs like? What's our new home like? Do you eat bar-b-que there like Andrew used to make?(He would get big bottles of Kansas City BBQ sauce in his care packages)

We then went to Mike and Brenda's family, Dinara-Apa and Ulan-Ata. They were happy to see us and told us how Mike and Brenda visited on New Year's Day. We drank tea and ate home made lagman noodles with peppers and meat and answered many questions. What are our jobs like? What's our new home like? Do you make any American meals like Mike and Brenda's chili?

Then we went to Tamara and Alisher's house. They are a Turkish family and were hosts to both of our language teachers, Kanikae and Nurgyz. Turkish food is different than anything in Kyrgyzstan. The first thing I ate looked like some sort of fruit cake, but turned out to be Turkish head cheese. "Do you like it?", they asked. "It's not bad, just very different", I said. They also had chocolate butter, a combination of sugar chocolate and butter that you put on your bread. Yum! Like butter frosting, just with more butter. Then they topped it off with pasta al-dente with carmelized onion, garlic and a home-made Turkish cheese that was alot like parmesean!

It grew dark and we waddled home to finish off the ragu.

The next day, we slept in, still feeling like stuffed summer sausages. For breakfast we had fried eggs, fried sausage coins and left-over ragu broth. As we sat around that morning, digesting even more, they brought out one of the three national drinks of Kyrgyzstan, bozo. Bozo is a ferment barley drink that is made in the winter (the other drinks are shoro, a fermented wheat drink made in Autumn, and kymys, the fermented horse milk beverage made in Spring and Summer) . Bozo has a taste not unlike a combination of beer and yogurt. It is very good for the digestion and since we were on the verge of bursting we were told to drink copious amounts of it. It's non-alcoholic, but since it is fermented there is a little big of alcohol. I drank three cups of it and soon felt sleepy.

After resting my eyes in the kitchen, I opened them and saw something sitting in the window. Our old pee bucket that we had left behind. I said to Rejoyce, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yep!", she said, "Last night they were hauling water with it."

"What are they using it for today?"

"Guess!"

I looked at the cup of bozo in front of me and back at Rejoyce. She nodded and we cracked up, laughing loudly. "Well, they're being resourcful, but I'm glad I washed it out before we left it behind."

We then ate lunch, plov! Rejoyce was even allowed to learn how to make it with Apa and Venera. She had a great time. But at 2 p.m., it was time for us to return to Kochkor. We hugged everyone and said our goodbyes and promised to return in April when Venera had her baby.

Later that night, in Kochkor, Rejoyce brought in our presently used pee-bucket. I had left it outside for the weekend so that it could air out. "Where's the lid for that thing?", I asked.

"I don't know, I looked all over for it in the snow, where did you put it?"

"Right next to it!"

"It wasn't there!"

I sighed, I had just settled down with a good book. I grabbed the flashlight and went to search the snow next to the outhouse. But there was no sign of the lid. What had happened to it? I looked near the dog pen, maybe it had gotten loose and decided to use it as a toy? Nope.

I looked everywhere! Shining the flashlight all over the barren summer garden. I noticed a snowman to my right and did a double-take. The lid was on top of the snowman, being used as a hat. In my minds eye, I imagined the kids next door (Atai and Jazgul) making the snowman and deciding he needed a hat. Of course they would be resourceful and use what ever was handy! It just happened to be the lid to our pee bucket. I doubled over laughing in the moonlight.

When I caught my breath, I plucked the lid off the snowman's icy head and went inside to tell Rejoyce.

American Food day at Rejoyce's school mmm...chili, coleslaw, and eewy-gooey bars

Us at Rejoyce's New Years teacher party

Rejoyce with my work family

Me freezing in Naryn City

Us with our language teacher Kanikae and Nurgyz, also the PST Director's Assistant Burul.

Us with our host mom and fellow villagers.

Before I even start this entry, let me be straight; I love being in Kyrgyzstan. I love the people, the customs, the mountains, even the starkness of winter, but I am beginning to really not enjoy the food. Let me elaborate…

Two weeks ago, I’m at work, typing away at a Power Point presentation, munching on some raisins and peanuts that I had mixed up earlier that morning. I pop a handful of gorp* into my mouth and bite down. CRACK! I feel the sensation of enamel separating in my mouth.

“Hmm, that’s not good”, I think. I begin to fish out the remains of the jer jongak and maize** out of my mouth and find a small stone the size of a grain of rice. With some further extraction, I then pull a piece of tooth out, about the same size.

I am soon on the phone with Peace Corps and they tell me to come to Bishkek the next day and meet with the local Russian dentist.

I’m not happy about this. The Kyrgyz are beautiful people, but they have been subjected to the tyranny of dentistry that dates back maybe 50 years. Golden teeth abound!

Understandably, I’m a little stressed out about this. I don’t think I’ll be returning to Kochkor with a mouth full of grill, but I have no idea what to expect from whomever will have their hands in my mouth.

The next day…

I head to the taxi stand to catch a cab. ‘Bishkek-ke, Bishkek-ke!***’, the taxi drivers announce. We agree on a reasonable price and I hop into the cab, and wait… for an hour… in a 15 degree Fahrenheit taxi. At one point three men get into the back of the taxi (while I’m in the front seat) and hold a business meeting of some sort.

Eventually, we are ‘Bishkek-ke’. The ride is nice, quiet and I fall asleep. I wake up and we are driving along the Kazakstan border. Nothing unusual about this, it shortens the travel by a ½ hour.

But (in the words of my friend Lori Kuder) suddenly, something goes horribly wrong! Well, not wrong exactly, but the driver stops the car and asks everyone for their money. ‘Emnay-gay****?’ I ask?

I soon learn the driver is going over the border to Kazakstan to buy fuel, because it is cheaper over there. All of the other passengers are okay with this and are out of the car. So, out I go.

Forty-five minutes later, he finally passes through customs and his frozen passengers embark.

Later that day, I finally make it to the dentist’s. I’m surprised, it’s actually cleaner that the office of my last dentist in Savannah, Georgia. Yeah, you know who you are.

Doctor Stanislav soon has my mouth numb and gives me a filling on par with modern American dentistry. An Ultra-Violet Epoxy Enamel filling even! Amazing!

I return to Kochkor the next day, happy and feeling fine.

The Next Week

At work again. About 2 weeks ago, I had proposed to my manager and director a project for creating a wool-processing machine made from local materials. They loved it and told me, 3 days ago, that we will be going to Bishkek to purchase the necessary materials from perhaps the only lumberyard in all of Kyrgyzstan.

I say, no problem! All I have to do is get permission from my Peace Corps director and we can go. Jypar and I are soon on the phone together, “This should not be a problem,” she says, “If you are only coming for one day then you don’t need to fill out any paperwork.”

“We shouldn’t be more than a few hours”, my manager ominously portents.

Seven in the morning, the next day, I’m in my manager’s husband’s car on the way… to Bishkek!

The problem is, the night before, it snowed 4 inches in our village. That means it snowed at least 10 in the mountains, where our car now was.

The roads were not too bad. But at the pinnacle of one pass, our momentum failed us and our Lada***** starts to spin its wheels. My manager (Sveta), my counterpart (Dinara), and I are soon trying to push the thing up the mountain for about an 8th of a mile. Eventually, after gritting the ice, we get the poor vehicle over the top of the mountain. I look behind us and see the awesome site of nothing but snow-covered peaks as far as the eye can see.

The journey was not all that bad. My counterpart and I have our Kyrgyz lesson in the back seat of the Lada. It lasts for about 2 hours. I learn all about the weather. We spoke of the names for ice, clouds, hail, storms, etc. We arrive in Bishkek and head to a Chinese restaurant for lunch.

After lunch, we return to the Lada, and Adambek (Sveta’s husband) tries to start the car. A stricken look comes over his face. “I forgot to turn the battery off after we got out, there is no power!”

We quickly realize that we are not getting back to Kochkor today. I tell Sveta, “If we are going to be in Bishkek tonight, I need to go to the Peace Corps office and let them know where I am staying tonight.”

“Oh don’t worry about that, we won’t tell Peace Corps! You can stay at our family’s house tonight and we will be gone in the morning!” she says.

Now, I have confidence in the people I work with at Altyn-Kol. They are competent, able, and organized. A total anomaly in Kyrgyzstan. I personally think it’s because the business is run by women. However, I just didn’t feel lucky anymore that day. So, they dropped me off at the office and told me that they would meet me there the next day.

The next day…

Everything went well. We bought the wood we needed and Dinara and I were on our way back to Kochkor. Our cab driver turned out to be a native of Kochkor who worked with Shepherd’s Life (our other business that hosts tourists for homestays) and we got a free ride back to Kochkor.

Tonight…

The day after I get back from Bishkek, we return from a New Year’s party for Rejoyce’s school. We sit down for an evening tea, to relax and talk. I tell the story to our host mother’s visiting family of how I went to Bishkek the week before to have a tooth repaired. While I spoke, I unwrapped a seemly innocent chocolate covered wafer******, take a bite out of half of it and begin to chew. CRACK!

I flinch. No. I couldn’t have done it again.

I remove the wafers from my teeth. “Oh No”, I simply say. I pull out a tiny stone from my mouth half the size of the last one.

I have just chipped two more teeth.

Guess where I’m going next week.

*-Good Ol’ Raisins & Peanuts

**- Kyrgyz for peanuts and raisins

***- Kyrgyz for ‘To Bishkek!’

****- Kyrgyz for ‘Why?’

*****- the official car of the Soviet Union that seems to not want to ever die.

******- See my previous blog entry to learn how I feel about Kyrgyz snack foods