I know I haven’t written in a while, but winter here gets a little dull once you’ve been here a year and a half, so it’s hard to find things to say that I find important enough to share with the world. Also, I couldn’t get the website for this thing to work on any computers here, so even if I had big news, there’d be no way to share it. So there’s that.

The afore-mentioned winter has finally drawn to a close. It wasn’t a bad one, but I was definitely tired of the snow and coats and all. Now it’s been pretty rainy, but it’s getting warm and things are turning green. Two other volunteers and I have started walking up a hill in the city two mornings a week (they do more, but I have class the rest of the days…). It’s a very pleasant walk (Martha estimates that it’s about 6 miles round-trip) and gives us a time to socialize and exercise. Along the way, we’ve also spotted two different colors of flowers blooming.

In the volunteer social life, we’ve also restarted our city-wide (yeah, it’s 6 of us) weekly dinner date. Every Thursday we go to another volunteer’s house (it rotates clockwise around the city) for dinner. The host makes the main dish, one person brings a salad/side and another brings dessert. We’ve had some impressive meals, especially considering the resources we have at hand. Some of the highlights include: salmon cakes, cheese grits, fried tomatoes, and walnut/pecan pie (obviously my night); pumpkin ravioli and vegetable stir fry; hummus and Moroccan beef stew; and this week it’s Thai chicken at my place. It’s a great way to relax, eat an impressive meal, and to break the week up. It also gives me an excuse to clean my apartment every five weeks.

Things are going well at school. We’ve hit the time of year where there are so many holidays that I consider school pretty much out already. Monday was a holiday, a two-week long spring break is in a week and a half, then all of May is one giant holiday, and the 25th is the last day of school, so my work is pretty much done here. When we actually do have school, however, I am really enjoying my girls’ club. We’ve been spending the past few weeks playing games (they really love Uno, but who doesn’t?). It’s been great for me, because it gives us a chance to sit around and talk without it being awkward. The girls who show up are pretty much either from my 10th grade classes or my counterpart’s 8th grade homeroom class. Because of the club, the girls have become friends. I feel like it’s kind of a “big sister” program. The older girls are some of my best, most motivated students, so I hope they can serve as role models and mentors for the younger girls even after I’m gone. I’ve even seen them talking outside of the club, so I’m proud of what I’ve done.

Outside of school, I have some nice things to look forward to – even nicer weather, spring break, a big Birthday party for me and Martha, a month full of holidays, and then of course the big family trip to Turkey. I feel like through exciting new projects and great friends, I’ve managed to keep myself excited about my last six months here.

These are some of the 8th grade girls who come to my club. They're dressed up for their New Years party.

Happy New Year, everybody!

I'm back from my journey to Almaty! The trip was really fun. Here's a list of things I did. Keep in mind that I'm excited about all of these:

Crossed the street without fearing for my life (they actually have and follow driving rules!)

Ate amazing pizza, KFC, and cheeseburgers (make that 5 shared pizzas, one KFC meal and two cheeseburgers)

Walked at night without turning on a flashlight (working streetlights!)

Didn't hear the phrase "hello baby" or get any harrassment of any sort. It's like people didn't even notice us.

Drank coffee

Used free wifi on my own computer while drinking coffee

Saw Americans I don't know

I'm sure there's more, but all of that is enough for now. Needless to say, I had a fantastic week in Almaty (aka civilization). Now I'm in the middle of another week-long vacation before I start my last semester of school here in Kyrgyzstan. We're also in the middle of the normal frealishly-warm week in January. I'm not wearing a coat! It's pretty nice.

I hope everyone is having a great winter!

A few days ago, I had one of those experiences that now feels so normal but in hindsight is ridiculous. During the 10 minute break between classes, one of my counterpart’s friends came in to tell Aliya (my counterpart) something. Aliya then turned to me and said “Nurjana (the other English teacher I work with) is having cookies in hter room. Let’s go.” Never one to turn down cookies, of course I hopped up and walked upstairs with her. Nurjana’s office was full of women sitting around a table with a very Kyrgyz spread: bread, borsok (fried bread), cookies, candy, juice, vodka, cognac, wine, hunks of sheep meat, and a bone that a woman was stripping clean of any sign of digestible material. The party, I was awkwardly told by Aliya, was because Nurjana’s relative’s son had just been circumcised (the Kyrgyz don’t circumcise boys until they’re up to 7 years old. They claim it’s a Muslim thing, but I’m not so sure.). I sat down and started picking at the cookies. A woman next to me kept trying to pour me vodka (who cares that it was 11 AM and the middle of a school day?), but I held strong with the juice. The woman cleaning the bone then finally looked up and noticed me. She commented on my eyes (so big!) and my eyelashes (so long!). Then she asked me, and I quote (well, translate, then quote), “Are you a keleen (daughter-in-law/slave for the boy’s parents)?” When I said no, she smiled and said “you’re tall and pretty. You should be a keleen. I have a son.” I tried to pass it off as a joke. Someone finally asked if I have a boyfriend. When I said yes, the woman got very excited. The floodgate of questions then opened. Most importantly, they had to make sure he was taller and older than me. To be otherwise would be unacceptable. They then got it in their heads that we should get married in Kyrgyzstan so that they can have a party for us. And now they’re obsessed with that idea. Sigh.

Fall appears to have very quickly come and gone. My walk to the marshrutka (bus/minivan) this morning revealed frost on the ground and ice on the puddles. It was bound to happen sooner or later... Think good thoughts for another warm winter like last year, because my apartment doesn't have any heat and concrete is far from an appropriate building material for this climate...As of this week, Kyrgyzstan appears to be especially terrified of swine flu. I had one 8th grade student wear a surgical face mask to class. I think people have the sniffles because of the cold weather, they think swine flu. I hope I'm right.I recently celebrated Halloween in two very different ways. First, I threw parties in my classes. We played games (bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the black cat, making mummies out of classmates and toilet paper), watched The Simpsons, and ate candy, of course. My students all officially love Halloween.

6th grade boys and their mummy.

6th grade girls and their mummy.

6th graders and Aliya make a mummy.

6a!

Pin the tail on the cat

10b makes a mummy.

10b hanging out during the party

Then, for real Halloween, I went to Osh for the official party (aka the social event of the year for Southern Kyrgyzstan). I went as Wonder Woman (in a fully handmade costume, of course -- my red knee-high boots were made from child's tights cut at the knees and worn over black shoes, with duct tape to keep from sliding everywhere. Creative thought really does matter). My friends included several cross-dressing men, Aloo Tien (Kyrgyz 50 Cent), a pirate, a gangster, a cop, and Aiperi ("Moon Fairy", a popular girls' name, who was actually a boy with a paper dress taped around himself), and others. The party was at a restaurant that is also a "German style" brewery. We danced, socialized, and enjoyed a free red beer and pumpkin pizza.After Halloween was fall break, which was a much-needed rest from school and all. Now we're in the home stretch until Christmas and winter break, where everyone's main concern is simply staying warm...

Fritz, me, and Ginger.Svet jok and svet bar (there is not electricity and there is not electricity. And Wonder Woman, of course.

Ariel, me, and TristanPolice, Wonder Woman, and Aloo Tien

Ryan, Lance, and SarahVampire victim, cosmonaut, and 80's girl

Ryan, Martha, Ariel, and Sarah

The dance floor at the party

In the past few weeks I somehow went from teaching two days a week to being surprisingly busy (for a Peace Corps Volunteer, that is). In addition to the four classes (6a, 6b, 10a, and 10b) I teach with Aliya, my counterpart, I have begun to teach two classes (8g and 11g) with a different teacher at my school and hold girls’ club at my school, and a teacher conversation club and English conversation club at the Uzbek private school in town.

Aliya continues to be an amazing resource for me. I am especially enjoying my 10th form this year. 10th grade, according to the textbooks is “America” year. Before school started, I made it clear that I refuse to use the textbooks at all this year, because they are poorly written and include a lot of incorrect information. Instead, I have been writing a lot of my own texts to use in class and designing presentations and activities that I think properly reflect America. My students really seem to be enjoying it, because using my pictures and my own experience is bound to be more interesting than a textbook written by Russians.

My 6th graders are still super cute. It’s hard to not love classes that will giggle that much when we play Hokey Pokey and Simon Says.

The other teacher I am working with is, to put it nicely, extremely frustrating. She’s an extremely nice person, but she isn’t the most dedicated teacher. After several weeks of her skipping classes, showing up an hour late, and leaving the classroom constantly, I finally decided to confront her. I yelled at her when she arrived an hour late to class and threatened to stop working with her. It seems to have worked. After that class, we sat down together and planned a lesson for our next class, and she was even on time to our class the next day! If I learn anything in this country, it’s how to be assertive. It really works. Who knew?

My girls club started this week. I’m really excited about it. I’m planning to just sit around and hang out with the older girls at my school. Today I showed them pictures of my friends, family, Charleston, and India. Then we spent a while just chatting about my future plans (they’re shocked that I don’t want to have a baby until I’m over 30 or that I only want 2), my family, and celebrities. Next time, I promised we could watch a movie. The girls are all really sweet, so I’m excited to spend more time with them. They’re also really patient with each other. We talked in English the whole time, and a few girls didn’t understand, so their friends would translate for them into Kyrgyz. I was very impressed with their ability and willingness to do that.

I’m also really happy to be working at the Uzbek school again. I did clubs there with Fritz and Martha last year, but I’m on my own this year, which I’m ok with. The teachers are really nice and really eager to improve their teaching and their English, so they’re really encouraging to work with. The kids are also amazing. The group this year is much smaller (there were 10 last week), more selective (the teachers chose their best students) and younger (the older boys were inappropriate at times to Martha and me last year, so the teachers wouldn’t let them in this year). It’s nice to be able to work with only the best students because we can get much more advanced without leaving anyone out.

Other than work, life here is going very well. There have been a few new low points recently, however. Firstly, a few weeks ago the gas for my stove and oven was cut off. I found out later that all of Jalalabad and Osh was cut off because Kyrgyzstan owes Uzbekistan $19 million in unpaid bills. Since there’s probably very little chance of Kyrgyzstan ever paying that back, I’ve resigned myself to working on my sketchy homemade ceramic hotplate. Since there’s no way to adjust the heat, to make rice, I have to stand in front of it and plug it in until it starts to boil, then unplug it until it stops, then plug it in again, and so on until it’s finally cooked. Let’s just say it’s a bit frustrating…

Also, yesterday I was walking home from school in the morning (yeah, I’m done by 9:00 two days a week), and I was walking past the bazaar towards the main street (named Lenin Street, of course) when I smelled something that smelled very … poopy. As I neared the corner of Lenin street, I saw that the sidewalk was literally littered with human feces. Turns out the sewage system backed up. Onto the main street in town. Gross.

Volunteer life continues to be amazing. Last month, Fritz threw a kick-ass 60th birthday party for Ginger. It was possibly the best birthday party I’ve ever been to. There was free food, free beer, and plenty of dancing for 20 volunteers and 15 Kyrgyz guests. Plus it all went off without a single problem, which is impressive for a volunteer party of that size. Otherwise, I’ve had smaller get-togethers. Last week, I attended a dinner party at Martha’s (she made sweet and sour chicken! Amazing!) and hosted a scrabble/dinner party (pesto pasta!) at my place. It felt very … grownup.

Next week, I’m going to Issyk-kul (the lake) for a “life skills, HIV/AIDS” training held by Peace Corps. Martha was planning to attend with a woman she works with outside of her NGO. She accidentally left information about it at her office, and her NGO got mad that she didn’t invite them, so they called Peace Corps to complain. To make a long story short, Peace Corps suggested that Martha find someone else to go with someone from her NGO, and I jumped at the opportunity. I’m excited both about the training and about the opportunity to get out of the daily routine and see other volunteers for a few days.

My health has been surprisingly good (knock on wood…), my cat is still amazing, and the exciting thing coming up is the annual Osh Halloween party.

I hope everyone’s having a great fall so far!

I’ve reached the part of my service where things are becoming “the last…”. While my return to America is far from a light at the end of a tunnel (and I don’t want it to be quite yet), but my time here is feeling more finite now. This week marked my last Kyrgyz Independence Day (August 31) and my last first day of school (September 1).

It’s strange to watch such a young country celebrate its independence. There were signs all around town saying “Kyrgyzstan 18 years”. I’m older than the country I live in! Coming from America, that just feels strange for me… It’s also odd to watch the celebrations coming from the only country that voted to stay in the Soviet Union 18 (19?) years ago. Does that mean that Kyrgyzstan is now the Soviet Union? Sounds impressive. The celebrations are very Kyrgyz… The main street was blocked off near the park in town, and different organizations set up yurts around the park and the square near it. There were families eating and wandering around the whole area, enjoying the festivities and the last day of summer for the children.

The next day was the annual “first bell” ceremony. Students, teachers, and administrators gathered, as we did in the spring for the “last bell”, in a big circle. The 2nd -10th grades were already lined up around the edges of the circle. Then the 11th grade processed in, celebrating the beginning of their last year. They were followed by the 1st grade, celebrating their first first day of school. There were speeches and processing; the 11th grade classes gave the 1st graders presents (notebooks mostly), then an 11th grade boy carried a 1st grade girl on his shoulder while she rang a bell. They were followed by the Kyrgyz flag, and then the 11th form walked the 1st grade to their classrooms. This was followed by a brief period of chaos, and then homeroom meetings. After the ceremony, I was swarmed by some of my favorite girls from last year (now in 10th grade), which reminded me of how much I like them and got me very excited for the new year. They were very excited to hear that I had pushed for the club I promised them last year. One day a week, I will have “girls’ club” for the older girls just to hang out, answer their questions, talk, watch movies. It will be pretty much whatever they want, with no lesson planning or official work from any of us. They’re also very excited to work for the ACCELS (a US program that sends high schoolers to America for a year of high school) test that is in a few weeks. It’s a really selective program, but I hope some of my students at least make it past the first few rounds of elimination.

The next few weeks will be confusing and frustrating, since the schedule isn’t even written yet and no one knows what’s going on. By October, we should be settled better into a routine that we may even stick to for a month or so. Like much of working in Kyrgyzstan, this month will benefit from the mantra we’ve developed: “embrace the chaos”.

Otherwise, things have been going as usual. I finished three seasons of Alf, made myself a dress (completely sewn by hand!), read three books, and did god knows what else to make it through the doldrums of summer with my sanity intact. I’m definitely excited to have school starting and order in my life again.

So Mom may be the only one to understand just how glorious this is, but I can now take a (brief) hot shower and refrigerate my food at the same time! Double outlets are pretty impressive.

Happy Independence Day, Kyrgyzstan!

Yeah, that's a McDonald's umbrella. It appears to be Chinese or something. The people under it will take your picture, but have no McDonald's to offer.

The best way to show your Kyrgyz pride? Tie an American flag bandana around your kid's head.

Yurts set up along the street to celebrate...

Boys playing a favorite game involving the throwing of sheep's knees. Fights usually break out pretty fast. The police were there to watch.

Another celebratory yurt

The fountain in the middle of the city. If you look closely, you'll see naked or nude colored underwear-clad boys swimming and sunning themselves. The top of the flag pole at my school's first bell ceremony is the soviet hammer, sickle, and star. It's obviously more than 18 years old. I don't think anyone else notices how funny these things are.

So, summer has finally hit, leaving me with an empty calendar and hot weather. I've been keeping myself somewhat busy reading, watching tv shows, and wandering the city. I spent one week up in the mountains at a summer camp for 9th and 10th grade girls, which was really fun. I taught a session on self-esteem and self-reflection, and two hours of dance class every day, which was great. The girls were really into the dance especially. These camps make me realize how fun my classes used to be... I'll try to get some pictures from people and put them up eventually.

The real big news I have is that I've officially decided not to go home this winter, as I was previously planning to do (sorry, Finnans). Instead, I'm going to Almaty, Kazakhstan to take the GRE (woo hoo?) and celebrate New Years in what is supposedly a real "city" city in Central Asia. I'm a little skeptical, but I'm excited to see Almaty. So, if you want to see me, your two options are A: come to Kyrgyzstan, or B: wait until next August.

So I just passed the first big anniversary this week. July 7 marked my "one year in Kyrgyzstan" point. It´s crazy to think that it was only a year ago that I got off the plane in Bishkek and started this whole adventure. It´s also strange to think that it´s been a whole year -- time has been so strange that I can´t believe it either way. To celebrate this momentous occasion, I am in Spain. I´ve been here for about a week and a half, visiting with Aubrey, relaxing, and basking in the comfort of the first-world. This will be a nice break for me, getting me ready to start this second year. Everyone says that the second year flies by, so I´m sure before I know it, I´ll be back in America, with the lovely task of starting the next stage...

Spain has been amazing so far -- I´ve spent most of my time in Logroño, the capitol of the La Rioja region near the France border. It´s also the capitol of wine country, so I have been taking full advantage of that, the food, and the coffee. We´ve been hanging out with Aubrey´s friends, both Spanish and American, and having a great time. Aubrey works every morning, so I´ve spent a lot of time wandering on my own, which is fun. We had a party for the 4th at her friend Ben´s apartment, where we made sloppy joes and drank Budweiser. It doesn´t get much more American than that... She also took me to the town she lived in last year and a small town that is all about wine production. There are caves under the entire city to hold wine and we went on a tour of one of them.

We´re heading to Bilbao on Saturday, and I´m leaving for Kyrgyzstan on Sunday...

Otherwise the summer has been going great. The big visit from Mom and Dad went really well. They were troopers through my whole whirlwind tour of the country and even claim to have enjoyed themselves! It was great being able to see them and help them get closer to understanding what I´m doing now.

The rest of the summer will be more relaxing. Right after I get back from Spain, I´m working at a summer camp for 9th and 10th grade girls, then it´s back home for the month of August, which I plan on spending sweating and working on a grant with my counterpart.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Wish me luck on the next year...

Yesterday was the last bell ceremony, the official end of school/graduation for the 11th form. For the schools that had several months off this winter, it wasn’t really the real end of the year. They all had the ceremony yesterday, but they have up to a month of school left. As for my school., they have exams through the first week of June, but I’m done, since I have nothing to do with the national exams. The ceremony itself was really fun. I had a seat with the honored guests at the front, so that I could take pictures and see everything that was going on. The whole thing happened in a lot right next to my school, with the students standing in their classes all around the edge and the teachers/adults at the front.

In Kyrgyz schools, each class (11th form has 11 A, 11 B, 11 V, and 11 G at my school – they’ve been in the same class since 5th form and have every class every year together) has a “class jetekji” – a homeroom teacher/advisor. They clean their class jetekji’s room every day, and the teacher advises them, yells at them, talks to parents, and serves as their parent/teacher/friend. After years together, the students and the teacher are very close. My counterpart was the class jetekji for 11 B this year. Since they spent so much time in our classroom, I’d gotten to know the girls pretty well.

The girls in 11 A all wore the same dress. The girl looking at me was my host sister when I got to the city.

This is what kids usually wear to school. The uniform throughout Kyrgyzstan is black pants/skirt and white shirt. Different classes have different colors of neckerchief. They don’t usually wear those. I haven’t quite figured out what they mean.

This is the first grade. They recently started wearing that plaid uniform. I don’t know if this is an elementary thing or a new thing. It’s pretty cute, though.

Some of my 9th form students marching with the Kyrgyz flag. The girls marching behind the flag are two of my favorites.

Each 1st grade and 11th grade class put on a little performance. These 1st graders sang a little song. It was adorable and Russian.

These two did a really Kyrgyz dance. They were actually impressively good.

11 G did a Kyrgyz dance too. The dresses were impressive.

At one point, all of the 11th form came into the center and played with bubbles, balloons, balls, and jump ropes. Rediscovering their childhood?

All of the class jetekjis for the 11th form gave speeches about their class. This is my counterpart telling her class that they’re great, and wishing them health, wealth, and happiness.

The students hugged their teachers and gave ridiculous amounts of flowers. I was given three bouquets.

As in the first bell ceremony, the official beginning of school on September 1, an older boy carries a first form girl around the circle as she rings a bell. It’s pretty cute.

So, now that that’s over, it’s officially officially summer for me now! I’m still going to work with my counterpart on a grant we’re trying to write and I’m helping her with planning for a teacher training summer camp that she and Ginger have been working on. Otherwise, I don’t have much of a chance to get bored anytime soon, since Mom’s going to be in Bishkek two weeks from today (!) and then I’m busy between Mom, Dad, and Spain (!!) until mid-July. I’m excited, to say the least.

Also, last week, the new volunteers came to visit. We’re getting two in the city and eight others in the oblast. We got a really awesome group of people, so I’m very excited about the next year we all get to spend together. With so many new volunteers and the overlap of the new ones and the K15s who won’t leave until August/September, it’s going to be a really full house here all summer. Also, my kitten keeps proving herself as the best $2.50 ever.

Big news, everyone! Yesterday I bought a kitten! She is the best 100 som ($2.50) I've ever spent! She's three weeks old and beyond adorable. I'm still working on names, but right now I'm thinking "Peri", which means fairy in Kyrgyz (it comes from Persian folktales -- "Peris are descended from fallen angels who have been denied paradise until they have done penance. In earlier sources they are described as agents of evil; later, they are benevolent. They are exquisite, winged, fairy-like creatures ranking between angels and evil spirits. They sometimes visit the realm of mortals" -- thanks wikipedia).

In other, non-cat-related news, we have the new set of volunteers coming for a visit this week! They get here tomorrow. We're all very excited to meet our new best friends. Also, it's the last week of school here, so summer is upon us! I'm excited for school to be out and my summer adventures to begin.

So, the year is definitely winding down, as the temperatures go up... I'm not quite sure how many more weeks of school I have left (my counterpart also doesn't know...), but it could be between two and four. I'm betting on two, but don't hold me to that. As the days have become increasingly gorgeous, I've been finally motivating myself to spend more and more time outside. My school is pretty much in the opposite corner of the city from my apartment, so I always assumed it would take hours to walk to school. Then, one day a few weeks ago, I decided to experiment. It turns out it only takes about 30 minutes to walk from the center, and about 45 from my apartment. I have started walking to and from school as much as possible, which I'm really enjoying. I walk down some railroad tracks most of the way, so I don't have to worry about traffic or even many people, except for the occasional train, which is more exciting than anything else. It's a great way to take up some of that free time I talk about so much, save some money (12 som a day for marshrutkas! That's... 30 cents...), and get to actually move a little. I've also been going for more walks in the hills behind my apartment, which is really relaxing. I love how quickly I can get out of the city and into what feels like the middle of nowhere. Once I turn off onto the dirt road that leads up the hills, the only people I ever see are the shepards and plenty of sheep. When I went up this week, however, I came across a freshly dug coffin-sized hole in the middle of the field, which is a little disconcerting...

This week was full of Kyrgyz holidays, so I haven't had much school recently. On Tuesday, Ginger's counterpart, who I've met a few times before, invited me and Fritz and Ginger to her apartment (in a "microrayon" (a city within a city) called Spudnik) to go "guesting". It was such a pleasant experience! We met her young kids and her husband, who was really nice. She made a full spread of Kyrgyz food and salads which was really delicious. I also had my first (and probably last) sip of komus (fermented mare's milk). Gulbara's husband poured us each a large bowl full of the carbonated milky liquid with brown chunks floating in it out of a dirctly recycled soda bottle. The three of us looked at eachother, and decided that there was no time like the present, so we all took a sip at the same time. The taste was ... unusual. It's much smokier than I anicipated. It tasted a lot like hickory, as Fritz pointed out. As we all sat there, we metally checked on our throats, hoping we wouldn't have a horrible allergic reaction (some people are deathly allergic to horse products, which you don't quite figure out until you comet to Krygyzstan...), but luckily none came. Fritz drank a few more sips to be polite, but I couldn't force more than that first one down without gagging, so I left it. Besides the komus, we had a great time and even walked away from the day with presents and food in hand!

And in exciting news, last night a bunch of us went to Sarah's apartment to celebrate her birthday (by eating tacos!). While we were sitting around before dinner, Ginger suddenly screamed something. We looked down and saw that she had just been stung by a scorpion! Her foot got really swollen and red and obviously hurt a lot, but the doctors said she should be fine in a few days. She and Fritz are heading to Bishkek today, and then they're flying home to America (this trip was already planned) for their son's graduation.

Good luck with the end of the semester, to those of whom are affected by it. I'm off to walk to work!

So this month has been going by so fast! I feel like I’ve really settled into a rhythm here, which feels really good. School has been pretty uneventful. We’re really in the final stretch of the year by now. I only have three more full weeks of school, because May is so full of holidays. The last day of school is May 25, but with all of the holidays, we’re so close to being done. All of you still in school – you may not believe when people say that the teachers are as excited, if not more, for breaks, but it’s so true. I like my school and my kids and all, but I am very excited for summer break to start.

Last weekend was Orthodox Christian Easter. Susan, another volunteer here, is Orthodox, so she goes to church a lot. Saturday night, Anthony and I went to church with her. The service was supposed to start at 11 PM. It ended up starting around 11:30, and ending at 3:30 AM. The service itself was very different from any Christian service I’d been to before. There were two people standing behind a divider who chanted pretty much the whole time, plus a priest who also chanted. The congregation was pretty uninvolved, except for constantly crossing themselves. Early in the service, we all lit candles and walked outside around the church, then came back in. There are no seats in the church, so we all had to stand in a small, hot room full of incense the whole time. About half-way through, I started feeling really lightheaded, so I went outside to get some fresh air and to sit down. I then ended up making all sorts of friends. It was weird to be surrounded by so many Russians, since we don’t have that many here and they’re usually far outnumbered by the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. Since I don’t speak much Russian, it was interesting to try to talk to these guys. In the couple hours I spent outside, I had three guys tell me they love me. Two of them were standing with me at the same time and have set up a duel (like Puskin, the famous Russian writer), complete with pistols and all. Near the end of the service, two guys came up to me, one was in his mid-twenties, and one in his teens. The older one (Mischa) spoke some English, and the younger one (his brother) spoke Kyrgyz. So we had an interesting conversation, where Mischa would say stuff in English, and if he didn’t know something in English, he would say it in Russian to his brother, who would then say it in Kyrgyz to me. We did pretty well with this operation. Early on, they were asking me what I did here, and where I work. When I told them what school I teach at, Mischa looked at me and said “I teach there too!”. Turns out, he’s the “informatika” (computer, kind of) teacher. He was also taught by my counterpart and her former volunteer. He’s a really nice guy, and it’s nice to meet someone closer to my age. I may meet with him about once a week to help him with his English.

Otherwise, some of the most exciting things in my life recently have been food-related (isn’t that always true)? Two weeks ago, I found a flyer in my door handle advertising (in Russian) a new pizza delivery place. I’ve now ordered from them twice, and am very impressed. The first time, we got this: (yeah, I was so excited I had to take a picture).

We ordered “ground beef” pizza, and we got ground beef, olives, and pickles (actually a surprisingly pleasant addition to pizza. I’m a fan of it now!). The flyer advertized that it would be at my apartment in “29 minutes and 59 seconds”. It showed up around 32 minutes after we called, but I’m still very impressed.

I also found ice cream cake this week. We got one on Sunday for Susan for Easter (she had given up meat and dairy for Lent) and two pizzas (for 7 of us, not just the three). It was amazing. It felt like a real American birthday party.

I like that I’m finding the comforts that make life just that much more pleasant, plus becoming happier with whatever I can get here. It’s nice to have a life that seems to make more sense here now that I have such a rhythm I’m living through.

As for this summer, I have finally settled on a trip to take (the third try at a plan). In mid August, I’m heading to India to go to Mumbai and to lie on a beach with a bunch of hippie tourists in Goa. I’m very excited to be going back, and to see the ocean again.

Also, since I talk so much about how much I love my 5th form kids, here are some pictures of my 5 “A” class that I took last week. These are four of my best students

Who knew Kyrgyzstan would make me like boys? These little boys are amazing. The one on the right is a good student too.

These girls are cuties too

Some of the ... quieter students.

After I took these pictures, the kids started talking (in Russian) about why I was taking pictures of them. One of them guessed that maybe I was leaving, and another said "no! She's staying for three more years with us!". I don't want to break his heart with the truth, but they'll be surprised to see me this week

And now to add to the “things I will never hope to understand” / “reasons I’m sure this is all just an extremely elaborate episode of ‘Punkd’ (if Ashton Kutcher were to jump out of the bushes one day, I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest)”: Yesterday, I had a few hours between classes, so I went to the closest café to get a pot of tea and read for a while. As I was sitting there, an old woman came in, sat down, and started doing something with her socks. A woman who works at the café went over and was talking to her. They both stood up and walked to a very specific place in the café (which happened to be about two feet away from me). The younger woman squatted down, and the older one muttered something (I’m assuming some sort of prayer), and they both “omeened” their hands (holding them in front of them like a book, then rubbing them over their faces – it’s done at the end of every meal and often during religious ceremonies). The older woman then took her right shoe off and pressed her foot forcefully into the younger woman’s neck. The younger woman grunted. They repeated that again. Then, the older woman put her shoe back on, turned to the younger woman, and wacked her on the back a few times. The younger woman then stood up and went to work in the back. The older woman washed her hands at the sink and left the café.

Another oddity, and one that I understand even less, has to do with my landlady. She’s Russian, and Christian, which is why I’m so surprised by it, because there’s less of an excuse to not understand. The last two times I have gone to her apartment to pay her for the month ($75 for rent and $5 for water, trash, electricity, and gas – hard to beat), there have been men at her door. They ring the bell, and she opens the door, spears a few pieces of food (the first time it was apple, last time it was bread) on a fork, and feeds it to them. She then gives them a few sips of water, and they give her some money. They then turn to leave, and she closes the door and turns to me like nothing happened. Needless to say, I’m very confused, but my Russian is definitely not strong enough to ask (the closest I can think is “what apple water man”. I don’t think I would understand her response even if she did understand me).

My landlady and I do have an interesting relationship, though. Since we really can’t talk to each other, we’ve bonded over the few words of Russian I know and the few of Kyrgyz she knows. Other than that, it’s a lot of pantomiming (this month, she was asking if there was any leaking like there used to be. That meant she said “vada (water)” and pointed to the ceiling, and made rain-like hand motions. I understood, and answered in Russian, she gave me a pat on the back and a cookie. I like the way this is going.

Last week was spring break for me, which was nice. I pretty much just relaxed around here, besides one small trip down to Uzgen, a town about an hour south of me, to see the silk road ruins and the pretty bazaar and have lunch with the only other volunteer in the area on spring break. It was nice to have time to relax here, though. School started again this Wednesday, and we’re now on the “summer schedule”, meaning we start at 7:30. That means that two days a week, I have to get up at 6:00 in order to eat some breakfast and get to school on time. It’s a bit rough, but at least it’s only two days of the week… I agreed, along with Fritz and Martha, to do a club for Ginger’s counterpart who teaches at the Uzbek university’s lyceum (grades 1-11) on Wednesdays. It should be a lot of fun – they picked the best students from 6th-9th grades (with one university student and a few teachers as well), and asked us to talk about American culture. I’m excited, because the kids are super cute, and you’ve probably all noticed that I have a great love of Uzbeks, so the room full of adorable Uzbek children is very exciting for me.

School’s gone well this week too. Just to give you a taste of what we do, here’s yesterday’s 5th form lesson:

We started by singing “the ants go marching”, which they loved. This country is turning me into someone who actually sings in front of people. We then went over the vocabulary they didn’t know from the song, and quizzed them on it via miming. Then we taught them “need” “want” “need to” and “want to”. We asked them each what they wanted, needed, wanted to do, and needed to do, to get them to practice. The week before spring break, we’d given them a story to read and translate, so I then read it to them, and they followed along on their sheets. We then asked them comprehension questions about the story. For homework, we told them to write about what their family does in the evenings (related to the story we read).

So that’s a pretty typical class for me, for the 5th form, that is. They’re a lot of fun to play with because they’re all so cute and excited about everything. As long as I never get upset that they never do their homework, they’re amazing…

This weekend, I’m going to my old village on Saturday to watch my family make sumolok (a Nooruz tradition, it’s a wheaty thing they boil down for hours – I’ll write more after this weekend). Then Saturday night is the big birthday party, finally. I’m sure I’ll have more to report later.

Happy spring to everyone!

So, the past few weeks have been full of drama. I had a normal, full week of classes and everything, but it was all done in a sort of daze, since I kept being constantly updated about drama going on within Peace Corps. Though it doesn't directly effect me, it has effected some of my good friends and my confidence in my position and security here has taken a huge hit. I can't say what happened (security measures...), but needless to say, four (five actually, but one is from an unrelated incident) volunteers are leaving on Friday to go back home, because they're getting kicked out of Peace Corps. The frustrating part for me is the futility of the whole thing -- three of the four getting sent home were not at all in the wrong for anything that happened. One of them was my good friend and Oblast-mate, so it's going to be hard with him gone. He came into town yesterday to say his final goodbyes, and we saw him off this morning. The political situation here is on shaky ground, and we're all just hoping that the political problems don't mean more problems for us and our service here.

In better news, I'm on spring break here, and getting excited for a joint 3 person birthday party (Mexican dinner/"NOW... That's What I Call Music"/Enrique themed...) this weekend. So, I'm pretty much floating at the moment, but hopefully this will pass and everything should be more secure soon.

So, we've invented a word that often summerizes our lives here. The word is CAWA (pronounced kah wah). It stands for "central asia wins again". It's part of the "embrace the chaos" theory that is the only way to survive and thrive in this country sometimes.

This week is PDM (project design and managment), a PC training in Bishkek. It's the last time our whole group will be together until COS (close of service) conference in May 2010. Or, that is, it's supposed to be a group thing. Yesterday was the travel day to get to Bishkek, so Sarah, Ariel and I left Sarah's house at 7 AM to drive to Bishkek. The Jalalabad airport only flys on Wednesday and Sunday, so to fly, we would have had to drive to Osh and take a flight from there. In all, it would have taken longer and cost a lot more to fly than it would have to drive, and the drive is beautiful. It's supposed to be a great way to see the mountains. Sarah did the drive to and back within the last month, and said it was great.

We had driven over half-way there, admiring the mountains, the gorgeous teal water of the Naryn river, and just the spectacular scenery, when we stopped at a random stop thingy about 150 kilometers from Bishkek. We sat there for about an hour, when our driver finally told us that there had been an avalanche (in which seven people had died) so we wouldn't be able to get through for 3-5 days. We talked with the police there, some Peace Corps people, and the driver, until we finally decided that our only option was to turn around and drive all the way to Osh. We were speeding down the windy mountian roads, coming in and out of cell phone reception, obviously, trying to organize our flight. Bryan, another volunteer, was in Osh trying to find flights for all of us (there were 8 volunteers and 5 counterparts all driving at the same time). Somehow, all of the flights were full until Thursday, so we finally realized that we are literally stuck in the South. After finishing rewatching the fourth season of LOST, I have strong theories that we're not meant to leave the South. There are strong forces at work here.

So now, I'm back in Jalalabad, about to head to Osh. On Thursday, the people who are wardens are flying out for warden training, and I'll head back home. We're not sure what's really going to happen, but PC claims they're going to probably have a mini PDM down here for the 8 of us and our counterparts to take part in since we need the training.

Now we have an unexpectedly free week, so we're going to discuss grants and projects in Osh, in an attempt to put on our own PDM without Peace Corps's help. CAWA is all I can say. Just CAWA.

So I'm getting comfortable in my apartment now. Decorations-wise, it's still a work in progress (Martha stole the only hammer we own, so I'm at a standstill now), but here are preliminary pictures, to give you a little idea how I'm living now.

so, again, I have a lot of free time. Here's the layout of my apartment

The stairway leading to my apartment. Kind of scary and dark at night. Thanks for the flashlight keychain, Mom. You've saved my ankles.

The view from the front door, into the bedroom

The living room (I have big plans for this room's decor)

Books and stuff

So, in moving my couch, other volunteers found that it could be split into two parts. So now the couch top sits on the floor, and the legs are propped up on their side, covered in fabric, and splitting the otherwise oppressively large room into two. This section is the "Turkish lounge".

These are the couch legs. Lovely, right?

Ugly, uncomfortable chairs and two greats of Russian literature. This is the unused half of the living room.

The "sun porch". I'm very excited for spring out here.

Lots of windows

The view from the sun porch

My dumpster is over there, and more apartments

The kitchen

View into the kitchen from the hall.

Pots, pans, dishes...

The stove (it works surprisingly well)

My bedroom. You can't see it,but when my sleeping bag (thanks Mom!) is spread out, I think it looks like a flying squirrel

My bedroom wall

My closet/dresser. Plus, my bedroom doubles as the Jalalabad library.

Books. Lots of them.

THe view from my bedroom balcony.

My window box. I may try to actually do something with this.

The view

The toilet room. Admittingly, not the loveliest part. Don't mind the things growing around the pipes.

The shower. It's been over a week since I last had poop coming out of the drain, so that's a big improvement. It also explains the bucket in the tub.

The shower room

Also, I got the fence project from my old village finalized.

The much-hated fence

Oh, and I went to Osh last weekend. We climbed Sulayman mountain again.

Prayer flags tied to the trees

Here are the promised camp pictures!

Ready to go on the first day! No giant footlockers full of stuff for Kyrgyz children. Five days (including sheets and slippers) in one plastic bag. Americans can learn a little something about packing lightly from them.

The whole camp, with volunteers and helpers!

The awesome ladies who ran the sanatorium where camp was.

If Peace Corps has taught us nothing, it's innovation. An empty pool became a volleyball court and a broken chair, sticks, and packing tape became a basketball hoop...

Team-building and problem solving were fun sessions...

Me, Martha, and a curious kid coloring in certificates.

Dance class was a hit!

More dancing

The boys loved watching Step Up 2: The Streets.

Girls working on a poster

Boys working on a poster

More team building

Me and a helper (Begimai) teaching a self-esteem lesson

Cross dressing and dancing were popular at the talent show

"girls" performing at the talent show

Just being girls... Cross dressing is a popular joke here in Kyrgyzstan.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks!

First, last week was the Bazarkorgon winter camp. Than meant five days of overnight camp with 38 7th and 8th form (12-14 year-old) kids. We had so much fun and everything went amazingly well the whole time. The kids were adorble and relatively well-behaved. The worst incident (and this goes to show just how good they were) showed just how much American movies are corrpting the world. By that, I probably mean the Lindsay Lohan "Parent Trap". On the first day, some boys asked us if they could put toothpaste on the girls' faces while they were sleeping. We obviously said no. Two days later, we were woken up at 4 AM to the sould of running and laughing (boys) and screaming and crying (girls). It seems the boys had ignored our rule and snuck into the girls' room, toothpaste in hand, ready to wage war. We were not pleased, mostly because it was 4 AM and our rooms had only three walls and a curtain, so the children were unavoidable. When we threatened to take away their talent show, tey all straightened up and behaved for the rest of the week. The camp iself was a "Life Skills" camp (that's how we got the funding -- obviously the most important part). All day, we had three hour-long sessions. I taught one on self-esteem and one on community service/volunteerism. One of the best things about our camp was the group of nine 11th form and university students who were our "helpers". They all had good English, so they served as our translators, counsillers, and friends throughout. Because of their help, we were able to talk about much more complicated topics than our Kyrgyz would otherwise allow. After the sessions, we had activity time for two hours. The activities included English club, sports, movie, arts and crafts, and (most importantly!) dance. I had choreographed a simple dance to NSYNC's "Here We Go" thinking that teaching it would last me the three days of activities. In the first hour-long class, the girls had learned the whole thing! I also had a really sweet helper ith me the whole time (who is an awesome belly dancer -- really popular here) and other visitors because dance is obviously the most fun... My helper, Ika, taught a swing dance and I choreographed another dance on the spot to fill up the rest of the time. The girls (and even a few boys, after Joni's session on gender stereotypes) were so cute and excited to dance with me. They performed all three dances at the talent show, and looked fantastic. It made me realize how much I missed dancing. I've already arranged a dance club at my school to start next week!

Overall, camp was a huge success. The kids had a great time. On the last day, we got trapped by all 38 of them crowding around us volunteers and begging for "autographs" in their notebooks. My hand was cramping by the end. We're already gearing up for summer camp in July in Arslenbob (only the world's largest walnut forest...)

While we were at camp, other news was breaking. Frst, we heard that the US Airbase (Manas) in Bishkek was probably closing. While this doesn't directly affect us, it's putting us on our toes a little. None of us really want to be kicked out of the country quite yet...

Also while we were at camp, there was intra-peace corps drama. Because of it, an apartment in Jalalabad opened up, so I now have my very own apartment! I got it approved on Tuesday morning and moved in on Tuesday afternoon. Now I'm working on unpacking, getting settled in, and decorating. It's really great to have my own place finally and to be able to settle down for a whild. My last year has involved moving in May, July, Septemer, December, and now February. It is fitting that I would become a nomad in Kyrgyzstan, but that doesn't mean that I like it. I feel like much more of a grown-up now waking up in my own apartment, commuting to work, coming home, making dinner, amusing myself.. All this time with host families has made me realize just how much I value my independence, control over my own life, and time to myself. I feel like I'm finally settling into what I'm supposed to be doing here (right after the 7 month in country mark...) between my apartment and being at school full-time. Now I see what the next year and a half (almost exactly) should look like.

I'm in the middle of my first real week of school now. It's been going really well -- my conterpart is amazing and my students are great. As I write this, I'm sitting on a bench outside (it's still a bit cold, but pleasant with a coat on) between classes. A policeman who guards the school (?) is pacing in front of me asking various questions and commenting on how much I am writing (so much! bad for my eyes...) while adorable little children run by. It's nice having breaks between classes every day, even though I was told no one can go down the hall where the teachers' room is. I have no idea why, but that explains my presense on the bench.

Otherwise, most of the volunteers who went home or to other places for vacations this winter have returned, though Sarah just left for Gong Kong (Kyrgyz people replace "H" with "G"-- Garry Potter, Gamburgers, Gitler, Holly -- you may be "Golly" here.), so it's nice to have most of the family back together again. We're headed to Bishkek again in less than month for PDM (Project Design and Managment) training -- the last group get-together until COS conference next summer! Straight after that,my friend Nick (who lives in Karakol -- the complete other side of the country) is coming to visit. I'm very excited, because I love sharing my homes with people I'm close to and this city is so hard to understand if you haven't seen it. (The cop just asked if I'm sad -- I guess that's the only way to justify writing this much. I showed him a picture of my family I had in my notebook and he pointed at me,gave a thumbs up, and said (in English) 'I love you'. Now he's intently watching me write. Good thing he has no idea what I"m writing...)

And to close this with a story: On Tuesday, to move all of my stuff from my house to my apartment, I flagged down a car (a Tico -- a tiny Uzbek car that's all over the South-- kind of the Kyrgyz equivalent of a rickshaw) and explained in Kyrgyz what I needed. The driver said ok and drove me to my house. We started to load everything in the car, but he insisted on doing it in two trips. I didn't feel like fighting much, so I got in the car and we started driving all the way across town. About half-way through the first trip, I finall convinced him that I'm American (as opposed to Uzbek or Turkish -- his first guesses. I take that as a compliment on my Kyrgyz) and continued to beg me to go to a restaurant with him. I spent the ride telling him I wasn't hungry, I have a boyfriend (big, scary, and protective, of course), and that I don't want any friends. I even gave him a fake number to get him to stop begging for it. We got to the apartment, unloaded everything, and started back to my house. This trip was an English lesson. He pulled out a notebook and made me write various English words (spelled out in the cyrillic alphabet). He asked me if I knew how to drive. When I said yes, he stopped the car in the middle of the street and told me to drive. I refused, for obvious reasons, but he kept insisting. He finally took off again, but kept asking me to shift for him. I did no. Once we had unloaded everything from the car, I handed him the money we had agreed on in the beginning. He refused to take it, shook my hand, and walked away. I guess that was payment for my excellent English lesson...

I will probably post some pictures from camp in the next few days, so stay tuned!

Now that life here is almost feeling normal, I'm starting to think more in terms of topic for these updates. This week's topic is gendered space/activity. Can you tell I miss being in school sometimes? Anyways, in the past week, I have seen both men and women's space firsthand. As for the men: I'd heard about these places but, as a woman, I thought I would possibly go through these two years without ever really seeing one. Last weekend, we had a bunch of people in town for the teacher training (more on this later), and just for fun. Some of the boys decided we should go for "man ash" at an ashkana (ash being rice and carrots and meat, an ashkana being a place that serves that). The restaurant itself was a bit of a hike from Martha' apartment, and is right next to the largest mosque in Jalalabad. Another thing about this ashkana (which Tristan claims serves the best ash in the city) is that you have to order in advance. Some of the boys had gone to order 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds) of ash. That's a lot of food! They had also gone ahead of us to get a room in the restaurant. When we finally got there, as a group of mostly girls, we walked into a huge room. There were a few raised platforms covered in men lounging and smoking, drinking (tea and vodka), playing cards, and eating. There were also curtained-off platform/tables full of men. When we walked in, they all instantly stopped and stared at us. Not only were we the only women besides the waitresses, but we're also Americans. We're really weird. It was fascinating to see this place, because it's something so foreign to my life here. It seemed more like Dad's experience in Iran than my own experience so far. Luckily, we were in a whole seperate room with doors and walls, so once we were in our room, we were away from the stares. We also managed to devour 5 of the 6 plates of ash and an entire chocolate cake Martha had made. It turned out to be a really great night, for the reasons of the food, the experience,and the company.

As a complete opposite, I also saw the closest thing women have to that in this society (though it is in no way the same). The boy volunteers here have a tradition they call "manya", which is when a bunch of them go together to a fancy male-only banya in the city. In retaliation, us girls started the "vaganya". I went to my first vaganya on Wednsday in Bazarkorgon (the area I used to live in -- I was there for camp training with Sarah and Joni and others). We went to the public banya and spent about an hour washing and enjoying the heat. Most of the Kyrgyz women were completely naked, which I've heard is unusual, but were enjoying themselves. The girls who went in together helped each other wash and brush their hair and everything. It was nice to see a group of only women relaxing and lounging, almost like the men in the ashkana.

Otherwise, this week, the big new was the teacher training workshop we had last weekend. Of the 50 teahcers we invited, 47 showed up, which is a really great turnout. The sessions (teachig reading, teaching writing, and teaching listening and speaking)went really well, and the teachers seemed very into it and interested in what the presenters had to say. Overall, a huge success!

Next week is the Bazarkorgon winter camp. I'm leaving on Sunday to spend 5 days there with 40 7th and 8th graders. The focus of the camp is "life skills", so I'm teaching a session on self-esteem and one on community service/volunteerism. I'm also teaching two hours of dance every night. I already choreographed an awesome dance to NSYNC "Here we go" for my students to perform at the talent show on the last night. It should be a lot of fun. We also have 6 older kids (11th form or university students) who are going to be the councilers, and they'll be helping with the teaching and activities and everything. It should be pretty intense (especially since I'm coming down with a pretty nasty cold right now), but it should be a lot of fun.

I'll be pretty out of touch from Sunday until Friday, so don't be surprised when I don't respond you any messages.

Happy almost February!

I just passed a big milestone in my service. IST (in-service training) has been that far-off thing to look forward to since PST (pre-service training). Now that it’s over, I feel like I’ve accomplished something and that I’ve actually made a dent in my time here. The end of IST also came with the ¼ of my service mark. Less than 20 months until COS (close of service. Peace Corps (PC) uses a lot of abbreviations. I’m losing the ability to speak in full words…). It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day stuff and sometimes life here feels like I’m never leaving here (which is either positive or negative, depending on the time and place), but every once in a while, the little things hit me and remind me that this is a very temporary thing that I’m doing.

There are several big things to say. First, last Saturday (Jan 10th), a bunch of us were hanging out in the city, watching a movie, when Ariel’s phone rang. All I heard was “Hey Fritz! Oh god, we’ll be right there”. She then said “guys, Fritz thinks Ginger just had a stroke” and we all jumped up, got our coats and shoes on, and ran out the door. It turned out Ginger had been in the banya (sauna) and had gotten heatstroke and was severely dehydrated. When she passed out, she hurt her ankle, scraped her knee, and banged her head on the door frame. Luckily for all of us, Ariel is a licensed EMT, so she knew exactly what to do. She got her hydrated, bandaged up, and we left to let her rest. The next day we all flew to Bishkek for IST. While there, Ginger got an MRI that showed that her foot was broken, so she and Fritz are being medevaced (medical evacuation… I warned you) to DC for her to have surgery. They’ll be gone for probably about a month, for the surgery and PT. I’m really going to miss having them around – this city is going to be lonely with just me and Martha.

Also, my program manager may have found an apartment for me to live in soon! She knows someone (a former PC employee) who owns an apartment in the center of the city that should be free soon, and Maria wants me to have it, which would be amazing!

The big news is IST itself. I flew out last Sunday (January 11) and just got home this Sunday (January 18). The first two days of the conference were with our counterparts , so we talked about team-teaching and the importance of working together and stuff. The other three days were language, culture, and technical (teaching) training. It was pretty intense (going from 8:00- 5 or 6:00 every day), but a lot of fun. It was especially great to see all of the other volunteers who I hadn’t seen since September. We all hung out every night until late and talked between sessions and during meals. Jalalabad won so many people over as the best oblast to live in (because it is…). We even won (with a little scandal worked in) a traditional oblast competition (thanks in part to me!). It was funny how much we still clung to each other, despite the fact that everyone else was around and we see each other all the time. That’s testament to how much we actually like each other. We formed our own dance parties most nights, rocking side ponytails that we became known and loved for. Besides training and partying, I also had a chance to have amazing (for being in Kyrgyzstan for so long) food. Most notably: bacon cheeseburger and nachos one night, Chinese food (eaten with my hands out of plastic bags on Lorenzo’s bed, but still amazing), pepperoni pizza, falafel and hummus, and amazing cheese. No one can really understand how amazing that is, but it’s the highlight of my month…

We also found a little piece of America in Bishkek – we somehow stumbled upon a ridiculously nice mall in the middle of Bishkek that had United Colors of Benetton, Levis, Columbia Sportswear, and other really really nice stores (that I couldn’t afford a single thing from…). The highlight, however, was the grocery store with an amazing cheese selection and anything else I could ever want. It’s amazing how comforting those little pieces of home can be after over six months away. And how much I miss good cheese…

Otherwise, the new semester starts tomorrow, and my first time actually working with my counterpart. She and Ginger had been working on a big teacher training seminar that’s this week, but it didn’t get the funding they were expecting, and then Ginger had to go to the US, so it’s been dropped down to a one-day thing and Lorenzo (a K15 from Karakol who’s visiting for the week for the training and to visit us in the best oblast ever) and I have taken over with Aliya (my counterpart). We worked for a while on Monday to get it straightened out, and have some more to get done in the next few days. The training is on Friday, but it should run smoothly. On Saturday, my counterpart is having minor surgery (on her foot too – we’re not doing well here in with feet), but after she’s recovered from that, we should be able to focus on classes and other related projects.

One of my favorite parts of IST was the Uzbek language classes we had with an Uzbek woman who teaches Russian during training. We (people from the South – Osh and Jalalabad) had confronted the staff that we thought more attention should be paid to Uzbeks during trainings, especially for people going to the South, so they gave us classes with Malika, the tutor. She was an amazing teacher, and it was really great to have the differences I’ve been hearing and trying to figure out for so long explained in an organized way. One of the best parts about her was also her explanation of some Uzbek cultural things and especially about the war in Uzgen (northern Osh – 30 or 40 minutes from here) in 1990. There was a war between Kyrgyz people and Uzbek people that’s left the area still highly segregated (there are 3 volunteers in the village where the Kyrgyz people fled, leaving the city of Uzgen mostly Uzbek). I knew the war had happened, but I had no idea how bad it was, and her description was really depressing but amazing to hear. I’m going to try to do something here about the relationship between the two cultures, but I’m not sure what yet since it’s such a divisive issue.

Also exciting news: My friend Sarah and I are planning a hardcore vacation for this summer. Our plan is to fly to Moscow and then take the Trans-Mongolian Railway from Moscow to Beijing, through Mongolia and spend 3-4 weeks, getting off the train a few times to spend time in Russia, Mongolia, and China, and then to stay with Sarah’s good friend in Beijing for a while and fly back to Kyrgyzstan from there. I’m really excited because this is really the only time I can ever do anything nearly this exciting and it’s going to be amazing! Plus, we’re going to ride double humped camels.

Doing the Kyrgyz squat on the streets of Jbad

So happy to be home from IST! At the Jbad airport...

Our warm welcome home (notce the poster)

This woul be the Jbad airport. High-tec all the way.

Team J-bad: Fritz, me, Martha (head cheerleader), Ian, Sarah, and Joe.

Me, Lorenzo,and Sarah, doing IST in style.

Fitting multiple people into one person's clothes is always fun.

Me, Sarah, and Anthony overwhelmed by the Americness of the mall

Check out this mall. Seriously.

Spices in the Jalalabad bazaar

Vegetable in the Jalalabad bazaar. And this is the winter!

Fruit!

Fruit!

Me and New Year's Santa. Also notice that my dream of owning a red coat has finally come true, thanks to Kyrgyzstan.

It's kind of crazy how sometimes things just feel ... right. Yesterday afternoon, I was going into the city to see Fritz and Ginger's new house and have dinner. I left my house (with my iPod going, which makes everything feel more effortless), hailed a marshrutka (minivan bus. They're awesome), and enjoyed the scenic view of the outskirts of the city. During the trip, however, it hit me how smooth it feels now to do things like that. I'm finally feeling like I belong here. Maybe it's because my work situation is working out, or just being more comfortable with everything, or maybe just because The Police were singing to me... It's nice that I'm feeling settled and comfortable now, because I feel like this will make me much more productive and happy. Pretty soon, I'm meeting other volunteers for lunch at one of our favorite cafes that we've named "The fried lagman place" because they have amazing fried lagman (it tastes a lot like Chinese noodles). Our other cafes of choice include "Porch cafe", "Smoking baby cafe", "The samsa place", and "The Pizzaria" (that's it's actual name, though I have never been there when they have pizza -- apparently they didnt' even have an oven for years). Needless to say, we have no idea what most of their names actually are, but our names make meeting there easy...

Happy New Year everyone!

And just because it won't get out of my head, here's a favorite song here now: (sung to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Janga Jil

Janga Jil

Janga Janga Janga Jil!

Also, here are some pictures from our Christmas celebration!

Nate's friend came to visit from America and we gave him the best gift ever: besh barmak flavored ramen noodles!

Our 15s (Nate, Lauren, Tristan, Susan,Ted, and Rebecca) singing their version of the 12 days of Christmas

Me, Sarah, and Ariel enjoying the festivities

Ginger and Fritz opening a very Kyrgyz housewarming gift

Joe in Christmas attire and Nate as our Christmas elf

Me, Martha, Ginger, and Fritz -- the Jalalabad city group!

Action shot of our Christmas Eve spagghetti dinner being devoured.

Nate woke us up on Christmas morning with some Christmas cheer (aka candy canes thrown at us while we were sleeping)

Make-shift Christmas tree and secret santa presents

Every night is pretty much wall to wall human. There I am in the green! The photographer slept on the far right. This was the not crowded night...

Merry Christmas to all and happy New Years!

I had a great Christmas here -- we had anohter big gathering, with a huge amount of amazing but not exactly traditional food (chili, cornbread, salad, carrots and onions, mashed potatoes, and "Korona" brand champagne), but it was still festive and very fun. We had a secret santa, a christmas tree of paper taped to the wall, and a special performance by the 15s of "The 12 Days of Christmas" that was hilarious. None of you would understand it, but trust me, it was hilarious.

We also had three days of food planned, from the bean dip, ranch dressing, and spaggheti Christmas Eve dinner to yesterday morning's hashbrowns, "tomato yumminess", and scrambled eggs. Sarah and I somehow became the ringleaders of the weekend, which was surprising to me, but nice since it all went so well.

Kyrgyzstan is getting ready for Janga Jill (New Year) celebrations. It's funny to me how this country has picked up America's Christmas traditions and turned them into Janga Jill traditions, without any hint of irony. Everyone has fancy "Janga Jill trees", kids are waiting for Santa to come and bring them Janga Jill presents. They even changed the words of "Jingle Bells" to a Kyrgyz version about Janga Jill.

I will probably be spending Janga Jill with my host family, seeing what Kyrgyz families do for the holiday.

Otherwise, school is pretty much out for the semseter. My school has a 10 day break, followed by me going to Bishkek for a week-long training, so I won't really be back until the last week of January, when my counterpart and I will work on next semester's Calendar plan and a teacher training she and another volunteer have been planning.

Our little family here is breaking up a little -- 2 volunteers are going to America for a month (remember -- if you want to send me anything, Susan will bring it back with her -- her address is in the previous post), and two others are going to China for vacations. It will be strange to have them gone, but I'm sure it will be over faster than I think. It's weird and exciting to think that, if I follow through on my plans, I'll be the one heading home for a vacation at this time next year! Mark your calendars, people, only about 365 days until you can see me again in Charleston!

Yesterday was my three month anniversary of being a real volunteer! After three months of flailing around, I feel like I'm finally where I'm supposed to be. Yesterday, I joined Fritz and Ginger (other Jbad volunteers) for a Kyrgyz class. Getting there involved walking actross the airport runway, which is not something I thought I would ever do. There were also sheep joining us, of course. After our class, I went back to Fritz and Ginger's house, where we spent the next five hours drinking a few beers and just talking, about Peace Corps, volunteers, ourselves, their kids, and pretty much anything. It was really great to be able to relax and made me realize how lucky I am to have such a great group here that I've connected with so well.

This week was our first snow! It's coming down pretty hard right now, and it's really beautiful. All of the Soviet buildings look much better with some snow there to soften the concrete edges...

School is now out for a month-long break. My new counterpart and I will spend a lot of it working on lesson plans and everything for the upcoming semester, which I'm very excited about. I think working with her is going to be amazing, and we're going to do some great things together.

Also, not to sound needy or anything, but if anyone wants to send me anything, there is a volunteer from here going home for a break next week. She'll be there for about a month. She's offered for anyone to send things to her, and she'll bring them back with her. So, if anyone wants to make me feel loved (keep it relitively small, she does have to fly back with it), send anything to:

Susan Nosal

601 Wirsing Ave.

Greensburg, PA 15601

USA!

It should be much easier, cheaper, faster, and more likely to get to me than anything sent via Kyrgyz mail...

Hope the Christmas celebrations are kicking off well for everyone else!

So as most of you have probably figured out, I’m normally a very happy person. These past three months have been a glimpse into what my life would be like if I were a fundamentally angry person. It turns out anger and pessimism don’t suit me. As of this week, I’m back. I’m back to being my normal, borderline annoyingly happy and optimistic self. On Wednesday, I moved into the city and began a new part of my service: being a city volunteer. More than just that, I started the part of my service where I am actually productive and necessary, and thus happy and content.

My new house is very different from before. My family is a mother, a father who is a lawyer and is usually in Bishkek on business trips, and a sister in 11th form (aka 17 years old). They’re both very sweet and accommodating to me. There are also three older brothers, but they are all gone (one’s in Ukraine, one in Turkey, and one in Bishkek for university). Another “brother” has been mentioned, but I’m pretty sure he’s not actually my brother, but rather a cousin or something like that. He goes to the Turkish school in town (they’re the best private secondary schools in the country. And yes, they are run and taught by Turkish people), and comes to our house on the weekends (?). Figuring out the actual members of a Kyrgyz family is always confusing. I’m sure a sibling or other family member they call a sibling will pop out at some point…

As to the house itself, I have about half of it to myself, including my room, other empty rooms I don’t actually have access to, and a really nice refrigerator. The other half is accessible from the porch (there are two doors opening onto the porch – mine and the one to the kitchen) and includes a super fancy kitchen and two rooms heated by gas (mine is only heated by electricity, making it cold when there’s no electricity). The kitchen includes (you really have to have lived in Kyrgyzstan for five months to get why these things are groundbreaking) a washing machine (!), a sink with hot water, and a gas stove that doesn’t make me think I’m going to die whenever I use it. This is all huge. I also have a banya with a shower (!!) and a really frightening dog. The house is directly next to the kindergarten and a five minute walk from school, which is very nice.

The best part of my new life, though, is my school. The building itself is hideously Soviet (think imposingly concrete monstrosity), but it looks like an official building. My counterpart, Aliya, is a Russian woman with fluent English. She is the head of the English teachers’ society in the city and is extremely ready to do things. She’s already been working with Ginger, another volunteer in the city, on a teacher training in January, and has had two volunteers before. She already team taught (I’m in the second year of volunteers to be forced to team teach) with a previous volunteer because she thought it would be a good learning opportunity. Our classroom has a computer and there’s talk of getting internet soonish (though I’m not holding my breath on that one. “Soonish” could mean just about anything here). She said that classes are small (the max is 24, which is small for Kyrgyzstan) and very well-behaved. She wants me to do clubs that I’m interested in, like one about Anthropology, and she was really excited about me teaching dance. Talking to her is so exciting and inspiring, which is such an amazing change.

This weekend is the "olympiada", a nation-wide competition in all subjects taught in schools here. It's really important to do well at these, so schools send their best students and spend months preparing them. There are three girls from my school going to the English one, so I'm spending all week this week preparing them. They don't have to go to classes, since they're studying instead, so we spend all day talking and taking exams. It's nice to be able to come in a week before the end of the semester and actually do something productive. The girls are really sweet too, so I've had fun talking to them.

Last weekend, another volunteer here had a friend from America come visit. In honor of him, a bunch of us got together and went on a pretty long hike from one village to another, including a side trip into the hills to have a bonfire and hot dogs. It was really nice to get out, before it gets too icey and cold to spend any time outside. It was also great to get some new blood in here (it' weird having a social circle that consists of 17 people at its maximum...).

Otherwise, we're preparing for Christmas next week. We're planning our feast (including at least three pies, of course) and have a secret santa set up. It's weird that as of Friday, I will be a quarter of the way through my work here.

Hope everyone's Christmas preparations are going well. Safe travels and all of that!

Also, if you're interested in making me feel special, I have a new address! Contact either me or my mom if you want it.

Happy holiday season to everyone! Mine started off with a bang last week with our rendition of Thanksgiving. Every day here is a new story, a new experience I never expected. This Thanksgiving will go down in history as the time I made an entire Thanksgiving dinner without electricity or water. It was a fiasco, but turned out surprisingly positive and amazing. Last weekend, there were seventeen people in Jalalabad for the holiday. We had our big Thanksgiving meal on Saturday (because PC regulations say we aren’t allowed to take American holidays off of work). Friday was a crazy night, with so many people in town. We woke up Saturday morning, ready to cook, but found that the electricity had gone off at 10:00 Friday night (which is normal), and hadn’t come back on (which is not normal). The water had also shut off, which happens sometimes. Most of the other volunteers ran away from the cooking to go into town on errands that took much longer than they should. Four of us (all girls, all K16s) stayed behind to cook. We had a great time, even with the hardships; we all stayed super positive and were proud of our amazing accomplishments. Our dinner, in the end, consisted of fried chicken and salad (thanks to Fritz and Ginger), a spinach and cheese quiche, mashed potatoes, pumpkin walnut casserole (because they don’t have sweet potatoes in Kyrgyzstan), bean salad, and two pies (apple and pecan, both baked by me!).

We ended up making two tables (one being a coffee table, one being a tablecloth on the floor), and serving two big bowls or plates of everything, then sitting around each table and eating straight out of the bowls (also known as “Kyrgyz style”). Before we ate, we passed around a bottle of vodka (we are still in Kyrgyzstan) and each said what we are thankful for. Most of the thanks were given for the family that we have made for ourselves in our group. There were tears, laughter, and plenty of vodka shots. Then we dug in. After dinner, Susan offered to pay 15 som (about 50 cents) to anyone who would race around the building, because she thought it would be funny to see anyone try after eating that much food. Nate and Sarah took her up, thus creating the first annual Jalalabad Turkey Trot. Nate won by a landslide, but the real winners were all of the Kyrgyz teenagers who got to laugh at us silly Americans. On Sunday morning, we made banana walnut chocolate pancakes (because we needed more food) and cleaned up after ourselves. The water came back on just as I was leaving to come back, but the electricity was still gone when I left…

Now we’re gearing up for Christmas here. As an attempt to keep ourselves from being sad and lonely since we’re so far from our families, we’re planning on going all out. We’re decorating this weekend, making Christmas themed cookies and other food, and playing a lot of Christmas music. That stuff starts to drive me crazy in the US, but now that the only way I can get it is by playing it myself, I’ve started to actually like it. My friend Ariel has “Holiday Inn” on dvd (it’s not just us, Finnans!), so we’re going to watch that soon. I’ve warned her that I have to throw a fit about how I don’t want to watch it, but that I really do want to watch it. It wouldn’t be Christmas without fighting over Holiday Inn. I don’t think she’s willing to fast forward over our least favorite parts, though.

On Monday afternoon, I got a call from Peace Corps telling me that I am officially changing sites! I don’t know where I’ll go yet, but I’ll definitely stay in Jalalabad, probably very close to where I am now. I should be moved within the next few weeks (before December 20, I was told!). This is excellent news, because I had come to the conclusion that I was going to leave this school, either with a site change or I’d have to drop out. I haven’t really been able to say much about my work, because we were told to keep our blogs positive in case someone from here were to find them, but it’s been frustratingly dysfunctional, so I am very excited to have a new start soon. I was told to not tell anyone here about it, so that my teachers or director don’t find out from someone other than me or Peace Corps, so it’s been an awkward week in the village. On Monday afternoon, just a few minutes after I found out about the site change, I went for a long walk with my sister. We walked to the next village over and went to their school (because apparently that’s what Kyrgyz kids do for fun?). We were walking around the school, when I heard someone yell “excuse me, do you speak English?” I looked back, but just saw a group of Kyrgyz kids. One of the kids came out, and kept talking to me in perfect, strangely accented English. It turns out he is a high school senior in Australia. He’s lived there for three years and was just here for his vacation, visiting family. He was very shocked to meet an American at his remote Kyrgyz village. It’s funny how the sound of English being spoken is such a big deal at this point. It’s the little things…

The rest of the week has been pretty much a blur since Monday’s news. School is much more pleasant now that I can mutter to myself “I’m getting out of here” instead of my earlier less socially acceptable word choices. Now I have to start packing up all of my stuff, and somehow explain to my family and my teachers that I’m leaving…

Thanks to everyone who dealt with depressing emails/phone calls while I sorted through these past few months. Hopefully I’ll have a much more positive experience in my next site.

I hope Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas season is treating everyone well. Wish me luck with my move and my new site and all of that!

Love to all!

Leslie

PS. Just to gross everyone out, as of today, it’s been 39 days since I last bathed (yeah, that means the last time was in October. I could’ve given up bathing for Lent and pretty much made it…). I’ve washed my hair a few times, but besides that, I’m just pretty dirty. I don’t feel like I smell or anything (maybe I’ve just lost my sense of smell, but other volunteers said they don’t notice me either). I’m taking a banya (sauna/bucket bath) at Fritz and Ginger’s this weekend, though, so I’ll be really really clean for quite a while. It’s all relative, right?

Half of the feast

Food. (It's kind of sad how many pictures I have of food)

Fritz's amazing box full of fried chicken. There were several layers below this one.

My pies!

Yes, that is a chopstick holding the oven closed. No one can ever complain about how hard Thanksgiving is to me again.

Already in the post-eating coma. Two men down.

Sarah and Nate at the starting line of the Turkey Trot.

Nate's victory leaps

There was a lot of eating

Some of the girls ready to eat

And now for an update, since I wrote this last night and my life is so exciting that that's not recent enough!

Today was my last day of work at my school. I'm moving to my new site on Wednesday! Peace Corps called during school today to let me know. Monday's a holiday here, and Tuesday I'll be packing, then I'm off on Wednesday! I'm really excited now that it's actually really happening!

If someone had told me before coming to Kyrgyzstan that this ceremony existed, much less that I would participate in it one day, I would have laughed at them. On Monday, my mother told me that the next day she would be doing something that involved making food to wish for good health for her family and other things. I didn’t think much of it, because that kind of stuff happens all the time. On Tuesday afternoon, I was in my room when Aichurok (my sister) came in and said that the family was making ash (a rice dish – known as plov in the North) and asked if I wanted to come watch. I was really tired, because it’s been a stressful week, so I said no. I also bowed out of the beginning of whatever ceremony they were doing, citing the same exhaustion. She left my room, saying that she would come to get me “when the women make the wishes”. At around 7:00, Aichurok knocked on my door again and motioned me across the hall. There, in a big empty room, sat four older neighbor women, a neighbor girl who’s probably around 13, my aunt, my mother, my grandmother, and my sisters. They all were sitting on the floor (which is normal here) around a tablecloth covered in bread, borsok (small pieces of fried bread), tea, a plate of raisons, a pile of cotton fluff, and two candles. After I sat down, my neighbor handed everyone a small piece of cotton fluff and a handful of raisons. It’s important to note now that raisons here have stems, and you have to pick the stems off before eating the raisons usually. I also was told to cover my head, which hadn’t happened to me yet in country. I was sitting next to my neighbor, who is often at my house talking with the family. She turned out to be the person conducting the ceremony, as I discovered when she started chanting. I was told to pick the stems off of the raisons in front of me and to put the stems themselves onto the piece of cotton and the raisons in a pile. While doing this, I was also told to say the things I wished for. All of the other women quickly started to mutter whatever it is they wished for (mostly good health for their families, from what I could make out) and de-stem the raisons. As the rest of us worked and muttered, my neighbor continued to chant, occasionally clicking her teeth violently and yelling “hup” really loudly. Every once in a while, all of us would hold our hands in front of us, palms up, slightly cupped, while my neighbor prayed, then pass our hands over our faces and say “omeen”(they do that after every meal and when passing graveyards, mosques, etc). Then we would all go back to the raisons. To add to the ridiculous situation, the woman on the other side of my neighbor apparently has an uncontrollable burping problem, so she loudly burped periodically throughout the entire evening. After I finished my pile of raisons, my neighbor told me to do hers for her. She then pulled out a notebook and started to read a story that was handwritten over several pages. The story was also punctuated with chanting, tooth clicking, “hup”ping, and omeening. After the story and chanting were done, she passed around a bowl of water that we all drank from and a jar of salt that we all ate a pinch of (this happens with a lot of ceremonies). We all closed the cotton over our raison stems and twisted the tops so it would stay closed. We passed them all to my aunt, who collected all of the cotton balls and placed them all onto a larger piece of cotton, which she closed around all of the smaller balls. They then took the candles and the cotton away and collected the raisons back onto one plate.

We then sat around and ate and gossiped for a while. First was the bread and candy course, then a cookie course, then the ash and sheep meat course. After we ate, everyone was given a bag full of bread, borsok, candy, walnuts, and raisons. I was also given a hand towel by my mother as a gift. At about 9:00, as soon as everyone was done with the ash, we all filed out of the room to go home. Now I am left bewildered. What exactly was I doing? What will they now do with a large cotton ball full of small cotton balls full of raison stems? Why did this happen at all? I may never quite know the answers to these questions, but I am enjoying my cup full of de-stemmed raisons…

Besides de-stemming raisons onto cotton balls, the past few weeks have been very eventful. I can’t exactly get into it, because I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I may have big news in the next few weeks. Peace Corps came for usual site visits that happen every year to check up on us, our work, our houses, and our families. Work has been far from ideal, so we’re all working together to try to fix it so that my situation improves. I’ll keep everyone posted as it unfolds.

As an example of the amount of free time and creativity I have here, last week, I had two major projects. Both of these were done while watching an entire season of Beverly Hills 90210 in two days (don’t worry, I’m judging myself too). First, I found a bag full of scraps of yarn left over from a summer camp. None of the pieces of yarn were really big enough to do anything with, but I had a lot of time, so I knit some of them into small squares. I then sewed those into a larger square of squares. Now I don’t know what to do with said square of squares, but I have it hanging off of my bookshelf. I put a pin into it, so it’s kind of a pincushion? My second project was what’s called a “peace corps wallet”. This is a paper wallet collaged with various clippings from magazines that a lot of volunteers make to keep busy. Most are just simple envelopes covered in magazine clippings. Anyone who remembers my handmade souvenirs from India will understand how mine is more complicated than most; it has two compartments, a coin part with a closure, and a fancy closure on the outside. It’s already been proven (by the intricate cd case made of Hindi handouts in India) that I can make pretty much anything if given a roll of tape and paper. I’m kind of scared to see what happens once real winter rolls around…

Otherwise, the thing that is keeping me going is planning a trip! Since almost no schools around here will be in session from late December until March (no electricity means no heat, which means no school), I’ll have plenty of free time and PC has been encouraging us to travel, since they don’t want us all to drop out because of the boredom and cold of winter. Because of this and because I’m already in Asia, my friend Nick and I are going to Thailand together in the first week of February. We plan on spending the entire week lying on the beach and eating seafood. I’m also really excited about the prospect of having a shower in the hotel room. By this point, it’s the little things that get me excited.

So, I don’t mean to be cryptic, but I really can’t say much and don’t know what exactly is going to happen, but between work and site visits, my life has been a rollercoaster of emotions for the past few weeks. As promised, Peace Corps has already provided me with really high emotional highs and really low lows, often in the same day, hour, or even minute. Luckily, I have an amazing support system with all of the other incredible volunteers in this area who have helped me cheer up, stay optimistic, and fight for what I need, and of course my fantastic mother with her curious phone calls.

Until next time, I hope everyone is doing great. Happy Thanksgiving, and all of that! We’re having a pie-off here on Thursday and a real Thanksgiving meal over the weekend, so don’t worry about me. It may not be America, but it will be tasty.

I'm not allowed to have any political opinions (or at least express them), but Obama!!! You all know what I'm feeling right now. I'm proud. I went down to Osh on Tuesday to help with a special class on the US election system (explaining the electoral college makes it obvious what an odd and unnecessarilly complicated system it is...) and to watch the commentary and results on international CNN. I feel like this will be one of those moments that everyone remembers where they were when they heard. I was in the American Center in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, with other volunteers, Kyrgyz students, and US embassy workers. That's pretty amazing.

Besides that, I don't really have much to say. It's pretty much been more of same recently. I do, however, have some pictures, so they should say more than I can now.

Ariel and her amazing counterpart. We (and by we, I obviously mean Ariel's counterpart) made the best samsas of my life. These were potatoes and cheese inside a baked bread pocket, kind of like samosas, with different fillings.

Last weekend, I went hiking in the walnut forest. It was a really foggy day, but the views were still spectacular

The forest itself is kind of creepy with the fallen leaves and the fog. Sleepy Hollow, anyone?

More hiking views

We had hotdogs and roasted peppers for lunch. Luckily, our group had two Eagle Scouts and one ex Air Force guy. Apparently they can make a fire out of pretty much anything, including very wet wood.

My classroom

My room. Notice the SC pride.

Happy Halloween to all!

Last weekend was the big Halloween party in Osh city. It was held at a restaurant/bar and felt like a real American Halloween party. There was red beer, a DJ, party lights (with a fog machine!), and a lot of people all dressed up and ready to have a good time. The party was a lot of fun – we pretty much all danced for 4 straight hours, and the weekend as a whole was amazing. Osh is such a beautiful city! We also ate way too much food at an American-style restaurant (California Café). Throughout the weekend, I had pesto pasta, burritos, French toast, cheesecake, and brownies all ordered in English! Besides the party and eating, I also went to the bazaar (one of the largest in Central Asia), saw the largest Lenin statue in all of Central Asia, walked through the beautiful park, and even climbed a mountain which is the third holiest site in the Islamic world. From the top of the mountain (okay, so climbing it meant 15 minutes of stairs, but it’s still cool), there is such a beautiful view of all of Osh (which feels so huge now, compared to Jalalabad) and all of the mountains that surround it – into Uzbekistan even. It was also really great to see all of the other volunteers I hadn’t seen since we all left Bishkek over a month ago. The trip there and back was also really easy and beautiful. The marshrutka (a minibus which is the best way to get around here) was about two hours through beautiful countryside and only cost 100 som (about $2.85). I’d been sick for most of last week and definitely still was for the weekend, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me from having fun. On Monday, I found out officially it was yet another case of giardia (third time’s the charm?), which has pretty much cleared up with the help of some amazing medicine… I’m proud that I could still dance for 4 hours and climb a mountain, in that condition. What can I say, I’m hardcore.

I’m headed back to Osh next week, because some other volunteers are doing a special class on the American political system, and then watching the election on international CNN, so we’re probably going to spend the night at the “American center” (where they get CNN) and watch as history is made! I’m really excited because I was sure I was going to be completely cut off from the whole process, but now not only do I get to see it, but it should be really fun too.

For Halloween, a bunch of us are all getting together today. My weekend plans are this: spending Friday night in a creepy abandoned boarding school, watching Halloween movies, and going hiking in the world’s largest walnut forest on Saturday. Just your normal weekend, here in Kyrgyzstan…

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and upcoming week.

Here’s hoping the news on Tuesday is good!

Osh City from Sulleiman Mountain

More of Osh

Halloween -- Christie, Nate, and Lauren

Volunteers and Pakistani med students made up a lot of the party.

Before leaving -- The girls

Osh people went with the 80's theme...

The past few weeks have been relatively normal (or as normal as working in a Kyrgyz school can be for me right now). I passed the “one month at site” mark, which is exciting. It’s felt like a very long month, but adjusting is always going to be hard, so I’m excited about the next 23 months… The class schedule I was given turns out to have been a big joke (funny, right?). I still wake up every morning with no idea what will happen in the next day, which keeps things exciting, I guess. I’ve gotten to be an expert at going with the flow, or as some of us decided the motto of PC Kyrgyzstan should be: “embrace the chaos”. Teaching, or trying to figure it out, is still an adventure. It’s still shocking to me how little English the 10th and 11th form students know. Today, I taught the alphabet to the 11th form club (supposedly made up of the best students from the whole grade). Needless to say, they definitely needed the lesson. To explain some of the limitations of teaching here, here is an excerpt from the 8th from textbook:

If you can’t read it, it’s the section on the US. My favorite part says, “There are two main political parties in the USA: The Democratic (symbolized by a ) and the Republican (symbolized by an ). They both are parties of monopoly capitalists and the American people do not see any difference between them.”

Some exciting things that have happened in the past two weeks:

Since before I even moved in here, my sister had been talking about this wedding in the family that was happening in mid-October and how excited she was and everything. A few weeks ago, we went to the pa rty. It turns out the wedding had already happened (a bride kidnapping maybe? I’m not quite sure when or what that was), but the party was when they got presents. We got there at 10 and left at 4, and I pretty much ate non stop the entire time. There was also dancing:

The lady in the orange dress and yellow scarf never cracked a smile, but she was breaking it down the entire time.

My sisters at the party

Last week was also the 11thform’s “autumn ball”, their answer to senior prom. It was held in the basketball room at 1:00 on a Tuesday, complete with a table full of bread, juice, carrot salad, and a jar of pickles. Not quite what I remember from senior prom… I was invited by the whole class as an honored guest. Every time I would make any attempt at dancing, everyone would start clapping and cheering. I even got to slow dance (middle-school style) with a couple boys.

The typical boys who are too cool to dance

Always with the curious kids watching through the door, until they got chased away.

I’ve started a routine on my days off (by“routine” I mean I did it two of the past three free days, with this most recent free day off because of yet another fun bout of stomach problems). In this routine, I spend the morning walking around the village, taking in the beauty of the scenery, especially in this season. Then I head into the next town over, get lunch at a nice (or very grungy but delicious and cheap) Uzbek café and run errands in the bazaar. It turns out to be a lovely way to spend my days and get things done at the same time. It also means I now have a lot of pictures of my village. I hope to keep it up as much as possible until the weather makes it too unpleasant.

I really like the mountains, as you can tell

A very nice shephard lady watching her sheep

That's my village, in all of those trees

Also, in true Kyrgyz style, Lenin is always watching.

A pretty big pop star came to do a concert at my village, so my sister and I obviously went, and got there an hour early so that she could get an autograph. I found myself sitting backstage (or on folding chairs on the side of the stage) with a 14 year-old Kyrgyz pop star and his midget sidekick. The midget was getting very flirty. That can get added to the list of things I never thought I would do…

This picture is pure gold, in terms of how many cool points it could give me.

I found out yesterday that my host mother is probably moving to Russia this winter. Her friend works in a grocery store there and invited my mother to come work with her. It’s sad that someone can make enough more money working in a grocery store in Russia than as a nurse in Kyrgyzstan that my mother will leave her two-year-old daughter. Her leaving means that I get an entire house to myself, for the most part, though, which would be nice.

This is my official immediate family

This weekend is the famous Halloween party in Osh, and I’m heading down there tomorrow. Apparently over 20 volunteers will be there, which should be really fun. The party itself is at a café, and semi-decent beer and food and a party full of Americans and Pakistani med students has been promised. I’m excited, of course. I’m sure I will have plenty of pictures and stories for my next entry. Until then, take care, and check back in later!

Some very exciting things have happened in my life this week!

I don’t know if people have heard, because supposedly it made big news, but on Sunday night, there was a pretty major earthquake here in the South. I was sitting in bed, reading a book, when I suddenly heard the windows start to rattle. I thought that was strange, since it hadn’t been windy or anything last time I checked. Then I realized that the bed was shaking too, and it didn’t take long to realize what was going on. I was alone in my house because my mother was at work and the rest of the family was in the other house, but I didn’t really think to be scared until later. I found some plaster on my floor the next morning, but no real damage was done here. Supposedly almost 100 people died in a village in Osh, where it was much more intense. So there’s my first natural disaster in Kyrgyzstan!

After a few weeks of waiting, I finally got a schedule of my classes this week! It was wrong when I got it, and people are still confused (because it involved moving classes around—apparently no one had really thought that I might need a schedule or anything before I asked for the 100th time), but I think it’s all ironed out now. I’m teaching with two different teachers, one for 11th form, and one for 9th form. “Teaching with” has very different meanings for the two teachers. For 11th form, I teach and my counterpart sometimes shows up, but usually is off talking to the builders. I never know what I’m supposed to be doing, but I’ve been able to pull some uninspired lessons out of a grammar book when I’m left completely on my own. The other teacher uses the English books left over from Soviet times and teaches extremely random, useless vocabulary. So far, some of the highlights that the students have “learned” are one lesson on the British education system where the students were taught four words: to apply, prestige, tutor, and curriculum vita. Yeah, the 11th form is learning pronouns, and the 9th form is learning curriculum vita. On Thursday, I’m not sure what the lesson was supposed to be on, but they learned Gulf Stream, mild, mine, miner, and to keep in mind. I’m positive that in all of the classes I have observed, I haven’t seen a single lesson plan in use or any foresight as to what will be taught before the teacher walks into the room at the beginning of class. I’m working on a way to start working on lesson plans without completely insulting my co-teachers.

I also started “English club” this week. On Thursday, I had 10th form, with the students handpicked as the best of the class. About 3 or 4 had some clue as to how to say a simple sentence, whereas the other 10 stared blankly at me. I’m assuming a lot of them will stop coming soon, so hopefully I can focus on the few who actually care. On Friday, I had 11th form, and even less of them were at all cooperative. Next week, I agreed to do another club for 7th form, which I’m hoping will be more fun, because 7th formers aren’t quite as “cool” and distant as their older counterparts.

I had another breakthrough in my life here. I’ve been feeling bad about eating with my family recently, because I have lost the ability to stomach most of the meat (I realized that swallowing chunks of unchewed sheep meat is not healthy, but was the only way I could eat it without gagging—I really am a texturephobe), and I don’t drink milk, which makes most of the food my family eats completely useless to me. Monday night was the low point for me. We were eating dinner by candlelight, because the electricity goes out between 5 and 10 most nights. Dinner consisted of horse meat and potatoes, so I was picking around at the potatoes, pretending to eat. That will go down as the night when I realized how similar potatoes and large chunks of horse fat look by candlelight. After eating several large pieces of horse fat and weathering my grandmother yelling at me (though I can’t understand a word of it) for not eating the meat, I decided enough was enough. Since then, I’ve been cooking for myself. We have a gas stove, but so far no gas (supposedly we’re getting it on the 20th), so I’ve had to adopt a strange schedule. Since the power goes out at 5, I have to cook around 4:30, so I eat a big lunch, a smaller meal around 4:30, and another stack later if I’m hungry. My family’s not very happy that I’m not eating dinner with them, because they don’t understand that I count my 4:30 meal as dinner, but hopefully they’ll soften soon. Once the gas gets here, I can cook whenever I want, and that should make it better. This new development has made my life so much better, though. The food has been amazing – no meat, no oil, lots of flavor, pretty much the opposite of Kyrgyz food. The real breakthrough has been psychological, though. Having just a little control over my own life has made me realize just how important that control is to me. Before this week, I was told what to do all the time. At school, I’m shuffled from place to place, then I come home and people tell me when to eat, to drink more tea, what to eat, and it was driving me crazy. Now that I’ve taken a stand, I’ve been much happier.

I also had one of the most pleasant days ever on Wednesday. None of the English teachers work on Wednesdays, so I don’t either. I woke up at my normal time, ate a leisurely breakfast with my family, then went to my room and did an exercise dvd (thanks, Mom!). Then I got a taxi into town, and in the taxi made friends with a nice man. I accidentally promised to teach his 5th form daughter English (he stopped by my classroom on Thursday to schedule the classes – we start on Monday), and he insisted on paying for my taxi ride in exchange. I then went to buy some food for dinner, and stopped by my favorite chickpea lady – she’s an incredibly warm woman who cooks giant pots of chickpeas and sells them with really good spices on them. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m Danielle, or was asking about Danielle, but she’s really sweet and the chickpeas are amazing, so I don’t really mind. Then I went to pick up a package from my mom (thanks, Mom!), and came home to sit in my window seat (or the ledge I’ve turned into a window seat), drink real American coffee (thanks, Mom!), eat cookies, and read a book. It’s amazing how the simple things can make me so happy.

With a class schedule, and clubs in the afternoon, I’m starting to get a lot busier, which is good. I’m also settling into a routine, which is really comforting (I am definitely your daughter, Dad). It’s still exciting to figure out life here, though. Next week, my cousin is getting married, so I get to experience my first real Kyrgyz wedding. I’m sure I’ll have some good stories from that!

Hope everyone’s doing well!

Love to all!

Also, here's a map of my house area. I have a lot of free time.

Instead of any coherent thoughts (you really can't expect too much from me), here is a list of fun facts and updates, jotted between classes yesterday.

-- I haven't bathed in 20 days (as an update, this morning, aka day 21, I took an incredible cold shower that changed my life and made me feel a lot less tan than before)

-- Did you know Santa Claus lives in Kyrgyzstan? Some Swiss engineers wit far too much time on their hands decided that, in order to reach every house in one night, Santa had to be leaving from Kyrgyzstan. Nationally, this is the "year of Santa". He plays a big part in New Years celebrations. This year should be especially interesting.

-- My counterparts claim the fence will be done next week. I translate that as two months from now.

-- Still no sign of a schedule for my classes. Whenever I ask, the other teachers just say they're so busy with the fence. Every day is like the first day, just over and over and over...

-- Sometimes, classes of students show up in my classroom, expecting to be taught. I usually have no idea who they are, what class they're in, or what to do with them. All the teachers ever tell me is to teach pronouns (I've taught them to 9th, 10th, and 11th grades. Apparently that's what they're learning this year). "Winging it" is very difficult with little language knowledge, skills, experience, or training.

--Inside apricot pits, there is a little seed. It tastes a lot like an almond and was a very pleasant surprise.

-- It's also walnut season now, here near the largest walnut forest in the world. I had bread, coffee, and fresh walnuts (they just fell off the tree) for breakfast. My mother told me if I eat walnuts, I won't get the flu. I'm willing to test out this theory.

-- I broke my family's heart this week. On the same day, their cows (3 adults and 2 babies) came home from summering in the mountains (yeah, I said it), so I had to tell them I don't like milk (blasphemous!). Then, for lunch, they served me a plate of sheep lungs and onions, so I told them I don't eat much meat (even more blasphemous!). Their eyes expressed confusion, sadness, offense, and concern all at the same time. Now it's a fun activity to talk about my meat intake during dinner. Always fun to be talked about.

The power's about to go out, so I have to end this.

Please update me on the world, to make my trips to the internet more exciting!

Love to all!

Leslie

So I had a long, semi eloquent explanation of my first week at my permanent site written, but this computer is all in Russian and I can't find how to get to my flash drive, so I'm going to give up and write another less eloquent explanation.

Last Thursday (September 18), I became an official Peace Corps volunteer, after three months of being a "trainee". The ceremony was nice, with my host family and the teacher I will be working with in the audience. Afterward, we had a night with all of us at the same hotel. We had a party in one room, with a lot of people and no electricity (c'est la vie here), which reminded me how much I love our group of volunteers.

Early Friday morning, however, reality hit and we left to fly to Osh and drive to J-bad from there. Since then, I have been living in my village, adjusting and trying to figure out everything.

The transition has been pretty difficult, because several things working together. First, I left Kant with a cold that has since become a lung and sinus infection. I am on a lot of antibiotics now, so I should be feeling better in a few days, but the past week or so has been spent with me exhausted from hacking up my lungs all day.

Also, my predicessor, Danielle, had a big project at the end of her service that was building a fence around the school grounds. The project isn't done yet, so I had to pick up where she left off. Peace Corps says that we aren't supposed to do any big projects for at least the first three months of service, because we need time to adjust and we have training in January on how to do projects, so I dont' know what's going on now. On my first day, I spent more time shopping for welding supplies than at school. My counterpart is much more interested in the project than in me teaching, because everyone wants the project to be over as fast as possible.

Teaching has also been a struggle. I've spent a lot of time sitting in my classroom while the English teachers fight in Kyrgyz about my schedule. After days of that, I still don't have a schedule. I've taught a few classes, with differing success. Each grade are divided into three or four class (A, B, V, and G), with A being the best students and V or G being the worst. Yesterday, my counterpart and I taught 10th grade A and B together, then she threw me into a room with 10 V and left for the entire period. The boys in the class were aweful. The girls at least put a tiny bit of effort into the assignment they were supposed to be doing, but the boys were aweful. I quickly became a real teacher-- yelling at them and even confiscating a cell phone (one boy kept trying to take pictures of me with his phone. He deserved it). By the end, the boys had all copied the right answers from the girls, and I had given up on them. Hopefully, I can talk to my counterpart to let her know that I can't be alone with them.

One extreme positive so far, however, has been my family. They have been extremely warm and inviting to me. My mother is really cute and sweet. The boys have started to say hi to me (a big step for teenage boys). My two year-old sister is a great source of entertainment, especially since my language is so limited. A few days ago, she found a book with pictures of Americans, and went through and pointed to every girl and said "Lesie Ejey" (Lesie = the closest she can get to Leslie, and Ejey = older sister/respectful term for a girl older than you). My 14 year-old sister has been amazing, since her English is so good. She's been really helpful with the adjustment and explaining everything to me. She's also a really sweet girl, so we've had fun together. My aunt and grandmother are both nice, though we don't talk much. Even the dogs I was terrified of before have turned out to be really nice. The houses are nice too-- I like living with so many animals around the yard.

After my first day of school, I was extremely frustrated and pretty upset about how things were happening. Aichuruk, the 14 year-old, asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her. We walked out to the edge of another village, and then turned back. As we turned around, so did my mood. In front of me was such a gorgeous view -- the sun was setting over a row of weeping willows, with the mosque poking up above them. All around me was farmland, full of sunflowers and wheat. It was amazing how quickly I became content again. It's the little things in life that make it what it is.

Last night was the two-year anniversary of my grandfather's death, and a big party. The family spent all day cooking and killing a sheep. They let me help make borsok (little pieces of fried bread) and clean out the sheep's intestines. Needless to say, I found one activity more pleasant than the other, but I'm glad they're letting me help. In the evening, a lot of people came to the house, and we spent hours cooking, eating, and sitting. There was one room full of men, and two full of women and children. I was pretty exhausted from being sick, so the hours of sitting got tiring, but it was great to be able to watch such a big group of women enjoying themselves.

The movement from training to work has been interesting and challanging, but I'm still very excited about what I am doing here. I'm looking forward to settling in and getting a routine, as well as getting to know my family and my village better.

Also, I heard recently that you can send me text messages for free online! Go to http://megacom.kg (my cellphone company) (when it first loads, click where it says "eng" for english). On the left, click on the second option, "send SMS" and scroll down. My number is 996550 (the second option) then 324451. Be sure to say who you are, so I don't get confused. Also, remember that my cell phone is my alarm clock, and we're 10 hours ahead of the East coast here, so don't wake me up, or I'll get cranky. Other than that, please do say hi if you want!

I'll post more when I can next!

(From 9/14)

As a part of pre=service training, every village has to do a project for their community. This year, our projects were funded by an unnamed businessman in Kant. Most villages did clean-up projects in the local schools or parks, but my village decided to go beyond that. At the local primary school (where we held our English clubs), there are five outdoor stage areas where the kids can play. They look like this:

We were concerned by the rotten floorboards, since they are obviously a safety hazard if kids are going to be running around.

We wanted to replace the broken floorboards, but the director of the school was only interested in having the stages repainted, so we agreed to do both. We spent most of the last two weekends working. The girls started scraping at the old paint, while the boys (and a random but very helpful Kyrgyz man) replaced the floors.

We also had the help of a few Kyrgyz boys one day.

(in our sunglasses, so the paint chips didn’t fly into their eyes)

By the end of the second full day of scraping at dirty old paint, we had made great progress, but we were all exhausted and tired of scraping.

(Jess, Joni, and Serena)

The final product, however, is really exciting. The floors are now safe and much better looking than before.

The walls are my pride and joy, after spending hours on them. We used a pattern Jessica’s mother made for the cushions she makes, and added a creation from Micah, our resident artist.

After finishing completely, the last six volunteers still standing

The final product!

Peace Corps was here.

After our second day of painting, we were proud and a little loopy from exhaustion and paint fumes, so we had a photo shoot, using my camera’s timer:

Three Musketeers style

“Sword” fight. I’m throwing paint on them, if you can’t tell (we ran out of brushes to pose with)

Too cool for school

Perfecting the Kyrgyz squat

Can can

Normal group shot: Me, Micah, Chris, Jess, Joni, Serena, and Mike

Also at the school, this is a normal slide for little kids to play on. The top looks much the same.

Other than the project, everything is coming to a close right now. This Thursday is Swearing In, when I will officially become a volunteer (because until then I’m just a “trainee”), and on Friday, I leave for Jalalabad with my counterpart to start my real work. I’m really excited to start, but sad to leave my village with my family and friends and the whole PC group.

Also, my language group has adopted two dogs who hang out around the house where we have class.

This is Puppy. He’s grown a lot while we’ve been here.

This is Mangy. He doesn’t like to stand still for pictures. He’s usually very wiggly. This is the best I could do. 9/17 Tomorrow is the big swearing in, and the official end of PST. On Friday, I head down to Jalalabad, and I start work on Monday!I don't know when I will get to the internet next -- I may stick around my village at first to get oriented and everything there, but the city isn't far away.

I just got back from my permanent site visit today. I left Saturday to spend three days where I will be spending the next two years. Overall, I am very excited about what I’m about to do. PST has been a lengthy transition period, and I finally got a taste of what reality will soon be for me. My village is small – supposedly there are 5,000 people, but it’s likely that a sizable number of them are in Russia. There is one small store, a school, and a lot of houses. Physically, the village is beautiful. It’s very green – lots of trees bordering all of the streets and all over the yards, and is surrounded by farmland. There are a lot of sunflower fields around, which still cease to amaze me. On the outskirts of the village, there are small hills, which allow for great views and peaceful solitary time (which is hard to find). There are the obligatory (for Kyrgyzstan) views of the farmlands with mountains shooting up in the background, which still amazes me. My family is “untraditional”, but will be really great. The head of the family is a grandmother. There is also her daughter (my aunt) and her 14 year-old daughter Aichurok and her daughter-in-law (my host mother) and her 2 year-old daughter Elnura, 13 year-old son Adel, and 15 year-old son Bakit. My host father is, like many Kyrgyz men, living in Russia to work, because there is much more money to be made there than in Kyrgyzstan. My mother is a nurse in the closest town, and works most nights, so she is often out of the house for dinner. It is nice to be living in such a community of women, though. It’s a nice change from many Kyrgyz families to see the grandmother as the most respected figure in the household. The house itself consists of three buildings around a large yard. I live in one building with my mother, sister, and brothers (though now the boys sleep outside). One building is the kitchen, and the other is where my grandmother, aunt, and cousin live. There is also a large outdoor kitchen area, because there is often no electricity in the afternoons, as in all of Kyrgyzstan now. We have a lot of animals, which is really fun. For all I know now, we have 8 sheep, a lot of turkeys and baby turkeys (who are surprisingly cute), chickens, three dogs, a cat (his name is Tom and he is amazingly friendly and needy, which I obviously love), cows, and possibly a horse. My favorite part of the house (and houses in the South in general, I think) is a large outdoor platform, which they cover with tushuks (cushions). That is where the grandmother spends much of her time and where we eat dinner every night. It’s really nice to sit out with the breeze and all of live going on behind us. The 14-year-old girl in my family will be a really great asset for me. She was Danielle (the K14 I am replacing)’s pet project and most fulfilling project of her service, she said. In Danielle’s first year, Aichurok (at this point, 12 years old) convinced Danielle to teach her English. At this point, her English is really impressive. Her biggest dream right now is to do the FLEX program, where the US government sends Kyrgyz high schoolers to the US for a year. She’s still too young to apply, but I hope to help her in the next year so that next year, when she applies, she’ll be ready. She is the most self-motivated 14 year-old I have ever heard of. On my first night at the house, she came up to me and asked if I had any English grammar books. I showed her one that Peace Corps gave us, and she smiled and sat down to look through it. She asked if she could borrow it later, because she needs to work on her grammar. I’m very excited to see a young girl so invested in her own education and am very excited to work with her. She’s also a really sweet girl, so she’ll be fun to get to know. Monday was the “first bell” ceremony – the first day of school in all of Kyrgyzstan. It isn’t technically a school day, but there is a ceremony where students are welcomed back. It was my first day with the school, which was exciting. Danielle and I were recognized by the directors and were given flowers by students, which was nice. I got to meet all of the English teachers (our school has 6!) and a few other teachers. After the ceremony, we had a brief meeting, and the day was over. On Tuesday, the teachers had organized a party to celebrate Danielle and me as well as the building of a fence (Danielle’s biggest project at the school). We went into the town near our village with a few teachers and a few of the main masters (builders of the fence) to a café. On the way, we picked up Sareah, another new volunteer in the region, who was added into the party. At the café, we got food and vodka and cognac. The builders and a few teachers drank the liquor, while the rest of us sipped Cokes. After a few toasts and shots of vodka, they decided it was time to dance. We all go up and, while other tables of people continued to eat, danced in a circle. This was all, of course, around noon. We danced for two songs, then went back to the table for more food and liquor. After a few hours and right as the men ordered more food and beer, Danielle, Sarah, and I gracefully exited. That was both my first teacher party and my first Kyrgyz party all in one, which is exciting and different than anything I could have expected from a teacher party. During the visit, I also went into Jalalabad city with the people in our area and the two people who live near here from last year. We got to walk around the city, see the important sites (the grocery store, the best internet café, etc) and hang out with the people who are closest to us, which is exciting. I really like the two k15s we met and am excited to get to know them and the other 16s better. This morning, on the way to the airport in Osh, we all stopped in at a café that is famous for serving American style food. I got a cup of real coffee (my first since July 2nd!) and amazing vegetable fajitas. It’s amazing how happy those little things can make me after just two months. Now I have less than three weeks left here before I swear in as a full volunteer and start my real adventure! Love to all!

Leslie

The oven where they bake bread in my house

My counterpart, another English teachers, and two welders breaking it down

Welders know how to have a good time

The view out my window -- those are rose bushes, if you can't tell

The compound of my new family -- that's the house where I live in the background

The kitchen

The outdoor platform where we eat and hang out

The outdoor kitchen, and part of the other house My bed in my new house The seating area of my room

The view from the flight to Osh

There are mountains in Kyrgyzstan

Lots of mountains

Me and my PST host family outside our house

It’s been a while since I last updated, and it’s been quite an eventful few weeks! Last week, I had a pretty intense bout of food poisoning, but with some medicine and about two and a half days of straight sleep, I quickly improved. I was feeling better just in time to get married last week! Every year during PST, each village puts on a performance of a cultural tradition, so our group did a consensual (ie not bride kidnapping) Kyrgyz wedding. Mike and I were the lucky couple from our village. We were told that we were very much in love, so we should be happy about it. I was told I made a good Kyrgyz bride, in that I pretty much went limp and let the mothers braid my hair, put earrings in, and lead me around to greet various people. It was fun to get together and see what all the other villages have been up to. There were four weddings (mine, a bride kidnapping, Russian, and Turkish), and some other traditions. After the performances, the event turned into a middle-school dance party (to lots of Christina Aguilera and other hits of that time), with most of the trainees and some language teachers and other Kyrgyz family members dancing in a field in the middle of the day. We have to take what we can get. The other big news of the week was our permanent site announcement. I’m going to Jalalabad, practically on the Uzbekistan border. I’m really excited because that’s the South (and we all know that everything is better in the South…) which means the winter won’t be quite as brutal and we have access to good fruits and vegetables all year, because most of Kyrgyzstan’s fruit comes from Uzbekistan. Some other highlights of my region include: the world’s largest walnut forest, a large almond forest, mountains and lakes all around, good Uzbek inspired food, and really good volunteers around me. My site is near Jalalabad City, and also only about 2-3 hours from Osh, which is supposed to be a really cool city. Next Saturday, I’m heading there for a 5 day visit, where I will stay with my new host family, meet my coteacher, introduce myself to the school on the first day (which is a big holiday/a big deal here), and meet all of the other volunteers in the region. I also get to meet the volunteer who I am replacing, which will be really helpful. I’m really excited about my assignment and the fact that it means that I’m getting started with my service soon! Yesterday, we had a group trip to Bishkek. We got to see the Peace Corps headquarters, which are beautiful and very comforting. It’s amazing how excited we got about a real bathroom and a giant wall full of books. It’s the little things… After the visit to the headquarters, we were on our own to explore the city. I ended up getting a cheeseburger and French fries (which were both extremely amazing – again, it’s the little things…) and a charger for my camera battery (because my old one was stolen out of a box…). It’s always good to hang out with the big group of volunteers and get out of our normal villages. I’m heading today with some other volunteers to visit another training village, just to see different people and different places. Training is going well, but kind of starting to wrap up. We had our last English club last week. When we told our girls that it was the last class, they all got really sad. At the end of class, they all came up and hugged us. Afterward, they stood around the door, saying goodbye repeatedly. It’s really nice that I had so much fun with the club, because it was a good precursor to actually teaching. Kyrgyz is still coming along well too. Our teacher set a rule last week that if we speak English in class, we have to buy the whole class ice cream. That hasn’t happened yet, but it sets the precedent that we have to work to speak as much Kyrgyz as possible, which is helping a lot. I like that I can get around a lot better now with my Kyrgyz. I’m also excited that in Jalalabad, there is very little Russian, so it’s mostly Kyrgyz or Uzbek, but mostly everyone will speak Kyrgyz. The news on TV is even in Kyrgyz, apparently, which will be nice to at least try to pick up a little. All of the TV here is in Russian, so I don’t even try to pick out any words when I watch it with my family. I’m still loving my family here. I met my 22 year-old brother briefly, but I think he left again to go back to Issyc Kul, where he lives now. The rest of the family is great – I’m still obsessed with my two younger sisters because they’re so cute and great to talk to. My mother is such a warm, generous person, and my father is hilarious. They’ve been really ideal for PST. It’s going to be hard to leave them, but I’m sure my next family will be great too. I already promised to come back and visit my family here when I’m in Bishkek. They told me that this will always be my home too, so I’m welcome any time I want. All of the other people around me are doing well, for the most part. One more girl left last week, which makes it 4 ETs (early termination), which is a record low for this point in PST. Everyone says our group is really great, compared to other groups in the past, and that we’re doing better at the language and the adjustment than other groups. I hope that means we don’t have as many ETs, because it would be hard to lose half of the group, which is pretty normal for PC Kyrgyzstan. I really like the group we have here. Everyone I’ve met is really nice and interesting. The current volunteers have all been great too. I’m really excited to meet the other J-bad volunteers next week. I hope everyone’s doing well at home – school’s starting back soon, I’ve heard. Let me know how everything is going back in the US! Love to all! Leslie

Also: I have a new address, but can't post it for safety reasons. Ask my mom if you want it.

The girls in my village

My whole village

My 16 year old sister, me, my mom, and Mike

That's my teacher on the side

The realization that one month ago, I was in the air, on my way to Bishkek is surprising in many ways. First, it feels like this has been the longest month of my life, but secondly, it puts this whole adventure into some perspective. Every once in a while, I get the flashes of “oh my god, I am going to be here for two years!”. Even those moments house a lot of emotions simultaneously: so far, I’ve been loving this country and the people in it, so I am very excited to be here with them, working and learning and all of that; on the other hand, if I measure the next two years off of this last month, it looks daunting. That being said, I am very excited to be here and have been having a great time. I can’t wait to find out where I will be (I find out two weeks from today!) and to get started with my teaching and working with the community. I thought I had a good idea about where I was going to end up, but I found out today that that is probably not going to happen. I’m glad I found that out now, so that I won’t be surprised or disappointed when I do find out where I’m going, but I’m still really positive about all of the regions, so I’m sure I’ll be happy about any placement. I’ve gotten into a very comfortable routine here. Every day, I get up early (thanks to the animals), have breakfast and chai with my parents, relax, and walk my five minute commute to class at 8:30. There, the four of us have class until 12, when we meet up with the other group in town for lunch, where the host mothers continue to work to outdo each other. This competition is great for us, because every lunch has been amazing so far. After lunch, we usually have more sessions (cross cultural, or teaching tech) or sometimes just free time. I usually relax after class, either in my room, or outside with my sisters. We eat around 7:00 every night, then I talk with my family and read/study/watch movies on my computer until I pretty much pass out. It’s still exhausting to live here, in that it’s hard to escape the Kyrgyz and everything. The past few days have been a lot cooler, which is making everything easier. It’s nice to not wake up drenched in sweat (though I haven’t made it so far as to sleep with a sheet over me or anything), and it’s finally pleasant to be outside. It will be interesting to live in such a strongly “seasoned” environment. We get the best and the worst of each season, but I’ve experienced that already… Last week, we started “English Club”, which has been a lot of fun. Two days a week, for an hour a day, we hold classes. It’s great practice to be able to work with Kyrgyz kids on English before I even set foot in a real classroom. We split the group into three classes, with three volunteers in each group. I’m in one of the younger groups – our kids range from probably 8-12 years old. Their English also varies, but it pretty basic, for the most part. We spent last week learning body parts (meaning we sang a lot of “head shoulders knees and toes” and played the hokey pokey). This week, we’re focusing on clothing and colors. We even wrote our own song to teach the colors. Getting up in front of a group of students to present a lesson is encouraging. It’s been fun, and there haven’t been any real problems yet, so I’m not quite as scared about being a teacher in a month. One month from now, I will be just returning from visiting my permanent site, where I will introduce myself to the school and check out the community. From there, I have another week and a half before I’m sworn in as an official volunteer! Everything is still going well here. My family is amazing (I can hear squeals of laughter from my 10 year old sister in the next room now, as I pre-type this) and the other volunteers in the village are great. On Sunday, we got together to make American style brunch (hash browns, omelets, and French toast) at Serena’s. By “American style”, however, I mean cooked partially in a toaster oven, partially in a griddle on a hot plate with no temperature controls, and partially in a giant woodburning outdoor wok. It was definitely a process, but it was a lot of fun and tasted great! Kyrgyz classes are coming along well. For the past few days, I’ve been talking a lot more at breakfast and dinner with my family, and my father keeps telling me how good my Kyrgyz is getting. I’ve gotten to the point where I can actually carry on real conversations beyond the standard “hello my name is”. Yesterday at breakfast, I told them all about my host parents in India and we talked about how good it is to learn about other cultures. All of that in Kyrgyz, with no dictionaries or anything. Progress is always fun. Otherwise, everything is pretty much uneventful. I’ve been feeling good, sleeping well, eating well, and all of that fun stuff. I hope everyone else is doing well at home. Keep me posted on how everything is, so that I don’t fall too far behind on everyone’s lives. It may take me a week or two, but I will respond to the best of my ability!

Love to all, Leslie

And now, because I have the time and a USB port that works, I will overload you all with pictures. Some of these were stolen from Joni and Serena, but most are mine.

Me playing body part Memory with the girls in English club

Serena with the boyssssss

Discussing body parts in English club

This is my ... foot

The usual spread at lunch. In the background are my Mom and little sister, Benazir

Making hash browns Kyrgyz style -- in a large woodburning outdoor wok, with Jess's little sister

At Serena's, making french fries (fried potatoes are easy to make in Kyrgyzstan)

Walking to the mountains with Aliya (Serena's sister) and Frank

This is the view from the village. Not bad...

This is across the street from my house. You can see Bert and Ernie, the donkeys.

The yurt (boz yuoi) that was in Chris's backyard. We ate lunch there. It was really hot, but totally worth it.

This is my house. Most of it is behind that beautiful tree

The view from the hotel in Bishkek during sunset

The whole K16 group. We've only lost three people so far!

The mosque in town, where women aren't allowed to go. Also a rusty trailer...

Joni's house. It's pretty typical of most houses in the village, including mine.

Istanbul!

The sculpture park thing behind our hotel in Bishkek

The sculpture stuff in Bishkek. There's a yurt in the background too.

I know, three posts in one day. It's like Christmas! Just reminding you to read these three in opposite order, so you don't get too confused. I got a cell phone today, finally. My number is 996550324451, and I'll let you do the work figuring out how to call it if you choose to do so. Also, I'm 10 hours ahead of the east coast, so don't wake me up.

Enjoy the posts!

Love!

Leslie

So, I thought I would be able to access the internet last Wednesday, but the only open computer I could find didn’t have any way to type in numbers, which makes it impossible for me to get into my email. I had an entry all typed and ready to go, but couldn’t get it online. I’ve loaded it up now, so read the next one first.

If I were to write a book now, I would call it “20 Cups of Tea”, because that’s about what I’m averaging every day. Everything is still going really well. I’m starting to get into a routine, which helps. The language classes are intense, but great. There are also sessions on how to teach (because that can be summed up in a few weeks, right Mom?), and Kyrgyz culture. Those are getting me very excited for September, when I head off to my permanent post. The PC has been rotating current volunteers to come talk to us, which has been incredibly helpful. It’s nice to see successful volunteers and have them validate our fears and excitements and everything.

Nothing exciting has really happened here in the last week. The rules are pretty strict, so except for Wednesday meetings, I haven’t been able to leave my village (hence the lack of communication). On Sunday, I went to my friend Serena’s house to meet two Kyrgyz girls who live in Bishkek and have both spent a year in America studying. They were really fun and helpful. It’s great to be able to actually communicate with Kyrgyz people, beyond my limited language ability.

This Sunday, we are having a Mexican day at Serena’s. Her host sister is 16 and just got back from spending a year in the US (there’s a pretty big exchange program here) and says she misses Mexican food and donuts more than anything else, se we’re going to make them together. It’s nice to have Sunday as American day, which makes the culture shock less harsh, especially since we have so long here to spread it out.

My family is still great. There have been various extended family members coming in and out. I’m never sure who they are, when they’re coming, or any of that, but everyone’s been super nice. The girls are still great. I’m really glad I got a family with kids, because they’re great to talk to with my level of Kyrgyz, and it’s fun to see them try to speak back in English (though they’re both much better at English than I am at Kyrgyz).

On my way home from class yesterday, I was about to turn into my driveway, when my neighbor, a Russian girl who is probably about 15, kept yelling something to me. I went over to say hi, and she kept saying something I didn’t understand, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into her yard. She kept speaking in Russian, and I kept trying to say I didn’t speak Russian. She finally switched into Kyrgyz, but kept saying the same words that I didn’t know. I responded with “I don’t know”, and she would just repeat it again. Finally, I was almost out, when she grabbed my arm again and pulled me into the back of the house, with the stables and everything. She told me to be quiet, and led me into a room. She looked in, then got really upset because something wasn’t there. I got that it was small – I’m assuming some small animal or something. She was sad that it was gone, I think. She may have asked me for money, but I said no, and finally left, saying I had to study (because that’s one of the few phrases I have down). Needless to say, the communication levels here can be pretty low.

On Saturday, we’re going to Bishkek to see the National History Museum, which should be interesting, and hopefully get cell phones. It will be nice to see Bishkek again, since we’ve really only been into the city once, and then it was very quick.

In the past week, I’ve gotten a few yoga partners. We have done my one yoga DVD twice now, which feels really good. Jessica has a great room for it. I feel a little bad sweating where her entire family sleeps on the floor, but the room is great for yoga… I also have a NYC ballet workout DVD that we’re going to try soon. It’s very good to find ways to relax and exercise in such a different environment.

Physically, I’ve been feeling great recently. All stomach problems seem to be resolved, and my body seems to be adjusted well to the environment. Having a personal water distiller (provided by the Peace Corps), is so great. I can have a gallon of extremely clean water every day, without bothering anyone about it.

I feel like the training time is going to start passing really fast from now on. In a few days, I have “site placement interviews”, and then in less than a month, I will know exactly where I will be spending the next two years! It will be nice to not be in a ‘transition’ position again once I move there, but I’m really enjoying my time here too.

For this week’s animal story, here are some recent quotes from very normal conversations:“Well, the cow in my yard lets me pet him”“I mean, I ate horse this morning”“Where’s your house?” “Just take a right at the donkey”

And just in case you were wondering, the cartoons are all wrong about roosters crowing at sun-up. They crow all the time, waking up the donkeys, who then “eee ahh” for a while. Village life isn’t quite as quiet and peaceful as it may seem, but it does beat sirens and horns.

Love to all!

Leslie

6'Today marks the end of the first week with my host family. Everything has been going really well. I got a little sick (as expected) for a few days, but I’m feeling much better today. My family is incredible. I have a mother, a father, three sisters (aged 10, 16, and 23). There’s also a 22 year-old boy, but he lives away from here on work. Supposedly, he asks about me every day on the phone. The girls are great. The 23 year-old is a high school chemistry and biology teacher in Bishkek, and is in and out of the house for the summer. The other two are so cute. The 10 year old (Benazeer) informed me yesterday (with the help of a Russian/English dictionary), that her future profession was to be a clown and practiced for me. The 16 year-old is really sweet and has impressive English, so she’s my resident translator. My mother and father are also great. They’re both really patient with my language and everything. On my second day here, my mother was going over all the names of the family, and my father kept pointing at himself, smiling really big, and saying “Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton”. We later had a “conversation” where he said “George Bish, Condaleeza Rice” and gave a thumbs down and made a bad face. Then he smiled and switched to a thumbs up and said “Bill Clinton. Albert Gore. Barack Obama”. He has an impressive knowledge of US politics…

I showed everyone pictures I brought from home recently. The comments were: whenever she saw a picture of Ashley, she would ask if that was my sister. She asked how old Mom and Dad were, and then asked what kind of exercise they do to stay so young. Whenever a picture of Dad would come up, she would smile and say “Jackshay!” (Good!) They also asked if Derek was a movie star.

Communication here is an adventure. There is a lot of smiling and nodding, with constant gesturing. I’m going to rock charades when I get home.

The house here is really nice. Most of the houses in my village are very similar. Apparently they were built by Germans… In the complex of my house, there is a main house with bedrooms and a living room. Next to this building is another building with a “summer kitchen”, where we usually eat, a kitchen, a storage room, and a “banya”. The banya is where they bathe, once a week. It’s a small room that they heat up like a sauna and sit in and bathe. Some people can last in the banya for 3 hours. Next to that building is a stable with sheep and a cow, then an outhouse and a sink. I like to show off that my outhouse is nice because it’s tiled, which is a point of pride in these parts. Behind the house, there’s a big garden, where they have apple trees, tomatoes, and other vegetables and flowers.

The Peace Corps split us all up into groups of about five (mine is down to four, because one girl is leaving tomorrow to go home). There are two groups in my village. We all meet together to eat lunch every day at people’s houses, which is a lot of fun. All of the mothers compete to outdo eachother every week, which makes the food amazing every day. The one that should be had to beat should be Chris’s. His family butchered a sheep in the morning before class, then served it to us for lunch. We also ate it in the yurt in his backyard.

The food here has been incredible. It’s all so fresh, which is new after living in America. My mother bakes bread every day, and most of the vegetables come from our garden. I’m assuming that the meat is also fresh, judging from Chris’s family. There’s also the best melon I have ever had. After putting out a strong, but unsuccessful attempt to like tomatoes in the US, Kyrgyzstan has finally won me over. Every day, I get a “salad” of tomatoes, cucumbers, and dill that is amazing. My mother decided that I don’t eat much (for Kyrgyz guest standards) because I’m a dancer. She tells everyone that when they try to force more food on me, which is great.

The host families are all really well trained by the Peace Corps to make us comfortable and safe. With all of the rules in place by the Peace Corps, I feel kind of like I’m 6 years old again, but it’s really safe. The Peace Corps takes great care of us. They gave us each a nice water purifier, so I have a gallon of clean water every day. If anything goes wrong with us, medically or safety-wise, there are great people to call who can fix anything. I also feel really safe in this community, which helps with the adjustment a lot.

The language is coming along. It’s getting confusing, with more endings added to the verbs and everything. I’m starting to feel like I can form more complex sentances now and everything. I can even pick up various words in people’s conversations, which is always a fun feeling.

The American culture here is funny. They show American TV and movies on TV, all dubbed into Russian. I fall asleep to 50 Cent, Jay Z, or other similar artists playing in the next room. My sister also really likes Hillary Duff. When I first got to my house, my sister was watching Scrubs.

The other volunteers are great. I really like my language group and my village, which is very important.

Just so no one worries: I haven’t gotten bride kidnapped, bitten by any animals, pickpocketed, forced vodka, or any serious illness.

I hope everyone is doing well on the home front. If anything important happens in the world or in your lives, call me (when I finally have a cell phone), text me, email me, write me, or any way you want. I’m pretty much as out of touch as you can get here from Thursday through Tuesday.

Village life seems to revolve around animals, so here’s an appropriate ending: an animal story.

Most families here have dogs. Mine is tied up and locked behind a fence. He growls and barks whenever I come in and doesn’t seem very nice. Chris, on the other hand, has two dogs who are both very skittish but nice. After just a few days at his house, he discovered that the dogs follow him wherever he goes. He calls them his bodyguards, since they protect him from the other dogs in the neighborhood. One day, he and his mom came to visit at my house, and they kept sneaking in the gate when we were standing outside. Chris and I thought it was funny, but my whole family kept chasing them out. Wherever Chris goes, he has these two dogs following directly behind him.

I’ll update this whenever I can.

Love to all!

Leslie

I've now written two entries to make for last week and this week, and have them both safely on a flashdrive (along with some picutures of my village), but apparently this computer does't have a USB drive, so there goes that brilliant planning. I'm going into Bishkek for a trip to the art museum there, so I will get better computer access from there. I'll post both of those brilliant entries then, so I'll keep this one short.

Everything is going extremely well so far. I absolutely love my host family (a mother, father, three daughters, aged 10, 16, and 23, and a 22 year-old boy who doesn't live here). The house is cute and has been voted the best outhouse of our village houses!

Training is intense, but great. We have class six days a week, for most of the day, so I'm learning a lot but having fun too.

The weather is hot, but nothing I'm not used to, and almost always sunny.

Stay tuned on Saturday for more comprehensive updates, and hopefully a cell phone too!

I hope everyone at home is doing great. Let me know what's going on in your lives.

Love to all!

Leslie

I finally made it to Kyrgyzstan! I've been in bishkek, the capital, for three days now. Today was the first day that we we allowed to leave the hotel property, though, so i haven't gotten much of a feel for the country yet. After the marathon flight from the US, I arrived in Bishkek at 1:30 Monday morning. Since then, we have been sitting in classes and meetings all day, and trying to adjust all night. The classes are going well. I am learning Kyrgyz language (as opposed to Russian), which I am very excited about. Now, I can pretty much only say the survival "Hello, my name is leslie, I am from south carolina" conversation, but I'm getting the alphabet down, which is important.

This afternoon, we leave bishkek for Kant, where we will meet our host family and leave for their houses. I am very excited and nervous about that. It should be a big deal, with plenty of visitors, family, food, tea, and the necessary vodka. From there, I start the real language and culture classes. My group is about five people, and we'll meet every morning at our teacher's house for lessons all morning, and cultral and technical (ie: how to teach) classes.

The group of people i am with is great. We're starting to separate a little into different little groups, as happens with 63 people, but leaving the hotel for host family houses will change a lot of that.

The hotel we are staying in is a prime example of Soviet architecture at its finest. It is a cement block-type building. Every room has a pretty sizeable balcony, though, which is very nice.

The rooms are pretty low for American standards, but I'm sure we will look back on this as luxoriuos (we even have indoor toilets, shower heads and attempted hot water!). The really cool part of the hotel, however, is behind it. I am not quite sure what it is, but there is a huge statue/sculpture park with towers, yurts, and other sculptures scattered. It seems very ... soviet, but it is really fun to wander around in and climb around on.

We have had all of our meals at the hotel restaurant so far, and I have actually been enjoying them. We have had fresh fruit every day, a lot of vegitables, delicious soups, amazing fruit juice and the necessary meat and potatos. It's all pretty greasy, as expected, but I have been enjoying it. Most of all, we have been having a lot of tea, which is only the beginning, supposedly.

A great part of the training so far has been the fact that they brought in some current volunteers to live with us and answer all of our millions of questions. They are all really enthusiastic and friendly and helpful, which is great.

I am very excited to actually leave our hotel and experience what Kyrgyzstan has to offer. I don't think it has really hit me yet where i am and what i am doing, but that probably will come this evening when I get to my new home.

I hope everybody at home is doing well. I should have more access to internet from now on, depending on where I am and everything, so keep in touch and let me know what is going on.

Cheers!

Hello from Istanbul!

I am in the middle of my long trip around the world. We have a very long layover here in Istanbul, so a bunch of us left the airport to explore the city. A few of us took the metro out to get lunch (or whatever meal this is) a few stops away. We got to eat great kabobs and drink Turkish coffee. On the way back to the metro, I experienced my first call to prayer. It was beautiful to hear the voice on the loudspeaker for the first time.

Soon, we'll be leaving for Bishkek. We arrive at 1:30 AM, but supposedly the airport is an experience, and will take a few hours to work through, so it will be a long night/day/two days.

The people in charge warned us that it will probably be about a week until we have access to phones or internet next, so don't worry if you haven't heard anything -- no news is good news!

Think good thoughts for my first days in Kyrgyzstan!

Let me know if you have any questions or anything.

-- Leslie

So the day of departure is coming on me fast! I've been packing and preparing for a while now, but I'm almost ready to leave in three days!

I am leaving Charleston on Thursday morning for two days of staging in Philadelphia, then I will leave with the rest of the group on Saturday and be in Kyrgyzstan on Monday!

I have my mailing address for the first 11 weeks, while I am in training.

You can send things to: KYRGYZSTAN 722140 Kant City Lenina 97, RUPS P.O. Box 22 ATTN: Leslie Finnan

Кыргызстан 722140 г. Кант ул. Ленина 97, РУПС а/я 22Leslie Finnan

They say it's fine to write it all out in our script, but you can also print out that whole thing with the cyrillic half and tape it onto whatever you send.Please do stay in touch, everybody. I will have internet access of some type and would love to get mail (don't we all...) and I promise to write back!Also, if you have skype or want to get it, my name is leslie.finnanThanks for everyone's kindness!Look forward to more exciting posts as I begin my adventures.