I finished my Peace Corps service on May 20, after lots of goodbyes, packing and paperwork. It was fun to give away my stuff to other volunteers, local friends, students and my host family -- I probably only brought home about 15% of my belongings. At no other time in my life will I hear someone say, “You’re giving me a laundry hamper?! A half jar of peanut butter?! An Economist that’s only three months old?! This is awesome!”

Saying goodbye to my host family was emotional, as was saying hello to my real family when I arrived back in the States. Being home is great, for lots of reasons you can imagine (showers!) and for many reasons that I can’t even express. I hope to be able to keep in touch with my host family (have to remember my Kyrgyz), my local counterparts, and some of my students. So far, only one of my students has an email address but I’m betting that will change.

Here are some pictures from my last month or so:

I went camping with some other volunteers about four hours away from my site, up in the mountains. It was a beautiful spot – I will miss scenes like this.

My host mom’s second grade class playing Red Rover. There’s a chant in Kyrgyz that is translated like “blah blah blah[?] from you, to us, who will come?”

We had two trash pick-up days in order to clean up Issyk-Kul Lake behind our school.

Obviously a good thing, but I just hope it means the kids will think twice before throwing litter. Who knows.

Me with some of the teachers

Bubbles! This is my bro Kairat and his little cousins. I gave them some bubbles to play with and they were shrieking with joy. Pretty cute, especially little Islam’s face.

My end-of-year party for my best high school students: Gulmira, Kiyal, Dinara, Ulanbubu, Altinai, Akulai, Kanikei, Aidana, Yryskul, Ahinora. We made pizza together at my house and played games. Everyone got to take home prizes, such as my clothes, scarves, games, toys, stationery, random travel souvenirs, and things from AMERiCA (wow)! I will really miss these girls.

My goodbye party with extended host relatives. We’re standing in the little apple/apricot orchard behind our house. When I left the apricots were tiny and green, about the size of nickels.

My host family (minus my two host sisters in college)

On my last taxi ride through this mountain pass we had to stop for 40 minutes for road work and falling rocks.

My last purchase in country was this beautiful book of photographs of Kyrgyzstan (from the photographer himself). http://andrewchenphotography.wordpress.com/

Arriving home to Atlanta, two weeks ago. My sister, brother and mom collected me from the airport.

Thanks to everyone who supported me, donated to my grant, kept in touch and read my blog while I was away. I guess this blog will be dormant for the summer, but in August I'll be moving to Beijing to join my boyfriend, Josh, there. So hopefully I can keep it going for this next adventure.

Hi -- It's just over a month until I COS (close of service) and leave for America! So this will probably be my last post until the end.

My group, the K-17s, at our COS conference last month. We are called the K-17s because we are the 17th group of Peace Corps volunteers to come to Kyrgyzstan.

Enjoying a sunny day with my little host sister and neighbor.

The spice displays at the bazaar are beautiful but it must be a pain to pack it all up. Also, I get worried for spice vendors on windy days.

A sampling of the goods available in one of our village shops. This is why I’d love to see my neighbors experience Super Target.

A gas and electric bill (post-it note) stuck to a door.

One of my friends who lives in a neighboring town in this apartment building is away for a few weeks, so I went to pay her bills but they weren’t taped to her door (someone took them?) so now I have no idea what to do.

Getting water, one of my daily chores. If I’m not home between 10:30a and 2:30p to fill up my buckets then I’m outta luck because the water pump shuts off.

Though I have never picked up a hitchhiker in my life, I got extremely angry at drivers who passed me by on really cold days while I lost all feeling in my hands and feet. I’ve screamed at their cars as they sped by, “You think you’re too good for me with your fancy pants car? I know how to drive a car too, you know!”

I’ve met many interesting people while hitchhiking several times a week over the course of two years. In various car rides with complete strangers, I’ve: shocked people with my Kyrgyz; conversed painfully badly with Russians; gotten into arguments about politics; unwittingly gotten into a mail car that stopped at EVERY post office; been lectured about religion; been in a video; randomly met fluent English speakers; held people’s cute babies; been sat on by strangers; accidentally offended old women; received invitations and marriage proposals; been nearly thrown up on; had my phone stolen; made up fake identities; been scared by animals in the trunk; been offered a shot of vodka; seen butter smeared on the tires for good luck; ran out of gas; skidded on ice; been stopped by countless herds of animals; screamed at drivers to go slower through mountain passes; faked emergencies to evacuate cars; been offered all kinds of food (nice) and drink (communal car Fanta bottle, no thanks); been stopped countless times by police for bribes (from the drivers, not me); had various children fall asleep on me; been given a free ride on a beer delivery truck; been stepped on and squashed; almost died from overcrowdedness + no cracked windows (the worst!).

My street was in charge of the entertainment at our local “Nooruz” concert on March 21 which celebrated the beginning of spring. Everyone from my street did a dance, song or skit so I did my first ballet performance since my retirement at the age of 12. I got rave reviews from my neighbors but apparently I didn’t inspire the gods to send springtime with great haste because it snowed as late as April 5.

These little boys are being Manaschas, or tellers of the legends of Manas, Kyrgyzstan’s epic hero. Most Kyrgyz people can recite at least a few verses.

My host mother and neighbors singing, and the onlookers.

Eating oromo, a big rolled and steamed dumpling, with my host family.

Playing Sorry with my host siblings. They are not that competitive by nature, so I really had to encourage them to knock someone's pawn off the board and yell "SOOOORRRRYYYYY!" with no regrets.

Lots of little kids in my village help their parents carry buckets to the closest water pump. So cute!

Sheep in the mountains

Some stores and post offices still use abacuses. Calculators are more common. My bank (in the nearest sizeable town) has computers but when I go there they still have to go find a brown folder with my name on it, on a shelf, tied with string, in order to look me up and give me my money. The people who work there are really nice but it’s, um, not speedy.

More lambs! We named them Bob, Billy and Betty.

My little host sister Begai is like Elmyra from Tiny Toon Adventures, who luuuved animals but they didn’t luv her back. (If you’re not convinced, see previous post for kitten washing picture.)

My little neighbors making springtime mud/grass soup. Guess that’s universal!

There isn’t a McDonald’s in Kyrgyzstan but there is this suspicious-looking MAC Burger chain in Bishkek (the capital city).

My Peace Corps service is coming to an end soon. My group had our COS (Close of Service) conference last week which is a big milestone for Peace Corps Volunteers. I leave Kyrgyzstan on May 21 -- I'm getting reaaally excited to come home! But there are several things I have to wrap up so I'm trying to do/finish as many projects as possible in the last two months. Lucky the snow is all melted and the days are starting to get warmer, which makes everything much more enjoyable for me.

Here are my photo updates from the last couple months:

Nothing says springtime like baby lambs! This is my host brother with some of ours.

These guys were born in the last two weeks.

We have a calf that’s about a week old and extremely skittish. In the first couple days after a calf is born my family makes special cheeses that are really good.

We play very competitive games of memory (match the English word and the corresponding sticker).

My host mom tearing it up on Angry Birds.

I went skiing with a couple of friends. It didn’t go very well. I think I’m going to stick with summer sports from now on. But it’s a bargain at under $30 a day, including equipment. [insert joke about perceived safety of Soviet-era skiing infrastructure]

When it snows I can practice my chicken-tracking skills on my morning walk to the outhouse. Incidentally, snow days are tough when you wake up thinking, “gottapeegottapee,” but first you have to grab your socks, put on your coat, look for your hat, tear off some dry toilet paper, find your flashlight, zip up your boots, unlock your door, and walk (ok run) out to the backyard with a menagerie of animals chasing after you because they assume that the first human to appear in the morning is going to feed them.

My youngest host sister shoveling snow in our courtyard.

Working with some eleventh graders in my computer club. They are learning how to use their own photos in Powerpoint presentations.

I call this dog the sheriff. Most dogs stay in their own yards but he walks all over the village like he’s in charge of monitoring it or something. He always walks quickly, with a purpose, as if he’s late for a meeting. It’s not unusual to see him checking out a random street from the top of a haystack. And he always looks clean and he never barks. He’s really very professional.

Teaching my best class, 9th grade, with my counterpart, Marcia-ejay.

Boys showing off their mad skillz at the village club for “Man’s Day” on Feb 23rd, a Kyrgyz holiday which I think is also Veterans’ Day.

International Women’s Day was on March 8th. People are always shocked when I tell them that we don’t celebrate it in America. The girls did the usual activities: singing, dancing, reciting poetry, doing a trivia quiz, performing skits. Some new additions this year: designing clothes, making mayonnaise-based salads (er, the only kind worth making?), and styling hair.

After the concert all the teachers went “guesting” at one teacher’s house. This means four hours of hardcore eating, chatting and singing (and vodka shots, but with a lot of effort I can get out of that).

At English club, writing our names using hieroglyphics. Aren’t my students cute? Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the stencils!

Happy 2011! I now have only 4 months left in Kyrgyzstan which is unbelievable. Soon it will be three… two… one… and then I’ll be on a plane. What a surreal feeling that will be. I’m getting back into the normal school routine after traveling with my boyfriend Josh over the holidays. I returned to a literally FREEZING bedroom (when I’m home, I heat my bedroom with an electric space heater). It’s fine and warm nowadays; that was just a very low moment in many ways.

Most of these pictures have been sitting in a folder called “for November blog post” but I guess that was ambitious. So, these are from the past several months.

My friend Trish came to visit me from London in October. It’s always so much fun to see this place through someone else’s eyes. And just hang out with someone and have it feel normal. And get a suitcase full of presents. :) She visited my school and my students asked her lots of random questions which was fun. The highlights: “How many friends do you have? How many people do you know in Kyrgyzstan? Is your hair really black or do you dye it? Do you want to have a career or a family?” Here we are with my 6th grade students.

Pics from a little hike behind a nearby town; unfortunately the weather turned on us and we had to scurry down the mountain before the storm came.

We walked through a little outdoor art market in Bishkek (the capital) and saw some folksy Kyrgyz artwork and many, many renditions of horses. Then we saw the freakiest squirrel in a park. We had to chase it around for a while to get this picture – worth it! I don’t know if all Kyrgyz squirrels look like this because this is the first one I ever remember seeing.

Parliamentary elections were held in October so Peace Corps consolidated us to a safe location in the mountains, just in case. Thankfully there were no major incidents so we returned to our sites after a few days of a camp-like atmosphere. It was nice to see other volunteers because I rarely see the people who live outside my region. Having a couple showers unexpectedly in the middle of the week was the best part!

Halloween is not celebrated in Kyrgyz villages, but it is in ones that have PC volunteers. These kids in my English club really impressed me. You don’t celebrate Halloween, but you have a witch’s hat? Can’t explain that one.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for Jenga. After I explained the rules, my students decided to work together “to build the tallest tower possible.” I said no, this is not right, one kid is supposed to lose and then everyone will torment him, it’ll be great. But in the end, the collective mentality prevailed and I was the only one who made the kid cry (just kidding!).

November: birthday cake and pizza with my host family. My host mom started giving me a birthday toast just as the self-timer went off.

Birthday dinner at my house with other PCVs.

My host sister Begai with this kitten that kept coming around for a couple days. All of a sudden it never came back. Something traumatic must have happened to it.

I went to this “awards ceremony” for teachers in my region and got a certificate of thanks for acquiring my school’s new English textbooks, which was nice. They went all out with the balloons and flowers, as well as the invitations to performers. People sang and danced for hours. You can just imagine how much I loved watching ALL of it. This kid was my favorite.

There are 3-4 performances every year at our village club where the students compete in dance, song, speaking, and sketch comedy. It’s a lot of fun for them but bad microphones + bad sound system + bad acoustics + my language comprehension = it’s hard for me to understand a lot. I usually watch for about 2 hours and then sneak away. This is from the “fall holiday” concert. The next one will be for the “women’s day” holiday on March 8.

With friends in the mountains in Naryn. My friend’s village is many hours and four car trips from where I live. It’s hard to calculate the exact travel time – basically after waiting for each shared taxi to fill up for each leg of the journey it took 6-7 hours to go 200 km. We hiked up a hill called Chech-Dobo and enjoyed the view of a nearby town. We weren’t posing, we just sit like this all the time.

We went to the Sunday livestock bazaar which was about as frightening as it sounds. You couldn’t turn around without running into a miserable sheep tied to a stake or a cow’s ass in your face. I guess if you ignored the crowds, smells, shit, dirt, sounds, smoke, drunk people and animals, it had a certain charm.

Some enterprising person sells the essentials in the middle of all the action: cigarettes and vodka.

On our way to Thanksgiving dinner in a town about three hours away, a few volunteers and I shared a taxi. The driver stopped at a gas station to fill up on the way but unfortunately he didn’t pay attention to his gauge and we ran out of gas when we were 10 minutes away from our destination. He stood at the side of the road for 30 minutes, holding out a plastic bottle & a rubber hose and waving one finger in the air. In case you didn’t know, this is the international symbol for “Can you pull over so I can siphon one liter of gas from your tank?” As you might imagine, there weren’t many takers. We eventually got rope-towed into town.

I was pretty homesick on Thanksgiving this year but it was nice to be surrounded by Americans. We had a delicious meal, potluck style, turkeys included. These are the volunteers who live in my region, plus a few and minus a few.

I found a free Russian language typing tutor program online so some of my students are painstaking learning to type Russian in our school computer lab. It’s so great that our school has computers – I just feel helpless when I can’t help them fix anything because the entire interface is in Russian, and I’m no computer expert to begin with.

This little frozen stream in my village has become the most popular winter hangout for the little tykes.

A cute New Year’s card from my youngest host sister. I think it looks like me, except for the body shape and the amount of hair on the chin.

A festive billboard on the main drag in my village. It says “Happy New Year” in Russian and Kyrgyz. Santa Claus is associated with New Year’s here, not Christmas. As are Christmas trees (called ‘yulka’ in Russian).

Hello,

I haven’t updated in a while because blogspot has been blocked. I’m having my sister post this for me.

I have about a third of my Peace Corps service left at this point. I expect to be coming home some time in May, which means I just have the coldest months of the year left to get through – oh boy! It’s still pretty warm here but I can see fresh snowfall up in the mountains which makes me a little nervous. My second school year is going well so far, thanks mostly to our new textbooks which my students love (and so do I). This morning our classes were cancelled for three days so the students can help at home with harvesting.

Things have calmed down since the unrest in June, and hopefully they’ll stay that way. There are parliamentary elections on October10th so I’ll be extra cautious and hope that nothing happens.

I have lots of pictures to share from the summer…

This is the apricot bazaar in my village. People (from ages 5 to 65) stand at the side of the road and try to make some extra money selling the fruit from their yards/orchards. It’s very funny when a car pulls up and everyone bombards the potential customer with his or her best sales pitch: “Mine are the best! I’ll give it to you cheap!” A bucket of apricots goes for about $2.50 in July and August.

My parents came to visit me for a week and we took a trip out to the heart of central Kyrgyzstan, to Song-Kol lake. For two nights we stayed in a yurt belonging to a local Kyrgyz family. They take their sheep, horses, cows and donkeys out to a vast meadow each summer and the animals (and children) run free between a large lake and a mountain range. It’s very remote – no roads, no electricity, no running water, no cell phone service. Just clean, cold air, unblemished natural beauty and the best hospitality you could ever ask for. As long as you don’t mind cow dung as fuel. The homemade yogurt, bread, fresh jam and baked fish fresh from the lake were wonderful.

Here we are with our hosts outside of our yurt:

Lake Song Kol

Best entertainment for kids: a donkey

We were walking towards a distant mountain path which turned out to be a field of wildflowers.

It’s not every day that you see a herd of yaks. Unless you are a yak herder, of course.

My new favorite animal: half-yak, half-cow.

Here are my parents with some of my host family, my mom and I guesting at my counterpart’s house, and the beach in my village.

The US Embassy sponsored a camp for children from Osh and Jalalabad (the areas most affected by the riots in June). It was at a hotel in my village and I helped out for a week. They learned about human rights and law, did arts and crafts, played sports and swam in the lake. Here I am with some of the kids.

If doing group activities about human rights wasn’t your thing…

there were plenty of markers to stick between your toes.

Sports and games on the beach. Not a bad way to spend a week in August!

Some PCVs in my region organized a camp about journalism for high school students. I took two girls from my village to the camp site (about 3 hours away). They had a great time but one of my students got really homesick. I said, “Three hours from home? Man, that’s tough.” Just kidding.

Here’s a group photo and the students writing articles and making presentations.

I went to visit my friend Nazgul’s village (about 4 hours away) the weekend before school started. She took me up to this hidden lake which was about a 2.5 hour hike into the mountains. It was about the size of a football field and freezing cold. We had a picnic and a nap and then looked at waterfalls and tromped through the woods. We saw some yurts and this 70-year-old shepherd, Nazgul’s neighbor. People pay her 40 som (85 cents) per month to watch a sheep, and 50 som ($1) per month to watch a cow. So she makes about 8000 som ($175) a month during the summer, which is a lot.

Nazgul milks her family’s cows every evening and carries it in buckets to this house, down the street. Her neighbor buys milk from everyone in the village and then sells it to a dairy factory nearby. They thought it was SO funny that I took this picture.

I went to visit my boyfriend Josh in Beijing in August. Looking out the plane window as I flew east across northern Kyrgyzstan, i was reminded that this country is basically all mountains.

Here are some photos from the celebrations on the first day of school:

Here’s a babushka (that’s ‘grandma’ in Russian) rocking a Britney Spears shopping bag.

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You never know what you’ll find in the trunk…

Celebrating the Eid (the end of Ramadan is called “Orozo Ait” in Kyrgyz) with family and neighbors.

My siblings and neighbors sorting apples in our backyard

A cute little neighbor

Another cute little neighbor

Kyrgyzstan is holding a constitutional referendum today. I'm not supposed to say much about it, so I won't. But I am safe. No one knows what will happen over the next weeks or months but we're all hoping that things continue to stay calm and that Peace Corps will not have to evacuate.

Since I have internet access, here are some more pictures from the last few months:A calf was born at the beginning of May which means we’ve had fresh milk and/or homemade yogurt every day since then. For breakfast I usually walk outside sleepily, find the milk bucket my host mom has just filled, boil some for myself, and eat it with granola or oatmeal. Isn't this little guy so cute? I went over to look at it the day it was born and my little sister was on the ground hugging it.I'm on the far left, with other PCVs at a reservoir – we had our mini-van taxi stop here so we could take a picture en route to an organization that sells locally made shyrdaks (see below).

Shyrdaks (thick felt rugs) are one of the most popular traditional Kyrgyz crafts. You can see them in better detail at http://www.altyn-kol.com/. They’re really beautiful and all handmade.

These are called tushkies and they hang on the wall. So pretty! I want to buy every one I see.

Homemade samsas (Kyrgyz version of samosas) filled with mutton, onions and potatoes. I made these with my sister Nurjan.

Cyrillic script continues to baffle me. This word is pronounced mee-ma. (?!)

Two kids on donkeys. This is a typical view out the car window when you're going.... well, pretty much anywhere.

Making lion puppets with siblings and neighbors.Here I am at my little sister’s 9th birthday party.

Everyone at my school spent half a day digging holes all over the back garden of the school for 50 or so apricot trees which were supposed to be delivered the next day. Unfortunately, the trees never came.

Fellow PCV Alex came from another town to give health lessons at my school. These first graders are trying to figure out which foods they should eat most often.

I went guesting in another village on the north shore of the lake to visit another English teacher, Medina (my host family’s relative). I met some of her students at school and they had prepared all sorts of questions for me: Do you drink coffee or tea? How many friends do you have? Do you like America or Kyrgyzstan? Then I had a meal with Medina and some neighbors. The wall tapestry behind us depicts Manas, the great Kyrygz warrior hero. Typically when you go guesting there will be SO much food: different salads, fruit, a few kinds of bread, cookies, jams, candy and a main course. And at least 5 cups of tea.Guests at my neighbor Zarina’s 10th birthday party. I wish I could post the video I took of them breaking it down to Akon.

The trash dump behind some friends’ apartments. The trash is set on fire once a week but first the cows and dogs dig through it. It didn’t take long after moving here to realize how much I always took trash disposal for granted. Set it out on the curb and it magically disappears to a landfill I will never see? Not so much.

The Kazakh national cycling team trained along the north shore of our lake all summer but they always rode by so quick that it was tough to get a picture. It was pretty funny to see them riding through our quaint village with their gear on. They looked like aliens. During Soviet times, many athletes from all over the USSR came to the north shore of our lake to train. These kids will be in 1st grade next year, so they came to school a few times for orientation. First lesson: squatting. One of them saw me taking this photo from a window and screamed “KAREN-EJAY!” (Ms. Karen!)

Some more pictures from the last day of school. On my left is Jaidarkul, my partner teacher for 6th grade. These are her beautiful sisters and nephews.

I spent most of the day with people pulling on my arm, asking me to take pictures. So I have about 20 group shots like this.Here's me with some of the younger kids.

It's always a good time when Kanishey-ejay breaks out the accordion.

I got a certificate! People LOVE certificates here. Extra points if it's stamped.

Hi. I’m sorry I haven’t updated sooner. Almost every computer I use blocks blogspot, so it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Thanks to everyone who has emailed to check in. I am safe at my site in the northern region of Kyrgyzstan and far from the violence in Osh and Jalalabad. All of the Peace Corps volunteers in the southern region were evacuated safely, though they had a very scary time getting out of Osh. It seems the violence has calmed down but the refugee crisis along the Uzbekistan border is still dire. I’m continuing to read updates and hoping for improving news reports. Some Peace Corps volunteers have decided to leave the country for various reasons, but I don’t anticipate the evacuation of all Peace Corps volunteers. I want to try to stay in my community as long as it’s possible (and safe). There have been no signs of unrest so far where I live. We have to take it one day at a time. A constitutional referendum is planned for next weekend, so I'll definitely be lying low in my community. I'll email updates when I can, or you can check in with my sister. Secondly, I want to say THANK YOU to those who donated to my grant for new textbooks a few weeks ago. I was going to post a plea for donations but it got funded before I even had a chance. Thank you so much to those who donated. I can’t believe how fast it happened. It will make a world of difference for us during the next school year. A special thanks to the Atlanta Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers group who sent me a lovely email telling me they’d fund the remaining amount. I’ll post lots of pics when we get the textbooks. This summer, I’m giving English clubs at the school, working on some grants, and helping other volunteers with projects. I’m looking forward to going on hikes and being outdoors a lot as soon as my killer allergies calm down. The last day of school ceremony, which they call “last bell,” was on May 25th. The winter seemed interminable at times but now that I'm posting these pictures, I can't believe how quickly the school year went by. Here are a few pictures:(1) A group shot of most of the teachers at my school; (2) Me with some of the graduating 11th graders; (3) the teachers celebrating at one of our village hotels; (4) some of my best 6th grade students

I finally got around to posting some pics and stories I've been meaning to share. I guess it's a wrap-up of winter. I know the winter's not over yet but I'm anxiously awaiting the start of spring! So I like to pretend it's really getting warmer.

My family keeps massive piles of hay (winter feed for our cows and sheep) stacked up next to the outhouse in the backyard. Once in a while when I go back there I’ll see a cow eating it and I have no idea what to do [see picture]. Is it our cow? I ask myself. Does it matter? Is it supposed to be eating right now? Is it going to eat too much? Should I tell someone? Why do I have to make these hard decisions? I was only trying to use the bathroom! Last week there was a huge brown bull in the backyard, chowing down on some hay. I did what I usually do:

1) Look around.

2) Say, “There’s a cow eating our hay,” out loud to no one.

3) Figure that I’m absolved of responsibility.

4) Shrug.

Our outhouse is not the sturdiest piece of craftsmanship. As an added bonus, the door is currently broken and precariously tipped against the frame, having been blown off its hinges in a major windstorm a few weeks ago. Just as I had stepped inside to – well, you know – our dog/wolf Borsik came charging into the backyard, ready to defend our pile of golden hay from drooling cow-gluttons where I had failed. I’m sort of scared of the dog but even more afraid of the cow. And now, I found myself prisoner in a shaky, stinky structure while the former pursued the latter around the backyard. If this doesn’t sound scary, then you probably haven’t stood next to a cow recently. With Borsik hot on his tail, the cow was being funneled between some trees and the hay pile. Guess what was dead ahead of him: the outhouse. Through a slit between the boards, I could see the beast charging right for me. Oh my god, I thought, if he doesn’t swerve a few feet he’s going to smash into the outhouse. I had a vision of a fatal collision: outhouse boards, mixed with my body parts, flying through the air. Needless to say (because I’m alive and writing this) he swerved in time, but for a minute I really thought I was a goner. As my friend Alex said, “Man, but what a way to go!”

Last fall, when our sheep were still off grazing in the meadows, I came home and saw this bag sitting on our outdoor table. I naively assumed it was full of potatoes or onions, until I saw the lone (but proud) leg sticking out of it. It turned out that a shepherd had brought the bag to our house from the jailoo (Kyrgyz for ‘mountain meadow’).

“What happened?” I asked my sister Aizat. “A wolf attacked one of our sheep,” she said. “But there’s still some of it in the bag?” I asked. She nodded. This still befuddles me. Call me crazy, but I would assume that if a wolf attacks a sheep, the wolf (or its pack) would devour the whole thing. Or at least there wouldn’t be enough left to stuff in a bag. So what happened? Did someone scare off the wolf partway through the feast? Is our shepherd a wolf-fighting badass? Was the wolf just not that hungry? I don’t know. But, sure enough, an hour later my host cousin was at our house, butcher knife in hand, up to his elbows in blood and guts.

And thus I can say: I’ve eaten a wolf’s leftovers.

Have you?

That’s what I thought.

Our little dog Lada, rest in peace. He was Borsik’s protégé but he was dead when I came home from vacation.

Some more pics of my little posse because they’re so cute.

Doesn’t it look like I just interrupted a secret conference where they were voting to kick me out of the club? I swear they’re not unhappy to be around me; they’re just not big into smiling for photos.

My sisters decorating Christmas cookies. The Gordon family recipe prevailed over our temperamental oven (sort of, if you ignored the burned parts). The oven is broken so every time you want to turn it on or off you have to open the top and twist/untwist two wires. And we can’t adjust the temperature. It only does “insanely hot.”

These little fried doughnuts are called “borsak” and they’re made for each and every special occasion. I resolved to stop eating them because it’s dangerously easy to lose count – especially when there’s bottomless strawberry jam on the table. Then I came home one day and this pile of warm borsak was blocking my bedroom door. It would be like coming home and discovering that Krispy Kreme had decided to open up shop in your bedroom and the “HOT NOW” sign was flashing outside your door. Obviously I had to eat a few. In order to clear the path to my door.

My host sisters at a party a few months ago. And one of the food tables.

PCVs freaking out over my friend Katie’s package from home. Goldfish! Tuna fish! Lindt truffles!

Making mini snowmen with Begai as the snow begins to fall.

The next morning. My host family is pretty diehard about the laundry line. I’m pretty sure there could be a tornado or flood and they’d still leave everything hanging out on the line. Only wusses take their laundry inside.

Cute little neighbors and their sweet sleds. The little guy on the right waits for me in his backyard every day after school and demands that I take his picture. They call me “Karen ejay” which is like “Ms. Karen.” Or “Kevin ejay” which is how most people pronounce my name. Many people – more than you would probably believe – have asked me why I have the same name as that boy from Home Alone.

Walking to school with my sister Aizat and her friends. The water pump on our street didn’t work for a while so I melted buckets of snow in my room to wash my hair. That was a first. My room isn’t exactly toasty so it took all day.

You can see the pretty moon in this photo. My favorite Kyrgyz name is “Aisuuluu” which means “beautiful moon.” I also like “Talaikul” which means “happy laugh.” Many Kyrgyz names are poetic: Jazgul (spring flower), Mirgul (peace flower), Akbermet (white pearl), Nurjan (ray of life), Altinai (golden moon). Popular boys’ names are: Azamat (perfect), Bakit (happy), Aibek (strong moon), and Bolot (steel). Lots of names start or end with “bek” which means “strong.”

Footprints in the fresh snow behind our school. The building in the back right is our outhouse.

I went skiing for the first time in a town called Karakol on the east side of Lake Issyk-Kol. I don't have a picture of myself on skis so you'll have to take my word for it. Unfortunately, I also don't have a picture of myself face-planting off the ski lift (going DOWN the mountain) so you'll have to take my word for it. Lots of men were yelling things at me in Russian which I didn't understand. Later, I was told it meant "Now! Girl! Run! Now! Get off!"

A tank and memorial in a park, also in Karakol.

I’ve been doing English clubs after school. The kids are nuts for it but I’m running out of ideas for games. Please email any and all ideas my way. I’m not kidding. Some of my girls are very sweet and gave me holiday presents like this one. A few of my seventh grade students stayed after school last week and said “Can we talk to you?” Then they bombarded me with random and charming questions including: “Can you dance for us?” After I sort of clumsily danced around the room in my socks, one of them asked: “Did you go to the Olympics for ballet?” Adorable! And then I said, “Yes.” Obviously.

(Just kidding.)

I’ll close with some shots of our animal pen – more pics of my siblings and little neighbor Danchik and our nine lambs. Because who doesn’t love pictures of cute kids playing with lambs (that they will one day eat)?

Hello from snowy Kyrgyzstan. I'm doing well and coming up on 11 months of being in country. A new group of PCVs will be joining us in just over a month which is pretty crazy.

I took a two-week trip with my boyfriend Josh (he lives in Beijing) to India and Japan over the holidays. We ended up at the beach in Goa with sunshine and temps in the 90s so coming back was a bit of an adjustment to say the least.

Luckily for me it has only snowed a few times in my village but we really got dumped on last week! I forgot my flash drive so I'll have to post snow pictures later. It's hard to keep up with my blog because my internet connections are usually pretty slow. For now here are a few pictures -- the first ones are from my classroom which is comfortable and nice and warm (sometimes we even have to open the window).

Here I am helping two students prepare for an academic competition:

Here's me teaching and some of my students:

Some of my students cleaning the classroom. When a guest comes around there is a MAD dash to clean every nook and cranny of the room.

My host cousin with a charred sheep's head:

Some of my seventh graders:

My little sister and brother. Baby lamb + dogs = fun!

Little friends:

Some dancers and musicians at a beautiful Kyrgyz cultural performance in Bishkek:

Hello from chilly Kyrgyzstan. The winter is upon us, and although I am faring far better than many of my fellow volunteers (who are living in the middle of mountains instead of next to a climate-moderating lake) it’s sure no Atlanta winter. As my 8-yr-old sister says, “Scold!” (That’s her imitation of me saying “It’s cold.”) I have a space-heater in my bedroom and with the help of my neighbors I moved my bed away from the window, hung thicker curtains and put up a new door. But in the other rooms of my house it’s, um, chilly. If I use the kitchen I put on my winter coat, hat and scarf while cooking. My olive oil is frozen. And I wear as many layers as possible just as a general rule. My family lives in another separate room that’s coal-heated so I go over there to eat dinner and soak in the warmth. Really, though, my room is warm, so don’t worry.

It took me a while to get into a groove at school but I’m really starting to enjoy teaching now. The frustrations are never-ending but I’m trying to be flexible. My classes get cancelled for various reasons which, depending on my mood, are entertaining or absurd. Example:

Me: Where’s my tenth grade class?

Another teacher: Oh, they had to clean a classroom last period and then they decided they wanted to go home.

I teach in my own classroom as of last week (instead of switching rooms every period) so that’s a nice change. I’ve starting to bling it out (thanks, Mare, for the world map and planet window clings) so if someone can send me the “Hang in There” poster of the cat hanging from a tree branch, that would be sweet (just kidding). My students are pretty good for the most part. They’re really cute and they get really excited when I write a dialogue on the board and they get to speak to each other in English. Though realistically most of them will never need to use English in their lives, I hope I’m teaching them to think for themselves at least a little bit. I mean, of course many of them are improving but I have to set low goals for myself in order to stay sane. The education system here is still a work in progress, but I have to remember that no so long ago students in the USSR were taught that Americans had red eyes and horns (my partner teacher told me that she literally believed this while she was growing up, and she’s only in her late 30s now). Anyways, I can at least tell you that some of my students now say “oops!” instead of “oy!” I think I’ve made my mark here.

I started English clubs after school and had my students fill out an info card on the first day. I asked them to write what they want to learn about, and their answers made me laugh (ex: Zoo and wolf; Ameryca and wondirful).

The change of seasons is tough and I think many volunteers are struggling, mentally and emotionally. We’ve been here for almost 8 months now and just came together to complete a week-long training in the capital city (technical and language training, medical and cultural lectures, admin info). I’m feeling pretty good though, and really looking forward to traveling in Dec/Jan. Some volunteers from my oblast (region) are getting together the Saturday after Thanksgiving for a big dinner. But I don’t think we’re making my mom’s chocolate chip cheesecake. :(

In a nutshell, I’m enjoying the beautiful snow-covered mountains that greet me each day when I walk out my door. I’m trying to avoid the sickness that knocked out 85% of my ninth-grade class yesterday. I’m settling in for a lot of potato soup and working on my Kyrgyz.

Thanks for the phone calls, letters, emails and treats from home – they’re appreciated more than I can say and make me feel so spoiled. Opening a package with face cleansing cloths and peanut butter might as well be finding gold nuggets. I love to receive email updates (especially with pictures attached) and if I don’t respond in a timely fashion, I’m sorry!

Happy Thanksgiving. Some pics below:

The first snowfall at our training in Bishkek

Some of my sixth grade students and Marcia (who I teach with)

A few fellow teachers: Bedel (librarian), Marcia (English), Jazgul (art & sewing), Nurjan (Kyrgyz language), Gulmira (geography)

Little dudes hanging out at my house. Kyrgyz people learn to squat at a ridiculously young age. They never need chairs. My legs won’t bend like theirs do.

Cousin Dinara and my host sister Beggai

Dinara is filling up my buckets for me.

Some of my students performing at our fall concert

An army of neighbors making tushuks (bed pads) for my host sister’s wedding gift

Burgers and beer with other volunteers. American-style food is hard to come by. I haven’t ever seen a chain restaurant here; Kyrgyzstan doesn’t even have a McDonald’s.

Hello! School has started and I'm officially a teacher. It's a little hard to get into the swing of things but overall things are good. The weather is still pretty nice but I'm nervous about the winter. Planned electricity outages are going to start in October... oh boy! Here are some pics from our first day of school and other village happenings.

The first day opening ceremony of my school was the hottest ticket in town. Here are some of our rockstar village elders:

My host mom, little bro and sis.

The view from a second-story window. I wasn’t hiding in my second-story classroom because I felt awkward and out of place; I just thought it would be a good picture, geez. And also I had to, like, make sure my chairs were all straight and other important stuff.

The bows and pinafore uniforms were compulsory during Soviet times. Now they’re just… amazing? An eyesore? Spectacularly horrific? You can decide.

It got really dark and started raining, but it’s okay because there was plenty of room for us all to comfortably enjoy the two-hour ceremony in the lobby…

Women from my village and guests who just came to enjoy the festivities.

A beautiful double-rainbow outside our front gate. My gang: Zarina, Adilet, Beggai, and Adelia.

Helping at a summer camp in a neighboring village.

I usually take a bucket bath in this place, but on this day I would have had to step over a dead sheep. I, um, decided not to. This poor sheep. A worm got into its ear and then its brain and it went crazy and it started walking around in circles all the time. I’m pretty sure we didn’t eat it; at least that’s what they told me. I pushed the meat to the side of my plate for the next week, just in case. No crazy sheep for me, thanks. Sometimes I covertly drop meat back into the serving bowl when no one is looking because if I don’t eat my meat at dinner I get in trouble.

Have you ever had a nightmare where you’re at a middle/high school dance in a neighboring village and standing there really awkwardly, not dancing, and then everyone forms a giant circle and then the DJ on stage goes “And now the guest from [your village] will dance!” and then the circle opens and everyone turns and stares at you…

It can still happen to you. Even if you’re like 24. Yup.

On my way home from school I saw these guys just, you know, hanging out in a wheelbarrow.

It’s apple season now! We spent hours salvaging the good parts from the bad apples. That's my host sister Aayzat. In the second pic you can see my host mom (on the right) and a neighbor and the apples they're going to sell when the apple-buying man comes 'round.

Looking out over a valley behind Cholpon Ata, another town on the north shore of the lake

All kinds of honey for sale. Our region is famous for it. And you can always sample it. Want to taste many kinds? No worries, you only need one spoon and you can dip it wherever you like. Once I bought honey on the side of the road and the woman who sold it to me spoke a little English. “Is it fresh?” I asked. Her face lit up. “It’s tomorrow’s honey,” she said proudly. (I think she meant to say “yesterday’s honey” but of course I like to pretend that I eat special honey from the future.)

Brooms for sale at the bazaar. My family doesn’t own a vacuum cleaner so this is what I use to clean the carpet in my room. In related news: my carpet is dirty.

My host sister Noorbuhbuh making plov (rice, carrots, onions, meat). Yes, my sisters are amused/annoyed when I take so many pictures of them cooking. They see me coming with the camera and go, “Karen, again?!” And I’m like guys, chillax, it’s not like I’m putting them on the internet where anyone in the world can see them. [wink]

Another sister, Noorjan, making pasta. Delicious! They think it’s hilarious that I always buy pasta at the store in America. Of course, so many of my norms seem absurd to them. My friend Alyson was giving an English club, teaching about household objects, and one of her students asked, “How many toilets did you have in your house in America?” and she said, “Um, three.” And they go, “Oh my god! How many people did you live with?!” probably thinking you’d have to live with like 20 relatives to require that many toilets.

Introducing my family to the magic of chocolate chip cookies, via Josh, via America, via Betty Crocker. Everyone liked them except for my cousin Beggaim.

Repeat: My cousin did not like chocolate chip cookies.

I think I was a Kyrgyz sheep in another life. I’ll let you guess why.

Spices at the bazaar:

The apricots are all gone now but for a while we were swimming in them. My little bro Kyrot mashes the apricots in this contraption as Noorjan and I try to pit them fast enough to keep up. Then it becomes sludge. Then they make fruit-roll-up-like substances. I was like, it’s left outside to dry? And they said yes. And I’m like, but what about the dirt, and the wind, and the chickens, and the bugs? Last pics: Apricots drying in the sun, apricot jam.

Greetings! My summer’s winding down to an end and school starts on Tuesday. I’m excited and of course a little nervous. Think about it: I’m a new foreign teacher in a school where I don’t speak much of the language or know the kids or most of the staff. I don’t know the schedule, the rules, the norms, the disciplinary code, the curriculum, or the expectations. The potential for awkwardness is off the charts! And: who will I sit with at lunch?! Get excited. (disclaimer: it’s not entirely true that I don’t know any of these things… Peace Corps has trained me to be a teacher, after all. Still. It’s daunting.)

I have so many things to show and tell you about but as usual I can’t keep up with the rate I’m taking pictures. I’ll post more soon but for now I’ll tell you about this time I had a picturesque and lovely mountain expedition to a shepherd’s tent (yesterday).

I was at a celebration at my cousin’s house a couple of weeks ago and met the delightful Medina. She teaches English in a village about two hours away from me and invited me to come for a visit. Of course, I took her up on it. I think about 500 or 600 people live in her village. She’s 24, like me. She takes care of the house, her husband, her two children, a mother-in-law, various relatives, teaches at the school, cooks every meal, cleans the house, washes all the dishes and all the laundry, and serves tea to any guest who might stop by. And does it all while smiling and giggling. I was at her house and neighbors kept coming over. I said something like “Oh, it’s nice that all the neighbors are so close,” and she said, “You’re the first American that’s ever been in our village before so people are curious and want to come look at you.” Which is great, but so many people visited that we didn’t leave the house until like three hours after I got there. Which is funny because she called me at 6:30 am to make sure I’d be there plenty early.

We trekked out a few hours to this shepherd’s tent, way behind the village in the mountains. From June to October, a family of five lives here and watches over various people’s grazing sheep and cows. They bring everything they need from the village on horseback. Including their little baby.

Inside the tent:

They cook all their meals on this little wood-burning stove. No refrigerator, no problem. Just keep things in the shade.

They’re responsible for 360 sheep and 60 horses. “How can you tell them apart?” I asked. Everyone laughed. “Of course the owners know what their own sheep look like,” someone said. Oh, right.

My host cousin’s mother’s sister’s daughter-in-law’s husband’s cousin’s father-in-law and his cute grandson. Unfortunately I forgot their names. But points for knowing how they’re related to me? I was sort of quiet for a while and then started explaining something about America in Kyrgyz. His eyes got SO big.

Fermented mare’s milk called kumuz is one of the national drinks.

The shepherd’s wife (I forgot her name) milks the mare every two hours or else it will dry up, she says. Each time, she only gets about a cup of milk out of each mare. Then she pours it into a canister and beats it with a special stick. “How often?” I asked. “Anytime I am not doing something else.” Okay, so, a lot.

Allegedly it guarantees instant diarrhea to unacquainted stomachs so I only tried a few sips. I don’t need any extra help having diarrhea; I am doing pretty well on my own, thanks. Tasted sour and bitter.

Milk a horse: check. But I’ve still never milked a cow.

The shepherd’s tent from a little further up.

And a little further up… the white speck in the valley is the tent.

Medina has lived in this village for six years and had never made the three-hour trek out into the mountains to see this view of the lake! I said, “Thanks for taking me out here,” and she said, “Before, I haven’t time, and I haven’t a reason. Thanks for giving me a reason.” She also gave me the most charming compliment: “Karen, you have no bad sides.”

Medina’s sister, who lives in the capital, had never been out here either.

Maybe I am posting too many mountain pictures on this blog but I can’t help it. I am absolutely blown away by them and until that feeling subsides you will have to look at my mountain pictures.

My friends Whitney and Alyson came to my village for some beach time and a night out at the disco at one of the hotels. Fun times! And lots of fun with the self-timer function on my camera.

Here you see mostly Kazakh vacationers tearing it up on the dancefloor to Euro-pop’s trashiest, finest hits.

I met an English-speaking Kazakh businessman Nikkolai who said he played tennis so we made plans to play at the hotel courts the next afternoon. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I showed up at the courts and he turned out to be an amazing player. He’s no Mary Ellen, but still. An instant respect comes when you hit with a new person and realize he has nice strokes. Ah, yes, my friend. You too spent many hours on the tennis court growing up. We played two days in a row and then I was so sore I could hardly move. He couldn’t really understand the concept of Peace Corps and wondered why I wasn’t more concerned about building my life back home. Hrmph. Then he said “You should be home getting married and having babies.”

“You’re joking,” I said.

But he wasn’t. All I could do was roll my eyes. I think I do that a lot here.

I still can’t really figure it out, but after five months of not playing tennis I was on fire! Absolutely ripping groundstrokes, corner to corner; I couldn’t miss. Every time I hit a winner he laughed and went, “Oh, you have such a typical American game. Just standing at the baseline and hitting it as hard as you can. So American.” I was like, “Um, yeah, and I just won the point.” His wife came on the second day to take pictures of him on the court, and I shanked a ball and almost hit her while she wasn’t looking. Oops! I apologized profusely. She laughed. “It’s okay,” she said.

“But I’m really sorry,” I said.

“It’s really okay,” said Nikkolai. “She was the goalie on the Kazakh national ice hockey team for eleven years. She retired after the Salt Lake City Olympics. So she’s not scared of a tennis ball.”

I came to Kyrgyzstan thinking that I would not pick up a tennis racket for two years. I also came here thinking that Peace Corps would surely not place me in a lakeside town with resort hotels in the middle of the summer! But you just never know. Sometimes you get lucky. I guess ‘resort’ hotels is stretching it a little but really, they’re nice. Of course, the meanings of words like nice and expensive and fancy have changed drastically for me lately. A building with running water is nice. Shoes with only a little bit of sheep shit caked to the bottom are fancy. A club with a $3.45 cover charge is ludicrously expensive. But anyways, a hotel across the street from me has two tennis courts so my host cousin invited me to play – he comes over for pre-dinner English lessons with my fam so I think he wanted to do something nice for me. It was fun – we said the score in Kyrgyz, Russian and English, for practice. Now imagine me trying to explain the concept of deuce and ad- scoring in Krygyz. Ha!

My town is entertaining and dichotomous. It really is a small village, but there are ten or so hotels on the lake that cater mostly to Russian and Kazakh tourists so the people-watching is abdan jaksheh (very good in Kyrgyz). If you’ve never seen a fashionable Russian woman all blinged out for her beach vacation then you’re missing out. EVERYONE speaks to me in Russian. I’m trying to learn but I’m having enough trouble with the Kyrgyz I allegedly speak. Sometimes I think I’ve mastered my Russian numbers but then I realize I’m saying Friday instead of fifty or fifteen. Pyat-nitza, peed-dee-syat, peed-naht-sit. I can’t keep it straight. My host cousin gives me a really hard time about it but then yesterday I was quizzing him in English and he said “Saturday” instead of “sixty.” Redemption!

My latest, greatest challenge has been getting water. There are three water spigots on my street but there’s no rhyme or reason for when they work and when they don’t. In the last two weeks they’ve worked for maybe a total of six hours. When they do work, people come out of the woodwork with their water tanks, wheelbarrows, buckets, etc., to replenish their supplies. Worry not, though, I will never actually go thirsty. The hotel where I played tennis has a steady stream of water at an outdoor tap so I carry my buckets down there pretty much every day. At first I was like uh, I have to walk ten minutes to a hotel with buckets and ask the guards at the gate if I can get water? Awkward! But it’s not that weird; lots of people do it. Sometimes my 8-year-old sister goes with me and carries a tiny pail with two hands, spilling half of her water by the time we get home. So cute. I’m like, wow there little whippersnapper, you are really keeping this family of seven afloat there, aren’t you. And she goes “Emne daysiz?” (what are you saying?) and I go “Ech nerce” (nothing).

As you can imagine, this process is not very conducive for bathing or doing laundry. I set aside an entire afternoon if I want to do laundry, especially if I want to double-rinse things. As for bathing, I strategically pack my toiletries and towel whenever I go visit another volunteer. E.g.: “Oh my gosh, I totally forgot that you have a shower, can I use it really quick with all my toiletries that I coincidentally brought over?”

Other interesting things:

-My school has sprinklers to water their flower gardens… and they work! But there’s usually no water on my street. Go figure.

-My family still cannot get over the fact that I don’t drink tea at every meal. I honestly just want to drink water, you know? My 10-year-old brother looked at me like I was crazy when I drank cold water while eating hot soup. He told me that if hot and cold things mix in my stomach like that, I will get sick.

-I had never hitchhiked before coming here. Now I do it every time I have to go somewhere. Considering there’s only one main road that hugs the lake it’s not that bad… my theory is that if anyone turns off the main road unexpectedly, I will just do a barrel roll out the door. Haven’t had to yet. I’ve met the funniest people while hitchhiking, including three Kazakh men during a freak hailstorm which they videotaped from the car, a woman who works at a bazaar in the capital who promised to give me a discount on clothes (very excited to meet me, she said, “No Kyrgyz no! Me only want speak English with you!”), two dudes driving a beer delivery truck, and a man named Bazarbek who knew all about me though I regrettably could not remember ever meeting him before. And lots of Russian speakers. No matter how many times I say “Ya nee gavaryoo pa Ruski” (I don’t speak Russian), people keep speaking to me in Russian, slower and more emphatically each time. And all I can do is look at them and say: pyat-nitza? (Friday?)

There has been a bit of excitement this week. For President Bakiyev’s 60th birthday party and an informal summit, six heads of state came through my town in a caravan en route to his posh beach property in Cholpon Ata, on the north shore of the lake. People are really excited. There were maybe 50 soldiers in my village alone to supervise the road as they drove past. Two helicopters kept circling overhead, which was really thrilling for my ten-year-old host brother. Depending on who you ask, it may be any combination of presidents from the following countries: Russia, Armenia, Tajikistan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, China, Ukraine. (It’s actually the first six.) I started asking other random ones just for laughs. Paraguay? Togo? Obama!

I definitely have my work cut out for me as far as teaching English goes. It’s hard to have a very consistent work schedule right now, seeing as it’s summer, but that’s okay. I have so many people approach me about learning English, all the time. Our postal worker? Wants English lessons. The guard at the hotel? Wants English lessons. The handy man at my school? Wants English lessons. Seems there will be an adult class in my future.

As always, I love hearing from home or wherever you may be… email me or write me a letter! It’s been hard to not be in touch with people as much as I’d like. If you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s not because you’re not in my thoughts.

Some pics below…

My host cousin Marat. Notice the barefeet! Marat Safin he is definitely not. But it was a lot of fun to be on the court again, even for just an hour or so.

My host mom makes jam from black currants, raspberries, cherries, and apricots. Here you see cherries with just a pinch of sugar.

My host sister Noorbuhbuh making manty – little steamed dumplings. These are filled with mutton, onions and potatoes. I helped pinch them shut. We dipped them in tomato sauce mixed with vinegar.

My host sister Noorjan making pirozhki. She fills them with potatoes and onions, flattens them, and fries them. Um, yes, they’re delicious. I accidentally ate four.

Here’s our water spigot, next to our street. I get all my water from here (on a good day).

Hello, I'm doing great and my summer is going really well so far. I've been teaching some English clubs in my village, hanging out with other volunteers, traveling around my oblast (region) and getting to know more neighbors and people in my community. Here are some pics of random happenings & daily life.

Some volunteers and host family members from my training village on our swearing-in day

My little brother Kyrot with our cherries...

and apricots...

and apples

a tae kwon do tournament at a hotel in my village

A celebration at my friend Whitney's house. I will definitely never go hungry here! These are just the salads, usually followed by soup and then another course or two and then besh barmak, the national dish (oily noodles and broth and mutton). The whole feast can last eight hours, including breaks, toasting and dancing.

Earlier that day. You never know what you're going to see when you come home.

Cleaning sheeps' wool with my 18-yr-old sister Noorbuhbuh. Then it gets whipped with a metal wire, washed, dried, and made into bed mats (called 'tooshuks' in Kyrgyz) by my host mother.

My colleagues dancing at a graduation celebration, either to Russian pop music or American music from the 70s

My counterpart Marcia. We were trying to get to another part of the shore but we lost the road so we walked through the lake.

My friend Whitney's host grandpa playing cards with his buddy on the beach

My friends and I tried to make pizza for my family but they misunderstood and made their own food. Here I'm saying "but I TOLD you we were making pizza!"

My sister Beggai, brother Kyrot and cousin Dinara. So cute!

I made spaghetti with my siblings. Well, Noorjan made the noodles and I made the sauce. Yum.

My sister Noorjan making borsak (fried dough basically like doughnuts). It's so hard not to eat a lot of it.

Sisters Aayzat and Beggai making borsak with a neighbor

The computers in my school. They're really nice but not many people know how to use them.

Jaidarcool and Marcia, the other English teachers at my school

Here are some pictures from Altyn Arashan (on the eastern side of Lake Issyk-Kol) from a hike I went on during the first weekend in July. It was pretty stunning. I have soooo many more photos from all sorts of things but never enough internet time to post! Oh well. Next time I'll post some more pics from my house. Enjoy.

and watch it with subtitles, it would be hilarious! I think it would be a smash comedy hit. Life with my host family is a bizarre mix of Kyrgyz, English, Russian and charades. At the moment I have four younger host siblings and the fifth one is coming home for the summer tomorrow. They are very enthusiastic to learn English and are great about teaching me Kyrgyz – correcting my verb conjugations, pointing out new vocab, etc. So much gets lost in translation but we do okay. This morning we played badminton and volleyball and then assorted neighbors and relatives came over for an impromptu English/Kyrgyz language session. People keep cornering me in my community and trying to get me to personally tutor their kids in English for the summer. Needless to say, I can’t do that. But I guess I am sort of easy to find.

I started English clubs with Marcia, my counterpart (partner teacher) this week. It’s nice to be able to start teaching in a relaxed summer atmosphere so I can gauge my students’ levels and interests. For the most part they’re really excited about learning English, though I have to remember it’s only the first week.

Yesterday I tagged along with Marcia and her husband to a bazaar in a nearby city to buy some necessities. It’s nice to go with a local to get a sense of how much things should actually cost.

Here are some pictures – my village peninsula, a day at the beach with my siblings, and a hike in Jeti-Oguz (a gorgeous place three hours away on the other side of the lake) from last weekend.

I visited my permanent site recently and I will move there on June 11 after I am officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer. If you look on a map of Kyrgyzstan, it’s very close to Cholpon-Ata on the north shore of Issyk-kol (which means ‘hot lake’). My new village, where I will be living for two years, is absolutely stunning. I’ve been in awe of the mountains ever since arriving here, but soon I will be surrounded by mountains on the edge of the lake. To the north I can see rolling green hills and snow-covered mountains and to the south I see the blue sparkly lake with the mammoth Tien Shan mountain range (stretching east into China) beyond. My village has around 2000 inhabitants. Tiny! To put it in perspective, my high school had 300 students. But although my village is small, it’s not isolated. There are many villages off the road that runs along the north shore of the lake, and there are several other volunteers within an hour of me.

The school where I will teach is brand new – it just opened last fall. It’s clean and bright and we have ten computers but no internet or much educational software. My counterpart told me that their “library” has only five children’s books in English. Five! A few new teaching resources could really go a long way here. It’s exciting and motivating.

Starting a new job in a new place is scary enough, but having to do it in a new language is somewhat terrifying. There are two English teachers at the school but no one else on staff speaks English. I can understand quite a bit of Kyrgyz by this point, but whenever two people start talking at once, I’m a goner. I know it will get easier day by day.

When I was visiting, I shadowed my counterpart, Marcia, for a couple of days. In the first class, the students took out their books and started reading the first lesson out loud, which is when I realized that the entire textbook is about a Russian kid named Sasha who visits Atlanta, Georgia. I died. I couldn’t believe it. Sasha’s host family lives in Roswell and they do things like visit the Coca-Cola Museum and SciTrek and their oldest daughter works at Chick-fil-a and their hero is Martin Luther King, Jr. They asked me about “Willie B, the most famous animal at the Atlanta Zoo” and I think I broke their hearts when I told them that he died. It’s pretty bizarre to fly to the other side of the world to teach in a small village and find out that their textbook is all about your hometown. It made me feel sort of homesick and emotional but in a good way.

My school director asked me how many people live in Atlanta. When I said five million he laughed and said “There are five million people in Kyrgyzstan.” He’s a laidback guy in his sixties and I think we’re going to get along well. He drove me to the nearest town to open a bank account and on the way back we had to wait for about a hundred sheep to cross the road. One stayed in the middle of the road and I said something like “That sheep smart no!” in Kyrgyz and he laughed a lot. So close. I really like my new host family. They live in compound housing so I kind of have my own section to live in. My first host family (near Bishkek, where I’ve been living for the first three months for traning) has learned to speak to me relatively slowly and simply, so coming to a new family who speaks at me rapid-fire is pretty fierce. Sometimes it’s fun but it gets really draining.

My mom, Kaliman, teaches 4th grade at the same school as me. I have two sisters that go to university in Bishkek (the capital) named Noorjan and Noorbuhbuh, a very sweet 12-year-old sister named Ayzat, a 10-year old brother named Kyrot and a giggly 8-year-old sister named Beggymai. who stares at me all the time. I can’t wait until the fruit harvest later in the summer. Our house is surrounded by apple, apricot, cherry, plum and peach trees and there’s a strawberry patch on the side of the house. My family makes apricot jam that’s out of this world (but they eat it in their tea and not on bread) and they sell some of their apples and apricots at the bazaar. I’ll miss my first host family and the other volunteers, but I’m really excited to finally move to my new village. I arrive on the same day that classes end for the summer, so I’m probably going to have lots of down time while adjusting to small town country life away from the other volunteers. I plan on enjoying the lake and going hiking and camping in the mountains. I asked my counterpart what we will do this summer, since I’m obligated to work on other projects when school is out. She looked out the window wistfully and said “Let’s have English clubs with the children, next to the lake underneath the trees.” Sounds like a good summer to me.

My day-to-day life is filled with a lot of language classes and Peace Corps-mandated culture, safety and health presentations. What else do I do… I try to run at our village soccer field on days when I know I’ll be able to bathe at night. Running for exercise is an anomaly here so it continues to fascinate people. The other day I had three little boys running in front of me and two running behind. They were giggling the whole time. The volunteers in my village made pizza the other night. YUM! My sister sent me a package so I’ve been gorging on dried fruit and peanut butter and reading Newsweek and drinking Crystal Light (thanks Mare!!). I spend a significant amount of time doing laundry by hand. I think I’ll never take a washing machine for granted again. Apparently I wash everything in the wrong order though, which is why my mom looks at me with exasperation every time. Like, how can a 24-year-old woman not know that she should wash her socks absolutely last when she does laundry?!

I only have a few days left in my training village -- it will be a big transition when I move to the lake. Once I get settled in my new village I’ll have more free time to write updates and catch up with people back home. I’m sorry if I haven’t been able to email you back – I promise I will eventually catch up on my emails!

Because pictures are so much better than words, see below. I know they're not great quality but I spent a long time sitting in this internet cafe battling computer error messages in Russian in order to get these up, so enjoy! :)

My host family in my training village

The other girls (PC volunteers) who live in my training village

My street in my permanent site (the gate to my house is on the left there)

A class at my new school -- the classrooms are so nice!

Rahat, my language teacher, showing us how to make a Kyrygyz meal called oromo

I can walk here in five minutes from my new house!

Hiking in Issyk-Ata, a health resort near Bishkek

Textbook page about ATL (might be too small to see)

My new 13-year-old sister Aayzat making dinner

Springtime in my village means there are baby chicks and lambs and calves all over the place.

Hiking in Issyk-Ata. SO pretty. I was blown away.

Alex, Alyson, me, Kiki, Whitney

My new 8-year-old sister Beggymai

On Sundays I was my clothes by hand with Barf

My new school. So pretty!

This is my new house

My neighbor's house in Issyk-kol

Me with my little brother and a neighbor in my training village

The view from one of the back classrooms of my new school

Hello to all, from the wonderful land of Kyrgyzstan. This is the first chance I’ve had to send a proper, bloggable update. My head has been spinning since I left Atlanta at the end of March and I’m not able to use the internet very often. I think my updates are going to be few and far between! I’m doing great and of course still adjusting to everything. Every day there are surprising, amusing, and frustrating moments. I arrived in Bishkek (the capital) with 59 other Peace Corps trainees (we’re not actually called volunteers until our swearing-in ceremony in June) and we’re off to a wonderful, tough and bizarre start. For the first three months, our pre-service training period, I’m living in a small village outside Bishkek (this is in the north of the country, close to the border with Kazakhstan). There are nine volunteers living in my village for training, each living with a different host family, and the other trainees are scattered throughout other close villages. Our days are full of language classes, health & culture lectures, job training, and surviving. And laughter – lots of laughter. I’m adapting pretty quickly to some of the challenges (no running water or indoor sinks/toilets) and slower to others (namely, speaking Kyrgyz!). I’m living with a lovely and generous host family (dad, mom, 19-yr old sister and 10, 6 and one-year-old brothers) who are taking good care of me and deciphering my botched Kyrgyz. Noorsultan, the baby, keeps everyone laughing and I think he understands my Kyrgyz better than anyone.The other trainees have quickly become my support system away from home. I rely on them a lot. Most days, I eat lunch with the other trainees in my village (our host moms take turns preparing lunches). We’re told to “chai ich!” (drink more tea!) and are served small feasts in various combinations of mutton, noodles, soups, carrots, potatoes, onions, dumplings, rice and bread. The food is very rich and delicious, especially if you like carbs with a side of carbs. Some of the highlights are plov (a Russian dish of oily rice, carrots, garlic and meat), manty (meat/potato & onion dumplings), borsht (Russian cabbage stew) and oromo (meat and veggies rolled up tightly in dough and then steamed). We eat lots and lots of bread in all shapes and textures.Many people speak Russian and Kyrgyz so I’m learning a smattering of Russian words from various sources to supplement my hours upon hours of Kyrgyz training. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with Kyrgyz and its suffix-loving grammar rules that result in 20-letter words. It’s in the Turkic language family and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. It’s fun to use a new alphabet but hard to accept the fact that now I’m a hopelessly terrible speller. Speaking is, of course, the most terrifying part. I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t have to ask people to repeat what they said about four times. But, it’s slowly coming along. The other day I yelled “The horse runs!” in Kyrgyz (at churkayt!) when a horse came running really fast out of nowhere and I’m pretty sure that I saved a small child from danger.I am receiving technical training twice a week along with my other TEFL volunteers (English teachers). We’ve been able to guest-teach a few English classes at a school in one of the villages nearby which is eye-opening and amusing and frightening. My favorite part of my first class was the beginning, when all the students stood and said in unison: “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you. Good morning, my teacher, we are glad to see you.” One day I will brilliantly stress critical thinking over rote memorization, but for now I’m just trying not to use slang like “gonna” or point at someone with my finger (it’s rude) or lean on the board and get chalk all over my outfit (oops).In the middle of June, I’ll move to my permanent site location, where I’ll teach English for two years. We found out our permanent site locations last week, after individual interviews and much anxiety. My hands were sort of shaky when I opened my envelope, and then in about five seconds I became really excited. If you look at a map of Kyrgyzstan, my village is near Cholpon-Ata on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kol. I think I’ll be 20 mins from Cholpon-Ata, which my Lonely Planet calls “the premier resort town for wealthy Kazakhs.” The lake itself is second-largest alpine lake in the world and its name means ‘hot lake’. I’ll be the first Peace Corps volunteer at a brand new school that hasn’t even opened its doors yet. I was hoping to be the first volunteer at a site (rather than replace a volunteer who’s leaving) though I know it will be a big challenge. I’ll team-teach my classes with a local Kyrgyz teacher and live with a family in the village. That’s pretty much all I know for now, but I’ll go for a five-day visit in two weeks and find out more.I won’t have much internet access for the next few months. There’s, uh, no wifi in my village. Or even many paved roads. But I’ll try to respond to emails and post pictures and updates here whenever I can. Updates and messages from home are really appreciated, so please keep them coming!!! If I can’t respond right away it’s not because I didn’t read your message or that I didn’t want to respond. If you want to send me a letter and fill my day with happiness, my current address is in the first post. I’ll get a permanent site address soon. But really, if you send me a letter I can’t even tell you how excited I will be!!I feel lucky to be here every day but I also already miss so many things from home. This is to say: keep in touch! And think of me when you go to Target or a toilet or other places you might take for granted. :)My little host brother Alinoor down the street from our house. Those are the beautiful Ala-too mountains in the background.This is my village.My backyard and our lovely chickens. Our sink is just off the photo on the right. The outhouse is down the path on the left.My ten-year-old brother Saviet helps me with my homework.My cousin Aziza came over and made pizza for us. It had a lot of mayonnaise and potatoes, but hey, I'll take it.My host sister and brother in our kitchen.Noorsultan is just starting to walk. So precious!My bedroom... not too shabby!Our outhouse -- it's not so bad, unless it's the middle of the night and cold & rainy and you are all kinds of sick. Then it's not very fun.Cute little girl outside the house where I have class.My view on my walk to class.