Well, I'm finally back home stateside. What an adventure this last few years has been! My mom came to visit during my last weeks in Kyrgyzstan and got to meet a lot of my friends there. We went up to Song Kul in Naryn, an alpine lake where shepherds take their herds to pasture in the summer, and did a little horseback riding and stayed in a yurt! Our hosts with Community Based Tourism made us a delicious fish dinner (see photo below).

And when it was time to head out, having Mom there with me made it a little easier to leave the village. We said teary goodbyes to my Kyrgyz "moms", my counterpart Dinara and my host mother Zauresh, and took the 6 hour taxi ride to the capital. I saw Mom off and had a fun few days hanging out around Bishkek with friends. Then on Wednesday, I flew with two other volunteers until NY and took the last leg home alone. All in all a 30 hour trip that managed to fit into one day thanks to time travel--er, I mean time zones.

So I guess this is the end. It is has been wonderful to be able to share this experience with you all. Thank you for the endless support I've received for my projects and through personal correspondence. What a difference it makes to know that friends at home have got your back through all the challenges and can share in the good times too. I hope to see you and catch up in person soon! And if anyone is thinking about joining Peace Corps, I would strongly recommend it! :)

We just finished up another Habitat work camp and this year went even smoother than last year. Fourteen Peace Corps volunteers from around the country came to my village to help out and we spent the week making cement to cover the interior walls of my neighbors’ house.

We worked hard, ate well, and even got in a little time in the mountains and at the beach. So now I pass the reigns on to my replacement Amber to organize next year’s adventures!

“Last Bell” graduation ceremony at school (my counterpart and director are in center)

Well, it’s hard to believe, but my time here is running out. School is over for the summer (except for seniors’ exams) and a new volunteer has arrived to replace me. We had a goodbye party with the English teachers at school today. Here you throw your own goodbye party, so I bought white wine instead of vodka and paid the cafeteria crew to make plov, the standard party dish. The teachers and school administration got me some lovely handmade Kyrgyz gifts which I’ll have to show off when I get home.

English teachers

It is so sad to say goodbye knowing this time next month I’ll be on the other side of the world…I promised everyone I’d keep in touch, which will mean tackling the Kyrgyz postal system (I’m eternally grateful to all of you who sent me things!). Hopefully our letters will get through and I can hear about how my counterpart Dinara is doing, what my students are up to, and all the exciting news from the village. My host mom is computer-savvy and has an email account she checks when she goes to the city, so I’ll have to take advantage of that connection too.

And in the meantime, there’s a busy month ahead, with another PCV Habitat camp and my mom coming to visit! Where did the time go?!

This past Tuesday my counterpart Dinara and I held a teacher training seminar in our renovated classroom. The room looked great with lots of plants and, finally, the new window shades in place! Twelve English teachers from 3 different villages came, which was less than expected, but a nice group. The theme for the day was “student-centered teaching methods” and we covered topics such as lesson planning, incorporating activities and group work into the lesson, and using projects for assessment. Dinara and I took turns presenting along with 3 other volunteers who live nearby: Christa, Cuyler and Patrick. We also had a guest presenter from the US Embassy, the English Language Fellow who has been training teachers in Kyrgyzstan for the last 2 years. 

My friend Jess brought her former teacher who was visiting from the States. She was a PC Volunteer in Sierra Leone and did a short presentation on teaching in Africa. My Kyrgyz teacher Anara from training was kind enough to translate for us to make sure we were all understanding each other. 

We had a delicious lunch of “plov” (fried rice with carrots and mutton chunks) and fresh vegetable salads in the school cafeteria. Then at the end of the day, we gave out certificates signed by our school administration and a short English grammar guide (translated into Kyrgyz) that Dinara and I put together. 

Overall, I think everyone had a fun time and the teachers gave us very positive feedback. Maybe they will have enjoyed it enough to start a tradition of training seminars at our school!

The spring has arrived! We’re getting lots of rain—meaning a few short showers every week—and things are starting to come back to life. The first to flower are the apricot trees, which grace just about every yard with their pink petals. The whole village is out planting their gardens. And those fruits and vegetables can’t grow fast enough! We’ve been eating stockpiled carrots and potatoes all winter. The apples ran out a few months ago and the cellars have been cleaned out of “winter salad” (canned tomato/pepper/pickle combos). It’s time for some fresh produce! Might be another month or so though…

In the meantime, give yourself a Kyrgyz name! Here are some common Kyrgyz name components that you can mix and match to suit your tastes. Depending on how creative you get, you can be guaranteed only a few thousand or so Kyrgyzstanis will share your name with you.

Kyrgyz, English meaning

Ai- (pronounced like the word eye) moon

Akilai- smart

Alma apple

Almaz diamond

Altin- gold

Bakyt, Talai- happiness

Bermet pearl

Bolot he is

Burul turn (given when the parents wish the sex of the baby would change)

El- people

Erken freedom

Esen, Aman safe (these synonyms are often used for twin boys)

Gul- (pronounced like the word ghoul) flower

Jan- soul

Jildiz star

Jirgal fun

Juma- Friday (some babies are named for the days of the week they’re born on)

Kanat wing (in hopes he’ll support his older brothers)

Kiyal dream

Kumush silver

Kushtar birds

Mahabat love

Meder hope

Meerim mercy

Nazik, Naz- feminine, graceful

Nur- ray, beam

Peri- angel, fairy

Tilek- wish

Timur- iron

Tinchtik- peaceful

Tokto- stop (when the parents hope this is the last baby)

Name Endings

-zat thing

-gul flower (feminine ending)

-bek lord (masculine ending)

-lan (masculine ending)

-bubu (traditional feminine ending)

-(n)ara (feminine ending)

examples: Altinbek, Jumagul, Aiperi, Gulnara

To help keep students occupied this winter, my friend Lorenzo wrote a grant for a week-long winter camp in a nearby town. We invited 40 kids from the surrounding villages and had a great time playing sports, dancing, learning about important health topics from the Red Crescent (the Muslim Red Cross) and doing other fun camp activities. And now its finally back to school next week!

Dancing with Lorenzo(sorry the date on the photos is a year off)making instrumentsplaying Red Rover (or in Kyrgyz: Ak Terek, Kok Terek)the volunteer helpers

Due to electricity shortages, classes have officially been cancelled until March for schools using electric heating across the country. That means I’ve got some serious downtime in the village. And not the fun lets-go-swim-in-the-lake kind, but the cold holed-up-in-my-room kind. Well, lots of time for studying Kyrgyz and tunneling through the massive pile of books I’ve accumulated over the last year and a half.

It’s hard to believe I’ll be heading home at the end of the summer. There seems like so much to do between now and then! Another semester of school, a teacher training seminar, another round of Habitat camps…

Yeah, I’ll start in on it right after I finish this chapter ;)

I’ve been asking my students for the last week if anybody has an extra cat—“mishik barbi?” Mice have moved into our house, enjoying the warmth from the stove in our kitchen. Lately we’ve been lighting the stove, which heats a tank of hot water that circulates via pipes throughout the house, every evening. The coal for the stove is expensive, but the only alternative is electric heaters which put our electricity usage way over the newly imposed maximum. Each household can now only use 200 kilowatts of electricity a month due to the national shortage. If you use more, your electricity could simply be cut. And it is already shut off on a daily basis from noon to 5pm and then 11pm to 6am. It’s mind boggling to think of how much money the country must be losing in business everyday…

So unfortunately you can’t buy cats at the bazaar, but you can get this sticky black paper with mouse bait in the middle of it for about $.30. It’s a little gruesome, but the mice actually die stuck to the paper. There are some pictures on the back to show it works for cockroaches too. Thank god we don’t have any of those at our house, and I’m happy to say we’re now down a couple of mice too!

I was so excited on Wednesday when I got texts from my mom and other volunteers about the election results! I was in class and immediately told my counterpart Dinara that Obama had won. “Oh, the black man?” she asked and wanted me to write out his full name for her. She’s been listening to me talk about this for months and I think some of my excitement had rubbed off on her, but it definitely wasn’t the same as sharing the moment with fellow Americans.

I knew there was one teacher who would really care though, the computer teacher Kanat-agai who knows a little English too. He’s been borrowing my Newsweeks (though unfortunately Peace Corps recently cut those from the budget). I couldn’t find him at school, so I stopped by the store his family runs on my way home. He was working at the counter and immediately understood what I came in blubbering about in my broken Kyrgyz. He was so happy he shook my hand and kissed my cheek, and then gave me a candy bar for bringing him the good news! Now that was the response I was looking for!

So I’m sad to be missing this moment in American history at home, but the media’s right when they say the whole world was watching this one. Even here in the village, we’ve got some Obama enthusiasts celebrating this week!

This past weekend, I had the privilege of visiting the Canadian-owned Kumtor Goldmine which made for quite the adventure! I went with my counterpart’s brother-in-law and the two of us got a private tour of the operations. 

We left early on a transport vehicle which takes workers up for their 15 day shifts. Kumtor maintains its own dirt road that leads past my village, our scenic waterfall, the summer grazing pastures, and deep into the mountains. It was about a two hour ride through switchbacks, avalanche zones, and finally alpine meadows.

When we arrived, we were shuffled through security and had our blood pressure taken because of the high altitude (about 13,000 ft). Then we got hard hats, safety glasses, boots and orange vests and were off on our tour. The first stop was the road materials site and the gravel machine (excuse my made-up terminology, I had trouble following the very technical tour which was given in Kyrgyz). Maintaining the road up to the mine is a huge feat in and of itself, so a whole team of workers oversees that. 

Next we saw the lake where they collect water for the processing factory. All around us were rolling hills of mud and dried grass, hedged in by snow-covered peaks and glaciers. Aside from the herds of sheep we passed on the road up, the only animals I saw were a few crows and a startled gray fox. It was like being on another planet, frightening distant from civilization—oh, except for the village of trailers making up the Kumtor Operating Company.

Then we were taken up to the open mine pit which was teeming with huge dump trucks, each weighing 130 tons. From the depth of the pit and its tiered sides, you could tell this was hardly a new operation. High above all that was a little trailer perched on top of a mountain, which I immediately judged as unstable. Naturally, that was the next stop on the tour. Our guide urged our massive orange transport vehicle (the entire back of which was empty since the only two on the tour were riding in the cabin) up the steep incline to the dispatch trailer. From the top of the mountain, we could see everywhere we’d been that afternoon. Inside sat a man surveying the mine pit with binoculars from the window and another monitoring operations on a computer screen filled with rows of tiny color-coded dump trucks. 

Then it was on to the factory. Truckloads of ore are brought in and fed through huge revolving mills which grind off the carbon and other minerals adhered to the gold. Then the ore dust is filtered through floatation tanks and…various other things happen to it (sorry, I was totally lost at this point). So that was the factory, which was very dusty and smelled of chemicals. The three processing mills use as much electricity as the entire Issykkul Oblast!

There the tour came to an end and we were taken back to the trailer “camp” for dinner. The cafeteria was divided into the Kyrgyz food side and the Canadian food side. I decided to check out both and settled on some (Canadian) honey mustard chicken and apple pie. Then we hung out in our dorm rooms and I met my roommate for the night, a woman who works in the shop by the billiards lounge. A hot shower was also in order. Afterward, my counterpart’s husband, whom we had finally found at dinner, took us to see the nightshift at mine pit. 

The following morning, after a breakfast of French toast, it was time to head back to the village. I was kind of expecting some merchandise on our way out—maybe a “Kumtor” pen or a gold bar or something—but no dice. I really can’t complain though because the entire excursion was completely free. Heck, the shower alone was worth the trip! Thanks, Kumtor! 

I am excited to say we nearly completed our new classroom project! Our grant through the Peace Corps Partnership Program was fully funded thanks to all the generous donations from you guys! We received the money in record time and were able to purchase the new furniture and textbooks in August. The new room, a much larger space than our old one, has been spruced up and painted. Almost everything is in place now—we’re just waiting on the curtains and posters. Thank you all again for contributing! Everyone here is so appreciative. My counterpart Dinara and I are continually being congratulated as teachers stop in to check out the new room and peruse the resource library. The students have a renewed interest in English class thanks to the engaging Oxford Press textbooks and the roomy single-student desks. Dinara and I were also presented with thank you certificates and flowers from the school administration at the First Bell ceremony on September 1st. We are looking forward to another year of working together in such an inviting setting. I can’t tell you what a difference it makes to have the right tools and a comfortable work environment!

Before renovations

Making repairs and painting

A new Global Village Habitat group arrived this week and has been working on our neighbor’s house. This group is made up of all older volunteers, mostly retired couples, and their work ethic in spite of their age has really impressed the locals. Zauresh, my host mother and the Habitat volunteer coordinator, also commented that “older volunteers don’t try as hard to be liked” and therefore act more naturally, easing the cross-cultural communication. I thought that was an insightful comment and one to think about.When I was first meeting the group, Zauresh introduced me as her daughter, which we both exchanged a smile over. I explained I was a Peace Corps Volunteer working at the local school, but some of these details apparently didn’t reach everyone. Later, after chatting with some of the volunteers about life in the village, they commented on how much taller than Zauresh I was (I’ve got at least half a foot on her) and what a good command of English I have. I shrugged and jokingly said it must be because I am an English teacher…before I realized they were completely serious and actually thought Zauresh was my biological mother! Wow, to not be recognized by fellow Americans? Maybe I’ve been here too long! Though it is truly an honor to have been adopted by the village :)

me and Zauresh

Last week we held a Habitat build in my village which 15 Peace Corps Volunteers came to work at. My host mother, the Habitat volunteer coordinator, organized for us to help make bricks and tamp dirt in large molds for the house walls. We worked along side the homeowners, carrying buckets of clay and forming mud bricks. Despite the blazing sun, a breeze off the lake kept us relatively cool—a real treat for the visiting southern volunteers who are used to daily temps over 100! On our day off, we checked out the waterfall and then made our way down to the beach. Not a bad way to take a load off!

In addition to our Peace Corps team, Habitat “Global Village” Teams have been coming to my village to volunteer throughout the summer. The program seems like a neat way to meet new people, see new places, and get to help out local families in need. The volunteers are from all over the world and usually stay for about ten days. It’s been really interesting to talk to them and be a part of their experience here in Kyrgyzstan.

Happy summer! School's out, but we're still busy in the classroom!

My counterpart Dinara and I have been working on a project with our school director this summer. We are revamping an old larger classroom to create a modern, fully equiped language classroom as a model for our school. We will also be establishing a resource library which will include new textbooks and teaching resources.

To find out more about our project or to make a donation, please check out this link!https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=307-109

Some of our students at the beach

To celebrate the end of the year school, the 6th grade class went on an "excursia" to the mountains and were kind enough to invite me along. It was quite a strenuous 3 hour hike, but the kids handled it like champs and had a great time playing together in the woods when we finally arrived at the tree line.

In other good news, the power outages have ended for the summer--well, in the lake region anyway. Tourism is a priority here and so we all benefit!

So every Sunday morning from 5 to 10 o’clock there is a huge “mal bazaar” held in Karakol where people buy and sell their livestock. Last weekend, my friend Jess and I decided to check it out. There were separate sections for horses, cows, bulls, sheep and goats--a pretty impressive collection of animals! We heard there are even camels and yaks sometimes. Maybe next time—I’ve always wanted my very own pet yak ;)

Reads the quote in my colleague’s English classroom. Only too true…

I have been noticing, and am very grateful, that in general Kyrgyz people are exceedingly patient with foreigners attempting to speak their language. My Kyrgyz is still embarrassingly bad, but people are usually willing to speak slowly, repeat themselves and use simplistic vocabulary with me. Occasionally, children will find my attempts laughable, but for the most part I feel well received when using the little Kyrgyz I can manage.

I mentioned this to my host mother (who speaks English and is one of the reasons I don’t need to rely on my Kyrgyz language). She said it is not this way in some other Central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, where people expect you to know the local language. But in a country of only 5 million, where a lot of ethnic Kyrgyz don’t really speak Kyrgyz, people are much more forgiving. If I do encounter problems using Kyrgyz, it’s usually because the person I’m speaking with is confused as to why I’m addressing them in Kyrgyz at all. Often Volunteers have to insist multiple times that they do not know Russian in order to get a response in Kyrgyz. I think about how different this situation is in the States. Foreigners are often rebuked for not speaking English fluently, a language most of us take knowing for granted.

I was talking with a fellow teacher in the village and told him that I was teaching English. He asked if I knew English well then. I like to think so! It’s my first language and the only language I can actually express myself in! But this is not always the case here. People might speak 3 or 4 languages, but one can’t assume that they are “experts” in any of those languages. Kyrgyz is used for everyday communication while Russian is used for more official business, and people can get by without knowing all the ins and outs of either language. The distinct spheres of usage sometimes prevent a thorough acquisition of the language. I think it is endlessly helpful to have the ability to speak in more than one language, but it is also empowering to have a firm grasp on one language and feel confident using it in any situation. If the average American can boast linguistically about anything, I suppose it’s that. We don’t often look at it this way, but for native English speakers in the US, it’s really such a luxury to be able to use your mother-tongue for any kind of interaction with almost anyone.

Here are some photos of our hiking trip to nearby Jeti-Oguz—I swear, I work (most) weekdays!

eating homemade yogurt in a yurt with a shepherding couple

I’m not sure of the exact translation, but we have one now! A real one, and it’s amazing. I almost didn’t want to say anything because you might think this was “posh-corps,” but I couldn’t contain my excitement. Here it is downstairs next to our sink—yes, there’s a sink too! Incredible.

So, I thought everyone should just take a minute and think about how odd American holiday traditions really are. I was explaining Easter to my new host mother the other day…It wasn’t even the Christ-rising-from-the-dead-and-opening-heaven part that she thought was bizarre. It was the part about a rabbit leaving eggs filled with candy for children. “Yeah, rabbit eggs,” I had to repeat. And when describing Santa’s mode of transportation to my 8th grade class at Christmas, I actually got laughed at. “Children really believe that??” they asked. Not to denounce my Irish heritage, but I opted not to mention leprechauns and rainbows with pots of gold this March. And we’ll cross the Halloween bridge when we come to it—I only managed a watered-down version this year.

I decided to jump start spring by going south for my school's March recess. My friend Erica was nice enough to put me up in Osh city where she teaches at a university. It was a great time to be in Osh since this more religious part of the country goes all out for the Nooruz holiday (the Muslim new year). We climbed Mt. Sulaymon, the holy mountain in the middle of Osh, luckily just before the wave of Nooruz tourists hit.

view of Mt. Sulaymon

wandering through the bread stalls at Osh Bazaar

Then we met up with our friend Lauren and she took us to her village in Jalalabad. The fruit trees were all in bloom and the Naryn River glowed a brilliant teal.

"downtown" with Erica and Lauren

An 8 hour taxi ride got us back to the capital city of Bishkek where the temperature felt more like March. I'm wearing a coat again, but think I might appreciate living in the north this summer if Jalalabad was already in the 80s!

So, I might have gotten a little carried away. The lack of electricity lately is more a result of a nationwide shortage after an unusually hard winter and less a communal punishment (though that’s what it feels like). I hear Tajikistan is having even worse problems. I’m starting to adjust to a new meal schedule after a disappointing baking incident and the heaters aren’t needed as much with the weather improving. Overall, I think we’ll survive; it’s just a classic example of taking things for granted!

I just thought I would let you know that after heated debates with my counterpart Dinara (the local teacher I work with) I’ve decided Kyrgyzstan would be easier to pronounce if spelled “Kur-giz-stan,” with that last “a” pronounced almost like an “o”. This infuriates Dinara because the Cyrillic letter “ы” (as in Кыргызстан) should be transcribed as “y” leaving Americans to think there aren’t enough vowels in the word to pronounce. And transcribing “ы” as “i” is the way the Russians handle things and is therefore not preferred. Besides it’s really not Keer-giz-stan, as it might seem if spelled Kirgizstan. So it really is just unfortunate that the Latin alphabet can’t properly accommodate the name of this tiny country and that Americans will forever be intimidated by its unwieldy collection of letters. I guess I’ll just leave it at that.

In other news, a very Happy International Women’s Day to you! March 8th is Women’s Day, celebrated a lot like Mother’s Day, but in honor of all women and girls. February 23rd was Men’s Day, a bit like Veteran’s Day, but for non-veterans and boys too (sorry, I said I wasn’t going to keep making holiday comparisons, didn’t I?) These were both big holidays at school with lots of class parties and skits planned by one gender for the other. We also had talent competitions for the older students in 10th and 11th grade (there is no 12th grade here). Each class group chose a representative, so there were 8 contestants in each competition, all of whom took competing very seriously. Most of the school gathered in the auditorium, classes cancelled for the afternoon. There were far too few chairs and the students that had claimed some eventually had to give them up with a half-concealed sigh to the late-coming teachers. Age is power here, and always gives you the right to a seat.

For the boys’ competition on Men’s Day, contests answered trivia questions, showed their strength by doing reps with barbells, performed a song, raced in a goofy rely and did funny dances, all while decked out in nice suits. For the girls’ competition yesterday, contests recited poems, performed songs, styled the hair of a younger sister/cousin, cut paper into doilies and presented the judges with pillows they had quilted. One of the girls played a traditional Kyrgyz guitar called a “komoz” while she sang. (The black dresses with lacey white aprons that they’re wearing are their school uniforms.)

hairstyling competition

komoz player

The first signs of spring are starting to appear! It was one of the coldest winters on record here and everyone’s anxious for the warmer weather. Now we’re swapping snow for mud, which makes for even more treacherous walking on unpaved roads (check out my street!) I moved to a new house with a more low-key setting, but a longer walk to school. Everyday I walk with full concentration to prevent a humiliating slip in the mud and hours of scrubbing laundry.

Another sign of spring: the electric company (owned by the government) has decided it’s warm enough to turn off people’s electricity without causing them to freeze to death. This seems to be the communal punishment for the village because almost no one pays for all of their electricity. This was news to me, but apparently the vast majority of houses have special outlets rigged up that aren’t connected to their electric meters and people can therefore get most of their electricity for free. Villagers feel entitled to do this because their salaries are low and electricity is priced higher for domestic use than it is exported for. Well, the electric company’s response is to shut off the village’s electricity every morning and evening, disrupting a life revolved around electric teakettles, heaters and TV. It hasn’t been fun. The best part is that my new host mother actually pays for all of her electricity honestly, but hasn’t been given a bill in months! There are some kinks that need to be worked out here and in the meantime people are starting to think about buying generators.

So I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Kyrgyzstan is officially recognized as home to Santa’s Workshop because it has been scientifically determined to be the geographic center of everything. Well, travelers of the Silk Road probably could have told us as much even without all the satellite imaging and GPS tracking. But Santa keeps a low profile in Kyrgyzstan. It’s Father Frost, taking the form of a snowman, who brings gifts, and it’s New Year’s that’s celebrated, not Christmas. It’s easy to understand the confusion though: there are New Year’s trees, tinsel garlands, greeting cards, even a Kyrgyz version of Jingle Bells on the radio. The big night is December 31st though. It’s a family centered holiday with lots of guesting, food, television specials (including “Home Alone” in Kyrgyz!) and fireworks in the streets at midnight. So it was a little different feeling and generally fruitless to try to explain the American practice of dividing the holidays (let alone explaining Hanukkah and Kwanzaa).

In the end I think Volunteers decided it was better not to compare. It all seemed familiar, but it really wasn’t “quite right” at the same time. My mom has adeptly concluded that this might be the reason behind a lot of our frustrations with cross-cultural differences here. You start to wonder why this nice two-story house with satellite TV doesn’t have an indoor bathroom. Or why the school has a computer lab, but no heating. Formal dress is important on a daily basis, but hygiene takes a backseat with banyas once a week, if that. Better just to accept Kyrgyzstan as it is I guess and not get hung up questioning priorities and traditions. “Jangi Jil” (New Year’s) was a fun holiday in its own right and it was really neat to feel like part of the family here. If you want to wish someone a Happy Jangi Jil—which you can still do!—just raise a shot a vodka and toast with “Jangi Jilingizdar Menen!”

Well, the struggle to pick up Kyrgyz continues. Maybe I should actually study. It’s all around me, but I have a tendency to zone it out unless someone’s speaking directly to me, and that’s really not helping. My host family has become more interested in learning a little English though, so that’s fun. We sit and exchange words back and forth. English is really just an auxiliary language here that a few people take really seriously and everyone else just kinda messes around with. Knowing a few phrases like “My name is” and “I love you” is a good trick and wearing clothes with creative English phrases is cool. A 5th form student was wearing an Adidias knock-off windbreaker the other day that read “Best the fashion frog prince boy” across the back. Very cool.

And we had an English Olympiad last week in which our village competed against the neighboring villages to see who would go to the regional Olympiad. One of the essay topics our students had to prepare for was “The Youth Problem.” I was very confused by this and had to ask what exactly the youth problem was. Well, you see, the youth don’t go to school and have no jobs, so they steal things and become druggies. The solution to this problem is youth clubs, such as the bird watching clubs that are popular in Great Britain. Hmmm. Apparently that question wasn’t actually used in the Olympiad this year though and instead the students had to write about their dream houses—a topic probably equally irrelevant to them. One of my English Club students will be headed to the regionals though and my counterpart/team teacher has selected a few 8th graders to groom for next year’s competition.

So you may wonder where Russian fits into all this. Pretty much everyone in Kyrgyzstan knows Russian, which is helpful because a lot of TV shows, movies and printed materials are in Russian. And if these things weren’t originally in Russian, they have been dubbed or translated at least. For the most part, Kyrgyz is spoken throughout Kyrgyzstan while Russian is spoken in the larger towns and cities in the northern part of the country (and Uzbek is spoken in the southern part of the country). This bilingual system is especially challenging for volunteers, because we’re only taught one language or the other, and you’re bound to offend somebody along the way because of this. The Kyrgyz are usually pleased to find a foreigner learning Kyrgyz over Russian, and this works out in the villages where you’d feel left out not understanding any Kyrgyz. However, it can be a problem in the cities where you may run into Russians who speak no Kyrgyz at all. Then there’s the fact that almost everyone initially addresses us in Russian because they assume all foreigners in Kyrgyzstan speak Russian. It’s great to check out their expression when you ask “Kyrgyzcha?”—“in Kyrgyz please?” Though it might be worth learning a little Russian for the bazaar. All in good time.

Yesterday we had an “otko keergeezu” dinner party marking the first time the new wife of a family friend’s son was coming to the house. For this first visit, she is a guest, but every visit afterward she will be expected to help cook, serve and clean up like a proper daughter-in-law.

There was quite an impressive spread! Here my host sisters are making “Salat Exotica” from a new recipe. The salad was a delicate arrangement of banana and kiwi slices (expensive imported fruits!), croutons, diced apples and canned pineapple, shredded cucumber, imitate crab meat and canned corn. A good dousing of mayonnaise will be the finishing touch.

Other salads on the table were fusions of sausages, peppers and pickles, fried potato sticks and chicken, and cornflakes with nuts, raisins and cubes of cheese. There was also locally caught fish and baked chicken, and of course, mutton besh barmack for the main course. Always a party staple, fried borsok filled in the spaces around every dish, but I had already eaten a lot of that the day before when it was fresh out of the bubbling kazan.

While there is no dessert course, it is finally socially acceptable at the end of the meal to eat off the cookie and candy tray in the center of the table. By then you’ve probably decided which cookies and wrapped chocolates you’d most like to try after careful deliberation throughout the four hour+ dinner, so you can go ahead and snatch your first choice!

Well, we are on yet another school holiday here, but this one has been particularly exciting because of the horse races held in my village! A few years ago, a French woman organized this international event which now attracts tourists annually. My family was kind enough to host volunteers from around the lake who were interested in checking out the events.

The day began with a long distance horseback race into the mountains. While we waited for the riders to come back across the finish line, we watched other traditional horseback events, browsed among the handicrafts for sale, and ate ashlanfu (a spicy Dungan noodle dish popular in Issyk Kul) inside a yurt. Some of the events included tiyin enmei, where riders compete to see who can pick up the most markers off the ground while galloping past; udarysh, wrestling on horseback; and kis kumai, where a man chases a woman on horseback trying to kiss her—afterward the tables are turned, she chases him and then pummels him with her riding crop.

There was also a game like ulak-tartysh, which is similar to polo, but without mallets and with hoops on either end of the field. Unfortunately, the game we saw was played using a ball with handles on it instead of the traditional headless goat corpse. The French team, dressed in pink and wearing riding helmets, played against the Kyrgyz cowboys.

After I saw my friends onto the marshrutka (minibus) to get back to their respective villages, I came home to find my host family making felt mats. They had some female relatives and neighbors over to help with the elaborate process. First, the wool, sheered from their own sheep, was laid out on a reed mat. Next, it was covered with thin fabric and soapy hot water was poured over it while the mat was rolled up. Then the heavy wet bundle was wrapped in canvas and rope so it could be pressed. This was the fun part: one person rolled the bundle along while four or five others walked behind it stamping it with their feet. This went on for about a half hour and was actually very tiring!

Then the whole thing was unwrapped, revealing that the wool had magically transformed into a huge felt mat. The fabric was then re-rolled and squeezed out a few times by hand, and finally washed and hung up to dry. I had previously taken these felt mats for granted, but after seeing the amount of effort involved, I was very impressed by the seven brown mats we had made entirely by hand (and foot!) drying around the yard at the end of the day.