International Volunteer's Day

December 5th, unbeknownst to me before joining Peace Corps, is International Volunteer's Day. For the holiday, Peace Corps arranged for volunteers in the Chui area to participate in a performance event at a local orphanage. There were many international volunteers there; a Japanese group, a Spanish group that works with the UN, and a couple of Korean volunteers, as well. Each group put on a little presentation for the kids. It was good, heart warming fun. Here's some pictures:

The Japanese volunteers doing a Japanese dance:

The Korean volunteers making balloon animals:

Kids having fun with the balloon animals:

I couldn't get any pictures of our group, because I was participating, obviously, but we did two dance presentations. We line danced to "Achy Breaky Heart", and then had a go at "YMCA", which was mostly made up on the spot. The kids danced with us and appeared to be enjoying themselves. The Spanish group was after us and I couldn't get any pictures of them either. They also did two dances; a salsa and the Macarena, which all the Americans joined in on, of course. After the volunteer presentations, the kids put on a couple of performances of their own:

Very cute. And here's some blurry pictures of us Peace Corps folks:

As I traveled back to my village the next day, a taxi driver told me he had seen me dancing on TV. People at my school approached me this week saying they saw me on TV, also. We were warned by Peace Corps about press being at the event, but I had no idea it was going to be televised. Surprise! My counterpart and I had a long conversation about the whole thing which ended with me offering to teach some students the dances. By "the dances" I meant line dancing, or the YMCA, but this was apparently lost in translation, along with a few other things, as I somehow found myself agreeing to teach a group of girls a hip hop dance routine for the school's New Year's party.. Uhh.. I don't even know how to hip hop dance, and now I'm supposed to create and teach a routine? This will be interesting..

Anyway, aside from occasionally volunteering for activities that I'm completely unqualified for, things have been going really smoothly. I finally feel as though the sanity I lost during my initial adjustment period has almost completely returned. I've been much less stressed lately.. but I also find myself asking, at what cost? I think the reason I've been feeling better is because I have significantly changed, and in some cases lowered, my expectations. That means my expectations for myself, for my role in this community, for my success as a teacher, for relationships with locals, and pretty much for my Peace Corps experience as a whole. It’s kind of sad, actually.. But the honeymoon period is over, so to speak, and the reality of my new surroundings is finally starting to sink in. The cultural differences are vast, and the constant pressure to be “productive” and “successful”, which is so common in America, simply has no place here. Things move very slowly, and in order to get myself into the rhythm of life in Kyrgyzstan I’m finding it’s necessary to not put as much effort into my work as I’m used to.. I’d even go so far as to say it’s necessary to not care so much, which is strange because I didn’t join Peace Corps to care less. But there it is.. You just have to go with the flow, it seems.. If you try to force things, all you end up doing is driving yourself crazy. And I’m tired of feeling crazy..

And last, but not least, here is a picture of a giant Christmas tree being assembled in Alatoo Square, in Bishkek. They do not celebrate Christmas here but many of their New Year's Day traditions are the same as our Christmas traditions. They decorate a tree, give presents, and Santa Clause comes into town..

Slow days, fast weeks

I mentioned before that I was teaching my classes This Land is Your Land and As Long As You Love Me. Well, the culmination of my work as choir teacher came last Saturday, when the students put on a concert. November is foreign language month at my school so all the foreign language classes had performances.. Which just means the English classes and the German classes, as German is the only other foreign language taught at my school. I think it went pretty well, though it was not without rocky moments. Here's a few pictures:


This Land is Your Land with some of my 7th and 8th graders. We couldn't find any music for it so I just looked up the guitar chords and played with them. We did practice with the guitar, but I think stage fright excited the students in such a way that they forgot the tempo. This led to them singing way too fast, with me off to the side awkwardly trying to keep up with them on the guitar. That was funny



This was also funny... and pretty embarrassing.. Always a good combination. So, after playing guitar with the kids on This Land is Your Land, my counterpart surprised me by insisting that I play another song, by myself. All the students really wanted me to play, and she ignored my hesitant reaction, telling me to get back on stage. As I am sitting on the stage with my guitar, my mind draws a blank, and I can only think of one song to play; House of the Rising Sun, which I am far from being flawless at. I have since thought of many songs that would've made a better choice, but at the time they eluded me and so that is what I ended up playing. Poorly. I messed up the intro, forgot some of the words, and, to make the whole experience even more perfect, I dropped my pick in the middle of the song, requiring me to stop and pick it up again as everyone stared at me. I pretty much spent the whole song laughing at myself in my head.. But when I stopped playing everyone clapped and said good job so hopefully it wasn't quite as offensive as I imagined it being. I have a feeling they were just being polite, though. Oh well, hopefully my shotty performance will discourage them from putting me on the spot again in the future




And here's some of the German students singing a German song.

Ann, a fellow volunteer, stayed with me in my village on Friday night so she was present at the Language concert and able to take pictures. Thank you, Ann! After the performance we went into Bishkek because all the volunteers in the Chui area had planned a Thanksgiving celebration. All of us had to work on the actual day so Saturday was the next best day. We couldn't get any turkey but we had three roasted chickens and a bunch of side dishes so, just like on any other Thanksgiving, I stuffed myself full of delicious food! It was wonderful, and helped make up for how much I was missing home last week. The holidays definitely bring on strong bouts of homesickness..

While the days here seem to move slowly, the weeks have started to go by pretty fast. Which is nice. It's hard to believe it's already December. Pretty soon school will be out for winter break and I will have to find new ways to keep myself busy. I am trying to plan a trip to Thailand during February, we'll see if that all works out.

I had an interesting laundry experience this week. Laundry tends to be more of an event here than in the states because of the lack of machines that will do it for you. After months of practice, I feel I'm just starting to get the hang of washing by hand. Hanging the clothes outside to dry is the easy part... usually. However, a couple of unexpected difficulties arose during the drying process this time around. The first time I went out to check on my clothes I noticed that a small flock of birds seemed to find the clothes line a nice place to set up perch. After shooing them away, I found that they had pooped all over my sheets and a pair of pants. You can imagine how delighted I was upon seeing this...So I brought them in and washed them again. Not that big of a deal. The second time I went to check on the clothes, half of them were frozen. It hasn't snowed in two weeks, it's actually been pretty warm recently, but I have a feeling winter is about to start strong.

On that note, here are some pictures that I took a couple weeks ago when it was snowy:



Some turkeys wondering outside the village

This is the road that leads out of my village

This is the back of my school! It's pretty big, and also really nice, as far as Kyrgyz schools go

This is the front entrance of the school

The soccer field. Soccer is a big sport here. The biggest.

The play yard

Happy late Thanksgiving

A quick note on boredom..

I often find myself wishing that I could be as easily amused as my young host siblings. The other day I watched Milan, the oldest boy, playing with a broom and a bottle cap.. He would repeatedly whack the bottle cap with the broom, until it got stuck in the bristles, then swing the broom like a baseball bat so that the cap flew across the yard. He would then walk over to where the bottle cap landed, and start the whole process over. He did this quite a few times, until the cap began refusing to stick in the broom's bristles. I also often see my two host brothers playing a game called "chuko", quite popular among young boys here. It is played with painted sheep's bones, the knee bones I believe, and involves drawing a large circle in the dirt. I don't know exactly how it works, but it appears that some bones are simply placed inside the circle and then the players try to hit the bones in the circle with more bones that are thrown from outside of the circle. They don't seem to get tired of this. Oh, to be young again..

While I can't see myself doing such things to pass the time, I will admit that I do enjoy watching their amusement. Sometimes I just observe my host siblings when I am bored. Maxat is definitely the most entertaining. I think he must fancy himself a ninja, as I often see him karate chopping and high kicking his way to the outhouse. I even saw him karate chop one of our cows once. I felt kinda bad for the cow, but it didn't look like a very powerful karate chop and I couldn't help but laugh to myself.

Have much more to say, but no time to say it. Maybe next time!

Hello avid (or not so avid) readers!

I am happy to say that things over here have been going well recently. I finally feel as though I'm getting into a routine. Classes have been fairly painless the last few weeks. November is "Language Month" at my school so all of the foreign language classes are preparing presentations for a party at the end of the month. This means that for the last week and a half I have been teaching half of my classes "This Land is your Land" by Woody Guthrie, and the other half of my classes "As Long As You Love Me" by the Backstreet Boys (at my counterpart's request). It has been very amusing.

Sorry for the super short post but I am actually in a bit of a hurry. I didn't realize it was getting so late and I have to go meet with my training family, who I will be staying with tonight! But before I go, here are some pictures from the Osh Bazaar. It is very big and these photos only cover a few sections of it but this is all I have for now. I'm sure I'll take more eventually..


The salad section. For the most part, Kyrgyz salads are quite delicious.


Rice and corn and various other grain type stuff



Nuts and dried fruits

Now into the meat house... (not for those with weak stomachs)


Rabbit, anyone? Comes with lucky feet, one still attached

Fish

I don't think I captured it very well, but this is supposed to be a picture of a butcher, with very bloody hands, scraping the last bits of meat from a cow skull

This is the fat section. All that white stuff is just roll after roll of animal fat. They love that stuff here, they say it's good for your heart.. I don't have the balls, or the language skills, to argue with them. My family, however, has accepted that I will not eat fat.

I'm not quite sure what these delicious looking things are. Intestines, maybe? Try not to drool all over your keyboards..

Anyway, thanks to everyone who continues to leave comments and words of support!

I suck at titles..

I know it's rather late, but a big congratulations to the first black president in American history! It was big talk among the volunteers last week, and (for the most part) everyone seemed pleased. I certainly am.. Not that I agree with all of his ideas, but I know he'll be a nice change from George Dubuhya. Hell, anyone would be..

Now that that's out of the way..

I just had another incredibly fun weekend. A BUNCH of volunteers from different oblasts came into Bishkek and it was good times. Nice to hang out, nice to share stories, just nice to see people again. It's been about a month and half now since we all separated, so there was a lot to catch up on. Oh! And it snowed on Saturday night! Just for one night, but it was enough to stick around for a couple days afterwards. Makes me extra glad I'm already stocked up on winter clothes..

School continues to have frustrating moments but I am slowly getting the hang of the "just roll with it" attitude. I gave a test last week on the verb 'to be', which I have been teaching for the last three weeks.. 90% of the students failed. It is incredibly discouraging to see this lack of progress, but after talking to some more experienced volunteers I realized that this is normal. Specifically, because there is no Kyrgyz equivalent.. It is hard for them to grasp because their language does not have this verb. In a broader sense, progress here is slow. The school system is different, there is a lack of motivation, and I am still more of a curiosity than a teacher to these students. But I have been assured that things do get better, and I will eventually start to see results. I just need to keep reminding myself that I am only one person. I am doing what I can with what's available to me, and that's all I can do.

I was recently surprised by class being canceled so that students could "insulate" the classrooms. By this I mean that one period was spent taping old, folded pieces of notebook paper into all the window cracks. I have yet to notice this making a difference..

I am happy to say that English Clubs are going well! I definitely enjoy the clubs more than class. I just teach vocabulary and then we play games with the new words! The younger kids definitely seem to be enjoying the games more than the older kids, so I could see things possibly getting boring for the upper classes. They're at that 'too cool for school' stage of adolescence.. But hopefully things will continue to be successful.

On a funny note, one of my 11th form students gave me a love letter yesterday... At least, I'm pretty sure that's what it was supposed to be. It reads:

"Zarina (my Kyrgyz/Russian name)
I like you. You are beautiful woman. You like me very much.
Marat - 11a form
You my Frend FOREVOR."

Cute. The funniest part is I kind of helped him write parts of it. He asked me how to translate a few things, so I did. Imagine my surprise when they ended up in this note, which was hastily handed to me at the end of class while his friends stood laughing at the door. Oh dear, boys will be boys.. Or something..

I wanted to include a few pictures from my most recent trip to the bazaar but the internet cafe I'm at is being incredibly uncooperative, so those will have to wait.

Bye for now. Thanks to everyone who continues to read my babbling!

A day in the life..

A couple of people have asked what my days consist of so I thought I would post a little schedule up here:

Monday
8:00 - 10:25 : I teach three different classes
10:30 - 11:25 : Short break
11:30 - 12:15 : One class
12:20 - 1:05 : Another break
1:10 - 1:55 : Another class
2:00 - 3:00 : English club for 5th, 6th, and 7th graders

Tuesday
No class. The school is lacking in space so a different teacher uses the English classroom on Tuesdays.

Wednesday
8:00 - 8:45 : Class
8:50 - 9:35 : Break
9:40 - 12:15 : Class
12:20 - 1:55 : Break
2:00 - 3:00 : English Club for 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th graders

Thursday
8:00 - 9:35 : Class
9:40 - 10:25 : Break
10:30 - 1:05 : Class
1:10 - 1:55 : Break
2:00 - 3:00 : English Club for advanced students

Friday
8:00 - 11:25: Class

Saturday and Sunday
No class

As you can all see, I have a lot of free time. Breaks at school are usually spent at my house, because I live only 3 minutes from the school, either drinking tea and eating with my host family, planning lessons, or reading. After class, and on my free days, my schedule, and what I do, varies a lot. Sometimes I will go into Kant or Bishkek to do some shopping at the bazaar, other city chores (like use the internet or go to the bank), or meet up with other volunteers. In the village I take walks (when weather permits), read, write lesson plans, study Kyrgyz (I should really be doing more of this), watch movies on my computer, play guitar (I recently bought a really cheap one), help/hang out with the fam, and pretty much anything else I can do to keep myself busy. I’ve recently been grabbing any magazines I can find in English and making collages. Life here isn’t very busy, though it can feel very overwhelming at times.

Last weekend was really nice. A bunch of volunteers in the Chui region, and a bunch of volunteers visiting from other regions, got together in Bishkek for a late Halloween celebration. I was surprised at the group’s creativity, many people were able to whip together some pretty simple, but fun, costumes. I ended up just putting my hair in a bun, borrowing someone’s glasses, and saying that I was a librarian. Not my most creative moment, but hey, it was something. And, what can I say? As the years go on I’m less and less enthralled by the concept of Halloween. But any excuse for a get together is much appreciated, and it was really nice to see other Americans. And a Dutch person! Shawn and Lee, two married Peace Corps volunteers, somehow met a volunteer from a Dutch organization who is in the city working with street kids. He has only been in the country for a week and speaks no Kyrgyz or Russian (but good English), so he was happy to accept when they invited him to hang out with us for the night. Talking to him made me very nostalgic, and I’ve been thinking a lot now about the semester I spent in Holland. I really need to try harder to stay in touch with everyone I met over there.. They were awesome people.

Anyway, we rented an apartment for the night and went out to a local club, where foreigners get in free. It was my first real taste of Kyrgyz night life and it was pretty fun, though the music choices were questionable at times. I also recognized one of my students at the club, so that was awkward. Imagine seeing one of your teachers at a crowded night club, slightly drunk and dancing with a big group of people who obviously don’t fit in, and this is what I imagine the night was like for him. Amusing, I’m sure.

Here’s a few pictures:


Bridgette, as an irresponsible, unwed mother-to-be. She's awesome




Irresponsible, unwed mother-to-be with the Devil, who appears to be anxiously waiting for her damaged baby. Devil played by Shawn, whose husband, Lee, was an angel. They made a cute pair.




Kelly and Alex. I'm still not sure if she was supposed to be a bunny or a cat. Either way it works, so you decide.



And Amanda, our local gypsy.


The night was incredibly fun, but, as tends to be the pattern with incredibly fun nights, the next day was kind of miserable. Lack of sleep, mixed with a slight hangover, left me out of it, to say the least. A bunch of us went out to a nice breakfast, so that helped a bit, but I was still feeling like crap. And it was raining. Luckily, I recently bought an umbrella, so walking to the bus stop and waiting for my bus was not as bad as it could've been. The bus, however, was worse than expected. You would think that when in a bus you're going to be safe from the rain.. This is not always the case in Kyrgyzstan. The roof was leaking all over the place. I liken this bus ride to a mild experience in Japanese water torture. On top of this, the drunk man sitting next to me kept falling asleep(/passing out) on my shoulder, and he smelled awful. Fortunately it was a short bus ride.

Quick note: There is no daylight savings time here which means that Kyrgyzstan is now 14 hours ahead of California, as opposed to the previous time difference of 13 hours. Just something to keep in mind if you're thinking about calling. (This also means that it's really dark in the morning, which sucks.. There's something unnerving about waking up when it's still dark outside. Makes me feel strange)

Happy Halloween!

Winter is approaching and we’re really starting to feel it here in Kyrgyzstan. What I mean is: IT’S GETTING COLD! My family has moved from the outdoor summer kitchen, which is where we were eating before, to the indoor winter kitchen. They have also started using the coal powered central heating system, which seems to be working pretty well so far. But I know that it’s going to get much colder, and I worry that the coal heating won’t be sufficient. I am from the California coast, after all, and I must admit that the thought of a snowy winter, especially a snowy winter without electricity, scares the hell out of me. How will I survive this? I may have to adopt the locally popular “warmth by vodka” approach. Time will tell. I went to Dordoi (BIG bazaar) this week with Ann, a neighboring volunteer, and we blew a lot of money on winter clothes, so that should help. The hippy side of me is actually a bit ashamed.. I bought leather boots! With fur! ::gasp:: But they’re sooo warm! And they smell really good.. And, as I say to myself almost everyday, this is Kyrgyzstan.. the standard rules don't apply!

I also spent the night with my training family this week. I miss them. They were (are) awesome. Here's a couple of pictures:

Me, Aliya (old host sister), and Gulnara (old host mom)

Amber (other volunteer in my area who visited with me), Aliya, Me

And just for the hell of it here's some pictures of a few key winter items that I purchased:

Jacket. On my bed.

Leather boots.

And these beautiful creations are very popular here. They are knitted sock booties for wearing around the house. I love them, they are awesome.

For those of you who didn’t get the e-mail about my address (because I inevitably forgot a bunch of people, and don’t think I have everyone’s correct e-mail address in the first place) it is as follows:

Kyrgyzstan

720000 Bishkek

Glavpochtamt

P.O. Box 1889

ATTN: Laura Hancock (c/o Serena Aisenman)

It will help to also write the address in cyrillic, if you are brave enough to try:

Кыргызстан

720000 г. Ъишкек

главпочтамт

а/я 1889

Ф.И. Hancock, Laura (Aisenman, Serena)

I am sharing the mailbox with Laura Hancock, another volunteer, and it is registered in her name, so that's why you should put her name in the attention space, and then mine in parentheses.

It was also recently brought to my attention that all of you can send me free text messages through the internet! Nifty! Of course, I won’t be able to respond to them, but it’s still neat! Here's how to do it:

1) Go to megacom.kg

2) I think the webpage will initially be in Russian, if it is no problem. On the left part of the screen, in the purple area underneath the MegaCom logo, there will be a little link that says "Eng". Click this and the page will be translated into English.

3) Now that you can actually read the webpage, look on the right side of the page and click "Send SMS"

4) This will take you to the text page, where it will ask you to enter my phone number and your message (and also some security code based on a picture that's on the page). For the telephone number there is two area code options. Mine is the second one, "+996 550". Then type in my phone number, 43 23 30, and then your message! Nice and simple!

5) OH! And don’t forget to include your name or I won’t know who the message is from!

Okay, well that's all for now. I've got to go catch my bus!

Hope everyone's doing well!

Getting into the swing of things..

I have now been at site for over a month and I wish that I could say everything is going perfectly. Unfortunately, perfect is not a word often used in these parts. In fact, I just looked in my Kyrgyz dictionary and they don't even have a word for "perfect". This is not the first time my dictionary has let me down.. I find myself constantly baffled by this language's limited vocabulary. A small example.. "Jakshuh" is the word for good. It is also used for nice, well, fun, pretty, wonderful, amazing, excellent, well-behaved, good-natured, kind, enjoyable, perfect (probably), and many other concepts along these lines. Another example.. The word "koi", depending on how it is used, means sheep, to put, to stop, to punch, please, absolutely, and, when said twice in a row, takes the soothing meaning of "there, there".

The basic simplicity of Kyrgyz is both a blessing and a curse. It's pretty easy to learn, but on many occasions I find myself reaching for a word when it turns out there just isn't one, or there's a much more basic word that should be used in it's place. Being a native English speaker I don't often think about the fact that English has the largest vocabulary in the world. But switching to a language which could, quite possibly, have one of the smallest vocabularies in the world, I am faced with this fact almost everyday. I am used to being able to express myself accurately and eloquently, so Kyrgyz (especially my broken Kyrgyz) can be frustrating at times.

Other things that are frustrating:

- School. For a number of reasons..
1) The textbooks. First of all, there aren't enough of them. In many of my classes there is only one, which the teacher uses to teach out of while the students listen in confusion and boredom. Secondly, the books are far too advanced. They contain texts about different English speaking countries, but the level of English at this school is far from appropriate for students to be reading texts, let alone texts as advanced as these. For example, yesterday we read about The United Kingdom and Great Britain. The new vocabulary for the day was parliamentary, House of Commons, majority, elect, government, power, and monarchy. These kids can barely introduce themselves but they're expected to comprehend monarchies and parliamentary elections. If it was up to me, we wouldn't use the textbooks at all, but the director requires that we teach out of them. My counterpart and I came to an agreement, however. We teach 9 classes together, each of which meets twice a week for 40 minutes. Once a week she will lead the class, teaching ineffectively from the books. Once a week I will lead the class, using my own lesson plans. This means that 40 minutes a week the students will struggle to understand a very pointless, advanced text, and 40 minutes a week they will learn the basics, like the verb "to be", possessive pronouns, and present tense. Learning English will be a very slow process..
2) Cheating. My counterpart and I have given two tests since I started working here and both of them were major cheating fests. I have probably mentioned before that this is a community culture, which means that people share everything and take care of each other. Apparently this transfers into the classroom as well. Judging by the blatancy of the cheating, and the lack of reaction when I talked to my counterpart about it, cheating is just an accepted part of the school system here. No one really cares, or makes much of an attempt to stop it. On top of this, teachers here are hesitant to give bad grades because it makes them look bad if their students don't do well. It's actually assumed by many that if a teacher fails a student, she/he is expecting the parents to offer a bribe for a better grade.
3) The differing concepts of professionalism and keeping to a schedule. Classes often start late, and many times are just canceled altogether without previous notice. My counterpart often leaves the classroom for long periods of time with no explanation. Students come late, or not at all. In every class that we have at least 10 students will be absent on any given day. The classroom door, which I close at the beginning of every class, will be opened multiple times throughout the lesson as various people stick their heads in for the hell of it. During training a volunteer who has been here for a while warned that if a door is closed in Kyrgyzstan, people just have to open it. I thought this was an exaggeration, but apparently it isn't.
4) Motivation. I can really only think of a handful of students who show an interest in learning English. The rest of them don't really seem to care. I did start English Club last week, however, and I enjoyed that much more than class because it tends to be only the most motivated students that come. There are exceptions, of course.. Some kids just come because their friends are there, but overall I think the club will be more productive than class.

- Some of my host family's habits: There is a baby in our family and apparently milk just isn't enough for it anymore. Nearly every meal we have together I get to watch my host mom feed the baby her chewed up food. This is done in two different ways; Sometimes she spits her chewed food into a spoon and then spoons it into the baby's mouth. Other times she just skips the spoon and, much like a mother bird, spits her food into the baby's mouth.. yummy. Then there are the outhouse issues. We don't have lights in our yard where the outhouse is and at night it gets pitch black. For me, this isn't an issue because I have a flashlight. I can always make it to the outhouse. The other people in my house don't seem to bother trying, however, which means that if they have to go to the bathroom when it's dark they just pick a spot in the yard and do their business there. This means that atleast once a week I wake up to find myself avoiding a big, juicy pile of human feces. A few days ago I woke up to find one pile, and two puddles (the locals are not immune to diarrhea, in fact, it is an expected part of life here).

What all of this boils down to is that I'm working on my "brush off" skills. The only way to survive in this atmosphere is to be able to casually brush things off and not worry about them. I thought I was pretty good at this, but my recent stress levels would suggest otherwise. I'm learning to accept the previously unacceptable, and trying to just go with it. The more I adopt this attitude, the better I feel. This doesn't mean I plan on leaving my own piles of waste in various spots in the yard, or that I will completely turn my back to the rampant cheating problems, but I'm finding it's important here to choose my battles.

On a different note, I found out last week that my school will be closed from January 1st-February 28th. Two whole months, because winters here are ridiculously cold, and my school doesn't have a sufficient heating system. I am going to try to plan a trip somewhere, or I may fall victim to toxic boredom.

That's all for now, folks!

I haven't forgotten about this thing

It’s been a busy week! Two holidays! Wednesday was Orozo Ait, which is the end of Ramadan. Everyone stops fasting (though if I’m honest, I didn’t actually meet anyone who practiced the fast) and goes guesting. It’s tradition to visit at least 7 houses for Orozo Ait, I went to 9. It was fun, though I ended the day incredibly tired and extremely full. Thursday wasn’t a holiday but it was special for me because my training family came to visit me in my new village! Seeing them again reminded me just how much I miss them, especially my sister. I didn’t realize we had gotten so close until I stopped seeing her, but I guess living with someone for two and a half months will do that. I'm glad we don't live far from each other.

That brings us to Friday, which was another holiday; Teacher’s Day! Why don’t we have this in the states? Classes ended early and the 11th grade students (oldest in the school) put on performances for all the teachers. They also gave out flowers and then there was a mini-dance party. After the at-school festivities all us teachers took taxis to a cafe in the neighboring town and had a party of our own. LOTS of vodka, LOTS of food, LOTS of singing, and then, when the electricity finally started working so we could play music, LOTS of dancing. It was a good time. I made a short toast in Kyrgyz and was pressured into singing twice, one Kyrgyz song and one English. This is not the first time this has happened and I always seem to blank when it comes to picking an English song to sing.. Which means that I inevitably end up singing Backstreet Boys (not my proudest moments). So I’ve decided I’m going to go through my iTunes and pick out some good songs so I’ll have them ready the next time this happens. Better to be prepared.

And now I will bombard you all with photos because I’m using the computers at the Peace Corps office and that means FREE INTERNET!

First of all, here is my room.. well, one side of it anyway. You can see my bed, the chair where I keep my computer, and on the ground on the left is my water distiller. Cheers to staying giardia free!

And here’s the other half of my room. Table is messy, I know.. But give me a break, it’s the only surface area I have! Hanging over the windows on my door you will see two joluks (headscarves, very popular here). I recieved them as gifts, the left one from a family friend and the right one from my language teacher at the end of training.

Here is the front of the house. Behind the sheet metal is the door. The two adorable girls are my little host sisters, but we’ll get to them later

This is the side of the house, lined with grape vines

Here’s the backyard type area. The little shed looking thing is the outhouse. On the right where all the tires are is where the kids usually play. It’s also where I like to sit outside and read on sunny days

Close-up on the play/reading area. You can’t see it but the trees have little rope swings on them. What you can see, in the bottom left hand corner, are drying patties of cow shit. This is very common here. My family will later burn these to heat the banya (shower room) and also to heat up the kazan (big cooking pot, stone oven type thing... I posted a picture in one of my first few posts.. we made french fries in a kazan)

Here’s the backside of the house. The middle window is my room! The little cement shack on the left is the banya. And on the bottom, more dung patties drying in the sun

This is the stable area, where the cows live

Baby cow!

Now for some pictures of the fam. Like I said earlier, these are my host sisters. The baby is Akulai and the one who can actually hold herself up is Anjan

Here’s one with my host brothers. Holding Akulai is Milan, and in the back is Maxat.

Anjan and Maxat having fun with my flashlight accessories after a blackout

A good one of me with the kids

And one with my host mom, though I feel weird calling her that because she’s so young. Also living in the house are her husband, my host dad, though he's rarely here, and his mom, my host grandma. Eight people including me.

Last but not least, a picture of the view from behind my village. We had some rain recently, which means snow in the highlands, so the mountains are looking particularly beautiful lately