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