жаңы жылыңар менен!

Happy holidays, everyone! As always, sorry for my lack of posts.. But I am here now to give you a little photo update. Enjoy!

A few shots around my village:

Surprisingly, it's been a very mild winter. It's only snowed a handful of times and most days, though cold, are bright and sunny.

There weren't many of us around for Christmas cause a lot of volunteers are either traveling or in the states right now but the few of us left had a little get together:

We started the night off with a little gift exchange. It was supposed to be a White Elephant sort of thing but everyone was too nice to steal gifts so it didn't quite work.. In the end everyone just picked random gifts, one of which included balloons (above). I got an avocado! That may not sound like much but I was extremely happy with it. I went home the next day and made the best guacamole I've ever eaten. Man, I miss Mexican food..

Then we sat around watching cheesy Christmas cartoons (Charlie Brown and the Grinch).

The only problem was our poor planning left us with no real food. The everyone-bring-a-dish method doesn't work if everyone brings snacks and deserts. Our Christmas feast consisted of cookies, pie, pumpkin bread, cheese and crackers, broccoli with ranch dip, chips, apple crisp, and.. oh yeah, more cookies.

In addition to the Christmas get together, there were a few New Year's parties at school. The first was with the upper class students:

This is the decorated hall.

Most of the girls dress up.

This is my counterpart with our homeroom class.

Every class has to make a poster and this is ours. It says Happy New Year in Russian

My counterpart and I

My counterpart and I with some of our students

There were a few contests for the students. The one in this photo involved two 11th form boys carrying girls onto the stage. Whoever had the most girls by the end of a certain amount of time won. That white and black blur on the right side of the photo is one of the boys with a girl in his arms.

Then there were a bunch of performances. Every class did a song and a skit.

Then there was the teacher's party..

Two teachers dressed up as Santa (or Ayaz-Ata) and his wife

There's a tradition here of people dancing around the tree while singing New Year's songs

Me outside of the schools with my counterpart, the school director, and another teacher

All of the teachers at my school

Me with all of the foreign language teachers (2 English teachers and 2 German teachers)

Then there was a lot of drinking and dancing. Good times.

That's pretty much it for now!

Oh, and I got my LSAT score! 166! Which puts me in the top 7%! Not as high as some of my practice tests but I'm definitely satisfied!

"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me"

Hello America!  And a happy thanksgiving to all!

I am sorry, once again, for the lack of updates, but things have been rather crazy here in Kyrgyzstan.  Everyone has gone berzerk with fear of swine flu so the Peace Corps resource center has been closed for two weeks now.  I don't really understand why we can't use it if we're not sick, but I suppose it's a precaution to prevent potential spreading.  Anyway, what that means for me is that my access to free internet is off limits until the resource center opens again.  So I have been hesitant to do anything on the internet recently.  Today, however, my friend Meredith and I have ventured into the capital to treat ourselves to one of the two establishments that offer wi-fi.  That's right, folks! I am updating my blog from my very own computer!  It feels weird using my laptop for internet again, as it mostly just fills the position of dvd player in my apartment..  And by weird I, of course, mean AWESOME! It's so fast and smooth!  

Moving right along..  Things have been going along quickly here.  I can't believe I only have ten more months left!  It still feels like a long time but it really isn't when compared to how long I've already been here.  And I have some really good news to look forward to.  As some of you may already know, my best friend Shannon is coming to visit me in January!  Originally we were planning to meet in India and spend a couple weeks there but that turned out to be a lot more expensive than we thought it would be, so in the end the cheapest alternative was for her to just come here.  And I'm so excited!  It's going to be the dead of winter, which means shitty weather, so we won't be able to do much sight seeing.  But we're okay with that.  I'm just excited that she's gonna be here and that I get to share my life here with one of my friends from home!

In other news, as some of you may also know, I've been studying for the LSAT recently and I plan on taking it here in Kyrgyzstan.  I'll be taking it on December 5th, which is creeping closer and closer by the minute.  I've been studying like crazy and I've done pretty well on the practice tests I've taken but I can't help but feel extremely nervous. So much rides on this test because I've been particularly picky about the schools that I want to go to.  There's only 4 law schools that I'm really interested in and they're all on the top ten list (UC Berkeley, Stanford, Northwestern, and University of Chicago).  My undergrad GPA isn't very impressive which means I really need a good score to make up for it.  So wish me luck!

I think that's about it.  Thanks to everyone who still checks this thing for updates!

New address and such

Because of some issues with the previous PO Box I've signed up for a new one, in my name. Here is the new address:

Kyrgyzstan
720000 Bishkek
Glavpochtamt
P.O. Box 1915
ATTN: Serena Aisenman


Кыргызстан
720000 г. Ъишкек
главпочтамт
а/я 1915
Ф.И. Aisenman, Serena

Send me packages! Yay!

In other news..

I can't really think of anything.. Aren't you glad I started writing in here again?

I'm not dead!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the long lapse in communication. I kept putting off an update and then there was just so much to catch up on that it felt overwhelming and, well, you know the story..

A brief summary of the last few months..

- My grant is finished and the new supplies that it brought in are being put to good use. School started back up recently and things are going a lot more smoothly than last year.
- New Peace Corps policy: I don't have to teach anymore starting in January. Because my main job as of yet has been team teaching, PC wants us teachers to take a step back and observe classes, making sure that the work we've been doing with local teachers has been successful, and that they are not lost without us. I have mixed feelings about this. I am happy because lord knows there are days when I just don't want to teach, and this will give me an excuse not to. I could see observing classes for 15 hours a week getting really boring, however.. We'll see how that works out. I've still got a few months to figure out all the details..
- I went to China this summer, as most of you know, with my dad and my aunt. It was awesome. You can see pictures on facebook
- Besides teaching, I'm currently working on a couple of secondary projects. One is with a Peace Corps committee called WID/GAD (Women in Development/Gender and Development) which deals with gender issues in country. The other is a project at a local orphanage. I'm sure you will be hearing more about these later.

Those are the basics. After such a long time I realize that this short update just doesn't cut it.. but hey, it's something. And I will work hard to start updating this thing again, even if it's just a few pictures here and there

Jakshy bolgondo uwakyt uchat...?

I have been away too long, I know. My apologies, loyal readers. Many things were keeping me busy recently. The main thing being my grant, which I handed in about a week and a half ago. I heard back today from the grant committee and my grant has been approved! Yay! However, it will only be partially funded. Not ideal, but still awesome. The grant was for a number of teaching supplies and new textbooks so next year's classes will (hopefully) be considerably more successful than this year's. Part of me remains skeptical, but my hopes are high.

Here's a picture (with brief summary) overview of what I've been doing over the last month or so...



At the beginning of May I went down to Naryn to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in style. This very well could be the best meal I've eaten in country. We made (and by "we made" I mean two or three people cooked and I sat around doing nothing) enchiladas, nachos, salsa, bean dip, and key lime pie, all from scratch! Tortillas from scratch, chips from scratch, enchilada sauce from scratch (cheese not from scratch).. It was soooo delicious. Mmmm, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it.. Decorations, key lime mix, and mole c/o Jessica's mom. Thanks!







*****
May 9th is Victory Day in Kyrgyzstan so most of the village gathered around our World War II monument (every village has one) and had a celebration in honor of those that fought. This picture was taken before the celebration started so it's not very telling of what happened that day.. Many people came, students sang and danced, the monument was covered with flowers by the end. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries so this is all I got..




*****
On May 12th I participated in a WIDGAD event (Women in Development, Gender and Development) that we've come to know as Take Your Daughters to Work Day. This involved me and other volunteers taking some of our female students into Bishkek to learn about what life is like for professional career women. We started with a brief discussion/question session at the Peace Corps office (which included topics such as bride-kidnapping, the pressure to start a family, finding a husband who supports his wife working, gender inequality in general, etc) and then the girls went to speak to women who hold the profession of their choice. Those who want to be doctors spoke to doctors, those who want to be translators spoke to translators, etc. It was a very successful day and I was proud to take part in it


Erkina (PC local staff member who helped plan event), Claudia (PC Kyrgyzstan director), Meerim (my best student!), Bridgette (other volunteer), and me in front of the Peace Corps office.




Shawn (other volunteer), Meerim, me, Ainura (another one of my students), Eliza (another very good student of mine), and Bridgette in front of PC office.


*****
May 16th was culture day for the incoming group of volunteers. Many of us that live nearby decided to crash and get in an extra dose of culture for the day..


My training family got a new volunteer this year, two new volunteers actually (that's a long story), so my host mom was there. This is her with her American children, as she says :) Holo, host mom, Alex, and me, in traditional garb




Host mom then insisted that she take a picture of me holding a little felt yurt in front of some hanging shurdocks (kinda like carpets..)



Some other volunteers in Kyrgyz gear



And, of course, we set up a yurt!



Little boy dancing inside of the yurt



Haha, this picture is the first in my "Do you know what that says?" English shirt collection. It's a little blurry so just incase you can't read it, the shirt, the one being worn by the 13 year old girl, says:

B eing
I n
T otal
C ontrol of
H im

Some of my other favorites, that I could not capture on camera, are as follows:
- A 60 year old woman with a shirt reading "I MAKE GOOD BABY"
- A 40 year old woman with a shirt reading "I make boys cry"
- A mother and daughter pair, the mother's shirt reading "WHORE" and the daughter's reading "BITCH"
- A bumpersticker saying, in rather large letters, "Water makes me horny"
- A teenage boy with a shirt that said "..to get a drink around here" on the back, and nothing on the front. My friend and I decided it was supposed to say "Who do I have to screw.." on the front but that didn't make it to print for some reason..


*****
May 25th we had our last bell ceremony at school, despite the fact that there's a month of school left..


All the students and teachers gathered in the school courtyard. I've mentioned the little girls uniforms before, or the "french maid" uniforms, which you can see on the left.



These are the graduating 11th formers doing the traditional two walks around the courtyard. The 11th form girls wear bigger versions of the "french maid" uniform at last bell ceremonies as a sort of kick back to when they began school. It's what they wore on their first day, so it's what they wear on the last day.. In reality, this uniform is only required through the 5th form.

In the middle of the ceremony a large cage full of pigeons was brought out into the courtyard. The students then swarmed the cage, everyone fighting over who gets a pigeon. All those who succeeded got to release the pigeon into the air at the end of the ceremony. It's a nice thought, but rather sad in practice. Most of the students weren't very gentle with their pigeons and many tied balloons or ribbons to their legs, causing them to awkwardly fly away when the time came to release them

Not to mention the two dead pigeons that were left in the cage..

Anyway, that's about it for now! I've got a busy summer ahead of me: implementing my grant, 3 summer camps, and China! But I'll try to find time to update!

Until then..

New digs

Don't have much to say but it's been a while since I posted pictures so I figured I would give a little photo update. Here goes..



This is a picture of me and my old host sister, Kanimjan. Taken before I moved out... obviously..


Her wearing my sunglasses and looking badass

Last week was graduation for the students in first grade. I was invited to the ceremony..


Here are the girls in their traditional Kyrgyz dress. This is not what their school uniforms look like.. I think I've said this in the past but the uniforms resemble french maid outfits. Because this was a special occasion they are wearing traditional ceremonial clothes.. And hats with Kyrgyz letters on them..


These are the boys in their cute little suits


Girls doing a traditional Kyrgyz dance


Boys wearing Kalpaks (traditional Kyrgyz hats for men) and doing some sort of skit involving horse riding...


Everyone holding their diplomas.. Yes, apparently finishing first grade warrants a diploma..

Now for some pictures of my new apartment..

Half of the main room/my bedroom (There's only one room.. and a kitchen)

Other half of the main room/my bedroom

Toilet.. I know it doesn't look like much, but you have no idea the joy it brings me to be able to go to the bathroom indoors.. The flusher doesn't work, though, so I have to fill that yellow bucket up with water and then poor it into the bowl when I want to clear everything out.

Half of bathroom

Other half of bathroom. In Kyrgyzstan it's very rare for the toilet and the tub to be in the same room... Usually they're seperated.

Half of kitchen.. You'll notice that there are no pipes hooked up to the drain in the sink. The water from the faucet works, though, so that's why there's a bucket under the sink.. I just use the sink to wash dishes and then empty the bucket when it's full

Other half of kitchen

Tada! Paradise, isn't it? I love it, in any case. It's about $45 a month and it's a lot more space than I had at my host family's house!