On to bigger things

PST has finally begun to wind down. The weather over here is starting to turn to fall and it really feels nice outside. Chilly, sunny mornings followed by breezy afternoons with early sunsets here in Kyrgyzstan are very nice. With only one week left we volunteers still have much work to get done. Each training group is required to do a community project in their training host village. My group and I repaired and repainted some of these strange, run-down, gazebo-type structures the elementary school has in their playground. Each structure is made of wood and look like small houses except they have only three walls. Where a fourth wall should be is a huge opening for children to freely run in and out of. They really don’t look like that much fun but they do have some cool paintings of wolves and other sweet animals on the wall. Unfortunately these wall paintings have been scribbled over with Kyrgyz and Russian profanity. We actually had a full language lecture day of Kyrgyz and Russian swear and profanity words so we can now understand what these hooligan teenagers are trying to say when the tag the poor elementary school kids’ play equipment. For the record, there are A LOT of Russian swear words. Plenty for any occasion! Now back to the community project. Our job was to paint over this sick scripture and repair the damaged wooded floor boards on the ground. It appears that Kyrgyz children get some great kicks out smashing their play equipment into oblivion. So the female volunteers of the group, who outnumber us guys (9 girls, 3 guys) teamed up and told us boys to get working on the floor boards while they scrape paint of the walls. When you are outnumbered by that many girls you really have no choice but to do what they tell you to do. I was especially not feeling it because I was still recovering from a nasty cold I got down in Naryn during my permanent site visit (which I will talk about in a bit) a couple weeks ago. I’m pretty sure that the girls thought they were getting out of some serious work when they told us to work on the floors while they scrape paint. They spent the whole two days staring at a wall and scraping paint off the walls while we boys got some great exercise and serious work done! Although I must give them props for doing that work; they did a good job and scraping paint sucks. At first we stood there not knowing what the hell to do. We looked long and hard and thought. Then we got down on our hands and knees and started doing what we could and after an hour or so we figured it out. With no previous carpentry work before we actually did a kick-ass job repairing those wood floor boards. We were giving permission to tear down a neighboring gazebo thing and use parts to repair the other three. Using saws, hammers, and large crowbar, we stripped that gazebo down and laid some serious floor boards. We were unstoppable. None of our host families had any new nails so we had to straighten and reuse the rusted nails we pulled out from the other gazebo. We started last Saturday and worked for about four hours and on Sunday we worked the whole day starting at 10 and ending at 5! We were killing it! This one local Kyrgyz man came out of nowhere and lent a huge hand. He was a nail-hammering machine! Chris, a fellow volunteer and great buddy, had his little 10-year old host-brother (Samat), to help us out as well. Boy could he take it to those old floor boards! Get em’ little man! Now the girls kept on scraping while we were running around back and forth stripping boards, nailing nails, sawing boards, cursing, sweating; having an great time. We finished replacing all forty-one broken floor boards, stood back, and as the sun started to set, felt nothing but greatness. We stayed and worked an hour and a half longer than the paint scrapers. I think they got seriously bored and called it an early day last Sunday. We still got a full weekend of more scraping and painting coming up which should be a little easier than replacing those floorboards. We volunteers had finally gotten our first taste of actually getting something done this past weekend. Just living here and learning the language, attending countless safety and health lectures, and trips into Bishkek have seemed just so tedious. After two months of self-focus, it felt good to do some real work. Being in the Peace Corps and all this may sound clichй but it was definitely rewarding. Adjusting to the culture, food, language, and way of life is very stressful and realizing our purpose here through this work experience was refreshing. As I mentioned earlier we all got the opportunity to visit our permanent sites last week. We first had another matching ceremony similar to the first one where we met our training host family. Accept this one was a lot less awkward since we could somewhat speak the language. Nonetheless it’s very intimidating. Especially when your new host mom has beefier hands than you. My host mom for the next two years is VERY strong and VERY Kyrgyz. A very kind and welcoming lady in her 50’s, she’s like a lot of Kyrgyz from Naryn. Her skin is dark and weathered; probably from the intense sun, dryness, and wind Naryn experiences. Myself, my host mom, Micah and her host mom (Micah is the only other volunteer in my area), and Dan (the volunteer who just finished his service and is being replaced my Micah) all hoped a marshrutka in Bishkek and started our 8 hour journey. Dan served his two years in my Rayon and had quite a bit advice to give The whole way down Dan and I chatted about life in the Peace Corps, certain challenges, and places to check out here in Kyrgyzstan. Dan, whose face is weathered from the dry Kyrgyz air, had a lot to say about this place. He told me about ways to cope the cold and isolation and to always to keep in touch with fellow volunteers. Straying focused on teaching, getting exercise, reading, and language mastery are essential. It’s a difficult area to serve. The drive down to Naryn is absolutely incredible. From Bishkek you head east on the road through the Chui Valley until you hit Balykchi on Lake Issyk-Kul. From there we went south into Naryn. Northern Naryn is green with huge mountains and enormous rolling hills. Further south past Kochkor you notice Yurts at the foothills near rivers where Kyrgyz families spend their summers with their horses. Vast fields of purple flowers and green grass scatter the countryside. STEEP mountain passes on dirt roads with sharp switchbacks would make anyone wet their pants. Kyrgyz men on horses sporting their Kalpaks are a common site. This is real Kyrgyz country. Dan pointed out the huge semi trucks on the road that come from China delivering goods. Sitting in the rickety van smashed in between Kyrgyz children, time flew by as Dan and I chatted. We had a quick stop in Naryn city and then it off for a couple more hours to my site. Night had fallen and my new host mother and I were dropped off at the village. Before I knew it I was eating radishes, potatoes, and drinking tea with my soon-to-be new host family. “This is where I’ll be living,” I thought. It was a lot to take in. I have a younger sister who’s ten who seems pretty cool. I helped her work on a 500 piece puzzle while I was down there. I have a 27 year old brother who’s married and has a 8 month year old and another along the way. My brother is a school teacher and lives with his wife in another village nearby. He’s a pretty cool guy. He showed me around the village and took me down to the river that flows close to the village. It’s a huge river and apparently has a ton of fish. He said he’ll take me fishing down there when I move in. He’s also got a horse that he rides and he’s a pretty stellar rider. Horses here in Kyrgyzstan are a very sacred animal. Horse riding is HUGE. My host father seems like a funny guy who likes to have a good time. He plays the Komus which is a traditional Kyrgyz guitar-like instrument. My host mother is a kindergarten teacher at my school while my father works the fields. My mother cooks all meals outside our house on an open fire; no electric or gas stoves in this village. Like most homes in the village, my home is made from clay and looks similar to that of a Mexican pueblo. I wonder how warm it is in there in the winter? The outhouse is far away: I have to walk across a small field to get to it. This can be a pain in the winter when I have to pee in the middle of the night; which I do almost every night here. Waking up in the middle of the night and having to trudge through some serious snow just to take a piss sounds tough. Maybe I’ll just pee outside? We have a well out front that has some of the freshest tastiest water I’ve ever tasted. The water is runoff from the nearby mountains that engulf the Naryn oblast. My village is surrounded by orange and yellow hills and jagged rock faces. A lot of Naryn is fairly vegetated but the part of Naryn where my village is it looks more like the Wild Wild West. I am out there. Far away -way out there. The isolation combined with the cold and simple diet is going to be difficult. Right now there are a wide variety of fruits and vegetables available. Come winter Naryn is limited to potatoes, rice, cabbage, carrots, beets and sometimes meat. Yes, sometimes, meat. The Kyrgyz/Central Asian stereotypical diet of meat is true but it’s eaten every once in awhile. Meat is very expensive here in Kyrgyzstan and is usually enjoyed during celebrations and guest events. The other week I had the ‘honor’ of witnessing the slaughter a sheep. Our neighbor next door did the deed. After tying the helpless animal’s legs up he grabbed the sheep by the snout, pulled its head back, slit open his throat, and drained the blood into a bowl. However the sight of this was not as intense as its sound. The sheep was making some blood-curdling groans and desperately gasping for air. Then, with a crunch, slaughter guy finally snapped the animal’s neck back. The sheep was cooked and we ate it for dinner and it tasted pretty descent but I’m still trying to get used to its strange taste. During my site visit I had the opportunity to participate during the first day of school. We had an opening ceremony where the entire faculty and all 200 students gathered out front of the school. Students, who are all required to wear uniforms every day, lined up according to form (Kyrgyzstan still uses the old Soviet method of grade classification: forms). Boys sport all white long-sleeve dress shirts and black pants while the girls wear a black dress and white shirt. Girls also have pigtails and have these giant white fluffy bow things in their hair and it looks pretty funny. During the opening ceremony the principal, or director, said a few words then the Zavuch, or vice principle had a few words to say. The Zavuch talked and mention my name. She told the school that there will be a volunteer from America to teach English for two years. Then she said the volunteer was very handsome but his hair was too long. Just kidding. She really did say I was very handsome though. I do need to get a haircut though. Now it was show time. I was required to give a speech in Kyrgyz and then say it all over again in English. Good thing I prepared a solid speech. Besides a few children laughing at my accent the speech went real well. I said the speech over again in English and it was pretty awkward because out of everyone there only my English teaching counterpart could understand me so there were a lot of confused looks. My counterpart is pretty cool young lady and has a son. Unfortunately we had a rough time communicating in English. I sat in on her fourth form English class (10-year olds) and expected to sit. She gave a quick introduction to the class and then turned to me and said ‘now what?’ What? You want me to teach? I was definitely expecting not to be teaching this trip. But I guess I have mad English skills so why not? I had a pretty bad cold at the time; probably from picking my nose so much from the way dry weather. So I really wasn’t doing any work. I did some improvisation and pulled off a decent little lecture of introducing our names to each other in English. After that we went over some future lesson plans together. Her English isn’t perfect so I’ll have to step it up with my Kyrgyz. This morning I had final language examination and scored an intermediate medium which is pretty good. With Kyrgyz being the only language spoken in these parts of Naryn I should be speaking Kyrgyz fairly well after only a few months. Things should be pretty interesting these next few months. I head to Naryn to start my service next Friday and the real adventure begins. I start teaching with my counterpart on Monday! I’m definitely going to miss my host family that I’m living with right now. My younger host sister is still up to her mischief. My other host brother who I actually just met for the first time is back in town. He’s my age (I’m actually only 2 days older than him) and he’s been working at a grocery store in Moscow. He’s a pretty cool guy and likes my music. I showed him some Allman Brothers Band and seemed to dig it. My host mother seems to be pretty irritated these days. Because my host family practices Islam they are fasting this entire month for Ramadan. My host mother and two brothers wake up at four to eat and don’t eat again until the sun is completely down at 7:45 or so. Having my host mom cook delicious meals for me every day is going to be something of the past pretty soon. She has done a lot to help get used to life her in Kyrgyzstan. She’s showed me how to wash my clothes and properly act at the dinner table during a traditional Kyrgyz meal. I will definitely be missing her. I don’t get good cell phone service where I’m going. Apparently they recently got their first cell phone service tower in the larger town forty-five minutes away. Still phone service is a tossup. Internet is three hours away in Naryn city. I plan on making it out there at least once a month so look for updates every month. I’ll be sure and put an update up next month or so. Also if I’m leaving out any details, be sure and post a comment and I should answer most questions. Keeping in touch with family and friends is pretty essential. I get to talk to my parents at least once a week. They got a pretty sweet calling card deal. Getting emails has never been so enlightening. Just hearing what going on back home is awesome. I was having a rough day not long ago and I got an awesome Facebook message from a good buddy and it totally revitalized my spirits. Truly incredible. I wrapped up my site visit with a day and a night in Naryn city to hang out with some current and new Naryn volunteers. Naryn city is cool place. Not a big place but big enough. The city has got a few great restaurants which should be good for a break from the huge quantity of potatoes and cabbage I’ll be eating. That last night we went out to a cafй for dinner and kicked it. It was the K-14’s last night together and they wanted to make it a good one (their service was almost over and they were getting ready to head home). We went to a small club and I had a few vodka shots. Then I did the worm on the dance floor. A young drunk pregnant Kyrgyz lady came up to dance. Only a little bit disturbing. Well that is it for today. I will do my best to keep the stories rolling on here. Emails are magical. mikechalfin@yahoo.com. Later, Mike

Over the Hills and Far Away

The time has come! I have finally learned where, exactly, I will be living for my Peace Corps experience. After almost two months of days filled with rigorous language and teacher training, seemingly endless lectures, and group projects, I have found the light at the end of the tunnel. In less than one month I will be at my permanent site and will have started my work as an English teacher. I will be teaching English to 5th through 11th forms which means I’ll be teaching 11 through 17 year-olds (Kyrgyzstan still uses the old Soviet grade level system). Class size ranges from 25 to 35 kids and I’ll be teaching at school Monday through Friday. School in Kyrgyzstan goes till Saturday however Peace Corps volunteers don’t have to work Saturdays. Hopefully, I will have a counterpart to work with while I teach. It’s now required that schools that Peace Corps serve have a counterpart, or co-teacher, to work with the volunteer. I’m also required to start English clubs for students. This gives students opportunity to expand on their English skills outside the classroom and learn more conversational English. I am not limited to only teaching English during my service here in Peace Corps. Secondary projects are highly encouraged. With my background in sports I hope to coach. In the summer months in Kyrgyzstan School is out. TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteers use this time to travel or work at summer camps for youth around the country. I could even start a summer camp of my own. This next year that lies ahead of me should be VERY interesting. A week ago we had or site placement ceremony. Outside the training facility on the blacktop was a giant map of Kyrgyzstan drawn in chalk. All 60 volunteers stood around this map and waited for their name to be called. Volunteers were then directed to stand at their site location on the giant map. When my name was called at the placement ceremony I was directed to the center of Kyrgyzstan. I found myself standing in the Naryn Oblast. The Naryn Oblast is big: bigger than Switzerland. The land is 70% mountain range and 30% mountain valley and is claimed to be the most beautiful Oblast in all of Kyrgyzstan. With hills and lakes it is the “Silk Road” country. With a population of 250,000, Naryn (pronounced Nar-in) is the most Kyrgyz area of Kyrgyzstan. Oblasts like Jalal-Abad and Osh border Uzbekistan and have an Uzbek cultural influence. In the North you have Talas, Chui, and Issk-Kul. Talas borders Kazakhstan and has a bit of a Kazakh population. Chui and the northern region of Issyk-Kul have a Russian influence and are frequented by tourists. However Naryn is pure Kyrgyz. During my site interview a month ago Peace Corps staff asked me if I can handle isolation well. I told them I could probably handle it. Well the village I’ll be living is one of the two most isolated in Kyrgyzstan that the Peace Corps volunteers serve. I’m not a fan of the city here so I asked to live in a small village. A small village is what I got. The village has a population of approximately 850 (Smaller than my high school graduating class). Being the only white guy in this village I should expect to make 850 new friends. “Sorry but what was your name again?” Lucky for me I have another volunteer in a village 20 kilometers away in another village. The closest volunteer after that is almost three hours away by Marshrutka as opposed to other volunteers who are usually 45 minutes apart. Unfortunately there is no interent in my village. I'm going to have to take the marshrutka into Naryn City which is three hours away. Hopefull I'll have a blog update every month. From what I hear Naryn living is not going to be easy. I’ve talked to some neighbors and new friends here in Kyrgyzstan about living in this particular area in Naryn. I’ll get reactions from them similar to that of friends and co-workers in the states after telling them I was going to Kyrgyzstan to live for two years. Some of their reactions have not been so encouraging. My host brother makes fun of me saying that I’ll become an Indian living mountains and hunting game with a spear. He also claims that the women in Naryn can carry cows and have hair on their chests but have the most beautiful faces in all of Asia= NICE. Okaaayeee... so Naryn is the coldest Oblast in Kyrgyzstan with temperatures getting as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Electricity frequently goes out and classrooms are unheated. Meals with my host family will be cooked by fire (not stove). I need to buy heavy duty winter boots to walk around in the snow. I also need an enormous winter coat to stay warm outside. Finding variety in foods is gonna be a problem. The temperatures in this part of the world get so low that only root vegetables like carrots can be grown. I’ll be getting used to eating a lot of sheep, potatoes, and cabbage during these harsh winter months. As cold as the winters may be it still doesn’t change the Kyrgyz way of life. The Kyrgyz are some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. There’s no place more rich with Kyrgyz culture than Naryn. Volunteers here say that village living in Naryn is the quintessential Peace Corps experience. This weekend the Peace Corps has arranged a site visit. I get the opportunity to visit my site where I will be working, meet my new host family, and meet my class on the first day of school. Meeting a brand new host family is going to be a trip. It’s a pretty far drive but a very scenic one. The fist day of school is this Monday (September 2nd). I'm supposed to give a speech in front of all the staff telling my background and such. I also get to meet my students that I'll be teaching this year. I'll also get a day to hang out with all the volunteers who are currently serving in Naryn. Alright that's it for today. By the way I haven't had a bucket bath in two and half weeks and I smell like a champion. Until Next Time, Mike

Thinking Outside the Outhouse

Greetings from Kyrgyzstan. We are now entering the phase of training where it's time to get down to serious business. This is a stressful time for us trainees. As if adjusting to a completley different culture, learning a far-out Turkic language with a wild alphabet, and diarreha in outhouses wasn't enough, the Peace Corps keeps our days completely full with community assignments, culture presentations, and english clubs. At the end of training we will have to have started a community project of some sort within our training villages. We've been considering a school trash pickup. There are tons of broken glass vodka and beer bottles riddled all over the playground at the school. Apparently the playground is the hot spot for boozing in this village. We also plan on repainting the Elementary School's playground. Every Monday and Thursday afternoon my training group and I put on an English Club for children in our training village to help improve their language skills. On our first day we had a very high turnout of about 50 or so. Kids ages 8 to 16 showed up to learn some sweet English skills. Me and two other trainees are working with the real little ones. The kids are fairly well behaved and actually can speak a decent amount of basic English. We'll take our group of 15 eight-year-olds outside and play games and sing songs like hokey pokey. They definitely dig the Hokey Pokey. You really can't have too much lecture-style teaching working with these kids. They'll get bored pretty fast and want bolt. English club starts an hour after training has finished. After 7 hours of language and technical training I need some serious nutrition. I have about thirty minutes after training to sprint home to eat some egg and tomato and get my host sister to take her to English club. I'm pretty beat by the end of the day yet there is still more to be taken care of. I'll come home and fill buckets of water for my host mom at the well down the road and then get started on my homework. Pretty soon after that my host mom will cook me a scrumptious dinner and by then it's 8 or so and itching to get some sleep. I'll talk with my host family in the best Kyrgyz I can for an hour or so. We talk a lot about food, Kyrgyzstan, and the neighbors. Apparently the Russian neighbors next door don't take to kindly to Americans and that I should try not to talk them. My familys has been slowly introducing more and more Kyrgyz foods. The other night my host sister brought me a plate of something that looked very strange. She told me that they were sheep intentestines diced into small pieces. After some pressure by my mom I told her I'd do one. It tasted and felt liked a baloon in my mouth. I'm pretty sure my face turned green as I tried to chew this foul tasting food. I eventually gave up chewing it just swallowed it whole. I could feel it sitting there in my stomach. From my facial expression at the time they understood I didn't want seconds. I'll usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10 every night. By then I'm so beat I'm just dying for some sleep. Me and my host sister are "getting along." I'm pretty sure she thinks I actually her older brother. Sometimes when I'm late for a session I'll come outside to find one of my shoes missing (It's customary in Kyrgyz culture to remove your shoes before entering a house). Despite my obvious frustration, she finds it unbeleivably amusing to watch me (from the kitchen window) hoble around with one shoe on while I look for my other. A few weeks ago, while my mother was gone for the weekend (unfortunately my host Grandmother past away and my host mother was at the funeral), my host sister and I got into a scuffle. She through a serious fit because I wanted to cook eggplant to go along with dinner. It was really bizarre. I had never seen someone through such a tantrum over eggplant. But still, I had to have my eggplant that day. So I went out back and picked a couple to chop up. I was minding my own business as I chopped up a delicious eggplant, tomatoe, and potatoe medely, and suddenly I felt a pair of claws dig into my back. Now my sister had been doing this to me all week and I just about had it by now. I snatched the kitten and and ran with to the other side of the house. As I approached my destination, my sister grew more terrifed as she was learning the potential fate of her little kitten. Now my family owns a ravenous, rabies-infested, dog chained up out back that they use as a sort of security system. I held the helpless little kitten within a good distance of this beast and said "EET Mushulk Jayeet!" Which means "Dog eat cat!" She hasn't bugged me with that cat ever since. She actually has been gone for the past two days. She's taking a well-deserved vactation at her older sister's house on Lake Issy-Kul. She works incredibly hard. She's up every morning at 5 milking the cows, feeding the chickens, watering the garden. She's a real trooper and she's only twelve! I think I'm going to miss my host family when I have to move to my permanent site in a month. I've only been living here for 7 weeks and I'm starting to get pretty attatched. It will be interesting living with a completely new host family when I move. Kyrgyzstan definitley has been having great moments but sometimes, when you least expect it, something else happens. A few weeks ago me and three other fellow PCVTs were riding a taxi back to our village from the bazar in town. I was sitting in front with my head down looking for some cash in my wallet when I hear a loud bang and a large spray of broken glass showered the top of my head and all over my body. I have to say I was pretty terrified and slowly looked up to see an giant spider web-style shatter on the taxi winsheild. Apparently some kid threw a rock at us while were driving down the country road. Luckily I was not hurt. Had I not had my head down working on the cash situation I might have goten broken glass in my eye! Not good. The taxi driver causally brushed the glass off his dashboard as if it happens everyday. No big deal. Lately I've been struggling with some bowel issues that just won't go away. I'll spare you the details but having to run to the outhouse in the middle of night is no fun. Peace Corps training is A LOT of work. Language training is very frustrating at times and having to learn how to teach can leave anyone overwhelemed. In addition to our training we are required to turn in English club lesson plans, formulate community projects, and turn in language assignments. Every Wednesday afternoon all of the volunteers from their villages will take taxis into town and meet at the Hub Site in town for more lecture on health and safety in Kyrgyzstan. We also get our immunizations this time of week. I've had TEN shots since I've been here and each one has left me feeling ill and gunning for the toilet for some crazy reason. After all the work is done there is always pressure to hang out with fellow volunteers. Not that I don't like my fellow trainees but after a full packed of work I really would just like some down time to myself. "Sorry man I'm staving, I need go eat some home-made tasty-delicousness!" This past Saturday we had culture day and it was pretty awesome. On this day all of the training villages come together for a giant picnic. At this event each training village has performs a skit that reinacts a traditional Kyrgyz or Russian cultural event. Each group has been preparing for this event for quite sometime. My group and I performed a traditional Kyrgyz wedding. Guess who was acting as the husband getting married. My host mom presented me with a Чапан (Chapan) as my wedding suit. It just so happened that the Chapan my family had for me to wear was dark green with a gold embroidery. How flippin sweet is that. Not only was I wearing appropriate Kyrgyz attire for the event but I was also sporting my Oregon Duck colors. To complete my Kyrgyz wedding outfit I wore the traditional Kyrgyz hat: the Калпак (Kalpak). A fellow female volunteer was to be my wife. In preparation for the event we had many rehersals. Our host mothers were also acting in the skit as our parents and they just had a blast. They pretty much pretended we were their little dolls and played with us in their little doll house. When culture day came last Saturday we kicked off the festivities with the construction of the tradional Kyrgyz tent-like dwelling: the Yurt. Following the Yurt's completion we got right into the skit performances. All the performances were pretty cool. Especially the traditional Russian wedding when the husband and his two best men got drunk off vodka shots on stage. While most of this was going on was desperately trying to crunch my lines. Being the husband getting married I had a lot of lines to remember. My role was to tell my soon-to-be wife that I love her and that I would marry her and I'd buy her the traditional gold earrings. Then I would go to my buddies that I was getting married and invite them along to the wedding. It was hard because it was a lot of lines and they were in Kyrgyz! Oh man I was a nervous wreck! I hadn't memorized lines and acted in front of crowd since eigth grade! I was sweating pretty hard and my heavy Chapan that I was wearing was not helping. When it was are turn to perform it was go time. We got up there, I was given the microphone, and recited my lines. Nice! That was over but the skit was just getting started. The wedding ceremony went through successfully. My mother tied the traditional Kyrgyz white cloth around my wife's head and when I thought all was said in done there was more. One of the host mothers snatched the microphone and got up a started singing like there was no tomorrow. I was thinking "awesome she's singing" until my fellow volunteer friends started nudging me and telling me to dance. What was this? We didn't go over any dancing for this skit. Then out of no where some random guy started rocking out on his accordian. It was now or never. I was starting to turn bright red so I got up there and busted out some old school chalfer dance grooves on stage to get the party started. What a sight! Everything was going great until she stopped singing so I stopped dancing. But then she started singing again and once you stop dancing on stage it's incredibly difficult to start dancing again. Awkward! It ended shortly after that thank God. After all the skit were performed it was time to eat. Huge amounts of Plov, a traditional Kyrgyz dish consisting of rice, carrots, and sheep, was served. Plenty of bread, tomatoe, and watermelon to go around for everyone. It was afternoon and pretty hot outside and a dance party was slowly starting up. Kyrgyz and Kazhak pop music was playing and I was thinking how impossible it was to dance to when they put on some Ace of Base. I put down my watermelon and got out there: Kalpak and all. It was a pretty awesome site to see so many people dancing in grass field in the middle of the day. A couple of potential Peace Corps volunteer couples stopped dancing to sit and watch and get a little closser to oneother. Feels like sixth grade all over again. It's Kyrgyz tradition that when you dance you lay it out until you have nothing left. I danced till it was toilet time. My stomach is still adjusting to the Kyrgyz diet and I'm still trying to recover from some sort of food-borne bug I caught last week. Gross bummer but that's third-world livin' for ya! It was time to go so we all piled into our Marshrutkas and headed home. I got home and passed out for three hours or so. What a day. That night I showed the rest of my family my pictures. They really got a kick out of all the Americans wearing Kyrgyz attire. It was pretty funny. A new week is about to start and we find out where our permanent site is and meet our new host family this Wednesday. I'm pretty nervous to find out what part of the country I'll be living in for the next two years. I'm even more nervous to meet my new family! As hard as training is it's going by pretty fast. We are over halfway done with training and it's only going to get more intense. The work will continue to pile up but I'll keep my blog updated as much a possible. Till next time! Mike

A Quick Update

Hello family and friends. I'm letting you know that my days right now are absolutely LOADED and I have hardly anytime to get to the internet! But I'm letting you all know that everything is going great and I'm working on a new post with stuff that has been going down here in Kyrgyzstan. Nice pictures also coming soon. Well I'm out! Later!

My Home

I’m all settled in with my host my host-family here in the KYG. I’ve been here for a few weeks already and so far, very good. All volunteers have been divided into groups of ten or so and are placed in villages. In these groups we have intensive language, cross-cultural, and technical training. Some are in Russian-language groups and others (like me) are learning Kyrgyz. My host family is absolutely terrific. I have mom, a 10 year old sister, an older brother who’s 27 and drives a taxi, 3 cows, many chickens, and a garden loaded with vegetables. I live with a very religious family and my host mom is incredible. She’s always offering me food and Chai (tea). The food here in Kyrgyzstan is above and beyond what I had expected. Every day I eat the freshest of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, carrots, potatoes, lettuce, eggplant, eggs… this list goes on! The melons: extraordinary. These all come from my backyard. My host mom will pick these foods early and the morning and spend all day preparing them. Man do I eat them up! I’ve never eaten fruits or vegetables this great before. All these foods aren’t grown with the assistance of fertilizers or growth hormone. The livestock we eat (by the way I had sheep for breakfast this morning) is all grass fed. The livestock here are much leaner than the corn-fed cow you would see in the states. Though the meat is a little tougher over here it tastes ten times better. All the food that we eat is unprocessed. Not that I had a whole lot to lose before I got here but by eating this way I’ve actually been losing a few pounds. I eat as much as I want which is a lot. Whenever I finish the food on my plate my host mom quickly throws on another plate full of whatever we are eating. She thinks I’m some sort of garbage disposal or something. I guess this explains the five dumps I’ve been taking every day. The trick is to leave a little food on your plate when you’re full. Then there is no reason to get more food put on your plate. This is called eating seasonally. Since its summer there are LOADS of fresh produce that are in season. Come winter our options will be very limited. Potatoes and some a few veggies will be the staple of our diet. No fruits probably. We’ll see how excited I am about eating seasonally then. Last night I ate cow right off the bone. Skin, fat, meat and all. Welcome to Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz typically don’t drink coffee, just Chai. Chai has hardly any caffeine and is supposed to be pretty good for you. I am a Chai drinking machine. Every meal Chai is served. We’ll have Chai in the morning after breakfast and late in the afternoon. We’ll drink Chai while we talk, while we study language. We’ll have Chai for no reason at all. It is a Kyrgyz belief that cold water will get you sick if you drink it. Drinking hot Chai or hot water is the only appropriate way to drink water. Chai is even drunk when it’s hot outside. It’s been getting close to the 100’s and Chai is still going round. Drinking hot Chai raises your body temp which causes you to sweat and keeps you pretty cool. I’m assuming this is also the Kyrgyz way of keeping cool. I’ve been drinking the chai like a champ lately. My village actually has a serious water problem. There is no running water at my house so we use the community well down the road a little ways. Every few days or so the well will go dry. We have plenty of water on reserve but it’s still pretty scary. The other day I helped my host Aunt climb down to the bottom of the well scrape some grey-colored water from the bottom. Luckily we only used this water for bathing and not cooking. I take a bucket bath maybe twice a week at most. It’s not so bad. The water here is too dirty for Americans. The Peace Corps gave us all these fancy water distillers that filter about a gallon in four hours. We’ve actually had three volunteers already ET (early termination) and headed back to the states. Apparently Kyrgyzstan has a pretty high volunteer dropout rate compared to other countries served. I keep hearing about how hard it will get; especially in the winter. Temperatures can get down into the -20’s and electricity can become almost non-existent. Living here with hardly any language knowledge is pretty difficult. After a field trip to Bishkek a fellow PCVT buddy and I were trying to get a Marshrutka (a taxk-like van that packs passengers in like sardines) back to our village. Since there are no schedules to take this form of public transportation it’s pretty hard getting around to places when you got a time budget. We tried using the little language we know but still the drivers couldn’t understand us. We were getting pretty frustrated (At the time I had to take a monster dump so I was not a happy camper). P.S. after your first bout of Diarrhea in the Peace Corps you become really open about your bowel activity. We eventually hoped on a bus that went through our town for 15 som and made it back safe and sound. My host family is extremely religious. Islam is the primary religion practiced here. My host mom prays five times every day. No television, no music in this household. Because my family is so religious, I don’t have to worry about the infamous Kyrgyz way of pressuring you to down a bottle of vodka in one sitting. (The Peace Corps has been telling us time and time again that the Kyrgyz are very good at pressuring you into shots). I’m pretty relieved that I don’t have to worry about that for the next couple months. I’ve come to believe that if I want to maintain respect from my host family I should not partake in any drinking while I’m here at training. My family does a whole lot for me and to come home slightly belligers from a night boozing with some fellow PCV’s, I believe, I will lose some serious respect. Despite the language barrier, I’m growing pretty close to my host family. Every day when eat together it gets easier and easier to understand what they are saying to me. I’ve been going out on runs on the country roads every other morning or so before language training (it’s the coolest time of day; It gets up in the 100’s during the day). Cattle herders see me and yell “ah Sportsman!” I’m also learning how to hand wash my own clothes which is a workout in itself. There are some intense mountains here in Kyrgyzstan. They aren’t terribly far from our village. I’ll try and post some pictures. Kyrgyzstan is most definitely the Swiss Alps of Asia. Mountains are everywhere. The village I’m training at is a very small rural neighborhood. The way of life here is very slow with a lot of cows and donkeys freely roaming the streets. It’s a lot like the movie Napoleon Dynamite. There is just a lot going on here. I’ve always wants to experience real small town/rural living and here I am. Most homes here have a farm or small plantation to grow foods and raise cattle. The kids here are absolutely hilarious. They all hang out on the neighborhood roads in afternoons and evenings after dinner. No X-Box for these children. I walked out with my little host sister with some gummy worms last week after dinner and all of a sudden 10 kids come out of nowhere each wanting one. The boys come to me every day and want to shake my hand. As-alom al-aikem they say with a hand shake. Al-aikem as-alom I reply. Everyone here is super excited to have Americans in their town. We are almost like celebrities. Since I’m white I’m a minority. Its pain sometimes getting constantly stared at. I’ve found that learning this language well is going to be the key to being successful here. It really makes a lot of sense. The people here are too nice not to talk to. The language training is intense and slowly paying off. It’s definitely something that I’m going to have to work at. My little host sister walks me to class every morning. She insists that she carry my backpack for me. The other day she let me help her milk the cows. Before then I had never milked a cow before. Exhilarating. Speaking of milk I tried the fermented mare’s milk. It’s an alcoholic beverage made from horse’s milk and tastes as good as it sounds. My little host sister can drink this stuff like a champ. In training we are starting to learn about the education system here in the Kyrgyz Republic and how we are going fit in. We’ve started an English club in our village to get some serious English-teaching experience. After spending half of last Friday going door to door spreading the word about our English teaching club we ended up having quite a good turnout yesterday. Children ages 9 to 17 came to learn some killer English skills. We played games like charades and I got a few claps from my monkey impression. Pretty soon we’ll find out where we will be placed for our two-year service. The Kyrgyz Republic is divided into 7 Oblasts (like states in America): Naryn, Issyk-Kul, Batken, Talas, Osh, Dzal-Abad, and Chiu. We could be placed in any of these oblasts except for Batken. Batken borders Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; countries that the Kyrgyz have been having some issue with. There is not internet, let alone computers, in my village so internet has been hard to get. We make trips into the Peace Corps headquarters every week now so I should be able to update my blog more often. By the way the Yurt picture is at a friends house. We got to eat sheep in there one time for lunch. Well that’s it for today. Goodbye! Jakshuh-kalungus!

So it Starts

The time that I have been waiting for so very patiently has finally come. After over 9 months of

anticipation I have made it over to the country that I will be serving. On the way over to Bishkek last Saturday we had a 7 hour layover in Istanbul, Turkey. After some stressful baggage issues that I had to deal with at the Istanbul airport I joined the rest of the gang for an amazing tour of this fascinating city. My group and I managed to meet this van driver who offered to give us a four hour tour of Istanbul for 150 Lira (I’m pretty sure that’s not how you spell it). It came to about 25 Lira for each of us in our group which was a solid deal. Coming out of the airport we drove along the coastline on our way toward our first sight: the Blue Mosque. The coastline is filled with tankers and fishing boats and the park that stretches along its shores resembles that of Ocean Avenue near downtown Long Beach, California. It was amazing how many boats there were! We passed through the enormous old walls of the old Constantinople and the driver dropped us off as the Mosque. We got to move around by foot to view this incredible structure. We got to view the Mosque from the outside, however, we were not allowed inside because a religious ceremony was going on. This place was incredible. The driver picked us up and continued to drive us through the European side of town where the streets were just crawling with people. Our brief time in Istanbul was just a small taste of what this incredible place has to offer. After a delicious lunch of real Turkish Doner meat we were dropped off back at the airport where we caught our flight to Bishkek. After a five hour turbulent flight we got into Bishkek around 3 AM, drove to our hotel, checked in a passed out. The past couple days have been quite a lot to take in since we’ve begun our Pre-Service Training right here at the Issyk-Kul Hotel outside Bishkek. Our days are loaded with language training, immunizations, and cross-cultural training, however I do manage to make some time and get out and check out the area around the hotel. The hotel is an old Soviet building from the 70’s and looks like a giant military bunker from the outside. If you go outside around the back there is a huge park with some of the most bizarre structures I’ve ever seen. I’ll try and upload some pictures if this strange wonderland. I haven’t been able to check out much Bishkek since we’re not allowed to venture outside the hotel property. Tomorrow is the big day where we get to finally meet our host families for the next three months during our PST. I have to say that I’m a little nervous about meeting the family that I will live with for the next little while and even more nervous about the heavy amount of training I’ll be receiving. Nonetheless this is a very exciting time and the feeling is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before! Just being on this side of the world in this hotel is an experience in itself. The Kyrgyz people I’ve met so far are some of the most caring and friendly people I’ve ever met. The Kyrgyz look like a cross between a white and Asian and speak with a thick Russian-like accent. The Kyrgyz language is somewhat similar to Russian and uses the same written Cyrillic alphabet. Trainees learn either Russian or Kyrgyz depending on their worksite location. I’ve been assigned to learn Kyrgyz which means that I will most likely be placed in a rural area closer to the South. The weather here right now is very warm with clear skies. However, I’m constantly being warned about the brutal winters that will soon follow. I’m still getting used to writing in a blog like this so please pardon my lack of detail. I will be sure to fill everyone in on all some of the nitty-gritty as soon as I settle in with my host family and find more time to write. I’ll be sure to describe the food pretty soon which is a total trip! I’m not sure when I will be the next time I write but there will most definitely be some interesting news the next time I do! Catch you all later!

Cяossing Ovёr

The time has come. Tomarrow morning we drive to JFK airport and at 4:30 we take off for Istambul, Turkey. These past couple days have been pretty packed. I've met all 62 fellow Kyrgyzstan trainees and all of us are pretty amped to get over to Kyrgyzstan. We are the K-16s. The K stands for, well, Kyrgyzstan and the 16 means that we are the 16th group of volunteers to serve in Kyrgyzstan. For the past two days we've been just going over the basics. It would probably take me a few hours to go over all the material we covered so in short the Peace Corps has been trying to instill in us that not only are we crossing over to another culture, we are actually going to be LIVING it. We are going to have to learn to open our minds in ways we never expect. The very smallest of behaviors we have can come accross as disrespectful in the eyes of a foreigner. Even being culturally sensitive on what I write in the blog entries is very important. Last thing I want is to be sent home for writing something offensive about the Kyrgyz culture. It's going to be a walk on the wild side! That is a guarantee. We have a 10 hour layover in Istambul tomarrow which leaves a solid amount of time for us all to check out the city. We need a visa and it only costs about 20 bucks or so. I'll be sure and take some sweet pics and post some up here. In less than 48 hours we will have landed in Bishkek and I think we get in at about 3 AM. The VERY next day we start training! This next week just might be the craziest week of my life. We'll stay in a hotel over there for the first couple nights and then on Wednesday we meet our host family. Absolutely wild. I'm not sure what my internet access will be like but as soon as I get I'll be sure and put in an update. See YOU all on the other side!