Rhonda's Passport

Back in the USA

2007-01-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

So I have officially finished my Peace Corps service in Kyrgyzstan, and after serving exactly two years (I swore in as a volunteer on December 1, 2004 and officially closed my service on December 2, 2006) I proudly have my Peace Corps completion certificate hanging on my wall at my parents house. Yes, I have to confess: I am 28 and living with my parents – but really! It’s not what it seems, I’m in transition, going places and just happen to need a place to stay to save up some money before moving on – really.

Ok, so the news going around is, I got accepted into Georgetown University’s MBA program, so I’ll be moving to Washington, DC this summer to settle in before beginning a new life as a grad student in the big city. I am VERY excited. I actually applied to Georgetown’s dual MBA/MSFS (Master of Science in Foreign Service) degree, but I won’t find out if I’m accepted into the MSFS program until the end of March. Regardless, I will still go to business school in the fall and reapply for the dual program next year if I’m not accepted this year. I’m really not worried about it, I think with my interesting background I have a good fighting chance of getting in and even perhaps getting one of those coveted fellowships.

What I’ve been up to.

I left Kyrgyzstan on December 4th and flew to Italy, via a 12 hour layover in Moscow, to visit some dear friends I had worked with when I was a Coordinator for International Relations (CIR) in Japan from 2002 until 2004, up till right before I joined the Peace Corps. Shirley (my dear friend) was also a CIR from Scotland, who started a year later than me and stayed in Japan for two more years after I left with her Italian husband. Well, she finished her contract in Japan a few months before I finished mine in Kyrgyzstan and she moved to Italy with her husband and I decided to go visit them and add Italy to the growing list of countries I’ve visited. So I went and had a great time. They live in a small town called Sergno, which is located about an hour by train from Milan. I stayed with them for a week and we hung out, reminisced about Japan (ate Japanese food) and went sight seeing to Milan, Bergamo, Verona and Rome (although I visited Rome alone for two days). I was surprised to find out that pizza is more popular in Italy than in the States, and very pleasantly surprised to find out how delicious and cheap the coffee was. I had my cappuccino everyday without even putting a dent in my Italy fund. Having wine every single day was another interesting, yet delightful ritual. I think my favorite place was Verona – it was soooooo charming! I just loved it! Aside from the charm factor, I would have to say that Rome was equally amazing it was one of the first times ever, that I honestly wished I could come back to see more – someday! (I did throw my coin into the Fountain of Trevi, so there is hope.)

After Italy, I flew to Washington, DC to interview at Georgetown’s Business School and one of my girlfriends from high school (Becky) flew out from Seattle to spend a week sight seeing in the Capitol with me. After visiting other major capitols in the world (Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, London, Rome, etc.), I decided it was time for me to finally visit my own country’s national capitol and see the major monuments. Anyways, I had a great time, and so did Becky and am grateful that I had the chance to interview, sightsee and visit with an old friend all at once.

The end is in sight.

2006-09-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a horribly long time since I updated my blog, and I’ve actually received numerous complaints about it. So, I’ve actually decided to sit down and write an update of all things I’ve been up to for the last 5 months or so.

A visit home
The most recent news is I went home for the last two weeks in August to visit my family and attend my 10 year high school reunion. Going into Peace Corps two years ago, I had no intention of going home until I finished my service, but last winter my parents so kindly offered to buy me the ticket home last and I was more than happy to oblige them. So I went home on August 13th, and spent the following two weeks with my family and friends enjoying tons of great food I had been deprived of for the last two years, and found that my latte addiction was easy to pick up again after a long dry spell – can I just say that lattes are BEAUTIFUL! You guys have no idea how heavenly properly made coffee can be after two years of instant Nescafe.

My reunion
So, it has been ten years (I can barely believe it!) since I graduated from high school and started to be an adult (gasp!). Out of 550 graduates, 170 of my classmates got together to celebrate the fact that we are all 10 years older, and perhaps a little more mature than we were 10 years ago. I went largely because my best friends from high school (you know who you are) were all coming into town for the event, and since none of us live in Spokane anymore, we usually are only able to be all together about once every two or three years. It was great to see and spend time with them, all the while having the chance to see what has happened to our other classmates. I received a $25 gift card to Starbucks for “coming the farthest”, I mean, you got to admit that it’s harder to get farther away than the opposite side of the planet – Ok, so South Africa and Antarctica are perhaps farther, but no one at the reunion came from those places. I would have received another $25 gift card to REI for living the longest in a foreign country (six years total), but they limited it to military personnel, but still! I beat the top military record by three years! – (the winner had spent three years in Portugal)

Back to things Kyrgyz…

Community Based Tourism
In late April we were awarded another grant in order to purchase a new digital camera, memory card, and a color printer, and it took about a month just to get the money and another month to order the camera and printer at a local computer shop. As for the memory card, we had some troubles because at the time I originally wrote my grant in January, you could buy 128 MB memory cards for about $20 – which is what I had budgeted for in my grant, but by the time we got the money, pretty much anything under 256 MB had been discontinued and we were looking at having to spend twice as much as we had planned. So, I decided to wait and look around in the States for something, only even when I was back home I found the same problem. Finally, I found a deal that brought our cost into our budget, but dependent on a rebate! I bought the stupid thing anyways, and am hoping for that rebate to be a nice little surprise when I return home.

The first income generating project (renting camping equipment) that I helped initiate and found funding for was a huge success. Our income, so far, this year increased by 44% making my organization completely financially sustainable and we were able to purchase more equipment with some of the profits.

I guess the only other big news concerning my organization is that they are receiving a new volunteer from the end of September. We will be overlapping here for about two months. Whether this a good or bad thing, is yet to be known.

Other topics
What else can I possibly tell you about my life in Kyrgyzstan that you wouldn’t find boring? I mean, I am already used to Kyrgyz hair dressers, crazy drivers (that try to miss pot holes first and then just honk at pedestrians to make them move), and avoiding eye contact with the entire male species (unless I want to encourage an unwelcome come on). I had a good summer in general, working and spending time at the beach with local friends when I wasn’t working. Now that tourist season is winding down, I expect I will have a lot more free time to read, prepare my grad school applications, and think about what I’m going to do between December and August when I hope to actually start graduate study.

My Counterpart and I

2006-07-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

We had the Festival of National Cuisine and Folklore in Jety Oguz Valley on July 30th. My counterpart and I acted as MCs.

Working Hard

2006-06-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

Library Restoration Project

2006-06-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

In June, several volunteers went back to our training village, Koshoi, to do some repairs and donate books to the library.

Spring in Full Swing

2006-05-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

Time is beginning to fly by now that my Peace Corps service is more than 3/4ths finished. It seems like it wasn’t too long ago that we were just celebrating the one year mark of service and now I only have six months left before I’m done. I had been considering extending, but PC here in Kyrgyzstan has some stupid rule that you can only extend for a full year, and if you extend and then quite half way (I only wanted to extend for 6 more months) then you don’t get about half of the benefits of a fully COSed (close of service) volunteer. So, I gave up that idea and am looking forward to going home and spending some time with my family for about 8 months before I start graduate school. What the heck I’m going to do for 8 months while I’m there is an entirely different question.

So, as you [should] know, I had been studying like crazy for the GRE and GMAT and I finally went up to Almaty in Kazakhstan to take the exams on May 15th and 16th. That’s right, a double whammy and I’m telling you right now that it was a grueling two days. On Monday I had the GRE and I was so nervous that I thought I was going to puke and have a diarrhea accident at the same time. The good news is, I did great on the GRE: 640 on the Verbal and 700 on the Quant section (I still don’t have the scores to my writing assessment section), the bad news is, my great GRE score didn’t calm my nerves at all for the GMAT test, which I considered to be a lot harder, so I spent another day feeling sick and nauseous. But on Tuesday, I faced the GMAT exam with bravery and to my delightful surprise, I did even better than I had done on the GRE with an overall score of 680 (89th percentile). Generally speaking, my scores are high enough that I could apply to any program that I like and have a fighting chance for gaining admission when combined with my high GPA and international experience.

Ok, that’s my exciting news, which may not be so exciting for you who is reading this blog

Noruz - the Muslim New Year

2006-04-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

Some local friends and I spend the day at the local park with thousands of others to celebrate New Years.....for the third time this year.

My cat playing fetch

2006-04-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Spring and stuff...

2006-04-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it, I’ve been awful at updating my blog and now I’m getting complaint letters. So, I’m finally sitting down to give you a little update about what’s going on here in good ole Kyrgyzstan.

First of all, nothing exciting has really happened, and I could just tell you cute little stories about my cat that sometimes thinks she’s a dog. Why? Well, so doesn’t hiss, she tends to growl at birds from the window sill, and she likes to chew things up and plays fetch. I’m serious, she has a thing for candy, if I throw a piece of candy she runs after it, picks it up, brings it back to me and sets it down waiting for me to throw it again. And it’s not just fetch, I think she just loves playing with candy because if she catches a glimpse of something shiny in my purse she’ll dig through it and steal any candy she finds. I used to keep a candy dish on my dining table for guests, but I had to put it away because I started coming home from work to discover she had stolen every single piece and they were either scattered all over the floor or hidden in the strangest places. She’s quite silly actually. I come home from work and she runs to the door, lays on her back and stretches as if to say “it’s about time you came back” and when I leave, or even when friends leave, she’ll do the same thing, as if she’s saying, “oh, please don’t go just yet!” Sometimes, not often, she gets loneliness pangs and has to sit with me no matter where I am or what I am doing. One time I was making cheese raviolis and she wanted to sit on my lap and watch me. When I pushed her down and scooted towards the table so there wouldn’t be any room for her, she decided to sit on my knees underneath the table, but finding that uncomfortable she resorted to suddenly jumping up on my shoulders and making herself comfortable until I could find an opportune time to push her off and lock her in another room. Indeed, life is definitely not boring with her around.

About the grants I had submitted in January, the Disney Grant wasn’t approved because they had a huge amount of applications this year and were looking for projects “designed and led by youth” and since I just turned 28 a week ago, I don’t quite fit into that category anymore. The other grant was through a Peace Corps program and wasn’t approved because of some questions with the price quotes I provided for the equipment I was asking for. The good news is, after making some minor changes to my proposal, I have a second chance at the end of this month to get it approved. I’m hoping to start another project soon, but I need a lot of internet time, which isn’t available at my office right now, so I’ll tell you more about it as soon as I really have news about it to tell.

Other news: I’m going to Almaty, Kazakhstan next month to take both the GRE and GMAT exam (woo-hoo!) because I’m applying to graduate schools this coming fall for next year. Right now I’m looking mostly at two schools and trying to find a third that really catches my eye. More news on that as things develop…

So, as I mentioned above, I just turned a grand 28 about a week ago, and although I’m not married, have no kids, and don’t own a house, I’m not counting my woes. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that most locals, and even volunteers who meet me for the first time tend to think I’m somewhere between 18 and 22 years old. Seriously, I’ve gotten 18 twice in the last four months, which might have been offensive when I was 21, but I now find oddly flattering. So how do you celebrate your birthday in a strange, exotic country like Kyrgyzstan? Well, on my birthday, I slaved all day long to make 8 homemade pizzas, 2 salads, and my own birthday cake to feed my local friends who would be coming to celebrate with me. It was not fun. I was so tired by the end of the day with a million dishes to wash I just figured it would be far better not to ever celebrate getting old again. However, the next day, my spirits were lifted by the other female PC volunteers who gathered to celebrate with me the more American way by going to a café for dinner and then going out dancing a local disco-tech. I think I much prefer being served on my birthday than serving others – I mean, it’s my day right?

Just a regular ole update

2006-02-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

Well, I made the New Year’s resolution to be better at updating my blog and now a whole month has passed and I haven’t done squat to it. I’d like to say I’ve been doing exciting things in the last month or so, thus lacking time in my busy schedule to write – but alas! It is not so; I’m actually hardly working or doing anything at all. Perhaps that’s the better excuse, I just have nothing exciting to write about, life has become normal here in Kyrgyzstan and the things that used to be novel, well, are part of daily life that I just don’t even notice anymore.

Since I haven’t done, nor am I really doing anything exciting. I guess the best I can do is write about the boring stuff and hope you don’t throw tomatoes at your computer screen.

About Work
Pretty much from December until the end of March, there is practically no action in the tourist industry, besides the few Russians and Kazakh’s that come to Karakol to ski. So, I’m hardly working at all, usually only 2 or 3 hours a day, and if there’s no electricity (like the last ten days), I usually sit in our cold, dark office for thirty minutes to check my e-mail (using my laptop) and then go home. That doesn’t mean I’m not doing anything though, in January I submitted two projects for funding from donors. One (the boring one) is a tech. update project that should provide my organization with a new computer (already donated by the European Union), a digital camera, and color printer; the other one (the more interesting one) is an environmental project that I submitted to Disney for funding. Disney annually offers $500 “Minnie Grants” for projects that involve youth in community service projects – my project would fund an “Environment Education Week and Cleanup” project in three local primary schools organized and carried out (I hope) by volunteers and members of my organization. I won’t find out until the end of this month whether either project will be funded, which means I’m pretty much free to do whatever until then.

I did start up another 10 week “Survival English Course” for locals that work in the tourist industry, which I’m not really enthusiastic about (I hate teaching English), but is helpful and useful to my organization and others that work in tourism. I’m treating it like boot camp: the participants are required to do homework every week, keep a journal of hours studied (7 hours a week is the minimum), and are tested weekly on their progress – if they don’t pass all coursework by 80%, I have an excuse not to organize a more advanced English course, they have to repeat (hey, they know all the rules going in and it’s not my fault if they don’t study).

I’m also working on an IT training project, but I’m just starting the needs assessment and have only made preliminary contacts with other international organizations that work with these kinds of projects.

So, enough of boring work stuff, now for the boring personal life stuff….

Life Outside of Work
Since I’m working so few hours, I have lots of free time outside of work, most of which I spend at home either studying or doing domestic things like washing laundry (by hand, of course) and trying to find new ways to combine potatoes, carrots, onions and meat to make delicious meals that don’t taste like what I’ve been eating all winter. Amazingly enough, things like green onions and tomatoes are already appearing at the bazaar. Last year I don’t remember seeing green onions till March; the only thing I can think of that’s made the difference is that greenhouse development must have increased exponentially last year, because even the tomatoes are only about $1.50/kilo, whereas last year they were closer to $2.50 and only available in a few select shops.

Studying for the GRE and GMAT
So, I’ve decided to go to graduate school when I’m finished with Peace Corps, which means I have the unfortunate fate of having to take two dreadful standardized tests. Having not even looked at math problems for about 9 years, I am extremely rusty and slow and have been spending about 80% of my free time brushing up and practicing. The two tests are fairly different; I think the math for GRE is more basic than the GMAT, but the verbal on the GMAT far easier than the GRE’s. Regardless, I’m taking both tests seriously because I want to get into a dual program for an International MBA with a MA in International Policy Studies, and the schools that offer this particular dual degree are competitive to get into, not to mention expensive. I’m hoping great test scores, combined with my international background and academic record will not only get me into good program, but will also pave the way for fellowships and scholarships to alleviate the pain of having to pay for grad school.

Ok, so that’s my boring update for you – please! no tomatoes! Your computer will hate you for it.

Lots of new photos!

2006-01-04T21:19:00.000-08:00

I finally overcame those technical difficulties, changed all the dates, and uploaded lots of photographs from my trip. I hope you enjoy all the new goodies!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2005-12-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

Okay! So I’m a little late for the Christmas greeting, but here in good ole Kyrgyzstan, they don’t celebrate Christmas until January 7^th anyways…..so in my time zone I’m not technically late.

In my last update I wrote about my trip through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but that still leaves November and December to catch up on. Gee, I really need to be better about keeping this blog updated!

Forget it! I can’t remember anything from November, but lots of interesting and not so interesting things have happened this month, so let’s begin with the good stuff which mostly has to do with work stuff.

Earlier this month, the coordinators from the 12 different CBT offices throughout the country came to Karakol for an annual meeting to discuss the results of 2005 and future goals and plans for 2006. During this time, CBT Karakol was awarded “Best CBT Group” and “Best CBT Coordinator” for 2005, which probably has something to do with what I have done, but also with the fact CBT Karakol had hired a new coordinator about the same time I started volunteering there, and she seems to be far less corrupt and far more honest than her predecessor; we had less tourists in 2005 than in previous years, but had 3x more income into the central CBT fund than the previous year. Other good news is that I was funded a grant to purchase quality camping equipment for our office that we will start renting out to tourists next year, and was also able to procure a computer donation from TACIS, another local project funded by the European Union. I’m currently working on two more grants, but I’ll talk about that more at a later time.

So, the bad news? This month I caught my little host sister (just turned 16) stealing from me when she was over at my house. The first time she was playing with my cosmetics, and the next day I noticed that something was missing – something I specifically remember her putting on herself. When I asked her about it she swore up and down that she didn’t take it, so I decided to let it go even though I had looked everywhere for it and she was the only one who had been over (and I had actually seen her with it in her hands). Then she came over another time and I decided to try to watch her because she was going through everything, but I was getting ready for work (it was early morning) and between running to the bathroom to brush my teeth or to the kitchen to get her tea, I couldn’t watch her the entire time – I could only note what she had been touching. Sure enough, later that day when I get home from work I go over and notice something else is missing – one of my necklaces is gone, one of my favorite ones in fact. Same thing happens, I look everywhere for it but it’s nowhere to be found. I ask my sister about it and she lies again, so I have to do the unpleasant thing and tell her not to visit my apartment anymore. I think I was more hurt that I was angry over the whole thing because I had really gone out of my way to do special things for her when she visited or on holidays – I trusted and loved her like a little sister and she turns around and steals from me, not only once, but twice! Not only that, but I also found out that my friend’s tent was stolen from our office at a time when both the coordinator and I were gone for different reasons. When I came back and saw the tent was gone, I thought my friend had picked it up – come to find out, someone else took it, so now we have this big office fiasco going on trying to figure out whom is responsible, who had a key, who was in the office, etc. It’s one giant headache.

So enough of the bad stuff, let me tell you that I had a fairly good Christmas here. I spent the afternoon baking cookies and the evening with other volunteers, of which one had made a fantastic dinner of pot roast with mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, corn, and we even had apple and pumpkin pie (I contributed cookies). During the day a few locals stopped by to wish me Merry Christmas and one even stuffed a small gift in one of my dirty socks when wasn’t looking…..said that was how they did it in the movies, only I didn’t have a fireplace.

New Year’s is just a few days away and I’ll be spending it with my local friends by exchanging small gifts, going to the center to see the city’s New Year’s tree and lights (just think Christmas in the States), eating lots of food and watching Russian concerts on TV.

Anyways, I hope this gives you a good update for now. I will try to be better next year at writing regularly (ha! almost sounds like a New Year’s resolution).

2005-12-28T00:22:00.000-08:00

Baking cooking for Christmas.

After a Long Absence

2005-12-22T21:15:00.000-08:00

Well, the year is coming to a close and I’m getting complaint e-mails that I haven’t updated by blog in ages…..ok, so I’m guilty! A lot has happened over the last three months and I’ll probably have to write a couple of blog entries just to catch up.

A Kyrgyzstan Tour
At the end of September I took about three weeks of vacation to travel around Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As a safety measure after the “revolution”, Peace Corps gave all volunteers one year visas to Kazakhstan and I decided to take advantage of the free visa for a quick visit to the giant to Kyrgyzstan’s north. I first went to Almaty, the former capitol of Kazakhstan, is probably the largest cosmopolitan city in Central Asia, and it’s the place I had my first latte in over a year in a small café called “Tommie’s Pastries”. Since Almaty was my first stop during my travels, I first had to overcome the shock of how much everything cost and the fact they had supermarkets with carts, and you could actually take the products off the shelves by yourself. I learned very quickly that Kazakhstan is way more developed than Kyrgyzstan, with lots more BMWs, Mercedes and 4WD Jeeps compared to the old soviet put-put cars you’re more likely to see in Kyrgyzstan, and everything was expensive. I almost panicked because I originally budgeted only $5 a day for food (which would be good living in Kyrgyzstan) and in Almaty I needed more like $10 to eat normal…..I survived off of street food and that latte took about 75% of my first day’s food allowance. Even the prices for hotels had inflated and the cheapest accommodation I could find was for $8 in a dormitory in the train station – everywhere else was over $25 a night. The dorm was horrible! The bed was hard as a rock and I had to share a room with three other women, one who kept trying to sell me expensive Russian cosmetics, and another who started yelling and screaming at 2 in the morning because someone stole her spoon – or something like that, I was trying hard to ignore the fiasco by shutting my eyes tightly and pretending I was in Thailand again.

On the upside, I was able to see a ballet performance in Almaty, and for an excellent central, about ten rows back seat, I only paid about $8. It was the most tragic ballet I have ever seen (I wish I could tell you the name, but it was in Russian and I don’t remember), because almost everyone died. It was set in ancient Arabia and the first scene is all happy at first with the prima ballerina all in love in a happy loving family, that is, until some Arabian raiders come and kill everyone in the first scene except for the prima who gets kidnapped and taken away. The second scene shows the kidnapped girl being wooed by some Arabian king and the forsaken first wife of the harem. Lost love, forsaken love, and love refused – the third and final scene ends the ballet so that everyone either committed suicide or was murdered. It was so tragic, but it was so good to see ballet.

While in Almaty, I also visited their Art Museum, which supposedly has the largest art collection in Central Asia. With 3 floors and art ranging from paintings, to sculptures, to fabric and felt works, I loved it and I know absolutely nothing about art (but I sure like looking at it!). I also visited a couple of Russian Orthodox Cathedrals, which were absolutely beautiful both on the inside and out. Very different from the cathedrals in England (see pictures to compare) and one reminded me of a gingerbread house because it was so colorful on the outside.

The rest of my time in Kazakhstan I traveled to Shymkent (nothing at all there except a really good hotdog) for a night before traveling to a small town called Turkestan where the only real historical building in the whole of Kazakhstan is located. It’s a huge mausoleum, built in….for…..Of course, it’s a Islamic place of pilgrimage and I had to wear a headscarf (and pay an entry fee) in order to see the inside, but the outside was far more impressive and brought images of what a silk road city might have looked like, which an adjoining museum also helped with. I stayed the night there in a really scanky hotel – it was the budget option offered by Lonely Planet, but I would not recommend it to any women traveling alone unless you are broke and desperate. I was forced to have a roommate (an older business woman), and one time when she closed the door, half the wall fell off onto her bed and there were strange men hanging out all night. I didn’t feel safe there and left before the sunrise to catch a bus to Taraz, my last stop before entering Kyrgyzstan again. The only thing worth mentioning is I got the hotel to lower their price by playing the broke, desperate traveler act (seems to work for girls better than guys, so I’ve heard)….

2005-12-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

Traveling light. 24 days on the road with just these two pieces of luggage.

2005-12-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

The Zenkov Cathedral, built in 1904, supposedly only with wood and without nails.

2005-12-22T21:11:00.000-08:00

The Kozha Akhmed Yasaui Mausoleum in Turkistan.

Back to Kyrgyzstan

2005-12-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

After spending a week in Kazakhstan I was incredibly happy to return to Kyrgyzstan, where I know the people, the customs, and everything is way cheaper. I entered into Talas Oblast, which is one of the most isolated oblasts in the country and therefore few volunteers visit. I first stayed with a fellow volunteer in some tiny village near the border for a couple of days to just hang out and relax with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time (and do laundry (>_<)*) before traveling to the oblast capitol (Talas City) to see the Manas Ordo, supposedly the burial site of Manas, the Kyrgyz national hero who is the central figure in the world’s longest epic oral story. I was surprised by how small it was….(never tell a local that!).

After Talas, I traveled to Bishkek (the national capital) for a couple of nights before heading south to see the rest of the country and see friends along the way. I first went to Jalalabad, the third largest city in Kyrgyzstan and was first impressed by how clean the streets were and how developed the city looked, but was then disappointed to learn it was still a typical Kyrgyz/Uzbek city where almost every café or restaurant had the same menu and almost nothing at all to do as far as sight seeing. Regardless, I hung out with volunteers and ate Turkish ice-cream before traveling to a village called Arslanbob.

2005-12-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

The great Manas Ordo in Talas.

2005-12-22T21:07:00.000-08:00

Washing my clothes while on the road.

A Village Called "Arslanbob"

2005-12-22T21:06:00.000-08:00

Now, Arslanbob is a 99% Uzbek community in the mountains and acts as a gateway to the world’s largest wild walnut forest. There is a CBT office there and I stayed in a CBT guesthouse for three nights while spending two afternoons hiking in the walnut forests to waterfalls with a CBT guide (just a reminder, but I work for CBT in Karakol City). I really loved it there and my hostess was an elderly Russian woman (one out of three in the village) that ran a large family complex with her extended family that included sons and their wives and her youngest daughter. She sat with me every morning and every night to chat over whatever meal she had prepared for me, and I really cherish those moments when she shared her family photos and told her family story. She took care of me really well and was more than a hostess; she was like a friend for those few days.

After spending time in the mountains in Arslanbob, I traveled to Uzgen, another village in Osh oblast where there is a minaret and mausoleum from the Silk Road period, not too terribly exciting, but I stayed with a couple volunteers in the area and had a great time with them – we spent one evening making tacos and I taught them how to make refried beans, tortillas and salsa (they said it was one of the most gourmet meals they had had in a long time).

2005-12-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

Me in front of the "Small" waterfall in Arslanbob.

2005-12-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

The "Big" waterfall in Arslanbob.

2005-12-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

After a long and difficult hike to the top of a mountain, where the beautiful long waterfall is located, muslim pligrims tie wishes to this fence.

2005-12-22T20:55:00.000-08:00

Even young girls in Arslanbob wear headscarves and long robes.

To Osh and Home Again

2005-12-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

My last stop was Osh City, the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan that boasts of the oldest active bazaar in the world (3000 years) and numerous legends talk of even King Solomon visiting Osh, thus a large jutting cliff in the center of the city is called Solomon’s Throne. Unfortunately, by the time I made it to Osh, I came down with strep throat and the volunteer I just happened to be staying with also mysteriously had strep throat, so we were bed ridden for three days together. I managed to watch movies in Osh and not much else before I headed back north to go home.

Karakol Ranks #1
So now that I’ve traveled all over the country (except for Batken, which is currently off limits for PCVs) at one time or another, I can now honestly say I live in the best part of the country. Where I live, I not only have the comforts of living in a city, but I have the 2nd largest mountain lake a short ride in one direction, and endless opportunities for hiking and trekking in the mountain in the other. I have beaches in the summer and a ski resort in the winter, AND Karakol has a unique Chinese mosque, Russian Cathedral, the only zoo in Kyrgyzstan (pathetic, but hey! it’s the only one here), two parks and two museums, not to mention we have a variety of cafes with differing menus. I have to boast that Karakol is #1 in my book.

Okay, so that’s the update from my trip that happened way back in September and October.

Helping CBT Bokonbaevo

2005-09-21T01:05:00.000-07:00

I recently went to Bokonbaevo Village, located on the south shore of Issyk-Kul Lake to assist the new CBT office there that just opened earlier this year. During the week I was there I was requested to test a two day trek into the mountians along with two British guys - so, for work, I got to go see more beautiful pastures and mountains, live in a yurt for two nights, eat good food, and pretend to be a translator for a couple of days. It was fantastic. Oh, I also was able to watch a eagle hunting demonstration - which is why there's a big bird on my arm in one of the photos.

2005-09-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

A great eagle on my arm...

2005-09-21T01:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, the mountains are beautiful!

2005-09-21T01:02:00.000-07:00

Sunrise at a Kyrgyz yurt

And we said OK

2005-09-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

I don't normally post stuff like this, but my mom sent this to me and it was really thought provoking - I hope it provokes you to think too.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events... Hurricanes, terrorists attacks (Sept.11), school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare(she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighboras yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). Wesaid an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure itout. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say,but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread likewildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, peoplethink twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

2005-09-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

Me and the "porno" poster at Aliya

Kyrgyzstan Can Still Surprise

2005-09-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

On September 6th I got a phone call at work from Peace Corps saying I needed to travel to Tokmok (a small city between Issyk-Kul Lake and Bishkek) on the 9th for a seminar on the 10th. The Kyrgyz PC officer was so vague about the reason, even after 2 or 3 attempts to get a clear answer, that I was completely clueless as to why Peace Corps was requesting me to travel to Tokmok. All I could reason, from the many clues available to me, was that PC was preparing for a new trainee group to arrive (the new group of K-13 arrived in Kyrgyzstan on September 18th), and I was being called upon to give advice to the many technical trainers as to how to deal with this incoming group of newbies.

So, on the 9th I start walking towards the bus station and about halfway there another volunteer catches up with me from behind and asks, “So, you’re going to this mystery seminar too?” Apparently, 9 volunteers from all over Kyrgyzstan had been requested to attend this seminar in Tokmok, and I just so happened to be lucky enough to have a travel partner for the 6 hour journey….or so I thought until she popped in her earphones and dozed off within the first half an hour. Geeze! I can’t be that bad of a travel partner….

Anyways, we get to good ole Tokmok, where we had also spent a good three month for our own training. Only now, unlike then, we know how to bargain for the local taxi price to take us to the hotel that PC had set us up in. When we first arrive to “Aliya” we say to each other, “Wow, it actually looks cute on the outside.” But looks can be deceiving you know. We had made our judgment based on the fact about 95% of old soviet hotels look like bomb shelters from the outside and usually just as bad on the inside, and Aliya seemed like an anomaly to us. However, that was all soon to change…

After standing around the empty first floor café for 10 minutes, wondering if anyone would discover us, a large Kyrgyz woman finally emerges from the kitchen asking us what we want, as if she was surprised that she had clients waiting for her. When we try to explain that PC should have made reservation for us, she plays dumb for about 20 minutes and then finally decides that Peace Corps does ring a bell, picks up her keys and leads us to the second floor.

The first room she shows us, for the two of us I remind you, had only a single bed, an arm chair, and a porno poster on the wall. I look at the large Kyrgyz woman and ask “you’re joking right?” But that’s just the beginning, because after convincing her that we were not going to sleep together on a single bed, she takes us to another room that has two single beds pushed together with a single sheet stretched across the mattresses not to mention it also has a porno poster (framed, by the way) on the wall. Finding it more acceptable, we resign to our fate and ask for the key, only the woman shakes her head and says “I can’t give you the key, when you want to leave let me know and I’ll lock the door for you.” We look at each other knowing what the other is thinking – this place is weird! We found out later, as several other volunteers trickled in, that 2 or 3 volunteers refused to stay there after seeing the conditions, and we even heard that the hostess later tried to put two male volunteers in the room with a single bed. Not only that, but later we found out that during the night, the hostess locked us into our rooms.

The next day, we go to the seminar at our old training site and rebel. None of us were willing to stay in Aliya a second night, and to our relief, PC set us up in a much nicer hotel in Bishkek for our second night. *Sigh* what a relief!

2005-09-07T01:49:00.000-07:00

Ala-kol Lake

2005-09-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

Standing on top of the world.

My First Trek

2005-09-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

Well, after living here for practically a year and working with a NGO that specializes in grassroots tourism – I was finally able to make my first trip into the mountains and see what the fuss was all about. Part of the reason I waited so long was because I didn’t have all the proper equipment to go on a trek, but I finally either bought or borrowed what I needed and basically attached myself to a couple from London as a tag-a-long, posing as a photographer and interpreter. All-in-all, it’s a good thing I could participate in this working role because what the London couple paid for this four day trek would have equaled three months of my meager salary.

Anyways, I was able to visit the alpine lake Ala-Kol which was by far the most difficult and most rewarding part of my trip. Starting in the early morning it took about four hours to get to the base of the pass that would lead to the lake, and then a good 90 minutes to climb to the top where I had a fantastic panoramic view of the valleys, mountains, and of course, the famous lake. The climb was difficult because there was no obvious trail to the top of the pass, and the entire way up was covered with lose gravel and rocks – one bad step and I was sure I would be toast at the bottom of the mountain. Thankfully, I had one of our trusty CBT guides to help me (and the paying tourists) to the top, showing the way, pointing out rocks that were firm to hold onto, and making sure we were ok all the way up. The grueling and somewhat scary climb was worth it when I stood at 3800 m with a view of Ala-Kol lake, which nestled in a small bowl shaped canyon between great mountain peaks.

Yes, I think I have one of the best Peace Corps jobs in Kyrgyzstan….

Other News:

Aside from my recent trek into the gorgeous mountains surrounding Karakol, the end of July and August were busy times and I attended two festivals: the National Cuisine Festival (thus the fantastic pictures of Kyrgyz food) and the Annual Shepherds’ Move to Jailoo. Both were sponsored by CBT, which in a way is a shame since there isn’t much of a national tradition for festivals – it’s all directed for foreigner tourists. Perhaps in about 10 years locals will find it in their own interest to celebrate their heritage for more reasons that just to make money. I don’t know, I keep on thinking about the fantastic festivals in Japan that are revered by the Japanese (and tourists) that have been around for hundreds of years, and it’s the same in China, Korea, and most places in southeast Asia – perhaps it’s nomadic tradition that prevented the Kyrgyz from developing a heritage of celebration beyond the hearth of their yurts.

2005-08-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

Milking a horse for Kymyz, a national drink that tastes like vomit.

2005-08-22T02:47:00.000-07:00

The Eagle Man

2005-08-22T02:46:00.000-07:00

Playing polo with a......goat carcass?

Ulak Tartysh

2005-08-22T02:41:00.000-07:00

This game takes place between two teams of 6 to 10 riders whose object is to throw a goat carcass into the opposing team’s goal. This gets extremely rough, and the strength required to muscle through the defense and heave the 20kg carcass into the goal is daunting. Kyrgyzstan’s national team regularly takes home the world championship. Though Ulak is mainly a Central Asian game, Russia and India have teams, and Germany and Japan petitioned to play in 2004.

2005-07-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

A traditional table setting for Kyrgyz. Notice the stuffed sheep stomach that looks like a duck, sliced sheep butt fat near the front, and the head in the back. Of course, not all Kyrgyz cuisine is so exotic....(>_<)**

2005-07-29T00:20:00.000-07:00

Traditional Kyrgyz Cuisine includes eating sheep heads....

2005-07-29T00:19:00.000-07:00

Kyrgyz National Dress

The Dancing Queen is no longer 17

2005-07-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’m starting to feel my age. I may not look my age (which explains why I get high school kids trying to flirt with me), but I am certainly starting to feel the effects of my age and I’m not even that old (27 for those of you who don’t know)! What happened to this Dancing Queen that used to be able to go out dancing and stay out all night until the wee hours of the morning?

She turned into a dancing woosy!

It didn’t really hit me until this last weekend when I went to the disco with a couple of local friends, and I totally puckered out by midnight. But my young friends (who are 19 and 20), managed to keep me on my feet until 2 AM, by which time I thought I was going to collapse. What happened to the days when I would dance until 2, complain about the closing hours, and then go out for breakfast until 4? When I was in Japan, I would dance until 3 or 4, go out for breakfast, and not get home until 7 or 8. Those days are over…..

A Note to K-13

2005-07-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I remember last year when I found out where I was going for my Peace Corps service and then spending hours on the internet looking for web-blogs of current volunteers to find out what I was heading into. Therefore, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised when the next group of volunteers happen to find my web-blog in their search for information on Kyrgyzstan.

For the K-13 group that will be arriving here in September, I would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have, but I'm sure that my blog will be full of interesting stories and information that will be most helpful in giving you an idea of life in Kyrgyzstan. However, if you do have questions, please e-mail me because I can't respond to comments on my web blog - you can find my e-mail address under my profile.

And congrats on your placement!

2005-07-08T03:44:00.000-07:00

My and my little brother in Koshoi.

A Few Cravings....

2005-07-08T03:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, So I've been dreaming for months about a few items that I'm craving here and thought I would put those things on a list here in the hopes that a few of my beloved blog readers [you], would have pity on me and maybe send me one or two things because you love me.

BBQ sauce
brown sugar
taco seasoning
Italian seasoning
salad dressing mixes (the ones in the little packets)
tang
chocolate chips for baking
corn tortillas (I can make the flour ones)
bacon bits
Stovetop Stuffing
cranberry sauce

A few needs....(or wants)

contact solution
stain remover
a deck of cards
a journal
any interesting books, DVDs, or music
love and kisses

If you do decide to send something, you might want to put a little note on my blog so I don't end up with 15 bottles of bacon bits.....

Oh, and many thanks in advance!

2005-07-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

Me and Liberty

2005-07-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Burana Tower, a famous silk road historical point in Kyrgyzstan.

The Legend of Burana Tower

2005-07-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

To the south of the town of Tokmok there is an old Burana Tower. It is decorated with terracotta plates with unusual ornaments and inscriptions. They say that tower is already a thousand years old. Its history was almost forgotten but poetical legend is still popular.

The mighty Khan had a beautiful daughter. Khan loved her more than his own life. Khan was old and was afraid of dying before seeing his daughter happy, so he called the wise people and asked them to predict the girl's destiny.
The wise men talked a long time and it looked like there would not be a person more happy than Khan's daughter. But the oldest wise man said:
“Oh, my Khan, kill me but let me tell you the sad truth. The destiny of your daughter is sad. She will dye from the bite of karakurt having just reached the maturity.”
Khan looked angry but the wise man did not change his mind.
“Damn your prediction!” shouted the Khan and ordered men to build a high tower, so high, that it touched heaven. Under the tower a deep hollow was made and the wise man was put there. At the top of the tower, in a small room, Khan's daughter lived. Servants brought her food by the steep ladder. Before giving it to her they checked three times to see if there was a venomous spider somewhere in the folds of their clothes or amidst the delicious meals.
Time went by and the Khan's daughter had her sixteenth birthday. She flourished like a flower and was fresh as morning dew.
"No, the prediction will not come true", the Khan thought and went to congratulate his daughter. He brought her a large dish with fresh amber grapes and put it on the floor at her feet.
She took the heaviest bunch in hand and at the same moment screamed loudly. She was bitten by a karakurt hidden in the grapes.
The old Khan could not stand the death of his favourite daughter and died the same year. Since then Burana stands lonely. Only occasional travellers look at this masterful creation of human hands.

A New Family Member

2005-07-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

I got a cat….okay, so she’s a kitten, but after driving everyone nuts for about a month in my hunt for a cat, I finally found one and everyone has given a sigh of relief. Especially my friends who I forced to wake up early on Sunday mornings to go to the bazaar to hunt for kittens – always disappointed to find numerous puppies and no kittens.

But last weekend I went back to my training village because I was invited to a wedding. The host sister of another volunteer was getting married and called me up to invite me and I happily obliged. So I go and have a happy reunion with my original host family and eagerly tell my host sister, “I’m searching for a cat.” To which she nods her head and says, “My friend’s cat just had kittens and I’m sure you can take one of them.” Shaking my head in agreement, I head off to visit all the people I have to visit while I’m in the village (or otherwise risk the “why didn’t you come visit us for tea?” third degree) and by the time I got back home my host sister and her friend were waiting for me to take me to see the kittens. Well, there were two, so I picked one out and told my friend’s sister I would be back for her in two days before I left.

So I go get my new kitten (whom I named Megumi, which means “grace” in Japanese), and prepare a box for her for the ride back home, and at first she just sits quietly in her box and I think, “wow, this is gonna be easy….”

Yeah, right.

So, we get into the taxi to head to Tokmok, where I plan to catch a marshrutka (like a mini van that runs like a bus only it goes when it’s full of people) to Bishkek. I have some local friends there that are planning on heading back to Karakol and I wanted to hitch a ride with them (and save about$5). But Megumi starts to freak out and clawing to get out of her box……I am forced to hold her.

And then we finally *sigh of relief* get to Tokmok and I have to get on the marshrutka, where Megumi quiets down a little, but then starts up meowing and meowing, and clawing as soon as we start off on the one hour journey to Bishkek – for one hour! I’m sure everyone on that marshrutka wanted to kill me by the time we got there.

Anyways, I’m finally in Bishkek and after calling my friends they come to pick me up and my new little friend. I’m worried – am I going to strangle this cat during the 5 hour ride back to Karakol? Fortunately, no. Megumi finally got used to riding in a vehicle and pretty much slept most of the way home – much to all of our relief.

2005-07-06T02:15:00.000-07:00

The wedding party.

2005-07-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

This is my new kitten, Megumi.

A Kidnapping Conspiracy

2005-06-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

One of my good local friends here dated a girl for four years, but after a series of arguments she broke up with him. Why? Because he wanted to marry her but she didn't want to marry him because she knew his parents didn't approve of her. If she married him she would have to live together with them since her potential husband was the only son and was obligated to take care of his parents his entire life. From what I heard, they didn't approve of the match because their family are Dungans (Chinese Muslims) and she is a Uigur (another Muslim minority). It all boiled down to ethnicity.

So they broke up and I had to watch my poor friend struggle with the loss of the woman he wanted to marry....night after night he went out to drink copious amounts of vodka.

But then one day he comes over with some other friends (all guys) and they confide in me that they've decided to kidnap her and try to force her to marry him. Would I be willing to help them since I was friends with the girl too?

"No" I said, "because kidnapping is not my tradition and I can't approve of it - what if she really doesn't want to marry you and you force her to marry you anyways?"

And the conversation fell flat.

A week later the boys come over again. This time my heart broken friend says, " I will talk to her one more time, and if she still doesn't want to be with me then it's over - I won't push her anymore..."

I have to wonder, did I save this poor girl from an unwanted marriage?

Save the Earth....Smoke Pot(!)

2005-06-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I went to Jety Oguz with about 45 local students in a joint CBT-EcoTrek venture to clean up trash, promote environmental awareness, and teach the kids to be more considerate of their environment later when they go on picnics or hikes with their families. It was a day long event where we picked up garbage in the Jety Oguz Valley all morning while painting on rocks messages like “Protect the Environment!” “Don’t Litter!” and so on, had an afternoon competition between schools (four were represented) on who could present the best picnic lunch from $13, and finished the afternoon by playing games in the valley. I had a really good time with the kids and enjoyed the opportunity to meet some of the guides and translators that worked with EcoTrek that were close to my age and had great senses of humor.

Promoting Pot?
Before we left Jety Oguz to return to Karakol, we gave out prizes to the different groups based on who picked up the most garbage, who made the best picnic lunch, etc. and then everyone got a bandana too, but I had to shake my head in disbelief because about a third of the bandanas had marijuana leaves on them, so we had all these kids walking around with marijuana bandanas on their head when they returned to Karakol…Great message: pick up garbage – smoke pot.

2005-06-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

The Seven Red Bulls of Jety Oguz

The Lengend of Jety Oguz

2005-06-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

Jety-Oguz (Valley of Seven Bulls)

In old times, in the mountains lived two noble and mighty Khans. They governed numerous and rich tribes.
One day, the greedy and evil Khan stole the beautiful wife of his neighbour. Afterwards these two tribes started to argue and fight.
Advisors said to the evil Khan:
“Your enemy wants you to return his wife. You may fulfil his wish. Kill this woman and give her corpse to the one who wants her back. Your heart will calm down because he will not be able to have the woman you give to him.”
The evil Khan liked this advice and to pursue the evil plan he called a big farewell toi (banquet) in the mountains.
Many people came as guests and seven red bulls were killed to make the farewell feast for the people.
When the last bull was killed, evil Khan himself stabbed a knife into the heart of the beloved woman. Hot blood poured from the wound and covered the mountains. The blood may be seen on rocks to this day.
Along with the red blood, hot water gushed out of wound and a hot stream began to flood the valley. In boiling water all the guests and the tribe of Khan-murder died.
Then the waves of the stream took the seven bulls, prepared for the feast, far away. Look and count them: seven red bulls, seven red rocks.
So this valley is still called Jety-Oguz, which means in Kyrgyz - The Valley of Seven Bulls.

2005-06-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

Broken Heart Rock at Jety Oguz

2005-06-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

Summer Yurt in Jety Oguz Gorge 6/9/05

Turning into Betty Crocker...

2005-06-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I’m enjoying the freedom and comfort of having my own apartment, I have started to fully take advantage of having full control over the kitchen…..my kitchen. Not that I ever was the domestic type before, but I have always enjoyed cooking a good meal, which I sorely missed when I was living with a host family. I rarely cooked when I was living with them for several reasons, the first being – I paid them to cook for me. But then for a long, long time I thought they only had one burner to cook on, and well, if I cooked, how would they cook? (I later found out when we moved to the “summer” kitchen that they did have a gas stove too - too bad I didn’t make that discovery until March.) Basically it boiled down to me having to cook for the whole family if I wanted to cook at all, and that meant on average 6 mouths to feed, but I often found myself with 8 or 9 people sitting at the table (I never did figure out whether my host mother just happened to invite her friends over when she knew I was cooking or if it was just coincidence).

So, back to the topic – oh yeah, so now I have my own kitchen and have been cookin’ up a storm: chili, spaghetti, baked chicken, salsa, omelets, banana bread, strawberry muffins, and even gotten down to making my own tortillas (and they were darn good too!). Indeed, I am turning into Betty Crocker - living here in Kyrgyzstan means I have to make everything from scratch, but somehow it doesn’t seem as hard as it did when I first moved out on my own to Japan – I guess Japan seasoned me for Kyrgyzstan. Ha! – even my friends have said that I’ve started to put back on some of that weight I lost earlier, which I still haven’t decided whether it was a compliment or a “gee – you better lay off of that American food of yours,” type comment. Well, I suppose after months and months of eating the same ole thing, you know, one of the four main dishes my family was capable of making, that you shouldn’t be surprised to see I actually have a healthy appetite when the food actually tastes good.

Spring News - I've Moved!

2005-05-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

So now that May is practically over and “summer” is right before my eyes, I have lots of spring news to share with all of you, the first being that I have moved into an apartment and am now living by myself. After a month of desperate searching, I finally found a reasonably priced, fully furnished, one-room apartment that just happens to be in the same building that I work in. Actually, the CBT office I work in is on the first floor and my apartment is directly above it on the fifth floor. Now, instead of the 30 minute hike to work every day, all I have to do is walk down the stairs, walk around the building, and I’m there in about 3 minutes.

So why the move??

Well, although I had a great host family, I started to have problems with my host mother about 2 months ago. At first it was nothing really big – you see, I started to date a local who just happens to be one of those “neighbors” I hung out with all the time (more details to come later), and anyways she first complained that we shouldn’t hug or be “too overly affectionate” while in public. Fine, no big deal, right? But then one day she comes home drunk and starts berating me because I have failed to teach her family English (even though my housing contract clearly states that that is not my responsibility) and she said I was bringing her “shame” at the bazaar, where she works, because everyone always asked if her family could speak English since she had an American girl living in her house and she resented the fact she had to say “no”. However, in the midst of her drunken anger, it came out that she just happens to hate the family of the neighbor I’m seeing. Fortunately, my host-sisters all stood up for me and protected me.

Unfortunately, at the end of April all of my host-sisters just happened to be in Bishkek for one reason or another and one day my host-mother invited some neighbors over and they started to drink vodka. Remembering her last drunken episode, I remember being anxious about what would happen later and even remember saying to a friend “well, she has no reason to get angry at me today, I cooked dinner for all her friends, carried in fresh water from outside, and even washed all the dishes.” All to no avail….I came home around 10 PM to find my host-mother and the neighbors still drinking in the kitchen and when I saw that the neighbors young daughter (maybe 5 or 6 years old) was with them, I brought her some tootsie rolls that my parents had sent me. That’s what pulled the trigger that night. Looking at me in anger she looked at me and asked, “and where’s my candy?!” And that started a two hour session of her yelling at me because: 1. she was offended that I had given candy to all the neighbors and none to her (I tried to explain that I had given candy to all the “children” and asked her is she was like a little child that needed candy) and then accused me of never sharing anything my parents ever sent me, which is totally untrue, she was just too angry and too drunk to remember. Besides, my parents send me packages, not her, and I feel that I should be able to pick and choose those things that I would like to share and with whom, which is another thing that is written in our contract, 2. she brought up the fact I still had failed to make her family fluent in English. Between those two failings of mine, she ranted and raved about how she was a widow without a husband who worked all day long (I tried to point out that I also had no husband and I also worked all day long, but she didn’t seem to care), how I only lived for myself (even though I work for free as a volunteer and help around the house), and how if I was seeing anyone but the guy I was seeing she wouldn’t be angry – she even gave me some names for good alternatives. Anyways, it was one big nightmare that lasted until midnight and without my sisters to stand up for me and my poor Russian skills, not to mention my Russian was hampered by my distressed state. It finally ended when I asked my mother to “please leave my room” so I could go to bed and she snarled “this is my house and I’ll do whatever the hell I want!” Thank God she did leave and that my door had a lock on it.

From then on, even though I had a good relationship with my host-sisters, my host-mother decided she didn’t need to feed me anymore and lied to the neighbors that I had broken their washing machine, which is funny since nothing was wrong with it and a few days later she asked me to show her how to use the “broken” machine. Basically, everyday I came home from work scared that my host-mother would find another reason to berate me – it was definitely time to move out, I had worn out my welcome. It’s a total shame because everything had been really good at first and I was really good friends with all of our neighbors and their families, and some of them even offered to let me move in with them when they found out I was having problems and had me over for dinner several times when they heard that my host mother had stopped feeding me. I graciously declined saying it would only cause more problems with my host-mother and my potential new host-family, but I felt grateful that they sympathized with me and didn’t seem to think I was such the horrible person my host-mother had made me out to be.

The drama’s finally over though, and last night I spent the first night in my new apartment, and I’ve started to stock my kitchen with food and supplies in the anticipation of finally being able to cook for myself on a regular basis. Since it’s been so long since I last updated my blog, I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier or not, but I had lost a lot of weight over the winter from being sick all the time, but when I started to have domestic problems with my host family I lost even more weight and started to have severe stomach cramps on a regular basis. I even went to Bishkek about two weeks ago to have a full medical check up and my PC doctor took blood, urine, and stool samples because she first thought I might have parasites or lead poisoning, but everything turned out normal, so she sent me to the hospital to have an ultra-sound and CAT-scan and those turned out normal too – everything looked healthy and in order to do more extensive testing they would have to send me to Thailand. Even though I wouldn’t mind a mini-vacation in Thailand or anything, I requested to wait until the end of summer to see if the condition wouldn’t improve since I thought my health problems were stress related, and my stress would be greatly alleviated once I moved to my own apartment.

So, now that I have the bad news out of the way, and boy did that take up a lot of space, there is some good news too. I guess the most obvious would be that I’m seeing a local. I know it may seem crazy, I mean I think it’s crazy when I think about it, but he’s my best friend and my biggest source of support here, not to mention he’s incredibly funny and can make me laugh even when all I want to do is cry. Since we come from two very different cultures, and we communicate only in Russian, not everything has been rosy with the various misunderstandings and arguments about what “women should and should not do” and the total double standards for men that are ingrained culturally. For the most part, these spats usually lead to really interesting and meaningful conversations – all in Russian, of course.

Speaking of Russian, I was in Bishkek all last week for PC’s In-Service Training conference and I was able to retest my Russian language skills and scored advanced-low! People often ask me which is more difficult: Russian or Japanese? At first I couldn’t really answer because my Japanese was way better than my Russian (and still is) and the languages are so different that they are both really difficult for completely different reasons. However, I think maybe now I can say they are both equally difficult because I remember that it took me eight months in Japan before I felt “conversationally competent”, you know, the stage where you don’t feel like a complete idiot every time you talk to someone. Anyways, back to the point, I’ve been in Kyrgyzstan now for eight months and feel the same way. My Russian is far from perfect, but I think I’ve reached that “conversationally competent” stage, but many thanks has to go to Farhat (the guy I’m seeing) because without his patience and willingness to correct me, I would probably still be a blubbering Russian speaking mess.

What else?? Hmmm, can’t think of anything off the top of my head but hopefully I will soon have more interesting stories to share with you all.

I'm Alive and Kick'n

2005-05-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Hello again, now that life has settled a bit and I've become used to the ho-hum of the normal routine (well, as normal as you can get in a developing country), I'm finding less and less exciting material to share with you all, which is one of the really lame excuses for me only updating my blog now only about once a month istead of 2 or 3 times like I did after I first arrived.

As some of you might notice, I've had to delete a large chunk of my previous posting about our Kyrgyz "Revolution" because I, and several other volunteers, have been informed by our country director that we were printing political events that could be viewed as us volunteers being "spies", which is absolutely ridiculous when you consider the strict rules seperating us from anything that could even smell "suspicious". So that said, in the future, if you want to know what's going on here that has to do with politics - I recommend you watch the news, cause you'll find out more from there than you will from me who is completely clueless when it comes to such things. In any case, I will refrain in the future from putting such material on my blog in fear that the "censorship" person in Bishkek or HQ will be watching....

SOoooo, about life in general, a lot has happened in the last two months that I would like to share with all of you, but I'm short on time at the moment so I will save it for another day in the near future - so stay tuned!

It's been a while.....sorry!

2005-04-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, for the last couple of weeks I've been getting e-mails from friends and family asking what's happened to my blog, so here is my lame excuse - I've been busy.

No really, work is going fine and with spring here and summer on the horizon along with tourist season, I've been busy at the office trying to get our information ready and helping them plan a marketing strategy for the upcoming year. After work, I usually run home, catch a quick nap, and then hang out with the locals. Among volunteers in Karakol, I am probably the most integrated volunteer that spends far more time among the local people than I do with other volunteers, and my language has improved tons because of it. Recently a friend called me on my cell and we had a nice chat in Russian for about 10-15 minutes, and when I hung up another volunteer looked at me and said, "wow, you make speaking Russian look easy..." Actually, that volunteer learned Kyrgyz, so he really couldn't hear how terrible I really was speaking, hehehehe.

So, about our "Revolution".

As many of you know from the news, there were a number of protests and even "riots" here in Kyrgyzstan a few weeks ago, and my mailbox was flooded with "are you alive" messages (another reason why I haven't updated in a while). I must say, this is the first time I've ever survived a revolution of any sorts, but where I live here in Karakol, nothing happened at all.

So what did Peace Corps do to protect the volunteers?

They called us when the protesting and road blocks started and asked us to go on "Stand fast" status, which means we weren't permited to travel anywhere outside of work and home, and when the riots in Bishkek began, the entire country went to "consolidation" where all the volunteers in each region gathered together at one location, and asked to stay there until further notice. Consolidation totally sucked, because in my region there are 11 volunteers and we had to live together for three days, and weren't suppose to go anywhere (however, since Karakol was quiet, many of us went out during the day, and just came back at night). Thank God that didn't last for very long, but if things had gotten any worse, we would have certainly have been evacuated to Kazakstan to wait out the turmoil. So anyways, you don't have to worry, Peace Corps takes care of it's volunteers.

The good news is, the former president officially resigned yesterday, making way for peaceful elections that have been scheduled for June. No one is expecting any further violence or "revolutionary" action, but many of us volunteers are suspecting that we might be consolidated again during the elections just in case.

Ok, that's my update, I will try to catch up on the 30 e-mails in my inbox as soon as I can, so thanks for your patience!

Thanks Everyone!

2005-02-23T00:58:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to write a quick note to let people know that I have been getting your e-mails and greatly appreciate all of them. I'm sorry that I can't respond to many of you right now but the internet connection here is terribly slow and it took about thirty minutes just for me to upload the last two blogs. So! Don't think I'm ignoring you or anything because I'm not, you are all in my thoughts and prayers and I miss you terribly!

Love, Rhonda

Tales of Bride Kidnapping

2005-02-23T00:56:00.000-08:00

I think I told many of you before I left for Kyrgyzstan that I had read that sometimes Kyrgyz men kidnap their wives. To me, this has become a mind boggling topic that often comes up in conversations. During training, we [trainees] were told by our LCFs (language and culture facilitators) that bride kidnapping was uncommon and it was usually a way for young lovers to “elope” when the bride’s parents either disapproved of the groom or the groom couldn’t afford to pay the “bride price” to marry the girl of his choice. Then we had some foreign specialist from a university come and give us a presentation on the topic, and we learned from his research that bride kidnapping where the bride was coerced into marrying her kidnapper wasn’t totally uncommon. You know, it’s really interesting to hear and read about bride kidnapping, but it doesn’t really hit you until you hear the real stories behind the tradition. For example, across the street from where I live is a family that has three sons between the ages of 16 and 23. The oldest kidnapped his wife less than a year ago. Now, I always see the boys, but I rarely see Sayura, who is only 20 years old. The only times I have had the opportunity to talk to her is on the rare occasion that Elvira and I go over to request something or on holidays when all the neighbors open their gates to guests. When I talked to Sayura, she told me that she had been kidnapped. When I asked her if she knew her husband when she was kidnapped she said “no”, when I asked if she wasn’t afraid when it happened she said, “of course I was afraid!” Then I asked how he had picked her out and she explained that he used to be a DJ at a disco-tech and he had seen her a few times and decided she was the one for him. Huhhhh?!! It’s like tales from the crypt!

But the really weird thing is, everyone will quickly agree that bride kidnapping is bad, but then they turn around and talk about their own sons or relatives needing to kidnap a wife. When I was in Oruktu last weekend this was one of the most surrealistic conversations I had with Mahabat’s mother. First she talked about her son needing to kidnap a wife, but when I asked if he wasn’t a bit young yet to get married (he’s only 17), she said she was tired of working all by herself, she worked from morning until night with little or no rest (I wanted to ask, “well, what does your husband and sons do?”) and she needed help, her son needed a wife so she could work for the family (so next time your workplace is a little short handed, just suggest someone kidnap a wife to help out). When I asked how she could support such a tradition, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I was kidnapped and look, here I am, I’m ok.” Then I turned to Mahabat (who is of kidnapping age – 20) and asked what she would do if she was kidnapped, and she looked hopefully to her brothers and said, “my brothers promised to come and get me!”

Even during training my host father in Koshoi was in conspiracy to help his brother kidnap a wife. When he disappeared for a few days my host family told me in hushed voices that he had helped his brother kidnap a wife and now they where celebrating the wedding in Naryn for three days. But when I had asked them if it was ok for their daughter to get kidnapped, they quickly shook their heads and said she should be able to choose her husband…..apparently, it’s ok to kidnap a girl and force her into a marriage, unless it’s your own daughter – of course.

But that’s not the end of the tales, occasionally when I’m sitting with my host sisters they will tell me about their friends who where kidnapped and forced into marriage – today I heard that one friend was kidnapped by guys driving by in a car, they took the girl and drove off to Bishkek. How are parents going to retrieve their daughters when they’ve been stolen off to some distant city and by tradition they only have until sun down to go and retrieve her, because once she’s stayed the night at her kidnapper’s house it becomes a great shame to both the daughter and the family to leave, because it’s assumed that she’s “used goods”? What a terrible custom!!

So what happens after a girl is kidnapped? They take her home and put her in a room full of older female relatives that quickly corner her and try to force her to wear the “wedding scarf” and tell her over and over if she refuses she’ll be cursed for all eternity, will be unhappily married in the future, will have a cruel mother-in-law, and will be either barren or will have drunk and lazy children. They all say that they were also kidnapped, and are happy, at it’s her destiny to marry whoever the intending groom is. How do you respond to this? Especially when there are proverbs such as, “A bride stays where her stone is thrown,” or “a woman’s love is for nothing, but a man’s is for marriage.” How can a girl respond when she is raised to respect elders, and then is told by older women that she will be forever cursed if she leaves, not to mention the shame she will bring to herself and her family?

In Kyrgyzstan, bride kidnapping is illegal, but everyone says “it’s our tradition.” For me, it seems so much worse that just walking into a store and stealing something, because you aren’t just stealing “something” you are stealing “someone” and all their hopes and dreams of deciding their own destiny. It makes me think that Kyrgyz men are incapable of having any social skills, in fact, they don’t need to. They don’t need to know how to treat a woman nicely, how to treat her well, or how to even talk to women, so what will happen when he is married and had coerced his wife to marry him? Will her respect her? Will he even try to make her happy, or is it all about his own happiness? Then I look to my neighbor, Sayura, whom I never see. When I ask my sisters why we don’t invite her over for some girly fun (geesh, she’s only 20!), they said they have tried but her husband won’t permit her, that he says it’s her job to sit at home and do housework. What a shame! I can only wonder when the men and women who participate in kidnapping women and forcing them to marry, will open their eyes, will have confidence in themselves to do what is right and not just what is easy.

Finding a Common Language

2005-02-22T00:53:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I visited a small village called Oruktu on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. I went with Mahabat, a cousin (20) who is also living with my host family while she is going to university. She wanted to go home to visit her family and invited me to go with her, and I happily accepted her invitation. Although my trip to her tiny village was a 100x more pleasant than my trip to Bishkek the week before, I had a big lesson to learn while I was there, and that is, this is Kyrgyzstan and the people here speak Kyrgyz. Well, actually, I already knew this, but when I went to Oruktu there were very few people who could speak Russian – they all spoke Kyrgyz and I suddenly found my Russian inconvenient and Mahabat often had to translate for me. In fact, most of her friends couldn’t speak Russian at all, and most of her family members (one sister – 7, two brothers – 13 and 17) were hesitant to speak to me in Russian. Her parents really made an effort to talk to me in Russian, but it was hours later that her brothers even tried to talk to me, so I had thought they didn’t know Russian at all, and when we visited all her relatives, very few of them even tried talking to me in Russian. For two days, I found myself feeling like I had just arrived to another country that I didn’t know how to function in. When I lamented about my inability to communicate with Mahabat’s friends and family, she just would sigh and say, “but this is Kyrgyzstan, of course the people here speak Kyrgyz, Russian is the second language for most people.” When I asked her how she learned to speak Russian so well, since it seemed like most other people in her village couldn’t speak it hardly at all, she smiled and said, “but I can’t speak Russian very well at all!” Hmmmm, something to think about…I guess I had just taken it for granted that almost everyone in Karakol can speak Russian, and it made me appreciate more how my friends who learned Kyrgyz feel when they are in the city and everyone tries talking to them in Russian. Regardless, I had a good time anyways, and enjoyed walking on the beach of the lake and hiking the hills behind her village, and look forward to going back in the summer when it’s warmer and I will hopefully have a little Kyrgyz under my belt.

A New Way to Campaign

When Mahabat and I got back home Sunday night, my host sister Gildiz met us at the door and said, “hurry up and get ready, we’re going to the disco-tech.” I think one of the reasons I like my host family so well is because I live with three other girls that are close to my age who also like to go out dancing, so I get to go all the time, and it’s not just a Friday or Saturday affair, we have gone on Mondays, Sundays, you name it (it’s a good thing I don’t have to work until 10 AM). Anyways, I hurried up, refreshed my makeup and sprayed myself down with some deodorizer since I hadn’t bathed in a few days, and we headed out. When we arrived, it became obvious that we weren’t going to just any disco-tech, because for one, we didn’t have to pay to get in, and secondly, it was being held in the city’s Drama Theater. Then, often in between songs, advertisements for a particular political candidate would come on over the speakers. This disco-tech was a political campaigning event! I later learned that the event would be running for three days, which was so mind boggling and yet interesting. Well, elections for local positions are in a week, I guess we’ll see if the disco-tech campaigning works or not.

A Crazy Week

2005-02-14T00:57:00.000-08:00

First, I’m hit by a mini tsunami…..

So last Wednesday I’m walking home after a stressful day, and I’m nearing the end of my 30 minute walk home when a car coming from behind me gives a warning honk. However, I’m walking on the sidewalk (we actually have a few) and I’m separated from the road by at least four or five yards, with a bank of snow in between, so I’m thinking, “He can’t be honking at me, I’m on the sidewalk…” Big mistake - two minutes later the car speeds by at 50 mph and a tsunami at least three feet taller than me sweeps over me from behind, completely soaking my backside. Sure, they were honking at me saying, “we’re going to get you sucker!”

Meet the Crazy Aunt….

So last weekend I went to Bishkek with my host mother and little sister to attend a wedding, but little did I know we would be staying with an older aunt who’s starting to lose her nutz and bolts (they decided not to tell me this until it was obvious that things were not as they should be). So we arrive and she starts to explain to me how the whole younger generation has gone to hell, how she has studied anything and everything (as she pulled out every book she owed to demonstrate her great knowledge), and how terrible it was that people who came to her house didn’t know where everything was and how she liked to have things done naturally (of course, they should be able to read her mind), and in between sentences she would occasionally spit out spiteful remarks to my little sister and call her a dog. Since I was the new guest, I had to endure hours of listening to her, and patiently look at everything from her shoes, to her dishes, to every little card she had ever received. Since my Russian isn’t that spectacular and she wasn’t really interested in hearing what I had to say, most of the time I just had to nod my head and agree with whatever she happened to be mumbling at the moment. When my sister and I tried going to bed she kept on coming in our room (about five or six times) to ask questions, make sure the window was closed (in the middle of winter), ask more questions, make sure we had enough blankets. Then, in the morning, I tried to quietly use the toilet, but I must have failed because even though it was 5 AM she met me as soon as I came out asking if everything was ok, if I wanted tea, and had to show me her ugly bleeding teeth and spend 5 minutes complaining that it was our fault that her teeth hurt because we made her drink so much tea the day before (as if we twisted her arms behind her back and forced it down her throat). From then until the sun rose, she continued to visit our room to find out if we were awake yet (we pretended as long as we could), and when it was finally obvious that we weren’t sleeping anymore, she showed us her teeth again, complained again, and would not leave us in peace for more than 10 minutes. If we locked the door to change, or have some privacy, she would bang on the door demanding we open it to her (well, it’s her apartment, after all…..). Before we left for the wedding, she blew up and started yelling and throwing my little sister’s stuff towards the door, trying to kick her out. Now my little sister is 15, but she looks (and often acts) like she’s 10, and she really tried to be patient with her aunt, but teenagers are teenagers, and sometimes she would snap back defensively to whatever accusation was being made, but I have to stand by her and say she was unrightfully treated. Later I heard my host mother talking to some other relatives and they all said she was like that when she forgot to take her medication, and by my measurement, she hadn’t been taking her medication for weeks. If I thought it was bad with the constant attention and interruptions, my poor host mother had it worse, because the aunt refused to let her sleep peacefully at all and would shake her awake almost every time she fell asleep.

The Wedding…..

So Saturday night we head off to the wedding, but when we arrive it is apparent to me that we arriving to the reception, which in many ways was similar to a western wedding reception where the bride and groom sit on a platform with the maid of honor and best man, there were plenty of speeches (in Russian and Kyrgyz), songs sung, and lots of dancing in between. However, as soon as we arrive, my host mother and sister both abandon me to a table where I knew no one, while they went to sit with their own favored relatives (thanks…..), and was miserable most of the night, enduring stupid drunken questions from the men, and silence from most of the women (unless you count “eat” or “drink” as conversation topics). The only relief I got was during the short dancing sections when I was permitted to move tables, or shake my tush a little, but soon after I was told quickly “go back to your seat!” So I would head back and usually more food would be brought out, and one of the more memorable dishes they brought out were the large platters of boiled, cold mutton, fat, and intestines, and I watched as everyone eyed greedily the pieces they wanted and a man at the table picked up a large knife to cut down the size of the pieces and hand them out. Although I tried to politely refuse, I still received a small portion of meat which I snuck off to my host mother’s plate when I was sure no one was looking.

But that’s not the end…..

So after the celebration it’s time to head back to the crazy aunt’s place…..or so I think. Sure, my Russian is getting better, but a lot of what I get is guess work, and unless someone is directly talking to me in simple, easy to understand words, I don’t catch a whole lot of what is being said around me, and that’s not even mentioning that my host mother prefers to speak Kyrgyz whenever possible and I don’t understand Kyrgyz at all (except a few words and phrases I’ve picked up). So instead of heading back to the apartment where the crazy aunt awaits, we go to a different relative’s apartment that is not far from where we are staying, and my host mother and relatives settle down to discuss the events of the evening. I’m tired, grumpy, and my head is pounding, so I ask when we are going home to sleep, and I’m answered with “we’re not, we’re staying here.” “What?!!” Why didn’t anyone tell me this before? Upset, I asked when we were going back because everything I had was at the other place, my clothes, my money, my toothbrush, everything, and I know how my family is, they sleep forever and don’t really pay attention to time – if I left it up to my host mother, I had a feeling that I wouldn’t brushing my teeth or changing my clothes until noon the next day. Finally, my host mother agrees to go back, but wants to spend some time talking to her relatives, but my head is still pounding and I’m tired so ask if I can lay down and wait until we go. I fall asleep (still dressed in my nice clothes I wore to the wedding) and a few hours later I’m awoken to “do you still want to go back?” and I think, “I might as well just stay…” and mumble that I just want to sleep. Big mistake – I woke up around 7 AM in the morning and I realize that my host mother is no where to be found. Fortunately, one relative was awake, so I ask her where my host mother is and find out that she had left me there alone the night before and went back to the crazy aunt’s place. Confused and dazed by the fact I had been abandoned [again] in a house full of people I don’t know, in a city I’m unfamiliar with, I frantically ask how the heck I’m going to get back since I don’t know the way and everyone was still sleeping. Sensing my panic, she offered to walk me back since she was on her way out to work anyways – I quickly shook my head in agreement, put on my jacket, and we headed out.

Locked Out

So, the relative walks me to the old soviet style apartment complex and parts her own way for work. I walk up four flights of stairs and knock on the door, but when my host mother comes to open the door it becomes obvious that things are not as they should be – the door is locked and there is no key to open it. You see, many doors here in Kyrgyzstan are locked only by keys from the outside and the inside, and the crazy aunt had left, locked the door behind her and left without telling anyone where she was going or when she would be back. I was locked out. Fumbling with the 70 som (almost $2) in my pocket, I decide I might as well go to a café for some coffee and a little breakfast and come back later. However, to my horror, there were no cafes open so early in the morning, so I ended up walking around for more than two hours, in the cold, without even brushing my hair (no hairbrush), in the clothes I wore the night before. By the time I got back I was miserable – the whole weekend seemed screwed up and now this. Then, to add the last straw to my misery, on my way back I stop at a little stand to finally buy a little packet of instant coffee, determined to have some brief moment of happiness when I got back, but when I got home I made the huge mistake of handing it over to my sister telling her I wanted to drink it 10 minutes. So what does she do, she makes my coffee and lets it sit on the counter for 10 minutes so it’s nice and cold by the time I get it ….(>_<)** That was it, my whole morning was ruined, the whole weekend had been a drama, and even my coffee was ruined – I lost it. I admit it, I started crying over what a mess my weekend had turned out to be.

Thank God, not every weekend is like the one I just had. I often think about Japan, and how much I miss it there and the people and my friends, and I always have to remind myself that things just seemed better there because I understood the language and the culture and I knew how to function there like a normal person. I think it will be easier to quit reminiscing about the past when my language gets a lot better and I can understand a lot better what is going on around me, instead of always playing the guessing game and just trusting the people you are with to keep you updated, because quite honestly, I don’t think my host family nor most people here can understand what it’s like to be a foreigner in a foreign land, and not be able to understand every thing that’s going on around you. Now that I think about it, I can remember times in Japan too that I felt the same way and frustrated that I couldn’t understand everything and felt left in the dark. I just have to remember, my Russian will get better, I will understand, I will make a difference.

Giving Vodka to the Pets

2005-02-04T00:55:00.000-08:00

Today I came home from work to discover half of my household either sick or gone. I knew when I left this morning that my host mother was ill because she told me she was too sick to go work at the bazaar today, but when I came home I was also met with a very sick cat and puppy. Our cat, who normally is very active and playful, could barely walk and when I picked her up she howled as if in pain. I carefully carried her into the house and gave her a warm place to sleep, and she has since refused to move. I’m not sure what is wrong with the puppy, but my little host sister insists that he is sick too (he lives in a little cubby hole under the house, so I rarely see him). Both my host family and I are worried about our pets and they call the neighbors to find out what they should do, and the answer is: give them a mini shot of vodka and let them sleep. Shaking my head in disbelief, my little sister asks me to escort her to the store to buy the “medicine” so I put on my warm jacket, head to the store, and watch as the shop owner sells a bottle of vodka to my 15 year old sister (who looks like she is 10). When we get back to the house, it falls to me to hold the animals as we force feed them vodka…..the cat is now unconscious on my bed, hopefully dreaming about fat mice that can’t run very fast, the puppy? He’s unconscious underneath the house dreaming of who knows what….I just hope the vodka remedy helps.

“FYI, I bathe at least once a week!”

2005-01-26T20:58:00.000-08:00

You know, its funny but I never thought that bathing twice a week would be considered a luxury, but here, it the mid of winter, it is. The longest I have gone with out bathing is 18 days. Don’t get me wrong, I gave myself a sponge bath a few times, but a sponge bath just isn’t the same. After figuring out that my new host family would not be firing up the banya (Russian sauna) during the winter, I figured I had to take matters into my own hands. That means I decided to visit a public bath at least twice a week to bathe. So, now I pay about 75 cents for an hour to give myself a bucket bath and sit in a sauna for a few minutes.

For me, bathing twice a week is not asking for too much, I mean, I used to bathe every day when I was in Japan and in the States (and every where else I’ve been). In fact, I’ve gotten used to it, but for locals and a few second year volunteers, bathing twice a week seems excessive in the winter. It’s not like you sweat a whole lot in the winter anyways. So last night one of my sisters and I are outside talking to our neighbors joking around and for some reason stinky feet comes up, which leads to a discussion about boys being smelly (all our neighbors are boys) and one guy, very defensively says “excuse me! But I bathe at least once a week!”

Starting to fit in . . . .
Since I’m talking about my neighbors, I should let you know that I have finally gotten to know most of those guys that used to sit outside our gate yelling for me to come out, and can actually put names to some faces (Kyrgyz names can be hard to remember, and I’m terrible with names anyways). They are all really good friends with one of my host sisters, Elvira (23), who’s the tomboy of the family. The other older sister, Gildiza (24) is the shy, timid, reserved one. For me, getting to know these neighbors has been a lot of fun, because they often come to our gate asking us (Elvira and I) to hang out with them, which means in the last couple of weeks I have been going ice skating, sledding, and playing tackle Frisbee (soccer style) in the dark, although sometimes the guys don’t play so fair – last Monday we had a huge snow fight and it was 5 guys against two girls. We were out numbered and the guys were way stronger than us, in fact, most of the time they just picked me up and would throw me into a huge snow bank. I have never had such an active winter, nor had so much fun during the cold winter months.

Dreaming of the Soviet Days

2005-01-23T02:11:00.000-08:00

One of the interesting things about living in a former Soviet republic is talking to the older generations that just can’t seem to let go of the past. And why should they? During the Soviet period everyone had a job, everyone had bread to eat, if someone wanted to study they could go to school for free and if they were ill, all medical help was free too. When the Soviets came they built universities, theaters, streets; sure you couldn’t have a good education in your native language (Russian only), nor could you believe in God, but a least you knew you would have food everyday.

This is a conversation I get almost every week; almost everyone who remembers the Soviet period dreams about the past. It reminds me of when God led the Israel out of Egypt and all they could do is dream about their days of slavery. I mean, sure, wandering around a desert eating the same thing everyday for forty years would make me dream about the past too, but there has to come a point when you have to be willing to forget the past and live in the present purposefully for a better future. Every time I hear someone tell me how good the Soviet days were, I try to tell them that they shouldn’t base their happiness on what the government can provide them with (food, housing, clothing, etc), but rather they are responsible for their own success and happiness. If you want something, work for it, save your money and appreciate the things you earn and not just the things you are given. When they say that there are no jobs for them, I tell them to make their own jobs, start their own business (I can think of about 10 viable business ventures someone could do here). When they say they don’t have the money to start their own business, I tell them that there are many international organizations that are willing to give out grants for small business startups, they just have to write a good business plan and prove that the money they will receive will actually go to start a business and not for a new car. And then they mumble something I can’t understand and somehow I feel that this generation is not willing work for change, they just want the government to continue to provide everything for them. They can’t seem to see that during the Soviet days everyone was basically poor (except for high communist officials), oppressed (no freedom of speech or religion), and no matter how hard they worked those things would not change.

Change in Kyrgyzstan is going to be slow, especially with this mindset, and it will be the younger generations that will make a difference, the ones who can’t remember the days when you had everything you needed for free, without needing to work for what you had. Of course you had to work, but who’s going to work hard for quality, or customer service, or improvement when there’s no incentive to do your best? What’s to stop you from being late or absent from work when it’s illegal to fire someone?

I’m not saying that the market economy is perfect, because most Americans have huge debts because they spend and spend and spend, and don’t know when to stop. We want and base our happiness on the things we have, which isn’t the right way to live either. So where is the happy medium? What should we base our happiness on?

The old New Year and Kurman Ait

2005-01-22T02:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I don’t know if I’m getting lazy about writing, or just that I’m having a hard time finding the time to sit down and write these blog entries. Something interesting seems to happen to me all the time and there are numerous things I would like to write about, but actually turning on my computer to record those things seems to be a small problem…..

Anyways, since the last time I wrote, there have been two more holidays here in Kyrgyzstan: the old New Year on January 14th and Kurman Ait, which was yesterday. Here in Kyrgyzstan, they like New Year’s so much that they celebrate it three times a year; once on January 1st, again on January 14thth, and finally they celebrate the Muslim new year called Noruz in May (I think). The old New Year holiday was really mild and I celebrated it with my neighbors by playing night Frisbee at the stadium – 7 guys and three girls played tackle soccer Frisbee in the snow and it was a blast!

The next day I got up early and headed back to Koshoi village to visit my first host family. They were ecstatic to see me again and I was also very happy to see them again, and I spent the weekend relaxing, visiting, sledding, and of course, eating lots of food. My host family kept on saying I had lost a lot of weight and that I needed to fatten up (I shed a few pounds when I was sick because I could barely eat). On Saturday I went to visit another volunteer’s first family and ended up spending five hours there chatting and eventually my host sister came in search of me because she thought I might have gotten kidnapped(!). The visit was refreshing and boosted my confidence in my (pathetic) Russian because everyone kept on saying how much better I had gotten.

Yesterday was Kurman Ait, which is a Muslim holiday, and I’ve been told two different versions of what the significance of the holiday means. My counterpart told me that Kurman Ait was a holiday in remembrance of God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and then providing an alternate sacrifice when Abraham was about to fulfill God’s command, therefore, on this day devout Muslims should also offer a sacrifice of a sheep, cow, horse, or chickens. However, according to my family and neighbors, Kurman Ait is a day to remember the dead. So what do you do on Kurman Ait? Well, my family woke up early yesterday to clean the house and to start cooking. By mid morning we had a table set filled with baked and fried bread, jams, cookies, dried fruits and candy, and plov, a national dish of rice cooked with carrots and meat, was on the way. I was told that on this day, everyone should keep their gates open and accept visitors to offer them tea, bread, and plov, and vice versa, you should try to visit at least 7 houses before the end of the day. I only made it to five houses and we had many guests visit our house, but was a great opportunity for me to get to know my neighbors a little, since they all seem to know about me, but I know very little about them. After the sun sank and I started to feel sorry for my extremely swollen stomach (12 cups of tea, 1 cup of coffee, 3 servings of plov, and who knows how many pieces of fried bread), a couple of the neighbor guys came over and invited my sisters and I to ride up to the mountains to see the night view of the city, so I put on some extra socks and long underwear and we headed out. The view was beautiful, but Karakol is such a small city that it was nothing too spectacular, and we ended up having to push the car out of snow about 3 or 4 times………even with my extra socks, my feet were feeling a bit frozen.

We start heading back down the mountain and we are trying to figure out what to do, because the only way to really mingle with the opposite sex is to hang out in public places and the night was still young. So where did we go on this holy Muslim holiday? To the disco-tech! Yup, we finished the night off by going and shaking our booties at the dance club, but without vodka, because, well, you know, this is a holy day after all.

Snowboarding Uphill

2005-01-09T02:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got to go snowboarding here in Kyrgyzstan. Being a mountainous country, Kyrgyzstan is only bound to have ski resorts and I am lucky enough to live in a city that has one right at its doorstep. I actually came into Peace Corps not expecting to be able to snowboard for the next two years, but then I looked at a Kyrgyz tourist map and saw the little symbol near Karakol marking a ski resort and I thought “Hmmmm, I might be able to go snowboarding afterall…” Then, I talked to some of the K-11 volunteers (every group that comes into country is given a number, my group is K-12) and one told me that when he went skiing last year, the skis he rented shattered on his first run down the mountain – that’s how old the equipment was, and there certainly weren’t any boards to rent.

But then at Christmas I met another K-11, named Josh, who said he was coming to Karakol for a month to go snowboarding for his vacation. As I talked to him, I discovered that the resort was undergoing remodeling and would most likely get new equipment this year, so I told him if he found out the details and whether or not they had snowboards to rent, I would join him on the mountain at least once while he was in town. So he went up and found out all the information for me and we made plans to go together over the weekend. Well, for my volunteer’s budget, it cost me a fortune to go – a whopping $17 dollars for the rental, lift ticket, food and transportation (I only get about $95 a month to live off of). The equipment was so new that I had to take the plastic wrap off the snowboard, show the technician how to put the bindings on and then had to shift through the boxes of new boots to find my size and cut the tags off with my pocket knife.

Being able to use brand new equipment was awesome, but even with all the nice and shiny new equipment, new ski lodge, and all the construction they’ve done, the haven’t managed to build a new ski lift yet and only had a T-bar to get to the top of the mountain. I don’t know if any of you have ever ridden a T-bar before but ridding a snowboard uphill totally sucks. It took me about three tries to be able to even properly grab the bar to start my journey up the mountain, and every failure meant getting dragged on the ground for several feet. Even after I managed to grab the bar and start ascending, I wasn’t able to make it to the very top until the end of the day. That means I would make it somewhere halfway up, lose my balance, get dragged several feet, and basically get beat up by the mountain and lift. Then, I would have to slowly descend along the lift’s path, being careful not to run into skiers on their way up, or get hit from behind by bars on their way down. After a couple of tries, I was able to at least make it past the midway trail, so I only had to slide down a few yards to catch the trail that would take me to the main run. This happened to me all day and I had to eat lots of humble pie since all the Russian skiers would laugh and say “still can’t make it to the top, huh?” as they passed me on their way up. Being the determined person I am, I wasn’t willing to give up until I made it of the top, and when I finally did, Josh and celebrated at the top for at least ten minutes. Unfortunately, I was so exhausted from holding onto the bar, snowboarding uphill, getting dragged and beat up by the lift, that I barely had enough energy to make it down the mountain and had to call it a day when I reached the bottom.

Today, I can barely move and I have big ugly bruises all over. Sure, now I can say that I’ve snowboarded in Kyrgyzstan, but the physical cost from the T-bar almost ruined the whole experience, although I’m sure if I were to go again it would be much better now that I’ve mastered the lift.

Merry Christmas...again!!

2005-01-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

Today is the official Russian Orthodox Christmas. Kyrgyzstan is about 70% Muslim, but somehow, after the fall of the Soviet Union, along with all the traditional Muslim holidays, Christmas made it on the calendar as an official national holiday. However, the only real signs in the city that it was a holiday, was that the post office, bank, and most of the stores were closed. My own host family, whom claim to be secular Muslims, thinks nothing different of today as from yesterday or even the day before.

Regardless of Karakol’s lack of enthusiasm for Christmas, two other volunteers and I decide to check out the local Russian Orthodox Cathedral’s Christmas service, and for about a week we went on an information hunt just to figure out what would be going on, since most of the locals we knew had no clue either. Finally, on Tuesday I get the call, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral will be holding midnight mass from 10:00 PM until 3:00 AM. Being that it’s going to be a late night for us, the three of us meet at Joe’s apartment, which is in the center of Karakol, to chill until it’s time to go. Ok, so it’s the Kyrgyz Christmas eve, and it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. It probably has something to do with the fact all of us volunteers already celebrated Christmas, not to mention that New Year’s was the big celebration for the locals, but trying to muster up some Christmas spirit for ourselves, we snuggle up, drink some hot chocolate, and watch a Christmas movie….

10 o’clock finally rolls around and we bundle up and head out; the cathedral is just a 10 minute walk from Joe’s apartment. The cathedral, which was originally built in 1872, has been rebuilt twice: once in 1890 after an earthquake and again in the early 1990’s to repair the ravages of the communist secularism. According to my guidebook, the cathedral’s greatest treasure is an icon of the Gentle Virgin Mary, which according to legend, shed tears of blood when the monks of Svetly Mys monastery were brutally murdered in 1916 during an anti-Soviet uprising. Today you can buy copies of the icon and they are said to have healing powers.

When we arrive, we observe the locals, and the locals are doing lots of bowing, and we haven’t even opened the church doors yet. According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, you should show respect by bowing and making the sign of the cross at the gate, at the stairs to the cathedral, at the door, when you enter, and every time you pray. Actually, I really don’t understand the tradition well, and my Russian skills just aren’t up to par to really be able to ask, but inside the church, the three of us take the position of reverent observers. The cathedral is, of course, beautiful on the inside, with many Christian paintings and many pictures of the Russian saints, where you can offer candles and prayers (I’m assuming this is similar to the Roman Catholic tradition). Perhaps 70 people have gathered to pray and worship, but as I look around, they are all Russians, not one Kyrgyz was to be found. The service is nothing like a sermon you might see at home, but rather, a young woman is chanting prayers in Russian in the back, and occasionally a choir would chime in to sing their hallelujahs and amens. There were no pews nor chairs, the worshipers stood in reverence to either the right or the left of the center of the alter (we got yelled at for standing in the middle, so we also quickly moved to one side). We stayed for about an hour, and still, even now, I’m not sure what was going on, but to me, it looked like Christmas was more about going to the church, saying your prayers, worshiping in silence as the sounds of chanting floated throughout the sanctuary. The priest was separated from the worshipers by a gate, which looked like it led to an inner sanctuary, and he would only briefly open it turn around, say a quick prayer, and then close the gate again. I must say, the Russian Christmas was and still is, a mystery.

A trip to the Kyrgyz hair salon.

2005-01-05T02:48:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I finally broke down and went to get my hair cut and dyed. I know, I know, I said I was going to stop dying my hair, but I had to seriously do something because I had four different colors (brassy red, dark red, dark brown, light brown) going on, and it looked terrible! Not only that, but I hadn’t cut it in at least 6 months, so the ends were looking really shaggy.

I asked my host sisters about how I should go about getting my hair done, you know the typical, where should I go and how much would it cost, and one of them happily agreed to accompany me (to my relief). First, I had to go the local department store to buy hair dye to take to the hair salon with me. Not wanting to get the cheap kind, I spend about $3.25 for the “good stuff” and follow my host sister like a little lost puppy, not quite sure what to expect as we head towards the salon. Anyways, it doesn’t take long to get there since it’s located just across the street from the department store where I bought my hair dye. Inside, it looks like a normal hair salon, only instead of those funky chairs they make you sit in in the States (or Japan), I am asked to sit on what looks like a desk chair, and the hair stylist, whose name is Sultanat, asks me when was the last time I washed my hair, eying carefully my nice shinny hair – “Oh, I think it was last Friday,” counting on my fingers how many days it has been, “so about five days ago.” Actually, five days isn’t so bad, considering I haven’t showered in two weeks. So she tells me to get back up and to head to the sink in the back of the room to wash my hair, and after I stand there not sure what to do, she tells me, “Well, put your head down!” I bend over as she starts spraying my hair (and my face, I might add) with water and tells me I have to help, “so put out your hands already!” “Ok, ok,” I reply quickly, thrusting out my hands where she puts a big gob of shampoo and I start washing my own hair as she continues to spray my hair and face with water, and should I stop but for a moment, she would whip me back into shape by snapping “Help!”

Ten minutes later, my hair has been washed and conditioned, and I have gotten a good face washing too. Greatly desiring a towel to wipe the water from my eyes, the only thing I received was a thin, sheet like towel barely big enough to hold my sopping wet hair, and soon, even that is taken away from me as she tells me to sit under a hair dryer that looks like an antique model from 1965. I’m too tall for the hair dryer, so I scrunch down to about half my normal sitting height, wondering what will be next on this hair salon roller coaster….but just as I think I can sit and do nothing for a few minutes, Sultanat comes over and gestures (assuming my Russian is insufficient) that I need to start rubbing my head under the dryer to make my hair dry faster, and I don’t even do that right, because she has to help me do it the right way at least twice, pulling up the ends of my hair so they could get some of the blast of the hot air….

Finally, after I have apparently done an effective job of drying my hair under the hair dryer, I am given a rest from my responsibilities. During my hair cut, and later as she dyed my hair, I was grateful that she didn’t ask me to assist her, because if she did, I’m not sure I could have measured up to her expectations for cutting and dying my own hair under her supervision. Anyways, she gets all the dye in my hair and I have to wait 20 minutes for the color to set, so she pulls out what looks like an ancient Sears’ catalog, only in German. It had to be at least 10 years old because it has no cover and even as big as it was, still half the pages were worn out. After I pretend to be interested in the fashions of 1990 for a few minutes, I put it down; I just don’t have the heart to pretend any more and just stare off into space…….pondering the experience I was going through. Just then, it’s time. It’s time to wash the dye out and I am taken back to the scary sink, not sure what is about to happen, but I have a good idea, and just as I suspect, I am met with lots of water in my face and Sultanat again snaps, “help!” I’m positive she was wondering why I didn’t know how to wash my own hair.
Regardless of my surreal experience at the salon, my hair turned out fabulous. It is now a rich, dark chocolate color, and even though 4 inches were cut off, no one has noticed the missing length, because, well, my hair is still really long. All this service and it only cost me about $2.75, and with the cost of the dye, I’m only out of pocket by $6. Welcome to the third world….

Happy New Year!!

2005-01-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I’m feeling much better today, thanks to some new medicine I got a few days ago, although my cough just won’t seem to go away. I suppose it has been around for so long that it just thinks it has the right to stick around……I’ll show it though – hehehehe.

Anyways, yesterday I called my original host family and told them the sad, sad news that I wasn’t going to be able to make it there for New Year’s, and though they were disappointed they were understanding and supportive. So, I promised I would visit in about two weeks, when I would surely be recovered. I would have said next week, but next weekend is the Russian Christmas and I wanted to stick around for the Russian Orthodox Cathedral’s service here in Karakol.

Actually, I was feeling much better yesterday; my voice was back to normal and I rediscovered my nose. I knew it was there all along, but it was rebelling against me and refusing to function properly for at least a week. Even so, I still hibernated for most of the day, adventuring out for the first time in five days so I could check my e-mail, post box, and meet with another volunteer for lunch. Upon returning back to my house, I found my host family busily cleaning the house and preparing many dishes for the holiday. I offered to help (honestly I did), but they said I was still a sicko and should just relax…..maybe they didn’t think I knew what to do for New Year’s, but to tell the truth, I already had it all figured out. You do for New Year’s here, what you do for Christmas at home. I mean seriously, around 3 o’clock, one of my sisters drags home a small “new year” tree, and the other sister brings out the decorations, you know, tinsel, garland, bulbs, little santas and stockings, to put on the tree, and all the while all TV programs for the day show concerts from Russia with all the famous people (I still can’t remember their names) singing happy new year songs. It strangely feels like…..Christmas.

We start with first dinner at 3 PM. Because I have been so sick, my host mother had kindly made chicken noodle soup. Actually, the day before one of my host sisters begged me to tell her what they could do for me because I was “just too pitiful” to watch, and since I refused their native remedy of rubbing sheep fat all over my chest, they wanted to something, anything. “Ok, well, if you buy me some chicken bullion I can make a simple soup with the few carrots and onions I have….” I replied. When I woke up this morning, there was not a little cube of bullion like I was expecting, there was a whole chicken. “God, what am I going to do with a whole chicken?” I asked myself….fortunately, my host mother solved my dilemma by boiling the whole chicken, and adding noodles and a few potatoes, and there you have the Kyrgyz version of chicken noodle soup. Although I silently wished I could have made my own tried and true recipe, I was grateful that my family was willing to cook me something they though would make me feel better.

Later, we had our second dinner, with our table in the main house completely covered with salads (carrot, potato, and mystery), bread, snacks, we had a Dungan dish called “lagman” which is kinda like ramen, only with a spicy broth and covered with boiled potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and meat (by the way, Dungans are a minority ethnic group that live in Kyrgyzstan that are Chinese Muslims). After second dinner, my sisters and I packed into a car with the neighbor’s boys to head downtown to view the “lights” (sound familiar?). In the center of town, ever tree had New Year lights (or Christmas, if you were in the States), and there were decorations everywhere. In front of the university they had set up a hug New Year tree and a stage where various performances were going on to welcome the New Year, and just about every other person was setting off fireworks. It was indeed, a grand display for a little city in the middle of nowhere just trying to get on in the world.

Later at home, as midnight approached, my family popped open the Champaign bottle and I was told I would have to welcome the new year by eating a piece of bread with butter on it first, and then toast to the New Year (I had to toast with juice because of my medication). After the “magical moment” we quickly ran outside to witness the fireworks that were going off from almost every house, which lasted for about a good half an hour. Of course, my family was prepared too, as we competed with our neighbors for the coolest firework display. It was awesome! After the fireworks settled down, it was time for all the neighbors to visit each other’s homes to celebrate, drink vodka, and eat some more (third, fourth, and fifth dinners). So after visiting other homes and helping to host at our house for an hour, I finally snuck away to my room to crash around 2 AM.

But the celebration doesn’t end there. For the next two days, our neighbors will continue to visit each other’s homes, and we have to keep our table full and overflowing for all of the company.

For Christmas I got...

2004-12-30T22:57:00.000-08:00

…A sinus infection, laryngitis, and strep throat. Well, I’ll have to admit that I’ve had a bad cough now for at least 7 weeks, but whatever was brewing in my throat decided to hit me full blast the day after Christmas. Several of the Lake Issyk-Kul volunteers decided to meet for Christmas in Cholpin-Ata, a small town on the north shore. So on Friday I packed up my stuff, did some shopping, and grabbed a mini-van bus with a couple of other volunteers, and headed out. We spent a quiet evening watching movies, catching up with each other, and discussing our cooking plans for the next day, 13 of us had gathered to celebrate Christmas together; for most of them, it would be their first Christmas away from home, for two veterans (2nd year PCVs) it would be their second away from home, but for me, well, this would be number five in a foreign country.

Waking up early the next morning, people started cooking at 8 AM, while others, including myself, went to the bazaar to buy a few last minute ingredients for whatever dishes they would be preparing. I decided to make fettuccini alfredo and needed to buy cream and pasta. So I’m walking through the stalls of winter vegetables, find the stalls selling bread, clothes, and even canned goods, but where or where are the dairy products? Using my newfound Russian skills, I ask the lady I buy the pasta from. “Just over there, you’ll see the ladies selling over there.” As I head over to what looks like a cleaned out, small warehouse, I discover about 5 old grannies sitting behind tables selling various homemade dairy products ranging from milk to cream, and even cheese. Asking which one was selling cream, one little old lady beckoned me to approach and examine her large jug of fresh cream, and uses her ladle to demonstrate the thickness for me, revealing that the texture this cream was about the same as…..well, really thick pudding. Convinced by the grand display and presentation of the cream by the little old granny, I make my purchase and head back to Christmas headquarters. As I step inside, sweet aromas are wafting though the house, and about half of the volunteers are busily preparing their dishes for the feast. Not wanting to get in the way until it was our turn to cook, a few of us decide to curl up in our sleeping bags and watch a movie, and when that was over I convinced a couple of the guys to walk down to the lake with me. The first one I asked, sounding bored, said it would be windy and cold, and that I should just wait until summer. Not giving up so easily, I found two other willing companions and we headed to the lake, which was a mere 15 minute walk from the main street. It was neither cold nor windy, the sun was bright and warm, and the beach, void of people, was both peaceful and beautiful. Across from the giant lake (that never freezes) you could clearly see the snowy mountain peaks of the southern lake’s mountain range. Sometimes I believe you have to grab onto opportunities to see the beauty of the world, especially when it sits at your door. From Karakol City, you can’t see the lake, you can’t even really walk there, you have to take a minivan there and back, and they don’t even run in the winter.

So we began our Christmas feast at 6 PM, and the eating, laughing, singing, and dancing didn’t stop until the wee hours of the next morning. I retired when I could no longer speak louder than the music, but I had a rough night ahead, waking up every couple of hours coughing. The next morning I got up early, packed up my stuff, drank some tea and headed home with another volunteer. During the 2 hour ride back, my voice went from small and squeaky no nothing at all. By the time I got back to my house, my cough was almost uncontrollable and I had to have throat lozenges in my mouth constantly for any amount of peace, and couldn’t fall asleep without one in my mouth. The next day, I headed to the center of Karakol where the warden volunteer (contact point for emergencies and prescribed medicines) lives to ask him to call the PC doctor for me since I had no voice. I am then diagnosed with a sinus infection and laryngitis, prescribed medicine, and told to rest. I head back home and sleep…..by Wednesday my voice is starting to return though small and weak, but my whole throat feels swollen and scratchy and though my cough is infrequent, it’s much deeper and sounds far more terrible than before, so I call the doctor again and describe my new symptoms – “you also have strep throat” is the verdict….so, she prescribes a new medication and then starts a phone tag with my warden to figure out how and when I can get it. Finally, after my host-sister’s adamant refusal to let me leave the house, we decide they will rendezvous at the bazaar. I am still waiting for her return.

It’s actually been a pretty sad day for me. I was suppose to leave tomorrow to go back to my training village and spend the New Year’s weekend with my first host-family, but now I’m too sick to travel, and I’ll be too sick to do anything with any of the other volunteers staying in Karakol – so, I’ll be spending this New Year holiday alone. Even my current host family, all thinking I wouldn’t be here, has made plans for the weekend. It really sucks….

But there is still a moment for the spirit to reflect on God’s grace.

Right now I am working on memorizing Isaiah 53. I’ll have to admit that I haven’t been so good about my daily devotions in my Bible since I’ve been sick, but regardless, during those many hours I have laid on my bed feeling sorry for myself and how sick I was, I would reflect on the last verse I memorized: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” The whole chapter is a prophesy about Jesus and how He would suffer in order to deliver us, but this verse made me think about the suffering I have been enduring just for a couple of days and how it compares to the suffering Jesus went through for me, not that it’s really comparable, it just made me think “I need to praise God no matter what, no matter how I feel, simply because He is worthy of praise.” Hmmmm, I don’t know if that makes sense, but over the last year I have felt like God has been challenging me to learn how to praise Him even when the world around me tells me there is no reason to. Am I willing to praise God for no other reason at all? Faith is easy to hold when you live in a warm house, have clothes to wear, food to eat, people to love, a healthy body, but take those things away and would your faith remain? Would my faith remain? I don’t think that’s an easy question to answer, and only through the lows and hardships of life we will truly discover what our hearts are full of….self-pity or praise?

Oh look at that grand New Year Tree(!)....

2004-12-23T22:59:00.000-08:00

It’s holiday season here in Kyrgyzstan, and in many ways, the decorations, and the commercials, and walking through the bazaar (the Central Asian’s version of the shopping mall since ancient times) all remind me that Christmas is just around the corner. That is, until I talk to the locals and discover that that is not a Christmas tree, that is a New Year’s tree, and that tinsel, the presents, the music, and Santa (or Grandfather Frost, as they say in Russian) are not related to Christmas at all – they are all symbols of the New Year holiday quickly approaching. Christmas for me is in two days, but Christmas according to the Russian Orthodox Church isn’t until January 7th. So, this year I will celebrate Christmas twice; once this weekend with all the other PC volunteers around Lake Issyk-Kul, and again in two weeks with the locals. So, until the New Year is past, I will not be able to recognize what Christmas is suppose to look like here, because everything I grew up associating with the holiday has been misplaced to another holiday. I have to wonder, “is this just another post-Soviet atheist influence, or has it always been this way?...”

Unwanted Attention

2004-12-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

I am a target for unwanted attention here in Kyrgyzstan. Peace Corps actually warned us that this would happen even before we left Philadelphia way back in September, but during training I was almost always with either other volunteers or with my host family, so it was rare that anyone would say anything to me. Now that I’m living in Karakol, however, it has all changed. Everyday I walk about 30 minutes to work in the morning and then back home in the late afternoon, and it is an unusual day when no one says anything nor makes clicking noises at me when I walk by. And now, some of the male neighbors like to sit outside my host family’s gate at night so when I come out of the main house to go to the other house, or go to the toilet, they can shout at me. I talked to my host sisters about it, and even they feel sorry for me…..oh well, I figure the only way to make it stop (at home anyways), is to get to know my neighbors so that I’m more of a friend instead of that strange American living next door, but it’s really hard to start a conversation with a large group of men sitting outside your gate shouting at you. Now this doesn’t happen every day, but it happens often enough to really bother me (>_<)** At least it’s not like when I was in Turkey and I was harassed by someone different about every five or ten minutes, here it’s more like a once a day kind of unwanted attention. I know I just have to get over it, but it’s frustrating when you are living in a new country, with new customs, a new way of life, and are trying to learn a new language – it’s like it all hits you at once and I have to learn to deal with not just unwanted attention, but a million other things.

Crime is a huge problem in Kyrgyzstan.
During training, all volunteers were warned that we, especially females, should not walk alone after dark. Most streets have no lighting whatsoever, so it’s hard to see people standing in the shadows, and often times there are large groups of drunk men wandering around just asking for trouble. It’s easy to see the results of crime on a city; all stores have bars on their windows, and if you go in, everything is stored away behind glass or behind the counter to prevent theft – even the department stores do this.

Even my host family and counterpart have strictly told me not to walk alone after dark, because it’s too dangerous for women. This means after I finish work at 3 PM I have one hour until I have to head home before it gets dark. I could stay later to hang out with other volunteers, but public transport ends at 5 PM and after that I have to take a taxi to get home. This is definitely new for me, because I never felt afraid in Japan, even if I was alone after dark in Tokyo, and in Spokane, sure I took care not to go walking around alone in the dark, but I never felt particularly afraid once the sun went down, nor felt anxious about getting home safely.

Learning to be Thankful

2004-12-14T01:58:00.000-08:00

I feel that recently God is teaching me to be thankful for even the small things in life. You see, when I first moved in with my new host family, I regret to admit I actually complained about my new housing arrangements. My room was too small; I could barely even unpack all of my things. And did I ever mention that I didn’t even have a door for a week?

Then I started to get to know my new family and a little about their routines. I realized that they took me in and gave me the warmest room of their home expecting nothing in return. Their youngest daughter (14) sleeps in the room across from mine, which is even smaller and also has the washing machine and wood stove that heats the house. When I glanced in there, I noticed that she only has one small dresser to hold all of her things, and then I realize, she really doesn’t have that much; she wears the same outfit almost every day. My host mother also gets her own room, which is the largest in the main house, but I have come to realize that one of my other sisters (23) sleeps on the sofa in the living room, and then the oldest daughter (24) and a female cousin (20), who stays with us, sleep in the dinning room in the smaller house – one on a sofa and the other on a small cot. I feel…..almost ashamed. How can I complain about my living conditions, when the people I am living with have so much less than I do and have given up some of their own comfort so I could be comfortable? I can’t. I can’t complain, instead, I choose to be thankful. I choose to be thankful that I have a warm place to sleep, and that I live with a family that accepts me, tries to understand my broken Russian, and feeds me every day. They don’t have to, but they do, and I will be thankful.

Think of me when....

2004-12-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

You are sitting on your toilet.
Because when I have to go, I have to dress for minus degree weather, go out the front door, walk to the back gate, manage to open the gate (and close it behind me), go to the farthest corner of the yard where the outhouse is, try to get the lock to latch (which can be a difficult feat in the dark and you have to pee really bad), and try to position yourself over the hole so you don't pee all over your pants, or miss when your doing 'you know what' (again, a difficult feat in the pitch dark - not to mention its hard to pull down your pants and hold a flashlight at the same time). Did I mention that it's minus degree weather? Or that the toilet paper here is like sandpaper?....

Oh, and while I'm on the topic of sanitation, I have come to believe that taking a shower everyday is a luxury. Why? 'Cause I haven't had a bath now for about 10 days. I'm sure I'm smelling pretty ripe right now, but since I wear about three or four layers, I haven't noticed any stench....yet. And none of my friends or coworkers have said anything, so I can't be smelling that bad right?? The good part about not bathing everyday is that you don't have to use hairspray or mousse, because after the second or third day, the natural oils from my hair seems to hold every hair in place....permanently. I've been able to do some interesting hair styles with this new found all-natural hair styling product, and even my friends have been impressed with the things I have accomplished and are shocked to discover what hair grease can do. (>_<)**

Rhonda Enters the Real World

2004-12-07T01:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer. It only took 11 weeks of intensive training and now they have thrown me to the wolves in Karakol to do the job I was sent here to do. So far, despite a few glitches, I’m feeling pretty good about things. About a week before swear-in, we had our language exams and I scored intermediate-middle for my new found Russian skills; not bad for only knowing how to say “yes” in Russian when I arrived here in September. We all moved out of our villages on December 1st, which was a snowy day, to Bishkek, and saying goodbye to our families was hard for most of us. I was definitely sad to say goodbye to my family, because they had truly treated me like a special daughter and had gone out of their way to make sure I was comfortable and felt at home. We swore-in on December 3rd and headed for our permanent sites on the 4th.

In Karakol, I have a new host family. In my new host family I have a host mother and three host sisters, all of whom seem very nice and friendly. I have my own room in the main house (most homes here have two buildings, the main house and then a smaller house which usually has a kitchen), but it is very small and I only have a curtain for a door. According to Peace Corps policy, we are suppose to have our own room with a lock on the door…..apparently, my door will be arriving on Sunday. In the mean time, their cat has taken many liberties to crawl under the curtain and attack my feet as well as anything else that moves.

Yesterday was my first day at work, and it was interesting indeed. I went to a meeting with several of the members of CBT (Community Based Tourism), and they wanted to know if I had any magic pills to fix all their problems, make them rich, and teach them English overnight. Geesh! I have only been in town for three days and have barely unpacked! Anyways, I told them I would need some time to settle in and learn more about CBT before I could start any serious work. And I was thinking I wouldn’t have anything to do over the winter….

A Spritual Moment

All that aside, I have been doing really well spiritually. I haven’t had the chance to go to church since I have been here, but I have been spending a lot of time reading my Bible, memorizing scripture, and just spending time with God. Right now I am working on Isaiah 52, which is the intro chapter to prophesies about the suffering Messiah. I’m hoping to eventually memorize most of the last 10 chapters of Isaiah, and large chunks of the Gospel of John. Maybe it’s crazy, but I have discovered that I really like memorizing scripture because it makes me think about what it really means for several days, instead of the two minutes I usually spend on a chapter. When I was working on Isaiah 55 (which I recently discovered another volunteer also memorized!), I remember the most impacting verse was “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways’ says the Lord, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways, higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.’” I know this is a fairly famous verse, but just meditating on it, God reminded me of how small I really was, and how I shouldn’t compare myself to others, because compared to God we are all like ants (thankfully, He loves us ants!), and from heaven the queen ant and the worker ant sure do look a lot alike. And since I’m on a roll, one of the verses I have really come to like from Isaiah 52 is “Shake yourself from the dust, arise and sit down…” I was just really encouraged because the whole chapter talks about how God will comfort His people, and that He knows that sometimes we are lying in the dust, but His desire for us is for us to “dust our shoulders off” and believe that He is there, even when we can’t see ourselves even standing yet. Phew! Ok, got a little philosophical there, but if anything, I hope it was encouraging for you.

Holey underwear and deadly stuffing....

2004-11-29T02:35:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I was chatting with another trainee and he was telling a group of us how he and his wife and recently gotten into a spiff. You see, here in Kyrgyzstan, we have to hand wash all of our clothes and there is simply no way around it, but the trainee in question had some pretty nasty skid marks going on (why is it that guys don't know how to wipe?) and wasn't sure how to wash them out, so he decided to go grab the sissors and hack them out....this is no joke. Later, when he is wearing his, now clean (because the dirty part was cut out) underwear, his wife looks and him and gasps - do I really need to tell you the rest of the story?

Anyways, last Thursday my small language training group organized and hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for our host families. Historically, Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan has hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the new trainees, but decided they didn't have the budget to do it this year and thus decided it would be a great idea to make Thanksgiving a cross-cultural assignment for us to share American culture with our host families. So we made a menu, divided the tasks amongst the four of us, did the shopping, and worked all day long to serve a meal for 19 people. We made four baked chickens, stuffing, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, apple pie, apple crisps, and someone's mom sent cranberry sauce, so we had some of that too. Well, most of it turned out great, but one of the boys (no need to mention names) burnt the stuffing to where it tasted like charcoal, and was joking that we were all to tell our host families that it was suppose to taste like that. Sure. So we start serving and chowing down, and when I go to the kid's table (yes, they have the kid's table here too) to make sure they have drinks I watch two of them take a bite of the stuffing, grab their mouths and run out of the house to spit it out as fast as possible! the adults were far more diplomatic, a few forced it down, a few left it on their plates, and none of us (trainees) ate it. Regardless, it was a delicious meal, and all of us were happy to get some American food after weeks and weeks of eating the same three dishes: a tomato based soup with meat and potatoes, meat stuffed dumplings, or pilaf.

You know, those dishes really aren't so bad if it wasn't for the fact I feel like I eat the same thing every day. Oh, and the Adkins Diet? It would never make it here, because bread is at every meal, and everything is based on pasta or potatoes. With winter approaching there haven't been any fresh veggies for a long time - the closest I can get is canned tomatoes, pickles, red peppers, or fruit jam. Every once in a while I can get a fresh cucumber, but they are few and far between. So all of you out there reading this, go to the store and eat a fresh green salad for me!

Ok, I would love to write more, but as always, I am short on time and have to get going. The good news is, I finally bought a flash drive so I can hopefuly write more updates on my computer at home (I actually have a lot just waiting to be uploaded) and then upload them at the internet cafe. So until then - my best wishes for the holidays to all of you!

Four shots of vodka and a teaspoon of red pepper...

2004-11-22T01:21:00.000-08:00

...will cure the flu.

Today my LCF was trying to convince my small training group that you can cure the flu by drinking lots of vodka mixed with lots of crushed red pepper…..oh, and it seems to be effective for the common cold, diarrhea, and a whole bunch of other ailments. It didn’t matter how much we tried to argue against it, he would just reply by saying it probably wouldn’t work for us because we were too used to western medicine and not so familiar with the greater drug of vodka. It kind of reminds me of the time right after I had tried drinking kumys (fermented mare’s milk), when another volunteers host mother tried to tell me that four shots of kumys (which literally tastes like vomit), and a tablespoon of honey would cure any cold. It reminds me of watching old movies where traveling salesmen would sell the “cure-all” medicine, which was usually a bottle of liqueur mixed with some kind of awful tasting substance to make it look and taste like “medicine”.

Vodka, like it or not, is legacy of the Soviet Union that is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

Vodka is cheaper than beer; you can buy a bottle of it for about 30 som (75 cents) or a bottle of beer for 40 som (one dollar). You can even go to the local shop and just buy a single shot of it for 5 som, and it’s served to you right there at the register. At my weight, I could spend only one dollar and really drunk.

But vodka culture goes deeper than price and accessibility; it is integrated into the everyday life and celebrations of the people. Last Friday I went to another trainee”s house to celebrate her host mother’s 67th birthday, and though both the mother and her 30-some-year-old daughter swore up and down that they hated vodka and didn’t want to drink it, they said “but we must drink it,” and downed about 5 shots during the evening. Yesterday at my host-sister’s 16th birthday party, my host mother brought out the vodka and wine for the adults to drink as they made toasts throughout the night. Granted, my host sister and her friends only drank soda during the toasts, but what kind of example are they getting for when they are old enough to drink themselves? That is absolutely normal to drink a lot during any celebration. This goes without saying the Kyrgyzstan and most other former Soviet Union countries have really high rates of alcoholism. It is not uncommon to see large groups of men squatting outside passing around a vodka bottle in the afternoon, or to see drunk men wandering the streets at all hours of the day. And who can blame them? They have no work, their families are hungry, the bottle is cheap and the bottle seems to magically take away their problems (until they become sober again).

The Soviets promised to take care of them, and now that big brother has abandoned them to their own devices, why doesn’t the government take care of them anymore? It’s going to take an entirely new generation to make them realize that their futures are their own responsibilities, and not the government’s.

Orozo Ait - Breaking the Fast of Ramadan

2004-11-14T01:20:00.000-08:00

Today I returned to Koshoi from my permanent site visit in Karakol, and today just happens to be the Muslim holiday of breaking the fast of Ramadan. So when I returned I found my host family’s house full of guests chanting prayers around a table full of bread, dried fruit and a variety of other small dishes. When the chanting finished, the guests where offered tea, which they drank as they ate some of the bread offered at the table and quickly departed. I’m not sure if it originates with the Kyrgyz or with the Muslim culture, but apparently it is customary to visit at least 7 homes to offer your prayers, and to eat bread and drink chai – it is one of the few Kyrgyz holidays that doesn’t involve drinking copious amounts of vodka. Refusing my 15 year old host-sister’s offer to accompany her and several of her teenage friends as they made their rounds, I decided to stay home and wait for my other training mates to return from their trips to their sites and visit their host-families instead.

The Krygyz love to eat and love to serve.
Even though I arrived home around 2:30 PM in the afternoon, my host-family predictably began to cook me a meal, which was good since I hadn’t had any lunch, but in the mean time many guests came to offer their blessings and drink chai, and I was also obligated to drink chai with them….an hour later: 8 cups of chai, one large bowl of soup, and various other snacks have been consumed, but my fellow trainees show up and we spend the next hour drinking at least four more cups of chai, eat more bread, and whatever else has been prepared and put on the table. Finally, we escape to go visit another trainees host-family and we are once again accosted by more food and by more chai, only his family are Christian Russians who don’t celebrate the breaking the fast of Ramadan. In this case, the trainee’s host-mother feels obligated to show us great hospitality by feeding us and providing us with plenty of chai – there is no escape, you either eat or insult the hostess by refusing what she has worked so hard to prepare for you. So, about another hour passes, and I have had another 2 cups of chai and another full meal (I’m past full at this point). Fortunately, we saved the more “liberal” family for last, and convince them that we are not hungry, but just wanted to stop by and say “hi” after our site visits, but of course, were are unable to refuse the obligatory cup of chai (only the cup is twice as big as all previous cups). So I finally trek back to my host-families hoping for some relaxation, only to find the house full of guests, and my third dinner being prepared….I am beginning to think I will die from being overstuffed. Over the next three hours I am forced to drink another10 cups of chai, a giant plate of pasta, a bowl of soup, more bread, and have I mentioned chai yet?? Now, the guests have finally left, but the results of all the tea I drank is not pretty – the outhouse has become my best friend, and I’m having some intestinal gas problems….

Karakol - A trip to my permanent site.

2004-11-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

I have my new permanent address!! Please send all mail to:

Rhonda Lee Ferns
PO Box 36
Karakol City, Issyk-Kul Oblast
722360 Kyrgyzstan

Yesterday I arrived in Karakol to visit my permanent site for the next couple of days to meet my new host-family and basically check things out. Although things are looking great for the most part, I have had a few disappointing moments in the last few days. The rest of the volunteers found out their placements on Tuesday, and I found out that all of the trainees that will be serving near me or with me in Karakol, are basically all people I have rarely talked to at all during training, so I will have to start over again to build new friendships and relationships not only with the current volunteers in Karakol, but also with the other trainees that will be coming with me. Not only that, but both my counterpart and my soon-to-be host sister speak great English and I'm really worried about whether-or-not I will be able to improve my Russian as speedily as I would like to. I have requested my new host sister to speak Russian with me, but sometimes it is just to easy to fall back on English.

ISLAM IN KYRGYZSTAN
As most of you know, Kyrgyzstan is a Muslim country, but from what I have experienced so far, they do not take Islam that seriously. It has been Ramadan for the last month, and I have only met about three people total here that have been seriously fasting, even though most people here claim to be Muslim. From what I have gathered, people here take Islam as a guideline as to how they should behave, not exactly as the road to salvation. That said, my counterpart just happens to be one of the few devout Muslims I have met since I have been here, and he spent a good two hours last night trying to convert me. All I can say is thank God I know what I believe and why I believe it, because I was able to effectively answer most of his questions and could quickly refer to scripture that supported what I said about who Jesus was and why He had to die. It was an interesting night to say the least....

I have a lot of other cultural things and experiences I would like to share with you, but I'm short on time today, so I will save it for another day.

Three more weeks to go...

2004-11-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I have three more weeks to go before I will swear in and become an official volunteer. Life as a trainee has been stressful, but all-in-all, I think I am coping well. For Halloween, the other trainees and I got together and attempted to dress up and celebrate the best we could with what little we had. I ended up going as a hip-hop star, and was wearing a bandana with my hair braided in lots of braids, but all the Kyrgyz people I saw said I looked like an Uzbek girl.....hmmmm, so much for my costume. Regardless, we all had fun dressing up, being silly, and celebrating our Americaness.

My host family has been a blast, and I think I'm really going to miss them when I move to my permanent site. They totally respect me when I'm tired and just want to hide out in my room to study or relax, but when I'm more energetic (after our long days of training) we all get spend time in our living room playing games, and laughing so hard that we practically roll on the ground. My Russian is getting better and I'm finding that I'm using less gestures and more broken sentences - and surprisingly, a few full sentences that actually make sense. Russian, I'm finding, is a very difficult language since it has feminine, masc. and neuter forms of all nouns, plus six different cases that you have to conjugate all nouns and adjectives......it can be very confusing when a noun can have about 6-10 different endings depending on it's case, gender, and plurality. It will take me a while to figure it all out, but I'm not really worried about it. I'll get it when I get it.

I think that's it for now, and I'm out of time anyways.....

Halloween in Kyrgyzstan

2004-10-31T01:19:00.000-08:00

Today the trainees in Koshoi village got together to celebrate Halloween, and we had a great time chatting, playing games, and making fun of each other’s costumes. Being in a developing country with very little resources, it was actually pretty amazing to see the costumes some of us came up with. I went as a hip-hop superstar, but since I couldn’t explain to my family what I was, I just told them I was Eminem’s girlfriend – close enough. So I braided my hair in a bunch of braids and wore a red bandana, and was told by more than one Kyrgyz person that I looked Uzbek…(^_^)?? Izzi dressed up as a Russian bag, Nick came as a babushka (old grandmother), Nathan a cowboy, Judy a character from a local soap opera, and Katrina came as a superhero. Even though I don’t celebrate Halloween, it was fun to find solidarity as foreigners in Kyrgyzstan by celebrating an American holiday and just being silly.

Other than that, things are going really well and I’m generally enjoying my time here, but I have to admit that trainee life I stressful. As trainees, we get very little personal time because we have some kind of training every single day, except for Sundays, and then on Sundays we have to do all the things we didn’t have time to do the rest of the week like wash our laundry (by hand, of course), go shopping, do homework, and so on. Since I have arrived, I can remember being able to sleep in twice. I’m looking forward to going to permanent site just to be able to relax finally. The good news is, I’m half way through training, and all my shots are finished. Since we’ve arrived, there have been three series of shots we’ve had to take, and every time I’ve gotten at least five shots – two or three in each arm! Also, the official announcements for our permanent placements are next week on the ninth, and we will all be leaving two days later to visit our permanent sites. I already know that I’m going to Karakol, but I’m excited to find out who I will be going with, meet my counterpart, and meet the current volunteers there.

Naryn - the coldest city in Krygyzstan

2004-10-27T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well, last weekend PC actually sent all of us trainees out all over the country to spend a weekend with current volunteers and find out what "real" volunteer life was like. Larry (another trainee) and I were sent to Naryn, which is described by my Kyrgyz guidebook as "the coldest city in Kyrgyzstan with an average annual temp of -6 degrees celcius." The good news is, it wasn't that cold when we went down there and we had beatiful weather the entire time. Naryn City didn't have any magnificent features, and even as the Oblast capital, is not a wealthy city (apparently in Soviet times, the people in Naryn received extra hardship pay) and remains at about -40 degrees C for three months in the winter. When Larry and I were there, the local bazaar was selling the last of its fresh veggies, and we were told the following winter diet would consist of potatoes, meat, and sometimes canned tomatoes or carrots - when available. We also visited At-Bashi, a small village litteraly in the mountains, which was breathtaking with all the mountain peaks.

We stayed with a current SEOD (Sustainable Econ. & Org. Development) volunteer named Scott. Scott is working with CBT (Community Based Tourism) in Naryn City, so it was an excellent opportunity for me because I have recently found out that I will be working with the same NGO (non-gov. org) in Karakol, which is the oblast capital on Lake Issyk Kul. Basically, I will be living on the Miami beach of Kyrgyzstan working on tourist projects. The only downside is I will be arriving in December....Anyways, I will talk more about my assigned project as I find out more.

Other news.....today my training group had mid-training language assessment exams and were verbally tested on three topics in Russian: greetings, family (names, ages and professions), and buying and selling at the bazaar. I think I did well, but I won't find out my results until next Saturday when we have our mid-training interviews. My host-family, however, seems to think I have great Russian, and I have to admit that I am feeling more and more comfortable communicating. Whether-or-not I'm grammatically correct is another story.

That's it for now, take care everyone!

Adjusting to.....Americans?

2004-10-21T01:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’ve been terrible at keeping this journal up-to-date, but hey, I’ve been a busy girl. I’ve been in Kyrgyzstan now for over a month, and generally speaking, I think I have adjusted well. I find that I have a harder time dealing with the other Americans than I do with the nationals or the new culture. The only way I can describe my situation is to say I am a square wheel on the ox cart. In my small group of four, I am the only one with any international experience, the only one who has already learned another foreign language as an adult, the only one who doesn’t tell crude jokes, the only one that doesn’t talk about who’s banging who, the only one who doesn’t understand sitcom references (since I don’t watch any TV), and I am the only Christian. So not only am I different because I am a Christian, but I am different because I’m not freaking out over the Russian language (it’s easier than Japanese), the different culture doesn’t phase me, and because I actually have some relevant experience behind me. I find myself stressing out more when I am with my fellow Americans than when I am with my host family or language trainer. I’m not saying that I haven’t made any friends, because I have, it’s just that it takes a lot of energy to try to relate.

This weekend all of us new K-12 trainees will be fanning out all over Kyrgyzstan to visit current K-10 and K-11 volunteers. This is our chance to check out what “real” volunteer life is suppose to be like, and do a little networking too. I will be going to Naryn, which my guidebook to Kyrgyzstan informs me, “is known as the coldest town in Kyrgyzstan.” Apparently, in the winter it can get as cold as -40C and its annual average temperature is -6 C!!! Brrrrrrrrr! Ok, so I’m afraid I might freeze my a** off, so will be wearing at least four layers, besides my winter gear. And by wearing four layers, that just about covers my entire winter wardrobe. I have one really warm sweater and one really warm sweatshirt (I actually have two others, but they aren’t very warm), so on cold nights I usually wear a long sleeve shirt, a t-shirt, my sweater, and my extra-large sweatshirt over it all. My host-family took pity on me and bought me wool lined slippers to help keep my feet warm…..now I thoroughly regret not bringing any long underwear and have put out an SOS to my family and friends, so I’m praying some will arrive soon……..Anyways, getting back to the trip to Naryn, I am looking forward to getting out of my village and my little training bubble world and seeing a different part of Kyrgyzstan and getting some independence from the very short and tight leash PC has been keeping on us trainees. I will be traveling with another SEOD trainee named Larry, who I have talked very little too, and have rarely spoken too (he’s usually outside smoking during training breaks), but otherwise seems like a nice guy. The good news is, even though my Russian is far from being fluent, I can at least communicate at a very basic and functional level, so I can barter at the bazaar or with a taxi driver, and more importantly, I can now read menus (^O^)/. I sure hope I improve a ton before I am thrown out to the wolves in December and told to change the world, or at least Kyrgyzstan – hahahahahaha!

By the way, I have been extremely lucky to find out where my permanent site is at least three weeks early. I will be going to Karakol, a fairly large town close to Lake Issyk Kul, where I will be working with Community-based Tourism in the region. So how was I so fortunate to find out my placement so early, as the other trainees sit around and bite their nails? Well, we had a current SEOD volunteer from Karakol come and give a presentation yesterday, and when I had a chance during a break I asked him if he had heard anything about the trainees’ permanent placements and he asked, “are you Rhonda?” and when I said “yes” he said I was going to Karakol – bingo! I am going to the Miami of Kyrgyzstan! I honestly think I have the best assignment and one of the best sites a volunteer can get.

We have an Awesome God.

2004-10-17T01:43:00.000-07:00

I know I have already posted today, but I just wanted to add that even though life is extremely stressful, and I'm living in a very cold country where I don't understand the languages (Kyrgyz or Russian), that I know God is faithful no matter where I am, and unlike so many other volunteers, I have the confidence to know I am exactly where I am suppose to be and don't have to worry about where I will be in a couple of months because there is purpose in my life and that my life is in His hands.

God is always watching over us to encourage us and let us know how much He loves and cares for us. It is my prayer that more and more people will open their eyes to this truth, regardless of what the hardships of life tells them. Faith does move mountains!

Also, if anyone wants to mail me anything, make sure you send it to the new address I have posted at the top of this site - to Kant City and not to Bishkek! I will have my permanent site's address in about three more weeks and will let you all know as soon as I find out myself.

Likes and Dislikes after the honeymoon.

2004-10-17T01:22:00.000-07:00

Lessons I have learned since I have arrived here in Kyrgyztan:

1. How to crack walnuts with my bare hands. For weeks, our host families were throwing walnuts into our lunch bags, but none of us could figure out what the heck we were suppose to do with walnuts still in the shells. So, finally, I have learned the secret to cracking those hard shells without stabbing myself with a knife, like two other volunteers have already managed to to.

2. That you can go without a shower for a week and not seem to smell........or is it because we all smell the same that we don't smell?

3. That Russian is really hard, and in my broken phrases I'm possitive that I've said "I'm a toilet" and "I ate Nick's house"

4. How to squat, pee, and not get my long wool jacket dirty in the process.

5. How to tell a taxi driver were I want to go and how much I am willing to pay for it -all in Russian of course (and hopefully I haven't called myself a monkey in the process).

6. That I can live happily with a family I don't know and can't communicate with.

7. That you can't even taste those floaty things (black specks, hairs, or fatty cream) in your milk that just came straight from the cow. Oh, and those bugs in your food - that's meat.

8. That double-dipping is normal: put sugar in your tea, lick the spoon, use it for honey, lick the spoon again and use it for jam.

9. Geese are dangerous when they attack you....

10. That even though I have given up a lot of comforts in life, I am still considered to have many comforts since I live with a middle class family, have a water filter, and of course, since I am an American, I can somehow come up with the money to help my village build a new school.....

Things that I really like about Kyrgyzstan so far:

1. I like seeing the hens protecting their chicks under their wings.

2. I like the hospitality culture. You visit someone and you have to have a cup of tea and a piece of bread (if not a full blown meal).

3. I like getting a banya (hot bucket bath), because I only get them twice a week.

4. I love the apples and walnuts that grow in my yard.

5. I love practicing my terrible Russian with Russian speaking Kyrgyz people.

6. Seeing the beautiful mountains everyday.

7. Not having to wear makeup everyday.

Things I don't like:

1. The toilets.

2. Only showering twice a week.

3. Being cold.

4. Knowing that a horse is being slaughtered outside for tomorrow's feast.

5. Not having hot water available at my fingertips.

6. Being cold.

7. Having every moment of my life planned my PC.

8. Not having things available at my fingertips.

9. Being cold.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

2004-10-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

We have had snow!! And all I can think of is "Oh God, I don't have any long underwear yet!" The afternoons are still pretty warm, but as soon as the sun goes down it is COLD, and it doesn't help that the squat-style outhouse is about 20 feet from the main house. All of us yet un-hardened trainees try to hold "it" as long as possible just because we don't want to expose ourselves to the cold. It's all good though. Peace Corp has provided all of us with a space heater.........it would be useful if the electricity didn't always go out (actually, it has only gone out twice since I've been here - but still!!).

Food is a big deal here. I have learned very quickly that the Russian "chut-chut" (just a little), actually means "please give me a full three course meal." A few of us went hiking last week for 6 hours and stopped by one of the volunteer's house to refresh ourselves and have the obligatory "chai" (tea) before going home, but before long we could smell something fragrant wafting up from the kitchen. When we asked our LCF (language and cultural facilitator) to tell the volunteer's mother that we just wanted tea, we could hear her shout over and over "it's just a little - just a little!" Well, just a little included a salad, fresh bread with honey (from the bee farm outside), soup and about 5 cups of tea. When I went home and told my h-mother that I wasn't hungry for dinner, she gave me the "I can't believe you ate somewhere else" look and said some thing like "well, you'll just have to eat a little dinner anyways" which was another three course meal that I was, of course, expected to eat, and the other volunteer's family came over to eat with us (the one that had just fed us)!!! So whenever I hear "just a little" in Russian anymore, I just laugh and know what's coming.

I have been bonding with my host family and we get along really well. The other day I spent four hours sumo wrestling my siblings (with an older cousin as a judge), then a blindfold game where we chased each other around the room blind, a winking game, and to finish off the night, took my glowing frisbee outside to throw around in the dark. Lot's of laughing, lots of bonding, no complaints whatsoever.

What do you mean by "second breakfast"?

2004-10-01T01:14:00.000-07:00

I have decided to try to keep up my typed journal as best as I can even though I have no idea when I will be able to upload my entries to my weblog. Things are happening so fast and I can barely believe I only have a little over two months of training left. Life in Koshoi, the village I am living in, is going well. I am one of the few volunteers yet to get sick, and generally speaking, I think I have adjusted well to all of the changes. Since I lived in Japan, I am already used to squatting toilets, removing shoes before entering homes, and observing behavioral differences, so most of my daily stress comes from lack of communication skills rather than the different life style I am living here.

Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan has done an excellent job in splitting up the 67 volunteers from each other. There were 17 SEOD (sustainable economic and organizational development) volunteers, but we lost a guy named Nathan for medical reasons. It was actually a shock to lose him since we had grown pretty close during training; one day he got a call and they made him pack up his stuff and return to the USA – I never got a chance to say goodbye and really grieved the loss of my new friend. Among the remaining 16 SEODs, we are split up into four small groups of four, and live in three different villages, and the 50 TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) volunteers are also split up between 6 other villages. I am with a guy named Carl (21) from Washington DC, a guy named Nick (23) from Virginia, and another girl named Izzi (23) from New Hampshire. We are kind of an odd mix and I really don’t think we would have ever become great friends if it weren’t for the fact we have been thrown together in such extreme circumstances – we are now each other’s best friends simply because we have three things in common: we are in the same PC program, we are Americans, and we speak English. Regardless, we laugh a lot and share a lot between us as we struggle to learn Russian together, how to live in an entirely new culture, and try to figure out what we will be doing at the end of our training.

Besides the different living conditions, the biggest differences in culture that I have observed so far is having to eat something every time you visit someone’s home. You don’t have to eat a lot, but you have to eat at least one bite of bread or you can offend your host. Often times I am offered a full meal, and more than once have had two dinners – I sometimes feel like I am in a scene from Lord of the Rings, where the hobbits are talking about “second breakfast”. The people here are very generous and hospitable, and willing to give even when they have very little to offer. I think that’s a very good lesson for me to learn.

A spiritual moment...

I know that in the past I have rarely shared about my faith in my monthly updates, but I have decided that I want to be completely open and honest in this journal about my walk with God. As for my audience that may be reading this, I figure this is simply an opportunity for them to see another side of me and have a peak into my heart and mind. My faith in God plays a huge role in my life and to leave it out of my journal would be like robbing my journal of who I am. That said, I have done my best to remain faithful in my walk with God here in Kyrgyzstan where I have no church and very little support from other Christians (I have met three other Christians PC trainees, but we are all spread out and have very little contact with each other). I can’t say that I have had any epiphanies, but faith is all about choosing to see with the heart all the things your senses refuse to acknowledge. I know who God is, and I know that He is faithful and stands with me even when I cannot sense Him and He chooses to be silent for whatever reason. He as already told me that I am exactly where I am suppose to be and I will hang on to His promise that He never wastes time with our lives; I am here for a reason, and I will live with purpose in His promise. Living for Him can be so exciting and yet so scary at times. Life is an adventure, and it would be a boring story if we knew how everything turns out in the end.

Life begins in Kyrgyzstan

2004-09-27T02:36:00.000-07:00

I'm alive and well, I have been with my host family now for a week and they have been very generous to me. My host father is a farmer that grows wheat, but I our house also an apple grove and a potato patch, not to mention about 20 chickens, two milking cows, two calves, a goat, three dogs, and two cats (and perhaps other things I have yet to discover). My host mother teaches mathmatics at the local high school. I also have two little brothers, the oldest is 17 but is going to school in Turkey, the youngest is 8 and didn't talk to me at all for the first three days, but now he seems to think I'm fluent in Russian (hahahahaha!) and chatters away - have yet to decipher the chattering....I also have a 15 year old sister who can speak a very limited amount of English, which has been a huge help. Last week when I met my family, I could barely even introduce myself, and could only say "hello" and "goodbye". I'm happy to say that I can now speak very broken Russian to talk about my family and their professions, and about twenty other useful phrases, the most important being "I don't understand". About the living conditions, all toilets in the village are squat outhouses about twenty feet from the main house/building. Mine has a lightbulb in it that makes it look like a glowing box at night. The house is split into two main buildings, the kids' rooms (including mine) and family room are in one building and the parent's room and the kitchen are in another. I fortunately have indoor plumbing (not everyone does), but the bath, or banya, is also in a separate building, and I don't even know how to describe it (it's kinda like a sauna where you take a bucket bath - it's heated by a wood stove). I am fortunate to be able to take a shower twice a week (>_<)** The food is fantastic, and tea is at every meal. Today was the first time I had coffee in about a week, and boy, was it a piece of heaven.

Obviously, life is stressful since every waking moment new information is being shoved in my brain. From 8-6 I have technical and laguage training monday thru friday, and when I go home I get the joy of trying to communicate with my host family. It is getting steadily easier as I pick up more and more Russian words, but the weird thing is, this is a bi-lingual country and some people try to speak to us in Kyrgyz (4 of the 8 trainies in my village are learning Kyrgyz and the others Russian) and suddenly we are completely lost again. Even the culture between Kyrgyz families and Russian families are different, and I have yet to even scratch the ice.

I'm going to eat my friend's house...

2004-09-23T01:12:00.000-07:00

Has it really only been four days since I have arrived in Kyrgyzstan? I can’t believe it, I feel like I have been here forever. I am on my third night with my host family and I am exhausted from trying to communicate with a non-existent Russian vocabulary. When I first met my family, I could only say “hello” and my name……conversation was not flowing by any standards. But they have adopted me, fed me, and are treating me like a real special daughter, meaning they are trying to overfeed me at every meal. Yesterday for my packed lunch I had a loaf of bread, three boiled eggs, five small boiled potatoes, cheese and salami, and a giant apple. I am anxious to be able to communicate, but already my limited vocabulary has jumped to include “good morning” “I’m tired” “I want to drink tea” and a fairly good selection of random words that I string together in the hopes of getting across my point, so I’ll say my friend’s name, house, and eat, hoping all the while that I’m not saying I’m gonna eat my friend’s house, and my host sister will understand that I had lunch at my friend’s house.

Yeah, and then there’s the whole toilet adventure yesterday morning; I woke up to the call of nature about 5:30 AM and after hiking out to the outhouse (roughly 20 feet away from the house) I returned to the house to discover I was locked out (>_<)**. No doorbell, no way to really knock, and no way in – I was screwed until someone got up and discovered I was locked out of the house. Fortunately, I only had to wait about 15 minutes before my host-mother woke up and rescued me (phew!!). This morning I made sure to leave the door somewhat ajar to make sure I would be able to get back inside after making my morning trip to the outhouse.

Training. Training is exhausting in itself. We have lectures, classes and seminars from 8 AM until 5 PM, Monday thru Friday. This morning the SEOD group had technical training in Tokmok, which was basically an overview of Kyrgyz economics, regions, and NGO work and development, with a focus on what we could do to help the NGOs we will be working with. Then this afternoon my small group (of 4) returned to Koshoi Village for four hours of language training in Russian, and I’m not even sure I improved at all. I was so worn out by the end of the lesson that I almost dreaded going home and having to spend another night struggling to communicate with my family – my brain can only hold so much….the only thing that comforts me is the knowledge that this will not last forever and that my Russian will eventually improve to the point where I can feel comfortable with my family.

Arrival in Bishkek

2004-09-19T01:10:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Bishkek about 1 AM this morning and I wasn’t able to crawl into bed until about 4:30 AM….needless to say, our welcome and training began at 8:30 AM this morning, so we are all running on very low steam. I’m basically just trying to stay awake until later tonight so I’ll sleep like a baby and be able to quickly adapt to the time difference. Actually, the real training doesn’t start until Wednesday, and in the mean time all of us are being put through numerous “orientations” on health and safety. PC staff has forbidden us newbie volunteers to even leave the hotel for fear that we will be like deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. I do have some exciting news though. Today, the SEOD volunteers all had personal interviews to discuss our language training and placements, and during my interview I found out that I will be working to promote Japanese tourism in Kyrgyzstan and will be learning Russian.

Staging

2004-09-16T01:09:00.001-07:00

Our second day of pre-departure orientation has finished and I will be happy to meet my pillow in, oh, within the next ten minutes. I am exhausted, but at least I feel like I have had the chance to talk to lots of people that I will soon be spending the next two years with in Kyrgyzstan. So far, everyone is very nice, but it is weird for me to hear other people talk about their fears of leaving home, their family and friends, and about leaving America behind for two years. In fact, a few people seem frightened and panicky. I can’t imagine what it is like for them, because I am so comfortable in my decision and know what my purpose is; I just know beyond a doubt that this is what God wants me to do and I am confident that He will carry me through the next two years. But how can it be for a recent graduate with no work experience, no purpose in life, and no guidance. Why are they here? What self-worth are they trying to gain by giving up two years of their lives, don’t they know that God loves them and has a beautiful purpose for their life; that He has a beautiful dream for them? My heart goes out to them….

That said, I have yet to meet another Christian on the program, and though I have made many new friends, I have yet to meet someone that I feel totally 100% comfortable with as a friends. There are 68 of us, I am bound to make a good friend among them eventually. I mean, this is only the second day.

Tomorrow we fly off. I will be flying through Istanbul and won’t arrive until 1:10 AM Saturday morning in Bishkek. Then the real training will begin.

Staging

2004-09-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

Trip to Philidelphia

2004-09-15T01:07:00.000-07:00

I got into Philadelphia last night, and during the flight from Seattle, discovered that the girl next to me was also heading to the Kyrgyz Republic in the Peace Corps. By the time I had my baggage, there were five of us; two guys and three girls – all heading off into a great unknown, all anxious about eating sheep eyeballs, and yet excited at the great opportunity that lies before us. Today we registered and officially started our “training” for our Peace Corps service, but thus far it has only entailed describing goals, anxieties, and general logistics. In depth training will really start once we have arrived and are “thrown to the wolves”…..a few in my group already can speak some Russian, and I have to admit I’m a bit jealous, or should I say I regret not listening to my language tape that PC sent me, oh a week ago. No worries though, I am really looking forward learning a new language or two.

Aside from “staging”, I was able to see Ryan Hughes this morning and we had the chance to catch up and hang out a bit. Ryan is a friend from my hometown’s Bible study group, but he was also one of my traveling buddies from when I went to Thailand and Cambodia last spring. It’s always nice hanging out with people that have the same heart to help people in poor, developing nations, only he’s going to school to learn the things I hope to learn by experience in the Peace Corps.

2004-09-14T00:17:00.000-07:00

Searching for Prince Charming in all the wrong places...