Planes, mashrutkas, and automobiles

I'm writing this from the airport in Bishkek. On their FREE wifi.
It's been a long day. I worked this morning, we went to the Rayon center (like a county) government office where my director talked to them about biometric passports. I understood almost none of it. But I've seen a few handwritten passports (they can't be legal anymore, right?) and I guess they were talking about how to make the switch.

My journey to Istanbul began with a walk to the Tyup bus stop, fortunately I packed light. I was lucky and a Mashrutka was pulling out just as I got there so after a brief discussion with the driver about the price (apparently it's gone up since benzene is эн кымбат) we headed out. It was one of the more pleasant Mashrutka rides. There was a young girl up front who spent a good portion of the time vomiting into plastic bags that her very prepared mother had ready for her. This is totally normal. I'm not sure if it's the bad roads, the sugary food and drinks the kids are always eating, the fact that there are no seat belts and the kids are always moving around while we're driving or some combination thereof but they get car sick all the time. So often in fact that if the parents don't have a plastic bag and ask the driver to stop he will chastise them and tell them that they should know better. The ride from Tyup to Bishkek takes about 6 hours plus a half hour stop at chai-eech-stan (a rest stop, no gas but they do have pay toilets, a restaurant, and an amazing view). While this is the longest part of my journey, it's also the cheapest. I met a friend in Bishkek for dinner and then took a taxi to the airport. The taxi was 480 com for a 30 km trip compared to my mashrutka ride which at almost 400 km only cost 345 com.

I haven't been to the airport since I first arrived in country. I didn't get a very good look then as it was the middle of the night, I was at the end of a 30 hour trip, and we were being shepherded into buses right away. I didn't have high hopes, but it's actually a lot better than I expected. Since the airport is small, and Kyrgyzstan is small, it pretty much gets the last pick of departure and arrival times, which means international flights leave in the middle of the night. Although since we're only allowed to travel in country during the day that works out fine for me. The international terminal only has three gates, but it has an Adriano Coffee (which is as good as it gets in terms of Western style coffee shops in country, no Starbucks here!) a Beeline store (that's our phone service provider) and they were both open at 2 am. The toilets are free and have both toilet paper and soap and did I mention the free wifi? 24 hour coffee shops and free wifi, I know a couple airports in America that don't even have that.

Making pancakes with skinheads

I had an awesome weekend!  It’s a tradition that all of the volunteers in an oblast meet up somewhere so that the new volunteers can meet the old ones.  We met up in Balykchy which is about 2 and a half hours from me on the North shore of the lake.  It was like a little paradise.  Balykchy is a touristy beach town, which is not something I usually like, but after a few months in Kyrgyzstan I was thrilled to have indoor plumbing, I mean, the works! a toilet, a shower, with hot water no less!  And it was fun to see people doing things like jet skiing and parasailing.  It was a very Western.  I spent some time on the beach  (although i didn’t get past my knees, the water is way too cold for me!) and rode the ferris wheel, it’s huge!  It takes twenty minutes to go around.  We went out dancing one night and made awesome meals like salads and pancakes!

 I don’t think I’ve gone one day here where I haven’t said something completely ridiculous.  Fortunately everyone at work has a good sense of humor.  Yesterday I was the first one at the office and went to ask if anyone had the key.  Unfortunately I mixed up key and door, and then mispronounced it on top of that which meant that what actually came out was: ‘Do you have the donkey?’  Today I was telling my director about how much fun I had this past weekend and how we had great food, like the delicious pancakes they made with chocolate and raspberry sauce.  Of course when I was trying to explain how to make pancakes I said that they are made with taz.  My director started laughing hysterically and informed me that the word for salt is tooz, taz is a skinhead (or in English a bald person).  We both got a good laugh out of that.  Fortunately I finally found a Kyrgyz teacher, so hopefully I’ll get the hang of it soon.

Studying Kyrgyz has definitely made me more sympathetic to the mistakes EFL students make.  I had the first meeting with my English club today and they kept adding extra a’s and switching y’s with u’s.  Understanding the sounds the cyrillic characters make and some of the more common sounds in Kyrgyz words, I understand completely why they make these mistakes.  

PST

We've been so busy lately.  When I first arrived they talked about pre-service training as a kind of boot camp and it really is.  We have class six days a week, a mix between language lessons and administrative sessions.  We spend pretty much every waking minute with either our host families or other volunteers, we eat every meal with them and are always under their watchful eye.  We even have a curfew, although after our long days I wouldn't want to be out past 9 anyway.

Learning Kyrgyz is really a struggle.  It is so unlike any language I've ever studied before.  I commonly find myself listening to something my teacher or host family or the mashrutka driver is saying to me and realize that I haven't understood one word of it.

It's the small successes that keep me going.   Today I stopped by the bazaar to get some cashews and thought I'd try my luck with lentils.  I've been wanting to make daal for a few weeks now but most of the vendors don't sell them, and the market normally closes before I get out of class.  On a whim I asked a guy selling fish because I saw a few bags in the back of his stall and he actually had them so I bought half a kilo.  The more amazing thing is that I was able to do all of this in Kyrgyz!

As a treat since I haven't really taken any good pictures lately, here is a video of me and some of the other volunteers dancing today at Culture Day.  (I'm the one blocking the camera)

Adventures in cooking

Beans and legumes are considered 'poverty food' in many parts of Kyrgyzstan, so although they grow a lot of them, people don't eat them and most are exported to surrounding countries.  This makes it hard to get protein as a vegetarian when the only real protein option is sheep.

A couple weeks ago I decided to make make a meal myself and headed to the bazaar for lentils.  Of course, the word for lentil isn't in our dictionary, and it wouldn't have mattered if it were because the bazaar in Kant is mostly Russian anyway.  Fortunately everything is in large open bags so you can just point at whatever you want to buy.  I saw a large bag of горох at one of the stalls, it looked like lentils to me so I bought a kilo at the bazaar and brought it home.

I was surprised to see how large they got as they cooked! In fact as they cooked they started to look less and less like the lentils I was sure they were.  Finally I called my teacher and discovered that they were actually peas.  Oops!

Bishkek Day

We all took a trip to Bishkek on Thursday.  It was fun to get out and see the big city!  Last year's volunteers had created a scavenger hunt of some of the important sites to see around town.



Victory monument






















Paniflov Park


























Osh Bazaar

















Philharmonia

View from my backyard

The mountain view is pretty spectacular

It's Monday already?

The weekend went by in a flash!  We have a half day of language on Saturday so really we only get a day off.  I feel like I could use a week.

I had an enjoyable weekend: taught my host siblings how to play Uno and Set (it turns out they actually picked up Set pretty quickly, perhaps my explanation is too confusing when I try to show people who speak English!)  I also took my K-sis to one of the other volunteer's homes to do yoga.

We got right back into it with our language lesson today.  Kyrgyz has different terms for every type of family member (aunt on your mother's side is different than on on your father's side) but strangely they use the same term for older brother, uncle on your father's side, and any of his older male children.  So confusing!



Lunch with my language group




When we're in our villages for language lessons our host families take turns making us lunch.  Today we had lunch at Juliann's house, in their guesting room.  Juliann is also vegetarian and her host mom made us a soy dish!   We also had some great local honey.  We are taking advantage of the good food while it lasts since it seems like bread will constitute most of our meals once training is over.

Meeting my host family

It has been an exciting and exhausting week in Kyrgyzstan.  Trying to learn Kyrgyz is tough!  There are so many things about the language that just don't make any sense to me; like, why do they need 12 different endings for plural nouns?  (Boggle here would not be nearly as fun)  And why is there no word that just means sister?

We arrived in Kant last week and met our host families at a ceremony where they also showcased local music and dances.  It was exciting and a bit scary to meet our 'appa's' for the first time (mother in Kyrgyz).  We barely knew how to say hello in Kyrgyz (I like to think I know a bit more now) and they couldn't speak any English.



Tim and I with our appas

Since our group is so large they've split us up between several villages.  I was lucky enough to be placed in Kant, a larger town, which has been especially great this week because we're not supposed to leave our village during training and Kant has everything I could need, including an American Corner with wifi and a sports complex with an outdoor track (a bit run down but there are always people there playing basketball or soccer or just enjoying the cool evenings).  It's also only a short mashrutka ride from Kant to the hub site where all of the volunteers meet for training a few times a week.

I'm staying with a pretty large family; my appa and atta (father), two sons, a daughter in law, two grand children, and a niece.  There's also another daughter who lives in Bishkek with her husband and 6 month old and they visit often.  We're definitely being spoiled with our training host families.  My family has a two story home with indoor plumbing (including hot water, a shower, and a washing machine!).

My host family has been really great about helping me with my Kyrgyz, and just taking care of me in general.  I guess they were told ahead of time that I'm vegetarian so we've had plenty of salads and veggie meals.  It feels like they feed me constantly.  My first day I wasn't really sure when dinner was and ended up eating three.  Yesterday I stopped by after class just to pick up my computer and my appa insisted that I chai eech (translates to drink tea, usually accompanied by bread, or in my house and entire meal), she then gave me a bag full of salad, cookies and jam to bring when I met up with my friends.  My singdee (younger sister) and I run every evening at the track, and my eenees (younger brothers) are finally starting to accept me and now love to play with their toy cars in my room, ask me to help them cut up their food, and will chatter to me in Kyrgyz (I don't think they realize that I don't understand them).

The next month and a half will be filled with trainings on language, safety, and technical training.  I'm looking forward to being able to communicate in the language (better) and finding out my assignment.

Toe in the water

My first few days in Kyrgyzstan have been great.  It’s a beautiful country and we’re staying right on lake Issyk-kul; the view is amazing.

We arrived very early Monday morning, a little after 3AM local time.  I was thankful that all of my luggage made it, several of the other trainees weren’t so lucky.  We immediately boarded buses for a five hour trip to Issyk-kul and got to our hotel just in time for breakfast.  We’re staying at a resort right on the lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains.  This of course, is nothing like what our lodging will be like for the rest of our stay but they’re trying to ease us into our life in K.  I can’t decide if it’s nice or cruel to spoil us these first few days!

Our first days have been devoted to introductions and medical tasks (glad I’ve already gotten most of my shots!) and our first language lessons.  Kyrgyz is not going to be easy.  I'm longing now to be back in Spanish class, at least they're letters didn't look funny!

We've all been suffering from jet lag.  I barely made it through dinner last night and passed out before 8 while trying to study.  The food is going to take some getting used to as well.  They're are three other vegetarians in my group and the hotel has been great about making us special meals but it's still a lot of bread and a LOT of dairy. 

We leave our nice hotel today and will meet our first host families tonight, who we'll stay with for the first phase of training.  I'm excited!

Kyrgyzstan, here we come!

It’s finally happening! After over a year of waiting I am finally beginning my Peace Corps adventure.

We all met in DC on Thursday for our staging event.  It was kind of strange meeting all of these people in person for the first time because we’ve had a pretty active Facebook group and I felt like I knew many of them already.  We have 55 in our class, which is more than the two previous groups combined.  We're a mix of recent college grads, retirees, and everything in between, from all over the country (and even two from Canada with dual citizenship).

We just finished the first leg of our journey and are on a layover in Frankfurt right now, but we still have two flights to go, Istanbul and then Bishkek, followed by a long bus drive to the hotel where we will be staying for our first few days in country. I can't wait!