Tuesday, April 29, 2014

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.

IMG_8801

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!

No comments:

Post a Comment