22:00 17 August 2008
Today I went to Bishkek. There are these people that own electronic scales and charge two som (about five cents) to measure your weight. I had noticed that I had lost a good amount since I got here six weeks ago and was curious to what I would clock in at. I weighed in just over 100 kg., or 220 lbs. That means I have lost about 20 pounds in country so far. I was told to expect to lose a lot of weight and brought clothing accordingly, but I didn’t really to expect it to happen so fast. It’s nice, but I hope I don’t become scrawny.
Regardless, it was really nice to hang out with some current volunteers (including one that is leaving in less than two weeks after her service is over) and other trainees. We went to a Chinese restaurant and while it was, by American standards, nothing special, it was wonderful to get a different kind of food. I also realized that I have to adjust my standards when it comes to purchasing food. I was judging the amount of food I would get by its prices (even though I realized later it had the portion sizes listed on the menu) and this was a mistake. I ordered a tofu soup and then a spicy tofu dish and a side of rice. The total came out to the equivalent of about five or six dollars and so I assumed that it wouldn’t be a tremendous amount of food. Boy was I wrong. The plate of tofu was large, not huge, but definitely sufficient as a meal by itself. The soup wasn’t so much a bowl as a vat. Though it cost only about two dollars, it was a huge pot full of soup. I was so full when I left the restaurant (I figured I may as well eat it all because where else can I get a tofu fix in this country). Despite being full, an hour later I was hungry again (sorry, I couldn’t resist the joke, it isn’t true; I was full for hours).
I haven’t yet mentioned the outcome of Culture Day. It took place yesterday and was a lot of fun. The story is better told through the photographs so I will keep myself short here. As I mentioned before, our group was incredibly disorganized, but this was overshadowed by our pyrotechnics and dancing. Other groups did events that ran from a Kyrgyz ceremony about the first steps babies take to Russian, Turkish, and Kyrgyz weddings and a Kyrgyz cradle ceremony. We all broke at around midday for lunch (of course we had plov) and then the remainder of the day was a big dance party. It was hilarious as the music jumped from American (often from the 80’s- which was awesome) to Turkish to Russian and everyone, Peace Corps staff included, got in the spirit and danced their hearts out. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but at Malika’s birthday, some other trainees and I started the dance move that could storm the world. It has spread through the trainees and is relatively well known (half as a joke, half as an awesome move). At culture day, we even spread it to some Kyrgyz kids that will hopefully show it to their friends. The move is essentially a pantomime of picking an orange from a tree, juicing an orange, pouring the juice, and then drinking the juice. As one reaches out and goes through the moves, it is generally appropriate to introduce the uninformed of your motions with a: “Pickin’ the orange, juicin’ tha orange (repeat 2x) pourin’ the juice, drinkin’ tha juice (repeat 2x)”. So my faithful readers, I encourage you to spread this dance move stateside. Maybe someday we’ll look back and be able to say: “Remember that stupid ‘juicing it’ dance move we did years ago? That was fun in a dorky way, kind of like the Macarena
”. Good
night and remember, Juice It!
Today I went to Bishkek. There are these people that own electronic scales and charge two som (about five cents) to measure your weight. I had noticed that I had lost a good amount since I got here six weeks ago and was curious to what I would clock in at. I weighed in just over 100 kg., or 220 lbs. That means I have lost about 20 pounds in country so far. I was told to expect to lose a lot of weight and brought clothing accordingly, but I didn’t really to expect it to happen so fast. It’s nice, but I hope I don’t become scrawny.
Regardless, it was really nice to hang out with some current volunteers (including one that is leaving in less than two weeks after her service is over) and other trainees. We went to a Chinese restaurant and while it was, by American standards, nothing special, it was wonderful to get a different kind of food. I also realized that I have to adjust my standards when it comes to purchasing food. I was judging the amount of food I would get by its prices (even though I realized later it had the portion sizes listed on the menu) and this was a mistake. I ordered a tofu soup and then a spicy tofu dish and a side of rice. The total came out to the equivalent of about five or six dollars and so I assumed that it wouldn’t be a tremendous amount of food. Boy was I wrong. The plate of tofu was large, not huge, but definitely sufficient as a meal by itself. The soup wasn’t so much a bowl as a vat. Though it cost only about two dollars, it was a huge pot full of soup. I was so full when I left the restaurant (I figured I may as well eat it all because where else can I get a tofu fix in this country). Despite being full, an hour later I was hungry again (sorry, I couldn’t resist the joke, it isn’t true; I was full for hours).
I haven’t yet mentioned the outcome of Culture Day. It took place yesterday and was a lot of fun. The story is better told through the photographs so I will keep myself short here. As I mentioned before, our group was incredibly disorganized, but this was overshadowed by our pyrotechnics and dancing. Other groups did events that ran from a Kyrgyz ceremony about the first steps babies take to Russian, Turkish, and Kyrgyz weddings and a Kyrgyz cradle ceremony. We all broke at around midday for lunch (of course we had plov) and then the remainder of the day was a big dance party. It was hilarious as the music jumped from American (often from the 80’s- which was awesome) to Turkish to Russian and everyone, Peace Corps staff included, got in the spirit and danced their hearts out. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but at Malika’s birthday, some other trainees and I started the dance move that could storm the world. It has spread through the trainees and is relatively well known (half as a joke, half as an awesome move). At culture day, we even spread it to some Kyrgyz kids that will hopefully show it to their friends. The move is essentially a pantomime of picking an orange from a tree, juicing an orange, pouring the juice, and then drinking the juice. As one reaches out and goes through the moves, it is generally appropriate to introduce the uninformed of your motions with a: “Pickin’ the orange, juicin’ tha orange (repeat 2x) pourin’ the juice, drinkin’ tha juice (repeat 2x)”. So my faithful readers, I encourage you to spread this dance move stateside. Maybe someday we’ll look back and be able to say: “Remember that stupid ‘juicing it’ dance move we did years ago? That was fun in a dorky way, kind of like the Macarena
”. Good
night and remember, Juice It!
So these pictures are mostly self explanatory. The top one is the males in my village and I doing the Russian dance. Then follows the burning scarecrow. After that is me accompanying Shawn in a Russian song. Finally is a scene from a Kyrgyz cradle ceremony where a baby is outfitted with a nomadic cradle and becomes a member of the tribe.
1 comment:
Jon, your hat reminds me of your friend from Apex with the flower in his hair. Love ya!
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