Celebrating Victory Day

How the Kyrgyz celebrate the 9th of May (Victory Day in the Patriotic War-WWII)

My village's animal bazaar

It's nearly May... Why is it snowing?

Cool Experiences...

12:45 19 April 2009

I have had nothing but awesome people come visit me off of couch surfing! This past weekend I had this really interesting and intelligent Mexican national come visit, he is so cool! He has worked with National Geographic, written a prize winning book, and even worked with Gabriel Garcia Marquez! We took a great walk around my village on a beautiful day and I showed them all the sites of it. I found a cool new place in my village too, there used to be a PMK, a construction materials collective factory and the remnants of it exist today, including an absolutely huge sickle and hammer symbol. Anyhow, the pictures tell the stories better then the words. All of these are courtesy and copyright of Temoris Grecko.

Spring Left?

1530 16 April 2009

I wrote earlier that Spring had returned. Perhaps my mistake was having written that on April Fool’s Day. While this is still true to a certain extent, I was reminded this morning that I still live in quite a cold country. After a few weeks of nice and mild weather, trees beginning to blossom, and the color green being reintroduced to my life, I awoke this morning to a few inches of snow blanketing the landscape. It’s already mostly melted, creating muddy conditions everywhere, but it was still quite a shock to arise in mid April to snow everywhere! Unfortunately, I was also told that the late cold snap after the trees began blossoming might mean that the apricot harvest this year will be severely less than usually hoped for in the summer.

Дурок anyone?

17:30 06 April 2009

I just had a great experience! Some couch-surfing Israeli tourists came to visit and stayed at my apartment for two days! And they couldn’t have come at a better time, it was during Passover and I got to share a very pleasant Shabbat, except for one experience, and it was the first time I really prayed since I was in country. We even made matzoh brie and ate kosher food! It was so exciting. I was surprised and impressed how observant they are staying in spite of the difficulties that come with travelling. They brought a huge bagful of Israeli kosher meat, matzot, and other goodies that they were more than happy to share with me.

In the process of their staying here I learned a lot of cool stuff , my favorite being the Russian card game “Дурок” or “Fool” that is a lot of fun to play. In addition to playing a lot of card games, we also ate even more good food, learned a tiny bit of Hebrew to augment my miniscule knowledge of the language.

In other news, I’ve been slowly but surely making my apartment “my” apartment by putting up stuff, cleaning, and getting all the necessary home items that make it all nice and lived in. I went to a flea market in Karakol and got loads of old Soviet high quality cookware (all the new stuff is poor quality and Chinese made, the good stuff is the old stuff, and it’s also cheaper!). One thing I think is interesting about all the Soviet era products is that the prices were so stable then that they were actually stamped upon the metal products! So I know that my frying pan cost one ruble, my forks were each 15 kolpeks (ruble cents) and my pot was one ruble, 50 kolpeks. All of these are incredibly low prices, and it really makes me understand why, in an economic time of high inflation, high unemployment, and other problems, why so many people here pine for the Soviet Union.

Spring Returns!

14:00 27 March 2009

Yesterday I did the new apartment dance! I moved into an apartment in my village and I am so pleased! I moved mainly because while I, overall, got along quite well with my family, I missed the freedom of being able to cook for myself on a daily basis, go and leave as I please, and have guests over whenever I wanted. My old host family was really nice and even helped me move by getting all my stuff into a horse cart and taking it over, I was going to hire a taxi but they were really willing to help out and I really appreciated it.

My new place seems like it will be a great location for all of this. It’s located in a really nice, calm, area of town on the first floor of two in a complex that used to house the workers of a Soviet era factory. The apartment has a lot of cool Soviet-y things about, little quirks like a radio that only has one channel on it (during Soviet times, it was used to receive the radio channel, there was no possibility to receive other frequencies) and a commemorative plaque from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Other than these, it’s a pretty typical apartment with two bedrooms and a nice kitchen with a refrigerator! I even have running water and a toilet, though I still have to buy a seat for it. The nicest part of it though is the gorgeous balcony I have out back, overlooking a rose garden that is going to be just beautiful once they bloom, the mountains to the south, and a little glimpse of the lake to the north.

To celebrate my new domicile, I had the JICA volunteers and Emil, an awesome HCN friend of ours, over for a dinner. I got to inaugurate my stove, dishes, table, and chairs in the place that I assume will probably be a hot spot for hanging out in my village, the JICAs both live with host families so it will be easier to cook at my place without getting in anyone’s way. Amid all the good feelings though, I do have to admit that I will miss certain aspects of living with a host family. The cultural integration I had on a daily basis and practice with Russian won’t exist as much, though I am lucky that I have a talkative neighbor to chat with and practice. I also really liked that family in general and hope that I can retain a certain attachment with them in the future.