June 26, 2009
I have some very exciting news for you all..... Drum roll please! Our cow had a baby boy! He's just adorable! Our family decided that if the cow had a girl, I would name it. But if the cow had a boy, Thomas could name it. So Thomas settled on Zeus. Good name for a cow, I think. He's tiny and brown with white spots and was just born this morning so he still stumbles around and runs into things. It's very funny to watch.
But that leads into the next good news... Now we have an endless supply of milk (atleast for a while). Mmmmm.... it tastes a bit different from milk in the states... a little more cowey and grassy. But still really great to cook with.
I've decided that you all probably wonder what I do everyday... what is a regular day in Kyrgyzstan like for Rachel? I'm sure you sit around all day just wondering this. Well wonder no more because I am about to lay out an hour by hour schedule for you. (Partially out of boredom but partially because I think some of you really might want to know). Keep in mind that right now there is no school!
9:00 am Wake up. Get dressed. Try to smell good. Wash my face and brush my teeth.
9:30 am Go out to the kitchen to see if I can help my sister with breakfast -the kitchen is in a seperate building from the house and consists of a gas stove and a very old oven- check the chicken coop for eggs and maybe eat them for breakfast
10:00 am Breakfast time! We usually eat hard boiled eggs. But sometimes we have kasha (like cream of wheat) or oatmeal with raisins. And always tea... tea with every meal. Sometimes tea with bread is a meal.
11:00 am Clean up the dishes from breakfast. Walk to the village water pump if we need water.
12:00 pm Play with my puppy. Hang out with my sister. Help her clean the house for the 3rd time this week (she is ALWAYS cleaning the house! Everytime I turn around she is mopping the floors or vacuuming).
1:00 pm Read a book or maybe watch a movie
3:00 pm Help make some lunch. Usually some kind of pasta or rice dish. My favorite is plov. It's like fried rice with carrots and onions and sometimes chicken. But today we made pasta with sauteed eggplant, tomatoes and garlic again.
4:00 pm Eat lunch. Drink more tea. We had apple flavored tea today. Quite delicious.
5:00 pm Clean up the mess from lunch.
6:00 pm Play with my puppy some more. I'm trying to teach her some basic obedience but she is just to young and crazy right now. She can't pay attention to anything for more than 5 minutes. Hold the baby chicks, try not to get killed by the mamma.
7:00 pm Go out and fetch the cow. Every day the cow spends it's time in the mountains. In the morning it goes out and in the evening it comes back. The village has one man (a cowboy you could call him) who rides out to the mountains with the cows, watches over them and then brings them back to the village. We just have to go to the edge of the village to meet our cow and drive it back home.
8:00 pm Read some more. Come up with some plans for my English Club, study a little Kyrgyz language.
9:00 pm Fix dinner. Thomas and I usually make dinner for our family because they spend almost everyday out in the field. Tomorrow night we are making ravioli!! wahhooo!!
9:30 pm Eat dinner. Drink more tea. Talk with our family about our plans for the next day (if we have any.)
10:30 pm Clean up from dinner. Lock up the kitchen. Go to the outhouse one last time. Make sure my pee bucket is in my room- gross but nescessary. It is really unsafe for us to go out to pee at night. That's when all the drunks are out.
11:00 pm Say goodnight to the family and settle down in our room. We usually watch a movie or a TV show (just finished Season 1 of 30 Rock and The Office).
1:00 pm Night Night
So there it is. Your mind has been set at ease. Of course that is our schedule when we stay home but many times we go in the city to see other volunteers, use the internet or buy groceries.
Here is our schedule on those days....
JUST KIDDING!
That would be really boring.
I finished this Jodi Picoult book today called Picture Perfect... not good. I have read 2 other books by her and they were fantastic. But this one, not her best work. Annoying main character and extremely predictable. I wouldn't read it if I were you. I would, however, reccomend Plain Truth by her. Great book, incredibly unpredictable. They even made a movie out of it starring that one woman from Law and Order...
Well, it's 9pm now and you all know what that means.... time to fix dinner! Miss you
Saturday, June 27, 2009
nothing much
June 25, 2009
I got an email from Stefanie the other day, letting me know her and Mark set a date for their wedding!! AHH!! I'm so excited for them! I really, really, really want to be there for it. I'm going to do some talking with Peace Corps and with my family and see if it's possible! AHHH!! I love weddings!
Got an email from ol' Billy too! I really miss being a part of the office trio (me, Tricia and Bill). Going for cookie runs and working hard (and when I say working what I really mean is laughing!) It was fun working there. I hope him and Amy really do come to see me next summer. It would be amazing! I could totally give them a fantastic tour of the country, complete with a weekend stay in a yurt. Omg, I just got really excited. And they could meet my awesome family.
Today was another rough day. Nothing much to do so it was hard not to wish I was back at home. And for some reason I really wanted a smoothie! So I drank some warm pineapple juice but that just didn't do it for me. It's ridiculous how much I miss food. Sometimes I sit and daydream about eating a Moe's burrito... like how it taste's and how full and content I'd be after I ate it! Pretty sad huh? But I'm not the only one... the other volunteers concur that they miss american food A LOT! One volunteer just got back from a 2 week visit to America and admits to eating nothing but steaks and seafood the whole time she was there!
I think on Saturday Thomas and I are going to try and make some cheese ravioli. I'll let you know how it turns out. Last night, we made pasta with sauteed eggplant, tomatoes and garlic for our family. It was pretty good. I'm really enjoying cooking for ourselves. Peace Corps gave us this huge cookbook with some really great recipes that past volunteers recomended. It has been so helpful!
Yesterday we went into the city to meet some of our fellow k-17's for lunch. A good day. We grabbed lunch at this little cafe. It was good, traditional Kyrgyz food, fried logmahn (fried handmade noodles with veggies and beef in a spicy sauce. We used the internet for a while. I got a lot of pictures uploaded but I still have a lot more to go. I want to get up more of the scenic pictures. Then we went to the "volunteer library" and returned/picked up some books. I'm waiting to get my hands on Twilight #4. Another volunteer is finishing it up now and then it's mine!!!
I gave my puppy a bath today and she hated it!!! I found 3 fleas and 1 tick... gross. She's really freaking cute though. Today she climbed up on my lap and fell asleep immediately. The other night I was putting my shoes on and I accidentally stepped on her. She howled for 10 minutes... I felt awful. Then she hopped around and wouldn't put any weight on it. So I started crying because I thought I broke her leg... then my host mom made fun of me and said the next day she's be fine.... sure enough she was fine in the morning. But man did she howl... it was awful!
We leave for camp on Sunday. We will be gone for 5 days with no access to internet, so if you send an email then, we will respond as soon as we get back in town. The weekend after camp I am going with Taylor to visit some volunteers in another oblast. It should be fun, just getting away will be fun. Plus Taylor is the only k-17 female volunteer that is close to me.... and I really like her. I think we could be good friends.
I got an email from Stefanie the other day, letting me know her and Mark set a date for their wedding!! AHH!! I'm so excited for them! I really, really, really want to be there for it. I'm going to do some talking with Peace Corps and with my family and see if it's possible! AHHH!! I love weddings!
Got an email from ol' Billy too! I really miss being a part of the office trio (me, Tricia and Bill). Going for cookie runs and working hard (and when I say working what I really mean is laughing!) It was fun working there. I hope him and Amy really do come to see me next summer. It would be amazing! I could totally give them a fantastic tour of the country, complete with a weekend stay in a yurt. Omg, I just got really excited. And they could meet my awesome family.
Today was another rough day. Nothing much to do so it was hard not to wish I was back at home. And for some reason I really wanted a smoothie! So I drank some warm pineapple juice but that just didn't do it for me. It's ridiculous how much I miss food. Sometimes I sit and daydream about eating a Moe's burrito... like how it taste's and how full and content I'd be after I ate it! Pretty sad huh? But I'm not the only one... the other volunteers concur that they miss american food A LOT! One volunteer just got back from a 2 week visit to America and admits to eating nothing but steaks and seafood the whole time she was there!
I think on Saturday Thomas and I are going to try and make some cheese ravioli. I'll let you know how it turns out. Last night, we made pasta with sauteed eggplant, tomatoes and garlic for our family. It was pretty good. I'm really enjoying cooking for ourselves. Peace Corps gave us this huge cookbook with some really great recipes that past volunteers recomended. It has been so helpful!
Yesterday we went into the city to meet some of our fellow k-17's for lunch. A good day. We grabbed lunch at this little cafe. It was good, traditional Kyrgyz food, fried logmahn (fried handmade noodles with veggies and beef in a spicy sauce. We used the internet for a while. I got a lot of pictures uploaded but I still have a lot more to go. I want to get up more of the scenic pictures. Then we went to the "volunteer library" and returned/picked up some books. I'm waiting to get my hands on Twilight #4. Another volunteer is finishing it up now and then it's mine!!!
I gave my puppy a bath today and she hated it!!! I found 3 fleas and 1 tick... gross. She's really freaking cute though. Today she climbed up on my lap and fell asleep immediately. The other night I was putting my shoes on and I accidentally stepped on her. She howled for 10 minutes... I felt awful. Then she hopped around and wouldn't put any weight on it. So I started crying because I thought I broke her leg... then my host mom made fun of me and said the next day she's be fine.... sure enough she was fine in the morning. But man did she howl... it was awful!
We leave for camp on Sunday. We will be gone for 5 days with no access to internet, so if you send an email then, we will respond as soon as we get back in town. The weekend after camp I am going with Taylor to visit some volunteers in another oblast. It should be fun, just getting away will be fun. Plus Taylor is the only k-17 female volunteer that is close to me.... and I really like her. I think we could be good friends.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
internet at last
June 22, 2009
We found a great place to use the internet today! I was even able to upload a few pictures in a decent amount of time. So I think that will no longer be a problem. We plan on going back in 2 days and I will post some more pics on Facebook.... and maybe on this blog, it just depends on how long it takes.
We are now settling in fairly well. We have started to cook for ourselves a bit. We made pancakes, using muffin mix, the other day (thanks Christina!) and our family loved them. So we made them again for lunch today and again they were a big hit. We also found eggplant at the market so we cooked some up for dinner! It's so much better being able to cook for ourselves. It takes the pressure off guessing if they will cook a meal we hate and if we will have to pretend we like it.
On Saturday I went to a picnic in the mountains with my host sister and host mother. In Kyrgyzstan whatever students you start with in your class in first grade, you stay with until the end of high school. So the students in the same classes here are very close, even into adulthood. So we went to the picnic with my host mom's late husband's classmates. They are all in their 40's now and still friends. It was a blast. Thomas didn't go so it was a good chance for me to have a "Kyrgyz only" day. (A day where I speak no English). We got there at 9:30am and stayed until 9:00pm... long day... full of every Kyrgyz tradition I could possibly experience in one day.... I will explain.....
So the three of (mom, sister and me) leave the house to meet the car full of friends that are picking us up. As we approach the car I think to myself "there is no way my tiny sister will fit in that car, much less all three of us" then I ate my words as the three of us packed in the tiny car totalling nine people. We then drove into the mountains to meet the other people picniking with us. We find a nice spot to gather at and then people and food start coming out of nowhere. I mean first there were 9 of us, I blinked once and then 20 people appeared with bags of carrots, tomatoes, fruit, onions, etc. And one person was hauling a live sheep. In Kyrgyzstan for any big even a sheep is usually slaughtered and eaten. And sure enough they took it out of eyesight and cut it up. We ate so much food that day... all consisting of sheep. We also drank coomooz, which is fermented mares milk... mmmm... not my favorite. So after a hot day of eating sheep and drinking coomooz, we headed home, while I proceeded to vomit in the car. But overall it really was a fun day. I had a lot of time to chat with my sister, which was really great. She's so helpful and patient with my broken Kyrgyz chatter.
Today was my last day of English circle for a while. The school is being painted right now and therefor cannot be used. But we will start again on July 25.... in between then Thomas and I are going to help some other volunteers with a camp. It is a "sleep away" camp. So we will stay overnight for 5 days with Kyrgyz students, playing sports and discussing subjects like nutrition, health, self esteem, etc. It should be a good opportunity to get to know other volunteers.
Hopefully since I can now upload photos, you guys can get a bit of an idea of how beautiful Kyrgyzstan is and what life is like here. Also we have a new address now that I will email out, but if you would like it and don't get it, just let me know!
Peace
We found a great place to use the internet today! I was even able to upload a few pictures in a decent amount of time. So I think that will no longer be a problem. We plan on going back in 2 days and I will post some more pics on Facebook.... and maybe on this blog, it just depends on how long it takes.
We are now settling in fairly well. We have started to cook for ourselves a bit. We made pancakes, using muffin mix, the other day (thanks Christina!) and our family loved them. So we made them again for lunch today and again they were a big hit. We also found eggplant at the market so we cooked some up for dinner! It's so much better being able to cook for ourselves. It takes the pressure off guessing if they will cook a meal we hate and if we will have to pretend we like it.
On Saturday I went to a picnic in the mountains with my host sister and host mother. In Kyrgyzstan whatever students you start with in your class in first grade, you stay with until the end of high school. So the students in the same classes here are very close, even into adulthood. So we went to the picnic with my host mom's late husband's classmates. They are all in their 40's now and still friends. It was a blast. Thomas didn't go so it was a good chance for me to have a "Kyrgyz only" day. (A day where I speak no English). We got there at 9:30am and stayed until 9:00pm... long day... full of every Kyrgyz tradition I could possibly experience in one day.... I will explain.....
So the three of (mom, sister and me) leave the house to meet the car full of friends that are picking us up. As we approach the car I think to myself "there is no way my tiny sister will fit in that car, much less all three of us" then I ate my words as the three of us packed in the tiny car totalling nine people. We then drove into the mountains to meet the other people picniking with us. We find a nice spot to gather at and then people and food start coming out of nowhere. I mean first there were 9 of us, I blinked once and then 20 people appeared with bags of carrots, tomatoes, fruit, onions, etc. And one person was hauling a live sheep. In Kyrgyzstan for any big even a sheep is usually slaughtered and eaten. And sure enough they took it out of eyesight and cut it up. We ate so much food that day... all consisting of sheep. We also drank coomooz, which is fermented mares milk... mmmm... not my favorite. So after a hot day of eating sheep and drinking coomooz, we headed home, while I proceeded to vomit in the car. But overall it really was a fun day. I had a lot of time to chat with my sister, which was really great. She's so helpful and patient with my broken Kyrgyz chatter.
Today was my last day of English circle for a while. The school is being painted right now and therefor cannot be used. But we will start again on July 25.... in between then Thomas and I are going to help some other volunteers with a camp. It is a "sleep away" camp. So we will stay overnight for 5 days with Kyrgyz students, playing sports and discussing subjects like nutrition, health, self esteem, etc. It should be a good opportunity to get to know other volunteers.
Hopefully since I can now upload photos, you guys can get a bit of an idea of how beautiful Kyrgyzstan is and what life is like here. Also we have a new address now that I will email out, but if you would like it and don't get it, just let me know!
Peace
Monday, June 22, 2009
what a roller coaster!
June 16, 2009
sorry for not posting in a while.... It has been a difficult week and a half. Last week was packed with last minute training and preparation for us to leave for our permanent sites and live on our own. Let's see... so much happened. We were "sworn in" as official volunteers! Finally! We have moved from our training village and into our permanent sites. It was so hard saying goodbye to our family there. They were pretty awesome. But so far they have called us twice since we have been here! So nice! Speaking Kyrgyz face to face is hard but it is even harder on the phone! I was able to say I missed them a lot and that we would visit soon.
After swearing in and saying goodbye to our family, we got to go to a pretty rockin party. The United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan invited us to her house on Wednesday (immediately after we were sworn in a official volunteers) for a celebration party and to meet some young Kyrgyz people, most of whom spoke English. It was a lot of fun! They made American food just for us... hamburgers, french fries, potato salad, doritos! All of the volunteers were completely silent for the first 30 minutes of the party because we were stuffing our faces with the food we haven't had in 3 months! Eventually we started mingling... I met a famous Kyrgyz pop star... anytime I tell any of the young girls here that I met him they freak out... I also met the Kyrgyz gold medal winner in wrestling from the last Olympics, a counselor for one of the few (if not only) battered women's shelter in Kyrgyzstan. The best part was the super models. There were 3 Russian super models that were there and all of the male volunteers were joking about who would get a date first... only to find out (after I asked) that they were 15 and 16 years old...oops!
After that we had a meeting with our counterparts (local co-teachers from our schools) to discuss the terms of our service... basically the rules Peace Corps has for us teaching with them... like if our counterpart doesn't show up for class then there will be no class. They are trying to cut down on volunteers being used a substitute teachers, since the point is to be teaching together.
Then we stayed overnight at our regular hotel... a soviet style, sort of creepy hotel. It would make a great location for filming a scary movie. Then finally the next day we made the 7 hour drive to Talas, where we will live for the next 2 years. It has been a rough transition. Our family is great but new. It's hard moving from a family who understood us, knew what we liked, knew our schedule, etc... to a family who has no idea. It's not anything that is their fault, it will just take time for us all to become familiar with each other. We had gotten so comfortable in our training village... we knew all of our neighboors, the shopkeepers, taxi drivers... and here we know no one. I even got ripped off buying strawberries at the market. It's hard to understand how difficult it is here without experiencing it.... nothing is easy. There is no such thing as a quick meal. Every food takes time and preperation... no box of mac and cheese on a night when you don't feel like cooking. We don't have a fridge so we can't buy milk or cheese or meat if we don't use it immediately. We wash our clothes by hand.... always. It takes atleast an hour for a small load.... There is also no running water. To get water we take a 10 minute walk down the road to the community pump. Then we pump the water and then hall the huge basin back to the house. We bathe about once a week. If there is enough water and sometimes wash our hair in the middle of the week,
And it's especially hard having an animal here. Thomas and I found a puppy that someone had thrown in a ditch so we brought her home with us. But there is no where in Talas to buy dog food, bones, flea meds, dewormer, a leash or collar, etc. The nearest vet is in bishkek (a 7 hour drive). So in 3 months I have to figure out how to get her there to get her fixed and vaccinated. Hopefully I can find a sypathetic taxi driver that will be willing to give us a ride. So if there are any animal lovers out there who would wanna supply a few things you know we would love it!!!
I had my first English club today at my new school... about 19 students came! Which is A LOT for a club. I'm sure that the numbers will start to dwindle very soon though. I think most of them just came to see "the new volunteer". It went well for the first time. We just practiced greeting each other and then played a game where the students interviewed each other to find out who had a sister, a brother, a dog, a cow, etc. They decided that they would like to meet three times a week for one hour... so I'm starting off at a run. I don't think most of the other volunteers have even visited the school yet, much less started clubs. Here I was thinking I would have nothing to do all summer....
Anyways that has been my life here so far. I have yet to find an internet cafe here but I have heard that there are three in the city. I will try to get to the internet at least once a week.
I miss you all.... especially now.
sorry for not posting in a while.... It has been a difficult week and a half. Last week was packed with last minute training and preparation for us to leave for our permanent sites and live on our own. Let's see... so much happened. We were "sworn in" as official volunteers! Finally! We have moved from our training village and into our permanent sites. It was so hard saying goodbye to our family there. They were pretty awesome. But so far they have called us twice since we have been here! So nice! Speaking Kyrgyz face to face is hard but it is even harder on the phone! I was able to say I missed them a lot and that we would visit soon.
After swearing in and saying goodbye to our family, we got to go to a pretty rockin party. The United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan invited us to her house on Wednesday (immediately after we were sworn in a official volunteers) for a celebration party and to meet some young Kyrgyz people, most of whom spoke English. It was a lot of fun! They made American food just for us... hamburgers, french fries, potato salad, doritos! All of the volunteers were completely silent for the first 30 minutes of the party because we were stuffing our faces with the food we haven't had in 3 months! Eventually we started mingling... I met a famous Kyrgyz pop star... anytime I tell any of the young girls here that I met him they freak out... I also met the Kyrgyz gold medal winner in wrestling from the last Olympics, a counselor for one of the few (if not only) battered women's shelter in Kyrgyzstan. The best part was the super models. There were 3 Russian super models that were there and all of the male volunteers were joking about who would get a date first... only to find out (after I asked) that they were 15 and 16 years old...oops!
After that we had a meeting with our counterparts (local co-teachers from our schools) to discuss the terms of our service... basically the rules Peace Corps has for us teaching with them... like if our counterpart doesn't show up for class then there will be no class. They are trying to cut down on volunteers being used a substitute teachers, since the point is to be teaching together.
Then we stayed overnight at our regular hotel... a soviet style, sort of creepy hotel. It would make a great location for filming a scary movie. Then finally the next day we made the 7 hour drive to Talas, where we will live for the next 2 years. It has been a rough transition. Our family is great but new. It's hard moving from a family who understood us, knew what we liked, knew our schedule, etc... to a family who has no idea. It's not anything that is their fault, it will just take time for us all to become familiar with each other. We had gotten so comfortable in our training village... we knew all of our neighboors, the shopkeepers, taxi drivers... and here we know no one. I even got ripped off buying strawberries at the market. It's hard to understand how difficult it is here without experiencing it.... nothing is easy. There is no such thing as a quick meal. Every food takes time and preperation... no box of mac and cheese on a night when you don't feel like cooking. We don't have a fridge so we can't buy milk or cheese or meat if we don't use it immediately. We wash our clothes by hand.... always. It takes atleast an hour for a small load.... There is also no running water. To get water we take a 10 minute walk down the road to the community pump. Then we pump the water and then hall the huge basin back to the house. We bathe about once a week. If there is enough water and sometimes wash our hair in the middle of the week,
And it's especially hard having an animal here. Thomas and I found a puppy that someone had thrown in a ditch so we brought her home with us. But there is no where in Talas to buy dog food, bones, flea meds, dewormer, a leash or collar, etc. The nearest vet is in bishkek (a 7 hour drive). So in 3 months I have to figure out how to get her there to get her fixed and vaccinated. Hopefully I can find a sypathetic taxi driver that will be willing to give us a ride. So if there are any animal lovers out there who would wanna supply a few things you know we would love it!!!
I had my first English club today at my new school... about 19 students came! Which is A LOT for a club. I'm sure that the numbers will start to dwindle very soon though. I think most of them just came to see "the new volunteer". It went well for the first time. We just practiced greeting each other and then played a game where the students interviewed each other to find out who had a sister, a brother, a dog, a cow, etc. They decided that they would like to meet three times a week for one hour... so I'm starting off at a run. I don't think most of the other volunteers have even visited the school yet, much less started clubs. Here I was thinking I would have nothing to do all summer....
Anyways that has been my life here so far. I have yet to find an internet cafe here but I have heard that there are three in the city. I will try to get to the internet at least once a week.
I miss you all.... especially now.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
I'm almost a real volunteer!
So we are down to the last 4 days before we leave our training villages for good... We have today and tomorrow off to pack, rest and get ready to leave. On Wednesday we will be sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers... following the swearing in will be a rockin party at the ambassadors house... and then on thursday we will depart for our permanant sites. I think everyone is really ready to go....
We will be getting a new address. So if you have something that you haven't mailed yet just wait until you get our new address... I will email it out at the end of next week. We are going to set up a P.O Box in the city to hopefully avoid our mail being tampered with. I appreciate the generosity of all my friends! It's been awesome getting things from the states! It's all stuff that I have really missed! So thanks to everyone! More to come after the rockin party!
We will be getting a new address. So if you have something that you haven't mailed yet just wait until you get our new address... I will email it out at the end of next week. We are going to set up a P.O Box in the city to hopefully avoid our mail being tampered with. I appreciate the generosity of all my friends! It's been awesome getting things from the states! It's all stuff that I have really missed! So thanks to everyone! More to come after the rockin party!
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