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.