I'm here!

Hello to all, from the wonderful land of Kyrgyzstan. This is the first chance I’ve had to send a proper, bloggable update. My head has been spinning since I left Atlanta at the end of March and I’m not able to use the internet very often. I think my updates are going to be few and far between! I’m doing great and of course still adjusting to everything. Every day there are surprising, amusing, and frustrating moments.

I arrived in Bishkek (the capital) with 59 other Peace Corps trainees (we’re not actually called volunteers until our swearing-in ceremony in June) and we’re off to a wonderful, tough and bizarre start. For the first three months, our pre-service training period, I’m living in a small village outside Bishkek (this is in the north of the country, close to the border with Kazakhstan). There are nine volunteers living in my village for training, each living with a different host family, and the other trainees are scattered throughout other close villages. Our days are full of language classes, health & culture lectures, job training, and surviving. And laughter – lots of laughter. I’m adapting pretty quickly to some of the challenges (no running water or indoor sinks/toilets) and slower to others (namely, speaking Kyrgyz!). I’m living with a lovely and generous host family (dad, mom, 19-yr old sister and 10, 6 and one-year-old brothers) who are taking good care of me and deciphering my botched Kyrgyz. Noorsultan, the baby, keeps everyone laughing and I think he understands my Kyrgyz better than anyone.

The other trainees have quickly become my support system away from home. I rely on them a lot. Most days, I eat lunch with the other trainees in my village (our host moms take turns preparing lunches). We’re told to “chai ich!” (drink more tea!) and are served small feasts in various combinations of mutton, noodles, soups, carrots, potatoes, onions, dumplings, rice and bread. The food is very rich and delicious, especially if you like carbs with a side of carbs. Some of the highlights are plov (a Russian dish of oily rice, carrots, garlic and meat), manty (meat/potato & onion dumplings), borsht (Russian cabbage stew) and oromo (meat and veggies rolled up tightly in dough and then steamed). We eat lots and lots of bread in all shapes and textures.

Many people speak Russian and Kyrgyz so I’m learning a smattering of Russian words from various sources to supplement my hours upon hours of Kyrgyz training. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with Kyrgyz and its suffix-loving grammar rules that result in 20-letter words. It’s in the Turkic language family and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. It’s fun to use a new alphabet but hard to accept the fact that now I’m a hopelessly terrible speller. Speaking is, of course, the most terrifying part. I’m looking forward to the day when I don’t have to ask people to repeat what they said about four times. But, it’s slowly coming along. The other day I yelled “The horse runs!” in Kyrgyz (at churkayt!) when a horse came running really fast out of nowhere and I’m pretty sure that I saved a small child from danger.

I am receiving technical training twice a week along with my other TEFL volunteers (English teachers). We’ve been able to guest-teach a few English classes at a school in one of the villages nearby which is eye-opening and amusing and frightening. My favorite part of my first class was the beginning, when all the students stood and said in unison: “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you. Good morning, my teacher, we are glad to see you.” One day I will brilliantly stress critical thinking over rote memorization, but for now I’m just trying not to use slang like “gonna” or point at someone with my finger (it’s rude) or lean on the board and get chalk all over my outfit (oops).

In the middle of June, I’ll move to my permanent site location, where I’ll teach English for two years. We found out our permanent site locations last week, after individual interviews and much anxiety. My hands were sort of shaky when I opened my envelope, and then in about five seconds I became really excited. If you look at a map of Kyrgyzstan, my village is near Cholpon-Ata on the north shore of Lake Issyk-Kol. I think I’ll be 20 mins from Cholpon-Ata, which my Lonely Planet calls “the premier resort town for wealthy Kazakhs.” The lake itself is second-largest alpine lake in the world and its name means ‘hot lake’. I’ll be the first Peace Corps volunteer at a brand new school that hasn’t even opened its doors yet. I was hoping to be the first volunteer at a site (rather than replace a volunteer who’s leaving) though I know it will be a big challenge. I’ll team-teach my classes with a local Kyrgyz teacher and live with a family in the village. That’s pretty much all I know for now, but I’ll go for a five-day visit in two weeks and find out more.

I won’t have much internet access for the next few months. There’s, uh, no wifi in my village. Or even many paved roads. But I’ll try to respond to emails and post pictures and updates here whenever I can. Updates and messages from home are really appreciated, so please keep them coming!!! If I can’t respond right away it’s not because I didn’t read your message or that I didn’t want to respond. If you want to send me a letter and fill my day with happiness, my current address is in the first post. I’ll get a permanent site address soon. But really, if you send me a letter I can’t even tell you how excited I will be!!

I feel lucky to be here every day but I also already miss so many things from home. This is to say: keep in touch! And think of me when you go to Target or a toilet or other places you might take for granted. :)

My little host brother Alinoor down the street from our house. Those are the beautiful Ala-too mountains in the background.

This is my village.

My backyard and our lovely chickens. Our sink is just off the photo on the right. The outhouse is down the path on the left.

My ten-year-old brother Saviet helps me with my homework.

My cousin Aziza came over and made pizza for us. It had a lot of mayonnaise and potatoes, but hey, I'll take it.

My host sister and brother in our kitchen.

Noorsultan is just starting to walk. So precious!

My bedroom... not too shabby!

Our outhouse -- it's not so bad, unless it's the middle of the night and cold & rainy and you are all kinds of sick. Then it's not very fun.

Cute little girl outside the house where I have class.

My view on my walk to class.