Off to the lake!!

I visited my permanent site recently and I will move there on June 11 after I am officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer. If you look on a map of Kyrgyzstan, it’s very close to Cholpon-Ata on the north shore of Issyk-kol (which means ‘hot lake’). My new village, where I will be living for two years, is absolutely stunning. I’ve been in awe of the mountains ever since arriving here, but soon I will be surrounded by mountains on the edge of the lake. To the north I can see rolling green hills and snow-covered mountains and to the south I see the blue sparkly lake with the mammoth Tien Shan mountain range (stretching east into China) beyond. My village has around 2000 inhabitants. Tiny! To put it in perspective, my high school had 300 students. But although my village is small, it’s not isolated. There are many villages off the road that runs along the north shore of the lake, and there are several other volunteers within an hour of me.

The school where I will teach is brand new – it just opened last fall. It’s clean and bright and we have ten computers but no internet or much educational software. My counterpart told me that their “library” has only five children’s books in English. Five! A few new teaching resources could really go a long way here. It’s exciting and motivating.

Starting a new job in a new place is scary enough, but having to do it in a new language is somewhat terrifying. There are two English teachers at the school but no one else on staff speaks English. I can understand quite a bit of Kyrgyz by this point, but whenever two people start talking at once, I’m a goner. I know it will get easier day by day.

When I was visiting, I shadowed my counterpart, Marcia, for a couple of days. In the first class, the students took out their books and started reading the first lesson out loud, which is when I realized that the entire textbook is about a Russian kid named Sasha who visits Atlanta, Georgia. I died. I couldn’t believe it. Sasha’s host family lives in Roswell and they do things like visit the Coca-Cola Museum and SciTrek and their oldest daughter works at Chick-fil-a and their hero is Martin Luther King, Jr. They asked me about “Willie B, the most famous animal at the Atlanta Zoo” and I think I broke their hearts when I told them that he died. It’s pretty bizarre to fly to the other side of the world to teach in a small village and find out that their textbook is all about your hometown. It made me feel sort of homesick and emotional but in a good way.

My school director asked me how many people live in Atlanta. When I said five million he laughed and said “There are five million people in Kyrgyzstan.” He’s a laidback guy in his sixties and I think we’re going to get along well. He drove me to the nearest town to open a bank account and on the way back we had to wait for about a hundred sheep to cross the road. One stayed in the middle of the road and I said something like “That sheep smart no!” in Kyrgyz and he laughed a lot. So close.

I really like my new host family. They live in compound housing so I kind of have my own section to live in. My first host family (near Bishkek, where I’ve been living for the first three months for traning) has learned to speak to me relatively slowly and simply, so coming to a new family who speaks at me rapid-fire is pretty fierce. Sometimes it’s fun but it gets really draining.

My mom, Kaliman, teaches 4^th grade at the same school as me. I have two sisters that go to university in Bishkek (the capital) named Noorjan and Noorbuhbuh, a very sweet 12-year-old sister named Ayzat, a 10-year old brother named Kyrot and a giggly 8-year-old sister named Beggymai. who stares at me all the time. I can’t wait until the fruit harvest later in the summer. Our house is surrounded by apple, apricot, cherry, plum and peach trees and there’s a strawberry patch on the side of the house. My family makes apricot jam that’s out of this world (but they eat it in their tea and not on bread) and they sell some of their apples and apricots at the bazaar.

I’ll miss my first host family and the other volunteers, but I’m really excited to finally move to my new village. I arrive on the same day that classes end for the summer, so I’m probably going to have lots of down time while adjusting to small town country life away from the other volunteers. I plan on enjoying the lake and going hiking and camping in the mountains. I asked my counterpart what we will do this summer, since I’m obligated to work on other projects when school is out. She looked out the window wistfully and said “Let’s have English clubs with the children, next to the lake underneath the trees.” Sounds like a good summer to me.

My day-to-day life is filled with a lot of language classes and Peace Corps-mandated culture, safety and health presentations. What else do I do… I try to run at our village soccer field on days when I know I’ll be able to bathe at night. Running for exercise is an anomaly here so it continues to fascinate people. The other day I had three little boys running in front of me and two running behind. They were giggling the whole time. The volunteers in my village made pizza the other night. YUM! My sister sent me a package so I’ve been gorging on dried fruit and peanut butter and reading Newsweek and drinking Crystal Light (thanks Mare!!). I spend a significant amount of time doing laundry by hand. I think I’ll never take a washing machine for granted again. Apparently I wash everything in the wrong order though, which is why my mom looks at me with exasperation every time. Like, how can a 24-year-old woman not know that she should wash her socks absolutely last when she does laundry?!

I only have a few days left in my training village -- it will be a big transition when I move to the lake. Once I get settled in my new village I’ll have more free time to write updates and catch up with people back home. I’m sorry if I haven’t been able to email you back – I promise I will eventually catch up on my emails!

Because pictures are so much better than words, see below. I know they're not great quality but I spent a long time sitting in this internet cafe battling computer error messages in Russian in order to get these up, so enjoy! :)

My host family in my training village

The other girls (PC volunteers) who live in my training village

My street in my permanent site (the gate to my house is on the left there)


A class at my new school -- the classrooms are so nice!

Rahat, my language teacher, showing us how to make a Kyrygyz meal called oromo

I can walk here in five minutes from my new house!

Hiking in Issyk-Ata, a health resort near Bishkek

Textbook page about ATL (might be too small to see)

My new 13-year-old sister Aayzat making dinner


Springtime in my village means there are baby chicks and lambs and calves all over the place.

Hiking in Issyk-Ata. SO pretty. I was blown away.

Alex, Alyson, me, Kiki, Whitney


My new 8-year-old sister Beggymai
On Sundays I was my clothes by hand with Barf
My new school. So pretty!
This is my new house
My neighbor's house in Issyk-kol

Me with my little brother and a neighbor in my training village

The view from one of the back classrooms of my new school