Springtime!

It has been a little while since I last updated you all. We have officially been in Peace Corps a year now which is exciting. The most exciting news I have is that it is SPRING! I also ate spinach and avocados---very luxurious.

We recently celebrated quite a few holidays. We had an epic St. Patrick's Day party and have had many Kyrgyz holidays as well. This month we celebrated Mens' Day, Womens' Day, and Nooruz (Persian new year). There have been lots of days off and lots of parties. Which really means more food and fruit then usual :-).

In other news, I made my first Kyrgyz friend which feels like a really big deal. As volunteers we often know a lot of people but do not have more than cordial relationship with most of them. Over the past few months I have been tutoring a young teacher at my school and we have come to be friends. Yay for friendship :-)

In my professional life--I'm busy. Sarah and I are are planning the annual Talas Camp at which we will teach about tolerance, other cultures, and nutrition. Should be fun and a great thing for the new Talas volunteers to do over the summer. I am planning a seminar on job skills for young men and women for 'Take your child to Work Day' in April. I just submitted a grant proposal for my health curriculum project, which I think will be really amazing. Finally, I got my first grant! It was for hand washing stations to be placed at the three schools in my village. The grant was through Water Charities and is a super awesome program, so if you feel like donating to a great organization that helps bring clean water to villages around the world, check it out here. Alex is doing well and has begun to work at a second school with a really motivated counterpart. He is also working on a few translation projects and a technology training grant.

Now we are in Bishkek for Spring break and for the FORUM English teachers association conference at which we will taught teaching a few session. We are actually here for a bit longer than we expected due to the pass being closed. Evidently March/April is avalanche season. To prevent dangerous avalanches the government closes the roads and uses explosions to trigger controlled avalanches. Crazy stuff.

I hope all of you are doing well. Have a wonderful week!