July Harvest and other stuff

First of all... we have puppies! Rex had 5 adorable little ones. One will live with our family and one will live next to our compound house, the rest are going to friends and family. Awesome right? We're taking the adorable runt.

So anyway, its the end of July and all of a sudden it feels like time is flying. We have been doing a lot of work on our little house trying to get it ready for the fall. I think it is going to be a wonderful place to live and a good mixture of family life and privacy. We've also begun to start canning for the winter. So far we have 10 two liter jars of Kampot (fruit juice made by combining whole fresh fruit, sugar, and boiling water), 2 jars of apricot jam, and 2 jars of cherry jam. We picked all the apricots, rasberries, black currents, and cherries involved from our garden (like buckets upon buckets of fruit). It was absolutely amazing. Next we will start making winter salads, apple sauce, and various tomato things. I think we will have a good 70 two liters of food by the time September is over. This is uber important because vegetables and fruit are nearly impossible to find in the winter, which starts in October and ends in early March. Pretty nuts.

In addition to our household adventures, I finished the Tech Age Girls Conference in Bishkek where I taught 33 really wonderful girls how to use various computer programs, practiced English with them, helped prepare for their closing ceremony, and taught a seminar on gender equality. It was a really near program designed to teach the girls computer skills as will as setting them up with a short internship in Biskek. It was fun, but tiring (I am not nearly as energetic as 15 year old girls). Last week some of our friends came to visit from Issy-kul, Naryn, and Chui which was pretty cool. We visited the river and had some American type times, namely cheesy macaroni and cheese and a whole evening of speaking in English. We also went on an excursion with the town's library staff to a tiny village about 2 hours away. We all piled into the back of a truck bed (like 25 people) with a lot of bread, vodka, and fruit and headed toward the mountains. We turned off the main road and basically went straight for a while. After a beautiful and quite uncomfortable 2 hours the “road” ended in front of a house, our final destination. This particular house is owned by the old director of the library. Once a year the current staff brings here some books and exchange them for the old, in this way she runs a little library is the town. Evidently the exchange is a huge deal as about 50 people came to the party (a lot for such an out of the way place) and two sheep were slaughtered for the party. We spent some time hanging out by a stream, eating a lot of delicious food, listening to some great accordian music, and dancing to music played out of the back of someones van. It was a really good time.

That pretty much brings us to now. We will be spending the rest of the month hanging out and canning in our village. In the beginning of August Alex and I are helping with a democracy camp in Talas and then are attending a conference on health education in Bishkek. After that, we got a few weeks before school starts. I am absolutely astounded that the summer is almost over!

Until next time,

Athena

A Wonderful Week in Bakai Ata

The last week in June was a really good week. We kept busy whitewashing our new home, a process that is pretty cool. First you buy “white stones” (I think its Lyme) by the kilo. Then put the stones in a large metal container and add water. Once the water touches the Lyme reacts by boiling, within a minute or two your metal container is filled with what looks like white lava. After about 30 minutes the mixture is combined with more water to form a watery substance to paint with. Pretty cool.

On Tuesday, the Lytcee staff had an excursion to the silver river (yes, it has silver in it) right outside of Bakai-ata. It was a really beautiful spot for a relaxing day. We had shaslik (Shish Kebabs) for lunch and Demdema (meat, cabbage, carrots, and onions in some water and covered so that all the ingredients steam) for dinner. All of the food was cooked over open fire which was pretty neat and absolutely delicious. Alex and skipped stones and spent some time getting the know the staff at my school. Our History teacher invited us to go on a 5 day camping trip this fall; we would go farther up the river where the fishing is apparently amazing. He is also a certified guide which is nice to know. We are excited and hopeful that this trip happens. During the day he also told us about how more than a thousand years ago Kyrgyz people lived in undergroud cities and that one of these cities has been found in Talas but that there is no funding to excavate it. I'm not sure how much of this is fact and how much is legend, but I think its really awesome nonetheless.

We spent Wednesday afternoon in Talas City since a few of our friends from other oblasts came to visit. I had a really good cream soup with little meat filled raviolli type things inside---with a little garlic it would have been amazing (we're going to try it at home soon). We sucessfully got our pay out of the bank and visited the bazzar. The bazzar in Talas is quite a bit smaller than the bazzars in Bishkek but has quite an amazing selection for the size. You can find everything from chicks to car engine parts. ornamental cactuses to a decent variety of vegetables. I was excited to find parsley, chilli pepper, lettuce (!!!), and leek seeds as well as some plastic pots. I am on my way to a little garden and some extra flavor in my food. We also visited a little shop called Dr.Meod. It made me quite happy to find a medical shop that only contained honey and honey related products. I bought a bear container full of tiny pollen balls (somebody hand collects pollen from flowers) that are used here as allergy medication.

On Thursday, a whole bunch of our host mom's family came over and we had a big celebration. Friday and Saturday were spent relaxing, picking cherries, and eating apricots. Today, I left Talas for a conference I am working with in Bishkek. I sucessfully got to Bishkek and then to the hotel by myself without getting hugely ripped off---it's suprising what an accomplishment that is. I'm staying in a pretty little hotel WITH INTERNET ACCESS. Woot. Alright here's a link to a whole album of photos, enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.726210112027.2208934.7606386&l=bc7aec8455

Love you guys!

Athena

Normalcy---or something close to it.

I have finally reached a point in this adventure at which I mostly know what to expect. This is quite exciting. That is not to say that I am not still constantly surprised by things, like why Kyrgyz people say the grass is blue (even though it's obviously green), but I have started to have somewhat of a stable schedule. Right now Alex and I teach Beginner and Intermediate/Advanced English clubs 2 days a week at my school and at his. We also teach an adult class on Thursdays and Fridays. Additionally, I've also been tutoring a few advanced students individually. So far it has been good.

At this point most of the kids in our village yell “Hello” or “Good Morning Teacher” whenever they see me which is quite silly. Most people in the village are aware of our presence and know why we are in Bakai-Ata which is a bit of a relief. People don't seem so surprised to see a white guy and an Indian girl walking down the street. We have also started to go guesting. In Kyrgyzstan guesting is when you are invited to someone's house for copious amounts of Chai, dinner, and general merry making. It has been interesting to meet so many new people and it has been really good Kyrgyz language practice. I think my language has improved quite a bit since we have arrived.

At home we have begun to spend more time with our family as they seem slightly less busy (the first round of farm work is complete). Over the weekend we spend half a day working in the fields with our sister and cousins. It was tremendously hard work. I now truely understand why farm machinery was invented. That said, the drive home was gorgeous. Wide fields bordered with wild flowers and mountains reaching for the sky in all directions. We also worked on cleaning up the area in front of our new little home. Yesterday we made a cake entitled “Day and Night” or “Half Moon” and made a salad with American dressing (in Kyrgyzstan their dressing is either a lot of salt or mayonnaise---yuck!). Tomorrow, my school's staff are going to go on an excursion for a day which I am very excited about. After that we will visit our friend Thomas's village on his Birthday. Then upon our return, we will begin painting our new house. Exciting huh?

Well, that's the news for now. I am attempting to attach a picture of our backyard, a picture from a party we went to, and a picture of our future home.

Athena

The road to Talas

Upon entering the mountain pass between Chui and Talas purple stone walls rise up on either side, patches of blue/green grasses grow where the rock is most friendly. Amongst the grass are a yellow plants that looks sort of like tiny, yellow evergreen trees (Mom, Dad, Adora---think that elf place in WoW). After a while the rockface turns to blue slate, then dark grey and red as the road continues to follow the icy blue river. As the colors change the grass dissapears. After about 30 minutes the road starts snaking up one of the mountains toward the taller snow covered peaks. Once the road is nearing the peak it veers off into a several kilometer long tunnel through the mountain. On the other side is the Jailoo of Talas, a large grassy plain surronded by mountains. In the summer, families from villages all around Talas take their livestock (or send them with a herder) to the Jailoo to feed for the summer. Herders live in yerts and take care of the live stock until fall.

Alright, I'm certainly not a poet so I'll stop there. I think that somewhat descripes the beautiful drive to my new home, Talas. After becoming official Peace Corps volunteers on the 1^st (Yay!) we headed to Bakai Ata and moved in at our final site. After a long night of wonderful sleep, we were surprised to find that our family has already began fixing up a small house on their property for us to live in. We peeked in yesterday and found it is PERFECT. There will be a small mud room/enterance, that enters into a kitchen/dining room. Off of the kitchen are two small rooms, a bedroom and a living room. In the center of the house is a cast iron coal stove that is used for cooking and heat in the winter. The front looks out to the apple orchard and is shaded by a huge apple tree. At this point the walls are being plastered and painting will start soon. Amazing, right?

This weekend, we ate some delicious homemade food with most of the Talas volunteers and enjoyed some cocktails and the game Apples to Apples (Nena, I know your laughing right now). This afternoon we spent about 7 hours at a party with our new extended family (like 60 people). The party was to celebrate one of relatives being pregnant for the first time. We had a huge feast and talked a lot to a group of genuinely interested and interesting people. I even somehow explained how tea grows and the difference between the growing of white, green, and black tea. It was tiring and wonderful. Tomorrow Alex and I both have our first days of work. Wish us luck!

Love you all,

Athena

Bakai Ata, our new home

We visited our permanent village (Also new address, don't use the old one anymore!)

Since I last updated you all, a lot has happened. We have completed our mid-training language assessment and two active teaching practicums, all of which went quite well. In celebration of May Day my family slaughtered a sheep which we helped butcher and clean (Ok, we helped a little). Overall, the last few weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Lots of learning and excitement sprinkled with a bit of homesickness---I miss you guys! It seems the fact that we now live in Kyrgyzstan is just starting to sink in.

That said, we also received the exciting news that our final placement will be in Talas Oblast in the village of Bakay Ata. Bakay Ata is a village of 8,000 at the edge of the mountains in Talas. Last week we visited and met our new host families, counterparts, and schools. I will be teaching in a small Humanitarian Lyceum that has 150 students. Alex will be teaching at a large Seondary School that serves 800 students. It is about 45 minutes from Talas City, much more of a town than a city, and fairly close to Kazakstan. There is a hospital, a few small stores (that mostly sell candy), an internet cafe, tiny library, 3 schools, a music school, a public banya, a militsia station, a local government building, and a post office. Pretty Detailed huh? (Peace Corps had us make a map)

Visiting was absolutely wonderful, it was exactly what we needed to remember why we came here in the first place. Our host family has a wonderful garden with berry bushes, an apple orchard, vegetables, and chickens---pretty much the mini-farm of my dreams. Our host mother is a pharmacist, host father is a fireman, two younger brothers study/work in Bishkek, two youger sisters go to Alex's school, and little (4 years old) brother runs around a lot. The are friendly, easy-going and incredibily helpful. We have a great room with a stellar view of the garden and a grouping of lily of the valley flowers outside the window. My school is a compound with 4 small buildings in it, that contain 5-6 classrooms and a teachers room. There's a small playground and a 16 friendly teachers. This summer Alex and I will be running an English club 2-3 days a week and, with our friend Jesse, hopefully doing a week long summer camp. All in all, it's exciting. Well, that enough for now.... Here's our address in cyrillic—it will be much more likely to find us written like this---and a picture (or two depending on how long load time takes).

Кыргызстан,

ин. 723800, г. бакай ата раяон

бакай ата айылы

Кыргыз почтасы

атена Parker

Kyrgyzstan

723800 Bakai Ata Rayon

Bakay Ata Village

Kyrgyz Post Office

Athena Parker