We have officially passed the 6 month mark...

October is on it's way and the winds have gotten cold here in Bakai-ata. School is starting (again) after the apple/potato/bean harvest break and we are finished with most of our canning! Right now we are making chutneys and kim-chee to add some flavor to the winter. Thanks to our families we have a nice array of spices to work with and our food is starting to get spicy again. We've also stocked up on a lot of dry ingredients for the winter which has been interesting. Its strange to see 50 kilograms of anything in a place other than Costco.

Last week we had our in-service training for Peace Corps. A lot was review, but we had some really great language lessons. We also had a chance to meet with some of the US Embassy staff as the visited the American corner (resource center in Talas city). They have asked me to start a monthly club for some Talas city students about volunteerism and community service; I think it will be really interesting. In other work related new, I am going to start teaching a yoga class in our village and am working on a grant to buy textbooks for our village schools and do a two day teacher training for the English teachers. Finally, Alex and I are are working with 4 other volunteers to conduct reproductive health trainings for students all over the oblast. What I am saying is, I am finally starting to feel productive!

Alex and I have been doing quite well over all. We are settled into our home and now have a regular work schedule. We've been watching the show “The Wire” which, as everyone has been telling me for years, is amazing. We both are really looking forward to seeing our families in Italy (I cannot wait to taste red wine again!) Right now we are in Bishkek for a few days, after we head back to the village to start school again.

Well, I know the next thing I normally attach are pictures but---I didn't take any! I've been obsessed with trying to get a picture of this super pretty woodpecker and have failed to take other pictures. I promise extra picture s next time I update.

We moved!

I have just begun my 6^th month in Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan, can you believe it? It's September and the weather is starting to get cooler. The trees are full of apples and plums and a strange vine with wispy flowers that seem to belong underwater has appeared on all the bushes. Alex and I have finally moved into our new home! It is a little house right next to our families home and is absolutely wonderful. The last few days have been spent moving in and getting comfortable. We have some great old wooden furniture that our host family is letting us use and a functioning mini-kitchen. I am attaching a few pictures of the house to this post. I think Claire explained its aura the best---it feels sort of like being on the frontier. Not that life is all that hard, we have stores and live behind a post office; but its quiet, we haul our own water, and our heating is a huge coal stove. When you look out the window you see kids herding cows and donkeys pulling carts and at night it's truly dark out. On the other hand, every once in awhile you hear Lady Gaga (or that ridiculous song that goes “I'm sorry I don't mean to be rude, but tonight..” well you know) wafting out of someones car. It's a strange world.

On to interested events. In mid-August we had a rayon wide teachers meeting at which I taught a lesson on lesson planning to the English teachers and mostly followed the rest of the seminar (yay for improving Kyrgyz). August 30^th was a big day in Bakai Ata; it was the 75^th anniversary of our village, Ayt, and the 200^th anniversary of the death , or birth—I'm not quite sure, of Kurmanjian Jatka (not sure if I spelled that correctly). She is a national hero that lived in the Alai Mountains and became an Islamic tribal leader, as a woman!, and united many tribes under her against several invasions. She has a really interesting story, Wikipedia her if you have time. Anyway, there was a big parade on the main street in which the schools, local government staff, fire fighters, police officers, etc were represented. Alex and I marched with our schools. Everyone got dressed up in fancy clothing or Krygyz national dress. Alex and I got there on time and ended up waiting two hours for everyone to trickle in only to find out that the parade walked one block! It was quite silly. Afterward, there was a concert and wrestling match in the park. Families who own yurts set them up as well and served food to the village elders. It was a pretty fun event. After the event we celebrated Ayt which is the end of Ramadan. Every household serves food and tea in a staggered fashion. Families visit 5-10 houses on their streets and celebrate their completion of Ramadan and, presumably, the ability to eat while the sun is still out.

Additionally, school has started. I am officially a teacher—crazy. On the 1^st my school has a ceremony in which all the students come in, register, and watch the first ringing of the school bell. Classes started the next day. In my school there are two shifts, during first shift 5^th through 11^th grades have four classes from 8am to noon. All of my classes will be during this morning shift. So far, I know I am teaching 12 hours M-F but the full schedule is still being created. I was super scared, but everything has been going well so far. I've also successfully purchased some teacherly clothing which, as you all know, is an accomplishment with my shopping skills.

Adora---two of them items I bought at a second hand store and they ended up being from H&M; I'm way to predictable. Also, I made apple pie.

Well, I thinks thats all for now. Time to make some Kampot (canned juice).

Current banka count: 23

(Banka=2 litre jar for winter)

Fall approaches...

It's August and summer is coming to an end. I am having trouble believing that this is our 5^th month in Kyrgyzstan! We have been quite busy this month so far because we helped with two camps in Talas. One was a HIV/AIDS awareness camp run by volunteers in Talas, the other a leadership camp run by 3 Flex program grads (the Flex program is a highly competitive program that takes exceptional Kyrgyz students to do a year of high school in America). Both camps were worthwhile and fun, though tiring. At the moment we are back in Bakai Ata for a few days before heading to Bishkek for a training on health education. I am pretty excited about it as I want to start a nutrition education program in our village.

We have started spending our settling in allowance and have purchased a few pots a pans, a cooktop, cutting boards, and wooden spoons. That said, we've started cooking more which is wonderful. I've also started preserving fruit for the winter. So far I have been drying sliced apples and apricot pulp (which will be FRUIT LEATHER) on the roof and drying a breaking open the apricot seeds in order to collect the delicious nuts that live inside. Mostly, I've been feeling a lot like a squirrel collecting for the winter. It's been a fun endeavor. Apricots are starting to dwindle, but the plum and apple trees are full. Eggplants are super cheap (15 com/kilo =30 cents/kilo) so we made some babaganouche---hmmm I spelled that kinda French like and I don't know how to fix it. We also stocked up on garlic since it is also quite reasonably priced right now. Everyone has been saying that September is the month in which the bazzar is full of the largest variety of food, so I'm excited. I hear that there will be another batch of strawberries, lots of pumpkin, and a variety of of beans. It is also the month when families do the bulk of their canning for the winter, so it should be busy since it is also when school starts!

I guess that's it for now. Love you guys!

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