I apologize for the long pause! The past week/10/12 days (I’ve lost count!) have been crazy! After our 3 day orientation in the capital city of Bishkek, we were separated into groups for our Pre-Service Training (PST). Therefore, internet is pretty scarce now. My group is housed in the village of Luxemburg, which is approximately half an hour away from Bishkek. In our village, there is actually another group as well. There are about 6 groups that consist of 2 groups. So, there are 6 villages and in each village, there are two groups. We have our language classes in our villages and meet in the center of all the groups at Krasnayarechka for medical, cultural and program training.
We each live with a host family and my family is a wonderful family of six! The big family I never had! My “mother” is actually the grandmother of the family. Or, the chon-apa as they say in Kyrgyz. That’s right, I’m learning the Kyrgyz language! The language is so interesting because of the Turkic and Russian influence. The grammar on the other hand…. so many rules for endings! It’s crazy to see how much we have learned in just 5 days of language schooling! Anyways, back to my family. My “mother” is 65 years old and her name is Nyrjamal. Also living with her are: her son, Taalaй, daughter-in-law, Sveta, grandson, Adelet (23), grand-daughter, Alina (21), and grandson, Argen (15). They are farmers and so everything we eat is from their garden. They also have a cow for milking, which they sell to the milkmen, who will buy their milk to sell to venders (like restaurants, bakeries and etc.) in Bishkek. They also use the milk for their own personal purposes such as drinking, yogurt and porridge making. The yogurt my mother makes is AMAZING!!!! Seriously. You have not had yogurt until you’ve had this yogurt. It has a similar taste to Greek yogurt. Here, we add some of the fruit jam to it. They add this jam (also homemade) to tea, bread, porridge and well, pretty much everything. Tea is one of the sacred drinks here. We have tea all day and every day. It’s actually quite nice! We also have salad and bread with every meal. I have yet to eat a bad meal here! I’m sure I still have some interesting dishes to taste.
The outhouse here is quite interesting and surprisingly easier to assimilate to than I had originally thought. I just tell myself it’s like a 2 year camping trip! The other thing that has been easier to get used to is the amount of baths/showers I take here. Back in the United States, we take baths for granted. We have the luxury to do so whenever and how ever many times we want. Here, it’s just not possible to do so. I’m actually quite lucky and my family has a modern shower with hot water. Most of the other volunteers however, either have a banya or must go to a public banya. Although my family has a shower, they do not take a shower every day. Despite telling me that I can shower whenever I want to, I feel that I must do what they do. So… it’s a shower every 3 days. I have had fellow volunteers who have yet to take a bath since two Sundays ago, or they’ve only had one bath since then. Water is a sacred thing. Appreciate it. Seriously. Luckily, it’s not summer yet. I can’t even imagine… sorry.
As mentioned, internet/wi-fi is also not common here. Therefore, I only have access on certain days during the week when we go to the training center. Please excuse the long pauses that may continue to occur. We will become busier with more intensive language training and program training. All is well in the Kyrgyz Republic! The mountains are beautiful, the people are welcoming and my fellow volunteers are wonderful! I’m safe and I’m healthy! What more could a girl ask for? Here are a few pictures to prove it:
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