Well, I have officially entered Week 4 of training in the Kyrgyz Republic! Hard to believe that I will soon have been here for a month. My Kyrgyz language skills are improving slowly, but surely. Let’s just say I can pronounce it and write it out grammatically. When it comes to actually speaking it… well I still have a while to go! I mean, I think I’m at the same level of a 4 year old by now? Surely.
Today, I was finally able to travel around by myself and decided to celebrate it with a nice hike. I visited some friends/fellow volunteers in a nearby village and we hiked the hills and valleys near them. While they have the luxury of doing so at their leisure, I am not so lucky and it was just what I needed! I’ve really missed my Denver hikes and finally getting the opportunity to see Kyrgyzstan’s beautiful scenery was the perfect remedy. It was most certainly an interesting and unforgettable hike!
Let me start from yesterday and by explaining the crazy multi-polar Kyrgyz weather. Half of yesterday was hot, humid and sunny. Then in the afternoon, out of nowhere, a mini-sandstorm emerged with huge gusts of wind. Hence, the sandstorm. Shortly afterwards, it started pouring rain and caused a power outage. I had been celebrating a friend’s birthday and we ended up waiting over 2 hours for our food due to the outage. The majority of the evening was spent in the dark and waterless. I’m not quite sure what the connection between the two is, but nevertheless, that’s how it was.
Fast forwarding to this morning…. we started our hike in pretty muddy conditions! Yay! Silly me chose to not invest some super duty hiking boots before leaving the states. After trekking in muddy hills for a while, we finally stumbled upon a ridge that overlooked the nearby villages and it was absolutely breath-taking. We then decided to continue the adventure and attempted to reach a higher ridge nearby. Attempted is the key word here and we failed pretty miserably. Most of us were slipping and falling in the mud and it was hilarious. After deciding to take a different route and head back, we then stumbled upon rain. At first, it was gorgeous with the clouds and fog rolling in and surrounding us. Then, it actually started to rain and we couldn’t see the path back down.
Long story short, we did eventually make it back home. Despite the rain, mud, cows and cow poop. Whew!
The next post coming up this weekend will be information on my permanent site! That’s right! We find out where will officially be placed for the next two years on Friday! So exciting yet so far away… I think that my prayers to be a more patient person are definitely being answered. If you know me, I certainly need a lot of it!
After a much needed hike, two blisters and several sore muscles later, I look forward to recuperating this week and am in anticipation of what this weekend has to offer!
so glad you got to hike!!
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