Finally an update!!!! Most recent last

December 11, 2005

Well its Sunday afternoon, and I am bored.

Thursday and Friday were pretty fun teaching days, though it’s a long week of classes. I have 22 hours to teach and four of my classes are really advanced, which is great. I have my first day of club tomorrow at 2, as well. I think I am going to bring whatever I can find, and we will decorate my classroom. Clubs are kind of like extra English lessons after school, where we can discuss anything students who show up want. I haven’t decided what kind of club to have, if I will center it around a certain topic or not, I mean.

So I spent Thursday in my room intently working on a Christmas puzzle that my parents sent me. The thing about me is that once I start something I don’t stop until I finish it. I guess that is good and bad, but I seriously spent 7 hours working on this damn puzzle until it was complete. And then to top it off I was missing one of the 500 pieces. I gave up after searching my room for another hour, and then went to bed. I woke up in the morning and saw the puzzle piece, blending in with my rug, right in front of me, of course. So thanks mom and dad for sending me the puzzle, it was entertaining…

I had my first Kyrgyz lesson here as well. My host mother is a Kyrgyz teacher, so I don’t have to get a tutor. We are starting at the beginning, again. This way I’ll maybe remember some of the stuff I learned in September.

My favorite student, Myrambek, (the one that white-washed me) is becoming a pain in the ass. He likes to kiss my hand and put his arm around me, and then leaves the classroom to ‘go to the toilet’ and never comes back, Maybe its better that way.

On Saturday I was silly. I woke up at 8 to head into Talas City to meet Macheala and use the Internet. I didn’t bother to check the weather, as it is dark here until about 9 am, since we are the only country in the world that doesn’t change the clocks, ever. So I put on jeans, wool socks, a sweater and my shell of my coat. And then a hat and gloves. I walked to the bus station which is about a two-mile walk, and I thought I might die. It was so cold. My fault for dressing poorly, but I figured I would be in a warm marchrutka, sweating from having a hundred people crammed in with me, like previous times. Apparently the times have changed. The marchrutka I took had no heat, and I was next to the back window, which never thawed. The driver didn’t even bother to thaw out any of his windows. He just scratched a little part off so he could see and then me and 17, seriously, 17 other people headed into Talas. Its and hour ride. Without stops. But, in a marchrutka you stop and pick people up along the way, and let people off. It was horrible. I had a 17-year-old girl on my lap and I still froze. I was so cold that I was shaking and she kept looking at me to see what was wrong. Never again will I go out without my thermal long underwear, and at least two sweaters and my down coat. When I finally got to the multi-media center I just sat on a heater until I could feel my body again. It was a horrible experience but self-inflicted, I know Dad.

Well we emailed for a while and then had lunch at a cafÈ with the best pizza I have had in Kyrgyzstan. We found out new treat for trips to the city. Chris and Melinda, a married couple in the city got there internet hooked up, so they have dial-up in their house, and I am jealous. They say it works wonderfully and is actually cheaper at night, which is when I will be using it. I can’t wait.

Macheala and I hit the bazaar to try and find the ingredients we needed to make no bake cookies and hot chocolate. After quite a struggle, we managed to find vanilla and baking cocoa, the two tough ingredients. Vanilla is powdered and comes in tiny packets like yeast comes in. You can only buy half a teaspoon at a time. So if someone wanted to send vanilla to me, I would be grateful, powdered or bottled. (Preferably powdered). We bought oats, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, butter and powdered milk and went on our way. I also bought a dress coat, finally to wear to school over my nice clothes. Appearance is extremely important in Kyrgyzstan. Everyone dresses nicely in public, especially the men. I whacked one of my students with my chalkboard eraser rag and I thought he would rip my head off, he was so mad. So my big red coat has gotten me some weird looks at school. Now I have a black button up quilted pea-coat style dress coat to wear to school, with removable fur trim, as that is the style here.

We took a marchrutka with heat back to the village, which is now a two-hour trip as we don’t have snow plows here. Nicole came over and we listened to music and I actually made hot chocolate mix. I am pretty proud of myself. My family brought a small table into my room so we could eat supper in private which was really sweet, even though unneccesrry, and then my brother served us. Such a sweet family. Macheala and I got a surprise banya, so we were happy, and then we made no-bake cookies. We have a gas stove, so it was pretty easy. We brought my computer downstairs and listen to Christmas music and cooked. The family loved it. (My host sister was visiting with her two babies and her cute husband). Afterward, to let the cookies cool, we just stuck them outside and they were cold within minutes. They were a huge hit, the family ate them all. They even asked for the recipe in Kyrgyz, but you can’t get peanut butter here, the main ingredient. A pretty successful cooking venture. Next is Kahluha and pumpkin pie for Christmas.

So all in all, a good weekend, with a hard lesson learned. DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT LONG JOHNS. EVER.


Tuesday, December 13, 2005

I’ve brought Christmas to Kyrgyzstan!

As I walked home from my daily trek to the post office this afternoon, I saw a lonesome Christmas tree in front of a small, local shop. Next to it was a table filled with all sorts of ornaments and stars for the top. I couldn’t resist… Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I bought the tree, (its about four feet tall), and a star topper, along with a box of silver and blue bulbs and a box of red and blue bigger bulbs. Oh yeah and a red garland too. I rushed home, in such a hurry to decorate it, that of course I broke the stand when I slipped on the ice (NOT WEARING MY YAK-TRACKS, SILLY ME), but it still stands up and looks great in my bedroom. I hung my stocking above it and put my Christmas presents underneath. I am proud to say that they are all still unopened and re-wrapped (Thanks to Laurie, when the postal workers took the liberty to open my package). Christmas shouldn’t be that bad!

Two days into school this week and all ready I want to throw students out the window, (and by the way my own window, as I finally got my classroom up and running and in use). What the hell do you do when two 10th grade boys are fighting in the classroom, seriously fist fighting, and they don’t really understand the words stop, go the director’s office or sit down? I tried to beat them with a stick, really Dad, but they just ignored me.

Lucky for me the other students like me a lot and feel like those rowdy boys are shaming me, so the good students got them to settle down and wait for class to end to finish the fight.

Now I don’t remember ever being as active and obnoxious in the 8th grade as my 8th grade students are. I know that 8th grade was the year where I threw a tantrum when one teacher gave me an A-. I was an angel. I went to class, I played a million sports and I did my homework. I didn’t throw things at the boys or knock over people’s chairs during class. I didn’t try to get the teacher to write obscenities on the blackboard. And I definitely did not get up and leave class and go home for the day, whenever I felt like it (Those days came in high school). My 8th graders might just drive me insane by the end of the year. On top of that half of them don’t speak and Kyrgyz, so I can hardly communicate with them. Twice a week, only twice a week.

At home, my host mother is a kick in the pants. She loves to use my Kyrgyz dictionary to look up every new word she teaches me, to make sure that I understand it. Even if I tell her, yes I understand. She’s hilarious. Today she looked up a word to describe my 8th grade class, and the English translation was ‘greenhorn or raw youth.’ Then she told me something about her son, and pointed to ‘manpower.’ I sometimes get the jest of what she is saying. But how funny is it that I had to look up the English translation in the dictionary to find out that ‘greenhorn’ means somebody who is naÔve and unsophisticated. I love our Kyrgyz lessons.

More exciting news, that may make some of you laugh. But thanks to the last female volunteer before me, I am the proud owner of a Kyrgyz curling iron, which I have been looking for all over. (Mine have to be converted for heating reasons and I don’t like using all my propane for my portable). Pretty exciting!

Another sad note. My puppy here, Chase, was kidnapped from our house last night! He was so fluffy and cute, and I hadn’t even got around to taking his picture yet. That’s the last straw with me and dogs in this country. I’m happy with the stuffed one sitting on my desk. That poor puppy didn’t even have ears, and someone still took him? I don’t understand. I had trained him too, to be nice, to cuddle and to come when I whistled. Such a letdown. And don’t ask why he didn’t have ears. (They cut them off. I don’t know why and they just laugh at me when I ask).

December 17, 2005

If I decide to stay in Kyrgyzstan and become a ‘kellen’ I have had more than enough offers this week, (A kellen by the way, is a woman who marries the youngest son in a family. She then proceeds to move in with her husband’s family and will spend the rest of her life basically as a slave, working to keep the in-laws happy and have babies all the while).

In class this week, I got my first love note. It was from a student named Nurmat. Instead of taking the test over body parts like the rest of the class, he drew me a fancy heart with an arrow through it and my name and his inside and gave it to me.

It was a good week though, all in all.

I did have a bad experience with a nasty Russian woman though. I went down town to the little cafÈ where Erich and Nicole have a community English conversation group on Wednesday nights. I was very bundled up after learning my lesson last weekend, so I had entered the cafÈ without looking around, slowly peeling off layers. After a minute of thawing out, this nasty woman came flying at me like Cruela Deville, grabbing my arm and my coat off the coat rack, pulling my toward the door. I had no idea what was going on, and tried to object, only to get an earful of Russian screaming, and then was pushed out the door, it shutting in my face. I stood outside, on the verge of tears for a minute and then a waitress came running outside to explain to me that the cafÈ had been rented out for a private party. Feeling a bit defeated, I trudged back home in my yak-traks, and went to bed early.

I have been having bad luck with the Internet this week, every time I have gone to use it, it has stopped working or the dial up shuts off. So no Internet for more than a week. Hopefully this one is better.

Five days of walking to the Post office too, and nothing. Mail is not going to get the best of me though, that’s for sure. I’ll keep walking down and checking every single day, no matter how hard those postal women laugh at me.
Nicole and I did some more baking though, we successfully made Erich a birthday cake and I made oatmeal cookies for the family, despite not having vanilla, brown sugar or cinnamon. They still tasted good. We cut up a chocolate bar for the chocolate chips, and everything worked out. Next week for our Christmas party we are having apple pie, made by me and a date/walnut cake made by Nicole. I also made Kahluha last week and am going to try a hot sangria punch this week. Should be a pretty good time.

Today is Erich’s birthday and all the volunteers are coming to our village to have a get together at the cafÈ, and then are planning to come here afterward. I love having a big house. In case I haven’t described it, it was two floors, which is extremely uncommon here, and four rooms upstairs. Four bedrooms and one giant formal dining room. Downstairs there is a kitchen, a smaller dining area, a foyer and a side room for laundry and storage. We have a big yard and our outhouse overlooks the town, which is extra special, because as the students walk home from school, they can see you going out to the outhouse, and like to yell hello and such. We also have a barn full of hay and one cow that we keep as a pet.

I experienced my first awkward student-teacher-principal encounter as well this week. I am not sure what was going on, or just what I walked in on, but the assistant principal was holding a big stick in her hand and three third form boys were in tears, yelling in strained Kyrgyz, which of course I couldn’t even begin to understand. Older students kept being called into the teacher’s room to be scolded. I saw one teacher chasing an 11th former down the hallway. It was madness and I am afraid to use more detail than that.

December 18, 2005

Well the cake was a success! It was actually really good and our group ate the entire thing. Six of us got together on Saturday afternoon for Erich’s birthday. We met at a cafÈ and then opened gifts from each village. Surprisingly, Nicole and I had gotten Erich the exact same thing as the other village. A Jesus clock. These are very popular here, so we thought Erich should have one. IT is a regular clock but the middle is Jesus on a cross with his arms coming out to point to the time. Pretty funny. Everyone in Kyrgyzstan has one, so now Erich has two, one of which is set to daylight savings time, which is an hour earlier, as the time is supposed to be here, but isn’t. We had a pretty good time, and even danced a bit at the disco until some of the Kyrgyz men got a little too friendly with Nicole, Machalla and I. We left and went to my house where we ate bread and this cheese spread stuff that we found at a store. Erich had a pretty good birthday and I just want to say thank you to his family for sending him bottles of Jim Beam. I enjoyed my whiskey and coke immensely.

Sunday I have devoted entirely to laundry. I haven’t done any laundry in a month, so it was a long and hard process, even with a machine. The machine only allows a bout a quarter of an American washing machine load, so it takes a lot of time. I even was picky in what I washed, but a month is a long time. I have every pair of underwear I have on the line outside. It is actually a pretty sunny day, so the clothes are drying pretty quickly. I am drying some heavy socks on my heater, it helps speed the process along.

With this post I am hoping to put up pictures… who knows if it will work or not. Thanks to Machalla for loaning my her USB stick for a while. I have great friends, here and at home. (I miss you guys so much)!

December 20, 2005

Still no Internet. Hopefully this afternoon. And also no mail.

What a day. I guess I am just starting to get used to the quarks of teaching in a crazy country, because just as I thought I was settling in and getting comfortable with my schedule, my students pointed out that I was in the wrong place today, every lesson. I went down and tried to decipher the ‘class schedule.’ Which is completely in Russian. I figured out the Russian word for English, and noticed that all of my class times had been moved and switched around. An entirely new schedule that no one thought to inform me of. Wonderful. So most of my lesson plans that I had prepared this week had to be changed, because I would no longer be seeing some certain classes on certain days and such. Because of this certain classes were missed on Monday, which puts some classes behind, etc. A real pain. Oh well. It also gave me two more lessons, which brings me up to 22 lessons a week.

And besides the scheduling crisis, my 8th grade still has not calmed down. It was worse today. I don’t know if they got anything out of my entire lesson. They were wild. First off I don’t have enough chairs for all of them and absolutely cannot get more. Second, one of them, after being punished, decided to pull his coat up over his head like the headless horseman and walk into the walls. Seriously, do they not discipline these kids or teach them how to act in the classroom? I am not going to resort to chasing them around with a giant stick like I’ve seen done, but I am about to that point with the younger ones. The rest are very well behaved. As long as the subject isn’t too dull, then the students are very attentive, even the boys who can’t write their own names in English. But, not the 8th grade. It’s tough.

I am trying to post a picture of my favorite boys at school. They made me a Happy New year’s sign on their own, and brought it to me today. They are 11th formers and all though they don’t speak any English and really don’t want to, they still behave well and are very sweet.

Christmas is not celebrated here, but New Year’s is a big party. I have been trying to explain Christmas and music, and one student actually burst out singing
Yesterday’ by the Beatles. Apparently Mr. Green, the volunteer before me liked the Beatles.

December 5-7

This is a picture of my old host family at the swearing in ceremony.


Top 5 Things that have happened to me this week so far (It is only Wednesday)

5. One of my 18-year-old students white washed me on my way home from school.
4. The kids at the Internet Café stole my USB stick.
3. My new ‘Apa’ (Mother) poured hot water into my cereal
2. I sat through my first ‘teacher’s’ meeting
1. More than half of my 200 students speak Russian. (I don’t).

Well, the good news is my school has heat. As does my house.

The bad news is, half of my students are Russian and I speak a total of six words in Russian. I can’t even pronounce their names. It’s a little bit difficult teaching English to Russian speakers when my small amount of language is Kyrgyz. The Russian students do not speak Kyrgyz. The Kyrgyz students speak Russian though, but that doesn’t really help. It does when the classes are mixed, so then I say something like “What is your name” or ‘sisdene atum askim’ in Kyrgyz, and then they translate it into Russian for me, and then the students answer. It’s a tough system, but it will have to work. I am spending my nights now trying to learn some basic Russian with a couple of manuals and books that I have. I would like to eventually be able to teach in all English, but I have to be realistic. Yelling out ‘Quiet’ in English doesn’t have much affect on any of my students. (There are more than 1000 students at my school).

But besides all that, it has been a great week so far. I began on Monday, walking into the teachers’ room to be greeted by my Director. (Director=Principal). She is a big, touch looking woman who wears a warm furry hat, and when I say fur, I mean like real fur, covering her whole head. She likes me though. A lot. She likes to touch my hair. Don’t ask me why, but she always smooths down the right side of my hair, even though it isn’t out of place or anything.

Anyway, on Monday I went straight into my lessons, beginning first with a 10 A. This is tenth grade, class A, which is 16-year-olds. And some 17-year-olds too. In Kyrgyzstan you have 11 grades, not 12, so my 11th grade students are 18 and some 19. My first lesson only had six students. The way school works here is, if you come you come, and if you don’t you don’t. Reasons for missing class include, working at home, being sick, not polishing your shoes (Shoes here must be polished all the time), not wanting to come, being ‘on duty’ which means you are standing in front of a door, being bored, etc. Students are not required to come to class. It is hard to get them to come all the time.
Anyway with all of my first week classes I have decided just to review and try to find out what English they all ready know. It seems to be working, I began with days of the week, numbers, introductions, basic getting to know one another questions, animals and family.

I see each class twice a week. I have 10 classes, so 20 lessons per week. Five everyday. Which is okay, as there are six periods in a day and I have one free period. School starts at 8:00 and ends at 1:00. On Mondays and Wednesdays I will have English Club after school, be request of my students, at 2:00. Here I will bring my computer, Cds and such, and we will speak English, listen to music and try to have discussions.

I teach one section of Russian 8th grade, both sections A,B, four sessions of 9th grade, sections A,B,V,G. (No idea why they are those letters), three sessions of 10th grade, sections A, B, V and two sections of 11th grade, sections A and B. Totaling more than 200 kids. I am trying to get a fifth grade as well. (Fifth grade is as young as they can strat English).

Can you believe that I am responsible for teaching more than 200 kids English? It’s an awesome, amazing opportunity.

The hard part is that the 11th graders are barely three years younger than me, and are fully grown boys, some with mustaches. The girls are at the point where they either get married or go to college, depending on money. Its going to be hard to teach them, both because it is so important for some of them to learn English, and also because a lot of the boys know they aren’t going to college and will be working in the fields for the rest of their lives. Really a split class, but today I just sat on my desk and talked to them. One of the boys in the class is very tall and big, he looks like a college student. Throws me a little off guard, but its okay. During introductions the class convinced me that he was 20 and has a wife and two kids at home. I believed them, this is Kyrgyzstan afterall, land of the ‘get married when you are 15!!!’ It turned out to be a joke and one girl actually asked me if we could learn things like the future tense and the simple present. I looked at her like she was crazy, I didn’t expect students to be that advanced. But, only she is. So she will work with me one-on-one after school.

In between classes today, I noticed a gap in the schedule for 10 minutes. Confused, I went and sat down in the teachers’ room wondering why from 10:25-10:35 we had a break in the schedule. Little did I know that was actually the time when the director conducts a teachers’ meeting, in the teacher’s room. It was insane. Everyone was quiet, and the director went on and on harshly in Kyrgyz, banging her fist on the desk as she went. I was a bit confused. But my name was being thrown into her fanatic speech! No idea why. And also I wondered about the Russian teachers, do they understand Kyrgyz?

Oh yeah, so this morning I got up, looking forward to my daily treat, cereal that I found at the bazaar. Cornflakes, mind you. Every morning I get up, run outside to the outhouse, come back into my warm bedroom, get dressed, fix my hair, make my bed, fill up my water bottle and head downstairs for tea. My apa is all ready up, as she gets us extra early and milks the cows. Here we don’t sell our milk though, we just drink it. Usually I have breakfast alone and then we walk to school together. (She is a Kyrgyz teacher at the same school). But, this morning she fixed my cereal for me, against my will. When I reached for the jar of milk, she grabbed the tea kettle and poured hot water on my precious cornflakes, then added milk. It was a sad morning. But, me being the go-with-the-flow sweet girl that I am, just put a little sugar on em’ and sucked it up, pretending it was oatmeal. Anyone who knows me knows I am a texture eater, so anything with a weird texture, I don’t eat, (Like squishy grapes, any kind of bruised fruit, ANYTHING SOGGY, leftovers, cottage cheese, etc). I managed though. I’m a new girl I tell you. I don’t think there is anything I can’t handle anymore. Well, maybe a mouse in the classroom, that might put me on a direct flight back to Idaho. (I forgot to mention that the students in Erich’s school (another volunteer in my village) brought a live mouse into his classroom last week).

It snowed this morning and hasn’t stopped. I woke up with just a little bit of snow, and when I left school there was nearly a foot. I guess the first snow always makes the students anxious, because as I mentioned above, the male student who was said to married tackled me and white washed me right in front of my school. Of course I wasn’t about to take that from some boy, so I had to fight back. I guess he wasn’t used to girls with good arms, because I pelted him in the back of the head as I walked away. Caught him off-guard. Thanks dad for always pelting me with snowballs when I walked up our driveway at home, it kept me on my toes. Sorry mom that you still have to deal with that, I’m sure every day.

My counterpart, well acting counterpart, until the real one comes back from ‘being sick’ (three and a half months), abuses the command tense. She yells at me, ‘Sit down.’ ‘TAKE OUT YOUR SCHEDULE.’ ‘WHERE ARE YOU GOING?’ ‘GO HOME NOW.’ It’s a bit frightening at times. Like when she says ‘Go home now.’ I feel like I am getting kicked out of school or something.

I do have a brother that lives with us here. His name is Zamir, and he is wonderful. He corrects my broken Kyrgyz and offers up random English words all the time. But he always comes running to open the gate for me, after I got caught jumping over it, instead of ringing the doorbell. He is 18 and is studying to be a lawyer. Here you just go straight to law school, no college. He does all the work around the house, including making me lunch, which I feel guilty about. But he forces me to drink at least two cups of tea all the time, which I can’t stand. Oh well. I love this family and am 100 times happier here than where I was before. We have honey here too, so I can put it in my tea if I want. We also have milk and juice. Homemade tomato juice, which is another one of those texture things I was talking about, but I manage to drink it anyway. We also have homemade bread and I am not forced to eat anything I don’t like. My apa understands that I don’t like giant steaks of fat, so she always prepares something else for me. Its great. Privacy too. I love it.

This weekend Machaela and I are having a slumber party at my house after we go into Talas to use the Internet. We are going to try to make hot chocolate mix, which I have a recipe for, and no-bake cookies too if we can find oatmeal.

Hopefully the Internet Café owner will find my USB stick, he said he would interrogate every boy that comes in to play video games. Here they don’t mess around, when an older person confronts a child, it isn’t usually pretty. I think he’ll find it.

THE GOOD NEWS IS NEXT WEEK I AM GETTING INTERNET AT MY HOUSE!!!

Wow! Umm... December 3, 2005

December all ready, that’s exciting. Well we did it. All 59 (We started with 66) of us are now official Peace Corps volunteers. Thursday morning we got up early to say our good byes to our host families. A taxi came to pick me up at 9:00 am, but because this entire country runs on ‘Kyrgyz time’ it showed up closer to 10. Thus creating a small situation, as we were supposed to be at the Culture House in Tokmok for the ceremony by 10:30. And on top of that, the car broke down on the road. We ended up flagging down another beater car to take us the rest of the way to the ceremony but about a block away, he got a flat tire. We eventually made, walking.

Our host families were invited to the ceremony. Mine showed up about an hour into it, with the little spoiled kid who screams constantly. Rebecca’s were about an hour and a half late.

The ceremony was great. We sang the National Anthem, and really felt patriotic throughout the whole thing. I think most of us were a little teary eyed, but we held up. Jeff gave an amazing emotional speech to us, that helped keep us all motivated. Each speech given was translated into Kyrgyz and Russian, or English for us. The Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Kyrgyz Republic, Alikbek Djekshenkulov, spoke to us, telling us that “the outhouses may be cold, but our hearts are warm.” Also, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary her Excellency Marie Yovanovitch spoke and rendered our official oath to become volunteers. Three of my fellow volunteers gave speeches as well. Dane in English, Phil in Russian and Jesika in Kyrgyz. Afterward we took pictures, which I will try to post, and had refreshments. It was quite a site, watching all of our host mothers filling their pockets with all the appetizers.

We took a bus to the Issucle Hotel after the ceremony to check in , drop of luggage and relax before heading to the Ambassador’s house for a reception. Rebecca and I sat and watched our once channel of Russian talk shows and ate Chips Ahoy cookies that her mom sent. Neither of us were looking forward to the separation the next day.

At around six we headed to the reception. The house was fabulous. Makes me want to go into Diplomatic work. Waitresses served us mini pizzas, mini hamburgers and soda. She had bowls of Doritos and pretzels around the house for us. We were in heaven. People swarmed the waitresses as soon as they walked into the room. And a real bathroom…

I had a chance to meet and talk with the Ambassador, as well as a few other employees from the Embassy, which was really great.

Afterward, we headed into the city and hit the Fire and Ice club. The entire downstairs was a bowling alley, much nicer than the bowling alley in Sandpoint, and the upstairs was a big dance club. We actually had a blast, bowling and then dancing. I even got to drink a rum and coke. And I didn’t have to pay for it. It was total culture shock. I forgot I was in Kyrgyzstan for a few hours. We headed back to the hotel at about 1, where we realized it was Rebecca’s birthday. The two of us shared one shot of Bailey’s, all we could afford, and some oreos, again from Rebecca’s mom, and she called home on her cell phone, for about 22 seconds, as cell phones run on units here, so you have to buy units to talk or text message. And one unit does not equal a minute. For example, for me to call America with units, it takes about 40 to connect and then for each minute, about another 40. So for a one-minute call it is 80 units. And I buy 200 unit cards. So one call would use half of my card. To send a text message to another volunteer it is about 2.5 units. So we never call each other, we only send texts. It doesn’t take away any units to receive calls or messages.

Then came the morning. It was tough. After all we have been through together, we all went our separate ways. At 8 am, we said good-bye in the hotel lobby, as people piled bags and bags of luggage into taxis, busses, marchutkas and me, the Peace Corps private bus, that took us into Talas. We have about four Peace Corps couples now, so watching all the good byes was pretty miserable. All the couples were places hours and hours from one another. Rebecca and I are about seven hours apart. Laurie and I are about 20. Xouhoa, Christabelle and I are about 7 hours apart and one hour apart from each other. Its going to be tough up here in Talas. I keep hearing that they send the hardcore people to Talas, but hardcore is probably not a word I would ever use to describe myself in less we were talking about shopping.

The Peace Corps bus is a big white diplomatic vehicle with a private driver. He took us first to a nice store in Bishkek, where I actually found a can of Diet Pepsi, that I am saving for Christmas. We drove through Kazakstan this trip, as the mountain road is closed. It was a long drive.

The eight of us, down one as Katie was moved into Bishkek, mostly slept until we reached the first border crossing. We had to get out of the bus and wait for about 40 minutes to get out of the country and then walk across the border and do the same thing again to get into Kazakstan. After that we were on our way. We drove for a couple of hours through a flat part of Kazakstan and then were back at the border, once again having to get out of the bus and try to get approved to leave Kazakstan and then again, walk across the border and enter through Kyrgyzstan. It was a hassle, but still much better than driving through that mountain pass.

By the way, Amy, a volunteer in Talas with me from Chicago, called me a priss and said she was impressed that someone as material as me joined the Peace Corps. I just can’t escape my material background. It think it was mostly because as I attempted to deal with the border crossing’s disgusting outhouse, she was laughing. I told her she was just more ‘third world’ than I was. She took that as a complement. Its funny, I think we are complete opposites. But, she’s great. She is an SCOD, or a business volunteer, and her NGO is at an internet media center. Lucky break.

My village is about 35 kilometers from the border, and we got to drive right past the dam, with a giant Lenin head potroding from the concrete. The lake level was down as we drove by, but otherwise was beautiful. The scenery in Talas is amazing. You couldn’t ask for a more beautiful place to live. It may be isolated, but I have permission to travel into Kazakstan twice a month to shop and use the internet in Taras City. Apparently there are lots of ATM’s and crosswalks. Nicole, the other volunteer in my village (K12), said I might feel culture shock going there as it is so clean and nice.

After quite a struggle to locate my four massive bags from the bus, my new host mother’s nephew carried them all upstairs to my room. We immediately had soup and tea and then instead of attempting to unpack I went and met Erich and Nicole at a local cafÈ. We sat and talked for a few hours and then they walked me home. I didn’t wake up until 9 this morning. (Saturday).

I unpacked. Everything. All my clothes are neatly organized once again. My closet is bursting, as it isn’t as big as my previous armoire. I covered the walls with pictures of friends and family, and of course of Kodi, (My puppy). I created my own bookcase, hung up posters of Chris Shivers (rodeo), the Dixie Chicks, a map of Kyrgyzstan and used the shelves that I have for my water distiller and my Angel of Courage, my mini-Kodi (Justin), my horseshoe and a picture of Katie and I with Santa. I also hung up all the decorations that my mom sent for Christmas, and my stocking as well. I made a table out of my heater box and a piece of fabric and am proudly displaying my ‘Grinch Stole Christmas’ book, my musical Santa merry-go-round and my clock. I think it (my room) turned out pretty nice. And its warm. I have heat in the house as well as my own heater, and every time I turn my purifier on, it creates heat as well. So no more nights of sleeping in five layers and my hat and gloves, waking up to my Nalgene frozen. I think I will be much happier here. All ready I am content with the freedom that I have.

After I unpacked, I took my list of things I needed to buy and walked to the post office, which wasn’t open, and then to the bazaar. I ended up buying pomegranates, as they are my new favorite, can’t live without, fruit, an electric-cordless hot pot, to heat water with, a sweater and some expandable folders. The weather was gorgeous, and the walk is nice. The bazaar is small, I couldn’t find any hangers, but I was very happy with what it has. I can even get bottled water in the village, without bubbles. (The only kind of water people drink here is gas water).

Tomorrow I will head into Talas City for a welcoming party from the K-12’s.

So I saved my exciting news for last. Through the local post office I can get dial-up Internet for my computer. Neither Nicole nor Erich have computers, so they want to chip in and share it with me. So I will soon be on Messenger again. I can’t wait. Such exciting news!

Anyway, I start teaching on Monday morning, even though I have no counterpart, and have no idea what is going on, but I’m going to try anyway. I guess if I just show up at the school, they will point me to my classroom and I’ll get by!

By the way this is my address, I’m sorry I change it all the time. It is still the same as the last time I sent it; just one line is being taken out. I don’t need to include my street, as any American mail is kept separate at the post office, and I have to go pick it up.

Elizabeth Dalessio
Kyzyl Adyr Village
Kara Buura Rayon
Talas Oblast 722700
Kyrgyzstan

Hope everyone is doing well. I miss everyone so much!