A quite tardy update...

I’m coming up on my eight-month-versary of living in Kyrgyzstan, and I definitely feel like I’ve hit a sweet spot. The biggest change in my life over the past two-ish months has been building really great relationships in Toktogul. Over the summer, I got to know a few lovely English teachers in town and my host family, but to most people I was just the weird blonde person who bought a lot of tomatoes. Working with teenagers through my Youth Health Educator group and my English club has allowed me to get to know many young people and, by extention, their families and friends. Many months ago, a more seasoned volunteer told me that at some point, every volunteer has to find what it is that keeps them here—be it their work, their friendships, their love of sheep meat. As of right now, I think that for me it will be these sweet, smart, eager, impressionable, friendly, funny young people. Spending time with them has taught me so much about this culture, made me laugh, filled me with pride as I watch their accomplishments, and, more than anything, made me feel like I have a community here. They rock.

I also have a stellar host family. My “parents,” Asel and Uchan are in their mid-twenties, and have a pretty scrumptious 7-month-old boy named Bekbolot. Spending time with them has improved my language quite a bit. They’re really interested in sharing their culture with me, and talking about America. We’ve had some interesting conversations about: Nazis, racism, world religions, the ethics of taking two wives, bride kidnapping, food in America vs. Kyrgyzstan, Native Americans, smoking, drinking, how to kill a sheep…the list goes on. Bekbolot and I also like to hang out—it’s so much fun to watch him grow and learn new things on a daily basis. We’re really into reading “Goodnight Moon” and “Brown Bear, Brown Bear,” making repetitive bouncing movements and biting hard objects.

I’m in Bishkek now, for back-to-back Peace Corps trainings. I attended an HIV/AIDS training last week with several teachers who came from Toktogul, along with other volunteers and local counterparts. It was excellent. I gained new phrases and vocabulary for teaching about HIV, learned new facts about HIV here, and got some great ideas for projects to do back in Toktogul.

This week, I’ll attend IST (in-service training) and PDM (project-design and management) with my counterparts and host pops. And then, I’m off to GERMANY, to see a few faces that I haven’t seen in far too long. It’s a wonderful life.

Happy holidays to all friends and family, abroad and back in the States! Wishing you peace, friendship, health and happiness in this new year.

Asel, Aika and I after an HIV training they gave at a village school.

My BFF. 

My host family being cute and showing off K College swag. 

By the way, Max is still alive, if you were wondering. We recently attended this party at a local teacher's home and, because we were only 15 minutes late, we were the first guests by almost an hour. Go figure. 

Sometimes I come home to find a sheep slaughter happening in the front yard. 

I think this photo really captures Kyrgyzstan - abandoned Soviet factory on the left, mosque on the right, mountains in the background. If only there was also a group of dudes squatting in a circle and taking vodka shots.

View from our stadium. 

The view along my morning walk to work. Ain't so bad. 

An HIV training at a local school. 

Aidana, Kaliya and Asil giving a stellar presentation on HIV. 

Talking about Christmas to local students. 

My health group kiddos being goofy. 

What a bunch of cuties.

Also, I work.

I am aware that this blog might perhaps create the impression that all I do in Kyrgyzstan is hike around and visit walnut forests. While I do not deny such activities, I also work.  I thought I’d attempt to straighten the record a bit. Things have really picked up for me recently, and I’m juggling several projects right now, all of which I’m very excited about.

One such endeavor is my work with Ratbu Satarova, whose NGO provides opportunities for disabled children in the Toktogul area. Read about it here: http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013310200003&nclick_check=1t

I’ve also devoted a lot of energy recently to my “Youth Health Educator” project. I work with a group of students—aka rockstars—who teach health lessons to their peers at school. They taught a successful round of anti-smoking lessons in and around Toktogul this October. In November, we’ll be working on HIV/AIDS awareness.

My English club has been going pretty well. I let my students pick out American names recently, which they thought was fun, and is really helping me keep track of them. My groups started out HUGE—thirty-five 8^th and 9^th graders, and twenty-five 10^th and 11^th graders—but the numbers have dropped off a bit. It’s been a lot easier to teach a smaller group, and they tend to be the more motivated students.

This past weekend, I went to Issyk-Kul with my counterpart, Tursunkan, to attend a training on creating women’s health clubs. The training provided a lot of useful information on topics including nutrition, reproductive health, pre-post natal health, as well as the logistics of running such a club. Tursunkan and I plan to start a club for young mothers in January. We’ll run it for at least six weeks, but longer if interest stays strong. We’ll be focusing a lot pre/post-natal health, and will have a weekly healthy cooking demo by yours truly.

I’m also looking towards spring and summer with some projects in mind. Max (my sitemate) and I would like to run a camp for Toktogul teens next summer. I am also investigating the possibility of having a feminism and gender conference in Toktogul this spring. We’ll see how all this plays out.

Otherwise, I fill my time not showering, inventing new uses for cabbage, watching sheep get slaughtered, eating recently-slaughtered sheep, fueling my newfound addiction to yoga podcasts, wearing woolen things, and going to sleep at 9:30pm. LIVING THE DREAM.

(but actually, life is great! I hope yours is, too!)

Youth Health Educators taking Toktogul by storm.

And I made cookies recently!

In the land of lions

Among its several claims to fame—including being birthplace of the epic hero Manas and having developed many innovative uses for horse milk—Kyrgyzstan is home to the world’s largest walnut forest. This forest, which surrounds the village of Arslanbob, was for me one of the big selling points of Jalalabad, the province in which I live. Six months into life in Kyrgyzstan, the fact that I hadn’t yet made it to Arslanbob was beginning to weigh on me. Luckily, my friend and fellow PCV Maryn was planning a trip to Arlsanbob with her friend, Rose, who was visiting from the States. Maryn and Rose invited me to come along, and because we didn’t want to be rude, we let Max come too.

As the crow flies, Arslanbob lies about 50 miles south of my town, Toktogul. Of course, the flight paths of crows are not very useful ways to measure distances in places as mountainous as Kyrgyzstan. I’m not sure exactly how far we traveled to get to Arslanbob, but it took about seven hours between the marshrutka (mini-bus) ride down the Bishkek-Osh highway, and the bumpy taxi trip up into the hills.

Despite my eagerness to visit Arslanbob, I was preparing myself to be underwhelmed. As we drove south, the mountains tapered and gave way to wide cotton fields. Even as we turned off the main road and once again rose in elevation, the hills were dusty and brown, gravely and desolate. But then—suddenly, somehow, perhaps through some sort of mountain magic—we found ourselves in a gorgeous valley. We drove up the windy, forested road to the village of Arslanbob. Houses were perched in the hillside, and the mountains rose up around us.

Arlsanbob is also called Arstanbop, and “arstan” is the Kyrgyz word for lion. I asked about all this and was given a very long answer in Kyrgyz, of which I understood maybe 60 percent—enough to gather that the two names are used interchangeably, and have something to do with lions. Then I asked if there were lions in the mountains, and was laughed at.

There is at least one lion, though—a giant stone one in the town’s center. Behind him, old men—called “ak sakaldar,” white beards—gather under a pagoda. The town center is small, with narrow streets that twist outward like spider legs. You don’t see many women out on the streets, and none without headscarves. Uzbek language is sprinkled in with Kyrgyz and Russian, and the letter “j” is pronounced like a “y.” In Kyrgyzstan’s south, the Uzbek influence is stronger, and the area tends to be more conservative and religious than the north. Though technically Toktogul is located in the southern state of Jalalabad, my town identifies much more with the north culturually. This was my first experience with the true “south,” and it felt much different than other places I’ve visited in Kyrgyzstan.  

We arranged our lodging through a “Community-Based Tourism” agency, which meant we stayed in a homestay. The house was lovely, and our hostess was a sweet little Uzbek woman who made great food. The best part, however, was the little porch where we took our meals and took in the fantastic valley view. Every night, we sat for hours in the porch, working our way through Uzbek plov, talking and watching the full moon rise over the mountains.

We spent our two days exploring the area—hiking in the hills, visiting two waterfalls, wandering through orchards and pastures and into the shaded groves of the walnut forest. We watched as people climbed high into the trees to shake down walnuts, encountered few other tourists but many cows, and were met with beautiful views at every turn.

After three nights in Arslanbob, we rose early to head back home—this time by taxi, which shaved some time off the trip. We wound our way for hours through the steep valley that follows the Naryn River, and then suddenly came out on the south shore of the Toktogul resevoir. Stretched out in front of me, as if to welcome me back, was my home—the long glimmering lake, the mountains that frame my view as I bustle around each day and, tucked into the foothills, little ole Toktogul.

View from the porch where we took our meals

Walnut forest!

Land of Lada

Small waterfall

Our sweet little hostess