BrittaAbroad: I do not live in a yurt.

When I first found out I was going to Kyrgyzstan, I did a lot of Googling. I learned about bushkazi, goat polo, and kimiz, fermented horse milk. I saw pictures of round, ruddy-cheeked Kyrgyz babies and wide, mountain-edged plains. I began to craft a beautiful vision of my life for two years - taking shelter from the elements in my cozy yurt, eating lots of strange sheep meat and maybe riding to work each day on my trusty horse.

I do not live in a yurt.

About a week ago, I arrived in Toktogul, my permanent site. We pulled up to my new house, and I was surprised to find a brick, two story building. Inside, there was furniture that could have come from Ikea, a toilet, a sizeable TV, a washing machine. This definitely was not the yurt fantasy. It wasn’t even the life I’d been living for two months in the village near Bishkek, where I’d dashed outside to use the outhouse and washed my clothes by hand.

For the first day or two, I felt really uncomfortable with it. This wasn’t what I’d signed up for, wasn’t what I had wanted. I’d joined the Peace Corps, after all. I was required to live with a family for three months. Maybe after that, I thought to myself, I’d find something more….er….Kyrgyz.

Over the course of the past week, however, I’ve fallen in love. My family consists of a mother, father, a 15-year-old sister, a 14-year-old brother and the wonderful 3-year-old Malika. They have been beyond kind and generous to me, respectful of my space but incredibly inviting. It turns out that my host father, a livestock man by day, built every inch of this house himself. My host mom makes amazing food, and vegetables are a regular thing. I’ve played Frisbee with my host brother, Adilet, and hung out with Jibek, my host sister. Malika and I have had some really excellent tea parties.

To say that this family isn’t Kyrgyz because they have indoor plumbing is to say my family back in the States isn’t American because we don’t eat hot dogs on a daily basis. Expecting to come here and have a quintessentially “Kyrgyz” experience is just as arrogant and foolish as expecting everyone to speak English and know about American culture.

For me, the verdict is still out on the effectiveness of the Peace Corps as an instrument of international development. I will report back in two years. However, in terms of cultural exchange and creating friendships between people of different nations, I think the Peace Corps accomplishes a lot. I have the opportunity to build a relationship with a very wonderful family, and that is far more significant than any romantic life I could imagine for myself on the rugged plains of Kyrgyzstan.

I feel very lucky right now. Toktogul itself is beautiful – so beautiful that I need to devote another whole blog post to describing it. I’ve met many welcoming people so far, including the people I will work with and, most certainly, the people I am living with. I don’t know what the future will hold for me over the next two years. Maybe I’ll spend a night or two in a yurt. But I’m guessing I will be spending the majority of my nights in a two-story brick house in Toktogul.

Malika, age 3. The appeal of stickers, it seems, is universal.
Shortly after this she realized that putting stickers on ME is a lot more
fun than putting them on a piece of paper.