First day in Kyrgyzstan, first yurt I saw!
I had just bought flowers for my host family from these two cute babushkas!
This is a view from my front gate in my training village. The mountains in the background are the Tien Shan Mountains.
This is my language class and language teacher. Pretty cool classroom, huh?!
I took this pcture at the edge of my training village, the hills in the background are Kazakhstan.
Two Kyrgyz kids that loved my t-shirt!
You gotta love their shirts! Nemo and Scooby Doo!
All of the SOCD group crammed on a Marshuka!
There were fields and fields of sunflowers behind my training village. In the background is Kazakhstan.
A road to Kazakhstan.
A picture of Osh bazaare in Bishkek. This place was enormous!!!
The bazaar had all the spices you could ever dream of, the hard part was figuring out what they were!
This was also in the spice section, MSG will definatly add a kick to your food!
Fresh pastries! You can't really see it, but these were covered in bees!
Traditional Kyrgyz shukas.
Rush hour traffic! Almost as bad as Houston traffic but definatly smellier!
Issyk Ata. The Kyrgyz claim there are healing springs here.
Issyk Ata
Cultural day! All the volunteers dressed up in local attire and reinacted local traditions for the rest of the group.
Building the yurt.
These are my volunteer neighbors in Jalal Abad dressed in Kyrgyz outfits in front of a yurt.
A marshuka.
The drive to Bishkek from my training village.
A sunset from our hotel in Bishkek.
Leaving for permanent site!
Kyrgyzstan Air!
Half of the Jalal Abad crew.
The local garbage disposal.
Arial view of the flight from Bishkek to Osh.
A distant view of the mountains in the background with Kyrgyz life in the foreground.
A Jalal Abad apartment building, this looks very similar to the building my office is in.
A shot of the Jalal Abad bazzar.
Leaves are starting to fall here and the temperature is dropping quickly. : (
A view of Jalal Abad city center.
A statue of Lenin, which is located on Lenin Street...
This is a pumpkin samsa- just a little pastry filled with pumpkin and seasoning that you can buy on the street- it is delicious!!!
Here is one of many feasts from the wedding. In addition to the enormous pile of bread in the middle, plates of dried and fresh fruit, they will also bring out soups and main courses.
Some of the wedding guests, they are all wearing a traditional Kyrgyz hat called a Kalpak.
The grooms party arrives, notice the yurt on the left.
They arrived singing and dancing!
The older guests just sat and watched as those young whipper snappers were dancing and singing.
The grooms party was greeted with plates of bread and candy and bottles of vodka!
The newly married couple.
With the wedding singer right behind them with his accordian, the new couple and the grooms party entered the yurt for yet another feast.
The bountiful baskets of food and drink with the freshly slaughtered sheep that the groom was to buy from his new in-laws
The two families bargaining over prices.
In the end the grooms party bought all the food.
Wedding gifts and money were bestowed onto the couple before they left for the cafe. They recieved lots of money, new outfits and shoes (which were put on them right there), tons of carpets, and a goat.
Pictures of the wedding parties standing by a local monument. You can see all the cars lined up on the left and I'm the only Caucasian on the right- I kinda stick out!
Me in Osh when we climbed Mount Suliman. Suliman is a holy mountain right in the middle of the city, apparently it is the second most holy muslim site right behind Mecca.
Ian and I on top of Suliman with Osh in the background.
Suliman surrounded by Osh.
View of the wedding layout
Me and some of our hosts!
A view of Mt. Suliman from the bride's house
The chef preparing a whole lotta osh, the Uzbek national dish.
The brides father on the far right and her uncle in the middle.
The dancing after a toast.
Carrying money to the band.
The horns were blown and the groom greeted his new wife.
Ian and the boys as we headed to the restuarant.
The lovely bride and her maid of honor.
The largest statue of Lenin in all of Central Asia!!!
Ian and I giving a toast at the wedding!
Swing dancing in Kyrgyzstan.
The bride feeding her new father in law.
The bride and groom feeding each other a piece of their wedding cake.
Dance Dance Dance
Arslenbob frozen over
The Uzbek celebration
There aren't paved roads in Arslenbob let alone a salting truck or a snow truck.
The small waterfall, you can see the icicles now but give it a month and the whole thing will be one giant icicle!!!
Fritz, Ginger, me and Ian by the waterfall
A branch that had been iced over
I can say I didn't see a single wire fence while I was in Arslenbob, rather all of the fences that I saw were made of twigs like this one.
Bee hives in someone's back yard
The amazing view from the mountain cliff
The walnut forest behind a twig fence
A section of our hike
Our host and our guide walking on a resourcefully made bridge
Neighborhood kids and their sleds!
On “Invalids day”, a day to recognize people with disabilities, government officials went around to factories and homes of the disabled with donations. I was brought along by my former host mother. One of the places we stopped by was a orphanage for disabled children, where I got to spend a couple of hours playing with these cute kids.
Later that week, my NGO went to schools around Jalal Abad to giving trainings and speeches on anti-violence. Here is my director speaking to a group of students.
This is a picture of my oven. It has an annoying tilt so all of my baked goods come out a very strange shape. The door has broken off so in order to close the door you have to prop it up with a wood plank. And its really dirty!
Here is me in my apartment’s kitchen!
This is a view of my apartment building, I’m on the first floor right behind those bushes. Don't worry there's bars on the windows!
Here are some neighborhood cuties, who I helped build a snowman.
My mini bazaar right outside of my apartment! I can get anything!
For Chirstmas, the K15s rewrote the 12 days of Christmas for the K16s, to share a couple of the verses we had; a flat in a southern city, two packs of Cipron*, 3 jigeets** a squatting, 7 yurts-a-rocking, 12 hours cvet***less and seven additional gifts that the Kyrgyz gave to us! It was pretty awesome and I have a video to blackmail them with later! *Cipron- treatment for giardiardia ** A young Kyrgyz man ***Cbet translates to light but conversationally means electricity
A typical night when all the volunteers get together in the city, it gets pretty cozy! And this is only half of the group!
The city folk! Leslie, me, Fritz and Ginger- we all happen to be Episcopalians!
The festive Christmas dinner!
Clearly I was saying something very important and scaring the crap out of these poor boys!
The students gathering for winter camp. Notice how they all have one or two little bags for a week, you better believe that I had a whole suitcase!
Upon arrival, the kids were put into groups and had to come up with a team name, song and flag...
...and then present!
Some of the girls; the group consisted of 20 girls and 20 boys, half 12 and half 13, and all Kyrgyz but two or three kids.
A view from the building we stayed in.
One of the Kyrgyz volunteers and a Peace Corps volunteer, these boys were in charge of team building.
Teambuilding was definatly one of the most popular sessions!
Other sessions included life goals, community service, self confidence, gender roles, communication and lots more. The kids were great and paid attention the whole time.
Most of the sessions consisted of presentations and then an activity. Here is a group working together on a poster.
Me and Imyt getting ready for a session, or we could just be gossiping! She was awesome, she has worked with Peace Corps volunteers for years! Notice our big jackets, even with central heating the building was pretty chilly.
Check out this basketball hoop that one of the PC volunteers put together- talk about resourceful!
Here is the group shot! Those were some amazing kids!
After session the kids had a list of activities they could participate in; here is an art club where we were making picture frames.
and here are some boys playing volleyball.
This is the buildng that we were staying in...
...and a real sturdy looking playground out front!
The last night we had a talent show, these girls had a cute little dance routine!
