Spring is in sight!

The end of January was bitter cold with harsh winds and lots of potatoes. I think we have gotten through the worst of it. It may only be the beginning of February, but the weeks are getting warmer and the days longer. I am thrilled. For the past few weeks I have been away from my site quite a bit. Either visiting friends on the weekends or going into the city for Peace Corps training, I have been a busy volunteer. And I found myself missing my village and my family.

Before joining the Peace Corps, I had not lived in the same place for more than 9 months straight since graduating high school. I learned how to condense my belongings into two suitcases and a carry-on. I don't collect keepsakes, I rarely buy new clothes and refuse to buy books when a library is available. I changed my "wants" so they would fit my nomadic and unstable lifestyle. It was great. I think it was exactly what I needed at the time. Demanding me independence and forcing myself into being responsible as well as compulsive. Now I am hitting that 9 month mark in Kyrgyzstan (though I've only been living with this family for 6 of them) and it's not as strange as I anticipated. I enjoy it. This is my first day back home for a week and it feels so nice to be with my loving family and in my extremely warm room. As uncomfortable I may feel in Kyrgyzstan, I have a little sanctuary with my home.

When my intake group came in, we were warned that Kyrgyzstan will teach you what real winter is like. The ice covers the streets, cars get into accidents more often than in the summer and the food is rough - just a steady diet of sheep, potatoes, onions and as much bread as you need to fill up. The group before ours lost a string of volunteers over the winter. One right after the other, they just left. So we were prepared for our experience to be similar. But it hasn't been. I'm happy to say that our group has only lost one volunteer. I don't want to put a stigma on Early Termination, I understand Peace Corps is not for everyone, and may not even be for me in a few months. But It's pretty exciting that we are (almost) all still here. Each of us have hard months and challenges with family or counter parts, but we all seem to be supporting each other enough that we have really stuck it out. At least through the winter.

Updates/Pictures:

Beautiful hike just around the corner!

For my birthday I got two packages in one day! It was amazing!!

And my family made me signs in English!

During a Training of Trainers, we discussed the stereotypes we put on girls. Here are the words the Counterparts used to describe our fictional girl, Jibek. Pretty eye opening. 

Also, the flies are coming back. Maybe the winter wasn't so bad?

Happy New Year!

December was one of the hardest months I have had in country so far. Sorry to start on such a hard note. The combination of work stress, winter blues and being away from the holidays really got to me. The kids in class were really disengaged because it was almost break (I can't blame them) and my counterparts felt less motivated than ever.

BUT - now it's January! Hurray!!

So let's talk New Years. In Kyrgyzstan, New Years is the BIG holiday. Family comes over, we eat until we are stuffed and then wait until midnight. Everyone looks forward to this holiday, similar to how most people in the States look forward to Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's a big one.

I spent most of my time during Christmas with other PCVs but made sure to be back with my family before the holiday. The second I got home, I started working on decorations, chains and cottonball streamers! We started setting up the table for guesting, and made sure to make oliviea (a potato, egg, carrot, pea and mayo salad - yum), which is the most important food for the holiday. They had fireworks, food and family. They were ready

One custom (so far only found in my family) was to write down your wish for the year on a piece of paper. Simple enough. After you have written the wish down, you burn the piece of paper, put it in the champagne glass and drink it. That way the wish will definitely come true. Of course.

Once midnight has come and gone, we all go outside and light unregulated fireworks! As many of you know, fireworks are not my favorite and my experiences here have not helped. All around our neighborhood HUGE fireworks were being set off. One of ours was not done correctly and blew up in front of us. My fear of fireworks has escalated. 

After fireworks we all go inside and give gifts. Because I am such an old lady I went to bed immediately, while my family raged on until 4 am. The Kyrgyz know how to party!

Updates:

I am now running...kind of. I will run a 10k in April in Kazakhstan, so I need to get used to, you know, running.  One really nice thing about running in Kyrgyzstan is the view. My village is very close to the mountains and it is beautiful! It's an excuse to get out of the house for a while, be productive and check out the rad view. 

I mean, come on! ^^

A couple kids joined me for a run, which was pretty validating.

A mob of sheep joined me during another run. I just have to look out for their poops...

Kerema and I made cookies for my mom's birthday. Cookies without measurements or brown sugar is a challenge

But I think it worked out! 

Guesting for my mom's birthday took all day. We started preparing and cooking around 9 am, guests started guesting around 1 pm and went on for hours. I spent quite some time with the guests, helped with food and serving, tried out my Kyrgyz as much as I could. But I tend to spend most of my time with children 8 years old and under. I speak Kyrgyz, they laugh, we dance. It's a great time. 

I ended up leaving the festivities around 7 pm that night, and as usual, they raged on until the wee hours of the night. I can't keep up.

Next up in the life of a PCV: lots of potatoes, mutton and my birthday!

Busy busy

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I have posted anything. And quite a bit has happened but just expect a loooong post this week. 

To give you an idea of New Years preparations, here is a short video of my host brother and I putting up decorations and goofing around. Huzzah!

Fly Files

This blog will be dedicated to flies. I feel comfortable discussing this with you all, now that it is winter and most of them are dead. The flies in Kyrgyzstan are freaks of nature. I kid you not, they are mini dragons sent from the gates of hell to torture us. You may think I am exaggerating, but I cannot stress enough how awful they are.

Not only are they HUGE, but also the loudest bugs I have ever heard in real life. During the summers, they at least have the decency to stay outside. However, we also eat outside. So during meal prep and eating, the flies fly around all fly like and touch your hands, face and food. Spreading diseases and bacteria, and giving every PCV diarrhea.  

During fall, as the outside becomes colder, they begin to invade your house! They come in and breed like crazy. I must say, living on a farm you see a lot of animal sex, but the grossest is fly sex. It's depressing and brief, and there is nothing you can do about it. You can only sit and watch it happen to you, and then later try to suppress the memory.

For two months, there was a upsetting consistency in my room. I constantly had a single fly in my room. Always one fly. I would wake up, find a few on my window, quickly kill them and then - like a taunting ghost - I would hear a faint buzz somewhere. The next morning I would find that fly and kill it. A few minutes later, the buzz would start again. I quickly felt like I was slowly going insane. I mean you would too if there was always a single fly in your room. Without fail, the fly was there.

So now that its winter, they are more or less dead. I finally have some peace.

Also, here are some pictures from the past few weeks:

Went to a Wedding! 

The Bride and Groom looking awkward 

For some reason this photo won't rotate. But this is my family!

THANKSGIVING HAPPENED!

I was pretty happy about the food.

These are the ladies. Remember their faces.

At the American Corner in Kant, they had a Thanksgiving celebration

Pin the Tail on the Donkey. You know, a classic Thanksgiving game.

My grandma tried to make me make her food - she doesn't quite realize I am not a kalyen - so my brother helped out. He's the best!

The mountains near my house. Pretty beautiful, huh?

Elections

As I'm sure most of you can assume, I am not the most thrilled about the election results recently. But, being in another country, I know they results do not directly affect me. And this blog post will be brief and will not be regard my concerns for the US, but instead, I think it's important to reflect on the rights and freedoms we have in America.

In Kyrgyzstan (the most democratic country in Central Asia) voting and elections are a right. It's incredibly important to the citizens here to have their political voice and accessibility to political movements. This might be the reason revolutions/protests happen so frequently. However, there is still a great deal of corruption and bribing in this country, which doesn't occur in the States. No matter your political views, we should all be appreciative and aware of our privileges. American may have its faults, but we should still be mindful of our liberties.

That's my two cents, I really have little to say in this blog. Life is about the same. Here are some pictures to prove it :)

My family has a horse (it has been in the mountains all summer) and we are in love! 

Karema watching WALL-E in my room 

1st snow! Winter is coming...

Dancing Kyrgyz style!

Simple pleasures

Updates!

Hello friends, family and onlookers!

The past month has been pretty uneventful in regards to the big important things but I have a lot of little updates. And since Those little things have now become my life, I will share them with you.

Work: I have finally settled in with my new counterpart, Aida. We work pretty well together, considering I have never sat and had tea with her or guested at her home. We don't really have a relationship outside of work, which is not really encouraged by Peace Corps, but it seems to be working for us. I'm just going to hope we get closer as we continue to work together. She is really busy, working with me and the secondary school, as well as the primary school. Plus she is a wife and mother and lives in a different village. So we just meet at school and work. She has been picking up my methodology of games and internation pretty quickly, which is lovely. And she's just a really nice lady all together.

Chinada still doesn't really need my help. Most of the time I feel like an assistant to her or a prop. I work less in her classes, which is far less fun. I have reduced my hours working with her by a lot. But all and all, this month has been pretty ok, work wise.


Home:

Our cow had a baby!! Her name is Betsy (that's right) and she's so stinkin cute! I didn't get to see the birth, which is a bummer. My new goal: see a cow or horse birth before I COS. I don't care to see a sheep birth...weird eyes, right?

My family took me to a Toi (feast) for some relatives 75th birthday. I went, and was completely underdressed but tried to have fun anyway. I took some wine shots with some random Eje's (my family still thinks I don't really drink. They're too cute). Here are some pictures from that awkward event.

My mom and dad dancing (aw)

Some drunk baike's dancing to Gangnam 

The dreaded Besh Barmak!

The kids at my house have now found my computer's Photobooth and will take over my room every once and a while.

My cousin, showing off his Kyrgyz smile. (For some reason in the country, they don't really smile for pictures. Something I don't know if I will get used to)

PCV Life:...is pretty boring. I spend most of my time reading or watching movies when I'm not at work. My family always jokes that I'm always in my room, but when I try to spend time with them, they are just watching Russian tv (which isn't as interesting as it sounds). So I wanted to document the usual night for Sarah Daniels. Eating fried potatoes, bread and tea by candlelight whilst watching a 90s sitcom. Pretty stellar. 

In Bishkek this fall there was a honey festival, bring the best part of the oblasts to me! The honey being held below changed my life and how I perceive this country as a whole. My family and I ate it within the month.   

And lastly, I went on a very short hike with a few friends around my village. It's pretty awesome to be living in an area with so much beauty. I know it sounds cheesy, but come on. 

So that's about it. Coming up: Baking at a really nice apartment and Chui welcome weekend for Halloween!

First Bell! -And the like

Hello Again!
I really am trying to make this blog thing more frequent. It is becoming more and more difficult to call because I have started working and all I want to do is sleep when I get home. But there have been some major events in the past month...so here goes a doozy.

At the beginning of August, I moved back in with my PST family (in the same village) and started our last phase of training. This mainly focused on teaching in kyrgyzstan and language. One week before training was over, I received a visit from Chinada, who was the counterpart of the volunteer before me. She came to tell me my counterpart, Meerim, has suddenly gotten married and resigned her post at the school! Yikes. So the next day I talk to my Peace Corps Program Manager and she informs me that yes, Meerim got married. Though I don't know the specifics, I haven't been able to get ahold of Meerim since the beginning of August (still), I do suspect she was bride kidnapped.

Side bar: Bride kidnapping is a Kyrgyz tradition, and it's exactly what it sounds like. These weddings can be semi-planned or completed forced by strangers. And it is so grossly underreported that any statistics of bride kidnapping will be wrong. No one knows really the percentages of marriage occur from bride kidnapping, how many are successful and how many aren't. The government mostly stays away from it and the vast majority don't really see it as a major problem. That being said, this will most likely be my last mention of bride kidnaping (I hope) because it is the main tradition the world knows about Kyrgyzstan. This country has so much to offer and incredible beauty, I wouldn't want my family and friends to be left with only knowing of this horrifying tradition. To me it is awful, as I'm sure it is to all of you reading, but I refuse to let that be your only impression of this country. Ok.

Anyway, so my counterpart whom I worked with all summer is gone. I had one week to prepare to work with Chinada - who has worked with plenty of volunteers before, her teaching methodology is great and her english skill is high for a teacher - and Aida - whom I had never met before and previously only taught primary school, so her english level is quite low. But, that's why I'm here. So at this point, I'm just hanging on day by day; trying to find ways to improve with Chinada, and trying to communicate any point to Aida. It's going to be a trying school year.



Moving on. The First Bell Ceremony in this country is considered a national holiday. The Soviet Union made education a priority for all citizens, and that tradition has stayed true. Here are a few pictures to sum up the day:

Songs are sung

Speeches are said

Bells are rung

Flowers are given

But all in all, life in the villages is pretty slow moving and unchanging. A day in the life of Sarah is as follows:
7:00 wake up - or have my eyes open but stay in bed until I absolutely have to and won't be late
8:00 get dressed and eat breakfast - sometimes 2 eggs, but mostly bread and tea
8:45 walk to school and try to keep up with my awesome counterpart
2:00 go home - nap, get fed by my family a lot, hang out with the farm animals, play games with my family, shenanigans
9:00 get into bed - hope that I can do it all over again