so last night i washed my laundry, by hand and by myself! it took a good hour and a half to do two pairs of pants, a skirt, a few shirts and my undies. i will be so much more careful now and try to not make any messes...it's just too much effort! the entire family just watched and laughed as i took a bar of soap to my undies....i guess im just clumsy-that bar of soap was just going everywhere!

language lessons are intense. im learning all about sentence structure and tenses, but not conversational techniques. everyday when i get home, my fam wants to know about all the new words i learned. i attempt to explain that i can show them what happens to a verb when i use it in the past vs the present, but they get bored before im finished. the other night i had an anatomy lesson with them and learned probably more than i needed to! it was entertaining so say the least.....remember what i said about the grandma, yah, she doesnt hold anything back!

next week we are all going out into the country to stay with a volunteer thats been in country for at least a year. im going to lake isakuyl (its huge, you should look it up) along with another trainee to stay with a fella named rick. im really excited to get away for awhile... im feeling very confined at the moment since i really cant do anything on my own-my host mom still walks me to the bus stop!

that's all for now....oh, i officially cant read the comments so email me!
machalla

Tuesday was the big day when we met our host families. Everyone met at a bigrestraunt and the host families were already there waiting for us when we arrived. Talk about nervous! Each host family had a name of a volunteer so it was sort of a who's-who game as soon as we unloaded. My Apa found me, gave me a big hug and kiss and a dozen roses....not too shabby. After theinitial greetings though neither of us could really talk to eachother...we made a few feeble attempts to find out info. but it usually ended in both of us just shrugging.The Kyrgyz people are really big on being good hosts. I think that during our45 minutes together she offered me tea 12 times and twice as often with all the food! All during this lunch, though, I'm freaking out that she doesnt realize how much stuff I actually have. Not only do I have my two huge bags, but PC gave us a duffel full of medical stuff as well as a space heater. We were both pretty shocked when the time came to load up becausenot only was the car the size of a small toyota, but that was the transportaion for not one,but two volunteers and all of our crap! It was such a sight when we got everything sorted out, I felt that I had just stepped into a cartoon. there were suitcases, heaters, arms and legs sticking out all over the place. But we did manage to get all the luggage and people crammed in. but didall the people and luggage stop the driver from getting to where he needed to be in a timely manner....certainlynot. The Kyrgyz roads are interesting. they havent been worked on since the soviet timeso they are just falling apart...there's an urban legend among the PC crew that a volunteer fell into a pothole and was never seen again! there's also no lines to guide traffic. everyone more or less stays to their sides, but the middle is fair game, you just haveto be quick!
my new house is simple...and i mean really simple, but it's clean. it is divided among two seperate buildings. one is the bedrooms and the formal living room. my room isnt bad. plenty of space, a dresser, twotwin beds, a table and a big window with lace curtains. its not the Hilton, but i can't complain.
to get to the rest of the house you have to do a hop, skip and a jump outside to the next building.there's a makeshiftkitchen with a small burner and a small fridge. there's no running water at all, but they do have a sort of bucket with a stopper that you can control for washing up. the dining room table is about a foot off the ground and yes they have a tv. UsuallyRussian soap operas are on, but they do have a version of MTV...thank goodness forpop culture!
attached to the kitchen house are the stables, and yes the smell is unpleasant. they have a lot of sheep, a couple of cows, a horse, a dog (who i think is always caged and this is not a big cage) and a little kitten. every morning all of the sheep in the village are herded up by a couple of boys on horses and taken to graze. Then every evening the oldest son meets the herd at the end of the driveway and calls his sheep. it was the strangest thing that I've ever seen. out of this ball of cotton a stream of about a dozen sheep went down the driveway and right into their stalls.
oh, yes ive saved the best for last. the toilet is way out behind the stalls in the back-40. Now everone imagine an outhouse, take away the entire seat, add a hole in the floor and that what ive got. its not the best situation, but my aim has gotten really good!
so now the family. as soon as i arrived they all greeted me with a big hug and a kiss. there are three kids, two boys-ages 2 and 13, and a girl who's 15. then mom and dad (whoi have not actually met yet...he's around but sort of allusive) and then grandmawho is just adorable and a lot of fun. they have been nothing but nice and justseem like really good people. the first day they just showed methe ropes then the daughter (Iziza) and I played frisbee for awhile.
and that's when it all went down hill....right before dinner i just got hit with this wave of nausea and knew that i was going tohurl. so i had to decide pretty quick whether i was just going to let it go right outsidewhich is also the walkway between houses or try to make it way out to the toilet. i decided that the embarrassment of having to watch my host mom clean up after me wasenough motivation to get me out into the fields. i will spare you the details, but i didmake it and spent some quality time out there. when i got back in i tried to explainthat i was sick, and i think that they got it, but they insisted that i eat some potatoes andhave some tea. i was back out in the field in no time. so the first day was a bit tough.
The next day all the volunteers met up in a bigger city for some safely/culture lessons. i wasfeeling sorry for myself the whole ride there, but when we reached the school there were atleast a dozen people in worse shape than me. apparantly, we contracted food poison atlunch and about 20 people were up all night with the runs and nausea. they had to bring inIVs for some folks. we were a sorry sight! our topic for that day's lesson was what all about diarreaha...fitting.
One girl, who is my closest friend here, decided today that she was going to go home. she hasa boy at home that she has missed a lot and she was one who got really, really sick. i think that today was just the final straw. there's another volunteer, Christian, who hasalso become a good friend, who is thinking about going home. his experience with the host familywas really bad and tonight he is staying in a hotel and trying to get in with another
family....i guess we'll see.
so all in all things are good. i 'm going to have to take it just one day at a time;when i start thinking about staying here for two years i really question whether this is something that I want. It's really just a different world out here and its notcomfortable yet....obviously I just got here and I figure that the first months, at least,will be the hardest. I think the big test will be when i have to go to the toilet inthe middle of winter brrrrrr!

Saturday september 24
Ive been in my village for a few days now and each day I feel more and more comfortable...oh and im feeling a lot better. hopefully, the worst is over! My family is so great. they are so good to me and are just a happy and loving family. sometimes i feel just like an infant, not really able to do much on my own or even say anything. Erland, thetwo year old, and I are buds. I think that we have an understanding.
Iziza is the 15 yr. girl. She is at school during the day, but they finish up at 1:00, then she'shome and doing chores. they work so hard around here it's ridiculous, but i think that theyare preparing for the long winter. they have been canning a lot and drying corn (maybe for the animals) and shearing the sheep etc. Iziza is so sweet and really happy...and she helps me with my homework!
Dustan is 12 and the oldest son. He's really the man around the house. as soon as he get's homefrom school he's grazing the sheep, fixing the saddle...ya know the man stuff.
did i mention that all the kids are ridiculously cute?
the dad drives a water truck and i've never actually met him. he leaves before I wake up and comes backin the evening for an hour or so, then he's gone again and gets back after im asleep. i dontknow how to ask yet what's up.
mom is great. she does it all and takes really good care of her family and tries to teach me kyrgyz.every morning she packs me a lunch and walks me to class...it's cute.
grandma is my favorite. she is so friendly and affectionate and really animated. if any of youhave met my grandpa, she reminds me a lot of him!
the gender roles are really defined here. girls take care of the house and the kids and the boyswork outside. it's not just habit though, but in seems strictly enforced. the other nightDustan was going to take his bowl to the kitchen and the mom told him not to and Iziza picked it up.
My village is about 20 minutes away from the nearest town and most folks dont have cars here. the public transportation is called a marshuka, its really just a glorified mini van, and it's parkedit one of my neighbors yard. I dont know yet if they run whenever, or if you ask him to take you places.there really arent bus stops, so whenever you go somewhere you just pick up folks along the way. the marshuka drivers are all about making that extra dollar and they will use any extra space for anotherbody. it get's a little cozy!
today I had my first shower (or banya). Yah, it's been a few days, but this was so worththe wait, it was awesome! the banya is another building all it's own and it a big concretebox thats divided into a dressing room and then the bathing room. it's just like walkinginto a sauna except that theres a tank that dispenses hot water which you mix with cold water in a big pot. then you just pour water over yourself, wash up, and rinse off. simpleenough. the best part though is that this big kettle sits on a bed of rocks so it'seasy to make a lot of steam. so there ya go, you can bathe, then sit down and relax for a bit. this whole thing is heated by a little stove imbedded in the wall thatsits underneath the kettle. looks like im only going to be getting one about once a week, but my Apa said that if i wanted to wash up with just some hot water from the stovemore often that would be ok.
I finally had dinner with the dad today. we didnt talk at all. it's not that he's mean, but i guess just not interested. not a big deal though, since he's really never here....
alright, this nonsense has gone on long enough!
mac

ps. sorry about the combined words...there's been some formatting issues

also, i have not been able to access my email yet so this is the best way to get ahold of me

September 15
And so it begins...a crew of 66 folks from around the country met up in philly today to get this whole ball rolling. the whole idea of "Staging" is give an introduction to theprogram and to get us all in one place so that there arent 66 lost americans trying to make their way to Kyrgyzstan. there are people from 36 different states with ages ranging from 21 to 59. needless to say it is a pretty diverse group! our group doesnt really fit the stereotypic picture of peacecorps volenteers. theres no long dread locks or pseudo hippies and ive had to dress a lot nicer here than i ever had to at home.
the meaty part of staging has not been very exciting. its basically been cheesy get-to-know you games and infomation meetings....except that none of the facilitators have ever been to Kyrgyzstan so you can imagine how helpful they are. but we did bond and we shared what are goals and aspirations are and what scares us the most. we were all able to agree that we want to buy fuzzy hats and we are all terrified of fermented mares milk and being eaten by giant toxic fish. i plan on buying a fishing pole and eating the fish before it eats me!

September 20
After 16 hours of flight and 6 hours of lay over in Istanbul we finally arrived in Bishkek airport at 1am this morning. there wasnt much time for cheers though,because almost immediatly we were herded onto a couple of buses and taken to our hotel. Our hotel is this huge, concrete, soviet style compound that must of been incredible during its prime, but has long since seen better days.
the past couple of days has pretty much been a repeat of staging except that it's been country specific and we've been able to meet all of the big honchosthat run the show over here. the mass of 66 of us were broken up into smaller groups which will be our training group for the next 3 months. each groupis given a language/culture facilitator and they will be the one who, you guessed it, will be teaching us the language and culture! each group with their LCFis leaving the hotel this morning and moving to our own village, which means that we will all meet our host families! there are 4 people in my group and ourLCF is Astr.
Im a bit nervous about meeting the host family, there's always that fear of ending up with the Adam's family, but in the end it will be nice to be able to unpack and to stop wondering what exactly im getting myself into.
wish me luck!machalla

so just in case you havent heard, as of september 13 i will begin my treck to the kyrgyz republic (aka kyrgyzstan)with the peace corps. don't worry, i had to look it up as well. turns out that there is really such a country way out in the middle of asia...who would of thought!

this is a 27 month stint where i will be teaching english in a secondary school. basically at this point everything is a mystery to me. i dont know the language, the people, anything about the culture or way of life, how to do my job, where i will be living...and the list goes on! most of this is because we will all be figuring it out as we go...really it's a pain - do i use the little bit of extra room to bring a few more pairs of clean underwear or should i instead pack my french press and a bag of coffee? what i do know is that i will be going with other americans, i will have three months of INTENSIVE training where i will hopefully gain enough knowledge in the above areas to make it on my own, im going to living with a host family, i will not shower regularly, the toilets will most likely be outside, electricity is not a guarantee all the time, i will wash my clothes by hand, and i have to get used to wearing a skirt. i know, a bloody skirt...i couldnt believe it when i heard!

at this point im getting anxious to go. it seems like ive been getting ready for so long that i just want to get this show on the road. of course im nervous, but it's mainly because i just dont know what to expect. im a pretty adaptable person and im pretty sure that i will be able to handle whatever they throw at me (and thanks to my dad i have about 10lbs of vitamins so there is no way im getting sick).

a lot of people have asked me why i decided to join...and it usually comes across that they think that im a little nuts for doing so. one reason is that im just not ready to grow up. i just graduated from the uw and i felt that the next productive step was to either get a real job, continue on with school or join the peace corps....and obviously the last one was the most attractive to me! the peace corps really attracted me because put such a strong emphasis on the volunteer becoming a part of a community and adopting their way of life as well as sharing amerian culture. they they go to the parts of the world that are unknown or forgotten by the rest of the world. they go to the places where no one else wants to go. i really want to see a new culture that hasn't been 'americanized', where people aren't so caught up in money, consumerism and technology, becuase they really dont have any. im not trying to be anti-usa, but for me it is important to get a glimpse of how the rest of the world lives, because most dont live like we do. i know that this is going to be a challenge and that at times it will be too hard, but the potential rewards that may come of the experience are enough to make me want to go. i want to see how rugged i really am!

anyways, i will update this whenever i can and i would love to be caught up in news from home!
here's my address until mid december...just in case *wink*

97 Lenina Street, RUPS
Mailbox #23
722140, Kant City
Kyrgyz Republic
Machalla Frisch

all the best,
machalla