and in my neck of the woods...

Ramadam began at the beginning of the month, and from what I understand, it is an Islam
tradition that seems similar to the Catholic Lent. For basically a month a person is
supposed to fast from impure thoughts and vices and the way that this is symbolized is
that the person does not eat or drink (even water) while the sun is up...this description
is coming entirely from observation, so I might be way off! As with most
religions and traditions there are varying degrees of commitment and as far as I can tell
only a few folks in my village are fasting and they typically tend to be the older
generations. One part of the tradition that everyone seems to get really into is Orozo,
or the time when the fast is broken at the end of each day. It's really just a big party
and people just take turns hosting. I got home the other night and there were about
20 people sitting around a table that was just covered with food....and I mean there
wasn't one spare inch of room. I soon found out that this was just tea, the real meal hadn't
even started yet! Dinner soon follows, though, and basically an entire sheep is
brought out on platters and portions (or more accurately, parts) are handed out depending
on how you rank in the family. The grandmas got the brain, the older men got some intestine
and I got some of the tongue. At this point I'm starting to wonder if they purposely try
and gross me out for their own amusement. I think that they got a real kick out of
watching me take a bite, gag, and then tell them how good it was. I think that they know
when I'm just being polite, but that didn't stop them from offering me the butt fat!

Though I'm not always crazy about their food preferences, I can't deny that they Kyrgyz
are incredibly gracious hosts. They go out of their way every time in order to serve
and cater to their guests, for instance, they will only fill the tea cup half way
in order to show that they are being attentive to the needs of their guests (Of course,
most of this responsibility falls onto the daughter-in-law, who we like to call Cinderella).
It's almost impossible that anyone will ever leave a Kyrgyz home not stuffed to the max
and even if the family doesn't have much they will put whatever they have onto the table.
As much work as it takes to be a host, I'm finding that being a guest also its work.
Saying no to food is sort of taken as a personal insult so trying a bite of everything is
mandatory (hence the sheeps tongue) and just stopping by someones house usually takes
at least an hour because they insist that you have tea with them (and it's never just
tea). Part of the PC survival guide is how to deal with pressure to eat and drink too
much...my favorite is "my kidnies are tired".

This past week and then next week, we are testing out our teaching skills in the local
schools in our village. It really is one of those situations where you either sink or learn
how to swim real fast! We have basically no resources to help us out besides some chalk
and a Kyrgyz dictionary. As my host brother kindly informed me, it's really an impossible task.
The first week wasn't as frightening
as I thought it would be. Being an American automatically gives us celebrity status, yes
I even signed autographs, and the kids are more intersted in knowing about life in
America rather then how to congugate verbs (I know they must be crazy, verbs are my
favorite). It's hard to take these classes seriously when the students show up when they
want to, if they show up at all that is, and English is not something that they study
normally so chances are pretty good that it will not be retained. I've given it a good
shot, we've done greetings (yah, I taught them 'what up' and 'see ya'...im going to have
some hip kids) and numbers, but we've also played games. I'm trying to make it as
entertaining as possible, otherwise they just wont come back!

Part of the deal in being a teacher with PC is that they want you to bring in American
ideas and styles of teaching. The school curriculum here is left over from the
Soviet era so they really encourage perfection and conformity rather than creativity.
Even the text books that the students use are few and way out of date. For instance,
I was looking through one and found titles such as, "Lenin's Modesty" and "Study as
Lenin studied". There was also a description of American politics, "There are two main
political parties in the USA, the Democrats and the Republicans. They are both
parties of capitalists and the American people do not see any difference between them."
I know that we're not perfect, but come on! There is also very little money going to
the schools and things that we would consider mandatory, like text books or desks,
are either in poor condition or they just dont exist. The class that I'm teaching is
full of 16 year olds and they have to sit in desks that were made for 10 year olds...
I have to say thats it is a bit entertaining watching them fumble their way in and
out of them!

My days are getting really routine and soon I will be low on stories, let me know
if there is anything specific that you want to know about!

all the best,
machalla

on a side note....
meals here so far have been pretty mild, nothing to exciting and have not required a lot of guess work. In my family we basically rotate between 5 standarddishes which always include bread and usually pasta or potatoes. Boring, but it gets the job done. I go in tonight and on the table is a big platter with a sheeps stomach which has been stuffed, tied at both ends and boiled. Folks, it really doesnt get much more graphic then that. I pointed to the gut and they assured me that wasn't what we were eating, or maybe i'm trying to make myself believe that's what they were telling me...usually, neitherone of us has any idea what the other is saying. Refusing food is sort of a big social no-no and they werent serving anything else, so I had to dig in. It reminded me of mom's meatloaf....and mom i'm not trying to say that your meatloaf tastes like it was just reguritated by a sheep,but it just had similar texture, flavor and mysteriousness. Definitely a situation where I was almost thankful for the language barrier. I have a feelingthat I really just don't want to know what I ate!
~machalla
the photo is of my host mom, Erland (the 2 year old) and Iziza. they are in the kitchin/dining room.
The other is from my trip to the lake
PS. Dad will you let me know if the photos posted alright...

On tuesday all of the trainees hit the road to all corners of Kyrgyzstan to visit current volunteers. It was our big chance to leave the nest and see what life is really like in the Peace Corps. Considering how little we have actually been able to do on our own, it was a bit surprising when the directors gave us a map and some written directions and wished us luck on getting to where we needed to be. It's nice that they have so much confidence in us, but remember we just got to verbs in our language lessons...not too helpful on the road. I ended up being really lucky though, the volunteer that I was goingto be staying with, Rich, was giving a talk to our whole group the day before we were to leave. He just stayed an extra night and took us the whole wayto the lake. I really cant believe that PC doesn't require some sort of excort. the transportation services here are not corporate or standardized at alland people who look like they dont know what is going on get taken advantage of a lot. And it's not like you can tell the driver to take a hike...i can tell him that he's wearing a sweater, but that's about it.
This might be a bit boring, but a little about how Kyrgyzstan is set up. It is divided into different oblasts, or districts. there's Osh and Jalalabad in the south and they are known for being a lot more conservative and traditional. It's supposed to be really hot there during the summer, which is a downside, but on the upside, they have more fruits and veggies. Naryn is considered the most isolated oblast. It's located in a valley that's way up in the mountains so it gets frigid cold and the mountains make leaving almost impossible 6 monthes out of the year. One has to wonder why anyone would choose to settle there and I hear that it was a result of the Russians invading and the Kyrgyz hiding out somewhere where no one would be crazy enough to follow. Desperate times call for desperate measures. As for the North of Kyrgyzstan, I dont know a whole lot of details, except that it's where Bishkek is located, which is the capitol and the biggest city. Then there's Issyk-kul, which is where the lake it and is where I went on my visit.
So about the lake. It's called Lake Issyk-kul which means warm lake. Because of it's size (its really huge), depth, saltiness (i dont know where the salt comes from)and some thermal activity it never freezes. It's actually insulting if you feel the water and say that it's cold, though it's really not any warmer than the Puget Sound. This is really a pretty area and is a big tourist hot spot - a lot of Russians and Kazaks as well as Kyrgyz come for the summer. Thepeople that live here make about 80% of their income just during the summer months and off of tourism. The recent revolutions have really impacted folkscoming around and a lot of people are worried that they wont have enough money to make it through the winter.The water is super clean and crystal blue, there's only like six boats on the entire lake and surprisingly it's not being polluted. Two big mountain ranges border both sides of the lake and the North Shore where I was, is in the foot hills of smaller, green mountains.
On the North Shore there are 4 volunteers that are spread out between 4 different villages and they are all within a half hours ride from eachother. It wasa really nice set up because each volunteer was having one or two trainees staying with them and we all got together pretty much every day. Alex, anothertrainee, and I stayed with Rich, who is probably the closest thing to a frat boy that we are going to see in Kyrgyzstan! He was an awesome host and the familythat he lives with were really nice. The daughter, who is about 16, speaks english really well, so between her and Rich, Alex and I were able to keep up. Heeven made us pizza and starbucks coffee! After three weeks of bread and noodles, it was amazing! I wasn't able to sleep all night from the coffee, but itwas a sacrafice that I would make 10 times over!
We went with Rich to his classes, which was so good because at this point I'm really wondering how I will be equipped to teach anything in just a few months. Alex and I really stood out, so a majority of the time was spent playing twenty questions. There were the usual, where are you from, how old are you, what'syour name and then there was, do you have a husband, why dont you have a husband, when are you going to get a husband, oh, and what are my goals and aspirations.It was a little uncomfortable at times, but coming out of this, I'm feeling a lot better about teaching. I'm not trying to kid myself into thinking that it will be easy,but they are really starting from the basics and there's no set curriculum so you can spend as much time as you need to on the lessons. Most volunteersteach between 2-4 hours a day and also run clubs. Most clubs are centered around speaking English, but really you can make up a club around whatever you are interested in. For instance, Rich has a sports club, so twice a week he heads out to the soccer field with ball and a frisbee and plays for a few hours.A lot of the boys are a bit 'too-cool-for-school' so it usualy ends up being just rich and 15 girls! I think that they are all hoping to score themselvesan American boy!
The volunteers really showed us a good time. We spent some time at the beach, just hanging out and playing cards. We also went on this amazing hike. It wasa path that followed a river through the foothills. There were a lot of trees, which is rare for this country, the mountains, grazing horses...really justthe works. There was one mishap though. A couple of the girls were approached by a mountain man with a few horses. Due to lack of communicationskills (and it probably didnt help that the dude had been drinking) - wanting to just take a photo on the horse ended up turning into a ride on the horse. The gear ended up being pretty shotty and both girls fell off, one of them hurt her leg pretty bad. Fortunatley, and really randomly, a big work truckfull of Russian teenagers pulled up and gave us all a ride back to our taxis. We still dont know what they were doing out there, but in some situations itsbetter to not ask questions. From what I hear, child labor laws aren't the same as they are in the states. For instance one day at the school a few classeswere packed into the back of a big truck to go and spend the day digging potatoes and it is doubtful that furthering their education was the purpose - this is justwhat happens duing harvest season. It doesn't sound like it's the same as going to the pumpkin patch...when they came back at the end of the day they had a huge load of potatoes. I hear that they get payed for it, but I doubt that it really amounts to anything.
Overall, it was a great trip and I am really hoping that I will get placed somewhere in the area for my permanent site. It doesn't sound like I have anysay in the decision at all, but I will try my best!
hope all is well,~machalla

Saturday was our introduction to KR culture and really the more I see, the stranger this culture gets. Our KR coordinators put on a festival for usat a holy monument, or a 25 meter tower in the middle of nowhere. To start things off, we of course had to slaughter a sheep and drain its blood...you knowthe usual. Later on I find out its going to be lunch. Honestly, it wasnt that horrible and was very ceremonial. There was a prayer and song before and thewhole thing was over really quick.
but, then they bring around a goat and they wont tell us what's for.....it's a surprise.
We got an introduction to traditional KR sports. One game involves two men on horses trying to wrestle the other off his horse. Another, is yourtypical guy-chases-girl game, except that its on horses and the guys have to try and get the girl and kiss her. The best part is though, is that if theguy misses the girl she gets to chase him with a whip and beat him up! The other game was sort of like polo, there were two teams on horses, wrestling overwhat we thought was a burlap bag. Ha, we were wrong- wondering what happened to that goat....well it was also slaughtered beheaded and it became the "ball". You've just got to wonder, out of all the things that could of been used as the ball, how a headless goat was chosen. I mean if you really want to get messy, one could always bust out a watermelon.....

The rest of the day was filled with lots of music, dancing and food, including chunks of sheep fat (which I politely declined)....apparently it's a real treat. But my favorite was the fermented mares milk. In the slight chance you ever get offered fermented mares milk I would highly recommend that you pass it up...it tastedlike carbonated spoiled milk. I suppose that if one was really desperate for an alchoholic drink it would do, but what a price to pay for a buzz!
Since we're on the subject of food anyways, I just have to say that I am quickly getting tired of the food here. Fruits and veggies are scarce, and in the winter I hear that it's even worse. On a typical day I will have bread with butter and tea for breakfast, for lunch bread with some salami and cucumbers and an apple or two, then dinner its bread, some noodle soup or fried potatoes, and some cucumbers and tomatoes. Seeing a trend? I know thatI need to get used to it, and it's not that it tastes bad, but it all tastes the same! I am hoping that once I get to my permanent site that I willbe able to cook for myself....or attempt to cook for myself.

the photo is my house....will try and post more later
k