So I had a long, semi eloquent explanation of my first week at my permanent site written, but this computer is all in Russian and I can't find how to get to my flash drive, so I'm going to give up and write another less eloquent explanation.
Last Thursday (September 18), I became an official Peace Corps volunteer, after three months of being a "trainee". The ceremony was nice, with my host family and the teacher I will be working with in the audience. Afterward, we had a night with all of us at the same hotel. We had a party in one room, with a lot of people and no electricity (c'est la vie here), which reminded me how much I love our group of volunteers.
Early Friday morning, however, reality hit and we left to fly to Osh and drive to J-bad from there. Since then, I have been living in my village, adjusting and trying to figure out everything.
The transition has been pretty difficult, because several things working together. First, I left Kant with a cold that has since become a lung and sinus infection. I am on a lot of antibiotics now, so I should be feeling better in a few days, but the past week or so has been spent with me exhausted from hacking up my lungs all day.
Also, my predicessor, Danielle, had a big project at the end of her service that was building a fence around the school grounds. The project isn't done yet, so I had to pick up where she left off. Peace Corps says that we aren't supposed to do any big projects for at least the first three months of service, because we need time to adjust and we have training in January on how to do projects, so I dont' know what's going on now. On my first day, I spent more time shopping for welding supplies than at school. My counterpart is much more interested in the project than in me teaching, because everyone wants the project to be over as fast as possible.
Teaching has also been a struggle. I've spent a lot of time sitting in my classroom while the English teachers fight in Kyrgyz about my schedule. After days of that, I still don't have a schedule. I've taught a few classes, with differing success. Each grade are divided into three or four class (A, B, V, and G), with A being the best students and V or G being the worst. Yesterday, my counterpart and I taught 10th grade A and B together, then she threw me into a room with 10 V and left for the entire period. The boys in the class were aweful. The girls at least put a tiny bit of effort into the assignment they were supposed to be doing, but the boys were aweful. I quickly became a real teacher-- yelling at them and even confiscating a cell phone (one boy kept trying to take pictures of me with his phone. He deserved it). By the end, the boys had all copied the right answers from the girls, and I had given up on them. Hopefully, I can talk to my counterpart to let her know that I can't be alone with them.
One extreme positive so far, however, has been my family. They have been extremely warm and inviting to me. My mother is really cute and sweet. The boys have started to say hi to me (a big step for teenage boys). My two year-old sister is a great source of entertainment, especially since my language is so limited. A few days ago, she found a book with pictures of Americans, and went through and pointed to every girl and said "Lesie Ejey" (Lesie = the closest she can get to Leslie, and Ejey = older sister/respectful term for a girl older than you). My 14 year-old sister has been amazing, since her English is so good. She's been really helpful with the adjustment and explaining everything to me. She's also a really sweet girl, so we've had fun together. My aunt and grandmother are both nice, though we don't talk much. Even the dogs I was terrified of before have turned out to be really nice. The houses are nice too-- I like living with so many animals around the yard.
After my first day of school, I was extremely frustrated and pretty upset about how things were happening. Aichuruk, the 14 year-old, asked if I wanted to go for a walk with her. We walked out to the edge of another village, and then turned back. As we turned around, so did my mood. In front of me was such a gorgeous view -- the sun was setting over a row of weeping willows, with the mosque poking up above them. All around me was farmland, full of sunflowers and wheat. It was amazing how quickly I became content again. It's the little things in life that make it what it is.
Last night was the two-year anniversary of my grandfather's death, and a big party. The family spent all day cooking and killing a sheep. They let me help make borsok (little pieces of fried bread) and clean out the sheep's intestines. Needless to say, I found one activity more pleasant than the other, but I'm glad they're letting me help. In the evening, a lot of people came to the house, and we spent hours cooking, eating, and sitting. There was one room full of men, and two full of women and children. I was pretty exhausted from being sick, so the hours of sitting got tiring, but it was great to be able to watch such a big group of women enjoying themselves.
The movement from training to work has been interesting and challanging, but I'm still very excited about what I am doing here. I'm looking forward to settling in and getting a routine, as well as getting to know my family and my village better.
Also, I heard recently that you can send me text messages for free online! Go to http://megacom.kg (my cellphone company) (when it first loads, click where it says "eng" for english). On the left, click on the second option, "send SMS" and scroll down. My number is 996550 (the second option) then 324451. Be sure to say who you are, so I don't get confused. Also, remember that my cell phone is my alarm clock, and we're 10 hours ahead of the East coast here, so don't wake me up, or I'll get cranky. Other than that, please do say hi if you want!
I'll post more when I can next!

The Project

(From 9/14)
As a part of pre=service training, every village has to do a project for their community. This year, our projects were funded by an unnamed businessman in Kant. Most villages did clean-up projects in the local schools or parks, but my village decided to go beyond that. At the local primary school (where we held our English clubs), there are five outdoor stage areas where the kids can play. They look like this:

We were concerned by the rotten floorboards, since they are obviously a safety hazard if kids are going to be running around.

We wanted to replace the broken floorboards, but the director of the school was only interested in having the stages repainted, so we agreed to do both. We spent most of the last two weekends working. The girls started scraping at the old paint, while the boys (and a random but very helpful Kyrgyz man) replaced the floors.

We also had the help of a few Kyrgyz boys one day.

(in our sunglasses, so the paint chips didn’t fly into their eyes)

By the end of the second full day of scraping at dirty old paint, we had made great progress, but we were all exhausted and tired of scraping.
(Jess, Joni, and Serena)

The final product, however, is really exciting. The floors are now safe and much better looking than before.

The walls are my pride and joy, after spending hours on them. We used a pattern Jessica’s mother made for the cushions she makes, and added a creation from Micah, our resident artist.

After finishing completely, the last six volunteers still standing

The final product!

Peace Corps was here.

After our second day of painting, we were proud and a little loopy from exhaustion and paint fumes, so we had a photo shoot, using my camera’s timer:

Three Musketeers style

“Sword” fight. I’m throwing paint on them, if you can’t tell (we ran out of brushes to pose with)

Too cool for school

Perfecting the Kyrgyz squat

Can can

Normal group shot: Me, Micah, Chris, Jess, Joni, Serena, and Mike

Also at the school, this is a normal slide for little kids to play on. The top looks much the same.

Other than the project, everything is coming to a close right now. This Thursday is Swearing In, when I will officially become a volunteer (because until then I’m just a “trainee”), and on Friday, I leave for Jalalabad with my counterpart to start my real work. I’m really excited to start, but sad to leave my village with my family and friends and the whole PC group.
Also, my language group has adopted two dogs who hang out around the house where we have class.
This is Puppy. He’s grown a lot while we’ve been here.

This is Mangy. He doesn’t like to stand still for pictures. He’s usually very wiggly. This is the best I could do.

9/17

Tomorrow is the big swearing in, and the official end of PST. On Friday, I head down to Jalalabad, and I start work on Monday!

I don't know when I will get to the internet next -- I may stick around my village at first to get oriented and everything there, but the city isn't far away.

I just got back from my permanent site visit today. I left Saturday to spend three days where I will be spending the next two years. Overall, I am very excited about what I’m about to do. PST has been a lengthy transition period, and I finally got a taste of what reality will soon be for me. My village is small – supposedly there are 5,000 people, but it’s likely that a sizable number of them are in Russia. There is one small store, a school, and a lot of houses. Physically, the village is beautiful. It’s very green – lots of trees bordering all of the streets and all over the yards, and is surrounded by farmland. There are a lot of sunflower fields around, which still cease to amaze me. On the outskirts of the village, there are small hills, which allow for great views and peaceful solitary time (which is hard to find). There are the obligatory (for Kyrgyzstan) views of the farmlands with mountains shooting up in the background, which still amazes me. My family is “untraditional”, but will be really great. The head of the family is a grandmother. There is also her daughter (my aunt) and her 14 year-old daughter Aichurok and her daughter-in-law (my host mother) and her 2 year-old daughter Elnura, 13 year-old son Adel, and 15 year-old son Bakit. My host father is, like many Kyrgyz men, living in Russia to work, because there is much more money to be made there than in Kyrgyzstan. My mother is a nurse in the closest town, and works most nights, so she is often out of the house for dinner. It is nice to be living in such a community of women, though. It’s a nice change from many Kyrgyz families to see the grandmother as the most respected figure in the household. The house itself consists of three buildings around a large yard. I live in one building with my mother, sister, and brothers (though now the boys sleep outside). One building is the kitchen, and the other is where my grandmother, aunt, and cousin live. There is also a large outdoor kitchen area, because there is often no electricity in the afternoons, as in all of Kyrgyzstan now. We have a lot of animals, which is really fun. For all I know now, we have 8 sheep, a lot of turkeys and baby turkeys (who are surprisingly cute), chickens, three dogs, a cat (his name is Tom and he is amazingly friendly and needy, which I obviously love), cows, and possibly a horse. My favorite part of the house (and houses in the South in general, I think) is a large outdoor platform, which they cover with tushuks (cushions). That is where the grandmother spends much of her time and where we eat dinner every night. It’s really nice to sit out with the breeze and all of live going on behind us. The 14-year-old girl in my family will be a really great asset for me. She was Danielle (the K14 I am replacing)’s pet project and most fulfilling project of her service, she said. In Danielle’s first year, Aichurok (at this point, 12 years old) convinced Danielle to teach her English. At this point, her English is really impressive. Her biggest dream right now is to do the FLEX program, where the US government sends Kyrgyz high schoolers to the US for a year. She’s still too young to apply, but I hope to help her in the next year so that next year, when she applies, she’ll be ready. She is the most self-motivated 14 year-old I have ever heard of. On my first night at the house, she came up to me and asked if I had any English grammar books. I showed her one that Peace Corps gave us, and she smiled and sat down to look through it. She asked if she could borrow it later, because she needs to work on her grammar. I’m very excited to see a young girl so invested in her own education and am very excited to work with her. She’s also a really sweet girl, so she’ll be fun to get to know. Monday was the “first bell” ceremony – the first day of school in all of Kyrgyzstan. It isn’t technically a school day, but there is a ceremony where students are welcomed back. It was my first day with the school, which was exciting. Danielle and I were recognized by the directors and were given flowers by students, which was nice. I got to meet all of the English teachers (our school has 6!) and a few other teachers. After the ceremony, we had a brief meeting, and the day was over. On Tuesday, the teachers had organized a party to celebrate Danielle and me as well as the building of a fence (Danielle’s biggest project at the school). We went into the town near our village with a few teachers and a few of the main masters (builders of the fence) to a café. On the way, we picked up Sareah, another new volunteer in the region, who was added into the party. At the café, we got food and vodka and cognac. The builders and a few teachers drank the liquor, while the rest of us sipped Cokes. After a few toasts and shots of vodka, they decided it was time to dance. We all go up and, while other tables of people continued to eat, danced in a circle. This was all, of course, around noon. We danced for two songs, then went back to the table for more food and liquor. After a few hours and right as the men ordered more food and beer, Danielle, Sarah, and I gracefully exited. That was both my first teacher party and my first Kyrgyz party all in one, which is exciting and different than anything I could have expected from a teacher party. During the visit, I also went into Jalalabad city with the people in our area and the two people who live near here from last year. We got to walk around the city, see the important sites (the grocery store, the best internet café, etc) and hang out with the people who are closest to us, which is exciting. I really like the two k15s we met and am excited to get to know them and the other 16s better. This morning, on the way to the airport in Osh, we all stopped in at a café that is famous for serving American style food. I got a cup of real coffee (my first since July 2nd!) and amazing vegetable fajitas. It’s amazing how happy those little things can make me after just two months. Now I have less than three weeks left here before I swear in as a full volunteer and start my real adventure! Love to all!
Leslie













The oven where they bake bread in my house









My counterpart, another English teachers, and two welders breaking it down
















Welders know how to have a good time
















The view out my window -- those are rose bushes, if you can't tell
















The compound of my new family -- that's the house where I live in the background











The kitchen
















The outdoor platform where we eat and hang out

The outdoor kitchen, and part of the other house

My bed in my new house

The seating area of my room

The view from the flight to Osh

There are mountains in Kyrgyzstan

Lots of mountains

Me and my PST host family outside our house