The past few weeks have been relatively normal (or as normal as working in a Kyrgyz school can be for me right now). I passed the “one month at site” mark, which is exciting. It’s felt like a very long month, but adjusting is always going to be hard, so I’m excited about the next 23 months…

The class schedule I was given turns out to have been a big joke (funny, right?). I still wake up every morning with no idea what will happen in the next day, which keeps things exciting, I guess. I’ve gotten to be an expert at going with the flow, or as some of us decided the motto of PC Kyrgyzstan should be: “embrace the chaos”. Teaching, or trying to figure it out, is still an adventure. It’s still shocking to me how little English the 10^th and 11^th form students know. Today, I taught the alphabet to the 11^th form club (supposedly made up of the best students from the whole grade). Needless to say, they definitely needed the lesson.

To explain some of the limitations of teaching here, here is an excerpt from the 8^th from textbook:

If you can’t read it, it’s the section on the US. My favorite part says, “There are two main political parties in the USA: The Democratic (symbolized by a ) and the Republican (symbolized by an ). They both are parties of monopoly capitalists and the American people do not see any difference between them.”

Some exciting things that have happened in the past two weeks:

Since before I even moved in here, my sister had been talking about this wedding in the family that was happening in mid-October and how excited she was and everything. A few weeks ago, we went to the pa

rty. It turns out the wedding had already happened (a bride kidnapping ma

ybe? I’m not quite sure when or what that was), but the party was when they got presents. We got there at 10 and left at 4, and I pretty much ate non

stop the entire time. There was also dancing:

The lady in the orange dress and yellow scarf never cracked a smile, but she was breaking it down the entire time.

My sisters at the party

Last week was also the 11^thform’s “autumn ball”, their answer to senior prom. It was held in the basketball room at 1:00 on a Tuesday, complete with a table full of bread, juice, carrot salad, and a jar of pickles. Not quite what I remember from senior prom… I was invited by the whole class as an honored guest. Every time I would make any attempt at dancing, everyone would start clapping and cheering. I even got to slow dance (middle-school style) with a couple boys.

The typical boys who are too cool to dance

Always with the curious kids watching through the door, until they got chased away.

I’ve started a routine on my days off (by“routine” I mean I did it two of the past three free days, with this most recent free day off because of yet another fun bout of stomach problems). In this routine, I spend the morning walking around the village, taking in the beauty of the scenery, especially in this season.

Then I head into the next town over, get lunch at a nice (or very grungy but delicious and cheap) Uzbek café and run errands in the bazaar. It turns out to be a lovely way to spend my days and

get things done at the same time. It also means I now have a lot of pictures of my village. I hope to keep it up as much as possible until the weather makes it too unpleasant.

I really like the mountains, as you can tell

A very nice shephard lady watching her sheep

That's my village, in all of those trees

Also, in true Kyrgyz style, Lenin is always watching.

A pretty big pop star came to do a concert at my village, so my sister and I obviously went, and got there an hour early so that she could get an autograph. I found myself sitting backstage (or on folding chairs on the side of the stage) with a 14 year-old Kyrgyz pop star and his midget sidekick. The midget was getting very flirty. That can get added to the list of things I never thought I would do…

This picture is pure gold, in terms of how many cool points it could give me.

I found out yesterday that my host mother is probably moving to Russia this winter. Her friend works in a grocery store there and invited my mother to come work with her. It’s sad that someone can make enough more money working in a grocery store in Russia than as a nurse in Kyrgyzstan that my mother will leave her two-year-old daughter. Her leaving means that I get an entire house to myself, for the most part, though, which would be nice.

This is my official immediate family

This weekend is the famous Halloween party in Osh, and I’m heading down there tomorrow. Apparently over 20 volunteers will be there, which should be really fun. The party itself is at a café, and semi-decent beer and food and a party full of Americans and Pakistani med students has been promised. I’m excited, of course. I’m sure I will have plenty of pictures and stories for my next entry.

Until then, take care, and check back in later!