It's kind of crazy how sometimes things just feel ... right. Yesterday afternoon, I was going into the city to see Fritz and Ginger's new house and have dinner. I left my house (with my iPod going, which makes everything feel more effortless), hailed a marshrutka (minivan bus. They're awesome), and enjoyed the scenic view of the outskirts of the city. During the trip, however, it hit me how smooth it feels now to do things like that. I'm finally feeling like I belong here. Maybe it's because my work situation is working out, or just being more comfortable with everything, or maybe just because The Police were singing to me... It's nice that I'm feeling settled and comfortable now, because I feel like this will make me much more productive and happy. Pretty soon, I'm meeting other volunteers for lunch at one of our favorite cafes that we've named "The fried lagman place" because they have amazing fried lagman (it tastes a lot like Chinese noodles). Our other cafes of choice include "Porch cafe", "Smoking baby cafe", "The samsa place", and "The Pizzaria" (that's it's actual name, though I have never been there when they have pizza -- apparently they didnt' even have an oven for years). Needless to say, we have no idea what most of their names actually are, but our names make meeting there easy...
Happy New Year everyone!
And just because it won't get out of my head, here's a favorite song here now: (sung to the tune of Jingle Bells)
Janga Jil
Janga Jil
Janga Janga Janga Jil!

Also, here are some pictures from our Christmas celebration!









Nate's friend came to visit from America and we gave him the best gift ever: besh barmak flavored ramen noodles!








Our 15s (Nate, Lauren, Tristan, Susan,Ted, and Rebecca) singing their version of the 12 days of Christmas









Me, Sarah, and Ariel enjoying the festivities








Ginger and Fritz opening a very Kyrgyz housewarming gift














Joe in Christmas attire and Nate as our Christmas elf
















Me, Martha, Ginger, and Fritz -- the Jalalabad city group!








Action shot of our Christmas Eve spagghetti dinner being devoured.









Nate woke us up on Christmas morning with some Christmas cheer (aka candy canes thrown at us while we were sleeping)















Make-shift Christmas tree and secret santa presents



















Every night is pretty much wall to wall human. There I am in the green! The photographer slept on the far right. This was the not crowded night...

Merry Christmas to all and happy New Years!
I had a great Christmas here -- we had anohter big gathering, with a huge amount of amazing but not exactly traditional food (chili, cornbread, salad, carrots and onions, mashed potatoes, and "Korona" brand champagne), but it was still festive and very fun. We had a secret santa, a christmas tree of paper taped to the wall, and a special performance by the 15s of "The 12 Days of Christmas" that was hilarious. None of you would understand it, but trust me, it was hilarious.
We also had three days of food planned, from the bean dip, ranch dressing, and spaggheti Christmas Eve dinner to yesterday morning's hashbrowns, "tomato yumminess", and scrambled eggs. Sarah and I somehow became the ringleaders of the weekend, which was surprising to me, but nice since it all went so well.
Kyrgyzstan is getting ready for Janga Jill (New Year) celebrations. It's funny to me how this country has picked up America's Christmas traditions and turned them into Janga Jill traditions, without any hint of irony. Everyone has fancy "Janga Jill trees", kids are waiting for Santa to come and bring them Janga Jill presents. They even changed the words of "Jingle Bells" to a Kyrgyz version about Janga Jill.
I will probably be spending Janga Jill with my host family, seeing what Kyrgyz families do for the holiday.
Otherwise, school is pretty much out for the semseter. My school has a 10 day break, followed by me going to Bishkek for a week-long training, so I won't really be back until the last week of January, when my counterpart and I will work on next semester's Calendar plan and a teacher training she and another volunteer have been planning.
Our little family here is breaking up a little -- 2 volunteers are going to America for a month (remember -- if you want to send me anything, Susan will bring it back with her -- her address is in the previous post), and two others are going to China for vacations. It will be strange to have them gone, but I'm sure it will be over faster than I think. It's weird and exciting to think that, if I follow through on my plans, I'll be the one heading home for a vacation at this time next year! Mark your calendars, people, only about 365 days until you can see me again in Charleston!

Yesterday was my three month anniversary of being a real volunteer! After three months of flailing around, I feel like I'm finally where I'm supposed to be. Yesterday, I joined Fritz and Ginger (other Jbad volunteers) for a Kyrgyz class. Getting there involved walking actross the airport runway, which is not something I thought I would ever do. There were also sheep joining us, of course. After our class, I went back to Fritz and Ginger's house, where we spent the next five hours drinking a few beers and just talking, about Peace Corps, volunteers, ourselves, their kids, and pretty much anything. It was really great to be able to relax and made me realize how lucky I am to have such a great group here that I've connected with so well.
This week was our first snow! It's coming down pretty hard right now, and it's really beautiful. All of the Soviet buildings look much better with some snow there to soften the concrete edges...
School is now out for a month-long break. My new counterpart and I will spend a lot of it working on lesson plans and everything for the upcoming semester, which I'm very excited about. I think working with her is going to be amazing, and we're going to do some great things together.
Also, not to sound needy or anything, but if anyone wants to send me anything, there is a volunteer from here going home for a break next week. She'll be there for about a month. She's offered for anyone to send things to her, and she'll bring them back with her. So, if anyone wants to make me feel loved (keep it relitively small, she does have to fly back with it), send anything to:
Susan Nosal
601 Wirsing Ave.
Greensburg, PA 15601
USA!
It should be much easier, cheaper, faster, and more likely to get to me than anything sent via Kyrgyz mail...
Hope the Christmas celebrations are kicking off well for everyone else!

So as most of you have probably figured out, I’m normally a very happy person. These past three months have been a glimpse into what my life would be like if I were a fundamentally angry person. It turns out anger and pessimism don’t suit me. As of this week, I’m back. I’m back to being my normal, borderline annoyingly happy and optimistic self. On Wednesday, I moved into the city and began a new part of my service: being a city volunteer. More than just that, I started the part of my service where I am actually productive and necessary, and thus happy and content.
My new house is very different from before. My family is a mother, a father who is a lawyer and is usually in Bishkek on business trips, and a sister in 11th form (aka 17 years old). They’re both very sweet and accommodating to me. There are also three older brothers, but they are all gone (one’s in Ukraine, one in Turkey, and one in Bishkek for university). Another “brother” has been mentioned, but I’m pretty sure he’s not actually my brother, but rather a cousin or something like that. He goes to the Turkish school in town (they’re the best private secondary schools in the country. And yes, they are run and taught by Turkish people), and comes to our house on the weekends (?). Figuring out the actual members of a Kyrgyz family is always confusing. I’m sure a sibling or other family member they call a sibling will pop out at some point…
As to the house itself, I have about half of it to myself, including my room, other empty rooms I don’t actually have access to, and a really nice refrigerator. The other half is accessible from the porch (there are two doors opening onto the porch – mine and the one to the kitchen) and includes a super fancy kitchen and two rooms heated by gas (mine is only heated by electricity, making it cold when there’s no electricity). The kitchen includes (you really have to have lived in Kyrgyzstan for five months to get why these things are groundbreaking) a washing machine (!), a sink with hot water, and a gas stove that doesn’t make me think I’m going to die whenever I use it. This is all huge. I also have a banya with a shower (!!) and a really frightening dog. The house is directly next to the kindergarten and a five minute walk from school, which is very nice.
The best part of my new life, though, is my school. The building itself is hideously Soviet (think imposingly concrete monstrosity), but it looks like an official building. My counterpart, Aliya, is a Russian woman with fluent English. She is the head of the English teachers’ society in the city and is extremely ready to do things. She’s already been working with Ginger, another volunteer in the city, on a teacher training in January, and has had two volunteers before. She already team taught (I’m in the second year of volunteers to be forced to team teach) with a previous volunteer because she thought it would be a good learning opportunity. Our classroom has a computer and there’s talk of getting internet soonish (though I’m not holding my breath on that one. “Soonish” could mean just about anything here). She said that classes are small (the max is 24, which is small for Kyrgyzstan) and very well-behaved. She wants me to do clubs that I’m interested in, like one about Anthropology, and she was really excited about me teaching dance. Talking to her is so exciting and inspiring, which is such an amazing change.
This weekend is the "olympiada", a nation-wide competition in all subjects taught in schools here. It's really important to do well at these, so schools send their best students and spend months preparing them. There are three girls from my school going to the English one, so I'm spending all week this week preparing them. They don't have to go to classes, since they're studying instead, so we spend all day talking and taking exams. It's nice to be able to come in a week before the end of the semester and actually do something productive. The girls are really sweet too, so I've had fun talking to them.
Last weekend, another volunteer here had a friend from America come visit. In honor of him, a bunch of us got together and went on a pretty long hike from one village to another, including a side trip into the hills to have a bonfire and hot dogs. It was really nice to get out, before it gets too icey and cold to spend any time outside. It was also great to get some new blood in here (it' weird having a social circle that consists of 17 people at its maximum...).
Otherwise, we're preparing for Christmas next week. We're planning our feast (including at least three pies, of course) and have a secret santa set up. It's weird that as of Friday, I will be a quarter of the way through my work here.
Hope everyone's Christmas preparations are going well. Safe travels and all of that!

Also, if you're interested in making me feel special, I have a new address! Contact either me or my mom if you want it.

Happy holiday season to everyone! Mine started off with a bang last week with our rendition of Thanksgiving. Every day here is a new story, a new experience I never expected. This Thanksgiving will go down in history as the time I made an entire Thanksgiving dinner without electricity or water. It was a fiasco, but turned out surprisingly positive and amazing. Last weekend, there were seventeen people in Jalalabad for the holiday. We had our big Thanksgiving meal on Saturday (because PC regulations say we aren’t allowed to take American holidays off of work). Friday was a crazy night, with so many people in town. We woke up Saturday morning, ready to cook, but found that the electricity had gone off at 10:00 Friday night (which is normal), and hadn’t come back on (which is not normal). The water had also shut off, which happens sometimes. Most of the other volunteers ran away from the cooking to go into town on errands that took much longer than they should. Four of us (all girls, all K16s) stayed behind to cook. We had a great time, even with the hardships; we all stayed super positive and were proud of our amazing accomplishments. Our dinner, in the end, consisted of fried chicken and salad (thanks to Fritz and Ginger), a spinach and cheese quiche, mashed potatoes, pumpkin walnut casserole (because they don’t have sweet potatoes in Kyrgyzstan), bean salad, and two pies (apple and pecan, both baked by me!).
We ended up making two tables (one being a coffee table, one being a tablecloth on the floor), and serving two big bowls or plates of everything, then sitting around each table and eating straight out of the bowls (also known as “Kyrgyz style”). Before we ate, we passed around a bottle of vodka (we are still in Kyrgyzstan) and each said what we are thankful for. Most of the thanks were given for the family that we have made for ourselves in our group. There were tears, laughter, and plenty of vodka shots. Then we dug in. After dinner, Susan offered to pay 15 som (about 50 cents) to anyone who would race around the building, because she thought it would be funny to see anyone try after eating that much food. Nate and Sarah took her up, thus creating the first annual Jalalabad Turkey Trot. Nate won by a landslide, but the real winners were all of the Kyrgyz teenagers who got to laugh at us silly Americans. On Sunday morning, we made banana walnut chocolate pancakes (because we needed more food) and cleaned up after ourselves. The water came back on just as I was leaving to come back, but the electricity was still gone when I left…
Now we’re gearing up for Christmas here. As an attempt to keep ourselves from being sad and lonely since we’re so far from our families, we’re planning on going all out. We’re decorating this weekend, making Christmas themed cookies and other food, and playing a lot of Christmas music. That stuff starts to drive me crazy in the US, but now that the only way I can get it is by playing it myself, I’ve started to actually like it. My friend Ariel has “Holiday Inn” on dvd (it’s not just us, Finnans!), so we’re going to watch that soon. I’ve warned her that I have to throw a fit about how I don’t want to watch it, but that I really do want to watch it. It wouldn’t be Christmas without fighting over Holiday Inn. I don’t think she’s willing to fast forward over our least favorite parts, though.
On Monday afternoon, I got a call from Peace Corps telling me that I am officially changing sites! I don’t know where I’ll go yet, but I’ll definitely stay in Jalalabad, probably very close to where I am now. I should be moved within the next few weeks (before December 20, I was told!). This is excellent news, because I had come to the conclusion that I was going to leave this school, either with a site change or I’d have to drop out. I haven’t really been able to say much about my work, because we were told to keep our blogs positive in case someone from here were to find them, but it’s been frustratingly dysfunctional, so I am very excited to have a new start soon. I was told to not tell anyone here about it, so that my teachers or director don’t find out from someone other than me or Peace Corps, so it’s been an awkward week in the village. On Monday afternoon, just a few minutes after I found out about the site change, I went for a long walk with my sister. We walked to the next village over and went to their school (because apparently that’s what Kyrgyz kids do for fun?). We were walking around the school, when I heard someone yell “excuse me, do you speak English?” I looked back, but just saw a group of Kyrgyz kids. One of the kids came out, and kept talking to me in perfect, strangely accented English. It turns out he is a high school senior in Australia. He’s lived there for three years and was just here for his vacation, visiting family. He was very shocked to meet an American at his remote Kyrgyz village. It’s funny how the sound of English being spoken is such a big deal at this point. It’s the little things…
The rest of the week has been pretty much a blur since Monday’s news. School is much more pleasant now that I can mutter to myself “I’m getting out of here” instead of my earlier less socially acceptable word choices. Now I have to start packing up all of my stuff, and somehow explain to my family and my teachers that I’m leaving…
Thanks to everyone who dealt with depressing emails/phone calls while I sorted through these past few months. Hopefully I’ll have a much more positive experience in my next site.
I hope Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas season is treating everyone well. Wish me luck with my move and my new site and all of that!
Love to all!
Leslie
PS. Just to gross everyone out, as of today, it’s been 39 days since I last bathed (yeah, that means the last time was in October. I could’ve given up bathing for Lent and pretty much made it…). I’ve washed my hair a few times, but besides that, I’m just pretty dirty. I don’t feel like I smell or anything (maybe I’ve just lost my sense of smell, but other volunteers said they don’t notice me either). I’m taking a banya (sauna/bucket bath) at Fritz and Ginger’s this weekend, though, so I’ll be really really clean for quite a while. It’s all relative, right?







Half of the feast













Food. (It's kind of sad how many pictures I have of food)
















Fritz's amazing box full of fried chicken. There were several layers below this one.












My pies!















Yes, that is a chopstick holding the oven closed. No one can ever complain about how hard Thanksgiving is to me again.













Already in the post-eating coma. Two men down.















Sarah and Nate at the starting line of the Turkey Trot.













Nate's victory leaps
















There was a lot of eating
















Some of the girls ready to eat












And now for an update, since I wrote this last night and my life is so exciting that that's not recent enough!
Today was my last day of work at my school. I'm moving to my new site on Wednesday! Peace Corps called during school today to let me know. Monday's a holiday here, and Tuesday I'll be packing, then I'm off on Wednesday! I'm really excited now that it's actually really happening!