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!