Kyrgyz drivers are crazy

Life as a Peace Corps volunteer is always a bit crazy. They tell you when you begin your journey that you need to work on the “F” word… Flexibility. I feel that has been proven to be true more than I ever thought possible. Just in the past week along I have gone from staying at a friend’s house, helping make lunch for an English camp to being consolidated with all of the other volunteers for five days for safety precautions. Nothing happened, but Kyrgyzstan had a referendum vote on Sunday and many people we nervous that there may be some problems. Luckily, everywhere is safe, people voted, and there was no violence. I feel safe am not worried about anything. Now I am finally back in my village that I just found out is the coldest site in Peace Corps WORLD. Please think good thoughts of warmth and sanity for me!

One of the greatest parts of this country (as I think I have mentioned before) is the transportation. The best part of it is how cheap it is, but I guess you get what you pay for. Many times you can make it to where you are going with no problems what-so-ever, but then there are those hitches in the road (no pun intended). One good hitch that happened to me when taking a taxi into the city was our driver kept wanting to stop for random things. That doesn’t sound like that would be a good experience, but it really was. First, he wanted to stop to get some kumuz (fermented mere’s milk). I loathe the stuff, but one of the other volunteers that I was riding with wanted some so we stopped. He got a whole half liter for free because it was the taxi driver’s family who was selling it on the side of the road. Then as we were driving along our driver was playing with his phone. He then started passing it around and showing us pictures of a waterfall. Apparently it was just off the road. He really wanted to take us there and show us it. My American instincts kept telling me “NO.” I began to list all the reasons why I didn’t want to, I need to get where I was going, I didn’t want to ride in the car anymore, why would any normal person want to just take us to a waterfall? But then I began to think, I need to slow down and take life as it comes. That is one of my reasons for wanting to be in the Peace Corps. We said yes and he took us on this sketchy road that really felt like we were going to drive off the edge. As we turned the corner there it was. This waterfall was coming directly out of the rocks. As it hit the ground it trickled down over jagged rocks and turned into a small stream. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Lesson learned: take time to enjoy life and remember that you can say yes to something even though it isn’t part of the plan.

Another interesting part of the transportation is there really are lanes in the road. There are kind of two lanes on the outside and one lane in the middle. They use the middle lane to pass. The only problem is that there are so many pot holes and other things in the road that sometimes they have to go to the other side of the road to miss them. So, taxi drivers here swerve all over the road passing each other and missing the dangers in the road. I have learned to just not watch where we were going because if I do my foot is constantly on the floor trying to push in the imaginary break that we all know is not there, but still use it. The other day when we were riding home from Bishkek, there were several times when the road was completely full of sheep. The driver had to lay on his horn just to get them to move out of his way. Some days I am amazed at how different my life is now and already in 3 months this has all become normal. I wouldn’t change it for anything. Some days are more difficult than others, but when it comes down to it I love this experience and I have been given an opportunity that I am forever grateful for!

As for the good things that are going on here in Naryn Oblast… I am beginning to feel very comfortable to take public transportation around my village (alone). For those of you who know me well… know that I have a large fear of mass transportation. The greatest part of the transportation here is that everyone takes it because so few people have vehicles. When I tell people here that when I lived in America we had 4 vehicles at our house they are shocked. The best part about the transportation is that it is so cheap. It costs about $2 to go from my village to Naryn city by taxi which is about an hour away. I can also travel to Bishkek (about 6 hours) for roughly $12. The difficult part of it is that you never know when you are going to get anywhere. Taxis and marshrukas (mini busses) can break down, stop anytime they want for food, the bathroom... maybe even take a vodka shot or two… you just never know what you are going to get. But I guess that’s half the fun. Ha. Tomorrow I plan on going to Naryn City. I am going to go with some friends and check out everything in the big city. Yeah right… it’s one street and can barely be considered a city. But it is the best I can get, so I’ll take it.
I taught my first English Club today. Well I was supposed to start on Tuesday but the girls who kept calling me and making sure that I was going to remember to come didn’t even show up. A college girl who loves “Twilight” did come though and was very excited to find out that I worked at the restaurant that was in the prom scene. She knows English very well and we are going to have weekly meetings so she can practice her English. Her dream is to go to America. Today though, I had 6 girls in my class and we practiced greetings. It was a lot of fun to teach them American slang greetings. They showed a great interest and were very interactive. I started with two and then every 20 minutes two more students would come in. My counterpart told me that she told them that if they didn’t come that I would have to go back to America. I guess guilt works in this country, too. That’s not true at all, but oh well. They were engaged and wanted to learn.
I have gone to the local restaurant the past few days for lunch. It is pretty good. I went with some other volunteers and it was really great to be able to talk to the waiters. I was able to introduce myself and order food all in Kyrgyz. Lunch was pretty good. The other volunteers at my site usually meet there once a week (especially in the winter when all we eat at home is potatoes, carrots, onions and meat) just to get some variety. I look forward to school starting in September so I have a set schedule.
I hope all is well at home. Don’t worry about me here.

Pictures

Here are some pictures from the past 2.5 months.
We got to go hiking at this resort called Issyk-Kata. It was so beautiful.

Making cinnamon rolls is our source of sanity. This was a great day. They were delicious!I fell into this whole one night. It is at least three feet deep and surrounded by cement. Nice job Brooke. It was surrounded by something that illegal in America. We called it my "Pot-hole" HAHA.
My family killed a sheep for me the night before I moved to my new home. It was pretty awesome process to watch.

This my pre-service training group right after we swore in as volunteers. Kyrgyzstan here we come.

I hope you enjoy these pictures. I just figured out how I can shrink my pictures to fit into the blog so hopefully there will be more to come!

Brooke

Sugar is not a breakfast food

Today is day 8 in my new village and things are getting easier. It is really hard not having my American friends right down the street but my language is really improving a lot. Well, to be honest, I haven’t really noticed that much of a difference, but I have faith that it is getting better. Some interesting things that I’ve noticed that are different here than in American:
• Everyone constantly tells you to drink and eat even if you just took a sip of your chi. (We tried to explain to our counterparts why it’s weird to Americans that someone would keep telling you to drink and eat… I don’t think it worked. My counterpart tries to say “please drink” in English and doesn’t get why it doesn’t work. Oh well, it’s all with good intentions)
• My host mom tells me to eat cookies at breakfast. That makes the American sugar cereals look not as bad. (Mom, that’s so different than everything you taught me about what is ok to eat in the morning)
• I have also witnessed 3 year old children only eat candy for their dinner. Children are almost force fed candy from a very young age.
• If someone comes over (even for just a second) it is rude to not offer them chi and it is rude to not accept. So, to get around that they do this thing called “ostie” which literally means to touch your mouth. They take a small piece of bread and do a closing prayer. The best part about “ostie” is that if I make something I can say that word and they have to try it.
• Life is much slower here and they take the time to talk, listen, and really get to know each other.
• Kyrgyz people are very hard to read. They don’t really smile or show their emotions. (I don’t blend in that way)
I really like it here, but some days it’s really hard to not be around people who understand you and where you come from. It’s great to educate and share cultural differences and to learn more about their culture. It is amazing how much it is centered around family and helping one another.

My new address

I got my address in my new village finally. If you need it in a word document form let me know and I can email it to you. The best way to mail stuff to me is cut and paste this and print it out and tape it onto the package or envelope.
Thanks Everyone!
Brooke

Kyrgyzstan
722600, Naryn Oblast
At-Bashy Rayon, At-Bashy Village
Ity Sylimanov St.
Brooke Huddleston

Кыргызстан
Ин. 722600, Hарын Oбл.
Aт–башы Pайону, Aт–башы Aйылы
yп. Aйты Cулайманов
Брук Хаддлстон

Wecome to the Peace Corps!

This has been a pretty crazy past couple of days. I have been sworn in as an actual volunteer. That’s pretty exciting because now I don’t have to have a very strict schedule planned out for me every day. I stayed in Bishkek for a night because my new village was too far away and it would take too long to get there if I left the same day as swearing in. The great part about that was there was a group of us who went into the city and I called a girl I know from Kyrgyzstan who is living in Bishkek now and I got to see her. She was an exchange student who lived with my best friend’s family when I was in college. I hadn’t seen her in over 6 years. She looks great, her English is still amazing and she was a huge help helping us get back to our hotel. I’m excited to spend more time with her over the next two years. I finally got to leave for my new village in Naryn Oblast at around 9:30 on Friday morning. I met my new host parents for the first time and they have to be the sweetest people on the planet. This is going to be a great two years. Here’s where being in the Peace Corps and not ever knowing what is coming next hits me head on. About 2-3 hours into the trip we stop at a rest stop to get some food, use the bathroom, rest a little… and then my host father walks into the café and tells us that the taxi we were riding in broke down and that we would have to wait 3 hours for a new one to come from Bishkek. Well, 3 hours turned into 4 hours and as we sat in the car I began to get sick. I was hot, my stomach was turning, and I just didn’t feel right. We got into the new taxi and I was feeling horrible. I felt so bad because there were three of us crammed into the back of the car with all my bags and other boxes and I had a whole seat to myself. Because I felt so horrible my host parents would let me have any bags around me so I would be comfortable and they had to ride for 4 hours surrounded in my stuff. I guess that was a good thing because two times on the way there I had to yell “Tokto” (Stop in Kyrgyz) and then got sick out the door of the taxi. Not the best way to start when moving to a new place. At least that’s over and I’m starting to feel better!
My new home, family and village are great. I haven’t really had an opportunity to go around the village that much. I really laid low today because my stomach didn’t feel so great. I live with my host parents and they have 5 kids that all live in different places. I have met two of their children. We have a cow, a calf, chickens, and sheep. What more could a girl want? Today my host mom gave me homemade yogurt from our cow’s milk. I love that stuff so much. My host mom is great. I am amazed at how much I can understand her. She speaks very clearly and chooses her words well to make it easy for me to understand. She used to be a Kyrgyz teacher and I can tell by how patient she is. I hope it lasts. I am third volunteer to live with them. The first was two years ago and the second started and two months later had to go home because of medical reasons.