My trip to Bishkek

It’s been a while. I have been really busy with traveling around the country, doing work, and preparing for summer. The new trainees came to country 4 weeks ago and they are going through training right now. I went to Bishkek to talk about what I do and what life is like for me. The first thing I talked about was being a teacher and try to give them an idea of what it will be like when they start their service. Then I helped the medical staff give a session on mental health. Yeah, I know… am I really the person to be giving advice about mental health? But it was fun. I opened with a dance party to help loosen them up and show them one way to distress when things get a little overwhelming. It was great and they started a congo line and danced around the building. It was really awesome to see that they still had energy even after everything they are going through.
Also, when I was in Bishkek I watched a few soccer games with some friends. It was so great to watch sports again. The Barcelona vs. Real Madrid game was at 2am our time so when it finally finished and I got to bed it was 5am. But I still woke up at 8am and went to sports day with the new training. I was so tired and found myself spacing out much of the sports playing. But we played ultimate Frisbee, soccer, and American football. Felt so good to play sports and be active. All in all it was awesome to be able to spend time with the newbies. They are a great group and I think they will do great things here. I am excited for them to come to site and see which ones will be near me. Only two weeks away.
Yesterday I took the long trip home. I have done this trip in anywhere from 4-12 hours. The sad part about those times is that one of the fastest times was in the winter with snow on the roads and the slowest was in the summer and the car broke down and we had to wait for another one to come. Well this trip took 7 hours. So it was in the middle, but it felt like forever. I try not to talk on the long rides because it is inevitable that some guy will want to talk to me and ask me the same questions over and over again. The guy in front of me was the guy this time. I’m not sure if he was drunk or just annoying. He started by talking to me in Russian and I just shook my head like I didn’t understand. Then I made the mistake of saying “рахмат” (thank you). I spent a good length of time of that trip trying to stop talking to him. It would not be as bad to talk to people, but I can tell exactly how the conversation will go: I get asked what my name is, where I am from and what I do (none of that is bad). Then we get into me being asked if I will go somewhere with them. Be it the lake, America, anywhere. Then I get asked if I am married or have a boyfriend and no matter what my answer I get told that I need marry their son to be their daughter-in-law. I will then get offered some horrible food or drink that most other people in the car have eaten off of. No matter how much I refuse they keep insisting. All of this happened and more.
Also, one more thing that has become a trend with at least 80% of my rides to or from Bishkek… someone pukes. Mostly small children and it smells horrible. This time it was a very small child and it missed my by inches. The worst part is that it went all over the floor and no one cleaned it up. So I sat next to a pile of vomit for at least an hour and half. It has to be the windy bumpy roads that causes. But they never learn. The kid will puke and then the parent will give them some more food to eat and the whole cycle starts over again. Not my favorite Kyrgyz experience!
So there you go. A little update of my past few weeks.
Brooke