Wednesday, January 25, 2012

COLD...

Cold…
The part I was most nervous about going back to Kyrgyzstan after being in Washington for 3 weeks was the cold. Well it hit me hard in the first week. The temps got down to -35*C (-31*F) last Friday and now I really understand what cold means. I found out that there are stages of cold.
1. Add scarf, hat, warm boots, long underwear, wool socks, extra layers, gloves…
2. My nose hairs freeze every time breathe in.
3. My scarf begins to freeze to my face because of the moisture coming out when I breathe.
4. My eyelashes freeze for the same reason.
5. My eyelids freeze shut in the split second I shut them to blink.
These are the things that you learn from experience. This is not something I have ever thought of. I am doing everything I can to not go outside. The problem is that is where the toilet, water, work, bank, and post office are and anything else I need on a daily basis. I hope I never take having a toilet in my house for granted ever again.
I left my room for a period of time w/o the heat on and the temperature got down to 46*F. The strangest part was that it didn’t even feel that cold because I came from outside. I have to get dressed to use the toilet. So that makes me always think hard about every drink I drink and food I eat. The struggle of keeping hydrated is not from lack of water, but the lack of wanting to be exposed to the frigid temperatures when I need to expel the water from my body.
Next reason cold is bad… tonight I was woken up by my host sister because one of the baby horses was too weak to stand up on its own. We had to go outside and try to push the horse up at 10:30 at night. This is one time where eating less food in Kyrgyzstan has caused me problems. I was not able to help her get the horse up. She went over to the neighbors to have him help us. The wife said yes he will come, but he never did. We tried one more time, but we were just too weak to help this horse stand. We put a blanket over the horse and hopefully it will make it through the night.
It has been so cold here that my entire oblast (state) doesn’t have school this whole week. It’s kind of strange that they are doing it this way because last week was much colder, but they are choosing this week to close because last week was cold. I heard rumors that kids were getting frost bite on the way to school which I don’t doubt because my face was getting really cold and even 20 minutes after I got inside from the cold I still couldn’t feel one of my baby toes.
I have learned so much over the past several months as a Peace Corps Volunteer. One thing I know I will never forget is that I don’t ever want to live in a cold place again. In college it would get down to 10*F and that was pushing it. I’ll stick with my moderate summers and winters with a lot of rain and leave the snow in the mountains for me to visit!
(Just checked on the horse, the neighbor came over and helped it up. It is alive and well!)