Non-Alcoholic Hot-Dog Flavored Beer.

One more week of PST has gone by. I keep getting closer and closer to becoming an actual volunteer.

I think most of us are kinda burnt out now with all the training and language and are ready to move to the next step. Especially those of us who've been learning Kyrygz for two months and now need to spend the summer learning Russian... haha it'll give me something productive to do in addition to english clubs and working on my tan. ;-) haha

Nothing new and exciting has happened since the last post, so i'm going to share a few random anecdotes from the past few days.

-Explanation for the title of this blog:
Every now and then the group of trainees in my village will get together and walk to our local lake that is pretty secluded and have a beer or just sit in the sand and listen to music, or go wading. It is just some good down time for us where we can not be in a fishbowl for a little while. Last time we were there, one of the bottles created a little bit of a stir after it was opened. it tasted funny and smelled funnny. after a thourough examination of the bottle (all in russian) it was discovered in the area where the percentage normally is, a 0. after we passed it around trying to figure out the taste, it occured to me: hotdog. gross. so yes, for any of you wondering, non alcoholic hot dog flavored beer tastes as nasty as it sounds haha.

-meeting other americans:
I went to Bishkek today for a visit and ate some expensive (by my standards)american food and did a little window shopping. At one of the little stores, we ran into a group of americans that weren't other volunteers or trainees or PC staff. it kinda blew my mind haha. they are flight attendants. We talked for a bit and had some mutual admiration- "you're flight attendants? that's so cool." and "you're in the peace corps? that's so cool" haha they asked us about the country and what there was to do and our village and such. after describing it to them, one of the guys said to me, "you're wearing chanel sunglasses and you live in a house without running water?" haha that pretty much sums up my experience thus far. :-D

- the roads in KG:
car diversity. there is nothing like seeing a throwback soviet style Lada that seems to barely be held together being passed by a brand new benz or audi or lexus. i might've mentioned it before, but it blows my mind every time i am on the roads here. also the passing-a-car-that-is-passing-a-car-on-a-two-lane-road-with-cars-coming-experience still makes my heart race. but i'll probably get used to it eventually

-I'm planning on doing some shopping tomorrow at the big bazaar and i'll probably write about that soon. I love shopping, still. haha and i get teased for it all the time. i have more shoes than any of the other trainees in my village(only 7 pairs!) and they tease me cuz mom is mailing my winter shoes to me too. whatever. i like shoes. haha i apparently have gotten a spoiled-little-daddy's-girl/material-girl reputation because i like clothes and shoes. me and the other younger girl of our group like to say its because we "haven't let ourselves go yet" and we still like to look nice. also since we're younger we have to work harder to get respected as teachers and if that means wearing a skirt and heels every day, i am so totally okay with that ;-)

-being the voungest volunteer in the country has its advantages- i.e i'll be 22 when i finish, but the constant "you're only 20?" question and the doubts about my ability/emotional maturity kinda get frustrating. especially because i've gotten it more from other americans than from locals. i've done almost everything the others have done, i just did it quicker. :-)

i'm gonna sign off for now. i'm still waiting on my huge package of winter clothes and random goodies from the family. it is gonna be like christmas!

one other random thing that someone could send me in a few weeks if they wanted would be a teach your self to play the piano book (my school and house in my new village have pianos and i wanna learn) or a teach yourself to knit book with needles. i have to fill up my free time this summer somehow.

miss you
love from kyrgyzstan,
Jess