hellllllloooooooo

I don't really have a whole bunch to say, the rare mid week blog post I did threw me off. nothing too terribly exciting has happened since wednesday. haha

I did go to to a festival in jety oguz yesterday. i'll try to post pics of it soon. we went up in to the "jailo" which is like the summer pastures. there were yurts set up and there was a folklore contest and cuisine contest between the different cultural groups. it was awesome. one of the volunteer's organization organized it so almost all of the volunteers in the area went.

last night we were exhausted and some of us, (okay me) were sunburnt (i have a great farmers tan. and my knee pits hate me) so we decided to stay in and have a calm movie night instead of going out. we made grilled cheese and i brought a packet of ranch dip (thanks mom!) so lorenzo, sasha, and I made a ranch crap dip (crab meat packages for the equivalent of 50 cents.... eeep) and cut up cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots and had a delicious feast. we're so easy to please. haha

tomatoes and cucumbers have gotten so cheap! i'm so happy. tomatoes are about 10 som a kilo, which is like 25 cents. i'm gonna start saying it is all the tomatoes turning me red instead of the sun. ha. ha. in the winter they will get up to 100som, which is so expensive!! okay, i know that you're all thinking 100 som, that's like what? $2.50? but i no longer think in terms of dollars. i just do the currency exchange for y'all. but 100 som is quite a bit. that's like the price of two good beers, or two bottles of shampoo, or a pair of flip flops. which is a lot on my budget.

there is a trend that village volunteers tend to have a lot more money than city volunteers (because they have nothing to spend their money on.) I do not fall into that category. i think it is because i come into the city to buy groceries once a week and end up spending it, that plus the fact that i travel. travelling eats into your money quickly, but once school starts i won't be able to travel as much so i'm trying to travel as much as i can over the summer.

i'm learning to knit... thanks to the wonderfully fantastic Jenn, whose package had a teach yourself to knit book. and.... i. suck. at. it. so far, i've managed to unravel and/or knot half a package of yarn. miserably epic fail. BUT my host mom and host sisters knit, so hopefully they can help me to not suck so much and it can be a bonding activity or something with us.

once i get the hang of it, and i have faith that i will... eventually... you're all gonna get beautiful hideous knitted things from me. bahaha. i'm making myself a scarf first though. priorities. haha i didn't bring a scarf (or gloves) with me, and i could buy them, but it'd be cooler to say that i made my own. plus i've got months before it gets cold, so ideally i can make a decent scarf before the -20C temps start. not a big fan of the idea of negative anything when it comes to the weather.

i'm hoping to take at trip to the south in a few weeks, where it is supposed to be really hot. i'm excited. i never in a million years thought i'd miss heat, but hey, this is a learning experiece and i'm learning alot about myself.

oh! i got called spontaneous! haha me, the anal retentive ocd planner- spontaneous. my host mom said that the PC told them that the volunteers like plans and structure and schedule (true) but when i was completely irresponsible (in my opinion) and decided not to do clubs to go to the lake with my host family (i think it was an "integration" activity so i was still working) with about five minutes warning, mind you. i got called spontaneous. yay! progress?

okay, i'm gonna go grab some "jumurkas" (eggs) for breakfast with sasha then chill out for the day until I head to Mike's (my site mate) camp tomorrow. wish me luck!

miss you all!

love from kyrgyzstan,
jess

(and yes, i do realize the irony of the fact that i am an english teacher and have managed to break every rule of the language in this blog.)