5 July 2009
(sorry for the legally blonde quote- i couldn't resist.) haha
Happy Belated Independence Day!
I hope you all had wonderful barbeque, cookout, and fireworks filled weekends!
I spent my July 4th in a taxi riding between Naryn City and Karakol. But I did have dinner and hung out with some volunteers, which was nice. One of the other volunteers made a cake and we sung happy birthday to America. Haha Oh, also some PCVs from Kazakhstan were traveling around Kyrgyzstan and they hung out with us too. It sounds like Kazakhstan would be a pretty different experience from Kyrgyzstan. One of the guys was like 7 hours from the next volunteer and to the capital city it is a 32 hour train ride!!! I don’t think I’ll complain about a 7 hour taxi ride to Bishkek again. Haha Actually, I probably will still complain about it. Let’s get serious. haha
I spent the week in Naryn helping with an English/Leadership Camp. There were about 40 kids. I helped cook, and did an English for Fun session and an Academic Session with another volunteer. Our English for Fun session went really well. We did pictionary and hangman. The boys’ group got really into it and was really competitive. It was fun. For our academic session we did a home-ec type session and taught them how to make brownies. They didn’t all turn out exactly great… One batch was really really greasy, and got burnt on the bottom. So burnt, in fact, that the pan we cooked them in broke. I’m not even kidding. I thought they were gross, but the kids ate them and like them. One of the other volunteers taught a dance session every day and on Friday the kids performed a dance concert. It was sweet! I want to do my own camp sometime during the next two years, so I learned a lot about the behind-the-scenes things and the organization process.
Four of us from the karakol region went down together and stayed with volunteers in Naryn city. There were 12 of us in one apartment and 8 in one room. It was kinda packed, but fun. We cooked dinner almost every night and had delicious foods. Grilled cheese, burritos, mac and cheese, stuffed peppers, etc. amazing food!
We also played a lot of Ultimate Uno, and swapped some movies and music. It was fun.
I’m gonna probably stay over in Karakol another night because the bank is closed today and I need to get paid, but it doesn’t make sense to go back to my village tonight then come back to karakul tomorrow then back to my village. Too much going. I’ll probably spend the day tomorrow getting ready for my English clubs for the rest of the week. I’ll be spending the next two weeks in my village before heading out for another camp, and it’ll be the longest stretch of time in my village. After nearly a month, I’m hoping that I’ll finally settle in and really like my village. I’ve resolved to stick with this and stay for the whole two years, but being in my village is still really hard. So two weeks straight will be pushing it for my mental health. I did miss my village when I was gone for the week, so that’s got to be a good sign, right?
Well, here’s to the next two weeks!
Miss you all so much!
Love from Kyrgyzstan,
Jess
p.s.
I’ve gotten so many questions about things that I want/need from the states, so I figured I’d just post a note here with some random stuff: I don’t really NEED anything here, and my family already sent a TON of stuff but some things that would be cool to get would be: pop tarts, funfetti cake and icing, dark chocolate raisinets, jelly belly jelly beans, mascara (black), eyeliner (black), guacamole (the not-great kind that is in a jar in the chip aisle), chips for said guacamole, or salsa, double stuffed oreos, multi grain cheerios, peanut butter, french onion soup mix, raisins, books and magazines, PICTURES!,
If those of you that asked what I wanted could pick like one or two things to send me in a package, that’d be awesome. I know its uber expensive to send stuff to me. Letters and emails are the aweseomest things ever though.
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