Menin atim Rebecca

yes I've started Kyrgyz and menin atim Rebecca means my name is Rebecca. Let's pray that what everyone says about Kyrgyz is true!! ie that it's a lot easier than Russian...after one hour and a half lesson I already have more to wrap my head around than I want!! It will be hard at AUCA because the class is full of Kyrgyz people, and we don't have a book and the teacher is teaching from Russian....not the most encouraging beginning, but thank God for all my Kyrgyz friends who I'm sure will be glad to help me!

On a side note, I had another scary "I've been here too long already moment..." I think horse might be my favorite red meat here. I went to my roommate's house the other night, and her mom made Besh Barmak which is the national favorite dish, and I was eating and thinking wow this is the best Besh Barmak ever, and the meat tastes really good, and then I found out it was horse, and my roommate was like, "oh I love horse meat if I'd known that you made it with horse I would have eaten it...." so anyway we left with a big bag of horse meat and ate it again last night, in stir fry, and yup it still tasted as good has it did in Besh Barmak....so if anyone is looking for a new meat I highly recommend a good cut of horse boiled in salt water....it has great flavor:-)

For those interested in the boring day to day details....ie my family:-)

Well just so no one thinks life is too different here, and so that my parents can keep up with the day today changes of their oldest daughter I thought I'd share that Nargiza'a Beauty Salon is now open and having a steady stream of customers. I returned for the second time to get my grey hairs covered up:-) If anyone is interested its located in the Vannaya Komnata of 92/4 Toktagula:-)


seems more like a science experiment on my brain:-)

I don't think this is going to look that pretty

and now you can't even tell the difference:-)

my two week sweater. I'm getting quicker and quicker! the first one took I don't know how long...the second one took two years, the third one 5 months and this one two weeks!

Happy New Year....a few days late

Well the holidays are over in America, but we're still in the middle of them here! Old Christmas (according to the old Russian calander) was Saturday, tomorrow is a big Muslim holiday and then soon is Old New Years! I feel like life will never geet back to normal!

New Year's here is always a blast...literally. There are more fireworks than I can even describe...everyone buys them...even big ones that launch high into the air, and then go out on the street to light them. Its a great show, and I stayed safely inside on a balcony to watch:-) The noise is also terrific, and the next day is even better cause everyone sleeps off all the vodka they drank, so the street are empty and quiet! Although it was another several days until all the fireworks were set off. I would always randomly here them, even in the middle of the day.

After New Year's I went to Narin to see my cousin's new house. Talk about cold! It was approxiately -5, -10 degrees, and her bathroom doesn't have insulation in the walls so there was ice all over the wall...its still better than an outhouse...but not much wamer:-) In general it wil be toasty warm when its all done....but until then I think I'll wait till its warm outside for my next visit!

Now I'm back in Bishkek, dreaming about warmer places and trying to get ready for a flute exam. I thought I was done with flute exams when I finished college, but apparently not! Thursday 2:00 is the big hour! Wish me luck