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

Little taste of Heaven

This morning, thanks to Nancy, I got to wake up with a cup of Starbucks! What a special treat since there isn't any good coffee here! And for dinner I ate Mac&Cheese, thanks to Beta stores...we finally have Beta stores back, bigger and better than ever. For those of you who haven't been here, Beta stores is a great Turkish department store, and it was destroyed in the Tulip Revolution and they just open on the 23rd...anyway there is a great grocery store on the first floor, its almost just like America...shopping carts and all! So its a pretty exciting thing to have back. Especially cause they sell American products including Mac&Cheese and cream cheese:-) So that's my exciting day! Christmas was great, and because I didn't leave Nancy's apartment for 24hours it even felt almost like I was in America...alhough we still had three different languages going around the table for dinner...German, English, and Russian! I hope you all had Merry Christmas's too!!

Pictures!

me decorating gingerbread houses



















Christmas in Bishkek












Nancy and her Christmas tree















the random failed gingerbread house:-)

















Nargiza and I with the tree















the cross-cultural cookie...they look like Kyrgyz hats...but off course they are really Peanut blossoms!









Nargiza, Rayica, and I decorating cookies

Its a joyous day!!

I love great days and today I had a great day!! I woke and read this quote during my quiet time and it encouraged me all day so I want to share it:
"We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness." From The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard.
How quickly we forget that God is a joyous being in and of himself! I want to experience that joy! So I did and today I made sugar cookies, and attempted gingerbread houses, but pretty much failed, and had a great small group meeting, and in general had a smile on my face all day long! I'll add some pictures so you can see:-) well my internet didn't work to well today so 'll have to do it tomorrow!

Christmas is here at my apartment and Santa is coming to the New Salem fire station

New Salem News Flash!!! Santa is coming to town, and Nargiza and I figured if we left now, we might make it time...plus we'd miss her six exams she has in the next two days, the 13 people I have to feed pizza to tomorrow night, my exam on Wednesday and a plethora of other festive events! So expect to see us there:-) We wish!!

So yeah we have a Christmas tree...its small and I almost didn't get one, but after speaking to my random Canadian friend I realized I had to have a tree cause its not Christmas without a tree. So thanks Travis! We have many random ornaments but the best idea of the year goes to my roommate...buying candy, stringing them up and making them into ornaments, then when ever someone is hungry they can just pull one off the tree....similar to our candy canes but with a definite central asian flair!

So as the first paragraph indicates this week is crazy for the two of us... Nargiza has 8 exams, we have a big Charity concert we're helping with, I found out two hours ago that I'm feeding 13 people not 6 for dinner tomorrow night....I already did my shopping but it looks like I'll be doing some more:-) I have an exam on Wednesday, scales and etudes on the flute!!, plus have to figure out where to squeeze in Russian and making Christmas cookies...But what's life without excitement!!

Life is back to being warm here today was +10 Celsius or 50 F. Beautiful weather...clear, the mountains are beautiful...but definitely not Christmasy:-( maybe God will send a big snowstorm just for Christmas!! Okay enough of my randomness...but it accurately represents my life right now!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

...and everything is skulsko, skulsko, skulsko (slippery in Russian!)


we had our first real snow here, and it has made the city look quite pretty. It has stayed on the trees for two days now, and so the whole city is nice and white, as well as very slippery...they don't shovel the sidewalks here, so there is a nice layer of ice to walk on.
My observation today is that boys, guys, and men like to slide on ice....I saw more guys running and sliding today, from young to old. I guess there is some sort of rush in it that girls here don't need. Actually there is no way girls could slide with the stilleto heals they wear:-)
Other observations...snow helps a country like this feel more Christmasy...since they don't really celebrate Christmas here, its hard to get into the spirit.

And language observation...the last several months I've only played my flute with people who speak Russian so today I had a scary experience when I played with other English speakers...and I had to remind myself not to speak in Russian, and I had to remember how to say stuff in English...I'm going to be in real trouble after 3 years! But then on the other hand one of my friends said to me today, "I'm so glad that you speak Russian and we can talk and get to know you, because its to bad when other foreigners don't know Russian and we can't get to know them." That's all I need to hear to keep be going a little longer on my language learning!

Karaganda friends

friends are awesome! I was so glad to see all my old friends in Karaganda over Thanksgiving! Thanks for being such a blessing to me!

posting of the week

my goal is to post once a week...so this week I thought I'd share what I learned in Russian last week. First I learned that Russians don't smell smells, they feel them. I haven't figured it out yet, and I've been pondering it all week. How do you feel a smell? I guess maybe the thought is that your nose feels the smell...but I think of feeling and all that comes to my mind if emotions. They also feel tastes...."I feel the taste of apple"... I guess the Russians just like to feel things!

I also learned that smelly (transliteration of a Russian word) measn brave in Russian. My roommate was trying to figure out how to explain a really old literary version of brave to me, and she started saying smelly and I could't figure out how bold and smelly went together until I realized that she wasn't speaking in English but Russian. we had a good laugh over that one! And now I read the word smelly and hear it everywhere....I definitely know what it means now!

Russian language is a never-ending with its new fasinations. I can't even imagine what Kyrgyz will be like!