I just read my sister’s blog and realized it was time to update my blog too....so fall has started, the lazy days of summer are over, and for the first couple of weeks I thought I might go crazy. I realized it was the first time that I’ve been in the same place for a second year with the same schedule and same friends since college started. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it, but now I’ve settled into my routine, and I’m so glad I’m here for a second year. It’s so nice that there are some many things I don’t have to get used too. I know my friends here now, I know my work, and I know how to shop here, and I know how to speak the language...all that being said, my sister commented on having her life full of 16 year olds and I’ve been realizing that my life is full of 17 year olds! I’m living with 2 17 year olds, I have a 17 year old flute student, and I study Kyrgyz with a class full of 17 year olds. Before I never felt that much older than 17 year olds, but this year I’m realizing that I’m a lot older than them. I’ve never felt so old as when we were learning to say our ages in Kyrgyz and the whole class kept saying I’m seventeen and they come to me last and I say I’m 25. Oh well at least they are all still friendly with me:-) Practicing English with me etc...So in general life is going well, and praise God I’m not going to go crazy living in the same place for a second year!!
P.S. I think this is the first year in my life when fall is my favorite season, but I have to say that fall in Bishkek is a beautiful time of year. The air is so clean after the summer, we finally had rain after 6 weeks without it, and the air is crisp and there are apples and pears allover the place and it's just wonderful!!!
22 September 2006
31 August 2006
Bosteri and Kerege Tash
well tomorrow didn’t happen and obviously the next couple days didn’t happen either. Between getting sick and having my phone turned off I haven’t managed to update again on the rest of my adventures in the village, but here goes!!
After Kyzyl Syy my friends and I went to Bosteri which is on the northern side of the lake, where all the tourist go. There we met with two other of out friends and spent a couple days on the beach, soaking up the warm sun. (I managed to come home and be darker than some of my Kyrgyz friends in the city:-) I’m not a huge fan of the northern shore during the summer, way to many people. Someone said about million people come over the course of the summer to stay in the hotels there, many Kazaks but also Russians. They are too expensive for Kyrgyz to go to, but then most Kyrgyz have relatives from around there so they stay with them. But it is the main source of income for the small villages around there.
From Bosteri we went back to Karakol and stayed in my friend’s village for a couple nights. I like it the best. It was the smallest village I’ve seen yet and it reminded me more of home, there were woods nearby and lots of open space and mountains, and in general it was just beautiful. On Sunday we took horses and went up into the mountains for the day and it was so relaxing and wonderful. I’ve decided that I need to learn how to ride a horse, so I can do more than just sit on it:-)
After the mountains the family killed a sheep for us and made Besh Barmak (the national dish of meat and noodles) And it was really good. Every time I eat good besh barmak I like it more and more, and every time I eat bad besh barmak I say I’ll never eat it again:-) I usually never have a choice of eating it or not but fortunately this time it tasted good:-)
In general it was a trip of first for me. For those of you have known me for a long time and will appreciate these things. I went for an entire week packed in just my little backpack and a purse! I went for a whole week only using outhouses and only taking one real shower and even that was in a rickity old shed. I went for 6 days without speaking English, and I didn’t drink coffee for a whole week. But I learned that I can drink tea as much as a kyrgyz, and I got to drink water from a fresh spring coming from under the ground, I got to take a shower in a hot mineral spring, and got to know my friends a lot better. It was a great time, if a little long. I was ready to come home at the end and have a couple quiet moments to myself, and take a shower by myself in my own bathroom, but ready to go back next summer!!
After Kyzyl Syy my friends and I went to Bosteri which is on the northern side of the lake, where all the tourist go. There we met with two other of out friends and spent a couple days on the beach, soaking up the warm sun. (I managed to come home and be darker than some of my Kyrgyz friends in the city:-) I’m not a huge fan of the northern shore during the summer, way to many people. Someone said about million people come over the course of the summer to stay in the hotels there, many Kazaks but also Russians. They are too expensive for Kyrgyz to go to, but then most Kyrgyz have relatives from around there so they stay with them. But it is the main source of income for the small villages around there.
From Bosteri we went back to Karakol and stayed in my friend’s village for a couple nights. I like it the best. It was the smallest village I’ve seen yet and it reminded me more of home, there were woods nearby and lots of open space and mountains, and in general it was just beautiful. On Sunday we took horses and went up into the mountains for the day and it was so relaxing and wonderful. I’ve decided that I need to learn how to ride a horse, so I can do more than just sit on it:-)
After the mountains the family killed a sheep for us and made Besh Barmak (the national dish of meat and noodles) And it was really good. Every time I eat good besh barmak I like it more and more, and every time I eat bad besh barmak I say I’ll never eat it again:-) I usually never have a choice of eating it or not but fortunately this time it tasted good:-)
In general it was a trip of first for me. For those of you have known me for a long time and will appreciate these things. I went for an entire week packed in just my little backpack and a purse! I went for a whole week only using outhouses and only taking one real shower and even that was in a rickity old shed. I went for 6 days without speaking English, and I didn’t drink coffee for a whole week. But I learned that I can drink tea as much as a kyrgyz, and I got to drink water from a fresh spring coming from under the ground, I got to take a shower in a hot mineral spring, and got to know my friends a lot better. It was a great time, if a little long. I was ready to come home at the end and have a couple quiet moments to myself, and take a shower by myself in my own bathroom, but ready to go back next summer!!
Karakol and the pretty Orthodox Church
So the next place I saw was Karakol, which is a sleepy little city on the east end of Lake Issykul. It looks like it hasn’t changed in the last 50 years, and it probably hasn’t. But there is a very pretty little orthodox church there that we found. It’s all made of carved wood and is quite amazing. Other than that there was just a very slow internet cafe, and no good water without fizz in it. My interesting discovery is that no matter where in the world, water bottled by Coca-cola tastes the same and I don’t like the taste:-)!!! But when you are in the village and there is no water to drink, you drink what you can find!!! I didn’t mention that Kyzyl Syy in English means red water, and the water is so murky there is was scary. I saw my friends washing my clothes in this water that looked to me so dirty I couldn’t imagine that they were going to be cleaner than they were before, and she must have seen my face, because she said, “Oh don’t worry the water always looks like that. Its clean and it won’t turn your clothes brown!” My clothes were clean although I don’t know how such brown water doesn’t make your clothes brown!! I guess after it rains it turns really red, ie.. Kyzyl Syy (Red Water)
24 August 2006
Kyzyl Suu, first stop on the village tour
So I've been to the northern side of Lake Issykul many times, but this summer I got to go to the southern side. I highly recommend it, because it's a lot more peaceful and natural, and not all touristy like the northern side! So my first village in the tour was Kyzyl Suu, and my friend Altinai lives there and serves in her fellowship there. My friend Nurgulya and i got on the marshrutka at 2:00 for what we thought was going to be a 5.5 hour ride. Over 9 hours later we finally arrived. If Nurgulya hadn't been there I don't know what I would have done, probably gotten off and hitch hiked home. It was the worst marshrutka ride ever! First of all it was packed full, after everyone got in, someone packed in empty cardboard boxes into the aisle so we couldn't even move, then we stopped at this place where you can buy fruit really cheap and people bought so much fruit, like 10 kilos of tomatoes, and watermelons and everything, so that was piled ontop of the boxes!! Then to top ot all off there was a very dirty smelly drunk man, who drank three bottles of vodka, who was moving all over the place and talking to everyone and in general very obnoxios. So all that with a driver who drove so slow and stopped so often that it took 3.5 hours longer than normal, I was about at the end of waht I could handle! But eventually we made it, and Altinai met us and fed os fresh ploff and hot chai!!
I wish there was some way I could sum up village life or give a really picture of what it is like, but maybe imagine books you read about the west a hundred years ago and what life was like, and I think you have a good picture. There is no running water, they go to a pump down the street and carry the water. No water means no toliet, no shower, and no sink. So there is an outhouse, and they have a make do like sink, and they use a public banya (Russian style bathing facility) once a week. But despite that they keep a clean and orderly house. But then they have different ideas of refridgeration too...ie almost nothing needs to be refridgerated, I'm sure its a miracle I didn't get sick from some of the stuff that I ate, either that or all the American standards of food saftey aren't true:-) And the flies that came as a result of food being left out all over I can't even describe. I have never in my life seen so many flies! So all that being said...I really like viallge life. Its quiet, few cars, people are more relaxed and the air is cleaner, and some how it takes me back to my childhood, of coming from a small farm town, although praise God we had water!!!
Okay more tomorrow....
I wish there was some way I could sum up village life or give a really picture of what it is like, but maybe imagine books you read about the west a hundred years ago and what life was like, and I think you have a good picture. There is no running water, they go to a pump down the street and carry the water. No water means no toliet, no shower, and no sink. So there is an outhouse, and they have a make do like sink, and they use a public banya (Russian style bathing facility) once a week. But despite that they keep a clean and orderly house. But then they have different ideas of refridgeration too...ie almost nothing needs to be refridgerated, I'm sure its a miracle I didn't get sick from some of the stuff that I ate, either that or all the American standards of food saftey aren't true:-) And the flies that came as a result of food being left out all over I can't even describe. I have never in my life seen so many flies! So all that being said...I really like viallge life. Its quiet, few cars, people are more relaxed and the air is cleaner, and some how it takes me back to my childhood, of coming from a small farm town, although praise God we had water!!!
Okay more tomorrow....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)