Back by Popular Demand

A little bird told me I've been neglecting my blog- sorry about that! I suppose time moves somewhat differently on the other side of the world. At the beginning of every week, we are given a schedule for the following seven days; and when next week's schedule arrives, it feels to me like no time has passed. We are kept busy, but the slow-paced life seems to be dominating the overall feel. Our weeks go something like this: Monday, 8:30-15:00 language; Tuesday, 8:30-12:00 Tech Session, 13:00-17:00 language; Wednesday, 8:30-17:00 Hub Site; Thursday, 8:30-12:00 language, 13:00-17:00 Tech Session; Friday, 8:30-15:00 language; Saturday, 9:00-15:00 Event; Sunday is our weekend.

Since I'm a TEFL volunteer, the Tech Sessions have been tutorials about teaching methods. Recently we've traded out the tutorial sessions for active practicums. Last Thursday was my first practicum, and it went alright. A fellow volunteer and I team-taught a lesson about sports, and we're planning to build on that for our lesson on Tuesday. Now that we have a better understanding of what the students know, we expect great things from Tuesday's practicum.

Hub Site days are something of a break. They consist of safety, health, administrative, etc, lectures. Nothing too exciting, just necessary. Hub days are also fun because we get to see all the other volunteers (instead of just our language or tech groups.) Speaking of, my language group is awesome. We are one of the three Luxemberg groups, six students and the single best LCF in PC. (LCF stands for something similar to “Language Cross-culture Facilitator.”) My group consists of Alex and Athena (both TEFL from VA), John (SOCD [something about business] from Chicago), Thomas (TEFL from TX), Casey (TEFL from AL- already told you guys about her) and me. We've seen so much of each other these last however many weeks and are yet to be sick of one another. Our first language test/interview/assessment was this past week. I believe we all did pretty well. From the language test, I learned that I need more practice with conversation- studying rules and looking at words only gets one so far. My family keeps surprisingly busy, so I don't get much practice at home. Fortunately, my LCF lets us stay after lessons and/or come in on our days off, so I'm going to start taking her up on that offer.

The Saturday events used to just be language lessons, but the last couple weeks have been actual events. This past Saturday we had Culture Day at our Hub Site- by the way, our HS is an orphanage in Kirk Shelk. All the language groups developed a presentation for the other groups. My group made a puppet show that went allow with the Kinks' song “Have a Cup of Tea,” which a couple of the guys translated into Kyrgyz. John sang and was accompanied by Alex on some South American stringed instrument and Thomas on spoons. We were pretty awesome with a sprinkling of silly.

After the groups finished our presentations, the kids performed for us. They sang, played comus, put on either a really silly or really scary (something got lost in translation) puppet show, and danced. One of the K-18 volunteers brought his dance team (a secondary project of his), and they performed some really impressive hip-hop moves. This Saturday our event is hiking! We are all pulling at the bit to get into those mountains. We'll be going to some resort with hot springs and hiking trails. It will just be a day trip, but what a great day it will be!

Oh, and the little bird requested pictures. This is what I see when walking down my street every morning- ****I have no idea how to make the pictures show up on this thing. If you know how (copy and paste didn't seem to work), please let me know. Sorry for the teaser.***

Hopefully you can see the mountains there. (Also, hopefully, I remembered to bring my camera around this week and am able to include a better mountain picture right about here-***)

Here's a picture of my apa (Tamara-Apa) with one of her grandbabies-

And here's my little sister, Iana, (Iana is my apa's granddaughter, so technically my niece, she lives with us most of the time and is the coolest six year-old I know) with two of her little cousins-

And, since I know you guys have been dying to get a picture of this guy... here's Roma!

Isn't he precious? He likes to graze outside my window and loves head scratches like no other. If you go to or come from the outhouse--

--without scratching Mr. Roma, he is not above throwing a hissy fit. Unfortunately, summer is here, and our yard (which is more garden than yard) doesn't have enough grass, so Apa took Roma and the other cows to someone else's house with a field so they can graze more sufficient pastures. I sure do miss that cow.

Hopefully, my permanent host family will have cows that are just as cool. We find out about permanent sites this week! (Depending on when I post this, here is where I will add the blurb regarding what site I got.***) Next Tuesday through Saturday, I think, we will be staying with our next host family, (hopefully) meeting our counterparts/team-teacher, and getting a taste of our new home towns! That's probably the biggest bit of news I have for you guys.

If there's anything you want to know about that I fail to mention in my posts, please let me know!
Also, I recommend following my friend Athena's blog (Athena Alex Peace Corps Adventure) if you want more regular updates about life in Kyrgyzstan- she's better versed in the context of social networking.

I love you guys.

All the best.

The accounts in this blog are not representative of Peace Corps.