Snow

Me, my neighbors, my host brother and sister, the cat and the puppy out in the snow.

Also, my room- not snowy.

Kyrgyz Children

The happiest child in K-stan

The two most annoying children in Kyrgyzstan. The little one throws snowballs at me on a regular basis and the big one opens the door to my classroom while I'm teaching and yells things. I think they're my host cousins.

My neighbor's kid in the snow.

Some friends of my host brother.

My host brother on his donkey.

Tom the Cat- Some recent pictures

When I first got the cat he was all black. A month or two later he turned gray, and now he's back to being all black. I can't figure out why he keeps changing colors but my two theories are a) local dogs keep eating him while I'm away and my host family replaces him with another cat and b) he's feral and changes colors with the seasons.

A Kyrgyz Party

A couple weeks ago I went to a party with my host mom. I made the terrible mistake of bringing my camera and now have about 27,000 pictures of me with random drunk people. This is a sampling. The woman in one of the pictures is my host mom, I have no idea who the other people are, I'm thinking maybe host uncles. I ended up escaping through the field behind the house so they would all leave me alone.

A few pictures of my village

I walked around my village a few days ago and took some pictures, these are the result. If anyone has any questions or anything leave them in the comments and I'll definitely answer, or call me (!!!) or email me, I love to talk about Kyrgyzstan I'm just not that into writing blog posts, I'd prefer to just post pictures; I think they're more interesting anyway.

My school.

The front of my school.

My local shopping options. For some reason the usual old guys squatting outside drinking vodka were absent that day, but I'm sure you can all imagine.

A couple cornstalks.

The main street in my village.

Mountains

I took this picture directly behind my village. The village itself is on a flat plain in front of those mountains and their foothills.

This canal supplies all the water for my village. People divert it through open ditches to use for bathing, washing their clothes/dishes/cars etc. and for irrigating their fields. Needless to say, I got sick a lot when I first got to site.

The cat with my host brother Doorun.

Startled kitten.

My new kitten, he was black when I got him but has since turned gray,very strange.

A few pictures

A couple pictures of in and around Bazarkorgon.

An old man in the bazaar.

In the bazaar

I took this picture in the bazaar. This cheerful woman is selling entrails and, if you look closely, a sheep's head.

Me with some of the other Bazarkorgon volunteers on Aug. 31st Kyrgtyzstan's independence day.

Me with my host sisters a host cousin and a neighbor out dancing last week.

A LOT of pictures of the jailoo

A week or so ago my host family gave me about ten minutes notice and then took me to the mountains for seven days. The Kyrgyz term for the mountain pastures is жайлоо which in English sounds like jai-low. They take all the cows and sheep and horses up there for the summer to eat grass and get fat. It was about a five-six hour walk from the nearest town which was about two hours from my village. Fortunately, on the way out there I managed to call Peace Corps and get the trip approved and I called and woke my parents in America up to tell them I'd be gone for a week but none of the other volunteers near me knew where I'd gone... When I finally got home a week later my nearest site mate was getting off the bus in my village with the intention of asking people "if they knew where the white girl went" because no one had heard from me in 9 days as I'd lost my phone 2 days before I left. woops.

My host sister in the tent that we ate in while in the jailoo.

Me with my host sister and a guy that came to the jailoo with us.

Some of the people I went to the jailoo with.

The jailoo.

The jailoo.

While in the jailoo we hiked to a holy cave where there was some kind of party going on.

My host cousin collecting water.

My extended host family's jailoo hut.

A Kyrgyz lady singing.