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.
