The new host fam

Today I met my new Kyrgyz family and they rock. My Apa (mother) came to the Peace Corps Trainees lunch to pick me up and hardly said two words to me. I was really worried about how things would turn out, but I was worrying for nothing. At the house are my Ata & Apa (father & mother), their 28 year old son, his wife and 2 children. The wife, ВеНЕРА (pronounced Veniera), is 23 and has kind of taken me under her wing. She wants to learn English as I’m learning Kyrgyz. In Kyrgyzstan women generally get married when they’re 19 and start having babies, though she was married at age 18.

She’s very interested in everything I do. Every time I came into my room to attempt unpacking, she followed me in and read my language notebook, so it took me all day to unpack. As we were sitting in my room, 3 cows walked past. Apparently those are our cows, and she took me to the barn to milk them. I’ve never milked a cow before so it was not a great performance, but it entertained her. The word for cow and house are almost the same, and to me they ARE the same. So now to distinguish between the two, everyone makes the cow milking gesture to me and laughs.