Settling in for Winter

I finally made the move to Talas. I'm a little nervous about what projects I will start. I've put a lot of pressure on myself to be a super volunteer, and now I have to live up to it.

The weather isn't too cold here. In Bishkek, it was painfully cold. Its the weekend so I don't have much of anything to do. And 2 of the 3 people who live at my house are out of town for a week. And the third is leaving on Tuesday, so I'll have the place to myself. I'm excited about that. I'm thinking about making some no-bake cookies if I can track down all of the ingredients.

The mountain pass from Bishkek to Talas is closed for the winter. We had to go through Kazakhstan to get to Talas. It adds a couple hours to the trip, but I'm afraid of heights and icy mountain roads, so it worked out ok. The Kazak border currently has restricted access because their elections are this week. They're trying to minimize any trouble I guess. So at the border we had to stand in the cold and wait a long time to get stamped. The Kazak border guards wanted to practice the little English they know. They asked if I'm Mexican or Turkish. When I said Mexican, they responded with "I love you Mexico." Why thank you. I love you Kazakhstan. People say they love me all the time in English, but I don't think they understand the difference between like and love. They use the same phrase for both in Kyrgyz. There is a phrase for intimately loving someone, but they never use it. I know a woman who has been married for 20 years and has never told her husband she loves him. The women especially don't do it, because they think its bad for a woman to expose herself like that. Its very strange to me. I insisted that she go home and tell him she loves him, but I don't think it worked.

Tomorrow the K-12's are throwing a party for us new volunteers. My group is the 13th group of volunteers in Kyrgyzstan, and we're called K-13's. The groups before us are named in the same fashion. I've heard the volunteers here are pretty cool, and have nothing but good things to say about the area. That'll be good. When I get down in the dumps because its cold and everything is dead, I'll have positive reinforcement to keep me sane. There are 5 other volunteers who live in the same city as me. One of the couples lives about a 100 yards from my work, so I'll get to see them regularly.

We don't know what we're doing for Christmas, but we're already on the hunt for construction paper to make Christmas decorations. And we're trying to figure out where to get a Christmas tree, but I don't know if they sell Christmas lights here. Maybe in Bishkek, but it doesn't look like I'll be heading that way for about a month. I might meet up with Mike & Brenda in Bishkek for my birthday. But it mostly depends on money and the roads.