Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Summer Happenings

06.09.06
The Talas volunteers are planning a week long summer camp in August. Malinda, another volunteer, is writing a grant for lunch and a snack for each day as well as for supplies. I think it will be 9 to 5 each day. We will have sports, crafts, English lessons, boys scout type lessons, cooking, watermelon eating contests, etc. I’m not really sure what else is planned. I missed the biggest meeting about it. It’s exciting though.

The new group of volunteers will be arriving on July 10. A girl that went to my university is coming to KG – what are the odds? I haven’t met her, but she knows my friends and we’ve been emailing. She sounds like a super cool girl. I can’t wait to meet all of them. I love new people – especially ones who won’t ask me to give everyone they know private English lessons. I’m planning to go to Bishkek on July 19th to meet them. I will bring a group of them back to Talas to see what volunteer life is like. For our K-13 group, we had been studying Kyrgyz for 2 months before we visited the older volunteers; so we were able to get around a little bit on our own. But the K-14s will have been in country for a week and a half before going on their PCV visits. I hope we don’t lose any of our flock.

Everyone has been asking how the chicks are doing and I keep forgetting to tell you. Sorry about that. The chicks are doing great. They look like full grown chickens now. There have been no deaths – we still have 15. Ainash and Samat cleaned out the chicken coop a while back. They patched up the window, added a few bricks around the door, and swept out all of the cobwebs. The chickens love their little home. Sometimes we let them run around the yard, but I’m afraid the neighbor cat will kill them or that they will fall in the outhouse. Once they’re a little bigger we won’t have to worry about the cat anymore, but how do you train chickens to stay out of the outhouse? I don’t think that’s an option. I have to train my family and our visitors to shut the door. My host family seems to have gotten the hang of raising chickens, and I think they’ll be able to handle it after I leave.

Today I went to the music school and asked about taking komuz lessons. The komuz is the Kyrgyz instrument – it has 3 strings, much like a banjo. I don’t know if they told me the right price, because the guy asked my nationality before he told me. And I would prefer to have a female teacher. I’m on an anti-Kyrgyz men strike. I have had the worst luck with them, so I’m avoiding them altogether. It’s been working out so far, so I don’t know if I want to pay to spend time with one. There is also the issue of not owning a komuz. It doesn’t seem that the guy will let me borrow one, but I want to start lessons right away. I could buy one in Talas, but they’re cheap. The nice ones are sold in Bishkek, so I could buy one when I go in for the Fourth of July.

The U.S. Embassy is hosting a cookout for the 4th. Word on the PC Street is that they ship hot dogs and hamburgers in from the states. And it’s free for American citizens. I think all of the volunteers are trying to go, so it will be a little reunion as well. Maybe they’ll have fireworks too.