valerie
December 31, 2023 - fun way to end the year by ice skating on a frozen reservoir/lake with my host family. Ara-Kol, Naryn region, Kyrgyzstan
December 30, 2023 - trash day means seeing bags like this outside. I don’t know where the trash goes…there’s a small dump outside my village, so maybe there. I’ll ask my family. No official trash vehicle from what I’ve seen, just a normal car that drives around town and honks relentlessly
December 29, 2023 - decorations in the school cafeteria for the teachers’ New Year’s party this evening
December 28, 2023 - Christmas gift from one of my coteachers. Apparently, she has a flower business. I got the name of the flowers in Russian, but I haven’t looked up the English name yet…anyways, I feel bad because they are so pretty, but given my track record, they’ll probably die soon ๐
December 27, 2023 - my host sister made me a Christmas tree?? it’s made of a garland and lights wrapped around something, but I don’t want to disassemble it to see what’s underneath. she also made colorful paper chains and a star which keep falling off
December 26, 2023 - yesterday we had a couple of relaxed lessons during which our students made Christmas cards (I did not ask the students to address the cards to me! that was their choice)
December 19, 2023 - my family brought 3 foals(?) home over the weekend. my sister and cousin each told me that one is theirs, and the other belongs to their older brother. Idk if that’s actually true or if they just felt the need to ‘claim’ an animal ๐
December 18, 2023 - why do I feel like I’ve never eaten fava beans in America? These are so good. Fried, and (probably too) salty. It’s nice to eat something salty because it seems like we usually have more sweet snacks than salty snacks here
December 17, 2023 - in a Facebook group of language learners, one person recently shared a post which was that, according to the author, the best method for getting better at a foreign language is to journal in it. My Cyrillic cursive is horrendous, but wrote my first Kyrgyz entry yesterday
December 16, 2023 - the hospital in Kochkor decorated one of their trees for Christmas (don’t worry, we weren’t here for anything serious, just to use an ATM). There are a lot more Christmas decorations for sale in Kochkor than I anticipated
December 13, 2023 - ice on the window INSIDE my classroom. coteacher said this window has one pane, not two, which I didn’t see before. Government made a country-wide decision to have online school lessons today and tomorrow due to weather. here my weather app says high of -8ยฐC and low of -23ยฐC
December 12, 2023 - today is the anniversary of Chingiz Aitmatov’s birthday, the most famous Kyrgyz writer. He would have been 95. some students performed a court room scene. I’m not sure if the scene was related to his life or one of his works, but I will ask my Kyrgyz teacher at our next lesson
December 11, 2023 - my host sister was playing a weird mobile game on Saturday evening that let her send celebrities and fictional characters to Heaven or Hell
December 10, 2023 - more sheep friends! apparently they will all be sold at some point ๐ฅ but I love their cute, inquisitive-looking faces and eyes. the rams are being kept separate
December 9, 2023 - despite almost every other place in Kyrgyzstan getting snow overnight, it only started snowing in the afternoon here and it didn’t snow much. still my sister and I went into the street and she drew this. then a drunk guy walked right through the middle ๐
December 8, 2023 - tonight’s dinner - manti. filled with meat and potatoes, which is not my favorite kind. I prefer manti filled with pumpkin or Chinese chives. but my host mom is a great cook, so these manti still tasted good and weren’t too fatty or oily
December 7, 2023 - my family has been drinking a lot of bozo lately. it’s a fermented drink usually made from millet. I like it! Radio Free Europe has this video about Kyrgyz bozo on their website
