valerie
October 17, 2023 - my host mom, who is not home, texted, “aren’t you cold at night?” I forgot the Kyrgyz word for blanket, went to ask my sister, and then ended up talking to her and her cousins for an hour. afterwards I had messages from my host mom saying, “sorry if I wrote it wrong” (in Kyrgyz) 🥺
October 16, 2023 - enjoying the warm sun during the day before temperatures go back down to near freezing during the night
October 15, 2023 - new additions to the family…well, I don’t know for how long.
I call the black ram in the back “Mr. Grumps” (my family does not know this) because he always hangs out in the back of the enclosure and never seems thrilled to see me 😂
October 13, 2023 - went to a little archaeological/historical museum in my village with my Kyrgyz teacher. it’s such a small, local museum that we had to go to the owner’s house next door and ask if we could see the museum. but the owner was enthusiastic and happy to see locals come in
October 11, 2023 - my Kyrgyz teacher brought this cute picture book to our lesson today. The title translates to “We ate everything”. The premise is that the pig is having a birthday party, but the other animals eat all the food they plan to give the pig as a gift
October 10, 2023 - picked some potatoes with my host cousin. there are only a few students in class these days since it is potato picking season
October 7, 2023 - made buñuelos with my host sister today. not sure how much my host family likes them, but I do 😂
October 6, 2023 - a teacher that I don’t know gave me a bar of handmade soap as a gift for Teacher’s Day 🥺 (which was officially yesterday, though there was a small celebration which happened today)
October 4, 2023 - my coteacher was late to class, so my 5th grade students decided to write on the board 😂
(I usually introduce myself as ‘Valeria’ as most people have heard the Russian name. it sounds more familiar to them than ‘Valerie’)
October 2, 2023 - Crazy day. Taught only my first 2 out of 5 classes for the day to hear news that the president of Kyrgyzstan was coming to a nearby city to officially open a new park and stadium, so my coteachers and I went to the event (w permission), which was huge and had a lot of attendees
October 1, 2023 - my sister tried to teach me a Kyrgyz variant of hopscotch, but wow it is really hard to understand game instructions in another language. or maybe it is just hard to understand my sister 😂
September 30, 2023 - another Kyrgyz museum, another yurt. A true national treasure
Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan
September 28, 2023 - The Peace Corps medical team here gave every volunteer in my cohort a resistance band to use for workouts. They also gave us a jump rope, which my host mom, sister and I really liked, but it disappeared a week or two ago so we have to buy another 😥
September 27, 2023 - saw this kitty on the way to school that I wanted to embrace, but it just meowed at me and walked past without a care. But then ran into my host cousin who was returning home from school (he lives with us) and he embraced me (he’s 7 years old)
