valerie
March 7, 2025 - my Women’s Day haul. (It’s tomorrow, but we don’t work, so we celebrated today)
Most meaningful was a note in Kyrgyz with a candy from students I taught last year. Later they returned and gave me a carnation bouquet made of tissue colored with marker and a note in English 🥺
March 5, 2025 - beautiful lighting this morning 😊
(Also, Happy Kalpak Day! The kalpak is a white, traditional Kyrgyz hat worn by men, and is said to represent the white mountains in Kyrgyzstan)
March 4, 2025 - my host mom cooking beans for the first time that I’ve ever seen. She said she wants to use them in a salad. She also said she ate beans a lot in her childhood because they grew where she lived. But beans don’t grow here, so people here rarely eat them. I’m excited for beans!
March 3, 2025 - a new bell/speaker system at school that plays komuz music after every lesson
and the national anthem was played in the morning, which had never happened here before on a normal school day
(actually, the Kyrgyz gov announced a contest last month to change the national anthem..)
March 2, 2025 - had to navigate through cow city on the way home from my walk this morning. They were going to the fields to graze
March 1, 2025 - today is the first day of Ramadan fasting, so I went out and got my daily 6000 steps early. (Don’t know how feasible it is to do both the whole month, but I will try). Sometimes I see this old woman walking in the morning. Here she is walking home, down her street (I guess)
February 26, 2025 - it snowed unexpectedly today. For the last week, the forecast had been back and forth on whether it would snow today or not. I decided it probably wouldn’t snow because my weather app often shows that it’s currently snowing when it actually isn’t. Today I was wrong 😁
February 25, 2025 - a new snack bar for me. It smells like a different snack bar, Fun Banan, which is to say it smells strongly of artificial banana. I still like the bar, but it’s not very filling
February 24, 2025 - yesterday was my first time walking on this road during the day (usually I run here, and in the morning). The thing on the ground is a goal for the Kyrgyz game kok boru, in which men try to grab and throw a sheep carcass inside the goal while on horseback
February 21, 2025 - a war monument in my village next to the mosque on the main road that I finally took a picture of. I’m not sure which war this is commemorating. My guess is WW2 or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan since there are a lot of monuments for these two conflicts around Kyrgyzstan
February 18, 2025 - first day of English Olympiad. Speaking day! Here were all of this year’s topics. Each participating student picked one at random and spoke about it. Then they had to answer follow-up questions from judges (us), and we decided that each judge would be responsible for a few topics
February 17, 2025 - relatively new restaurant in Kochkor. It’s so nice! I didn’t actually eat there when I went this past weekend (because I had already eaten lunch before going in), but I want to eat there next week!
February 15, 2025 - namazkana (намазкана, prayer room) in a hall of other suites/offices Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan
February 14, 2025 - made envelopes and had students write nice messages to each other in English club yesterday. I told them they could take their envelopes home, and didn’t think to take a picture of all of them before
February 13, 2025 - Bishkek buses now accept payment by card and QR code. I heard they wouldn’t take cash, but the drivers do still accept cash. It’s just a little more expensive than paying electronically. This is a coupon you can take if you pay by cash to prove to a controller that you paid
February 12, 2025 - not exactly sure what they are planning to do here, but this part of the road from the center of Kochkor to Ormon Khan Park is a full-on construction zone (and has been since maybe last fall?). The arch in the distance is the entrance to the park
