valerie
July 14, 2023 - lyrics (only the first and third verses) to a Kyrgyz song called Угузчу бир сөз that the trainees in my village are learning to perform for Culture Day next weekend. 3 people bought a komuz in Bishkek yesterday to play and some of us (including me) will sing
July 13, 2023 - my cohort finally took a day trip to Bishkek to see the Peace Corps office here and get acquainted with the city. We ate Indian food for lunch 🙂
July 12, 2023 - my Kyrgyz teacher brought these delicious desserts to class called Amaretti. The ingredients were quite simple, something like sugar, egg whites ,almond flour and there might have been some fruit flavor in it too, maybe dates? These don’t look like what I see on Wiki tho!
July 10, 2023 - went to a music teacher’s house to ask her to tune a couple of komuzes. She and her husband(?) ended up playing on komuz and accordion
July 9, 2023 - a fellow volunteer gave me this apple at our last training day together three days ago. Normal, small green apple that I put on my desk. Just noticed today that someone took a bite out of it!! It must have been one of my host family sisters 😂 So I gave the apple to the chickens
July 7, 2023 - we had homemade pizza, coca-cola and cake to celebrate my host brother’s birthday which was yesterday
July 4, 2023 - came home to this and was told that it was a grain used for feeding chickens and could also be used to make some kind of bread? My host sisters were playing in it like it was a pile of dirt while my host dad shoveled it into sacks
July 2, 2023 - mountain view today from my PST village. was the clearest view of the mountains I’ve seen since I’ve been here
July 1, 2023 - all the trainees in my village got together for a movie night but it didn’t work out the way we planned 😅
June 30, 2023 - my fellow trainees and my Kyrgyz teacher laughed at me today when I told them I carry a stick as my key to open my host family’s gate. This was not a personal choice - my host mom literally picked up a stick off the ground and gave it to me to use. I assumed this was normal
June 29, 2023 - I don’t remember the number, somewhere between 30 to 50 liters of kompot in the basement of one of the trainees who is in the same village as me
June 28, 2023 - Аит Маарек Болсун! (Happy Eid! in Kyrgyz) Just a small portion of a table in one of the seven houses we went to 🥴
June 27, 2023 - table set with fresh boorsok that my fellow trainees and Kyrgyz teacher made in preparation for Eid (Аит in Kyrgyz). I would have helped, but I have a cold and thought it would be better to just watch
June 26, 2023 - helped my host mom make Быжы this evening, sausage made with sheep meat, rice, carrots, garlic, onion and pepper stuffed in sheep intestine and then boiled. Thinking about the source too much makes me a bit squeamish because it’s not something I normally eat, but I liked the taste!
