valerie

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 🥴

tabletop set with cutlery, napkins, sliced watermelon, melon, carrot and cucumber salad, candy, cookies and small pieces of fried bread

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

small pieces of fried bread spread out along a long table which also has sugar, jam, honey, a couple dessert trays and some spoons set on it

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!

plate with a filled sausage before boiling mid-left; bowl filled with mixed ingredients for stuffing on the bottom right

June 25, 2023 - evening walk in the village

rocky, dirt road with tall, brick residential fences on both sides just before sunset. power lines down the left side of the road and trees close to the horizon point

June 24, 2023 - beshbarmak for lunch

plate of chopped beef mixed into noodles with a portion of beef on a bone to the side

June 23, 2023 - learning and reviewing verbs in Kyrgyz

June 22, 2023 - lagman for lunch

bowl of noodles, chicken and chopped veggies including cabbage, pepper, tomato and onion

June 21, 2023 - host family’s gate at night

blue gate adjacent to a red brick wall with tree branches visible over the top. picture taken at night, one star and a crescent moon in the sky

June 20, 2023 - cow eating leaves from a tree on my host family’s road

mostly black cow standing on a dirt road eating leaves from a low-hanging branch of a tree

June 19, 2023 - my host mom made cherry kompot today!

tea cup filled with hot, dark red kompot made from cherries

June 18, 2023 - train going through Ivanovka Station

green and light yellow-ish petrol train(?) moving towards left side of photo with a brown train parked on a different rail behind it

June 17, 2023 - Training Host Family Matching Day! Met my interim host family and I’ll be living w them for the next 3 months during training, the majority of which will be Kyrgyz language learning. Starting to understand why some people consider parts of this country as being in the “posh corps” 😅

large bedroom with a river in forest wall mural on the back wall. shelf and bed on the left side of the room and a table and chair on the right side

June 16, 2023 - mosque near our guesthouse

small white building with a gray roof, two small green and white domes and crescent moon pinnacles

June 15, 2023 - dining room of our guesthouse

open-air deck area with wooden floor and roof and two rows of mostly wooden tables and chairs

June 14, 2023 - evening walk

gravel road curving slightly towards green mountains in distance with a light pink cloud above at dusk

June 13, 2023 - Chong Kemin River

flowing gray river at morning moving towards mountains in distance

June 12, 2023 - back in one of my favorite countries. near Kemin, Kyrgyzstan

green mountains behind green fields with a blue sky

June 11, 2023 - Philadelphia

looking up to three tall buildings in the center of Philadelphia

June 10, 2023 - coffee shop in Philadelphia

shelves and door inside of a coffee shop

June 9, 2023 - Philadelphia

June 8, 2023 - last San Antonio sunset for a while

June 7, 2023 - tea cafe in San Antonio

June 6, 2023 - dinner

plate of 5 small beef street tacos topped with onion and cilantro, a green pepper and a few lime wedges in the middle, and a small side dish of beans on the right

June 5, 2023 - The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas. It’s fun being a tourist in my own city

entrance to the Alamo with a small green lawn in front and a blue sky with white clouds

June 4, 2023 - ominous rain clouds in San Antonio this afternoon

dark gray clouds in a gray sky over a distant neighborhood