valerie
March 29, 2022 - weather was super weird today. The temperature at around 1 pm was hot, high 50s F / 14 C. Then the temperature started to drop and it began to get very windy. By 1:30 pm it was raining. It rained until about 3:30 pm, which is when it started snowing. Unfortunately, the snow will probably melt tomorrow
March 28, 2022 - I remember not long after I started working here, one of my coworkers mentioned a ‘chair graveyard’, and I think this might be it.. 🤨
March 27, 2022 - On March 18, I went to a Nawruz/diversity celebration at the American University of Central Asia. On that day, I uploaded a picture of the outside of the university, but totally forgot to post one which I took during the actual performance
March 26, 2022 - went a little crazy at the bazaar today and bought some things I didn’t REALLY need…like this qurut. I asked what the red stuff was and was told ‘pepper’, but it’s not spicy pepper. After trying half of one, I realized that I’ve had qurut similar to this before - it just wasn’t coated in as much pepper
March 21, 2022 - Happy Nowruz! Nowruz has been a national holiday since Kyrgyzstan’s independence in 1991, so today students and most workers have a holiday. I went out and bought some sumolok (сүмөлөк in Kyrgyz). It’s basically pudding made from wheat. It’s pretty good! It’s sweet. I didn’t know what it was when I saw people selling it in shops and on the street…I thought maybe it was a sauce or a dressing. I also realized that I’ve tried it once before without knowing what it was 🙃 Good thing is I won’t forget it now.
March 19, 2022 - Kok Moinok Canyons (Кок Мойнок in Russian, Көк Мойнок in Kyrgyz) near Balykchy (Балыкчы), Kyrgyzstan
March 18, 2022 - American University of Central Asia (AUCA/АУЦА). Since Nowruz is on Monday (March 21), the university held a diversity/Nowruz celebration today in which international students sang and danced to both traditional songs (in traditional clothes) and modern songs
March 17, 2022 - paid for my March Russian lessons today. To pay, I take cash to a pay terminal (a machine that looks similar to an ATM), select the bank of the receiver, enter their phone number, then insert the cash. Finally, I have to get a receipt and send it to the company. The blacked out parts are the receiver phone number and the cost of my Russian lessons (if you really want to know the latter, feel free to ask…just didn’t feel the need to broadcast it)
March 16, 2022 - Since I was busy today, I grabbed a premade lunch while doing grocery shopping so that I didn’t have to cook, one of the few premade lunches (from the store) I’ve eaten here. The dish is called kuksi (кукси)
March 15, 2022 - another day, another cake. It’s becoming a habit to eat a slice of cake before I leave work. Is that bad?
March 14, 2022 - a post dedicated to my keys 🙃 tl;dr - left my apartment keys in a taxi yesterday evening and got them back today thanks to the help from several kind coworkers and the taxi driver
March 13, 2022 - Burana Tower near Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan
March 12, 2022 - couldn’t resist buying one of these as they’re currently on sale. The taste reminded of these strawberry shortcake popsicles that I used to eat at school as a kid
March 8, 2022 - low-effort lunch during my holiday: eggplant, rice and arugula (if not for this blog post, I wouldn’t have known that the greens were arugula. The Russian word for arugula is rukola/руккола and I just assumed that this was the name of yet another green vegetable that I didn’t know 🙄)
March 6, 2022 - the cutest little onions. Even though I have been understood in the past when trying to buy ½ kg of something, I ended up buying 1 kg because I felt self-conscious since I’m pretty sure that the way I ask for ½ kg is incorrect. Now I’ve got a lot of onions to eat 🙃
