valerie
June 29, 2025 - winding river in a neighboring volunteer’s village
(this river also flows through my village, but I don’t usually take the time to walk there because it’s a little far from my house)
June 27, 2025 - Kyrgyzstan has a collective society, which means that people are generally more informed about each other’s lives, especially in the village. One day, when our cow was pregnant and didn’t want to get up to eat or drink, relatives and some other people I didn’t recognize came over
June 25, 2025 - a Slim Jim-looking thing left on the ground to decay
May 2025, inside some hotel on the Vegas strip
June 23, 2025 - Donkey’s fractured ear has been fixed. Panfilov Park, Bishkek
(I saw this at the same time I noticed that Shrek had been repainted)
June 22, 2025 - seen in the window of a Lego Store in my hometown. Took the picture as I was walking, hence the bad quality
June 19, 2025 - you can buy sumac at a Turkish store in Bishkek. This bag of sumac was 77.88 Kyrgyz som (a little less than 1 USD). 0.088 kg of sumac in this bag times 885 (som for 1 kg of sumac) equals 77.88
June 16, 2025 - phone couldn’t focus on both, so had to choose one item to be blurred. I opted for the machine that I got this small art souvenir from (it was a small single piece ornament in the shape of a matryoshka)
last month in Las Vegas
June 15, 2025 - this is the string that my host mom uses to tie our cow’s back legs together while she is milking her (so the cow doesn’t kick)
June 12, 2025 - English teacher club in another village. A teacher in that village brought small cakes and pizza that she and her daughter made. She asked me to take the last piece of pizza home, but we had no bags, so she wrapped it in a piece of paper that she didn’t need, and then it was hidden
June 11, 2025 - strange but beautiful sunset with brick fences in front of our house and the neighbors’ house across the street
June 10, 2025 - dog standing next to a rail outside of a Spar
the dog was tied to a different fence further away from the entrance before we went into the store, but when we came back, it had gotten loose and seemed to be looking for its owner to return
June 9, 2025 - Zaya standing by a piece of wood
(yes, my family has started calling Zoya’s sister Zaya 😁)
June 8, 2025 - two days ago (Friday), I traveled 5km down the road to my colleague’s village because his coteacher invited us for Kurman Ait (Ait maarek bolsun!). I went with two English teachers from my school, and we had a nice time 🙂
June 7, 2025 - if I turn on the light switch in my room, a white light turns on (the unlit circle in the middle). If I turn off the light, and turn it on quickly again, I get this blue light setting. I think these lights are cool…don’t think I’ve ever seen any like this in America?
