valerie
March 13, 2025 - more USAID materials (the Kyrgyz book on the left is a translated version of the English book on the right). Both books are pretty hefty, so the translation work must have been a big project
March 10, 2025 - put this sign outside our English classroom earlier this school year and now students ask, “May I come in?” in English
once, I took it off the wall to show a student in the classroom, and this monstrosity happened 🙃 good thing Kyrgyz schools are repainted every year
March 9, 2025 - not only was yesterday International Women’s Day, but it was also Grandma’s 70th birthday, so 6 of her 7 children (4 daughters and 2 sons - my host dad is her oldest son) and their children were at our house yesterday. One daughter brought small gifts for all the girls and women
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
