Holidays Abroad and an India Vacation

While I spent my Thanksgiving holiday out of my oblast, Balykchy (my site) hosted our Issyk-Kul region Christmas festivities. At the time we had two apartments so there was plenty of space for volunteers to stay and cooking space to make lots of yummy food. My new Issyk-Kul fam put on quite the show and we had food for days, as well as great company. We decided to do secret santa so we weren't giving gifts to all 15 some volunteers. This worked out great and everyone was so thoughtful and gave wonderful gifts. Our celebration included singing songs together, food, the gift-exchange, and of course games. We meshed our Kyrgyz life of eating together on the floor around a tablecloth with the American decorations of a christmas tree and star of David on the wall.

A Balykchy Christmas!

Being silly in front of the tree!

In Kyrgyzstan, Christmas is not a big deal.  Russian families celebrate Christmas in January, so the day proceeds just like any other. The big Kyrgyz holiday though is New Years. Many of the Christmas traditions we have is how Kyrgyz people celebrate New Years. This can get confusing when describing to my students, other teachers, and local friends. They think we celebrate New Years on the 25th of December or they think our Christmas is their New Years. It's confusing.

On New Years, Kyrgyz people get together with family and give presents. They usually have a decorated tree and stay up to midnight eating lots of yummy food. At midnight they set off fireworks themselves and it goes on for a good half hour at least. They also have a Santa Claus-like figure with his daughter that goes around and spreads the cheer. Way to make things complicated right? When I came back from vacation and asked my students what they did for New Years, I compared this to what Americas usually do. For example, we usually watch firework shows rather than set them off ourselves. We watch the ball drop in New York and we don't give presents. That sort of thing. I think they understood that comparison list more and it was cool to see what each of our cultures do for the same holiday.

To back track, however, after Christmas I finished out school. We had our second quarter test and were eager to leave for the month long break. Kyrgyz schools have a one week break scheduled for the winter holiday but this usually becomes longer because schools are so cold. So I decided to take advantage of this break. On the 30th, I met some fellow volunteers in Bishkek and we made our way to Almaty, Kazakhstan to celebrate New Years. Three of us were leaving to go to India from the Almaty airport and decided it would be fun to check out our neighbors in the north. We stayed at a hostel which occupied the top floor of an office building. Around midnight they let us onto the roof and we rang in the new year with a full 360 of the city and watched in amazement at fireworks being shot off EVERYWHERE. It was beautiful.

View of the city fireworks. 

On the rooftop surrounded by fireworks.

The next day my three friends and I stayed around and toured the city. We also went to the highest ice skating rink in the world!

View from up above the rink. I hiked like straight up on over 100 flights of stairs.

The rink!

We parted ways with the other half of our group and left to go to the airport. There are direct flights from Bishkek in KG to Delhi, India but my travel group and I wanted to start further south and make our way back up. We wanted to fly into Mumbai and so took the Almaty, Dubai, Mumbai route.  Our India vacation was filled with fruit, beaches, American food, Indian food, shopping, lassi, the steps of the Ganga, and the Taj. It was great! We went from Mumbai to Goa to Bangalore. Then Pondicherry to Chennai to Varanasi. Then Agra for the Taj Mahal and then Delhi.  We took every kind of transportation possible on our trip except riding bikes. India was colorful and full of great sites and food. It was overwhelming at times because of the mass amounts of people and the driving, but I'm glad I went and got to see regional difference from the South to the North.

Mumbai Sunset!

Elaphanta Caves UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mumbai Taj Mahal hotel and the docks!

GOA beaches!

Art Museum in Bangalore.

Pundicherry beauty!

Pundicherry shore.

Varanasi Ghats walk.

Lasssssssiiiii!

Hanging out on along the Ganga!

Night prayer ceremony in Varanasi. 

The Taj. 

Taking the Taj in.

When flying back to Kyrgyzstan from Delhi, it was weird to not be flying home, home. America home. But I quickly got over this because the trip made me appreciate how things are done in Kyrgyzstan. It's quieter here, the air is cleaner, and it was familiar. It felt like coming back to a different home. Now it seems like time is going by so fast. It's now almost 10 months since we've been in country and the new volunteers are coming. I've been working on preparing for trainings for the new group about how to deal with cultural differences and writing a book with other volunteers. Before we know it, we'll no longer be the newbies but helping a new group of volunteers figure out the ropes.

For now, it's back to teaching the last two quarters. We will have spring break in the middle of March and then finish school on the 25th of May. I am also working on field trips for photo club in the Spring and writing the Issyk-Kul Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) grant with two other volunteers for the summer camp. I hope to travel to another oblast during Spring break to help them start writing their GLOW summer camp grant. When the new volunteers come I will be helping out with their training and getting them ready for this adventure they've taken on.  Spring seems like it's just around the corner and will be packed full of activities!

Also, my last site mate left after New Years, making me the only volunteer in my city for a short while. Since two volunteers had left during the visa problems, it was just one volunteer and I. After Christmas the other volunteer decided to return to the US as well. However, another volunteer was looking for a new site. Balykchy is huge with ten schools so I thought about offering up the idea that she move here. By the time I got back from vacation, I had a new site mate! This makes me very happy to have someone to do projects with, talk with, and make this town seem a little less big.