Today is March 8th, International Women’s Day. In Kyrgyzstan this is a huge holiday. It’s a combination of Mother’s Day and just giving appreciation to anyone of the female sex. During the few days before, female teachers go to a cafe and celebrate by singing, dancing, and eating together. At school, students put on a concert to show their appreciation. And for today, the actual holiday, we get the day off. In America this day was never really big, except maybe for this year. I wasn’t fully aware of the day until I was studying Italian and in Italy. Giving out yellow flowers and telling women they are appreciated was a new concept. Then, when I came here and the focus was even bigger, it was a great reminder to celebrate women more than just the US Mother’s Day. Celebrating Women’s Day is certainly something I’ll bring back with me to the US. March 8th is our day! Happy Women’s Day to all the women in my life. You’re amazing!
Yesterday, I got back from Talas, an oblast in the far west of the country. I was invited by my friend and fellow PCV to teach English teachers in her region about how to organize small libraries. I also wanted to teach them about American library values. Many school libraries here aren’t always open, offer mostly textbooks, and the librarian leans toward the traditional. I taught them the same values and laws that I was taught in library school. Also while in Talas, I gave a similar presentation to local librarians and resource center heads at the Talas American Corner. Most of the audience was from Cholpon University and so their focus was on academic libraries. I still wanted to share american library values with them and explore the library as space versus place. Libraries are no longer just the quiet study space, but places of creation and doing. Both of these trainings were great practice rounds for my big training series in April for the information professionals in Bishkek.
Transportation in Kyrgyzstan is always a thing here. For example, from my site to Talas is about seven to eight hours. First, I take a small bus from my city bus station to the capital city bus station in Bishkek. The travel time is about two and a half or three hours depending on how fast the driver goes. From Bishkek I find the Talas taxi drivers and figure out who is going towards where I need to go. Sometimes you may have to wait a long time for cars to fill up. There are no bus schedules or taxi schedules here. They fill up as people need to travel to that place and leave when the vehicle is full. This time I had to wait an hour and a half before the taxi was full. The drive from Bishkek to Talas is about five and a half hours. The road goes over two high passes so road conditions are crazy in Winter/Spring. When I went it was snowing and low visibility so we took a little longer to get through.
Not only did I want to share how we travel here, but also that this country has an amazing courier system. On my taxi ride back from Talas to Bishkek, we were coming down the last pass on hair pin curves when a large trucker parked on the opposite shoulder flagged us down. The driver was carrying a plastic bag and ran over to our taxi’s driver side window. The trucker asked if our driver would take this bag in to Bishkek and give it to a person who lived in the city. They exchanged numbers and we went on our way. The exchange lasted less than three minutes. Sure enough when we were approaching the capital city, our taxi driver began making calls to many people telling them to meet him soon for various item pick ups. In the US, this would never happen. We would mail something but not flag down a random person and ask them to call our friends to pass something along. We have too many different roads, are so much bigger, and have many more people. Even for our own work, sometimes Peace Corps will suggest us to ask a taxi driver or bus driver heading in to the city to carry something for us to give to the office. It’s just a system that works here. There are really only a few main roads and they all lead to Bishkek. I am always in awe that this works here and is an option. It goes to show the kindness and smallness of this seven million people country.
So this has been the most recent things that have happened. Now to back track a little. Previously, from September until now, I have been in the groove with teaching eight hours with my counterpart. I love all my classes this year and enjoy the students in them. The two 11th forms (equivalent to our 12th grade) are great kids and we have a lot of fun. One class somehow always gets off topic when they are curious about learning something and we go into the meaning behind the word, theme, or whatever. My 6th grade class is so active and eager to learn. I had them last year as 5th graders and it’s awesome to see their progress. My one 5th grade class is full of super eager students and they always get excited when wanting to answer questions. I will certainly miss my students a ton.
Holidays this year were nice. For Thanksgiving, we met in Balykchy and had about 15 people in my apartment. There were only four new volunteers to our oblast and all but one decided to spend the American holiday with their host family. We had a delicious variety of food and had second Thanksgiving for breakfast. Yum. For Christmas, a few close friends and I rented an apartment in Bishkek and got tickets to see ‘The Nutcracker’ at the ballet theatre. That was fun and festive. We went out to dinner and had pork, a hot commodity at a Russian restaurant. We spent the night singing Christmas songs and drinking homemade eggnog. Christmas morning we opened presents from our Secret Santas. It was great.
For my winter break this year, I went to Oman and Dubai, UAE. Bishkek has direct flights to Dubai and it’s warm in winter. Definitely a must need during cold Kyrgyz winters. The perfect time for a break. I also decided to go to Oman because of my friend from university who had gone. Oman is literally one of my new favorite places. I traveled with my friend from training and who I went to India with. She and I flew into Dubai and took a bus to Muscat, Oman. In Oman we stayed at a friend of my university friend’s place. He kindly took us around and showed us his amazing country. People in Oman are some of the nicest I have met. The food was delicious and for being a dry country, it was actually quite mountainous and diverse. We spent one day in a green mountain valley oasis where we swam up a river into a cave that had a waterfall. This was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done. We stayed in Oman for about three days. After Oman, we explored Dubai for seven days where we enjoyed the beach, Abu Dhabi, the mall, and ate ourselves silly. My travel buddy and I decided to take advantage of some of the popular American restaurants that we hadn’t had in two years. One day we went to the Cheesecake Factory and another day to Starbucks. Of course we also asked our couch surfing host to take us to some great local eateries. It was the perfect mix of trying new things and getting some comfort food satisfaction. After Dubai we came back tan and sun kissed ready to tackle the Kyrgyz winter.
Next week all the volunteers will come together for our close of service conference where we learn about the next steps. It’s amazing to think that point is finally here. I have my plane ticket home and it’s within three months. Crazy. Didn’t we just get here? Now, with 90 days left I have two main goals I want to get done to fulfill my service. I hope to teach my five library trainings as well as help open the Little Free Libraries in Bishkek. With my counterpart, I want to teach her how to use a laptop and projector so she can continue to use a variety of tools to teach. Besides my usual everyday work and hanging with my students, I bet the time will go by fast. Three. More. Months.
