And They Said We Would Have Lots of Free Time...

but I’m constantly busy and my days are packed. Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) volunteers thankfully have a pretty set schedule and tasks. I’m happy for this because my organizational brain does need a little consistency to function. Unlike Health or Business volunteers, TEFLs have to teach a set schedule of 12 hours a week (in their first year). In-between lessons we lesson plan or curriculum plan with our counterparts. On top of all this, we hold English Clubs and work on writing grants/attend trainings. Usually I am gone daily from 8am to 5pm either going to class, leading clubs, or planning with my counterpart. We keep pretty busy and I like it. 

One of my 5th grade classes. They were in charge of ringing the bell to signify the end of class this day. 

I am really enjoying the clubs I run or that I am a part of. They are fun and help occupy/share some of my other interests. On my own I run two to three English Clubs. I actually haven’t started them yet because I’ve been so busy with schedule changes and trainings that the times would keep changing or the days and dates. Depending on how many kids show up, I’ll hold a beginning, intermediate, and advanced English Club. Or I may just run the clubs by grades. I’ll get there next week after yet another training I attend. On top of the English Clubs, I also have a FLEX Club/Olympiad Club which are for more advanced students. FLEX is the Future Leaders Exchange program that sends kids from other countries to the US for one year of high school. All of the students I helped prepare for the earlier testing sessions passed and so now we have to get them ready for the final round. The final rounds includes an interview and a skit of sorts where the student’s leadership and work ethic is observed. It’s much like the theatre skits in middle school I did but instead of acting skills being judged, it’s how you set up the skit and think outside of the box. For example, you may be given a pen to sell as if you were on an infomercial and you have five other students to work with. AND GO! Olympiad is a subject competition that starts at the city level and then goes to Oblast level and then national level. Subjects range from Math, Science, Kyrgyz, and English. Kyrgyz people love competitions and this is the school intellectual one. I have to wait to see what the Olympiad exactly holds because it’s not until January. We shall see.

My FLEX Club practicing essay writing.

The girls practicing at the clinic for their lesson.

The other two clubs I enjoy being a part of are GLOW Club and Photography Club. GLOW Club is an offshoot of our camp over the summer and includes meeting two to three times a week.  Once for the girls to lesson plan, once to practice their lesson, and a third to give their lesson at a local school. So far the girls have taught two classes, one of which I was able to attend, and they are great! I am so proud of what they have accomplished and teaching their peers about important topics that everyone should know about. I work on this club with two fellow Balykchy volunteers, Taylor and Jake. I enjoy all our girls as they are motivated and keep positive attitudes. I can’t wait to see where they go. Many of them are also trying for the FLEX program and are pretty spectacular people. I have high hopes. 

GLOW peer leaders planning the teaching schedule with the camp girls.

First lesson about nutrition given by two GLOW girls. So proud.

Photography Club is great because I get to hang out with more volunteers and follow my photography passion. Eric, Taylor’s husband, started the Photography Club last year with one of his business organizations. He got funding to buy cameras, go on field trips, and start a website. I have had the pleasure of going on two field trips with the Club this year and I love it. Again, another interesting group of kids and we have fun exploring and taking pictures of neat places. We teach the kids photography skills, editing skills, and website skills. Also, essay writing.  First we went to the ‘new beach’ in Balykchy and a couple weekends ago we went to Fairytale Canyon on the south shore of lake Issyk-kul.  I hope to work with the kids and Eric this year and then take over the Photo Club when he leaves. This year Eric’s goal is to build a website about Balykchy, Right now when you Google our city, some interesting blogs/articles turn up. The Photo Club page would hopefully be more informative and a much more real representation of this city we call home. Next year, I’ll have to come up with some other good goals and/or add to the website. But that can be left for later. So much to work on now. 

Taking photos at New Beach.

Having fun at New Beach.

Beautiful Fairytale Canyon.

Exploring. 

Sisters helping each other and one member observing in the distance. 

When I’m not in class, at clubs, or working with my counterpart, Peace Corps keeps us busy with reporting information, attending trainings, and applying to grants. At the beginning of October I finished a volunteer wide report on activities, community integration, and feedback. We do this report every six months and continually update it throughout our service. This past week I attended a training on grant writing and how to manage funds while living in Kyrgyzstan. This is very useful as it will help with the projects I want to do and the larger secondary project we complete in our second year. I am happy to announce that I applied to a grant in August for World Aids Day on December 1st and was given funding to proceed. I am working with Taylor, the health volunteer at my site, and we are bringing in our GLOW girls for the project. December 1st is World Aids Day and in their GLOW camp, girls learned about HIV/AIDS and how it is transferred. Our goals are to create a video that the girls produce and show it at the clinic Taylor works at as well as take it on tour with a lesson the girls will write. We will travel to three neighboring villages on the World Aids Day and give lessons at the school in each village. It should be fun, interesting, and engaging. I’m happy to be starting off with something small too. It’s a great intro into the grant and project writing world.

This week I am attending another training, see I told you I’m always busy, about women’s empowerment. The goal is to start a club when you return from the training and work on physical activity, life skills, etc. With this training you bring a local from your community interested in leading the club with you.  I have befriended an English teacher at the local Education Center and she was interested in working with me on things. She wants to practice her English and become more active in the community. Taylor and I will also work on this project and maybe start a women’s club in the coming months. 

I have been talking with other volunteers and we agreed that sometimes the days go by slow, but the weeks and months are going by fast. On October 24th, we will have been in Kyrgyzstan six months. SIX MONTHS! As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are committed to 27 months; we have three months of training and two years of service. In this long period of time away, we have many ups and downs, good days and bad. We were given sound advice to travel at some of these known downs. So around the holiday time, new years to be exact, two friends and I have decided to take our first trip. We wanted to keep the group small so we can move faster and not be keeping up with a ton of people. We decided to go to India! We will spend New Years in Almaty, Kazakhstan and then two and a half weeks in India. I can’t wait, 22 days of travel and a sari in my future. 

Speaking of traveling, a couple weeks ago I got to go on my first big hike and yurt stay in Kyrgyzstan. I went with Taylor and Eric from Balykchy to a city called Kochkor in Naryn and met up with another volunteer. Together we grabbed a taxi and headed to the mountains. On our second day we got snow over night and woke up to the reality that winter is coming sooner than we had thought. I am bummed I did not get to go on many hikes this summer, but next summer I hope to be around in country to experience more of this place. Kyrgyzstan has such beautiful landscapes and not many people. If you are a true nature seeker and don't like the crowds, KG is the place to come. 

Walking from the village towards the foothills.

Basecamp and my bedroom.

Heading into the clouds.

Our hiking trail was more of a shepherds horse trail.

Made it to the lake!

Sunday morning snow!

Enjoying the mountains with the sheep and goats.

For now, I’m still getting used to working as a teacher and teaching with a counterpart. Some days we have great lessons like today when we were teaching the verb ‘to have.’ The kids loved our activities and were fully engaged. Others days our lessons are okay and could have gone better, but there is always something new to learn.

#letgirlslearn and End of Phase III

I haven’t written since July and boy do I wish I had. So much has happened that I need to catch people up on a lot. The biggest news is that tomorrow is September 1st and this marks the first day of school in the Kyrgyz Republic. The first day of school is actually more like a giant assembly and not much of actual getting down to school work. It’s considered a holiday and we will probably just meet for a short time to welcome students and teachers back. But after all this training, I can’t believe my school year officially begins tomorrow! Time to teach English!

Now to back track a little:

In the middle of July I participated in the GLOW Camp where girls from four villages came together to learn about HIV/AIDS, healthy relationships, bride kidnapping, leadership, discrimination, public speaking, healthy eating, our bodies, teaching others, and volunteerism. At the camp we had six volunteers and three counterparts who taught lessons on the topics important to the GLOW program.  Also this year we had peer leaders, girls who had gone to camp the previous year, who taught some sessions. It’s always better to hear information from someone near your own age. Along with the sessions we had classic summer camp activities like swimming in the lake, cabin decorating contests, movie night outside, a talent show, and a camp fire (s'mores included). I was able to bring along my host sister and we had a great time.  I also had my counterpart who picked five other girls from our school who she thought would be good leaders for our community. The girls were happy they made new friends with people from other villages and got some questions answered on topics not openly talked about. My counterpart and I taught lessons on self-esteem and identity, healthy relationships, and public speaking. It was good to lesson plan with my counterpart and see her teach. We got closer and learned how to work with each other during this time. At first we had planed to teach in English, but most of the girls knew Kyrgyz only, so we had to switch up our plans. I took more of a back seat during the lessons, but had helped plan the lesson, the activities, and helped pass out papers during the actual lesson. It was a challenge at first to get my counterpart thinking in a different way, but we got it down and the lessons went great! I’m so proud of what we accomplished! Next year I hope to run the GLOW camp once again and continue to share valuable knowledge to young girls. #letgirlslearn

Part of the GLOW camp requires girls to take back the knowledge they learned from camp and teach others in their villages. This way the girls get to be leaders, the information spreads, and students are more likely to listen to their peers. One of the volunteers in my city and I had an idea for one of the girl’s lessons. Of course our girls will teach at other schools in Balykchy, but for World Aids Day we wanted to do something a little special.  Taylor, the health volunteer in my city, came up with the idea to make a video about HIV/AIDS and have our GLOW girls create and star in the video.  We will produce and film the video together. On World Aids Day, December 1st, we will show this film and have our GLOW girls give one lesson on HIV/AIDS to three other schools in villages around Balykchy. After the day is over, the video will be added to the rotation of health videos at Taylor’s health clinic. Taylor and I are currently writing the grant for this project, but we hope to get it funded so we can start working on the video soon. I am so thankful to have such a wonderful site mate who is taking me under her wings and letting me work on this project with her. Also it’s a great way to get our GLOW girls back together and give them teaching experience. I’ll update later on how this is progressing.

After GLOW camp, my counterpart needed a break before school started so we stopped our English club at school. We really only met four times with our students, but they seemed to enjoy the time they had with us. We worked with grades four to eight in the morning for an hour and then repeated lessons right after (with more English vocabulary) for grades nine through eleven. I was still wanting to work on things and keep busy because I had two weeks left before I went back to my village near Bishkek for part III of training. I had some girls from English Club and GLOW Camp who wanted to work on their English for a test coming up in September. This test is called FLEX and sends students from other countries to America to study in high school for one year. The test has three rounds; the first round is English grammar in multiple choice form, the second round is essay writing, and the third round is an interview and role play. Most of my girls do not need help with grammar. Their English is very good and they made it past the first and second round last year. What we focused on in the two weeks I was able to work with them was essay writing and interview questions. Essay writing is hard because students are not taught the five paragraph essay or they do not have much practice in arguing their own ideas. On top of this, the questions they are given are hard. Questions like ‘what are your three biggest weaknesses?’ are hard for students to answer. The culture is very positive here and hard times or negatives are not openly talked about. 

My girls and I worked on critical thinking and driving deep into their lives to find reasons why they REALLY wanted to study in America. I felt like a two year old asking ‘why?’ and ‘why?’ over and over to try to get to the bottom of a thought. After my two weeks though, girls were talking confidently about themselves, both negatives and positives. They were also casually adding in how going to America will help them with their futures even after a question about their weaknesses. It comes so easy to us Americans to talk about tough times and how we overcame them, it was hard to figure out how to extract that information from the girls. In the end, I was happy to work with them and provide support for one of their dreams. These are great girls and I wish them the best in their applications this year! 

After these two low-key weeks, I went off to my first host family and back to the training site near Bishkek. I took the train with other volunteers from my city (Balykchy) to our training villages. The train took about four hours and was a relaxing ride through the mountain passes. In our last phase of training, we got more specialized training in our sectors (teaching english, health, or business), more language lessons, and time to eat food in Bishkek.  Overall this time was very nice to meet back up with all the volunteers in my group and hear about their permanent sites. We would go out often to Bishkek to eat food and hang at coffee shops. The small comfort of being together and tasty, ethnically diverse food, was great. Now, we have all left our training sites to start our two years of service. We will have more trainings and meetings during our service where we will be together again, but most of our work will be within oblasts and at site. 

For now, I’m enjoying my last day off before school starts by celebrating the Independence of the Kyrgyz Republic.  In 1991, the Kyrgyz Republic left the Soviet Union and became a democratic state. With this excitement in the air, I’m ready to begin the school year and put to use the training I received the past four months. 

And So It Begins

It has almost been a month since I became an official volunteer and moved to my permanent site in Balykchy. Our induction ceremony was an early, hot and long day. We had to get up at the crack of dawn with our host families and drag all our luggage to our training site. From there we were bussed with our family members to the Philharmonic in the capital city of Bishkek for an hour long ceremony. The ceremony included speeches by the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and the Director of Health in Kyrgyzstan. Also our very own volunteers performed a national Kyrgyz dance and we all sang a national song. 

My Colorado friend, Tamlyn and I.

Getting ready to be sworn in.

Kyrgyzstan's Director of Health

US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan

Official Volunteers!

After the ceremony it was mass excitement as we had to say goodbye to our current host families, say goodbye to friends, and find our new counterparts to begin the journey to our new village or city. It was hectic trying to get last minute photos in, but we did manage to get one with the Ambassador. Most people left in groups relating to which area of Kyrgyzstan they were going to move to. Much like our states, Kyrgyzstan has regions, or oblasts. My counterpart and I went with other Issyk-Kul volunteers on a packed marshrutka. Issyk-Kul is the name of the oblast as well as the large lake in that region. 

Driving.

Could be Colorado.

KG flag!

After a two hour ride through mountains that looked similar to Southern Colorado, I was in my new city and my new host father picked my counterpart and I up from the bus station in his car. I immediately noticed the cooler climate and the closeness to the mountains. While the city may not be that pretty or architecturally interesting, the surrounding area and the view from my house is great. My house is on the outskirts of the city. We have no houses directly across from us or behind. Our view is pretty great. 

My family consists of a mother (Akjoltoi), a father (Kandibek),  and five siblings. Three of my siblings are older and live outside of the house. The oldest daughter (Maral) is a doctor who lives in town with her husband and two kids. The second oldest sister (Saikal) lives in Bishkek and works as a bank manager. The oldest brother (Semuk) is studying to become a doctor. I also have a 16-year old sister (Taazem) and a 13-year old brother (Akniet). They are wonderful. 

Siblings.

The next day after a much needed sleeping in, my family was celebrating a relative's 60th birthday, a baby’s 1st birthday, and my arrival. What a day! With big celebrations, the tradition is to kill a sheep, koi so, and grill/boil the meat. Well, more like everything except the lungs. We killed one of our sheep at home and then went to a place outside of town by a river and had a picnic. The meat was cooked, salads and fruit were on display and lots of toasts with vodka were made. Relatives of my father kept appearing and we had a great crowd of over 25 people. 

Cleaning the sheep parts.

PICNIC! 

Just around the river bend.

I had survived my first koi soi and my first weekend. I was now eager to see what work had in store. My first week was slow and hard. We went from seeing other volunteers every day to now only being able to talk to each other on the phone. My counterpart was busy the first week so we only met twice. The first day was to watch the 11th grade class graduate. I was introduced to the school and made a speech in Kyrgyz. The second day, my counterpart and I met with the other English teachers at our school and planned my summer English Club. The other days I tried not to get homesick with little to do and hung out with my host family to get to know them more. 

Graduates!

Library Day!

My second week I was thankfully given the opportunity to help lead the American Corner Sports Camp in Karakol. While Balykchy is the farthest west city on the lake, Karakol is the main city in the oblast and on the most eastern side of the lake. I helped teach lacrosse, lead warm-ups, and got kids excited about trying new sports. The camp was a month long and four volunteers were needed each week. I joined the group for the last week and was rewarded with a library promotion day. It was great that they worked with the library to promote reading and sports together! Camp was usually from about 10am to 12:30pm every day so we had a lot of free time after. The other volunteers and I took advantage of the free time and hiked, hung out together, and planned our Fourth of July celebration. This week was much better for me as I was busy, with other volunteers and got to visit a new city.

KARAKOL!

Play Ball!

Hiking.

Karakol from above.

Fourth of July was great. A volunteer who lives in Issyk-Kul now had a relative who owned a beach house away from main resorts. We rented the house and had two great days relaxing in the sun on the beach.

America in KG.

Making s'mores.

The Crew.

Most recently I went to a training for a different camp I will be helping at. This time I get to work with my counterpart and we will teach three sessions. Peace Corps has a great grassroots camp for girls called GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and a great camp for boys TOBE (Teaching Our Boys to Excel). Both camps promote volunteerism, leadership, and teach about health related topics that may not be discussed in everyday life but are important. For example: reproductive health, HIV, healthy relationships, and drugs and alcohol. My counterpart has a huge heart and seems to be very excited to work on this camp. It is a free camp for both the participants and the teachers. The best part is that after participants attend the week long camp, they are supposed to peer teach to other students in their community and pass on the information. I’m eager to see how this will go and how my counterpart and I will work. The sessions we will teach are self-esteem and identity, healthy relationships, and public speaking. 

Overnight training.

Session working.

For now, I am feeling much better. I know my town, I’ve traveled all around the lake on both the North and South shores, and I am busier with work. I also have three great site mates (fellow volunteers) who I can organize things with, bounce ideas off, and use as resources. It’s beginning to come together.

The End of the Beginning

We’re in our eighth and final week of Pre-Service Training. But wait a minute, when did this happen? Aren’t we still going to Kyrgyz class next week? Yeah, not so much. This time next week, I’ll be in my permanent site village learning the lay of the city and getting to know my counterpart. My counterpart is the Kyrgyz English teacher who I will help develop lesson plans, confidence in teaching, and professionalism with. Weeks are picking up speed and time seems to be flying.

Despite two weeks of me being sick with some nasty cold going around the volunteers, things are going good. We’ve had our Cultural Day where every village puts on a skit, food presentation, dance, song, and maybe Manas reading. Manas is an oral epic with a specific rhyme scheme and much longer than the Odyssey. Here is a photo of my group:

We made a traditional bread called Katima which is similar to a flaky tortilla. First the bread is formed into a small ball and rolled out very thin. The thin dough is then rolled in upon it self and then wrapped around and left to rise. This layered ball is then rolled out again to about a tortilla size and fried in a pan with oil. The rolling technique makes the bread flaky on the inside. Here are some photos of the Katima bakers:

One Sunday we got to travel to a famous tower near by. The tower is called Burana and is thousands of years old. We got to climb to the top of the tower and take in the beautiful scenery.  We had a great time with our language teachers exploring the tower and taking photos:

Travel in Kyrgyzstan is now an easy part of daily life. At first it takes some getting used to. Roads are not regularly maintained and no lanes are painted.  Most roads, except for in Bishkek, are usually a little larger than our two lanes roads. If someone is going slower, cars will just make sure no one in the on coming traffic lane is passing and will speed up around the slower vehicle. From my village, we take taxis to the main road that runs to the capital going North West and Issyk-Kul to the South East.. On the main road we pick up tiny buses called mashrutkas with set towns they stop in. Each mashrutka has a sign in the window with where it stops and a number for that route. Mashrutkas usually have about 17 to 20 seats but people pack in like sardines and many stand. Like I said, it all took some getting used to but now is old hat.

Most recently, my fellow English teachers and I did our final practicum. We team taught with another volunteer at an orphanage with a set curriculum. My partner and I got reading as our topic and had a fun time coming up with creative ways to present the text. In the end we chose a play format and had the students play a game before hand to warm up their brains. I’ve come to enjoy not being a perfectionist anymore. It seems to go out the window in Kyrgyzstan. You must be flexible because things will change. I know this is just the beginning, but I’m already seeing how ‘going with the flow’ will really help me in my work. Too many factors change last minute, things are not exactly how you planned them to be, and times or places may not available. 

The same week as our practicum, all volunteers had to take their language exam. Mostly the test is to gauge how well we were taught the local language, but all to see how well we are prepared. Learning the local language is important for our safety, when communicating with our host family, transportation, and of course living in another country. The test was all spoken and took about 20 minutes. We were all so happy when the exam was over. It honestly was not that bad, but the name of exam and the anticipation put a lot of pressure on everyone. If you do not do well on the exam, you’re asked to meet special goals when you go off to your permanent site and to report continual learning. For the rest of us, we woo will have continual learning and have the opportunity to get a tutor for up to 16 hours of language learning time in the seven weeks we are at permanent site. This is such a great program, I’m confident my Kyrgyz will only improve. 

Yesterday, I went to the bazar in Tokmok (a town to the East of me) to buy baby chicks for my host mom in my current village. We got up early on our only weekend day and tried to find chickens in the small bazar near our village. Usually chickens and ducks can be found, but this Sunday we were out of luck. My host mom said that Tokmok has a huge bazar and she was sure they would have baby chicks. We took a mashrutka to the larger town and wandered the bazar until we found the animal section. Each type of animal has their own area for selling. It reminds me of the Stock Show in Colorado, but it happens every Sunday. There is a sheep and cow area, a dog and cat area, and a chicken/turkey/duck/bunny area. Here are some photos of the bird/bunny area:

We ended up buying 18 baby chicks and one momma chicken to keep the babies warm. The chickens came from a farm in the mountains so the weather down here will be warmer and the mother chicken will keep the babies warm. No heat lamp was needed. 

Today, we finished our last formal Kyrgyz language class. Tomorrow we will have some dialect classes for those moving to the South and an intro to Russian class for those who want to learn a few Russian phrases. In my village, since I have light hair and eyes, people automatically start speaking Russian to me. It will be helpful to learn some Russian to supplement my Kyrgyz. Also, since the area around Issyk-Kul is dominated by Russian tourists in the summer, Russian will be useful. 

Later this week we meet our counterparts and work on team teaching techniques. As an entire group (health, business, and teacher volunteers) we will hold a conference to get to know each other and think about working across sectors. This can be as simple as including an HIV guest lecturer in your English club to including business entrepreneur support. The sky is the limit. 

The biggest day this week is our swearing in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer on June 19th. The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. After we swear in, we immediately leave for our permanent site with our counter part and begin our two year service. What an adventure!

Balykchy For The Next Two Years!

When other volunteers talked with us about pre-serving training being some of the most intense, tiring, and grueling days, they weren't kidding. It's like Peace Corps is giving you anything and everything they think would be useful for your service. Between language learning, culture exploration, medical debriefs, across the board Peace Corps information, and our specific sector training (teaching English for me), your days are packed.

However, two weeks ago I learned where I will be working for the next two years; I'll be in Balykchy city in Issyk-Kul Oblast. Issyk-Kul is a region in the Eastern part of Kyrgyzstan and is named after the lake in the area which is the world's second largest salt water lake after the Caspian Sea. In Kyrgyz, Issyk means hot and Kul means lake. This name refers to the salty water which never allows the lake to freeze. The lake and my city are both at 1,900 meters or 6,233 feet. From what I've gathered, Balykchy is windy but dry (YEY no humidity) and has beaches. The city is quite large with around 40,000 people. The school I will be working in has about 1,300 students so everything is a decent size. Bishkek, the capital with the main Peace Corps office, is just two hours away by marshrutka and hiking or other outdoor activities are just a short drive.

The day of permanent site placement really gave everyone a second wind I think. Most people were kind of in a lull and this brought us all back around.  The morning of, everyone was excited and nervous. We arrived at site to find this huge chalk drawing of Kyrgyzstan on the cement outside of our main meeting hall.

Usually we all go hang out and use wifi and get tea or chat up everyone before classes, but not this day. Everyone stood around and waited. We were given envelopes by our group project managers but told not to look at the folders. This made the suspense even greater. After some kind words about how exciting this day is and to be happy with wherever we are placed, on a count of three we were allowed to open our folders. When you found out your region or city, you were supposed to move to that Oblast/Region on the giant chalk map. Myself and about 14 other volunteers made our way to Issyk-Kul and were greeted by two currently serving volunteers with cherries and Kyrgyzstan maps. What a cool welcome present! Anyway, Issyk-Kul is a pretty large area and so I will have many friends to connect and work on projects with. Here is my group:

Currently we have about two more weeks left until we move on to phase two of training, integrating into our permanent site. Before that point and today stand some pretty big events. This Saturday is a huge day where each village performs Kyrgyz traditions/dance/food to show off what we've learned. Culture Day is a chance to dress up, have some fun and perform.  My group is doing a dance, a skit where we show the tradition of an event known as 'baby's first steps,' traditional bread presentation, an English song, and a performance of some of the Kyrgyz oral epic, Manas. Next week we also have a second teaching practicum and the Kyrgyz language test to see if we are proficient enough. Most people say not to worry about the language exam, but when one hears test, you can't help but be worried. Peace Corps has told us that if you do not pass the the exam, you will not be sent home, but given a tutor and some language goals to pass before the ending of all the training. So, time to take a deep breath! 

After next week we meet with our permanent site host families, we meet with our Kyrgyz counter parts and have a conference with them, and we get sworn in on June 19th. Like I said, we're kept booked solid.  I can't wait to move for the last time and be able to get out there!  As a side note, when I move to my permanent site I will know my mailing address and will get wifi! I'm going to be connected more soon!