Mail Call!

Alright, folks, I have a permanent address!!  That means that if you’ve got some spare time and want to put together a package for me now is the time.  Well, now AND sporadically over the next two years.  :)  One of the current volunteers told us that friends and family start to forget we’re over here after the first year or so.  I am crossing my fingers that I don’t get a ton of packages in the next few months and then nadda for the next couple years. 

My friend, Catie, and I even discussed how we should set up a sign up sheet for our friends/family to pick a month they’d be willing to send a package.  That way it’d spread things out.  I’d hope that I have 24 people that’d be willing to take a month and spread the wealth (or even 12 people that’d take two months…).  I will feel this out and see if people would be interested or if I should just take packages as they come.  I am just excited for mail! 

Anything that you’re able to send would make me overjoyed, but a couple friends asked me to please make a list of items that I am craving.  Below is a quick list that I put together.  Again, I would happy with just about anything, but this may help give you an idea.  The dried fruit or any other healthy food is a BIG plus.  Eating sheep fat and fried food is really starting to wear on me.  I’d LOVE some good non fatty food.  But as I type that I realize that I did include Reese’s, soooooo, yeah…  :)

1.       Aloe Vera

2.       Colgate Toothpaste

3.       Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

4.       Dried Fruit

5.       Trail Mix

6.       Apple Sauce

7.       Rockstar (the yellow kind)

8.       Spices (cinnamon and vanilla extract come to mind)

9.       Sauce Packets

10.   Beef Jerky

11.   CDs of New Music

12.   Zumba DVDs

13.   Baby Wipes

14.   Cookies, Brownies, or any baked Goods

15.   Spiral Bound Notebooks

16.   Post It Notes

17.   Annie’s Brand Graham crackers

18.   Kraft Mac And Cheese

19.   Fruit Roll Ups

20.   Luna Bars

21.   Double Ply Toilet Paper

22.   Random things that will make me laugh

23.   Powder Drink Mix

24.   Doritos

25.   Tortilla Shells

26.   Face Wipes

27.   Opti-Free Contact Solution

28.   Seasons 4,5,6 of Grey’s Anatomy (or any TV show)

29.   USB Thumb Drive

30.   Alaskan Paraphernalia

And I figure I should probably include my address:

Kyrgyz Republic
Bishkek, 720010
304 Chokmorova St.
Megan Sweeney

BTW, I only have a mere 5 days left before I swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer.  It’s going to be a huge ceremony.  They have invited almost 600 people.  PC was trying to get the Krygyz Republic President to speak, but unfortunately she going to be out of the country.  Total bummer, but PC is working on getting the US Ambassador or someone equally as awesome.  No matter what, I am sure it’ll be intense swearing in with that many people watching.  I am sooooo excited! 

And my last big news is that today I took my language exam.  I passed!!!  I can officially speak an intermediate level of Kyrgyz now.  I can’t wait to see how much that’ll come into use after my service.  :)  Nah, really, it is a neat language and I think it’s pretty cool we learn it.  In fact yesterday a few volunteers and I were sitting at a café and a Russian woman came up to us and started talking.  When she figured out that we didn’t speak any Russian and were all Kyrgyz speakers she got mad at us!!  She poked my shoulder and with a disapproving look she told me to learn Russian.  We couldn’t believe it!!  In our best Kyrgyz, we spit back at her, THIS IS KYRGYZSTAN!  Maybe she should learn the native language of the country she lives in?  Just an idea.  I respect all the Kyrgyz people who are bilingual in both Kyrgyz and Russian.  And even more the ones who go above and beyond to learn English or another major world language.  The people here are incredible and I have so much respect for their language abilities.  It never ceases to amaze me when my family flip flops between all the different languages while we sit down and talk together.  It is pretty impressive. 

PST Host Family

There is a lot that I can tell about my last few days spent living in Bishkek with my future family, but for now I am going to fill you all in about how great my current living situation is.

First off, my host family in Kant has been awesome.  I really lucked out being placed with this family.  It’s actually sort of funny that before coming here I didn’t understand how host family dynamics worked.  I didn’t get why people started calling strangers Mom and Dad and saying how many brothers and sisters they had.  I couldn’t grasp it at all.  Well, two months in and I can understand it MUCH better now.  My Kant family is actually like family now.  I have become very close with my host mom and host sister and I LOVE my baby brother.  Spending the last few days away from them really made it sink in how accommodating they have been to me the last few months.  

It set in almost immediately when I met my future host family about how close I had become to my Kant family.  The new host family doesn’t understand my broken Kyrgyz language abilities and isn’t as good about speaking in slow sentences so I can pick out words that I know.  They didn’t seem to understand that when I say “Ооба” (yes) to almost everything and how it doesn’t just mean, yes, it means that I understood them and I don’t have the vocab yet to explain much more.  They didn’t laugh at how much I say please and thank you (it isn’t common in Kyrgyz to say it as much as we do in English and my Kant family is always amused at my silly American ways) and they didn’t cheer when I learned to create a full sentence.  Simple things, but it makes me feel really good when my Kant family supports me in this new foreign adventure.  

The day that I was sitting in my future office and my phone rang I was surprised to see that Aigul, my Kant host mom, was calling. It was the first time she had ever called me and I didn’t quite know what to expect. Back when I first got my cell phone we both joked about how horrible that call would go since my language skills are still developing.  In the last few weeks I have taken to texting her when I will be coming home and that is just about the only cellular interaction we have had.  So, I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up and Aigul spoke to me and I actually understood what she was saying!  She wanted to make sure that I was ok, that I would be coming home to Kant the next day, and that I was being fed.  All very important questions.  :)  *And skip forward to today when Aigul was telling me that she told my host father that she had called me.  She said he got a real kick out of the idea of us talking on the phone because there are not hand gestures to accompany the speaking and that she told him that I was a great Kyrgyz speaker and the call went great.  Small victories. 

On my way home from Bishkek, right before rounding the corner to my house, I quickly looked up the word for ‘missed’ and practiced repeatedly how to say “I missed you” before walking into our house.  As soon as I walked through the door and Aigul looked up at me, I smiled really big and in my best Kyrgyz accent I said my practiced words.  She was BEAMING!  She laughed and repeated my sentence back and we hugged.  Then she called my host sister in and Aidi came bounding into the kitchen house and ran up to me giving me a HUGE hug and kiss.  I repeated my sentence and she started laughing and hugged me again.  Danyel, my 7 month old baby brother even remembered me and got super giggly when I picked him up.  Aigul and Aidi got a real laugh out of that too, because Danyel didn’t stop smiling at me.  These people have genuinely accepted me into their home and I love being around them. 

 I know that it is normal to feel uneasy about moving to a new family, but I not only feel uneasy about it, but I am worried they are not going to live up to my current family standards.  I KNOW that I will miss these people so much when I have to move an hour up the road to Bishkek.  However, they’ve already told me that I will be visiting often and I am welcome anytime, so I will take some solace in that.  Heck, Aigul even asked me the other day when I would be getting married, because she wanted to start saving money so she could come to my wedding back in Alaska.  When I told her that it wasn't looking good for me to get married any time soon and I had no date in mind, she told me 2015 worked for her and she and the family would be coming.  I laughed and shook my head thinking she might not be kidding…  :)

What did I just get done doing you ask? Well, let me tell ya…

I just had one of those moments that I am starting to cherish.  The ones where I look around at what I just experienced and it hits me that I am no longer in Alaska, but in fact, I am living in Kyrgyz Republic serving in the Peace Corps.  Tonight’s experience happened while sitting in my host family’s kitchen house right after I finished helping my host mom and sister make Manta.  But let me back up.

I came home from “school” today and my mom told me that we were going to make Manta (internet search this amazing Kyrgyz food).  Tonight was the second time she has let me help do this and she even gave me big ol’ atta girl for being so much better this go round than the last.  Apparently my manta folding skills have improved.  :)  It is experiences like tonight where I am sitting in a kitchen folding rolled out dough filled with a mixture of raw sheep meat (yes, you read that right, sheep meat; a staple in the Kyrgyz diet, but more on that in a moment) potatoes, onion, black pepper and some salt that I really appreciate simple things in life.  Tonight I had a full conversation with my host family about Osama’s death, American music, and how to make pizza.  These may seem unrelated, but conversation can be pretty sporadic and it just adds to the awesomeness of being able to communicate with them.  

Another one of my favorite moments in tonight’s conversation was when Aidi (my little sister) opened the fridge and I asked if the big blob on the shelf was cheese.  Nope.  WRONG!  It was a chunk of sheep fat that they use for making a butter of sorts.  My host mom goes on to say how much she likes sheep meat.  I say I’ve never had it and I don’t know if I like it or not.  She laughs and tells me I have been eating it all along and that the mixture we just put in the manta was sheep.  I smile and think to myself how before coming here, I don’t think I would have ever eaten sheep without feeling noxious that the thought.  And tonight, I didn’t even think twice about it.  BTW, for anyone wondering, it isn’t bad at all.  In fact, I can’t really tell much of a difference between sheep and beef.  Obviously if I have been eating it for a month or so and had no idea, it isn’t that much different than other more “American” meats.

But back to my AHA moment.  After we put the manta on the stove to steam, my host mom threw some dough into the toaster oven (it is the only oven my family has and we use it to bake EVERYTHING) and the smell of fresh bread overtook the kitchen house.  She left me in charge of watching to make sure it didn’t burn and headed off to our sleeping house (I will try to post some picture of the different between these two houses.  It isn’t that our compound is big by ANY means, it is actually relatively small, we just have two houses for eating and sleeping) So anyways, this left me sitting in our kitchen house smelling the AMAZING smell of baking bread while staring out the window watching my host father clean out the barn with our bright green outhouse in the background.  I just sat back and actually laughed out loud because life is amazing here. Simple everyday tasks take a lot longer here, but there is something about it that I thoroughly enjoy.  Not to say there aren’t days when I wish that I could just go to the store and buy some bread, but the idea of making fresh bread every three days with my family is oddly comforting.  It may be sort of unexplainable why I find comfort in these things.  But I do and that is all that matters.

And not all of these moments are food related.  I have them every once in awhile.  Like when I am walking to “school” and have to cross over the sketchy bridge where I have to balance my weight on small metal rungs that stretch over a canal.  Or when I am walking down the street at the bazaar and I actually catch part of a conversation and UNDERSTAND what they are saying in Kyrgyz.  Moments like that make being away from friends and family worth it.

So, to say the least, I am really enjoying myself here.  And tomorrow I find out my permanent site placement.  For the first few months in country we are considered PC Trainees and live in a central area where we learn Peace Corps essentials and then on June 1st we will swear in as PC Volunteers and head to our permanent sites.  There is a lot of curiosity leading up to site placement announcements, because where you get placed will influence your job, which language you will be using the most, who you will be closest to for the next two years and a number of other crucial elements.   Tomorrow morning will be sort of like Christmas Day since it is so filled with excitement.  I can’t wait!  I am actually scared that I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight in anticipation.  But with my belly full of issyk non (hot bread) and manta I shouldn’t have too much of a problem.  

I’ll keep you all posted on where I will be spending my next two years as soon as I can!  Wish me luck!!