ab Chasing Kate: In the summertime...

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

In the summertime...

...when the weather is hot, you can stretch right up and touch the sky...

I know I haven’t blogged in ages, I haven’t seemed to find a second for myself. All previous fears of being bored this summer have dissipated. I guess I’ll start from the top.

Mom’s visit: May 25th -June 15th

I give the girl quite a bit of credit. Traveling through Central Asia with a herniated disc would be enough to send anyone packing, but she stuck it out and did fairly well. Most parents arrive and leave within a week so 3 weeks was ample time to get acquainted with my home. We traveled everywhere and I have to say the highlight of my trip was to Arslenbob, one of the largest walnut forests in the world. It’s a small Uzbek village with friendly, welcoming people, gorgeous scenery and an awesome 5-hour hike to a waterfall in the mountains.

Translating was difficult and tedious (my brain only works in English or in Russian, not both) but it was also rewarding introducing her to all of the people that have made my time meaningful here. My Russian host family was overwhelmed since they’ve basically been preparing for her visit for 20 months. They made all of my favorite meals so we helped on the farm with daily chores and ate for pretty much 2 days straight.

I think she enjoyed putting faces to names the most since she’s heard so much about everyone that I spend my time with. I don’t think she’ll worry about me anymore now that she knows how I live and survive here. I’m so lucky and so glad that she came since this has been one of the most difficult challenges of my life and I’ll always be able to share some of my experiences with her.

My Camp: June 25th-29th

I was worried about the camp in my village because I basically had a week to pull it all together after my mom left. My zavooch (vice principal) and I did a mad dash to get things done but we were (barely) ready by Monday. Three other volunteers, Megan and Machalla were camp counselors with me and Ken helped out where needed (our gopher). Twenty girls showed up and everyday had a different theme: Arts and Crafts, Health, Gender/Leadership, Diversity and Ecology. We invited speakers from different NGOs and Peace Corps employees to talk about their experiences and fields of expertise. We played sports everyday but the highlight was definitely kickball once the girls got the hang of it. On the hottest day the girls filled up their bottles in the irrigation ditches and had a giant water fight, which turned out to be pretty refreshing even though I was completely drenched.

The only big problem was that I came down with a viral infection (go figure) and missed the entire day on Thursday since I was in medical from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I got up once for 15 minutes to walk around which took all of my energy. I knew I couldn’t miss the last and most important day, Ecology Day, where we took a field trip to a nearby National Park called Ala-Archa. So I packed an extra pair of clothes and hoped for the best. The week went by so fast and the biggest reward was at the end when the girls reflected on their experiences and told us how happy they were that they came.

The preparation took a lot of hard work but in the end it all paid off. I’ve helped with other people’s camps but I had more of an invested interest because I’ve known some of these girls from the beginning of my time here. This was by far the most valuable and rewarding thing I’ve done here.

Talas Camp: July 2nd- July 6th

Immediately after my camp was finished I went to another oblast, Talas to help out as a camp counselor there as well. The camp was on a much bigger scale since there were 60 boys and girls at an overnight camp, which took place at a former Young Pioneer’s campground. The boys and girls were split into two different cabins and about 25 girls were packed in two big rooms with beds so close they were practically touching. Each volunteer in Talas invited around 5 of their best students and then they were split up into 6 different teams.

In the morning there were different sessions pertaining to that day’s theme and in the afternoon we did arts and crafts and played sports and in the evenings the kids had some free time and every night we got the whole camp involved in a different activity, we played capture the flag, held a disco and had a bon fire. The campsite also had a river so I jumped in and “bathed” at least once a day. The days were long and exhausting but so fun. It made all of the volunteers want to attend a camp our own. The only upsets were that I lost in the watermelon eating contest (I was robbed) and my team lost in the semi-finals in the kickball tournament.

The last night the volunteers held a celebration of our own and made good use of all the left over kool-aid.

After the Talas camp I think I slept for 2 days straight. I had been running nonstop since my Mom got here on May 25th and the Talas camp finished on the 6th of July. There has been a mass exodus of volunteers this summer, they all moved on to different places and different jobs. We lost 4 more and will C.O.S. (close of service) with less than 50%. We’re getting t-shirts made. It’s been really bad for morale and only makes all of the volunteers left in country dream about our lives beyond Kyrgyzstan. 4 more months seems like nothing compared to what we’ve gone through but I have a feeling the last 2 months will seem like the longest yet.

The K-15s arrived in country on June 10th and I haven’t seen or met any of them and unfortunately I wasn’t able to give the Diarrhea Talk this year. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to their PST or not but hopefully I’ll get a replacement volunteer because I love my students, my school and my site and I think they deserve to get another volunteer.

Yesterday I lost another really important person in my life here, my old host sister Jildes. She left to work at the American Air Base in Afghanistan as either a cashier or a waitress. For her it will be good money at around 300 dollars a month, money that she wouldn’t be able to make here, plus she’ll get more experience speaking English. It was much harder to say goodbye than I thought it would be. It only hit me when I was hugging her that I may never see her again. I hope to come back here, I hope that she is able to come to America but you never know what’s going to happen.

This summer has gone by ten times faster than last summer, mostly due to the fact that I have a new host sister that’s willing to take every passing second that I devote to her. Luckily we found the village pool that I never went to last summer. It’s more like a village lake with concrete walls. The water comes from mountain water runoff so I’d like to think it’s fresh but I think I’m fooling myself. Megan asked what was so wrong with it, if the bottom is really dirty or something. I laughed and told her that you can’t even see the bottom. It’s pretty jankey but I love it and it’s just what I need to survive a sweltering summer. Hard to believe that it’s already half way over.

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