Chapter Fourteen: Cotillion
This past week was no doubt my emergence, or I suppose reemergence, into society. If I can get away with this metaphor, I'd just like to say how great a Debutante I made. For the winter months, I spent my time locked up, bundled up, tucked into my sheets, and only went outside my cottage to teach class or quickly get into a taxi that would take me the 20-kilometers to Karakol in order to check my e-mail once a week.That's all been changed.
I bought a bike in Bishek to get my rear in gear for summer. And having this expensive contraption forces me to ride a few times a week for 60-minutes, rather than sit in the backseat of some rusty, old Lada, where I'd have to pay the hefty fee of 50 entire cents. The villagers think I'm nuts, but I'd rather be a heart-healthy wackjob than a miserable one.
So with the bike and helmet and the park I found to run around and around in, everyone from my 4th graders to the solitary Russian babushka in Jety-Oguz now believes "The American" has slowly lost her mind.But I wouldn't have it any other way.
This kid is so money, and he doesn't even know it. I took this photo at the Russian orphanage I visited on Easter. Thanks to U.S. donations a group of us got to dye and hide eggs for the kids. A few of them ate their first Peeps ever. It. Was. Sweet.Now I really have to get going and finish this SPA grant proposal that's due on Wednesday. Hopefully, with funds from Peace Corps and USAID, I'll be able to get some decent books, boards and technology for the local teachers and students at my school. As of last week, my Partnership project has taken some pretty big strides in replacing the Soviet-Era water system in a neighboring village, which will, come summer, bring daily water to over 100 people. Below is a photo of what the kashar people now look like as they go down to fetch water from the few select wells.
posted by C @ 12:22 PM
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