Song-Kol Lake

This past weekend I did a camp at Song-Kol lake. It is about a 4 hour drive from where I live in Karakol and utterly beautiful!!! (see the pics) These past couple of days have actually been kinda rough because between traveling around KG and spending time at the orphange I haven't slept at my house consecutive nights for 3 weeks. Honestly I wouldn't have it any other way. :-) Anyways the camp went fine (sort of),I taught a lesson on leadership that went well and the kids were, well they were kids. The biggest problem that I ran into was that they were all ethnic Kyrgyz children so they spoke little Russian. Trying to handle ten 13 year old boys is rough enough in english but doing it in another language is another thing entirely. Finally on the 3rd day (after I they saw my tattoos, go figure), everything came together and we all had fun. This was an interesting camp for another reason as well, I got to sleep in a Yurt;-) Although very nostalgic, sleeping on the ground for two nights was more than enough for me. They had these little oven/heaters and they would be blistering hot for like 3 hours but after that you'd freeze the rest of the night. Suffice to say that I started the night in just boxer briefs and ended it fully clothed with a jacket lol Anyways it was a great time and just the start of my adventures for the month of August.... Tomorrow I leave for Jalalabad and Osh, which some people say is like going to another country (these are two cities in the South of KG) but more on that next week when I get back;-)
Note: The girl in the pic is NOT my girlfriend, wife, or anything else!!! and that is what a yurt looks like.
-Peace