My lovely month of May ;-)

First ans for most the scenery around Osh is beautiful!!!! Before I left for the states it was a interesting shade of tan and now that spring has arrived Osh has exploded into a lovely shade of emerald green. It has transformed the city so much in fact that when I returned to Osh I almost missed my apartment lol Coming back to Osh has been great my life has seemingly returned to normal (more on that later) and I like to think that I hit the ground running. Since my last blog I've restarted my vigorous training regimen and have cranked out two more grants. One of the grants that I wrote was for administrative software designed by the UNDP for the rural villages around Osh. This project is centered around increased productivity within the local government and cooperation between the youth and adult elements of society. How you ask? We are going to have the students from the Osh State technical university trained in the software who will then train the current and subsequent employees in the technology thus increasing the interactions between them. The second project is to repair a workshop in Kara-Suu (a village about 45 minutes outside of Osh). This workshop is at a center for deaf children and is in dire need of ceiling and roof repairs. I'm finding as I write more grants the easier they get (even though some are excruciatingly boring lol) Anyways both of these are good projects and my organization is well equipped and motivated to carry them out. This past week I have been at the Kara-Suu children's home (mentioned above) essentially just hanging out and spending time with the kids. As with everywhere else in KG that has had children they have stolen my heart. Its really interesting because the kids are taught two types of sign language one is simple gestures that are basically universal and the other resembles the sign language in America. I've been told that although some of the gestures in American and Russian sign language are similar they are also vast differences. It was great when they were using the simple sign language I was able to communicate with them instantly because I had used many of the gestures during my first months in country when my Russian language skills were lacking. So besides talking with the children we showed "Surf's Up" (my favorite movie about surfing penguins lol) and played basketball and soccer with them. They were a great bunch of kids and I am glad to be able to support them. Amazingly enough along with all of this productivity there has also been crazy things going on. In the 16 days that I have been back in Osh we have been put on standby three times. What this means that we are not allowed to leave our homes until we get the all-clear from PC.

Ok so that first part was two weeks ago when I was originally trying to type this blog out, but I havent been able to access blogspot since so here is how the rest of May went. The rest of the time that I spent at the Hearing Impaired school went very well and the last day of the program we brought the kids to Osh for s field trip about the city. It was great we took them to Suliman Mountain (yes the same mountain that I climb everyday), then to a restaurant that serves pizza (a first for all of them) and finally to the park to play and relax. They were so grateful and kind and just regular kids doing crazy kid things :-)
So today is my birthday! It is the second bday spent in KG and it seems like each one is getting better. Last year I had a party with all of my friends in PST with me and this year, since my bday is on a Tuesday, we are saving the festivities until the weekend. On Friday we are going to rent a playstation 3 hall and play video games all night and hang out, then on Saturday we're are getting chinese (my fav!) and hittin the clubs. Its really cool this year because I have local friends to celebrate my birthday with, also this means that I only have one more birthday to go until I'm stateside again. Anyways I'm beginning to ramble but I'm posting some pics from the Hearing Impaired school activities, and trust me there will be plenty from my birthday also so be ready ;-)

ok so it looks like the internet only wants to cooperate a lil bit today, be on the lookout for pics in the near future
-Peace

Month of Chaos

Where do I even begin? Home was both a blessing and curse and since so much happened I'm gonna try to remember everything that happened. Well the first week was actually great, I got home, ate junk food, hung out with my friends, read to my moms kindergarten class and generally enjoyed vacation. The second week however is when the chaos began. As planned me and my parents drove to Washington DC to see some grad schools that interested me. The schools were pretty neat but not really what I am looking for but still worth going to visit. Anyways on the drive back, I start getting text messages from my friends asking me if I was going to KG, had I heard what happened, is everything ok, will I be going back. This was surprising to me to say the least because in the modern era of technology, I nor my parents had anyway of confirming what was happening in KG. So I ended up calling one of my best buds (shout out to Adam Hirsh) and asking him to read me any articles on KG from the New York Times website. Since I am still stateside as of the time of this blog I still have no clear picture of what went on. All I know is that PC told me to stay put until further notice. Instantly my world was turned upside down, my vacation went from relaxing to extremely stressful. Between worrying about my friends, my local volunteers at the UN, my apartment, and my future it was rough to say the least. Honestly without the support of my fam and friends back home, it would have been way worse. Adding to the stress was the conflicting reports of what was going on between the media, my friends and workmates in KG, and Peace Corps, this is not anyones fault just the nature of what happened. Everyone had a different perspective and were all trying to process a very complex and constantly changing situation. Now although I was on an emotional roller coaster for 3 weeks the extra time that I was allotted enabled me to spend more time with my family and friends, as well as buy new clothes, laptop, prepare some surprises for my fellow volunteers in Osh and time to think and contemplate my next move after PC. So I guess all in all it wasn't horrible being home for an extended period but my life is in KG and so is my heart for that matter (hahaha at least for now) Anyways I'm posting some pictures with this blog so that its not all text. The first one is my watch showing how long (in hours lol) I was traveling for from Osh to Cleveland, and the second is my first and last meal in the US. ;-)

-Peace