Post IST

Heyo everyone!!!! Its check-in time with your favorite volunteer in KG. :-) Most recent news..... ITS COLD HERE!!!!! Well not cold as in the like Arctic Circle but as the PCV community here puts it "its not that its cold, rather its that you never warm up", which makes me miss central heating even more. Fortunately like many of my fellow college goers, my last year at OSU we rarely has heat so I'm kinda used to sleeping under four blankets. Moving on, IST was a blast! Eventhough I was sick for most of it and the sessions were boring as sin lol Like the previous conference, I think that my counterpart got more out of it than myself. Which speaking of my counterpart and work and such, I have some sad news. A week before IST my director was fired (for undisclosed reasons) and once the new director started she fired 80% of my staff. Just as I was beginning to get comfortable with them it seems that I have lost them all. I don't blame my director for this because that's just life, she is going to bring in people she knows best, but it still breaks my heart to see my staff laid off. :-( Anyways I'm sure I have way more things to tell you but I can't think of them right now, so expect another post soon :-)
-Peace

Vacation errrr I mean Conference to Issyk-Kul

Hey guys sorry again for the long absence. This past week I was in Issyk-Kul for a HIV/AIDS and Life Skills conference. It was a really productive conference and it was nice to get away from Osh for a while. I think my counterpart Guljan (the person I work with on a daily basis) got a lot out of it and we hope to implement our ideas very soon. My work is going well, I finally have a set work schedule. I rotate subjects (english, health, and sports) and teach two groups everyday. Its pretty easy and I wanted to work more but thats all that my orphanage needs me for, so now I am looking around for some secondary work. Our In-service Training (IST) is coming up soon and I'm pretty excited about that. Not because of the training part but because I will get to see all of my friends together again. It has been almost four months since we finished training and this will be the first time that we have been all together since our swearing in. Anyways this is just a brief check in and I'm still looking for some fast internet so I can post some pics :-)
-Peace

Kind of a boring month lol

Hey sorry its been a while since I've posted but life it seems has finally started to settle lol This past month has basically been me hanging out at my orphanage getting to know my new kids and staff. I was supposed to be working on a concert but I've realized that just its a lil much right now. Unfortunately the internet cafe that I am currently using is faaaaar too slow to post pictures :-( But I am determined to find a faster cafe!!! Other than that there is a Health conference in Issyk Kul (my old region) in the middle of Octeober and because its so close to Karakol, I'm gonna stop by for a visit :-) I'm excited to see my kids, old co-workers, host family, and friends in Karakol. Its only been a month but I already miss them dearly :-( But anyways as usual I just wanted to keep you guys up on what going on with me in KG, I'm out
-Peace

Move to Osh?! What?!

Sorry about the long delay, but the past few weeks have been quite hectic for me. So as the title reads I have indeed moved to Osh city, about as far away from my beloved Karakol as possible, 18 hours by car. :-( Peace Corps moved me because my orphanage was found out to be funded by a Christian organization back in the states and being in a Muslim country they thought it prudent to relocate me for safety reasons. I miss my kids immensely and I still keep in contact with my Co-workers and I hope to visit Karakol again sometime around Thanksgiving. Whew! Well now to tell you about my new site. Osh is HUGE and is just like the capital Biskek in terms of size and population. (as a matter of fact its the second largest city in KG and is 3000 years old!) Climate wise Osh gets to 115 degrees in the summer and single digits in the winter....yay :-/ My new orphanage is pretty awesome too. Its a combination of orphanage and elderly home. Its a neat concept because both the elderly and the children help each other out, its pretty amazing to witness. I will be doing the same things here as I did in Karakol, ie teaching health, sports and english, and on October first we are putting on a concert to celebrate the Fall season. :-) I have fewer kids here, only 33, but I am super excited to work with the elderly as well whom number 26, so 59 total. The orphanage/Elderly home is situated on an old soviet sanitorium for children. I know sanitorium sounds ominous but its actually a really pretty place with apple and pear trees everywhere. I'm really excited to start working and teaching here. Well thats all I got for today, I just wanted to give a lil shout out for OSU today, they're playin the Trojans and I really wish I could see the game so GO BUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh and for those of u familiar with OBO and such, the quest for cut city as resumed ;-)
-Peace

Great Weekend:-)

So normally I wait at least a week until I post a new blog but this weekend was just so good I felt it necessary to post early. lol After spending time in the hospital with Sergei I was finally able to get some R&R at home. Productivity was the name of the game this weekend. I typed out my program travel reports, a new exercise lesson plan for a camp I'm doing next week, and put a proposal in to Peace Corps asking them to allow me to tour other volunteers orphanages and draft a report detailing their respective situations. After that was done it was WEDDING TIME!!!! One of my coworkers got married this weekend (this would be my 4th wedding in country, including my own :-P) and it was a really nice affair. They asked me to be the camera man during the drive around town (don't ask me its a Kyrgyzstan thing I guess) and it felt like I was riding shotgun in a HUMVEE in Iraq, the camera is all jumpy and such because of the roads. Being camera man was cool for about 15 minutes then it got reeeeeeal lame because people keep shouting at you in Russian to get the "best" angle/shot. I was glad when that task was over. Anyways, it sucks that althought I've been to so many weddings, I missed my brother's on July 4th :-(, such is the cost of being a Peace Corps volunteer I guess. After, well actually during the wedding I dipped out for a MMA training session, it was one of the best sessions that I've ever had. We went about 90% and man did I get worked!!! Suffice to say striking is not my forte, but after the first round my trainer taught me a new defence (somewhat like Randy Coutours for those of you who know MMA) and I was back in it. I think for now my style going to be ground and pound with a lot of Jujitsu mixed it, I'm really really good at both of those (thanks to 7 years of wrestling) but yeah even though I got clocked a few times it was a great session and I learned a lot. Best part about the training was that afterwards I went back to the wedding (yeah it lasted from 11am to 8pm) and smashed on some plov and got to dance the night away, twas a great time :-)
-Peace

Hospitalization......

So for the past two days I've been in the hospital. :-( One of my orphans apendix burst and he needed immediate surgury and since hes an orphan there was no one there to care for him, so I volunteered to stay with him at least until he was functional. He is doing much better now and is smiling and walking around like a normal little boy again. The doctors said he'll be out on Monday or Tuesday. Its been a crazy month for me so far. Between traveling all across KG and being with my orphans I've barely had a moment to just sit and reflect. At one point when I was staying the hospital I had no idea what city I was in, Osh? Jalalabat? Karakol? Cleveland? Columbus? It was sheer craziness for a moment. Anyways I bounced back and after a few days rest I am fully coherent. lol My trip to the South of KG (Jalalabat and Osh) was nice. Both cities are much bigger than Karakol and have nicer amenities but Karakol is my home and has my heart. :-) While I was in Jalalabat I gave a healthy diet and exercise lesson to some orphans. They seemed to really understand the material and I was happy to practice my presentation skills. Other than being extremely tired life is going on as usual. After this month I would have clocked over eighty hours on the road gallavanting from place to place. It'll be nice to just chill at home with my kids for a while. Anyways this was just an update, and I hope that everyone reading this is well and in good spirits. :-)

Note: this is Sergei, my orphan in the hospital, this is a HORRIBLE pic of him but he made my promise to post it, crazy kid lol
-Peace

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