My new home, family and village are great. I haven't really had an opportunity to go around the village that much. I really laid low today because my stomach didn't feel so great. I live with my host parents and they have 5 kids that all live in different places. I have met two of their children. We have a cow, a calf, chickens, and sheep. What more could a girl want? Today my host mom gave me homemade yogurt from our cow's milk. I love that stuff so much. My host mom is great. I am amazed at how much I can understand her. She speaks very clearly and chooses her words well to make it easy for me to understand. She used to be a Kyrgyz teacher and I can tell by how patient she is. I hope it lasts. I am third volunteer to live with them. The first was two years ago and the second started and two months later had to go home because of medical reasons.
Peace Corps Volunteer "Brooke's Peaceful Perseverance" writes: Wecome to the Peace Corps!
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Wecome to the Peace Corps!
This has been a pretty crazy past couple of days. I have been sworn in as an actual volunteer. That's pretty exciting because now I don't have to have a very strict schedule planned out for me every day. I stayed in Bishkek for a night because my new village was too far away and it would take too long to get there if I left the same day as swearing in. The great part about that was there was a group of us who went into the city and I called a girl I know from Kyrgyzstan who is living in Bishkek now and I got to see her. She was an exchange student who lived with my best friend's family when I was in college. I hadn't seen her in over 6 years. She looks great, her English is still amazing and she was a huge help helping us get back to our hotel. I'm excited to spend more time with her over the next two years. I finally got to leave for my new village in Naryn Oblast at around 9:30 on Friday morning. I met my new host parents for the first time and they have to be the sweetest people on the planet. This is going to be a great two years. Here's where being in the Peace Corps and not ever knowing what is coming next hits me head on. About 2-3 hours into the trip we stop at a rest stop to get some food, use the bathroom, rest a little… and then my host father walks into the café and tells us that the taxi we were riding in broke down and that we would have to wait 3 hours for a new one to come from Bishkek. Well, 3 hours turned into 4 hours and as we sat in the car I began to get sick. I was hot, my stomach was turning, and I just didn't feel right. We got into the new taxi and I was feeling horrible. I felt so bad because there were three of us crammed into the back of the car with all my bags and other boxes and I had a whole seat to myself. Because I felt so horrible my host parents would let me have any bags around me so I would be comfortable and they had to ride for 4 hours surrounded in my stuff. I guess that was a good thing because two times on the way there I had to yell "Tokto" (Stop in Kyrgyz) and then got sick out the door of the taxi. Not the best way to start when moving to a new place. At least that's over and I'm starting to feel better!
My new home, family and village are great. I haven't really had an opportunity to go around the village that much. I really laid low today because my stomach didn't feel so great. I live with my host parents and they have 5 kids that all live in different places. I have met two of their children. We have a cow, a calf, chickens, and sheep. What more could a girl want? Today my host mom gave me homemade yogurt from our cow's milk. I love that stuff so much. My host mom is great. I am amazed at how much I can understand her. She speaks very clearly and chooses her words well to make it easy for me to understand. She used to be a Kyrgyz teacher and I can tell by how patient she is. I hope it lasts. I am third volunteer to live with them. The first was two years ago and the second started and two months later had to go home because of medical reasons.
