Hello all, sorry for my prolonged absence. It's been a very crazy last few weeks. I spent New Year's Eve with my host family, which was interesting. New Year's is one of the biggest holidays here in Kyrgyzstan. Families get a New Year tree, and the decorate them with lights and ornaments. Also, Santa Claus makes a visit and everyone gets presents. We even sang Jingle Bells. It was awesome.
After New Year's Eve, I came into Jalalabad, and have been going back and forth ever since. Because we have no school until March 2nd, I lack a schedule at the moment, and I haven't been spending much time in my village. We had a Peace Corps training in Bishkek for a week. All of the 16s headed up with our counterparts and we exchanged lesson ideas, and practiced our Kyrgyz. I thought that my Kyrgyz was wretched, but I ran into my Kyrgyz teacher and he said that my Kyrgyz was way better than it was during trainig. Sweet. It was fun to see all of the 16s, especially the ones I haven't seen at all during the last four months.
At IST (the training I just attended in Bishkek), there is a long-standing tradition of the Baltika Challenge. Baltika is a Russian beer that is sold here. It comes in various degrees of alcohol, and they are rated from 1-9, with Baltika 9 having twice the normal amount of alcohol in it. Every year at IST, each oblast has a team compete in the Baltika challenge. There are a lot of rules, but basically each team drinks: 1,3,5,7,9,9,7,5,3,1, as fast as possible. The winner being the first to finish. Jalalabad Oblast, to my knowledge, has never won. There's always talk about Talas or Naryn being the best, and there was certainly a lot of trash talking before the big event, but never underestimate the underdog. After Issyk-Kul's scandalized win (they cheated), Jalalabad was declared the winner! So thanks to my awesomeness and four others from J-bad, we finally won some oblast love. Baltika Challenge winners 2009!
The last week, after IST, has been devoted to winter camp! Joni and I have been planning away and getting things done all week. I went to the bank on Wednesday to pick up the camp funds that had been deposited into my account. Because we are having overnight camp, I requested a lot of money on my grant application. I got to the bank and the woman looked up my account info and her mouth dropped. She announced to a room full of locals that I was taking 90,000 som out of the bank, uncomfortable. I was terrified that I was going to get robbed on my way out. Luckily that didn't happen and the kiddies are going to get an awesome camp!
Winter camp starts on the 1st, and goes until the 6th. Then I'm off to HONG KONG! I am really excited about my upcoming trip and getting to see Kari and Patrick. I'm a little worried that I will be very overwhelmed by the hub-bub that is Hong Kong. It's a really big city, with lots of people, lights, and tall buildings- overstimulation. But it should be awesome. I'm excited to be warm and to eat delicious food.
And just because it's awesome here's our J-Bad chant:
Jalala- What!?!?
BAD!
Jalala-Who!?!?
BAD!
Jalala-Kandie!?!?
JAMON!
Kandie means what, and jamon means bad.
I have way to much free time on my hands these days.Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday!
