We are Forty

Whoa, down to a month!  I received my flight and staging info on Friday the 15th, which made me really realize how close my departure really is.  I'll be flying to Philadelphia on the morning of April 16th for staging.  The next morning we will bus to JFK airport in New York to fly to Frankfurt, Germany, then to Istanbul, Turkey, and finally arriving in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan at 3 am on the morning of the 19th.  It will be quite a long day of traveling, but for going about 8,000 miles around the world it is not that bad!

When I first read my invitation to Kyrgyzstan I proceeded to google it since I, along with many others if not most people, had no real idea where this little Central Asian country was.  Since then I've began learning a bit about this country's history, culture, demographics, and language.  Kyrgyzstan is roughly the size of Nebraska and is about 80% mountainous covered by the Tian Shan mt. range.  The name Kyrgyzstan is thought to have to derived from the Turkic word for "40."  This is in reference to the 40 clans of Manas, a hero in Kyrgyzstan who is believed to have united the 40 clans to defeat the Uyghers.  Kyrgyz would literally be translated to mean "we are forty."  The state of Kyrgyzstan was first established in 1924, it became part of the USSR in 1936, and gained its independence from the Soviet Union on August 31, 1991.  Kyrgyzstan's estimated population is about 5.5 million with 70% of that population being ethnic Kyrgyz, 15% being Uzbek, 9% Russian, and the remaining a variety of different ethnicities.  The vast majority of the population speaks Krygyz, a Turkic based language that uses the Cyrillic, and about 10% of the population speaks Russian.  The part I'm most afraid/worried about is the food. I'm in no means a picky eater, but organs, eyes, heads etc... really do not appeal to me!  In our Facebook group someone  asked what the food is like and some of the responses from volunteers currently there include "honestly, the food is not very good," "If you don't mind eating sheep meat, fat, and potatoes then you'll survive just fine but having a well balanced diet in the village is a challenge," "Most days of the week food is soup with combinations of rice, cabbage, potatoes, noodles, sheep meat and fat and maybe some onions or garlic. Or, plov (all it is is rice with carrots, sheep meat and plenty of oil), or just cold sheep leg and bread. Now, that's probably what you'll be eating if you let your host family do all the cooking."  These descriptions don't sound that bad I'm just dreadfully excited for the day I'm the guest of honor since as tradition goes you are given the head of a sheep and expected to eat parts of it!  It is going to be a culinary adventure for sure!!!  

A Past Peace Corps Volunteer's Photo from Kyrgyzstan