Ever Wanted to see Sheep Intestines Shaped like a Snake?!

Things are continuing to go great!!!  No sickness, I’m in high spirits, I’m even running every now and then.  Language is continuing on, struggles are amassing, but I feel like I’m starting to grasp some of the grammar and conjugating a little better.  This will be a continuing struggle, probably all throughout my two years.  In addition to that everything in my village is wonderful.  We have kids running amok everywhere, and we have 11 trainees in our village, so an American friend is never far away when I need a break.  Everyday we have language training in our village we will go guesting to another host family’s house.  My family had our group on the first day, and every time presents a new food, etiquette, and amount of Kyrgyz-iness.  My family seems to be a great mix of modern and traditional Kyrgyz life.  We do have a large family, we milk the cows twice a day, I’ve gotten to do it once now and it takes some skill, we follow many other traditional Kyrgyz values, but our food is pretty safe, they don’t force vodka down my throat, I don’t get shamed if I make a cultural faux pas, so overall my family rocks.  Another trainee in my village Fornia has a rocking host family.  They are very Kyrgyz!  By this I mean they eat all kinds of fun things, drink fun things, and you get shamed for fun things.  The other day I went over to her house expecting to help make some bread.  Instead we ate some sheep intestines, which were so aesthetically shaped like a snake!  Along with this I had the unpleasant pleasure of trying Kumez (Sp?), which is fermented Mares milk, it tastes worse than it, sounds and it made the intestines look and taste appealing.  Fornia’s stories from day to day are never dull.  She’s also eaten liver pretty regularly, taken part in a rare cultural phenomenon known as geopahgy (the ingestion of chalk, soil, mud and clay), the purpose of this is to get minerals that may not be present in their everyday foods, and today she had the honor of being given the sheep head at dinner.  It is an honor and I’m Jealous!  I feel so lucky with my new trainee friends, my family, all of the children and other families in Studenchaskaya (My village spelled roughly in English).

Our leash is slowly being extended everyday as training goes on.  Pretty soon we will even be able to go places on our own!!!  This past Monday we went on an adventure to Bishkek (the capital) with our language instructors.  While this day was meant to be instructional so we can find our way around in the future, all it really did was give us a work out with chasing our instructors around the bustling city.  The two useful things I learned were 1) where my bus stop is to go back to my village and 2) working for the Peace Corps in another country has its perks.  The Peace Corps office in Bishkek is the nicest and most secure building I’ve seen in country.  The doors to the guard area feel like they way a ton, we have 2 Russian security guards (one of which used to be a ranked boxer), a beautiful garden, and every modern amenity you could ever want.  If I’m ever in Bishkek I may swing by just to use their bathroom!

  

While all the culture and surroundings are great, I am here to do a job.  I’ll be doing health education in a country very set in its ways.  Traditional Kyrgyz culture has a lot of health myths, folklores, and an age hierarchy that determines a lot!  To mention a few of the myths or cultural beliefs some Kyrgyz have are: sitting on concrete will make a female sterile, drinking cold water will make you sick, open windows let “bad” wind in that will make you ill, Vodka fixes everything, and eating lots of fat makes you strong.  These are just a few and there is a lot more things that are considered Ooyat (shameful) especially surrounding naan (bread).  Bread is seen as very holy here, and therefore must be treated very well.  You may not set your bread upside down on the table, feed bread to dogs, brush crumbs on the floor, step over bread, or throw bread away.  The intricacies of Kyrgyz culture and abiding by them are a challenging learning experience.  Especially coming from America where we are about as insensitive as it comes to respecting things that may be strange, illogical, and abnormal to us.  We are quick to categorize and ostracize such beliefs and behaviors at home, so it’s very unique to be in a place where such behavior is not only acceptable but also supported strongly.  Everyday is a new adventure here, and they range from taking my first bite of innards, to accepting the culture of the Kyrgyz people that will be natural to working within the health education field.