Well another month has managed to fly past me without me so much as being able to stop and take a look, which is funny because it felt like one of the slower months of my time here so far despite actually getting a lot done.
My June ended and July began in Daroot-Korgon, the town in Chong-Alay region that I’ve written about a few different times. It’s spectacularly beautiful, and I’ve got an ongoing project there working with the Health Promotion Unit there to train the Village Health Committees of the rayon (for more information on HPU’s and VHC’s, check out my overview from this month of how the system here works). I was out there for about 36 hours, which isn’t enough to really get in the swing of such a spectacularly beautiful place, but it was what I had to work with. I was pleasantly to even be asked by a local if I was Kyrgyz, which sounds kind of ridiculous but is something that actually happened!
I got back to Osh just in time to enjoy the last week of Ramadan, which officially ended on the 5th or 6th of July depending on where you were or who you asked. Eid, which is called “Orozo Ait” here, is a big holiday, where everyone gathers with friends and family for big dinners, and when many things in the city slow down considerably. This was the start of a larger pattern that continued into July, because now it’s summer.
What is summer in Osh like? It’s amazing and horrible at the same time. Let’s start with the bad to just get it out of the way. It’s hot. It’s SO HOT. At the beginning of the month, we had two weeks where it was in the high 30’s. Osh isn’t usually super humid, but this year has definitely been stickier and more mosquito-filled than normal. Luckily our mosquitoes died out by the end of the month, but for a brief clip there I looked like I had some sort of disfiguring skin condition.
So it’s hot. But, it’s also BEAUTIFUL out. It’s sunny every day, with only a few cool, cloudy days interspersed. The aryks (miniature canals) are filled and rushing with cool, clear water. The trees are all lush and green. The pools are icily refreshing. And oh, the fruit. Let me tell you about the fruit.
Melons, watermelons, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, apples, you name it, it’s here, and it tastes better than America. Seriously. As I mentioned three years ago in more than one blog, the tomatoes in August in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are worth dying from dysentery over. They’re that good.
Summer is also jailoo season, when people will take a few days to head up into the mountains, sleep in yurts, eat sheep, and reconnect with their cultural roots. I wrote a whole post about this last month, so in case you missed it, be sure to check it out here.
The other thing that is sometimes nice in the summer is that there’s a different pace of work. Especially the past few years with Ramadan being as intense as it is during the summer (this year was the longest the days will be for the next 33 years), there’s also been a general feeling of laid-back-ness of the summer. Many people work from home or leave early. Lots of people rest during the day. And I have ZERO shame about drinking iced coffee and strawberry Fanta (a locally exclusive flavor!) as if it were the end of days.
Despite this lull in some of my main work sites, I actually was also able to launch another project that had taken a stumbling bumbling 7 months to actually launch: my health club. Because of the slow approvals process and some other commitments, what was planned to start in February finally got launched in July. For all of July and August, I’m meeting four hours a week with a group of local students and youth leaders for a health series focusing on self-empowerment and HIV. So far, we’ve done sessions on project planning, goal setting, lesson planning, and time management, and we just finished a week where we explored critical thinking, self-esteem, and diversity. We’re diving next month into some of the topics I know a bit more about, including HIV, reproductive health, and reducing drug use in our communities. After the summer session, these young leaders will have the tools they need to teach some of these lessons and sessions in their villages across the region. In the fall, we’re going to continue and expand into non-communicable diseases, which I’m hoping to make into a much more active and interactive set of lessons. That’s really code for I’m really excited to cook with them.
I got to continue my TV Club and my Movie Club this month too, showing a few episodes of Friends, the pilot episode of Firefly (nerds rejoice!), Mona Lisa Smile, and a few other movies. One of the unexpected side outcomes of having so much free time is that I get to watch a lot of movies, and I’ve actually discovered a love for cinema and film studies, and it’s been really cool to be able to share that with students. The first movie I showed my movie club actually was The Artist, and I will never forget the looks of bewilderment as they watched their first silent film.
If you remember my blogging from last summer, I also got to go to another Horse Games Festival (and am skipping yet another this weekend). I’m going to do a full, in-depth write-up soon, but if you want a reminder of what I saw last year, be sure to check out the post I wrote then and the accompanying photo gallery.
Finally, I have some really exciting news to share about my blog: I was selected as a finalist for the 2016 Peace Corps Blog It Home blog contest, and I need your help! There will be a social media vote on Facebook from August 11-15 (don’t worry, I’ll be spamming all my social media channels so you definitely will NOT forget to vote, right? Right? Right.). It’s as simple as liking a photo. I’ll have more information when the time comes, but it would mean the world to me if you could keep your eyes open and vote for me!
If I win the social media vote, then I’ll get to travel to Washington, DC in October to participate in a conference about the importance of cultural exchange initiatives, some professional development trainings, and share how blogging can be an important tool for building friendship between peoples. This is, of course, a cause that I’m extremely passionate about, so I hope you’ll support me.
That’s about it for July! Thanks for reading and following, and stay tuned for more details on how you can support me in the Blog It Home social media vote August 11-15!
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