Hey everyone! In case you’ve not opened Facebook in the past few days and heard the news, I was named a finalist in the 2016 Peace Corps Blog It Home blogging contest! That means that out of over 300 blogs that were submitted to the contest, I’m in the top 20! In the entire Peace Corps!
Continue reading “FINAL PUSH! Blog It Home Closes Monday Night And I Still Need Your Help!”
Some really exciting news this week: In addition to being about to welcome our 10,000th visitor (!), I got the news that Monday Bazaar has been selected as a finalist in the 4th Annual Peace Corps Blog It Home blogging contest! And I need your help! Continue reading “Guys, I’m A Finalist For Blog It Home And I Need Your Help!”
So it seems like its some sort of Peace Corps blogger tradition to put together a timeline of one’s application process through the start of service, and since there aren’t a whole lot yet from people who applied under the new application system, I thought that it’s as good a time as any for me to add my own to the melée. So here goes! Continue reading “My Peace Corps Application Timeline”
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.
It’s the end of the month, and as a part of a new blogging and photography goal I’ve set for myself with BloggingAbroad, I’ve been taking photos based on prompts (and just from life in general), and I wanted to share a few with you! Take a look, read about it, and click to enlarge if you want to see more closely. Continue reading “July 2016 Photo Roundup”
Here’s an awesome post from my colleague Colleen about a traditional Kyrgyz dance, the Kara Jorgo. At times it feels like a cultural phenomenon akin to the Macarena, but its roots run really deep. Take a read and a look at the dancing over at her amazing blog, Prekrasno, and follow her!
Back in December, at my HIV/AIDS Stigma Reduction Training, a crowd descended upon me as we finished the training. These women were the heads of the regional Health Promotion Units (HPUs) around Osh Oblast. Each was hoping to meet me to find out if I could come give additional trainings at their respective clinics for them and their staff.
After four months trying to get it off the ground, I’m happy to say that the project is moving fast, and we’ve already done two full-scale day-long trainings, with more to come as we move on. Today I’ll walk us through the project from its genesis, focusing on the most recent training, and how we’re modifying it moving forward. Continue reading “A Traveling TOT in Chong Alay”
Every language and culture has its own way of describing tastes and flavors, some simpler or more complex than others, and some structured quite differently than others. In Kyrgyz, rather than describing food in terms based on the parts of the tongue that taste the different flavors, or with individual words for specific attributes, taste is broadly described in three main groups. Continue reading “Language Lessons: Taste”
Continuing my series on the national symbols of Kyrgyzstan (the flag, yurts, and hats among other subjects), let’s learn about a musical part of Kyrgyzstan: its national anthem, or “National Hymn” to translate the title a bit more literally. Continue reading “The National Hymn of the Kyrgyz Republic”
