Friday was a big day for us – not only did it mark over two weeks at our training villages (it says a lot that I began typing “months” instead of weeks while typing that sentence), but it was also our big Bishkek Day. Bishkek Day is a milestone because we get a full guided tour of Bishkek, the largest city in Kyrgyzstan, and it also is the point at which we are allowed to leave our villages to visit other volunteers, shop in a regional city, and also to travel back into Bishkek. In short, we are all thrilled and exhausted.
We started out our day at the normal time, but rather than sit cross-legged around a table and study Kyrgyz all day, we climbed into a marshrutka (a kind of minibus that I’ll write more about later) and rode into town, changing vehicles along the way. From one bus station, we took another marshrutka to the other so that we would know where both were (this is very important, since we have to take the local minibuses to get around town and the country). These each have waiting halls, a bunch of shops and stalls, and outside, a series of parking rows where the next minibuses to assigned destinations in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan depart. Merchants walk up and down selling bread, water, and soda from small carts, while drivers of shared taxis and the buses alike shout names of destinations in the hopes of getting additional fares. The logo of both bus stations is an “A” in a circle, with wings coming off the sides, in a socialist realist style. Continue reading “Bishkek Day” →
