Pictures of the New Year extravaganza:

My colleagues’ boogying down to a mix of the Beatles/ABBA/Ace of Base/Modern Talking:

Sis and I at our villages New Year celebration:

My brother, pops and I right before President Bakiev (see TV) announces the New Year. PS. I sleep on that bed that I’m sitting in:

Moms and pops just seconds before 2009. We all decided to light sparklers for the festive occasion.

Sledding down our backyard-ish hill immediately after 2009 began:

AIDS

So, the first project I did in country was a HIV/AIDS education and awareness month in which we held seminars for each 10-11th form students at the three schools in Tyup. We then had a festival as an educational celebration entitled “Youth Against AIDS.” During the festival we showed films, sang songs, performed a play, and had a competition between schools on who could perform the best anti-AIDS campaign. Below are pictures of the festival:

Who did it?

My permanent site family, who apparently don’t like to smile; nonetheless, they are really nice and hospitable. This particular day we celebrated Orozo Ait, which is a holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Ramadan is a month long fast where people are suppose to refrain from eating during the day; thus, Orozo Ait is a time when families go around guesting at each other’s houses eating an unbelievable amount. I think I visited close to 10 houses where in each house I received a full course meal. We started at 11am and It was only 6pm when I decided that I couldn’t hang anymore and had to pass out due to a food coma. I think my family stayed strong until 11pm that night.
This is what I get to see everyday. Above is my permanent site village and the building with the yellow sign is my host family’s shop.

My Russian language training group with our teacher. Although we look happy, the times spent studying Russian proved otherwise. Luckily we had a great teacher who often put up with our frustration.

This is my entire pre-service training host family, plus guest from Germany in the middle. They’ve had three PC volunteers before me and so they knew the routine with how to house an American. In short, they were pretty much awesome.

Above are my host father and nephew during pre-service training. This day was the last day of my training and thus, my last day living with them. In celebration, they cooked amazing “chashlik” (chicken kabob). Also, don’t be fooled by that child’s looks, he’s not as innocent as he seems.

This is a celebration of the first day of school in my village. My village has three schools and this particular school used to be named Karl Marx. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but during the celebration they had kumus (a national instrument) and accordion players, announcement of sorts, and everyone was dressed in their school uniforms. As I took this picture, everyone thought I was the photographer until I attempted Russian and almost immediately they knew I was foreign.

To the left are “yurts,” where people live and are good reminders of the nomadic past. Inside they are ostentatiously decorated with colorful carpets and are designed for easy mobility. They are easy to break down and easy to build. They say that it takes a family an average of 4 hours to reconstruct one.