hi from Bishkek

Sunday I got an email from my sister Erika! (she's just begun two years of service in the Peace Corps, in Kyrgyzstan.)
What's really amazing is that I've managed to call her twice. she, and the rest of the fresh batch of volunteers, have been staying in a Soviet-built hotel, going through health and safety training, as well as the beginnings of cultural and language training. In two days she'll go to a village near Kant for more in-depth training.

"Today was Kyrgyz culture day, and there was a gathering in the back of our hotel where there is a park dedicated to the hero of the national epic called "manas." they slaughtered a sheep for us (i watched and didn't faint), and then prepared the national dish plov, which was very delicious. The ambassador and many from the embassy attended. I ate lunch in a yurt with him and his wife! a yurt is the traditional nomadic tent, which they set up for the occasion. the highlight was the kyrgyz national orchestra's performance. the orchestra consists of traditional instruments. it was extremely beautiful. There were also the 3 volunteers who came back after the evacuation, as well as a volunteer who married a Kyrgyz.

this was the first day of "fun," otherwise every day has been filled with language classes and safety, health, and policy orientation. the amount of preparation that the PC has made is amazing. each training site, as well as our future permanent site, has been checked out by the directors as well as medical officers. there are many kyrgyz nationals employed by PC as well. I still don't know what my permanent site will be, but I am in a Kyrgyz language group, so it's more likely that I'll be more towards the south, and more likely that I'll not be in a city. I'll find out my site location next week.

On wednesday we'll be moving to our villages for the training period. 5 PCVs (Peace corps volunteers) will live in each village around the central town of Kant, (not far from Bishkek) where we will stay with families but spend the day in language training and technical (teacher training) with our teacher. My teacher (actually my language and cross cultural facilitator) is named Kanekey, and she is very nice. She is Kyrgyz. I hope to get to know her better.
They plan on giving us 136 hours of language training.
i'm looking forward to moving out of the hotel. there are signs that this is a former soviet country everywhere, even at the hotel. but all of this is very interesting. yesterday we went for a walk, through some run-down housing developments and up through some hills. though we are on the edge of the city of Bishkek, we saw lots of livestock being brought down from the upper pastures for the night. From the hotel, we can see beautiful snow-capped mountains, as well as ugly soviet skyscrapers."