Banya, a Soul Cleansing

So i think i told many of you before I left that I had heard a once a week bathing was standard here. Many of you also know that this fact did not scare me, but rather I found it quite appealing. Well it turns out that everyone does shower once a week and honestly I couldn't be happier bc when it is shower time, it is quite an event. The Kyrgyz "shower" is called a banya. The banya is literally a one or two room shack next to the house that operates as a kind of steam room. In my banya there are two rooms, in the first room there is a mirror for shaving and hangers for your clothes. Then you pass into the second room where there are stacked wooden benches and a large container of rocks just like you would see in a western steam room. Before you go in you heat up a large container of water and also light a fire under the rocks so that when you throw water on the rocks they steam. The banya also has a drainage system so that you can feel free to splash water around as you please. It is really fun. So there you are in the banya with a big container of hot water, a container of cold water, shampoo, soap, and a raizor if you feel like shaving (which you probably do since its the only time you have acess to hot water). So as the banya itself is called a banya, to banya can be used as a verb.
It is customary for most Kyrgyzstani to banya for two to three hours. I could only handle the intense, but beautiful heat for about 45 minutes before i thought i would pass out. But i am just a beginner. Husbands and wives often banya together and it is also normal for someone to come into the banya with you and slap you on the back repeatedly with a kind of broom/brush. I'm not sure exactly how that works because i was allowed a solo banya without the luxury of a broom beating. In my family banya occurs on saturday for everyone and we are all assigned times of the day and it definitely took all day for everyone in the house to banya, especially since my oldest sister and her three little boys all banyad at my house for about three hours straight. Also my host mother (oppam) shaved all of the little boys' heads so now they look exactly like those children in the Free Tibet pictures. Classic.
Anyway, i'm sorry most of you at home will never experience the banya and all that Asian cleanliness has to offer. It is truly wonderful and i will look forward to Saturdays always.
Also, to any of you who have left me comments on the web site, I haven't read them bc for some reason i can't ever open up my own blog, even though I can sign in to blogger and update. Whatever.

PCV Visit

Mom, i'll be gone from tuesday til saturday from my host family bc i'm going to visit a current volunteer in the Talas Oblast, which is west of Bishkek in the mountains. All volunteers go to different places. The visits just give us a chance to see other parts of Kyrgyzstan and maybe give us an idea of where we would prefer to be placed after training. So don't call me next week during those days. Love you, Rick.

Visiting Day at the Akai-Bata Restaurant

Finally its time to meet our host families, with whom we'l be living with during the three months of training. All 65 of us volunteers are piled into busses from the hotel and drive to the town of Tokmok. As we pull up to the restaurant Akai-Bata, we see all the host mothers (and some fathers and children) waiting outside for us. We all get out of the busses and file in procession style with host mothers smiling on both sides of us. We seriously feel like orphans as they stare and point at us. Pick me! Pick me! we think. Ainura, my LCF, gives each of us in our group a slip of paper with both our name and our host mother's name. She gives the same to her and we must find each other among a sea of Kyrgyz families and American volunteers. The experience is quite strange. Finally we find each other out of the crowd and after a nice but very awkward lunch consisting of lots of gesturing and opposing languages, we drive back to Koshoy to get settled in.
When we get back, of course, its time to eat again. They call it chi (which literally means tea, but actually means the act of having tea/ aka eating and visiting with each other.) We sit down at the kitchen table (the kitchen is outside) and feast on some eggs from the live chickens in the back yard, which operates as a small farm complete with a rooster and two cows.) My host father looks a lot like one of the chicken farmers from Napoleon Dynamite and I had a flash back to that lunch scene in the movie when he served me eggs. Anyway, they taste good and swallow them down. Later that afternoon I take my little brother into my room and set up the laptop. I throw in the Grateful Dead movie and he is amazed. I've done well I feel.
A couple of minutes later these two Germans come by riding in bycicles. Turns out they are on vacation and doing a biking tour of Kyrgyzstan. Naturally. My host mother (oppa) sees them and ushers them inside to meet their new american. The Germans speak Russian so they are speaking that to my host family. I speak German/English to them, they speak English to me, and I speak whatever broken Kyrgyz I've learned in one day of classes to them. It seemed like a true peace corps moment. Welcome to Kyrgyzstan.

Family Life

So I have just finished my first week living with my host family and I must say, life is pretty good. I am the eternal guest. Not much more is expected of me than to eat, sleep, and play with the children. I live in the Koshoy village, about 20 kilometers from the town of Tokmok. I live with my host father (Otta), host mother (Oppa) and their two little children, a boy 5, and a girl 8. Actually they have five children, an oldest girl around 24 who is married with three boys and also lives in Koshoy, and two middle children who both attend the university in bishkek. These two children come home on the weekends. In fact, Eldyar (the boy who is about 21) is with me right now at the internet cafe in Tokmok (there is no internet in Koshoy). Koshoy consists of one paved main road and about five or six gravel roads. There are maybe 40 households in Koshoy. "Downtown" Koshoy contains a little market (like a 7/11), a post office, and the "town hall," a one room shack.....
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to finish this post later. Eldyar is bored and wants to leave...sorry but most of my posts have been very hurried because really i'm not supposed to have any free time during the three months of training, plus the dial up internet at all the cafes dies at will so i have to write quickly and post or the connections will fail....more exciting stories to follow....

Arrived in Kyrgyzstan...

Hello! I am hear in Kyrgyzstan, finally. It is 9:15 am Tuesday morning and I've been here since 1:00 am Sunday morning. After two days of a whirlwind orientation in Philly, all 66 of us new Peace Corps trainees arrived in Bishkek, after a brief layover in Istanbul. For the last couple of days we have done some in country orientation...about three hours of language training, some cross cultural info, and basically trying to get over the jet lag...right now i'm in an internet cafe in a small town outside of bishkek near our hotel, "The Hotel Issik-kol," a very nice place indeed I must say. For any and all of you trying to reach me via email I had some trouble accessing my gmail account this morning at this cafe which is why I'm posting this message. We don't have a whole lot of time here so i won't be able to put up any pictures although i have taken plenty and will upload them as soon as possible. Today we all go to meet our host families (with whom we will be staying for the duration of our three month pre-service training). Each volunteer has his/her own host family. We have been split up into about 12 or 13 groups consisting of 5/6 volunteers. Each group will be in the same small village outside of Tokmok, our training hub, which is in turn right outside of the capital of Bishkek. Mon, Th, Fri, Sat we take language classes in our small groups in our respective villages (mine being the town of Kashoi - don't know anything about it, have not been there yet) taught by our LCF (language/ cross-cultural facilitator) who also lives with a host family in the villages. My LCF's name is Ainura and she's a real cool cat. Tue, Wed, all the volunteers and LCFs meet at the hub in Tokmok for technical training which we all do together. Not exactly sure what technical training means, but hopefully they will tell me how to teach English using a language I don't speak. Hopefully. Anyway, so far Kyrgyzstan is pretty sweet, lots of mountains and other far out Asian stuff. Will have more info soon. Continue to email or leave messages on the blog here, but remember to keep them clean, my mother's watching. I'm having a great time and I am really enjoying myself. By the way, I was wrong, Kyrgyzstan is pronounced Ker, as in brrr, not kir as in beer. Minor, but important I think. Thanks, all...be in touch soon.