October 2010

becoming Katya

October 27, 2010

My adorable Russian teacher, bless her non-English speaking little heart. She cannot remember my name to save her life. Now, I realize that my name is sort of difficult to say. Years of school teachers calling me “Kur-stin” or “Kris-ten” have taught me that. Traveling abroad showed me that pretty much anybody outside of Scandinavia [...]

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the food situation

October 25, 2010

The realization first hit me when we invited two friends over for dinner a couple weeks ago, a pair of sassy Turkmen girls we met at school. Farrell realized that he had most of the ingredients to make Moroccan-style chicken: chickpeas, allspice, assorted nuts and raisins, and long-grain rice. Since the meal was anticipated to [...]

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(oh my g)Osh Bazaar!

October 24, 2010

I’m really pleased with my little pun. Really, though, it perfectly describes how I felt after visiting Osh Bazaar: OMG It’s frenetic and fast-paced, made up of cramped and narrow alleys lined with stall after stall selling anything you could possibly want or need. There’s little logic to the way the stalls are organized, except [...]

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spice win

October 22, 2010

After weeks of searching for bottles of spices (and planning to ambush the Indian family in our building to figure out their secret stash), we found packets of curry (карри) and cinnamon (корица) in Beta Stores. Farrell already whipped up a fabulous curry for dinner, but I smell fresh cinnamon rolls in my future breakfasts.

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If we were in America

October 21, 2010

If we were in America, I would’ve called the police. Five men, a black BMW, every window tinted so heavily to be completely opaque. I missed seeing them pull into our humble courtyard, but I rushed to the window as soon as Farrell said, “That dude just pulled out a knife!” One man was yelling [...]

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demonstratsiya

October 13, 2010

A decent-sized protest formed outside of the parliamentary building (also next to AUCA) yesterday as Farrell and I walked to Russian class. We could see a large group of men waving red flags and we decided to inch forward and figure out what political party they represented. “Butun Kyrgyzstan, бутун кыргызстан” waved red flags with [...]

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more election thoughts

October 11, 2010

Exciting times to be in Bishkek? Before delving into the wonderful world of basic statistics in my political research methods class this morning, the professor led a small discussion about yesterday’s elections. So far the results show that Ata-Jurt (Ата-журт), the party of former president Kurmanbek Bakiev, leads with the most votes. The class groaned [...]

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Happy Election Day!

October 10, 2010

To quote a new Tumblr friend: “Bottom line – be prepared. The elections ARE coming up. If it will get hairy, it’ll be pretty quick. Don’t trust the police. You know first time when they trashed half of the city back in 2005 there wasn’t a single cop on the streets for almost a week. [...]

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Chilly weather

October 8, 2010

It’s unfortunately starting to get a bit too chilly to enjoy мороженое, ice cream, anymore. Luckily, the cooler mornings have finally forced Farrell and I to brave the marshrutkas, vans that travel only set routes for only 8 som (about 17 cents). Dislikes? Well, Bishkek traffic isn’t really all that regulated. There’s a constant fight [...]

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Mamadjan update

October 1, 2010

Getting bigger, so she’s now getting stuck in the tiny crevices she previously loved to explore. And she’s getting more adventurous, bolting to the door ready to pounce into the outside world every time we open it. She’s also getting more brazen with attempting to claw her way up the lovely carpets that hang on [...]