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 …
Monthly Archives: October 2010
the food situation
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 …
(oh my g)Osh Bazaar!
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 …
spice win
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.
If we were in America
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 …
demonstratsiya
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 …
more election thoughts
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 …
Happy Election Day!
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. …
Chilly weather
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 …
Mamadjan update
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 …