the stuff we forgot we had

Neither Farrell nor I knows whose shoes these are. This is just one item we forgot we had stored. I have a thing with things. Maybe it’s a side-effect of moving so often, from being forced to constantly evaluate the value of my belongings, judging what’s worth keeping and paring down to a more easily …

starting a new life in Ghent

I have barely thought about Belgium one bit in the past few weeks. All I could think about was leaving Kyrgyzstan, without paying attention to the next step. I was very much stuck in what had to be done right this second. Now, I’m sitting in a friends’ house in Ghent, the city that will …

illogical thoughts on moving to Belgium

I have so many post drafts that are long (really long) ramblings about how frustrating it is that I don’t know what the next step in my life is, how I’ve been saying for the past year that I want to move out of Kyrgyzstan by August 2013 and how by mid-July we still had …

questions I’ve been asked

(not to be confused with the FAQ section) This is the first time I’ve been back in Pennsylvania since June, and then August 2011 before that. Usually I’m only around for a week or less, so I don’t usually hang out with too many people other than my close friends and immediate family. This time …

Two Years in Kyrgyzstan

“And look at where we are,” I said to Farrell yesterday as I reminded him of our moving-to-Bishkek anniversary, referring to how much has changed since August 15, 2010, when we first landed here (or even just one year ago). “Yeah,” he said, not looking up from his computer. “Writing the same damn proposals.” Things …

the uncertain future

People always ask me when I’ll leave Kyrgyzstan. It’s inevitable, I won’t argue that. Nobody assumes that expats will stick around here forever. But it’s a tough question to answer. I’m coming up on two years since I moved to Bishkek and there’s still no clear plan for how long we’ll stay, what we’ll do …

on (not) being a feminist in Kyrgyzstan

I have never considered myself a feminist, at least not in the stereotypical, I-hate-men-and-I-don’t-want-to-shave-my-legs kind of way. It could be apathy, it could be that I love the idea of staying home and baking cookies for my dashing husband, and it could be that when you’re married by 22 and pregnant by 24, people don’t …