finding the perfect park

This is new territory for us. Now that Darwin is walking, he’s no longer content to be carted around all day, either in the Ergo carrier or his stroller. Sometimes I just gotta let the guy run around. This isn’t something we had to deal with in Bishkek, since he hardly crawled while we lived …

medium-format Darwin

I bought the Lubitel, my first Soviet-era film camera, back in September/October 2010. I bought some 120 film in the states some months later, loaded some film in there some months later, decided that the camera was busted some months later, took it to get fixed some months later, finished a test roll in August, …

searching for poppy fields

Convinced that it would most certainly be my last chance to photograph a giant field of blooming poppies, a friend and I made plans that we absolutely had to find them last weekend. The weather had been volatile all week, cold and rainy one day, blazing sunshine the next. Every weather website or app we …

Istanbul is baby-crazy

I thought Kyrgyzstan was baby-crazy. I started an album on Facebook to share photos I snapped of waitresses and strangers (and some friends and family members) who would insist on holding Win when I’m out (usually to my delight if I was trying to have a nice meal without dripping lagman all over his head). …

Darwin’s 100th day

Considering how global Darwin’s short life has been so far, I’ve been drawn to borrowing customs and traditions from other cultures to celebrate various milestones in his life. I dutifully tracked when Darwin would turn 100 days old so that we could commemorate the day. It’s a Korean tradition, called baek-il, so I invited some …

my “ticket list”

I’m a fan of making lists. Whether or not I actually succeed at doing everything that’s on that list, I still find it a useful process for sorting through my thoughts, hopes and dreams for what I’d like to accomplish before I leave Kyrgyzstan. When will I leave Kyrgyzstan for good? Oh geez. Who knows. …

taking Win to Karakol

Karakol is another one of those places that strikes me as being “must-see” in Kyrgyzstan. It’s one of the bigger and fairly well-known sites, especially by those who have experienced a Kyrgyzstan winter. Why? Because although Karakol doesn’t seem like much in the warmer months (maybe some good hiking? I’m a terrible tour guide), but …

art studio visit

A few weekends ago, a friend and former coworker was visiting from Almaty and offered to show us her father’s art studio in Bishkek. Her father, Jyrgal Maturaimov, is a very talented painter. Farrell had seen some of her father’s paintings that she had posted on Facebook, and we had already decided that we need …

baby’s first passport

I stressed out about getting Darwin’s passport for months before he was even born. To me, the process of getting a passport is arduous and time-consuming, but there was nothing I could do ahead of time and attempt to cut down this process since, you know, you can’t really get a passport for someone who …