Almost September!?

Since I didn't have any new pictures of mine to share with everyone, I thought I'd add these two cool ones that my brother took during his 5 year High School reunion escapades.

This is at the really far away waterfall near Barskoon - thought it was a good pic.
This is the main road that my village sits on - this one is just cool looking to me. Oh that's our nice Soviet made car. We call it Tanka (Russian for tank!)!

Well, it has been a little since I wrote something up here. Summer is coming to an end pretty quick. School starts again on the first of September and that’s also my second and last year teaching here. I’m hoping to get a lot of things prepared and planned beforehand with my counterpart. I’ll probably do that next week. Her phone hasn’t been working so it has been hard to get in touch with her.

I think my project was funded. It’s not on the PC website anymore but I haven’t gotten any confirmation about it yet. I’m hoping to hear from them soon!

I haven’t been doing too much in the village besides the usual. I’ve watched some movies, read a little, played soccer, (last night was a doozy, lost 5-0 and my team had to pay for juice, yeah we bet on juice when we play) and generally put off doing productive things. I always get that way when vacations or breaks end. I guess it’s some sort of denial that my “vacation” time is ending. I put that in quotations since I didn’t feel right calling this summer time a vacation time. I’ve been working and integrating and using a foreign language everyday of my life here and that’s a job in itself. It’s only a “vacation” because I haven’t had to formally “go to work.”

What else is new? The K-15s are really on their way out now. Four guys leave tomorrow and I’m really sad to see them go. I became pretty good friends with them and one in particular. I’ve actually found myself feeling pretty down lately since they won’t be around anymore. Our little volunteer community’s dynamics are changing/have changed/will change once they all leave. Myself and the other K-16s on the lake have a lot of memories of good times with them. But anyway, best of luck to them…I’m sure I’ll see them again. In fact I plan on seeing them again.

My health has been a tad better. Thanks to my Mom for sending the awesome whole food supplement thingies…I think it’s really helping my body as I fend off parasites haha. I’ve learned so many interesting things about the human body and all those lovely intestines we have while here, but I’d rather not put someone through the pleasure of learning how I learned about those things.

Weather has been warmer lately…guess summer is trying to hold on and make up for the relatively cool and rainy June and July we had here on the lake. Who knows how winter will be this year. I’m hoping it’s no worse than last year…it was a “warmer winter.” Let’s just hope it doesn’t switch right back to a “coldest winter in 40 years” like it did 2 years ago.

On an entirely different note…I had to help the most I’ve helped before in slaughtering and taking apart a sheep. I found myself being totally indifferent this time as the sheep was killed and it really bothered me for a little. I had to do a lot of the holding of body parts while a guy did all the work of quartering and cutting up the parts to get ready for Besh Barmak (each piece has to be right and every piece of the sheep has its rules for who it is given to at a Toi (party)). It’s pretty amazing how all that stuff gets done in like 30 or 40 minutes with just one knife. Every time it’s the same…guess that comes from thousands of years of doing this. They know exactly where to cut and which tendons and bones to slice, how to break the ribs off correctly and all that fun stuff. So for my help I got some bloody hands, a nice anatomy lesson, and more appreciation for what I’ve just described.

Lastly, I just wanted to say I miss you all. I’ve had more time to think about home, family, and friends (and many other things) this summer. It’s really becoming evident to me that those three things are the most important things in my life. Of course everyone “knows” that those things are the most important but I feel it here. I think selflessness as an individual quality needs to become a larger part of how our society forms us as humans and I hope I will follow through with that belief when I return home in a year. I’ll stop myself before I get too metaphysical or philosophical or whatever though. Just thought I’d share a little bit about what goes through my head these days when I’ve got a lot of time to think.

There's a new JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Volunteer who is moving to the lake. I got to meet her the other day and she seems like a really cool girl. I hope we'll be able to see each other - she's pretty isolated from other volunteers, there's no JICAS even close as far as I know. Regardless, it's nice to have some new people here on the south shore!

Let me know what's up in your lives!
Pat