Salut and à Bientôt

Salut, Happy New Year! The target audience for this blog is generally undefined, but the major readers are, I presume, usually family and friends back home. As such, considering this post is about me being home, it may feel like some retreaded ground. This is my 38th (!!) blog post; that’s crazy.  For anyone who has traveled cross continentally, or even just flown across the Atlantic, you can relate to how difficult and agonizing it can be and just how exhausting it is.  When I first made the trip to Kyrgyzstan, I was alongside a ragtag group of people I barely knew anything about, but I was with people. Doing it alone is hard and mind-numbing. The route I took to get home, involved a drive to Jalal-Abad city, a 2-hour marshrutka to Osh city, a taxi to the airport, a 30-minute flight to Bishkek, a 7-hour night layover at the Bishkek airport, then a 5.5-hour flight to Istanbul, an 8-hour layover in that airport, and then a 13-hour flight to Houston, then a drive home. Coming ba...

Salut, This is the 19th blog post for this year and it's last. Additionally, it is my last end-of-year post. With only two years, every first is a first, and every second is its last.  Reflecting on a full year in Kyrgyzstan is crazy; the last time I was here I had only had six months, and now I look ahead to the next 7-8 months. I spoke a long time ago of seeing the seasons change, of seeing time wean and the students grow old. This time last year, Frank, my site partner, had left. Does it feel like a year? Yes, and no. I said I wanted to see Kuz Saykal grow and walk around the house; she was only 4 months old when I first arrived. I see Adelya wake and eat breakfast next to me, as we both prep to go to school, and I see her put on her thick coats and boots to brace the snow. I got to see the tree leaves fall and grow again. The flowers bloomed again, the memory of a field of poppies in my mind. I went to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan which I had wanted to do. I see the sun rise and s...

Salut, For the last three weeks, I have been barreling full speed ahead and consumed with work on my grant project. Clubs, classes, and stuff at home seemed to come secondary to work on our project, and we have bought the vast majority of everything we needed, with few things remaining.       Baktygul suggested I choose an appropriate TV show or short movie for my 10th graders to watch . They have a small TV in their classroom which connects to YouTube and the internet (my school has internet but it is very finicky and only a few devices can use it at once). I couldn’t think of any free appropriate American shows on YouTube (my first thought was FRIENDS, extremely popular to learn English with but also has lots of inappropriate jokes for younger students). So I ended up choosing H20: Just Add Water which has all its episodes free online. I know that’s crazzzyyyy, but that was my childhood show. My mom bought the first season, but it didn’t work because the D...