Тынч Means Peace, it also means Quiet

This post has been the hardest for me to write. This is the struggle of the Peace Corps Volunteer. This is the struggle to walk the tight rope of cultural respect and being conscious of human rights violations. This is where the idealistic volunteer, aware of the injustices in the world only to the extent of reading about them in a book, meets the true injustices in the bitter flesh and the tragic truth. I have been advised not to write this post. Americans and Kyrgyzstanis alike have told me this fight is useless and I am a fool if I think otherwise.

Read on to hear the struggle of this fool.

Тынч is the Kyrgyz word for peace. It also means quiet. I am a fan of peace, but in this instant I cannot be quiet. Too many hearts are screaming inside bodies with mouths sewn closed. You may not hear the noise, but quiet it is not.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am here with three specific goals set by the US Government. 1. To transfer skills. 2. To share US culture with members of my host community. 3. To share my host community’s culture with the US. This post is none of these three. You may think, oh hey, it’s the third one. No. It is not. I am not discussing Kyrgyzstan’s culture. I will be discussing a practice that should be ended; it is not and should not be part of the culture.

Earlier this year a 12 year-old girl committed suicide down the street from my house. It was the second child suicide in the village since my arrival. I wrote a blog post about it, but before I could do an edit another tragedy struck the village. A girl from this village was bride kidnapped and during the getaway the bride kidnapper crashed the car, killing the girl. The bride kidnapper survived, he was not charged for anything, and the consensus was that he should have been driving more carefully.

Bride kidnapping is illegal, but quite possibly the least observed law in all of the country. Either due to a terribly misguided understanding of historic Kyrgyz culture, or a surprisingly effective attempt at promoting male chauvinism, bride kidnapping has become so prevalent in Kyrgyz culture most estimates say between 50-70% of marriages among the ethnically Kyrgyz are by bride kidnapping. There are two types of bride kidnapping, consensual and non-consensual. This post is specifically discussing non-consensual bride kidnapping.

Here is my struggle. Bride kidnapping is without a doubt the most harmful practice in Kyrgyzstan to everyone in the country, yet few realize the extent of its harm. People believe it is a central and positive aspect of the Kyrgyz culture, so criticizing the practice is considered criticizing Kyrgyz culture. A Kyrgyz person speaking out against it runs the risk of being ostracized.

Why is bride kidnapping so harmful? Is it really much worse than arranged marriages? Isn’t it just a different cultural understanding? If you are asking these questions or similar ones, please continue reading and if by the end you are not convinced, let me know.

For those of you who really know me, you know the death of a 12 year-old girl is not one I can just let go of. Similarly, the preventable death of any youth is not just sad to me, but a terrible tragedy and failing of society. Those who have died are not the only ones suffering from bride kidnapping, the bride kidnapped women, the men involved, the children, the families, even the economy and the future generations all suffer. Bride kidnapping is not a localized issue and it is not a short-term problem. 

Women: Non-consensually bride kidnapped women are raped. Over and over. And this is considered acceptable. It often interrupts or altogether stops their university education. Economic opportunities are cut down to none or negligible. These women are no longer treated as humans, but instead as property.

Men: It may seem irrational, but men suffer from bride kidnapping as well. They are forced to treat women as less than human and suffer from the psychological issues connected with that. Bride kidnapping destroys the potential for men to have a respectful relationship with their spouses. The practice of bride kidnapping often means men are marrying before they are ready.

Children: In poorer rural areas, girls are brought up to expect to one day be bride kidnapped, at a young age girls begin to accept their future lives at home tending to domestic chores. When this is the only prospect presented to the girls, there is little drive to pursue education. For those girls who do pursue their education and make it to university, a bride kidnapping during their studies means they are never to return. The Kyrgyz say that the girls can return to university, but it is incredibly rare since most families require the new bride remain at home for two years before going back to her parents or university. By this time they have children to raise and feed, meaning time and money are no longer available for university. Boys are taught they will be handed everything in life, even a wife. Why work hard for anything if it will be given to you? Especially school?

Family: It is customary for the youngest son to live in his parents’ house with his parents and family. Often the bride kidnapped wife of the youngest son is physically and verbally abused by her mother-in-law. This results in permanent animosity within the household and pent up anger within the bride kidnapped wife.

Economy: Kidnapped brides are commonly forced to remain in the house for the first two years and there after are expected to take care of the household chores and child rearing. This means for many, they cannot work or start businesses, meaning fewer laborers and fewer businesses. My organization works to help these women start businesses, but given the constraints we can only help women start businesses they can conduct from within the home. With such a large percentage of the population out of the workforce, the economy is doomed. Not only are they out of the workforce, but women also happen to be the higher savers. Statistically women save much more than men around the world, the cost this has to the Kyrgyzstani savings rate is significant. A male dominated workforce also means more corruption and cronyism, a cost itself to the economy and an indirect cost by being a disincentive for potential foreign investment.

Future Generations: With bride kidnapping, women do not control the family finances. When women do control the family finances higher percentages of income go toward the children’s nutrition, school supplies, academics, and healthcare. Women also tend to favor sons to a lesser degree than men do, resulting in better health and education for daughters. Stunted growth among children in Kyrgyzstan is extremely high, especially among girls. Studies show, were women to have jobs or businesses and control the family finances, stunting would all but be erased in Kyrgyzstan.

Certainly, bride kidnapping is not the single factor holding Kyrgyzstan back from blooming as a successful country, you don’t need a degree in economics to see that. My point however, is that it does have an impact on far more areas than meet the eye. Were it to end, Kyrgyzstan would see improvements in all aspects of life. I’m here to develop Kyrgyzstan on a micro level, so I will focus on this problem at a micro level, but in reality only a micro change can be expected from that. Maybe someone interested in developing Kyrgyzstan will pick up on this at a higher level, кудай буйруса (God willing).

Maybe it’ll be a human rights activist, if so, here is some fuel to get started:

·      Bride kidnapping is clearly saying that women do not have the right to their own life, liberty, or security of person.

·      Bride kidnapping is, essentially, slavery.

·      Bride kidnapped brides are categorically subjected to rape, physical abuse, and verbal assault.

·      Often marriages from bride kidnappings are never officially registered as marriages, meaning brides do not have rights of inheritance should their husbands die, or alimony should their husbands desert them.

·      Local police routinely refuse bride kidnapped brides recognition when they attempt to file a complaint.

·      The marriage is not consensual and studies show 18% of these marriages are with a bride under 18 years old.

·      Bride kidnapping interferes with education, both before and after the act.

Kyrgyzstan wants peace. Like all places on earth, Kyrgyzstan deserves peace. But things must get loud. Feelings must be verbalized, voices must be heard, and change, true change, must occur before Kyrgyzstan can be quiet.

Projects to Start Strong this New Year

Жаны Жыл, the New Year, is coming. My host niece Ossil (some contend her name is spelled Asel in Latin script, but it sounds like Fossil without the F so I submit my way is better, you be the judge) and I prepared for the momentous occasion by making origami decorations and various other crafts all day long. We’ll pick up where we started tomorrow, also we’re going to make ribbon cookies.

Ossil decorating some snowmen

Our decorations!

Ossil acting too cool to stand close to the ornaments

There we go

The New Year also means the official start of many projects. Here are the projects I know I’ll be working on:

1. Help Establish a Microcredit Agency within the NGO Epkin

2. Give Computer Lessons to 6 Villages

3. Help Start a School Theater Program in my village of Epkin

4. Help Revive Epkin Village’s Library

5. Help Organize and Run a Leadership/HIV Camp for Rural Youth

In addition to these projects I will continue to give a weekly English talking club, participate in some other camps, give trainings to my organization, help my organization create a strategic plan and develop a marketing strategy, and host visitors. Also, I’ve taken it upon myself this holiday season to make Kyrgyzstan big fans of the a cappella group Pentatonix, I have to say, I’ve been hugely successful.

At my last talking club we made origami ornaments as well.

This is a photo from a training I gave in late September

This is our latest logo

You might be thinking, “Gee Sean, that sounds like an awful lot, are you sure you’ll be able to do all of that?” Well, thanks for asking! You’re probably right, I’m sure by the end of 2014 some of those projects will not have gone as I hoped, but let’s try to keep a positive attitude. Here’s a more in depth breakdown of the projects:

1. Help Establish a Microcredit Agency (MCA) within the NGO Epkin

Firstly, you’ve probably noticed most of my projects start with “Help,” this is intentional. For several reasons I can only play a helping role, the two biggest reasons being the need for community buy in and future sustainability of the project (I want it to continue after I leave!). Secondly NGO stands for Non Governmental Organization, a kind of catch-all for philanthropic minded organizations not tied to the government. Apparently that term is being replaced with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

I came to Kyrgyzstan hoping to take part in the microcredit process in some way. I have been overjoyed to learn that my organization both wants to start their own microcredit agency and has the capacity to go through with it. This will be by far the most difficult project I’ll be aiding my organization in, and will likely have the largest impact.

We are currently in the early stages of research and understanding the process we will need to pursue. We may travel to southern Kyrgyzstan to interview two organizations that started MCAs after having a similar structure to NGO Epkin. After compiling the necessary research and beginning the certification process we will need to apply for a grant to sustain a budget of upwards of $300,000. (Anyone have deep pockets?)

2. Give Computer Lessons to 6 Villages

Trying to pick out the computers. If you look in her hands you'll notice she's holding about 350,000 soms

Guljash is actually pretty good at the computer already. 1 down, 1079 to go.

And I thought teaching my grandfather how to play solitaire on his computer was difficult! How about giving lessons on how to use the Microsoft Office Suite in Kyrgyz, with a Russian operating system to someone using a computer for the first time? Not to mention using the Internet!

I’ve been fortunate to have a test run about a week or two ago with a 20 year old who wants to go to Germany for an Agronomy internship (she can speak Kyrgyz and Russian fluently and is a beginner German speaker, not a single word of English though). She needed to apply by sending in a resume, which meant she needed to use a computer for the first time in her 20 years. I helped her create a Gmail account, experiment with translate.google, and write her first resume. It was a bit bumpy, but when I showed her how to check her email on her cell phone things went much smoother.

Last week my organization purchased six computers to be dispersed among six lucky villages. It was a full day’s affair finding the right computers at the right price, but we succeeded and now that Windows 7 and Microsoft Office have been installed we’re ready to bring them to the villages. I’ll be installing three on Friday and the other three on Saturday with a quick tutorial on each. I’m hoping they won’t figure out how to get the Internet on them before I get back in January.

In January and February (and likely March and April) I will be spending a week at a time in each of the six villages to train the village Activist how to use it. The theory is the activist will then teach the rest of the village. Wish us luck!

3. Help Start a School Theater Program in my village of Epkin

This was not my idea at all, but I love it! Having grown up next to the Vermont Children’s Theater, participating in as many plays as I could from age 8 to 16 I am definitely looking forward to this program. My counterpart’s daughter wants to start a theater program for the boys in our village. She must have seen this somewhere else because she has high plans for it. The hope is to have the boys put on skits of what it is like for a girl in the village, then write short articles on what they thought about the project. The articles will then be printed into a booklet to be distributed to other rural schools throughout the oblast.

To start this project we’ll be looking for donations to cover the costs of costumes and the booklets. The school has already offered to donate their auditorium space for the rehearsals and performances.

4. Help Revive Epkin Village’s Library

That's the library!

The library is in sad shape, to say the least. I walked by it for months thinking it was an abandoned building, only to find out that it is the village library. The books are so old and beaten that no one bothers going to the library anymore. Our plan is two parts: 1. Get newer books (not necessarily new, but newer), and 2. Hold fun activities in the library for the youth, like How to Make Paper for example.

If you know of any places that donate Kyrgyz or Russian books please let me know. I’m already pursuing some leads on English books.

5. Help Organize and Run a Leadership/HIV Camp for Rural Youth

A picture from my English class last summer.

My organization works in 18 villages in the Chui Oblast and we want to start Youth Advisory Councils in each of the villages. We have agreed on starting by bringing two youth from each village to a camp on Leadership and HIV/AIDS. Leadership will be a main focus in the camp because these two youth will be tasked with starting the councils in their villages. HIV/AIDS will be the other main focus because according to my counterpart, and backed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the rural villages in Chui Oblast report the highest use of intravenous drug use among youth in all of Kyrgyzstan, meaning these youth are at the highest risk of HIV/AIDS.

Well, that should be enough information for you for now! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’ll be spending the holidays with my oldest brother and his wonderful family. I'll leave you with this youtube video from a TV interview earlier this summer. Stay tuned for the one that played tonight!

And here is a link to another TV interview on Kyrgyzstan's Channel 1 (skip to 2:20, my segment lasts until 9:10):

http://www.azattyk.kg/media/video/azattyk_plus_tv/25197327.html?z=840&zp=1

Koi Soi (Sheep Slaughtering Ceremony)

As you know, mutton is the most common source of protein here in Kyrgyzstan. Like bread, it is almost revered by the Kyrgyz, and so the process of slaughtering a sheep is ceremonial. I've been fortunate to have observed a few of these ceremonies, called Кои Сои (Koi Soi). While back in our training villages, one host family allowed me to video tape the ceremony and I have made it into a video below. 

Warning, this video is graphic. I did my best to make it watchable for even the squeamish, but just know you've been warned.

http://youtu.be/wC0vMG3zqVw

It opens with a shot of the sheep and Stephanie's host mother sharpening the knives. 

The legs are first bound to keep the sheep from struggling too violently. 

Before the sheep is slaughtered everyone says a very quick prayer, as seen at second 18.

After the sheep has passed on, the hoofs are cut off.

It is then either hanged, as in this video, or lain on the grass. (The next part is much easier when it is hanging.)

The sheep is then skinned, careful to leave all the fat on the meat. This sheep has a rather large fatty area around the buttocks, a trait sought after in sheep by the Kyrgyz.

When the carcass is removed it can be used as a placemat to cut up the meat or as a rug/cushion/etc.

The internal organs are then removed and given to the women participating in the ceremony. They will clean them and braid the intestines while the men chop the mutton.

The sheep head is given to the most honored guest to eat and share the eyes with one other person of their choosing.

It was an interesting time had by all.

For more on the Koi Soi, check out Nicole's post here: http://oginshmogin.blogspot.com/2013/11/koiiiiii-whaaaaaaaaaa.html

Do I Like Kyrgyzstan?

“Кыргызстан жакты бы?” Do you like Kyrgyzstan?

Whether I’m talking to the person standing next to me in the overcrowded Marshrutka (a minivan jury-rigged for mass transit), the 16 year-old cutting my hair (the hair cutting school only charges 50 cents for a haircut), my host mom’s second cousin visiting from Naryn (some part of the family is visiting at least two nights a week), the national television station НТС (that’s right, I’m famous), or a friend back in America (hey friends!) I always hear this question.

Do you like Kyrgyzstan?

I’ve developed a succinct response for my Kyrgyz inquisitors, “Yes, I like Kyrgyzstan, I like the beautiful mountains and the clean air.” This usually gains me a pat on the back and ear-to-ear grins from those around me. The mountains part is true, standing at 16,000 ft (just a hair over 3 miles) the mountains in view from my village are striking. The clean air bit is just because I know Kyrgyz people are proud of their air. I have no idea if the air is actually clean; I have my doubts since they all burn their trash.

When asked by friends and family back in the US my response mostly reflects the ebb and flow of my emotions. Some days are great: stories of a successful business plan training at work or a day of picking apples with my host brothers get passed along. Other days are not so great and instead horror stories of gastrointestinal calamities or language frustrations slip off my tongue. Life in Kyrgyzstan, like life everywhere else, has its good times and bad.

I’ve been here for six months now, so I ought to give a bit of an answer. First here is a story to give you an example. Know while reading this that I have saved it specifically for you, my reader.

During the summer of 2010 violent ethnic clashes occurred in southern Kyrgyzstan between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks resulting in the death of over 200 people and the further solidification of the divide between these two groups. Though Kyrgyzstan is a tiny country relative to the US (it has 1/56 the population), it hosts over 80 different ethnic groups, the two largest being Kyrgyz and Uzbek. Tensions between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks date back centuries but historical reasons regarding land use (the Kyrgyz were nomadic people while the Uzbeks were settled people) have been more or less nullified since the USSR. Yet tensions remain, fueled mostly by weak history education and persistent prejudice. But there is hope, some, like the person I am about to mention, choose to look past the tension and pursue a peaceful Kyrgyzstan.

Sevara is ethnically Uzbek. Though she grew up in Kyrgyzstan her first language was Uzbek (she now speaks Uzbek, Russian, Kyrgyz, Turkish, and English fluently and is learning Spanish). In the summer of 2010 Sevara was studying in the city of Osh, the heart of the violence. Miles away from her family in Batken, Sevara took refuge in the home of a friendly classmate. Though her classmate’s family offered safety, they could not change the fact that Sevara’s skin is much fairer than theirs, so rather than letting the color of her skin betray her, Sevara took on a Turkish name and relied on her language skills to conceal her identity while she waited out the violence. Sevara was safe, but tragically an Uzbek boy at her school was killed and many more injured during the clash.

Today Sevara is studying dentistry at one of Kyrgyzstan’s top medical schools. Last year Sevara, thanks to her intelligence and strong drive, was able to study in Minnesota for a year. Despite having visited the different world that is America, and experienced first hand the blemishes of Kyrgyzstan’s recent history, Sevara desires to live and work in Kyrgyzstan. Sevara represents a contingent of hope here, a people who believe they can control the destiny of their world and cultivate a place of peace and respect.

So for my reader I respond with this: I do like Kyrgyzstan’s mountains, they’re like nothing I’ve ever seen. But I don’t like the history of violence these mountains have watched. I like the clean air, when it’s clean, but I don’t like the litter and burning of trash. I wish the education system were better, but I love the passion I see in some student’s eyes. Seeing the mistreatment of women and hearing about non-consensual bride kidnapping breaks my heart. But hearing the attitude of people like Sevara gives me hope. Making friends with the change agents of a country transforming is an honor and I look forward to where it goes.

Tire Swing and Other Pictures

I decided I should upload some more pictures since I have awesome internet now.

Enjoy.

Here is my outhouse. I think it's rather cute. My host mom was worried when she saw me taking this picture. She asked me if I thought it was a bad outhouse, I responded that I like it, which is the truth.

 Yesterday I was hanging out with two of my host nieces and one of my host nephews. They found some rope and were going to make a climbing rope using the tree, but then I found this tire so we made a tire swing. It's a big hit.

 Here is a picture of my host nieces and nephew sitting on a bed spring eating ice cream. The ice cream they're eating cost only 5 com (10 cents). I haven't tried it yet because it doesn't come in a package, it just has a sticker on the top part of the ice cream. Apparently it's not too uncommon to get sick after eating it. The bed spring they're sitting on is often used as a trampoline by the kids.

 This is the view from the toilet of my house and the backyard. You can see my host niece swinging on the tire swing under the tree on the left. 

Morning in the Village

Morning in the Village

I don't need to open my eyes, I can already tell it's morning by the light falling onto me from the window at the foot of my bed. My Nokia cell phone is about to tell me, "It's time to wake up, the time is 7:15am" in its robotic female voice. I briefly plan out how I'll shut her off with as little movement as possible then begin my mental preparation for the day. 

Life in general is full of surprises, but those surprises in the peace corps life affect my mood to a markedly higher degree. The potential emotional swings of the day require a daily mental preparation. 

I decide I'll wear my blue button up and my only pair of pants that I can stand in the 100+ degree weather I've come to expect in Chui's summer heat. I'll splash water on my face, because it feels good in the morning especially when I only wash every ten days or so, but also because it's culturally rude to eat without having rinsed your face first. This is a culture note I find odd since water is often unavailable in the villages here. After fulfilling my mandated hygiene requirement I'll fix myself a teacup of piping hot instant coffee and use the outhouse as my coffee cools to a drinkable temperature. Then I'll walk to work. Ok, enough mental preparation, time to execute. 

No water.. I use a  very conservative amount of water from my filter instead. No water in the morning is a bad sign, that likely means there will be no water for the rest of the day, and no water all day is a problem. It's not yet 8 this morning but I feel the heat of the coming day lapping at my skin as I walk to the outhouse, dodging chickens and prickly weeds on my way. The floor boards creek and the walls shift as I enter the familiar home of my many sick days, carefully stepping around the hole in the floor that serves as the toilet. The door doesn't quite close, but the distance from people provides enough privacy. Heading back to my coffee I notice with relief that my host mother is watering the vegetable garden. We do have water today, it was just being rerouted to the hose.  Upon seeing me, my host mom, the very considerate woman she is, helps me route the water back to the sink so I can wash my hands and brush my teeth, two habits I've been pleased to see my host family has adopted over the past month. 

A wave of bliss runs through my body with the first sip of coffee. I've always enjoyed coffee, but for some reason here my entire body appreciates it even more. The second sip runs another wave of pleasure first shooting up from my throat to my brain then to my toes and fingers. Coffee is not the morning beverage of choice here, in fact it took me about three months to start drinking it again. Tea reigns supreme. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner and any conceivable moment in between is not complete without tea. The Kyrgyz phrase for "time to eat" is literally translated "Drink Tea." Tea culture being how it is, I was pleasantly surprised when my host family was supportive of my switch to coffee. By sip three it's back to a regular coffee experience, so I take my time between the first two sips, relishing every moment. I'm drinking my coffee in a building outside my house, it's a small one-room building designed specifically for making and eating food. It seems to be the Kyrgyz way to build multiple single purpose buildings around the main building, which is the one people sleep in. This kitchen/dining building is guarded and monitored by a small kitten. I've been given the privilege of naming the kitten but have yet to pick one. For now his name is Atijoke (Nameless). As I'm sipping away at my coffee I feel Atijoke brush by my leg and jump up on the bench I'm sitting on. He is demanding an offering for my entrance into his domain, I secretly place a single boar-sock, a small piece of fried dough common at parties and other celebrations, in front of him and he is appeased. I feel guilty as I look around to make sure no one saw me slip him the boar-sock. While it's Atijoke's favorite food, boar-sock is considered a type of bread and bread is basically revered here, so I'm not supposed to give it to him. Bread can only be given to an animal when it's no longer suitable for people to eat, otherwise it's disrespecting the bread. But throwing bread away is even worse, so at least I didn't do that. 

With my coffee done, teeth brushed, and briefcase in hand I'm ready for the day. I slip on my good shoes and tell my host mother I'll see her later in the day. She wishes me farewell, and sees me to the gate. As the gate door closes behind me, I begin my mile long walk to the office, the morning routine is over and my day begins. 

Stay tuned for "Afternoon in the Village" and "Evening in the Village" coming soon.

My dog:

Walking with my niece to the office in the morning:

Passed the training, now I'm a PCV

After about 7 weeks of intensive training the Peace Corps has sent me to my permanent site about two hours East of Bishkek. There was a nice swearing-in ceremony administered by the US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. The ceremony was followed by a slightly awkward moment where I had to say good bye to my training host family while loading my bags into my permanent host family's car. It was a moment of sadness and excitement, like leaving the US for Kyrgyzstan but not to the same degree. The sadness was tempered by the fact that I'll be spending another two weeks with my training host family in September. The excitement was coupled with the knowledge that I have my work cut out for me these first few weeks especially. 

My language is good for being here for just two months, but it's not good enough to move along smoothly in conversations at work. Every day at work is an exhausting and slow process of attempting to communicate so I can begin to understand the business. Never the less, I was invited to a big meeting for work the other day with over 60 of my organization's 1080 members. Near the end of the meeting, quite to my surprise, I was asked to take the microphone and give an impromptu speech. So...that happened. 

Oh, and my host family got a puppy!

Enough about me, now to what you're really reading this for: Kyrgyz Culture!

I love it, and you should too! To start, Kyrgyz is pronounced kyr like curtain, and gyz like gizzard. There are several other ways to pronounce it, some offensive, some just depending on what ancestry you come from, but the Kyrgyz pronunciation if Kyrgyz is this way. (Btw, apparently everyone who works for the embassy is too scared to tell the Ambassador she pronounces it wrong.)

Kyrgyzstan is a collectivist culture. This means it is in many ways different from US culture, primarily in the sense that individual acts in the US are done instead in groups here in Kyrgyzstan. "It takes a village to raise a child" is taken very literally here. From what I understand, a unique aspect of Kyrgyzstan's collectivist culture is the practice of guesting. A simple explanation of guesting is you, or your entire family, go to someone else's house for an afternoon or evening (or both the afternoon and the evening) and socialize, drink lots of tea and eat lots of bread, and most likely eat a meal. 

The other day I was guesting at a neighbor's house and was asked by my host  "Which is easier, Kyrgyzstan or America?" A loaded question perhaps. My initial thought was, well doing laundry is certainly easier in America (I had just spent the entire afternoon washing my laundry by hand.) It's true having a machine wash your clothes is physically less demanding than washing by hand, but I wasn't happy with that as y answer. I then thought about how easy it is to socialize in Kyrgyzstan. Guesting is really an amazing practice, you can give notice or not and either way you'll be welcomed as a long awaited guest into whichever home you enter. This is not just because I'm American, I've seen the same generosity from my own host family when we've has unexpected guests. How great is it to have a culture in which it's so easy to stop by your neighbor's house for a few hours whenever you'd like? That's rhetorical, but the answer is it's really great. You might be thinking, well if you live in a nice neighborhood in America you can do the same. You may be right that neighbors often visit each other in America, but here it happens to a much greater degree. Guesting occurs often throughout the week and every weekend.  Even if you stop by for just a minute you'll be offered osti, a taste of bread. (Photo hopefully below)

If you stay a couple minutes longer you no longer have a choice, you'll be getting tea, or as we call it among the PCVs, you'll get chai itched. No hellfire will be rained on Kyrgyzstan for a lack of generosity to travelers, that is certain. If anything the generosity can be too much at times, while guesting my host often insists I have seconds, thirds, fourths, and even fifths. Despite my protestations and a full plate, I'll be given another couple spoonfuls of whatever dough based food we're having, maybe another slab of pure fat to go with my noodles? But it's the socializing that I am beginning to really enjoy and plan to take full advantage of while I'm here. Without any important reason and without much notice if any, I can go over to a neighbor and drink tea and socialize. After the initial shock my hosts have from realizing I don't put spoonfuls of sugar in my every cup of tea, I can talk to them about family, work, needs, joys, plans, trips, and so on. It's a perfect way to get to know the village and country, it makes my job easier. 

So that thought led me to my answer. In Kyrgyzstan, it's easier. 

That's probably enough for now. Please add questions you want answered in the comments. I'll try to write again soon!