I'm skipping a safety and security session to write this. PC keeps a really tight leash on trainees and it's incredibly frustrating. We have to get permission to go anywhere outside of our tiny villages of a few hundred people. So everytime a group of us finally gets to the internet cafe, we only get a few minutes because there's always someone else waiting. So until I'm at my permanent site in December (or some amazing person sends me a flashdrive ;) ), I'm not going to be posting a lot...unless I keep skipping sessions. ;)

We have language lessons 4 days a week in our villages. The other two days, we meet up with all the other volunteers (62--4 people already gave up and went back to the States!) for either technical training or medical/safety/cultural training. After 5 language lessons, I can read Kyrgyz! Every time I meet new people here, I'm surprised at their "eh, whatever" attitude about English. Everywhere else I've been, people want to learn English and make an effort to communicate in their broken English. Not here--not yet anyway. Either you speak Russian, Kyrgyz, or smile and nod, like I've been doing at home with my host family. So, yay for language training.

Squat toilets are still no fun. I've been trying to avoid running to the outhouse in the middle of the night for fear of falling in the hole or something. That would be the end of my life for many, many reasons. Being COVERED in shit is just one. Everything in Kyrgyzstan has an upside though... I stopped to look at the sky on my way back to the house and wow. The sky here is clearer and has more stars than I've ever seen. It's gorgeous.

Doing laundry by hand is no fun either. I haven't yet seen the good side to that though. Of course, I'll never again toss a clean shirt into the laundry basket just because it's wrinkled.

On Saturday, we had a culture day at Burana Tower, the site of one of the hubs on the Silk Road in the 9th and 10th centuries... it was pretty cool. We also slaughtered a goat, and I got a great two minute video of it that I'll post one day...when internet access isn't such a rare commodity.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit another volunteer on the north coast of Lake IssyKul. It's a huge tourist attraction... I'm excited, especially since I think I'll be placed in the south after Pre-Service Training. (Fruits and vegetables are more readily available there in the winter and my being a vegetarian means I'll probably end up there.)

Days go by quickly, but time passes slowly here. It feels like I've been here forever and I have so much more to write, but as usual, my internet time is up. Send me a flashdrive someone!