made it out alive!

I somehow survived the hell that was Pre-Service Training, and I'm finally a PCV. Last Thursday the K13s were sworn in and then we schmoozed with the US Ambassador at her house. She's awesome: she wants to join PC after her stint as an ambassador, AND she gave us American food (a hot commodity in these parts)! On Friday, I flew down to my permanent site of Osh City. Yeah, I flew, so what? ;) The 50-minute flight costs about 2000 som (~$50), while the 12+ hour drive costs 1500+ som. When I came down to Osh for my site visit, I almost got in a head on collision because the crazy Kyrgyz taxi drivers speed down the curvy mountain passes, and our taxi was actually hit by some Uzbek kid's car while we were stopped for gas. As my driver promptly beat up the kid outside my window, I decided the scenic route was overrated. So hopefully I'm never driving that crazy distance again.

Osh is an amazing city. It's the second largest in the country, but in some aspects, it's a better place to be than Bishkek, the capital, because it's much less Westernized. You can still see the thousands of years of history in the city, and that's just so different from Atlanta.

My house here is great too. You walk in and there's this huge courtyard with a garden that has tomatoes, grape vines, and apple trees. And the house is a giant U-shape that circles the garden. Every room has a door leading out to the courtyard. I live with a huge Uzbek family. There's the grandmother, her two sons, their wives, and their kids. So there are always lots of people around. They remind me so much of my family back home from when I was young, which is great because my family at home now isn't as cool as was when I was a kid. (forgive me, family ;)).

I fit in really well, I think. My language teacher told me that I look like one of her Uzbek relatives! My Uzbek language isn't that great though. I was learning Kyrgyz during training and then they put me with an Uzbek family, and the school where I'm going to teach is Uzbek too, so I have to learn it. I'm slowly teaching myself right now…on day 6 right now. Everyone here speaks Russian in addition to some other language, so Russian is the language to know…but I figure with my Uzbek, Kyrgyz, French, Urdu, and Hindi, I'll make a better secret agent one day, so it's okay if I don't learn Russian. ;)