pics of the engagement are up; just click the finnish pics to the right. returning has been an interesting transition, especially trying to find employment for the few months i'm here. fortunately it looks like my old job will take me back and hopefully i'll be starting sometime next week. in the meantime i've been taking in my fill of college football [GO SC!!!] and remembering how much i love this sport; if you followed the last game at all then you'll know why all my finger nails are missing.
also, i'm training for the whisketown adventure race, which will give me something to do while i'm in so cal. this weeks training of 17m on the bike and 3 on foot wasn't too bad so the team of myself, loren palmer, ernie hernandez and my sis should be able to pull it off. leena will be here to witness our attempt at the race [which is in 4 weeks]. we got our work cut out for us as the race will be 10mile of running, 10 biking (all on trail) and 6 paddling all while navigating with map and compass.
right now i'm taking suggestions for a team name; apparently the name i picked has negative connotations (thanks aunt rocio and mark). as always feel free to leave any comments, check out the new pics and gimme a call or hit me up on facebook while i'm in town for the next few months.
'do work'

home sweet home

so i'm back now in sunny southern california; or it would be sunny if not for all the smoke that hangs in the air from the wild fires that's driving my allergies insane, but i suppose thats the least one can deal with when the real men are out there fighting them.
sorry for not posting anything over the past weeks but it has been quite a wild ride. alas, its been a long, tiring and fun filled journey back home. it began with my flight from helsinki to miami where i spent a day running around the city trying to fill a barrel of treats to have shipped for my mother's return to the island of dominica (enjoy ma!). next i flew to denver for a short trip with my sister where we walked all over denver and boulder and did a few short hikes in the rocky mountains. from here we again flew together to las vegas to meet up with dad and mom and freinds. after a few days we drove home where i was able to pack for a few hours before hitting the road for a freinds wedding in oregon. i dropped my sis off at her place in san francisco, stayed the night and shared dim sum for lunch before ensuing on my 10 hr drive up to salem [i highly recommend the drive from redding to oregon boarder on the 5 if you have yet to do it, the beauty gets me everytime].
oregon was great. it was amazingly fulfulling to hang out with great freinds and be a part of my freind steve's wedding. i made my way back to so cal with some friends and we cut away from the 5 to drive through and sleep in the redwoods, which was a great time despite how long and windy the 101 and highway1 are. and finally after 2 weeks i made it to good ol' covina early monday morning.
now that i'm home i feel slightly removed and relieved, but i have a mission. if you haven't received the news yet: leena and i are engaged! so i will be here in covina until january when i make the move out finland.
for now my mission is to find work and payoff the credit card and spend time with my beloved family and friends. thanks for tuning into this wild journey.
pics from a road trip to norway leena and i took [well, mostly leena] can be viewed if you click the 'finnish pics' to the right. engagement pics will be up soon. God bless you all

planning the 'scandinavian roadtrip'

last weekend was quite amazing as we visited leena's old stompin grounds. first we visited her college town where we were able to catch a few bands at the jazz fest and saw a finnish cover band that gave tribute to the late great king of pop (who knew finns had soul). then we went to a lighthouse-restaurant-hotel run by amazing people (suvi and tom, you guys are amazing!) where leena formerly worked. last summer tom teasingly prophesied that leena would meet and fall in love with some american while on her trip and...well, here i am. so we went and visited suvi, tom and the lighthouse where leena spent the previous 2 summers of her life. what an incredible place; the entire concept is just genius, great food, quaint accomodations and the best scenery of the famous finnish archipelago (its a large chain of islands). they let us borrow a kayak and we paddled about 30minutes to another island that was equipped with 3 huge cannons left over from when it was used as a former naval base in the WW2 era. before paddling back to the lighthouse we met an older gentlemen with a passion for rocks who fashioned leena a pendent before i could mispronounce more of his language. the lighthouse is in the pics but for better ones click here.
this week has flown by and been a little more calm; its included less shoveling, more work inside the summer cottages and we've been prepping for this two week roadtrip we're taking off for tomorrow morning. so the plan is to drive up the eastern border of finland stop off at a handful of national parks (including this one that made in NG click here), spending a few days in norway to see the ice sea and then heading back down south via the western border and stoppin off in sweden along the way. iäm excited and excited and begining to miss the conveniences of the states like free refilss, fast food and heavily hopped beer...(sigh) i'm hungry...more next time
[this weeks photos can be found by clicking the 'my finnish summer' photo to the right. enjoy]

i did mention in the last post that they refer to this place as a village right? yes, a village and of course with that there comes small town fun. last week was mid-summer, something the scandinavians call juhannus. usually this holiday is celebrated with a koko(bonfire) and more makara(sausage)and alcohol than your stomach can hold; thankfully this juhannus lacked none of that. leena invited some freinds over along with her brother and cousin leea and of course that meant sauna time (which i hear is a finnish summer pastime and this was my second of what ended up being 4 before the week ended). after bbq and sauna it was time to go see the koko, and man, you never seen a bonfire like this: it was about 15+ feet wide and about 6 tall and didnt stop smoldering until a few days ago. awesome, just awesome really; something about a large fire like that, lots of people and a beer in hand brings out primordial caveman instincts and i felt like tom hanks in castaway. so i resisted any urge to hit leena over the head and drag her away to my cave, but could not resist to bbq our chocalte bananas, this however had to be done with a 4ft stick and i had to take my glasses off before heading into the fire so they didnt melt on my face (leea youre brave, and yes, i still have my eyebrows).
however one of the best parts about this day was sampo. sampo is one of the village youth that helps hannu out on the farm and fixes everyones motorcycle when they need it. well, when everyone had been around the fire for about 30 minutes or so and it was a blazing, rip-roaring inferno sampo rumbles down the road in fashion that only a 10 cylinder diesel powered tractor can: loud rough and heavy. everyone turns around to see sampo pull the tractor and trailer to a skidding halt about 30ft from the koko and jump out. 3 of his freinds hop out of the trailer and he blops down a small circular charcoal bbq and starts up his sausage. hilarious. i cheered. others cheered. i never wanted to be 16 again more in my life (along with every other man that saw sampo). sampo, you are my heroe this week.
well the next morning i finally got to play this finnish game (which name i cannot pronounce correctly, which got me into trouble and ill write later about that) that is played like bowling (but with small logs, of course) and scored a bit like darts. sweet huh? and i won! well, later in the afternoon leena and i went to her mom's cabin where we ate more, played more games, had another sauna and went to sleep. the next morning (this is where i tell about this weeks blunder...well, one of them) we are all eating at the table, and ya know how some languages if you pronounce a word wrongly it can mean a complete other word? same here; the finnish language just has some letters that i cannot pronounce for the life of me. so i casually ask leena 'are you ready for morning ____?' and she looks at me like 'really? (pause...) who told you to say that?' and her mom is chuckling in the background (leena later laughed too). apparently i said the name of the log game wrong and it came out to the equivalent of 'are you ready for morning cock (not chicken)?'...(sigh) so my understanding of finnish profanity continues and this time without hannu's help.

been a pretty active week, but if you know me well enough i always have some ideas in my head. sometime last week we made it out for orienteering. orienterring (since some of you are wondering) is a short race (from 1-4miles) in which you are given a map with points on it that need to be found with a compass navigational skills. sweet huh? (if i didnät explaing good enough click here) unfortunately, my navigational skills are not as good as i thought and in finland children are appartently born with a compass in hand, so leena burned me and i could see little knee-high orienteers passing me up all the time. i eventually wanted to smash my compass and walk away, but thanks to the undying patience and love of leena i finished the course and will go back to 'fight another day' once more.
this week we made it out to kayak in one of the local bays in a city called inkoo and borrowed keijo's canoe last night for a short trip that will begin the training we wish to do for our trip at the next of next week.

factoid: smoked fish, who knew it could be so easy (and tasty). i now have a summer ambition to build an outdoor grill and smoker; we'll see.

perspective: i äm currently in the village where leena grew up, a small village named karstu at a lattitude of about 60 and a longitude of roughly 24. Los Angeles is at 34, -118. i say this because if you were to travel down the world at the same distance i traveled here you'd land somewhere close to cairo, egypt or off the coast of crete (depending on calculations). if you were to travel straight up from l.a. to the same latitude as karstu you'd end up in the very similar climate of the northwest territories of canada (where there is less than 0.1% person per sq mile. interesting huh.

factoids: somehow, listening to 'abba' just seems right around here, and sauerkraut can be very tasty if sauteed with honey (i just had some at a bee farmer's house, amazing)

apologies for the procrastination, but i guess ive been caught up in this reality tv show called life; seriously. comedy, drama, action; the past few days has had it all.
to begin with, how much trouble could one get into on a farm? well a lot, and one of the things i managed to do had quite a bit of the flavor of the show 'jackass' (which i love to watch so much). well sometime last week i was diligently lofting weeds into a wheel barrels when i managed to stab my own foot with the pitchfork...dont worry mom, didnt need stitches, but man it hurt like a b*tch! what was just as ironic was that i did it at the same time a woman from the state was here to monitor leena's dad's work safety! thankfully she was inside at the time and didnt here the shouting and profanities that came out when i stuck myself.
and i suppose i intentionally left out the following story of farmhouse hazing, but was somehow reminded of it this week. so, the first day of work here i put on the blue pair of dickies i just purchased from the thrift store before i left home. the perfect work pants right? hilariously leena says that they're too nice for work, so i think whatever, ok. the work pants she says are out in the barn, so i take a stroll out to the barn to put on 'work pants' and her dad sees me in my boxers and gives me this look like "what the hell are you doing? dumbass american" and smiles while leena is laughing (thanks tyttö, really).
well iäm being called upon to make lunch. midsummer holiday today, guests and stuff. the sun has been setting at about 10pm but twilight now until about 1am and supposed to be longer tonight. its cool, but hard to sleep in.
more later. pics in the link below:
this weeks PHOTOS

finnish summer week 1

we'll iäm back in finland if you havent heard; and just like last time if i failed to connect with you while i was in so.cal i apologize. so to recap i'm still living this GAP year to the fullest (wikipedia it if you dont know what it is. my GAP started by leaving a good career in social work for the last 6 years to travel and be the good samitan with an organization called Youth With A Mission. i did this cuz i was quite sick and dissatisfied with many things (much like supertramp in the movie 'into the wild' which ya'll should watch if you havent); really i suppose i was craving life change and since i can now be found in the Finnish country side dating a beautiful scandanavian woman and working the forest and the birds, i realize i have really obtained that (although received would be the most adequate description).
my story goes something slightly similar to that of a biblical one. if you might recall, jacob worked years to marry his wife and then was tricked into marrying two women and working twice as long (dont know which is worse). fortunately leena's older sister is about to be married and i only need to work one summer. leena's dad agreed to have me work on the farm for him for the summer and leena agreed to continue what seems to be a promising relationship. not too shabby of a deal: shoveling bird shit for smelling the roses.
since youre caught up and knowing that i am currently half way around the world i'll fill you in on week 1 (and if i havent mentioned i'll be here to sometime in mid-august so look for any catching up in so.cal to happen then...yes, just in time for usc football baby):
so the first day i actualy spent with leena's older sister. we planned a surprise party for leena so my presence was kept a secret and leena thought i was arriving a day later. elina and i went to helsinki for a concert of finnish ska (nothing like so.cal ska, it was quite horrible, sorry United Beat or whatever their name was. finland is way too cold of a place to be able to play, understand or listen true reggae ska) then we went to get supplies for the party. party was great leena, i think, is still in shock. everyone had a great time.
rest of the week has been great. my back is sore but my body feels strong from all the work (which really hasnt been that bad). i have always believed in the mind-body connection and there's something truly to be said about good sweaty work that brings peace to the soul. if you dont know, her dad owns ands operates roughly 250 acres of land (one american football field is about 1.3 acre if you were curious). its a lot of property, some of it is farmable and what is not is used to forest trees. hannu plants and harvests his forests every few decades and the past summers harvest partly went to leena's dts funds that helped us meet (random fact). usually he farms various grains (including wheat) but lucky me-this year is a rest year for the fields, so the majoritiy of the work i'll be doing is in the forest, with the birds and on the cabins.
since leena and i hadnät seen eachother in 5 weeks we spent our first day at the beach; very beautiful, reminded me of the oregon coast. the next day we planted some birch and pine trees. the next few days it rained and maintained about 40-45 degrees F (cold and wet) with me shoveling bird shit. really it was kind of cool and having leena doing virtually the same thing right beside me made it almost enjoyable (ok, i loved it). birds? yes, pheasant actually; he's been raising pheasant for about 15 years and during the summer the bird runs must be cleaned, and thatäs mostly my job.
one of the days we spent staining the wood on one of the many vacation cabins hannu has on the property and rents out every summer.
typically everyday i tend to the baby birds and make sure they have food and water and the correct temp intheir coop. then its off to do whatever hannu wants. after dinner i check the baby birds again and pick the eggs the adults have laid. its quite a good routine and you think they'd be used to me by now, but i still piss the momma birds off when i take their eggs (as you can imagine), but they're all cluck no claw.
this weekend we tended the eggs and the eggs about to be hatchlings so check out the link for pics below.
this week's self discovery: i think kittens are amazing to watch and adorable and iäm not ashamed to say; a sever allergy that iäve seemed to grow out has kept me from this secret. the second is that i believe stevie ray vaughn's voice was reincarnated into john maher...who knew he could sing and play liket that? really.

photo link

the finland pics

click!!! PHOTOS!!!

the adventure continues...

so if i havnt been able to talk with you personally i apologize, but the adventure has continued after the 6 mo dts. during the school i began to date one of the girls that was part of the trip that just happened to be finnish. so now iäm typing in finland wondering where my crazy choices in this life could take me.
so far the finnnish experience has been great and for the most part i've met all the family and freinds (almost) as her most prized souvenir from the trip. everyone has been very welcoming including both of her parents who offered me a beer right after they met me (man, they really know how to make a guy feel at home). for the most part everyone speaks english or at least a little bit, except her dad who is hilarious. think of larry the cable guys with a deep voice mixed with mr.bean idioscyncrasies and youäve got her dad; o and he's a farmer. actually all of her family owns and operates farms, ranches or some derivative there of. everyone has roots here its amazing history lesson every time i meet someone new. the house my girlfriend lives in is 200 years old and has been in the family for 100 along with postings in many articles of papers and magazines.
last week i was able to ice fishing with her grandfather. it was quite the rush going from sub-zero kirgistan to hot socal for a few weeks and back to snow and ice, but its warmer now. everyone has a cottage next to a lake because there are more lakes here than minnesota, if you can imagine. the finnish have an affinity for salted licorice called salmiakki that is quite disgusting. they really donät eat dinner because the big meal is at lunch so think bread and cheese for all other meals and everyone has tea time in the afternoon, everyone. also if you didnät know they have this obsession with saunas. everyone has one, even small apartments have one that looks like a closet for two. her dad built a traditional one that is fired with wood for hours and provides a more natural experience along with the whole being naked deal (ya there's no being broken into a family like stripping down and getting all close and hot together). oh, and of course thereäs the whole polar bear deal: ya after sauna they have this tradition of jumping into the whole they break in the ice lake and then getting into a hot tube and it wasnät as bad as you might think, but damn it was cold.
we visited helsinki the last few days. its a nice european city obsessed with design and fashion. think san francisco but more clean and about 12 degrees colder and just as windy. back at her dad's farm its now time to pick eggs in the evening, pheasant eggs (a side business her dad began about 15 years ago).
that's about it for now, iäm off to a lakeside cottage for easter bbq. i'll post pics in a few days if i can and hopefully see most of you at the end of the month. my apologies if you do not receive a post card b-c i would get back before the postcard :)

The long and awaited...

I know many people have been wanting to look at photos of my trip to Kyrgyzstan [yes, that's right Kyrgyzstan NOT Russia like everyone thinks. The country is located in central asia. Go to Google and look it up!] i apologize for having taken so long to post them since i have been back for about 3 weeks.it took me a while to organize and write descriptions so take the time to read them! oh, disclaimer: my i lost all the photots that i had taken [b/c i had to reformat my card] so none of these photos were taken by me and if the picture looks quality most likely it was taken by Leena. photos are best seen enlarged; take the time [there's about 130 of them] click here
the following link goes to pictures taken by Leena Korpijaakko and give a good portrayal of the region that we lived in for 8 weeks. click here

that's all for now, but i'll attempt to post a few more stories or explanations of photos during the next week. email if ya got questions or answers

Recounting the days

Hmm, where to begin? i could start with last night's eating of sheep head, but maybe i'll back track and finish off with that.
so, first i'll talk about the village since that's where i left off last. the guy i agreed to go with was only 23 and there was something about him that i just didn't trust, but in desparation to get out of Naryn [the town i have been working in]i agreed to go. [funny looking back, in some ways both he and i used eachother: i used him to get out of town and experience village culture and he used me to teach english and buy him a few meals. i think it works.]
so, we left early in the morning and they tried to tell me that my freind Jake [17 yrs old, the youngest on the team] could not go b/c there was no room for him. but considering that most likely we'd be sleeping on the floor and there's always room for that and that we've probably slept in some places that they'd never think of i talked them into letting him join.
the journey was about a 5 hour total drive and somewhere along the way we stopped to pee and like flies to candy 3 or 4 children ran up to our taxi holding plates of fried fish. completely random, especially since there is not a lake in sight, but i figured that anything that could kill me was itself killed in the fryer so i ate one and it was great. tasted like mojarra, mmmm and that makes me miss mexico and mexican food. we got to their home which was very traditional and humble. the guys share a bed in one room and have a small desk in there; the room is heated by a coal burning stove at one end and they use cow pie to start the fire [sweet! its just grass anyway right?] meals are cooked in another room by the lady that owns the property and little round faced children bounce around the room and off eachother and their mom as she cooks. a few nights later we were given the highest and most important KR national dish a guest could get: Beshbarmat. it literally means five thumbs b/c its eaten w/your hands and all share the same bowl. the food is sheep face meat mixed w/oil and seasoning and thrown in w/noodles and then mixed by hand [of course]. really, it was pretty good and i had a great time laughing at the little boy who played with the grease and fat on his hands as it cooled and coagulated making sounds as he smushed his hands together.
the first day there was some confusion/excitement about an americans peresence in a village in the middle of no where. i was able to go around the village with a man whose translated name meant 'strong gold' [i kept wondering if it had anything to do with his teeth that the soviets gave him but i'm sure he wasn't born with them even though imagination might argue]. he took attendance and checked those who did not make it to school. we must have visited at least 14 houses and were given bread and tea at all of them. i've never eaten so much bread, i felt like spongebob and i kept having to pee on the street [that's what they do here] like a night after hanging out w/the guys. the houses are all the same and so representative of this country. usually a small room that everyone cooks in and maybe another where they sleep; outside there is usually a courtyard where the sheep are penned and a small storage shed. many of the people are warm and few are suspicious; people are people. one bobushka imparticular was so appreciative of our presence.
so the two schools i was able to help out with were so grateful that they had a native english speaker that they would completely interrupt a class and put me in front and expect me to give a full fledged english lesson. hmm, i've never taught in front of a class before and i don't claim to have full authority of the english language myself, but i speak it so that's enough right? well, it was; most of the time they just wanted to hear me talk. i taught classes of 9 year old to classes of 17 yr olds and by far the best classes were the 13-14ers. these kids were hungry to learn and made teaching so fun! i never thought i could teach, but the whole experience makes me consider doing it in the future.
our trip to the village concluded with a second tour and the hospitality of a group of 21 year olds who invited us into one of their houses. he sat us down and asked if i wanted to watch a "sexy movie" while he went to get something [of course i declined, it was funny though and what may be even more hilarious and awkward is the thought watching porn w/strange kyrgyz men. that's an adventure i never want to have]. when he came back he had gifts for me and jake! random gifts! jake got a dress shirt and i received a pair of socks [no pun intended in relation to the previous brackets] and a traditional traditional kyrgyz hat. he soon brought out the national drink: kuh-myz. this drink he insisted on calling kyrgyz tequila, but i still cringed as the cottage cheese-tasing substance made its way past my taste buds. you see, the drink is made from fermented horse milk and has a very mild alcoholic value to it.
jake and i traveled back to naryn alone and enjoyed quite and easy trip [though the first half was in a crowded marshukah making random stops to pick up people in the early 4am morning and reminded me of a trip to mexico i took with the famly when i was 10 but without the chickens]. when i returned i got some strange chest cold that lingered for 2 weeks along with some revelation of this whole experience which is still lingering and i'll share those thoughts later. thanks for reading and show some love people!

Breaking the silence

i really need to apologize for the past weeks of silence. my time in the village was amazing! but since then it has been very busy while returning to my job as team cook and embracing other responsibilities such as service work for the elderly [but more on that later]. the power shortage also played a part, as every time i had a chance to check the internet it the computer lounges were non operative [there are two lounges which only have 4 computers each and the temp is maybe 5 degrees warmer than the outside].
currently i'm in the KR capitol bishkek and happy to much warmer and healthy. our team is wrapping up with a debrief before we fly back to the states in 3 days. beautiful and amazing things have happened over the past few weeks that i can barely comprehend let alone regurgitate for you to read but i'll do my best tomorrow. check back then, i just wanted to say hello.

This week has been a struggle for myself and the team and there is no doubt about it. I have seen how improper preparation for outreach leads to extreme frustration and slow take off, but we are off, we are here and although movement has been slow things are moving. What has been difficult to adjust to is the movement of life down here which reflects the temperature. The highs during the day barely reach above 0 Fahrenheit and drop to -20 at night and with that come new experiences like having my larynx freeze and feeling frozen nose hairs, something I never thought could happen. The Kyrgyz culture is not a task oriented culture and there has been a learning curve to realize this. For example: I planned having a 30 minute meeting with a man today that turned into 2 hours (I should have known better). But at least the meeting was productive: the man is an English teacher at a remote village and asked if I could visit for the week and critique him as well as assist his students; I eagerly agreed. This will be a new adventure as the village is a little more than 200km away and because of the roads a fine 5-6hr drive, which of course I don’t mind. The man constantly made sure that I was okay with poor 3rd world conditions during our conversation (obviously he doesn’t know me well and has been watching too much MTV) and was not convince by me telling him that it wasn’t going to be a problem for me. Hand shakes here are seals for contracts and broken contracts are seen as dishonor (sounds like “the good ol” days doesn’t it?), so at the end of our conversation I agreed to join him and his companion teacher for a 6 day stay. Afterward they invited me and some friends over for dinner.
Hospitality here is amazing since they treat all guests with the highest honor (you never know when you might be entertaining angels ). They have a saying here that goes,” two mountains will never meet, but two people can” which is reflective of their willingness to make friends. The hospitality has an interesting tradition where they only fill you tea cup up half way so you can finish soon and they gladly fill your cup again. Chai (tea), naan (bread) and meat (and vodka, though technically not food) make up the basics of the Kyrgyz diet so there are plentiful and can be expected at every meal. Naan is traditional cut and set on the table and to refuse it when offered is disrespectful. We were blessed on this night to have a traditional dish called ‘kurdoc’ which usually includes potatoes and seasoned meat. Although this time kurdoc had no potatoes I did have the privilege of watching him carve the sheep right in front of me and about 15 minutes later a plate of hot salted sheep meat was placed in front of my friends and I; no plates, just forks and a community plate. Before we left our new friends promised us more traditional food in the upcoming days and confirmed once again (by handshake) that we will meet them in the morning to depart on the week’s new adventure.
What else is going on? Well the week has been very fruitful after all. Some of the team members have been able to connect with the locals over conversations on the street, in the bazaar and over meals. Most of the members of the team have been pulled in off the street for a feast and one was even invited to spend the night. We have been able to give support to a missionary family that is here on a long term basis as well as visit one of the local pastors twice a week to spend time with him and his mini orphanage. We were able to connect with a couple from the Peace Corps that has been here for almost two years and were given some insight and prospects for us to engage while we’re here. The snowboard ministry is still booming (and so satisfying as you can imagine). I was able to speak with the man who operates the tow ropes just outside of town and he willing accepted my offer to have our team give free lessons to the locals. Today was our first opportunity to that just after a local ski competition finished. Everyone wants to get at least one try on a board and is so grateful after; in fact, we have regulars: a group of guys 15-17 that turn and stop with control!
Sadly, as of the last couple days I’ve suddenly realized I’m out of my comfort zone and am seeing the stark contrast between my way of life and life here (it’s like delayed culture shock), but small things keep me grounded and in perspective like listening to my ipod and drinking some of the coffee that I brought. Last night I was able to watch a UFC dvd that a friend purchased at the bazaar for 40com (a little more than a buck) and some how watching guys beat the snot out of each other made me feel like I was at home for a bit (that’s for you Trav). [and ya, I know, that’s kind of demented] and somehow simply writing this blog keeps me grounded and I remember once again to embrace The Process.
Thanks for reading the blab!

The blog following this is one that I just posted but was written days ago (so you should really read that first) and in re-reading my last blog I fear that I may have painted a bleak picture w/the last paragraph. Although times are frustrating here I have been able to some things. The first is my team job that I briefly mentioned which is cooking. Thank God that I do not cook everyday, but setting up a cooking schedule and making sure everything runs smoothly is something that I do constantly. It was a blessing and exhausting to be cooking for the team the first week and helped me to get to know town more, but I won’t need to be doing that for another week. Pictures of the bazaar, our dinning room and the fruits of some of my labor can be found in the slideshow to the right of the page. I wish I could post pics directly on here but bandwidth is so slow over here I had to do it this way.
Another of the things I get to do here is go to a village about half hour away and assist with English classes (pics on slideshow). This has been a great blessing. For the most part people in the village get around on horseback and tend to their flocks. Most recently we showed up to teach and found out that school was canceled due to the upcoming new year (communication is not great as you can imagine), but we were able to watch a new years school celebration and were welcomed with open arms.
And there have been some developments in the things I have set out to do. There are two families doing the work of the way here that we have been able to assist with. The first is the family that runs a small orphanage: here I have helped set up things to be done with the children as well as work around the house (I cannot imagine the work they do). In fact today I was able to help clear their yard of snow (which took 2hours) and have some soccer games; it was definitely the highlight of the day. With the second family we’ve also been able to establish assistance that will lighten their load to efficiently work with the nationals they’re building into as well as establish network that will be beneficial to both them and future teams that come to what we are attempting to.
Thanks for reading, more next week.

Or at least something like that was what I was told and I think it means “happy new year!” (I hope anyway, people could have been saying that I smelled like sheep urine, or worse.) This was an interesting new year, but only one to be expected around here. Let me begin a few days earlier. On the 30th I met one of the local pastors around here who does everything: church planting, spreading the news along with running a small orphanage and supporting the family with raising sheep and cattle; needless to say he is one of those few that you meet once in a lifetime and you know you’re in the presence of greatness; he is one for whom it is written “in those days there were giants in the land”. I caught a fever later that night nothing ravaging, but something that temporarily laid me out so I slept in until noon on the 31st. We then went for an earlier meal at a local restaurant that began to play techno 80’s/90’s music with Billy Joel (interesting). New Year is a big holiday here since for the most part they do not celebrate Christmas; everything shuts down even the restaurants and small family stores and everyone stays home to spend time with family and friends. Then at midnight the restaurants that double as a disco open and everyone parties till they drop, but the team and I had a different plan. Being the outdoors people we are, we took a hike into the local foothills (with a nice foot of snow) to watch the New Year roll in. it was beautiful! Fireworks everywhere lighting up the city below; serious Disneyland fireworks can be bought off the street for a few bucks (since china is so close), and of course we had our own with a little champagne. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
The next day I was awakened by a certain Finnish friend jumping on me and cajoling me into going to the bazaar to buy groceries for the night’s dinner with her; I gave in pretty easy. I’ve never seen the bazaar in the state that it was; it might as well have had some tumble weeds blowing through. There was hardly anyone there which is in quite contrast to the way it usually is jostling with life and color, walking shoulder to shoulder and having someone shove some random piece of sheep meat in my face (on one occasion the meat cart was being pushed by with the meat steaming in the cold Kyrgyz air meaning a fresh kill). There were in fact only a few people at the bazaar: one tried to sell us meat out of the trunk of her car (black market meat?) and the other was selling produce out of the back of their car; we figured black market produce was safer so we thought we’d go meatless for the night’s meal. After making prep for the meal we decided to go for a hike and some snowboarding. Yes, that’s right I did mention the 12-16” of fresh snow that we got and the fact that we brought 5 boards with us? Well, we did. Snowboarding is actually part of the outreach we do here and we were able to begin last week when the snow fall gave us enough coverage. Most of the time we begin walking to the mountains everyone knows what we’re doing and children start following and last week I found myself giving snowboarding lessons when I looked downhill and saw men leading a cow down the street (that’s really not something you see everyday snowboarding). They also have small graveyards in the hills that are really cool to ride past too (they would make a great photo shoot). However on this day (January 1st), as we walked into the hills a family was having a holiday gathering around a bonfire and invited into the circle when they saw us. Before I realized it vodka a forced into my hand followed by all the men saying “salaam gorum” and making drinking motions; I didn’t want to insult so I accepted the hospitality chased with a local delicacy being shoved in my face. So I ate that too, which if not for the rubbing alcohol taste left in my mouth would have otherwise made me gag. You see what I swallowed was gelatinized sheep fat with spices [can you say mmm?]; and if you’ve had menudo before and put the leftovers in the fridge, well it tastes like that disgusting looking layer of jello fat that floats on the top. Yuck!
Well, what else are we doing here? To be honest that’s a question that I often find myself asking on a daily basis. A great deal of the work is inviting nationals to dinner and meeting and building relationship from there, but often that just doesn’t seem like enough. One of the big things that we were going to do fell through and that was working with the orphanage; we were able to visit and work with the children a few times until I went there one day last week only to find dead silence and no children. The next day I went with a translator to discover that because of the local energy crisis the children had been sent to a warmer city and not to return until march, bummer. The highlight of today was taking a marshooka ride. A marshooka is an 8 passenger van that the city uses like a shuttle and during “rush hour” I counted 23 people in one ride that I took. Yes, that’s right: people sitting on laps and butts in the face, but its all normal for the locals. My friends and I had a blast laughing at each other; oh by the way, the marshooka’s have this permanent cigarette and vodka smell in them and there’s almost always one drunk riding that always finds his way next to my friend James. Funny thing that I’ve recently observed about intoxication: it’s a helpful translator for any language. Ya, I’ve had deep conversations with inebriated individuals that ranged from Russian occupation to free dentistry and gold teeth to my beard and marital status. Really, one of the best parts of my day. The second would be a drunken 55 year old woman that had me and Leena dance with her during dinner tonight. We were eating at one of those restaurants that turned into a disco with booming techno music halfway through our meal, but it was fun and man that drunk lady could move.
I know I joke a lot on this blog, but please don’t take me lightly. I take seriously what I’m doing here and struggling for purpose is something I do and will continue to do daily. My frustrations with the leadership on this team are at a boiling point: organization and communication are inadequate and poor. Ministry and work should have been pre-arranged and ready for us to jump into, but it hasn’t been and I’m finding that I have had to go out and set things up for myself to do so I don’t rot weeks of my life away here, which is fine but I was put under the impression that things were laid out for us. I mean, this place is nice and great to visit but the magic wears after ten days of going to the bazaar to buy food and then cooking for 15-17 people. So I’ve arranged to meet with people from the Peace Corps later this week along with some locals to see how myself and the team can get plugged in. please, pray for open doors and work!!! Salaam to everyone from Kyrgyzstan!
PS. Merry Christmas too! Ours was great I helped make a 4 course meal that included a huge leg of lamb. Peace.