Osh, Kyrgyzstan: Revenge of the Stomach Demons

That's right, I am sick. However, I dropped the A-bomb of antibiotics (Cipro) on the terrorists that hijacked my digestive tract and the warbling cries from my stomach have waned.

News: Today is the beginning of Ramadan.

Last week we held our 10th discussion club. Topic: Gender Issues. Four Peace Corps Volunteers assisted with the discussion and we had over 50 participants. We started the discussion by having the male students write down a list of reasons why they think it is good to be a woman; while the women created a list of why they thought it was good to be a man. This certainly spawned some interesting discussion.

Next Topic: Time Management: Again, the students choose the topics. I think this will actually be fun to talk about the different cultural perceptions of Time. It will also be fun to count how many people wander in late...

The more I adapt to living in Kyrgyzstan the harder it gets to write about Kyrgyzstan. The little peculiarities become common place. For example, I no longer wonder why the base of every street-lined tree is painted white. Or, why do those old ladies walking through the bazaar poke and prod me to move faster--can't they see that there's like 500 people in front of me, which is why I am not moving forward. I've accepted that sandpaper makes a more effective toilet paper and that garbage, when viewed in the right light, just looks like big pieces of confetti after a parade (though I still refuse to litter--even though many well-educated people encourage me to do so). I've also accepted that milk and yogurt should be sold by a lyrical cartel of price-fixing women who wander the sidewalks at 7AM bellowing their song, "Milk, Yogurt, I-Ron".

So, it's been hard to write a bit lately. But I'll work on it...

Take care,

Larry Tweed (Now in the 28th stage of culture shock, AKA, "the banal phase")