Two Stops Past Siberia
- Projects
- Handicrafts
- Books
- A History of Inner Asia, Svat Soucek
- Beyond the Sky and the Earth, Jamie Zeppa
- Chasing the Sea, Tom Bissell
- Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Christopher I. Beckwith
- Erica Marat, The Tulip Revolution: One Year After
- High Adventure in Tibet, David V. Plymire
- Setting the East Ablaze, Peter Hopkirk
- Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron
- The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, Chingiz Aitmatov
- The Great Arab Conquests, Hugh Kennedy
- The Lost Heart of Asia, Colin Thubron
- This is Not Civilization, Robert Rosenberg
- Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
- Informations
Archive for August, 2009
Relaxed Day
Posted by KyrgyCarl in Bonus Content! on August 30, 2009
So, it’s been a quiet week here in Sunny Naryn. The summer feels like it is finally here – that means it feels to warm to wear pants. Without one clear vignette to give you all about the recent times of my life here, I’m going to present, instead, a casual synopsis of an uneventful week, a day-in-the-life, if you will.
Canvassing at work has long been finished, so I spend my days strolling in around 9:30 or ten, after conversing pleasantly with my family over breakfast in the morning. Sometimes when I get to work there are people there, sometimes the door is locked. I’ve yet to discover a rhythm as to when people arrive, so if no one is around, I’ll take a seat outside and do flashcards, or mosey over to the UNDP office, or often to the University, and visit my friends who work there. Needless to say, stress levels are decidedly low.
Last week a fellow SOCD volunteer, and good friend of mine from distant Talas City came to visit. His project out there is the same as mine, the Clean City Campaign, so I introduced him to people, and showed him our progress. We swapped stories and joked about how much of the project we’d understand if we all spoke the same language.
The day after he was satisfied with his time here, the two of us went to nearby Kochkor to visit another volunteer who works at Golden Hands, or the famed Altyn Kol cooperative. They sell high-quality felt carpets called shyrdocks to unsuspecting tourists. Their network of local artisans keeps them famed in the carpet world, and their organizational skills keep them busy with orders from abroad. So the three of us then did much of what my Talas Friend did the day before – swapped stories, shared, enjoyed each other’s company. Not a tough moment between us.
Here in Naryn, I’ve just come from a large series of meetings between some large local NGOs, notably the Kyrgyzstan – New Zealand Rural Trust. This NZ group featured a 40 year veteran of development work, clearly as interested in village level development as he was in developing the NGO’s he contracted with themselves.
This meeting showed me first hand what development work is really like, on the ground. It, more than anything, impressed upon me how lucky I am to be here, to be presented with opportunities to learn these skills. How not six months ago no proper development agency would have wanted anything to do with little tender-footed me. But today, I’m learning directly from UNDP specialists and seasoned development consultants, the folks whose lives are the light at the end of my tunnel.
Now today, I’m resting in my room, listening Cadillac by Keller Williams . I’m going to visit some neighbors shortly. I’m going to have to take my shoes off when I get to their house, but won’t want to walk around barefoot. The convenient solution? Socks with Sandals. All the way.
By the way folks, Internet Master Matt has KyrgyCarl.com up and running again. All the old letters are there. Enjoy!
Originally Written August 29th, 2009
High Adventure at 13,000 Feet
So, in Chicago, the luxury of good friends and close family is vast, while adventure can be thin on the ground. Here in Kyrgyzstan, where all my friends (and family) are new, the luxury of adventure happily tries to fill that void in my life.
This past Wednesday, I got an unexpected call from a volunteer one year deep in his service. “Some guys and I are going to spend the weekend in mountains, traveling to yurts on horseback, wanna come?”
Well, two days later, the five of us were piling into a 25 year old Audi helmed by Mr. Zoo, the one time Himalayan long-haul truck driver, water purifier, and anti-Taliban Soviet sniper. He dropped us off at Tash Rabat, the 15th century, stone, Silk Road pit stop, still miraculously well preserved. On our first night, we tooled around the grounds, basking in the mystery of the structure, the valley, and prefect blue skies.
After a rousing night in one of the nearby yurts, we mounted our steeds (wearing our PC approved bicycle helmets, of course) and headed for Chatyr-Kol, or Roof Lake, reached by a 6 hour, 13,000 foot pass.
The weather was warm and golden, and the scenery was beautiful, defined by big green hills with long spines of stone growing from their crests. Our guide would utter little beyond vague directional’s, otherwise, giving us free range to lollygag, trot or gallop. As we reached the pass, however, we bunched up, and he watched us close as the path turned into little more than the most solid trail of sand and rock, helping our horses ascend the mountain.
At the top of the pass, we saw the 12 by 25 kilometer Roof Lake splayed before us, with the Torugart Pass planted clearly on the other side, just another time in my life where I found myself gazing at the lands of China. That night, as we brushed our teeth next to the stream outside of our yurt, picking out constellations in the clear sky, our guide asked, “so, if it snows tomorrow, can we just spend the night?” “Not a chance!” we shot back, laughing at his little joke.
But he wasn’t joking. The next morning, as the owners pulled the flap off the roof of our yurt, we were greeted by thick clouds and snowflakes. While this crew of adventurous guys somehow knew this might happen, none of us were really quite prepared for heavy snowfall in August. So we donned every article of clothing we had, from camp towels as scarves, to my rain-coat stuff-sack as a mitten.
But neither too were we prepared to see a heard of yaks resting comfortably in the blizzard before a dramatic stone mountain with Swiss-cheese holes, dropped out of a scene from Lord of the Rings. It was wonderful and beautiful and unlike anything I’ve done in my life.
As wonderful and dangerous as that sandy pass was covered in snow, the real test was the last 2 hours, in the pouring rain. I can guarantee you folks, you’ll never be happier to see a yurt with a fire of cow dung, than after a trek like that.
Originally Written August 16th, 2009
To Fun and Infinity
So, I’ve said before that summer here revolves around Summer Camps and Nature, most notably our beautiful Lake Issyk Kul. Well, for the last week, I’ve been doing my best to combine all this fun into one magical moment.
One of my fellow volunteers here in Sunny Naryn organized a sleep-away camp at a family resort on the north shore of the lake. The idea was to take 21 kids, ages 16 and 17, and for five days teach them about what college life in America is like.
The trip began, an hour late, 6 hours on a bus straight from a 1950’s mass transit system. While going uphill, the engine, resting comfortably beneath the first row of seats, roared and heated the cabin, and on the way down the mountains, we had to shut the windows, because the driver seemed content to simply coast. In the back, girls played pop music loud from their cell phones, and our small cohort of 4 boys sat together, quiet, in sunglasses.
Our days at the camp were half work, half play. As the USLA would have been proud, we stayed indoors from 9 until 3, basking our children, not in UV Rays, but with interactive training sessions on materials for college entrance, like Statement of Purpose essays, and proper interview techniques.
During one icebreaker, we asked the kids to imagine their lives, 1, 5 and 10 years down the line. Somehow I was surprised by their gasps, taken aback that we’d ask them to look so far into their futures. But by the end they got the hang of it, and the steely-eyed girl with straight bangs in her matching black-and-yellow Adidas track-suit stole the show, professing how within ten years she’d have two children and an American husband.
As the work days were peppered with coffee breaks, game breaks, and lunch, it was the afternoons that made it clear why this camp was so far from home. For 3 hours every day, we brought everyone down to the lake. These skinny little kids would go in the water until they shivered, and then we’d organize beach games, like which team could make the longest line in the sand, using only their bodies and their extra clothes. In the evenings, the camp organized grander events, like a bonfire, dances at the discotheque, and big hooplas where the kids got up and performed on the fancy resort stage.
For this American, having been to college (twice!) I wondered what these kids would actually find once they got there. We entertained ourselves with simple games I haven’t seen since grade school, and no one seemed worried about any hanky-panky in the night. On the bus ride back, us all newly comfortable, we played knee-slapping rhythm games, and sang Kyrgyz pop songs. One of our 4 boys regaled the group with stories about his rural upbringing, 8 siblings and lots of livestock.
What will these beautiful kids bring to our great country? And what will we give them in return? Just some food for thought, fresh, from the other side of the earth.
Originally Written August 13th, 2009
A Taste of the Dream
This here is Kyrgy Carl, writing from the (possibly) most mountainous country on Earth.
I’ve just had a taste of my dream job, boiled mutton and lots of dairy products made from horse milk –hang on tight folks, and enjoy the ride.
So yesterday I began what looks to be a very promising partnership with the local United Nations Development Project. They have agreed to let me tag along with their poverty reduction work in local villages, in exchange for little more than the opportunity to bask in my unbridled excitement (as best as I can tell.)
The day began with the UN driver, boasting intimate knowledge of every road, river and valley in the Naryn oblast, taking us to the village of “Uchkun” or “Spark.” Half hour or so outside of Naryn City, we found a room full of 20 eager women, ages 25 to 50. The ladies had recently developed “self-help groups” among themselves, and were preparing for micro-finance loans to develop handicraft cooperatives, milk processing facilities, and a host of other small enterprises.
When they asked me what I thought of it all, I tried to explain to them how exciting their excitement was, and how valuable their energy was. God only knows what came out, but everyone seemed pleased as punch that I spoke as well as I did.
After the meeting, we were invited to the community leader’s home for a lunch of boiled lamb over a kind of fried rice. This dish comes complete with the salty, oily water that the lamb was boiled in as a drink, and if you prefer (which I do) you can mix it with fermented mare’s milk.
Down an exceedingly bumpy road, which our driver navigated with expertise, after lunch we arrived at “Lone Poplar,” a veteran UN project village. These women, just as excited, but clearly old pros, had more concrete questions, like complications with handicraft sales, and improving technology for turning milk into cheese and cream.
They also had more concrete questions for me, like, “who was that girl you were walking with in town on Monday?” and “didn’t I see you the other day on the news?” It seems that, due to no fault of my own, I’m becoming somewhat of a celebrity in my own right.
And, true to form, after this meeting, we were invited to another house, and served more fried rice, boiled lamb as well as the boiled, oil-water to drink.
Traveling to local villages and helping them develop is, as you might by now know, definitely my dream job.
But the capstone on the dream, was, as always, what I found upon arriving home. When I walked in the door, my father said to me, “Carl! We killed a sheep today!”
“How come?” I asked.
“Because we didn’t have any other meat!” he said.
Fresh sheep? That means Besh Barmak – boiled sheep over very well cooked noodles, with, as always, the salty-sheep-meat-oil-water as thirst quenching drink. As I mixed my drink with yogurt made from horse milk, I watched my sister-in-law tear the roof of the sheep’s mouth off, and split it with my 9 year old sister. Then she poked the sheep’s eyes out with her thumbs, backwards, threw the temples.
I’ve finally arrived folks, its true.
That’s all from my corner of the world. Thanks for reading, thanks for writing back. I love all of you.
Originally Written July 30th, 2009
The Hot Lake of Dreams
So, its been a little while since my last letter, (for those of you who’ve been counting.) The limiting factor here in Naryn City is Internet access. Internet here is served from the second floor of a dark, Soviet building. As capitalism hits this country, creative reuse of structures is common. There is a boxing gym in the bottom of the Mayor’s building and the blocky 3 storey structure with its window-less lobby that houses the internet, also sports a barber shop, bakery, and carnival colored phone booths.
But these past weeks have been exciting to say the least, and have showed me that I really do live here, and in these 4 short months, have, in fact, created a real life for myself.
I headed out last week to the mountain gem of this entire region, Lake Issik-Kul. Kyrgyz songs and proverbs reference this place with reverence. Being there, the cool, humid air, fruit trees and tropical feel leant itself more to lowland, coastal Guatemala than highland, landlocked Central Asia.
The lake itself, called “Hot Lake” in Kyrgyz, is named such because its thin salinity keeps it from freezing in the winter. It feels as big as any Great Lake, but instead of seeing the smokestacks of Gary from the beach on a clear day, to see land you have to gaze high above the horizon to see only snow-capped, mountain peaks.
I was working in the city of Barskon on a Habitat for Humanity project. By day, 10 other Peace Corps volunteers and I would make layer cakes of stucco powder for even mixing, while our donations paid for skilled laborers to actually apply the stuff. After work we’d go to the beach, play charades, and have dinner with the family we were building the house for.
Arguably, one of the peak moments was trading insults with my friend from college, Jared. He learned Russian, and I Kyrgyz, and our hosts are naturally fluent in both. So Jared would say, in Russian, “I went to college with Carl. He never bathed, and the girls didn’t like him.” “True,” I’d say in Kyrgyz, “but Jared can’t read, and he’d always asked me what the teachers were talking about in class.” We would use just enough pantomime so that we’d catch each other’s retorts, but only the locals could really understand it all. It was like our own little tri-lingual comedy routine.
After that week of hard labor in Barskon, another friend and I rolled an hour down the coast to spend the weekend with our Kyrgyz language teacher from training, Timerlan the Hero-King. As his wife set pads out for us to sleep on in the guestroom, and he gave us dinner in his backyard yurt, I realized that I have vacations to take here, and friends to visit in this strange country. Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan has now, officially surpassed the study abroad experience; it is not travel or tourism, it is not even just part of my life; right now, it is my life. Who’d ever have thought.
That’s all for now folks. Turns out, there’s no post cards for sale here in my sleepy mountain town, but I’ve got a batch on its way up from the more touristed south. Do keep in touch.
Originally Written July 23rd, 2009
Summer Camps for the Children of Tomorrow
So, summertime in Peace Corps Kyrgyzstan is camp time. Country wide, oblast by oblast, volunteers host a variety of summer-camps for local Kyrgyz school children. They come in different lengths and with different themes.
Currently, we have a “leadership” camp running here in Naryn city, hosted out of a local high school, where 40 kids come from 9 to 5, and do activities ranging from anti-smoking sessions, to dancing in the afternoon, to “English for Fun!” In the mornings, I lead a session on “critical thinking.”
What this means, really, is that for half an hour I encourage the kids to be creative, where they are given problems and every answer is correct. One day, the scenario was, “you have two stools, but three people, what do you do?” One group replied, “we’ll sell the two, and buy three cheaper stools,” another replied, “we’ll play Musical Chairs,” and another, “we’ll all just dance.”
For another situation, I asked the students to explain rather mundane occurrences, like, “the sun is not shining,” in both a realistic, and fantastical way. For this example, one group first replied, “because it is cloudy,” and second, “because the sun is offended.” Needless to say, this has been one of the high points of my work out here.
But along with our 40 students, we also have 10 some odd extra volunteers in town helping us run the camp. For the old volunteers, this means seeing those people who winter makes it so difficult to see, and for us new volunteers, this means meeting the old guard, and seeing how work gets done.
It also means after camp, we all get to hang out together. 10 twenty-somethings in an apartment together, cooking, playing cards, just generally being happy. It all reminds me that I joined the Peace Corps not only to do good work, but also because they work hard to build community among us, the volunteers, and remind you that as hard as it is to live so far away, and for so long, you always have good, familiar people close at hand.
So at 10:30 this evening, after stuffed peppers, whipped-cream pie and more Euchre than a person should play, I came home, ready for anything, and that’s just what I found.
Standing before the single hanging bare-bulb in the garage were three generations of thick Kyrgyz men, staring down the gutted carcasses of 7 cows and horses. The oldest of them was hacking apart a spine with an axe while the youngest was separating the rib cages, and throwing them onto a pile, with one of the hides protecting them from the concrete floor. Some of the carcasses, legs cut off at the knees, we just hanging on hooks on a rack. Like a scene from a horror film, whoever would have imagined that a boy from Chicago, hog butcher to the world, could be so fascinated by a room full of slaughtered cows.
Originally Written July 2nd, 2009
Just a Day
So my life here is really beginning to settle in. My weeks are spent with my horde of volunteers, watching them canvas, studying their language, and spending time with my fellow volunteers. The big variable here is my family. Sometimes I see them a lot, but sometimes I’m just too busy.
Just today, I rushed off to work and had to skip breakfast, much to Grandma’s chagrin. But once I got to there, and people started asking why I looked so tired, I realized I had a headache, a runny nose, and every other symptom there is for the common cold, not to mention quite underdressed for the weather.
So I took the day off and headed back home. My Grandma, seeing me walk in says, “So, who’s in the big hurry now?” My mom tells her I’m sick, and then the fun began. Just like my Grandma at home would have done, and every Polish babysitter I ever had: my family brought out the food – tea, bread, jam, sugar, honey, candy, last night’s dinner and a tomato with salt.
“Eat food! Saaleeep!” My mom said, in the long drawl she employs for the English words I’ve taught her.
In my room, I found my sister, cleaning her things from my closet. She stopped to tell me about how she doesn’t speak Kyrgyz very well, on account of mostly Russian schooling. How she wants to learn English, and be a translator in America. As we talked, the little ones kept poking their heads in through the doorframe, one on top of the other, like smiling cartoons. So my sister shoed them out and shut the door, then insisted on showing me how wonderfully curly her eyelashes were.
So I spent the day at home, no work, no American friends – just me and my family. I slept off my cold, and then brought out my Kyrgyz books. I came to the living room to find my sister just beginning an older movie called “Final Destination,” where some college students cheat death, only to have death track them down.
I tried to point out the not-so-subtle clues as to who would die next, but they seemed happy to just cry out at the horrible deaths of this silly, 90’s era horror flick. I must have seemed like an insensitive monster, laughing at the fun and creative ways the movie came up with for the characters to die. Though watching them cringe, I couldn’t help but think of the seven cows that were butchered by hand in their garage yesterday, or the smell of fresh flesh that generally fills the backyard.
It is so wonderful to have the luxury of a sick day, and a big family to spend it with. What more could a young man, flung so deep into the Earth’s greatest vortex of mountains ask for.
Oh, and I forgot to mention in last week’s letter that yes, Michael Jackson is dead, and yes, everyone here mourns him. Go figure.
Originally Written June 30th, 2009
Canvassing the 2nd World
I’ve had many adventures since arriving here just two weeks ago. I’ve already spent a night in a yurt in the mountains, slaughtered two sheep in one day, and attended a giant double birthday party, for my sister’s 18th, and my brother’s very auspicious 1st. The Kyrgyz 1 year old tradition is that the child takes his first official steps at this age, and then, in celebration, they hold a series of foot races among the different age groups of party guests, from the other munchkins all the way up to the forty-year-olds.
The fact that it was my sister’s 18th was important as well, as she’ll be leaving for 5 years to university in Bishkek in a few days. But along with this reason for leaving, she is also somewhat concerned about being kidnapped for a bride. This practice, though discouraged, is still practiced in some places in Kyrgyzstan, and Bishkek is one of the safest places, in this respect, in the country.
But the most extraordinary parts of my life here have been the everyday activities. I have hired a tutor who is a teacher in a Kyrgyz school. She speaks no English, and I only understand only half (at best) of what she says. She makes me memorize blessings, copy stories from children’s books, and do boring drills. But she also tells me fairy tells, and simply reminds me more of the first love of my life, my kindergarten teacher, than anyone else in the world.
And besides studying Kyrgyz, lately my days have been defined by canvassing for the “Clean City!” campaign my NGO is working on. Naryn has only a very limited formal garbage collection service. So I spend my days trailing other volunteers as we go house to house, signing people up for a new garbage program. I’ve seen one room apartments deep in lightless hallways, and large outdoor patios. I’ve been invited to come again and visit, and “tasted the bread” at more houses that I can count.
But the icing on the cake, of course, is that this program was started by one of my professors from Bucknell. This professor, currently on sabbatical doing interviews all over Kyrgyzstan, just walked into my office one day, taking pictures of me and the horde of girl volunteers, and preparing her questionnaire for my boss.
It seems as I keep traveling, folks, the word just keeps getting smaller. Sitting over a beer at a café here in town on the riverside, my professor and I talked about the program, the amazing hospitality of the people here in Kyrgyzstan, and about the students we both still know in sleepy little Lewisburg, the town that feels now like a lifetime away. Just one more piece of the puzzle that tells me everything is right.
Thanks again for being with me on this journey folks. I love hearing from all of you. Keep in touch, God bless, and its getting to be post-card time again! So shoot me an email with your name and address, and between 1 and 6 months from now, you may very well be hearing from, yours truly, the one and only, Kyrgy Carl.
Originally Written June 25th, 2009
Barbacue of Diplomatic Proportions
First of all, a big shout to the Chicago party crew, who put me to shame by eating more of your lamb than I ever have! Brains taste like cream cheese, do they? You’ve one-upped me this time, but I’ll get you all back!
So, just after I wrote my last letter, I sat down with my wonderful Ivanovka family for my last supper. My Dad brought out some vodka for the occasion (a first for us) and then proudly pointed to the meal. “It’s chicken!” he yelled. “Naughty Chicken!” Naughty Chicken in Kyrgyz roughly translates to Kamikaze Rooster in English. That’s right, for my last meal, my family slaughtered that rooster who’d been charging my legs on my way to the outhouse. Ha! Take that rooster!
Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of activity here for the Peace Corps volunteers in Kyrgyzstan. We had a big swearing-in ceremony, hosted by the ambassador herself, and then a BBQ at her house. It featured hamburgers and chips with salsa. Boring? Mundane? Regular, you say? H’ho! Not when you’re living in Kyrgyzstan! These things are delicacies!
Along with the burgers came a couple dozen of the most fluent non-native English speakers Kyrgyzstan has ever known. The ambassador invited “the most up and coming” Kyrgyz youth the country had to offer. There was an Olympic wrestler, a pair of comedians, some super-models, and a man who cryptically referred to himself as a “fixer.” There were lots of young journalists, including one “independent” fella, who sported long hair, horn-rimmed glasses, tight jeans and red Converse All-Stars – basically the best of the 1980’s underground music scene in one living breathing Kyrgyz youngster.
Arguably, the star of the event was a guy who had spent his senior year of high school in the dead center of Missouri. He impersonated rural Americans flawlessly and cursed like a sailor. At the height of his magnetism, during a long comedic rant about everyone thinking he was a British spy, our Country Director walked by. Knowing he had his audience in the palm of his hand, he turned to her and said, “Well, at least you know I’m not a British spy, because you have all their names on a list!” At which point savvy bureaucrat met confident storyteller, two veritable mountains of the backyard barbeque. They smiled at each other knowingly, both too wise to push it further, but too tickled to just play ignorant to the beautiful moment that was happening before us. They let it sit, for just a beat, and then went along their merry ways. What a beautiful place to be, in a beautiful moment, deep in the knot of mountains, that make up the center of the largest land mass in the world.
Folks, I’m happy as a clam out here. Today I’m writing from Naryn City, my new home. It’s cool and mountainous. I’ve been eating lots of mutton, and drinking lots of lightly fermented horse milk, the national drink. What more could a boy ask for.
Originally Written June 14th, 2009
The Sweet Sorrow of Moving On
It’s official now, tomorrow I will leave my family here in Ivanovka and move on to new things. There are many things I will miss from this place.
I will miss my Kyrgyz teacher, Tamerlane Hero-King, or the anti-Borat. He is sweet, and wholesome, and likes to make jokes and play “gotcha” games, like charades where the guessers are instructed to guess anything but what the mime is trying to imitate. I will also miss having class with 6 guys 6 days a week, 5 hours each day. I won’t, however, miss the odor that our classroom inevitably had, or the perpetual talk of bowel movements that inevitably exists in large groups of boys no matter where you live in the world.
I will definitely miss my Kyrgyz family. I will miss my parents here who call me lazy in the morning, but then make me dinner with a smile at night. I will miss my brother Meder who wakes me up by sneaking onto my bed in the morning, assuring me that he will be the first thing I see everyday.
Now, I might not miss the Kamikaze rooster in the back yard who charges my shins whenever I go to the outhouse. And I might not miss pooping only at night, only once the many flies who reside in that outhouse have gone to sleep. But I will surely miss the current tribe of 300 chicks who peck around the compound daily, and guessing which of them would love to similarly charge my ankles, if only given the chance.
I’m definitely going to miss watching the field in back turn from just one solid patch of fallow weeds, slowly into a neatly segregated patchwork of potatoes, tomatoes, onions and cucumbers. I will miss watching them grow. I may or may not miss hauling buckets of water up from the well using only a hoe. Though I will surely miss watching Meder drop down to his skivvies to retrieve the buckets we’ve dropped from the bottom.
It’s been a beautiful spring here in this small town. I’ve seen so many Kyrgyz family events, I’ve seen crops grow, and I’ve eaten berries from our fruit trees; I’ve also been greeted by most everyone that I pass on the street. What is Kyrgyz here? What is human? What is just simple and wonderful?
It’s not for me to say really. My role here has been to just watch and to learn; to try and figure out how to help people be happier, however they define it. To improve lives simply by my presence, and hopefully by the memory of our time together once I have left.
But isn’t that the goal of all of our lives? To be happy in the present, and happy in the lives of the people around us? I am technically here as a “development worker,” but as far as I’m concerned, there can be no greater development in a person’s life, no matter where in the world they live, than simply more happiness.
But that’s KyrgyCarl again, running his mouth. Thank you for reading folks, and thanks again for all your wonderful responses. It’s just a pleasure having you all along for the ride.
Originally Written June 6th, 2009
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