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