So, according to everyone around, while temperatures this winter have been mild (yikes), where we’ve really had excess is in snow. It first came down from the sky in October. It hasn’t really ever melted, and for a while there was falling every day.

This makes snow removal an issue, to say the least. The one main street in town, Lenin, is one of the very few that are paved, and the only one that is plowed, though only rarely. On days when the snow is fresh, the cars that don’t have chains on their tires make sliding stops as regular practice. When the snow is tough and packed, the only real concern is slipping while you cross.

The side streets show no hope of plowing, and the thick snow does wonders to fill the pot holes. When kids aren’t sledding on the hills, or sliding, for fun, on every possibly decline, they’re grabbing onto cars as they slow down to round corners, and then sliding down the street attached to them (a practice I’ve heard is also common in Detroit.)

Now shoveling, as we think of it, is a bit different out here, if for no other reason than the curious layout of the standard home. Kyrgyz houses don’t generally have a front door. Instead, facing the street is just the plane side of the house, and next to it, a tall, metal gate. This gate will generally have one entrance for people and one for cars. Once inside, there will be a driveway, at the end of which features a garage. Before that garage, however, will be a turn off, sending you to what we would consider the back door of the house. This does not occupy all of the space in yard, however. Generally one can also find some yard space, an outhouse, maybe a fruit tree, and a large dog cage. Sometimes there will even be two buildings for different uses depending on the season.

Take note here: Long driveway, little lawn. Good for cars in the summer, bad for your back in the winter.

At my house, this all means starting from the gate and pushing all of the snow towards the back where there is a little strip of green. We filled that up about a month ago. Next was the same procedure, just a little farther back, to another green spot, until we filled that up too. The last timed it snowed we went way back, to a far corner. But for this maneuver, my family had a system. We’d shovel out a path, and then lay a fleece blanket down. We’d pile a mountain of snow on the blanket and then drag it to the back corner, where we’d shovel it again.

That was cool, but we’re the lucky ones. Up and down the streets here in Sunny Naryn, both big and small, there are huge mounds of snow, some 4 feet high, and the average American would assume them to be from the giant shovel of the plows. But no, not here. Here, it is the concerted labor of countless men, bearing one load after another of snow, carried in wheelbarrows, on blankets, pieces of siding and sleds. All of this sound pretty reasonable? Now, imagine that instead of an ergonomically correct, light plastic shovel, you’re doing this with a piece of plywood fitted between the teeth of a picthfork. But thats just life, folks, and I love it.