Last week found ol’ Kyrgy Carl jaunting around Bishkek and the serene Lake Issyk Kul. See, with my natural dyes course all but wrapped up, I took the opportunity to indulge myself.

Bishkek, folks, is a city in its own right. There are little cafes and shady parks. Kyrgyz people sit beneath trees and on street corners selling hard yogurt balls, sunflower seeds, and other various sundries. The center of town holds a strikingly symmetrical array of imposing state buildings and fountains. Furthermore, the Internet can be so free flowing, that I used and abused that thing we all know as Facebook!

These days, folks, I’ve got friends in Bishkek. Since the beginning, the place I so liberally called a “metropolis” just keeps getting smaller.

From Bishkek, I made my way back to the Lake – it is, after all, apple season.

For those of you who remember my old teacher, Tamerlane, the Hero King, he was, just as last year, picking apples when I arrive. This time, however, helping him was my goal. We spent the better part of a morning together, just picking apples. We spoke mostly in Kyrgyz, a vast change from when I first met him. We told stories, and just enjoyed each other’s company. The serenity was profound.

If there are many things prettier than a hand on a red apple, framed only by a cloudless sky, I’d be hard-pressed to name them.

Later that day, some other volunteers showed up form the nearby city of Karakol, a real urban center. They came to help, but also to play. They wanted to slaughter a sheep. During our first day, we cleaned off some mighty apple trees in record time. The next morning, we headed to the animal bazaar.

Once there, in a funny way, I got to demonstrate some chops I hardly knew I had. I talked knowledgeably about sheep prices, and then helped tie up the animal’s legs. “Azamat!” said my teacher.

When we got home, I held the animal down while he slit its throat. Some of the other visiting volunteers were shocked by the site, for they’d yet to see a slaughter. It just shows to go you: there are as many volunteer experiences as there are volunteers. Next, when it came to butchering the animal, my teacher just said, “please, guys, go inside, and have some tea. I only need one helper, and for that, I’ll take the Naryn boy.” That Naryn boy, was of course, your Kyrgy Carl.

Really, though, it was a learning opportunity. Usually, folks, while I get to watch, nobody really wants me to help cut up the animal; there are inevitably people better qualified, even as helpers. Here though, I helped with the skinning, I knew when to snap the knees, and where to grab at the tendons. The organs didn’t scare me, and I knew they wouldn’t just break. When it came to torching the head and legs free of their fir, I was an absolute pro.

It seems, folks, Kyrgy Carl is living up to his name. He couldn’t have done it alone, though. And for that, god bless the lot of you, as you’ve been here, all the way, right by my side.

I got an interesting phone call last week. It was from my superiors in Bishkek. They had seen the Trees for the Kyrgyz success video, and wanted to show it at their next big event. The event in questions? The Swearing In ceremony for the new class of volunteers.

And so this is how I was introduced to the new volunteers, introduced not by my Christian moniker, but instead as I am apparently known but the staffers in our main office, as Kyrgyz Carl. The reaction, among my compatriots, was positive, though did inspire some gentle ribbing.

“We should drop him off in the mountains somewhere, get him lost,” one of the new volunteers told a friend of mine, “that way we’ll lower expectations on ourselves.”

To which my friend so appropriately replied, “you don’t know how much he’d like that.”

And so it goes. We were the new guys, learning the ways of the experienced crew. Now, it is us who are showing people around, telling them what we know. And talking to them, folks, is different than writing letters home. For instance, during our first meet-and-greet, my friend said, “well, I don’t think anyone has been really hassled out here.”

“Well,” I countered, “there was that time I got into a taxi with a drunk guy, who sped down towards the bazaar, and chased me from his car swinging his fists.”

Whereas here, folks, I focus on the wonderful moments, the ones that extend to the majority of my service, I felt obliged to warn these guys. They know how wonderful it is here, how safe it is. I told them about the time a very, VERY drunk old man grabbed my bag strap, perhaps trying to greet me, as he was to drunk to speak. We pushed him off gently, though, because we didn’t want to knock him over.

And I got to thinking, in those moments of story-telling reflection, how different one audience is from the other. Folks, I give you my world here, in positives and negatives, in the proportions that I see it.

But so is life. And this new crew is throwing me, and many of us in the old guard reflecting. Before we were comfortable with our language abilities, before we had friends in the community. Before we were clear on our jobs and were close to our coworkers.

And in that reflection, it has grown clear how that comfort snuck up on us. Little by little, we grew with this place, and are still growing. And as much as I want to show and teach the new volunteers, I know how much I needed to learn it all myself. This part of Peace Corps, the transition to the new generation of volunteers, is a very real part. The city is now populated with so many more of us, with new personalities and goals. It is an exciting time. More so that those sneaky little feelings would have led me to believe.