Well, the ten minute restriction turned into well over an hour. We had a truncated quiz show, and I watched how the KNZRT questions grew and developed in terms of the answers we had already heard.

After the meeting, of course, there was the food. This time around, however, it was paired with drinking and the group leader, who was a downright comedian. She was a new retiree, and insisted on celebrating her newly awarded pension with a bottle of vodka. Thankfully, these three shots came after a day of eating, so no drunkenness was at risk. The real value however, was in the comedy.

See, the two Noble Kiwis are well into their fifties, and are accustomed to both Kyrgyz humor, and that of women all over the world. So, when this woman began proposing to them, and joking about keeping them around as husbands, they didn’t shy away. Instead of make the joke awkward, they jumped on the bandwagon, listing off their requirements for a bride. It was a happy family endeavor, and the groups all called on us for an inevitable return.

The lunch we just received turned out to be besh barmak over rice. That seemed like enough, until a delicacy came out I’ve only ever seen once before: the organ sack, stuffed with rice, organ meat and fat, tied up to look like a duck, complete with a beak made of a carrot. It was presented to Tony, with command, “either you buy it, or you shoot it.” (This rhymes in Kyrgyz).

All of us foreigners thought the village trip was finished after this meal. However, on the way out of town, we stopped in a large building from Soviet times. We had joked about it being abandoned earlier in the day, but we have found it to be very much inhabited, by a number of families. One of these families is part o one of the goat groups, and it is this family that is hosting us now.

As per usual, the outside of the building looks cold and very Soviet, but once inside, it is a world of color. There are rugs on the walls, shyrdaks on the floors, and brightly colored table cloths. I can see another room full of food, though I know the KNZRT brass are eager to get on the move. We’ve a workshop to plan for Friday, and these group visits, as necessary and valuable as they are, seriously dig into that planning.

In the mean time, however, the usual pattern is developing: we’re in the quiz show right now. While they’ve proclaimed to spend only ten minutes here, I don’t know how they’ll fit the touchy-feely portion and the food into that small amount of time.

We’ve moved from our follow-up meeting with the old groups, and moved into another large lunch with a new group of women, once again focused around goats.

It’s a curious methodology, these goat groups. According to KNZRT, a goat group costs about $3,800 to start. These costs are trainings, sainfoin seeds, and mostly, the goats: 5 per member. But after the first year, the group keeps the kids the goats produce, and pass the original goats on to a new group. In this way, the costs of continuing the project another year is only around $500.

During our last meeting, we identified that the women who had received the goats were not particularly poor. They already had animals before the program had begun. “It was risk management on the part of the people who organized the groups,” we concluded. Very poor people are less likely to show good results with their groups, so the organizers are more willing to put middle income families in the groups, to look successful in the eyes of the big bosses. Naturally, however, as the goal of the program is to help poor people, and not improve overall goat stocks, they would have preferred poorer, riskier families.

Another curious recurring conversation has been on weighing the animals. During the first year of the program, while it was closely monitored, everyone weighed their animals. Once the close scrutiny passed, the women stopped weighing them. “We are Kyrgyz!” They said, “we know how much the animals weigh just by looking, or from when our husbands pick them up!”

Now, if it was me conducting the meetings, I’d have just recommended they reconsider, and then fall back on their advice. But not our experienced developers. “No, you don’t know,” was the curt response. “Farmers all over the world, whether in New Zealand or in Africa say this. But you can’t be sure. Furthermore, from our calculations, animals that are over 40 kilos in December are much more likely to produce twins. It is in your interest to weigh your animals!”

That folks, is detailed, grass roots development at perfection.

The sainfoin field, unfortunately, was a bust, we have learned. A frost this May apparently killed the entire crop. It was an expensive investment that has now been reduced to rubble. In its place, generic grass and thistle took over the field.

“If this was New Zealand,” Brian said, “we’d have at least cut this grass before the thistle had turned woody and flowered. Your animals won’t be able to eat this!” These are hard hitting guys, who know their facts.

Then they turned to the adviser hired to maintain the groups. “What about fertilizer? Perhaps if there had been fertilizer in this field, the sainfoin would have been strong enough to withstand the frost.”

“We cannot use fertilizer,” he said. “It is too expensive.”

“That is what you said 4 years ago about potatoes. Today, everyone uses it, and everyone’s crops are much better!” This is a continuing story out here. The KNZRT guys keep harping on ideas until the people believe. Eventually, it seems, they come around.

Since the field, we’ve moved into the front lawn of the very attractive local school. In the courtyard there is a bust of a Kyrgyz man, and where we are sitting, off to the right, there is a giant WWII memorial. There is a big silver statue of a soldier in the middle, the dates 1941 and 1945, underlined with the text, “No one will not forget nothing.” (In the Kyrgyz language, opposites to not logically negate each other, as in English. Instead, a sentence is considered incorrect if the negatives do not match, as they do in the sentence above.)

Now, we are talking with 7 women from two goat groups started two years ago. They are telling us about how many goats they were given, the kidding rates, how they sold the cashmere, and what they’d like to turn their investment into in the future.

Well, after a large, healthy lunch, we have made our way our to a sainfoin field. This is an Asiatic legume that KNZRT has introduced to these farmers as a highly superior feed crop in these high altitude areas. If the farmers weren’t producing this, they’d be growing simple hay that would provide very little value to the animals.

It being a legume also has the benefit of nitrification of the field. I’m told that 5 years after the first crop, the roots get very thick, and the crops need to be rotated. This is just fine, as the now nitrogen rich soil works expertly for the improved potatoes.

There is also some growing interest in this ultra-blogging I’ve been doing myself. The two noble Kiwis are both deep into their fifties, and are getting just such a tickle out of watching me blog from co-ops and fields in this such a remote region. They have delighted in sending emails to their wives, and telling me stories of how when they first came here, nearly ten years ago, it was nearly impossible to get in touch with anyone, much less update their blogs (if such things existed back then) from behind a hillock of hay.

I have now made my way over to the 2 year old Gulazyk bakery group. These incredibly active women make some of the best bread I’ve had in country. They are out in the farthest corner of nowhere, and finding a market for their goods is a challenge. They tell me they sell at the famous At Bashy Mal Bazaar on Sunday, as well as through some of the little shops in local stores. They’d like to sell in Naryn city, they say, but transportation is, at this time, prohibitively expensive.

One of the most common questions by the Noble Kiwis is: “How has the income from this cooperative improved your living standards?”

these ladies, making around 4,00o som a month, have given an answer consistent with other successful groups: “our flocks of animals are growing.”

Normally, they try to keep the size of their flock the same, from year to year, they say. Between sales for basic needs, they also slaughter a certain number of animals for food in the winter. These women report that with the income from their group, they are able to keep form slaughtering their animals, allowing their flocks to grow. In an area of poor agricultural yield that relies heavily on livestock for wealth, this is a huge deal.

It’s half past noon now, and preparations are growing for lunch. I can only imagine the feast that awaits us.

Well, instead of going to the bakery, we have found ourselves on the premises of a small sewing cooperative. They have four different sewing machines, and 4 happy ladies working here. Most of their products are school uniforms and frilly, fancy dresses. They say they also make curtains, and even some shyrdaks!

Brian regaled them with a story about how he bought a shyrdak from them last year, but it was held at the very strict border going into New Zealand. “If you want to sell to foreigners,” he told them, “your product must be very, very clean!”

“But we can’t clean the wool,” they said, “we don’t have the machines.”

At that point, Brian leaned over to Tony and said, “perhaps we can get some machines out to these ladies.”

Now, everyone is talking about the future. Is the cooperative growing, they want to know. Are they increasing membership. What kind of goals are they setting for the future?

There is also the question of the curious Savings and Credit fund. As part of the program, before any resources are doled out, each newly formed group is required to start a Credit and Savings fund. Each member pays into this fund every month. Initial contribution is usually around $5 (200 som), and monthly contributions range from under one dollar (20 som), to $3 (100 som). Then, at a self-identified interest rate (usually %5 or %10), the women can loan this money out to members. One goat group we visited yesterday had built a war-chest of 20,000 som! At this point, there is high discussion on how to advise these women on what to do with their funds.

Now, as our meeting is concluding, the conversation has turned to competition. There are many women around with these sewing skills, and more cooperatives nearby. We are trying to convince the women that working together, and growing the cooperatives is a better idea than competing with each other for the limited local market.

“Work together!” Brian has been saying, “with more output, you can market your product outside of just your village, even in Bishkek! But if you don’t make those connections, you’ll run yourselves, and each other out of business.”