What your tax dollars are buying...

For the first six months of service, I have to admit that I really didn't do much. That isn't just me being modest or anything. I really didn't have much to do. The country shuts down for the most part during the winter and since I work with an organization that is primarily tourism based, I really didn't have much of a job.
The tide is changing, however, and now I have plenty on my plate. I figured I would run through a few of my activities:

• I have started an internship program with my host organization to help relieve our summer time staffing shortage and help give college age women an opportunity to see how a real, woman-run business in Kyrgyzstan operates. It is a lot of work so far, but I think the planning will work out to everyone's benefit. If anything, at least I get to wear a tie when I have meetings with the university director.
• I have (with the help of my counterpart Dinara) restructured the company's inventory and sales tracking system, which were two of the biggest problems the sales side of the organization had. By simply creating two new binders to keep track of things coming in and things going, I have helped make Dinara's life much less stressful and our inventory and payment systems more accurate. Hopefully it will last.
• I am working on a coupon program throughout the village to increase the visability of Altyn Kol as a place to buy quality, hand made shirdaks. Coupons are not a common thing here, but people seem to be pretty open to the idea.
• I am in the planning stages of a Rayon (country) wide judge training seminar to take place in September. Why do judges need training? It takes to long to explain, but they do and I am helping to create a resource center for rural citizens and judges to help make justice a little more real in Kyrgyzstan.
• I teach English classes twice a week to a class of about 10 students, most of which work in the tourism field and a functional level of English can dramatically impact their earning potential. It also helps me tremendously with my Kyrgyz, which is coming along slowly.
• I am working with an organization called LARC (Legal Assistance for Rural Citizens) to help build organizational capacity through various means.

So, as you can see, I am actually doing something now and it is great. I am far from being done as a volunteer, but I am starting to see some of the benefits from my "wait and see" mentality of the first 6 months. I have a little bit of that "volunteer high" at the moment and I can only hope that it continues through the next 18 months.