Hi Everybody!!

So, first and foremost, I would like to apologize for the awful delay between blog posts. The problem was twofold. First, the internet connections in Kyrgyzstan are not the fastest or most reliable. While at internet cafés, I have had difficulty getting the Blogger website to load. It is not a particularly large website, but a pit of a pain to load. In these cafés, one is charged by the transferred megabyte; hence the website is rather expensive. Second off, my plan for writing the blogs on my personal computer and then cutting and pasting onto the site failed due to (a) the Russian version of Microsoft Office that I cannot read and (b) most cafés only allow you to have one program running at a time, so cutting and pasting would be impossible. Needless to say, the problem has been resolved with the help of beautiful and gracious girlfriend, Stephanie (Yes, I wrote those words, not her!). I will be emailing her my thoughts and she will be posting them to keep everyone in touch. Again, feel free to email me anytime at my Gmail account: Jonathan.Baas@gmail.com. If you have questions about any particular topic, feel free to send me questions. It lets me know that people are reading. The Peace Corps says I have to be “culturally sensitive” on the website, but if you want an insensitive email, just let me know. I don’t have much to be insensitive about yet, but you can always ask!

Well, now that we have that out of the way, we have a lot of things to cover. I have a serious backlog of information to share with everyone, but I don’t want to bore everyone with a terribly long post. I have decided to split up my last month’s experience into a few general topics. First, I will explain my situation with my host family and what exactly it is I’m doing. Later, I will add some general points of interest about the culture in here Kyrgyzstan, from food to housing to rituals and the like. I will only have access to internet about once a week, so I will probably give Stephanie a couple of posts at a time. She might post them all simultaneously upon reception, she might not. It depends on her prerogative. Everyone’s prerogative, however, should be to click on the ads on the side of the blog! I need some income generation. I only make $100/month!

I want to thank everyone that has been reading and again I apologize for the delay in writing. Once I get more settled in here in the old KG I’m sure things will get a lot better. By the way, I do have a cell phone here. If anyone would like to speak with me, I can be contacted at 1-996-503-047951. I hear the going rate is $1.50/min from a cell phone, but calling cards are in the $0.20/min range and internet calling is under $0.10! Just remember the 10 hour time difference (EDT). Everybody, stay safe. Enjoy the last weeks of summer vacation!