Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin July 27th, 2008

Didn’t really have a restful sleep, even though I went to bed at like 8. I woke up once at 2 to go pee, and then woke up for good at 6.

Breakfast was good. We had crepes. Some were filled with this cottage cheese/cream cheese like stuff. Others were plain. We also got some of that fantastic raspberry jam.

As I was reading my Bible on the front steps, Nariza invited me into to their morning devos. Pastor David was starting a new lesson on following Jesus.

Then we went to the Professional Institute to do the interviews. We went around a bit looking for a place with some decent sound, but every where we tried had both an echo or you could hear the construction.

Zarena was a good 45 minutes late, but it wasn’t too bad because it only ran for a little under 20 minutes. Tania was good, but she was a bit nervous, and it showed. We also had the opportunity to interview her mom who was really open and talked a lot.

We went back to the office and after I dropped off my stuff, I played a bit of ping pong with Marcia. She said she was bad and she was right. Then it was off to School of Blessing for lunch.

Lunch consisted of Bosch, a traditional Kyrgyz vegetable soup with a dab of sour cream. We also had this fried bread with potato in it. We talked about shingles because the rest of the team was going to go to the orphanage later.

After lunch, we started doing the translation of the morning’s interview.

Then it was time for the Professional Institute meeting. I shot some B-roll of the meeting and just chilled.

It started to rain and Marcia got really excited. Rain is rare, so it’s a treat for the Kyrgyz people. It was nice, because when we went out later, it was nice and cool.

Then Nazira, Marcia and I finished translating the morning’s interview.

Afterwords, Marcia and I went around the local area to see life. We had the chance to interview some vendors at the market and then some children at one of the playgrounds. There was this one girl who sang a song in traditional Kyrgyz style. We also tried to talk to some taxi drivers who were on break, but they didn’t go for it.

We started to walk and we came to this house. The left half of it was owned by an old couple, so they didn’t really keep it in good order. The other side had nice vines and was pretty well kept. It was interesting to see them right next to each other.

I asked Marcia where was a good place to see the sun set and she mentioned a small forest. We couldn’t wait until the sun set, because it would be kind of dangerous coming back at night. Still, there was plenty of time, so we went to visit it anyway.

On the way, we went through this construction area. We saw a huge apartment building that was only half built. They had started it, but then ran out of money. Marcia said that a lot of crimes happen in this area at night. Gangs gather and would do their stuff. People would also commit suicide in the building, thus, I dubbed it the Suicide House.

As we continued walking, we started to teach each other our respective languages. She taught me Russian, and I taught her the little Chinese that I knew.

Skulka etta stoi - How much does it cost?
adin - one
dva - two
three - three
chet-teh-ree - four
pyat - five
shysa - six
see-ame - seven
vosame - eight
dayved - nine
dayset - ten

We passed the roundabout with the Tokmok sign to get to the edge of the forest. Marcia showed me her special tree, where her and her friends wrote their names on it. It wasn’t one of those heart things, but it was still cute. We started talking a bit more about our personal lives. She talked about her boyfriend, and I talked about Ninja.

As we made our way back to the office, we saw this rotisserie chicken. One cost 340 Som, or about 8$, which is pretty expensive for Kyrgyzstan. I asked her about the average salary and she said that most teachers make between 1,000 and 5,000 Som a month. And an apartment flat cost around 5,000-20,000 Som. A house cost between 10,000-35,000 Som.

When we got to the office, the rest of the team had already started eating. We had carrot fried rice with a little bit of beef in it too. On the side, we had tomato and cucumber salad. We invited Renata and Marcia to eat with us. At first, Marcia declined, but she eventually joined us.

After dinner, we took a small break. The team tried practicing Lifehouse with Renata, but they didn’t get very far. In the meantime, I went to shower.

Showering has become pretty unpleasant because the shower head is slightly busted. The metal hose that feeds water to the head sprang some pretty big leaks, to the point where water doesn’t actually come out of the head. There’s a rotatable sink faucet connected to it that I used instead. I’d squat down underneath the water to try and rinse off, balls barely off the ground. The shower is already small and cramped, so having to squat made it that much more difficult to get clean.

After showering, I went to watch them practice. We got a nice treat and got some local ice cream.

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Tags: Documentaries, Interviews, Kyrgyzstan, Missions, Production, Trips

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