Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin August 5th, 2008

The beds here are so uncomfortable. They’re just planks of plywood with a few cushions on top. I woke up with a bar in my back. In order to avoid it, I had to sleep on my side, giving me tons of knots in my right shoulder.

I ended up waking up at 8.

For breakfast, we had a sweet rice porridge. I knew I couldn’t eat it all, so I gave some to Bo.

After breakfast, I chilled with Abel and Esther. Most of the guys were going to go to the mountain, so they left at 9. As much as I wanted to do some rock scrambling and climb a little bit, I had to get footage of the waterfall.

We hiked on a gravel road for about 1:45. At every hill and bend, we would hope that the waterfall was on the otherside. It wasn’t until the 6th one that we finally arrived at the waterfall. During the journey, Abel and I chatted about stuff. He was carrying about 10 liters of water. We attempted to lighten the load by starting to drink one of them. After we drank some, we realized that we weren’t sure if it was tap or clean water because they had refilled a lot of the bottles with tap.

When we got to the waterfall, we asked Charles which bottle was clean. He said he had given it to one of the kids to carry but didn’t remember which one. We looked, and all the bottles were open. Rather than risking it, we decided it was safer to just not drink the water. Charles said that it was okay to drink tap, and I got into a small argument with him. I told him how in Cambodia and India, no body, not even the locals drank tap water.

The waterfall was pretty, but small. The kids loved running through the cold cold water. I tried hiking up one of the hills to get some shots from up top, but it was too difficult on the gravel, in my Birks, and with the tripod + camera in hand. I got about 80% and decided it was better if I just went back.

I waited for everyone to leave to get some shots of the waterfall.

For lunch, we had bread with this fish spread, hard boiled eggs, pickles, and this bread with potato and lamb liver. For the most part, the food wasn’t too bad, especially since we were so hungry.

Marcia had some difficulty hiking to the waterfall because she has a weak heart. And after running through the water, she was really cold. Daniel had driven up with his family, so she hitched a ride with them back. The rest of us walked.

As we walked, Esther was with a deaf girl and another girl who knew Russian sign. The first word I learned in Russian sign was “poop”. Fitting, considering every other step was poop. Of course, with that kind of knowledge, I totally abused it.

Even without going under the water, it was cold, and it looked like it was going to rain at any moment. Luckily, I had given Daniel my camera, so I didn’t have to worry about that. But Abel kept feeling like he had to diarrhea, so we made haste and got back around 3.

As we rested, I listened to my iPod. Eventually, Marcia came down and said we should do some translation. We went until dinner.

For dinner, we had the lamb that they slaughtered the day before. It wasn’t great, but because we had spent so much energy, it was good to us. After I finished the first bowl, I went back to get just rice with a little bit of onions. That’s how hungry I was.

After dinner, I listened to my iPod and caught up on my logging. Then I joined everyone else for a dance party.

At first, the dance was pretty cool. But then they started changing songs every 5 seconds. It ended up being like a high school dance. Granted, most of the people are in high school so circle dancing was a given.

After the party, we knew the girls were going to plan something that night, just wasn’t sure what. Most likely, it would be toothpaste. They really like putting toothpaste on people’s faces at night.

Throughout the night, I kept waking up as people came in through the doors, flashlights spun around, so I didn’t get much sleep.

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Tags: Kyrgyzstan, Missions, Mountain camp, Trips, Waterfalls

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