Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin August 7th, 2008

Woke up at 8, which was kind of late. I made sure I had all my stuff ready for the day’s shoot before going down to breakfast.

For breakfast, I had oatmeal in milk and two eggs.

Nazira came by and we waited for the driver. We got to Iskra around 9.

First, we went to the neurological hospital. Larisa took us on a tour and introduced us to some of the patients. It was pretty heartbreaking to see the conditions some of them were living in. Right now, it’s not so bad, but in the winter, they don’t get enough heat.

Next, we went to the village. Unfortunately, they didn’t have water yet. But I did manage to get some shots of them working and a donkey bringing in about 40 gallons of water.

One of the families in the village invited us in for tea. It was funny to see Kyrgyz people watching Indian music videos. They asked me if I knew what it was, and I said it was from India. They were surprised that I knew so much.

Then we came back to the office. Zuma wasn’t around, so I had to figure out lunch. There were some ghetto sandwiches left in the fridge. I took a few bites and then remembered I saw a small kebob stand on the street. I went out, but they weren’t cooking anything. so I came back and ate the sandwich as I played DS.

The rest of the team came back around 4:30 and we went to the playground. There wasn’t any power, so they had to play the music off Charles’ laptop. They performed Prodigal Son and Lifehouse. The kids seemed to enjoy Lifehouse.

Then Charles got up to share his testimony. Not 2 minutes in and the kids started filing out. About 70% of them left. In an attempt to keep the rest, Charles promised candy. After he finished, we realized that the candy was in the van that brought us here, which had gone back to the office. 30 minutes later, Kostya brought the candy.

We were just standing around when Sean met up with us. He had just arrived in country yesterday and drove down from Bishkek to see us. He got us all excited about shishkabobs.

He pulled out a portable speaker/amp and his violin and played some for the kids. But the speaker was busted because the Chinese officials went through it as he went through customs.

Sean was nice and took us to the Kebab place. Initially, we ordered 30 kebabs. Sean went back to pick up the rest of the team. The food came, and they told us to eat it before it got cold. It was so good. 3 big chunks of lamb and a piece of fat. Even though I knew that fat was so bad for us, it was so tasty, I ate it anyway.

I finally got some Kyrgyz beer. It was pretty decent. Light, but a little too sweet for my tastes.

Sean eventually came back and told us that Charles was pissed. They were all waiting at the office for us. We ordered 20 more kebabs and tried to settle the bill. Sean only had 1750 som and the bill was 2230. He had 50$ USD and gave it to the women, but she didn’t understand that we needed change. We used the calculator to try and show her, but it didn’t get through. We spent a good 15 minutes before Sean wrote it out and the woman finally got it.

When we got back to the office, the translators seemed kind of annoyed. But whatever. The kebabs were so good.

Zuma had also prepared beef stew with pasta. Luckily, there were a lot of us so I didn’t get a bowl. I just filled up on lamb and onions. Tasty.

After dinner, we chilled. Then we decided to get ice cream. We walked down the street to a shop, but they only had one. So we went a little further down and found a big stash. Ice cream was so cheap. It was like 7 Som, which is like a quarter.

Then we went back and chilled.

Finally, a night where I don’t have to worry about working the next day.

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Tags: Kyrgyzstan, Missions, shishkabobs, Trips

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