With a bang.
If you’re confused about my title, it’s the answer to the question: How did your summer go out? There was no other way I would have rather spent the last two weeks of my summer than doing Habitat for Humanity in Barskoon with the 14 other volunteers. In fact, it was probably the most rewarding thing I’ve done in country thus far because the results were immediate and visible. It’s difficult to track day-to-day progress as a teacher so it was a nice change of pace for us. The work was physically demanding and by the 10th day my body was definitely feeling it since I was using muscles that I forgot existed.
Over the course of 10 days I stomped in mud that was used for bricks, I made mud that was used for the mortar, I planed floors, I painted, I hauled the mud bricks and I helped put up the walls for the last two rooms in the house. At first the men working there were trying to make the girls lighten their workloads but by the last day they saw that we were just as capable of doing the laborious work. I thought we would be working from the ground up but previous groups had helped so the main structure was already there but there were still lots of projects. One guy was in charge of making over 400 mud bricks in two days.
For the entire 10 days, I think I was alone for a total of 45 minutes, not including bathroom time. Things get really interesting when you have 15 volunteers crowded into 3 rooms but luckily we had a great group of people who meshed well together. I think by the end everyone was pretty cracked out from the physical exhaustion.
Barskoon is an awesome site, I think it is probably my favorite place in Kyrgyzstan so far. It’s gorgeous, it’s close to the lake and the people there are so accommodating. Every night we put 2 people in charge of dinner and thing get interesting when there is a limited amount of produce available in a small village. Two girls wanted to make french-fries but the stores didn’t have any potatoes so they finally got the idea to go door-to-door to the neighbors to ask them if they had any. They lucked out, and they found a family who had potatoes- still in the garden… they just had to dig them up first. Kind of like borrowing a cup of sugar.
The family we worked with was great and I think they got a kick out of us because Peace Corps and Habitat for Humanity just started working in conjunction with another; usually the groups come America that don’t know the language or about the country. I think the family and workers were thrown off by volunteers who have lived here for a year and could speak Russian and Kyrgyz. I got the homeowner to laugh when he told me to take 3 bricks instead of 4, I just looked at him and said in Russian, “I’m like a man.”
Over the course of 10 days I stomped in mud that was used for bricks, I made mud that was used for the mortar, I planed floors, I painted, I hauled the mud bricks and I helped put up the walls for the last two rooms in the house. At first the men working there were trying to make the girls lighten their workloads but by the last day they saw that we were just as capable of doing the laborious work. I thought we would be working from the ground up but previous groups had helped so the main structure was already there but there were still lots of projects. One guy was in charge of making over 400 mud bricks in two days.
For the entire 10 days, I think I was alone for a total of 45 minutes, not including bathroom time. Things get really interesting when you have 15 volunteers crowded into 3 rooms but luckily we had a great group of people who meshed well together. I think by the end everyone was pretty cracked out from the physical exhaustion.
Barskoon is an awesome site, I think it is probably my favorite place in Kyrgyzstan so far. It’s gorgeous, it’s close to the lake and the people there are so accommodating. Every night we put 2 people in charge of dinner and thing get interesting when there is a limited amount of produce available in a small village. Two girls wanted to make french-fries but the stores didn’t have any potatoes so they finally got the idea to go door-to-door to the neighbors to ask them if they had any. They lucked out, and they found a family who had potatoes- still in the garden… they just had to dig them up first. Kind of like borrowing a cup of sugar.
The family we worked with was great and I think they got a kick out of us because Peace Corps and Habitat for Humanity just started working in conjunction with another; usually the groups come America that don’t know the language or about the country. I think the family and workers were thrown off by volunteers who have lived here for a year and could speak Russian and Kyrgyz. I got the homeowner to laugh when he told me to take 3 bricks instead of 4, I just looked at him and said in Russian, “I’m like a man.”
posted by Katie P. at 10:03 PM
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