As you all know, I just got back from India last week. I promise to write a eyelid-droopingly long email about that incredible, delicious, heartbreaking, mind-blowing place in the near future. But, for now, back to the life here in K-stan.
All of our travels went beautifully both to and from India. I was kind of shocked, actually, about how easy the trip turned out to be. Easy, that is, until I got back to Bishkek. I was still reeling from an 87-degree Farenheight temperature drop from balmy Mumbai and 36 hours of sleeplessness when I found out that all flights back to Osh had been cancelled. In fact, all the flights from the day before had been cancelled, too. Apparently, everyone who was supposed to have flown on January 16 or 17 was sitting in a hallway in the airport lit by a single lightbulb, grumpily waiting for the airplanes to start doing that magical thing they do called flying (if you think about it, even if you know all of the principles of aerodynamics, it's pretty freaking incredible that you can make a very heavy hunk of metal fly around in the air). Anyway, my friend and I decided that there was no way in hell we were sitting in the depressing Bishkek airport for an unknown amount of time, so we -- bravely? stupidly? -- hopped in a Southward-bound Jeep for a 12-hour drive through snowy mountain passes.
The ride, as it turned out, was pretty spectacular. Whiteout, I believe, is the phrase they use for the state of nature where everything in one's line of vision -- trees, mountains, lakes, roads, skies, rivers, cars, houses -- is white. And such a landscape accompanied us for the duration of our drive. Just incredible. The road had -- wonder of wonders -- actually been cleared and our driver seemed to know what he was doing, so we felt pretty safe. Oh, and the Kyrgyz people in the blessedly-warm car decided to let the two American kids have the captain's seats with all the leg room, so our ride might even be termed pleasant. Certainly more pleasant than that which was had by the dude who was relegated to the trunk.
So I'm back in my village, freezing my ass off. Bone-chilling cold that annoyingly necessitates multiple layers of clothing. Kyrgyz people are saying this is the worst winter in 50-odd years. It's below zero every single night and a few ticks above during the day. The rub, though, is the lack of central heating in houses and buildings...so I spend most of my time either curled up in my bed or desperately clutching my space heater. My classes at school have been cut to 30-minutes each because the heating system doesn't work. I hate to be a complainer, but this is pretty awful. Please, God, let that damn groundhog not see its shadow!
