This picture was taken near Song Kul Lake in Kyrgyz Republic in June 2011. In this picture Volunteer Brooke and Azamat are laughing together. Brooke and other Volunteers spent the evening with Azamat’s family at their summer yurt near the lake.
This picture was taken in Kyrgyz Republic in June 2011. Here, young Azamat (whose name means ‘excellent’ in English) shows off his donkey. Three current Volunteers and one RPCV spent the evening with Azamat’s family at their summer yurt near...
My counterpart decided on a whim one day to have an "English party." For two weeks, our students, who barely knew any English, rehearsed "Sleeping Beauty." They made all their own props and costumes and memorized their lines from a book my aunt...
This is the first time our English classroom in Darkhan Village, Kyrygzstan, has had good textbooks. They came our way through a private donation from the U.S. Here is a group of 3rd graders, proudly showing off their colorful new books.
In the school where I worked in Darkhan Village, Kyrgyzstan, students like these two 3rd-grade girls use the cyrillic alphabet in all their classes. They can speak Kyrgyz and Russian, but learning English is difficult, because they have to learn a...
The day my host sister, Begaim, announced that she was getting married, a summer afternoon rain shower gave way to a dramatic double rainbow in my small village in eastern Kyrgyzstan. We rushed outside to take pictures. Here, my youngest host...
Here is Azamat, hiking back up the hill with my snowboard for another run. Azamat was helping us collect firewood for a winter tourism project deep in the Terskey Ala-Too range of the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. At the end of the day, our...
Peace Corps takes you to some far-out places. This is me, posing in front of a yurt during a blizzard. The yurt was about four miles above a small village in eastern Kyrgyzstan called Ichkey-Jergez, nestled in the foothills of the Terskey Ala-Too...
A lone sunbather rests on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan, while a throng of sheep search for grass in the sand. While the north shore of the lake is quite developed and popular with tourists, the south shore still offers serenity...
We met this gentleman, Bapa Johken, while snowboarding from a backcountry yurt in the Terskey Ala-Too range of the Tien Shan mountains. We passed him on the trail and stopped to say "hello." He was with his donkey, which was towing a sled full of...
This photo was taken on Christmas Eve 2008. My host mom threw me a surprise dinner, This was done in the Kyrgyz tradition known as "guesting". My host mom invited me to come and eat with the family as her honored guest, not as her daughter. ...
Volunteerism; Small Project Assistance (SPA); Architecture; Host community friends
I took this photo on-site in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic on August 12th, 2006 during a joint project with the local Habitat for Humanity. The small project teamed Peace Corps Volunteers with local friends to encourage volunteerism within their own...