The Fist Weekend

This is my blog entry for the Alpine Fund Site. Pictures are in order and forthcoming.

I arrived at the Voenna Antonivna children’s home at 9am sharp. No one was outside save a groundskeeper. Our Knowledgeable Director had warned me that getting the kids together can be a chaotic affair. I was unready for this unsteady calm. Quickly after hearing the van enter the grounds however, children began to appear. They came from every direction: East, West, North and South. I knew then that there would be no turning back.

As the leader of trip, I acted adroitly, delegated all responsibility and decision making power to Losha, a 16 year old regular at the Alpine Fund in his last year at the orphanage. Far too many of the kids want to come on our weekend trips than we can handle and Losha knows better than I who should come. With a list of attendees in hand, we prepared to leave.

A bristle-whiskered burly woman told us our list of attendees was not up to the orphanage regulations and it looked like she meant business. If there is one thing I have learned in my first two weeks in Kyrgyzstan it is never to contradict, argue with, or try to pull the wool over a bristle-whiskered burly woman who means business. They always mean business. Losha transcribed the names into a format more akin to business letter head, with a politely verbose introductory paragraph. I signed this. Now up to snuff, we prepared to leave.

At this point Arianna (our knowledgeable director) arrived unexpectedly. I was much relieved as my Russian had already been largely exhausted by the redrafting of the list.

We arrived at the Alpine Learning Center and took a moment to ceremoniously exchange Tuffli (shoes) for Tapichki (slippers) before exchanging tapichki for botinki (boots) under more utilitarian motivation. Just like that we set off for our hike. Our Knowledgeable Director Arianna stayed behind to prepare for lunch and learning at the Center. The children and I wandered into the hills.

Make-shift landfills provided us with impromptu sleds. Strong precipitation provided us snowy slopes on the North face. Impromptu sleds and snowy slopes imbued us with steely determination. We hiked up and sledded down various portions of the foothills of the Kyrgyz Range of the Tian-Shan mountains, reveling in the existential glory of our very own adolescent Oedipus complex.

Having had our fill of snow (in our pants) we returned to the Learning Center. There we enjoyed lunch and the downtime after. “Downtime” subtly transmuted into “intense-football-match-in-a-tiny-yard time” over the course of a few moments. We played football; it seemed like the thing to do at the time. The Learning Center’s yard was filled with the last apples of the season. We ate our fill and added the rest to the new compost heap.

After everybody won the football match (yay!) we learned about the first aid in the Alpine Learning Center. The subject was cuts. I gave the talk in English and Arianna, being quite a Knowledgeable Director, translated. We covered how to clean cuts, stop bleeding, dress a wound and assess and deal with infection. Afterwards we broke up into small groups and the kids explained how they would treat a cut in various real-life scenarios and how to prevent and then deal with progressive complications.

Now armed with the proper safety knowledge, we cut vegetables for dinner. I chose a back country favorite of my own from back home, calzones. Everyone got a chance to help in the process and cook their own calzone. Our hope is to get the kids accustomed to cooking, and eventually planning all their meals for themselves.

After dinner we played a few rounds of mafia. I have played this game every summer since I was 14 and I was pleasantly surprised to see it well loved in Kyrgyzstan. We moved on to Taboo (in Russian). All and all it was a great night of good natured hilarity.

The kids woke up around 8am the next morning. After a delicious breakfast of omlettes, we set off for the snowy foothills once more. We spent even longer trudging up and sliding down the mountain on Sunday and staggered back to the dacha for food. After a little bit of grounds keeping at the Alpine Learning Center, we picked up trash from around the river near the dacha for a half hour and then boarded the van to go back to Bishkek.

The kids asked if it would be possible to stay for more like 5 or 6 days. Arianna and I eyed one another wearily and responded with concerns about their studies. They assured us that arrangements could be made… I thought about what sort of arrangements I would have to make to get my hands on some industrial strength 14-year old tranquilizer.