August 25, 2021

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First, today’s adventures in food: we went to the Uighur restaurant around the corner today, not really caring about the line because on Wednesdays, we don’t have class. We had recommendations from people on what to order, but we only got our food thanks to a very kind woman waiting for her own order who saw us struggling with the language in a crowded and noisy environment. We ended up with Manty dumplings, a rice/meat dish, and a noodle dish which were all amazing. The drink (which we did not order – I think the lady sort of just told the folks behind the counter to give us some) is called Kompot, and seems as though it’s the national drink of Kyrgyzstan. It was absolutely delicious, although I’m still not sure what’s in it. Later, after dinner, my host mother cut up a fresh local watermelon which was both huge and ridiculously sweet and flavorful. I don’t even normally enjoy watermelon, but this thing was like candy.

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In an interesting turn, the power went out at around 9:45 PM. Bekjan, the younger of the two kids here, seemed very unbothered by this and used it as an excuse to take me on a little excursion. We saw the local school on the next block over (with its very cool recycling bin), after which he took me over to the train tracks and main station. To say the kid has energy would be an understatement: he was constantly running everywhere, talking to everyone, climbing on everything, etc – the climax of which was the discovery of some abandoned produce — including a big melon — next to a garbage bin. I tried to suggest that we move on without touching, to which he responded to the effect of “Why would we leave such a rarity? Do you know how rare this is?” I decided to bite – maybe this really was rare or at least valuable enough an event to not pass up on. I mean, it’s only day four for me here, and I don’t know how things are supposed to go. As it turned out though, the thing he wanted to do with this “rarity” was smash it with a cinder block. Having been a 10-year-old before, I found this hilarious. He made me promise to allow him to show me and my friends around sometime next week, which I happily agreed to. He may not be the traditional local guide, but I guarantee things are more interesting over at Bekjan Studios. Melon murder pictured below.