Fall is in full-swing in Bishkek! We had a dark and dreary rainy day on Tuesday, but I enjoyed it because it really felt like Austria. We taught 2 classes by candlelight/headlamp on Tuesday when the power went out at 17:45. My students are all wonderful. Next Friday is the end of my first month of teaching, and I'll probably have new classes starting on Monday of Halloween week. I hope that I get to keep all my classes, because I love teaching high levels and I really like my classes, but it's not my decision- I find out on Thursday of next week what my new classes will be.
Tomorrow night 7 of us are leaving to Issyk-Kul lake to see the eagle hunting festival! It's about a 5 hour drive and we won't leave until after classes end at 20:20, so we will get in very late. Josh (an American here learning Russian) has arranged our taxis down and also the homestay and meals for the weekend. Saturday is a free festival where we see eagle hunters (and by this I mean men with their eagles, not men hunting eagles... like a falconer. eagler?) from all over Central Asia hunting wolves, foxes, and rabbits. The prey will be released on cue so it's not a real wild hunt, but on Sunday, we will go on horseback into the mountains with an eagler and hope to get some wild animals! We have to be back at school Sunday night, so I will try to get some lessons planned for next week today and tomorrow so that I am not working late late Sunday night.
Next week we're going to the circus! The Moscow Circus is in town and we'll get to see lots of drugged up performing animals, which is probably even sadder than wolves being killed by eagles, but in Kyrgyzstan I figure I might as well see all the local forms of acceptable animal abuse/death. Next week I'm also going to hang out with one of my students, Janna. She's very motivated to learn English and really wants to teach me Russian, and she's really easy to talk to and tons of fun to hang out with, so it will be great to see her more often than just 80 minutes in class.
Not much else is new- haven't heard much from home lately, so I assume not much is going on. I have to mail my absentee ballot tomorrow!
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