Home!

OK, OK, I know I've spent time before addressing the fact that we're not truly "home" anywhere, but I'm wondering if the Wandering Family shouldn't take on a new moniker. Maybe "Settled Family," or perhaps "Homebody Family." Doesn't have quite the cachet, somehow. But yes, for the forseeable future, the Wandering Family is through wandering. Maybe we'll meander a bit, or if circumstances change return to our nomadic ways, but it's not in the plans. Because we're finally home!

Since we've arrived here in T-land, we've had no shortage of adventures, not least of which was our computer deciding that it won't work without a functional fan. Sadly, this has limited our blogging ability in the extreme, since it's hard to do without a computer. Add that to dial-up internet access, and you'll probably see a lot less videos, and possibly fewer pictures as well in the future, but I came down to the internet cafe today to fill you in at least in plaintext. Maybe I can get some pics off our coworkers' websites to load on here, and that will give you at least something.

So yes, we are here. Since we got here we've had registration fun, I went on a three day conference, we found an apartment, fixed it up a bit, and had all of our stuff arrive and moved in. A busy couple of weeks. The conference was fantastic - a great way to get our culture study off with a bang. It was put on by a group striving for the preservation of T culture and language, especially in teaching in schools. There were so many different aspects of the culture covered - we watched a traditional play, saw two different religious services, watched them hang prayer flags, got to swim in a salt lake, watched a T wrestling match, heard throat singing, the whole shebang. It was great. I have a feeling I'm going to be going over the video and pictures we took with a language and culture helper for a long time mining all the different aspects of the different things we saw.

Our apartment, even though I don't have any pictures, is wonderful! We're renting a place right up on the edge of the main hill in town, so we have a fantastic view from our living room of all the mountains. And, more importantly, it's less than a third what we were paying in Moscow! We're not sure how long we're going to be there, as we have some possible developments on buying an apartment in the future, but for now it's a great place for us.

Other than that, I've been quite sick with some sort of persistent cough, but feel a bit better today and hopefully that's going away. Again, sorry we don't have pictures for you today (unless I am able to get the other folks' pictures up, in which case disregard this), but hopefully our computer can be fixed and then we'll be back in business.

Thanks so much for thinking of us in this time - we've still got lots to do. Today I'm trying to find a shower curtain rod that will work in our odd-shaped bathroom, and also headed by the immigration office to check in on our residency permits. Hope you all have a great week, and we'll try to post again sometime soon.

Edit: I did get some pictures to work, so here you go:


Here's me, with a T yurt. I swear, they are pretty normal in size; this one just looks tiny next to me! The flag in the background is the national flag here.


One of the services we attended was led by a lama. I bet you thought that burnt offerings went out of style a few thousand years ago, but here they offered the remainders of the lamb on the fire. Not sure on the cultural reasons behind that, but they'll be among the things we explore with our language and culture helpers.


This picture requires some explanation. Years ago, when I was 6, we visited the Dead Sea in Israel. Included in our family photo album is a shot of my Dad reading a newspaper while floating on the incredibly buoyant water. Here I recreated the picture at the salt lake that's about 70 km from K-town. People go here to soak in the water and rub the mud on them, which is supposed to be good for your skin.

The weirdest part about the lake, to me, was how it got warmer the deeper you went. Apparently, the salt in the water acts like a magnifying glass, so the top few cms of water are cold, then it's mild for a meter or so, and then if you get your toes down a few meters, it's almost boiling! Very odd feeling.


Here people are hanging prayer flags at a holy place/monument.


My birthday was also last week, so we went with our teammates to a spot on the river nearby and had a shashlik picnic. I'm forbidden by my contract with my and B's parents to post a blog devoid of grandkid pictures, so here's a shot of Matthew and his new friend Micah at the picnic.

Here's just a shot of the people at one of the services for you to remember. Thanks again for stopping by to read.