Moskva!

Moscow got a bit of snow last week

Yep, back in Moscow. Or M-va, as we gangstas like to refer to it. And you know me - nothing says "gangsta" quite like a freckled white guy wearing jeans. It's just how I roll.

So, what have I been doing? Language, of course! In the course of training to help out with the culture and language program, I was asked to come back to Moscow to help out with a checkup for some of the students here. That meant a lot of this:

Followed by the other consultant and I listening to what was recorded, and talking with some native Russian speakers about the language sample we got. It's a lot of work, but hopefully it will help out those in the process of learning culture and language. We had a productive time here, I think, and I hope that we were able to give them some good direction and advice for their future study.

Anyway, it hasn't all been work here, and you wouldn't really enjoy the pictures of it even if it were. We did have some space in the schedule one day, and I went out to try to find some peanut butter and other things we can't get out in T-land. Amusingly, in the local mall, was this shop:

...claiming to sell salteñas, which if you'll recall from a few posts down is a famous Bolivian dish. I didn't buy any, though, as they were clearly something different.

I did manage to go to the absolutely atrocious Ashan store, which was packed with people at 2 on a Thursday afternoon. I can't imagine what it must be like on a weekend these days. To make matters worse, they didn't have any peanut butter.

One of the best things about the trip has been seeing all of our old friends here. This is our friend Nadira, making plov:

... and her sister Delia, serving it up. It was so good to see them again! (Not to mention to eat the tasty real Uzbek plov!)
I've also gotten to have some other foods that we can't get out East, including McDonald's and once, as seen below, even Papa Johns. These are our friends Gudrun and Ivor (she's had some neck problems lately and hence is wearing the brace).

Here's the whole gang, post-plov (except Shawna, who's taking the picture). It's a fun group to be with, and it's been an enjoyable visit.

But that doesn't mean I'm not anxious to get back to this:

Steven's been quite sick since I left, and Bobbie just let me know that now Matthew is coughing and hacking as well. Please lift them up in your thoughts - especially Bobbie who's very tired and needing some rest. Taking care of little ones is hard enough, but it's harder when they're sick and I'm not there to help out some.

I'll leave you with a video we took a few weeks back of our neighbor playing a common T game, if for no other reason than I have fast enough internet here to upload videos. When the T people slaughter a sheep, they save the knuckles, and over time get quite a collection of them. Then, you can play a series of games with them, one of which is similar to jacks: