It is Sunday morning in Bishkek and the week of New years Shenaigans has begun to draw thankfully to a close. I am meeting with Salavat, one of the interns from the Alpine fund and we are off to go food shopping. We have 11 children and 2 adults to feed so i am glad when i spot the director in her car. I wasnt't looking forward to cramming it all on a bus!
The food looks enough to feed a small army- 24 loafs of Lipioshka ( Kygrz bread) 4 blocks of cheese, 2 dozen eggs, 1 kg of potatoes, salted capsicum, dill and assorted other bits and pieces- but i am sure it will be devaoured in short order. When we are done i leave Salavat to go and pick up the children while i jump on a packed marshrutka and head up to repair a few things at the Dacha before the kids arrive.
The previous weekend Tim ( my housemate) and I had made one of the windows into a fire escape. When i arrive i note the butchering job we did on the window frame and try to make a mental note to buy some putty to cover it up. I nail some of the loose planks on the front deck and soon after hear voices. 7 girls and 3 boys plus Abdibek (my english student) decend on the Dacha.
The next two days are a riot of excitable children. On the first afternoon i watch as they make tobbogans out of anything they can find ( plastic bags mostly) and hurtle down the slope a short walk from the Dacha. The following day they return to the dacha battered and bruised- nothing malacious- just the result of a day spent ice skating.
Monday night is a games night. I rack my brains for ideas that will work in the confined space of the Dacha. The kids have a ball trying to circumnaviagte the table, trying to move a box of matches while supporting themselves with one hand and playing coin soccer. Salavat also has a host of games which i hope i can remember for the next time i am there.
On their second night, exausted from the absence of sleep the night before, the kids sleep soundly. I am the first up and have said i will cook pancakes. They are all done and it is 930 and the kids are still sound asleep! I send the one awake boy down to the spring to fill up the buckets with water. They eventaully emerge and scoff the rather heavy (you cant't but Self raising flour in Kygstan) pancakes in short order.
The weather has turned a bit average and so we do some more games inside. Soap hockey nearly ends in a brawl so we end that rather qucikly. Refelcting i dont think it ever did not end in a fight whenever i played it either! Note for next time. A blindfold obsticle course in the garden and another run of tobogoning and its time for me to leave. I am off to the Kazak emabssy to pick up my visa. The joys of visa's in ex-soviet states in a story for another day...
"Thank you (for) making us smile" says the poster that the kids have hung on the wall in the Dacha. "Thank you for making me smile" i say to myself as i look at some of the crazy pictures the kids have taken with my camera.
www.alpinefund.org
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