Bishkek – but dancing, bit eating and even more women

30.03.2022

 

Before food there is weather. It was really crazy: when I went out in the morning it was summer and my jacket over the T-Shirt too warm. When I went at 5 pm to the dancing, it was raining snow.

 

 

I went out this morning for a lunch date with another “host a sister” contact: Eugénie from France, who is here to do her PHD. She is researching the effects of climate change on rivers that cross national borders. That’s how I understood it in a simplified way. Using Kyrgyzstan as an example. She is from Paris, studies in Brussels, moves around a lot in the world and really enjoys research. We had a nice pan-Asian meal (see picture above) with colourful really tasty drinks and because of all the meat here I am enormously happy about vegetables like these fine beans. Here are Eugénie and me:

 

 

I can’t really say much about the food yet. At least I always found something I liked. This kind of pudding is very interesting. It is called sumoluk, is based on wheat and is cooked for hours at Nowruz (21 March, New Year) and leftovers are sold on the street, for example. Tastes good.

 

 

I also found this vegetable or whatever it is special. I don’t know it. I saw it at the market. I still have to find out what it’s called, what you do with it and what it tastes like.

 

 

So at 5 pm I had my next date, namely a dance date. A small group of women over 50 (some were absent that day due to the weather) dances various dances every week for 1 hour and does sweaty gymnastics beforehand. I joined in, it was a lot of fun – only the Bollywood-based dance overwhelmed me hopelessly and I grabbed the camera.

 

 

We were able to talk to each other a little bit. The lady in front was the best dancer. She is a gynaecologist at the hospital and speaks a few words of German.

 

 

I really liked the atmosphere – in general, I think I should go dancing more. I got a lift from Mina. Here she is with her two sons:

 

 

She is an English teacher and also works as a guide. Her sons are also guides and together they have a travel agency. The one in the middle is my local contact, who also picked me up at the airport and with whom I will leave tomorrow for a change of location. The original plan to go to a special village in the mountains didn’t quite work out, too much snow-drfiting made the road impassable. Now the plan is to drive half the distance first and then see. The weather forecast is rainless.

 

So I have no idea what will happen next, what the internet situation will be like, when I’ll get back to you with the next blog post, and so on.