A little bit of shopping.

I have just had my first trip on one of the buses ( Marshrutkas) that criss cross Kyrgyzstan. They are really minibuses.  A similar system operated in Turkey when I taught there briefly.  They run to a timetable (sort of) and are numbered and labelled more efficiently than the C3 bus at Tescos, but I was still a bit unsure about using them as I only know the words for big and thank you! So I was lucky that the cook from the school wanted to go to Kemin, our nearest local town, which is where I wanted to get to to try and buy an umbrella, kettle and some material to make a story sack.  I arranged to meet her at the bus stop which meant leaving the guest house at 7.30.  For the first time it was grey and overcast and cold.  A lot of people wear socks here with summer shoes so I did not look too out of place with my long socks and dress and I was happy to warm up by walking as quickly as possible, but one of the men who works at the school drove past, pulled up and insisted that I have a lift.  So I was nice and early and cold sat there looking at the view.

  A man with a car was hovering and trying to convince me to use his car to get to Kemin, there is an unoffiicial car service here a bit like in Senegal where you can just pay for the journey once the car is full, but there are also taxis, however, how could I explain that I was actually waiting for someone and that I wanted to go by bus.  To my surprise the next person at the bus stop was the year zero teacher, en route to Biskek, so she, me, the cook and the cook's daughter all piled on together.  The bus was packed.

I had seen bits of Kemin when I was driven through en route to Shabdan, but in my head I thought there must be more to our local town.  But it just seems to be a main drag, with residential streets behind.  There were one or two big shops, and a small market, but most of the shops seemed to offer little more than the local shops.  However, I did get my kettle and material straight away. I also tried the local cafe and asked in my best Kyrgyz for nan (bread) and chai, but landed up with sort of meat samosa instead.  I had been told that the bus back was at 12, but having drunk copious amounts of tea decided to sit at the bus stop on the off chance something would come at 10 instead. Shortly before 11 I and the taxi driver, whose price had come down and down, gave up as I wondered back to the shops, which is when I found my umbrella, and to my delight Jazgul. We wandered back to the bus stop thinking we had a long wait, when we both realised the Marshutkas for Shadan had just pulled up.  She elbowed me and her daughter on board and as another 7 people piled in standing I was glad of her help.   Her daughter's face is swollen as a result of a tooth ache. She is the second child I have seen suffering in this way and I wonder if the fizzy drinks and sugared tea the children receive are a contributing factor.  Some of the children of my Polish students - all intelligent woman - have lost all their first teeth as a result of giving their children fruit drinks, so it is possible. And although England is famous for sweet foods and bad teeth, Kyrgyz people (and I) do love eating sweet jams.

I cannot say Kemin holds many delights but at least I have got out and hope as a result that I will have the ability to try and see a bit more of the country.

Everyone was rushing around when I got to the restaurant at the guest house, so I laid out the cutlery as neatly as I knew, ready for the coach load of French visitors.  But I then realised that the staff were being told off for the way that they had been laid by the manager so had to confess much to the amusement of the other guests already tucking in to their meal.

One of the guests is wearing a more Islamic headscarf than the scarfs usually worn. I also noticed a girl at the secondary school with one.  There are less common here than in London, but given the drive to boost Islam here it will be interesting to see, and maybe a little sad or worrying, if this relaxed but religious country becomes more rigid.