Beware the (r)ides of March...

The Noorus festival (the second public holiday of the month!) marks the  first day of Spring and is a big celebration in Central Asia. In Bishkek, people were out and about, visiting friends, eating special meals and generally celebrating together. As it was also Jim's birthday, and he had just returned from a ten day trip away for Oasis meetings, and it was the first day of school holidays for Felix and Rosie, it was an extra celebration! We wandered around the city enjoying the atmosphere and ended up on a big wheel - the 'Bishkek eye'?!

Beware the (r)ides of March...!

Now that is a real kebab...

The Oasis meetings went well and it was great to be with people who are both colleagues and friends, some of whom we have known for ten to fifteen years. It is exciting to hear how work is going in different parts of the world, and esecially to hear about how work continues in Mozambique, in particular among widows who are HIV+ and with the development of a new project to improve community health and hygiene and which is helping over a thousand households to live more safely.

Meanwhile, back in Kyrgyzstan, Oasis is facing a number of significant challenges as we seek to develop increasing sustainability for our work. In particular, we are helping the young people currently in our two transition homes to move towards living independantly over the next five months and this is taking a lot of energy; we are developing a strategy that will help young people to make a better transition from living in government institutions to living independantly; and we are working out how to fund all this in a sustainable way. It is quite a challenge and there are times when project finances have been extremely tight and uncertain.

And finally, a very Happy Easter! We are looking forward to celebrating in the mountains as the sun rises. We will have two Easters this year, as we will also be able to celebrate it on May 5th with friends who are a part of the Orthodox Church!

International Women's Day

Today, the people of Kyrgyzstan are celebrating International Women's Day in a BIG way. Everybody has the day off and the shops and roads were frenetic with shoppers and cars yesterday as people bought gifts for their wives, mothers and daughters. It is a bit like Mothers Day but everywhere men great you with a "congratulations!"

The children have had a day off school so we headed for a snowy walk in the mountains with two other families. On Wednesday we were in t-shirts and it was 25 degrees centigrade and within a day it was minus 3 and snowing hard.

We have had two mornings of fantastic strategic planning with our team this week, thinking about how Oasis might best enable young people to make a positive and successful transition from institutional life into society and a community of their own. It has been great to have a colleague from Oasis UK here for the week to journey with us through this process.

But the highlight of the week for me (Jane) was hearing from two Kyrgyz women at the International Women's Club on Tuesday morning.

One woman told us her story of being bride-napped 15 years ago and how she escaped. Another told us about being a mother in law and having daughters in law in this culture. Their stories were a stark and very real reminder to me of the situation of many young women here who face the threat of bride-napping every day, as it is such a prevalent practice in Kyrgyzstan. It has also made me appreciate that I have grown up with a lot of freedom and many great opportunities as a woman in my own culture.

So to all you women out there: you are awesome! Speak out, be who you are, have courage...you are beautiful!