Felix and Rosie were very happy to get back to school; 10 weeks holiday sounded wonderful, but with many friends away, the days had become rather boring! There are quite a lot more children who have started at school this year; Felix is no longer one of two boys in a class of 9, but is now one of four in a class of thirteen! And Rosie's class (grades 4 and 5 combined) has grown from fourteen to nineteen children! For Felix in particular, this means that there are more people to make up a football team!There is a lot happening in Oasis at the moment. The boys moved out of our transition home and into university dormitories or shared flats in the first week of September, and have started studying and working. So far this change seems to be going well for them, and we will continue to support them as they start to live more independently. We have had a lot of young people who have recently left institutions start to come to the youth centre that we run which is great, and we are working through the practicalities of how we walk with each of these young people. And the youth centre itself has just moved from a rented flat and into the property that was the transition home; as you might imagine, after housing six teenage boys, there is quite some cleaning that has been needed / still needs to be done!
On the down side, amid these changes and the excitement of fresh starts, some of the team have been ill (the health of one person being of particular concern).
In other news...
Rosie had her ninth Birthday at the beginning of September which she celebrated with a swimming party with a few friends.
We finally visited Lake Issyk-Kul for a couple of nights with friends visiting from England. We already recognised that Kyrgyzstan is a very beautiful country, but were blown away by what we experienced; as well as the fun of staying in a yurt, the water was clearer than anything that we have ever swum in before, and the mountain views more extraordinary and spectacular than anything that we had ever seen. We spent the day drinking in the scenery and views and saying 'wow' to each other!
And Jim had a few days off, cycling in the hills and mountains behind Bishkek with Mike, one of our visiting friends from England. Our biggest ride took us from 750m above sea level (where we live) up to just under 2,260m, which meant about 6 hours of almost continuous uphill cycling. It only took about 1.5 hours to get down and home!!!
