Broom Ball!

Over the last two weeks, temperatures have plummeted to between minus 20 and minus 9 degrees so we feel at last that the winter really has arrived. This has meant that the children's school, Hope Academy, has constructed a small ice-rink to play broom ball on. This is a game a bit like ice hockey but played with a large ball and brooms instead of sticks. It is proving a big hit with Felix and Rosie and getting them to actually leave school at the end of the day has become something of a challenge!

Back in August, on the first day of school, every family was invited to be orientated to the new academic year and absorb the unique atmosphere of an International School in an amazing part of the world. It is hard to imagine now, but then we were sitting in  (plus!) 35 degrees.

Felix and Rosie have now attended Hope Academy for 18 months and on the whole really enjoy it. This term Felix is taking part in the school play, and has recently been on the winning team in a school quiz competition (although he did acknowledge that in truth all the questions were all answered by just one member of the team (and it was not him!)). Rosie's favourite lessons are PE, art, computers and library - and now, broom ball! (In the top photo, Felix is on the left in the grey jacket, and Rosie is 3rd from the right, in the purple coat (and looking very small!))

Hope Academy needs more staff.

It is growing fast and is now a school of 150 children aged from 4 to 18 - a third more than last year. It was set up in 1998 as a co-operative between a number of families and has developed from there. It is staffed by some wonderfully committed people.

As well as teaching some great children from all parts of the world and working with some inspiring people, you can have an opportunity to learn Russian for free and see a lot of very beautiful mountains. You can even ski down them!

If you do know anyone who may be interested or are sensing a desire for change or adventure in your own life please take a look at the website: www.hopeacademykg.com and then get in touch with Dr Collie at the school.  Secondary Science and Elementary staff are particularly needed for mid-August 2014.

Happy (Orthodox) Christmas!

Today, 7th January, is Christmas Day! As Brits living in Central Asia we get to celebrate Christmas Day in both the last week of the old year and in the first week of the new year, which seems a very good way to start and finish! For most people in Kyrgyzstan however, Christmas is not much celebrated, and the New Year is a much bigger holiday: schools, businesses and cafes close, and this year we watched Father Frosts and Snow Maidens gather in the city’s central square on New Year’s Eve for a procession through the streets. And at midnight it seemed that everyone all over the city let off fireworks which was fantastic and which we watched with friends from the various windows of our second floor flat.

Over the holidays, we have enjoyed some time off together and have enjoyed a few trips to the nearby mountains to play in the snow! Kyrgyzstan is a very beautiful country, and although we very much enjoy living in the city, getting out and into the hills (which are only 20 minutes away!) is always refreshing and invigorating.

As we step out into 2014, the big thing on our (Oasis) horizon is the further development of anti-human trafficking work. This is something that we are both excited about and daunted by, but Oasis has worked in this area before in Kyrgyzstan and has significant experience in confronting this issue in other parts of the world and we believe that the time is right to get more involved again. We look forward to sharing some of the stories and developments that come out of this initiative.

Finally, we want to wish you all the very best for the challenges, surprises and joys that lie ahead in 2014 and to thank you for being a part of our lives and adventure here in Kyrgyzstan. And of course, on this particular day, we wish you a very Happy Christmas!

A Season of Change

The snow has come! Yesterday we were walking around in 15 degrees and it felt a bit like Spring but, as predicted, the clouds have moved in overnight and after some rain, the city has turned white. We can’t help but find it exhilarating at this stage, especially as it is not very cold yet and there was much excitement about the first snowy walk to school this morning.

Other areas of our lives are changing too. Our Russian teacher will be on maternity leave from December to April so we will continue to study using a number of courses we have.  Jane will also begin to give cookery lessons at the Youth Centre every fortnight which she hopes will help to develop her spoken Russian. Putting down our three weekly lessons for the winter will change some of the routines of our week that have been in places since we arrived 15 months ago. It does feel liberating but we very much hope we can sustain some of the language-learning momentum we have gathered.

Another significant recent change in our lives is that from April next year one of our main supporting groups have decided that after sixteen years of faithful partnership, the time has come to part ways as they feel that they and Oasis are moving in different directions. This is sad but not unexpected news for us and means a change in how some of our support is provided. We are working hard on putting that in place but financially this leaves a significant gap. If you would like to support us in any way please do get in touch to find out more about how that could be done.

Lastly, we could not have foreseen that our colleagues, The Walkers, who re-joined us in May  (having been evacuated with their baby son in September 2012) would be leaving again so soon. They recently resigned from Oasis (for reasons unrelated to our work together in Kyrgyzstan) and will finish their work with us this month. We will miss them very much. Such are the challenges of team leadership!

Winter is coming!

Last Friday, for the first time the temperature was a shade below zero degrees centigrade as we set off for school. The skies are still clear and blue and the days beautiful, but there is definitely a chill in the air. One of our colleagues claims that she can smell that snow is on it's way…

In some ways the coming of winter is fun, especially as it brings the possibilities of winter sports! Rosie has recently started ice skating lessons and the thought of getting up into the mountains with snow on the ground excites us all! But we are also aware that for many people it is actually very difficult and miserable when it gets cold. In particular, we are mindful of one of the boys who Oasis has walked with over the last few years and who had lived in the transition home that we were running, but who has recently chosen to start living on the streets again. Sadly, despite working hard over the summer to get himself enrolled at an art school, and making a good start both in the studies and in settling into a dormitory, he has been encouraged by some of his old 'friends' to return to his former way of life, has dropped out of the college and is living on the streets of the city.

On a happier note, a couple of weeks ago we were contacted out of the blue by a local organisation who had 19 boxes of winter clothes for us to distribute! It turns out that we had written to them about a year and a half ago and not heard anything back… They however, had not forgotten us, and when they recently received a consignment of packages from the US, they earmarked some of them for us! It has been really good to be able to pass these on to many of the young people that we are walking with (including, of course, the chap mentioned above).

A (re)opening

Last Friday we celebrated the opening of our Youth Centre. In fact it was a re-opening as we have been running the centre for about a year, but have recently moved it to our own property which had perviously housed the boys transition home. Over the last weeks we have been working with some of the young people to paint, repair and generally renovate and it was great to be able to formally open the new centre!

The youth centre is one of the ways that we meet with young people who have been brought up in government institutions such as orphanages and children's centres. Another is that we have linked each young person that has been in touch with a member of staff. Last week one of the young people contacted her 'case worker' and said that she had been thrown out of her home and was now living on the streets; please could we help? It turns out that after she had left her orphanage in the summer she had gone to work in a holiday area and had somehow come across her mother. Initially things had gone well and she had moved in with her mother, but after some time the mother became angry and threw her out. Fortunately we were able to find her a place to stay at a children's centre and will continue to walk with her over the next weeks as she tries to make a fresh start… again. 

In other news… Felix and Rosie are on half term and having a well earned rest after a busy few weeks at school. They have both recently had orthodontic treatment, which so far has gone very well and Felix will be getting a full set of braces over the holiday (lucky chap!) And we have just really enjoyed a five day visit from some friends and on their last day (yesterday) we had an hour of snow - the first of the year. It seems that autumn is about to end...!

A New Term

So far, September has had a 'new term' feel to it. Felix and Rosie started back at school, we have had visitors from England with us for a week, and it has felt like there have been some new beginnings at Oasis too.

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!!!

It's good to be home!

We arrived back in Kyrgyzstan last Friday after four wonderful weeks in the UK. Most of the time was holiday, and we could not have chosen a better time to be there, as we arrived at the beginning of the 'heatwave' and it only rained on three days! We were very fortunate too that for three of the weeks that we were there we were staying within an easy walk of the sea, so were able to swim on most days (and often at least twice!). It was lovely to see our families and many friends and we were very blessed by the meals, conversations and generosity that we were shown throughout our stay.

Our first day - just below Beachy Head on the South Downs

An evening on Eastbourne beach

Fighting the tide with cousins on Aberdovey Beach, Wales

On top of Cadair Idris, North Wales

Overlooking Aberdovey Estuary








Nevertheless, by the end of the time we were looking forward to getting back home; Felix in particular was looking forward to getting to grips with his latest toy, an electronic drum kit which he had saved up for and bought a while back on e-bay. It is now set up in his room and so far the neighbours have not said anything...

In our absence, there has been some really good progress in the work that Oasis is involved with. In particular, the three boys from the transition home who had taken exams before we left received their exam results and all did well, one of them exceptionally. They have all now got places in university - something unheard of for boys who have come through the Government 'Reform School'. We are also excited that one of the other boys, about whom we had been very concerned, suddenly took the initiative to visit, sit exams and then enrol at a local art college, and is really making a big effort to start the next chapter of his life. They will all be moving into university / college dorms over the coming week, which is another big step for them and we are preparing to walk with them on this journey. One of the boys however is still a cause for concern; he did not do as well in the exams as he hoped and he has yet to find a place in college.

It took a while to get over jet-lag and go to sleep / wake up at the right times, but we are all very happy to be back and are really looking forward to the year ahead!