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!

Celebration!

For the last few years Oasis has been running two transitional homes; one for boys and one for girls. The young people now living in them had nowhere to go when they left the government institutions where they were brought up and were at risk of living on the streets; over the last three years twelve young people have lived in these homes. As we have mentioned in previous blog posts we have been working towards these young people starting to live independently, and in the last couple of weeks, after much preparation, all the girls moved out of their Oasis home. Two have moved into a rented flat together and will be looking for work, one has moved to another centre and the fourth will be moving in with one of the members of staff in a fostering-type of relationship and will continue with her schooling.

So last Friday we all celebrated by having a picnic in the mountains. Of course, we were not celebrating the fact that the home is closing, but rather all the fantastic things that have happened: amongst other things, all the girls have improved their education, they have learnt how to look after themselves, they have had internships and work experience, some have had part time work, and they have been a part of a loving and supportive community. Lot's to celebrate!

The picnic site

The way home!

The six boys will be making a similar transition from their home over the next two months. As with the girls there will be much to celebrate, but also much to prepare for; it is a huge step for each of them.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road was an ancient trade route; goods produced in China (including paper, jade and, obviously, silk) travelled West, whilst glass and silverware, spices and wool (to name a few) travelled East. There was not one fixed road, but a network of routes, and all passed through Kyrgyzstan; in fact today one of the main streets in the city is called 'the Silk Road' - and we live just off it.

The presence of this route meant that a millennium ago this part of the world was bustling - and very wealthy. Large cities dotted the route, and last weekend we joined a trip to visit a number of these. Today they are just archaeological sites in the middle of rather beautiful countryside and quite some imagination is required to picture them as they might have been. We stood on the small hillock pictured (right) and were told that it was part of the largest human-moved mound of earth anywhere in the world, ever, and was the base of a city where hundreds of thousands of people lived.


We discovered that various religions co-existed at this time on the Silk Road; alongside Islam, there is evidence of a thriving Nestorian Church, of Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. We saw mounds that were once Buddhist temples; and came across an ancient Zoroastrian necropolis, where bones were piled after the (somewhat grizzly-sounding) burial rites were performed - the photo shows a 1,000 year old (or so) skull that has recently been exposed.




It was a fascinating day, and it is extraordinary to consider that Kyrgyzstan was once at the physical heart of the global economy.

Spring

Spring has arrived in a big way in the last few weeks; turning a bare and brown city into a garden. There are trees everywhere in Bishkek and the transformation has been fast and gorgeous. The park outside our kitchen window is bursting with colour again and we recently found out that tulips are native to Kyrgyzstan and grow wild in valleys here.

Jim is back on his bike and enjoying some longer rides at the weekends. This coming Saturday he is joining a local group for a 50km cycle event. He has also started work again on his MA dissertation after a 10 month break whilst we got settled, and is looking forward to finishing it (which he has to do by the end of June!)

We celebrated Easter by watching the sun rise over Bishkek a few weeks ago. And we are still enjoying some special Easter breads and egg decorating this week, because Orthodox Easter is this coming Sunday.

For Oasis the coming month is looking busy in a number of ways, not least with new arrivals: two of our colleagues have just had their first child, a little boy and all doing well. The Walkers, the family that were evacuated back in September with a very ill one month old are returning soon, so we are all very much looking forward to that. Also, today, a short-term volunteer arrived to join our team for six months. Meanwhile we continue to make progress with the necessary changes to help Oasis empower vulnerable young people. To be honest, much of this would make pretty uninteresting reading for a blog (the development of financial systems, strategic planning, fundraising, staff training and so on) but we are seeing progress and are encouraged at the way things are developing.

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!

Six months today!

Today we have been in Kyrgyzstan for six months!

Overall, we have really enjoyed our first six months here. There has been much that has been great, such as our lovely flat, our Oasis colleagues, and Felix and Rosie's wonderful school. There have (of course!) been plenty of challenges - communicating in Russian is high on this list! And there has been plenty that has been unexpected (walking to school in minus twenty degrees is not as unpleasant as it sounds!) We have made some friends and plenty of mistakes (back to the Russian language challenge again!) and experienced the high and the lows of culture shock. The photos at the end of the post might give a flavour of our first few months.

There is much to celebrate for Oasis over these last six months; we have grown as a team, certainly numerically (there are currently 12 of us), but more importantly in our relationships, respect for one another and in how we work together. We have started a youth centre for young people leaving government institutions (so called 'social-orphans') and have nearly completed a life-skills course at the government 'Reform Home' for some of the more 'difficult' young people that are in government care. And organisationally we are making good strides in developing better finance processes and organisational sustainability.

The review we wrote about in our last post has led us to start working intensively with the ten young people currently in the Oasis transitional homes to help each one of them to live independently within the next six months. Whilst this is a challenging prospect for each one of them, it will be a really positive step and we will walk with them through the transition and for some time afterwards, providing the support, encouragement and help that they will need as they make decisions.

 Independence Day Celebrations (August 31st) 

   

Oasis Team Meal at our flat (September)

Mountains 30 minutes south of Bishkek (October)

Rosie in end of term play (December)

 Finishing our joint 1,000km run, Bishkek (December 31st)

Skiing in the mountains south of Bishkek, Chinese New Year (February)

The view from our kitchen window (much of December, January and February!)