With Love From Vefa Center

I'm going to be learning the art of 15 minute blog post.  At this moment I'm enjoying the peace of a comfy coffee shop in the mall in Bishkek about two minutes from school and twenty minutes from home by bus.  The mall is called Vefa Center, and it is one of three or four places I know how to get to at this point.  It's my first solo outing besides the ride to school this morning, and I am relishing it. 

Mira Eje, my host mom, will be eagerly awaiting my call before I catch the marshrutka home for the night.  In two days I've made huge progress from being her rebyonok, her little baby as she called the students she has hosted, to kind of the second grader venturing to school on the bus.  I think in the course of the day I've worked up to high school level.   My whole brain is consumed with memorizing bus routes, improving communication in my personal dialect of caveman Russian, and the triumph I feel at having discovered the location of the post office. My tummy is full of pelmeni and tea.  My heart hungers to become a friend and not a stranger.  

I understand myself more as a person now, and I understand that I crave a certain amount of conversation in my native tongue per day.  Even ten minutes, if it's quality.  So along with my Russian and Kyrgyz goals I am including that habit.  Languages are good tools and I am going to be as resourceful as possible with them.  Baby steps.  Until next time...