The Empire Strikes... Uh, yeah

I have my classroom. My hours are more reasonable. I'm working with my one true counterpart now. Things are so bright I think I could cry!
Yesterday I went to school for my Kyrgyz tutoring. My tutor was there, I saw her coat, but she didn't show up to teach me Kyrgyz. Instead she went to a seminar and neglected to tell me. Oh well, that's the norm here. I tried going to the English classroom, but it wouldn't open. The lock still isn't installed, so initially I thought it was locked from the inside. Coming back today, it still wouldn't open, so I went to the school's director. Apparantly the zavuch (vice-principal) took it upon himself to nail the room shut, for seemingly no reason. Luckily I had a horde of club students waiting out in the hall for me, and he got a pair of pliers to take the nail out. I've long since stopped trying to understand the logic behind such actions -- just let me have my room, please.
One volunteer from my oblast is gone, he got in trouble for his actions. This particular volunteer was my oblast's VAC representative, a committee dedicated to handling volunteer issues (the fact that I'm not 100% sure on what VAC stands for is testament to how involved I was). However, with his absence, there's a spot open that my fellow oblasters must vote on. After thinking things over I'm going to try running for the spot. In a very real way I miss doing the representation bid, be it interning or model UN'ing or what have you, and volunteer rights and issues are fairly critical in this organization that seems very top-heavy. Am I qualified for such a position? Who knows. But I'd like to think I'll make a greater effort to get input from my fellow oblasters and actually represent. I feel I'm in a good position with most of my oblast, and those I'm not close with I'm at least communicative with. To me its definately not a free ride to Bishkek to party and have fun.
This coming week is PDM. Finally, a chance to get out from the teaching grind and learn some useful things for developmental and project purposes. It's also (I believe) the last time my group of volunteers will all get together in one place during service. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to it. I'll be heading in a day early and spending some time with my host family, which I'm anticipating even more than PDM. On top of it all this Sunday is Women's Day, which is very important and worthy, in my opinion, particularly in a country where women really need recognition for what they do. I bought some flowers and am going to make a cake (and perhaps some pasta fagioli) for my Talas family, trying to do something similar for my Chuy family.
We've all been told March is a milestone for volunteers. I'm starting to feel it. Work is getting better. The crummy winter days are dying out to sunny, warm, and bird-song filled ones. Things are starting to go right for once! The new batch of volunteers is arriving toward the end of the month, which is quite exciting. Overall it's the death of what's been bad and the birth of what will be good for me, at least so far. My eyes may feel heavy and tired, but I can feel my heart beating once again -- I can feel life, and happiness, and purpose again! It's a joy, a real, pure joy, and I'm ever so grateful for it all.
A couple weeks ago my friend Dan stopped by my site before heading back to his own -- he had been on a week-long venture to Southern Kyrgyzstan (which sounds pretty nice, esp since it was warm and sunny there while it was snowing here). Anyway, we went out into my village looking for some miscellaneous items (I believe one was an animal cracker-tasting cookie I had found one time, pretty cheap too). Upon entering one store we found one of the most hilarious things I've witnessed in-country -- they were selling stickers. In true Kutaiski (Chinese) fashion, they were very out-of-place and non sequiter, especially with the line on each exclaiming, "We have hopes because we have love. Made in China." Anyway, Dan bought a sheet of stickers that had some sort of teen girl pop group on it, I bought one entitled "Verduras y Hortalizas - 2." My sheet is, if the language is correct and if one can read it, vegetables in Spanish. Spanish. What the heck is it doing in Kyrgyzstan? Just another flop that made its way here, I think. But it's hilarious, so I bought it.
Now, what did I do with the stickers, aside from have a good laugh? Well, this week my students handed in some homework. This particular assignment was about what they like/don't like and why. One student wrote "I don't like war because it is useless." Besh! Besh plus! For those that don't know, besh (five, in Kyrgyz) is the equivalent of our A (or, 90-100 grade range). That sentence made my day. You bet I slapped my Lechuga sticker on that homework! Ha! The student muttered a meek "rakmat..." (thank you) and seemed a bit confused/scared, and I'll admit the Spanish has no relevance to class, but man oh man it was awesome. Don't know if I'll get anyone to top that line.
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Last night I had a bit of a freak out moment. For Women's Day, March 8th, I decided to buy some flowers and to bake a cake. I snuck the flowers in from my trip to a bigger village that has a bazaar easily enough and will give them to my fam before I leave for Bishkek. The cake was another matter. I had to ask around to find some milk -- here milk isn't sold at the corner store or gas station, rather people have cows and try to sell it. So I told my eje I was going to make a cake and needed some milk, and after a couple days she finally decided to get it. Anyhow, I followed the recipe on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa box that was so graciously sent over, and I think things turned out ok (also made the frosting on said box -- improvised with regular sugar though because the powdered variant is nonexistant here). I must have spent a good 2-3 hours baking these bad boys, super chocolatey, super messy, and, at the moment, I have no idea how they taste. After I was finished baking them it was about 11 at night, and my family tried getting me to eat some. I said no, it's late, if I eat all this sugar I won't be able to sleep. Instead of eating it, I go into my room to get my camera and take a picture of the cakes (the battery had died so I was charging it), but when I go back into the dining room the cakes are missing. I listen and hear every single family member in the other room -- they had taken the cakes in there. My mind had a meltdown, I knew what was going on -- Kyrgyz people, instead of leaving stuff out at the table and eating it there, will instead stuff pockets full of candy and sweets (or whatever else), go into a room - say, this room I'm talking about - and scarf the stuff down as quickly as possible. My heart sank, my mind was angry. Please tell me I didn't just bake these cakes so that they can be demolished in one night. Luckily the power went out soon after, so I think that forestalled subsequent scarfing. But I went to bed with that thought on my mind, texting some friends about it all. I wake up this morning and frantically try finding the cakes. Not in the room from the night before, not in the kitchen. I open the dining room door and see 1/4 of a cake sitting on a dish -- I think "They really ate all that cake??" but upon further investigation there was one fully intact cake sitting on top of the refridgerator. My mind and body let out a big woooosh and all is right -- I'll get to have a piece for myself (see how it is, learn what I can do to make it better next time) and got to take my pictures. Relief!