Joined the Peace Corps. BRB.

The previous design got a few laughs from friends, but don't worry about it - it was just a joke to throw off the girls. Since the camp is just 5 days away now, I can reveal the real design:
And here's our certificate:

That's Sly, Ahnold, The Duke, and The Dragon from left to right.

I'd pat you all on the back if I could. Man Camp is fully funded thanks to you, you, and, especially, you. Your contributions will certainly go to a good cause and I hope that I was able to thank every one of you that donated. If not, leave me a curse word-laced message.

Once we got down to $19, I figured we had it in the bag, but I still checked every morning until our headquarters emailed me with the results. Funding was big part of the entire process, but it's just one hurdle in a long race; we still have lots of work to do. I'm worrying too much - how hard can it be to bring 55 fourteen year old boys to a remote location, keep them under control for a week, then return them all safely to their homes all over the country (most of them nearly 14 hours away)?

Pictures of Man Camp in the near future, but, in the mean time, thanks all around to YOU.

There's only one thing that I think of these days: funding for Man Camp. It consumes my every thought, making it impossible to think about other things: school's good, the weather's warm, I'm reading a good book.

We need $2959. That means we've received a total of $2375. Once we hit $2667, the halfway mark, then I'll rest a little easier. Actually, no I won't; I'll probably just get even more antsy as we get closer to the $0 mark. The numbers are always bouncing around in my head, so much so that I use them in class activities now:

"Mark went to the store. At the store he bought 2375 eggs."
"2375?!"
"Yes. Mark was very hungry, so he drove home at 2959 kph."
"What!"

The project members, you met them last post, and I keep in touch via periodic emails. Since I have the most readily available email access, I keep up on the numbers game more than them. I update them with the most recent numbers about once a week, most of the time like this:



The numbers game is so all-encompassing these days that I pay attention to other volunteers' projects (in other countries!). Some of the ideas are awesome, here are a few of my favorites: a butcher shop in Togo, a baseball league in Moldova, and chicken raising in South Africa. But, hands down, my favorite project is this MASSIVE project in Vanuatu for windmill power. The project total is $289,548! The guy's asking for $24,794, a fraction of the overall cost, but still...! Isn't it a great idea? It almost out-MAN's the Man in Man Camp. How cool is that? I almost feel like changing our camp to be a weather balloon project or an ark just to compete.

Once again, thanks for your continued donations to our camp. You're helping those you've never met, but the project will be a rousing success - one that I anticipate positively affecting these boys' lives. We're going to have a watermelon eating contest!

Oh, and if we get funded quickly enough, let's toss some cash at that guy in Vanuatu as well.

We had a meeting in Toktogul to discuss Man Camp stuff.

Basically it boiled down to delegating responsibility to team members for certain tasks we need to accomplish before the camp in June. There's a lot of details that need to be addressed before then, and this is made difficult by the distance between each of us. We met in Toktogul primarily because it is central to all of us. It took me 10 hours on a bus to get there.

We've been talking about Man Camp ever since our PST, so it's a strange feeling to watch the camp slowly shift from idea to reality. It won't be exactly as we originally imagined it, but we're working hard to make it close. Dancing bears, elephant races, and a dunk-tank with pirahhnas are just not going to happen unfortunately.

The ideas are rolling in at a good clip though, so I'm confident in the camp's success. Honestly, the most difficult part so far was sending out that mass email asking for money. I believe that Man Camp will be a special event, but it's difficult to convery its importance, its potential, to folks in words that sift out to say, "We need money!" We're down to $3644 left (out of $5334). My greatest fear is that we'll get down to a few hundred dollars left and the money flow will dry up. I hate asking for money.

By the way, don't forget the website: link to Peace Corps donation site.

I've got expensive tastes, but I'm not too interested in being rich. That sounds awfully idealistic. I guess what I'm saying is that in my future, I want enough money to be able to be on the donating end, not the receiving end. The ability to give before another has a chance to ask would be immensely satisfying.

Let's conclude with a few pictures. Two pictures from Toktogul, and a mini-introduction to the guys heading up Man Camp (minus Matt Grandmason - no picture!).

Lookout point at Toktogul.

On the way back from the lake.

Phil Johnson. "Turn on High School Musical again!"

Charlie Moyer. "He tried to get with that. The Egg."

Rick Gotwald. "I like my girls like I like my tea. ...Puerto Rican."

Sean Thompson. "Should've taken the cab."



Next time: the ladies helping Man Camp.

Thanks for your continued donations!

Hello, hello friends and enemies!

This is not the most important email you'll receive this year, this week, or even today, but I'd appreciate it if you'd read it in its entirety before deleting it. After all, I hate mass emails just as much as you.

My time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyzstan is coming to a close soon - it's still surprising to me how quickly time has past here. That's not to say I'm busy 24/7 though: a few nights ago, I spent three hours trying to build a card house. I couldn't even make one level. Guess my future in architecture is not in the cards. So to speak.

If you follow my mess of a blog, you'll know a little about my final project here in Central Asia. Along with four other volunteers, I have been planning a Boys' Leadership Camp to be held in the middle of June. I'll first explain my thought process in coming up with the camp: recognize a situation (what?), assess the problems (why?), and derive solutions (how?):

Situation - Young men in Kyrgyzstan graduate from secondary school without plans for their futures.
Problems - Lack of direction, role models, and confidence.
Solution - Boys' Leadership Camp.

As it is a Central Asian nation, Kyrgyzstan suffers from a hierarchal gender system where men are treated above women. It's a cultural issue that they are slowly changing (remember, less than 100 years ago, the States had the same problem - to some extent, it still exists today). Past groups of volunteers recognized this problem and offered numerous programs to young women in the country in hopes of building their confidence and expanding their vision for what a modern woman in Kyrgyzstan can be. Unfortunately, several generations of volunteers neglected the young mens' role, instead catering only to girls.

This is where Boys' Leadership Camp comes in. From June 11-15, we will be hosting 50 young men from grades 7-9 (ages 12-15) from all over Kyrgyzstan for a week of sessions and activities that seek to educate young Kyrgyz men about their roles in society and possibilities for their futures. Each day will focus on a different theme: one for health, one for career planning, one for how to act around women. Encompassing all of these themes will be our central focus on leadership, and how a young man should carry himself - with pride, confidence, and optimism for his future. Guest speakers have been handpicked from Peace Corps, schools, and NGOs to provide the boys with fantastic role models to look up to. Sessions will be held in Kyrgyz and Russian to eliminate possible language barriers and provide 100% understanding of the message.

Let's call Boys' Leadership Camp, Man Camp. After all, it's about becoming men. Man Camp will not focus solely on sessions; instead, we are looking to create an American-style summer camp. Sporting activities like basketball, soccer, football, wiffle ball, and relay races will be held every day with a huge, round robin-style tournament held the final day. We hope to foster a sense of teamwork and competition between each cabin of 10 boys. Each cabin of boys will come up with their own team names and cheers - hopefully something like, "Team Bruce Lee" or "Team Arnold Schwarzenegger" or "Team Jean Claude Van Damme." Manly. And no, we won't be playing volleyball at Man Camp. Volleyball is for girls.

Jokes aside, my four volunteer co-planners and I have put in a lot of time and work into Boys' Leadership Camp and it's an extremely important project to us. As is Peace Corps policy, we were required to obtain a certain percentage of the camp's funding from local sources. This aspect of the camp has been fulfilled. The Rotary Club branch in Bishkek offered to fund part of the camp after reviewing our budget. In turn, we agreed to bring 5 orphans from a local orphanage to the camp. All class, baby.

Now comes the difficult part of this email. For Peace Corps Partnership grants, a large percentage of the total budget must be provided by outside sources. These sources usually include friends, family, corporations, and the Trix Rabbit. Our total budget for the camp is $7713 USD. The percentage required through the PCPP grant is $5334 USD. Peace Corps has posted a link:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.projdetail&projdesc=307-076

...on its website where you can go and donate funds to Boys' Leadership Camp. I'm not asking for $5334 from one person - remember, this is a five man project, so if my end can pull down 1/5 of the funds, we'd be in good shape.

You all know me, so you know it's not in my nature to ask for money. But I believe this is a great project, one that will change the lives of these 55 young men. An event like Boys' Leadership Camp will stay with these boys for their entire lives. Any contribution will help enormously whether it's $2, $5, or $10. I'm laughing as I write this because I realize all of my friends are young, broke, just-out-of-college folks haha. But seriously, anything helps, guys and gals. If you're can't donate at all, think about passing on this message to those who are in position to help.

Thanks for reading, and please check out the link if you have time. If anyone would like a copy of the budget in order to corroborate prices ("$5000?! Where's the money going??"), please ask, and I'd be happy to forward it to you.

Take care, and see you all soon.

Now you know,

Sean

ps - If you do donate, please send me an email telling me so. I would like to thank you in person (donations on the Peace Corps website are all anonymous in terms of donater and amount).

I'm back from Upper Jalalabad. Here's some pictures of a train, Lenin statue, and ylak (nation game played on horseback with a goat carcass).

They sell logs of processed meat here called "kahlbasa." It's basically sausage. I used to buy the chicken logs because I figured that they would be healthier than the mutton or beef ones, but every time I ate some, I would get sick for a few days afterword. This was before I thought to buy a frying pan (EGGS!), so my thought process preempted any other thoughts aside from: kahlbasa = sausage = meat = better than bread and potatoes. So, I killed tons of these sausages over the past year and a half, ignorant of the sickness they caused.

I stopped buying them for a few months, but went to the bazaar yesterday and bought a log. As I walked away, the vendor yelled to me to, "Don't forget to cook it first."

What?

I walked backwards back to the stall and asked for clarification. The old lady looked at me with a weird look on her face and said, "The kahlbasa. That type is supposed to be fried or boiled first. If you eat it raw, you'll get sick."

It tastes better fried too. Gosh.

My mom's going to hate this story.

It Snowed Again

Two weeks ago, I had to roll up my dress shirt sleeves because it was so warm. Today, I had to toss on my ICE AGE gear just to walk to the store. The weather fluctuations in Kyrgyzstan are the most ridiculous I’ve ever seen – and I used to live in Kansas.

My students think it’s because of global warming, but they also think that Moscow is the biggest city in the world.

Animals Again

My kids like animals. I mean, they’re eighth graders, so of course they like animals. Now, they want to argue with me about which is faster: pigs or cows. Obviously it’s pigs. Obviously they chose cows.

After the whole elephant fiasco, I think they just like to screw around with my knowledge of the natural world. Come on. I used to be a Biology major, son!

We’ll ignore the fact that I bombed so many science courses I had to switch to History.

Boys

The boys in my classes complain that I like the girls better than them. I don’t argue with them about that. It’s easier to make the choice when you imagine having all boys or all girls in one class. One class of boys throwing everything in reach at each other, wrestling, and asking me if I like 50 Cent versus one class of girls paying attention and telling me that I’m awesome?

Easy. Hey, I like to be complimented too.

Man Camp

But I’m making it up to the boys. We just submitted our Peace Corps Partnership grant proposal for a Boys’ Leadership Camp in June, so hopefully we’ll have the grant online pretty soon here.

It’s going to be great. Trust me. We’re going to have some great guest speakers come in to talk to the boys about leadership, career planning, healthy lifestyles, and how a young man should act towards women.

In our early notes, we titled that last one, “Hit other boys, not girls.”

55 Boys Running Around

There are 5 of us heading up the Man Camp project. We’ll each bring 10 students from our schools to the camp. In addition, we’re bringing 5 orphans from the capital to the camp. We’re classy like that.

I’m not exactly sure which 10 boys I’m going to bring. I’ll probably have them arm-wrestle.

Everyone Knows

It’s funny, nobody wants to help work with pounding out the grant, budget, or materials for the camp, but all these volunteers want to come to Man Camp.

I’m not a mean guy, but I keep it short with my answer: “No.” I like to play, but I’m taking this project pretty seriously. It’s game face all day when Man Camp prep is on tap. Man Camp will be fun, but it will not be a party for volunteers.

One volunteer talked excitedly about how she was going to come to the camp and bring her mom as well. Her mom.

I won’t even begin.

Those K14s

K14s want to come to Man Camp too. This is great actually because I want two of them to come, observe, and then carrying on the project again next year. But, like I said, I will not allow volunteers who see this as a party to come.

After rejecting a few K14s who wanted to come to Man Camp, they pouted and told me they were starting their own “Man Camp” on the lake next year.

That’s fine. Just stop hijacking our name.

But They Won’t Stop Crying

I offered to give all our materials to these K14s seeking to start their own Boys’ Leadership Camp next year, but I was turned down. Instead, they criticized our camp behind our backs as if this were some sort of competition.

What more can I say? Peace Corps, baby. Peace Corps.

This Blog

It’s been about a month since I wrote anything here. I ran out of interesting stuff to say.

I actually read a lot of Peace Corps volunteers’ blogs. Honestly, they’re boring. Maybe it’s because I’ve been here for a year and a half, but reading about cows, chickens, sheep, and culture clashes between host families and volunteers stopped being funny about a year ago.

I reread my blog too. Lots of whining.

By Sean Thompson

I think I tried to be too much like a writer early on. Eloquence and overly verbose passages are great for fine literature, but not for a Peace Corps blog.

Blogs are fun for practicing writing techniques, but too many people want to be Faulkner, when they’d be better off imitating Hemingway.

Or just not writing blogs.

It’s Sunny Outside Now

It wouldn’t be right to end on a sour note. I used my salary from school to buy new basketballs for the school recently. In honor of March Madness, I’m planning to throw challenges to all secondary schools in Osh for a basketball tournament to be held later next month. We’ll have two boys’ and two girls’ teams so that all ages and skill levels can participate.

It’s the homestretch in my Peace Corps service now. Strange how quickly time has passed.

My favorite website is Wikipedia. It’s my boredom killer, always ready to present a topic for me to learn each day. Sometimes it’s something useful, but most of the time, I learn about useless things like raccoons. Did you know that there’s such a thing as a crab-eating raccoon?
Today was definitely a “learning” day on Wikipedia as I learned about official state mottos of countries around the world. Here’s a few of my favorites:

Austria: none. But, formerly AEIOU, standing for Austriae est imperare orbi universo. That’s Latin for, “It’s Austria’s destiny to rule the world.” Understandable during Leopold I’s reign, but when you have to sue France for peace (even against Napoleon), then it’s time for a new motto.

Austria-Hungary: Indivisibiliter ac Inseparabiliter. Once again, Latin for, "Indivisible and inseparable.” New motto, same irony.

Botswana: Pula. In Tswana, that simply means, “Rain.” No jokes this time, just facts: Home to the Kalahari Desert, Botswana definitely needs rain, but with the world’s lowest life expectancy at 35 years (AIDS epidemic), it’s definitely in need of more than just water.

Luxembourg: Mir wëlle bleiwe, wat mir sin. In Luxembourgeois, "We want to stay what we are.” In a small sampling of Peace Corps volunteers in Osh, 0% could correctly identify Luxembourg on a map, so the Grandy Duchy is safe for now.

Switzerland: Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno. Latin for, "One for all, all for one.” But, but, but except in war! Or decision making of any type. And I thought the Three Musketeers were French?

North Korea: 강성대국. That reads, “Prosperous and great country.” See what I mean? I don’t even need to attach punch-lines for these to be funny.

That’s all for today, friends and enemies.