Blogs from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Asia - page 6

A week inside a living museum. Uzbekistan has a perfect tourist trail with three fantastic cities to visit. Each has its own style but they fit together well. The tourist sites have been very well looked after (you could argue too well) with lots of restoration and re-building work having been done. Even the notorious police have been warned off from troubling foreigners - the one time I was stopped on the Tashkent underground the police man asked where I was from and demanded my passport, when I said I was from England and he waved me away before I even started to get my passport out. A year or two ago this encounter would have probably ended up with a demand for a "fine" of some sort. I say a living museum because in the ... read more

Wednesday and Thursday Pictures coming soon Some fun things lately: 1. Taking action photos on our porch 2. Seeing Swan Lake, the ballet, in a nice theater in town on Weds evening 3. Eating locally made ice cream almost daily from the corner store for about 30 cents 4. Being crafty in our apt preparing things for the orphanage 5. Going really fast through a lot of traffic when the professional driver drove us to the orphanage one morning when we were extra late 6. Exploring the neighborhood like children, marveling at all of the things that are different from the US, and wondering curiously why things are why they are. 7. Asking Yulduz a million questions about these things, and learning a lot about Uzbek culture. On Wednesday during part of Sharon’s massage demonstration to ... read more

Weekend fun Pictures coming soon... Saturday: Tourist stuff We woke up late, and I decided to go for a run in the yard, as I think I was going through running withdrawls. I’ve been doing some other exercises in the morning that have made me quite sore in places I haven’t been sore in a long time, to try to make up for running. But nothing compares, and then I’m just left stiff and sore! So, I ran for 20 minutes or so and listened to my I-pod in the 30 yard long space our house lies in, surrounded by a wall. We were transported all around town in the MTI van, along with Yulduz, and a man named Rick who works in the Portland MTI office and is here on a work trip. We walked ... read more

We've had a lot of down time this week, for planning and getting aquainted. But this means we've had time also for lots of pictures and some goofing off! This update will be continued and I would like to write about the time in the orphanage today, but for now I'm uploading a few fun pictures.... read more

Day 2 Today we gave our first lecture, which was an overview of normal child development. There is lots of opportunity for intervention here in the orphanage, and although the caregivers want to learn, many of them are set in a way of thinking that limits the potential for these children. For example, the caregivers feel that the kids who can’t use their hands can’t go to school and learn because they can’t write. The things that we see as problems are very much accepted. The topics that the caregivers want training in are different from the problems we see as we walk through the orphanage. This is frustrating. During our presentation, the caregivers were anxious to learn more practical applications, so we attempted to provide them with some during our lecture. We learned that they ... read more