The Curveball

Hello Once Again!
Well, in 2 days I will have finished training and be an official, honest-to-God Peace Corps Volunteer. Amid much fanfare, pomp, and circumstance the UZ-18 group of 63 people will be sworn in on April 5th at a ceremony in Tashkent. The Ambassador will speak, two members of my class will deliver speeches in Uzbek and Russian, and I and another will sing and play the guitar. Peace Corps is providing a couple buses for our host families so they can attend as well. We'll also meet our new site counterparts, who had flown, train-ed, or bus-ed it to Tashkent. All in all, it looks to be a good couple of days.

I had planned to wait until after the ceremony and send out an email from my new site in Urgench, on the other side of this California-sized nation, with news about my new city, host family, work, and friends. However, I'm typing away here in Chirchik, still at the home of my original host family. The reason is that the Uzbek government has been slow to grant us - and all foreigners - proper visas. As of writing this, mine and most of the other Uz-18ers expire on April 19. Peace Corps and the US Embassy are doing their best to resolve the issue ASAP, and they think we'll be granted 13-month visas within two weeks. But, until such time as this issue is straightened out, we'll all be staying in or around Chirchik. I'll busy myself with more Russian classes, maybe try a beginner Uzbek lesson or two, and come up with other ways to occupy myself - basketball, hiking, exploring this region, etc.

So, if you've already sent something to my new address (below), no worries - they'll hold it until I get there. But until I get my visa and move to Urgench, please continue to use the first address of the Peace Corps Office in Tashkent.

PS - Some (wonderful) people have asked what makes a good care package in Uzbekistan. Well, no sense in only sharing with a few of you, so here's a list of some of the "greatest hits" with Uzbek PCVs: DVDs, Clif bars, photographs of you, newspapers, DVD or VHS recordings of good Red Sox games, letters (of course), real beef jerky, and anything else you so desire.