Ryia Reports

We've received word from Ryia in Central Asia:

Well, I arrived safely and am finally situated in my new apartment. If you were worried about me, a single woman, living alone, Don't be! I have several thousand six legged roommates: Ah, cockroaches. I think the poison that we spread is working though because every day I sweep up several new carcasses that I don't remember killing.

I'm excited because I met a girl who is working on an AIDS project here and I'm hoping that I'll get to see what she is doing with that project. Also on the public health horizon, I learned how my center makes artificial limbs. It's pretty cool, although weird to see all the random legs that are scattered around the building.

It looks like I will have around 80 students at the vocational center for English classes. They range in age from 13 to 50, in ability, intermediate to advanced. I use the term intermediate loosely as my Russian is better than their English (that's a bad sign). Yesterday I had class-crashers from a low form, who didn't speak any English but insisted that they did. It escalated into a huge fight with them yelling and involved all the teachers on the floor. I tried to say, hey if I have to tell you this in Russian you really can't be in a conversation class, but it didn't work, maybe I said something else. It will be interesting to see what they do today.

It's Visa time of the year. Almost none of the international workers here (including me) have visas past the end of march. The whole community is very disheartened. It is always difficult to wait to see who gets to continue with their work and who is forced to return home. Remember to think of everyone who is forced to trust for knowing what work they will be allowed to do each and every year.