Facebook users can join the FoKGZ group by clicking here.
The Winter 2007 edition of our newsletter, the Amerikanski Bill Bame, has been published, and is available for download here.
Highlights of this issue include:
The Friends of Kyrgyzstan July 2007 Newsletter has been published, and is available for download here.
Highlights of this issue include:
When: June 23rd to June 25th
Where: Las Vegas Nevada!
Hotel: Amerisuites
4520 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Tel: (702) 369-3366
toll free: 1-877-774-6467
http://www.amerisuites.com/reservations/locationdetail.asp?facid=4032
The schedule:
Friday June 23rd – Take a free shuttle from the Airport to the Hotel and check in.
Meet up at the Amerisuites at 7pm (until 10pm) to register your arrival, meet and greet old friends and meet some volunteers from before or after your time in K-stan! Enjoy some snacks – and of course hot tea as you catch up!
Unfortunately, the hotel can’t let us provide liquor because of their regulations but the hotel is next door to a German restaurant (and what German restaurant doesn’t have German beer?) and across the road is the Hard Rock Café and Casino.
Also on Friday night check out the items that are up for grabs in the silent auction and sign up for lunch the next day with your K-? group.
10pm on – grab the shuttle to the strip for shows, gambling and any other entertainment you can think of.
Saturday June 24th
Sleep in and enjoy the complimentary breakfast the hotel provides.
12pm – meet your K-? group (or another group if you prefer) and head to the selected restaurant for lunch and more catching up time!
Saturday Afternnon
There will be a meeting of the FOKGZ board, the fundraising committee, and any other committees as have formed by then.
Catch a Kyrgyz or Central Asian movie -- Nancy is bringing Besh Kempir and we hope to find a few more. The hotel will allow us to show movies in the suites so we can avoid renting meeting space.
Saturday Evening
6pm – 9pm – Buffet Dinner
We will have a buffet dinner and silent auction will continue through dinner and afterward. We will also have a few short announcements and that sort of thing. We might do some fun awards – maybe a slideshow of 12 years of Peace Corps in K-stan. (Any ideas for this please let me know!)
9pm on – Watch a Kyrgyz movie, go for a swim, catch the shuttle to the strip or just head across the street to the Hard Rock casino.
Sunday Morning June 25th
Enjoy complimentary breakfast with friends.
12 noon meet in lobby and head to lunch as a group.
Sunday afternoon – pack up all the stuff you bought at the auction, check out and head home!
Things to know:
Rooms at the Amerisuites are $99 a night for either a king size bed with a pull out couch or two double beds with a pull out couch. Amerisuites will allow us up to 4 people in a room w/o an extra charge. So if you are poor find some roommates to cut down on costs.
Once we have signed the contract (we are planning to have it finalized by the first week in February) you can begin registering for rooms.
Amerisuites also has a free shuttle to and from the airport and the Las Vegas Strip – and a free breakfast too!
Registration for the conference/reunion is $40 per person – that will pay for the snacks on Friday, buffet on Saturday and some kind of souvenir (probably a t-shirt).
You can send a check made out to Friends of Kyrgyzstan to Brandon Boyle our treasurer at:
Friends of Kyrgyzstan Treasurer
86 Pinewood Ave.
Albany, NY 12208
Also if you could send me (or include it with your check to Brandon) any special dietary requirements. There will be a veggie option on the buffet but we would like to have an estimate of how many we need and any other issues – like food allergies.
*** Friends/Family – Feel free to bring friends, significant others, kids, family members etc with you to the reunion – just have them register at the hotel as a FOKGZ reunion goer and if they want to attend the mixer/buffer just have them send the registration fee to Brandon.
Things you can do to help:
Donate something to be auctioned off. Proceeds will go to projects of current volunteers in Kyrgyzstan. (While shirdacks, kalpacs, woolen slippers etc would be wonderful you can also donate something from your home town or your travels from wherever) Please let us know if you will be bringing something to auction off.
Bring a movie from Kyrgyzstan or Central Asia to show those interested.
Send any ideas you have for fun activities (Balykchi Olympics anyone?) to me.
Spread the word – if you are in contact with other volunteers K-1 to K-12 please let them know that the reunion is being planned. We would love to have a good representation of all groups there whether they are involved with Friends of Kyrgyzstan or not.
Questions? Problems? Suggestions? E-mail me at lindalee_b@yahoo.comSteve Lum (K4, 1996-2000) forwarded the following first hand account of neighboring Uzbekistan and some of the recent events in Andijon.
" 19 May 2005
This is my first day back in Andijan, now quiet and foreboding. The road leading into the city has roadblocks, the closer to Andijan, the more military hardware and personnel present. The New Bazaar, normally still bustling at closing time is almost empty. Along the bazaar little traffic runs along the main road, the sparseness heightened by recent renovations that have widened and sealed it. Piles of sandbags litter some streets, and concrete beams lie strewn haphazardly, as if tossed by a giant forgetful hand.
The No. 33 minivan I normally use to get from the New Bazaar to my flat in the Old City, and all the other public transport, makes a detour from the administrative centre of Andijan, where demonstrators gathered last week. The park is closed, as is the Ferris wheel inside, which could afford a vantage point to any sharpshooter. The van passes by the Main Bazaar, where there is little activity. The minivan makes a turn to my stop, veering past tanks and armed soldiers that have cordoned off the area where the protests took place. I get off the van. All the shops are closed, and few people and vehicles are out in the streets of this densely populated city.
A few minutes after settling in, someone knocks on my door. It is my upstairs neighbour with her son, both of whom I have never met. They step in from the corridor and close the door. She asks if I am a journalist, adding that foreign journalists have been banned from Andijan. I say no and she is relieved. She speaks warily. School has been closed until further notice, which is why her son is working at the kiosk outside our building. Her office has also been closed.
After I tell her that I just returned from Tashkent, she asks me what news I have heard. I ask her what she can tell me. She relates some details but then stops, and invites me to dinner, a friendly gesture that Uzbeks extends to guests, which even in this tense atmosphere my neighbours make. I accept, as a guest should, and follow her and her son up to her flat, where she knows no prying ears will listen. This is what happens after the storm: the streets are empty, people stay at home, and cautiousness and anxiety, present but unacknowledged in normal times in this conservative society, cleave the atmosphere.
Kyrgyzstan President Akayev has left Kyrgyzstan following the takeover of the Kyrgyz White House in Bishkek by protestors. A new interim government is re-forming relatively quickly and peacefully.
News articles from the CNN and Eurasianet contain an account and several recent photos of the action in Bishkek. You can also learn more by following the news links in our "Links" section. The latest news can usually be obtained via a news aggregator such as Google News. We'll try to keep this front page updated with developments.
For those interested in a non-Peace Corps (American working in Bishkek) view of the situation, read this account (plain text file, with permission from Alex Wiken).
The Peace Corps has released the news that all volunteers in Kyrgyzstan have been consolidated.
Megan Harkness-Madole writes: "I am the daughter of Charles Harkness, K-11, Bishkek. As of this morning CST, all Chui volunteers had been consolidated to his apartment and one other in Bishkek.
A blog that is a current
good read on the situation is
www.kyrgyzstankid.blogspot.com
[written by Larry Tweed in Osh]. Thanks for passing the info on, Megan.
If you have other unique news on the situation in Kyrgyzstan that can be shared with the public, please contact us.
