Just a few tips and tricks from my first 3 months in Central Asia!
-Don’t tell yourself you’re going to eat less hot fresh non (the traditional round bread). You won’t. And it’s delicious so why try?
-Do buy a small inflatable pool for the summer so you and 3 of your teammates can all smoosh together in it on a hot summer day eating watermelon.
-Don’t worry about how quickly language will come, and don’t compare either! It will come.
-Do practice pronunciation with the girls in your host family and when they tease you about a specific sound (you really think you say it the same way they’re saying it!) ask them to try to say the “th” in thank you—proceed to dissolve into giggles together.
-Don’t drink or use the water from the tap—you’ll likely get ghiardia (Not speaking from personal experience!! Yet… But I did learn how to buy ghiardia medicine last week.)
-Do eat all the incredible fresh fruit: cherries, apples, peaches, apricots, raspberries, strawberries, plums, pomegranates… Just wash it safely first!
-Don’t forget to restart your phone and internet if you finish the month’s data, because it will let you keep using data without your knowing that it is also sucking up the cash balance on your account. (This one might have been from experience)
-Do let the girls in your host family name your mini-pillow pet in the language you’re learning—they’ll name it goat. (It’s a cow)
-Don’t take for granted any of the time you’re here—these three months have been incredible and they have flown by!
-Do expect to have your life filled with lots of new and exciting and sometimes challenging changes and that your walk with the Lord will be deeply enriched.
I'm so grateful for these three months and all I have learned! These are some of the funny and maybe a few practical things, but really I have deeply learned more about the heart of Jesus and what it looks like to invite Him into my whole life. I cannot wait for each new day and each new month, and deeply anticipate all that I will continue to learn here in Central Asia.
Blessings,
Evelyn