(English) Coming home from Kyrgyzstan – three months later

It has now almost been three months since me and Emma arrived back in Sweden, after spending four months in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Previously when I’ve spent some time abroad, I’ve marvelled at the fact that your life just goes back to normal so quickly; you meet up with old friends, walk the same streets as you’ve always walked before, go back to work or school – and all of a sudden it’s like you forget that you’ve just spent the last four or six months in a foreign country – with new friends and different streets – and that...

(English) A road trip through Tajikistan

Living in Osh, you sometimes forget how close you are to your neighbours, that is to say, neighbours in surrounding countries. Looking at a map, Uzbekistan is less than 10 km from Osh city centre and even though Uzbek culture is highly present in Osh (probably due to around 50 % of the city’s population being ethnic Uzbeks), crossing the border to Uzbekistan is anything but simple. However, Uzbekistan is not your only option if you want to explore another country but still stay in the region. Living in the Kyrgyz part of the Fergana Valley, you basically find...

(English) “They should respect girls like they respect each other” – International Women’s Day in Osh

Today is International Women’s Day and in Kyrgyzstan this is a public holiday. Banners are put up all over the city, wishing women happiness and prosperous lives with many children. For two days the streets in the city center has been filled with flower stands and everywhere you see men caring bouquets and gifts for their wives, mothers and sister. Even I have gotten my fair share of well wishes (for instance, a lady I met at the banya (russian sauna) two weeks ago, sent me a text with roses and hearts). To tell you the truth, I have...

(English) Raising the voices of the young

Newly arrived in Bishkek, we haven’t spent any time being idle. Except for doing some of the city’s most famous cites, spending a whole day skiing in Chunkurchak, eating lots of Kyrgyz food and finding new friends, one of the first things we did was to met with two different NGO’s: Center for the Protection of Children (CPC) and Kloop, an independent media outlet and school of journalism for young people. Summarised in one sentence, these two organisations are all about raising the young voices of Kyrgyzstan. At the CPC we met with Mira, who told us about their work as one...