Postcard from Bishkek

Yesterday was International Students’ Day and I wrote a postcard about people taking a “year out” – a Gap Year. A few weeks ago one of the local newspapers, (Slovo Kyrgyzstan – the Word of Kyrgyzstan), ran an interesting article based on a couple of interviews with foreign students studying at Kyrgyzstan Universities; one from […]

Earlier this week I received a copy of the latest newsletter from Healthprom - a British charity that I have mentioned several times in different postcards. This one contained links to stories about: Their Donkey Ambulance used to transport expecting mothers to hospital in Afghanistan. Their new project in Russia which will support children with disabilities and their […]

As India launched a rocket carrying it Mars Orbital Mission, (MOM), there were some critical comments in the ‘blogosphere’ and social media about the wisdom of spending huge sums of money in this way when the country has far from impressive levels of malnutrition and comparisons between the cost with the amount of aid given […]

Some dates prove to be not only memorable … but not all as easily remembered even if they prove to be significant. December 7th, 1941, for example, was a day which President Roosevelt declared would be “a day that will live in infamy”.  October 14th, 1066, November 11th, 1918, and June 6th, 1944, are all […]

When I first came here back in 1995, one of the first things that I noticed was the number of people who sported “gold teeth”.  Believe me, it took some getting used to. You still see some examples these days, but far fewer and they tend to be worn by members of the older generation. […]

In June, the Ministry of Health approved a code of ethics for medsestry - nurses. Normally, such a document would “pass me by” but this time it caught my eye as I have had some recent experience with hospitals – especially following Maxim’s illness, and I was involved last year in an attempt to draft a […]

  For most of the children in Kyrgyzstan, today marks the first day of the school year … perviye zvonok - First Bell – for 2013. Actually, in Kyrgyzstan – as elsewhere in the former Soviet Union – the academic year starts on 1st September, but this year there’s been some confusion because that fell on Sunday and yesterday […]

One of the saddest pieces of news last week is that, so far this year, some 80 people have drowned Kyrgyzstan’s canals, rivers and lakes – including some 21 children – about 25%. Unfortunately there was no information about the equivalent figures for previous years so it is not possible to put that statistic into […]

As I listened to the Global News podcast from the BBC, I wasn’t sure if I could believe what I was hearing … in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, a Gay Canadian comedian was leading a Ginger Pride Parade as part of the Fringe … it has to be a joke, I thought … but no, […]

Every year since the turn of the century, 12th August sees the commemoration of the United Nations designated International Youth Day. In fact, youth issues have been on the UN agenda for a lot longer – the first International Year of Youth was held in 1985, (there was a second in 2010/11), and the General […]