Archive sections: ‘Life In Kyrgyzstan’
The day began with music blaring out of my computer from a CD in the Drive. This doesn’t happen very often, but is an annual event on December 16th, as is the “birthday cake” which arrived later in the day. Now, the people of Kyrgyzstan enjoy a celebration and they take every opportunity to join [...]
I have just got back from an invigorating afternoon – a pleasant excursion out of the office. I had been invited to act as a judge, (a sort of “external assessor”), for a business class at one of the local Universities. As part of their course in “Business Administration” they have to form teams and then prepare [...]
One of the iconic films of the twenty century was released in 1942, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergamn (In the original postcard I said Lauren Bacall – well, as I have said before … we all make mistakes!) – Casablanca. At the time, nobody really expected the film to amount to much – it [...]
Yesterday, December 9th, was designated by the United Nations as “International Anti-corruption Day”, as long ago as in October, 2003, when it passed the United Nations Convention against Corruption. I don’t think it has been well advertised and, to be honest, I almost missed it this year. The first I knew was when I saw [...]
On December 10th, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at its meeting in the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, and called upon all member states to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools [...]
When I first came to Kyrgyzstan, back in 1995, people often quoted, almost as a mantra, that Kyrgyzstan was a multicultural society with over 80 nationalities represented in the population. It was so often quoted that it was easy to accept, remembering that the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic spanned the ancient trade route known [...]
There is a fair amount of discussion (in the business press – and ironically, on the internet) about the amount of time spent by workers surfing the net – the cost to business is supposed to run into hours and hours of lost production and millions of pounds, dollars, Euro or som. It’s not just [...]
It looks as if 2010 is going to end, at least in some respects, as it began. Back in January, “Siberian air gripped Britain” as unusual High Pressure systems massed over the Atlantic from November 2009 onwards, blocking the customary Westerly winds that would normally bring mild weather to Western Europe. The result was that [...]
I was listening to a podcast from the BBC last September which referred to an article in a British newspaper which announced that there were some 10 million people who were disabled in Britain, and yet more than 90% of people had never invited a disabled person into their home for a social occasion. Apparently, [...]
The kids have had an extended half term holiday. The school remained closed after the usual week’s break because there were problems with the heating system. It took the school authorities two weeks to resolve the issue – and they tell that, even now, the school is still quite cold.
