The Kashar is open

One of our goals this trip was to get the Kashar opened for the season. It was a lot of work but everyone pulled together and we got it open.  

We had two yurts here that were the traditional wood framed yurts .  We experience such incredible wind storms on the side of the mountain that the wood twists and causes the felt to lossed and tare.  So buy the end of last season they were no longer usable .  We were able to sell them to offset the cost of three brand new mettle framed yurts .  These come with a very good warantee and will be much easier to maintain.  

We were ablee to do a lot f work on the Kashar as well.  The steps and wheel chair entrance were finished on the out side .  And a lot of needed repairs on the inside .   In one of those wind storms we lost a section of the old roof.. and then the rain caused part of the ceiling to colapse in the living room.  As well we had a small fire because some of the original wiring was too small.  

We had a friend come and add a high amperage line into each room for plugging in items with a higher draw.  The roof was patched and patches were put on the ceiling, and the walls painted where the fire was.  We are going to need to replace the old roof and properly repair the inside, but this should do until the fall when we have some teams come that will be lookig for some jobs.  

Now that we have the heavier wiring, we were able to instal an airconditioner / heat pump in the big bedroom.  we had this sponsored last year but needed to fix the wiring first. 

We built two new poured cement foundations for the yurts so that they are nice and level.

the upper room is set with 3 beds and a double pallet couch that sleeps two more .  Down stairs we have another small room with two single beds.   That gives us 9 in the Kashar and 12 in the yurts.  But it also leaves us lots of room for tents for larger groups .

I like that we were able to incorperate an excelent wheel chair to the deck as well as to one of the yurts.  We often bring people from the homes for the disabled so this will be great for them .

We got everything finished just in time for a big celebration family picnic with a couples group from Bishkek.. we had 75 guests.. then on Monday we oficialy opened .. by Saturday we had a dozen people staying at the Kashar, another family at the farm and another guest in one of the yurts by Sunday morning.. Even in the airport on the way home we were getting requests from other youth groups to use the centre.    I pray that all that come and experience this beautiful place would come face to face with the Peace that abounds.    Thank you to everyone who has made this possible.   Speeking of possible , our friends at Possibilities International have a team booked for the end of Aug beginning of September and I just heard they have a couple spots open... here is a link to their page if you are interested in joining them .  
 

Does it pass the 4 way test ?

This trip was a wirlwind .  We were double timing it the entire month .  I will do some catch up posts and fill in the blanks , but I wanted to share part of our last day. 

We were up early finishing off popcorn and 100 lt of lemonade while Sergey went to town to get icecream cones for 400 kids .. Thats right 400 kids .  

The boys helped our welder go down to the playground and put the finishing touches on the playground and install the swings . 

At 12:00 the festivities began .. 

We arrived just in time for the meal and the speaches .. I am so glad that I was not asked to say anything this time .. I don't think I would have been able to speak .. I was just so overwhelmed by the Joy and the excitement that we were experiencing here .  

Every piece of play equipiment was jammed with kids, and boy were they having a good time. 

I had so many people come to us and share how this is what comunity should be .  So many different tribs and nationalities are represented in this village , and today they were all together celebrating , not because they had some special holiday , but because they could come together as a comunity. 

We have done a lot of projects over the years with the Rotary club . They have been such a blessing to us enabling us to do projects that otherwise we would not have been able to .  One thing that I have learned from them is the "four way test" .. Well this project sort of snuck up on us so we moved ahead because it needed to be done .. the playground had fallen into disrepair after about 6 years of heavy use.  When we were making the decision wether or not to move ahead, I could hear my friends at Rotary ... "How will this build comunity ?... will it pass all four aspects of the test."    

We do have a couple projects left to do at the playground. Not so urgent but a fun one. There is a large cement block wall along one side of the playground.  We would like to paint a giant mural on this wall . We have the talant at the farm with a couple of our guys so we are looking for about $150 for this and we can move ahead . 

The next project is a bit bigger .  The families in the comunity are going to start taking responsibility for the caring for the park and the children in it.  They have taken up a colection among the comunity to build a fence around the park to keep the kids safe and to give un understanding that this is a protected territory .. It is a cultural thing in Kyrgyzstan that with out a fence , things are considered to be "Help yourself" but when a fence is up it is then safe.   Even so far as people thinking that they could just bring items from the playground to their own home is an isue , simply because there is no fence.   As well as the cultural significance of a fence , this playground is close to the road and while cars may stop and watch for kids , herds of Cows , horses and sheep don't always .

We would like to be able to offer to match the funds raised by the comunity to make it possible to move ahead with this .   I was thinking that this would be a good project for a team in the fall , but The village has asked that we have the fence up by the end of May .  So our share of this will be about $750.   We think it is important to have the families involved in this so they can take ownership, so we will limit our suport to $750.  If you would like to sponsor this in whole or in part , please donate at the top right side of the blog. 

The first banquet at the Kashar for the season.

We are so pleased with the progress up at the Kashar .. the yurts are up, the roof is fixed and the living room ceiling is patched and the burnt wall is painted.  The beds arrived on Friday and on Saturday we hosted our first banquet of the season. We had about 75 people , and the best part is that they cooked for us , and boy doid they do it right . 

Our friend Talgar the eagle hunter came and put on a deminstration and anyone who wanted could have a chance to hold the eagle 

They had horsback riding and some time of singing and marsh mellows by the fire .  They even had several games like Human Fusball and tug a war. 

We have been planting seeds and plants in the flower gardens . They are coming along well.

We are missing the defuser head off the watering cans so Quentin  had to get creative so he could water without washing away his seeds 

Yesterday we visited a farm for young adults with dissabilities .  We even met up with a couple young men who ran to great us as they had known us from red river orphanage.  They were asking and excited to here how Emma and Bekah were doing. 

This morning it was raining so we went into Tokmok to do some english conversation classs with one of the classes there. 

Here is another , "Love how that worked out" for you .. Yesterday we were given three big truck loads of wood for us to cut and bag for fire wood next winter.. It all arrived last night and this morning a group of about 20 young adults from Georga showed up at the farm wondering if they could volinteer at the farm today , so as I type this they are over stacking wood .