IT'S A HOLIDAY

Well it's May 1st and today is Labor Day here in Kyrgyzstan. So today,tomorrow and Tuesday are considered holidays and everything is closed. After working Wednesday I am told there are more holidays. To be specific, Thursday and Friday. Apparently this is the favorite month for the nationals...lots of holidays.

So as a special treat, today we took our team for and outing - headed for the tower and mountains to have a picnic. It must have been a good idea because we had lots of company. The weather was great and of course the scenery breathtaking. Some of our group climbed the Burana tower. The tower is a restored replica of a trading area along the silk road, in fact a major cross road of the famous silk road.

After that visit we headed up into the mountains to an area near a waterfall. Again three of our group, the more athletic ones, climbed up to top of the falls.

There was some four wheeled traffic in the mountains today, but most transportation we saw was on four hooves - lots of horses and riders today.

After a week of training it was great to be in the outdoors. Another four day training starts tomorrow for some of the group, the rest will be making the rounds to the seniors and men's home in Iskra and are involved in different lecture venues as the week continues. It will be a very busy week.

Oh, by the way, for those of you on the other side of the world, we had an earthquake here this morning at 8:31 am. It just jiggled things a little bit. The centre was actually across the border in Kazakhstan. That's the third one we have experienced here on this trip.

Attached are some pictures from today.