Subbotnik, Shashlyk, and....Cricket?

Today was our annual fall subbotnik. A subbotnik is a Saturday work project. The subbotnik was instituted by Lenin in the early days of the Soviet Union and serves in Kyrgyzstan as an example of community involvement still utilized today. For our subbotnik, students, faculty, and staff picked up tons of litter and garbage from a local park. We also picked up garbage at the panorama point up in the hills overlooking the Naryn Valley.

After our subbotnik, we had a delicious picnic of shashlyk: chicken and beef on skewers. It's become a fall tradition at the Naryn campus.

The new element of our day was a cricket match organized by our Pakistani math instructor. What was cool is that students from all countries, male and female alike, participated.

Our lives take us along unexpected pathways. When did I ever imagine that I would be working with students to clean a park in Kyrgyzstan with a Pakistani version of baseball as our entertainment when our meal was done? No, I never imagined it, but I am so glad to be doing it. Unexpected journeys give life as golden a hue as the aspens in a cleaned-up Kyrgyz park.