My apologies for the late blog.

I am in Warstan. The reason why I named this place Warstan is not because it’s a warzone and bombs are falling all the time, but because this place has been fighting different wars for many years and peace only comes as a glimpse every other year. And no, bombs are not falling all the time; it’s quiet most of the time.
There’s a lot happening here that I will not be able to write about, otherwise I would be writing a book instead of a blog. I will write about events that you could say … captivated me.

How I’m taking it?
Surprisingly I’m not as stressed as I thought I would be. Apart from the snoring symphony that is happening in my room, I am sleeping somewhat well. My komrads are also keeping it cool. It’s only been a week, but hopefully the cool will stay until the end.

How is it?
It is beautiful. We came at the right time. The rain season has almost ended. There’s a lot of green everywhere. When the sun is down, it’s pretty chilly. During the day, the heat is not as grueling as it will be in the summer. It gives us time to adapt. Also the “tulip” cultivation period starts in a week!
I have a funny way of putting things. Let’s just say I have a movie mindset that is helping me cope with things here. When we first arrived at our second location, the place looked like Planet Tatooine from Stars Wars. Looking outside our site, the surrounding villages reminded me of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus that I’ve seen in movies. We went for a walk in the villages close to our site. The locals were friendly to us. We made sure everyone in our group had a basic knowledge of the language spoken here. It helped a lot. People were more receptive towards us. Popolski, one of my komrads, greeted people with a thick accent and it made them laugh. Children were asking for pencils. Other groups had the bad experience of getting rocks thrown at them by the local kids. I found our first interaction with the villagers was successful and I’m hoping it will stay that way until the end.

At one point, engineers needed to blow up old c4 explosive blocks, so 5 of us walked to a nearby crowd to alert them to stay down. Boris aka Sarge, our small group commander was in charge. As we got close to the crowd, I noticed they had huts set up. I quickly realized that these people were nomads who are known as Kuchis. I remembered reading about them somewhere. I never thought of meeting Kuchis so I was excited. Kuchis are known to be wanderers who travel across the south desert of Warstan and the two surrounding countries. They are traders and they tend to stick to their own business. They are considered friendly, but also armed which got me a bit worried. We approached 3 kids and we tried to explain to them the situation. They had a hard time understanding, so I and Boris went behind a pile of dirt and we lied on the ground so they would do the same. I remembered how to say “lie down” in their language which made things simpler. I went to warn the few others who were standing close to the huts. I kept saying “peurmzaka priooza(lie down)” and boom boom. As I was chatting with the rest of the people, I heard Boris in the distance. He was saying “GO HABS GO”, hoping the kids would say it too, which made me smile. After the BOOM, we emptied our pockets and gave them our pens. We said our goodbyes and we left. I kind of wished I knew their language better. I had a few questions I wanted to ask them.
I think I wrote a bit too much. Let’s call it a day.
Yuri signing out …