March 5-11

Monday March 5 and Tuesday March 6
The wheel chair service starts. We started the event at the Rehabilitation Center where they make prosthesis and house the wheel chairs for those in need. We gathered 14 clinicians who work for the Social Ministry throughout the Bishkek area some large towns and other small villages as well as 2 techs that work for the Rehab Center. Mark Myers taught me and the 2 techs how to assemble and adjust the chairs while Rick and Annette taught the clinicians how to assess the needs of the patients for the first 2 days. Mark, Sergi, Ulan and I made about 32 chairs all different sizes and types. The standard which most people own provides for normal riding. They had 2 others for different experiences. One was for All Terrain and the other Active. The All Terrain was for rough surfaces etc. and the Active was for sports and fast rides. They trained the Clinicians how to fit each person by size, leg length and body angle.
We then had dinner at a nice restaurant called Prego's. Again great food.

Wednesday March 7 The "DAY"
We rehearsed for the first hour then the patients arrived. It was SHOWTIME!!! We had 4 assessments going at a time. The Clinicians would make measurements then the Techs would adjust chairs accordingly. We had 14 patients in all. Everything from double amputees to a CP patient. It was a great success. It was very heartwarming to see the smiling faces after they received a new chair. Some didn't have one and others that were so dilapidated that the tires were almost worn to the rims.

Pics top row: Clinicians practicing. Robin w/double amputee
Second Row: Young man finally getting a wheel Chair. Bill teaching Sergi our No. 1 student
Third Row: The man we called little guy, finally getting a W/C. Mark Myers the lead technician from Utah teaching Sergi and Ulan.
Fourth Row: All the participants in the training in Bishkek. A young lady that lives in the facility receiving a new chair.

What a great and spiritual experience it was to work on our first assignment. Thanks to Rick & Cyndy Johnson, Mark and Annette Myers, Jeff and Karin Carter as representatives of LDS Charities for all their hard work. It was so gratifying to see the glow in their eyes as they received this new gift.
On to Osh, Kyrgyzstan for part 2 of this project.
That night we had a riotous Five Crowns card game at the hotel where the others were staying with pizza and ice cream. I was surprised that they didn't kick us out.

Thursday March 8
We went to the largest bazaar in Bishkek. It was a mad house. The Carter's shopped for hats and we shopped for feathered pillows. SUCCESS!!!

Went up to Chong-Tash in the mountains to see a monument that was erected for people that were killed by the government such as Supreme Court Judges, professors and other high profile people.

In 1938, when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union Chong-Tash was the site of execution by the Soviet secret police NKVD, as part of the Great Purgein the Soviet Union. 137 people - politicians, teachers, scientists and other professional and intellectual people from all over Kyrgyzstan - were secretly taken from the Bishkek (then Frunze) prison, shot to death, and their bodies dumped into a brick oven at a mountain NKVD location near the village. This was part of Joesph Stalins crackdown of nationalist movements in Central Asia. One of those killed was Törökul Aitmatov, father of the Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov. The site was discovered in 1991 after Kyrgyzstan gained its independence. The caretaker of the site had been sworn to secrecy by the NKVD (and, later, the KGB), but on his deathbed he told his daughter the location of the grave, who then told the Kyrgyz authorities. The bodies were then dug up and interned at a memorial site just outside the village called "Ata-Beyit" ("Grave of our Fathers"). Former president Askar Akayev, other Kyrgyz dignitaries, and relatives of the dead participated in the reburial.

This is where all the remains were buried after some of them were found in the stove below. This stove was used as a kiln for bricks and the people were shot and thrown into it.

Repression Memorial - Hands Tied

Grave stones of men killed in the 2010 uprising in Bishkek against the president.

Friday March 9

Fly to Osh for another wheel chair initiative.

We went to the warehouse where our chairs were delivered to retrieve 15 chairs to assemble. The warehouse person had all the chairs separated into sizes but they were either sideways, upside down. Several boxes were torn and we found out later that several nuts and bolts were on the ground. We took the 15 chairs to the Ministry of Social and Labor offices to assemble as well as set up for Monday's training.

View from our room. Hotel pool and neighbors.

Warehouse where the chairs were stored. I guess they don't know what "This End Up" ⬆ means.

Robin and Karin in matching coats.

Saturday March 10
This morning we went to a day care center that the Carter's had started a project. We are suppling kitchen equipment, toilets, piping for a sewer system and water system to support them and playground equipment.
We talked to the director of these daycares in the Osh region and the director of this particular daycare. They showed us around at the facility and how our contribution will help with the children as they are now required to use an outhouse about 200ft from the building even during the winter months. They added on the building for the toilet facilities and moved the kitchen area forward to the front of the building. And of course they served a huge lunch.

This is the first course of 3.

Outhouse and hole for septic

Wooden walker for some of the disabled children.

The gray door between the windows is where the children came out to go to the outhouse. It is behind there that the toilets will be installed.

We then traveled to Uzgen where there were other memorials to look at.

On the right bank of the Kara-Darya, in the country’s south, there stands one of the most ancient cities in Kyrgyzstan – Uzgen with the 2,000-year history.

In its central part is the Uzgen historical and architectural complex of the 11th – 12th centuries. It consists of three mausoleums conditionally named Northern, Middle and Southern. They are attached to each other and look like a uniform building with portals arranged in line. To the north of the mausoleums there is a minaret. These monuments are considered the classics of Karakhanid epoch. There the governors of Karakhanid dynasty are buried. The earliest monument is the Average mausoleum. It is slightly taller than the others. It is the only mausoleum of the time of Karakhanids with two portals; its ornament is made of burnt bricks.

The Northern mausoleum was constructed in 1152-1153. It is tiled with beautifully carved ganch and terracotta as well as the relief brick ornament. The portal of the Southern mausoleum constructed in 1187 is covered with carved terracotta.

Uzgen Minaret typically part of a mosque, with a balcony from which a muezzin calls Muslims to prayer.

These four boys were following us around and saying "hello' that was they only word in english that they knew. I made fun of the one in the tan shirt for cocking his neck like cool boy and his friends stared making fun and acting like he did.