Armored Frog

I only know a very little bit of Kyrgyz. Like almost everybody else of European descent in Kyrgyzstan I communicate in either Russian or English. Although my spoken Russian is far from perfect, it is the language I use when talking to Oksana and Askarbek. At this point neither of them know much more English than I know Kyrgyz. But, every so often I pick up a new word in Kyrgyz that I can actually pronounce. Yesterday I learned the word for turtle. It is tashbaka which literally means armored frog. I like that.