men chagalar

For the first time ever I am living with small children and learning about what that entails. Luckily, my host children are pretty cool. My host brother and sister-in-law, Hatija (also very cool), have two kids ages 5 and 2. Sometimes I feel a little like their aunt, but most days I feel more like a sister, another trouble maker that Hatija has to take care of.
Gulshat is 5, has really short hair (she just got it cut again this week; it looks—neat), and wears awesome leggings. She likes to talk really fast and say a ton of words to me, most of which I have no chance of understanding. Whenever I say something to her in English she acts like she understands and says “yes,” which is nice. This week she picked up two new habits: giving me a thumbs up all the time, and kissing me on the cheek really forcefully. She also spends a good amount of time following me around and yelling my name. Basically she’s the reason I don’t have any alone time and if any of my stuff gets broken/destroyed it will probably be her fault. Regardless, I love this kid and I have to give her props for showing my how to do things when I first arrived.
Yslam, her little brother, is one of my favorite people ever. He does not wear diapers, he does not have a high chair, he does not wear a bib, he does not have a sippy cup, he doesn’t even wear pants half the time. He’s always moist, either from the constant drooling or frequent pants wetting. He is usually eating something, and spends the day doing dangerous things like playing with broken glass or running in the street barefoot. I know more words in Turkmen than he does so hanging around him makes me feel a little smarter; when he says things like “grandpa!” I understand. He also likes to dance and make high squeaky noises. Adorable.