During my time at University, the DAAD offered study trips abroad. At that time, there was a program called Go-East, which was intended to bring the ‘East’ closer to German students. That suited me perfectly. I loved the idea of going to a place I hardly knew anything about. I applied to go to Kyrgyzstan in the first year and was accepted.
We spent two weeks in Kyrgyzstan with a group of students from all over Germany and all disciplines. We had language lessons, cultural studies and well, visits to ambassadors, GTZ, etc.
We visited one of the saddest zoos in the world, slept on floorless yurts, strolled on four-lane roads where hardly a car drove and got to know a world that was fascinating through and through. And I decided to learn Russian.
With that, the program might have achieved something it wanted 🙂
One of my pictures from Kyrgyzstan was part of the exhibition in 2018: A Window To the World .