12. Sad Goodbye

On the last day there Alex, Yara, Jockey and Lanna went to visit another frame maker who specialized in making wheels. He was in the process of making several wheels. Most of the morning was spent trying to fix the fan on his forge. He burned tapered holes for the roof poles, like Mr Meken, and built simple yet sturdy wheels. In his courtyard he had exactly the same steaming equipment and brake as Mr Troombek, with many yurt components being made. The yurt frame masters all used the same techniques and equipment which indicated their dedication to tradition and also enabled them to use each other's components to fill yurt orders.

For our last dinner with the family, Kyrgyz dumplings were made with potato and mutton. Our last words were very heartfelt and we gave them a collection of Nova Scotian treats. We hugged and kissed many times and took a lot of family photos for them.

Some of our favourite times were playing with the children, laughing with grandpa (Mr Troombek’s father) and sitting with Geepara. Yara really connected with Ania, Geepara’s youngest daughter and grandpa. Troombek and Geepara told us we were the first foreigners that stayed at the village for more than one day. We felt truly blessed and humbled to have experienced the real Kyrgyz rural lifestyle. We felt sad to leave our new friends.

The techniques we practiced with Mr. Troombek were the traditional techniques of Kyrgyzstan that have remained unchanged for thousands of years. Although they were very similar to Little Foot Yurts techniques, they incorporated a different tool style giving a different splitting and clamping style. We are eager to incorporate it into our yurt building workshops.