POSTVILLE -- After a long day of butchering chickens at Agriprocessors, Elgiz Ajibayev sits on a stained, sagging couch -- the only furniture in a room lit by a single light bulb.

He opens up his laptop and reads a few e-mails, then checks his classes for the upcoming semester at Georgetown University, where the fourth-year exchange student studies accounting and finance.

Ajibayev, 22, is one of a dozen college students from Kyrgyzstan -- a former Soviet state on China's west border -- who spent his summer vacation working at Agriprocessors, the embattled kosher meat processing plant.

Ajibayev, like the rest of the students, arrived on a whim, thinking his time in Postville would be a short footnote in his U.S. adventure; a place to earn some extra money and see America's Heartland.

"My friend (in New York) told me it would be great if I came somewhere inside country so I can learn more about American cultures," he said. "He told me about this place."

But after six weeks, Ajibayev can confidently say things didn't turn out quite as planned.

"This terrible place, Agriprocessors, it's the only thing I will remember of this town -- nothing else. This is why I'm deciding when I leave this place I will never be back here," he said.

When Kali Bayalieva's parents found out about her new line of work, they told her she would be hopping on the next flight home -- immediately.

But she stayed. Standing in a dimly lit kitchen at dusk, cicadas buzzing loudly through the open windows, Bayalieva said it is time to grow up. So she could not quit, especially with barely a dollar to her name.

Bayalieva, 19, admits she has enjoyed a sheltered and spoiled existence as the baby of her family. She never cooked or washed dishes growing up, and certainly never worked in a meat packing plant alongside immigrants desperate for even the most backbreaking jobs.

"In my home country, I go to American University in Central Asia. I study international and comparative politics -- and I work at Agriprocessors," she said, her eyes widening in disbelief.

Bayalieva spent her days on the production line as a quality inspector. The job primarily consisted of throwing away rancid, green chicken, and washing clean any meat covered in fecal matter.

It's a mind-numbing job, one she acknowledges she could have performed with more diligence.

"Sometimes chickens just go by and I'm asleep. I try to stay awake, but yeah -- I work about 10 hours a day. It is a really long time," she said.

Bayalieva and Ajibayev said Postville's housing market puzzles them. Like so many other workers who arrive in town, Ajibayev says he found the home in disrepair.

Reflecting on how it compared to the house he grew up in, he said he spent his childhood in Soviet Kyrgyzstan -- so everyone lived the same.

But was it better than his current residence?

"Of course. This is not a house. It's a place to sleep, nothing else," he says.

Then there's the price -- $225 per month to share a room in a four-bedroom house. Bayalieva says she rented a room in a big southern-style home, Jacuzzi included, during her stay in Charleston, S.C., earlier this summer. She said she particularly loved the beautiful pink walls of her bedroom.

In New York, Ajibayev says he shared a one-bedroom apartment with a friend for $200.

"It's more expensive than in New York," he says, laughing.

But despite the unexpected twist to their summer vacation, most of the students said they could find a silver lining.

The supervisors at the plant, they said, spoke to them with respect, though they noted others didn't always enjoy similar treatment.

Sanzhar Abdyrakhmanov, 20, described his work as might be expected: "It's a hell," he said. Yet that was due to the nature of the work, not the people or the town.

So, he said he has no regrets. In fact, he plans to continue working at Agriprocessors until he receives word on his application to Truman College in Chicago.

"I saw other people, new friends, new place. My first time in America," he said.

As for Bayalieva, she said she achieved her goal of growing up a bit: She now understands the value of a hard day's work.

"I learned how people really earn money here. My dad, he worked in construction, so now I'm being more of a grown up and I know how my parents get their money," she said.

Contact Jens Manuel Krogstad at (319) 291-1580 or jens.krogstad@wcfcourier.com.