School Begins! 9/1-9/2
Yesterday was the first day of school in Kazakhstan and thus opening ceremonies were held across the country. First days of school here are nothing like they are in America. I felt like I was at a concert rather than a school. Several different groups of students sang and danced. There were also government officials there and a camera man who I assume was filming for the local news. All the students were in “uniform”, white shirts with black or navy pants or skirts. Some of the boys were even in suits and tuxedos. The girls all wore what could not be described as anything other than “poofs” in their hair. All the children were gathered by class in the courtyard of the school to watch the ceremonies. Part of these happenings of course focused on the new American teachers, and we were instructed to introduce ourselves to the entire student body in Kazakh. It was momentous. After our introduction hordes of students carrying flowers ran towards us to deliver their gifts. And I'm not exaggerating by saying hordes, we each received five or more bouquets of flowers.
The ceremony lasted about an hour or so, after which we had classroom observation. The point of this was simply to observe the differences between American and Kazakh education systems and practices. As I expected, Kazakh students are much more behaved and classroom etiquette is much more formal than in America. Of course, it is hard to tell exactly what is going on because of the obvious language barrier.
After we finished with observation we continued with our language lessons. Our lessons went longer than usual because of the morning ceremonies and observations. So, I didn't get home until around 7 pm. At this point I had some tea and potatoes and went to sleep. I find that I'm always exhausted by the end of the day. I sleep better here than I ever did in America.
Today we had language lessons and another health seminar with Viktor. These are always interesting, and today we talked about specific health issues that may arise during our service, including worms (today dubbed “ass cobras”), scabies and third degree burns on our butts. Keep in mind these are scenarios that have already taken place and are thus likely to happen again.
Since the opening ceremonies on the first day of school, all the volunteers are now a source of fascination for the students. They never cease to say “Hello!” to us, and so we must hear this about a hundred times a day. It's the only thing they know how to say, and after uttering it they do one of two things. Either they laugh hysterically when we say “Hello” back to them, or they run away as fast as possible. I'm curious as to when this will cease to amuse them. They also flock to us whenever we are in the courtyard of the school. They literally form a ring around us, staring and whispering to each other. It's rather like being on the set of Hitchcock's “The Birds”, but instead of birds, its Kazakh children in black and white uniforms. Hopefully, this fades with time.
English Clubs, Community Projects, and Lessons. Oh my... 9/3-5
Wednesday was devoted entirely to technical training and seminars on community projects and clubs. Basically, this means that we are going to be ridiculously busy for the next nine weeks. In addition to having language lessons 3-6 hours a day, we are going to be teaching English classes, devoting after school time to clubs and then any remaining time to our community project. All this will be starting in the next week or so.
We had a few ideas for our community project, but the one we finally decided on was traffic safety. This may seem a little silly, but there is absolutely no semblance of traffic safety in Shamalgan. We have no traffic lights, no stop signs, nothing. On the main road there is a memorial to three students who died two years ago crossing the street. This is what gave us our idea for the community project. We figure, best case scenario, we have speed bumps and crosswalks put in; worst case scenario, we teach kids to look both ways before running into oncoming traffic. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this.
Thursday we were back to language lessons, accompanied by a brief health seminar with the infamous Viktor. I seriously love this guy. This seminar was dedicated solely to sex education... use your imagination. During our lunch break we went to the local Beeline store and got cellphones. I officially have a Kazakhstani cellphone number! (See Facebook) As my cell phone isn't good for much calling or texting yet (I see the only people I know everyday, why would I call them?), its main purpose has been to take me back to the good old days with Snake. Yes, my cellphone has Snake. You're jealous, I know. My current high score is 1230. I'm pretty impressed with myself. After lessons I had tutoring with Roman, my LCF. Looking back on my previous blog entry(ies) I can't believe I haven't mentioned Roman. Sweet dude. And he has a golden grill to prove it.
Today we had our usual language lessons and then some more lesson observation. This time we sat in on a physical science and then a chemistry class. Of course we had no idea what was going on, thus my time was spent doodling. Very productive. After class we went to the local cafe as we had a birthday in the group. Not too much going on, to be honest. We are getting into a routine: lessons, seminars, home, food, outhouse, etc. Tomorrow is Almaty entry, the first major landmark of PST! We are officially 25% done with training!
So yet again, the internet does not permit the posting of pictures. Soon hopefully :) Also, for those of you who have posted on my facebook wall or on here, thank you so much! And I'm sorry if I haven't been able to respond, again the internet sucks and posting on facebook walls takes a lifetime :( More to come soon!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Finally, an Internet Connection
The Neverending Journey (8/17-8/21)
Friends and Family,
Our story begins in Philadelphia for the beginning of my Peace Corps experience: staging. I awoke at 3:30 am for my flight to the city of brotherly love. My travels went as well as could be expected given the unfortunate timing. I arrived, met some fellow colleagues and departed for the hotel. The first day of staging was a bit of a struggle given my state of sleeplessness. I don't think I've fallen asleep sitting up since my high school American history class. The next day proved to be much easier. Overall, staging consisted mostly of safety guidelines and icebreakers (my personal fav). Then, on Tuesday morning, we departed for Kazakhstan!
The bus ride from Philly to New York took about three hours. We experienced a pleasant ride through the heart of The Big Apple. Then I was able to catch a glimpse of what I believed to be the largest cemetery in existence as we were leaving the city.
Now, for whatever reason, Peace Corps scheduled us to arrive at the airport about six hours before our flight would take off. These six hours were filled with general conversation amongst the volunteers, along with the regular consumption of food. Then, the flight to Germany! All goes well, I catch a few hours of sleep and we arrive in Frankfort. Just as we are getting settled into our terminal to await the arrival of our flight to Almaty, everything goes horribly awry. We are told that our plane is experiencing problems with its landing gear and that we are to be updated on its status at 6pm. Note: our flight was scheduled to board at Noon. Also note: our flight will not be leaving at 6pm, we will only be told updated information about the progress of maintenance at this time. So basically, we are stuck in a German airport until God knows when. It is also important to note that no one working for Peace Corps accompanied us on this journey. We are alone.
About an hour or so after this joyous announcement is made, we are informed that another flight is departing from our gate and that we need to leave. When I approached a friendly German airport worker and informed her that we were a group of 60, 30 of which had left to find food, she informed me that we would be responsible for all of their “hand-luggage” and to move everything to an empty gate. In order to make up for this lack of hospitality, we were offered free food. Alright. Thus begins another waiting extravaganza. At some point we are informed that we will either take another plane to Almaty or be put up in a hotel for the night. Luckily, the former proved to be the case. Our flight for Almaty left around 8pm and we finally arrived in Kazakhstan at 6am on Thursday morning! Note: do the math here. Time zone changes included, we were in transit for about 42 hours. Ridiculous. Not to mention, I, and many of the others, got a total of maybe 6 hours of sleep?
Almaty (8/21-8/22)
Finally! We are in the great nation of Kazakhstan! Now as we have arrived at around 6am on Thursday we have a whole day ahead of us, and there is no chance of that being wasted! After arriving at the sanatorium (yummy), we eat breakfast and immediately begin training. This consisted mostly of information seminars, an hour or so of language training and the joys of vaccines. And it was then that I made the most important decision of my life: to study Kazakh for PST (Pre-Service Training)! I was assured this was the best decision given my prior experience with the Russian language.
After this harrowing day, our trainers were kind enough to cut it short so that I was able to fall asleep around 5 pm. I slept until 6am the next day. And what an important day! The day we met our host families! Since I am study the great language of Kazakh, I am living in a village (pop. 6,000?) called Shamalgan. Their claim to fame is that President Nazarbayev was born and raised in their humble village. Pretty cool I guess. When we arrived we had an amazing welcome. Our host families and teachers from the school played music for us while some village children danced the national dance of Kazakhstan. The volunteers that went to the other villages didn't get anything but signs with their names written on them so they could identify their host families!
Interestingly enough, we are supposed to be only one volunteer to a family. But one of the host families hasn't yet finished construction on their volunteer's room, so she is staying with me for two nights. This is actually somewhat of a comfort because I wasn't alone for my first night with complete strangers. Also, there is a high school aged girl who lives across the street who speaks very good English, and so she came and ate dinner with us and talked to us for most of the time. Unfortunately for me, my family doesn't speak any Russian. I mean, what are the chances of that? While Kazakh is the national language, only around 60% of the population speaks it, while 97% speaks Russian. My family must fall into that last 3%. Lucky me. I suppose this will serve as my motivation to learn Kazakh. I am also lucky because my family has running water, an indoor toilet, and a washing machine. No shower. Instead, my family has their own personal banya in the backyard for all of our bathing needs. And for those who are ignorant of Russian and Central Asian culture, a banya is a steam room where you sweat out the dirt and use buckets of water to wash.
In conclusion, the food is tasty. This is really the most important party of my experience thus far. I don't have diarrhea yet, and that's always a good thing. We have our first real class Saturday at 9am.
First Lessons and Banya 8/23
Today was our first real lesson in Kazakh! We had learned some useful phrases in Almaty but today we solidified some basic “getting to know you” phrases. Kazakh seems to be more simple than Russian in some ways. For instance, Kazakh has no gender, but it also has postpositions instead of prepositions, which can be confusing. Note: with the exception of the Cyrillic alphabet, Russian and Kazakh are completely different. I was not expecting this.
After our lessons the class walked around Shamalgan and we got to visit each other's host families. This was fun because we got to see each other's houses and exercise a bit, but we also got stuffed with tea and food at every place we went. Now I love tea, but these people drink so much that my body cannot handle it. I probably had at least 20 cups of tea today, no exaggeration. The reason for this excess is that they make giant kettles of water and tea and set them at the end of the table. The mother or eldest sister of the family sits next to the tea and pours everyone their drinks. She is the designated “tea lady”. She will watch you drink until your cup is empty, and then she will hold out her hand for your cup in order to refill it. Saying no to more tea is very difficult, because the tea lady might take offense. So basically the only way to avoid drinking copious amounts of tea is just to leave your cup full or half-full. But then you risk the chance of the tea lady yelling at you to drink more. It sounds silly, but Kazakh people are very hospitable and they will feed and water you to death.
After our lesson today I got to use my host family's banya. That was nice since I was definitely in need of bathing after walking all over Shamalgan, which is a very dusty and hot (as it is in Southern Kazakhstan) village. The banya will take some getting used to. It seems like it would be nice in the winter when it is extremely cold. But as it basically forces you to sweat the dirt away, in the summer it can be a little overwhelming. I was glad to get out of there when I was done. However, the results are worth it. I'm clean and that's about all I care about at this point.
I also found out today that I have a host mother and father and that they will be here tomorrow. Right now it has just been two sisters and a brother taking care of me. And I admit, I was a little confused about the family structure. Luckily, Boda (the girl from next door) has been able to translate important information for me. I hope she stays here until my first three months is over.
Sheep is Delicious 8/24-25
Yesterday, Sunday, was the designated day for volunteers to spend time with our families. During the night my host mother and father returned home with my youngest sister. This cleared up the family structure of my home a bit, as before I was confused as to who were my actual parents. My host mother and father, whose names I don't need to learn because I can simply call them Mama and Papa (haha), have five children. The eldest daughter is Aisha, followed by twin girls, Shnar and Jenar. They are all older than me. The only boy, Quanush, is the same age as myself. Then Anar is the youngest girl. She is currently studying math and physics at the university in Almaty. Shnar teaches biology at the school where I am studying Kazakh. My family also owns a small grocery store in town. Aisha, Jenar and Anar are usually at the store, while Papa drives a taxi. Mama tends the house, of course. And last but not least, Quanush works as a mechanic. There are usually four or more cars at my house. Three belong to the family, and the others are being fixed by Quanush. He graduated from the university in Almaty, but he is self-taught in mechanics. Since none of the children are married, they all still live at home. In Kazakh and many other Central Asian cultures, children do not leave the home until they get married. This means that my family is very well off because all the children work, but all the money they earn goes to the family. This explains why we have a new and fairly large home, three cars and our own banya. We also have a washing machine, an indoor toilet and today Mama informed me that we would soon have a shower. Very exciting! Oh, and I almost forgot a very important member of the family. Aktus! He is the family dog. In Kazakhstan all dogs live outside and there are many stray dogs that wander the streets as there is no animal control. I consider myself lucky because Aktus is a very nice dog. We don't keep him chained up like many other families do with their dogs, so he likes to follow us around when we are outside.
So on Sunday, Jenn (the girl who has been staying with me) and I went to the bazaar with Boda to buy alarm clocks. Unfortunately they did not have the ones we wanted. But we did buy sponges for the banya and some candy for the family. The rest of the day we spent with the family and studying Kazakh. Jen and I also started using the outhouse. Up until now we had been using the indoor toilet, which we also accidentally clogged. Plumbing is not so good in Kazakhstan. The outhouse isn't so bad, except at night when you cannot see what you are doing. I definitely peed all over my own shoe without noticing. I guess I will have to get used to that.
The best part of Sunday was sheep! Papa brought home an entire sheep carcass (see pictures), and Mama cooked manta, which is like dumplings filled with sheep meat. It was delicious!
Today we resumed class. I don't feel like I learned much today, but I attribute that to the fact that I have been studying ahead. The faster I learn Kazakh the better. It is incredibly difficult to live with a family whom you cannot speak to. I am lucky because I have Boda to translate, but I need to learn for myself. Tonight Jenn left and moved in with her own host family. After dinner, Boda and I sat at the table and I helped her with some homework. We also talked about American culture and she asked me about the bloods and the crips. I was amazed she even knew who they were and we had a good laugh. Then I showed her some gang signs and taught her some slang phrases like “for shizzle my nizzle”. She thought that was very funny and told me she would share it with her friends. And thus I begin corrupting the Kazakhstani youth!
Although I have only been in Kazakhstan for five days it seems like a lifetime. I can't imagine how I will feel at the end of my three months! Banya again tomorrow!
Training Galore 8/26-31
The last couple days have been a conglomeration of various training seminars, including health, safety and security, technical, cultural and language training. Our topics have ranged from the differences between American and Kazakh schools to diarrhea. The latter is actually the favorite topic of our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), Viktor. Viktor is a pretty sweet guy. He served as a doctor in the Soviet Army for much of his life until the USSR collapsed. We've seen pictures of him in Angola caring for land mine victims and he's always good for inspirational speeches. I look forward to his seminars more than any of the others, simply because he has a good sense of humor and is an interesting guy. Viktor also informed us that three PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) have already dropped out. Although I can't attest to the living conditions of these individuals, from my understanding Shamalgan has the least infrastructure of all the training sites. Of course, this leaves me wondering why they left. Oh well.
Other than the usual training nothing exciting has been happening: go to school, learn, come home, eat, spend time with the family, go to bed. Friday marked the anniversary of our arrival in Shamalgan. To celebrate we went to a local cafe and had a piva (beer).
Today we are going to Kaskelen, which is the next village to the west where we have volunteers stationed. This village apparently has internet, so I will finally be able to upload these blog entries and answer some e-mails. I've definitely been looking forward to this all week. One week from now is Almaty entry, which means I can finally buy a cell phone! Not that I really need one yet, but it would be nice to have, especially considering I have no watch or alarm clock, so I'm constantly in a state of confusion over what time it is. Tomorrow is the first day of school in Kazakhstan. This means that we are to start our class observation, which will eventually lead to teaching. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little nervous about this. Mostly because our language skills are still poor. We've only been here a week and they expect us to be able to teach a class! Oy.
So I meant to add pictures but this internet connection is ridiculously bad, so that's not happening. Stay tuned.
Friends and Family,
Our story begins in Philadelphia for the beginning of my Peace Corps experience: staging. I awoke at 3:30 am for my flight to the city of brotherly love. My travels went as well as could be expected given the unfortunate timing. I arrived, met some fellow colleagues and departed for the hotel. The first day of staging was a bit of a struggle given my state of sleeplessness. I don't think I've fallen asleep sitting up since my high school American history class. The next day proved to be much easier. Overall, staging consisted mostly of safety guidelines and icebreakers (my personal fav). Then, on Tuesday morning, we departed for Kazakhstan!
The bus ride from Philly to New York took about three hours. We experienced a pleasant ride through the heart of The Big Apple. Then I was able to catch a glimpse of what I believed to be the largest cemetery in existence as we were leaving the city.
Now, for whatever reason, Peace Corps scheduled us to arrive at the airport about six hours before our flight would take off. These six hours were filled with general conversation amongst the volunteers, along with the regular consumption of food. Then, the flight to Germany! All goes well, I catch a few hours of sleep and we arrive in Frankfort. Just as we are getting settled into our terminal to await the arrival of our flight to Almaty, everything goes horribly awry. We are told that our plane is experiencing problems with its landing gear and that we are to be updated on its status at 6pm. Note: our flight was scheduled to board at Noon. Also note: our flight will not be leaving at 6pm, we will only be told updated information about the progress of maintenance at this time. So basically, we are stuck in a German airport until God knows when. It is also important to note that no one working for Peace Corps accompanied us on this journey. We are alone.
About an hour or so after this joyous announcement is made, we are informed that another flight is departing from our gate and that we need to leave. When I approached a friendly German airport worker and informed her that we were a group of 60, 30 of which had left to find food, she informed me that we would be responsible for all of their “hand-luggage” and to move everything to an empty gate. In order to make up for this lack of hospitality, we were offered free food. Alright. Thus begins another waiting extravaganza. At some point we are informed that we will either take another plane to Almaty or be put up in a hotel for the night. Luckily, the former proved to be the case. Our flight for Almaty left around 8pm and we finally arrived in Kazakhstan at 6am on Thursday morning! Note: do the math here. Time zone changes included, we were in transit for about 42 hours. Ridiculous. Not to mention, I, and many of the others, got a total of maybe 6 hours of sleep?
Almaty (8/21-8/22)
Finally! We are in the great nation of Kazakhstan! Now as we have arrived at around 6am on Thursday we have a whole day ahead of us, and there is no chance of that being wasted! After arriving at the sanatorium (yummy), we eat breakfast and immediately begin training. This consisted mostly of information seminars, an hour or so of language training and the joys of vaccines. And it was then that I made the most important decision of my life: to study Kazakh for PST (Pre-Service Training)! I was assured this was the best decision given my prior experience with the Russian language.
After this harrowing day, our trainers were kind enough to cut it short so that I was able to fall asleep around 5 pm. I slept until 6am the next day. And what an important day! The day we met our host families! Since I am study the great language of Kazakh, I am living in a village (pop. 6,000?) called Shamalgan. Their claim to fame is that President Nazarbayev was born and raised in their humble village. Pretty cool I guess. When we arrived we had an amazing welcome. Our host families and teachers from the school played music for us while some village children danced the national dance of Kazakhstan. The volunteers that went to the other villages didn't get anything but signs with their names written on them so they could identify their host families!
Interestingly enough, we are supposed to be only one volunteer to a family. But one of the host families hasn't yet finished construction on their volunteer's room, so she is staying with me for two nights. This is actually somewhat of a comfort because I wasn't alone for my first night with complete strangers. Also, there is a high school aged girl who lives across the street who speaks very good English, and so she came and ate dinner with us and talked to us for most of the time. Unfortunately for me, my family doesn't speak any Russian. I mean, what are the chances of that? While Kazakh is the national language, only around 60% of the population speaks it, while 97% speaks Russian. My family must fall into that last 3%. Lucky me. I suppose this will serve as my motivation to learn Kazakh. I am also lucky because my family has running water, an indoor toilet, and a washing machine. No shower. Instead, my family has their own personal banya in the backyard for all of our bathing needs. And for those who are ignorant of Russian and Central Asian culture, a banya is a steam room where you sweat out the dirt and use buckets of water to wash.
In conclusion, the food is tasty. This is really the most important party of my experience thus far. I don't have diarrhea yet, and that's always a good thing. We have our first real class Saturday at 9am.
First Lessons and Banya 8/23
Today was our first real lesson in Kazakh! We had learned some useful phrases in Almaty but today we solidified some basic “getting to know you” phrases. Kazakh seems to be more simple than Russian in some ways. For instance, Kazakh has no gender, but it also has postpositions instead of prepositions, which can be confusing. Note: with the exception of the Cyrillic alphabet, Russian and Kazakh are completely different. I was not expecting this.
After our lessons the class walked around Shamalgan and we got to visit each other's host families. This was fun because we got to see each other's houses and exercise a bit, but we also got stuffed with tea and food at every place we went. Now I love tea, but these people drink so much that my body cannot handle it. I probably had at least 20 cups of tea today, no exaggeration. The reason for this excess is that they make giant kettles of water and tea and set them at the end of the table. The mother or eldest sister of the family sits next to the tea and pours everyone their drinks. She is the designated “tea lady”. She will watch you drink until your cup is empty, and then she will hold out her hand for your cup in order to refill it. Saying no to more tea is very difficult, because the tea lady might take offense. So basically the only way to avoid drinking copious amounts of tea is just to leave your cup full or half-full. But then you risk the chance of the tea lady yelling at you to drink more. It sounds silly, but Kazakh people are very hospitable and they will feed and water you to death.
After our lesson today I got to use my host family's banya. That was nice since I was definitely in need of bathing after walking all over Shamalgan, which is a very dusty and hot (as it is in Southern Kazakhstan) village. The banya will take some getting used to. It seems like it would be nice in the winter when it is extremely cold. But as it basically forces you to sweat the dirt away, in the summer it can be a little overwhelming. I was glad to get out of there when I was done. However, the results are worth it. I'm clean and that's about all I care about at this point.
I also found out today that I have a host mother and father and that they will be here tomorrow. Right now it has just been two sisters and a brother taking care of me. And I admit, I was a little confused about the family structure. Luckily, Boda (the girl from next door) has been able to translate important information for me. I hope she stays here until my first three months is over.
Sheep is Delicious 8/24-25
Yesterday, Sunday, was the designated day for volunteers to spend time with our families. During the night my host mother and father returned home with my youngest sister. This cleared up the family structure of my home a bit, as before I was confused as to who were my actual parents. My host mother and father, whose names I don't need to learn because I can simply call them Mama and Papa (haha), have five children. The eldest daughter is Aisha, followed by twin girls, Shnar and Jenar. They are all older than me. The only boy, Quanush, is the same age as myself. Then Anar is the youngest girl. She is currently studying math and physics at the university in Almaty. Shnar teaches biology at the school where I am studying Kazakh. My family also owns a small grocery store in town. Aisha, Jenar and Anar are usually at the store, while Papa drives a taxi. Mama tends the house, of course. And last but not least, Quanush works as a mechanic. There are usually four or more cars at my house. Three belong to the family, and the others are being fixed by Quanush. He graduated from the university in Almaty, but he is self-taught in mechanics. Since none of the children are married, they all still live at home. In Kazakh and many other Central Asian cultures, children do not leave the home until they get married. This means that my family is very well off because all the children work, but all the money they earn goes to the family. This explains why we have a new and fairly large home, three cars and our own banya. We also have a washing machine, an indoor toilet and today Mama informed me that we would soon have a shower. Very exciting! Oh, and I almost forgot a very important member of the family. Aktus! He is the family dog. In Kazakhstan all dogs live outside and there are many stray dogs that wander the streets as there is no animal control. I consider myself lucky because Aktus is a very nice dog. We don't keep him chained up like many other families do with their dogs, so he likes to follow us around when we are outside.
So on Sunday, Jenn (the girl who has been staying with me) and I went to the bazaar with Boda to buy alarm clocks. Unfortunately they did not have the ones we wanted. But we did buy sponges for the banya and some candy for the family. The rest of the day we spent with the family and studying Kazakh. Jen and I also started using the outhouse. Up until now we had been using the indoor toilet, which we also accidentally clogged. Plumbing is not so good in Kazakhstan. The outhouse isn't so bad, except at night when you cannot see what you are doing. I definitely peed all over my own shoe without noticing. I guess I will have to get used to that.
The best part of Sunday was sheep! Papa brought home an entire sheep carcass (see pictures), and Mama cooked manta, which is like dumplings filled with sheep meat. It was delicious!
Today we resumed class. I don't feel like I learned much today, but I attribute that to the fact that I have been studying ahead. The faster I learn Kazakh the better. It is incredibly difficult to live with a family whom you cannot speak to. I am lucky because I have Boda to translate, but I need to learn for myself. Tonight Jenn left and moved in with her own host family. After dinner, Boda and I sat at the table and I helped her with some homework. We also talked about American culture and she asked me about the bloods and the crips. I was amazed she even knew who they were and we had a good laugh. Then I showed her some gang signs and taught her some slang phrases like “for shizzle my nizzle”. She thought that was very funny and told me she would share it with her friends. And thus I begin corrupting the Kazakhstani youth!
Although I have only been in Kazakhstan for five days it seems like a lifetime. I can't imagine how I will feel at the end of my three months! Banya again tomorrow!
Training Galore 8/26-31
The last couple days have been a conglomeration of various training seminars, including health, safety and security, technical, cultural and language training. Our topics have ranged from the differences between American and Kazakh schools to diarrhea. The latter is actually the favorite topic of our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), Viktor. Viktor is a pretty sweet guy. He served as a doctor in the Soviet Army for much of his life until the USSR collapsed. We've seen pictures of him in Angola caring for land mine victims and he's always good for inspirational speeches. I look forward to his seminars more than any of the others, simply because he has a good sense of humor and is an interesting guy. Viktor also informed us that three PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) have already dropped out. Although I can't attest to the living conditions of these individuals, from my understanding Shamalgan has the least infrastructure of all the training sites. Of course, this leaves me wondering why they left. Oh well.
Other than the usual training nothing exciting has been happening: go to school, learn, come home, eat, spend time with the family, go to bed. Friday marked the anniversary of our arrival in Shamalgan. To celebrate we went to a local cafe and had a piva (beer).
Today we are going to Kaskelen, which is the next village to the west where we have volunteers stationed. This village apparently has internet, so I will finally be able to upload these blog entries and answer some e-mails. I've definitely been looking forward to this all week. One week from now is Almaty entry, which means I can finally buy a cell phone! Not that I really need one yet, but it would be nice to have, especially considering I have no watch or alarm clock, so I'm constantly in a state of confusion over what time it is. Tomorrow is the first day of school in Kazakhstan. This means that we are to start our class observation, which will eventually lead to teaching. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little nervous about this. Mostly because our language skills are still poor. We've only been here a week and they expect us to be able to teach a class! Oy.
So I meant to add pictures but this internet connection is ridiculously bad, so that's not happening. Stay tuned.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Approaching Doom
In the lapse between post numero uno and post dva I have: quit my job in hell(yay!), spent a week in Miami, packed up (most of) my apartment and visited my grandparents for a final farewell. Left on the list is a number of items, including the most important event in the history of mankind: my birthday. It's tomorrow. And to celebrate I will be in one of the most beautiful cities on Earth: Savannah, GA. I think I just peed myself.
Following this rolicking good time will be my move back home. Spend my final weeks with the parents, tie up some legal loose ends, the use. Nothing too exciting should happen. But who knows. And then Philly! My final step before embarking on this wonderful journey... and hours upon hours of what I'm sure will be time well spent orientating (word? yes? no?) myself with Peace Corps and everything that goes along with it. May the force be with me.
Following this rolicking good time will be my move back home. Spend my final weeks with the parents, tie up some legal loose ends, the use. Nothing too exciting should happen. But who knows. And then Philly! My final step before embarking on this wonderful journey... and hours upon hours of what I'm sure will be time well spent orientating (word? yes? no?) myself with Peace Corps and everything that goes along with it. May the force be with me.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Countdown Begins!
Despite the looming date of my departure for K-town, working full-time hasn't left me a lot of time to ponder my not so distant future. Today I finished and emailed what I hope is the last of the paperwork that my country desk needs. Now I play the waiting game. And thanks to this handy dandy Google countdown gadget, everyone else can play the waiting game with me.
I promise that this blog will get more exciting. Don't abandon me just yet.
I promise that this blog will get more exciting. Don't abandon me just yet.
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