Leaving

Today is my last day on this side of the country. Tomorrow morning I'm flying over to Uralsk, then taking a cab the other 2 hours. So, now I'm trying to gather everything together, send last minute emails saying that I still don't know my address or phone number, and trying to send photos.

Next, I'm going to the bazaar. I'll pick up some of my favorite wheat candies, a present for my host family, and hopefully a long skirt. Women dress very well here, and most have really cool long skirts.

Dinara, my host sister, has been a bit teary, and when I was on a run this morning, she went to the bazaar and bought me a cake. Really sweet. Ryan, Tim, and I area left in Koktube II. Last night, we helped Jon and Amanda pack and talked about funny names. Kazakh names are hippie names. They translate to things like "moon-flower" and "moon-thing" and "flower-face." The closest word to "Jon," "Djhan" means "soul." "Ryan" means something like "good wind." My counterpart's name is "Kymbat" - "expesive." Not a hippie name.

Okay. I'm a bit nervous about all of this, and I'm going to shut down this operation and shop a bit. I love you all! - Susan

ceremonial

I haven't written for a while - things have been kind of nuts recently. I've had language class every day, as well as practicum teaching in the mornings. It involved somehow a lot of walking around Koktube 2 and a lot of chai.

This last class of students was at a Kazakh school in Ecik, and some students were quite good at English. They were 10th graders. Not too much was really killingly funny (in my 7th grade class, there was a discussion about whether a banana was slower than a kangaroo), but their graduation was, as usual, remarkable. We gathered all the 10th graders in one room, and started telling a bit about ourselves and Peace Corps. Then, just as we were about to hand them their certificates, the English teacher from the school told us they had some things prepared. Three separate students gave speeches (they all called us "interesting," the English adjective of choice in KZ). The three of us were expected to give speeches in return. We did, then the students sang three songs. One boy got up and did two solos - Billy Boy and Clementine.

The low point was us trying to read names in Cyrillic script. The Kazakh alphabet has 40 letters (one of which is "bl" - a vowel, and three of which are forms of "y," two vowel y's and one consonant y), which we can all read just fine in print. However, the script is not, to my eyes, at all like the print. There are 4 letters that look like "M" to me - the m, the t, the zh, and sometimes the sh. This means that guessing might not help. And the handwriting on the certificates was perfectly awful. I practiced reading them during "Billy Boy" so as to not slaughter the names, but I ended up just reading first names.

The crowning moment was when my students presented me with a ceramic falcon piggy bank.

bad news

When I came home tonight, my host aunt and brother were helping host papa unload grapes from his truck while host mama watched. The women were crying. My host mother was barely able to exchange greetings with me, and told me to go on into the house. Was is someone’s job? Something about the baby? A fight? So I went. I don’t know any better than what they tell me.
In a few minutes, Dimir knocked on my door and told me that a relative had died – someone I met – and that we would have tea in a few minutes.
I believe there was a car accident, and I think the person who died was a cousin. Dimir gave a fast rundown of her relation to my host mother’s family, but it’s hard to keep track of the very specific family names, and there are so many relatives in town - I know I met the woman, I just don’t know who exactly it was that died.
Dinara and a distant cousin, Diana, came over so Dinara could pick up clothes. Diana is a sweet girl – she’s in my class. She came to my room and tried to chat cheerfully, but she was a little trembly and a little sniffly. She told me something (in Kazakh) to the effect of “Dinara and I are going to [the relative’s house who died]. Tomorrow during class, we’ll be on vacation/resting/taking a weekend. We’ll all be wearing white. Okay?” And, of course, I don’t know how to express condolences. I looked it up in something Peace Corps gave us, but that literally translates to “Be careful!” Of course, they may really say that to each other. Their word for excuse me/I’m sorry comes from a word that means something along the lines of “pardon/forgive me,” which also doesn’t sound appropriate. I’d just like to check with a third party before I attempt anything.
While last night at tea, Dimir and I talked a solid half-hour, tonight was very quiet. Another teenaged cousin was there, and we mostly sat in silence, except for my potatoes which kept falling off my fork and making loud plopping noises on my plate. I took a second cup of tea and dipped alphabet letter cookies in it. The letter cookies are from an ambiguous alphabet and they are similar to cardboard. I watched a “C” expand like an earthworm, then an “H”/”N” become a blob of cookie matter. I ate the cookies. I drank the tea. The tea tasted like cardboard.

Already I’m aware that mourning in Kazakhstan is taken very seriously. I know a few people who haven’t participated in social events for a few days because of the anniversary of a relative’s. I don’t know what these next days will be like. I’ll ask our language trainer whether to make myself scarce or available.

flamingo

A week or so ago, when I was still sick, some volunteers stopped my host family’s house to check up on me, and just happened to come by exactly when dinner was ready. As happens in such situations, they were forced to stay. (I suspect some volunteers “drop by” at my house at dinner time on purpose.) Dinner conversation is often a bit sparse, but it’s always friendly and never awkward. That night something magic was in the air, and the words flowed. Robert doesn’t speak Kazakh, Jon and I don’t speak Russian, and Ryan, Host Mama, and Host Papa speak Russian. Host Mama and Host Papa don’t understand English. Here’s an excerpt – not word-for-word, but not juiced-up, I promise. I felt it was necessary to leave out the parts about animal crackers. Incidentally, Kazakhstan is the northernmost home of the flamingo.

Jon, attempting to say “I know” to my host mother in Kaz, says “I dance” in Kaz.
Ryan, to HM, in Kaz: “Yes, Jon dances with chickens.”
Jon, to himself, in English: “Dances With Chickens.”
Host Mother, to Ryan and Jon in Kaz: “Jon dances with chickens?”
Host Father, to me in Kaz: “Susan, eat.”
Ryan, to H.M. in Kaz: “We went to Café Victoria. I had shashlick and Jon danced with chickens.”
Me, to Robert, in Eng: “Jon loves chickens. We talk a lot about chickens.”
Robert, in Eng.: “You do?”
Jon, to Robert, in Eng.: “Yah, we don’t know much Kazakh ‘cause the Rasta Donkey ate the Kazakh-English dictionary.”
Robert, to me, in Eng: “Susan, what do you think of the state of fictional literature in America today?”
HF, to Robert: “Eat!”
Robert, to me, in Eng: “What is he saying to me?
Me, to Robert, in English: “He’s telling you to eat. I don’t know much about current American fiction.”
Jon, to Robert, in Kaz: “Eat!”
Jon, to HM, in Kaz: “I love chickens.”
Robert, to me, in Eng: “Really? I’m surprised. But really I mostly read nonfiction. I believe . . . .[deep intellectual discussion follows].
Ryan, to HM, in Kaz: “He loves chickens. He thinks they dance well.”
HM to Ryan: “And does Jon dance well, or just the chickens?”
Ryan, to HM: “Just the chickens.”
HF to me: “Eat!”
Ryan, to HF, in Kaz: “She doesn’t need to eat as much. She’s a girl.”
Me, to Ryan, in Kaz: “Thanks!”
HF to Robert, in Kaz: “Eat!”
Me, to HF, in Kaz: “Robert only speaks a little Kazakh. He lives in Koktube 1 with a family that speaks Russian.”
HF to Robert, in Rus: “Is your host family Russian?”
Robert, to HF, in Rus: “No, they’re Uighur”
HM to Robert, in Rus: “Oh, so then there’s salt in your tea!”
Robert: “Yes.”
HF to me, in Kaz: “Eat!”
Me, to HF, in Kaz: “I don’t need much food tonight. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be better.”
HF to me, in Kaz: “Is it your throat? And do you have a fever?”
Me, to HF, in Kaz: “Yes. I’m taking antibiotics.”
Robert, to me, in Eng: “’Antibiotics’ is Russian. Are there many technical terms in Kazakh?”
Ryan, to HM and HF, in Rus: “Are there many technical terms in Kazakh?” [intellectual discussion about Soviets trying to kill languages follows]
Ryan, to Robert and me: “Well, even we don’t have many of our own technical terms. All of ours are Latin compounds. They make sense to us, but they didn’t come out of our language.”
[Jon somehow discovers how to say “crazy” in Kazakh]
Jon, to Ryan in Kaz: “Ryan, you’re crazy.”
HM, to Jon, in Russian: “Well done!”
Ryan, to Jon, in Kaz: “No, I’m not. You are!”
Jon, to Ryan, in Kaz: “No, I’m not. You are!”
Robert, to me, in English: “Susan, have you seen the movie Pi?”
Jon and Ryan to me, in Kaz: “Susan, you’re crazy!”
Me, to Jon and Ryan, in Kaz: “Uh, thank you?”
HM, to me, in Kaz: “Don’t thank them! They’re bad children!”
Me: “oh.”
Me, to Jon and Ryan, in Kaz: “You’re crazy.”
HM: “Well done!”

Where I'll be . . .

I've told a bit about my site, but now I have a little more information. Saturday was fairly overwhelming. We came into the room for the ceremony in single file and each picked up the packets with our name, and DO NOT OPEN on them. They were color coded for our new regions. So, we all sat in chairs in a horseshoe formation, and listened to the opening remarks with DO NOT OPEN searing our flesh and a high-pitched fuzzy noise from the electric lights. Unfortunately, the only PCT's we could make eye contact with were certainly not in our region; we sat next to the people we'd be with and across from the people we were leaving. Then, the administration started throwing candy at us. Every ceremony here involves throwing candy at people, and I don't mean tossing or throwing it to - I mean really chucking it. The chocolates I picked up were bent like macaroni from the impact on my head/arm/clavicle.

Most of us are pretty excited about our sites by this point. I still think that the official forms are impressively written and lend a certain excitement to moving somewhere new.This is a description I'm going to lift directly from the packet Peace Corps gave me:

"Village is located in steppe, not far from the River Ural, woods all along the river, green bushes and trees are planted near their houses. When it rains, it's muddy. Along the river Ural/Zhaik and Derkul, Shagan. The climate is influenced by the Central Asian steppes. A cold and dry winter is succeeded by a hot and still drier summer, during which the grass, and sometimes all the crops, are destroyed by the burning heat. Uralsk area, although lynig wholly to the south of 52N, has the same average yearly temperature as Moscow and south Finland. Its January is colder than that of North Finland, while July averages 73."
"Economy is agricultur, some private business, bazaar, and stores."

I will be living near the woods on the edge of town with a family with 3 adult sons. They don't live at home. The mother is a good cook. - that's all I know! I think they'll be surprised to find out that someone new is moving in in 3 weeks. I won't have an address until then.