Camping

Five of us volunteers went camping in Chapayeva on Saturday. I was about 30 minutes late, since I waited for the bus for almost 40 minutes, and I met Tim D and Angela at the opening of the bazaar. We swung our backpacks in front of us and went in, weaving our way to the happy produce building. This is one of my favorite parts of the bazaar, a high, full room that has bananas, carrots, potatos, whatever greens are available, dried apricots, raisins, apples, and lemons year round. There are some seasonal things, too, like pomegranates and dates. We bought a lot of fruit, probably 5 kilos worth, put them in the packettes (plastic bags) we had brought, and took off. I love that room. I usually end up talking to the saleswomen for a few minutes, and although I don’t get a better deal for it, it’s nice. One of my students saw us there. We then walked to a different section of the bazaar, a parking lot full of cars parked and driving in the most inconvenient ways possible and young men milling about, taxi drivers playing chess on the hoods of the Ladas (Russian car. Horrible. Good for chess due to boxlike shape). We, too began milling about, in the process of finding a driver going to Chapayeva. We found one through a connection, a very nice man who knew previous volunteers. He was our agent and finally found someone who was going. Because it was a holiday weekend, the driver charged us quite a bit over the going rate. But we had no other option. The bus that leaves at 2:00 was already full (it was 10:00) and it’s a real rough ride, let me tell you. So, the ride was suffering, we staggered out of the car in front of Amber’s house.

So, off we went, loaded down with fruit, blankets, and cameras. We walked straight down Amber’s street to the hill where the street ends and the Winnie-the Pooh-ish landscape begins. There was a new lake on the field in front of the woods, since everything is flooded right now. It hasn’t rained for weeks, it’s dry, dusty, even, but some villages suddenly flooded to the second story within a day or two, Chapayeva doesn’t seem damaged, although the water rose extraordinarily high here, too. So Tim, who was wearing knee-high local boots went through, and the rest of us walked around the lake, past the boys fishing and shouting “good morning!” at our backs (people wait to speak English until you’ve passed them, then laugh hysterically). Stopped to look at a raft made entirely of plastic bottles, stopped to take a photo of Mike posing with a cow, then went into the shade of the enormous trees. They line the Akzhayiek (Ural) river about ¼ mile deep, and are too thick to hug, although most of them are very climbable. I don’t know what trees they are, exactly. Beeches, maybe? And underneath them, there’s grass in hard-packed, sandy soil. In summer, people go there to gather the Kazakhstani version of blueberries and blackberries (which I don’t eat due to the dental issues the seeds cause, and because of the aftertaste which quickly overwhelms the actual, not-very-delicious taste). However, we discovered after about twenty minutes of walking, that we were on a peninsula and the water around us was too deep and too broad to piggyback or wade. So, we went back out past the boys who were no less interested the second time, along the high bank, and tried to find a way to get to the woods where we wanted to spend the night. Tim, Angela, and I ended up discouraged, sitting on the ground by a floodworthy wooden boat, eating grapes and spitting the over the steep yellow dirt bank. There were about 30 steps chopped into the bank, presumably where people could take the boat into the water. Cows walked by. It was hot. Amber and Mike had gone to look for the owner of the boat, and/or anyone else who would ferry us 50 meters to the other shore, where the trees were. We thought it would be pretty lame to sleep indoors after coming out and it being a perfect day for camping and all. I was getting sleepy . . . . Suddenly, Amber reappeared, asked for her backpack, and without explanation took us through a couple back yards and across a field, to where our hero, Misha, sat waiting to fulfill his commission. Misha is a fisherman who has read extensively on the Kennedy family. He was willing to take us, two by two, across the flooded field, for 200 tenge each way. He told us (in a mixture of Russian and Kazakh) “tomorrow, when you need me, just shout.” And the next day, we stood on the bank, counted to three, and shouted “Meeeeeeshaaaaaa,” his wife’s head popped up over a fence, an arm waved, and in ten minutes, Misha pulled his boat around and took us back, mosquito-bittten and slightly redder/browner than the day before. It had been a success.

In the field where we decided to sleep:
Amber: “Wow! Look at that snake!”
Angela, Mike, Susan, Amber look at snake.
Amber: “Is it poisonous?” Snake flashes orange-marked poison glands and a significant neck.
Volunteers: “Yep.” .
Tim picks up a stick, gets snake on end of stick.
Angela: “Tim! Leave the snake alone! It’s poisonous!”
Tim: “All the more reason to not leave it alone.”
Amber: “Augh! It’s coiling! It’s coiling!”
Angela: “Amber, when we say ‘coiling’ we usually mean ‘making a coil,’ not ‘slithering off’”
Tim readjusts snake, flings snake far back into the field. Volunteers gasp. There is a second of silence.
Angela: “TIM! You’ve got to tell me when you’re going to do these things! I would have used “action” mode on my camera!”

It wasn’t really a nice night from a comfort standpoint, but the stars were something else. I went to bed first, into the humid tent. I immediately became cold. And, having become cold, became convinced that there was no better place to sleep than where I was. Angela came in the tent a while after I did, when my nose felt to the touch a bit like a cold, peeled potato (it was sooo humid!) We shared blankets. Amber came in, and by the amount of space I had left, I who was shoved into the corner, with the wet surface of the tent on my face, I thought all five of us were inside. No. This was an artificial lack of space. I didn’t know it until Angie began cursing violently and told Amber to stop crushing us. I sat up a bit and tried to see the other side of the tent. There was no one else there. “I’m cold!” whined Amber, with 75% of the blankets in the middle of the tent, while the two of us were squeezed into the downhill 1/3 (it was a 2 person tent). Angie cursed again and started unzipping the flap. The unzipping sound made me anxious. However, I still didn’t have more space, since Amber rolled toward me once Angie was outside. I must have slept a little, because I woke up when it was light enough to read my watch. It was 5:20. I suddenly felt desperate to get out, so I climbed over Amber, and went out feet first. The other three volunteers were sleeping soundly near the fire. The air was dry and clean. I put some wood on the fire and ate a bunch of grapes by myself, as the sun rose.

Around 7am, as the cows were fording the river, Tim wandered off without telling anyone what he was doing and came back with the snake for a photo opportunity. I took the photos. Then, he threw it back again.