old entry I forgot to post

Angie, Megan (from Kuzlorda), and I went to dinner, where Angie was the only person able to unassimilate. We’d been talking and eating for a few minutes when Angie pointed to the bread basked, filled with half-pieces of bread Megan and I had been eating chunk by chunk. “This is Kazakhstan, but you’re not in your homes,” she said. And, when the hamburger came, Megan said, “this is so big, it’s like a whole horse.”

back again

I hired a cab with a British man from the WHO who had been on the plane. It was 6:00 when I came up to my host family’s house, and the zinnias had not only shot up to two feet tall, they were blossoming. The tomato plants look like weeping willows from all the green tomatoes, and about a quarter of the raspberries are ripe. The weather is lovely, sunny with big well-defined clouds, only a couple degrees warmer than the ideal (to me) temperature.
My host family welcomed me back very warmly and can’t hear enough about America. They re-did the walls (probably with the mud/cow bokh mixture used for walls here) and rearranged the furniture. One of the aunts, Damien, finally had her twins. This house is like the babysitters’ club, the phone is constantly ringing with family members needing Shatagul to come watch their kids while they go to Damien. “There’s no news here,” everyone says, “how was America?”

They looked at all my photos. Samal sat in on each showing. “Susan, you look exactly like your sister!” they said, one by one. “Well, they look alike to us, but probably we all look alike to them,” Samal told them. Samal, who will never be mistaken for anyone else.

I visited Zhopar, who was wearing her husband’s singlet (why on Earth does he have a singlet, and how old is it?) She was thrilled to see me and gave me lots of dairy products. She and her son were especially pleased with a key chain that has a ring with “Lucky Penny, Chicago” and a penny that spins around inside the ring. Zhopar's chicks are pretty big and are running around on those incredible adolescent chicken legs that look like they could launch the chicks to Jupiter. Her family has acquired a kitten that seems to have been born with fleas.

Last night, Dilda apa opened the bag of Dove chocolates from my family, and Samal discovered that there was writing inside. This provoked a feeding frenzy, and they finished off the bag. Damira translated the silly advice inside the wrappers (“whisper in the dark,” “Hey, why not?”). We finished after the sun was down and went to bed well after midnight. The sky was black black black, although only the closest stars were visible.

foreigner

I’m a foreigner again. I went to the travel agent yesterday to buy a ticket to the village where I’ll be a camp counselor for a couple weeks. The person at the desk said speaking Kazakh with me was very hard and kept putting her head in her hands and exhaling as if each sentence were a pullup. But I didn’t feel sorry for her - she spoke Kazakh well enough with ethnic Kazakhs. She understood me, she just couldn’t get her words out in Kazakh. Apparently, she was having to override her automatic ‘Russian for yellow folk’ instinct. It turns out that neither of us could find the village on the map, and she gave up and simply helped other people instead of me. I left about then. I looked on the internet and found out that the village, Ridder, used to be Leninogorsk, so it made sense that it wasn’t on the map, but not a lot of sense that tickets are issued by the old name.

So, I went back. I should have gone somewhere else. It was even harder for the travel agent the second time. Her solution to the perceived insurmountable language barrier was to speak very loudly and quickly, mixing Russian and Kazakh and interrupting me as I answered. She asked every question twice without pause, although I understood it the first time. She didn’t answer my questions and constantly talked to other customers. So I was insulted and frustrated, which is rare with me. It was that she was the one thwarting communication.

Whenever I start to get my dander up, I ask myself if it’s because someone didn’t think I was smarter than I am. And usually, that helps me calm down. I’ve learned to take all kinds of treatment with equanimity, from dog talk to wow-you-don’t-even-have-an-accent-please-give-me-an-autograph conversations. Language (speaking and understanding about equally) continues to be an issue. I could speak a lot better if I studied consistently, if I’d had a tutor for more than a month at a time, if I were smarter. But, truth be told, I'm usually happy enough to get by.

vacation

Being home was great. It felt so . . . . normal. Things I’d remembered about America had started to seem fantastic and exaggerated. But it turns out that they weren’t. Things that are neutral when you’ve been home for a while suddenly stand out. People were really as nice as I’d remembered, customer service was spectacular, there are trees with truly red leaves, even in summer and trees with truly blue needles, young men really don’t ogle as much, women wear shoes that look much more practical. Dogs are different. Kids are the same. And I am the same, too, but I had the luxury of understanding and being understood. My family is as funny and loving as I’d imagined. But I'm afraid that's all you'll hear for now, since I've found it very hard to write about My Life when I'm home.