Susan in Kazakhstan

me milking marta

2006-07-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

things I miss

2006-07-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

I've been home for a month now, searching for the flash drive with all my journals on it. So I thought it was time to try to re-create what I wrote the last few weeks in KZ. I'll start with this:

Things I miss about Kazakhstan
- the stars at night, so clear I could see the band of the Milky Way
- the fruit juices. Piko Apple, Piko Plum, Sad White Grape
- Buses that cost about 18 cents (I don't mean the buses themselves, just that they cost 18 cents and not 2 dollars)
- cooking and eating outside in the summer
- the mountains near Koktube Eki
- being able to stop by my friends' houses anytime
- tea time
- my friends from my church, from Podstepnoye, and from Uralsk
- cherries and apricots enough to carpet the streets (Koktube Eki)
- how thrilling it was to get emails and packages

almost the last one

2006-06-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

I have a few hours left in Kazakhstan, and I'm a little busy . . . . But I intend to post a few more blogs over the next few days to wrap this up.

fish

2006-05-09T01:47:00.000-07:00

Kanipa Apa and her friend (in her late 60’s) are trying to give a fishhead to the kitten Kanipa threw last night. They’re having fun, laughing and jogging around the house in the wide-kneed flat-footed way older ladies run here (I know because they run to catch buses). One of them is trying to get it out of Big Cat’s jaws and the other is chasing the kitten, who is happier about having someone to play with than about a fish head.

goat games, etc.

2006-04-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

Nauriz, the Central Asian new year, was March 22. Karen, Dawn, Amber, and I took a taxi to downtown Turkistan, never doubting that there would be stuff going on there. A chilly wind was blowing through the center. Empty. So, there we were, in something a little like sleet. Somehow, three of Karen’s students spotted us from across the street. The crossed over to us and suggested we go to the hippodrome. But at this point, the conversation broke down, and the girls stood there, looking around. They were waiting for someone else to make the first move. But to where?
So we started walking in a direction we thought might be good and stood at the bus stop for a few minutes before Karen suggested we first go to the bazaar and try to find a shuttle. It worked.
We got off at the bazaar and went toward the taxi drivers shouting “hippodrome!” Apparently, all the vans were going to the hippodrome instead of following their routes. We got in a van and waited for a few more passengers. I realized, as I hadn’t in my frustration at the empty city, our inefficiency, and the weather, that the girls were about to burst with excitement. It turned out that none of them had ever been to the traditional horse games. They always had to wait on guests at home. I don’t know how they’d escaped, because one of them said she was supposed to be helping out at that moment, but I have a feeling that they all went home to piles of dishes and drunk old ladies playing cards.
Our van joined a long chain of white vans off-roading toward a scooped-out green field below a hill. The hill was full of people – the whole city - the young men wearing jeans with black leather jackets and black hats, the few women who were there mostly wearing long skirts and scarves. We sure stood out in the crowds of dark-haired, black-eyed people. They were selling shashlik and pilaf at giant tables (it looked a little like those festivals in Breugel, but Central Asian) We spread ourselves wide and thick, taking photos with people we didn’t know, pretending to stir the pilaf in giant cauldrons, petting horses.
We went up and stood on the hill to watch the first races. The only clear sounds were the wind and the samachki (sunflower seeds, sold on every street corner, eaten in bushels by Kz nationals). The horses raced. An enthusiastic dog beat a few of them. This isn’t the pros, after all. The horses generally hadn’t been washed or brushed; some of them had blankets for saddles. I suppose some of them had just been taken out of the herd for the event. We watched kokpar, the game with the goat carcass. From a distance it was much slower than I’d imagined. At the center of the field, the horses would be close together, not going anywhere. What was going on is that the guys were beating each other with their riding whips and fighting over the carcass. Then, one would break away with the carcass, riding toward a pole, and maybe one or two other horsemen would follow him. One of the winners rode past us. He was sitting sideways on his horse, his feet hooked under the carcass to hold it up, his riding whip in his mouth and a felt and fur hat on over one eyebrow. But we had had enough fun; we were cold and went to the bazaar, where I made the first of several wise but unweildy purchases.

Turkistan

2006-04-16T04:04:00.001-07:00

When I got off the train in Turkistan, the difference between this place and Uralsk hit me like a breaker. The train was like a section of Uralsk; we'd just carried it south with us. Turkistan was warm, green, spring, very very Central Asian. I don’t look so out of place in Uralsk or in my village (I mean my face, not my clothes), but here, I was FOREIGNER. Taxi drivers mobbed me, surrounded me, tried to take my bags off me. I looked desperately for the volunteer who was supposed to meet me, but I didn’t see her. I began to make swatting motions with my hands in front of my faces and my bags. It's so funny that probably 90% of the people in the area could have told me where the other foreigner was, but it took the two of us long enough to get me pretty flustered. Once we were away from the bloodsuckers and had each taken off a layer or two of clothing, Dawn and I more cheerfully set off in the right direction . . . and walked a couple kilometers too far. I loved Turkistan instantly, although that had a lot to do with the weather. Fresh, warm air made me feel like I had superpowers. But we were, after all, lost, and my superpowers waned as my bag stuffed with books hit me unpredictably in the back of the knee. But I didn’t buckle and fall. Instead I stopped and finished off the pistachios. It seemed that this was a place where you could put off figuring out where on Earth you were and have a snack, staring back without any feeling of rudeness at passers-by who were also staring at you.

Turkistan – and you’d better look it up if you want real history – is a very old town in the south of Kazakhstan. It’s on my National Geographic world map, pretty much straight west of Almaty and further south than the Aral Sea. I’ve read in some places that it was a Silk Road town, but I’m not sure if it was on the main route or off it. The main attraction there is the mausoleum. It’s lovely, big, worth going to. And three trips equals a Hajj. It’s also surrounded by great but almost completely archaeologically ignored ruins. And wow was the population ever different from Uralsk, where there are (basically) Kishi Zhuz Kazakhs, Russians (or Slavic people), 4 Americans and 1 British man. In Turkistan, there were all kinds of Central Asians, dressed as the people on the Turkish streets in Koktube dressed, and they were all speaking Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkish – not Russian. One of my favorite things about Turkistan was that people understood me the first time – I didn’t have to explain that I was a foreigner and was about to speak in Kazakh and then repeat my original request. People in Turkistan seemed to walk more slowly than people in Uralsk. The women weren’t all wearing stilettos. Lots of men were wearing the traditional Central Asian hats. I was struck by how the city feels almost like a village because of how low the buildings are. The streets (which, if I’m not mistaken, are all named after exactly the same khan) lined with stucco fences. Behind the fences are houses with gardens or several buildings for different things that make up a house.

The next day, we went with a bunch of volunteers to a ruined city – Sauran. Today it amounts to little more than a broken circle of mud wall with cow pies and an unspeakable number of shards of ancient pottery. And scores of turtles.

back again

2006-04-16T03:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry - I just looked at my blog and realized that the last entry was more than a month ago. The gap time goes something like this: train - 2 days, Turkistan - 3 days, train - 1 day, Koktube 2 - 2 days, Almaty - 5 days, train- 1,000,000 years, home. Sick - 10 days, Mom and Dad's EXCELLENT package arrives: last Monday. Since then I've been mostly putting sticky notes on my calendar and getting stood up by various people (like by students for classes.) But I have a lot of resilience (i.e. places to buy Snickers bars when I'm feeling used) and the weather's been perfect, really just perfect.

But the essential information is: I’ll be flying home at the beginning of June. 7 weeks from Tuesday. I suppose then that I’ll stop blogging about Kazakhstan. I seriously doubt I’ll blog about America – I'll be busy talking my head off, taking showers, and flushing the toilet just for kicks.

On an unrelated note: I hold up photos and ask my students about them every now and then. I once held up a photo of Northwestern fans at a football game and asked the kids what those people were doing. EVERY class said it was a revolution.

pisken bas

2006-03-11T02:49:00.000-08:00

I have been called a pisken bas (cooked head) two times in two days. It makes one wonder . . . When they slaughter an animal here, they boil the head. The fur comes off, and the lips pull back from the teeth so that it has a macabre smile.
The second time I heard it was today, when Bolat took a photo of the women from my church, but could only fit me from the neck up, smiling broadly at the way he said, “say cheese.” He said “Sorry, Susan, but you’ll look like a cooked head.”

Women's Day

2006-03-11T02:45:00.000-08:00

I came home by taxi at about 9:30, after waiting 30 minutes for a bus. I wasn’t thinking about how things might have changed in a day – the firm-packed snow had turned into sludge, and we fishtailed at about 10k/h through my neighborhood. I came into the house, where Kanipa Apa was very, um, cheerful, doing something on the kitchen table that involved dirt, half-boiled noodles, and an old apron (over the noodles and under a pile of dirt.) I came in with one boot on and one boot off, because the zip of the boot zipper had broken off. “What’s wrong?” she asked, in a sing-song voice. “Your zipper?” “Yes,” I said. “It’s broken.” “It’s broken,” she repeated as if it were a nursery rhyme. She wobblingly knelt down in front of me and began to try to rip the zipper by main strength. “No, I need something for this little hole,” I said, and showed her the pin-sized hole where the zip used to be. “A knife!” she said, with relish. I quickly hopped away from her and found a safety pin, but my haste was unnecessary as she had moved on to other things. I have a feeling she’ll sleep well tonight. I hope the seeds she planted in the apron make it, too.
As the people I was celebrating with were running between Mahabbat and Bolat’s apartment and Aitgul’s upstairs apartment, I came across a neighbor standing in the doorway in a fur coat and a hat that didn’t match at all (people don’t worry about matching their clothes, but you can bet that their hats, coats and boots will coordinate). I mistakenly thought she was trying to speak to me. I wished her a happy Women’s Day, but then it became clear that she was singing something. She shuffled out the door, giggling a little, and walked down the steps like a cowboy.
Today (March 8) was Women’s Day, a big holiday which is probably not celebrated the way a feminist would wish: women are mostly praised for their beauty, given pink cards with wishes for health and love, watch Titanic at 10:00 (this year, at least,) and get very drunk both alone and in groups. The men get drunk, too. A student told me that men get drunker on Women’s Day than on Men’s Day (and how on Earth would they measure that?). Which is something to think about.

in case anyone forgot . . .

2006-02-18T05:01:00.000-08:00

This is a personal blog, and what I write is from my head. It doesn't express Peace Corps' views, or America's views, or even, necessarily, accurate views.

So, if anyone takes exception to what I've written, you're welcome to respond. I'll usually stand by what I've posted, however, since I'm an honest person and have nothing to gain by lying in this blog. I write it for my family, for my friends, and for people interested in what it's like to live in Kazakstan.

In my most recent entry, I clearly didn't address the individual differences among Kazkhs, since that is impossible in the space and time I had, and mostly recorded the things I've seen that have been consistent during the time I spent with locals in Almaty, Budarino, Chapayev, Oral, Podstepnoye, and Uskemen over the course of nearly two years. I think and hope they're accurate, inoffensive, and helpful to people who haven't been here yet. A foreigner has the advantage of fresh eyes. A local has the advantage of complete understanding. I hope I have told mostly what I've seen with my eyes, and I'm careful not to get out of my depth about the understanding.

Hope that settles everything.

communication

2006-02-10T03:25:00.000-08:00

I’ve had a question about greeting/communication in my community, and I thought, although I talked my head off about customs in Kazakhstan when I was home, that I can always say more.
o The first thing I wrote was about greetings. Greetings are especially important for boys and men, who have different greetings than women. For women, it’s usually a hand sandwich with a kiss on the cheek. I’ve seen men greet each other like that, but their traditional greeting is a hand-sandwich, which involves all four hands, thumbs up (usually). Boys take about a million years to finish greeting everyone in the room, and they have to walk around the room to shake everyone’s hand when they come in. It’s true that they don’t do this every time, but if you walk into a room where people are already seated, you’re expected to walk around, at whatever inconvenience, and shake hands. It’s kind of fun. There’s a holiday coming up where this is especially important. I couldn’t get anyone to explain what it meant last year, so all I know is that it’s the hand shaking holiday and that you’re supposed to go to 7 houses. People say “how’s your health?” “How’s your health?” to greet each other.
o As do the Russians, Kazakhs say “ksss ksss” to call animals to food. They don’t often use people words to talk to animals.
o People don’t say thank you if you give them your seat on the bus (you owe it to them) pour tea or give them food (you owe it to them) help them make a purchase (you owe it to them) or do anything else that can be expected of you in your position. That’s not to say that they’re surly or don’t say thanks at all; while American culture tends to castigate people for taking things for granted, Kazakh (and Russian, too, it seems) culture allows people to take certain things for granted. But for other things, you’d better say thank you. I’m afraid I’ll seem rude when I go back to America, because I’ve also stopped saying “thank you.” It’s adaptive. Some people were confused when I said it, and I was made fun of at length on the bus for saying “thank you” to a woman who scooted over to make room for me.
o There are also some shared gestures that we don’t have. There’s a quick, angled shake of the head that would probably indicate (unclearly) a regretful “no” in the US; here it means approval of something remarkable someone’s done.
o As far as physical contact goes, there’s a lot more here, but different kinds. According to another volunteer, nothing’s gay in Kazakhstan. It’s true. It’s refreshing to never hear kids making fun of someone for acting or looking “gay.” But I know from teaching in a middle school in Chicago that a lot of the things they do - the way they pose for photos, how close they sit to their friends, the way they comb each other’s hair – would be thoroughly mocked in America. People press up against each other whether it’s necessary or not, and touch each other without any need. The kids in my school crawl over each other like puppies. But people don’t hug, certainly not in greeting. In church last week, a young girl came up behind a lady she’d met twice and started to play with her hair without asking. And someone who’s related to my hostess came into my room without knocking and sat my bed (I was in it) to chat.
o About other non-verbal customs – most behavior is very predictable and everyone knows what’s expected. So, at the tablespread (on the floor when there are guests), when everyone has put his or her spoon into a tea cup, everyone notices, puts their hands out, palms up to receive blessing and “washes” his face with them with a flick as they say “Awmeen” – this is grace, always said after a meal. Then the men stand up and everyone knows they’re going outside to smoke. And the younger women start to consolidate dishes and clear off the table, because everyone knows the youngest women clean up. And the older women shift away from the tablespread on the floor, and everyone knows they’re going to play cards. So, no decisions, agreements, or invitations are made verbally. You just sort yourselves out and do what your people do.
o It’s common to address a group as Kazakhtar or “Kazakhs.” All older women (in my region, in the other regions in KZ, it’s different) are called Apa, meaning “older sister.” All older men are Aga or “older brother.” If an older man talks to a young woman or girl, he’ll call her Karindas (little sister), but old people call younger boys and girls “my boy” or “my girl” in public. They are very confused that we don’t have a special title to distinguish an old woman from a middle-aged or young woman.
o People don’t read books. No one brings a book on a train or a long bus ride. Local newspapers are popular, though.
o People usually sit in silence on public transportation. It’s eerie, being crammed in on a bus, where everyone has someone’s elbow in his kidney and an armpit in his face, and still there is absolute silence.
o People stare at each other openly and shamelessly. I’ve never heard a mother scold her child for staring.
o Kazakh humor is funny and doesn’t seem odd to me. But it doesn’t translate well. There’s a certain way of saying something that makes it much funnier. It’s not dry humor, or self-deprecating, usually. And it can be mocking and mean in a way that’s absolutely unacceptable in America (for example, the school principal mocking a fat girl, making her cry, and the other teachers laughing at her for crying. But I like to think my school is a moral pit and not the rule), but it’s not common. A quick wit and a sharp tongue are highly valued here. They tease people a lot, and almost nothing’s off-limits. Their speech becomes far more modulated when they’re excited or telling a joke, and intonation and imitation are an important part of what they say and whether it’s funny. I haven’t noticed too much physical humor, and bathroom humor is absolutely embarrassing and off-limits.
o A lot of Kazakh humor is short, oblique comments or questions. A teacher was mad at our vice-principal, whose name means a certain type of cat (a large cat, I think.) Someone mentioned him, and she said “Maulin – isn’t that a cat?” and everyone laughed. The other day, a woman got on the bus and the driver asked her for her fare, she said to him, “Kazakh, I got on at the hospital stop. Do you expect me to have any money?” Hands-down, one of the most popular shows on TV is “Tamasha,” which is a bit Lawrence Welk-ish. The sketches are often about cuckolded and alcoholic husbands. There was one the other day, where one man was trying to convince his friend that everyone was Kazakh. He said that an Apache was a Kazakh whose grandmother had given him tea that was too hot. So he waved his hand in front of his mouth and went “awooo wooo wooo wooo.” He said that the Beatles were Kazakh and played “yesterday” on the dombra, and used words that sounded like the English “yestidim . . .” (I heard . . .) But, in my opinion, Tamasha isn’t nearly as funny as my students. What they say in English is usually blunt humor, like the girl who always uses flying saucers in her homework sentences. But they can say things in Kazakh that make the other students roar.

alumns

2006-01-26T01:28:00.000-08:00

Today was the alumni gathering at my school. The 11th graders traditionally prepare entertainment, everyone is supposed to ask the alumns questions, and as is traditional, the guests are expected to entertain by songs or stories. The 11th graders decided to model the event after the popular television show “zhde minye” in which people look for lost loved ones. It has sappy classical music playing in the background, and the people making requests invariably break down. But, it’s very culturally revealing. People during the USSR were shifted all over the place for various reasons and often without being able to prepare. The format was a big hit, mostly because the 11th graders are hams. The graduates they “found” came out from behind the curtain, just like on the show. The guys all had all grown mullets and bought tight jeans. The girls had all cut their long hair into drastic layers.

teeth

2006-01-26T01:22:00.000-08:00

I just came home from Zhupar’s and sat down to relax in the chair that one of Kanipa Apa’s friends had wet. And it occurred to me, as changed my pants and gave it the vinegar treatment, that being old in Kazakhstan is cruel and unfair. Imagine being incontinent on a -45C day when your only socially acceptable option is to be constantly putting on your coat and boots and shuffling through the snow to the tiny, slippery outhouse. Imagine going to your friend’s house where there are three chairs (and four people) and wetting one of them and having to walk home like that because the water pipes had frozen again.
These old ladies come pretty often, drink tea, play cards, warm up (our house is warm; theirs are cold) and complain about their alcoholic sons and their children who take every tenge of their pensions. The three of them – toothless Kanipa, who is too poor to buy dentures, the incontinent one, and the one who lives in a tiny house with 6 people who can’t pull together the money to buy coal – look happy when they're together.
The money Peace Corps gives us is enough – more than enough for me – but a shockingly small amount per month by American standards. And yet it still creates a cushion around us, because the money is to keep us from unsafe situations, such as living through a winter like this without coal.

pickles

2006-01-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

The pickle jar blew its top in the living room last night. Kanipa Apa was just beginning to snore, and her daughter and grandchildren were sprawled in front of the TV. I was in my room, doing something on the computer. And then there was a loud, metallic pop and the smell of garlic. We didn’t know what it was for a while, but then Aisulu spotted the jar under a chair. The lid was not to be found. She put it on the kitchen floor, near the fireplace, and cleaned as best she could. However, something in the pickle jar continued to fester. This morning, there was a little sticky pickle juice river from the jar to where I stand to brush my teeth. My favorite socks are saturated.

like Americans

2006-01-02T20:43:00.000-08:00

As I have said (several times already, I think), my Christmas was Christmassy but not American Christmassy. It was as it should have been. Tom and I (and lots of other people) spent all day at church, which is really an apartment, and were served several meals, between games and songs. I’m not used to sitting so long, however, and miss parties where you can hold a plate and walk around. Sergei, Bolat, and Canzizbai were sitting on the couch, having gotten tired of sitting at the table. Their conversation lagged. We were all getting sleepy. “Hey, let’s sit like Americans,” said either Saki or Bolat, to energize the gathering. The three men leaned back luxuriously and spread their knees as far as they would go. Saki and Bolat began to discuss Tom’s posture. He was in jeans and a sweatshirt, and was taking up a very American amount of floor space, far from the table. They concluded that Kazakhs sit close to the table in order to shovel food into their faces (“like animals,” said Bolat, unable to disguise his approval) and that Americans sit far from the food for unknown reasons. “But look,” Bolat said, pointing at me, “Susan’s gone Kazakh.” I laughed and sat up straight, backing away from the table. A few hours later, after the last meal of Christmas (at about 8pm), Bolat said “I’m going to relax like an American” and reclined more like an odalisque, with a pillow under his side. “Me too. Like an American,” said Saki and leaned back against Bolat, an invasion of personal space (personal MAN space, no less) perhaps one in twenty Americans would tolerate from a close relative.

more on Zhupar Alzhan

2005-12-14T21:52:00.000-08:00

I stopped by Zhupar Aizhan’s after my classes yesterday, as I do about once a week. I go about once a week, at lunchtime these days, because it’s dark by 5:30 and there’s no one to walk me safely home. During the summer and early fall, I’d go in the evening, like a guest. She gets excited when I come. Retirement chafes a bit – she, a sanguine by any personality scale, finds herself with only a husband to talk to and a whole cow to grind by hand. She and her husband both speak to me at once, as if the other one weren’t there. It doesn’t bother them that I seem confused about whom I should be looking at. Maksot Aga’s gaze never goes away from my face, (he’s a 100% eye-contact speaker). In spite of this, there are silences, during which Zhupar counts years on her fingers and Maksot Aga, with his eyes rolled up, tries to think of words like “vengeance.” They both speak very good English. Set off by the same event/topic, they each take it in very different directions. These directions, if pursued long enough, always lead (from Zhopar’s side) to her travels in Eastern Europe and from Maksot Aga’s side, to conspiracy theories. I am always told to sit and watch tv, like a good guest, and I do for only about 5 minutes, unless it’s Marty Stauffer. When a nature program’s on, as it often is during the day, we sit and watch it together. We all love nature programs. In Zhopar’s words, “we are biologists!” She was thrilled to death to teach biology in English with me last year. She bought a Kelly green housecoat with lizards and fish all over it. I think there are birds, too. She got a good deal on it at the bazaar because her argument was “Come on, who else will buy this? You’ll never sell this to anyone but me.” She makes me wear it when I cut onions. If there are no nature programs, I sit with her in the kitchen to peel, chop, and talk (really, to listen). When the food is ready, she dumps a bit of the crazy strong vinegar on the dirty silverware sitting in a cup, wipes it off with toilet paper and hands it to me.

Soghum

2005-12-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

Meat is everywhere. ‘Tis the season to slaughter large animals – they won’t go bad if you leave them outside. Zhopar is making ground beef with the same hand-cranked contraption she makes jam with in the summer. Her entryway is clogged with ¾ of her cow, the one that was a pain to milk. They’re out of places to store meat. She doesn’t know what to do. My own freezer is full of meat, enough to last me for a month or two. One of the impressions I have of Kazakhstan is that it is a place with bones everywhere. There are more and larger bones out than usual – a cow’s shin bone and hoof were in the middle of the sidewalk a few days ago. I expected it to be there for years, but someone or something moved it – probably a dog. I just had horsemeat besbarmak at Dilda Apa’s house. She and her sister are sitting on the floor, making lumpy horse sausage from petal pink intestines.

hiccoughs

2005-12-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

I blundered through another Russian lesson, then I walked with my tutor around the corner to the drug store where they make copies (I needed ch’s 10 and 11). There was a very tall man with awful posture. His spine must have been shaped like a ski. He came in and stood silently for a few minutes, then hiccoughed. It was loud and high, and threw his shoulders back on his frame for a moment. The frequency of the hiccoughs increased during our time there, so that when we left, the poor man could hardly say “excuse me” before the next one overtook him. He seemed thoroughly ashamed of himself. I very much wonder what he bought. If he wants a good scare, I know a street that's slippery enough to make a brave man squeal - the problem is that it could cure hiccoughs, but he'd probably have to go to the hospital.

9th graders

2005-12-06T21:15:00.000-08:00

I’ve been doing Thanksgiving lessons for three weeks because there’s not a scrap about it in the textbooks, something I consider a serious omission. So, I told them about Massasoit and putting corn seeds in fish and traditional foods besides pizza and hamburgers. In every class, I made them say “I’m thankful for __.”
The 8th graders, always eager, started saying thank you to each other before I finished explaining what we were about to do. Which was, in a way, sweet. And, in another way, depressing. “I am thankful to Shnar, because she gave me the answers to the physics test.” “I am thankful to Shnar because she let me say her homework was mine.” Shnar has a lot of friends. I can’t remember if Botagoz said anything about flying saucers, which she usually does. (She really loved the unit I did on Things in the Sky.)
The 9th grade boys (I teach a class for the boys and a class for the girls, which has isolated the goofiness factor) told the hapless New Kid to say “I am thankful for you,” to me. They giggled and then all said it. They asked me what I was thankful and I told them “I am thankful for you, the zoo,” which made Monkey fall out of his chair laughing. They all have animal nicknames (the dormitory kids give everyone a nickname. I don’t know mine) – some nice, some not. Donkey wants his changed. Giraffe doesn’t. Wild Pig, said “I would be thankful if you let us out early.” But I’m afraid I let them out late.

10th graders

2005-12-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

The 10th graders, particularly the boys, enjoy activities that involve getting out of their chairs and looming over their teachers. Activities like, for example, tests. I wish I had one of those mallets from the Chucky Cheeze gopher game. I was team-teaching with Gulvira, who sighed, “What a boy!” as some kid with hair over his eyes stood over her. “What did she say? What did she say?” The kids asked me, because they know Gulvira is completely unresponsive. “Kandai bala,” I said translating into Kazakh, but my voice was soft and broken by my cold, and the boy misunderstood me and promptly bit the girl next to him. “Cannibal!” he cried gleefully. Kandai vocabulary.
And later the same day, they were coming to school for their afternoon lessons as I was coming for my mail, in jeans and hiking boots (I had been walking aimlessly just to be out on this ideal winter day). “Oh, Susan, Susan,” said pretty Moldir, hanging on someone’s arm. I’m not sure what she meant. Those girls make me feel a little bit like I’m the batty teacher with the big glasses in Clueless and they’re Emma and her friend.

more about the cat

2005-11-20T02:24:00.000-08:00

The cat is working out nicely, and has been slowly getting used to us. Kanipa apa had another conversation with the neighbors and it sounds like they’re okay with him staying at our place. Apa has named him “Cheetah.” Today is the first day he’s taken flying leaps at anything, although he’s been more and more underfoot. The problem is that he is something besides me that Kanipa Apa talks to. “Eh, what are you looking at?” she shouted yesterday from the other room, and I told her I was planning lessons. But she was talking to the cat. I didn’t answer, however, when she said, “Are you hungry? Eat some mice.”

The cat, by the way, is a good mouser. However, he plays with the dead little body for an indecent amount of time afterward, and he likes to play with it in my room at 6am.

new cat

2005-11-13T00:11:00.000-08:00

We seem to have acquired a cat. It is a very nice cat, black, with yellow eyes, and he's been coming to the door whenever he sees me come home for a while now. I don't usually let him in, but sometimes he slips past and I have to pick him up to get him outside again. When I pick him up, he climbs onto my shoulder. When I lift him off my shoulder, he climbs onto my head. My neighbor, probably in a haze of some sort, stopped to watch us on his way back from the outhouse. I ended up having to put down all my bags and use both hands and a pole to get the cat off.

I think Kanipa Apa missed me and decided the neighbor's cat would go a long way toward replacing me, since we have about the same level of language skills. She didn't mention how the neighbors feel about the situation when she explained it to me. The cat is apparently permitted to go wherever he wants. He is under my bed right now, and I hope he stays and kills something.

hard times

2005-11-13T00:04:00.000-08:00

During the week, I stopped by the apartment where I go to church (the church has about 10 people – Protestants are in short supply here). The pastor's wife is an excellent story teller, and she has quite a lot of good stories. I forget what brought it up, but we began talking about post-Soviet times. She told us about how life was when her youngest daughter was a baby. They lived in Shimkent, a large city in the south of Kazakhstan. After the fall of the USSR, the city had electricity for only about half an hour a day. Which is livable if you’re set up for it, but they lived on the seventh floor of an apartment building in the center of a city, with a newborn, in the winter. They had to carry her baby around in a fur coat all day and light a candle under her cradle at night. They could make food in the apartment by lighting candles under a metal plate, but to make tea, everyone foraged for wood (I can't imagine there was much in a semi-arid city) went outside and made fires in the apartment yard. There were about two years like that.

raisins

2005-11-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

I came back today from a language camp and slept for about 5 hours during the day, and I’ll probably sleep well tonight, too. It was an intense week, especially for a napper like me. I hope I've boosted my language skills, which I have been quite lazy about. I’m not sure how I would handle a group like us (“Saltanat, how do you say ‘why are you looking at me like I’ve got a banana growing out of my forehead,’ in Kazakh?”), but Saltanat, bless her, just rolls with it. Discussions/arguments about grammar forms and whether they match up with English ones (no) often swallowed 10 minutes.
Saltanat told us that a teacher must find each student’s raisin and re-hydrate it, meaning that everyone has something that motivates them to learn and a teacher has to, um, water it. Ryan pointed out that re-hydrated raisins are gross. I’m not sure what my raisin is. I did spend a fair amount of time, as I did during our training, laughing. Maybe laughing is my raisin.
The weather was gorgeous and warmish, until the last couple days, when it was below freezing for most of the day. . I showered THREE times in one week. Imagine! We made good food and drank lots of juice. And suddenly, it’s mid-November.

things that go __ in the night

2005-10-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been sleeping well, have been having dreams about our sneaky vice principal falsely accusing me and wiggling his mustache (exactly what happens in real life, the weasel). I have also been hearing mice. The night before my birthday, I turned on the light at 3am and started hitting mouse-friendly places with my umbrella. I was standing on the bed opposite mine, waiting for the sound of little feet, when I heard the noise. What horrid sort of beast is that? I wondered if I should get something more lethal than an umbrella. I expected to have to deal with ROUS’s. I looked everywhere. I waited silently. I suddenly hit furniture with the umbrella after long periods of inactivity. Nothing – except the noise. In the end, I was just too tired to pursue something that was apparently invisible. I lay down, listening to Kanipa Apa snoring. The sound began again, in earnest. The place must have been seething with them, snorting to each other. Running wild. I fell asleep in a defensive position. In the morning, I suggested we get a cat. “Why do we need a cat?” Apa shouted. “Because we have mice. Big mice.” “Oh, that’s just the neighbor snoring!” She imitated the noise perfectly. Which was really a relief, although it’s a problem that’s much harder to solve than mice.

and finally - my very own nasty outhouse story

2005-10-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

My keys fell out of my pocket into the bottom of you-know-where. . . I went and got a pole, but after a few minutes, I could see that it was not going to do the trick. I asked the cleaning lady for help. She looked at me, unbelieving, but came to the outhouse and attached a very useful-looking wire hook to my pole - very loosely. Well, I thought to myself, surely from time to time they have to do this. Maybe she knows from experience. “Will it hold?” I asked, “You don’t need to tie it to the pole?” “No need.” she said and angled the pole into the hole. The hook slid off immediately, with a sickening plop. My keys sparkled at the bottom. The cleaning lady made a face and walked away. I went out to the sidewalk for some fresh air, hoping that my keys wouldn’t get sucked under too quickly. As I stepped on the path, the bell rang, and the seventh-graders poured out and swarmed me. “We missed you!” They said, and asked a million questions in Kazakh, with each step coming closer to me, so that about 6 of them were in physical contact. Janna, who likes to take my arm and work down to holding my hand, started off at my elbow. I made my hands unavailable by clasping them behind my back, like a socially awkward professor, and decided not to explain to them what I had been doing. Two 11th graders showed up. “Do you know how to get keys from the bottom of the outhouse?” I asked. “No,” they said, laughing. And walked away. But, bless them, they came back about 10 minutes later with a hook. We firmly attached the hook to the stick and began work. “I’ve got them!” said Manas, but he pulled up something that was definitely not keys. “Fooo!” He said, and spat. Whenever he said, “foo,” he spat on the ground, barely missing my head a few times during the following hour. The keys had begun to sink, and the ahem conditions meant that we couldn’t hear them anymore, either. So it took a while. But, bless him, Manas did manage to pull them up. I washed everything with soap and then vinegar and then soap again, then waited a few minutes and repeated the whole process. The End.

cute students

2005-10-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

One of last year’s English teachers, Svetlana, will teach some classes on Fridays and Saturdays, late afternoon. Her Saturday lesson is for the 11th graders, those who want to take the subject test in English at the end of the year. But, in her class (from 3:30 – 5:40) sat Duman, a ninth-grader who understands almost no English at all. She asked him why he came and if he understood anything. He told her that he didn’t understand anything, that he just wanted to sit and look at her for a while. So she let him.
Most of the 9th graders are impossibly cute. Some sat outside my classroom and watched through a crack in the door yesterday. They said they wanted two English classes (or something else related to English which I have not yet determined, probably the computer, or Set) instead of one. One of our exercises yesterday was to talk about what a perfect classroom would be like. The first answer was from a front row boy: “many flowers.” And, after the usual (lots of books, a nice teacher, good grades), he said, “chocolate.”

I'm back

2005-10-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

I was only gone for a week, but I've had a hero's welcome from the students. A 10th grade boy told me (in Kazakh) that he had turned yellow as the leaves waiting for me.

And, I've written a little, but forgot to put it on my disk. So, until next time . . .

all I drink is juice

2005-09-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

I fulfilled my Dramatic Injury quota by stabbing my hand with a knife at a birthday party. I was trying to open a nut with a long, flimsy (but fortunately dull) knife, it slipped, notched me in the palm and didn’t start to bleed for a few seconds. I stood up. “I need a bandaid,” I said. “Does it hurt?” asked Bakhtagul. “No,” I lied, swaying slightly, “it’s just bleeding a little.” That got the hostess and the birthday girl on the case, and they immediately took over for me, swabbing with iodine and wrapping my hand with a dramatic yet loose bandage. The iodine eventually leaked through the bandage, and stained my hand the color a cut apple turns after a couple hours. The iodine won’t wash off, and because it’s on the palm of my hand, bandaids fall off after a couple hours. The 9-hour wedding party last night did in a couple bandaids, and so when I was grabbed by surprise for the slow dances, the grabber got my hand and a loose bandaid. Ew.

end of summer

2005-08-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

We’re having a cold snap here, and I love it. Jacket and jeans weather. I’d be happy if it really were fall, so long as winter doesn’t come a month early. A couple days ago, the morning was fresh and cool, and all day long, big Dutch-landscape-painting clouds blew in. Then the clouds got crowded and black. I went walking out on the steppe anyway and dead-headed a couple sunflowers, hoping to plant their seeds in our yard. I have an off-season sunburn. It never did rain, but the wind has been picking up steadily. The clouds blew over and it looks like the chill is here to stay. That must be one of the things about extremes of temperature and daylight hours: the peaks and the lows don’t hold for long, they have to change fast to get to where they’re going. So no more 10:30 sunsets, no more hot mornings.

We lost another two volunteers from my group this past week. This isn’t an easy time for teaching volunteers: we are dealing with the administration and have no students. The problems we set aside for the summer are popping up again. Both of my co-English teachers have left, with no one to replace them, I have no books, no rosters, no schedule, and no language tutor. There is one week left before the first day, and our time continues to be taken up urgently arranging books that aren’t ours on shelves that will be dismantled soon. We come to school early so that random troupes of principals and teachers can come through at random times and look at our plants. We are expected to look appealingly unoccupied in our neat little rooms. I have a sense that something's gonna hit the fan when the kids come in, but to be honest, I'm not sure how far from normal this is.

Kanipa apa

2005-08-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

I neglected to mention that I moved. I’m now across the street from my first host family, and everyone is happy. While in America, I realized that I had a really good deal with them and that I would miss them. Upon returning to Kazakhstan, I told Dilda Apa this and asked if there were still room in her house for me. Nope. A sister is moving in from the city, a cousin is coming for college, Konis (papa) is on a different work schedule which will allow him to be home for 15 days at a time, and Damira, a 17-year-old, seems to really need space these days. What to do, what to do. I had already looked into all known babushkas who live alone, and they were all crazy (REALLY crazy, like the one with Bozo hair who reacted to me like people do to large insects, and doesn’t have a door), or had dirty houses, or lacked a nearby phone or bed, etc. I was a bit discouraged. Then, on my way back from missing the first train (yes, I missed two trains and almost missed a flight, but those are other stories), I met Katya/Kanipa Babulya.

I was carrying a couple giant bags (all my PC library books and clothes for a month) and was happy to be in the pathway between the cute picket fences, almost home. “Girl!” she shouted in Russian, “I hear you’re looking for a room!” So she showed me around her house. Tap taza. Very clean, with enough room, perfect location, phone and friends across the street.

She is the kind of old lady who wears four violently flowered clothing items together. She has sparkly black eyes, has the biggest, thickest square-frame glasses I’ve ever seen, and cackles at her own jokes and at my unwitting ones. And, in the way babushkas are, she’s tough. I’d bet she’s as strong as I am, but at about 4’10 and 110 lbs. She walks home alone at 11 every night. She moved the 16-inch TV and several trunks by herself. I told her a couple days ago the moon was beautiful - huge, full, and yellow – and she told me it’s just the moon. Kanipa Apa imitates the bearded lady who comes to get milk every morning: “Kaaaatyaaaa. Can I come in?” she says in the bearded lady’s witchy voice. I am slightly afraid of the bearded lady, not least because she assumes a raptured expression whenever she sees me.

Kanipa Apa decorates the way I do: improvised closet systems, involving old wallpaper, staples, unused wooden boards, and flea-market-style old furniture. She also drops the eggs she buys and burns the milk. She came back from the bazaar yesterday, all happy. I was cooking beans, and she pulled me over to look at her purchases and to gasp at hardware prices these days. She bought a cabinet that badly needs repair. It has one and a half drawers and triple-jointed hinges that make the doors stick out at wanton angles. “Look how I’m dressed!” she said, and pulled up her sweater so I could see she was wearing only a corduroy vest and the sweater. She cackled. We fixed the cabinet as best we could, although we need a few more hardware items, and we brought it inside together. And we watched an old Russian film together when she came home. She narrated events to me as if I were blind, and, thrilled to death that the good man was going to get the pretty woman, slapped me on the leg repeatedly.

top ten

2005-08-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

The first 10 questions I get when I meet someone here:
1) You speak Kazakh?
2) You don’t speak Russian?
3) You speak Kazakh?
4) Are you single?
5) Do you give lessons?
6) What kind of lessons?
7) What is your salary?
8) Is Kazakhstan better or is America better?
9) Do you like beshbarmak?
10) Will you marry a Kazakh man?
You can imagine that most of these I answer indirectly or not at all.

shalkar

2005-08-25T04:39:00.000-07:00

About an hour and a half away from my village, steppeward, there is a huge salt lake, Shalkar. It used to be part of an inland sea, some time before human memory. It’s quite crowded in July. In June, fewer people go. There are yurts for rent along the shore, so you can be in the shade, and often people rent one and spend the night there.

I went to Lake Shalkar on Saturday. It happened like this: my host family asked me if I would be free to go to Shalkar with them on Saturday or Sunday, and I told my teachers my host family might take me. “Oh, let’s go to Shalkar!” said one of the teachers. “No, I can’t go with you, I’m going with my host family,” I said, but this was completely ignored. As it turned out, my host family decided on Friday night not to go, so I walked over to Zhopar’s house and we made arrangements. Her son, Aslan (26) was repairing the car, and her daughter, Camila (23) came home as we were looking at the watermelon plants in the garden. So, on Saturday morning, we went.

Aslan was loading the car with my backpack, as usual, containing way too many clothes and first aid products, and Zhopar Aizhan’s stuff, as usual, carrying tons of dairy products. Finally, we females came out in a line, empty handed (Aslan can’t stand to see anyone female carrying anything). Aslan, shoving things into the trunk, asked us if there wasn’t furniture, too. The dog, Druzhog, followed us and put his head on Camila’s lap as she sat in the car. “Oh, Aslan, can I take my dog?” “Yes, of course,” he said. “And I’ll get the chickens.” But it did all fit, as much as there was for a day trip.

After I’d eaten a good bit of khaimakh (like sweet cream/ sour cream, but soooo much better.) and something like cottage cheese, enjoying it very much, Zhopar Aizhan said, “I used to boil it, [i.e. pasteurize] but I like the flavor better when I don’t.” And, as I have so many times, I prayed that I wouldn’t get violently ill, at least not on the beach. And I didn’t. But it will be very hard not to eat Zhupar’s khaimakh.

lost my sausage

2005-08-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

I've been cooking for myself, now that I live across the street with a babushka. I'm happy about it. I haven't eaten a single potato, and as much as Kata Babulya offers me fish brains - she just can't believe I don't want to share her gory fish head - I don't feel any obligation to eat or to try to eat it. But I do fall into some weird habits, due to the lack of a refrigerator and critics, as last night's popcorn and black bean dinner proves. And I can't find my sausage anywhere.

2005-08-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

I'm taking the comments function off my blog. The advertisement is what really did it. But if you want to email me, I usually reply.

effort

2005-08-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

I have a habit of staring someone in the face when I’m trying to understand, and I continue staring hard a few seconds after people do in normal conversation, trying to absorb some meaning from it. This freaks people out, even if you shoot a quick, strained smile when they look back at you funny. Also, when I’m trying hard, my facial expression looks to most people like abject fear, not effort. And then there’s the fact that some questions are just completely unexpected (“how many children do you have?”) and it takes some confirmation before I realize they’re serious.

hiking at camp

2005-08-09T23:17:00.000-07:00

The second-to-last day at camp, I finally got to go on a hike. I was the caboose at the end of the 20 campers, beside the “shaping” (aerobics) instructor who, having been asked to walk behind all the campers, took her job very seriously and picked mushrooms the whole way, falling a good deal behind everyone else. Eventually Boy-who-ties-his-shoe-strings-too-often joined her, as did Small-child-with-pronounced-limp. I joined the next group up. I’ve got to give the kids a lot of credit: loaded down with cauldrons, boiled eggs, pre-cooked buckwheat, and vegetables, they kept up a clipping pace and made it up some really steep parts, all the way to our lunch scene. Our fearless leader smoked cigarettes the whole time and tossed them into the undergrowth. We ate berries– raspberries, sweet little mountain blueberries, currants – and then pine nuts. I ate more on that hike than I usually eat in a week of hiking. It was beautiful. The mountains were misty and jagged, and a falcon spent a long time flying just for fun, it looked like. You could see her tail rotate to catch the wind, then she’d let herself drop for a second and swoop off on some lower current.

We went down the mountain by a different route, in the rain. Smokes isn’t really a good leader – never stopped for head counts or anything and decided to take the fast way down the mountain: a natural slip and slide. I could hardly believe it when I saw it. He cut a path straight down, a path any beast of burden would balk at. From near the back of the line, I heard kids screaming the whole way down. The only real way to go was to squat and ski, grabbing at passing branches. I, who will never win any awards for Best Footing, think I should get something for Best Indiana Jones Move: grabbing an overhead branch just in time and swinging spectacularly over a deep black pit to the other side, where I landed and skidded down 10 feet before actually wiping out. No one saw this. I will also not win an award for Best Choice of Plant to Grasp. I now have mysterious dark scrapes and boils all over my arms and neck. I do confer upon myself a citizenship award for Following at a Safe Distance, Notices When Children Leave the Group, and Willing to Fish Campers’ Trash Out of Fresh Mountain Streams. There were two kids behind me, who were helping the shaping instructor gather mushrooms. One of them came down the mountain alternating screams with Tarzan howls and ran/fell past me and into the clot of kids who were trying to be cautious. I was really enjoying myself. We got to the bottom after more than 30 minutes of sliding down. We were impressed with the steepness and the height, quite proud of ourselves, and walked the hour back to camp on noodle legs.

contests at camp

2005-08-09T23:08:00.000-07:00

There is some kind of outdoor camp competition every afternoon, and everyone gathers to watch. There was a contest where the children were finding their love matches. There were garlands on a table to the side for the four finalist boys to give their girlfriends. Just when it was getting hard to sit still, the white goat fell off the bleachers, staggered a couple yards, and took off running toward the flowers. The black goat came out of the woods at a gallop, center stage, and they chomped for a while, as the boys stopped acting romantic and got switches from the bushes. The The goats often interrupt concerts, wander into the dining hall or my cabin, as I’m sleeping. The kids love them, in the way that one loves a goat, and try to make the black goat head-butt them. He doesn’t do it too hard, even when he really wants to eat my soap. There are also a lot of large bunnies and chickens that live under some of the cabins.

But, back to the afternoon contests: the last one I saw was a Miss Lager (Lager = camp) contest. Because there is nothing funnier to people here than boys/men dressed as girls/women, it was a drag Miss Lager contest. The contestants were boys wearing shocking short skirts and water balloons. They chose identities and said a little rhyme about themselves, just like the real girls. Alyosha, who managed to strut for short distances in 4-inch heels, chose to be Susan from America. Should I be flattered?

dances at camp

2005-08-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

There is a discotech (a dance, outside) every night, and the kids can use their tokens to pay for songs they want. The 16-year-old boys take turns requesting “Du Hast.” They are very happy because they have come up with what teenaged boys love: a successful social routine with their best friends. As the song begins, they put their arms around each other’s shoulders and bow to the waist. Then, they headbang in unison. Vot! Automatic coolness.

I go to the discotechs sit with the counselors or dance with the kids. I spent about half an hour dancing with a 4th grade girl who didn’t want to join a circle, and then moved on to the 6th graders who are considerably less innocent than the American 6th graders I last dealt with (and far, far less innocent than my Gymnasium students). The slow dances are kind of pathetic. All of the girls are a foot taller than the boys. The campers seem to think you’re supposed to make as much surface-area contact as possible, rest your head somewhere on your partner, and kick each other in the shins. And they all look kind of worried while they’re doing it, too.

more errors

2005-08-09T22:20:00.000-07:00

I have been confusing the words for “mosquito” and “husband” in Russian, although they’re not very similar. I say da sometimes and nyet sometimes. So there are some kids who mistakenly think that there are no mosquitoes in America and some who mistakenly think that I have a husband.

grumpy

2005-08-08T02:29:00.000-07:00

In America, when someone is lazy and doesn’t want to unlock the bathroom, he or she will usually tell you to do it yourself. Here, someone will usually tell you there is no key, with a straight face and no shame, like what happened to me this morning. Thanks, key lady. (The same lady who controls the little shop with water and m&m’s that is never open, no matter how many little chants I say in my head).

camp, part 1

2005-08-04T21:17:00.000-07:00

There are many stories to tell since the last time I logged in. Most of these stories are personally embarrassing. We’ll see if they make it onto the blog or just sit on a disk somewhere. I’ll start backwards.

I’m at a camp up in the mountains near Kazakhstan’s eastern border with Russia. Ace of base is blaring (my deja vooooo, you’re my obsession, like dejavu, everything is up to you, my deja vuuuoouuoouuoouu) and the second group of campers just went in for dinner.

The food here is okay, but I generally skip two to three items per meal (5 meals/day at 3-hour intervals). Today, I skipped the wretched orange soda/poison and also, after deciding that I would never successfully eat meat from it, the “chicken” that seemed to have a good many more than the average number of vertebrae. The breakfast fluid is okay with me, although I haven’t figured out if it’s supposed to be coffee or hot chocolate. It’s a soothing bluish color.

The campers have been alternating between blowing me kisses and trying to me bad words. The favorite, a repeat vocab word, is the Russian for “panties.” The counselors are trying to get a handle on this (teaching the American bad words), but it’s very grass roots and endlessly amusing. And my Russian is much worse than I thought. I have been continually kicking myself for not being more aggressive about it, but of course, I also need a lot of help with Kazakh. The situation I’m in now is even harder than last summer: I have to use (bless her) Almira to translate everything into and from Kazakh so that I can understand. Everyone, everyone speaks only Russian here, except for two boys who speak some Kazakh (mostly calling their friends names to me) and Almira. There are a couple people who speak some English.

Peace Corps magic – the instantaneous increase in volunteers’ perceived attractiveness/ coolness (to locals) – is at work in my life once again. I can grin like a fool and shake my head “yes” or “no” all day long and attract swarms of children who tell me everything I do is cool, that I’m beautiful, that it’s SO COOL I can swim. I seem to be especially popular with the baddest of the bad, the boys who drink vodka and the girls who reject them. A couple of these girls took me up on a piece of amazing Soviet playground equipment that is like a swing and a ship combined. They made it swing much higher than they’re supposed to. They all want my autograph.

But this is my second session at camp. The first was unscheduled, or rather, scheduled over what I really intended to do. I was going to go hiking here for two weeks, but I missed my train for the first week and was told, on my (expensive) way to make the second week, that it was cancelled. Agh. In five minutes, my regional manager had me hooked up with another camp in the same region. And I continue to depend on the mercy of strangers.

old entry I forgot to post

2005-07-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

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

2005-07-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

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

2005-07-10T01:18:00.000-07:00

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

2005-07-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

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.

home

2005-06-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

I made it to Chicago on Thursday night, and have been living the high life ever since. We went to a Thai restaraunt yesterday night and to the farmers' market today, where we bought corn (corn!). I have chocolate cupcakes in the oven, and a pile of old funnies on the table by the couch. And, of course, my family.

the big storm, in time order, with gaps of days

2005-06-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

I have the only working contraption in the house, except for the phone, since our electricity went out. We were eating dinner when the rain finally came (predicted for a week). It came for 10 minutes. But it didn’t come down; it came everywhere but down. The saplings flailed in the wind, my towel was thrown into the mud, a third of the tomato plants were killed, the neighbors’ roof tiles were hurled throughout the neighborhood, and the other neighbor’s outhouse was tipped over. Everyone went outside as soon as it had stopped, and walked around, dazed, picking up roof tiles. Someone had a random antenna on the roof. Our electric pole pulled the fence down with it, and the lead poles that rested on our neighbor’s shed were propped up like pick-up sticks near our outhouse. The car in the garage was dripping as if from a carwash, from hood to trunk, although there is a gap of less than a foot wide along the top of the garage. The water did roughly what a firehose would, and the wind was strong enough to do a lot of damage on its own. We haven’t had electricity since – 5 hours. I’m worried that the things that have been in the fridge that whole time, warming up, will be served tomorrow as if there were no problem. At 10:15, it became too dark to read, although we’d started talking much earlier than that. I started to get ready for bed, although even now, at 10:40, it’s light enough outside to see. It was, however, difficult to determine which toothbrush was mine.

[written the same hour as the entry above]
The news from the city (my host mother just got off the phone with her sister) is that everything was much worse there. Marshrutkas rolled, all the electrical poles fell on things, the gas tubes were severed, the electricity is all gone. I wonder what happened at the airport, a mile away from here. My host mother just called another aunt to find out if she’s okay. Her nephew answered the phone. “How are you?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Did you have rain?”
“No.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“She’s standing on the street corner.“
"Foo, Dauren, get out," said my host mother. "Let me talk to her." Dauren woke his mother up, and she talked for an hour about the storm.

[written a day later]
Well, here I am, two weeks from a vacation in America, and suddenly I am having the expected Peace Corps experience: no electricity, no water, indefinitely. The 10-minute storm was much worse than I first thought. Roofs were blown off everything, and trees fell on virtually every electrical line in the village. It’s not really such a hardship, except that we aren’t set up for a no-electricity, no-(running) water kinda life. The fish in the refrigerator turned from peach to black, and the milk smelled like rotten milk plus rotten fish. The nearest well is not that far away, about a five-minute (with empty buckets) walk, but the buckets aren’t at all good for carrying. I want one of those Amish yoke things. One bucket splashes more than two, but two hurts old injuries more than one. And we also need candles. Samal, Dinara, and I walked through all the village shops looking for candles yesterday and finally found a woman who had a few left. We bought one. They said it would be a week before the water would be restored. I don’t know about the electricity.

This morning I had a nosebleed, not a bad one, but what do you do without water? I felt guilty using more water to wash my face again, since we only got a couple small buckets and need to keep drinking in the heat. I wasn’t sure it was okay to go pump water in someone else's yard at 7am. I’ll ask my host mother. The flies aren’t so bad early in the morning, but in the evening . . . . augh. I don’t know how anyone can stand it. They swarmed around me as I was pumping the water yesterday, and I got them up each nostril (my fault – I inhaled) and in each ear. And I stink. So I need water to wash my hair and me and my clothes, too, probably. There will not be hot water in Uralsk until November. Which means that my pleasant weekend showers at various friends’ apartments will become, essentially, more bucket baths. As I said after my most recent well-cold shower, I sure hope mortification of the flesh has some long-lasting benefits.

[written one day later]
Well, after all my whining about hardship, the electricity came on this evening, right before it was too dark to read. And as we were lounging in the living room after first tea, we heard a pleasant gurgling noise, and the water came back. I immediately filled a bucket for a "bath," distilled water, and washed my hair. Aaah. You just can't stop being grateful for everything after having it taken away for a little while. We're all in extraordinarily good moods.

bus stories

2005-06-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here’s the newest incident: one of the drivers (large man) actually assaulted one of the teachers (small woman) from my school today. She had thrown her bus fare at him, since last time she was on the bus he had refused to give her change. She hadn’t been paid for several months and had no money to spare. He stopped the bus and ran after her, shook her and maybe hit her. He pulled her shirt out of shape. No one was willing to act as witness. They all walked away from the bus stop. I predict that nothing much will happen. That the driver will keep his job, that the teacher will have to ride his bus until she finds a new job for herself, and that they'll curse at each other next time instead of fighting.

I was on the bus today [five days ago, actually], and a baby who was old enough to walk but not talking yet, was there. She liked me. Unfortunately, when I smiled at her, she started peddling her legs violently, kicking her poor delicate mother in the gut. The bus ride was long, and each glance from me made her more excited and likely to hurt her mom. The last time I looked at her, she squawked like a bird, jumped off her mother’s lap, and ran, breathing rapidly, to another seat, which she began to bang with her fists, looking back at me and smiling every few seconds while squawking. So from then on I didn’t look back, although I knew she was staring at me. The man across from me was also staring at me – I never know why, if someone’s heard about me or notices I’m foreign or what – also. I began to sneeze. Three, four, five times. (I’ve been having bad allergies) “Gesundheit,” he said, unexpectedly. “Rakhmet,” (Thank you, in Kazakh) I said, also unexpectedly.

bugs

2005-06-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

I think bugs may in fact be a weather type. I think our weatherpeople ought to report the air saturation of bugs. So here it’s 30 degrees C, about 60% humidity, with a 70% bug saturation, up to 90% saturation around people who have been outside for over 30 seconds. And speaking of bugs, I’m not at all sure I don’t have fleas or something. Bugs are always coming out of my hair, my clothes, my ears. I spent some time in front of the mirror, inspecting for an infestation and washed my hair before I was scheduled to, and it didn’t turn up anything conclusive. One of the floor rugs definitely has fleas. I think I can attribute most of this problem to the fact that there are bugs everywhere else. So, why not on me?

health

2005-06-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

My regional manager, in the throes of a nutrition regimen, is spreading the gospel of water: if you drink water, you will look young, like an American. In the wake of her visit to Uralsk, everyone suddenly has plain water on the table – virtually unheard of. They say they want to look young, like Susan’s mother, or young, like Susan’s grandmothers (whom they’ve seen in photos). No one says she wants to look young, like Susan, because I look about 16 to most locals, which is not nearly as nice as being 24.

the bucket

2005-05-27T23:09:00.000-07:00

I kicked the festering bucket yesterday. It wasn't full as usual, which is a mercy, it's our house's organic garbage, and it sits in the kitchen in a red bucket, right beneath the poster we hung yesterday, right where I needed to put my foot down in my descent from the set of drawers. It spilled right under my seat, which is only fitting, so that at dinner I couldn't put my feet on the ground.

Damira, my host mother, and I had been in the process of hanging a giant poster of food up on the chalky walls with scotch tape. This was a most excellent poster of food products, and will be the envy of all the relatives, at about 5' by 4' with fruit, vitamins, some kind of muffin, tea, and silverware. (Although, as Damira pointed out, this one doesn't display a full meal, as Aiman's poster does - no meat).

Zhopar Aizhanovna

2005-05-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Zhopar Aizhanovna came into my class at 9:00, turned a pencil case upside down, filled it with yellowish well water from an old coke bottle, and gave me a handful of lilacs, and then fairly skipped out. She’s always like this. I often find myself (and the students seem to, also) impossibly confused after what ought to be a normal exchange. In the beginning, I thought it was a language barrier. No. She mixes Russian, Kazakh, and English with everyone, although almost no one speaks all three.

I had a very Zhopar-ish afternoon. I went to school to get the biology book from her, still extremely groggy from a mid-afternoon nap, and she told me she would walk to the corner with me (she’s the teacher on duty and is supposed to monitor the school), and I realized that she really just wanted to get out. I mentioned that I hadn’t been to the Russian [language] school, and she immediately suggested that we go. I agreed, happily – I’ve been waiting for someone to take me to the other local schools, but no one’s ever taken the hint. We went to the Russian school, and she started peeking into rooms and chuckling, the teachers all came out and asked her how’s life. She always greets in Kazakh plural form and proceeds in Russian and English, regardless of someone’s first language. She knows everyone, the ethnicity of each family in each house and their names, what their children are doing, but she forgets or confuses the details as often as she gets them right. As is usual with her, it’s all there, somewhere.

She is a kop shashatin adam, which kind of translates to “a person who often throws things into disarray” the word “shashau,” is usually for the action when the grandmothers throw treats (candy, usually) to people at various celebrations, but generally throwing things around can take the same word. So, after we talked about the lilac blooming everywhere now, she started down a road that certainly wasn’t leading back to work, and I realized that she was taking me to her house. “We’ll see, they have probably made a house while I have been gone,” she said, cryptically. “Yes, yes!” she said, pointing to a well-settled-in house, “they have built it!” It gradually came to light that she hadn’t walked that way since she stopped working at the Russian school two years ago. But there were other things too. “Here!” she said, with a flourish toward two upside-down, ruined cars on a heap of garbage, “our monument!” and chuckled. The road to her house was deeply rutted and must have been incredibly muddy (shin-deep, at least) a couple days ago. Her garden is far from the usual neatly arranged vegetable beds everyone is planting these days. It’s more like a park, with a place to sit and look at it, which is rare. A few of her fruit trees died this winter, and since she mentioned it several times, I think she was truly grieved. She called her cow in three languages, and Masha came out, nudging two deer-faced brown calves. Then, Zhopar Aizhan banged on a couple windows, went inside her house, and came out again. “They’re not asleep!” she said, “come in! You are welcome!” I came in, leaving my shoes in the first room. “We built it ourselves. You see our shed [kitchen, I don’t know why she calls it a shed]” And, indeed, although most of the house was there when she and her husband bought it, certainly, some rooms bore the distinctive style of Zhopar. They had added a couple small rooms, a pleasant, well-lit kitchen with lots of plants and a vase full of dirty cutlery (if you want to use it, you wash it), and the first room, where you leave your shoes, with the oven and various machines for making dairy products. There were plants everywhere. She told me to sit on the couch beside her son (she was delighted he was at home – she wants us to marry) who was fixing cell phones with wires and Philips-head screwdrivers. She bustled through the house shouting in English and Russian. Quite soon, her husband wandered in, sat beside me, and immediately launched into a monologue in English beginning with “You may have noticed that we Kazakh people resent having our freedom taking away. . . .” I couldn’t follow very well. I had somehow imagined him being the opposite of Zhopar Aizhan, but they are very much alike. And her son, who, at 26, behaves toward his parents as a teenager would, is deep down the same, too. Although Zhopar and Aslan, her son, cannot sit for long periods of time, Zhopar because she wants to run away and Aslan because he has always forgotten something. Zhopar has beautiful hair, which was kind of in a Mohawk today (not deliberate, you can be sure), she did something to make it stand straight up and peak at her scalp, all two and a half inches of it. It’s pure white at the top, and at the bottom it becomes black. She might be the only woman with gray or white hair who doesn’t dye it. Oh, and tea, and photos afterward, of her when she was in her 20s touring the Soviet republics, wearing a backless dress and a Kyrgyz man’s hat, and sandals from India. She pointed out her stylish handbag in a photo of Armenia, which she had gotten by pretending to be foreign. She saw the bags in Moscow and wanted one badly, but there was an enormous line to the cash register. She had ignored the line, walked to the front, grunted and pointed to the one she wanted, gave the salesgirl money, and took the purse. No one said anything.

We finally got a monument in Podstepnoye on May 9. Everyone wondered what it would look like. It looks like two gravestones, and it's right outside the school, since the school is next to the mayor's building. Everyone is scandalized. Yesterday Zhopar and Svetlana were talking about how they should be awarded for their years of teaching. "This will be our monument" said Zhopar Aizhan, "for working so long! They will put two graves outside the school, one for Sveta, and one for me!"

Camping

2005-05-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

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.

cacti

2005-05-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Another of the little quirks of living here is that people love cacti. They’re everywhere, but especially in computer labs. They’re all over computer labs. They’re on the floor, on the desks, on the mousepads, etc, dozens of top-heavy little cacti in flimsy plastic containers, loving life and growing at amazing rates. They are a bit of a problem for me, since I don’t look at the mousepad when I use the mouse, and I usually come away with little red spots all over my right hand. I can move the cactus from the mousepad, but I may not put it on the CPU, I have to get up and put it on the window, then replace it when I’m done. Nothing may be put on the CPU, I’m not sure why, I think people think they’ll crumple or something. There is, of course, method in this, but we have yet to discover exactly why cacti must be near computers. I asked some of the students and they said that it’s because when your eyes get tired of looking at the screen, you should look at a living plant for a while (but why a cactus? I’d think a bonsai or something.) Someone else said that cacti absorb radiation from the computers, which is more likely to be the real explanation. Relatively few of my students knew that cacti aren’t native to Kazakhstan. I guess they thought that they grew out there on the Kara Kum, with the black and white and brown camels.

Nege "eek" dep?

2005-05-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

“Susie, why does your door say, ‘eek?’’ asked Dilda apai. “It said, ‘eek.’” “I don’t know,” I said, sitting down to breakfast, “maybe it will rain again.” “Eek. Eek. [three or so seconds] eek,” she said, quietly.

Didn't Chekov write something about this?

2005-05-16T21:40:00.000-07:00

One of the older (64) teachers slept in today, since her clock’s battery ran out during the night. She came to school thirty minutes late and was yelled at in the front hallway by the twenty-something vice principal, although this is the second time she’s been late all year, and there was no problem whatsoever in her coming late, she didn’t even have a class. However, the teacher was so embarrassed, she decided to retire, attributing her failure to wake up to dotage. She suggested to the principal that her position be filled by the vice principal’s little sister, who gossips with the students about scraps of my personal life.

tests

2005-05-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

Here it is, May, the day of the Boy’s Day banquets, and I am grading the 7th grader’s biology tests, with many urgent to-do’s. The seventh graders have all cheated. I write checks on their paper each time I see them cheat during the test, but since all 24 of them cheat constantly, I’m just not fast enough to catch them all. And then the ones who have the red checks tear the checks from their paper or get out a new sheet and rewrite the test. Several of the girls, in answer to “What is the respiratory system for?” have written “Trachea are the respiratory organs of many arthropods,” although they presumably don’t know what trachea or arthropods are, or that “trachea” is plural. There is a ghost test, with about half of the answers correct, that was passed around the room and is now in my hands. About 80% of the students copied from this paper, and I’d love to know whose it is. I thought I spotted one honest girl, but she somehow got a sentence from a book on her test, something else about arthropods, although we’re studying cnidaria. Not a one of them got better than 9/12. Sigh.

This time, I’m going to stick it to them, though. They will get bad grades. I will watch as they are written in the journal. And if they fail Thursday’s re-take, they’ll get two bad grades. Let their mothers come crying. They know better. I don’t know if it’s worse that they all cheated or that the failed after I gave them the questions and the answers (in a different order), made a chart on the board and discussed them four days before this test. Not to mention that I taught this material. It would have been sooo eeeeasy just to learn it for themselves.

I haven’t had many cultural problems (although I teared up when an American service representative said “Thank you for waiting, I’m sorry you have had trouble, please hold, we’ll solve the problem immediately.”), but the issue of integrity is an area where I feel like I’m pitting myself against the immovable object. Yes, they have the same concept of it as I do - I’ve asked. But apparently the kids don’t mind falling short of it. In fact, they see this as a sort of safety. This class is the same one that told me that when people do their jobs honestly, they are sent away. But I intend to make it worth something to them, at least in their English classes, to maybe swing the balance in favor of something that sustainably leads up instead of down.

We talked a little about this issue in 11th grade, where we’ve been doing vocabulary about attributes. The students chose attributes (hopeful, self-absorbed, loyal, lacking initiative, etc.) and I gave them situations. They told me how a person with that attribute would respond. To, “you see your friend steal money,” Hopeful said she would believe the best of him, that he would give it back, Self-absorbed said he would go shopping with his friend, and Autonomous (who was really just being herself) said that she would confront him gently in private and give him the option to return it before she herself returned what he had stolen. I asked what a loyal person would do, and she said that there are two kinds of loyalty: loyalty with and without integrity. A person of integrity would make sure the money was returned. We talked about how in gangs young people are told that the ultimate integrity is blind loyalty (last week, we looked at an article in National Geographic about a Columbian city more or less controlled by drug cartels). I don’t think I planted these ideas in the 11th graders’ heads, I think they believed them before they talked to me, and it’s a great encouragement. That out of the 100% of cheaters in the seventh grade, some of them might become like Autonomous. And who knows what Autonomous might become.

This is an update on the test situation: I gave the 7th graders a failing grade, but they didn't care. They didn't care enough to not cheat on the second test, and I took all their papers except five. This is because they heard that there won't be a standardized test and that there won't be biology in English next year.

soon

2005-05-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

This is a teaser message. I have been a prolific writer, but my computer freezes about every 10 minutes now, and I haven't been a persistent writer. So I have little chunks of blogs on my ailing little computer. Also, the school's computers give every disk a virus. I now have two disks which will be secret disks, and soon I will be posting again.

So, there's been a lot, a couple holidays, the anniversary of Victory Day, tickets home for the summer confirmed, five of us volunteers camping for a day, finding a poisonous snake, launching the poisonous snake into the field, finding it again, getting my first sunburn, the lavender that suddenly bloomed everywhere in my village overnight, the stove and table being moved to the summer kitchen, my groupies (9-year-old boys) following me around and saying WHATisyourname.

There is a week and a half of school left, then exams. The kids come to class from outside sweaty and unable to concentrate. Everyone is excited, we can't do any work.

things you might not have known

2005-04-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

From a dictation exercise on whales:

Whales are bigger than any animal in Lent. [I'd like to say something clever about a fish diet, but I can't put it together]. They can stay underwater for over an hour without reading.

turkeys in the mist

2005-04-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

I went running a few days ago, on a particularly foggy morning. I ran toward the field, that used to be steppe and is being closed in on by new houses, and promptly got lost. In an open field that’s only about 60 acres. So, as my situation was beginning to dawn on me, I saw what looked like the Loch Ness Monster. The long, thin neck at an indeterminate distance, a head-like shape, and the sense that it had moved, although I hadn’t seen it directly. Shudder. I decided to continue following the sledge ruts instead of running in the opposite direction, when suddenly a second Nessie popped up directly in front of me, and a number of watermelon-sized, moving things resolved out of the mist. I had agitated them. Gobble gobble, they said. I hope whoever set his flock (or herd?) of turkeys loose on a zero visibility morning was as frightened by them as I was. They’re big! One of the males followed me with his tail all spread out, and I felt very little and very slow.

It set the mood for the rest of the run, during which I explored a couple off-roads. I saw a black bear, a snake, and some gnomes, although they morphed into stumps and sticks as I approached. I also believed that I’d discovered a couple yurts south of my village, but even these were abandoned Ladas (the car of choice, made of metal, glue, and pre World War I rubber.) So, the adrenaline value of my run was high, although it really wasn’t good from an endurance standpoint.

kicking the habit

2005-04-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Today after the second performance of “Oliver Twist,” I saw Zhopar Aizhan (a 60-something English teacher, we talk in English) walking out of the English room with a fistful of leaves. “What are you doing!” I said, “Are you eating Svetlana’s plants?” She giggled. “I worry about you, you know.” She giggled more. Seriously, she eats plants. Aloes, specifically. She thinks it cures a sore throat, so when she had a cold, she stripped the schools’ aloes and walked around with a pocketful of little green tentacles. During our Womens’ Day banquet, she pulled one out and began to gnaw on it. Our director looked on with goggle eyes. “We can’t leave her alone in the room with the plants anymore,” Svetlana told her, deadpan. Later that day, I came around a corner and saw my director nibbling on a little aloe chunk and making a face. “Shh!” she said, and pulled me aside where I couldn’t be seen. “I don’t know how she does it! This is awful,” she said, chewing.

Oliver Tvist

2005-04-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

The play went well, with more energy in the first performance on Wednesday, and I hope the kids are proud of themselves. They said their lines better than ever before. The script was not written in such a way that anyone can say it naturally - “imagine I am one of those wealthy old gentlemen who wander around Clerkenwell square peering into the shop windows.” Pretend you’re a fourth-year third language learner and you have to say that in front of your school. So we’re all proud of the students and a bit tired of ol’ Dickens, after many many rehearsals.

Rehearsals were a scream, though. The kids are so funny. A couple of them are great at improvisation and Svetlana is good at adapting things to be do-able. Zhopar Aizhan painted the boards we somewhat tenuously set up as scenery. They were liable to fall, but never really did. The boy who plays Oliver, had several scenes with group hugs (they’re popular here. Everything, even things that aren’t hugs, like looking at photos, become group hugs) developed a habit of not letting go. The actors would run into each other’s arms, with Olivers’ on the outside, and hug for 2 . . . 3. . . .4 . . .5 . . . 6 seconds. We could see the others starting to struggle, but they had to go offstage attached a couple times, like a spider with several heads. During setup, the tallest boy wandered around with a refrigerator box over his head. He would come up behind people and envelop them, trying to engage in conversation. One of them was always in various stages of having his photo taken (tilting his hat to the coolest possible angle, loosening his tie, asking me for my camera, asking me to take a photo of him posing like Eminem, looking at the photo saying it’s very good and asking for another.) And an eighth grader was the Littlest Policemen in the play and the Biggest Chimp in real life. He’s amazing at Frisbee and very easily entertained. The other eighth grader would start break dancing when he got bored.

The girls, in subtler ways, were pretty funny, too. The girl who played Sikes walked around with a ‘tude. Which is not at all her normal demeanor. Something about a fake gun and a costume. One of the girls’ lines: “Watch how you handle me, my man. I’m an Englishman as much as you [true dat],” became a mantra. And there was the student who would wink at me fom onstage.

Everyone wanted to dress as a gangster, even the characters who were supposed to be squeaky clean. About 75% of the characters appeared on stage with sunglasses, whether or not it had been okayed by Svetlana. One surprise appearance was made my venerable sunglasses.

They choreographed a fistfight in a scene where one was sorely lacking, and about four short chases, only when called for, of course. Svetlana suggested that in the last scene the characters do a victory dance and chose “Keep on the Sunny Side,” which was replaced, last minute, by a popular song (American) about some guy who’s telling the girl he’s cheating with to consider the feelings of his girlfriend [“this can’t be right, but it doesn’t feel so wrong . . .”]. Sandugash tried to show Zhopar how to dance “modern,” which involves a lot of stomping, apparently. But onstage, they decided not to go Soul Train and were just silly, with Elmira (the other one) swinging her braid like a lasso, and two of the others doing a kind of square-dance/London bridge maneuver which was overwhelmingly popular with the audience. Cultural note: audiences, when pleased, begin to clap in unison.

I took a video with Svetlana’s camera, but it was a failure, since my hand was shaking and as I got tired, the picture would get lower and lower until I only had waist-down of the actors, and then I’d snap out of it and jerk it back up to proper height. And Zhopar kept whispering to me. A student took photos with my camera, which turned out a bit fuzzily. So, for the sake of posterity, the second performance on Thursday afternoon was a good thing. However, since it wasn’t announced until Thursday morning, it was not very, um, convenient. But my students are rock stars and they did quite well.

oblast volunteers

2005-04-23T22:11:00.000-07:00

We have a lot of volunteers in this oblast. In the city proper, we have two women and a man (one is placed at a university and the two others are NGO volunteers) here now and two (NGO’s) coming. Near the city, there are three women working at secondary schools. I’m one of these. South on the Europe side of the Oral river, we have two volunteers in Chapayava, Mike and Amber. South on the Asia side of the river (via my village) is Tim D’s village, Akzhayiek. Southeast, also via my village, is Tim K’s village, Fydorovka. We will lose Mike and Angela in early June and get new volunteers in August. So the current status is four men, six women; in May, it will be four men, eight women, and in June, three men, seven women. It feels like a lot of Americans, not least because we hear so much about each other from locals. They know all about us, even if we’ve never visited the village. I hear when the other volunteers are sick through teachers, and some people I’ve met say hi to me from outlying villages through my students. They come in on Monday and say, “Cizge [insert name] salyemdacti, Susan.”

favorite things, spring thaw

2005-04-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

My favorite things about my job are my students, bless them, the two English teachers at my school (before a frustrating three-hour meeting during which nothing was accomplished, Zhopar said in English across the table “I am ready to run away now.”), my host family, especially when something really funny happens and we all sit laughing with our chai sloshing in the cups. And days like today, the cream of spring. Warm, breezy, and the air in the city is fresh. The weather really is fine with me. Even in winter, the days are bright and the snow is clean, if inconvenient. And the mud seasons are so astoundingly muddy I’m willing to go through them, just for the sake of my mental story file. The Chapayeva volunteers have a video clip of the thaw (a week or so earlier in the south of the oblast, on the steppe), which looked like the day after the Flood. There was water ankle deep, at least, everywhere. I mean it. The village was like a kiddie pool. At least there isn’t as high a proportion of cattle there as there is in Akzhaiek, Tim’s village, which had just as much water and mud, and a lot more, um, I’ll let you imagine.

I wasn’t there during or after the thaw. Amber and I went a couple weeks before, when the ice was thinning slightly, but wasn’t quite gone. Common foot paths are like SuperMario – you have to jump a certain stone – the one that doesn’t sink when you put weight on it, and from there to the dry spot on the right (but duck, so you don’t klonk your head on the branch). Then, when we came to the broad icy patch, I took the wrong way and had to shuffle across it, double-time, as my feet left deep spider-web cracks. Being independent, I also took the wrong way across what looked like a rink (I believe it was supposed to be a road), and by the time I was in the middle of it, my feet plunged through with each step. Some locals stood and watched me for the full minute it took me to reach the other side. The cows looked at me like I was stupid. Tim and Amber laughed and walked around the edges. My Health scores must be pretty low. Tim and I took a walk around the village the next morning, in the mean sleet, the kind that doesn’t even melt on your face. Amber, being an intelligent person, backed out. We started walking across an intersection, and it creaked when we were a long way from safety. Tim took off doing the shuffle-run and made it to the other side. I thought about getting on my stomach and throwing Tim my belt or something to drag me across (isn’t that what you do in quicksand?) but we both made it. We passed the usual village sites: the junkyards with broken-down tractors, the greenhouse skeleton, the indoor bazaar skeleton, the few small stores that sell eggs, bread, candy, and meat, the mayor’s office, and the library. We came to the edge of the village, where I was relieved to see exposed dirt by the bank (a very deep, steep bank) of the river. I leaped toward it, trying to avoid the very slick and shallow ice that was my other option. It had escaped my mind that wet clay is also slippery. Again, I almost wiped out. It would have been lovely, I would have been covered, it would have been thick and obvious. Maybe next year.

nice city

2005-04-23T22:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a citywide clean-up day, held over, I think, from Soviet times. It’s really a great idea, and it works well and makes a difference: everyone who’s free (and it looked like a lot of youth clubs were involved) goes outside and cleans up. They rake up the trash that didn’t make it to the proper places and recently melted out of the snow, they sweep, they clip, they plant. It looks great. Oral is one of the greenest cities PC volunteers are sent to, mostly because it’s a little bit north of the steppe proper. It has a different feel from the other cities I've been in - a bit less Soviet-ified, almost frontier town-y. The houses on the oldest streets lean against each other. It can support a lot of trees (fruit trees included) and grass. It’s not as lush as the village in the mountains where I started off, where apricots were so thick on the ground you had to walk on them, but it’s far greener than Almaty. I expect leaves within the week, although one curve of the river is still frozen in the middle.

more names

2005-04-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

At Tim D’s school, there are seven English teachers, all Kazakh. Amber, Tim, and I had tea with them, and we went around the table introducing ourselves. “I am Aizhan. My name means ‘wise moon’” “I am Nazgul. My name means ‘tender flower’” “I am Aizhan. My name means ‘moon soul.’” “I am Kamshat. My name means ‘beaver.’” “I am Zhanna. My name means ‘eagle.’” The last English teacher said her name and what it meant, then said: “We are as the American Indians.” Tee hee.

questions (to be updated in stages)

2005-04-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

I’ll update this as this week’s homework comes in. You’ll hear from the 7th, 9th, and 10th graders and the 11th graders will answer the ones they haven’t gotten to yet. I’ll also ask the teachers I work with.
I will correct these later with the students, but I thought they’re somewhat poignant as they are.
Keep in mind that our tense system is very different than Kazakh and somewhat different than Russian, and that neither language uses “to be” in the present tense. Therefore, in the 8th graders who’ve just had an infusion of perfect tenses, but don’t know about subjunctives, are a bit scrambled at the moment. In Kazakh, the present indefinite and future simple are the same, and there is no differentiation between perfect and continuous tenses. And there are kids who just don’t pay attention.

What has it been like to have had an American teacher (or two)?
- They are very kind people. They teach us to learn English. – 8th grade girl

Do you have many relatives? Are you close to your aunts, uncles, and cousins?
- I close very good! I love my aunts, uncles, and cousins – 8th grade boy

What do you want other people to know about Kazakhstan?

What kind of work will you do as an adult? Why?
- When I grown-up, I want to be a translator. I want to know English well. It’s important for me because I love English language, traditions, different games. I interested English because I think that it’s my life. English very important in our country, in our school. I like worked translator, because I think it’s key to success. – 8th grade girl

Would you rather have adventure or wealth?
- I would rather have adventure – 8th grade girl

What do you think is the most interesting period of history? Why?

Where do you go on holidays and vacations?
- In my holidays or vacations I shall be going to the nice place. Example: America or my lovely village.
- America. It’s very nice country. Dream: I go to the America if I can speak English good. I am eating American ice cream, or any food. I shall be going for a walk with Susan or my family. I shall be going in green country. I shall be go to the park, zoo-park, or go to the river, for swim. But, it’s a dream. For this I shall working and studying very much. Very much. – 8th grade girl

What do you love about your country?
- The most feature of our country is our warm people. They are always ready to help everybody, they are very tough. And we also have remarkable nature, endless steppe, which has seen the whole history of our Motherland. And we believe that in close future our country will be one of the best countries in the world. – 11th graders
- I love about your country big – house, play computer, a love mountain, sea, nature, a school Umit. – 8th grade boy [he is, in fact, talking about his family, I can’t explain, but I think he means he likes these things in general.]
- I love about my country because my country clear and quite. – 8th grade boy [“clear” is a translation from an idiom both literal symbolic, a common toast: ‘clear skies.’ And I think he meant ‘quiet.’]

What are your favorite foods?
- Our favorite foods are beshbarmack, kuizdak, pizza, and Susan’s tortillas. – 11th graders
- My favorite food is the cheese, beshbarmak, grenage [no ideas about this one] fruit, and a lot of the foods. – 8th grade girl
- My favorite food is a chiren and national foods. – 8th grade girl

What places in the world would you most like to visit?
- We would like to visit some historical sites and also Chicago and France. We would like to feel the spirit of ancient time, to see one more developed industrial city in the world and to feel romantic atmosphere of fairy land. – 11th graders
- I want to visit city Chicago. Because this city, my teachers city. I like my teachers. – 8th grade boy
- I want to visit city Washington. Because I like a nice cities. – 8th grade boy
- I want to visit Washington. But why, it’s secret. (This place lived or living. He is my love actor in China.) I going to Italy, to see a very expensive things. – 8th grade girl [This might ruin the secret, but I think she means she’s in love with an actor who lives in DC.]
- I want to visit on Shalkar because I did not was there. If you will be on Shalkar, you will swim, you played game. – 8th grade girl [Shalkar is a lake in this region]
- I want to visit is Los Angeles. Because, in this city be the Holywood, and I want to visit it. – 8th grade girl

What is your definition of success?
- I must was educationally. [I must be educated] More know language. Help poor mens to get a pension. Open kitchen-room for poor. – 8th grade boys [bless them, this is entirely original]

What do you want other people to know about Kazakhstan?

teaching

2005-04-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

I just printed some worksheets for tenth form today. It’s kind of an event. You have to find the dame with the key (if she is in fact at school. If not, better luck tomorrow). Sometimes, the door is open and the teachers are gathered inside. There’s one girl who sits at the computer, the only one of about 10 that is connected to the poor little printer. You tell her that you need to print something, and she will sigh deeply and hold out her hand for you to put your disk into it and do her thing: sigh, open your documents, and press the print icon for however many copies you want.

The printer doesn’t give me warm fuzzies, either. If it feels like printing, it jams every three sheets about, and you have to feed it one sheet at a time. It smells like a hot iron, and it leaves a nice thick black border on every single sheet, and does something that warps each sheet and sometimes folds it at a corner or two, getting the border on the back. The ink is basically wet charcoal. Sometimes the printer feels like ignoring all commands to print and sits there and blinks like it thinks it’s R2D2. So, I always leave the computer room looking I’ve had a hard day in the mines.

Today, the 11th graders have their “profil” classes – that is, they study only one subject, the thing they expect to make their career out of. They begin to specialize at age 16, roughly, and don’t have much of a chance of changing past that point. So, five students are taking English on Wednesdays. They come in at 8:15 or so and put their heads on the desks until the bell rings at 8:30. Morning classes end at 2pm. Today, we had a good day (for me) we listened to Radiohead, and they liked it. We’ll listen either to Led Zeppelin or Ladysmith Black Mambazo next week, and I’ll teach them about Erik Erikson’s developmental theory. I have fun with them. Then, we made tacos in the school kitchen. Everyone, not just the students, was really excited about it. The women who sit at the front desk asked me for the recipe. They also asked me what “taco” was in Kazakh. The students decided to put in more garlic than the recipe called for, and they loved making tortillas. All the students from the other grades wanted some, but we just didn't make 100 tacos. We had no water – one of the odd things about living here. We have this nice, new school with sinks and toilets, but there’s no running water, so you have to wash things in buckets. So we sent a student to the well and he came back looking like he’d fought with Swamp Thing - spring mud, you know.

curakter

2005-04-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

Several of my acquaintances and students have asked if the people on the other side of this blog are interested in Kazakh/ Kazakhstani culture, life, etc. I told them you were, and that I try to tell about it (not exhaustively, of course). Anyway, I have helpful, thoughtful students who are good at English and very proud of their country, and I thought that it would be great if you would ask questions and they answered. So, please send questions! Questions about anything: what they learn in school, what they name their dogs (Rex. So now you can't ask), what they think of me, why they don't like chocolate chip cookies, etc. Send any questions to susanwunderink@yahoo.com , I'll post them here. Thanks!

By the way, I am healthy again, although my host mother is not. Spring has come, but it's not very romantic, since what it means is that the dead things in the streets are being unfrozen and that the mildew smell in my room has come back with a vengeance. But we're all thrilled, anyway, spending as much time outside as possible, everyone in the village is doing laundry, there are bedsheets everywhere.

sick . . . again

2005-04-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

I have been sleeping most of the day (two days, as I'm making this entry), spending also a significant amount of time blowing my nose and reading a rather menacing Agatha Christie novel, in which students all over the world rise up to become armies called Golden Youth and disguise bloodthirst as hippie culture. The hero is an eccentric young British gentleman with bad taste in clothes. Not one of her better works.

I’m not quite sure what I have. A host sister is in the process of trying to find out how and when my feet got wet, since these symptoms are obviously those of feet which have been wet. My face doesn’t look sick, and I taught three classes today, rather perkily, even, before I snapped out of some kind of trance and found myself leaning heavily on the desk, urgently needing a nap. I’m really disconnected. I’ll wake up from what isn’t exactly sleeping and realize that my head is tilted, mouth open and that I haven’t blinked for a long time. Maybe a couple hours. I haven’t really been breathing enough, either. But that’s another issue. I came home and sat for a while, then kind of tipped over sideways onto the bed. I usually put the bed back into its loveseat alter ego, but I thought something like this might happen when I left this morning.

The bed looks well-used by now, since when I sleep, I burrow [somebody – is “aaah! It’s burrowing! “– what is this from? Is it a Clare quote?], and often end up stuffing my pillow into the gap at the head-end, which troubles my dreams. I have been dreaming about the ninth graders, again. All day. I also somehow twist all the sheets around my feet, then kick them off. I wake up, mildly troubled. I think I will go to bed soon. I’m trying to make arrangements to facilitate breathing. I have a system for changing what I look at, which involves closing my eyes and turning my neck, then opening my eyes slowly.

Today, Wednesday, I feel much better and the lump between my jaw and my neck has subsided. However, my knees are a bit unpredictable and I find myself lurching quite a bit. I rather foggily taught my two morning classes, and now I will go and sleep again.

boots

2005-03-31T21:39:00.000-08:00

It is summer on television. I want summer. I continue to tell people that the weather is like Chicago’s, although it was bitingly cold today – 13C, I think, and I’m ready – very ready – for a change. I’ve been shopping for boots, which is a long-term thing for me. Imagine how many people here have feet as big as mine (size 42 here, size 10 in America). I went shopping on a day I though would be muddy and was in fact very icy. There and been a thaw the night before, and I was prepared to go tromping through the bazaars looking for shoes, which are everywhere, not in their own section. Instead, it was extremely slick and lumpy ice everywhere. Everyone was trying to find low areas to walk, because if you step on high places, you slide down onto everyone below you. And I was wearing ugly boots, which amounted to a moral offense, garnering stares and frowns. Shoes are taken very seriously here.
I’m not looking for pointy-toed boots, since these would be dangerous on me, to say the least. Imagine some poor foreigner sliding around, with very large feet and leaves and papers poked through on the toes, like a freelance sanitation worker. I can’t imagine how many people I would hurt, getting onto and off of buses.
I found one pair that had a perfect style, but they were too small. Two of us were in the shop (the bazaar just go too cold, and I’d had no success), she had the right shoe on, and I had the left shoe on. I made a face. “Too small?” she asked gleefully. She bought them. So, the hunt continues.

more cats/plants

2005-03-31T21:24:00.000-08:00

The cat and its baby that live in the stairwell of my host sisters have a home. Someone cut a nice hole in a cat-sized box,set out a bowl for food, and now the cats live there.

The plants in my southeast-facing window absolutely thrive. My host mother has asked me several times to heal plants, which are sometimes severely overwatered. “What’s wrong?” she’s asked, while the plant floats around in the solution. “I think it needs some rest in my window,” I say. And, indeed, the plant gets better. Also, these days are very long – light at 7, not really dark until 8:30 or so. Makes me wonder just how far it’s gonna go. It’s nice.

happy new year, again

2005-03-19T21:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we celebrated Nauryz at my school. Several kids sang traditional songs with a disco beat and accordion music on the synthesizer. (If there is a synthesizer available, it will be used to its utmost; fortunately, sometimes there is not a synthesizer.) The 7th grade girls were great. Akbota did an Uzbek (I think) dance, and five of the girls did a chicken dance, then a dance where they dressed up as Kazakh grandmas, then “the dance of the swallow.” My host sister and another 10th grade girl did a Kazakh dance, and the four 10th grade boys, who are rock stars (figuratively), sang their hit song which translates to “Hey, girls!”

The concert was in the gym, which is not ideal, but Nauryz is a spring New Year, and there is, after all, slush absolutely everywhere. Some of the teachers were seated at the low tables on the oriental rugs (not traditional Kazakh, but close) snacking on horse and wheat products. I was among them, and wondered again at how people who live here their whole lives can walk after a lifetime of sitting at these tables. The shortest celebratory chai at a low table (our everyday meals are at a higher table, with stools) is 2 hours, and we crawled away after three hours like wounded animals, on all fours, and used friends or the walls to help us stand again. The food was great, and the kids all told me about it proudly.

Most of them had rented Kazakh costumes. The 11th grade girls’ outfits featured the traditional oy-yoo, the designs that are on everything here, but were a bit more dramatic than was likely to be normal on the steppes. There was a baby blue dress with a bustier and a hoop skirt, a red gown where the hat with the feather in it was higher than Nazgul’s arm could reach, as well as a red, off-the-shoulder gown. “I don’t think that’s traditional,” said one of the teachers to me. But it’s slightly Kazakh, the only condition under which the girls could wear such a thing in the school.

zhaman

2005-03-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

After the concert, the vice-principal who is in charge of events asked me if I would sing at the next concert. “I sing very badly,” I meant to say. However, in Uralsk dialect, the word for “bad” is also the word for “very/a lot.” This is a problem for me. So I hadn’t really given her a clear “no.” I will fix that as soon as possible.

I discovered this idiom in late autumn, when my host mother started to eat lemons dipped into the sugar bowl this winter because one of her friends eats lemons like that. “She bad eats lemons in sugar,” I heard. “Why is it bad?” I asked, although I was really wondering why she continued to do it if it was disapproved of. “It’s not bad.” She said, as her whole face puckered.

she doesn't know the students' names, anyway

2005-03-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

The Kazakhstani grading system has four possible marks, 2 of which are viable at my school. A 5 is supposed to be excellent, a 4, good, and a 3, satisfactory. However, students get kicked out of the gymnasium if they get several 3's.

As the ice sublimes to fog –
The Uralsk version of spring thaw – a pile
Of journals for the students’ grades,
Part of some fearsome, permanent file,
Is marked indelibly by hand. The kids,
In contortions of indignity and guile,
Seek to guide blind justice
Toward desired outcomes, while
My fellow teacher, efficient in her own way, sits,
Writing 4’s in a broad argyle.

another holiday

2005-03-15T21:37:00.000-08:00

Today is yet another New Year holiday. (Whoops – Damira tells me now that it’s not). It’s hard for me to figure out exactly what this one means. One person told me that it is a day when you officially are a year older, or say the next age you’re going to be, but I have no reason to believe any information she gives me. Another person told me that today is a day to apologize and forgive, to rebuild relationships, etc. She made it sound like a Kazakh Yom Kippur. Someone else said that it was just a day to go visiting (to 7 houses, I’m told). Several other people told me that it was a day to greet with a Kazakh handshake = hand sandwich, sideways, but they were unable to tell me how it started or what it’s about. So when I went to school, the 7th and 8th graders each greeted me with a handshake, and, in fact, I had to shake hands with every student in the school. And as for the rest of the celebration, I believe it is the typical holiday, with friends gathering at the home of the woman who pours the best tea (my host mother), drinking vodka, and playing cards. But many people who are sometimes a bit grumpy seem friendly and happy today. After all, it’s not so bad, having 4 New Years each year.

Host mother just came into my room with a box of matches, lit three, waved them around my head, and pretended to spit on me. This is because some guests praised me. The guests looked at my pictures and were forced to speak with me in Kazakh, which is cute to them although it’s a bit disadvantageous for me. My host mother is warding off the evil eye, and has been celebrating for a while, to boot.

in memorium

2005-03-15T21:34:00.000-08:00

I was told today that one of Peace Corps’ administrators, Jan Funston, died. I was very sorry to hear of it. It was unexpected and, I’m sure, quite difficult for those who worked with her, as well as for all of us at our sites. As for me, she was someone I admired and liked. I remember how she listened to a ridiculous local diagnosis and remedy and was humble and gracious. She coughed and someone told her that she was sick because the door was open, something about doctors’ recommendations to keep all doors closed at all times and something about footwear, and perhaps the usual prescription of vodka. “Uh huh,” she said, without protest or condescension. She was a person who saw the direction things ought to take and helped equip other people for it. I believe she noticed and cared about the individuals, both volunteers and staff, in Peace Corps and was the most gung-ho of anyone. There are lots of Jan stories among us volunteers.

they won

2005-03-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

It’s 10:00, and we just finished the fifth chai of the day. They’ve been oddly spaced: 5:30 am, 12pm, 3pm, 5pm, 10pm. On the table were the usual for a late tea: cheese, white bread, cherry compote, sausage, chocolate butter, Korean salad – cabbage and kimchee - recently pasteurized milk, and a bowl full of stale cookies and half-eaten chocolates (it’s common to take a nibble of your favorite and then to re-wrap it for later.) Mmm.

The multiple chais (tea) are part of a campaign to make me stay at my host family's house. Of course, I love them and they couldn't have been kinder or more generous - the ideal host family. But I, thinking I might be overstaying my welcome in a small house where there are often guests, began the process of looking for a babushka with some extra space. I believe I sometimes worry my host mother. I worry my own mother, too, sometimes. Anyway, it seemed to be going smoothly, with no offense taken, and but when my host sisters found out, they began a long campaign to get me to stay. "We've gotten used to you! Stay! Stay!" They've taken me ghosting, invited me to as many things as they can think of, told me about picnics in the summers, etc. It seems I produce more anxiety when I act like I'm going to leave than when I stay. So, I'm staying until the summer at least.

old news, from December, nothing happened

2005-03-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

I have been informed that a certain illness has entered my village through wolves and foxes. But the foxes are yellow. Oh, coyotes, now I understand. My host mother and sister told me at dinner: it seems that the coyotes and wolves from the outer villages have fallen ill and gone crazy and are coming into Podstyopnaya (or is it just one?) and biting people. When they bite people, the people come down with influenza. Then there was something that sounded like "the Kazakh school is making guarantees," which I think was a misunderstanding on my part. Maybe it was "the Kazakh school is taking bets." I bet on the old lady who throws stones at anything on four legs, thereby making enemies she wouldn't otherwise have. In view of this news, posted on the door of the post office/bank, My host mother told me not to walk across empty fields by myself - we'll see if I can avoid it for a while. If worse comes to worst, maybe raspberry jam would help.

influence

2005-03-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

My students beg me to hear Dolly Parton. My host family is addicted to Finn Crisps. But no one likes David’s Cowboy Cookies except me.

first day of March

2005-03-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

Today, there was a fast, thick, wet snow. It fell parallel to the ground – the city looked a bit like an old movie, with the horizontal white lines over men in black coats and black newsboy caps. The buses were slow today, so people waited a long time at the bus stops, and the snow began to make peaks on the piles on our heads and shoulders and bags. On the ceilings of the marshrutkas, there were perfect circles of snow melting. I left one, too. They’re from the people who had to stand on the bus pressing their heads to the ceiling to keep balance.

more mistakes

2005-03-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

Amanzhan was tearing around the house with a toy truck, and I tried to tell Shatagoul that he needed another boy to play with. However, I didn’t enunciate clearly enough, and “He needs another boy” came out sounding like “another fish to him particularly.” [to be honest, I don’t know if it could make sense in Kazakh, but those are the words] It took her a couple seconds to get it. Bala kerek. Balak erek.

And then, there’s also the dinner party at which the hostess asked me what we eat in America. “Well, we eat a lot of stick [we get beaten up often].” Whoops. I meant chicken. Tayak, tawak.

goats

2005-03-02T21:34:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day never really ended at the ol' boarding school, where dating is forbidden and students are obsessed with it.

In a chart on passive tense in a girl's notebook: I am taken. I am not taken. Am I taken? [next line]. He is taken. He is not taken. Is he taken?

One of the English teachers who gives me Russian lessons gets her jollies from trying to teach me to say “I want to marry your son” in Russian. She sent her son after me to give me a ride home. It’s unusual to be driven here, since there aren’t that many private cars, and my house is much closer by foot, but I let him drive me. Of course, all my students saw. When my host sister asked where I was, they told her I’d been bride-napped by the teacher’s son.

There’s frequent speculation in my host family about who will be the next to go – a cousin was “stolen” by her boyfriend. Shatagul is often teased for the deep-voiced suitor who calls. It’s really great to hear my host mother imitate him. They asked me if I would be bridenapped. “I don’t need that. I don’t have the time,” I said. “Well, he’s not going to ASK you,” said Damira. But, apparently, sometimes they do.

Enough about luuuv. I’m learning grammar through ridiculous sentences, because this is how I hold my tutor’s attention. “I want to buy a goat.” “Why do you want to buy a goat?” “Because I want to quarrel with my neighbors.” “Okay. Which goat do you want?” “May I look at the purple striped one?” “Here you go.” “This one is too tall. May I see that one?” “Yes. Here you go.” “Great. I’ll buy this one.”

concerts/wallpaper

2005-03-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

As soon as I brag about my internet access, it cuts off. So I'm making no promises about frequency or consistency.

On Fridays, Damira is happy, and she turns the music loud and belly dances to Nelly and Tarkan (Turkish). But Women’s day is coming up, and there is a frenzy of preparation – every educational facility is having a concert, and my school is having two. So, everyone has been rehearsing dances and complaining about how there’s no good music, and the teachers all mention that the students want to do Arabski and Turetski dances, but not Kazakh dances. I have my theories about why that might be. The first concert was this afternoon, in honor of mothers. And my seventh grade boys were excused from English to practice their dance for Friday. Shatagul is preparing for her dance tomorrow, which involves her wearing a wedding dress and Kazakh vest thing at the same time, as well as one or two of my handkerchiefs.

Ah – hold on – my wallpaper just fell off again . . . . . Okay, it’s hopeless. Wallpapering my room is like wallpapering a cave. It just won’t stay on. I would just tear it off, but then the wall leaves objectionable pieces of plaster in my candle, bedsheets, etc. So I’ve been using masking tape for a while, but stronger methods are called for. I tried nails, but I don’t have a hammer. So, I first tried to push them in, but I only wiggled a hole, and it hurt my finger. Then, I used a little Christmas tree made of bells, which had a pleasant jingle, but was ineffective. The shoe didn’t work. The flowerpot did. But then, the damp wallpaper simply fell off the nails, and we’re back to tape. Lots of tape.

neighbor

2005-02-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

There's an babushka on my street who's kind of startling. She will wobble up to strangers, shout someting twice and cackle. Last time I saw her on the sidewalk/bobsled chute thing. "What a pretty bag you have! A pretty bag! Ha ha ha!" I was a bit concerned about where this was leading, but took comfort in the fact that my wallet had already been stolen by then. I tried to smile vaguely (although experience should have taught me by now that this is usually taken as encouragement) and we both slid off in our respective directions. I was on the bus with a couple people I'd met before and this babushka, and we were a bit crowded, so I was sitting on the front 3 inches of a 2-person seat with a student of mine who was sleeping against the window and a man who runs another marshrutka that was done for the day. I had thought my conversation with the English teacher from another school had been cut off by the body of the latest passenger, but he began to speak to me, anyway. "May I call you Sue?" he asked in a whisper. Gulp. "Call me Susan," I said, and immediately the babushka shouted, "I thought she was a Russian! A Russian! Ha ha ha! But she's speaking a foreign language! A foreign language! Ha ha ha!" Today as I was coming home, she was walking down the street toward me, and she said "How gray you are! How gray! Ha ha ha!" I was a bit concerned about my general appearance, and asked my host mother what she had meant. I had misunderstood the word. She actually meant "How cold you look! How cold! Ha ha ha!"

yep, they're mine

2005-02-08T01:34:00.000-08:00

I am supposed to team teach with another English teacher on Tuesdays, but she was sick today, so I had to take the classes alone. We've been working on "If" clauses for a while, and they're still difficult, mostly because many of our grammar structures have no equivalent in Kazakh, then there's real and unreal stuff, etc.

So, I divided the class into two and told them to choose names and exchange threats using "if" clauses. They chose the Montagues and the Capulets. (Last year, they did Romeo and Juliet) "If you don't give us Juliet, we will smush you like worms!" "If you want to see tomorrow, you'll get off our land!" "If I were you, I wouldn't say that!" They weren't very quick on the retorts, but the general idea was there.

In keeping with the angst theme, the 8th graders listened to Mr.Big Stuff last Wednesday. They were supposed to write a letter to someone who annoyed them (without names and not to be read out loud in class) and to someone who made them happy. One girl, who was trying to knock out all the vocabulary in one sentence wrote:"Dear Mr. Donkey, You think you very important, but I think you arrogant, fancy."

You may have noticed my internet access has gotten much better. Yay!

vocabulary

2005-02-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

If you drop something, smell something, hear a man's voice on women's night at the bathhouse, see something bad, see something funny, disapprove, approve but wouldn't wear/do it yourself, are giving somebody tea, the phone, or the channel changer, are surprised, say something incorrectly, are frustrated, are impressed, have a bone in your fish, or your teacher gives you homework, you say "mah." The Russian "foo," is not as flexible (what is?), it corresponds roughly to the Kazakh "tooooo." "Oy, mama!" is a bilingual expression used when one slips on ice.

The disgusting cat (now back to white after a full week of grayness) was on the prowl at dinner tonight. He was snoring so loudly that Dilda apai got up to give him some cream and accidentally stepped on his foot. "Wrowoeee!" said the cat. "Foo!" said host papa. "Mah!" said host mama.

brilliant solution

2005-01-31T02:26:00.000-08:00

On any televised concert or speech (many, I assure you) the camera guys try to get many shots of the audience. Unfortunately, the audience often sit in the dark during concerts. The solution? Attach a blinding light onto the camera. Everyone from the audience glows bright white and has extremely small pupils when appearing on tv.

I am in the process of making up for a youth without much television. When I leave this country, I will never ever watch anything except the Olympics (but not Bob Costas, unless he's with Elfie) again.

another day in the life

2005-01-31T02:23:00.000-08:00

We are all in the living room tonight, as usual. I had another day of being trapped in school by visitors, who wanted to observe our lesson at two, when the students (and I) are supposed to have lunch. So the kids missed lunch, but they done us proud. The back row was smiling the whole time, throwing up hands without saying "mozhna." Yay. The class went fairly well, the dignitaries were pleased, and then left the room for lunch. The students rushed the field and crowded around me and the other teacher at the projector (won in an English contest by another teacher) like a giant happy basketball team. "Good class! Good class!" they said, in English.
I came home at 6:40, read the tests (special tests) from the boys who skipped my class last week, and we ate dinner. I have a tendency to zone out and make faces about recent memories, especially to laugh silently while staring at corners, and Damira always sees me and asks what I'm thinking of. I'm not used to people noticing. It's problematic. Maybe I should save my little moments for when I teach 7th grade. Tonight, yesterday's barley was mixed with shell noodles, a dish I haven't ever had before, and my thoughts were in the present, for once.
I intend to study Russian and Kazakh and write lesson plans for the weekends, although I'd had fantasies of bathing and doing laundry - neither is an option now. Damira is studying for the national English test, Shatagoul is sitting at the table ramrod straight, with her notebooks arranged neatly in front of her, pen in hand, watching the soap opera. Damira laughs at Dilda Apai for watching this one, "Amor Del Bueno," which to an innocent bystander (who can't understand Russian dubbing) seems to be about some sort of round-robin co-ed wrestling contest. "This is my cool [strong] serial," says Dilda Apai. "Shatagoul, come massage my arm."

My schedule isn't really very nice, since the school hours here are weird. I teach on Mondays from about 10 - 1:30pm. Tuesdays, from 10 - 2, then lunch, then 4:15 - 6:40pm. Wednesdays, 8:30 - 10 and then from 5 - 6:30, Thursdays 8:30 - 9:15, then 4:15 - 6:40pm; Fridays, from 3:30 - 5. And Saturdays from 8:30 - 12pm. It amounts to about 24 hours (this includes my club) and about as many planning. I also have about 6 hours of tutoring, 4 in Kazakh and 2 in Russian, although my tutors and I are trying to figure out plans that are a bit more helpful for me.

announcement

2005-01-31T02:14:00.000-08:00

I've had enough of hotmail. Please do not be offended - only about five people have received successful emails from me this past month. Therefore, please send all emails to susanwunderink@yahoo.com
Sorry - swunderink was taken. Probably by me five years ago but of course I can't remember anything about it now.

Again, my new email address is susanwunderink@yahoo.com

laundry in January

2005-01-25T19:57:00.000-08:00

Shataghoul and Damira are bringing in the laundry they did this afternoon. I was in my room (my tummy's upset - either I didn't drink enough tea - I'm addicted, you know- or it was the beef blini I had at a cafe.) and I thought they were dropping boxes on the floor. Nope. Just fresh, clean clothes frozen solid. Who thought socks could clunk lilke that? The shirts all look afraid, with the arms all straight up.

The outhouse across the yeard in -20 weather is something new for me.

kids

2005-01-25T19:53:00.000-08:00

I've spent a lot of time this week in the presence of three little host kids (cousins) who are finally warming up to me. They used to stare at me from behind doors and laugh uncontrollably when I saw them. It was fun at first . . . . then a bit repetitive. But a couple days ago, the doorbell rang when I was home alone, I opened it, and there stood Amanzhan all alone and four years old, stiff with winter clothing. He walked into the house like a cowboy and stuck a hand out (well, more out) so that I could take off his glove. I took the scarf off his little face first, then his gloves, then his shoes, then (5 minutes later), his mother entered the house, saw that Dilda wasn't home, and bundled him up again.

Ever since, he and his brother have talked to me. It's wonderful! I can ask them "what's this?" as much as I want without annoying them. But I do have to be careful - they're young enough that every animal is a bear, a cow, or a cat. The older boy told me about his chicken mask for New Year's, and asked me if I had an owl mask (I have an owl picture on my wall). No. I don't have an owl mask. I showed him my New Year's mask. "What kind of bird's that?" he asked. "I don't know." He stood looking at it. "Neither of us knows."

The two of them are already expert teachers. They used to speak only Kazakh, and their friend, a neighbor, spoke only Russian. The three boys wanted to play together, so Amanzhan and Bauerzhan took their friend Yuri to their mother. Their mother interpreted the Russian for them, and from that point on, the boys taught each other Russian and Kazakh. Now, Yuri is almost fluent in Kazakh (as fluent as a 4-year-old is in any language) and the two Kazakh boys know Russian. So cool.
They were playing hide-and-go-seek with Camila, their cousin today. They'd count to five or so and then aske "are you done?" and then the kids who were hiding would say "yes."

update on the mullet

2005-01-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

My mullet (see Dec 7 entry) is not quite so mullety anymore. I could just chop the bottom 2 - 3 inches off and pretend it never happened. Time heals all wounds.

soon i'll be too old (25) to have children

2005-01-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

Conversation in October: (Kazakh, with my seventh graders)
"That's a cool necklace!" said Zholoman about my locket. Leonara: "Put a photo of your boyfriend in it." The kids here are obsessed with love. "I don't have a boyfriend. I'm single." "You're single?" Zholoman, Leonara, Azamat. "How old are you?" "You can have a boyfriend in Almaty, in Uralsk, and in America," said Zholoman.

Conversation in December:
"Leonara says you're single!" [Maybe some pink lipstick could help you out with that] said Leonara's mother, trying to sell me Oriflame, the Mary Kay of Kazakhstan.

But it might be time to stop saying I'm single, since it's already been arranged that I will marry a host cousin and the post officer's son.

language group

2005-01-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

It's probably time to write about why I began learning Kazakh instead of Russian. It's also probably time I wrote about why I'm doing Peace Corps, but I'll leave that one alone for now. I had received very mixed messages about whether we'd be learning Kazakh, Russian, or both, and it wasn't until about the third day in Kazakhstan (a bit late, if you ask me) that this was finally cleared up for me. For the 42 of us trainees, there would be six spots for people who were not married couples and who did not already know Russian (this was a requirement which our training staff mistakenly thought would prevent lazy trainees, but hopefully they've got it right by now and are simply letting Russian speakers choose which language they want to study.) The spots for Kazakh trainees roughly corresponded to work sites where most people spoke Kazakh most of the time. Someone read us a short essay written by a Kazakh-speaking volunteer, saying that she was glad she'd learned Kazakh. Then, they told us to sign up for one of the two language groups. Vastly overestimating my intellectual abilities (there's no reason I can't learn Kazakh and Russian!), seeing that the Kazakh sign-up sheet was not filling quickly, and thinking that it just seemed very polite to learn Kazakh while in Kazakhstan, I wrote down my name. But these are the reasons I whipped up after I made the decision; I decided to learn Kazakh for inexplicable reasons. I just wanted to.

After I signed up, it turned out to be a great group of people, and when I wasn't writhing in self-loathing, lessons were a lot of fun. We ate a lot of ice cream during our lesson breaks. I felt like I needed it. So, that's what got me started, and by now I'm deep into it, since Kazakh is one of my two effective means of communication. I also grunt and point.

I'm not always glad I did it, because I apparently have very few and very slow brain cells for foreign languages, and I am expending them on the language which a large percentage of Kazakhstanis don't know. There's a lot of political/social stuff that goes on here, involving language, too, but I can't pretend to have untangled it. I often hear people saying to each other "We're Kazakh; speak Kazakh with me," although not all Kazakhs know Kazakh. I asked the Kazakh Kodak guy if he spoke Kazakh when I was having some film developed and he didn't even understand the question. Which is not cool. I can't understand how people who've lived here their whole lives don't know "Do you speak Kazakh?" But my point is that reclaiming the language could easily turn toward exclusivity instead of restoration. So, if non-Kazakhs start to learn Kazakh, since after all it is a national language, they could start to curb that tendency. I'm not the only one who thinks so - there are well-publicised programs that are teaching Kazakh to Russian speakers.

But I am glad I did it because it really has opened Kazakhstan to me. The people I'm with most often really do speak Kazakh most of the time. I can somewhat understand peripheral conversations; I don't have to wait for someone to remember to interpret everything for me. I'm glad because when my students write notes to each other in class, I can take them home and read them, and when they speak to each other, I know whether it's about English or someone's birthday party. And my dear young seventh graders are always talking to me in Kazakh as if I were fluent. People are more favorably disposed towards me. My host mother once escorted me to the public bathhouse and told all the women: "This is my daughter. She speaks only Kazakh," and then the bathhouse ladies were very nice to me and told everyone who tried to speak to me in Russian to switch to Kazakh. Which is nice, because it's surprisingly hard to get people to switch to Kazakh on my own. In the Almaty bazaar, a Russian-speaker offered me the best price, so I asked someone who spoke Kazakh to help interpret. He found it very amusing, so amusing that he completely went off the topic of the purchase and asked me about my educational background and marital and financial status while I was asking him if the sweater was washable. So, politically correct helplessness builds relationships.

But the above are merely side effects. My host sister told me that even people who think in Kazakh have to learn English through Russian, since that's what all the textbooks are written in, and in speaking Kazakh, I'm bringing it a bit closer to them. At 5pm on a bad day in October, I'd started giving my first lesson to the eighth graders, bless them, and the word "hunter" popped up. They didn't know it, so I wrote the Kazakh translation on the board. They broke into applause. Which made teaching from 5 - 6:45 not so bad after all.

I am experiencing Kazakhstan with a greater sense of its history and tradition. Here is an entirely new set of figures of speech, of symbols (a white and black rope means honesty; "black words" are wise words, "Nazgul" means "tender flower," not "horrible LOTR monster-thing"), a different way of thinking. This is the Kazakhstan that goes back way beyond the USSR. The culture here must have been altered a whole lot from what it was, and I get more glimpses of it because I speak Kazakh. While I'm no longer in a deep village site, I've had the advantage of living in two fairly traditional families. It's not everyone who buys half a horse and has a meat party these days. My host family has a second one coming up on Saturday. And people don't play Russian songs on the dombra. I love dombra music.

And now that all of this has been said, I have started studying Russian with a tutor, since it is necessary for communicating with photo boy, taxi drivers who scold me in Russian for wearing too light a coat, babushkas who ask me very nicely which bus I'm taking and if number 12 has come by (I think that's what they're asking), and for shopgirls who don't understand grunting and pointing and the word "snickers." Also, I am very interested in Russian, which comes with a culture and a lot of good literature attached. And as far as I can see, Russian will be more useful in my post-PC life.

I'm seven months into it now, and I get N's and H's, P's and R's mixed up all the time.

beast

2005-01-19T20:46:00.000-08:00

You may be asking why I am always getting yelled at for wearing a light jacket. I have two coats: a red polarfleece, and Beast. Beast is a calf-length coat I bought in the gigantic Almaty bazaar on a day when I was horribly sick. I broke into a sweat when I tried it on, and I knew it was the one. Unfortunately, it left gobs of wet fake fur all over my feverish arms and neck. Eww. I got a very good deal on it; it now sells for three times the price I bought it for.

Beast weighs about 50 kilos and makes me a very big person. It has a hood and a waist-tie. It is not something you want to be wearing when you have a lot of walking to do and the weather isn't that cold. In fact, I think it counts as exercise to walk more than a mile in that coat. The temperature here has been between 0 and -10C, which isn't that bad, and it's only on the days when it suddenly dips below that that I really want Beast. Unfortunately, the weather can change quickly from too warm for Beast to cold enough to be scolded.

got chalk?

2005-01-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

A boy in my ninth form class came in with a white pasty substance around his lips. I didn't have time to ask him about it, but during the break between classes, he came up to the chalk board, took a piece of chalk, and started gnawing on it. Then, he just up and ate it.

Other volunteers say that when they ask another teacher for a piece of chalk, it has tooth marks.

Some volunteers have so many chalk eaters that they have to take their chalk home with them, or it will all be eaten by the next day. Some don't let their kids write on the board, since it becomes a snack break.

One volunteer was trying to buy chalk from the bazaar (you have to be careful because some kinds of chalk simply won't write on blackboards). "What is this chalk good for?" she asked the saleswoman. The woman mimed eating it. "Yes, but is it good for writing on a blackboard?" " It's good for eating. It's good for calcium." "Will it write?" "It's good for eating." The volunteer decided to try somewhere else.

night on the town

2005-01-15T23:54:00.000-08:00

We actually had a visitor in our corner of the world, the famous Megan, and a couple of us volunteers went bowling and then to an American restaraunt, at which I spent more than I usually spend in a month (right now, expenses are Snickers, batteries, and internet).

I was an absolute rock star at the bowling rink, once hitting the "stop" sign at the end of the lane, and once having to chase my ball through the tables behind me because - surprise! - it had gone backwards. Megan had quite a run of strikes/spares with her perfect granny technique, then she switched to left-handed bowling and still did better than I did. Sometimes I bowl well (Okay, so I've been three times in my life now), so I had had some moderate hopes for the evening. But I'm nothing if not erratic.

potatoes

2005-01-15T23:52:00.000-08:00

"Susan, why are you sadly [sitting] not eating your potatoes?" - Host mama to me (in Kazakh, of course) a few nights ago.