Musical Adventure?

From a letter to my little brother:

I have two cafes owners that will feed me if I play, but I only have a bari right now. I will try to figure out ways to get a different horn (that is not expensive)…probably an alto, because I found a store in Taldy Korgan which sells alto Rico reeds. And they are cheap: 100 tenge a reed: less than 1 dollar!

Anyway, here's the whole story:

In Kazakhstan, showing photos of yourself and family is a big deal. When I go “ghosting” (visiting or hanging out), the host usually brings out all of the pictures, and we look at all of them. I have some pictures of my family and friends that I always carry with me, and I show them to curious people. However, there is one picture that always captures their attention: It is my profile photo on this website and on Facebook. It is my favorite photo of myself, and it happens to have a saxophone in it. When people see this, they ask if I am a musician and if I brought a sax to Kazakhstan (which I didn’t, it’s too heavy). So, it circulated around the town very fast that I knew how to play the sax but I didn’t have one.

I then got a phone call from a local café owner that she found a sax and would like me to try it out. I was very surprised by this, because we never talked about this before. Nevertheless, I was curious and went to the café. The good news it was a working sax. The bad news was that it was too much sax: it was a bari.

Anyway, the café owner asked if I would play for a birthday party on Friday. Because I am a Peace Corps volunteer, I wouldn’t accept money, but playing for food suited me just fine (My host mom is the head cook there and she cooks very well). To make a long story shorter, I learned how the bari worked in two days (It has a low A key!), loaded up some backtracks that I kept from Neal, and played at the party. It went as well as it could given the circumstances (bari sax, 2 days practice after 4 months off, etc). Playing the bari sax in a solo manner was like trying to cut a hunk of cheese with a chainsaw, but we (bari and I) survived.

I disinfected the one reed that came with the sax by soaking it in super chlorinated water and cleaned out the rest of it as I was able. (the Peace Corps gives us water purification tablets, in which the main ingredient is cholrine. So I dumped in about 5x’s more than normal. It didn't warp the reed, although my host family thinks I am crazy)

I only played two songs, “The Nearness of You,” with a backtrack and a solo rendition of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. It went well. Many of the guests (who had never heard a live saxophone) were very impressed and loved it. Lots of kisses on the cheek and handshakes ensued afterwards. The café owner asked me to play on new year’s eve, and I readily accepted, although I do not think that I will play now, mainly because I need a new cable to hook up my computer to the sound board. I do not like doing solo stuff on a bari. Too awkward, and a lot of the tricks I like to do (adderly trill, growling, alternate fingerings, ask Neal about these) sound kind of stupid on a bari.

This is not the end of my musical adventure. While I was at the café, I met the dj there, a man named Daoullete. He invited me over to his house for chai and a jam session, which he called “an experiment”. At first, I thought this was shady, so I asked my host mom if she thought this was creepy. In reality, Daoullete and my host mom are old friends, and his wife came to my birthday party. This is the advantage of working in a small town; networking is very easy. He said that he would call and we would play “later the next day”.

I woke up at 10am to Daoullete yelling my name in the living room. Evidently, he let himself in because the door was unlocked (this is common), and wanted to go now because he just called some friends in the area who happened to have an alto sax.

“Bari saxs are good for groups, but not by yourself.” he said in Russian. “You need an alto or tenor like your picture”. This surprised me, because not only he knew about my picture (I never showed him it), he knew that the bari wasn’t designed as a solo instrument. He then told me to get dressed and hurry because “we have experiments to do.” I went with him, wondering what type of character I was involving myself with and what a crazy musical adventure this is.

What ensued was us driving around Karabulak for an hour, knocking on random doors, (or just walking in) looking for the person with an alto sax. We never found him. We gave up for the time being, and went to his house where we had chai with his kids. Later we had a long jam session, where we used my back tracks.

I neglected to say what instrument Daoullete plays. He plays the guitar. Very well. He knows nothing about jazz, but has a great ear. I taught him a little bit about blues structure and chord changes, and we rocked just fine with the backtracks. Later, he taught me some Kazakh and Russian national songs that are very popular.

After this, we drove back to the café where he talked to the owner and told her to get me an alto or a tenor. I didn’t understand everything that was said, but I understood when he said that the bari was a “crisis”.

The next week he called me again, and said that he found a tenor sax, and if I wanted I could play at a café in Taldy Korgan, which is a small city nearby. I went there, and found that the sax was an old B&S model, made in Germany, and was very old. Don’t know too much about it (maybe Neal knows?) I remark on it only because it had a crazy wide open mouthpiece, so wide that I could only get notes above middle c. I once again disinfected with the chlorinated water, and then played without use of the low register. I thought it was disappointing, but the café owner loved it and said that if I could find a saxophone, I could play there anytime. In return, I would eat and drink all that I wanted (Peace Corps volunteers cannot play for money)

Anyway, that’s the saxophone story.

Happy New Year!

~Kyle

Holidays (or, "The Great Work Slowdown")

I am blessed to have an organization that works a regular schedule (Mon-Fri, 9-5), and there is actually stuff to do. One main issue that I’ve encountered this month is trying to figure out what to do with all of the spare time that I have had, because nobody works on holidays…or the day before…or the day after…and in some cases (like mine), the whole week.

Kazakhstan has a lot of official holidays in December. They are:

•December 8- Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice)

•December 16-17- Kazakhstan Independence Day

•December 31 through at least Jan 2- New Years

My frustration started last Friday, when my director told me that we won’t work at all the next week because of Kazakhstan’s Independence Day (Tuesday and Wednesday). When I asked why we wouldn’t work on Monday, Thursday, or Friday she had the following answer.

She said that nobody would work on Monday because the holidays fall on the next two days. Thursday is the day after the holiday, and nobody wants to work on the day after a holiday. Nobody works on Fridays anyway because it is so close to the weekend. I was angry when I first heard this, and remained angry all weekend and moped in my room because I felt that my organization was wasting time. I wanted to work, there was work to be done, and instead I’d be stuck at my host family’s house (which isn’t a bad thing, but I get bored if I am there too long).

I stopped moping when I came to the realization that the same “December work slowdown” happens in America also. For some corporations, it is on Friday afternoons in the summer, when people would use a day of leave to have a long weekend. It also happens in the period between Christmas and New Years, where people may work one day out of the week.

Combine all of this with a snowstorm or two, some cold temps, short days and long nights, and it’s no wonder why people in both America and Kazakhstan don’t like to work in December.

So with no work, what did I do this week?

•Learned how to play Mine Sweeper

•Watched Star Trek Insurrection, First Contact, and the Wrath of Kahn (twice…it’s a good movie)

•Taught my host mother how to make pizza dough without eggs

•Studied a little Russian

•Played a saxophone at a Kazakh birthday party (I’ll blog about this later…this adventure is still in progress)

And that's it!

A Kazakhstan NGO business meeting

Today, my director took me to nearby Taldykorgan for a huge meeting of all of the Kazakhstan NGO’s in the Taldy region. My director didn’t understand at first why I wanted to tag along (I had trouble explaining that “boring” does not also mean “non-informative”) but let me go anyway.

The first part of the meeting went fine, with speeches and lot of flipcharts. It was the second part of the meeting where I ran into trouble. During the second half, all of the directors broke into groups and started to create lists of issues that their organizations could work on. I split off from my director and joined a group of women. They promptly began talking in Kazakh (which destroyed what little effectiveness I had) and then I was elbowed out of the way by a lady in a wheelchair who changed groups because she had a great idea that fit with our group. At this point, I was fed up and wanted to leave. Thankfully my director felt the same way. We quietly packed our stuff and tried to sneak out of the room, but we were caught by the director of the NGO who hosted the event…

…who made us drink chai. “It is our tradition that the first time you come to our organization, you have to drink at least one cup of chai!” she said. My director did not want chai. I did not want chai. We wanted to leave. However, this lady insisted, and we drank our one cup according to custom, and then left.

So what did I learn?

•The Kazakh- Russian language divide in Kazakhstan makes for some interesting meetings. Almost everyone KNOWS Russian, but if Kazakh will always be spoken by people who can. In a mixed language setting everyone will use Russian to communicate and present to the group, but use Kazakh among themselves if they know it. It is a fine and acceptable practice to language switch in this manner (I imagine US business executives blowing their tops if they everyone around them spoke amongst themselves in a different language).I will be fine with only Russian but there is a lot of side chatter I am going to miss because I won’t know enough Kazak. Think of it as passing notes to your co-workers in the big conference room. Except you are writing in a whole different language that not everyone present understands.

•Nothing personal about the elbow. While this is an extreme example (she apologized later), it underscores the larger idea that the business culture here is more aggressive than in the US. After this meeting I felt a little roughed up, both physically and mentally. If I am to be successful here, I will have to adapt and learn how to “play rough”. Who knows? I hope that a little of the aggressive business culture rubs off on me. It could do me a lot of good later.

•You will drink chai after the meeting. You can’t avoid it. Resistance is futile.

My Birthday or, “I don’t understand why its so funny that your house could have burnt down.”

With regard to the other Kaz 20 OCAP’s, I am in the unique position of being one of the first to celebrate my birthday while at site. To everyone who called, wrote, SMSed from Kazakhstan, the US, and points beyond to wish me a happy birthday, I thank you. It really means a lot to me. Although my Kazakhstan birthday celebration was great, it almost didn’t happen.

The morning of my birthday, I woke up to a loud bang. I ran out of my room to find the печка on fire. For those who do not know, a печка (pronounced “petch-ka”) is a coal burning stove that is used to heat many homes in small towns and rural areas. I think it is an interesting device: coal is placed in the bottom, and the heat spreads through pipes to heat the home.

However, nobody told me what to do if the печка was on fire. I panicked because as the only one home at the time I’d have a lot to account for if my host family’s house was burned to the ground. So, I did the one thing that made sense to me if I saw a massive fire burning in a house: I put it out. I ran to the kitchen, snatched a pot of hot water and a thermos of chai and dumped them on the печка. Smoke and steam billowed out of the печка and I ran to open the windows, only to remember that my host brother and I placed plastic sealant on the windows the week before to help insulate the house from the coming winter. I settled for opening the front door while calling my host mom and frantically explaining in broken Russian that her печка was broken. She then called a friend, who came over and after inspecting the печка, proclaimed everything “Normalla!” and told me to go to work. (Although I still think that a semi-large fire inside of a house is not “Normalla!”)

The happy ending to this story is that everything was ok except the house reeked of smoke for a day. Later, I learned that every once in awhile, gas builds up in the печка, and it can be discharged with a small explosion that blows open all of the vents on the side of the печка . The system of heat going up through the pipes is reversed by the vents, which blows the flames back out through the печка. To make the flames subside, I should have simply closed the vents.

Everyone thought it was a very funny thing because it happens fairly often. My director thought it was hilarious, and laughed about it for about half an hour. My host mother tells everyone who she introduces me to about the story. It’s become quite the joke in Karabulak, and it is kind of funny…and better than the alternative.

Due to my poor language skills and newness to the community, my host family helped me with my birthday. Usually in Kazakhstan, the person who is celebrating the birthday cooks all of the food for their guests. I can cook (but not well enough for a lot of people), and my host mom and sister helped. Or, more like I helped them, because they knew what was going on. I cut a lot of vegetables and dumped a lot of oil and mayonnaise on things. I don’t know the names of everything we cooked except there was a lot of it, and it tasted very good.

Later, my host family’s extended family and friends came over. There were lots of toasts that I couldn’t understand (I know there were toasts to the health of my family, the Green Eyed Lady, my friends, and perhaps my future children, but I’m still not sure about this), but it was very nice.

And, the cake was the best that I’ve had in Kazakhstan so far.

Burned Butt and the Banya

The last time I took a shower was last Thursday, November 6. As long as I stay in my village, I probably will not take a shower until sometime next year. However, I am not dirty, and I might be the cleanest I have ever been because of the banya.

In many communities that lack running heated water in Kazakhstan, the banya is the best way to get clean. Even in places that do have running heated water, banyas are still around because they are a way to relax. The best way I can describe a banya is that it is a sauna that you can clean yourself in at the same time. Banyas can be "wet" or "dry". Wet banyas have steam, usually by pouring water on hot rocks. Dry banyas just have heat. I like banyas because they can be very relaxing in addition to getting squeaky clean.

How to Banya:

Banyas usually have 2 rooms, and if they are awesome, 3 rooms. In the first room you take off and store your clothes. The second room is a cooling off room. I can only describe the 3rd room as "hot as f***". In this room, sit back (very carefully, avoiding all hot surfaces), relax, and then clean yourself using the water and bucket provided. If you are lucky, you will have a friend who will help wash your back.

After sustaining a burned butt and injured pride from my first experience, I feel compelled to offer up the following advice to future banya goers:

1. Everything inside the "hot as f***" room is hot! Be careful when you touch things!
2. You will be naked inside the "hot as f***" room. Do not brush up against things such as the wall and the water heater. They will be hot and you can burn yourself in some embarrassing places!
3. There is no reward and no extra honor for staying in the "hot at f***" room the longest. If you are overheating, go into the cooler rooms, and then return when you are fine.
   
   

On Obama

Once in a while, something so astonishing happens in the world of politics that everyone knows about it and wants to talk about it. This time it was the US election, and the man of the hour was Obama.

It was an election that the world watched: Kenya has declared Thursday a national holiday, people were dancing in the streets in Indonesia. In Kazakhstan, we watched also.

Although I am on the opposite side of the world, I saw Obama’s speech in Grant Park the same way that millions of Americans did: live on CNN. My training class woke up at 5 in the morning to drive to Almaty to see the results. Over 40 Peace Corps volunteers crammed in a room and watched TV. Some cried, others cheered, all of us felt proud of our country.

However, what I thought was even more amazing was where I found myself that night: Sitting around a table doing a vodka toast to Obama with people I never met. Even more astonishing was where they were from: Bolivia, Peru, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, America, Ukraine, and a couple others. They too, were excited, some cautiously so, but still excited. We all had differing beliefs and opinions, but we were still able to come together and talk for hours about Obama and what his rise to the presidency means for America and the world. This is the reason why I like Obama: He is such an inspirational person to not only Americans, but to people all over the world.

On how I feel about PST and on what will be coming next

By earning a satisfactory score on my Russian oral exam, I cleared the last major hurdle of Peace Corps Training. On Friday I will be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), and the next day, head to the town of Karabulak, where I will live for the next two years.

During PST, I learned a lot that will help be successful here and beyond after my service. I’ve learned about the Kazakhstan NGO environment. I learned how to teach English, and the basics of the Russian and Kazakh languages . I’ve also eaten horse (and liked it), battled with dogs (and survived), and tried to refuse a second helping of dinner from a babushka (and failed). It is impossible to win an argument against babushkas, more so when it comes to dinner and second helpings.

I also learned a lot about myself. I’m not the same person that I was when I left America. Physically, I’m a bit thinner, a bit quicker on my feet, and a little smarter about my limits. Emotionally and mentally I’m a lot tougher. I’ve learned that you have to be mentally tough to survive in Kazakhstan. I was never a total pushover when it came to standing up for myself and what I believed in, but I’ve surely gotten a lot better at it here. Whether it’s yelling for correct change at the bazaar, engaging in a heated debate with a NGO director about corporate philanthropy, or dealing with the adolescent kids that yell and whistle at seeing their first African American person that is not on TV, my experiences in PST have taught me a thing or two. (Of course, it is also fun to yell back, “What are you looking at?” in Russian, which usually stuns the kids into silence.) The Green Eyed Lady also says that I’m more mature, but I’m not sure about that.

The only way that I was able to learn this much here was because of the wonderful staff that remains and other volunteers here. The remaining 17 OCAP volunteers are a second family to me. This is very rare for me because it usually takes a long time for me to open up to people. The only time I have felt this way about a group of people was my Fraternity. Knowing that they were going through the same stuff that I was and that I could talk to them about it made PST easier. You know you are close when someone says to you “can I have the last of your anti diarrhea pills?” and you give them even though you are sick yourself.

Since I have gotten so close to the other OCAP volunteers as PST ends I have felt a variety of emotions. I am proud to have the chance to know some pretty awesome people. I am curious to see good things they will do in the next 2 years. At times I am downright fearful and almost panic because I know that the support structure I’ve relied on during PST will change. My town has no other volunteers, or fluent English speakers that I know of. I will be living with a host family I met for 10 min, attempting to get a community’s support to raise funds for a new building for my NGO, and finding new friends and community partners (but not replacing the old!) all while using two languages I do not know. However, while beginning the process of standing on my own two feet in this country is my greatest fear, it is the very thing that excites me the most because after this PST experience I know I have the tools, the abilities, and the will, to do what I can to assist the NGO and people in Karabulak.

5 Funny Food stories

One of the top questions I get from family and friends when they ask me about Kazakhstan is "How's the food?" In my opinion a volunteer's initial opinion of the quality of the food widely depends on the cooking abilities of the host family they are living with. Just as it is in America, if you are around someone who cooks very well, you will be happy. For me, I am lucky and have a great host family that cooks good food. They hate spicy food (watching my host brother try Tabasco is one of the funniest moments I've had here), and like a lot of mayonnaise, but besides that, I cannot complain.

Eating in Kazakhstan is more than just shoving food down your throat; it is a chance to meet new people, catch up with old friends, and have a good time. Kazakh culture is known for throwing big feasts at all major life events (funerals, weddings, baby showers, etc), and bringing out a lot of food whenever friends go "ghosting". (People say you are ghosting when they go out to visit others.)

Because eating is a major part of life, interesting and weird things happen to me, and that I am in a drastically different culture than my own, I have some funny (or gross, depending on who you are) stories dealing with food.

• Drinking "deer's blood" mixed with vodka. One day, some relatives came "ghosting" at my host family's house. They brought along a green bottle filled with some reddish liquid and asked if I would try it. As is my policy to try everything once, I gave it a go. It was slightly salty, and had a vodka aftertaste. It wasn't bad, but not that good, and reminded me of the taste in my mouth whenever I bite my tongue. The next day, I asked my host sister what it was. She said that it was deer's blood mixed with vodka, and they drink it because an old Kazakh legend says it will make people strong. I'm still not sure if this is true, because every Kazakh person I've asked says that it's true, and every person who is not Kazakh has never heard of it. Either way, I have not seen it again.

• Eating horse meat. A lot of volunteers who come to Kazakhstan complain about the quality of the meat. As I learn more about the culture here, I am beginning to believe that it is not the quality of the meat that is lacking, but instead there is an emphasis on eating the fat. Where Americans like meat with as little fat as possible, here in Kazakhstan they like the opposite. For the past couple of weeks, I was avoiding the fat, and then one day, there was a chuck of meat that didn't have fat on it. It reminded me of roast beef. It was even better with Tabasco. As is my usual custom, I asked them afterwards what type of meat it was, and my host mother said that is was horse. This was a great cultural exchange for both of us, because she thought that I would run away or be grossed out (as the past volunteer did after hearing the news) which I wasn't, and I experienced eating horse. Actually, it is the best meat I have eaten in Kazakhstan.

• Eating the previous mentioned item for breakfast and lunch and dinner the next day. Leftovers are taken seriously, and here it means "eat it until it is gone". With something big like a horse, it can take a little while to finish, even with people coming over and "ghosting". While it may sound disconcerting to eat leftovers, it's not so bad. For the first couple of days. Tabasco helps.

• Drinking at 9am on Sunday morning. My host family's grandfather came "ghosting" at 9am on Sunday, and because we had not met each other, demanded that we have a toast with vodka. 2 hours later and a third of the bottle consumed (mostly by him and not me), he announced that we knew each other very well, and as I left to go do some work, he kissed me on the cheek and said in Kazakh that I was like a grandson to him.

• This story is referred to as the "chicken disaster". My Russian language group wanted to cook some popular Kazakhstan dishes, to which our teacher, Galina, said that if we went to the bazaar and bought the stuff ourselves we could do it. We divided up the tasks, and tromped to the bazaar. Brittany and I were supposed to get the chicken. Along the way to the bazaar, (about a 20 min. walk) we forgot the word for chicken. We thought that if we sat down for a while, we would remember. There happened to be a cafe along the way, so we took a break and wracked our brains for the right word. Eventually, Brittany drew a picture of a chicken and showed it to the waitress, and she told us. Armed with the new knowledge, we bought the chicken and took it to class, where the Galina looked at it and told us that we were ripped off (because the word for chicken and the word for chicken fat is a one syllable difference). She promptly went back to the bazaar with me, yelled at the seller, and got our money back. Galina=awesome

Karabulak

After the whirlwind of site announcements we had the counterpart conference. I'd go into more details, but it was pretty straightforward: Meet the person who you will initially work with and serve as the link between you and your organization/NGO. I really like my counterpart; she has a great sense of humor, when I can understand her Russian. She can speak really fast.

After that, all of the Trainees with their counterparts went to go visit for 1 week where they will be living and working for the next two years.

I arrived in Karabulak on Friday night, and was dropped off at my temporary host family for the week. I quickly met Anne, the current volunteer in Karabulak, and then ate dinner and went to bed. The rest of the week passed quickly. Here is a snapshot of the notable things that happened:

• Went to Taldykorgon, and met 3 of the Kaz-19's who stay in the Taldy area. They, in short are amazing, very nice, and know a lot about the area.

• Had a running three-day battle with 2 angry dogs. The story goes like this: whenever I would go to the outhouse, the dogs would get really angry. There was lots of snarling from the dogs and lots of rock throwing on my part. No one was injured until midweek, when I hit one of the dogs with a well placed rock. After that, they left me alone.

• Started to learn about the Community Learning Center (CLC). Because the goal of this blog is to show a little bit about working in an Kazakhstan NGO as well as Peace Corps life, I'll explain more about the CLC later (when I get a better idea of how to articulate what type of organization they are.)

• I found a potential language tutor; a very excitable lady who doesn't speak one word of English. During our lessons, our common language is not English or Russian, but German. I now am very glad that I kept up my German skills after returning from my study abroad experiences in Freiburg.

• Found a host family. PC regulations state that you must live with a host family for the first 6 months at site. I think this is a good thing, because it helps your language and get involved with the community. My future hosts are really nice, in the bubbly sort of way. I think we will get along just fine.

This is just a very vague (and fast) summary of the week. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything that I learned and that happened to me this week. What I do know is this:

1. My organization has a lot of potential. I think that if things go well, some big things will happen in the next two years.
2. What makes Karabulak attractive to me is not the scenery (average) or the area (rural, which I was not expecting), but the people and the organization are top notch. Minus the children in school, every person that I've met in the town has been very, very, nice and welcoming, and I am thankful for that
   

The "Great" Site Announcement

Site announcement was today, and depending on who you ask in the Kaz 20 OCAP group, it was either the greatest day since arriving in the country, or just another day. I tend to fall in the middle of the two opinions.


What happened was this: We were all placed down in a room, with inspirational quotes on the walls and all of the PC Kazakhstan staff present. A couple of people did some speeches, and then they uncovered a huge map of Kazakhstan with yurts over the areas where we would go (yurts are Kazakh traditional houses). Our task was to go to the map, and find the yurt that had a piece of paper with our name on it and the organization we'd be working for.


It felt like we were in the NBA draft. Melanie had the first "pick" (the sites are already predetermined) and ended up in Aktobe, a city way to the west in Kazakhstan. She'll have a really long train ride to get there, but said she was way excited because she will be working with women, and that's what she really wanted to do. I think that she's going to do some awesome work there.


Others went, and some screamed in joy, laughed, jumped up and down, and were generally happy with where they were placed. I was happy for them. Soon it came my turn.


I found I was placed in a town called Karabulak, which is north of Almaty by a couple of hours, and really close to city called Taldykorgon.

Here is a map of Karabulak. It seems that I will be really close to China.

When I found out where I would work, I really wasn't disappointed or happy. The "Where" part of the "Great Site Announcement" didn't excite me. I didn't care if I was sent to the North, South, or West. There are seasons in Kazakhstan. No matter how cold (or how hot) the weather will change. Even the coldest areas in North Kazakhstan get to about 65-70 degrees in the summer, and it can dip below freezing in the south during winter. However, the job does not change, and to get stuck in a bad job on the other side of the world would be my personal version of Hell.


Next they passed out folders with information about the NGO we'd be working for. For some people, there was a lot of info, for others, there was nothing because their NGO's are so new or they did not have a volunteer before.


As for my sheet: I did not find it initially useful. It said who I was working for, my counterpart, and information on Karabulak, but upon closer examination, I couldn't get a sense of what the NGO specializes in. This lead me to the conclusion that there will be a lot of different types of work to do. It also seems like there will be the potential for me to do a lot of fundraising activities. This makes me really happy and relieved, because I feel that the choice I made in turning down grant writing internships in Chicago to do the Peace Corps has now been validated.


However, I still refuse to be excited, because I do not feel that I know enough to be excited. I do not know my counterpart and have not seen the organization. This will come later when I visit Karabulak in the coming weeks. Basically there is a lot that I do not know, and today only helped minimally in changing that.


So all in all, the "Great Site Announcement" in my opinion was like the most recent NBA draft: an anti-climatic feel-good event that is over hyped and tends to leave people with more questions than answers. However, there is some relief that comes in finding out things that make the future a little less murky.

Crawling in the Dark

Since moving to Kazakhstan and to the town of Issyk, my life has settled into something like a routine. I wake up at 7am, eat breakfast and complain about getting up so early with my host mother and then trudge to Russian class at 8. We have non-stop Russian until 12:30. After Russian, I go back home and eat lunch with my host sister, and then go to technical sessions in the afternoon on safety, security, Kazakh culture, and how to work with NGO’s. You get the picture.

The view from my window

After all of the sessions, I go home, eat dinner, study Russian, watch a Turkish soap opera on TV with my host mom and sister, and then go to sleep around 10 I the same thing on every day except Sunday.

On the surface, the ability to have a routine has been great for my acclimation to the culture and language learning. However I’ve found myself as of late beginning to get restless under this routine, because training, living in Issyk, and PST are temporary things. Where will I go in Kazakhstan after training is done? I’ve always had a problem with being told what to do if I cannot see the bigger picture, or what role I have in creating the picture.

The people who run training as well as other volunteers have been extremely tight-lipped about letting any information slip. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but after spending a little under 2 of my 4 years in college as a pledge in various *secret* Fraternities and otherwise, having someone say, “you’ll find out later”, “we can’t tell you”, or some other roundabout answer doesn’t bother me as much.

I will find all of these things at what is called the “site naming ceremony, which from what I can gather, is just that: a ceremony where all of the trainees learn about the sites and organizations where they will be living and working for the next 2 years. Sometimes the site announcement ceremony sounds like some sort of induction to a secret club, just like in the movies. However Peace Corps is supported by the United States government and Congress and not by some college students looking for a laugh or inner truth, so I expect that there will be no capes, candles, goats or other animals, chanting, or any of the stuff on Old School.

Maybe I will be sent to North Kazakhstan, where it has already been below freezing since mid September. Perhaps I will end up in South Kazakhstan, in a Kazakh community (which would be funny, but not really because I only know 5 sentences in Kazakh). Maybe I will live to the west, on the steppe, or maybe I will be assigned in a small village close to Issyk and the relative safety of Almaty. I feel fine with all of those possibilities, because no matter where I go, I will have to adapt. Whether that is finding a warm coat, buckling down and learning Kazakh, or something else, I know I will have to make adjustments. Adjusting to what…that is the question.

Pictures!

Someone who was really smart once said, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I think they may be on to something.

I see this donkey every morning from my window without fail at 7:30AM.

The waterfall, in the mountains close to Issyk. It's not very big, but it's pretty cool.

More of the mountain/hill range close to Issyk

My host brother. He's got a great sense of humor...but I'm not sure if everything he tells me is true, because he likes to joke with me.

The town of Issyk

"Busy? With what?"

I have been in Kazakhstan for exactly one month. However, due to being busy and having limited access to the Internet, I imagine this will take a little bit longer to post.

Since arriving in Kazakhstan, I haven't talked to a lot of my friends and family at home nor had time or capability to send emails until recently. This is because I have been very busy.

"Busy? With what?" asked the Green-Eyed lady and my best friend from St. Kathy's, who I was been lucky enough to talk on the phone once since arriving here.

Simply put, I've been busy with Peace Corps Training (referred to as PST). PST occupies my time from 8am-whenever we are done, Monday- Saturday. The goals of PST are to enable people to become volunteers by giving them knowledge and tools to be successful in Kazakhstan. That's right, I'm not a volunteer yet. But I hope to be in November. Until then, I've been busy with:

• Learning Russian and Kazakh
• Learning how to survive in a drastically different culture
• Working with a Kazakhstani NGO
• Teaching English
• Eating

Thus I've had no time to actually write anything of substance, because when I do have time, I am eating or sleeping.

In the meantime, I've written some emails in which I've explained some of the things I am doing. While this may seem like the "cheater's way out" of blogging, this will have to do until I have some time to create a proper update, which I hope will happen sometime in the near future. They are dated on the day I wrote them, so you will have to scroll down to read them.

Enjoy!

~Kyle

Letter: Weather Report

In a letter to everyone, and possibly you:

...I arrived safely in Kazakhstan and the last month has been a whirlwind of learning Russian and Kazakh, teaching some English, and working for a local NGO. So far, I am enjoying my time here and am learning a lot. Between now and November I am living in a small town called Issyk, which is located about 50 km from a major city called Almaty. I am living with a wonderful host family that feeds me too much (every day my host mother says that she must fatten me up for the winter). However, there may be some truth to her words: already the weather gets below freezing at night and during the day heats up to about 50. Issyk is in the southeastern corner of Kazakhstan, and there have already been reports of snow and freezing temps during the day in some of the northern areas (think Siberia)...

Letter: About my current NGO, and the Kazakh language

In a letter to my best friend of the old school:

...My practicum is in a small village called Enbek with an NGO called the International Ecological Association of the Women of the Orient. This is horrible to say in Russian or Kazakh, and one of my goals before I go is to get them to use an abbreviation. I'm lucky to work with this particular NGO, because it is one of the oldest NGO's in Kazakhstan and it has a fair amount of resources.

NGO's were not allowed under communism, but once Kazakhstan declared its independence, a lot of NGO's sprung up in the country. The Women of the Orient was one of the first in the country and initially focused on pressuring the Kazakhstan and Chinese governments to shut down and clean up many of the contaminated nuclear test sites in East Kazakhstan and west China. They also raised money to airlift radiation sick women and children to Russia where they could get treatment. Now the NGO has changed its focus to empowering village women through a variety of programs. The program that I am working on now is assisting the NGO with putting on a job fair. The success with this has been hit or miss, due to translation problems and cultural misunderstandings, but we get by. So far I've created an action plan for the fair which we will present to the local government in Issyk to get their approval. Nothing moves without the government.

About the Kazakh language: The two main ethnic groups here are Russian and Kazakh. Everyone knows Russian, but many Kazakhs also speak Kazakh, which is very interesting: It uses the Cyrillic alphabet with some other letters thrown in and borrows a lot of Russian words.

In addition, Kazakh is making a comeback in business and the government. Knowing some Kazakh will be useful and critical if I am placed in a Kazakh speaking NGO (or if I live in the south).

Anyway, it is possible to get by with just speaking Russian, because everyone knows it. But among Kazakhs, if you speak Kazakh to them, even just 10-15 sentences, they will be happy, as many Kazakhs are intensely proud of their language, especially in South Kazakhstan. For example, I said my first sentences in Kazakh last week to my host mom, who then said something about me being her second son. This is after 3 weeks of conversing in Russian.

I have never been so proud of learning new languages until now. It is awesome to be able to switch from English to Russian to Kazakh (although I am horrible at the latter 2), but with the intensive learning I am receiving, I feel that I am increasing in ability every day. Each day I can say a little bit more to my host family, and for the first time I got a compliment for my language skills by my host mom. Compliments are hard to come by here...

~Kyle

Reintroduction, and what I have done and will be doing in the near future

Hello everyone!

I've been writing in this blog detailing my experiences in the Peace Corps, but did not tell anyone about it until now. I did this because this blog is about me in Kazakhstan. I'm still not there. I leave tomorrow morning.

However, now that I've sent out e-mails detailing what I'm doing, where I'm going and how to access this, I wanted to make sure that newcomers to this blog (well...everyone!) to know what they can expect from reading this.

First, I'd go back and read my first post . While badly written, it lays the groundwork for everything else.

So, a quick recap of my past couple of days as I think of them, and what I will be doing in the next couple of days:

• I am in Philadelphia, where I have just completed Peace Corps Staging. Staging is a small conference where we learn about basic Peace Corps policy
• I leave for Kazakhstan tomorrow. I go through these intense feelings thinking about it: joy, impatience, nervousness, and pure terror. In less than 24 hours, I will be in a country where the only Russian words I know are my name, the word apple, and the sentence "this is my family". A great start, right?
• I ate a Philly Cheese steak today. I wasn't impressed, but I'm not a big meat eater anyway. I'm glad I tried it though.
• The best thing about PC Staging: You meet people who can relate to why you are deciding to move across the world to help people, and they think it's quite natural and not crazy.
• The worst thing about PC Staging: It can get intense, and tedious filling out paperwork, but it is for everyone's good.

Tonight will be spent typing, finishing some grant reviews, and packing. Tomorrow is a new day, and a new country. Here's hoping that all goes well!

~K-Chuck

By the Numbers: Last Days Before Staging

5- Hours I slept since Friday night

8- Rollercoasters ridden (Six Flags!!)

3- Number of times I had Mexican food on Saturday

5- Number of times I went to Target on Saturday

0- Hours I slept Saturday night

15+ Number of times Mom asked if I had everything

Below 10: Number of times I said yes to Mom's question of whether I have everything

2- Hours it took to clean my room

15- minutes it took me to clean my Dad's Jeep

1- Number of shooting stars sighted

The Puppetbike

For those of you who live near or traveled to downtown Chicago, then you probably have seen the puppetbike. If not, then keep an eye out for it.

The puppetbike is an improvised stage box for hand puppets attached to a bike. The puppets range from alligators to cute cats and the hidden talented hand puppeteers have some pretty entertaining shows. The green eyed lady and I came across them in Chicago over the weekend and the show they performed put a smile on my face. It really is a sight to see!

Packing!

One thing that I've found to be very stressful in my days leading up to leaving is figuring out what to pack. Kazakhstan is a country of extremes, with temperatures going consistently below zero in the winter to over 100 degrees in the summer. Since it is summer, it is almost impossible to find clothing that would keep me warm during the winter in stores. In addition, I had to buy lots of new work clothes, which are a pain to pack. Based on some emails and conversations with current Peace Corps volunteers, the common message has been "less is better because you will be carrying your bags for long distances. With that in mind, this is my list of what I'll be taking:

• 7 t-shirts
• 2 long sleeved t-shirts
• 2 pairs of jeans
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 2 windbreaker/lounge pants
• 5 pairs of normal socks
• 4 pairs of wool socks ( These should help against the cold)
• 3 pairs of dress socks
• 1 black suit
• 1 bathing suit
• 7 ties
• 5 long sleeve dress shirts
• 2 short sleeve dress shirts
• 1 reversible brown/black belt (I'm happy about this!)
• 1 pair of dress shoes
• 1 pair sneakers
• 1 pair flip-flops
• 1 pair soccer shoes
• 1 pair of thermal underwear
• 1 light wind/rainproof jacket
• 1 fall pea coat
• toiletries
• 1 small handtowel
• 1 laptop and cds
• ipod

All of this stuff will be crammed into a large suitcase and a large duffel bag. Knowing that there will be things I wish I didn't bring (and stuff I'll realize later that I should have taken with me), I think this can get the job done for now. But knowing me, this list will change up to the second that I check my bags.

My Nissan 240 SX

Because I will not need a car while I am in the Peace Corps, I placed an ad on Craigslist to sell my car, a gray 1990 Nissan 240 SX. Although the car is old, movies and video games such as The Fast and the Furious and the Need for Speed made the car popular with car tuners and mechanics. Although I knew about the popularity of the car, I was astonished about the amount of calls I had after placing the ad.


Just after only 2 days of placing the ad, I sold the car to a young mechanic. He said that his original plan was to place some modifications on it and sell it, but he may keep it because cars with flip up headlights are hard to find.


To many, it was too loud (because I put in a new exhaust system), too low to the ground(but I didn't mind), unsuitable for Iowa winters due to its rear wheel drive(parking lot doughnuts, anyone?), and downright dangerous because it lacked airbags, but I liked that car a lot.

To me, that some of the most memorable moments of high school happened in or around that car: hanging out after the halftime marching band shows, awkward dances and dates, and splitting a 24 pack of Mountain Dew with Aaron J. while rocking out to Tenacious D's "Tribute". It was in that car that I had my first encounter with the police, where I and a good friend were falsely accused of burglary because the thief got away in a car with flip up headlights like mine.

In college I used it to escape the "bubble" of my university,to transport a whole drumset or string bass to the jazz gigs that paid my rent, and made countless 3am trips to McDonalds and Dennys where my fraternity brothers and I discussed football, alien probes, the next great prank or whatever else was on our minds while waiting for the sunrise and 8am class.

I am sure going to miss those headlights.

5 interesting things about Kazakhstan

For me, the first thing I did when I learned that Kazakhstan was my destination was to learn as much about the country as possible. I love studying and learning about other countries (the main reason I majored in Political Science in the first place), and already knew a little bit about the modern history of Kazakhstan through my classes. Anyway, on to my list of 5, which is in no particular order:

1)Kazakhstan is huge! According to World Info Zone.com, Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world, and one of the largest landlocked countries on Earth.

2) Kazakhstan was part of the USSR. They gained their independence in 1991 after the USSR fell apart.

2a) As a result of Soviet "influence", the two most popular languages are Russian and Kazakh.

2b) Also as a result of Soviets...the country is going though a language transition, from Russian to Kazakh. Business is done in Russian, but the Kazakh government is making a commitment to getting the country speaking Kazakh. It seems to me that people don't like it when they are forced to speak a language that isn't their own...

3)The word Kazakh, loosely translated, means "independent nomad" (according to worldinfozone.com)

4)Kazakhstan is located to the south of Russia, west of Mongolia, is north of Uzbekistan, shares a border with China, and is a hell of a ways from the United States. Google it. You'll see.

5)The country of Kazakhstan is not exactly poor, as they have a lot of coal, natural gas, and oil reserves. The problem for them is that since they are landlocked, and the Russians had them under the USSR, they can't exactly ship out their resources to the world by sea or river. However, since their independence they've gotten better and have experienced a lot of economic growth by working out export deals and oil pipeline agreements with other countries, mainly Russia and China.

(Wow... all except 1 and 3 were straight from my head. I must have paid attention in the Post-Communism class after all!)

~K-Chuck

An open letter with a disclaimer

Dear Reader,

Many Peace Corps volunteers all over the world have turned to blogging. I think this is a useful and great way to convey the experiences of living and working in a foreign culture to interested people such as family, friends and others. Through blogs, many people can learn more about cultures they may never experience through the viewpoint of another. It's my wish to get started with my own blog before I start my own journey through the Peace Corps. This entry is part disclaimer, part introduction and part test entry so I can figure out how this works in the convenience of my home and not in a pay per minute internet cafe on the other side of the world. I'll start with the disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER PART

The opinions, viewpoints, experiences, cultural understandings and misunderstandings that are contained in this blog are from my viewpoint, and only my viewpoint. This blog does not represent the opinions of the Peace Corps, the Government of the United States or any other country's Government, my Alma Mater, my family, my friends, previous or future employers, current and previous co-workers or any other sentient being. This blog may contain an occasional entry that is borrowed from my friends, family, and/or co-workers, but only with their previous consent.

INTRODUCTION PART

Well, my name is Kyle. I graduated in May 2008 from Illinois Wesleyan University with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Sociology. During my last year in college, I applied to the Peace Corps, a process that took around 9 months. I was accepted to serve in Kazakhstan in the Organizational and Community Assistance Program (OCAP) which basically amounts to assisting a not for profit or non governmental organization (NGO).

I leave in less than a month, and am really excited to have this opportunity, as it seems like I will be fulfilling two life-goals at once: working with a not for profit or NGO and experiencing about a new culture. The reasons I have started this blog are to record many of my experiences, to give others the chance to learn about a new culture, and to give people a small glimpse of what Peace Corps service could potentially be like, although I've been told that experiences vary widely.

So, Reader, there you have it. I'll write more in the coming weeks before my departure (but not too much, because this is a blog about Kazakhstan, and I'm not there yet!)

Above all, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment!

~K-chuck