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