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.