The 2nd Battle for my Independence

Earlier this year, I wrote about how I was planning to stay with my Karabulak host family for a total of one year; double the time of the current Peace Corps Kazakhstan requirement. When I moved to Ecik I decided that it was time to live on my own. I am happy this week because I got really, really lucky and found an apartment at a reasonable price.

Searching for a place to live was very difficult. My organization had already tried for 3 weeks to find a place before I moved. They asked everyone they knew and searched the classifieds but couldn’t find anything. I spent the first couple of days in Ecik with my director, which sounds awkward (would you want to live with your boss?) but wasn’t bad and actually was cool. At that time I was bunkering down and preparing for an extended stay because the housing search was not looking good.

There are not a lot of available apartments in Ecik. Apartments are passed down through the families, so this makes is difficult to find an open place. If a place is empty, it may be even more difficult because the owners want to know if you are trustworthy, pay your bills on time, etc, etc. The difficulty of finding a space is not only limited to Ecik, but all over Kazakhstan. I’ve heard many volunteers say, “Apartments are open in my town only when somebody dies”.

Second, apartments can be very expensive. The average for an apartment is Ecik ranges from 25-30 thousand tenge (150 tenge = 1 dollar. Do the math yourself). Volunteers work for free, but every volunteer needs to sleep and eat. If I had to pay 30 thousand tenge every month, I would be able to sleep, but not eat.

Because of these two problems, many volunteers get creative with their living arrangements. Some families have a small summer house that they are willing to rent out. Usually these are 1-2 rooms and have a bed, stove and петчка. The volunteer has to share the banya, water, and electricity with the family, but it is a cheaper alternative to an apartment.

A roommate can also help bring down the costs of living in an apartment and provide independence at the same time. This is how I found a place, although my roommate is unconventional. First, my roommate is not a person, but a crisis hotline center for women. The director of the crisis hotline visited last Friday, and my organization had a “duh” moment because they had asked everyone but her. We met, took a liking to each other (I determined that she is nice, and she determined that I was not creepy), and made this arrangement.

This sounds weird, living in someone’s working area, but it actually works out. The crisis center is located in one room of the apartment and is open from 9-5 from Monday to Friday. Women who have problems can call and talk to them to receive advice. This crisis center has a staff of 2 people, a mother and her daughter who own the apartment. Because they work from 9-5, and I work from 9-6, I rarely see them and have the place to myself on weekends. The place is large enough that our stuff does not collide. So, that is how I found “my” place: by being flexible, and having boatloads of luck fall on me.