The Last Day

Today is my last day as a volunteer and my last day in Kazakhstan. Even though I will be leaving early tomorrow morning, today was busy as I was undergoing my "close my service (COS)". COSing involved chasing everyone who works in the Peace Corps office, and getting their signatures as I returned language books, closed my bank accounts, and underwent a physical. The whole process took about 5 hours. When I got the last signature, I received a handshake, a word of congratulations in Russian, and certificate of completion.

Going on my office wall...someday.

People keep on telling me that I should feel proud of myself. However, my Regional Manager said how I felt best when she took one look at me and said, "Kyle, you don't look happy. You look tired. No, that is not the word. You look exhausted." And I am. Perhaps later I'll be proud. Right now, I feel emotionally and mentally drained after running trainings, moving, and saying goodbye to everyone. I think that I need some time to process everything that I went through over the past 27 months.

And I will have some time. While I'm leaving Kazakhstan in a couple of hours, I'm not going directly back to America. When sending volunteers home, Peace Corps gives them the choice to let Peace Corps handle their travel arrangements back to their hometowns, or take the money that a ticket would be worth and make their own arrangements. A lot of my fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) took the money and are currently in Thailand, Cambodia, Russia, Europe, Africa, and Australia as they slowly make their way back to America.

I also chose the latter and with the help of my uncle, got a sweet deal on plane tickets. Therefore, my schedule for the next two weeks involves stopping in the cities of Istanbul and Miami. I will be in Iowa for Thanksgiving because my Mom told me it is unacceptable to miss another holiday.

I opted not to go straight home because the journey wouldn't be as much fun!

As for this blog, I've decided that I'll continue it until around Thanksgiving. I feel weird: I'm not a volunteer anymore, but I'm not in America. Perhaps expressing my thoughts here over the next two weeks will help me to being to make sense of how I'm feeling as I begin to reflect on my time in Kazakhstan. I know it will be a good way to process my thoughts as I begin my readjustment to America. At the very least I'll give an account of my adventures in Turkey.


Too bad that I am leaving, because in my final days I've become almost famous! A Kazakh national tv news station ran a piece on the new Kaz 22's and their swearing in ceremony, and you can see me and some of the Ecik YD volunteers on it, playing the dombra and dancing at the Swearing in ceremony. It's about a one minute video in Kazakh, and you can check it out here. I don't know what the volunteer at the end is talking about because she is speaking in Kazakh, but I'm sure it's something great because I understood the word "youth" and "food".