The Goodbyes Part 1: Karabulak and Taldykorgan

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.
- Robert Southey

Over the last 27 months, I've met some really awesome people in Kazakhstan, and I am doubly lucky because not only do I know them, I call them my friends. They picked me up when I was down and showed me how to live and survive in a foreign place. We spoke different languages, had different cultures, but still found a lot to laugh and communicate about. We made great community projects, talked about some serious stuff, then laughed at each other for hours. And now with a week and 5 days until I leave, seeing my friends one more time to say goodbye and thank you is one of the most important things right now to me.

The first part of my goodbyes took me back to the friendly confines of Taldykorgan and Karabulak. Although volunteers cannot travel during the last 90 days of their service, they can go on business trips, and although I had a great time hanging out and drinking chai with my Karabulak friends and beer with my Taldykorgan pals, there was work to be had.

My goal in Karabulak was to give my old director the final report for our grant to establish Kazakh Courses. We reviewed the report together and made some corrections. She also gave me letters that were written by some of the adults who attended, as well as the teacher. Once I translate them, I'll include them in the thank you packet I created with my director to the people who donated to the project. This means that I'll make a final trip to the most stressful place in Kazakhstan, the post office, but it is the best way to convey the gratitude and thanks that the people and my director in Karabulak have.

After that, I saw my host mother one more time (she apologizes to my mother because I am so thin) and my host sister (she told me to "stay cool"). Even the woman on the 3^rd floor of the Akimat who hit on me constantly until I changed towns even came down to the 2^nd floor to say goodbye, but not without being awkward one last time by telling me it was a shame I never agreed to go on a date with her while her boyfriend was standing next to her. Everyone thought this was funny. The boyfriend did not. I just felt awkward. And on that note, I hopped into a taxi and left Karabulak for Almaty.

To get to Almaty from Karabulak, one must find a taxi in Taldykorgan. Because I had some time to kill, I took a long walk around town for the last time to reminisce in my own head about the good and bad (but mainly good) memories that happened there. I started by the (in)famous club Luxor, now renamed, renovated into a café, and not as shady, although I will never ever go inside again. From there I walked past "the apartment"; the place where almost every male Kaz-19 volunteer in Taldykorgan lived at one time or another. There used to be a cat that lived under the door (the local kids called it "garbage"), but it's not there anymore. From there, I went past the Oblast Akimat, past Hessen Pub, turned left at Shashlyk Place and strolled down the Arbot. By then, it was time to go.

(Photo Captions:1^st: Kazakh Courses in Action. Currently 44 adults and 8 youth attend the classes.

2^nd: Counterparts, friends, and my babushka in Karabulak. They'll always have a place in my heart, even though they loved to laugh at the awkward things that would happen to me.)

What’s in my iTunes: Popular music in Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan I've found that music fills a critical void in my life, mainly because it has helped me retain what little sanity I have left. Whenever things get a bit too much, a couple of hours listening to music calms me down.

Many of my favorite memories over the past two years involve music. The night I was sworn in as a volunteer, I bonded with the Kaz 19s near Taldykorgan by singing along to old school music videos on MTV piped in from Russia and drinking beer. Other memories regarding music also pop into my mind: impromptu dance parties in my host family’s living room, listening to traditional Kazakh songs on the dombra during Naruyz, and having musical adventures in Taldykorgan by rocking out in a bar until 3am.

I’ve found music to be a great way to foster cultural exchange. Many youth in Kazakhstan like rap and can name at least one American rapper (usually Tupac or Jay-Z), yet get really interested when I start talking about the *other* American musical forms, like jazz, the blues, and even (god forbid) country. Over the past 2 years I’ve also found music to be an easy way to practice Russian and Kazakh on my own. I’ve even taken a liking to Kazakh rap/R&B, and Russian pop. I’ve found that looking up lyrics and matching them with my dictionary is a good way to learn some new words.

So what have I been listening to over the past two years? What’s hot in Kazakhstan? Here are three groups/artists that enjoy a fair bit of airplay in Kazakhstan and on my Itunes player:

5ivesta Family, "Зачем" (Why?)

Who they are: A pop group from Russia...became pretty popular in 2009

Why I like them: Their lyrics are easy enough to follow, and their songs usually have a “rap break” that’s pretty cool. Russian rap is my guilty pleasure. And their lead singer’s cute. My counterpart just shakes her head in shame whenever she catches me singing along, but I don’t care. In addition, they have a number in their name, and only the coolest people and musical groups can pull that off, like 311, Pope John Paul II, and Ochocinco.

What’s this video about?: This guy sees a woman, and falls in love with her. He keeps on giving her compliments, and gifts, and she accepts them but she won’t give him a definite answer to whether she feels anything toward him and usually will dance with him in the club, but he “goes home alone”. She doesn’t love anyone else, but keeps on kind of stringing him along because there’s no one else around. So the natural question to ask is “Why?", which is the title and the refrain of the song.

Russian pop: my guilty pleasure

Ерболат - "Мен Казакпын" (Yerbolat - I am Kazakh)

Who is he : Yerbolat is a Kazakh rapper/R&B singer, and is pretty popular all over Kazakhstan. Whenever I go to a school assembly, concert, ceremony, one of his songs is usually played as an intro. He even gets some airplay at weddings.

Why I like him: Yerbolat has figured out how to blend Kazakhstan’s old history with new beats, and makes it sound very cool in the process. Many of his songs feature the dombra and several other traditional instruments. He also raps frequently about Kazakhstan (and even follows the American rap music tradition of making fun of other regions in Kazakhstan…East Coast vs. West Coast anyone?), in Kazakh, the national language. Yerbolat also has some pretty intense music videos, including one which basically involves people fighting in a boxing ring, dog fights, and copious amounts of him and his crew firing machine guns in the air because that’s awesome. If you are into that sort of thing.

I’ve also heard that he’s originally from Taldykorgan, which is just further proof in my mind that Taldykorgan is the best city in Kazakhstan.

What’s the video about?: This music video shows the highlights of Kazakhstan’s history, with images of the old mosque in Turkestan, the Soviet takeovers and uprisings after the first world war, the first space flight (everyone knows that the Russians launched the first manned space flight. What people don’t know is that it was launched from Kazakh soil), nuclear tests and protests, the rise of Astana, and ends with some footage of Kazakh athletes in the Beijing Olympics. Yerbolot’s the guy with the microphone.

When I get back to America, and people ask me "what's Kazakhstan?" I think I'll just show them this video

Alexander Rubak “Fairytales”

Who is he: A wicked talented dude who is rumored to have a nasty mean streak behind stage. He was born in Belarus, but then moved to Norway. You can read more about him here.

Why I like him: This guy sings in English, but I don’t think I would have never heard of him unless I lived in Europe or Asia. He won Eurovison 2009 with the highest score ever, which is like "American Idol", except every country sends their best musical act. He plays the violin, and actually makes it look awesome (I’m not a violin fan, but he makes it look cool). I like his lyrics and his songs have a lot of energy, the type that makes people get up and dance in crazy circles, myself included. In my mind, he’s what Jack Johnson should have been if he was awesome.

What’s the video about: At this point, your English is probably better than mine. So sit back, listen, and figure it out.

Playing the violin has never looked so cool.

Unfinished Work

in the hills and mountains overlooking Almaty on a hazy day

After doing some hiking in the hills and mountains above Almaty, I took a quick trip to Karabulak. My reason: to check up on our grant project and grab documents to start the final report. My grant project involved starting Kazakh classes for adults in Karabulak, a large village and my old site. You can read about the details about the project here.

When I got transferred to Issyk last year, I had a talk with my old director and Peace Corps about continuing the project. Because I was leaving Karabulak, I was given a choice: either scrap the project, or continue on remotely. I decided to do the latter, mainly because I knew how excited the community was about this project. Although I wouldn’t be able to come to Karabulak as much as I’d like (I originally planned on visiting once a month, but things got in the way), we had so many community partners like the local government, schools, teachers, and interested people that I was confident that it would still be successful without me being around every day. When we received the funds in early December, we went to Karabulak and bought the materials to build tables, chairs, a whiteboard, and the books. I haven’t been back since.

Going back to Karabulak wasn’t as weird as the first time. It was as if I never left. My host mother still scolded me in rapid fire Russian about how I need to eat more. My old director still told everyone about how I thought I almost blew up my host families house. The young woman on the third floor of the Akimat (government building) building still hit on me, and I still shot her down like I did during the 10 months I worked there. And everyone thought this awkward exchange was just as funny as the first time it happened.

Some things never change.

But what did change was the project. For the first time, I got a chance to see everything first hand. In the basement of the Akimat, a huge room was converted into a classroom. I saw all of the chairs and tables we bought in December. In addition to the Kazakh/Russian textbooks we bought, I saw 9 Kazakh/Russian Dictionaries. I asked my director where they came from, and she said that they were donated. My director and I then went to lunch with my host mother, and while we ate she told more about our project.

She said that after I left in December, they built the tables, found a teacher, and organized everything. In the first group, 30 adults came, but 7 dropped out because there was “no homework”. They finished the basic course, and then the community decided that the courses be opened for youth in the summer. Currently 10 kids are taking Kazakh courses. Since I left, Karabulak has had 3 different Akims (mayors), and each endorsed the project. Furthermore, the current Akim said that as long as the courses are going and that there is interest in the community, that the utilities and rent will be free, and they will continue to pay the salary of the teacher indefinitely.

It also seems that the community has plans to expand the courses. Karabulak has a sizable portion of emigrated Kazakhs from China. Although it is way complicated, the short story about them is that they left for the western portions of China when the Soviets came into Kazakhstan. Because they left so long ago, they did not learn Russian. Many do not speak Chinese, although some families have lived there for over 50 years. They only speak Kazakh. And although Kazakh is an official language, enough people in Karabulak (and nearby Taldykorgan) speak Russian, so that knowing some Russian is very helpful. Therefore, people in the town are looking at starting a Kazakh - Russian course, where people who only know Kazakh can learn some Russian. This has been pushed especially by the director of the local hospital (where I went the first time I was hospitalized), who says that his doctors, who are mostly Russian and Korean, are having a hard time properly treating people. It’d be easier, he said if his patients knew some Russian, in addition to the Kazakh that his staff knows.

But overall, everyone is very happy and proud of the project, and it looks like it is going to continue in the future. I had a fun time running around Karabulak talking to the stakeholders and getting their accounts of how the project progressed as well as collecting receipts for their purchases chairs and books. With their stories, and what I have saw, writing the final report will be an easy process, one that I hope to complete by the end of September.

The thing that makes me the happiest is that the people who donated to the project were not forgotten. “Do you know who they are? Do you have their information? We’d like to thank them!” I was told on several occasions. While I do not know all of the people who gave to the project, they said that when I come back for the final time, they will have something for me to give to the people that I know who donated, either personally or through the official donor list that Peace Corps provided me earlier during the summer.

What they are planning to do, I do not know, and they wouldn’t tell me. But the main message from the people of Karabulak to everyone who made this project possible, named or unnamed is a hearty thank you. And also a thank you from me.

I had pictures, but my USB on my camera is corrupted, and need to get another. My old director said that she will send them to me. When I get them, I’ll post them.

If it takes a village to raise a child, can a town teach me Kazakh?

I'm taking a temporary break from my Russian language studies to focus on learning Kazakh.

All OCAPs (the NGO and community development volunteers) learn mainly Russian during training but receive a couple of lessons in Kazakh. If a trainee is paying attention in the lessons, at the end of training OCAP volunteers can usually count to 10, give their names, and say they are an American Peace Corps volunteers in Kazakh. Except for the various words I've picked up over the last year, this is my current level.

I've waited until now to seriously concentrate on Kazakh because I wanted to learn enough Russian first to survive and be able to work. Kazakh is not critical for my work, as everyone in my organization speaks Russian. All of our documents are in Russian, and all of our donors speak Russian and English. Many of the people in my office speak Kazakh. They gladly speak to me in Russian and rarely use Kazakh if there is a Russian speaker in the room unless they are very angry. They also speak in Kazakh when they joke about me getting married. They know I understand, but this doesn't stop them. It's become a running joke.

I also do not need Kazakh for my personal life in Kazakhstan. Russian and Kazakh are the official languages of Kazakhstan, and many people in Esik speak both. I've learned that how you greet someone determines the language that the conversation will be in. For example, if I say hello in Russian, we will speak in Russian. If I say hello in Kazakh, we will speak in Kazakh. Or, we will speak in Kazakh for 2 minutes, and then I get the "I don't know what you are talking about" look in my eyes. I hope this will change as I learn more.

In addition, chances are that I will not need Kazakh for my future life after Peace Corps. Many universities have Russian programs, but only a handful has Kazakh programs (I will buy an ice cream cone for anyone who can list more than 8 universities in the United States where the Kazakh language is offered). Even if I pursue a career that requires traveling internationally, Russian will be more useful than Kazakh. Russian is the official language of several countries in the former USSR, and is still spoken heavily in other countries that have switched back to their original languages pre Soviet occupation. It's even one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations (The other five are English, Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish).

And Kazakh? Not as popular on the world stage. Actually, it's not very popular at all outside of Kazakhstan. There are some Kazakh communities in the UK, Germany, China and the US, but outside of Kazakhstan the language is spoken by very few. Kazakh helps when going to many of the other Central Asian countries as some (but not all) of the languages in the region are related. For example, Kyrgyz is really close to Kazakh, to the point that it is possible for a person from Kyrgyzstan can converse with a person in Kazakhstan in their own languages and be generally understood.

I'm not bad mouthing Kazakh or diminishing the importance of the language. In fact, I feel that Kazakh it is important to the development and culture of this country. It's only to make the point that nobody is forcing me to learn Kazakh. Not Peace Corps, not my organization, and defiantly not the occasional taxi driver that rants about how I should have learned Kazakh first (ironic, that this rant is usually in Russian, or broken English). This is totally my initiative, my choice. I'm learning it because I want to; because I think that learning Kazakh will maximize my cultural experiences here.

I won't lie. It's a tough language. Kazakh has 42 letters, the verbs (are they verbs?) are at the ends of the sentence, and Kazakh has a system where pronouns are tacked onto the ends of other words. It's really confusing, especially to me because I've had "subject, verb, predicate" engrained in my head from English and German lessons and Kazakh throws all of that to the wind. I don't expect to get really good at speaking Kazakh. In fact, if I am able to hold a serious conversation for 10 minutes in Kazakh by this time I leave, I will be happy.

I thought about getting a Kazakh tutor to help my learning, but this idea was smashed down by my office. We argued about it for about an hour last Monday, and I was clearly on the losing side. "Why spend money on a tutor?" they told me in Russian. "If you try to speak Kazakh, we will help you. Everyone will help you!" As this week went on, I've learned that so far they are right.

I've started using what Kazakh I know when I can. When I go to the bazaar, I ask for products in Kazakh. When I order food, I do it in Kazakh. I ask questions in Kazakh. So far, I've been amazed at the patience, kindness, and how helpful everyone is when I try to speak Kazakh, from both friends and strangers alike. If what I say is not right, I usually get corrected. This happens often. For example, I got an impromptu grammar lesson on how to stress Kazakh words on a bus from a babushka. If things get too intense, I fall back onto Russian, and everything eventually gets smoothed out.

The best reaction I had this week was from two small boys, not more than 8 years old playing outside. I greeted them and asked how they were doing in Kazakh. As I walked away from them, I heard them say in Russian, "Oh God! He knows Kazakh!"

I don't. But I'm trying.

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