Istanbul

Kazakhstan Peace Corps volunteers, if you are looking for a cheap and easy vacation destination outside of Kazakhstan, I’d recommend Istanbul. If you get a ticket far enough in advance flying from Almaty to Istanbul isn’t expensive (around 400 USD round trip), visas are cheap (20 USD!!), and the food is amazing. They have lots of fruit! The city is easy to navigate and people speak English. Kazakh speakers will be pleasantly surprised: Kazakh numbers and certain food items are close to Turkish. I was very impressed with the city! This year Istanbul was awarded the 2010 European Capital of Culture, which is pretty cool. After hanging out in Ephesus, Ashley and I came back to Istanbul. Here is a list of some of my favorite things to do there:

1: See the whirling Dervishes. You can read more about them here. Basically they are an old Islamic sect that expresses their connection with the world and music and spinning in circles. Spinning allows them to feel connected to everything: people, the planet, and even electrons. The music is pretty awesome, and watching these guys twirl is pretty awesome.

2: Sit at a café, drink Turkish coffee, smoke a hookah, and watch the world go ‘round. I rarely drink coffee and smoke but I’d highly recommend everyone to take a couple of hours to hang out at a café, drink Turkish coffee, fire up a hookah and watch the world go by. Turkey and Istanbul in particular, is a crossroads of East and West, and it’s so interesting to see the diversity and watch everyone moving about and doing their thing.

3: Learn about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - if it wasn’t for this man, Turkey as a modern nation wouldn’t exist. Ataturk is to Turkey what George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., JFK, Abraham Lincoln and Rambo are to America. Seriously. People in Turkey love this man, and his name and face is on everything. Never mind the small fact that he’s been dead for awhile now.

Why do Turkish people hold him in such high regard? Read this account on Ataturk from one of my favorite websites of all time, www.badassoftheweek.com. I dig this site because it features articles on historical figures, real life people and the occasional mythical creature and the over the top, badass, things they did. (Warning: contains profanity…and lots of references to groin kicks, so be careful!).

4: Go to a Museum, Palace, or Mosque- The three main things to see in Istanbul are the Aya Sophia (museum) Blue Mosque, and the Tokapi Palace. They all are about a 10 minute walk from each other. There are also a ton of other museums to see (although the one I was looking forward to the most, the Museum of Ataturk was closed). It would take weeks to explore them all.

Blue Mosque

The most interesting things I saw were in the Palace. My friend Rachel turned me on to finding religious relics. I thought that only Christians and Catholics were into saving stuff from influential people and events, but in Turkey I learned that almost every major religion has some sort of relic. Turkey’s relics were acquired from Jerusalem and the West Bank through the mess with the crusades and from when the Ottoman Empire was a big deal. There are tons of relics and awesome stuff to see in Istanbul and especially in the palace such as Moses’ staff that parted the Red Sea, the Prophet’s Mohamed teeth and beard hairs, some really big swords and a diamond as big as your face.

5: Buy cat food – Istanbul is a cat city: they are everywhere: climbing on buildings, hanging out on street signs, and just wandering around. Most of them are nice and you can pet them for a very long time. It’s easier if you have food, but it’s not required, as the cats will love you anyway. After the rigors of Peace Corps, making a cat purr is very therapeutic.

6: Take a side road – Istanbul has a lot of tourist areas, but the vibe of the city changes even if you wander off onto a side road. You don’t even have to go far; just going one block from the popular Taksim square yields quiet neighborhoods, tiny (and cheap) cafes, and really nice people. Tourists don’t frequent these areas, which makes it even better. I had a “Peace Corps moment” when I entered a small café asking for directions for the Museum of Ataturk. The owner made eat lunch with her family, saying “Eat, Eat” about 10,000 times in Turkish (which sounds a lot like the Russian word for eat, or she was saying the Russian word for “eat”), and I sat and hung out with her and her husband for a half hour. They flipped out when I told them I was looking for the Museum of Ataturk, and proceeded to give me the long version of his life and how awesome he was in Turkish. We barely understood each other (German was our common language, and we both spoke it poorly), but the kindness was clear.

7: Go to the Spice (Egyptian) bazaar – Do not buy anything in the grand bazaar, as things are really expensive and it feels more commercialized, much like a mall. I prefer the spice bazaar, which feels more like an authentic bazzar and has stuff regular people buy like spices, fish, and cheeses. It’s a good place to see a real bazaar in action, but watch your valuables and mentally change your opinions on personal space before entering. I would recommend buying something small, maybe a kilogram of Turkish delight or an evil eye, just to get the experience of bargaining and haggling!

“I can help you spend your money!” – Turkish delight salesman in the Spice Bazzar

Chain Chomp and Northern Exposure (Kostanai)

Happy 2010! I wish I had an awesome story about New Years, but I don’t. I went to bed at 10pm and not even the neighbors lighting off fireworks and screaming “Happy New Year!” in the streets could wake me up. This is because on the next day, a fellow volunteer and I hopped on a northbound train from Almaty. Our destination: Kostanai, a city in northern Kazakhstan about 250km from Russia.

We went to help out a volunteer at her school with a winter camp. The camp was focused around learning about new cultures. I gave presentations on Jamaica and Ireland. The kids learned about the game of cricket, hurricanes, the Blue Mountains, and Bob Marley. I think my godmother would approve.

Presentation on Jamaica

We also showed how to build piñatas, a two day activity that everyone loved. The model piñata was called “Chomp” (after the Chain Chomp from Mario Brothers. Yeah, we are nerds). The kids made some really great piñatas, and loved destroying them to get the candy inside. We also cooked some Mexican rice and beans. They loved the rice (“it’s like spicy plov”, one kid told me) but generally they didn’t like the beans.

The death of Chain Chomp

Anyway I had quite a great time, and hung out with great people. I’m happy I went, even though it was in the winter and everything was frozen. It was great to get “out of my element” and see a different part of Kazakhstan. There is a lot I could write about, but to keep it as short as possible, here are 5 things that I think about regarding my trip north:

1. Things made of ice are “cool”

In Kostanai, and the surrounding towns and villages, ice sculptures are very popular. Many small towns have ice sculpturing contests, where the winner gets a prize. It’s also popular to make ice mazes, and sledding tracks in the city or town square. The temperature almost never rises above freezing, so the sculptures will last all winter.

Perhaps this is Russian Santa and the mysterious lady in blue, riding panthers? Anyway, it's pretty cool.

Ice maze.

ice slide...a hit with the kids

2.It’s cold in northern Kazakhstan, but not THAT cold all of the time.

This makes more sense when I give my definition of “THAT cold”. Simply put, it’s -40. -40: the magical temperature where both Fahrenheit and Celsius are the same. Whenever I said that I was going to Kostanai, the most popular response from both volunteer and local alike was, “oh God! It’s -40 there!” But in reality, -40 is not a normal occurrence. It happens a couple of times every winter, but not very often, and not for very long (hopefully). According to a babushka on the train who lives in a town outside of Kostanai, on average it gets to -40 perhaps 3-5 times during a normal winter season.

I’m not trying to say that winters in the north are not cold, because they plenty are. Kazakhstan is the coldest Peace Corps country. When it gets too cold things shut down. Students don’t go to school, busses don’t run, and people don’t go outside, and rightfully so.

The average temperature in the Kostani area in winter ranges between -15C to -30C (for the Fahrenheit people, this is +5 to -22). That’s pretty cold, but comparable to the cold snaps that tend to hit the Midwest every winter.

While I was there, the coldest it got was to -32C at night. That wasn’t very fun. The rest of the days were more “balmy”: usually between -15C to -25C. I was ok with the cold (as reasonably ok as a person could be when it is cold), as I followed the directions that are universal to all people in cold climates: Wear layers; it is easier to trap body heat. Don’t get wet; it will freeze and you will be miserable. Cover all exposed skin, including your face; you can get frostnip in minutes if you are not careful. Don’t lick metal poles and things made of ice; only idiots do that. Most importantly, don’t go outside if it’s too cold!

Ninjas are impervious to cold.

However, all of this doesn’t count if your coat breaks, which is what happened to me two days before we were scheduled to leave. The zipper broke while I was grabbing my backpack, and it was unfixable. Walking outside in Northern Kazakhstan without a coat is akin to suicide. Fortunately my friend Ashley patched up my coat enough so that I could stay warm long enough to run to the store to get a new one. Not only that, she was patient enough to not knock my head off while I was looking for a new coat. I hate shopping, and the Green Eyed Lady can attest to how difficult I become when it comes to buying clothes. Thanks for helping me out!

3. Train travel is boring, but it’s better than the bus.

The first time I blogged about traveling in Kazakhstan, I wrote that if I had to choose between traveling by train or bus, I wouldn’t know what to do. Now, I know. The train wins, hands down. The travel time by train from Almaty to Kostani is 36 hours by train. Even if you threatened me, I wouldn’t get on a bus for that long. Trains have bathrooms, places to sleep, and are less bumpy (mostly) than the bus. So for now the train is the victor.

4. Smartboards are awesome, and Peace Corps teachers are too.

Teaching isn’t my main job in Kazakhstan, so whenever I get to enter a school I always learn about something interesting. This time, it was the Smartboard. A smartboard is a dry erase board combined with some nifty technology that allows you to electronically write on it. It’s great for Hangman. Speaking of Hangman, the students were excellent at Hangman. I could not stump them. The hardest word I gave them was “Constitution”, and the hint that “Kazakhstan and America both have this”. It took them 5 tries and 3 letters, and they solved it.

guess the subject! The kids did it without missing a letter!

Also, Peace Corps education volunteers are pretty cool. Despite it being winter break, 2 teachers, and at least 10 kids showed up every day to the camp, even though the temperature never rose above -15C. None of them had to come. They could have stayed at home playing videogames and watching garbage on tv, but they showed up with great attitudes, ready to learn and to have fun. That’s some impressive stuff that attests to the rapport that some volunteers build with their teachers and students.

5. Even up north, speaking Kazakh can make you as awesomer than Bono

I’m still working on my Kazakh skills, but my travel mate was trained as a Kazakh speaker. By ourselves, we get by and function in Kazakhstan. Together, with her Kazakh language skills and my Russian, we became an unstoppable force of language comprehension. I won’t lie; understanding what everyone was saying, regardless of whether they were speaking in Kazakh or Russian was pretty sweet.

Kazakh is spoken up in the northern regions but Russian is more prevalent. And just the same like every other place I’ve visited in the country, people are impressed when a foreigner speaks Kazakh. Learning Kazakh is tough, especially if it isn’t your first language. Whenever I introduced my friend as a Kazakh speaker, people would smile and say “Amazing! Great job!” Then they would tell anyone in hearing range that she spoke Kazakh. They would also come over to say good job and congratulate her. This is how my travel buddy became a Rock Goddess. My favorite story about my friend’s Rock Goddess awesomeness happened when I overheard a conversation between a babushka and a male relative on the train. Her end (translated from Russian) went like this:

“There are two Americans on the train. One is normal, but the girl speaks Kazakh! I told her “great job”!

Some silence, as she listened to a question.

“Well…no, I won’t ask her to marry you!”

One day, I hope I will become that cool.

It's a....plane?

There isn't much of interest that happened this week. I'm working with my organization to finish a grant to start something like a YMCA for low income kids in the area. They have all of the right ideas and enthusiasm, but they often get off task dreaming of what type of programs we want to offer, so it is taking longer than it should.

The weather is rapidly changing. Autumn is on it's death bed, and the weather forecasters are predicting that we will have our first snowfall by Sunday. Winter is coming.

I did stumble upon this interesting short article regarding the development of private air transportation in Kazakhstan. Read it, it's not long, and I think it's an interesting great idea as long as situations like these can be avoided.

Zharkent

Since November, I have traveled more than 30 km from Karabulak only once: to Almaty for a Peace Corps seminar in March. Granted, the cities of Taldykorgan and Tekeli are less than 15 km from my town, and I have spent several weekends in both places both for work and to hang out. However I was shocked when I came to the realization that I am 1/3 done with my service but still haven’t taken any personal days and could count the cities in Kazakhstan that I had visited on one hand. That’s pretty sad.

Part of my reluctance to travel was out of fear. After the car accident I was scared to go anywhere. Train travel also didn’t appeal to me. I’ve heard weird and awkward train stories; experiences that I wasn't in a hurry to have myself until I became more confident with speaking Russian.

I also felt like I really didn’t need to go very far: I enjoy Taldykorgan and the volunteers there and Tekeli is very beautiful. I like my host family, and there is enough work in the area to keep me busy (at least for half the day).

Most importantly to me, I did not want my organization or community to think that I am gallivanting around the country and neglecting them or my work. My NGO hasn't done as much as I wanted (or as much as I think they are capable of doing), but the point is that I’m there and willing to work every day. However, after 9 months of constantly being at site I’ve found myself burning out (not because of the work) which does my NGO, my town, and me no good.

The moral of the story is that I’ve got to get out more, I need to take some personal time off and have some fun.

With all of this in mind, I traveled to a city called Zharkent to help 3 other education volunteers with an English camp at a local school. It wasn't a vacation, but it did get me out of Karabulak and I did have fun. I’m not a teacher, but I was put to work assisting the PCV’s and the school by helping them organize and create a work plan for the camp. I also taught the song “Head shoulders knees and toes” and acted as a soccer ref.


After my week at the camp I have a newfound respect for the education volunteers in Kazakhstan. I knew they worked hard, but I had no clue exactly how much until now. They endure a lot of stuff that I am lucky not to experience (this is probably better for everyone). However, they do have the ultimate advantage (or curse for some) in dealing with kids on a daily basis. In Zharkent, I enjoyed the kids. They love to have fun, love to learn, and are always curious. I liked talking to them, playing games with them, and answering their 10,000 questions. I wish that my work in Karabulak would put me in more contact with kids outside of English clubs and the occasional pickup soccer game.

As for Zharkent itself, it is about 40 kilometers from China. The city is very dusty and sandy. Although it is only a 4 hour taxi ride (2000 tenge) from Taldykorgan, I am amazed at how much the climate is different from Karabulak. It is hot and dry and there is a perpetual wind that whips sand and dirt everywhere. This created a new problem for me. I found sand and dirt under the collar of my shirt, in my hair, and in my ears every day. I wore my contacts for one painful day before switching to glasses. It rained once the whole time I was there, and it was only a 10 min downpour that didn't even soak through the ground. I was also surprised at the language breakdown: Kazakh (a lot more than Russian) is both spoken here and I even heard some Chinese in the bazaar.

The notable things I saw in Zharkent and the surrounding area were a beautiful mosque and a holy tree. The mosque, pretty but not currently in use, was made without nails to withstand the earthquakes that are prevalent in the region. I experienced the earthquake situation first hand. On my first night in Zharkent we had a magnitude 5 quake. I have never been in an earthquake before, and it was a situation that I didn’t particularly care for. Later I found out that the epicenter was less than 25km from Tekeli and, which meant that Karabulak got rattled pretty badly. When I arrived back in Karabulak, my host family was thankful; there was only minimal damage to their house. The holy tree was located slightly outside of town. The tree didn’t reach my expectations mainly because I was imagining a tree like from the Secret of Mana. The tree did have a holy vibe as people were praying around it. It is said that if you tie a piece of ribbon to a branch and walk around the tree 7 times, your wish will come true. I was in a bad mood (I was coming down with a cold/sinus infection), so I didn’t wish for anything. It is also said that if you drink the water that collects in the crevasses of the tree that it will give you good health.
All in all, Zharkent isn’t a bad place and while it wasn’t a vacation, I enjoyed my time there.