Kaz Transportation

In the last two weeks I have been through 32 hours of train rides, 5 hours of taxi (this is a relative term in this country) rides, 4 hours on a city bus, 2 hours in a tram, 6 hours of Marchutka (a smelly van type thing). I have been inspired to write a journal entry telling the joy of the transportation of this country.

Long Distance Transport: Trains, buses, and Marchutka
To begin lets start with trains. If your lucky enough to come to this country you will inevitably have to ride on a train. Now trains are interesting because your trapped once it starts you don't stop till you get to your destination. During these for some 6 hours - for me from Almaty its 12 hours and for those unlucky fellas in the north with 30+ hours train rides. You get to meet some of the most interesting people. And every single time on a train, they will find you the most interesting thing they ever met.

In trains you have 2 economic classes:
The higher class is: Coo-peh. Basically its 4 bunks in a tiny room the size of a small apartment kitchen. Its more secure for your stuff but in the summer the close quarters with very little air circulation is insanely hot.

The lower class is: Platz-cart. It pretty much a train car with as many bunks as possible in the entire thing. While not as secure and noisy as hell you really get a feel of the people of Kazakhstan. In other words your cramped you can smell everyone but its cooler than Coo-peh in the summer and the easiest way to save money in traveling.

Commonalities about the two classes. YOU ALWAYS AVOID THE TOILET. The thing usually takes a life of its own and when compared to a nasty plane toilet its 20 times worst. The toilet has inspired my friend and I, to make a bet that he can't go the entire 2 years in service without taking a dump. (Laxative anybody, Jose gots to win this bet.) It goes without saying I won't ever go that way on a train ever.

Another interesting factoid about Kazakhstan is that since this country was ex-USSR the train lines going to any major city near the borders of Kazakhstan often cut through another country. This was a way of controlling the Soviet Satellite countries economy during Soviet times, but what it means to volunteers is that often we have to take another form of transport in conjunction to the train to get to their destination.

Buses: The buses of this country are like greyhell (greyhound) times 20. I've taken it once because the price was so cheap and I've regretted it ever since. (the story isn't so PC so ask me about it sometime and I'll tell about the experience.) Anyway buses run between major cities every night usually with multiple departures and are by far the cheapest way to travel in country. And no you couldn't pay me to look at the toilet on one of the long haul buses.

Marchutkas and Taxis
I lump these together because if you go to the villages because thats where your site is. You will inevitably have to ride either one of these. Now taxis can be just about anything with 4 wheels. I've ridden in some things that I thought I would have to push if the wind blew to hard. But generally, taxis are alright its the drivers that are insane. Every volunteer can tell you at least one story where the taxi driver did something insane that made you question life in general. Taxis sit 4 people sometimes 5 if your driver is particularly entrepreneurial. And every time your waiting for your taxi to fill up, you either grab the front seat or pray that a fat guy or woman doesn't sit next to you.

Marchutkas fit up to 15 people and its a little more spacey but it takes lots of stops and you get to know the scent of the funky body pretty well. (Its the summer I've been smelling a lot of funk lately.) Also if your already going 2 hours by car, a marchutka will make that trip an easy 3/3.5. But thats once it gets filled, both Marchutkas and Taxis only leave once they have filled to capacity. Which can take anywhere from an hour to 2 hours. I've waited for a Marchutka to fill in the winter for 3 hours and the trip took 4. That was just hell.

City Transport: Buses, Taxis, and Marchutkas
If your one of those lucky bums who gets placed in a city your mode of transport won't be walking over a frozen plate of ice but will instead be taking any one of these vehicles. But generally Marchutkas are faster but are 10 tenge more expensive than buses. And taxis are ridiculously expensive compared to the other two but are the only things that run after 11 o'clock.

brief thoughts on Kazakh culture...

Reading a language book one day, I came upon a traditional greeting of the Kazakh people. The greeting literally translated to "How are your animals?"

Curious about this greeting, I went and asked a fellow teacher about this greeting. He said prior to when Kazakhs lived in cities and town. Life for the traditional Kazakh prior to the Stalin era's forced collectivization was that of rural pasturization. A Kazakh would tend his sheep (rich Kazakhs would also have horses and maybe even camels), and move his animals dependent on the season to areas which were warmer or had better patures.

The life of a Kazakh and his family was entirely dependent upon the health of their animals to survive, since everything from candles, fire stock (animal dung), rope, and clothes were created from their animals. A wealthy family one year could be struck by a disastrous winter and be poor or even dead the next. No family prior to soviet rule had many material posesstions and none had much material wealth that could not be moved regularly, other than the family's animals. Also this meant that many Kazakhs did not have the ability to read or write. And that was how life was for hundreds of years.

In the social hierarchy for Kazakhs was:
1st: Animals- they were the life givers
2nd: Family- they were dependent of animals and continued the family line
3rd: Friends and Country- really a far forth since most Kazakhs had huge families

But this social structure was completely crushed during the forced collectivizations of the Stalin years. Animals were slaughtered by the hundreds when Kazakhs were forced onto the farms, the entire social structure had its foundational pillar destroyed. The Kazakh identity was put asunder, forcing its people to find a new identity. I think this may be the reason why Kazakhs are the most russified of the central asian peoples. In the lack of identity that was forced upon them they reached for the only identity they could and the only one they had on-hand was that of the USSR.

This new social hierarchy replaced animals with family from below and since country was a huge aspect of USSR politics. Country took a far second.
1st: Family
2nd: Country- Even now Kazakhs have intense patriotism. I believe this is a leftover of the once powerful induce patriotism of the Soviet Union
3rd: Friends

Even now Kazakhs in my village are suffering from identity formation from the this still young nation its fascinating to watch. I can only wonder what it will look like in 10 or even 20 years.
But were does this leave me? I am neither a friend really nor am I a countryman. Nor am I related to anyone in my village since everyone seems to be related at least by marraige to each other.

I hate the question that I eventually recieve after I explain I don't get paid that I volunteered to come to Kazakhstan. "What do you get out of this then?"
The answer a cultural experience and knowledge of another kind of life doesn't fly here. It is only recieved with a look of bewildered shock. But I guess I didn't expect to be greeted with open arms but at times life as the perpetual outsider in a strange land can be dauntingly lonely.

Kazakh Lesson- Part 2

Earlier I wrote a brief segment on Kazakh. Kazakh originates from the Turkish language tree and because of that the verb is always put at the end of the sentence. So for an english speaker the entire language reads a little backwards. This is probably the trickiest thing when it comes to reading the newspaper. The action or the verb of the sentence is always at the end of the sentence so usually I have to read a sentence, then re-read the sentence to track who actually did the action.

Take the simple phrase.
Me -yen Ooh-lin O-kay-min

It litterally translates to
I a poem read

But if a I add 2 sounds and change one sound in the sentence the meaning will completely change

Me-yen-nin Ooh-lin-in O-kay-cin
(She) my poem reads

(She is implied in the verb conjugation)

Also the verb can also change from verb to noun depending on the ending. Making conversations rather confusing if you start listening in the middle of a conversation.
Take- to read again

Oh-k: (READ) command form/ verb
Oh- kuu: (to read) infinitive form/verb
Oh- kuu- shhh: a writer (noun)
Oh- kuu- shhh-lar: writers (noun)
Oh- kuu- shhh-lar- muuss: We are writers (noun and verb) -(to be is not said in present tense)

I can continue this exercise for another 5-6 lines but you can see that you can have entire sentences created and negated by sounds that are rooted around a basic verb. Kinda weird, kinda cool, but really its just difficult for a learner since its a language that has very little literature of learning created for it. Since it was on the brink of death and now is being revived.

Ideals of beauty

Ive been talking a lot about of ideals of beauty to the people in Kazakhstan. Now of course I don't say to anyone, "What is the ideal of beauty in Kaz?" That is a philosophical/social level well above anyone I've met at my site at least.

So to start this little study. I first taught my students vocabulary for the body then word descriptors for each area for the body... e.g. beautiful face, long black hair. After a couple days of practice. I introduced the question .... Is she/he beautiful?

The example answer I gave was.... Yes, she is beautiful. She has long black hair and freckles. She has smooth white skin and is tall.

So for practice I first brought in a trashy American celebrity magazine that I stole from another volunteer. I would ask each student if they thought this or that celebrity was beautiful. What I found out was every student in my class thought American celebrities were ugly. They said their skin was too white and the models usually were to skinny. (On a side note they didn't know who any of the celebrities were, which was a bit refreshing. I figured out I was in a part of Kazakhstan American popular culture hasn't broke into).

So I then asked who was beautiful in class. Two students who had the look of being Kazakh but also had fairer less Asian characteristics were decided to be the most beautiful in the class. One was Kazakh, she does not have such an Asian face but also had European green eyes. The other is my host sister she has Asian characteristics in her face but also has freckles and her skin coloring is not particularly dark.

Kazakhs in villages, or at least my village 0r even my 13 person 6th form class, find Kazakhs who have the Asian look but also contain a bit of the European look in their faces the most beautiful. But probably the most fascinating thing to me was that Kazakhs really don't care about weight at all. Generally they don't find it a characteristic of beauty or ugliness. Instead some of the most overweight teachers in my school are considered by my students some of the most beautiful.

On a sidenote one of the most beautiful characteristics for men for some of the southern Kazakhs and the Uzbeks is to have a uni-brow. Go figure...

Water Pumps, APA, classes...

After living at my permanent village life has become pretty routine.
My normal day:
At 8 AM I wake then trudge myself to the indoor water sink. Now sink is a loose term, the sink is just well water put into an object that looks similar to what a sink looks like. APA or grandma in Kazakh puts the water in the sink thing in the morning, sometimes its heated but sometimes its freezing cold, straight from the well. Its a trying experience as you turn the nob and wait for the water to hit your hands. Then its like college all over again but without the bathing, throw on the clothes you wore yesterday (in the winter this means 2 sweatshirts and a winter jacket) and start walking to school. 2 miles later Im at school. A newer looking building it was built with the help of a French sponsor company two year ago. Everyday I walk into the school with the incoming masses of kids, I then go and get my classroom key from the key lady. She's not really a front desk lady she just sits their all day with another lady and keeps all the keys to the rooms. Honestly she always has a group of teachers or other workers around her, its like having the water cooler at the entrance of your school. As I walk to my classroom and say hello to every female teacher and if I see a male teacher I have to shake his hand. Its the custom of all males to shake hands and

At 9AM classes start and each last 45 minutes with 5 minutes inbetween. Everyday I teach the 1st and 2nd classes. My situation is a bit different than most volunteers. See my school two years ago decided to teach one class of kids (25 kids) each year English 5 times a week. Classes in Kaz. are formed when the children enter the 5th grade these 25 children will stay together for 6 years, taking all the same classes and having the same homeroom teacher for the same period. With their friendships maintaining throughout life.


But back to classes, my kids see me 5 times a week, thats three times more than normal volunteers and teachers see their student in Kaz. They treat me like a big brother more than a teacher, so dicipline is a constant struggle. In must be the Tae Kwon Do part of me but discipline is not only required in class its strictly enforced. Class time is mine after class, I treat them like friends but in class I more like the devil. Sometimes though if I'm not feeling very good, I just have my counterpart (the lady responsible at site for my general well being) have a good yelling at them, she's through and through a soviet teacher. Meaning she can make kids cry by punishing them and she is good at it too, but she's a wonderful lady outside the school. Really I love her...

Around noon, I eat lunch normally potatoes boiled in a soup broth and tea in the equivalent of a teachers cafeteria. Costing me a me a whopping 70 tenge (ie 50 cents). This place located in the school sells all the basic material teachers and students needs and doubles as the lunch room. Its run by a good slightly overweight couple that has a daughter and are always chatting about the weather and the normal village gossip. That's two water cooler areas and counting...

School ends around 2PM for my classes and kids often come to my classroom for help in understanding of just too hang out. Usually I am grading homework and correcting mistakes. (I teach like they were 2nd graders, tedious but it works) Then I plan my classes for the next the next day.

Around 4pm I walk home, a nice 2 mile trudge with the cows as they begin their track home as well. Often avoiding the cow crap and stray dogs. I get home and grandma or Apa (in Kazakh) will ask me to get her some water. Now getting water is an adventure. At my house in Almaty we had a pump but here at site we have a bucket well.

Pumps and bucket wells both accomplish the same thing they get water out of the aqua filters. But I think I prefer the bucket wells. Pumps require too much effort with priming the pump by putting water in the pump and developing pressure. Usually you don't need that much water to justify so much effort. Bucket wells take almost the same amount of time for the same amount of water but its easier to know exactly how much time it will take to get water out of the hole in the ground.

Once Im done getting water I take a nap or I study Kazakh I read till dinner at 8PM though this time fluctuates by a lot depending on a lot of things. Thats my normal day, what a day, so exciting.

Food of village Kaz.

I wanted to write a small entry about the food of rural Kazakhstan. My area of Kazakhstan is a bit like the slaughter capital of the area. Everyday I will often see camels, horses, goats, and cows hauled off to wherever they slit their throats. For example a neighbor of mine has been raising 3 camels. Camels catch a hefty amount of money on the market or at least their meat does. But anyway because of that I eat lots of meat and different kinds too.

But anyway here are the top 5 foods for me that I've had in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan due to soviet times has many different kinds of foods with many foods originating from other countries that were brought to this country during inter soviet migrations and due to military service which many men served in during soviet times.

5. Pelau/Plough - the national food of Uzbekistan. It is an oily rice that within it has many different kinds of vegetables and spices. It is quite tasty and can be quite good if the right mixture of oil to rice is maintained. It is served on a communal plate and sculpted into a mini mountain and then a huge mound of cow meat is placed right on top of it. All meat in this country is boiled and cut up and this meat is now different. In all honesty I'm not a huge fan of this dish but this due to the fact that I have to eat it at almost every wedding, birthday, and celebration that I attend and it can be quite trying at times to shove down another spoonful of this stuff.

4. Borsch- A Ukrainian soup. Usually made from beef broth containing pieces of meat, cabbage, and if your really lucky beats. When combined with mayonnaise its a very tasty dish. Probably my favorite soup in country its filling and scrumptious and hardy. Though I usually have to dump salt and pepper into it since my family doesn't flavor their meat nor their soup stock.

3. Bec Parmak- the national food of Kazakhstan it is translated to 5 fingers due to the fact all you eat it with is your 5 fingers. It is a collection of hand made noodles which are boiled in a onion stock then placed upon a plate. The noodles are thicker than dumpling noodles but very wide and usually folded. After they are placed on a plate boiled meat is put right on top of it. What you do is you wrap the noodles around the meat and hand make beef dumplings till you are full, its a very hardy dish. Then afterward each person is full they are given to drink the skimmed fat broth of the boiled meat. Quite tasty!!!!!!!!!

2. Pilmeni- Is a Russian dish of beef wrapped in dumpling dough then boiled in onion stock quite tasty and very good. Though it takes lots of time to make and prepare when eaten with mayonnaise for me its to die for.

1. Chick Pee Sorpa- A new invention to the world of Kazakhstan making it a bit rare since new kinds of food do not evolve here much. As evidenced by me and the 10 dishes that I eat regularly. Anyway this is a bit of a combination of besparmak and pilmeni. Consisting of ground beef wrapped in a pasta noodle boiled in a onion base then topped with a carmelized onion sauce. Its heavenly and rare. I don't have it much but if you do have it remember it because its awesome.

Blue eyes

I've always found eyes and their colors to be the most beautiful part of the human body. I often take note of the color of someones eyes and many of the most important people in my life have exceptional beautiful colored eyes. My father has the bluest sky blue eyes Ive ever seen.

The people of Kazakhstan or at least some of them have very unique eyes shades when I compare them to the Asian peoples I grew with. Some of my students have green eyes some and blue and some have cat like hazel eyes which truthfully are creepy.

But in my house with my host family my host grandfather has the same shade of blues eyes as my father. That sky blue that you often read about in songs. The first time I saw his blue eyes and I realized how blue they were it was a bit shocking to me but now it just shows me how this country has been the transitory area of many kinds of people for thousands of years and each has left its mark on their ancestors.

A brief history of my part of Kaz.

Kazakhstan or rather the first Kazakh people or at least people who identified with being officially Kazakh came around in the 15th century. Prior to that people inhabited this area for centuries, with the occasional conqueror making it his own personal playground. (Alexander going east and Gengiz going west. Each and their armies leaving their natural physical characteristics going each direction.)

But the key distinguishing feature of ancient Kazakh's is that they believed in a combination of Islam and folk spiritual religion. The kind of Islam cultural anthropologists call folk Islam, also they speak the common language of Kazakh. The religious aspect of the Kazakh's is best understood when compared to that of the people of its southernly neighbor, the Uzbek's.

The Uzbek's and Uzbekistan lie in fairly fertile grounds and were the inhabitants of a couple ancient cities primarily Tashkent. Cities which lie on the silk road. So when Islam was in its infancy and spreading I think in the 12th century, Islam found its way along this trade path and took root in the areas which were very urbanized Therefore now Uzbekistan and its people are one of the most dedicated to the Islamic faith. Containing many religious schools dedicated to Islam and even an official government head of the islamic faith.

While Kazakhstan which was not urbanized and its people much more spread out took many more centuries to concrete its Islamic faith than the Uzbeks finally culminating in the mid 15th century. Even now many semi Islamic semi something else customs remain in the lives of the most traditional houses in the traditional villages. The traditions can only be called Kazakh after understanding their origins.

Anyway in the 15th century a definitive difference in identity and language began to exude from their Krgys neighbors who lived a very similar lifestyle in the south. Who prior to this point were called the same thing "Krgys." Mainly due to the different folk customs and Kazakhstan laying off the silk road path. At this point historian began to call people of the Kazakhstan region Kazakhs.

Groups (Zhuus)-Clans (RUUS)
OK so now this next part comes from a Kazakh national after we had a good time in a Cafe if anyone knows this information better please tell me. Because I've never read about it before in any book on Kaz I've seen or found.

So in the beginning of the Kazakh people asked for land in the region from what I guess would be the last vestiges of power of the golden horde. The prior ruling party of its day in the area remnants of the Mongols. The Kazakh people wanted to be free of a sole foreign ruler this is evidenced by the very meaning of Kazakh which means "FREE people"

After land was given this eventually became the first of the 3 groups of people that make up the entire Kazakh people. Eventually though a schism developed over leadership of the group and again some leaders went to the Khanate and asked for land these people were given more land and this group became the middle group. Eventually another schism developed and the lower group came into being with more land be given to the Kazakh's. Again I'm pretty sure this is a theory but I think its credible.

The left overs of these three groups still hold great sway in the hearts of the Kazakh people or at least most Kazakh people. Each Kazakh for the most part is separated into these three groups with a sub grouping based upon clan. Clan being decided by a person father 7 generations elder. A way to distinguish if you can marry someone since it is forbidden to marry anyone who is related to you by 7 generations.

But an interesting side is though most people fit into 1 of these 3 groups some Kazakh do not fit into any of these groups. They instead are outside of these groups. When I tried to figure out about their origins most people didn't know. One answer I did receive is that those people are ancestors of the Han Chinese and those were people looked down upon long ago but I can't be sure.

(I need to add a soviet section and Russian invasion paragraph but that won't be for a while. )

The Kazakh Language...

While I don't know everything about the Kazakh language nor would I ever hope too. I do have a basic running analysis that I have created after 8 months of using and learning the language. Here it is....

A phonetic based language which branches off the turkic ligua tree. It actually reminds me a lot of Tagalog not in word meanings but the ways it is spoken. FAST. In common usage words are rolled off the tongue and entire sentences can have reverse meanings depending upon additional sounds added to root parts of words. My first 4 months at site life was a bit of a language guessing game where I could understand the majority of what was said but I was never quite sure since one sound can make a statement a question, negate it or even pluralize it.

But also in traslation simple kazakh sentence will often require very long translations due to the sounds and how each sound translates. But the language I find very pretty and flowwy (yes flowwy)


Lets do a simple exercise.
Apple - allMuh (stress is on the second half of word normally in Kazakh, all as in all. Muh as in Mum.)
to take - ALLU

In Kazakh like in english we drop the to/U part.
English "Take the apple"(Kaz doesn't use articles, a difficult aspect for a teacher)
Kaz. "allMUH all" (with the verb always being at the end)

"Don't take the apple" an additional sound is added to the verb stem "Muh"
"allMUH allMUH" 2 words exactly the sames in sound but then additional sounds are added if you pluralize the statement

"Don't take the apples" an additional sound is added to the noun word which is dependent upon the sound and if it is a hard or soft word in this case the sound is (LAR) as in Singular.
"allmuhLAR allMUH" (stress always on the last syllable)

And if you are in Almaty or apple land you say "allmuhtuhDA allmuhLAR allMuh"
DA in this case being the equivilent of in or at. "Don't take the apples in Almaty"

Kinda cool kinda weird how much I think about this stuff. (I have lots of alone time)

The ride into town...

The ride into city... is an adventure.

When I go into the city I first go to the taxi stop. Where I catch a taxi or a van and if I am truly desperate a bus. (A taxi in this country is not a yellow vehicle with a light on its hood but rather anyone who owns a car and wants to have the profession of a driver. Meaning taxi drivers run the gambit of very good to just plain reckless.) I have begun to count the near death moments Ive had on a single trip into the city and right now the high number is 3 for a taxi, for a van its 2. Though I now have a very good driver friend who has taken me a couple times on the trek.

After I get to the taxi cab stop and go into my taxi I wait for 3 other passengers to come. This process can take anywhere from 15minutes to 1 hour. Usually while I am waiting for people to come I will have to talk to many of the other drivers who want to chat in Kazakh with an American. They go through the standard 15 questions. (Where are you from, Do you speak kaz, do you like our village, What year were you born, Did you know Im related to so and so teacher at your school, Are you married, how much money do you make)

So once we get 4 passengers we start moving over a road that consists of so many potholes that cars need to drive down the middle of it to go full speed. So when another car comes from the other direction drivers usually ( I say usually because some don't which adds a big 1 to the near death count) slow down to half speed and go over the potholes. This proceeds for 3 and a half hours / 4 in the winter till I get to the city.

What is the scenery like?
KANSAS.... a lot of grassland nothing and lots of goats, horses, mules, and the occasional camel. With the scattered village and skeleton concrete soviet built building. Though for the first time I saw a few yurts. Portable living huts that are moved 3-4 times per year dependent on the weather. (Yurts are the traditional living homes of the Kaz. people but during the forced settlement period in USSR history. The nomadic kazakh people were pretty much wiped out and forced to live in settlement during the 1920's. Look at the next entry. Now though their are some people who have returned to that life cycle in the steppe though the numbers are very few.)

But the point of this entry is that there is this one place on the road that reminds me of Dante's Inferno. A place where in the winter is closed due to the extreme cold winds that come off the mountains and funnel into the Kansas size nothing plain below it. The first I went on this road my counterpart teacher told me this part of the road is often closed 3-4 times per year. I asked her why but I didn't understand her at the time.

Later the first time I went on the road to the city in the winter I understood why. Many of the trees most of them 10-15 year olds were often snapped like they were yearlings used by a giant to fish. In the place of the trees were objects that were shaped like trees but were covered with ice and had oddly angled ice branches that grew according the blowing of the wind. And not just the trees ice entirely covered every plant and due to the wind the ice increased its quantity going sideways. For example the grass covered with ice had icicles which went in the direction the wind blew.

What a place straight out of Dante...

Life in KZ in pics

Volunteers at one of the restaurants for one of the major American holidays.

That is one of my host brothers in the front and some of the related family members















Another host brother this ones 9 entering 5th grade next year
























My host sister and one of my best students. Notice my host sister has freckles weird stuff. Both are full Kazakh but to me like they are from different parts of Asia.













These two girls are 1st cousins. But one has green eyes and the other looks rather Chinese at least to me. Both very good students and that's me post weight lose.

Weight Loss....

So yes I've been writing about my life but it takes a while to get to the internet I usually save my posts to a flashcard then paste them all at once. Thats why I have 3 posts in one day. I will probably be doing this every couple weeks.

We are a society concerned with our weight. Not a week goes by that I don't read in my weekly Newsweek provided by the peace corps about health and some new kind of diet trend. The easy advice I have to any man that wants to lose weight quick- MOVE TO Kazakhstan. Men for some reason go through major weight lose in this country while usually women gain weight. Since I've been here depending upon if Ive gotten sick in the last week or not, I've lost between 20-25 pounds.

Its funny though I not quite sure why I've lost so much weight. The Kazakh's I live with, only eat twice a day and with a very lite breakfast in the morning so when I eat I stuff myself. The sugars I used to eat in mass quantities has trickled down to nothing and its almost in possible to find luxury items like chips in my village. So the aspect of snacking, which we do in the states so often has been completely erased. Another thing is since I live in a village I walk everywhere. To school and back is about 3 miles with a full pack so I get my workout. But those these things should be countered by...

"But Jose what do you eat?"
This is the funniest part I eat mostly bread, potatoes, noodles, rice, and mutton or cow meat. So the Adkins diet makes no sense to me after living in Kazakhstan. I think I should be gaining weight. The winter diet here includes mostly starches since the weather is so cold. Only now in the middle of February have I begun to see good fruits again. The weather has begun to change and its getting prettier and nicer everyday (even saw a wild flower yesterday) but thats not to say all volunteers are the same. This country is huge and parts of it are quite close to Siberia. My good friend in the northern most central part of Kazakhstan is still having-15-20 degree Celsius weather right now. COLD.....

Another one of my buddies has lost 30 pounds and he was already skin and bones when we got here. In conclusion whatever muscle mass I had prior to coming here is gone now. Even though I've begun to work out regularly at the school gym and in my room. My clothes which fit me well when I came to here now make me look like a college kid, since they are so baggy. But to any future male Kazakhstan volunteers out there make sure to but a couple holes in your belt and bring some clothes that are a little tight and under your current size.

Monsha etiquette

Every week I get to bathe, well its not really bathing it’s called a monsha, in Russian it’s called a banya. And yes I’ve begun to consider bathing not as a right but more of a privilege, this is coming from the guy who used to shower twice a day. Anyway the local monsha is in the village center so usually on Monday’s I go there. It’s only open Saturday-Monday, I like going on Monday because it is never very crowded then. I can also avoid creepy questions about my nationality and about the crazy amount of hair on my body when compared to Kazakh men. Anyway the monsha is separated first by sexes and then into three parts: the locker room, the bathing area, and the steam room.

So once you pay for your ticket into the monsha you then go into the locker room where you strip down and put your stuff in a locker. Then you take your red tub and your soap products then go into the bathing area which is a collection of benches in a horseshoe around a fairly big room. So first you mix steaming water and cold water which come from different pipes into a good mix which you use to wash and lather yourself. In the bathing area you have up to twenty men lathering themselves with soap, shaving, and washing themselves with the water from their red buckets.

Then after you get your water and find a spot on one of the benches and entrench your soap near your water bucket. You go and steam yourself in the steam room. I will usually steam myself then wait in the locker room, cool down and drink water three times or so per monsha visit. The heat is closer to a wet moist heat of a steam room than that of the dry heat of a sauna but the room looks more like a sauna. After which you thoroughly lather yourself with soap, fill up your bucket and dump your bucket on yourself 3-4 times. Then your officially clean or at least I hope the sweat and scrubbing makes your skin clean. But after a week of grime that develops anything with water on your skin makes you feel clean.

Anyway this week when I went into to the Monsha, I did the normal routine. First I bought my water and ticket. Then I went into the locker room stripped. Then I took my bucket and soap products and went into the bathing room. Filled up my bucket full of properly mixed cold and hot water placed it on a spot on a bench, then went to the steam room for my first sweat. The first sweat is always the best all that grime that develops from a week of work, walking, and sleeping sheds so quickly. You feel like your the wicked witch of the west but you become a beautiful butterfly after. After that I went into the locker room and cooled down then went back into the bathing area and sat down.

Then for the first time ever anywhere, a pretty big old man approached me and asked, “Can you wash my back?” I was a bit stunned I not only understood his entire question but I didn’t quite understand if I should or if I didn’t would I make a cultural fopah. So erring on the side of caution I said, “ok”. There is a first time for everything right, so with his soap rag I lathered his back with a strong pressure. Then after a couple minutes I asked if that was enough and he said yes. He thanked me.

After glowing in the feeling that I had just had a pretty unique experience, I went to the steam room for another steam. In the steam room there was another older man probably 45 or so. We started chatting about how hot the monsha was today, the kind of standard small talk you’d have if you were in line in a grocery store or bank or something in California. Then after a couple minutes he asked me to scrape his back with this glove, which looks kind of like a scraping dish rag but is a shaped into glove. Since I had just scraped one old guys back, I said to myself whatever if one is good two is better and dug in for scraping. After I got down with his back he said thanks and offered to hit me with the birch leaves that every monsha in Kazakhstan has. I said no since they whack you pretty hard with those things and the scrapes probably would take 2-3 days to heal.

Well two backs and mine in one day, I was literally glowing. My cultural assimilation is going well.

Restart...

Well it’s been a while. Sorry about that I just have been trying to keep my mind busy. For me at least idle time is a killer. It makes me ponder things that shouldn’t be pondered. But anyways, “What is my life like now you ask?”

Well I went through Peace Corps training which was grueling. I never had much free time ever in the entire three months that I lived near Almaty. But the training was particularly thorough. I received the equivalent TOEFL (Teaching of English as Foreign Language) curriculum, received 4 hours of language instruction in Kazakh daily (six days a week- Kazakhstan uses a 6 day work week), and had cultural training on the do’s and don’t of Kazakhstan. At the time I thought training was a pain in the rear but now I think it may have been a bit like vacation. We had lots of friends, easy access to the outside world for news, and foreign nationals who spoke pretty good English.

Anyway during training Peace Corps through a committee (got to love those bureaucratic committees) assigns each volunteer a future site which the volunteer will work and live for the next two years. So future volunteers make a good impression in training your future 2 years depends on it. Supposedly the committee tries to look at each volunteer and assigns a site based upon the personality and interests of the volunteer and make up of the site. So somehow I got placed in a remote site in southern Kazakhstan. The closest city is Shimkent but it really isn’t that close. It’s like living in the central valley of California and saying you’re from San Francisco. Three and a half hour car ride is about the right distance away from Shimkent that I live.

My site is called a remote site. My site has no cell phone access, the phones sometimes break with the electricity and it’s in the middle of a huge plain of nothing the size of Kansas called a Steppe. And in the entire region only 50,000 people live. No one at my site speaks English very well but I enjoy the rural-ness and pure Kazakh culture of the village. It can be dauntingly lonely at time since I am never really able to speak my full mind due to the language barrier but on the upside it is one of the few places in Kazakhstan where a volunteer has been placed where Kazakh is spoken solely.

And yes very little Russian is spoken here at my site and mostly when Russian is spoken its only for very few words like “mala detz” – good job. Somehow this part of Kazakhstan maintained its Kazakh purity but it is very far from the oblast center as well.

The closest other volunteer is forty- five minutes away or so but it’s very difficult to get together and converse. First the transportation system here is still developing and if you’re not careful you may get stranded in the steppe or have to pay ridiculous amount of money to get home. Also due to the wonderful Peace Corps policies set up this year. Any time I spend outside of site is considered leave time, so if I leave my site (which I have too since I need money to survive and also for my own peace of mind at least once a month) I have leave taken away from my docket. Peace Corps volunteers only receive 2 days of leave time a month. So if I loose one day due to the need to get money and supplies for my classes. I can only save a day per month.

I believe National Peace Corps policies were meant for smaller countries where volunteers only live 20 miles away from another volunteer (i.e. islands in the Caribbean). Where volunteers can get to a city and back to site in less than an hour, for me it takes me 4 hours one way to Shimkent by the quickest transportation means possible, meaning 8 hours round-trip. Not really a day trip for me. Here in Kazakhstan where the country covers two continents and is the size of Western Europe, it is impossible to realistically impose the same policies. But whatever I have come to terms that the policy should be changed but probably won’t be for a long long time. At this point that’s life for a village volunteer in Kazakhstan, you just get used to it.

Back from Bali

Well I've already neglected this blog and its only the 3rd post. Well if anyone is reading this, currently Im suffering from jet-lag. Jet-lag always hits me on the return especially when I travel against the turning earth. My mind thinks its night time still but my body see's the day when it gets back to California. Its utterly confusing and my body hates me for it (as evidenced by my lack of appetite).

But anyway Indonesia was great. Well at least Gili Air was, it was what Hawaii probably was back in the 1900's. But no motorized vehicles, no internet, no western TV, and no idea whats going on in the outside world will do that to you. It had an easy going mentality that was so genuine, it makes the bay area look like an utter rat race that I usually reserve for L.A. I loved the fact that I went days not knowing what day it was and the shear amount of stars you could see from this island was amazing. But I did do something... really I did accomplish something. I learned how to open water scuba dive so I wasn't a complete slug, I got to play volleyball everyday with the locals (and they were freaking good), and I finished a book. (The book was on central Asia, The Great Game) it was a good book). What a great vacation.... I hope this island stays hidden because it reminds me of my own untouched treasure and therefore no one should go there except for me.

As for the other island, Bali, one incident really sticks out to me. I mean other than Indonesian driving, everytime you go on the roads you put your life in the hands of the driver. Its a kind of driving videogame that ends with your life. The 3rd time I was in an Indonesian car is was when my driver came within 3 feet from ending our lives while trying to pass a scooter, and I cracked/ started to laugh and I couldn't stop laughing. It was a little sadistic and strange but when your going 40 mph in these ultra-mini-vans passing scooters that have up to 6 people on them, you get a strange sense of your own insignificant mortality.

Anyway as for the event that I side tracked from above, pops and I went on a hike mapped by one of the travel books that took us on the outskirts/ricefields of Ubud. Ubud is a really amazing artistic cultural treasure, you can understand when you go there why art of all kinds flourished in that region. We were walking up this rice field and this man was washing his cow. (Yes I will repeat he was washing his cow.) The cow was not a small cow it was at least 500 pounds and when it saw my father it couldn't stop staring. Even after we passed it the cow turned its huge 500 pound body around and continued to stare at my father. I guess the cow never saw a white person before.

I'll post sooner than later .... I swear...

So Why the Peace Corps?

Its a fair question. A question I get from pretty much everyone who learns that I'll be going to Kazakhstan to teach English for over 2 years of my life. Well most of my decision was that I just wanted to help others. Though teaching English to people seems a little bit like U.S. imperialism and therefore globilization (imo globilization has far more negative consequences vs. benifits). World poverty is only growing and this is evidenced in the ever widening gap between the haves and have-nots. English is becoming the universal 2nd language and therefore anyone who learns it has a better chance to help themselves and their family garner a better existence. People are people, some are good and some are bad but most of the time they are just trying to scrape by and I really don't care where their from. (This is also a political statement on current events)

The 2nd part of my decision is more selfish in nature. At my age this may be the only oppurtunity for me to do this before responsibility and life begins to get in the way. I swore long ago I would not have a kid prior to actually living. I like to travel, I like to experience different cultures, and I like to learn different languages (to bad I couldn't learn German) best of all the government pays for me to do all 3 of these things. This marks probably the only time the government will pay for anything that is directly for me.

"But 2 years is so long, won't that get in the way of your career aspirations" -
well as much as I know we only have one life and I might as well experience as many new oppurtunities as possible prior to being forced into the daily grind of work. Their is no doubt I'll miss things on a personal level. Such as friends getting married, events, deaths but hopefully this experience will help me learn more about myself. Then of course it may all be one big bust too.

I haven't distributed this link to many yet but if anyone wants to comment go right ahead.

First Post...

I recieved my invitation to Kazakhstan about 5 days ago now. I'll be teaching English most likely in a village or small city. My timeline looks something like this.

Now until Aug. 20th - Travel, work, and go to as many baseball games as possible.
Aug 20-23rd - Philadelphia for pre-service training.
Aug 24th- (27 months) Kazakhstan