“KKK Hate Schools Found Throughout Atlanta” and “United States Refuses Soviet Aid for American Poor” are some of the headlines that startled me from a crumpled old newspaper we were using to protect the classroom floor from wet paint. These lines were from a 1990 issue of the Moscow Times, an English-language newspaper published during the Soviet Union. Although I’m in a country where school history books completely omit the Soviet Union, I am regularly reminded about the legacy of the USSR and Communism in Balkhash. As an American, this living legacy has been one of my most interesting experiences.
Balkhash and my oblast (province) have a special Soviet legacy. Most of the cities including mine were built in the 1930s with forced labor. In fact, my oblast was home to one of the largest gulags—the size of France. Taking a walk through Balkhash, one can see still remnants of Soviet symbols. Our City Hall still has the hammer and sickle emblem on its façade. The tops of apartment complexes have mosaics that say “Glory to Labor” and “Glory to the CCCP.” And of course, most people still live in Khruschevniks, the five story mass produced gray apartments commissioned by Nikita Khruschev. As in many cities that still have large Russian populations, there is a Lenin statue. There is still debate about what to do with these symbols. Recently in Karaganda, the second largest city, a huge outcry prevented authorities from removing their Lenin statue. At the camp I worked at near Petropavlovsk, the administration only painted over an enormous red star this summer.
The Soviet Union also lives on in official holidays. This February, I celebrated Red Army Day at my school. There was an assembly and all male teachers—three including myself—were placed in the front of the room. Since all men are expected to have served in the Red Army, teachers made speeches thanking us for having defended the Motherland. I wonder if they also thought it was ironic that they were including a guy who represented the enemy they were defending against. Anyway, they thanked us and gave us complimentary daggers for our service. Later that night, the host dad of my ex-site mate Andrew said that Red Army Day didn’t celebrate war, but friendship. Many Soviet soldiers did not fight. There mandatory two years of service was a time when they forged close friendships with people from other parts of Union—Ukranians, Georgians, Azeris. Red Army service bound all the different members of the Union together. The following month, we celebrated the complimenting holiday—Women’s Day. The male teachers put on a concert for the female teachers. My role was to sing old Communist songs, including “The International”—the Communist anthem.
The Kazakhstani government exerts much effort in trying to instill Kazakh pride and nationalism amongst the people. They are building statues to Kazakh heroes, renaming streets and cities, and adding Kazakh holidays to an already extensive collection of Soviet ones. Yet there is less effort in removing the old symbols. At first I thought this was because the government didn’t want to alienate the enormous Russian minority. But now I think that many Kazakhstani citizens still regard the Soviet Union fondly. These remaining Soviet symbols were not forgotten; they are still being lived and reminisced upon.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Leaving the Barren Steppe for Eternal Light in Siberia
When I was first nominated for Peace Corps Central Asia, I was told that I would be working as an English teacher during the school year and in the summer, I would organize and run sports camps—GASP!! For those of you who know me, you are aware that I am no sportsman and the idea assisting über-athletic Kazakhstanis in sports is comical. Luckily for me, Peace Corps doesn’t mean everything it says and I was free to choose my own summer work plans.
For most of the year, I live and work in Balkhash, which is in the south-central part of the country and surrounded by barren, uninhabited, flat nothingness. As a result, I jumped at the first opportunity to volunteer in the north of the country, around the city of Petropavlovsk. Petropavlovsk juts pretty deep into Russian Siberia and is populated mostly by Russians. In fact, the region is basically part of Russia—many people run on Moscow time and the train station is actually considered Russian territory. Technically, this part of the country is also considered steppe, but it is vastly different from the steppe in which I live. It is grassy, contains pockets of birch forests, and is one of the country’s two breadbaskets. For any history buffs out there, this was where Khrushchev executed his Virgin Lands program. Petropavlovsk itself has around 200,000 people, has a pretty decent nightlife, and is close by the Ishim River, in which I almost drowned.
I arrived in the north to take part in a summer camp with some other volunteers, but in true local fashion the camp was delayed and I was forced to chill out in the city for a few days. When we finally arrived at the camp, it was a true, Soviet-era, Pioneer Camp (Communist propaganda camp)! There were red stars galore and statues of children in glorious poses in honor of the motherland. Also, the camp was littered with scores of seesaws and other such playground fixtures and there was one field that my friend Tim referred to as a “freak carnival bazaar.” Our role at the camp was to conduct English clubs and help cabins prepare activities and games. However, Kazakhstani camps are a bit different from American camps. The next day’s plans were always organized at 11o’clock the night before, which was deceiving because the sun didn’t set until almost midnight. We thus had to spend each day frantically preparing for that afternoon’s concert and series of games. For those South Park fans out there, I was strongly reminded of the episode in where the kids are sent to what is basically a concentration camp to correct their bigotry. There is one scene where a Nazi guard is yelling at the children to draw crayon pictures of friendship and pulls out a gun to make them work harder. Minus the gun, this is exactly what I witnessed one day when kids had to prepare crayon pictures to decorate some building. However, there were also a lot of fun activities that we participated in such as Pioneer Ball, which is a Soviet version of volleyball, and Joyful Soccer, in which the counselors and volunteers, dressed as clowns and with no requirement to observe any of the rules, got to compete against the campers. I had a fun time and would like to participate again next year.
After two weeks at the camp, I decided last minute to participate in a Russian learning camp for volunteers a bit farther south in Shuchinsk. This area is famous for being the gateway to Borovoe, which is nicknamed “the Switzerland of Kazakhstan.” Although far from being Switzerland, Borovoe does have beautiful mountains, pine forests, and great lakes. When you haven’t seen anything of the sort for the past year, it is pretty stunning. Yet even though it was July, it was cold and rainy and so we couldn’t swim often. I spent about a week there before I returned to Balkhash.
One of the greatest things about this summer was finally experiencing the trains. Nearly all volunteers travel around by train, but since Balkhash isn’t located on a main route, I have always taken a bus. I got my chance when I was in Almaty and took a 31-hour train ride to Petropavlovsk. I had brought plenty of reading material and had fully charged my i-pod to prepare for what I thought would be an incredible boring trip. However, it turned out that I struggled to find time to read! Kazakhs are known for their hospitality and I think this is nowhere better demonstrated than on the trains. In second-class cars, passengers are put into open cubicles with six bunks and a small table at one end. In my cubicle, there were a husband and wife, an old teacher of disabled kids, and two university students. The entire 31 hours was like one long tea party. Everyone put out the food they had brought and all were expected to take without asking. This generosity was so unsettling that I kind of wished I could just eat what I brought, even though their food was so much better. We quickly bonded, mostly through their initiative, and we didn’t fall asleep until late at night. Through the eyes of an American, there is of course a lot to criticize in a former Soviet country. But the sense of camaraderie with strangers and almost unconscious generosity with limited possessions is a cultural attribute that the United States sadly lacks.
For most of the year, I live and work in Balkhash, which is in the south-central part of the country and surrounded by barren, uninhabited, flat nothingness. As a result, I jumped at the first opportunity to volunteer in the north of the country, around the city of Petropavlovsk. Petropavlovsk juts pretty deep into Russian Siberia and is populated mostly by Russians. In fact, the region is basically part of Russia—many people run on Moscow time and the train station is actually considered Russian territory. Technically, this part of the country is also considered steppe, but it is vastly different from the steppe in which I live. It is grassy, contains pockets of birch forests, and is one of the country’s two breadbaskets. For any history buffs out there, this was where Khrushchev executed his Virgin Lands program. Petropavlovsk itself has around 200,000 people, has a pretty decent nightlife, and is close by the Ishim River, in which I almost drowned.
I arrived in the north to take part in a summer camp with some other volunteers, but in true local fashion the camp was delayed and I was forced to chill out in the city for a few days. When we finally arrived at the camp, it was a true, Soviet-era, Pioneer Camp (Communist propaganda camp)! There were red stars galore and statues of children in glorious poses in honor of the motherland. Also, the camp was littered with scores of seesaws and other such playground fixtures and there was one field that my friend Tim referred to as a “freak carnival bazaar.” Our role at the camp was to conduct English clubs and help cabins prepare activities and games. However, Kazakhstani camps are a bit different from American camps. The next day’s plans were always organized at 11o’clock the night before, which was deceiving because the sun didn’t set until almost midnight. We thus had to spend each day frantically preparing for that afternoon’s concert and series of games. For those South Park fans out there, I was strongly reminded of the episode in where the kids are sent to what is basically a concentration camp to correct their bigotry. There is one scene where a Nazi guard is yelling at the children to draw crayon pictures of friendship and pulls out a gun to make them work harder. Minus the gun, this is exactly what I witnessed one day when kids had to prepare crayon pictures to decorate some building. However, there were also a lot of fun activities that we participated in such as Pioneer Ball, which is a Soviet version of volleyball, and Joyful Soccer, in which the counselors and volunteers, dressed as clowns and with no requirement to observe any of the rules, got to compete against the campers. I had a fun time and would like to participate again next year.
After two weeks at the camp, I decided last minute to participate in a Russian learning camp for volunteers a bit farther south in Shuchinsk. This area is famous for being the gateway to Borovoe, which is nicknamed “the Switzerland of Kazakhstan.” Although far from being Switzerland, Borovoe does have beautiful mountains, pine forests, and great lakes. When you haven’t seen anything of the sort for the past year, it is pretty stunning. Yet even though it was July, it was cold and rainy and so we couldn’t swim often. I spent about a week there before I returned to Balkhash.
One of the greatest things about this summer was finally experiencing the trains. Nearly all volunteers travel around by train, but since Balkhash isn’t located on a main route, I have always taken a bus. I got my chance when I was in Almaty and took a 31-hour train ride to Petropavlovsk. I had brought plenty of reading material and had fully charged my i-pod to prepare for what I thought would be an incredible boring trip. However, it turned out that I struggled to find time to read! Kazakhs are known for their hospitality and I think this is nowhere better demonstrated than on the trains. In second-class cars, passengers are put into open cubicles with six bunks and a small table at one end. In my cubicle, there were a husband and wife, an old teacher of disabled kids, and two university students. The entire 31 hours was like one long tea party. Everyone put out the food they had brought and all were expected to take without asking. This generosity was so unsettling that I kind of wished I could just eat what I brought, even though their food was so much better. We quickly bonded, mostly through their initiative, and we didn’t fall asleep until late at night. Through the eyes of an American, there is of course a lot to criticize in a former Soviet country. But the sense of camaraderie with strangers and almost unconscious generosity with limited possessions is a cultural attribute that the United States sadly lacks.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Outside the Classroom
A few days ago, classes ended and I am finally on summer break. This is now an excellent time to sit back and ponder on my accomplishments as a teacher. Or not. This year has actually been only trial and error and if I were going home tomorrow, I would be a failure as a teacher. Instead, it would be better to talk about my main secondary project, which was completely successful—an English competition for Balkhash and the surrounding villages.
The idea for this project occurred in January when the two other Balkhash volunteers and I were sitting in a café, stressed out about how schools care less for the quality of education than their own prestige. Prestige, which is based on rewards and prizes, does not reflect the ability of students in Kazakhstan. So basically, the problem was how to make prestige of a school dependent on the strength of its students. Simultaneously, we were complaining about the recent Olympiad, which is an official competition that covers a range of subjects. As I cannot elaborate on my bitterest criticisms of the Olympiad in a public forum, let it suffice to say that it was not an honest competition. In addition, the material was extremely difficult (especially given the average English abilities at the secondary school level in Kazakhstan); was not broad enough to accurately assess English ability; and incorporated too few students to effectively motivate other students to improve their skills. We then realized that if we created our own competition, we would not only be able to rectify these problems, but encourage schools to seek prestige by having their students do well in an honest exam
From the start, we wanted the tests to include a slightly wider grade range and number of students than the Olympiad. We decided to include grades seven to eleven (the final year in Kazakhstan) and have five students from each grade from each school (25 students from each school; the Olympiad only allowed one person from each grade from each school). The test would have two rounds. The first round would be an hour long written exam that focused on English grammar and which would be mostly multiple choice with five fill-in the blanks and short answers. The finalists would then proceed to the second round, which would be a one on one interview with a native English speaker that would focus on conversational English. For the interview, grammar would be much less important than the ability to communicate ideas.
With these objectives, the first step in organizing the project was to gauge interest of local schools and then get them on board. Luckily for us, organizations here are rigidly top-down systems. Hence after only 15-minute meetings conducted in our poor Russian at each of the schools, directors signed a contract committing their schools’ participation. By mid-February, we had fourteen town and village schools on board and thus enough support to make this competition a reality. Over the next two months, we figured out logistics. We decided to hold the exam simultaneously at two different schools to ensure no one school was perceived as too “influential” over the outcome; make practice exams and theme lists for participating schools; and secure local government support. To fund the competition (paper, printing, prizes, certificates, etc), an official from the education department arranged a meeting for us with the head of the biggest bank in Balkhash. After we explained to him our idea and goals, he opened his wallet and on the spot gave us 50,000 tenge, which was enough to fund the entire project.
The first round occurred on April 25 with nearly 300 participating students. And in true Kazakhstani fashion, we commenced the event with a lavish opening ceremony that included a short military march, traditional Kazakh dances, speeches by us volunteers and distinguished guests, and the singing of the national anthem. Reporters from local newspapers were also there. Afterwards, students registered and the test began. It all went flawlessly! A lot of last minute problems of course occurred, but we dealt with them swiftly. That night we graded the tests, announced the finalists, and the second round occurred a few days later.
When we announced the winners at the beginning of May, there was a lot of excitement but also some criticism. Parents of some of the winners profusely thanked us for giving their children an opportunity to demonstrate their skills. Others were impressed that our students and friends didn’t get top places. For example, my host sister who is strong in English wasn’t a finalist. Many assumed she would be due to her relation to me. However, many of the winners did come from the richest and most influential families in the community and this caused suspicion. Yet this was because these students can afford private tutors and other resources, a problem that also exists in the United States.
Overall, the competition was a great success and hopefully it will be an annual event. Moreover, the exam gave us a mountain of data on the English abilities of local students. This summer, we plan on analyzing the data and then organizing a teachers’ workshop in August that will be tailored to the needs of the community.
The idea for this project occurred in January when the two other Balkhash volunteers and I were sitting in a café, stressed out about how schools care less for the quality of education than their own prestige. Prestige, which is based on rewards and prizes, does not reflect the ability of students in Kazakhstan. So basically, the problem was how to make prestige of a school dependent on the strength of its students. Simultaneously, we were complaining about the recent Olympiad, which is an official competition that covers a range of subjects. As I cannot elaborate on my bitterest criticisms of the Olympiad in a public forum, let it suffice to say that it was not an honest competition. In addition, the material was extremely difficult (especially given the average English abilities at the secondary school level in Kazakhstan); was not broad enough to accurately assess English ability; and incorporated too few students to effectively motivate other students to improve their skills. We then realized that if we created our own competition, we would not only be able to rectify these problems, but encourage schools to seek prestige by having their students do well in an honest exam
From the start, we wanted the tests to include a slightly wider grade range and number of students than the Olympiad. We decided to include grades seven to eleven (the final year in Kazakhstan) and have five students from each grade from each school (25 students from each school; the Olympiad only allowed one person from each grade from each school). The test would have two rounds. The first round would be an hour long written exam that focused on English grammar and which would be mostly multiple choice with five fill-in the blanks and short answers. The finalists would then proceed to the second round, which would be a one on one interview with a native English speaker that would focus on conversational English. For the interview, grammar would be much less important than the ability to communicate ideas.
With these objectives, the first step in organizing the project was to gauge interest of local schools and then get them on board. Luckily for us, organizations here are rigidly top-down systems. Hence after only 15-minute meetings conducted in our poor Russian at each of the schools, directors signed a contract committing their schools’ participation. By mid-February, we had fourteen town and village schools on board and thus enough support to make this competition a reality. Over the next two months, we figured out logistics. We decided to hold the exam simultaneously at two different schools to ensure no one school was perceived as too “influential” over the outcome; make practice exams and theme lists for participating schools; and secure local government support. To fund the competition (paper, printing, prizes, certificates, etc), an official from the education department arranged a meeting for us with the head of the biggest bank in Balkhash. After we explained to him our idea and goals, he opened his wallet and on the spot gave us 50,000 tenge, which was enough to fund the entire project.
The first round occurred on April 25 with nearly 300 participating students. And in true Kazakhstani fashion, we commenced the event with a lavish opening ceremony that included a short military march, traditional Kazakh dances, speeches by us volunteers and distinguished guests, and the singing of the national anthem. Reporters from local newspapers were also there. Afterwards, students registered and the test began. It all went flawlessly! A lot of last minute problems of course occurred, but we dealt with them swiftly. That night we graded the tests, announced the finalists, and the second round occurred a few days later.
When we announced the winners at the beginning of May, there was a lot of excitement but also some criticism. Parents of some of the winners profusely thanked us for giving their children an opportunity to demonstrate their skills. Others were impressed that our students and friends didn’t get top places. For example, my host sister who is strong in English wasn’t a finalist. Many assumed she would be due to her relation to me. However, many of the winners did come from the richest and most influential families in the community and this caused suspicion. Yet this was because these students can afford private tutors and other resources, a problem that also exists in the United States.
Overall, the competition was a great success and hopefully it will be an annual event. Moreover, the exam gave us a mountain of data on the English abilities of local students. This summer, we plan on analyzing the data and then organizing a teachers’ workshop in August that will be tailored to the needs of the community.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Spring Break - Kazakh Style
I finally had my first real spring break. Since 9th grade, I’ve always wanted to go traveling with friends during the school year. So for the last two weeks of March, during the break between the third and fourth school term, I did just that. My site mate Andrew and I threw a few things in a bag, spray painted on T-shirts a map of Kazakhstan and ВЕСЕННИЕ КАНИКУЛЫ, 2008! (Spring Break 2008), and took a 17-hour bus ride to the southern oasis of Shimkent.
Every year, nearly a hundred Peace Corps volunteers go to Shimkent at the end of March. Shimkent is one of the three largest cities in Kazakhstan and it is the heart of Kazakh culture. It is a non-descript city, but there were two things that immediately struck me upon arrival. The first was the heat, which I had completely forgotten about during winter in the steppe, and the second was the grass. Grass is one of those things that are completely unappreciated when common. But after five months living in a city where the smog kills anything that grows and which is surrounded by brown and yellow steppe, the lush green color of grass seemed grossly unnatural.
The first day was spent basically going from outdoor café to outdoor café drinking cold beer, eating delicious plov and shashlik, and hanging out with the other volunteers. But being the cultured individual that I am, I did take a short break from this hedonism to visit the Museum of Repression.
The next day, we went to the historic and holy city of Turkistan (the word Turkistan was also used in the 19th century to describe most of Central Asia). The city is famous for the mausoleum of Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi, who founded the Yasavi order, which is a type of Sufism (Islamic mysticism). It was built in the early 15th century by Tamerlane, who despite raping most of Asia, was actually quite the aesthetic ruler and built stunning monuments in the area. In my opinion, this mausoleum is the most beautiful structure in Kazakhstan (though better examples of this style exist in Uzbekistan). The mausoleum is an enormous building with a front entrance that is more imposing that the rest of the structure. Most walls are covered with tiles in different shades of blue. The top is crowned by a large dome, also decorated with blue tiles. Tamerlane died before it was completed and so the imposing entrance is plain brick with the original scaffolding still in place. I am bad at describing things, but you should definitely look it up on Google.
Turkistan is perhaps the most holy site in Kazakhstan and it is said that three pilgrimages to the mausoleum counts as one to Mecca. So I am one third of the way to becoming a hajji! But strangely, the site isn’t treated with as much respect as it deserves. There were few people praying and visitors were allowed to enter with their shoes! I’ve been to many mosques and Muslim mausoleums in the world, and that was the first time I’ve seen that. Well after a few hours of spiritual meditation, we returned to Shimkent for some beers.
The next day was Nauryz, the Kazakh New Year. As I mentioned earlier, Kazakhstan has many new years and this was the fifth that I celebrated in the country. Nauryz is the most traditional of Kazakh holidays and since independence, it has been used to revitalize Kazakh culture. Since Shimkent prides itself on being the center of Kazakh culture, Nauryz is celebrated with much greater fanfare there. At the hippodrome, the city funded an enormous festival to accompany the traditional Kazakh horse games. The festival included free food such as heaping portions of plov, flat bread, sweets, and drinks; traditional music concerts; and a number of yurts (traditional Kazakh nomadic homes, which look like flattened teepees). The whole festival attempted to recreate the feel of nomadic Kazakh culture and I guess, also instill national pride in Kazakh-ness that was suppressed under the Soviets. But it felt artificial. It seemed people were mostly fetishizing the culture and they seemed disconnected from the yurts they dined in and they dombra (Kazakh string instrument) music to which they listened.
However, the main attraction of the day was the horse games. Whereas most of the Kazakh culture displayed at the festival was just for show, people were seriously engaged in the horse games. The hippodrome in which the games took place was just a colossal depression in the steppe with people observing only on one side. There were hundreds of people there, including an unusual North Carolina family who were touring Kazakhstan just for fun (who does that?!).
The horse games were exciting. There were many games, but I’ll just describe the three most interesting. The first was wrestling on horseback. In a small circle, two guys on horses try to knock each other off by just using their arms. In the next game, Kyz Kuu, a man on horseback tries to overtake a girl on horseback. Whenever he gets close, the girl can lash him with her whip. If the guy wins, he gets a kiss from the girl; but if he fails, then the two race the other way, but this time the girl gets to whip the boy the entire length of the track! The game was played twelve times and each time, the guy lost and received some brutal lashings. The last and most popular game is called Kokpar. This game is supposedly similar to polo, but instead of a ball they use a dead goat carcass, which they must grab with their hands while on horseback. Once a team gets a hold of the bloody goat, they try to place it on the other side of the field. Around 70 horsemen participated in the game. The main thing I got out of this Nauryz celebration was that Kazakhs like their horses.
For the next ten days, we all went to Almaty where Peace Corps conducted more technical and language training. But in reality, it was Peace Corps telling us things would get better and that we shouldn’t quit. They did a good job motivating us, but now that I only have a month left of teaching, I can’t wait for summer vacation!
Every year, nearly a hundred Peace Corps volunteers go to Shimkent at the end of March. Shimkent is one of the three largest cities in Kazakhstan and it is the heart of Kazakh culture. It is a non-descript city, but there were two things that immediately struck me upon arrival. The first was the heat, which I had completely forgotten about during winter in the steppe, and the second was the grass. Grass is one of those things that are completely unappreciated when common. But after five months living in a city where the smog kills anything that grows and which is surrounded by brown and yellow steppe, the lush green color of grass seemed grossly unnatural.
The first day was spent basically going from outdoor café to outdoor café drinking cold beer, eating delicious plov and shashlik, and hanging out with the other volunteers. But being the cultured individual that I am, I did take a short break from this hedonism to visit the Museum of Repression.
The next day, we went to the historic and holy city of Turkistan (the word Turkistan was also used in the 19th century to describe most of Central Asia). The city is famous for the mausoleum of Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi, who founded the Yasavi order, which is a type of Sufism (Islamic mysticism). It was built in the early 15th century by Tamerlane, who despite raping most of Asia, was actually quite the aesthetic ruler and built stunning monuments in the area. In my opinion, this mausoleum is the most beautiful structure in Kazakhstan (though better examples of this style exist in Uzbekistan). The mausoleum is an enormous building with a front entrance that is more imposing that the rest of the structure. Most walls are covered with tiles in different shades of blue. The top is crowned by a large dome, also decorated with blue tiles. Tamerlane died before it was completed and so the imposing entrance is plain brick with the original scaffolding still in place. I am bad at describing things, but you should definitely look it up on Google.
Turkistan is perhaps the most holy site in Kazakhstan and it is said that three pilgrimages to the mausoleum counts as one to Mecca. So I am one third of the way to becoming a hajji! But strangely, the site isn’t treated with as much respect as it deserves. There were few people praying and visitors were allowed to enter with their shoes! I’ve been to many mosques and Muslim mausoleums in the world, and that was the first time I’ve seen that. Well after a few hours of spiritual meditation, we returned to Shimkent for some beers.
The next day was Nauryz, the Kazakh New Year. As I mentioned earlier, Kazakhstan has many new years and this was the fifth that I celebrated in the country. Nauryz is the most traditional of Kazakh holidays and since independence, it has been used to revitalize Kazakh culture. Since Shimkent prides itself on being the center of Kazakh culture, Nauryz is celebrated with much greater fanfare there. At the hippodrome, the city funded an enormous festival to accompany the traditional Kazakh horse games. The festival included free food such as heaping portions of plov, flat bread, sweets, and drinks; traditional music concerts; and a number of yurts (traditional Kazakh nomadic homes, which look like flattened teepees). The whole festival attempted to recreate the feel of nomadic Kazakh culture and I guess, also instill national pride in Kazakh-ness that was suppressed under the Soviets. But it felt artificial. It seemed people were mostly fetishizing the culture and they seemed disconnected from the yurts they dined in and they dombra (Kazakh string instrument) music to which they listened.
However, the main attraction of the day was the horse games. Whereas most of the Kazakh culture displayed at the festival was just for show, people were seriously engaged in the horse games. The hippodrome in which the games took place was just a colossal depression in the steppe with people observing only on one side. There were hundreds of people there, including an unusual North Carolina family who were touring Kazakhstan just for fun (who does that?!).
The horse games were exciting. There were many games, but I’ll just describe the three most interesting. The first was wrestling on horseback. In a small circle, two guys on horses try to knock each other off by just using their arms. In the next game, Kyz Kuu, a man on horseback tries to overtake a girl on horseback. Whenever he gets close, the girl can lash him with her whip. If the guy wins, he gets a kiss from the girl; but if he fails, then the two race the other way, but this time the girl gets to whip the boy the entire length of the track! The game was played twelve times and each time, the guy lost and received some brutal lashings. The last and most popular game is called Kokpar. This game is supposedly similar to polo, but instead of a ball they use a dead goat carcass, which they must grab with their hands while on horseback. Once a team gets a hold of the bloody goat, they try to place it on the other side of the field. Around 70 horsemen participated in the game. The main thing I got out of this Nauryz celebration was that Kazakhs like their horses.
For the next ten days, we all went to Almaty where Peace Corps conducted more technical and language training. But in reality, it was Peace Corps telling us things would get better and that we shouldn’t quit. They did a good job motivating us, but now that I only have a month left of teaching, I can’t wait for summer vacation!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Why Am I Here?
Peace Corps has recently told us that the period between our sixth to ninth month of service, the time I am now entering, will be the most difficult time. It is the period when most PCVs decide to terminate their service early. I just want to say that I spent both of the last three-month periods thinking they would be the most difficult to adjust to. Apparently, we realize that we are not doing anything productive and we can’t stand being here for another 1.5 years. So I think this is a good time to assess my experience so far and speculate on my future impact.
My main goal is simple: to improve the English skill levels of my students. It sounds easy enough to attain—prepare lessons for the day’s scheduled theme and teach it. Well, when the theme is “Global Foreign Policy after [the] Events of September 11: Prospects of Asia and [the] West,” in the passive voice of course, it is difficult. Now teaching this theme to students who don’t even know the simplest grammar is impossible.
So what to do? Simple—revolutionize how English is taught here. My strategy has three parts: teach to their skill level, improve the teaching style, and create opportunities outside the classroom for students to improve their English. Let me quickly say that I do not see myself as some grand reformer who is the only one qualified to do this. The problem is that the Education Ministry provides terrible English books and sets unrealistic goals for each year. As an outsider and native English speaker, I see issues from different angles; and as an unpaid volunteer, I have more freedom to try new ideas and don’t have to worry about being punished. Besides, if I get yelled at I can tune out the Russian.
Teaching to a student’s skill level is perhaps the most critical. The skill level of the students is very low and is compounded by the fact that they do not fully grasp the absolute basics—verb conjugations of regular verbs, simple verb tenses, articles, ‘to be,’ questions, and elementary vocabulary. The reason is that teachers teach the material once in 5th grade and expect them to know it forever. They rarely review. As I am currently studying Russian, I know that students need to review the same material again and again. As a result, I am trying to include these basic reviews at the expense of new material. At first, local teachers were resistant because they are required to teach new material and argued that the students already knew the material. I don’t know why they were reluctant to admit low skill levels, but it might because it could reflect poorly on their teaching, which was not fully the case. I argued that we want students to speak English and that by teaching material so fast at the expense of review, they were actually learning nothing. Although review might “waste time,” it guaranteed that the students would be able to speak English to some degree. A few weeks ago, I stood aside in awe as my counterpart stopped her lesson after students were having trouble with ‘to be’ and spent 20 minutes reviewing it. That might seem like a small deal, but I felt awesome.
This also shows a change in teaching style, which should be improved. Teachers are required to teach out of a national textbook, which is divided into one-class lessons. However, each lesson presents enough new material for a week or two. This partly explains why teachers rush their lessons and students don’t retain much. I have basically tossed aside the textbook (there are many more reasons why these books are awful and they are essentially a crime against the country) and I am encouraging teachers to design their own lessons based on the book’s themes. This will hopefully ensure that only a few new ideas are presented in class and that the students will actually understand and retain the information. Also, perhaps due to the rushed nature of the textbook, teachers employ not the best strategies. These include completely ignoring weak students, which accumulates over the years and creates huge disparities in skill levels; asking questions and then immediately giving the answers, which prevents students practicing the new material and hides their weaknesses; and just not giving students much time to speak and hence practice their skills. All of these problems can be eased by greater patience, individual attention, and positive reinforcement. This approach has already worked with several of my weakest students, who are now improving and eagerly participating in class.
The last problem is that since there is so much to learn and the students are so far behind, there is not enough time to review and teach them enough skills to be comprehensive in English. Consequently, I am focusing primarily on creating outside opportunities for students to improve English. These include English conversational clubs, English grammar clubs, practice sheets (which do not exist), and my biggest project—a Balkhash Regional English Competition. This idea came about due to a failed state run English test in January (I can’t say in this blog why it failed without probably getting censored by Peace Corps). My site mate Drew and I decided to organize a competitive test between the twenty schools of Balkhash and the surrounding villages. As of now, we have most of the schools on board and the test should take place sometime in April with 300+ students!
The honeymoon period of service has definitely ended. But despite being frustrated and outraged everyday, things are going pretty well…or at least I haven’t broken down in the classroom and sobbed hysterically. I didn’t expect to move mountains and if there were nothing to be frustrated about, then there would be no reason for me to be here. I am not worried about the next three months.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Happy Holidays Times Ten!
I have been in Balkhash for almost two months and working hard! Well, hard except for about the month plus of holidays. Kazakhstan likes it holidays. Since I’ve been in Balkhash, I’ve celebrated Id (a Muslim holiday), Republic’s Day, Independence Day, Catholic Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, and Old New Year. So while you back in the States get one holiday each for Christmas, New Years, and Independence, we here in Kazakhstan get two. With all this time off, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to experience how Kazakhstanis celebrate.
Whether the holiday is religious, national, or other, it is celebrated the same way—a dinner with tons of people, heaping portions of the same foods, and plenty of vodka. These holiday “dinners” are marathons with all of the ones I’ve been to lasting at least five hours and at most eight! The central act during these dinners is the toast. Each person is given a rumka, or shot glass, which must always be filled. As soon as everyone is seated and the rumkis are full, someone makes a toast and the shots are downed. No mixed drinks here; only straight up vodka. Every five to fifteen minutes, another person makes a toast and we go around the table toasting and drinking for the whole epic dinner. As you can imagine, the amount of vodka consumed is phenomenal and would put fraternities across America to shame. But whereas in American college parties you can abstain from drinking or get completely wasted and still be respected the next day, in Kazakhstan you must drink like a fish and be able to walk a straight line afterwards. Abstinence, or even moderation, is offensive. Refusing alcohol invites taunts such as “Kto ne pyut, ne Ruski” [He who doesn’t drink, isn’t Russian.]—an amusing comment considering that many of the people who give into this taunt aren’t Russian. To minimize damage, one option is to take half shots, although you are warned that “if you sip vodka, it goes to your head; but if you down it, it goes to your stomach and you won’t be tipsy.” But the better strategy is to eat huge servings of fatty foods after every shot. So despite the health effects of consuming a mountain of fat cubes and mayo salad with a bottle of vodka, I’ve only embarrassed myself with my poor Russian. In fact, several times I’ve received compliments from my host for not being drunk. Strange that they were expecting it since they forced me to drink…
Another fun part of these parties is the local food. Kazakhstani cuisine is eclectic, combining Kazakh (and other Turkic), Russian, and Korean influences. In fact, I feel that in a lot of ways these people have the ideal attitude, i.e. mine, towards food: meat and potatoes are plentiful, vegetables are rare and unavailable during the winter, and spinach is actually considered a weed! Let me give a quick culinary tour of Kazakhstan:
Beshbarmak: Means ‘five fingers’ in Kazakh because you are supposed to eat it with your hands, this dish consists of hulking size pieces of cow or horse that has been boiled on top of flat square noodles. Some of these meat cuts are pretty impressive and at weddings, you can see the whole top of a horse femur bone. And speaking of this delicious meat, the first time I tasted horse was the day I fell off one…kind of fitting, right?
Kurdak: This is a hit or miss dish. It is basically heavily fried meat and potatoes. When the meat is normal muscle, it is phenomenal. But on special occasions they substitute muscle for cut up tongue, kidney, heart, and liver. Unfortunately for me, every time I eat with people who want to impress me, I end up having to dine on unappetizing foods. For example, guests are always given an enormous bone (sometimes several ribs still connected to a chain of vertebrae) with generous layers of fat. I am looking forward to the day when I am fully integrated in my family and I can go for the delicious fat free and juicy tenderloin pieces of beef in the communal plate that everyone else ignores.
Plov: This is an Uzbek dish and all Kazakhs who have cooked it for me made that very clear. It is a basically a fried rice dish with meat and carrots. It is different from the Chinese/American dish in that the rice is much shorter in length and stickier.
Monte: These are Kazakh-style dumplings stuffed with meat, potatoes and sometimes pumpkin. This is one of my favorite dishes, which means there is nothing wrong with it and hence no interesting stories.
Lagman: This is simply beef noodle soup with the added benefit that the long noodles are freshly made and are somewhat chewy.
Baursak and Leposhki: Fried bread—always delicious
Salads: Every table always has a few “salads,” but these are basically small dishes with shredded meat, finely diced potatoes and carrots, and two-thirds mayo. For so many salad dishes in this country, I have yet to see lettuce. In the States, I was vehemently against mayo, but here it is essential as a good counterweight to vodka.
Jams: The homemade jam here has totally redeemed jam for me as a whole. Unlike in the States, the jam isn’t overly sweet and it basically tastes like cheery, raspberry, or strawberry syrup or puree. You can eat it right out of the bowl with your spoon…and people do. As a result, I avoided jam for the first several months because I thought it was a cesspool of bacteria, which it probably is here. But my family in Balkhash makes such amazing jam that I happily risk some debilitating illness.
Kazakhstanis are very generous, especially with food. Tables are always covered with dozens of dishes and bread is spread over the whole table. You are expected to put much on your plate, eat much, and waste much. I think part of the reason for this generosity is that at the end of the Soviet Union and during the first ten years of independence, food was scarce. Stores were basically empty and it was a time when people didn’t know if they would even be able to eat. Now that things are going so well, it is almost as if they are celebrating the end of scarcity with a cornucopia of food.
One of the most memorable dinner parties I had was for Id. My family and I went over to the home of some Uzbeks. The wife was one of the more “free-spirited” and fun women I have met in Kazakhstan and reminded me of my host mom in Uzunagach. She improvised a bunch of crazy dance moves and invited me to Uzbekistan. When we decided to leave, it was snowing heavily. The Uzbeks walked us to the car and then the wife ran back upstairs and came back with a handful of shot glasses, a bottle of vodka, and a plate of sausage and cheese. As the snow fell, we took shots on the hood of the car, sang songs, and danced; Ithese people know how to live!
Whether the holiday is religious, national, or other, it is celebrated the same way—a dinner with tons of people, heaping portions of the same foods, and plenty of vodka. These holiday “dinners” are marathons with all of the ones I’ve been to lasting at least five hours and at most eight! The central act during these dinners is the toast. Each person is given a rumka, or shot glass, which must always be filled. As soon as everyone is seated and the rumkis are full, someone makes a toast and the shots are downed. No mixed drinks here; only straight up vodka. Every five to fifteen minutes, another person makes a toast and we go around the table toasting and drinking for the whole epic dinner. As you can imagine, the amount of vodka consumed is phenomenal and would put fraternities across America to shame. But whereas in American college parties you can abstain from drinking or get completely wasted and still be respected the next day, in Kazakhstan you must drink like a fish and be able to walk a straight line afterwards. Abstinence, or even moderation, is offensive. Refusing alcohol invites taunts such as “Kto ne pyut, ne Ruski” [He who doesn’t drink, isn’t Russian.]—an amusing comment considering that many of the people who give into this taunt aren’t Russian. To minimize damage, one option is to take half shots, although you are warned that “if you sip vodka, it goes to your head; but if you down it, it goes to your stomach and you won’t be tipsy.” But the better strategy is to eat huge servings of fatty foods after every shot. So despite the health effects of consuming a mountain of fat cubes and mayo salad with a bottle of vodka, I’ve only embarrassed myself with my poor Russian. In fact, several times I’ve received compliments from my host for not being drunk. Strange that they were expecting it since they forced me to drink…
Another fun part of these parties is the local food. Kazakhstani cuisine is eclectic, combining Kazakh (and other Turkic), Russian, and Korean influences. In fact, I feel that in a lot of ways these people have the ideal attitude, i.e. mine, towards food: meat and potatoes are plentiful, vegetables are rare and unavailable during the winter, and spinach is actually considered a weed! Let me give a quick culinary tour of Kazakhstan:
Beshbarmak: Means ‘five fingers’ in Kazakh because you are supposed to eat it with your hands, this dish consists of hulking size pieces of cow or horse that has been boiled on top of flat square noodles. Some of these meat cuts are pretty impressive and at weddings, you can see the whole top of a horse femur bone. And speaking of this delicious meat, the first time I tasted horse was the day I fell off one…kind of fitting, right?
Kurdak: This is a hit or miss dish. It is basically heavily fried meat and potatoes. When the meat is normal muscle, it is phenomenal. But on special occasions they substitute muscle for cut up tongue, kidney, heart, and liver. Unfortunately for me, every time I eat with people who want to impress me, I end up having to dine on unappetizing foods. For example, guests are always given an enormous bone (sometimes several ribs still connected to a chain of vertebrae) with generous layers of fat. I am looking forward to the day when I am fully integrated in my family and I can go for the delicious fat free and juicy tenderloin pieces of beef in the communal plate that everyone else ignores.
Plov: This is an Uzbek dish and all Kazakhs who have cooked it for me made that very clear. It is a basically a fried rice dish with meat and carrots. It is different from the Chinese/American dish in that the rice is much shorter in length and stickier.
Monte: These are Kazakh-style dumplings stuffed with meat, potatoes and sometimes pumpkin. This is one of my favorite dishes, which means there is nothing wrong with it and hence no interesting stories.
Lagman: This is simply beef noodle soup with the added benefit that the long noodles are freshly made and are somewhat chewy.
Baursak and Leposhki: Fried bread—always delicious
Salads: Every table always has a few “salads,” but these are basically small dishes with shredded meat, finely diced potatoes and carrots, and two-thirds mayo. For so many salad dishes in this country, I have yet to see lettuce. In the States, I was vehemently against mayo, but here it is essential as a good counterweight to vodka.
Jams: The homemade jam here has totally redeemed jam for me as a whole. Unlike in the States, the jam isn’t overly sweet and it basically tastes like cheery, raspberry, or strawberry syrup or puree. You can eat it right out of the bowl with your spoon…and people do. As a result, I avoided jam for the first several months because I thought it was a cesspool of bacteria, which it probably is here. But my family in Balkhash makes such amazing jam that I happily risk some debilitating illness.
Kazakhstanis are very generous, especially with food. Tables are always covered with dozens of dishes and bread is spread over the whole table. You are expected to put much on your plate, eat much, and waste much. I think part of the reason for this generosity is that at the end of the Soviet Union and during the first ten years of independence, food was scarce. Stores were basically empty and it was a time when people didn’t know if they would even be able to eat. Now that things are going so well, it is almost as if they are celebrating the end of scarcity with a cornucopia of food.
One of the most memorable dinner parties I had was for Id. My family and I went over to the home of some Uzbeks. The wife was one of the more “free-spirited” and fun women I have met in Kazakhstan and reminded me of my host mom in Uzunagach. She improvised a bunch of crazy dance moves and invited me to Uzbekistan. When we decided to leave, it was snowing heavily. The Uzbeks walked us to the car and then the wife ran back upstairs and came back with a handful of shot glasses, a bottle of vodka, and a plate of sausage and cheese. As the snow fell, we took shots on the hood of the car, sang songs, and danced; Ithese people know how to live!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Livin' It Large in Balkhash
Happy Holidays! Winter has come to Kazakhstan like the Mongol invasion—fast and brutal. For the past month, I have been at my permanent site, Balkhash, which I will now start to describe. Today is supposedly –45C, or –49F, so if anything seems negative it is the weather talking.
Balkhash is a town of 70,000 and is situated on beautiful Lake Balkhash. The town is small enough to be navigable by foot (well, for a New Yorker) but large enough to enjoy yourself. Balkhash can be divided into two parts—an attractive downtown area with Eastern European style architecture and colors such as bright yellow, blue, and pink and a glum periphery with Soviet era concrete apartments, exposed pipes, and a feel of an abandoned construction site. The downtown area is defined by a wide boulevard, Lenin St, and a perpendicular two-lane street with a pedestrian lane down the center, Wallihana St. In this area, there is plenty of decent shopping, cafés (which means restaurant and bar), billiards, a bowling hall, a fitness center, and attractive buildings. The most impressive is the Culture House, which is a neoclassical yellow building several stories high, and is located at the intersection of Lenin and Wallihana. At the opposite end of Wallihana, which is only several blocks long, is the main square with a statue of the local hero, Agabai Batir, and small yurt-like structures. I, however, live ten minutes away in the gloomy periphery. I live in one of the few houses in Balkhash, but the rest of the area reminds me of news reports from Grozny in Chechnya. This image results partly from gunshot-like sounds made by children playing with firecrackers. The area has the look of an inner-city project and the public areas inside these buildings are even worst. But this is only superficial; the apartments themselves are renovated, well maintained, and very comfortable and homey. As a whole, the town has a feel of a place much bigger.
Balkhash was founded in 1937 as a center from which to exploit the vast amounts of natural resources in the area—copper, gold, coal, and many others—and process them. As a result, the most defining feature of the town is the copper factory. The structure is enormous! It takes up a good chunk of the town, has eight smokestacks, and can be seen from anywhere. The entire town is geared towards this factory—most people work there or in the associated mines, the universities and institutes prepare students to work there, and it runs 24/7. Even I deal with the realities of the factory everyday. About once a day as I walk outside, my chest and throat begin to hurt and I have trouble breathing. Suddenly, I have an awful taste in my mouth, but I cannot see or smell what it is. I start coughing. GAS. Although the factory was designed to have its smoke blow away from the town, the winds often change directions and Balkhash is covered in this odorless, invisible, and yet able to taste gas. Yes, I live in a factory town.
But I guess what makes a town is who you live with and I have a fantastic host family. There is a mother, a father, two daughters, and a female cousin who lives with us. The father is a boss at the factory and works every day including Sunday and holidays but he is always jovial. The mother is a kindergarten teacher who at first appears calm and quiet, but in actuality she loves joking around. The oldest daughter is 22 and is named Indira, after Indira Gandhi…why, I don’t know. The other daughter, Kamila, is 16. She is one of my students and the family member with whom I get along best. Although she is only 16, she has the maturity of a 25 year old. She is calm, smart, collected, and responsible. We live in a house, which is anything but what you would expect from Peace Corps. In addition to all of the minimal luxuries I didn’t expect from electricity, running water, and an indoor toilet, the place is furnished like an average small European house. And la piece de la resistance—a brand new sauna, or “banya.” In my room, it’s difficult to feel as if I am in the developing world. My family told me that they used to have beautiful ornate carpets hanging on all the walls, but they took them down because it was too traditional and I guess they want to be modern. The one main difference is the lack of bedrooms. Although they have a sizeable living room and dining room, I have to myself the only bedroom. And yes, I feel awful about that, but Peace Corps demands it. The rest of the family sleeps in makeshift beds. I am still in the process of getting tight with this family, which is a bit more difficult than with my family in Uzunagach because here they actually expect me to understand everything they are saying. Eh, that won’t happen anytime soon.
Balkhash is a town of 70,000 and is situated on beautiful Lake Balkhash. The town is small enough to be navigable by foot (well, for a New Yorker) but large enough to enjoy yourself. Balkhash can be divided into two parts—an attractive downtown area with Eastern European style architecture and colors such as bright yellow, blue, and pink and a glum periphery with Soviet era concrete apartments, exposed pipes, and a feel of an abandoned construction site. The downtown area is defined by a wide boulevard, Lenin St, and a perpendicular two-lane street with a pedestrian lane down the center, Wallihana St. In this area, there is plenty of decent shopping, cafés (which means restaurant and bar), billiards, a bowling hall, a fitness center, and attractive buildings. The most impressive is the Culture House, which is a neoclassical yellow building several stories high, and is located at the intersection of Lenin and Wallihana. At the opposite end of Wallihana, which is only several blocks long, is the main square with a statue of the local hero, Agabai Batir, and small yurt-like structures. I, however, live ten minutes away in the gloomy periphery. I live in one of the few houses in Balkhash, but the rest of the area reminds me of news reports from Grozny in Chechnya. This image results partly from gunshot-like sounds made by children playing with firecrackers. The area has the look of an inner-city project and the public areas inside these buildings are even worst. But this is only superficial; the apartments themselves are renovated, well maintained, and very comfortable and homey. As a whole, the town has a feel of a place much bigger.
Balkhash was founded in 1937 as a center from which to exploit the vast amounts of natural resources in the area—copper, gold, coal, and many others—and process them. As a result, the most defining feature of the town is the copper factory. The structure is enormous! It takes up a good chunk of the town, has eight smokestacks, and can be seen from anywhere. The entire town is geared towards this factory—most people work there or in the associated mines, the universities and institutes prepare students to work there, and it runs 24/7. Even I deal with the realities of the factory everyday. About once a day as I walk outside, my chest and throat begin to hurt and I have trouble breathing. Suddenly, I have an awful taste in my mouth, but I cannot see or smell what it is. I start coughing. GAS. Although the factory was designed to have its smoke blow away from the town, the winds often change directions and Balkhash is covered in this odorless, invisible, and yet able to taste gas. Yes, I live in a factory town.
But I guess what makes a town is who you live with and I have a fantastic host family. There is a mother, a father, two daughters, and a female cousin who lives with us. The father is a boss at the factory and works every day including Sunday and holidays but he is always jovial. The mother is a kindergarten teacher who at first appears calm and quiet, but in actuality she loves joking around. The oldest daughter is 22 and is named Indira, after Indira Gandhi…why, I don’t know. The other daughter, Kamila, is 16. She is one of my students and the family member with whom I get along best. Although she is only 16, she has the maturity of a 25 year old. She is calm, smart, collected, and responsible. We live in a house, which is anything but what you would expect from Peace Corps. In addition to all of the minimal luxuries I didn’t expect from electricity, running water, and an indoor toilet, the place is furnished like an average small European house. And la piece de la resistance—a brand new sauna, or “banya.” In my room, it’s difficult to feel as if I am in the developing world. My family told me that they used to have beautiful ornate carpets hanging on all the walls, but they took them down because it was too traditional and I guess they want to be modern. The one main difference is the lack of bedrooms. Although they have a sizeable living room and dining room, I have to myself the only bedroom. And yes, I feel awful about that, but Peace Corps demands it. The rest of the family sleeps in makeshift beds. I am still in the process of getting tight with this family, which is a bit more difficult than with my family in Uzunagach because here they actually expect me to understand everything they are saying. Eh, that won’t happen anytime soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)