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.