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!
Monday, January 21, 2008
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.
Friday, November 30, 2007
“I am Fit” vs. “I am Fat”
Continuing with my experience during Pre-Service Training…
Aside from learning Russian, a more important task was learning how to teach. The mission of Peace Corps states that only trained people will be sent overseas, but in the case of English teachers nearly all of us had no substantial teaching experience. And to be honest, in my ignorance I did not think there was that much training required for teaching at the secondary level. But I was wrong. Thanks to the incredible training staff at Peace Corps, in three months I learned how to design lesson plans, present and practice difficult materials, and communicate despite an enormous language gap.
But first, let me give some background on the school at which I taught. When I first saw the building, I thought I was in a rich suburb of Southern California. The building was new and freshly painted pink. There were at least four computer rooms and a language room with brand new equipment. All students wore impressively neat suits and dresses and girls wore white poofs in their hair the size of their heads. Is this really the type of school that Peace Corps sends people? But soon after we started observing classes, I saw room for improvement. In all subjects, many of the teachers just read from the book and the little drilling used was completely ineffective. Most of these teachers cared for their students, but from an American viewpoint the creative components that I used to take for granted were painfully absent. Hence even though we trainees did not have formal training, we innately incorporated interactive and creative styles in our teaching.
The most critical skill I learned in training was lesson planning. I was taught to create feasible and measurable objectives for each lesson, such as “students will be able to create a dialogue of six sentences using the new vocabulary.” Also, Peace Corps uses the P3 method of teaching: presentation, practice, and production. For presentation, the teacher presents the material, vocabulary or grammar, and uses visual aids and gestures to demonstrate meaning across the language gap. For practice, students use the new material in creative ways that emphasizes speaking and interaction. For example, I create games or activities such as ball tosses, relay races, or board games that force the students to speak the whole time and use the new material. All these games must directly serve the objectives of the class, which is executed in production. In this last phase, students make a dialogue or a text or answer questions without notes and without my help. This tests what they have learned that day and requires them to use it unassisted. Lesson planning takes a long time because the themed chapters I am supposed to teach are extremely eclectic and making visual aids and game pieces is also time consuming.
The most important part of training was of course, teaching. I must admit I was nervous about standing up in front of fifteen perhaps unruly children and trying to communicate without any Russian. I thought I was going to hate teaching for at least the first year. But after the first minute at the board, I became exhilarated! Although the production of my first lesson was a crash and burn, my second was executed very well and I have since got the hang of it. I now love teaching, though I will not make it my profession. In the five weeks that I taught in Uzunagach, I saw amazing progress! Instead of spending the whole 45 minutes not saying a word in English, students actually were excited as they tried to form sentences and even after class they were eager to speak. I was told by one teacher that she was shocked that some kid actually volunteered to demonstrate a dialogue in class because he always refused to speak.
However, there have been some difficulties, especially in team-teaching. Since a goal of Peace Corps is to make sure most of what the volunteers contribute is sustainable, we teach English with local English teachers. This exposes these teachers to different teaching styles. But sometimes these teachers aren’t interested or misinterpret what you say. My favorite example is when I taught a lesson on being fit and I asked my counterpart to translate “I am fit” and she translated it as “I am fat.” For the next ten minutes, students were confused at how activities like weight-lifting and running makes you fat.
In addition to teaching English, I also ran English clubs. The English club was an informal forum to speak in English and learn about American culture. Since their English levels were very low, club was limited to singing songs and playing games. But it got students interested in English. I guess the goal of these clubs is to find a small group of interested students who will be able to discuss ideas in English and actually prepare them for a future that will involve these skills. For the other students, it is just fun and might improve their performance in class.
But one of the most rewarding components of teaching (and well being an American) is the immense popularity. Yes, that sounds shallow. But when you have children constantly yelling your name and some random English words or phrases and crowds always around you, it is impossible to not feel happy and eager to work. Maybe it is because I have never been this popular at school, but I think it is good that these kids look up to me because that will make them more interested in learning English.
That is basically the end of my pre-training service in Uzunagach saga and my next entry will be about my life in Balkhash, which for the past three weeks have been great!
Aside from learning Russian, a more important task was learning how to teach. The mission of Peace Corps states that only trained people will be sent overseas, but in the case of English teachers nearly all of us had no substantial teaching experience. And to be honest, in my ignorance I did not think there was that much training required for teaching at the secondary level. But I was wrong. Thanks to the incredible training staff at Peace Corps, in three months I learned how to design lesson plans, present and practice difficult materials, and communicate despite an enormous language gap.
But first, let me give some background on the school at which I taught. When I first saw the building, I thought I was in a rich suburb of Southern California. The building was new and freshly painted pink. There were at least four computer rooms and a language room with brand new equipment. All students wore impressively neat suits and dresses and girls wore white poofs in their hair the size of their heads. Is this really the type of school that Peace Corps sends people? But soon after we started observing classes, I saw room for improvement. In all subjects, many of the teachers just read from the book and the little drilling used was completely ineffective. Most of these teachers cared for their students, but from an American viewpoint the creative components that I used to take for granted were painfully absent. Hence even though we trainees did not have formal training, we innately incorporated interactive and creative styles in our teaching.
The most critical skill I learned in training was lesson planning. I was taught to create feasible and measurable objectives for each lesson, such as “students will be able to create a dialogue of six sentences using the new vocabulary.” Also, Peace Corps uses the P3 method of teaching: presentation, practice, and production. For presentation, the teacher presents the material, vocabulary or grammar, and uses visual aids and gestures to demonstrate meaning across the language gap. For practice, students use the new material in creative ways that emphasizes speaking and interaction. For example, I create games or activities such as ball tosses, relay races, or board games that force the students to speak the whole time and use the new material. All these games must directly serve the objectives of the class, which is executed in production. In this last phase, students make a dialogue or a text or answer questions without notes and without my help. This tests what they have learned that day and requires them to use it unassisted. Lesson planning takes a long time because the themed chapters I am supposed to teach are extremely eclectic and making visual aids and game pieces is also time consuming.
The most important part of training was of course, teaching. I must admit I was nervous about standing up in front of fifteen perhaps unruly children and trying to communicate without any Russian. I thought I was going to hate teaching for at least the first year. But after the first minute at the board, I became exhilarated! Although the production of my first lesson was a crash and burn, my second was executed very well and I have since got the hang of it. I now love teaching, though I will not make it my profession. In the five weeks that I taught in Uzunagach, I saw amazing progress! Instead of spending the whole 45 minutes not saying a word in English, students actually were excited as they tried to form sentences and even after class they were eager to speak. I was told by one teacher that she was shocked that some kid actually volunteered to demonstrate a dialogue in class because he always refused to speak.
However, there have been some difficulties, especially in team-teaching. Since a goal of Peace Corps is to make sure most of what the volunteers contribute is sustainable, we teach English with local English teachers. This exposes these teachers to different teaching styles. But sometimes these teachers aren’t interested or misinterpret what you say. My favorite example is when I taught a lesson on being fit and I asked my counterpart to translate “I am fit” and she translated it as “I am fat.” For the next ten minutes, students were confused at how activities like weight-lifting and running makes you fat.
In addition to teaching English, I also ran English clubs. The English club was an informal forum to speak in English and learn about American culture. Since their English levels were very low, club was limited to singing songs and playing games. But it got students interested in English. I guess the goal of these clubs is to find a small group of interested students who will be able to discuss ideas in English and actually prepare them for a future that will involve these skills. For the other students, it is just fun and might improve their performance in class.
But one of the most rewarding components of teaching (and well being an American) is the immense popularity. Yes, that sounds shallow. But when you have children constantly yelling your name and some random English words or phrases and crowds always around you, it is impossible to not feel happy and eager to work. Maybe it is because I have never been this popular at school, but I think it is good that these kids look up to me because that will make them more interested in learning English.
That is basically the end of my pre-training service in Uzunagach saga and my next entry will be about my life in Balkhash, which for the past three weeks have been great!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Horses and Cannibals
It has taken exactly three months, but I finally decided to sum up what I have been doing in the middle of nowhere Kazakhstan. I am currently at my permanent site of Balkhash where I will be an English teacher with the United States Peace Corps for the next two years. But before I talk about that, I should explain what I have been doing since I arrived in Almaty on August 23, 2007.
For the past three months, I was in Pre-Service Training (PST). This is the period where Peace Corps trainees are placed in a village with around ten other Americans and you learn all the skills you will need for the next two years. This includes language training, teaching training, and cultural training. In addition to studying the language—primarily Russian, but also Kazakh—we taught classes, ran English clubs, held teacher workshops, and came up with and executed a secondary community project. In short, it was an extremely hectic three months and although it felt like forever, now that I am at my permanent site it seems like PST lasted only a week.
For PST, I was placed in the Kazakh (meaning over 75% Kazakh) village of Uzunagach. The village is a bit over an hour from Almaty, the former capital and still commercial center of Kazakhstan. Uzunagach is a pleasant place with around 30,000 people and though it is called a village, it had more of a suburban feel. The main strip of the town is very typical of a Kazakhstani town and village. There is a monument to the local hero, Karasay Batir; the akemat (local government); an enormous building for the education department; the “Culture House;” WWII, or Great Patriotic War as it is known here, monument with eternal flame; and further down the bazaar, the post office, and KazTelecom. Nine other Americans were placed in Uzunagach (one later dropped out) and we were split into two groups and were placed into different schools. In these groups, we learned Russian and worked on projects, but all eight of us became very close.
Although I was technically located in Uzunagach, I actually lived in a much smaller village outside called Jana Khurlus, which is 30 minutes away by foot. Jana Khurlus is an interesting place. The name apparently means “New York” in Kazakh—Jana means New and Khurlus means…York??? Everyone told me this and unfortunately my Russian and certainly my Kazakh were not at a level where I could get a straight answer about how this is possible. Jana Khurlus also has a high population of Chechens. I should mention here that Kazakhstan is a heterogeneous country. Only 60% of the population is Kazakh, around 30% is Russian, and the rest is German, Ukrainian, Korean, Chechen, or other Turkic—Uzbek, Uigher, Karakalpak, Turk, Tatar. Most of the peoples, including the Chechens, were put in Kazakhstan under Stalin to keep them from being disruptive.
In Jana Khurlus, I lived with a Kazakh family in what felt like a farmhouse. Although they were one of the poorer families with which an American was residing, it was definitely not what I expected. It was decently spacious and there was first, electricity, and second a TV, DVD player, stereo, and computer, but alas no internet. There was no running water, however, and I had to use an outhouse, wash clothing by hand, wash myself with a bucket and ladle, and the house was heated with wood. Still, not exactly the full Peace Corps experience. I should mention that by the end of my stay, my family had firmly moved into the middle class. One day, my host brother comes back with a washing machine, a microwave, and iron, and a cell phone and a few weeks later we had a sink with running water. The house itself was very typically Kazakh. Enormous detailed rugs were hung on all walls within the house and the outside door and window frames were blue with white geometrical carvings on them.
The family I was living with was absolutely amazing and with whom I will stay in contact with for the next two years. The head of the house is Zaurie, a mother and a teacher of Russian. She has two sons—Timur (22) and Sanjar (20), both of who are physical education teachers. There is no father, which actually was the case with almost all the host families. Zaurie deserves a whole blog entry to herself. She is a loud, gregarious woman who loves jokes (and lies) and always made me feel completely at ease. Though even by the end I only spoke a bit of Russian, there were never any quiet moments. Everyday, she would tell me the local gossip or some fantastical story such as the one about the Uzunagach cannibal who had a penchant for Russian girls and made dumplings out of them. She had a way of telling stories that crossed linguistic boundaries. But she did dedicate much of her time, despite having no free time, to helping me learn Russian. Whenever she saw me studying, she would ask if I needed help and regardless of my response, she would take my books and notes and go through it with me. She is also a very traditional woman, despite her love of alcohol and vehemence toward her own religion, Islam. Whenever she thought I might be ill or that there were bad spirits around, she would light matches and swirl them over my head. Since I showered only once a week, I sometimes thought my hair would catch on fire. She also made me pin a tiny evil eye on the inside of my shirt collar to keep away these spirits and especially those sent by our next-door neighbor. She accused this woman of cursing me for “my beautiful face” and causing me to fall off a horse…yes that did happen and yes, that is the end of my dream to ride a horse everyday to work in Kazakhstan. But as one can imagine, it was awkward walking past this sweet looking neighbor as my host mother whispers that she is cursing me. Zaurie also describes herself as a fortuneteller and using an ordinary deck of cards, told the future for everyone.
The two sons were also great to have around. Timur is the one with whom I became closest and who kind of took me under his wing. For the first two weeks, he walked me to school everyday and would pick me up. He stayed at home at night and we watched TV together. Sanjar, on the other hand, is the wild son who went out every night and came back at four or five in the morning. He was always fighting with his mom and yelling, but there is also some childish innocent in him as well.
This is getting long and there is still so much to tell about my stay in Uzunagach. But as I don’t want people to stop reading cause of the length, I will post the second half later.
For the past three months, I was in Pre-Service Training (PST). This is the period where Peace Corps trainees are placed in a village with around ten other Americans and you learn all the skills you will need for the next two years. This includes language training, teaching training, and cultural training. In addition to studying the language—primarily Russian, but also Kazakh—we taught classes, ran English clubs, held teacher workshops, and came up with and executed a secondary community project. In short, it was an extremely hectic three months and although it felt like forever, now that I am at my permanent site it seems like PST lasted only a week.
For PST, I was placed in the Kazakh (meaning over 75% Kazakh) village of Uzunagach. The village is a bit over an hour from Almaty, the former capital and still commercial center of Kazakhstan. Uzunagach is a pleasant place with around 30,000 people and though it is called a village, it had more of a suburban feel. The main strip of the town is very typical of a Kazakhstani town and village. There is a monument to the local hero, Karasay Batir; the akemat (local government); an enormous building for the education department; the “Culture House;” WWII, or Great Patriotic War as it is known here, monument with eternal flame; and further down the bazaar, the post office, and KazTelecom. Nine other Americans were placed in Uzunagach (one later dropped out) and we were split into two groups and were placed into different schools. In these groups, we learned Russian and worked on projects, but all eight of us became very close.
Although I was technically located in Uzunagach, I actually lived in a much smaller village outside called Jana Khurlus, which is 30 minutes away by foot. Jana Khurlus is an interesting place. The name apparently means “New York” in Kazakh—Jana means New and Khurlus means…York??? Everyone told me this and unfortunately my Russian and certainly my Kazakh were not at a level where I could get a straight answer about how this is possible. Jana Khurlus also has a high population of Chechens. I should mention here that Kazakhstan is a heterogeneous country. Only 60% of the population is Kazakh, around 30% is Russian, and the rest is German, Ukrainian, Korean, Chechen, or other Turkic—Uzbek, Uigher, Karakalpak, Turk, Tatar. Most of the peoples, including the Chechens, were put in Kazakhstan under Stalin to keep them from being disruptive.
In Jana Khurlus, I lived with a Kazakh family in what felt like a farmhouse. Although they were one of the poorer families with which an American was residing, it was definitely not what I expected. It was decently spacious and there was first, electricity, and second a TV, DVD player, stereo, and computer, but alas no internet. There was no running water, however, and I had to use an outhouse, wash clothing by hand, wash myself with a bucket and ladle, and the house was heated with wood. Still, not exactly the full Peace Corps experience. I should mention that by the end of my stay, my family had firmly moved into the middle class. One day, my host brother comes back with a washing machine, a microwave, and iron, and a cell phone and a few weeks later we had a sink with running water. The house itself was very typically Kazakh. Enormous detailed rugs were hung on all walls within the house and the outside door and window frames were blue with white geometrical carvings on them.
The family I was living with was absolutely amazing and with whom I will stay in contact with for the next two years. The head of the house is Zaurie, a mother and a teacher of Russian. She has two sons—Timur (22) and Sanjar (20), both of who are physical education teachers. There is no father, which actually was the case with almost all the host families. Zaurie deserves a whole blog entry to herself. She is a loud, gregarious woman who loves jokes (and lies) and always made me feel completely at ease. Though even by the end I only spoke a bit of Russian, there were never any quiet moments. Everyday, she would tell me the local gossip or some fantastical story such as the one about the Uzunagach cannibal who had a penchant for Russian girls and made dumplings out of them. She had a way of telling stories that crossed linguistic boundaries. But she did dedicate much of her time, despite having no free time, to helping me learn Russian. Whenever she saw me studying, she would ask if I needed help and regardless of my response, she would take my books and notes and go through it with me. She is also a very traditional woman, despite her love of alcohol and vehemence toward her own religion, Islam. Whenever she thought I might be ill or that there were bad spirits around, she would light matches and swirl them over my head. Since I showered only once a week, I sometimes thought my hair would catch on fire. She also made me pin a tiny evil eye on the inside of my shirt collar to keep away these spirits and especially those sent by our next-door neighbor. She accused this woman of cursing me for “my beautiful face” and causing me to fall off a horse…yes that did happen and yes, that is the end of my dream to ride a horse everyday to work in Kazakhstan. But as one can imagine, it was awkward walking past this sweet looking neighbor as my host mother whispers that she is cursing me. Zaurie also describes herself as a fortuneteller and using an ordinary deck of cards, told the future for everyone.
The two sons were also great to have around. Timur is the one with whom I became closest and who kind of took me under his wing. For the first two weeks, he walked me to school everyday and would pick me up. He stayed at home at night and we watched TV together. Sanjar, on the other hand, is the wild son who went out every night and came back at four or five in the morning. He was always fighting with his mom and yelling, but there is also some childish innocent in him as well.
This is getting long and there is still so much to tell about my stay in Uzunagach. But as I don’t want people to stop reading cause of the length, I will post the second half later.
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