Banya thoughts

There’s something about roasting in a banya that’s as hot as a roasting oven, except for the fact that there’s nothing dry about it, that gives you a clear mind to have completely erratic thoughts. I guess me being a dim sum would be a more apt metaphor. Anyway, maybe your brain gets addled by the heat or something that just puts the most random thoughts. Anyway, I’m just starting teaching classes in a few days so here a few of my banya thoughts, the horror, the horror.

First of all, I’m still having trouble coming up with an idea why Kazakhstanis are able to fully insulate their banyas so that the hot air stays inside it, but they haven’t quite gotten to insulating their houses effectively so that the hot air doesn’t leak out. But, it definitely is better up North. But, for all their blustering about cold weather, Kazakhstanis can be babies about the cold whether.

Food here has been pretty good, but I say that about the North of Kazakhstan. As my friend Nikita pointed out, it’s a lot of variations of meat and starches, which is fine right now, as long as I don’t balloon up, which my host families have definitely been trying to do. Either way, there has been less oil up North, which has been great. Surprisingly, I’ve been getting a decent amount of fruit, though that’s bound to clear away. I have had the pleasure to have a persimmon for the first time, which are delicious, and pomegranates coming out of my ears, which I’ll happily take.

Technology was also on my mind. I work at a school that has seven interactive boards, mostly because this is an initiative by the president here, Nazarbayev. Now these boards are useful, and once I figure out how to use them, they will probably be a valuable tool. At the same time, I think the English textbooks they use could definitely upgraded, especially under the prices of the interactive board. This kind of reminds me of my classes at Carthage on development and the discussions there of how to develop a country. Do you build up the technology or do things that are more basic, such as the textbooks? There are examples for both sides, whether it’s just cell phones versus slight changes in basic services. I’m still undecided on which is better, though I lean towards the replacement of horrible textbooks, any new resources are probably good in whatever capacity, especially since there are so many young people making education an important part of government.

I probably had some more thoughts rolling through my head, some more profound than others and some down-right stupid (come on, it’s me) but it kind of got too hot. So if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the banya.

Quick update

As it always seems in this country, I’ve had plenty of new things to happen and far to little time to reflect upon it. So, as per normal, this’ll be a hack job on way too much information to filter down.
So, we said goodbye to our host families and saddled up towards the actual part of our service. First, there was fact that we had to swear-in as official volunteers, as we had been only trainees for the past 2 and a half months. After many speeches and song and dance numbers, we became official Peace Corps Volunteers, as opposed to unofficial volunteers. Either way, this was the beginning of what is our real service. Most people got on the train right away, but the group going to Akmola and North Kazakhstan. This was kind of fun, because it gave us time swap music and movies and bottles of beer. Never anything wrong with that.
Anyway, we boarded the train for a whole day’s journey. Luckily it was with Patrick and Sidd, a couple of my best friends. Sidd was actually scheduled to be in another room with Becky and her counterpart, but he was kind of smoked out by the counterparts BO. We basically passed the time by watching movies, listening to music, playing cards and eating ramen. Though that may sound like a dream to most guys, doing it in a room the size of a closet that is normally meant for 4 people is not necessarily nirvana. But I was fine.
Anyway, so after a day, I arrived in Makinsk where Sara, my counterpart, and one of her friends, Asset, picked me up immediately and brought me to my host family choices. Though I would have liked to have a little time to think about it, I guess it’s best to get that choice out the way. There was a choice between a pensioner and the psychologist at my school. I eventually chose Tatyana, the school psychologist, mostly because it was a family, with her, her son Dima and her mother. The grandmother is kind of hilarious because every once and a while, she spouts off random Soviet sayings. Anyway, so far it’s been pretty good. She’s very patient with me, which is definitely different than my host mom in Issyk. I’ve had the chance to meet with Sara and the other teachers at School 5 along with Yelena Yurievna at School 2, the other school I’ll be working at. However, the teachers in my district are furloughed right now, so there really isn’t much I can do right now. But this next week coming up, I should hit the ground rolling.
As for a little anecdote, it is absolutely freezing here. Today’s temp was hovering around 0, which is bad enough in normal circumstances. However, there is no running water here, so anytime I need to go to the toilet, I have to don boots and a jacket and run out to the squat toilet. And also pretty much pray to good that you don’t get any stomach ailments. The flipside is that your cleaning choice is the banya once a week. Now once a week may sound like not very much, but there’s something about sweating for 15-20 minutes and then washing it all off. It actually makes you feel cleaner than just a straight shower. It reminds me of taking a sauna and then washing off in the lake in Hackensack at Lac du Bois. It’s definitely refreshing. Anyway, this is enough rambling for today. The internet connection is less common here, so posts may be a little less often. Anyway, tata for now.

Last week

Welcome to the last week of my training here in lovely Ecik. Actually, today I felt like I was back in Wisconsin, outside of the fact that there are no trees, mountains right in plan view, and everybody is trying to run each other over with cars. It's always the little things.
Anyway, this last week was a conference in Almaty to meet with our counterparts, with a little side project of spending a few tenge on supporting the Russian and Kazakhstani vodka industry. Everybody's hurting so every little bit counts. So my counterpart is Sara Ustazhanova and should be a good counterpart. She speaks English fairly well, has a law degree, but is pretty shy, so that will probably a slow building of trust. It will also be interesting because most of the English teachers at my school are 25 and some of them are single, so the hope is that this doesn't descend into a Kazakhstani game of the Bachelor. Well, maybe if they're cute. Haha.
Anyway, it was a lot of meetings and meetings in meetings, which can be extremely frustrating, but the fact that we're having means that they were deemed important by past groups of volunteers. It was nice to get out of Ecik for a while and just be pampered. Taking a shower everyday almost made me feel like a lush. I was dirty for being clean, which is the most ridiculous oxymoron out there, but it had some relevance.
It's actually kind of sad to think that we're all going to be scattered to the 4 ends of Kazakhstan in a week. I mean, I got lucky since I'll be in Akmola oblast where everybody is a few hour bus ride away from each other. But there are so many people I get along with who are going to be in the middle of nowhere or a 2 day train ride away (I'm not kidding, there are 2 day train rides here). But this is what we signed up for, being the only American person and helping develop this country in anyway possible. Well, there's not much to add, because I've been lounging around the hotel in useless meetings with a not very talkative person. Pretty soon I'll be in a new place with new stories. And maybe I'll post pictures of my clean-shaven self since I can't really have a beard in my region. Sucks. Well, I could be in the Domican Republic.

соль food and other musings

So, after a long delay, I have returned. There is a decent explanation for the fact that I haven't updated this. I've been sick and I am just a slight bit lazy. But that has been remedied and I've taken time out of my day to try and update my life as it stands.
First of all, since most of you don't speak Russian, the pun up there has to do with the fact that it's really starting to annoy me how much bloody salt they put into the food here. The two main condiments are salt and oil, which I like to think of as part of the reason why healthy living has become more difficult as of late. That and cravings for junk food have become more prevalent. Even with that, I'm pretty sure I've lost something like 15 pounds, which I have absolutely no qualms about.
We just finished up our classes at Tereshkova, which was a kind of sad event, though it was a hectic week. Last week, I was banned by Dr. Victor from teaching class, so instead of 4 classes one week and 5 classes the next, I had to teach 9 classes. This wasn't terrible since that is closer to my normal workload at site. I definitely enjoyed my 7a class, who blew me out of the water on all my lessons, which is much better than the alternative. Though the teachers may have been difficult to work with sometimes, the enthusiasm by the kids always made it better. We even got a decent showing to our community project, which was a job fair. The kids around here just simply don't know they're options, so we made sure to present some alternatives to them. It was definitely a good idea on Charlie and Janelle's part.
A week or two ago, we also found out about our future sites we will be working at, and it couldn't have happened at a better time. After 2 months together, it's easy to see that some of the nerves are starting to fray between the volunteers. That's one of the problems with being such a small community in difficult circumstances. Anyway, I'll be going to Makinsk and replacing a volunteer there, though I will be working at a different school. Makinsk is near the capital city of Astana in the North, so I'm already preparing for frigid winters. From the information I have, it's a fairly quiet town of 25,000 people, which is fine for me. Outside of the possibility of no running water, it seems like a nice place. As much as I'd like to give more information about it, I just don't have very much. The good thing is that the people in my area are awesome. Hannah, Holly, Molly, Miles and Audrey are all going to be near me and they are awesome people. Funnily enough, we're all from the north or the mountains, so I think we'll survive the weather.
So, next week, we meet our counterparts, and the week after that we do some teacher training, and then we have swearing-in, after which they boot us onto a train to our respective villages. Honestly, I'm excited to get there because we've had so much training, I think we just need to get to where we need to go. Ecik has been a great city, with some nice people, but it hasn't left much of an impression on me. There are some stand-outs, like the shashlik guy at Cafe Anna, who would always take time out of his day and practice Russian with us. Otherwise, the people I'll miss most are Peace Corps staff, like Olessya our technical trainer, and other Volunteers who will be far away, like Becca and Nick. Either way, I'll be here for a little longer, and hopefully I can have at least one more deep thought before I leave. :-)

Dog Days of Autumn

This post is just difficult to know where to begin because this whole week has just been a roller coaster, which is a cliche that is used far too often. I had my first class, which was terrible, mostly because I kind of caved in the middle of it. The second class that I taught went fairly well, but my perfectionist mind says there is plenty for me to improve upon. Then, Russian language class is just kicking my ass from here to Moscow, though I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it. It really hasn't been eventful, except for the fact that I've been going between hating being here to being happy that I'm here.
I think Friday definitely helped out, which was when we went to a waterfall nearby with all the Trainees. There were tons of people I hadn't seen or heard from in a few weeks, so it was complete sensory overload. The waterfall wasn't Victoria Falls, but there were plenty of hiking trails, and Mark, Becca and I ended up hiking to the top of the mountain, which wasn't necessarily the safest thing to do, but it was worth it. Life's all about living on the edge, or at least leaning over it for a look.
We also had our first English Club, which went better than I could imagine it. We ended up taking a group of 20 or so kids, and the fact that they wanted to sit there and practice English made it far more enjoyable than any class I have taught or observed to date. There skills are still lacking, but I guess that's why I'm here.
And for Nikita and Axel, I finally met the Wad. Frankly, you all wouldn't recognize him from your Ripon days. Well, at least physically. Well, my brain is mashed potatoes right now, and probably will be for a while, the wittiness will have to wait for later.

School Days

I'm actually about an hour away from teaching my first class, which should be fun but is completely nerve-wracking. I feel that I'm unprepared, but being the perfectionist that I am, that's pretty much normal. The main reason is that I've hit a low point. Minor conflicts with the host family coupled with being away from home for almost a month now means that my morale is at a low. It's something to be expected from living away from home, but it still sucks to have to plow through the low point. Luckily, everyone here seems to have hit the exact same point at the exact same time, so we all hate the world together.
That's not to say that things are bad. Saturday I went with Becca and Athena to Almaty and had an enormous meal at a relative of Becca's friend. There was a huge plate of beshbarmak (Kazakh national dish, horse, beef and noodles), baursak (fried bread), fresh fruit and tons of sweets with tea, including an apple dish that was so similar to Grandma's apple kugen, I wanted to cry then and there. But I'm a guy, so I'm contractually obligated by Man-law not too. Haha. But it was delicious, and then we met up with some people who have been here a while. Honestly, I think I just need to get past this on my own. Life is all about ebbs and flows, so I just need to get past the next couple weeks, and hopefully my teaching and Russian will be exponentially better. Anyway, time to teach the kiddos about introducing themselves in English. Ciao

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral

It's been kind of annoying to me that so far most of my blog posts have been pretty much just a narrative and nothing substansive, so I thought I'd try and expand on a few things, in particular the food and the people.
For all the warnings of the food before we arrived, it hasn't been too bad. It's pretty much been mostly combinations of pasta, rice or potatoes with some kind of meat (most of it has been mutton, I think) and some vegetables, like carrots, peppers and eggplants. Frankly, it's been better than any warnings, though this is summer so the fresh produce will probably dry up soon. Guess that will just leave meat and potatoes later. The vodka has also been few and far between, but the combination of Ramadan and the fact that I don't live with any males probably explains the lack of alcohol. Once I get to sight, it will probably be more present. As for drink, it's pretty much chai, chai, chai, and a little more chai. Frankly, I'm not sure if they drink water without a teabag in it. The one thing I have to write about is kumis, or horse milk. At least to my palette, it tastes horrible. It's basically if somebody mixed sour buttermilk and beer together. Not a pretty combination, they probably think I'm the weird one.
As to the hospitality, it has been extraordinary. There are always sweets on the table in case somebody comes, and a teapot at the ready to make some chai. Hell, sometimes I think they treat guests better than their families, even though that really isn't true. They have something here that they call ghosting, which is basically going over to somebody else's house. I did that and they brought out almost a dozen plates with different food and various drinks, including some vodka (luckily only a small bottle) And they'll sit with you and chat for hours, even if the only Russian you speak is broken Russian. I truly don't think you can get this kind of treatment in a 5 star hotel.
So pretty much all I've been doing is eating sleeping and studying. The only day we have off is Sundays, which last Sunday I hiked up into the mountains around Issyk with Mark and Athena (two volunteers) and Athena's host brother, sister and friends. The climb was damn near vertical, but the views in the end were worth it. I hope to get pictures up eventually, but I don't know when I'll have time. Anyway, tomorrow is Almaty and then a free day, so hopefully more adventures and stories to come.