I know I haven't been able to write a post recently. I'd love to say it's because I haven't had internet, but I've been struck down with a bout of lethargy, so I'm hoping to pound out a few posts to try and catch up. Who knows, I might get it fully updated.
So this first one involves Nauryz. Nauryz is the Kazakh new year, so it's all about the Kazakh culture. In general, this involves eating lots of beshbarmak (boiled mutton and noodles), baursak (fried dough balls) and drinking kummyz (fermented mare milk). To be frank, the Kazakhs are not brilliant culinary masters. I mean, kummyz tastes like a mix of buttermilk and stale beer. The entertainment is a little better. There's kokpar, which is polo played with a headless goat, and kizku (bad spelling), which is a man chasing a woman on horseback trying to steal a kiss while the woman hits him with a riding whip. This would have been great, but unfortunately they didn't do either one of these sports, so some of the excitement was not there.
So, I met up with a few volunteers in Astana and we made our way to Shymkent. To go from the North to the South or vice versa is usually a 24 hour trip, so the only way to keep your sanity is to have a lot of entertainment or some people to chat with. Check on that list. So we arrived there and with a large amount volunteers split into various rented apartments. I love being around other Americans, but sleeping on a floor with 8 other people can fray ones nerves.
Anyway, we went to Turkestan, which is one of the few ancient parts of Kazakhstan. Most of the country was nomadic, so history is a lot of conjecture and hearsay. Turkestan is close enough to the Silk Road. Anyway, in Turkestan was a mausoleum to an imam, which was pretty and interesting in itself. My great genius forgot my camera, so I should hopefully get photos from other volunteers. Anyway, the tilework on the mausoleum was cool, but the interior was plain and barren. The funny thing for me is that the Kazakh Muslims consider 3 trips to Turkestan equivalent to one trip to Mecca. I'm not sure how Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia would agree to that logic. So after a few hours wandering around in glorious heat, which is much better after 4-5 months of constant negative degree temperature, we returned to Shymkent.
As is normal with groups of Americans, we went out to a night club, which was actually a good way to let off some steam. However, as usually happens when people and alcohol are mixed together, drama ensued. I don't feel like getting into the depths of it, partly because it's personal, partly because I don't fully remember all the nights. Suffice it to say Peace Corps is a small community and rumors and gossip tend to fly much faster and much farther in small communities. Toss in locals here who can be a bit eccentric at times and the proverbial can hit the fan.
So, to be able to stay there a bit longer, we had to do a little work. So, Phil, one of the local volunteers, had us do a project with some of his students from college and university. He has a lot of students who will work in the local service industries and as interpreters, so they need practice working with native speakers. So, most of us went on tours with local university students and we wandered around asking questions. I was surprised at their level of English, but then of course my starting point are 17 year olds who can't answer the question "how are you." So it was refreshing talking English and correcting English from a more advanced speaker. Plus it doesn't hurt that she wasn't hard on the eyes. :-)
Finally, the most important part of this trip: FRESH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES!!! Food in Kazakhstan is not like food in the U.S. The seasons are adhered to strictly here because most people buy their food every few days. Also, with most of the country blanketed in snow for long stretches of time, there's none available. So, just the ability to buy fresh apples and peppers and other things that are not potatoes and cabbage was such a refreshing experience. One of my first experiences was buying 2 pounds of apples and eating them right away. It's the little things in life that count.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The Grind
I’m in Kazakhstan. How many people legitimately can say that? So it’s interesting that this fact does not phase me any more. It’s always amazing when the shine of a new place makes way for the tedium of everyday life. I mean, the first few classes that I had here were exciting and felt amazing that I was actually doing something in a foreign country. Now it’s just the Monday through Saturday grind. But it’s the little things and everyday miracles that you need to remember, so here’s generally how my days in Kazakhstan go.
I usually get up at 7:30 everyday. Well, the actual routine is groan, look at my alarm clock with a venomous glare and hit snooze a couple times before I actually get up. My host mom makes Kasha every morning, which is basically cream of wheat or porridge, sometimes with cheese and fruit, although fruit in winter consists of really bad apples from China that are probably slowly giving me cancer. After that, I do the normal morning things, like brush my teeth, get dressed and the like. Then I tear apart my room for all the odds and ends I need for class because I have absolutely no foresight, and bolt out of the door yelling at Baba Vera that I’m leaving. Baba Vera is the grandma that lives with the family.
So I get to school and start doing lessons or lesson plans. The hope is that the lessons go well but it’s highly unlikely because the textbooks here are horrible. So, I usually just look at what we want to teach them grammatically or with vocabulary, and then I try to use the book as little as possible. Besides, my personal priority is to teach them speaking, not reading. Reading is easy but speaking takes much more time and energy. In there, I usually have one break where I go to the cafeteria and have a cup of tea and some kind of pastry.
There are only 6 classes, but my workday doesn’t end when the kids’ does, so I have office hours and English club in the afternoon. I keep office hours mainly because teachers here don’t. I’m the crazy American, so I’m basically a novelty act, but it allows me to be more involved with the students, so it’s probably a good thing. Anyway, I answer grammar questions and then for English club we play different games to help them practice. Always keep in mind, Mr. Scott, as I’m known here, is a funny, awesome guy. I was working on adjectives with one class and I only got compliments, but I believe it’s only because of the red pen. Power is awesome though.
Afterwards, I go home and change out of the monkey suit into something a little more comfortable. It’s still frigging cold out, so I tend to stay indoors. My array of activities include practicing the guitar, practicing Russian, reading, watching movies and TV shows, or just sitting around and talking with my host mom. Usually my brother is killing brain cells in front of the computer, much like my brother at home in America. It’s amazing how many things stay the same even though the scenery changes. I fit a meal in there somewhere and then go to bed. It’s actually not too bad. Every once in a while I do a small art project for classes, but my penmanship and artistry skills are lower than a 6 year old who just started finger painting. All in all, not too stressful. So that is a typical day in the grind here. Next week is Nauryz, the main Kazakh holiday. I’m looking forward to some headless goat polo. More on that when I see it.
I usually get up at 7:30 everyday. Well, the actual routine is groan, look at my alarm clock with a venomous glare and hit snooze a couple times before I actually get up. My host mom makes Kasha every morning, which is basically cream of wheat or porridge, sometimes with cheese and fruit, although fruit in winter consists of really bad apples from China that are probably slowly giving me cancer. After that, I do the normal morning things, like brush my teeth, get dressed and the like. Then I tear apart my room for all the odds and ends I need for class because I have absolutely no foresight, and bolt out of the door yelling at Baba Vera that I’m leaving. Baba Vera is the grandma that lives with the family.
So I get to school and start doing lessons or lesson plans. The hope is that the lessons go well but it’s highly unlikely because the textbooks here are horrible. So, I usually just look at what we want to teach them grammatically or with vocabulary, and then I try to use the book as little as possible. Besides, my personal priority is to teach them speaking, not reading. Reading is easy but speaking takes much more time and energy. In there, I usually have one break where I go to the cafeteria and have a cup of tea and some kind of pastry.
There are only 6 classes, but my workday doesn’t end when the kids’ does, so I have office hours and English club in the afternoon. I keep office hours mainly because teachers here don’t. I’m the crazy American, so I’m basically a novelty act, but it allows me to be more involved with the students, so it’s probably a good thing. Anyway, I answer grammar questions and then for English club we play different games to help them practice. Always keep in mind, Mr. Scott, as I’m known here, is a funny, awesome guy. I was working on adjectives with one class and I only got compliments, but I believe it’s only because of the red pen. Power is awesome though.
Afterwards, I go home and change out of the monkey suit into something a little more comfortable. It’s still frigging cold out, so I tend to stay indoors. My array of activities include practicing the guitar, practicing Russian, reading, watching movies and TV shows, or just sitting around and talking with my host mom. Usually my brother is killing brain cells in front of the computer, much like my brother at home in America. It’s amazing how many things stay the same even though the scenery changes. I fit a meal in there somewhere and then go to bed. It’s actually not too bad. Every once in a while I do a small art project for classes, but my penmanship and artistry skills are lower than a 6 year old who just started finger painting. All in all, not too stressful. So that is a typical day in the grind here. Next week is Nauryz, the main Kazakh holiday. I’m looking forward to some headless goat polo. More on that when I see it.
Women’s Day
Holidays are a fun time. Number one, there’s no school, or at least shortened school. This is good and bad. Good because I get a break, but bad for the fact that my kids have had way too many days off because of cold weather. But outside of that, it’s fun to celebrate holidays that don’t exist in the U.S. This was the case with July 14th and the Student’s Carnival in France. This was the case with Women’s Day in Kazakhstan.
Women’s Day has the feel of the old Soviet Union. I didn’t ask anybody, but I can probably say with certainty that it’s a holdover for the good old USSR. There’s also a Men’s Day, but as with Father’s Day and Mother’s Day it’s the women that matter and the men don’t. So, you dare not forget March 8th because anything other than adulation upon the womenfolk is akin to social suicide. It definitely was interesting.
First of all, the teachers make all the boy students give the girl students cards or chocolate, which the girls absolutely adore. Then after that it’s the teachers’ turn to kick back vodka and sing and dance with the women teachers. All the male teachers waited on all the female teachers, which was like 5 guys. So we brought the food and the drinks. As per normal, there was wine and vodka. The food wasn’t as good this time as the last few parties, unfortunately. Fat is a way of life here, and they love to add it. I swear to god the number one condiment in Kazakhstan is oil. I’m still scratching my head as to how I lost weight. Anyway, so we celebrated for about 3-4 hours and then eventually stumbled home and drunk dialed a few people.
Finally, we had guests over, women guests obviously. We had a massive feast with bread and cabbage rolls and cake. It was mostly older women, so they were all chattering between themselves about lovely life and wishing good health upon each other. Then it got a little awkward because they started crying about dead sons and husbands. Kazakhstan is a country with a lot of tragedy. These people have been shit on and continue to be, and practically everybody has a sob story about a family member. I know my host mom, Tatyana, has a son and a daughter from two different fathers, and I still haven’t had the courage to ask about it. Most likely at least one of them is dead, possibly both. So, crying babushkas plus me being sick meant I asked to go lay down in my room.
So, in conclusion, Women’s Day is Mother’s Day on steroids. Be nice to all the ladies in your life on this day and treat them like princesses. Every girl deserves a ball I guess. So celebrate away. Next holiday is Nauryz, so there should be plenty for stories coming.
Women’s Day has the feel of the old Soviet Union. I didn’t ask anybody, but I can probably say with certainty that it’s a holdover for the good old USSR. There’s also a Men’s Day, but as with Father’s Day and Mother’s Day it’s the women that matter and the men don’t. So, you dare not forget March 8th because anything other than adulation upon the womenfolk is akin to social suicide. It definitely was interesting.
First of all, the teachers make all the boy students give the girl students cards or chocolate, which the girls absolutely adore. Then after that it’s the teachers’ turn to kick back vodka and sing and dance with the women teachers. All the male teachers waited on all the female teachers, which was like 5 guys. So we brought the food and the drinks. As per normal, there was wine and vodka. The food wasn’t as good this time as the last few parties, unfortunately. Fat is a way of life here, and they love to add it. I swear to god the number one condiment in Kazakhstan is oil. I’m still scratching my head as to how I lost weight. Anyway, so we celebrated for about 3-4 hours and then eventually stumbled home and drunk dialed a few people.
Finally, we had guests over, women guests obviously. We had a massive feast with bread and cabbage rolls and cake. It was mostly older women, so they were all chattering between themselves about lovely life and wishing good health upon each other. Then it got a little awkward because they started crying about dead sons and husbands. Kazakhstan is a country with a lot of tragedy. These people have been shit on and continue to be, and practically everybody has a sob story about a family member. I know my host mom, Tatyana, has a son and a daughter from two different fathers, and I still haven’t had the courage to ask about it. Most likely at least one of them is dead, possibly both. So, crying babushkas plus me being sick meant I asked to go lay down in my room.
So, in conclusion, Women’s Day is Mother’s Day on steroids. Be nice to all the ladies in your life on this day and treat them like princesses. Every girl deserves a ball I guess. So celebrate away. Next holiday is Nauryz, so there should be plenty for stories coming.
Frustration at School
I officially have a much larger respect for teachers. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some bad teachers, but I’m starting to see how hard it is to be a good teacher. The preparation, the discipline, the getting to know your students, it’s all a pain and takes far more time than you would think. Add into that being in a new country and a whole new level of frustration has just been making my life a minor hell. Maybe hell isn’t the right word, but some days you just want to scream.
Part of it is the system here. In America they say that the system fails some kids. In Kazakhstan, I believe this is more apt. This is not to say that I don’t have talented kids. Some of my students are very motivated and being in close proximity to the capital, Astana, I hope they will be able to use there smarts by getting into the government or some business. However, the system over here sometimes tends to rubber stamp kids through. Grades here are done on a five-point scale with 5 being the top and 1 being “you fail at life” and 3 being a passing grade. The problem is you cannot give a kid a 1 or a 2, so there is no fire under the kids rear-end to succeed. You really have to be creative sometimes to actually get kids to come to class. Especially some of the older kids have realized that grades don’t matter, and when that happens the sand castle tumbles all around you.
Now I don’t want to make this seem like a Kazakhstan only problem. This is also a problem in the States too. We are not perfect. This all boils down to the way we keep teachers accountable. It’s a very dicey proposition to tie pay and compensation to student performance because this just breeds a culture of cheating; by the students and by the teachers. If you want to read something interesting about this, read Freakonomics and in the first chapter the authors talk about this concept. The large majority of the people are apathetic.
I chalk all this up to a post-Soviet hangover. During Soviet times, steel and factory workers made more money than doctors. Education was not as important as it is in other countries, even though it is given lip service here. It’s still the case that teachers and doctors are not paid well, still lower than factory workers. Still, I feel it has to be changing a little bit
The general strategy I go with is to key in on the students who want the help. The motivated students will work on their own and the ones who aren’t won’t. Hopefully you can use a little peer pressure through those students and slowly build up confidence.
Don’t get the impression that I want to go home. I’m still interested in staying here, and I have a few things on the docket to do here. I’m going to be doing presentations on how to study foreign languages on your own, and if that gets only a couple students, they’ll be better speakers for it. I also want to start creating a digital English library so that students can do more than just play video games on their computers. That and summer’s just around the corner. This is a long-term project so road bumps are inevitable. In the end, I think it will all go well.
Part of it is the system here. In America they say that the system fails some kids. In Kazakhstan, I believe this is more apt. This is not to say that I don’t have talented kids. Some of my students are very motivated and being in close proximity to the capital, Astana, I hope they will be able to use there smarts by getting into the government or some business. However, the system over here sometimes tends to rubber stamp kids through. Grades here are done on a five-point scale with 5 being the top and 1 being “you fail at life” and 3 being a passing grade. The problem is you cannot give a kid a 1 or a 2, so there is no fire under the kids rear-end to succeed. You really have to be creative sometimes to actually get kids to come to class. Especially some of the older kids have realized that grades don’t matter, and when that happens the sand castle tumbles all around you.
Now I don’t want to make this seem like a Kazakhstan only problem. This is also a problem in the States too. We are not perfect. This all boils down to the way we keep teachers accountable. It’s a very dicey proposition to tie pay and compensation to student performance because this just breeds a culture of cheating; by the students and by the teachers. If you want to read something interesting about this, read Freakonomics and in the first chapter the authors talk about this concept. The large majority of the people are apathetic.
I chalk all this up to a post-Soviet hangover. During Soviet times, steel and factory workers made more money than doctors. Education was not as important as it is in other countries, even though it is given lip service here. It’s still the case that teachers and doctors are not paid well, still lower than factory workers. Still, I feel it has to be changing a little bit
The general strategy I go with is to key in on the students who want the help. The motivated students will work on their own and the ones who aren’t won’t. Hopefully you can use a little peer pressure through those students and slowly build up confidence.
Don’t get the impression that I want to go home. I’m still interested in staying here, and I have a few things on the docket to do here. I’m going to be doing presentations on how to study foreign languages on your own, and if that gets only a couple students, they’ll be better speakers for it. I also want to start creating a digital English library so that students can do more than just play video games on their computers. That and summer’s just around the corner. This is a long-term project so road bumps are inevitable. In the end, I think it will all go well.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Site Visit
Just like any business or bureaucracy, there is a decent amount of quality control by everybody above us. There are reports to file, constant training, and, as was the case this past week, visits by our managers. Each oblast (the equivalent of an American state) has a regional manager. My manager is a woman named Natalya Kotova, a very intense blonde-haired woman from Kokshetau who now works in Almaty at the Peace Corps headquarters. The reason for this intensity is that she basically runs the education part of Peace Corps, which makes any mistakes by me in classes glaringly obvious. Even more so, she’s quick to point them out. On the positive side, she is also very good at enlightening you on what you do well. Still, it is a bit unnerving.
Worse, or better, still, the director of Peace Corps decided to make the trip up. So about 10:00 am, I was having meetings between Natalya, John Sasser (the Peace Corps director), Sara Ustazhanova (my counterpart), Anar Yesliambekevna (my school director) and people of the Rayon department. The Sara and Anar were very friendly and extolling my virtues, while the women from the rayon education department were expecting me to suddenly transform days into 30 hours so that I could train all the teachers within 2 hours to be master educators. Apparently, I’m the second coming of Jesus, Buddha and Krishna, all in one. No pressure.
Luckily, that was only the rayon people. That didn’t stop all the teachers and directors and zavuches (vice-principals) from heaping as much praise on me. Now part of that is kind of cultural thing. Here, if you screw up or act in a way that they consider disrespectful, they will tell you. Mincing words is not a Russian or a Kazakh trait. To illustrate, without thinking, I entered a door before Natalya. She immediately grabbed me by the arm, pulled me back through the doorway, and explained to me my lack of manners. Message received. The reverse of this is that if they perceive a kernel of wonder that you have achieved, they will tell every living thing that crosses their path what an amazing individual you are, that you have solved every problem imaginable, that babies laugh only when you pass and that no amount of compensation could replace the mysterious deeds that you have accomplished.
So, I was sitting through so many situations where people were saying that I was the uber-human, compassionate, intelligent and insightful. Unfortunately, they forgot modest and humble, so that with every compliment, I just wanted to sink even further into my chair or the wallpaper that was behind me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the praise; I just don’t like to have it piled onto me in public. Shake my hand or give me a pat on the back, just don’t make it seem like I can solve world hunger. Still, it is nice to be appreciated.
Anyway, Natalya and John visited all the teachers, the director, the rayon, my host family, and one of my classes. We had lunch at the school and conversed about myself, but also my goals and a bit of economics, though I think I didn’t explain myself well enough so that it went over there heads. Either my English is escaping me or I need to stop drinking so much caffeine. So, I guess I’ve made a good impression so far. Too bad that’s only 2 months down and 22 more to go here in Makinsk. Just need to find a way to pace myself.
New Year’s
In the dead of winter, with temperatures regularly dipping below double digits, you’d think the smart thing to do with a vacation is head South with those intelligent, ornithological beings. Nope, instead I felt inspired enough to head North to Siberia. Well, a bunch of friends live up there, so that’s good enough to hop onto the train and enjoy myself in the confines of Petropavlovsk.
I would love to say that it was a deeply interesting time, but it wasn’t necessarily Spring Break in Cabo. All of us volunteers (roughly 10-12) gathered in a few apartments around the city. The weather was so bitterly cold (-20 F) that we didn’t really venture outside. Frankly, the only times we left were to get food and vodka. We basically Maslow’s basic hierarchy of needs, though we added vodka and beer to the shelter and food that every living being needs, or at least Peace Corps volunteers in the dead of winter. This is all in jest, of course.
Boiled down, we basically sat indoors, ate, shot the shit and played board games. I had never heard of this company called Rio Grande Games, but they put out a lot of good quality games. Most of them are strategy-based games. They are definitely not Candyland, but they’re good entertainment. My personal favorites were Carcassonne and Colonizers (this is my translation, I’m not sure what the actual name of it is in English). It was somewhat marred by the fact that one of the older volunteers and went home after a vacation in London, which left us to pack up his things. It is kind of sad to pack up the belongings of one of our peers. It also racked my mind because my first thoughts weren’t necessarily fellow-feeling for him as much as they were “I wonder if there’s anything I can take home.” Unfortunately, that’s the extent of life out here; we work and then we leave, usually leaving a lot of our possessions her for whichever scavenger wants them, whether they be Kazakhstani or American.
Don’t let this imply that I didn’t have fun. Just the simple face of going and hanging with a bunch of volunteers, including my best friend here, Sidd, raises our spirits. Spending an extended weekend with fellow Americans is the spiritual equivalent of relaxing on a beach in Bali. It was also fun because the last day we got to play a bunch of games with some orphans at the school that Becky, another volunteer in Petro, works at. They were definitely vibrant and alive, just happy to play very simple games with you and laugh. Something about kids being kids and not little shits or brats makes you feel like a kid. It’s the youthful exuberance that I hope to keep going the whole time I’m here. But I must say, I think the next vacation I’ll go somewhere a little warmer
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Mindless thoughts for a thoughtless mind
Events of the past week serve to highlight my state of mind, and probably the state of mind of some of the other volunteers here. I say this because one of my best friends from PST just decided to leave early, which I can understand but doesn’t make me feel that great. I talked with him a few weeks ago and though he was fine, but he was put into a difficult situation, as I’ll explain.
The hardest thing about Peace Corps Kazakhstan is twofold. Number one, we are pretty isolated in Kazakhstan. There are a little over 150 volunteers in the ninth-largest country on earth. I have it easy by being on the electric train route with 2 volunteers being within a 45-minute train ride. The fact is that some volunteers, including my good friend, are hours away from the nearest volunteer. Number two, this is not the traditional Peace Corps where you’re in a random little village in Africa where there is nothing. On the contrary, I work in a school that has computers, the internet and interactive boards hooked up to computers. We did training on having limited resources, but that is far from the reality here.
I’m not going to deny that isolation is difficult, but that’s something we could prepare ourselves for. I mean, we signed up for the Peace Corps knowing we’d be far from people. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that we’re providing a service that is not provided in the country when there are a decent amount of resources available. Even worse is when you go to the cities and have to reconcile your preconceptions even more with what you hear and see. Just a few days ago, I was Shuchinsk and me and couple other volunteers went to a bar. While we were having a beer, we were watching Bordeaux vs. Montpellier on a flat screen. Also, one of my students had an iPhone. A fucking iPhone! I don’t know about other volunteers, but when I see that, I have trouble truly believing that I am truly needed in this country. It’s this slow stream of doubt that seeps into your brain from these external factors that combines with the internal factor of being alone. It’s not easy. But it’s moments where you hash things out in venues like this blog where it becomes therapeutic. I think I’m slowly taking the view that other education volunteers have taken. We may not change much here, if anything, but if one kid gets a chance abroad, I guess it was worth it. Expectations can only go higher.
The hardest thing about Peace Corps Kazakhstan is twofold. Number one, we are pretty isolated in Kazakhstan. There are a little over 150 volunteers in the ninth-largest country on earth. I have it easy by being on the electric train route with 2 volunteers being within a 45-minute train ride. The fact is that some volunteers, including my good friend, are hours away from the nearest volunteer. Number two, this is not the traditional Peace Corps where you’re in a random little village in Africa where there is nothing. On the contrary, I work in a school that has computers, the internet and interactive boards hooked up to computers. We did training on having limited resources, but that is far from the reality here.
I’m not going to deny that isolation is difficult, but that’s something we could prepare ourselves for. I mean, we signed up for the Peace Corps knowing we’d be far from people. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that we’re providing a service that is not provided in the country when there are a decent amount of resources available. Even worse is when you go to the cities and have to reconcile your preconceptions even more with what you hear and see. Just a few days ago, I was Shuchinsk and me and couple other volunteers went to a bar. While we were having a beer, we were watching Bordeaux vs. Montpellier on a flat screen. Also, one of my students had an iPhone. A fucking iPhone! I don’t know about other volunteers, but when I see that, I have trouble truly believing that I am truly needed in this country. It’s this slow stream of doubt that seeps into your brain from these external factors that combines with the internal factor of being alone. It’s not easy. But it’s moments where you hash things out in venues like this blog where it becomes therapeutic. I think I’m slowly taking the view that other education volunteers have taken. We may not change much here, if anything, but if one kid gets a chance abroad, I guess it was worth it. Expectations can only go higher.
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