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.

Just Call Me Alice

This is the first official post from abroad, but there really isn't enough time and definitely way too much information to speak of, so I'll try and keep this to the basics of what has happened so far. When I have some more time, I can probably elaborate on some other random thoughts.

DC:
So, afer a couple of flights that I completely passed out through, I got to DC and found there were not a single bus to my hotel, so there goes 20 bucks on a cab. Nice Ethiopian driver though, so nothing wrong for a tip for conversation. There I pretty much realized that none of my paperworkwas finished, but luckily I wasn't the only one. Good to know that I'm not the only procrastinator in the group. We continued through a long meeting and then proceeded to get our last meal in the states. Hopefully it's not odd that my last meal was soft shell crab panang curry. It was good, so screw it if it wasn't American. A long sleep in a plush bed and then off we were to Kazakhstan.

Flight and Kok Tobe:
Two long flights and a couple of beers later (come on, the layover was in Germany :-)) we got to Kazakhstan and proceeded to Kok Tobe, the hotel. This was our location for a ton more meetings. Something about turning into an adult means you have to sit around and listen to random people, whether it's pertinent information or not. It's not up to me, so I have to listen. Luckily, I lucked out and was put into the room with the jokers, Johnny, Mark and Nick. Outside of bonding with other people and listening to the hilarious storied of Angola, Moldova and Madagascar from Dr. Victor, Kok Tobe was just chumming around with people, trying to figure out who are kindred spirits and who's full of it, though most of you probably think I'm the latter.

Now in Issyk:
Now we've been split off into different groups into different cities for pre-service training. This involves training to be a teacher and most importantly, the language. More on the Russian language to follow, but suffice it to say, it's not easy. I now have an appreciation for the English language. So far, I'm with a nice Kazakh family: a mother Sagadat and a daughter Anara, who should be going to university soon, and I'll have to sink or swim with my broken Russian. After this month, I should be able to become professional mime. The food has been pretty good and copious. Apparently, the goal is to transform all of us into marshmallow men and women, but all this walking around means I have a chance. As long as it's good, I won't complain. I know this seems to be a completely uncreative narrative, but time isn't really available that much. There's just too much language and culture to learn. In the net couple of weeks, I hope to do a few posts about specific parts of culture and life here. Hopefully I can also post some photos later. That and I'm doing this after Russian class, so my brain is a mix between sludge and ooze. Anyway, I'll keep this up and hopefully talk to you all later.

Inching Closer to the Rabbit Hole

I must say, this is definitely a post of mixed emotions. Life has been eventful and will get even more eventful, but I can't shake the feeling that I still haven't done enough before leaving. I have a feeling ironies will be starting for a while. Anyway, I should probably start with the road trip.

First off, I horribly miscalculated the amount of travel time. Nothing like 8 hour driving days to lull you into a coma before driving into random cornfields or off the face of Appalachian bridges. I must say that seeing friends and seeing parts of the U.S. was definitely nice. You don't realize how diverse of a country we are until you drive through the massive city of Chicago straight through to unending cornfields in Indiana, on through rolling hills of Tennessee and Western Virginia, up through intimidating scenery of Appalachian West Virginia, up through small town Ohio with closed restaurants and decaying, opulent farm houses, up to Rust Belt Michigan, and back to Chicago and Wisconsin. We are literally a schizophrenic country, but it makes life more interesting.

Now I'm in my living room, unable to sleep, or possibly starving myself of sleep, wondering what will possibly come of this long flight. There is doubt, but it's almost like the doubt is possibly a good thing. Doubt gives more meaning to perseverance. As it stands though, I've said good bye to friends and family. The only thing that is left is leaving my mother, father and brother. Honestly, as it stands, my mind is ceasing to function. Time to pack up the rest of my life into a few bags and see how deep this rabbit hole goes.