One Peace Corps Volunteer’s chronicle of life in Kazakhstan

Friday night I attended my first Kazakh wedding! I’ve been here for two years (almost), but I hadn’t been invited to a Kazakh wedding until then. The invitation came from a rather unlikely place, too. When Melissa, Tyler and I were on our way to Aktau, we were in a car full of people who we later learned were on their way to a wedding. I had been speaking quite a bit with Azamat, who I thought was just one of the guests. Turns out he was actually the groom! AND he is from Pavlodar. His wife is from Aktau, and the group was all going there for the first wedding ceremony. Several weeks later – just a few days after my planned return to site – they would have the wedding ceremony in Pavlodar. Azamat invited all three of us, but I was the only one able to attend.

It was a blast! I’d been to one wedding here before, but it wasn’t Kazakh. However, like the first wedding, the reception involved lots of eating, drinking, toast and games. The new addition was the betashar. Essentially, this is the unveiling ceremony for the bride. At one point I knew some culturally significant and interesting details about this ceremony, but I’m afraid they slip my mind at the moment. At any rate, the bride’s face is hidden and lots of friends and relatives are asked to come and greet the new bride – they also leave some money. In the past, the money went to the couple, but now I have heard that the dombura player who facilitates the ceremony gets the cash. Beats me. So after lots and lots of people greet the bride and leave their cash she’s finally unveiled for the first time (or in our case the first time in Pavlodar) and the celebration begins.

It was a blast. I got to reconnect with a lot of the people I’d met on the train, meet some new people and just generally had a lot of fun. After I gave my toast, though, things got interesting. More and more people were getting introduced to the American. I’m used to causing a splash when I go places just because of the whole novelty of my being a foreigner, but I felt bad thinking that my presence might actually be taking away some of the emphasis that should have been place on Azamat and Saya, his wife. No one seemed offended, so hopefully it was OK.

I know it was a quick overview with sparse detail, but I just wanted to mention it. And to say a big thank you to Azamat , Saya and their families for their generosity and hospitality. I wish you all the best!

I keep saying I need to be better about updating this blog. Then I don’t do it. Sorry. Part of it is that I get busy. Part of it is that I get lazy. Part of it is that I occasionally get paranoid about who’s reading this and the impact it , or could have, on my life here.  Enough excuses. On with the show.

At last I’ve returned to site after a summer adventure through Kazakhstan. My adventure started with stops in Astana and Almaty to do FLEX PDO trainings. What’s a FLEX? Who’s a PDO? Good questions, loyal and frustrated because of lack of new content readers. Good questions, indeed. FLEX is the Future Leaders Exchange Program – a program administered by the good folks at American Councils. Essentially, it’s a U.S. Government program that sends kids from Central Asia and the former Soviet Union to study at a U.S. high school for a year. It’s a great program. PDO is pre-departure orientation. Essentially, it’s a seminar that helps prepare FLEX exchange students for their year in America. As they have the basic language skills they need already – the students go through a LENGTHY selection process that assesses multiple dimensions. In Kazakhstan there were approximately 5000 applicants and only 90 finalists! – PDO helps provide the students tools for adjustment to living in U.S. culture, living with a host family, integrating into their high school and community, etc.

FLEX PDO was incredible. I could go on forever about how great the students were, how incredible our teachers and teaching assistants were, but I’ve got a lot of summer ground to cover. I’ll try to sum it up as such: I had an opportunity to work with two groups of the best and brightest students in Kazakhstan. It was one of the absolute highlights of my service. I’m grateful to American Councils and FLEX for the opportunity to teach at the PDOs, and I’m thankful I got to meet so many wonderful students.

After PDO I took a train to Aktobe to meet Tyler and Melissa for a quick jaunt to the Caspian Sea. Before leaving for the sea I got to make my first trip to Melissa’s site, which was really nice. We caught the train to the Caspian from Melissa’s site. From there we rolled into the desert of the Mangistau region of Kazakhstan. It was hot. Inside and out. It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit…in the train. At that point, since outside was hotter, the only difference was breeze or lack thereof. The lack was inside the train, unfortunately. Mangistau was impressive. Wish we could have explored it more. As it was, we decided to spend our time relaxing on the beach. Why, yes, I have summered at the Caspian!

After the Caspian it was a sweaty train ride back to Melissa’s site to celebrate her birthday. Good times were had by all. Except the guy at the club who Melissa told not to talk to her because he was 12. And the guy’s friend who tried to start a fight with Melissa to defend his friend’s honor or something. I really have no idea what happened, but it was rather amusing at the time.

On the train ride back three noteworthy things happened. One, I had the only emergency window in the car. Nice in an emergency exit situation. Otherwise, the thing doesn’t open. Due to the aforementioned 100+ degree temps, this was bad. Two, a crazy lady at one stop started yelling at Tyler and Melissa. She was clearly touched. A brick shy of a load. Lights on, nobody home. But she was yelling. A lot. In Kazakh. Wouldn’t shut up. It got on my nerves. It’s not unusual here to have people give you a piece of their mind on things that in America people would just keep their mouths shut about. More often than not it is unsolicited, bossy-sounding advice about what you should or shouldn’t be doing. And as flexible as I’ve learned to be, down deep in our core Americans HATE being told what to do. So I started yelling back at the crazy lady. In Kazakh. Not my finest hour, but I hope we’ll all be laughing about it later. And that she didn’t get me with the evil eye. None of us had our charms when it happened! And three, I met a guy who works for one of the oil companies here. He’s a local guy who has been working there for 8 years. It was really interesting to talk with him (in English) about his job and to learn more about that industry. He has a great job with great pay and benefits. And speaking English really helped him succeed. I hope I can use him as an example to motivate my students.

After Aktobe, part 2, I returned to Almaty and then came back to Aksu.

Today was a mixed bag. I went to the post office to pick up a package that had been sent about 5 weeks before I left for Astana. It apparently arrived a week later. When I went to pick it up, I was met by one of the Russian speaking P.O. clerks. At first I thought she was giving me the business for taking 3 weeks to come pick up a package. My Russian, you see, is a bit lacking. I caught maybe half of what she said, but caught all of that I was getting the business. I went to the window, the guy took my form, ran to a different spot, came back and said a Russian word I did know that put it all in context. He said “back”. Yeah. The package got sent back after sitting for 3 weeks. Now, even though the lady was giving me the business, she was actually being motherly and apologetic. Or as close to apologetic as it gets here by American standards. It was an interesting moment. I was upset about the package, but not as angry as I would have been in the past. It is what it is. Sometimes these things happen. Plus, understanding (or at least choosing this way of interpreting the exchange) that the lady was not berating me, just telling me what happened in the way that is culturally common, even if seemingly harsh to U.S. standards, made me feel like maybe I had integrated somewhat after all.

That and the fact that on the way to my failed P.O. mission I saw one of the locals I know at the library. He invited me to come back because there was a presentation of a new book happening. I did go back, and it was awesome. The book was a collection of poetry and other writings of a local gentleman. Though his hair was still very dark, he definitely was Aksakal in status and age (white beard – wise, old guys). It was really wonderful to sit and observe people from around the region who had come to honor this man and his work. They asked me to play a song on dombura and say a few words. I hadn’t played in over a month, so it was rough. The words, while just as rough, I felt pretty proud of. In essence, I tried to say that Kazakh culture is beautiful and strong. It survived 70 years of repression and is thriving today. Though the idea was conveyed differently as my vocabulary in Kazakh is not nearly that well-developed. Survive, thrive – no clue how to say those things. But I think the idea came across. Plus, the gentleman was given 3 shapans – these are traditional Kazakh garments. I was honored to be a part of that celebration.

And that, in short, is what I’ve been up to. Probably forgot some things. It’s what happens when I go for months without an update. Shame on me.

Photos from this trip can be found on my Flickr photostream

Sometime in the midst of my second Kazakhstan winter I decided that I needed to thaw my bones for a few weeks in Thailand. Actually, the seed for this journey was planted the summer before when I talked to several other Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) from Kazakhstan who had made, and loved, the journey. It was with this that my friend and fellow PCV, Drew, decided that we were going to Thailand, too. And for good measure we’d throw in a little time in Cambodia as well.

After weeks of planning and paperwork we were finally ready to take our trip. Just after celebrating Nauryz, the Kazakh new year, at my site I got on a train to Almaty. Funny thing, we got snow the night before I left. Thailand was looking like a great idea. I had a bit of work to do in Almaty before I left, but it was over soon enough and Drew and I were soon on an Air Astana flight bound for Bangkok.

We arrived in the afternoon in Bangkok. Before leaving the airport, we booked one-way tickets the next day to Trat, the jumping off point for Koh Chang, our beach destination. There were lots of police and soldiers around the airport. We believed it was mostly in case the Red Shirts decided to do anything crazy. We had no troubles getting to our hotel, the Watana Mansion, and not long after dropping our bags we went out to explore the city a bit. We grabbed dinner at a street market. I’m not exactly sure what mine was, perhaps a variant of Tom Yong, but it was incredible. The next morning it was back to the airport and off to Trat.

Trat seemed like a nice place, at least the little we saw of it on our way to the ferry that took us to Koh Chang. All the guidebooks and online travel advice told us not to book a taxi from the airport to Koh Chang, but as it seemed like we didn’t really have any other options that’s exactly what we did. No worries. Worked out just fine. Maybe a bit pricey, but since we never saw any other taxi stands the whole time, I guess it wasn’t so bad.

After taking the ferry to Koh Chang, we went all the way to the end of the island to Bang Bao fishing village. We stayed there in a small bungalow for 3 nights with no AC (or aircon, as the locals call it) and no beach. Cheap, no-frills. Hey, we’re PCVs. We can hack it. First day in Bang Bao we went fishing. This was the one big thing Drew wanted to do on the trip. We got a decent deal. For a few hundred baht per person more than a standard fishing excursion we got to charter our own boat. We did fishing and snorkeling, too. I didn’t really do so great (caught a snake and 3 fish – only one fish was edible), but Drew and our guide, Tiger, caught plenty. Around noon Tiger broke out the kitchen and fried up our fish for lunch. It was incredible! That afternoon we went snorkeling off the beach of a nearby island. Not too bad. Downside of the trip was that we both got nasty sunburns.

The next few days we took taxis (pickups with benches in the back) to other spots on the island and visited some of the other beaches. The last night we went to a different hotel closer to Lonely Beach and stayed there. It was incredible. We were located on a stone beach, but we walked up to Lonely Beach and its great sand earlier in the day and hid in the shade to keep from aggravating our burns.

In both Bang Bao and Lonely Beach we had restaurants that we were regulars at. Bang Bao our spot was a seafood joint on the pier that served, among other amazing dishes, the best Pad Thai I had the entire trip. In Lonely Beach we frequented Sawatdee Restaurant. One of the owners was Marco, an Italian who lived and worked on the island. In addition to the restaurant he also worked as a divemaster for a nearby dive shop. And, yes, I was jealous of that life! Marco made some great Italian food and really took good care of us. Just hearing him talk about the food made me hungry. And his Thai girlfriend, the other owner of the restaurant, had a great Thai menu. She told me that the chef made a great Tom Yong Goong and I went for it. She asked if I wanted it spicy and I said yes. Incredible.

The next morning we took a mini bus out of Koh Chang and towards Cambodia. It took forever to get to Siem Reap and we got caught in the typical visa scam these outfits run (visa is overpriced and they’re in no hurry to get you there. We spent 3 hours at lunch at the travel agent’s office/restaurant). Luckily, though, the deal on the transportation was much better than we probably could have gotten otherwise, all delays considered, and it more than made up for the overpriced visas. We traveled with one person all the way to Cambodia. A lady named Franka who is a Swiss banker. Actually, she’s German and Venezuelan, U.S.-educated and now works for a bank in Zurich. Her father was a diplomat, and since I’m hoping to head down that road it was interesting to hear her stories.

Crossing the border was an adventure. Some guy tried to pick Drew’s pocket before we even hit customs in Thailand. In Cambodia, the border city was even worse than the worst descriptions of it I’d read online. Needless to say, we were feeling quite skittish by the time we got dropped at a random tuk tuk stand in Siem Reap.

Our tuk tuk “guide” immediately recommended we go to a different guesthouse than the one we’d made our reservations with. Mind you, this was yet another of the many scams we’d encountered throughout the course of the day and I was over it. I knew the guy was feeding me a line, so I fed him one back. It was a pretty good one because even Drew was convinced I’d pre-paid for our multi-day reservation that we just couldn’t get out of. I lied to the guy. Lied like a dog. And with a Soviet face that Lenin himself would have been proud of. The guesthouse was amazing, so I’m glad we didn’t take our new buddy up on his offer. But our new buddy also wanted to take us to the temples at Angkor Wat the next day. Drew told him we’d go at 9, but after talking to a few people at the hotel we changed our plans and decided to go with another driver and catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat.

The next morning at 5:30 we jumped out of bed ready for our morning adventure. OK, in reality it was more like we oozed out of bed, got ready and moved downstairs and outside to meet our guide with the enthusiasm of a glacier galloping to the sea. Our guide, Mr. Rith, was ready to go and soon we were tuk-tuking our way to the temples. Our first stop was the ticket office to drop some serious cash on a one day park permit. It was only $20, but we were paying with the local currency so it was the equivalent of $20 plus a bit of a surcharge for using the local currency. Sidebar – I’ve never before been to a country whose own currency was so hard to use! Everyone wanted dollars. Use riel and pay a surcharge. Use riel and get lots of grumbling from whoever you’re buying from…then get change in dollars. The full folly of the riel would be fully realized later on.

After scraping together our entrance fees – it was a feat because we had mostly big bills and at 5:30 they didn’t have any change which is annoying but hardly surprising – we had our pictures made so they could be printed out on our passes. I’ve looked better. It was a rough picture. Who cares, though, I was about to see the sun rise over Angkor freakin’ Wat!

Back to the tuk tuk and our trusty guide, Mr. Rith. He took us to a drop point near the bridge to the Angkor Wat complex, gave us some water and told us he’d be waiting for us behind some nearby cafes. Cool. Drew and I plunged into the darkness trying to find a huge, ancient temple that had been lost for hundreds of years before its recent (in the grand scheme of things) rediscovery. In the dark it was easy to see how it could have been lost in the first place. As we made our way toward the main temple, lots of “helpful” folks began appearing out of the darkness. Immediately I’m trying to figure out what their game is. No one in this country wants to help you. They want to help themselves. But how? Everyone was guiding us to the left. Apparently there was a pond in that direction that reflected the temple and the sunrise and was THE optimum viewing spot for this glorious occasion. As we approached, the game became clear. These people all had food stands nearby and were trying to sell us overpriced breakfast. They also had chairs we could use. I declined the chair and popped a Kazakh squat at the edge of the pond. What’s up now, suckers? That’s right, I know the Asian squat. I’ve practiced in the outhouses of Kazakhstan, and I don’t need your chair! Plus, I’d already figured out that they only let you have the chair on the condition that you buy a small cup of lousy coffee at Starbucks prices.

Drew took a chair, only to have it taken away later because he didn’t buy anything. To be honest, I really was hoping he’d stand up and huck that stupid chair into the middle of the pond. It was early. I was cranky, and I was tired of everyone in the damn country trying to rip us off. And so we waited. And waited. And then waited some more for good measure. Eventually the sunlight began to creep across the sky. I took a ton of photos. Adjusted apertures and shutter speeds. Thank goodness for vibration reduction lenses! After a while, it became clear that the sunrise wasn’t going to be anything terribly spectacular that day. Also, I started to get the feeling that the real best spot for sunrise photography was on the right side of the walkway we came in on. Where we were, the sun rose just to the left of the complex. The angle on the other side would have put the sunrise BEHIND Angkor Wat. There wasn’t a pond over there, though. More importantly, there were no food stands. I started to get the impression that pond was built by the people with food stands after Angkor Wat became a popular destination…. Guess we got scammed again after all.

Then it was off to explore the inside of the temple. In Angkor Wat proper there is apparently an actual, working Bhuddist temple of some sort. Or maybe just a really big shrine for the tourists. I’m not really sure. All I know is that it was at the top and you couldn’t line up and pay (again) to go up there til 8. We weren’t waiting around. There was some sketchy guy loitering around the base of the temple who said he could get us up there. Probably wouldn’t have hurt to do it and pay a little bribe, but since we’re Peace Corps volunteers international incidents are something we strive to avoid. So we made our rounds, took some photos and headed out to meet Mr. Rith and see some more temples.

As we were heading toward the cafes, a Khmer guy walked towards me and started talking to me in English. His first question was, “Do you remember me?” I didn’t. Even if I did I wouldn’t have said so. Seriously, dude, that’s a pretty standard way to start a con and I’m not buying it today. Then he asks if I’m staying at Earthwalker’s guesthouse. I was. He then asks if I remember promising his friend the day before that he could be my guide for the day. Again, thank goodness for the truth! I could honestly say that I had never promised anyone anything (Drew might have, but who cares! The guys were both sketchy as anything and I wasn’t going to let them scam me). He just acted angry and walked away. But for the rest of our time in Cambodia I was afraid they’d be coming after us trying to collect. I had a plan in order: first, argue (loudly) and deny. second, offer a little cash to shut them up and send them away. third, yeah…if that didn’t work I was sure there would be violence and that would suck. I was hoping we’d never see them or get to three. We didn’t see them. Life was good.

After that we just checked out more temples. Every temple we saw was impressive in its own way. One was apparently featured in one of the Tomb Raider movies. It was a temple that had been extensively overtaken by the jungle. It was really cool to see all that. The temples were really amazing and unforgettable. There’s really no way to describe how awe-inspiring it was to see them. You’re probably better off just going to my Flickr photostream and checking the photos out. One of the interesting things about the temples is that you were free to roam wherever you wanted with only occasional “do not enter” restrictions. Being able to freely explore all these amazing places was tons of fun.

There’s a lot of restoration being done at the temples. To be honest, I wasn’t a fan. They try to make it authentic and true to the design of the temples, but the restoration work just looks out of place. Newly carved stone is blatantly obvious, not nearly as good as the original and it’s honestly a hideous distraction. Some parts of temples have just fallen after hundreds of years. Sure, I’m all for putting that back together. But otherwise I really think it would be better to simply stabilize structures and preserve them as is. For me, at least, that’s a much more appealing alternative.

The first few temples were fun to explore. Checking out every nook and cranny. Finding shrines hidden in the darkness. But as the day progressed and we began to hit other temples it became less fun. Mostly because finding shrines in the darkness meant that someone was going to jump out of said darkness and shove incense in your face in an attempt to make you pay for it. I found this out after putting incense in a pot in front of a shrine, getting a red string tied around my wrist, having some sort of prayer (it could have been a dirty limerick, actually – I don’t speak Khmer) said and then being asked for money. My only small bills were in Thai baht. After plopping down some cash and making a hasty retreat I realized I’d left about $6 in baht behind. Stupid Cambodia!

Somewhere between noon and 2 we called it a day and Mr. Rith took us back. It was ridiculously hot. We went back, grabbed lunch and a nap and just generally tried to cool off. Eventually, Drew went out for pizza with another Earthwalker’s guest and I eventually went to a different place with some other guys. Later on we all met up at the same club in Siem Reap called “Angkor What?”. It was Drew, me, and a smattering of fine folks from the British Isles. And one Swede. Good times. Drew swears the tuk tuk driver who took us back to the guesthouse (NOT Mr. Rith) was offering to sell us drugs, hookers and God knows what else. It’s interesting – well, the drug part at least – because drug possession in Thailand is punishable by death. What a difference a border makes. That was the first time in my life anyone ever tried to sell me drugs. Hookers, too, for that matter. Is this what the Wild West was like? Good grief. No worries, mom, we declined the gentleman’s gracious offers, and went back to the hotel.

The next day it was back to Bangkok. It took forever to get there, but we eventually made it. Border crossings were miserable experiences in both directions. Mostly because the tour company we used for them (yes, I know you should never use these scam buses, but from Koh Chang we really didn’t see any other options and we didn’t learn our lesson the first time, hence the return trip) had nasty habit of delaying you for three hours at their travel agency/restaurant on the border. The food at the restaurant was crap, too. The worst Pad Thai I ever ate in my life came from that restaurant…in Thailand.
What was interesting about the return trip was how it ended. Rather than taking us to a bus station, the bus just stopped at a roundabout in the middle of the city somewhere and let us out. It took forever to get to said roundabout because the red shirt protesters had traffic clogged to a ridiculous degree. Speaking of protesters, that roundabout was located in what seemed to be the middle of one of their rally sites. We got out in a hurry. Our cab driver wouldn’t use his meter – said it was too far from the hotel, especially with all this protester traffic – so we paid an exorbitant amount. When we got to our hotel in about 15 minutes the guy feigned surprise. It was all I could do not to hit him. But you know, “Peace” Corps and all that….

We stayed at that hotel for two nights. Since it was closer than we really felt comfortable with to the rally sites and since it didn’t have as much appeal as the other place we stayed the first time we were in Bangkok we thought we’d play it by ear. The day we decided to switch hotels was the day we saw red shirt convoys on the street in front of the old hotel. Party’s over – time to bounce.

Back to Watana Mansion we went. Checked out the area, went to a weekend market, generally had a good time. The weekend market was incredible and we found some of the best deals and merchandise of the entire trip there.

Then it was time to head back to Kazakhstan. It was sad to leave the wonderful weather and great food, but I’d had enough of the scams and was ready to get out and back to a place where I at least know the scams. And as soon as we got off the plane we found one waiting – the airport taxi guy! He wanted to charge us $50, then 5000 tenge, then $30, then 500 tenge to start and 500 per kilometer. Finally Drew told the guy that we weren’t tourists and we wouldn’t pay more than 3000 (and that was only because it was night prices). At least we knew how that one was played! With some degree of pride I will note that the taxi in Pavlodar did not try to rip me off. Take notes, Almaty cabbies!

Vacation – it’s good for the soul, but it sure doesn’t do much for your faith in humanity! Everybody’s got an angle. And I appreciate that these folks are trying to make a living, but I don’t care what your circumstances are – it’s morally reprehensible to charge infinitely more than the going and accepted rates just because you think someone can afford it.

Today was day 2 of winds so hard that you’d be tempted to look for a tornado complete with Kansas farmhouse, wicked witch, Dorothy and Toto. Though the temptation quickly disappears when you realize that looking up, much less around, means your face gets pummeled by ice crystals and Lord knows what else. Oh, that and you’ll probably get blown over. Literally.

It’s been difficult to get around this week. First there was the ice. It gets warm enough now during the day for some of the snow to melt. Unfortunately, none of the meltwater can drain anywhere. This results in sizeable ponds that seem to be sprouting up all over town. These ponds freeze over as the temperatures cool at night. Lots of frozen footprints around town. This ice is ridiculously slippery. It has also been snowing every day, so the snow that melted away the day before is quickly replaced. Normally the snow helps provide a bit of traction on the ice, but not this time. Bearing all this in mind, enter the wind.

This is no warm summer sea breeze. This is a, “Hey, I just blew down from Siberia and I feel like fighting” breeze. How fast is it? I’m not sure, though I saw another volunteer reporting 80 mph winds at her site. It’s pretty stout, though. Something that makes it even more interesting is the way the town is laid out. The apartment buildings create lots of right angles and narrow corridors that do crazy things to the wind. Think funneling and redirecting in bad ways.

As I was leaving for work this morning I was being pushed all around the ice by the wind. It was tough going because I couldn’t get enough traction to keep from totally being moved around by the wind. As I got to the end of the building the wind picked up. It was also coming from three different directions – straight off the steppe and around each side of the building. The ice got more slippery and a couple of cross drafts put me right on my butt. It was an exciting start to the day.

Coming home this afternoon I found myself several times holding on to stationary objects to remain upright and on my intended path. I also was leaning into the wind at at least a 45 degree angle to keep from being pushed backwards or knocked over. The closer I got to my apartment, the worse it got. My theory is that because my apartment building is the first one on this edge of town. There’s not much of anything to break up the wind, so we get the full brunt of it.

Oddly enough, it reminded me of diving in the Keys and the Bahamas. When you’re reef diving and there’s any sort of swell or current the only way to get around efficiently is to kick when the swell is at your back and to stop kicking when it reverses direction. I usually watch the soft coral to see when it’s best to start and stop my kicks. Today when the wind was coming at me from the front I had to stop walking to keep from getting knocked over. When it was at my back I had to do a sure-footed trot to keep from being thrown onto my face!

All things considered, I think I’d prefer diving to the gale force winds.

In a few hours I’ll be heading off to Astana. Tomorrow I plan to visit the U.S. Embassy to learn about what materials may be available through the Embassy for the English language resource center we’re trying to open at my site. I’ll also try to learn about the different programs they have for study in America. Some of these may be beneficial for my students, some for teachers I know. Then on Saturday morning I’ll head back to the Embassy. This time to take a test.

Once again I’ve decided to try my luck at the Foreign Service Exam, though now it’s called the Foreign Service Officer Test. About five years ago I took the test, but I didn’t make a high enough percentile to go to the next stage. Hopefully, this time I’ll do better. I’ve been much more serious about it this time around, so I hope the results will reflect that.

Why the Foreign Service? Well first I think it’s worth noting that I applied for the management track. Although all my education and work experience seems to qualify me more for the public diplomacy track, I feel more compelled to pursue the management track. In fact, one of the online interest surveys the State Department provides to help in making the decision indicated that management was my highest area of interest. That being said, I’m drawn to the Foreign Service (and the management component contained therein) for the same broad stroke reason I was drawn to the Peace Corps – it’s a tremendous opportunity to make a difference.

With the Foreign Service management track I would have an opportunity to streamline and make Embassy operations more efficient. I could do work that would make it easier for U.S. Diplomats to do the job of conducting diplomatic relations with other nations. This in turn would make it easier for these other nations to see what America is all about, both in the philosophical sense and the literal sense, and hopefully create a better understanding between all parties. There are so many great things about America, our way of life and our system of government that I want to share with other people. Maybe it doesn’t work within the context of their culture, but it’s important for them to at least see what it’s all about and what it could mean for them.

Do I think the entire world should be composed of Democratic Republics? No. It’s just not a style that works for every place and every culture. I do believe there are numerous positive aspects from our culture and our government that could be integrated into other societies and cultures. And if nothing else I think that by increasing the understanding between different cultures we can help to reduce the number of conflicts in the world.

So yeah, I guess this weekend I’ll see if I can take a step toward being a part of the team that helps extend the olive branch for America. Seems like a pretty good team to be a part of, at least in my opinion.

Turns out I’m not quite the locksmith I thought I was a few weeks back. Why’s that? Well, the new lock sort of broke this afternoon. I had just gotten the bolt to engage one time when the lock stopped turning. Not entirely, mind you, but it wouldn’t unlock or roll into lock place 2. It was just there. I wiggled. I jiggled. I scratched my head. I saw my neighbor who said what, in hindsight, must have been “It’s a lost cause” or something to that effect in Russian. I jiggled some more. At last there was some movement!

Unfortunately, that movement involved the lock cylinder coming out of the lock 3 out of 5 pins worth. I understand the concept of lock pins better now. Mostly because three of them fell out of my lock. So at that point I decided it was on to plan B. Plan B involved a trip to the bazaar where I bought a hacksaw blade and an entirely new lock assembly. After that I finally dropped in to see my host family.

Hadn’t been by to see the host family in a while. Mostly because they’d been ill over the last week or so. My host mom had been in the hospital for over a month. She looked like she’d been going through quite a lot – several bandages and bruising – but she was in good spirits. Also, she made sure I ate until I nearly exploded. And I couldn’t have been happier!

After that, Batyrhan came back to help me try to get into the apartment. Good thing he came because my hacksaw trick didn’t work. Blade didn’t fit. Ah well, only out 50 tenge on that one. Instead Batyrhan used pliers to pull the old lock out. Seriously. The thing just snapped in half. Then he used a screwdriver to release the bolt. Unfortunately, I think the mechanism might have been broken as a result. No big deal, that’s why I bought the other lock, right?

Sort of. Turns out the new one needed a bit of tweaking to almost work correctly. Batyrhan invited his friend Yerbol to come help us out. Yerbol is a lock specialist, I’m told. He got the thing to work, so I believe it.

The first time I removed the lock I was amazed at how the thing was barely held together. All the screws were barely in place. I thought that was shoddy at first. Today, though, I learned that those screws are actually to adjust the lock. Yeah, the janky setup may have actually been my lock, fine-tuned. Frightening? A bit. I was also reminded that things from China, like my new lock, were pretty much junk. After all the time it took to make the thing almost work I can’t really disagree. Sorry, China.

On the bright side of things, they should be turning on our domaphone any time now. Even though the door to my apartment is secured with a cheap Chinese lock that may or may not last through the end of the month I’ll soon have a fancy new electronic lock system for the main entryway. That’s something, right? Plus, I still have that nice steel door that keeps people from knocking directly on my and my neighbor’s doors (I’ll admit a little confusion over the proper agreement here. I have a door and my neighbor has a door, hence two doors. However only one of those is actually mine. Why is English so hard???).

So yeah, another exciting day. Tomorrow it’s back to the host family’s place. They had borscht today and they said it’s always better the second day – like chili, I suppose – so I’ll make sure to take them up on the offer. Maybe some lesson planning later on. Beats me. Good grief. Who knew locks could take up so much time?

Last week was probably the coldest week I’ve spent in Kazakhstan. It got as cold as -42 C, and was never warmer than about -30 C. This week things have been melting. It’s kind of crazy! You know you’ve been in a cold place for way too long when -15 C feels warm.

Other than weather, not too much is going on. Last weekend was Valentine’s Day. Almost all the volunteers in the oblast gathered for that. Friday night we went to a Valentine’s Day party at Samal, which is a center for children with disabilities. That was a lot of fun. After the party we went out to a cafe and then to Paul and Susan’s (henceforth to be known as Poosan) apartment to watch a movie. Saturday we had oblast banya, and Sunday was Emily and Jane’s cooking club. The menu for club was pizza, but it was heart-shaped in a nod to the holiday.

What else, what else? Starting to submit leave request forms for various different trips. I’ll be taking the Foreign Service Officer Test in early March. Hopefully that will go well and I’ll be invited to participate in the next steps. The more I think about being a Foreign Service Officer the more excited I get about the possibility. Later on in March I’ll head to Almaty for a VAC meeting and to participate in the 21s IST. Some of that participation will be VAC-related, some will be related to next year’s 50th anniversary celebration. After that I hope to take a vacation to Thailand and Cambodia. It would be a really nice way to wrap up my final Kazakhstan winter and probably wouldn’t make a bad greeting for spring, either!

Right now I’m really happy with where I am in my service. I feel like I’m accomplishing a bit more at site than I have before. More importantly, I feel like I’m really helping to pave the way for the next volunteer. For that matter, I might even be able to help get a site mate for that person. Aksu is a great town and I think there are a lot of opportunities here for volunteers to do some great work. And even though it would be great to be able to be the person who does all that work, I still believe that my most important contributions to the site will be in helping the next volunteer (or volunteers) succeed.

I suppose that’s all for now.

Yesterday I replaced the lock on my apartment door. It couldn’t wait any longer. I’d been having trouble with it for a while. At first it was a bit tough to turn. Then it got sticky. Then I had to shake the key to get it in the lock and wiggle, shake, pray, curse and sweat to get it to do anything.
Last week my neighbor gave me a totally new lock for free. Pretty cool gift. I just wasn’t sure I could install it. It looked a bit bigger than my current one, and instead of the lock being one bar it was three pins. Also, the strike plate on the door jamb didn’t work with the new lock. All this is a shame, really, because the new lock was pretty sweet. Oh well.

So, after spending about five minutes getting into the apartment yesterday afternoon I decided I could no longer wait for assistance from the maintenance guy at our school and would have to do this myself. It’s not that he didn’t want to help, it’s just that I never could find him. He works at our school and the town pool and he’s always busy. Though in the finest tradition of Murphy’s Law I saw him today. He was pretty impressed that I managed to fix the lock myself, for what it’s worth.

Back to my awesome repair job. So it’s like this, the lock consists of two pieces: the core with the tumbler and all that jazz and the bolt mechanism. For the princely sum of 260 tenge (that’s sarcasm, folks, it’s less than $2) I bought a new core. I wasn’t really sure how to get the old one out so I used the tried and true method of unscrewing everything. The method still works nicely. At first it seemed I’d done a lot of unnecessary work. That is until I pulled out the bolt assembly. this little slab of metal has a two-piece case with a few, simple inner workings. The case is held together by 3 screws. Of those three screws, only two had threads still connected to the other side of the case. And those two came out with one turn of the screwdriver. Nix that, one turn of my Leatherman Wave and it was in pieces. No big deal, I just put it all back together and in five minutes I no longer look like the sketchy German guy trying to break into someone’s apartment. Not that there’s anything sketchy about Germans. It’s just that nine times out of 10 people here think I’m German. And though it hasn’t happened lately, it’s always amusing when they ask me (in German) if I speak German and then continue to speak it to me after I tell them I don’t speak German but I’m an American and speak English. It never gets annoying, but it’s always funny.

Tomorrow is site visit from Peace Corps. I’ll get to meet my new regional manager and see Ekat, who has been acting regional manager until now. They were hoping to observe my lessons, but it looks like that won’t happen. Weather forecast looks cold enough for classes to be canceled all week. My director won’t be there, either. The regional akim invited all the directors to a meeting in Pavlodar, so she’s got to go to that. One of the things Peace Corps will likely ask about is whether or not the school wants another volunteer next year. When we asked the director about that today she wanted to know why I didn’t want to stay a third year. That’s pretty cool, I think. I told her (via my counterpart) that it’s difficult to extend for a third year and that they should probably plan ahead as if I might not be here. Though I have to say, it’s still really cool that they want me for another year. It’s nice to feel wanted.

Last Sunday we heard that one of the PCVs in my group had been injured in a car accident. She sustained a serious head injury and a broken wrist. Since the accident she’s been unconscious. After her initial treatment in a Kazakhstan hospital, Peace Corps was with her as she was transported overland to the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan. She spent some time there before being flow to Germany (with a brief stop in Afghanistan) for further evaluation. Her family was able to meet her in Germany. As of today, she was being flow back to Washington, D.C. Stable with strong vitals, but still unconscious. Unfortunately, the other two people in the car were killed. So if you’re the praying type, please say a prayer for Jamie. If you’re not so much the praying type, please keep her in your thoughts. In case you’d like to keep up with her recovery, Jamie’s sister-in-law is keeping us all up-to-date on her blog

It’s been cold lately. Though I feel like I’ve adjusted more to the weather this year – I can get by just fine without wearing quite as many items of clothing and I haven’t covered my face once this year – it’s still cold.  I wanted to say that I’d survived -40 weather. I’ve done it. Several times. At this point I wouldn’t object to warmer temperatures. That would be quite nice, actually.

The first half of this week was spent in Pavlodar. I helped out with a conference at one of the Universities. Emily, one of the university PCVs from my group works there and she invited all of us to help out with the conference. It was fun. Although getting there and back was pretty cold each day! Yesterday was my last day at the conference, but before I left I got to catch a hockey game. Our local team, Irtysh, stomped the competition 7-0. I think the other team was called the torpedoes. Insert torpedo-related joke here. It was a lot of fun. I went with Paul and Susan, a married couple from Kaz-21 who are serving at a NGO in Pavlodar, and Chris, a university 21. The price of the game was 250 tenge. I could get used to that. A Coke at a cafe is usually 300! Also of note is that pre-game marked my first visit to Burger Maxx. It’s the hamburger restaurant that the folks who own the Amanat Maxx chain of grocery stores in Pavlodar opened. Not too bad. Sure, even a Big Mac looks gourmet in comparison but sometimes you’ve just gotta make do with what you’ve got. The funniest part of the whole experience is when I ordered. I briefly glanced over the menu and then asked for a “gamburger c ceerum”. That would be a hamburger with cheese, in Russian. And without skipping a beat or batting an eye the girl looks at me and says, “Cheeseburger?” Sure enough, it was on the menu – чизбургер. In fact, a lot of the menu items were simply Cyrillic transliterations of the English equivalent. Good for me, but how it helps the locals is beyond me!

Other excitement was found in Pavlodar over the weekend. Emily and I had just picked up some supplies for the conference at a local teacher’s store and were returning home when we saw a car blow up. Yeah. At first I thought it was just a backfire, but then I noticed that there was a fire underneath a car stopped at the next intersection. Emily wanted to get closer. I wanted to go the other way. Gas + fire = boom. I’m allergic to death, so I was a little reluctant. But I eventually gave in to curiosity and joined the rest of the crowd in rubbernecking. Even managed to get a few photos. Though I almost lost my hands to frostbite in the process. As the car burned, traffic kept coming. No one seemed to think driving through a puddle of burning gas was a bad idea (says the guy who thought standing near a burning car was a good one). After a few minutes the police and fire department arrived. The flames were doused and we left. It was pretty crazy though. Especially when the windows exploded. Yet the windshield melted. Crazy stuff. I also was intrigued that the only cop there who had a gun was toting what appeared to be an AK-47. Then again, it might have actually been an AK-47 pistol. I didn’t know such a think even existed until I read about a guy carrying one in a Nashville park. Either way, when that’s the dude in charge of crowd control you can consider this crowd of one successfully controlled.

Guess that’s about it. Keep Jamie in your thoughts and prayers.

I’ve had numerous requests to get my act together and post another blog. And since Thanksgiving I’ve had the best intentions of doing just that. However, Burns was right about the best laid plans of mice and men. So here we go.

Last year’s PCV Thanksgiving was a Pavlodar-based extravaganza that involved lots of food in a warm apartment full of new friends. This year we went to a village and had lots of food in a house that got a bit cooler during the night…but we still had lots of friends and fun.

Personally, I thought the coolest thing was probably the turkey. Nay, the turkeys. We had two. But only one was ready for cooking when we got there. The other still had quite a bit of prep work left to do. As in the head was the only thing that had been removed. So at least we knew the turkey was fresh!

In addition to the turkey we had a ton of other traditional American fare. We also played football in the snow – Kaz 20s vs 21s. Though there were a few other folks that joined in the fray: a 19, a Canadian and a local. With yours truly stepping into the pocket as QB the team was quickly pointed to victory.

The other major occurrence between then and now was the much-anticipated arrival of a shipment of donated books from Darien Book Aid. I’ve been working on establishing an English resource center in my town, and these books really helped to inject a bit of life back into the project.

Christmas is right around the corner. After classes finish on Friday I plan to join the other PCVs for our local celebration. Think it should be a good time.

New Year is the big holiday around here, although I still don’t know what my plans for that will be. All I know for certain is that I’m joining a big group of teachers from the gymnasium at a local restaurant next week for our own celebration. Should be entertaining. It usually is.