Heat wave

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.