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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

About the smoking ban: according to an email advisory about the new law we got from Peace Corps today, smoking is prohibited in/inside public places and work places, including: educational institutions, administrative buildings / offices/ work places, medical facilities, museums, public eateries, cinemas, theaters, sport facilities, and other facilities designated for public gatherings, including night clubs, bars, disco clubs, and public transport.  The smoking ban also extends to the entrances/entry halls to the apartment complexes.

In airports and train/bus stations smoking is only allowed in the specially designated places/ smoking rooms.

The punishment for violation of the smoking restriction law is a fine from 10 to 60 monthly indexes. (i.e, in KZT equals from 12,960 to 77,760 KZT)

The law prohibits the selling of cigarettes to the persons under 18.

I’d say that’s quite comprehensive! And it’s already being enforced. A friend of mine told me that in Almaty recently he wasn’t allowed to smoke in a cafe. Not sure if it’s the same all over the country or not, but I’ll definitely be paying attention now. There was a no smoking sign in a local shop that I noticed today. A very new addition (even though no one smoked in there before anyway).

Prior to joining the Peace Corps I worked for the American Cancer Society in Tennessee. When I first started our big legislative push was for a comprehensive smoke-free law in Tennessee. We got close, but didn’t make it all the way. I’m still proud of the accomplishments of that organization and all its dedicated volunteers, but I must say I’m prouder still of this bold new move by my new country. The life expectancy for men here is miserable – 63 – and a lot of that has to do with heavy smoking and drinking.

It’s really cool to think that Kazakhstan has put into effect legislation that is so progressive (though some might call it repressive) in dealing with issues of public health.

Kazakhstan’s an amazing place. It makes me happy to think that these laws will help make the citizens healthier, give them a chance at longer life and as a consequence allow more of them the opportunity to share their culture with others for years to come.

It was a bold move, Mr. President, but this Peace Corps Volunteer thinks it was a darn good one!

I thought it seemed kind of nasty this evening. That would explain why.

On the way back I could see all the nastiness that was being spewed my way. If it weren’t for the fact that there’s a law against it I would have take photos. All the stacks of the ferrous alloy plant were running at full tilt. Same for our coal-fired energy plant. The image was really eerie. Almost like something you would see in pictures of a huge fire. The sun was almost completely set, so the remaining light was very reddish orange. The remaining light also occupied a very small section of sky because the pollution blacked it out. It was quite literally like looking at a smog generator.

The craziest thing of all was this plume of flame at the ferrous alloy plant. I don’t know exactly what its purpose is or what it burns, but it’s pretty bright even in the day. But tonight it was just insane. That flame had to have been over 20 feet high and so hot that it would have vaporized a marshmallow had you tried to toast one on it.

It was really something else. And I get to breathe it all in for another year every time the wind shifts this way. At least I’ll have something to look forward to.

I’ve really been bad about updating since summer. Part of it was that I was traveling pretty much nonstop for several months, but part of it is that things just aren’t as new and exciting as they used to be. Life has become fairly routine. Well, routine in the very loose sense that has to be applied to routine here.

However, in an attempt to not be a pathetic excuse for a blogger, I present this latest post of Kazakhy goodness.

I went to Pavlodar over the weekend. Had a slight dental issue. Seems the permanent retainer I have on my bottom teeth decided it didn’t want to be permanent on one side any longer. After checking the other side and seeing that it had no intentions of giving up its position in my mouth I decided a call to one of our Peace Corps Medical Officers was in order.

At first we thought that I wouldn’t be able to get it repaired, only removed, locally. I was OK with that. Better to have no retainer at all than one that’s botched, right? Did I mention that things have gotten fairly routine here? Nothing exciting or exotic about this at all.

So Saturday morning I head to Pavlodar to get this wayward piece of metal taken from my head. Except the guy says he can fix it. Peace Corps doesn’t cover dental stuff, so I had to foot the bill myself. Luckily it was a very small bill. So I got everything more or less fixed. My investigation into the holding ability of the still-attached side seemed to have bent the wire a bit, so it’s not quite like it used to be. Ah well. Guess if my teeth start to get really crazy I’ll try to have it removed.

After my adventures in Kazakhstan dentistry it was off to explore the city. I met up with Emily, one of our Pavlodar-dwelling PCVs, and we cruised around a bit. Had lunch in a cafeteria. It was cool. Food was cheap and tasty and the décor was a rocking old-school Soviet theme. They loved them some Lenin!

Then we checked out a few shops. I was looking at clothing options – might have to buy a pair of pants soon – and Emily was looking for clothes hangers. I still remembered the Russian word for them, a word I learned nearly a year ago in my own hanger search and a word that I haven’t used since, so that was kind of cool. Also saw some neat watches that were made in Russia.

I’d been looking at mechanical watches online lately, and I recognized one brand as being the company that used to produce all the watches for the Red Army. They were not too expensive, so I thought I might buy one. And I did. That was kind of cool. All the writing on the face is in English, but everywhere else it’s in Russian. Pretty nifty, I think.

Later that evening it was off to a café for Jeffrey’s going away party. He’s not leaving for a while, but his organization wanted to have a party for him and they invited all the other volunteers in our oblast. It was a fun dinner. Among the many dishes we had that night was sturgeon. Yeah, the caviar fish. It’s also the Tsar’s fish. It’s also ugly as sin. But it’s quite tasty! We stuffed ourselves on a ton of other stuff as well. Then we danced a little. Then we called it a night.

And that, folks, is the latest and greatest from my neck of Kazakhstan. Tomorrow the Ministry of Education is paying a visit to our school. I think it has something to do with the school’s attempt to get certification as a school for gifted students. Should be interesting. Hope it works out. My director is certainly putting in the work to make it happen. Latest addition to our curriculum – Chinese. We also have a new zavuch (sort of like a vice principal) who will oversee our polylinguistic program. Jealous?

It’s been an eventful summer. Like the entire Peace Corps experience it was full of ups and downs. And tomorrow it all comes to an end as I go back to school to start the scheduling process.

Summer kicked off with school not ending. What? Classes stopped, but I kept going because we had a summer camp at my school that lasted the entire month of June. There were two parts to the camp – an overnight camp for younger students and a day camp for older students. The younger students had more of what I would consider a camp experience. The camp for the older students was a “subject camp.” Apparently what that means is that teachers from every subject are present at the school for a month to teach lessons to students who said they would come…but may or may not actually do so. Sort of like non-credit summer school with no attendance incentive. It has some room for adjustment.

I enjoyed the last two weeks of camp because that’s when I started working with the younger kids. Activities for them were much more fun for me, and it was hilarious the things that we (Kevin came down for week 3, Lindsey for week 4) had happen during the time with the little ones. At one point I think I must have had half a dozen or more 5-year-old kids hanging off of me. Kevin thought it was hilarious. I thought they were getting heavy.

After my escape from camp, it was off to Almaty. All the Kaz-20s had mid-service medical in July. On the way down, Lindsey and I made a brief stop in Astana. Her time in Kazakhstan was running out and she still hadn’t seen Astana. Mostly, she just wanted to see Baiterek – a Sunsphere-looking monument that is a fairly famous national symbol. Once we’d had our fill of the glories of Astana it was on to Almaty.

My doctor for the mid-service exam was the one and only Dr. Victor. He’s a really awesome guy. He was an officer in the Red Army and served in Angola. He also really loved the Soviet Union. Still does. To this day I believe that Dr. Victor’s stories about his life and experiences, as well as some great stories about what life was like in the Soviet Union, were some of the most culturally enlightening portions of my training. Long story short, clean bill of health.

Next it was off to the Kyrgyz consulate to get a visa. Good thing the majority of that happened after medical, otherwise my blood pressure would have been highly elevated. Let’s just say things were less than smooth. Within months of my travel group’s intended departure date it had been possible for Peace Corps Volunteers to get a Kyrgyz visa for $15 within 24 hours. Apparently the rules changed before we arrived, though. Now the visas (single-entry tourist) are $90 and require 3-4 days to process. Oops. After submitting our payment and paperwork and sitting outside the consulate for several hours (all the time thinking we would have to pay a bribe to get the visas), the consular officer told us that we would be able to get our visas the next day. And there was no bribe required. Once again showing what happens when you assume!

Once we had visas in passport it was off to Kyrgyzstan! We went down the pricey way – taxi – but it turned out to be a nice, albeit expensive, ride. Our destination was Karakol, a small town near the southeastern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul. It was a cool town and we stayed at a nice hostel. In the town the three big attractions were the Dungan mosque, the Orthodox cathedral and the animal market. Check, check and check. We took a day trip to the lake and then it was off to the mountains and a little hot springs community called Altyn Arashan. Our hostel there was also owned by the same folks who owned the one in Karakol. There we spent some time relaxing and soaking in the natural beauty and soaking in the natural hot springs! Then it was back down to Karakol for a night and then back to Almaty by bus.

Then it was off to Taldykorgan. I spent a few days doing some work for my secondary project, and then Lindsey and I went to a nearby city for another camp. This camp was with Bastau, a private school that several of the volunteers in Taldy work with. The school does great work and Igor, the director, is one of the coolest guys I’ve met in Kazakhstan. He’s got a great vision for the school and he’s got the drive and determination to see it through.

Bastau camp was challenging but fun. And it lasted two weeks. After those two weeks the whirlwind continued. The next stop on the summer tour was exotic Pavlodar. OK, it’s not all that exotic. But I had to come back because Maher, one of the Kaz-19s in Pavlodar, was getting married. It was my first wedding, and it was a great time. Maher and Vika looked amazing, and it was fun for everyone who came.

Next, I took a breather. Just kidding. Then it was on a train to Almaty. Lindsey was on her way out of the country and my mom and brother were on the way in to visit. They actually got to meet as mom and Aaron were arriving and Lindsey was preparing to depart. After saying hellos and goodbyes – it was a crazy morning – the family and I headed back to the hotel, had breakfast and got ready to see the sights. We didn’t see many, though, before we had to head to Shemalgan and visit my host family from PST.

That was a fun visit. My family got to meet, well, my family. We had a wonderful time and they got to learn a little bit about Kazakh culture. I think it also helped them both to have a better understanding of what my life here was like those first few months. The next day we flew to Pavlodar and continued on to Aksu by taxi.

After trying to regain a little lost sleep we all headed off to Pavlodar to meet Jeffrey, who gave us a tour of the city. We hit the high points and called it a day. The next few days were spent in Aksu. There was a tour of the city as well as dinner with my second host family. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to visit either my director or my first host family as they were busy with a wedding almost the entire time my family was visiting. Kazakh weddings take several days and the timing was just off. My counterpart also was at the wedding, but on the last full day in the Aksu area we were able to have lunch with her family in Pavlodar. That was fun because we had beshbarmak. It wouldn’t have been a complete Kazakhstan experience without it. Plus, there was horse sausage (қарта) and fermented mare’s milk (қымыз) – two other traditional food items.

Once back in Almaty we finished sightseeing and souvenir purchasing and it was back to America for mom and Aaron. A few hours later, back to Pavlodar for me.

I took a few days to rest and then went to Bayanaul to watch a teacher training seminar that Mary organized. I want to host one in Aksu, and I wanted to get ideas and take notes. The seminar was great, but a bit hard to follow. The volunteers who held the seminar did the entire thing in Russian. It was really impressive.

Another cool part about Bayanaul was getting to hike in some beautiful country. The area has Kazakhstan’s first national park. In fact, it was actually a park before Kazakhstan was a country. It was the Soviet Union’s only park in Kazakhstan. It’s amazing there. Took two really great hikes and got to meet and stay with a really cool local. I don’t know his real name, but everyone calls him Forest Brother. He’s a ranger in the park. His father was a ranger, too. The guy is a blast and a great guide…but he walks REALLY fast. He showed us some great spots and also helped arrange a trip for us to one of the nicest camps at a nearby lake. He also made us fresh shashlik one night.

And that’s my summer in a (very large) nutshell.