Today was the first real day of classes. Technically, yesterday was the first day of school, but it’s usually a half day consisting of a ceremony that celebrates the opening of classes, the new kids, the pending graduates. Actually, I’m not sure any of that is entirely true. I sometimes think my language skills have [...]
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Today I’m celebrating two years in Kazakhstan. I’ve changed a lot since then. Learned a lot. Grown a lot. It’s been an incredible experience. Through all the ups and downs it has been the adventure of a lifetime.
When I first arrived all those months ago it was a bit of a shock, to say the [...]
One of the most frustrating things about life here is the language barrier. There’s a constant struggle to understand and be understood. Granted, if I’d been a little more active in my approach to studying languages things might have been different. Still, there’s always a great sense of accomplishment, even now, when I discover that [...]
I went to visit my host family a few days ago. They had done a lot of remodeling since before I left to do all my summer travel. After talking with them a little bit I learned there had been a fire at the house. Seems it was electrical in origin, started just outside the [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
As of October 9 there are some changes here in Kazakhstan. Pretty big ones. Smoking has been banned in public places, and drinking in the streets is also a no-no. I think the drinking thing was against the law before but just wasn’t enforced very strictly.
About the smoking ban: according to an email advisory about [...]
This evening I took a quick trip out to one of the local дукендер (shops) to pick up a few things. On the way out I noticed that the air pressure and wind direction was such that all the exhaust from the smokestacks of our local industrial buildings was blowing into town and being held [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
After a lengthy summer sabbatical - mostly due to lots of travel and glitches in Internet connectivity - I’m back. I hope to bring this blog up to date with some of my summer adventures over the next few weeks. Until then, just a quick post to show that the blog (and its author) isn’t [...]
Saturday I went to Pavlodar to celebrate a Kazakh holiday. It was interesting because I had no idea what holiday it could have been, as there are no official national holidays that take place on June 13 (or the second Saturday in June, as the case may be). I only knew that it would have [...]
With the passage of time, this will probably be a hiliarious story, though I still feel really foolish at the moment. Tonight I went to a birthday party for Anelia, the youngest host sister from the family who hosted me during my site visit in Aksu. One small problem - the party’s on Monday.
The party [...]
The whisperings began about a week and a half before last bell. At first it was, “Someone very important might come to our last bell.” Then it was less subtle, “The Prime Minister might come to our last bell, but the director said she’d kill us if we told anyone and people on the street [...]
One week to go and my first academic year as a Peace Corps Volunteer will conclude. Then I get to kick off a month of camp in June! That’s irony, not really excitement, by the way. Still, it’s another milestone in this interesting journey that I’m on.
What I’ve learned along the way so far:
I’m not [...]
I’ll go ahead and admit that I’m mildly confused as to which holiday it was we celebrated today. I think it was related to Victory Day - it looked a lot like Victory Day - but it’s two days early. My counterpart said that today was the day of celebrating the defenders of the motherland. [...]
Today marks my first full day of independent living in Kazakhstan. I’m pretty excited about it. I have my own place. I have high-speed Internet. I have food. All in all, life is good. Interestingly enough, I feel that I’ve really turned a page in my service because of it. Granted, I’m sure I’ll be [...]
Today was the big day. After weeks in the making, we had the community project meeting with all the town’s English teachers. Also on hand were several people from our local education department as well as someone from Pavlodar. It was a really incredible thing to be in a room full of English teachers. These [...]
I took a trip to the post office today during a break between classes. On my walk back I realized that I was, for the first time since arriving, finally seeing my town. At this point I feel like I know the main features of the place fairly well, but there were so many details [...]
I can see the ground again. After the longest and coldest winter of my life, signs of spring are in abundance in Aksu. My mood has improved greatly and I’m just enjoying life. It’s amazing what warm weather and sunshine can do to make things better.
At the end of March the students have a break [...]
This weekend I decided it was time to buy a dombura. I’ve been taking lessons for a while, but I haven’t had an instrument to practice with since I moved to my new host family. Hence, it’s difficult to make much progress.
Plus, I’m supposed to be playing at an upcoming concert. I can’t provide any [...]
In stark contrast to the melancholy of yesterday, today was a really wonderful day. It continues to be a thing of amazement to me that the most insignificant things can serve as tipping points for both the good and bad here.
This morning I was dragging. Seriously dragging. I stumbled through the front door of the [...]
It’s been a wilder ride than usual lately. I’m about to reach the end of the longest term of the school year, but it’s been a tough push for a while now. Some days I’ll be riding the biggest high of my life, and some days just the tiniest things can suck the life right [...]
Hope you all like the blog design shift. One of my most avid readers (that would be my Mom) requested that I find something that made it easier to navigate my backlog ‘o posts. Hope this helps!
One of the things Peace Corps talks a lot about is third goal. There are three main goals of Peace Corps, and the third is the one that really never stops – helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. And even though they switched taglines long ago, they never [...]
It’s a grand Southern Christmas tradition. One that was immortalized in the short story by Truman Capote that many of us read at some point in school. It may be a tradition in other parts of the country as well, but I don’t know that any writers from other parts of the country have a [...]
The Christmas tide here is slowly coming to a conclusion. I should have blogged about this more extensively on receipt, but I kept forgetting to get the photos off my camera. It’s really about time I add some photos to this little adventure, and this is a prime place to start.
So, around mid-December Corey and [...]
As of this evening the novelty of not having to worry about a runny nose because anything that ran froze in the nose wore off. Fortunately, I got a balaclava in a package from home today. Unless it leads to hassles by the cops, that should keep me toasty warm.
Another tough one to handle is [...]
One of the few posts that I haven’t pre-written! I came to Pavlodar for the weekend, which usually means access to Internet that actually works. Yesterday afternoon when I finally got here I met with some other volunteers. The main gathering happened at Maher’s English Club, which shows a movie in English every Saturday afternoon [...]
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Interesting morning here at the host family abode. About 10:00 a car showed up outside and some men came [...]
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Last night I visited a friend in Aksu. He’s a former English teacher who now works at one of [...]
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Today’s my third day in the new host family, and things are really going well. Any time you move [...]
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Last night I walked home in a blizzard. Tonight I walked home in the snow again. It wasn’t a [...]
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Sometime during my first few weeks at site I was on the phone with my mom. We were talking [...]
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I was in Pavlodar over the weekend. Saturday evening I met the other local volunteers for dinner and then [...]
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If that’s not a doozy of a title I don’t know what is. So I changed the desktop background [...]
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Today was the funeral of Meera’s father. It was an incredible cultural experience for me, but at the same [...]
One of the things that we as Peace Corps Volunteers strive for is integration in our communities. We want to become a part of the community, not just someone who comes for two years to work in it.
Something that signals strides in integration is inclusion in major events that take place in the community. I’ve [...]
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You know that old saying about little things coming in small packages? I don’t know that I ever believed [...]
Attended my first service at a mosque today. It was really interesting. I didn’t have much of a clue what was going on, though, because the sermon, message or whatever the proper term for it in Islam is, was in Kazakh. Maybe in two years I’ll understand, though. I caught (or thought I caught) more [...]
At last, a real time entry! I’ve got a few minutes to spare, so I’ll try to use them. As I mentioned before, it’s cold here. Today was not much different. It will get colder.
My regional manager was in town today to check on things at site. It went well. I’m not a complete failure [...]
I’d like to take this opportunity to retract any statements I’ve made in the past about being able to handle the weather. Were I to be so bold in the past, and I believe I may have been, I was mistaken.
Today the temperature started off at a balmy -20 (this is all Celsius, by the [...]
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