Sorry Blogspot, you were good to me, but then KZ blocked you. RIP.

NEW HOME: www.beccazsky.wordpress.com

Please update your readers.  Will try to post more regularly now, I swear!

On March 10-12, the first ever South Kazakhstan Model UnitedNation delegation attended the Miras International School Model United Nations 2011 conference in Kazakhstan, held in Almaty. For those who don’t know, Model UN (MUN, for short) is aneducational activity where students represent the various countries of theworld in committees that simulate the real United Nations. Delegates must research their countries,write position papers, give speeches representing their country’s positionabout the given committee topic, and work together with delegates from othercountries to write a resolution. Model UN is thus unique in that it simultaneously teaches criticalthinking skills, public speaking, research and writing, teamwork, and diplomacyalong with a range of international relations substantive issues ranging fromhuman rights to nuclear disarmament to science and technology. As an educational module it exemplifies“participatory/active learning” (see the following learning pyramid –you retain 10% of the information you read, 20% of the information you hear,but 75% of the information you DO by role-playing or other simulation educationalactivities).

Aaron (the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Shymkent)and I started the South Kazakhstan Oblast (SKO) Model UN team together earlierthis winter. We are, if I do sayso myself, a particularly qualified pair to pioneer this program. Aaron worked at the real United Nationsas a tour guide before he came to Kazakhstan, his job for 2 years being toinform people about all the various aspects of the UN and what they do. He is also astoundingly well-versed ina wide variety of global current events and substantive issues (having CNN athome also helps;). As for me,Model UN was one of my biggest extracurricular activities in college, where Iserved in almost every possible position (board member, secretariat member, moderator,director, assistant director, charge d’affaires, etc.) of the largest highschool and college conferences in the country (Harvard Model UN and Harvard National Model UN, respectively). One of my primary contributions to our team is thus training our delegates onhow to prepare for a student conference, including debate skills and the intricatedetails of committee procedure.

[Flashback to HNMUN 2007, opening ceremonies with ~3,000 students - I'm the 4th Secretariat member from the right ;)]

For MISMUN 2011, we brought a delegation of 26 students (20 high school and 6college-level) and 5 chaperones to the conference. An extraordinaryamount of logistical work of course goes into coordinating a project like this,which Aaron and I have been swamped with for the last few months. This included fundraising (more on ourdonors later), arranging transportation and accommodation, coordinating withschools, students and chaperones, getting official parental and school permissionfor participants, getting the correct travel documents for everyone who isunder 16, and a million other little things. Being a team coach (we called them “faculty advisors” at HNMUN) definitely made me appreciate the role in a whole new way, as atany given moment someone is sick, someone has lost something, someone needs togo somewhere and come back, something needs to be arranged with hotel/meals,someone wants substantive help with their working papers or has questions aboutprocedure, etc. And then on top ofall these usual things that any MUN team experiences, you add the specialKazakhstan factor. On the trainride to Almaty alone I had to deal with document problems for the underagedelegates (for which the conductor tried to exhort a bribe), drunk men in thetrain harrassing our female delegates, and random strange men being let intoour compartments by the conductor without a ticket (for a bribe, of course) tosleep on the “третья полка” (third bunk) where luggage is normallykept. When we got to the hotel Ithen had to haggle for the rooms whose price had suddenly inflated from the onewe'd agreed on in advance, bargain for discounted dinners and breakfasts or ourdelegates, and coordinate free transportation with the conference organizers –all so our donors' money could go as long of a way as possible for our wholedelegation. Luckily, as one of our British donors later told me, I am a“tough bird” – or, as Aaron often fondly says, “scary.” :P Honestly though in those situations ano-nonsense attitude is pretty indispensable, because otherwise the completelack of accountability and pervasiveness of corruption makes normally goingabout your business a daily nightmare. I am proud to say that in the end we managed to conduct our entire tripbribe-free, and for ~$1000 in donations transported our entire delegation of 31to Almaty, housed them in two hotels, transported them to and from theconference daily, and even covered meals and incidentals for our delegates mostin financial need.

[All of us off the train, having (finally) made it safely to the conference!]

Students from our delegation included those from smallvillages in South Kazakhstan with very limited access to services anddistinctly rural living conditions. Many of them had never been to Almaty before, and for some this trip wastheir first ever venture out of South Kazakhstan. We also had students fromShymkent’s Micro-Access Program (funded by the U.S. embassy), which giveseducational scholarships to youth from underprivileged families in thecity. When we arrived to Almatyand some of the village delegates saw the 5-star hotel rooms that had been sogenerously donated to our delegation, they at first thought it was some kind ofa mistake – one young delegate walked around touching the walls of the placeand joyfully told me over a phone call that “Becca, this hotel, it is aluxurious!!!” And when theyentered the expansive MISMUN campus with its smart boards, chic interior designand giant assembly hall, many of them gazed wide-eyed in wonder. Upon seeing the foreboding podium andmicrophone with multiple flags in the auditorium, one of our students worriedly askedme: “Do we have to go up THERE to speak?!” And indeed, every one of them did go up that first day togive their well-prepared opening speeches (WITHOUT reading off their papers!:),and over the course of the three day conference and many additional speechestheir intimidation had disappeared and was replaced by comfort andconfidence. We are so proud thatthere was no palpable difference in the English level and content of our kidscompared to their international school counterparts, and that they now havetangibly demonstrated the ability to carry out an act that indeed many adultsand native English speakers around the world fear.

[MISMUN opening ceremonies keynote speaker Laura Kennedy, from UNESCO Kazakhstan]

[Our SKO team delegate Kamila from Sairam Village, representing Cambodia]

Over the course of the three days, our General Assembly highschool delegates discussed, collaborated on and passed resolutions about threediverse and important topics: microfinance, child soldiers and environmentalsustainability. Aaron and I wereeven invited in a special speaker simulation as the Special Envoys to Israeland Palestine discussing children in wartime situations, and improv-ed a heateddebate that I think was sufficiently entertaining for the entire committee.;) Our college students debatedHIV and TB in their World Health Organization committee, and dealt with a smallpox crisis outbreak that wiped out half the British royal family and MaliaObama (oh dear). Of the 2 committees in which our SKO delegates participated,half the final awards recognized our team’s delegates! Special congratulations to AhmadzhanAbdiganiev (Chile, GA Outstanding Delegate, from Karabulak village), AkmaralSman (France, GA Outstanding Delegate, from Shymkent), Dilrabo Sultanmaratova(New Zealand, GA, Best Resolution, from Sairam village), Evgenia Grebenkina(United Kingdom, WHO, Outstanding Delegate, from Shymkent) and DinaBaildilyaeva (South Africa, WHO, Best Delegate, from Shymkent).

[Recognized outstanding delegates of the General Assembly!]

I myself served as the moderator and chair of UNICEF, whereour topics were universal education and teenage pregnancy. It was great to get to meet othermotivated students from international schools around Almaty in my committee,many of whom were also in the troughs of the intensive InternationalBaccalaureate Diploma Programme (from which Aaron and I both graduated, wayback when!). Miras put together agreat program and everyone learned so much, in addition to making new friendsand unforgettable memories. Afterconference hours Aaron also organized a wonderful tour for our kids of KIMEP(one of the best universities in Kazakhstan, which is English-based, hiresforeign professors and operates on the American credit system), and a speakersession by a journalist fixer friend of his in Almaty who has worked with BBCand the New York Times. Theseadditional events also helped the kids learn about the diversity of educationaland career opportunities available to them and connect them with resources thatwill help them continue developing their English, learning and future jobpotential. We also had lots of funat our “diskoteka” and karaoke evening activities for the delegates, where theywere able to sing, dance and bond with the rest of the team.

[UNICEF committee!]

[SKO team girls with our karaoke hero]

This post would not be complete without a very importantthank you to our donors, all of whom were private individuals who extended theirown generosity to us. None of thiscould have been possible without Mr. Jeff Temple, Mr. Roger Holland, Mr. Arik,and Mr. Stefan Schandera. Jeff isan Englishman who worked for PetroKazakhstan in Shymkent for 9 years and sinceretiring has been repeatedly coming back to support social projects in thecommunity with his own time and money. He founded our Friday English Club which is still running, has beendoing an advocacy project on the lead pollution problem in Shymkent, and hasgiven donations and networking support to various grassroots NGOs (includingmine!). When Aaron and Iapproached Jeff about our project, he was immediate in his support and withindays had found us Roger, Arik and Stefan as additional donors to make ourentire team’s trip possible. Also in need of huge thanks are Mr. StephenTaynton (the MISMUN2011 organizer), Mr. Saparbayev (owner of Hotel Sapan inAlmaty) and Daulet (manager of the Tau-Otau Hotel in Almaty), who helped houseand feed our participants throughout the three days of the conference. When I met with Roger Holland in Almatyto share the results of the conference once it was over, I was left with anenormous sense of personal gratitude and satisfaction – not only for thegenerosity of his support in the project, but also the general feeling thatsuch good people in this world do exist and share a like-minded philosophy ofinvesting in the community and seeing the personal development of itsindividuals. I realized that thoughI somehow lack the strong desire to accrue the wealth necessary to be such aprivate philanthropist, my calling lies with directing the goodwill andresources of such people effectively and transparently to realize worthwhile,results-orientated causes. I alsohope that this success story in Kazakhstan private donorship can inspire otherNGO workers and people conducting social projects to seek out individual givingas a form of resource diversification and financial sustainability.

[Team photo at closing ceremonies!]

MISMUN 2011 was an amazing first conference for ourdelegates, and I hope it will not be the last. Our next steps are to build up the team’s human resourcesustainability (as Aaron and I will not be here next year), electing studentofficers, identifying future conferences to attend (maybe even abroad inMoscow, Bishkek, Paris – or Harvard!:), and even planning our own conferencefor Central Asia-wide delegations in Shymkent! If any other PCVs would like to talk to me about starting aModel UN club in your region, please feel free. A great resource, replete with ready-made MUN team curriculaand handouts for beginning clubs, is located at http://www.unausa.org/modelun.

Dear all,   Many apologies for the long silence on the blog.  For the last month and a half my poor MacBook pro has been in a state of complete darkness (I think the precise term that popped up on Google was "Macbook black screen of death"), and it is now sitting at an official Apple repair center in lovely Istanbul waiting for parts.  Blogspot is still blocked and inaccessible from KZ without my Mac's special software, so thus I will be out of commission on the blog for yet another foreseeable month (posting this by email).  But when I return from this forced hiatus, expect the following posts in varying states of belatedness: Christmas in China with dad and Jo! New years party parties extravaganza in Shymkent My organization's youth conference, featuring interactive "youth fair" booths Turkey trip with Michelle and Danish! NGO School in Kostanai, where I presented on strategic planning and mission statements to 30 KZ NGOs with Bree! New Shymkent Model UN Team and the MISMUN (Miras International School Model United Nations) Conference Aaron and I are taking our students to in Almaty (March 9-12) Be back as soon as I can!  Until then, feel free to e-mail.   Much love, Becca

Life is changing with the natural cycle of Peace Corps Volunteers coming and going from site. Our contract is for two years, and every new generation brings with it its own character and dynamic. We recently hosted two groups of visiting volunteers, said goodbye to our remaining Kaz-20, and welcomed 4 new Kaz-22s to Shymkent. We hosted them, got them settled, took them to their workplaces and host families and are getting to know the few other Americans with whom we will be occupying the same space for the next year. On top of that, 2 Fulbright English Teaching Assistants arrived this fall as well, bringing our total number of Americans in these two programs alone to 9!

[Visiting Kaz-22s at my org with our Dostar volunteers!]

[Cynthia and James, my lovely guests of a week (don't worry, he shaved the 'stache before leaving the house:P)]

This made for a crowded but lovely Thanksgiving, in which us three Kaz-21s played host and between our 3 kitchens cooked 3 chickens, two types of cornbread (spicy and sweet), vegetarian chili, stovetop stuffing, buttered corn, garlic mashed potatoes, two delicious salads (one particularly popular one was lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, white cheese, walnuts and an olive oil/herb dressing), no less than SEVEN pumpkin and apple pies, and fall-inspired cocktails (cognac with brown sugar syrup, pineapple and lemon juice…highly recommended!). Our village volunteers came in from around the oblast to celebrate, and we managed to successfully fit and feed 20 people (Americans and some local friends) in my living room.

[Our 20-person Thanksgiving feast...!]

[With my dear Malika...so happy to have her back :):)]

Right after Thanksgiving ended, I cleaned and packed up all the remaining food for local friends and volunteers, and we Kaz-21s headed out to a Peace Corps-run PEPFAR training on HIV/AIDS, followed directly by our group’s Mid-Service Training (MST). The PEPFAR training consisted of Population Services International (PSI) professional trainers conducting a Training of Trainers (ToT) for us on HIV/AIDS and sexual health, so it was a great refresher on the themes and methodologies that my organization uses in our daily work. We learned a lot of really fascinating statistics, both global and Kazakhstan-specific, and the training I thought was very comprehensive. I was happy to hear that all PCVs will be getting it at PST from the next group on, in order to qualify them to write and conduct PEPFAR projects on HIV prevention. All the exact content and information we got probably merits a separate post!

As for MST, it was fun as always seeing everyone from our group gather from all around the country. The big news was that our Close Of Service date has been moved up from November to August, so we will all be COS-ing three months earlier than planned. This is because PC Kazakhstan is expanding and getting an additional group each year, which with current timing means at some point there will be 3 groups together in country. They are letting the next two groups COS early to minimize the stress on staff resources with that many volunteers. Everyone was buzzing about the news and thinking about what will come next after a short 8 months (the jury is still out for most of us including me, but I am very happy with the skills and contacts I’m gaining from my job here and will keep you all updated:)). Honestly, it is true what they say: though some parts have crawled (i.e. Jan and Feb of last winter), generally the last 14 months have flown so incredibly fast. I was also amazed at how much things had changed for everyone from just six months ago at our IST conference. First of all, everyone’s Russian and Kazakh had much improved and people were basically expressing themselves fluently! I myself moved up to two levels in Russian too which was pretty surprising as I’d heard the curve is steeper at the advanced levels…I think we all just don’t notice how much our fluency is really growing when we’re immersed in it every day.

Also, it was fantastic to hear about the great community projects and work going on around the country from some of our volunteers. For example, I remember presenting on our Shymkent Women’s Club at IST when pretty much only one other city was running one that had been started by Kaz-19s…now there are at least 6 or 7 founded by PCVs in our group around the country! Our last MST session invited three winners of the essay contest “How Peace Corps Changed My Life.” These local girls presented on how their interactions with their city or village PCV inspired, motivated and helped them to reach new heights and got them where they are today (a PhD program, working for the Indian embassy, studying abroad, etc.). They mentioned that a lot of the real results in the individuals whose lives we affect may not manifest themselves until years after we leave, but the results will definitely be there. It’s great to be reminded of that as we move into our second year of service. [Somewhat related side note: according to the RPCV that works for American Councils, I was apparently mentioned three times by our wonderful Shymkent FLEX finalists during their interviews this week…hahaha thanks guys, I’m so proud of you and am sure you’ll all make it to America!]

Other than that, it was a great week in Almaty hanging out with my friends there that I didn’t get to catch in October because everyone was out on fall break. I temporarily left my camera in the PC office so was not able to photograph any of our adventures as I usually do, but suffice to say many delicious dinners and get-togethers were had over authentic Szechuan Chinese food, Vietnamese pho, sushi, homemade spinach and tofu, strawberry mojitos, pumpkin pancakes, salmon salad, lemon tarts, Bailey’s coffee and plenty of wine. Cheers to Janet, Brian, Eliza, Jeff, Aaron, Kunai and Aselya for showing me a great time as usual in Almaty, a city that will inevitably always feel like a luxurious vacation destination to a PCV. ;) My last couple days were spent shopping with what seemed like the city’s entire expat community at the big Central Asia crafts fair at the national museum (which was perfect for buying overpriced but beautiful hand-made gifts to take home to Beijing for Christmas), and visiting my granny in Issyk who filled both my stomach and heart as always. :) Now back to site and back to work – just 8 more months, and there is so much left to do!

11.02.10 (backlogged)

In mid-October, I finally paid a visit to the capital ofneighboring Zhambyl Oblast, a pretty southern city that now goes by the name ofTaraz. Examinations for theprestigious FLEX Program were being held, and a few of us Americans were signedup to help proctor. FLEX standsfor Future Leaders Exchange Program, and it sends a select group ofKazakhstanian high schoolers to the U.S. for one year of exchange study, allexpenses paid. I personally thinkprograms like these are the best public diplomacy tool we have in our box, andit is abundantly clear to me the benefits for both our countries to allowtalented young people the opportunity to be cultural ambassadors for Kazakhstanin the U.S. (much like we PCVs are for the U.S. here!).

The FLEX program is run by the American Councils in Almaty,and they do quite a rigorous job with the testing. There are three different stages: a simple, 16-questionmultiple choice test of English vocabulary, grammar and reading; a series ofessay questions followed by a much longer “SLEP” English language test similarto the paper-based TOEFL; and finally an interview, which focuses on contentand most of which is actually not conducted in English. The first stage of the test alone isquite rigorous, testing knowledge of English idioms and conversational rhetoricalong with fast reading comprehension – only 30-40% of applicants make it outof the very first cut. Altogetherseveral thousand apply every year, and only a little over 100 go – making theprogram just as selective (if not more so) as getting into the most elitecolleges in the U.S.

Helping to administer the test was quite an interestingexperience. There was a sea ofexcited young people and I think we were all touched at how many of them valuedthe idea of an American education, were interested in English, and wanted toparticipate in the program. Westruggled to control the masses, get everyone to stand in a line, not push, andfill out their documents correctly. Sipra came up with the ingenious idea tonot let anyone have a “card” (a ticket to entry into the exam) unless they werestill, waiting patiently and not shoving or reaching over others to grab. Eventually we even held an Americantrivia game to keep the students occupied during what ended up being severalhours of waiting for many – we asked questions like “What is the biggest state?”“Who was President of the U.S. during World War II and the Great Depression?”and (no one got this one correct though, sadly) “What is the name of ournational anthem?”

[crowd of students at the FLEX testing!]

Several Shymkent students that we knew passed the firstround and were very excited --all of them of course had worked very hard andwere very well-deserving. Cheatingturned out to be not as much of a problem as anticipated, though students wereof course not very used to the strictness of our proctoring. ;) Because it is Kazakhstan, everyone gotone red X warning for any signs of cheating (looking at someone else’s paper,starting early, not finishing when time is called), with the second X resultingin disqualification (no need here to mention how this compares to theno-tolerance policy in the U.S….can’t imagine a strike system for cheatingthere!). Luckily we didn’t have tothrow anyone out during our proctoring sessions. ;)

After a long and tiring day of testing on very little sleep(I had gotten up at around 5 a.m. that morning to catch a ride to Taraz with mycounterpart and her son), we got to rest up and explore the city a bit thefollowing day. Thanks to fellowPCVs Mark, Michael and Courtney for hosting and showing us around! I saw the old mausoleum, central squareand “lover’s lane,” hung around the bazaar, had a stereotypically confusingKazakh dining experience (in which the restaurant was half-diner half-buffet soit was unclear whether you were supposed to serve yourself or be served; thewaiter stood around awkwardly while we were in the middle of talking but didn’tcome for ages when we were ready to leave; and of course, the bill came outwrong with higher prices than were originally marked), and window shopped at alocal boutique. Taraz is muchsmaller than Shymkent but is very clean, green and pretty. It was a gorgeous fall weekend and Ivery much enjoyed the trip!

[At the Taraz mausoleum(s)]

10.22.10

I recently attended ZhasCamp, the first youth conference held in Kazakhstan on October 8-10 in Almaty. Young people and representatives ofyouth NGOs gathered from all over the country, and expert guests from Russia,Ukraine, Poland, Kyrgyzstan and other nations were also in attendance. The camp was a great opportunity tonetwork with other active young people, share skills and experiences, andestablish collaboration on projects. One of the other main goals of the camp was also to discuss the new lawon youth policy being passed by the Kazakhstani government, and give youthinput to government representatives who attended the conference (althoughunderstandably I myself did not participate in this process). I was also lucky enough to have won one of 48 travel grants to attend the conference, for which I must thank the ZhasCamp organizers as well as Soros Foundation KZ, who sponsored the event.

[Our event sponsors and host...like his shirt! :P]

ZhasCamp lasted three days and was in its very firstiteration, though the organizers hope to make it an annual event. One interesting innovation that wasimplemented was the idea of “open programming,” in which time was put aside inthe schedule for participants themselves to sign up and lead their ownsessions. Although this was a bitchaotic, it did result in a very democratic and participatory conferenceformat. I signed up to lead whatwould be a packed time slot with my fellow PCV Michael aboutvolunteerism in America, and prepared another presentation on our organizationDostar and our peer-to-peer model of volunteerism development with my fellowvolunteer Zauresh. We discussed the successful models of volunteerism development at both Peace Corps and Dostar, which I think was beneficial for a lot of the participants.

[Some of our Dostar volunteer team at ZhasCamp]

There were also several interesting “master classes” heldthroughout the camp on topics including fundraising for youth NGOs, cooperationwith local government, social media for youth PR campaigns and once again volunteerism (co-held by some of our own Peace Corps staff!). These discussions continued after hours in various “thematic evenings”over dinner at venues around Almaty that had agreed to partner with theconference and give discounts to participants.

On the last day of the conference, a “Projects Market” was heldin which youth NGOs at the conference could present a project to apanel of judges in competition for one of two 300,000 KZT (2,000 USD) small grantsto continue their project in the upcoming year. 16 organizations from around Kazakhstan presented a widevariety of projects, and it was truly fascinating to see all the activitiesthat were happening around the country. Youth camps for disabled children and orphans, volunteer clubs, a youthentrepreneurship center, etc. etc. While passivity was listed as one of the "youth problems" to be discussed at the camp, this certainly was not applicable to our fellow conference participants!

Our team went up to present our project: our Summer YouthLeadership School 2010. They hadtold us in advance that our project would be judged based on four criterion:sustainability, creativity, previous realization of the project, and that theinitiators and beneficiaries of the project were both youth. Keeping these criteria in mind, we constructed a Powerpoint presentationwith only one slide addressing all four points at once. Then we used the rest of our precious 5minutes to show a short video clip of our project results that Aziz and I had stayed up putting together the night before: interviews ofparticipants expressing their own gained knowledge and changed perspectivesafter the camp, and an exciting slideshow of all the pictures from ourcamp (check it out here on Youtube!). We ended up winning thegrant, which was such a huge honor and a confirmation of the great work ourvolunteers are doing!

[Our volunteer Aziz in excitement as we hear our names being called!]

Overall, I met some really wonderful and interesting peopleat the conference and discovered many additional opportunities for cooperationand skills-sharing among youth organizations not just in Kazakhstan but all around Central Asia. Cannot wait to see where some ofthese new partnerships and ideas take us!

09.19.10

I just got back from a Y-PEER Advocacy Project Training inBulgaria. Y-PEER is UNFPA’s youthpeer-to-peer sexual and reproductive health network of over 500 NGOs worldwidein 36 countries. Our Shymkentvolunteers have become national representatives of the Y-PEER network in Kazakhstan, called Focal Points (FPs). This means that they are trained on international Training of Trainers(ToTs), support participation in the network as well as national and localprojects, and run projects on SRHR (Sexual & Reproductive Health &Rights). As our youth projectsincreased and were run solely by our organization’s youth leaders andvolunteers, we decided to re-register our youth organization as an independententity called the Youth Volunteer Leadership Center “Dostar,” which runs its projects autonomously and withyouth leadership but receives guidance from experienced NGO mentors at theAssociation of Business Women. I am now a volunteer for both of theorganizations, which is why I do both organizational and youth development work.

Y-PEER this year just started funding advocacy projects forits youth organizations, which is a big and difficult step as one canimagine. Many of the countriesthey work in, including those in the post-Soviet space, have complexrelationships with local government and decision makers. Or sometimes, the relationships are infact very simple, but unidirectional (no access to decision makers, top-downinformational and power structure).

Our training was really fascinating because of the widecomparative perspective we got on the situation with regards to domesticpolitics, the state of SRHR, and the role of youth NGOs in differentcountries. There were 8 nationsand 9 organizations represented at our conference: Bulgaria, Macedonia, 2Russian delegations (one from the North Caucasus), Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan andKazakhstan. Unfortunately whatthat meant was not everything in the training was directly applicable in thesame way to everyone, as the standards for advocacy in the West (open meetingswith or even criticism of your local government representatives) or EUcountries just is not possible in many of the post-Soviet countries yet.

That being said, we also learned some heartening thingsabout Kazakhstan while doing our own research. For example, did you know that the post-Soviet “Stans” havesome of the most liberal abortion laws in the world (check out this comparative chart on Wikipedia)? Abortion is allowed in virtually all situations based on a woman’schoice up to the first trimester, and for a wide variety of reasonsafterwards. Unfortunately howeverit is often used as a method of contraception in absence of education aboutother safer, earlier methods of birth control. Illegal, unregistered abortionsin unsafe conditions are also common, not least because youth under the age of18 cannot obtain medical services without their parents’ consent (one of the big legal barriers we learned about on our visits to our local Youth Health Center in Shymkent, where the gynecologist and therapist on staff can only give "consultations" and referrals, but not prescriptions, tests or treatment). Clearly, there is still a lot of workto be done.

Our project I think reaches a very good compromise betweenthe need for advocacy and the reality of our local situation. We chose to focus on media advocacy,which uses mass media coverage to reach the attention of both decision makersand the public. Our project seeks to ensure that accurate information isdisseminated by the media and that any dialogue containing stigmatizingmarginalized groups is replaced by neutral and professional discourse. Our first media advocacy training willfocus on discrimination against PLWH (People Living With HIV). Among the advantages of media advocacyis that “news items in the media tend to carry more credibility than thosepresented in paid media advertisements or in public relations material” ["Media Advocacy," Encyclopedia of Public Health], including material we ourselves could produce as an NGO. Also, massmedia effectively reaches decision makers who monitor news stories in thecommunity. We will be running ajournalist training in late October and then facilitating the mass mediaoutputs that result from the training on PLWH rights and HIV awareness. Then in December we will have a finalpress conference with government officials, journalists, our constituency group(PLWH) and other community members. We’re very excited for our project – big thanks to the Y-PEER PETRI Sofiateam in Bulgaria for their project support and for running such an interestingtraining!

[Y-PEER!]

[Group picture of all the project teams at our beautifulresort in Pravets, Bulgaria – 60 km out of Sofia]

[Zau and I represented the Kazakhstan project team <3]

[Our project plan!]

[Pictures of the gorgeous Pravets resort's spa and pool, complete with Finnish and Russian banyas, an herbal sauna, crazy showers and even an ice room (!)]

[One of the best side benefits of the trip was getting tomeet up with both Filip and Jenny, my lovely Bulgarian friends fromHarvard. Last time I was in Sofiawas in 2005 to visit Jenny, and it was so great to see her (and her brother!)again!]

[On our way back, Zau and I detour briefly to Ukraine to wait out our layover in Kiev. We did not order the "Fat on-Kyivski," sadly]

PS: A final resource that was shared with us at the Y-PEERtraining that EVERYONE should read for their own edification: RSFU sexual education publications that tell you everything you would want to know aboutsexual organs, sexuality, reproductive health, virginity, condoms, abortion,prostitution, etc. in simple and concise language. Especially notable are the resources for workingspecifically with young men on SRHR and gender work. Read and distribute to all your friends!

08.26.10

Shymkent soundtrack:Traditional Kazakh dombra meets pseudo-hard knock Kazakh rap

Almaty soundtrack:Enrique Iglesias (PS: HOW is he popular now in the States?! I really thoughtthat was a purely Kazakhstan phenomenon) meets soothing European lounge grooves

Astana soundtrack:Brain-busting space-age Russian techno meets Lady Gaga.

That pretty much summarizes my comparative impressions ofthe noveau-chic capital with its bizarrely beautiful alien architecture, ostentatiousPresidential wealth, windy stretches of meticulously landscaped nothingness,and an unsettling unpopulated feeling that harkens the endless steppe on whichit sits.[Grand Astana skyline...and absolutely zero people]

Astana (literally "Capital" in Kazakh, which some say was chosen purposefully so it could be renamed after President Nazarbayev post mortem) was officially declared the new capital of Kazakhstanin 1997, replacing southern Almaty. There are various explanations to why President Nazarbayev decided totake on such a major and rather unpopular move: Almaty’s high earthquake riskgiven its mountainous setting and overpopulation problems, as well as of courseAstana’s more central location (further away from the Chinese border, at that)and a more equal demographic split between Russians and Kazakhs as you move upnorth.

Unfortunately, Astana’s central location in the steppe alsomeans frigid Siberian temperatures and no shelter from the biting wind (it's apparently the second-coldest capital, the first being Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia). As diplomats and businessmen moved intothe new modern superstructure, it also became clear that Astana was very much acity of transplants with no natives of its own and thus no real local identity(in many ways similar, by the way, to Washington D.C. Let’s be real, no one ACTUALLY cheers for the Capitals orthe Wizards [sorry, J:)]). Nearly everyone I have met has grumbled about the superiority of Almaty,still considered in many ways the country’s “real” capital and beloved majormetropolis. And yet as if Astanaknows it has a lot to make up for, I have never seen so many pro-citypropaganda advertisements before! Here’s a brief collection:

[Kamila's excellent reenaction of "Мой любимый город!" ("My favorite city!")]

Like a glittering Emerald City with an enthusiasticgold-handprinted wizard, Astana is definitely unlike any place I’ve ever beenbefore. Half of the city is thenew business district with glitzy official buildings: the PresidentialPalace, Pyramid of Peace, Independence Hall, Baiterek Tower. This is also the half that ispractically empty and not lived in – daytime walks and looping 4-mile runs bothin the morning and in the evening (Anna was training for a half-marathon backhome in a week’s time!) yielded more or less the same barren streets. The old parts of the city that werelived in back when the city was known as Akmola are more normallypopulated. The new and old partsare separated by a lovely river with modern white bridges and space-age-lookingstaircases stretching from bank to bank. My friend and fellow Dostar volunteer Kamila and I entered one littlemini mall that, like the rest of the city, seemed only half-real: beautifullyconstructed, perfectly functional infrastructure (even toilet paper in therestrooms!), but half of the stalls and boutiques were white, locked andempty.

[Anna photographing Baiterek at dusk]

[Me with the two gold "teapot towers," the Presidential Palace and fountains]

[2-in-1 UFO and Circus!]

[Bridge connecting the left and right banks (also referred to as the "new" and "old" parts of the city)]

[A scenic beach view of some tower apartments?]

[Kami and I at the Pyramid of Peace...with no one else in sight, of course]

[From L to R: the "dog bowl," "chicken on a stick" and "bread basket," a.k.a Astana's stadium, monument and independence hall. The central white monument has a 15-foot bronze reproduction of Nazarbayev on one side]

[Not sure why these buildings have holes in them....]

[Crazy, mismatched, Gaga-like Astana architecture]

The newest addition to the skyline is the much talked about Khan Shatyry, a giant temperature controlled modern yurt-remake that houses bothupscale mall shops, crazy amusement park rides (like a central “Tower ofTerror”, and a water park coaster) as well as a year-round beach complete withumbrellas and palm trees on the top floor.

[Looking up the inside of the Khan Shatyry]

[Girls riding up the "Tower of Terror" at the center of the tent]

[Little cars can take you on an amusement park ride around the circumference of the tent]

[A water ride on the top floor...?!]

[An indoor beach/pool with palms and umbrellas visible through the glass]

[The special transparent material covering the roof of the Khan Shatyry regulates the temperature year-round]

Other epic site-seeing expeditions were made. The first was to the Baiterek, Astana’ssignature tower that is supposed to represent a white birch tree with a goldenegg on top (pretty spot on, right?). That expedition included a tank of scary-looking catfish, a gift shopwith $50 mini-Baiterek souvenirs, a miniature model of the Astana city center,a globe memorial donated by various religious societies, and of course thegolden imprint of President Nazarbayev’s hand that is supposed to sing thenational anthem to you when you place your hand in it (though sadly thatfeature seemed to have been temporarily discontinued on our visit). We also visited a park with a miniaturemap of Kazakhstan (“It’s not a park, it’s a map!” one woman emphatically toldme when I asked her for directions), complete with mini-monuments and landmarksfrom all of the major cities except for of course Shymkent, which slightlyoffended me (but then again what major landmark do we have here? Our Megacentermall?:P). Our last stop before Ileft was to Duman Oceanarium, supposedly the world's farthest aquarium from the ocean, complete with moving walkways (though sadlyalso not in operation on our visit), dollhouse-decorated fish tanks, and asurround-sight tank with sharks that swim above and around you as youwalk/Jetsons-glide through. Equally amusing was the bizarre internationally-minded mall that theoceanarium was located in, which had small tributes to America, China andKazakhstan (look at that – my favorite places!). It’s funny how seeing mini-life-sized versions of a teepee,the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall, the Turkestan mausoleum and Baikonur rocketsall in one room doesn’t even faze me at this point.

[Baiterek and me trying on Nazarbayev's handprint for size]

[Anna and I pointing to our respective homes in Kazakhstan at the entrance to the map-park]

[Anna, Ryan and I with the mini model of Astana]

[Baikonur, the Soviet rocket launching site, and the dried up Aral Sea are both represented]

[Ryan checks out a depiction of the Almaty wooden church and WWII monument in Panfilov Park]

[Teepee and totem pole in the Duman Oceanarium building. I don't ask anymore]

[Clearly, all pink fish need Barbie house accommodations]

[The moving walkway floor is supposed to take you through the shark-filled tanks, Jetsons-style]

[The tank surrounds us, and a diver has come in to play with the sharks]

[A Nemo! Rumor has it they spend a fortune flying special ocean water in to Duman, an indoor ocean oasis in the deserted steppe]

[A trio of thoroughly satisfied tourists]

Definitely one of the best parts about Astana of course wasgetting to hang out more with Anna. She was everything one could ask of a hostess, housing me in her poshembassy apartment, getting me on the VIP list to the U.S. Ambassador’s iftar (adinner breaking Ramadan fast, where ambassadors to many Muslim countries werein attendance), and feeding me delicious German breakfasts, curried dinners andhomemade peanut butter cookies. Wealso got to spend time with her great embassy coworkers over multiple dinnerand drink dates, as we were all acquainted with each other through my help withSR Pandith’s visit earlier in the month. Though embassy life is as nice as I remember it (I was a Public Affairsintern at the embassy in Tallinn, Estonia), it also reminded me how grateful Iam to get a chance to do the grassroots-level work in the thick of things nowwith Peace Corps – a unique and valuable vantage point that I’m not sure I willhave in quite the same way later in my career.

Speaking of work, I should mention what I was doing inAstana in the first place: meeting with various potential international donorsincluding multiple embassies and UN bodies, on behalf of my organization(s) inShymkent. The meetings went verywell and I think everyone supporting civil society projects around the countrywas excited to hear about the work going on in the South, which is admittedly“a land of its own” (so much so that I had a bit of reverse culture shock gettinginto the temperature-controlled Astana train station and temperature-controlledAstana busses that announce the next stop in a pre-recorded voice!). I think it was very important PR andlong-term donor relationship development for our org, and the trip resulted inseveral successful leads on funding opportunities to pursue this coming year tohelp make our projects and programs more sustainable.

Astana was followed by an enjoyable trip to Almaty, which Iof course am much more familiar with. There I saw and stayed with old dear friends, met new ones (the newPiAers and Fulbrighters are all coming in now) and had three more donormeetings before finally heading back to site! September is absolutely packed with things to do – my nextpost will probably be after our grant project training trip to Bulgaria, sostay tuned!

08.18.10 [sorry, backlogged again]

This summer in Shymkent has been both sweltering and fun aspromised. It’s about 100 degreeshere and the perfect time for some serious pool parties!

The day after we got back from the Summer Leadership School,I didn’t even have a chance to catch up on sleep because the birthdaycelebrations continued. I held abelated party with over 20 great friends in attendance: all our ABWK/Dostarvolunteers/counselors from SLS, 6 of us PCVs (my sitemates, as well as Tes whocame up from Zhetasai and Leah who came up from Turkestan!), and local friendsfrom English club and basketball. Olga, one of my best local friends and former roommate, helped plan thewhole thing at a water park out in Aksukent, about 20 minutes outside of thecity. The water was cold, theweather was hot, there were two fast and fun water slides, and they playedAmerican music on the dance floor – all in all a perfect party destination. :)

[I gave everyone more Chinese tattoos :D][Bubbles!!]

Honestly, on this THIRD birthday celebration day, I onceagain had never felt so spoiled and adored. Our Dostar volunteers got me a basketball with all theirnames signed on it, my fellow PCVs got me an AMAZING blender (smoothies foreveryone!!), my bball fan club got me a hilarious mug with their pictures on itas well as 23 long-stemmed red roses. I also received souvenirs, trinkets, a Russian book, a customizedt-shirt (that says “Becca We Love You” in French;) and a real Hawaiian lei, aswell as a ton of sweet cards.

[All my adorable gifts!]

In return, I made everyone American(/Chinese) picnic food(thank you Phillip for your culinary genius and assistance as always) andbought an obscene amount of watermelon and delicious SKO melons foreveryone. We had potato salad,ranch pasta salad, Chinese black bean eggplant, coleslaw, cornbread andbrownies to share!

The next weekend Evelina had another pool party at herhouse, which was also amazing. We went into the hot banya (the post-Sovietversion of a sauna) and poured water on the hot rocks until the small roomfilled with hot steam. You basicallycook like a dumpling until you can’t stand it anymore, and then run outside andjump into the ice cold pool under a sea of stars, then run back and do it allover again. We also put my blenderto good use making ice cream and berry smoothies, ate delicious shashlik, sangkaraoke, and just generally had a blast. “Family Reunion,” they called it… a volunteer tradition in celebrationof the end of summer and everyone’s eventual return to school or university.Many of our guys will be going to study in Almaty or Astana in September –they’ll be terribly missed here! :’(

This weekend Anna was also able to spend time and visit asshe was down in Shymkent for work. She graduated ’09 from H and is spending the summer as an intern in thePolitical Dept of the U.S. Embassy – small world! We went on a Sunday trip to the mountains to show her a bitof nature. We cooled a watermelonin the river, played cards, took a little hike and came back to picnic. :)

[The great Kazakhstan geyser...?:P][YUM.]

But before you think my life is all fun, I must say I’venever been busier at work! Thisweek I attended various embassy dinners (including a nice dinner at Kokseraiwith the Deputy Chief of Mission who was also down in Shymkent recently),volunteer meetings in preparation for our August 21st conferencewith the orphanages, and intensive planning for my upcoming trip to the faircapital of Astana for donor development. That trip will actually be sandwiched in between two trips to Almaty,the first of which is to meet the new Peace Corps Regional Director for all ofEMA (Eastern Europe, Mediterranean and Asia), and hopefully the newKaz-22s! We also won two moregrants this week; one Y-PEER advocacy grant for work with journalists, and oneresearch grant from the Soros Foundation (well done and congrats to ourhard-working grant writing team!). I will actually be attending the mandatoryTraining of Trainers in Bulgaria for the project this September with anothervolunteer on our team as part of the grant stipulation. I am getting so many interesting opportunitieshere that I could never even have imagined in the U.S., which just goes to showthat valuable resources and rewarding professional experiences exist everywhereif you just know how to find them. :)

With so much work and play, I can definitely say that thissummer has not been boring by any means. And that’s just how I like it!

08.17.10Dostar Rural Orphanage Project, Summer Youth LeadershipSchool 2010, & Becca’s Birthday (Part I)

These last few weeks have beenabsolutely the most fun, unreal, busy, rewarding and crazy of my time inKazakhstan – all in a good way! Assoon as I got back from vacation, we were put to work preparing two projectsthat we had won funding for in the spring. The first was an orphanage visit to Sairam as part of ourorphan transition project (generously funded by the American Councils’ FLEXprogram), in which we teach life skills to older youth about to transition fromthe orphanages into their own independent lives outside. All in all an incredible project thatwas great to be a part of. Ouryoung volunteers from the Volunteer Youth Leadership Center “DOSTAR” held threedays worth of sessions on leadership, sexual health and professionaldevelopment. My session the lastday was on goal-setting. It was agreat bonding exercise for us trainers too and a good warm-up for what was tocome at our leadership school!*

[Games and trainings at the orphanage]

The Summer Leadership School 2010 (fondly known as ЛШЛ, or Летняя Школа Лидерства)has been the annual highlight event for the volunteers of our organization forages. The first SLS was heldeight(!) years ago and it has been evolving, improving and growing every yearsince then as our trainers have become more and more experienced and newleaders and participants have joined. It is a six-day camp that combines all ofthe best peer-to-peer trainings in an intimate environment where trainers andparticipant youth from at-risk or underprivileged groups live, learn and playtogether. This year we had ourinternational Y-PEER youth trainers, Dostar volunteers, youth from two ruralorphanages, and HIV+ youth and their social environments (peers and familymembers). Participants range from ages 14-21 and our team of counselor/campleaders (важатые) were all in that same age range. While some people wonder how we do not face moredisciplinary problems with counselors being the same age as participants, I cansay that the peer-to-peer model works special wonders in the camp environmentand in our volunteer work in general. Having counselors in positions of leadership who are the exact same ageas participants (as young as 14) and can have fun, befriend and socialize witheveryone on an equal level while simultaneously embodying a real-life model ofsuccess, responsibility and proactivity is an amazing inspiration to the kidsthat attend the camp. By the end,they were all asking how they could become volunteers and counselors at nextyear's SLS!

This year ourcamp was funded by PEPFAR (the U.S. President's Fund for AIDS Relief) throughPeace Corps (thank you!). Our campwas extraordinary throughout, and it opened in a particularly extraordinaryway. We had the honor of hostingU.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith, who wasspecially appointed to this pilot position by Secretary Hillary Clinton. The embassy contacted me about helpingto arrange her public diplomacy trip to engage with youth in the Muslim regionsof South Kazakhstan, and as luck would have it she was able to open our campwith an inspirational speech and an illuminating focus group/Q&A with ourkids. SR Pandith talked about Muslimidentity, technology and information sharing, intercultural experience, and theimportance and potential of youth leadership worldwide. It was a great pleasure to meet her andthe trip's support staff from the State Department and the Embassy in Astana. We had a number of media releases fromher visit, including the Embassy press release and two television reports (when I finally got back to thecity a week later I was informed by many local friends of my 5 minutes of fame on our SKO channel!).

As for the otheractivities, the pictures and this rough schedule should tell it all:

8:00 a.m. –Wake-up call8:30 a.m. –Morning exercises (stretching and dancing!)9:00 a.m. –Breakfast10:00 a.m. –Trainings (sexual & reproductive health, team building, leadership, humanrights, youth in governance, goal setting, time management, pubicspeaking/theater skills)1:00 p.m. – Lunch2:00 p.m. –English Club3:00 p.m. –Outdoor activities (sports, relay races, a «detective»-themed scavenger hunt)4:30 p.m. –Shower5:00 p.m. – Preparationfor evening activities7:00 p.m. –Dinner8:00 p.m. –Evening activities (Music videos, КВН Comedy Club [MUCH better than this one...remember that?!], Halloween, finaltheater-based enactments on human rights, secret friend ceremony)10:00 p.m. –Dance! (Diskoteka!)11:30 p.m. –Feedback12:30 a.m. –Sleep

As you can see,none of us slept much the whole week! It was full of memorable moments: an open discussion about HIV stigma,Britt's UN video of 30 human rights that one of our volunteers simultaneouslytranslated into Kazakh, a water balloon toss-turned-fight, unbelievable actingin the evening activities by some of the kids who were so shy they wouldn't saya word the first day, a choreographed counselor dance to MJ's Thriller (in fullcostume!), writing silly notes to each other and trying to guess our "secretfriends" (each person was assigned one and we all had envelopes hung in thehallway to leave notes in), everyone writing down their "SMART" goals in lifeand sharing them, me instilling a newfound love of basketball into everyone inmy group on a dusty court on sports day, crazy dancing to both Rihanna andKazakh traditional music at every night's diskoteka, distributing kefir andsweet rolls as a midnight snack, watching the kids put on a "roast" skit makingfun of all the vazhatis (counselors), going around in a circle for an hour eachnight at feedback and talking about how amazing each day was and everyone'sfavorite activity and thanking each other, staying up all night the last night(SLS tradition!) to watch shooting stars and play pranks on whoever fellasleep, kids in tears at the end as we were leaving because they didn't want toleave their new friends and great memories.

[Teambuilding exercises the first day of camp]

[Learning body parts at English Club!]

[One of the "brigades" (teams) after their skit!]

[Water balloon (/water condom:P) fight!!!]

[My favorite picture. We counselors were supposed to be spies for the detective scavenger hunt. Evi is не в тему:D]

["Thriller" zombies!]

[Everyone at the camp wanted a Chinese tattoo of their name. Only mine was real (the name, not the tattoo)! :P]

[With fellow counselor and lovely friend Aida]

Finally, it isworth mentioning that the last day of the camp happened to be my birthday, andit will go down in history I am sure as one of the most memorable ones I'veever had. At a little after midnightas we were doing feedback on the day, everyone burst into the "Happy Birthday" song. Then Zhenya (mycounterpart's son and one of my new adopted little brothers who is so cute westarted a fan club in his name) called me over to check my Secret Friendenvelope….he and Nurbek (another one of our 14yo heart-breaker counselors withyet another fan club :) had somehow acquired fresh roses andleft them there just minutes after the clock struck midnight on my bday. I nearly cried it was so adorable andthoughtful! That night my directorand her son called to send their wishes and I got several other texts andmessages from friends both in Kazakhstan and at home (thank you, guys!). Then the next morning I woke up toposters lining the dorm walls of the camp…the other counselors had stayed uphalf the night making them and a special "Happy Birthday" envelope above mynormal envelope that was stuffed to the brim with paper hearts and everyone'swell-wishes. On top of that I gotseveral other birthday songs, a dedication to Enrique Iglesias at the night'sdiskoteka:P, many calls from home and a video/slideshow montage to celebrateboth the end of both my most memorable bday and our amazing camp.[My little brothers <3]

[SO sweet]

[Note Zhenya's печенька! :D Love you guys!]

Needless to say Ileft SLS 2010 with a heart full of love for all our amazing team of volunteersand counselors, awe at all our gifted kids and all their potential despite somany life hardships, wonderful contacts from the embassy and state department,and a renewed sense of inspiration and dedication to my work and friendshere. Life could not bebetter. And the adventurescontinue – more on my birthday party (Part II!), summer Dostar "Family Reunion" pool party, more successful project and grant news, etc. to come in the nextpost!

*In between thesetwo projects were two other important events. The first was Britt's HIV/AIDS Training of TrainersConference, which 4 of our guys attended and adored. Thank you Britt for the wonderful training ideas, many ofwhich our guys used at SLS! The second event was an NGO roundtable that Ihelped organize for SR Pandith's South Kazakhstan visit. It was very successful and she was awonderful and fascinating guest, as always. Thanks to the U.S. State Department and Embassy Astana forletting ABWK and Dostar be such a big part of her visit![NGO Roundtable with SR Pandith]

07.16.10 – Vacation (backlogged)

Apologies for the delay, but here is my promised post aboutmy vacation!

After a near-disastrous delay from typically unreliable AirAstana in which my flight was cancelled at 4 a.m. the day of due to suspicious“technical problems,” I finally managed to get out of KZ via Urumqi and land inBeijing for all of 12 hours before heading out again to Manila on a re-bookedflight. There I visited my middleschool BFF Jessi, who is on a Fulbright there and has recently completed her amazingdocumentary on child prisoners in the Philippines. Jessi is a journalist, adventurer, and all-around baller andit was amazing to join forces again and explore the place she has called homefor the last year.

First of all, let me just say, I fell in love with thePhilippines immediately, consider it one of the most awesome countries in theworld, and could easily see myself living there for a long period of time. This is primarily due to several crucialshared loves: mangoes, basketball and karaoke. Though I only spent a few short days in Manila, Jessi and Imanaged to fit all of the following in:

Ridingin plenty of crazy WWII-era “jeepneys,” or American jeeps remodeled into publictransport Bringinga donation of personal sanitation supplies to a juvenile detention center wherethe kids were kept in one dirty, barred room Takinga famous Carlos Cedran tour of the historic Intramuros district, and learningabout the tragic history of Manila and how it was in turn massacred by theJapanese and bombed by the Americans during WWII A refreshing halo-halo stop at the end of our tour, the favorite Filipino dessert (shaved ice, milk, sweet beans and candied fruit) Havingdrinks and binbingka (rice flour pudding served with cheese, salty egg and coconut...delicious!) with Carlos and friends, because Jessi ofcourse already knows everybody in Manila Goingto an awesome blues band show and going up to sing “Summertime,” ala our daysas middle school jazz band vocalists! Visitingthe Qiapo church and voodoo market, where I lit a candle and got my Tarot cardsread (apparently I will win the lottery and live in the Philippines for a verylong time) Watchingthe new Twilight movie in English, followed by a delicious Red Mango yogurt andcocktails with one of Jessi’s journalist friends (where are we?!)Eatingthe most amazing dish in Manila – pomelo, prawn and coconut salad at the poshPeople's Palace restaurant/bar at Greenbelt

But the bulk and highlight of our trip was a divingexpedition out to Coron, a site that is known and pursued by divers worldwidedue to its sublime aquamarine waters, interesting WWII Japanese sunkenshipwrecks, pristine islands, and crazy thermal lakes. We stayed at the Seadive Resort, highlyrecommended, and I went on my first ever dives! Diving was an absolutelysurreal and incredible experience – Jessi called it “the closest you can get toflying,” and I agree. I tooknaturally to it somehow (thanks to my magic automatic-pressure-adjusting ears!)and was able to dive to 18m my first time. The sea life we saw was incredible: a huge sea turtle, abeautiful but eerie sting ray, poisonous lion fish, a school of giant batfishthat swam fully around us, hundreds of clown fish guarding their colorfulanemone homes, infinitely intricate types of coral, neon sea slugs, and otherunimaginable things. The wreckswere fascinating while at the same time being overgrown with marine life – Ihad never witnessed anything like it with my own two eyes and it was trulyunforgettable…like entering an alternate universe where everything is 10x morecolorful and exciting. We went ona total of 3 dives and then island hopped the last day (as you are not supposedto dive within 24 hours of getting on a plane). Our last day at Barracuda Lake was also memorable, as it wasincredibly creepy, we were alone without another human in sight, and the lakewas eerily deep and blue with nothing in it but a few weird looking tiny silverfish and spider-like shrimp crawling up the scary eroded rock fissures. The thermal water, in which the hot andcold layers of the lake separated into drastically different temperaturedstrata, created a strange visibility-distorting mirage. If our previous dives were likeSebastian’s “Under the Sea” fiesta, this was Ursula’s lair for sure [cuevillain music!]. Finally, when we had just decided we were creeped out enoughto return to the boat, we saw a giant barracuda swimming right towards us (onlyabout 5 meters below). Luckily itignored us, but we still swam for our lives!!

Other highlights of Coron: Joininga random drum circle with a bunch of fire throwersKaraokeingand hearing “Misty” come on – our middle school song!!!Jessieating balut, a fertilized duck egg with a semi-developed embryoLotsof delicious fruity drinks and seafoodSoakingin a salty hot spring and getting drenched in cool rain on our way backMeetingtwo awesome Danish guys who shared their patriotism and love of AQUA,Kierkegaard and Lars von TrierPlayingpick-up basketball with some village kidsHikingup to the top of the Coron hill and taking in the gorgeous sunset and island view

Thank you Jessi for an amazing time! :)

After the Philippines, I got to spend a luxurious andrelaxing 10 days at home with my ENTIRE family. Not much to say here except that of course, I love my familyand I love China. I missed myparents and my sister so much! Wetook family portraits, my mom’s big project for the summer (getting us alltogether in one country is quite a feat!). My sis is of course a true fashionista now and has aforboding collection of sky-high heels and military jackets…at sweet 16, she isalready too awesomely cool and cute for her own good. We toured the 798 art district together, went on epic shopping trips and got cocktails and Mexicanfood. I got to spend quality time with Haibo, who is moving to China for goodsoon (exciting!), and see other wonderful friends in Beijing (Cody, Frankie,Cho, Rich). I also saw mygrandfather and both sets of uncles and corresponding aunts/cousins, includingPengpeng who is playing professional golf now in Australia (he is SO big, hewas still about 4 feet tall when I last saw him!), and my new little cousinToutou (his nickname basically means “big head,” you can see why!!!! SO PRECIOUS!). Home never disappoints – it is alwaysso good to be back and now I have something to curb my homesickness with. Not that it has even hit me again sinceI’ve been back honestly – I’ve been too busy! But that is for the next post. :)

[Family Portrait:)]

[Toutou!!<3]

[Hanging with Cody and Frankie]

[Pengpeng and Yuanyuan!:):)]

[Haibo and the big buddha face made out of cow hide at 798]

What is the Youth Development/Youth Initiative Program and what can I expect as a YD volunteer?

The Youth Initiative Program (YIP) is a newly-minted Peace Corps Kazakhstan Program. To know what's different about it, you have to know what came before it. Throughout the history of PC Kaz, there have been two programs: Education (EDU) and the Organizational and Community Assistance Program (OCAP). Last year, OCAP was divided for the first time into two sub-programs: OCAP-OD (Organizational Development) and OCAP-YD (Youth Development). The decision to create a separate YD program was based on PCV feedback in Kaz stating that most OCAP volunteers worked primarily with youth anyway, but weren't necessarily equipped with the specific tools to do so. The OD program was designed to develop organizations in a very general, "we will fix all your organizational problems!" type of way. If it sounds difficult, that's because it is...haha. We were trained in strategic planning, business planning, grant writing, project design & management, monitoring & evaluation, constituent development, and other good stuff -- but without a specific youth focus. Our orgs dealt with the environment, HIV/AIDS, and people with disabilities, for the most part (with the rare human rights/women's rights org). Unfortunately, the "fix-all" approach was a bit disastrous overall for OD, and even though the skills were very interesting and marketable, they proved lost on a lot of organizations who ended up viewing PCVs as simple cash-cow grant writers, or who didn't know what projects to give a volunteer whose mission for the organization was so very vague ("sustainable development!" "capacity building!").

Your PC Training Officer, YD Program Head, and another YD expert from PC Washington came to visit a couple of sites (including mine) recently to talk to current PCVs and develop the program. We held focus groups with youth, they looked at our projects, and we all offered feedback for the program. I for one was heartened by the progress that had been made. The goals of the YD program are a lot more concrete now than an organizational fix-all. Though you will still be working through youth orgs, you will also have realizable goal markers in working directly with youth, which is more graspable, accessible and under the PCV's own control in case anything is lacking in your org itself. You also will have a nice system of "target points" for your first 6 months at site, which will guide you much more concretely in what you are supposed to be doing, and that build off each other (e.g., community asset mapping when you get to site. start one english club with local youth. do one community needs assessment. design one project with your org, involving youth volunteers. etc.). Later on in your service, you can start working on some larger goals that build off your direct youth and org work: working with other youth orgs to build networking, with parents, and with local community/government partners. And your placement org will have an outline of these clearer and more concrete expectations, as well. Hopefully there will no longer be the muddled expectation that you will re-design the complete strategic plan of your org when you arrive, or that your main job is only to land them grants. Your main job is to work with the youth in the now famous "Three Pillars" of YD: Healthy Lifestyles (including sexual health, nutrition, exercise), World of Work (professional development, language development), and Leadership (a nice catch-all whose main goal I interpret to be sustainability. You want the kids to lead their own projects and have their own skills once you're gone). It is much more graspable by the human mind than the amorphous blob that was OD, IMHO.

So what might you be doing? Some "YD"-type sites I know of:

-Helping youth build a peer-to-peer network of young educators in sexual/reproductive health

-Working with a youth bank doing microfunding to youth-organized community projects

-An orphanage site where you will help orphaned youth gain life skills and transition into the "real world" once they leave at an older age

-A business site where you will help youth with their entrepreneurial ideas and do financial education

-A study abroad institute that helps kids gain scholarships or opportunities for educational exchange

Will all of your organizations be fully functional? No. I'm sure you will deal with all of the frustrations and craziness that the OCAPpers of both OD and YD have faced at their orgs this year and in years before (that's a whole other cup of tea, haha!). However, at least your program goals are more refined now, and PC really does give excellent training that will now be usefully tailored to your job working with youth.

What kind of language training do you get? What should I do to prepare now?

One of the difficulties about KZ is that there are two language groups, Russian and Kazakh, and before you get here you cannot actually be sure which you will be put into (you will be able to state your preference, but some people in our group were forcibly placed into the Kazakh group by lottery). Rosetta Stone has been provided from PC in the past for Russian; I would recommend asking your country desk officer about it and using it if it's still available to build some vocab. Whether or not you learn Kazakh or Russian, Russian vocab and the Cyrillic alphabet (which Kazakh uses too; just with extra letters) will help you here. There seemed to be a noticeable correlation between people who did RS extensively before they came and people who did well in the language during PST (Pre-Service Training). That said, RS is not very helpful for grammar at all, as it doesn't actually go through the rules. So get a head start if you want, but don't worry too much about it -- the language training program (for both languages) is really intense and that will be 50% of all your time during PST, not including immersion and having to speak/use the language every day in your host family and community!

How does Peace Corps payment work? Will I have enough money to buy my own groceries? To travel around the area?

PC Kaz payments operate on 5 Tiers. Pretty much no one is on Tier 1, which is reserved for Almaty/Astana (and almost no one gets put there, since they're so developed). Tier 2 is for everyone living in a major city, which is going to be a lot of the youth initiative program (formerly "OCAP") people and mostly college/university EDU volunteers. Secondary school volunteers are more likely to be in a village, though most of them still are not far from an urban area or may be in a larger village/small town and have various amenities themselves. Village volunteers are on Tiers 3, 4 or 5 -- but it's fine, because they also do not have anything to spend their money on! Many of the village-tier PCVs actually end up saving the most money.

Every month you will get a living allowance deposited into your Kazakhstan bank account, provided to you by Peace Corps (CitiBank). You can use a wide variety of popular Kazakhstan ATM providers for no fee, such as KazKom and Alliance. Your monthly allowance will consist of living allowance, "leave allowance" (very small) and transportation allowance. During PST, PC pays your HF for food and lodging directly so you don't have to worry about that (you get VERY little though on top of it so extra groceries the first 3 months will honestly not be that affordable for you). The solution I think is to mention some things you may enjoy eating to your HF and see if they will buy it, but honestly we are mostly expected to eat whatever they eat (which can be difficult...a lot of dough and meat and oil). In the summer at least groceries are cheap though so you can afford to buy those famous Kazakhstanian apples :) As for when you get to site in November...you will pay your host family a lump sum for housing and food that PC gives you, equal to ~60% of your total monthly payment, whatever tier you are on. One of my sitemates is vegetarian and she asked her family if she could take some $ out of that budget and buy some of her own groceries, and her host mom agreed -- so she is able to supplement what her host mom feeds her with cereal, yogurt, fruit and some veggies she likes. It kind of depends on your HF's flexibility and whatever agreement you work out. The 60% figure is also flexible because you can take out money to buy your own lunches at your work cafeteria for example and not be fed lunch at home. On months when you travel extensively you can also ask to take out money for food/utilities (though your group will only be required to be in the HF for 4 months, Nov-Feb, well before summer travel months, so this may not be as relevant for you. However you can stay with the HF as long as you wish, and of course in some of the smallest villages there may not be the option of moving out).

Once you move out into your own place, rent will usually cost a bit less than 50% of your allowance. Thus you should be left with about half to spend on food, transportation, entertainment, or whatever else (like I said other than food, there won't be much else to spend on in a village). So it's not enough to eat out every day or live like an expat by any means, and when you go into Almaty it will be very hard to afford things (especially during PST, when your budget is considerably smaller and you may have to supplement a bit -- many in our group did). Most volunteers though save up at site and then are able to go out with friends during Almaty visits (for mid-service physical, IST, MST, etc.).

If you economize, you can save enough for a plane ticket back to America after a year (~$1500). If you'd rather use that money to travel in this region, you definitely can. Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan (if things there stabilize) trips can run as little as $300-400 each total for a week's vacation -- including travel by bus, visas, lodging and food! Other popular international destinations are Turkey, India, Thailand and China, for which you can get $400-500 flights if you buy early (though China you will also need $150-200 for a visa). Local travel within Kaz by train is pretty cheap, and teachers especially can take advantage of summers and take "business" leave to go help other PCVs around the country run camps -- then you don't even have to use vacation days! A train ticket from one side of the country to the other won't be much more than ~5000 tenge ($33) one-way. You will have plenty of opportunity to see various parts of Kz while you're here if you so desire (e.g. the Nauryz traditional Kazakh holiday in Shymkent/South Kazakhstan in March, or Kresheniya, the winter Russian Orthodox holiday in January where people dunk themselves into the ice up north by Russia).

Will I have a lock on my door at my Host Family?You should -- it is one of the requirements of PC HFs. Whether or not this is always the case is another matter. If it is extremely important to you and you don't have one, push for it. There have been problems with theft before in volunteer HFs, either by HF members themselves or outsiders. Overall though this is definitely an exception rather than the rule -- more common is just a general lack of awareness of personal space and the idea that the Volunteer's things are "communal" for family use. Discoveries by PCVs that their markers or lotion are mysteriously diminishing from inside their drawers is more common than actual theft of valuables. If you're worried, bring a luggage lock or two -- I left my room unlocked, but locked all my important or personal things up in my big suitcase. That should cover you against anything except for the most egregious robberies (which probably wouldn't happen unless someone from outside broke into the actual home anyway).

Should I bring a laptop/netbook?Honestly, my opinion is that everyone should bring a laptop/netbook to KZ. During long cold winter nights you will want something with which you can watch movies to take a break. You may also need it for work because you have no idea what your school/workplace will provide you. For example if you want to write a PC grant to fund a project but you live in a village with no internet cafe, it will be nice to have your laptop to work on just for word processing. There is no guarantee your school will have those facilities for you, though they might. I also use my laptop to exercise, as I put on exercise/yoga videos. I recommend the Kindle too but without a laptop to download new media, it's going to be hard to even use it (you can't get the 3G wireless network in KZ, sadly!;). Nearly every PCV I know here has their own personal laptop for media and personal use, writing blog posts, doing work, etc...even if they aren't regularly plugged in to internet. Also with your own laptop the few times you will be able to get internet in wireless cafes or the PC office in Almaty, you will be able to do so.

How close were you to the luggage limit?Here's a little secret: you may not actually have to worry too much about the weight limit. It's a group weight for all of you, and some will be over and some much under, so they don't actually make anyone pay even if you are a few pounds over. Of course I can't guarantee that it will be the same for you, but people in my group went overweight, and one guy even brought 3 bags instead of just 2 (planning on paying for it), and nothing happened to them. That being said, I really wouldn't overpack too much because you will regret having to lug it around and there is really no need.

What should I pack?

I know other PCVs have also posted about this, but everyone has some new tips and things to add so I thought I’d throw in my $0.02. I think there are some pretty crucial things on my list that may not have been mentioned by others (e.g. a long-reach lighter, notecards, a smaller belt for men, etc.).

Comfortable, good-quality shoes…no thin or unsupported soles. The walking here is long and a lot of it is mud or unpaved pebbles. As everyone has said, a pair of waterproof black winter boots that still look work-appropriate will serve you well. Durable, airy walking sandals are a must for summer.Different weights of long underwear (one light, one heavy). You don't know where in the country you will end up yet, and they will be good for different seasons and layering anyway.Ties and collared shirts for guys, nice blouses, button-ups and sweaters for girls. Fewer jeans, more slacks (or black jeans instead of blue). At PST at least there is only about one day a week where you can MAYBE dress in jeans and a T-shirt…the rest of the time you’re in nice clothes. You almost never wear flip-flops; it’s considered a faux pas except at the pool or in the house. People here dress nicely. Even more so if you’re a teacher.Clothes that you like. Often times volunteers think that just because it’s Peace Corps, you need to dress down or bring only “practical” things that look boring and school-marmy. This is a huge mistake. Ladies, bring your jewelry and makeup as well as clothes in styles and colors that show your personality – trust me, you will be grateful down the line. The only slight modification is that I would choose more things that can serve as layers, and pack fewer strapless tops or short shorts/skirts (long dresses, knee-length skirts, short-sleeved or even sleeveless shirts of light material but otherwise modest are better for summer to stave off the heat but stay professional). Gals, I would also bring a shawl/pashmena or two as they’re good head coverings for mosque/church visits and also good wraps for chilly nights even in summer, when daytime and nighttime temps can differ drastically.Boys, bring a belt that is a couple sizes smaller than the one you use now or has extra notches. Trust us on this. Several guy volunteers have had to get whole new wardrobes here because they shrink so quickly that nothing they brought with them fits. Girls, sorry – you will probably not have this problem. :P Lots of underwear and socks. These are the key things that prevent you from putting off laundry as much as possible.A long-reach click lighter!!! This is so crucial. When you get your own place (or even at your host fam’s) and want to cook or light the hot water heater, you won’t have to burn your fingers on crumbling matches.Mace or pepper spray. See if they sell it in your state. I feel so much safer walking alone with it in hand.A good quality umbrella. The ones here are not great.One or even two Nalgene/metal water bottles. Big ones. It is hot and dry here and you will want to drink a LOT without always reusing dirty plastic water bottles. You fill up your 1 or 2 Nalgenes with water from your Peace Corps distiller and that has to be enough to last you the whole day, unless you want to spend your precious little walk-around allowance on expensive bottled water.A towel, hand towel and washcloth of good quality. The ones here are scratchy, small and tough…you will love yourself if you bring your own.A backpack as a carry-on. Everyone has them, you will need to carry your books, materials and pack lunch to and from training every day. Not a ginormous hiking backpack though (unless it compresses into a normal-looking one).Some baby wipes and pocket tissues to tide you over until you find a store that sells them (they are available in many pharmacies), esp. for girls. There is no toilet paper in almost any bathroom here. Along the same lines, LOTS of hand sanitizer. At least 3 large bottles…you will need it a lot as I haven’t found it yet here.Many packets of Emergen-C. There is no time to get sick here, plus it also gives you an energy boost and is way better for you than coffee or red bull…PST is tiring!A deck of cards. People here love cards and it’s good to bide the time, but the one game they always play is Durak (“Fool”), which only uses the cards 6 through Ace. They sell special “Durak” decks so if you want to play other games, bring your own full deck. Other games are also good for hanging with other volunteers (Taboo, Scrabble, etc.)A Kindle/e-Reader. Good for long winters, good for saving you LOTS of space/weight, good for letting you upload blog/news content when you have internet and then reading it later on your own time. Books are heavy and also already widely circulated within volunteer and Peace Corps libraries.Hot sauce, barbecue sauce, ranch sauce, spices…whatever tastes you will miss, as the foods here can be pretty bland.USB keys. At least two. You will need these for writing and transfering small files, updating your blog, getting photos from other volunteers, getting necessary docs from your teachers. We use them every day here.One or two large (space-wise) external hard drives. Volunteers collect media like crazy here and one or two trading sessions can get you 500 gigs. On these bring a good stash of your favorite movies, TV shows, music and/or games.A sewing kit (with an extra spool of dark thread), shoe glue, waterproofing spray, poster gum, and Febreeze.Nice office/school supplies, including flash cards for language. You will definitely need these. Most notebooks here are flimsy and have graph paper grids instead of lines, which drives me crazy. Pens are also not of great quality, especially if you like ink and not ball-point. I have not found notecards anywhere.If you are a teacher, teaching supplies from America such as maps, visual aids, good markers, stickers, ESL materials, etc. Even if you’re YIP (Youth Initiative Program), these may be good as you’ll still be working with youth and may need materials.Your own pillow case and favorite stuffed animal (if it’s small enough to pack). They’re enough to make your bed feel like home. Gifts for your host family. Chocolate is always a safe bet, but I would also recommend little American trinkets (keychain or magnet from your hometown, something with Obama on it, etc.)Swiss Army Knife…you will need one sometimes to open things, pare fruit you bought at the market to share with friends, etc.A sleeping bag or at least the liner; it often comes in handy when you’re traveling and sleeping on the floor of yet undetermined places (often another PCV’s apartment). Can also be useful for the cold.A small baggy of plastic spoons/forks, for when you’re out or on the train and the utensils available are dirty.Photos from home (or a photo slideshow on your computer works well too). Good for ice breaking with the host family and local friends/coworkers later on.

Packing tip: put all similar things in large ziplock plastic baggies (the durable kind with the little zipper, not the kind you press together). You will use the baggies later and it will keep everything oh-so-organized in your luggage. It’s also clear so customs can see through it if they check. I put all my office supplies in one bag (envelopes, pens, pencils, glue stick, markers), all my toiletries in another bag, my contact lens materials in another bag (yes I brought contacts. Hope I don’t get pink-eye…sorry Dr. Victor!), my random life supplies in another bag (sewing materials, shoe glue, shower cap, poster putty, waterproofing spray, febreeze, etc.), etc. etc. Worked like a charm and it’s super easy to find everything now; I just look for the appropriate “baggie.”

Apologies for the break in blogging – I went on a long-anticipated vacation to the Philippines to visit my middle school best friend Jessi, and then to China to see my family (seemingly every member!). I will share pictures from my travels here soon, but first I wanted to put up a series of long-overdue Q&A posts for the incoming Kaz-22 generation of PCVs (and the new PiA fellows…and whoever else is currently faced with the somewhat scary but exciting prospect of moving to KZ in the near future!).

Before I begin however, I must first share a true tragedy. In early June, I heard from the first new Kaz-22, destined to serve in the new generation of Kazakhstan volunteers by the Peace Corps powers-that-be. Her name was Mary, and she found my blog and read it seemingly from beginning to end. Over the next month, she emailed me with a variety of questions (as I invited all future volunteers to do), ranging from the easy-to-field “How much living allowance will we get?” to the harder “Are volunteers happy?” and many things in between. I referred her to the Kaz-22 Facebook Group, of which she was the first actual Kaz-22 member, and the Kaz-22 Google Group, so she could read the shared responses of all the current volunteers answering questions there now. I also asked her if I could post an edited Q&A of our e-mail exchanges to benefit other potential PCV readers, and she said of course.

Before I left to China, I got an email from Mary that floored me. She thanked me for answering all her questions and said she’d taken the liberty to send me some things off the care package wish list I’d posted on my blog. She said she looked at it as “giving back,” since in the karmic cycle of Peace Corps, she would soon be the one missing a taste of home. I was so touched by the gesture, which was both thoughtful and totally above and beyond the expected, as we had never even met.

But when I got back from China (where facebook, Google Groups and blogs are all blocked), I went online and saw a disturbing message on the Kaz-22 facebook group. It was about an accident in which a future PCV Kazakhstan was killed by a drunk driver. The first name popped out at me, and I clicked on the link with a feeling of disbelief: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/24152466/detail.html. The last email I received from her had been just a week and a half before.

These next few posts are dedicated to Mary. I got her package two days ago when I got back to site. It was perfect, and so incredibly kind. I am sending a letter and some Kazakh things to the return address for her family, but if they should read this first: from us PCVs in Kazakhstan, we are so incredibly sorry for your loss. And for ours – Mary would have been an amazing volunteer, and an honor to serve with.

This month, my organization became involved in a tragic but important legal case brought to the South Kazakhstan Regional Court. The defendant, a girl named Dilfuza, was walking home with her friend and nephew on October 1, 2009 in the Saryagash area about an hour from Shymkent. They were offered a ride by one of Dilfuza's acquaintances and two of his friends, but were not brought home -- instead, Dilfuza and her friend were brutally beaten and gang raped by the three men in a Saryagash hotel, in front of her 5-year-old nephew.

Though local police and a South Kazakhstan Oblast prosecutor obtained evidence of the rape and beating and brought the case to court, the criminal trial held on April 12, 2010 at the Saryagash District Court ended in the complete acquittal of the three men. At the time, Dilfuza was in the hospital for one of many suicide attempts, and her mother Khalida was locked out of the court room for the sentencing, citing "closed procedures."

Only after professional psychological therapy in Almaty, Dilfuza revealed that she had been raped a second time on February 1, 2010. Two hired thugs kidnapped her in Saryagash, threatened her with armed weapons, and vowed to kill her entire family if they did not drop the charges against her abusers. One of the thugs then raped her. In the time leading up to her appeal trial, Dilfuza and her family were in turn threatened and offered money for silence by the original three men and their families.

Dilfuza's mother wrote a desperate plea to President Nazarbayev asking him to intervene for justice on her daughter's behalf. The letter found its way to the Central Asia Monitor, where it was published online. From there, a miracle of the Internet happened -- the President of the Association of Business Women (ABW) in Astana saw the news online, and discovered the appeal trial was set for June 8, 2010 in Shymkent at the Oblast-level court. She immediately called my director Kuralai here at the SKO branch of the ABW, and an entire movement was set in motion. My director, along with a coalition of human and women's rights NGO leaders in South Kazakhstan, mobilized psychologists, lawyers, press, government leaders and local officials to assist with Dilfuza's case. The action, titled "Dilfuza, We Are With You!" generated considerable PR and called for justice and an end to the silence and shame that victims of sexual violence face. The NGOs provided free psychological therapy services to Dilfuza and legal support to her and her mother in the appeal.

Finally, after a long, brave battle, the three rapists were brought to justice and sentenced to 8 years each in a penal colony prison by the SKO Regional Court of Appeals. Dilfuza will continue to be provided with free counseling services for as long as she needs them. She is also going to participate in my organization's leadership and self-development trainings -- I will be meeting her tomorrow.

Though the tragedy that happened to this young girl and her family is too great to express, Dilfuza and her mother have become an astounding example of courage and resilience against all odds. Since her case has come to public light, individuals from all around the country have come forward with their own stories of rape and sexual violence - crimes that went unspoken of or unpunished, hidden from the world until now. The unyielding effort of organizations in our area, including the amazing ladies I work for, is also an inspiration and proof that successful actions by NGOs here really can make a difference in the difficult circumstances of our region.

As far as I have seen, this case has not been reported yet in the Western media. The one English-language write-up I have found is this summary from Stan TV. Here, however, are links to the three Central Asia Monitor articles (Khalida's initial letter to Nazarbayev, an interview with Dilfuza, and Khalida's letter of appreciation after the results of the appeal trial), along with my English-language translations:

"Если мое письмо не дойдет до президента, я сожгу себя на площади!" [original CAM article]"If my letter does not reach the president, I will burn myself in the square!" [translation]

"Первым меня насиловал Калмурзаев..." [original CAM article]"The first one to rape me was Kalmurzaev..." [translation]

"Мой президент не оставил мою семью в беде! Насильники моей дочери за решеткой!"[original CAM article]"My president did not leave my family in trouble! The rapists of my daughter are behind bars!"[translation]

Video interview with Khalida about her daughter's rape and the first trial [Russian language]Video interview with Khalida after the appeal and 8-year sentences [Russian language]

"Dilfuza, We Are With You!" - Alliance of Women's Organizations of Kazakhstan statement [English translation]

On a positive note -- it's been another busy season work-wise! We had three big back-to-back events in May with our youth volunteer leadership group -- a Youth Volunteer Action Service Week "Free Hugs Day" activity, a peer-to-peer sexual and reproductive health training in Kazygurt village, and a tree-planting day in Shymkent's Dendropark. I love our group of volunteers and am so proud and inspired to be working with them and seeing their leadership and service in action. These photos have also been requested by the Youth Development specialist from Peace Corps Washington that came to visit us, and will also be featured in national PC media. Enjoy!

[Face-painting for the "Free Hugs Day" youth action. We were nervous about importing this event to Shymkent, but it went better than we could have hoped!]

[US & KZ represent]

[My favorite picture of the day. A wedding party joins in on our hugging festivities!]

["I hug for free"]

[We even hugged the police/militia. For serious.]

[On our way to peer-to-peer village training at Kazygurt!]

[Introducing our volunteer trainer team]

[The village youth were so motivated - everyone actively participated!]

[All trainings were held in the Kazakh language]

[Tree planting activity in Dendropark - that soil was rocky!]

[Planting a sapling]

[Our volunteer team :)]

I haven’t been blogging as much lately, and that is largely because so many things have happened in the last few months that I simply cannot go into detail about here. These include a spat of homelessness, multiple big moves, lots of difficult interpersonal drama, one sitemate and another good friend Early Terminating (leaving their service early), and a slew of Peace Corps stuff on top of my actual work at my organization (which is one of the only things that has still, thank heavens, been going consistently very well). At the present moment, I am airing out my apartment after my terrible Soviet oven basically blew up, caught on fire and very well could have burned the building down (luckily just the one corner where it stood is charred, and needless to say the oven is now unusable. According to my landlady, this is a blessing because “baked goods are bad for you.”).

[My charred oven and the offending brownies I was baking for our last Women’s Club this season before summer break. It was a lot scarier looking when the entire apartment, and my lungs, were filled with smoke]

We Kaz-21s have been here 9 months now, which as one volunteer recently pointed out, is already a whole 3rd of our service gone by (!!). One musing I heard from other PCVs before turns out to be very true – some parts of your service crawl, and others fly. You will experience high highs and potentially very low lows. The Kaz-22s (next generation of volunteers after us) are probably getting their nominations now, and will soon be reading up on this far-away steppeland that they may never have even heard of before. This inevitable progression of time and volunteer generations produces for me both a sense of excited anticipation and a pride in having made it thus far, combined all the same with a slight unease. Assuming a new role as an “old and experienced” volunteer has its burdens. What can we possibly tell you, Kaz-22s, to prepare you for this experience?

As a recent newbie myself I have felt before both overwhelmed and slightly disillusioned upon hearing older volunteers vent the many difficulties they have faced throughout their service, though I know all of them to be very real. I think those things need to be presented with care to be really useful, and certainly forewarnings about what to expect should be balanced with respect for the relative subjectivity of any situation and viewpoint (in other words, everyone’s experience is different and such things are still largely up to the individual). That being said, it is worth noting that 9 times out of 10, PCV blogs are aggressively edited and exorcised of content that is political, religious, negative, controversial, shocking, disillusioning, disconcerting, uncomfortable, emotional, overly personal and sometimes – in short – realistic. I’ll just say it: I like to share vignettes and cultural experiences here that offer brief (and usually positive) glimpses – but there is no way this blog can even begin to completely reflect my life here. There simply is no way to really do it justice – you will just have to come and find out for yourself.

(But before then, if you want, feel free to email me at beccazsky [at] gmail. ;) I don’t know what I will tell you yet, but I promise I’ll try to make it helpful!)

WISH LIST FROM AMERICA

Moving into my new place, I’ve been inspired to create a new care package wish list that include some cooking items. Some of you have expressed the desire to send something, and now is the perfect time! We PCVs are always so touched and so excited to get mail here; it remains a constant source of happiness and support from our friends and loved ones back home. And I can promise a cool Kazakh photo, letter or souvenir from me, so make sure you write your return address. :)

Thank you!!

-Good recipes and the spices to make them!

-Curry and stew spice mixes/packets

-Sriracha sauce

-BBQ sauce-Waxed baking sheets-Instant corn bread, cranberry/blueberry muffin, brownie, or other “in-a-box” mixes-Ice cube tray-Cocktail shaker-Yoga/pilates/exercise DVDs-Waxed floss-Stationery-Thank you cards/blank greeting cards-Crew-cut athletic socks-Good conditioner (like this one)-Good ink pens that don’t bleed-Scented candles-Biore pore strips-Oil-absorbing sheets-Crunchy peanut butter-Healthy snack/trail mix-Any Asian snack (wasabi peas, pineapple cakes, dried mango)-Beef jerky-Cheap summer tank tops, non-spaghetti strap (it is about to get WAY TOO HOT here)-Lip gloss (nude, pink/brown, coral), mascara, some fun color of nail polish (e.g. turquoise)-Fun jewelry (e.g. chunky bracelets)-Magazines (National Geographic, Economist, Time, Cosmo)-A mixed CD of whatever is out in the U.S.-Postcards, letters, and photos!

Please send to the following address (with both English and Cyrillic on the package):

Rebecca GongPeace Corps VolunteerP.O. Box 62Shymkent 160000Kazakhstan

Rebecca GongКорпус МираА/Я 62Шымкент 160000Казахстан

May 1 was a milestone occasion for PCVs in our Kaz-21 group…the day we were allowed to move out into our own places! Thanks to some very sweet ladies at another of our community NGO partners, I found an ideal place two bus stops from work. It is honestly the largest space I have ever single-handedly occupied: a big entrance hall, living room, spacious bedroom, kitchen/dining area and sort of closed-off indoor balcony. It is clean and airy with fantastic amounts of sunlight and beautiful plants – take a look for yourself!

I am thrilled to experience site through the fresh perspective that freedom and independence inevitably brings. I never realized how nice it is to be able to take a shower, do my laundry, or practice yoga without having to ask someone to turn a blaring TV off, heat up the water, or clear out the bathroom. It's also so nice to finally have a place to put all of my things! As you can see, I have a big closet, a real desk/chair where I can study, automatic hot water and a laundry machine - all of which are luxuries here that I haven't had in months. The price was also amazing - 25,000 tenge per month including utilities (that’s $167). Considerably more expensive than living with a host family, but absolutely worth it. Plus I'm right next to a wonderful bazaar with cheap, fresh produce and even a Korean store where I can buy Asian groceries (more on that later!). I feel for all my northern friends who have to pay so much for heat and utilities as well as more for food. But no matter where you are, congrats to everyone who has moved into their own place!

Some people have expressed concern over my safety here, since the upheaval in Kyrgyzstan hit the news in the West (almost a full day after we started finding out about everything, I might add). Everything is okay. Shymkent, as you can see from the map below, is closer to Uzbekistan than it is to Kyrgyzstan. I was, however, in Almaty all of last week for our Peace Corps In-Service Training (IST) conference. Almaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan and is close to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan; it has also witnessed some disturbing occurrences of its own, which may or may not be related to its neighbor's recent events. Just days after I left Almaty, we received security texts from Peace Corps informing us that a (ostensibly related) protest was to be held in Almaty's Old Square and instructing PCVs to stay away. There was also a freeze on U.S. citizen travel to Kyrgyzstan that to my knowledge is still in effect. The Kyrgyz borders to both neighboring Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were themselves closed for awhile, but have since normalized. There are actually 98 current PCVs serving in Kyrgyzstan itself, and while they are currently on "Stand Fast" (Stage 1 of the PC Emergency Action Plan), they have not been evacuated and are still waiting directions from the U.S. Embassy.

Some basic background on the situation: In 2005, Kyrgyzstan was home to the last of the post-Soviet "Colored Revolutions," after the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Kyrgyzstan's Tulip Revolution ousted President Askar Akayev from power on charges of corruption, and installed former Prime Minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Though some violence was observed in the aftermath, the Tulip Revolution was largely seen as peaceful. Five years later however, things have come full circle - on April 7, 2010, thousands of protesters levied similar charges of corruption against Bakiyev and he fled office to the southern regions of the country where he is from. He has not yet formally relinquished power, but the new interim government in place already plans to rule for 6 months before holding new presidential elections. This new power shift has come at a high cost: 81 dead and over 1,600 injured at last count.

The upheaval in Kyrgyzstan definitely hits close to home. For one, the key U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan providing supplies to Afghanistan is potentially being affected by the unrest, and is in fact the same air base that swiftly and effectively evacuated our Kazakhstan PCV Jamie after her tragic car accident that occurred as she was leaving my very site for her village near Taraz.

As a PCV (even in a neighboring country) I am not actually allowed to say much more than just these facts, but if you want some more interesting commentary and potential implications for the future of Kyrgyzstan post-revolution, I highly recommend the Monkey Cage political science blog (to whom I owe credit for discovering that you can follow Kyrgyz interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva on Twitter. :P). I encourage you all to stay afloat of the news regarding this oft-overlooked region of the world -- it is sure to have very interesting ramifications for international relations, including major effects on Russian, Chinese and U.S. interests.

The following is a special letter for my fellow Kaz Peace Corps Volunteers....

You were happy when you got your site placement in the fair mountainous east, snowy Russified north, or gentrified Almatinskij oblasts. Then winter came, and you realized that -40 is only fun for like, a day. You've been bundled in sixteen layers with only your eyes showing and spending as little time as humanly possible out in the brutal Siberian cold for almost 5 months now (yes, dear readers, Siberia does technically include northern Kazakhstan). YOU DESERVE A BREAK. That break is calling you! That break is called SHYMKENT.

GET READY.......!

The 6 volunteers in our city have been preparing for weeks now for nearly 70 people to descend upon our fair site for the Kazakh national holiday, Nauryz. This has been an impressive team effort -- Joe wrote the emails and collected your RSVPs and arrival dates/times (a massive task, btw); Zach booked the Turkestan bus; Sipra and Britt designed the map/brochure, Phillip called all the stragglers; I took care of apartments and money. We have a giant spreadsheet of all your arrivals and are coming to pick you up at the train station in shifts. We cannot wait to see you all after so long and show you the hospitality of the South! We will see sports played on horseback with sheep carcasses, visit the historical mausoleum of a famous Sufi sheikh, eat some delicious traditional plov, and hopefully bask in some sunshine (Inshallah!).

At the risk of jinxing the weather, below is a picture Phillip and I took on International Women's Day, when the weather turned gorgeous for the ladies of Shymkent. It looks like the forecast for next week is in the 50's, which isn't quite this warm...but still a good 90 degrees warmer than what you all have had all winter! :D Also, check out our green, green grass...

Can't wait to see everyone! The South is calling!

<3 Becca

This is the second of a two-part post about my work as an NGO Development volunteer in Peace Corps Kazakhstan, and will detail my actual activities and responsibilities with my organization, community partners, and secondary projects in and around Shymkent.

I work for a wonderful organization called the Ассоциация Деловых Женщин Казахстана (while the official English name is "Association of Business Women of Kazakhstan," the more accurate literal translation is "Association of Active Women of Kazakhstan"). The Association (henceforth: АДЖК) was founded 13 years ago and received support and funding from UN bodies (UNIFEM, UNICEF, and UNFPA). In over a decade of work, it has established a strong reputation and long history of projects in sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS issues. We have a small but dedicated staff of four full-time employees and an incredibly involved, active cadre of about 15-20 volunteers that include disabled, orphaned, and underprivileged youth. Our current projects include:

Trainings-of-Trainers in which members of our staff (trained health professionals) provide sexual and reproductive health trainings to medical colleges around the South Kazakhstan Oblast, sustainably allowing participants to then become trainers themselves in their fields.Conduction of seminars with local Shymkent-city law enforcement on domestic violence issues, including the creation and distribution of informational pamphlets.Work with the "social environment" (family, friends, relatives and caretakers) of Kazakhstan's HIV-positive children (many from the infamous [2006 hospital outbreak], who are reaching kindergarten age now), concentrating on building a network of support and sharing of best practices regarding health issues, societal integration, and how to combat stigma and discrimination.Annual summer and autumn leadership camps for orphans, HIV-positive and underpriveleged youth.Support and development of the youth health initiative "Shymkent_plus," which has existed under the АДЖК umbrella since 2006 and conducts similar healthy lifestyles, gender equality and leadership peer-to-peer trainings for and by youth, as part of the international Y-PEER network (www.youthpeer.org, www.y-peer.kz).[Our lovely АДЖК ladies on a celebratory pizza day :D How happy are they?!]

[Some of our fantastic volunteers and the welcome poster they made for me (in Russian, Kazakh and English)! So sweet...!]

My director Kuralai frequently likes to say that my arrival at АДЖК at this precise moment in time was no accident. Indeed, I discovered this organization after several tumultuous placement incidents (Peace Corps' last-minute change of my site from the east to the south due to political/security issues, which then resulted in my original assignment to a Shymkent organization that was not in fact ready for a volunteer yet and did not actually exist much more than in name only). It turns out to have been a true blessing that I was able to conduct my own needs assessments, feel out the NGO community at my site, and find such a uniquely productive organization that fit my own interests. АДЖК is facing issues of their own at this time, including the desire to re-register under a more fitting name, clarify and update their mission statement and long-term strategic plan, and search out new partners and funding sources since UN support has run dry (incidentally a common trend now for NGOs in Kazakhstan of late, as the country's oil money, OSCE chairmanship, and other steps to increased economic and political prowess have caused many aid agencies, donors and international bodies to prioritize the other, poorer Central Asian nations for their resources). The skills, trainng and resources of a PCV are thus a timely and much-desired match to the current pressing needs of the organization. Because АДЖК has been around for such a long time however, certain best practices, projects and standards have already been established, and they continue to operate even without funds as needs continue to make themselves known from within our constituent groups. We also have a slew of partner organizations all around the South Kazakhstan Oblast, and much of our work takes place in the rural areas and villages around Shymkent that constitute the region of Kazakhstan with some of the highest birth, maternal and infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, and poverty rates in the country. Notably, our youth initiative has taken on wings and developed into a strong and active entity in its own right, which (as I mentioned previously) fits very well into Peace Corps' new Youth Development focus and my own potential for contribution.

My schedule has felt very full as of late with activities with my organization, various community partners, my own secondary projects and Peace Corps itself (on top of Russian and Kazakh tutoring several times a week, LSAT studying, and the various fitness activities I try to fit in regularly!). This is only a good thing though, since as you all know, I am hopelessly addicted to keeping myself busy. Here is an abridged list of some of my work tasks and activities over the last few months:

Conducted needs assessment with organization and identified key strategic priorities through SWOT analysis and Peace Corps' all-encompassing organizational Self-Assessment Matrix (SAM). Go through general overview of history, projects, staff schedules and responsibilities. Continuously try to accumulate information, whether it's over the SAM or over chai.Attended UNFPA conference co-hosted by АДЖК. Listened to presentations on monitoring and evaluation for last year's projects on behalf of АДЖК and other local UNFPA partner organizations.Attended holiday youth volunteer conference for "Shymkent_plus" volunteers, local partners, parents and community members to share and celebrate accomplishments of the year. Attendees included rural village volunteers from all around South Kazakhstan Oblast.[A lively musical performance by some of our volunteers]

[Shymkent_plus volunteers + our director]

Compiled spreadsheet of potential donors and upcoming grant deadlines.Co-wrote and edited grant application for orphanage life-skills seminars, targeting youth graduating from orphanages and beginning their own independent lives.Reviewed end-of-year reports on our domestic violence and orphanage programs. Editing and summarizing reports for past and potential donors.Attended opening of new partner youth HIV/AIDS center. Shared best practices knowledge on youth training-of-trainers skills. Established and facilitated contact for potential Peace Corps YD site development with my Regional Manager.[STI & HIV risk training activity]

Participated in Personal Finance trainings for our youth volunteers, which my coworkers were recently certified to carry out through the Kazakhstan National Microfinance Organization.Led weekly Saturday workshop presentation series (in Russian) with our youth volunteers on:Developing International ExperienceVolunteerismTime Management & Goal SettingWriting a Personal StatementCVs & Resumes[Impassionately presenting on how to best convey your positive qualities on paper :P]

[Time management session]

[Our volunteers, so happy and attentive!]

Conducted presentation series (in English and Russian) at numerous partner organizations as well at their request:Bilim Educational Center (funded by the Soros Foundation and U.S. Embassy)Interpress English CenterMiras CollegeTeSh (Teachers of English in Shymkent) NGO & Educational CenterLed TeSh seminar for English teachers on Moral Reasoning and Social Justice, emphasizing interactive classroom methodologyContinued running of Women's Club, covering topics including:Peer PressureSiblinghoodFitnessGoal SettingMentorshipInfidelityAdoptionDating & RelationshipsThe Female Body (with special readings of The Vagina Monologues…highly recommended for other PCVs running Women's Clubs or WID/GAD activities!)[Our Women's Club session on adoption with visiting guests Erin & Elizabeth!]

Started weekly English Club for Beginners with "Shymkent_plus" youth volunteers (conducted in English and some Russian), hoping to address void in current Peace Corps English activities for low to intermediate-level speakers.Arranged meeting with Crossroads charity foundation director and coordinator, bringing my director in to discuss opportunities for in-kind donations and future partnership with them.Edited Y-PEER network newsletter article on Training of Trainers at the International Kazakh-Turkish UniversityDesigned and wrote Volunteer Assistance Project Proposal inviting fellow OCAP PCVs from around the country to conduct a workshop, training and consultation series with АДЖК on key self-identified organizational needs at the end of March.Facilitating youth focus groups and writing up best practices to assist Peace Corps Regional Managers with new Youth Development program developmentPreparations for project needs assessments and further grant writing to identified sources (including Peace Corps grants in May)Preparations to lead sessions on Community Development & Volunteer Initiatives at Peace Corps Kaz-21 In-Service Training in late March/early AprilPreparations for Project Design & Management conference in AprilI could not be more lucky to be among such a dedicated group of staff and volunteers who are proactively changing their communities with their passion and work. In addition, I definitely feel like the last four months have resulted in a lot of additional contact building and community development, and am so grateful for all the community leaders, social workers, teachers, students, volunteers and participants that have let me into their lives and allowed me to both share my knowledge and learn from them.

So I realize I haven’t actually posted too much yet about what I actually do at my job as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Shymkent. While cultural exchange constitutes the last two goals of the Peace Corps, the first is still providing services to our host country – I am very grateful that I love my job here and that I feel that I am both contributing and learning a lot every day. This will be the first in a two-part post about my work here – the first will serve as a general introduction to my assignment and field of work in Kazakhstan, and the second will go into the specifics of my organization and projects.

For those of you who have been following along, you know that I am serving as an Organizational (NGO) Development volunteer in the Organizational & Community Assistance Program. There are some interesting changes in the program that have been and are still occurring, and it is generally a pretty exciting time to be working here. There are 10 Organizational Development volunteers in PC Kazakhstan (out of 65 original volunteers total), and we were trained for 3 months on a slew of very useful skills that will be familiar to everyone in the NGO world: grant writing, project design and management, needs assessments, monitoring and evaluation, grassroots fundraising, strategic planning, business planning, community development (including PACA – Participatory Analysis for Community Action), IT, etc. We also had weekly “Practicum” sessions where we applied these skills to assisting real-life NGOs in our community, and held a substantive day-long workshop for them as the culmination of our training. The PC training period was actually very helpful as it gave us both theoretical and practical lessons to take with us to our respective sites – our discussions always had some element of context-specificity, to raise our awareness of the unique environment we find ourselves in and how it differs from normal Western models. This better prepares us to actually apply our skills in the field, were our work is generally cut out for us.

The world of Non-Governmental Organizations in Kazakhstan faces many challenges. It has expanded under the watchful support of the government since independence in 1991, but the general consensus is that a majority (perhaps even the large majority) of organizations still exist in name only. Most NGOs exist to meet social needs of vulnerable populations, such as disabled persons, people living with HIV/AIDS, youth (including orphans and youth from disadvantaged or low-income households), women, or migrant workers and victims of human trafficking. Many however try to do several of the above at once, and have a lot of trouble articulating their exact mission and constituency groups, getting off the ground financially, attracting a strong staff or volunteer base, building a specific area of expertise, and/or conducting strong, sustainable and transparent projects or programming. While new fledgling organizations register themselves every year, this heartening sign of increased civil activity also results in a competitive atmosphere for limited resources, and a general overlapping in mission and services where few have really found their own productive “niche” by responding to valid needs assessments of community members.

There are also cultural issues that volunteers face, which inevitably have a huge impact on all work-related activities. Time is much more flexible here, and many organizations struggle with things we consider basic staples of the professional world, such as regular schedules, meetings and deadlines. For example, I did a presentation on Time Management yesterday and found that many of our very motivated and active volunteers do not use a personal calendar or plan out their daily activities, simply because it is not expected here (in contrast, I remember at my U.S. middle school they handed out a free day planner to each of us at the beginning of every school year). Furthermore, remnants of Soviet mentality cause many organizations to turn to the government for resources instead of the community or local businesses, and developing a culture of volunteerism and social work is still extremely new here (at another one of my recent presentations on Volunteerism, most of the students defined a volunteer as “a person who comes from another country to teach English and help our society,” because the only volunteers they know are PCVs. The idea of why someone would work for no pay was also confusing to many. And the fact that they could and should become volunteers themselves was big news!). Finally, many cultural stigmas exist that work against the constituent groups of NGOs, whether it is discrimination against women, orphans, disabled or HIV-infected persons, or the general secondary importance of environmental protection to the much more urgently-needed development of industry and new capitalism.

One heartening thing about entrenched cultural challenges however is that the potential for change is very visible in the new generation. A government initiative just passed to further develop youth projects and NGOs (a sub-category within Kazakhstan’s comprehensive 2030 development plan to become one of the world’s top-50 most developed nations). Globalization, urbanization and information technology have brought Snickers bars, Lady Gaga and a lot of motivation to study, work or travel abroad to young people in Kazakhstan. The government sponsors a scholarship called “Bolashak” ("Future" in Kazakh) that pays full tuition for Kazakhstanian youth to attend university in other countries, as long as they return to Kazakhstan to work for at least 5 years subsequently. As young people do become active in their communities and open themselves to new ideas and skills, they become progressive sources of sustainable change and inspiration to those that follow. In our own cadre of volunteers at my organization, the younger ones in middle and high school receive their biggest motivation from the examples of older volunteers who have already gone on to attend international conferences, travel/study abroad, or obtain hard-earned jobs in translating or development work.

In response to this situation on the ground and feedback from volunteers, Peace Corps pioneered a new Youth Development program this year (the second half of the OCAP group), and starting next year will be moving to a full OCAP-YD system that will integrate OD tools but focus substantively on youth. Current PCVs have been asked to lead this transition and develop the new program, so I will be spending the next couple months working with our Regional Managers, conducting youth focus groups, collecting best practices from my own organization and our regional partners, and meeting with the Youth Development expert from PC Headquarters in Washington when she visits Shymkent in April. As you will see in my next post, a large part of my work at the Association of Business Women has been focused on our youth branch, youth projects and young volunteers, and that has led to a great number of secondary projects and collaborations with partner organizations that also work with youth. It is looking to be a very busy few months – but I couldn’t be happier about it!

One of the first things I did to reclaim my sanity after the big move to site was scout out some viable exercise options in Shymmy, and set myself a (more-or-less) regular fitness schedule.  We have all also met great locals and had fun experiences through at our various fitness destinations.  Here are some of my favorites:

The Pool Shymkent has an amazing outdoor pool at the big public sports complex "Spartak."  A lot of people apparently go in the summer, but I actually like it a lot in wintertime; it is very comfortably heated (even on the coldest of days it feels like bathwater) and much less crowded.  Going swimming on a chilly evening and watching the steam rise up from the pool in clouds is incredibly relaxing, as is the gigantic volume of water (it is an Olympic-sized pool with barely anyone in it most times I go).  A few of us volunteers go regularly, and I try to make it there about twice a week.  Entrance is 300 tenge ($2) per time or 3000 tenge ($20) per month.[I have swum here in rain, snow, and sun...]Hip-Hop DancePhillip and I made friends with our hip hop dance instructor Johnnyk and his team, the "Mixed Tape Rokets" [Sic].  They are a Kazakh version of the Jabawokees (from America's Best Dance Crew, in case you've been living under a hole, or in a Central Asian country for longer than I have:P), and full of old-school hip hop flare.  We teach him English, and in return he gives us free dance lessons.  The age group of his classes is generally considerably younger and more experienced than we are, but Phillip and I have fun being the "slow track" dancers in the group. ;) 

[Me decidedly beating Phillip in this jumping contest. :P]

 [Kaz-21s + some of the Mixed Tape Roket crew]

The Ghetto GymAnother popular exercise option is the inexpensive "Ghetto Gym," as I like to call it.  There are several gyms in the area that are much pricier and offer more facilities, but this one is only 1000 tenge ($6.66) per month.  As a result, it is basically a room with a bunch of free weights and machines, with no cardio (save for a jump rope or two).  There is also a hilarious body building video with a scary-looking ripped man playing at all times inside the gym (along with loud techno music), and take a look at the drawings on the front door: 

Needless to say there are many more men than women at this gym, but there is a small group of us from Women's Club that go pretty regularly. 

My Apartment One of my favorite forms of exercise also occurs in my very own house.  My host brother and I do yoga every Sunday in our living room, and I've also taught him how to use the weight resistance bands, home workout kit, balance ball and DVD Haibo brought me from Gold's Gym in America (a very recommended purchase, btw, for any PCV or traveler).  Aziz is a good source of amusement when we work out, especially when he topples over during tree pose. 

I'm so grateful for all of the interesting fitness options in Shymkent, where I can get my weekly doses of cardio, muscle toning, flexibility exercises and stretching.  Though I still miss my Boot Camp girls at the D.C. YWCA, I know they'll be happy to see I'm still trying to stay fit all the way over here, just south of Siberia! :)

02.14.10

Today was an epic day – a double-whammy of Valentine’s Day and, more importantly, Chinese New Year. ;) Writing this I am stuffed to the brim with my mother’s homemade dumplings/potstickers, only they weren’t made by my mother this year – for the first time in my 22 years on earth, I managed to make glorious 饺子 jiao zi（锅贴）(guo tie) from scratch on my own (or at least, as commander of a small cooking team:). There wasn’t a minute though that I wasn’t reminiscing about my home and family – especially my mother and all of the years that we watched and helped her cook our favorite meal.

There is so much that goes into making a good Chinese dumpling. First there’s the xiar (filling), which we usually make with pork and Chinese Napa cabbage (since we’re in Muslim Kazakhstan, this time we substituted with beef and regular cabbage). The meat has to be marinated first for 20 minutes in soy sauce, ginger and sesame oil (luckily for me, I found what is seemingly the one place in this city that sells sesame oil, and they had one big bottle left which I purchased for 400 tenge – an in-demand Korean lady’s stall at one of the bazaars on the outskirts of the city). You can also add the optional eggs, chives or shrimp (we did the former two this time…you don’t want to eat the shrimp in a landlocked country, just FYI).



[Our dough coins, rolled wrappers, and filling]

Then there’s the dough for the wrappers, which has to be just right. There is so much that goes into jiao zi dough (though it is just flour and water!) that it is indisputably an art. First, the water must be cold. Depending on the nature of the flour, the amount of water necessary will be different, so you just have to eyeball it (or rather, feel it with your fingers) until it’s just right. My mom always told me – 手干，碗儿干，面干 (clean hands, clean bowl, clean dough) – that’s when you know your kneading is done. Her dough would always be smooth and beautiful – mine today seemed clumsy and crumbly at first until I impatiently added a generous dallop of water at the last minute, and then it was slimy, until it evened out in the end (phew!). Also, it was impossible to know exactly how much to make for the amount of meat we had; at first it seemed like far too much dough, but then it turned out to be not enough, and we made another small batch. But Mom always has it perfect down to the last dumpling, or if she ended a little short she would finish off the last bit of meat in between two wrappers, twisting the extra dough into a pretty design at the edges and making a large “xiar-bing”-like meat pastry that lorded over the other, tinier dumplings.

When cutting the dough, you have to divide it into sections, making sure to cover whatever remains with a wet towel so it doesn’t dry out. Then it must be rolled into a long baton of the proper thickness and – a neat trick – cut while alternating the dough left and right so that each coin would have a flat, pressable end. Mom would always cut and turn the dough so quickly and deftly, and we would sit and press the coins down with our fingers into flat circles for rolling. I always tried to press as fast as she cut, but it was hard to keep up.

Then comes rolling, which is the part I always remembered best about jiao zi-making. Mom taught us how to roll wrappers with the middle thicker and the edges thinner, so the meat in the center wouldn’t break through while boiling. We would take each round coin and press one edge with the roller, then rotate and press again…never rolling through the middle, only on the edges. Mom did it so fast that in four or five turns, the little dough coin turned into a flat and perfectly round wrapper. It always took me forever when I was little – I would roll too hard or too soft, turn too slowly and unevenly, and my wrapper usually looked like some stretched out oblong mess, or else thick and thin in all the wrong places. When I was really little I remember I would make little ugly dough animals instead, which of course no one (least of all me) wanted to eat after they were boiled. Later on when I managed to painstakingly churn out a really round wrapper, I would point it out and show mom, and she would always praise me. I still remember the time (I must have been a teenager by then) when at long last she told me – “终于，我们龚瑞学会擀皮儿了！” (“Finally, our Gong Rui has learned how to roll wrappers!”)

擀皮儿 (rolling out the wrappers) was the beginner’s game though – the daunting task that separated child from expert was stuffing the wrappers. The amount of filling has to be just right – too much and it will spill out, or the wrapper won’t close properly and your dumpling will fall apart in the pot; too little, and it will be all dough and no meat in your mouth. Of course you could cop-out the amateur way and put a little water on the edges of the wrapper, fold it in half and pinch it all the way around – but then your dumplings will always be flat and long with an ugly, chewy pinched dough edge, instead of a juicy round center filling. The way mom did it was nothing short of pure magic to me – she would put so much meat into the middle that I would be sure the wrapper would never close around it. Then in one fell movement she would fold the wrapper between her index fingers and thumbs, and after one firm squeeze with both hands, a perfectly plump dumpling would emerge. Her dumplings were always delicious and beautiful looking, without any extra dough on the edges, and as much filling as possible in the middle – not to mention she could wrap them three times as fast as I could while painstakingly pinching. After boiling you would always be able to pick out my ugly ducklings from her scrumptious flock – we’d laugh about it and mom would graciously eat my doughy concoctions on my behalf.



[Me showing my host mom and brother how to perfectly "挤" (squeeze) a jiao zi shut]

[Wrapped jiao zi...not quite the same as mom's, but not bad!]

Jiao zi can be boiled or else pan-fried, in which case they are renamed “guo tie” (literally, “pot-stickers”). When boiling one must stir them so they don’t stick, and alternately wait for the pot to boil over and add water (twice; after the third boil-over, they’re done). Pan-frying usually occurred with frozen leftover jiao zi, which were just as delicious several days later – brown them slightly in oil first on the pan, then cover them in water (if they are raw) and let simmer, and they will be half pan-fried, half-steamed. We made both variants this evening, and guo tie was the runaway prefered favorite (as they always were with me and my sister, too).

[Delicious 锅贴 (potstickers)]

The last step before serving I have long handled with pride – the jiao zi sauce. Even as a kid this was my duty, since despite often having to give up on rolling and wrapping, it was near impossible to mess up the sauce. A perfect blend of dark Chinese vinegar (never the clear or appley stuff), soy sauce, and a dash of sesame oil that would float in circles at the top, finished with hot sauce to taste (I would always add a lot).

Since Chinese New Year did coincide with Valentine’s Day this year, Phillip generously contributed some delicious, dark-cacao fudge brownies with chocolate icing as the perfect end to our euphoria-enducing meal. I celebrated with my new family here, while missing my own back home. Mom, thank you for the recipe, which I finally tried to do justice tonight after some 20 years of trial and error – but you are and always will be the best cook in the entire world.<3

So shortly after I first got here, my counterpart took me on a trip to the Shymkent Zoo. The trip was yet another culture shock lesson on many levels. The first shock for me was in the planning: one day my counterpart and I were sitting with a friend of hers having tea, and they asked me “Do you like the zoo? We have a zoo!” I replied…"Sure, I guess so. Let’s go some day.” Little did I know, “some day” was the next day. Starting from 10 a.m. that next morning I got over 50 call waiting beeps from this guy while I was on the phone long distance with America. He literally called once a minute for the next two hours, and then started calling my house when I didn’t answer (how he got that number, I don't know). When I finally picked up, he informed me that we were going to the zoo, and that they were already waiting for me at Mega Center. “Today??” I asked. “I didn’t know we had actually made plans…” Oh, naïve Becca. Shymkent makes plans (involving you) without you, remember?

I meet them and we drive to the outskirts of Shymkent, stopping at a few extra attractions along the way. The first was a stark, empty war memorial in the middle of nowhere. We passed a tree tied with handkerchiefs, which is a common tradition here – each shred of cloth represents a wish or a commemoration.

[War memorial and handkerchief-tied wishing tree]

We also stopped at an interesting mosque that looked like a mix between an Islamic holy site and a science fiction space vehicle. The best part though was the brides – they were EVERYWHERE. It was a Saturday, which is when most weddings happen here, and the common tradition in post-Soviet parts (it was exactly the same in Russia and Estonia, for example) is to go around whatever city you are from and take numerous photos in front of every single notable site, monument or tourist attraction. At least several poofy winter snow-bride-balls whirled around us that day with their comparatively subdued-looking grooms in tow. Unfortunately for my fashion-sensitive self, only one of them had on a dress that did not resemble a marshmallow factory’s excretion onto one giant never-ending ruffle.

[Futuristic mosque and lonely snowpuff bride...]

When we finally got to the zoo, I saw an impressive-looking entrance with a large, clear front sign labeled “Children: 100 tenge, Adults: 200 tenge.” Worried that I didn’t have exact change on me, I started digging around in my purse. Before I could even lift my head however, my friends had already shooed me inside. None of us had paid, but a small 100T bribe might have been slipped to the guard up front…this was Shymkent, but of course!

["Zoo(park)", in Kazakh]

At the entrance of the zoo, we bought four big bags of corn puffs – two for us people, two for the animals. I didn’t realize then how depressing this would turn out to be. EVERY single animal in their smelly, unkempt outdoor cages would follow us the length of their cell, begging for corn puffs. Even the bears. The zoo budget clearly wasn’t going to keeping the animals fed, because last time I checked, bears didn’t eat corn puffs…One of them even stood on its hind legs and rattled its cage, doing a little dance with teeth bared into a grotesque clown beggar-bear grin. There were no guards anywhere, and the boys we were with freely crawled up on the railings and leaned up against the cages to feed the poor animals.

[Feeding corn puffs to horses and bears]

Oh, and as we left, we saw a big banner advertising Shymkent paintball. I wrote down the number for future reference…who knew?

I got some interest in my brief mention below of the vast difference between male and female life spans here in this part of the world. I thought I'd write a post and share with you some pretty fascinating demographic information about Kaz.

To prove my point about the vast gender difference in mortality, check out this article, titled "KAZAKHSTAN: Alarm raised over deteriorating health of men."

Some key points from the article:"The gap between male and female life expectancy is - at 11 years - among the world's highest. Kazakhstan's men live on average to 61.5 and women to 72.5." By the way, at birth the male-female ratio is 1.06 male(s)/female (a few more boys are born than girls). By 65 years and over, the ratio is 0.54 male(s)/female (there are nearly twice as many women here over 65 as men!)! Urban working-age males are disproportionately affected by high mortality rates, which can be explained by the high death rates in industrial facilities (mining, metallurgy, construction) where urban men tend to work.As I mentioned: "Behavioural factors play a role in male mortality, with smoking, alcohol abuse, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity all causing men's health to deteriorate."Since Kazakhstan is such a large country with such a small population, "increasing the population is a national priority" and "demographers say the strategy should address male mortality." Makes sense.

[Kazakhstan population period, showing break-down of gender by age bracket]

From my own observations, I would not say that women exercise a lot more or eat much differently than men, but there are certainly less women here who smoke and drink on a regular basis. Cheap vodka and cigarettes are overabundant here and are disproportionately consumed by men. Also, men drive a LOT more frequently than women here. For example I have seen exactly 0 female taxi or bus drivers in my time here so far. And as I have mentioned, roads are very dangerous here and there are a ton of accidents. That is undoubtedly also a factor in the mortality sex-ratio difference.

I will leave you with a few other general demographic points about Kazakhstan. In 1939 there were about 6 million people, with 72% in rural areas and 28% in urban. In 2009 that number had increased to 16 million, with only 47% rural and 53% urban. Hurrah for development! But keep in mind though that 16 million people in the whole country is the equivalent population of a paltry 1 or 2 Chinese cities.

Also interesting to note is the ethno-demographic make-up of the country. In 1939 there were more Russians in Kazakhstan (back then the Soviet Socialist Republic) than ethnic Kazakhs (40% and 38%, respectively). Many of them, as well as members of a huge slew of other ethnic groups (Volga Germans, Ukrainians, Tatars, Koreans, Poles, etc.), were exiled to Kazakhstan under Stalin. In 2006 the numbers are drastically different: Kazakhstan is now roughly 59% Kazakh and only 26% Russian. This trend lines up with the "reclaiming" of Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union, the reestablishing of Kazakh as the national language (though Russian is also still recognized as a language of official business), and the large out-migration of Russians and other nationalities as they were repatriated by their "original" countries (e.g. Russians back to Russia, Germans back to Germany).

On a very related note, everyone here still identifies with their "original nationality," which is actually written on your passport (and if you are mixed, you have to pick just one). Unlike in the U.S., even if your family has lived in Kazakhstan for many generations, but you are visibly ethnically Russian, you will answer "Russian," and not "Kazakhstanian" when someone asks you "What is your nationality?" This keeps national identity in Kazakhstan from becoming a melting pot, and instead results in perpetual division among ethnic groups by bloodline (Even within the ethnic Kazakh group itself, there is division into three separate ancient "hordes" that people here still associate with, after all this time. It's all about your ancestry!). That's why I get so much confusion when I respond to the question "What nationality are you?" with "American"...they invariably ask again several times ("But no really...what nationality are you ACTUALLY?") and look very confused, because I can't possibly be JUST American, especially if I look Asian. That's an uphill battle I'll probably never win here.

The fertility rate in Kazakhstan is 2.5 for Kazakhs and 1.38 for Russians in 1999, which also helps explain the above ethnic breakdown (since Kazakhs have more babies than Russians here). South Kazakhstan Oblast, where I live, also has by far the highest average fertility rate: 2.86 compared to only 1.72 in the North, 1.41 in the East, and 1.00 in Almaty. That makes sense too, as SKO is far more rural, and with village life comes more traditional lifestyles, earlier marriages, and higher birth rates. People here ask me all the time whether I plan to get married in the next few years – 25 is incontrovertibly old-maid age here! And in Issyk, my host-granny was a great-grandmother at age 60, as both she, her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter gave birth before age 20. As you can see, these demographic facts translate into real cultural experiences that I witness every day.

As you may remember, I changed host families after my first month in Shymkent, as my previous situation was proving to be untenable. The rules of Peace Corps are that each volunteer will have three host families to choose from upon his/her arrival to site, and that way alternative options exist if one family doesn’t work out. We are required to live with our host families for the first 6 months at site for the purposes of language and cultural integration, but can stay longer if we wish (some village volunteers stay with host families for their full two years of service, since separate apartments for rent are not always available in smaller sites). The families also are all checked by our Regional Manager (RM) to see that they conform to some standard safety and privacy rules: we each are supposed to have our own room with a lock on our door, keys to our room and the apartment, and some basic things like a bed, dresser, desk and chair. As it so happens, through no fault of Peace Corps’s, I had a last-minute region and site change and thus my host families were not checked out…understandably, they did not end up actually meeting the above criteria. But with some great help from my sitemate and my RM, I was able to move into a wonderful new family. My host mom is actually Phillip’s host mom’s sister, so we are now “cousins” (which here is usually referred to as “brother” or “sister,” emphasizing the importance of extended family), and get to hang out with each other and our host families together on a regular basis.

Most of the population of Shymkent is ethnically Kazakh with the largest minority being Russians, but funnily enough now none of the Kaz-21s here live with either Kazakh or Russian host families. Sipra’s family is ethnically Korean (but speak Russian), and Phillip and my host family is a mish-mash of Uzbek, Turkish and Uighur (but speak Russian). I personally think that we all lucked out in the food department as a result. ;) It also so happens that all three of us live with single moms and their kid(s), which I find interesting but not that surprising. According to general CIS demographic trends, male life spans are much shorter in this area of the world and we see examples of that every day – whether it’s smoking, drinking, driving or physical labor, a variety of unfortunate male mortality factors contribute to the seemingly omnipresent existence of widows (some quite young) here.

My host mom Nadira embodies a lot of characteristics that are both wonderful and typical in a mom. Her sons are her life, and she is constantly worrying after them and taking care of them in some manner. She is an amazing cook, which is lucky because as all my sitemates can testify, she will hover over you while you eat, continuously offering you another piece of cake or another cup of tea and telling you (no matter HOW much you’ve eaten) that you need to eat more. I’ve been fed two dinners in a row by her before, and it honestly shocks me that I’ve somehow managed to escape the typical “Freshman 15” of female Kaz volunteers. It all makes sense though once you see her sons, who both seem to have hummingbird-like metabolisms. Agzam is my age and in his last year of a 5-year university program in Tomsk, Russia, studying to be an electrical engineer. Aziz is 14, and goes to middle school here in Shymkent. They are both sweet and unassuming; Aziz is quiet and well-behaved while Agzam already makes me feel like a kid in the presence of a grown-up when he is around, taking care of his brother and looking after his mother (their dad passed away two years ago from cancer). Agzam took Kazakh in grade school and knows it quite well, whereas Aziz’s second language is English. Everyone speaks Russian with each other (and with me) though in the house.

[My Peace Corps family - Agzam, Nadira & Aziz, + me, Phillip and Sipra]

We live in a nice, relatively central area of Shymkent, readily accessible by public transportation. The apartment has two bedrooms and a big living room, which makes it quite large for city standards. Apparently they bought the house a couple decades ago for $5,000 USD, and it is now worth over $50,000. Inflation here is crazy. Even though there is an extra bedroom, like many families here mine likes to sleep together on the floor of the living room. It’s just more comfortable for them I guess (and also good for your back!). I sleep in the large bedroom with lots of closet space and my own giant teddy bear, lent to me from Phillip’s little host sister. :)

Like most Soviet-era apartments, ours has centralized heating and a toilet that is separate from the shower/sink room. Nadira thought that I wouldn’t want to live here because they do not have facilities like a laundry machine and automatic hot water (you have to light a little water heater with a match and run the water 10-20 minutes before showering), but I assured her it was not a problem whatsoever. Plus, I’ve found that contrary to what I’ve heard from other volunteers, my clothes are very clean after a good hand-scrubbing in a bucket (maybe it helps to have running water and normal detergent). And if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that the lack or presence of amenities is also never what makes it hard or easy to live in a place. It’s the people you live with that are far and away what make you comfortable – and I have been very blessed with my host family. :)

So, I've had several little pieces of my life written up now and backlogged in keeping with my new years resolution, but Blogspot then mysteriously stopped working in random parts of the country (including mine). I'm managing to post this through proxy servers recommended by several helpful PCVs, but it's not letting me post any photos, which is a massive fail. Just goes to show: Kazakhstan will break your resolutions for you. You're not the boss around here!

So for now, you all get a boring text update, sans media. My older host brother came to visit for the winter holidays from Tomsk, Russia, where he goes to university (he's my age and studying engineering). I plan to devote a post very soon to my host family and house, as it's something people have been asking about (once Blogger starts working properly, that is...!). But in any case, it was nice to have the whole family together, and you could tell how much they all missed each other. We had several nice dinners and the day before he left I made them a pumpkin pie from scratch (kneaded and rolled out the crust dough, boiled and mashed the pumpkin, added "real" cow milk and spices: nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon...which amazingly you can all find here!).

One of my biggest plans for the next six months is actually just to study like crazy for the LSATs. It may seem like grad school is really far away, but when you think about it, you have to apply the year before you go, and prepare your apps and tests the year before you apply...which makes the whole process take at least 2 years. Lordie. So I have myself on a daily regime of timed test sections, and it's been going pretty well so far. I will grill myself into shape by June 27th, when I will hopefully have an unregistered test site opened in Almaty for the exam. I was also amazed to find real LSAT books and even a 2010 ABA-Approved Law School guidebook at this really cool educational center in Shymkent. It's called "Bilim" and is funded by the U.S. Embassy and the Soros Foundation, and I'm thinking of starting a secondary project there to help kids with their college apps abroad. I'll also be interviewing Kazakhstanian applicants to Harvard this year -- that is, if we have any in the record number of apps [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/1/14/fitzsimmons-admission-admissions-students/] this season (from my exchanges w/ Admissions, it seems I'm the closest known alum to the expat-heavy western oil cities of Aktrau and Atrau, which is weird to think about).

After the LSAT, I am planning on taking an epic vacation somewhere warm and happy (probably Malaysia/the Philippines to visit friends, which would be a blast! I get deliriously happy just thinking about it. Also on my 2010 must-visit trip list is India/Sri Lanka). If there's one thing we must take advantage of here, it's all the opportunities to travel on our vacation days (we get two a month, which makes for 48 over two years. You can bet I'm already allocating them!).

Also, I've also started some new things on the work-front, but I will have to wait another week or so to post details. Stay tuned.

Finally, on a sobering note, the roads have gotten icy and dangerous since the most recent sleet-fall even here in the South. One of our Kaz-20 volunteers in a nearby city was in a car accident and is in critical condition as of this morning. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. What with the dilapidated Soviet cars, lack of seatbelts, freezing weather and poor road maintenance here, it seems like a risk to even get into a car period. We even had a close call when our car skid off the icy road on our way back from Medeo when Haibo and I were in Almaty -- all the windows on one side were shattered and we were covered in crumbled glass, but all of us, thank goodness, got away with nary a scratch. Kaz volunteers, let's all be careful out there and avoid any unnecessary risks...especially during these winter months.

We kicked off 2010 with an insane, spontaneous trip to the Aral Sea. Before I tell you about the ridiculousness that was the trip itself, I want to give you a little backstory about the significance of the sea and why we went. For those who don’t know, the Aral Sea is arguably the biggest ecological disaster in Central Asia. It used to be one of the world’s largest saline bodies of water, spanning 26,000 square kilometers of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan…that is, before the Soviets decided to start using the sea as irrigation in its massive plan to grow and export cotton from the southern republics. As cotton production increased, especially in Uzbekistan, the sea kept shrinking – and as of today, it is 10% of its original size, its northern section in Kazakhstan completely split off from the southern section in Uzbekistan.

[Aral Sea from space in 1985, v. 2009]

The effects of the Aral Sea’s virtual disappearance has been devastating on the region. Salinity rose to over 100g/L (35g/L is normal for seawater), causing most of the native marine life to die out. The local fishing industry was destroyed, leaving behind eerie ship graveyards where old vessels can be seen stranded in the desert sand. But the worst problems extend beyond wildlife and unemployment: as the water disappeared, leftover pesticides and fertilizer were spread by the wind in toxic dust storms, resulting in high rates of cancer, lung disease, and child mortality.

Some progress has been made in the North Aral through building dams, but the South Aral has been largely left to its fate. The former port city of Aralsk used to be the center of the fishing industry from the Northern Aral, and happens to also be a 15-hour train ride from Shymkent, wth a train that goes through Kyzylorda the next oblast over. The NGO Aral Tenizi seems to be doing good environmental education work there, and also running a thriving(?) tourism business on the side (or perhaps in order to fund their activities and build awareness…let’s hope!). The following is a How-To that the four of us PCVs put together about our trip to Aralsk. Enjoy, as it is much more humorous than the actual Aral Sea.

A PCV’s Step-By-Step Guide on Getting to Uralsk A-ralsk

1. Spontaneously decide to meet friends in Karaganda for New Years break.

2. Look up train times online and realize the train leaves in two hours. Definitely still possible.

3. RUN to the travel agency.

4. Ask many questions to a mean travel agent.

5. Find out there are no tickets that reach Karaganda until two hours after New Years Eve.

6. Decide it’s still worth it.

7. Find out there are no return tickets.

8. Go back dejected to start Women’s Club.

9. Brainstorm new travel destination with Women’s Club attendees.

10. Come up with the genius idea to go to the Aral Sea.

11. Test Women’s Club attendees’ geography skills by asking where the Aral Sea is. Get various answers.

12. Lonely Planet tells us our plan is possible – Let’s go!!

13. Go back to travel agency and find a nicer agent.

14. Go over every possible combination of busses/trains/dates/stopovers.

15. Join forces with two fellow volunteers in Kyzylorda.

16. Celebrate new years with host family and stay up all night in order to get to the train station by 4 a.m.

17. Show up to find the train station under construction, and try to find a way in.

18. Successfully take the train to Kyzylorda and try to catch up on sleep.

19. Meet fellow volunteers at the train station and begin a 1-hour tour of Kyzylorda (i.e. a delicious lunch at Cairo Café).

20. Find out from a PCV’s host dad that all roads to the Aral Sea are iced and closed. Decide to take a train instead.

21. Go to train station IMMEDIATELY!

22. Drop freshly crocheted scarf in Kyzylorda, which means it’s now covered in an inch of mud.

23. Go to ticket counter and wait in mob.

24. Look at departure sign and see a train from Almaty to Uralsk - perfect.

25. Ask for ticket to Uralsk but find out there are no trains going there tonight.

26. Freak out and try to find out about busses, despite warnings.

27. Find out roads actually ARE iced over, and no busses are leaving until mayyyybe tomorrow?

28. Call crazy bus ladies for more information on tomorrow’s busses and discover that Uralsk and Aralsk are 2 DIFFERENT CITIES!!??!?!*[1] Decide to rename Aralsk “A-Ralsk.”

29. Go back to train station and realize we probably asked for tickets to the wrong city. Train to the right city leaves in half an hour.

30. Rejoin the mob and ponder bribing others to get to the front of the “line.”

31. Have a local friend save the day by elbowing his way to the front. Get yelled at by rest of mob.

32. Board the two-wagon train, which is full to the brim with people and disgustingly muggy.

33. Are told there are no more spaces on train and wonder if this really is the right one.

34. Show tickets marking our seats to the conductor and the mob of other passengers occupying said seats, to no avail. Stand around in the aisle with drunk people pushing by.

35. Start searching for 5 seats together - quite a mission to undertake. Are told this train is “general seating only.”

36. Ask the following questions to old man:

Q: Why do they sell more tickets than seats?

A: What would you have them do? Leave people at the train station?

Q: Why is that lady laying there taking up three spaces?

A: Maybe she’s sick….or tired.

37. Take picture of crazy train situation for proof, only to be told by the old man, “You can’t take pictures of Muslims.” Overhear another passenger saying: “Let them take your picture. They’ll probably send it to Obama!”

38. Watch as fellow passenger takes camera phone pictures of the same old man as he poses for them.

39. Remain steadfast as rude man tries to take bed already occupied by a volunteer, hovering excessively and trying to read (?) the volunteer’s Economist.

40. Step out of suffocating train for fresh air, only to be physically pushed back by conductor in preparation for the fresh hoard of fur-wearing, heat-exuding passengers to board.

41. Wonder if that man actually was the conductor, due to his track suit attire.

42. Sweat like it’s a banya. Try to figure out ways to strip with so many people around. Wonder how all locals are STILL in their furs.

43. Realize the toilet is actually the best place on the train, as you can actually breathe in there.

44. Get invited to lay down on a vacated bunk, only to be screamed at by old woman already occupying another bunk. Old woman physically tries to pull volunteer down from bunk, claiming she has “dibs” on that space.

45. After sleepless night, FINALLY arrive to A-ralsk at 6 a.m.! Trudge through the snow to get to the only hotel.

46. Pass out for an hour.

47. Successfully hire a jeep to take us across the frozen tundra.

48. See herd of Bactrian camels!

49. STAND on the frozen Aral Sea.

50. Take pictures with stranded boats, and see seashells in the snow!

51. Go to train station to get tickets back home. Get shoved back to end of line mob by crazy ticket lady.

52. Eat Korean dinner accompanied by loud music.

53. Return exhausted to hotel, only to find the hall has been rented out for a birthday party and is BLARING music. The entire hotel is literally shaking from the bass. We will not sleep.

54. Board 5 a.m. train and get out of A-ralsk. Enjoy a nice and uneventful train ride (with our own actual bunks), and be grateful to be going home.

[A-ralsk "Port." All that used to be the sea...now it's just sand and snow.]

[1] [Note: we had been pronouncing “Aralsk” with the English “a,” which sounds more like a schwa (ə)..hence the confusion]

December 21, 2009 (backlogged again…sorry but this was pre-new years resolution!:P)

Haibo came to visit, and stayed for two weeks. We hung out in Shymkent and he met my fellow PCV sitemates, as well as other important people in my life (my host family, director, English club students, etc.). We ate authentic Uzbek plov at one of the best restaurants in Shymkent (see last post for explanation of plov, which my host mom also makes every Thursday as an Uzbek tradition). We also threw a great dinner party with authentic Chinese food and an insane game of Taboo filled with volunteer inside jokes. We cooked dinner at my sitemate Phillip's house as well, and went to the bazaar to explore a couple of times (Haibo bought a real Kazakh beaver hat in the process!).

Over the weekend we took a short day trip to Turkestan, a city also in the South Kazakhstan Oblast (SKO) about 2.5 hours from Shymkent that is considered the holiest Muslim site in Kazakhstan. Turkestan is a historical site famed for its beautiful mausoleum to Khoja Ahmad Yasavi, a Sufi sheikh that lived there in the 11th century and was commemorated by Central Asian conqueror Timur (aka Tamerlane) in the 14th century. Here they call Turkestan the "Second Mecca," and say that if you make a pilgrimage three times to the Mausoleum in Turkestan, it is the equivalent of a hajj to actual Mecca. :P I don't know about how well-known Turkestan is outside of this country, but it made for a really beautiful and worthwhile trip. We met up with Leah, the Kaz-20 PCV who was placed in Turkestan, and she showed us around.

December 16 was Kazakh Independence Day, commemorating Kazakhstan’s declaration of Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 (it was the last Soviet Socialist Republic to do so, as you may remember!). We all had the national holiday off from work, so Haibo and I took a trip back to the Almaty area to visit my friends there and my host family/friends from training in nearby Issyk. We had a blast hanging out with Kunai, Emma and Alex again, driving around the city and catching some of the independence day celebrations, and then hitting up the banya, going to dinner at an amazing Indian place, learning how to play poker (well, I learned in any case:P) and going on another day trip to nearby Medeo. Medeo is an amazing outdoor skating rink in the middle of the mountains near Almaty; located at 1,691 meters above sea level, it is (I have heard) the highest altitude outdoor rink in the world. Many world records for speed skating were achieved at Medeo during Soviet Union times, and now it remains a popular and pretty place to both skate and hike. Our gang climbed the 800+ stairs to the top-most vista, and checked out the breathtaking views:

We also went to visit my host granny and local friends back in Issyk, which was so wonderful. I brought in tow early Christmas gifts sent all the way from my mother in the U.S. with Haibo in his overweight luggage, and they were all thrilled. We were fed her famous apple cake, pizza and salads until we burst, and played with adorable Sasha (her grandson, as you may recall), who immediately took to Haibo after some quality Beauty and the Beast watching. I sent Haibo off on Saturday which was very tough; the trip flew by so quickly! But there was no place more comforting than back at home with my babushka and friends…at this point for me, Issyk still does feel more like home than Shymkent. I managed to see everyone again before I left on a jam-packed day that included going to church to see Yegor and Natalia Mihaelovna in the choir, dropping by Kyle’s workplace to say hello, and having lunch with Kunai, Emma and her parents who were visiting from the States, before catching the night train back to Shymmy.

A few items of housekeeping before I put up this next post. First of all, happy new year to all! I will be celebrating 11 hours earlier than most of you, and then hopping on a train a few hours after midnight for a whirlwind New Year's trip to the (remnants of the) Aral Sea. Wish me luck - I'll let you all know how it goes. ;) Here's for 2010 bringing us all wisdom, happiness, spontaneity, adventure, self-knowledge and fond memories!My blogosphere new year’s resolution: to post at least once a week and illuminate more aspects of my every day life here, rather than writing a novel of verbal vomit every time because so much has happened since my last log-on. While it’s tough with no internet access at home or at work, I still live in a city and feel that I should take advantage of what so few Peace Corps Volunteers have – the ability to get online at random internet cafes as I wish. So keep checking in, and I’ll try to update more frequently!A reminder that you can text me for free here in Kaz through the internet. Would love to hear from you in the new year! :) Instructions are on the right hand bar.Whoever texted me about using my blog to research for their novel…that’s awesome but who are you?? Remember to sign your texts! :) And please keep in mind the copyright (wayyy down there at the bottom).

Happy reading, and here's to 2010!

Merry (belated) Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Eid, New Year, and whatever else you may be celebrating! The holidays have been treating me pretty well here in Kazakhstan. The last week has been a flurry of baking, cooking, dinner parties, and hanging out with fellow volunteers celebrating our first Xmas in Kaz away from family and friends back home. Kazakhstan has such a mix of nationalities and traditions…Russian holidays, remnants of Soviet holidays, Kazakh national holidays, country-wide patriotic holidays, etc. etc. There is Independence Day Dec.16-17, our Christmas Dec. 25 (though that’s not the one they usually celebrate), New Year’s Eve Dec. 31, Russian Orthodox Christmas Jan. 7, and Russian New Year Jan. 13. As you can imagine, not much gets done these couple of months! For Kazakhs, as in many other parts of the Soviet Union, New Years is actually the biggest holiday. The hilarious thing is that all of our typical Christmas trappings have been adopted for New Years: Santa Claus (fondly called “Дед Мороз,“ or “Grandpa Frost”), gift-giving, Christmas trees (called "yolkas"), and an abundant amount of snowflake and tinsel decorations on every corner. Not that Christmas is really that religious in the U.S. either, but accomplishing a complete secularization of the holiday here by transferring it to New Years is almost certainly a remnant of Soviet times when religion was (to put it euphemistically) discouraged. What is even more funny here though is the combination of these commercialized Western Christmas products with elements of the East…everywhere you turn, there are little toys for the Chinese Year of the Tiger! Take a look at this beautiful hybrid for yourselves:

So, to celebrate American Christmas on the 25th, Phillip and I single-handedly started what became a cookie baking sweat shop factory, churning out hundreds of little candy canes, bells, stars, snowflakes and gingerbread men and women before we got lazy and started cutting out circles. :P Curious about how we managed this feat here in Kazakhstan? Here were the steps:

1. Find ingredients. Sipra and I scoured the stores for everything we needed, and I ended up finding all of the gingerbread spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves) in our beloved Ramstore. They even had little packets of green and pink dye that we later used for frosting. God bless Ramstore. After many trips to different little shops, we also found packets of powdered sugar and coconut, as well as M&Ms and little dried fruit candies for decorating. I was also armed with real chocolate chips and vanilla extract brought from America by Haibo. Success!

2. Find cookie cutters. We doubted there would be any Christmas cutters at the local bazaar, so we went the PC way – improvisation! Phillip and I printed out Christmasy shapes from the internet, and I bought a plastic folder at the local office supply store. We traced the shapes onto the plastic, cut them out meticulously, and placed the shapes on the rolled dough, cutting around them with a knife. Ghetto, but it worked!

3. Bake the cookies. Since the oven at my house is about two feet wide and very fickle (you have to turn on the gas and throw a match in, whipping your hand back before it roars up like the flames of hell, and most likely crisping the batch of 10 thin cookies that will fit on the tiny pan into a blackened clump in 5 minutes flat), we decided to go to Phillip’s house instead. After much measurement converting guesswork (cups? grams? liters? what??) and the help of the trusty Peace Corps Volunteer cookbook, we had successful batches of REAL gingerbread, sugar, and chocolate chip cookies!

4. Share the love. We baked batches for Women’s Club, Miras English Club, Phillip’s little sister to take to school, both our host families, the local apartment rental guy, and the village volunteers that had come in for Christmas. Whew…mazel tov!

[Baking insanity, cookie decorating with Womens' Club, Phillip as Ded Moroz and me as mys-ELF...ha!]

Christmas Eve, the Shymkent Kaz-21s (Sipra, Phillip and I) had a fun sleepover at my place. We probably stayed up til 5 a.m. talking, and sorry kiddies, no pitter patter of reindeer hooves was heard on this side of the globe. Maybe Santa was jetlagged from the time difference. Christmas morning though – surprise!! – a present was in fact waiting for me up in the top drawer of my closet. I had put it there of course…a beautifully wrapped gift from my mother (also brought by HaiboJ). She called and I opened it while on the phone with her – a beautiful red holiday sweater and matching jewelry from my aunt. Thank you!!

After yet ANOTHER batch of cookie making, we were off to cook a massive dinner for 10+ people at Phillip’s place. The menu was amazing: fried rice (described by Phillip as “Chinese plov,” to expedite local understanding. Plov is a popular Uzbek dish that is basically like fried rice, with carrots and meat), peanut noodles with green onions, two delicious roasted chickens (one teryaki, one butter/salt/pepper), garlic green beans, potatoes, and two kinds of salad. After dinner we sang Christmas carols, and even did a gift exchange! Two other volunteers were up for Christmas from a nearby village called Zhetasai, so we had Kaz-21 Secret Santa, and the gifts I daresay were quite amazing. With a cap of 500 tenge (3.33 dollars), we managed to get lovely gifts like a scarf, a Kazakh vest, local souvenirs, hand-made greeting cards, and an entertainment set of games and cards. We spent the rest of the night playing Durak (the most popular card game hereabouts in this part of the world), and Mafia with our host families. :P After a long night of food coma, we slept in the next day and went ice skating. A very merry Kazakh Christmas, indeed! :)

Happy holidays…miss you all.

PS: For the best holiday poem ever (in English, Russian and Kazakh!), check out this gem on Kyle's blog!

This first month in Shymkent has been full of surprises and hilarities. Welcome to another episode of “Kazakhstan: Things Are Not What They Seem.” Also known as “Things That Make Becca’s ‘Culture Shock’ Journal in Shymkent a Running List of Absurdities That Keeps Growing and Growing...” At this point, everything to me is downright hilarious, so I hope this following “Top 10 List” will bring you all a bit of Peace Corps Kazakhstan life-humor, too. Enjoy!

Culture Shock Moment #1: I decided it was time to treat myself to a “Sanity-Salvation Beauty Splurge of the Month,” which I’d hoped would become a regular staple in my life. I saw that a lot of girls here have French manicures, and asked a teacher assistant in my office where I could get one. The nice girl generously offered to take me during our lunch break. The result?

….This monstrosity. Apparently “I want a French manicure” (Russian) and then “No!! Why are you using black???!! I don’t want black!!” (Russian) followed finally by “Is this zebra print?? Oh dear god” (English) did nothing to prevent me from receiving the following. I don’t think it was language barrier…just here, it don’t matter what you want, it matters what they want to give you. Which they decide without you, of course. :P

Culture Shock Moment #2: I realize that Shymkent is a well-developed city with more amenities than you would likely find in almost any other Peace Corps site placement, Kazakhstan or otherwise…but that doesn’t mean they always work. Like when the traffic light randomly went blank one day on the main crossroad from my house to my office, and cars started jettisoning their way through at random. Take a look:

Culture Shock Moment #3: I am faced every day by the fact that the “office” my organization works out of is actually a busy and bustling teacher’s cabinet in the middle of the biggest university in Southern Kazakhstan (UKGU). My director is also a teacher at UKGU, and thus we are basically squatting out of her small allocated bit of office space. As a result, every day someone comes in while I am sitting at “my desk” (loosely named) and asks me where various teachers are...in Kazakh, of course, because I look Kazakh and they have no clue who I am. Soooo, in awesome Jeff Mason style (thanks for the tip, Jeff!), I put up the following sign, shown here. So useful…so necessary.

[It reads: “Rebecca Gong, Peace Corps Volunteer from America. Does NOT speak Kazakh, and does NOT know where Aigul is.” What a time-saver!]

Culture Shock Moment #4: I was approached by a teacher in the university where I work. She invited me to judge an English language debate among students in the technical faculties. The teacher came multiple times throughout the week to remind me about the event, every time also insisting that I invite my fellow new PCVs to join as official judges. Though the time of the event suddenly changes the night before (of course), we all successfully show up to the auditorium hall the morning of and even find front-row seats reserved with bottles of water and little paper placards with our names printed on them (almost all correctly!).

The event begins, and we look at the printed “programs” we have been given. There is no sign of any type of debate: just songs, dances and skits. What follows can barely be described. Each faculty was represented by a team with creative, specialty-appropriate names like “The Mad Builders” (resource management & construction),“Biohazard” (bioengineering), “Chemical Brothers and Sisters” (chemical engineering), and “Bank of Knowledge” (economics). There was abundant lipsyncing to English songs, an all-male rendition of the Swan Lake quartet complete with tutus, and a hip hop dance by girls in what Phillip, Sipra and I dubbed “Lady Gaga” sequined hoods.

The most shocking thing though was the skits that followed. One team parodied university students sitting for an exam in Astana (quietly writing), in Almaty (talking loudly on their phones, being crazy and disruptive) and in Shymkent (holding an auction for their grades…the best scores go to the highest bidders!). One team did a skit about sexually propositioning your teachers for grades, in which one male student cross-dresses as a woman to gain the affections of his professor. The rest was too inappropriate to even retell in full – every single team had something along the lines of gay jokes, sexual harassment jokes, jokes about hitting on women at clubs (and then beating them when they don’t respond favorably), and even rape jokes. All in front of the entire combined faculties’ teachers and deans. It was difficult for us to give out the “awards” with a straight face, as we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and what we really wanted to do was disqualify them all. Of course, what we witnessed was in no way a debate – as we later discovered, it was actually performances of the “KVN” variety: “Клуб Веселых и Находчивых,” or “The Club of the Funny and Quick-witted”…basically, our version of a comedy club. This made the whole affair a little more comprehensible (and I wish we had been told in advance), but still could not redeem it as something we would deem kosher for an official university setting…certainly not with judges and their officially-typed name placard! :P Oh Kazakhstan.

Culture Shock Moment #5: The other day, Phillip and I were walking back home from dance class and witnessed this little gem. A snappily-dressed gentlemen with a girl…on each hand. Not very visible here, but nevertheless...you get the picture.

Culture Shock Moment #6, 7, 8 , 9…: Some of you have asked about my host family switch. Worry not, I am in good hands now…but I have plenty of amusing CSMs from my first month here. The first was arriving to my large new apartment, putting down all my luggage, and being told that my two grown host sisters will take turns sleeping with me in my bed to “facilitate greater language learning.” After my lovely Peace Corps Regional Manager sorted that one out for me, I found out that I was not allowed to have a key to the actual apartment itself…making it difficult to enter and exit the house on my own schedule, among other things. If you want the rest of this particular set of CSMs, comment and I’ll put you on my email list. ;)

Culture Shock Moment #10: I owe my new host mom for this gem. We were having another one of our long, pleasant post-dinner chats the other night, and somehow got onto the topic of studies and exams here in Kazakhstan. She pulled out one of her older son’s old books back from when he was in school, and showed me the contents – perforated columns in teeny tiny font containing typed-up “best essays” for a wide variety of subjects, to be cut out along the dotted lines, rolled up and snuck into your sleeve for surreptitious usage on exams. I asked how no one would be able to tell if everyone showed up and wrote the same exact essay plagiarized from a “cheat book”…and she responded that probably, students bought different books. I have since been informed by a local friend that in fact, students just get together in advance and decide who is using which essay on this particular exam. Oy.

At the end of PST, our PCVTA trainer gave us a wise piece of final advice before our respective journeys to site. It went something as follows: When it comes to dealing with culture shock, there is a spectrum of behavior that ranges from accepting and even absorbing the cultural norms around you, to rejecting them and holding on to your prior beliefs. He told us that many Peace Corps Volunteers come to Kazakhstan on the former side of the spectrum, but leave closer to the latter. This makes a lot of sense to me. For most volunteers, learning about a new culture is a big draw of the Peace Corps experience; we want to want be open-minded, to adapt and assimilate to our new and exotic surroundings. But as we go along, we often find that some aspects of the culture strike us as not only different, but somehow "wrong." We are forced to look at our own values with new eyes, and decide what is really important in our own identities that we may not want to give up for the sake of “assimilation.” For me, gender norms has been one such issue.

After arriving to Shymkent, I realized this area of the country is a completely different ball game from both Almaty and other cities further north. South Kazakhstan Oblast (SKO) boasts itself as the capital of traditional Kazakh culture, including a greater prevelance of Islam. This undoubtedly has some relation to the pervasive inequality in gender roles that I play witness to here every day. My first host family had two daughters in university and one 5-year-old son. The mother and daughters cooked, cleaned, washed dishes, mopped the floor, did the laundry, took out the garbage, and looked after the little one – even though they also went to work and school during the day. The father was the “head of the household,” and had the final word on all family decisions and money matters (To this moment, I’m not sure what “head of the household” is supposed to mean. Do women not have heads?). Every evening one of the women would ask him how he wanted to take his tea; he would sit and wait while they poured and served (always serving him first), then retire while they cleared the table and washed the dishes. The little boy was doted upon as the “second man of the house,” even when he was screeching and pulling his sister’s hair or hitting them with whatever objects were most handy at the time.

More examples, large and small, followed me even when I left the house. The men who came into my workplace often greeted only the other men present, ignoring the women. And just yesterday my sitemate and I saw a middle-aged man walking down the street hand-in-hand with two young girls – one on each side. Most startling of all was when my director informed me my second day at site that her boyfriend, who had kindly picked us up from the Shymkent train station when we arrived, was actually a married man with three children at home. He was wealthy enough to provide for his family and also for her on the side, and when I asked if his wife knew, the response was: “a little bit.” Two weeks later he showed up after work to pick her up and give me a lift home on the way, only he was dead drunk and our car nearly crashed several times over the course of the 5-minute drive. Though a bit embarrassing, this incident was not deemed as incredibly unusual for a man – going out with the boys and kicking back a few drinks, picking up the mistress and then maybe drunk driving home to the wife (who, meanwhile, is of course doing chores and looking after the kids). Though of course such behavior may not be the norm, it is certainly observed more in men than in women.

My organization did a round table on gender issues, and I was asked to present on the status of women in the U.S. I began what I thought was a relatively basic presentation about statistics in the U.S.: how many women are educated, serve in the army, participate in sports, etc. When I mentioned that nevertheless women still make $0.77 to each $1 that a man earns in the States, one woman stood up and interrupted me. “I don’t understand why women have to make the same amount of money as men,” she disputed. “Then what do they have husbands for?!!” She proceeded to tell the round table that there was already complete gender equality in Kazakhstan, as there is already a female leader in high ministry post within the government – but that even this minister knows that when she comes home to her husband (who is not a minister or anyone “important” at all), she “puts on her slippers and knows her role as his wife. She has to listen to him.” This then ignited a big debate, in which about half of the room definitely thought that the man should clearly be the breadwinner and head of the household. Some of the reasons given were somewhat based on logic though I still do not agree with them (e.g. that women should have children early in life in order for the children to be healthy, and that building up their careers during that time would hinder their ability to be good mothers), and others simply chalked it up to “it is tradition” and “this is our culture.” Almost everyone agreed that most husbands who do chores in the house would be teased and berated by all his friends as feminine and, in general, “ненормально” (not normal). As you can imagine, my eyes widened in shock at many of these statements, and I tried to make as cohesive a response as I possibly could in Russian about why women should also have opportunities to contribute to their society and achieve their life ambitions, how not all women even HAVE husbands in the U.S. (or here for that matter), and how raising a child and spending time with it should not be a job left only up to the woman but should be shared by both parents…etc. These ideas seem pretty self-evident to most Americans, but were received here as novel, unusual or even unwelcome.

Me giving my round table presentation in Russian, on "Gender in the U.S."

I realize these issues are not simple to resolve, and that deeply ingrained generational traditions and cultural norms cannot be dismissed with simple words like “backwards” or even “wrong.” It is difficult to even grapple with the subject of gender norms without making sweeping generalizations and categorical statements of superiority and inferiority. The fact is, we still have plenty of gender inequalities in the States; for example, “Mommy Wars” still rage on about whether it is okay to give up your career for the sake of raising kids, or oppositely whether it’s okay to keep working and not spend as much time with them. The word “cultured” likewise seems ironically out of place to describe our own gender norms, as culture is the very thing that makes them so different here. Still, there is much to be talked about and so many genuine inequalities here in my immediate surroundings…so what to do now?

I decided to start a Women’s Club here in Shymkent with a sitemate, in order to provide a supportive, informative forum of discussion about gender issues. Armed with the WID/GAD (Women in Development/Gender and Development) tools we got at training, we distributed an introductory survey to 60+ young women here and found there was a strong interest in the community. We held our introductorymeeting with great success, and are already planning all the topics we will discuss with our enthusiastic participants: healthy relationships, household roles, body image, sex ed, cultural traditions that affect women, international women’s rights and laws, women in the workplace, being a good mother/sister/daughter, friendship and peer pressure, etc. etc. We even have days planned where we will invite the men in our lives to participant in the club and do role-playing and discussion, as so many gender problems are perpetrated by men but so few women’s organizations actually reach out to them. Perhaps it is lucky that I fell into a place that provides such a huge opportunity for education and dialogue on gender norms; there is truly a need here, and much work to be done.

[Activities I put together for English Club to show common inequalities in gender roles at home and in the workplace]

[Also: check out our Women's Club survey in English and Russian]

During PST, we were told that the most important aspect of cultural adaptation is not knowledge about the culture you are adapting to, but rather knowledge about your own. This seemed surprising to me at first, but now I truly understand why. Tell a fish in a fishbowl to describe his water, and what will he say? “This is my home. I’ve lived here all my life. It is water. What more is there to tell?” Drop the fish in the ocean and ask him to describe his fishbowl, and suddenly he will see his own home from an entirely different perspective. He will be able to tell you what he liked about it and what he didn’t, what was unique about his water, and how it compares to the ocean. I would never have considered myself a feminist in the U.S., and many connotations of the word still make me cringe. But when it comes to gender norms, being in Kazakhstan has opened my eyes to many of the things we take for granted in the States: the opportunities afforded to us in education, in the workplace, and simply in the respect accorded to us by the men in our lives. Being here has sparked a passion in me for these issues, and the desire for a genuine give-and-take dialogue about gender norms with the people I meet here. Through our exchanges, I expect to learn a lot about Kazakhstan and even more about myself. After all, the water is always clearer on the other side. :)

Hello all,

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I have finally sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and moved out of training to my permanent site of Shymkent, and it’s been a crazy period of adjustment since then. It is strange to think that my time here is only just beginning, as my two years of service begins now. Coming to site flipped my life upside down again, as I had to leave behind all the friends and daily activities that I had built up over the past few months and start over.

The days before Swearing In were a whirlwind, filled with last nights at our four-day Counterpart Conference (where our organizational counterparts and PCTs are trained on how to work together over the next two years), upcoming travel logistics, and many hurried goodbyes.

[My counterpart Aigul and I receiving our certificate at the end of Counterpart Conference]

[Me with Kyle at Swearing In. Miss the Issyk gang!]

Shymkent is so different from Issyk, once again showing the diversity of this country. It is more Almaty-esque in the sense that it is such a huge city (3rd or 4th largest in Kazakhstan, depending on whom you ask). It boasts amenities like an outdoor heated pool, restaurant/cafes with wireless internet, a Ramstore (giant Western grocery store), and this place called “Mega” that is basically an exact duplicate of a huge American mall.

[This is Mega. It has an ice skating rink below and those mall-elevators to several levels of high-end stores, including Ramstore.]

While there are plenty of amenities in Shymkent, it is really the cultural differences here that need adjusting to. The vast majority of the city is ethnically Kazakh, and though everyone understands and basically speaks Russian, for many it is clearly a second language and they prefer to operate in their native tongue. This is not necessarily a bad thing for me, as I would love to come out of here with excellent Russian and intermediate Kazakh to boot…which would have been very difficult if I were up in a city further north. However, it is somewhat of a problem at work, where I am trying to absorb information about my organization but a lot of the everyday dialogue happens in Kazakh. My language karma from training coming back to me I guess – now it’s my turn not to understand what’s going on! :P I am starting tutoring though this week finally (with my counterpart, because of course the Kazakh tutor that had agreed to meet with me bailed at the last minute), which should help.

In addition, there are a lot of difficult gender roles and norms to deal with here. I have enough to say on this issue though that I think it merits a separate post of its own.

My new organization is very different on paper than it is in reality. Many of the projects that were outlined in their official description are purely theoretical, as they have yet to actually happen. It was unclear for awhile who exactly worked for the organization, as I only met two actual non-student employees (turns out, that’s basically it). We are in the process of trying to get our own office, and for now are squatting in the teacher’s cabinet at the university where my director works part-time. I experienced many of the things that we were warned about in training: being asked to write a grant my second day at work for a deadline that was in a week, having to deal with a very general mission statement, lack of strategic planning of any sort, etc. The up-side of this though is that I feel very needed and utilized, and the OCAP-OD (Organizational Development) tools we were trained on are actually applicable here. I have plans to do sessions with them on grassroots fundraising, grant management, human resources & team building, project design & management, etc. etc. It will also be good because wherever this org ends up two years from now, the progress should be quite visible.

As for secondary projects, Shymkent is bustling with them. There are 5 (yes, five!) other volunteers here besides me, which makes for a lot of areas of cooperation and different activities going on. Many things are already in motion though; two of the Kaz 20’s are organizing a Gender & Leadership conference later this month that we have been asked to help with, and the older volunteers also have 3 English club/movie nights per week. Us new Kaz-21’s need to carve out our own niches. I have contacted a women’s business organization and am meeting with them tomorrow to discuss projects, and am also working on starting up a women’s club (Notice a theme? Wait for the next post:P).

Here are some other random pictures of Shymkent:[My office manager and I at Park KenBaba. Note the lovely swans!]

[Beautiful naan at the bazaar. Bread is omnipresent here!]

[Chai time at my “office.” This happens 2-3 times per day.]

[Me in our potential “Moot Court/Mock Trial” chamber…one of our hypothetical projects!]

[Another typical Kazakhstanian irony…the smokers with the no smoking sign. They recently passed this no-smoking law here that no one abides by.]

[With friends at a great night of gosti-ing! Alex (a cool guy who studied in England), Sipra (Kaz-21), me (Kaz-21), Zach (Kaz-19), and Ira at the bottom (Sipra’s host sister!)]

I'm here safe and sound in Shymkent! Here is my new address for all mail and packages (both English and Russian):

Rebecca Gong

Peace Corps Volunteer

P.O. Box 62

Shymkent 160000

Kazakhstan

Rebecca Gong

Корпус Мира

А/Я 62

Шымкент 160000Казахстан

Keep in touch! More on my new site later - but know that it's 80 degrees here! Crazy! :)

10.26.09

The end of Pre-Service Training (PST) is finally here. After two months in this lovely town, I will be eating the last of my granny’s fresh apple cake and chai, and spending my last night in this cozy plant-filled room with my tank of fish. We move on to Counterpart Conference this week in Almaty (where we get together with all of our local “counterparts” from our respective organizations where we’ll be working for the next two years). On Saturday we will then swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers, and depart either that very same day or the very next to our permanent sites.

I will always think of Issyk with the fondest of memories, because of the amazing people I have met here. My lovely granny (Мама Люба) and her family, Damir (Дамир), his mother Almagul (Алмагуль), Yegor (Егор), Natalia Mihaelovna (Наталия Михаеловна), all the boys and girls and teachers at the gymnasia where we had training, all the organizations that hosted us for practicum these two months…I cannot tell you how amazing these people were, how I felt welcomed into their homes, places of work or school, and hearts. I can only hope to meet such wonderful people at my permanent site. Leaving them is very hard, but I can only be thankful to be so blessed at knowing all of them, and be sure to keep in touch as much as possible.

Here is a picture of me, decked out in my amazingly generous gifts from my local friends – a real sheepskin coat and a pair of hand-knitted socks! Back when I thought I was going to Ust (where it gets to -40 C/F…glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore!!), I told my granny I needed to go to the huge market in Almaty to buy the most hard-core winter coat possible and survive this instant-frostbite weather. She then told this to Damir’s mom Almagul, who promptly offered me up the perfect winter coat: a real dublonka (sheepskin coat) lined in rabbit fur, which goes down to my knees and has a huge hood – exactly what I was going to buy myself at the bazaar! I tried to refuse but she insisted that it was a spare one that had been sitting in her closet, and then she wouldn’t let me give her anything for it either. I nearly cried, I was seriously so touched. Then for my going away present, Natalia Mihaelovna gifted me a pair of socks that she knit herself! They are so thick and warm and colorful, and make me happy :P So here I am in my dress at my going-away lunch (I cooked amazing Chinese food again that everyone liked)…and my wonderful winter trappings. J The generosity of my babush and friends here has just been amazing – I am brainstorming epic ideas of how to repay them (with goodies sent from the U.S. hopefully, once I get my next care package!), but seriously it will be impossible to fully return all the kindness they’ve shown me. I will miss them so much and cannot wait to come back and visit as often as possible.

Here is a picture of the boys we play basketball with at school! In recent weeks, Kyle and I had been going almost every single day after class/work to shoot hoops with these guys. I always say you can tell a lot about a person from the way they play basketball, and somehow I am always right. :D These boys are energetic, happy, active, friendly, silly, sweet, rambunctious, and above all SO much fun. Words cannot express how much I love basketball here, and the feelings of teamwork and friendship that develop are really the true reasons why – I spend half the time playing and half the time laughing as we all fall over every game!

[Maksim, Nikita, me, Didar, and Kyle. Sadly, we are missing a few here in the pic].

Here are a couple pictures of us at the beautiful Lake Issyk, made even more splendid by the delicious picnic, fantastic company, and gorgeous autumn weather. You can read about it in Russian if you like on Damir’s blog. J

Finally, as a tribute, I’d like to end with an old blog post I had written that never made it up – a compilation of pictures of life around Issyk, with captions. For all my friends here, please remember all our happy times together and keep in touch! I will see you at the very latest in March when I am back in the Almaty area. And I even have a Russian facebook account (Мой Мир, or «My World») now where you can find me: beccazsky@mail.ru. :D

09.15.09 – Issyk and Village Life

Hello everyone,

The following post will be largely a compilation of pictures of life around Issyk. I thought a nice string of photos with some captions/explanations would be the best way to really show you how I am living these days.

This is the gymnasia, where we go every day for training. Issyk pretty much only has two sides for us: home-side, and school-side. Besides home and school our main points of interest are the bazaar, the internet café across from the gymnasia, the post office, the larger grocery store, the large outdoor stadium behind our houses, and a few restaurants that may or may not turn into mafia joints at night and that we are therefore avoiding for the timebeing. Our houses are about 30-40 minutes away from the gymnasia by foot. The signs above those doors say “Welcome” in both Kazakh and Russian. Inside there is a squat toilet that we share with the students. There are never any toilet paper, soap, or paper towels. You get used to bringing your own everywhere.

This is a picture from my uphill walk to school. We are always going towards the mountains in the mornings, and they are gorgeous. Most sites in Kazakhstan involve endless amount of steppe, so it is nice to have mountains in the South and East. The roads in Issyk are generally like this; paved, but with lots of rocks and dirt and gravel on the shoulders where we actually walk. Good shoes a must here.

Speaking of steppe, here is a picture looking the other way (north) out of Issyk. You can already see the steppe stretching on out of sight. One of my friends called it the “land ocean,” and that’s when I took this picture – it really is a perfect description. A river running down into an ocean of land in the background.

This is a picture of a huge landmark by our apartments that does not seem to have any particular function. To this day I’m not sure what it used to be – I’ve heard church or bank, but they are just hypotheses. We think there are squatters living there now, and it’s definitely not in use. I put this here to show how entire grandiose buildings can be built here and then left decrepit. And also to show the constant present of animals, which I will expound upon next.

This is a goat on the side of the road on our way home from training. There are always a couple of goats on our walk. We also see the the occasional donkey, cow (or just many cow patties), cats and lots and lots of dogs. The smaller animals frequently end up dead by the side of the road as well: on a particularly bad week I saw one dead cat on the roadside, one decapitated cat run over in the middle of the road, one dead dog on the roadside, and one seemingly dead puppy. Animal life here is not particularly valued, and most are strays that may be fed occasionally but never let into the house.

Here is a picture of the teensy tiny stray kitten we picked up in our schoolyard. You may be able to tell from the bowl how ridiculously small and adorable it is; it pretty much fit in the palm of my hand!! I’ve never been a pet person but kittens are my weak point (I’m allergic to dogs but have also always disliked them :-/ Sorry). And this one is super Asian, check out the eyes!!! :D We ended up finding it a home with a current volunteer, thank goodness – it almost certainly would have died with no food or mother.

Here is a picture of the Issyk bazaar, which is actually quite large and bustling. They sell everything here: rhinestone-encrusted shoes, hair dryers, sweaters, underwear, towels, car parts, DVDs and electronics, shampoo, notebooks, kitchen supplies, “dry” condensed milk in a package, a strange but delicious sweet sunflower-oil-sugar concoction that looks like giant blocks of wet cement, rows of dried fish (god knows from where in this landlocked country), soy sauce (with Chinese packaging and all from next door), large white honey melons (juicier and tastier than any of our honeydew or canteloupes), and even cold Korean noodle salad (though it is ruined by the ubiquitous dill). It is great, and you can still bargain (though prices are not as inflated as they are in China, so you can usually only go down about 20% tops from the initial stated price, if at all). A pair of shoes or a shirt is usually around $10 though, and a bag of sweet caramelized popcorn or a creamy ice cream cake cone (I am obsessed with these) are each about a third of a dollar (40-50 tenge). :D

Ah the small of burning trash in the mornings...

So that is Issyk! You have to get used to some things like the water going off randomly in the evening when you’re in the shower (thank goodness for baby wipes), or waking up to a bathtub full of fresh cucumbers because granny is preparing to make pickles for winter, or being almost attacked by a frenzied dog, or never being able to stand in line to get anything at the bazaar. But honestly, it’s amazing how little these things frazzle me; they seem totally normal, and here we hardly have what I would describe as a life of hardship. There is everything a person might need (admittedly sans the occasional urge for high-speed wireless internet;), and I love it. Sometimes I really wish I could stay here as my permanent site! J

10.25.09

Ironically, the day after finally posting about my site announcement, I have become the first Kaz-21 to have a site change – before even leaving to site! Our Country Director (CD) and Assistant Country Director broke the news to me on Thursday that my organization in Ust-Kamenogorsk had pulled out of receiving a Peace Corps Volunteer at the last minute. It is a complicated and unfortunate story, the precise details of which I am not allowed to fully disclose in a public forum…but suffice to say that it had to do with a former volunteer that had gotten into trouble in the region and damaged PC’s relationship with local authorities, thus effectively precluding a future volunteer from working at this particular site. This all officially transpired after arrangements had already been made for me to go, but kudos to PC for finding me a new site within 24 hours!

I will now be going to Shymkent, to yet another pioneer site that wasn’t on our original list (they seem to keep finding brand new sites to open specifically for my sake, which is crazy but also appreciated:). The only information I have right now is that it is based out of a university and works with conflict resolution and law. I will also be splitting my time at an org that works again in human trafficking (yay), and which is currently occupied by a Kaz-19 who is extending for 6 months but will then be leaving. After that it will be up to me whether I want to make that my primary site, or how I will continue splitting my time.

Though it was clearly a bit shocking to have such a last minute change, I am really excited about this chain of events for a number of reasons. I now have exactly the type of site I originally asked for at site placement:I will be in a very large city (in fact Shymkent is the third largest in Kazakhstan, after Almaty and Astana); it is also on the Tier 2 pay scale and has lots of amenities (including, hopefully, regular internet access!).I will be in the south where I can also pick up some Kazakh in addition to advancing my Russian (ideally I wanted to have Russian in the workplace and be able to find Kazakh at the bazaar or in the community to practice).Similarly, in the south I will have a more authentic “Kazakhstanian” experience, as opposed to the more familiar Russian one you get up north. Shymkent is the “cultural capital” of Kazakhstan with its southern location, and is the jump-off point for Turkestan, the most important Muslim pilgramage site after Mecca.The south is also much warmer (only down to -10C instead of -40 in the north), with inexpensive fresh fruits and vegetables year-round.I will have a lot of sitemates…in fact, one of them is Sipra, one of my best friends at PST and the first Kaz-21 I ever met, back when we were both in NYC! We are going to have so much fun:D.I also get to work on a larger variety of very interesting substantive issues now that I will be spending time with at least two orgs, and the other Kaz-20s in the area also have very interesting workplaces with plenty of areas for collaboration (some of them came down recently to present to us on Women & Gender in Development and HIV/AIDS during PST).It is easier to get to Almaty and my friends and work/PC matters in this area (only a 12-hour night train or bus, instead of 18 hours with connections). Guess things have an odd and roundabout way of working out…but as usual if you want a crazy adventure that tries your flexibility, come join the Peace Corps! Let’s try the map and photo roll again :)

Shymkent! As you can see, it's in the southern-most oblast (region) of Kaz, just a couple hours from Uzbekistan!

10.09.09 (backlogged again, sorry)

At long last, we found out our permanent sites, where we will be spending the next two years! We were all biting our nails at the ceremony, which was painfully placed at the end of a long hub day. All of us gathered in the gymnasia's large auditorium and our names were called out one by one by the Regional Manager who will be in charge of us (there are 5 RMs, each of whom has 2 or 3 oblasts of Kazakhstan under their jurisdiction. An oblast is basically like a province.). On October 31st (yes, Halloween), I will be swearing in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (til now we’ve actually just been lowly Trainees), and the next morning I will board another 18-hour train to my site – Ust-Kamenogorsk!

Ust-Kamenogorsk is there in the top right-hand corner. Click on the map to enlarge.

Fondly called “Ust” for short, the city is also one of the top 10 largest in Kaz, with a population of over 300,000. It is located in the northeast of Kazakhstan as you can see, very near the confluence point of Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and China (it is less than 500km from each of the latter three). Renowned for its natural beauty, Ust is built in between two rivers (the Irtysh and Ulba), and there are many mountains nearby. I have been told by current volunteers there that vegetables are available year round, and that it’s one of the most sports-minded cities in Kaz (people ski, hike, skate, bike, etc.). I am also on a Peace Corps Tier 2 living allowance because of its large size, which is nice.

I will be working at a human trafficking NGO called “Phoenix” – it even has an English-language description on the local Akimat (government office) website of Ust-Kamenogorsk, as well as its own official website in Russian. They work primarily on gender and trafficking issues, providing advocacy, legal and psychological consultations, victim assistance and asylum, and educational programs. It was the lone organization on our aforementioned list that dealt with anything in this sphere of fascinating issues, and I feel very lucky to be going there. It is also a pioneer organization; though there have been many other volunteers in the city of Ust before me, I will be the first one at this particular org, and so will shape their expectations and ideas about having a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Speaking of other volunteers: I have one Kaz-21 EDU sitemate with me who is teaching English at a school in Ust proper, and another Kaz-21 EDU in a town about 3-4 hours east of us. There are also several Kaz-20s that are posted in the area, so we will have plenty of company and opportunities to work together! I am thrilled with my placement, which is good because it will be hard to leave my friends and life here in Issyk. My overall experience in training has been amazing (and will be hard to beat, honestly), but I am stoked for what’s to come.

*All pictures from the official Өскемен website.

09.28.09 – 10.01.09 (majorly backlogged)

This week, us OCAPs (Organizational & Community Assistant Program, for those of you not following at home) got to go on a field trip to a different region in Kazakhstan. While we’re all training in or near Almaty (the largest city in Kazakhstan, though Astana is the capital – think NYC vs. DC), there is so much more to see of this humongous country and we finally got to experience a little of its diversity. While the OCAP program is split into Organizational Development (OD) and Youth Development (YD) groups this year in different training villages, we all got to go together on this little adventure. Our group had some of my favorite people from both villages, which made for an awesome trip to an amazing city right in the middle of the Kazakh steppe – Karaganda.As you can see from this map, Karaganda is close to the center of Kazakhstan, and is the closest major city to the capital, Astana. Karaganda actually ranks in the top 3 or 4 largest cities in Kazakhstan (after Astana, Almaty and maybe Shymkent, depending on whom you ask). It was an industrial coal mining town that also served as home to many gulag labor camp workers under Stalin in the 40’s and 50’s (when you hear of ethnic minorities getting deported to Siberia under the Soviet Union, that very well may have been to Karaganda…it is technically the brink of Siberia). As a result the city, though now pretty, modern and developed, has a distinct blue-collar Soviet flavor with its many monuments to workers and miners.

A remaining Lenin monument. We are pointing towards the future (except John, who apparently likes the present:P).

Elena, me, Bree, Aaron, Sipra, John and Jonny :)

One of the exciting parts of the trip was getting to take an 18-hour train ride (the furthest by far of our 3 fieldtrip groups, as the other 2 went to southern cities closer to Almaty). The Soviet-style trains are quite an experience in and of themselves. You can either ride platzcart (in a giant public car with many beds in a row where everyone sleeps), or the slightly more expensive coupé (a small cabin with four bunks, two on top and two below). There is also a two-bed cabin option that is rarely used by anyone (and basically cost-prohibitive for a PCV;). PC sprung for coupé for us on this trip, and we took up 2 cabins to ourselves. Everyone’s host families packed them tons of food and we all shared, which is customary for these long rides (locals often drink vodka on trains as well, though it’s technically not allowed). The bottom bunks fold down as seats before bedtime, and each person is provided a set of clean sheets and a small towel. There is hot water available from a small mysterious tap, and tea bags for sale for 15 tenge each (1/10th of a dollar). A small bathroom can be found on the ends of each car where the toilet opens straight onto the rails below, and it is quite an experience to go amidst the lurching and bumping (you are obviously not allowed to go when the train is stopped at stations, for good sanitary reasons!). We chatted, ate, drank tea, watched a movie and – my favorite – even had a short Russian lesson on telling time in our coupés. ;) After a nice refreshing 8 hours of sleep (luckily I sleep like a baby on anything that moves…it’s the soothing rocking movements), I was almost sad to leave our cozy train in the morning! Us on the bottom bunks with our fantastic LCF Lena (and her flipchart paper of Russian in the top right corner)

Once we got to Karaganda, we got straight to work doing a community mapping project and getting to know the resources in the city. It pretty much has everything you could ask for, including a big Ramstore like the one in Almaty, copious numbers of internet cafes, and even the odd Chinese restaurant. We also met the awesome PCVs that currently work there, who are all in fact Kaz-19s (which means they are finishing up their two years here and will be closing their service around the time we swear in). The trip may have been worth it just for Katie’s story about dropping her cell phone down an outhouse hole in -40 degree weather and crawling over a mountain of frozen poop to pick it up (you can’t make this stuff up). If I come out with a story as good as that one after these two years here, I’ll consider myself a resounding success.

After a night in our rented apartments in the city center, we headed out the next day for more practicum visits to Karaganda organizations. First we visited an awesome HIV/AIDS organization that one lucky OCAP-OD PCV will be working at as a pioneer volunteer this year (we now know: it’s Hilary! Congrats!). While the org is large and quite developed, it also seems to suffer from organizational drift (taking on too many projects and overstretching their scope of work for the sake of getting relevant grant money). They mostly work on helping people with HIV/AIDS, working with drug abusers (who are the top risk group for HIV/AIDS in Kazakhstan), and working with prisoners (who are often both of the above). They do everything from disseminating nutritional information, to helping released prisoners obtain necessary housing and registration documents, to women’s reproductive health (?), to building a new resource center with funds that are drying out due to the crisis. There is a ton of stuff for a PCV to do there, and a lot of larger-scale organizational development they can help with (funding diversification, strategic planning and streamlining, PR/outreach to the general populace to alleviate the HIV/AIDS stigma, etc.). It is always an interesting balance to see where orgs are in their development stages, and as a PCV it is never a bad thing to see room for improvement – it means you will have plenty of work at site!

The second org we visited was a disabled youth center that a current Kaz-19 works at. It was very large and took up its own building in the southern microregions of the city sprawl. Once again they seemed to offer a million services for both physically and mentally disabled children, including art therapy, massage therapy, physical therapy, free lunches, language education, computer education, pet therapy, and a new pre-professional center that was in the process of construction (a common theme here). This dog weighed substantially more than I do. It is specially trained to put up with any type of accidental abuse by curious children, and serves to improve their tactile coordination (and provide friendly fuzzy company...the likes and precise benefits of which I know not:P).

Our last visit was to the famous Gogol Library and its American Corner, funded by the U.S. Embassy. The American Corner is home to English clubs, various English resources, information about the U.S. and a very friendly coordinator who served us the most extravagant chai I have had yet here (loads of biscuits, sweets, nuts and different flavors of tea). We even got to participate in the weekly English club hosted by another Karaganda PCV, which was an amazing experience. Some of the kids who had come regularly for years had seen many generations of PCVs come and go, and told very moving stories about how their interactions with these Americans had not only improved their English immensely, but also opened their eyes to new opportunities and a globalized life perspective. There was a huge turnout too – everyone was so friendly and welcoming!

So finally, I promised you the story of the Soviet ambulance. Our last night, I ate a wonderful meal at a Georgian restaurant with the rest of our group. We all shared delicious stewed and spiced meats along with hatchapuri (their famous cheese bread, which I discovered and could have lived off of solely in Moscow. See photo below!). The sign says: "I love hachapuri"

Lol - this statement was true until the next morning when I started throwing it all up, and knew that I was having one of my old bouts of unidentified stomach virus. I swear it was not the food (which as I said, everyone ate) or the water, but just something that happens to me every so often, especially when I change environments abruptly. I started vomiting uncontrollably about every 10-20 minutes for 4 hours, during which at some point our PCMO (PC Medical Officer) Dr. Viktor was called. After a brief conversation with him (had to be brief, as I was still vomiting), within minutes he had called up the nearest hospital in Karaganda, spoken to the virologist there, and arranged for me to come in. Though I explained that I knew what my illness was, I’d had it many times before, and I would invariably survive without the hospital trip (just gotta let me puke everything out, eventually eat some very mild foods and pass out), he of course insisted. Dr. Viktor was in the Soviet army and has treated a whole lot of things in his life – he is pretty much the most awesome, efficient, and frankly formidable exemplar of medical personnel that I have ever encountered, and we are all moreover required by contract to do whatever he says. ;) So lo and behold, two Kazakh emergency medics came up to our rented apartment and assisted me into an ambulance, which may not have been immediately identifiable as Soviet but for the fact that it crawled the streets to the hospital at the speedy emergency rate of about 15 miles/hour. Which was fine, because as I said, this wasn’t an emergency (but I still vomited in the ambulance, for good measure). Finally it all passed and I lay for a few hours with a saline IV drip to prevent dehydration, other patients lying with me in a communal room (same as it would be in any hospital back home in Beijing), and in a few hours left to meet my worried friends at the train station – weak and exhausted, but almost as good as new.

If there was anything I took away from the field trip (besides the fact that PC Medical is bad-ass and can solve problems long-distance anywhere in Kazakhstan. Did I mention they foot the entire bill, too?), it was that this country has so much to offer and it should be easy to make local friends and have a variety of productive projects just about anywhere. While the other two field trip groups went to Taldykorgan and Taraz respectively (both southern cities closer to Almaty, with more Kazakh-speakers and dominance of traditional Kazakh culture), we all unanimously loved our trips and felt like we wanted to stay in whichever city we visited!

10.04.09 (backlogged)

Today is the Teacher’s Holiday in Kazakhstan. I think this holiday is one of the things we should import from Kazakhstan to America. Being a teacher is hard work that I appreciate all the more by observing the PC English teacher volunteers in the PC EDU Program who are here in our village – it’s a job that requires a never-ending amount of creativity, patience, attentiveness and dedication. Teachers give us some of the most precious gifts one can receive: not only knowledge, but also curiosity and a thirst for learning. I owe so much to the teachers I’ve had, whether they were world-renowned professors at Harvard or my Seattle Public School teachers (my 3rd grade teacher Ms. Alsdorf taught me most of what I know about writing to this day, after all;) And cursive, to boot!). So I’ll take this opportunity to quickly thank the following teachers for their knowledge, guidance, mentorship and passion. Each of them truly changed my life for the better.

- Ms. Castor-Peck (1st grade, Madrona Elementary)

- Ms. Monroe (2nd grade, Madrona Elementary)

- Ms. Alsdorf (3rd grade, Madrona Elementary)

- Mr. Schilperoort (4th grade, Madrona Elementary)

- Ms. Becerra (6th grade Social Studies, Washington Middle School)

- Mr. Knatt (6th grade Band, WMS. He taught me how to survive not getting an A in a class, a skill I would practice later on in life;)

- Ms. Merrival (7th grade SS, WMS)

- Mr. Pounder (8th grade Math, WMS)

- Mr. Schmitz (8th grade SS, WMS)

- Ms. Nottingham (8th grade Lit, WMS)

- Wendel (English, 10th/11th/12th grades, Beijing No. 55 & Beijing World Youth Academy)

- Richard (Math/Physics, 11th/12th grades, BWYA)

- Wang Lao Shi (Chinese, 11th/12th grades, BWYA)

- Liza & Valeria - My Russian tutors at the Academy for National Economy, Moscow

- All my Russian teachers at Middlebury Language School

- Prof. Natalia Chirkov (Beginning Russian (Conversation), Harvard College)

- Prof. Alfia Alminova – (Intermediate Russian, H)

- Prof. Curt Woolhiser – (Advanced Intermediate Russian, H)

- Prof. Natalia Reed – (Advanced Intermediate Russian (Conversation), H)

- Prof. Dmitry Gorenburg (Russian Politics, H)

- Prof. Terry Martin (Soviet History, H)

- Prof. William Todd III (How & What Russia Learned to Read, H)

- Prof. Matthew Baum (Public Opinion, Mass Media & Foreign Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government)

- Prof. Daniel Gilbert (Introduction to Psychology, H)

- Prof. Stephanie Sandler (Freshman Seminar on Feminism in Poetry and Film, H)

- Prof. Roderick MacFarquhar (Chinese Cultural Revolution, H)

- Patti Lenard (Social Studies Sophomore Tutorial, H)

- Prof. Jay Harris (Moral Reasoning 54: If There is No God, All is Permitted, H)

- Prof. Michael Sandel (Moral Reasoning 22: Justice, H)

So how did I celebrate the holiday here in Kaz? My granny, adorable as usual, gave me pretty pink flowers from her garden to give to all our LCFs. I was then invited to “gosti” (guest, if you haven’t learned by now – it’s not just a noun but also a verb here in Kaz;) at the home of the gymnasia’s music director, Natalia Mihaelovna. Damir and Yegor are very close to her (as her former & current students, respectively), so we went over together. Also in attendance were two other music teachers from the gymnasia, one of whom brought her adorable 4-year-old son. ☺ It was definitely one of the best cross-cultural experiences I have had yet here in Kaz.

We started dinner at 3:30 p.m., which should have been a warning to me – it was an absolute feast! The table was laden with beautiful dishes when we arrived, and I ate my fill of plov (an Uzbek dish that is very common here in Kaz, usually consisting of rice, carrots, meat, onions and spices), “black prince” salad (dark tomatoes and onions in vinagrette), Greek salad with delicious, salty, melt-in-your-mouth feta, eggplant salad, and little open-faced sandwiches topped with salted fish, cilantro, and dill. She even put out home-made spicy sauce especially for me (after coming to our house to gosti and trying my own Chinese dishes after the ballet, they knew I love spice!:). We also had two kinds of exquisite champagne, plus cherry-apple and orange juices. Kazakhstanian juice is amazing by the way – it is always fresh and tastes just like the actual fruit, without being too sweet like most American juices. After we finished our first several plates and glasses, the table was cleared and I breathed a sigh of contentment -- only to find that five minutes later, new courses were being brought out! Succulent roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and a fantastic “pie” filled with meat and onions – declining was obviously not an option! We finished off the meal (which really was more like 3 meals) with the obligatory tea, chocolates, and a ripe watermelon. I could barely move!

The full dinner table, that we sat around for 6+ hours!

Obligatory adorable baby shot. How he knows how to wink at age 4 is beyond me! ;)

Food is a means of getting to know each other here in Kazakhstan. You sit around the same table, break bread, make toasts and “общаться” (a common word here that means something like to associate/mix/establish relations). We represented all sorts of nationalities and cultures between us – German, Russian, Kazakh, Chinese, American. Natalia Mihaelovna gave a moving toast to having an American at her table for the first time, which she said she never would have imagined while growing up under the Cold War. They asked me many questions: what I thought of President Obama, Gov. Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson and other Hollywood celebrities, my work and travel experiences, the American welfare system, Borat, and what people in the U.S. think about Kazakhstan. They all thought it was quite right that Borat was banned by President Nazarbayev here in Kaz. I explained that the movie was not at all about Kazakhstan but actually was an attempted social commentary on the U.S. and American people, though it was of course upsetting that he borrowed a real country’s identity for the farce. We talked about life under the Soviet Union, Kazakh nationalism, diversity and national identity, and of course about their collective passion – the arts and music. They each sang a few songs for me (Damir and Yegor accompanying on the piano), and I did my best rendition of the American National Anthem. ;) We also sight-read some a cappella church music together, as both Natalia Mihaelovna and Yegor are part of the church quartet (that I mentioned in a post below – take a look at the new video!). They sing every Sunday, rain or shine, even on all the holidays and the new year – but their tenor recently left to Germany to study abroad and it is going to be hard for them to find someone to replace him. They then suggested that they could get a female tenor (Alto II), and after testing my range on the piano and were thrilled to discover that I could cover 2.5 octaves and hit down to a low C (comfortable tenor range, up to mezzo-soprano)…until I told them I would only be here in Issyk for another month! ☹ ☹ If only I could stay here, I would most certainly have been happily recruited to sing at Sunday mass.

The first thing we covered when we got to PC Staging that very first day in D.C. were the 3 goals of Peace Corps, and I should mention them here.

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

As you can see, the first goal, of course, represents the work we do here in our various programs – in our case, working in NGO development or as English teachers. But you’ll notice that the other 2/3rds of PC goals are to facilitate inter-cultural understanding both ways between the U.S. and the countries we serve in. Thus to Peace Corps, sitting around a table celebrating a holiday with local country nationals (or writing about your cultural experiences on a blog that people back home will read:) are just as crucial a part of your service as sitting in an office writing business development or capacity building plans for our organizations. So please do ask questions/leave comments if you have any, and thank you so much to everyone who follows this blog – I really appreciate it. ☺

10.06.09 Sorry in advance that my posts are backlogged, outdated and in the wrong order; I rarely got enough access to internet (just wireless about once a week when I could get to Almaty) to post blog or photos, but now the waiting is over: we got internet at home!!! My babushka is so high-tech, I know – yesterday I taught her how to capitalize letters with the Shift key, and she sent an e-mail to her daughter in Germany. J Somehow we are able to share a good old Megaline ethernet box with Damir’s family, and the wire runs from their apartment the next entryway over, up the roof, over the balcony and into my window…lol! It is pretty fast and amazing…I gaped at my screen in awe for a good 10 minutes when we installed it, not knowing what to do first. Now I’ve caught up on news (what’s happened in the world for the last month and a half?!), uploaded an album of photos to FB, answered almost all my e-mails, researched public opinion survey tactics for one of my practicum organizations, video Skyped with a good friend, re-entered the amazing world of gchat, and scouted out fellow PCTrainee’s blogs and linked them all here. J This last bit is great because I feel like I will never be able to convey nearly enough about our life here, and the others have great insights, explanations, and cultural notes that I encourage you all to read if you have some spare time on your hands. :D Scroll down and take a look – they’re in the right-hand toolbar!

The time has just flown by here. We find out our permanent sites this Friday, which is incredibly exciting. A couple weeks ago in the middle of PST (Pre-Service Training) they give us a mid-training interview about how we are doing in language, technical training, practicum, host family, general happiness, and our own preferences for site placement (that they may or may not take into account:P). Site placement is a complicated thing that involves matching up our diverse group of volunteers, each with his/her own skills, experience, personality and interests, to the various organizations that need us. We can express general preferences (north or south, rural or urban, site-mates or no site-mates), and new to this year we actually got a list of orgs (without locations) that we were allowed to rank. There are 11 of us OCAP-ODs (Organizational & Community Assistant Program – Organizational Development), and 13 organizations on our list, which means not every org on there will be getting a volunteer. The list mostly consisted of 3-4 orgs each that work in the fields of HIV/AIDS, disabilities, or ecology. Then there were 2 business-related NGOs and just one that works on women/children rights and trafficking. We were a bit surprised at the list because it was not as substantively diverse as some of us hoped, but since most of the skills we will be giving to these orgs are general capacity building anyway, we should be fine working on organizational development regardless of the org’s topic area.

It is sometimes tough to keep in mind with all of this site placement hoopla, but really, we are Peace Corps volunteers and we need to go where our skills are most needed. This depends not only on our substantive experiences but also our practical skills and personality traits – in Kaz just like in the U.S., accomplishing work is often based on interpersonal relationships. Some sites may be pioneer sites hosting a PCV for the first time, while others may have had 10 generations of volunteers before us and already have projects (and expectations) to build off of. While it’s hard not to think constantly about placement, I’ve realized that: 1) I do not envy the task of our Regional Managers and trainers in having to make those decisions, 2) I trust they will put us where our skills can be best utilized, and 3) I know I have in myself everything it takes to have a successful experience, wherever I end up. Especially after our field trip up to the central/northern regions last week, I’ve seen that Kazakhstan is a gigantic country with a lot of different landscapes and cultural experiences to offer, any of which I am sure I could be happy in and learn a lot from. At the same time though, it will be so sad to leave Issyk life here and all the people and things I’ve already grown attached to (especially my wonderful babushka who I just don’t think can be beat in terms of host families! Also my local friends here, the ethnic diversity of this town, its proximity to Almaty and my non-PC friends there, the warm weather and fresh produce, etc. etc. the list goes on). And let’s not forget my 63 fellow PCTrainees…it will be hard going to different sites and being up to 40+ hours away by train from each other! My one big hope is that I do have sitemates, wherever I am placed.

As for my reflections/feedback on PST so far: I have to say that I am very impressed with everything overall. From what I understand, a lot of improvements have been made this year, possibly thanks to the arrival of both a new Training Officer and Country Director. As always, our language teachers (LCFs) are truly wonderful and basically serve as everyone’s “life helpers” for these few months. Of course, I personally have less daily interaction with them since I self-study every day for Russian, but they are still great resources and I’m amazed at how patient they are and how much time they make for volunteers’ every needs, from fixing doors to helping us mail letters to resolving host family issues to hosting movie nights!:). We have a wide variety of activities in technical training, including practicums at local NGOs (stay tuned for a post in itself about that). Also, for the first time this year they have put people from the EDU and OCAP programs together in the same village, which has given us invaluable insight on the work of our fellow volunteers who will be teaching English, and which is a good foundation to cross-pollenate projects and learn from each other (especially many of us NGO workers will still likely have English clubs as secondary projects here, or be asked to teach English to our organization as one of our duties). And once again for the first time in our PST we have actual PCVs as our trainers (Kaz-19s who are finishing up their service now), whose perspectives from their own two years of service here have been invaluable - I frankly cannot imagine not having had them before this year! Thank you Peace Corps for taking into account past volunteer feedback and making these great changes to our training this year.

I still have to write yet another post updating about my eventful field trip to Karaganda (including my first Soviet-style ambulance ride. Oh the suspense...), but before that here is a quick photo roll of some highlights before then. Sorry this is long – there is so much to tell, especially when I no longer have to just give up on keeping you all updated due to lack of internet!

Cooking night at Dasha & Katya’s (two more of our LCFs) – we made real tacos with taco shells from the Almaty RamStore (big grocery with lots of expensive imported things;) and taco spices from Shannon’s mother in a care package (thank goodness for parents who send care packages! We are all grateful:P)! Delish.

Cooking night at Erlan’s house – we made a simple tomato pasta and hung out with Erlan, one of our LCFs (Language/Cultural Facilitators, aka Russian/Kazakh teachers). He is the coolest guy ever, and just got a new job as Administrative Assistant at PCHQ in Almaty! Yay for two more years with Erlan helping us out =)

Kazakh class – Erlan and Amantai are our teachers, and they keep us busy with classroom shenanigans. We even had a dance-off once, which I will try to find the video for and upload (it's with another PCT). Here we are putting on a skit about animals…lol.

Almaty – We went for a night of karaoke on the town! Self-explanatory :D

Almaty – ballet. Damir and Yegor took my granny and I to the ballet as promised. Damir’s mom and Natalia Mihaelovna, the music director at the gymnasia, also came. It was the last performance of the theater’s prima ballerina (who was retiring and moving to London), so the house was totally packed. We only got tickets b/c Damir studies at the ballet academy and has several friends who were in the show (thank you, Damir!). It was gorgeous, as you can see…Don Quixote! Afterwards everyone came over to our place to have some of the real Chinese (and vegetarian!) meal I made -- spicy black bean eggplant, homestyle eggs & tomato w/ green onions, and stir-fried potatoes/peppers/onions. I love a home-cooked Chinese meal and it is always a surefire way to make fast friends :P…thank you mom for teaching me well.

Me this past weekend with Amanda, who was my classmate at Middlebury Language School for Russian. She spent two years working in Almaty as a journalist reporting on oil, and is here for the week to report on an oil conference. I love how I have so many friends with some connection to Kaz! As you can see, I am busy, spending quality time on both work (but that’s less picture-friendly;) and friends, and loving life as usual. It will be hard leaving our lovely world of Pre-Service Training, but soon enough we will have to attend to that little matter of actually starting our service! Wish me luck. J

(backlogged from 09.18.09)Every so often here, we will get to experience one of those “Peace Corps Moments” that people talk about – moments when you can’t believe you’re in this far away place, sharing an experience with these people…everything just clicks and there is no other place you’d rather be. Today was one of those days. We took a Hub Day fieldtrip to Turgen Waterfall (about 40 min. out of Issyk) with our entire group of 65 Kaz-21 volunteers (we are the 21st generation of PCVs in Kazakhstan, thus “Kaz-21”). While this might not have been a ginormous waterfall by U.S. standards (hardly as large as the “Great Falls” by my aunt’s house in Maryland), it felt like our waterfall. ;) We all hiked up, surrounded by green mountains, picnicked at the base of the fall, took lots of pictures and had much-needed bonding time. At some point, two friends and I hiked up to the top of the fall. The boys led our way over the river, through some nooks and crannies, and down some slippery rocky slopes – to the very edge of the waterfall precipice. There, we sat in a tiny nook, surrounded by shrubbery, and peered off the edge of the cliff. The clear mountain water shot right past us and seemed happy to fall with the force of gravity, straight off its bed of land, into air and nothingness. That right there is freedom, and it was gorgeous. We just took it in for awhile, and there it was – our Peace Corps Moment. : ) Once again, I can’t really do it justice – but if I can get this video up, perhaps it will give you an inkling.

So some of you have asked me what I would like in a care package (I love you, friends!:). Honestly, there are not too many things I need that I can't get here or that I didn't already bring with my type-A packing, so I've neglected putting up a list until now. However, it seems to be a very American tradition that is prevalent in Peace Corps to request and receive packages, and so as not to be left out, I've succumbed! Rest assured that anything you send will directly benefit the mental and emotional health of the volunteers here, as we always share and people gather around every package as if it were Christmas. :P

Larger things I need (if you send any of these, please let me know and I will cross them off the list):

Earmuffs, a scarf and warm gloves (preferably dark colors). It's freezing already and I came un-accessorized (bad idea) thinking stuff here would be of better quality since they're used to the cold. It's not.A normal black belt (size 2); my pants for some reason are fitting even more poorly than before (combination of no dryer for clothes + walking 3 miles a day)Mac OSX Snow Leopard update CD (came out RIGHT after I left! Sad)Seasons 2-4 of "How I Met Your Mother" (yes J, best show ever;)A makeup pencil sharpener (this is not big but I only need one:P)Things I am happy to receive at any time ;)Nice American ink pens (black & blue mostly, red, green, etc. if mixed pack), non-ballpoint. My fave is the Sanford Uniball ONYX Micro, and I've gone through 3 already here in just a month!StationeryMany packs of pocket tissues :PFlower and plant/herb seeds from the U.S. (my host granny is a big gardener and she would be thrilled).Some nice, neutral color of lip gloss (mine are quickly running out) – darker pinks, corals, brownish-pinks are greatA fun color of nail polishNon-dangly earringsTylenol Cold (non-drowsy)Non-yucky cough drops (honey lemon or any of the nicer, non-Halls flavors)Hand sanitizerLots of gum (mint, spearmint). The gum here is weird and not chewy. :(Spiced chai or cinnamon tea bagsTabasco/jalapeno sauce or any Chinese cooking sauce (black bean, hoisin, sriracha, etc.)Asian snacks (wasabi peas, pineapple cakes, salty/spicy snack mix, mochi, etc.)American snacks (dark chocolate almonds, snack mix, sour cream & onion Pringles, etc.)Some small-sized games (Taboo, UNO, pocket-whatever, sudoku)Any other good TV shows in the States (no Family Guy please:P)Mixed CD of the latest hits in the U.S.The Economist, TIME, or some other current events magazineAnd for everyone out there keeping in touch and supporting all of us (soon-to-be)PCVs...thank you!!

I’ve spent the last two weekends in Almaty, which is about a 40-minute drive from Issyk (longer by public bus or with traffic). It is an incredibly cosmopolitan city that is pretty much beyond our current large village/small town budget. I am lucky enough though to have a few friends there already from school, which is amazing as I get some exposure to the “real world” outside of the Peace Corps bubble that we’ve constructed for ourselves. Kunai is an old friend from uni; probably one of the first people I ever met at Harvard. He was born and raised in Almaty and (lucky for me!) is back here working for the Eurasian Development Bank after a stint in NYC after graduation. Emma is another Harvard friend who just graduated in ’09 and is here with the Princeton in Asia program teaching at one of the best universities in Kazakhstan with her roommate and “fellow Fellow” Alex from Georgetown. They are all awesome and I had a huge blast hanging out in the big city!

Us at the amaaaazing Korean restaurant across from Almaty’s Central Stadium. It’s called “Schilla,” which brings back great memories of the Square ;) Food was spicy and delicious. On Sunday Kunai invited us all over to his granny’s house for a giant Kazakh feast. Two of my very lucky Peace Corps friends also got to come along :P Not-so-surprisingly, Kunai comes from a long and distinguished line of academics: his great-grandfather was none other than the famous Kazakh-Soviet scholar Satpaev (whose name is still on a street in almost every city in Kazakhstan, not to mention the university named after him)! There was a picture of Kunai’s dad with President Nazarbayev on the living room mantel. As for his granny, she is not only THE MOST ADORABLE person in the whole world (well, maybe tied with my own host granny;) but also an amazing cook! She made beshbarmak, the traditional Kazakh national dish with flat noodles, onions and horse meat. The plate was so large that even with ten of us at the table, we hardly seemed to make a dent in it! Horse here is quite expensive and is the preferred meat (but also a bit of a delicacy); it is supposed to be clean and good for your digestion. I was worried before I actually tasted it – but turns out, it’s delicious! Like a tender version of beef, and you can avoid the fat easily.Beshbarmak!! (Note Kuanysh's adorable granny:P)We also had the traditional tomato & cucumber salad (usually with mayo and dill), varied delicious stuffed pastries called “samsas” (yes like samosas), a huge array of fresh organic fruit juices, nuts and dried fruits, homemade apple cake, and possibly the best peaches I’ve ever tasted in my life. It will be hard to go back to American genetically engineered food after all the fresh garden-grown stuff I’ve had here! The tomatoes, peaches, grapes and everything else are just 100 times tastier. Then again I will fully admit that I’ve supremely lucked out with my culinary options, and that some of my other fellow PCTs are having a harder time with their host families’ cooking (mostly due to oiliness or blandness). No complaints here though! Almaty was lovely – thanks again to Kunai, Alex and Emma for showing all of us a great time. J

09.06.09

Sorry for not updating regularly; I’ve realized that although everything already feels pretty routine, a lot of things have actually happened that may be of interest to my far-away readers. J I have had the pleasure of really immersing myself in Issyk community life and witnessing a few great cultural events that I will tell you about now.

Constitution Day

August 29th was Kazakhstan’s Constitution Day holiday, so on Sunday we all went to the parade at the Cultural Center in Issyk. There was a big parade with many of the town’s cultural, professional and social organizations (medical student association, worker unions, many different cultural/national/religious groups, military groups, etc.). There were also a variety of performances on the outdoor stage, including traditional Kazakh singing, dombra playing, a Ukrainian choir, and a wide variety of dances (including the following one with girls and the balls…that seems to be a common dance theme between Estonia, China and Kazakhstan:P). We toured the Cultural Center too, where there was a display about the Kazakh "Golden Man," a soldier covered in gold plated armor that is perhaps Kazakhstan’s most famous archaeological discovery, and which was actually found in Issyk. It was a really fun celebration that is better told in pictures than in words, so here you go:

The parade!

Peace Corps volunteers on Constitution Day

First Bell Holiday

The next celebration was September 1st, Kazakhstan’s "First Bell Holiday": in other words, the first day of school. Before I say more, I should interject an explanation about my two local friends here in Issyk. My babushka used to be a biology professor and one of her students is now a mom who lives in our building the next entrance over. She and her son, Damir, come over regularly to "gosti." He is 22 and currently at a university/conservatory in Almaty studying ballet! Through him I also met Yegor, a student at the "gymnasia" that we have training at every day. There are many schools in Issyk, but the gymnasia is a private high school with a special music program, so there are much fewer students there than in the other schools in the area (and the education is likely of higher quality). Yegor is the same age as my sister (seven years younger than me), but it’s amazing how mature he both looks and acts. They’re both really great guys and we spent a couple of nights trading pictures, stories and recordings/videos of our own school performances when they came to gosti with my granny. :) They are both very artsy and talented and they have promised to take me to the ballet in Almaty later this month. I love having local friends who know everything!

Yegor, me, Damir

So back to the First Bell Holiday. There are 11 of us OCAP Organizational Development (OD) people in the gymnasia, and 4 teachers who are also affiliated with the gymnasia to actually sit in on their classes and do teaching during the course of Pre-Service Training. We were all told that we would get to go to this ceremony and introduce ourselves briefly on stage. We filed in to the auditorium and I looked around for Yegor, being that he is the only student in the whole school that I actually know. It wasn’t hard to find him – turns out he was emceeing the entire ceremony! I later joked with my babushka that of course the one person I knew was the most important person there. ;)

The ceremony was adorable. There were student songs and skits heavily featuring the 11th graders, who are the highest grade in the school. A dance troupe of female students performed several traditional Kazakh dances. Many speeches were given: by the school director, various teachers, alums of the school who were present, and even a couple of old war veterans who were given prime front seating when they entered (not sure what their relation was, but perhaps their grandsons/daughters were students there). Certificates of excellence were passed out for the honor roll students of the last school year. The most adorable part was definitely the performance by the 11th graders and the 1st grade class, in which the oldest class gives advice to the youngest and gives them presents (little school supply kits with markers), after both parties recite various poems of wisdom about school and learning. The little girls each had a bow (sometimes two!) the size of their heads. It was too cute to be true. Then finally, a little girl was lifted up onto someone’s shoulders and rang the first bell, signifying the start of the school year.

First graders! Adorable.

Traditional Kazakh national dance

Russian Orthodox Church

The next Sunday (Sept. 5th) I woke up early on my only day off (we have class on Saturdays too here) to go see Yegor perform at the weekly Russian Orthodox church service. The service is very amazing from a cultural (if not religious) perspective, and you may recall that I went the Sunday before as well with my granny. There are two a cappella choirs, which for an a cappella lover like me is wonderful. The "Lower Choir" is 4-5 girls on the floor of the church, and the "Upper Choir" is a quartet (bass, tenor, alto and soprano) on the balcony, out of sight. They take turns singing throughout the service, which lasts about two hours (from 8 – 10 a.m.). Yegor is the bass in the Upper Choir, and they are truly amazing. The tenor and soprano are a mother and son, and the alto is his music director at the gymnasia. I got to sit on the secret balcony and watch them rehearse and sing. Will try to post a video when I can (it’s hard here)!

The church is under construction at the moment but it is relatively small. There are many artistic renditions of Christ, Mary, the 12 Disciples, and various Biblical stories on the walls and ceiling. The priest looks relatively young, and throughout the service there is a combination of chanting, prayer and singing. At some point the crowd forms two rows and he walks down the middle dripping holy water on everyone’s heads from a large golden cross. The vast majority of attendees are women in long skirts and scarves tied around their heads (it is inappropriate for women to leave their heads uncovered in the church). I have been agnostic for most of my life now, but the service was a surprisingly refreshing and peaceful experience. There was no didactic use of scripture or verbal life instruction, which I remember being the cornerstone of American churches I attended when I was little. The lack of sermons is probably key, as it feels more universal to use music and personal peace and introspection as a channel to spirituality. The language barrier is probably even existent for locals here, as most of the music and the few words that are said by the priest are in Old Church Slavonic (about as close to modern Russian as old English is to us).

08.29.09

Today, I climbed a mountain. No, that’s not an analogy – I literally climbed a mountain. After class a few of us went with Shannon and her Kazakh host family to the "mountains" that start rolling up straight from our town/village Issyk, to the backdrop of other more lofty and scraggly snow-capped heights further on to the south. We started in her back yard and climbed for about 1.5 hours to get to the top of the closest summit, in what must have been the most wild wilderness journey this city-girl has ever been on.

As we first started out with Shannon’s host father in the lead, there was a small dirt path carved up the mountain that seemed relatively traversable. We left the acrid smells of car exhaust and burning trash behind in civilization, and breathed in the fresh, cool mountain air. Soon enough the narrow dirt path itself disappeared, and we had to fight our way through completely untrodden masses of varied and often barbarious plants. We passed endless patches of stinging nettle (ouch), stiff plant stems covered in thorns (double ouch), hardy and multicolored wildflowers with long stalks, shrubs with branches poking us every which way, and the odd round bristly bulb or two that looked like a mix between plum and porcupine. Our leader used a large stick as well as his shoes to try to crush a way through the overgrowth, but there were many stings, pokes and thorns along the way for us all the same. At some point, the slant was so steep that it felt like we were crawling up the mountain on hand and knee; it must have been a 70-80 degree incline! The soil was soft and dark but would crumble and slip beneath our feet, and we were on our toes during many parts of the climb.Very steep climb!

This mountain, though clearly a good few had climbed it, nevertheless offered one of the most untouched hikes I have ever been on. I can’t remember fighting my way through like that with nary a stone or dirt path to be seen, on any other hike I’ve ever been on. Needless to say it was an unbelievable experience and felt appropriately analogous to the beginning of our time in the Peace Corps. We struggle and sweat and acclimate in something new and foreign, but love it the whole time because the challenge and the process itself is what makes everything so worth it in the end.

Hilary, Trenton, me and Shannon on top of the mountain!

When we reached the summit at long last, we had a view of the whole town and all the surrounding mountains. It all looked like it could have been out of a movie, and we all felt strong, exuberant and excited at having made our way up. I can’t do the view or the feeling justice with a description, but you can see for yourself! :) [edit: video takes too long to upload guys, sorry! Will have to wait until I get to Almaty this Saturday and get unlimited wireless that I don't have to pay for by the minute or megabyte...:-/]

On our way down through the brambles again, it started to rain. Everything was fresh, wet and alive as we traversed through a whole natural ecosystem of plants and insects. We stopped to pick the freshly washed wild berries (Shannon’s host mother knew by sight every type that was good to eat, and every type that should be avoided), and finally ended in an apple orchard at the foot of the mountain. There we picked ourselves some famous, tart Almaty apples and reveled in our perfect hike. :) It was exactly what I needed – great exercise for body and soul.

Hi everyone,

I have made it safely to Kazakhstan; sorry for the delay in updating, but I didn’t have internet until now. So much has happened in the last few days that it feels like weeks, but has not passed slowly or unpleasantly at all. Here’s a recap of my first few days on this journey:

Tuesday: I went to “Staging” in Washington D.C. and met 66 other fellow “Kaz-21” volunteers (we’re the 21st generation of PCVs to come to Kazakhstan). Everyone was really nice, but there were so many people that even by now I haven’t met everyone, and it was tough keeping all the names straight to boot. We filled out a bunch of forms and began our Staging sessions, which is basically where the D.C.-based Kazakhstan country desk officer and other staging officers fill us in on some basic logistical details, conduct introductory health/safety training, give us our passports/plane tickets, and let us reflect on our fears, aspirations, and commitment to service.

Wednesday/Thursday: We checked out of our hotel in Georgetown and boarded a bus to Dulles with 132 giant bags of luggage. ;) The poor Lufthansa people checked us all in very leniently (a note for future volunteers: the 50 lb rule is not exactly strict and someone even checked in 3 bags without having to pay an overcharge, but honestly you will be towing it around so much afterwards to training and to site that it’s not worth it to bring more than 100 lbs. I just mention it so you don’t stress about an extra pound or two in one suitcase like I did!). We then boarded a looong 8-hour flight followed by an uneventful layover in Frankfurt – which by the way is the worst airport in the world, and made us go through not one but TWO more rounds of security – followed by another long 8-hour flight that I for one slept through almost completely.

At the airport in Almaty!

Friday, Kazakh Time: We finally arrived in Almaty at 1 a.m. local time, exhausted and frumpy but having all changed into “business casual plus” attire to be greeted by our Country Director (CD) and several very formally-dressed current PCVs (Kaz-19’s). They welcomed us to the country, helped us handle all our luggage, and boarded us on buses to our initial training site. We were put in a “sanitorium” (a resort-type hotel which was in no way fancy by American standards but was not quite an insane asylum like it sounds like….not quite:P) and made to go to bed for a scant few hours before a 7:30 wake-up call the next morning.  Right off the plane, exhausted but excited, with our first Kazakh snacks: Corny Big! :P

The day was packed. We had our first showers in rusty (but hot!) brown water (that gets clearer when you run the pipe for 10+ minutes), and our first Kazakh breakfast of rice porridge and boiled egg…all of which were really not a big deal to me as they are the same as things I would have at home in China. The local staff gave an amazing welcome performance that included beautiful live dombra music (a traditional Kazakh guitar-like instrument), and a vivacious Kazakh male dancer who wore a sparkly brown “hawk” outfit to depict the traditional Kazakh falconry hunting. Candy was thrown at us in welcome (so our stay would be sweet!), and we got our first taste of the famous Almaty apples (which were tart and quite delicious). We then had a ton of sessions on health, safety, cultural issues, etc. and also had medical interviews and immunizations. For the first time this year, volunteers were all able to buy Nokia cell phones for ~$40-60 at the sanitorium so we could get all set up and trade numbers before splitting up into our regional PST villages, which was very convenient! At night we hung out with some current PCVs (Kaz-20’s) who had come into Almaty for the weekend, and heard their advice and experiences. They were very nice and all seemed to enjoy their sites and their work.

Finally freshened up and eating our first Kazakh breakfast: rice porridge, bread, tea (in bowls) and sausage.

Kazakh "eagle dancer" in our welcome Kazakhstanian show :)Saturday: We finished up at the sanitorium, packed our bags again and headed off for the much-anticipated training villages and our first host families. One group we dropped off was greeted with big signs saying “Welcome!” and “We love you!,” as well as more candy tossing. All the volunteers looked doe-eyed and overwhelmed but very touched, while the host families looked excited, hospitable and adorable. I was assigned along with the other Organizational Development (OD) volunteers to Issyk, a small town roughly 45 minutes north of Almaty that will also serve as the “hub site” for all the volunteers to meet in the coming weeks. Besides the 10 of us ODs, we also have 16 EDUs (teachers), which is the first time the two groups have been mixed. This is awesome because we are not only at the biggest and most developed site (with two internet cafes!), but also didn’t have to be separated from a lot of the friends we have made who are teachers. 

More about my own host family and accommodations in the next post!