At this point I’ve got to write something. Not to write at this point would be tantamount to treachery - a treachery to myself above all others. Things are changing, with the severity of goodbyes and the finality of lasts. And they’re happening fast. Two years ago I came to Kazakhstan with 66 other people. Most of us were [...]
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There’s a meditativeness to riding the train at night. The whole things sways and breathes and churns, the noise of track whooshing out from behind you, like the whooshing breaths of the people who sleep curled into berths. You sway and breathe and woosh with it. When you arrive, you bump past the other people, but you don’t mumble apologies. [...]
It’s an old story right? Our hero’s superpower turns out to be his fatal flaw- because of his powers, he can’t be with the woman he loves without placing her in chaos and danger. Or how about the man with super strength who has a heart of gold and a love for kittens and alas (!) [...]
As you may or may not know, I have had three do in Kazakhstan. First there was Oliver, later Shoshka and after I lost them I got the dog I own now, Ioo. Oh, and the two puppies that are currently curled up in my lap asleep. My neighbor kids have apparently decided that since [...]
As you may or may not know, I have had three do in Kazakhstan. First there was Oliver, later Shoshka and after I lost them I got the dog I own now, Ioo. Oh, and the two puppies that are currently curled up in my lap asleep. My neighbor kids have apparently decided that since [...]
Just like in English, the Kazakh language differentiates between hair and fur. Except, in the Kazakh language people have fur too. Any hair on your body besides that which resides on your head is known as ‘June.’ or fur, in Kazakh. Dear Kazakh Men Whom Try Seduce Me (and/or any other American girl), First [...]
Today as I was leaving my school the pre-school kids were also leaving en masse. I let them overwhelm me, and when I reached the school yard there were only a few stragglers, the rest headed home on their stumpy, plump little legs toward a snack as fast as possible. “Hello!” one little boy [...]
First, if you don’t know much about the elections or election criticism in Kazakhstan, I highly recommend you google it, or in brief, read this article and this summary. My puppy is paper trained, but due to where I live currently, I do not let her go outside alone. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, we [...]
I met Tokjan not quite two years ago in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s capital. Every last one of the volunteers harbored some sort of misapprehension, because we were about to meet the teachers we would work with for the next two years of our lives. Little did I know that I would know bastards and queens before [...]
When you travel literally across the world as a Peace Corps volunteer, it’s my opinion that you’ve got to have two key expectations: 1) Peace Corps will change me, I want to be changed. and 2) I will change the world, however minuscule, for the better. It’s the Spring of my second year, and about 98% [...]
I spend way too much time with my neighbors. So much time in fact, I’ve begun to become familiar with every member of their family (if you learn anything about Kazakh families, learn this: they are HUGE). This past month, my ‘Kazakh-father”s ethnic-Kazakh mother and father came up to Zhanatas from Uzbekistan. Many Kazakh people actually live [...]
Today, the 8th of March, is International Women’s Day. While this holiday was initially intuited by the Soviet Union in 1911, it’s now celebrated the world over. Initially intended to encourage and celebrate the working women, the 8th of March is celebrated all over the world as a civil awareness and anti-sexism day. In Kazakhstan this mean all males [...]
Almost every day I waltz up a few flights of stairs to my neighbor’s apartment. I’m there a lot- they invite me over, we drink tea, eat Besbarmak or watch Turkish soap operas dubbed in Kazakh. For my part I bring strange new foods, ideas and topics to tea. I figure it’s a fair trade. They’re [...]
Because I feel like something should be posted about visiting India (but also in the interest of keeping guilty parties names out of things) I’ve decided to simply say the following: India was fabulous. On every level.
If you read my blogs, you’re probably aware of the fate of both ‘American’ animals. After loosing two to the maw of this culture I decided it just wasn’t in me to do it again. Falling in love with a little guy only to see it hurt because of you- that’s rough. Really rough. And [...]
The next few months promise a whirl-wind of activities which begin next week. Let me give you the run-down: February 9-19th- India. March 22- Local favorite holiday, Nauyrez. March 24th-26th- Uzbekistan April 25th-May 14th- Almaty for new PCV trainings and Counter-part conference May 25th- Last bell (School’s out!) Beyond- moving to a new city! After a stifling and [...]
There are so many names to call your loved ones. My love is common in any language. My cabbage- that’s French. In Spanish I hear my lion is popular. In Italian little mouse. In Kazakhstan people have more names for loved ones then I’d ever imagined in a language. You can make a game of [...]
I promise to get to the hoarding, I promise, but I need you to go on a little trip with me. I am a constant contradiction. I am a bird’s nest underground. I am a long, delicate finger on a foot. Or maybe I’m a stubby, ugly toe on a hand. That’s all too vague, isn’t [...]
This is hard one to respond to, so rather then respond issue by issue, I’d like to just talk if that’s okay. I think you’re really right about something I know you wish you weren’t right about. People do just want lies. Most people can’t even see reality, let alone process and accept it. Some [...]
Some of my students still think that winter is a month. Don’t ask me how they think that, considering the Russian words for the months are cognates. But if winter is in fact a month, I’m totally screwed, because it is the longest, worst month ever (just like this post- brace yourself). Things in Zhanatas [...]
In my wordpress draft’s bank there’s a literal cue of ideas I could write about. Thing is, blogging about my life isn’t very interesting for me- I just lived it. But after last night and my poor dog throwing up puddles of blood and scaring me to death, I decided it was time to look [...]
My first package in awhile came to Zhanatas this week. It was from my grandma, full of little Christmas trinkets, but most importantly of all, it had the necessary ingredients to make my grandma’s specialty Peanut Butter Balls (my favorite of the Christmas cookies we make every year). I wouldn’t say that our family is the most [...]
Parade! Boisterous noises wahmbam their way to you. They’re fighting one another, jostling, sparring, tumbling over one another to press down into the black stillness of your ears. Yellow! Blue! Red! Orange! Bursts of colors carried on flags and in the thin plastic of balloons and in hair ribbons and in banners clamor for your attention. Look here! Look at me! [...]
The babies on the buses don’t cry. The roads are bad- terrible even- the bump, thump, rattle jostling heads and knees and elbows into collisions with windows and neighbors. The pale brown earth stretches on and on and every direction, the road two thin lines pressed persistently into the dust. On the radio some boy-man takes the pop solo, [...]
I want to start this post off by clarifying something. My blog, this place, is somewhere I go when I feel moved to write. And not just any kind of writing, but the sort of writing that requires an audience that is something I need to express. I don’t write here about my daily life [...]
Am I the only one who hates Facebook? I turn 25 in a week, and as a friend of mine promised, I appear to be having a mid-twenties crisis of identity and self-worth. I hate Facebook for the parallels that I draw between people and myself. Some people I graduated from High School with have [...]
PHASES OF INCECTISIDE As far as killing bugs go there have been three distinct phases of my life. One: childhood and/or (depending on my age at the time) childlike fear. You know, the sort with hopping about accompanied by yours truly’s dulcet squealing. Two: the higher road. I am an adult with two hands, capable [...]
DIPPER FULL So I don’t quite live in a village and I don’t quite live in a city. In case you’ve missed it, I won the lottery (yes, that’s both sarcasm and truth) with Zhanatac. If you’ve ever wondered what the world will look like post-apocalypse you only need to come on down to our [...]
INVISIBLE SHEEN I keep wanting to write about the loneliness, and I keep finding I don’t have the words to explain it without slipping into cliché. It’s true what they say, the stuff just hits you in waves and sweeps you off your feet. One minute you’re standing, both feet firmly on the ground. You’re [...]
May 2010 I’m on the precipice of something new. Something exciting. Next month, assuming everything goes according to plan, I will be living in a one-room apartment across town. It’ll cost me about 6000 tenge a month. The walls are whitewashed, and the cupboards are empty. There’s a rug hanging on the wall. Next month, [...]
There’ll never be another you, and I know it. And even though we both know this is the right thing, I want you to know I don’t bare you any ill will. I mean it. Regardless of what you said, I know you feel the same. I understand your position as clearly as I understand [...]
I’ve got spare time, so why not try a little creative writing right? Fiction no less! Feel free to critique.
The first time something extraordinary happens to you it’s just that: extra-ordinary. The second time it may well still be extraordinary, the third, less so. But the fourth and fifth and sixth times change it. [...]
Dedicated to my dear deceased parakeet, who never hesitated to tell you exactly what he thought of you, and who my father has put on ice until further notice.
The Tweety-Four Freeze
Comin’ at you, that’s right, comin’ right at you from no-man’s land. It’s me: the Q-U-IN, the C and the Y- straight to you [...]
Self Indulgent Nonsense
(Hopefully, you’ve got the good sense to heed the implied warning and bail out now)
There’s something to choice. There’s a lot of things, actually. But there’s this one thing I find myself sitting here, fumbling to name, scrambling to tap out onto my laptop. It’s three in the morning and still, no success.
I [...]
So, I admit that it’s uniquely American of me, but thus far I’ve tried really hard to maintain my ‘American’ attitudes. And I’m going to preface this, right off the bat: what you’re about to read my make me see like an ass hole. Maybe I am. The bottom line, however, is that it’s honest. [...]
Introspection. Terrible word.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I joined the Peace Corps. Like any major life-changing decision should be, there were selfish and altruistic reasons for the choice.
There were all the typical reasons:
1) I believe one person can make a difference.
For me, this ideal is complicated. Yes, I believe one person [...]
Before I get all gung-ho on a new topic, I want to clarify my last blog entry. PEOPLE. The kid reached my elbow. No, I didn’t meet a Russian little person and trip over him in love. Noooo. I met a seven-year-old. He was awesome. Sorry mom, no go on that one.
I’ll admit to it. [...]
So it’s been a rough vacation. Rough vacation, you ask? Yes, that’s what I said. Vacation sucked. If you don’t believe it, next time you’re transplanted on the other side of the world, you’re fumbling with local language, and don’t have any other Americans around, we’ll talk. Until then, you’ll have to trust me. I [...]
So this morning was alright. That is until I left the house. I hate the sort of blogs that ramble on about a while day- but I promise you, this has got a point.
The world Christmas morning wasn’t white. It was brown. And grey. And covered in an inch of ice.
Having of course fallen down [...]
More days then not it’s easy to be here. I wake up every morning excited to go to work and see miy kids (who all bounce up and down out of their seats to answer my questions (yes, even the dreaded teenagers bounce)).
I love the people that I work with. I have a phenomenal Kazakh [...]
I’m worrying about the future. Again. I know it might seem crazy that I’m worrying about my future after Peace Corps even though I’m not quite 1/4th of the way through. (Let’s be honest though, 1/4 is a significant fraction. I have tons of goals for my stay here and I’m only just getting started).
So [...]
So, here’s my new life, as succinctly as I can squish it.
I live in south-central Kazahkstan. You may think that means it’s warm here, but I assure you it’s not. Then again, at this moment there isn’t any snow, it’s only been airbound. There’s a ton of mud however. I’m not sure if it’s encouraging [...]
I trudged on through the mud, hands stuffed in my pockets.
Tuesday 8/25/2009 10:10 PM
I would like to go on record saying that I don’t know exactly why I’m here. What makes one person turn right, when the other turns left? Why do we value and want different things; moreover those things that we want- what makes us want them?
There are many times in my life [...]
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Every day is, for that matter.
The grout between the tiles is partially blackened, but the water is warm. It smells faintly of iron, and without thinking of it, I open my mouth. Hopefully drinking this water won’t make me sick. It [...]
Friday, August 21, 2009
If you’re about to join the Peace Corps, or you’ve been issued your invitation, I have a little bit of wisdom for you.
You’re going to be over stimulated, overwraught and less than rested. When you spend two days on a plane, and then you get to the bus, and then you get [...]
This probably won’t be very articulate. But it will be very honest.
So, I just got this message from Jenny. It read: “We drove by John R and Hamlin again to go get Lauren’s car and there was a rainbow in the sky. I’m pretty sure it was there just for you. (=”
How did possibly get so [...]
I hate meeting new people. That’s a crazy thought, perhaps, to those of you who know me- but I promise that the first time we met my stomach was twisted in knots. I worry about what people think of me.
To some extent I’ve grown out of it. There was a time when I was consumed [...]
Originally Posted 7/29/2009, re-posted for consolidation of blogs.
No, I have not packed. No, I have not bought everything I need. No, I don’t want to have a goodbye party ruined by my overly-dramatic sobs. Heck, I’m not even sure that I’ll say goodbye to everyone. I now know why eloping is such a popular [...]
Originally posted 01/06/2009, re-posted for blog consolidation.
There’s this scene in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” I think most females of my generation and younger remember the little reprise with surprising accuracy. It’s when Belle tosses out a handful of seeds, brushes through a quickly scuttling crowd of chickens, and sings:
“I want adventure in [...]
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