Sign on the way into the city.Sheep heads and plastic containers in the back of a truck.We arrived in Mongolia onSaturday, November 19th. The bus from Ulan Ude, Russia toUlaanbaatar, Mongolia runs everyday and takes about 12 hours. Iteven waits for you to cross the land borders between Russia andMongolia, which are no joke. Once at the border we first had to exitRussia, which meant taking all of our stuff off the bus, getting itx-rayed, letting the drug or bomb sniffing dogs smell our luggage andthen let the customs agent stamp our visas. Then we loaded up thebus again, traveled about a half a mile, and did the same thing onthe Mongolian side. The whole process took about 2 hours for ourentire bus. Not bad, just a little intense.

Statue of Chinggis Khan in the main square in Ulaanbaatar

Once inside Mongolia, the bus ride wasamazing. Spectacular view after spectacular view. The road was alittle sketchy at times, but our bus driver did a great jobnavigating the icy road. We were able to sit back and enjoy theviews. We arrived in Ulaanbaatar at night. Once we got oriented, wewere able to find our hostel. We got a good night's sleep and wereready to take on the city in the morning.

On Sunday, at the hostel we met somePeace Corps Mongolia folks. One of them took us to a good breakfastspot and we ate pancakes and omelets and discussed all things PeaceCorps and Mongolia. She gave us some good tips and we wereappreciative for her time and for American style breakfast! We had arelaxing day, saw the big central square in the city, did someshopping for supplies and took a few photos. We also booked anexcursion through our hostel that would start on Wednesday.

The artist from China and us posing for a photo.

Monday and Tuesday we enjoyed thecity, viewing museums and souvenir shops. We ate at some goodrestaurants and were surprised at the availability of vegetarianfood. We went to the Zanabazaar Art Museum to view Mongolian art. There were some nice historical pieces that pleased Dad and otherinteresting works depicting Mongolian life. In one room, there wasthe opening exhibition of some works by a Chinese artist. Hehappened to be there because it was the opening day and so we wereable to get autographed programs and our picture taken with him. Ourcelebrity tour continues!

KhakhorinOur first ger camp.

As much as we enjoyed our time in thecity, getting out into the countryside was what we really wanted todo. Our excursion left on Wednesday to Kharkhorin, the ancientcapital during the time of Chinggis Khan. There are no ruins now,but they built a monastery on the location and supposedly they usedsome stones from the ancient city. Our Land Rover (complete withdriver and English speaking guide) left the city for a 7 hour driveout to Kharkhorin. Once there, we toured around the monastery andthen settled into our ger (Mongolian yurt) at a ger camp for thenight. It was our first ger stay and it was cool. They heated itwith wood and so we were nice and toasty. Bathroom trips in thenight were met with a sky full of stars because there's no lightpollution out in the middle of nowhere.

Reading in the ger.

Our jeep and a spectacular view.

View of Kharkhorin village. Monastery ruins.

Riding a motorcycle in -4F without face protection. Yikes!The second day we were on the goagain, saw a Buddhist religious ceremony and more spectacular viewsof the countryside. We also saw a monastery which was built on thegrounds where a previous monastery stood, but had been destroyedduring the time of Stalin. We arrived at our new ger for the nightwhere we stayed with a local family. There were seven of us so itwas a bit tight, but we made it work. The next morning their sontook us out for a camel ride which was really cool. At the end ofthe ride, the camels started to trot a bit and I thought I might falloff. Luckily for me, I was able to hang on!

Dad and me on our camels. I had the feisty one!After the morning camel ride, we drovea few hours to our next destination. It was another family ger, butthis time it was an extended family with four gers together. Mostnomads don't usually live in groups, but they are expecting a badwinter, so they decided to band together. We were greeted with hotmilk tea and some homemade fried dough. There we rode horses and“helped” the family herd some sheep. We had our own ger thatnight which was heated with animal dung. It burns cleanly and therewas plenty of it, as they had many sheep, goats, horses, and cows. We missed the morning slaughter as our guide and driver bought asheep from the family.

That morning we drove back to thecity. Before getting to the city, we stopped at a national parkwhere the last breed of wild horses lives. They were wiped out inthe sixties, but luckily some of them had been taken to zoos yearsbefore, where they had been bred in captivity and were re-introducedto the wild in the 90's. We were able to see some of these beautifulcreatures and snapped many photos. They are doing well in the parkand there are now about 200 or so.

As close as we could get to the horses.

We're back in the city now and leavefor China tonight. I got my Chinese visa yesterday which we had beenwaiting for all week. Sad to leave beautiful, serene Mongolia, but it's getting cold here and it's time to move on. I'm afraid this blog post doesn't quite capture how impressed we were with Mongolia and what a neat place it is, but hopefully you can see that from the pictures. Not sure what the internet situation in Chinais like, so this might be our last update for a while.

When we last left you, we were headedto Ulan Ude from Chita. We had a quick overnight train ride andarrived in Ulan Ude in the morning. Had difficulty locating ourhostel due to lack of instructions and signs, so we ended up stayingin a different hostel. Once situated, we set out to tour the city. The first stop was the square where there is reportedly the world'slargest Lenin head statue. Being somewhat skeptical, we had to checkit out. The head did not disappoint!

Lenin's noggin in Ulan UdeLog church at the open air museum

After that we got our bearings in thecity, found a pizza place, checked some internet and made a plan forthe next few days. The next day we headed to the open air museum,and although it was -4 Fahrenheit, we still enjoyed our day outside. The museum featured a bunch of different dwellings from Russia'sunique indigenous people from various points of time. The park mustbe great in the summer, but we found it just as enjoyable in thesnow.

We decided to walk a ways back to the stadium and anotherdatsan before catching a van back to the city center. Once in thecity center, we dined at the “Irish Pub”. There we made another friend, Dima, who wanted to practice his English with us. He wasvery curious about America and he asked us many questions in Englishand Russian. He suggested that we spend the next day going to thearea's Buddhist datsan about 30 minutes from the city. Buddhist datsan outside of Ulan Ude. We went to the datsan the next day. We got in the van and took it to the end of the line as we were told. Then this man in the van asked if we were going to the datsan. Ireplied that yes we were, and he said in Russian, “follow me”. Normally, I wouldn't follow strange men, but he seemed to know whathe was doing, so we got in another taxi and proceeded to the datsan. He asked questions, told me my Russian was “not bad” and we foundout he was another railroad colleague of dad's. He got out beforeus, but told us where to get out of the taxi. We've met a lot ofhelpful people on our trip, and things would have been more difficultwithout them!

We toured around the datsan, which waspretty. The area around it, the countryside was also very beautiful. We came back and returned to our old pizza haunt, and then packedfor another night train to Irkutsk, which is our last stop on theTrans-Siberian. We arrived in Irkutsk quite early in the morningafter another short train ride. We booked a hostel online and took acab there. It was a little difficult to find (they're not big onsigns here). Once inside, the woman explained that they were doingrepairs and we couldn't stay there. She said we could stay atanother guesthouse, but the owner only spoke Russian. She called thewoman to say we'd be coming and gave us a map with directions. Wewalked over to the guesthouse, but when we knocked on the door thewoman inside replied that she wasn't taking in any guests. Frustrated and cold, we went to look for a hotel lobby to sit in andplan what to do. We found a hotel quickly and just decided to staythere for a few nights. It was a little more expensive than we wereused to, but the convenience was worth it!

Once showered and rested,we set out to see the city. Irkutsk was really beautiful with a lotof old architecture and many beautiful churches. There was yetanother Lenin statue to view as we got ourselves oriented to ourlatest city. Went to the regional museum and learned about locallife. We had delicious dinner of local fish from Lake Baikal calledthe omyl.

One of many Victorian era buildings in Irkutsk.

Lake Baikal after the sun came out.The sun hitting snowy Lake Baikal. The next day we headed to finallyglimpse Lake Baikal, the largest fresh water lake in the world. Theday was gray, cold and windy, but our spirits could not be dampened. The lake was one of the places we had the highest expectations for. After our one hour van ride, we finally spotted the lake. We were inthe town of Listvyanka which can be very touristy in the summer, butnow there was almost no one around. We walked along the lake, dippedour hands in the water and found a few rocks and pieces of sea (lake)glass as mementos. We then walked to the museum dedicated to thelake, where we learned some facts about the lake, saw wildlifespecimens and viewed the aquarium. At the aquarium we were able tosee the famed nerpa seals that are found only at Lake Baikal. Theyhad a sad, smallish tank, but we were mesmerized at howtorpedo-shaped they were and what graceful swimmers they were. Assad as it was, I was glad for the chance to see them. After themuseum, we had lunch at a small hole in the wall overlooking thelake. We had some smoked omyl and some Russian peroshki which arefilled vegetable or meat pies. There wasn't much else to do in thetown, so we decided to catch the next van back to the city. Hadanother great dinner of local fish prepared in “Baikal style”,with egg, sauce, carrots and spices. It was delicious!

Classy white fish "Baikal style"

We awoke the next morning for ourlast day in Irkutsk. We spent the morning at the city historymuseum. Many great photos and artifacts from different time periodsin Irkutsk's history. Afterward we did some souvenir shopping andhad our last true Russian blini (crepe-like pancakes). We saw theopen air market, bought some fruit and then made some preparationsfor our upcoming train/bus ride to Mongolia.

Another view of Baikal from the train. Us on the train to Ulan Ude with Baikal in the background.The next morning we woke up early andheaded to the train station to catch our last Russian train. Wedecided to take a day train back to Ulan Ude so that we could see thelake from the train window. The train route hugs the lake for about250 kilometers, providing a really picturesque ride. Arrived in UlanUde at night, spent the night at our same hostel and woke up earlyfor our 12 hour bus ride to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The bus ride wasbetter than expected and offered some amazing views of the Mongolianlandscape. Will update you on our Mongolian adventures soon!

The city of Khabarovsk. After Vladivostok, we took an overnighttrain to Khabarovsk. We were both surprised at what abeautiful city it was. We especially enjoyed the boardwalk on theriver Amur. There was one snag though, when we arrived in the morning to Khabarovsk, we had noaccommodations. I had looked for hotel rooms beforehand, buteverything was booked. I figured we could find an apartment to rentfor a few nights without a problem, but the woman at the apartmentdesk didn't think she could rent to us because we were foreigners.She was nice enough to call a hotel for us and got us a place tostay. Thinking it wasn't too far, we decided to walk. It endedup being over a mile of walking with our really heavy backpacks. View of the River Amur in Khabarovsk.

We arrived at our new resting place sweaty and tired. After resting and showering, we took a walk around the city. Therewas the River Amur, and some beautiful churches and old buildings. We found the Harley Davidson bar, and while we were snapping somephotos in front of it, we heard a lot of commotion. A group ofCommunists marched by, with signs for the return of communism. Itwas interesting to see such an open display of opposition to thecurrent government.

The next day we walked around thecity some more, saw the bazaar, and went to the regional museum. Themuseum was a pleasant surprise with many old photos of life in thearea, a sizeable collection of WWII artifacts, and numerous sectionsdisplaying different periods of the region's history. There were geologicalpieces, flora and fauna and even a woolly mammoth tusk that was foundin the 1950s.

The next morning we got up early andcaught a taxi ride to the train station. Initially, we wanted to goto a city called Birobidzhan, but time did not allow. Birobidzhan isthe main city in the Jewish Autonomous region in Russia. During theStalin era, this region was designated for all of the Jews in Russiato move to. Nowadays, the population is about 11% Jewish and thetrain station sign is in Hebrew and Russian. Unfortunately, the busschedule to this town and our train schedule didn't match up, so wedidn't get to go there. We did change trains there, but didn't haveenough time to snap a photo of the sign.

Our train from Khabarovsk to Chitabegan one of the most memorable parts of our trip thus far. We wentkupe this round, so we had two beds in a four bed compartment. Wehad only one bunkmate who was an Uzbek national, who spoke verylittle Russian. He had a friend who was in another compartment whowas also Uzbek, but spoke good Russian. His name was Sasha and hebecame our best friend for the next 42 hours to Chita. Sasha actedas a roving ambassador on the train and we never knew what collection ofpassengers Sasha was going to bring to our compartment next to openand finish a bottle of vodka. He passed the day drinking and tellingothers that there were Americans on the train. In the middle of thenight, we were joined by Fyodor, dad's railroad colleague and ourtraveling guide. He drives passenger trains here in Russia and heand Dad had much to talk about with me acting as translator. He wason his way to Lake Baikal to enjoy some fishing with an Army buddy.Our train companions were mostly male, and in this part of the world,men talk with other men so Dad was a celebrity and I was much indemand only to serve as his translator. It seemed as though every 5minutes someone was asking me to tell my father this, or to translatesomething for Dean.

Dad, Sasha. Roma. Fyodor and Mischa in our party kupe. Several hours before our departurefrom the train, we had a party of 8 people in our 4 personcompartment, and a few others out in the hallway. The party was infull swing, and even though we were not drinking, there was plenty ofvodka and beer being passed around. Our new friends knew that wewould depart the train in Chita at 3 AM. They insisted on stayingawake to see us off. They carried our bags out of the train, therewere hugs and handshakes, and a few photos were taken as well. Theywere worried that we would be bored on the rest of our trip withoutthem, and we worried that they might be right! Marchabara (our Uzbek compartment-mate), Fyodor, Sasha and Dad. One of our train friends,Mischa, said good-bye to us at about midnight because he was tiredand wanted to go to bed. An hour later, he was back in the hallwaywith a beer, ready to see us off. In a calmer moment, we exchangedautographed money from each of our countries. He has a dollar withour signatures and we have a 50 ruble note with his and Fyodor'ssignatures. A nice memory of our run in with celebrity status on theTrans-Siberian.

Once in Chita, we spent a dayorienting ourselves to the city. We got a late start, due to our 3AM arrival that morning. Chita is not an overly beautiful city, butit has some architectural gems, a grand orthodox church and even aSubway sandwich shop! The next day we wantedto see some Buddhist complexes, called Datsyns, with temples, a monk'straining school and other buildings of the local Buryat people. Wehad to take a 2 hour van ride out to a village called Aginskoe. Theterrain out to the village offered some spectacular views ofmountains lined with birch and pine trees and many grass coveredvalleys. Our celebrity status as Americanscontinued on the van ride to Aginskoe. Two more Russian railroadcolleagues of Dad's were in the seats behind us. It was about 9 AM,which was not too early for them to be drinking beer. Once again, myrole was relegated to translator for my father. Frequent shoulder tapswere followed by requests to translate questions or anecdotes for myfather. At one point I took the liberty of answering a questionwithout translating to my dad, and was quickly told that the questionwas not for me, but for my father. Aginskoe Datsan

In Aginskoe, we found a taxidriver to take us to the datsan, who would wait there while we pokedaround. It was really beautiful and unlike other architecture in thearea. We saw a few Buddhist monks and heard the prayer bells. Onceback in the village proper, we went to the village museum, and weregiven a personal tour of the upstairs. We learned about the Buryatpeople, and saw pictures from 1991 when the Dalai Lama came to visitthe village. Caught the van back to the city, and found a niceGeorgian restaurant and ate some tasty eggplant dish for dinner. Gate to one of the Datsans.\The log church in Chita built in 1771. It also houses the Decemberist Museum. Spent our last day in Chita at thebazaar, art museum, log church, and the Decemberist museum. We leaveon the train tonight to Ulan Ude, where we plan to take in moresights on our way to Lake Baikal. That's all for now, and I'll try to keep you posted of my travelsas translator for Dean's celebrity tour of Eastern Russia.

Our seven weeks of travel has begun. I met my dad at the Moscow airport on November 1st. He was nervous that somehow we wouldn't find each other in the massive airport, but we managed to meet up at the gate to our flight to Vladivostok. Not long after we met up, it was time to board our 9 hour flight from Moscow to Vladivostok, in the eastern most part of Russia. We arrived at about noon on Wednesday. There was a long cab ride from the airport to the city, including a traffic jam, which our taxi driver navigated with ease. He safely deposited us at our hotel. Our hotel was a weird structure that has been built into the side of a cliff. All you can see from street level is the doorway inside. Each room has a balcony overlooking the Amursky Gulf.

The view from our hotel room. Construction site and then the gulf.

We spent most of our time touring the streets, looking at statues and architecture. We also admired all of the improvements they are making for a summit of world leaders to take place in September of 2012. Yesterday, we took a tour of Fort Number 7. It was one of 16 underground forts the Russians built from the late 1800's to the 1920's. This particular fort housed about 400 soldiers and allowed them to patrol the nearby waterways from the coast. Our guide, Gregor, was a character in every sense of the word. He gave us lanterns to light our way through the dark and damp tunnels in the fort. He pronounced America and Russia to be friends and we left there with a new buddy.

The view of the bay from Fort Number 7

Dad and our guide Gregor at the entrance to the fort.

Inside the one of the fort's many underground passageways.Dad at Nicholai's arch.Today, we walked around some more. Saw the World War II monument, took the funicular up a hill to get some nice city views and ate some really terrible pizza. It started to rain a bit, so we headed to the hotel to get some wi-fi and plan other legs of our trip. We leave on the train tonight to Khabarovsk and will send another update the next time we get internet.

Wall listing names of soldiers who died in WWII from the Vladivostok area.

View of the city.

Dear Readers,

I said goodbye to Petropavlovsk on Tuesday, the 25th. The emotional toll of saying goodbye to friends, fellow volunteers, and my students was heavy. It was raining when I left, and a friend told me that Mother Nature was crying about my departure as well. Following my last 31 hour train ride, in Kazakhstan at least, I arrived in Almaty. I'm now going through the Peace Corps' Close of Service process (paperwork, giving stool samples, etc.). It's crazy to think that my service is coming to an end. There were times that it went by really slowly, but these past two months have flown by.

After a few days here, doing paperwork and visiting friends and my old host family, I'll board a plane bound for Russia on November 1st. My dad and I will meet in Moscow at the airport, then fly immediately to Vladivostok to begin our trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, on through to Mongolia, and then further south into China. Following seven weeks of travel, we'll land in Boston on December 21st. I'm overjoyed to go back to the U.S.; the land of bagels, Mexican food, English speakers, and free speech, where I haven't been for more than two years. However, the thought of leaving here and not knowing when, if ever, I will return has been sad to think about.

I've moved several times in my adult life, but most of those places are easy enough to get back to. The possibility always remained that I would go back and visit friends and favorite haunts. I have both of those things here in Petropavlovsk, but the likelihood of coming back and the logistics make leaving here seem very permanent and final.

My students and colleagues at the orphanage kept asking when I would go back to America. I told them that I would leave them on October 25th. They told me I should come back, but if I don't they'll write me and maybe one day visit me in America. I hope that comes true. Of all the things I will miss in Kazakhstan, it is the people that I will miss most.

I have been really busy these last few months, and have been bad about updating this blog. As I got used to life here, it was harder to find topics to write about. Also, blogs are blocked here and it was difficult to gain access sometimes. Excuses aside, I hope you have enjoyed reading my posts, and maybe I will include some updates from our trip. Thanks for reading and hope to see you stateside soon!

I'll leave you with a list of things I will miss and things I'm looking forward to.

Things I will miss:

- the craziness of public transportation

- speaking Russian all of the time

- local friends and Peace Corps Volunteers

- being a celebrity, just because I'm American

- Russian food/Uighur food

Things I'm looking forward to:

- being able to drive myself places

- speaking English

- family and friends

- blending in

- real vegetarian food!

Here it is, the blog post you've been waiting for! Yes, it's that time of year again. Time to shed all fears about the cold, having wet hair outside, catching pneumonia and dive in to the frozen Ishim River. Yes folks, I'm talking about Kreshenya. Loyal readers (all 3 of you) may remember a post from last January about some crazy volunteers and local folks who jumped in the river in -30 degree weather. Around these parts, that day is known as Kreshenya. It's a religious holiday for those in the Russian Orthodox faith and is supposed to act as a "re-baptism". Believers do it once a year on January 19th. The water is believed to be holy on this day and folks who don't take the plunge take some water to keep in their homes for the year. They use it to calm crying babies, ward away sickness, etc. The frozen Ishim River on Kreshenya. A lot of local people who are not of this faith also participate in the festivities because people do believe that dipping in the river keeps you healthy for one year. In past years, volunteers have invited other volunteers from around Kazakhstan to participate in the fun. I did the same, and found 8 brave souls willing to make the trek up to Petropavlovsk. They helped out at my orphanage and did teacher trainings so that their time up here would also be work related. My students really enjoyed having them around and I'll post soon about that. Waling single file on our short detour to the river.



We gathered at around 11 AM to get the bus out to the river. Some miscommunication with the conductor meant we got out about 2 stops to early. No worries, we just added another 10-15 minutes to our journey in some pretty cold weather. On the bright-side, my friends got to see a little more of my city. We got a few stares from the locals. It's not everyday that a giant group of Americans comes traipsing through your neighborhood. 

Waiting my turn to get some water. We arrived at the river, and I was surprised to see a large number of people there. Last year is was probably -35C or more. This year it was closer to -27C/-16F, and so more people came to participate. My counterpart from the orphanage had to work and couldn't make it to the river. She asked me to bring her some water, which was our first order of business. 

Getting the water with bare hands.

Makes you think twice about jumping in!

My Russian tutor Lena, and me.

Once we had the water it was time to do the dip. About 10 of us were dipping so we decided to go in shifts. We needed to be quick bcause we knew once people had dipped they would want to get out of there quicly and go to the banya (kind of like a sauna). I kind of handn't decided if I would really do this, so I was able to procrastinate a little more when I scored a spot in the second shift. 



I prepared myself for the worst, and thought I would feel like dying when I got out of the water, so I was pleasantly surprised that this experience wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. My fingers and toes were not happy with me, but other than that, it wasn't that bad. I was glad I participated, as this was my last opportunity to do so. It was nice to share this experience with some equally crazy volunteers. So, enjoy these frozen photos and leave some comments. If this post doesn't generate some comments, I don't know what will!This guy makes it look easy.

Waiting my turn...Testing the waters...

Are we having fun yet?

Afterward, my feet wouldn't work. I needed help to put my flip flops on!

After the dip, some really cold volunteers got on the marshrutka and headed straight for the sauna! The look on Hannah's face (on the right) says it all! 

Two updates in one week! What is going on? Well, there have been a lot of changes here in the past month and the upcoming months will yield a few more. Thought I should keep you guys updated. So after my family left in September, I attended a conference with my training mates at the Peace Corps office in Almaty. We got to bring one person from our workplace and learned some new information to apply at our sites. As always, it was good for the 9 of us to get together and here about the good work that everyone is doing. It was also helpful for my work situation and I seem to have more freedom this year.

After the training, I went back to site ready to start work on some real projects. I started this school year more confident in my Russian skills and with a greater understanding of what I wanted to accomplish in my time at the orphanage. I got a few clubs up and running and want to start a volunteer group, but have had a few road blocks in my way. My project will hopefully be successful, but is kind of on hold until December.



October brought a lot of changes. Two of my site mates, Niall and Katie, had finished their two years in Petropavlovsk as Peace Corps Volunteers and have left the city. Niall left early in October as he had some job prospects in the U.S. Katie left at the end of October and she and I will travel together to Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey. It is really hard to imagine Petro without them, but time will tell. I moved into Katie's apartment and left my host family that I have lived with for one year. That was really hard on all of us, but it was time to live on my own. Those Americans and their love for independence...

While I'm on vaction with Katie, the new group of volunteers will come up to their sites on November 7th. In my city, we will get one new volunteer and two more volunteers in surrounding villages. It will be nice to have some new faces in our neck of the woods. It's hard to believe that one year ago, I came up to Petropavlovsk for the first time as a newly sworn-in Peace Corps Volunteer.

It's been a crazy year, but one I wouldn't trade for anything. It was a dream of mine for a long time to join the Peace Corps and while it hasn't been easy, I have no regrets. This has probably been the most challenging thing I've ever done. It's difficult to describe what makes it so challenging, maybe it's the language barrier, the new surroundings, different culture, 24/7 work environment, who knows? Regardless of the challenges, it's still a lot of fun: meeting new people, having crazy experiences, working with kids, exploring cultural differences and similarities, among other things.

So, I have one year left. There is a lot I want to accomplish in that time so that I can leave here next November feeling like I made good use of my time. Then I can return home to all of you and share my crazy stories in person!

9/16/2010

Johnsons in Kazakhstan! Most of you have read Sarah's blog about my family's trip to Kazakhstan. If not, I'll direct you there to read all about our trip: http://sarahjb.posterous.com/ I've decided not to rehash it here, since she did such a great job of describing everything.

We had a busy two weeks as we traveled from Almaty to Shymkent to Astana to Petropavlovsk. It was great to see my family and words cannot express what it meant to see them after all this time. I'm lucky they traveled here to see me, and I know the 24 hour train trip, squat toilets, and stiff beds were not their idea of a relaxing vacation. They were good sports and they left with a greater understanding of my life here and met some great people on the way. So enjoy some photo highlights of our trip and I'll post an update soon. In the meantime, if you happen to run into my parents I hear they have a 200+ photo album of their journey. They may even ask you to look at it, so beware! Make your excuses early, unless you have a few hours to spare...

Mom in wearing some traditional dress in Almaty.Turkestan Mausoleum

The "sardine can", otherwise known as our train to Astana.

Baiterek Monument in Astana. It has become a national symbol for Kazakhstan. You can take an elevator up it and look out over Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). Some modern buildings in Astana. The city has been greatly built up since being named the new capital in 1997.

My apartment building in Petropavlovsk

My counterpart and some of our students on the first day of school.

Some of the kids at our orphanage, waiting for the 1st day of school festivities to start.

Two of our students, Indira and Olya doing a dance for our opening bell ceremony at school.

Us at the art museum in Petropavlovsk

My host mom and sister in Petro. Ready for the 1st day of school.

Me and some of our 1st and 2nd graders. They are so cute!

Dad at the bazaar in Petro.

Dad dressed up like Ablai Khan.Sarah wearing a traditional Turkmen hat.



Our last photo together for a while...It was a fun visit!

Walking in the rain in Enbek to visit my first host family.My host mom and my mom making noodles from scratch.

Feast that greeted us in Enbek, prepared by my host family from training.The main bazaar in Shymkent. If you can't find it here, you don't need it!

Sarah's getting a call on her cell phone cookie. These were her favorite.

Sarah, Stacey , my host mom, her son and his new wife, Guzyela, me, Dad

Toasting to new friends in Enbek. It was neat that my real family got the chance to meet my host family from training. We had a great time visiting them, and my family got to experience village life! Can you say outhouse?

World War II monument in Almaty

View of Almaty from Kok Tobe Cable Car

Family we met at the cable car. They were very excited to meet and be photographed with Americans.

Train to Shymkent. Tight quarters, but a nice ride!

Selling melons in Shymkent

Dried fruit and nuts at the bazaar in Shymkent

Turkestan Mausoleum

Flea market in Shymkent. There you could buy old soviet coins, car parts, busts of Lenin, pots and pans, anything you could imagine!

8/19/2010Boys in the group that I stayed with all summer. Great group of kids, endless amounts of energy! This update has been ready ready for a while, but I just got around to posting it now. So what have I been up to this summer? Well, school ended at the end of May and the whole orphanage picked up and moved to our summer location. We have a summer camp on the outskirts of Petropavlovsk. The kids live there from June to August. There we have a pool, basketball court, soccer field, and a makeshift disco. There was even karaoke one day, where I did a lively rendition of YMCA. Don't judge -- my choices of English songs were limited! My job is to teach English classes and to do other activities with the kids. I've played a lot of volleyball, frisbee, UNO, red light-green light, and duck, duck, goose. The kids are crazy for UNO and it's going to be a while before I will be able to look at a deck of UNO cards again...

The girls in the group I stayed with: Pasha and Vanya at campAfter breakfast every morning the kids have a work period where they have to do chores such as sweep the living quarters, help in the kitchen, clean up the grounds, etc. I was given duties in the vegetable garden. It's pretty cool. We have beets, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and herbs. We water the plants, pick the weeds, and so on. I think it's cool that they try to grow a significant amount of their own food to feed the kids. This past year, I set up a pen pal program with a teacher from the school I used to work at in Massachusetts (Thanks John!). His kids wrote us letters in April and we responded in May. I got their replies in July and my kids will write back in September when everyone is back at school. They asked every day about the letters, and it was hard to make them understand just how long international mail takes to arrive. They were so excited when the letters finally did arrive and can't wait to resume letter writing in the fall. Kids at camp in Presnovka saying thanks to the sponsor of the camp In addition to the orphanage camp, I also had the chance to go to two camps put on by village volunteers in our region. One I was only at for a few days in Bulaevo with my friend Brendan and the other I was at for one week in Presnovka, with my friend Patrick. It was my first time at both of these sites and it was neat to see the villages. We did English grammar, played games, played sports, did art projects and had a lot of fun. The kids were pretty enthusiastic and the teachers we worked with were also glad to have the chance to interact with native English speakers. I was impressed at the work my fellow volunteers did to organize their camps and I can't wait to help again next summer!

Our Bulaevo crew walking to camp pausing to take a photo

near the grain elevator...Patrick, Niall, and BrendanWearing traditional dress with Niall at the Museum in Preznovka. Students ready for camp in BulaevoHere are some photos of my summer and the people who helped make it great. The woman standing is one of Patrick's counterparts from Presnovka (he has two). Her name is Rosa and she hosted 6 Volunteers at her house for a whole week. She cooked for us, chatted with us, played cards, and we had banya everyday. She was amazing and I hope I get to go to camp there again next year!

Our Preznovka crew at the Shykhov Museum

Local friend Ayala, the museum curator, Patrick, Niall, Denise, me, Brendan and Patrick's counterpart

My friend Katie at camp in Presnovka.

A man representing the local Cossacks presented us with this hat.Brendan in action at camp in Bulaevo

Russian language campI also took a week in July to go to Russian Language Camp. Brendan, one of the village volunteers in my region organized a week long language learning camp in Petropavlovsk. We had Russian classes for 4 hours every day and then did activities in the afternoon. We cooked, saw Toy Story 3 in Russian and went to the art museum. I thought my Russian was getting better, especially since at the orphanage camp I speak only Russian. However, Russian Language Camp taught me that I still have sooooo much to learn about the Russian language. It was a really great week, but at the end I had was definitely on Russian language overload!

So what now? I finished with camp two days ago. Tonight, I take the train down to Almaty. My parents, sister, and friend Stacey will arrive in Almaty on August 22nd and will be here for two weeks. I'm beyond excited for their visit and have a pretty packed itinerary. There are many people here who can't wait to meet my family and it will be great for everyone to get acquainted.

Sorry for the long break in updates but camp barely had cell phone reception (though the outhouse was suprisingly conducive--many a text message recieved in there!). I had limited email access all summer, though things will improve markedly now. School starts on September 1st, while my family is here, and then I have a training in Almaty on September 6th for one week. There probably won't be any more blog updates until mid-September. Thanks to all who read and post comments if you can.

Stay tuned to this page in September, for pics from the Johnson family's visit to Kazakhstan. There are sure to be some stories...

6/13/2010Sooo....As usual, it's been a while between blog posts. Wish my life were more exciting so I had more to post. May was a quick month and I was looking forward to the end of the school year on May 25th. Each class at the orphanage has a class leader, who is a teacher that guides that class from the 5th grade to their graduation in the 11th grade. They are responsible for a number of reports, birthday recognitions, determining course of study, etc. My counterpart was the class leader for this year's graduating class, so graduation was especially important for her because this had been "her class" for several years.

Pic of my counterpart and two of her students in their graduation outfits:

The graduates at the closing of school ceremony:

So the last day of school was very important for my counterpart, with her students graduating and all. She was giving a tea party for her students and their teachers after the ceremony. We also had a presentation to make later in the day to a bunch of important visitors. That being the case and the fact that appearances are very important in Kazakhstan, I took extra care getting ready for the day. I put on a dress, ironed my dress jacket and did my hair extra nicely (i.e. tried to tame the frizz). Strike 1 – I got deodorant on the bottom of my black dress. Washed it off as best I could, but apparently it was still visible. Strike 2- later in the day I got a run in my pantyhose....surprise, surprise. Strike 3—was trying to be helpful by washng the dishes after the party. One of the tea cups had a large chip in it and I cut my finger. No biggie, except here they use colored iodine to clean the cut. My hand was dark green! So let's review:

Photo of the chemistry teacher, Sasha - a graduate, and metried to look nice for presentation ended up with: deodorant on dress, run in pantyhose, and frog hands! Some days I wonder why I even bother...My counterpart told me to walk into the presentation sideways hoping that no one would see the run in my stockings. Also had to try very hard not to talk with my hands so no one would see the giant green spots on my hands. Never a dull moment.

After the end of school I went to a teacher's conference in Kyzlorda for English teachers. Even though I'm not an education volunteer, I thought my years of teaching experience might give me something to present to some folks. Due to some crazy scheduling conflicts, I couldn't travel down there with my friend Anna even though we had already bought our tickets together. It's a 40+ hour trip on the train and not one you want to do alone if you can help it. Anna found another volunteer to go with her from Kokshetau. My site mate Niall was also going to the conference. I convinced him to go a day late and take the train with me. You can't get a train directly from Petropavlovsk to Kyzlorda. We took a 10 hour train to Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) and had about a 12 hr. layover. Then we took a train that evening for the 36 hr. trek to to Kyzlorda. Neither of us had been to Astana so we were glad for the chance to see it. It's only been the capital for about a decade, and before that it was a relatively small city. All of the growth you see has sprouted up in the last 10 years or so, which is really crazy. These photos are from Astana. The big tower is called Baiterek and you can go up inside and see amazing views of the city from there. Pretty neat!

Me inside Baiterek

The new mosque in Astana

Conference was really fun. Got the chance to appreciate life for our southern volunteers. In Kyzlorda instead of -30 in the winter they have 100+ in the summer. I'll take my northern winters any day over their ridiculous summers! The teachers we met were very glad to be at the conference and to have the chance to speak with native English speakers. Everyone was really nice and they were very enthusiastic and passionate about teaching. I was glad I took the time to go, and it energized me to be around such enthusiastic people. Following the conference, my friend Anna and I headed to Almaty (via 24 hr. train ride) for our annual medical check up. You'll be happy to know that my health is good according the the Peace Corps doctor. I've lost a bit of weight which was nice to have verified, but still could stand to lose some more. Who knew Peace Corps service could also be a catalyst for weight loss? I sense a reality show in the making?Now, I'm back at site. Starting tomorrow, I head to summer camp. The orphanage has summer camp all summer at a location in the countryside. I will live there most of the summer, with the exception of about 3 weeks where I will help other volunteers with their camps. Then at the end of the summer my family and a friend will visit. I can't wait! It will be great for them to experience Kazakhstan and see what living here is all about. So, that's it for awhile. I'll try to post some camp picks in a few weeks, but my internet access will be non-existent for awhile so forgive me if you don't hear from me in a timely manner. Hope you all enjoy your summer!

3/28/2010

Arrived in Almaty a few days in advance of our training. A few of of rented an apartment and decided to spend some time in the city. The view out our apartment looked like this:

Kind of sad for spring down south, oh well.

The TV in our apartment looked like this and yet it still worked! Perhaps someone left the electric teapot on the TV?

Having Sunday free I decided to visit my first host family in Enbek. My friend Hannah, who also trained in Enbek, and I decided to take the bus out there and spend the day. It had snowed there too, which gave me the opportunity to take this picture of the gorgeous mountains from the side of the road.

I had called the day before to see if they were available to visit and they told me to come today. I had brought some candy and a photo album filled with pictures of my time there. They liked the photos, but I didn't have enough to fill the album. They said I must come back again and again so we can fill the album with more memories. Awww...they're unbelievably nice. It was great to see them again although the two little girls weren't there because they were visiting their dad.

It seemed like nothing had changed, but it was a but like visiting an old neighborhood and knowing that no one you know lives there anymore. To know that none of my group mates were at their houses, made me want to go back in time a little. I walked by the house where my friend Cindy stayed and got sad, because shortly after training she decided to leave Peace Corps and go back to the US. We still keep in touch, but it's not the same as her being here. Walking past there brought up a lot of positive memories about walking with her to class everyday (we had the farthest walk) and getting to know each other. I got a little nostalgic couldn't help but have some dorky moments thinking about how far we've come since our time in the village. I can actually speak to my host family in Russian now, where as during training it was very difficult. Just the fact that Hannah and I traveled there and back independently was another feat. We are able to do so many more things now than we were in training, and it was neat to recognize that. I think that's called personal growth? My host mom brought me to her cousin's house where we visited with some of her family members. We snapped a photo, that's my host mom in front of me, with her granddaughter on her lap. Kazakhstani's don't usually smile in photos, can you spot the American with the goofy smile?

It was really great to see them, but the visit was short, because Hannah and I wanted to get back to Almaty before it got dark. My host mom insisted on walking me to meet Hannah. We also stopped at the store where she bought us ½ a kilo of cookies and 4 apples. It's a 45 minute drive back to the city, but I guess she thought we'd get hungry? We said goodbyes, and she insisted that I bring my family to visit when they come in August. She really wants to meet my family. I hope we can visit Enbek, I think it would be a neat experience for my family. I just hope we're not taking advantage of her hospitality. She's already given me so much.

3/29/2010

The next day involved walking around Almaty. Our apartment was really centrally located, we were very close to the Green Bazaar.

A lot of shopping occurred, I even successfully bought a new pair of jeans, which I desperately needed. They like flashy clothes here, and I'm happy to report I found a pair of jeans without rhinestones, sequins or any other sparkly decoration. That was not an easy task, let me assure you!

Went out to dinner at night with my friend Tes, who was also in my training group. She is placed about as far south in Kazakhstan as one could possibly be. She can see Tashkent, Uzbekistan from her town. Crazy! It was funny to talk about winter with her. I guess there was this one week where she had to wear long underwear for the whole week! Yeah, I gave her a hard time about that. Although this summer, she'll be dealing with triple digit temperatures, I'm so not envious about that.

4/3/2010

So our conference is over (I really went down south for business, I swear!) and we head back to site today. It was great to see everyone and hear what people are doing at their sites. It certainly gave me a needed kick in the rear and motivated me to go back to site and get some projects done. We managed to get most of our group back together for one dinner. One of our language teachers, who is also my current tutor, Lena came out with us. One of our technical trainers, Irina, was also at the conference and it was really exciting to see her again. We tried to get a photo of all of us together which proved impossible. We were able to get a photo of some of us...

4/8/2010

So I'm back in Petropavlovsk now. My site mates Katie and Niall went to India the day after I came back. Lucky them! My other site mate Sidd went to Uralsk to do a teacher training. So I'm holding down the fort myself this week...One nice thing about coming back to site was that most of the snow had melted in the two weeks since my departure. Be careful what you wish for, because in it's place is more mud than I can possibly describe to you. Maybe these pictures of the road (yes, it's a road not a river) outside my apartment building will give you a hint.

I walked to Lena's house for my tutoring and my sneakers felt an extra 10 pounds heavier with all the mud stuck to the bottom. Her mother kindly cleaned them for me, and sent me home with two grocery bags tied around my feet. I looked like a complete geek, but I didn't care because they did the trick! Spring has to better than winter...right?

3/24/2010 More Shymkent!After traveling to Turkestan yesterday, we had today free with no specific plans. It was great to have a free day to enjoy the company of friends and walk outside without the risk of frostbite. We decided to explore the city. For lunch, we walked to this plov place that had been recommended. Plov in the north of Kazakhstan usually consists of rice, meat (horse?) and carrots. In the south, there's a little more variation to it's ingredients and they take it more seriously. They have light plov and dark plov. The dark plov is the carrots, meat and rice kind (no worries- I'm still a veg. I just pick the meat out). They also have light plov which is amazing. It had yellow raisins and maybe some type of seed or nut? It also came served with some roasted garlic, yum! It was worth the long walk. They also had pumpkin samsas which were amazing. We have cheese samsas up north which are basically cheese wrapped in phyllo dough. Those are delicious, but pumpkin wrapped in phyllo dough was absolutely incredible! My tastebuds are in heaven with the multitude of potato-less dishes in the south. Some photos of our meal at the plov place:

Photo of my group mates meeting

(Johnny, Ford, Sipra, Tes, and Hannah)

At night, I had a meeting with my group mates from training. All of us couldn't attend, but about 6 of us met and it was good to be together again. Tomorrow we will go to Sipra's (one of our group mates) organization to train some of her youth volunteers. The following day we'll go with the youth volunteers to a local orphanage where they'll teach the orphans about making healthy choices.



Later that night, a few of us decided to go sing some karaoke. The song selection was limited (no Bust a Move or Werewolves of London!--sorry to my fans) but we did manage to belt out some Billie Jean, YMCA, and other classics. It helped that we were the only people in the place, so there weren't any other patrons to scare away...

3/25/2010

Great day. Went to my friend Sipra's organization and helped train her youth volunteers. It was good to be with my group mates again, working together. Her kids are really great, super motivated and all had excellent English language skills. We were able to conduct the whole training in English and they really seemed to get a lot out of it. We helped them prepare their presentations for tomorrow. I think they will all do a great job and I am excited to see what they will do tomorrow.

3/26/2010

Great day at the orphanage outside of Shymkent. Had to get up early to board the bus at Sipra's organization. Rode out to the orphanage with the kids and other people from Sipra's org. We then divided into three groups by age level. Johnny and I went with the middle age group. Kids from about 11-14. They introduced themselves, played some games and listened to the youth volunteers talk about the dangers of smoking, drinking and taking drugs. Afterwards, we had a mini Olympics that was really fun for all involved. There was a push-up contest, three-legged race and other games. Medals were awarded, of course! After that they invited us to play soccer and other games in their back field. One boy lead me out there, and we were speaking in Russian, so I was concentrating pretty hard on what he was saying and not paying attention to what was around me. We get to the back field and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was just about the most beautiful view I've ever seen up close. The mountains were amazing! I wanted to channel my inner Julie Andrews and start singing about “the hills being alive with the sound of music”, but better judgement prevailed...

3/27/2010Why Kazakhstan fascinates me: was in Shymkent yesterday and walked around without a coat on. Took train to Almaty last night. Arrived this morning where it was cold and rainy. Then tonight it goes and snows! What is that all about? I left the north and the snow behind (or so I thought).

3/18/2010

Today we had a Naryuz celebration at school. It was also the second to last day of the third term. The kids got all dressed up and put on a performance at school.The festival celebrates the coming of spring and is associated with the Kazakh culture. The students' performance was mostly in Kazakh, so I understood very little, but it's such a cool sounding language I didn't mind listening.

After the performances we headed outside to our yurt (yeah, that's right – the orphanage has a yurt). We sang and danced outside and then I was ushered in the yurt where some VIPs were seated, including some other teachers, our director and friends of his. There was more food than you can imagine squished into this little space and a soup was served. Apparently, it's the soup associated with this holiday, it was clear and had some corn, meat and who knows what else in it. I had some (ignoring the meat of course) and it was pretty good. It reminded me of clam chowder, but the thin, really brothy kind.

3/22/2010

Thanks to Naryuz, we had about a week off from school. Because of this, a lot of volunteers were heading down to Shymkent where Naryuz is a really big deal. I decided to see what the buzz was about and join my friends for a week in the warm south. When I left to go down south on Saturday (3/20) we had one last blast of -20 degree weather. Southern Siberia is great!No trains run directly from Petro to Shymkent, so I had to originate my journey in Kokshetau. Getting there was more difficult than I thought. I went home from work, grabbed my things and left my long johns behind! My host mom packed me some yummy train food, and I got on the bus to the station. All buses and trains to Kokshetau were full. It's only about a 4 hour bus ride and I needed to get there quickly in order to catch my train. My only option was an expensive taxi to ge there. So I took the taxi which cost about 4x what the bus would have cost, but it got me there in two hours! Don't ask about his driving.

I got to Kokshetau with plenty of time to spare and waited about 3 hours in the train station for my train and friends to arrive. I made friends with the stray cats and some drunk man who wanted to steal my lunch. He had his own food plus 2 bottles of vodka, but he really wanted to see what I had in my bag. My host mom packed that lunch with a lot of good food. The only place that bag was going was with me! Since I'm an American he wanted to know if I had any dollars on me and could he "see" them. I said no, I have only tenge. So then he asks, “Do you have new tenge, and can I see it?” Sir, I wasn't born yesterday and no, you can't "see" my money...Luckily my friends arrived shortly after, so I had to say good bye to the drunk man.

Got on the train finally in Kokshetau for the 30 hr. ride to Shymkent. Arrived in Shymkent late Sunday night. Monday morning, we were supposed to go to this sports field to watch kokpar. It's an ancient Kazakh game sort of like polo, but played with a headless goat carcass. I wasn't psyched to see that, but I was excited to see the men on horseback. Kazakhstan has a reach history of horsemanship and it would have been cool to see that. However, for some reason that no one knows, the horse events were cancelled. We took these pictures from the field, but there were no horse games.

So instead we went to a park where they were handing out food and people were walking around.

It was good to spend time with my group mates, as we hadn't seen each other for 5 months. It was great to catch up and walk around in the warm south of Kazakhstan. Got to eat outside (forgot what that was all about!) and had an excellent time.

3/23/2003

Today we went on a trip to Turkestan, roughly 2 hours from Shymkent. We boarded the bus and arrived at the mausoleum. We had a few hours to walk around and explore this ancient monument. My camera seemed to develop a parasite that day as evidenced by the black streak in my pictures. It went away later, but unfortunately, I couldn't make it go away that day, go figure... The mausoleum was built in the 14th Century as a monument to a Muslim holy man who died at this site in the 12th Century. The architect died before it was finished, and thus it remains unfinished. It is a pretty amazing site considering when it was built. It must have been quite the site at that time, when you were on your horse in the middle of the steppe then happened upon this huge building, but that's just me projecting...The view of the town of Turkestan:Some delicious laghman without meat. Ahhh, spicy food how I missed you! After eating my weight in potatoes this winter, the variety of food down south was awesome. Some fellow volunteers:Me:

3/17/2010 My procrastination continues...So how to follow up my entry about Kreshenya? Not exactly sure! Haven't done anything quite as exciting as that, which is why it's taken me so long to follow up. Don't want to disappoint my fans ! Well, that and the fact that not much has been going on. Winter continues to be interesting, although now we have entered the “spring” months. While it is warmer now, at or above freezing most days, it has been snowing a lot more lately. But at least it's not uncomfortably cold anymore!

So I'll give you a summary of my last few weeks. The first week in February I was fortunate enough to meet an American couple that were adopting two children from our orphanage. The kids kept telling me that their adoptive parents were visiting and that I should meet them, but unfortunately we were not able to meet until their last day here, before they left with the girls. Despite that, it was nice to speak with some Americans and hear tales of home. They were from Colorado and had adopted 3 other children from Kazakhstan. Now they have the 2 girls, they said their family was complete.

It's funny in a situation like that what kinship you feel with strangers, when the only connection you have is that you are from the U.S. We sat together for about an hour, spoke English and talked about life here in Kazakhstan and life at home in the U.S. They were really warm people and we felt a certain comraderie right away. We hugged good bye, and they took my email address, so I hope to hear from them soon about how the girls are adjusting to life in the U.S. Just nice to meet some fellow Americans and share a cool moment together.

The second week in February was the “week of the English Language” at the orphanage. Every subject has a week in which they are supposed to plan special events and get the kids involved in learning more about their subjects. A lot of preparation and extra hours went into our week. My counterpart and I worked very hard and we were both exhausted by the end of the week. We organized competitions in English for our students of different levels, we made valentines, we held an extra English club, and on Valentine's Day, we had a big celebration.

We had prepared some students to recite English poems. I also prepared a power point presentation on Valentine's Day, that one of the students translated. They also had a competition, read some poems in Russian, and my site mate Sidd came and sang some songs. It was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to enjoy themselves.

Following the celebration I got on the bus to go home. I was the only one on the bus and since I am obviously foreign, the bus driver asked the familiar “Otkooda vee?” or “Where are you from?”. I told him I was American and answered all of the usual questions that get asked when people want to know why you are here. He also asked if I was married or had children (also very common questions). Of course I answered no, and that was followed with a “me neither” and a followed it up by saying, "We should get married!" What?! He was joking, I think....

This weekend I head down to Shymkent (via 32 hour train ride) to gather with my fellow volunteers for some rest and relaxation. Next week is also a big Kazakh national holiday called Naryuz. In Shymkent there is a big celebration of this holiday. I will be able to tell you all about it in the coming weeks. The week after Naryuz we go to Almaty for training. I can't wait to see my group mates again as it has been almost 5 months since we've all been together. Also it will be nice to be in the warm south! I hear it is between 60 and 70 degrees most days. No long underwear needed, I can't tell you how exciting that is for me.

So that's all for now. Will report in soon about my trip down south. Can't wait to have some pictures with green grass and flowers in them to show you.

1/3/2010 Winter Camp

After New Year's, I ran my first solo project at the orphanage. I organized a camp that took place during winter vacation at the orphanage. This being my first project, I did a lot of planning and worrying about how it would turn out. I had dreams of grandeur and wrote out some elaborate plans for the three days of my camp. My plans even included an outdoor scavenger hunt that was dependent on the weather being tolerable.

Well, the weather didn't cooperate, and some of my games were too complex or just didn't hold their interest. However, there were several Peace Corps Volunteers who helped me with my camp and came to my rescue. We had fun for three days playing "duck, duck, goose", dragon tag and other games. Three local friends also provided much needed translation help further contributing to the camp's success. In the end, the kids had a lot of fun and so did we. It was good that the kids enjoyed themselves, even if things didn't go exactly as planned. It gave me the confidence needed to try other projects in the future. Of course, it didn't go perfectly and I learned a lot about what I would change for the next time. Still, the kids seemed to enjoy it and the director and my counterpart gave me positive feedback, so that was nice to hear.Enjoy some photos of camp.

My language tutor, Anya, explaining one game to the kids:

A crazy game called "dragon tag". Super chaotic, but lots of fun!

A group of us doing "group juggle".

Some of the volunteers played basketball with the older boys and one girl one day after camp.1/19/2010 Kreshenya

Every January 19th is a holiday called kreshenya for the people of the Russian Orthodox faith. During this holiday in Petropavlovsk, priests say blessings over the Ishim River, and the water is considered holy on this day. Some people take the water from the river and use it throughout the year to sprinkle on sick children, sprinkle in their houses, or use in their tea to keep them healthy. Still, other people jump into the river on this day, and it is said to be a sort of “re- baptism”. The word kreshenya means baptism in Russian (aren't you glad I looked it up?)People who do the jump swear that it keeps them healthy for the whole year.As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are encouraged to observe cultural traditions that are important to the people we live with. Some volunteers take it a step further and actually participate in such traditions. My counterpart gave me the day off so that I could go to the river and see what this was all about. Some volunteers came to visit our region so they could also see and/or take part in this annual observance. Here we are trudging down to the river. That's me in the back of the line with my giant blue coat.Here are some photos of the frozen river. You can see the giant ice cross that was erected specially for this day.

Thought you might enjoy photo of tent erected on forzen river, and bridge suspended over frozen river. The tents were were people could change after jumping. They also had holes where you could dip in the river in the privacy of the tent. There was one for men and one for women.

Some volunteers jumped in the river last year, although it was an unseasonably warm winter. They say this is the coldest winter they've had in a few years. This year it was about -31 Celsius, which is approximately -24 Fahrenheit. To give you an idea of how cold this is, I took one glove off for about 1 minute to take some pictures. After that minute I had to put my glove on because my hand hurt so bad, I thought it would fall off. Having said that, imagine being out in that cold in your bathing suit! So here are some pictures of that fateful day and some very brave and possibly crazy volunteers.

Sagar's in the water, with Michael lined up right behind him.

Katie and Jennie looking like they're in pain.

So that's Kreshenya. No, I didn't jump I just couldn't fathom it. It was cool to watch and I hope they do stay healthy for one year because of it!

1/10/2010 So, I've let this blog go a little bit. It's not that I haven't wanted to keep you all posted, it's just that I guess I've been procrastinating. Those of you who know me well, know that I have a bad habit of bad procrastination. In the spirit of the new year, I have recommitted myself to telling the stories of my crazy life with the Peace Corps here in Kazakhstan.

What have I been up to, you ask? Well, Christmas was just another day here. The Christians here mostly celebrate Russian Orthodox Christmas which is on January 7th. So on Dec. 25th, a few of us gathered at one volunteer's house with some local friends and toasted the fact that it was Christmas. Not very exciting, but it just wasn't the same as being home. They also don't have all of the crazy commercialization here that gets you all fired up for the coming of Christmas. I think that also may have contributed to the calm celebration of the holiday.

The Sunday after Christmas, I was invited to a "winter picnic" by the professor of English at our local university. We attend his English club at the university and a few times per winter he puts on a winter picnic for the club attendees. I took the bus out to the outskirts of town and the professor and some of his English students picked me up in a car. We drove out near the lake to the site of the picnic.

A photo of the winter picnic site:

Making the soup and tending to the fire:

Professor Petrovich and the almost setting sun:

I dressed in many layers and still seemed to spend the entire time in front of the camp fire. They made soup and we drank many, many cups of tea. It was really nice to look out onto the lake even though it was covered in snow. Our group were the only ones out there that day and the scene was serene and peaceful. It was a nice way to spend a frigid winter's day, although I wouldn't want to do that every weekend!

Some students with the snow tower they were trying to build. You can see our snowtracks on the frozen, snow-covered lake behind them:

New Year's was an entirely different story. Since Orthodox Christmas is much more religious, New Year's here is like Christmas for us. They have their own Santa, whose name translates to "Father Frost". The children get presents and people often visit friends and family at this time. They put up a "yolka" which is essentially a Christmas tree as we know it.

On New Year's again I gathered with some volunteers who were visiting the city from their respective villages. However, I went home early to ring in the new year with my host family. There are usually fireworks, but it was -30 that night, so we wisely decided to stay in. It was a really fun night all around, with good food and good people and lots of celebration.

12/17/2009

So it is almost officially winter here and boy is it cold! Yesterday and today we were off from school due to the observance of Independence Day here. Thank goodness we had today off because it was -26 degrees Celsius (-14.8F) outside. My cell phone has a temperature converter on it and I like to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius to see what I'm actually dealing with. Here they don't get school off when it snows, but they do get days off when it is -30C (-22F) or more. Apparently it's not good for kids to be out in such cold weather. Since the kids at the orphanage live there, and don't have to go outside to get to school, we still work on those extra cold days! In honor of the cold and the few really cold days we've had I've decided to put together a weather-themed list of things I like and things I could do without here. Enjoy!

Things I can do without: 1. going outside2. days I forget to put on long underwear3. the 40 minute walk to my Russian tutor's apartment4. the frost on my glasses, which makes seeing difficult5. the bus skidding to a stop everyday , because they don't sand the streets6. the wind (because 30 below isn't bad enough?)7. wondering which part of my face will fall off first (Will it be my nose? Will it be one cheek or both?)

Things I am grateful for:

1. hot tea and soup2. long underwear 3. my bulky LL Bean boots, even though the locals stare (Almost everone here wears black leather boots. Many women even wear high heeled boots in these very icy conditions!)4. Gore-Tex, fleece and any other material whose sole purpose is to keep you warm5. July and August won't be that hot (I would rather deal with subzero temperatures than extreme heat any day!)6. indoor plumbing (using an outhouse in this weather?!)

7. that I don't live in Antarctica and it will stop snowing and warm up eventually...

So that is my life here in Petro. I talk about the weather each morning with my host family. I now think that anything above -20C (-4F) is “normal” and “not that cold”. Oh, how perceptions change!

11/15/2009 So I am slowly figuring life out here in Petropavlovsk. It certainly is different from the village that I was used to, but it is growing on me. I moved in with a new host family and they are really nice. The mom teaches physics at the orphanage, her husband is a businessman, and they have a son who is 14 and a daughter who is 10. The mom and the son speak excellent English and they like to practice their English when they talk to me. They have also been very patient with my Russian and politely listen as I botch their native tongue on a daily basis.

I take the bus to and from work, as it is too far to walk. Petro has a pretty reliable bus system, although I don't know how I'll feel about waiting for the bus when it is 40 below. For now it's not bad. My round-trip fare on the bus each day costs less than 50 cents, what a deal! Although the way some of the bus drivers drive, they should be paying me to take the bus. The roads are icy now and they peel out of each stop, because that's how you drive when the roads don't get sanded? I hang on for dear life on the days when I don't get a seat.

Work is picking up now that the kids are back to school. I mostly help with English and help teach some English classes. It may take a few months to carve out a role for myself, as Peace Corps told us. But in the meantime, I get to meet the kids, who are all really nice. They all say hello and good-bye in English, and give me weird looks when I speak to them in Russian. They have classes most of the day, then have extra-curricular activities in the afternoon. It will be part of my job to help plan some of the extra-curricular activities, which I am looking forward to.

The kids live in dormitories and the school is attached. Nice in winter, they don't even have to walk outside to get to school in the morning. They live in “families” of about 20-30 children. Each family has a large living area, two large bedrooms (one for girls, one for boys) and maybe another room or two for studying or recreation. They have people who look after them and they all have chores to complete.

Some kids are in the orphanage because their parents' rights were taken away, and some of the children are true orphans. Some may have parents either in prison or who are unable to care for them due to alcoholism or other issues. The kids are able to visit their extended families such as grandparents or aunts and uncles with the permission of the orphanage. It's only been a short time, but many of the children seem remarkably well adjusted given their circumstances. The staff at the orphanage seems very kind as well and the kids appear to be very well cared for.

Don't have many pictures of the city yet, but this website does a much better job than I ever could. Many interesting photos for you to see of Petropavlovsk and what it actually looks like. http://aboutkazakhstan.com/Petropavlovsk_city.shtml

12/6/2009

So, I've officially been here for one month. I'm still adjusting, but overall things are going well. November brought two celebrations: Thanksgiving and my birthday. For Thanksgiving, volunteers from our oblast (county) and the oblast closest to us, got together for a weekend of celebration and fun. We went to Zerenda which is a small town with a cross-country skiing lodge. All 24 of us stayed there and cooked Thanksgiving dinner the Saturday after the holiday. We got in Friday night, had a nice pasta dinner, then chatted with other volunteers all night.

Saturday was mostly spent cooking, hiking and playing frisbee. Sunday we packed up and left for home. I got to see Hannah, who was with me in Enbek. She's now in Kokshetau which is about 4 hours by bus from me. This was the first time we'd seen each other since leaving our training village, so that was really cool. Overall, it was a really fun weekend and a nice way to meet some of the volunteers who have been here for one year already. I've included some photos from the trip.

Hannah & me:

View from the top of a hill we climbed up:

Thanksgiving frisbee (who needs football?)

Me with a glorious mountain of mashed potatoes:

My birthday celebration was also cool. My site mates threw me a party, which included some local friends who have welcomed us into their community. Also, I invited my Russian teacher, Anya, and two other Russian teachers that worked with us in Almaty, but who are from Petropavlovsk. A good time was had by all. We had vegetarian burritos, improvised from ingredients found here, but spiced up with a packet of taco seasoning Megan had sent from home. Everyone thought they were surprisingly tasty, even the meat eaters.

We played a game where you had to pop a balloon and do whatever the slip of paper inside told you to do. Most were pretty tame, such as crawl around under the table, pat your head and hop on one foot at the same time, etc. After doing what the balloon said, the person would say a toast to me. That was really cool and a lot of fun.

Anya (my Russian tutor) before giving a toast:

Sitemates Katie and Megan with my birthday sign:

10/28/2009

So we are in Almaty this week for our Counterpart Conference. We all met our counterparts yesterday. They are the people from our organizations that will help us adjust and will work closely with us for the benefit of the organization. My counterpart's name is Lyudmilla. She has been working at the orphanage since it opened in the 80's and is the English teacher there. She seems really nice and is excited to get to work. Her English is excellent, so that takes some of the pressure off my Russian but I do want it to get better. She had many ideas for projects and things I could do for the kids at the orphanage. It sounds like I have my work cut out for me.

10/31/2009

Today was our Swearing-In Ceremony. We went from mere trainees to full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteers. It was a very exciting day! The Country Director of Peace Corps Kazakhstan gave a speech, as did someone from the Ministry of Education and the U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan. Two volunteers gave speeches, one in Russian and one in Kazakh. There was even an entertainment portion of the ceremony and our training group performed an original song, written by a girl in our group. It detailed our time here so far and was pretty funny.

After the speeches and performances were done, we all got to go up to the microphone in front of the stage, say our names and the name of the places were were headed. Next we shook hands with the Ambassador, had our picture taken, then shook hands with the Country Director and received our Peace Corps pin with the Peace Corps logo and the American and Kazakhstan flags on it. Pretty cool. My group mate Jessica shaking hands with the U.S. Ambassador to Kazakhstan:

Following the ceremony, a large group of volunteers had to leave for the train station to catch their trains. My group, those of us going up north, doesn't leave until tomorrow for some reason. So we said good-bye to our friends, and wished them luck. It was hard to say good-bye to everyone but we will see each other again in March when we meet for a training conference.

11/7/2009

I have officially arrived in Petropavlovsk, after an amazingly long 32 hour train ride. I have included a picture for you to see the vast steppe that makes up a large part of Kazakhstan. You can see nothing but flat land for miles and miles. The pictures I took are of bad quality because my camera did not appreciate the moving train. You can also see a short video I took of the scenery. Again, I apologize for the quality. Occasionally, a man on a horse, sheep herder or random smattering of farm animals would be grazing the land. Other times there would be small villages clustered near the railroad tracks, but otherwise there seemed to be miles and miles of nothing.

The train itself was pretty fun, as there were 14 or so volunteers heading to their sites on that train. So there were plenty of people to talk to, play cards with, or eat some snacks with. My counterpart also took the train with me, so she was there to help with luggage and to speak to the conductor. We arrived in Petro late Monday night. Out of the 14 of us, only 4 of us were left to get out at the last stop, which is Petropavlovsk. Everyone else got off at their destinations earlier. Of the 4, two of us will be in the city and two others will be in villages outside of the city. When we stepped off the train, the current volunteers were there to greet us with some of their friends. The orphanage had sent a van for me and my counterpart along with two older boys who had the unfortunate job of carrying my luggage. I tried to help them, but they wouldn't hear of it.

I went into work this week to meet the staff and the kids. Unfortunately, they have a week off that started Thursday (11/5) and will continue until next Thursday (11/12). The vacation has to do with the end of the term and all students in Petro have the week off. Teachers still report to work, as they have to calculate grades and write many reports. Thus, there is not much for me to do this week, but it is good to meet the staff and see how things work.

10/26/2009

Today was our last full day in the village. Crazy! My stuff is packed, can you believe it? Tonight we had a party with our host families. They all cooked wonderful dishes and we danced and had a good time. My host family made plov (see photo below). and “francayski salat” (french salad). Basically, it's shredded beets, cabbage, carrots, fried potatoes, meat and mayonnaise. Very tasty, especially without the meat! They also taught me how to dance “Uighurski” style, so I could dance at the party. See photo of the girls teaching me in the kitchen.

The party was a nice way to end our time with them and show our gratitude for their hospitality. We wrote wishes for our host families in Russian (with the help of our teachers) and they wrote some to us. Here is a picture of me reading my wishes to my host mom.

We played some games, danced Uighurski style (see photo below of me and my host mom)

and ate a lot. It was a great time, and we will not soon forget the exceptional hospitality shown to us by this community.

10/27/09

What a day! Did nothing all morning, but waited for bus to meet us at 12:30. Walked the girls to school and took some photos of my house, because I realized I didn't have any. I know it's kind of late, but I wanted to have pictures in order to remember my house in the village. You can see the front of the house which is covered with trees. You can also see the backyard, where the outhouse is. The garden had many flowers in the summer, but as it is late fall, everything is brown. The apple trees were on the other side of the driveway, which you can't see unfortunately.

When it was time to go, my host mom's son-in-law drove us to the cafe, so I didn't even have to carry my stuff. Good thing, since it has gotten heavier since my arrival. Cindy (another volunteer) and I technically live in another village different from everyone else. My host mom arranged for the bus to pick us up at the cafe, since it was too far to carry our stuff to the training site. The bus was late of course, so we took many pictures at the cafe and park before the bus arrived. I realized I haven't shown any photos of my host family, so here they are. My host mom is wearing the leather jacket. Cindy's host mom is wearing the purple jacket. The little girls and the baby are my host mom's grandkids. The woman holding the baby is the girls' mother, my host mom's daughter. The girl next to me is Cindy's host sister and the other girl is her friend. We said good-bye when the bus came, and many tears ensued. I hope we can go back to visit the next time we are in Almaty.

10/9/2009

Very exciting day today! Today was Site Announcement Day, where we found out what our placement will be for the next two years. All 65 of us went to Issyk and had a full day of lectures and presentations on volunteer safety, security and health. We sat in a room from 8:30 to about 4:00 with a lunch break and a few other short breaks. We only wanted to know out placements, but they made us wait until about 4:30! All week we have been going crazy wanting to know where we'll be placed and what kind of work we'll be doing.

The moment finally arrived, and we were ushered into an auditorium. All of the regional managers were there, along with the Country Director for Kazakhstan and other Peace Corps VIPs. We watched a slide show, which only heightened the suspense, and then the main event began. They did the announcements by oblast (county) and we are all spread out throughout about 9 or 10 oblasts all over the country. Each Regional Manager would describe each placement in their region and then name the volunteer that was selected for that assignment. That person would stand up, and we would all clap for them. Everyone looked like they had just won the lottery, instead of a two year assignment in Siberia!

My placement is in the city of Petropovlovsk, population 300,000. I will work in an orphanage, that serves children in the 5th through 11th grades. They live there and go to school there. My job will be to teach some English classes and plan extracurricular activities for them. As a secondary project I can work at a school for children with disabilities. I'm very excited about my placement and can't wait to get to work!

Petropovlovsk is about as far north as you can get in Kazakhstan. There is a Peace Corps Volunteer who is placed in a village a few miles north of the city and apparently he has the distinction of being the northern most volunteer in all of the Peace Corps. So basically, I am on the Russian border, but still in Kazakhstan. Petro (it's nickname) is also located in Siberia, so when I arrive on November 1st it will already be snowing. Winter lasts for about 6 months, so yay for me.

10/13/2009

For the past several weeks, we have been planning a camp for thirty 8th graders at the local school. It was one of the assignments given to us by our trainers. Today was the second day of camp. Yesterday and today went very well. We divided the kids into three groups, and three of us lead groups around to three different stations. We have sports, arts and crafts, and work/career planning. I lead the career planning/work sessions. I tried to make it fun and interesting and I think the kids liked it. We made visual resumes, did mock job interviews, and talked about the skills needed for certain jobs.

Tomorrow is the last day of camp and then we do a community project (another assignment) on Thursday. For our community project, we are having graffiti artists come in from Almaty to paint a mural on the school. The mural will be something community related, and it had to be approved by the director of the school. We are really excited for them to come and to work with the kids. We will also have many arts activities for the kids to participate in.

10/15/2009

Today was my Russian teacher's birthday. She turned 23, can you imagine? We had a small party for her during language class and we brought her some presents. One girl in our class brought her a blow-up flamingo (not sure why she had that) but Anya, our teacher, loved it. I brought her some nuts and some candy that my host family helped me buy at the store.

Today was our Community Project day and it marked the end of our time at the village school. We had a school-wide art day, open to anyone who wanted to participate. We had bracelet making, painting/drawing, face painting, book making, potato prints and more. The kids had a good time and we were exhausted by the end.

The teacher we have been working with at the school invited us up to her room at the end. She and her 11th grade students (who were our camp leaders and whom we have worked with closely for these two months) sang us songs and gave us gifts. They said many kind words to us and thanked us for working with them. We all teared up a little at how moving their speeches were. We said a few words of thanks to them as well (through our translator) and that made them tear up as well. It was definitely an emotional moment and an unexpected one as we haven't been here that long, and did not realize that we had made any impact at all. One of the 11th grade boys had to leave the room because he didn't want us to see him crying, which of course made us cry more!

They walked us home and one boy insisted on carrying my bags, which were heavy. We had what felt like a good part of the village walking us home. I sort of felt like Angelina Jolie on her UN Ambassador visits. However, my celebrity was short-lived, as I got home and was instantly put to work peeling potatoes for tonight's soup. Ahh, how the mighty fall. You have to love that about Peace Corps. Just when you feel smug and accomplished, you get the wind taken out of your sails. I think they do that on purpose to make sure you don't get a big head!

10/18/2009

Today the other group in our village did their community project. They cleaned up the soccer field, painted the goals, put up nets and then played soccer against different groups. I played soccer for a little bit, even though I haven't played since I was a kid. Our team, a.k.a. Team Youth Development, or Team YD for short, kept things remarkably close. We didn't get blown out, at all. Most games were pretty close. At one point, we played some adults from the village. To make things fair, we got 2 forwards and a goalie who were from the village. Our goalie was awesome! The first two saves he made, he had his cell phone in one hand, but still managed to catch the ball. The third time, the cell phone was away and he dropped the ball. Go figure.

Their project was cool, even though we were all sore the next day. Kids in the community were asking when we were going to play soccer again. We may get together on Saturday for some rematches although I'm not sure we'll all be recovered by then!

10/20/2009

Today we went to a crazy bazaar to buy winter clothes. Peace Corps gave us all a “Settling In Allowance” which we are supposed to use to buy things we'll need at our new sites. I bought a winter coat, some slippers and some wool tights. My coat is kind of ugly, but as one of my friends put it, “when it's 40 below, you won't care what you look like, you'll only care that you're warm.” Truer words were never spoken. In the photo you can see my host sister Medina wearing my coat and slippers.

Usually when we go the bazaar it is crazy, but this time it was completely nuts. We went to this bazaar in Almaty called “Baraholka”. For 7 kilometers on both sides of the road there are bazaars. Each section has different stuff, and we went to the clothes section. It's like a giant flea market with really tiny aisles. People are going up and down the aisles selling food, perfume, bags, you name it. Periodically someone else would come running through wheeling a large cart of merchandise. It's amazing we all returned with 10 toes in tact. At one point I thought my friend was going to be run over by the plov (a rice dish) cart. It was an exhausting but fun way to spend the day.

10/21/2009

Our language test was today, to see what level of Russian we have achieved in 9 weeks. I can tell you that mine is not that high. We will find out in a week what level we actually achieved, but I am not that hopeful. We all will have the opportunity to continue tutoring in Russian once we get to our sites. I know I will continue because my Russian teacher lives in the same city that I will be going to. She has already agreed to tutor me, even though I told her she could take this time to cut me loose, since I am a terrible student!

We officially leave our village on Tuesday and head for Almaty for week. We had a meeting with all of our host families tonight to plan a party for Monday to say good-bye and thank you. There will be food and dancing and maybe even some pizza. It will be hard to say good-bye, as our families have been very good to us. It's funny to me that I was very apprehensive at the beginning of this experience and was nervous about living with a host family. Now, I feel like a member of the family and am not looking forward to leaving them. Many volunteers keep in touch with their host families and visit them from time to time. I hope I will be able to do that, because they have been great to me and I will miss them greatly when I am up north.

9/13/2009

Some things never change...so after my last post, I lost my cell phone. Let me preface the story by saying that on Sundays, some of us like to go to Ecik (the closest large town) to use the internet. I was very proud of myself as me and two friends hailed a gypsy cab, negotiated the price and headed into Ecik. We got to the internet cafe, made some meaningful contact with friends and family and then grabbed a snack at a local cafe. After a very successful outing, we hailed another cab and headed back to our village. Shortly after exiting the cab, I realized that my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket in the cab!

9/18/2009

Very exciting day today! We had class in the morning with all of the other groups. All 65 of us listened to Peace Corps volunteers who have finished their 2nd year of service and have signed on for a 3rd year! I can't imagine surviving the first two years, never mind volunteering for a 3rd. They had really interesting stories to tell and had some great successes at their sites. They were also very honest about Peace Corps service and told us about their failures as well.

After the volunteers were done talking we had a one hour lecture from a former Peace Corps Volunteer who was in Kazakhstan from 1998 – 2000. He now lives in Almaty after living in Russia and Tajikistan following his service. He gave us a brief synopsis of Kazakhstan's history which was very interesting. You could tell he had done his research.

Following the lecture, we boarded two buses and headed for the mountains. We went to this place called Tyrgen outside of Ecik. There we completed a short hike to a waterfall. The hike was not long, but was rather steep. Our hard work was rewarded when we got to the waterfall. It was gorgeous and the view was incredible.

It was fun to relax and enjoy the company of the other volunteers. We felt like we were on vacation somewhere and it was a welcome diversion from our usual routine. I left my hiking boots back in the U.S. due to space limitations. So I had to hike up in my Birkenstock sandals. They did the trick fine, but there were definitely some places where we had to cross streams of water on slippery rocks that made me a little nervous. I made it fine, but hiking boots would have been much easier to walk in. However, I put my self-consciousness aside when I was at the top and saw a group coming up with one woman in stiletto heels! I kid you not. Our Russian teachers were laughing, and they said a Russian woman never misses a chance to look good, even when mountain climbing. It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen, but I admire her talent, because if I had done that I probably would have broken an ankle.

9/20/2009

We had a very exciting weekend. We had class on Saturday morning, and in the afternoon all 10 of us from our village went to Almaty. A girl in our group had a birthday so we headed into the city to celebrate. We went out to dinner and then went back to the apartment to play cards. There was a 24 hour store downstairs from the apartment, so we were able to get Snickers, chips and beer. We've been warned not to go to bars, because that seems to be where volunteers have problems, and none of us want to get sent home.

Some folks from other groups that were staying in the apartment with us got a little crazy and were being kind of loud. That mixed with sleeping on the floor, means that I did not get any sleep Saturday night. At about 3 AM one of my friends got up and asked if anyone else was awake. Two of us were, so the three of us went outside and talked. At about 5 AM, we figured it was safe enough to walk to the 24 hour internet cafe. So we packed up our stuff and left the apartment for the l5 minute walk to the internet cafe. We got to get online without having to wait, which was nice, but for some reason none of my blog stuff would load. How frustrating!

After that we went to find some breakfast, and did some quick shopping and then found a bus home. I slept the whole bus ride home (about a 1½ hour ride). It was nice to return to our village after a crazy night in the city.

9/24/2009

This week we did a lot of work on the various projects we are working on. We had to design an extra-curricular activity/club, design a community project and plan a day camp. We have been working on the camp and the community project for a few weeks, but the proposals were due Monday the 20th. The projects are designed to give us some practical experience, as we will probably be involved in some of these activities at our sites.

We will be doing the camp for three afternoons after school in mid October, at the school in our village. We had to plan the whole thing and work within the framework we were given. The camp will be for about thirty 8th grade students and we have about seven 11th grade students who have volunteered to help us out. We'll play some games, do some work on computers, and complete some art projects. The students will also work on team building and leadership skills. It should be interesting. Most of the 11th graders are able to speak some English and should be able to help us communicate with the 8th graders. I'll let you know how it turns out! Here are some photos of the kids we'll be working with at the school. We were doing a community activity with them, that they seemed to enjoy. My language group, and the people that I am working with on the camp.

9/27/2009

This week also marked the end of week 5 of Pre-Service Training, so we are half way through. We have 5 weeks to go before swearing in as full Peace Corps Volunteers on Halloween. Our trainers and teachers presented us with a cake on Friday that we happily devoured!

In two weeks we get our site placements. We can't wait to find out where we'll be placed for the next two years. It's really exciting, but scary at the same time. I've adjusted fairly well to my life in the village and it will be hard transitioning somewhere new, without all of the support we receive here. I think I'm up to the challenge, but it still makes me nervous.

9/1/2009     Today was the opening day of school for all of Kazakhstan.  We were invited to the school in our village for “First Bell”, which is what they call the opening ceremony for school.  It was neat to see such a big deal being made out of the first day.  All of the students showed up in their uniforms, from kindergarten to the 11th grade.  The school board, teachers, and parents were all there as well.  Many    people gave speeches and we had to introduce ourselves (in Russian!) to the community.  There was dancing and singing and even an accordion player.  Unfortunately, our dog decided to accompany us to the ceremony, as he likes to follow us around town.  The ceremony was outside and he kept getting in the way of the students and the teachers.  People kept trying to shoo him away but he just wouldn't go.  He mostly stood next to us, but occasionally he would get out in the crowd or generally disrupt the ceremony.  I guess he really wanted to experience First Bell.

  9/6/2009       We went to Almaty yesterday, and saw the big city for the first time.  It was really cool, although we didn't have much time to enjoy it.  We went to the Peace Corps Office, which wasn't that exciting, but we need to be able to locate it in the event of an emergency.  We took the bus over there and then took the bus back to the city center.  We then walked around and saw the Central Mosque, the Zenkov Cathedral, Panfilov Park, some monuments and the arbat, which is a pedestrian mall.        It was a cloudy and rainy day, as you can see from the pictures.  Otherwise, you would have been able to see the mountains in the background of many photos.  But we could barely see them since it was so cloudy.  Our group leader said it is sometimes difficult to see them anyway due to the smog issue.  When I get back there, if it is clear, I will take more pictures of the amazing view.         This week we should be going to schools.  We have to present an English lesson to two English classes at the school in our village.  Even though we won't be teaching when we get to our placements, they want us to know how to present a lesson and get a feel for the Kazakhstani educational system.  A few of us have teaching experience, but it will be a very different experience from teaching any teaching I've done before.          Sorry this entry is all over the place, but I guess that's how my mind is working these days.  I do need to share a funny story that happened.  Those of you who have been to my parents' house and have tried to sneak out empty handed (without any food from my mother) will appreciate this story.  Last week, my language group came over to my house for a study session.  My host mom brought in a bowl of apples from our tree out back.  Everyone took one and there were plenty left over.  So, I offered everyone another apple to take home.  There were still a few left in the bowl when I brought it back to my host mom.  From what I could understand, she was upset because they didn't take enough.  She lead us out to the apple trees in back and had me pick some more for my friends.  They each went home with about 4 or 5 apples.  I felt like I was back at home and that my Kazakh mom and my real mom were one in the same person.     9/12/2009       So you are probably wondering what my days are like (or maybe you're not, but I will tell you anyway).  Monday through Saturday, I wake up around 7, get dressed and washed, then eat breakfast with my host family.  Breakfast could be eggs, rice, macaroni, or last night's dinner.  Chai (tea) is always served, as is some bread, butter and homemade jam.  Around 7:40 or so, my friend Cindy picks me up and we walk to our Russian teacher's house for our class.  Class usually goes from 8:00 to about 12:30.  We then walk back home for lunch, which is usually rice or macaroni with tomato and cucumber salad, more bread and more chai.  After lunch, we walk back to another house for our afternoon technical training sessions.  The session usually starts around 2 and goes to about 6.  We then walk home for dinner.  I usually play with the kids for a while and we have dinner around 8. Then I do my homework and go to bed around 10.     Not super exciting, but so is the life of a Peace Corps Trainee.  Although we are comfortable with village life and enjoy the company of other Americans, we are all eager to survive training and get to our permanent sites in November.  That is when the real Peace Corps experience begins.       

August 21, 2009

So that song was playing while I was waiting in the Providence Airport for my flight to Washington, DC. Pretty appropriate...After a tearful good-bye with the fam, I was on my way.

I arrived in DC on time and went to the hotel to meet all my fellow Peace Corps folk. They were easily recognizable by the tremendous amounts of luggage each carried with them. It was cool to talk to people who had been going through the same emotions that I had been over the last few months. Almost everyone had a horror story about packing and the things they had to leave behind. My list of things left behind includes several books, sneakers, a knitting project and newly purchased boots. Trying to adhere to the Peace Corp's 100 pound luggage weight limit was nothing compared with meeting the luggage dimensions requirement. Anything that protruded from the bag had to be discarded.

After checking into the hotel, we proceeded down the hallway, dumped all of our stuff in a hotel conference room and lined up to hand in our paperwork. Once everyone (all 66 of us) handed in their paperwork, we started the never-ending staging session. The staging session included some ice-breakers, skits, and group discussions about Peace Corps. The room had a “summer camp” vibe with all of our enthusiasm and energy and I swore we were going to join hands and start singing “Cumbaya” at one point. Don't worry, we didn't.

We stayed in that conference room from 1 pm to about 7:30 pm, with 1 short break. Working on 1 or 2 hours of sleep, those last few hours of the session were painful. We got some money for dinner and headed over to a near by restaurant. Some bonding ensued, but most of us just wanted to get to sleep.

“No Sleep 'til Alamaty...”

On Wednesday we ate breakfast, and I enjoyed what will probably be my last everything bagel for a while. We checked out of the hotel and boarded buses for Dulles around 12:00. One volunteer and I were sitting outside waiting for the buses and we met a returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Honduras. She wished us well on our trip and recounted some of her fond memories for us. I thought it was a good omen that we met her and that even after 20 years, she still looks back positively on her experience.

Arrived at Dulles at around 1 pm, but our plane wasn't until 5:45. The time passed quickly and soon we were on our flight to Frankfurt. Most of us (including me) did not sleep on this leg of the flight. I had two really nice seat mates and we chatted and laughed for a good portion of the flight. We arrived at Frankfurt somewhat tired and cranky after not sleeping at all on the flight.

On the second leg of the flight we all slept. We arrived in Almaty around 1:30 AM on Friday morning. We had a welcoming committee in the form of some Peace Corps volunteers and officials. We loaded ours stuff onto trucks and rode buses to the “hotel”. Four of us shared the room shown in the pictures below. Needless to say we became acquainted really quickly.

8/22/09

Crazy morning, but we now have a better idea of what work we'll be doing.

Went to our villages today and met the families that we'll be staying with until Halloween. All of the families met us at the gate to the village and seemed really welcoming and excited to have us. They performed a dance for us, and made us do a dance too! We are staying in an Uighur village, apparently Kazakhstan has the largest Uighur population outside of China. I met my host mom and she took me back to her house. She has a daughter, a son-in-law, and three grandchildren who all live with her. The house in the background of the picture is where we have our technical training every day. I met my host mom and she took me back to her house. She has a daughter, a son-in-law, and three grandchildren who all live with her.

They fed me a lot of food upon my arrival including chai (tea), some great bread, some chocolate spread that rocked my world, and some tomato salad with some of the best tasting tomatoes I've had in a while. I would have been content if that was dinner, but alas it was not. For dinner we had some more tomato salad, rice, vegetables and meat chunks, and chai. I'm pretty sure I downed a meat chunk or two, but time will tell if they'll come back up! For desert we had watermelon, which was excellent. My Russian, however, is not so excellent, but I managed to show gratitude for their hospitality.

8/29/2009

Oh, I must be psychic. After writing that last post, the meat chunks and everything else totally came back up. I spent all of Sunday (8/23) running in between the outhouse and the inside tub. I had stuff coming out all ends. When I wasn't getting sick I was sleeping. After one trip to the outhouse, I walked onto the porch and sat down. I was so tired I didn't think I could make back to my room. So I just sat down and rested for a bit. I was sweating really badly and my host sister saw me and made me call the Peace Corps doctor. He said I had the honor of being the first one in our group to call with gastro-intestinal issues, but certainly I would not be the last! I had to drink lots of water and take the equivalent of pepto-bismol (called Pept-Eez) that was in our medical kit. There is nothing like puking in front of strangers to humble you a little! Their kids were totally watching either in horror or curiosity at the crazy American puking in the tub.

So we survived week 1 of Pre-Service Training (PST). The 10 of us who are staying in the same village are adjusting to life here, and I think the host families are adjusting to us. My Russian is definitely improving but it still has a long way to go. As is true with most language skills, I understand far more than I am able to express. My family has had a few guests since my arrival, and I can tell when they are talking about me, because there are always conversations about how I don't eat meat. To which the guest will usually ask, well what does she eat? To which they reply, “ Macaroni, rice, spaghetti, vegetables, and fruit”. Which have pretty much been my steady diet since my arrival here.

We have apple trees in the back yard, so every day on my way to Russian class I can pick myself an apple to take as a snack. Others have peach trees or pear trees in their yards and we all have fruit with us for class each day. Life in our village is pretty good. Some others complain because we are in one of the more remote villages and we don't have internet access like the others do. I try to keep reminding them that that is not what this experience is about, but alas the young kids today want their internet!

Here is a photo taken at our language teachers' house. They were teaching us how to wash clothes by hand, just in case you had to do that. Luckily, my host family has a washing machine!

Here is a picture of our dog, named sabaka, which is Russian for dog. He is super cute and he comes to our Russian class everyday. He walks us home sometimes and we feed him our food scraps. He loves bread!

Lastly, here is a picture of the mountain view from our village. It's not a great picture, I will try to get better ones next time. But we have an amazing view of the Tien Shan from our village. They provide an amazing back drop, and sometimes don't seem real. Supposedly there are waterfalls near by that we may get to hike before we leave.

So I have less than two weeks of school left of the school year that won't end...I leave for Kazakhstan 8 weeks from Friday. Seems like a long time, but not quite enough time to get my life in order. AHHHHHHHHH!