Dear Mom, Sept 15th
The start of the usual long winded letter! I just got a call from
Angelina who was the TEFL assistant for our training about the
possibility of going to a town near the Aralsk Sea to give a seminar
to the English teachers there. Apparently there is a UNDP (United
Nations Development Program) Volunteer who got in contact with the PC office
and wants to organize all it. They will pay transportation and for
accommodation there; sounds like a cool free trip to a new part of the
country! I guess Joan can stay with Paul while I am going, probably over a
weekend. She also told us about all the other volunteers who have checked
in. So far everybody who has called has had no problems, but the other
married couple, Jeff and Carlene Perigrine, have gone to Kyrgystan to be PCVs
there. I have no idea how you jump programs like that; they must be similar
enough to allow it. They were good friends and will be sorely missed. I
don't really blame as the town they went to, Timertau, was supposed to be
really bad with crime, drugs and pollution. Carlene went to an embassy
thingy where volunteers were asked about their new sites. When one of the
PVCs mentioned they were going to Karaganda which is close to Timertau, one
the embassy people said, "At least your not going to Timertau." Caralene
said, "Uh, excuse me, I am..." The embassy person asked if he could be
honest and upon assent from her, said that it was a real shithole. There was
a PC office person there who quickly tried to cover up that faux pas, but
that is typical PC office B.S. that we have grown to love.
Hopefully we will go to Kyrgystan to visit a woman we know from Joan's
hometown, Portage, and get to see them as well. So I guess we are now the
official married couple representative in Kaz 5; I think there is one or two
in Kaz 4, but we'll have to see.
I met with my other intermediate English class at the institute, and
they were very resistant to having fun, but I wore them down until they did.
I now have two classes that are a week behind so I can use the lesson plans,
modified of course, from the week before. I also met with the 11th formers
today for a good class, although they think they are a little too cool. I'll
have to see if I can dissuade them of that. We got booted out by a local
teacher at the end of class due to some sort of scheduling conflict. As we
got out of there, the room filled up with a whole passel/passle? of maybe
seven or eight year olds. What a bunch of little monsters! I think I would
soon be in jail for multiple homicide if I had to teach them. As you walk
down the street here, there are people with little tables, like tv tray
tables, on the sidewalks, offering candybars, cigarettes, matches, that kind
of stuff. The people sit or squat behind them or if the sun is really
strong, a short distance away in the shade. Many of the babushkas have bowls
of toasted sunflower seeds with a shot glass full of them balanced on top,
sometimes with a small drinking glass full as well. For five tenge, they
will fold you a temporary envelope and dump the glass into it. I usually
just take the glass and dump it in my pocket. I love walking around the city
- do I do a lot of walking - and crunching on the little seeds. You can
usually follow people by there trail of broken shells. For a long while I
was struggling to open the little suckers by cracking them with my teeth and
them prying out the seed with my fingers, sometimes getting splinters. I've
been watching the locals and how they do it and now think that I have begun
to master it. By holding the shell on the flat side and biting along the
edge while twisting my jaw, I can just about make the seed pop right out.
Soon I will be indistinguble from a local...right. As you can tell, I have
way too much time on my hands.
Friday night was a low key one at home with cards and an early night.
Saturday we had our first Teachers of English in KO (TEK) meeting here
in the building where the RC is. About twenty odd teachers showed with a
wide variety of English levels. It was a three hour plus marathon that
apparently much shorter than previous ones thanks to PCVs riding roughshod
over Timur and his desire to babble on (unlike me of course). Some teachers
reported on an English teachers' seminar they went to in Almaty and shared
some new ideas. The highlight of the meeting though was when one of the
teachers was demonstrating a game she had learned, some sort of 'what is a
...... and has four letters' kind of game. She asked the group, "What is a
quiet animal and has five letters?" There was a long pause, then Timur, who
likes to fill up quiet moments, cried out with authority and conviction,
"Cat!" I almost fell out of my chair in the back of the room from laughter
and even now the memory of it kills me. Another cat humor story just
happened today - when I showed another picture of our cat to the class and
asked his name, most of the students struggled to remember. One student
thought she remembered and hesitantly said, "Fat?..." Poor Fitzy and his
mouse belly. Tell Karen to give him a big tummy attack.
Later that night we headed down to Kizabek, the 'best' night-club in
town where we ran into a large bunch of Hurricane Oil people which we
had hoped would happen. We met some Canadians and Americans, and danced the
night away. The vodka is served in little flask like bottles, sort of a
cross between a piece of chemistry and a urine sample bottle. We met a man
named Mike who is a medical person hired by Hurricane to provide health care
in a local community. I'm a little hazy on the details, but apparently
Hurricane provides health care to this impoverished community as part of
their PR/contact. Mike works for a month then has a month off when he
travels around the world - strange but interesting work if you can get it.
We invited him over for dinner on Saturday night in typical fashion.
Sunday was a 'hangover' day - I know you'd be proud, mom - during which we
made a foray to the New bazaar which is much bigger than other times.
In Kapchigai, it was the Saturday or "Almaty' bazaar that was big.
There were definitely more people but a lot of the same shoddy goods.
We did score a nice pan/casserole dish and a scrub brush for the tub and
other surfaces. And of course.. a toilet plunger! No more hanging with Mr.
Pooper...
Today's big adventure was going to the admin building to help Timur
figure out the names and descriptions in English of the items in their
'museum.' As far I as I can figure, there is some sort of international
conference on the Aralsk sea (I guess they happen all the time but not much
can be done) here in KO that maybe the institute is hosting. So anyway, in a
wide corner of the hallway on the second floor, once you get past the
security guards in their camouflage, berets and bedroom slippers, they
constructed a room that wasn't there a little while ago to hold the museum
plus an attached room that was full of junk. If the institute had put a
fraction of the effort they have put into this museum into our housing, we
would be living in a mansion. I am really impressed by the amount of work
and quality of what was done; I may have to go in with a camera and take some
picture tomorrow. I also wouldn't mind going and seeing who is coming to
this conference, maybe I will meet an American who could take a role of film
and/or a letter back to the states.
And speaking of that, when I went to Hurricane Oil on Wednesday to Timor with
Mark Carrea, I ran into Rob, a Canadian that we met at Kishabek on Saturday
night, who said he was going back to Canada next week. I asked
him if he could take a letter and roll of film to mail to you when he
gets over there; he said yes, so you should now be reading that letter
and thinking about getting the film developed. Paul may send some
negatives with it as well, so shoot those off to his mom asap. I am
going to go out tomorrow around KO and take a bunch of pictures on my
day off so you can see what it looks like here!
Other random thoughts and things I've noticed that I've wanted to share:
There is no grass here - no bright green lawns. I haven't really
noticed it much, but today as I was walking to the RC center from the
institute, all the swept dirt which is their equivalent of a
well-manicured lawn caught my attention. When I get back to the states,
it'll be weird to see all that grass. Some volunteers said that when they
had visited the US Embassy, there was a healthy, well-watered yard of grass
which seemed almost obscenely green. They reached down and touched it.
There is grass up in the mountains - huge expanses of 'The Hills are Alive
with Music' type stuff; how long ago that seems.
Two bus experiences have really struck me as different as compared to
the states. It is these little differences that I think make this
experience really interesting. Sure, the money, language and a lot of
other things are different, but one becomes rapidly used/numb to them. Every
now and then, someone will do something or something will happen that
suddenly reminds you that you are thousands of miles from home in another
culture. On a crowded micro-bus (a minivan full of uncomfortable seats
welded to the floor) the other day, I was sitting in the jump seat near the
side door when a lady got on. As the van pulled away, she lost her balance
and reached out a hand and planted square on my chest for balance. With this
support, she wobbled her way to the back and plopped down without comment.
People are more comfortable with physical contact with a stranger here than
in America. I've gotten to know some people far too well on really crowded
buses, if you ask me, but it's normal here.
The other bus experience happened yesterday on the way home after a long day.
It was the rattley old number 2 bus; I've gotten to know the buses really
well now and can almost recognise them by sound. This bus has all kinds of
holes in it that let you see the road rushing by underneath; I can't wait to
ride in it when it gets really cold. I was packed in up front near the
driver's compartment/cockpit which is separated from the rest of the bus. At
a bus stop where people were piling off, the money person, who guards the
door and collects the 10 teenage, was running out of change. She leaned
toward me and thrust a 200 teenage note into my hand and pointed toward the
driver. Without knowing exactly what she wanted, I did what seemed natural
and stuck the bill over my shoulder in the window of the driver's
compartment. He grabbed the bill and rummaged around on the dashboard -
while driving and dodging everything in the road - and passed back to me two
packets of change. They wrap one bill around a stack of others to form 100
teenage packets like they do in banks in the states with plain paper bands.
I passed them over to the change lady who gave me a nod of thanks and kept on
changing. Again these are small things, but the interesting things.
Another interesting thing here is the road construction. At least in KO they
have it! I seen men chopping holes in the road to then install large metal
plates with spikes on them to hold them in place. Chopping holes in the road
involves a man with a large hatchet chopping his way through the asphalt
while men stand around him and watch for traffic - no cones or orange vests
for these manly men. On a bus ride home from the admin the other day, we
passed a two foot deep and at least six by six foot wide hole in the road.
There were little piles of dirt along the edges with small (maybe one or two
foot high) branches stuck in them to warn drivers about the hole as they
speed toward it.
Now it is Friday, and I just had a classic trip to the post office. I
went there to ask if I could take a photo of the interior of the post
office as it is very interesting and beautiful in its own way. When
asked if I could take the photo, the woman behind the desk said that I
had to go talk to the director next door. After spinning my tale of
being a volunteer for two years in KO and having a ficticious brother
who works in a post office in America who wants a photo of one in K to a
secretary, I got sent in to see a higher up who was very interested in me and
Paul, who had come along, and we sat down and tried to communicate in our
broken Russian. She even tried to call her English teaching daughter to
translate, but she was not home. Then another woman came in, and we laughed
even more as they tried to figure out why I wanted the photo and what I would
do with it. Then we all trooped down the hall to the computer/telex room
where an employee had a top of the line computer with a program that would
attempt to translate from Russian to English. It translated their question
as 'That you want (Russian word for 'take a photo of').' So I told them I
only wanted a photo of the interesting interior which resulted in them
finally saying, "You have to come back on Monday at 10 a.m. and ask the
director then." What a blast! They were particularly impressed by my
'potato' - our PVC ID passports whose name in Russian in very close to the
Russian word for potato and in training we always mistakenly called it a
potato so the name stuck - which in Russian says who we are, why we are here,
and to please help and be nice to this Amerikanski by order of the
government of Kazakstan. Apparently this document can solve all sorts of
hassles and headaches when dealing with the old Soviet mentality and
beauracracy. So I will try on Monday to snap a photo on the roll that is
with this letter.
We are at the RC about to watch Casablanca with Ahmad. Friday and
Saturday night were full of card games, scrabble and Hobble-de-Hoy, even
beerless no less! I think the lessening of beer intake is responsible for my
pants being looser and the belt needing to be tighter. What are a surpass!
Right before we took off to come down here, there was some sort of
party/maybe wedding going on in front of our building. We were drawn to the
window by shouting and noise below. Two carpets had been laid out, and a
large group had gathered around it, consisting mostly of little kids and some
old men. With much shouting and organizing, a wrestling contest started with
little kids, maybe five or six, going at each other. Even at such a young
age, these kids knew how to wrestle; there was no wild flailing around, just
grappling and quick take downs. Then from the crowd a middle aged Kazak lady
in brightly flowered dress and head scarf came out on the carpet and
challenged the other ladies to a duel. The crowd finally pushed an unwilling
spectator on the mat where she jokingly grabbed the first lady and fell over,
pulling her down with her to flop around on the carpet like fish. Joan, Paul
and I, leaning out of the window of our balcony, almost fell out from
laughing so hard.
On Monday after going at 10:30 and sitting for 35 minutes and not seeing the
director of the post office, I went back in the afternoon to sit around for
45 minutes more until he finally showed up and said, "Sure, no problem!" to
taking a picture of the inside of the post office. So you darn well better
appreciate that photograph!
As you can see from this package, there is a lot of stuff. The
cigarette package and match box are for dad. The Russified cards are
for either you or him; you guys can fight over them. Please mail off
everything either in the envelope or to the address written at the top
of letters. This includes the film that is marked as Paul's. I am
really excited for you to get this package. The roll of film I just
finished was shot in the few past days all over KO. Let's see if I can
identify them in rough details so you can identify them -1. Joan, Rich and
Paul in living room. 2. Toilet. 3. Shower. 4. Joan and Rich's bedroom.
5. Joan and Paul on balcony. 6. Wrestling match below balcony. 7. Joan
and Paul at post box on pedestrian street outside main post office. 8. View
of pedestrian street. 9. Joan and Rich in front of picture of Nazerbyev
(prez) and Kaz flag. 10. Joan's school. 11. View down residential street
(green fence) near Joan's school. 12. School #2 outside (red and green
building and me). 13. School #2 students and me. 14. Post office. 15.
Statue and mural at public square just across the street from institute. 16.
Institute (building with lots of trees in front) where I teach. 17. Corner
of streets between institute and RC. 18. Me holding open door of outhouse
behind RC. 19. Our building in the evening's light. 20. Mural on the
Humanities College building across street from RC. 21. Mosque/church on road
between RC and Hurricane Oil. 22. Joan in the bazaar. 23. Taken on the
corner near Hurricane Oil, between the RC and the bazaar. I think that is
all the photos but there could be some mistakes but it at least gives you a
rough idea of what things look like.
Yesterday was a busy day of teaching at school #2, running around town
taking pictures, waiting for the postal director, and teaching two
beginning classes at the RC because they were too many people who showed up
to charge them 200 tenge for an inefficient class that large. And today was
a bruiser too of three one hour and twenty minute classes back to back. Paul
may be taking one of the RC classes with my help. I am also going to meet
with the English club at the institute on Monday to set that up. I am going
to be very busy. I still want to keep my Friday's free for fun and ease of
travel.
Right, I found your letter asking about corrections of e-mails. Here
goes: fsimoni@osfl.gmu.edu jasmoore@wva.com (he may have moved on)
roffers@montara.cdf.ca.gov in terms of qimam@ix.netcom.com try Ken Temple to
see if he has the e-mail for Qaiser Imam and Marc Debree ken - spaz969499@aol
vlorissa@njackn.com judithb@smswi.org Hopefully that will clear things
up.
Here goes some x-mas wishing as well: AAA maps of America as presents,
paperback books (not too much trash please!), a cookie sheet for Joan to bake
cookies for me, there is a poem in that stack of materials that I have for
you to send called 'English is Tuff stuff' (a crappy photocopy - so far I
don't need any of the stuff for the diplomatic pouch), portable electronic
chess game (ask dad to find one at a thrift store!), dynamic and interesting
book on improving one's chess game, wooden spoon for cooking, round shaving
soap to be used with a shaving brush which I have, chalk erasers, chalk
holders (dad will know), insulated travel/coffee mugs with lids, a small 1/2
cup travel thermos (Joan and Rich each if possible - can be cheap ones),
Peanut butter, little packets of koolaid and juice like drinks with nutra
sweet, plastic coated playing cards, souvenirs of the US (mugs?), and jump
rope with swivelling handles. Now obviously we don't expect everything,
although if everybody wanted to chip in an item or two... This a list we
have been keeping of things that we have wanted or just cannot find! Don't
forget the POPCORN! Oh, yeah, bonehead Joan and Paul left the oven on last
night, all night, and the pilot light must of gone out because the whole
apartment reeked of gas! I'm glad we did get suffocated in the night! Don't
worry, I aired it out before I light a match and even then, there was almost
no gas in the pipes which has happened before and makes for a cold cup of
instant coffee. The Turkish Market where we shop of luxury items got in a
huge supply of Heinz Curry and Mexican ketchup as well as powdered garlic,
black pepper, some red pepper stuff and others. Don't be discouraged though
as they are expensive, and there are no Indian spices - a full set and some
Indian recipes would be appreciated!
Also so you can keep track, this is the fourth typed letter that I have sent
you. I do not know if the first three - all about KO - made it to you, but I
kept it on the computer just to be safe. Well, I cannot think of much else
to write just now, so I am going to print this up and run the package up to
Rob at Hurricane. He is a real champ for doing this as the package has now
grown to small hardback book size from one roll of film and a letter. Do
write back soon and say hi to everybody!
Love, Rich