December 9 Dear Mom, This past weekend (it's now Tuesday, December 9) was pretty good. We went out to dinner to the Kizabek on Friday night with Dixie as we, no surprise here, had no utilities. Paul was out boozing it up with some of his students who are about to graduate. I tell a few of his stories so you get a flavor for that side of things. He teaches third and fourth year students who are a little more mature than mine, so he can hang out and do things with them. Also he is not married. A bunch of them are in his Business club which meets on Mondays and Wednesdays where they learn about English, business, or just have fun. Paul had gone out a few times with his students, drinking and dancing. I guess this party was a somebody's house, and Paul said that about five minutes after they walked in, they started dancing in the living room. I haven't yet figured it out yet. I can't tell if is a desperation to party or maybe just a cultural difference, but people party really hard here. For Paul, there was none of the American drinking first kind of thing to get in the mood. They just walked in the room and busted a move, with the lights on. Paul had the great idea of turning off the lights and lighting a candle, which was fine until some of them wanted to play cards, a game called 'due-rack.' This game has confused us since the beginning because we can never tell who is supposed to play next. The locals claim it is easy, but we always seem to be wrong. Somehow it is never our turn....hmmmmm. The name of the game means 'fool;' maybe that is what they are making of us. So Paul quickly jumped on the chance to play cards and avoid the dancing. One girl got very drunk and tried to put the moves on Paul, which he deftly avoided until she passed out on the sofa. He is making sure he stays safely on his side of the line when it comes to teacher/student relations. Some of his male students, who are almost all slackers and cheaters (it is scary to think these guys are the future of Kaz), tried to get him drunk, but he just smiled and sipped at his glass of vodka. Last Friday we went out for dinner as we all had no utilities (Dixie is still paying for us most of the time but that doesn't bother me when I found out that she is making huge money here). We met Dixie at the Cafe Bar, and I ran into three of my first year students there, drinking vodka. They came over to the table and asked me over to their table in broken English. I sat down with them and took the glass of offered beer. I don't know if they were spiking theirs with vodka also, but mine was quite a boilermaker. We talked about various things in our combined broken English and Russian, and I quickly realized that they were fairly drunk and a little embarrassed about it. It was highly amusing to deal with them. We finally got the video camera from Deni, the French Canadian Hurricaner, and after some futzing around about the tape (he only had one with about 30 minutes left on the end, so I had to constantly copy what we had taped on to a normal sized videotape and then reuse the smaller sized tape). We spooked around town filming various things, and it all seemed to come out quite well from what we watched on our system. That evening we wanted to have people over, but the utilities were a little iffy. However, it all come on just before decision time, so we called everyone and told them to call. I cooked up a bean dish with rice which fed everyone (Paul, Dixie, Ahmad, Julie (Ahmad's (girl)friend), Chevat, and wife, Syelma. Then of course the lights went out and we sat around in the dark, very cold. We videotaped some of our little party so you can see it. Yesterday (it is now Dec 17) we handed off the first package to an American going home to Oklahoma; this package has the videotape, some 'tippy-tekas' (Kazak hats - we can argue over who gets one when you get it; I'd like Tim to get one at least), and other stuff. The other package with a bunch of stuff for people in Madison went to Joan's mom along with a bunch of presents for her family and friends. This past week was pretty mellow with nothing much interesting to report. We are just getting ready to give exams next week and then head into Almaty for IST (In Service Training). We are not sure when we will go; there is a possibility of spending the New Year with Vlodia and Larissa in Kapchigai, but it depends on Joan's schedule and mine. Her vacations never seem to come at the same time as mine which is going to cause conflicts. For example, Paul is planning on going to Uzbekistan the week after IST to visit Larry, and we would like to go along. I have all of January off, but Joan does not. There is a possibility that I could go to Uzbekistan with Paul while Joan returns to KO with Ahmad. She doesn't want to travel back to KO from Almaty by herself and rightfully so; I wouldn't either. This past weekend was a lot of fun; we went out to eat at the cafe bar with Paul and Dixie on Friday night. We bailed early and went to bed while Dixie and Paul stayed to dance with some Hurricaners. Saturday was spent in the RC trying to finish off the tests for the English Olimpiad. For some ungodly reason, our RC had to make the copies (probably about 1500) for the tests, and the quality of the copies was not at it's best, slightly grey in color but easily readable. Of course, Timur started squawking about how unacceptable it was and what are you going to do about it and all that crap, so we just shot him down and told him that there was nothing to be done. Then he had the great idea that we (not him of course) should go to Dixie and ask Hurricane to make the copies for us. This is all on Saturday evening at this point because it's taken all day to do the stupid tests. So we had to spend a good chunk of time convincing Timur that it was not a good idea and just not done. Joan: 'No, Timur. I will not give you Dixie's phone number so you can call yourself!' But the evening ended well with a little impromptu party here in the RC center. Throughout the week there had been an English teachers workshop hosted by the pedagogical institute that our RC is in. Of course, in typical style, Sapperbek, one of the head honchos here, comes to me on Monday and says, 'Oh, we're having this workshop. Can you give a hour presentation at nine tomorrow morning? And how about on Wednesday and Saturday?' He also shanghaied Joan, Paul, and Ahmad into doing stuff as well. These people are such idiots when it comes to planning. What were they going to do with the teachers? What if we had said no? Did they already have their own stuff planned? Sometimes it makes me want to scream. And then their are the teachers. They just sit there like bumps on a log. No one is willing to speak or to learn, to take a risk and try something new. Ahmad said it beautifully in a Star Trek voice, 'New ideas! Quickly, Mr. Sulu, shields up!' As you can tell, I am having a little frustration attack right now. The system is so poorly designed in terms of people actually learning things here. >From what I can tell, students finish at our institute without having to actually do any work. They all copy the same papers that are assigned each year and turn them in. For the fourth year students, they have 13 classes of which eight are pass/fail while the other three have two 'papers' each, all due at the same time which is when the exams for the pass/fail happen to fall . . . Oh, my god . . .. Where's that bottle of vodka . . . Speaking of vodka, I got a little off track. So as a present for our work during the English teachers workshop (Paul and Joan got nothing for the huge amount of work they put in on the tests) we got a bottle of vodka. So we ended up sitting around the desk in the RC, playing Yahtzee and chess, eating bread, kilbasa, and cookies, listening to music, and drinking vodka (the men) and wine (the women). Soon the hat was passed and Ahmad went out into the dark to acquire more beverages from a nearby kiosk, and the party went on. It was quite pleasant, but left us exhausted. Paul came back to our house for a bath and to spend the night. He and I stayed up late playing chess and cards while Joan scooted off to bed as she had to get up early for the Olimpiad because the poor little teachers couldn't do it themselves and needed someone to hold their hands. On Saturday, Isak's family had asked me to borrow the videocamera to film their family at the train station on Sunday. Six of their family - I don't know how they are related, probably aunts and cousins and such - were emigrating the America, and this was their last chance to say goodbye. They were travelling on the train from Turkestan to Moscow, and then flying to New York where relatives were waiting. They only had a 15-20 minuet layover in KO, and that is what I filmed. You'll see some of it on the tape that we sent home. It was a very sad, emotional experience for them, and my eyes kept tearing. Especially sad was seeing Sarah, the matriarch babushka, saying goodbye to everybody that was leaving: she is rather old and may not see them again in this lifetime. And then the hassle I've had trying to get the footage on to a normal sized tape using the same system they have here. Their cassettes say VHS and their machines say VHS, but I couldn't figure out how to get it right. I even took the camera to their house and plugged it right into the input jacks on the back of the tv and tried to record on their vcr, but it didn't work. I think it may be a problem with the vcr as I couldn't even record normal programming as a test. So I think I fixed the situation by recording the 17 minute segment on a cassette three times - each one with a different system chosen from a menu I got the vcr to display on the screen. What a hassle! On Sunday Joan and Ahmad were busy helping with the city wide Olimpiad at School #2 where they were hosting the English part. This whole Olimpiad was poorly planned and organized with poor Paul and Joan having to create, prepare and organize tests for all the different forms as well as variants of each tests so the little cheating rats can't cheat. It was a major hassle and time consuming mess with Timur being all bossy and unhelpful and demanding and his usual lovely self. Joan can't stand him even more now! When Ahmad found out, he was quite outraged that Timur had taken such an advantage of Joan and Paul. Apparently what he asked them to do was excessive and that most of the work should have been done and is usually done by local teachers. And of course they used the TOEFL (test of English as foreign language) test booklets that we have here in the RC for questions and format. And of course they didn't bother to read the instructions (Timur and the other idiots, not Paul and Joan - the other idiots), so there were all kinds of screw ups on the timing, the presentation, the instructions, etc. The halls were full of students wailing and whining about how unfair it all was - 'Mrs. Bailey, it's not fair! They got twenty minutes, and we only got 17 . . .' I ran away as soon as possible. On Monday I had the day off, so we went to play basketball at a local gym where Paul plays. He has been befriended by Serik, who was a student at School #2 when Jeremy was there. His English is good and his basketball is even better! He now goes to the institute and is on their b-ball team. There were only the two of us and, we only practice shooting and stuff. I have not played basketball in years, but the accuracy I found I still have plus Paul's stories of how inept they are on the court convinced me to play the next day, but I'll tell about that in a minute. That afternoon we had been invited to Isak's house for banya, food and tutoring as Sunday had been full of seeing off the family at the train station. The usual wonderful experience of chess, food, banya, big shots of vodka, English tutoring, and lots of laughter. They also invited us over for the next day to celebrate Independence Day for which we had no school. Wow! Now I am in Almaty, and Paul left this morning, the 28th. I am going to try to catch up on all that has happened, but it will take some time. Tuesday was the great basketball day! Serik was a student at School #2 and learned some amazing basketball skills from Jeremy which he has continued to develop. He now goes to our institute and is probably the best b-ball player in town. He and the four other members of the institute's b-ball team showed up at the gym which is a big, echoing room that is freezing cold and has a wooden floor that is so warped and old! You'll be dribbling along, and all of a sudden the ball doesn't come back up to your hand or the ball will bounce off one of the boards jutting from the floor and go shooting off at right angles. Since there were only seven of us, the teams turned out to be me, Paul and Serik against the four other best players from the institute. We crushed them, even three on four! They all play soccer here and have not grown up shooting hoops like kids in the states. They're not too bad at dribbling and getting to the basket, but they have no shots at all. Most of their shots are total bricks. They also can't pass worth a darn and can't guard against people who can. I am still accurate from the outside, although I can't make a lay up to save my life, so I just make passes and try to get open. Paul is the man who takes the ball to the hoop and scores, which is what he was doing when he blew out his leg. The only thing of real interest that week was the arrival of two United Nation volunteers from America, Brett and Marion. Brett will be a business volunteer in Kazalynsk where we gave our English teacher's workshop, and Marion will be a women's' development volunteer in KO. Amazingly enough, she was a Fiji 71 PCV in the same group as George Magiros. We never met while I was there; we must have just missed each other because she was based on the east side. She didn't know my name, but when I told her I was the guy in the accident in New Zealand, she said that she remembered hearing all about it. We know a lot of people in common. It is interesting to share stories about Fiji. Weird - two Fiji PCVs meeting in Kaz. Brett was a PCV as well in Latvia. Marion is 70 odd years old, and I think that KO will be too hard for her. Her threshold for hardship seems pretty low, and she seems pretty feeble in terms of dealing with stress and strange foreign conditions. She is originally from Brooklyn (I think) and has a great accent. When she found out that all the Americans were leaving town for X-mas (Dixie flew out for three weeks in Singapore), she decided to come back into Almaty to spend the holiday. That way we had four people in a 'koo-pay' on the train which makes it much nicer to travel. Also her housing situation kind of sucked, and no solutions were readily apparent. We don't know if she will be returning to KO after the New Year. X-mas is not very big here; most people don't know what it is or even celebrate it. However, New Years - 'No-vee Goad' or 'Sa No-vum Gode-um (Happy New Year)' - is big here and celebrated quite extensively. Apparently we will have quite a good time in Kapchigai with Vlodia and Larissa. continued.... So, let us know turn to the big adventure with Paul . . . On Saturday morning, the 20th, I met Serik and Paul at his apartment, and we caught a cab to the gym to play some basketball. There were some men there working on the heating pipes who had messed up half the court with dirt, broken plaster, machinery, and gymnastic equipment moved out from against the wall. After some discussion and arguing, it was decided that we could play basketball if we stayed on the other side of the court. Eventually three more of Serik's team showed up, and we started playing in the smoky gym. The smoke had come from the men working on the pipes which had frozen. They we using some sort of torch to heat the pipes and of course burn the wallpaper and surrounding woodwork (they are idiots here sometimes . .. ). The game at first does not go well for our team as we struggle to score, but we start to warm up and do well. At this point, a group of local soccer players, mostly Turks, show up to play to play indoor soccer. From what we can tell, they did not have the gym reserved and so could not just kick us out of the gym. They milled around and then asked us if they could have the court to which we replied 'no.' They then cleaned off the other end of the court and started kicking the ball around and practicing and glaring at us and sending random soccer balls into our half. On offence, I was standing just to the right of the paint when Paul took the ball up the center for a shot. He went up in the air and came down hard. I was watching the ball go in the net when I hear/see Paul go down with a shout of pain. He was grabbing his calf, it looked like he just twisted it. He tried to stand up immediately only to go down instantly with almost a scream. I knelt down next to him, realizing that he is in serious pain, and he gasps for me to get an ambulance as he has really messed up his leg. We get coats on him, give him some water and aspirin, and hold a quick conference as to what to do: call an ambulance a scary concept in this country - there is no emergency care here; you either live or die here before you get to the hospital, and there you take risks as well. Paul is a runner and general athlete who has hurt himself many times before, and he knew that this was no simple sprain, maybe even a break. All the soccer players had gathered around Paul, who was slightly hyperventilating and going into shock from the pain, and I looked up to see Mahmet, a local Turkish teacher at the Turkish Lyceum (high school) who comes into the RC all the time. It was nice to see a face I knew in a stressful situation! I ran to the phone to call the RC where Joan and Ahmad were running the English Club X-mas party. I got through to Ahmad and told him about what was happening and to call PC Almaty and that we would call him from the hospital when we got there. I ran back to get my stuff and get myself and Paul dressed as quickly as possible. Serik quickly learned how to do the chair carry by locking forearms together with me (good old Boy Scout training!), and we got Paul out on to the street and into a cab ride for a painful, bumpy ride to the hospital. On the ride, Paul said that he was feeling very shaky and felt like throwing up; he was also shivering uncontrollably. The cab dropped us off in the snow outside the hospital where nothing happened. So Serik ran into the hospital to get some help while I held Paul up, braced against a fence. At this point he was getting woozy and was about to pass out; I had my arms around him, and he was slumped against my chest, shaking and trembling. People kept walking by and just looking at us; I wanted to yell at them to help us, but knew it would have been futile. We stood there for five minutes at least until Serik comes out the door by himself . . . carrying a bare metal stretcher! We had to lower him to the stretcher and then carry him up the stairs to the emergency room. I will try not to repeat this too much, but you would not believe the primitiveness of their health care and the lack of it. It was one of the scariest situations I have ever been in. We get him into this room which is freezing, and the ladies (nurses perhaps - I doubt it) take the coats we had put over the shivering Paul off and hang them on a hook and leave him lying there, shaking on this cold, metal stretcher in this cold room. I quickly put the coats back on him and tell them to leave them alone. I found a phone and called Ahmad and gave him the number where we were. I was slightly sitting on the desk while talking, and one of the nurses comes up to me and starts yelling and pushing at me because I'm sitting on the desk. I basically yell at her back and tell her it's important. So they were just standing around and doing nothing at this point while Paul is either going into shock or is already there. They start picking at his shoe and ankle in an ineffective way. At this point, Rich loses him cool and starts throwing his weight around, demanding a doctor and insisting that they kept their hands off him until the doc arrives. Rich was pretty scared at this point. So they start babbling about 'ren-gen' which means x-ray here, and we wheel him into another room on a gurney. I had calmed down by this point and realized that the shoe did in fact need to come off asap as the swelling was pretty intense. So just as the shoe came off, the doc arrived and took a look at it. Early in this situation, I had made it clear that Isak, the head of the household where we banya and tutor and which is located literally next to the hospital should be called; he is a radiologist's assistant. In the second room, Isak came bursting in and took charge. I almost cried when I saw him because I knew that we were going to be okay and that he would take care of Paul. With lots of handshakes and almost hysterical laughter, we bring him up to date and tell him how the PC office medical staff wants things done. Luckily Serik was there and did an excellent job as an interpreter. We owe both him and Isak so much for helping us. It would have been very difficult without the two of them there. Isak, having a clue, realizing that Paul was freezing on this metal gurney and ran to get a pad to put beneath him. Then we wheeled him down to the x-ray room which looked like somebody's garage with a broken bicycle, a row of movie theater seats against one wall, and miscellaneous junk. Paul had to drag himself over on to the x-ray table which looked like a lathe in a wood shop. They booted me out and zapped. Later, the Peace Corps Medical Officer PCMO asked me over the phone if they had shielded his genitalia. When I asked Paul, he cried out no and then said, 'I guess I won't be needing those condoms now, huh?' PC always gives out way too many condoms to the PCVs; it is kind of joke now. The x-ray, which Paul kept, was not a film. It looked more like a old fashioned photocopy on old, yellowed paper. Luckily there were no breaks to be seen so they wheeled him back to the original room. There they tried to kick Serik and me out to do unspeakable things to Paul. Paul and I agreed that was bad idea, so we stayed put. You're not supposed to get any medical treatment like shots or surgeries without the PCMO's permission, so when they wanted to give him a pain shot, we decided to wait. And then when they said they wanted to bleed his ankle to let down the swelling (bleed him? Hello, Dark Ages . . . Hey, Natasha, where did you put those leeches?), we quickly nipped that in the bud. They had the little bleeding pan under his leg and the syringe all ready to go. So then they wanted to put a cast on his leg - before all the swelling was definitely not finished! At this point I was on the phone with the doctor at the Hurricane medical facility trying to figure out if the shot or the cast or the bleeding is OK. All of a sudden I looked up and saw that they had already started the casting procedure on his ankle. This of course caused Paul a fair amount of pain and he quickly asked for the pain shot. He then spent most of the time with his butt hanging as he forget to pull up his pants. Remember the old stick about wearing clean underwear in case you're in an accident. We, let's just say that Paul had forgotten to put on his that morning. The nurse was a little taken aback. Paul just looked at her, shrugged and said, ' Ya Amerikanits' - I'm an American. By this point we had all calmed down a bit and were able to laugh about it and ourselves. There was lots of back slapping and talking about us coming and drinking some vodka with them as a way of saying thanks. One cool souvenir of the experience is Paul's x-ray which everybody signed: me, the docs, nurses, Isak, and Serik. A cab took us home where Paul, feeling all frisky from his injection, decided he wanted to hop up the stairs before anyone could get to him and help. He paid later for his frivolity when his antics further inflamed and irritated his leg. We got him installed in the living room on the spare mattress, where he lolled around for three or four days, demanding bon bons and sips of distilled water in a crystal glass. **** So I am in Almaty right now, playing poker with a bunch of PCVs at the apartment of Mike Stewart, the Business Assistant Peace Corps Director (APCD). Jason Compy, Kaz 4, is house-sitting for Mike while he is back home visiting family with his new family. He recently married a woman from Latvia with three kids from a previous marriage. We have been staying here for the past few days, enjoying new restaurants, fellow PCVs and American sports on international ESPN at the PC office. We are hanging out tonight, Sunday night, playing poker and drinking beer which is why I just repeated myself. 200 tenge bought 200 red beans and lots of furious betting. I am at least 200 tenge down, but am now playing a multistage game (we are now taking a pee/smoke/popcorn making break) where I have a really good hand and have a chance to win the whole thing and get all my beans and more back! It is good to be here in Almaty. Now in the cold light of the morning, I counted my winnings and that I only lost 70 tenge. We were up until about three this morning; I learned all kinds of different types of poker games that all seem designed to take away your money.**** Back to Paul - we had been in touch with Dawn, the PCMO, about what was going on. I could tell it was frustrating for her to be the medical person responsible but unable to see the patient. All she could do was base her decisions on what a bunch of silly, giggling PCVs could tell her over the phone. We had also talked with the doctors/paramedics at Hurricane about all this, and one of them said he would come over the next day to look at it and give Dawn his opinion. However, they took a long time; in fact, it was another paramedic who came on Monday night. Paul stayed at our house until we left because it was easier, and we did not have crutches for him to gimp around on. We went to his apartment to get the things he needed. He spent most of time lying on his back, reading and napping By Monday morning, everyone realized that Paul's leg was not getting better and that he needed to go to Almaty asap. We started looking for options for getting Paul there, only to find that all the flights to the capital where cancelled due to a lack of gas and/or financial conflicts between airports. Also Hurricane had no charter flights in the immediate future, so it looked like a train trip was in order. So we suddenly realized that we had to get organized, pack, find someone to take care of the cat, cancel our classes, and apologize to our schools for not giving exams (yipee! I think it is better that I didn't. If I had given them an exam that attempted to grade whether they had learned anything or not, most of them would have failed and been angry with me, and I would have to deal with the admin of the school because I would have to give them marks that are lower than are allowed. You're not supposed to give anything lower than a three even though the system is a 0 to 5 scale. Idiots . . . And it would be a waste of my time to give an exam that they could all cheat on, like my counterpart was going to do, so why not let him do all the work?). We also realized that the train takes 24 hours to get from KO to Almaty, so if we (Paul and I to escort him) left the next morning (4 am), I wouldn't return until X-mas day and spend X-mas eve on the train - no thank you. So it was a perfect, semi-official excuse for Joan to get out of her last week of classes as well. Right, I am going to send this off via Kazbek at the PC office. If you want to write back to me, it shouldn't be a problem. I will finish up writing about the holiday as soon as possible. Take care and say hi to everybody!