Dear Mom, April 23 Back again! Our phone is broken again! Yesterday we received a package from Margy (farm) and Karen Johnson in Cleveland. Yahoo! Could you please pass on the message that the packages arrived? To the narrative - We arrived in Kazalynsk in the afternoon and found Brad Anderson, a United Nation Volunteer (UNV) who was a PCV in Lithuania, recovering at home from a party with a television crew from the BCC that was in the area filming the Aral sea and surrounding parts. He has the apartment under the apartment we stayed in when we went there last year for that cold teaching seminar with no hospitality. Bill and Jennifer, a UNV couple from Australia, live in that flat. Brad has tricked up his place quite nicely with all the UN money he has at his disposal. He has the driver drive him from his house to work, about 300 meters away. And you wonder why the UN has problems. They drop their UNVs into tough situations with absolutely no language or cultural training and give them too much money. Therefore the UNVs end up throwing money around to solve their problems and end up hiding behind their interpreters and being quite isolated from the community they work in. The weather was quite cold. I had been wearing sandals in KO and almost didn't bring a coat. It turned out that I should have brought gloves and a hat! Brian was unable to visit the school as there was an English Olympiad which has taken away all the teachers and administration people. She we hoofed it back to the train station to try to catch the 7 pm train. Nothing like walking quickly through a really isolated, rural town with high-tech backpacks on to draw attention to yourself! We didn't have tickets, so Brian talked our way on with the understanding that we would slip the conductor a little something for her efforts. That is a common way locals travel when the regular tickets are gone or too expensive. The hallways of the wagons that have koo-pays are often crowded with people who don't have tickets and are waiting for a spot to open up. That's why the trip from KO to Almaty on the Moscow-Almaty train is a bit risky. The tickets say 'conductor will show,' and there is a chance that the conductor 'showed' the last free spot to someone without a ticket. Then you have to stand around in the hallway until someone gets off at the next stop in Turkstan (five hours away) or even worse, in Chimkent (nine hours). We got into 'plaz-kart' or 'hard class' which I have written about before. It was really crowded, and we finally managed to find a corner of a bench to perch on. We were surrounded by many Kazak women who were fascinated with the strange looking Americans. Luckily I remembered to bring the photo album along, so I was able to pass around and satisfy their curiostiy. They also liked watching Brian teach me how to play cribbage. The conductor came down the aisle, and Brian asked her how much. We were ready for about 200 tenge or so each and ready to bargain. She said a number really fast which we both thought was 500, which didn't seem too bad. Then she said 100 for both of us, and we realized that she had said 50. Just as 15 and 50 are very similar in English and cause troubles for non-native speakers, there are some Russian numbers that are way too close.. We were overjoyed at the price and felt that it boded well for our trip, which it in fact did. In Aralsk, two hours later, we were met by Zhanat, the president of the teachers association there, and Dr. Sighn, an Indian UNV there. Dr. Sighn has the best British English accent. He sounds just like the character from the Simpsons. He was a very gracious host for the two nights we were there. He was fascinated by America and spent most of the time trying to pin down the American character. "So, tell me about the political system." "Why do Americans move so much?" "What causes the high divorce rate?" He kept us quite busy trying to answer his questions. Now I would like to talk about the hospitality here. In America, it is guest centered. The guest chooses what they want to do. The host gives the guest options and opportunities, sometimes deliberately limited but at least a choice. here the hospitality is host centered. As one PCV described it, quite famously, it is 'terrorist hospitality.' They ambush you with it. They are demanding, They get huffy if you want to change something. They get offended if you only want to sit in your room and relax after a hectic, tiring day of workshops, traveling, etc. In Aralsk, it started with our arrival. Everybody wanted us to sleep at their house and eat with them. We were put in a very difficult situation by having to choose. The two days we were there were packed with "after the seminar, we will go to the cafe at five. Then at six we will go to Sistan's house. Then at eight we will go to Galzum's house, etc. . .." We weren't given a choice. We weren't consulted as to what we wanted to do. It was really annoying. And, at every house, at every stop, they pile food in front of you and insist you drink vodka and champange. I know they mean well and it is part of their culture, but it is a real pain in the ass when you have to eat three meals in a row within a three-hour period and drink way too much foul tasting vodka. Sigh . . . So that night, we had dinner at Zhanat's house and found out that they/she wanted a lot more than we had planned to do during the seminar, an unreasonable amount. So after some haggling, we reached a compromise. We finally escaped to Dr. Sighn's house just before midnight where we were able to reorganize and prepare for the seminar. About 20 teachers showed up for the seminar since it was a Sunday. The majority of the teachers came from villages outside of Aralsk and had a long way to travel. Brian and I broke them up into two groups and got to business. They were relatively motivated to learn English and participate, but different levels of English skills made things a bit difficult. You gotta love English teachers who can't speak English! For lunch, we were hustled off to the "Friendship Cafe" in the Aralsk Hotel, right next to the port/bay where there used to be water. We could see some of the stranded ships from there, lying on the salt encrusted sand between stagnant pools of salty water. Brian and I ate alone; I don't know why we didn't eat with the teachers. I guess they didn't want us to infect them. We had some big, funky fish that was battered and fried. Not too bad, but I am a little leery of the fish here based on what I read about water pollution and the such. At one point, Zhanat explained that the fish of the Aral Sea were not contaminated and met European standards. Uh-huh. Right. The seminar ended around three, and we were hustled back to the cafe to meet with the teachers for a little party. No break, no chance to relax, zippo. One reason Brian and I were so excited to come to Aralsk was to see the sea and the stranded ships. Our schedule didn't look good, and we were worried. At the cafe, we sat around and ate even more food and drank more alcohol with toasts. Then it got even worse. They pushed the tables to the sides of the room and cranked the music on one of those HUGE boom boxes that you used to see in the break dancing movies - remember "Electric Boogaloo," people of my generation? It was that horrendous Kazak techno dance music they love here. I escaped to the bathroom and tried to drag it out as long as possible. Come on, it's four o'clock in the afternoon in the cheesy cafe. I really didn't want to dance with all these teachers. It is a pitful sight. They all stand in a circle and wiggle and shake. It feels like some sort of government organized exercise class. "Our illustrious leader has decided that the people of Kazakstan need to be more healthier. Therefore, everyday from four to five in the afternoon, we, as a people, must dance." It smacks of the cultural revoluntion in China back in the 50's. Brian, the traitor, found me hiding in the bathroom and dragged me back into the cafe. I wasn't going to dance until this lady came up and started dancing AT me. Brian started smacking about how I was 'offending her honor' by not dancing with her. He will pay someday. Then promptly at six, a car arrived to whisk us away to a school. Brian, the fool, had said that he would look at the school even though Peace Corps isn't going to put a PCV there next year for a variety of reasons. He was only looking at schools in Kazalynsh and KO. He gave in to their sob story, so we had to traipse around another run down school and peer into empty rooms and make meaningless comments. The school was on the edge of town, which means sandy step. It looked like Gulf War footage with all the rusted out cars, rubbish and run down houses. I told Brian to watch out for land mines as we walked across the sandy, rocky school yard. At this point, I was exhausted from all the travel, late nights and teaching, but no, we had to go to somebody else's house at seven! This was a little better in that it was the house of one of the interpreters for the UN, a woman that Brian had made friends with last year. He had kept in touch with her by mail and was excited to see her and her family again. But the family basically stayed hidden in the back rooms; I never got a straight answer as to why. We met them briefly but spent most of the time with Galzum and other UNV people. Another Indian man came over with Dr. Singh. This was good for Brian, as he could spend more time talking to his friend while I was grilled by the Indian investigators about the American character. It actually was quite a good time. I drank a little too much champange and got a little silly. I was lucky in that my story about vodka at Zhanat's house the first night we were there had gotten around. I said I couldn't drink vodka for some vauge reason. From that point on, all I got was champange in my glass, and sometimes the champange is really good. So after stuffing ourselves with food there, we were whisked away to another house for 'ghosti' or guesting. It was nine thirty; we were supposed to be there at eight. This was an interesting experience to say the least. The host's name was Sistan, a local English teacher. He had gone to Denmark recently with a large group of Kazak fisherman to see the latest fishing techniques and technologies - some sort of exchange program. Some of the Danish fisherman then came to Aralsk - that must have been quite a shock for both groups! He lived in a house on the outskirts of town. He has four camels in his yard - tall, handsome beasts. When we return in May, I hope, Joan and I are invited to his house for a meal and a camel ride. His house was the most traditional Kazak house I have seen. They basically don't have any furniture and do almost everything on the floor (a lot like Fiji). The kitchen had a low, Japanese-like table called a 'das-ter-hahn' in Kazak. The walls of the main room were covered with huge, colorful Kazak rugs (don't worry - we took photos), and there was a very ornately decorated Kazak chest. The floor was swathed in bright, patterned quilts where we sat around the feast spread on the floor. An electric samovar or hot water heat was there to help with the tea. The meal was pretty standard fare. At that point, we had eaten so much that it didn't matter, although Brian suffers from the 'skinny man's' disease and can never get enough to eat, so he kept them happy. Through the doorway to the other room, two of Sistan's young sons were peering around the corner at the strange foreigners. Whenever I looked up and made eye contact, they ducked back and giggled. I told Brian about this, and he, out of their sight on the other side of the room, snuck up to the doorway in their blindspot. When they were all scooted forward, I gave him the go ahead, and he jumped around the door frame at them, saying, "BOO!" They eyes got really big, and I think they had to go put on a new pair of pants. They totally didn't expect it. The culture is very conservative, and people don't do things like that. They don't have too much fun. What a shame. To be continued . . .