the saga continues

Kazakhstan meets Pittsburgh

2009-05-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

Parading about downtown Pittsburgh with a group of wheel chair bound women, a blind man and their troupe of translators, facilitators, and escorts from Kazakhstan, proved to be an enlightening way to spend a vacation. Instead of reading books on the beach, I found myself taking turns pushing the women with severe limps and prosthetic limbs, guiding the visually impaired on my arm, and transporting people in my rental car as we gallivanted around town from rehabilitation clinic to assistance organization to tourist attraction and so forth.

When I learned that Justin, my Peace Corps successor, had given my dear friend, Serik-Bi, the opportunity to visit the United States for 10 days through a grant and the Open World organization, I immediately requested a week off of work. When I heard through the grapevine that his cohort of disabled Kazakh visitors would be in Washington DC, I booked my flight from Burlington. And, as things go when working with the unpredictable developing world, when I learned that they would be in Pittsburgh and NOT DC, I booked a rental car.

I arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday to find my friends on a tour of the Children’s Museum. It was one of many wonderful guided tours in which they took part in over the course of their stay.

I was welcomed warmly by Kulash, Serik Bi’s wife and guide. The last time I had seen Kulash was at her house in the village. She and Serik Bi hosted me for tea. We toasted to the work we had accomplished for the Sarkand Society for the Blind. We regaled one another about the joyful times we shared at the various celebrations we hosted with the local community of visually impaired people. I greeted Serik Bi next. He was equally excited about my visit. For the following few days, we proceeded to have meals together and listen to speakers talk about how they work with their own physical handicaps or how they assist others who have disabilities.

I was especially excited about an organization we visited called, “Life’s Work.” (lifesworkpa.org) It is an amazing facility in Pittsburgh, which helps disabled people find work in the community. We were guided by a staff member who holds his PhD in counseling, the Coordinator of Adult Services at the organization; he is also blind. He showed us around the building and provided a tour of the extraordinary facility. There, a huge group of handicapped people was hard at work preparing business mail for shipping and assembling parts for various companies. Nearby were workshops and classrooms for job training and evaluations also provided by the organization. The tour was followed by a question and answer session during which our guide explained some of the challenges and some of the aid he has worked through to reach his esteemed position today.

As we traveled to and from each location we visited. Serik By sat in my back seat reminding Talant, an impressive young Kazakh facilitator from Almaty, and I to describe the sights around us. “On the right? On the left?” He would badger curiously. We described the billboards, run down buildings, cathedrals, trees, flowers, bricks, cars, shops, bridges, stadiums, and passersby. I was reminded of the scene in the film, Amalie, when she sweeps a blind man up from his coin collecting post and runs him through the street describing the sources of each slight smell and sound.

We met with various service providers who kept talking about U.S. government funding and insurance money, which takes care of all the costs of being justly educated and cared for. We learned about how doctors write letters to ensure that patients expensive titanium wheel chairs and thousand dollar custom made cushions to prevent what my mother calls, “fanny fatigue.” We heard countless stories from people who were denied their rights as humans because they couldn’t walk or talk or see normally, but overcame the odds and are now admired members of the community with resumes which put yours and mine to shame.

I tried to explain to the clinician that our guests couldn’t get past the cost questions because no one gives disabled people in Kazakhstan the kind of financial assistance they would need to afford quality equipment. I asked leading questions to get one speaker talking about the aide he received to enlighten the group. I described the lack of support I witnessed to another young professional with a disability with hopes that it might spark a fire for her. It’s hard not to think about how much work in the world still needs to be done.

Last night we visited PNC Park for a Pirates game last night. We were met at the stadium by a diverse staff, including many workers in wheelchairs and a very handicap accessible stadium. We were also joined there by Kulash and Serik Bi’s host, a blind professor of Russian language. We had a pocket of the place to ourselves. The usual stadium seating was rolled out on its wheels and our group’s wheel chairs were rolled in. The foreigners watched the game in bewilderment. Explaining strikes, balls, outs, and fouls is challenging in Russian. I don’t think I was proficient enough to get the gang really energized about spectating. After eating a greasy ball game dinner, snacking on peanuts, listening to the tremendous sounds of a stadium, and wandering the various levels, we left the game in the 8^th inning, with Pittsburgh down by 3.

I said goodbye to my old friends, Kulash and Serik Bi, and to my newest Central Asian companions reluctantly and drove out of town thinking fondly of these truly remarkable people. It was strange to say goodbye again.

“You left us two years ago and we said goodbye to one another,” Serik By said to me. “We didn’t now then that we’d see you here today. Now we’ve come to your country by surprise, yet again we don’t know when we’ll see you again.” He told me it is now my turn. In fact, they all told me it is now time for me to return.

I’m headed back to my life in Vermont for now, though. I think my eyes are open a bit wider though. Once more, my friends from Kazakhstan have changed my view of the world. After teaching me about life in their world, they’ve come across oceans and continents and continue to teach me about life in my own world. They’ve opened the lens and shown me, yet again, that life is so much broader than that which we as Americans are accustomed to seeing.

Carbon Farming

2008-08-28T05:04:00.001-07:00

This summer, I've learned about a lot of movements toward healthier living as an individual and as a planet. Through my experience on the farm and at various workshops, it's come to light that there is so much one can do to improve the well being of our bodies and our environment. What amazes me is that such things are not publicized more to make such information accessible.

In the recent weeks, I've been learning about the benefits of carbon in the soil. Not only does it help the grass grow for healthier grass fed livestock, but it is also insanely beneficial for our atmostphere. The Maplewood gang is a humble part of a larger collaboration to promote carbon in topsoil. I just found out about this website and urge anyone who actually reads my blog to check out this website. http://carbonfarmersofamerica.com

Carbon Farmers of America is just one of many movements in the Northeast REALLY DEDICATED to actually making the world a better place.

Awesome!

Happy Harvest!

2008-08-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

Just another day on the Noel Family Farm ...

Nothing like a good, old fashioned game of hit-the-onion-with-a-giant-zucchini ...

Help Wanted...

2008-08-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

Today was Beth's last day of work this summer.

(She's leaving us to attend the 11th grade.)

Hannah has a hard time letting her employees go.

Rub-a-dub-dub

2008-08-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Rub-a-dub-dub

Three men in a tub,

And who do you think they be?

The butcher, the baker,

The candlestick maker,

They all jumped out of a rotten potato!

Turn 'em out knaves all three.

Maplewood Vampire Protection Program

2008-08-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

It's not easy being a vampire slayer. But someone has to take on the mean streets of rural Vermont's very own Highgate Center. Hannah Noel grows a mean garlic bulb, so it's no wonder I use the intern guise to fool the sharp toothed predators.

I CAUGHT ONE ... It was all over with the wooden stake in his heart [armpit].

Another happy ending.

Fun on the Farm

2008-08-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

Calvin debuts on the blog eating a plum.

Maddy's very own corn. She planted it from seed and grew it herself!

Justin and Hannah after a messy messy day harvesting potatoes.

A Harvest Day

2008-07-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Today is a harvest day on the farm. We've been collecting a lot of savory stuff to divy up for our CSA members. Here are a few photos for you to enjoy. (Although they might make you hungry.)

Just testing for our members to make sure it's delicious ...

Justin and I with a little bit of our bountiful harvest.

Summer Squash and Beans

A lovely arrangement in the milk-room. Hand picked flowers by Hannah!

Nasturtium flowers! They're spicy and edible.

(Put them in a salad and people will think you're the classiest.)

Garlic hanging in the barn to cure

Very fresh "New Potatoes" (with the very tender skin) ... mmmmm ...

Crunch.

Meet the Maplewood Crew

2008-07-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

The inevitable question is continually being asked by people all across the eastern seaboard (and even some I know in the west coast). A few have gently prodded, “Oh is this for college credit or something?” Others ask more directly. So why would someone want to work on a farm for the summer for free? Farm produce buyers are asking the farm owners. Friends and family are asking the unpaid help. Neighbors are asking, “How can I get some?” Everyone wants to know.

For us, the answer seems quite obvious. We’re city kids and we’re citied out. It’s much like the “Back to the Land” social phenomenon, which swept America in the 60’s and 70’s. And now that I’m here, I’m finding scores of books about people abandoning their lives, literally, for greener pastures. After spending thousands of dollars and more than a few years on college, passing a few years pecking at keyboards and riding the subway to the office, some people just want to taste sweat on their face and feel dirt under their nails for a change.

We’re trying to gain some knowledge or build a bit more character, perhaps. To actively take part in growing something is an amazing process which brings us back to the very core of being human. So, really guys, what’s so surprising about spending a summer on the organic farm?

Justin is a Philly native who spent some time in the North Country and fell in love with it. Last year, he decided to intern here to learn about organic farming with hopes of someday running an organic operation of his own. This is his second summer of planting, transplanting, weeding, mulching, harvesting, digging, hoeing, raking, lifting, pulling, pushing, sometimes dragging, and, of course, sweating. During the academic year, Justin’s an environmental educator in Brooklyn. He’s an amazing teacher (I’ve seen him in action!), an inspiring person, extremely organic … uh, and skilled at Kung Fu. Awesome, right?

Gabe is a Cornell grad who majored in the classics (Latin and Greek). Justin recruited him from upstate NY to join us on the farm. He DESTROYS people (i.e. me) at Scrabble. It might have something to do with all of those years he spent cooped up in that Ivy League library. He’s also awesome at most athletic endeavors (so far I’ve seen his Frisbee skills (sheer talent), his bike skills (like lightning uphill), running skills (he sprints), and lifting skills (heavy stuff). Anyway, he’s pretty incredible too. I’m not sure if Gabe has specific agricultural goals for the future or if he’s just here to be country and work hard.

And, I think you all know me. I’m the third “intern.” (That’s the polite nomenclature for the unpaid help.) I felt I needed to maintain my reputation for unpredictability, so I decided to quit my full time job and move to Vermont to work for free on a farm. When I’m sitting in a carrot patch weeding out dandelions and clover, it seems totally logical to spend a summer learning about how to live off of the earth, how to care for plants and creatures, and how to make things grow.

So, who do we work for?

First there’s Hannah. She’s the boss. Hannah started organic farming on this farm about 5 seasons ago. She had a little garden patch from which she harvested and then sold the produce at a farmers market in St. Albans. Trucking around with Madeline, her then infant daughter, she decided to find a way to make selling her crops a successful endeavor without so much commuting. So, she opened a CSA operation. (Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, means that community members can buy a share of the farm and take a percentage of the harvest each week. More on that later, I promise.) With insane amounts of hard work building up to now, Hannah now has almost 10 acres (if not more) of crops growing for 55 families who are members this year. Wow. That’s super growth. She makes deliveries to two central locations in town to cut down on fuel consumption, too. (It’s very eco-friendly.)

Madeline is now a beautiful and bright 4.5 year old. She spends a lot of her day in the garden and could teach people about foraging for edibles. She knows the flavor of every leaf on the farm and she’s a great helper. She’s got a little brother, too. Calvin is just over a year and he’s pretty adorable. They’re both active members of the farm gang.

Eric is the other boss. He runs two integral operations on the premises. He handles the totally organic/grass-fed/free range animals (chickens and cattle), which is a demanding profession in and of itself. In between feedings and pasture changes, he runs an auto shop. He’s a gifted mechanic (former Indie Racecar Pit Crew dude) and a great cowboy. I’ve seen him lasso, tackle, and hog tie in a commendable attempt to round up six renegade calves. Each morning, he schools me in chicken feeding, herding cattle, and everything else that comes along with running an animal farm.

I am enamored with the way they live and the work being done here. I’m excited about being in week 5 of this experience. The time is flying by. I also don’t mind volunteering my time in exchange for a rewarding summer of manual labor and healthy living…

VT Bike Excursion II

2008-06-30T21:17:00.001-07:00

50 miles
Shelburne to Highgate
Saturday, June 28

Holla ....

Brooklyn, Buddha, and Bugs

2008-06-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

So there are a few things in life which could concern a technically unemployed 26 year- old. For example, one might be concerned with the same things with which one’s friends are concerned. Said friends discuss 401K’s, insurance benefit plans, purchasing real estate with a romantic partner, planning weddings, and so on. Much to the confusion of my loved ones I, however, am concerned with none of the latter. I'm concerned with weird things like insects, the Dalai Lama, and making things grow.

Critters and I have had a close connection since I began my job as an early childhood environmental educator in Brooklyn. (This, for the record, was my first and only “regular” full time job –which managed to sustain my interest for approximately 8 whopping months, whereupon I quit and moved to Vermont to grow things on a farm.) During this time, I developed intimate friendships with countless snails, pillbugs, spiders, worms, beetles, and even an African millipede. I brought them around the city to schools, parks, friends’ houses, bars, and classy restaurants in my purse. I introduced them to students, friends, and family members. They let me poke at them and peek at all their body parts. They were more than obliging, in fact.
Recently, while listening to a book on my Ipod (I’m so progressive and hip, by the way, that I listen to my books now.) by the Dalai Lama, it was brought to my attention that all of these notoriously “creepy” crawlers are more than just bugs. They’re (get this) MY MOTHER. According to Buddhism, every sentient being can be called “mom.” This is because the history of the universe, in addition to the future, is infinite and with the whole policy of reincarnation this means we’ve had an infinite number of mothers. If we’ve had infinity moms then every beetle, worm, and giant African millipede was, indeed, my mom … once upon a time …

This presents a huge moral dilemma for organic farmers. Just because we don’t use pesticides doesn’t mean pests are condoned.

I would love to leave the little garden creatures’ lovely habitats in the carrot patch, but this is not allowed. The authorities said so because if we want natural crops to present to the world, we have to protect them from predators. So first I have to rip up their jungles. I uproot the clover and dandelions to make room for desired roots to stretch and grow.

When cucumber beetles got to the tomatillos a few weeks ago, we interns were instructed to check every leaf for bugs and eggs. When we found such offenders, we were told to squish them. Eggs. Babies! And the beetles … they crunch! It’s brutal. It’s genocide. But it’s necessary. So, I sucked it up, put on work gloves, and wiped out an entire beetle hamlet.

Yesterday, the universe plopped another predicament of virtue in my lap. We harvested hundreds of kale leaves. I was informed that I had to pick through the leaves and collect the “little green worms” and squish them. Three of us sat in a circle, picking through the leaves, finding bugs and pupae. I didn’t have gloves handy and therefore couldn’t bring myself to pinch them off and get their bug goo on my skin. My boss suggested that I put them into a Tupperware container and drown them. I knew that the fast death by pluckers might be more humane than a plastic torture chamber, but that was the avenue I had to take because of my cowardice. It seemed like an indirect way to kill them, avoiding the responsibility of being my mothers’ murderer.

The Dalai Lama makes total sense when he says to practice compassion and be conscious. He reminds me of how I want to live (and I truly strive to be the compassionate personality he advocates) but, shamefully, I don’t think I’m ready to stand up for my tiny mothers: the beetle or the little green worm, just yet. He says it takes a lifetime of practice to make yourself even a tiny bit better.

So while my friends are actually earning their livings and planning their futures (what rational Americans do), I'm actually spending days working for free and evenings wondering what a Buddhist monk would do in the garden of an ashram. I know that makes me bizarre to most of Brooklyn, but the maybe the bugs are grateful.

Om.

Home Grown

2008-06-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

Last night, I went to the St. Albans Free Library to hear two speakers talk about buying locally. The speakers happened to be Hannah Noel, my boss here at the farm, and Justin Erkess, my dear friend from Brooklyn and fellow intern. Their presentation was really great.

Hannah gave a lot of information on how her family consumes locally. They buy the majority of their food within the county and also buy their soaps, animal feed, and lots more locally. She mentioned the 100 Mile Challenge, challenging people to spend one month eating as much as possible within 100 miles. It's a wonderful idea and pretty feasable during summer, when local farms are bursting with succulent produce.

She read a few passages from the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," Which I now feel very compelled to read. From the book, she gave statistics about how our food travels an average of 1,500 miles before it gets to us. In an age of global warming and oil issues, eating locally is one way to do your part in helping the environment. The book recommends eating one local meal a day to help the local economy and to help the world.

Justin, a very urban guy, has made a strong effort in recent years to eat locally where ever he goes. Not hailing from a rural county with the highest number of organic farms in Vermont (Franklin County, where I now reside), this is a pretty amazing feat. Who knew you could eat locally in New York City?! He managed the 100 mile challenge, eating within an average of 75 miles during the previous year in NY. (Awesome!)

He gave a very energetic presentation. Why shop at farmers markets? "I want to meet the people who grow my food. I want to know those who nourish my body. I want to pay the price they ask for without haggling because I KNOW how much work it is to scrub each and every radish you pull from the ground. I want to shake his or her hand and say, "Thanks."" That's why. "I think that investing in my food is worth the extra price."

They do it by shopping at farmers markets, looking for "Locally Grown" marks on their food at the grocery store, and even going out to local farms to pick up things like milk, cheese, meat, and more. Justin proves that it can be done anywhere, even if you are living in a city.

I was totally impressed and a little bit embarassed I haven't been a concious patron of local businesses before this. I intend to turn over a new leaf (which won't be hard this summer because Hannah is providing local EVERYTHING for us). I encourage you to do the same.

...P.S. ... I'll bbe updating with stories about the farm soon. I promise!

So Country...

2008-06-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day on the farm. We harvested, sorted, weeded, and set up the drip lines for watering the produce. It was a nice day and I do think I got a feel for some of the essential tasks we’ll be doing and the way things are organized here. It was great.

Tomorrow, I start working at 6:30 with Eric. He’s letting me observe and possibly help with moving the herds of cattle. I won’t be allowed to get really into it until I’ve read the book he gave me about good “stockmanship” (“Moving ‘Em: A Guide to Low Stress Animal Handling” – and that’s low stress for the cow, not the human). But I’m excited to get started!

VT Biking Excursion I

2008-06-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

Destination: Lake Carmi National Park
Experienced Bikers: 1 (Don’t be silly. It wasn’t me.)
Miles Round Trip: 30
Big Hills: Too Many
Very Cold Lakes: 1
Sunburn: Too Much

Yesterday was my first full day at the farm and coincidentally it was a day off for the “interns.” While Justin decided to ride around town on his motorcycle, Gabe and I agreed to go for a spin separately. We wanted to pedal to a nearby lake for a necessary dip on a very sweltering day. We were both pretty excited about seeing the “neighborhood” (…which proved to consist mainly of fields and livestock…). He promised to be patient with me as he’s a very strong boy who hails from a very hilly place and bikes a lot. (In comparison, I’m a regular girl from a flat, red-light city and only rode a maximum of about 15 stop-and-go miles a day in Brooklyn. As you know, rarely is something located more than 7 miles away in NYC…)

Needless to say, the ride was brutal for me. There were a billion rather large inclines on the way to the lake. Twice, I wussed out and walked my bike the top stretch of a hill during the last few miles. I figured it wasn’t a good idea to kill myself on my first day in Vermont when my quads have all summer to conquer the place. Nonetheless, I would have been embarrassed if either of my brothers were present and probably subjected to harassment for pushing my wheels. Luckily, Gabe didn’t seem to mind. He simply kept on riding and met me down the road a bit when he stopped for water.

The landscape was amazing and there were hardly any cars passing us along the way. I breathed air mixed with the aroma of fresh cut grass, the sweet stench of pig pens, and the unmistakable stink of cow manure … and, unabashedly, was excited about it. I couldn’t be farther from urban life (besides Koilyk, maybe).

The lake, when we finally got there, was freezing cold. We submerged ourselves anyway, played a bit of Frisbee, and I read a book about outdoor adventures and being one with the world. Aaah, summer….

On the way back, I didn’t stop to push my bike up any hills which was a bit of a victory for me. It was downward cruising most of the way though and that’s the real reason. My sunscreen application stops, brought on by the unmistakable sensation of burning flesh were, regrettably, too late. The sun had already painted crimson lines on my arms and legs in a humorous manner. Hopefully with months of labor under the sun ahead of me, I’ll have the opportunity to even it out a bit. (Today, however, I was fully protected from UV Rays. Despite the scorching temperatures, I rocked pants and sleeves …. and a cowboy hat that, “needs to be reshaped,” according to locals. Uh oh.)

The Raid

2008-06-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

April, 2008

“POLICE! RAID! GET ON THE FLOOR!”
I jolted from my bed and glanced at the alarm clock.
6:30.
Does this happen in real life?

I jumped down from my loft bed. There was crashing and yelling. I heard a door slam loudly. The startling sound resembled a gun shot. I opened my bedroom door and found Sarah in the hallway urgently pulling on jeans.

“It’s a raid,” she offered. The noise made us flustered. “I put on pants,” she said looking quizzically, trying to make sense of her illogic. I followed suit.

We opened the front door to our apartment and listened in suspense to the violent clamor coming from the second floor.

May, 2008

We moved into our Bushwick apartment about 8 months ago: Two artists and an unofficial teacher. I called it a “starter” apartment -like training wheels for a new New York renter. None of us had finances we could really count on and that landed us in a place where our entrepreneurial neighbors run an innovative narcotics business just a few dirty stairs away.

For months, Sarah, Chad, and I had been comparing notes on the affairs of the occupants nesting in the apartments below our 3rd floor, 3 bedroom place. Judging from the ebb and flow of shady characters, we were certain that the renters below made a decent living peddling.

I became friendly with some of them. I even shared a few drinks in their den once, brought them leftover birthday cake and pie, and stopped in for the occasional neighborly conversation.

Among the tattoo artist, the dirty hippie, the emaciated chain-smoker girl, and an ever changing group of squatters, was my absolute favorite: Spider. Spider was a former self proclaimed “hustler,” former homeless guy, former gang member, and presumably a former heroin addict. He often regaled me with tales of the crazy days behind him when we bumped into each other on the subway. He told me about his run ins with the police, being billy-clubbed, arrested, imprisoned, and eventually about his reformation, his first job wrapping gift baskets during the holidays, and his daily trips to the clinic for his medication (methadone?). He had tattoos on his face, wore dirty clothes, and looked generally abrasive, but was more than kind to me. He even came up to my apartment once when I was home alone because I heard a strange noise. He looked under beds, in closets, and even behind the shower curtain to be sure that there weren’t any monsters … or, more realistically based upon my locale, rapists or thieves.

So on that particular morning, Sarah and I leaned out our window and shamelessly engaged in a bit of voyeurism. We watched the police come in and out and tried to pick up bits of information. We ascertained that one of the occupants owned an unlicensed 9mm. We heard the drug stash discovery as it unfolded.

In the early hours of morning, we watched the neighborhood wake up. A school bus stopped in front of our building to pick up an occupant a few doors down. All of the elementary children pressed their faces against the window; they pointed and watched the crime scene where I live as though the officers were tigers at the circus.

Sarah and I went back and forth with queries, still confounded. “What about the dogs? Spider loves Abba.” “Yeah, and what about that pregnant girl and her kids?” “I thought that the people on the first floor were the ones selling drugs.”

After an hour and a half of escalating drama downstairs, the police escorted a black man with corn rows to an undercover paddy wagon, disguised as a mysterious black van, the kind seen on prime time cop shows.

“That guy? I’ve never even seen him before.”
“Wait, there’s another.”
One more handcuffed black man was pushed into the back of the van.
“Look, it’s all of them.”
Spider was next in line. He was hunched over in the defeated way people in handcuffs always seem to be. He stepped up, and disappeared behind the van door.
“Not Spider.” My heart went out to him.
Next there was an unkempt white woman wearing baggy clothes.
“Who is she?!”
An old fellow.
Another dirty white guy.
With a heavy slam, they were shut in.

In the days that followed some strange people entered the building and left with large boxes, the doors were eventually repaired, the locks were replaced, the dogs were retrieved, and some conversations were overheard. All but two of the people arrested returned after being imprisoned for a few days. The two black men were incarcerated for possession ... presumably “with the intent to sell.”

Through the floorboards, I found out that some expensive electronics were stolen, the pregnant girl’s other children were taken by child services, and that at least one of the former inhabitants was a heroin addict. (To be specific, I heard one say, “Just because I do heroin, I should go to jail?” And the response was, “According to the law you should.” The rebuttal: “Yeah, well you’re an alcoholic.”)

It is real life and it’s sad. In the end, I’d rather not watch. I’d rather not listen. I’d rather not know.

Garbage Poetry

2008-05-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

On the eve of another garbage day, there was a pile of books bound by a piece of string on the curb in front of my building. It always seems so tragic to me when books are thrown in the garbage so I took them in hopes of adding to the library of the after school program where I work.

One thing I love about Brooklyn is that people throw things out in a way that suggests it wasn't meant to really be buried in a landfill. Suggesting rather, you should take it. Many of my colleagues have furnished their apartments, improved their wardrobes, and made artistic masterpieces with items they’ve dragged out of someone’s garbage. People leave things on fences and sidewalks in an inviting manner.

I brought the books inside and found the pile was indeed mainly compiled by children’s books my students would happily read. There was in the mix, however, one forgotten marble note book. I turned the neglected pages and found scribbles and math problems penciled in shaky print by a young hand. One page stood out from the homework scratch.

There were words written in elementary cursive. The letters were script-lesson looped and insecure like adolesence. The pencil lines were traced by pen. I read it and found a profound piece of poetry. I tore it out and it’s been stuck to my fridge ever since to remind me that beautiful things hide out in sidewalk trash.

Love Don’t Mean

Love don’t mean all that
Kissing like on television
Love means Daddy

Saying keep your mama
company till I get back
And me doing it I love
I love a lot of things a
whole lot of things And
honey, I love me, too.

By: Marielo Escobar

Resurrection

2008-05-28T13:59:00.001-07:00

Due to popular demand, the blog is being resurrected. It's time to begin documenting village girl, gone city, gone country. I'll try to get everyone up to speed on my invigorating life as "the bug lady" in Bushwick and continue to write as I embark on my reformed life as a Vermont cowgirl. Stay tuned.

February lovin.

2007-02-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

Saule, my wonderful best local friend, and I celebrating the "Old New Year."

She says, "hello," to everyone.

Winter in my village!

The New Sarkand Region.
...all dressed up for a Kazakh birthday party...

Valentines Day! The village boys made chicken shashleek.

All boys love grills.

Zhenya ...

My son, Snoop dawgg.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone! AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY POP-POP! 89! WHOA!!!

IT'S A BOY !

2007-02-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

Zorka had a baby last night -a slimy, furry, wobbly, baby bull.

My host mom woke me up around 12:30 and said, "It's time." I threw on a sweatshirt and ran outside just in time to see my "sister" (It's apparently a big village joke that I consider our livestock a part of the family), Zorka, as she moo-ed and moaned. After 20 minutes or so, we saw a sticky little hoof poke its way into the world. My host mom began to pull and tried to coax our cow to push, but despite the 8 prior calf births, Zorka didn't comply. I offered my help (although, what the hell could I possibly do???) and she replied, "Garden gloves are in the bano foyer." This was code for: GO GET THEM NOW AND HELP ME PULL. I did just that.

She instructed me to take a hoof, to pull when Zorka pushed, and to relax when Zorka contracted. And after a few tugs, a black wet nose poked out. We pulled harder for the head, the neck, and the home stretch. Toma caught the little wet bull in her arms. I let go of his feet and she laid him in the hay beneath his mother. Zorka instantly started giving the baby a tounge bath and Toma sprinkled salt on the new baby's back (Cows love salt.) for licking encouragement.

I stood there in awe for a while and watched the baby. He looked around lost, shivered a bit from the cold, and then tried to get to his feet. I was amazed by his bendy baby legs. He fell down a few times, which was super cute and kinda pathetic too. My host mom ran off to get the baby a flannel coat to keep him warm in the night and while she was gone, he got to his feet and ran STRAIGHT into the wall of our barn, smacking his face on a wooden beam. All alone with my first newborn, I paniced. I worried for a moment about brain damage, as he laid on the hay floor totally dazed. But after a few minutes he floundered to his feet and began looking for milk.

Toma keeps the baby seperate from his mother from birth so the weening process isn't a thing. Immediately, after the spit bath, she dressed him in a flannel shirt, wrapped him in a blanket, and put him in his special cow nursery.

It was my first time as a midwife (probably my last) and totally moving and great to watch a cow come into the world. He still has no name ... but I thought you'd like to know about my night.

New Project Update

2007-02-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

Hi! It's been a while since I wrote a real blog and I'm continuing to maintain my blog-slacker-ness with this one. I have a horrible virus on my computer and it's really limiting my journaling, emailing, and overall communication. (Presently, I'm sitting at a student's house whose family I pay to let me use their computer occasionally since the school computers are not so reliable.)So what follows is not at all about my exotic, interesting life. (If it was, it probably wouldn't be true anyway.) I just want to update everyone on projects, really. With that said, please excuse my lack of correspondence. I hope what follows is something that interests everyone:

(Oh! And also excuse any spelling errors/typos ... I'm trying to be quick and not bother my student's family.)

1.

As many of you know, we wrote a successful SPA grant for the Sarkand Organization of the Blind! We have already recieved the proposed $2000 to furnish an office/haven for the local handicapped community. The organization, especially my main collaborators (Serik-Bi and his assistant Bakhyt) are AMAZING! In less than a week, they got all of the supplies, necessary approval from local officials, and completed the basic renovations (i.e. spackled, painted, whitewashed, bricklayed, cemented, and ***BONUS*** found a sponsor to donate and install a new door which wasn't included in our initial budget). The following week, we went together to every furniture store in Sarkand and found a couch for under the budgeted price, ordered 20 office chairs, and ordered 3 lovely handmade tables by a local carpenter. Local people helped us on Wednesday by driving us around for free, carrying our furniture for free, and helping us bargain with salespeople ... It's really inspiring! We still have a lot of work to do, including a trip to Almaty for a computer and rug shopping at the bazaar. And then the grand finale is a big presentation party to introduce the "new" place to it's beneficiaries and all of the wonderful supporters who are making this happen so quickly! So ... Wow! I'm so energized by how smoothly things are going ... and I think I've fallen in love with all of the wonderful people who are making it happen.

Although our grant has covered a lot of the organization's current needs, I thought I'd present you (-my immensely supportive loved ones-) with another invitation to get involved in my endeavors here. (And I'm NOT asking you to send any heavy expensive books this time ... phew!...) This time, I'm suggesting you do a little spring cleaning and empty out your junk drawers. See what you can find. This group will gladly accept all kinds of stuff. It was an empty room and an unsupported organization before and now we're making changes and I'd like for them to be drastic!

Some ideas, for example-
A. Old reading glasses, sun glasses, and magnifying glasses
(Not everyone who benefits from this organization is 100% blind.)
B. Old tape recorders, walkmans, diskmans, etc.
C. Second hand clothes in NICE condition
D. Kids stuff! BE CREATIVE
(I'd like to fill a toybox with TACTILE things for visually impaired children ... like legos and slinkies ... etc.)
E. Reusable party supplies.
(A big thing this center is used for is morale gatherings. Plastic plates, platters, cups ... etc. but RE-USABLE ... would be awesome.)
F. Office supplies.
(I'm already going to donate lots of crayons and paper. They have basic things but they don't recieve much government funding and they don't have an income yet. Whatever you could contribute would be awesome. I'm hoping for some more cork boards, post its, and anything you can "borrow" from your offices ... ha ha ...)

The presentation party will probably be within a month and it would be really great to present them with your super generous contributions when we celebrate our completion. So ... yeah ... If you want to help, it would be awesome!

2.

As many of you ALSO know, I've found a wonderful sponsor (Yay! I owe this man both arms and legs and a whole lotta cookies I think.) to finance a unique "scholarship" for my best/favorite student to fly home with me for the summer. She'll live and work on Long Island near my parents and wonderful family. Although the exact details haven't all been worked out completely, the wheels are in motion. If you're interesting in helping her, contact my mom or myself.

(Know a place for her to intern? Know a house with teenagers in Riverhead with a family we know, love, and TRUST? Want to hook her up with books or money or anything helpful and free? Jen and Meg, can you invite us for office tours so we can show her a glimpse of your young girl city life?)

3.

OK. That's all really. I don't have a lot else going on. I'm trying to be PRESENT and also plan my summer. School work is going suprisingly GREAT lately and Tamara Ivanovna, as always, rocks. Our cow is very pregnant again and I'm anxiously waiting for the baby like most normal people wait for little children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Keep me posted on everyone and everything. I miss you all. Thanks for your interest and contributions! (Also, thanks for the holiday packages from the Harris gang, the Rabbitts, the Burkes, and everyone else I didn't send a "Thank you" note to yet !!! They were awesome.)

india mania.

2007-01-14T02:56:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS (on a train with tropical fruit!!)

more india pictures...

2007-01-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

mumbai. pretty. (i missed the water!)

mumbai has all kinds of services ... and "punching works." i thought it was funny.

we made some local friends in a park in mumbai.

how tropical ... toma's first coconut ever. she said it tastes like buttermilk. i'm not kidding.

shots of moonshine at midnight. also known as fenney (in goa) or samagon (in kaz). (it's just as gross in india as it is in kazakhstan.)

INDIA.

2007-01-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

here are a few pics ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! we actually found a christmas tree ... but it was way dried up.

a little girl on the beach. (it was toma's first time at the sea!)

hey monkey!

seriously paradise. benalium beach, goa.

fireworks over the palms ... a first for me ...

beach chairs ... where they bring drinks with umbrellas in them.

it was mikeys birthday.

More Pics.

2006-12-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

I haven't written a blog in forever but here's another update. The big news is that I got my grant for the blind organization (YAY!) and I'm leaving for India tomorrow (vacation!!!)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! i miss you all and love you all! Enjoy the pics.

Two of my summer camp friends at the big "New Year" tree in Taldy-Korgan

Zhenya and I in the foothills near our village

Anne Marie and I with kids at the orphanage in Taldy-Korgan

My Adult English Club group

Thanksgiving Turkey Slaughter Gang.

Meghan and Ehren (the new Sarkand Volunteer)

2006-11-03T17:32:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been so busy with school, grants, and life... I have been catching up on pen-pal letters and making plans for next year (and for a winter vacation in India!) Here are some fairly recent pictures.

We had a language festival in mid September. Kids dressed up in costumes from all aroudn the world. These two adorable kids were representatives of the good ole K-stan. Aren't they cute?!

"Mushrooming" is a thing here (...and not what you think). Russian people head to the hills in spring and fall to pick mushrooms for eating. We filled 5 HUGE sacks on Republic Day in October. It was a good day. T.I. was REALLY excited.

I threw a Halloween "Discoteka" at my school for grades 5-11. Lots of kids came and it was a big hit! To prepare, I made piniatas and 9th graders carved pumpkins.

Kids even wore costumes! These are some witches in 7A.

We bobbed for apples too. It was a mess and hillarious!

This is my cute puppy, Snoop Dog. He's so great.

He looks like a big-eared grown-up already.

I hope all is well in America! X's and O's from this hemisphere. I miss you all!

Fire

2006-09-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

09.08.06

Monsus and Zhensura live across the street from me. They aren’t many years beyond my parents, although I think that the village life has aged them quickly and they look older and more delicate.

Every time I see them, whether they’re sitting on our bench or working outside, a series of thoughts runs through my head. First, I think about how beautiful they are. The laugh lines ingrained in their Kazakh skin seem as though they were so carefully placed as to make them look especially warm. They always wear simple clothes with some kind of Kazakh ornament, a vest or a hat. I want photograph them close up, they way they do in National Geographic. Then, I quickly rethink my idea of approaching them for a friendly chat and think that maybe I should sneak off in another direction before they see me. I know that if I talk with them, they’ll make that inevitable comment –they always do- about my far-from-perfect Russian. They’ll ask me if I’ve learned the Kazakh language yet and make me feel really inadequate about my lingual pursuits. And lately, my third thought is of guilt for the second thought. I look back at the unbelievable kindness they showed me this summer. They were the picture of Kazakh hospitality the way they invited my parents, and brother and sister-in-law to visit. They wanted to share the memory of having a “ghostie” in a yurt and they did so, nicely.

When my mom and dad arrived, Monsus and Zhensura had been waiting. The very first day my parents were in our village, they invited us over for chai. We went over, midmorning, and they nudged us into the shade of the yurt, which in summer months stands in their yard across from their home. It was the first time I had gone beyond their gate. We took off our shoes and sat on the floor around the low round table on mats and rugs. We drank tea, shared photographs, and talked about our lives. Then they gave us a tour of their home. For the first time, I felt like they really approved of me and that they were proud to be friends of mine in the way they opened up to my parents.

On the morning of my mother’s birthday, Monsus called and gave my mother birthday wishes of happiness and health. It was especially thoughtful, because she did it in English –a language she does not know and has never studied. Her grand-daughter helped her write a toast and practiced it with her. It was a beautiful birthday gift in my opinion.

Several weeks later, Tom, Joy and I had just gone outside to take a walk around the village when Zhensura saw us outside in the street. He shoved us into the yard and explained that we must have a visit in the yurt. His wife brought out cold horse milk. We sipped from big tea cups and again shared stories. They put out curt, the hard, salty Kazakh cheese, and we had some of that too. Afterwards, they gave Tom and Joy the big tour as well. They invited us to return with our cameras, but unfortunately we never got around to it.

In those few visits, I found a new affection for my across the street neighbors. They stopped being the couple who always criticized my Russian and compared me to the last volunteer. They became the kind people who so happily opened their home and their customs to my loved ones.

So last night, when my host mom rattled me from my sleep, pointing and shouting towards the window, I jumped up with fear for Monsus and Zhensura. We saw flames rising from over their gate and barrels smoke tumbling into the moonlit sky. I could see the fire from my bedside.

We both bolted from our beds, without bothering to find bras or socks. T.I. grabbed an old bathrobe and I grabbed a flannel shirt to button over my pajamas, and we sprinted into the street. We woke the neighbors on our right and dashed back for buckets and pots and pans. A few passing cars saw the flames and stopped on the roadside as well. My heart was racing with fear and I could feel the pounding of my pulse in my arms and fingers. I think I was shaking. Their haystack was fully engulfed and there was no time for anything but running.

Immediately, my friend Ira and I started scooping buckets of water from the little (vegetable washing/garden watering) river that runs in front of our homes into a giant (10/15 gallon) cooking pot. We each grabbed a handle and ran with it into the yard. The men started throwing buckets of water from our pot onto the flames. We made a second run. A third. Then we left the pot with the gym teacher and began just refilling it with our buckets. More and more neighbors arrived. Some brought their giant water flasks, others carried basins from their banos. It became evident that individually running buckets was quicker so Ira and I broke into independent efforts with our metal pails.

We realized that there was another river in the back of the yard closer to the haystack. Zhenya and Vova (next door neighbor) were already standing knee deep in the river filling buckets at a panicked speed. I handed the bucket over and just as quickly it was wet and heavy in my hand again. I ran through the cabbage patch trying not to kill more than what had already been cleared away by bucket runners, and threw my pail on the burning hay … Again, and again, and again.

Smoke billowed, flames danced, and people hurried in all directions. Zhensura had come out of his house, clearly stirred from his sleep. And amazed me with the swiftness in his steps and the strength in his arms. He always looked so fragile to me but last night he amazed me with his sprightly young pace (as much as Sasha, the spry 8th grade boy, amazed me with his maturity when called to action).

I heard bits of conversations as I ran to and fro. Various times I heard men from neighboring villages asked if someone had called the fire department. I heard the men from ours manage a sarcastic chuckle and grumble about how we have none. The women who had arrived worried about who was and wasn’t dressed warmly, and being soaking wet with spilled water in the middle of the night. People called out where to bring more buckets and to make sure the surrounding wood and earth was saturated to prevent the fire from spreading.

I kept running. I fell once, as I was in slippery flip flops, and thanked God that it was beside the river and not beside the fire. I kept tossing the buckets as high as I could, but I could only reach the lower levels. Sometimes I traded off buckets with the men who were throwing high and twice I threw my pails on the nearby woodpile that I saw begin to emit smoke.

The fire ate the hay. When we got there it looked like the high flames were growing tall out of the golden pile. But as the night progressed, the flames shrunk and the haystack mutated into a pile of fuming blackness with contagious embers. With every bucket of water, the flames were sucked dry but the flecks of burning orange dropped deeper into the pile of black straw to unreachable places waiting to erupt. I felt helpless. We kept throwing water but it was unstoppable.

After an hour or so, people began to decelerate. Someone had brought a hose and men were trying to pump water from the river to the top of the pile. I looked around and the yard was like a wet swamp, a third of the garden was trampled, and all 30-40 people were slowing down: exhausted, muddy, and ashen.

I returned to the river in the front and continued filling my buckets. I was crouched over the stream when a fire truck finally showed up from Sarkand. The man dressed in a camouflage military uniform started questioning me in Kazakh and I just pointed towards the gate. The village men immediately pushed a gigantic tractor out of the way, making room for the old red truck. The firemen labored with big hoses, dallying as if there was no sense of urgency whatsoever. The village people stepped back making way for the professionals, who didn’t seem to do much at all. The flames which we had suppressed began to spring up again on the pile, but my neighbors all began to sit down.

I stood between Zhenya and my host mom, watching ashes loft into the sky. I counted the cows. Four full grown and four calves. I counted the sheep in my head. Close to 30. I accidentally asked out loud how much hay they bought to feed all those animals for the winter. Someone answered 12 truck loads at 100 American “bucks-ov” a piece. My heart hurt watching all of that money and the endless hours of pitch-forking hay drift into the sky. I thought about the garden we just crushed. And I thought about what kind people they are. I wondered how the fire started and wondered if it would ever finish. But there was no salvation. The only thing to do was to keep the fire from spreading anywhere and to let the 12 truckloads of hay burn to the ground. The neighborhood was permitted to go home and try to get some sleep.

Tamara and I walked feebly back across the street with the four metal pails, two bano basins, and the two 15 gallon pots that we brought over. We washed our feet, changed our smoky clothes, and flopped into our beds. Only neither of us could sleep. Moments later, she came back into my room. We propped our elbows on my window sill and watched the flames for a while. I wrapped Grandma Leach’s rosary beads around my fingers, just because they comfort me when I’m feeling powerless and defeated.

With my eyes wide open, I wanted to fall asleep. But even lying down, I could see orange creep between the black shadows of tree branches. And when I closed my eyes, I could see people running and Zhensura standing powerlessly in the middle of his flaming yard, looking tired and wet, wearing merely a tank top and rolled up pants, and wondering how he would make ends meet this year.

Instead of counting sheep, I started counting all of the people who showed up. I thought about how different the calm faces looked yesterday in daylight compared to passionately racing faces in the firelight. I thought about the old women with bad knees who carried two buckets each, the men who don’t even live that close who arrived at the same time as we did, the people who jumped out of their cars (not even knowing whose yard they were saving) as they were driving by, without even bothering to turn the headlights off. Very ordinary people leapt through the doorway in the middle of the night, armed with tin buckets and kitchen ware, prepared to fight a very big fire. I was moved. Somehow I fell asleep.

This morning, when my alarm clock went off at 5 AM, their yard was still orange. When I went outside at 6, our yard was filled with ashes. And when I went to school at 7-something, the haystack was a smoldering black spot on the ground.

I don’t know how Monsus and Zhensura are going to afford to live this winter. I don’t know if they will find another 1000 dollars to buy more hay. I don’t know how the fire started.

Today I was riding in a taxi to Sarkand. I along the roadside I saw the earth was black, from summer drought and flicked cigarettes. In my head, I saw all the images of people racing frantically with buckets. It repeated and repeated in my head and I did some accidental reflection. I thought about how nearly no one in my other world will ever really know what it feels like to be a part of that random Thursday night village endeavor and it’s a reality these people know so well. I thought about the other three recent hay fire incidents my host mom recounted as we drank tea together this morning. And I thought about the fact that at 11:30 on a Thursday night in America, most 24 year olds are on their couches comatosed by reruns of “Pimp my Ride” and “The Real World.” It’s a bit weird to me now.

Village life, man.

Village Day

2006-09-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

Derevenski Dien
09.03.06

Summer is on the way out. I can tell as the night is coming earlier and colder. I can’t believe how quickly the summer months slipped away and, as school has already begun again, I just have so few summer Sundays left to savor. Today was a perfect one. I decided to clean gooseberries for jam and sit by a roadside apple stand in front of our house for the first half of the day. From the bench in front of our home, I can watch the world move around me. An old Kazakh man chased his ducks from the river into his yard. Children rode by on bikes. Women brought buckets of apples from their backyard orchards to the neighboring stands. People rolled their water flasks to the water pump on the corner. Puppies played carelessly. And countless men moseyed by on horseback and in horse-drawn carts. (Not a single person tried to buy our apples, and it made me wonder how the meager income provokes so many people to wait day after day all summer long just to earn a few hundred tenge. How lucky they are though, that they get to sit in a shady place, where the air is fresh, with buckets of berries before them, and look at life happen so beautifully.)

After lunch, I went over to Zhenya’s. He took me to the rabbit pen and let me play with baby bunnies and watch the ducklings waddle around the yard. He had spent the first half of the day at the river fishing with his buddies and had a big catch to clean. He set up a work station and taught me how to prepare slimy, smelly fish village-style. We sat in the sun for an hour or so, cutting and gutting and laughing. I thought a lot about growing up near the Chesapeake and all the fish I’ve caught in my life. It was good.

When I got home, I looked at the five ton pile of coal that will keep us warm all winter. The coal truck dropped if off yesterday and dumped it in the middle of our yard. All five tons needed to be moved to their storage place so I decided to find a shovel. I put a CD player outside and blasted English music in our yard for several hours while I proceeded to toss 2.5 tons of coal for the remainder of daylight and sing loud enough for the neighbors and passersby to think I’m crazy. The cows came home and signaled that the working day had ended and when my host mom finished milking our Zorka, I put the shovel down for the night.

I played with my puppy and my kitten for a while before I stepped into the steamy bano and enjoyed the sauna. Then, I joined my host mom for a glass of wine and a cup of tea. And now I’m here, reflecting on how good my life is.
I’m going to lie down and fall asleep to the sound of barking dogs after I take a long look at the stars. Tomorrow, I’ll wake to the thunder of cows trampling to the hills and the sound of the horses’ hooves on the pavement. It couldn’t be more perfect.

I’m already beginning to think about how this is the second half of my time here and days like these aren’t endless. The feeling of fall is already creeping into the edges of summer … I suppose that’s okay too. Today was a totally summery village Sunday. It was tank-top warm and berry cleaning, fish sliming, coal tossing summer. I just wanted to document it so it won’t be forgotten. I love it.

(I hope you all had an awesome summery Sunday too!!)

summer highlights.

2006-08-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

08.29.06
Recently I’ve had a few people say to me, “You should compile a book with all of your blogs.” I tend to think that no one really wants to read all my stories (surely no one really loves hearing them … as they go on and on and on and on when I try to tell them). And certainly my life isn’t that interesting. Seriously, what could be so compelling or entertaining about what has become my day to day? Not much, right? Today I pondered that matter for a moment and thought about a compilation of highlights I had just scribbled in a letter to a friend this afternoon. It was something like this:

Dear Friend,

How are you? What have you been doing?

Summer really flew by here. I stayed riotously busy entertaining family and friends who visited from the other side of the planet.

One afternoon, we had a run in with some Chechen poachers who killed a wild boar for a barbeque, claiming they just “found” it. That was immediately after spending the entire day on horseback near the Chinese border. We had quite an experience trying to camp there though as the forest guard wanted bribes from us and his drunken staff was relentlessly harassing us, teaching me colorful phrases and innovative insults in Russian. Instead of putting our lives in uncertain danger, we backtracked and ended up staying at a summer sheep-ranch/”Russian Hay” Farm. (Literally, the main “house” at the “villa” was a few slabs of metal and wood thrown on top of a hole dug into the side of a mountain.) I slept under the stars while Tom and Joy battled bad cases of food poisoning in their tent. (…I was serenaded with lullabies, nonetheless, by our 25 year old mountain guide and my horse riding companion, Ernst.)

We had a wild Russian wedding in my back yard, complete with multiple strip tease dances and with sexual games involving blindfolds, dried fruit, and various body parts belonging to the maid of honor. (John Paul, Joe, and Anthony would be the stars of a local wedding, by the way. People loved it when clothes came off here… even old babushkas get rowdy with applause.) With Joy and Meghan, we sang a brilliant rendition of the Spice Girls’, “Tell me what you want. What you REALLY really want,” which people are still talking about a month later.

On an August night we had nearly 20 English guys, one English girl, and two traveling Americans stop by on their road trip from England to Mongolia. It was a spontaneous and fantastic party. The very next night a burglar broke into our hose and punched my host mother in the face, breaking her nose. We stayed up all night nursing her but she couldn’t make it to the hospital until two days had passed. (It was Saturday and the hospital X-Ray office was closed until the next business day.)

My parents came to town (they were basically celebrities) and the local shop owner offered my dad four sheep, a ram, and a few mares as a wedding dowry (if I am to marry basically any single, local man). Speaking of livestock, we killed a sheep and a pig this summer with the assistance of our lovely guests and neighbors. Tom got some great pictures of the guys and their bloody pig head.

A handful of times, I met the archeologists working right outside my village. They let me pick up 13th century artifacts from the former capital city that’s buried underneath my home along the famous Silk Road. They unearthed ceramic piping exactly like what we observed in the history museum when my parents were here. We showed up once while they were uncovering an 800 year old enormous jug (waist high and about the size of a … unicycle, maybe). It was pretty amazing.

I also met the “Turkish Hair Master.” I really did meet him. When my brother was here visiting, he decided that the men have great “fades.” So obviously he got a haircut in Almaty … from the proclaimed “Turkish Hair Master.” The guy took a flaming wand to Tom’s head and burned the ear hairs off of him with a stunning wand whip. Watching the Hair Master’s fingers dance through Tom’s locks, cutting and parting and clipping and singing, was something you can’t find at Supercuts, or frankly, anywhere in the USA. (Totally made it on the highlights list. BIZ BAZARRA.)

I tried fermented camel’s milk for the first time (ew), drank fermented horse’s milk for the one millionth (ew), tried pickled watermelon (ew), swallowed a sardine (ew), and finally ate that popular snack they call ‘sala’ (rolled up, sorta crunchy, salted pig skin) (EW).

I slept in a yurt for a total of 14 nights, had tea in a yurt twice, and purchased items from yurts transformed into shops on two different occasions in two different cities. Summer in Kazakhstan is simply yurt mania.

And to top it all off, last night at the dinner table we had a stimulating language lesson and I learned some fantastic new words in Russian such as “fart,” “burp,” “barf,” and “scoundrel.” Aren’t we refined?

So that’s about all the news from my ordinary quiet life. Not much to report on really. Sure hope all is well in America. Hope to hear from you soon.

Love,
Madge

Yeah. So that’s summer in a nutshell. I’m not sure it’s book worthy material, but I thought my friends would like it.

P.S. I want to say a big public thank you to my parents for coming to visit and to Tom and Joy. You guys are amazing. It was super special to have you here and to share my experience with you. You made my summer FANTASTIC. And looking ahead, so few people are going to really understand it when the two years is over and I come back to America with all my new skills (bo staff skills, cow milking skills, peeing while squatting skills, etc.) and you guys will know what it was like here. Also thank you to everyone who sent things along with my parents. I am slacking on Thank Yous but I got some great new DVDs, CDs, Clinique products, PHOTOS (my favorite), and lots more. The notes were also really nice. It was so thoughtful. So, I'm super grateful. Thank you! I appreciate you. I love you. I miss you already. It was crazy and fun, wasn't it. Aaah.

Mom and Dad in K-stan!

2006-07-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

My parents are here! They leave in a few days. We're in the city now, but I thought I'd share a few pictures of their village experiences. We are having fun.

**Wish you were here**

Good times in Koilyk ...

Drinkin a beer. Killin a sheep.

My parents are SO Kazakh!

Dad and I pretending to be archeologists and exploring an abandoned archeological site (from the 13th Century) right outside of my village ... It was a hot spot on the bumpin' Silk Road.

Breakfast in a YURT!

Daddy ... just one of the (Kazakh) guys ...

Mom, just after watching "Aunt" Gulshat milk her horse!

pICTURES!

2006-06-30T03:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some fun recent pictures from summer in Eastern K-stan. The parent arrival countdown ends in just 3 days! Yippeee ...

I finally got the box of Fed Ex Girlscout cookies from Rav. THANK YOU! They're still fresh and delicious. We'll be serving them at the wedding.

Enjoy ...

The cutest Kazzy kid i know, Chengis, drinkin a beer.

A day in Sarkand with fun Taldy girls (Merril, Jen, and Adam - they missed you and so we invited them to us. we miss you too.)

It's a Yurt!

Summer Camp!

gravediggaz

2006-06-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

06.30.06

I remember when I saw the movie Garden State for the first time; I was taken aback by the young guys – right about my age – who dug graves for a job. It’s totally a movie and not real life, so I remember thinking, “How taboo … How creative … How morbid … that someone would envision normal-ish East Coast guys in their 20’s digging graves for a job.” You just don’t often think about who digs them.
I’ve been to funerals. One day you are looking at the person you love and lost. The next day you are putting flowers on freshly laid sod (or something – I don’t know golf course grass from graveyard grass. I’m not a horticulturist.) The whole time I cry and my brain is a mess, and I’ve never had time to think about how a person goes into the earth.

Here, everyone is a grave digger.

Just over a month ago, a brother in law of a friend of my host mom’s died. He was an alcoholic and somewhat unexpectedly died in the night due to something sub sequential. (Someone found him. I don’t even know who you would call in America … but I know there is SOMEone. Maybe an ambulance would take the person to a morgue. Here there is no such service. The family handles it.) It was after his death that I had a little revelation about how life goes on here.
A tradition that follows deaths here is a ritual lunch. I’ve been to nearly a dozen now. I don’t fully understand the ritual because every time I’ve lost someone, I want/expect the world to stop moving. I can’t fathom thinking about what to wear and where to go because I’m simply not sure life can go on as I know it. In America when people pass away, everyone you know prepares a casserole or a lasagna to feed the masses of mourners. And, you NEED that. In Koilyk, it’s just the opposite. When someone close to one dies, it is one’s (or one’s wife’s) duty to get in the kitchen. A ritual lunch must be prepared to feed all the people who liked/loved the person who passed. The people hurting most have to buck up and throw a luncheon to feed 100.
The last ritual lunch I went to was a new experience for me. I showed up with my host mom and put myself to work. (It was one of those days when I felt like I had really become acclimated because I actually was ABLE to help.) In the first round, we fed about 60 people (borsch, pilmeni … the usual). Somberly, they sat and ate while we ran the first course, the second course, the tea, the juice, the cookies. Then we cleared the table, the people left, we rinsed the dishes, new people arrived, and we started over. Round two, however, was a different group of villagers.
Round two was the grave diggers: a pack of 20 dirty, sweaty friends and neighbors. The men laid their shovels at the gate, and put their sweat stained hats on the fence posts. As they all stood in line, waiting to scrub their hands, it occurred to me that these friends and neighbors dug the grave and, with their bare hands, laid their friend in it.
What more can I say?

Today, for the second time in the last year (for the second time in my life, now that I think about it), I dug a grave.
Our pig died in the night. His name was Mohawk. He was the first born in his litter and my favorite piggy in the pack. He was sick all day yesterday and my host mom and I predicted he wouldn’t live. This morning, when I went to the outhouse, I saw she had already pulled his body out of his pen.
We have no men, so it is our own responsibility to put our animals in the earth. She rolled the big pig onto a blanket. (He’s already a pretty big pig.) She looked at me, with expectant eyes, and I knew I had to help carry him to the farthest corner of our yard, past the farmland. Reflexively, I hesitated -not because I couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, because I knew that it was an inevitable task. My host mom looked at me with her usual sympathetic face, and repeated the mantra I sometimes need to hear. “Margaret, this is life in the village. Some live and some die. It’s a shame. But this is life in the village.”
So, I didn’t cry. I didn’t want to get scolded. I quietly lifted my half of the blanket and we went to the farthest corner of our yard with our shovel and our heavy Mohawk. We took turns digging. We laid him down. We covered him up. And life went on.

I know it’s totally morose to write about all of this. I don’t mean to depress anyone or make you feel sorry. It’s just that as I was sitting on a tree stump, looking at the piles of dirt we were making, I thought to myself about people I know in America. I thought about how urban/suburban everyone is. And I think about how villagey I’ve become in the last year. (Wake up. Go to the outhouse. Get water from outside for tea. Drink tea. Bury pig.) I thought about what my friends would think when they heard I dug a five foot squared, four foot deep (I’m approximating) pig grave and put a large farm animal in it. I thought about living in Seattle again or Baltimore, where burying dead pigs in the back yard is not a common practice (or anything my friends could ever drink to in the game “Never Have I Ever”). Honestly, if it wasn’t for this blog, I doubt I’d make a fuss about the differences between here and there, but it certainly does cross my mind now and then. So anyway, I’m desensitized. I’m villagized. And, welcome to the third world masses, I’m a grave digger. I guess I thought you might be interested to know. Life goes on.

NEW PUPPY!

2006-06-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

06.24.06

I got a new doggy! It's (the late) Gimley's little bro. Meghan brought him over yesterday. He's cute. His name is Snoopy. We made a deal. I said, "don't chase cars or play in the road." He whimpered. I think that means we understand eachother. (If anyone has good doggy training suggestions to keep cute baby puppies out of the way of speeding 18 wheelers, lemme know. I refuse to chain him up like local doggies.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIG BROTHER (tomorrow). You're such a grown up. I miss you! I wish you good things. I can't wait to see you in almost one month!!

Boomerang Camp

2006-06-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

June 17, 2006
Okay, so I’m home from summer camp. I know I said I was staying for the whole month, two two-week camp sessions, and I know I’m early. I dipped out prematurely…or maybe not. When I agreed to summer camp, I fully took into account all the hiking/swimming/ living in yurt type exhaustion. I did not, however, take into account the lesson teaching/game planning/kid disciplining exhaustion. I think that I was slightly misled in what would be expected of me on a teacher/leadership level. And after the first week at camp, I had already made up my mind to return to the village before I had fulfilled my initial one month commitment. Although I regret to say that I’m not still living simply in the gorgeous mountains, taking all day hikes and diving in the rapid river, I am so glad to be home again in my village with my host mom and my local friends. I missed them.

I kept a journal while I was there and here I’ve copied my scratches, written in the evenings by flashlight, onto my blog to provide you with some entertainment. Some of its just day to day descriptions and some is me trying to be insightful. You can skip over the boring parts. (You all prolly do that anyway.)

JUNE 3, 2006:

Today is my first day at camp. It’s been a good day. The campers are awesome. They’re super smart and seem equally motivated. When we sit down for meals, for example, they insist in speaking in English as much as possible. Out of habit, I sometimes speak to them in Russian/or say things twice (in English slowly first and then in broken Russian second) and they, out of some exciting passion for learning, insist on responding in English. It’s awesome.

I am being a bit of a control freak/OCD-organizer and I think I need to relax a bit. The head instructor is way “laid back” (a.k.a. disorganized) and she’s not a planner. It’s really difficult for me to work that way because I like things really organized. I want to try to quit the need for control at least for the next 2 weeks. If I don’t, I think I’ll go crazy.

I already miss my neighbor and my host mom. I’m used to having Zhenya and my T.I. to talk to about stuff all the time. Without them, I feel a little lonely. Bummer.

JUNE 4, 2006:

I started the day with an icy dunk in the river. It reminded me of Leavenworth with my brothers, Joy, Keight, and Jilli-illian. I felt alive and it was awesome.

Today was such a long fun day. I taught an awesome lesson (CRAFTS = FUN). We hiked to the top of the smallest nearby mountain. The older boys taught me lots of bad Russian words. We had a huge water fight with buckets and I got soaked. We had a campfire and a “disco.” It’s amazing how great life outdoors is. Kids are fun.

JUNE 5, 2006:

We hiked/walked to the top of the little mountain again. All the boys picked flowers to bring the girls and it was adorable. A big storm came too. Madina, my favorite camper, and I stood in the downpour. She is great and loves life - like my Bethie does. In the night, we had another campfire. The atmosphere was perfect. The kids got a kissy game going, which was hilarious. After bed time, we checked the tents 100 times to see that everyone was in their own. It was hilarious and impossible. The boys are mischievous and so obsessed with girls. Around 11, we found Madina and her friends standing outside just staring at the sky. There were fluffy cotton ball clouds floating across and the moon lit the edges of them. It looked like the stars were flying in between the fluffs and the earth was still.

Overall, another awesome day. These kids amaze me in so many ways.

JUNE 7, 2006:

We hiked for a few hours today. It was beautiful. The little boys picked lots of flowers for me and it was adorable. On the way back, we totally lost the trail and came down a mountain (30 people) through waist high grass, streams, and mudslides. It was hysterical. So many girls were screeching about getting their shoes dirty and I couldn’t stop laughing because, typical of myself, fell a zillion times. The boys were so chivalrous. They held back branches and held my hand. I found it amusing that I had five 12 year old heroes today.

When we got to the bottom, we haphazardly landed in our own camp. I’m not sure we even meant to on a conscious level, but we found ourselves on the opposite side of the river. At this point, not one of us bothered to even take off our shoes. We walked straight through the waist high water to our tents to put on our bathing suits. Many of us went immediately for a swim. Of course, myself included.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOY!

JUNE 8, 2006:

This afternoon, we swam. The instructors, Galina and Erina, and I sunbathed on the rocks. I felt like a mermaid. It was so summery and great.

JUNE 12, 2006:
Exactly 364 days since I arrived in KZ!

The first week of summer camp is over and the second has begun … and it looks like I’ll be opting out of weeks 3 and 4. The weak management style and the lack of kid discipline has eaten away at my PMS patience (thin in the first place) and drowned my hopes of surviving a month here. Don’t get me wrong, the mountains and river and campy-ness never get old to me. But I actually MISS my village and I’ve had enough teaching/disciplining/babysitting for this year. I’m ready for a vacation.

I’ve walked up the littlest mountain every day we’ve been here. I’ve had a few late night (freezing) swims, swims in the morning, and swims in the rain that make me feel uber-alive. I’m enjoying the smells and sights and the way scraped up legs serve as evidence of playing hard!

Today we took an 18 KM hike. The sights were gorgeous. I got a little annoyed though with how weak and whiney the kids were. I kept thinking back to hikes with my brothers and how I was always being pushed to keep up and not complain. Throughout the hike, though, the reoccurring theme in my brain was far from present. Beautiful places have a way of making me feel super thoughtful. I couldn’t stop rethinking my somewhat decided stance on wanting to live in Baltimore or New York after Peace Corps. I kept thinking about my brothers’ influence on my life and my personality. It has shaped me so much. Watching incredibly complainy kids, without a Mikey or a Tom in their lives, made me wish to have my brothers nearby always. So, basically, Seattle is back in the running for a future home.

---
Some random insight:
I was just reading something about the flatness of American personalities and the wheels in my brain got moving. I think that an inevitable element of being a PCV, in addition to semi-regular diarrhea, is a lot of reflection about “who am I?” etc. This essay I was reading was bout how my lame generation falls into MTV Character patterns that are un-faceted and overtly simple. The author, in this essay or another, said something about falling in love with an English major he’d only heard about because she sounded like she was more than a gingerbread person cut from a reality television mold.

I took a few steps back from the critique that lumped me and the rest of my generation into this heap of indistinctiveness and the message resonated with me. It’s been marinating all day.

I don’t think I’m flat. That’s the problem though. I don’t disagree with his assertion about the “X” generation being excessively easy to generalize. And yet I think I and my best friends are exceptions to his rule. But I also sorta think that everyone who reads his essay probably agrees that they’re the exception, too. It makes me wonder how people will view me in a year in a half, when I return from this life in the Eastern world. Maybe I really am totally characterize-able. I guess it would be a compliment to say that I’d never make a good Reality TV character, but in a commercialized world that’s sorta the opposite of what everyone wants, isn’t it?

The author kind of asserted that he’ll never be able to satisfy a woman because all women want Reality TV lives, romanticized, commercialized, and given a sound track. And that he’ll never find a cool girl, himself, because all girls can be categorized as a parallel to someone on a season of the Real World. I guess I aspire to be different. And on a note of confidence, unlike the afore mentioned English major who ultimately let him down, I know the difference between a “carnivore” and a “cannibal,” so at least I’ve got that going for me.
---

I had a long chat the other night with one of the instructors here (totally changing the subject again) that made me feel somewhat loserish/potential losery. We were talking about relationships in this country. She’s 25 and unmarried. As we all know, in K-stan, that’s spinster-central and a borderline controversy. (The other instructor is 20 and has been married a while now already.) She asked me if I plan on marriage and I said, “Yeah, I totally do.” I said this because, well, I totally do. (Despite the obvious lack of potential husbands.) Is that retarded? It made me realize how Kazakhstan values are totally wearing on me: I feel like I’m already getting old. If I was in America I’d be out at bars with all of my single friends getting drunk and meeting fun new people. I’d be a completely normal 24-year-old with little outside pressure to start a family. A;lskjaklfjdalkvkdfioekncaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!(Am I actually writing this? In defense for my sanity, I guess it’s a legitimate cultural issue.) But instead, I’m here, in the land of vodka shots that are faithfully accompanied with toasts to giving your parents many healthy grandkids … and ASAP. It was parents’ day at the camp yesterday and a lot of the parents looked like my peers. Scary! They were kissing, hugging, and cleaning dirty camp faces with a spit on the thumb. Different angles of the world really change the dimensions of normalcy and self pressure, I guess.

JUNE 13, 2006
EXACTLY ONE YEAR IN KAZAKSHTAN!!

There must be some sort of irony in that exactly one year after my arrival here and one year of my commitment fulfilled, I’m considering and assessing my next move way ahead of time … like a chess game! (We’re playing chess a lot here at camp due to the rain.)

I have this philosophy, however naïve, that things tend to fall into place. AND all of the meaningful situations in my life, that have been the most satisfying, have occurred with minimal forethought and planning, and always take on a sense of nonchalance. …so…with that core belief, I think it’s funny that I’m OCD organized (color coded closet) and want to file my future in some structured fashion.

Here’s what’s on my mind:
I’m still reading that great book by Chuck Klosterman that I mentioned earlier. (“Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” It’s so good. I have a crush on the author because of his blatant passion for music, implied love for quality bars, and conveyed quest to publish his unordinary and hillarious conjectures about life.) And this dude is in the media world. One of the essays I just read is all about journalism. He works for a music magazine and knows lots of cool people (“cool” as in: they are passionate about music, writing, and art forms) and he’s taken a career path that not so long ago was one I pondered. [Upside:] It’s a city life [Downside:] with elements of working for the man. (But then, what career path is without capitalist-ness in America?) In my head, it’s mixed in with some self projected vision of prestige that was subconsciously emanates from an image of my svelte Aunt Kathee working in the ad industry living on the Upper West Side while being so contemporary and cool. If I have what it takes to be successful in that arena, it could be cool in its ways. It really is almost time for me to decide on grad school … if I’m going to “decide on grad school.” That communications realm is still a viable option in some parts of my brain, especially after reading a few of those essays.

Then there’s this other big idea that’s been liberated after working in school here. I have this idea that maybe I’m a magnificent repressed artist born to enlighten the youth of America as a teacher. I should go back and sacrifice another chunk of my life/bank account to the industry of Undergraduate Education. I can be an art student (Can I?) and ultimately aim to teach middle school art and write/illustrate kids books.

Or then I could also try behind curtain number 3 (inevitably, putting any art dreams on a back burner that could easily fall lazily into an unrealized dream). At the end of the summer, I can apply for Teach For America – a program that puts non-education undergrads into inner city schools. New York and Baltimore are totally feasible. Assuming I get the job, I’d start teaching in Fall ’07 shortly after I return to the states. This program affords a simultaneous teaching certification at a prestigious university (Johns Hopkins, for example). This totally seems the most appealing to me on most days because it would put me into a career immediately (vs. re-doing college as a slightly more mature/way more in debt individual) and it chooses my next location for me. AND, we all know how I sweat social service. Working with presumably “needy” city kids is something I could easily be passionate about.

It’s just scary to have to choose a persona and pick the next path. I don’t want to spend the next 5 years working my way towards a lifetime I’m not sure about. Tough call, I guess. That’s what’s on my mind today.

JUNE 14, 2006:

Today we went for another long hike without much of a trail. I’d say we probably went for another 18 KM, as we did 2 days ago. Only this time ¼ of it we spent in a downpour and ½ of it we watched and listened as the impending dark clouds and thunder moved in the open sky around us. It’s good to be alive.

Management here is poor, also. Discipline is out of control. And there was SOOO much drama today. (I had to get in between a pushing/swinging girl fight.) I want to go home. (I sound like the campers.) I am usually anti-downer and anti-wishing time away, but today I feel like I have no energy to deal with teenage drama and “leaders” who don’t handle anything or who can’t fathom the concept of “leading.” I miss T.I., my friends, and our animals. I am 100% sure I’m not staying for the second session.

JUNE 15, 2006:

I’ve been in a pretty crappy mood for days. Today I thought about the Fish book with the “BE PRESENT” and “CHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE” philosophy. Ever since I read that book 2 years ago, I’ve been trying to live by it. It feels exceptionally difficult here this week. This environment isn’t the most positive place for me right now. Although I can’t get enough hiking, mountain views, river sounds, cold swims, campfires, and night skies, I’m ready to get back to my village! (I can do most of those things there anyway.)

My goal for the next couple of days is to continue to enjoy nature, stick my feet in the water at every opportunity, take more walks, look up at the sky, and take lots of pictures. I will partake in all activities with a smile on my face and, kindly, ignore all the kids who annoy me. I won’t let them bug me … and I’ll love the rest of them extra well.

JUNE 16, 2006:

Today was the last day of camp. Adam, the other volunteer here, and I spent the entire day writing letters and making certificates for each camper. The day passed extraordinarily fast. I managed to squeeze in some time for a hike up the hill (because I did it every day for two weeks I didn’t want to end my daily tradition), some sunbathing on the rocks, and lots of time for gathering firewood. I made a bet with a camper that I’d stay up all night at the campfire, and I’d go check out the sunrise from the nearest mountain.

JUNE 17, 2006:

The all night campfire was awesome. Most of the kids went to the tents to hang out/sleep but returned around 4 AM to hike up for the sunrise. The majority of the night I spent with my favorite campers: Pasha, the 19 year old who speaks awesome English and is a totally cool dude; Anuar, the 17 year old who is passionate about Michael Jackson and can recite an amazing number of English pop songs; and Marlan and Yermek, my 12 year old groupies.

We spent the morning cleaning up and we headed out by bus.

Overall, it was not bad. I’d like to do it again later in the summer, or maybe next June. I just think 2 sessions in a row is a lot. I totally bit off more than I could chew by thinking I would want to be surrounded by 30 adolescents day and night for an entire month. I guess I’m not as resilient as I thought I was.

The End.

summer camp!!

2006-05-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

Hello Mudda Hello Fadda ... Here I am at ... Camp ...

Boomerang!

Okay, I'm such a nerd. You all know that song, right? Well, tomorrow I am leaving oh-so-metropolitan Koilyk to venture into the wilderness or something. I offered to work at a camp in the mountains for the whole month of June. (It's two hours East of Taldy Korgan in a boomerang shaped stretch of valley between a couple mountains, for those of you looking at a topographic map of KZ.)At this camp, they have swimming, climbing, hiking, campfires and all the things I love about being outdoors, but they DON'T have telephones, internet, or electricity except for a few hours at night. SO, I'll be out of everyone's reach for a month. That doesn't mean you should all stop writing or to forget about me completely, because I'll get caught up when I get home. I just wanted to let everyone know why I won't be emailing back or writing Thank Yous/I Miss Yous or posting on my blog.

In the mean time, I'm counting down the days till my family arrives. I have so many exciting plans for my parents' arrival and for Tom and Joy.

I hope everyone is having so much fun with summer. I hope you're all collecting freckles in the sunshine and splashing in the waves. I miss you, as always.

P.S. enjoy the summer parties (Drumm's house!! Wish I could be there.) Have fun driving across country (bethie and meg). I expect to hear all about it ... and see the pictures. And Mikey, Tom, and Joy, I'll miss being with you in New York. Give my love to all my people ... especially Mimi and Pop Pop. X's and O's to all...

Corova Dom

2006-05-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

05.21.06
Barn Building!

The construction industry in Kazakhstan simply isn’t the same as what I know. There is no 84 Lumber. No Home Depot. No Ace Hardware. You can’t just call a contractor … or buy a prefabricated structure. It’s starting from SCRATCH, baby.

Last winter, a wall in my host mom’s barn fell down. (It’s more like a small home for cows and chickens to live during cold winter months, rather than a classic big red storybook farm house.) This February, our cow (Lada) was born and she had to sleep outside in the snow with a coat. That’s no good.

So… this spring, my host mom hired some guys to tear down the old house and start building a new one. Now, they’re almost finished and I thought some of you would like to see the work that goes into such an endeavor here.

1. This was near the beginning of construction. These are the essential materials (sand and charcoal ashy stuff).

2. Homemade bricks. It's taken the guys forever to get the walls done because they build the bricks individually and they had to wait for everything to dry before putting up the next layer. Then they had to wait a while before they could put the roof on so the whole thing didn't collapse like kids stepping on sand castles.

3. And the roof goes up!

4. Sealing the house with the secret sauce...

5. And the secret sauce is literally made with horse poo. No other poo will do. They say horse poo is like cement. Who knew?

...so that's the short version of months of hardwork...

school's almost out!

2006-05-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

05.20.06

So, I have just a few more days until I have officially finished my first year of teaching. Last year, when Beth was finishing up, I had no idea what she must have felt like and I wonder if I didn’t make a big enough deal for her. (Sorry, sweet girl!) Because now, I’m feeling so GOOD, and I think that’s how she must have felt.

Here’s what’s happening in my head:
I’m proud of surviving and in LOVE with so many students. I think about all the mornings I didn’t want to get up because I felt like I wasn’t adequate enough for the job, but somewhere along the way I started to figure out that I’m doing okay. …And then a birdie form the Peace Corps Office reminded me that I didn’t major in education. I only had a 2.5 month crash course during training –while I simultaneously learned a language and a lifestyle. She saved my spirits when she said, “Margaret, no one supposes that your students will learn English from you. We just expect you to go to school, be yourself, and show them who you are. You already accomplish that mission every day. They’ll learn from that and that’s why you’re here.” Phew. What a relief. I was able to take a step back and lighten up. I stopped trying to weigh my success in how many new words they’ve learned from me. And since then, I’ve started noticing how much I FEEL about my students. I started looking at the things they do outside of school and it makes me love them in a new light. And I think more and more, that my job is less about spelling, punctuation, and grammar and that maybe my classes are more of an opportunity for me to get closer to these extraordinary growing people.

One day a few weeks ago, I showed up to 8th grade. Half the boys weren’t in class because the regional soccer tournament was taking place outside. I took the remaining kids to the sidelines. The girls and I stood with some 10th graders speaking a mix of English and Russian. (I tried to speak English so our lesson wouldn’t be COMPLETELY wasted.) I watched boys in my 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th forms play BEAUTIFULLY. I was literally overwhelmed with how much pride I felt watching them running in the sunshine, doing what they love, and KICKING ASS. They won their games and went on to the championships in Sarkand. I’m so proud of them.

Shortly after, working on pen pal letters with another 8th grade group, I asked the kids on the bike team to focus their letters on that. (They practice 7 days a week, rain or shine, vacation or school day…It’s basically their lives.) They’ve been traveling a lot lately for races and I asked them to tell their pen pals about the distances they race on their bikes. Each kid wrote things like, “I got third place in my last race and it was 50 KM.” Or, “I got first place in the oblast and rode 70 KM.” Wow. I’m inspired by them. I’m proud of them too.

Just last week, I went to Sarkand to see my kids compete in a musical competition. They were hand selected by a panel of judges from the Oblast to perform in a singing and dancing concert. One of my 6th graders opened the performance by reciting beautiful poem, two 10th grade boys did their usual Kazakh duet, and tiny 3rd grader did a PHENOMENAL gypsy dance. I sat in between two of my pupils who came along in a bus full of performers and faculty to support their best friends. When Meruert, a 9th grader with a gorgeous voice, stepped on the stage, Zhazira –an angelic pupil- asked me to help her hold up the sign she made (IN ENGLISH! It said, “Mereurt, You’re SUPER!”). Her gesture was so touching and I so proud to see her on a new level (besides the girl sitting in class, you know). Our school won first place. I was super proud again.

It’s funny that I was a cheerleader for all those years. I wore a little uniform and attended thousands of sporting events to show my school spirit. And never ever in my lifetime have I felt so much of it as I do now, in a foreign country. I’m so proud of my school as a whole because of all the perfect kids I work with –kids who shout “HELLO” from across the road no matter what languages they study, kids who tell me I’m their favorite teacher, kids who pick flower bouquets for me… This is, like, the zenith of teaching experiences. And these little people are some of the most important little people I’ve ever known.

i am the fire starter.

2006-05-20T22:57:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 19, 2006

Around 5 o’clock I moseyed over to Aliya’s house. (She’s one of the English teachers I work with. She’s 25 and pretty great.) We got a taxi and headed over to a nearby village where she lived for her first 5 years of teaching.

(Aliya and me in the sun... that's not my hat by the way. They made me wear it.)

The ride itself was amazing, aside from the typically horrible road. The view of endless, green, rolling hills was framed by the snowcapped mountains in the distance. And among the grassy gables were herds of sheep and cows being tended to by Kazakh men on horseback. I love it.

We turned a corner and a new view was revealed. Tucked in between the small mountains was a river sparkling in the evening light. The river led to village nestled in a patch of trees. It was so fantastic I wondered where the fluttering fairies and colorful little gnomes were.

We went to her aunt’s house first. We sat, Asian style, on floor pillows at a round floor table and drank tea. It felt very Kazakh. Then, we took a walk down to the river. The air had an amazing fresh smell. (I pulled up every sort of grass that grew until I found the potent source of the clean/herby smell. When I discovered it, I carried it around and sniffed it every few minutes … cause it was so good. Aliya didn’t know the name though so I’m still not sure what it is.) We returned to the house and played with the farm animals. (They had a newborn sheep that I got to hold!)

When night time rolled around, Aliya and hiked up a big hill to the bonfire – the actual reason for our village adventure. Every May 19th, her old school celebrates an old soviet holiday by having a big bonfire. The whole school attends (all 120 students… such a small school!!). We arrived a bit early and sat among the smelly grass (aforementioned clean/herby stuff) and watch the sky erase the rose colored remnants of sunset and fill up with blackness and stars. Aliya introduced me to her old pupils and colleagues. And when the director discovered an American in attendance, he invited me to light the ceremonial flame. It is an honor reserved for special attendees (i.e. respected elderly, a chosen child …). It was really special privilege.

The men in charge of the burning dumped gasoline all over the wooden teepee and then they splashed some on a stick wrapped in cloth. They handed me the reeking, dripping, unlit torch and smiled with pride. I grasped it in my hand – TERRIFIED. I thought to myself, “American fire departments would not condone such behavior. I really hope I don’t singe off all my hair or lose any body parts with a gasoline explosion.” I swallowed my fears, however, for the sake of international relations (huh? ha ha …) and let them light my fire.

Once it got going, it was beautiful. I like watching the flames dance and the sparks float up into the night. They threw a few tires in the there too. (At which point I thought, “American ecologists would not condone such behavior. I really hope we don’t destroy our lungs by inhaling the intense fumes of burning rubber.”) They got the fire really going. The kids sang the national anthem, and lots of other Kazakh songs I didn’t understand. Then someone turned on a radio and girls in all grades did choreographed dances around the fire. It was awesome. The wood fell to a pile on the ground and people moved closer together for warmth. Some men showed up with the monster truck sized tire (from a combine), which livened the scene quite a bit.

Shortly after, Aliya and I headed down the mountain in the dark to meet our scheduled taxi ride back to Koilyk. The stars were amazing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many, although I think I say that all the time. We had tea on the floor one more time before departing. And around midnight, we were back on the road. I fell asleep like a baby in the backseat before we even left the village and woke up as we pulled up to my house…

Bonfires are fun. I love Kazakhstan.

Update!

2006-05-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

May 11, 2006
I haven’t written a blog in an eternity. Ooops. There’s a lot happening here. For the really dedicated blog readers (i.e. those who resort to my friends’ blogs in my journalistic absence), people who talk to my parents regularly, and those who have found me on instant messenger, you already know a lot.

But here’s a quick overview:
1. I blew my whole April VOLUNTEER paycheck (so … that’s like 80 bucks) on my internet/phone bill so I haven’t written any real pen/paper letters in a while. (Oh. And I think May is probably more of the same.)
2. I have booked my whole summer just about (June- summer camp in Taldy Korgan, July- parents here for 2 weeks, August- Tom and Joy here for 3!! Yippeee!).
3. My host mom’s daughter was in town from Russia for a week.

4. I’m two weeks from the end of the school year. (And we still haven’t sent the reply pen pal letters because my 10th grade boys are big huge slackers.)
5. I’ve been totally stressed out with trying to make grants happen (uugh.) and trying to make myself considered a normal colleague in school (double uugh!).
6. There were 3 holidays in the last week and a half (Man’s day and Victory Day…s…).
7. I live in a cat factory. We have 10 now!
8. And of course, the big news, many of my closest volunteer friends were sent home last week.

Expanding on the latter two points –

DO-SVEDANYA
Because I know some of those lovely volunteers check my blog sometimes, I’d like to use this as a forum to tell them how much I ADORE them and how sucky it is that they left. Basically, Merril, Michael, Tony, Jenifer, and Joe are among my closest friends in this country. Together we have already had so many fun weekends, holidays, and vacations (and we’ve only known each other a little less than a year). Our relationships are so unique and were of ultra rapid growth caliber, thanks to the unusual setting in which they were born. These beautiful people left Peace Corps prematurely and saying goodbye was probably reason for the most somber times we’ve had here. I think it took great strength for them to come here, pour their hearts (plus time and energy) into their work and their communities, and leave with almost no warning. They have each brought lots of positivity, wisdom, and inspiration into my life in different ways. They made my bad days good and my good days better. I hate that I’m here without them, but my presence here will be better simply for having known them in these unfamiliar surroundings. These friendships are lifetime ones, so I’m not saying goodbye really. I’m just sad because when we got started on this adventure together, I thought we’d finish it together too. Nonetheless, we have dope friendships that could only happen in the TaldyKorganski Rayon… And for that, I feel really blessed. So, guys, totally bummer that you left. I miss you a TON, but I’ll see you at the Rayonski Reunion in no time. You’ll do good things in THAT hemisphere … nee-cho … And remember to relish all the things we talk about missing. You’re blessed to be back with your American family and friends. Yay for you. Things fall into place.

sorry this picture is a repeat. i just wanted to throw a little tribute on the old bloggo...)

KITTIES
In the MEAN TIME, thanks to the special lineage of city Peace Corps cats, I have a super new friend! While Joe tried to find a good home for his pregnant cat, Allie, it’s more of a challenge here. You can’t put an ad in the paper really, or post pictures of the furball online. Additionally there is no such thing as Animal Control in Kazakhstan … and to neuter or spay is a ridiculous expense when you consider the other things you could spend your money on (not to mention, finding a Vet who even does such a thing). So there is no such thing as a person who NEEDS a cat. They don’t exist here. Although we already had a really awesome cat at my house (who just had 4 babies a few weeks ago), I gave my host mom a really sad look and said that “Joe’s local friends advised him to DROWN the cat before she had her babies and he moved away.” I explained how Joe was devastated that he might leave with no home for Allie (maybe exaggerating a bit for the sake of the kitty). My host mom agreed that we could take her to our mini-farm and try to find her a home in the village. WELL, within one day of her arrival, our neighbors all turned her down and she bore 4 more kittens. So, now I live in a cat factory. We have 10 cats. I’m the proud auntie of 8 kittens and a sister to two mommies. And, Joe, I really love Allie. She has the biggest eyes and sometimes she’s a really sweet kitty. I wish she wouldn’t hiss at me so much and I wish she would stop opening my closet at night and sleeping in the stacks of my clothes. Also, it scares me a little bit how she carries her babies around so much with their whole heads in her mouth instead of that little pinch of neck skin. And sometimes I wish she wasn’t such a picky eater (she eats more meat than my host mom and I … and she won’t eat the stuff we feed all the other animals). But overall, she’s pretty cool. Every day she ventures out farther into the yard and she totally stood up to Kiesa, our other cat, and won’t get beat up in kitchen cat wars.

So that’s that. No friends and ten cats. Hmm… That sounds creepy. (Maybe I should take this opportunity to say that my social life with the locals in my village is picking up. At least this week I’m feeling like I’m a part of the community and that’s a nice thing.) Ok. So that’s my big update. I’ll try to write more as my first year of teaching comes to a close and summer begins! YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE…. I miss all my people (Marylanders, New Yorkers, Seattlies, and now TaldyKorganski Rayonskis too).

Oh and P.S. Pop-pop is out of the nursing home and back in the house! Yay. Yay. Yay. My family is so good for taking such good care of him. I like good news.

Pen Pallin...

2006-04-26T23:04:00.001-07:00

We got the letters from Marci's class and we're STILL working on letters to Beth's class... (it's taking FOREVER. I'm sorry G. Ray Bodley H.S. that my students are so slow at English projects...)

These are some of my girls working on letters after school.

Some of my 8th graders looking at pictures from their American pen-pals.

Aren't they cute?

Anyway, my kids rock. The letters will be in the mail sooooooon! Thanks for the support ... Scardsdale Middle School and Fulton High, you guys are awesome!

It's SPRING!

2006-04-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

Tulips are growing and there's farm work in the sun. (Although we're not actually doing work in this picture! We're having a picnic instead...)

The cows are going to the hills again for their daily graze.

It's kite flying weather.

I LOOOOOOVE IT! (Can you believe that i'm already in my 4th season here???)Enjoy the pics!!

Happy belated Easter! And happy birthday to Donnelly and Erin! I love you crazy cats! I wish I could have been there to celebrate with you!!

I met my first blind guy.

2006-04-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

04.02.06
Helping the blind…

A few weeks ago, a man from my village asked me to meet with him because he needed my help. He’s the father of one of my favorite 8th grade pupils, Nazim. His name is Serik By. Although I knew the basics about his condition, I had no idea how I could partake in the “charity” he mentioned. I was eager to meet him and find out what he hoped for me to do. So yesterday, Saule and I went to his house for a lunch/meeting. Serik By’s daughter, wife, and neighbors greeted us excitedly at the door. He met us in the living room, where a giant table was set with so many colorful dishes it could have been easily mistaken for thanksgiving (had it not been April in Kazakhstan, that is). He shook my hand and told me he was so happy to meet me. I was just as enthusiastic to meet him and get talking about new service project ideas.

At first, his sunglasses were the only attribute that suggested his blindness. But as we got settled in for our meal, I watched him move around the room, with a hand here and there from his neighbors and friends. I saw the way they served his food specially and how Nazim was her daddy’s helper. When he reached for something that wasn’t exactly where he expected it to be, without a word she pushed it into his hands. It was totally rousing to watch.

Immediately, Serik began telling me about his organization for the blind. He told me that the government supposedly provides for people with disabilities. Unfortunately, the people don’t get the aid they are promised. Most of the aid disabled people need around here, they must find on their own. Therefore, he founded an organization to help people with special needs in the region. It’s run out of Sarkand (about an hour away) and he commutes there weekly. His organization has grown rapidly and now has somewhere near 2000 members. They provide aide, support, and a central place for people to come together. Additionally, they organize concerts and special entertainment for the local blind community.

Serik really emphasized that they have begun developing a play place for kids with disabilities. My host mom explained to me that disabled kids are especially ostracized around here. Their peers don’t want to play with them, and they need special attention, so they don’t develop in the same ways that kids without disabilities do. Serik’s attention to childrens’ needs provides disabled kids a community of their own to make special friends and to play comfortably.

So I asked him what he needed most, what he needed me to do. He responded in several ways. First he said he wanted me to gather information about organizations in America. He wants to know what services they provide. And he really wants to start a correspondence with similar foundations. Then he said he wants to start a website. Finally, he showed me a flyer that he had printed. The flyer gives background information on his organization and asks for sponsors and financial support. He said, BOTTOM LINE – they need money. He suggested the materials they are lacking. He said that the government is supposed to provide things like canes, glasses, special watches, audio cassettes, books on tape, and books in Braille but they don’t seem to receive much from the government. Furthermore, they could use more toys for the childrens’ center. By the time he finished his list, I had already plunged in to his project and was swimming in ideas. (Serik, mission totally accomplished.)

He totally moved me. I thought about how difficult it must be to be disabled here. The medical care is so not adequate. The culture tends to be pretty insensitive. As I’ve mentioned in other entries, the term “invalid” is the catch all for anyone who was born less than 90% healthy. And I thought about how hard it must be to be blind, especially. In America, we’ve got health insurance. We’ve got Braille all over the place. We have Seeing Eye dogs. We’ve got those special feely canes. We have talking crosswalks and personal shoppers. We’ve got money and technology. We’ve got a billion not-for-profits and support groups for every ailment. …and we’ve got Lifetime Television for Women to make the nation a little bit more of an understanding place. I know that not everyone gets the care they need and that America’s probably far from a blind man’s wonderland, but my guess is that we’re a billion miles farther on the path to it than Koilyk. I’m so impressed that Serik has stated his position as a pioneer in this place.

So I told him I knew nothing about blind organizations in America because I don’t know any blind people there. But now that I have made my first blind friend, I’m all over it. I told him I’d contact all the local computer nerds I know (volunteers included) and find someone to help him start a website. And I told him I’d supplement his intended site with information on my “site” (aka – the blog you’re reading right now). As for financial support, I began evaluating grant proposal possibilities in my head. I think I could write one with him in the fall/winter.

In the meantime I invite all of my American un-tapped resources to send Serik By and his Blind People Organization gifts. I told him about the AMAZING response I’ve had with my request for books and dictionaries. And figured some people I know could spare a few bucks on stimulating kids toys or maybe a cheap cassette player…maybe even some old glasses/sunglasses that are, like, last year’s style or something. (IMPORTANT side note: some of my people – parents/aunts especially – have gone way crazy on hooking up my village …and me!!... This request is not for you. You’ve already done so much and I’m not asking you to send another thing. In fact, I’m pleading that you leave this one for other people.) Other people, if you read this and say, “Aaaaw wow. That guy rocks,” then I invite you to raid your attic/garage for stuff to send … or go out and splurge. You could probably spend about 20 bucks (10 on an item and 10 on shipping) and you’d be making a big difference. Or shoot, if you’re lazy, just send 20 bucks in an envelope and I’ll give it directly to his organization. (I think I’m turning into Sally Struthers. Oops. I’m like the walking, talking Lifetime Television for Women. It’s just that it’s hard to see people living such challenging life simply because of where they were born, you know…)

Anyway, the lunch with Serik By, Nazim, and their family was awesome. I laughed a lot and totally enjoyed their company. They were so kind and hospitable. And they totally inspired me to start a new project.

PROJECT UPDATE:
I quit the Art Project. (Did I tell you guys that yet? I feel like maybe I did.) I am pretty bummed about it. I had written basically the entire grant proposal except for the budget and the local language summary (P.C. requires a summary in the local language so that a volunteer can’t write a grant without the support of local people. It’s the proof that the community is involved.) I couldn’t get the support from my colleagues that I was hoping for. Everyone said, “We totally want an art club!” But then when I asked people to help out, they were hard to motivate and it just wasn’t going anywhere. So, I’m now taking the first steps to writing a grant to get a bunch of new chalkboards for the school. I know that they’ll be way more on board (no pun intended) for that one. Our chalkboards are HORRIBLE.

The Disney Minnie Grant that I wrote a proposal for had a freakishly large number of applicants this year. Everyone I know (except for one girl) got rejection letters. I know one person out of 8 who got it. I however, have not heard a word. I am afraid maybe I deleted my rejection email, thinking it was junk mail or something, without ever actually realizing it. Bummer.

I received 50-ish pen pal letters from Beth Pinkerton’s high school classes! I’ve made giant things for my classroom with all of the pictures they sent!! It’s AWESOME. My kids are gonna love ‘em!! We’ll be working on letters all week (probably next week too) and I’ll be sure to put some pictures on my blog soon!! (The 8th grade and 5th grade groups are still waiting excitedly to hear back from their pen pals, Marci’s class and Larissa’s friends!!)

Oh and the bike team!! The bike team has gotten some new bikes from the Rayon (like the county/state govt. sorta…) Some of the kids have managed to come up with enough money to buy the special bike shoes too. However, I have an awesome friend with whom I’m collaborating to come up with some more stuff for them. We think they deserve more. Anyone who wants to get in on that project, lemme know!! We were hoping to set up a website too, so if anyone is good at graphics… we neeeed you.

Yay, Gulzat and Aigerim!

2006-03-29T02:56:00.000-08:00

03.28.06
Olympiad

Two of my high school students, Gulzat (9th grade) and Aigerim (10th), went to the Olympiad last week for English. They attended one a few months ago in Sarkand (an hour away) and they did awesome. So they moved on to a larger English competition in Almaty.

In Almaty, my girls competed against students who attend special schools that provide English lessons every single day. My girls take it just twice a week (and then meet with me after school when they can). For the Olympiad we worked very hard preparing grammar and studying vocabulary. Every day after school for weeks, they sacrificed their time to work with Ardak and I and prepare for this test.

I called Gulzat to find out how she did (I was in Shimkent for the competition so I called as soon as I got back). She got 4th place! Then I called Aigerim to find out how she did. She took the 11th grade test! (Again, she’s in 10th grade.) She did not place, but I don’t care. On the phone today she told me, “Some students I competed against have English every day. Can we study English every day too?”

Aren’t they awesome?! Yeah…They are really great girls and I’m so proud of them. They make up for all the days that I feel like I’m not helping anyone or my presence here is not that important.

Spring Break

2006-03-29T02:54:00.000-08:00

03.27.06

Its spring break in Kazakhstan and my friends and I decided to do it up like the young Americans we are. For about a week, we lived like normal Westerners in our mid 20’s, going out to eat, drink, and dance in big cities. It was a nice break from being a foreigner in a small place, under the spotlight at all times.

Here’s my week in a nutshell: (OH and I’ll try to get some pics on here asap. I didn’t take any. They’re all on Meghan’s computer.)

SUNDAY
On Sunday, Lauren, Meghan and I headed down to Almaty for one night of debauchery before the rest of our crew came down. We went to a nearly empty café where a group of drunk local men serenaded us with slurred songs and tried to convince us to get on the dance floor. (We refrained.) We met up with fun American boys at the fun American Bar and Grill and drank fun American drinks. It was really refreshing.

MONDAY-
In the morning, the rest of our gang (Merril, Michael, Jon, Jennifer, and Tony) met up with us at the Peace Corps Office. We killed the day being productive and social (and catching up with sweet Nicole who happened to be there! Yay!) and then we hurried to the train station for our 6 o’clock ride South. We spent the whole night on the train (14 hours-ish?). I slept the ENTIRE time and missed out on the coupe party the rest of my friends were having. (Whoops. I was tired.)

TUESDAY-
We arrived in Shimkent and got the week itinerary. The first night, the 50 or so volunteers in town had all chipped in to rent out a bar. It was a convergence of Kaz 17’s, 16’s, 15’s, and even a few 14’s.

That night there was a torrential downpour. When we were all good and schwilly we decided to step out into the wet night and make the trek across the city to our apartment. Meghan couldn’t walk in her new high heels so I offered to make a trade and give her my comfy pink clogs. Her shoes were horrendous! I made it about two blocks before I was sopping wet and done with her sexy stilettos. I decided to stride through the puddle-y streets barefoot. (Hmm… So not smart to go barefoot on shards of glass and broken asphalt in pitch black night with earth disguised by rain – but I made it home without hurting myself … for a change.) Smalex and I ran through the streets way ahead of the remaining 7 apartment sharers laughing and wet. It was my favorite part of the night actually because it reminded me of Beth. I felt really alive.

WEDNESDAY-
The next day was NAURYZ. That’s the Kazakh New Year. We went to this big race track to watch the Kazakh National Sports. Fun. The first sport we saw was plain old horse racing. I LOVED it. (It reminded me of the Engelhardts!! I reminisced a LOT about River Downs and X-Country I.) The racing was followed by a traditional game which involves only two players: a man and a woman on horseback. The goal is for the man to catch the woman. If he can, he gets to kiss her. If he can’t, then she gets to beat him. Hmm. Well it was cool to watch. That was followed by an odd game during which people throw coin money on the ground and the players try to sweep down from the horsebacks to pick up as much as possible. The grand finale is a game played with a goat carcass. It’s like polo sorta, only they kick around a dead goat. Unfortunately, the weather in Shimkent was unexpectedly cold that day. Merril, Meghan, myself, and some other girls were FREEZING. We tried drinking tea. We tried gulping down the baby Jameson whiskey bottles my dad sent. No avail. And ultimately, we decided to forego watching people toss around dead creatures and find a warm café instead. We bailed. (Hey, there’s always next year!)

That night we went out again with a large group of volunteers. We went to another bar and took over the back room. We drank and danced and laughed a LOT. Good times.

THURSDAY and all week really… -
All in all, there was a lot of that (good times). We did manage to eat out at lots places with great food (mostly American-ish, which was a great break from the local food we are stuffed with at our sites), check out the big bazaar and do a bit of shopping, walk a bunch, and catch up with friends we haven’t seen in a while.

FRIDAY-
We boarded the train (barely!) about 10 minutes before it pulled out of the station. Close call.

SATURDAY-
Were back in Almaty Saturday morning for breakfast again at the American Bar and Grill. We spent the day showering and cleaning up and went to the Embassy Marines’ house in the afternoon for volleyball and pizza. They are really hospitable and we had an awesome time. [HOWEVER, I have proved YET AGAIN (this side note is especially for those avid blog readers, like my mom and the 119-ers) that I should NOT play volleyball. I humiliated myself hugely. It probably didn’t help that I had a few beers in me … but nonetheless I suck. I think the ball bounced off my arms and into my FACE on more than one occasion. Pretty embarrassing… For a moment or two, I was wishing that they were as serious as the faculty at my school so someone might tell me to sit down and save myself a bit of dignity.] Anyway, yay for the Marines. They are super nice to us and we had a great time at their gorgeous house.

SUNDAY-
I came back to my village …

K… So that was the nutshell of my vacation. I hope it wasn’t too boring to read about. I just thought I’d fill you in because I told a bunch of people I was going to the South. More than it was chock full of Kazakh culture and amazing historical experiences, it was a really nice gathering with familiarity. We all let loose a bit and it felt like a week of being normal again. Right now I’m missing all the alumni reunions and celebratory gatherings among my best friends, and this was probably as close as I’ll get to all that for the next year. I was glad to take it.

9B

2006-03-29T02:53:00.000-08:00

03.17.06

I never believed in quitting people.

I heard a few rumors that people I work with used me as leverage against our pupils. My students were threatened to behave or else, well, they’d lose me. (“If you kids don’t shut up/do your homework/get on task, then Miss. Margaret won’t teach you anymore!” Yikes.) When ever I heard such remarks were said, I was appalled that my kids believed I’d do such a thing. (I was hurt that my colleagues exploited me too, but I’m getting more and more used to that.) I would shake my head in disappointment and say, “I’d NEVER quit kids.” The American in me thought, “Well, they ALL deserve the equal opportunity to learn English from a native speaker.”

Today, my attitude changed. I quit 9B.

It started about two months ago when I got tired of coming home in tears. Ardak offered to take the class off my hands the day she saw me standing in the hallway kicking the cement wall to relieve some 9B tension. Nonetheless, I refused to give up on the handful of hoodlum boys (whod’ve likely been my friends had I been born 10 years later in Southeastern Kazakhstan). They reminded me a lot of the trouble making boys I spent the majority of my high school years hanging out with. I truly believed that I could connect with them somehow since I hated high school once too.

I declared to my class that I was giving them a final warning. I told the boys that I was not their babysitter and if they were going to come to my class, then I expected them to NOT drive me crazy. I told them that Ardak already wanted me to stop teaching them and I was really reluctant to give up on boys being boys … but if it came down to it, I would. I also told them that it was equally my responsibility to get them to feel committed to the subject and so I’d work extra hard making the lessons more dynamic and fun for their particular class.

I kept my promise. I created a month long “Anketa” project. Anketas are thin notebooks that all the cool kids make. They fill the notebooks with magazine photos of beautiful people. On the first page, they write survey questions about hobbies, boyfriends/girlfriends, and favorite aspects of teenage culture (What’s your favorite band? Who’s your favorite actor? Who’s your favorite teacher? Who are your best friends? Etc.)

On the first day of our project, we brainstormed typical questions and then translated them into English. It only took about 20 minutes so for the remaining 25, I let them go to town with all of my magazines, scissors, stickers, soccer pictures, and glue sticks. The next lesson, we used the first blank page to answer our questions and continued decorating. The third lesson, they wrote in each others’ books. The kids were amped about it … so we continued doing them for the next few lessons. However, the boys’ behavior didn’t improve that much and some of them had simply turned to skipping my class altogether. (I often saw them later in the day wandering the halls. I love it when that happens. I simply grab them gently by the arm, look them in the eye, and smile really wide. I can see their insides freaking out, feel their pulses speed up, and watch them panic about whether or not their parents are going to get a phone call that night. I like them to know I know. I’d never tell on them, but they need to know that they’re not as sneaky as they think and they’re not fooling me.) When they did come, they drove me a bit nuts with their rubber band throwing and their B.S., but I felt like I could see a tiny smidgen of progress.

I changed themes only when my volunteer friends came to town and I decided to center a lesson on a few fun Americans who came come to my classroom obligingly. I let the ninth graders ask questions, since ideally they would have been experts on Q and A after that project. I realized that I had failed somehow when I asked them what the word “Where?” meant in Russian. (It is something students learn in 3rd or 4th grade.) They shouted things in Russian like “He!” and “This!” I wanted to cry.

Back to square one.

I showed up today with a plan to play a fun game. (I adapted Duck, Duck, Goose to an English game in which every time a person gets caught, they have to pull a simple question -one we had done a million times in the Anketas- out of a bag and answer it.) The bell rang. Class was to begin. Only two pupils sat in my room. I waited disappointedly. The misbehaving boys came in 5 minutes late, threw their bags on their chairs, LOOKED ME STRAIGHT IN THE EYES, and turned their backs to me. They waltzed right out of the room just to show me that I have no authority over them. Instead of getting pissed off, I followed suit. I headed straight down to the faculty room and summoned my counterpart. I told her how exasperated I was and how nothing makes me more crazy than people who ignore the fact that I’m demand respect. She said that she was taking the class from me. I could have argued but I didn’t.

I walked to the back of the classroom, where the boys by now were sitting. I spoke to them in Russian to be sure they got my point. “Gentlemen,” (I really felt a huge wave or relief) “this is our last class together. I’m done with you. I warned you that I’m not your nanny and I tried to make my lessons especially interesting for you. You continued to give me a hard time. I am not here to teach kids who don’t want to learn.” I retreated to the front of the room and announced to the whole class, “If you want to learn English, I’m here after school every single day. Come see me. I’m happy to teach you. But I will no longer teach pupils who don’t want to learn. From now on, Ardak Imangalivnia will be your teacher both lessons each week.” The girls all moaned and sighed and shot angry looks at the boys.

I feel like crap about it. I feel kind of defeated. I didn’t think I would ever give up kids. I think it’s one of the worst things a person can do to kids who act up because it’s what they expect. And in a way, it’s letting them win. On the other hand, I am not gonna let kids treat me disrespectfully. I’m not going to let a gang of 14 year olds knowingly walk over me. That’s B.S.

…So, anyway, I guess I’m beginning to see why some volunteers are jaded about their jobs here. I am beginning to see how it’s not all the way we expect it to be. Sometimes a person may have to bend their ideals to get through the work here. Someone told me that it’s Karma for being punks when we were adolescents. Maybe so. …Maybe so. It’s a shame though.

I really never believed in quitting people.

6A

2006-03-17T07:05:00.000-08:00

This is why some people love teaching so much. 6A told me what they want to be doing when they're 25. It's inspiring and cute and ... well I hope I never stop dreaming big, like my sixth graders.

...shoot... I'm teaching the future President of Kazakhstan. And he's gonna be soooo good at president-ing that he can do it from Paris. Yay for kids. I love them.

pre-veek-la

2006-03-12T06:05:00.000-08:00

03.12.06

We spent a weekend at Michael’s house in Ekasha. It was a fun time and it made me recognize how acclimated I’ve become. Certain moments of the stay were those moments when I was really aware of where I was. A few times I stopped and laughed because … yet again: This is my life.

You know you’re acclimated when:

-You only pack deoderent and a toothbrush for 3 days away from home.

I knew I wouldn’t have a bath and that I can borrow sweatpants when I get there, so why bother even bringing a change of clothes?

-You pee in the yard as often as the farm animals do.

I have become a professional at peeing in the yard at night because, well, who really wants to walk to the outhouse when the earth is perfectly absorbent? Meghan, Merril, and I lined up near the pig pens like a bunch of ... hmmm … girls pissing in the back yard. We did it about a zillion times yesterday before realizing the gravity of our actions. (Mom, aren’t you glad you spent all those years teaching me how be refined and pristine?)

-You miss the presence of pickles on the table.

People in Kazakhstan don’t believe in drinks as vodka chasers (and they DEFINITELY don’t believe in cocktails). Pickles and bread are generally the normal shot chasers. We forgot to get a jar of pickles from the underground pickle storage room and everyone at the table, especially the Americans, regretfully felt the absence of pickles.

-You and your friends agree that mayonnaise is the best possible salad dressing.

The girls and I decided yesterday that our salad was incomplete without a few scoops of mayonnaise. Merril and I agreed it was a blog-worthy moment. It was a real milestone for us because most typical Americans don’t believe mayonnaise is a necessary ingredient in every recipe.

-More donkeys pass you on the road than cars and you consider flagging one down for a ride.

Meghan and I waited 45 minutes for a taxi out of the village and we had our fingers crossed for horse drawn buggies, motorcycle/side cart combos made circa 1950, and thought for a minute about cruising by foot with a herd of sheep.

-You are an expert at opening things (cans/bottles of wine) without tools (can opener/cork screw).

Those both happened this weekend. And what’s funnier is that it is incredibly common not to have such aparati. At my house, I went for 5 months using just my Swiss Army knife when ever we had people over and finally I decided to buy my h.m. a can opener and a cork screw for Christmas. Now it’s March and my host mom still can’t operate either.

-You can’t stop arguing with your friends about who is more “village-y.”

Michael and I have this endless disagreement about who lives in a more “rustic” place. He usually wins because I have a café in my village (My village lies along a big road that goes all the way to Russia and his is in the middle of nowhere. A lot of hungry people pass through my place so we have a few more magazines and a café.) We argue about things such as who has to go farther to fetch water, the bursting population of 2000-3000, and who buys more food than grows it. His claim is that – I’m a more village-y PERSON and his is a more village-y PLACE. Sometimes it appeases me, but usually not.

So … we’re almost 9 months in and we’re feelin’ it …

Taxis.

2006-03-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

03.10.06

Every taxi ride is an experience (as you may have gathered from some of my previous posts). It’s a fun way to meet people and have hilarious conversations. …Well, they’re usually more like interviews than conversations. People crack me up with the perceptions they have about America. I always get out laughing about the questions people ask. Here are a handful of funnies (most are from today).

- “Did you come to Kazakhstan by plane?” (…uuuummmm…)
- “Is Arnold Schwarzenegger America’s hero?”
- “What are Michael Jackson’s songs about?”
(And furthermore – “If Michael Jackson is a singer, how come whenever I see him on TV he’s not singing?”)
- “What state is New York in?”
- “Do you know lots of famous people?”
- “Who lights the coal stove in your house in America?”
- “Do Americans have gold teeth?”
- “Have you seen black people before?”

And the most frequently asked questions:
“Which is better: Kazakhstan or America?”
“Are you married?”
“Why not?”
“If I marry you, will you take me to America?”

Women's Day

2006-03-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

03.07.06

The 8th of March is Women’s Day in Kazakhstan and its bigger here than J-Lo’s booty. In fact, it’s bigger than camels and it’s bigger than Christmas. It’s second in line after New Years … so that’s basically a real big deal.

So, how does one celebrate?

MONDAY:
Of course, I rushed home from a fun weekend in Almaty with my friends/dentist appointment with some Peace Corps people for the festivities. (First Side Note of Many: BAD TEETH GENITICS STRIKE AGAIN!! I had two cavities. Is this for real? They weren’t too bad though and the dentist filled them in less than 20 minutes.) We had a big party at school I didn’t want to miss.

As usual, on my journey home there were indeed road trip adventures. Due to the late dentish appointment, I arrived in Taldy-Korgan a bit later than usual and the day was already growing dark. I caught a taxi ride with some people from my village. Subsequently, we traveled the horrid roads in blackness, which I try not to do. We arrived in Sarkand around 9 o’clock. Well, the lovely taxi driver and his wife decided to stop off at their relatives’ house for chai, beshbarmak, and to show off the ole’ American. It was really a pleasant ghostie, though, and we drank a little vodka to kick off the women’s holiday! The oldest grandfather, who was virtually blind, played us celebratory music on the dombra (a traditional Kazakh instrument which resembles a 3 string guitar shaped like a pointy squash or something). All the women in the room promised me their unmarried sons and begged me to stay forever. (Another Side Note: That happens way more times than I document. Every mother and grandmother in Kazakhstan wants an American daughter-in-law. I don’t get it though because we don’t do all the things their sons expect to have done for them.) After about an hour of laughing, drinking, and eating, I gave the old women kisses, said goodbye in Kazakh to the old men, and we were on our way once again. It was random and I love that.

TUESDAY (TODAY):
I went to school this morning as usual. But after our third period, all classes were cancelled because the male teachers of M. Zhumabaeva School in Koilyk had prepared a special celebration for their lady colleagues. First was the concert. It was followed by a banquet. At the concert, the men performed songs, jokes, accordion music, skits, and even a hilarious video to say, “Thanks for being hardworking mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, etc…” At the banquet, there was a huge meal. I ate goat head. …well, I tried it at least… Then there was tons of dancing!! I won a hairbrush for my sweet moves. (They always give prizes for best dancers. I always win just because I’m foreign. I’m not actually good at dancing.) The men gave all the women carnations and a few lucky ones got kisses on the hand. It was really nice.

Another Side Note: During all this, I discovered that one of my young teacher friends –she’s only 20- was “stolen” on Thursday. Do you guys all remember when we talked about this BEFORE I came to Kazakhstan? Men can “steal” brides. It’s a way old used-to-be-not-so-awesome tradition but it’s somewhat evolved into eloping. Her boyfriend “stole” her last week.

THIS EVENING (MY FAVORITE PART):
This evening, we had a bano. Afterwards, I was sitting on the couch in my robe, with dripping wet hair, talking on the telephone with a friend, and putting lotion on my legs. My host mom burst in and announced that Zhenia was here for another outing. YAY for Zhenia and his surprise horse rides!

Funny Side Note: YAY for boys who bring handfuls of snow drops! They are the only flowers you can get around here in March that aren’t made of plastic. I think you actually have to pick them yourself in the mountains. My host mom always tells stories about how her late husband used to bring her snowdrops on the 8th of March. Anyway, Zhenia brought a handful of snow drops. I was all, “aaaw, Zhenia! Spaciba!!” and then my host mom took one out of the bunch and bit the blossom off of it. She ate my flower! I looked at her quizzically. She said, “Try it!” I laughed my ass off. I bit it though. It tasted like nothing but she insisted it was delicious. We put the miniature bouquet in a shot glass and got ready to go.

This was by far the best ride yet. He took me on a new route to the very outskirts of the village. “Want to go far?” He asked. “ABSOLUTELY,” I told him. He said, “To the mountains?” uuummm “OF COURSE!” So, he took me to the giant hills that border our village. We rode through rivers, up and down hills, and into a narrow valley. We went faster and farther than ever. The sound of hooves on the rocks sounded like heavy high heels on a marble runway. And we could hear the rushing stream almost the entirety of our trip. It was phenomenal. He promised to take me back in daylight and when the earth was a bit drier. It is exciting to have that to look forward to. It’s always the highlight of everything when I get to ride on a bareback horse through Central Asia. Can’t beat it.

SO, the real holiday is tomorrow. We have no school! YAY! And I just want to wish my mom, Mimi, all the 119 girls (+ Surge, of course), and Tom’s Joy and Mikey’s Sarah, and every other woman in my life (and every woman who reads this, actually) a very very happy Women’s Day. It’s fun to be a girl. Live it up.

IT'S A GIRL!

2006-03-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

Saturday March 4, 2006

The baby cow was born. I haven’t named her yet, but it’s my job. Any suggestions?

P.S. I waited and waited and waited and every day for at least a month. I asked and asked and asked when she would arrive. I totally didn't want to miss it. I was in Almaty when she finally made her way into the world. Yay for babies. Bummer for not getting to welcome her on her first day of being a real live cow baby.

and this little piggy went weee weeee weeeeee....

2006-02-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

02.24.06

Life is crazy in the way that your little doggy dies out of the blue one morning and in the same day six little piggies are born on your way to the outhouse.

My host mom kept checking on the pig last night. I said I was going to bed and then I did some work for a while. A few hours later I got up to go to the facilities and thought I'd see if T.I. would join me for a stroll to the pig pen. I think Masha, the big fat piggy, was waiting for us. The minute we got back there, her water broke and babies started sliding out. It was quite an experience to watch. Slimy piglets aren't as cute as I expected but today they're really fun.

I played with them all afternoon today. They make noises like squeaky toys. They step all over eachother. One bounces like a basketball every time you touch the back of his head. It's hillarious. There's one who might not make it... He won't learn to eat and he's so frail. I call him Wilbur. Enjoy the cute pictures!

Peace Out, Dawg...

2006-02-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

02.23.06

I was in the sauna with my friends a few days ago and someone asked me about my puppy. I started talking about all the funny things she does and the endless list of things I love about her. (I turned into one of those people who can do that about a dog. I never used to get those people.) Well, someone got up from the steam room, to have a moment in cooler air. Without taking much notice, I continued rattling off how Gimley ripped my sock in a tug of war contest and got mud on my coat greeting me one afternoon. When my friend returned to the steam room I was gaining story momentum and still happily regaling whoever would listen. “Are you seriously STILL talking about Gimley, Margaret???” ummm….yeah…oops. At the time, I was slightly embarrassed. I guess I’m pretty obsessed with my dog.

Well, I hate to be a downer two blogs in a row, but Gimley died today. Truly, I’ve never been so infatuated with anything in my life as I was with that puppy. Maybe it’s because she was my best local friend or maybe it was because she fit in the palm of my hand when I first met her. Whatever the reason, I loved her a lot in her short life. And I’ve been a disaster all day sniffling and sobbing. Everyone knows I’m a sensitive sucker and she was my dawg.

She was hit by a car this morning. After our regular morning rituals together, I let her run and play as usual when I went back inside. I had just gotten dressed and opened up the curtains to let day in my house when I saw her little pudgy body sprawled out on the side of the road. I sprinted to her in some hopeless needy way, but there wasn’t anything to be done but cup my face in my hands and cry, bare foot in February, in the middle of the wide road. My host mom followed in a full sprint herself and lifted Gimley from the pavement, cradling the baby in her arms. The neighbors all looked at me with a face that said, “Welp, there goes another one,” but they had the sagaciousness, or compassion, to keep their mouths shut. We took her inside. My host mom and I sat pathetically on the kitchen floor with her in our arms for about 45 minutes, not wanting to believe that she wasn’t gonna bite us anymore or barf on the carpet. Neither of us have ever felt that way about a pet. We buried her in the back yard this evening and we cried and cried with each swoop of the shovel.

Instead of bumming myself out with the gross details of her tragic exit, I’d like to entertain myself (and honor my little puppy) with a top 10 list of great things about her.

(that's her with the chicken. they're funny!)

10. She was probably the very first domestic, bilingual (trilingual if you count “ruff, ruff, sniff, sniff”) dog in Koilyk. She was potty trained and learned to “sit.”

9. She was the first dog in Koilyk to ever get a flea bath and she introduced the people of Kazakhstan to “flea shampoo.” (And inevitably, every time I got her white fur clean, she immediately rolled around in the mud with our other dog.)

8. She never got full and ate so much she threw up a few times. It always made my host mom and I laugh a lot because we wondered how much we could offer her before she stopped eating. It never happened though. She never turned food down.

7. She always tried to follow me to school (sorta like Mary’s lamb). And sometimes I had to walk back and forth through the gate four or five times to get her to stay in the yard. When I came home from school, she would see me from a few houses down and start waddling and wagging her tail. When I got close she jumped all over me and got my school clothes all muddy and wet.

6. Our cat, Kiesa, is really chill. Gimley was super hyper. When Kiesa was sleeping, Gimley would jump all over her and lick her face and get in her grill. When Gimley was small, Kiesa scratched her and fought Gimley off. But recently, Gimley got big and chubby and won every time.

5. She was best friends with our boy dog, Darcik. They were really funny to watch.

4. She was a foot biter. It HURT but it was really funny.

3. Every night after I brushed my teeth and washed my face, I picked her up from her favorite laying spot next to the warm wall (next to the stove) and carried her to my house where she slept in a basket on the porch. She would snuggle in my arms and lick my face even though she never wanted to go to her room.

2. She followed me to the outhouse every single time. She followed me just about everywhere, actually. But that was the cutest. She would trip on my heels when I walked through the yard. Then she waited around outside the door for me, sniffing hay and finding good sticks.

1. We have a lot of confined animals (cow, horse, dog) and she loved them a lot. When my aunts sent me doggy toys, she would never just play with them herself. She brought them as presents to the dogs who couldn’t come retrieve them herself. She also did this with bones, and boots, sandals, and golashes. Basically anything she could find. That’s my favorite thing about her.

***Um, just two notes … ok well just three:
The other animals know she’s gone. Kiesa, the cat, hasn’t eaten all day. And Darcik, her big brother/boyfriend, hasn’t wagged his tail once. Animals are pretty smart, huh…

Mikey and Sarah, I know you read this because I read your blog too. I just want to say that today was a real brother day. I was wishing for a big brother hug. Tommy’s are real big and sometimes I can feel that he takes half the hurt to bear himself. Mikey, you say, “aaw marg, don’t cry” like no other. You guys have a way of making it all better. I miss you.

(That's my host mom's grand daughter. She loves Gimley a lot too.)

And to everyone, our piglets are gonna be born tonight. My host mom is pulling an all-nighter (although she says I’m not allowed because it’s a school night). I sucks real bad that a really cute, special life was lost today in my front yard. But it’s a little refreshing to know that something else is being born in the back. Stay tuned for piggy pictures. Hopefully I’ll have some by tomorrow!

mom, join the peace corps.

2006-02-22T07:24:00.000-08:00

02.22.06

I’m sitting at my kitchen table all alone right now drinking tea and making homemade yogurt/granola/jam concoctions and trying to frantically do some medical research on webmd.com. My host mom ran out the door about 20 minutes ago because of a phone call we got. I’m backing up:

My very first day here this guy came over and had chai with us. His name was Vitalya. I didn’t know anything about him and he didn’t say a single word to me. But in my mind, he was a really good person. He had a warm face. He looked about my age, too, and I figured that any 24 year old that would hang out for a few hours or a summer day drinking tea with a 53 year old widow was a cool cat. Done deal.

After he left my host mom pointed out that he has a limp. She explained that he was an “invalid” (any physically impaired person here is called an “invalid” –How’s THAT for sensitivity?). And although I’m not a nurse, I am my mother’s daughter, and it was clear to me that his disability was something more than a limp.

He came by a few more times before summer drowned in fall. A few sunny afternoons, my host mom and I sat outside dunking produce in the stream outside of our house. On the other side of our wire fence, Vitalya sat on a bench watching the day pass and entertained us while we cleaned gooseberries and tomatoes. He came back next in October or November and brought a basket to my host mom that he wove himself. She almost cried and then spent about a half hour deciding what to put in it. It was really beautiful.

I see him in the street every now and again walking his cousin home from school. She’s in the “zero” class (kindergarten). We always say “hello” and I usually ask how he’s doing, but I’m certain he’s not as comfortable with me as he is with my host mom. He has no idea that secretly I think he’s a wonderful and super compelling person. I love him for making baskets, for holding that little girl’s tiny hand day after day, and for the Hawaiian shirt he sometimes wears.

Yesterday afternoon, my host mom got a frantic phone call from his aunt. Vitalya disappeared. He is delicate, has NO friends, and is disabled. They called my host mom. My host mom called everyone who MIGHT have seen him... for example a few kids who he grew up with, although they aren't really his friends. I went back to work before he was located, but when I came home it was my first question. She said something happened that they don't understand. They found him curled up, way out of it mentally, and freezing in the outhouse. He had been out there on a February day (unusually warm for winter here, but still nonetheless pretty chilly) for several hours.

Today around the same time, the woman called again. My host mom got a strange look on her face and I knew something was really wrong. She started frantically calling people looking for the number to the hospital. She said it probably closed for lunch, but nonetheless, she would call. I called some of my teacher friends and got the number. … but to no avail … it WAS closed for lunch. A Hospital. Closed for lunch. Isn’t that a novel idea.

(Side note: The hospital in Koilyk is a small one story building. They also have no running water and get their heat from a coal stove like the rest of us. There are only two or three rooms with beds. I don’t think anyone has ever spent a night there in the history of Kazakhstan. And I think their medical equipment is comprised of a scale, a blood pressure taker, stethoscopes, and IV’s.)

I asked if we could call the doctor at home, as you can always call SOMEONE here who’s got the right phone number. She burst into tears. She said that she hasn’t looked the doctor in the eye since her husband died. The doctor was supposed to help her with his Alzheimer’s. The doctor was supposed to come to the house once a month, but in the two years of his sickness, the doctor came ONE time chuckled, said there was nothing to be done, and left. In that case, I probably wouldn’t bother with that doctor either. My host mom called Vitalya’s aunt back and the moment she hung up the phone she started changing clothes to go to his house. (A loving mom of 5 kids, a sick husband, and 2.5 Americans is as good as a nurse, I suppose.)

Throughout all of this I learned that Vitalya was a preemie baby. He was 3 months early and was born with Cerebral Palsy. As a child he was always being stuck with needles and being treated for something (side note: I really question medical treatment in this country – they use needles for everything and have a lot of strange un-true ideas about health). She said that today he was vomiting, his lips were white, and his eyes were incredibly bloodshot. He couldn’t say more than “Ya,” (I) before his involuntary spasms interrupted him. I freaked out immediately because I know a few people whose parents had brain aneurisms. Then I thought maybe it was some kind of seizure. I knew a boy who had those too. My host mom thought that he drank some kind of chemical or something.

I wanted shock trauma to fly in with a helicopter and rescue this sick boy. I wanted a parade of paramedics and fire trucks to blaze through Koilyk like they do in Syracuse and Seattle. I wanted to call 911 to dispatch something. I wanted to call my mom on my cell phone. But I don’t have shock trauma. I don’t have paramedics. I don’t have 911. I don’t even have a cell phone. I am helpless. I am helpless. “If … If I could JUST call my mom, she’d tell us what happened,” I pleaded nonsensically. My host mom shook her head and replied, “Margaret, what if she did tell us what happened? What if she told us what to do? We can’t do it here. We don’t have it in Koilyk.” She tilted her head and looked at me with that look of pity, sympathy, and sadness. She turned and ran out the door.

I started searching online. There’s nothing that has “Cerebral Palsy” and “vomiting” in the same passage. I tried to keep in mind that doctors in America go to Medical School for many years, take hard tests, and memorize libraries of information. They DON’T find their cures on doctor.com. I tried to keep in mind that the writers of these websites design them for people who can rush to hospitals OPEN during lunch hours. They DON’T design them for psychotically compassionate girls living in villages on the fringes of a flat world. I cried anyway.

How can this BE?

a little ride

2006-02-22T07:17:00.000-08:00

02.21.06

This morning I turned of my alarm at least sixteen times. I had those dreams, the in-between-alarm-blare dreams. I dreamt that I was at a wedding or something and everyone was taking pictures. There was a big crowd in the corner of the room and I saw Zhenia –the family friend. He waved me into the photo. I ran in to beat the “click” and the flash and pummeled him with laughter and a smile. He smiled too. It felt like we were old friends and more comfortable than I’ve felt with any local in this country (except my host mom). I woke up knowing his real life welcome-ness transcended into my dream. And I was super surprised to find a local friend in my sleep for the first time ever because my dreams are so often filled with the people I miss. I was happy.

The day passed as usual, except that I believe to be getting a cold. I went to school, had normal lessons. I came home for lunch. I went back for optional sessions. I took a walk. I came home and was simultaneously making homemade granola bars while helping set the table for dinner, when the dogs did their dog-alarm. We have become a bit numb to their noise and they had to bark for a while before we believe anyone was there.

My host mom ran out and ran back in laughing. She asked if I was still feeling sick. I laughed and knew exactly what she was talking about. I told her that a miracle took place when she ran to the gate and I am cured. She said, “Good! Let’s hurry and have dinner so you can go ride.” Zhenia opened the door with his usual smile and asked, “Are you ready?” I was so excited!! “SERIOSNA??” “Margaret, why would I joke? The horse is outside,” he replied. Just like a little kid, I had to pretend to eat dinner when I had lost my appetite the minute he said we were going for an evening ride without a sleigh and without a saddle.

Outside, the horse waited in the dark. I stood on the bench to climb on his back. I could feel his spine and his strength beneath me. Zhenia pulled the horse out a bit and jumped on too, like he’d done it a billion times. We took off in the dark. We didn’t go fast and we didn’t go far but it was so awesome anyway. We stayed on the village roads and rode by all the neighborhood houses. (I love looking at the lights in the windows and wondering about the lives inside.) It was a slow ride through the mud and back roads. Zhenia hummed a little and clicked at the horse the way Grandpa Leach used to do. But we didn’t talk a whole lot. We just enjoyed a quiet night with good stars. He brought me back, like a perfect gentleman, after about 45 minutes and my host mom was waiting outside, like a perfect protective mom. He jumped off and helped me down. My host mom took me in and he rode off into the night.

This life is more of a dream than my dreams are really. If only they knew about my old life, fast paced and after dark….sigh….

Volunteers are fun.

2006-02-20T01:23:00.000-08:00

02.19.06

Some days I REALLY don’t want to leave my village. That’s sorta rare for volunteers I think. But it’s just so comfortable here and I think I was born for this whole farmy thing. The volunteers gather for a birthday party or a holiday and I often invite locals to my house instead because want to stay home with my host mom and the dogs and the cat and the pregnant cow. I like to visit with my local friends and take long walks to no-where.

BUT, last weekend, I went to Meghan’s house on Saturday night and we had SO much fun. We didn’t go anywhere but instead we made Mexican food and sat around and talked all night. I realized that I’m in love with my friends here.

This weekend, I promised I’d go meet them. I almost skipped out on Friday night because I went to a “family” lunch and wanted to chill at home with my host mom and bake cookies, but when I thought about how much fun we had LAST weekend, I threw my stuff together and headed to Taldy for Joe’s birthday celebration. It was SUPER fun. We went shopping. We went dancing. We went out to eat. We went to the sauna. On a whim, Merril and I dyed our hair (hers is redder, mine is blacker). And then Jennifer cut it. We had super fun two nights of slumber party mania.

I just wanted to post some pictures to introduce my favorite American people in America to my favorite American people in Kazakhstan… Enjoy. (P.S. I tried to post way more, but my internet is sucky and these few took forever and it finally started going crazy on me and I had to stop.)

Road Trip Adventure

2006-02-20T01:19:00.000-08:00

02.17.06

Not too pertinent preface:
Friday after school, I attended a special memorial lunch with my local relatives. My host mom’s daughter’s husband’s dad was being honored. It’s a tradition I really enjoy, how people gather a million times after someone dies, instead of just for the funeral –like we tend to do in America. Anyway, he died the day before I arrived in Koilyk. This lunch marked six months since his passing. And as much as I wanted to mourn the renowned man I never met, I couldn’t fight the tinge of satisfaction I was feeling for having finished six months at my site.

The real story:
When we got home, I threw my things together and ran down the road to the place where “taxi’s” usually stop to pick people up. The road was barren. Nothing moved but the melting ice. I was wondering how long I’d have to wait for a car to pass and if it was a bad idea to try to make it to Taldy-Korgan all by myself in the evening. Just then a station wagon made a U-Turn and the passenger rolled down his window. “Sarkand?” He asked. A few other ladies I know from school ran over and we all jumped in the car. We drove the first hour stretch to Sarkand in silence. It was only broken when one of the men in the front seat asked everyone their final destinations. A colleague spoke for me. I was relieved when they said they’d take me all the way to Taldy and I wouldn’t have to negotiate prices with other men at the bus station. All the other ladies got out in Sarkand. I said goodbye to them in Kazakh and my secret was out. The driver and his cousin heard an accent.

The men stopped at the bazaar. The young one got out. The other turned all the way around in his seat and hit me with a barrage of questions. When he realized I was American, he freaked out. “I’ve never met an American before.” The driver returned to the car with two beers –one for me (I definitely didn’t ask for it) and one for his cousin. They agreed that because I’m foreign, I couldn’t pay the 800 Tenge fare. They said it was their hospitality and they intended to take care of me. I didn’t argue. We stopped again for gas before leaving Sarkand and the passenger, a 35 year old Kazakh man named Marat, decided to sit in the backseat with me.

I was feeling really uneasy at first, with a stranger –ten years older than me- in the backseat of a car in the middle of the desolate steppe. Especially after he told me a few times that he wanted to steal me for his bride. (I told him my big brothers would have something to say about that. To which he replied, “No. I can buy them off with horses and cars. That is our tradition.”) Nonetheless, it was fun exchanging stories with Marat. As we passed the hill after hill and herd after herd, I grew more and more comfortable. He looked through my Newsweek and we even had a few quasi-political conversations. About an hour into our journey, we stopped at a café along the road. The men treated me to shashleek (shish-ka-bobs) and another beer. When I was getting back into the car, I had a glimpse of our funny trio with the eyes of a stranger. We must have looked like an odd match to the woman running the small roomed diner.

When we got to the city, I had another pang of nervousness. The men pulled off the familiar road and headed in the wrong direction from my destination. I thought to myself, “I wonder why they’ve been so nice to me the last 3.5 hours when they just wanted to kidnap me in the end.” They turfed a field of mud pulled into a suburban village –complete with men on horseback carrying loads of hay tied to the back of the “saddles.” It was actually a really cool looking place on a muddy gray day. It was also pretty neat to see an actual village* literally on the skirt of the city. They stopped at a friends house for only a moment. I didn’t get out of the car.

They righted the path and drove me into the city and to the exact address I needed. (Usually taxi’s drop you off at a general place like the bus station or else they charge you a rip-off amount to take you to where you need to go.) They dropped me off at the door and I had to argue to carry my own bags in to building. When no one came to the outdoor entrance for a moment, they opened their doors and stepped out of the car again to offer me an alternative to my weekend plans. I declined the invitation to visit their town and go to a wedding in Almaty just as my friend Jennifer came to unlock the door to her office. I smiled, and waved, and that was the end of that. Good times.

Their hospitality was amazing and it made me feel a bit bad for my mistrust. But that uneasy feeling around strangers is something we, as Americans, are totally bred with. We are taught not to trust people. By American standards, two dark men aged 25-35 who pick up a single 24 year old girl hitchhiker are inevitably rapists, murderers, or some other shady characters. I’m glad that wasn’t the case on Friday. It was a really good adventure.

*My definition of a “village” is somewhat different now than what it was when I lived in America. To me, a village is a place with no running water, very few places to shop, lots of livestock, lots of homegrown-ness, and where knee high golashes are a necessity (i.e. Ekasha –where Michael lives and Koilyk –where I live). My definition of a “town” is Sarkand (where Meghan lives). They’ve got a few schools, a few shops, a few apartment buildings, a bazaar, indoor toilets, and running water certain days of the week. A “city” is anywhere you can have a shower every day and buy fruit all year round. So, essentially, every place in America is a city by my new standards – So, contrary to my entire belief system during my pubescent years, Severna Park is a city. Hillarious. I’m stickin to it, though.

One horse open sleigh...

2006-02-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

02.06.06

You know that part in Braveheart when Mel Gibson comes back to his old village for the first time? He goes to the girl’s straw roofed hut on horseback in torrential downpour and says, “The weather is lovely. Would you like to come for a ride?” Well, I love that part of the movie.

The weather today was so strange. It rained. It started before dawn and still hasn’t quit. All the snow on the ground turned into slush. Splashing slush is one of my favorite things in the world, especially with the golashes I’ve got here. Unfortunately, I was shin deep in it today walking around the village in my school clothes. I came home tired and soaking wet, but I anticipated a special dinner we had planned. Even though dark came early and the rain continued to spill from the sky, my host mom and her son set up a charcoal grill outside. They put the fresh pork cuts, which had been marinating all day, on skews and the smell of shashleek filled the puddle-y yard. Four of us stood in the drizzle watching the pink meat turn crispy and brown. We let the smoky smell saturate our damp hair and clothes with the excitement of an out-of-season entrée. We moved inside where we thawed out and enjoyed our pork kabobs with spicy raw onions. It tasted like delicious summer. We had full bellies and we laughed a lot.

Not long after tea, I decided to head to bed. It was ridiculously early, but I was ridiculously exhausted. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Then I went into my house and was gathering some work stuff for the morning. I heard the dogs going nuts outside so I peeked out the window and saw Misha go to the gate. Only a minute or two later my host mom burst through the door. “Are you tired?” she asked. “Mmmhmm,” was my obvious answer. She said very disappointedly, “Well, Zhenia came over with a horse and sleigh to take you for a ride. You probably are too tired to go though, right?” I jumped out of my chair and shouted, “NO! I want to! I want to!!” [Zhenia is Misha’s best friend. He works at the sunflower processing place in the village. (They make oil I think.) And apparently Zhenia has lots of friends with horses which he rides all the time. My host mom told him I’ve been dying to ride in a sleigh. With the spring’s early entrance this week, it could well be the last day for sleigh riding this winter. So he borrowed a horse and sleigh and picked us up for a nighttime jaunt.] We all threw on warm farm clothes (coats we’re allowed to get dirty) and ran out into the dark. I danced and jumped in the street and said, “thank you,” a billion times before I even sat on the cushion of hay.

We rode down the main road at a steady slow pace. Then we took a turn down a side road and began to speed up. When we got to the edge of the village we were at full speed. The rails of the sleigh sloshed through giant puddles and it sounded like waves splashing against the side of a boat. I took my hat off so I could feel the rain on my forehead. It was spectacular. My host mom and I linked arms and I sang the opening to an appropriate tune … “dashing through the snow, in a one horse open sleigh, o’er the hills we go, laughing all the way” …

When we got home, the five of us piled into my host mom’s bed. We nibbled on sunflower seeds, drank tea, and watched an 80’s Jackie Chan movie on TV. I felt so alive I couldn’t bring myself to leave. Now it’s one o’clock and I have to get up at 5 to write 3 lessons before school starts. Oops. Well worth it though. I suppose I had been feeling a bit dried out before…

The Other White Meat...

2006-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

02.05.06

Today started out as a normal Sunday. I got up and had chai with my host mom. I read a book for a while and lounged in my pajamas. The dogs started barking around 9 when the men arrived. They were dressed in work clothes and they came with a mission. What mission? Oh… well, it seems that in anticipation of a piglet litter, we need to make some room on the estate. They are expected to arrive within the next few weeks and we only have one small pig pen. “How do we make room? You ask, and “What do those men have to do with it?”

Those men are our relatives. It was my host-brother-in-law, Sasha, his brother-in-law, Big Misha, (the same two men who I watched castrate the pig back in November) plus my host mom’s son, Young Misha (He is here for the week from Russia. He’s 24 like me.). They came to kill the daddy.

When my host mom first told me that we were going to kill our pig, I said I wasn’t going to eat it. That pig is on my Christmas card. It’s our muddy, oinking, farm pet. She told me that my attitude was not allowed in a village. She laughed at me and said that if I wouldn’t eat the meat that our men killed, then I could go out and spend my own money on meat some other men killed. And then she mentioned that we are having Pork Shashleek for dinner this week (they’re like shish kabobs but better) and I immediately changed my mind.

I intended to watch the execution, like a science project or something. For some reason, I think this aspect of culture is so impressive. It’s like a rite of passage for boys to learn how to slaughter their backyard companions. And maybe I’m compelled to watch our pets become meals because it’s something the men in my family aren’t that well versed in. The men here are deft and knowledgeable about dissecting livestock. It’s like watching a biology lesson…and certainly a lesson on survival of the fittest.

So I went in my house to throw on jeans and when I came out I smelled something burning. I tiptoed into the back yard and the men had already killed our chubby pink piggy. I was amazed all over again about how quickly a life can be taken. I was only inside for five minutes. He laid in the stained red snow with vitality only in his unsettled nerves.

The men moved around the lifeless animal with homemade blow torches. They had converted tea kettles into gasoline tanks which were used to burn the hair off the skin. They scraped the singed remains with a knife. (Am I totally grossing you out? I’m sorry. I think the process is fascinating. It’s an aspect of life that is totally absent from American life, no matter how small your town is and how redneck you may be.)

Barely an hour later, I sat on the kitchen floor peeling potatoes while my host mom sat beside me, with half a pig sprawled out on a plastic tablecloth. She carved and sorted the parts, tossing them into various bowls. An hour after that, we had fresh ribs and boiled spuds.

So…that’s that. Another day in the life I guess.

Juli's Questions

2006-02-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

02.04.06

My pretty Juls sent me a letter with no return address. She asked me some questions about my experience and I’m not sure where to send the replies so I figured why not update the bliggity-blog with the answers, since I haven’t written anything in a while. Here goes…

1. “What is your favorite thing to do over there?”

Hmmm… that’s hard. I really like taking walks. I love wandering down the side roads of the village and watching people doing daily routines. I don’t think it ever gets old. Even though it’s all familiar to me, it’s still foreign. The bumpy roads, broken down fences, tattered old soviet structures, Kazakh homes, corrals, and haystacks amaze me every time – as do the horse and sleigh. It’s really picturesque to see the roads speckled with roaming cows and chickens and stray dogs. And it’s fun to greet people in the street filling up their giant flasks of water at the pump. When I walk down the back roads, I feel like I’m walking through a simple dream world, far far far away from beeping horns and city noises (oh right … because I AM!). It’s beautiful.

2. “ Have you been eating horse and does it taste like beef or what?”

Yeah. I eat horse. It’s celebration food though. People only prepare it on special occasions, like weddings or birthdays or Kazakh holidays. It’s good really.
I’ve eaten lots of other crazy stuff too. I think the scariest is homemade sausage. It’s literally made out of intestinal tube and stuffed with fatty lumps and meat from God-knows-where. I’ve tasted cow tongue, goat liver, and chicken brain too. I’m sure there’s a lot of other weird stuff but I have lost track it seems. I try to try everything, but it’s simply more grossness than I had ever imagined sometimes. Some things I HAVEN’T eaten, though offered, include crunchy pig skin rolled up like a tortilla and sprinkled with salt, boiled chicken feet, and animal eyeballs. (Nothing goes to waste.)

But the grossest thing, by far, is how people think a slab of fat is a legitimate main course. We made mante (it’s like a big ravioli sorta) the other day and the “beef” we ground to put inside was literally straight-up fat. Needless to say, I only ate the pasta exterior. I do a lot of mouth-wipe/napkin-SPITs. I’m super lucky that my host mom finds no shame in eating the scraps right off my plate. I give her my fat and she often gives me her good meat. I never sit far from her at parties because of it.

And the irony of it all is that I’m certain that I’m giving up meat, tongue, liver, brains, and animal fat when I get back to America. Yup, when I can buy totally normal prime cuts, I don’t wanna. I aspire to be a vegetarian because, as strange as all this new food seems to the eyes, ears, and digestive track, it’s all NATURAL. I’ve literally met A LOT of my dinners back when they clucked and moo-ed and seeing the happy lives they live before they became borsch seems so much more humane to me. There are no growth hormones, pesticides, or even preservatives. There are no slaughter houses or packaging factories. And as I’ve said, NOTHING goes to waste. That is something I totally love about this place and I don’t think I can go back to processed meat. (Especially after I read a book my friend, Michael, loaned me –called “My Year of Meats.” Juls, you’d totally like it. You should check it out.)

3. “What has been the most challenging aspect of acclimating yourself to the culture? (Probably the bathroom situation, huh?)”

Hmm. That’s a big question. I’m gonna answer it in two parts…
First of all, I’ve gotta clear something up. It’s funny that to everyone the bathroom “situation” seems so unbearable. Maybe it seems like such a hard thing to become comfortable with because I frequently make outhouse jokes in various letters, emails, and on the blog. But that’s because I just think its fun to complain about my snowy white bum getting frost bite and to write detailed documentaries about losing shoes due to the wrath of summer flies. But really, I’m not out there long enough to grow butt-cicles and perhaps flies droves aren’t actually the mutant aggressors I portrayed. It’s really not bad at all to be honest. I would totally love quilted toilet paper instead of yellowed pages from old books and … well, you should SEE the communal accommodations (schools, rest stops, etc.)… It’s certainly DIFFERENT. But by no means is it even NEARLY the most challenging aspect of acclimation. I guess what I’m saying is a toilet doesn’t need to be that luxurious. (And if we’re talking about the entire bath-ROOM, the bano beats showers and bubble baths -hands down. I think it should be added to the list of Greatest Discoveries in the History of Mankind, right between “the wheel” and “fire.” I believe that it’s the cleanest clean and most relaxing bathe in life.) So, with all that said, it brings me to the real answer to your question…

The most challenging aspect of acclimating myself to a new culture is probably the communication barrier. It’s a real bummer for a few reasons. I’m sure it’s mostly because I HATE when I can’t do things for myself, especially SPEAK. But also, not understanding makes me feel like I don’t belong. Teachers meetings are done mostly in Kazakh and, on occasion, I’ve actually been told not to come because I’ll need a translator. Ouch, right? Sometimes I sit at a meal table, especially my Kazakh friends’ birthday parties, where people are laughing hysterically and I can only smile in amusement because I don’t know what’s funny. In fact, usually I miss the punch line of every joke. I can follow the whole storyline but when it gets to the important, funny sentence – I NEVER GET IT. My host mom has to slow it all down and tell it over again using kid words. Like my brothers used to always say, “It makes the funny UNfunny.” But worst of all, I don’t like being spoken for. It’s a crappy feeling when people just assume I can’t comprehend. I loathe it when they can’t imagine I’d understand and ask my host mom or other English Teachers questions before directly asking me. I also really despise when, before I’ve had a chance to speak, people respond in my place. And sometimes, I understand questions perfectly but when I begin to answer people don’t understand me. They don’t know what I’m talking about because my life experiences are so incredibly different and they interrupt me a million times to rephrase their questions in an attempt to clear things up. All of these are daily examples of what makes me feel weak. It’s really hard to get acclimated to that. It makes me feel stupid. It makes me feel uneducated. It makes me feel foreign and excluded. It makes me feel like a tourist instead of a teacher. It makes me feel discouraged and offended. And it makes me feel like I’m not making any progress. That is definitely a WAY bigger challenge than squatting over a hole in the ground.

4. “What would you say has most profoundly affected you about the experience?”

I don’t think I can answer that one yet, Juls. I think it will be decades before I REALLY know what has “most profoundly affected” me. Eight months is hardly long enough to know how I’ll be changed ever after, you know?...

I have discovered a lot of little things though. For example, I’ve discovered exactly how spoiled and rich every one of my American friends and I truly are, as hard as we try not to be. I’ve discovered that living in metropolitan areas is super convenient and entertaining, but I absolutely love the farm life -far from fast and loud. I love the sky at night and I love being barefoot here. I’ve discovered that it is incredibly fulfilling to matter to a kid. I’ve discovered that teaching in a school can be kinda fun sometimes. I’ve discovered that if you ask people for help, they’ll TOTALLY do it. I’ve discovered that sometimes I cry when I open a letter or look at a picture because I miss people so much it doesn’t fit inside me. (And I have discovered that I miss the Ocean almost as much as my friends and family.)

I can tell you some small changes too. 1- I never leave the water “running” while I brush my teeth because it’s simply wasteful. And where you have to fetch your own water, it’s an easy place to cut down on work. 2- I don’t wash my hair as much. I think you can feel clean for at least 3 days after a shower if you don’t sweat a whole lot. 3- I wear my socks more than one time before washing. 4- I eat all natural foods, as I do here. 5- I’m lower maintenance than ever … and I think I’ve even grown some patience (ha ha… never though you’d see the day, eh Jen and Meg?) 6- In addition to my love for cute dogs, I like cats now too. Hmm… That’s probably enough.

5. “Gender roles are medieval, right?”

Juls, this question is immense. I don’t know where to begin. Since you focused on Womens’ Studies all your years in college, you can totally attest to the fact that there’s no end to the subject… Maybe I’d say they’re more 17th Century than Midieval. There are definitely clear cut social standards that our culture fought to change a generations ago. (The most dramatic is probably that domestic abuse is a big problem and in its own demented way it’s sorta publicly acceptable, however unpleasant and frowned upon. It’s scary to know that I love people here who submit to dysfunctional relationships like that.)

I’ve seen a lot here that makes me certainly glad I will return to a place where it’s normal to be a strong, independent, free, limitless, creative, single, young woman. None of those things are the norm in Kazakhstan. Women are totally bound here and such constraint has the capacity to smother potential. I’ve actually seen it first hand a hundred times already. In men too, I suppose. Some day, we’ll sit down together and I’ll tell you stories.

On the other hand, women in the village have to be very strong in many ways –ways most Americans probably would never consider. Tamara Ivanovna is the strongest woman I’ve ever met in my whole entire life. She is a friend, a mother, a widow, a farmer, a chef, a builder, a saleswoman, and a really good neighbor. Her forearms are as strong as my rock climbing, triathalon completing, ex-Marine older brother. She literally bore the weight of a dying man on her back for 3 years. She is passionate and compassionate, fun and funny. She feels so much and cares even more. I think she breaks a lot of the rules and she inspires me every day.
Anyway, this place becomes more Western every day it seems. So maybe soon enough they’ll have equal rights laws or something. But in the village, I’m not sure it would make a difference.

I just wanna add one more little thing. I guess it’s so easy to look at this experience as a case study or something, especially when I break it down into questions and answers about what I’m learning and how I’m growing at each particular moment. But, day to day it’s so not like that. I totally live here. I have a house, a “family,” friends, pets and a job, just like any other city. And when I talk about the things I see and do like it’s all under speculation, or maybe that I sound condescending, I worry that I may be conveying things wrong. Life here is really good. I realized it one night when I was visiting my old host family in Novoalexevka, I was lying awake after reading a chapter or two about a different Peace Corps Volunteer’s experience when I had a revelation. I realized that I was in Azamat’s room and he had been thrown onto the living room floor for me. I looked around me at all the familiar things and at how comfortable I was. I shut off the lights and curled back into my little “brother’s” bed. That’s when I realized that I won’t be back here for a while. I recognized that I was at home and immediately I saw that this experience has already, in just 7 or 8 months, become an intimate one. These are my loved ones and I could be just as comfortable at my aunts’ house on Long Island. It’s amazing.

YAY AMERICA! Thank you!

2006-01-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

01.19.20
Ohmygosh…books!

New York is kicking ass.
So, I wrote in the birthday blog how Aunt Kathee’s boss, Mr. Rav (as I’m now referring to the legendary gift-giver) sent us 10 of the best dictionaries on earth. I was super excited to add that to the one that the Rabbitt’s sent me for Christmas. I thought, “WHOA! 11 OF THE BEST DICTIONARIES ON EARTH.” As I have mentioned, there was dancing and kissing and jumping - Lots of excitement. (Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit. And thank you, Mr. Rav!! Your contributions are amazing and are already being put to use every DAY. Yipee!)

After the holidays, I returned to my village anxious to start the second half of my first year teaching with enthusiasm and zeal. I wanted innovative lessons and color in the room. And YAY, AGAIN. It’s been so easy, thanks to some amazing Americans, well … New Yorkers mostly (Although, gotta shout out to my sister. “Are You My Mother?” came all the way from Nob Hill Ave. – West Coast Whuuuttt…):

Since Monday, I’ve been lugging packages from the Post Office to my classroom. Thanks to Marci’s 7th grade class, we’ve got 92 new children’s books and teenage-y novels, 12 new dictionaries, lots of pens, pencils, crayons and markers, some giant index cards (which we’ve been making awesome grammar charts on all week), and tons of other stuff. It’s seriously AMAZING. Marci’s students must have done W.B.B.S.E. (WORLDS BIGGEST BAKE SALE EVER) to afford the shipping alone. I can’t believe the way they reached out to the school here. Thank you for all the hard work, beautiful wrapping, and the foundation for learning you have provided.

When you add all of those fantastic resources to the incredible amount of books I’ve already received from Glenwood Village (Thanks to all the neighbors! You guys are amazing!), and from my family and friends --- our English department is RICH!!!!!! I have been dancing and kissing and jumping ALL WEEK.
The students are going CRAZY with excitement too. After school, they come to the classroom in packs asking to “check out” from our library. Ardak writes down names and titles and we send them skipping away. We are using dictionaries in our lessons daily too, so the students are actually learning to look stuff up (and they are finally able to figure out what the hell I’m talking about). And all the fun other stuff has been incorporated in other ways as well. (Hello? Did I mention the index cards? …so awesome…)
And take this for example; my 5th form students received a package from Larissa in Cutchogue. They got 17 friendship bracelets from their new 6th grade American friends. I asked my 5th graders to come on Wednesday after school for a SPECIAL lesson. Twice as many as usual showed up, boys included. I showed them the letter and pictures Larissa sent, and they were eager to respond. We made a poster and wrote a few notes. The kids made friendship bracelets to send back and begged to have their pictures taken to send around the world. The boys were especially hilarious… with their “Larissa + Dastan = heart, heart, heart…” They’re charming little troublemakers.

In my older classes, the students are learning to write letters to their new American pen pals. We’ve been looking at pictures (and taking lots too). They are already learning so much. For another example, I told my 9th graders, “You should write about what you do for fun. Those American girls might be surprised that we don’t have movie theaters.” “DUH. That’s ‘cause we’re in a VILLAGE, Miss. Margaret,” they replied as if I was an idiot. “umm… We don’t really have villages in America,” I explained. They gasped! “Yeah, girls, we’ve got a Wal-mart in even the smallest towns. Everybody’s got a supermarket in America. In Koilyk, we don’t even have a bazaar. You should explain that.” So, yeah, it’s been educational.
The thing is, everyone at school keeps thanking me. I keep telling them that it’s not me. It’s YOU. It’s relatives and strangers … a LOT of strangers, actually. How amazing. And I’m just the channel for the really great things you’re doing. Some people have really dug deep into their pockets to make learning a little more dynamic in Koilyk and to share a bit of the wealth we’ve got in the western world. That’s bad ass. I wish you could see the changes you’re making. Its beautiful to see how much people will give if you just tell them what you need. I’ve always been an idealist, and right now no one can argue with it. Since the day I signed the contract, no one has let me down. I’ll try to send lots of pictures.
THANK YOU. Thank you from the students, the teachers, the school director, from my parents … thank you from everyone. And I think the biggest thanks has to be from me.
I HEART NY (and Nob Hill Ave N).

Side Note: On the subject of classroom resources … I submitted my first grant proposal for $500 (it’s a special Disney Minnie Grant) to make classroom resources. I am hoping that we can build a big magnetic easel to make giant magnetic poetry. I also want to make big wood blocks, like giant dice, with articles and prepositions. I’d like to get some real COARK boards on the walls so we can put some cool changeable bulletins around the room. And, yay, best of all I’d like to turn our floor into a gigantic scrabble board. The floors are painted annually so if we decide this summer to embellish a little, I don’t think it would be a bad thing. Then we’ll paint letters onto little squares of carpet and have a giant board game for underpinning. We’ll have ourselves a stimulating environment that accommodates different kinds of learners. Revolutionary.
Keep your fingers crossed that Disney grants me the grant!

Full Moon

2006-01-22T05:49:00.000-08:00

1.15.06
Full Moon

Last night we stood outside in the frozen dark. Snow was all around. We were drunk kids in a snowy back yard, laughing loudly though trying to whisper. The sky was blackish blue and an endless mist was sponged across the stars. The moon was the most perfect silver circle I’ve ever seen. And around it was a giant ring. None of us had ever seen anything like it. It was as if outer space opened up to reveal a secret beauty when no one was looking. I think the full moon melted a little hole in the icy night. It was so surreal that I was reminded of a dream I had a few weeks back. I dreamt that I saw Saturn in the middle of the day. It was big and pink, wearing its Saturn-skirt. But this was real and I wasn’t alone. I had five good friends to share it with. The night is so beautiful here.

Margaret had a little lamb

2006-01-16T05:06:00.000-08:00

01.10.06

I’m back in Novoalexevka visiting with my old host family. I love seeing all the relatives I got to know over the summer. It’s fun house hopping in this region with snow on the ground too. I speak much better Russian now than I did when I first arrived, and even enough Kazakh words to impress my summer family, so communication is so much easier as well. I’m getting lots of hugs and being stuffed with sweets. It’s very welcoming. And the way the snow is coming down, it seems especially memorable. And, what’s even more fun is that today’s a Kazakh Holiday. Well, it’s not just Kazakh…

Today is “Aight.” Not “aight” like: “How are you doing?” “I’m aight.”

It’s Aight: some kind of Muslim holiday when people are supposed to sacrifice a sheep for God. So the rule is that you are supposed to read the Koran in the morning, kill a sheep for the Lord, and then visit lots of people all day. I never saw the Koran and I didn’t personally kill a sheep for Allah, but we did do the visits. Witnessing this was interesting enough.

In addition to the rules for Aight, there’s a rule for visiting. Oh yeah there is. The visiting rule is that you have to drink tea when you go to someone’s house. And if you’re foreign, you have to eat a lot too. For Aight, my host mom and I did visits all day. We went to her sister’s house, their neighbors’ house, her brother’s house, her friends’ house, and then a whole bunch of people came to OUR house.

Even though I know the words “NO, THANK YOU” in 3 languages that they understand here, it’s as if the word simply doesn’t translate. They just keep putting plates in front of me. Chocolate and sour cheese, fried dough and homemade jam, potatoes and lamb liver… That’s right. Lamb liver and lungs. Mmmmm.

And you’ve got to taste it.

There is no polite escape from the steaming plate of sheep organs. You can say you’re not hungry, but they accuse you of being vain and worrying too much about calories. You can say you don’t eat those things in America, but they barrage you with questions about your foreignness. Or you can face the inevitable. You can fork up to the plate and fire a small bite into your mouth. Chew. Chew. Chew. Chew. Chew…. Chew… and Swallow. Hurry and take a swig of that boiling tea. Only THEN are you allowed to lie. Religious holiday or not, I had to. They’ll ask you why you are only eating the potatoes when you are usually so attentive to your carbohydrate intake. “Oh, excuse me. I don’t like, uh, –sheep. Uh… ever.”

I want to just mention that, in addition to adding to my Strange-Foods-Tasted repertoire, I reached an American-in-Kazakhstan record thanks to Aight. After all that we returned home full and exhausted. My host mom asked me to sit down and have some MORE chai with her nephew who drove us. I declined, figuring I’m allowed to decline in my own (well sorta my own) home. They went on pouring anyhow. I brought a bottle of water to the table to be polite/social and counted in my head. Three at the first house, three at the second … etc. etc. Thirteen cups of tea I drank today. Thirteen. Wow. That’s a lotta chai. And we haven’t even had dinner yet. I really only wrote this journal entry to document the fact that I’ve had 13 cups of black tea in the last 5 hours and I’ve run to the outhouse about 5 times since breakfast.

Aight.

UPDATE: by nightfall, the teacup tally reached 19. That’s huge.

And a SIDENOTE: As much as God probably likes lamb chops, I saw some shivering sheep tied up outside the bazaar in the snow this afternoon, and I questioned the religious rational there. It seemed a little UNkind. I thought it was ironic and a bit selfish even – to kill a sheep, call it “a gift to God,” and then eat it for lunch and dinner with your friends. (Sorta Indian-giver-ish, right? Plus God doesn’t levitate shish-kabobs into the heavens to quench his appetite, you know?!) Later I called my Regional Manager. She’s a wonderful Kazakh woman with whom I have a really good relationship. She told me that her son and husband killed not one, but TWO sheep for Allah. (Does that make God like you more or something?) I told her how the religious reasoning totally baffled me and she explained how her son and husband then delivered the finest cuts of meat to the widowed neighbor and all the less fortunate people they know. So…THAT’S why they sacrifice. I think I get it.

01.02.05

2006-01-16T04:49:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

So New Years Eve was AWESOME. Here’s the story:

My host mom always goes to her best friend’s house for the holiday but her best friend was too sick to hostess this year. She wasn’t too anxious to go out gallivanting, as she was a bit sore from her prior day’s incredible exhibition on the dance floor. I begged her to go with me for a walk in the village to enjoy the snow. We did. We watched the fireworks that all the kids and drunk men were setting off in the street. We watched the snow come down. We watched the last hours of 2005 pass…

We went into the shop where my friends work. My host mom asked them if they were going to the party at the House of Culture. They said “Of COURSE,” but not until after they got off work. And they asked me to wait with them so we could all go together. Host Mom said, “Don’t drink the vodka,” and headed home without me.

O.K. So, we walk over to the big party. It turned out to be a lot like the middle school dances at the Elks Lodge only the people were older and drunker. Ha ha. But it was great. They did some contests and an old woman won a shampoo for having a silly hat. When she saw me, the American, she decided to hand over her special prize. “Wow. I don’t know what to say,” I thought as she handed me a bottle of shampoo. How unusual. Hmmm. “Happy New Year!” I did quite a bit of dancing. I won another prize just for being foreign (a little photo album). And lots of people’s estranged uncles or dad’s-sister’s-husband’s-friends poured me wine and cognac, just for coming out in the snow. (But no vodka because mom said so.) I got so many hugs and kisses and invitations to come over for chai and boys who wanted to slow dance… ha ha ha… all because I was born ten thousand miles away.

At 11:30ish everyone goes home. The party disperses and people sit with their families to ring in the New Year. That’s the tradition. So, at 11-something, my friends walked me home. I laughed as I followed the zig-zagging drunken path in the snow. I got in the door just in time to see President Nezerbayev broadcast his holiday wishes of health and happiness across the nation. As soon as he finished, I ran outside to see the neighbors light their fireworks. I was so excited that I didn’t put on an official “coat” (I was wearing a heavy sweater, but I guess that’s not considered sufficient) or a hat, so all the neighbors were reprimanding me. About quarter past 12, a family friend, Zhenia (I think that’s sorta the Russian name for John) came over and put a hat on my head just before close-lining me and dumping me in a gigantic pile of snow. It was freezing, but fun!

My host mom believes the superstition that if the first person to enter the house after the New Year is a man not related to you, then the year that follows will be really lucky. So, she asked which of the 4 men mingling with us would be the first to come inside. No one could decide so they all came. Zhenia was the last to come through the doorway. He stopped to fill his fists with seeds of pig feed, which he threw all over the kitchen floor. “Tradition,” he smirked wily. We pulled up extra chairs and all squeezed around the table for toasts with home made wine and liquor. The door kept opening and the phone continued ringing with wishes of a blessed 2006.

And hours later, when the room began to clear out, we realized that it was time to go visit the homes we promised to attend. We bundled up in coats, and scarves, and big warm boots to make the neighborhood rounds. (We were momentarily held up by some older men who came through the heavy snow, in the middle of the night, from a neighboring village to wish me a Happy New Year and kiss me on the cheeks. Yikes. Host mom handled that one… She told them we had other plans and friends waiting on us. I asked her if it was odd that two strange old men came to see me in the middle of the night from 30 minutes away in a blizzard. She said, “It’s New Year! Anything goes.”) We drank beer next door and cognac down the street. We threw chocolates at people and laughed the night away. It was really great.

We trudged home around 4 in the morning. I fell right into bed knowing that the next day I’d be attending two birthday parties and packing for a week (well a week PLUS) long trip to Almaty. It was a great way to kick off an ENTIRE YEAR in Kazakhstan. Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you had wild times too… and lots of midnight kisses.

Happy Birthday to ME!

2006-01-09T00:36:00.000-08:00

12.31.05

Happy Birthday to me…and Cathy Moffit and Becca Hindin and Big Kev and Jimmy O’Brien!

All week I’ve been regaling my host mom with stories about past birthdays. Last year my friends humored me by dressing up as bikers and traveling to Hoboken, New Jersey where we played darts, ate homemade M&M cake, and laughed the night away in funny sunglasses, cowboy hats, and cut up denim. It was fantastic. The year before, I spent the night in a Maryland dining room listening to my brothers, and Joy and Ryan McClay tell stories about their glory days of mischief and fun. We simply couldn’t get up from the table after all the plates had been cleared from dinner. We ran out of beer but sat there forever anyway, because we had so much laughter. (Mom was the only not-jolly one. She was pretty pissed hearing all those stories of Michael’s and Ryan’s about close calls with the cops in Fair Oaks.) The year before was my 21st and that was a big one. Dad drove me and a van-full of LeMoyne and Severna Park friends, and my bros, to the Green Turtle in Fells Point. I was the last of the gang who arrived that night so the shots were already lined up for me upon walking in the door. I remember falling off a bar stool, falling on my way to the bathroom, and passing out in the car on the way home and all while bearing a princess crown that read “Happy New Year!” Good times. We have a lot of fun. So anyway, I guess I was being pretty nostalgic and wondering if this one would be nearly as memorable. And to be honest, I think it takes the cake. It was fucking awesome. (Excuse my language, please, but sometimes you just need the “fucking” to properly emphasize. It really was THAT good.)

PART I – BIRTHDAY MORNING [I’ve sectioned off this literary work into parts. Because I tend to ramble, this way you don’t have to read the whole long thing. You can just read what you feel like hearing about.]

I woke up in the morning feeling excited and energized because there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground and big flakes still softly coming down. I just love that. I got dressed (in all black for my anticipated performance at the school New Year’s party). I went to school early to the teachers’ kids’ party. I wanted to see all the kids in their cute costumes. {Sidenote: New Year is like a week of Halloween in this country -well Halloween plus a gigantic Christmas tree and a Santa Claus, (Grandfather Frost) who shows up everywhere with his mistress, The Snow Girl (They claim she’s his granddaughter, but they can’t fool me).} So I put a silky headband on to try to mask the fact that I was wearing cornrows on my head (I’ll get to that later) and my friend Saule came and got me on her way to school. We walked together in the snow and it was glorious.

I got a call at school from my host mom. She said I had a package at the post office and needed to hurry and pick it up because they’d close for the holiday in a few minutes. I sprinted across the street to the Pochtie (that’s sorta how you say “Post Office” in Russian. I have no clue how you would spell it in English letters) and everyone yelled at me because I didn’t bother to put on my coat. I saw the big box from Amazon.com and started jumping up and down. I opened it immediately and found TEN DICTIONARIES from Aunt Kathee’s boss at Rav & Associates in Montauk. WOW. wow. I flipped out. I showed everyone in the post office and did a little dance. That is an INCREDIBLY kind gift, both heavy to ship (expensive) and expensive (expensive). I sprinted back to school with the big box in my arms. I ran into the school gym/party-central and found the English teachers. I showed them the box. We all kissed and hugged and couldn’t wipe the smiles off our faces. I’m sure Mr. Rav Freidel had no idea that it would arrive on my birthday, but his timing was impeccable.

PART II – BIRTHDAY AFTERNOON

For lunch, there was a big teachers’ party that lasted several hours due to games, singing, dancing, skits, and speeches. It was fantastic. My host mom came too. We drank wine and ate chocolates around the “New Year Tree.” {Another Sidenote: It looks exactly like a “Christmas Tree” but … well … they don’t do Christmas exactly.} The ladies at my table, I included, prepared an island-y dance to the song “Chonga Chenga.” Supposedly it’s an African song that’s been translated into Russian. Okay?... We agreed to wear all black and the girls with long hair were to wear corn rows (And I totally apologize to all of my black friends, but the people here have no idea. I’m willing to bet that, like, 1% of the people in the room have ever seen a living breathing black person. P.S. I’m the 1%.). Oh and we used eye liner to color black circles on our cheeks. (We looked so ridiculous that it wasn’t insulting to anyone but ourselves.) Anyway, we did conga lines around the “New Year Tree” {Again. TomAto. TomOto.} We won second place. First place went to the table that did SUPERSTAR KZ. Oh yeah. They’ve got Superstar here too only no Paula Abdul and it’s all in Russian and Kazakh.

After most of the New Year’s Celebrating, they congratulated me on my birthday. A bunch of teachers got up and said some of the nicest words ever. And they got the WHOLE TEACHING STAFF, the entire room, to try singing Happy Birthday in English. It was awesome. One teacher, Natalia Mahalania (Russian Language Teacher), said (in Russian…well, duh.), “We know your family is really far away, but you’ve got us. And we are your family too.” It was so great and sorta true. Ardak, my counterpart, said some really nice things about how she’s happy to have me and announced that lots of dictionaries came today! Yipee! The Computer Teacher, Tolte, said a bunch of stuff in Kazakh so I have no idea what that was all about. And then the older married Kazakh History Teacher sang me a song. And the young hot Kazakh History Teacher (tall very attractive Kazakh guy with DIMPLES) got up to waltz with me in front of everybody. (He’s the token young single guy in school, so I think that’s sorta his job on Holidays. He also spent the whole week dressed like Grandfather Frost. You win some. You lose some.) He put his hand out to take mine. Me, being me, fumbled frantically with all the birthday presents in my arms and finally handed them off to someone, then stumbled, smashed my head into his, and stepped on his feet … all within the first 10 or 15 seconds - Not exactly the best start to THAT friendship. I’m so un-smooth. But then we were dancing like people do in the movies (and like I did with Mike Donnelly at his sister’s wedding). You know… the ballroom way: with one hand on the back and the other in the air. It was cute. Well, except for the cornrows.

(Afterwards, I went home and my host mom washed my hair in a basin in the kitchen to get the crimp out.)

PART III – BIRTHDAY EVENING
This might be the best part.

When my host mom was planning a birthday dinner for me, we didn’t know who to call. We figured, the big lunch at school was enough with the teachers. So she called her daughter. Her daughter works at a little shop at the other end of the village. The shop had already planned their annual New Year dinner on the 30th. They couldn’t close the shop for the holiday though, because it’s a big night for vodka sales (obviously) and cigarettes (which, by the way, are like 40 Tenge a pack… that’s less than 40 American Pennies. American smokers are getting JACKED!). So the big dinner would be in the teeny tiny back room. They invited us to come along and celebrate.

We walked the entire length of the village, in the dark, in heavy snow fall, pushing a sled with birthday cake and pilmeni (it’s like Russian ravioli) and booze. It was so great.

We arrived at the shop and found our family and the two other shop ladies crowded around a small table in the very small room. The table was squished between the coal stove and shelves of stock, and the guests sat on liquor boxes. We pulled up boxes of our own. There were tons of national dishes on the table. Baursak, Bishbarmak, Pilmeni, and Vodka (that’s a dish here…ha ha). There were forks and glasses, but no plates. Everyone just ate from the serving platters. So Kazakh. I loved it. Everyone told jokes, as usual. We toasted to 2006, to health and happiness, to love and friendship. And some toasted to my birthday. Oh and I think there were a few toasts that I find a husband here, and everyone can come to my wedding, and I’ll stay forever in the village milking cows and raising babies. (And my host mom will get me a horse if I never leave, since I told her it’s my dream to have a man ride off with me on a saddle-less horse in the rain like Mel Gibson did in Bravehart.) When it was my turn, I explained how all week I’ve been talking about all of my preceding birthdays and how this one might be the best story yet. I was so happy to be in this place in this moment. It was just really GOOD. And about halfway through dinner, my host mom’s friend and her husband showed up. They had gone all over the village looking for us and wanted to wish me a happy birthday. It was so amazing. I have no words really to express the kindness of the people here (which may be surprising because I’m already nearing the end of page 3 on Microsoft Word). They go out of their way over and over and over again to make me feel welcome and comfortable and SPECIAL. It’s so amazing. So amazing.

So yeah. Happy Birthday to me. It really was.

PART IV- BIRTHDAY NIGHT
Oh maybe THIS is the best part yet. I dunno. It was all pretty great.

I was all drunk when I got home. My host mom and I were playing with the puppy and looking at all the presents under our tree. Then the phone rang! Jen and Meg conference called me from their offices! Yay. I cried a lot. It was so great to hear their voices. And THEN, like the minute I hung up with them, Erin called. We talked for a pretty long time and it all felt so normal to talk to them on the telephone. Ladies, thank you SO much for remembering me. Thank you so much for not giving up on reaching me and calling as many times as it took. You are amazing. I love your guts. I miss you like crazy. And I am so thankful. It simply wouldn’t be a real birthday without you guys representing. Oh geeze. You are so great.

PART V- THE NEXT DAY (today)
One last thing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!
Since I’m writing this the day AFTER my birthday… Mikey, I wish I was near you and we could tear down the streamers together like the old days and share birthday candles and cake and beat the crap out of eachother just for fun. I miss you a whole lot. I hope that in the New Year, your 26th, you find adventures and love and MORE HAPPINESS…And maybe your sister if you can squeeze in a trip to Kazakhstan…? Those are my birthday wishes for you. 26, eh? I’m really glad you were born, Mikey. You’re my best friend and I couldn’t live without you. I love YOUR guts too.

New Years Week

2006-01-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

12.28.05

Tonight was my first night of New Years. The festivities at school officially began yesterday, but I still had class and was only able to peek in and get glimpses here and there. This evening I was invited to the 9th grade party. It was awesome. It felt like homecoming at Severna Park High School to a small degree.

They have converted the gym at my school into a big party hall. They put a giant Christmas tree in the middle and covered the room with tinsel. They set up lots of music equipment and hung posters all over the walls and painted sheets on the windows. They’ve even got lights stringing across the ceiling. It’s like a high school dance. The only difference is that ALL the teachers dance too! (And no one was drunk or stoned nor did I see any blatantly inappropriate or crude behavior…)

As soon as I arrived, I was pulled onto the dance floor into a circle of my colleagues grooving to Kazakh pop music! The whole entire party did a conga line around the Christmas tree. People were singing and jumping. And then they all started calling for “Grandfather Frost” (A.K.A. Santa Claus) and his little granddaughter. A history teacher, barely recognizable under the big white beard and funny red cloak, and an 11th grade girl dressed in baby blue and tinsel strode into the room and everyone cheered. They played a few games, gave out a few prizes, and did lots of dancing. I did too! It was great.

I worry that I had the most ridiculous smile on my face the entire two hours I was there. I kept trying to explain it to people but no one really saw the beauty in it that I did. High School was such an awesome time in my life. I had so much fun … and watching all of the kids having that much fun too just made me so stinkin happy! There were a few boyfriends and girlfriends who just looked like they were in high school love. There were a bunch of girls skipping around and whispering and busy being very cool. And there were others who were just dancing their brains out. There were some rhythm-less boys who were tearing up the floor and I was just enthralled by their contentment. All of the 9th graders were really living in the moment. It was just such a good thing to see. I’ve never seen my students looking so beautiful, or singing so contently, or loving eachother so much. It made me wistful in a really good way.

If I ever decide to be a teacher in America, I think I’ll be the first one to sign up to chaperone the dances. It’s really an inspirational place that makes me feel really hopeful.

Christmas

2006-01-09T00:16:00.000-08:00

12.26.05

Christmas Weekend

On Friday night, I went to a birthday party. It was tons of fun and we had bishbarmak. It’s my favorite. I drank some wine, laughed a lot, and had a great night with my close friend, Saule, and her family. It was a great start to a festive weekend.

Saturday was an awesome day too! Christmas Eve in Kazakhstan!! I was getting ready to start cooking a Christmas Eve dinner when I remembered I needed to pick up a few things at the shop down the street. I was halfway down the road when I thought I heard my name. I stopped and looked back towards my house. There were the ladies selling apples about 15 yards back, and about 20 yards from them was my neighbor loitering around outside with his buddies, and about 20 yards from them was some other person. No one seemed to have heard anything odd. Naaah… I kept walking. But I heard it again. I turned around again, feeling a little silly and delusional. But sure enough the person 55 yards away had yelled to the neighbor, who yelled to the apple ladies, who yelled at me for a third time, “Margaret! Telephone!!” It was pretty hilarious how the whole street got involved in my phone message (and for a millisecond, it almost felt like New York with all those people shouting from the roadside…) I jogged back to my house and sure enough, my big brother was on the line. It was so exciting. We chatted forever and I was the happiest girl in Kazakhstan.

Tamara’s family showed up right on time for dinner (6 guests, plus my favorite little little guy: 3 year old, Romey). I had prepared a few American dishes (basically a thanksgiving re-run, except we substituted a chicken … yes. I actually stuffed a chicken) and some standard Russian dishes. The two funniest things on the table were the coasters that Aunt Kathee and the Gonzalez family sent (THANK YOU for the Christmas fun stuff, Aunt Kath and crew!) and the 2 liter bottle of vodka. No one knew what coasters were or had ever seen them before, and I felt the same thing about a 2 liter of vodka. 2 Liters?! It just looks silly when it’s not Pepsi or Orange Slice. That’s hilarious… We drank the whole thing. Everyone took turns congratulating me on my holiday, even though I tried a hundred times to explain that it’s not MY holiday - My birthday is NEXT week – But to no avail. They were insistent on wishing me a year of happiness and health and love and good stuff. And with that, we did a lot of shots. Welcome to Kazakhstan, folks.

My favorite part of the night was when they were leaving, of course not BECAUSE they were leaving. It was just really funny. Everyone got up from the table, after 3 hours of eating and drinking and laughing, and we were all a little schwilly. The three men (in their late 30’s and 40’s) were up first getting there coats on. I got up and walked into the kitchen, playing hostess and trying to accompany them towards the door. I found them fumbling all over themselves, scrambling for the sunflower seeds scattered all over the floor. They had found my host mom’s bowl and stuffed their pockets for the walk home, like a bunch of little boys. Only the funniest, drunkest in the bunch spilled his giant handful all over the carpet. They giggled and hurried and tripped over themselves, and I couldn’t get over their youthful silliness and energy. I laughed a lot. I walked them outside and cracked a few jokes, which was a foreign language milestone. The rest of the ladies came along and we escorted them to the road. They waved goodbye, I said “thank you” 10 billion times for making my holiday feel like a HOLIDAY (they were the people who brought me a Christmas tree to boot), and that was that. My host mom and I went back into the kitchen to clear the table and do the dishes, when I realized I was a little drunk. I got a hysterical case of the hic-cups that had both of us rolling on the floor. It was good bonding as we waited for Santa.

The next morning, we got up and started opening presents. It was really awesome. It felt like a normal Christmas. My parents called about halfway through, which was pretty nice too. I got to chat with everyone. (And even to tell my cousins about Santa’s seceret, which I have unveiled. “Hey Burke, I figured out how Santa gets around the WHOLE world in one night.” “I know Margaret,” he replied. “There are different time zones. It’s morning where you are.” “Yeah, there’s THAT…But also, he doesn’t come to Kazakhstan till December 30th. HE HAS A WHOLE WEEK.” “WHOA!,” Burke answered excitedly. “I’m gonna tell my class!!”)

In the afternoon a number of people from school and around the village stopped by just to say Merry Christmas. They had lunch and tea and even brought gifts. They all knew that it was a special day to me, and they managed to make it even more special. It was so awesome.

Then today… well today was great too. I heard the dogs barking outside. I didn’t think anyone was there, but I went to the gate to check anyway. And sure enough, outside on the sidewalk was a group of my 5th graders. They had a card and a stuffed dog that sings if you press his paw. They broke into an adorable rendition of “Happy Birthday” in English and I felt like I had miniature BIRTHDAY CAROLERS with the most precious little Russian accents. It was so awesome. It was the moment I realized why people like being teachers so much.

In training, they told us a million times that being a Peace Corps Volunteer is “the hardest job you’ll ever love.” And Meghan says it all the time too when I complain… I think it’s super corny, but now I’m beginning to see what they mean. Missing Christmas with my real family WAS indeed one of the hardest things I’ve ever chosen to do (that and missing my bro’s wedding this summer). But on weekends like this, it’s easy to see why I’ve made the right decision.

To everyone who called, sent letters, and sent packages to help me get through the holidays, I am sooo thankful! You guys honestly have no idea how wonderful it is to feel loved the way I do. I am so blessed. You are so much more than gracious and I adore you.

And P.S. The first dictionary came! Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Rabbitt! The collection has begun and the school is EXCITED!

Mice

2005-12-26T01:01:00.001-08:00

12.21.05

Meg Kenney and Bethie, I have mice under my bed. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. I let in the dog. I let in the cat. I jumped up and down and shook the springs. I banged on the wall and moved all the boxes. And now I’m finally surrendering to the fact that I might not sleep again till spring. Maybe I wasn’t sympathetic enough back in college when they lived in your bedroom because I think this is Karma.

(Oh and HI to Merril's Mom!)

Christmas Tree

2005-12-26T01:01:00.000-08:00

12.20.05

I was just home from a lunchtime birthday party on Monday. I had just put on my favorite sweat pants and I was getting ready to lounge off the last bit of sick when I heard the dogs going nuts outside. I glanced over and saw a figure stride by the window. It resembled my host mom’s son in law with the stocky frame and blonde hair, but that was just a guess. Very normal… In the village, people always just swing by. So, I continued whatever I was doing.

After a few minutes, I heard some rustling at my door. There’s always a rustle when someone’s coming in. They’ve got to take off their shoes, then fend off toe-biting-sock-chewing the puppy who lives on the veranda, and then when they’ve opened the door, they’ve gotta fight the big heavy blanket draped there to keep the heat in. First I saw Sasha’s face. It’s so pink and cheerful. Then my host mom, who was holding the curtain. As she pulled it away, I began to see something big and pine.

Sasha planted the 5 and a half foot pine tree (a somewhat Charlie Brown-ish figure … the Christmas tree AND the man, now that I think about it …) in the doorway and laughed his usual laugh. They told me to take it and I was stricken with surprise. I managed to say thank you, but not hardly as big as I would have liked. I held it up by the trunk and was overcome with Christmas excitement. And in only a moment, they walked back out the door.

For a minute or two, I just stood there holding the tree. I didn’t know quite what else to do (there really isn’t an alternative when someone hands you a Christmas tree). My host mom walked Sasha out, and returned smiling bigger than ever. When she walked in again and found me unmoved in the doorway, still holding the tree up, she laughed at me, pretty hard. She explained to me that Christmas trees are harder to get in December so her daughter Lila and the family decided to do this back in October. They’ve been storing my Christmas tree underground for a month or two. I was so touched and … well you know me, I cried. I whimpered to my host mom, “I think I’m the only volunteer in Kazakhstan who got a real Christmas tree.” She laughed even harder at me wiping tears from my cheeks.

We took the tree outside and she sawed off the bottom. Then she went up into the attic and brought down a tree stand. Then she went back up again and brought down two VERY old boxes of decorations, covered in cobwebs and dust. When she had a houseful of children, she did a New Year (Nova Goad) tree but hasn’t done it in years … and no one in Koilyk has EVER done a tree as early as December 19th. (Dad, you can keep that in mind when mom tells you we’re the last family in the neighborhood to put up a Christmas tree. They don’t do it till December 28th or 29th in Kazakhstan, if they do it at all.)

Every ornament looked like the ones Grandpa Louie gave us 15 years ago or so. And every year, one Burke drops at least one ornament and ruins it, so as you can imagine I was so worried about her antique thin glass decorations. But we did it without destroying anything, except a string of lights probably dated somewhere around 1963. Not too bad…

I played Christmas music and sang along to every song; stopping only to dance around the open room (we moved the kitchen table to make space for our tree and it made the perfect dance floor).

When we finished the decorations, we moved on to the tinsel. That’s right…the TINSEL. In our American house, we were never allowed to use tinsel. Dad always said it’s messy ..and tacky (no offense, tinsel lovers)… so it never went on our trees. So for my first tinsel draping EVER, I had no prior experience and didn’t even know how to work it. I learned though, that you can’t really mess it up.

(Oh and mom, we put the Lennox angel on top. We hung it from the ceiling above the tree, actually.)

Although colorful, sparkly, and spirited, without lights our tree still looked a bit lacking in the end. I made a comment about pop corn on thread, thinking about how fun it would be to make strings by our coal fire listening to Christmas tunes.

This evening, when I came home from my afternoon lessons (Christmas collage-ing and practicing a million invigorating renditions of Jingle Bells), my host mom was popping pop corn on the stove. I did a little dance and maybe even clapped my hands. No one DOES this stuff anymore in Baltimore or New York…without a microwave nonetheless. We agreed we’d make the strands tomorrow, but when I came back in later to brush my teeth and wash my face late in the night, I caught Toma red handed pop corn-ing the tinsel. (She said works better than thread.) So, now the tree is perfect.

I said thank you to her at least a billion times. I am so grateful that her family did this for me. I am so thankful that she was gung ho about ornaments and tinsel and pop corn. I am just so happy. She said thank you right back a lot too. She said she hasn’t put up a tree in ages. And she’s never celebrated Christmas. She tells my teacher friend that I make her feel young again and maybe this is what she means.

So, I’ve got some good Christmas tree stories (Bethie, remember the one we cut down? It looked small when it was in the land of all its tree friends. But then it turned out to be, like, 15 feet when we tried to bring it into our living room, despite the Victorian high ceilings, and we had to saw the top off using steak knives we stole from The Outback Steak House?... That was a special tree… And trimming it was more like cutting through brick with a butter knife.) but this one is definitely the most touching.

…sigh… good times.

Christmas Package

2005-12-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

12.15.05

“Be careful, Marg,” my mom lectured on the phone a few weeks ago. “I just put your Christmas package in the mail. If you open it all when it arrives, you’ll have nothing to open on Christmas day. I’m not sending any more.” (By the way, it can’t REALLY be Christmas already, can it?)

“Okaaay, mom, I’ll wait till Christmas.” It’s actually fun for me – the waiting. So much silly anticipation builds up. And everyone is practically floating, or gloating, because for a week or so while all the presents sit wrapped under the tree, in a colorful arrangement of surprises - and people can all wonder about the look on the face of the receiver when they finally open the PERFECT gift. “You absolutely don’t need to worry, mom. I’ll WAIT.” Please, I’m not a TOTAL child.

The package came today. I wasn’t expecting it till next week, but KazPost is fickle and on a fluke, it traveled across an ocean and a few continents in just 8 days. (Maybe Santa’s people were involved.)

I lugged the box through our gate and my host mom opened the door to her house. I plopped the box on the table and said, “Mom said we can’t open the presents till Christmas. Oh, can you hand me that knife?” She replied in confusion, “She said DON’T open it!!??” I laughed that up-to-no-good laugh and said, She said don’t open the PRESENTS. We can open the BOX though. No harm in that, right?” She didn’t argue.

So we spent about a half hour rifling through the unwrapped things. There were two new home videos (YIPEEE!), some fun newspaper articles my dad wrote, and a few teaching supplies. Fun stuff…

And then there were the presents. Lots and lots of them. Silver and gold and green and red, with shiny paper, and pretty bows. Some for Tamara. Some for me. And stocking bulging with mystery and simple pleasures. There were surprise toys wrapped to be party favors. And there were even little pieces of charcoal (with cute snowmen painted on them) just in case I have naughty friends.

WOW. It’s totally Christmas. And, however it happened with two volunteers preceding me here, this my host mom’s first American one.

Oh… look! This one says, “Marg, you can open this right away. The rest you should save.” oooooh. I liked the sound of that. Just one… And Tamara was so surprised that she got presents that we agreed she neeeeeeded to open just one as well. I ripped the paper, inexplicably with more eagerness and less patience than I EVER had in America. It was a book with Christmas carols. (It has the words AND the piano scores AND a CD, so I can teach my students songs for or school holiday celebrations. AWESOME GIFT and thanks for your permission to open early, mom and dad!) Tamara got a cheese grater. She opened her present with a lot more caution because she’d never seen such holiday gift wrap. She saved the paper. (And we both immediately put the ribbons in our hair…OBVIOUSLY.) She was struck with excitement and happiness as she really needed a new cheese grater. She couldn’t guess how my mom knew! (good pick, mom!)

We watched the home movies. I got to see Dave and Noelle’s wedding (so beautiful), Mimi and Pop-pop’s 60th Wedding Anniversary Party (so fun), and my cousins’ adorable faces (so cute). It was awesome. Then my parents called because it’s our Thursday ritual. We chatted for a while and everything was great. It’s like the best day EVER … again. My life is really great.

I lingered for a while longer in my host mom’s house. We chatted about holidays and laughed. And just as the words, “OKAY, I’m going to bed,” left my lips, I noticed her inching towards the stocking. “Don’t you want to just have a look?” She asked.

….oooh…. tempting.

“Well, if YOU want, I suppose we could just see what SHAPES are in there.” I jumped on her bed and grabbed the stocking off the wall. She sat down too. We emptied it out onto the blanket. Ooooh. Bad idea. But a good one too… We played for a while with the ones that were already unwrapped (a couple of highlighters and a spinny Santa toy). And then we noticed that two were already half open (must be from the long journey here – or maybe mom didn’t use the best tape? Yeah … Must be bad tape.). “Well, that’s perfect really. Just ONE for you and JUST ONE for me.” Hers was a box of batteries. Mine was soap. Hmmm… That’s fun and all, but quite practical. Let’s just FEEL these other ones.

The telephone rang. It was my friend and I was chatting for a few minutes when I noticed my host mom fingering a Santa ornament. I shrugged. More bad tape I’m sure. I hung up the phone. My host mom nudged one towards me. We looked at each other like two high school kids smoking cigarettes in the bathroom –clearly against the rules. Well, okay. Just ONE more. I pushed one at her too. “If I’m gonna do it, you have to too,” I said childishly. She pressed on the paper. “What do you think this is?” she asked as she handed it to me. “Well, I’ve had years of experience and I can tell you that it’s either a hair thing or a bracelet.” She nodded. Rip. Tear. Hair thing. Mmmmhmmm. She nodded at me. “Oh! I got socks! With little toes!”

Oh and now, look! What a pity! Just one left. “You or me?” I asked. “You,” she said. “GLOVES!” And that was that. The stocking was empty. We both had a number of bows in our hair smiles on our faces.

Merry Christmas…10 days early! Thanks mom and dad!! And Mimi and Pop-pop!!

Snow

2005-12-26T00:59:00.000-08:00

12.10.05

Today I opened the curtains in my room. I don’t often do it because my home is on a main road and anyone walking by can see into my mess or my nude booty. Well, I was cleaning and couldn’t resist watching the snow fall as I did so. The most beautiful music was playing on my computer and it was like one of those moments when time stops and you realize how good life is. The scenery outside is so incredibly beautiful. It’s the kind of place that is on the cover of a Christmas music album. You know, the place that doesn’t really exist in real life only in photos on holiday CD’s and if you’re lucky enough, you might find it on a greeting card someone sends you. Everything is white.

And it’s whiter than America. Hardly anyone drives cars so the snow never gets dirty. And the wind must not blow because the branches on the birch trees never shake the layer of white off.

It’s 10 AM and the snow hasn’t stopped falling since yesterday night. The flakes are small and the sun is bright, so it looks someone is standing outside on my roof, emptying a bottle of glitter into the street. People bustle by all bundled up with a million scarves wrapped around their heads and necks and shoulders. Everyone looks like the little boy in A Christmas Story… the one who can’t bend his arms or knees because he’s wearing six snow suits. And because it’s the holiday season, I can’t stop thinking about home. I can’t stop thinking about how wonderful it would be to be near my family. But when I looked out the window and time stopped and I remembered how good life is, I realized that to most people – places like this DON’T EXIST in real life. And I am living it and breathing it and snuggling up next to my coal stove, drinking tea, and watching the snow fall in it. I am so blessed. Thank you God for another beautiful day.

A Little Cafe Ladro

2005-12-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

12.04.05 II

Coffee

So, the funny thing about fresh coffee beans in Kazakhstan is that, while they are delicious and aromatic, they are highly uncommon here. In fact, my host mom has never even seen natural coffee beans before. Yeah. First timers. Phf. (She said that in the Soviet times, one container of instant coffee cost 10% of a monthly paycheck. Wow, right?!)

Tommy sent me a package last week. It was a big fat reminder of a million minutes from one end of America to the absolute other. I guess I had forgotten about the way he loves coffee. It’s so simple, but thinking of him making it in his kitchen, or gazing out at the ocean with our wetsuits on… Man… Just the smell of beans reminds me of him and Seattle. I miss you, big brother. Thanks for the package. I wish you could have seen us today. You would have loved it. I’ll try to recreate the whole ordeal just for you!!:

A few days ago, a friend came over for lunch. My host mom got talking about some of the interesting things that have arrived in packages from America. She mentioned coffee beans and her friend got excited and curious. Her friend wanted to take a sniff. I poured a handful in her palm. The conversation passed and the beans lay on the table for a day or so after. Occasionally, we’d pick them up and smell them. But they were mostly decoration.

This afternoon, I came inside and my host mom handed me a hot cup. It had a tea bag in it, but it diiiiidn’t smell like tea. “Ha ha! I put the coffee beans in the tea bag,” my host mom explained excitedly. (Beth sent these gorgeous tea bags that are made out of fabric. They tea is kinda mild and we like strong tea so my host mom dumps the bags out into the hot water and lets the loose leaves work freely. Turns out she recycles the bags…) I took a whiff and was reminded of a million rainy days, and even a few iced Americanos in the summer time. I took a sip. Mild, but coffee-ey. Not bad. Not bad.

“Oh IT’S ON, brother,” I thought… Well, what to do. What to do. Gotta grind the beans. Gotta find a coffee maker. Hmmm…

I was immediately determined to solve the mystery of how to make REAL coffee in Kazakhstan. “Mama, I need a hankercheif, a hammer, and a chopping block.” She laughed and handed me what I formerly knew as a primitive potato masher. I took the beans and the wood shaft out to the front steps. I was at it for a few minutes before she came outside with one of those things that old apothecaries use to make pills. It’s a metal bowl and a metal masher stick. (I know that there is an Old English word for the Ye Olde tool, but I forget most of the stuff I learned in high school. You know the thing I’m talking about, Tom.)

The sun was shining and I just hung out in the yard, crushing coffee beans by hand. She came back outside with a plate full of cooked chicken feet and sat beside me nibbling as I grinded. I said to her, “I bet if Tommy could see this, he wouldn’t want to wait till July to come visit. He’d want to come right now. In fact, I think he’d even agree that my whole family was born in the wrong country.” Coffee beans, an apothecary crusher, and chicken feet, on a sunny December day. He would LOVE this.

I remembered our camping trips and how we used a french press and a little camping stove in the parking lot at Indian Beach, Oregon. And I remembered lots of coffees at LaPush. Sometimes Andy or Tucker went out and bought a bunch of cups from a gas station or something before we all woke up, but usually they were done campfire style. I was inspired. I found a funnel and a tea pot. Luckily, Tommy sent filters (but I could have used the bean grinding hankie if it had been necessary…). We poured boiling water in the funnel and it was REAL COFFEE!!!! Score!

My host mom tasted her VERY FIRST real coffee in her whole entire life thanks to that thoughtful gift. Yay, Tom! Shout out to Café Ladro… It tasted like Seattle. Mmmm. I really do miss you tons, but you were here this afternoon.

Election

2005-12-26T00:57:00.000-08:00

December 4, 2005
Election Day

Today Kazakhstan voted for a new president. I think it’s sort of a notable thing that I was able to observe such an event, as it only occurs in this country every 7 years. There were 5 candidates, but everyone I know is voting for the same guy. It’s Nezerbayev. He’s been the president for 14 years already, ever since Kazakhstan gained its independence. The general attitude in the village seems to be that, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” They all say that life has been so much better since the shift from soviet times. He’s a leader they know and trust. And they seem to be content with more of the same. Very un-American, but hey… It works for them. Right on.

So, I really wanted to see what it would be like. I had to run errands today anyway, and when my host mom went to the school to cast her vote I asked if I could meet here there when I was done. I arrived at the school and saw tons of familiar faces. Lots of my colleagues were milling around and some of my students were performing to entertain people while they waited. They had all of the music equipment set up in the corridor.

“Go have a look,” everyone told me, since I had come to see the process. I felt a little uneasy pushing my way through a line of people waiting to get into the gym, the temporary voting room. So I casually walked over, just to appease everyone who was encouraging me, and got on my tippie-toes. I peered over the crowd of big fur hats to see the little voting booths. “Hm,” I thought. “Don’t want to be a bother so that’s good, I guess.” Approximately three second passed and I went back to my host mom and my teacher friends.

“Oh come ON, Margaret,” one said and she grabbed me by the arm. She pushed through the line of people and escorted me inside. There, similarly to our elections, there were booths to register – divided alphabetically. Then there were three or four curtained rooms in the middle of the floor where people write their choice. And outside of the booths, there was a big glass box filled with folded papers.

A man with a cell phone (CLEARLY not from Koilyk because we don’t have cell service in the village or for about a million miles) handed me a ballot. He pointed to all the candidates and asked if this is what the American ones look like. “Well…sorta…,” I stammered, “except we have about a million-trillion more names…not just five.” Um. Yeah. “We vote for a whole bunch of people. Not JUST the president.” Oh. And. Um. Ours are made to go in a modern electronic counter that immediately calculates the votes, unlike you’re attractive, but hardly tamper proof, glass box … Hmm. Maybe I’ll keep that one to myself. “Yeah! It’s JUST LIKE America.” And then we started talking about whether or not I’ve adjusted to living here and stuff. Oh! And how George Bush ate at turkey on TV for Thanksgiving.

[Afterwards, I went back out into the corridor and looked around for my host mom. I was certain she wouldn’t leave without me. But where did she…? –Oh. There she is. Of COURSE. I glanced down the corridor, where the stereo and speakers were set up, and where one of the Kazakh boys was belting a Russian tune into the microphone. She was there in her coat and hat, waltzing in circles, wrapped up in her friend Nadia, also bundled from head to toe. I sat down and watched them finish their ballroom dancing and smiled. (I thought to myself, “How did I ever find Bethany Pinkerton living a 53 year old Russian woman’s life?!?!?!”) I’m certain I’ll always remember my first Kazakhstan presidential election for the way Tamara Ivanovna danced in the halls of my school rather than the presentation of the five man ballot. And when I told her how it filled my heart to watch her, she replied, “Everyone thinks we’re drunk. HA HA!”]

Later, I went out to lunch with my friend, Aleeya, at the café in our village. I asked her if she’s worried about any chaos, or revolutions, or uprising…you know…standard. “Yes,” she said without even thinking. She said that she got a call from her aunt in the city yesterday. Her aunt said a shot rang out…and on some level there is gunfire. Already there are problems. The rest was lost in translation.

Peace Corps Volunteers are on “standfast.” We’re not allowed to go anywhere. We’re supposed to pack a bag and assess our belongings in case of an emergency evacuation. There was a time that I joked how it would be okay if we got sent home for this. It would be fate or something, and it would mean it wasn’t meant to be…the whole 2 years thing. I thought it would be good to not miss everyone so much. It would be worth it for me. And now that the time is really here, and I’m thinking to myself that I am a horrible selfish person. I think that I would be devastated if anything serious, like what took place in Kyrgyzstan, happens in my home here. So much more seems to be at stake than whether I go back to America or not. And now, I’ve become really EXCITED about what I’m doing here. I WANT to fulfill my 2 year commitment. I want to do all the things I came here to do. I pray that things do fall into place. And I pray that it happens safely. And finally, there’s no more sarcasm.

I watched the Kazakh news tonight. Just like in America, on election day no one can wait for the verdict so everyone watches the progress. They don’t have color coded states like we do, or anything immediate. They just tell you how many people actually went and casted votes. I asked my host mom why they didn’t show the gunfire that Aleeya told me about. She said it wouldn’t be on Kazakhstan News. We’d have to use our satellite channels to watch Russian News…but we’d know by now if anything big took place. Crazy. Crazy…

2005-12-26T00:55:00.000-08:00

December 2, 2005

Live goats in the taxi… always a good time. “baaaaa.”

Turkeys...

2005-12-01T00:34:00.000-08:00

11.27.05

Week of Thanks-giving

Thanksgiving really began for me on Wednesday. I had my after school lesson with the 5th grade kids. I was running a few minutes late and found myself walking hurriedly through the mud. I saw the pack of little boys and girls heading in my direction, seemingly on the hunt for me as they found my classroom empty. I gave them a big wave from where I was standing and they all broke into a sprint towards me. Their expressions were so excited and it was contagious. I was escorted the remainder of the way by a pack of skipping, giggling, hand holding fifth graders. They linked their arms in mine and bragged to one another in Russian about how they got to walk with Miss. Margaret. I was so thankful for their enthusiasm and their zeal. That was the beginning of my Thanksgiving.
When we got to class, we traced our hands to make turkeys. Then we made a huge list of all the things we’re thankful for. The fifth grade students in Koilyk expressed incredible appreciation for their families, for their pets, and they are also very thankful for their legs. (Kids say the darndest things). I was thankful for them.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, was a beautiful day. Although it started off rough, running late to school again and rain coming down fairly hard, it transformed into a very special afternoon. Over a chicken soup lunch, I decided to tell my host mom all the things I was thankful for. The list included my growing family (host mom included), the amazing support I’m getting from America (letters and packages and phone calls etc.), and my new golashes because they are so good for puddle splashing. When I finished my long rambly catalog, she paused in silence for a long moment. Then she looked at me and said, “I am thankful for my health.” (My eyes welled up as I imagined what a big thing health is to a woman who nursed a young loving husband through a long, and fatal, battle with Alzheimer’s.) She paused again, increasing the dramatic effect. Then she looked at me and said, “And I’m thankful that when all of my kids grew up, God gave me more.” With that we both began sobbing into our napkins, which quickly turned into hysterical laughter. It turns out we are two silly women who cry into our tea cups every sometimes because we both know how beautiful our lives are.
In the evening we came up with new lists to accompany our dinner helpings of chicken soup. My parents called for their weekly transcontinental chat. It was especially long, which I loved. But the best part was when my host mom got on the phone and spoke in her best English. She told them that she was thankful for me and that she loves me. My real American mom put her on speaker phone and got really sappy about it. I was so proud of my host mom’s English and could tell my mom was proud of me. It was a special little moment.

On Friday, I began preparing to host my first big American event in Kazakhstan. All of the local volunteers would soon be gathering at my house for a beer guzzling, vodka swilling, stuffing stuffing, “Please pass the gravy” good time. But first things first: every thanksgiving needs a turkey. And when you’ve got 12 people coming over and no super-duper-market, you might even need TWO. And where in Kazakhstan can a girl get TWO turkeys? Well, the answer is simple. They’re living in the neighbor’s back yard.
Jon and Meghan managed to rearrange their school schedules for an emergency “get here early” situation and arrived at my doorstep just as I got home from school. We trekked a few houses down, to my friend Saule’s house around noon. Her mom came to the gate with a warm welcoming smile. “You’ve come to get your turkeys?” She asked. Mmmmhmmmm.
Traditional Thanksgivings always involves a little sport, right? Well, the next logical step was to go outside and catch dinner. Yes. I said CATCH dinner. We literally had to chase a flock of turkeys around the yard. We ran a few plays trying to coerce them into their little turkey house, where one might be easier to snag. It was nothing less then hilarious, looking around at the 5 of us clapping and running in circles trying to outsmart a pack of waddling birds. The first time, they snuck past our defensive line and ran a squawking victory lap around the cows. Touch down for team Turkey. The humans had to really work zone defense in round two. After a huddle, we managed to recover some territory and they had no alternative but to back into their turkey house. Saule’s mom, a beautiful Kazakh babushka, fearlessly (might I remind you that Kazakhstan has documented cases of deadly Avian Bird Flu…ha ha) reached into the bird house and pulled one out by the legs. She handed it to Saule and went back in for the rest of our entrée. She grabbed another one by the legs and handed it to Jon. Six points for team America.
We were very jolly about our victory over the birds, until Saule’s mom looked at the three clueless Americans holding two wing flapping Turkeys by their bony little bird legs (by this point, Saule had handed it to me) and she asked, “so who’s going to kill them?” We looked at each other in disbelief. “WHAT?!” “Saule, where’s your dad?” I asked. She said he’d do it for us. “Oh he went out,” she replied casually. “OOoh.” Meghan and I said not a word and looked simultaneously at our kind, brave friend Jon. The answer seemed obvious.
What follows is not for the weak stomached I suppose.
They handed Jon a very dull knife. (Oh my God. Is this really happening?) Saule stepped on the legs and the wings of the bird. Jon held down the neck and started sawing at the back of it. (Not the vital artery on the front of the neck where experienced animal killers might think to cut. This is the PEACE Corps, for shit’s sake! We’re obviously not experts on murder.) When it was apparent that this technique was going to take all day, Saule’s mom ran off. She returned with an ax. Jon’s face lost all of its color. Meghan was literally shaking. And I was laughing uncontrollably at the randomness of our predicament. Saule was laughing equally hard -at us. Without a word of complaint, (just for your mental picture, I might remind you that I’m still holding a 2.5 kilogram turkey that is squirming and shrieking) Jon raised the ax into the air and came down on the neck. “Like a knife in butter,” he said, as the head rolled away and the wings started flapping wildly. We were relieved to put the poor bird out of its misery. Saule lifted up her robe a few inches to reveal ankles splattered with blood. (Is this seriously my life? My friend just axed a Turkey and my other friend is laughing about the bloodstains on her socks and skin.)
I stood there as my turkey grew wilder and wilder in my grip. She arched her back and lifted her head. Saule’s mom looked at the bird and laughed, “I’ll go get the neighbor.”
The Kazakh man arrived and shook Jon’s hand. He took the bird from me and laid it effortlessly on the ground. In one swift motion, he placed his feet on the wings and legs and placed the head in his left hand. With his right, he glided the knife gracefully across the throat. He let the blood drain for a moment and the nerves were quieted by his skilled body positioning. He laid the body down quietly next to the other, stood up, nodded at us, and turned silently toward the gate. It was so fast and simple. “Damn. He’s good,” we thought.
We said our thank-you’s and picked up the carcasses. “Would you like a bag?” Saule asked. I had to laugh as the words “Paper or Plastic?” ran through my mind. We shook our heads no. Why bother?! And we, too turned towards the gate.

On Saturday morning, I woke up excited to get the meal preparing underway. I started with peeling carrots. Meghan rose shortly after and we began our co-hostess project. I had a written schedule for the day and printed out family recipes from my dad to make our first time organized and orderly. Together we made stuffing, and creamed corn, and caramelized carrots, and peas, and garlic bread, and gravy all from SCRATCH. It was old school, and after our turkey episode we were feeling more and more like legitimate pilgrims. (We even mashed the potatoes with a small wooden shank.) We made one turkey in the oven the traditional way, and my host mom marinated and fried the other on the coal stove.
When two o’clock rolled around, we were actually finished with everything. On top of the coal stove were a million pots of traditional American dishes. The table was set and the turkey was done. We were just waiting for our guests. Meghan and I felt a huge sense of accomplishment because, not only was it our first time managing an entire Thanksgiving meal (We agreed that it was a rite of passage. Only grown ups can cook a gigantic meal for 12 people…And Turkeys and stuffing nonetheless.) , but it was the first Thanksgiving that either of us had ever been to where the food was ready before the guests were. Around 3:00, my local friends arrived. Shortly after, the remaining 5 volunteers arrived. The food turned out fabulously. Everyone seemed to have different favorites. Both turkeys were phenomenal. All in all, it was a success.
My host mom made a delicious cake for dessert. She wrote “Thank You” in it with raisins in her home made frosting. I thought it was the most adorable part of the whole evening.
In the end, Jon pulled out his guitar and sang a few songs. He passed it around to a couple of other guests who played and sang as well. It was awesome. It was truly an amazing Thanksgiving.
After dinner, we retired to my house. We played an intense game of charades, attempted to play truth or dare, and settled on drinking home-made vodka/coffee drinks and sitting around in sweatpants talking till 3 AM. It was a really fun night and a very memorable holiday.

And today…Sunday…well, we all slept in really late and had a big brunch. The weather was perfect so there was lots of moseying around outside in between kitchen house and my house and playing with the dogs. Eventually everyone started cleaning up and the volunteers left around one o’clock.
Hmmm…I thought to myself: the day after Thanksgiving. I guess I’ll put up the Christmas tree! I took the 2 foot tall fake tree out of the box that arrived in the mail on Friday. I placed it carefully on a table in my house. In the quiet of my hangover, I hung little gold hearts all over it and thought about all the Christmas trees I’ve decorated in my life.
It’s crazy to think that I’m closing out my sixth month here and how Christmas is just around the bend. It’s a wild fast life, isn’t it.

2005-12-01T00:32:00.001-08:00

11.21.05

I’m a dreamer. I live in an idealistic world of buoyancy and optimism. It’s great and all, although my upbringing somehow instilled in me this intrinsic thought that I can fulfill such dreams too…no matter how big or far fetched. (And that means I have to work hard sometimes.) If I wasn’t such a dreamer, I probably wouldn’t even be here. (And being here isn’t always easy.) I fantasized about experiencing the world and I’ve managed to move oceans away. I dreamt of affecting it and thus the time is approaching to take on new dreams.

So …The Peace Corps encourages that volunteers work on a side project in their communities. They hope we’ll do more than stand in our classrooms every day and become active members of our villages and towns and cities. I put some serious thought into what I could do here I started asking around. And just like the potato chips (-you know “…once you pop, you can’t stop…”) I can’t stop. Instead of doing one side project, I want to do …well two or three. (You know me. I’m my mother’s daughter.) I’ve got a few in mind. I’d like to narrow it down to just one, but it’s too hard. I see this place as a beautiful community that is sprouting with opportunities for change. It’s like a perfect little garden for dreamers. As my brothers would say, “Go big or GO HOME.” So I guess that’s my goal.

So far, these are my ideas:
1. The most important -Dictionaries:
The English department needs about 10-15 Russian/English dictionaries. The teachers don’t even have them. Doesn’t that seem absurd? The best ones, the ones that Peace Corps loans its volunteers, are 34 bucks a piece. (Just in case anyone’s asking, they’re called ENGLISH-RUSSIAN/RUSSIAN ENGLISH DICTIONARY, by Kenneth Katzner, and they’re published by John Wiley & Sons Inc.) “That’s a pretty big investment when you consider the exchange rate. That’s more than two months of my volunteer living allowance. (May I remind you that a loaf of bread in Kazakhstan is literally, like, 3 cents. One dictionary equals 1133 loaves of bread. So, that’s, like, several years worth…)

2. The English Classroom:
Well, I guess I’m here to promote the language program. My counterpart is dying for a better classroom. She wants an American chalkboard because the ones here are horrible. She wants a computer in the classroom with lots of TEFL programs. It would be beneficial to play audio disks, English music, and DVD’s in the classroom. For now, we’ve got my laptop (and I bring it in almost every week to show pictures and videos of America, and to play music and movies). In addition, I think a good classroom would benefit from cork boards, displaying all kinds of stuff (Here, teachers and students make visual aids, but they rarely update them because it’s such a big task to make a board with contact paper and photos etc.) And some English materials from America – more books, alphabet banners, maps, etc. etc. etc. Anyway, that’s probably a couple grand.

The book drive is already in full swing. Thanks to my parents, the Gonzalez family, the Heimroth family, and the Drumms, we’ve already got close to 60 books. My counterpart is ecstatic and the students enjoy them too! They don’t need to be new and they don’t need to be for babies. Some of my students are pretty smart and understand a fair amount of English.

I’m not exactly certain of how to fund this project –The rest of the classroom, that is. So…well…I’m going to suggest that everyone who sends me care packages STOP and send the shipping costs instead. I’m going to plead with all of my friends and family to put jars on their desks at work for the pennies and nickels of their colleagues coming back from their lunch breaks. I figure if every person I know collects change around the office, or the dorm, or the classroom for six months or a year, by next November we could at least get this school their dictionaries…and maybe a whole lot more. Already I’m totally amazed at the support I’m getting from people, and I think if I just shift the direction of the support from me to them, we’ll be in great shape. At least, we’ll have a start!

3. My favorite –Art Club!
I really want to start an art club. I’m already working on a proposal for a Peace Corps grant.
My school has NO art classes. There is so little opportunity to develop their creative little brains. In America, we have whole entire schools devoted to doing solely that. There are so many talented kids here, with brilliant and special little minds. I see it in my classes every day. But they aren’t being invited to exercise their ideas and their talents.
I have a million project ideas already. I think, if I can get a grant to sponsor this little dream, I think my first project would be to build and paint colorful benches for the soccer field, so that parents and teachers can sit and encourage their sportsmen. Also, I’d like to work with some sort of ceramics (although we have no kiln) and have the students make vases for some of the bazillion flowers we’ve got in our school. And the big project would be a gigantic series of canvas (hopefully we can get the supplies) squares on which the students would do a themed painting addressing a big world issue (world environment, international community???…I’m not really that far yet though). They could be displayed throughout the school, or just in one corridor as a collage/mural.
The Peace Corps goal is to make a sustainable change, so I need to find a teacher who is willing to direct the program, and I’d just be a facilitator. That way it may continue after I am gone. (Although the art we leave could be considered the sustainable change.) I think that task is going to be a tough one. Another challenge is that I need to assess the costs and find some resources locally.

4. The bike team.
My school actually has a bike team. It’s one of the VERY few extracurricular activities the kids have structured for them. The problem is that there are only 15 bikes –and they’re old (The bikes range from ages 15-50). Students have to wait for others to leave school to be able to join. And the bikes break and have to be repaired. They could CLEARLY use new bikes but what they want even more is matching uniforms and new helmets. I admire that the school and the students have this one passion. I think passions are VITAL to a fulfilling life. And I wish so badly to encourage it…

So… now I need to figure out my plan of attack. This is where all my peeps (that’s cool slang for the lovely people in my life) come in. Here’s what I propose.
First, I think that I’ll write some beautiful, convincing letters BEGGING some bike companies to support this community of growing cyclists. (Hey! Kazakhstan had a guy in the Tour de Franc this year. Who knows which of my students could be next with a little assistance?!) Be it money, or tool kits, or bike parts, or whatever, every little bit helps, right?
For the classroom, I’m hoping that everyone I know donates a nickel. (At the rate I’m going, I foresee eternal debt to my loved ones.)
Next, I’m aiming to have my grant proposal for the Art Club submitted ASAP –the end of December at the latest. I’m going to beg the school director for some school support, by supplying a classroom to use, and some teachers who might get involved, and agreeing to encourage the students by displaying their work.
I know I’m a dreamer. And I’m doing it again. I’m being buoyant and idealistic. But, well: Go big or go home…

No Water...

2005-12-01T00:32:00.000-08:00

11.16.05

Last night, I was on the phone with my parents. It went something like this:

Me: “So yeah, Dad. We have no running water.”

Dad: “Oh?”

Me: “Oh. Well. I mean. We ALREADY had no running water. But this time the WHOLE VILLAGE has no running water.”

Dad: “Oh?”

Me: “Oh. Well. I mean. The WHOLE VILLAGE ALREADY had no running water. But we REALLY have no running water now.”

Dad: “What are you talking about?”

Me: “It’s not even WALKING, Dad. My host mom has big basins all over the yard collecting rain water. The gutters are draining into metal wash tubs.”

Dad: “Why?”

Me: “Because the PLUMBING (laugh to myself) is being repaired.”

Dad: “Oh.”

Me: “Yeah. So. The pumps are dry. All of them.”

Dad: “Oh.”

Me: “And I’m bathing in rain water, washing in rain water, and the tea tastes a little funny.”

Dad: “Oh.”

Isn’t that excerpt a little gem?!

Here’s another:

Tonight, I asked my host mom if we could have another bath tomorrow. (I had one last on Sunday and today is Wednesday.) “MarGARet,” she said to me as if I am mentally handicapped, “We have no water.” “Ooooh, Riiiiight,” I answered. “But, I thought we had all that rain and snow melting???” I pleaded. “Not enough for baths. The water should be back around the 20th,” (4 more days away) she spoke slowly to be sure I didn’t miss anything this time. “Riiiight. No baths.” I understood. I’ll probably ask again tomorrow….you know…just in case of a nice, clean, wet, sweet smelling miracle.

(((P.S. My dear friends, enjoy your 15 steamy minutes this morning with your salon shampoos, fruity conditioners, and your exfoliating loofas. And don’t worry your unpolluted little heads about me. I’ll be utilizin’ all those hygienic RiteAid flushable wipes you’ve been sending. (Why did you THINK I asked for them???)

P.P.S. And 119-ers, this is a special message for you: Call it “A Tribute to Margaret.” You shave those armpits and legs today! You, just for one winter day, ignore the fact that it’s cold and you can wear pants (you know who I’m talking to). Do it for me.…just this one time. You, enjoy that luxury of the Venus Triple Blade with the magic moisturizing strip. Lots of love, your favorite used-to-be-every-day-clean-shaven-and-hairless-legged friend, Margs…)))

Language Camp

2005-12-01T00:30:00.000-08:00

11.16.05

Last week was another one of those weeks when a lot was accomplished. I traveled over 60 hours, what felt like a million miles, and experienced a special facet of volunteer life: LANGUAGE CAMP! What is language camp exactly? It’s a Russian studying, vodka drinking, slumber partying, ping pong playing, socks in the bano good time. That’s what it is.

Highlights:

The train ride there was a good time. Our coupe contained a very eclectic foursome of Kaz 17 volunteers. It was Meghan’s birthday so we celebrated! We drank a bit of vodka (and again Michael brought that dangerous homemade moonshine), ate a whole chicken a babushka gave us, exhausted every conversation you can conjure up, read, slept, and watched the steppe slowly pass… for 22 hours.

Our first day in Luke and Jen’s town, our group of ten went to the community bano. This was a special day. Some of my favorite K-17 girls and I stepped into the (dirty) sauna and had a nice bonding afternoon. We steamed and sweated and suds-ed and talked. All of the Kazakh women gave questioning looks at our tattoos and piercings, and not to mention the fact that we were speaking a language that might have well been Jupiter-ese. But it was a good bath, even if we DID have to rewash when we got home to really get clean. (The funniest part was that Meghan painted the toe-nails of our two male traveling companions on the train because we were so bored. The first one, Tony, silently entered the bano, and the second, Michael, forgot to seriously assess the situation prior to their fancy-feet presentation. When Michael was allowed to enter, he assumed that Tony was already sporting magenta piggies in the room full of naked testosterone. He entered confidently, despite the fact that he had borrowed a pair of women’s red shower shoes which only accented his colorful stems. He assumed wrong. He looked down and found Tony sopping and soapy outfitted with thick wet winter socks on his feet. Tony’s poor toes even had a sock weggie from the thongs they were modestly covered in. And Michael was forced to face the humiliation of having ladies’ feet in a very old school male dominated society.) Mysteriously, we managed to avoid humiliating our motherland that silly afternoon in Osocarovka. Yes, America prevailed. And oddly enough, rumor has it that there were a bunch of crazy GERMANS at the small town bano on Sunday.

On Tueday, we were invited to the Osocarovka Brewery. This heavenly place was only a short walk away and we were personally summoned by the management. We arrived to an array of delicious snacks and tall, CHILLED mugs filled with a variety of the drafts we coincidentally “tested” the night prior. We were seated at a long table with the director and we shared our experiences and goals with the curious young man. When it was Meghan’s turn, he admitted that he had a growing crush on my very own best volunteer friend. We proceeded to drink more, take the Brewery tour, have our photo taken by the local press, drink more, observe a staff award ceremony, talk more about our Peace Corps experiences, and drink more. They gave us all a parting gift of two Liters of “piva” each. It was great.

All the other days, we had lots of school. Six hours of language class… grammar… vocabulary… grammar… etc.

On Friday, our original foursome-plus one took a train into Astana, the nation’s capital. After a little bit of being lost, we went to a Mexican Restaurant that was covered in American décor. We ate burritos and drank Coronas and watched MTV on a big screen TV. It was awesome. Then we went to a DVD/CD store and reveled in the American Wonderland-ness of it all. (I bought a “how-to-speak-Russian” CD-Rom, a Russian “Fitness Hip-Hop” dance DVD so I can rid myself of cow’s-milk-calories, Fatboy Slim, and Fleetwood Mac –Jen Drumm-I fully attribute that Fleetwood purchase to my missing you, and it was even BEFORE I got your letter. They were all impulse buys, but sometimes –even on a Peace Corps salary- a girl’s gotta splurge.) Then we proceeded to the BIG supermarket so the American kids could buy peanut butter. I got Cheerios. Does it get any better than that??? So basically, it’s true: I traveled 60 hours and spent 12,000 Tenge on travel and accommodations ALONE just for nachos with REAL SALSA, a few CD’s, and a box of cereal.

In the train on the way home, we were harassed by the police. They demanded our documents and tried to get us to give them money. They said it was against the law to drink vodka on the train –even though they sell it in the restaurant car. They weren’t that convincing though, because they themselves seemed to be pretty sloshed. We humored them and utilized some of the lovely Russian manners we just learned in a language lesson. It worked. They left us alone. It was such a buzzkill though that we all decided to go to bed around 9 or 10 o’clock.

So that’s that. Good old language camp. In a nutshell, it was “24 hours of non-stop rock-and-roll fun.” (-documented quote from our very own Samba) All day, every day. …or something like that…

The Red Was Rubbed by My Booty

2005-12-01T00:29:00.000-08:00

11.14.05

Today, my theme for the after school optional session with the 9th graders was The Passive Past Participle voice. What IS that???

The Passive Past Participle includes factual phrases such as, “The chicken feet WERE EATEN BY my host mom,” “The chicken brain WAS FOUGHT OVER BY her children,” and –for the Future Passive Voice: “Those chicken parts WILL NEVER BE EATEN BY me.” Mmmmhmmm… (And just for your information, that was lunch today…talk about left overs. My host mom actually asked me if I wanted to try the brain or crunch on some toes.)

The grammatical session this afternoon was followed by an innovative game I invented. It’s called “Passive Twister.” You know the game with the plastic rug and the spinner?... Right foot, blue; Left arm, yellow; Left leg, make-a-human-pretzel-and-get-as-tangled-as-possible-in-the-other-bodies. Unfortunately, “Passive Twister” didn’t involve any male models or excessive amounts of booze, but it was a success nonetheless. I didn’t have the actual spinner either – or the rug for that matter, but I improvised.

I taped pieces of colored construction paper all over the room: floor, walls, chairs, etc. Then I scribbled onto a few pieces “rub,” “touch,” “sit on,” etc. AND THEN, I made a page with body parts. And, yes, I taught them “booty.” (Booties are an important fact of life. They’ve gotta learn these important lessons in colloquial speech from someone, right? They’re lucky to have me. How else would they have learned to say a boy/girl is “cool” and “hot.” And someone’s gotta teach them to say “shit!” and various other useful profanities –I reserve THAT invigorating lesson, though, for my cohorts in extracurricular sports endeavors.-)

The students dropped coins onto the papers and followed the instructions based on where the coins landed. “Nose,” “Tap on,” and “Green,” meant one had to lay down on the floor (near sin, in Kazakhstan) and repeatedly thump one’s face against a piece of green paper adhered to the ground. They laughed a lot when I demonstrated. There I was, this world traveling sophisticate, in my skirt and fancy shoes, sprawled out on my stomach banging my face against the floor, crying,” The green WAS TAPPED BY my nose. GET IT? GET IT?”

So…there you have it. Spreading America’s best throughout Central Asia. The red WAS rubbed by my booty.

November 4th!

2005-12-01T00:27:00.000-08:00

11.04.05
(Meghan McGee’s Birthday!)

[DISCLAIMER to my precious audience:
Ok…so, believe it or not, it’s pretty hard for me to, time after time, post these totally self indulgent ramblings about my super self involved life 10,000 miles from a life I understand. I write these blog entries as a journal for myself and then later post the passages that I deem entertaining or educational enough for my family and closest friends. Honestly, I thought that Mimi and my parents were the only people who would actually read it. But so it seems, the pool is growing and I am getting REALLY surprising messages that my VERY personal thoughts are going out to lots and lots of people (I guess people like hearing when others incessantly humiliate themselves with these cross cultural blunders). Anyway, it’s very strange to me.

[With that said, the entry that follows this little message was one I was on the fence about posting. I couldn’t decide if I should share it to such a broad group because it’s pretty personal … especially as I keep discovering how many people appear to be ACTUALLY reading this. So, if you don’t know me that well, you can choose to read it or not. But keep in mind that I was writing just to document a special moment. I chose to post it because I thought some of my Aunts and Uncles and cousins might like to know who popped in on me today. (Oh and also, I AM FULLY aware that I am the corniest, most sentimental person on earth. I’ll deal with the repercussions of that in two years when I return to America, embarrassed to show my face at any family or friendly gathering, after all of the cheesy secrets I’ve been spilling onto the World Wide Web.)]

Someone snuck up on me today. I haven’t seen him or smelled him in a decade, until this unanticipated moment. There we were, in the back seat of a smoky station wagon gazing out onto the wintered hills. It was peculiarly a coincidental moment and provoked by nothing of this world.

This afternoon, I found myself remembering the way he often yelled at the boys for being noisy and playing rough. Then he would look at me. His face would soften and the tension in his voice would dissipate. He would gently say to me, “come here,” and pat the tiny space between his thigh and the arm of the recliner chair, beckoning me to my place. I would squish my little body against his and sit with him contently for an infinite amount of time.

I’ll step back…

For the first few months of training, I always carried around my passport in one of those special khaki colored secret-under-your-shirt passport purses. The special case is supposed to make it hard to steal, but it was a pain to wear it under my clothes, so I often wore it like a regular purse with my Peace Corps ATM inside and my coin Tenge jingling around. I had my official Peace Corps ID Card thrown in there as well. Not very secret, as its intent.

Tucked in my passport, I had a prayer card from Grandma Leach’s funeral paper-clipped for protection and inspiration. It was the guardian card. She was a strong woman and even if I rarely looked at the card, I felt better knowing it was there. I have a handful of those prayer cards. Most of them read, “In Loving Memory of Margaret Leach. September 29, 1907 – March 20, 2004.” They have the “The Lord is my Shepherd” passage and are marked with the familiar Maloney Funeral Home address. When she passed away, my mom insisted that I take a few different cards. Although I didn’t understand at the time, I collected them as instructed. Like a little boy and his best baseball cards occasionally I flipped through them inspecting the laminated famous people on the front. I got a St. Joseph, a Mary, and an angel card. Oh and there’s the Irish Blessing one too. (You know: “May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back…”).

When I moved to my site, I felt that I didn’t need to carry around my passport all the time. The police know who I am here and if they are in dire need of checking my documents, they can walk the ten feet to my house. So I started carrying a normal wallet again. (This way I get to carry around REALLY IMPORTANT documents –for example my LeMoyne ID card, my AAA card, my Seattle Public Library card, and of course business cards from Employco, Dr. Klopfenstein, and “Uncle” Bobby Westerman’s coffee stained Gentek card. Oh and there’s my personal favorite: Alvin’s “If you forgot what you did last night, call me” card.)

As I packed for my trip to Osocarovka, I had already become re-accustomed to my long red wallet. Instead of switching back to ugly, ineffective-when-used-improperly, khaki carrier, I just improvised. I shoved in my passport and my P.C.ID and used a ponytail holder to secure the red check book overstuffed with unnecessary papers and cards.

Today, I was sitting in the backseat of the taxi with Meghan. I remembered that a long time ago, long before Kazakhstan and long before Seattle, I folded up an old family photo taken at a Christams party at Aunt Theresa and Uncle Billy’s. I’ve been carrying it around for years now. I wanted to look. I wanted to see their smiles. I started to empty out the contents of the wallet in my lap when a special prayer card fell out. It was bigger than my Major League collection of Grandma Leach cards. And this one had a cross on it, instead of a halo-ed player from Team-God. And it had a special passage on the front.

“Grieve not…nor speak of me with tears…but laugh and talk of me…as though I were beside you. I loved you so…’twas Heaven here with you.” I nodded. It was good, indeed.

I flipped it over.

“In Loving Memory of William Leach,” It read. I didn’t even know it was in there. The next line: “November 4, 1995.” Dumbfounded. I was simply dumbfounded. My Grandpa died ten years ago…today.

I explained my discovery to Meghan, who was sitting beside me staring out onto the miles and miles of hills and of steppe. “I remember that exact day,” she said. And she proceeded to explain every detail of her November 4th birthday party to me. It was her 13th. “I remember it too,” I said when she finished. I had been at Katie Helm’s house that morning. It was Fair Oaks Community Garage Sale day. My mom called Katie’s and said it didn’t matter that we were testing out the new plug-in hot curlers we bought with some change we had scrambled up. It was time to come home, my mom said. When I walked into our kitchen just minutes later, I found my mom sitting at the table with “Dottie” Henderson. They had tea cups in their hands. I knew she had been crying. I knew what she was going to say too. Grandpa had been sick a long time.

I thought a moment longer and he began to fill my head. I remembered a million special moments from the first 13 years of my life. I remembered his grand collection of small, furry, battery operated walking dogs and dancing bears and drum playing monkeys. I remember the way he loved to work in the backyard garden in Central Islip. And when grandma broke her hip while visiting us in Maryland, we built him a new garden in our back yard. He grew tomatoes and let me sprinkle a paper bag of wildflower seeds. I remember the cot on the floor that I slept on when we came to stay at his house. And I remember in the mornings when grandma and he got ready for church. I pretended I was still asleep and tried not to stir. Squinting and squeezing my eyes shut, the very blue eyes he gave me, and I secretly watched him fumble around for his old heavy cane on the far side of the bed. The room always felt yellow and warm. He’d put on his deep brown suit jacket and an equally outdated tie. He looked and smelled like a grandpa, and his skin was grandpa soft and wrinkled. I’m certain he knew I was pretending.

I try not to remember too much of his Alzheimer’s, but I keep just enough thoughts to remind me that he’s got a better view from where he’s sitting now than from that pink bedroom on Third Ave.

I looked out the window and entertained that common thought I often have: that I’m living the primitive life he left 80 years ago. It’s the life he left when he boarded a boat destined for Ellis Island. The coal stoves, the horse drawn buggies, the cow milking, the outhouses, and the tea and potatoes, even the hats the men wear –it’s all in the picture I have in my head of the green land where he grew up.

Ten years. A big smile crept onto my face. It seemed like an awfully big coincidence that I started carrying my wallet again and that on this very particular day I felt an inexplicable urge to go rummaging through the various pockets. It’s as if it was his way of patting the tiny space between his thigh and the arm of the recliner chair. I can imagine his face softening and his eyes smiling from behind those thick square glasses.

“…but laugh…as though I were beside you. I loved you so…’twas Heaven here with you.” Wow. Right back atcha, Grandpa. Happy Anniversary.

teekva recipes

2005-11-12T09:34:00.000-08:00

TEEKVA
The best of Tamara Ivanovna
(but that’s according to me, who prefers oatmeal to lobster and sirloin)

Who knew there were so many ways to cook a pumpkin? It’s my ultimate favorite food right now. (For those of you in the loop, it’s the NEW frozen mango…)

1. Pumpkin in the fire… so simple. so scrumptious.
Rumor has it that you can do it in the oven but it takes a long time:
a. My host mom cut the pumpkin in half and scraped out all the seeds. (She left some of the seed tentacles though because I think here they don’t throw as much away as we spoiled Americans. They were surprisingly delicious too, so don’t be overcautious in your seed scraping.)
b. Then she dumped in about a cup of sugar. I lifted up a small bowl and asked “about this much?” and she nodded. But I think you can be generous with the sugar.
c. Next she put the half of a pumpkin with sugar sprinkled over the tentacles into our woodstove. Yup. Right on the coals (Does that make it not a wood-stove? I guess it’s a coal stove. But it looks like the ones in America that we call “wood-stoves.” Maybe that’s because we are ignorant Americans, or maybe just because I’m ignorant. It’s not really pertinent to the recipe though.)
d. So the pumpkin sits on the coals. The outside turns black and the inside gets sort of a funny color too. The sugar on top sparkles like little crystals (because they use bigger grains of sugar here than our little processed American sugars). And that is that. Pretend it is a turkey or sweet-and-sour-meatballs in a crock pot and let it sit for a few hours.
e. Then she cuts it into slices like a pie, or a watermelon, and WOW. The insides are so mushy, like mashed potatoes without any mashing. And sweet. It’s better than all of Thanksgiving. She says she makes it a lot in the winter so I’m happy to have some fruit/vegetable intake. (Is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? I don’t know.)

* I was thinking that it could be tried around a campfire, but she says it takes a long time to cook, like 3 hours, so an oven would be much better. However, it’s so simple to prepare that it might be worth testing out.

2. My ultimate favorite is Pumpkin Oatmeal (Except it’s made with rice not oats…although go ahead and give oats a try if you want):
a. In a bowl, you cut up a piece of pumpkin, as you would do a watermelon or cantaloupe. You get close to the rind, but it’s sweeter in the middle. Then you use a cheese grater to shred it up like cheddar. (And it looks a little cheddary because it’s orange.)
b. Meanwhile, you need to get some rice going on the stove. You cook it up just enough so it’s basically absorbed the water.
c. When it looks good, dump in the pumpkin bits and throw in some milk. (I’d suggest that want 1/3 ratio of pumpkin to rice.) Don’t be shy with the milk, there’s nothing wrong with milky oatmeal.
d. My host mom adds a pinch of salt and 3 heaping tablespoons of sugar.
e. Let it cook over low/medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is really mushy and it looks like normal oatmeal.

*…And there you have it. It’s my ultimate favorite dish in Kazakhstan. We usually toss in some craisins and call it breakfast. But then I eat the leftovers for lunch and dinner too b/c I love it so much. I also think I plan to serve it at the volunteer Thanksgiving. Maybe you can consider it and keep me in mind at your table (mom and dad, especially).

3. Pumpkin Mante (It’s a traditional Russian food –or maybe Kazkah- but it seems to be most popular made with potatoes):

Dough:
a. Of course they make the dough from scratch. It’s a pasta dough you can probably make with a little help from any standard cookbook. Eggs, flour, water…
b. Roll the dough into a long fat worm shape … okay maybe more like a teenage boa constrictor. I’d say about an inch diameter roll. Imagine a slightly above average carrot. Then slice the dough wiener into half inch nuggets. These you’ll dip in flour and roll out into big circles.
c. Later you’ll fill the dough with the meat stuff sortof like ravioli.

Meat stuff:
a. Again, this is most popular with Goat or Lamb or whatever. But I’m sure that it’s easier to find ground beef at the grocery store than ground sheep in America. So, stick with the old cow for simplicity’s sake. …And that’s GROUND beef… And they keep as much fat as possible for flavor. (How authentic can you stand to be?)
b. Next you want to grate up some pumpkin in a cheese shredder again. Or dice it, if you’re ambitious.
c. You’ll need an onion, finely diced. Garlic, minced.
d. Mix it all in a bowl.

Making the Mante:
a. So you’ve got your little dough nuggets rolled into miniature soft tacos. You’ll want to hold them in your palm (They should be just smaller than palm sized) and stuff a heaping forkful of greasy meat on top.
b. Then fold up the ends like a burrito and pinch them so they will seal up.
c. Next pinch across the top, or if you’ve got mad skills, you can “braid” the dough so it looks extra dope.
d. Cook it in a steamer. We have a big one that has 3 or 4 levels, but I imagine you could do it in a vegetable steamer.
e. Serve with butter (if you’re from Kazakhstan, that is) so that the pasta doesn’t get to stickey and hard.
f. And we have a salsa like tomato spread that is also really good on top.

Tamara Ivanovna is like the old school Russian version of Mrs. Drumm. She’s got all the gadgets and all of the recipes, except they don’t have the Pampered Chef in Kazakhstan, so her noodle makers and such are a little outdated. But it works… When I watch her cook, with all of her little tricks and knowledge from years in the trade, I am often brought to a warm kitchen in Schenectady where I cut a lot of limes in May.

lotta socks

2005-11-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

11.02.05
Insight from Kazakhstan

A girl never really knows how much she has, indeed, until she sees all her socks on the clothesline.

My host mom did my laundry for me today. I walked through the gate after school and saw it all dripping in the cold backyard. . All three lines that stretch from the cow manger to the bano were filled with my favorite sweatshirts and undies. It’s a tedious task so that was really awesome of her.

As it is cold outside, it takes longer to dry for clothes to dry “manually” or whatever. So when I went out to the outhouse with my flashlight (shout out to Pops!), my clothes looked like they were glowing in my blue beam. On my way back towards my bed, I shone my light ahead and was caught by the sight of all my socks on a line -A whole line of JUST socks. (It had been hidden by all the other clothes all day.) It just looked so silly. I started laughing so hard that it made my throat hurt. I had no idea that I had THAT many socks.

Just as in America, I wear them one time and throw them in the wash pile. More would be gross, right? Well, I think that people here only have a few pairs and they rotate all the time… or something… because I’ve never seen so many socks on a line and I’ve been here for five months now. And trust me; I’ve seen a lot of lines. So that’s a lot of socks.

apples?

2005-11-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

10.30.05
Saturday

It was a long weekend in Taldy-Korgan. We drank a lot and slept a little. There were costumes and board games and Michael’s host mom’s home made moon shine. What more can a girl ask for? Nevertheless, the Sarkand Region kids put our disheveled selves together this morning, after our fabulous two day October celebration, and got a taxi to our region. Three of us passed out side by side in the back seat of the car for the entire two hour ride. We ignored the loud Kazakh music blasting from the speakers behind us. And we ignored the bumpy potholes that sent the car flying into the air at consistent intervals. Happy Halloween.

So, we arrived in Sarkand just half awake. I dragged myself to the street to grab a taxi for the second stretch of the trip –the last hour from Sarkand to Koilyk. I ignored the gigantic pack of taxi drivers standing around carousing at the bus station and walked over to the street perpendicular, hoping that I could find a ride this way more quickly. I set my bag in the dust and looked at the empty road. I noticed a young Kazakh man in a running suit emerge from the large crowd of loitering men. He started towards me with an unhurried saunter, casually popping sunflower seeds into his mouth. I surveyed the scenery and wondered where he might be headed. The sky was gray. I was tired.

He approached me slowly with an air of nonchalance. “Where are you going?” He asked. “Antonovka,” I answered indifferently. “You are a teacher?” He asked. “Mmmhmmm,” I managed to muster. His next question contained a word I didn’t know. “I don’t know that word,” I said. “I’ve been here for a few months and my Russian is bad,” I tried to make excuses. I felt sick and thought about all of the homemade Baileys we drank the night before. “How far are you going?” He asked again. “Koilyk,” I answered. He pointed at an antique red station wagon. “Two hundred?” I asked. “Mmmhmmm,” he replied popping another sunflower seed into his mouth. “Right now?” I proceeded. “Mmmhmmm.” He picked up my bag off the ground and stepped toward the car. He opened the door and passed me the bag. He smiled. Simultaneously, another man approached us and got in the passenger seat.

We stopped twice at roadside apple stands. The young driver got out and walked behind the car. He bought nothing. I heard the Kazakh word for apples a few times and the word “client.” I think he’s in the business.

We were about halfway there when the two men started asking questions. The tone was still very comfortable but I wasn’t feeling my best so I kept my answers really short. “Where are you from?” “America.” “What is your name?” “Margaret.” “Do you like our country?” “Yes.” “How long will you stay?” “2 years.” They ran out of inquiries and it got quiet again.

Upon arriving at the road for the village just before mine, the driver pulled over and let the other man out. He paid his two hundred tenge. I reached for my change purse. The driver heard me rustling in the back seat and saw me reaching for my wallet in the rearview mirror. “You will not pay,” he said. “I live in Koilyk too and I do not want you to pay.” I smiled and asked, “Why?” He did not answer. “Thank you,” I said to fill the silence.

He started asking questions again. This time, I felt more like we were two friends chatting. He asked about the preceeding volunteer. “Did you know him?” “Do you teach English too?” “Do you live in the same place?” “He liked to drink vodka. Do you love vodka?” I laughed at the last one. I thought about the night before and wanted to tell him how much I hate vodka and how I hope I never smell vodka ever again. “No I don’t love vodka, but I will drink it on holidays. Yesterday was an American holiday.” I laughed. We spoke for the remaining minutes about my weekend with my foreign friends celebrating Halloween in the city.

He pulled up to my house without needing to ask which one it was. I thanked him again. He reached his hand behind his seat and opened the door for me. “We will be friends,” he replied. “I will bring you apples.” I smiled. That would be very nice.

i'm so corny!

2005-11-10T00:15:00.000-08:00

10.26.05

I feel like I’m surrounded by such luminous images lately and it’s so disappointing that I don’t know how to write poetry or something. Anyway, these profound images all around me here I think brilliant people, like songwriters and painters, could do wonders with. And I post them on a blog. Something about that seems so un-poetic to me, but whatever.

My poetic life:
For example, the other morning I woke up before dawn and walked out to the outhouse. It was really dark outside still. I looked down at my big sweater that didn’t match my polka dot pajama shorts or my wool socks and my hot pink bano shoes (that’s “schlopkey” in Russian). And on the ground I noticed the black outline of sticks on the ground. I knew that my mom didn’t haul sticks or manure the day before without me knowing, so I didn’t understand why something so dark was in my path. And I couldn’t imagine her doing it in the night. I looked up at the sky and saw the moon in the West, still as bright as it was when it dangled above my head like mistletoe 5 or 6 hours before. I looked back down on the ground. Moon shadows in the morning. I looked around me and saw bare fall branches painted the in raven color of sky on a blanket of leaves. I’ve thought of it every day since.

And I went for a ride in a taxi last week. The windows were tinted gold and so the whole scenery looked like King Midas had just passed through, or like one of those sunny rain storms. We passed a Kazakh graveyard. Since my walks into the hills, I have discovered that every Kazakh grave has a crescent moon on it. Something about the night sky is so mystical. All the Kazakh people in the taxi cupped their hands and swept them down their faces. Sweeping past thought, sight, smell, taste, and voice, they wipe their fingers across their consciousness and then lift them up in ofference. The motion is so much more beautiful than the way my brothers and I, as children, held our breath in the car when we passed a cemetery.

Today, my host mom went walking in the graveyard. She went to visit her husband. I wanted so badly to along go so I could finally be formally introduced and tell him we are both lucky to have her. (I had promised to attend a lunch somewhere else though and couldn’t go along, unfortunately.) When I came home from school, I kissed her on the cheek. It’s a gesture we currently save for special days. I told her I was sorry I missed the walk because I wanted to…well…and then I squeezed her hand to say the words that don’t translate even if I DID know them in Russian. Her eyes welled up and she said it was a tearful day. Her sister in law was sitting at the table, wiping her eyes with a napkin. She broke down again at dinner. I thought their emotions were poetry. I didn’t have anything comforting to say. I don’t know the first thing about the depth of their relationship. I don’t know how they felt when they were first mourning this man. All I know is that they are two strong women who love openly. They aren’t shy about their feelings and they didn’t hold back because someone was in the room who didn’t witness their pain. Their tears spilled onto their plates and they will snuggle tonight, in one small bed even though there are five others to choose from here.

Tonight I went back outside, for my last cold breath of the day. The sky looked like an endless chocolate sundae with a million vanilla sprinkles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars here. Our back yard is like an orchard, with plums and apples and pears, and it really obstructs the view of night. Looking up in the evenings here, in my season so far, the sky has held copious amounts of fruit and leafy arms holding it out. But the trees are naked now it opens up the ice cream sky.

Life is beautiful here.

i suck at volleyball.

2005-11-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

10.23.05

Yesterday, after one of my classes, Ardak (my counterpart) mentioned that there was a sports holiday after lunch. She said teachers were playing. I got so excited and started wiggling my legs at the thought of running around playing soccer. “The teachers too?” I reaffirmed with enthusiasm. “Well just the fellows,” she answered. I was a little disappointed but couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that she said fellows. After explaining that “fellows” isn’t actually the most common vernacular, I added, “it will be fun to watch nonetheless.”

So just before 3 PM, I headed to the school and stuffed some play clothes and a sports bra in my purse just in case the men invited me to share the field. Upon arriving, I scoured the premises for signs of soccer. None whatsoever. And even the usual noise permeating the gym walls couldn’t be heard from outside. So I went in to investigate. I took a seat in the school lobby next to an active history teacher. I asked him if today was the sports holiday. He said yes and we got into a great chat about my short rugby career. He asked me about my soccer skills. I explained that don’t really have any, but I enjoy playing nonetheless. And then, randomly, he announced that today was a student faculty VOLLEYBALL game. Bummer.

I led the girl parade into the gym. My female students from all grades followed me into the room. I took a seat on the bench, from where I intended to watch the match. I watched all of my most athletic, most outgoing students warming up for a big game. And I noticed the teachers donning knee pads and, surprisingly, matching jerseys. All guys, of course. My favorite gym teacher called to me, “Margaret, will you play?” I turned a shade of pink as the entire room shifted their focus on me. “May I?” I asked. “Please,” he answered. “OK…I’ll just go change quickly.” They were astonished at my preparedness. And everyone cheered at the girl-teacher in this total man’s world.

Upon my return into the room, they invited me to stand before all the players with the small cluster of people introducing the match. They asked me to say a few words. I stepped forward in my I-heart-NY shirt –the only girl on the court, and the only one without a uniform and knee pads … oh and the only one who didn’t understand what the hell was going on. Completely bewildered, I asked “about what?” “The holiday,” they replied (although, “duh,” is what they were thinking). “Umm…OK…like what?” That’s when my favorite gym teacher just shook his head, and in an attempt to save me more humiliation and precious playing time, he said I could step back into line with the other players. Phew.

I stepped back, thankful to be out of the spotlight. So SURPRISE! They then invited me to be the CAPTAIN of the faculty team. Great idea. Let’s pick a captain who plainly doesn’t even know how to choose a side of the flipping coin. (They don’t have a head or a tail on their coins so how is one to know?) I just pointed to the side of the 10-Tenge facing up, when my 10th grade boy insisted that I choose. What a gentleman. We lost coin toss.

I stepped on the court for the 5 minute warm up and realized immediately that I needed something closer to 5 years to warm up if I had any intention of keeping my pride on this lovely afternoon. Who knew?! The other men on the teachers’ side had so much aim and power. They had countless different hand positions to pop the ball, and spike it, and to pass it controllably to one another. I only knew the fist-in-palm technique that I learned in fourth grade, perhaps the last time I played volleyball. It seemed to be the least popular among them.

The whistle blew and everyone took their places. I followed their leads. Before I knew it, it was my turn to serve. I’m going to safely estimate that my first six serves bounced off one wall or another, and mostly on our side of the net. (May I remind you once again, just for dramatic effect, that very many of my respecting students were watching the showcase. Oh and the idea is to get the ball OVER the net.) And they don’t let you just be bad all at once. They spread it out. One bad serve here, then ten minutes later when you have recovered a little bit from the mortification, it’s your turn again. And just when I hoped that everyone might forget all about me, I was back in the spotlight again serving straight into the net and watching the ball bounce in slow motion onto the floor as the room dropped into a shameful silence. Crickets chirp. Eyes roll.

And in playing the court, I began to notice the teachers shifting positions to compensate for my badness. I missed countless volleys that were practically sent to me on a platter. I sent the ball flying into the ceiling, behind me, and in all other undesirable directions. Just when I thought I was going to redeem myself and pop back into play, I would bounce the ball off of my forearms in some uncontrolled fashion as I heard the English word “OUUUUUUTTTTTT” reaching my ears. Great move. I only hit it when there was no need to do so, often costing us points … I think. Everyone shook their heads and I would call out “isvinitie…” (I’m sorry) and laugh sheepishly. It was torture.

I can’t remember all the rules to volleyball, and they spoke fast Russian and Kazakh the whole time so there’s a lot of mystery which remains unsolved about the whole ordeal. But every so often, we would alternate sides of the net with the students’ team. I think I withstood about four or five of these rotations (…Maybe every 5 or 10 points? Anyone play volleyball?… I didn’t think so …). It sure FELT like a long time.

Relentlessly making a fool of oneself is a bit exhausting, in fact. Anyway, after a few of this back-and-forth business, my favorite gym teacher came over to direct me to my new position … on the BENCH. He then asked a female 10th grade girl to stand in for me for the remainder of the game. I wanted to sit under the bench or somewhere else that no one could see me. I looked at all the little girls on the sideline and thought to myself, “THIS is why girls don’t meddle in all the man stuff here.” In the end, I’m not sure which was more embarrassing: my performance in the game or being asked to sit down in front of so many people whose respect I’ve been working at earning these last few months (teachers included).

It was honestly miraculous the way the intensity of the game immediately picked up and even the fans felt it. The screaming got louder and the duration of the volleys was so much longer. I was astonished at the impact just one bad player on the court makes. Oops.

And due to my blatant ignorance, sadly, I have no clue who won the game. There was a score board with the little-flippy numbers, but I couldn’t tell when points were being awarded and which side was mine. (The score was close though, like one or two points apart.) After it was all over, the gym teachers gave all the students a mug wrapped in cellophane, so I have induced that it was their victory.

When the game ended, everyone thanked me for playing – but they were OBVIOUSLY just being polite. I tried to compensate for my badness by explaining that I probably haven’t played volleyball in a decade and I didn’t KNOW how bad I was. (I didn’t think it could be that HARD.) I laughed my usual laugh and smiled my usual smile but they didn’t respond with their usual empathy. I didn’t care too much though because I’m still laughing a day later.

And that was lesson number 3 in Kazakhstan.
The current very important lesson list stands as thus:
#1: Cleaning hot peppers and then taking a steamy bano is not a good idea. (You’ll definitely get pepper juice in your eyes and it burns. Plus, you’ll have to sleep with your hands in a bucket of cold water. Yeah, does anyone besides me remember THAT episode?)
#2: Giving your phone number to drunken men is not a good idea. (The time of day and the association one has with these “fellows” is irrelevant. Just because it’s daylight and you work with them doesn’t make it any less harmless. Your mom will have to screen your calls.)
#3: Don’t play volleyball. It’s not a good idea.
Enough said.

a little home sicky...

2005-11-09T09:19:00.000-08:00

10.17.05

So yesterday morning, my host mom’s 20-something-year-old son came home from Russia. He brought with him his girlfriend. They arrived around 7:30 in the morning, after two whole days of traveling, half surprising my mom here. (She knew they were coming because her daughter accidentally leaked the secret. She didn’t know when though, and certainly didn’t expect them so early in the morning.) I got to meet them even before I had to run out the door to school. I came home for lunch and watched the mother-son relationship with wistfulness. Just watching him move around the house, it was obvious that he had spent so many years here (even though it was me setting the table, grabbing the napkins, and treating him like a guest). It seems to mean so much to a mom when their kids come home from their far away places. I could see it in her eyes and could just imagine her excitement.

And I have never missed my brothers more. Having a big brother around (vs. the 2 and 12 and 15 year old siblings I had at my last host family) reminded me of, sadly, how long I’ll be waiting to see mine. I watched him playing with my puppy, joking with our mom, doing fake karate in the yard, conversing with his girlfriend, adoring his little nieces and nephews, and conversing with his sister (one of Tamara’s five kids live in my village). It’s like a presence I have always had in my life is here for a fleeting minute, but barely acknowledges me (not in a rude way, but in a “you speak bad Russian, and I’m here to see my REAL family, and I’m only here for three days” –kind of way). I don’t believe in wishing time away or wishing I was in another place, but do you think it would be so wrong to wish he was one of MY brothers? –as in: I wish they were here instead... I certainly wish I could be near them. I don’t really care where.

I had a dream about Tommy last night. The premise was really stupid, as dreams often are. We were getting ready to play American football. (I remember that because I was excited to be able to tackle again, something I haven’t done since The Sweet Sixteen’s Tourney in N.Y.) Just like Kazakhstan, I was a girl in a man’s game. Grace, Joy, and Mike were there, but mostly just to direct me to Tommy. In the end, Grace and Mike were sitting in an old run down truck in front of a Kazakh style house. Our old neighbors were there (Eric and Tucker). I looked around and saw Tommy run over a hill to the football field. I asked if I could get in the house, but Grace told me it was locked. I ran away from my neighbors and friends and over the hill after him. That’s where I woke up: locked out, all alone, somewhere in the middle.

Honestly, most days are really good. But then there are some when I really question how I’m gonna make it through Christmas. Yesterday was one of those days. Coupled with missing my family, I got some big news. Morgan, my best friend in training, is leaving for America on Saturday. She called me urgently yesterday to tell me the official news and to start her goodbyes. She’s packing today, doing Close of Service stuff in Almaty from Wednesday through Friday, and she flies on the weekend. She’ll be in Minnesota in less than a week. We are in very different places (in a number of ways) I do believe that it was the right decision for her (although I already miss her terribly).

With half envious thoughts of her in America stuffed in my back pocket, I put on my red coat and walked arm in arm through the moonlit village with my host mom to another family birthday dinner. Along the way, I smelled a bano fire perking up, and thought of all the camp fires I’ve ever had. I smelled a man working on his smoky car engine, and thought of a million summers filled with the aroma of boat engines on the Chesapeake Bay. I tried to tell my host mom what I was thinking about, and got so frustrated because there are a million words for smell and I can’t conjugate anything right. I ended up saying, “I’ve been here for 5 months and I still can’t speak Russian,” instead of saying anything about my summer nostalgia. She said it was normal, but I sensed that she would like to have normal conversations sometimes uninterrupted with “Kak skazat…?” (how do you say).

We arrived at the party and it was really nice at first. I sat between the new brother’s new girlfriend and my host mom. I looked at old family picture albums for a while, politely avoiding conversation and enjoying myself fully. After all the guests arrived, we moved to the table. My new temporary brother filled my glass with way more champagne than the men usually do, and I was very thankful for that brotherly move.

I sat there, sipping and nibbling and I realized that I am quieter at these parties than I have ever been anywhere in my whole life. I love the people that fill the room but as soon as we sit around the long table, I become mute. I’m terrified of speaking to the whole group. I know I have a thick accent, and I use all the wrong pronouns, and half the time the words I settle on aren’t the ones I’m looking for. So, when one of the men asked me to give a toast, my heart wrinkled up and my palms started sweating. For the first time in my life, I’m self conscious about the words that usually spill thoughtlessly from my mouth. Saying no would be an insult to the birthday boy, so I agreed. “To a new family, to new friends, and to a happy birthday. I wish you a year of happiness, of good fortune, and … ha ha ha …” everyone nodded, understanding that I had lots more wishes that I have no clue how to articulate. I gave my best fake smile and swallowed the tears. We all clinked glasses, and suddenly I was feeling anxious and uncomfortable and like I could break down into a fit of crying hysterics if I didn’t think it would be extremely embarrassing. The glasses weren’t even back on the table when the birthday boy’s mother (my host mom’s daughter’s husband’s mother – a wonderful woman who I absolutely adore) went right into the familiar conversation about what good Russian Nikki had. I wouldn’t have cared all that much, I’m used to hearing about what a great guy he is and how clean his language was, but my mom jumped down her throat on my behalf. Then I remembered the conversation we had just had hours before. She snapped, “She’s only been here a few months. She’ll have clean Russian too after TWO YEARS. Just like Nikki.” Then from across the table, someone supplemented, “Nikki spoke fat Kazakh too.” Thanks for that. I’m working on it.

Little kids came and went and I envied how even they speak cleaner Russian than I do, and how I would love to be a lap they can crawl into, but there’s a big wall that separates us from that kind of relationship just yet.

I passed the time at the party thinking about my family at home and my friends. Each time my eyes welled up, I looked up at the ceiling and thought about my favorite recent moments in Kazakhstan. The funniest one being a hilarious sexual comment my host mom made when I was memorizing the word “under.” Number two was taking solo walks in the hills. Three- was the fact that all of the students who came for yesterday’s optional English lesson stayed an extra 45 minutes after it ended just to finish the sentences they were working on and show me pictures of their friends and family. I realized how much I miss the people at home, but also that I have at least three reasons to be here.

I don’t want to leave, but some days are hard. I know to expect this and I have had to cope with this feeling a million times before, but it never gets any easier, that’s all. I just realize more and more how very important those relationships I miss truly are. I remembered that if I leave, I’ll be lost to this village. I want to stay the duration and work at making half of the impact that Nikki did.

First Time

2005-10-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

10.11.05

“I don’t mean to pry,” I asked hesitantly, “but when was your first time?”

“Well,” she replied. “My mom wasn’t home. I ran next door and got my neighbor. He came over. I was here and he was across from me and we worked together. It took us a really long time because neither of us had ever done it before.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“I can’t remember. I was doing it for 27 years in this house, and for many years before that.” She answered.

“Were you as bad as this?” I asked, nodding at the pathetic stream splashing in my bucket. With an utter in each hand, I gripped and pulled and squeezed and squirted.

“I can’t remember.” She laughed. Probably not.

I milked a cow today:

I’ve tried it here once before, but it was just a reach in. I squeezed for the novelty of it. I gave her a little tug or two, but I was nervous I’d hurt her. Now, for months I’ve been watching, and today I was ready to bow down before her sac of cow juice. I situated myself on the little wooden stool with the metal bucket between my knees. My host mom stood behind gripping the tail for me, watching over my shoulder with a guiding eye.

I held the front two nipples in my fists and clenched the way I was taught. Just a thin threadlike stream came out. Nothing like what I have been observing all these weeks. My host mom’s streams are skilled. They are like yarn or spaghetti. Not like mine, which look more like the strings of a spider web. She often holds two utters to a palm. And she can squirt you in the eye, like a Super-Soaker. It’s phenomenal. I guess I have lots of time to master the skill…
Daddy, you’d be proud of your little farm girl.

Dog Update

2005-10-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

10.10.05

Gimley has already doubled in size. She’s eating meat, pilmeni, cheese, and just about anything we’ll give her. She’s got sharp teeth growing and she loves to exercise them on my bare feet. It hurts.

We spoil her rotten and I think our other pets might be jealous. She’s allowed to play in both houses, and that’s AFTER I had the cat kicked out due to allergies. She’s smaller than all of our chickens, and she probably eats more than any of the pets (besides the cow and the pigs).

I gave her a flea bath a few weeks ago and she was “beet”-free for a while (“beet” is the Kazakh word for flea … I don’t know the Russian word). Unfortunately, her big brother has given her the “beet” again. I haven’t yet set a date for the next bath because it’s really cold outside and her small-body shivers make me feel bad, even if it is just for a minute.

My host mom has already taught her to jump up for food. I’m not sure it’s a good thing. I’m teaching her to sit. I only started this morning though, so we haven’t made a whole lot of progress.

Oh and regret to report that I continue to be a puppy toting person. (It’s annoying in America and I think it is downright peculiar in Kazakhstan. Dogs live on chains…not in tote bags.) I carry her all around the house/yard and often carry her on my trips to the water pump. I bring her to the store in my purse sometimes too …but I only brought her to school once...

School

2005-10-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

10.10.05

I am a teacher.

Sometimes there is so much to take in here, that I forget what a big thing my JOB is. And I simply forget that it is a big reason I’m here, and that maybe it’s something worth reporting on. Today, for example, was a really good day. I taught sixth grade about vacations and the eighth grade about injuries. Both classes were especially fun.

I like the younger kids because they aren’t as worried about looking dorky. Today, we talked about planes, trains, and automobiles (…and spaceships… because how ELSE can you get to Mars for a holiday adventure?) I give them arm motions to help remember new vocabulary. And today, within minutes the whole class was smiling, chanting, and making funny noises. They were so excited about saying “chug-a-chug-a-chug-a” that I couldn’t help but laugh right at them. And they REALLY liked it when I imitated a race car driver and changed gears (girls don’t drive cars here). They then described fake adventures to imaginary places using landscape posters of America that I got from the Embassy. (There are a few kids who are terrified of talking out loud, but I’m working on helping them get over that at least in my class.)

The younger kids are not without their problems though. I had a terrible time with a fifth grade class last week. My favorite little boys are in that class. They are charming and brown nosing, but they are terrible. (They remind me of my brother, Mike. That’s probably why I am so entertained.) If Kazakhstan had testing for learning disabilities (hah!), I’m sure these little guys would be off the charts with their ADD … and it’s a big challenge for someone with not a single lesson on classroom management (me). When they are being rowdy, I usually just stand in the front of the room totally silent until the kids notice and start punching each other and ordering a Kazakh version of “shut up.” I’m sure it’s not what they taught you in your American Master’s programs, but whatever. Usually it works. Last week they were unruly though and I couldn’t get them to sit still. Finally I stormed out of the room, needing to make my point (pretending to be mad, but really smiling to myself about how adorable they are), and got my counterpart from the classroom next door. She came in and started reprimanding them in Kazakh, a highly effective skill I have yet to acquire (imagine that: SPEAKING THEIR LANGUAGE). The kids all immediately started tattling on each other and two boys got so mad at each other that they insisted on switching seats. Not the result I was hoping for whatsoever. The whole fun environment was ruined and the rest of the class was equally a challenge because no one wanted to play anymore. They were all so bummed about the scolding. Live and learn, I guess. It’s only October. I’ve already got a new technique in mind that I’ll be testing out on Friday.

The older kids are fun in their own way. I like them because you can actually converse. Today in my eighth grade class, we had funny discussions about everyone’s injuries. I told a few of mine: snowboarding accidents, boating accidents, playground accidents (you all know I’ve got a MILLION!). And they shared theirs: one girl got kicked over while she was milking her cow, another got thrown from a horse, and another got bit by a wild dog. I never get tired of the fact that I live in a village where these things actually happen to people.

Yesterday, I had my weekly “faculty” with the 9th grade girls. Every Monday at 3:00, we meet in my classroom and spend an hour doing an extra lesson. It’s usually only 4 or 6 people and they are some of my best students. One of them speaks brilliant English (her mom is my counterpart) and they are all a pleasure to teach.

For the most part, the older kids are surprisingly respectful (although sometimes really a challenge to entertain because they are teenagers and, hence, automatically sooooo cooool) and I totally enjoy them. I do, however, have a few students who are a pain in the ass. Last week, one of them would not get involved. He deliberately pretends to be completely uninterested, maybe just for the principle of being different or something. Anyway, I told him a million times to get serious and he wouldn’t. He was so blatantly defiant that I got really sick of pleading with him. He had the nerve to insolently talk out loud in a conversation voice, not even pretending to be courteous and whisper (I think I have realized that if you are simply pleasant and polite in my class, and you try just a little bit, you will get away with murder). And I lost it. Finally, in the middle of my instructions I pointed at the door and shouted, “GO.” He looked at me puzzled. “GO,” I shouted. He sat, stunned and confused. I walked over to his desk and shut his book. I shoved it in his backpack and pointed at the door again. “I’m sorry Miss. Margaret,” he said in the most perfect English I have ever heard from his mouth. He was practically shivering. “No you’re not,” I replied. He immediately put his pen to his paper and pretended to know what we were actually doing. I took that book out from under him too and shoved it in his bag also. Then I picked up his book bag and said, “I’m not joking,” in Russian, as I literally tossed it into the hallway. I felt soooo bad because I HATED teachers like that in high school, and it actually took me a minute to get my brain back on track. But he left class and I made my point. (Made it so well that he didn’t come back yesterday…oops…) I hate intentionally making people feel bad or embarrassed but here it seems necessary to be taken seriously.

After class, I ran next door to another English teacher and started telling her the story. My counterpart walked up and I was forced to start back at the beginning. They both started laughing. Ardak said, “I will take that class. They are bad.” I argued, “No! No! I can HANDLE it. I just was wondering if I’m allowed to do that: throw kids out?” “No,” she answered … laughing even harder. “We do not send them out.” Oops. I laughed too. “I don’t think we can do that in America either. I just panicked,” I explained.

I heard that Nicole, my volunteer friend living way in the North, threw a book at a kid’s head this week. At least I didn’t do that. I KNOW that’s frowned upon. (Judging by the two of us, maybe Peace Corps should re-think their training time management and delve a little deeper into classroom punitive instruction?)

The whole RULE thing is funny too because I have no clue what they are. I missed the point at the last teachers’ meeting that there is a “keep the classroom door shut” rule and I got in trouble for that one. The school military man (this ambiguous guy who always roams around the place in Army fatigues) slammed my door shut one morning during an excited rendition of “HEAD AND SHOULDERS KNEES AND TOES, KNEES AND TOES.” My bad. We were being pretty loud. And today I sat through another 20 minute meeting and only captured the themes “journal,” “internet,” and “sugar beets” (what the kids have been missing school for almost a week and a half to go harvest). I have no clue what those new rules might be and probably never will. Instead I spent the whole time admiring all the ladies’ shoes in the room and trying to decide which styles I might be able to tolerate for the winter, as I need to buy a new pair soon. Oh well. At least I was productive.

Birthday Parties

2005-10-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

10.09.05

I attended two birthday parties this weekend. They both happened to be to rather small family gatherings and I felt honored to be invited. It’s always an awesome thing to be welcomed to observe their traditions. They don’t do the cake and candles here. And they don’t sing “Happy Birthday.” But celebrations in Kazakhstan are always nice.

On Friday evening, it was the birthday of my host mom’s grandson, Seriosha. He’s in the sixth grade so I guess that makes him eleven-ish –It seems that I forgot to ask the most obvious question of all.

(As a gift, I gave him a CD with American Rock music because he came to our house one day with his cousin and his friend to help my host mom haul a giant stack of hay to the cow manger, dragging it on a tarp and additionally making a million trips with the wheelbarrow. That day, they listened repeatedly to an old Metallica CD that the last volunteer left in the radio. They tested out a few other disks but couldn’t find anything else to their liking, so I figured I’d try to help out the collection.)

The mood was pretty off upon our arrival that night because the littlest boy in the house, just a half hour before we got there, was attacked by their dog. He’s only two years old and so he’s delicate. The dog mutilated his face and no one could stop worrying about him. He was still crying, and his sister –who, as the culture demands, is practically a mother to him- was lying in her bed still hysterical due to the magnitude of the wounds. His mom, my host mom’s daughter, was so calm. She held him in her arms and rocked him peacefully. As the evening progressed, everyone’s mood improved. Someone brought him a juice box and I let him play with the contents of my purse (which, if I may add a quick shout-out to Pops, included one durable flashlight that all of Koilyk envies). Soon he was laughing and his sister was stirring in the bedroom.

We moved to the table, where we found a very typical dinner party arrangement: lots of shot glasses and liquor bottles, and even more food. The men immediately began filling the glasses, and the women filled the plates. Seriosha, on account of the fact that it was indeed his day, was allowed to enter the room for a mere three minutes while someone raised a glass and wished him a healthy year. He smiled sheepishly and hurried back into the room where the kids were hidden. We ate tons of meat and starch, and only stopped intermittently to take shots (although I stuck to champagne sipping as I had a lesson to teach the following morning). I laughed when everyone else did and I tried really hard to keep up with their jolly exchanges, although my brain isn’t fast enough for their rapid fire family conversations.

When the bellies started getting full and the forks slowed to a halt, all the men excused themselves from the table to go out and smoke. The women stayed, drinking chai and telling jokes. I thought that soon enough, we’d all stand up and help clear the table, but …oh no… after about 20 minutes, all the men returned to the table and they brought out another gigantic dish. Monte. Yeah. A mountain of it. I think the only sentence I actually announced to the whole party was, “Oh!? I thought she was kidding about more food.” They all laughed and patted their full bellies. Some even undid their buttons to make more room. They continued to pour vodka and tea for another half hour or so. I couldn’t believe it. Soon enough, though, we made our way to the door. We bundled up in our sweaters and headed into the night. I waved at Seriosha, momentarily reminded that we were celebrating him despite that his company wasn’t really a part of our gathering.

The party on Sunday, was that of my friend Saule’s “small son,” as she refers to him. I think he just turned one. Saule is Kazakh. She is a third grade English and Kazakh teacher at my school. Her mom sells apples on the roadside and her father used to be a police man. They all live together, with Saule’s younger sister, two sons, and her husband. Their home is about 5 houses down the road from me. I go there weekly to help Saule and her sister with English, and just to visit.

Their party was just a little different. For example, the people speak Kazakh in that house, not Russian and their cheeks are brown, not pink. This gathering was just the family and 3 of her parent’s friends. I was the first guest to arrive, so I played with the little boys and their new toys (I brought the older one crayons and the little one I bought a toy car). As they prepared the table and the rest of the guests arrived, I flipped through a very old photo album with Saule’s sister (she’s in the eighth grade).

Homemade “National” breads and cheeses were strewn upon the table like a blanket, around the liquor centerpiece. We all sat down and, again, the men began cracked open the numerous bottles. Saule’s husband picked up my shot glass and smiled. “Cognac.” It was more of a notice than a question. “Oh! …uh…ok,” I replied, only half surprised. Her father came over to my seat, at the head of the table, and slapped two giant spoonfuls of plof onto my plate. (It is customary to serve yourself but everyone seems to show me the utmost hospitality. Maybe they think I’m shy.) I was asked to give the first toast of the night. I was honored. “umm… well…,” I began so gracelessly, “I wish you, how do you say ‘HEALTH’? …oh right… and, how do you say ‘HAPPINESS’? …oh yeah, thanks… um, and a really good year. To new friends! Cheers!” Everyone clinked and swallowed and the marathon they call dinner began.

The longevity of this meal, I found even more amusing than Friday’s display. I was repeatedly reprimanded for only eating one plateful and only sipping my cognac instead of guzzling with the rest of them. (I thought it would be bad form if I barfed all over the beautiful table arrangement, so I refrained from taking big swigs.) Again, the men removed themselves for a smoke and the household women did indeed clear some of the plates. (Phew.) They washed the spoons and forks and the dishes. And then the men returned. With their return, I noticed a comical thing taking place. Suddenly the women were replacing the clean dishes before my eyes. They put the sparkling silverware, still wet, back before each guest. They refilled the main serving dishes and …DING DING… round two commenced. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t we JUST do this already? Are we seriously doing it all over again?

I can’t tell you much about the subject of discussion because I didn’t understand a word said, except for the occasional laughter and subsequent paraphrased Russian translation. They kept asking me if I was bored because they knew I couldn’t comprehend a syllable. The truth is I wasn’t bored for a minute. I love watching the way they enjoy each other. I had fun watching the men get drunker and drunker… and the old women just existing in their mystical Kazakh way. The little boys crept around the floor, climbing on my legs and the big one sneaking me high fives. (They got reprimanded for “bothering” me, but I love it and always assure the family that it’s OKAY!)

When the party ended, I was given a bag of goodies and Saule walked me home. Her older son (he’s two), came along too. He likes to hold my hand. When we got to my gate, she thanked me for being her friend. She thanked me for coming. She thanked me for helping her with English. And went on and on with the thank you’s. It’s surprising to me, that she is so thankful because I think I am the one who owes the thank you’s. She shows me far more than ordinary kindness.

Gotta love the birthdays.

* Just a side-note … Gift-giving is a big deal in Kazakhstan. Every time you go to someone’s house, you are expected to bring chocolates or some kind of a small gift, even when it’s not a birthday. People often re-gift and it’s not as frowned upon as in America. I’ve been given raw meat, jam, lots of cookies, stale cheese…you name it…
Also, every time you leave a party, you are given a bag of goodies to take with you. They fill you up during the feast so you’ll have no room for dessert, and then they give you a big bag filled with cakes, cookies, and little candies to have later. I saw this first at the wedding I went to, and thought it was odd, as I was unaccustomed. When I experienced it a second time at a memorial lunch honoring the death of a family friend, I was again taken aback because I felt it strange to take colorful sweets from a solemn day. Anyway, it’s how they do things here.