NKO in the house

Greetings and salutations from Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, the capital of the North Kazakhstan Oblast. As I write this I am sitting in the living room of my new home in Petropavlovsk, realizing that I finally have some time to sit and process the whirlwind that has been the last week. Let me catch you up. Last week was my last week in Uzunagash and I spent most of it in Almaty. On Saturday we had a large get-together in the city with most of the soon-to-be volunteers, renting 2 apartments and sleeping like sardines on the floors, just to be able to see each other once more before being scattered across this vast country. The weekend went very well, except that I came out of it without my camera. Somewhere in the scuffle it went its separate way and I have yet to hear from it. All good things come to and end, right? Moving on, we had our last hub day in Almaty on Tuesday, where we got our bank cards which PC charges up every month with our living allowance. For the first time during training I felt like I had money (that is until I had to give %60 to my host family for rent and food). Wednesday was our last language class, and we practiced a Russian song to perform for swearing-in, exchanged gifts with each other and our LCFs and TCF. It’s definitely going to be a change of pace to not have 4 or 5 hours of Russian language every day with 3 other Americans. Thursday was a field trip to the Art and History museums in Almaty, where we saw the replica of the famous “Golden Man” statue (Wikipedia it if you’re interested) and some pretty neat Kazakh modern art. That night we went to dinner at Alex’s host family’s place and ate, drank, toasted and laughed a lot. It was a going-away party coupled with Mary’s 23rd birthday party. Friday morning we got up at 6am in the dark and made our way to the bus in the first snow down south. Swearing-in was at a banquet hall in Almaty and lasted about two hours. All the training-site school counterparts and host families were invited. The US ambassador to Kazakhstan and a representative of the Kazakhstani Ministry of Education made speeches, each village sang a song or made a slide show of their PST experience, we said an oath in chorus and became official Peace Corps volunteers. At the reception following the ceremony we all ate goodies – I ate horse for the first time. It was cooked in a sausage-like form, and rumor has it that the outside of the sausage is in fact the horse’s colon. It was pretty good – it tasted pretty similar to roast beef, maybe less chewy and a little sweeter. On the same plate was horse tongue, but I decided I’d take my culinary adventures one body part at a time. We said our goodbyes to most of the volunteers there at the banquet hall, knowing that we won’t see most people until March for In-Service Training, and got back on the bus to spend our last night in Uzunagash. Everything with my host family went well these last two weeks, and we had a nice parting where they gave me a traditional Kazakh hat (I now have 3 from various people stacked in my room). Saturday morning we made our way to the train (10-12 of us were all on the same northbound train that ends in Petro) and racked up another 31 hours on my travel log – I’m up to 93. Sunday night I got into Petro (or as Saule says, I’ve fulfilled my “second coming”) and Saule’s husband took me immediately to my new home, across the street from Saule’s apartment. We ate a light, late dinner, and I went nearly straight to bed.

My new host family: consists of Natalya, the home economics teacher at school #8 where I work, and her 18 year old daughter, Marina. There is another daughter, Elena, who lives and works in Connecticut. They are both pretty short, very blond Russian ladies. They speak Russian all the time, which is helpful for me, who only studied Russian for the last 3 months. The apartment is on the third floor of a 5 story building, right in the center of town. I’m about a 12 minute walk from school, and very close to all the other things (bank, supermarket, post office) that I need. The apartment is pretty small (2 bedrooms) but there is a shower and washing machine, which makes me pretty happy. They are already more open and talkative than my Uzunagash family. They also seem to understand better that I can fend for myself (cooking, cleaning, buying things I need, getting places on my own) and don’t seem to need to hold my hand everywhere for their peace of mind. They still show a concern for my well being, but it’s not overwhelming like in some other volunteers’ families. I definitely think I’ll enjoy living here. If I get my hands on another camera, I’ll be sure to put up pictures.

Monday was the last day of the kids’ fall break, so we didn’t have class. Instead, I slept in till 9 (that might not happen again for a while), planned Tuesday’s lessons with Saule Sairanovna, went on a few errands with Natalya and Mike (University volunteer), drank real coffee (a rarity in Kazakhstan – everyone drinks tea or instant coffee), got a haircut (and it didn’t turn out as a mullet – Hooray!), played some guitar and started unpacking my massive amount of belongings (I don’t remember bringing this much stuff). For the PC office in Almaty we have to fill out a massive site locator form with every possible shred of information they could ever need (hospital, police, phone numbers, addresses, possible helicopter landing sites, etc), which I just finished, and I’m glad I won’t have to do again.

This morning came too early, waking up at 7 am and getting to the school by 7:50. I helped teach 6 lessons (3 classes each with two classes back to back, like block scheduling in the US), and I was definitely tired and hungry by the end of it. The first two lessons I did with my fly unzipped, which no one pointed out, but I’m sure everyone noticed. What a great first impression. I just wanted them to know that I’m open. Bad joke, sorry. Both Saule and I started the first class on our feet, moving around, and spent most of the 6th either sitting or leaning on a desk. It’s definitely tiring work – but I didn’t sign up for easy. Saule has 32 lessons per week, which is 24 hours teaching time, 32 hours of classroom time. Add to that 6 hours of planning time, English clubs and secondary projects and Philip becomes one busy boy – but I didn’t sign up for easy. I got to teach the word “challenge” to my 11th grade class today and as an example could say truthfully, “Teaching English in Kazakhstan isn’t easy, it’s a challenge.” 11th graders are the oldest students I get, and they are on Tuesdays. Once my schedule gets set I’ll be sure to post it, but as far as I know, Tuesday is 11th grade (3 classes, 6 lessons) and Wednesday is 8th grade (2 classes, 4 lessons). We’re playing hangman and taboo in class tomorrow, so I’m pretty excited. I was so proud of Saule when she said, “Hey, let’s play a game where the students try to get each other to guess a word without using that word.” “That’s great,” I said. “We call it Taboo.”

Russian is slowly marching on. I learn words as I need them, which I guess is the most practical way to learn a language – for example, last night we ate rabbit for dinner (another first for me – tastes like chicken) so I learned the word krolik. I also found frozen stir-fry vegetables in the supermarket, which is exciting considering the lack of fresh fruits and veggies in the winter here. Natalya had never heard of it, so we bought a bag and are going to give it a try this week. It’ll be great I’m sure.

The weather has turned pretty cold, but I’m still plenty warm in my coat and hat. The worst part of it is that when I’m walking around outside and then go inside somewhere my glasses fog up pretty bad. But in the scheme of things, that’s not such a drastic issue. We’ll figure something out.

That’s it for now. These next couple weeks will be a process of getting settled in, finding my niche, meeting people, and really trying to get on top of my Russian now that I don’t have structured classes anymore. The mailing address I posted after site visit should still work for now until I find something else out.