i think i'm onto something

It was hard to get up this morning. The snow and ice and darkness of the early morning apparently have settled in for good, and when I weigh the benefits and pleasures of getting dressed and braving the dark cold morning against staying under my blue floral comforter, the bed is SO much more attractive. But I have a job to do and responsibilities to fulfill. Yesterday was our first day back from a week-long fall break and today it is obvious that fall is over. Of course, the locals warn that last year’s winter was mild, that this year will be more severe, that -5C (22F) in early November isn’t really winter yet. Wait till the -20C (-4F) that should come next week, they say. Having forfeited my breakfast for ten more minutes in the warmth of my bed, I walk out my code-protected steel door and I take a breath of cool air as I prepare for my walk to school. The moon is still high and reflecting brightly the sun that is still a two hour rotation away. The puddles of water and accompanying rivers of mud that had flooded our sidewalks after the last rainfall have all frozen, making the path more dangerous but much less dirty. I look forward to a quiet commute to school which I can use to prepare for the day by waking up and pulling together my thoughts. I see my counterpart on the opposite street corner and we take the twelve-minute stroll to school together. She talks about the weather and how warm it is. I tell her how crazy she is for such a statement. This particular conversation is one of our favorites, having repeated it time and again through last winter, and now it feels comfortable and natural. I know what she’ll say and how she’ll chuckle and shake her head at my response. It makes sense that I feel this comfortable and at ease in my work and relationships here in Petropavlovsk, as this last week marked our completion of one full year at site. I think it’s important to reflect a bit at these landmarks as I did at three and six (and kind of at nine) months.

I’ll be going back to the US about a year from now. And although I have gained immense knowledge about Kazakhstan, I’m not in a position to make the wide-sweeping, all-encompassing statements that pop into my head when I think I’ve finally understood something about the culture here. We find it very easy to make categories and stereotypes in which to place people in order to understand the unknown or just to simplify the world around us. But in the face of real people, true stories and personal relationships, those broad stroking, overarching labels don’t quite hold up. Sometimes I want to say that older people remember the Soviet Union fondly as a time when life was better while younger people see it as an elaborate failure. But I’ve talked now with a young woman who thinks communism the USSR should have won the cold war and that it’s a shame that Kazakhstan is economically tied to the US. I want to say that all ethnic Russians love to drink, whatever the reason. But I’ve met a young man who doesn’t drink alcohol at all because he is a strict Lutheran. I would love to declare that all non-Kazakhs in this area resent the Kazakh government and control of public office positions and would rather move back to Russia, but a few of my own Russian students want to be Kazakh language teachers or professional dombra players.

The point is, I’m still learning. I can speak decent Russian, teach decent English, and honestly call Petropavlovsk my home, but I can’t categorize people into the little labels that are ready for them in my head. And I guess that’s what I’ve come to learn in the last year: all the hours studying and all the effort put into adjusting to life in a foreign country as an outsider won’t explain the millions of peculiarities and individualities of a culture. All I can do is go on living in that collection of peculiarities that makes up my community, recognizing my own individuality and discerning my place within it.