Today was a busy day.  We went to a friendship day festival at one of the schools in my village.  SO CUTE!  The kids were assigned different countries around the world and they had to dress up in traditional costumes and do dances.  They were really cute and of course we represented the US.  For these type of events it is important that we sort of "do enough" stuff in order to participate.  So we sang Woody Guthrie's (This land is your land...) song.  It was good but we all were so busy that it was difficult to memorize the words.  But we plowed through a few verses.  We also made a short speech....did a chant about the US and Kazakhstan being friends.....then we played a country song and 5 of us girls line danced.  SO much fun.  And most importantly they loved it. 

I was supposed to teach today but when it was time to go the classes had been all switched around and they were done really early.  Usually if there is a holiday they just either cancel classes or cut the time back in order make it a half day.  So I talked to my friend Courtney outside of her house for a while.  Then these little girls came over and started talking to us.....in Russian of course.  We sort of communicated but then we started playing a game where we pulled things out of my purse and named them.  Haha.  Eventually I pulled out my markers and paper.  Then we drew pictures for each other and that was fun.  The next thing I know one of the girls is ripping out fistfulls of grass and throwing them up in the air all over us!  We tell her in Russian that it is raining and they laugh and laugh.  She does it for about 15 minutes.  Then we decide after a while that we should split up.  So I walk home and the girls follow me.  One girl runs home and brings back a bunch of pictures for me to have.  They are drawings and watercolors of outside scenes....I think she was 10 years old.  Then the other 5 year old goes home and tells her family that she was talking to an American.....they all came running out to say hi.  Then the last 7 year old girl and I walk to towards my house but when we get to the intersection where I go right and she goes left....she insists that I go to her house.  I don't know exactly what she is saying but I recognize the word for house....and eat...and candy.  So I just go with it.  I wait outside in the yard and she is inside for a few seconds.  The next thing I know....she comes out with a fist full of candy for me and her grandmother comes out and says hi.  She gives me the candy and then I tell her goodbye.  It was the best spontaneous afternoon ever!!!!

Megan

Kazakhstan Fun Fact:

My class on Saturday was interesting because I was totally derailed from the "schedule" which is an expected factor of Kazakhstan schools.  I was scheduled to teach at 4:00 and then when I was on my way to the school at 1:50 I got a text that said my class has been moved to 2:15.  So I had no time to make my visuals or finish my lesson plan.  The reason it was moved was because the woman who is in charge of the Educational Program or some high up position came to observe me (from the Peace Corps).  Originally my class was at the same time as one of my fellow volunteers.  Anyway, so I sort of had to wing it and I grabbed a bunch of visuals from the pile and made it through the class.  It went well but I was kind of surprised that that class was a lot better than the very first class I taught.  Good sign I think.

So....I am now pretty familiar with what it is like to live with chickens and roosters because there are about 25 of them outside of my bedroom window.  Common misconception: Roosters do not just crow in the morning when the sun rises.  In fact, they crow about every 20 - 30 seconds between the 5 roosters that live across from me.  There is constant crowing.  Do roosters crow?  Anyway, there is also constant mateing.  I don't know how to spell that for sure....or if that is the right term.  But the point is that they are very aggressive.  Like the males will jump on top of the females (while the females are eating) and kind of pin down their wings with their claws?  Sometimes the other roosters get mad and then claw at the male while he is trying to mate with a female???  The whole process is very unsettling for me.  So I have learned something at least.

We had to walk from one village to another by foot on the highway because of the bus system on Sundays (not worth explaining in further detail).  But on the way back we saw a guy passed out in the grass.  For those of you who know about my "naked guy" story this is a parallel experience.  Except...this guy had clothes on and I am in a different part of the planet.  Anyway, the internal struggle was that my instinct told me that I should of course go see if he is okay and call the police....much like my reaction with the naked guy we found that one time.  But this is TOTALLY different.  It is more dangerous for me to try and help someone like that than to just walk away.  The guy could hurt me or something like that.....someone could see me near him and associate me with him which means my reputation could be tainted (and that is really important around here...reputation) ... or if I called the police I would have to fill out paperwork and be questioned and speak to them IN RUSSIAN.  In conclusion, I was not able to be a good citizen and try to help this guy because it could have been a bad situation.

Strange things happen every day.  Also, today was one of those days where I craved a lot of sweets.  I hate when that happens because there is sooooo much candy

Megan

Kazakhstan Fun Fact:  There seems to be a lot more security here than in the US in terms of what a person is allowed to take pictures of.  We were told to not take pictures of basically any government building, major store / shopping area, airport, bridges, train station, banks, schools, the big outdoor market thing......

In the Peace Corps application and training process, we are continually reminded that we will be living and working in circumstances with "limited resources."  This is what limited resources has meant for me in Kazakhstan:

1. When I have the luxery of blowing my nose with actual tissues, I wouldn't dare us the entire Kleenex - tear it in half of course.  This way you can at least blow your nose twice.

2. I brought those Starbucks instant coffees that are prepackaged for 8 oz of boiling water.  I only use 1/3 of the pack for 1 8 oz cup of water because 3 cups of coffee are better than 1.

3.  When I receive a package I am excited to cut up the cardboard and use it for teaching in the classroom.  Durable materials are hard to come by.

4.  If I come across a paperclip or butterfly clip I take it! 

5.  When we eat lunch together we trade candy for fruit. 

6.  You are nice to the people that were thoughtful enough to pack hand sanitizer because it is really difficult to find. 

7. Sometimes toilet paper is optional - or you ran out.


I will learn about my site placement in the next few weeks.  That also means that I will have my new address soon!  Yay!  This week the big wigs are coming by to observe us and decide which counterparts we will work best with at which school.  Lots of pressure....but it is fine.

bye for now,

Megan

Kazakhstan Fun Fact:  There are no hall passes or detention in the school system here.

The weather here is finally shifting to spring.  The sun is hot, the wind is cool, and neighbors are gardening / cleaning up their land after the snow has melted - lots of trash burning.  This is good new for me because I think that the exercise plan I am going to implement while here at site is going for walks around my village during the day.  I imagine listening to my ipod and enjoying the "fresh" air.  One important thing about being in another place under these circumstances is making sure you are doing something to keep your body moving.  Some sort of exercise or activity.  When we get to our permanent sites I assume that being more involved in the community sports etc. will be easier.    

Don't send mail after this coming week!  Wait until I move to my permanent site.  Mail takes a while to get here so if you don't send it sometime next week then wait until the end of May and I can get you my new address.

On the rollercoaster of culture shock....I am on the upswing FINALLY.  This week was much better even though I was sick.  Since I spend ALL DAY with my training group doing language training, technical training, teaching, english clubs, etc... we all are sort of sick at the same time.  I have recovered from my sinus infection / cold and am feeling much better.  I didn't miss anything because of it and now I feel that I have an ability to start memorizing again.  : )  I did a lot of preventative things to avoid getting too sick like taking lots of vitamins, drinking water, sleep, etc.  That was a good strategy that I would recommend.

We have a new albino rabbit!  I don't know if I have mentioned this before in the blog??  Anyway, the rabbit is really cute and SO SOFT.  My host family got it for my youngest host sister.  It is currently in its green cage behind me eating breakfast.  Also, last night the cat slept with me almost all night which was nice.  She likes to have skin to skin contact with me and I woke up with her laying on my pillow above my head. 

Megan

Kazakhstan Fun Fact:  There is typically no make up work given for absences (sometimes students will be absent for 2 weeks), especially in villages.

I suppose one thing to mention is the structure of my family.  I live in a nice middle class home in a village.  My family of 4 has one Turkish parent and one Russian parent.  I was glad to see that in Kazakhstan there are many families of "mixed" family origins.  Something else I learned is that people in Kazakhstan do not classify themselves as Asian or by their skin color.  It seems that in the US we categorize people by geography or skin color but here what really matters is your family origin.  Turkish, Polish, Russian, etc.  So they know I am American and what state my family is from but they want to know where we are "from."  So then I have to explain the loose coctail of German, Irish, English, Cherokee or whatever I am.  That doesn't really translate well because I don't have any connections to those cultures or languages.  So that is one difference. 

The dynamic of my family is very loud and passionate.  It is sort of like the way Americans portray large "Italian" families on TV.  The gender roles here are strongly linked to the origin of the family.  For example, the daughters in my family have a bit more freedom because they have a Turkish and Russian parent.  It appears to be that girls who have only Turkish parents might have a stricter set of freedoms or limitations.  Also, we don't have a grandmother living in the house.  I have heard that in that case the grandmother (maybe grandfather) has the final say in terms of letting the daughters go out or whatever.  This is of course only an observation and not a rigid fact.  In all families that I have seen thus far, the women of the house do all cooking, serving, refilling, cleaning, laundry, and food preparation.  I have heard from locals that there are some parts of Kazakhstan that have a more equally distributed view of the household chores between men and women.  But what I am used to seeing is men being served, given seconds, and their dishes are washed by the women of the house.  As a guest, a long term guest, I have a strange in between role.  As a guest I am treated more like a male because I am a guest.  I am served, my dishes are cleaned, washed, etc.  But as a "long term guest" I try....and am sort of allowed....to do my share of housework.  As time passes I am able to be more helpful.  Basically I handwash any clothes I want to hand wash / dry, I iron my own clothes, prepare my breakfast / lunch sometimes, I serve my own food / beverages sometimes, I do the dishes in secracy when I am the only one in the house or early in the morning.  But I am trying to sync into their routine

My family has a big German Shepherd dog and it loves to play fetch - but didn't have a ball.  So when we went into town today I got a tennis ball kind of thing.  Well.....the second I gave it to him he got really excited but didn't actually want to fetch.  He just wanted to try and eat the ball.  So hopefully he liked it but didn't actually ruin the ball 5 seconds after I gave it to him. 

That's all for now....Megan

Kazakhstan Fun Fact:

When in class, you never "point" to the board or visual aid with your pointer finger.  You have to use a "pointer."  For example, a pen, ruler, etc. 

Today I have an unexpected 3 hour break at home.  Yay!  I am pretty sick right now actually ... a head cold / allergy mess.  It will go away soon but it makes it difficult for me to focus in class and pay attention long enough to learn something. 

I also wanted to note that I am intentionally not interacting with my friends and family from the states very much because of the immense importance of developing new relationships here in Kazakhstan.  Part of my survival here is to create new friendships and safety nets within this community instead of trying to lean on people thousands of miles away.  So...just to clarify.

The reason I don't have any photos uploaded is really due to pure laziness on my part....they will come soon enough. 

One thing that is different in this culture is that there are not really any uses for to-do lists.  At least not in the sense that I have ever used them before.  What was suggested to me instead are 'have-done' lists.  This means that what I have done within a day in Kazakhstan is a seemingly lazy day in the US.  For example, if I am trying to do my homework at night and my family has guests over for dinner that lasts 4 hours....it would be considered a productive use of my time to have the 4 hour dinner / conversations with the family instead of saying no and finishing my homework.  This is sort of an interesting concept to get used to for my personality.  One of the reasons that to-do lists don't work here is because the idea of really sticking to a predetermined schedule does not really exist here.  Times, places, topics etc ... can change over and over again throughout a day and it is up to me to deal with the change.  No matter how much I want to stick to the original plan. 

Dogs:

This is a difficult subject to discuss in terms of the treatment and experience I have with dogs here in Kazakhstan.  My understanding is that traditionally in this "part of the world" dogs are sort of thought of as lower class - not man's best friend.  I also have gathered that it seems that referring to someone or people as a dog is considered derogatory.  This sets up a difficult situation to watch.  I already described that dogs are running wild in the streets all the time.  Several dogs live outside or have a home but are let loose in the village at night.  I have seen dead dogs on the side of the road (presumably from cold or starvation), my friend saw a dog eating another dead dog on his way to school, I see them out in the freezing cold snow, and I have seen dogs with broken legs hobbling around.  People don't feed animals outside the way they do in the US.  These outside dogs eat burnt trash from trash pits, other dead animals, and when they are out at night I am assuming they hunt in packs for food.  No leash law - to say the least.  This has been a huge culture shock for me and I would advise anyone with a big sensativity to this to brace yourself. 

There has only been one time here in Kazakhstan where I thought that something we were eating at the dinner table was going to make me vomit.  We had fish the other night.  Not frozen breaded fish sticks....but fresh fish on the bone.  There werу two types of fish: one was sort of grilled in a skillet and the other was raw.  And by raw I mean the head and tail were still on it....and it had eyes.  So the way you eat the raw fish is to rip off the head ... pull out the vein / scrape out the black bloody gross part, and then eat it.  Plus spitting the bones out.  WHAT?  I thought I was going to be sick.  I had never seen fish eaten like that before and they really loved it.  It was a normal meal for sure.  It was a line that I couldn't cross.  There was not a single cell inside of me that had any desire to put that fish into my mouth.  The good part was....that the fish looked / smelled really fresh.  And the grilled fish meat I ate was really really good and fresh.  Anywho, another culture shock moment at the dinner table.   


Kazakhstan Fun Fact:
There is no stubstitute teacher system here.  If a teacher doesn't come to work one day then the students either go to another class or the studens lead the lesson themselves. 

Culture Shock!!!

It seems necessary for me to explain how the roads are constructed here.  It was one of the most "shocking" things that I noticed and have continued to experience since my arrival. 

Let me describe the streets here in my village:

-dozens and dozens of pot holes beyond belief.  Some of them are several feet across and inches deep. 

-the road itself is a combination of dirt/mud, rocks, sort of asphalt, and trash.  The erosion is like nothing I have ever seen before!  When it rains or the snow melts there is literally a rushing river of water flowing down the street. 

-no lines in the road to indicate a right or left lane

-no stop signs

-no signs in general of any sort.  This means that there is an implied yielding system to intersections / pedestrians.

-no traffic lights

- no sidewalks.  So as a pedestrian you walk in the road and when you hear a car coming you make your way into the "grassy side of the road" area until the car passes.  If the car wants you to move they just honk at you and sometimes almost hit you.  Haha

-the main roads have pot holes too even though they are paved.  And it seems like the reason that lines in the road (or lanes in general) won't work is because the path of the car is determined by dodging pot holes.  So you sort of snake around them and try not to hit cars.  And that is a loose term.  You literally can drive in any way you want to as long as you don't hit another car.  It makes me nervous....to say the least.

The view from my window is interesting.  It is a chicken house?  Or coop?  I don't know...whatever chickens live in.  Anyway, I wake up every morning to the call to prayer as well as roosters.  There are probably 15-20 hens and roosters in this particular neighbers yard.  I watch them walk around and eat and "mate" or whatever is going on with that.  That has been an interesting thing to get used to.  The sort of "farm" element to being here. 

We have an indoor / outdoor cat that lives in my house and I found out that she is pregnant with kittens!  I probably won't be here to see them be born (which is fine) and I found out she was pregnant because she threw up in my room.  My family then informed me that it was morning sickness.  I also have a theory that it could be the beef and potato dinner leftovers that were in her cat dish the night before.  VERY common to feel animals leftover human food of all sorts. 

One thing that I am having a hard time adjusting to mentally, is the fact that even though we have an indoor toilet with running water - you can't flush toilet paper.  For some reason, it is really hard for me to get used to having to wrap my toilet paper and throw it in the trashcan in the bathroom.  It feels more comfortable to just go outside in the squat toilet and toss it down the hole or whatever is supposed to be done.  This was sort of an unexpected mental block.  Haha.

The last thing I will say is that living in this culture requires a person to be very thoughtful.  That is the best way I can summarize the necessary mentality.  You have to be thoughtful about what you are wearing, how you speak, what you say, who you are speaking to, how clean your shoes are, if your clothes are ironed, etc.  ESPECIALLY as a Peace Corps affiliated person.  I am constantly watched and things about me are noted. 

Now I will spend my day off cleaning, studying, ironing, and watching the snow.

Megan

Kazakhstan Fun Fact: Rules of Flowers
1. Funeral - even number of flowers
2. Everything Else - odd number of flowers

red - love
white - innocence
yellow

It has been almost 3 full weeks now since my arrival in Kazakhstan.  One thing that I have noticed is that this has been the hardest week for me so far.  I think that the amount of information that we have to absorb combined with the language training is so extensive.  Today is actually the first day where I feel that my language skills are sort of locking in.  We have been introduced to a lot of things at this point but now we have numbers and days and time.  This allows me to make actual sentences which is really helpful!  My host family is really really nice and they seem to genuinely care about how I am adjusting. 

I accidentally overslept today.  It seemed that I turned off my alarm in my sleep....which happens to me every once in a while.  But it made the whole day feel off.  Now I am done with school for the day and have the house to myself.  I presume that we will eat dinner and drink tea... then work on Russian.....shower....clean my room.  I am feeling a lot of pressure from all of this information and learning.  It is manageable but difficult. 

Tomorrow is a presidential election in Kazakhstan.  I have officially been instructed to avoid any polling areas and political demonstrations. 

Kazakhstani Fun Fact:  The Russian / Kazakhstani calendar begins on Monday.  The US calendar begins on Sunday.