We still only have Dial Up at our site, but I have prepared this at home and saved it to a flash drive so that I would not take too long on the computer and could write more to all of you (LUCKY!) I have been in Kazakhstan for a week and have already fallen in love…with Kazakhstan ! It is SO beautiful here! The view outside my window looks out to mountains where I can see snow at the VERY tops of them! I will upload pictures when we get DSL, which is promised by next week Wednesday, but that doesn’t REALLLY mean Wednesday, it means whenever someone gets to it, no one here really follows a schedule, which is so abnormal for us Americans, but we all seem to be adjusting okay…although who of us can live without facebook!

My days here are very LONG. I go to Language training from 8am-12:30pm. Then I have one hour for lunch and we have sessions in the afternoon where we learn the ins and outs of Peace Corps. What is expected of us, what we should expect, etc. and we get shots aka: random vaccinations. Lunch is probably my favorite time of day. Host families pack lunches for volunteers and it generally includes some form of vegetable and / or fruit and leftovers from dinner and possibly a boiled egg or two, AND definitely bread. I have learned that bread is a very special thing here and should NEVER be thrown away! I didn’t learn that until my 3rd day here and unfortunately had already thrown some away L OOPS! At lunch time all the Community Development Volunteers (there are 20 of us) gather and trade lunch items, like grade school…it’s pretty much a great time! Leftovers are utilized here, we throw NOTHING away. One time I had Monte, which has actually become my favorite meal here for dinner, then breakfast, then my mom packed it for lunch and we had it for dinner again! Good thing I liked it! We certainly never have breakfast food for breakfast, but rather leftovers.

We have Chai a lot here…I’m not sure how often, but definitely with every meal and if someone drops by and after people get out of the shower / banya (Google that and know that I refused banya) I still have a hard time figuring out the schedule, but I don’t really think there is one; Kazakhstanis don’t schedule anything and it is not uncommon to stop by someone’s house unannounced. The people of Kazakhstan are SO nice! They know who is an American and will talk broken English saying “Hello, how are you?” I generally smile and speak my best Russian, which is just about as good as their best English. All cars here are taxis and I am told it is safe, I had to take one today to the Bazaar, but it was with my translator, I would be too nervous to do it by myself and it costs 100 tenge, which is a little less than $1, but my PC salary is very small. I live near the bus stop and it only costs .40 tenge…much more manageable, although my language skills are not great enough to take the bus quite yet…I am learning lots everyday though!


There are some things I already miss from home…some of the other PCT (Peace Corps Trainees) and I were talking about wheat thins and cereal today! I miss hot water! Unlike some of the other volunteers I have a home with no hot water and actually no shower! Can you say “bucket bath?” They boil water for me so that I can bathe!