Camp: week 1

Well, summer camp has begun!! Although instead of being overnight camp, it’s day camp, until camp camp opens, which may happen this week! It was a super fun week and a super exhausting week. The camp started at 9am with morning activities, songs and exercises. This was followed by a walk to Central Asia’s 2nd largest lake for swimming and castle building. Then back to school for lunch. Afterwards, the children had a rest from 1pm-4pm. I generally went home to have a rest also (and began wondering why I don’t live closer to my school…?) Then back to camp at 4pm for outside activities, crafts, movie time, dinner, discos, and free time until 8pm when I went back home. The bus I usually take home stops running at 8 again leaving me to wonder why I don’t live closer to my school…? One day I taught “duck, duck, goose” to the children; it was an exciting game and we played for a whole hour! I thought we had killed it, but the kids loved it, so I guess it wasn’t so bad:-) Free time was spent asking me to translate songs from English to Russian, this proved more difficult than I thought it would and we ended up playing Pictionary and Charades to understand what the song was saying. 

I think I will move out of my host family’s house soon and move closer to my work. At first, I was totally against this because it’s SO far away from the center of town and I was just going to move into my site mate’s apartment when he leaves in October, but I have warmed up to the idea and have had time to think about “integrating into my community” and about communities within communities. I feel like I have integrated into my larger community and even into my work community, but think I could do a better job if I lived closer…

Women's Empowerment Weekend

Last week I was in Karaganda on Business Travel. I got in on Monday and hung out with some Volunteers there. On Tuesday there was an OCAP oblast meeting reviewing the OCAP program in Kazakhstan. Wednesday and Thursday I went to work with a couple Volunteers, had lunch with a friend and a meeting with my Regional Manager. 

On Friday, I met up with the Women Volunteers of Karaganda and the ladies who attend Women’s Club for the Second Annual Women’s Empowerment Workshop. There were 25 Locals and 5 Volunteers for a total of 30 people. It started Friday at 3pm, when we all took marshootkas 30 minutes outside the city to a sweet looking sanatorium type place. We lost the road at some point, but because it’s Kaz we were able to drive through fields We had 6 rooms and slept 5 to a room. It was quite the set up! There were 5 beds in each room. They gave us all combs, a toothbrush, toothpaste and slippers!! It was great! The Workshop began with journals and journal decorating! That was followed by dinner then by the first session about Body Image. We stayed up too late having too much fun and then went to bed. Saturday morning we had hot water for showers!!! (that was exciting). We had eggs and sausage for breakfast and morning sessions of Exercise and Nutrition. We had lunch – chicken and rice – delicious! We had sessions on Resumes and Interviews. Saturday evening we had a SUPER fun Discoteque!! We had fun decorating the place, coloring our hair with colorful hair spray and putting on Hawaiian Leis – then getting down with our bad selves!! Sunday was the final day and the session was Sexual Health. Then there was the “giving of the diploms” and lots of pics! Of course, then we had to say “goodbye” and load up in the marshootkas for the ride back to Karaganda. 

I hung out with the Volunteers until my train left to come back to site. We went to city mall and to the coveted Ramstore that only Volunteers in BIG cities have the luxury of having. I got on my train in the evening determined to become friends with the people in my platzcar – normally, I say nothing to them and hope they don’t speak to me, but not this time! I became friends with the only other person in my car – a 51 year old woman – she was nice and patient and at least attempted to understand my broken Russian! I got back to site on Monday morning, and although I had fun in Karaganda, it is SO good to be back!!! To be in a place where everything is familiar and where I have a place to sleep and unpack my things!!

May --

I was busy in May and rather than have separate entries I’m going to try to sum up life in May 2009. :)
• At the beginning of May I visited a fellow Volunteer who lives alone in a pretty spectacular house, not far from Almaty! Other Volunteers were there as well and we went hiking in the Mountains! Which are practically in the backyard of this Volunteer! LUCKY! We went all went to Mega Center where we indulged ourselves in the deliciousness commonly referred to as KFC! It was cheaper than I thought it would be and absolutely amazing! Afterwards, we purchased items to make dinner. We were even able to find marshmellows for S’MORES! A little taste of summer! While I was SO close I couldn’t say “no” to visiting my Host Family from Training! I hung out with them for a day before returning back to site. It was good to be back “home”
• My host family had their family over. Here’s a fun riddle: what’s worse than one 4 month old baby? TWO! One of the family members has twins who are 4 months old. They actually weren’t THAT bad and they were cute, when they didn’t cry or spit up
• I’ve become friends with the neighbor children by way of shooting hoops! I purchased a basketball, which has quite possibly been THE greatest purchase that I have made since being at site!
• I got my hair cut and my fear was realized! It is a mullet!! Thankfully, it’s not TOO bad and it WILL grow back! The hair salon woman talked me into it. Of course, she didn’t use the word “mullet” and described something I thought I might like…HA! Well, at least, now I can say that I have had a mullet :)
• I took a train to Karaganda for an OCAP meeting – other Volunteers were there from Karaganda oblast! It was fun to see familiar faces and discuss the OCAP program.
Aside from the WEW (which deserves it’s own blog…coming soon), this sums up my May. Now I’m preparing for Summer Camp, which makes me excited and nervous at the same time!!