Circus Time!

I arrived back to site (from Almaty) on Thursday morning. The same day that the circus was in Balkhash! And my site mate and I had tickets! The circus started at 6pm with clowns coming out on stage. The clowns were kind of my favorite, they didn’t speak…only used charades and whistles, I could understand everything that was happening Then a monkey came did a few tricks that I’m sure he had practiced a lot before and enjoyed doing them. Followed by the lion! The lion really didn’t do anything except walked out on stage for a bit and walked in a circle. I think it was supposed to do tricks, but didn’t. There was a ginormous snake that the circus man put in his mouth! Other circus acts included clowns juggling fire, dancers, a woman ate fire and one girl even walked on knives! 

After the show, people could have their picture taken with the snake, the monkey, or the clown, for a price, of course. I thought it would be fun to have my picture taken with the monkey, but the monkey was hissing like a wild angry monkey and instead I opted for a picture with the clown, circus poodle and my site mate and then it was over.

Excursions --

Last weekend I ventured to the Old Capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, to meet up with some friends and go hiking / camping! I got to Almaty early Saturday morning, met up with Hotard before we parted – he went to the city and I went to the PC office where I met up with other Volunteers I hadn’t seen in a while! We cooked a delicious breakfast of pancakes and eggs! Then I used the showers there…AMAZING! I went to Pizza Hut with Jacob for lunch…yes, I said Pizza Hut, I could hardly believe it myself, but it is true my friends, there is a Pizza Hut in Almaty. The workers speak English and it tastes like REAL pizza, although I’ve gotten used to the pizza here and think I may prefer it…AHH! Afterwards, we met up with the others at a Donor Kebob place and chatted for a bit before leaving for Talgar. 

We hung out in Talgar for a bit before finally hitting the hills! We loaded up with Fanta, water, kielbasa and cheese and we were good to go. We walked for a little over an hour before setting up camp. We pitched the tent and made a fire to roast our kielbasa over and stayed up talking about nothing and everything and a new point system created by Kaz 20s. Then we called Mel (love ya girl!) And went to bed, Ken chose to sleep outside; apparently he didn’t enjoy the “coziness” of the tent. Or maybe he just wanted to hang out with the wild boar and German woman outside…who knows? He did come crawling back at like 5am when it was raining! Of course, it would rain! That was a bummer, but thankfully, we had the tent (thanks Hotard), because tents were not always in our original plan. In fact I remember a conversation a week previous to the hike where it was said that we could just sleep outside or make tents with sheets. Although we could have done either of those things, it was certainly nice to have tent. 

The walk back proved to be a bit more difficult because the dirt had become mud and things were a bit more slippery, but we went back incredibly early so it wasn’t too hot yet. We all went back to sleep at Jacob’s and woke up late morning for another delicious breakfast! The guys went to Almaty to play Frisbee or to watch the new Harry Potter movie. I chose to stay in Talgar and hang out with Mai. We had lunch at a fancy café and then I was going to go visit my first host family, but they were not home, and I hung out for the day with Mai. We had a fun time hanging out at her place and eating LOTS of watermelon! Hotard came back in the evening. We met at the bus station and went out for Shashleek that was practically delivered to our table before we really ordered it, but hey, whatevs. After shashleek we wandered around Talgar in the dark looking for Jacob’s house only to realize we had absolutely NO idea how to find it in the dark. We hailed a taxi, a few taxi were unsure of where the house was also. One man agreed to look for it…SCORE! Kind of. There was another passenger he dropped off first, picked up two more people, dropped them off then attempted to find this house. What started as a fun adventure grew a bit frustrating after ½ an hour in the cab and still no luck. Eventually, we called Jacob, who called a local friend, who called Hotard and spoke with the cab driver and after a 40 minute ride, which should have taken MAYBE 5 minutes we were FINALLY at Jacob’s! 

The following morning Ken came and we made breakfast! I LOVE breakfast! And hung out. We all went to lunch with Mai and then to her organization, where I’m pretty sure a good time was had by all! Speaking for myself, I absolutely loved it!! We met Jacob at the bus station with his house key, went to his house to get our stuff and left for the PC office in Almaty where we would stay for the night because of medical appointments in the early morning. It was nice to have internet at a time when my friends back home would be online! YEA!!

Tuesday morning was medical appointment day…a necessary evil as we have almost been here for a WHOLE year! I can hardly believe it!! The physicals were done by Peace Corps Medical Officers in the morning. In the afternoon we were driven to a dental place where we received a cavity scan (maybe a filling) and a cleaning. It was a bit different here than it is in America, but it wasn’t too bad and I’m proud to admit that I am cavity free!! WOO WOO!! Back at PC office people gathered there things and left back to site. I stayed a PC office one more night because I was going to visit my first host family the next day. I watched three movies and hung out online. It was a bit melancholy as I was there alone and the previous days had been fun-filled with lots of people! But I managed.

Wednesday, I left PC office rather early to get to Issyk where my first host family lives. Sometimes I think I visit them to often to be “cool” or “exciting,” but they are always very hospitable. And even the workers at the store near their house remember me and are also always very nice! One woman even remembers my favorite kind of candy…I miss being in Issyk! I hung out with my host family for a bit, Jacob stopped by, and then we went to visit his host grandma from Issyk. Her expression was priceless when she opened the door and Jacob was standing there! It was very sweet. Her grandson was visiting from Germany so that was fun. I went back to my host family’s place for about an hour before gathering my things and heading back to Almaty.

Jacob helped me get a taxi, mostly because he was looking for his own taxi and the first one that stopped was going to Almaty. I said goodbye and got in. The man driving knew that I was a foreigner and engaged a bit in conversation about what I was doing here and where I lived and such. He had a pretty sweet ride and was a super nice man. Only when we got to Almaty he ran a few errands before finally dropping me off at my destination, so that was kind of weird, but worked out okay. I went to the bus station where I would catch a bus back to site a few days either, all in the name of going to the circus! Which was quite an excitement…stay tuned!

More Camp

Well, camp has turned into “more of the same,” thankfully, I love routine and more of the same is my idea of a good time! Just wanted to post a group picture.

Camp, Camp and more Camp

It’s been a while and I’ve been incredibly busy with camp. Camp “Bolashak” (future) officially opened a couple weeks ago! And I thought camp was going to be a complete drag and the idea of 100 days of it seemed rather daunting, but to my surprise I LOVE CAMP! I went to camp a few weeks ago with the older kids to finish preparing the camp for the others to come the following day. Days are filled with lots of things to do, especially being situated near the 2nd largest lake in Central Asia. Every morning begins with an assembly, followed by a fun trip to the lake!!! (my fav), then we have lunch and rest time (my second fav), snack time, English Lessons, sports, dinner and we end every night with a DISCO!!! (maybe that is actually my fav)

Last week my CP and I conducted the Ecological Seminar that we had been working on since the end of March. We discussed the Environment and how to be a better friend to it. My favorite session was “Reusing Trash” and children came up with very creative ideas to “reuse” trash. Of course, the most creative group was offered a surprise! (It’s amazing what children will do for a sticker, a balloon and a piece of candy :))

I taught the MACARENA and have quickly tired of it…if you ever wondered how long the Macarena is, it’s over 5 minutes! But the kids seem to have a good time with it I’m hoping to teach COTTON EYE JOE soon, but we’re stuck on that dang Macarena!

I work / live at camp Monday-Friday and come home for the weekends, which is long enough for me to have missed camp by Monday afternoon. 

My weekends are full of: internet cafés, bazaars, post office, local friends, and apartment searching. I totally had found an apartment a 5 minute walk from my organization last Saturday! The woman cleaned it on Sunday and called me Monday to tell me that she has decided that she would rather sell than rent! BLEEN! I’m waiting for something else to come along near my organization…

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!!