Hi to all the faithful followers of foreign cultural experiences. I hope in reading this you successfully put off whatever it is you should be working on, whether that be a paper, this week’s bulletin, or a financial report.
Work continues with ups and downs. It would be too long to go into those right now, so let’s skip to the good stuff.
My high for the week has to do with cultural adaptation. There are a couple of signs that I’m fitting in well. I went to my first choir rehearsal and have been encouraged to keep coming to play volleyball even though I am far from the best player. I keep trying to explain that my game is Frisbee, but it might be better to wait until spring to demonstrate!
And I’m fitting in well with my host family. This is a family in transition, much as my family back home is. Two daughters are studying away from home, leaving a high-achieving brother close to graduating high school and parents settling into new roles. My host mother comes from a family of 11 children, many of whom are still living in this same village. Their great-grandmother matriarch and my host father’s parents are frequent quests. So what with husbands, wives, and children running around, things can get pretty busy here, especially on Saturday nights when everyone comes over to use the banya.
Disclaimer: this next passage contains blood and guts. Not for the faint of heart.
Last Sunday was a particularly large gathering: if Ait Kuni is the Kazakh equivalent to Trick-or-Treating, Sorghum is Thanksgiving. Sorghum is a day of preparation for many cold months. It is also a Muslim holiday to celebrate the year’s successes, measured by what animal you are able to slaughter, from the poorest chicken to the common sheep. We, being well-off, slaughtered the very best: a horse. And I got to help. It was one of those things that made perfect sense at the time until one of the sisters turns to me and asks, “So, what really are the differences between America and Kazakhstan?” And I could have said, “Well, in America, I would not be sitting here, blood under my fingernails, hacking with a dull knife at still-warm horse flesh.” But instead I said something about Americans valuing the individual over the communal. To which everyone shook their heads in disapproval, talking about how wonderful it is to have a good collective around you. This is a very real sentiment here; I was recently featured in the local paper (yup… complete with obligatory photo of teacher bending over student’s shoulder in an instructive manner) and it was interesting to note what struck the reporter as worth mentioning. There was nothing about the goals of Peace Corps or the work that I do. Instead, readers learned what my parents do, that my sister is studying to be an ecologist, and that my brother is in the 12th grade. Family is important here, as is the fact that I probably won’t get to go home to see everyone for two years.
But about the horse. I used to wonder if I could eat something that I had seen killed. It has always struck me as strange that I’ve made it this far in life without watching what I eat die. I’ve never been hunting and I’ve never lived on a farm, so I guess that accounts for it. But I have lived in Kazakhstan, so we can now answer one of life’s persistent questions. And in the affirmative: yes, I will eat what I have seen die.
I have never seen so much meat in my life. The women sat in the kitchen while the men, fortified from the cold with some vodka, did the most strenuous work and cleaning. In good time, they sent us huge slabs of meat through the back door and we got to work dicing for a special day-of dish of boiled meat and potatoes. As soon as that cauldron was filled, we started on the next, this time to make horse sausage (mixed with onion and garlic and stuffed conveniently in cleaned intestines). Many times over we filled bowls as big around as my encircled arms. I lost track of how many times we stopped to sharpen knives made dull by wooden cutting boards. My favorite part was the liver – bigger than a dinner plate and about the texture of guava paste. Now that I think about it, I probably just appreciated that it was easier to cut than the other stuff, which was difficult to work with on the account of fat and membranes. Which, incidentally, we did not discard. Everything went in – from cartilage to weird bits of bubble fat. Yum.
And while I can’t yet speak for the sausage, the meat is pretty tasty and might just be worth the effort.
Stay warm,
Nora
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Happy, happy, happy Thanksgiving to you all!
I hope your holidays were full of laughter and tasty treats. I had lots of fun trying to explain to my new students, colleagues, and host family what Thanksgiving is. People have some pretty weird ideas about how Americans live, mostly from movies and music videos, so it’s always an adventure discussing American life. Plus, my fourth graders made hand turkeys and wrote what they were thankful for, which made me feel like a real teacher, even though I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand what the phrase “I am thankful for…” meant. It just doesn’t translate well into Kazakh or Russian, but I figure that most 4th graders in American doing the same assignment don’t really understand what they are writing either. So it’s OK. Then today, the day after Thanksgiving, my 10th graders wanted to try pumpkin pie. They brought in or begged the cafeteria for supplies and I showed them how to make something sweet out of a pumpkin. Everyone, from the cafeteria lady to other teachers and the school secretary, came by and commented on the process: Nora, are you sure that is how you want to make dough? You’re putting what in? How did you make pumpkin puree?
My favorite part was watching everyone’s faces when I made them smell our ingredients. People definitely did not like the smell of cinnamon (which we could find here), nutmeg (which came from home), or pumpkin puree (which I made the night before). But, if I do say so myself, the pie turned out pretty darn well. There is one last piece sitting on the kitchen table to share with my host family. It is next to a big bowl of small sturgeons (the type of fish caviar comes from). Probably the weirdest looking fish ever… might be an interesting dinner…
I wonder how soon everyone I meet will be asking about that pie. Word gets around pretty quickly here, and I seem to provide plenty of conversation fodder. For example, my host mother told me the other day at dinner that I had gone for a walk – apparently one of her co-workers, whom I have never met, saw me and reported back the big news. I am still being introduced to many people in the village, from neighbors to the regional governor, but most people seem to already know me. I’ve been hearing the phrase “Oh, you’re Miss Nora!” fairly often. Mostly from parents of my students; this always makes me curious as to what their kids have been saying. In general, I seem to be getting along fairly well with the students, though the honeymoon is definitely starting to wear off with a couple of our classes. Luckily, I teach as often as possible in the company of my co-teacher, Altyngul, which means we have twice the manpower to manage a rowdy classroom. Plus she is able to translate into Kazakh when I don’t have the vocabulary or when my pronunciation is off, both of which happen often.
Almost two weeks ago, I arrived to the last gasps of fall in Zhelesinka. Dry, clear ground, a hint of frost on the morning air, skies brushed with pink as I walked to school in the morning.
Now there are six inches of snow on the ground, with ski tracks and coal trucks making paths along the mostly dirt roads. After the first snowfall, I was informed that winter still hadn’t come, since the weather wasn’t too much below freezing. But a week after that, the cold is settling in. We live on one bank of the Irtish River, a big ‘ole guy almost as wide as the Mississippi in Minneapolis. This means that with the cold comes clouds of moisture off the river as it freezes, which in turn means everything in the town is coated in hoar frost. It is a truly beautiful sight in the early morning: white smoke pouring sideways out of chimneys in the wind, fruit trees dipped in white, white roads, white houses with blue painted gates, and white sky.
I am adjusting to a northern town with no daylight savings time – barely light waking up at 8 in the morning, and very well might soon be a dark walk to school at 9. But there is much appreciated light until almost 5:30 or so in the evening. I can barely figure out where west and east are because the sun’s arc is so skewed to the north
Long story short: my new host family is great, and though we are still figuring each other out, it is going well. School is also going well. Not perfect, but if it were, Peace Corps wouldn’t be there. Haven’t had much chance to hang out with people my age, but there will be time for that after I get the lay of the land and feel settled at work and home. At the moment, it’s probably best to cultivate a quiet image and live a quiet life – people say there are a lot of drunks in the area, and I really don’t want to get mixed up in anything. Plus, it’s too cold to just wander around meeting people. Get ready for a long winter…
Two hours after helping push a neighbor's car out of the snow, I looked up from teaching and saw the first horse drawn sleigh of the season. I smiled and stifled a giggle. No one else gave it a second glance. Later that night, I was looking for songs to teach on Thanksgiving. A recommended one was “Dashing through the snow, on a one horse open sleigh.” Guess here this is less of a romantic memory and more of a practical reality!
Enjoy your holidays!
Love,
Nora
I hope your holidays were full of laughter and tasty treats. I had lots of fun trying to explain to my new students, colleagues, and host family what Thanksgiving is. People have some pretty weird ideas about how Americans live, mostly from movies and music videos, so it’s always an adventure discussing American life. Plus, my fourth graders made hand turkeys and wrote what they were thankful for, which made me feel like a real teacher, even though I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand what the phrase “I am thankful for…” meant. It just doesn’t translate well into Kazakh or Russian, but I figure that most 4th graders in American doing the same assignment don’t really understand what they are writing either. So it’s OK. Then today, the day after Thanksgiving, my 10th graders wanted to try pumpkin pie. They brought in or begged the cafeteria for supplies and I showed them how to make something sweet out of a pumpkin. Everyone, from the cafeteria lady to other teachers and the school secretary, came by and commented on the process: Nora, are you sure that is how you want to make dough? You’re putting what in? How did you make pumpkin puree?
My favorite part was watching everyone’s faces when I made them smell our ingredients. People definitely did not like the smell of cinnamon (which we could find here), nutmeg (which came from home), or pumpkin puree (which I made the night before). But, if I do say so myself, the pie turned out pretty darn well. There is one last piece sitting on the kitchen table to share with my host family. It is next to a big bowl of small sturgeons (the type of fish caviar comes from). Probably the weirdest looking fish ever… might be an interesting dinner…
I wonder how soon everyone I meet will be asking about that pie. Word gets around pretty quickly here, and I seem to provide plenty of conversation fodder. For example, my host mother told me the other day at dinner that I had gone for a walk – apparently one of her co-workers, whom I have never met, saw me and reported back the big news. I am still being introduced to many people in the village, from neighbors to the regional governor, but most people seem to already know me. I’ve been hearing the phrase “Oh, you’re Miss Nora!” fairly often. Mostly from parents of my students; this always makes me curious as to what their kids have been saying. In general, I seem to be getting along fairly well with the students, though the honeymoon is definitely starting to wear off with a couple of our classes. Luckily, I teach as often as possible in the company of my co-teacher, Altyngul, which means we have twice the manpower to manage a rowdy classroom. Plus she is able to translate into Kazakh when I don’t have the vocabulary or when my pronunciation is off, both of which happen often.
Almost two weeks ago, I arrived to the last gasps of fall in Zhelesinka. Dry, clear ground, a hint of frost on the morning air, skies brushed with pink as I walked to school in the morning.
Now there are six inches of snow on the ground, with ski tracks and coal trucks making paths along the mostly dirt roads. After the first snowfall, I was informed that winter still hadn’t come, since the weather wasn’t too much below freezing. But a week after that, the cold is settling in. We live on one bank of the Irtish River, a big ‘ole guy almost as wide as the Mississippi in Minneapolis. This means that with the cold comes clouds of moisture off the river as it freezes, which in turn means everything in the town is coated in hoar frost. It is a truly beautiful sight in the early morning: white smoke pouring sideways out of chimneys in the wind, fruit trees dipped in white, white roads, white houses with blue painted gates, and white sky.
I am adjusting to a northern town with no daylight savings time – barely light waking up at 8 in the morning, and very well might soon be a dark walk to school at 9. But there is much appreciated light until almost 5:30 or so in the evening. I can barely figure out where west and east are because the sun’s arc is so skewed to the north
Long story short: my new host family is great, and though we are still figuring each other out, it is going well. School is also going well. Not perfect, but if it were, Peace Corps wouldn’t be there. Haven’t had much chance to hang out with people my age, but there will be time for that after I get the lay of the land and feel settled at work and home. At the moment, it’s probably best to cultivate a quiet image and live a quiet life – people say there are a lot of drunks in the area, and I really don’t want to get mixed up in anything. Plus, it’s too cold to just wander around meeting people. Get ready for a long winter…
Two hours after helping push a neighbor's car out of the snow, I looked up from teaching and saw the first horse drawn sleigh of the season. I smiled and stifled a giggle. No one else gave it a second glance. Later that night, I was looking for songs to teach on Thanksgiving. A recommended one was “Dashing through the snow, on a one horse open sleigh.” Guess here this is less of a romantic memory and more of a practical reality!
Enjoy your holidays!
Love,
Nora
Sunday, October 22, 2006
I Have Seen My New Home...
What's the best way to stop an SUV? Answer below. Hint: it turns the road into a slow-motion video game.
I'll bet you are all curious about my permanent site -- and if you aren't you should just skip to the last paragraph. In general, this is a super long entry, so take a break, go get a cup of tea, come back in a week, or skim as you see fit. This might be the last entry for awhile.
The time leading up to our departure for week-long site visits went well: our Halloween community event was a big sucess, but nothing like we had imagined it! Which I think is how most things will go for the next two years. The pumpkins our students carved ranged in color from grey to pink, and most were pear-shaped. They made for some wonderful jack-o-lanterns. Personally, I liked the one where our tenth graders carved the shape of a heart, wrote my name on the cutout piece, and gave it to me. Aww...
These are the same girls who I watched yesterday march around the school yard in military fatigues.They were participating in a Military Class competition, showing off their ability to follow the orders of a peer drill sergeant. And despite the sheer strangeness of seeing 10th grade girls singing marching songs and yelling commands, I was still pleased when my girls won.
But anyway, I was talking about my site...
To find where I'll be for the next two years, look up at the handy Kazakhstan map I'm sure you have tacked to your wall. Start in Almaty, down in the south east corner. Then head north, dipping around the western edge of the bizarre, half-salt, half-fresh Lake Balkash. Stop at the train station to pick up a huge, eyeless, split-open smoked fish from one of the vendors on the platform. Say good-bye to the hills you pass on the way -- they are the last bit of elevation you will see for quite a while. Welcome to the semi-arid steppe. Between here and Astana, the new capital, enjoy looking out the window at miles and miles of dust. Admire the ghost towns and the towns you think are ghost towns until you see smoke rising from dilapidated chimneys. Wave to the lone horsemen and their flocks of cattle. Imagine you are in western North Dakota.
You'll pass through Astana in the night, maybe waking up on your bunk when a new compartment-mate boards the train, or maybe stirring when the train comes to a station and you body senses the lack of motion. Be prepared -- when you get off the train and try to rest, your body will still sway, missing the rocking sensation. Get off the train at the end of the line, in the relatively large and mostly Soviet-looking city of Pavlodar. Then hail a taxi and follow the Irtish River north. In about 200 kilometers, just south of the Russian border, you'll come to a village of about 4-5,00 people. This is my new home. Total travel time: 30 hours by train and 3 hours by car.
I am excited about my site. The land is steppe, but the village is on one bank of the Irtish river, almost on the edge of the Siberian forests. So there are both a good number of trees and an incredible expanse of sky. The place gets cold in the winter with lots of good snow to ski on and hot in the summer with plenty of gnats. The people are a mix of Kazakh, Russian, and a small population of Tartars. There used to be a large German contingent, but most of them took up the offer of repatriation and abandoned the country -- leaving behind more ghost towns and German-looking genes.
Everyone in the village speaks Russian: the proximity to Russia means that the influence of both Russian and Soviet culture has been very strong. But the Kazakhs are making a comeback, as evidenced by my work site. I will be teaching at the new Kazakh 3rd School, which was completed in 2002. All classes are taught in Kazakh (theoretically; I've noticed teachers slip into Russian from time to time), and so are the day to day administrative operations of the school (ie, meetings, schedules, signs, etc). What is so wonderful about this placement is that I do not have to give up all my years of studying Russian, but that I also have motivation and opportunity to continue learning Kazakh.
I call the week at site my Trial by Fire in the Cold Rain and Snow. I met an incredible amount of people, used almost every word of my Kazakh, taught 20 hours of English in grades ranging from 2nd to 10th, met my new host family, broke in my winter boots, ate amazingly fresh and rich milk products, answered ridiculous questions about myself and America, helped in the cafeteria, schmoozed with the visiting school inspection comitee, etc, etc, etc. The 30 hour train ride back was actually a nice rest.
Probably my favorite parts of the entire week were the students, sweetend milk that tased like custard, and my new Kazakh/Mongolian tutor (she'll get her own entry later). Every morning, all 200 students at the school gather in the gym for pre-class aerobics. They form ranks based on grade, the smallest ones in the front and the 11th graders looking cool in the back. And then they all do stretching exercises to the count of their gym teacher. Bir! Eki! Ush! Tort!
If you've never seen eight-year-olds in suits doing hip swivels and reaching for the sky, I highly recommend it. I, for one, had to try my hardest not to giggle as I watched their earnest efforts: as a monitor for the activity, it would have been decidedly unprofessional to break into laughter.
The answer to the stop-an-SUV trivia question is: try to get it through my village just as evening sets in. Why? Because the streets fill with cows. Every night, just as the air gets dusky from coal-fired banyas and burning trash, cows pour into the village from wherever it is they go all day. They use the main streets, moving as herds until they get closer to home and then going their seperate ways. These cows do this every day without prompting: there are no herders, and only when a cow doesn't come home is there any problem. Unless you are trying to drive through town. Cows are slow, and they don't respond well to horns. But the impatient, and crazy, Kazakhstani drives don't let that daunt them. They weave through the cows and mud, crisscrossing the road in an effort to find the best path. It really does remind me of some sort of computer game: dodge the cows without going over 5 miles an hour. Don't get stuck in the mud!
The really fun thing is to walk against the flow of traffic, and by that I do mean the flow of cows. They just don't give a damn where you want to go. But if you can find a spot with the river and the mountains and the setting sun, it is worth the game of dodge-cow.
I have three more weeks to revel in the cows before I leave for my site. If for some reason you have read this far and were planning on sending me a package sometime soon, you should wait until I get a new address. Packages or letters that reach the PC office after I'm gone won't be forwarded to me, meaning I probably won't get them until January
Thanks for words, prayers, and love. Hope to give you some more contact info soon -- maybe even a cell phone number!
Love,
Nora
I'll bet you are all curious about my permanent site -- and if you aren't you should just skip to the last paragraph. In general, this is a super long entry, so take a break, go get a cup of tea, come back in a week, or skim as you see fit. This might be the last entry for awhile.
The time leading up to our departure for week-long site visits went well: our Halloween community event was a big sucess, but nothing like we had imagined it! Which I think is how most things will go for the next two years. The pumpkins our students carved ranged in color from grey to pink, and most were pear-shaped. They made for some wonderful jack-o-lanterns. Personally, I liked the one where our tenth graders carved the shape of a heart, wrote my name on the cutout piece, and gave it to me. Aww...
These are the same girls who I watched yesterday march around the school yard in military fatigues.They were participating in a Military Class competition, showing off their ability to follow the orders of a peer drill sergeant. And despite the sheer strangeness of seeing 10th grade girls singing marching songs and yelling commands, I was still pleased when my girls won.
But anyway, I was talking about my site...
To find where I'll be for the next two years, look up at the handy Kazakhstan map I'm sure you have tacked to your wall. Start in Almaty, down in the south east corner. Then head north, dipping around the western edge of the bizarre, half-salt, half-fresh Lake Balkash. Stop at the train station to pick up a huge, eyeless, split-open smoked fish from one of the vendors on the platform. Say good-bye to the hills you pass on the way -- they are the last bit of elevation you will see for quite a while. Welcome to the semi-arid steppe. Between here and Astana, the new capital, enjoy looking out the window at miles and miles of dust. Admire the ghost towns and the towns you think are ghost towns until you see smoke rising from dilapidated chimneys. Wave to the lone horsemen and their flocks of cattle. Imagine you are in western North Dakota.
You'll pass through Astana in the night, maybe waking up on your bunk when a new compartment-mate boards the train, or maybe stirring when the train comes to a station and you body senses the lack of motion. Be prepared -- when you get off the train and try to rest, your body will still sway, missing the rocking sensation. Get off the train at the end of the line, in the relatively large and mostly Soviet-looking city of Pavlodar. Then hail a taxi and follow the Irtish River north. In about 200 kilometers, just south of the Russian border, you'll come to a village of about 4-5,00 people. This is my new home. Total travel time: 30 hours by train and 3 hours by car.
I am excited about my site. The land is steppe, but the village is on one bank of the Irtish river, almost on the edge of the Siberian forests. So there are both a good number of trees and an incredible expanse of sky. The place gets cold in the winter with lots of good snow to ski on and hot in the summer with plenty of gnats. The people are a mix of Kazakh, Russian, and a small population of Tartars. There used to be a large German contingent, but most of them took up the offer of repatriation and abandoned the country -- leaving behind more ghost towns and German-looking genes.
Everyone in the village speaks Russian: the proximity to Russia means that the influence of both Russian and Soviet culture has been very strong. But the Kazakhs are making a comeback, as evidenced by my work site. I will be teaching at the new Kazakh 3rd School, which was completed in 2002. All classes are taught in Kazakh (theoretically; I've noticed teachers slip into Russian from time to time), and so are the day to day administrative operations of the school (ie, meetings, schedules, signs, etc). What is so wonderful about this placement is that I do not have to give up all my years of studying Russian, but that I also have motivation and opportunity to continue learning Kazakh.
I call the week at site my Trial by Fire in the Cold Rain and Snow. I met an incredible amount of people, used almost every word of my Kazakh, taught 20 hours of English in grades ranging from 2nd to 10th, met my new host family, broke in my winter boots, ate amazingly fresh and rich milk products, answered ridiculous questions about myself and America, helped in the cafeteria, schmoozed with the visiting school inspection comitee, etc, etc, etc. The 30 hour train ride back was actually a nice rest.
Probably my favorite parts of the entire week were the students, sweetend milk that tased like custard, and my new Kazakh/Mongolian tutor (she'll get her own entry later). Every morning, all 200 students at the school gather in the gym for pre-class aerobics. They form ranks based on grade, the smallest ones in the front and the 11th graders looking cool in the back. And then they all do stretching exercises to the count of their gym teacher. Bir! Eki! Ush! Tort!
If you've never seen eight-year-olds in suits doing hip swivels and reaching for the sky, I highly recommend it. I, for one, had to try my hardest not to giggle as I watched their earnest efforts: as a monitor for the activity, it would have been decidedly unprofessional to break into laughter.
The answer to the stop-an-SUV trivia question is: try to get it through my village just as evening sets in. Why? Because the streets fill with cows. Every night, just as the air gets dusky from coal-fired banyas and burning trash, cows pour into the village from wherever it is they go all day. They use the main streets, moving as herds until they get closer to home and then going their seperate ways. These cows do this every day without prompting: there are no herders, and only when a cow doesn't come home is there any problem. Unless you are trying to drive through town. Cows are slow, and they don't respond well to horns. But the impatient, and crazy, Kazakhstani drives don't let that daunt them. They weave through the cows and mud, crisscrossing the road in an effort to find the best path. It really does remind me of some sort of computer game: dodge the cows without going over 5 miles an hour. Don't get stuck in the mud!
The really fun thing is to walk against the flow of traffic, and by that I do mean the flow of cows. They just don't give a damn where you want to go. But if you can find a spot with the river and the mountains and the setting sun, it is worth the game of dodge-cow.
I have three more weeks to revel in the cows before I leave for my site. If for some reason you have read this far and were planning on sending me a package sometime soon, you should wait until I get a new address. Packages or letters that reach the PC office after I'm gone won't be forwarded to me, meaning I probably won't get them until January
Thanks for words, prayers, and love. Hope to give you some more contact info soon -- maybe even a cell phone number!
Love,
Nora
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Hello dear friends and family,
I wasn't planning on coming into Almaty to write today, but the one thing we've been told a million times by Kazakhs and Peace Corps staff alike is that everything changes at a moment's notice in this country. So take the opportunities you have and write to the US when you can.
Have I really been here for a month? It's difficult to believe. Sometimes the time just rushes by: my days are filled with Kazakh language class, student teaching, organizing English club after school, planning a community event to celebrate Halloween, and relaxing with family and friends when I have the time. And often being with family and friends is less relaxing and more of a cultural lesson! After a week of these full days, I wake up on Sunday mornings in shock that another week has gone. The days are never slow, and the weeks are picking up speed as training continues. Consider: our community project will be finished next week (we're celebrating Halloween a month early with our school. I get to do lots of translation to try to figure out what we're doing. Things change every day, so I can't really tell you what it will be. And it happens in less than a week!), we find out our site placement for the next two years on Saturday, then we have a conference for a week in Almaty where we meet our future teaching partner. Right after that we get to actually visit our sites for a week and meet our communities. At this point, we are all itching to get to our actual sites (at least I am), so that week will be a dream. It might also involve lots of time on a train, depending on where our sites turn out to be. When we get back, only a few weeks of training remain before we strike out on our own.
I already know that I will be sad to leave my training village. I get along well with my host mother/sister and she has provided a fascinating view of her generation of Kazakh women and men. Her husband makes me feel at home whenever he is, and their 1.5 year old son get more comfortable with me every day as I take on more babysitting duties. Plus, the dogs in our yard don't bark nearly as much as they used to when I trek to the outhouse.
I'm currently student teaching 5th graders (10 and 11 years old). They are mostly hilarious, and know even less English than I know Kazakh. I personally liked their response to the question "Where is Miss Nora from?", which my co-teacher asked after I presented myself to them for the first time. "Miss Nora is Miss America!" one boy shouted, and I almost lost it.
As I get to know people more and more, my walks to school get longer. I have to answer choruses of "Mrs Nora, Mrs Nora! How are you?" and greet assorted neighbors. It is wonderful, and people have started asking why I can't just stay in the village instead of going to a new site.
Are you starving for cultural details of my life? Here's the briefing. The climate is similar to Minnesota. Rain has started, which brings down the dust and gives me great views of the mountains. Mornings are cool and days are perfect. Food is meat heavy, but not excessively. We eat lots of sheep, some beef, and rarely horse. The rest is filled in by bread, noodles, soups, occasionally fruit or vegetables, and lots of black tea with milk and sugar. Last week I was treated to a Kazakh national dish day. First, my host father brought home a sheep, slaughtered it, and we ate fresh, rich internal organs cooked with potatoes and onions. Then we ended up going to a neighbors for a visit and being served besparmak (another Kazakh national dish): flat noodles in onion/dill broth topped with lots of meat and both large and small intestines. I can't say that I love intestines, and organ meat fills me up after a few bites, but the honey they put in front of me makes up for everything.
The religion is a mix of Islam and Orthodox Christianity. Almaty boasts both a huge new mosque (rebuilt after Communism) and some exquisite churches. Our village has a beautiful mosque in the center of town -- I expect to see lots more activity there in the coming weeks. Why? Because today is the first day of Ramadan (or Ramazan). Few of our families are keeping the fast, but all acknowledge the holiday.
Other cultural points are: soviet schools, tea drinking, beautiful songs, stick fiddles and dombras, and intense family ties. Forty days after a baby's birth is the party to recognize them as truly born. Weddings are something I have not yet witnessed, but the rumor is that they are amazing. What I have witnessed is the party celebrating a bride kidnapping. When couples want to mary and their families can't agree on marriage terms, they groom can kidnap the bride and bring her to his house. This forces the bride's family to concede her, in a way. We visited the day after she was stolen to celebrate with toasts of wine and vodka and food. A happy couple, but she said her parents were still crying...
I miss home in the quiet moments.
And it is time for me to go back to my village, but I'll leave you with this image. As we walked down the modern streets of Almaty, we saw a young woman, modernly dressed, leading a donkey down one of the main streets. And there, surrounded by Land Cruisers and internet cafes, she stopped, organized her bags, and got on her donkey. She rode away on the sidewalk. Maybe some day I'll be used to these juxtapositions of livestock and city bustle, but all I could think was "Only in Kazakhstan..."
Lots of love,
Nora
I wasn't planning on coming into Almaty to write today, but the one thing we've been told a million times by Kazakhs and Peace Corps staff alike is that everything changes at a moment's notice in this country. So take the opportunities you have and write to the US when you can.
Have I really been here for a month? It's difficult to believe. Sometimes the time just rushes by: my days are filled with Kazakh language class, student teaching, organizing English club after school, planning a community event to celebrate Halloween, and relaxing with family and friends when I have the time. And often being with family and friends is less relaxing and more of a cultural lesson! After a week of these full days, I wake up on Sunday mornings in shock that another week has gone. The days are never slow, and the weeks are picking up speed as training continues. Consider: our community project will be finished next week (we're celebrating Halloween a month early with our school. I get to do lots of translation to try to figure out what we're doing. Things change every day, so I can't really tell you what it will be. And it happens in less than a week!), we find out our site placement for the next two years on Saturday, then we have a conference for a week in Almaty where we meet our future teaching partner. Right after that we get to actually visit our sites for a week and meet our communities. At this point, we are all itching to get to our actual sites (at least I am), so that week will be a dream. It might also involve lots of time on a train, depending on where our sites turn out to be. When we get back, only a few weeks of training remain before we strike out on our own.
I already know that I will be sad to leave my training village. I get along well with my host mother/sister and she has provided a fascinating view of her generation of Kazakh women and men. Her husband makes me feel at home whenever he is, and their 1.5 year old son get more comfortable with me every day as I take on more babysitting duties. Plus, the dogs in our yard don't bark nearly as much as they used to when I trek to the outhouse.
I'm currently student teaching 5th graders (10 and 11 years old). They are mostly hilarious, and know even less English than I know Kazakh. I personally liked their response to the question "Where is Miss Nora from?", which my co-teacher asked after I presented myself to them for the first time. "Miss Nora is Miss America!" one boy shouted, and I almost lost it.
As I get to know people more and more, my walks to school get longer. I have to answer choruses of "Mrs Nora, Mrs Nora! How are you?" and greet assorted neighbors. It is wonderful, and people have started asking why I can't just stay in the village instead of going to a new site.
Are you starving for cultural details of my life? Here's the briefing. The climate is similar to Minnesota. Rain has started, which brings down the dust and gives me great views of the mountains. Mornings are cool and days are perfect. Food is meat heavy, but not excessively. We eat lots of sheep, some beef, and rarely horse. The rest is filled in by bread, noodles, soups, occasionally fruit or vegetables, and lots of black tea with milk and sugar. Last week I was treated to a Kazakh national dish day. First, my host father brought home a sheep, slaughtered it, and we ate fresh, rich internal organs cooked with potatoes and onions. Then we ended up going to a neighbors for a visit and being served besparmak (another Kazakh national dish): flat noodles in onion/dill broth topped with lots of meat and both large and small intestines. I can't say that I love intestines, and organ meat fills me up after a few bites, but the honey they put in front of me makes up for everything.
The religion is a mix of Islam and Orthodox Christianity. Almaty boasts both a huge new mosque (rebuilt after Communism) and some exquisite churches. Our village has a beautiful mosque in the center of town -- I expect to see lots more activity there in the coming weeks. Why? Because today is the first day of Ramadan (or Ramazan). Few of our families are keeping the fast, but all acknowledge the holiday.
Other cultural points are: soviet schools, tea drinking, beautiful songs, stick fiddles and dombras, and intense family ties. Forty days after a baby's birth is the party to recognize them as truly born. Weddings are something I have not yet witnessed, but the rumor is that they are amazing. What I have witnessed is the party celebrating a bride kidnapping. When couples want to mary and their families can't agree on marriage terms, they groom can kidnap the bride and bring her to his house. This forces the bride's family to concede her, in a way. We visited the day after she was stolen to celebrate with toasts of wine and vodka and food. A happy couple, but she said her parents were still crying...
I miss home in the quiet moments.
And it is time for me to go back to my village, but I'll leave you with this image. As we walked down the modern streets of Almaty, we saw a young woman, modernly dressed, leading a donkey down one of the main streets. And there, surrounded by Land Cruisers and internet cafes, she stopped, organized her bags, and got on her donkey. She rode away on the sidewalk. Maybe some day I'll be used to these juxtapositions of livestock and city bustle, but all I could think was "Only in Kazakhstan..."
Lots of love,
Nora
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Well friends, the time has come to jump into the blogging pool. Forgive my newness, technical incompetence, and inability to predict the future. I may write often, I may write never. Maybe there will be pictures, but maybe you'll just have to use your imaginations. We'll just have to wait and see how the Peace Corps and the Kazakh steppes treats me!
Here's the latest: I leave August 20th (that's in less than two weeks...) from Minneapolis. Then after two days of basic introduction to the Peace Corps in Philadelphia, I'll be boarding a plane for Almaty, Kazakhstan. I have three months of training somewhere near Almaty before I start my secondary English teaching assignment. Training sounds like it will be a crash course in Russian, Kazakh, Kazakhstani culture, health, safety, and teaching. Post-training, I'll receive an assignment, likely in a small town or village. Until then, I won't know where exactly in the country I'll be posted -- might be near an airport, might be 40 hours away by train.
Peace Corps will officially allow me to have visitors after my first 6 months of service and before my last three months. So plan accordingly, friends, because I'd love to see your smiling faces on the other side of the planet. And I probably won't be back in the States for at least 27 months. Aaah!
I'd love to hear from you all before I go. I've had a lot of time to think about how amazing my life and friends have been so far as I sort through old cards, playbills, fourth grade writing assignments, photos and love letters. I can't wait to find out where you are and what you are doing two years from now! Keep me posted.
Thanks for all your support getting this far (I know I haven't been the most stable friend in the past few months as this all works out) and thanks in advance for all your thoughts, prayers, letters, e-mails, etc.
Here's the latest: I leave August 20th (that's in less than two weeks...) from Minneapolis. Then after two days of basic introduction to the Peace Corps in Philadelphia, I'll be boarding a plane for Almaty, Kazakhstan. I have three months of training somewhere near Almaty before I start my secondary English teaching assignment. Training sounds like it will be a crash course in Russian, Kazakh, Kazakhstani culture, health, safety, and teaching. Post-training, I'll receive an assignment, likely in a small town or village. Until then, I won't know where exactly in the country I'll be posted -- might be near an airport, might be 40 hours away by train.
Peace Corps will officially allow me to have visitors after my first 6 months of service and before my last three months. So plan accordingly, friends, because I'd love to see your smiling faces on the other side of the planet. And I probably won't be back in the States for at least 27 months. Aaah!
I'd love to hear from you all before I go. I've had a lot of time to think about how amazing my life and friends have been so far as I sort through old cards, playbills, fourth grade writing assignments, photos and love letters. I can't wait to find out where you are and what you are doing two years from now! Keep me posted.
Thanks for all your support getting this far (I know I haven't been the most stable friend in the past few months as this all works out) and thanks in advance for all your thoughts, prayers, letters, e-mails, etc.
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