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