Truly, it is incredible. After almost 21 months, I'm leaving my village today, still in shock, heading down to Almaty where I'll be working for the next few months. The new job is helping the next batch of Peace Corps trainees get through training and become real volunteers in November. After that, I'll be on a plane home, somewhere around November 11th. I considered staying here in KZ for a third year long and hard before realizing that if I stayed any longer, I would never get over my black tea addiction and would soon be wearing a full-fledged mullett.
My good friend Em came to visit recently; now my sister is lounging on the bed reading and waiting for me to get off my butt and make her some more local delicacies. Both visits have been so good; sort of easing me back into the world of English and Americans and backpacking and coffee. Em and I ended up bumming around Kyrgyzstan for around 10 days; it was my first and only time outside of the Kazakhstan border during my service, I am both proud of and embarrased by this fact. We met many other foreign tourists, great people travelling for months or even years around the world. Sometimes we met people wedded to their Lonely Planet guidebooks; in jest we began to refer to ours as the Bible, aka, the Good Book. Mine, from 2004, was clearly the Old Testament; 2007 is the New Testament; anyone still trying to use 2001 might as well be using the Dead Sea Scrolls. Only once did someone overhear us and think we were missionaries...
In my role as both fellow tourist and translator/guide (Kyrgyz sounds a lot like Kazakh, Russian is still widespread, I know how to handle my fermented mare's milk), I felt between the worlds of tourist and local, but mostly I was a tourist and mostly I had a wonderful time. Em has written about the trip on her blog, there are also a few links to pictures and blogs from people we travelled with listed on the right.
This village has been so good to me, I can say that without hesitation. Last night, over a few beers at a cafe with Evie (my sis) and my host parents, my dear Tatar mother looked straight at me and sprang the question: "Do you at all regret coming to Kazakhstan?" The answer was, and is, an unreserved absolutely not. The truth is, I know other volunteers who do regret coming here; life is not always easy, service is not always what we expected, we have sacrificed much from our lives in America. But I, for one, would do it all over in a second. Now, ask me that in half a year, when I'm dealing with the brute force of reverse culture shock and we'll see what I say...
In evidence of my luck in finding this village and this life and this work, witness how many people in the last three days have called me their daughter, their granddaughter, their girl. I've been taking Evie around town and picking up compliments like daisies; how I teach, how I'm active, how I sing... but these daughter comments still surprise me. What did I ever do to deserve such acceptance from women as talented as my Kazakh tutor or as strong as my Tatar host grandmother? Who ever said that my dear host parents had to adopt a second American into their home and support her so completely?
Oh, nostalgia, you're a dangerous thing. Some day soon I'll think objectively about my work, my teaching, my challenges and successes. But for now, I think I'm allowed to enjoy the positive spin on the past that comes with leaving. I will return for a few days in October for a proper good-bye. I must; I'm leaving my fur hat here as a guarentee! Until then, it's back on the road and hello new trainees.
PS -- Henry, thanks for the response to the Frisbee post, by the way. I think you contributed to the discs, right? Thanks; good luck spreading the good word around the continent!
