Quick, who can tell me how many gold medals Kazakhstan won in the Beijing Olympics? First person to answer correctly gets a free cheap ice cream cone dedicated to them before I eat it!
I won't ruin the surprise of your frantic Google searches, but I will say that I have watched Kazakhstan win gold, and it is an amazing thing. Kate (the other volunteer working at training) and I were literally jumping up and down in the Peace Corps lounge with tears in our eyes. It was a moment that attested to just how assimilated we two are; it really was like our country was winning. Or if not exactly our country, at least our cousin-country that we can't help but root for.
Peace Corps has long told us that our final three months in country would be our most productive, the time when we feel the most at home, and there have been other signs these past weeks of our final acceptance of Kazakhstani culture before we head home. Both of us have moved into new host families for the duration of training; mine is a couple with a large extended family and a good deal of respect/power/money in the community. To be honest, even after Kate and I were presented as the experts in host family living to the new trainees, I am surprised by how fast I've been adjusting to this new environment. Already grandmother is treating me as her oldest granddaughter, chores and treats included. Yesterday was a big party for almost the whole family; a bit of people overload but again, I felt adjusted. I was aware enough of traditions to know that I was not being tested but rather honored when they presented me with a large chunk of gelatinous sheep face to chew and an entire leg bone of mutton to pick apart. I felt especially respected, not especially repulsed, when the elders offered me a tidbit of brain and a cut of the hip bone meat.
There are different ways of showing love, respect, and affection, to be sure. Consider the event for which we had all gathered: a circumcision. This is an important moment for Muslim men in Kazakhstan, but I think every man I know in America will cringe when I say how old this little grandson was... the ceremony is usually performed for boys between the ages of 3 and 5. Our guest of honor had the surgery done Wednesday and the party Saturday to give him some time to recover, but he still walked bowlegged in a pair of pants with the crotch cut out. A wise parent safety-pinned a brown derby hat onto the hem of his shirt to keep him from bumping into anything.
Our new trainees are just starting out in Kazakhstan; they had a rough first few days with jet lag and a tightened schedule due to a flight delay, the toughest part of my job was staying awake myself and holding hands as exhausted trainees sat through a barrage of vaccines. Now they are starting their on own long paths to adjustment. I'm trying to get used to my new role as expert and guide; I'm also trying to stay out of their way. So far they are still humming with the new and problems have been small. However, there are a few who are already ending their time here. This is hard to see, as we have tried so hard to prepare for their arrival and there are so many sites waiting eagerly for a volunteer.
On a happier note, I'm preparing slowly for my own departure. In the works: Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan (visas willing), GREs (who knew you could take them in Almaty?), grad school aps (Central Asian Studies, Russian Language, Creative Writing?), and the holidays at home. Less than 3 months left! Can you believe it?
Love,
Nora
Monday, August 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Time flies when you're having fun...
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!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Ulimate Frisbee in Kazakhstan
Oh, those silly hippies... these are the kids that wore their shirts the last day; not everyone.
This is my Kazakhstan doppleganger, she even has the same catches
I almost subtitled this entry "The Revolution Begins;" that would be an overstatement, but it would also express just how excited I am after the Ultimate Frisbee camp we had last week at my site. Six Peace Corps volunteers taught thirty six kids from 5-9th grades the basics of Ultimate, from throws and catches to fouls and self-officiating. And while our success on that last topic is debatable, our kids were able to play without our help by the end of the week. More importantly, they loved it and it took a real effort to get them to stop playing and go home! They ran us into the ground; at every break the volunteers would collapse onto available flat spaces and fall asleep.
To compliment and complete the hippie spirit of the camp, we made tie dye shirts, like the one I'm wearing in the above picture. This was probably the aspect that my school administration liked the most; something no one had ever seen before that we could show as tangible proof of the camp. Thanks to Jeff's parents for the dye and t-shit kit.
cultural centers that wanted to kick us off the fields. Enjoy the photos, especially those of you that are either Ultimate addicts or enablers.
Rosham (rock paper scissors) for pull (kick off)
Thanks to everyone that sent discs (Eli, Jill, anyone that contributed to the box my dad sent). With a last minute addition of cheap Discraft discs (they have a sweet deal to send Peace Corps volunteers rejects), we were able to give away about 25 discs to our most active campers. They were thrilled and when I saw one of the girls yesterday, she said she was already schemeing with friends to meet up and play. Viva healthy living! Viva sport! Viva Ultimate!
How can you not love this picture?
Oleg, Disc, War Memorial
There were problems. The first host family I placed volunteers in turned sour, so I ended up with 3 guests at my house (the fourth visitor stayed with Jeff). This was a blessing in disguise, as this group of volunteers, most of whom I'd met only through email, ended up being kindred spirits. I knew I was in good company on the first day, when Aaron, an NGO volunteer, began giving out nicknames. This is a surefire way of intenfiying an Ultimate officianado. I usually have the ability to shuck off nicknames like corn husks, but at least for this week I picked up a couple: Nora the Explorer, No-no, and Toys R Us (you'll have to ask Aaron about that last one, I'm still confused as to where it came from). Nora, Jeff, Justin, Aaron, Nathan, Mary
To compliment and complete the hippie spirit of the camp, we made tie dye shirts, like the one I'm wearing in the above picture. This was probably the aspect that my school administration liked the most; something no one had ever seen before that we could show as tangible proof of the camp. Thanks to Jeff's parents for the dye and t-shit kit.
Nora and Erkin talk attendance and strategy
There's not much else I can say about the camp; partially I'm in shock that it's really over after months of planning and stress. I think I fulfilled my camp director role well and was able to solve most of the glitches that came up, from bloody noses to rehearsingcultural centers that wanted to kick us off the fields. Enjoy the photos, especially those of you that are either Ultimate addicts or enablers.
Rosham (rock paper scissors) for pull (kick off)
Thanks to everyone that sent discs (Eli, Jill, anyone that contributed to the box my dad sent). With a last minute addition of cheap Discraft discs (they have a sweet deal to send Peace Corps volunteers rejects), we were able to give away about 25 discs to our most active campers. They were thrilled and when I saw one of the girls yesterday, she said she was already schemeing with friends to meet up and play. Viva healthy living! Viva sport! Viva Ultimate!
No! Albert! Don't huck it away again! Gulmira, nice mark.
Now off to Almaty, Em is coming to visit and I need to get us into Kyrghizia. She's blogging about her adventures here.
How can you not love this picture?
Friday, May 30, 2008
School’s out for summer!
First, a huge thank-you to Jill Morrison, Prankster and brand-new Middlebury graduate. She sent me two beautiful discs. This is truly miraculous, not only because I need discs but also because they took only an unbelievable 7 days to get here. Nothing takes 7 days to get her from America, not even letters! So either Jill is magical (possible) or the Kazakhstan postal service rushes discs (not likely, but who knows?) or there is a quick direct mail line from Middlbury, VT to Pavlodar Oblast, Kazakhstan…. Thank you, however it happened.
School is out, and so are the clouds of gnats. We’ve had our final day of classes, our final big ceremony for graduates (called the Final Bell), and almost all our final exams. All that’s left is the big national test, called the ENT, for graduates. It’s a bit like the SAT or ACT in that it determines university eligibility, but the ENT is a much bigger deal than the SAT. It happens at the end of the year and is really the only factor universities look at for admissions. Your score also determines whether you will receive a grant to study. There are four required subjects (Kazakh language, history of Kazakhstan, math, and Russian language) and the fifth is chosen by the students. Many choose biology, physics, geography, or world history.
In my town, there is only one student I know of that has chosen English as his fifth subject. And though technically he goes to Jeff’s school and is Jeff’s student, he’s the son of the local ski guru who I’ve traveled and trained with, so I was recruited to tutor him (with Jeff’s blessing). This kid, Vitya, is probably the top athlete in the village; he’s placed well in both oblast and national level competitions for skiing, biathlon, and winter mnogoborye. We used to meet up fairly often down at the ski trail, he’d get in a few words of English as he lapped me, again. Last winter he was invited to compete in the Junior World Cup competition in Germany but had to turn it down; not enough time to get the visa. Naturally, I think he’s swell and wish I was in high school myself so I could date him. But I’m not, so instead we just get to hang out to discuss the finer points of Present Perfect Progressive Passive and laugh over all the errors in the English of the ENT. One memorable question asked students to find the correct word to describe “the flavor of the English national emblem.” Since the multiple choice answers were all about roses and thistles, not cinnamon and cayenne, I think we can assume the test writers meant “flower” instead of “flavor.”
Unfortunately, I won’t be in town for the actual testing. Fortunately, the results become available the same day (none of this wait three weeks for SAT nonsense) and I made Vitya promise to call me and tell me how he does. I’m impressed that someone from this town wants to become an English translator, especially a boy, as this is considered a more feminine profession. So send smart thoughts and prayers to Vitya on June second!
And if you have extra room in your prayers, send me some travelling mercies. Tomorrow I begin the long road to visit friends in western Kazakhstan, near the city of Aktobe. Officially I’m helping out with a camp, teaching English and games to eighth graders; unofficially I’m finally going to see what it looks like when Roman-agai, the first Kazakh I met in Kazakhstan and my language teacher during training, is in his home element. He is a fine man, a good musician, and he taught me so much. I can’t wait to meet his family and sing with his band!
Tomorrow evening I get on a bus to Pavlodar, then board a night train to Astana, then wake up and try to find a bus to the airport so I can fly to Aktobe. Train, plane, bus… it’s a nice trifecta. I’m hoping to add a car or boat if possible.
But for now, I’m going to pop over to the auditorium for a round table discussion. Today is a holiday of remembrance for victims of political repression. With all the Germans, labor camps, and state farms around, there ought to be plenty to talk about.
Post script: There was indeed a good deal to be said, especially by ethnic Germans from the area. At the end, the vice-governor of the region noticed me in the back and put me on the spot: “Oh, hey, I see Miss Nora back there! Miss Nora, tell us, would this ever happen in America?” And I got to give my two cents to the group of bored middle school kids and politicians, which was this: “Actually, you know, we did the same thing to people in America during the war. You had camps for Germans and we had camps for Japanese. So even though you students just said that today this could never happen in Kazakhstan because now Kazakhstan has a democracy, be careful and listen to these stories. It happened in America with a democracy, it can happen here, too.”
And now I really will sign off. I’m meeting some 9th graders to play Ultimate Frisbee in a minute. We’ll try to run faster than the gnats.
Love,
Nora
School is out, and so are the clouds of gnats. We’ve had our final day of classes, our final big ceremony for graduates (called the Final Bell), and almost all our final exams. All that’s left is the big national test, called the ENT, for graduates. It’s a bit like the SAT or ACT in that it determines university eligibility, but the ENT is a much bigger deal than the SAT. It happens at the end of the year and is really the only factor universities look at for admissions. Your score also determines whether you will receive a grant to study. There are four required subjects (Kazakh language, history of Kazakhstan, math, and Russian language) and the fifth is chosen by the students. Many choose biology, physics, geography, or world history.
In my town, there is only one student I know of that has chosen English as his fifth subject. And though technically he goes to Jeff’s school and is Jeff’s student, he’s the son of the local ski guru who I’ve traveled and trained with, so I was recruited to tutor him (with Jeff’s blessing). This kid, Vitya, is probably the top athlete in the village; he’s placed well in both oblast and national level competitions for skiing, biathlon, and winter mnogoborye. We used to meet up fairly often down at the ski trail, he’d get in a few words of English as he lapped me, again. Last winter he was invited to compete in the Junior World Cup competition in Germany but had to turn it down; not enough time to get the visa. Naturally, I think he’s swell and wish I was in high school myself so I could date him. But I’m not, so instead we just get to hang out to discuss the finer points of Present Perfect Progressive Passive and laugh over all the errors in the English of the ENT. One memorable question asked students to find the correct word to describe “the flavor of the English national emblem.” Since the multiple choice answers were all about roses and thistles, not cinnamon and cayenne, I think we can assume the test writers meant “flower” instead of “flavor.”
Unfortunately, I won’t be in town for the actual testing. Fortunately, the results become available the same day (none of this wait three weeks for SAT nonsense) and I made Vitya promise to call me and tell me how he does. I’m impressed that someone from this town wants to become an English translator, especially a boy, as this is considered a more feminine profession. So send smart thoughts and prayers to Vitya on June second!
And if you have extra room in your prayers, send me some travelling mercies. Tomorrow I begin the long road to visit friends in western Kazakhstan, near the city of Aktobe. Officially I’m helping out with a camp, teaching English and games to eighth graders; unofficially I’m finally going to see what it looks like when Roman-agai, the first Kazakh I met in Kazakhstan and my language teacher during training, is in his home element. He is a fine man, a good musician, and he taught me so much. I can’t wait to meet his family and sing with his band!
Tomorrow evening I get on a bus to Pavlodar, then board a night train to Astana, then wake up and try to find a bus to the airport so I can fly to Aktobe. Train, plane, bus… it’s a nice trifecta. I’m hoping to add a car or boat if possible.
But for now, I’m going to pop over to the auditorium for a round table discussion. Today is a holiday of remembrance for victims of political repression. With all the Germans, labor camps, and state farms around, there ought to be plenty to talk about.
Post script: There was indeed a good deal to be said, especially by ethnic Germans from the area. At the end, the vice-governor of the region noticed me in the back and put me on the spot: “Oh, hey, I see Miss Nora back there! Miss Nora, tell us, would this ever happen in America?” And I got to give my two cents to the group of bored middle school kids and politicians, which was this: “Actually, you know, we did the same thing to people in America during the war. You had camps for Germans and we had camps for Japanese. So even though you students just said that today this could never happen in Kazakhstan because now Kazakhstan has a democracy, be careful and listen to these stories. It happened in America with a democracy, it can happen here, too.”
And now I really will sign off. I’m meeting some 9th graders to play Ultimate Frisbee in a minute. We’ll try to run faster than the gnats.
Love,
Nora
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Wowie!
I know, I know, I just posted last week and so it's unreasonable to expect any of you to check back in so soon for an unprecidented note, but this is just so exciting that I have to tell someone back home.
April 22nd was Lenin's birthday, and in honor of the holiday I sent a message to my buddy Jose down south. This is the same friend I visited a few weeks ago for the kokpar and camel tour. His site is very remote and quite conservative, and even though we stayed in different homes and took pains to inform everyone that we're just friends, the rumors still flew that we were a couple.
Anyways, a few hours after my text, Jose called. "Guess what?" he said, "my Kazakh tutor's cow
gave birth to a new calf today!" When I was in town we spent lots of time with this man and his family, singing songs and eating with our hands.
"That's awesome," I replied, "Did they name the calf Lenin?"
"No," he said, "they actually named it Nora..."
Naturally I thought he was kidding, but then his tutor got on the phone and confirmed that, yes, the new calf was indeed named Nora. "Don't be offended, ok?" he asked in his quick Kazakh.
I wasn't fast enough to respond to him, so I passed my response along through Jose, "Tell him this is probably the coolest honor I've ever received in my life!"
And truly, it is. There is a little calf, a sign of spring and a source of milk and wealth, named Nora! Wow. Jose reports that calf-Nora has a mother named Micah and almost reddish hair.
When we were in training, our acting Country Director told us many stories about her 4-year service in Indonesia. Ten years later she returned to find the kindergarten/feeding program she started still up and running, and even more astonishingly, that there were three children named after her. One of them, unfortunately, was a beautiful girl named Schmidt.
I may not be the super volunteer worthy of children named Williams, but there is a special cow!
Love,
Nora
PS Happy Orthodox Easter. Last night I stood at church from 10.30pm -3.00am for the Easter vigil. It was quite an evening.
April 22nd was Lenin's birthday, and in honor of the holiday I sent a message to my buddy Jose down south. This is the same friend I visited a few weeks ago for the kokpar and camel tour. His site is very remote and quite conservative, and even though we stayed in different homes and took pains to inform everyone that we're just friends, the rumors still flew that we were a couple.
Anyways, a few hours after my text, Jose called. "Guess what?" he said, "my Kazakh tutor's cow
gave birth to a new calf today!" When I was in town we spent lots of time with this man and his family, singing songs and eating with our hands.
"That's awesome," I replied, "Did they name the calf Lenin?"
"No," he said, "they actually named it Nora..."
Naturally I thought he was kidding, but then his tutor got on the phone and confirmed that, yes, the new calf was indeed named Nora. "Don't be offended, ok?" he asked in his quick Kazakh.
I wasn't fast enough to respond to him, so I passed my response along through Jose, "Tell him this is probably the coolest honor I've ever received in my life!"
And truly, it is. There is a little calf, a sign of spring and a source of milk and wealth, named Nora! Wow. Jose reports that calf-Nora has a mother named Micah and almost reddish hair.
When we were in training, our acting Country Director told us many stories about her 4-year service in Indonesia. Ten years later she returned to find the kindergarten/feeding program she started still up and running, and even more astonishingly, that there were three children named after her. One of them, unfortunately, was a beautiful girl named Schmidt.
I may not be the super volunteer worthy of children named Williams, but there is a special cow!
Love,
Nora
PS Happy Orthodox Easter. Last night I stood at church from 10.30pm -3.00am for the Easter vigil. It was quite an evening.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Happy Birthday Abeeka and Hopa!
Disclaimer: I am not writing about my birthday as a means to guilt trip those of you who forgot. Really, please don’t send me belated wishes. If you do, it will just make me feel guilty, because unless you are one of my immediate family members, there’s about a 99% change that I don’t even know what month your birthday is in, much less the date. If you do insist on sending greetings, please accept my advanced/belated sentiments for all your past or future birthdays.
It was my birthday last weekend, I turned 23. This is not a huge milestone for most, just a pause on the way to 25 and a source of pleasant memories when scary 30 comes around, but for me it marks something big. When I joined the Peace Corps I was 21, the second youngest in my training group by about a month, and I was pestered by comments like, “oh, man, you’re only going to be 23 when you get out!” as though Peace Corps were a jail sentence and the faster you get through it the better. And now that I am 23, I am very aware that my service in Kazakhstan will soon come to a close. Yesterday I received a form in the mail asking for my banking information so Peace Corps can send my Readjustment Allowance when I leave. That’s scary because it means that a) I’ll be leaving soon and b) I have to find my banking information again. Haven’t touched that in two years…
To celebrate the big two-three I took my younger friends out to dinner/dancing at a local café the night before. It is considered bad luck to wish someone a happy birthday before the actual day begins, so we called it a “Good-bye 22” evening instead of a birthday party. All ten of us had a good time, I think, toasts were made, presents given, and we finished off lots of mayonnaise based salads, steamed meat/potato dumplings, chicken pie, and sweets. I even got cake and ice cream with candles! I don’t think I’ve done that since high school. I can’t help but laugh as I look at the presents in my room from the weekend; they reflect how well (or not) people here know me, from a silver necklace, a shawl and roses to an oversized stuffed rabbit and fake designer wallet. My favorite is a pink t-shit/tank contraption with both “Team International Cheerleading Team Meeting Official” and “Redwood Ranger” printed on in among other less intelligible phrases.
At 1 am, I slipped into a still warm banya and washed away the make-up and stress of hosting locals on their own turf – I think I got through without too many gaffs.
On the actual day, my host mother invited extended family and neighbors over to celebrate. As always, her cooking was delicious and the table was packed with salads, potatoes, stuffed cabbage leaves, my favorite dish of duck-in-dough with a goose substitution, and more sides than I can remember. And then, the coup de grace, I got to blow out the candles (again!) on a cake with “С днем рождения Нора!” written in frosting.
For birthdays in Kazakhstan and Russia, the gathered guests are asked to give well-wishing toasts. It is embarrassing to be praised so publicly but always fun to hear what people think you need. “May you find your soul mate,” “May you complete your work well,” “Health to you and your parents,” and “Love,” were repeated multiple times in three languages (or four if you consider Abeeka’s creative mix of Kazakh, Russian and Tartar to be unique). One aunt said, “Through you America has come closer to us; we are glad to find Americans are just like us.” Two toasts later, a neighbor begged to differ, “I disagree. Nora can’t have brought America closer because she’s not really American any more. She’s ours!” Thank you, dear friends, for your acceptance, if not quite as I am, then at least as much as you can.
As we finished our tea, Abeeka (that’s Tartar for grandmother) had the last word, pronouncing that, “when you get married, I will come and sing a special song for you and you will dance.” We had a practice session right there and then, turned out pretty well, so now all we need is a groom and the deal is on.
Two nights later on Abeeka’s birthday, I referenced her promise in my toast, “Abeeka, even though I am new to this family, I am still very proud of you. You are a window on history for us. Thank you. I wish you health and long life. May you live to come to my wedding!” She nodded her head, saying she fully expected to keep her promise. “Abeeka,” said one of her daughters, “you do realize you’d have to fly 22 hours to get there?” “Ok,” Abeeka said, “no problem.” We all laughed, but I wonder if she’s ever even been in an airplane; if she has, it was probably many years ago in the USSR.
Abeeka was turning either 84 or 86, depending on which source you choose. Her documents say she was born in 1922, her family says 1924. If you ask her how old she is, she’ll wave her hand in the air and scoff. Really, who has the time or memory to keep track of such things? She tells stories of coming to Kazakhstan in 1937, her mother having just died and Tatars migrating east to avoid collectivization. Her trunk was full, jewelry and clothing and head dresses all lost in the years since. On her birthday, her oldest daughter, acting as toast master, asked Abeeka to relate how she first met her husband, the father of this brood of 11 children. Abeeka thought for a few minutes then took us right back to 1937: she was married in 1938 when she was 16. Curiously, the rest of the family seemed equally intrigued by the story; from their reactions, this was a part of their history that they hadn’t heard before. Eyebrows went up, and we looked at each other in surprise.
The gist of the tale is this: Abeeka had never seen her husband, never shaken his hand or even said hello before they were married. She didn’t even know it was her wedding day until it was over. It was a first degree arranged marriage, if not a complete bride-napping like that common among Kazakhs.
“We were in a packed house,” Abeeka remembered, “no room for everyone, so we were sleeping by the corrals.”
“What did you think of Dad?” one daughter asked, “Did you think he was handsome?”
“Well,” Abeeka replied, “after two days they put up a curtain and then I liked him alright.” She’s got sass, this lady who prays five times a day, even if she doesn’t realize it.
In the middle of Abeeka's dinner, a friend from Middlebury called. It was the first time I've talked to non-family in almost 2 years. Letters and emails, yes, but what a strange moment to be talking to him!
Guess I should get used to it...
Love,
Nora
It was my birthday last weekend, I turned 23. This is not a huge milestone for most, just a pause on the way to 25 and a source of pleasant memories when scary 30 comes around, but for me it marks something big. When I joined the Peace Corps I was 21, the second youngest in my training group by about a month, and I was pestered by comments like, “oh, man, you’re only going to be 23 when you get out!” as though Peace Corps were a jail sentence and the faster you get through it the better. And now that I am 23, I am very aware that my service in Kazakhstan will soon come to a close. Yesterday I received a form in the mail asking for my banking information so Peace Corps can send my Readjustment Allowance when I leave. That’s scary because it means that a) I’ll be leaving soon and b) I have to find my banking information again. Haven’t touched that in two years…
To celebrate the big two-three I took my younger friends out to dinner/dancing at a local café the night before. It is considered bad luck to wish someone a happy birthday before the actual day begins, so we called it a “Good-bye 22” evening instead of a birthday party. All ten of us had a good time, I think, toasts were made, presents given, and we finished off lots of mayonnaise based salads, steamed meat/potato dumplings, chicken pie, and sweets. I even got cake and ice cream with candles! I don’t think I’ve done that since high school. I can’t help but laugh as I look at the presents in my room from the weekend; they reflect how well (or not) people here know me, from a silver necklace, a shawl and roses to an oversized stuffed rabbit and fake designer wallet. My favorite is a pink t-shit/tank contraption with both “Team International Cheerleading Team Meeting Official” and “Redwood Ranger” printed on in among other less intelligible phrases.
At 1 am, I slipped into a still warm banya and washed away the make-up and stress of hosting locals on their own turf – I think I got through without too many gaffs.
On the actual day, my host mother invited extended family and neighbors over to celebrate. As always, her cooking was delicious and the table was packed with salads, potatoes, stuffed cabbage leaves, my favorite dish of duck-in-dough with a goose substitution, and more sides than I can remember. And then, the coup de grace, I got to blow out the candles (again!) on a cake with “С днем рождения Нора!” written in frosting.
For birthdays in Kazakhstan and Russia, the gathered guests are asked to give well-wishing toasts. It is embarrassing to be praised so publicly but always fun to hear what people think you need. “May you find your soul mate,” “May you complete your work well,” “Health to you and your parents,” and “Love,” were repeated multiple times in three languages (or four if you consider Abeeka’s creative mix of Kazakh, Russian and Tartar to be unique). One aunt said, “Through you America has come closer to us; we are glad to find Americans are just like us.” Two toasts later, a neighbor begged to differ, “I disagree. Nora can’t have brought America closer because she’s not really American any more. She’s ours!” Thank you, dear friends, for your acceptance, if not quite as I am, then at least as much as you can.
As we finished our tea, Abeeka (that’s Tartar for grandmother) had the last word, pronouncing that, “when you get married, I will come and sing a special song for you and you will dance.” We had a practice session right there and then, turned out pretty well, so now all we need is a groom and the deal is on.
Two nights later on Abeeka’s birthday, I referenced her promise in my toast, “Abeeka, even though I am new to this family, I am still very proud of you. You are a window on history for us. Thank you. I wish you health and long life. May you live to come to my wedding!” She nodded her head, saying she fully expected to keep her promise. “Abeeka,” said one of her daughters, “you do realize you’d have to fly 22 hours to get there?” “Ok,” Abeeka said, “no problem.” We all laughed, but I wonder if she’s ever even been in an airplane; if she has, it was probably many years ago in the USSR.
Abeeka was turning either 84 or 86, depending on which source you choose. Her documents say she was born in 1922, her family says 1924. If you ask her how old she is, she’ll wave her hand in the air and scoff. Really, who has the time or memory to keep track of such things? She tells stories of coming to Kazakhstan in 1937, her mother having just died and Tatars migrating east to avoid collectivization. Her trunk was full, jewelry and clothing and head dresses all lost in the years since. On her birthday, her oldest daughter, acting as toast master, asked Abeeka to relate how she first met her husband, the father of this brood of 11 children. Abeeka thought for a few minutes then took us right back to 1937: she was married in 1938 when she was 16. Curiously, the rest of the family seemed equally intrigued by the story; from their reactions, this was a part of their history that they hadn’t heard before. Eyebrows went up, and we looked at each other in surprise.
The gist of the tale is this: Abeeka had never seen her husband, never shaken his hand or even said hello before they were married. She didn’t even know it was her wedding day until it was over. It was a first degree arranged marriage, if not a complete bride-napping like that common among Kazakhs.
“We were in a packed house,” Abeeka remembered, “no room for everyone, so we were sleeping by the corrals.”
“What did you think of Dad?” one daughter asked, “Did you think he was handsome?”
“Well,” Abeeka replied, “after two days they put up a curtain and then I liked him alright.” She’s got sass, this lady who prays five times a day, even if she doesn’t realize it.
In the middle of Abeeka's dinner, a friend from Middlebury called. It was the first time I've talked to non-family in almost 2 years. Letters and emails, yes, but what a strange moment to be talking to him!
Guess I should get used to it...
Love,
Nora
Friday, April 04, 2008
Where is the women's league?
There are only a few times when yelling “rip it in half” is appropriate at a sporting event. Maybe at an origami competition or a paper snowflake demolition derby? And yet, last week I found myself yelling just that. My friend Jose looked at me sideways on our bleacher bench, saying, “Wow, I didn’t think you’d get this into it…”
But how could you not get into kokpar, dubbed goat carcass polo by English speakers tying to simplify the event? How can you not be thrilled by two men on horseback, each holding onto one hind leg of a headless goat and trying to gallop away in opposite directions? Wouldn’t you, too, cheer for them?
There are not a whole lot of rules to kokpar, though there are two versions: team kokpar, where four riders from each side battle over the goat, and individual kokpar, aka a wild free-for-all with upwards of a hundred riders possible. We were watching team kokpar at the Shimkent hippodrome. I’d ridden a train 36 hours south to get to Shimkent, along with a whole crew of other volunteers, for Nauryz, Kazakhstan’s spring festival. Theoretically, I was there to visit with Americans, warm up after winter, drink some beer, practice my Kazakh language, and explore the rich culture of Kazakhstan. In reality, I’d been hearing about kokpar for almost two years now and the temptation to finally see it was just too great. The irony being that yesterday the head of our local sport school told me that our town was chosen to hold the annual oblast-wide kokpar festival this summer. I guess I didn’t have to go that far after all, though I like to think that northern kokpar will be a very different event. And while I was south, I did get to see and do some other cool things, like visit Kazakhstan’s holiest Muslim site, a gorgeous mausoleum to a 14th century Sufi, and drink fermented camel's milk.
Kokpar came at the end of an afternoon of riding events, most of which focused on skills needed to be a great kokpar player. Wresting on horseback (trying to wrench your opponent out of the saddle, a useful skill in the tight scrums trying to get to the goat), bareback races (you’ve got to be able to ride fast if you hope to make it to the goal), scooping scarves off the ground (quite a trick of balance and trust that riders must execute every time the carcass falls), and jumping (kokpar doesn’t stop if a horse or rider goes down; you need to work around obstacles). These events were all fascinating in their own right, of course. Especially kyz kuu, which translates as “kiss the girl,” and involves women on horseback trying to outrace a male suitor. If she’s faster over a set distance, she gets to whip her opponent on the way back. If he catches her, he throws his arm around her shoulders (still at a gallop) and tries to steal a kiss. People debate over the true rules or intentions of kyz kuu, but whatever the origins, the modern incarnation is fast and hilarious. My favorite was the confident young lady who not only won her race but managed to blow kisses and wave to the crowd as she rode; she was a cross between Miss Kazakhstan and Annie Oakley.
By the time kokpar rolled around, most of the Americans were already petering out of the stadium; it was hot and there was a basketball game scheduled between rival factions of volunteers. I made Jose (my guide for the rest of my southern tour) stay till the end of the first game with me. I if I had known there was going to be a second game I never would have left.
The best moments of the game were the beginnings of each new point. The carcass (soaked overnight and so less likely to fall apart) was placed on one side of the field and at the signal of the referee, all eight riders galloped at it from the other side, each trying to be the first to reach and snatch the goat. Much of the rest of the game was taken up in scrums as knots of riders fought for a chance to break away towards the goals. To score, a rider must toss the goat (cleanly, no points if there’s a leg hanging out) into the center of a large ring, which lies flat on the ground and is surrounded by a moat of old tires. If a rider takes the goat out of bounds, the carcass is brought to the middle of the field perpendicular to where it went out and both teams send one rider for a face-off.
Those are basically the only rules.
Substitutions are on a tag-out basis, unless someone falls from their horse, at which time their team can immediately send in another rider. This happened once and watching the team try to capture the rider-less horse was almost as exciting as the game. The last I saw of it, the horse had slipped through a loose net of riders and escaped into the parking lot.
Pictures of the game are not sufficient, of course, but I’ll try to get some up soon. And maybe of some of the other sights, like the mausoleum, Jose flying a kite on the steppe (a very Peace Corps moment), camels, and me sipping on fermented mare’s milk (kumis, not to be confused with shubat, the camel version).
Happy Spring!
-- Nora
But how could you not get into kokpar, dubbed goat carcass polo by English speakers tying to simplify the event? How can you not be thrilled by two men on horseback, each holding onto one hind leg of a headless goat and trying to gallop away in opposite directions? Wouldn’t you, too, cheer for them?
There are not a whole lot of rules to kokpar, though there are two versions: team kokpar, where four riders from each side battle over the goat, and individual kokpar, aka a wild free-for-all with upwards of a hundred riders possible. We were watching team kokpar at the Shimkent hippodrome. I’d ridden a train 36 hours south to get to Shimkent, along with a whole crew of other volunteers, for Nauryz, Kazakhstan’s spring festival. Theoretically, I was there to visit with Americans, warm up after winter, drink some beer, practice my Kazakh language, and explore the rich culture of Kazakhstan. In reality, I’d been hearing about kokpar for almost two years now and the temptation to finally see it was just too great. The irony being that yesterday the head of our local sport school told me that our town was chosen to hold the annual oblast-wide kokpar festival this summer. I guess I didn’t have to go that far after all, though I like to think that northern kokpar will be a very different event. And while I was south, I did get to see and do some other cool things, like visit Kazakhstan’s holiest Muslim site, a gorgeous mausoleum to a 14th century Sufi, and drink fermented camel's milk.
Kokpar came at the end of an afternoon of riding events, most of which focused on skills needed to be a great kokpar player. Wresting on horseback (trying to wrench your opponent out of the saddle, a useful skill in the tight scrums trying to get to the goat), bareback races (you’ve got to be able to ride fast if you hope to make it to the goal), scooping scarves off the ground (quite a trick of balance and trust that riders must execute every time the carcass falls), and jumping (kokpar doesn’t stop if a horse or rider goes down; you need to work around obstacles). These events were all fascinating in their own right, of course. Especially kyz kuu, which translates as “kiss the girl,” and involves women on horseback trying to outrace a male suitor. If she’s faster over a set distance, she gets to whip her opponent on the way back. If he catches her, he throws his arm around her shoulders (still at a gallop) and tries to steal a kiss. People debate over the true rules or intentions of kyz kuu, but whatever the origins, the modern incarnation is fast and hilarious. My favorite was the confident young lady who not only won her race but managed to blow kisses and wave to the crowd as she rode; she was a cross between Miss Kazakhstan and Annie Oakley.
By the time kokpar rolled around, most of the Americans were already petering out of the stadium; it was hot and there was a basketball game scheduled between rival factions of volunteers. I made Jose (my guide for the rest of my southern tour) stay till the end of the first game with me. I if I had known there was going to be a second game I never would have left.
The best moments of the game were the beginnings of each new point. The carcass (soaked overnight and so less likely to fall apart) was placed on one side of the field and at the signal of the referee, all eight riders galloped at it from the other side, each trying to be the first to reach and snatch the goat. Much of the rest of the game was taken up in scrums as knots of riders fought for a chance to break away towards the goals. To score, a rider must toss the goat (cleanly, no points if there’s a leg hanging out) into the center of a large ring, which lies flat on the ground and is surrounded by a moat of old tires. If a rider takes the goat out of bounds, the carcass is brought to the middle of the field perpendicular to where it went out and both teams send one rider for a face-off.
Those are basically the only rules.
Substitutions are on a tag-out basis, unless someone falls from their horse, at which time their team can immediately send in another rider. This happened once and watching the team try to capture the rider-less horse was almost as exciting as the game. The last I saw of it, the horse had slipped through a loose net of riders and escaped into the parking lot.
Pictures of the game are not sufficient, of course, but I’ll try to get some up soon. And maybe of some of the other sights, like the mausoleum, Jose flying a kite on the steppe (a very Peace Corps moment), camels, and me sipping on fermented mare’s milk (kumis, not to be confused with shubat, the camel version).
Happy Spring!
-- Nora
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
My Day So Far
If you accept that a day starts at midnight, mine began at a cafe out with two girlfriends celebrating International Women's day. We danced, they filled me in on all the gossip surrounding our fellow cafe-goers, and I got in a debate about Barak Obama's presidential hopes with a complete stranger. In other words, the usual.
We left before everyone else in the place -- it's a pretty serious holiday, especially when it falls on a Saturday. I walked home through slushy snow, got together my things for a trip to the city, and fell asleep. But wouldn't you just know it, something at the cafe got my guts hard, and I woke up at 2 am to regurgitate, as it were. Not the first and certainly not the last of my food poisonings in Kazakhstan; it's a reality, however unpleasant.
I was up again at 6:30 to wait for a taxi to town. But, just my luck, I fell victim to a miscommunication. The taxi driver I'd called hadn't gotten any more passengers, and so cancelled his trip. To let me know, he had either left a message that didn't reach me or called while we were out. Needless to say, he was not happy when I called him at 7:30 to figure out what was going on... Once that was cleared up, I took a walk in the grey morning to our tiny bus station. No problems there, tickets available and bus on time and everything!
The purpose of this trip is to get train tickets for me and Jeff and to coordinate a vacation down south with the other Pavlodar volunteers. We tried once already two weeks ago to get tickets, only to be told that the schedule was changing. Today I went straight to the train station from the bus depot, but luck is just not with me, and the ticket lady said due to a change, there were no kupe tickets (which you can reserve far in advance) and platzcart (or cheaper, fuller train cars) will only go on sale 5 days in advance. Foiled again! Frustrating to have to take a 3 hour bus ride in to find that out. On the bright side, I can leave money and documents with volunteers here and hope they are more sucessful at negotiating for tickets.
Now with 7 hours to kill till the return bus, I got on a tram to get to the Internet center. Not two minutes into the ride, the trolley stopped and our conductor said that traffic was stopped for trams on the next street, we were all going to have to get off. Half of the passengers stepped meekly off, the other half was up in arms, insisting on a return of their 30 tenge fare (roughly 25 cents). I cut my losses and braved the messy melting streets to walk here.
Whew. And now heading back onto the streets to track down another visiting volunteer.
The moral of the story is: travel is difficult in Kazakhstan.
Love,
Nora
We left before everyone else in the place -- it's a pretty serious holiday, especially when it falls on a Saturday. I walked home through slushy snow, got together my things for a trip to the city, and fell asleep. But wouldn't you just know it, something at the cafe got my guts hard, and I woke up at 2 am to regurgitate, as it were. Not the first and certainly not the last of my food poisonings in Kazakhstan; it's a reality, however unpleasant.
I was up again at 6:30 to wait for a taxi to town. But, just my luck, I fell victim to a miscommunication. The taxi driver I'd called hadn't gotten any more passengers, and so cancelled his trip. To let me know, he had either left a message that didn't reach me or called while we were out. Needless to say, he was not happy when I called him at 7:30 to figure out what was going on... Once that was cleared up, I took a walk in the grey morning to our tiny bus station. No problems there, tickets available and bus on time and everything!
The purpose of this trip is to get train tickets for me and Jeff and to coordinate a vacation down south with the other Pavlodar volunteers. We tried once already two weeks ago to get tickets, only to be told that the schedule was changing. Today I went straight to the train station from the bus depot, but luck is just not with me, and the ticket lady said due to a change, there were no kupe tickets (which you can reserve far in advance) and platzcart (or cheaper, fuller train cars) will only go on sale 5 days in advance. Foiled again! Frustrating to have to take a 3 hour bus ride in to find that out. On the bright side, I can leave money and documents with volunteers here and hope they are more sucessful at negotiating for tickets.
Now with 7 hours to kill till the return bus, I got on a tram to get to the Internet center. Not two minutes into the ride, the trolley stopped and our conductor said that traffic was stopped for trams on the next street, we were all going to have to get off. Half of the passengers stepped meekly off, the other half was up in arms, insisting on a return of their 30 tenge fare (roughly 25 cents). I cut my losses and braved the messy melting streets to walk here.
Whew. And now heading back onto the streets to track down another visiting volunteer.
The moral of the story is: travel is difficult in Kazakhstan.
Love,
Nora
Monday, February 25, 2008
I appoligize for any spelling/grammar errors in advance, this is a rushed entry.
This past weekend I had the great pleasure of travelling to Pavlodar for yet another sports competition: the winter mnogoborye, aka the winter equivalent of the multi-event competition I reported on last summer. Only three events this time around, but equally curious: skiing (3km), shooting (10 shots on a bullseye from around 10 meters), and push-ups (not wussy push-ups with arms going sideways, but serious, elbows-back, nose-the-floor, on-your-toes monstors).
Our team, as to be expected, took first among the rural teams. Yea! I personally earned the team 135 points (each event is worth 100), which is pretty damn good for a beginner. If I'd earned 200, I could have become a Candidate for Master of Sport. At 230, you earn the title Master of Sport, I think. Every sport, from basketball to chess, has its own benchmarks for Master of Sport. From there you can earn Master of Sport titles on the national and international levels. Perhaps these titles were good for bonuses during Soviet times; now they simply indicate to your competitors that you are not to be messed with.
Unfortunately, I wasn't quite good enough to be an individual medalist. This is mostly due to the fact that all three women from our region fell into the same age bracket, and the other two are both Masters of Sport, so they and another woman kicked my butt and I took fourth. Curiously enough, shooting was again my best event, though I was disappointed -- I've shot close to 70 at practice and only managed 55 in competition. Skiing was decent, I earned 44 points on an icy track with a strong wind (points are given based on finish time). But push-ups...
To be honest, I'm pretty pleased: three weeks ago I couldn't even do a singe one of these arm busters, and on Saturday I managed 11 in a row. The set-up was pretty grim -- we were doing push-ups straight after shooting on a cemet floor covered by a thin oriental carpet, seperated from the metal pings of the range by only a thin curtain. Our judge (also my coach...) placed a wooden box about 2 inches tall on the floor. "This box has one loose board," he informed us, " so I'll be able to hear if you really get low enough." And he could, also disqualifying any attempts at push-ups with poor form.
After I did mine, the judge watching the guys doing pull-ups asked me why I wasn't breathing right. "How are you supposed to?" I asked, "and why are you telling me this now?" "I thought you'd know physiology," he replied. "No, I teach English," I said. "Yeah, she's our American. Speaks Kazakh fluently, too," put in our coach (I'm fluent in Kazakh to those who don't speak it). "Yeah," chimed in one of my competitors from another region, "I saw her picture in the paper in full Kazakh costume!"
Celebrity that I am, I was blown out of the water on those push-ups. One woman from my region has a new baby and hasn't trained seriously in two years. She did 26 push-ups without thinking twice. And my other teammate who trains seriously and is studying to be a coach did 51. A few years ago, our coach's wife (also a Master of Sport) did 126 in under 4 minutes at a competition. She's in her forties. How many can you do?
Later, I was sitting in a very focused room filled with athletes waiting either to shoot or push/pull. My phone rang, loud in the anticipatory atmosphere. Why is it that other volunteers always call me at the worst possible time? I answered, because volunteers are cheap and there's no guarentee that this friend would ever risk the cell phone minutes to call again, and began speaking hushed but unmistakably English. Usually my strategy is to never speak English in public. That way strangers can choose to believe that I'm ethnically German but still Kazakhstani, even if they've heard rumors of an American in their midst. And this is why: as my teenage teammate later reported,"it was amazing! Everyone in the room turned and stared at you with these huge eyes and shocked faces!" Needless to say, it was a short conversation under that kind of pressure. But when I hung up, my teammate couldn't resist rubbing it in: he nudged one of his acquaintance competitors and said, "She speaks fluent Kazakh, too!"
This weekend I also hung out with some other volunteers in between events. I think Jeff is reporting on those discoveries, so check with him for news of pickled watermelon, the bunker bar, and the man in the hip coffe shop we knew was foreign and guessed to be German, Italian, or Danish. When we worked up the courage to ask him, he turned out to be from Michigan. The only other American in Pavlodar, and we couldn't even recognize on of our own! Though he worked for a German/Italian company, so we were partly right.
Sometimes, through all the fun and excitement of this life, real horror creeps in. Coming home to the hostel where the team was staying, the woman on door/key duty made sure that I knew that I was coming in late (it was 10:30), and that there was no way she was going to let in the young man accompaying me (it was another volunteer making sure I got there safely). "I recognize my own," she said. I explained the situation and she was quite surprised to learn that I was foreign ("don't be offended, but I thought you were German with your pretty round eyes"). Within 30 seconds of her discovery, she asked me to do something for her and invited me in to her lounge. There she took out her wallet, opened it to three pictures of a beautiful blond woman and two of a young boy. Her grandson, she explained, and her daughter. "I just thought," she said, " that maybe you'd seen her in your travels, see how she looks like Alla Pugachova's daughter?" It slowly became clear, as my host began crying, that this daughter was lost. "Look at her nice breasts," said this mother, "You can understand why they would take her?" Human trafficking, she said. Words that aren't meant to go together. In the sudden tears and my shock, I missed most of the details, but the essence remains. I promised I would keep my eyes open for this seven-years-gone woman, and also that I would pray.
The next day, she was ending her shift as we went to breakfast. She greeted me as "her beauty," answered my awkward questions about the hostel, and we said warm good-byes. And I will pray and hope. What else is there left to do?
Love,
Nora
This past weekend I had the great pleasure of travelling to Pavlodar for yet another sports competition: the winter mnogoborye, aka the winter equivalent of the multi-event competition I reported on last summer. Only three events this time around, but equally curious: skiing (3km), shooting (10 shots on a bullseye from around 10 meters), and push-ups (not wussy push-ups with arms going sideways, but serious, elbows-back, nose-the-floor, on-your-toes monstors).
Our team, as to be expected, took first among the rural teams. Yea! I personally earned the team 135 points (each event is worth 100), which is pretty damn good for a beginner. If I'd earned 200, I could have become a Candidate for Master of Sport. At 230, you earn the title Master of Sport, I think. Every sport, from basketball to chess, has its own benchmarks for Master of Sport. From there you can earn Master of Sport titles on the national and international levels. Perhaps these titles were good for bonuses during Soviet times; now they simply indicate to your competitors that you are not to be messed with.
Unfortunately, I wasn't quite good enough to be an individual medalist. This is mostly due to the fact that all three women from our region fell into the same age bracket, and the other two are both Masters of Sport, so they and another woman kicked my butt and I took fourth. Curiously enough, shooting was again my best event, though I was disappointed -- I've shot close to 70 at practice and only managed 55 in competition. Skiing was decent, I earned 44 points on an icy track with a strong wind (points are given based on finish time). But push-ups...
To be honest, I'm pretty pleased: three weeks ago I couldn't even do a singe one of these arm busters, and on Saturday I managed 11 in a row. The set-up was pretty grim -- we were doing push-ups straight after shooting on a cemet floor covered by a thin oriental carpet, seperated from the metal pings of the range by only a thin curtain. Our judge (also my coach...) placed a wooden box about 2 inches tall on the floor. "This box has one loose board," he informed us, " so I'll be able to hear if you really get low enough." And he could, also disqualifying any attempts at push-ups with poor form.
After I did mine, the judge watching the guys doing pull-ups asked me why I wasn't breathing right. "How are you supposed to?" I asked, "and why are you telling me this now?" "I thought you'd know physiology," he replied. "No, I teach English," I said. "Yeah, she's our American. Speaks Kazakh fluently, too," put in our coach (I'm fluent in Kazakh to those who don't speak it). "Yeah," chimed in one of my competitors from another region, "I saw her picture in the paper in full Kazakh costume!"
Celebrity that I am, I was blown out of the water on those push-ups. One woman from my region has a new baby and hasn't trained seriously in two years. She did 26 push-ups without thinking twice. And my other teammate who trains seriously and is studying to be a coach did 51. A few years ago, our coach's wife (also a Master of Sport) did 126 in under 4 minutes at a competition. She's in her forties. How many can you do?
Later, I was sitting in a very focused room filled with athletes waiting either to shoot or push/pull. My phone rang, loud in the anticipatory atmosphere. Why is it that other volunteers always call me at the worst possible time? I answered, because volunteers are cheap and there's no guarentee that this friend would ever risk the cell phone minutes to call again, and began speaking hushed but unmistakably English. Usually my strategy is to never speak English in public. That way strangers can choose to believe that I'm ethnically German but still Kazakhstani, even if they've heard rumors of an American in their midst. And this is why: as my teenage teammate later reported,"it was amazing! Everyone in the room turned and stared at you with these huge eyes and shocked faces!" Needless to say, it was a short conversation under that kind of pressure. But when I hung up, my teammate couldn't resist rubbing it in: he nudged one of his acquaintance competitors and said, "She speaks fluent Kazakh, too!"
This weekend I also hung out with some other volunteers in between events. I think Jeff is reporting on those discoveries, so check with him for news of pickled watermelon, the bunker bar, and the man in the hip coffe shop we knew was foreign and guessed to be German, Italian, or Danish. When we worked up the courage to ask him, he turned out to be from Michigan. The only other American in Pavlodar, and we couldn't even recognize on of our own! Though he worked for a German/Italian company, so we were partly right.
Sometimes, through all the fun and excitement of this life, real horror creeps in. Coming home to the hostel where the team was staying, the woman on door/key duty made sure that I knew that I was coming in late (it was 10:30), and that there was no way she was going to let in the young man accompaying me (it was another volunteer making sure I got there safely). "I recognize my own," she said. I explained the situation and she was quite surprised to learn that I was foreign ("don't be offended, but I thought you were German with your pretty round eyes"). Within 30 seconds of her discovery, she asked me to do something for her and invited me in to her lounge. There she took out her wallet, opened it to three pictures of a beautiful blond woman and two of a young boy. Her grandson, she explained, and her daughter. "I just thought," she said, " that maybe you'd seen her in your travels, see how she looks like Alla Pugachova's daughter?" It slowly became clear, as my host began crying, that this daughter was lost. "Look at her nice breasts," said this mother, "You can understand why they would take her?" Human trafficking, she said. Words that aren't meant to go together. In the sudden tears and my shock, I missed most of the details, but the essence remains. I promised I would keep my eyes open for this seven-years-gone woman, and also that I would pray.
The next day, she was ending her shift as we went to breakfast. She greeted me as "her beauty," answered my awkward questions about the hostel, and we said warm good-byes. And I will pray and hope. What else is there left to do?
Love,
Nora
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tri-lingual All-star
Last week a friend of mine came by for help (he bought a new phone and all the instructions were in English) and mentioned that my name came up in a recent all-region meeting with the akim (the local governor). To my surprise, I was not held up as a model teacher or praised for my active involvement in local sports and music events. Instead, my name was raised regarding the tri-lingual society that Kazakhstan so dearly craves. Most people in Kazakhstan are on their way to being bilingual – kids from Kazakh families learn English or Russian to competent levels in their school, and Russian kids, though they struggle with Kazakh, seems highly motivated to learn English. The trick is convincing Kazakh students that just Russian and Kazakh are not enough and convincing Russian students that it is their best interests to learn Kazakh. I speak all three languages daily, which I guess means I’m living the dream, and the locals like to talk that up.
Kazakh is an easy language, don’t let the Russians tell you otherwise. It has a few funky consonants, yes, and a wide range of vowels that all sound about the same, but the grammar is a breeze compared to the convolutions of Russian. Russian usually makes the list of most difficult languages to learn for three reasons. One, pronunciation is darn tough: stress changes, hard and soft ways to pronounce most consonants (which still trips me up and is a prominent feature in the American Russian accent). Two, the grammar is ridiculously complicated and mastering it involves a brutal amount of rote memory or a long stay abroad until you start to feel that here one ending goes and there a totally different one. Three, exceptions to the rule are the norm.
In Kazakh, exceptions are rare, almost nonexistent in the grammar and only occasionally appearing in pronunciation. I appreciate that. Plus it has some very neat linguistic tricks, like borrowing phrases from Arabic and sticking Kazak endings on Russian words. And it’s logical. Take the cardinal directions in Kazakh, for example. East is shughus, which is similar to the word that means to go out, or leave. So imagine you are the sun, and naturally you leave from the east. And where are you going? West, or batus, doesn’t really mean “to go to”, but it has the same first syllable as that verb and is only one letter removed from batir, which means warrior, and who usually rage from East to West. South and North are a piece of cake, too. If you are the sun, with your back to the East and walking towards the West, what is on your right side? North, or ongtustik, which in my totally unscientific etymological breakdown means “right-colored-place.” South, similarly, is “left-colored-place” or soltustik. It’s brilliant.
Don’t get me wrong, I love breaking down Russian words, too. I hope I’ll long remember the day I reasoned out “inevitable” without using a dictionary. The word in Russian looked like “un-run-away-able.” Makes sense, in its own way.
Still cold, but life goes on. My second and third graders still cheer when I enter the room and my fourth graders squabble over who gets to carry my materials to class. And planning for Frisbee in the summer warms my thoughts and gets me motivated.
Speaking of which, those lesson plans won't write themselves...
Kazakh is an easy language, don’t let the Russians tell you otherwise. It has a few funky consonants, yes, and a wide range of vowels that all sound about the same, but the grammar is a breeze compared to the convolutions of Russian. Russian usually makes the list of most difficult languages to learn for three reasons. One, pronunciation is darn tough: stress changes, hard and soft ways to pronounce most consonants (which still trips me up and is a prominent feature in the American Russian accent). Two, the grammar is ridiculously complicated and mastering it involves a brutal amount of rote memory or a long stay abroad until you start to feel that here one ending goes and there a totally different one. Three, exceptions to the rule are the norm.
In Kazakh, exceptions are rare, almost nonexistent in the grammar and only occasionally appearing in pronunciation. I appreciate that. Plus it has some very neat linguistic tricks, like borrowing phrases from Arabic and sticking Kazak endings on Russian words. And it’s logical. Take the cardinal directions in Kazakh, for example. East is shughus, which is similar to the word that means to go out, or leave. So imagine you are the sun, and naturally you leave from the east. And where are you going? West, or batus, doesn’t really mean “to go to”, but it has the same first syllable as that verb and is only one letter removed from batir, which means warrior, and who usually rage from East to West. South and North are a piece of cake, too. If you are the sun, with your back to the East and walking towards the West, what is on your right side? North, or ongtustik, which in my totally unscientific etymological breakdown means “right-colored-place.” South, similarly, is “left-colored-place” or soltustik. It’s brilliant.
Don’t get me wrong, I love breaking down Russian words, too. I hope I’ll long remember the day I reasoned out “inevitable” without using a dictionary. The word in Russian looked like “un-run-away-able.” Makes sense, in its own way.
Still cold, but life goes on. My second and third graders still cheer when I enter the room and my fourth graders squabble over who gets to carry my materials to class. And planning for Frisbee in the summer warms my thoughts and gets me motivated.
Speaking of which, those lesson plans won't write themselves...
Friday, January 04, 2008
How cold is it?
New Year’s in Kazakhstan is a blend of three American celebrations. Like Christmas, it is considered a family holiday. Everyone gathers together at home around the glowing tree, especially as the clock turns midnight, to eat, drink, open presents, and set off fireworks. At school in the week before the holiday we decorated an evergreen with lights and ornaments and had numerous New Year’s celebrations – as ritualized as any Christmas pageant in America. Father Frost came with his helper the Snow Maiden and watched as children, parents, and teachers held hands and danced around the tree singing familiar New Year’s carols. Brave children recited poetry or sang for Father Frost and were rewarded with candy or small gifts. Some danced or played games for prizes. For some reason, doing the bird dance is also quite popular at these events. Other aspects of almost every celebration included banishing some form of bad guy – usually a devil or Baba Iaga, the witch of Russian fairy tales who flies using a mortar and pestle – and welcoming the New Year in its Chinese zodiac incarnation. This year is the year of the Rat, in case you didn’t know, so when we set the table we made sure to put out nuts and cheese for him.
Can you picture this scene? Lots of little children holding hands and dancing around a giant Christmas tree. It’s like the Whos down in Whoville out of Doctor Seuss, except that these little Whos are all decked out in Halloween costumes. Apparently someone at some point suggested that New Year’s should involve a Masquerade Ball, so every year kids dress up to meet Santa. Some follow the theme and come as winter queens or harlequin jesters, but there were a good number of boys of the Batman persuasion, as well as a few bears, lions, and one spectacular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Girls use the opportunity to put on fancy dresses and wear makeup, claiming to be gypsies, Arabian princesses, and the like.
Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s are all rolled into one. It’s no wonder this is everyone’s favorite holiday.
Last year I was so new to the area that I barely participated in any of the festivities. This year I attended parties at the sports center (Father Frost burst in on rollerblades with a rifle strapped on his back, congratulating us with the holiday and claiming to have just beat O.E. Bjorndalen in the biathlon), the local theater/music hall (good music, great dancing), and a dance at the theater just before midnight. Plus plenty of host family bonding. I’ve spent the last few days eating holiday leftovers, skiing when it’s not to cold, and theoretically planning for the next term, which starts much too soon.
It is, in fact, quite cold at the moment. Colder than last year, but I was reprimanded today for saying that it was really cold out – wait till the mercury hits -50, they replied. Granted, that would be a new level of frost, but I personally think -30s in the middle of the day is pretty chilly. It’s so cold that not only do my nostrils freeze together, my eyelashes freeze shut and at one point got stuck to the fur brim of my hat (I had the hat pulled way down – that baby is the best purchase I’ve even made. My head and ears are never cold). Forget Jack Frost drawing pictures on the windows. Our doors are rimmed in thick frost --on the inside. We have to use a hairdryer on the locks to get the keys to turn in the mornings. Outside the dogs are laying low; birds are fluffed up to twice their usual size, and a short walk becomes a mad dash to warmth. It’s so cold that your legs start to ache as soon as you walk outside. It’s so cold that I frostbit my nose. It’s so cold that our super hardcore local high school ski team has to train inside and local races are cancelled. Brrrrrrrrrrr!
Hope things are warmer where you are (they must be… I don’t know anyone living in the Arctic Circle at the moment, do I?). Take care and happy, happy, happy 2008!
Can you picture this scene? Lots of little children holding hands and dancing around a giant Christmas tree. It’s like the Whos down in Whoville out of Doctor Seuss, except that these little Whos are all decked out in Halloween costumes. Apparently someone at some point suggested that New Year’s should involve a Masquerade Ball, so every year kids dress up to meet Santa. Some follow the theme and come as winter queens or harlequin jesters, but there were a good number of boys of the Batman persuasion, as well as a few bears, lions, and one spectacular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Girls use the opportunity to put on fancy dresses and wear makeup, claiming to be gypsies, Arabian princesses, and the like.
Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s are all rolled into one. It’s no wonder this is everyone’s favorite holiday.
Last year I was so new to the area that I barely participated in any of the festivities. This year I attended parties at the sports center (Father Frost burst in on rollerblades with a rifle strapped on his back, congratulating us with the holiday and claiming to have just beat O.E. Bjorndalen in the biathlon), the local theater/music hall (good music, great dancing), and a dance at the theater just before midnight. Plus plenty of host family bonding. I’ve spent the last few days eating holiday leftovers, skiing when it’s not to cold, and theoretically planning for the next term, which starts much too soon.
It is, in fact, quite cold at the moment. Colder than last year, but I was reprimanded today for saying that it was really cold out – wait till the mercury hits -50, they replied. Granted, that would be a new level of frost, but I personally think -30s in the middle of the day is pretty chilly. It’s so cold that not only do my nostrils freeze together, my eyelashes freeze shut and at one point got stuck to the fur brim of my hat (I had the hat pulled way down – that baby is the best purchase I’ve even made. My head and ears are never cold). Forget Jack Frost drawing pictures on the windows. Our doors are rimmed in thick frost --on the inside. We have to use a hairdryer on the locks to get the keys to turn in the mornings. Outside the dogs are laying low; birds are fluffed up to twice their usual size, and a short walk becomes a mad dash to warmth. It’s so cold that your legs start to ache as soon as you walk outside. It’s so cold that I frostbit my nose. It’s so cold that our super hardcore local high school ski team has to train inside and local races are cancelled. Brrrrrrrrrrr!
Hope things are warmer where you are (they must be… I don’t know anyone living in the Arctic Circle at the moment, do I?). Take care and happy, happy, happy 2008!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Finally, some pictures
Hey all,
The other day I was lightly heckled by Jeff (that's my site mate) for not keeping my blog up-to-date. So here goes.
The other day I was lightly heckled by Jeff (that's my site mate) for not keeping my blog up-to-date. So here goes.
First I want to say a huge thank you for the packages that arrived in the past month. So much wonderful reading material and so many treats! Evie and Joanna's package took the longest -- close to two months. But the next batch only took two weeks. Go figure. Nicole, Roxy, and Annie, you three are rock stars. I had hippie-Vermont flashbacks imagining you around the Weybridge table, it's tough to believe that two of you are now Midd graduates, not freshmen. I have a maple syrup sized hole in my soul, as well as one shaped like a bag of brown sugar, so when I saw the jug I rolled my eyes to the heavens and gave thanks. Really, I did. In my classroom being observed by a local friend. Evie and Joanna, I'm laughing my way through books and quickly wearing out new socks thanks to you. Mom and Dad are trying to fill the Thai-curry missing part of me (not really a hole so much as a gaping cavern) with spices and instant noodles. They're also ambassadors, sending gifts to my host family. Thanks. Ginny, I'm trying to hold out opening your package until Christmas, but those "perishable" stamps on the box are calling to me...
Here is what I have done in the past few weeks.
Work accomplishments: Continue to teach, albeit sporadically due to holidays and other engagements. Such as singing a Kazakh duet in a huge folk concert in Pavlodar. Last week, my English club performed a Shel Silverstein poem at a regional youth gathering. Four of my fifth grade girls sang in Kazakh, Russian, English and German at a big concert for Independence Day and I had the deep pleasure of being their choir director. I also performed in a comedy show.
Oh, and we've started a new pen pal exchange with a fifth grade class in Michigan. Now we're in the waiting for reply stage.
Social accomplishments: Went to a 40-days party yesterday, like a baby shower but a month after the birth and the first time the mother is allowed to show off her baby. Continue to play volleyball with motley assortments of teachers, students, and "guys" in the purest sense of that word. Still getting along with host family. Possibly was on a date the other night walking home (big emphasis on possibly). Enjoying having a sitemate to talk English too -- also encouraging to realize how far I've come in adjusting. We killed another horse and I had the stamina this year to stay after all the meat cutting to help stuff sausage (see the new profile picture).
Today's accomplishments: hoping to ski, put some pictures on this page, and relax for the next few days -- it's a state holiday and we've got 5 days to rest up for New Years festivities and end-of-the-quarter finals.
Love ya,
Nora
PS-- some of my fifth graders:
And another of them, this time in our classroom:
Here is what I have done in the past few weeks.
Work accomplishments: Continue to teach, albeit sporadically due to holidays and other engagements. Such as singing a Kazakh duet in a huge folk concert in Pavlodar. Last week, my English club performed a Shel Silverstein poem at a regional youth gathering. Four of my fifth grade girls sang in Kazakh, Russian, English and German at a big concert for Independence Day and I had the deep pleasure of being their choir director. I also performed in a comedy show.
Oh, and we've started a new pen pal exchange with a fifth grade class in Michigan. Now we're in the waiting for reply stage.
Social accomplishments: Went to a 40-days party yesterday, like a baby shower but a month after the birth and the first time the mother is allowed to show off her baby. Continue to play volleyball with motley assortments of teachers, students, and "guys" in the purest sense of that word. Still getting along with host family. Possibly was on a date the other night walking home (big emphasis on possibly). Enjoying having a sitemate to talk English too -- also encouraging to realize how far I've come in adjusting. We killed another horse and I had the stamina this year to stay after all the meat cutting to help stuff sausage (see the new profile picture).
Today's accomplishments: hoping to ski, put some pictures on this page, and relax for the next few days -- it's a state holiday and we've got 5 days to rest up for New Years festivities and end-of-the-quarter finals.
Love ya,
Nora
PS-- some of my fifth graders:
And another of them, this time in our classroom:
Friday, November 23, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I hope your holidays were warm, thoughtful, and most importantly delicious. Last year I spent the day at my site, baking a pumpkin pie and drawing hand turkeys with students. The other Peace Corps volunteers in my area, it would seem, were disappointed in my choice and this year insisted that I come into the city to share the meal and company. It didn’t take much convincing… So my site mate and I made the trip down – not without complications of course. In the early morning that felt like the dead of night, we tried to slip out of town, but our taxi got a flat tire before we had even left the gas station. And on the way back home I snagged a seat on a bus with absolutely no heating. I’d say the trip was well worth the effort.
Our celebration took place in the apartment of a volunteer in my group; he’s living on his own and has lots of space plus parents with the incredible foresight to send canned corn, peas, cranberry sauce, instant gravy, microwaveable stuffing, and hot chocolate. Thank you! We spent most of the morning tracking down cooking items, plate, chairs, and plenty of food. The most coveted purchase: a 7 kilogram turkey from the local market, already killed and plucked, but with the long neck and entire head still intact. This was the source of much amusement, as you might guess. We toyed with the idea of roasting the bird with a bit of apple in the beak or boiling it and offering the choice cuts to honored guests ala the traditional Kazakh sheep’s head… In the end the knife won out, and off with her head with was, but I’d advise you not to look in the freezer anytime soon.
The biggest challenge of the day came just after we arrived at the apartment, turkey and pumpkin in tow. We went to wash out hands, turned on the tap, and listened to the gargling hiss we’ve all gotten used to. No water; perhaps turned off due to the snowstorm outside. The water didn’t come on all that day, nor that night, and we left our poor host with a pile of dishes – nothing to be done while cooking but buy some bottled water and use sparingly.
Despite all this, I was pretty impressed with our feast. Apple sauce, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, mashed pumpkin, bread, corn, peas, fruit, pumpkin pie, graham cake (a local favorite), wine, beer, the obligatory vodka for our native guests, and of course the turkey. We cleaned that carcass pretty well and even put a second chicken in the oven to satisfy post-pie cravings. But somehow that chicken was cooked with all of its innards intact, a less than pretty picture or smell, so she ended up taking a swan dive off the 10th story balcony. There was a delightful fwompf as she hit the fresh snow; I hope we made a stray dog or cat very happy.
The company was equally good. We now have a fairly full contingent of volunteers around; it was nice to meet the new guys and there is always plenty to talk about. A few local friends from the city came, too. It is wonderful to get to treat the people around us to a cultural spectacle; finally instead of us always asking the questions and being surrounded by unintelligible babble and jokes, our friends are! We did bow to the local custom of toasting, but it seemed very appropriate and appreciated on this particular holiday.
The day after Thanksgiving I unwittingly participated in my least favorite of American holiday traditions. But it had to be done. Winter is here; today the temperatures dipped below 0 degrees (-23 in Celsius) and I needed a new hat. Not just any hat, but a fur hat. I went to the bazaar with a mission and within half an hour the entire row of fur hat sellers knew an American gal was on the prowl. Going hat shopping on a cold day is like entering a grocery story hungry. Everything looks so good. Luckily I’ve been scoping out the options for about a year now, and I’m happy with the gorgeous new addition to my winter wardrobe. Blue/grey, fluffy, huge, earflap equipped, and in a style with possible Kazakh origins, I hope to hold on to this baby for a while. And lest my more, shall we say, PETA oriented friends complain, at least the leather on the hat is fake… most importantly, in today’s weather and on today’s bus, every inch of me from my nose to my toes was icy. But above the nose things couldn’t have been better.
PS – not to name names, but here’s a shout out to my site mate’s parents. Apparently they found this site a little while ago and reported back to him. In a parallel action, my parents found his blog and reported back to me! I’m going to avoid reading his because I’d rather just find out in person what’s new, but if you’re still curious about Kazakhstan or specifically about this little spot, check it out. Apparently it shows up high on the list if Nora and Kazakhstan are Googled, or just head here Also found this old link from last winter on the Pavlodar website.
I hope your holidays were warm, thoughtful, and most importantly delicious. Last year I spent the day at my site, baking a pumpkin pie and drawing hand turkeys with students. The other Peace Corps volunteers in my area, it would seem, were disappointed in my choice and this year insisted that I come into the city to share the meal and company. It didn’t take much convincing… So my site mate and I made the trip down – not without complications of course. In the early morning that felt like the dead of night, we tried to slip out of town, but our taxi got a flat tire before we had even left the gas station. And on the way back home I snagged a seat on a bus with absolutely no heating. I’d say the trip was well worth the effort.
Our celebration took place in the apartment of a volunteer in my group; he’s living on his own and has lots of space plus parents with the incredible foresight to send canned corn, peas, cranberry sauce, instant gravy, microwaveable stuffing, and hot chocolate. Thank you! We spent most of the morning tracking down cooking items, plate, chairs, and plenty of food. The most coveted purchase: a 7 kilogram turkey from the local market, already killed and plucked, but with the long neck and entire head still intact. This was the source of much amusement, as you might guess. We toyed with the idea of roasting the bird with a bit of apple in the beak or boiling it and offering the choice cuts to honored guests ala the traditional Kazakh sheep’s head… In the end the knife won out, and off with her head with was, but I’d advise you not to look in the freezer anytime soon.
The biggest challenge of the day came just after we arrived at the apartment, turkey and pumpkin in tow. We went to wash out hands, turned on the tap, and listened to the gargling hiss we’ve all gotten used to. No water; perhaps turned off due to the snowstorm outside. The water didn’t come on all that day, nor that night, and we left our poor host with a pile of dishes – nothing to be done while cooking but buy some bottled water and use sparingly.
Despite all this, I was pretty impressed with our feast. Apple sauce, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, mashed pumpkin, bread, corn, peas, fruit, pumpkin pie, graham cake (a local favorite), wine, beer, the obligatory vodka for our native guests, and of course the turkey. We cleaned that carcass pretty well and even put a second chicken in the oven to satisfy post-pie cravings. But somehow that chicken was cooked with all of its innards intact, a less than pretty picture or smell, so she ended up taking a swan dive off the 10th story balcony. There was a delightful fwompf as she hit the fresh snow; I hope we made a stray dog or cat very happy.
The company was equally good. We now have a fairly full contingent of volunteers around; it was nice to meet the new guys and there is always plenty to talk about. A few local friends from the city came, too. It is wonderful to get to treat the people around us to a cultural spectacle; finally instead of us always asking the questions and being surrounded by unintelligible babble and jokes, our friends are! We did bow to the local custom of toasting, but it seemed very appropriate and appreciated on this particular holiday.
The day after Thanksgiving I unwittingly participated in my least favorite of American holiday traditions. But it had to be done. Winter is here; today the temperatures dipped below 0 degrees (-23 in Celsius) and I needed a new hat. Not just any hat, but a fur hat. I went to the bazaar with a mission and within half an hour the entire row of fur hat sellers knew an American gal was on the prowl. Going hat shopping on a cold day is like entering a grocery story hungry. Everything looks so good. Luckily I’ve been scoping out the options for about a year now, and I’m happy with the gorgeous new addition to my winter wardrobe. Blue/grey, fluffy, huge, earflap equipped, and in a style with possible Kazakh origins, I hope to hold on to this baby for a while. And lest my more, shall we say, PETA oriented friends complain, at least the leather on the hat is fake… most importantly, in today’s weather and on today’s bus, every inch of me from my nose to my toes was icy. But above the nose things couldn’t have been better.
PS – not to name names, but here’s a shout out to my site mate’s parents. Apparently they found this site a little while ago and reported back to him. In a parallel action, my parents found his blog and reported back to me! I’m going to avoid reading his because I’d rather just find out in person what’s new, but if you’re still curious about Kazakhstan or specifically about this little spot, check it out. Apparently it shows up high on the list if Nora and Kazakhstan are Googled, or just head here Also found this old link from last winter on the Pavlodar website.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Weather Report
It’s about 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now and the third snowfall of the season has covered the ground, except for the wind-scrubbed patches of dirt. A few days ago saw our first hoar frost morning. I wonder if this snow will melt like the last two… something tells me we’re in for it already. It’s time to go buy a fur hat. The change of seasons feels familiar and somehow reassuring – I know what to expect from here on out in terms of the weather, school, and community. No more flying by the seat of my pants, now I’m just refining what I did last time around with the huge advantage of last year’s hard work. And I also know just how many wonderful things I have to look forward to: first ski, Constitution Day, New Year’s, competitions, concerts, and somewhere in the far distance, spring and glorious summer. So welcome winter!
Friday, October 19, 2007
3 Wonderful Things
One of the things I do quite often in Kazakhstan is write lists. Favortite forms of Kazakhstani transport, pictures I wish I had taken, pictures I'm glad I couldn't take, things I've picked up to threaten stray dogs with, books I've read in country... and so forth. But last week I had a list of 3 Wonderful Things That Happened in Two Days.
The first is just cool: I saw a shuttle launch from the Baikonur space center, where the Soviet space program was based. To this day it sends up missions and space tourists, and their path out of orbit arcs over our village. Despite all the years of the space program, my host family had never actually seen a launch. But about a week ago, as I was peeling a mountain of garlic and my host mother was stuffing said garlic into green tomatoes to preserve them for winter, my host brother came dashing in, cell phone in hand, to announce that host dad was watching a "rocket" from his fields of wheat and rye. So we raced out to the garden (already long stripped for winter) and stood freezing in our slippers, full dark at 7:30 and clear; perfect shuttle watching weather. It could have been a comet, a red speck trailing white curtains like the Northern Lights. We watched until the speck burned out, the clouds must have slowly faded.
I never would have seen this in America, I don't think, and I doubt I'll ever see it again. Still, despite having larger concepts of space travel and the atmosphere to comtemplate, this sight suddenly remined my of just how far I am from home.
Wonder number two: while teaching my second graders family vocabulary, I brought in a picture to share. As I toured the room ("This is my father, this is my mother"), one of my more precocious boys, who happens to be a neighbor, piped up in Kazakh: "Your father's name is Anthony Blair Williams." "Well, yes," I replied, though I refrained from asking how the devil he knew that. One minute later, he contributed that my mother's name was Kathy, though he didn't know her middle name... Later I remembered that my parents' names were listed in the local paper when they came to visist, little Timerlan must have picked it up from there. But in the classrom it came as quite a shock. Later, I met with his mother at a post-Ramadan feast; she related that he had come home from school that day with big news: "It turns out Miss Nora has a brother and sister, too!"
Wonder number three: I'm getting a sitemate! One of the other two schools in my village requested a volunteer this year and were lucky enough to have one assigned. This makes my life a bit more interesting and complicated, of course, and there is a lot more to be said and thought about on this topic, but we'll leave it at that for now. This is a place that I love; I hope he comes to enjoy it, too. And I'm looking forward to having someone to speak fast English with.
Peace,
Nora
The first is just cool: I saw a shuttle launch from the Baikonur space center, where the Soviet space program was based. To this day it sends up missions and space tourists, and their path out of orbit arcs over our village. Despite all the years of the space program, my host family had never actually seen a launch. But about a week ago, as I was peeling a mountain of garlic and my host mother was stuffing said garlic into green tomatoes to preserve them for winter, my host brother came dashing in, cell phone in hand, to announce that host dad was watching a "rocket" from his fields of wheat and rye. So we raced out to the garden (already long stripped for winter) and stood freezing in our slippers, full dark at 7:30 and clear; perfect shuttle watching weather. It could have been a comet, a red speck trailing white curtains like the Northern Lights. We watched until the speck burned out, the clouds must have slowly faded.
I never would have seen this in America, I don't think, and I doubt I'll ever see it again. Still, despite having larger concepts of space travel and the atmosphere to comtemplate, this sight suddenly remined my of just how far I am from home.
Wonder number two: while teaching my second graders family vocabulary, I brought in a picture to share. As I toured the room ("This is my father, this is my mother"), one of my more precocious boys, who happens to be a neighbor, piped up in Kazakh: "Your father's name is Anthony Blair Williams." "Well, yes," I replied, though I refrained from asking how the devil he knew that. One minute later, he contributed that my mother's name was Kathy, though he didn't know her middle name... Later I remembered that my parents' names were listed in the local paper when they came to visist, little Timerlan must have picked it up from there. But in the classrom it came as quite a shock. Later, I met with his mother at a post-Ramadan feast; she related that he had come home from school that day with big news: "It turns out Miss Nora has a brother and sister, too!"
Wonder number three: I'm getting a sitemate! One of the other two schools in my village requested a volunteer this year and were lucky enough to have one assigned. This makes my life a bit more interesting and complicated, of course, and there is a lot more to be said and thought about on this topic, but we'll leave it at that for now. This is a place that I love; I hope he comes to enjoy it, too. And I'm looking forward to having someone to speak fast English with.
Peace,
Nora
Sunday, September 02, 2007
A haircut
Dear friends,
I passed the one year mark in Kazakhstan this past month, made especially notable by the arrival of our new group of volunteers. With my remote location so far from Almaty, I may not meet any of them until next summer (unless one is assigned to my site, working at a different school, which is a possibility), but just knowing that they are starting training reminds me of how far we’ve come.
This summer I saw more of Kazakhstan that I would have thought possible, but it is still a huge country to explore – especially the cities and nature preserves to the South and West. My parents had a wonderful trip (or so they keep telling me), and should anyone else come to visit, I promise to not make the same mistakes. We will have no train ticket fiascos, there will be no interpreter-less banyas between my two fathers, and I will not sing songs that make my mother cry. No, I will not make the same mistakes again. I’ll make new ones! Just for you. That’s one tourist offer you’ll rarely hear.
Now I’m back at site, and here is the biggest news: I got a haircut, and frankly, I’m a little defensive about it. Not because of the cost (though it was expensive by local standards, it was ridiculously cheap by mine) or the style (I really like how it looks, a little retro but long enough for a ponytail). The problem is this: why are the community responses to this change bothering me so much?
Generally I’ve gotten good reactions and praise. Even my 16-year-old host brother complemented it, though he was honest in his dislike of the styles his other two sisters chose. But most people seem to view it with either relief or excitement mixed with an odd sense of resignation: “Oh, Miss Nora, you look younger, you’ve changed your image!” “It looks good, now all we have to get you to do is wear make-up and dye your hair – then you’ll look really beautiful.” “I guess you’ll be spending more time prepping in the mirror like your mother and sisters” (from my host father).
I’m happy with the style and I’m happy that other people are happy for me. But these comments irrationally bug me, and I’m trying to figure out why. First, of course, is the idea that my image needed changing and that this is another step down the road to conforming to local standards of beauty, femininity, and contented womanhood with a rich husband and a gaggle of kids. Second, people assume I’m simply taking part of a yearly ritual of renovations before the start of school.
Both of these points indicate that people are happy to see me conforming to the collective. Fitting in, matching societal norms, adhering to communal norms, however you put it; these are the aspects of Kazakhstani culture I see emerging here.
I am liked in my village, but people are confused that I like to spend lots of time alone reading, walking, or writing. They don’t quite understand a PCV’s desire to do more and do more faster, cleaner, and with more efficiency, much less why I like to get things done independently. How can I focus in on making grading sheets when there is so much catching up to do, when I could be wandering the school exchanging news, stories, and sometimes out-right gossip? Why don’t I like to do what everyone else is doing?
From this perspective my colleagues, friends, and local family are thrilled that I’m finally showing signs of doing something just like the rest of the crowd – i.e. primping for the opening day of school. If everyone else were painting their kitchens instead of getting haircuts, I think folks here would be equally excited to find out that my walls were a new shade of chartreuse. By which I mean to say that what it really bugging me here is not the expectations of me as a woman (I have to get over that every single day, so at this point the issue raises a only tiny lurch in my psyche) but the assumption that I, too, am rejoicing in joining the fold, in becoming a sheep.
That is a metaphor that extends well, incidentally, to explain where this joy in conforming comes from. I can imagine that a lone herder coming in off the steppe or a farmer returning to life after the haze of harvesting 72 hours straight would revel in the communal fire and rituals of tea waiting for them in a summer mountain camp or gingerbread village.
But for me, it grates. No, I want to say, actually this haircut is for me and me alone! I wanted to change, not conform. I wanted a new style to make myself feel pretty, not to fit your ideals of beauty – that’s why I picked the style on my own! Don’t you see, this isn’t fitting in, it’s a rebellion – I would have never done this at home. It’s a unique cultural experience in a foreign country that I can write home about, not something routine for the fall. Don’t assume this will lead to make-up – cosmetics are a personal choice, damn it, not a logical progression towards your vision of a stable, well-fed community!
Even more frightening is the small voice that says, well, Nora, maybe they’re right. Maybe you are so assimilated into this culture that you are conforming unconsciously and all your reactionary sentiments are simply denial.
Whew. On a side note, explaining why I don’t use cosmetics usually leads to more confusion, mostly because I usually try to defend myself from a personal angle – I’m too lazy, I had too much make-up in my youth on stage, I never took the time to learn, I was playing Frisbee instead… these excuses don’t go over well. But when I debuted my new argument – from a more communal perspective – my host sister began taking my side. Now when the issue comes up, as it often does, she jumps in and explains in the way that makes sense to her: “Nora says that in America many women don’t wear make-up and that it’s OK in their culture. Isn’t that great?”
I realize that this explanation is not entirely true; it’s weird in America to go cosmetic-free too. My mother and my sister both color (this is how the phrase directly translates from Russian to English, which I love. It’s the same verb you would use to say you were painting your fence), but if I bring that up, I weaken the argument for my acceptability in American culture. Intentionally rejecting what your family does? Opening yourself to critique by members of your society? These things would make a Kazakhstani sad, not empower her as they do me. Just look at what my host sister said again, the subtext is “I wish out culture would allow us to do that.” They’re not wearing make-up necessarily because they like it, but because everyone does it and they’ve got to be a part of everyone to feel good. The communal versus the individual.
To return to haircuts, the discomfort I’m really feeling here is really this divide, this clash of cultures, the leap between individual and communal. I resent feeling like a lemming – our culture pounds it into us to resist sameness. Now that I know the root of this uneasiness, I think I can deal with the bile that rises every time someone mentions a new brand of spiffy hair products I might like to try. They are only, after all, welcoming me to their side of the world. And I can always appease my individualist side by resisting those cosmetics.
And you, oh you, reading this in your comfortable chair with wheels or balancing on a cushion, laptop humming, you are amazed that this should come as such a realization. Obviously there is this divide. Obviously this is a disconcerting wall to come up against. The Nora of last year, Nora circa August 2006, she agrees with you. She has read up on the Peace Corps, lived in Russia, paged through handbooks on culture shock and knows the general distinctions between individual/communal and progressive/traditional cultures. Even in my first months at side I could pinpoint evidence of this divide: in classroom practices where cheating is seen to benefit the whole or in how hard it is for a single unwed mother to marry after breaking such a taboo. But who could guess that only after a year can you begin to notice that vague emotions truly indicate fundamental leaps of culture? Who knew that most epiphanies come from an indefinable feeling of discomfort stemming from the reaction to your new haircut? This is only in Kazakhstan, and only for me – but also for all world travelers in every country. Despite all my individualist hopes, others have felt this. As much as I want this to be mine and mine alone, nothing can be purely individual, just as nothing can really fit my village’s vision of universal conformity. Try as we might, we can't make everything fit our perfect visions. But we still try. Isn't human nature funny?
I passed the one year mark in Kazakhstan this past month, made especially notable by the arrival of our new group of volunteers. With my remote location so far from Almaty, I may not meet any of them until next summer (unless one is assigned to my site, working at a different school, which is a possibility), but just knowing that they are starting training reminds me of how far we’ve come.
This summer I saw more of Kazakhstan that I would have thought possible, but it is still a huge country to explore – especially the cities and nature preserves to the South and West. My parents had a wonderful trip (or so they keep telling me), and should anyone else come to visit, I promise to not make the same mistakes. We will have no train ticket fiascos, there will be no interpreter-less banyas between my two fathers, and I will not sing songs that make my mother cry. No, I will not make the same mistakes again. I’ll make new ones! Just for you. That’s one tourist offer you’ll rarely hear.
Now I’m back at site, and here is the biggest news: I got a haircut, and frankly, I’m a little defensive about it. Not because of the cost (though it was expensive by local standards, it was ridiculously cheap by mine) or the style (I really like how it looks, a little retro but long enough for a ponytail). The problem is this: why are the community responses to this change bothering me so much?
Generally I’ve gotten good reactions and praise. Even my 16-year-old host brother complemented it, though he was honest in his dislike of the styles his other two sisters chose. But most people seem to view it with either relief or excitement mixed with an odd sense of resignation: “Oh, Miss Nora, you look younger, you’ve changed your image!” “It looks good, now all we have to get you to do is wear make-up and dye your hair – then you’ll look really beautiful.” “I guess you’ll be spending more time prepping in the mirror like your mother and sisters” (from my host father).
I’m happy with the style and I’m happy that other people are happy for me. But these comments irrationally bug me, and I’m trying to figure out why. First, of course, is the idea that my image needed changing and that this is another step down the road to conforming to local standards of beauty, femininity, and contented womanhood with a rich husband and a gaggle of kids. Second, people assume I’m simply taking part of a yearly ritual of renovations before the start of school.
Both of these points indicate that people are happy to see me conforming to the collective. Fitting in, matching societal norms, adhering to communal norms, however you put it; these are the aspects of Kazakhstani culture I see emerging here.
I am liked in my village, but people are confused that I like to spend lots of time alone reading, walking, or writing. They don’t quite understand a PCV’s desire to do more and do more faster, cleaner, and with more efficiency, much less why I like to get things done independently. How can I focus in on making grading sheets when there is so much catching up to do, when I could be wandering the school exchanging news, stories, and sometimes out-right gossip? Why don’t I like to do what everyone else is doing?
From this perspective my colleagues, friends, and local family are thrilled that I’m finally showing signs of doing something just like the rest of the crowd – i.e. primping for the opening day of school. If everyone else were painting their kitchens instead of getting haircuts, I think folks here would be equally excited to find out that my walls were a new shade of chartreuse. By which I mean to say that what it really bugging me here is not the expectations of me as a woman (I have to get over that every single day, so at this point the issue raises a only tiny lurch in my psyche) but the assumption that I, too, am rejoicing in joining the fold, in becoming a sheep.
That is a metaphor that extends well, incidentally, to explain where this joy in conforming comes from. I can imagine that a lone herder coming in off the steppe or a farmer returning to life after the haze of harvesting 72 hours straight would revel in the communal fire and rituals of tea waiting for them in a summer mountain camp or gingerbread village.
But for me, it grates. No, I want to say, actually this haircut is for me and me alone! I wanted to change, not conform. I wanted a new style to make myself feel pretty, not to fit your ideals of beauty – that’s why I picked the style on my own! Don’t you see, this isn’t fitting in, it’s a rebellion – I would have never done this at home. It’s a unique cultural experience in a foreign country that I can write home about, not something routine for the fall. Don’t assume this will lead to make-up – cosmetics are a personal choice, damn it, not a logical progression towards your vision of a stable, well-fed community!
Even more frightening is the small voice that says, well, Nora, maybe they’re right. Maybe you are so assimilated into this culture that you are conforming unconsciously and all your reactionary sentiments are simply denial.
Whew. On a side note, explaining why I don’t use cosmetics usually leads to more confusion, mostly because I usually try to defend myself from a personal angle – I’m too lazy, I had too much make-up in my youth on stage, I never took the time to learn, I was playing Frisbee instead… these excuses don’t go over well. But when I debuted my new argument – from a more communal perspective – my host sister began taking my side. Now when the issue comes up, as it often does, she jumps in and explains in the way that makes sense to her: “Nora says that in America many women don’t wear make-up and that it’s OK in their culture. Isn’t that great?”
I realize that this explanation is not entirely true; it’s weird in America to go cosmetic-free too. My mother and my sister both color (this is how the phrase directly translates from Russian to English, which I love. It’s the same verb you would use to say you were painting your fence), but if I bring that up, I weaken the argument for my acceptability in American culture. Intentionally rejecting what your family does? Opening yourself to critique by members of your society? These things would make a Kazakhstani sad, not empower her as they do me. Just look at what my host sister said again, the subtext is “I wish out culture would allow us to do that.” They’re not wearing make-up necessarily because they like it, but because everyone does it and they’ve got to be a part of everyone to feel good. The communal versus the individual.
To return to haircuts, the discomfort I’m really feeling here is really this divide, this clash of cultures, the leap between individual and communal. I resent feeling like a lemming – our culture pounds it into us to resist sameness. Now that I know the root of this uneasiness, I think I can deal with the bile that rises every time someone mentions a new brand of spiffy hair products I might like to try. They are only, after all, welcoming me to their side of the world. And I can always appease my individualist side by resisting those cosmetics.
And you, oh you, reading this in your comfortable chair with wheels or balancing on a cushion, laptop humming, you are amazed that this should come as such a realization. Obviously there is this divide. Obviously this is a disconcerting wall to come up against. The Nora of last year, Nora circa August 2006, she agrees with you. She has read up on the Peace Corps, lived in Russia, paged through handbooks on culture shock and knows the general distinctions between individual/communal and progressive/traditional cultures. Even in my first months at side I could pinpoint evidence of this divide: in classroom practices where cheating is seen to benefit the whole or in how hard it is for a single unwed mother to marry after breaking such a taboo. But who could guess that only after a year can you begin to notice that vague emotions truly indicate fundamental leaps of culture? Who knew that most epiphanies come from an indefinable feeling of discomfort stemming from the reaction to your new haircut? This is only in Kazakhstan, and only for me – but also for all world travelers in every country. Despite all my individualist hopes, others have felt this. As much as I want this to be mine and mine alone, nothing can be purely individual, just as nothing can really fit my village’s vision of universal conformity. Try as we might, we can't make everything fit our perfect visions. But we still try. Isn't human nature funny?
Friday, July 27, 2007
Good Times and Translating Mishaps
The parental visit is coming to a close already, only a few short days left. So far it has been a charmed visit -- things I was worried about came together, the weather has been cooperating nicely (rain turned to sun when we went to the beach but the heat wave in Almaty or 100+ temperatures broke into showers just in time), and the inhabitants of my adopted country have stepped up spectacularly. My parents have been treated to every sort of fried, boiled, or baked dough, lots of tasty bits from various animals, and a wide range of fresh melons, berries, and veggies from the garden, the farm, and the woods. We waved hello to Russia accross the border and today are less than 3 hours from Kyrgystan.
As far as translation, I just want to tell one story. Then I'll be out of Internet time.
I was trying to explain the organic food movement to my host mother, as explained by my parents, first thing in the morning over dishes of berries and fried delicacies. I was searching for a way to explain, and remembered reading ingredient boxes -- there was some word that was a cognate, but was it conservative or preservative? The latter seemed to make more sense, so I put it through a Russian accent and continued. It was only when my host mom asked me why I kept saying that word that I realized my mistake. After laughing to myself for a minute, I explained to my parents why she was confused. After all, why would anyone in their right mind want to put condoms in food in the first place?
I'll tell you about all the English words I've forgotten some other time. Suffice to say that my mom said, "Booze" and I stared at her. After searching my brain for logical associations (bows?) I had to admit: "I don't understand what that word means," translating a phrase I often say in Russian. They kindly gave me synonyms, and the word came back, but that was a very, very, very disconcerting moment.
More later if I get my act together!
Love,
Nora
As far as translation, I just want to tell one story. Then I'll be out of Internet time.
I was trying to explain the organic food movement to my host mother, as explained by my parents, first thing in the morning over dishes of berries and fried delicacies. I was searching for a way to explain, and remembered reading ingredient boxes -- there was some word that was a cognate, but was it conservative or preservative? The latter seemed to make more sense, so I put it through a Russian accent and continued. It was only when my host mom asked me why I kept saying that word that I realized my mistake. After laughing to myself for a minute, I explained to my parents why she was confused. After all, why would anyone in their right mind want to put condoms in food in the first place?
I'll tell you about all the English words I've forgotten some other time. Suffice to say that my mom said, "Booze" and I stared at her. After searching my brain for logical associations (bows?) I had to admit: "I don't understand what that word means," translating a phrase I often say in Russian. They kindly gave me synonyms, and the word came back, but that was a very, very, very disconcerting moment.
More later if I get my act together!
Love,
Nora
Monday, July 16, 2007
Meet the Parents
Hey y’all,
Done lots of cooking for my host family – when they ask me to cook, it’s their fault if they get unusual foods like stir fry, fresh tomato and basil sauce, and bread pudding.
And now the biggest adventure of the summer is about to begin – my parents are supposed to arrive in
Love,
Nora
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Summer is a coming in!
Well, hello, dear friends, family, and parents of other Peace Corps volunteers who read all PCV blogs. A special hello to incoming Kaz-19's who might stumble onto this page, we're already looking forward to meeting you at the airport and welcoming you to the life.
So, were you worried? Did you think I had fallen off the face of the earth even more than usual? Wonder if I had pulled a Kurtz and cut off all contact with the outside world?
Well, fear not, the long silence came not from any trauma but simply from a lack of email access and the appearance of summer break. My host family's new Internet service doesn't seem to reach across the ocean and our school connection is also mysteriously down. So I went to a different city, 12 hours away by bus, just to write to you all. Not actually... I'm working/relaxing with some volunteers and exploring the picturesque East Kazakhstan Oblast. The city is pretty, lots of parks, fountains, and wide streets. Makes sense for a place founded in 1720, and I think it's fair to say that it is especially well-groomed at the moment, as the President is paying a visit in a few days. I'm indulging in some longed-for activities, like cooking with curry powder, going to the movie theater, and speaking English rapidly. Plus some raptor gazing (is that a hawk or an eagle?), staring at mountains, and strolling by rivers.
It is always a trip to hang out with other volunteers. At first, we trudge through the required questions: how's your site? Where are you again? Do you speak mostly Kazakh or Russian? What grades do you teach? What do you think of the new Peace Corps travel policy?
In our own way, we are as uncreative in our questions as the Kazakhstanis we work and live with.
And it's funny, because most of the stories that we can tell to make you laugh and gasp back home are becoming fairly routine. Everyone has a story about a dog encounter (though only a few can boast of bites), a hell bus ride, harassment from men (both male and female PCVs), and struggles with language. Even comparing bathroom stories has become blase.
So we are slowly remembering how to talk and act with Americans. Harry Potter has come up more than once. Baseball is a fixture on the television. We tossed a frisbee. We tell those stories that we can't to locals because they simply take too much explanation (for example, talking about college life requires a lecture in the education system of America, after which no one wants to hear about your friends' quirks). We can discuss history and politics and gender as well as Office Space, Homestar Runner, and Billy Idol. It's kind of nice.
What's next? More time away from site, this time travelling and visiting with some local connections. Has the potential to be a real adventure worth talking about -- I can see it going either incredibly well or becoming a nightmare.
If you want to contact me, don't let my lack of email stop you. Snail mail is always a joy and I can occasionally check comments on this blog. I still miss you all, even if I haven't always been able to find a way to say it.
Love,
Nora
So, were you worried? Did you think I had fallen off the face of the earth even more than usual? Wonder if I had pulled a Kurtz and cut off all contact with the outside world?
Well, fear not, the long silence came not from any trauma but simply from a lack of email access and the appearance of summer break. My host family's new Internet service doesn't seem to reach across the ocean and our school connection is also mysteriously down. So I went to a different city, 12 hours away by bus, just to write to you all. Not actually... I'm working/relaxing with some volunteers and exploring the picturesque East Kazakhstan Oblast. The city is pretty, lots of parks, fountains, and wide streets. Makes sense for a place founded in 1720, and I think it's fair to say that it is especially well-groomed at the moment, as the President is paying a visit in a few days. I'm indulging in some longed-for activities, like cooking with curry powder, going to the movie theater, and speaking English rapidly. Plus some raptor gazing (is that a hawk or an eagle?), staring at mountains, and strolling by rivers.
It is always a trip to hang out with other volunteers. At first, we trudge through the required questions: how's your site? Where are you again? Do you speak mostly Kazakh or Russian? What grades do you teach? What do you think of the new Peace Corps travel policy?
In our own way, we are as uncreative in our questions as the Kazakhstanis we work and live with.
And it's funny, because most of the stories that we can tell to make you laugh and gasp back home are becoming fairly routine. Everyone has a story about a dog encounter (though only a few can boast of bites), a hell bus ride, harassment from men (both male and female PCVs), and struggles with language. Even comparing bathroom stories has become blase.
So we are slowly remembering how to talk and act with Americans. Harry Potter has come up more than once. Baseball is a fixture on the television. We tossed a frisbee. We tell those stories that we can't to locals because they simply take too much explanation (for example, talking about college life requires a lecture in the education system of America, after which no one wants to hear about your friends' quirks). We can discuss history and politics and gender as well as Office Space, Homestar Runner, and Billy Idol. It's kind of nice.
What's next? More time away from site, this time travelling and visiting with some local connections. Has the potential to be a real adventure worth talking about -- I can see it going either incredibly well or becoming a nightmare.
If you want to contact me, don't let my lack of email stop you. Snail mail is always a joy and I can occasionally check comments on this blog. I still miss you all, even if I haven't always been able to find a way to say it.
Love,
Nora
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