Happy New Year

So…it’s been a while.

At the time of my last blog posting the temperature in Aktobe was a wonderful 85F, I was enjoying trips to the lake and picnics with local friends and volunteers, and being treated to fresh produce from the summer gardens of my co-workers on a daily basis. At the market I could fill up this huge tote bag with eggplant, sweet ‘bulgarski’ peppers, tomatoes, and garlic for about the equivalent of two dollars - a total steal considering the fact that prices of a lot of groceries and consumer goods here are actually pretty comparable to those in the States.

Traveling with my friend Melanie to the UK to hike the 3 Peaks Challenge and to see my mom, grandma and sisters, and going to Oman to see Steffen were by far the highlights of my summer [Oman is, after all, the home of frankincense.] During the warmer months I also had a good time getting more comfortable in Aktobe, a city that by the summer I had only known for 7 months as cold and gray. Typical depressing post-Soviet montage of dreary block housing set on a stark white sky. After all that snow melted and the spring mud dried up, it turned out that the streets were full of fountains and flowerbeds, and that good-weather Aktobe was actually a pretty bright place. Now, my perception of natural beauty was a little skewed after that first winter [recall the Ode to Leaves posting], but it just made the colorful summer seem all the more spectacular.

Just before the fall semester started, Steffen finished his fellowship in Oman and came to Aktobe after a visit with his family back in the States. One highlight can be mentioned above all others when recounting this time period: Sgaz the cat!! We rescued him from certain malnourishment and possible abandonment: he was the lone runt with a full coat of hair among a litter of kittens born to two cats of the Sphinx breed. Not familiar with the Sphinx? Think Dr. Evil. Yep, they’re hairless. Bald. Which is great if you have allergies, but not so great if you like, well, cats with hair. So now little Sgazum (Russian for “with gas”…he farts a lot] has a nice home where he eats cat food and gets tons of love. His antics keep me and Steffen laughing- sometimes you’ll just be walking around the house and BAM! Sgaz sneak attacks your leg with a flying leap, just like Hobbes does to Calvin. Couldn’t be more perfect.

The fall semester gave me about a hundred new students’ names to remember and a couple of new teachers to work with. It makes it harder when my students have names like Nurdaulet, Aibupe and Bakhitzhan, and the teachers go by first name and patronymic. So, instead of Gulshat and Olga, we have Gulshat Bazurbayevna and Olga Leontivna to remember. Big projects currently include introducing to my university the idea of a syllabus, grading rubrics for oral exams, and an online forum to supplement lessons. I just finished giving final exams, and a memory that sticks out is last week, when out of 13 people: 5 arrived on time, one arrived late with a huge bag of meat, one arrived even later with flowers and juice for me, one arrived even later with chocolates for me, and one arrived even later with her baby. The rest just arrived late without any spicy excuses. Blurg. I can’t even blame them, because the exam schedule that’s posted for the students is different than the exam schedule that’s posted for the teachers. Why would it be? I’m constantly reminded of a professor, Jean, from MIIS, saying, “Just keep swimming…”

Otherwise work at Zhubanov university is great. I work with fabulous women who make me feel like one of the girls, especially now that my ability to gossip and eavesdrop on gossip in Russian and Kazakh has become pretty high. Yet another argument for Natalie’s Need Hypothesis. I have also been teaching Spanish now for about a year, and it’s super popular. Although I work in the Foreign Languages department of the university, the only options are English and German. Next week all the Spanish students are coming to my apartment to learn how to make Fajitas and Spanish rice.

In November a group of new volunteers came to the region, and now along with Melanie and Steffen I get to have fun with Dawn and her husband Aaron. It’s definitely cool to be the seasoned veterans, feeling like locals- so different than a year ago. So, a quick checklist of 2009 in Aktobe, KZ goes as follows:

-Survived an almost-Siberian winter that lasted from late October to late April
-Lived with a Kazakh host family for 6 months
-Taught my first full year at the university level
-Raised a bunch of money with Melanie for the Ubuntu Education Fund in South Africa
-Trained for and Hiked at the 3 Peaks Challenge, June
-Traveled to the Middle East for the first time to go to Oman, June
-Moved into my own apartment in Aktobe, July
-Went to a Kazakh dentist, July
-Started leading a yoga class. August
-Welcomed Steffen to Kazakhstan, and Aktobe, and the craziness of life here, August
-Saw Football Club Aktobe become the National Champions of Kazakhstan, October
-Hosted 10 noisy Americans for Thanksgiving Dinner, slash, bought a goose at the bazaar and cleaned it out for Thanksgiving dinner…Nov.
-Steffen’s visa ran out and he went to Dushanbe, Tajikistan for two weeks to get a better taste of Central Asia and a new visa…brought me and Mel back the coolest socks ever.
-With Melanie and two local friends, started the NGO “Hike for a KAZ” [Pronounced “Hike for a Cause”] modeled after the 3 Peaks Challenge, where teams of hikers will fundraise and hike Soviet Peak in Almaty to benefit quality development projects in Kazakhstan. Stay tuned for more info, or wait a few weeks and then visit www.hike4akaz.org
-Invited some people over, bought some ginormous fireworks that would be illegal in the states for sure, filled the fridge with Russian vodka and got mom and grandma’s Christmas packages this week, which were full of CHOCOLATE. It’s going to be a great New Year’s Eve.

Plans for 2010 include:
-Not accidentally sleep through the night tonight (I did last year)
-Keep trying to do good work at the university
-Kick off the first annual Hike for a KAZ event this August in Almaty
-Go to India, Thailand, Turkey or Egypt to get some sun during the long winter (tickets are pretty cheap from here!)
-Take some horses up into the mountains in Kyrgyzstan this June and go yurt-camping
-Maybe introduce my mom and/or sister(s?) to Kazakhstan if they visit
-Find a good tutor and get fluent in Russian
-Make peace with the Soviet mentality
-COME HOME IN NOVEMBER ! ! ! ! ! !

And, of course, not suck so bad at remembering to write blogs.

Happy New Year 

Christina

summer vacation : )

Quick Oman photos -- they're the same ones that are on my Facebook fyi. Enjoy.

3 Peaks Challenge

Here's a picture of Team ALPHA at the top of Ben Nevis in Scotland -- first stop of the 3 Peaks Challenge this year





(PS: Although we are in fact totally awesome, the name Team Alpha was assigned to us). That's me, Angelina, Sophia and Melanie. Thanks to the generosity of our families and friends, our team raised over 2,500 pounds for the Ubuntu Education Fund!! So thanks for your help, warm thoughts and good vibes. Now if only my muscles would stop aching enough to let me enjoy these last couple of days hanging out at Angel's house in England before I go to Oman TOMORROW!

Quick UK lowdown:
-Here with mom, grandma, Sophia and Angelina, plus BONUS: Mel got to hang out with the fam for a few days!!
-In the past 5 days I have eaten pizza, chinese food, pub grub, had a delicious meal at a French Brasserie, and kicked back a few lovely English pints, and this will continue for the next 16 until my tastebuds begrudgingly return to the oil-soaked carb fest that is Kazakhstani cuisine.
-I had a Flip video camera delivered here, so stay tuned for my debut as a videographer.
-Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk UK is to me, like Cleveland is to Liz Lemon. I like to think I'm a pretty nice person, and I have had to stretch my friendliness to levels that would be unthinkable on the streets of Aktobe just to remain barely within the norms of social pleasantry here.

Thanks for checking in -- CB

Fake Out!

Two blogs in a week?! I know what you're thinking, but: No, I didn't move back to the States thus affording me such luxuriously frequent internet access, nor did I get bride-napped by a wealthy Uzbek mafia boss working secretly out of an underground Aktobe palace that has surprisingly reliable wifi.

I just came to the cafe twice this week. It's finals week, and Melanie left yesterday for a business trip in Kyzlorda, and I said: Dammit. I'm going back to that cafe.

Annnd. Today is also a very special day and I couldn't let it go by without saying:

CONGRATULATIONS NICOLE ! ! !

That's right ladies and gents. She's a veritable Catch Phrase prodigy, her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and her unwavering ability to match even the most unwieldy of outfits has left me awestruck on many occasions. Already clearly a master of many arts and trades, only today does Nicole finally officially earn the title and the fabulous little piece of paper to go with it. I wish I could be there. Love you girl.



(begin parenthesis...
Meanwhile, I don't even know how to start the MIIS congratulations. At the great risk of half-assing it with this meager preview, I will say that I have a group of friends and colleagues who have just finished something pretty spectacular. I think it may have been a harrowing experience, but I'm hoping that by the time this blog posts, the anxiety will have all melted off -- leaving nothing but joy, relief, energy, and dare I say: an inclination to get crazy and visit me in Kazakhstan. Hmm, Sofya? :) BUT. This is not the congratulations, it's just a preview. SO just know that I'm thinking about you guys, feeling a little surreal that I'm not there with you. Pozdravlaiyu.)

An ode to leaves

May has been a pretty feel-good month. My birthday was great - I rented out a big sauna for the local volunteers (remember those guys from my Christmas posting?), and we ate, drank, sat in a hot, sweaty sauna, and took daring (but possibly unhygienic) dips in an icy pool. A two hour reservation got drawn out into a four hour celebration of camaraderie, life, and the unbeatable carnal pleasure of a cold, fresh beer after a steamy, hot sauna. It's not just relaxing- it's sooo comfortable, so CLEAN. I am totally hooked.

For the last bit of April and the first weeks of May, there was this thick anticipation of leaves. It was like everyone and everything was lacking life for 5 months, and then it started to warm up, and melt, and dry off, and then you could see little branches start to grow on the trees that had been totally dead, and little brown growths that appeared, and started to get ripe, and riper, and then....LEAVES. My count down to leaves was prolonged and tense. It got to the point that on my walks around town I was scouting out the trees that I thought would sprout some green first, because I was so impatient to see it. There was a promising tree over by a field that Melanie and I run in sometimes, and I would take little detours by there to see if my prediction was right. I walked around for about 5 months without seeing green, and then one day it was everywhere. There was one drizzly day and all the buds just exploded and the whole city was full of that fresh light green color- not a mature shade but a totally delicate and almost neon one.

Around that time I watched American Beauty and there was one scene that perfectly captures that feeling of standing on the street and looking at that neon green: It's when Kevin Spacey's in bed looking at the ceiling and fantasizing, and he says:

Spectacular.

That's how it felt. Anyway. As previously noted in my last post, Spring also means freedom from training in that smelly, dusty stairwell. Now instead of weirding out my neighbors, we weird out local elementary school kids as we run around the school track while they do their Soviet-style P.E. drills. Even creepier is that Melanie and I randomly have a lot of matching clothes...somehow we both came to KZ with the exact same pair of Nike pants (by now, affectionately referred to as 'the uniform'). The surprise highlight of training so far has been my new guilty pleasure: Mel's Billy Blanks Cardio Bootcamp DVD (Don't judge me), but I also had a chance to break in my new boots out on the steppe on a nice, long hike last weekend [photos included in the slideshow]

I'm in finals week right now- working to end 'Intercultural Communication - Spring 2009' with flair. The final exam includes information about Mel Brooks, Weezer, West Side Story, and other fabulous little cultural media that were conveniently hiding on my hard drive, and I think my students had a good semester on the whole. The colleagues I've been working with have also been troopers, going with the flow when I wanted to try out some wacky methods [like making a scoring rubric to grade the oral exams].

Am I going to post again before I leave on June 1st? I want to say yes, but let's be honest. I might not. So I will leave you with some highlights to look forward to in the next post: tentatively called '3 Peaks & Oman debrief.'

-Will we climb the 3 highest peaks in the UK in 24 hours? Will the perilous 'loose shale' and 'gale force winds' the preparation guide warns of get the best of us? And does it really even matter, since it's just an awesome chance for 3 sisters to get together and do something crazy?

-Will I rock the hijab in Oman? Or maybe go with a tasteful sari? Will we swim with the sea turtles? Do they even exist? Once again, I have a feeling it won't matter since this is going to be hands down, the coolest trip I've ever been on.

-Also stay tuned for the final tally: How many 30 Rock jokes can Melanie and Christina crack in the period of 24 hours, and how much will it annoy the rest of our team?

Vremya pakazhet. Or, as my host brother Adilet says: Only ze time will tell.

We're still working on our fundraising goal, so if you haven't checked out our web page, go have a look:

http://www.justgiving.com/IHikeForAKaz

The 3 Peaks Challenge kicks off about a year long project that will end in Melanie and I designing a similar event in the mountains above Almaty next summer. The inspiration for our making this trip to the UK is the incredible work that the Ubuntu Education Fund is doing in South Africa, and we're hoping to learn from them and from the 3 Peaks to make a similar difference for forward-thinking nonprofit organizations here in K-Stan. Anything you can give helps, even $5, and it's easy to donate online.

Big hug

Christina

Spring

Sorry to tease you with the promise of a delightful, new posting, but I just have time to quickly document that it is now Spring. I walked to this cafe from the university WITHOUT A COAT. Which is a first in about 5 and a half months. That's me- avid lover of all things outdoorsey, worshipper of the sun, and huge aficionada of parks and park-related activities such as laying in the park, reading in the park, and playing frisbee. In the park. Condemned to winter clothing and subject to the wrath of all my colleagues should I spend so much as 5 minutes outside, FOR FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS. What were you doing in November? What have you done since then? OK, now picture all of that, with a huge coat and fur boots on, and a numb face. 5 and a half months.

And now, Spring.


On another note- now I can finally train for the hike in June somewhere other than the stairwell of my 9 story soviet-project apartment building. (My neighbors were so weirded out). In June I, my sister Angelina, maybe my sister Sophia, and my friend Melanie will hike the 3 Peaks Challenge- the 3 tallest mountains in the UK during a 24-hour period. The event raises money for a great nonprofit organization in South Africa. If you have an extra dollar or two laying around, we have a lofty fundraising goal that we'd love for you to help out with. Check out the fundraising site at: http://www.justgiving.com/ihikeforakaz


http://www.justgiving.com/ihikeforakaz

I'm alive.

I must be in some kind of time warp or something because it turns out that it’s mid-March and I haven’t posted since January!

To the worriers: Sorry. It got away from me, as things do. I think: “Oh I’ll do it when I have a good solid couple of hours to really write a good one…” but then who has a good solid couple of hours to sit and write?! It’s not like I’m in the Peace Corps or something, people. [mental slap on the wrist: I should write more.]

So here it is. Long belated, and I’d like to think, long awaited. An update. The question is- how to approach such a massive amount of material? Surely you didn’t log on expecting to read a novel, especially considering my recent track record of nonposting.

I recall leaving my last posting on an optimistic note: February was going to be a good month. And actually, it was. February brought an unexpected (glorious but brief) warm spell, the discovery that I’m a total natural at ice skating, and last but not least, a visit from Steffen. My first visitor to Kazakhstan! It was really something to have somebody from home come here and have all the reactions and first impressions that I had back in Almaty. It turns out that I must have adapted to the culture a little bit, because it was interesting to be strolling down the street [or as close to strolling as you can get when you’re walking on perilous ice] and watch him be surprised by things that have become normal to me. Such as: mass hocking of lugies in public, odd goods being sold at the bazaar, dead silence on the bus, and the fact that when you go somewhere as a guest, everybody’s life goal is to make you eat more than is humanly possible.

[FYI: Despite a few close calls, I have not, as of yet, had any shoes fall victim to the lugie hocking. If everybody reading this could now knock on wood…that would be grrreat.]

But there’s so much to tell, so I’ll leave it to bullet points:

-It was a really great couple of weeks, and what PC volunteer gets to actually go on a Valentine’s date with anybody other than creepy-local-guy?? Lucky lucky girl I am.

-My classes are fantastic. At first the students thought they were signed up to passively hear me talk about American culture, but noooo. They’re looking at how values and beliefs influence behavior, language, and customs! They’re reflecting on their own culture! They’re analyzing movies and pop music! Questioning their stereotypes! I love my work.

-My colleagues are also great. There are 14 teachers in my department and by now I’m pretty good buddies with most of them. Went to a concert with Zhanna last night and heard some really good traditional music. They had little tiny cellos that sit in the lap. Sophia can you play your cello on you lap? You should probably try and send me photos. From your iPhone. Grrr.

-Smartest and most annoying piece of marketing ever: The message “Sent from my iPhone” that accompanies every single piece of correspondence that is, well, sent from an iPhone. I get it, you have an iPhone.

-It’s still winter. I fell on the ice. I don’t like winter anymore.

-I’m going to Almaty on Friday for a big conference. It’s a two day train ride- did I mention Kazakhstan is huge? Go look at a map. All my pals from training will be there, and I’ll probably get to see my Almaty fam, so stay tuned

-Stopping in Shymkent for a couple of days to take in the celebration of Nauryz, the Kazakh New Year. There will be yurts, vats and vats of the traditional seven-ingredient-dish (that’s what it’s called…not sure what the 7 ingredients are but I’m just going to eat it and then ask), and a much-celebrated game called kokpar, where dozens of men on horseback fight over the headless carcass of a freshly sacrificed goat (maybe one of the ingredients?). Also advertised is a dance contest. Which I am going to win, with my secret weapon dance move. The move that wows locals every time I find myself in the “this-is-the-cheesiest-music-I’ve-ever-heard-but-it’s-going-to-be-a-long-awkward-night-if-I-don’t-dance” situation: The Cast Out The Line and Reel In The Fish. This baby won me some sweet prizes at the university’s Rector’s Ball during New Years, and there’s no way it’s going to fail me on Nauryz. I don’t know how this one didn’t make it under the curtain earlier, but as far as people around here are concerned, I invented it.

-(I’m so bad at bullet points)

-I found a killer flat that - knock on wood - I will move into next month. Details to follow when knocking on wood is no longer necessary.

-I went to a village, Kandagash, and was presented with my first chapan. Chapan: velvet garment embroidered with traditional pattern, traditionally presented to honored guests. The women’s is like a long vest, and the men’s is a big long robe with a matching hat [kind of Mongol-looking, but don’t tell anybody that, because it’s Kazakh.] When Stef was here, he was presented with a chapan…and I’m not gonna lie- I was jealous.

-But apparently I was an honored guest in Kandagash, so booya.

-I just booked flights for my summer travel.

In short: Aktobe-Almaty-[Istanbul]-London-Edinburg-London-[Bahrain]-Muscat-Salalah-Muscat-Dubai-Almaty-Aktobe.

-I’m: EXCITED. Stay tuned for the UK plans. I’m going to see my mom and sisters!!!!!! Also going for a little adventure. It’s called the 3 Peaks Challenge. 3 tallest mountains in the UK, climbed in 24 hours to raise money for AIDS education in the township that the Peace Corps originally invited me to in South Africa. Randomly, run by an NGO whose director is Mel’s friend, so we’re going out there together. Can. Not. Wait.

-Love, CB