Still within the bounds of non-creepy cat owership?

Two is within bounds, right?



Meet Chaka. She's hungry and loud, and she doesn't take any crap from anyone. No, Chaka is not a Nepali word, it's the name of a neanderthal from a Will Farrell movie.


-Photos of Santa still to come. The Embassy club works on their own time.
-We still don't have an address - post a holiday photo or video for us on Facebook and we'll cherish it always.

Day in the life: Working in Kathmandu

It's morning in our cozy apartment in Kathmandu. The sun is just peeking over the top of the building next door, and I've been woken by the incessant bell-ringing and conch horn-blowing of a neighbor. I know that all that noise is meant to help carry their prayers to heaven, but it's a lot more intriguing of a cultural tradition when it's not the crack of dawn.

I shamble out to the kitchen, led by a frantically whining cat who knows it's time for wet food. Cats don't speak English, so I can only infer what he's trying to say from the various squeaks, purrs, and howls that he makes. At this time every morning, his sounds say:

I WILL DIE IF I DON'T GET SOME FRIGGIN WET FOOD NOOOOOOW!

I make him sweat it out while I grind beans for coffee. As a novice pet owner, I still fail to understand why wet food is so superior to dry food for little guy.

After a couple of hours of coffee, oats, and watching the news with Steffen, I pack up and take the five minute stroll from our quiet alley (I like to call it a cul-de-sac), past kids playing with trash in the street, past the Danish Embassy, past an empty lot with cows grazing in it, out to the insanity of the main road. I pick my way past beat-up taxis, trucks belching smoke, sleek UN and Embassy vehicles driven by private drivers, bicycle-drawn rickshaws, and in every square foot of free space between all of these vehicles, an endless stream of motorbikes and scooters weaving their way to the front.

I often take the micro to work. The micro is a little bus manned by a driver and a young guy hanging out the open sliding door whose job is to collect bus fare and yell at pedestrians as we fly past. I believe that most developing countries have some version of the micro - we sure did in Kazakhstan, but I'm sad to say that that one was a little more organized than its Nepali counterpart. I used to take a taxi to and from the office, but now that all of the culture shock has worn off, frankly I'd rather take the bus than haggle for a non-tourist cab fare every single morning. There was talk of hiring a car service during our time here, but with Stef working from home and me just going to the office, the poor guy would just sit there in the car all day and wait.

Anyway, so after about thirty minutes in a moderately crowded micro (Lord knows I've had worse commutes), I hop out in a neighborhood called Dhapasi Heights, and arrive at work. For the past three weeks or so, I've been training as Program Director for a small, U.S.-based nonprofit called Volunteer Nepal. For those familiar with the org structure of Peace Corps, my job is basically that of a recruiter combined with the duties of all the in-country staff, minus about 99% of the bureaucracy. Somebody's interested in volunteering, I e-mail with them for a few months of questions and advice, process their application, find them a placement, and once they're in-country I manage their financials and coordinate a small staff to get them out to whatever school, orphanage, clinic, or NGO they've chosen to volunteer at.My office shares a building with the Volunteer House, a hostel style outfit where our volunteers stay while they're not out at other, more exotic placements.

So far, I love it. It's all of my favorite jobs from the past combined. One part Chico Study Abroad, one part USAC Madrid, one part Camp Adventure, a generous portion of Peace Corps, and on some days, a sprinkle of Leatherby's and Volleyball Festival when the Volunteer House is full and buzzing with activity and things to be done. When there are volunteers in the house, my best backpacking memories flood back from the corners of the past: meeting new people, simple spaghetti dinners with cheap wine, and the excitement of exploring the unknown and opening one's eyes to a bigger world. It's nice to be in a place now where I'm making these experiences happen for other people.


Coming soon:

-It's kitten eve: The Sgaz man gets a little sister tomorrow
-Photos: Steffen played Santa Clause for a horde of Embassy brats, and only two cried. But was it enough to buy us a membership to their gym?
-How many more makeshift ornaments can our potted plant hold? [Not many]

An Ode to Indian Cable TV

Rafting on the Trisuli was a blast. It wasn't exactly as wild as the River Wild rapids or anything, but one of the French guys on our raft was easily on par with Kevin Bacon in terms of obnoxiousness (even his Hollow Man role).

Speaking of Hollow Man, yes I did just watch that film on our Indian cable. The availability of dozens of channels of Indian cable was a pleasant surprise - we didn't know our apartment came with that and it's been fun discovering the odd lineup of entertainment on that network. Last night there were four episodes of Game of Thrones, with random DVD special features thrown in between episodes. It's like they got hold of a one-season box set up at Indian cable headquarters and just hit PLAY ALL for the night.

Top 6 Indian Cable features so far:

6. Fashion TV. Fell in love with in in K-stan. 24 hour runway shows set to the most fantastic electronica.

#5. Prequels and Sequels. You'd better have already seen the original, because this movie channel only shows the before and after stories.

#4. HBO. Inaccurate subtitles and weird censoring policies, but HBO.

#3. LOUD SPORTS. It's an unreasonably loud sports network that's one channel above all the movie channels. Unless you follow cricket, its main purpose is to shock you out of your channel surfing daze and alert you to the fact that you are exiting the movie channels.

#2. Access Bollywood. Shahrukh Khan every other video + Bonus: Cartoon animals dancing Bollywood at bottom of screen.

#1. 24 hour yoga channel. Camera is fixed on a traditional Indian yogi. All. Day. Long.

As most friends probably know, I'm not a big follower of many TV programs. But you, Indian cable, are awesome.



P.S.
Unfortunately, none of the photographs the rafting guide took include the Frenchman. He was only with us on day one of the trip, and then he and his brother continued downriver to Chitwan, the area of Nepal where you can go on safari and see black rhinos and tigers and what not.





Stay tuned for: Scenes from my first day of work today - That's right, I finally got a job! This blog is now authored by the Program Director for a U.S.-based nonprofit called Volunteer Nepal. Similar structure to Peace Corps, but only in Nepal and not gov't affiliated. And now instead of being the volunteer in the field, I'm the gal in the office doing logistics and recruiting and what not. I start in an hour, so wish me luck!

Welcome to Kathmandu

Thanks to Sacha Baron Cohen, my time in Kazakhstan was peppered with Borat jokes, some hilarious and some altogether inappropriate and confusing. Just when I thought the Borat jokes were thankfully getting old, someone would mention a cockroach, or baseball, or Pam Andersen, and the can of worms would be re-opened.

Luckily, my experience in Nepal thus far has been very different, thanks to the one popular reference to Nepal that appears to have stuck in public memory - a nice, repetitive little ditty by Bob Seger titled "Kathmandu." The closest this song comes to enlightening the listener on the mystery of Nepal's allure is to clarify the first letter of the spelling of its capitol city: "K-k-k-k-k-Kathmandu." Fine by me. No wildly false stereotypes about Nepalese culture, no hidden criticism of Americans (indeed, Bob uses the rest of the lyrics to make sure the various regions of the U.S. are not offended by his desire to relocate) - just a nice, wholesome song about wanting to go to Kathmandu. Leaving you, dear friend or loved one above the age of, say, 35, but one option: You heard that Steffen and I were moving to Nepal, and after a moment the memory of that one song surfaced and you sang, "You're goin to k-k-k-k-k-Kathmandu..."

...and that was it. Unless you're one of the people who asked if we were going to try guinea pig here (I'm not going to name names, but come on people- that's South America, not South Asia). Because other than Mt. Everest, Sherpas, and possibly Maoists if you really keep up with the news, Nepal doesn't make too many headlines where I come from.

So I'll try to keep you updated as I learn things here- and I have a feeling there's going to be a lot to learn. I've only been in this small country sandwiched between India and China for almost two weeks, and I'm already confused about Buddhism and Hinduism, why we can eat water buffalo but not beef, and how so many NGOs can function and so much foreign aid can be distributed in such a tiny place. If the heavy stuff is not your cup of tea, though, don't fret- the abundance of tourism opportunities will probably outweigh the political stuff more often than not.

So sit back, relax, and re-subscribe to this blog for all the news and latest updates from Nepal. Stef and I took a two-day whitewater rafting trip this weekend and we should get the photos back from our guides soon.

Who is the crazy Frenchman smoking on the raft?
How is the Sgaz man adjusting to daily visits from the local housekeepers?
How will Steffen and I fare as the honorary Santa and Mrs. Clause at this year's expat holiday celebration?

Answers to these burning questions and more in blogs to come.

My blog is being censored!!

The time sure flies.

I got wind of a lapse in the gov't censor of blogger.com, so I thought I'd post a quick note to say that it's almost spring, I'm still here in K-stan, and things are going just fine. Steffen and I went to the UAE and were wowed by the tallest building in the world, fantastic Indian food and beautiful weather, among other things that are definitely absent here.

I resurfaced into the internet world to learn that people were getting engaged, running for congress and becoming way too successful and educated while I was gone. I'm almost ready to start the 6 month countdown until I come to America (which is pronounced here the same as the PRs do it on West Side Story: A-MAY-rica with the soft R). But in the meantime, there are a lot of things to do here.

For all of the adventure travellers/hiking enthusiasts: Get a few friends together and sign your team up for the first annual Hike For A KAZ event in the Tien Shan Mountains above Almaty, Kazakhstan. Visit one of the most off-the-beaten-track corners of the world while raising money for local charity programs that promote development in various areas. www.hike4akaz.org

I'm off to the university to meet with the IT people. We're planning a teacher training on using the internet ;)

Take care,

CB

Sgaz the cat is curled up under the radiator and I just got back from dropping a bunch of t-shirts off at a print shop to get the ‘Hike for a KAZ’ logo printed on them. There is a pilots’ college behind my house, and the trainees are out there marching and singing very soviet sounding songs, just like they do about 3 times a day every day. And this punk kid outside is yelling up at his girlfriend’s window:

SAMAL ! [with a heavy stress on the MAL.]

He does it every day around early evening. Exact same intonation every day, and he never says anything except her name. Not sure what the deal is there. I live in one of these big block housing projects, so there are about a hundred windows he could be yelling at.

The printers think I’m crazy for getting t-shirts printed in January, even though I explained that I’m just planning ahead (not a popular concept). I can see their confusion, because it’s not t-shirt weather, it’s -30 outside. It’s the kind of cold where you have to factor an extra 10 minutes in for getting bundled up before you leave the house. The kind of cold that I was definitely not an authority on before, and maybe I’m still not. But if you’re about to move somewhere cold for the first time, I’m pretty sure I can give you some advice. Things that a warm weather person never wanted to know but does:
• Mittens are warmer than gloves
• Some chapsticks freeze if it’s cold enough
• Most lip glosses freeze if it’s cold enough
• All scarves are not created equal
• It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing under the coat and boots, nobody’s ever going to see it. One time when the university’s heat was out, I wore my pj’s to work because I knew I’d never take my coat off. In case you haven’t seen a photo of my winter get-up, the only clothes that are visible under my coat and boots is about 2 inches of my shins.
• Electronics freeze
• Mascara = pain
• Zippers are better than buttons
Etc.

The question I get most these days is: “Do you have snow in America?”

How do I explain that, Yes, there is snow, but where I’m from you can escape the snow by driving a couple of hours west. It would be hard to grasp because you can literally take a train for 3 days across this country and see the same empty, flat landscape and the same bitter cold the whole way.

Right about now that grass hut in the jungle village is sounding pretty nice.

It’s not all bad though. I mean, it’s all a cultural experience, right? I get to see the parents pulling their kids around on sleds, and the baby strollers that are fitted with ice skate blades where the wheels should be. In the winter everybody has a cool hat (me included now!) and you can’t see any of the trash on the ground. The thick steam of the Russian sauna down the street is all the more fabulous on a day this cold, and there is a certain pleasure of walking through your front door and ‘being home’ after the tedious walk back to your house on the icy road. This is a new pleasure for me, never having experienced a place where being out in the elements can be so hostile. Ducking off the street into a cozy hole-in-the-wall café feels like a valiant escape accomplished, and a hot drink is more comforting and can feel luxurious. And there’s no arguing with the fact that a fuzzy purring cat on your lap is way cuter on a cold day.

So, the main reason that I have sought out an internet connection today is to post photos. In some of them you can see various classrooms, my apartment, and other places where I spend a lot of time (including the “marshrutka” bus :-/ )

blog jan

Some other things you might notice:
• They start in July and end in January. You will notice that there’s not much of an autumn in between.
• I didn’t get a dog - it was Melanie’s. We went a little pet crazy over here. What’s worse is that I suspect that Sgaz is just using me for my American passport.
• The petite Kazakh woman is my friend Mira - we’re buddies.
• I taught Spanish classes all summer. Lots of fun.
• Disaster averted: I was trying to hug a horse and it tried to head-butt me.
• Lots of mosques and Orthodox churches next to each other. Not sure why.
• Even babushkas wear Gucci knockoffs.
• The two young Kazakh boys playing scrabble are Nursultan and Danyar, the neighbor kids. They come over twice a week to play with Sgaz, play various games and practice English (which translates to “tease the hell out of Sgaz, cheat at various games and talk trash using several choice phrases in English”) They’re cool kids though and we have a lot of fun…although, the older one has repeatedly threatened to ‘gobstop’ Steffen on the street. ‘Gobstop’ is apparently a slang term that roughly translates to mugging someone. What?! More on gobstopping at a later date.
• I saw the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, when he came to visit Aktobe. It was a huge event for the city. Pretty big deal.
• Christmas was fun. Many thanks to: Our neighbor, China, for providing a cheap fake tree and countless gaudy decorations; family, friends and the Monterey Institute for sending packages and cards; and all of my colleagues at Zhubanov University for throwing a great Christmas/New Years party.
• There aren’t a lot of picture of cold weather because it’s too cold to take my hand out of my glove to take a picture. I miss hooooome.


Also I just want to tell all of my family and friends in Sacramento, Chico, Monterey, Reno, LA and beyond: I love you, I miss you, and I think about you all the time even though I don’t write. I know that’s a lot more sappy than the average me, but I guess that’s what this kind of stuff does to a person.

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