Dear Kaz 21s

At this point I’ve got to write something.  Not to write at this point would be tantamount to treachery – a treachery to myself above all others.  Things are changing, with the severity of goodbyes and the finality of lasts.  And they’re happening fast.

Two years ago I came to Kazakhstan with 66 other people.  Most of us were early twenties, most just out of college.  There were a few outliers, a few people who had worked awhile or even retired.  But we were all wide-eyed with dewy anticipation, many of us subtly scented with fear.  They gave us a number, to identify who we were and when we had come.  We were the twenty-first group of volunteers to come to Kazakhstan.  Kaz 21s.

Two years have gone by, and we are now  51.  Not everybody made it.  Some people got lost along the way, bogged down in the heavy weight of the Kazakh sun.  Others lost themselves in little internal combustions, the tips of their fingers too hot to hold on.  Still others were pulled by the magnetic voices of those they’d left behind, the siren song that had them crawling to splash overboard.

And none of those choices were wrong.  They were right for those people in those moments, at those times.

But 51 of us survived, and 49 of you will go home.  Or have gone already.  

I love you lot.  Thank you for the hand-in-hand fumbling and bumbling the last two years.  For the quiet victories and stinging lessons.

I will miss every darn one of you.

That’s all the drama I’ve got left in my veins, and all I care to say.

Lopa out.

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Scenes from the Soviet Train and Communion

There’s a meditativeness to riding the train at night.  The whole things sways and breathes and churns, the noise of track whooshing out from behind you, like the whooshing breaths of the people who sleep curled into berths.   You sway and breathe and woosh with it.

When you arrive, you bump past the other people, but you don’t mumble apologies.  They are in your way.  The train is about business, when it comes to getting on and getting off.  There are six berths in your little quadrat- two run along the side of the train, one up, one down.  The lower one has a little table that flips up.  The aisle also runs along the length of the train of course, along these two bunks.  Across from it there are four sandwiched in between wall-like partitions.

You heft your bags into the hidden cupboard beneath your berth, arrange the provided sheets and thin fabric mattress not according to how you like it, but according to tradition.  As the train begins to move, it is no longer business, it is chai.

Each quadrat has a hodge-podge family – whomever you are, where ever you’ve come from, whatever you had or didn’t have, you now have a family.  Your food is their food, their food is your food.  Your story becomes their story (because as time drags on down the tracks, they will tell your story a hundred times to anyone who will listen).  Their food becomes your food.  Their story is now tangled up in your own, a random arrangement of people who meet at a singularly precise moment in their lives, to live a handful of long hours together.

There are children, of course.  They race up and down the aisle, bumping into feet of sleeping grandmothers, squealing with delight.  Arms of women thrust deftly from the banks of berths to scoop them up, vigorously rub the rosily-dirty cheeks and then thrust the piglets back into the aisle.  You want to play too of course, except somehow it seems the cutest of them never speaks the languages you know, and for a moment you feel disenfranchised by the unluckiness of it all – and worse, that you are an adult.

The ultimate disenfranchisement.

A few words bubble up in the back of your mind, like people long forgotten – friends, ones you parted with on good terms, friends you’re glad to think of again.

You make a joke to one of the piglets when the train lurches.  ‘As-ta-roj-na!’ you intone,  ‘Be careful!’ and the child squeals with the delight of a child who understands that fear isn’t funny at all, but pretend fear is, and therefore hilarity is warrented.

Of course, now, for the next sixteen hours of the train ride, you will hear ‘Astarojna’ accompanied by peals of raccous laughter each time the train lurches.  At least once every 15 minutes.

You drink tea with your quadrat family, eat with them, drift in and out of conversations with them.  For a little while you find solace in your iPod, in Ingrid Michaelson telling you to ‘just keep breathing.’  Really, it’d be impossible not to.  You’ve become part of the organism of the train now, a tiny, interlocking part.  You have to breathe with it.  It’s a complusion.

Some men have formed a tight knot, and you listen to them talk about things they know nothing about, but assert with prowess of voice and fists that bash madly in the air.  It’s better, even, when they talk about the country you are from.  Your very presence in the train has provoked them, somehow unsettled this very local culture.  Women chime in, their mouths unwilling to stop, gossip and barefaced lies dripping from their chins.  The fumes from the ignorance are like pepper spray.  They think you don’t understand them, but you do.

One woman glances your way, and comments, “What a mess.”  You catch her eye, “Can I help you?”  Her eyes snap open, startled from the lull of comforting lies, and she turns to her companions.  “She understands,” she murmurs under her breath.

You have peace again.

And then comes the night.  You slip your feet from the tapiski, and pull yourself up and up into your top bunk bed.  Curling into a ‘c’ you sit there in the dark.  Swallowed whole by the train and the people and the woosh of the rails.

The baby breathes ”Astarojna’ and giggles softly.  The mother hushes.

The train lurches on and on.

Ingrid Michaelson is playing again, but this time only in your mind.

This is peace.

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The Universe Provides for Me (Primarily in Puppies)

As you may or may not know, I have had three dogs in Kazakhstan.  First there was Oliver, later Shoshka and after I lost them I got the dog I own now, Ioo.

Oh, and the two puppies that are currently curled up in my lap asleep.

My neighbor kids have apparently decided that since I am the only human being they know crazy enough to live with a dog (ew dirty!), my home is now also a home for all things wiggly, furry and cute.

There of course is a problem with this (in case you haven’t grasped that yet).  In Kazakhstan, land of the strays, puppies are pretty much constant fixtures.  What’s worse is the abuse they take- kicks, rocks, even being thrown against walls and buildings.  And of course they’re all thin, malnourished and dirty.

The bottom line is this:  I can’t save them all.

Training, walking, feeding and giving attention to one dog is hard enough.  Add in the fact that I’m traveling all over the place, and have to find someone in a dog-kicking-is-shcool culture to watch her, it’s really a bit of a headache.  I do it, and gladly- I wouldn’t change a thing, but it’s still a difficult thing.

But here’s the deal.  I take in these puppies for a night.  I wash them up with anti-lice shampoo, I give them nutrient packed foods like meat and milk, and I give them a de-worming pill and a puppy vitamin.  The next day they’ll go out with me on the way to school and I’ll leave them near the dump, where they will have the best chance of finding food.

I personally believe that the world will provide for me to the extent that I am willing to provide for others.  I’s like the old proverb, ‘You get out what you put in.’

I wonder what sort of dividends puppies pay.

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Overheard: A brief funny from the schoolyard

Today as I was leaving my school the pre-school kids were also leaving en masse.   I let them overwhelm me, and when I reached the school yard there were only a few stragglers, the rest headed home on their stumpy, plump little legs toward a snack as fast as possible.

“Hello!” one little boy with a ridiculously huge hat beamed up at me.

“Hello!” I chimed back, flashing Hat a big smile. (Hey, I was excited about snack and home too!)

Hat turned to his companion Over-stuffed-backpack-kid and began to speak in Kazakh.

“Did you hear that? I said hello! To the American!”

Backpack looked blankly at Hat, then skeptically at me.

“Hello! I said ‘Hello!’ Don’t you understand hello!”

Backpack continued to look blankly at Hat, the word clearly not ringing any bells.

Hat appeared to be getting a little frustrated.  “Man, am I smart? How come you can’t understand hello!”

He jogged up to me, and slipped his little mitten into my hand, and grinned up at me.

“I understand hello.  I am sooooo cool.”

 

I couldn’t help but laugh.

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Election Day Hilarity- Papers and Poop

First, if you don’t know much about the elections or election criticism  in Kazakhstan, I highly recommend you google it, or in brief, read this article and this summary.

My puppy is paper trained, but due to where I live currently, I do not let her go outside alone.  So, as I’m sure you can imagine, we go through an awful lot of newspaper.  I promise, I totally promise that this has to do with Kazakhstan’s presidential elections, which are being held today.  Just hang in there, the story is totally worth it.

Last week I hopped over the the local newspaper office in Zhanatas and met a fairly nice seeming guy who didn’t set my creep-meter off.  So, the two of us began chatting amiably in Kazakh while I held my squirmy puppy Ioo in my arms.

“I need newspapers please,” I explained.  “Old ones or misprinted ones.  I’ll buy them.”

“Oh, no no,” he said.  “You needn’t pay.”  (I’m sure he said that because I am so darn charming in Kazakh!a girl can dream, right?)
“Here.”  He proceed to pull three individual sheets of newspaper out of a stark doorless Soviet cabinet.

“Oh, no no no- I need many!”  I emphasized the many by juggling my dog and drawing one hand out as far as I could from the wiggling pup.

Ioo- the miscreant in question

Comprehension flashed on his face, and he nodded.  “Come outside, wait.”

I obligingly followed the man out to his car, where he retrieved a giant skeleton key, the sort you might imagine belonging to an old Victorian house, only way, way bigger.  He gestured to the back of the building, and since my creepy meter still hadn’t gone off, I determined it was safe to follow.

At the back of the newspaper offices, there was a very short door.  The man brusquely thrust the key into the lock, giving it a few expert jiggles, and the door swung inward and he ducked into the blackness.  I figured I’d followed him this far, what the heck, right?  And so I ducked to avoid seriously clunking my head, only to gracefully trip over the uneven floor and run smack into my newspaper man.

He laughed at me, taking me by the shoulders and righting my orientation, which had gone all kinds of wrong.  My eyes adjusted slowly and I let out a small gasp.

Three, count em, three printing presses crowded the space, the air ripe with the smells of ink and chemicals.  Two of them were clearly no longer in use – rusted antiquities from a time before this one.  Even the one that was in use looked like something out of the 70s – it was painted that strange metal toaster sea foam green.

I at once bent to examine the relics, exclaiming at this and that, wishing I had a more technical vocabulary.  I learned however that the newest was 30 years old – the rest were from before he’d worked here, and he had no idea how long they’d been sitting in this room, it’s walls blackened from ink and chemicals.

Seeing my interest, he promptly invited me to come to see the newspaper being printed next week.  I accepted his offer, accompanied by a giant pile of newsprint, and promised to see him the next week.

So, what does this have to do with the Kazakhstani presidential elections?  We’re almost there, hang on.

 

 

A few days ago I invited Chris (the sitemate) over for dinner.  He came, we ate and talked- it was nice.   We talked a little bit about the election, how it was being held, how the teachers (who are notorious for cheating on tests) were election proctors, and how there is no official ballot collecting process- the school is making it up as it goes along. As he was getting ready to leave I was replacing the puppy’s papers on the floor.

“Where did you get those papers?” Chris asked, his voice strange.

Ioo's opinion on the Kazakhstani elections (not mine! 😉 )

I of course, was obliged to tell him the aforementioned.

“Do you know what it says?”

“Of course not- it’s Russian.”  The huge stack of newspapers, probably 40 pounds of them, were all printed the same, like little booklets.  They read ‘ГЛВНЫЙ ВЫБОР СТРАНЫ!’ in all capital letters, clearly very important.

Chris explained what this meant.

It means ‘very important election papers.’  Or something like that.

And my dog, of course, continues to use them as she requires.

Oh, Kazakhstan.

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India

Because I feel like something should be posted about visiting India (but also in the interest of keeping guilty parties names out of things) I’ve decided to simply say the following:

India was fabulous.  On every level.

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Winter- the longest ‘month’ ever.

Some of my students still think that winter is a month.  Don’t ask me how they think that, considering the Russian words for the months are cognates.  But if winter is in fact a month, I’m totally screwed, because it is the longest, worst month ever (just like this post- brace yourself).

Things in Zhanatas have been extraordinarily rough for me lately.  I was featured in this foreigners in Kazakhstan news spot, which was fine.  Then they started playing it over and over and over all across national television.  Embarrassing?  A little.  Fine?  Not so much, because now any anonymity that I had in Zhanatas has been tossed out the window.  It was nice to don my hat, head outside and have people assume I was Russian.   No such luck anymore.

As it stands now, I am constantly harassed, mostly by drunken men who grab my arm or touch my face and breathe on me.  I get shouted after in the streets.  It’s just too much sometimes.  I hate leaving my house, I’ve become a hermit because I just can’t take it anymore.  I’m afraid I’ll have an ‘American woman’ moment, turn around, and tell the drunk jerk what I really think of him.  And that would just not be an intelligent move in this country.

Then, in case you missed the news, Oliver went missing.  This past week, according to the vet, someone poisoned my other dog Shoshka.   Watching her dying was absolutely excruciating.   She couldn’t eat anything, couldn’t drink water, and had terrible bloody diarrhea that smelled like the worst things you can imagine.  She got thinner and thinner until she finally could barely walk, and stumbled around like another local drunk.

Some of my students came over and Shoshka had an accident (which as I mentioned, smelled terribly).

Their response?  “Oh God, it’s dying- put it outside.”

My response (besides feeling crushed)?  “If your sister was dying would you put her outside?”

I’ve also had two attempted break-ins (one while I was at home, the other my neighbors caught).

Now, to top it all off, I’ve had to decide about extending in Kazakhstan.  This basically means accepting a position as PCVL (Peace Corps Volunteer Leader) and staying another 9-12 months in Kazakhstan from August 2011.   The position would allow me to move to a city, work with higher level students and technically have a ‘promotion’ from within a governmental organization which plays directly into what I want to do for grad school.  Not to mention, I really love working with new volunteers.

While I love KZ, considering all that’s been going on in my life lately, it’s pretty hard to decide to stay.  Ultimately, I feel that staying will allow me to make a big impact on future volunteer’s lives, but right now, it’s really rough.

Let’s talk about some good stuff for a second.

On the fifth floor of my apartment complex there’s a family that’s basically adopted me.  It’s pretty awesome because it’s like having a host family with the ability to go into my own house, shut the door, and revel in spicy foods and vegetables.  Over winter break we got especially close, they are just plain wonderful to me.  I hope having me around is as interesting and good for them as it is to me.

There’s school too- it’s going great.  My kids are wonderful.  People ask why I choose to stay here if it’s so bad- just know that I’m explaining a lot of what’s rough in this post, but there’s a lot of wonderful stuff too.

On Monday I found Oliver dead, with his throat all messed up.  With Shoskha being poisoned I just really felt like a target.  Wednesday I finally emailed my papers into PC HQs regarding extension.  It was a terrible, really emotional moment.  Shoskha was dying on the couch,  I couldn’t get her to drink, and I sent in papers to stay even longer in a culture that I am constantly swimming against.

When my neighbors called me to dinner I went upstairs, but I just wasn’t myself.  They all noticed it, but no one really said anything.  When dinner was over I asked my ‘Mamau’ to talk.  We went into the TV room and shut the door.  She laid down on the corpeshays (these are bed pads they sleep on top of on the floor).

“Well Laura? What’s up?”

Before I knew it I was in this 50 year-old Kazakh woman’s arms, crying my eyes out.  And since Kazakh isn’t my native language I couldn’t explain all of this to her, all of the build up and terror and sadness.  So you know how it came out?

It came out:  “I miss my mommy.”

She held me for a long awhile and stroked my head like a little kid.

America, I miss you.  Mommy, I miss you too.  Dad, Leigh, Kate- I miss you guys more than I can possibly explain.

I just need to stay a little while longer, for me.

Thanks for supporting me no matter what.

-L

PS The same neighbor woman came and poured vodka down Shoshka’s throat every few hours.  I thought, hey, at least she’s in less pain.  Believe it or not, and though freakishly thin, Shoshka appears to be making it through!

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Oliver

In my wordpress draft’s bank there’s a literal cue of ideas I could write about.  Thing is, blogging about my life isn’t very interesting for me- I just lived it.  But after last night and my poor dog throwing up puddles of blood and scaring me to death, I decided it was time to look back and reflect a little.

Last September, exactly three days after my birthday, I was being a responsible citizen and about to walk my trash the 5 minutes to the dump pile where we’re suppose to leave it (don’t ask was irresponsible citizens do,  it’s not pretty).  As I was walking down the stairs of my apartment building I heard a little yelp accompanied by the sounds of boys.  Sure enough, right outside my building was a tiny puppy, no bigger than a kitten, whining and begging for food while the local boys kicked him around.

A note about local pet culture:  it doesn’t exist, and any American animal-fan or otherwise, would be appalled.

I took look at the puppy and a longer, sterner look at the boys, and I said:  “Don’t touch it.  It’s mine.”

And he was.  Ever since I picked him up and could feel ever bone in his body.   I had just finished reading Oliver Twist, and Oliver seemed to be a  fitting name. I remember sitting here, my tiny puppy fitting comfortably along my breast bone, so light and tiny.

Now he’s a beautiful dog.  He’s lost four baby teeth and one more is wobbly.  He’s potty trained, responds to ‘sit,’ ‘heel,’ ‘down,’ ‘shake’ and ‘stay.’  Some of the commands are even in Kazakh.    He has got the most rediculous ears- they’re absolutely giant.

Now he’s a tremendous joy in my life.  No matter what else goes on, he’s always at home waiting for me, thrilled out of his little mind I’ve walked in the door.  I love the way he cocks his head and listens to me (no matter what the language), his ears moving like small satellite dishes.

Watching him on the snow and ice has been hysterical.  Everyday we walk on the leash to an empty part of town, and then I let him run off-leash.  Oliver dashes through the snow, scampers across the ice and eats as much of the powdery-goodness as he can stand.  My favorite has been lately- the top of the snow has crusted over, you know the type.  Oliver loves dashing across the firm crust, and when it breaks he whirls around, attacking the snow mound that dares disturb his run.

He is a wonderful dog, and if he makes it through whatever’s gone wrong in his system, I’ll be taking him home with me.

The Kazakh people here ask me often this question (literally translated):  “Will he walk through life with you?”

You betcha.

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Yuletide and Christmas Cookies

My first package in awhile came to Zhanatas this week.  It was from my grandma, full of little Christmas trinkets, but most importantly of all, it had the necessary ingredients to make my grandma’s specialty Peanut Butter Balls (my favorite of the Christmas cookies we make every year).

I wouldn’t say that our family is the most traditional.  We have a lot of traditions when it comes Christmas though- like hanging a wreath taller than I am on the chimney, putting up the miniature Christmas village, and of course baking Christmas cookies.

It seems like every year for as long as I can remember my sisters and I have attempted to make some sort of ‘decoration-required’ cookie- gingerbread men, sugar cookies- whatever, and they’re never very artistic.   That’s part of the plan really (though it’s quite unlikely we’d admit it), we love squinting at each other’s ugly cookies and trying to discern if it’s a santa hat wearing a polar bear, or a christmas tree with really big teeth.

But this year, in Kazakhstan, I made my Grandmother’s peanut butter balls.  When, over Skype, my grandma asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told her I just wanted to be able to make her cookies in Kazakhstan.  I remember her voice, all-knowing and sure-footed:  “Laura, you know, you have to dip each little ball into chocolate.”  She was my first babysitter, she knows me pretty well.  This sort of project just didn’t sound very ‘Laura’ to her.

Anyhow, today I made those famous cookies.  And I was amazed at myself.  One after the other, I rolled over eighty cookies in the chocolate, lofted them carefully from the stainless bowl, and gingerly lowered them onto sheets of newsprint.

It seems one thing I’ve learned in a year+ of Kazakhstan has been  patience.

This time of year I miss my family.   So all of you at home, or not too far from home, spend some time with your families.  Because I’m telling you, no matter how cliché it is, that there will never be people in your life more important or more wonderful than your family.

Merry Christmas.

I love you guys.

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Veteran’s Day KZ

Parade! Boisterous noises wahmbam their way to you.  They’re fighting one another, jostling, sparring, tumbling over one another to press down into the black stillness of your ears.  Yellow!  Blue!  Red! Orange!  Bursts of colors carried on flags and in the thin plastic of balloons and in hair ribbons and in banners clamor for your attention.  Look here!  Look at me! Look, look, look!  There are feet and shoes everywhere, criss-crossing, jogging, schleping and walking.  Balloons blunder obediently behind their children, dragging haphazardly along the dusty ground.  Small faces are pressed desperately into the soft, cool respite of white ice cream on a cone.

The people (not you, but them) march now, in sun-drunken line-like configurations.  Students mill about in school uniforms that have been pressed into obedience.  The crowd seems to masticate to the disorganized stomp and slosh and shuffle.

And then the cheers rise up from their throats, as if there was helium in their balloons, and the veterans come.  They come into the maw of the crowd, into the chewing, spitting, chaos, in a neat line of antique cars.  Faces press like lovers into ice cream.   Children yank their balloons.  Friends hiss gossip.

Last year there were seven cars.  This year there are three.

What will these revelers do- these gorging, bulging, staring, gluttonous eyes- what will they do next year or the year after that?

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