Wintertime

I want to be sunburnt right now. Glorious Winter!

Ambiguity is a spice that I often use in conversation either with the intention of remaining mysterious (press fog machine button now) or because it’s a chore to be detailed and introspective enough to properly describe what that deliberative bee inside my head is buzzing for. This type of tactic can certainly bore the questioner, which is sometimes my aim; I am aware that this places me in the post-drizzling-puddle of social interaction, but it also has a slight potential for more in-depth conversation if the answers are truly sought.

And it can also lead people here and back in the States to ask, ‘what the hell are you doing exactly in Kazakhstan, you wooly fool?’

Thus, I shall give my best attempt to describe what the typical day of this wonderful country is like for someone in my position and disposition depending. I will make this a ?-part series so that I may be more detailed with the happenings.

If you have more websites and important tasks to do, here is the short version of the story below:

1) I wake up everyday.
2) I eat food and drink tea every morning.
3) I walk to the spot where the public transportation vehicle picks me up. I say hello to people along the walk that are interesting sometimes.
4) Things happen on public transportation.

And here is the long version of the routine day:

The Northern parts of Kazakhstan were formally used as the grain-raising areas of the Soviet Union. There are seemingly endless fields of nothing in a lot of areas, but I’m located in the city of Pavlodar. I don’t see much of this due to my urban environment. What I do see is a lot of blocked, cement apartment buildings. There are French boutiques, 24-hour supermarkets, internet clubs, WWII monuments, street musicians with squeeze boxes, cell phones galore, bazaars, dive bars with the only food option being fish or flavored croutons, elementary schools, bathhouses (banyas), hotels, office supply stores, notaries, movie theaters, convenience shops, florists, universities and water pumps.

Snow is everywhere. There isn’t much of it, however, as the winds kick it away before it accumulates. There are a fair amount of older people here. They are old men with gum drop hats of fur, women that are more wrinkled than the raisins they sell on the streets. I say hello to this one lady outside my apartment nearly everyday, and she has these eyes that are similar to Death’s but very blue. She’s lovely. They are all very highly respected.

I wake up around 8:30 AM everyday. I have an alarm clock that cost 70 tenge (roughly 48 cents) and a lovely lady from America that calls me nearly every morning. I brew tea—normally green—butter some bread, eat some kielbasa and I head out on my way. I wear nice pants, a button-up shirt and a sweater most days. I can’t be too flashy or casual, but I tend to use the ‘air-it-out’ method of keeping most of my clothes clean. I do handwash my clothes when needed, don't get me wrong, Mom. However, similar to college, I can wear the same outfit a few times a week and no one seems to care. I am unashamed!

From this point, I’ll walk along the sidewalk between school #24 and an apartment. There are normally a few teenagers outside the “парикмахерская” (Barbershop) that I know from a few random run-ins, so I normally shake hands and say hey to them. A few stray dogs will pass by me in search of food, other dogs or a hole to lie in. If I leave at the exact right time, I can catch the one homeless man crawling out of the steaming manhole from his slumber. He’s a nice guy too.

After cutting through a few alley ways and past the garages that aren’t big enough to hold anything more than the car itself, I cross the street to get to the tram stop for my work. I normally wait about three minutes or so, as the trams are on a pretty consistent loop, though there is definitely no structured schedule. When it’s colder than -15° C, I don’t like to chance a fifteen minute wait. This causes me to chase many a tram if I see it heading towards my stop before I get there. Allow me to make it clear that the women that operate the trams can be the nicest people going, if they see you. And yes, mostly only women operate trams; not sure why this is the case exactly. Anyway, there are times when I am a solid 60 yards behind the tram and the operator will wait and open the back door for me to get in. Running isn’t a problem here, as the air itself is crisp and clean, even for a city (Pavlodar population est. 300,000+).

I am normally very quiet on the tram, as it’s the fashionable thing to do. It is proper to give up a seat for an older woman or to whom is with child. The cost is 22 tenge (13 cents). I get off at the double school stop and walk to work. The tram is not without its faults as other means of transportation, as I have been involved in accident where a bus ran into its side, breaking a window and causing a lot of confusion during a very chilly snow storm, and have witnessed an apparent get-away attempt by a gentleman that had stabbed someone with a sizeable kitchen knife. He had the knife tucked in his coat and blood was dripping in a lot of places. There were a lot of shifting, ‘uhh…should we do something?’ type of eyes in that tram. Everything was fine, though.

That’s a basic day in terms of my travel during the work week. I understand the length and potential boredom of said routine. Sorry about that, but I tried spicing it up by using the phrases “steaming manhole” and “with child.”

There are times when a cold fog rambles through the city at night, and this is what it leaves in its wake.













-35 C yesterday.

Version 1.0

People won't follow the news in a foreign land just because they think it's important; they track what is going on when they have emotional investment in watching and anticipating what comes next.




First, a brief introduction:

Pennsylvania-bred and educated, I am a 22-year old American in Kazakhstan that has chosen the transitory yet tenacious career as a volunteer with the United States Peace Corps. These course of events has led me to the former Soviet bloc; the infantile, democratic nation of Kazakhstan. People speak Russian and Kazakh here; I speak English to those that wish to hear it, muddle through Russian with everyone and have a surprisingly pleasurable knowledge of nearly two dozen words in Kazakh. Though the specialty is the development of non-governmental organizations within the sphere of anti-drug usage and HIV/AIDS services, the people here strangle my free time in such way that I teach English on an average of 7.2 times per week (Elias Sports Bureau). Basically, I do what I can when I can.

Thus, as the current form of media so popularly permits, an American Peace Corps Volunteer from Kazakhstan blog—conceived in idealism, screamed through the womb of altruism, delivered into the hands of an eagerly waiting doctor of underdevelopment—is born,
whose bum has swiftly been smacked by the palm of reality.


Ethan Zuckerman, of the Harvard Berkman Center of co-founder of the international media site, Global Voices, says this regarding the interest in the ‘outside world’ (‘ ‘s used for sarcasm):

"I find myself wondering whether deeper change comes from creating a set of post-national citizens-- people who have friends and collaborators and colleagues all over the world” (SL Magazine, Feb 2007).


That is to say that we care about countries when we care about their people and their stories. And so rather than partaking in news-briefed flashes of outrage, terror or press conferences on the Action News, we'd cultivate a lifelong urge to follow along. Maybe following what I have to share here will aid in that regard.


My initial objective of this is to provide a personal viewpoint from Kazakhstan, although I will not (unfortunately) provide that snappy Channel 6 Action News jingle and Philadelphia photo montage that really gives a punch to the broadcast.