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.