Privyet straight outta KZ. It’s been a while and a ton of things have happened an I've been trying to post this forever, the internet is just terrible though. This issue will cover my site placement which was just announced on Thursday. I have some information on it even though I haven’t been there. It also includes how I have grown an affinity for both Kumis (that’s fermented horses’ milk for those not in the know) and Vodka. Furthermore I had some brushes with the shadier side of Kazakhstan and I will include a small expose on Kazakh women.

I’ll start back on the weekend right after my b-day. It seems like ages ago. It was Saturday and that means half day of school for us volunteers which is always good. Afterwards I taught with Shynar (for free in case PC officials are reading this) and no one showed up to learn from a genuine American. Anywho, that meant I got to meet up with the crew at the local café. There we had some beers, the volunteers from other towns marshrutka-ed it home(local transport vehicle) and Drew, Sagar, and I hiked off to my house for a delicious dinner of Jambalaya that I made. And by delicious, I mean it was seriously the best food I think I have ever had. After weeks of boiled chunks of fat mixed with soup broth, a taste of America was like the kiss of an angel. Afterwards we skipped out on the local discoteka cause it’s pretty shady and no one goes there. The weekend finished on Sunday with a trip to the next village over to hang out and smoke some hookah with their crew and trekked on home that night. The week started off on a decent note with my lame class being cancelled cause I don’t really like that class. We had a ceremony and kids sang and danced at it like usual. I got to make an awkward speech that basically sucked but no one understood it so no big deal. The interpreter made it sound really good though cause I was able to pick up her Russian and knew that she changed it to be better. Tuesday involved my lame class rescheduled and it crashed and burned. My counterpart here that I teach with does not know English and tried to like take control of what I was teaching and then translated it wrong to them in Russian and I understood and was like "no, you are wrong" and told the class not to listen to her, she would’ve been better explaining it to them in Kazakh because then I never would have understood her. My boss (who was watching the class) said what I did was right and she’s glad I don’t take shit from anyone even if what I did disrupted the entire sense of order, peace, deference that is instilled in the school towards teachers. When I got home and was kind of bummed about it my host dad was actually home for once and said "well than we will drink alcohol and we will be happy" (kumis and the baltika number 9) so that was a pretty good outcome. The rest of the week classes went fine and English club was decent. Friday was good that week because we got out of lessons early and actually had like an afternoon to rest and do nothing. Saturday involved Kazakh lessons and cross culture trivia contest which I won (of course I did, everyone knows I’m a trivia master and I knew it was coming up so I had to overachieve and defend my title – from trivial pursuit victory a few weeks earlier-- and researched as much about Kaz history as possible in such a short time and with no materials really). I won candy btw. It was delicious. Afterwards I did the Shynar English teach thing for real and people came and were wow-ed. Every girl asked why I wasn’t married and that’s always flattering (I’ll get into this topic soon enough). Afterwards I went to my friend Jenny’s in the next village for a while to hang out with her cause she was sick and then I met everyone at their café for the typical weekend get together. Made it home late with Drew and then passed out to wake up on my Sunday morning day off at 6 to head off to Medeo with a few people. Medeo is like this real famous ice skating rink in the mountains here in Kaz. We got there in the morning after many bus rides. As we arrive we learn that on this particular day there was an annual race up this dam in the mountains that is used to stop mudslides and avalanches when it’s either wet or snowy and our group signed up. However, of the 11 of us, only 3 of us actually did the race: me, Tobin and Nora; which was our greatest choice possible. We got to meet Vladimir Gashouta himself, holder of 14 Guinness Book of World Record records (which I think involve him running in a human sized hamster wheel). We had a press junket because everyone was confused why Americans were there and then we got to run in our own special race up the mountain in thin air that made me feel like I was going to pass out. However, the next day we were mentioned in the newspapers and then appeared on the national TV channel on the news. My glorious clip involved me in front of a Russian chorus being fed apple pie by Vladimir Gashouta. So now my status has evolved from local Kaz celebrity to national Kaz celebrity (not really but for a moment I was). Afterwards, we went home and I had to clean and stuff cause it was Sunday and on Sundays I like wash the floors and things like that in my house. Monday started the school week off again and I taught and learned and then had tutoring and went home late and then came Tuesday and the rest of the week. Same things all the time. I was told that with my goatache I look like Lenin which I think is a compliment. My one instructor explained to me today that she loves the great Lenin. Wednesday’s English club consisted of some game time and some new girls came and bombarded me with more questions about my wife that I don’t have and had to explain to them I’m single which is both the right and the wrong answer. [my friend Drew will be teaching in a college and was told by one of our Russian trainers something incredibly complicated about how he would have to fight off all the girls while at the same time accepting their advances (they’ll be 18 though so that fulfills the PC policy)]

Then came Thursday: tech session day - these days are generally brutal to get through but on this particular Thursday was also site announcement. As soon as tech session finished we were off to Shemolgan for the big moment of training – site announcement. We get there and they put on a Kazakh show and then some volunteers from Shemolgan did a joke skit about life in PC. Then we got sheets with our names in specific colors so we know what section of the country we were in and ripped open our sheets to learn our new home for the next 2 years. Akkol. It’s a village of about 15,000 people 100 km north of Astana. My friend Jessie will be about 30mins away. Besides her, I’ll basically be isolated in sub-Siberian Kazakhstan. The closest city is Astana at 1 hour. Kokshetau will be about 3 hours away (with some PC volunteers right past it so actually by isolated I mean 3 hours away from 3 other people). I live along a major train route which is good for transport. The environment is supposedly pristine with no pollution which I’m very excited for. It’s steppe with a forest nearby so it’s not only just flat. It gets to about -40 in the winter and some snow has already fallen. It gets a ton of snow apparently which I like. It’s a really popular destination for cross-country skiing so I may get into that but that’s like harder than running but maybe I can do that to school in the 7 months of winter that is there every year. Oh and the wind gets up to like 100mph in the Astana area in the fall so that kinda sucks, but hey PC says be flexible and to be honest the location, the type of town, and other things about I couldn’t have wanted to more, I’m glad that on paper PC found a good site for me while some other people didn’t get such a good fit but who knows they’ll probably love their site anyway. The town’s economy is agricultural and its 50% Russian and 50% Kazakh. It does have an internet café but no hot water. Apparently it’s a really great site, PC has been there for a while and I will be replacing a volunteer that is finishing his service in 2 weeks. Furthermore, I heard that I have some pretty big shoes to fill so I gotta do my best. I should be teaching high school English(grades 8-11) and the students get 5 hours of language a week which is like unheard of in Kazakhstan so that’s good for them. Supposedly its beautiful area and I’m really close to 2 big cities if I want to get out ,and in my region I’m friends with most of the people so that’s really good too and I’m excited about that. I’ll visit it in 2 weeks. Afterwards we all went out to drink some vodka then home to sleep for more school. Oh and then today I met the volunteer that’s leaving who was there before me, he said it’s a pretty awesome place and gave me more information and showed a bunch of pics. He also said I may get 3 day weekends because he did but then the 4 days he worked he worked like forever hours and nowadays 12 hours is pretty exhausting. Oh and as a kid he lived in Lakewood, weird right?


Then Friday, with all good things bad things must happen. On the whole the day was really strange. I get to school, it’s teacher’s day, a holiday. I have to dance with students at some thing and they all sing songs and it was kind of entertaining and then I had tickets to the Ballet in Almaty. It’s called "Juno and Avos" in English and it’s a tragedy I guess, it was hard to understand, but very interpretive and I got an info sheet in English. I actually thought the scenes and production were really cool even though I didn’t really understand it at the moment. It was pretty trippy. That’s the good. The bad is that on the way to the theater I was robbed which is a huge bummer. I lost my wallet, US ID which is useless so whatevs, all my money which I don’t really care about wasn’t a big deal, my ATM card I cancelled right away, and my ISIC card will expire soon anyway. It was with my iPod at the time and that’s safe so no big deal right? At first I was like "blah shit happens" but then when one of the PC employees, a Russian lady, mentioned it to me when I didn’t even tell her about it and then said something along the lines of she saw it is when I got pissed. Like wtf, why wouldn’t you tell me this happened so I could’ve done something about it. After I talked to our safety officer at HQ to report the theft she said "ok no big deal" because I wasn’t too upset about it but then when I told her the other part of the story she called that person and asked her about it and was like "oh no I didn’t see anything." So I called bullshit on her but it’s too late to get my wallet back and I don’t care about that I’m just pissed she straight up lied or is just stupid and then told me that she was recounting a story that she knows of other people that got robbed before and I was like "you’re fucking ridiculous, never talk to me ever again." But the ballet was great. I recommend it highly to anyone that likes trippy things.

I got home, slept went to school, etc the next day. I taught with Shynar after school again. Different people there this time and now I will make a short mention of Kazakhstani women. First, there are the Russian girls. Everyone knows what Russian girls look like. They’re like any county with a large population so the percentages of beautiful girls to normal girls, etc is about the same with USA, China, India, UK, etc. Then there are Kazakh girls. Like 30% are unbelievable, 30% are stunning, 20% are hot and the last 20% are normal. At first I thought it was just where I lived. This anecdote should explain it the best and let the cat out of the bag. Two of my friends were coming over and I was like "oh yeah before you meet my sister I’ll warn you, she’s gorgeous." They were like "cool." So my one sister came in and they were like whoa she is beautiful. And I’m like "yeah I know but I meant the other one." When she came in the room’s collective jaw dropped. On Sunday she was in the Miss Almaty/Kazakhstan Competition. For a city of more than 1 million people and a region of about 2mil she was one of 15 finalists. She would like to be a professional model one day so I think that means I’m supposed to help her because I’m an American and supposedly have connections is the general stereotype. Oh, she lost btw, which is a bummer, the girl that one was busted too (relatively compared to the other 14 girls) which I call bullshit on, there were a few that were like unbelievable and didn’t get shit either and then the winning one didn’t even smile or was excited about it and then one of the locals here told me that she probably bought her victory cause that’s how Kaz is, everything’s super corrupt but oh well. The next day she seemed alright though, I bought her a bunch of flowers to cheer her up and showed her all the great pictures and videos I took of the competition, the best being the moment when they announced the winner and like you hear it then me in the background "oh shit this isn’t gonna be good" as the video cuts out. But seriously it’s kind of strange for me living here because when my host family said to PC they wanted a boy to live with them, the one official was like "you know you have 2 beautiful daughters?" They’re really cool too though and great cooks. The whole package basically. Other girls though, I see them all the time. They walk around all dressed up in their stilettos and prance around. At school (class, English club, etc) I get bombarded with questions of if I’m not married and then the follow up: if I’m interested in being married. The other day I met this one girl though, that was a dead ringer for Princess Jasmine (from Aladdin) and in university, so my range, amirite? And she didn’t even ask me either of those questions, she was more interested in learning English. But seriously, PC had a session with us on relationships in Kazakhstan that was kind of hilarious. The Russians told us never to hook up with a Kazakh girl ever or we will be forced to marry them and Russian girls are easy and you will not have to marry them. But seriously this country is like a secret paradise of single beautiful women everywhere trying to find people to marry them, I’ve never experienced anything like it ever. Oh and PC might just be a giant trap to get us married. I have so much more to write about them but I said I’d keep it short. If you have any questions just ask.

Oh and apparently I’ll be in an article in the Atlantic City newspaper with Tommy Sunchuck about PC and 2 others from TR that are in it because that’s like a ridiculous amount of people from 1 town in PC.

Oh and I haven’t been able to keep up on the presidential race but I heard some of the international news about Sarah Palin and apparently she’s a crazy. Yeah but no one can vote for McCain cause he’s like a terrible in addition to him being a 1000 and when he dies from being 1000 and she becomes our devil president and calls for a crusade against everyone different than us, at least I’ll (presumably) be okay halfway around the world. Or not cause I live in a predominantly Muslim country and that means evil according to the ignorant American populace. Oh and I heard about the economy exploding, bummertron. At least your level is living is more than the pocket change I lived on daily until I was robbed. And that’s what grinds my gears.

If someone responds can you please keep me updated (by email is easiest, BTW MARC I TRIED TO TEXT YOU, this is in caps so you can read it, kinda cause you have the only number I have memorized and also because HAI MARC!, so if you got it try to respond to see if my texts to America work, or someone else gimme you’re number and I’ll try to send you one its like 10cents for me to text America which is cool and I get incoming free but may be hella expensive for y’all) with news of politics or other things important to America because all I hear about here is like how Putin is the man and Russia’s economy is crashing and then just Kaz news which is good but like I’d like to know about the rest of the world once in a while. Oh and I finished "Watchmen." Read it, it will rock your world. Oh and my portable HD had the unfortunate event of surging and wiping all of my videos from it, so if someone like Marc feels like burning a few DVDs with either TV shows or some videos or some music (something funny to watch and maybe the Wire or something cause I just started that and lost it all) that I may enjoy so I’m not bored to death in the long, cold lonely winter that is quickly approaching when I am not allowed to leave my village until like February, I’d appreciate it. There are a ton of blank DVDs at my house to use and just give the discs to my parents because they need to send a package soon to me anyway with important items like a new ATM card and stuff so I’m not incredibly impoverished.