I have decided, dear reader, that for the purpose of blogging, internet clubs with USB ports are my friend. I have found such a place, thus, the post you deserved, but didn't receive.
Written on 8/23/2010 - Alright folks, to make up for the lack of internet connection, I'm gonna cram a lot of nonsense into one long post.
After almost 2 days of travel (including, but not limited to, a flight from DC to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Almaty) we arrived in Kazakhstan last Friday at 1 am. We waited for our luggage, got our passports stamped, and were greeted by John Sasser, the PC Country Director for Kazakhstan. We spent the night at a "sanitorium" (sort of Hotel/Conference Center-esque) and began opening sessions the next morning at 8. In short, all 74 of us sat in a conference hall hearing about different aspects of PC Kazakhstan from the Country Director; the Regional Director of PC Europe, Mediterranean, and Asia; and PC Volunteers assisting with the training. There was lots of sleep deprivation, jet laggery, and complete disregard for all suggestions of note taking. We stayed up until the late hours of the evening to buy cell phones and sim cards (note: my number is 011-8-705-626-69-37, text me!!) and fell into our awkwardly sized sanitorium beds.
Day 2 followed the same schedule of information sessions, adding a 2 hour language lesson in the afternoon. Let me just say, a but redundant for the Russian Major. But, as Peace Corps demands, I was flexible and pretended to enjoy 2 hours of "Hello-my-name-is-Katie"-instruction. Then we were loaded onto buses and shipped to surrounding towns and villages to meet our host families.
I am currently living in the town of Talgar with a handful of Education Volunteers and half of the Youth Development Volunteers. I live with a Kazakh family consisting of my host mom Karlagosh, host sisters Donna and Dianna, and Donna's 6-month-old son Amir. Their house is quite nice and has a huge tangled garden out back. They have a raspberry and strawberry patch; pear, plum, and apple trees; and trillions of vegetables. The have a toilet in the house, but that's only for winter-use, so we use the outhouse at the far back of the yard. They have only cold water running inside, so to wash we go the banya out back. Think Russian-style-bath-house-ala-"Eastern-Promises"-minus-the-naked-fight-scene-and-a-little-more-rustic and you've got the right picture. There's a wood-burning stove used to heat a big tank of water that we then pour into smaller basins to wash with. It's surprisingly refreshing.
The food so far has been just fine. Lots of veggies and bread and tea, all things I'm a big fan of. At my host mom's oldest daughter's house I was confronted with the national dish of Kazakhstan beshbarmak, which is essentially meat and handmade noodles. Sounds normal enough, right? Not quite, dear reader, as the meat is typically horse. The beshbarmak I encountered, however, was made with mutton. Much better, right? Would've been, except for the whole sheep head resting glorious in the center of the dish.
Our official training started today. I go to class for 9 hours a day at School #8. It is a gymnasium that specializes in language, teaching students in Russian, Kazakh, and English. For the next three months I'll be in class 6 days a week, with 4 hours of language class in the morning and 4 hours of technical training and practical experience in the afternoon. September 1st, the first day of school, we'll be introducing ourselves to the entire school – parents, students, teachers, directors, janitors, possibly neighborhood dogs, etc. - explaining our background, what we're doing in K-stan, and what sort of programming we'd like to do. We're also supposed mention a few interesting facts about ourselves to entice the students to come to our programs, so I'll need to think some interesting things up on the double!
Well, that's about it for now. Tomorrow is day to of Pre-Service Training (PST), get ready for 4 hours of redundant language instruction, a tasty lunch of leftover pilaf, and 4 hours of technical preparation.
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