Happy Holidays!

Here it is!! The long-awaited, much-anticipated (and overly-hyphenated?) recap of "Katie Joins the Peace Corps and Moves to Kazakhstan - 2010"!! This post promises to be terribly exciting and awe-inspiring, etc. So, from I'll take it from the top...

Back in January 2010 (good lord, almost an entire year ago!) I was nominated to become a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Community Development program in Europe starting in June. This nomination came 4 months after completing the PC application, and 2 months after a phone interview with my recruiter at the Chicago Regional Office. I spent the next 3 months in and out of the doctor's office in good ol' St. Paul completing the obnoxiously detailed medical paperwork. In March I had my wisdom teeth pulled especially for PC, as it's a requirement for service. Once all my paperwork was submitted and I was deemed "Medically and Legally Cleared for Service" the waiting game began.

I waited through midterms, an uneventful Spring Break, finals and commencement without hearing anything from PC. I called my recruiter to ask when I would learn if I would get an invitation to serve or not, but she was generally unhelpful and told me to sit tight. So I sat tight through May and June with no word, and began to get rather nervous about the whole affair. I never figured I was a shoe in, but I didn't really believe that my application would be rejected. So I sat at home in West Bend, WI being slightly panicked and mostly bored, half-heartedly looking for jobs and internships, but hoping the PC would pull through.

July came around quietly, still no news from Peace Corps. My family got ready for a Family Reunion/Graduation Bonanza on behalf of 3 recent grads, my younger sister got ready for her first semester at college, and I got ready to expand my job search. Finally, mid-July I got a call from Peace Corps. A placement officer called to say that I had been slotted to leave in September for Eastern Europe as a Youth Development Volunteer, but that the same program in Central Asia had opened up. He told me if I was flexible (a magic word in PC), they could move my departure date up and I would leave a month earlier, in August. I confirmed that I was indeed the most flexible person he was likely to ever meet, and 5 days later I got my invitation to serve in the mail. It was a wonderful large blue binder full of exciting brochures including a description of my job as a "Youth Development Facilitator." The next day I emailed the Placement Office in DC to accept the invitation and arrange a flight to DC for staging on Aug 17.

To make a tale of medium length much shorter, I spent the next month feverishly packing and unpacking and repacking and re-repacking, made a road trip to TN to visit one of my favorite ladies, and made a final trip to the Twin Cities to see my old stomping grounds one last time and bid farewell to my friends. On August 17th at an absurdly early hour I arrived at Mitchell Int'l Airport in Milwaukee to start the next two years of my life.

August: The Kaz-22 group of PCVs arrived in Almaty, Kazakhstan at midnight on August 20. The first few days were spent getting over jet lag and attending an endless number of talks about PC policy and expectations similar terribly engaging topics. Next thing I knew I was moving in with my first host family, a widow and her 2 daughter and grandson who were wonderful to me, and terrible concerned about my meatless diet. I spent my Pre-Service Training in a "town" of 40,000 people just outside of Almaty. August was a time of serious adjustment, confusion about the lack of street lights, overwhelming expectations by our school's administration, etc.

September: By this time we were well on our way to figuring out life as Peace Corps Trainees, and all the awkwardness that comes from being in country, but not yet being a Volunteer. September 1st was the first day of school and the National Day of Learning. It was our first chance to see the students we would be working with, and a first glimpse of the pomp and circumstance ubiquitous in Kazakhstan. Mornings were consumed with Russian language class, and afternoons with mildly helpful technical trainings. As only the second group of Youth Development volunteers to ever grace the steppes of Kazakhstan, it was becoming clear that despite their best intentions PC just really wasn't sure what to do with us. Regardless, I bonded with my fellow Trainees at a number of nameless cafes (affectionately dubbed "Blue Tarp" and "White Curtains") and with my host family. I helped my younger host sister with her English, taught my host mom how to make chocolate chip pancakes, and ate some face meat.


The first day of school at School No. 8 in Talgar, Kazakhstan. People take the first day of school here very seriously. All the parents attend and the kids wear matching outfits.


See!! Matching outfits! And sashes! And hair bows!


The ringing of the first bell of the new school year. I'm telling you, they love pomp and circumstance!

October: This month was filled with Kazakh holidays, hints of life after Pre-Service Training, and a field trip to the city of Taldykorgan. PC was wise enough to figure out that about half-way through the 11 weeks of Pre-Service Training trainees become restless and generally unpleasant with the static state of their PC lives. So we were all shipped off to different cities across the country for a few days to stay with current volunteers, visit their places of work, and see exactly what it is that PCVs do everyday. The end of the month culminated in Site Placement Announcements (the moment we'd all been waiting for, in which we finally found out where we would be working for the next 2 years) and Counterpart Conference (in which we met the host country nationals we would be working with). On the 30th my training group put together a much-doubted, but greatly successful Halloween Carnival at our school. It was attending by about 100 students and 6 teachers, included a DJ, games, dancing, and a haunted house so terrifying it had to be closed early.


Part of my training village group at Medeo, an outdoor skating rink that will host the 2011 Asian Winter Games.


My counterpart Nastya and I successfully complete Counterpart Conference! People here love getting certificates and such, so PC gives them out at every possible occasion. On the left is John the PC Country Director, and on the right is Paul the Training Manager.


Excited students at the Halloween Carnival.


Aimira (on of my favorite students!) and I.


Anya (our technical trainer) and Zhenya (our language trainer) as a fortune teller and a robot. Nice job on the costumes, ladies!

November: Last month was a bit of a whirlwind. The last week of Pre-service Training we spent preparing our students for a presentation to PC to demonstrate what they learned during the clubs that we led. We took an oral language proficiency test to see where our language level was at (PC likes trainees to be able intermediate low at the end of training, and advanced low at the end of 2 years of service), and packed up our things. On November 6th we were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers by the US Ambassador to Kazakhstan, and right after the ceremony were whisked off to the train station to leave for our permanent sites. After a 15 hour train ride, I arrived in Shymkent, my new home. I found a wonderful host family, and spent the month settling in at my organization MISK (the Youth Information Service of Kazakhstan).


Sarah, Collin, and I. We spent four years studying at Macalester together, and somehow we all ended up in PC together in Kazakhstan. Small world. Seriously.


The Talgar Youth Development Trainees have just become VOLUNTEERS! Great succes


The Kaz-22s at the train station in Almaty, en route to Shymkent and the South Kazakhstan Province. Yes, we do have a lot of luggage. Quite a lot of luggage.


The gang at MISK! These ladies are generally very excited, though a little disorganized. My first day at the office they made me a welcome sign, which is generally adorable.


The Alley of Fallen Heroes in Shymkent, my new hometown. Along the sides of the walkway the names of all those from South Kazakhstan Province killed in WWII.

December: At least point I'm still very much settling in. There are a lot of kinks to work out with my organization and coworkers, who are not quite sure what to do with me. They are exciting to have a volunteer, and have been waiting for one for 7 years, but aren't quite sure what they want me to do. I work every day 10am-6pm and try to be as helpful as possible. I organize files and documents, make electronic copies of things, and help with MISK's School for Young Entrepreneurs. This project runs on a grant from the US Embassy, and is poorly managed and generally disorganized. So that's why I'm here, to help this NGO more efficient and more sustainable. It's been a challenge thus far, and it's become clear that to get anything done here you have to start very small. Rome wasn't built in a day, and an NGO can't be completely transformed in that time either. I spend a lot of my time negotiating, suggesting different work methods, explaining the importance of things that seem obvious to an American (e.g. Why it's a good idea to be on time to your meeting with the mayor of the third largest city in Kazakhstan. Why it makes sense to keep all of our org's press contacts in one file, rather than spread around the office. Why it's a bad idea to spend our entire operating budget for the year on one event.). It's been incredibly challenging, and a bit intimidating. I'm trying to start small so that next year I can start implementing real projects, get our volunteer club off the ground and doing real events, and gain some autonomy in my work.


My director Lena dressed as Spongebob to promote International Volunteer Day on December 1. We walked around town handing out brochures about our organization and talking to people about the importance of volunteerism.


Kids at an orphanage take in our holiday puppet show.


The kids and our volunteers gather around the New Year's tree (here the put trees up for New Years, not for Christmas) and sing traditional Russian carols.


The gift I've prepared for the White Elephant gift exchange with my sitemates. I've made cuter gifts in my life, but they'll do.


Overall, it's been a crazy year. I graduated college, moved across the world, had my passport stolen, and baked an apple pie for Thanksgiving. It's already Christmas Eve here, though it certainly doesn't feel like it. No one knows it's Christmas in Kazakhstan, with a population largely composed of Muslims and closely followed by people of the Eastern Orthodox faith who don't celebrate Christmas until January 7th. It's a little strange to be celebrating without snow and only a small celebration with the other Volunteers in the province. You can bet we'll be baking cookies and singing carols, though. Doing the best we can with limited resources, in true Peace Corps fashion.

Happy holidays, dear reader, and may you find the next few days filled with joy and lots of baked goods!



The rather sad Christmas tree outside my office.

Visa Success!

A brief update:

After 8 trips to the police station in the last two weeks, and more than few attempts by the police to make me pay for a visa that by law should be free to Peace Corps Volunteers, I finally got a visa!!! The migration police agreed to put a one month visa in my personal passport (the passport that was stolen was my Peace Corps Passport, so I still have a personal passport, but it has no proof that I entered the country legally)!!!! It's a short-term visa, but at least I can breathe freely for a month while Peace Corps gets me a new work passport.

It Was a Dark and Story Night, or Why It's A Bad Idea to Lose Your Passport

This is a tale of woe that I've finally decided to type up and share with my faithful blog followers. It's a bit insane and a lot of tragedy. Please note that such incidents happen in EVERY country in the world. There are pickpocketers everywhere, some countries just deal with the after-effects of pickpocketing better than others.


In other news, I've had a crazy couple of weeks. I was pickpocketed. Pickpocketed. As in, some jerk stole my wallet that contained: my passport, 2 US Bank cards, my Kazakhstani Bank card, my US driver's license, and 36,000 kazakhstani tenge (about $240 that I had just taken out to pay my host family for December rent). The event itself was nothing serious. I didn't even notice it had happened until a few hours later. But the task of trying to file an incident report with the local police was awful. I'll give you a play-by-play. It's a long story, but stay with me to the end. It'll be worth it.

Dec. 3, 2010

4:30 Leave my work office to go to the library in the city center to conduct an English club. I buy a magazine on the way, put my bills back in my wallet and put change in my pocket for the bus ride. I put by wallet back in my purse and cross the street to the bus stop. I'm not sure how to get to the library, so I ask a bus driver if he goes where I need to go. As I'm talking to him, a man on my right jostles me repeatedly. I think nothing of it. I'm in a hurry, I figure he's just trying to get on the bus. This bus is going where I need to go, so I get on a different bus.

4:45-5:15 I endure the world's longest bus ride to the library. I pay the bus driver with change from my pocket and sit down. The route is more roundabout than I had thought was humanly possible. We go to the outskirts of the city before coming back to the center. English Club was supposed to start at 5:00. I'm quite late.

5:15-5:25 I get off the bus in the city center and walk ten minutes to the library. For some strange reason all of the club participants are still there, patiently waiting for me.

5:25-6:25 I conduct a thrilling English club. Okay, not really thrilling. I don't really like leading English Club, but you gotta fake it til you make it, right?

6:25 Club ends and I gather my things to leave. I realize that my wallet is not in my purse, and I panic. We search the classroom, but my wallet isn't anywhere. I call the Peace Corps Safety and Security Coordinator. She asks me for some details, makes sure I'm not panicking too much, tells me to call home to cancel my American cards, and tells me she'll call my counterpart (the co-worker that's my host country partner) and tell her what happened.

6:30 I call my poor mother stateside where it is 6:30 AM. I have her cancel my credit cards and insist that it's no big deal and I'll get everything sorted out.

6:40 My counterpart Nastya calls me. She's coming to pick me up and take me to the police station. As per Peace Corps protocol I need to file an incident report describing the theft, and get a "receipt" that serves as a temporary ID. It will explain why I don't have a passport or visa.

6:45-7:15 Nastya and I arrive at the police station in the city center. We spend a considerable amount of time explaining in length what happened to the guard at the door. He can't let us in the building until he's signed us into his little book. But he can't sign anyone in that doesn't have a passport. Conundrum. We beg and plead and retell my story, and the guard tells us that because the theft likely occurred at the bus stop (where I was jostled) we have to go to a different police station. The bus stop is in a different precinct of the city, outside the jurisdiction of the central police station.

7:15-7:25 Nastya and I grab a cab, and high-tail it across town to the precinct containing the aforementioned bus stop.

7:25-8:25 We go through the same routine with the guard at this station as we did with the guard at the last station. We explain why we're there, what paperwork we need to do, etc. Everyone is very interested in the American that had her passport stolen, but no one seems quite sure how they can help us. We get shuffled between offices and end up in a department supervisor's office. He can't help us because it's "very late", so he shuffles us down the hall to a different office.

Nastya and I sit at one end of the office with an officer that seems like he might actually help us. In the corner there are two local men being interrogated by an officer. My counterpart and I pretend like nothing's amiss, and tell my story to the officer helping us. He writes down my address, phone number, etc.etc. in his book, and then says that he can't help us. Because we don't know where the theft occurred, the only thing we know for sure is that I noticed my wallet was gone at the library in the center of town. And that's - you guessed it! - in a different precinct. We have to go back to the station we had been at earlier.

8:25-8:45 More than a little frustrated, Nastya and I catch a bus back to the city center, to the police station we'd already been at, to try to fill out an incident report.

8:45-9:45 More than an hour has passed since our last visit, so of course the guard shift has also changed. There's a new guard at the door that we need to explain our story to, and we once again have to explain over and over again why I don't have a passport number for him to write in his book. We finally convince him to let us in and he directs us to room 308, where someone will help us. If there's no one there, we should try room 312, and if there's no one there we should try 413.... Yeah.

We search the halls for someone who will allow us to file an incident report, with no luck. Lights are on in most offices, but the doors are locked. We stand knocking at one door for 5 minutes before someone finally opens. We have found a captain of the department that deals with theft and robbery. We explain our story to him, he's terrible amused by the fact that I'm American, tells me he loves me in English, asks me if I have a husband, and then refuses to fill out an incident report for us. He'd like to help, he wishes he could, it's just that all reports need to get stamped with a department seal. Unfortunately there's only one seal, which is in his supervisor's office, and because it's 9:30 his supervisor has already gone home. He tells us that if we come back in the morning at 9, he can get us our paperwork in 15 minutes, no problem.

Slightly defeated, Nastya and I head home and agree to meet at the station the next morning at 9:15.

Dec. 4, 2010
9:15 I wait in the snow for my less-than-prompt counterpart and the director of my organization. My director Lena interned at this police station last year, so she's hoping some of her connections will help us out.

9:30-10:15 Nastya, Lena and I explain our story to the guard at the door and ask to see the captain we spoke with the night before. The guard tells us that there is a "very important" meeting being held, so we'll have to wait 30 minutes. Half an hour turns into 45 minutes, and it's clear there's no meeting happening. Officers have been filing in and out of the building all morning. Lena goes back to the guard and demands that we be helped. The guard relents and lets us in.

10:15-11:00 We find the captain in his office, and ask him to fill out the incident report. He tells us that he was mistaken the night before and can't actually fill out a report for us. I'm not a Kazakhstani citizen, therefore I have to do everything through the Migration Office. We argue for awhile and insist that I get a report taken care of at this station. I call the Peace Corps Safety and Security Coordinator, she yells at him for awhile and insists that he help us. Captain Unhelpful relents and takes us to his supervisor to have us talk to him.

11:00-11:45 Nastya, Lena and I start to explain my story to the supervisor, but before we get very far he stops us. He wants to know who I am, how old I am, and what exactly I'm doing in Kazakhstan. He's never heard of the Peace Corps, has no idea what a volunteer is. Lena patiently explains to him over and over again that I am a volunteer that works with her organization to do organizational development. But the supervisor is still stuck on the fact that I don't get a salary. He uses words like "psychology", "brain wash", and "magic" and seems to think there's something very unsavory about volunteerism.

Regardless of what he thinks of my financial situation, he'd like to fill out a report for me. But he can't. It's the week of the OSCE Summit in Astana (Kazakhstan holds the 2010 Chairmanship for the OSCE, and the summit was held in the capital), so the entire world is watching Kazakhstan. He explains that if he fills out a report, it could get in the news and everyone will hear about the American that had her passport stolen in Kazakhstan and the country will look bad. He'd love to help, really, he just can't.

I call up the Peace Corps Safety and Security Coordinator again to have her talk some sense into the man, but he refuses to take the phone. We argue for a few minutes, and he gives in. But he won't be writing the report. Our friend Captain Unhelpful will do it instead.

11:45-12:45 The next hour is spent in the Captain's office writing out a theft incident report. As luck would have it, there is no official report form. Instead, I was handed a 2 blank sheets of printer paper and instructed how to write the official heading at the top ("To the chief of police of the city of Shymkent from American citizen Katherine Whitmore residing on Valixanova Street, Building 225B, Apt. 36...."). On the first sheet I write an "announcement" that is a brief paragraph explaining that a theft occurred. The second sheet is for the "explanation of the announcement" in which I go into further detail about what occurred. The police won't provide a translator, so I have to do these reports in Russian.

Lena, Nastya and Captain Unhelpful crowd arround instructing me how to write my story in a grammatically correct fashion. They argue about grammar, the Captain tells me he loves me and asks why I don't have a husband, etc.

Finally I finish the two reports and we get them stamped by the supervisor. Before they're filed away forever, I ask for a xerox copy of them to send to Peace Corps. The Captain informs us that there is not a single photocopier in the entire 6 story central police station in the third largest city in Kazakhstan, so I take the reports across the street to a store to get them photocopied.

We ask about the "receipt" that will explain why I don't have a passport or visa, and he says they need 24 hours to get it processed. Come back tomorrow.

My coworkers and I leave the station, and head back to our office. I call the Peace Corps and the Safety and Security Coordinator (SSC) is outraged at my treatment. She keeps talking about what an "injustice" my treatment has been, and she says she's going to talk to the chief of police about it and get back to me.

6:00 At the end of the day my director and I are leaving the office when the Peace Corps SSC calls. She has just talked with the chief and he also thinks my case was mistreated. If my director and I go to the police station now, he will get us the forms we need. It should take just a few minutes.

6:30 My director and I arrive at the police station and there is an officer waiting at the door to escort us up to the chiefs office. The Chief is very nice, and at least seems to be genuinely helpful. He issues me an official apology on behalf of the city of Shymkent for my treatment and vows that they will find the man that stole my wallet.

I am many things, but naive is not often one of them. At no point did I think my wallet would be found. People don't steal American passports and just give them back.

He asks what the man that jostled me at the bus stop looks like and I explain that it all happened so quickly and seemed so inconsequential that I couldn't say for sure. He was 45-50, my height, skinny, had a black leather coat and a black hat on, and was vaguely asian. Maybe Kazakh or Uzbek, I couldn't be sure. I figured it was the end of that conversation, and we moved on to talk about the paperwork I needed.

6:45-7:15 The chief presents me with the receipt I need to serve as my temporary ID. My director looks it over and notices grammatical errors, so we head up to the room where they type these sorts of things and fix the grammar. Everything has to printed in both Kazakh and Russian, and then get the official seal and signature of the chief, so it takes awhile. But finally I have the a temporary ID.

7:15-7:45 We thank the chief for his help, and try to leave, but he insists that I help them find the man that took my wallet. I am escorted to a room with a computer that has a program containing the picture of every person arrested in Shymkent ever (or at least since this program was installed). They narrow the search to "age 45-50", "asian nationality", "male" and "theft" and pull up pictures of everyone matching this description arrested in the last year for theft. There are 568 pictures. As the chief, a dozen officers, Captain Helpful, our friend the supervisor, and my director cluster around me, I'm instructed to look through the pictures and point to the man that stole my wallet.

I explain that it all happened so quickly that I didn't get a good look at him, I don't remeber very well, it seemed unimportant at the time, etc., but the chief insists that his picture is probably here.

All I can think about is Kazakhstan's less-than-acceptable human rights record. All I can think is that if I pause too long at any one picture, that man will be in a secret prison tomorrow. I don't need anyone to disappear on my account.

I page through the pictures and apologize again and explain that I can't really remember what he looks like well enough.

7:45-8:45 No matter!! If they don't already have the picture of the pickpocketer, I'll reconstruct it! They start up a different program that allows you to reconstruct appearances one facial feature at a time. This stuff is straight out of CSI. We start with head size, and page through 12 pages of different heads to choose from. Then we move on to eyebrows, lips, eyes, noses, chins, hair, face shapes, everything.

Again, all I can think is that if this picture ends up looking like any real person, they'll be dead. Or at least in jail for eternity.

I construct a face that looks like a strange mix of Cameron from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and a Kazakh, and call it good enough. They print 45 copies that will be sent out in the morning with the day shift officers who will be instructed to keep their eyes out for this face around the bus stop I had been at.

8:45-9:00 After finishing with the computer programs, I'm taken back to the supervisor's office (who previously wouldn't help us because he didn't want to look bad). The chief stops in to invite my director and I to dinner at his house, and to insist that this supervisor drive us home and take us out to dinner on the way. We politely decline, but are generally ignored. We thank the chief and he goes home for the day.

My director hints not too politely that it's late and we should be getting home. The supervisor agrees, but needs my help first. He pulls out a 400 page manual to his new fancy hunting watch. The manual is entirely in English and he needs me to translate it. Unfortunately he doesn't have his watch with him, it's at home. So he needs me to go to his house to help him work his watch. My director and I somehow talk our way out of a visit. But he makes us promise to come back next week.

9:00-9:45 He gives us a ride home in his 1980 soviet Lada car that he personally spray-painted in camouflague. He drops my director at a club where she's meeting her friends, and then I spend the next 15 minutes insisting that I can't go out to dinner with him, and that he needs to take me home. He tells me he just wants to "hang out", he has a "very clean heart", and "just wants to be friends". A 15 minute drive home turns into 45 minutes as he weaves through the city asking me what my favorite kind of flower is, what kinds of presents I like, where and when we will go out to dinner. He wants to stop and get beer so we can "hang out" and I can tell him about life in America. I finally tell him I have to be taken home right now, or else I'll catch a taxi instead, and he relents. He makes me take his phone number, and makes me promise to call him. If I don't he'll get my number from one of the dozens of forms floating around the police station that have all my personal information on them. Finally I got home, talked him out of walking me to the door, and insisted that we're good friends and will hang out some time.



Insane, right? I mean, who does this happen to? What did I do to deserve this constant battle with bureaucracy.


Update: My friend the "clean-hearted" police supervisor texted me last week to ask how I'm doing. Needless to say, I didn't respond.

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For!

You've stuck with me a long time, dear reader. Through times of plentiful updates and dry spells, etc. Because you've been so patient and wonderful, I feel like you really deserve this. Ready? Are you sure?

Alright, here they are!! The first pictures I've been able to post since I got to Kazakhstan. For some unknown and possibly magical reason blogspot is not blocked today, so I can finally post directly to my blog, rather than posting through emails. [Before I continue I'd like to give a brief shout out to the Kazakh gods that unblocked this website...]

Here goes:



These are some adorable small children on the first day of school on September 1. All the girls wear ridiculously large white hair bows, and the boys wear sashes. It's absurdly cute.



This is my counterpart Nastya and I at the end of Counterpart Conference. Yes she does have an asymmetrical haircut. Apparently it's highly fashionable.



This is me with my host family on my last night in my training village. Left to right: Aunt whose name I can't remember, Me (in a scarf my host mom gave me as a going away gift), Karlaghash (my host mom), Dianna (my host sister). Camilla (host cousin) is in the white, and Amir (host baby) is in the front. They were wonderful people, and I'm already planning on going back to visit them.



This is my language group from Pre-Service Training at Swearing In. From left to right: Caitlin, Robin, Me, Zhenya (our language instructor), Jordan, Michelle.



This is me and the office gang on my first day of work at MISK. It was not nearly as exciting as it looked, but they made me a cute welcome sign and wrote a poem for me.

More to come in the future. I have holiday photos to upload and such.

Old News

In my meanderings around the interwebz I came across local news coverage of our swearing in ceremony when we became official Peace Corps Volunteers on November 6. The report is in Kazakh, which I unfortunately don't speak, but it's sort of amusing to watch. I have no idea what's being said, but my friend Cynthia is shown playing the dombra (the national instrument of K-stan) and I make a brief appearance with my training group singing a Russian pop song (I'm in the back on the left in black and not terribly visible). Enjoy!

Kaz-22 Swearing In Ceremony in Technicolor!!

Newness

Good lord it's been a long time since I've updated this thing. Many excited things have happened since my last post, so get ready for an exciting read.

I moved!! Which means new city, new family, new job, new group of volunteers. Lots of crazy newness. I arrived in Shymkent about 3 weeks ago, and started work at MISK (the Youth Information Center of Kazakhstan) right away. MISK is a large NGO in Kazakhstan with branches in most of the major cities, including Shymkent. Our branch is 8 years old and currently has 3 staff members: Lena (the Director), Angela (the Accountant), and Nastya (short for Anastassiya). Nastya is the head of the "PR Department" and is my counterpart. She was selected by the organization to work with Peace Corps and be my partner.

The Youth Information Center of Kazakhstan. You're probably thinking "That sounds very broad and general," that's because it is. Our mission statement is essentially to "disseminate information to youth" which is no more clear. Right now they have projects all over the place; a business school for young entrepreneurs, a clothing drive for a local orphanage, brochures and pamphlets, etc. Based on my first few weeks at work, it looks like they try so hard to work on as many projects as possible, that they never really finish any one project satisfactorily. So I think it will make the most sense for me to do organizational development and run trainings on time management, strategic planning, grant writing, etc.

A new city also means a new host family. Peace Corps Kazakhstan requires that Volunteers live with a host family for at least the first 4 months of their service at site, so they can get integrated into the community, the culture, and practice their language. I'm currently living with a Korean family in their apartment in the neighborhood of the 11th Micro-region. I can see you scratching your head and thinking to yourself, "Koreans? In Kazakhstan?" It's a bit confusing, I know. There are actually about 100,000 Koreans in the country, so the fact that I'm living with a Korean family is not as strange as it seems. They are almost completely Russified - they speak Russian, not Korean; they cook traditional Russian dishes; watch Russian TV channels, etc.

I live with Louisa who is 65 and Ira, her daughter, who is 25. They are originally from Uzbekistan (their family has been in Tashkent since the 1940s), but they moved to Kazakhstan about 15 years ago. They are wonderful and chill and have hosted a Peace Corps Volunteer in the past, so they know what to expect. Ira speaks pretty good English, but at home we stick to Russian. They have accepted my vegetarianism, though they are confused by it, and they let me do my own thing. Ira and I go to the movies, go shopping, and gossip and do all sorts of sister-like things. 

There are 6 other Volunteers in Shymkent, which means there are many opportunities for American time. Three Volunteers are Kaz-21s (the 21st group of Volunteers in Kazakhstan), and three are Kaz-22s like me. The 21s have already been here for a year and will be finishing their service next fall. They're all really great and have lots of good advice about dealing with local coworkers and know all of the tasty places to eat in the city. They collectively run 4 community clubs every week (2 English clubs, American Film Club, Women's Club) and are really active.

Besides the Volunteers here there are 2 Fulbright scholars, a handful of missionaries, and a smattering of ex-pats, most of whom deal in oil.

On a completely different note, Happy Belated Thanksgiving! It was strange not to be at home for one of my favorite holidays, but never fear. With the large number of Americans in the city, we managed to put on a pretty good Thanksgiving feast. The 7 of us volunteers living in Shymkent spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving cooking enough food to feed 20, and that night all of the Peace Corps Volunteers from our region came in to the city for dinner. There was not turkey, but there was pumpkin pie, vegetarian chili, chicken, mashed potatoes, corn bread and many other tasty things. We invited a few local friends along to experience their first Thanksgiving, and a good time was had by all.

Generally, life is good at the moment. I'm trying to stay busy at work, which is a bit difficult because my coworkers don't quite know what to do with me. I started a volunteer club for local youth to take part in the projects my organization puts together, and I'm hoping to start a partnership to have our volunteers do skills trainings at a local orphanage. One step at a time, of course. Until then, I'll be drinking lots of tea, and making chit chat.