"It's a dangerous business, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Monday, March 7, 2011

Happy Women's Day!!

To all of you ladies out there, Happy International Women's Day!!

International Women's Day (IWD) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. The first IWD event was run in 1911 with more than one million women and men attending rallies campaigning for women's rights, thus it is the centennial of this great day. It's a really important holiday here in Kazakhstan, and in the rest of the post-Soviet sphere, and in many ways has a similar status as Mother's Day. The main difference is that Women's Day in Kazakhstan sees men honoring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc. with flowers, candy, and gifts.

As I work in an office solely operated by women, there's was lots of Women's Day camaraderie. I gave my co-workers American cosmetics (they love this stuff!!) and roses, and in turn received:

1. vanilla shower gel
2. "herb" scented bath salts
3. a candle
4. palmolive soap
5. "Forest Fruits" shower gel
6. "Forest Fruits" deoderant

People here love to give each other toiletry products. I mean, really like toiletry products generally. Our office neighbors brought us a cake, and with my English Club (all girls) we played an hour-long game of UNO.

Tomorrow for the actual holiday itself I plan to spend it strolling through various parks with my co-workers, and going to a movie with my host sister.

Ladies, I implore you. Take the day off! This day's for you!


For more info on International Women's Day, I refer you to The Internet.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

50 Years!!!

Can you believe it?? Peace Corps is 50 years old! 50! That's oooollllddd! Seriously, though, on October 14, 1960, then-Senator John F. Kennedy spoke in the early morning to a gathering of the students at the University of Michigan who were waiting for hours to hear the presidential candidate speak in Ann Arbor.

On the steps of the University of Michigan Student Union, President Kennedy challenged the students to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries, an idea that inspired the creation of the Peace Corps.




On March 1, 1961 President John F. Kennedy signed executive order 10924 to establish the program, and in September of that year congress authorized the program with the passage of the Peace Corps Act. The act declares the program's purpose:

"To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower."

Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps and have served in 139 countries. Currently 8,655 volunteers serve in 77 countries in the areas of education, youth & community development, health, business and information & communication technology, agriculture, environment, HIV/AIDS, and food security. Although times have changed, the Peace Corps continues to promote peace and friendship by remaining true to its mission, established in 1961:
1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

Peace Corps volunteers and RPCVS (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) around the world will be celebrating Peace Corp's 50 years all year long. Wanna join in the celebrations?! If you haven't seen it yet, check out Peace Corps Kazakhstan's website celebrating the 50th anniversary. The site has great information on how you can get involved in celebrations this year. One of my favorite features is our PC Kaz Family Mapping. On the top menu click "Map" to see where the supporters of Peace Corps Kazakhstan are. You can participate by printing out the PDF sign, filling it out, taking a picture and emailing back to us with your location. I can't wait to see this map fill up!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

You know what I miss?



This beast.

Work Shake-Ups

It's been forever and a day since my last post, and this is long overdue, so here goes.

These past couple months have been full of all kinds of crazy. On January 25, after 4 days' notice, my director Lena moved across the country to the capital city of Astana to take a job as some sort of program manager with the National Youth Congress. It was a good career move for her, a good change for my organization that was in need of fresh leadership, and was great for me. I finally felt the collar loosen a little, and felt like for the first time I was actually part of the organization, actually was allowed to have an opinion about things, and could actually start to get things done.

Things weren't easy after Lena moved. We all were trying to figure out our new roles, my counterpart Nastya became the new director, and we had to hire someone new to take over Nastya's old position (1. The new hire was our accountant's 19-year-old sister who is studying fashion design, 2. the position is “President of the Human Resources Department”... we have 4 employees and no long-term funding, but we have a President of Human Resources...). Throughout February things were still tricky, but beginning to look up. I still wasn't getting any kind of direction from my co-workers, but Nastya was at least working with me at Volunteer Club meetings and holding regular staff meetings.

Then yesterday, who should come bounding into the office in overly-sized sunglasses and and sequined hair scrunchy? Lena! Of course! Who else. It turns out that it's cold in Astana, and having a real job is hard. She didn't like working somewhere where she “couldn't do exactly what she wanted”. It made her “uncomfortable”. Thus, my old director is back, my new director is now no longer director, and we have an extra, recently-hired employee that we're not quite sure what to do with.

I'm rolling with the punches, etc., but it's been frustrating.

On the upside, it's March!! The month of spring, Maslenitsa, and Nauryz! Nauryz is the new year holiday celebrated by many Turkic people (Kazakh, Uzbek, Tadjik, and others) and falls on March 22. It's a national holiday here in Kazakhstan, and is especially important in the south, where I live, due to the large Kazakh population. Everybody gets off of work for 3 days, people gather with family and friends and eat copious amounts of food, these same people drink copious amounts of alcohol, and traditional events pop up all over. Traditional dances and performances are put on, and horse games [including but not limited to: polo with a goat carcass [kok par], races, men chase woman on horseback, and woman chases man on horseback with a whip. Exciting, huh?!]

Lots of Volunteers venture down to the south for a taste of balmy spring weather and traditional Kazakh culture. Only 2 weeks of eager anticipation before a glorious reunion with my friends from training, and epic amounts of Kazakh culture.

Oops, gotta run. My old/reinstated director Lena just sent one of our 15-year-old interns off as a representative of our organization. She's supposed to speak to the directors of 3 state universities and convince them to allow our organization to run voter's rights trainings at their respective places of higher learning. This could quite possibly end in disaster.