Serious Clubbing

At the moment I'm sitting in my office prepping for one of my weekly English clubs, and figured I'd write a quick post about the kinds of clubs I lead every week. First off, you should know that Peace Corps loves clubs. I mean, LOVES clubs. Peace Corps is pretty convinced that community clubs make the world a better place, and in many ways this is true. Clubs that volunteers lead provide a safe space for youth to hang out, interact with their peers, and get a decently structured hour of after-school programming. Clubs are also an easy way to get a foot into the community door and to show your place of employment that even though you don't know the language very well, you're getting things done and working with youth. Hence, we do a lot of clubs around these parts. 

Quite honestly, I don't really like clubs all that much. I'm not quite as beholden to their magical powers as my Peace Corps superiors, but my organization wants me to run clubs, so I run clubs. 

On Mondays, I run a 90-minute English club for beginners at my organizations office. It's called "English Stars". My director thought it was really important that it have a name, so I let her choose. I have about 6 regular participants (which is a small group, but a good size considering we only have 6 chairs in our office), all girls between the ages of 16 and 20. They're a good group, but they really don't know any English and seem to be hoping that I can teach them to speak fluently overnight. They're not terribly patient, and not terribly willing to put in any extra study time. I bribe them with chocolate and the translations of their favorite song lyrics (usually Rihanna, Beyonce, or Britney Spears) to keep them motivated and engaged. For the month of February, we're doing a unit on biographical information; appearance, character traits, birthdays, family, work, hobbies, these sorts of topics. Most of our clubs start about like this:

Me: Today we'll be talking about character traits and personality. 

The English Stars: In Russian? 

Me: Is this Russian club? 

The English Stars: No, it's English club. 

Me: So probably English, don't you think? 

The English Stars: But it's easier in Russian. 

They generally mean well, and they're good kids, they're just still figuring this whole language learning business out. 

Other than my organizations clubs, I also help out with other clubs that the volunteers here run as a group. We take turns leading to keep things interesting. On Tuesday we run an advanced English club at the American Corner of a local library. ( American Corners are amazing and wonderful things financed by the US Embassy. The American Corner in Shymkent has a conference table and chairs, a computer and internet, and a small English language library. It's a great space for English clubs, and the local staff are pretty great.) At this club we cover all sorts of topics from holidays to cooking to music. This month my pal Phillip is running a series of clubs celebrating Black History Month. 

Wednesday is Women's Club day. I help lead this club with 2 other volunteers. It's more of a discussion group than a club, and is conducted entirely in English. It's a safe space for women to come and discuss topics that they often can't openly discuss at home or at school (sexual health, gender politics, all kinds of things). It's pretty sweet. This is one place that I can really feel the difference I'm making here. We bring topics to Women's Club that locals have never even considered, you can see their minds opening up and their perspectives changing. It's pretty sweet. 

After Women's Club we run a movie night at an old Soviet move theater. We show movies in English with English subtitles, and provide important vocabulary and questions about the  film plot and characters. It's a nice, chill end to the day. 

Thursday one of my sitemate's runs a beginner's English club at the American Corner. When she's out of town, I take over for her. 

Friday I run a volunteer club at my organization. We have about 10 serious local youth that come for the meetings. Right now I'm starting from the very beginning with them, discussing volunteerism, service, and community. There's no concept of volunteerism in Kazakhstan, so you have to start small. It's a challenge convincing my co-workers that we can't just leap right in with this group and give them huge assignments, because if we do that we'll lose them. We need to figure out what they're passionate about, what change they want to see in their community before we go any further. This is my most challenging club because it's run entirely in Russian, and my Russian really isn't good enough to discuss any of these sorts of things. But I try. I try really hard, and some days it seems like my volunteers are getting into the volunteer spirit. 

After volunteer club I jet across town to a cafe where a local friend holds a conversational English club. It runs for 90 minutes and usually draws about 30-35 locals of all ages. We volunteers come to provide native speaker support, and to lead conversations. The only topics off limits are politics and religion. Other than that, any topic is fair game. 

Well, dear reader, that's my weekly club schedule. As you can see, we're serious about our community clubbing here in Peace Corps. 

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This is a quick one folks, I promise. There have been a few interesting developments at work this last week, most amusing: our NGO office is now the home of Altau Car Insurance! Our cell phone-repairing office neighbor has recently come under the employment of said car insurance agency as a programmer, and came by to install the sales program onto our office computers and train my co-workers in salesmanship. Now about half of our accountant's day is spent with car insurance clients, we have boxes full of official Altau gear (mostly poorly functioning flashlights and some broken pens), and we have people coming in and out of the office far more interested in insurance than anything my organization does. 

When I asked about this whole car insurance business a couple weeks ago, my co-workers explained that by law every driver in Kazakhstan must have insurance, but it's cheaper to buy fake insurance than to actually get insured. When we opened up shop in the insurance business, I asked my co-workers if we were selling legitimate car insurance, they looked at each other and giggled. So we may or may not be selling fraudulent car insurance out of our NGO office. 

The Nationality Question in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Yes, the title of this blog post could be a International Studies/Russian Studies course at a liberal arts college, no I'm not trying to be cheeky. 

The question of nationality is an important one in Post-Soviet places, dear reader, including in Kazakhstan. I'm sure there have been a good number of academic articles written on the topic, which probably conclude that after 70 years of having a "Soviet" identity assigned to them by the state, people are taking their own identities back. I could see that. What's more interesting to me is how important ethnic identity is here.

When I first moved in with my host family, my host mom asked me my nationality. I was a bit confused. They had a volunteer live with them last year, so I assumed they new the Peace Corps is a program for Americans. I told her I was American, and she said, "But no one in America is "cleanly" American. There are all kinds of other nationalities mixed in." I said this was true, but that doesn't mean I'm not American. She said that there are no real Americans. I've been thinking a lot about this conversation, as I've met more and more people here. They always have the same first question "Who are you by nationality?"

Here's about how any taxi ride starts for me.

Driver: Where to? 

Me: The 11th microregion, 300 tenge

Driver: 400 tenge, gas is expensive

Me: 300 is a normal price

(He, because cab drivers here are always male, gripes for awhile, and then usually gives in to my price.)

Driver: You're a foreigner? 

Me: ... Yep

Driver: Are you English? 

Me: Nope. 

Driver: What's your nationality?

Me: I'm an American.

Driver: No, I mean your nationality.

Me: American.

Driver: No. Where is your family from? What are your roots? 

Me: American.

Driver: You must not understand Russian.

I'm not try to be cheeky with locals when I say that I'm American. And I'm not trying to be the uberPatriot. It just seems more true to say that I'm American, than to say "Well my mother's family came over from Easter Europe, specifically Slovenia and Slovakia about 100 years ago, and my father's family includes a smattering of German, English, and probably a few more nationality's I'm forgetting long before then. So that's what my nationality is."

It's interesting to come from the US, a place where civic nationality is often just as important as (or more important than) ethnic nationality, to a place where the opposite is true. If I was a newcomer to the US, or if my family had come over more recently, I might agree that the "American" nationality doesn't  properly fir the bill for me. But given the circumstances, I identify as American before any historical roots. No one in Kazakhstan would ever identify themselves as "Kazakhstani". Not in a billion years. Here when someone asks your nationality, they mean ethnic nationality. It doesn't matter that your family has lived here for 100 years, you still identify with the ethnic group your family came from. 

Kazakhstanis are very proud of their nationality, and the national make-up of their country. One of the first things I often hear from locals is that there are 140 nationalities here, and everyone lives together peacefully. Though I hear plenty of racial slurs against minority groups here, the living peacefully together bit is true. I work in an office with 1 Russian, 2 Koreans, and one American. Our office neighbors are a Kazakh and an Uzbek that fix cell phones. Down the hall there is a Tatar businessmen and his Russian business partner. Regardless of all the peacefulness, nationality is still important, and often the first thing people notice. I guess that's mostly what I wanted to mention. 

Alma Mater Shout-Out!

I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to my beloved alma mater Macalester College for making the Peace Corps Top Colleges 2011 list!! Macalester currently has 22 undergraduate alumni Volunteers, including yours truly, and ranks #6 among small colleges and universities for producing Peace Corps Volunteers in 2010. Way to go Mac! 

You can see the complete list of schools here. 

Job Details, and Other Exciting Stuff

So I feel like it's about time that I explain a little bit more about what I'm doing here in Kazakhstan. 

According to the Peace Corps website:

Overview

As a Youth Development Volunteer, your role will be to work directly with at-risk youth and families, while helping communities, schools, and agencies develop programs to support them. You might work in an orphanage, school, NGO, or local youth center.

Depending on your specific assignment, you might:

• Conduct vocational training and promote activities to build self-esteem, leadership and life skills development
• Act as a health educator while providing HIV/AIDS education and awareness
• Work on community organizing and organizational development projects
• Train youth development workers

I work as a "Youth Development Facilitator" with an NGO that focuses on youth civic engagement. My organization (MISK) has a lot (too many, actually) of different focuses and currently: runs a school for young entrepreneurs; runs monthly "action" events that focus on informing youth about various topics such as HIV/AIDS transmission, leadership, volunteerism, and environmental issues; participates in round tables and conferences on civic and youth development. This year my director is looking to shift our focus toward youth employment. There is a relatively high unemployment rate among 18-29 year olds in Kazakhstan. Job placement is still very much based on personal connections and family, meaning if you don't know the right people, you can't get a job. Many organizations are trying to change with projects that aim to make local youth more employable. We're hopping on the bandwagon and designing a project to take place this summer that will be a week-long seminar on "Youth Employment." At the moment it's all very general and we don't have the details figured out, but essentially we will give trainings on resume building, interview skills, communication skills, professionalism, and job hunting. 

My role at MISK is not terribly clear yet. I've only been here for two months, and my coworkers are still getting used to having me in the office, and I'm still getting used to the way they work and the flow of the organization. I'm in the office 10am-6pm Monday through Friday, and up to now I've been responsible for running a weekly English Language Club and a volunteer group, which mostly means trying to recruit local youth to take part in outreach projects and discussion groups. It's been a challenge to keep youth engaged and interested in our small, unfocused organization, especially with my limited Russian skills. My organization really wants local volunteers, but they don't have any sort of strategy regarding what we should do with the volunteers once they start coming regularly. There's not a lot of strategic or long-term planning in Kazakhstan, and none to speak of at MISK, so it's been an uphill battle to convince my coworkers that we need to have a plan before we take on large-scale projects.

Because there's not a whole lot of work for me at the office, starting next week I'll only be at work 10am-2pm every day, and will use the afternoon hours to lead community clubs, help out at other organizations, and put some hours in with my Russian tutor. There's some serious reorganization happening at the office right now, so these free afternoons will give me a chance to expand my NGO horizons, meet some locals, and hopefully stir up some interest in our organization. I just hope that this new schedule doesn't mean I'll be doing nothing but leading community clubs for the next two years. 

Oh goodness, it's already 2011!! It's hard to believe that I've already been in Kazakhstan for nearly 4 months, and working at MISK for 2 months.

I spent the last hours of 2010 with other volunteers at one of my sitemate's apartments in one of the tallest buildings in the city center. We had a great view of the city and were in perfect position to take in all the New Years festivities. There are no official city fireworks displays, but that's alright because every family sets off their own. For the weeks leading up to the 31st you can buy fireworks of every imaginable variety on every street corner. On the stroke of midnight we were standing on the balcony of the 12th floor drinking champagne and watching hundreds of fireworks explode across the city.


(Photo courtesy of my man James)

Because New Years is such a major holiday here, most of the country come grinding to a halt for at least a week around January 1st. My organization closed down for 2 weeks of rest and relaxation to gear up for the new year. The first few days off were nice, but eventually things got a bit dull. I did some research for a grant that I'm looking into writing to fund a peer training program, read, lazed about, and was generally unproductive. The holidays were nice, but I was ready to get back to work on Monday.

I ended 2010 on a bit of a sour note, feeling generally unproductive and more than once wondering what on earth I'm doing at an underdeveloped NGO in southern Kazakhstan. I'm happy to report that the new year has brought with it a new sense of purpose and determination to get things done. Also a new sense of winter. Much of December treated us to above normal temperatures that required little more than a light jacket. Now that real winter has set in with its below freezing temperatures, my poorly heated office is a tragic scene in which my coworkers and I spend the day in giant down coats with hats and hoods pulled down so that not much more than our eyes are visible. Hopefully only 2 more months of this, before the pleasant breezes of spring arrive.

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.