Things I will miss in Kazakhstan

My host-mom Tanya and counterpart Valentina

Fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables that are relatively cheap and free of chemicals

Decent public transportation

An abundance of free time

My small front-loading washer

Good cheap wine from Kazakhstan, and especially Georgia and Moldova

My beloved Sean, who is staying for a third year to work with an amazing organization addressing drug and alcohol abuse amongst at-risk youth.

Things I am happy to be leaving behind

Winters of southern Siberia

Communal heating and hot water systems

Flimsy, plastic toilet seats

Throwing toilet paper in the trash can, and then having to cart it out to the dumpster

Meeting drunk people on the street while walking to work in the morning

Things I am most looking forward to in the U.S.

My ultra soft, queen size pillow-top mattress and feather pillows

Family and friends

My cats, especially Lily, and my parents’ dog Jesse

Reclaiming my misplaced sense of humor

Grilled hamburgers, barbecue sauce, ice cream with goodies in it (Oreos, chocolate chip cookie dough, etc.), Mexican food, baked goods of all kinds, maple syrup

Frost-free refrigerators

Running without being stared at by every single person

Remembering how to speak and write English

Things I am dreading about the U.S.

Commercialization of the holidays

Aside from all of my mixed feelings about leaving Kazakhstan, I am also anxious about traveling solo for the very first time. I have had companions on all of my previous visits to other countries. I experienced Spain with fellow high school classmates. I was always with a friend on my trips to Mexico. I experienced the wonders of Thailand with a former boyfriend. My best friend and her husband accompanied me for two weeks as we enjoyed the delights of Turkey. I braved the chaos of India and completed the Buddhist pilgrimage with my boyfriend Sean.

This time I will be on my own. I am not too adept at engaging in small talk. I get nervous when near lots of people that I do not know. Because of of these things I am not sure how I will fare on this trip.

Yet the travel bug has hit me again. How can I possibly return to the U.S. without some more new experiences along the way? It feel that it makes no sense to fly directly home. I am already on the opposite side of the world with so many wonderful countries between here and there just waiting to be explored.  This will either be one of the best experiences of my life, starting a new trend for myself, or it will be a great learning experience and my only time to travel alone.

I can survive the coldest of temperatures. Be comfortable without air conditioning. Cook a meal for guests with only one burner. Appreciate running water and a hot shower. Live for multiple days with only cold water. Relish fresh, clean air. Survive 10-hour bus rides on pot hole-laden roads without shocks.

I have gained a new level of patience. Learned to communicate my thoughts and feelings more openly. Learned to trust others a little more readily.

I now appreciate a high quality vodka. I look forward to long train rides across the country.

I have slowly come to realize that my decision to leave after the initial two years was the correct one. Still, it was by far one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made.

Those are my thoughts for now. In the coming weeks and months and years I look forward to gaining more clarity of this experience.

The best news is that my colleagues are already implementing parts of the strategic plan. They are designing an informational brochure about the organization, developing a newsletter to be published electronically on a monthly basis, and preparing to give 1-2 educational seminars each month. I am so happy that my persistence is proving to have been worthwhile!

More good news

To add to my success in pushing through the strategic plan, my organization now has a new website! I had been struggling with Dreamweaver (and also avoiding it) for many months. Working with an unfamiliar program using a foreign language interface is quite a challenge. Thank you to my best friend Jenny, I decided to utilize WordPress.com to create the site. It was much faster to build and will be very easy for my colleagues to update in my absence.

The real challenge with the site came in addressing the language issue. It needed to be available in both Russian and English. This proved to be tricky but Sean found a WordPress theme that allowed me to accomplish this goal. The final product is not as clean as I would prefer, yet I had to compromise because the dual-language functionality was critical. If you would like to learn more about my organization and the work they have done during the last eleven years, please visit our new site: “Status” Women’s Federation.

Goodbyes

This afternoon we had tea together one last time. My colleagues presented me with a photo book of the city, Ust-Kamenogorsk. I have been eying this book for some time. I was so happy to receive it as a gift! My counterpart Valentina gave me a beautiful silver necklace. I also had gifts for everyone, so many that they called me “Ded Moroz”, which translates directly as Father Frost. Two of my colleagues thanked me for being here so they could learn about the U.S. first-hand, a nice change from movies.

Of course it was a sad parting. They all use email now though, so we can still communicate easily. I will certainly miss them as they will miss me.

It has not yet hit me that I am leaving. I have been so busy preparing to leave that I have had no time to think about such things. I expect that might change when I board the train for a 25-hour ride to Almaty.

In my final two and a half months with my organization, my single goal is to complete the strategic plan we started in January. We worked diligently for six weeks before I went on vacation to India. Since that time it has barely been touched despite my inquiries as to when we will return to it. Something else always gets pushed ahead. Things just work that way here. My director has assured me the strategic plan will be a priority beginning in September and we will complete it before my departure the first week of November.

Recently I have been working at home. The office is being outfitted with new paint and wallpaper throughout. When I stopped in earlier this week it truly looked as if a tornado had swept through, all the furniture in disarray from being moved repeatedly. The chaos should resume order soon.

In the meantime I have a couple of very minor projects from my director. I have also sorted through all of my possessions in preparation for my departure, setting aside things to donate, give away, ship home, or take with me. Of course I have spent time planning my upcoming trip. And I generally take a couple of walks a day. As with most of my time here, the first half of the summer flew by. The days pass more slowly now, yet it is still does not feel like I have lived in Kazakhstan for two years. Other volunteers say this will happen. Time flies by so quickly as a Peace Corps volunteer. This is an amazing contradiction when considering that getting work done here takes an enormous amount of patience and diligence.

In March I began hunting for a new laptop. I could have purchased one here from a respectable computer store for slightly more than I would have paid at home. I had two concerns: invoking the warranty should I have a problem and dealing with a Russian interface, permanently. I quickly ruled out this option.

As luck would have it, Sean’s mother and brother were planning to visit Kazakhstan in May. His mom very graciously agreed to bring me a new laptop.

The options

I spent hours online perusing the options offered by HP, Lenovo, and other companies. Sean was pushing for a Lenovo. I could not decide between a netbook and a notebook. Could I survive without an optical drive? How portable did I want this laptop to be, considering the Dell weighs in at around seven pounds? If I chose a netbook, would the small screen size be tough on my already poor eyesight? How did I feel about a 16:10 screen, or should I search for one with a traditional 16:9 screen? That extra vertical screen space could be critical for work.

The options were endless. I even made a spreadsheet listing my priorities and how the most appealing laptops fared. Sean helped me research processors. It was a grueling process.

In the end, with just a hint of reluctance, I chose one of the largest netbooks available, the HP Mini 311. Sean was shocked until I explained my thought process. I ultimately decided portability was extremely important and this one was an acceptable compromise on the screen size. I would live without an optical drive or buy an external if necessary. I read many, many positive online reviews of this netbook and was quite pleased with the configuration offered on this model, no customization needed.

The verdict

Thank you to Mrs. Reibert, I received my new Mini just over a month ago. Compared to the Dell it is a godsend. In its own right, it is just awesome. The smaller screen has taken some getting used to. Yet it is so light and versatile and performs nearly flawlessly. My only complaint (which I read about repeatedly in reviews of this netbook) is the track pad; it is so sensitive that it is difficult to type without bumping it with a wrist and causing the cursor to fly to another part of the document. A couple of days ago I mostly resolved that issue when I downloaded a program called TouchFreeze. I have had very few problems typing ever since.

Life is good! Skype (with video) works wonderfully, I can simultaneously stream AND watch online videos, the speakers are unexpectedly great, and watching movies is more pleasing than one could expect on a 11.6″ screen. I am very happy with my decision. Thank you again, Mrs. Reibert!!!

Ironically, about ten days ago Sean’s laptop (also a Dell and older than mine) nearly crashed. He finally discerned that one of his sticks of memory was bad–the far larger one at 512MB. (The other, original stick is only 128MB.) I had purchased a 512MB stick of memory for mine a few years ago. He popped it into his laptop and all was well once again.

Now my Dell is down to 128MB of memory. This is a problem. I had already decided to donate my old Dell to a small town library where my friend Meriah works. They have no computer now and need it to perform only basic functions such as word processing. She has a local friend who works on computers and he said he could fix it up for her. Soon the old Dell will be fully functioning again, to the best of its ability, and housed in a small Kazakhstani library.

Here is another ironic tidbit. As I already mentioned, Sean was quite surprised I decided to purchase a netbook. While he was troubleshooting his own problems last week, we were researching new laptops for him. It took only a couple of hours one evening for him to pick out a 12″ Eee PC that he may purchase while he is in the States in December. This, after he commented repeatedly on my small screen!

Here I am living in Kazakhstan, fulfilling that dream in a way that I could not have imagined sixteen years ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have the option of extending my Peace Corps service for a third year. The deadline to request an extension is today.

This decision has caused me greater agony that I would have thought (or preferred). Interestingly, I found I was extremely conflicted, yet that I was not being pulled strongly in one direction or the other. This is unusual for me; my intuition usually serves me well and I do not often find myself struggling over an important decision such as occurred with this one.

Nevertheless, I have a decision that I am happy with, and equally as important, at peace with.

I will leave Kazakhstan in November with most of the Kaz 20 volunteers who arrived with me in August, 2008.

The reasons for my conflicted feelings were many, one of the biggest of which involves this long-time dream of mine. Could I choose to leave at the end of my 27 months when it would be so easy to stay and continue fulfilling this dream?

Sean had to point out to me that I can find a job located in another country if that is what I want. Why did I not think of that? I had, but the thought was temporarily lost amongst all of the other details.

Ironically, I have another idea in mind for the moment, something that requires more thought and consideration in the coming months and does not involve living in a foreign country in the immediate future.

Still, one decision down, much to my relief. Next up: how to wend my way back to the central U.S. when I depart Almaty in November. At least this decision will be much more fun!

The daylight hours are now noticeably longer than the night time hours. My apartment windows face almost due east making it difficult to sleep much past six without my Air Astana-issued eye mask. The Earth has shifted enough that the early morning light now shines directly into my apartment rather than being obscured for a few extra hours by the nine-story Soviet apartment building across the street.

Monday morning I woke in the early hours of the morning needing to go to the bathroom. My best guess is that it was about 4 a.m. I returned to bed and found myself unable to keep my mind from wandering in all sorts of directions. As more and more thoughts popped into my head I knew I would be unable to fall asleep again.

I lay in bed with my thoughts for who knows how long. Then I heard the call to prayer emanating from the loudspeakers of the nearby mosque. I thought about checking the time on my cell phone yet I did not really want to know. Besides, I was fairly certain it was about five o’clock.

I continued lying there with a glimmer of hope that I might eventually return to sleep. I soon began to hear the birds chirping.  Not long thereafter the first light became noticeable in the apartment.

A benefit to rising early

Daybreak

Eventually I gave in to the primal urge to rise with the sun. I opened the curtains to find a gorgeous scene: the sun was still below the foothills of the Altai Mountains off to the northeast and the few wispy clouds floating above those hills were bathed in beautiful colors! I grabbed my camera and snapped several photos, changing the settings each time, attempting to capture the beauty of what I was seeing with my own eyes.

I knew the sun would not rise for a while longer. I checked the time and it was a quarter to six. I also knew that I needed to exercise before I busied myself with other things or simply talked myself out of it. I stretched, catching glimpses of the effects of the rising sun every few minutes. Then I completed my Pilates workout.

My window sills are a little more than twelve inches wide, providing proof of the thick walls and sturdy, warm construction of my building. (According to the locals, anyway.) As soon as I had opened the curtains I knew I wanted to sit on the window sill and watch the sun rise. That is exactly what I did.

I put on a long-sleeved shirt to ward off the chill of the glass against which my arm was pressed. I sat there for quite a while observing the clouds drift off before the sun finally peered over the foothills.

I kept thinking that this would be a great time to be holding a warm mug of coffee…if only I drank coffee. It seemed there should be a fresh pot brewing in the kitchen, filling the apartment with its delicious aroma. I even have coffee that Sean drinks when he is here. Still, no matter how many times I try the delicious-sounding blends and flavors his Mom sends, I just do not like the stuff. So I merely imagined the smell wafting through the apartment to make my morning complete. And what a perfect morning it was – beautiful, calm, peaceful, and relaxing.

Last summer, I burnt many of the peanuts while trying to roast them and then used a meat grinder to end up with a very dry, yet somewhat clumpy mess. I added some honey to make it more of a paste with mediocre results. But the taste was close. (This was the first attempt.)

Since I moved into my apartment, Sean and I tried using a the smoothie maker (left behind by the previous volunteer) to come up with something resembling peanut butter. The results were still dry and more like chopped peanuts than paste.

We bought a hand crank coffee grinder hoping that would do the trick. That left the peanuts black on the first attempt (from the metal or oil, we were not sure) and once it was cleaned thoroughly we had more chopped peanuts on our hands.

The missing ingredients

When Mr. Pradeep gave us peanut butter in India I grilled him about how he made it. The first secret revealed was to keep mixing the peanuts after they are chopped into pieces. Ah ha! The second secret is to use a food processor. I had already thought of purchasing one, having read online that a meat grinder or food processor would do the trick. Yet spending the equivalent of $21 on a food processor that would likely be used for this sole purpose seemed excessive. I put off the purchase.

I tried the smoothie maker again, mixing the peanuts longer this time. This helped, but the tiny blade just could not complete the job.

I tried the coffee grinder one last time before giving up on that too.

Sunday I went out in search of a food processor. I checked some electronics stores and shopping centers, coming up empty handed except for one I found for about $40.

Yesterday I bit the bullet and on my way home for lunch stopped by the shopping center where I had seen the very first one. I paid about $17 for a food “chopper.”

I washed my new appliance and left the parts to dry while I was at work. Later in the evening, waiting on my chicken quesadilla to cook, I tested the chopper with a handful of peanuts. The process seemed to be taking forever and I started to wonder if this too would leave me devoid of my beloved peanut butter. The peanuts just seemed to be breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally those pieces began to stick together. This made me smile! After some more mixing, I had the closest yet resemblance to the peanut butter I know so well. It was certainly passable.

After dinner I tried a second batch with more peanuts this time. The result was even better than the small handful I used at first. Perhaps there was more oil from the peanuts to help the process along. Still, it is a little thick. I believe these peanuts do not have as much oil as some varieties. I know not the origin of the peanuts here, yet they are readily available and cost only $3 per kilo already shelled.

So now I have peanut butter; it has been such a long wait! And it was a welcome development in what has been a very long week since Sean’s departure last Wednesday morning. Insignificant things so often taken for granted can surprisingly brighten one’s day, if only temporarily.

Well, India was crazy, wonderful, and frustrating, sometimes all of those things and more at once. It really was quite an adventure, albeit one I was not as prepared for as I thought I was or would have liked to have been.

Highlights

I loved seeing the women in their beautiful, colorful saris. They always look so elegant even when working or doing chores! And they manage to ride on the back of a motorcycle, both legs on the same side, perfectly content to hang on to nothing as if oblivious to all of the traffic whizzing by.

Bodhgaya was the smallest town we visited and my favorite. Buddha attained enlightenment here. Visiting the main temple and observing the many pilgrims and monks makes for quite a sight. We saw temples built by Buddhists from several different countries. The best part, though, was staying at the guest house of the Bhutanese monastery. The place was so quite and serene. I awoke early every morning and sat outside to enjoy the cool, fresh air and listen to the birds. I spent quite a bit of time reading outside too. This was my peaceful abode in the chaos that is India, which is almost too overwhelming for me.

Thank goodness Sean is an extrovert. Without his propensity to talk we likely would not have met the few wonderful people who helped to offset the negative impressions left by the touts, rickshaw/taxi drivers, and other potential scammers.

• Elena – A young Russian lady who gave us some insight into Varanasi after we arrived at 5a.m., were give the run-around by our taxi driver, found our guest house full, and finally found ourselves unable to enjoy the sunrise directly in front of us as we sat on the bank of the Ganges River.
• Rattam – A tailor in Varanasi who introduced us to a tabla (traditional Indian drum) player and the best apple pie in town from the pizzeria below his shop. Sean really wanted a traditional Indian outfit to bring home and Rattam had one custom made for him.
• Goban – The tabla player who gave us a demonstration of his music and answered our many questions about traditional Indian music. (Sean wants to go back and take tabla lessons from him!)
• Jigme – A driver for the Bhutanese monastery in Bodhgaya who cooked a delicious traditional Bhutanese dinner for us and educated us about his tiny Himalayan country.
• Mr. Pradeep – A travel agent in Agra who arranged a taxi for us to return to the Delhi airport. Solely a travel agent he is not. He suggested, and then made, a dish called “kichri” to calm my ailing stomach. He prepared peanut butter and honey sandwiches for Sean to eat on the road. He made fresh peanut butter for me to bring home! He lived in the U.S. for some years working as a research assistant to a professor in North Carolina. And when he asked why we were living in Kazakhstan, we found out that he used to teach Hindi to Peace Corps Volunteers in India during the 60s and early 70s!!

Had we not met these wonderful people our perceptions may have been drastically different upon our departure from India.

Frustrations

There are people everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE! One young man told us that Indians are proud to be in a race with China to claim the title of the most populated country. We met several people who claimed to have six children.

The relentless touts. Most of them refuse to take no for an answer, at least not until you have said it for the fifth time with steadily increasing volume and agitation in your voice. They work diligently to persuade you to visit their shop (or their cousin’s shop.) Or to take their rickshaw at a ‘cheap’ price. I think the most effective tactic in dealing with them was to pretend we did not speak English, speaking to each other in Russian instead. (This also came in useful when discussing matters directly in front of a shop keeper or other locals!)

Traffic at first seems to be a chaotic mess. But observation reveals there is a sense of order amongst all of the pedestrians, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, cars, and trucks. All of the honking also has a rhyme and reason to it once you pay attention. As long as you keep next to the shoulder you will not be run over. Nevertheless, it is still a frightening experience. Did I mention that there are very few sidewalks?

Transportation challenges

We had transportation issues from the get-go. We could not take the train from my city to Almaty because the line was closed due to snow. We had to take a 4-hour bus ride to another city and then get on the train. Our flight leaving Almaty was slightly delayed. Our first train ride in India was delayed by four hours en route. Our third train segment in India was delayed by seven hours. There were no spaces available on the trains from Agra to Delhi, meaning we took a taxi direct to the airport on our last day. (Which actually turned out to be a blessing.) Our flight leaving Delhi was slightly delayed. All train lines in eastern Kazakhstan were closed when we returned due to heavy snow and blizzard conditions. And there was only general seating available which would have meant 37 hours in a wooden seat to get to a nearby city, and then a 4-hour bus ride home. Finally we decided to pay the extra money to fly home, only to have that flight delayed by an hour!

This does not even take into account the scare factor of riding in rickshaws and auto-rickshaws on the busy streets and roads. And even though we tried to avoid it, we had to take a couple of auto-rickshaws in the evening after dark. Not recommended!

Final thoughts

It did not take long for us to realize that we needed to revert to our Peace Corps training when we were frequently told to “lower our expectations.” Most of us chose to modify that statement to “manage” our expectations. Some things went as expected, lots of things did not. Acknowledging that we had to manage our expectations and make the most of every situation helped us to appreciate the experience despite the challenges.

This was truly an awesome cultural experience. Not only did I learn more about the Indian culture, but also about Buddhism and Hinduism. I am not quite ready to return to India, yet I would not have missed this trip for anything.