Siberia or Bust!

10/9/2009
Very exciting day today! Today was Site Announcement Day, where we found out what our placement will be for the next two years. All 65 of us went to Issyk and had a full day of lectures and presentations on volunteer safety, security and health. We sat in a room from 8:30 to about 4:00 with a lunch break and a few other short breaks. We only wanted to know out placements, but they made us wait until about 4:30! All week we have been going crazy wanting to know where we'll be placed and what kind of work we'll be doing.
The moment finally arrived, and we were ushered into an auditorium. All of the regional managers were there, along with the Country Director for Kazakhstan and other Peace Corps VIPs. We watched a slide show, which only heightened the suspense, and then the main event began. They did the announcements by oblast (county) and we are all spread out throughout about 9 or 10 oblasts all over the country. Each Regional Manager would describe each placement in their region and then name the volunteer that was selected for that assignment. That person would stand up, and we would all clap for them. Everyone looked like they had just won the lottery, instead of a two year assignment in Siberia!
My placement is in the city of Petropovlovsk, population 300,000. I will work in an orphanage, that serves children in the 5th through 11th grades. They live there and go to school there. My job will be to teach some English classes and plan extracurricular activities for them. As a secondary project I can work at a school for children with disabilities. I'm very excited about my placement and can't wait to get to work!
Petropovlovsk is about as far north as you can get in Kazakhstan. There is a Peace Corps Volunteer who is placed in a village a few miles north of the city and apparently he has the distinction of being the northern most volunteer in all of the Peace Corps. So basically, I am on the Russian border, but still in Kazakhstan. Petro (it's nickname) is also located in Siberia, so when I arrive on November 1st it will already be snowing. Winter lasts for about 6 months, so yay for me.

10/13/2009
For the past several weeks, we have been planning a camp for thirty 8th graders at the local school. It was one of the assignments given to us by our trainers. Today was the second day of camp. Yesterday and today went very well. We divided the kids into three groups, and three of us lead groups around to three different stations. We have sports, arts and crafts, and work/career planning. I lead the career planning/work sessions. I tried to make it fun and interesting and I think the kids liked it. We made visual resumes, did mock job interviews, and talked about the skills needed for certain jobs.
Tomorrow is the last day of camp and then we do a community project (another assignment) on Thursday. For our community project, we are having graffiti artists come in from Almaty to paint a mural on the school. The mural will be something community related, and it had to be approved by the director of the school. We are really excited for them to come and to work with the kids. We will also have many arts activities for the kids to participate in.


10/15/2009

Today was my Russian teacher's birthday. She turned 23, can you imagine? We had a small party for her during language class and we brought her some presents. One girl in our class brought her a blow-up flamingo (not sure why she had that) but Anya, our teacher, loved it. I brought her some nuts and some candy that my host family helped me buy at the store.
Today was our Community Project day and it marked the end of our time at the village school. We had a school-wide art day, open to anyone who wanted to participate. We had bracelet making, painting/drawing, face painting, book making, potato prints and more. The kids had a good time and we were exhausted by the end.
The teacher we have been working with at the school invited us up to her room at the end. She and her 11th grade students (who were our camp leaders and whom we have worked with closely for these two months) sang us songs and gave us gifts. They said many kind words to us and thanked us for working with them. We all teared up a little at how moving their speeches were. We said a few words of thanks to them as well (through our translator) and that made them tear up as well. It was definitely an emotional moment and an unexpected one as we haven't been here that long, and did not realize that we had made any impact at all. One of the 11th grade boys had to leave the room because he didn't want us to see him crying, which of course made us cry more!
They walked us home and one boy insisted on carrying my bags, which were heavy. We had what felt like a good part of the village walking us home. I sort of felt like Angelina Jolie on her UN Ambassador visits. However, my celebrity was short-lived, as I got home and was instantly put to work peeling potatoes for tonight's soup. Ahh, how the mighty fall. You have to love that about Peace Corps. Just when you feel smug and accomplished, you get the wind taken out of your sails. I think they do that on purpose to make sure you don't get a big head!

10/18/2009
Today the other group in our village did their community project. They cleaned up the soccer field, painted the goals, put up nets and then played soccer against different groups. I played soccer for a little bit, even though I haven't played since I was a kid. Our team, a.k.a. Team Youth Development, or Team YD for short, kept things remarkably close. We didn't get blown out, at all. Most games were pretty close. At one point, we played some adults from the village. To make things fair, we got 2 forwards and a goalie who were from the village. Our goalie was awesome! The first two saves he made, he had his cell phone in one hand, but still managed to catch the ball. The third time, the cell phone was away and he dropped the ball. Go figure.
Their project was cool, even though we were all sore the next day. Kids in the community were asking when we were going to play soccer again. We may get together on Saturday for some rematches although I'm not sure we'll all be recovered by then!

10/20/2009
Today we went to a crazy bazaar to buy winter clothes. Peace Corps gave us all a “Settling In Allowance” which we are supposed to use to buy things we'll need at our new sites. I bought a winter coat, some slippers and some wool tights. My coat is kind of ugly, but as one of my friends put it, “when it's 40 below, you won't care what you look like, you'll only care that you're warm.” Truer words were never spoken. In the photo you can see my host sister Medina wearing my coat and slippers.
Usually when we go the bazaar it is crazy, but this time it was completely nuts. We went to this bazaar in Almaty called “Baraholka”. For 7 kilometers on both sides of the road there are bazaars. Each section has different stuff, and we went to the clothes section. It's like a giant flea market with really tiny aisles. People are going up and down the aisles selling food, perfume, bags, you name it. Periodically someone else would come running through wheeling a large cart of merchandise. It's amazing we all returned with 10 toes in tact. At one point I thought my friend was going to be run over by the plov (a rice dish) cart. It was an exhausting but fun way to spend the day.

10/21/2009
Our language test was today, to see what level of Russian we have achieved in 9 weeks. I can tell you that mine is not that high. We will find out in a week what level we actually achieved, but I am not that hopeful. We all will have the opportunity to continue tutoring in Russian once we get to our sites. I know I will continue because my Russian teacher lives in the same city that I will be going to. She has already agreed to tutor me, even though I told her she could take this time to cut me loose, since I am a terrible student!
We officially leave our village on Tuesday and head for Almaty for week. We had a meeting with all of our host families tonight to plan a party for Monday to say good-bye and thank you. There will be food and dancing and maybe even some pizza. It will be hard to say good-bye, as our families have been very good to us. It's funny to me that I was very apprehensive at the beginning of this experience and was nervous about living with a host family. Now, I feel like a member of the family and am not looking forward to leaving them. Many volunteers keep in touch with their host families and visit them from time to time. I hope I will be able to do that, because they have been great to me and I will miss them greatly when I am up north.

More exciting adventures in the life of a Peace Corps Trainee

9/13/2009
Some things never change...so after my last post, I lost my cell phone. Let me preface the story by saying that on Sundays, some of us like to go to Ecik (the closest large town) to use the internet. I was very proud of myself as me and two friends hailed a gypsy cab, negotiated the price and headed into Ecik. We got to the internet cafe, made some meaningful contact with friends and family and then grabbed a snack at a local cafe. After a very successful outing, we hailed another cab and headed back to our village. Shortly after exiting the cab, I realized that my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket in the cab!

9/18/2009

Very exciting day today! We had class in the morning with all of the other groups. All 65 of us listened to Peace Corps volunteers who have finished their 2nd year of service and have signed on for a 3rd year! I can't imagine surviving the first two years, never mind volunteering for a 3rd. They had really interesting stories to tell and had some great successes at their sites. They were also very honest about Peace Corps service and told us about their failures as well.
After the volunteers were done talking we had a one hour lecture from a former Peace Corps Volunteer who was in Kazakhstan from 1998 – 2000. He now lives in Almaty after living in Russia and Tajikistan following his service. He gave us a brief synopsis of Kazakhstan's history which was very interesting. You could tell he had done his research.
Following the lecture, we boarded two buses and headed for the mountains. We went to this place called Tyrgen outside of Ecik. There we completed a short hike to a waterfall. The hike was not long, but was rather steep. Our hard work was rewarded when we got to the waterfall. It was gorgeous and the view was incredible.
It was fun to relax and enjoy the company of the other volunteers. We felt like we were on vacation somewhere and it was a welcome diversion from our usual routine. I left my hiking boots back in the U.S. due to space limitations. So I had to hike up in my Birkenstock sandals. They did the trick fine, but there were definitely some places where we had to cross streams of water on slippery rocks that made me a little nervous. I made it fine, but hiking boots would have been much easier to walk in. However, I put my self-consciousness aside when I was at the top and saw a group coming up with one woman in stiletto heels! I kid you not. Our Russian teachers were laughing, and they said a Russian woman never misses a chance to look good, even when mountain climbing. It was one of the craziest things I had ever seen, but I admire her talent, because if I had done that I probably would have broken an ankle.

9/20/2009
We had a very exciting weekend. We had class on Saturday morning, and in the afternoon all 10 of us from our village went to Almaty. A girl in our group had a birthday so we headed into the city to celebrate. We went out to dinner and then went back to the apartment to play cards. There was a 24 hour store downstairs from the apartment, so we were able to get Snickers, chips and beer. We've been warned not to go to bars, because that seems to be where volunteers have problems, and none of us want to get sent home.
Some folks from other groups that were staying in the apartment with us got a little crazy and were being kind of loud. That mixed with sleeping on the floor, means that I did not get any sleep Saturday night. At about 3 AM one of my friends got up and asked if anyone else was awake. Two of us were, so the three of us went outside and talked. At about 5 AM, we figured it was safe enough to walk to the 24 hour internet cafe. So we packed up our stuff and left the apartment for the l5 minute walk to the internet cafe. We got to get online without having to wait, which was nice, but for some reason none of my blog stuff would load. How frustrating!
After that we went to find some breakfast, and did some quick shopping and then found a bus home. I slept the whole bus ride home (about a 1½ hour ride). It was nice to return to our village after a crazy night in the city.

9/24/2009
This week we did a lot of work on the various projects we are working on. We had to design an extra-curricular activity/club, design a community project and plan a day camp. We have been working on the camp and the community project for a few weeks, but the proposals were due Monday the 20th. The projects are designed to give us some practical experience, as we will probably be involved in some of these activities at our sites.
We will be doing the camp for three afternoons after school in mid October, at the school in our village. We had to plan the whole thing and work within the framework we were given. The camp will be for about thirty 8th grade students and we have about seven 11th grade students who have volunteered to help us out. We'll play some games, do some work on computers, and complete some art projects. The students will also work on team building and leadership skills. It should be interesting. Most of the 11th graders are able to speak some English and should be able to help us communicate with the 8th graders. I'll let you know how it turns out! Here are some photos of the kids we'll be working with at the school. We were doing a community activity with them, that they seemed to enjoy. My language group, and the people that I am working with on the camp.

9/27/2009
This week also marked the end of week 5 of Pre-Service Training, so we are half way through. We have 5 weeks to go before swearing in as full Peace Corps Volunteers on Halloween. Our trainers and teachers presented us with a cake on Friday that we happily devoured!
In two weeks we get our site placements. We can't wait to find out where we'll be placed for the next two years. It's really exciting, but scary at the same time. I've adjusted fairly well to my life in the village and it will be hard transitioning somewhere new, without all of the support we receive here. I think I'm up to the challenge, but it still makes me nervous.