Reflections and the Road Ahead

      Two updates in one week!  What is going on?  Well, there have been a lot of changes here in the past month and the upcoming months will yield a few more.  Thought I should keep you guys updated.  So after my family left in September, I attended a conference with my training mates at the Peace Corps office in Almaty.  We got to bring one person from our workplace and learned some new information to apply at our sites.  As always, it was good for the 9 of us to get together and here about the good work that everyone is doing.  It was also helpful for my work situation and I seem to have more freedom this year. 

     After the training, I went back to site ready to start work on some real projects.  I started this school year more confident in my Russian skills and with a greater understanding of what I wanted to accomplish in my time at the orphanage.  I got a few clubs up and running and want to start a volunteer group, but have had a few road blocks in my way.  My project will hopefully be successful, but is kind of on hold until December. 
    
      October brought a lot of changes.  Two of my site mates, Niall and Katie, had finished their two years in Petropavlovsk as Peace Corps Volunteers and have left the city.  Niall left early in October as he had some job prospects in the U.S.  Katie left at the end of October and she and I will travel together to Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey.  It is really hard to imagine Petro without them, but time will tell.  I moved into Katie's apartment and left my host family that I have lived with for one year.  That was really hard on all of us, but it was time to live on my own.  Those Americans and their love for independence...

      While I'm on vaction with Katie, the new group of volunteers will come up to their sites on November 7th.  In my city, we will get one new volunteer and two more volunteers in surrounding villages.  It will be nice to have some new faces in our neck of the woods.  It's hard to believe that one year ago, I came up to Petropavlovsk for the first time as a newly sworn-in Peace Corps Volunteer. 

    It's been a crazy year, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.  It was a dream of mine for a long time to join the Peace Corps and while it hasn't been easy, I have no regrets.  This has probably been the most challenging thing I've ever done.  It's difficult to describe what makes it so challenging, maybe it's the language barrier, the new surroundings, different culture, 24/7 work environment, who knows?  Regardless of the challenges, it's still a lot of fun: meeting new people, having crazy experiences, working with kids, exploring cultural differences and similarities, among other things. 

     So, I have one year left.  There is a lot I want to accomplish in that time so that I can leave here next November feeling like I made good use of my time.  Then I can return home to all of you and share my crazy stories in person! 

9/16/2010

Johnsons in Kazakhstan!  Most of you have read Sarah's blog about my family's trip to Kazakhstan.   If not, I'll direct you there to read all about our trip: http://sarahjb.posterous.com/   I've decided not to rehash it here, since she did such a great job of describing everything. 

We had a busy two weeks as we traveled from Almaty to Shymkent to Astana to Petropavlovsk.  It was great to see my family and words cannot express what it meant to see them after all this time.  I'm lucky they traveled here to see me, and I know the 24 hour train trip, squat toilets, and stiff beds were not their idea of a relaxing vacation.  They were good sports and they left with a greater understanding of my life here and met some great people on the way.  So enjoy some photo highlights of our trip and I'll post an update soon.  In the meantime, if you happen to run into my parents I hear they have a 200+ photo album of their journey.  They may even ask you to look at it, so beware!  Make your excuses early, unless you have a few hours to spare...

Mom in wearing some traditional dress in Almaty.

Turkestan Mausoleum

The "sardine can", otherwise known as our train to Astana.

Baiterek Monument in Astana.  It has become a national symbol for Kazakhstan.  You can take an elevator up it and look out over Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). 

Some modern buildings in Astana.  The city has been greatly built up since being named the new capital in 1997.

My apartment building in Petropavlovsk

My counterpart and some of our students on the first day of school.

Some of the kids at our orphanage, waiting for the 1st day of school festivities to start.

Two of our students, Indira and Olya doing a dance for our opening bell ceremony at school.

Us at the art museum in Petropavlovsk

My host mom and sister in Petro.  Ready for the 1st day of school.

Me and some of our 1st and 2nd graders.  They are so cute!

Dad at the bazaar in Petro.

Dad dressed up like Ablai Khan.

Sarah wearing a traditional Turkmen hat. 

  

Our last photo together for a while...It was a fun visit!

Walking in the rain in Enbek to visit my first host family.

My host mom and my mom making noodles from scratch.

Feast that greeted us in Enbek, prepared by my host family from training.

The main bazaar in Shymkent.  If you can't find it here, you don't need it!

Sarah's getting a call on her cell phone cookie.  These were her favorite.

Sarah, Stacey , my host mom, her son and his new wife, Guzyela, me, Dad

Toasting to new friends in Enbek.  It was neat that my real family got the chance to meet my host family from training.  We had a great time visiting them, and my family got to experience village life!  Can you say outhouse?

World War II monument in Almaty

View of Almaty from Kok Tobe Cable Car

Family we met at the cable car.  They were very excited to meet and be photographed with Americans.

Train to Shymkent.  Tight quarters, but a nice ride!

Selling melons in Shymkent

Dried fruit and nuts at the bazaar in Shymkent

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Turkestan Mausoleum

Flea market in Shymkent.  There you could buy old soviet coins, car parts, busts of Lenin, pots and pans, anything you could imagine!

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Sum- Sum- Summertime!

8/19/2010

Boys in the group that I stayed with all summer. 

Great group of kids, endless amounts of energy!

    This update has been ready ready for a while, but I just got around to posting it now.  So what have I been up to this summer? Well, school ended at the end of May and the whole orphanage picked up and moved to our summer location. We have a summer camp on the outskirts of Petropavlovsk. The kids live there from June to August. There we have a pool, basketball court, soccer field, and a makeshift disco. There was even karaoke one day, where I did a lively rendition of YMCA.  Don't judge -- my choices of English songs were limited!  My job is to teach English classes and to do other activities with the kids. I've played a lot of volleyball, frisbee, UNO, red light-green light, and duck, duck, goose.  The kids are crazy for UNO and it's going to be a while before I will be able to look at a deck of UNO cards again...

               

The girls in the group I stayed with:

                                                             Pasha and Vanya at camp

After breakfast every morning the kids have a work period where they have to do chores such as sweep the living quarters, help in the kitchen, clean up the grounds, etc. I was given duties in the vegetable garden. It's pretty cool. We have beets, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and herbs. We water the plants, pick the weeds, and so on. I think it's cool that they try to grow a significant amount of their own food to feed the kids.

    This past year, I set up a pen pal program with a teacher from the school I used to work at in Massachusetts (Thanks John!). His kids wrote us letters in April and we responded in May. I got their replies in July and my kids will write back in September when everyone is back at school.  They asked every day about the letters, and it was hard to make them understand just how long international mail takes to arrive.  They were so excited when the letters finally did arrive and can't wait to resume letter writing in the fall.   

Kids at camp in Presnovka saying thanks to the sponsor of the camp

     In addition to the orphanage camp, I also had the chance to go to two camps put on by village volunteers in our region. One I was only at for a few days in Bulaevo with my friend Brendan and the other I was at for one week in Presnovka, with my friend Patrick. It was my first time at both of these sites and it was neat to see the villages. We did English grammar, played games, played sports, did art projects and had a lot of fun. The kids were pretty enthusiastic and the teachers we worked with were also glad to have the chance to interact with native English speakers. I was impressed at the work my fellow volunteers did to organize their camps and I can't wait to help again next summer!

Our Bulaevo crew walking to camp pausing to take a photo
near the grain elevator...Patrick, Niall, and Brendan

Wearing traditional dress with Niall at the Museum in Preznovka. 

Students ready for camp in Bulaevo

Here are some photos of my summer and the people who helped make it great. The woman standing is one of Patrick's counterparts from Presnovka (he has two). Her name is Rosa and she hosted 6 Volunteers at her house for a whole week. She cooked for us, chatted with us, played cards, and we had banya everyday. She was amazing and I hope I get to go to camp there again next year!

Our Preznovka crew at the Shykhov Museum
Local friend Ayala, the museum curator, Patrick, Niall, Denise, me, Brendan and Patrick's counterpart

My friend Katie at camp in Presnovka.
A man representing the local Cossacks presented us with this hat.

Brendan in action at camp in Bulaevo

Russian language camp

I also took a week in July to go to Russian Language Camp.  Brendan, one of the village volunteers in my region organized a week long language learning camp in Petropavlovsk.  We had Russian classes for 4 hours every day and then did activities in the afternoon.  We cooked, saw Toy Story 3 in Russian and went to the art museum.  I thought my Russian was getting better, especially since at the orphanage camp I speak only Russian.  However, Russian Language Camp taught me that I still have sooooo much to learn about the Russian language.  It was a really great week, but at the end I had was definitely on Russian language overload!

So what now?  I finished with camp two days ago.  Tonight, I take the train down to Almaty. My parents, sister, and friend Stacey will arrive in Almaty on August 22^nd and will be here for two weeks. I'm beyond excited for their visit and have a pretty packed itinerary. There are many people here who can't wait to meet my family and it will be great for everyone to get acquainted.

Sorry for the long break in updates but camp barely had cell phone reception (though the outhouse was suprisingly conducive--many a text message recieved in there!).  I had limited email access all summer, though things will improve markedly now.  School starts on September 1st, while my family is here, and then I have a training in Almaty on September 6th for one week.  There probably won't be any more blog updates until mid-September. Thanks to all who read and post comments if you can.

Stay tuned to this page in September, for pics from the Johnson family's visit to Kazakhstan. There are sure to be some stories...

School's out for summer!

6/13/2010

Sooo....As usual, it's been a while between blog posts. Wish my life were more exciting so I had more to post. May was a quick month and I was looking forward to the end of the school year on May 25^th.

Each class at the orphanage has a class leader, who is a teacher that guides that class from the 5^th grade to their graduation in the 11^th grade. They are responsible for a number of reports, birthday recognitions, determining course of study, etc. My counterpart was the class leader for this year's graduating class, so graduation was especially important for her because this had been "her class" for several years. 

Pic of my counterpart and two of her students in

their graduation outfits:

The graduates at the closing of school ceremony: 

 So the last day of school was very important for my counterpart, with her students graduating and all.  She was giving a tea party for her students and their teachers after the ceremony.  We also had a presentation to make later in the day to a bunch of important visitors. That being the case and the fact that appearances are very important in Kazakhstan, I took extra care getting ready for the day. I put on a dress, ironed my dress jacket and did my hair extra nicely (i.e. tried to tame the frizz). Strike 1 – I got deodorant on the bottom of my black dress. Washed it off as best I could, but apparently it was still visible. Strike 2- later in the day I got a run in my pantyhose....surprise, surprise. Strike 3—was trying to be helpful by washng the dishes after the party. One of the tea cups had a large chip in it and I cut my finger. No biggie, except here they use colored iodine to clean the cut. My hand was dark green! So let's review:

Photo of the chemistry teacher, Sasha - a graduate, and me

tried to look nice for presentation ended up with: deodorant on dress, run in pantyhose, and frog hands! Some days I wonder why I even bother...My counterpart told me to walk into the presentation sideways hoping that no one would see the run in my stockings. Also had to try very hard not to talk with my hands so no one would see the giant green spots on my hands. Never a dull moment.

After the end of school I went to a teacher's conference in Kyzlorda for English teachers. Even though I'm not an education volunteer, I thought my years of teaching experience might give me something to present to some folks. Due to some crazy scheduling conflicts, I couldn't travel down there with my friend Anna even though we had already bought our tickets together. It's a 40+ hour trip on the train and not one you want to do alone if you can help it. Anna found another volunteer to go with her from Kokshetau. My site mate Niall was also going to the conference. I convinced him to go a day late and take the train with me. You can't get a train directly from Petropavlovsk to Kyzlorda. We took a 10 hour train to Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) and had about a 12 hr. layover. Then we took a train that evening for the 36 hr. trek to to Kyzlorda. Neither of us had been to Astana so we were glad for the chance to see it. It's only been the capital for about a decade, and before that it was a relatively small city. All of the growth you see has sprouted up in the last 10 years or so, which is really crazy.  These photos are from Astana.  The big tower is called Baiterek and you can go up inside and see amazing views of the city from there.  Pretty neat!

 

Me inside Baiterek

The new mosque in Astana

Conference was really fun. Got the chance to appreciate life for our southern volunteers. In Kyzlorda instead of -30 in the winter they have 100+ in the summer. I'll take my northern winters any day over their ridiculous summers! The teachers we met were very glad to be at the conference and to have the chance to speak with native English speakers. Everyone was really nice and they were very enthusiastic and passionate about teaching. I was glad I took the time to go, and it energized me to be around such enthusiastic people.

Following the conference, my friend Anna and I headed to Almaty (via 24 hr. train ride) for our annual medical check up. You'll be happy to know that my health is good according the the Peace Corps doctor. I've lost a bit of weight which was nice to have verified, but still could stand to lose some more. Who knew Peace Corps service could also be a catalyst for weight loss? I sense a reality show in the making?

Now, I'm back at site. Starting tomorrow, I head to summer camp. The orphanage has summer camp all summer at a location in the countryside. I will live there most of the summer, with the exception of about 3 weeks where I will help other volunteers with their camps. Then at the end of the summer my family and a friend will visit. I can't wait! It will be great for them to experience Kazakhstan and see what living here is all about. So, that's it for awhile. I'll try to post some camp picks in a few weeks, but my internet access will be non-existent for awhile so forgive me if you don't hear from me in a timely manner. Hope you all enjoy your summer!