3/28/2010
Arrived in Almaty a few days in advance of our training. A few of of rented an apartment and decided to spend some time in the city. The view out our apartment looked like this:
Kind of sad for spring down south, oh well.
The TV in our apartment looked like this and yet it still worked! Perhaps someone left the electric teapot on the TV?
Having Sunday free I decided to visit my first host family in Enbek. My friend Hannah, who also trained in Enbek, and I decided to take the bus out there and spend the day. It had snowed there too, which gave me the opportunity to take this picture of the gorgeous mountains from the side of the road.
I had called the day before to see if they were available to visit and they told me to come today. I had brought some candy and a photo album filled with pictures of my time there. They liked the photos, but I didn't have enough to fill the album. They said I must come back again and again so we can fill the album with more memories. Awww...they're unbelievably nice. It was great to see them again although the two little girls weren't there because they were visiting their dad.
It seemed like nothing had changed, but it was a but like visiting an old neighborhood and knowing that no one you know lives there anymore. To know that none of my group mates were at their houses, made me want to go back in time a little. I walked by the house where my friend Cindy stayed and got sad, because shortly after training she decided to leave Peace Corps and go back to the US. We still keep in touch, but it's not the same as her being here. Walking past there brought up a lot of positive memories about walking with her to class everyday (we had the farthest walk) and getting to know each other.
I got a little nostalgic couldn't help but have some dorky moments thinking about how far we've come since our time in the village. I can actually speak to my host family in Russian now, where as during training it was very difficult. Just the fact that Hannah and I traveled there and back independently was another feat. We are able to do so many more things now than we were in training, and it was neat to recognize that. I think that's called personal growth?
My host mom brought me to her cousin's house where we visited with some of her family members. We snapped a photo, that's my host mom in front of me, with her granddaughter on her lap. Kazakhstani's don't usually smile in photos, can you spot the American with the goofy smile?
It was really great to see them, but the visit was short, because Hannah and I wanted to get back to Almaty before it got dark. My host mom insisted on walking me to meet Hannah. We also stopped at the store where she bought us ½ a kilo of cookies and 4 apples. It's a 45 minute drive back to the city, but I guess she thought we'd get hungry? We said goodbyes, and she insisted that I bring my family to visit when they come in August. She really wants to meet my family. I hope we can visit Enbek, I think it would be a neat experience for my family. I just hope we're not taking advantage of her hospitality. She's already given me so much.
3/29/2010
The next day involved walking around Almaty. Our apartment was really centrally located, we were very close to the Green Bazaar.
A lot of shopping occurred, I even successfully bought a new pair of jeans, which I desperately needed. They like flashy clothes here, and I'm happy to report I found a pair of jeans without rhinestones, sequins or any other sparkly decoration. That was not an easy task, let me assure you!
Went out to dinner at night with my friend Tes, who was also in my training group. She is placed about as far south in Kazakhstan as one could possibly be. She can see Tashkent, Uzbekistan from her town. Crazy! It was funny to talk about winter with her. I guess there was this one week where she had to wear long underwear for the whole week! Yeah, I gave her a hard time about that. Although this summer, she'll be dealing with triple digit temperatures, I'm so not envious about that.
4/3/2010
So our conference is over (I really went down south for business, I swear!) and we head back to site today. It was great to see everyone and hear what people are doing at their sites. It certainly gave me a needed kick in the rear and motivated me to go back to site and get some projects done. We managed to get most of our group back together for one dinner. One of our language teachers, who is also my current tutor, Lena came out with us. One of our technical trainers, Irina, was also at the conference and it was really exciting to see her again. We tried to get a photo of all of us together which proved impossible. We were able to get a photo of some of us...
4/8/2010
So I'm back in Petropavlovsk now. My site mates Katie and Niall went to India the day after I came back. Lucky them! My other site mate Sidd went to Uralsk to do a teacher training. So I'm holding down the fort myself this week...One nice thing about coming back to site was that most of the snow had melted in the two weeks since my departure. Be careful what you wish for, because in it's place is more mud than I can possibly describe to you. Maybe these pictures of the road (yes, it's a road not a river) outside my apartment building will give you a hint.
I walked to Lena's house for my tutoring and my sneakers felt an extra 10 pounds heavier with all the mud stuck to the bottom. Her mother kindly cleaned them for me, and sent me home with two grocery bags tied around my feet. I looked like a complete geek, but I didn't care because they did the trick! Spring has to better than winter...right?
