Nostalgia

I can write about so many experiences from the past couple of weeks, experiences that I will certainly look back on with nostalgia as I now look back on my high school years, college years, and even my first months in Kazakhstan.   Nostalgia is so bittersweet- filling you with warmth and happiness that you yearn for and hope you find again someday.  Fortunately, it seems to me that we do keep finding new, amazing experiences, places, and people.  Consequently, we look at photographs, smell an old aroma, or hear an old song only to be confused - does this warmth, the fullness in my chest, the tears in my eyes mean happiness or sadness?

 

On May 1^st I went to the mountains with my favorite ninth grade class for a picnic.  Kazakh picnics are a bit different than American picnics.  On previous picnics I have usually taken a sandwich, some apples, and water.  That's about it.  Kazakhs go big or go home.  They brought their huge kazan (basically a big, heavy wok), 10 kilos of potatoes, half a sheep, 20 loaves of bread, ice cream, tea, wood, an ax, and the standard jug of cooking oil.  Besides the ridiculously large amount of food consumed and the not so traceless disposal of certain items, the rest of the picnic was pretty standard.  The reason it is noteworthy, though, is because of the water fight: Miss Jennie vs. too many students.  The boys all stripped to their underwear to swim and play in the nearby stream.  When their turn was done, the girls were supposed to go play in the water, so the boys dressed and left the stream.  The girls stood at the edge of the water, sticking their toes in and screaming.  I tried to convince them to come swimming- I mean the boys stripped down, why shouldn't we? That didn't fly, so I waded in to my knees and one other girl came with me.  For some reason, a boy showed up and pushed the girl into the stream.  She freaked because she couldn't immediately touch the ground and started flailing around like a dog thrown in water for the first time.  Honestly it was hilarious, but I couldn't just stand there watching her, so I had to wade further into the water to help her stand up.  I ended up wet to my armpits in all of my clothes.  To her credit, she gained her composure and walked right back into the water, she was soaked too.  We took this opportunity to splash the girls squealing on the edge of the water and this well-known mating noise was all it took to get the boys running back to the water.  They saw us splashing around and jumped back in the water.  We targeted the people standing on the edge for a while, but the students figured out that ganging up on Miss Jennie was way more fun.  Indeed it was more fun and I had the time of my life!   People were splashing each other, dunking each other, tackling each other, and dumping water on the observers.  It was classic and wonderful and indescribably happy. As my brother Jason would say, I was livin' the dream.  We all dried in the sun before boarding the bus and I couldn't stop smiling the whole way home; hair frizzed out, skin pink from the sun, clothes crisp from air drying, the smell of nature filling the bus.

 

The day was so great, I thought about writing a blog about it, but then I had another great day.  I came home this Wednesday to find my family weeding our garden and finally planting tomatoes and cucumbers.  I changed my clothes and dug in; it felt so great to get my hands dirty and bond with the family.  As my real family knows, I don't exactly have a green thumb- I have been called "the black thumb" in fact, but pulling weeds is something I can do, so I was having a great time.  It was such a great evening; the whole family was outside.  No TV, no cell phones, just gardening.  Wait- it gets better!  In November, I learned that many Kazakhs sleep outside on raised, wooden platforms during the summer because it is so hot and I have been looking forward to this since then.  I also learned we cook and eat food outside all summer, so being outside all the time makes me really excited.  About two weeks ago the platform was constructed.  I soon discovered that this fabulous gardening Wednesday was also the debut of outdoor eating!  They made the tea in a traditional "samouryn" with a little fire and we set up a Turkish-style table (low table with no accompanying chairs) on the sleeping platform.  We all ate, drank tea, and watched the sun set, staying out there in the bliss until darkness came.  I breathed in the moment, soaking up the summer air.

 

I thought about writing a blog about that day, but today I finally decided what to write my blog about.  I have been going on evening walks with my host sisters pretty regularly for a couple of months.  We always walk to the nearby university because along the path there are many trees and it almost makes you feel like you are in a beautiful garden.  In fact there is a garden on the right side; the left side looks pretty desolate- the only thing growing from the dry, brown steppe are dry, brown houses.  As you walk along this path, the beautiful garden on the right, you wonder- why are there fences and locked gates keeping me from actually walking through the garden? Well, today I was walking with all three of my host sisters and one of their friends (my student) when we saw a man on the inside of one of the locked gates.  I asked him if we could go in and surprisingly he let us.  With such fencing and gates, it seemed like something either really important or dangerous was in the mysterious garden, but it was very easy to just ask and receive permission. And man do I wish I would have known that earlier.  We timidly walked along the path you can see from the sidewalk because the girls were sure there are hoards of rabid dogs lurking among the trees.  The longer we walked without seeing Kujo, the more confident we grew and we realized that we had stumbled upon the gold mine of pure, clean, magnificent nature somehow hidden in Turkestan's otherwise bleak landscape.  The mysterious garden turned out to be the most luscious, wonderful smelling, surprisingly refreshing forests that I have ever had the pleasure of strolling through. Really, you can be in this place and forget you are in the middle of our dusty city.  It is like walking into a Narnia that smells like a little boutique at Christmas time- beautiful green plants and trees of all types radiating a cinnamony, natural-pine, crisp-air smell.  I don't know how this forest exists or how these four girls have lived all their lives five minutes from it and not known of its existence.  I do know that I have found a haven that will now be my destination for picnics, reading, walking, jogging, and camping (if they let me).  I am in love.

 

So this is what finally made me sit down and write a blog.  Term tests be damned, tonight is about breathing in the nature that continues to surprise me.  Tonight is about recording experiences that will be turned into memories, doing my best to describe what I am feeling and thinking now so that I will look back with decidedly happy nostalgia.  I know that someday I will miss these moments, but this is also a reminder that if you are loving life, there will always be nostalgia.  The pang of sadness is a small price to pay for living in the moments that are worthy of nostalgia.

 

Happy spring and as I tell my sister: We only get one life, so live it up!

Jennie

Article for the Gunnison Country Times

I wrote this article a couple of weeks ago and it was published in my hometown newspaper.  I will work on a new blog post soon!  I am definitely missing home right now- I love Colorado in the summer and it is too freaking hot here!  Things are going well, though, and my sister comes in 16 days!!!!!

Article:

During my senior year at Gunnison High School, attending Colorado College and maybe studying abroad were the biggest dreams I had for my future.  Living abroad and joining the Peace Corps seemed no more or less likely than becoming a doctor or a lawyer.  However, I remember the exact moment the Peace Corps entered my life and led me to Central Asia.  I was watching "Lord of War" with my new college friends in the first months of school and I got tired of watching people destroy each other.  I decided that evening that I would join the Peace Corps, so I looked up the application online and diligently wrote down exactly what I needed to do to join.  Thanks to the privilege bestowed upon me at birth, the opportunities given to me at Colorado College, and the support of my family, I am now a volunteer teaching English in Kazakhstan.

 

The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev, invited Peace Corps into Kazakhstan in 1991, the year the country gained its independence from the former Soviet Union.  Kazakhstan is one of five countries in the region generally known as Central Asia.  There are now two Peace Corps programs in Kazakhstan: education and youth development.  Kazakhstan's leadership has specifically identified the need to develop English as an important international language and has invited hundreds of volunteers to teach English over the past twenty years.

 

Peace Corps accepted me as a volunteer in May 2010 and I left for Kazakhstan in August.  I flew out of Washington D.C. with about seventy other Americans.  Once in Kazakhstan we trained in Almaty, the biggest city in Kazakhstan.  We were organized into training groups and sent to villages on the outskirts of the city to live with host families, learn Kazakh or Russian, and teach for three months. 

 

Peace Corps had been an idea in the back of my mind for four years and I spent most of my senior year at Colorado College thinking about this opportunity every night before I went to sleep.  By the time I landed in Peace Corps I was done with thinking about the pros and cons of my adventure and was ready to just jump in and get to work!  I barely felt the first wave of culture shock because I was so happy to be in the moment.  Peace Corps kept us busy with language training, cultural training, and working in local classrooms.  I learned in November Peace Corps placed me in Turkestan.  I double checked to make sure Turkestan was indeed in Kazakhstan and then set to brooding on this new development. 

 

I remember reading a pamphlet from Peace Corps when I was preparing to leave.  It said one frustration among volunteers is that their lives are still too easy.  The pamphlet said that being a volunteer isn't about living on the floor in torrential rains with spiders crawling all over you.  It isn't about being hungry and walking around without shoes.  We simply go where there is an identified need and the people want us.  We help them with technical expertise that they don't have access to and we probably learn more than we teach. 

 

Despite the warning, my brain had somehow conjured the image that I would be working in a little village with one road.  Everyone would know me, wave, and invite me in for tea.  I would work closely with underprivileged students for two solid years and inspire them to travel, dream, and pursue English with enthusiasm.  Then I learned that Turkestan was a city of at least 30,000 people, I would be working in a school of gifted children, and the counterpart teacher that I would be team teaching with was almost fluent in English. 

 

My image was destroyed and my brooding led me to question exactly what I was doing here.  Surely gifted children with a practically fluent teacher didn't really need my help.  I have very little teaching experience and barely know the grammar of my native language.  I began to create a new image of my role as a Peace Corps volunteer.  How would I integrate into the community?  How can I possibly make a difference there?  I needed a new vision quick.  In my panic, I made the same mistake for the second time in three months- I tried to predict the future. 

 

Once I got to Turkestan and began speaking with the students I realized exactly why I am here.  They struggle so much that it surprises me that they have been learning this language for five years.  Many things about these students surprise me.  The surprises keep me smiling every day.  They keep me up at night thinking about new projects, competitions, and games that will enrich the students' learning and pique their interest.

 

They keep me here when all I can think of is the smell of hot coffee on a Sunday morning with my family.  They kept me here on Thanksgiving when I thought all day about what my family was doing, where they were, what they were eating.  I broke into tears in my Kazakh lesson because I was so frustrated with the language.  I was defeated, walking back to the classroom when a group of 9^th graders ran up to me with thank you cards for Thanksgiving! My heart nearly exploded.  On another rotten day, I was exhausted and frustrated, riding the public van home.  My student happened to be on the same van and told me he was going to get a new English phrasebook.  He said someday he wanted to be an astronomer. 

 

Whenever I have felt defeated, unwanted, and unsuccessful, my students have pulled through; giving me presents on Christmas, cards on Valentines, and telling me insights into their lives that remind me why I am here.  I am here for the students.  They want to know the world, but more importantly, they want the world to know about them.  They are proud of their Kazakhstan and dream that someday people will know where their country is on the map, what food they eat, and why they are important.  It turns out these students' dreams are far beyond what I dreamt at their age and I hope my students can play a part in shaping their world.

A New Discovery!

A new Kazakh first--- I found a fitness club! I have been feeling pretty lazy all winter and got the usual itch to exercise once the days started warming up here. I have run down our road a few times which is okay, but I can see how that will get boring after a while, and I really don't have that much patience with running (or life in general).  So my friend told me that a fitness club opened up and we went to check it out.  This gym is an open space above a very smelly public toilet that has been partitioned off with plastic screens.  The workout area has an elliptical machine with a broken internal computer, a treadmill that tires out after 3 miles, a stationary bike whose seat is stuck on the lowest setting, a few hula hoops, a boxing bag, and a smattering of dumbbells and weight machines.  I love this place!  I knew the minute we came around the corner to discover that the next corner was indeed the "fitness club" that this was a great discovery. 

 

OH! I forgot to mention the fat-jiggling machine!  That thing is hilarious. I don't know the logic behind it, but you just strap a belt around your waist and it jiggles away.  The women love it because they don't actually have to do any work, but I have never been a fan of my fat jiggling. 

 

Today was the first day two of my friends and I went to work out there.  They had no idea what to do, but I showed them around and the lady running the club also loves to be a trainer, so she showed us the equipment.  When I was running on the treadmill, she came over and increased the incline to the max, then increased my speed.  When I was stretching on the ground she made me do a back bend.  When I was doing sit ups on the incline bench she told me exactly where my hands needed to be!  I told her that my students were really interested in yoga and asked if she would be interested in doing yoga at this club.  I can kind of teach yoga- at least enough to get beginners stretching and feeling good!  She was very interested, so that is an exciting prospect.  This club is only 200 tenge for an hour and a half which is just over one dollar.  Can you imagine?  I don't think you can even walk into a fitness club at home for a dollar.

 

People's opinions of fitness and health are, as expected, completely different between Kazakhstan and the States.  Just the fact that an hour and a half at this gym cost almost one dollar when I could easily have paid a couple hundred dollars per month at home shows how each culture regards fitness.  Another somber reminder of this is the early deaths of many people in Kazakhstan.  My neighbor and relative (host uncle) just died of a heart attack at the age of 53.  I was surprised until I did the math: overweight, chain-smoking, Kazakh male over the age of 50.  Unfortunately this equation led exactly to the expected result, but left a wife, two college-aged daughters, and a brand new grandson behind.

 

When I asked if heart attacks were a big problem for Kazakhs, especially males, the answer was yes, of course.  When I asked my host mom, a nurse, why she thought they were a problem, she said that men worried too much about having too many children and not enough money.  Of course stress is a contributing problem, but what rarely comes to their minds here is the amount of salt, fat, and oil in the daily diet.  There is not a meal that goes by without something cooked or fried in oil and salt.

 

For example, my counterpart teacher and I are organizing a summer camp for English students and we sat down to plan out the food and the budget.  The summer in south Kazakhstan brings bountiful fruits and vegetables, so I was thinking of meals centered around those foods.  I was not too surprised, but a little sickened when she told me we would need at least five kilos of oil and one kilo of salt for the week long trip.  So, I offered the idea that maybe we could teach nutrition and health as one theme for the camp.  She agreed, but said that sometimes the students just need that hearty, oily food to keep up their strength…? 

 

Kazakhstan certainly has some battles to fight in the future.  The presence of fitness clubs and other healthy lifestyle trends are promising, though, and I am really excited about the gym!

 

Spring is here and almost as hot as June in Colorado.  I am getting excited for my summer projects, though sometimes wish would slow down!  I hope all is well at home.  Keep healthy and safe and eat an extra large salad for me! 

Jennie

Warming up in Kazakhstan

I am so sorry it takes me a while to write in between each blog.  I guess I keep looking for something really exciting to tell all of you, but I find myself living a normalized life, not entirely unlike life back in the US.

I am still living with the same host family, with a mother, father, and three daughters.  Two of the daughters are students at my school and while I am frustrated with my own language development, I am proud of theirs!  Their listening comprehension has significantly improved and their speaking is coming along also.  I enjoy living with the family, though I wish we would speak Kazakh together more often!  I have no immediate plans to move, so it looks like things are going well!  I think living by myself is an unwise move mostly because it would bring my speaking to a screeching halt and because I really hate cooking.  I would live only on carrots, apples, oranges and bread and somehow that doesn't seem like a healthy decision.  However, my heart and thighs might thank me for the decrease in fat-intake.

Most of my students are making progress which makes me so happy!  We have one group of 9th grade students that take a national standardized test on Friday.  They have been working so hard in my class to review every bit of grammar build a stronger overall foundation for their English language.  I hate the idea of putting so much emphasis on a test, but we have tried to show that this grammar is useful for their speaking.  Their scores are improving, though, and that makes them really excited and significantly decreases the stress of my counterpart teacher which makes everyone's life happier J

Another group of students- my 10th graders- is one of my favorite classes.  They are a spirited class and are interested in learning English, but lack the ability to formulate sentences.   Basically for the past five years, they have gone through the motions of learning grammar in terms of formulas.  For example, Present Simple's formula is: noun+verb1.  I eat vegetables.  Past Simple's formula is: noun+verb2.  I ate vegetables.  The problem is most students have no freakin' idea what "noun" means in that formula.  They are given these stupid formulas, but lack the big picture.  When the heck do we use noun+verb2?  They have no idea.  The thing I like about the 10th and 11th grades over here is that their testing in English is over after the 9th grade.  We technically have to follow a curriculum set by an irrelevant book, but we mostly just follow that curriculum on the lesson plans and are able to do some cool stuff in actuality. 

This unit was international relations, so my counterpart and I created a unit that focused solely on the students speaking.  We chose 5 countries with important international relations to Kazakhstan and spoke primarily about education.  We told them about scholarships and programs they can use to travel and study abroad and taught them some important vocabulary words.  The teachers would teach one class about a country and the following lesson, the students would teach about the country using what they learned and additional research.  In hindsight, we could have made some big changes and we will next year, for sure.  We didn't give the students enough practice in creating sentences, so while they want to convey what they learned, they simply can't, they don't have the skills.

I still think this was largely successful, however, because their writing skills have significantly improved.  About 2 months ago, I asked the students to write a half page about Kazakhstan- their motherland!  They all panicked and nobody, not one student, wrote the assignment.  I am proud of us as a teaching team for truly focusing on reading, writing, listening, and speaking, and I think our efforts are paying off.  Since that first disaster of a writing piece, this class has written a one page (8.5 by 11) about themselves and Kazakhstan which we sent to American students, and have written one page about what they learned about international relations.  Some students even complained that it was too easy!  On top of that, we just finished the term test and I made it pretty difficult, with no multiple choice and a lot of writing.  The most missed was 7 points and the students stormed the room to find their results the following morning.  These two classes make my days happy!

Spring came to Turkestan on March 8th. On that day, the sun was shining and it was almost hot here.  Since then, people have put away their winter coats and boots and welcomed spring.  One of my students and I celebrated the warmth by walking all the way home from school one day!  Driving to school takes us about 30 minutes, so this was a big feat in this country.  Most people do not walk for fun and certainly don't go jogging, so people were surprised at our idea to walk home and even more surprised when I put my Nikes on over my tights for the trek.  Some students even made bets that we couldn't do it and I got plenty of weird looks for my sneakers!  The walk took us only an hour and a half and I loved every minute of it!  I am addicted to spending time outside now and go on walks as much as possible!

That's the news from this side of the world!  I hope all of you are doing well and enjoy your upcoming Spring Breaks!  Keep in touch!

Jennie

Almost 6 months!

Sorry about the delay between blogs. I have been waiting for some anecdote to write about, but no inspiration has come! It is almost the 6 month mark, though, and that deserves some commentary.



It has been almost 3 months since I have been in Turkestan. I am teaching about 25 hours at school, but am actually working at the school about 50 hours per week. We work Monday through Saturday and it has been difficult adjusting to a one day weekend. In fact, I am not yet adjusted. This last weekend definitely didn’t feel like the rest I needed. On Sunday we usually clean the house and do laundry. We have a semi-automatic washing machine so we have to rinse and wring all of the clothes by hand. That chore takes some time! I also try to prepare for at least half of my lessons for the week and study Kazakh, too.



My Kazakh is finally beginning to improve thanks to my wonderful tutor. Perhaps I am just deficient at learning languages, but it has been more difficult to learn Kazakh than I expected. I understand much, much more and my vocabulary is expanding. However, it is very difficult to learn and replicate grammar structures simply by being surrounded by a language. I usually only listen for specific words to pick up the meaning of what someone is telling me; my brain doesn’t even register the tenses and endings necessary for creating sentences! Therefore, I usually just blurt out a series of verbs in the infinitive form and some nouns here and there. I convinced my tutor to teach me grammar and to let me speak during our sessions (though it is clearly painful for her). I think we have made progress!



The first 4-5 months was a time of constant adjustment. My life seemed to oscillate daily between ups and downs. I couldn’t figure out the best way to go about my job or my existence here. I haven’t been too homesick (though I think about you all every day!), but approaching 6 months feels different. The things I missed in the first few months were all superficial. I miss some foods, coffee, my coffee shops, TV programs, etc. Now a two year experience seems more real. I find myself missing the way Americans interact, the way I communicate with my friends and especially my family. I miss the freedom to ignore traditions and to protest injustices and irrationality. Being practically mute has made me realize how much I like voicing my opinion! Look out- when I come back to America I will have saved up all my opinions and you all won’t hear the end of them!



It seems that my life here has settled and normalized, though I don’t have every thing figured out and my days are certainly not boring! Just the other day, I got onto the wrong public bus going from lunch with friends back to school. I got shoved into the seat farthest in the back of this packed bus before I realized it was the wrong one. It started going the wrong direction and I had to yell at the driver to stop. Everyone was laughing at my obviously foreign accent as I climbed over 20 people to get out of the door. I then had to walk about 6 more blocks to get back to another bus stop. It has been raining here, so the road was disgusting with mud that I was getting all over my nice school boots. Then a car drove by and sprayed me with muddy water! I was rushing to get back to school for my last lesson, but when I finally got there, the schedule had been changed yet again and my class was moved until the next day. Like I said- it is never boring here.



That is one thing that I am really enjoying about teaching- my days are never the same. One of my greatest fears is falling into a routine that sucks my life away and so far teaching has provided variety and excitement (and a fair share of exhaustion.) Every day is a new day, some met with endless frustrations and some met with the smiling faces of my (progressing!) students.




On that note, I would like to ask a favor of everyone. My students' English level is pretty low all around. We are working on listening, speaking, grammar, and writing. Those things can be done with relatively few resources. However, I would like to get the students interested in reading English books- of which there are NONE here. If you have the time and are willing, I would love to receive ANY reading materials! This can be magazines (even old magazines), childrens books, and "young reader" books. If anyone has Highlights magazines, those would be amazing. My address is posted again below. Thanks for all of your continued support!






Jennie

Jennie Vader
Abishev Aupkhan
Edige Batyr Street 36
South Kazakhstan Oblast, Turkestan 161200
Republic of KAZAKHSTAN

SUPRISE!!!!!!!!

People always, always joke that we (the volunteers) will get married
and stay in Kazakhstan. When we don’t jump at their offers to find
Kazakh boyfriends, they exasperatedly ask whether their Kazakh boys
are good enough, pretty enough… I usually deferred with, “I can’t
marry a Kazakh boy because I would miss my family too much.” This
worked wonderfully until I met the love of my life. I can’t express
enough how much this caught even myself by surprise. I am a vehement
believer of not needing a man in my life (as I have often preached to
all of you), but couldn’t control fate forever.
I think that you all know me better, but I hope that got some of you!
Haha! I didn’t meet the Kazakh man of my dreams, but my theme will be
marriage because I was lucky enough this week to be invited to a very
traditional marriage ceremony in my host mother’s village. Her nephew
was recently engaged and my mom was generous enough to take me with
the family to watch the unveiling of the bride.
We traveled for about 45 minutes to the village to the family’s
house. The festivities actually began the night before, but I was
sleeping cozily in my bed so I don’t know what happened. I just know
that most of the family members had been there until really late and
started working early in the morning, preparing a feast for about 200
people. When the guests first walked in the house, they went to see
the bride. She was behind a white curtain in the corner of a room
with a white veil over her head and shoulders. She stood all day with
her hands together at her chest and her head bowed. The guests came
to congratulate her (I think- I’m not sure exactly what they said to
her) and she bowed to every new person. Then the guests feasted for a
couple of hours and made a lot of toasts to the family, particularly
the eldest person, in this case the grandmother.
After the feast we all went outside for the unveiling. Again, the
bride stood with her head bowed in front of the whole audience. This
time there was an MC of sorts. At all wedding ceremonies, they hire a
guy who plays the dombra (traditional guitar-like instrument) to
entertain the crowd. For this occasion, he read the names of the
guests and their families and joked about everyone. As he read a
name, the person or group went up and put money in the “bank”- mason
jars- and the bride bowed again. I am not sure who the money goes to-
I heard it was for the musician, but I saw the family take the money.
I don’t think it goes to the bride for her patience all day! Once
everyone had been called to donate money, (I had to donate money twice
for some reason and was the butt of many jokes I didn’t understand.
Always a pleasure!) the mother of the groom took off her veil. I
think at this point, the couple is actually married, though the groom
had virtually nothing to do with the ceremony. He was dressed in
jeans and had to be searched for to make an appearance in the end.
This is not to say he was uninterested, he is a nice guy; I think this
ceremony is simply more about the “welcoming” of the new woman into
the family.
In about one month, the couple will have another wedding ceremony
that closely resembles our wedding reception. We will all go to a big
wedding hall and sit at large tables with lots of food. Every group
at the wedding (hundreds of people will attend) will make a lengthy
toast to the bride and groom who sit at the front of the room. There
will be drinking and dancing, etc.
I don’t know want to give you any bad impressions of Kazakhstan or
seem culturally insensitive, but feel it necessary to give some
personal thoughts on the unveiling ceremony. I should say that I
don’t fully understand the customs behind this day, yet I know it
would be hard for me to bow in respect to hundreds of people I don’t
know. The display of respect in general here is much different than my
concept of respect.
Young children are taught from talking age to give respect to elders,
no matter the person or occasion. Unlike in English, there is a
formal verb tense and noun endings used when speaking to important
people or elders. Young wives in particular are expected to give
special respect to their new family members. (This account is of my
observations in the south of Kazakhstan. Traditions vary widely from
region to region and of course family to family.) Many new couples
live with the groom’s family for up to 4 years in the same house and
the wives must bow to the family members in the morning or when seeing
them for the first time in a while. This new bride even bowed to me
when I saw her on New Year’s Eve. I wanted to give her a big hug and
tell her that I am absolutely undeserving of such deference.
Growing up in the informal state of Colorado, in the relatively
informal country of the USA, and being relatively head-strong, I am
impressed and awed by people’s unconditional respect in this country.
They are far more patient and better behaved than I am. My parents
taught me, of course, to always respect my elders and show respect to
all people until they didn’t deserve your respect. That’s where my
patience ends and a Kazakh’s keeps persisting.
You can form your own opinions on the subject, as mine are not yet
solidified. I have months worth of observations left! My day to day
life is very similar to what my life was in the States, though less
hectic (sadly). This experience reminded me of the differences in my
two close-to-heart cultures. Don’t worry though- you won’t be
receiving an invitation to my unveiling any time soon!

Jennie

Looking Back

Looking back on what I have (sporadically) written in my journal, I am
amazed at how much the fear of the unknown can consume me. At least
three times during the month of October I wrote about how scared I was
to leave the familiar and leap once again out of my comfort zone. I
remember thinking on the morning I left my host family in Almaty, why
is it that I am always leaving one family or another, always moving
somewhere else, always causing myself this stress!? It’s irrational,
really. And I hate being irrational.

Yet, I often find myself in irrational situations with irrational
fears. My fears of the unknown and jumping into what I once called “a
frozen, foreign openness with no outside contact and no reprieve from
loneliness,” really hasn’t been that bad! I have adjusted to every
new experience surprisingly well and found Turkestan to be no
different. I felt immediately at home here and knew I could spend the
next two years comfortably here. Though I can’t say everything feels
familiar, it is certainly comfortable. My trip to the outhouse every
morning, layering on the clothes and putting on my (new, furry, and
heeled) boots for school, my ride with the neighbors, lunch with the
teachers, and dinner with the family still seem new and different. I
still have to plan most of my moves and certainly have to practice all
of my conversations in my head before actually speaking! I am okay
with all of this still feeling new- I don’t want my time here to go
too fast!

It seems so fast already, faster even then high school and college. I
find myself awake in the middle of the night wondering when in the
world I will get everything done if time goes this fast. I worry
about my students and if they are actually improving and I worry about
my teachers and if they will actually change their attitudes and
methods. It’s harder and harder to find my zen when I know that every
move is my own and this experience will be no more and no less than
what I make it. If I wait patiently for things to happen at school or
in my lessons, they just won’t happen. Though I lose my zen now and
then, I manage to keep my happiness. If I suspect a difficult day, I
put on my comfortable clothes, put on some perfume to feel clean, play
my happy music, and pack some extra coffee for school!

Some experiences have helped abate my worries and feel integrated into
the community. There are a lot of young teachers at my school that
really want to be friends with me and for this I am equally surprised
and grateful! They invite me places and teach me Kazakh words that my
tutor won’t teach me! They bring me snickers bars and help me set up
Skype at school so I can talk with my friends and family (Dima). I am
so so lucky for these guys. My most loyal new friend, Maral, invited
me to her brother’s wedding, then over to her house for dinner, then
to banya. I am getting to know her family they rejuvenate my mood
immensely!

The banya experience was certainly one to remember. Banya in many
countries in this part of the world is a public sauna/bath. Men and
women are separated and everyone bathes together completely naked.
There are various types of these banyas, some with big open rooms
where everyone is together and some with private rooms where just one
party bathes together. Maral, her mother, little sister, my
counterpart, and I went to a banya in the middle of the steppe about
30 minutes from Turkestan. The banya is a dome-like structure (called
the egg) built over a natural, underground hot spring. We all went
into this huge egg and then into our own room which consisted of 2
shower heads and an old bathtub. Basically, you seal up your room and
the hot water runs constantly, steaming everything up. You shower
like usual and sit in the bathtub of really hot water. The most
surprising thing about banya to me is the exfoliating process. You
take a course scrubber-thing and rub the same spot on your skin until
it starts to peel off. We have a surprising amount of dead and dirty
skin just hanging out! You can try this at home if you want- after
showering, when you are still a little damp, just rub your fingers
pretty hard on one spot for a while, until you feel your dead skin
peel right off! Good places usually include under the collar bones,
ankle bones, behind your knees, right by your armpit, etc. It hurts a
little, but just think of all that gross skin you don’t need any more!

My counterpart and Maral also thought we needed to drink some beer
while bathing, so we bought a few bottles to bring to the community
event! Imagine going to a public bath in America and bringing your
glass beer bottle in with you! Welcome to Kazakhstan. After our bath
and beer, we went to the middle of the egg to eat fish. Yep- fish in
the middle of the steppe in a country with very few sources of clean
water to be fished. It was surprisingly delicious, though. We picked
at this filleted, fried fish with our fingers until there was nothing
left, and climbed back into the car to make our way to Turkestan.

So- as it turns out, integrating and finding friends is as easy as
being willing to drive into the steppe, scrub off your skin completely
naked with strangers while drinking a beer in an egg and sharing a
fish afterwards. What was I worried about?!

Peace and Happy Holidays from the Beyond,
Jennie

Clarification

Салем!!! Hello!!!

I hear there is some confusion about what I am doing in Kazakhstan, so I want to clear that up!

I flew into Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, in August with 70 other Peace Corps trainees. We were split into about five different groups and sent to smaller villages (like suburbs) around Almaty for training. My group was located in a village called Taldybulak. There were 10 of us (in the beginning, 8 of us in the end) who were trained in teaching techniques, lesson planning, and cultural experiences. The 10 of us were split into two smaller groups for language training and our teaching practicum. I was with three other girls named Sarah, Clara, and Carrie. We studied Kazakh 3-5 hours per day in a teeny tiny classroom and also taught and observed lessons in School 34. We frequently saw the other “language group” of 4 students that studied across the street at School 35. The pictures you might have seen on Facebook are of training and my friends there.

In the beginning of November, we packed our bags and were sworn in as real Peace Corps Volunteers. We attended a conference and met the teachers and organizations that we would work with as volunteers. This is where I met my counterpart teacher Gulshat. From Almaty, Gulshat and I boarded a train to Turkestan where I have been since. I have been here a month now! Gulshat and Ardak are two local teachers in the school I work at. The school is called Daryn School. It is a school for gifted students who must pass a test to get into the school and subsequently pass monthly tests to make sure they are studying well enough. I teach 21 hours of lessons every week with Gulshat and Ardak (there is another teacher, but due to family problems, I haven’t taught with her yet). We lesson plan and give lessons together every day, soon we will hold topical clubs for the students I hope!

I will be in Turkestan for the entire 2 years and will stay at the same school. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the students at the school. When I am stressed and frustrated with the constant tests and interruptions and cultural differences and and and…. I go out to a common space for students and sit on the sofas. They are set back in this little cove that is surrounded on three sides by hanging fake flowers and vines. I sit there until my students come by and say, “Hi Miss Jennie! How are you?!” They make me so so happy. They are so open, so diverse, and so honest. These are the only students I have ever met that speak such truth. When they do poorly on their tests and I ask them why, they say, “Because I’m lazy and I don’t study enough.” They are taught from a very young age that they fail because of not working hard enough. I tell them that I don’t know a single student in the States that would blame their own laziness for failing. We often blame teachers, schedules, the test, etc. I have the utmost respect for these students and know they are anything but lazy.

The students study from 8:30 or 9am until 5pm from Monday to Saturday. I also work at the school during these hours and am known for carrying a huge bag of work home with me every day! I spend any free time I have during the day speaking to students. I am slowly learning their names, but am ashamed for not knowing more already. There are so many of them and their names are so difficult for me! Anyway- I could carry on forever about them. They make my day every single day. They light up life here!

I hope that the situation is a little clearer for everyone. If you have any questions or just any news- please email me! If any of you out there are interested in Peace Corps, definitely email me! Jennie.vader@gmail.com

And while we’re at it, here is my address. I have already received letters (from my mom and Peace Corps…..hint) at this address, so it is a-okay!

Jennie Vader

Abishev Aupkhan

Edige Batyr Street 36

South Kazakhstan Oblast, Turkestan 161200

Republic of KAZAKHSTAN

Working Hard to Make a Difference

Just as I thought the initial frustrations of being in Turkestan would
consume me, I had the best day at school. I have been met with many
of the frustrations that PCVs always encounter. I knew I would
encounter different teaching styles, different perceptions of being
prepared, different lesson plans, etc, but I couldn’t do anything to
prepare myself for these differences- who knows what you will find
once at site?
The three teachers I am working with all speak English very well, but
we are all concerned with how little the students can speak.
Everyone, even the students, is aware of this problem. However, a
young, single, energetic, new PC volunteer doesn’t always fit in with
the status quo of teachers in Kazakhstan. The teachers and I were
taught by drastically different techniques in completely different
worlds. I was also trained very differently than they were, in a
crash course of lesson plans, practicum, and basically learning a lot
of ways to make class fun! They were mostly taught grammar and give
lectures. Two of the three also have families and currently one’s
mother is very ill. You might be able to see where frustrations can
come from all sides!
I started actually teaching lessons on Friday the 19th of November.
As a prerequisite to teaching lessons, I must plan the lesson with the
teacher. This is very important to Peace Corps, and of course (for
all of you who even remotely know me!) planning is very important to
me! Finding time to plan is difficult, especially when the teachers
are used to mostly winging it using the textbook. I had to convince
them to meet at least two days before the lesson because it is very
hard to find fun activities and prepare them the night before the
lesson. I had to keep nagging the poor teachers to meet with me. We
had to plan at least 4 or 5 lessons in one or two sittings, which is
grueling. Usually we are planning after already giving 3 or 4 lessons
that day. Yesterday, I was pretty sure the two teachers I was working
with were about to call Peace Corps and ask them to take me back.
I was starting to get nervous about the situation. I didn’t want to
have to ask to meet every five minutes and was afraid that they would
start to hate me for it. Then…today my counterpart got to school a
solid 20 minutes before she usually does, told a friend she couldn’t
talk because she had to lesson plan, and we stayed at school to plan
until 6pm. She took on an additional lesson to tutor struggling
students and our lessons went really well today! The students actually
thanked us at the end for a “really interesting lesson.” I was the
second person at school today and Gulshat and I were the last ones
out. I left the house in the dark this morning and returned in the
dark, but it was definitely the pick-me-up I needed.
Of course, I am not naïve enough to imagine that everyday will feel
this good or be as successful. However, I think we will make progress
if all of us persist, remain motivated, and force each other to be
disciplined! (I sound like a damn inspirational tape people listen to
in their cars during traffic jams.) I can’t even imagine how tiring
this process will be, though. I hope we see results in the students so
that the teachers (and I!) are convinced that the extra work is worth
it! I am going to need to bring back some of that youthful energy
from years past and find a way to manage without my standard 8
(extremely large) cups of coffee.
Wish us luck! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Jennie

New Location!

I got to Turkestan on the morning of Sunday the 7th. My counterpart (CP), the teacher that is in charge of me for the next two years, and I met in Almaty at the Counterpart Conference that Peace Corps holds. We went to training sessions together to get to know each other and then got on the train to Turkestan together. My CP’s name is Gulshat and she is 29 years old. She has been teaching English at the gifted (Daryn) school for 8 years, since it opened.

Getting on the train was a really interesting experience. There were about 8 PCVs on the same train and each of us had an average of 4 REALLY heavy bags. The CPs also had their own bags and couldn’t help much, so some of us gave them to a porter right in front of the train station. Being Americans, we were all pretty leery of giving our bags to anyone; some PCVs kept their luggage, but some of us were strongly recommended by our CPs to put the bags on the cart. As soon as we gave our luggage to the porters they disappeared and we couldn’t find them! We wandered all over the train station, still with the heavy baggage of other PCVs, trying to find our train platform and our luggage. People were getting pretty frustrated at this point. We were relying on the CPs to help us find the way, but they were as lost as we were. We got across one set of tracks to our platform then spotted our bags with the porters on the other side of the tracks.

I think PCVs have the tendency to hope and act like our CPs know everything in this country and can carry out any action without flaws. We wanted them to snap their fingers and find our way because of course they knew what they were doing--they’re from Kazakhstan (but not Almaty…) It is funny, though, some of the things my CP asks me. She took me with her to buy an electric heater and kept saying, “Advise me…do you think it’s warm enough? Can I buy a heater with a stove on top so I can heat my room and tea at the same time?” I have no idea! Being an American doesn’t mean I know everything about electronic appliances! She also asked me one day if her dress was too short to speak with the director--whom I had met for about 2 minutes. I think some of these things are reciprocal questions, but they still leave me laughing.

My new host family is really nice and really wants to learn English. The father owns a van that people can rent to drive to a nearby city (I think) and my mom is a nurse. There are two daughters, one in 9th and one in 10th grade, that go to the Daryn school and there is another daughter in the 7th grade that goes to another school. I teach them basic words in English every night, but we have a long way to go!

Actually, the students in my school have a long way to go in general. They seem to be wicked smart at math and science and most of their school hours are spent in those classes. These types of schools all take tests at the end of the year and compete to be the best school in Kazakhstan. Supposedly, last year they were the TOP school in the country! There are, as we have in the States, consequences to being so test-oriented. Their gymnasium is filled with desks for taking tests and gym classes are non-existent. The students were amazed at the fact that we study art, music, leadership, and other subjects that don’t involve math or science. Their English scores are also high, and I looked through some written work they were doing. Their grammar is impressive, but they couldn’t speak any of the sentences I read for a million dollars. Their speaking level is about the same as mine in Kazakh (though I don’t think they would admit it!). They love telling me how much I don’t know in Kazakh. I really enjoy the students and have spent 2-3 hours everyday for the past few days just speaking with them. It is exhausting!

Turkestan isn’t the thriving metropolis that I pictured (even though I promised I wouldn’t picture anything). It is a pretty desolate place plopped in the dusty steppe. There is the large mausoleum, but it takes about 20 minutes to look at. The streets and the air are dirty. I feel quite at home here and think I can find some really good projects at this site! I have about 19 hours of teaching per week and we are hoping to open a yoga club, sports clubs, and maybe a drama club and debate club. We have also discussed some teacher trainings and gatherings for more English teachers to have an opportunity to speak English regularly. I will keep you all posted.

Jennie
N