RETREAT TO THE MOUNTAINS

We had this last week off from teaching to celebrate Thanksgiving, and the time was well-spent in a retreat area about four hours outside of Karaganda called Karkarlysk. All the other teachers from Kazakhstan and four others from Kyrgyzstan met us and we traveled to stay in a hotel and spend time relaxing, sharing, and recuperating from the first three months of teaching. We all had many stories to share about our different experiences, cultures, and friends we had made since first arriving in country at the beginning of September.

The retreat was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the chance to relax and catch up with many of the teachers that I had spent five weeks with during our initial training in Pasadena. The area we stayed in was beautiful and there were actually hills that could qualify as small mountains for us to look at while we were there! They also had trees and lots and lots of snow. On one day we took a hike in the snow and made it about half-way up the mountain overlooking the valley where the retreat center was located. It was a gorgeous sight to see and as I stood there I had a strange sensation because I didn’t exactly feel like I was in Kazakhstan at that point, but I also didn’t feel like I was in America either because it was like no place I had ever seen. I didn’t know where it felt like, but I knew that it was a beautiful scene and I was thankful for the creation and majesty of such a place in a land half-way around the world from my own home.

We spent most of Thursday morning preparing for the Thanksgiving meal. Most of the teachers who came brought something different to prepare and share with the rest of the group. We were so thankful that the kitchen staff at the hotel dining room allowed us to use their kitchen area to prepare our dinner, and it was a lot of fun to work with everyone else in preparing the meal. We had two big turkeys that we cooked in the oven and about three or four dozen rolls made from scratch. I even made corn bread all by myself…thanks Core Group for the Jiffy Mix!

When we finally sat down to eat, we had a long table with enough room for twenty people and more food than we could possibly eat in one sitting. We sang the hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth” before eating and gave thanks for the food. During the meal we mixed the Russian tradition of giving toasts with our own family Thanksgiving traditions of sharing what we were thankful for. At random intervals, someone would stand up from the table and propose a thanksgiving toast to the rest of the group by sharing how they had been blessed since coming to Kazakhstan.

After the meal, I was completely stuffed and I could hardly move for the rest of the day. I didn’t eat any dinner, but spent most of the evening playing games and talking with some of the other teachers. We had a really good day of thanksgiving and even though I missed all of you back home, I was very glad to be in good fellowship with other teachers on this special day.

On the last day of the retreat, we had a good snowfall and while the snow was pouring down at a sideward angle, I managed to get outside for a final walk before we had to eat lunch. I went out with a few other teachers to a lake that was nearby our resort. This was a good size lake and it had completely frozen over. We didn’t hesitate to walk out onto the ice and wander around. I had the awesome experience of wiping away the layer of snow covering the lake and viewing the frozen lake and the surface below the ice. Soon after that I began clear a long, narrow, path of snow away and create a sort of ice-slide on right there on the lake! Feeling like I was playing in Little League again, I ran back away from the path I had made and took a running start. The others watched as I dove down head-first on the ice-slide and went flying about fifteen feet on the surface of the frozen lake. I felt like a kid again but at the same time it felt really strange to be sliding around on the top of a frozen lake. What would my parents say if they found out? They don’t have to worry though…it wasn’t dangerous at all because the lake had been frozen solid for quite some time.

During our bus ride home to Karaganda we hit a major cold front that really blew us away. The bus began to become really cold at about the half-way point of the trip and it wasn’t long before I found myself putting on my beanie and jacket while I was still sitting in the bus. The windows on the bus had completely frosted over and my feet really began to get cold. We had one rest stop and I ran out of the bus to take the opportunity to use the restroom. Of course this rest stop was in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t exactly a modern restroom available. As I ran (it was cold so I needed to run) toward the back of the local market that was located at this stop, I saw that some of the other teachers were headed for the only available restroom in the area…an old outhouse. As I stood there with three other teachers waiting for my turn, I soon realized that it was much, much colder than when we had left our hotel earlier that afternoon. The clouds had lifted and the sky was clear which removed the possibility of a protective covering of clouds to keep the temperatures a bit warmer. As I stood there and the hair in my nostrils began to freeze up, I asked one teacher from North Dakota if she thought it was cold. When she said “Yes, it’s cold” then I knew that it must be cold! I soon found out later that the temperatures were somewhere in the -10 Fo range…and that was without the wind. Woo whee!! It did feel like living in North Dakota all over again! It was quite chilly! We got back to Karaganda and found a taxi as soon as possible to take us back to our flats. I was so happy to get home and warm up my feet which had been stinging in pain from the cold for the last hour. Even with my “winter shoes” on and two pairs of warm socks, it seemed that the four hour bus ride with very little heat was enough to make anyone cold.



FROZEN ASTANA TRIP ON THE WEEKEND

After arriving back home from the retreat, Karl and I quickly packed up again and headed up to the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana. We took the early morning train with two other teachers to visit their place and spend some time walking around the city.

We took the 7:20 electric train from the train station and rested during the three hour train ride up north. The price of a ticket was 400 tenge (aprox. $3.00) and I thought it was a pretty good deal. We arrived to very cold weather in the capital but we were still determined to spend time walking around the city and viewing the sights. We did have full days worth of walking, but it was so cold that we couldn’t walk around outside for more than 30 minutes at a time. We soon found ourselves just looking for a grocery store to go into just so we could warm up again! Here we were, a few inconspicuous Americans walking into random grocery stores downtown and pretending we wanted to buy food when all we really wanted to do was warm up again. We eventually made it to all the places we had wanted to visit and then called it a day.

On Sunday we attempted to get a ride back Karaganda in a marshrutka because we thought it was the quickest and cheapest way of doing things. We walked over to the train and bus station to find a driver who was preparing to leave for our city. Usually what happens is you go up to someone and ask if they have space in their van, and if they do, you pay them and get inside and sit down until they have completely filled up all their seats. We expected to pay about 500 tenge for a ticket, but unfortunately we did not have Russian translator to help us out and the drivers soon figured out that we were a couple of confused Americans trying to get back to our city. Once they figured that out, they wouldn’t give us a ticket for less than 1000 tenge. We refused and even when one guy wanted to give us a seat for 700 tenge, we declined and decided to try our hand at buying a regular bus ticket inside the bus station. After some confusion and a lot of broken Russian phrases, we managed to obtain two bus tickets heading back home.

We grabbed our bags and ran back outside to get in line for the bus. It was one of those big tour buses and it was German-made so it was pretty nice. After finding our seats, we sat down and got ready for the three and a half hour ride home. The ride wasn’t bad because there was heat and that was really nice because my feet had again been getting cold from standing outside and bartering with the other drivers. The ride was going well until the lady in front of me put back her seat and took up about half of my leg space at the same time. She was sleepy at the moment and maybe a little forgetful later on so she decided she would keep her seat back for the entire trip. To add to that little predicament, the bus driver stopped about half way through the trip to pick up some “extra” passengers even though we had already filled up all the seats on the bus! To my dismay, there were about 15 more people who sauntered up into the bus and just stood in the aisle of the bus for the rest of the way. So not only did I lose half my leg space, but now I had three guys standing next to me in the aisle who continually rested their arms and hands right in front of my face for the rest of the trip because they had no where to sit down. I knew this was normal though because the transportation drivers are always looking for ways to cram as many people as possible onto a transport vehicle. It is not uncommon to see 18 or 19 people crammed into a 10 seat marshrutka going through town. It’s not exactly the safest condition for driving around town, and of course nobody wears a seatbelt because there aren’t any on these bus-vans.

But we made it back safely and I was happy to be “home”…or at least be back in a city in which I was familiar with. It was a great trip and a nice time to relax and have a break from the busy schedule. Now it’s time to get back into the swing of things, and I am looking forward to seeing the students again in class during this coming week. I can’t believe Christmas is only a month away. Everything is going by so fast!


- posted by Joel @ 7:06 AM

 
THANKSGIVING BREAK

We have been graciously given an entire week off from teaching and an opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving together with all the other ESI teachers here in Karaganda as well as four more teachers from Kyrgyzstan. We’ll be traveling outside of Karaganda for a three-day retreat to relax and enjoy some fellowship together. I am looking forward to the chance to relax and recuperate from the busy schedule we’ve had since arriving in Karaganda at the end of August. After the retreat, Karl and I will be heading up to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, for the weekend to visit and spend some time with two other teachers in the city.

GOAL!!

Friday night I was invited out by one of my students to play soccer with some of his friends in an indoor gym. I was excited about the opportunity to play my first childhood sport again with a bunch of guys who spoke mostly Russian. I didn’t realize how nervous I would get until I came to they gym and found that there were nine other guys I didn’t know who were there to play soccer. I thought to myself, “What have I gotten myself into?” If I’m not careful, I’m going to prove to them once and for all that Americans don’t know much about how to play soccer as compared to the rest of the world.

The gym was the classic Soviet style building on the inside. I observed dimly lit lights, peeling paint on the wall and felt a chill in the air that caused my muscles to tighten up. The gym where we played ball had a floor made of thin wooden planks that were cracking and peeling from years of neglect. Slide tackling isn’t usually allowed in indoor soccer, but I saw that even falling down on this floor would cause some major splinters that I did not want to deal with. There were basketball hoops located in the gym, and at each end of the court stood two half-size regulation goals for playing soccer. These goals were old, but had strong netting that had stood up to a lot of shots in time past. Along the lower part of the walls ran the heating pipes and they stood about a foot from the ground. Playing the game with those along the wall provided another defender who kept trying to steal the ball from us whenever we got to close. It made me laugh when I would see the ball get stuck underneath those pipes because I saw that it was just a part of the game that these guys had grown used to playing. The walls were protected and surrounded by thick netting that you might see at a circus or baseball game. There were windows at the top of the walls that were not well insulated and I figured that this was where most of the cold air was entering into the gym. It was quite the cultural experience for me as I warmed up to play one of my favorite childhood games.

Playing soccer with these guys was a lot of fun! Some of them were really good, others were players of average skill, but all were there to have fun and enjoy a time of exercise and fellowship with friends. I hadn’t played an organized game of soccer like that in quite some time, so my skills were a little rusty, but after I had warmed up I began to become more comfortable playing with them and really had a good time. We played for about an hour and a half and during that time, I took a pretty good beating from some hard shots by the other team. No one wore shin guards or protective gear, but we were pretty careful about how we played. It was up to each individual to protect himself from hard shots coming from the other team.

Two soccer related words of interest are the words for corner kick and goal keeper. I learned that night that the word for corner was pronounced “oogle” in Russian…just like Google, but without the “G” sound. It was easy for me to remember and I found myself saying it along with everyone else whenever a corner kick was required. The second word is pretty funny and I actually learned about this word a while back from someone else. If you ever go to play sports with Russian-speaking individuals and the game requires a goal keeper, don’t tell them, “I want to play goalie!” Apparently the word for goalie in Russian means “naked” and it sounds just about the same. I heard about a friend from last year who was going to play outdoor soccer with her students and she yelled out in Russian “Ya hachoo egrat goalie” which translated means, “I want to play naked!” As you can see, this could be quite an embarrassing cultural moment for anyone.

Overall I had a great time playing soccer that night and I even scored two goals, so my American reputation as a bad soccer player was soon lessened with the other guys I played with. My friend who brought me said that I played well and I was glad I could be there with him and spend some time playing the world’s most popular game with a bunch of guys who speak a language I don’t understand. It proved that a popular sport such as this can bring together anyone to play whether they can communicate with each other or not. I hope to go back again on another night and continue to get to know my student and the friends that he spends time with.



- posted by Joel @ 9:56 PM

 
ENGLISH CLUB ADVENTURES

Last Sunday we had English Club again, and it was great to see so many come out to the club even though the weather was quite chilly. I believe it was probably between zero and ten degrees F out there that afternoon. Again we had about 30 students and this week we talked about the topic of “Paradise” and what your idea of the perfect place to live might be. So it was a good opportunity to share the story of the “first Paradise” in the beginning. There are many good idioms to use in this story and the students learned what it meant to “start from scratch” to have something appear “out of thin air” and to live somewhere that was “heaven on earth”. All through the story we stopped and had small group discussions about “how the earth was created” and what would paradise be like for you if you could live anywhere. We had a lot of good discussion and hope to see the students again next week


PLEASE KEEP SNOWING!

We’ve had probably three inches of snow by now in the last week, but yesterday it stopped and the clouds all cleared away bringing in clear skies and a brand new element to deal with…colder temperatures! The cloud cover and the snow normally ensures that the temperatures will not be lower than the mid 20s F. On the bright side the snow is beautiful and covers the ice and keeps the temperatures higher. On the other hand, the snow can cause problems with driving, walking, and building up opportunities for icy conditions. But when it’s not snowing and the skies are clear, it’s even worse because it’s so cold.

For example last night we had clear skies and after teaching we went to a restaurant to meet some friends. Well it must have been cold because when we left the class one of the students was wearing a scarf to cover his neck, and he said that if he was wearing a scarf, then it must be cold. I agreed with him because it was the first night I could feel a slight chill in my lungs whenever I inhaled. As we left the restaurant about 10pm to look for a taxi, the temperature had dropped below zero Fo. We had to find a taxi because the buses and vans had stopped running at that point, so my face was quite numb by the time we got into the cab for the ride back home across town. Taxi rides are pretty convenient even if they are more expensive than riding the bus. It cost us 350 tenge (about three dollars) compared with 20 tenge (15 cents) for a bus ride for the ride home that night, but I had no problem with paying for that ride!

So now it’s a dilemma…hope for the snow and more icy conditions, or try to survive the colder temperatures and freezing lungs. I’m not sure which I like better but now I feel that living in 95 degree summer temperatures in Sacramento doesn’t seem so bad at all! Even if it is nice to have an actual change of seasons here in KZ, I definitely prefer living in hot temperatures as compared to cold temperatures.
- posted by Joel @ 6:53 AM

 
IT'S NOT INTERESTING!!

One of the student's favorite phrases they like to use when they don't like something or they are bored is, "It's not interesting." They say it correctly, but sometimes it just doesn't fit the situation in which they are trying to use it in.

I nearly had a riot in class the other night with a spelling game I created for the students to play as a way to review for the test. We were using vocabulary words and having a contest to see who could spell them the fastest and the most accurately. Three teams each had to select a student for each round to sit at the front of the class (each student at a separate desk) and write down the vocabulary word I spoke to them on a blank piece of paper. The student who finished first had to raise his/her "writing" hand and then show me that the word was spelled correctly.

The excitement came when either one group would think that their team member had finished first, but I pointed to a different team instead (the teams were at the back of the room and didn't have the best angle). It wasn't long before I was getting accused of favoritism because I wasn't acknowledging certain teams even though they hadn't finished first. Then came a particularly talkative and animated young lady who wrote out her word correctly, but raised the wrong hand (she raised the left hand before finishing writing with the right hand). Even though she had finished first, I couldn't call on her since she had raised the wrong hand, and another group ended up winning the round. A round later, another young lady from the same group finished first also, but didn't cross her "T" in the word which allowed her to finish quicker (accuracy was required), so I couldn't give her the point. Soon I had half the class excited and animated about the game. The girl who raised the wrong hand was shouting from her group and saying "It's not interesting!" and "I will cry!" Of course she felt it was unfair, and I had to ask her, "If it's not interesting, then why is half the class yelling at me right now." :) I had to smile about the whole thing because the students got so excited, but the teams that weren't doing so well wanted to quit because they thought I wasn't being fair. I tried, but oh well that's why I will never be an umpire for a little league baseball game I guess. I would be afraid of getting attacked by disgruntled parents who felt that I cost their kid's team the entire game.

So next time you're upset about something, or don't like the way your day is going just shout out a nice, big, "It's not interesting!" and you'll feel a lot better. That's what I thought this morning when I saw the temperature was -5 Farenheight at 6am! :)


SECOND TEST GIVEN OUT

I spent several hours writing my second test for my two classes last week. It's a challenging experience to try and take a months worth of information and compile it into a one hour test that is supposed to demonstrate how much the students have learned and remembered. I enjoyed writing this test a little bit more than last time, and I even got to have some fun writing out a short story with missing vocabulary words for the students to answer. I wrote a nice little one about a certain B. Gates (he got in an argument with his "board or directors" and another about a Mr. McDonald (he had a bottleneck on the beef production line). They were a little humorous, and I noticed some of the students smiling during the test. Of course they both related to business and used the vocabulary words we had learned in class over the past month. We focused on three main topics during the last month: production, factory layout, and the three legal types of organizations (Sole Prop, Partnership, Corp). Now the students probably know more than they ever wanted to know about the different methods of organizing an assembly line so it will run efficiently. On the plus side, they all know what the words "intermittent" and "asset" and "bottleneck" means now. Now my real work begins in grading the thirty test papers over the weekend. We'll see how they did...

- posted by Joel @ 7:08 AM

 
SLIPPERY SITUATIONS

I’ve never seen a place ice over so fast in my life. It did get icy in North Dakota, but I don’t remember it being like this. It’s not the roads that are so bad (they are salted to keep the ice down), it’s the walkways and sidewalks that are treacherous. After two days of snow, the ice on the sidewalks is incredible. I was walking to school yesterday and I found myself crossing over a section of sidewalk (maybe about 300 feet) that was covered with a complete layer of ice. Needless to say my, dress shoes didn’t give me much traction. At that point, I had the strangest flashback to living and Las Vegas as a child and diving on the “Slip ‘N Slide” in my front yard. Of course in Vegas it was probably in the high 90s and I was wearing my swimming trunks, but now I was walking on a natural “Slippery Slide” in 25 degree weather carrying a heavy bag, and trying to remember how I played broomball (a game using shoes on an ice rink) without falling. And then I remembered, I never did play broomball without falling, and this was even more slippery than an ice rink!

I’ll end this section with one of those “You know it’s (__________) when…..” Well I’ll insert the word “icy on the sidewalk” and say this…

"You know it’s icy on the sidewalk when you see a mother pulling her young child on a sled with metal runners down an asphalt sidewalk in the middle of the city!"

Yes believe it or not, I saw that exact scene yesterday, and I thought that they don’t really need to have hills or mountains here (which they have none of) if they can pull each other down the sidewalk on sleds.


ARGH! CELL PHONES!

Well as many of you know, I’m not too fond of cell phones. Some people like to tell me that I’ll give in one day and buy one, but I’m proud to say that I’m still resisting! I don’t like to be tied down on a leash by those electronic devices that allow a person to be found anywhere.

I thought that leaving the college scene and moving halfway around the world would separate me for a time from those annoying, squealing device but I was wrong. Many people here actually have cell phones too (it’s not too expensive either) and I am forced to have a rule in class that the students must turn off their cell phones when class begins. I actually had one student try answering their cell phone and talking to their friend during class! I think that this is the reason why I don’t like cell phones. Sometimes people are very inconsiderate about how they use them around others! I believe it’s only a matter of time before they have to introduce an elective course in college about “cell phone use and etiquette. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been distracted in the library by someone who decides to answer their cell phone and then spend thirty seconds whispering to their friend about how they can’t talk out loud because they are in the library…of course they end up talking loudly anyway just to get their friend to understand what is going on and then everyone else around them ends up hearing everything they just said.

I’m sure now that I’m writing all this that I’ll probably end up with a cell phone of my own in a year or so because I finally found it convenient enough to use. But for now… cell phones are on my “bad list”, and if anyone asks, I just say that I can think of many better ways to spend $500 dollars a year back home. So if you need to get a hold of me, just leave a message at the beep….or at least until next June, leave a message in my Yahoo inbox. :)

- posted by Joel @ 7:24 AM

 
THE SNOW COMITH!

Well I woke up this morning to a slightly shocking site outside my window. I didn't actually notice it for about two hours, but once I looked outside, I saw that the ground was covered in snow. Yes, we have had our first major snow day of the year and it was a pretty good one. It snowed for most of the morning all the way into the afternoon. By the end of the day, we had a good layer of snow on the ground. Unfortunately the snow was quickly packed down by cars and pedestrian traffic, and now most of the ground is icy. As I was walking home last night I found it difficult to walk and I realized that I better get used to keeping my head down when I walk to make sure that I don't wipe out on the pavement. And this leads me to my next cultural observation about Central Asia...


DON'T WALK AT ME LIKE THAT!

Some natives here say that they can tell an American by the way he walks. We Americans like to walk with our head up, looking all around, and of course always wearing a ridiculous smile on our face for no apparent reason. At least that is their perception of us. I don't completely agree because I used to walk by plenty of students on the bike path on my way to school who wouldn't even give me the time of day. So I don't believe that all Americans walk around wearing silly grin on their face all the time. We only do that when we're in a foreign country and we don't have any idea where we are going or what we are doing. It's our way of saying, "Hey, I don't know what's going on! Pay attention to me!"

Anyway, I have noticed that the people here do tend to walk a lot with a stern look, a lowered gaze, and a compact stride. People tend to stick to themselves in the street, but at the same time they are still aware of what is going on around them. Yesterday I think I figured out the reason for why they walk with their eyes to the ground so often... it's the weather.

You may ask, "What in the world does the weather have to do with your ability to smile at strangers you meet on the street or to walk with your head up in the air?" :) Well, as I was walking to the school yesterday, I spent most of my time staring at the ground and trying to avoid the icy spots and the bad potholes in the sidewalk...and it certainly kept me from smiling. I noticed that if I spent too much time looking up, I was liable to lose my feet and go flying. So my theory is that the people here get so used to watching the ground when they walk in the winter that they forget when the ice melts in the summer its okay to look around again and not worry about falling. So people here just walk like that all the time out of habit because the weather conditions force them to do so. Of course, it's not totally accurate, but at least it gives me a sense of security in having that cultural issue answered in my own mind.


- posted by Joel @ 10:26 PM

 
AMERICAN POLITICAL NEWS IN KZ

Well for all of you back there, the news about California’s newest elected governor is probably already getting old. Arnold this, Arnold that, and now he will take office there. Of course it’s only in California that Hollywood movie star from Austria whose most famous line is in Spanish, and who claims to be a Republican but is married to a Kennedy can be elected the governor of a state with one of the five largest economies in the world. What will be next? Martin Sheen for mayor of L.A.?

You might be surprised to hear that the news about Mr. Schwarzenegger is actually well-known over here too. The second night after he was elected, I got in a marshruka to ride back to my apartment, and one Kazakh man figured out I was American and started talking to me. I told him that I was from California, and as soon as I said that, he got all excited and started talking way to fast for me to understand. I got him to slow down a bit and I heard him mention something about governor and Schwarzenegger in the same sentence. I laughed and said “Yes, he is our governor now.” The man seemed quite amused by the situation of my state of residence. I was amused as well that people here knew about it. Later that week a man who regularly attends English Club came in and greeted me. We chatted for a minute and then he also mentioned about Mr. Schwarzenegger becoming the governor. He also was amused by it and we had a good laugh about it.

Over here, Bill Clinton is a much more popular man than our current president. Apparently, they think that having an affair with an intern is some sort of exciting thing to do, and that the media should stay out of the private lives of politicians (funny how they enjoy hearing so much about our president from the media though). Most people I have talked to see nothing wrong with what Mr. Clinton did (they don’t seem to remember that he lied to the grand jury), and most of them think he was a good president thanks to the so-called foreign policy and economic contributions he gave while in office. Does any president really have such an impact on the economy? I thought Alan Greenspan was the most powerful man in America. :) Lower those interest rates!



- posted by Joel @ 6:33 AM

 
PROOF AGAIN OF A SMALL WORLD

So I was sitting eating lunch after church on Sunday with the several families and one of them, an American family, had brought a friend with them who was visiting from California for a week. The two of us got to talking and I found out that he was from Southern California. I told him I was from Sacramento but originally from SoCal. He said, “Oh yeah, where in Southern California are you from?” I told him that I was from the San Bernardino area (I don’t usually say my real home town because nobody knows where that is), and then I also mentioned that it was near Redlands. To my surprise he said, “Really? I’m living very close to there. Do you know where Forest Falls is?” My ears perked up immediately and I blurted out, “That’s where I was born!”

Yes, way back in 1980, (seems long ago to me at least) I was born in Forest Falls, California where my dad was a pastor of a church in the area. To make the story even more interesting, I found out that this man is attending that very same church that my father was the pastor at in 1980! And here we were standing in Karaganda, Kazakhstan talking to each other about what the elevation of my home was in Forest Falls. I told him 4000-5000 feet, but I wasn’t sure (I was very young, and I just remember the mice running through our house at night). Anyway, I couldn’t believe it and I was chuckling the rest of the day and being reminded once again how small of a world it is and how we are connected in so many ways.

Second Proof…

The other day on the bus, I saw a man standing outside at the bus stop wearing a San Jose Sharks hat, my favorite hockey team! He definitely was not American, so I was very proud to see that there are other fans here in Kazakhstan even. Of course the Sharks’ goalie was born in Kazakhstan, so that may be one reason why the team is known here.

Again, my whole point is, it’s still a small world, even when I’m in the middle KZ

- posted by Joel @ 6:43 AM

 
NOVEMBER ALREADY?

Time is passing so quickly! We adjusted our clocks for daylight savings time last week and now the days are ending much quicker which means that it gets colder earlier in the evening now. When we leave our classrooms in the evening to head for the bus stop, the nighttime has pretty much set in.

Halloween has come and gone and I didn’t even see one person dressed in a costume. They do celebrate the holiday here, but not with as much passion as our fellow Americans back home.

Thanksgiving feels like it’s just around the corner. All the teachers here have a week’s break and we will be getting together with all the other teachers in Kazakhstan and four others from Kyrgyzstan who will meet us in Karaganda for the trip. We will all be heading out of town on a retreat for three days. I heard that there’s actually a forest out here somewhere two hundred kilometers east of Karaganda (I find it hard to believe when we’re in the middle of the steppe), and that it’s supposed to be quite beautiful in the winter.


PREPARING FOR THE WINTER WINDS

I heard that waiting for the bus in the winter is one of the worst things about living here because of the strong winds that pelt you with icy cold temperatures. I’m hanging on to those North Dakota memories with a smirk and smile and trying to stay upbeat about the fact that I survived a year and a half there, so I hope that it’ll be just the same here. Again looking on the bright side of things…at least I won’t have to scrape the windows of my car every morning when I leave for school or plug my car into an electrical outlet every night when I come home. The bus drivers get to do that for me, and all for only 20 tenge! (about 15 cents) It’s a great deal if I do say so myself.

I remember my first winter living in North Dakota. I used to miscalculate how long it would take to warm up the car and defrost the windows when it was below zero in the morning. I had one particular experience when I was going to be late for class and my car hadn’t warmed up enough to defrost the windows, so I decided to take off anyway and drive while looking out the small little space at the bottom of my window that the heat was blowing on and clearing up. I remember coming to a four-way stop sign and not being able to see out my left or right windows to know when I could turn left. So like a foolish Californian, I rolled down my window and stuck out my head to make sure there was no other cars going…and then I pulled out into the intersection. Boy did I get a couple of looks from the locals! It only took that one experience for me to make an extra effort to get up a little earlier and defrost the windows properly before leaving in the morning. I’m sure I’ll have many interesting “winter” experiences when the snow and ice do arrive, so you can all look forward to hearing about how I introduce myself to the Karaganda winter as a California native.


TEACHING CONTINUES

Ah, the teaching life continues to fly by. Last week I actually had a difficult time getting myself interested for teaching the material I was presenting to the students. We were talking about factory operations and production in business. I have to admit that Operations Management was one of my least favorite subjects at CSUS (sorry Professor Tully, you were a good lecturer!), and it still is just because it’s just not something I find very interesting. But that’s just my own opinion, and I did my best to teach it, but I don’t think my students found it so interesting either. Fortunately, they are still learning new vocabulary words all the time and continuing to practice their English speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills whether it’s a subject they like or not. So I take comfort in the fact that they are learning and improving even in a less-than-interesting topic of business (again that’s only my opinion).

The students are great to get to know, and I’m enjoying learning more about their lives each day. Reading their assigned journals entries has been a great way to peek into the life of an individual who has lived here for a long time and knows just what the culture is like in such a diverse and complex society such as Karaganda.
- posted by Joel @ 6:38 AM

 
HALLOWEEN (UH, I MEAN HARVEST) CELEBRATION

Well, several of my students asked if I would talk about Halloween when it came around at the end of October. I figured since I was teaching a business class, I wouldn’t broach the subject (unless it was regarding how much profit the US makes on selling candy and costumes), but I decided that this would be a good excuse to invite all the students over to my flat for a time of fellowship, games, and of course….candy! Normally I’m not a big Halloween celebrator because I know of it’s past, so I did not allow costumes or alcohol, but I did have each of them bring a snack, and we planned to play some games and watch a movie. I took this opportunity to share with them about the origins of Halloween. I got some info through e-mail and did a lot of research on the internet and found out more about (I already knew a lot) how Halloween was started back about 300 B.C. by the Celtic Druids who believed that November 1st was the day of the dead because the night was coming quicker, the leaves were dying, and the days were getting colder. As a result, they used to sacrifice food, animals, and sometimes humans to Samhain, the god of death. The history is really quite evil and disturbing, and most of our customs today still connect right back to those times. It was a learning experience for me as well as for the students. We had a great time on both nights, and it was fun again to hang out with the students outside of class and get to know them a little better. They brought a lot of food and we played games and talked and watched a movie. The students really enjoy playing games like UNO, Jenga, Mafia, and telephone pictionary (props to IV small group for that game!).

We all had a good time that night, and it was quite exciting to try and help them all find my flat. Since I live on the outskirts of town, many students had difficulty finding the place. One funny situation occurred on the when two of my students called up and said they were lost and waiting at the gas station right by my bus stop (about a five minute walk away). Another student and I raced out to his car and drove out to pick them up. They did not know we were coming in a car, so we came down the road and made a quick U-turn in the intersection and pulled up on the side of the road where these two girls were standing. In my best southern accent, I asked if “You two girls are lookin for a ride somewhere?” The looks on their faces were pretty funny! They were first scared because this strange car was stopping right by them, and then they were confused because the guy in the car was speaking to them in English (with a southern accent), and not Russian, and finally they were shocked when they realized that “Mr. Kersey” (or maybe it is Mr. Crazy) had just scared them to death with his pick-up line! We all laughed about it all the way back to my flat, and we were all very happy to have made it safely.

Here in Karaganda, just like in any major city, it really isn’t safe for people (especially girls) too be out at night by themselves waiting for a bus, car, or whatever. A really neat thing that Karl and I have noticed about the culture here is that people will look out for each other even if they don’t know the other person very well. If someone needs to go to the bus stop and wait after dark, others will volunteer to go out and wait with them even if they don’t know them very well. Everyone here understands the danger and they try to take care of their own in that way. And you don’t even have to know someone very well to be helped out in that way. (it’s more to do with association than anything) I was told by one person that if a girl is lost at night looking for her or someone else’s apartment, she should just find some older ladies walking together and start following them around because they would understand what was wrong and make sure she made it back to where she was going or at least get her to safety. The biggest danger here is attacks from drunks or gangs, two of which I haven’t seen much of yet, but I know they are out there, so it always pays to be cautious.

ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN…AND BACK ON AGAIN

Just when I thought I could start going to bed with only one layer of clothes on (instead of three), I woke up the other morning to the strange sound of running water in our piping system. Here in our apartments, we have metal pipes running up from the floor from the apartment below us to the ceiling and up to the apartment above us. Each room is the same and connected to those pipes is a metal radiator that supplies our heat for the winter. Once the heat comes on, it cannot be controlled and it continues to radiate throughout the winter. That’s fine with me of course because I’d rather have heat and not control it than have no heat at all. So back to my story…this morning I woke up and heard water coming through the pipes. I placed my hand on the pipe and felt the vibration from the water flowing through and down to the apartment below. I thought that this could not be a good thing and sure enough I was right. I felt the radiator and found that there was no heat coming out! We had lost it again!

My first thought was that I was having all my students over the next night for a party and that my flat would be freezing cold for them. That wouldn’t be too fun…I guess I would have to make them sing “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands” like I did in class one time when we had no heat and everyone was shivering, but that’s another story entirely. Anyway, we waited until the next day and soon found that the heat was starting to come back on. I was so happy! I don’t know what the rushing water through the pipes was all about, but I was just glad the heat was working again. The temperatures are regularly in the 30s and 40s during the day. We haven’t completely figured out how the heat works around here, but we think it’s a steam system that keeps the heat coming through all the pipes in the city.

Looking on the bright side of things…I related the heating issue to my students when they came over the other night and one of them said, “Well that’s not so bad as your water going off for a week, or your electricity not working for three days”, and another student chimed in, “Or if you have no heat, water or electricity all at the same time!” It sounded like they were speaking from experience, and suddenly I was glad that I had a bunch of “glass half-full” type of students with me to keep me thankful for what I’ve got…because I certainly do have three layers of clothes and a wool blanket to cover myself in case the heat ever does go off again.


- posted by Joel @ 10:59 PM