Good Grief

The Kaz 19’s had their Mid Service Training last week, which was a good time to catch up and give each other inspiration and encouragement for our last year here. I returned home to find that in my short time gone, my host grandmother had passed away.

Her death should not have been such a shock to me. She’d been increasingly ill since the summer, and for the past month, my host mother and her relatives had been trading off sleeping with her at night.

In the days that followed my return, my host brothers were more subdued (no wrestling matches, no dance parties), and one of them took to sleeping during the day and staying awake all night. He said he couldn’t explain why, he just couldn’t sleep at night. So we continued with our routine, hoping for something to shake us out of our drone-like state.

Before I’d learned of her death, I got home to an empty house. I found that the cat had pooped in a corner of my room. Now, you’re probably going to judge me a bit, and I’m going to have to deal with that, but I didn’t clean that poop for a couple days. Why? Because a) I don’t know where they keep the cleaning stuff. Every time I ask “where is the soap for _____?” as long as it isn’t laundry detergent, my host parents make my brothers clean it. b) I didn’t want to make anyone clean that while they were mourning their grandmother. So I kept silent. But after the second night, my younger brother came into my room and saw that Ricky (the cat) had left me a “present”. He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. He ran to tell Maksat, who also laughed, and for the first time in a few days, we all laughed together. It’s nice to get a bit of the joy back. Then he cleaned it up. I tried to say, if they’d just show me what I should use I could do it…

They kept telling me it’s because “we’re without mother” so the cat was left inside. She hadn’t been home at all, mourning rituals require that she stay at her mother’s all week. “Without mother” nothing happens smoothly. “Without mother” we didn’t light the pichka the way we should. “Without mother” we forgot to eat meals. “Without mother… things are bad.” And it became our little joke, that without our mother at home we were just going to have to accept that our life would be sub-par.

She returned for one night to see us, and she sat down and told me the details of her mother’s passing. She explained that apa had died in the first day of Eid-al-Adha, which many people said was a blessed day to die. She seemed to have aged 10 years in one week. I didn’t realize how much energy it would take out of her. Her eyes were tired, and her voice frail. She told me that for the next 40 days, she would be gone a lot. “I will be preparing her house, taking care of things. Remembering her… Mourning her… Without mother… things are bad.” And then she began to cry.

I’ve had the misfortune to be abroad when some important people in my life have died, and I didn’t realize until that moment that I hadn’t really grieved those deaths as freely as I might have liked. When you’re on the other side of the world, and you start crying because your grandmother is dying; there is no one else around you who knows her, no one else to sympathize. A girl in my gym class in Belgium told me “Yeah, well. That’s life.” And it’s true, but that wasn’t exactly what I needed to hear. And when you have no visual proof that the person is gone, you can sort of push it aside in your head. Not denial, really, just forgetting. And now here I am, in a foreign country where I don’t know the rituals, I don’t know how to console someone. But all the evidence is there. There is a really nice old woman who let me drink chai with her and use her banya, and I will never get to listen to her give me advice again. There is a family that I live with in a pain I’ve never experienced with my real family because I’ve been absent for it. And although she wasn’t my real grandmother and I only knew her a year, I get to grieve in a way that helps me remember and grieve all those I’ve not been able to. Although it is sad, I am grateful I got to be here for this time.

And so we cried a bit, knowing that pain crosses all cultural boundaries, death affects everyone, and that without that person you’ve lost, your life is going to be sub-par. For a while, at least, without them… things are bad.

Little Piggies, a discussion with my 7a class

Miss Jessica! What year were you born in?

Yes, but what year? Cow? Mouse? Dog?

Pig?! PIG!! WE are too! We are all pigs! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!

I don't think they've been more excited about anything else I've ever told them.

The Legend of Zelda and other embarrassing things

It turns out we do get a lot of free time in the Peace Corps, especially on school breaks. So Volunteers wind up doing really stupid things to keep themselves entertained. What sort of things you ask? Like, watching special features on dvds, including the second disk that comes with the new version of Aladdin. And I mean all of it, the music videos for "Proud of your boy" with Clay Aiken and "A whole new world" The versions by the original R&B singers and the more recent version by Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. So yeah, just really embarrassing things.

So I've been playing the Legend of Zelda. And I got all the pendants, and I got to the bad guy’s layer and then he made Princess Zelda disappear before my very eyes. Does that mean I lost? He disappeared too. I've been wondering since the beginning if I am actually the "Chosen one" anyway. Maybe I really did fail her. I know that these are problems a 12 year old should muddle over, but I never had Super Nintendo, so now at the tender age of 25 I am worrying about Princess Zelda. Is she still alive? Do I go after her? Where do I go? These are the embarrassing worries I have.

Numbers

The Kaz-19 group is about to celebrate its first year anniversary as being official (sworn-in) volunteers and I can’t think of a better way to commemorate it than by giving some cold hard facts. We all had to fill out these forms at the end of last year giving numbers of students we taught, the number of kids in our clubs and so forth. Instead of those numbers, here are some that seem more significant to me.

Sheep Heads I’ve helped eat – 4
Pigs I’ve seen slaughtered – 1 (I was visiting a Russian village, this would not be a sight to see in my town)
Children I’ve made stand in a corner – 1
Showers taken (since November 9th, 2007) – less than 20 (most of those were during my trip to America)
Banyas taken – less than 50 (If I smell, I don’t notice it)
Books read cover to cover – 36 (That is probably more than I actually read cover to cover in college, sad, but true)
Times I’ve moved – 3
Marriage proposals – 1 (serious one)
Times I’ve watched Arrested Development, the entire series – 4
Fan-mail letters I’ve written only to find that celebrities don’t put their addresses on the internet for the world to see* - 2
Russian grammar books I’ve used – 3
Time it takes to get to the outhouse from the front door – 20 seconds
That wouldn’t be that big a deal if it weren’t for…
The coldest it’s been so far - -48 Degrees Celsius
Haircuts received – 2
Haircuts given – 4

In addition to these numbers, I present to you a mood graph I made during my first six months at site. Peace Corps told us that we would go through a “rollercoaster of emotions” so I made my rollercoaster as scientific as possible. Every night before I went to sleep I rated my day on a scale of 0-10. There are a couple days where I cheated and put in a “range” for that day, but for the most part, it is accurate and may give you some insight into how I felt from November 2007 – May 2008.

My mood was rated on the following scale:

10 – So good!
9 – Wow!
8 – Good day and food!
7 – Good day, bad food…
6 – Bad day, but good food.
5 – I don’t even know how I feel about today (avoided this one)
4 – Tomorrow will be better?
3 – At least my mother still loves me/ I cry over stupid things
2 – I really messed that one up/ This sucks
1 – Wow, that was bad.
0 – So bad. The worst day of my life.


On the side of this was written “Remember! Complete honesty = a must!” So this is a very honest graph.











I think it’s good to note that I stayed mostly in the positive area and never did I have a “zero” day. I realize that this sort of project makes me seem a little crazy, but I’m a happy crazy, see?


*anyone with any idea as to how to get my fan mail to any celebrity and not just to some service that would send me back a picture with their signature on it, let me know. I have written some really heartfelt (creepy?) things to my favorite actresses and actors and they will never know how I feel about them.

Still learning

For about three weeks one of my counterparts had been gone sick, so I took over her classes myself which was difficult, but I started thinking about a year ago when I first came here and had to teach a ton of classes on my own and how stressed out I was then compared to now… It just seemed more normal this time. Sure, I got mad at kids and gave out some bad grades, but the stress wasn’t nearly as crushing as it was when I first got to site. The work didn’t change, just the environment. It also helps that I can give threats in Russian now.

My counterpart finally returned this week and I am really glad she’s back, but it was good to find that I’m capable of handling them on my own.

I’ve also started teaching about 10 hours of primary classes, and those teachers aren’t the best at arriving at class on time… So I’d start the class. The thing about primary language teaching is I need a translator. Especially since all but one of those classes are Kazakh classes. But one of the teachers came in as I was saying “Have you got a mother? Have you got a father?” and then translating into Kazakh. She was really impressed. “Oh! Jess! You don’t even need me! You know the Kazakh!” Uhhhh, yeah, I need you, but I’m flattered anyway.

I can teach in elementary Kazakh!

Community Member

Peace Corps is always telling us during training that a Volunteer is always working to become a member of the community that many people know and respect. I don't know what I thought I was before, but it just recently occurred to me that maybe I am known and respected. When people meet me, it's like they're meeting this wonderful person they've heard so much about, and are just so grateful to finally see my face. Part of this could be attributed to their gravcious and accomodating nature, but I also think I might actually have become a MEMBER. Membership in a community is difficult to come by and unlike most other memberships, you can't necessairly buy your way in. (Especially if you're a volunteer and aren't really paid that much).

My site-mate and I have been planning on opening an English Resource Center in our center Library. By "planning" I mean "talking about it a lot with our schools and each other." But we finally tooka very important step: We went to the library to talk to them about holding community clubs and opening a resource center. They were so excited to work with us, and are more than willing to help us. "We will always help you" were their exact words. I think we might be well-respected members of the community... I don't know when or how it happened, but it did.

First Bell Blues

I typed out a blog entry and put it on my flash card, but now the computer with the internet won't read it... So I'm sorry if this is a little scattered

School began Nationwide in Kazakhstan on September 1st, and every school had a bell ringing ceremony where all the first-year students lined up and said poetry about how excited they were about school (lies!) and to "open the door quick! We want to learn!" Then and 11th former and 1st grader ran through the crowd ringing the bell, it was sort of cute. But we all know after a week or two, they won't be so jazzed about school.

It's exciting to start new classes with new students. I found out last year that when a class asked why Miss Jessica wasn't teaching them the local teachers would say something like "Your study habits are horrible!" or "You are the worst class! Why would she teach you?" (The real answer? Because Miss Jessica isn't three people and can't be everywhere at once...) So I've been trying to take on different classes to debunk the myth. Unfortunately, the reputation precedes me and every class has begun about the same. i enter the room, and a hush goes around "it's Miss Jessica!" Then a student works up the courage to ask "Will you teach us this year?" and I would answer "for today at least" because we don't know the schedule, not because I "don't teach stupid classes." But every class has been on it's best and most terrified behavior, thinking the slightest screw-up will make me leave. I feel so bad, I just stand there and smile, and hope that they know somehow that I would love to teach everybody, that I don't know what classes are worse than others.

So this next week I'll probably make a few classes cry when we find out that the schedule will force me to not teach 40% of the students at my school. I hope someday they will understand. It's difficult being the loved English teacher. But somebody has to do it.

The Return

Back in Kazakhstan

Day 1: I love this place! I Missed it so much! Look at how vast it is! There is so much opportunity! The people are so friendly! This place is GREAT!

Day 2: I forgot about outhouses, but it's still GREAT! Like camping.

Day 3: I also forgot how difficult it can be to pump water.

Day 4: After waiting in line for 30 minutes at the local ATM (as each person took at least 3 minutes) I finally got to the front, and withdrew my cash in 30 seconds. The woman behind me said "that's amazing! could you show me how to use mine?" THAT's why it was taking so long? I miss organization! I miss English!

Day 5: Bad news from home. Sometimes this sucks.

Day 10: I found this dog by my house.








Unfortunately he will not grow large enough to be a sufficient guard dog, so he was sent to a field far away.

Day 11: Solar Eclipse! SWEET.

Day 12: After my camp all the students said "Miss Jessica! I don't want to go home! Please! Don't make us go home!" Sometimes this job is pretty cool.

Today: In transit. Going to the other side of Kazakhstan, with the good, the bad and everything in between.

Jeff says hello.

The Birthday Girl

Since I turned 25, and since I have access to fast internet, I decided I deserved a new blog layout. It's pretty and the photo album is kind of cool... but if it takes too long to load up in K-stan, it might have to go back to being boring-looking, which means I'll have to attract people to my blog through the writing, and I'm not sure I'm up to that task.

Things I've done in my time here:

Ordered a lot of things from amazon.com

Eaten burritos.

Seen movies.

Caught myself up with Lost and The Office.

Found a new camera that functions almost exactly like my old one, making my transition to new camera a little less painful (although still bitter-sweet as the last one left on not-my terms).

Seen a lot of people.

It's been exciting.

You might be asking, "Jessica, how can we assist in your next return? How can we make things less shocking? I hear you didn't even know that Angelina Jolie was pregnant, let alone with twins. I'm sorry to not have warned you." EASY, I'm glad you asked.

Step One: Take any gossip magazine you subscribe to, read it, then as you go to recycle it;

Step Two: put it in an envelope (maybe add a letter, but that isn't necessary)

Step Three: Cut and paste the address on this site

Step Four: Put it on the envelope

Step Five: Send it to me!

Sure, a detailed letter would be nice, but if you don't have time for that sort of thing, this works too.

Baseball Birthday

These two lovely ladies:











Took me to this game:












Where we all got this free promotional bobble-head of Matt Holliday:













Pretty good birthday. Also, I had a real hot dog and my present was wrapped in red, white and blue. It was just so American!

P.S. see how much more fun life is when I have a camera?

(Sorry for the cliche) But Seriously: Lost in Translation

Let me explain a bit about my site. It is mostly Kazakh, so I stick out like a sore thumb... as a Russian. And since most of the people there speak Kazakh as their first language, they don't necessairly realize immediately that Russian is not (at all) my first language. So as I walked home from the center with a bag of eggs, a man stopped me and said:

"Where did you find a place with eggs? Most places are closed today [insert words I don't know here]" So I tried to answer the first part, and told him where I bought the eggs. He got a little angry and said.

"No! No! [Again, insert words I don't know]." So I said that I was very sorry, but I didn't understand. Then he was really mad. I'm not entirely sure, but I think maybe he thought I was trying to insult him by saying I didn't understand what I am sure is really very good Russian. "I AM ASKING YOU IN PLAIN RUSSIAN [and again, the words I don't understand, only louder]." Then his friend tapped him on the shoulder and told him that she isn't Russian, she is our American English teacher.

"American?" Then he bent over and laughed so loud and long that I could still hear him half a block away. "She isn't Russian! Ha! Ha!" That's a good one.


It's time for a vacation.

Right now I'm in the office in Almaty, looking through other blogs and I'm super-jealous of the new colors and designs people have. I'll have to look into making this blog look better when I get back. It's 9:15, 6 hours to go! I can't wait to see everyone/speak English in the streets!

Cab Gossip

There were five of us PCVs trying to get a taxi into the city, so I got into another cab with three men who had no idea why there were so many foreigners in their village. As I sat in the back, I couldn't help but listen to the converstaion...

Where do you think they were from?

I think they were speaking English.

Are you sure? I thought they were German.

I think they're American.

American?! What would Americans be doing here, stupid?

Dogs

Little language lesson for you: “Ata” = Grandpa, “Apa” = Grandma. Otherwise known as my landlords.

I only post every time I have e-mail access, so you have to wait in suspense to read what is happening in my life. That way you get a small taste of the suspense I have to deal with, waiting to find out what is happening in your lives! (Moral of the story: SEND SNAIL MAIL. It comes in three, four weeks tops. This last spell of no-e-mail lasted almost 7?)

On with the show. I now live in my own apartment which is pretty cool. It’s actually an extra “house” attached to an older couple’s house, so I still get a banya, Russian/Kazakh practice, and an occasional free meal. It’s also pretty safe, since I live on the same compound as a family I know and trust, and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better living situation.

A few times a week, it is nice enough now that I can go out and run for awhile. This usually gets me stares from the locals, and chased by dogs who think that anything going faster than walking speed must be worth chasing. I try to limit my path to roads through fields, avoiding humans and dogs when at all possible. But this last week, out of nowhere, this furry black mass ran up from behind me. It was Akhtose, my family’s dog, and he is the laziest dog I’ve ever seen. I was so surprised to see him running with me. I was feeling really proud of the fact that I got the lazy dog to come with me, when I realized that I was taking the trash bag out to the trash field (seriously) and that was really the only reason he tagged along – to inspect the contents of the bag.

But a couple minutes later, he had cut across the field (the trash didn’t have anything edible, all food trash goes in a bucket for the cows) and came with me! Sure, he would get distracted by piles of what could have been food, or sheep carcasses, but for the most part he stayed with me until we reached a small stream. Then, I lost him. There was just so much down there that he needed to take more time investigating. Ordinarily, I would just let the dog find its way home. That’s what dogs do, right? Then I started thinking about everything that happened in the last two weeks…

***** TWO WEEKS AGO*****

I came home to hear Ata screaming at Bebarse, the other dog. Bebarse was large and ferocious, and tied up. The perfect home security system. He barked at anything that moved, and at night when he wasn’t tied up, he would jump at strangers (only to knock them to the ground and lick them on the face, but strangers don’t know that). “You stupid dog!” Ata kept yelling. Apparently Bebarse had been digging in the potatoes the night before, and Ata was waving his shovel in the air and pointing to the mess. One afternoon, after three straight nights of this behavior, there was a knock at my door. It was a man with a horse asking me for help with Bebarse.

Apparently he was afraid of the barking dog, and he needed help untying him so he could “come with me to watch the cows.” I stalled as much as possible, because Ata and Apa weren’t home and I couldn’t just give the dog away to this man with a horse. But the conversation reached a certain point where I had no choice but to give the man Bebarse on his leash. The man kept saying “Bebarse always comes with me!” And he rode off dragging a reluctant Bebarse with him.

20 minutes later I went outside to check my laundry on the line when I saw Ata by his garden. “Ata!” I started, “Bebarse-“
“Bebarse is gone!” He proclaimed triumphantly. “Now my potatoes are safe!” Then I thought more closely about what the man with the horse was saying, and he wasn’t saying ‘Bebarse always comes with me” but “Bebarse is coming with me for always.” So I casually asked Ata when Bebarse was coming back, and he said “Never! Ha ha!”

30 minutes after realizing that I had, in fact, given the family dog away, there was another knock on my door. It was Apa, tears streaming down her face, and she asked “Where is Bebarse?” I said maybe she should talk to Ata, but that a man with a horse came and took him away to watch cows. I tried to say that I didn’t understand what was happening (like that makes it better). Then I explained that Ata probably asked his friend to take Bebarse because of what happened to the potatoes. She grew indignant, “He was only playing… He was such a beautiful dog. A good dog. He always barked… Such a good dog… At least we still have Akhtose, AKHTOSE!” And she left calling her second-rate, not-so-beautiful-or-ferocious dog.

***** ONE WEEK AGO *****

Since Bebarse’s departure, Apa has been really depressed. Her typical answer to “Good morning, how are you?” is “Fine. Bebarse is gone…” So I wasn’t so surprised to get the same answer today, but then she followed it with “He was so sad without us, he died.” We sat and remembered the good dog that barked at strangers.

Ata later expressed his true feelings in saying “Now the potatoes are really safe!”
*********
Like I said, ordinarily I would just let the dog find his own way home. But we were kind of far away, and near a large road and if anything happened to him, and I was the last person to see him… There was no way I was returning without that dog. So I lured him with rocks that looked like food, pretending there was something I was chasing, anything. When we finally got home, I was exhausted, but he made it back and I knew I did everything I could to make sure they didn’t lose the lazy (but doesn’t go through the potatoes) dog. And I know he probably would have made it home ok anyway, but I think Akhtose appreciated having someone to play with.

And now he sleeps on my porch.

Brothers

Two weeks ago we had our In-Service Training which is basically four days of meetings with all the volunteers. Four days of information, and gossip, and pure-English-speaking fun. Just enough time to fall in love with everyone again, and then we’re back alone at site. So now we’ve made a quick trip to the city to “soften the blow” as my site-mate put it.

I’ve been getting letters asking about my “daily life” and “how are things different?” and I’m not entirely sure where to start. One small difference is that I have brothers. I’ve never had brothers before. I remember just after my sister was born, I wrote a song (and accompanied myself with a triangle) about how we wished she had been a boy. I sang it for my dad, because he is a boy, so obviously he would sympathize. Instead I got a “Jessica! We are glad Danielle’s a girl!” and thus, at the tender age of 4, ended my career as a songwriter. Anyway, since I will be moving at the end of this month, I’ll devote this post to some memories of my brothers.
____________________________________________

Maxat got home just minutes after I did. “Jessica! I was running and shouting ‘Jessica! Jessica!’ and you didn’t hear me?” I held up my MP3 player, “Sorry.” He looked relieved that I wasn’t just avoiding him in public.
**
The wrestling matches usually turn into loud races around the house. First you hear a rumble of bodies falling to the floor, then scrambling as one gets away and runs while the other follows. Eventually one winds up in my room saying “Jessica! Tell him to stop!” Clearly, I have no power here. However, my room has become something like a safe zone. Once one is here, the other doesn’t come in, but waits outside like a cat waiting for the mouse to come out of its hole.
***
Maxat and I were watching the Shawshank Redemption tonight. I recognized the music and ran into the room and told him “I love this movie!” (I’m really good at saying simple things like that in Russian). So we were watching it, but the phone kept ringing and he kept leaving, and I kept getting frustrated because he’s missing it! He’s not going to see just how amazing it really is!

Today we re-watched the Shawshank Redemption, starting where the first phone call interrupted, and I feel better knowing that he understands that I love a really good movie.
***
The phone rings off the hook for these boys. They’re 15 and 17, and just starting to get girlfriends (and I’m still not sure what that means here. From what I can tell they mostly just talk incessantly on the phone). Anyway, I now know how to say “I’m sorry, but Maxat/Mierjan is not home now” in Russian, and in Kazakh. I can also give a variety of answers as to their whereabouts, such as “He is at school” or “He is outside.” And I’ve found “I have no idea where he is” is also effective. I think a really funny answer (and one that would get the phone to stop ringing) would be to say “I think he’s at his girlfriend’s house” but they probably wouldn’t think it’s that funny.
***
With the power out, the computer games are not keeping Mierjan entertained when he should be doing school work. So he pulled out the checkers board and asked me if I wanted to play. I said sure, because checkers is easy enough… Halfway through, I realized that the rules here are TOTALLY different than they are in the states. So I lost. Then we played chess, and I was pleased to find that not only are the rules the same, but that I have what it takes to best a 15-year-old boy in a game of real strategy. I feel vindicated. Maxat watched as his brother lost and taunted him with “Ha ha! This is a smart person game! You have to THINK! THINK!” (Please note, he did not offer to play me either.)
***
Suddenly I heard music playing outside. Oddly enough, it was all the songs that Maxat and Mierjan usually listen to in the house. But it was not coming from inside, and it was definitely too loud to be coming from a car stereo. So I walked outside to find that they had taken the DVD player and some speakers and plugged them into the banya outlet so that they could shovel the hay and have a dance party at the same time. Those are my brothers, dancing with the pitchforks. About 20 minutes later the neighbors called and told us to keep it down.

__________________________

For the record, I’m happy now that Danielle is a girl.

Rings, A dress, and maybe one thousand dollars

It's springtime in Kazakhstan! This means the snow is finally going away and I can stop wearing long underwear! I didn't prepare a good post for this internet trip, and for that I apologize. But what I do have to share is interesting, I promise. A couple days ago was Nauryz, the Kazakh new year. My town had yurts set up in the center, and they looked really beautiful. My sitemate and I got to eat and drink some *interesting* things and then watch a concert. For the most part, just a good time in the yurts.

Later that night, my family had guests over, and two of them are the parents of my host brother's roommate in the city. They were asking how old I am, and I told them 24, and they gave me that look, up and down, figuring "just how much more time do you think you have to get yourself married?" So they told me they have a son, and that my family needs to start considering what they will buy for my Kazakh wedding (they were maybe mostly kidding...) So we agreed that my family needs to provide rings, a dress and maybe one thousand dollars, and they will provide the candy, the horse (to eat), and vodka for the ceremony. I'm not familliar with the price of horses, but they are a delecacy, and mom, dad, I think we sould consider their offer.

I'm not getting any younger here.

How to get rid of a stalker and make the 6th form behave

More excerpts, because I can’t possibly sum-up everything.

February 12, 2008

Last night I got a talk about how I don’t have a boyfriend and will I meet my husband here and stay forever? I said my mother would kill me (this is my usual excuse for “will you please marry someone here and stay forever?” Thanks, mom) and besides my Russian is still pretty bad and my Kazakh is worse so it would be difficult to marry anyone I don’t understand. She said “Don’t worry, we will help you find someone.” That’s great.

February 14, 2008

I have been avoiding the school cafeteria because my not-so-secret admirer has started to frequent it and make my lunch awkward by sitting alone staring at me… After club he showed up to ask if he could walk me home. I lied and said I wasn’t going home, so then he asked if I could give him a personal club on Saturday. I told him I don’t teach on Saturday. He raised his eyebrows and waved up his hand as if to say “so?” I gave him an exasperated look, sighed, and walked into the teacher’s room as he called out “I’ll call you!” I sat in the room for a couple minutes thinking about the best escape route, and decided my best bet was out the back door to the outhouses. That way if he caught me I would be all “I’m going to the outhouse, a little privacy here?” As I came down the stairs I saw him walking down the hall so I dodged into the back doorway as a student was saying “goodbye miss Jessica!” and I said “shhhhh! Goodbye…” and ducked out the back. I went out past the outhouses, then by the elementary school, onto a road I didn’t know and continued on the back roads until I reached the center, where I decided I deserved some apple juice. Looking back, I realize that was a really risky move. As I came out of the store I heard someone shouting “Jessica!” and my stomach dropped, but it was my host father with the car. A getaway vehicle! I jumped in, literally, as the car was still rolling.

This guy needs to take a hint, I can’t be James Bond every Wednesday.
[You might be asking, what’s so bad about this guy? Just trust me]

February 15, 2008

My 6th form class was terrible yesterday, so I gave them a 3 in their discipline grade book. That landed them in a whole world of hurt. First they were yelled at by their homeroom teacher who told them that if Miss Jessica had any problems with them she would call parents. Then they were yelled at by my counterpart. I felt bad that they were yelled at so much, so we did the Bear Hunt and I think we all forgave each other. Each one of them came up to me after class and said “Miss Jessica. Yesterday. I’m sorry.” I think that means we’re in a good place again.

February 18, 2008

I’ve been making unnecessary stops at the post office for stupid things like “is this addressed correctly?” or “is the postage ok?” mostly because I’m hoping they’ll be all “you have a package!” No such luck today.

February 19, 2008

My host brother brought the rabbits into the house today, “Shhhhh, don’t tell mom,” so that I could meet them. Apparently in this house’s glory days there were 30-40 rabbits running around. I’m sort of glad I missed that era.

February 24, 2008

My sitemate let me borrow the first season of 24, and I was a moron thinking I’d only want to watch half of it this week. I can’t believe myself.

February 26, 2008

On our way to school we were talking to a woman who lives on our street and she asked me how old I am. I told her 24. “Ahhhh, well done! You don’t look any older than 20!” And this is why I have problems teaching 11th form classes.

February 28, 2008

Again during novice club, the bell rang and they all groaned “No! Not yet!” Granted, they didn’t want to leave because they weren’t finished coloring their dream vacations, and not because of the English they were learning. That’s ok, I’ve got a formula for club that seems to go pretty well: 1) Silly song (the stupider I look, the better), 2) Introduce vocabulary or grammar, 3) little game to practice, 4) let them draw to their little heart’s content 5) short silly song, then send them away happy. [A special thanks to “We sing silly songs” most of my best warm-ups come from that tape or from camp songs I learned as a kid… who knew ridiculous songs would actually help me after college?]

Happy six months in Kazakhstan to me (and the rest of the 19s)!

Some words of Encouragement

This past month was pretty boring because we had student teachers at our school. The first round of teachers took over most of our classes, and I was getting moderately bored and then I realized we’d have a second round. That’s when I asked if those teachers would like to teach with me, and fortunately for my sanity they did. It was a lot of fun to get to hang out with different teachers for awhile. I did start an English Club for the teachers at my school who want to know English and it is pretty popular so far. I have more teachers at that club than I do students in my other clubs. And they’ve asked me to start a second club for Teachers who can’t meet at the first time.
My new family is good. I have two brothers who live at home and they crack me up. They’re only a year apart in age so they like to fight a lot, but that means my life is more entertaining for me. I’ve never had brothers before so I don’t know if the nightly wrestling matches are what normally happens with brothers or if it’s just mine. Anyway, one of them is fascinated with my MP3 player. He’ll come into my room and ask if he can just sit and sift through the songs, and as he was listening one day he was pushing the volume up and asked how far up it goes (he was at 24). I said I don’t know how loud it can get and he shook his head in amazement. THAT is America; MP3 players that have seemingly endless volume capabilities. (I checked later and found it goes up to 40, I’m not sure what that means exactly, but it’s probably not good for the ears.)

And now for your information and entertainment some journal entry excerpts:
January 17, 2008
It was -30 degrees at sundown, so -45 is expected which means SCHOOL’S OUT! I feel like all these school cancellations make up for all the snow days I didn’t get as a kid.
January 20, 2008
Tonight we banya-ed at our babushka’s house and it was the hottest banya I’ve been in. I almost passed out. I feel like such a wuss. But a clean wuss.
January 25, 2008
I realized something shocking today. In the U.S. we don’t have candy and cookie trays on the table for every meal. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, my mom did her best to not have sweets in the house. But what did we do without the candy? What did we eat with our after meal tea? …wait… wait, WAIT. We don’t drink tea with our meals in the U.S. We don’t have candy at least three times a day in the United States??? I can’t believe it.
January 26, 2008
I can’t decide if I love the banya so much because it’s actually a cleansing experience or if it’s due to the fact that by the end of the week I feel just so disgusting that ANY opportunity to pour water on myself is a miracle. Either way, I feel miraculously clean right now.
January 30, 2008
So at around 1am I got out of bed and went to the outhouse. Going to the outhouse when it’s dark/-40degrees is a process, both psychological and physical. I have to put on my outhouse garb (hat, gloves, light coat, and bicycle helmet flashlight – no helmet) and talk myself into just going out there. “Come on, Jessica, you know you aren’t going to go back to sleep unless you just get out there and do this…” So I get myself out there and back in the house and as soon as I got back in bed we had an earthquake. Had I waited any longer to go/ had it happened sooner, I could have fallen in. [Note: the outhouse doesn’t have a seat, just a hole. And it’s slippery in there because the temperature has not gone above freezing since late November, so falling in is a very real possibility.]
January 31, 2008
My novice club went so well the students wanted to stick around for 30 more minutes! I must be doing something right, yeah?
February 3, 2008
I had chai with them after and they asked me questions about life in America and what my family is like and one man said “This is great! We only ever see Americans on television, but one is sitting here, right now! with us! Drinking chai…”
February 7, 2008
While I was walking to the library with my site-mate a post-woman stopped us and said “You’re Jessica! I have a letter for you!” As I was signing she realized who my site-mate was and “I have one for you too!” [Special Note: MAIL IS AMAZING! Even the post lady is excited to give us our mail, so keep it coming!]

And I will leave you now with an apology for the way my address appears on the side of the blog. Unfortunately the internet I'm using right now is pretty slow and I can't change it... It looks like three little lines, but I promise it's there if you cut and paste.

Just the Facts

Fact: I have moved so my address has changed. See over there ------>

Fact: The most important thing I brought with me to Kazakhstan was my head flashlight. It is just ridiculiously useful for outhouse runs.

Fact: MAIL IS AMAZING! Thank you!!

Fact: Once again, I have no time to tell you funny stories. Next time.

Ok, one. My new host family is funny. My last family was too, but my new host father has this hilerious laugh and you cant help but laugh when he does, even if you don't know (or understand) why he is laughing. So last night I decided to use a new phrase I've learned basically saying "I'm stuffed as a dog" and he burst out laughing like you wouldn't believe. It must have been the funniest thing he's ever heard in his life. So there you are, I was funny in Russian. That's a victory, I think.