Train Observations

My train ride from Almaty is only 19 hours long, which is really short by most people's rides standards. But this last ride I was on my own for the first time since last summer and I had the opportunity to make a few observations.

Observation 1: If I keep my answers short and don't talk too much, the people I travel with think I'm from “Bulgaria or Moldova.” This either means my Russian is really amazing, or the people in Bulgaria and Moldova speak really broken Russian. This also might be due to the fact that I made my hair dark again. Before they thought I was from Germany. The strange thing is nobody ever thinks an American would be in Kazakhstan.

Observation 2: When they find out that not only am I an American, but I am actually living here, things get really interesting. They assume I live in a city, and then I tell them where I actually live. One man looked at me and repeated the name of my village, leaned forward and said empathetically “I wouldn't live there.”

Observation 3: After over a year and a half of living here, I don't understand why I even bother bringing food on the train. Strangers are more than willing to feed me. They call me down from my bunk and say “Jessica, come down and eat dinner!” Then they whip out the chicken, the tea, and the veggies and suddenly we have a feast that all 6 people in our area can't even finish off.

Observation 4: The train toilet has always been an area that I dislike. I'm kind of short, so hovering is difficult... I didn't realize that there is a place to stand ON THE SEAT. Instant squatty potty! I can't believe I've been traveling on trains this long here and haven't noticed that. My train ride was drastically improved because of this discovery.

Observation 5: ***Flashback to 26 years ago*** My mother and father are having the discussion “What will we name our baby?” My mother says “Marissa,” my father cringes and says “What about Cindy?” And they settled on Jessica because my mom read it in a Reader's Digest article and my dad thought “Jessica is in Dune!” ***Now*** 25-year-old Jessica has actually read the Reader's Digest article and finds Dune in the Peace Corps library, and thinks to herself, maybe we should find out who Jessica is. She is “a Bene Gesserit Lady, a duke's concubine and mother of the ducal heir.” ...? I'm disappointed at the significant lack of hobbits, Hermione and Rons, and Yodas, but I'm going to try to get past that and actually finish it. I read 26 pages on the train and came to this conclusion: When my dad was my age, he was a huge geek.

I mean that in the best possible way.

Nauryz! (again)

So while a week ago it was hot in the south, THIS week it cooled off and rained. It was so sad I decided to stay south for a couple more days to get some sun. Today is looking better. The picture is of Kokpar, polo played with a goat carcass instead of a ball. It was cool to see, but it was also freezing that day... so we decided to make sure we saw every national game possible (well, that we knew of), then we ate some free national food and we left. You might think it was a failed vacation, but I got to meet most of the new volunteers and it was actually probably the best time I've had with other volunteers here. We also started making summer camp/travel plans and I'm getting really excited (like I wasn't already) for school to end! Sorry this post was sort of lame, but I'm trying to keep my promise to write more often... Here's a picture of camels to make up for it.

Learning how to Swear

We've had a couple days of non-stop wind that knocked out the power in my village. After all that, I found that my laptop's power cord is no longer in working condition... So I'm really sorry, but until I get a way to fix that m posts will be A) Shorter, B) riddled with spelling errors, and C) not as focused. The silver lining, if we all want to see it, is that for whatever reasons the 16 month internet ban (against me) at my school has been lifted! And as I sit here, in a room-full of students playing Spider Solitaire instead of listening to the teacher, I'm inspired to tell you that they ARE interested in English on a very basic level:

Rap music is more popular than you can possibly imagine, so the words they learn are words they will never use in academics. At least once a day a kid will run up to me, use a few swear words to see what my reaction will be. I think this only works because I have been absolutely consistent with it, but I give them a quizzical, "huh? What did you say?" kind of look. They repeat the words, and I say "Beach?" And they nod, "Yes! Yes! BEECH!" Then they ask what it is. And I tell them, it's where people go to swim. Their faces go from euphoric to crestfallen s they realize that it's not a bad word. "No, no, no... Miss Jessica... Beeeetch!" And I give them a confused look and say, yes a beach is where you go swimming. This is infuriating for them, and a lot of fun for me. Other explanations range from "are you saying 'shift'? 'Ask'?" these all depend on their continual mispronunciation of swears. But they all know the F word. Like, there is no problem in pronunciation there, so with that one, I have just told them it isn't a word. They repeat it, and I say "I don't know what that is. Are you sure you aren't saying Fudge? Duck? What?" And they wind up walking away shaking their heads because they have either mis-learned a really bad word or I'm just such an idiot for not knowing the word that is repeated in every American rap song. I'm not sure which they think.