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.