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?