If any post is likely to get me in trouble with PC, it’s this one. I’ve been sick the past few days and told to stay at home until next Monday. When I was going to the school earlier this week, as many as half the kids were absent anyway; it seems everyone is sick in my town right now.
Free time is something that I’ve had an awful lot of since coming to my site, but the past few days have been an inordinate amount of free time. Having nothing to do does not make the days go by any faster, make me feel very useful, and gives me entirely too much time to ask myself what the hell I’m doing.
I find myself getting more and more frustrated with situations in my village and the culture. Yesterday I was buying apple juice at a shop, the bottle had a price tag on it saying 280 tenge, but when I tried to buy it the woman tried charging me 350 instead. When I asked her why did the price increase she said “because of the bottle”. I was so pissed off I had to walk out of the store. Today, at a different store after buying a bottle of apple juice, a woman gave me matches for change! I don’t want matches, I want my change. I wanted to throw the bottle back over the counter, get my money back, and then get a Twix bar for free, I was irate. I couldn’t believe it.
Another part of my experience so far that is frustrating is the fact that everyone at my school insists on speaking Kazakh to me, when they know I can understand Russian. This annoys me mostly because I've already spent a lot of time learning Russian, and because they can all speak Russian ! By them choosing to only speak to me in Kazakh they are choosing their pride over communicating with me, in my opinion. I think communication is important to do a job well, I feel like they should be more concerned with speaking with me rather than what language it's done in. I should also thank PC for sending me to an all Kazakh village when they knew I studied Russian in PST.
I am approaching my 100th day in Kazakhstan, and at this point feel comfortable enough to make generalizations about the culture that bother me. First, let me say the people are incredibly friendly here, they always say “Hello” and “How are you?” to me. They are hospitable, and I think they like me, and are glad I am here. That being said, I have rarely experienced someone here being kind or helpful. I was locked out of my class room at the school last week, and at least 4 teachers passed me and said “It’s locked”. Obviously, I knew that. When I asked who might be able to unlock it or who had the key, conveniently enough no one knew. I tried imagining if I were teaching in the States and had a Russian guy teaching at our school and he was obviously in need of a hand, what I would do, and know that it wouldn’t look like that.
Maybe the problem is me and my perception of things, and maybe I’m the one who does not understand some aspects of the culture that I should. I knew there were aspects of the culture I would have to learn to accept, but I thought that would be more work related.
That is a picture of the map of the world in my class room. Some days I look at it and want to laugh, other times I want to cry. According to that map, Kazakhstan is the only country in Asia, there is no such thing as Europe, and Belize, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras are part of the US.
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving, and one thing I don't miss about America is black Friday.
Love
Nick
"We artists are indestructible, even in a prison cell or a concentration camp I would be almighty in my own world of art. Even if I had to paint pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell"
Pablo Picasso
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