Friday, October 9, 2009
frightening
Today I witnessed easily one of the most unsettling things ever. I was in between classes at my school, enjoying some fresh air when suddenly I heard a girl screaming. I had no idea what was happening but figured it was high school drama. When I turn around I saw four clearly older guys carrying this girl out of the schoo1, 1 had a knife and cut the principal of my school on the hand in the struggle. They held the door shut from the outside baracading the principal and the other students inthe school. The principal and a bunch of the older male students were trying to fight off the 4 men but it was futility. Chris (one of the other Volunteers) and I both just watched te entire episode in total shock and confusion the whole thing could not have been more than 2 minutes. At one point a took a step forward out of curiousity when I heard Chris say "that guy has a knife" which made me freeze. I feel awful that nothing was done on my part, truly. Unfortunatley 3 of the guys ended up carrying the girl away screaming, kicking, and yelling help. The police were called, the director was taken into an ambulance, and I can not imagine what could be happening to the girl right now. I have felt this bad few times in my life. Also, when I asked my counterpart if class was still on for the day...she said of course, as though nothing had happened. So I still have to teach 2 classes for the day, the first of which starts in about 15 minutes. I feel like my English lesson couldn't have less importance than it does today, and in juxtaposition to what I just witnessed I know it doesn't at all.
Site Announcement Day
The words mentioned above are probably the most anxiety causing days in the life of any Peace Corps Trainee, this is easily the most important day of the life of any Peace Corps Volunteer (so they say). All of pre service training had been leading up to this occasion where we will find out where we will actually all be working for the next 2 years. The announcements were done in an auditorium with the slowest power point presentation I have ever witnessed (intentionally obviously) while oblast by oblast (think states in the US) they announced where all of us will be working individually, when your name was called you were to stand up, receive your chocolate bar and apple, and quickly sit back down so the next poor soul could be alleviated of their anxiety by knowing their permanent placement. I think there are about 7 oblasts that PCV's work in while serving in Kazakhstan...my oblast was the 6th one announced. After seeing friend by friend be assigned to different oblasts, I began to get increasingly less optimistic about what my permanent site would be. Finally...it was announced...the Aktobe region of Kazakhstan....along the Russian boarder, in the north, above the Caspian Sea. I am 4 hours away from the city of Aktobe...which is the nearest PCV to me...who happens to be a married couple...you can guess how excited I am about my placement. Also, I am a 45 hour train ride from Almaty.
My site is also a pioneer site...meaning no other PCV has ever worked in the school, or town I will be in. This town (of 13,000 people..ugh) has never had an American working in their school.
Amongst PCVs having a pioneer site is supposed to be a comment on the PCVs supposed character, determination, ability, being very far from any other volunteers is supposed to be PC's vote of confidence in your strength. I have very mixed feelings about this situation.
I will say I am extremely proud of the fact that PC believed me capable of handling such an amount of obstacles. Apparently my counterpart at my current school spoke of my teaching ability highly, and PC staff felt I was determined, strong...yada yada yada...but I still cant help but feel sorry for myself somewhat, especially seeing some of the other cool placements my friends have gotten. One of my friends, Andrew, is in my oblast..but there are only 5 people in my oblast in general. Will definitely be spending alot of time alone in the coming months. Please be sure to send me all of the longest books that I have never read but always wanted to....(Great Expectations...would be a welcomed Christmas present). Anyway, thank you all for reading and please do not feel sorry for me in any way imaginable. I will be fine and always have been.
"the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on"
My site is also a pioneer site...meaning no other PCV has ever worked in the school, or town I will be in. This town (of 13,000 people..ugh) has never had an American working in their school.
Amongst PCVs having a pioneer site is supposed to be a comment on the PCVs supposed character, determination, ability, being very far from any other volunteers is supposed to be PC's vote of confidence in your strength. I have very mixed feelings about this situation.
I will say I am extremely proud of the fact that PC believed me capable of handling such an amount of obstacles. Apparently my counterpart at my current school spoke of my teaching ability highly, and PC staff felt I was determined, strong...yada yada yada...but I still cant help but feel sorry for myself somewhat, especially seeing some of the other cool placements my friends have gotten. One of my friends, Andrew, is in my oblast..but there are only 5 people in my oblast in general. Will definitely be spending alot of time alone in the coming months. Please be sure to send me all of the longest books that I have never read but always wanted to....(Great Expectations...would be a welcomed Christmas present). Anyway, thank you all for reading and please do not feel sorry for me in any way imaginable. I will be fine and always have been.
"the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on"
Monday, October 5, 2009
this is the most i've listened to steely dan in my life
Hello everyone. Sorry agian for not posting in such a long time. I wanted to thank everyone for their love, support, respect, and friendship. I would also like to apologize fr writing such worrisome things last time, I realize that is doing a disservice to anyone who reads this and will save those for private conversations or keep them to myself in the future.
The past 2 weeks have been extremely busy and I have had very little downtime. I have been teaching 4 english classes a week (usually 5th 6th and 7th graders), observing my fellow PCV's lessons, taking russian class for 4 hours a day, running and english club at the school, and doing a community project..sigh. Often, email time takes a back seat...thigns should slow down considerably around halloween.
We will find out where our permanent sites will be on Friday evening, everyone is anxious and it seems to be all anyone talks about as of late. I have the feeling I will be sent to southern kazakhstan because all of my observers of classes have been from southern kazakhstan, but that is just speculation. The south has its advantages and disadvantages just like everything else. The southern part of the country is known to be a little more wild west like....where assaults are a little more common, maybe just a little more lawlessness in general is more common, but on the plus side it will be much warmer there than the far north which averages about 15 below in the winter.
My obervations by my peers and PC have been coming back very well. I am usually praised for my ability as a teacher, which is very encouraging, espeically since i feel very deficient in Russian. We have our language test next week, where we will judged on our speaking ability. No one gets sent home for a bad score, its almost all a matter of pride, but no one wants to be a novice level language speaker.
For the most part I am enjoying teaching, and think I do a good job. It has been difficult because the 2 textbooks I teach out of are from 1978 and 1983 (Soviet Era) so many of the English tasks revolve around talking about how Britain's government does not defend the working class..sometimes I dont know if I should laugh or throw the books away. I have pictures below of what is actually in some of the books, you should click on them and read it (especially the how patriotic are you quiz)..always a good laugh. Generally, I try to avoid the books lesson as much as possible and use my creativity to come up with a lesson that might be more about vocabulary, phrases, and grammar that are more important to thier speaking ability than dicussions of British parliament. The visual aids you see below were on a lesson about traveling and compleltey killed my saturday night a few weeks ago, but were worth it because PC, my teaching counterpart, and the other volunteers could not believe how well made they were and how effective they were in the classroom.
This past weekend as particularly interesting. It was a holiday for the teachers and my host Mom got gifts of chocolate, flowers and a cordless telephone (Why??!) for the house. The cordless telphone is only in english and I have had to set it up, and wait while they picked the best ring tone and volume for it...then I got lucky enough to have its permanent location be decided as my room. For the first 2 days after they got it I could not enter the house without being asked to look at it, add information into it, or why it didnt work. Sunday morning my mom and a bunch of her teacher friends were in my house drinking vodka, singing and playing the dombra and had finished an entire bottle by 9 Am. I have never seen anything like it. I have been noticing many more oddities like this and will keep many of them for private stories after I get back.
Pretty excited to see the phils in the playoffs again and wish i was there.
one more thing....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM
i love and miss all of you,
nick
The past 2 weeks have been extremely busy and I have had very little downtime. I have been teaching 4 english classes a week (usually 5th 6th and 7th graders), observing my fellow PCV's lessons, taking russian class for 4 hours a day, running and english club at the school, and doing a community project..sigh. Often, email time takes a back seat...thigns should slow down considerably around halloween.
We will find out where our permanent sites will be on Friday evening, everyone is anxious and it seems to be all anyone talks about as of late. I have the feeling I will be sent to southern kazakhstan because all of my observers of classes have been from southern kazakhstan, but that is just speculation. The south has its advantages and disadvantages just like everything else. The southern part of the country is known to be a little more wild west like....where assaults are a little more common, maybe just a little more lawlessness in general is more common, but on the plus side it will be much warmer there than the far north which averages about 15 below in the winter.
My obervations by my peers and PC have been coming back very well. I am usually praised for my ability as a teacher, which is very encouraging, espeically since i feel very deficient in Russian. We have our language test next week, where we will judged on our speaking ability. No one gets sent home for a bad score, its almost all a matter of pride, but no one wants to be a novice level language speaker.
For the most part I am enjoying teaching, and think I do a good job. It has been difficult because the 2 textbooks I teach out of are from 1978 and 1983 (Soviet Era) so many of the English tasks revolve around talking about how Britain's government does not defend the working class..sometimes I dont know if I should laugh or throw the books away. I have pictures below of what is actually in some of the books, you should click on them and read it (especially the how patriotic are you quiz)..always a good laugh. Generally, I try to avoid the books lesson as much as possible and use my creativity to come up with a lesson that might be more about vocabulary, phrases, and grammar that are more important to thier speaking ability than dicussions of British parliament. The visual aids you see below were on a lesson about traveling and compleltey killed my saturday night a few weeks ago, but were worth it because PC, my teaching counterpart, and the other volunteers could not believe how well made they were and how effective they were in the classroom.
This past weekend as particularly interesting. It was a holiday for the teachers and my host Mom got gifts of chocolate, flowers and a cordless telephone (Why??!) for the house. The cordless telphone is only in english and I have had to set it up, and wait while they picked the best ring tone and volume for it...then I got lucky enough to have its permanent location be decided as my room. For the first 2 days after they got it I could not enter the house without being asked to look at it, add information into it, or why it didnt work. Sunday morning my mom and a bunch of her teacher friends were in my house drinking vodka, singing and playing the dombra and had finished an entire bottle by 9 Am. I have never seen anything like it. I have been noticing many more oddities like this and will keep many of them for private stories after I get back.
Pretty excited to see the phils in the playoffs again and wish i was there.
one more thing....HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM
i love and miss all of you,
nick
Sunday, September 20, 2009
struggling
I believe its been almost a fortnight since have last posted, i apologize, but am sure no one is losing sleep over my lack of correspondence....i wonder if anyone has even noticed. the past week was awfully busy between teaching classes, observing classes, conducting an english club, and still trying to learn the necessary language and technical training. as a treat to the trainees PC took us on a hike to a waterfall on Friday,for the first time in almost a month we got to see all of the other village's volunteers. The hike was an incredible amount of fun and the views were breathtaking. My 5x optical zoom camera definitely does the scenery a disservice. It was encouraging to see some of my friends who i have been unable to communicate with since we first got to Almaty. Rhamadan is ending in the next few days, which is causing many visitors at my host family's apartment, and me being forced to eat and drink tea much more than I'd like to, for these reasons and much more I am beginning to find myself struggling while in kazakhstan for the first real time.
minus about 3-5 volunteers, I have been having difficulty coming across what I believe to be genuine conversation. Much of my conversation with anyone is just about PC and humorous stories, unsual experiences...etc. I would say if it weren't for John, the volunteer who just got done serving in Romania about 8 months ago, I would feel much more discontent. John and I discuss folk music, authors,world views, and do so on a an equal level even though he is 10 years older than I am and has already been through Peace Corps service once. A handful of the volunteers I have ran into thus far seem incredibly insecure and feel the need to remind others of reasons why they are smarter, more worldly,more determined, superior, or politically correct than the rest.
I have felt like I need to justify my reasons for being in a long distance committed relationship to many of the volunteers and they look at me differently because of it. I also feel very much bossed around by some of the other volunteers, and told to eat more, or not take a taxi to school today, or whatever the minute detail may be that I am apparently doing wrong.
Not to mention the intensified microscope/scrutiny I find myself under on the home front. I was under the impression certain people held better opinions of me than it turns out they may. Ultimately I realize I am not able to please everybody, but at this moment I feel like I am pleasing no one. I understand to that I have put myself in all mentioned positions and am by no means trying to blame anyone else for my difficult situations. My guitar and Leo Tolstoy have been my saving graces this week. Ps....new pictures are posted below.
Thank You
"i try so hard to be just like i am, but every body wants you to be just like them"
-bob zimmerman
minus about 3-5 volunteers, I have been having difficulty coming across what I believe to be genuine conversation. Much of my conversation with anyone is just about PC and humorous stories, unsual experiences...etc. I would say if it weren't for John, the volunteer who just got done serving in Romania about 8 months ago, I would feel much more discontent. John and I discuss folk music, authors,world views, and do so on a an equal level even though he is 10 years older than I am and has already been through Peace Corps service once. A handful of the volunteers I have ran into thus far seem incredibly insecure and feel the need to remind others of reasons why they are smarter, more worldly,more determined, superior, or politically correct than the rest.
I have felt like I need to justify my reasons for being in a long distance committed relationship to many of the volunteers and they look at me differently because of it. I also feel very much bossed around by some of the other volunteers, and told to eat more, or not take a taxi to school today, or whatever the minute detail may be that I am apparently doing wrong.
Not to mention the intensified microscope/scrutiny I find myself under on the home front. I was under the impression certain people held better opinions of me than it turns out they may. Ultimately I realize I am not able to please everybody, but at this moment I feel like I am pleasing no one. I understand to that I have put myself in all mentioned positions and am by no means trying to blame anyone else for my difficult situations. My guitar and Leo Tolstoy have been my saving graces this week. Ps....new pictures are posted below.
Thank You
"i try so hard to be just like i am, but every body wants you to be just like them"
-bob zimmerman
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Almaty 3.0
Be sure to check out the pictures below. At least two of them are not from what I will be talking about so just ignore if possible. This past weekend all the volunteers went to Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. My village is about an hour bus ride outside of the city. Almaty was formerly the capital but now the capital has been relocated to Astana. History lesson aside it was definitely an adventure. The city has a large population, all the commotion, and pollution you would expect in any major city. Many of the volunteers had a tough time breathing in any of the air because it was so polluted. However, Almaty does have the only real coffee shops in Kazakhstan so we were all pumped to finally get a real cup of coffee.
We got to visit the famous Mosque and Russian Orthodox church in Almaty. It was the first time I had ever been in a mosque and was an experience I will never forget and likely never be able to have again. The mosque was a gorgeous building on the outside and in (pictures of the facade are below). Check some of the other volunteers' blogs for pictures of the inside if you want to see...I thought it was insensitive to take pictures inside the mosque because people were worshipping while we were inside. The Russian Orthodox church was even more beautiful, the picture is below, its the yellow building. Supposedly it is a completely wooden building that was built without using a nail. I dont know much about architecture, but I don't know if that's possible. The inside of the building was had gold and gorgeous paintings everywhere...definitely a sight to see.
My favorite part of Almaty was the WW1 and WW2 tribute statue and eternal flame that I was able to get some pictures of. Also there were about 3 couples getting wedding photos taken infront of the statue which was pretty special too. One of the couples had doves in a cage and released them while we were taking pictures. Seeing such a sight was lasting.
This week with class has been the same old routine. I actually start teaching in front of a class room next week, which is frightening/exciting at the same time. The teacher I will be working with seems to be a good mentor for me for the time being though. I have found out a really interesting situation about my family dynamic for all of you who have been asking about my host family. Last evening I asked what the situation with Norbul's father was and was told that my host mom is actually his aunt. Both of his parent's have apparently passed away when he was 1, but he has no idea...so this woman who is his aunt, is raising him as her own. It only took me 3 weeks to discover that and I felt awful and shocked to hear the unsettling news. Sorry to end on such a down note, but lunch break is over.
We got to visit the famous Mosque and Russian Orthodox church in Almaty. It was the first time I had ever been in a mosque and was an experience I will never forget and likely never be able to have again. The mosque was a gorgeous building on the outside and in (pictures of the facade are below). Check some of the other volunteers' blogs for pictures of the inside if you want to see...I thought it was insensitive to take pictures inside the mosque because people were worshipping while we were inside. The Russian Orthodox church was even more beautiful, the picture is below, its the yellow building. Supposedly it is a completely wooden building that was built without using a nail. I dont know much about architecture, but I don't know if that's possible. The inside of the building was had gold and gorgeous paintings everywhere...definitely a sight to see.
My favorite part of Almaty was the WW1 and WW2 tribute statue and eternal flame that I was able to get some pictures of. Also there were about 3 couples getting wedding photos taken infront of the statue which was pretty special too. One of the couples had doves in a cage and released them while we were taking pictures. Seeing such a sight was lasting.
This week with class has been the same old routine. I actually start teaching in front of a class room next week, which is frightening/exciting at the same time. The teacher I will be working with seems to be a good mentor for me for the time being though. I have found out a really interesting situation about my family dynamic for all of you who have been asking about my host family. Last evening I asked what the situation with Norbul's father was and was told that my host mom is actually his aunt. Both of his parent's have apparently passed away when he was 1, but he has no idea...so this woman who is his aunt, is raising him as her own. It only took me 3 weeks to discover that and I felt awful and shocked to hear the unsettling news. Sorry to end on such a down note, but lunch break is over.
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