If you want to find the Colonel...

I’m a very bad blogger…I know I promised an update about Stalinism…but I’ve been really lazy lately.  I can kind of blame it on my new schedule—I’m teaching classes every night (except Sundays) from about 6:30 to 8:00, or 7:00 to 8:30…so when I get home all I want to do is make dinner and relax.  Victor lets me come in a little bit later—maybe 10 or 11 instead of 9…so I should really be getting up earlier in the day and accomplishing more, but honestly, I really dislike getting up in the morning…so I don’t.  This means, besides hanging out at work (and hopefully making lesson plans or preparing for class…you know, something constructive) and cooking meals, I’m not doing too much. 

The reason I’m having to teach evening classes is because some of my students in my old 4:00-5:30 slot can’t make it anymore because of scheduling conflict…and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 7:00-8:30 in the evening is the only time that all of us can make it.  This is especially irritating since, I’m kind of behind in the intermediate class—I should be in chapter 5, according to Victor, but instead I’m just in the middle of chapter 2…so I had better cram it on through, but still make sure they understand the material—and of course, as it is becoming more complex, it is getting a little bit more difficult to explain the reasoning behind English and grammatical rules…this is what I get for majoring in History…ask me about the causes of the French Revolution or the dynastic claims of the Stuarts to the throne of the United Kingdom…just don’t ask me why we use present perfect continuous or say “he said that” not “he talk that” or “She said me”; it just sounds wrong!  So as you can guess, I do spend a bit of my working day relearning basic tenets of the English language.  Stupid languages.  Also, I should be studying Russian, but I’ve been a bit lazy with that-however, I’ve come to an agreement with the cafeteria ladies (to whom, I am now “Iskander” and I get free tea and sometimes even a bit of candy when I come by!) that I will teach them a sentence in English and they’ll teach me something in Kazakh (or Russian).  Baby steps, man, baby steps.

I finally got to visit the Pushkin Library where there is an American Corner. Zarina from our office now works there, so she’s the one who helped me find my way there. The American Corner is some sort of program through the State Department where they give a library a bunch of English language books (and I mean books in English as well as books on English—They’ve got Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders—but not Hunt for Red October for some reason…), some American DVDs (good ones like the Indiana Jones trilogy, Lord of the Rings, Patton, and Casablanca; as well as bad ones like Dances with Wolves, Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever, and Gone with the Wind), and even some board games (but no Risk or Zombies!!!, oh well, I’ve got time to rectify the situation I guess).  I’ve had a chance to meet James, the American who is running the program here.  He’s a Fulbright Scholar and he’s been here since August I think.  He also teaches at School #16 (Kazakhstani School systems are really original with their names), the lad keeps busy.  However, he hangs out mainly with the Russians here, so he’s never tried Kumys.  The lucky boy.

He’s got quite a group of friends now—the Pushkin Library gets lots of people involved in their English program—they have boardgame clubs, film clubs, discussion clubs, a Model UN club, and soon they’ll have a history club (very likely anyway).   When I first went to the Pushkin Library two weeks ago, they invited me to dinner and I got a chance to meet a couple of them and exchange phone numbers.   Last Friday I received a text messages from one of them, asking me if I was interested in coming out to a club with them on Saturday.  With nothing but a class that evening planned, I agreed; only hoping that whatever cover charge their club asked for wasn’t too dear—I don’t really have experience with club type places, but I understand it is a common practice.

When Saturday night rolled around, I was actually in a bit of luck—we went with a group of people, including one young German, who happened to be underage, so we got turned away from the perspective clubs (Kazakhstan has recently bumped up the drinking age to 21).  Instead, we decided to go to a restaurant called “Registan,” which is an Eastern style restaurant—meaning they serve Central Asian cuisine as well as food from the Muslim minorities in the nearby Chinese regions.  The food was good—I had some Lagman and a samsa; and best of all, the food was comparatively cheap—I had a good size plate of lagman, a samsa, and some tea for about 700 Tenge; all of good quality.  I’ve found lagman tends to be a fairly cheap meal choice and I enjoy it, so I recommend it to anyone a little bit apprehensive about what to try at Kazakh restaurants.  In general, if you are a tourist here, prices will actually be fairly cheap to you, but I’m living on local wages (or will be if my bank account ever gets completely set up!) and so that’s fairly pricy I guess.  To be honest, I have no idea, since I haven’t been paid by the University yet; all I know is I’m hemorrhaging money and all I’m spending it on are food, warm clothes, a heater, pots and pans…and I might be exaggerating, but I have had to spend over a hundred dollars on local documentation required by the bureaucrats…

                Argh, enough ranting, time to get to the point of tonight’s update—while we were hanging out at Registan, there was a group of military guys at a table in the room adjacent to us.  We weren’t really paying any attention to them, those I guess they noticed us, because as they got up to leave, one of them—a large man with a large face and a very cool hat—the kind you see Wrengal wearing in the winter photos from the Civil War…(I think it may be known as the Astrakhan hat, Kubanka, or Papakhi—according to Wiki, the Papakhi was reserved for Colonel and above so that might fit, as he claimed the hat was for Colonels only).  He introduced himself as a Colonel (what a surprise with the last note I gave you…) and spoke a little bit of English.  His presence seemed to make James uncomfortable, but the other students with us seemed to find it more amusing than threatening.  However, it was quite obvious that he was already fairly drunk and he wasn’t leaving.

                I told him that my dad had also been in the army and he seemed to like that and he kept talking—switching between broken English and Russian so that I couldn’t keep up with the conversation at all.  Eventually they translated for my benefit that since we were guests in Kazakhstan, he wanted to buy us something and we should just let him so he would leave.  I didn’t really know what was acceptable to ask for, so I just said that if he wanted, I’d be willing to share a drink with him—thinking that we’d have our shot and he’d leave.  James agreed and we waited for the waitress to bring us back our shots.  Instead, a bottle came to the table and when the waitress actually brought the shot glasses, he sent them back for regular glasses.

                Turns out, Americans have a bad reputation here for being unable to drink at all…so it was up to us to prove him wrong.  He filled our glass cubs about half full, gave us a toast, and waited for us to drink.  Realizing that it was up to James and I to defend out national honor, I exhaled and drank down the vodka as quickly as possible, so I didn’t have to taste it.  The exhale worked and with a quick chaser or bread dipped in lagman sauce, I was good to go.  James gave a little sputter, but downed it manfully and we were golden.  The colonel laughed and finally departed, leaving the bottle behind.  He had said that the vodka was a good quality brand, so we were slightly apprehensive when the bill came that he had forgotten to cover it and left us with the check for a drink we wouldn’t have had otherwise.  Luckily he didn’t and we were lucky enough to meet a bonafide colonel who treated us to a bottle of vodka.

On stranger tides

It has been an extremely productive first week. We all loved our first group of students very much. We've just gotten started with our second group. Last weeks group was a mix of younger students from about 15-21, had about 5 guys and 8 girls. Right now we've got about 14 girls and one guy in our class. Most of these girls are about our age I think, and some are quite cute. However, I believe we may have a spy amongst us, as Nailia has put two of her nieces in the class. They aren't saying much at the moment, so I am watching them closely. I think they are younger; I'm sure one of them is only 14.

Last week was a lot of fun. We had quite a few amazing experiences, such as having manti at one of our student's home and being given traditional Kazakh hats, as well as a robe, which I am told is a wrestler's robe.

Class is about to start, so I will have to finish this later.

Arrival in Kazakhstan

We arrived in Kazakhstan at 1:30 AM Local time, June 19th, 2011. As Eric says: "June 18th was lost in the space time continual." I hate losing a day like that...

Travelling went well, but it was quite exaushting. Met a very nice girl from Arizona, who was on her way to her grandfather's funeral in Manchester. She's a dual citizen and her father had been in the British army. Quite an interesting tale.

Our arrival in Kazakhstan was somewhat marred for Eric when discovered the man next to him on the plane was masturbating under the blanket...Needless to say, I think he was quite scarred, as any reasonable person would be. We had to wait at the airport for several hours until we could get our tickets and fly to Semey. I think Eric dislikes flying even more than I do.

We were riding on the bus to get from the main airport building to our plane; I was explaining to Eric how I was pleasantly surprised that we didn't have to carry our luggage to the plane and load it ourselves. I was in the process of explaining to him that the plane I had previous flown on was an old Soviet junker; I looked out the window and saw an old soviet era two propellored plane, gestured to it and said "But hey, it wasn't anything like that."

Murphey's law would of course dictate than I was to be punished for my hubris and gall to insult the Glorious Red Airforce, and no sooner had I said this, than the bus stopped and doors opened, and lo and behold, we had arrived at our mode of transportation. To be honest however, this flight went much better than might otherwise be expected and I was pretty excited to check out a prop plane, as I had never flown in one and I was always attracted to the old WWI and II era planes.

Our arrival in Semey was not to quite as much fanfare as my first trip--no dancing girls and candy being thrown at us. However, I ran into Medina, one of my students from last time, which was a pleasant experience. I've been very fortunate this time around, Max, the kid I traded a flag for two army uniforms. Viktor, an old hand that I have run into every time I visited Semey and I traded him my highlighted and well loved copy of Starship Troopers, was at the Institute as one of the main overseers for our class (read Commissar!)

We have about five main assistants to our program, all 3rd year girls, and quite attractive to boot. Hopefully I can upload some photos soon; you won't believe which one of them is married and has a 1.4 year old son...

Our students are also very good; the first day was a little rough getting started, but they have started opening up. Most of them are quite younger than than us--16 to 20 I think. Some of these girls will be pretty cute when they are older. Jonathan's quite a lucky man--maybe his decision not to cut his hair has paid off, as he is sort of a celebrity here with the ladies since long hair is quite uncommon. However, that just is not something I can ever allow myself to do.

Running out of time here in the internet cafe; we left Jonathan back at the flat to hold down the fort and I fear he will be missing us. I will finish later.

Shipping Up to Nowhere

o boyos, looks like it's been a while no? Lot of stuff has happened; though I suppose you probably guessed that part. I'll go ahead and start with our departure from Kazakhstan.

We stopped working after the 28^th and that day was more of a "Goodbye Party" day anyway. It was fun, but we had too many sweets—I had kind of expected the students to bring more savory stuff, but sweets were the order of the day. That Tuesday was one of our guy's birthday, so we had him and a few more students at our apartment for dinner and some movies. We started with Tropic Thunder; a great movie, one I really enjoy. Unfortunately, that was our movie night's high point; the birthday boy picked the next three…and it was the first three Scary Movies—yuck. I could have gone my entire life without seeing those POS. Nichevo (it is nothing). Jake mainly hung out with Zhanar so I was on my own—I built my tank model, got practice making lagman with one of our students. We also had a farewell tea party at the Institute that Friday when we went to get our pay.

I'm not sure why, but for some reason, it seems to be getting harder for me to say good bye. I seem to be getting too easily attached to people now a-days. I was an Army brat for crying out loud; I've gone to six different elementary schools, a junior high, and a high school. I've lived in eleven different houses, six different states, and two different countries—you'd think I'd be used to saying goodbye, by now. I wish I could stop getting so emotionally involved in people that I've just met and may never see again. It really is a pity and it makes things very difficult for me. Don't know what I'll do.

Photos from our last walk home

Anyway, we left Semey by train, which was a bit nerve wracking since they hadn't bothered to get tickets for us. Instead we were relying on personal contacts that Nailia had within the train station. I was worried, but they were pretty confident that everything would be OK—but they were right. About three people saw us off at the station, besides Zhanara who was coming with us to Almaty. We got on for free and were given a booth (though it looked for a while like we'd be standing up the whole time). Riding a train is a bit of a crazy experience in Kazakhstan. It is very cramped, crowded, and during the day unbelievably hot. The bathrooms are pretty primitive and dump the contents of the toilet straight onto the tracks below you—so never ever walk by railroad tracks in Kazakhstan. At night (if you can open your windows, it'll get cold and when you leave you have to put the bedding and sheets away. Also, you'll need to bring your own food and drink or be prepared to starve unless you by from the venders at each stop. Going by train takes a long time in Kazakhstan because there are a lot of stops. Another thing is that there are some soul-crushingly flat areas that you will ride through, that are literally in the middle of no-where. Yet, for all these faults, I think I'd still prefer to go by train than by plane. That was pretty scary and with the hassle of luggage in Kazakhstan (especially when you have a lot of it!)

We finally arrived in Almaty and then we spent our one day there mainly in the company of Damy, Leyla, and Victoria, the students Jeff, Mark, and I had hung out with last summer. It was good to see them again and they seemed very excited to be spending time with Jake and I. That day we went up the Kok-Tubeh, had lunch at a popular student café, saw the central square of the city and some other sights of Almaty. The girls gave me a present of a CD from a guy called "Oleg Gazmatoff" since I liked Lubeh, they think I would probably like this guy as well—and so far I think they are correct, I'm liking it. I also met with the Kazakh officer's sister and niece who gave me all the stuff they wanted us to take…which was a lot of junk. I was really worried about the weight, because it was so darn heavy.

The next day we went to the airport and after people attempted to hustle us at the airport, I met the officer's subordinate who took great care of us and got us through all the lines really quickly and completely got us past the baggage weight limitation. It was really cool. I've benefited twice now, from corruption in Kazakhstan and I can see how it can be nice if you've got the right kind of contacts, but I think in the end, the problems it causes way outweighs its supposed benefits.

I guess now you are expecting me to go on a long rant about Kazakh/Russian culture and so on and so forth like I did with Korea. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it won't be exactly like that. There are a lot of problems in Kazakhstan, but to be so nit-picky seems a bit unfair. Most of my complaints about Korea is because Korea is an extremely well developed country and benefited greatly from US support so I expected better than that from them. Kazakhstan on the other hand is a former Soviet bloc country, which was fed on a diet of Soviet lies and propaganda. It is extremely poor, full of corruption and they're still trying to decided whether Stalin was a bad or good guy (about evenly split in my class). Most of my other complaints have to do with the lack of body hygiene, which sounds very petty to complain about and I don't really know how they can fix it—it just seems natural to me to change my clothes everyday and take a bath likewise. So you won't be hearing quite as much complaining about Kazakhstan ways.

What I will complain about is that the girls can be a little too friendly. For example, take a look at these few pictures (pictures coming soon if not up yet). The girls have got their arms in ours or (and you probably can't tell) their hands around our waist—sometimes they put our hands like theirs for a more mirrored look. Now this just isn't one or two girls, but almost any girl there in Kazakhstan will do that for a picture. It means nothing really, but what are two poor, to put it nicely heavy (to put it not so nicely fat), homely Midwestern boys from Kansas supposed to think? It isn't easy, you know?

Dr. Lee always says there's something good about Midwestern kids. More responsible, trustworthy, etc. He's really hard on the Korean kids, but he may have something at least in America, I think. I am kind of a fan of the Midwest and her people. We may not be the coolest and hell, some of us might be hicks, but of anywhere I've been the people here are the least boastful and some of the hardest working, I'd like to say. I hate it when people my age knock on Kansas and complain about it so much; I like it here and I'd much rather live in Kansas than some west (or east coast) latte drinking big liberal city. Bleh—if what I've been hearing from people about Obama and people's obsession with him, I'm extremely glad to be in Kansas. As far as I can tell, he still hasn't really done anything yet.

Also, while I'm on politics—why the hell did we get those two idiots out of North Korea? Anyone stupid enough to try to sneak in illegally to a hostile country that is looking for bargaining chips against us deserves to be left to rot, in my opinion. What did we have to give to get them out? They shouldn't have gone there in the first place and by going there, they put America's strategic goals at risk. What fools! If I do something that stupid and a hostile regime is trying to use me against the USA, leave me be and hopefully I'll learn my lesson—I've read One Day in the Life of Ivan Dennisovich so I think I'll be OK to survive in a gulag—I've learned all the tricks, see?