Springtime in the City

As I sit here listening to Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know?” on my iTunes shuffle (thanks Joanna!) and trying to think of what to write, I am reminded that I should have made a more concerted effort to add more of my own music to my sister’s computer before leaving the country in August. Not that I have anything against Whitney Houston, but my shuffle rotation usually goes something like this: Mariah Carey, John Mayer, Mariah Carey, Dixie Chicks, Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey featuring Whitney Houston, John Mayer, The Format, Usher, TLC, Mariah Carey featuring Usher, Jessica Simpson, Norah Jones, Norah Jones featuring Mariah Carey....you get the idea.

Not sure exactly what I can say at this point. Another two (or so) weeks have come and gone (slowly), another round of lessons and modules have passed, the school year is coming to an end soon, and nothing too exciting has happened recently. It’s gotten past the point of everything being new and exciting, and it’s now moved into the phase of “Wow, I really love America!”

I guess I’m at that point of my cultural experience that falls under the “culture shock” category- I remember early on our trainers showed us a chart detailing how our adjustment to the new culture would go, and the chart, drawn as a straight horizontal line indicating the passage of time, looked something like “1) Everything’s new and exciting! 2) Culture Shock 3) Move to site- everything’s new and exciting again! 4) Culture Shock 5) Settle into a routine at your site, which is also new and exciting! 6) Culture Shock.”

If I had to place it, right now I’d say I’m in phase 4, the second round of Culture Shock. This term is a bit of a misnomer though. I’m not walking around in shock of my surroundings all day, but rather just kind of inbetween things being new and exciting and actually understanding the culture and my surroundings. Hopefully I get to the fifth phase and actually do understand what in the world is going on here, because right now it’s pretty confusing.

Well what else is new? I still miss baseball. I’m not sure if it’s better that I’m in a city with regular access to internet, or if it would be better to be in a village where I would be completely isolated and disconnected from the outside world. Honestly this is kind of what I wanted coming in, but I think it’s more the kind of thing that sounds cool until you actually live in a village for six months with no internet, limited food options, and no good English speakers. Maybe it’s better that I’m able to confirm the Orioles’ latest loss each day rather than wonder to myself “Did they win last night?” They say the first sign of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result...but this is what they do every year. They start with a glimmer of hope, going about 11-7 through their first 18 games (they have actually had this record each of the last three seasons) before the law of statistics catches up with them and the rest of the leagure realizes that they have Kevin Millar batting cleanup and Aubrey Huff DH-ing. Then usually sometime around August they lose a game 30-3 to the Rangers, get no-hit by a Red Sox rookie, and I leave for Kazakhstan. Or something like that.

Back to Kazakhstan...

In other news I attended my first "Becik Toy" yesterday, which means "Cradle Party." It's similar to a baby's 1st birthday party, which apparently is big in a lot of eastern cultures, but here it's celebrated when the baby is two or three months old. The idea, as I understood it, is the family invites family, friends, and colleagues to their house, sets up several tables of Kazakh food mostly drizzled in mayonnaise (but still good nonetheless), everyone makes at least one toast, then we go outside and dance for a minute, then come back in for the ceremony where the baby is placed into his cradle (a gift from the family) in the middle of a room full of people, and everyone there gets a huge handful of candy. The whole thing was pretty interesting, if not all that different in structure from other Kazakh ceremonies, and it was really nice of my teaching department to invite me to expose me to a unique cultural event. Apparently the becik toy is only thrown for the first child, who receives countless clothes and toys in addition to the cradle, which then get handed down to any later additions to the family (there always are). The highlight seemed to be when I was beckoned to give a toast, and I'll just say it's amazing how far a rudimentary knowledge of Kazakh will take you in a situation like this. I stumbled through a few lines of a pretty simple toast to the new baby and his mother, and when I ran out of things to say in Kazakh I asked if I could finish in English so that my toast would be longer than 20 seconds. But before this, which was about an hour in, I had been able to fly beneath the radar. After it, I was instantly a star. And I think it had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that I was able to speak a little bit of Kazakh. People here, we've noticed, particularly in Kyzylorda, are intensely nationalistic, and tend to get very offended when people, especially ethnic Kazakhs, speak Russian, and on the flip side feel intensely proud when people, especially foreigners, and especially foreigners that look Russian, speak Kazakh, even if barely passably. I don't know if this kind of blinding nationalism is fleeting and will pass after some time, or if it's something that will only get stronger. There's still no doubt that Russian is the more international language, and is really needed for career success, so I hope people don't get too carried away with the Kazakh-only thing. But, in this instance anyway, it worked out pretty well for me.

Before I forget, there's a program that was recently initated by the government here sponsoring 10 English teachers in each oblast (like state). The hope is to attract native English speakers to basically do the same thing I'm doing for a lot more money and less time. The year will run from September to May, teachers are paid $2000/month which will go a LONG way here, and their flights to and from will be covered, including traveling home for holidays. We've started working with the local Minsistry of Education Director at the request of Peace Corps, and she wanted us to get the word out about this, so if anyone thinks they might be the least bit interested and wants more information, please drop me an email. I think it would be an awesome experience. To summarize- you'd teach a full academic year of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) at either a secondary school, college, or university, make a lot of money, get free room and board, fly for free to and from, and get to experience Kazakhstan's unique* culture. So let me know if anyone's interested and I'll get some more information out to you.

*Believe me it is unique