It's a good thing this blog doesn't have any real "following" to speak of, or it might be slightly irritated with my recent lack of updates. While it's been a fun summer it's also been a bit slow, so honestly there hasn't been a lot to update. That's the excuse I'm going with anyway. Certainly not laziness.
Here's a brief rundown of my last two months in Kazakhstan (and Italy!). At the end of June I went back to my training village of Chamalgan to celebrate my host brother's birthday and just hang out and relax for a few days. Little did I know this would be my last extended opportunity I would have to speak Kazakh or pick up any conversational Russian for almost two months. After that I went up north to a village outside Ust-Kamenogorsk, only a few short hours from the nuclear test site city of Semey, for a second summer camp. This was a mostly nice, relaxing time because there weren't very many students, plus the weather was absolutely beautiful, even getting cool enough to put on a coat on a couple of nights. The village was very small and spread out, and you could see thousands of stars at night. The place had a really great, relaxed atmosphere. From here I took a bus 22 hours south back to Almaty where I flew out to Italy to meet my family. There we stayed in a sprawling rooftop apartment with an awesome view of the city, Siena. It was a nice break from Kazakhstan and wonderful to get to see my family again for the first time in almost a year. It was also great to eat Italian food on a daily basis. The only disappointment was, after dreaming of chicken parmesan for almost a year, I found out that this dish is the Italian equivalent of Chinese chow mein, that is, a strictly Americanized version of Italian food. I guess I'll have to wait another 14 months or so, but one of my first trips out when I get back will be to the closest Applebees' for a huge helping of chicken parm. Otherwise, Italy was a beautiful country. We stayed mostly in the Tuscany region, saw Florence, a little bit of wine country, and Chinqua Terra, a small string of connected cities on the coast. And there was a lot of stopping for gelato.
This brings me just about up to date. Right now I'm at a third and final summer camp up in Zhezkazgan, a 9 hour bus ride north from Kyzylorda. And I can't say it's a normal bus ride. There's really only one road that runs in any semblance of a direct route from my city north to Zhez, and this includes several narrow and bumpy dirt paths through the steppe. (The only other option for getting there is to take thhe train through Astana, which is WAY northeast and would take about 50 hours.) Somewhere around half of the road is paved, but much of this portion of the road is filled with pretty sizable potholes which require a lot of off-roading. The only way I can think to describe the ride is to say imagine riding a giant jackhammer the size of a 30-year-old small Soviet bus with 15 of your closest local acquaintances. For nine hours. Then think of how sore your back would be the next day (this was something I failed to consider beforehand). For about 8 of the 9 hours there is just absolutely nothing as far as the eye can see, except for one bizarre pitstop around the halfway point at a small compound-like setup where a family appeared to live. The three pictures I included in this entry are from this stop. I'm not sure if they capture the odd remoteness of the place, but take my word for it, it was remote. I couldn't begin to figure out how this family survived beyond what they charged bus passengers for tea, or where they spent any money they earned beyond what they gave to the busdriver for him to pick up food for them and bring it back the next day.
Finally after about 8 hours and 45 minutes you could see a city emerging out of the steppe and seemingly out of nowhere. Zhezkazgan is mostly a copper-mining city but has a strikingly modern feel to it, at least as opposed to Kyzylorda. My impressions so far are really that it is a nice little city tucked into the steppe without another city anywhere close for more than 100 miles. It might be a product of the grass always being greener, especially when it's as boiling hot as its been back in KO for the last few weeks, but I definitely like the city and wouldn't mind living here at all. Though I would have to try a lot harder to learn Russian since they don't really speak much Kazakh here.
Other than that, not a lot going on. Classes will start back up at the beginning of next month. I'm hoping to persuade my dean to let me teach my own class with my own syllabus this term, but that could be a longshot. When I proposed the idea to my department head a couple months ago she pretty clearly shot it down, explaining that all the regular teachers had to accrue a certain number of teaching hours and that it would be unfair for me to take one teacher's hours but not another's, so I would have to continue "as a volunteer teacher," which seems to mean just "practicing speaking" with the students, without a syllabus or textbook most of the time. Not exactly what I want to have happen again, so I'm hoping we'll be able to work something out.
This was a bit of a boring entry. I'm hoping next time I'll have some more interesting things to write about (but not too interesting, Russia). Hope everyone is having a good summer, enjoying the Olympics, and staying safe. Til next time.
