A late Christmas poem

Here's a Christmas poem for you guys, in the tradition of last year. You may not understand all the jokes, but I hope you enjoy:

Twas the night before Christmas

and all through the land

not a creature was stirring,

Not even in Kazakhstan

This ain't a repeat of last year

I'd never be so lame

give me a little credit

I do have a modicrum of shame

Since landing in this country

over a year has gone past

where I used to daily freakout

Now I'm sure I can last

Bring on the vodka

Bring on the Russian

Though after a few shots

I may star blushin

I can tell a good joke

and give an eloquent toast

these people now love me,

though I do hate to boast

I've learned to love this country

where I'm too small for my pants

and people seem to think,

I know how to dance

I used to tremble and cry

when I thought of the time left

now thoughts of leaving

leave me quite bereft

Not to say I don't miss home

and this season is quite hard,

when I prefer eggs and coffee can bread,

I get porridge and slices of lard

My presents are stacked

beneath my glass mirror

though they lose much meaning,

without those I hold dear

With all of the new 20's

I must be a rock

cause with their tear filled eyes

I see they're still in shock

Trust me young ones

when I tell you this fact

of all the 19's

Not a one hasn't cracked

Not a year ago

I was crying for mommy

now all that I need

is a sandwhich of pickles and salami

Now a short message to mom

who may end up in tears

I assure you all is well

Nothing I can't fix with a few beers

Now it's time to celebrate

this wonderful time

cause soon we'll be home

with no job and not a dime

The economy is failing

and jobs are not found

all through Kazakhstan

talk of the criziz is around

Better to be in a job

that pays us no bucks

than begging for work

at one of Sasser's Schucks

So thank your lucky stars

you're in this crazy place

your service may feel like forever

but it flys at a quick pace

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. Goodnight.

A Seasoned Greeting

To start, I just want to say, I don’t think this entry is my finest work. I was distracted, it’s been written over many installments, and frankly, it could be better. That being said, enjoy.
Let’s begin with the unhappy, angriness. Walking through the city with some friends, we decided (I decided and dragged them along) to play soccer with some local kids. We walked over and I asked, in Russian, if we could play with them. The ringleader, an obvious punk, turned to me and gave me a firm “no.” No explanation, no nothing, just a no. I tried to reason with me but he didn’t say another word, so I stormed off in a huff, my friends tailing behind and listening to my angry muttering.
To counter that encounter, today I was carrying all my things from one friend’s apartment to another, and had just walked out the door, when I started getting honked at by a car. I thought it was just some jerk, but it turned out to be Nikolai Mickaelovich. I didn’t know him, but he drove a truck for the Red Cross and offered me a ride. After forcing open the canopy on his truck with a wrench, we threw my things in and I climbed in the cab. We shook and introduced ourselves and he proceeded to tell me that Americans are good and everybody in Kazakhstan drives like there are no laws. The few minutes we rode together to my destination were pretty enjoyable. He asked for me to give him a few tenge, for his grandchildren, which I was happy to do and we parted. It’s the kindness of strangers and not the bratty insolence of stupid kids that makes this job really fun and worthwhile.
Other brief thoughts and anecdotes: I saw a half eaten cow leg along my path to school the past two days. The bottom half of the leg, with half the bone exposed and the hoof still attached. I’ve had very strange dreams, one of which involved me having to do calculus and left me terrified (a sure sign I’m in the right place, far from math). I’ve taken up the guitar finally, and progress is slow but steady. There isn’t a lot of snow but there’s a lot of cold. This year I like it a bit more and am enjoying the beauty of the frost on everything.
Other news is that I spent the last week down in Almaty for a gathering of all the 18’s and 19’s left in the country. Those are all the volunteers that have been around for at least a year. We got together to gossip about the new volunteers at our sites, drink some beers, make plans for summer and listen to a few seminars. Besides the chance to reconnect with some old friends, I believe the biggest benefit of these biannual events is they reenergize and motivate me to get more work done and be a better volunteer. If that feeling can last the 30 hour train ride back to my site, then I’m in good shape.
Nothing overtly amazing happened this week. I spent some time with my original host family and they once again gave me the huge self-esteem boost of telling me how thin I’ve gotten and how great my Russian has become. I am able to hold real conversations with them and discuss a variety of topics. Sharing jokes and relating various stories about the past half a year in Russian without having to fake a laughter or get something explained to you makes the experience that much more enjoyable.
On the topic of my Russian, I took the language test that the Peace Corps gives out. They have among the staff accredited testers, so it’s an official thing. During the test I was explaining things like the difference between American and Kazakhstani schools, what a White Elephant Christmas Party is and other things that I couldn’t even imagine having spoken about a year ago. When I finished my training I had a score of Intermediate Low. It ranges from Novice Low to Advanced High and finally Superior. This time around I got a score of Intermediate High but the tester, Lena, told me that I had come as close to Advanced Low as I could without actually reaching it. Grammar. Go figure. Who needs it? Anyway, she told me that I have a real gift for the language and talking to me had been a real pleasure.
When I told her what my plans might be for after Peace Corps, being a school teacher, she was appalled and worked hard at convincing me to continue my studies in Russian. She didn’t want me to waste my talent, she told me. So she has me looking at programs to study in Russia or elsewhere in Central Asia, and also proposed that I would be an ideal candidate for Kazakhstan’s flagship program where they hire native speakers to teach English. It would be the same I’m doing now, only paid and working for Kazakhstan and not Peace Corps. It’s just some things to consider, I don’t have anything in concrete now.
On the way back to site Mary, a fellow Pavlodar volunteer, and I were riding on “the peoples train” which is the official name for the open wagons where you intermingle with all the folks around you, when the two older women across the table from us stroke up a conversation. We did the general talking but then feeling bolstered by my new language confidence, I tried to make some point about discrimination in Kazakhstan in the north, where many ethnicities and cultures mix, versus the south with is more or less homogenously Kazakh. I’m pretty sure I lost them at some point, but I managed to pull it back together with some references to America’s south and all that. It was an awkward bit, but in the end I think we really entertained each other and understood most of what each of us was saying.
Having a decent ability in the language makes the Peace Corps experience so much more enjoyable. Talking with people, finding out their stories and all that, is incredibly interesting to me. I see these new volunteers and how incredibly awful their Russian is (sorry Jane, Emily, Sean, Ryan) and think how that used to be me. As your language gets better and you gain in confidence, the experience becomes much richer.
Kazakhstan Independence Day has come and gone. I hung out in the city with the other volunteers, and we celebrated Jane’s birthday, who is the awesomest awesome volunteer in the awesomest awesomey oblast (did I get that right Jane?). That was a lot of fun, and then it was back to Zhelezinka, where I’ve been for the past week.
Two days after I was back we had our KBH comedy competition final. We had won the first round earlier, now we were up against two other teams from our county, I suppose you’d call it. Long story short, we won it again. If you want the full story, find me in a year when I get back, because you probably had to be there for it to be funny. The point is though, that after we won, we took our prize, a glass vase, around to various shops in the village trying to sell it so we’d have more money to celebrate with. The night ended at the café with lots of food and lots of vodka. Let the pictures speak for themselves.
Tomorrow is Christmas, and though I’m not as down and filled with feelings of loneliness like I was last year, I still miss my family. When I look at the pile of presents they sent me, sitting on my vanity, I get a bit homesick. I enjoy presents. Who doesn’t? But I enjoy them so much more when they are surrounded by other peoples presents under a festively lit Christmas tree that can barely be seen beneath the hundreds of ornaments that have been collected over the years.
This is a tough time for many people, wherever you are. I can get through this Christmas without a problem because I know that my family is thinking of me as much as I am thinking of them, and I keep the thought that next year I will be back with them, telling jokes and laughing at all the dorky comments getting tossed around.
This year I’m hoping I will have a chance to get into the city on the weekend to celebrate with all the rest of the volunteers. I have another obligation that I’m regretting agreeing to at this point, though. My school needed somebody to play the Kazakhstani version of Santa Claus, called Grandfather Frost, for their New Years celebration. This apparently happens multiple times, and of the times they want me is Saturday evening, when I expected to be celebrating Christmas. If I can, I’m going to get somebody to cover for me that one day, but as all things go in Kazakhstan, getting definite information and a solid schedule is impossible until the day of. I think I can make it work, I’ve learned a thing or two in this country, and they love me here so they’re often willing to work around my needs.
I’ve had lots of great comments from people about how much they enjoy me and what a good person I am, which is part of the reason I love doing things like this for them. But I also need to think of myself and my own personal needs. This is a hard time, and being able to be around close friends relieves a lot of the depression. A little alcohol doesn’t hurt either.
So with that thought, I’ll leave you all. I miss you guys, I love and I’ll be there next year.

Cross-dressing for the win!

Those of you who have been following this blog for quite awhile may remember an event last year called Kavan (KBH in Russian). This is a team comedy competition that last year was held at our village’s concert hall. This year it was in another village. I had the dubious honor of joining teachers and a few students from our three schools to create an ultimate Zhelezinka comedy team.
The way Kavan works is you put together a few skits for various competitions. There’s an opening hello set of skits, a musical group, another they call homework where you have to do some sort of skit based on a theme they give you and a funny speech or story given by the team captains.
Our team ran on a platform of gender-bending and An-American-speaking-Russian-is-automatically-funny. I can’t really relay the jokes (you had to be there), but needless to say with my flawless delivery of lines I barely understood and struggled to remember, our team took first place!
This was coming off of a day and a half of preparation. On Wednesday a teacher came to me asking if I wanted to be in the show. I of course agreed, and I showed up for “rehearsal” at 3 o’clock that day. They gave me my lines, explained to everybody what we would be doing, and then we went home. I was told we would be recording our lines so nobody had to memorize them.
The next day I show up in the morning and am informed that my lines won’t be recorded. I have to memorize a dozen lines of Russian. Fine, I said, I can manage that. And I did. I must have read my lines over 100 times. I had them down (pronunciation was another matter). The time came for the show. I hit my first parts without a stutter. Third couplet I stalled on a line, but luckily my partner knew my part and fed me the line. The final couplet I was going along with it, then for some reason got drowned out by our cheering section. They must have realized that I was going to screw it up and figured it’d be safer to just scream and shout. They were right, actually.
So in the end, we were the funniest of four teams and now, for better or worse, we have a final competition in about four weeks. I am going to once again have about two days to prepare because the week before the competition I will be in Almaty for a Peace Corps conference that I don’t plan on missing.
Otherwise, things here have been pretty calm. My sitemate, Megan, is getting along and seems to be doing pretty well in the village. I have come to respect Nora (yes you, Nora) even more for being able to listen to all my complaints and stress relieving diatribes, as I am now doing the same. I don’t mind it because I know how much it can help to unload.
As for my depression loaded previous blog, that time has passed. That’s what happens in Peace Corps. Things get bad, then time passes. You find a distraction, you get a package from home or you email bomb all your friends (except Alex, sorry) in order to get a lot of love in return. Time passes, and soon you’re home.

Cynicism, seeds and send offs

My first draft of this blog was full of cynicism and bitterness. I had had a run in with a local, all of ten seconds, but it had left a very bad impression on me and I wrote this immediately after that. I’m rewriting it now because I believe the first iteration showcased too much of the bad, and not enough of the good. I’ll now repeat the cynical part, though in a less grumpy and fed up manner.
I was walking home from school when a car pulled up beside me. The driver rolled down his window and, without a word of greeting or an excuse me, asked me where a certain address was. I informed him he was on the correct street but I didn’t know which house it was he was looking for. He drove off without a thank you or goodbye. This was made me so bitter and angry. Just writing about it reminds me of how annoyed I was at this man.
My mother and grandparents worked hard to raise me to be polite. I was taught that if you want something, including directions, you should use a please, maybe say excuse me and thank the person afterwards. I believe most people would agree that this is a mark of a civilized, cultured person (though “your face” jokes and bodily functions at the dinner table often contradicted my manners).
In Kazakhstan, it is rare to hear a person say “thank you” for dinner, or include a please in their request. In America this would be considered rude. I’ve spent many a wasted breath on a thank you that goes unanswered or gets just a grunt. It’s not as normal here as it is where all you guys live. That doesn’t make it rude; it’s just a difference in culture. I realize that now (and probably did at the time it happened as well). I think some of the bitterness came from a long downward spiral I feel I’ve been on, starting with the theft of my wallet and bank card and ending with the director of my school getting very angry with me. Allow me to elaborate.
My new sitemate came up for a visit a couple weeks ago, along with Nora. They spent a week in Zhelezinka where we saw the sites, attended a lip/accordion synched concert and baked chicken flavored cookies. At the concert we were approached by the director of the concert hall, as well as a government man who I take to be the minister of culture or some such. He had asked me (repeatedly) if I would play the saxophone in a concert. I always told him yes, then avoided him as long as I could. I’m not big on taking solos in front of large crowds of people, even if they wouldn’t know good saxophone playing from bad.
Anyway, this time they asked Megan, my sitemate, to play. She whole heartedly agreed (she’s much more enthusiastic, in general, than I am). Anyway, this made me jealous so I’ve played since then, though not in a concert. This event put me in a bit of a funk. The big downer was when we went into the city, as Megan and all the other new volunteers had to leave. Let me make an aside here.
New volunteers are so incredibly American! They dress, talk and act totally American, and stand out like nothing else. I realize now how much I have changed in this one year and have become pretty well integrated into the culture. They things they talk about as so silly or outrageous seem fairly commonplace to me at this point. Now I am one of the experts on this country and will be helping (and laughing) all these new souls.
I also want to give a quick shout out to the group of volunteers before me (Kaz-18’s) that at this point are all back in the states. Likely, now that they are free and clear, will never read this blog, but thanks anyway guys. My Pavlodar boys, and Nora (especially Nora), were a great help in keeping me sane. It’s hard to imagine service without them, but as I said, I’m the old volunteer now, so I’ll have people relying on me. I hope I can do as much for them as the older volunteers did for me.
Okay, so in the city we were going to meet up with a group of these new volunteers. Along the way I realized that my wallet was missing. It had been stolen, and I’m pretty sure (in retrospect) I know who took it. If I see him again, he’s gonna pay. Literally, I want my money back. That put a damper on the whole trip and my lack of money made it so that I had to skip a soccer match and borrow money from my new sitemate just to get home again.
The next weekend I went into the city to apply for a new bankcard so I could withdraw money. Normally this process takes about a week. After waiting outside in the cold for an hour for the bank to open they informed me that because of some problems in Almaty, it would take three weeks. This was three weeks without money. I had to borrow another large sum of money from another volunteer in order to pay my host family for November. Another bump down the ladder of happiness and stability.
The final shot came when what I thought was going to be a huge pick me up, turned out slightly disastrous. We celebrated Halloween at my school on Monday with a party in our school auditorium. I organized games, kids wore costumes and it was a lot of fun. It included bobbing for apples, pin the nose on the pumpkin and guess how many sunflower seeds are in the bottle. It was this last game that would prove to be such a problem.
I had spent the last night counting out 4929 sunflower seeds and filling a liter bottle with them. The winner guessed 4000. I awarded her the bottle. Thinking that students would be responsible and wait until they were outside to start eating them, I was way way way wrong. When the lights came on, after the students had left, I observed the destruction. There were shells all over the floor.
Needless to say, when my director saw the mess, she was not happy. She yelled at my counterpart, my counterpart got mad at me, then the director got mad at me. It all helped to drop me into a deep funk. The mess got cleaned up, but it left me in quite a bad mood. I’ve already started feeling better, but it’s definitely a couple weeks that will live in infamy for me.
So that’s that. I’m now sitting in my school killing time. We are on break, which means the students all get to go home, but for whatever reason us teachers are required to be here from 9 until 1. I miss being a student frankly. This weekend I will be house-sitting for my counterpart, where I plan to cook French toast and other tasty treats, abuse his internet and walk around the house in my underwear. It’s going to be my trial at living alone, the idea of which is becoming more and more appealing in general (not because of problems at home, but because of the extra freedom and independence [and maybe loneliness] I will have).
I have about 11 more months of service. That’s less than a year. All the volunteers leaving recently has made me think a lot of what’s waiting for me at home, and that thought is very exciting. Until then, I’ll persevere. Think happy thoughts for me.

Grammar, Common Sense and Heartiness

Russian grammar is like improvisation in jazz band. For me, whenever Mr. G would stand at the front and start pointing at people to throw in a solo during some song we were practicing, my heart would begin racing and I’d do everything I could to avoid eye contact. Inevitably he would cunningly call my name, thus avoiding any chance that I wouldn’t notice, and I would have to stand and plug out an awkward and rhythmically painful twelve bar stretch of notes.

Let me explain the metaphor. Russian grammar has a lot of different endings that identify the purpose of the various nouns in a sentence. There are a total of six cases and depending on which you use, the noun can have very different meanings. The classic example is “The father gave the son a car.” In English, it’s the word order that matters. Thus, “The son gave the father a car” has a whole new meaning (and of course we know this would never happen in real life). Also, “The car gave a father to the son.” Just think about that one.

In Russian, any of those word orders can be correct, as long as you put the correct ending on each word. Now the metaphor will become clear. I studied musical theory in school and could write out the scale for different keys with few mistakes. I am studying Russian grammar and am getting better at writing the correct endings and figuring out what goes where. When it came time to play these scales, my brain became befuddled and I couldn’t identify the correct notes fast enough. The same with Russian, unless I’ve had lots of practice orally, I mix up or forget altogether the endings.

Frustrating, to say the least. But there is progress, and it keeps me hopeful that by the time I leave this country I will have a tenuous grasp and be able to apply what knowledge I have effectively in conversation.

I am nearly the senior (along with a few others) volunteer in this crazy oblast we call Pavlodar. The old guys are all leaving for America to join the ranks of the unemployed, stressed out over the economy, growing beer gut American middle class. I have another year for you guys to get it all straightened out before I come home. I am excited and a bit apprehensive about instilling my vast knowledge on these new, wet behind the ears volunteers we’re getting soon, but I think I will do my best. I would like to provide a short list of the common sense I have picked up here:

1) If you have an indoor toilet, it’s always best to make sure the water is running before going number two

2) If you have an outdoor toilet, wait until the afternoon when it’s warmest to go number two

3) Bring your own plastic bottles to fill at the beer stations to save money

4) Avoid complications. Get a signature every time you give money to your host family

5) Count the stray dogs around your favorite shashlik stand. If there is less every day, don’t eat the shashlik.

6) Be assertive about what your name is from the beginning or it becomes awkward to correct people later. “Yes, I know you’ve called me John for twelve months, but I thought it was finally time to tell you…my name is actually Jeff.”

7) Vodka is good for any occasion. Wait four or five toasts in before giving your own, you’ll be much more articulate.

8) If you shine your shoes, people will forgive frumpy hair

9) Kazakhstani fashion may look silly to Americans, but we aren’t in America. Buy the pointy shoes, wear the jean jacket and strut your stuff like JT (that’s John Travolta).

10) Ask where the tram or bus is going, don’t rely on the sign or you’ll find yourself stuck out in the boonies.

I have to add an amendment to this entry since writing it yesterday on my computer. Last night I had a great time with my English Club and post English Club. It was my adult class, and today I only had one student, but he is very enthusiastic and already can speak English decently. Anyway, he asked a question and it led into a side topic that developed into a full, improve lesson. We were speaking about excuses and how to use phrases like “I’m too tired” or “I’m too busy.” I started to feel a bit like Robin Williams during it, explaining situations. Afterwards he said it was the best ever.

Upon leaving, he invited me to his house for dinner. I accepted, thinking this is a great way to get out of the house and meet new people. Long story short, I met his mother, brother, uncle and his niece and nephew. We talked, ate good food and shared some vodka. It was a really uplifting experience, and let me tell you exactly why.

Earlier that day I had read a short essay in a book called “At Home in the World: The Peace Corps Story.” The essay was about a woman who helped build a school, and ended up getting it named after her. I was thinking, how can I leave a mark like that on Zhelezinka when I leave? This dinner made me realize that the mark the woman left was more in the hearts (sappy, I know) of the people, and the school was just a result of how much they had come to accept her and love her. By going to this dinner and talking, making them laugh and sharing stories with them, I was doing the same thing.

That’s all I wanted to add, it was a great night for me and I hope I can have more and more like it. Sorry there are no pictures.

Deep Thoughts

Nothing interesting or exciting has happened lately. This update is more to talk about a couple thoughts I’ve had. First is the ability to adapt and change. The second is thoughts about home.

I realized today that some things that I couldn’t stand or completely baffled me about this country have become completely common place and even enjoyable at times. This epiphany came as I was buying a bottle of mineral water. When I arrived I could not understand why anybody would carbonate plain drinking water! It was difficult to gulp down, tasted funny and was in all ways unpleasant. Now I realize that I prefer it to normal water. It’s like a party in throat every time I take a sip and the tiny bubbles race around inside my mouth.

It was teachers’ day on Saturday and like is usual we had a big lunch at school with the teachers and other staffers of work. At about 9.30 one teacher came to work, already having drunk a significant amount and was obviously drunk. He explained that it was okay because it was a holiday, plus it was the 30 year anniversary of him teaching. He showing up like that was a small shock still, but not so much as it would have been. What was totally ordinary was drinking vodka at 11.30 with all the other teachers in our school cafeteria and making toasts to everybody, then going home slightly tipsy at about 3 o’clock. Drunkenness is not looked down as much, as long as you aren’t wild and out of control, as it would be in America. It’s just a result of having a good time. Maybe college prepared me for that a bit too.

My point is that this country seemed very foreign and bizarre when I came here, and now it’s nothing new. I feel pretty well adapted and at home among these folk, though I’m pretty sure I still baffle them at times, but that’s part of my charm as an American.

This other epiphany was my big one, concerning homesickness. I believe that there is a large distinction between wanting to go home and wishing you were home. Wishing you were home usually comes because you are bored; sitting around in the afternoon or evening, and wish you were with your friends or family. It’s much more fun to sit and hang out with people you can freely chat and joke with, than playing out their awkward lives through a video game (The Sims 2 takes up much of my free time lately). Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing Ian fall in love with Nick and Tim or Randy electrocuting himself trying to fix the dishwasher, but I’d prefer to see it in real life.

The thing is, wishing for home only comes from boredom (or having to poop outside in the middle of the winter with -40 degree temperature surrounding your bare…skin) and is not a result of my actual situation. I still love going to school and teaching the kids (those that aren’t a pain in the ass) English and chatting with teachers about home and whatever else they want to talk about. It’s a desire for more meaningful human contact that you can only get through deeper relationships (which are much easier to develop when the two parties fluently speak a shared language).

Wanting to go home is a symptom of an unhappy situation. You don’t like your school, or the family you are staying with. Maybe the climate is not to your liking or Peace Corps didn’t turn out to be at all what you thought it would be (in a bad way. I think most of us had our opinions changed upon the first two months in country). In the end, your situation weighs down on you until you crumble and have to go home. It’s not an easy choice and it can take months and months to come to the point where it’s just too much.

For me, I often have the desire to be at home among all my entertaining friends (and the fact that half of them have also scattered to different parts of the US doesn’t really factor into it). Rarely have I ever wanted to go home. At this point in our service we are pretty solidly entrenched in our communities (and I have an indoor toilet) and those feelings will be less and less.

Plus, I’m getting a new volunteer. Thought I’d mention. Her name is Megan; she’s from the D.C. area, which is really going to confuse people when they hear she’s from Washington as well. Most people can’t grasp the difference between the two Washington’s in America. Anyway, she’s coming to visit in about a week and change along with my old matey Nora and I’m pretty excited. Hopefully nothing happens to chase her off. I won’t mention the outdoor toilet.

Check back in a day or two and there will be pictures

Sorry to have kept you all waiting for so long, but I'm back! And by back, I mean back to work! I've gotten over 20 hours of classes a week, which keeps me busy six days a week. During the morning, up until about 2 pm I am at school teaching 5th to 11th graders. I have about 2 hours for lunch then I head back to school for my favorite part of the day, the 3rd and 4th graders!

These kids are terrific! They are starting from the beginning, so I don't have to spend time unlearning things or reviewing past material. A lot of the time is spent playing games and things like that. They love me and are always asking when the next English class will be. They are absolutely adorable and excited about learning! It's a great feeling for a teacher, those of you that know. Life is so much easier when you don't have to force feed them the material. Things like colors, family and animals are super fun.

Among my students my favorites have to be the 4th "B" class. There's little Lea (this girl is eerily similar to a mini Lea, at least in my eyes), Arina and Sveta who have big eyes and goofy smiles. My 3rd graders include Rima and my ex-cousin Karina. Overall, I couldn't be happier to go back to school after lunch, when most people just want to relax.

Other classes are not too bad, I have a pretty fun time with most of my classes. I get tired of my older classes though and rarely look forward to them. 5th grade is good too, and I can always count on them to do their homework. The 6th grade has been begging me to come teach their class as well and I'm about to give in to them, even though I really don't need the extra 2 or 3 hours a week I'd have to be working.

I've decided that if I really want to leave my mark in this community, I need to be working a lot more on the English teachers than on the students. I'm only here another year and I can't improve English all that much, but what I can do is improve on very outdated methodology so that the resident teachers can carry on with amazing lessons. In this way though, I'm being resisted. It is very easy to rely on Russian and translate texts, and trying to get teachers to completely stop that is proving difficult. Some find it funny that I've started to become a "methodologist" as they say, but I'm going to persist. I've made a few advances, but it's going to take the whole year to get to a point that I'm satisfied.

I have also learned about the other side of potato planting. That is, the digging of potatos. I went out to a field one Saturday afternoon when I thought I was going to get to relax with a shovel and a pail. As the men dug up all the potatos we had planted five months ago (men being Slava and myself), our two women went around gathering them up. It was a pretty pathetic turn out, and we only gathered five sacks. These would not last through the winter and I heard lots of complaining about it from all points. This work was not nearly as hard as it was made out to be and we finished in the early afternoon and headed home. In most respects, it was identical to planting them, just in reverse. That's all that can really be said about this topic.

Other news, I'm officially a year older! Yeah, this old man just turned 24. I'm starting to feel it in my bones, the hair line is receding (or already receded) and my eyes are turning on me. I celebrated on the 16th pretty tamely. I had no classes that day amazingly, so I was able to relax. I got some happy birthday messages, the first at 7 am from my family in Almaty, when I was not in the right state of mind to fully appreciate it, but overall it was good. I had adults english club that night and talked to them for a bit, but there was no real celebration.

That weekend I went into the city and hung out with "the guys." We first went to a public banya in Pavlodar where we steamed, drank beers and did "man" things. Leave that to your imagination. We then met up with a local friend who I was told is "the greatest guy in Kazakhstan" which he would have to be to spend an evening with some crazy Americans. We went to a cafe and did the traditional bottle and toasts, did some dancing, then hit the town. All the details aren't necessary, but I would say I did any Kazakhstani proud, and many of my friends back home. I never went on a 21 run with my buddies, cause I'm older than most of them, but this pretty much made up for it.

I got back Monday afternoon after spending all of Sunday...recovering. Wednesday at school Slava comes up to me and tells me he has a surprise. I was thinking maybe a belated birthday present or something... but no, not exactly. Apparently Tanya, Slava's wife, had pointed out the wrong field to us when we were digging potatoes last time. We had dug up somebody else and had to go back and get our potatoes still. So Thursday morning when we had no classes and I again thought I was going to relax, Slava dragged me out to the fields.

This time it was just the two of us and it took a much longer time. Same process, but now i had to gather as well, and this was the hard part. By the end my back was killing me and I still had to go back for English club. Our driver was about an hour late coming to pick us up and Slava and I had some good philisophical discussions. Mostly about video games, movies, girls and the like. We really got deep and emotional. You can imagine.

Friday morning I learn I'm running in a race. From what I understood (and I'm getting better at understanding by the way), it was to be a relay race and I would be picking up the second leg and had to run 500 meters. At 1 pm I ate a light lunch of soup and at 3 pm got to the center where the race was to be held. It was there that I learned that I still had some work to do in understanding the Russian language. Apparently I was running my own race in the 20-29 year old mens catergory. And they had lied about the distance. I'm still not sure of the exact distance, but some say it was 1800 meters (that's more than a mile).

So I get all lined up with the other guys, most of whom are in much better shape than me and likely have been doing some running to get ready for this day. Me of course, I've been wearing my legs out digging potatoes and the like. My legs felt pretty heavy, but I figured I could do alright. So at go I took off and not wanting to look like a fool, tried to keep pace with the leaders. This quickly wore me down. As I got to the turn around point I was at 6th out of 9 or 10 people. I was wheezing and flopping my arms about, but still chugging along.

The whole time one of the kids from my school was riding beside me on his bicycle, offering me encouragement. Maybe it helped, I don't know, but as it was, I was slowly catching up to the guy ahead of me. As I neared his back, he must have heard my labored breathing or felt the spittle landing on his neck because he turned, saw me, and turned up the gas enough to get about 10 feet ahead of me again. This happened 3 times and after the 3rd I actually yelled at him, half jokingly, to slow down. He didn't listen.

As we came into the home stretch I decided I was going to get some sort of victory. So with all my students lining the track and cheering I turned on whatever I had left and came up behind the guy again. He saw me and tried to pick up his pace but he was no match. I lurchingly stumbled past him and beat him by some sort of distance, I don't know cause I was too tired to look back. I took a respectable 5th place overall. I was met by the winners and we all congratulated each other.

Then I wandered about the parking lotish area trying to hold down my lunch and stop my lungs from burning. This was the tiredest I've ever been. I tried to sit on the curb but was promptly told by a complete stranger that my butt would freeze to death or something, I was too tired to understand. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of fighting the urge to vomit, I gave up. Again, use your imagination. Though, I want to say I was not the only one from my group that hurled.

Okay, so now my legs are really, really tired. And today the school is going on a hike. Or have already. I hiked out to the woods with them, and in the interest of not using up the last of your patience with this blog, I'll keep it short. We went to the woods for Tourism Day, built fires, stomped down a beautiful meadow, ate lunch and drank tea, played games and left the place a mess. There were candy wrappers, plastic bottles and tin cans. Areas of burnt up grass and basically everything I had learned not to do in Boy Scouts. I wasn't too happy with the result, and I'm thinking of ways I can undo dozens of years of "who cares" attitude.

Alright, so that's the long (not the short) of what's been going on this last month. The weather is turning cold and before I know it I'll be trudging across ice and snow. In a week I will find out who my new American buddy will be and I've been assured that one is coming. I'm pretty excited to be the old salt out here. The guys from the city are all taking off in the next few weeks and I'll be sad to see them go, they've been a lot of fun and I wish them luck in wherever they end up (though I doubt they read this so it doesn't really matter what I say. They all smell terrible. Worse than Randy). That's all for that. Oh, also, I've reached the half way point (most volunteers leave after 26 months, 27 is the absolute limit). See you all in another 13 months.