Winter is a State of Mind and Quality of the Air

Monday, April 20 2009
Aktobe

The repeated attempts to relive winter are very tiring.  We have a term for the “second coming of Winter” – that roughly 10 days at the beginning of April where the weather pretends its main goal is to pretend it’s purgatory; snow, cold winds, and chilly rain – beskunak.  The term is in reference to a story of teenagers who went to celebrate in the steppe under clear skies, then the weather turned and they froze to death.  Beskunak is supposed to be a once-a-year occurrence.  One that just ended allowing us to play frisbee and American football in beautiful Spring skies yesterday.  I dismissed the rumors of returning snow.  Then, today the weather seems to have re-charted its course.  The snow has disappeared, the wind has arisen, and I hear more rumors of snow again, which are easy to believe now that dark clouds have engulfed the sky.

Life has been busier than the changes of weather.  For most of the past few months I have been traveling.  I was in Almaty for two weeks, holding a seminar on Volunteer Organization Development for organizations from across Kazakhstan and then I spent a week in India on vacation.  Back in Aktobe, we’re beginning construction on the wheelchair factory as soon as the weather settles down and Volunteer Club is continuously attracting more interest and volunteers; two of my coworkers will be spending about 10 days in America through a U.S. State Department program, “Open World”, for disability activists, frisbee and American football Sundays has begun, and English Club and Movie Club are fun, with both old participants and new students attending.

Winters provide a great deal of thinking time, especially when winter is in the middle of April.  It feels very strange that in November my service in Kazakhstan is finished.  There’s a great deal of more time before then and a lot to do, outside of specifically preparing for the next Peace Corps Volunteer who will work at my site – but it’s already easy to feel the pull to finish.  I’m not ready to leave, however.  I’m really enjoying my work and as the weather eventually chooses to transition into a sustained warmth, more opportunities will come together.  People emerge from the walls as the sun breaks through the clouds.

The day after I returned from India, we had a Seder for the first night of Passover.  Like last year, Ya’akov hosted the event.  This year, however, there were around 19 attendees, over double from last year.  We also had a new leader for the Seder, an Israeli man who is in Aktobe on business.  The group at the Seder was all male and mainly middle aged (40s-50s), with around six older men, and a few of us in our 20s.  The Seder started off very formal, but when we got to the Passover story, it quickly switched into interesting discussions.  We ended around 12:30 AM – an outstanding Seder.

For pictures, see http://picasaweb.google.com/pteicher/.

The Long Winter – Around Kazakhstan and Where Did My English Go?

International Women’s Day
8 March 2009
Aktobe

Each time I have started to write over the last few months, I get overcome with the present. Life has been normal life and consequently overly busy. I love it still, but only recently realized how stressed I had become. Writing is relaxing and helps put everything in perspective – but when the immediate issues are glaring at you, its distracting from putting words down.

Since I last wrote, my friends and I hosted a second “Tres Hombres” charity party (http://www.treshombresaktobe.blogspot.com/), I travelled around Kazakhstan, returned to a brief Spring in Aktobe (which quickly again turned cold), celebrated International Women’s Day many times, and began to relax.

When I left for my recent travels the day after the charity party, I was incredibly excited; extremely tired but very happy to see more of the country for a few weeks. I started in Astana, arriving a few days before my organization’s director to prepare for the grant signing ceremony at the Japanese Embassy. Two days ago, we received the $84,411.00 we won from the Japanese Embassy’s “Grassroots Development Program” Grant for the renovation of our wheelchair factory site. We begin renovation as soon as the weather warms-up – which could be anywhere from tomorrow to two months. The goal is to finish the massive renovation effort – basically gutting the building, installing new equipment, and making it friendly for disabled employees – by the end of July. Then, in August we plan to hold the training for employees in wheelchair assembly, managing, and marketing as well as for regional rural disability activists, in conjunction with our American partner NGO.

From Astana – after experiencing the young cultural scene – I travelled up to Pavlodar, a brief overnight train ride from the capital, to spend a few days with two of the Peace Corps Volunteers – Jeffrey and Maher. Jeffrey works at an organization for disabled children and Maher at a hospice. As I also work with disabled children and Jeffrey is starting a volunteer club, we thought it would be a good chance to learn from each other while I was in the area. Pavlodar is much more Russian than Aktobe. There seem to be less Kazakh people than in Aktobe and there is definitely more Russian and less Kazakh compared to my city, despite Aktobe not being an extremely Kazakh language heavy city. Pavlodar is a nice city – freezing cold, down to -35C when I was there with a burning wind – but it has some good restaurants and a river front that is likely nicer than last I remember of Detroit’s.

The three of us took the train down to Almaty for one of the other PCV’s weddings. Greg, who lives in Taldykorgan, a city about a four-hour taxi ride from Almaty, had his wedding on Valentine’s Day to a local Kazakhstani young woman. The wedding was beautiful. After a night in Almaty, I arrived in Taldykorgan at 11 in the morning. At about noon, we began to decorate the cars. You decorate the cars – in our case a few white Mercedes, a limo, and a Peace Corps (driven by the KZ PC Director) Land Cruiser – and then drive around the city for a few hours, first stop a ceremony where the groom has to earn the bride (planned by the bride’s friends), then more driving, then stopping at monuments to let the doves out to embrace their love, honking a lot, more driving, going to “Zaks” for the marriage certificate signing ceremony, more honking, a few circles around the city, and then to the restaurant for the party.

The marriage certificate signing ceremony is in a building specifically devoted for this purpose. Due to the fact that Valentine’s Day is a very popular wedding day, there was a line and the process seemed rather brisk. We went inside, waited with a big crowd, then our group went up the stairs to the signing hall. A few minutes later, the bride and groom make their way through the hall, to the table at the other end. They sign. Place the rings on each others’ fingers. Dance a waltz. Then, we are invited into the side room for champaign and chocolates. There is a receiving line for the bride, groom, and her family (as his is not there – they’ll be doing another ceremony when they all return to the States), then one toast – then we are directed out by the director of the facility. Time for the next couple.

A few more circles around the city and then to the restaurant. The party was wonderful. Over 20 Peace Corps Volunteers were in attendance, lots of local friends, and lots of toasts. Kazakhstani wedding toasts seem to usually involve each person in attendance (often by table) standing in the middle of the room and giving their toast to the bride, groom, best man and maid of honor, and video camera. The wedding party’s table has to stand-up for each toast. This entails them eating very little, drinking a good amount, and having tired legs by the time of the first dance. It was a lot of fun.

After the wedding, I returned to Almaty for a few days to delve into the issue that’s been recently providing my stress. Along with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers and local friends in Almaty and here, I am organizing a seminar on “volunteer organization development”. Since working with our volunteer club in Aktobe and learning about the expansion of volunteerism throughout Kazakhstan, it hass struck a number of us that while there is a great drive for volunteer development and activity on a local level, often the local organizations and activists do not have a great deal of training or experience in how to work with volunteers. Rather, it’s very much a “learn as you go” type of activity. That’s important and makes for more exciting programs than a cookie cutter organization, but not having the opportunity to share ideas and gain perspective from other organizations engaged in similar work detracts from the possibilities available – as expressed by a number of local organizations.

As a result, we have planned this seminar, which will bring together over 30 organizations working with volunteers from around Kazakhstan – around 65 participants. Unfortunately, the funding that we thought was committed to the project from certain organizations was not as committed as we believed. As a result, we have had to deal with financial stress that we had not initially anticipated. The program is great and there’s such an incredible amount of interest from local organizations. My stress results from the issue that a week prior to the program, we’re still short a few hundred dollars.

Earlier this week, to begin the celebration of International Women’s Day on the 8th of March, my local organization in Aktobe organized a festival for disabled girls (http://picasaweb.google.com/treshombresaktobe/2009#). The event was organized in a week by my colleagues and our volunteers and sponsored by “Tres Hombres”, as one of the uses of the money we raised from our party. We invited 35 disabled girls, 15 disabled boys, 5 of our male volunteers, and about 5 female volunteers (we didn’t want to put the female volunteers to work on their holiday – but these five sang and danced for the performance). We also invited the parents of each of the children. However, that side of the hall was empty as almost every child kicked their parents out – so that they could spend their event as individuals, rather than having their parents watching over them like kids. The event was really nice.

The week continued with more celebrations and the holiday extends one more day – tomorrow is an official day off for the holiday. On Friday, I leave for Almaty for the Volunteer Seminar – it’ll be a busy week.

Happy Spring and Happy International Women’s Day!