Bringing you up to speed...

Boy, when I’m not inspired to write, my life seems to be full of nothing worth sharing. And the poignant moments seem too short to post. I don’t know how to elaborate on sharing tea with the maintenance man who hung a light fixture for me, but saying only one sentence seems silly. Or being reminded of the giddiness surrounding Valentines. Well, maybe I can write about that. :)

Send candy. Send a valentine. Send a CANDY GRAM!
Credit goes to Corinne, the woman across the table from me on a snowy January afternoon. We caught each other up on life, ate delicious Georgian food, drank enough tea to appease the wait staff, and shared ideas. Now, she’s a scary one with whom to share ideas. Enough time in her company, and you’ll go off trying to change the world. Or maybe you’ll just go sell candy grams.

I had left myself just enough time before Valentine’s Day to talk to teachers, make a poster, and collect supplies. Monday was advertising. Svetlana A and I popped into dozens of classrooms, explaining in Russian, English, or both, that I would be selling valentines with attached candy. Monday evening was a scramble to find more red paper and some ribbon. And Tuesday started a whirlwind of children buying valentines for 20 or 50 tenge, until, at last count, the total was over 7,500 tenge.

I’d say my business dealing has been successful. I’ll also quickly add that it’s as close to the retail world as I care to get. There are probably more of you than I want to know who have been on the receiving end of my persuasive and pushy tactics. On a good day, I like to think I could sell ice to Eskimos. And here I am working with candy and kids?? Ha! Bit by bit, though, I have become aware of the power of persuasion, and with that realization has slowly come the ability to keep it in check. I can proudly say I have not been conning children out of any money. I can almost say I didn’t even try. (It’s Zhenya. Someone has to twist his arm, so it might as well be me, yeah? :) Though, as for the handful of adults who crossed my radar… they’re fair game.

The best part of this week hasn’t been raking in money tenge by tenge, but getting glimpses into the social workings of School #1. Little girls who sheepishly send valentines to little boys. Little boys who buy valentines for little girls, running away and then coming back, finally brave enough to sign their names. A teenage boy who saunters in to buy a valentine, with a look that manages to communicate instantly that he is a hopeless romantic. And the dozens and dozens and dozens of valentines sent between girls of all ages. My eighth grade girls don’t even give me a chance to persuade them when they come in requesting 10 valentines and then come back for 5 more. What am I to do? Tell ‘em to buy 20? Gotta leave some candy for other kids. Like Zhenya. Who, fyi, bought zero valentines. I guess there’s always next year…

And speaking of next year, that’s right. I’ll still be in Kazakhstan in February 2012. Crazy! With a nine-month extension, I’ll be here until August 2012. The extension becoming reality hinges on some paperwork and a physical exam, but rather than go into those details, let’s back up and look at why in the world I’m staying, eh?

Rewind to November. En route to play some volleyball, I took a call from a PCV who informed me that PC wanted us to go home three months early. While some volunteers jumped at the news, I was stunned. I had made a commitment to my school. To my community. And I wasn’t about to fall short on my promise. November 2011 had seemed so far away. But August 2011 seemed way too close. I had to figure out how to keep my word and stay until November.

Thus started a multitude of questions, struggles, discussions, prayers, and pro/con lists as to whether or not to apply for an extension. Where can I best serve God? What needs to happen for me to consider a third year successful? What will I do upon returning to the States? Are people here interested in my volunteer work? Is this just me procrastinating? Bit by bit, I answered hard questions. I prayed often. Talked to different people. And in the end, God gave me a peace about another 9 months in KZ. What those nine months will bring is beyond me, but something tells me an adventure or two is tucked in, along with some incredibly good days …and some equally sour ones.

Continuing on this update I’ve got going (feel that inspiration gaining steam??)… a few more stories from the last few months. How ‘bout that little thing they call chronological order?

November
Hadn’t planned on being in Almaty to see the Kaz-22s become official PCVs, but my brain kept me in town for a week after the Turkey-Greece trip. I had been having quite the headaches, with intense pain coming on suddenly, in only the quadrant behind my left eye. The PC doctor gave me his prognosis, but also wanted me to get an MRI to rule out something more serious. And so, I stayed with a dear couple in town and went in for the scan later in the week. In due time, the results came back saying that nothing is wrong with my brain. Praise God! And, I’ll eventually get to have the sweet chart, evidence of how big and powerful my noggin really is. ;) (Another praise/update: a few weeks later, the headaches stopped! God rocks.)

The hold-up in Almaty came at just the right time. Many Kaz-21s were in town, and as mentioned, the Kaz-22s swore in. Noelle and I wanted to attend but got a late start from the place we stayed, and so we took a taxi …to a fuzzy address. Surprise surprise, I don’t recommend this. Taxi driver took us to the right part of town, but we couldn’t find the building we wanted. KZ street signs (read: lack thereof) don’t offer much help to those who aren’t familiar with an area. Result: lots of driving up and down streets, straining to see numbers painted on walls and signs posted behind bushes. Thankfully, with Noelle’s fine Kazakh skills and some phone-a-friend assistance, our patient taxi driver got us to our destination only half an hour late.

The ambassador spoke. People sang. Others danced. A few even played the dombra. And finally, a fine group of trainees became volunteers. I met my sitemate, said hello to Svetlana, and got together with some Kaz-21s to devour some lagman before a long train ride back to site.

The clock was ticking when I got back to Shakhtinsk, my birthday coming closer each minute. I had wanted to celebrate my birthday in grander fashion than last year, but didn’t know how that was going to happen. A local friend summed up perfectly the KZ perspective: Your birthday? Your problem. If I wanted to go to a café, I would have to foot the entire bill. But if I didn’t want to go to a café, I needed a different location – namely, my host family’s living room. I asked a couple of English teachers if they would be interested and able to come over, (assuming I could invite them to our apartment). Then I asked my host mother. And she needed to ask my host father. A day or two later, an opportune moment came and permission was granted. Then came the question, “So Denise, what will you be buying and making for all of us?” …Right. Forgot that paying a host family for food does not mean they pitch in on such an occasion. Refer back to KZ perspective, conveniently written in bold. Now I was faced with the challenge of not only buying all necessary ingredients, but also figuring out what ingredients I needed to make an entire meal to feed 10 people. Daunting. I dared not invite more than four English teachers. With Marly (my sitemate), me, and my host family, I counted 10 heads.

I landed on spaghetti with a meat sauce. Sides of garlic bread, cucumber salad, and applesauce. Dessert thanks to Betty Crocker. Not my culinary heyday, but it was pretty foolproof. I played out what needed to start when, recognizing that an hour would be more than enough time to get everything together. Two hours before teachers planned to arrive, my host mother and sister started panicking for me. Shouldn’t I be racing around the kitchen by now? Am I not worried? Do I not know what time it is? I assured them all was under control. I started the water for spaghetti. Got the hamburger going. And started setting the table …for 6. My family chose to inform me an hour before dinner that none of them would be eating with us. Better to have too much than not enough, I suppose. (Best, though, is spending no more money than necessary on food no one will eat.) Even so, the meal turned out just right, with all of us enjoying a meal that (for me) tasted like home. Happy birthday to me. :)

December
Biggest news from those 31 days came midmonth. At 2am one night, I resolved to move out. Asap. I’ll just say that experiencing a family’s drama from a distance is experience enough. I’m not involved. I don’t want to be involved. Given the language barrier, I can’t very well be involved. So, finding my own apartment seemed to be the best (and quite necessary) option. My 2am resolution was on a Friday morning. The following Thursday, I spent my first night in my own apartment! (My only requirements for my new apartment were hot water and an oven. I moved into one with neither. Ha ha.)

A four-day holiday landed on just the right weekend, so I was able to use that Thursday to move my stuff and Friday to unpack a box or two. Anna, a volunteer with a heart of gold, came down to help me pack up and move. She stayed with me through the weekend, making it lots more comfortable to sleep through those first nights of new creaks.

Little moving-in story: boxes were all unloaded. I had talked to my landlord and counterpart, and they had left. Ahead of Anna and I lay the huge task of arranging furniture and finding all things immediately necessary. And foremost on my mind: we must drink tea. Come on, Denise, who does that?? But so, we searched through cupboards for a teapot. And finally found matches. The lid was stuck on the teapot, so I opened the spout to fill it with water, hesitant about how clean the water would be. But after you boil it, it’s all good, yeah? As the water level rose, I peeked in and saw a piece of paper. Ok, a little dirt in my water is one thing. Paper is another. Next search was for tools to pry off the lid. That success earned us one Kyrgyz banknote. Yep, that was the paper hidden in my teapot. Something tells me I didn’t strike it rich. I sure would like to hear my teapot’s stories, though. (By the way, this all led to the sad discovery that the gas tank was empty. No hot water for us. All that work, and no tea. Such a shame. Good thing the story can legitimately end with me finding money.)

January
January 18th. What started out as a typical Tuesday ended as anything but. I left my lesson at the library with Ira, and we headed over to visit Marina. During the walk and the time at Marina’s, Ira was busy making phone calls to see where people would cut a hole in some ice. Reason: midnight marked the beginning of Kreshenya, a Russian Orthodox holiday meaning “baptism”. Celebrated every January 19th. Someone most certainly selected what is likely to be the coldest day of the year and deemed holy all water that lies below 4 feet of ice. Cruel. For those with skulls thick enough to get in that water, though, is a promise of health. (Note the ambiguity – healthy for a month? A year? Until you get sick? Who knows. I tend to believe option 3.) The idea is to lower yourself into the water three times, and if you’re in a fancy spot, a Russian Orthodox priest will bless you as you perform the ritual.

Having gotten in contact with people in-the-know, Ira and I left Marina’s and waited to be picked up by Sergei. After a trip to my apartment and a few hours of waiting, we followed a minivan out of town. In the minivan (among others): my school director (Svetlana Y) and a PE teacher (Alfiya), also from #1. We weaved our way behind one of the major coalmines and parked next to a few other vehicles. Still bundled up, we walked out on the ice to the hole men had carved out 30 minutes earlier. An inch of ice had already formed on top. I watched in horror as they took a shovel to smash and scoop out that fresh layer. Minus 30*C is no joke.

Somewhere in our time zone, a clock struck 12, ringing in Kreshenya. Svetlana wasted no time stepping out of her valenki and slipping off her bathrobe, leaving her barefoot on the snow in her bathing suit. A ladder had been lowered into the lake until it hit bottom, so she gracefully lowered herself, rung by rung, into the water. She bobbed up and down twice, then fully submerged herself for a few seconds. With poise not at all reflective of the bitter cold, she slowly stepped back out, splashing her face with a bit more water. You’d think she was stepping out of a hot tub. I was most certainly staring with dropped jaw as I tried to take in her every move. Here was a professional Kreshenya participant, and I needed to do what she did.

Ira went after Alfiya, all three of them wanting to get this business over and done with. Dozens of people had gathered by then, and this is not a line-friendly holiday. Ira (who had never before participated in Kreshenya) rocked it. No messin’ around. She went completely under three times before getting back out and wrapping herself in a huge blanket. We accompanied her back to Sergei’s car, where she got out her thermos of sweet black tea and changed into dry clothes.

Though aware I still had the opportunity to pass, I couldn’t turn back. I informed Ira that once she was ready to go back out, I was gonna do this. Less than 10 minutes later, I was on the ice. Gingerly found one rung a few inches under water, and then the next. The wooden ladder was secure, so I just had to make sure I didn’t slip off. Lowered my arms, and forced myself under. Back up, I took a breath. Dunk number two. Came up again, gasping from the shock of the cold. (Why do people do this?!) With much less mental clarity than I had for dunk 1, I pushed myself under for the last time. Back out in the midnight air, I felt sure the water on my face would instantly turn to ice. I moved in the direction from which I had come, grateful for friends who wrapped me in a blanket and put a towel in my hands. Gears in my head grinded against each other, slowly sending the message to whisk some water off my feet and get them back in my boots. We gathered up my things and scampered back to the car. In the backseat, I wriggled into dry clothes after warming up with a cup of tea. I hadn’t died. I hadn’t even lost feeling in any appendages. And just as my mind got caught up to the present, Sergei put the car in reverse and then headed back into town. Twenty minutes later I was soaking up the warmth of my apartment.

Fast-forward seven hours to the first lesson at school. Tatyana and I stood before our ninth graders. One boy looked especially sluggish and when prodded for an explanation, said he had been up late watching people get in the lake. Hee hee, wrong excuse. “Did you jump in?” I asked. “No way.” “Did you see me?” “What?! You got in the water? Weren’t you frozen??” “Nope, and I’m here, ready for our lesson. So you should be, too.” ;)

Thus ends some stories that bring us back to (almost) the present. A lot is left untold, but at least I said something, yeah? And I’ll quietly whisper a resolution of mine for 2011. Shh! My goal is to blog once a month. While it doesn’t sound like much, it also sounds doable! And maybe, just maybe, reflecting on smaller chunks of life will allow me to expand on some of the brief moments that add a little sweet and a little spice to my life in KZ. Because somewhere I’ve got to share about finally connecting to the Internet with the help of two boys, one of whom preferred to flirt rather than make any productive efforts… and about running into Timur after four months of mysterious absence… and hosting friends who stopped by after my bedtime to bring me a cake to cure me of my cold. But in case nothing happens between now and March, I’ll keep those details to myself. ;)