August 24^th.

Previet Moi Cimya y Druzya (family and friends),

It’s a somewhat cloudy Saturday here in Kaz, and after an afternoon run, I’m sitting here watching some quality TV, a series called “Tequila and Bonetti”. It’s an Italian series, dubbed over in Russian, but I get the jist, kind’ve. One funny note, it was written by David Kelley, the same guy that wrote a bunch of sitcoms in the states. Apparently, old sitcom writers never die, they just write for third-world countries.

Anyway, after a 32 hour train ride north from Almaty, I’m now in my new home for the next two years, a pretty sizeable town called Ust Kominegorsk, located in the extreme northeast corner of Kaz (a stone’s throw from Russia, Mongolia and China). The city has about 350,000 people, 70% Russian, 30% Kazakh, and is actually pretty modern, relatively speaking of course. Its at the foothills of some great mountains, on the outskirts of a pretty large forest (the only forest in Kaz, apparently), and at the juncture of two rivers. I live in a studio apartment on the 4^th floor of a 20 story building, To be honest, its pretty nice (risking losing my Peace Corps fan base), with a balcony overlooking the river and mountains, hot shower, color TV, telephone, kitchen with stove. I’ve been here just 4 days, and already I am hooked up with web access from home. Kaz is actually pretty progressive with the internet, all I had to do was go to a store and buy a card that gives me 5 hours of access, at a rate of about 120 tenge/hour, which is about 80 cents. The going rate at an internet café is 150 tenge/hour, or a dollar an hour. The connection is terrible at home, though, but it lets me check email almost daily. I’ll ask Frank to update the website with the new contact information, after I put my mailing address through the magic decoder. You can send things using English I hear, and they’ll get to me.

So that’s my new home. How can I describe the city…it’s an industrial city, with the primary industry being metal production. There’s a pollution problem of course, which has been decreasing thanks to some of the factories not working, or running at less than full capacity (silver lining of a bad economy). This city was a major center for production of Soviet weapons, and in fact, was a “closed city”, which means no one could get in or out without permission (the train stop is called “defense” in Russian). That makes for an interesting culture, with young people very pro-west, and older (over 40) pretty negative on the new economy, and still very pro-communist. During the train ride, my counterpart (a teacher at the school I’ll be teaching at) gave me a lot of information on a personal level of the affect of the fall of communism, and I have to say, its not as cut and dry as our press leads us to believe. But that’s for another journal. Lets just say that 10 years ago, she made good money, and had a great future, now she barely makes enough to feed her family, and she’s just 41, so its not just the elderly that are upset, its people not far from my own age.

The city is now pretty progressive, with a bunch of small businesses, shops and cafes, which I like. It has a bazaar (a fixture in any Asian town) that is a large outdoor area that sells practically anything. Size-wise, I can get from one end of the city to the other on a bus in about 15 minutes. There are a few bus routes and a tram, so its public transportation all the way. Of course, walking is always an option. I live about a 30 minute walk from the school, and a 15 minute walk from my other job at Pragma. The deal is that I’ll teach about 6 hours a week of business courses to the 10-11^th grade levels at this private school, and work 15 hours/week at Pragma, where I’ll be doing business consulting with medium-sized businesses, with the two organizations splitting my housing costs. I’m slightly concerned about priority issues, but my counterpart at Pragma is an American, so I’m confident we can work through any issues. Pragma just won a huge 3 year contract from USAID to do economic development throughout Central Asia, so I’m hoping to get my fingers into as much of their work as I can, maybe get some free regional travel out of the deal. Pragma is a D.C. consulting firm, and the primary contractor for USAID, an enormous US Government NPO. If I play my cards right, I could see myself working for Pragma after Peace Corps.

What other tidbits can I say…I always see stuff I want to write down, but I forget about it later. Did I mention the national food of Kaz is the Shishkabob? They call it “shashleek”, and it’s slightly different, as its just meat. Its pretty good, and you can get it on almost any street corner, chicken, lamb, or pork. I prefer the chicken, but there’s not much meat on it, due to the bones. They also sell these deep fried pastries filled with meat, cheese, or potatoes, which are called “samsa”. I eat these a lot, but they are bad for you. I have to find something more healthy to eat, or I’ll be a blimp when I get back. Problem is, there isn’t much healthy food around, unless you’re into veggies or fruit (yuk). Eating will be an issue for me, now that I’m on my own. Of course, even I can beat the boiled hotdog my hostmother used to throw in front of my face every morning. I’m going over to another volunteer’s house tonight for spaghetti, so there’s one meal taken care of. There are two other volunteers in town here, so I’ll pick their brains for food solutions. Oh, and there is also a library here with a ton of movies (vhs) in English. I’m pondering buying a VCR. I know, I know, this is Peace Corps, but hey, maybe they have VCR’s in Africa too, I dunno.

I forgot to mention that before I left Almaty, we had a graduation from training, and were sworn into service by the Ambassador. Its pretty cool that I know a guy that reports to Colin Powell. We also had a language test, which I scored “intermediate low” on. The usual score after our language course is “novice medium” or “high”, so its rare for someone to score higher (pat on my back). I have a tutor lined up for four hours/week starting maybe next week. Oh, I also found a lady to do my laundry, but we’re still negotiating price (mostly through hand gestures, which add to the difficulty).

I lost my digital cam contact, so I’m thinking of buying my own. I have a few pictures from training I’ll get out to Frank for the site. I should be more active on the site now that training is over. Looking back, it was a pretty intense program, but I feel like it served its purpose, as I’m able to get around alone in a strange city with NO English. Of course, as soon as I open my mouth, people know I’m an American, and there’s a certain celebrity status with that, which is nice sometimes. There are only about 3000 Americans in the entire country, so we’re a rare sight. I look in the eyes of some of the older people, and I can almost hear their thoughts “an American in Ust Kominegorsk!”. I just smile and give my mental reply “hey, its just as crazy to me as it is to you!”.

Oh, on my way to the train station, we went by an accident, where a car hit a cow, a BIG cow. The cow went to that big grazing field in the sky, and was on his back, legs sticking up, tongue hanging out. Some Kaz dude was sawing his leg off (the cow’s, that is).

Why ask why?

Later,

Kazman

(ps, did I mention I ate some boiled sheep’s head? Stay tuned!!)