August 30, 2003

Привиет Фсе,

Its Saturday morning, I’m listening to some Joe Henry (thanks Greg), the windows are open but it’s a bit crisp, you can feel that summer is on the verge of saying paka-paka. I sure am glad I brought back all of those summer clothes to wear for just a month, that was pretty smart. It’ll be weird entering into another winter here I think, because the winter is so rough, and the summer was so great. I’m not quite ready to say good-bye to the warmth and the summer scenery (hehe), mostly because I know this is my only summer in the Peace Corps, so I’m sort of sad to see it go.

Anyway, what a summer it has been. After school ended in May, I was working half-time at Pragma and basically slugging around. This area has a lot of stuff to do, like rafting, hiking, camping, which I partook in whenever possible. Everything I’ve done has been enjoyable, which I attribute it to a credo I follow over here: set your expectations very low, and reality will come in somewhere just above where your expectations were, and you’ll be happy. Its worked like a charm.

For instance, we rented a boat and cruised up the river for a few hours. Now, I know what’s in your mind, you must cleanse your mind. This boat was a rusty old bucket, with a loud rumbling motor, spewing out smoke behind us (the expectation I set up was Tom Hanks’ raft he made in “Survivor”). Seriously it was a great time, and we actually did it twice this summer. I think I have some pictures from it, I’ll get them on the site. We cruised up the Irtysh River, which I think is like the world’s fourth largest, starting in eastern China and ending somewhere in Russia. It was on one of these little cruises that I learned you cannot physically take a shot of vodka while in the act of doing a cannonball off of the top of the cabin (don’t worry ma, its perfectly safe).

What else…oh, I went to AMERICA. We say AMERICA here because no one knows the term “the States”, and its sort of a pompous phrase anyway, because there are many states in the world. Its weird to say to me though, because there is also a very large AMERICA, and those folks down in Brazil may not be too happy that we’re calling the U.S. America. I suppose I could say “The U.S.” but its still sort of clunky when you speak to the locals, because those aren’t the initials they use for the U.S.

Anyway I went home.

The trip was way too short though, in hindsight. I had the perfect reentry into society in Marblehead, Mass with a cookout with Kathy/John, Pete/Margaret (oops, I mean Margaret/Pete, sorry Margaret). One funny story, I was at a small café with John after he picked me up from Logan, and when I ordered a round, I told the bartender “this is my first beer in the States in a year, I’ve been in Kazakhstan”. He paused, then pushed them across the bar to me and said “These are on the house. You boys are doing a great job over there.” I took them. We are doing a good job over here.

So then I cruised up to Maine for my sister Kathy’s wedding, which was, in true Kelly fashion, on the fringe of socially acceptable behavior. It was awesome to see my entire family together, and it was like two worlds colliding when I saw my dad wearing a tall, tradition goofy Kazakh village hat. The highlight of the evening (aside from the actual vows of course) was the family rendition of the Alligator Song, with my mom proudly conducting with a face so serious you’d think she was conducting the NY Symphony Orchestra.

Then, way to early, I was off to NY. I made my way (via Marblehead) down to Frank’s in NJ, and we had a nice little gathering at Down Under. As it turned out most of the folks that came were all from Pennsylvania, and in fact lived like 10 minutes apart, so in retrospect, it might have been a good idea to just meet there. Of course then we’d miss the life-sized cardboard cutout of Brett Favre, so there is that. We’dve also missed the tons of bar food that Laura put together…mmm….WINGS….

The next day was the NYC pub crawl, started at about 3pm, ended, well, sometime later. We hit about 10 bars or so, had a little scuffle between two of the crawlers (which was resolved eventually, after they both watched an episode of Sesame Street, not Ernie and Bert though). The crawl was generally pretty tame though, I guess we’re all getting on in years. Not like the last crawl in NYC, which resulted in an unnamed cousin of mine getting sick and passing out at the Newark train station in front of her (oops) new boyfriend. This one had no such highlights.

Except for I managed to get my little video camera into Hogs n’ Hefers, that made for some interesting footage J.

Anyway, after a night (or technically like three hours) of sleep in a five star hotel in Times Square compliments of Jerry, I was back on a plane to Kazakhstan. I spent a couple days in Almaty when I got back, then took the train, a 22 hour crawl, back up the eastern side of Kazakhstan, back to Ust. I was here just a day when my friend Ryan showed up for a visit. We had a great time, I introduced him to the city with the most beautiful women in the world, we went to a resort called “Blue Bay” (again, remember the rule, cleanse your mind of the meaning of “resort”). I left with Ryan to train it back down to Almaty (this trip is about 32 hours because the train goes north through Russia for 10 hours first). I took off for Turkey the next day.

Turkey is the most incredible country. I went with two other volunteers, Mike and Katherine, and we took a four-day boat cruise along the southern coast. On the cruise we met some very cool Aussies, who we hung out with for the rest of the trip. Four days of doing nothing but playing cards, drinking beers, reading, sleeping (a lot of sleeping), and swimming. I’d sleep up on the deck in my trunks, and in the morning, just roll over out of bed and stumble over the railing, into clear, warm water, then have breakfast. After the boat trip we went to Olympus and stayed in these tree houses, which were normal little hotel rooms, some even had bathrooms in them, just build up in the trees. This place was like a 60’s hippy commune, all these people walking around in the woods, laying around, playing cards and backgammon, twirling batons. Just a kilometer walk took you to the beach of the Med. I jumped off this cliff there, it was like 100, or maybe 80, or perhaps 40 feet high. No matter, it was freakin high and it hurt the bottoms of my feet to hit the water, but I healed. After a 14 hour bus ride back to Istanbul, I was back on a plane to Kaz. And that was Turkey.

I got back from Turkey to find my little apartment filled with rambunctious Peace Corps volunteers, here in Ust for a language class. It was a cross between Romper Room and Animal House, and it was a long four days until they left. I’m still recovering from the image damage they did for single American males in this town. Its not a big deal though, because a couple of them live in some very harsh conditions, in little villages out on the steppe, so it was like a Navy ship coming in for shore leave. I like to think I contributed to them not going off the deepend and being “whack-evac’ed” as we say.

Anyway they left last week and now everything’s back to normal. I start teaching again next week, so I have to do some “curriculum planning” this weekend. Oh and we have two new volunteers assigned to this area, they arrived yesterday, and we’re meeting for lunch today. I’m psyched to get new Americans in here, because my friend Jay from Pragma leaves in a month, and other than him there is just the Peace Corps couple Deb and Jim here. Jay’s replacement comes in October. I’m also losing a couple of my local friends to other countries, one going to Korea, the other to Ireland. So it appears the second year for me will have a different mix of people.

Since I returned from AMERICA, I’ve been in a strange state of mind. I am now thinking beyond Peace Corps, and its making me see that this life that has become a part of me will be gone soon, and how difficult it will be to say those good-byes. Having a glimpse back at my family, my friends, my culture, just magnifies the simple fact that I am different, and that while this is fun, its not my home. I’m thinking that I’m going to be more serious over the next few months, focusing on making an impact and learning the language. I have some post-PC ideas for work, and so will also work and plan to that end. I know it’s a long way off, but I’m a bit shell-shocked to think it will end soon, this thing that I’ve pondered for years about doing, then eventually did. I mean, what’s next?

And that is my summer journal entry. Hope all is well back home and that everyone has a great Labor Day weekend, and enjoys the fall.

Andrew