It's ungodly hot and muggy here today. My assumption was that Kapchagai – being in the desert – only experienced dry heat. WRONG. And of course there's no A/C here, so we get no relief. Then, we spend all afternoon running around town on this scavenger hunt thing trying to figure out how to mail letters, make phone calls, and send telegrams. THEN, after school, a bunch of us decided to try out this dance class being offered by a Russian dance instructor. Except for the (curse word) heat, it was fun. She started teaching us a traditional Kazkah dance and everyone really enjoyed it.
I don't know if I mentioned the weird smell in the air
here in my last letter, but I've finally figured out what it reminds me of. You
know those little black “snakes" we used to get on the 4th of
July? Those small black round things that you lit and they spewed out a black
ash “snake"? Remember how those things smelled? Well, that's what the air
smells like here. Partly coz they burn their trash here and partly for some
other frighteningly inexplicable reason (leaking gas?). But one thing I've
noticed over here is that there's not as much trash in the first place. Unlike
America, they don't have tons of pre-packaged goods here and they don't buy as much stuff, so, duh, not as much to throw away.
I often have random intense thoughts/realizations. Example: I was helpng my host mom make borscht the other day - we're supposed to learn a new local dish every week – and we're standing in her little cooking alcove/annex off the kitchen when all of the sudden I just thought, “Wow! I'm in the former Soviet Union making borscht with a Russian babushka!” Then, immediately after that, I thought, “My god! Look how much oil she's using!” Ha! I think the Russian RDA for oil is about 3 cups per day. On the plus side, I'm eating way more vegetables than I normally do. But this will supposedly come to an end when winter hits. Here's a pic of me with my host mom:
Okay, time for me to bitch a little more about our Kazkah language classes. Bleh. The language is very difficult. The alphabet is even longer than the Russian one – 42 letters – and, just as an example, a brother and sister call their same little brother two different things/use different words. That is, a boy would call him his little bother, but a girl would call him, say, her little brinner or something. I mean, I'm trying to be culturally sensitive and what not, but that just seems silly to me. And I'm sure there's probably some bizarre sexist reason for it.
Speaking of language fun, there's a boy (he's 15) in my
apt. complex who speaks a little English, which is cool. He's taught
himself, so it's not too much, and it's fun coz he's always so formal when he's speaking English. He always looks dreadfully serious, even
when he says something like, “I think Hollywood is very beautiful and
wonderful.” I was playing chess with him the other day (of course chess is big here, but I actually won – mostly by playing in a bizarre, impatient, ‘not
normal' random way that completely flummoxed him) – and he asked if I wanted to
see the local “muscleman church.” I was like, “Um, the muscleman church?
Muscleman?” And he got a little offended and said, “Yes, muscleman. I know I am
saying it correctly.” Anyway, of course I agreed and the next day he and a
buddy took me to see their brand new…..Muslim church. Ha! His name is Stas and the little neighbor
kids are always firing questions at him to ask me. There's
always a group of them around my apt. building when I get home and they
all take turns saying, “Hi, David!” “Hi, David!” And that's the extent of their
English. Ha! Here's Stas (the taller one) and his buddy at the "Muscleman" Church:
I tell you what, though, the kids are the only friendly people here – at least when you see them on the streets. Kazkahs do NOT greet strangers on the street and are, in fact, extremely sullen in public. If you go down the street smiling, they assume you are either drunk or insane. No lie. They're wonderfully friendly and warm when you're in their homes, but on the streets….yeah, not so much. We've been told if a stranger approaches you on the street and is friendly, or even just says hello, we have to immediately beware as they're most likely getting ready to jump you or trying to pul the “Tenge trick" (Tenge is the local currency) or something.
We got that info. From one of our ENDLESS and BORING medical
lectures. Every couple of days, they get us all together to warn us about the
water, the food, the air, surrounding countries, being gassed and robbed on the
trains, etc. Then we get a shot (so far, we've had rabies, tetanus, diptheira,
encephalitis and I think we've got another fourteen coming – yay!).
Aside; GAWD I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH DIRT THERE IS!!
No comments:
Post a Comment