The first Kyrgyz school quarter ended the last week of October, which left me with a week of fall break the first week of November. With three of my closest Peace Corps friends, I took off for the Big Apple—that is, Kazakhstan’s Big A., Almaty.
Actually, Almaty (which means “father apple” in both Kyrgyz and Kazakh) is the birthplace of its shiny sweet namesake. And the apples did not disappoint; my friend Brooke and I each bought one from a street vendor and they were delicious—and huge.
You know you’ve entered Kazakhstan as soon as you’ve crossed the boarder—the mountains turn into gently rolling hills and the paved roads run over them without fault. Almaty itself is a metropolitan mecca: coffee shops can be found almost every other block; we found—and gorged ourselves at—an incredible variety of authentic ethnic restaurants; and the mall rivaled the best in California, complete with classy boutiques, an abundant food court (more on that later), an indoor ice-skating rink and climbing wall, and adjoining supermarket so well stocked I nearly cried.
Our bus ride in was fortunately uneventful (something that seldom happens in Kyrgyzstan). Kazakhstan is pretty flat, so we weren’t missing any sites while we slept. When we got off, another young passenger offered to help us find a place to change money and get into the city. It turns out, he was from Bishkek, but spent 5 years living in New York working for a communications marketing firm. We got his number (and a Kazakh sim card for Annie’s phone so we would have service), and promised to call him later. We then found our hotel, checked into two inexpensive but quite adequate (by our standards) rooms, and headed out for dinner at an Indian restaurant. To say the curry and pad thai was amazing is an understatement. Aaron actually teared up, and not because of the spices.
Our next stop was an Irish pub, where we met up with our Kyrgyz friend and some of his Kazahk-Russian friends. Unfortunately, the pub was out of Guiness (How can they call themselves Irish?), so we were forced to continue our beer quest, but not before we tried the smoked cheese plate, the Kazakh version of string cheese. We found Guiness on tap at the Guiness Pub (it would have been a travesty, had it not been), and all ordered a round. Beer has never tasted so good. (Aaron and Brooke are pictured at left.)
We ended our evening hailing a “cab” back to the hotel. It was actually a limo and our driver, in a sailor’s cap, insisted we call him “Captain.” He was as excited to drive Americans as we were to be riding in his vessel. Through a combination of Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Russian, English and even a bit of Spanish we managed to communicate our jobs, our hometowns, and a bit of random American-ness. Our Captain was quite familiar with our homeland, as it turned out; when Aaron mentioned he was from North Dakota, the Captain immediately put his hand to his mouth in an imitation of a Native American call and said, “Oh, you woo-woo-woo!”
The next morning we woke to seek out our first coffee shop. We spent the rest of the day lazily taking a walking tour northwardly through the city. I say lazily because Aaron had us stop at literally every coffee shop we passed, we stalled for a bit in awe of a Lego store, we walked up and down the aisles of a well stocked grocery store with jaws dropped and drooling for at least 45 minutes (finally settling on just a bottle of wine and some good cheese to share later), and we spent a good while enjoying lunch at the American Bar and Grill, complete with décor a la Applebees and a menu serving everything from steak, shrimp and blue cheese burgers to salads and chicken burritos (my choice)—at American prices, of course.
Of course, our tour also took us pass some interesting buildings and sites, including: the Academy of Sciences; a statue we decided was Almaty’s version of The Thinker, an impressive and apparently world class opera and ballet theatre (unfortunately there were no performances the nights we there); and into beautiful Panfilov Park, the centerpiece of which is the brightly pastel-painted Zenkov Cathedral, built in 1904 entirely of wood. Time was running short, so we gave up trying to make it to the city’s central mosque after we got lost on the outskirts of a sprawling bazaar and instead hailed a cab to a sushi bar.
The next morning we hit the Central State Museum, which houses the Altyn Adam, or “Golden Man,” a suit of golden armor from a 5th century B.C. Scythian tomb east of of Almaty. The suit itself was more like light chainmail and not all that impressive actually. But the rest of the museum had a pretty descent display of other artifacts from such tombs and replicas of fantastically caricatured headstones from later graves.
It was pouring rain, so after the museum we canceled our plans for a picnic in the park, and instead headed to the mall. I never thought a mall would be on my list of “must sees” while traveling in Central Asia, but then again, I’ve never spent 8 months living in a rural, store-less, village as a prelude to a vacation before.
We had lunch at the food court, though we started with dessert—at Baskin Robbins. I had pistachio ice cream in a cone. It was pure heaven. Our options in the food court ranged from mediocre-looking Mexican and Italian to classic American: KFC and Pizza Hut. We went for the later two, and spent most of lunch in silent contemplation of the sheer brilliance of American carbohydrates and unsaturated fats and in awe of the 4-foot chocolate fountain that was adjacent to our table.
It was hard not to buy anything from the boutiques on the floor below, but I decided the conditions in my village honestly couldn’t justify buying cute, pricy clothing. I couldn’t resist getting some gifts in the kids’ toy store, though. I picked up Jenga to add to our collection of games at home. The pieces also double nicely as building blocks.
For our last dinner in the city, we met up with 6 other volunteers also visiting Almaty. The venue was Lonely Planet’s top pick of restaurants, Safran, featuring mouth-watering Middle Eastern cuisine. I had falafel, hummus, and a delicious fried cheese salad with apples and nuts on a bed of lettuce—the first leafy greens I’d had in 8 months.
I took my last blessed shower the next morning, managing to flood the floor and half-soak the clothes I was about to don, but I was too blissfully clean to care.
On the way out of town that morning, we made one last stop at the grocery store for commodity items—in my case, blue cheese—and spent our final hour at our favorite coffee shop. The excellent coffee was only half the draw; amongst ourselves, we bought all three English additions of the Economist and all other English language newspapers off their newsstand rack. And basking in the glory of full 3-G wireless access, I indulgently sat with my Kindle downloading the latest additions of the New York Times, Slate, The New Yorker, and a few books while I sipped a grande mocha and munched a vegetable panini. On our way out, we passed a Rolls Royce parked out front. The café and the car couldn’t have summed up our trip better; Almaty may only be 4 hours from Bishkek, but developmentally oil money has rendered it worlds away.
Back across the border, we sardined ourselves into a marshrutka for a ride to my first host family’s home outside Bishkek. My host sister had prepared plov and we were entertained by my host niece and nephew’s antics over dinner. I spoke with my former host mom and other sister by phone; they’ve moved to Moscow to work. That night, we traded our Kazakh hotel beds for tushuks (futon-ish overstuffed blankets) on the floor and the hotel shower facilities for an outhouse. Still, it felt good to be home.
I teach 3-11th grades (my 4th A class is pictured at right). Each grade has two 45 minute classes a week, and 6th grade for 3 periods for some reason. My school has just under 200 students, which makes for wonderfully small classes, my smallest at just 10 and my largest at 24, averaging about 15. I teach (most) classes with my wonderful counterpart, Gulnor, for which we plan together and share the teaching 50/50. I have a second counterpart, Nurzada, with whom I’m supposed to teach 10th and 11th grade, but due to illness she’s been in and out of the classroom all semester.
We strive to teach very student-centered classes, playing a lot of interactive games to learn vocabulary and grammar structures, and using as much English as possible. This last week of class has seen quite a few games of jeopardy review for finals. I wrote the finals with Gulnor, typed them, and printed them on a decade-old printer so each student could take the test without having to waste time copying all the questions from the blackboard. This was a first for the teachers and students, and I got lots of questions about where I got the paper (Bishkek) and why I’d bother, but I could show the tests as reason enough; I could actually use graphics (including pictures of my host sister washing her hands, brushing teeth, etc.), which made the tests much more interesting for 4th graders. 
I head home about 5:30 or 6, have chai with my family (see my host sister, Ainuru at right), do yoga, play games or watch a video with my host sibs. We eat about 9. Sometimes I cook, sometimes my host mom. The fare is sometimes fried potatoes, sometimes fried pasta, and sometimes both together. When I cook, I try to use vegetables, but lately they’ve been pretty hard to come by. We’ve been eating a lot of carrot, pumpkin or corn bread when its my night in the kitchen.
