Dear All,
First of all, let me wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed the holidays with your families and friends. It’s been a little while since I last updated the blog, but I will try to keep it to once or twice a month from here on out (or whenever something particularly interesting happens).
A quick glance at the calendar tells me I have been in Kyzylorda for just over two months (not necessarily a landmark, but impressive nonetheless). Time really does fly, although I imagine the next few months will be a little slower as we wind through the winter months. The last few weeks were particularly eventful, what with the holidays and such. I spent most of December teaching my students about Christmas and attending various holiday parties. Kazakhs don’t celebrate Christmas, but they have adopted all of our holiday symbols and themes (as has everyone, I suppose). So yeah, jolly old Saint Nick is plastered just about everywhere. That being said, there was a definite lack of yuletide joy this year. We have no snow, just slushy rain, grey skies and endless amounts of mud. As Christmas is not a holiday, I had to work on the 24th, although I skipped out the following day to celebrate with two Peace Corps Volunteers in the neighboring village of Zhalagash. We had a nice little Kazakh Christmas, but it’s certainly no substitute for home. I think most of us in the Peace Corps were happy to put the holidays behind us.
New Year’s—a leftover of the Soviet period—is a big deal over here, and a few of us rented an apartment downtown to hang out for the night. I think we had a good time, although my recollection of the evening is somewhat hazy (sorry mom). Then, perhaps still feeling the effects of the previous night’s festivities, I decided to join three other volunteers and one of our local friends on a weekend trip to the Aral Sea. For those of you not familiar with it, the Aral Sea is considered by many to be one of the greatest ecological disasters of the 20th century. What was once a great body of water straddling the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan is now little more than a big lake (and getting smaller), a product of disastrous Soviet irrigation strategies dating back to the 1950s. We visited the town of Aralsk, which was once a bustling port and holiday destination before the sea disappeared. Today, the settlement has largely been adandoned, and what remains is little more than a bizarre and strangely haunting tourist attraction for those interested in the Aral Sea saga. The port is still there, as are the remains of several large fishing boats that lie in a state of complete disrepair on the dry sea floor. You have to drive 12 kilometers outside of town to actually reach the sea. Pretty depressing. The UNDP used to have program out there, but international organizations have essentially given up hope of restoring the sea to its original size. The emphasis now is on saving the little water that’s left and trying to improve the lot of the people who still live in the region.
For those of you interested in learning more about the Aral Sea, I know there is a lot of literature out there. As depressing as it was, going out there was, in certain respects, a very profound experience, although the bitter cold and nagging fatigue did take some of the joy out of it. Perhaps I’ll go back in the summer to get a second look. We’ll see.
That just about does it for now. I have a few more days off before classes resume, so I’ll be taking the opportunity to catch my breath and lesson plan. This past Thursday was Russian Christmas, so I hauled myself to the Orthodox church at 8AM for the service. I enjoyed it, even if most of the elderly Russians didn't really appreciate having an American in their midst on their most holiest of days (not that I said anything that would give away my nationality, but somehow I think they knew). Oh Russians.
Thank you for all of the supportive e-mails/messages! Please write if you have any specific questions. I love hearing from all of you.
Best,
A
