Itty Bitty Bits and Bolts

When we first drove in to Karaganda in the middle of the night, I lay awake thinking about how what I had just seen of my new home was not so different from what I had left in the states. Magnum Supermarket, the variety of car brands, and the music on the radio were all reminiscent of the west. Karaganda is a modern and comfortable city, and learning the basics of life here has been only a small challenge. Now that we've been here a while, the differences are beginning to peep back out at me. Below are some comparative observations describing some small but maybe unexpected differences between how we do things in the US and how it's done here.

• Eggs come in bags. And they are not all uniformly shaped like in the US, but instead they are a variety of sizes and have farmyard junk still on them.

• The egg yolks are pale. When I make scrambled eggs the mixture is almost gray. A quick Google search tells me this is because of the chicken's diet and doesn't affect the nutritional value, so that's good, but the color takes getting used to.

• The milk is not refrigerated. Once you open it, yes, of course, you keep it in the fridge, but in the market the milk is kept next to the coolers, not in it. I guess this is okay because the milk is pasteurized?

• Spices are, for the most part, in cellophane packets, not shakers. Salt comes in a huge bag.

• Vegetable and corn oils are not very popular here. Mostly people use sunflower oil when frying things, and though I was able to find olive oil, it was kind of expensive. For the record, sunflower oil is awesome!

• They don't have lettuce here. I guess it makes sense, their soil isn't really well suited to growing it, and it's tough to import, I suppose, but "salad" here is of the mayonnaise-heavy variety.

Speaking of produce, let's talk about how freakishly large this carrot is.

• There is no real butter. Our administrator tells us there is one place in the whole city that sells 100% real butter and that it's very expensive. We only eat margarine. You can buy it either as slabs wrapped in cellophane, or branded and wrapped in foil. We get President brand, which boasts that it is 82% real butter.

• In the freezer section, they have huge bins full of frozen whatever, maybe a bin of breaded chicken patties and a bin of manti and a bin of shrimp, and you scoop however much you want into a plastic bag. You take it to a weigh station and they give you a sticker with the price. It's the same for produce and pasta.

• You have to pay for your meat at the meat counter, not at the cashier with the rest of your stuff. (This kind of grosses me out, because first the butcher weighs and bags your meat, and then he takes your money. I feel like there's cross-contamination potential.)

• In cafes, you don't order at the counter as you would in the US, but instead waitstaff comes to your table to take your order. (I don't know if this is true uniformly, because I haven't had the courage or the money to eat out often, but in each of my limited experiences so far, this has been the case. I observed this also in Europe, so maybe counter service is strictly a USA thing?)

• You aren't allowed to bring big bags into the market. They have lockers or bag checks by the door, and after you stash your bag there you can enter the market through a little gate. This appears to be very effective against preventing shoplifting. In the US I think you see this less often because our stores have more open space for easier surveillance. 

• You're not allowed to play cards in public. As it was explained to me, card games are for gambling and gambling is not allowed for children, so to prevent corrupting the youth, you can only play cards inside a designated gambling establishment. (I've seen many such places, e.g. FairPlay or Bet Club.)

• Kids are not allowed out and about after 11pm. They have a curfew.

• Kids go to school six days a week. Their only day off is Sunday. They have least have four vacations a year: three months in the summer, and then two weeks in the fall, winter, and spring. And they have to dress up for school, even public school, they wear suits (complete with ties!) and skirts and the like. 

• McDonald's isn't in Kazakhstan at all. Probably one of the few countries in the world boasting its absence. According to the internet, KZ is too big to support the supply chain logistics and freshness standards McDonald's requires. Which makes me question how there's a Burger King and a Hardee's in Astana, or how Kazakhstan's spin-off chain Mag & Duk exists. 

• At the end of a performance, people clap in unison. Instead of applause with everyone clapping with their own frequency, everyone kind of harmonizes to one beat, a little like a repeating forensic clap. We've seen two musicals at the theater here, and this has been the case both times. It's definitely a lot less tiring, but it also equips people to clap for longer, which leads to an awkward ambiguity of, "Okay, so, are we going to stop clapping now?" (But then, I harbor a healthy level of discomfort about ovations pretty much everywhere I go.)

• People infrequently type emoticons with colons, usually they just type three parenthesis marks. Like this, )))

That confused me for like two months. I thought Russian keyboards just didn't have punctuation marks.

• The government controls the heat. A vestige leftover from the Soviet era, when the weather gets cold the government flips a switch and turns on the heat district by district. There is no thermostat in any of the buildings, and often our flat is so hot that we leave our windows open. It was particularly brutal when we had a cold spell in September that made the heat come on, and then in the beginning of October it got back up into the 70's while the heat pumped on.

The courtyard behind Daryn

• People blow their noses on the ground. In a place where it's so cold all year round it stands to reason that runny noses are a common enough occurrence, and I guess it seems hygienic enough to drop that mucus on the ground, rather than carry it on a tissue in your pocket. 

• Drinking glasses here are small. I handed a "normal-sized" glass to a guest who remarked, "Whoa!" The glasses that where in our apartment when we arrived are like itty bitty doll glasses. They hold like two swallows of liquid. Even at restaurants, where they supposedly have big glasses, they're really more like medium-sized.

• It is so cheap to have a baby here, if it's not completely free. At the public hospitals it shouldn't cost you anything to have your baby, and we're told mothers are required to stay overnight after delivering. If you want to give birth at a private hospital, it can cost up to a thousand USD, which sounds like a great deal compared to the USA where it can cost between $7000 and $10000 easy.

• And speaking of things that are cheaper, higher education costs three thousand USD here, which is admittedly somewhat expensive considering Kazakh income, but many students with good grades are able to go to school on government scholarships, meaning few have to pay the ticket price. 

When I first arrived, I told a few of my students that I didn't feel as though life in Karaganda was dramatically different than back home. It's not as though we were eating tripe every day or dressing in full traditional attire. All the similarities made coping with the culture shift delightfully comparative, and I started expecting the familiar. I guess that's why now, as we settle in more, I am more attuned to these petty differences and diversions from what I am used to. It's strange to encounter the unfamiliar in a place that is beginning to feel more and more like home.

Anecdotum

Trying to carry out the basics of modern life in a city where you don't speak the language is always a good time. Wednesday is adventure day for Bet and I. Neither of us have night classes on this day, just a class in the afternoon (she at the language center, me at Daryn), so we galavant without the couple on this day. Here are a few anecdotes from one such Wednesday.

Rainy autumn Kazakh adventure time!

One of the electrical sockets in our flat has not been kind to Bet's power adapter. After a day of wire melting it had a kind of questionable functionality and we determined it needed to be replaced. Bet asked our administrator at the language center what she should say upon entering the computer store, and our administrator did a double take. Surely we were not thinking of venturing on such an errand without a translator! The best thing to do, she advised Bet, was to take the charger (visibly frayed), point, and say, "эта проблема." I met Bet at City Mall and we entered iPoint.kz together. Safety in numbers.

It wasn't busy inside, so we were immediately approached by a парень in an argyle sweater. Bet did as our administrator had instructed and handed him a piece of paper on which our administrator had written a question about the wire. I pointed to the right adapter in the display case, and realizing we spoke not a word of Russian, the associate whipped out a calculator and showed us the price both in tenge and USD. "I need more cash," Bet told me, and the guy looked at me expectantly. "Um . . ." I tried to remember the word for ATM. "One minute, банкомат!" We did a lap around the first floor of the mall, but couldn't spot one. I asked the lady at Ramstor's bag check, "извините, где банкомат?" And then she started giving me directions, not just a simple "there" or "to the left" or "on the second floor", but instead lots of words came out of her mouth, lots and lots of words. After we thanked her and walked away in the general direction she had pointed, Bet asked, "What did she say?" but I hadn't a clue. 

After some aimless wandering around all three floors of City Mall we located an ATM. And it was just our luck, the ATM had a big sign over it. "Do you think that applies to us?" There was only one way to find out. I guess it didn't because we withdrew cash without a problem, and were back in iPoint a few seconds later. As we waited to be rung out, the associate made small talk. "American or Canadian? Or Australian? Or German?" I don't know how he knew we weren't from the UK. "Students?" When we told him we were teachers he wanted to know where. I gestured vaguely, "Yermekov 49." There was another patron standing at the counter who clarified for me, "сорок девять." When she spoke, the associate started smirking. "She my wife!" he told us, and looped the display cabinet's key ring around his finger. "See?!" She rolled her eyes and said something to hurry the cashier (who was shaking his head) along. The cashier handed Bet a piece of paper and hesitated. He said something to the woman who turned to Bet and translated, "Signature." After Bet signed he handed the receipt to the associate who slipped it into the bag carrying the power adapter. "Good-bye!" he smiled teasingly and hid the power adapter behind his back. When the joking finally ceased, we left and Bet turned to me, "What just happened?"

I resolved in that moment to be goofy with foreigners; the best way to spare others of embarrassment is to embarrass yourself.

Picture frames for sale in ЦУМ. Someone tell Hilary Duff how beloved she still is in KZ!

We walked down the street to ЦУМ just to take a look around. I'm in need of a winter coat, so we stopped in a shop to take a look, and an ambitiously helpful clerk questioned Bet, who immediately broke the bad news of our Russian ignorance. Still, the clerk pointed at me and rattled something else off in Russian. All I heard was "понимать" and "тоже." I shook my head while affirming her statement, "да, I don't understand Russian either." This struck me as ironic, considering that for all intensive purposes I had indeed just understood what she had said. At that very moment, however, another patron of the store who appeared out of nowhere began translating. Through her were had a brief conversation about the coat I'd been looking at, she confirmed the coats were for winter, not fall. (Parenthetically, this has been super confusing for us. The coats meant for fall look like regular winter coats to me, but when I asked one of my students if the coat he was wearing was meant for winter, he laughed like I had cracked some outrageous joke. "Of course not, it is not [and he gestured to indicate a lot of missing padding, as though a winter coat ought to make him resemble the Michelin Man.]" Apparently there are coats meant specifically for winter, and you don't want to be stuck with the less warm autumn coat.)

I was astonished, as was the clerk, while this random coat store shopper made us intelligible to each other. One of Bet's students had aided her in the purchase of her coat, asking the right questions and translating when necessary, and we would have had zero shopping success without her. And here kismet provided another unrequested aid: a right place, right time, right skill set doer of good deeds. "Hey," I told her, still a little pleasantly surprised, "Thanks for translating." She nodded and walked away. I gave the shop clerk a little wave, "спасибо." She also looked a little intrigued by the convenience of what had just unfolded. I wished I could tell her, these nifty little "coincidences" happen to me every day.

Where we purchased our pumpkin.

We started heading home just as the light was beginning to fade, and when we stepped off the bus we were met with just one more adventure. The бабушек who sold produce and pickles by the bus stop had pumpkins! We spotted one that seemed right and asked, "сколько это?" Lucky for us it looked like it was etched into the pumpkin rind, 500T per 2kg. The бабушка took it away to weigh it and when she came back told us a number. All I caught was 2. "It couldn't be two thousand, that's too expensive." I passed Bet a wad of bills, neither of us had any idea how much it cost. I pulled a notebook and a pen out of my backpack, "Would you write for us?" She pointed to a bag of carrots near the pumpkin. "No, just the pumpkin." She wrote 460 on my paper and handed us our change, smiling at the relief and sense of accomplishment that spread over our faces. "пожалуйста," she nodded at us and we walked away triumphantly.

If I could issue a thank you note to each kind citizen who graciously endured our comprehension-less state, I would need to buy out a Hallmark store. 

Fall, rethought

I'm addicted to autumn in New England. 

One fall morning in college, walking back from clinical psych class, my friend taught me the word "petrichor," which refers to the smell of soil after rain. It's one of my favorite things about late September, how the leaves start to fall and rot into the ground, mixing with the rain and the dying grass to make petrichor, the smell that signals the changing of seasons.

It's hard to catch that smell here, being that grass is a little scarce, and there's a heck of a lot of dust, particularly in Yogovostock which is newer and less protected from the wind tearing in from the steppe by a barrier of trees. And there isn't the wide range of deep reds and brilliant oranges on the trees, but there's a delightful smear of yellow painting the trees, and when I walk under the canopy they provide on my way to school I feel so very Anne Shirley, tripping through an autumn wonderland. And it's not like New England, but it is so very fall, a fall all its own. 

The shaded sidewalk that leads to our language center.

Short-cut apple cider simmers on the stove, a handful of бабушек sell small pumpkins and winter squash outside the magazines, yellow leaves crunch underneath my boots on the way to the bus stop, and I pour some gingerbread syrup into my coffee. And of course, dang, it's cold. Scarves and sweaters and boots are not superfluous fashion accessories but actually 100% mandatory if you want to survive your walk down the wind tunnel created by the tall apartment buildings. 

And so, stripped of the things that usually endear me to this season back home, why am I still so charmed by the shortening days, the unrelenting warmth of the radiator, the mandatory dressage of beanies and gloves, the subtle shift in produce offerings, the steady ice cream consumption, and the increased presence of those medical masks on the faces of benevolent souls who are doing their part to limit the spread of the common cold? I love that fall is still fall even outside of my beloved New England, and that the city I am growing to love knows autumn in its melancholy beauty. 

My freshman year of college, I went to Boston in late October for a law school conference. (It was actually a NBLSA conference, but that's another awkward story for another time.) It was picture-perfect, Boston in the fall, catching a glimpse of the crew races on the Charles and Harvard yard in autumn adornment, squirrels packing away acorns like mad. I never dreamed that three years later I'd be across the world experiencing beautiful autumn in a country known for its frigid winters. Oh, Karaganda, thank you for this lovely season, this last parting gift before winter blows in.

A little bit about Daryn

As much as I enjoy teaching business English for upper intermediate students at our language center, what really adds spice to my week is the time I spend at the nearby Kazakh boarding school Daryn. At 13:30, while my teammates are finished up their lesson planning for their evening classes, I depart from our flat alone and grab bus number 7 (or sometimes bus number 07, which I have been assured is different) which gets me to school in just under ten minutes. Daryn is maybe 5km from our flat and situated just off the road that leads directly to Karaganda's airport.

Because it's a boarding school, it always smells like a cafeteria when I walk through the door. This smell makes my boss from the language center wrinkle her nose, but I love that many of its students live at Daryn (coincidentally, the Kazakh word for talented or gifted) because it means that I get to talk to kids from all over the country. One of my business English students tells me, "Ah, Daryn, I know this school. This is for kids who like studying." My eight graders inform me hat they hate reading and don't really care for school, either. True to smartypants stigma, though, it seems like all of my students want to be engineers or doctors when they grow up. 

On my way to the classroom I often pass a few of my students in the hall. "Teacher!" They gesture outside and look at me with begging expressions. I tell them they can play outside until class starts, but I better see them in their seats at 2:15. Faces exultant they rush outdoors. I wait outside of classroom 19, the biology room, as the cognate on the sign next to the door indicates. At 2:10 the bell rings and students rush out. This is the end of the school day, except for the poor victims of my class. I fiddle with the fancy smart board, and try to take attendance. As I try to say their names correctly, they giggle every time. 

See? You can sound it out. BEE-OL-O-GEE-YA. Cabinet is the word for classroom, I guess.

After class I sometimes walk to the bus stop with my students and they slowly teach me Kazakh. So far I have a tenuous grasp on the words for hello, good-bye, thank you, how are you, and Monday. The kids all speak Russian of course, but they think it's hilarious to listen to me stumble through the syllables, and as nationalism grows in this country so does my desire to make an effort at their language. And here I am on equal footing with my Russian students who know about as much Kazakh as I do. 

My students themselves are a total trip. The sixth grade boys love video games, particularly Minecraft and Assassin's Creed. The girls are feisty, alternatively yelling and rolling their eyes at the boys. Two of my eighth graders speak only in jokes, insisting that they are Italian and Guatemalan, and they they run a mafia within the school. Many of my students are my neighbors. If they don't live in Yogovostok in general then they live specifically within our apartment complex Tatimbeta or on the other side of our supermarket Norma. And the connections don't end there; one of the sixth grade girls is the niece of a former SBTC student who welcomed us to the country when we first arrived. We swap stories about her uncle and his girlfriend, who is a former teacher with my organization.

Through all the pizazz I enjoy from being someplace different each day, there are nevertheless some things that throw me for a loop while teaching at Daryn.

One is the level of my students. I got almost no practice teaching beginners during practicum because it was assumed I wouldn't have beginner students. So imagine my surprise when I conducted placement interviews for the sixth graders and most couldn't tell me what day it was. I count the lesson a success if the students seem to comprehend the meaning of one vocabulary word. To amplify the curse, there are a handful of students in both sixth grade classes who are much further along in their English mastery and they sit in the corner of the classroom looking bored out of their minds. I can't blame them. 

For another thing, there's the noise. Maybe it's because I failed to be strict the first week, but the classes are almost always at a dull roar. Students chatter constantly with each other in Russian or Kazakh, and insist on speaking to me while their classmates are speaking. I have tried separating students, trading games for worksheets, calling out the noisemakers, and even the Kazakh teachers' strategy: yelling. No dice. And if the students WITHIN my class were not noisy enough, fifteen minutes before class ends we are disrupted by students from other classes. My boss from the language center visited my class one day and was appalled to see students from other classes raucously fetching their things from the back of my classroom. Shushing is pretty much ineffective.

The administration also makes me nervous. Though the director of Daryn and the head English teacher know who I am, all other staff at Daryn seem stupefied by my presence. About once a week someone yells at me in Kazakh, as if to say, "Who is the girl and why does she think she can walk freely through the halls of this school?!" Various adults poke their head into my classroom with questions, and my students shout in unison, "Oна не понимает русский!" She doesn't understand Russian! I can't help but wish I appeared as a little less of an interloper there. On some level it must be the human aspiration for belonging.

The bus stop behind Daryn where I wait for the bus to the language center. Zhan's a lucky guy!

Some days, after struggling through a lesson, I look forward to taking the bus (either 01, 45, 43, or maybe 12 . . . from a foreigner's perspective the bus system has no transcendent organization) to the language center, and teaching a class of calm adult students who are nearly fluent in English and laugh at my jokes. There is a comfort and a calmness that accompanies rejoining my teammates at our language center. But if SBTC keeps me sane then Daryn keeps me engaged, and I would never trade my classes there because I always enjoy that there's never a dull moment.

Making friends

We have a pretty basic outreach model. It's making friends. Group affiliations, beliefs and persuasions, genuine community, it all flows and develops along relational networks. There's like a whole lesson about it in Perspectives. Outreach is relationship building, and showing love and loyalty towards others builds trust and credibility while demonstrating the same regard that was given to us.

Like, it sounds obscene when it's written out all clinical and theoretical like that, because I hate thinking of loving others like it's some kind of strategy, but, seriously. I write it because I believe it's true. They will know Who we serve because of how we love.

We've been here a few weeks, but I've already racked up a debt of gratitude to those who have brought us into their social spheres. As an outsider who can't even speak or understand the local language, I have been the beneficiary of so much hospitality, generosity, and kindness. They offer us rides, take us shopping, invite us into their homes, answer our never-ending translation questions. My heart melts every time someone invites us to do something with them; I had forgotten what a precious gift inclusion was!

And all this inclusion makes me wonder about the life I lived back home. For as long as I could remember I bemoaned my isolation; I begged to be put in school when I was ten so that I could have some friends. In high school my social thirst was quenched through NCFCA and youth group, but I still wanted for opportunities to share my convictions through relational pathways. So my first semester of college blew my mind; there were so many potential new friends! And this mindset led to some G0d-ordained conversations in the 24-hour room of library. And as my fear lessened the same thing happened at work, and testimony grew from that. But when commencement ended and I found myself officially graduated, what happened then?

Don't get me wrong, my summer was well-spent. The expeditions to rural hiking trails, the ritual of movie nights, basketball and tennis, beach days, coffee dates, sleepovers, talking by the fire's glow, fireworks and food. I stockpiled a lot of happiness. But how often did I bring an outsider into these social escapades? . . . with some shame I answer, seldom.

Yeah, I had to come halfway around the world to realize what it means to show kindness to strangers. It's not just the poetic anonymity of paying the toll for the person behind you, but also the uncomfortably direct invitation: "We are doing this, would you like to join us?"

I think I actively avoided doing that sort of thing at home, because I assumed it would be awkward and uncomfortable. This is 100% a correct assumption. You think it's uncomfortable to invite strangers to do something with you? It's even more uncomfortable when you're crossing cultures. My blush reflex has been getting a workout since arriving here. It's less of a question if I will make a cultural flub and more of a question of when and how many. But I credit Intervarsity and my staff worker for teaching me a golden, simple truth that is proving itself here. Ain't no one ever died from awkwardness. Embrace the awkward. If you push hard against it, it often surrenders something precious.

A thing so effortlessly typed, written from the quiet solitude of my desk where I sit alone and comfortable inside my head. A thing far more strenuously exercised, when I am tired and afraid and selfish. But I will lift you up in the seeking out and inviting in of those "outside" if you will do the same for me. 

Follow the Leader

One of the greatest things about our flat and its location is its close proximity to the grocery store. Norma is not just visible from our flat but is a mere five-minute stroll out of our courtyard. We've been to lots of different markets around our neighborhood, but Norma is where we do almost all of our food shopping, because its proximity to our flat makes walking home with arms full of grocery bags more tolerable. But also it's cute and small, and the staff know us by now, and they tolerate our inability to order meat or our insistence on paying with plastic. So we love Norma. 

Frequently on our trips to Norma we pass people begging on the sidewalk between our apartment building and the grocery store. Usually it's either two young girls or an older woman with a small boy. They puzzle me because they don't look like Russians or Kazakhs, and they're often dressed in colorful, maybe traditional-looking clothes. We think they might be Roma, but we don't know the language well enough to ask them. So usually when we pass I just nod and mumble "Здравствуйте," and then on the way back from the store we'll give them something from our bags, a loaf of bread or some apples or something.

Today I made a quick trip to Norma to grab some ingredients for chicken noodle soup. Because 'tis the season, folks! It's already dipped below the freezing point here. I got a bag of carrots, a bag of potatoes, a bag of noodles, a loaf of bread, some green onions, and a carton of eggs for just over 500T, about $3USD. I love how cheap food is in this country! And you don't have to pay extra for GMO-free because it already comes that way! 

I didn't see the older woman and the little boy sitting in their usual spot because the sidewalk had been closed for construction. (That's another crazy thing about Karaganda, how they build buildings. Brick and mortar, bit by bit. Remarkable.) I was caught by surprise when the little boy appeared from out of the brush, but I pulled the potatoes out of my bag and handed them to him. "Пожалуйста," I muttered, inwardly mourning my complete absence of Russian conversation skills. 

As I walked through the courtyard back to our building I simultaneously marveled at how cheap food was and mused about the little boy and the older woman. Potatoes are cheap, and so it seems to me that these beggars ought to be able to buy at least simple food. Were the potatoes I gave them really what they needed? If only I could have asked what to get them. (Баклажан, eggplant, is the only produce I know.) Maybe they needed clothes instead? But the little boy's tattered shirt was a key element of his pathetic appearance, necessary to garner more donations. What if he was a victim of a Slumdog Millionaire kind of situation, "pimped out" by the older woman to make money? What if my potatoes were more of a salve for my conscience than of any benefit to them?

I had pondered myself into a tizzy by the time I reached our flat, completely at a loss for how to approach the older woman and the little boy next time I passed them. Do I give them money? Buy them meat? Find them hats and scarves? Ignore them? Find a new route to Norma? Oh Father, why is loving people so hard?! . . . and the answer came quickly, quietly, directly.

It is not my job to judge their begging as innocent or nefarious. It is my job to follow my Leader. To greet them as I pass. To share what I have when they ask. Doing is better than thinking. I don't know who they are, I don't even know what they're saying, I just know what my Leader has told me, to give to the poor and the widows and the orphans. Okay, I can do that. Loving is actually a lot easier than I think it is.

And this is what I'm in the process of learning every day here. To look to my Leader for guidance instead of being wise in my own eyes. To stop relying on myself to get through each day and instead look to the Giver of life. He will show me the way if I will ask it of Him, and He will direct my steps if I submit them to Him. He has been in this city infinitely longer than I and He knows these inhabitants infinitely deeper than I. He knows what they need so much better than I, and so it is on Him that I must rely.

Bringing back teatime

When the colonies succeeded from Great Britain, we gained a good many things as a new country. A democratic system of government, tempered by checks and balances. Fair taxation levied with adequate representation. A lot more geographical space and an accent all our own.

Did we fully count the cost of what we would also in turn give up?

I gather that teatime did not leave the continent with the redcoats, and that this tradition persisted until it became out-moded and impractical during the height of the industrial revolution. (Just kidding, I actually know nothing about the history of teatime in the United States. I liberally assume this eradication.) And while it is still common in the USA to meet a colleague for coffee, or talk over dessert and hot beverages at one's home, teatime as we once knew it has ceased to exist.

What I propose, then, is that we bring it back.

Sitting down with a comforting hot beverage. Supplementing your drink with bread & jam, or a slice of cake, or a few cookies, or a little sandwich. Taking the time to sit and be recharged. Engage in diverting conversation. Maybe I've been too engrossed in James' The Portrait of a Lady, but what part of that does not sound like a good idea?!

I cherish the teatimes we've been enjoying in Karaganda. Of course, we're not limited strictly to tea. Hot chocolate and coffee frequently make appearances. And we're not so rigid about the time either: sometimes we take a cup at the school, sometimes in the afternoon if we've had an early lunch, or sometimes in the evening if we've had an early supper. On occasion we have teatime while we play Settlers of Catan, or we pass our teatime with conversation and reflection. Even solitary teatimes are a comfort to me; I pause what I'm doing and take solace in a hot beverage and daydreaming. It's lovely, and sanity-inducing.

I can't wait to begin befriending our neighbors and students so that we can invite them to take tea with us. I think teatime may have a place in the fabric of habit in my future, and gladly.

Too good to be true

As I stare at the Excel sheet I'm typing into, frequently glancing at the top registration card on the stack next to me, it hits me afresh. I am only struggling to input the names into this file because they are foreign to me. I am only typing this roster because I will be teaching these endearing souls how to improve their English. I am living in Kazakhstan. Is this real life?!

It seems to me this is the best job in the world. Here I am, living in a charming city full of friendly people, meeting bright-eyed students who wish to do great things, paying sixty cents a day to ride the bus, and teaching classes at night which preclude me from having to wake up early. There are so many rich additions to life here: we have teatime and toilet closets and integrated public transportation. And there is not so much to miss from western culture: we have peanut butter and fine chocolate and ketchup. We have even begun running into people we know on the sidewalk! The only piece missing is to find a coffeehouse.

The rose-colored lenses will come off in due time, I think. I don't mean to sound like some saccharinely optimistic Lisa Frank butterflies and rainbows caricature. It's just that this is all such a supreme privilege, and I want to preserve these feelings for when it is thirty degrees below zero and the ache of missing Rhode Island cannot be contained. I want to remind myself that there is much to love about Karaganda, so that I will be less in danger of forgetting it.

Conducting placement interviews has sufficiently whetted my appetite to begin teaching. In most cases, one really only needs to talk with a student for 90 seconds to get a feel for their comprehension and speaking ability, but in practice I spoke with each for as long as I could keep the conversation rolling. I never tired of hearing their aspirations to one day visit London (an aspiration I share!) or their puzzled rebuttal of the concept of a "dream job" ("You work at the job you receive!") or their summer adventures paired with back to school woes (the young boys are particularly crestfallen over this.) I like them all so very much, it seems all too fortuitous to be offered such agreeable students. 

I asked the very last student I interviewed, "What are your goals? What plans do you have for your life?" She furrowed her brow, maybe confounded by the word "goals." I clarified, "What do you want to do in the future?" She seemed to understand this. "Well, I like Karaganda." I couldn't stop myself from smiling widely and replying, "So do I."