From 9/1

Hello all,
Well, it has been a surprisingly busy couple of days. Yesterday was my day off… I’m pretty sure I explained this in the last entry, but Sundays are the only day off over here. It really takes some getting used to, I try to tell people how ridiculous this is, and how in America we would stage a coup if someone infringed upon our Saturdays, but I guess it is a cultural thing. Seriously though, I’m pretty sure that working for 6 days straight qualifies as a crime against humanity. How do you convince millions of people that you only need one day to rest a week? Anyway, I am getting off topic.
On my day off yesterday, volunteers from the nearby towns met in my town because we have internet and a department store of sorts that sells cell phones. Basically, our town is the biggest and the best of all the places volunteers could be sent for training and everyone is jealous. I am also one of the only volunteers with working internet at home. I consider myself lucky, but the chances of me having similar amenities when I get to site are slim to none. So I will take advantage of the ability to blog with frequency and try to not let more than a day or two pass without update. So yesterday (Sunday) about 20-30 volunteers descended upon our town and we hit up the local hotspots which include the internet café, (which is a flashback to the days of yore when we all had dialup and it took 30 minutes to send an email) the supermarket, and the bazaar. The bazaar is one of my favorite places in town and to describe it in one word would be (can’t… pass… up… obvious… pun) “bizarre.” There are a lot of interesting booths selling crazy things which include a bright blue Kazakh Olympic jumpsuit that I must buy at some point. It was great seeing some volunteers I hadn’t seen since we left Pre-pre-training in Almaty, but we definitely formed a roving American street gang that must have seemed obnoxious to the locals. Americans are much louder than Kazakhstanis, and I am louder than most Americans, so I hope I wasn’t too annoying on our day off. After everyone had made their purchases and used some internet, we sat down at a restaurant near the bazaar and we all had a beer and relaxed together. It was so nice; it actually made waking up at 8 AM on my day off worth it. My little brother Tima joined us as well, and while it wasn’t the most thrilling thing for him, it was great to have a little translator to help out for purchasing cell phones. He’s such a good kid.
Today (Monday) has been quite interesting. It was the first day of school for Kaz kids and there is a huge ceremony where everyone gathers in the courtyard and watches people dance and sing and give speeches. The head of Kaz Peace Corps was there and he spoke to the kids and then I got chosen to pin a medal on the principal of the school. I was pretty nervous, it kind of felt like prom where you are hoping you don’t accidentally stab your date when you go to pin the corsage. I handled it like a pro though, and afterwards we were introduced as the new English teachers and introduced ourselves first in Kazakh (meinin autum Drew) then in Russian (Mnya zavoot Drew) and then in English (you can probably figure that one out for yourself). The best part of the ceremony is that groups of little girls danced to American pop songs including Christina Aguillera’s “Candyman.” This alone is proof that no one in this country is fluent in English because there is no way that anyone would let 10 year olds dance to that song if they understood the lyrics. It was hilarious. After the ceremony all the teachers receive bouquets of flowers which after two ceremonies (there are two sessions of school each day so there was one for each) I ended up with more flowers than I have received in my life total. Let me tell you how much fun it was walking the two miles back home in 100 degree weather in a suit and carrying three bouquets.
So I got home and hung out with the family and my host mom comes in and asks if I mind malinke meow meow. My Russian skills being what they are, I deduce that this means kitten and I give an emphatic fist pump. Long story short, we got the most adorable kitten ever that has to be no more than 2 or 3 weeks old. We named him Mike, based on a joke I made and now he is sleeping on my chest. It’s the little things that make this time of training and chaos bearable.
A couple of random side notes:
It is pretty much 100 degrees + every day here and there is no AC or ceiling fans for that matter. This is just in case you thought I would be living in the tundra by now. It won’t get really cold until I move to site in Nov.
Also, I had chicken and watermelon the other day and you can really taste how much better food is without preservatives and hormones. I might have to switch to organic when I get back. Assuming I learn how to cook while here.
I wake up every morning to the sound of roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing.
Oh, and I heard about all the new running mate news.

That’s all I got for tonight, one day at a time.

Drew