From 9/5

Well I’m afraid this won’t be a glowing entry about everything exciting and exotic in the KZ. In fact, my teachers assigned us an article to read after class today that actually explained that after week two the “honeymoon” is over and you start to actually get frustrated. It actually frustrates me even more that they can almost pinpoint the day my frustration started. I don’t want to go into too much detail about what is not so awesome about the PC, because I don’t want to paint a bad picture of the whole organization because of a few tough days; but I will say that I feel that they expect a little too much out of a group of that can barely communicate with anyone in the country. I know training is supposed to be an intense period, but I don’t even feel like I have the end of training to look forward to because after we are sworn in, we basically get sent to our site by ourselves and will thus lose the only support group we have. The only thing that keeps me sane is the fact that I have class with two guys that I am growing to be really good friends with. We sort of pretend like it is not an option to back out, so we are just kind of playing chicken with each other until training is over and things are less structured. Less structure, but also less comfort. As it stands, I see 5 other Americans every day, 4 Americans on top of that every other day, and about 10-15 more twice a week when we all meet for larger training sessions. As horrible as training is, once it is over I could be as much three hours from the nearest volunteer.
I don’t know what I will do when I am sent on my own. I am kind of the class clown and just try to keep my spirits up by joking around and making puns, but jokes aren’t exactly funny without people to laugh at them. Hopefully I’ll find some nice host country nationals (HCN’s) to keep me from going crazy. It’s funny, but the thing I want most right now is a hug. Before I left, I talked to my friend Wendy who had recently done some extensive travelling around Europe and she said that one of the hardest things about it was that when you first arrive in a new place alone, you think “no one loves me here, and I don’t love anyone either.” Like right now, with the exception of maybe my host mom, I couldn’t get a hug to save my life. If there we some situation where I would get a million dollars if only I could get someone to genuinely hug me, I would lose the chance at a million dollars… there are simply no options for hugs in KZ. It’s kind of sad, but I am trying to remain positive.
Most of the frustration lies in the fact that the past two days have been the most exhausting days of training thus far. Yesterday we began at 8AM with a lecture from our medical officer about STD’s. To let you know how boring the rest of the day was, the STD lecture was the best part of my day. Which is horrible to think about, because there were graphic pictures and I saw things I would not wish on Hitler. However, the lecture did conclude with my buddy Sagar having to put a condom on a big black dildo so it wasn’t all bad. After that it was all downhill with teacher training and language training and a crappy meal in the school cafeteria. I get so tired of the language by the time I get done with class that I simply crave English. I go home and everyone seems to be screaming at each other in Russian and kids down the street are crying in Russian and the tv is in Russian. I seriously want to scream sometimes… in English of course. Not that it’s a bad language; it’s just about the toughest situation I’ve ever been placed in. But that’s what I signed up for. So then, when I come home and force myself to stay awake for a few hours after dinner, I immerse myself in American music and books, but I am devouring it all. I go through books in like 4 days if I’m lucky. I finished “No one belongs here more than you” (Miranda July), “Life after God” (Douglas Coupland), and finished “The Coma” (Alex Garland) about 20 minutes ago. Unfortunately all these books are extremely depressing and I really should have put a more uplifting book in between them. But then I wonder if there are that many books that are consistently uplifting. I mean, the main themes in literature deal with the human condition and trying to understand it, and we don’t really question the wonderful things. We only wonder why when we can’t explain why things are a certain way. No one writes books about why exactly it is that good things have happened to them, they just accept it as something they more or less deserve. People write books because something is so frustrating or so inexplicable that it has to be pondered in length and considered part of the human condition. The moral of the story is never “my life has been wonderful thus far, I am in love, and I own things that make me happy.” Maybe we feel that if we did write about something like that then we would jinx it. I didn’t mean to wax philosophical, I just can’t think of the last book I read that didn’t hurt my heart a little bit. It’s an invited pain and a human pain, but pain nonetheless. If you guys can prove me wrong with some good recommendations, my Mom is putting together a book list to send me soon.
That was the Lit major in me talking, back to the pertinent information. Today was another day of mind-numbing language class followed by sitting in on 4 classes at the school. I sat in on 4th grade Nature Study, 2nd grade Reading, 6th grade math, and 7th grade PE. Think of how painful it would be to go back to elementary/middle school again. Now think of how bad it would be if you didn’t even understand as much Russian as the 2nd graders. The result was the 6 of us volunteers fighting off sleep like we were in “Nightmare on Elm Street.” It wasn’t that boring, we had all just been in class since 8AM and there’s only so much that barely-out-of-college-kids-who-are-used-to-sleeping-in-until-11-or-noon can take. I never really had jetlag so I can’t even blame anything on that. Kaz classes are much different than American classes too; the kids are ALL well-behaved and answer all the questions. Also you can’t fail anyone and for discipline they rely on public chastising in front of peers to embarrass the kids into good behavior. Plus with the school uniform the girls all dress like Britney Spears a la’ “Hit Me Baby one More Time.” I might have said that before, but it is so ridiculous it warrants a second mention.
And to end on a positive not so you guys don’t think I’m totally depressed or something, I will say that tomorrow should be much better. We are going to Almaty for the first time since we first got here and I should see some friends I haven’t seen in awhile. We are going to see some cool sites and it should be fun. I’ll write about it later. The temperature is finally starting to drop a little so I will try to pick up a reasonably priced fur coat and hat. I talked to my advisors about this and they said I should wait until I know if I’ll be going to the south or the north and I try to explain that I am from GA and haven’t been in temps below 0 F so I will need a huge coat anywhere I go. They don’t seem to get that I weigh like a buck 20 and there is not a lb of insulation on me. Crazy KZ’s. Well my spirits are lifted after writing this, so don’t worry about me. I still have the cutest kitten on the continent to keep me from feeling too low. I wish I could be home for just a day though, just to watch some American news and see my wonderful family and friends and eat at the Olive Garden or something. I miss you is all.

Sidenote: after I wrote this, I went into the living room and my host mom Cholpon looked at me and gave me a huge hug and a kiss… ahh moms.
Drew