Almaty, Almaty Qalasy, Kazakhstan
Monday, November 16, 2009
The first snow has come. I week ago Sunday, the first snow fell, coming after 50/60 degree weather. The weather here is crazy! It goes from really hot to really cold back to really hot again. It snowed non-stop for two days. Then it turned really cold (down in the single digits) and sunny. Any of you who are from cooler climates know that when it is sunny during winter time, it is frigid – no cloud cover to hold in the warm air close to the ground. This week, we are expecting temperatures to rise back up towards 50 degrees! Such weather, while a lot of fun for me, a southern California girl who claims that weather in California is boring, is terrible for the health.
Almaty is already the most polluted city I have ever experienced, which lends itself to lots of hacking and hawing and random asthma attacks. Now, with the weather turning hot and cold, and with the climate being a damp one, moving inside and outside from the hot dry air to the cold damp air, everyone's health is quickly deteriorating
. Students routinely show up to class wearing surgical masks so as not to spread their sick to everyone else. In fact, last week, I came down with the flu for the first time in my memory. I had a high fever Sunday night, but I didn’t have a thermometer at home so I don’t know how high it actually was. Monday I was doing a little better. Instead of going to my Political Science exam I went to the Health Center on campus (thank God for them). My fever was 39.6 degrees Celsius (which roughly comes out to 103.3 degrees Fahrenheit). It is probably a good thing that I did not go to my exam, despite how guilty I felt. The doctors and nurses were really funny – wonderfully worried. They kept saying, "Kristina, you are dying!" They gave me some fever drink and some pills. Then they gave me an IV, right there in the Health Center. I was too weak and out of it to protest. By the time I left my temperature had dropped by a full degree Celsius, and they were all saying, “Kristina, you are not dying anymore.” Some of you know that last year I wrote my Senior Honors Thesis on health practices in St. Petersburg, Russia, looking at how people decide which type of medicine to use: doctors office advice or home medicine. I had little respect for former Soviet Union health practice, especially after the research I did. I had even less respect for Kazakh health practice, particularly once I finished making my rounds of the city polyclinics and hospitals at the beginning of the school year to get all of my forms signed for school
. I used to say, “Russians go to Germany for medical treatment if they can afford it; Kazakhs go to Russia.” Now, however, I have great respect for Kazakh medicine. The doctor knew exactly what she was doing, what she did was effective, and although I had to take strange pills and mouth sprays and drink tea with jam, I must say that I got better pretty quickly. Not bad! I’m impressed. On a more positive note, life is continuing as eventfully as ever here in Kazakhstan. I am learning so much and meeting so many different people. In the last week or two, everything has really picked up to the point where I don't even stop for breath anymore...what a full experience! New developments: I have founded an American culture club at the Kazakh-American University, another university here in
Almaty that is part of the international "American University" system. There are American Universities in various cities throughout the world. Amazingly, until I founded this American Culture Club, there was no American presence to speak of at the Kazakh-American University! My friends through Rotaract who go to that university were so excited when I proposed the plan. They want to learn more about America and they want an opportunity to practice speaking English with a native English speaker. We had our first club meeting last week. My KAU contacts expected a good turnout: 7-8 people. It turns out about 20 students showed up, the Vice President of Student Affairs, and an elderly professor who wanted to practice her English
! How exciting! The only advertisement that happened went up a day or two before the meeting as black and white printouts pasted onto some of the walls in the main academic building. More Americans joined me the next meeting and we still had a great turnout of students!
More developments: I have also been visiting an orphanage weekly in the city with Rotaract. Rotaract visits the orphanage for a training program. They are trying to mentor the older kids there to prepare them for life after the orphanage. They must leave the orphanage starting at age 18, although many leave a year or two earlier to go to remedial college. These kids have very little to no interaction with the professional world. They have no guidance in how to plan for their futures, how to choose what to do next in order to get to where they want to get to. They do not know how to conduct themselves around adults. The Rotaract club came up with the idea of teaching the kids about their possibilities, about teaching them proper behavior in an interview or office setting. They bring in acquaintances who are already working and have them talk to the kids about how they found their careers, how they prepared themselves, and what advice they can give the kids in hindsight, both for attaining their particular career and in general in life. The Rotaractors talk to the kids from the perspective of those who are still working on preparing for their futures
. We can talk about secondary education, about finding internships, about finding first jobs, and about self-confidence. My special role is to teach English. Once a week, we have English class with the kids. The Rotaractors help me out. These kids, while they have had some access to English classes growing up at the orphanage, know little to no English. Generally, they know what they have picked up from pop culture. As far as I understand it, the orphanage provides all classes six days a week at the orphanage for the kids. English class is offered once a week by volunteers who come to the orphanage to teach it. Generally these volunteers are university students. These English classes are optional for the kids. If the kids are available and interested, they may attend. If not, they can do something else. In our English classes, we are focusing on keeping the kids engaged, so mostly we work on conversational English, using skits, charades, and story building to keep our pupils entertained. It is extremely challenging work.
Also, I have started to make speeches for the American Consulate. My first speech will be in a week. I will talk about volunteerism in the United States. Volunteering is such a strange phenomenon here in Kazakhstan. Actually, in my experience, volunteering is such a strange phenomenon in the former Soviet Union, where the government was supposed to have taken care of everyone. Ever since my first introduction to the former Soviet Union, the lack of volunteer opportunities and the lack of the awareness of helping and contributing to society that is engrained in American culture leaves a void that I find disconcerting and discouraging. These people are so giving of themselves, yet they do not know how to channel this energy of generosity to where it could do the most good. Their society could develop and improve so much more quickly if they would take it into their own hands and build their society as they would like it to be. They have such a unique opportunity to form their community, but they do not know how. So, I will learn about volunteerism here in Kazakhstan from my audience, and I will tell them about my impressions of volunteerism in the US. If any of you have any ideas or have any stories you would like me to share with them next week, please feel free to write me. I would love to include your own personal experiences with volunteerism in the US and/or abroad.
