Zhezkazgan By The Numbers

This week is full of meetings in Almaty, which is a very welcome departure from the monotony of the standard PST schedule. Today the OCAP group beat our way through an hour of Almaty traffic to assemble at the Peace Corps office. It was a slow day of logistics, seminars, and flu shots, but at least we received our travel information at long last. It's a pretty diverse array of public transportation ranging from Melanie's 42 hour direct train to Aktobe to Jacob's 30 minute cab ride to the next town.

Zhezkazgan isn't nearly as far as Aktobe as the crow flies, but due to layout of the rail network here, it can be tough to reach. I had heard a million different answers to the question "How long does it take to get to Zhez?", so it was nice to find the truth at long last. The full trip checks in at 37.5 hours. I'm taking a Saturday evening train from Almaty-1 (the harder-to-reach train station, unfortunately) which arrives in Karaganda 19 hours later. At that point, I will have what will surely be a riveting five hours to spend in the train station there, which will be followed by another evening departure and a 9:15am arrival in Zhezkazgan on Monday. The timing of my return is such that there is a direct train back to Almaty-2, which is a mere 30 hours. However, I don't think I will mind the layover too much because it will give me a chance to stretch my legs and restock on food.

I think we are all excited and nervous to meet our counterparts tomorrow. Our counterparts are employees at our organizations, so they play an important role in what we do. From what I've heard from current PCVs, volunteers have quite a range of experiences with counterparts, so we all are hoping for the best. If it works out well, they will be a great resource to help you get started at our NGOs and just as importantly, help us integrate into the community. I still have little information on my environmental organization and even less on the health, so I am anxious to find out the details.