Here

The train is a lot more fun with friends for two reasons. First, the time passes a lot more quickly through conversation -- even though the Zhezkazgan crew has now logged nearly 100 hours on trains in Kazakhstan. Secondly, with friends around we don't have to contemplate the sad fate of drinking by ourselves to kill time... The trip to Zhezkazgan acquired a sort of Polar Express feeling when we woke up to a moderate snowstorm south of Karaganda. While Zhezkazgan is not the North Pole, it sometimes feels like it might be soon considering it's only mid November and it's below freezing most of the time. This morning the sun rose fully above the horizon at about 8:40am and we still have more than a month to go for the shortest day of the year. Nonetheless, it's not yet cold enough to prevent people from being around and about.

One week into life as a Volunteer and so far, so good. My host family is great and thus far have epitomized the kind of legendary Kazakh hospitality. My Russian is getting better but even so my host mom has been patient and accomodating by speaking slowly and clearly which has helped a lot. The food is a lot better than in Issyk. The winter is going to be a five month long feast of borscht and potatoes, but that's really not that bad. I've heard there aren't many fruits and vegetables in the winter, but thus far the bazaar has been well stocked with the staples of Kazakhstan. Most of the vegetables they eat here are pretty hardy anyway -- potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, cucumbers.

I'm still learning the ropes with my organizations. I think there will be things to do immediately with my health organization but it will take more time with my eco organization. Unfortunately, my counterpart is in France for a while, so the only person in the office is a woman who thought I was going to be a chemical engineer, which sadly, I'm not. With my lack of high-level language skills, it will take some time to talk them into some realistic projects, but that's why they put us here for two years.

Mainly, I've been running around and meeting people. The first month is supposed to be a pretty crazy time, especially for the non-teachers because we have such a flexible job and it's hard to get in a groove when we can't speak well and don't know the organizations, town, or people very well either. It's normal to spend some time just settling in, but we all want to turn the corner as fast as possible.