Of course someday I will be flooded with ideas for all of the stuff that I forget, but for now, I will return to a continuing story. You can refer back to the entry I wrote about the transportation system here in Kazakhstan. Anyone who has lived outside of a completely developed country will probably be able to sympathize with this anxiety.

The weekend that I spent away from site, visiting the other volunteers, was, shall we say, interesting for other reasons other from meeting other people and seeing how their lives are different. It has been winter here for a few weeks now, maybe a few months. It is hard to keep track of time outside of the coming of major events. Anyway, it's winter here. In most areas of Uralsk, those outside of Uralsk don't plow the roads when it snows, not to any standard close to that in the States, on a bad day. I'll just say there is usually one track going down the middle of the roads where the traffic has worn the snow and ice back down to the road.

I know the drivers of vehicles have been here doing this for a few more years that I have, but sometimes experience isn't always enough to make a person throw caution to the wind. And certainly this is not the case on ice and snow covered roads. Very rarely has any driver slowed down to let another car going the other way pass. The occasional driver that does, does so only because he is swerving to keep the said vehicle on the road, and the reduction of speed is very, very little. Usually what happens is each of the drivers' shares the middle of the road with their driver's side tire and puts the passenger tire in the snow and ice. This makes it really fun to be sitting in the back praying for dear life.

The reason I thought of adding this story to the blog was the taxi ride back from visiting the other volunteer's was one of those rides. The roads between Uralsk and Chapiva are under construction for the most part. Most of the roads are actually side roads made by other drivers who don't want to take the main road for whatever reason. The road between the town where we were at and Uralsk should have taken us about four hours to get back, partially because of road conditions and partially because of the distance needed to travel. This particular day, with snow and ice on the roads and sometimes snow falling hard enough to bring vision to about a quarter mile, the trip should have taken a normal (safe) driver a little closer to five hours. We made it in three hours.

Most of the trip, the side roads, we were doing between 70 and 90 kph. When we hit the main road, which is paved with pavement, snow and ice, our driver cranked it up to 120 - 130 kph. There isn't much one can do while sitting in the back seat, without an "oh-shit" handle, or a seatbelt. So Amber, the other volunteer, and I just kind of sat there and tried to sleep and look anywhere besides out the windshield.

Now, I could say this experience is a one-time thing, ha ha, but that would make me a liar. Driving in the cities, where there are a lot more vehicles, doesn't change. Often you see cars screaming up to the stoplights / signs with all four locked tight. The speed of the public transportation doesn't change, regardless of the road conditions.

I'll tell you what, I left with a few gray hairs, but at the rate things go here, I am going to be all white by the time I get back. I hope you all enjoy yourselves where drivers are as insane as they are here, but at least know to slow down when weather gets bad.

Take care out there.

A Peace Corps Kazakhstan Volunteer's Christmas Wish List…for those interested.

-Scented candles

-hand sanitizer

-ruled lined paper (Elementary, regular, college Ruled)

-writing stationary

-schoolroom chalk (the round kind)

-Tazo Tea (Of any type, but spiced orange and Chocolate Chai, if you can find it, would rock my world)

-Eucalyptus tea

-Any newspapers, magazines, books, dictionaries, thesauri, reading material of any kind as long as it is English (I want stuff that I can leave here for the teachers at my school to use for resources and material)

-pictures of people, places, and items of interest from around America

-any snack food from the States is also welcome in any amount (especially Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate)

-pancake syrup

-American Style playing cards

-anything you think someone far away from home would like to have, or could use.

Things necessary for living here and cooking:

-Measuring cups, bread knife (but I don't know how well that would travel)

-semi-sweet Chocolate chip morsels for cookies

-recipes for different American Style foods

-Classroom version of a game called word-up http://www.teflgames.com/about.html

-Any version of Scrabble

-Art supplies of any size, type, quality, quantity, variety, etc.

-Easy books, 3-8 grade reading level, in sets of 4-10

-Again, any magazines, newspapers, books, pictures, maps, guides to state / National Parks, Atlases, brochures from colleges, universities, schools, letters vaguely addressed to anybody, anything.

The following books:

-http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1904563295/qid=1103032891/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2133278-0800109?v=glance&s=books

-http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570717206/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/102-2133278-0800109

-http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0714844098/qid=1103119419/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-2133278-0800109

-http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932112154/qid=1103119800/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-2133278-0800109

-Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate, true coffee (e.g. not instant)

-music

-MP3 CD's with Jazz, Classical, Blues, Country, Bluegrass, Classical Rock, Modern Rock, Rap, Pop (in small quantities), and any other type of music someone can get hold of.

-A laptop with a CD/CDRW burner DVD player

-Olympus digital camera (http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_product_blue.asp?l=1&p=&bc=&product=1140 ),

-a trip around the world for four

-just a letter (for those of you who I owe a letter, I am getting there, really I am)

-T1 Internet lines in Kazakhstan

-an IPOD loaded with music of all sorts and kinds

-a phone call (if you want, I can give you my number)

-any video tapes of movies, news, sports, TV shows, etc, as long as they are VHS / PAL compliant (DVD Players are hard to come by, unless someone wants to refer to the first on this list ;) )

-books by the boatload (books that aren't in "good shape" in America are better than any they have here, which is none, and if someone would arrange a book drive / fund raiser for sending said books, oh wow would these people here be ecstatic)

Well it finally happened that I had enough stress with my host family to take matters into my own hands, sort of.

The stress of living with the first host family that I chose finally got the best of me. The fin al straw happened on Wednesday evening. To start the story off, I will refer you all back to the earlier episode where I watched my older host brother pick up the younger one by his throat. This episode I wrote about in one of the earlier blogs, and I will make you go through the trouble of finding it, if you haven't read it, or if you don't remember.

The evening started out well, for the most part. I was gearing up for a four-day weekend that we had from teaching, as a result of the Kazakhstan Independence Day. I was planning on making a short travelling trip to meet some of the other volunteers in their site and hang out with them for a while. I was getting ready to make a phone call when they informed me, several days after the fact that I had phone calls from previous days that they forgot about…Mistakes happen I know, but sometimes, it can get old.

In the middle of me trying to get the damn phone to work, a fight began between the two boys. To back up a little bit, the host father had been gone for a few days on a trip for work back to the village they used to live in and the boys had been at each other and on my nerves since he had left. They refused to listen or obey to the host mom and had even gone so far as yelling at her when she requested them to do something. Not a fun time, let me tell you.

The fight almost got out of hand once and then they backed off of each other. I had to step into the middle of it politely as I could under the circumstances to actually put an end to it. I was trying to take the host brother into another room and explain to him that what he was doing was not going to be accepted by me, regardless if the host mom refused to get into the middle of it. This kind of backfired when the host mom decided that it was appropriate to get into he middle of it when I was trying to stop it. So I let it go.

But they didn't let their fight go. It was calm for about ten minutes, which oddly enough was enough time for me to make the overdue phone calls. I managed to get two of them done before the phone stopped working…again…and then the fight started back up. This time it was verbal for a few minutes. Then it quickly escalated when the older brother threw a hardbound book at the younger, hitting him with the corner of the book in the leg. The book was about chess, as he has been studying, trying to beat me. It wasn't a light book, and the corners of new, hardbound books are not soft. This was enough to light off the temper of the little one, who can't weigh more than 50 or 60 lbs. He started off a string of words that I know were bad, and this turned up the heat a little more. The older host brother, weighing in at about 140 or so, picked the younger up, by his throat, again, and this time punched him in the back of the head with a closed fist.

This was too much for me, and I wasn't going to take it anymore. I made my way from one corner of the room where I was trying to make the phone work to the other where the fight was happening, and put an end to it. I guess that is putting it lightly. I grabbed the arm of the older one as he swung again. He turned his attention to me, as did the host mom finally. (She still had yet to do anything about the fight!) He tried to swing at me and I laid him backwards over my knee, without hurting him, at which point, he made a grab at my face and I laid him on the floor, as gently as one can in this kind of situation.

He tried to swing a fist at me, and I responded by putting my forearm tight against his throat. This still didn't stop him and he tried to grab my face with his free hand. (I still had his first fist firmly in my grasp.) I put more pressure on my arm and stopped, realizing that he wasn't going to end up in good shape if he tried to hurt me. He finally backed off and started crying, for good reason. I had just humiliated him ion front of his mother, who couldn't stop me from what I was doing, and his little brother, who was still lying on the floor crying from being punched in the back of the head.

This was the point that I had let the situation go longer than I should have. I know that losing control of one's temper is never good, and I realized after the fact that it was the amount of stress that I was under with them that pushed me far enough to do what I had done. I immediately put in calls to my counterpart (well when I could get the damn phone to work), and to my manager (who I wasn't able to get her cell phone, but she called back later), explaining the situation. I had, ironically, just gone to visit with another potential host family earlier that evening and was calling my regional manager with a plan to move out. This incident only accelerated the move.

So now I am in a new host family, much better situation, which I will write about soon. I also have some details about the move out and my cat, which I am still trying to get back from the host family. But that is another entry.

Take care out there, and remember, if you are stressed in your situation, don't wait too late to get out. In this situation, Bad things happen to those who wait, I don't care what the saying says.

Love to all,

Ps…Stan is for Kazakhstan, (it is used by some of us to refer people to the area of the world we are in over here…e.g. the former USSR, or as they say here CCCP, which is Cyrillic for SSSR.)

I know there are other things that I should write about but I figured that I should revisit some of my recent excursions in the good, ol' village of Akzhaik.

Most recently I had the opportunity, or I should say the experience of watching a basketball tournament here at the school. Now the idea of a tournament hasn't quite been realized here, nor have the rules of basketball.

The best that I can do to explain this experience to you out there in the reading public, without having a video camera or having you here is to write so here comes my best shot.

Basketball in America is a clean non-contact sport with many rules about fouling, travelling, over the back, rebounding, double dribble, over and back, and the list could go on, but I will stop. The idea of the rules is to make the game fair and consistent so that the best team of players wins the contest. I have watched my fair share of basketball over my 23 years of life, and, although I wouldn't call myself an expert, I would go as far as to say that I know how the game is supposed to go and stop. And, I can call an occasional foul with a certain degree of fairness and truth. That being said…

Basketball in Kazakhstan, well I should say Akzhaik only because I have never seen anyone else play basketball here is a clean, non-contact sport… in the way that a combination gang street fight, rugby, Aussie Rules football, Street Ball "No Blood, No Foul"" is a clean non-contact sport. They asked me to referee the game when I first got there, and I politely declined, for whatever reasons, but it soon became clear that I had made the right choice.

I have never in my life seen so many rules let slide. There is no such thing as traveling. Pushing off is a way of life. Double dribble happens only when the referee feels like blowing the whistle and making the sign. And a foul? A foul simply does not exist. I have seen boxing matches with less fist to body contact. I have seen episodes of that horrible "Walker Texas Ranger" and watched Steven Segal movies where fewer bodies hit the ground.

You may think I am exaggerating, and think what you may, you are allowed that, but if you don't believe me 1) send a video camera and videotape, 2) come and see for yourself, or 3) take me at my word. I only wish I had a video camera to show this display of, for lack of a better word, violence. I took some pictures, but I know they will not do justice to the sort of "play" that happened on the court.

On top of the sport itself, you have the fans, the court, and the rim/backboard. The fans sit on the court, and sometimes are active in the pushing of players and returning / keeping the ball in play. The court is literally half the size of a basketball court. The backboard is a piece of 1/2 inch plywood bolted to a metal frame bolted to a concrete wall, the rim is probably the best piece of equipment in the entire room. The floor is composed of, well, it's a Kazakhstan rural primary / secondary school floor, which doesn't tell you much. It is falling apart. Some place the floor is level, other places it sinks when you walk on it, and still other places it is permanently sunk. This I have pictures of.

I have played on some weird, wild, and wooly courts before, with crazy rules and dangerous floors, but nothing…NOTHING…compares to this. You all will just have to take my word for it though.

On the plus side…They do enjoy watching it.

Take care out there FOUL!!! TRAVEL!!! FOUL FOUL FOUL FOUL!!!!

Missing you all and the motorcycles. Say hello to 'em for me, Dad.

This is a story that I was reminded of, not that long ago, by one of the other volunteers in the group that I am in. For those who read this story and know me, and my stubbornness, some of this will, I am sure, come as a shock.

This happened in the first three days that we were in country. At this point, I had all of maybe four hours of language training, and could just barely…no…I take that back. I couldn't even say, "Hello. My name is Tim." Anyone who has tried to learn this language and knows me will understand this. But I was game for an adventure, and set off to buy some honey.

We were staying at what is called a sanatorium, which is a little bit like a spa center type place, without all the frills. We were up in the mountains not far from Almaty. When we arrived in country, it was dark. The stars were amazingly bright, but there was absolutely no moon. So no one really knew where we were at, and at the time on the bus, tired, jet lagged, hungry, and feeling like dirty garbage after a day or thirty of flying…(I don't know how long the flight was, I lost all track of time.)…(And that feeling of dirty garbage is pretty much a weekly thing now.)…No one really knew where we were. You would think this would have been enough of an adventure for me, but no, I wanted honey, and come hell or high water, I was going to get some, language barrier or not.

At the bottom of one of the mountains was a place where there was supposed to be really good, really cheap honey. Or, at least that was what we were told. I think it was a Peace Corps set-up, but I'll forgive them for now, at least until I can prove it was a set-up. So I, with some other people, set-off down the hill in search of some honey. The others were just going for a walk, but I was going for the whole she-bang. The others turned back as we neared the honey place and I set up the hill on my own. At the time, I thought I must have been walking into the most backwoods yard in the world, compared to most places in the States, but as I have learned over the past half-a-year, most places outside of cities kind of have that feel here. This feeling was only stronger after I met the "saleswoman," who had, if Ai'm lyin, Ai'm dyin', one tooth in her mouth, and that one tooth was gold.

At the bottom of the hill, according to one volunteer who speaks Russian really well, there was a sign that said honey. I have learned since then that he was right, so Ryan, as I have told you already, I must apologize for my disbelief and ignorance. You were absolutely right. The sign said honey, and I know I was pronouncing it correct, but for some unknown reason, I could not communicate that I wanted honey to this woman. I told her honey, I told her the price, I told her flowers and bees and inscribed on the ground, all to no avail. She did not understand any of it. No a smart (i.e. not stubborn) person would have given up after a few minutes. But I was determined to have honey to take to my first host family.

After about 15 minutes, she appeared to have an epiphany. At this point, I must say that for her to have an epiphany was a lot like the sun coming out like a light being turned on after a thirty year period of pitch black night…no stars, no moon, no nothing. She turned and walked back into a little shed and brought out a bottle of what looked like milk tome. So I shook my head. No, that's not it. I want honey. (Ru. pron. btw Meod). She shook the bottle and said, I think, this is honey. No, it's not. And at this, she had another epiphany. Aha! She exclaimed, ran back to the barn, and came back with another bottle, this one bigger and the same white milk like stuff.

At this point I was so frustrated by my inabilities that I gave up. I mean, it was 20 minutes later and still no honey, so what the heck, I'll buy what she has in her hands. How much?..250 tenge for 1.5 liters…Sold to the idiot from America. I walked away completely frustrated with the bottle of milk.

After getting out of her line of sight, I figured I would open the bottle and find out what exactly it was that I had just bought for maybe $2. I opened the bottle and almost puked my guts out right there.

If anyone ever comes to Kazakhstan, let me be your warning. If anyone ever, EVER, offers you a drink of kumiz, DO NOT ACCEPT IT!!! Here, kumiz is a delicacy. But I am telling you now, I have never put anything so vile down my throat. I have been in a lot of strange places, including sewers (from working in utilities work) and I have never even smelled anything this vile. Kumiz is fermented mare's milk. Now for me, anything fermented is not drinkable, in any conditions, with the exception of near death, in the middle of the largest desert, when the buzzards are clipping at your heels. For those of you not up on farm lingo, a mare is a horse. They milk the horse and let the milk go sour and you get BLECH!!!!

Anyway, that was my real introduction to Kazakhstan culture. It was a winner, let me tell you. Since then, I have been offered kumiz about a dozen times at least, my students have to read about it in their terrible text books, and every time I hear it said, I fell like losing lunch on my shoes. Let me be the mistake you learn from if you come here. Don't drink Kumiz. (never ever, ever, ever again!)

Take care out there.

Weekend two with you guess who…

So, there I was, walking along last weekend, minding my own business (this time clever enough to have my coat on) when I get stopped, again, by the ever so elegant and honest police in this country called Kazakhstan.

Since I have been here, I have been stopped twice by the police, both times in the last two weeks. Now, even I am not stupid enough to believe that the first time was a fluke, funny, yes, but at least they had a reason to stop me. This time, no stumbling, no obnoxious behavior (if you can believe that J ), and I had my coat on. These two policemen had absolutely, positively no reason to even consider stopping me, with the possible exception that maybe, perhaps, on the off chance that I was carrying a "bomb" in my backpack.

So the usual barrage of questions followed.

Who are you? Where are you living? Why are you in our country? Are the girls in Kazakhstan beautiful? (I am still unsure about how this pertains to anything police like, but I hear from most of the male volunteers that this is a standard question.) Where are you staying the city? Why are you in the city? Where are you going? Where are you coming from? What is in your backpack? Do you have you documents?

My answers…I am Tim Dickison. I am a volunteer. I am teaching school in a small village. Yes of course I am going to tell you that the girls are beautiful, whether they are or not, I don't feel like pissing you off. (It's not like I have to lie, they are beautiful, but that is besides the point.) I am staying at a friend's apartment (stating the nearest apartment). I am going to that friend's apartment. I am coming from Kazakhtelecom (where I was doing Internet business, but I didn't tell them that. That would mean that I had money.) I have books and a camera. Of course, I have my documents.

And then the real reason for why they stopped me came out. Maybe, with the difference in cultures, these police don't understand that a volunteer doesn't make a whole lot of money, but then again, I am from America. I must be rich. What was the question? Where is your money? What exactly my money has to do with any police business in city of Uralsk is beyond me…Oh wait, no, it's not. I know why they ask that. They think 1) I am rich and 2) that my spine is weak enough that if I have money, I will just hand it over to them. For those of you who know me…That's right…I had 20,000 tenge in my pocket, which right now amounts to all of $150, a real fortune let me tell you. I had a host family payment to make, and shopping to do.

Did they honestly think that if they kept asking where my money was that I would just give them all that I had? Apparently, because they must have asked me at least 20 times. Where is your money? Honestly, I have no money. I am a volunteer. I don't get paid. I have no money.

For fifteen minutes I had to tell them this. I know they understood. I could understand their little laughs and snickers and their Kazakh. Haha, he's an American and he says he doesn't have money…what a lie! Where is your money?

Oh where is the ability and freedom to tell a crooked cop to "piss off, I'm not giving you a bloody red tenge!" It doesn't exist here for me. Oh, but wouldn't it be nice to be able…Oh wait a minute. Here comes his superior officer. What is the problem? His documents check out, let him alone. To which the crooked cops immediately responded, as the other officers left, Shuttka Shuttke…Joke, Joke. I know what a joke is. I'm sorry, your "joke" isn't funny.

Corruption exists in the world…Oh yes it does. Piece out my hommies…J ;) Take care.

Ps for those of you worried about me, don't. I really am doing well, and will eventually answer your emails. I promise.