A Steppe into Kazakhstan: Thanksgiving in Kazakhstan

It's been way too long since I've posted but that means alot has happened! For the last few weeks I've been settling in to my new city, with my new host family, and at work. I can pretty much get around the center of town without getting lost, which is an achievement for me. Work is still slow but I've been keeping busy with weekly activities. On Mondays I will begin training the English Olympiad team from the school where my office is located; on Tuesdays I have an English club for the students at School 8; Wednesdays we have Women's club and an English movie club; and Fridays we have a English discussion club. In between those clubs I try to make it to our local heated, outdoor swimming pool once a week, Russian tutoring and hip hop dance classes.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day itself was pretty uneventful since it falls in the middle of the week and we don't get a day off for it. A volunteer from a town a few hours away from Shymkent came into stay with me for the weekend so we did have a nice Thanksgiving lunch: pizza and Pepsi. Many of the volunteers from the oblast (state) came into town during the weekend so we celebrated Thanksgiving together on Saturday with tons of food and costumes. Traditional food matched with what might be a new tradition. I dressed up as Judy Funnie from Doug. Check out the pictures below to see other costumes.

It was nice to have so many volunteers in town since I hadn't even met everyone in the oblast yet. A few people handled grocery shopping and we spent the day cooking and hanging out at Joe's apartment. For dinner there was: turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, corn bread, salad, apple pie and pumpkin pie. Like after any good Thanksgiving dinner we were stuffed. More than half us could not move while the rest entertained us by dancing.

Galadriel and Edward Cullin

The spread!

Apple pie....mmm!

My new host family

In other news, I've been with my host family for about 5 or 6 weeks so it's about time I tell you about them. When I moved to site I stayed with Britt, a current volunteer, for a few days while I looked at host families. My organization had 3 potential host families for me to look at but after visiting all three I wasn't sure I wanted to live with any of them. During the course of this search I happened to meet Ira, a local friend of Britt and Joe's. So once I found myself scrambling to find a host family, they suggested I speak with Ira about living with her. And that's just what I did!

I'm really happy with my decision because my host family and their apartment are great. My host family is Korean. I have a host mom named Luisa. She is retired from a long career of teaching. My host sister's name is Ira (short for Irina). She's 24 and used to work at a place that sells massage beds. Actually when I came to check out Ira and her mom's apartment before deciding to move there, she tricked Britt and I into going to her workplace and getting massages. I can't complain! Ira studied music and dance when she was in university. She can sing, dance, play piano and draw. On top of being multi-talented she speaks English well. This is pretty helpful since my Russian is still not so great. She mostly speaks to me in Russian but I speak to her in English and broken Russian when I can. Sometimes Ira and I go to the local movie theater on the weekends. Recently we saw 2012 and New Moon, but of course they were dubbed in Russian so I can't tell you what happened. No spoilers here!