Admire the PC Volunteers - No Water , yet they press on

As one can imagine, there are far fewer luxuries in a village than even a town. Besides having only four daily buses (7, 9:30, 11:30, 2:30) to get you to an ATM or café and having very unreliable cell phone reception, it can be downright difficult to get basic services from the county center which is only 15km away. Throughout this snowy season (approaching 5 months strong), the electricity goes out or the water pipes sometimes malfunction in Lesnoye. Usually, it takes about 10 hours or so to fix these problems. On several occurrences, it has taken 36 hours. The serviceman straight out says, “we’ll fix it tomorrow or when the weather gets better.” I’ve gotten used to this. No sweat right, you’re working for the Peace Corps. However, this time around, Lesnoye’s water pipes aren’t working and the Water Man has not come to Lesnoye for six days. Half of Lesnoye lives without running water as is but now the locals are all lining up at the sole functioning water pump. It’s tough without an indoor shower and toilet. Walking to the outhouse in -20C weather while your hands begin to get numb isn’t pleasant. Having to fetch and bring water from the pump against 20mph North Kazakhstan spring snow-winds demands patience( see photo where the Pump is located). I give my respect to locals and those PCVs who live without running water.

Second photo is my Artwork.

March & it's a wee bit warmer in Kazakhstan

Last Summer, the Kazakhstani government passed a bill which banned access to almost all blogging websites. Since mid-January, this censorship took effect so my blog is currently being updated through e-mail. Thanks Pa, Ma and Johnny. The ban prevents one from logging into his/her own blog and from viewing other public blogs through the country’s computer networks.

Its March here in Kazakhstan so that means Spring is officially here. About three feet of snow still sits outside my room window and it is in the negative 10s. Being from Northern California , one has to travel some ways to get to snow. For the first time in my life, I went sledding. On a warm -5C afternoon, my host brother (Artioum) and some other village kids took me to a 20 foot hill and we sledded down it for a couple hours. Crashing into the snow feels great.

On March 8th, it is Women’s Day. This holiday is taken seriously in Kazakhstan and is a national holiday. All the local stores have ready to go gift packages to purchase and it is culturally polite to wish every woman you come across with ‘To Women’s Day’. This time round, the men staff at the school read poems and sang songs for the women staff though the women still prepared all the food. When I got home, there was even more celebrating.