Blog#4 ( view earlier Blogs first)

This past week, the county I volunteer in hosted a big English teaching seminar. English teachers from 3 counties came for the 7 hour seminar. The head of English education in the state also attended so there was a bit of tension in the air but thankfully all went well. In addition to assisting in organizing the seminar, I played an active role during the seminar: co-taught in one lesson, co-hosted a English Jeopardy game and led a round table discussion on lesson planning with measurable objectives and team practice activities. Two other PCVs, Scott and Myles, helped out at the round table and that made the practicum flow more fluidly. It was a great professional day and one to remember when I experience those future inevitable not so positive teaching days.

Blog# 3 (read earlier Blogs first)

Returning after international travel is tough. For ten days, I visited New Dehli, Jaipur ('the Pink City'), Agra, and Hyderabad. This was my first international travel after joining the Peace Corps and it was an important trip for I got to reconnect with my parents and Indian heritage, Pictures better capture India's beauty and uniqueness than words. Hope it does not take too long to readjust to the gray cement buildings and empty streets of Kazakhstan.

Blog#2- Read earlier email first

Arriving in Kazakhstan as a tourist is a rare thing to the locals. The tourists Kazakhstanis usually encounter in the North come from Russia so language isn't an issue. However, when Americans come over with no Russian, communicating the simplest of requests becomes an art. Hence, when my parents visited for a week, my Russian fluency increased dramatically.

The three of us visited Astana first and it was a first for all of us. Astana is an exception to Kazakhstan. After the cleanliness and modern facades of Astana, we headed to 'raw Kazakhstan.' My parents enjoyed Lesnoye and expected less accomodating conditions from a village of 900 people. Their hearts are more at ease now after being warmly and generously welcomed by the locals.

Hello everyone - my aplogies for not updating several of Roshan's Blogs , as I was in India & had major difficulty trying to do this. So you will see a number of his blogs , starting from the earliest he sent.... Roy ( Roshan's Dad)

Roshan's Blog:

Touring Kazakhstan as a volunteer during the summer is great. You vacation while you work and in the end Peace Corps views your travel as work so no vacation days are counted against you. There’s a Peace Corps rule that states you need to spend at least 30 days at your site during the 3 months of summer. Initially, I thought this would be no sweat. As of now, even after leading a summer camp at my site, I will barely make the 30 day summer quota. This wasn’t intended but so many opportunities to travel and work presented themselves in the forms of summer camps and projects that I could not let them slip by. Serving in a village, I dedicated my time to opportunities in Kazakhstan’s cities. Thus far, I have visited TaldyKalgan, Almaty, Karaganda, Kokshetau, and Petropovolisk this summer. A couple of villages have entertained me as well but I will remember the cities for I missed the city rush after the cow and sheep traffic of my village. The pics are from more good times in Petropovolisk where I played the role of a Russian-English translator at a history museum for about a week.