I got my site assignment yesterday. I was dissapointed at first because I wanted to go further north. However only 3% of Kazakhstan is located by mountains and I happen to be by them. The closet thing I will be located to is China, as it is only 50km away. I am still going to be in teh Almaty oblast but about 6hrs north. So I am basically on the far east side of Kazakhstan about 1/3 of the way up the boarder. I will be living in a pretty small village, but I will be closer to a big town. I am also located near some other volunteers. My village is about 90% Kazakh and 5% Russian...which means I will be learning quite a bit of Kazakh also. Oh and everyone that lives in the states and wants to recieve text messages from me (it is relatively cheap for me to text the states) then you should call your cell phone provider and ask them to turn your international texting on. Right now I can olny text Ireland, I have be chatting with maeve and she got to find out before all of you that I will be living by China.