I could officially be the world’s worst blog writer. In my defense I would like to say that I am in a very small Kazakh village where power isn’t certain and the internet connection that I do get is through the school and I have to wait until the teacher will let me use it and then I only get a half hour on a slow dial-up (I think like 28). So in that time frame I usually just get to check my email and sometimes I have the time to write back but not the time to update my blog. However, I do have a lot of free time after lunch so I have decided to write out blog updates in Microsoft word, save them, and then post a bunch of entries at once. If I am in Sarkand during a weekend I might be able to take my computer with and use Ehren’s phone to connect to the internet and update everything. My flickr account is another issue as it takes forever on dial-up to upload photos…that might have to wait until I can get to the peace corps office in Almaty.
I have been at my site for three weeks now and I am beginning to get used to village life. Everyone knows where I go and if I go to the magazine (a store) they all know what I buy. Today I went to the post office after class and when my host mom got home she asked me who I mailed letters to and commented that the post office lady liked that I said thank you in Kazakh instead of Russian. Today was really interesting since I got to wash my clothes. I am lucky that my family has a “washing machine” it is an old soviet one that you put water and soap in then plug it in and the motor turns the clothes slowly. Then you take the clothes out of the machine, put them in a tub of cold water, rinse, wring out, and hang on the line to dry. I should mention that this is all done outside and you have to heat the water up on the pechka or in the banya before you pour it into the machine. I was outside helping my host mom and went into the banya to wash my underwear (this you do by hand). The banya was hot so I took off my fleece and left it outside. My host mom decided it was dirty so she washed my fleece. When I got out of the banya with my clean underwear I had no coat to put back on. I think of myself as somewhat tough…but trust me after rinsing, wringing, and hanging clothes outside without a coat you get COLD. I also might add that there is quite a bit of snow on the ground and when I hung up my clothes they immediately stuck to the line (it is a metal line). Also by the time I could get back to the line with a new piece of clothes the previous one would already be completely frozen.