Arrived!

After landing in Almaty we got on a bus to take us to a hotel. After a 45-minute bus ride we got the hotel at around 2 am. When we were woken up at 7:30am the next morning it turned out we were staying in a mountain resort. It was beautiful. Also there was some national youth skateboarding competition being held at the resort the same weekend we were there. It was an amazing ease into the culture. They constructed a huge skate park with Kazakhstani hipster punks all over the place. We were told how conservative a culture this country had, but after seeing all this inked up skaters I was overjoyed to put on my Larry Johnson jersey which I was beginning to think I packed in vain. So here I was in the mountains of Kazakhstan, watching a skate comp and accompanying live band, reppin Grandma-ma. Talk about one of those “moments”. We did a lot of language and technical training these few days, but we also had a lot of free time. It was so great to get to really get to know the other volunteers. I met some really amazing and like-minded people, that I am so excited to share this experience with.
After we began training a few of us were asked if we would mind switching from learning Russian to learning the native Kazak language. As Russian would be much more beneficial in terms of resume building, I was convinced to accept when told that we were tapped for specific reasons. Due to my experience with Boy Scouts they selected me to go a certain Kazak speaking community that is in need of some sort of outdoor youth organization. I am so stoked about this assignment! Also, Kazakhstani’s are immensely grateful to foreigners who have learned their language. The strategy of the Peace Corps is to not teach about the language, but just have you learn it…which I must say is very helpful. So we got some general overview notes, immunization shots, basic language and we were all set to head to our Pre Service Training sites where we will live with host families for 3 months.