OJDA (on the job D-something, A-something)

Our counterparts are people that work for our host organizations that are sort of like our cultural and local navigators. We had a ‘Counterpart Conference’ in Talgar where all of our counter parts came from their respective locations and we had cross-cultural sessions on expectations and how to effectively work and communicate with each other. My counterpart’s name is Ruslan. He is a 20 year old college student. I was so pumped. He doesn’t speak any English, but loves the song Hotel California. The first day of the conference we did the basic introductions and I started to realize how enthusiastic he is about us getting to work. He was so excited about all the things we can do that when we were developing a ‘first 3-month at site plan’ for an exercise – by the end of the first 4 weeks we had built a park, planted hundreds of trees on the sides of every street, and put on concert to raise funds for Handicapped children of the community. My PC manager is very concerned that I set limits to how much we set out to do, but I am so pumped that there will be no shortage of ideas or a drive to implement new ideas.
At the end of the conference we traveled with our counterparts to our sites. My site is a small village called Aca (Assa on English maps). It is about an hour outside the city of Taraz in the south. The train from Almaty took about 10 hours. The trains are the real deal. PC buys tickets in what’s called a coupay car. This is a cabin of four bunks. On this particular trip I was fortunate enough to travel with Ruslan another PCV Vicente and his counterpart. Vicente didn’t think it was as funny as I did, but his counterpart (a 50 year old college professor) was absolutely hammered. I suppose I could have done less to egg on the situation, but wow! He led Vicente on to like 3 different wrong trains, then wrong coupays…and then told tall tales until he passed out. Arriving in Taraz at 5 a.m. Ruslan and I were picked up by Aigul, my Director. We went to her parents house, had tea and food and then finally got to sleep. But only until 9 because we had to be at Ainalain at 10.
I am assigned to an NGO named Ainalain. It is a youth organization with 4 employees that was established in 2004. It’s mission is to provide an atmosphere and community for which young people can develop personality and skills. My main focus will be developing an outdoor group (similar to scouting programs in the States), helping teach English, and assisting in business training for the staff (networking, project planning, grant writing, etc.) Currently it seems a lot of their efforts are concentrated on dancing and art clubs. Moldir, Aigul’s 18 year old daughter is a famous dancer in the Eurasia region and she has cultivated quite an successful dance program. Since 2004, mostly due to Aigul’s amazing drive, Ainalain has enjoyed a lot of success. Coincidentally the week I was in Aca, Aigul had been invited by the Nazerbayev, thePresident of Kazakhstan, to an NGO forum in Astana. So on my second day there I went with her to the train station to say goodbye and because of all the Oblast (state) leaders that were getting on the train to attend this conference the media was there and I somehow ended up on TV telling Aigul to say hi to Nazerbyaev from me.
My first time at Ainalain was unreal. I was surprised with an early birthday party by the kids. There were like 50 kids there and they performed dances and songs and had cake. I was so flattered and nervous and couldn’t remember how to say anything in Kazakh. Throughout the week I spent a lot of time just meeting the kids and they are amazing! I cant wait to get back and really getting things underway. The rest of the week I was just dragged anywhere and everywhere. I left my bags at one house and didn’t go back there for 4 days – I somehow had enough sense to put my toothbrush in my pocket. Every meal was at a new house with new people and just as much of a feast as the last.