A lot of times when I talk to friends and family back home, they ask me "so what exactly do you do?" To which I usually respond vaguely with a comment like "try and stay busy" or "watch Veronica Mars DVDs" – which are both true of course, but not great answers I’ll admit. This is my answer for two reasons: one, I don’t really want to bore anyone or seem too self involved; and two, I don’t think I could really succinctly sum up my life in a few sentences. But now, because this is my blog (I suppose there is no hiding the self-involvement that accompanies having a website dedicated to publishing my thoughts and feelings) and you are here reading it so there must be some interest.. As for the second reason – my day today was a microcosm of my life here in Kazakhstan. It went as follows:
9:05 AM Wake up to knocking at my door. 4 little girls tell me that they need me to open the school (what we call our youth center) for dance lessons. Luckily I had enough sense to put on my sweatpants, I groggily ask them where the dance teacher is, and then tell me they don’t know. Worst. We have an issue with responsibility and dependability/ punctuality with our instructors, so I make a note to talk to the dance teacher later and say that I’ll be there in a few minutes. You might be thinking – Dave, I have seen you dance, and you would be a horrible dance teacher – normally I would say you are right. But fortunately, I’ve got an instructional "You Got Served" VHS with Russian translations that says otherwise. With a gem like this, you go from zero to hero or should I say Hannon to Havana Nights in no time. Just pop that baby in, sit in the back and open a Sports Illustrated. (if only I had this for Senior Prom – maybe I would have made you happy Mary).
10:00 AM Go to the city with my director to talk with a local donor and work out the funding needed to install heating in our school. (This will be the first winter our school will be heated)
11:00 AM – 3:00 PM Some workers came and we repaired the heating system (cutting pipes, welding, turning on the water, check for leaks, turning off the water, cleaning up the water, re-cut pipes, re-weld. Turning on the water, check for leaks, turning off the water, cleaning up the water etc. etc.) Vodka and tea breaks throughout. I however stick to the rule of thumb that hard liquor + power tools = bad idea. Luckily these guys pretty much followed this rule, and the vodka was more of a formality.
3:00 PM English Lessons. By design I am not the English teacher, we have another, but I go to her lessons and help out with conversation practice and whatnot. The whatnot includes lots of shouting and walking around the room with a fake light saber.
4:00 PM Check on my grant. Many of you donated to my most recent project, but I have been unable to start because of some banking issues. Peace Corps Headquarters in DC are having some issues transferring the money to my Project account so I check in on this situation as much as I can. I am embarrassed that I have nothing to show our patrons yet, but hopefully we will be underway soon.
4:30 – 7:00 PM Finish work on the heating system.
7:00 PM Go home and relax. I threw on a tape of the MSU v. OSU football game my mom sent me. What an awful game to watch right? That’s how desperate I am for football. Soon I will have the MSU v. UM game though, and will probably have that playing continuously in my apartment.
9:00 PM My director lives in the apartment below mine and I eat some meals with her family. Today some of her brothers came over "ghosting" (a Russian verb for act of guesting?) so I hung with them for a while.
10:30 PM Study a little for the GRE, read some mags then went to bed.
About Midnight Receive a text from some friends who met and are partying in Almaty (I couldn’t go, so I reply with a bitter text about how they are the worst friends ever, and fall back asleep)
This sort of encapsulates a lot of what I do, but in no way is this a routine. Some days I spend all day in the city, other days I just stay home do like 2 months worth of laundry and possibly bathe.
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2 comments:
As crazy as our days are, they're certainly never boring or dull, that's for sure.
Glad things are "heating" up (basically a direct reference to the 10:00AM entry but thought it applied in general to your whole routine in general). What an excellant idea about sending you the tapes of the MSU games. Go Spartans!!!
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