Dreaming of a White Thanksgiving

November 9, 2007

Today we were officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers! I have to say that I do not think that I ever thought I would actually make it that far. For well over a year now, being a PCV was sort of an abstract fantasy, something that I really would like to do, but never actually thought would happen, but there we all were after three short months taking the oath to become volunteers. The oath, and then telling everyone were we were going in Kazak or Russian was by far the best part of the whole thing. The rest was pretty boring. It was mostly sitting through long-winded, sappy speeches by the director and the ambassador, neither of whom are very eloquent, but what made it worse is that we had to hear them twice as they were translated for the audience into Russian. Still, it was far better than trying to sit through the last State of the Union, and lunch afterwards with our host families was a lot of fun, so all in all I have to give the Peace Corps two thumbs up.

Today was a day of first for another reason as well. It was also the first time that I had ever seen snow in November, and not just a light dusting like we get in NC either. Almaty and the surrounding areas got at least four inches, and it was COLD. What made it even stranger though was that it was unseasonably warm the day before. I guess I should have expected it though, even in Almaty which is pretty far to the south, we are on nearly the same latitude as New York, and being landlocked means there is not as much water to trap the sun’s warmth during the day. That said, Kyzylorda, the city where I will live for the next two years has the potential to be even colder than Almaty and other northern cities because of its location in the desert. I guess it’s a good thing Mom got me all that space age long underwear after all.