One Last Interlude

When I got back to Kyzylorda, I was glad to be home. It had been almost a month since I had left for Ust-Komen and I actually like my desert city, most of the time at least. Once I got there though, I realized that I should have been careful what I wished for. It had been pretty hot in Kyzylorda when I left, but once I returned the heat quickly became almost unbearable. The temperature was regularly in the mid 45 degrees Celsius, and the wind did nothing to help the situation. All it would do was just blow dust everywhere and make the heat even worse. Luckily, Kyzylorda has a nice big river, the Sidaria that has a man-made beach where we all go swimming every afternoon. On a side note, the locals call this the “Jewish Beach” because, and this is a direct quote, “its free.”

Still, as much fun as I was having staring at the ceiling and cooking in my own juices, I was glad when my friend from Zhezkazgan invited me to come up to one last camp before classes started up again. Unfortunately, he only gave me the heads up a few days in advance, but it was all right because a bus goes from Kyzylorda to Zhezkazgan daily and it was not that hard to get a ticket. The bus was an old soviet type school bus, although an all-terrain vehicle would have been more appropriate. The bus did not so much follow a road as a really bumpy dirt path, and it was even forced to leave that at times and just drive across the open step. To make matters worse, the bus kept stalling outwhich not only extended the trip from eight hours to twelve, but was rather scary because there was absolutely no sign of life between Kyzylorda and Zhezkazgan, and if we had gotten really stuck it would probably have been a full day until a replacement arrived. Ultimately however, all of the trouble was worth it I guess. Zhezkazgan was hardly the hole in the ground that I expected after hearing Robert complain about it for eight months. In fact when I finally got there, the second thing I said to Robert was “what the hell were you complaining about?” Zhezkazgan had, unlike my beautiful Kyzylorda, clear evidence of urban planning, and a fully functional downtown. Zhezkazgan has its drawbacks to be sure, even disregarding its isolation. Zhezkazgan also has a great deal of air pollution due to all of the copper mines and processing plants in the city. In fact, some days it was so bad that when I blew my nose I thought pennies were coming out.

The camp in Zhezkazgan was a lot of fun and a great success. It was a nice middle ground between the crazy schedule and counterparts of Alga and the apathetic students of Ust-Kamen. The camp schedule was busy but not super overwhelming, and the kids were interested and active in both lessons and sports. In fact, it turned out that I had four students in my class who showed considerable talents in Ultimate Frisbee. Another great thing about the camp was that it was one another chance to meet and hang out with other PCVs. Not only did I get to see my friends from training one more time before school started, but I also got to meet Robert’s site mates from the Kaz-18 group, Dusty and Valerie. Both were really nice, and it was good to see that all of the Zhezkazgan volunteers got along pretty well. Of course, with the next nearest volunteers being eight or twelve hours away, they had better right?

All in all, it was a great two weeks and I was glad I had that one last trip. I feel that I have fully recharged my batteries and am ready for the coming year. Also, I am happy that I got the chance to see a lot of Kazakhstan has to offer. It is kind of funny actually, despite their similar size, it took me much longer to see as much of America as I saw of Kazakhstan this summer. My family traveled a lot to be sure, but it was usually on the East or West coasts, rarely the middle. Now though, I am back at site, this time for keeps. Summer is officially over, but I have to say it has probably been one of the best ever.