We made it.

So, we made it to Kazakhstan! Our plane arrived here in Almaty around 11:30 at night, and we did not make it to our apartment until about 1:30. The school picked us up, along with about eight other teachers, and brought us to our apartment. We did not go to bed until about 3:30 that night because we were unpacking and such, and when we finally did go to bed, we only slept until about 6:30 AM. Jet lag is tough. We are about eleven hours different from IF, and so our bodies really wanted to sleep all day and stay awake at night. The later evening hours were excruciating because we were so tired, but we needed to stay awake so we would not wake up too early. It was probably five or so nights before we could sleep through the night, and some of those nights we were awake for several hours.

Unfortunately, when we arrived, Jessica had a toothache. The idea of dentistry in Kazakhstan did not sound like a pleasant experience, but she asked the staff at our school to help her get to a dentist. There were no appointments available for two weeks, so one of the Russian teachers from our school who happened to have a dentist appointment that day brought Jessica to the dentist with her. Luckily, this was reputedly the best dentist in Kazakhstan. So, Jessica went to the non-English speaking dentist and had Aliya, a staff member from her school, translate during the entire visit. The dentist was nice enough to squeeze her in between other patients. She took X-rays, polished the tooth, and gave it a laser treatment. It was all very high tech, and it only cost about $45. Now her tooth feels better, and she is very grateful to Aliya for helping her get through the Kazakh dentist experience.

Our apartment is great. It is in an old, Soviet-style apartment complex. Our building probably has fifty or so apartments, and there are seven other similar buildings, all facing a courtyard. The exterior of the buildings and the courtyard are decrepit, but the apartments are pretty nice. Ours is a two-bedroom. We also have two closed-in porches: one in the front and one in the back. Aside from another teacher, we are the only English speakers in the area; everyone else is Kazakh or Russian. Actually, we have not met any English-speakers outside of our school. But the apartment complex is lively and full of energy. Throughout the day there are children yelling and laughing and playing in the dirty playground that makes up the courtyard. Moms push their babies around in strollers and chat, and little boys play soccer and chase each other. Several days of the week a woman strolls around the courtyard yelling, “Moloko!” which means, “milk.” She sells milk and some sort of soft cheese out of the back of her car. When she yells, people come filing out of the apartments with empty containers to fill with her milk.

The hubbub of the apartment complex is not all pleasant, though. A small road encircles the courtyard, and this makes a small circle within the apartment complex. Everyone who lives here (and these people all seem to drive Mercedes and Lexuses) tries to park on this road. It becomes a ridiculous cluster of cars blocking each other in. Also, when the kids play soccer in the courtyard, they over-kick the ball every few minutes, and the ball hits a car, turning on its car alarm. So, some afternoons we hear car alarms every few minutes. Then there is the pack of stray dogs. There are about six of them, in varying sizes and colors, and they seem pretty harmless and afraid of people. Even so, they have a tendency to sit under our bedroom window and bark all night long.

The mountains to the south of our apartment are truly amazing. Almaty is at about 3000 ft and the mountains shoot up to around 14,000ft. very quickly. We are anxious to get into the mountains and do some hiking but haven’t figured out the bus system well enough to do so. Unfortunately, on bad pollution days the mountains can be hard to see. Imagine, not being able to see the rocky mountains from 3 miles away. The pollution is pretty awful at times but seems to affect us less and less every day. We’re not sure if getting used to nasty pollution is a good thing or not but it is nice to be less bothered. The first time we went running, we both felt awful and Jessica was pretty nauseated for about a week. Whenever we talk to other teachers, they tell us that it isn’t even bad right now and will become appallingly bad once winter hits and the locals begin to burn coal to heat their houses.

Training has been going very well. We have spent about a week going over procedural stuff, QSI learning philosophy stuff and general things related to living abroad. We both found out our room assignments and have been busy preparing our rooms for the first day of class. Jessica’s final assignment was teaching British Literature, American Literature and Creative Writing. Dan will be teaching Cultural Studies, Reading and Language Arts. The mastery system of learning is going to take some getting used to but the curriculum is very well thought out and should be fun to teach.

We both signed up to coach fall sports. Dan will be coaching cross country and Jessica will be coaching volleyball. Jessica will get to play against several local teams and may have the opportunity to go to a few neighboring countries to play other QSI schools. Dan will have about 9 weeks to prepare our cross country team for our major goal of the year, which is a meet in Zagreb, Croatia. Yep! You heard right. Dan gets to take a small team of runners to an international meet in Croatia. It should be an experience.