Clothing is Better with English Slogans!

If clothing has print it will likely be in English. Even if the shirt or hat is promoting Kazakhstan or a local organization. We also found this to be true in Russia in which their local teams were promoted on shirt with the Latin alphabet rather than their own Cyrillic. It might have something to do with English being the global language. This may be true is most countries, but I do not have first hand experience in most countries. Either way, the translation or the context can be amusing. I often see men wearing shirts and jackets with slogans or brand names like "master of sports" or "man of fashion." Yesterday, there was a 9 or 10 year-old boy with a baseball hat with "SEXY" written is large letters across the front.

Water Supply

Last week, there was a day in which the water pressure was too low to flush the toilet. Yesterday, it happened again. In addition, there was a period of no water. Twelve hours after getting water again, it is still brown. It is easy to complain about the water supply and assign blame. However, visiting other areas is about new experiences. Irregular utilities is probably more common than the relatively seamless utilities of the U.S. Over there, lawns are watered and toilets are flushed with some of the finest water known to man. Despite the irregular water supply in KZ, it is still likely better than most people's.

Blows over breastfeeding?

Yesterday we saw a fight on the bus. It was kind of strange and I'm not sure exactly what the fight was about (my Russian-lanugage eavesdropping needs some improvement). Anyways, there was a woman breastfeeding in a fairly unabashed fashion (there is discreet breastfeeding and then there is flashy breastfeeding, which I typically reserve for home and le leche league meetings). Then there were words exchanged between the mother and the woman who collects the bus fare. I was assuming they were discussing the appropriateness of public breastfeeding, but that may be in the eye of the beholder. I'm not sure what the laws are (if any) on the issue. Words apparently weren't enough, and the women started hitting each other. It was so crazy, and it happened right in front of us... literally 1 foot away from us. Malcolm was really kind of freaked out. Of course, we kind of were too.. but I was actually extremely interested in what was going on, so I was trying to gather all the info and observations I could. Then this man a few seats back said something like, "quit fighting in front of the foreigners!" and someone broke up the fight.

I'm not even going to offer any potential explanations for this set of events, especially since I didn't fully understand what was going on. The researcher in me wanted to sit everyone down for a full on interview after the fact so that I could really get to the bottom of things. The mother in me just wanted to make sure Malcolm understood it's not nice to hit people. In the end, I think stuff like this can happen anywhere, so it's not a particularly Kazakh phenomenon and I won't pass judgement (though there could be an interesting discussion about the variable effectiveness of nurse-ins versus just beating the crap out of people who tell you you can't nurse in xyz location, but I digress).

On a different note.. sorry for the lack of postings. Life here is kind of exhausting as we adjust. But we'll try to ramp it up!

Where Did He Go?

Don't step on man hole covers in Kazakhstan. It's not uncommon to find sewer lids that have shifted. I'm not sure if they are ill-fitting or the round metal cover is just too light (they appear to be no more than 1/2 inch thick). One of the teachers at the university warned us to be careful after he fell through a hole when the round sewer lid shifted beneath him. Luckily it only engulfed his leg and not the entire body. Before hearing this story, I was concerned that I was complaining too much about these man hole covers that shift beneath my feet.

2 year old dreams

Malcolm is in hog heaven living in a city where there is constant construction. Pulling a chair up to the window usually promises a view of dump trucks, back hoes and excavators. The university atrium is also a fun place to explore, as there is a huge fountain. Unfortunately he's often disappointed as it only operates occasionally. But yesterday there was an extra special treat inside the tropically outfitted atrium (i.e. palm trees to accompany the fountain and various water fixtures)... a frog and a lizard! They were just hanging out on the marble floors. Who knows how they got there, but now I always keep my eyes on the floor so I won't squash some unexpected/unexpecting reptile or amphibian! So now Malcolm knows that momma works in a place that has not only a fountain, but accompanying wildlife. It was no surprise, then, that he announced he was coming to work with me this morning.

There's also a cafeteria on campus, which is great. They have all our favorite Russian foods like piroshki, blini, various soups, yummy salads, etc. And it's pretty cheap. All three of us can eat for under $5.

As far as work goes, things are pretty laid back still. Faculty is still arriving this week and next and I'm mostly working on organizing my class material. This leaves us lots of free time to explore the city and adjust to new things. Yesterday we went to an English-language cafe/bookstore/library and met the propriator, which was fun, and she even gave Brian a potential contact for work and/or volunteering with special needs kids. We'll def. follow up all leads and are happy to make contact with people and network.

No soap in Kazakhstan

In the greatest of ironies, one of the things we didn't have for about 12 hours was soap! My colleagues had done a very nice thing in buying a few of the basic essentials to make us comfortable like napkins and breakfast foods, etc. But since we arrived at 3am, we didn't make it to the store to buy other things for several hours. Not a big deal, except Malcolm found his bubble container, but I had to explain to him that we didn't have soap to put in it. "No soap, Kazakhstan," he went around dejectedly repeating. Of course I assured him we would buy soap ASAP. Later that first day, we walked about a mile and a half to the nearest store (the university is on the outskirts of town) and were able to buy all of our favorites like tvorog, cirok, sour cream.. what a dream! After that, we had enough small change to ride the bus back to the university/apartment.

So far everything has been great. The university staff is very welcoming and helpful. Our apartment is nice, though it has taken awhile to get used to it. It's not unlike a European apartment, which of course is not all that much like an American apartment, so there were a few glitches to work out. We figured out that to get hot water we had to let the tap run a really long time. The internet still isn't fully functional, though I'm not sure why (at work I have full access, though no skype.. but skype works at the apartment).

Since we arrived on Sunday, we had to wait until Monday to really get things going. Monday (yesterday), we were able to meet up with some people from the university and go grocery shopping at a nicer store in a big fancy mall. We also got cell phones and a new toy saxaphone for Malcolm (we had to leave his old one at home because we were afraid it wouldn't travel well). Essentially we can get anything we could possibly need here in Astana, though the prices are somewhat high. We paid about $50 each for cell phones that are super basic, bottom of the line.  But they're everything we could possibly need at this point, and they should work in Russia as well. Malcolm's sax was around $7, which isn't bad since it's sturdy and made in Italy (apparently there are a lot of Chinese goods here but not the quality control that there is for Chinese imports into the US.. which I find kind of funny/hilarious).

As for the travel/arrival (working backward), things were amazingly and pleasantly uneventful. Our connections were totally fine (I was worried because we only had 1 1/2 hours in Chicago and Istanbul, which didn't leave a lot of room for error). Turkish Airlines is really swank, so we were really comfortable. Malcolm slept 9 hours of the long leg, and did well on the other legs as well. When we arrived, immigration and customs were no problem at all (I had been anxious about that as well). We did lose Malcolm's car seat, however. Hopefully it will come soon. He's been riding in the vans without a car seat, which is perfectly fine as far as he's concerned. There are no laws here requiring car seat use... and in fact when were explaining to the lost luggage claims people what we'd lost, there was some confusion (they kept thinking we'd lost a stroller). Later one of the women from the university explained that most people in KZ think car seats are "those things that Westerners sometimes have." I'm not overly worried about it. Riding in the vans seems fine, and we'll do a lot of public transport, so it will likely be a non issue.

Anyways, all is well... and we'll have picture to post soon so you can see the lay of the land!