“The U.S. Peace Corps will pull out of the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan, a move that follows reports from volunteers about a spate of sexual assaults and Islamist-inspired terrorist attacks on the program’s workers.”

If I have the time I’ll try posting the retro posts. It seems irrelevant now, but for some of you it still might be interesting to see what I have seen. Yup.

Therefore, the end. For now.

Update (2011-11-21): An RPCV has informed me that the NPR statement was inaccurate, but I personally can neither confirm nor deny the truth in both the RPCV’s statement and the NPR statement. As far as I have heard, there have not been any “Islamic-inspired terrorist” attack on any PCVs, but there have been several incidents of sexual assaults on female PCVs.

The reason for the blocked blogs and websites here is because of this past summer’s attacks on some government buildings. There was evidence that they were done by religious extremists who supposedly communicate through internet blogs. So in order to maintain the safety of Kazakhstan’s citizens, the government passed a Religious Law. Here’s a news clip about it:

And an article link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/13/us-kazakhstan-religion-idUSTRE79C38Z20111013

I added a Google News RSS feed about Kazakhstan on the right margin of this webpage for those of you that are wondering about what is happening in Kazakhstan.

As for my blog posts, I’ll continue writing as soon as I can find the time and access the internet. And if I can still access WordPress.

…And the bad news is, WordPress is blocked in Kazakhstan. A friend of mine asked me about blogging and she told me how she couldn’t access WordPress. I tried loading my blog on a computer and it wouldn’t load. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Blogspot was blocked in Kazakhstan in the past. If I can figure out a way to upload new posts with pictures I will. But if I can’t, I’ll try to post pictures here-ish http://picasaweb.google.com/wongmj when I get around to it.

But until then, here’s a brief update about my adventures this summer:

So far this summer, I have helped out at a couple summer camps. I’m planning on going to Almaty to help out with a teacher training seminar. I was supposed to go to China this week, but there was a problem with my visa so I wasn’t able to go just yet. If everything works out I will go soonish.

That’s all for now. Goodbye, internets!

Bigger version HERE

I forgot about this after I came to site with all the new experiences and integration I was embracing in until some volunteers requested for it. Some of the information is outdated because some volunteers ET’d (Early Termination’ed) or were medically separated.

Embracing in my experience here is also the reason why I haven’t really had the chance to post any new posts lately or post retro posts. I have tons of photos and blogs to post, but it all takes time. Time that I don’t really have. People rarely post comments on here and I occasionally have lots of viewers on here… But who are you people??? I’m really curious to know. I made a guestbook page for you strangers to drop a shout out or something. Because if people rarely read this blog, then I’ll continue to rarely post posts. Or is it because I rarely post posts that people rarely read this blog?

Get your reading on with…

50 Peace Corps Facts:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110228/bs_ac/7962650_50_peace_corps_facts

Peace Corps Timeline:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110301/us_ac/7963242_peace_corps_timeline

Who would have thought that sending Americans to live and help out in a foreign country where people speak foreign languages and have foreign cultures would have been a good idea?

• Retro blog posts (writing new posts and dating them in the past) completed for:

November 7, 2010 through January 1, 2011

• Retro posts are dated the day that the event took place and is dated at 23:59 (11:59pm).

• List of 25 new posts:

2011.01.01 Last Night (New Years Eve)

2010.12.29 Teacher’s New Years Party

2010.12.27 Young Professionals Gift Exchange

2010.12.26 Christmas (Again!)

2010.12.25 Christmas in Kazakhstan

2010.12.23 English Club

2010.12.18 Bastau Christmas Party

2010.12.16 KZ Independence Day Events: Flash Mob & Concert

2010.12.12 Burgers & A Birthday Party

2010.12.11 A Funeral, Ice Skating, & Café

2010.12.06 The Interview

2010.12.05 More Snow Fun Time, Café, & Banya

2010.12.04 More SNOW!

2010.12.03 Snow, Bowling, & Karaoke

2010.11.27 Thanksgiving Dinner

2010.11.26 Cafe & Cakes

2010.11.22 Last Night’s Blackout

2010.11.21 Snow Fun Play Time!

2010.11.20 Korean Restaurant

2010.11.19 ZOMG Snow! (Again!)

2010.11.18 NIS Tech

2010.11.14 Bazaar

2010.11.11 Volunteer Gathering @ Hessen Pub

2010.11.09 Lost

2010.11.07 New to Taldykorgan

Enjoy the new posts! =)

Second time performing it. Only did the first minute and forty seconds of the song. Last time I performed it was on December 29, 2010 during a teacher’s New Year’s party. Some students want me to sing with them for a future concert… which is funny because being here in Kazakhstan is the only time that I have ever sang publicly in front of a large amount of people. I think it’s because I look like one of them and I’m a native English speaker, but who knowsss.

I will try to post pictures and retro posts as soon as I get a chance to. It’s always busy huRrrrr: Work, Lesson Planning, English Clubs, Peace Corps stuff, Russian, Yeptep (yeptep: Kazakh for “a little”) Kazakh, Recharging, Staying Sane, and Repeat.

Driving in Kazakhstan is dangerous. I think driving in Asia in general is pretty dangerous. Especially when there is snow and ice involved. I don’t understand what the traffic laws are here because they seem nonexistent. Cars definitely have the right of way here, so if a pedestrian isn’t paying attention they could get run over. Sometimes I see cars honking and cars using their high beams to signal other drivers to move to the right so that they can speed past on the left side. Sometimes I see drivers speeding past in the opposite lane where there’s oncoming traffic just to get around a slow driver. Even with cold, snowy, icy conditions, drivers here still drive super fast. I’ve seen some accidents and luckily I have not been involved in any here.

I hope everyone stays safe and remembers to live their lives to the fullest without regrets. Life is short enough as is. There’s never enough time.

The first thing I did was eat a little food at my host fam’s place:

The cake was so delicious. After that, I dropped by a volunteer’s house to say hi to volunteers and chill for a little bit:

Next, I went with local friends to chillax some more and get foods:

I had to race home so I took a taxi. The taxi driver must have been driving too fast or something, but he drove into a small fence that was blocking the entrance to one of the streets:

It scared the crap out of me. Luckily, we were fine.

I managed to get home about 10 minutes before midnight. The host family was setting up for the countdown with champagne for the adults and juice for the kids. The TV was on with the President Nazarbayev saying a speech to people. It was in Kazakh so I couldn’t understand any of it.

After the countdown, we quickly ate and rushed outside to see and set off fireworks. It was so cool! I have never seen so many fireworks exploding so close to my face before. Back home home in the US, I live 5 minutes away from Disneyland so seeing and hearing fireworks does not thrill me anymore. Watching fireworks set off so close to the apartment buildings was so exciting!

The fireworks lasted for a good 30 minutes or so. I went with the host family to gocti (visit other people). We visited a couple of the host family’s relatives’ houses:

I think we must have gotten back at 3am. By far, this is one of the bestest New Years Eve that I have ever experienced. =)

As you may have noticed, there has been a major lack of updates lately. There will definitely be more retro posts sometime in the near future along with a couple/few hundred pictures to post from my adventures.

So here’s a brief notes about what’s been going on during the last two months-ish in no particular order. They are numbered so if you wan to comment about them, you can reference the number in a comment post:

1. Integration/Adaptation to Taldykorgan. I think I got lost here about 7-8 times. Most of which were on foot. Once while riding a marshootka (public bus/van transportation vehicle).
2. Bonding with my Taldykorgan host family.
3. Familiarizing myself with Kazakhstan culture and realizing that they definitely know how to work hard and play hard. They can work from 8am-7pm and still have the energy to go out all night to do random activities (night clubs, bowling, etc.).
4. Trying to come up with new, creative ways to decline vodka consumption.
5. Creating random, meaningful toasts to toast because they make a lot of toasts. Especially during a birthday or a holiday celebration.
6. Getting into the groove of teaching English at a presidential school.
7. Taught 5th, 9th, and 10th grades.
8. Trying to improve my Russian/Kazakh. And having 5th graders trying to teach me how to say random phrases in Kazakh.
9. Researched new cell phones because most people here are into cell phones.
10. Covered another volunteer’s college/university level English Club.
11. Unknowingly joined the Young Professionals Club at school… Who knew that the only requirement was being YOUNG and a PROFESSIONAL working at the school??? They are all cool. =)
12. Managed to find and eat hamburgers, french fries, and pizza. =)
13. Integrated with the internet culture of Kazakhstan by creating a Mail Ru account and learning about online emoticons (they use a ‘end’ parenthesis to show a happy smiley face and they use many ‘end’ parenthesis to show how happy they are =)))) ).
14. Watched kids under 18 play with toy guns and play violent video games because I don’t think there are rating systems for games and toys here. Part of me envies these kiddies here.
15. Went to cafes/restaurants, bowling, karaoke-ing, ice skating, night clubbing, and watched some films (dubbed in Russian) a movie theater… All of which are things that are normal American things to do in America.
16. Experienced my first public banya (sauna) experience with my host family… Which wasn’t totally public because it was only my host family and their immediate relatives there. There was a billiards table, swimming pool, TV, and LOTS of food and drinkies.
17. Sang a duet with another young professional. I rapped in front of 100+ teachers. I sang Eminem’s first rap part in “Love the Way You Lie.”
18. Played in SNOW!!! And embraced the SNOW for the first time during Christmas/New Years time. =))))
19. Gave and received New Years gift which is sort of like giving and receiving Christmas presents in America.
20. Experienced New Years time during Kazakhstan for the FIRST TIME EVER. I watched some yoolkas (yoolka: means fur tree/Christmas tree). It was a celebratory event with students dressing up in costumes, taking part in fun festivities around a Christmas tree New Years tree, and having tons of fun celebrating the coming of the new year. It was like a combination of Halloween, Christmas, and New Years.

Speaking of experiencing New Years, I must prepare for tonight’s events with local friends and host family now. I hope everyone spends their time today with their loved ones and friends. HAVE FUN! STAY SAFE! =)))))))