First Snow

Well, we got our first real snow here and the kids were very anxious to go out and play in it. There was actually still quite a bit of mud underneath that thin layer of snow, but the kids didn't get too dirty. The day before, Karla had spent a good deal of time raking our leaves into a pile for a fall photo shoot, but then the rain came, and then it turned into snow.

The snow has since melted and the temperature is up around 8 degrees again. But I'm sure we'll see it again soon. The biggest difference that we're noticing weatherwise right now is the lack of wind. Hardly a breeze here in Almaty!

Fall Festival

One of the bigger school events here is the Fall Festival. It is planned and run by the student government, with the different grades setting up game booths around the school yard, one of them being a wet sponge toss. Now I was asked to participate in this in September when the temperature was still in the 20s, but on the day of the festival it was about 5 degrees and rainy. The director of the school and I were not very eager to stand there for an hour getting wet, but it went fairly well. The booth organizers tried to keep the sponge water nice and warm, so we were actually calling people over to hit us with sponges so that we could stay warm!

The grand finale of the festival was an air band competition and, I have to say, I was impressed with the participation. My favourite was a group made up of some of the Kazakh office staff who came out in traditional Kazakh dress but then proceeded to sing "Long Tall Texan"! It was a hoot and the kids loved it. Will was so desperate to buy a DVD of the air bands that I finally gave in, and the kids watch it regularly.

There was also a number of prizes raffled off and Karla bought three tickets to support the fund-raising effort (which were going towards a refrigerator for the student council tuck shop). Of the dozen prizes available, Karla ended up winning three! She was a little embarrassed yelling out, "That's me again!" but it made for a memorable day.

On the Drying Rack

One of the many things we have been trying to adapt to is the whole system of drying clothes. There doesn't seem to be such a thing as an automatic clothes dryer machine in this part of the world, so we purchased a lovely drying rack (price: $85) at the market. Initially we were upset at the small load size of the washing machine, but then we realized that we could only handle so much laundry at a time anyway.

Then the damp season came and it was taking three or four days to dry clothes and jeans would take even longer. So we made a second drying rack purchase in order to keep ourselves in clean underwear. But now that the temperature has dropped and we've turned on the radiators, things are drying up much quicker!