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!

Shopping

Shopping for groceries has been a mix of frustrations and pleasant surprises. Without a car means having to carry all our groceries back to the house. If Karla or I go alone, we can move a lot quicker; but if we all go together, we can put some items in the basket under the stroller.Their are dozens of little family-run stores (duken in Kazakh or magazeen in Russian) along the main road down from our house, but to find something that we recognize or to know how to ask for it has been hard -- since most things are on shelves behind the counter, we don't feel very comfortable just browsing. But these stores are good for getting a few common items: bread, juice, pasta, rice.

Fortunately, we early on discovered that there is a fairly large market about a 20-minute walk from our house which has come to supply us with a lot of our fresh food needs. The market has a big building on one side: half of the main floor has counters full of vegetables and fruit; the other half has counters full of meat. We have formed a bit of a relationship with some of the women: they have been so gracious in helping us learn the ropes, our most common phrase being adeen kilogram, spasiba (one kilogram, please). Despite their serious faces in the photo, they are very friendly and call out to us as soon as they see us come in. We buy our fruit and vegetables here (but we're not quite comfortable buying the meat that's been sitting out all day). Sometimes the produce at other vendors looks better but we're trying to show some customer loyalty to these wonderful women.

We've also found a small grocery store that's set up more like a North American-style supermarket. Here we buy milk, cheese, eggs, butter, yogourt, juice, canned goods, sausage, cereal, cookies, and (very important) peanut butter. The peanut butter is expensive -- about six dollars for a 510-gram jar -- but the kids like it so much we've decided not to worry about the price. The biggest difficulty is buying meat (or, at least, meat that we're comfortable with). To get to the big, modern supermarket requires a long bus trip; instead, Karla has hitched rides with one of our new friends whenever she is making a grocery run. But otherwise we feel pretty comfortable about the whole grocery thing now. We have a small rotation of meals that we're all pretty happy with and we're getting strong arms and legs from carrying all our groceries back from the store!

Transportation

Being without a vehicle, we have experienced all types of other modes of transportation. The bus system is, shall we say, irregular. Each bus is very different: some are from Germany, some are from Korea, and some are from places that were too ashamed to give their names. Some are fairly large (like Canadian busses) and some are very small (the size of larger vans). In most cases you have no interaction with the bus driver; each bus has a conductor-type person who calls out the door the names of the places the bus is travelling to. This person is also responsible for taking the bus fares -- and they even give change! Neither the bus driver nor the conductor wear any kind of clothing that would help you distinguish them as such, but the conductor is the one calling out street names and usually wears a "fanny pack" to carry the money, while the driver is, of course, driving the bus!

There's also trolley busses here hooked to overhead lines; occasionally they come off the lines and the driver has to jump out and fix it with a long metal pole. The busses have all kinds of odd seating arrangements, curtains, decorations, music, smells, etc., but the most notable feature is the number of people they can jam into them. I've often heard of other places where the busses are stuffed to overflowing, but this is the first time I've actually experienced the policy of "there's always room for one more". The kids call it a pancake bus, and it does feel as though you are receiving internal damage as yet another group of people are being pushed onto the bus. And carrying a backpack or a stroller makes things really interesting! For the most part, however, the people are very patient and somehow it all works out, but there have a few times of panic when we need to get off at the next stop and we just can't seem to wiggle our way to the door. We've had to learn a few phrases to aid us in our endeavours: mozhna ("may I?") and eezvineetya ("excuse me")!

They also have an informal taxi fleet consisting of absolutely anybody who feels like picking someone up! You just stand on the side of the road with your hand slightly extended outward and when someone stops (which does nothing for the traffice flow behind them!) you tell them where you want to go, they accept or decline, and then you negotiate a price. So far we have not quite felt comfortable enough to try it out on our own.

A Day of Shopping

Today Derek and I went shopping at a bazaar to buy stuff for our house. We went there with the kids last week but we took the bus so we were not able to bring much home. (Three kids, a stroller and packages on a overly packed bus is not a good idea.) Today one of my grade 12 students babysat while we went out. We also arranged to have a friend pick us up in his car when we were done so we were able to bring our stuff home easily.

We were able to find nice pots and pans, hair clippers for Derek and the boys, plants, duvets for the kids beds, and a grocery store for microwave popcorn. I wanted to try on a shirt at one little store but I almost walked away when the seller took the shirt away from me, spread her hands wide apart and said "nyet, vee bullshoy" which means "no, you big". She went into the back and brought out a large shirt for me. Derek (with his ever-present phrase book) tried to tell her that no, I was small or medium. But sure enough the large fit. So I guess I am "bullshoy". (With all the walking that we do here I actually think I've lost weight so I guess I was extra large before.) It is really hard to find a shirt without sequins, buckles, and loads of bling so I bought the shirt in spite of the customer service.

Our new phrase is "nada padoomat" which literally means "I'll think it over". We soon learned that loosely translated it means "give me a discount" because the sellers would drop the price a few hundred tenge whenever we said it. Apparently it is a great phrase to know; all told that little phrase saved us about $45 today.

Well I'm off to the market to buy some bread. See ya,
Karla

Forty Leggers

Karla wanted me to post a picture of our friendly house pets: in Russian, they're called 40 leggers (I don't count quite forty though...). We often wake up to find them on the walls -- this morning we had one in our kitchen sink. I try to scan the walls in the mornings so that I can kill them before Karla sees them, but I don't always find them before she does. She swears that one of them leapt from the wall with full intentions of biting her throat. (You can ask her for more details...)