Everyone is asleep

Linda Here...

Perhaps this is a good time for me to write. The
household is asleep. Mike on the sofa and the kids in
the bedroom. It is 3:30pm. I sung the kids to sleep
about an hour and a half ago. They were wired after
our walk. Our routine is to wake about 7 or 8am
depending on when they get to bed, we eat and then
leave the house about 10. We return after a walk and
shopping of some sort - today it was for crayons.
Lunch was at about 12 and they went down for a nap
about 1pm.

We had leftovers from the party last night for lunch.
All the food was ordered from the military school.
The pea soup is really nice. Which reminds me, Mike
must have written about the soldier we met the other
day who told us he was studying to be a firemen. He
was thrilled to hear us speak English and told us of
his travels to Arizona, Texas and California. We
still laugh when hear that those men and women are
studying to be firemen. Just how many firemen can
there be in Kazakhstan. There doesn't seem to be that
much to catch fire.

The vegetation here consists of poplar trees (cotton
everywhere including my throat), lilacs (which were in
bloom when we arrived), peony, mustard and I know
there is lily of the valley because Sveta bought some
for us a couple of weeks ago to decorate the
apartment. There are more plants of course, but I
don't know that there is a lot of variety. There are
no large Noble trees as they are thought of in
Spartanburg or much if any ground cover like the kudzu
we all know and love in the south.

We are just a block away from the flower market which
might resemble the flower market in San Francisco -
well no, not really. This is a strip of about 10
stalls on either side of the street. You can buy
roses and carnations they all come wrapped to go in
that specialty plastic foil.

Tucker asked today when we might be coming back to
Kokshetau. He says he really likes it here. I'm
glad. Today at the Tsum a woman stopped me after
hearing me speak English. She pointed to Tucker and
Bacha and asked in very broken English if they were
kazak. I told her yes. We were able to tell that she
wanted to use the phone to call a journalist to talk
to us. I told her we were tourists but I could tell
she thought there was more to our story. Mike said
she wanted our phone number or our address here. She
started to follow us as we were leaving the building.
We were not interested in being interviewed as that
would really detract from our "low profile" status, so
we said goodbye. She understood and left. I would
love to let people in Kazakhstan know that the
children being adopted in the U.S. are doing well, but
as we understand it, not everyone in KZ believes that
having Americans adopt the children here is a good
idea. It is all a bit complicated and very political
- I will leave it at that.

Tucker is liking Bacha more today than yesterday. We
had such a nice break last night when we had our
adoption party. Tucker and Bacha got a break from us
and each other. We are all a bit more at ease.
Although I still heard, in a very whiny voice, "mama
she's touching me" during naptime today.

Bacha knows the words art box now. We bought each of
them a box for art supplies yesterday. Bacha loves to
use her scissors and Tucker is doing lots of coloring.
Bacha also knows garbage and will happily throw
anything away for me. She also likes to repeat the
word "no" as she hears it from us a lot. We try to do
lots of redirecting, but sometimes you just have to
say NO.

We are here in Kokshetau one more week, but really we
would be happy to leave tomorrow. Of course if I
carry all this yarn back we will have to pay extra
baggage on our flight from Kokshetau. Though we
probably will anyhow. I don't have the driving trip
back and forth to Tchuchinsk anymore to crochet so I
am not making so much progress.

My respiratory issue seems to be allergies as the
runny nose, coughing or sore throat is intermittent.
This dry cough is driving me crazy as it catches me
off guard in the middle of a sentence. I always have
to have water handy. I still can't believe I have
allergies as I grew up without them. It has been
about 7 years now and they seem to get worse every
year. I have to remember to carry and drink water.

I'd like to answer Sherry's question about the status
of women in Kazakhstan, but I don't feel like I have
been gathering much info. I asked one of the
interpreters and she said women have a lot of power
here. I asked another interpreter and she said women
have no power here - that this is a man's country. I
could use some help with more specific questions. I
have asked some questions but they can get lost in
translation. One question was "can women have any
career here". The answer was yes.

Women can hold political office. We had a female
judge. The prosecuter for Tucker's court was a woman.
One of the driver's wife is a dentist. All the staff
including the pediatricians at the Baby House are all
women. The booths at the bazaar are staffed with both
men and women. The men work the auto, plumbing and
building areas and the rest of the areas are mixed
mostly women though. We are seeing more women drivers
this trip. Women can drive here in Kokshetau but I
would think it might be more difficult for women to
jump in to the drivers seat given the speed, no lines
in the road, potholes etc. You really have to be
ready to change a tire, as or driver this and last
time had to, at any time. There are more women
driving in Almaty as there were two years ago. I
would say that the roads are better there and more
road services are probably available.

Women carry themselves well here - they would have to
have excellent posture to walk in the uneven muddy
roads in the pointy toed spiked heels that most seem
to wear. Older women don't wear spiked heels but they
still have on fashionable wedges. The women come
across as very intelligent and capable. It is funny
when I think back on the Pimsler Russian CDs I was
listening to. We were laughing the other night that
the men on the CD had these deep voices and the women
sounded quite meek. The CDs seemed to be made for
American businessmen wanting to meet Russian women
with translated phrases such as "would you like to
come to my place for a beer". Needless to say that
the CDs were not all that helpful for learning the
Russian that we use. Of course the tapes were made
for travel to Russia which is quite different than
Kazakhstan.

Another part of Sherry's question was about religion.
Our interpreter Sveta told us that all religions are
practiced here. I have not seen any opening garbed
women Muslims although the literature tells us that
the country is 40% Muslim. There is a Catholic church
here. The priest is from Poland. I visited the church
last time we were here. It is a new church and quite
nice. It is made in the log cabin style that we have
seen in a few places. There is a museum going up on
our street in this style it would remind you of a home
on Lake Tahoe in California.

Though the priest is Polish at the Catholic church
most of the faces we see here are Russian or Kazak.
Sveta told us that there are many Germans living in
Tchuchinsk. The Russians sent lots of people to
Kazakhstan during World War II. We really only saw
the farmers in Tchuchinsk and they looked Kazak or
maybe Russian.

I noticed last night on television some Kazak
programming. It was an MTV like format with a world
class Kazak wrestler singing a song about Kazak
champions. The video showed the athletes competing in
their sports - I have to admit I saw no women there.
It was nice to see the Kazak people on television as
the other programming I have seen has all been
Russian. We have about 8 channels I flip through.
There are lots of violent movies on including many
American movies. Hostage with Bruce Willis was on the
other day, also Total Recall, Terminator and some
really bad stuff, meaning the B movies that seem to
just go video in the U.S. All these movies have
Russian translations on top of the English soundtrack
every once in awhile you can hear bits of English. The
Russian border is about 3 hours north of here. It
would be so nice to take a side trip up there, but
Bacha doesn't have a passport till we leave Kokshetau
or maybe not even till we get to Almaty - I don't
remember. Our coordinator takes care of that for us.

Well, I have been writing for over an hour and Mike
just woke up and turned on the TV. he is probably
going to look for soccer. No, it is Xena. We don't
normally have the TV on at this time, so who knows
what is on. Oh, did Mike mention in his blogging that
there is quite a bit of Russian Reality TV. You can't
miss the format in any language.

Bye for now.
Linda

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com