Koke bar challenges

Tingyea Aloo: Before the game even gets started the Koke bar players have a few sporting events to show their unique skills off to the crowd. In the first challenge, men race their horses full speed down the track, leaning over to pick up small red balls of cloth. These pictures make it look easy, but several of even the experienced guys almost fell off. Moreover the challenge is to not just pick up one ball, but a quick series of them down the track. Only one man got them all. These are the men on the field who are responsible to pick the sheep’s body off the ground.

Loodapr Spak: The second challenge deals was for the defenders of the team. Stripped to the waist, each man had a heavy rope tied around his waist. With one hand on the reins and his horsewhip in his mouth, the challenge was to pull the other man from the saddle. In one occasion the men were so equally matched that the judge told them to start using their whips on one another!

Koke bar: Big men, big horses, a dead sheep, and no rules!

The KZ people are believed to be the first to have domesticated the horse and their skills are incredible. In Kokebar two teams of five men on horseback fight over the headless, hoofless body of sheep (weighing 80lbs or more) and attempt to run it back and fling it into their goal. The horses are used as the shield, the sword, and the back to carry all at once. In more extreme versions there are huge numbers of men fighting in chaos without rules! In The bookseller of Kabul by Äsne Seierstad, the wilder version is described as it is also played in Afghanistan, under the name of buzkashi. The game, she reports, was brought by the Mongols under Gehngis Khan.

Small boys racing bareback

Bareback racing is a child’s game in Kazakhstan. The boys riding the horses are probably between the ages of 8 and 15. There were several of these and in one occasion, the boy fell off (and was rescued) but meanwhile the riderless horse continued to charge around the track, almost winning the race, but coming in a close second.

Kak kul: Boy chases girl & girl chases boy

In kazkul one boy and one girl race 100 meters on horseback. The first lap the boy chases the girl and must catch her for a kiss (the kissing happens while bolting along on horseback!). Then they turn around and on the way back, the girl chases the boy and gets to whip him with her horse whip! The crowd’s heroine was the girl who couldn’t be caught and managed a victorious wave to the crowd! They rose up to applaud as she whipped the boy extra vigorously on the way back! (PS. Thanks Sara for the use of your camera on these shots!)

Nauryz, the Kazakh New Year

On March 22nd, Sara, Beth, and I were in Shymkent, a hot and huge southern city of KZ. We were there to see traditional Kazakhstan at its best! It’s almost impossible to describe what it was like that day. There were tons of yurts, people in national costume, music, performances, and horses! The stone risers were full of hundreds of people with umbrellas and newspaper hats to ward off the sun. I however crammed onto the field ringside, playing a game of cat and mouse with the policemen, along with boys and jiggets (young men). This was the best way to get the up close and personal photographs I wanted! I’m going to try to set up my blog so that day by day you’ll be able to read and see pictures of a new KZ tradition I experienced! To whet your whistle, here are a few photographs of the main performances which included hundreds of people and lots of official speeches!

Thanks Sara for letting me use the boy & dombra pic!

Sputnick!

With the Kazakh New Year, Nauryz, the entire city has undergone Sabotnik (which I fondly and the amusement of my coworkers, call Sputnick!) Sabotnik is spring cleaning and here in KZ it is taken very seriously. People will shovel out the ditches that run along the street, will burn branches and leaves, will rake up the collected winter trash for collection, and will put a fresh coat of paint on fences, benches, and trees (yes, trees!). It’s said that when you find it beautiful when the trees are painted white, then you can call KZ home. ...I’ve already found them to be beautiful!

It’s common for western tourists to be a little disdaining of the way many parts of KZ are littered with every kind of trash imaginable. However, it makes Sabotnik all the more wonderful. I so cool to see the entire city (and nation) come together to clean up. It gives an incredible sense of community which is not often seen! Here are some pictures of my small community cleaning inside and out of the office.

Boxing, being guests at a stranger’s house, and what in the world is a Doongan?

MEAL AT A STRANGERS HOUSE: Recentely the Taraz Rotary club had a dinner that Beth and I attended. We were invited by Ruslan (a man who has a Tai Kwon Do agency and instructs the students at one orphanage) to a boxing competition in a village outside Taraz. We sat to watch the opening ceremonies of speeches, songs, and dance…and were invited to lunch by random people in the crowd we’d never met. We arrived to a huge home and spread of food intended for at least 100 people! Come to find out the four day boxing competition had been dedicated to a man who had started one of the first Taraz banks and we were at the home of his family for a Kodai Tamak, a memorial meal. Besides tables of men I didn’t know, the meal included horse meat, sheep's tongue (which I tried for the first time) and tons of amazing fruit and veggies.

BOXING: Day two we returned to see some boxing matches. Here are some photos from one of the best matches. The guy in red had the most expressive faces with looks that kept us in stitches. And thanks Beth for taking the photos! I felt too odd getting up on the stage with the ring, but Beth made herself at home. Thanks girl!

DOOGAN: Ruslan is a "Doogan" by nationality. This people group are those whose mothers are Chinese and fathers are Arabic. They explain that their dialect is from their mother's China and their hearts religion (Islam) is from their father's Arab world. There is even an area named Doonganoffka where many of them live. To me this historical explanation of a 500 year old people is a beautiful reflection of the way Kazakhstan has blended Asia, Arabia, and Europe into one people.

The first time he ever colored

Sasha came to the orphanage about a month ago. The day we brought crayons he was at a loss, watching the other kids. He tried to mimick them but couldn’t quite grasp the crayon to paper task. Our translators and staff had the happy job of teaching this little boy how to color his very first picture!

Here in Kazakhstan art is important to the education of children. Each orphanage is decorated with a variety of art from the children. There are paintings, wood carvings, intricate beadwork, and plastacine creations (clay put onto wooden back to create pictures). Moreover, at Savva orphanage, children present one final piece of artwork (usually woodworking for the boys) when they finish.

Remont & another KZ lesson

One side project I had been asked to do was a redecoration of the Kids Connection office. It’s the building basement with one tiny window and dim lighting. So with Ken and Sara’s gone to Thailand and the advent of Saboatnik (national spring cleaning) and Naurez (the Kazakh new year), I started my redesign with some bright yellow paint! I was called crazy for using a gloss inside and had to fight the KZ guys at the office to let me do it, but now the staff have agreed it was a good idea. Everyone pitched in to help whether it was with rigging a paint mix (you buy white and color it yourself) or putting it on the wall!

Earlier this week I spent a few hours searching through the bazaar for some fabric till I realized I was going to have to choose between pastel cartoon characters, neon colored brights, or fabric with shiny golds. Oy! Then yesterday we spend a few more hours trying to find some desk lamps. My choices were industrial or cheesy. Although I thought of buying small funny animal lamps for a joke, at $30-$40 each, it wasn’t worth it! I’ve decided to sleep on my choices...

...Since I'm posting several days later, note that I've gone with shiny gold fabric! As for lamps, we found a brighter ceiling option only to find out that after 2 years of being told no, the current ceiling lamps could indeed handle a brighter wattage than 30 watts! Funny how you go through all that work to find out in the end it wasn't necessary. Welcome to Kazakhstan!

Horses…not on the plate!

After a weekend of remont (remodeling) and running around, Beth had a special treat for Kiikzhan and I (and herself!). While out in the village we stopped into to visit her friend Sveta at the local horse stables. Sveta immediately asked if we wanted to ride! For Beth, who had to get rid of her horse in the US and someday hopes to have a ranch, these few hours were sent from above. For Kiikzhan and I who have memories of horseback riding only from childhood, it was a great experience! Well, except for poor Kiikzhan who felt too bad for his old horse to get him moving! It was a memorable afternoon though and I was happy to experience a little more of the horse culture KZ is so famous for!

A moment of horse meat

For a moment, one rare moment, I enjoyed the taste of horse meat. Yes I, a vegetarian by preference and a carnivore by location enjoyed horse meat. Let me just explain though that this is truly the land of bland food. Delicious, but lacking in spice as I’m accustomed too and on a plate of plain noodles, I took a bite of salty horse meat, and liked it! Trust me, I’m as surprised as the next person!

A lunchtime conversation that would SHOCK you!

Hey Mom, here's what I learned at the lunch table today: eating lice is good for you!

No really! That's what they told me. You should eat lice, preferabbly in soup, to cure Hepatitis. This is because lice will clean your liver. You can even go down to the bazaar and purchase some. The nice vendor will probably call over her small child and make sure to get you some fresh ones!

No, I'm not kidding! The conversation started when an orphanage graduate who has been interning with us said that when she was little she would sell her lice to the other girls so she could buy sneakers. I didn't believe her until out came the confirmations from all my Kazakh coworkers! Now, none of them said they would be buying lice, but they all agreed it was for real! Even when Beth and I pointed out that lice would die in stomach acids before reaching the liver, it didn't help. Moreover, when my coworker (typical guy) saw the reactions on my face to this information, the stories got better and better! Yup, you learn something new every day!

Welcome to Texas!

After months of wintery cold with snow and rain and snow and ice and snow and rain...I walked out this morning to Texas. The air was so dry that my hands felt rough less than a block from my house. The wind had already whipped my hair into a frenzy of knots and on block two I encountered my first Kazakh dust twister! Now, I knew Kazakhstan was dry and dust, but that was in June and July! This is March! I am completely amazed at this country and how quickly it has gone from feet of damp snow and ice to dust and wind so fierce you can watch the sediment fall from the ceilings in buildings. When I got to work 40 mins later, my white socks were a dull gray, I licked a layer dirt off my lips (to build immunity), and I had to take a damp cloth to my neck and ears to get the dirt off! Welcome to the Texas of Kazkahstan!

Stories without names

I wanted to share with you two incredible moments I had this past weekend, but to protect the privacy of the children, I’m going to leave out names and photos.

One graduate girl recently asked to speak with me after she received a letter from me. (Letters are still my way of communicating with Russian speaking children I don’t see very often). She asked me how I got the “new (host) family” I had mentioned in my letter to her last month. What followed was the heart breaking story of her family and childhood. There are no easy answers to her pain, but a burden shared is lighter. I was able encourage her that she was making wise decisions to pursue education, separate from her family, and have a “new” family of adults who were worthy of trust. I spoke to her of hope and dealing with painful memories and we kept talking (she and I and the translator) into the wee hours of the night, until she was laughing and smiling again. It’s been 3 years since I first met her and I am so thankful to be able to be present here to love and support her as she works through her past and looks to her future.

After my last visit I had written a thank you note to one of the older boys at Savva who had helped run the birthday party, haul the equipment, and ran all over the compound looking for a lost key. In the note I made an offer that is unusual for me: Did he want to be one of my Kazakh brothers? I didn’t know him very well and wasn’t sure why I put it in there. This trip he was on the outskirts most of the time, but the morning before we left he sat down to talk with me about his family and I found that he had none. He had a sister who died and was now all alone. In a letter he gave to me just before I left the orphanage he said he would be happy to be my brother and hoped we could be good friends. Was it coincidence I asked that questions of this boy? I think not and I am thankful to be a part of a bigger plan as I have the chance to speak love, hope, and encouragement into this young man’s life.

Fruity Delicious

With nostalgia we look back to Christmas long ago when fruits and nuts were used to fill the stockings instead of MP3 players or Bluetooth phones. Here in Kazakhstan though, the children prize fruit, especially when the winter is long and the prices rise too high to afford it. The older girls in the Youth Impact program requested fruit and so once a week they receive fruit when they come to the life skills training. At Savva last month the kids made it pretty clear they were missing fruit, so I had the happy chore of delivering an apple and an orange to each child at Savva this past weekend. Our desire to give coincided nicely with the celebration of Women’s Day. Later in March we’ll take fruit to Ulan, one of the orphanages here in town. Fruity delicious!

Um, a box of what?

So on my last visit to the Gros (the KZ equivalent of Kroger) they gave me a little box of matches at the checkout. I wondered if I had won something, like maybe every 10th customer gets matches or something. Nope. Basically if they owe you 5 tenge or left, they can give you a box of matches instead of the change. Can you imagine? Let’s say you head to Walmart or Target and instead of that 10 cents you should get you get matches instead? :) The nice thing is that matches are used in every home to light the gas stove and my house was running out. Unexpected, but convenient, I’d say!

A little book to say “You are important, you matter.”

On the last day of February, I and the director of Interlink, Beth Turnock, attended a special ceremony at the orphanage of Saramoldaeva where I spend most Tuesdays. The orphanage had just published a book of their history, including stories about individual children. It’s the first of its kind in Kazakhstan. Reporters, who contributed research and articles to the book, gave speeches interspersed with songs, dances, and skits from the children (see one of the "captains" below).

Beth Turnock, the Director of Interlink, was also given the opportunity to speak as Interlink was a sponsor of the book. What she said made me think and it went something like this… “You care,” she said to the director, “about these children. You care enough to give them a home, and for this I thank you. But, you care enough about who they are, about their own stories to write it down and say to them ‘you are important, you matter’ and this shows that you love them.”

The shock and after shocks of real life corruption

Natalia and Jumiliya were working as translators with Interlink Resources, Inc when I first arrived in January. Now I call them friends. We try to catch up every week at least and this past Friday they stopped by to tell me some very shocking news.

Due to graduate from university in July, it was just announced that their university is no longer licensed to issue diplomas!! Apparently sometime in 2007 the University of Moscow closed all its branches in Kazakhstan, but the director of the branch in Taraz never mentioned this to the students, continuing to collect school fees and hold classes. Now, just months short of completion Natalia and Jumiliya are wondering what will happen. They can take the national exam, but can’t receive a diploma, necessary for the work that is already so hard to find and so desperately needed.

Will another school accept them as graduates? Maybe, but they could be forced to repeat a whole year and they will definitely have to pay fees again and perhaps even bribes. It's $1,000 for another semester, an amount the girls and their families aren’t able to afford. It’s hard to believe, but these girls have no recourse to fight back, no chance to confront the director, definitely no way to get their money back, and even if there is a court case it will take years to be resolved. Meanwhile the girls will not have degrees and not be eligible to work or move on with their lives. Right now they’re waiting to see what the other university students will do and praying that another college will accept them as graduates…