When a reporter from the a Chicago suburban newspaper offered me the chance to go see Borat with him and two local Kazakhstani graduate students, I didn't think twice before accepting the offer. I realize such opportunities don't come without a cost--namely, the post-screening interview; those who know will me will understand I don't hold back my tongue, my words, with glee. Regrefully, I didn't feel it would be proper for me to hijack the interview and turn it into a freewheeling discussion.

"Borat" really is a movie about Americans. It's about how we behave when our social norms are violated. Confusion. Politeness. Willing not hearing. It's about how one man's social norm is another man's social taboo. Homosexuality. The Confederacy. It's about what Americans do when patriotism becomes absurd. (The "support the troops" scene). It's also a movie of some very painful and powerful humor.

And maybe there's a silver lining in the refusal of the Russian censors to release "Borat" to cinemas there: if Kazakhstan fears that unknowing Americans will mistake Borat's portray of Kazakhstan for a partially accurate picture of the country, then so perhaps should Americans fear what audiences abroad learn from this film. You couldn't mistake Borat's country for Kazakhstan when the even houses don't look like they're from Kazakhstan, said one of the natives. True, I agreed, based on my lesser experience and the odd shingles they were roofed with. Similarly, if you don't see the American follies being mocked in Borat, you read the movie differently.

Discussing the scene in which Borat drives from a corner on MLK Blvd. to an upscale luxury hotel, one of the Kazakhstanis said that he took from it the point that in America, the social classes don't mix. This is where I sat on my tongue, thinking No, no, please don't believe that, even if it's true please don't believe it. As I sat, in silence, he brought up another point, one about how Americans react when he tells them he that he walks, day and night, in areas bordering but outside of Hyde Park: Why are Americans appalled, and why are all the people I see in these areas with bad apartments black, especially if all Americans have the same opportunity?

It was an interview. It wasn't a discussion of U.S. history and race and urban policy and inequities. The journalist finally replied that it was a good question and changed the topic of conversation. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't the right time and place to talk about the factors that influence what he hears and sees. But oh: I felt my silence showed how little Americans thought about the question rather than how we sometimes respond when we're embarrased and unsure how to conduct the hard conversations and what to say.

Thank God they're first-year grad students and not short-term visitors. Maybe there's time for discussions in the years ahead. And maybe, if I respond to a question about where to walk, with a quick summary of relative police patrols and crime statistics, he won't think I'm a racist.

Well, I've come home to Baton Rouge for a week to see old friends and eat good food (nothing like Masa; that's not the place of my memories). Home's a good place to go when it's time to make decisions. I've decided to leave and go west to the place that was actually my first home, though I don't count it as such because I have no memories from my time there. Sometimes in casual conversation I'll fudge this over because of the explanation required, but in truth, my passport says Los Angeles.

I'll be out in California until May, working an externship in Pasadena, and living in a house about five blocks from where I lived when I was a year old. This time, though, I'll have an aspiring actor for a roommate. Oh yes. It's all part of the true LA experience, along with an in-depth exploration of LA public transportation. I think I'll take a vacation from blogging, though. Writing feels a bit more different now that I'm back in America.

The above benison isn't about bleach or low-cholesterol eggs, but instead refers to dairy products—the milks, yogurts, and cheeses that gave protein and nutrition to a nomadic life. It's a traditional Kazakh toast for a prosperous New Year and, like many toasts, it references all sorts of financial good fortune through hopes for a well laid-out table. Anyway, a Happy New Year to all, and may you indeed have many whites.

In the spirit of 'better late than never,' I did indeed make in home it home for Christmas, landing in DC on the evening of the 23rd after spending twenty-six hours getting there. On the last leg of my flight, I was seated next to a retired UN worker from Turkey, and so once again I was available to pull out my parlor trick of speaking in Kazakh.

Now that I'm no longer using a modem, below the fold are a few photos.

The three good shots of the mountains from one or another friend's digital camera. Unfortunately, I'm not nearly the photophile my friends and family wish I were.

The other name for this area is Kok-Tobe, or Blue Hills ("kok" is blue, but living things that are 'green' in English, like grass and leaves, are referred to as 'blue' in Kazakh). In the foreground are the infamous thorn bushes that were only found at a certain elevation on the neighboring foothills. That elevation, though, meant a swath a few hundred feet wide through which one must push to reach the top or the other side of the mountain.

But it's worth it: anything to gain a better view of those glorious Tien Shan Mountains. [The link is to a map of the mountain range in general. The arrow next to the red text "North Tien Shan" points to Alma-Ata (Almaty) and Issik, which is essentially where I was.]

After pushing through the thorn bushes and crushing the wild thyme underfoot, and after finally turning away from the sight of those beautiful steep peaks, this is the view back down the mountain again, of the irrigation ditch down to the village Sovet, and the neighboring towns on the edge of the steppe, and then flatland receding beyond that.

The final photo is of a house I lived in during training. We ate most of our meals outside during the mild heat of the summer, and the laundry never froze stiffly to the lines as it does during the winter. Most days, the tall fence did keep the cows out of our front yard as they made their ways home, but sometimes one would wander in the front gate to munch the tall grasses among the roses. On the street-side of the gate is the small bench where my host grandmother and little brother often sat to chat with neighbors and everyone else who was out and about.

(From the PC volunteer lounge in Almaty. . . sitting down with a cup of instant MacCoffee after my second hot shower in the last 48 hours, and grateful that traffic circles have not brought the feared death of pedestrian me.)

I think the dream that brought me to the Peace Corps may have begun with my great-uncle J.O., my grandfather’s oldest brother. Some years after WWII had ended and he had taken his ag science degree, he went to Pakistan to teach more efficient rice cultivation techniques. By the time I clearly remember meeting him, he was in his early nineties, but even after all those years, he still loved to talk about his time in Pakistan. He was a wonderful storyteller, and those were some memories for a lifetime. It’s an amazing decision to think of, the logistics of such a trip in the pre-Lonely Planet days. He packed up his family with him, his wife and his kids, and there they lived for several years. This was something and amazing indeed.

Back when my grandparents went to England and Scotland in the 1980s, this was considered a journey worthy of an elaborate send-off party from my grandfather’s colleagues and a trip diary to be shared with the many people who would never make such a trip. I can’t remember for sure anymore whether it made the town paper, though I do believe it did. (Granted, though, the Rice Capital of the World is a town of roughly 10,000 people and slow news. The last time I read the Stuttgart daily paper, the lead article was on a crime wave involving, among other things, the mysterious theft of a bucket of fried chicken from inside someone’s house.) By the time I went to London myself two years ago, it was a matter of my roommate and I chatting together about how it would be a nice thing to do, realizing that even poorly-paid student jobs gave us enough in our bank accounts, and quickly grabbing some tickets from the Internet.

As much as I appreciate the ease, the exotic grandness of the international trip has been lost. I remember sitting last winter at the Med in Chicago, talking with several friends about Harrod’s department store in London, and thinking to myself how very odd it was that we’d all been there. But when I decided to head off to Kazakhstan, it didn’t seem to be particularly odd thing to do, and the logistics of doing so were quite simple: a visa, an airline ticket, and a transfer in Frankfurt. It seems so easy now to tramp off to whatever section of the world strikes one’s fancy, or at least to get so far as the airport. How do you get to Tibet from here? Fly into Chengdou, China; arrange a visa in that airport; and fly out to Lhasa. It’s a common enough destination for volunteers on holiday.

And how do I get home? I called up Peace Corps, announced that I’d made my decision, booked myself a ride on the Spanish train, and waited for them to work the magic of finding me a last-minute ticket home in the midst of holiday travel. They did it, too, and even with a transfer in London, not Istanbul or Bishkek. To me this is simply logical. But to people in my village, my coming and my going are amazing. I have been asked many times if I took or will take an airplane. Yes, I’ve replied, there are no trains. It’s travel comfortably within my world of expectations, but far away from my students’ and colleagues’ worlds. International travel is something that happens, but not to the real people you see and talk to on a daily basis.

I’ve been in Almaty since Monday, filling out paperwork and waiting the 48 hours to test negative for TB. PC staff have been coming up to me to say they’re sorry that I’ll be gone, but gee, how happy I look. I try to blame it on the shower because I feel I’m very bad person to say farewell to, that I always give the impression of skipping out on town with no regrets and not a look back. I left Baton Rouge right when I was enjoying it the most; I left Chicago after the most delightful April of my life, one where I could barely hold myself from skipping down the sidewalks singing “‘tis is the truth/ it’s factual/ everything is satisfactual,” and the emotions instead leaked out into a silly grin over my face.

Leaving Kazakhstan was no different. For me, anticipated absences make the heart grow fonder, and I have had a fine farewell. My last trip was to Turkistan, the site of a mausoleum with Central Asia’s largest dome and largest man-made arch. Timur the Great built it, partially to honour Hodja Ahmet Yasaui and partially to attract the tourists such a place would bring. Yasaui was the first major Muslim prophet to speak a Turkish language, which counts for something around here. At the age of 63, he buried himself in a series of rooms, believing that he should not be so privileged to see more sunrises and moonrises than the Prophet did, and he lived eight or nine years underground. His writings are the first foundation of Suffism. There is a local belief that three pilgrimages to Yasaui’s mausoleum are the equivalent to one hajj to Mecca; that belief probably arose because of how nearly impossible it was for Central Asian Muslims to make it to Saudi Arabia. It is an absolutely beautiful place, and I had friends for tour guides and companions. My farewell dinner that night was with the host family of one of the Russian-speaking volunteers. I held a twenty-minute conversation in that language I don’t know, and dinner was in all three languages, helped by that family’s Tartar neighbor who spoke both Russian and Kazakh.

I went out in a blaze of teaching glory. My students got hand-drawn enlargements of New Yorker cartoons as warm-up activities and I got a day-by-day lesson on what humor translates and what doesn’t. They created some of the funniest personal advertisements I have seen, even if I couldn’t convince my 8th form boys that no woman I created would have the “DM, 56, seeks woman to cook and clean for him. Enjoys watching football, drinking beer, and eating meat. Conversations and intelligent women not wanted.” The girls understood, though, and all the students laughed at that ad. I met interesting people, like the proprietor of the local disco, a fellow who’d specialized at university in teaching English; and an English teacher from the Russian school, an ethnic Kazakh from Turkmenistan who did not speak Kazakh but who did pay out of her own shallow pocket for Macmillian-published textbooks. And at the end of it all, my 9th form students told me that they regretted my decision, but they also understood it. For a farewell, they surprised me with disco after school in our English classroom, and I dropped my inhibitions about looking like an authority figure and instead felt like the chaperone proving that a few gray hairs do not a fuddy-duddy make (not that they thought that: anything more than two is a locally scandalous number of ex’s, and I finally answered both that question and my age).

I took the Spanish train to Almaty. I waited six hours in the Shymkent train station for it, improperly clad for the cold. Silk long underwear covering everything below the neck, hands and feet and all in between; jeans; a t-shirt, sweater, and hooded sweatshirt; wool socks and high boots and leather gloves; a maroon jacket to my hips and a larger navy coat to mid-thigh; six-foot long crocheted scarf and knit stocking cap. In Mongolia, PC volunteers sleep with their toothpaste so it doesn’t freeze. The PC was probably right not to send me there. But when it did come, a friendly gentleman grabbed my bags and carried for me them down the flight of thirty stairs and across the ice-field to the waiting train, and would not wait for me to find anything with which to thank him. And when I boarded the train, it was proven once again that four Chicago winters did not teach me to walk on ice, for as I swung my heaviest bag higher than my waist to get it in the train, the bag landed where I wanted it to but I slipped and fell halfway under the train, with only my stuffed backpack making me too bulky to fall the full way through.

Once on the train, though, I found myself on a nicer train than anything Amtrak offers. This is the more expensive train, traveling between Shymkent and Almaty with only two stops in between. It cuts the journey from 23 hours to 13, and saved me from spending an extra night in an apartment and that extra time traveling. I met a friendly group of students from the arts university in Almaty, returning from a concert they’d just given in Shymkent. One girl loved American jazz, and was glad to finally know what the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. Their director gave me his business card and offered me the position of being his fourth wife: he has a son by his first, two daughters by the second, and an unborn child by the third. His card’s in the trash.

Seeing Almaty in the winter has brought me to realize how few trees we have in downtown Chicago, and how wet our snow is. In the mountains outside of Almaty is a place called Medeo, supposed to have great skiing for those who can afford it. Almaty is covered at least half a foot deep with powdery snow. It collects on the trees in narrow stacks twice and thrice as high as the branches are thick, and it melts off the roofs in elegant icicles. I spent a beautiful Monday night walking the almost deserted sidewalks, a beautiful black-and-white world in the reflected light of the moon and streetlights as fresh snow gently fell in the windless cold. I love walking cities at night. One of my favorite memories of New Orleans is a ramble through the Garden District until almost dawn, and this is how I shall remember Almaty, a city where the wrought iron does not frame azaleas and crape myrtles, but instead holds in contrast the curves of gentle snow.

* * *

And yes Ryan, we will meet again in Chicago in two years’ time, and perhaps we’ll also find your friend, the Swing Dance King of Chicago, and he’ll open his conversation with me as he always does, with the greeting “You’re not her!” (I run into my sister’s friends; she doesn’t run into people who know me.) And until then, on my first drink of good wine again, I’ll pour some out for you. I’m sorry you thought you couldn’t link me. I must have accidentally carried over the Kazakh double-negatives into my reply to you. As the carefully-painted quote from Byron in my classroom says, “He who cannot loves his country cannot loves nothing.” I should have snuck in and repainted that. Regrets.

Ryan is another volunteer who has been woefully (but humorously) misquoted and misinterpreted in this highly inaccurate local newspaper article. Ryan’s Russian is quite good: the quotes he footnotes aren’t language mistakes on his part. “Horrified, the volunteers saw him eat with his hands”? We would have been doing the same, and talking about how glad we were that, with apricot and raspberry jams as delicious as his host mother’s, etiquette permitted us to repeatedly spoon it from the serving dishes.

Update:

Sigh, URL frustrations. Anyway, the first link to Ryan is at: http://www.thegio.net/kazakhstan/kazakhstan.blog.php?041217

The download for the newspaper article is at the end of this entry: http://www.thegio.net/kazakhstan/kazakhstan.blog.php?041123

Update from Will: The links above are fixed.