Arrival in Almaty and first impressions

Dear friends and family,

I have arrived without incident in this far-off and exotic place. I’m still absorbing the environs and culture of Almaty, a process I am sure will take as long as I stay here. But so far, it is hospitable enough and offered me, if not a lot of vegetables, then surely meat and bread – steppe staples, I call them.

My first couple of days were frenzied trips about town by the folks in the housing department helping me look for an apartment. The department is paying for my stay in the Hotel Kazakhstan for the first 10 days and understandably has a vested interest in getting me out of there and into my own place. I have just been told that I cannot rent the apartment I had wanted and now must spend the rest of the day looking at yet more. It seems flexibility is the best tool against mired in culture shock here. But I know it’s on its way.

Almaty is rather run down. Building facades are crumbling and in some the windows remain broken. Entryways to apartment buildings are enough to scare even the most traveled individual to developing countries: most are without lighting and when there is an elevator, it is frightfully small (able to carry four thin people at a time) and old enough to look as though they carried many a Soviet party member in their heyday.

My university has many new buildings, and others are being renovated, including the one housing my office. It has the clumsy name of the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics, and Strategic Research and goes by the initialism KIMEP (it doesn’t match the name because it reflects the Russian translation of the school’s name). KIMEP is one of about 15 institutes in Almaty, but is the only one modeled after the American system. According to the assistant director of the Language Center, where I work, it pays about five times better than the state-run institute she worked in and the conditions are a lot better. It was begun in 1992, just after the Soviet Union broke up, and has set about training Kazakhis to take over the businesses in the country, which is awash in oil and wants to husband its resources well. It’s still pretty palsy-walsy with Russia, which has a strong oil company presence here, as do many western companies. If you go to the site www.kimep.kz, you will see the school’s logo, which smacks of its Soviet roots, as well it should since this school used to be where Communist party leaders were trained. Its slogan is “Education to change society.” Hows’s that for a throw-back to Khrushchevian times? They could use a little help from Western marketing experts on that one.

Speaking of Westerners, they have stocked the school with many of them, including lots of Americans, so I am not alone in my red, white, and blue blood. There is to be a retreat with new faculty next week, which I hope will make me feel a lot more a part of the school by then. As it stands, the campus is pretty deserted and I am taking the hiatus in activity to get together courses and THIS BLOG!
The Language Center is a vital part of the campus, even though we are not our own college. Our director is hoping to make it so, since he feels we are viewed as the handmaiden of the business people. I wish him luck, since language, as central as it is to human existence, is taken for granted and (usually) only shows up on the radar when there is money to be made. I am teaching linguistics and training Kazakh master’s students who want to teach English. The census for the program is small, as it is in its second year – about 26 at present. I will also probably take part in a distance learning course they have set up with students in Kyzylorda (weird language, huh?), which in central Kz. (FYI, Almaty is in the extreme southeast corner of the country, almost on the Kyrgyzstan border.) The course is split into part online work and part onsite intensive weekend courses taught by my boss, David Landis. My part is unclear yet. I think they are still assessing who the heck they hired. I was told they got applications from all over the world, but I had the right mix of teaching experience and educational background, and at last word, they are “happy to have me.” Ditto on my end. It’s going to be challenging and quite fluid as far as my responsibilities are concerned. There is talk of my conducting seminars for the faculty at the Language Center who teach other languages to help them divest themselves of their rigid, Soviet-style teaching methods, which means slavishly following the textbook, and drill-and-kill practices. It will take some delicate diplomacy to bring new ideas without being too heavy-handed about it. But then, maybe they’re used to that approach…

Architecture is an interesting mixture of Soviet blocky, cementy boxes and some more graceful buildings that have softened that style a bit. I’m thinking here of the opera house, which I will photograph for you and upload when I figure out how to do it.

Weather is hot for now, with promises of a cooling trend as the month goes on. Winter can be very harsh, with temps reaching as low as -25F. Yes, I brought a down coat! And we have to wear these things called Yaktraks that fit over boots and keep one from slipping on ice that is never cleared from streets or sidewalks. Anyway, that’s another entry in my blog.

I have a lot to keep me busy, but I have to admit to some pangs of loneliness. Today is my son’s 18th birthday and I will not be able to taunt him with tales of how long I was in labor with him. He is a super, wonderful kid and independent as all get out. Handsome too. I’ll always be his mom and I’m thankful for that.

Any message about your activities and thoughts about Kz, politics, or the weather, no matter how trivial they may seem to you, will be welcome in my drought of friends and information. Please respond on the blog for all to read or email me at BurkhalterN@earthlink.net if you would like to speak privately.

Talk to you again soon.

Best,
Nancy