PAY DAY today, at least I hope that is true. Last month the guy behind the glass booth at my ba
nk wanted a 1.5% commission for giving me MY money in tenge (150 = $1). I hope this doesn’t happen again because it had not happened all the other months I have pulled out all my money to pay for our rent and other necessities. When I loudly asked “Why?” in Russian, he decided he better not extract any money from my wad of tenge. Maybe it helped when I showed my university employee card, I don’t know. It used to be that all of us were paid more (120 = $1) but that all changed when the tenge dropped in value in early February. Consequently, since our teaching contracts are in tenge and NOT in dollars, we absorbed the shock of that 20-25% pay cut.
I’m adding more photos of the artwork that can be found in Almaty at Craft Fairs, see earlier blog posts. Some of these felt pieces run about $100 or more, they would be easy to carry home in a suitcase. However, on my low salary as an English teacher at a “westernized university” I can only take photos and admire them from a distance (me and the computer screen). I know my husband loves sunflowers so this blog entry is dedicated to him.
What my Kazakh colleagues don’t understand is that we have health insurance, prop
erty insurance, car insurance, life insurance and many other bills to pay in the U.S. while we also have to absorb the cost of our transportation to get to Kazakhstan to teach at our university. Tack on almost $2000 for every roundtrip ticket with KLM and NW airlines and also expensive housing in Almaty just to be close to the university, IT STARTS TO ADD UP! Seems we are paying out way more instead of earning for the privilege of teaching our Kazakh students in Kazakhstan. No wonder there are so few of us westerners left to teach at our university, they have figured out the dollars and sense of it all!!! Unfortunately, many of my English teaching colleagues don’t care about my plight as a westerner because they have their own problems to solve with the economics of the KZ tenge sure to devalue again in the next month (maybe down to 180 = $1). We, as Americans, can always leave if we can’t take the heat. However, the Kazakhs are stuck with their situation, this is their country for better or for worse.
In the end, with the economic downturn, it is the artists who really feel the crunch. They will not have anybody left to buy their art if more westerners feel forced to leave and the locals here will not be in the mood to buy either because they are feeling the pinch. So, while I gaze on these poppies and try to think bright thoughts by looking at sunflower photos on my computer screen, I can only hope that the students I’m teaching will do well in their respective jobs and help raise the standards and economy of this great land of Kazakhstan.
ndors from all over Central Asia. From Mongolia I bought a camel hair hernia belt for my hubby and a cashmere scarf for myself. I was tempted to buy felt angel Christmas tree ornaments from Kyrgyzstan but the price was in som and I was out of money by the time I had to renegotiate in tenge. I did buy ceramics from Uzbekistan that were deeply discounted and looked at a host of other crafts and wares. What a fun day of shopping with friends Kathy and Nancy marveling at the Kazakh art and enjoying the transactions made with the artists. 
Two photos I WISHED I had taken but didn’t were the following: 1) young teenage girl, accompanied by three guys, wearing short shorts, tank top, pantyhose, and stiletto heels. Did she ever look uncomfortable walking the canyon!!! (Also, saw older Kazakhs walking in their stockings or nylons without their shoes on, obviously they came unprepared for hiking with uncomfortable street shoes.) 2) Kazakh man managing his little shashlik stand with the seasoned meat in skewers over the smoky embers. (that was our supper before we went back to Almaty). No, those pictures weren’t taken and next time I’ll be more proactive to capture that Kodak moment. Like I did the other day 
Many variants on how to spell the canyon I went to yesterday, I like calling it Kazakhstan’s “Little Grand Canyon.” More shots of yesterday’s event of going to this place that is not too far from the Chinese border, very 
remote! Raining today so I’m glad we went on a sunny day yesterday though it is much drier at Charyn Canyon than in Almaty. Almost to the canyon I observed out my bus window men carrying large white sacs on their back, turns out they were harvesting wild green onions in selling along the road side. The lilac trees were in various stages of blooming along the little villages close to the road and the mountains were to our south in a wide panoramic view from my bus seat. What a great day for an adventure outside of the city. As you can see all signs are in three languages, Kazakh, Russian and English.
day for travel
ing east of Almaty for 3 1/2 hours to Charin Canyon, Kazakhstan’s little Grand Canyon. That meant 7 hours in our Mercedes passenger bus and four hours of taking in the scenery. It was worth it, especially ending our day with getting shashlik at a little town about an hour going back over washboardy roads and isolated highway. I saw wild purple irises, red poppies, yellow buttercups and wild yellow tulips along the side of the road. Fun to be with friends and take the panoramic view in.
The Soviet mindset seems to be alive and well in Almaty or maybe something else is happening on a lovely Friday afternoon. I took photos of the pristine mountains, blooming flowers, lilac trees and then I saw a children’s playground I had never really seen before. I snapped a photo of a little boy at the top of the slide. Then I took another of three little kids piled on the top of the slide. 
In 
Yesterday I blogged about an officemate named Sholpan showing her family postcards that are over 50 years old. They have stories to tell with each one, of course written in Russian on the back. I just like seeing the colorful greeting cards on the front. Sholpan told me the one sent to her with the playful Chinese children was sent from her father when she was only one or two years old. (Actually the babies don’t look too Chinese to me, probably painted by a Russian artist) He suggested at that time that her title would be “Dr.” Sholpan and later she did want to become a medical doctor, instead she is a Russian teacher. The other card from yesterday that I showed about International Woman’s day was written by her sister but as if Sholpan as a baby were writing to their mother. I found out more about the folktale showing the Mama goat and her seven kids while the wolf prowls around the corner of the house. My students told me the Mama warns her children to NOT open the door to strangers, but once she has left, the wolf uses a falsetto voice to trick them. 
Today I am showing a Happy New Year greeting card that was sent by her father’s journalist friend, Yuri Ozerov from Smolensk, Russia to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Another card with red roses was sent to Sholpan from her father again both published in the 1950s. Sholpan’s father, ever the romantic, sent a Congratuations card with Lilies of the Valley flowers on the front to Sholpan’s mother, Rahat. He was at Yalta, Crimea in Ukraine at the time when he sent it with his poem of love and admiration for his wife. He sent it December 1960 and claimed there were many beautiful women in Crimea but his wife, Rahat, surpassed them all. If I am able to, I want to scan a photo of Shopan’s father reading a book written by Abai. Maybe tomorrow.
Sholpan trusted me with her family’s old Soviet postcards to have them scanned. The first shows International Women’s Day from 1959. The next is from China showing happy Chinese children harvesting the bounty from the same year, 1959. Two young Pioneers titled “What is the Mistake?” was published in 1957 but sent from Sholpan’s father to her mother in 1964. Finally the last shows a Russian folktale about a wolf and seven kids. (to be continued)
