Journal Entry #14
October 5, 2000
Hello to all friends and family who have been wondering for
seven months if you would ever receive another journal entry from the
Streits. Yes, I quit writing them. In mid-winter it seemed to me that our lives
no longer seemed so different from yours that it was worth describing
them. Also, I wasn’t getting very many
responses from you so I felt maybe most of you had lost interest as well.
The other morning I was walking the girls out to catch a ride
to school and we came across a bone in the street, one that when I returned a
dog was carrying away. The thing that
jarred me into realizing that we are still leading a radically different life
than the one we would be experiencing in West Virginia was the fact that the
bone was from a horse’s leg and still had a hoof on it. Horsemeat is a staple in the diet here. So, I decided to write down some more of our
experiences here.
We had a good winter filled with deep snow. In spite of my original reluctance to drive
when the roads were snow-covered, usually a few hours after a snowfall, the
cars would pack down the snow enough to make travel possible. We also got used to using chains when needed
to get down or up the hill at the end of our road. I did travel out on the worst night of the year to a book club
dinner, but I walked out and caught a ride with others. That night even the main roads were covered
with about 8 inches of snow and few cars were out. We arrived at the home of the dinner and got stuck in the
driveway trying to turn around. Later
we used cat litter under the tires and made it home intact.
The girls had a wonderful year in the new experimental
school and that was the main reason behind our choosing in the spring to extend
Ted’s contract another year. He also is
doing a wonderful job here as energy policy specialist and is highly valued.
During the spring he was able to accompany about 12
Kazakhstan employees to the United States for a three-week study tour of
several large cities which have centralized heating systems. They toured utility plants in New York,
Chicago, and Minneapolis. He was the
guide and the bridge between what they needed on a daily basis and the ways of
obtaining those items in busy American cities.
He made wonderful friends in spite of the language differences and got
to experience the United States “through the eyes” and “in the shoes” of
colleagues from another culture. These
contacts have led to further contact between our families here such as meals,
fishing trips with the children, and some camping trips together. These friendships have been some of the most
valuable learning experiences we can offer our children here.
Another memorable event in the spring was a weekend campout
with Rose’s Junior Girl Scout troop that I co-lead with another mother. Picking weekends for camping is difficult
because of the extreme weather during both the spring and fall. For this one we were camping in her large
back yard. The girls had cooked the
meal and we were just beginning to eat when a wind and rain storm arose that
flattened all three tents just after the girls pulled out their gear. Parts of the roof and porch began to rip off
and blow around the yard, as did all of the food and dishes. When we finished chasing the pieces down, we
moved into her basement for the remainder of the night. She had an empty cement dipping pool for the
sauna (very common here) and the girls decided to put their sleeping bags in
there as it was small and rectangular and they felt it would feel like being
inside a tent. When the rain slowed
down, we went out to cook hotdogs on what was left of our campfire then roasted
marshmallows over the kitchen gas stove.
The next morning we cooked pancakes on an outdoor grill and decided the
event was a success.
In the early summer, we traveled to Europe to visit before a
conference Ted needed to attend in Budapest.
We stopped for a few days each in Frankfort, Vienna, and then Hungary,
riding the train in between stops. We
all enjoyed experiencing some different customs in these parts of Europe such
as the meal traditions and the bicycle riding everywhere, even in the rain
while wearing business suits and carrying umbrellas. We got used to three new currencies and even decided the
languages seemed more approachable after our experiences with the Russian
language because these European ones were in our own alphabet, unlike Russian.
After Ted’s conference, he returned to Almaty and the girls
and I flew to the states to spend a few weeks with family and friends. The girls got to attend a summer camp with
friends from our parish in West Virginia.
We had originally planned to spend time with friends we had made in Almaty
who were temporarily in Minneapolis.
Our plans were changed when we found out that the family had experienced
a divorce and breakup and the wife and daughters had returned to their native
Estonia. We all were heartbroken as we
had been very close to this family and had looked forward to seeing them again
since their April departure from our lives.
At this point, we plan to travel next summer to northern Europe to spend
time with them there.
When we returned to Kazakhstan, we had a wonderful 12 days
and nights attending a summer camp about seven hours north of Almaty near the China
border. It was the third year for this
camp, which was designed to give young people a chance to learn English while
engaged in various outdoor activities and learning skills. This year they decided to run a session for
parents and children together and it was to this one we were invited to
participate as an English-speaking family.
There was one other American family that lasted for five days then left
due to health problems of one of the daughters. We lived in yurts, the native round tents made of wooden frames
and felt coverings. A cook prepared our
meals of local foods and we ate outdoors under a tarp. They had built an outdoor shower with water
heated both with a wood fire and solar energy.
The camp was in a valley between steeply rising mountains and along a
beautiful river. They had damned up
part of the river to form a swimming hole with a spot deep enough to dive into
from the rocks above. We went horseback
riding, hiking, and learned to mountain climb using ropes and harnesses. I did
not attempt the latter, but Lydia was quite successful at it. Each day was
spent learning about local Kazakh customs and holidays. We took field trips into the surrounding
countryside and visited a beekeeper that has camped with his family and bees
each summer for the last 30 years. His
honey is of such high quality that a buyer from Germany buys all he produces
each year. We also visited a working
farm where the main food product is the national drink, koumiss, which is a
fermented form of horse milk. We saw
the horses milked (this happens every two hours), the milk heated and churned,
and tasted the finished product and liked it.
Most local campers with us said it was the best they had ever tasted. We also visited a local Kazakh farm and
experienced a tea ceremony outside on the lawn. We sat on homemade woven rugs around a low round table loaded
with breads and sweets, all local wonderful-tasting food items that we probably
would be unable to locate in the United States. We were served tea mixed with milk, which we drank out of
bowls. Rose turned out to be such a
good guest that the family was interested in training her to become a Kazakh
daughter-in-law. They felt this would
take only one year and then she could marry one of their sons who had just
started university. The price we were
offered for her was the equivalent of a good horse. Lydia liked the idea, but Rose was not open-minded about the
trade and I knew Ted would miss her if we returned home without her.
On one of the last days of camp, we experienced a full blown
birthday feast for the director which included one of the national dishes which
is very large fish, called sazon, which are split open and spread with onions,
tomatoes, garlic, and mayonnaise with seasonings. These are then steamed in a large box with a special grill inside
over a fire. Within the bottom of the
box are branches from a bull berry bush with berries to provide the smoke. The name of this fish dish is translated
“blue tree” because of this. When the
fish was later served after two hours of smoking, the girls said it looked like
fish-shaped pizzas. It was cut into
pieces and we ate it with our hands to separate out the bones. The beekeeper’s family walked down the
mountain to join us and brought a wonderful fermented honey drink, mead. There of course was much speech making and
toasting which is a major part of any festive meal here.
This camp was wonderful and we learned as much Russian as we
helped teach English. There were
several local campers who knew enough of both languages to provide instant
translations to all that was said. To
hear the language translated constantly in this manner and within the context
in which it is spoken is a great way to learn.
The girls definitely want to return to this camp next summer if it is
possible.
When we returned to Almaty in August we had a two-week visit
from my youngest sister, Amy, and her husband, Paul. They now are living and teaching at a university in Urumqi,
China, only a one and one-half hour flight from here. This is Amy’s third extended stay in China, but the first for
Paul. Amy was amazed at the changes and
progress in both China and Almaty, since she had last been through here in
1989. They will be near for the next
year and they plan to return to visit us again over their break for the Chinese
New Year and we plan to visit them in China over the girl’s spring break from
school.
Another cultural first for us this year was attending the
forty-day memorial feast for a son of one of Ted’s colleagues who had
died. It was a difficult loss for the
family because the son was in his twenties and had been married only eight
months before. The forty-day feast is a
tradition in which family and friends gather to honor the memory of the
deceased. It is believed that the soul
of the deceased visits the family on the 40th day (as well as several other
important anniversary dates) and that it would not do for the spirit to find
the family unhappy. So, the family is
surrounded by friends and wonderful food and drink to make the day go well.
The girls have returned to the same experimental school that
they attended last year. Most of the
American teachers did not return this year, but new teachers from England, New
Zealand, and Australia have been hired as the English-speaking staff. The girls receive 30 percent of the
instruction in English and 70% in Russian.
For the classes in Russian, they have a book in English to help with
learning the concepts and are allowed to do the homework assignments in
English. They continue to be more
advanced here in math and science than in the states, and of course, this
school environment continues to help them learn Russian. Both girls are doing well and enjoy their
friends at school. Rose is taking drama
and Lydia is in an art class that is focusing this quarter on textiles. Both are playing tennis at school and look
forward to basketball later in the year.
We took a camping trip with some of Ted’s local colleagues
from work. We camped along a river
about four hours east of Almaty, arriving after dark on a Friday night and
pitching the tents and gathering dried driftwood for a fire by flashlight. The next day we hiked along the river and to
the lake into which it emptied. Then we
drove closer to the Chinese border to visit a natural wonder called the Charyn
Canyons, which is a river-carved formation that looks like a miniature Grand
Canyon. We hiked down into the canyons
and along the bottom for awhile. We
returned to the top to eat a picnic meal served on the hood of the car (the
local version of “tailgating”) and drove back to town, stopping at a produce
market set up along the road in one of the small villages. In the village we encounter hundreds of cows
and a few shepherds slowly moving through the main street. It was impossible to go around so we had to
follow the cows at their pace and wonder where they were going. Further along we encountered walkers and
children on bicycles all just enjoying the cow parade and joining in.
I have joined a group of people who take a 2-3 hour hike in
the mountains each Monday morning. The
mountains are now snow covered, so we end up in the snow at least part of each
hike. The weather is still warm below
the tree line so we have to wear many layers and adjust often as we climb and
descend. The atmospheric altitude
changes always collapse my water bottle.
Suddenly this summer, old age caught up with my knees and they bother me
for days after each climb. Next week we
are planning to climb to an isolated monastery very high in the mountains. It is supposed to be one of the longest,
hardest, and steepest climbs available here, but of course, very worth it. At this point in the week, Thursday, my right
knee is still bothering me to the extent that I am worried about being able to
go. I have looked forward to visiting
this monastery but this is the only access.
We will see what the next few days bring.
Well, so long for now.
For those of you new this time, check out our website to see photos that
go with this entry and to read the earlier entries. http://homepages.go.com/~tmstreit/neighbor.htm