I decided I should post once more before setting off for the South, otherwise my next report would probably be far too long (assuming, as I do, that it will be an eventful week in Almaty). So here are a handful of items from mid-March:
Paul, the volunteer who used to live with my host family, called me out of the blue the other day. He is now working as an engineer in Orlando (he was forty when he was here), and sounded like he was doing very well. Apparently, he spent a lot of time while he was here hanging out with Shamil, my host father, and he offered another interesting theory as to why my host dad may have spent three months in Russia: to renew his Russian passport. To maintain dual citizenship, or at least two passports (I am unfamiliar with the technicalities), one must spend a certain amount of time in every few years. Thus Shamil’s three month hiatus, perhaps.
My host aunt is back living here, and not surprisingly, she is still a bitch. But this time she brought her family, a husband and a little daughter, and, as seems to happen the world over with unpleasant women, her husband is a great guy. He is also quite the gourmet, and has made pizza (or a close approximation thereof) on two occasions.
On Saturday I was standing at the bus stop, and across the street from me several uniformed military officers came out of a café. Most of them were only lightly toasted, but one was falling-down drunk. Literally. He fell down the stairs. Then, while debating with another officer whether or not he would walk or take a cab (judging by his body language), he fell flat over backwards, the crown of this dark blue, government-issue hat pointed directly at me. It would have made an excellent photo, but to get decent resolution I would have had to use both my flash and zoom, resulting, no doubt, in the confiscation of my digital camera. If only I had had a discreet camera phone, to take a video or a picture! Never have I so missed my phone from Japan .
As I thought about it afterward, I realized that this experience helped illustrate a few points about both the Kazakhstani military and the police. First of all, here the government practices conscription one or two years of mandatory military service for young men though apparently the rich and well connected can get out of it quite easily. Also, there are exceptions for university students and for police cadets (often military rejects, as it happens). None of this became apparent while watching the drunken officers, but certainly it demonstrated a significant difference in professionalism between the respective armies of Kazakhstan the and United States . In all my time in Fairbanks and DC, where many military officers live and work, and my brief stay on Guam, the site of a huge military complex, I never saw soldiers dishonor the uniform in that fashion. Of course, this is primarily due to the different relationship in with the physical uniform itself.
Though I have served as neither an American police officer nor soldier, it is my understanding that both off-duty cops and particularly soldiers on R&R are discouraged and in some cases forbidden from wearing their uniforms. This lessens the visibility of the officers, particularly when they do something untoward like getting really drunk at a bar. It also prevents soldiers from abusing the uniform, using it to get out of speeding tickets, for example (though of course they all have ID, which can serve the same purpose). In Kazakhstan it seems like police and military wear their uniforms almost 24-7. Granted, there is a military school in Petropavlovsk , but there were two military bases in Fairbanks , and the soldiers were far, far less visible (usually discernable at Fred Meyers only by their crew cuts and blond, Texan wives).
Finally, on this point, the idea that I was afraid to take a picture (and none of the others waiting at the bus stop did either, though they all watched the scene with interest) shows a profound difference in the way the citizenry relates to its military and authority figures. In America , I believe I could have taken a photo of a police officer or a soldier and even if they and their buddies were drunk, they would never have barged into a crowd of people and demanded I hand over the camera. Here, I am almost certain that would have happened had I retrieved the camera from my bag. I didn’t, and some pretty pictures from Nauryz (the Kazakh spring festival) are the result: www.flickr.com/photos/forrest. When in Rome , kowtow to the Centurions.
Yes, it is New Year once again. This time the traditional Kazakh “New Year”/celebration of spring called Nauryz. I believe that makes three official and unofficial New Year celebrations since I arrived. Nauryz drew many of my fellow volunteers to the South, where the preponderance of ethnic Kazakhs makes it a much larger festival. I felt too busy to go this time, but I promised some of the southern volunteers that I would head down next year (this caused my counterpart to laugh out loud; everyone here does things at the last possible minute and are astounded by how far I tend to plan in advance).
Of course, it is difficult for me to go to Shymkent or Taraz (large southern cities) on a whim. It takes 31 hours to get to Almaty, and another 15 or so to get to Shymkent. Still, I am looking forward to this weekend’s train ride I hope to catch up on some sleep and reading. I also bought a framed painting, done on birch bark, to bring to my host family in Ecik. Hopefully it makes the journey down safely.
A final, random note: for some reason none of the girls in my college know how many people live in the world (“one billion”, guessed the boldest of them). This issue came up due to a Newsweek article on the “Childlessness” phenomenon now prevalent in Russia , Japan , and much of Europe , which I was using in an advanced English class. The world’s population seems like an odd thing that Americans would know and other people wouldn’t. I mean, aren’t we the famously navel-gazing ones?
До свидания
PS Last post I referred to The Divine Feminine when speaking of International Women’s Day. While this served my comic intentions fine, the real book I meant to reference was The Feminine Mystique. Of course, I have not read either, hence my confusion.
Dude, you're surprised about the level of professionalism in the Kazakh military? I should have sent you that Suvorov book sooner.
Posted by: Conan | 03/23/2007 at 09:38 PM