Food is Culture

Our hosts at KIMEP took us out for a fantastic traditional dinner including Kazakh and Uzbek dishes. We were lucky enough to not have to order, but merely sit back and enjoy the feast. Dining at the Tobeteka restaurant involved sitting around a low table with a shelf beneath the table. This way you are able to lay back on cushions, spread your legs out in front of you, and enjoy the feast. The main dishes rely heavily on mutton, beef, and horse in either straight meat or sausage presentations. All are served with breads or pastas as complements. The flavors are extraordinary, and the meals very filling. We also learned quite a bit about the nomadic origins of Kazakhstan and the influence of this on menu choices. The food seems to bring out stories of home and family from the east and the west. The inevitable comparisons of foods and the occasions on which they are served led to yet more stories about upbringing and families. All in all, eating together is a great way to learn about people.

If you want to learn, you have to take risks...

Joyce and I have been working on our risk taking skills this week. We were invited out to a shashlik (meat kabobs) restaurant with some Peace Corps friends. The only hitch was that we had to get across town on our own. Since no buses headed where we were going, we had to "hire" a car. In Almaty, everybody is a potential taxi driver. You just put out your hand and very soon someone pulls over to offer you a ride - for a price. Once you communicate where you are going but telling the driver your desired cross streets, he makes you an opening offer. Then you negotiate. Of course, if he can't understand where you want to go, you've got a problem! We did pretty well butchering the street names in Russian and managed to convince the driver that we knew where we were headed. However, the price he quoted was just too high. There is an "English Speaking" tax on most negotiated prices in Almaty, but we thought we should fight back. We did manage to get the price down to about 1.6X what it would have been if we spoke Russian, so we felt pretty good. Now all we needed to do was find out host's house based on one visit I had made there a week earlier. We actually made it! Another evening we decided to try the Kazakh specialty beshbarmak (see photo.) We carefully selected the restaurant from our guidebook - and then couldn't find it! We did find a restaurant that looked like it could have been the right one, so we ate there. 100% Russian/Kazakh menu, and the waitress spoke no English. So, with poorly drawn pictures of animals and some odd attempts to make animal sounds, we managed to order our authentic dinner. And for the record, horse tastes pretty good!

Switchbacks are for Wimps - Part 2

Joyce and I decided to visit the ski town of Chimbulak outside Almity. As with everything else, getting there is half the adventure. The #6 bus departs from a stop across from the Hotel Kazakhstan on Dostik. The hotel is a Soviet-era edifice with a "crown" of gold trim on the roof. The rooms are reputed to be expensive, even though many of them are not yet renovated to western standards. The #6 bus departs about every 35 minutes. While there never seem to be many people waiting at the stop, it's amazing to see the crowd emerge as the empty bus arrives. Within seconds we are pushed to the back of the line and find ourselves standing on a crowded, but not yet packed bus. As the bus heads uphill, more and more passengers join the 25 minute ride to Medey. The 50 tenge (40 cents) fare to the skating rink avoids a 1000 tenge cab fare - a 20:1 savings! However, from Medey there is no choice but to pay another 1000 tenge for a cab to Chimbulak. Two chair lifts carry passengers a couple of thousand feet vertical. We didn't realize that each lift was required a separate ticket, so we elected to hike underneath the second chair lift. Again, no switchbacks. It's not clear to me what kind of vehicles are able to make it up these roads. However, and extremely scenic view of Almaty emerged the higher we climbed. We felt transported back to Colorado as the rocky peaks shed their tree coverage. Our high alpine experience peaked at around 9600', but could easily have gone higher if we'd been willing to "do the vertical." The trip back to Almaty involved the same taxi to Medey and bus to town. Again, standing for the whole bus ride. While public transportation is plentiful, it is not always pleasant.

Gorky Park...

Gorky Park - the name alone evokes images of cold war era spy novels with clandestine operations and surreptitious meetings. Our visit to Gorky Park (Central Park) was a bit less exciting, but quite pleasant nonetheless. On a hot Sunday afternoon, we ventured downhill and east of town to find this large and well attended venue. Part amusement park, and part strolling park, there was plenty of people watching to be had. Kids were plentiful - as were doting parents. It looked as if the lakes had been drained for a few years - so that was too bad. But the fortune telling parakeets were quite the sight. And what a treat to watch a movie in Russian - especially one that did not take much translation. We saw Wall-E (or, as locally pronounced, Vall-E.) While we didn't understand all of the finer points, we caught the gist of the movie. And that is probably true of our stay in Kazakhstan so far. We're becoming comfortable in Almaty and beginning to understand much more about what we are seeing.

Joyce Arrives...

After almost a month on my own, I am thrilled to be sharing the rest of my travels with Joyce. She arrived at 2AM on the 4th of July, so we're both recovering from lack of sleep. I took this photo on the square near our apartment (the red roofed building in the background.) It's clear that I have forgotten how much taller I am than Joyce! The second phase of these travels are a "trial run" of our plans to visit other countries for extended periods. We feel strongly that to know a place you need to live in a place. This will be a challenge as we struggle to understand Russian and Kazakh.

Switchbacks are for wimps...

I don't know what hurt me the most on this hike - my first return to 8000' in a month - or my first real exercise in a month. But the two conspired to make this hike out of Medey (location of an Olympic-class ice skating rink) quite a challenge. Actually, I'm blaming it all on the Kazakh's lack of desire to build switchbacks. This seems to be as true on roads as on hiking trails. So, after 3 miles of gaining 700' per mile, the trail started to get steep! And I decided that the more prudent course of action was to return. That earned me my "road rash" as I slipped out on a scree field on my descent. Every the boy scout, I managed somehow to leave my first aid kit (and my water purifier) back in my apartment based on the ever wrong assumption that it would be "just a short hike." Lesson learned. My new Kazakh friend was kind enough to offer antibiotic cream and band aids when I met him later on the trail - how often do you meet someone who has spent time in Fort Wayne, Indiana - let alone a Kazakh! So, all is good, and I'm tired. Time to rest up before my next adventure!

It's All Greek to Me - sort of...

As I struggle trying to read Kazak and Russian, I've been noticing an interesting pattern. Whenever I'm confused, I try interpreting the text as Greek instead. I've met with some pretty good success. For example, the first title is interpreted at rho alpha mu sigma tau omega rho and hence pronounced Ramstor. Ok, so a c doesn't look much like a sigma, but it works! In the second photo you see the spelling of Almaty - alpha lambda mu alpha tau ... whoops! The bI is a single character and seems to be pronounced like a Y. I've done a little research and there are more vowels and consonants in Russian than in English. I'm sure I will slaughter many more words before this is over, but at least I've been able to get a start.