The Peace Corps recently announced that they are pulling out of Kazakhstan. Needless to say, I'm very sad to hear that all of the wonderful work that volunteers were doing in Kazakhstan won't continue. I for one had many wonderful experiences in Kazakhstan and miss my friends and "family" there terribly. The Peace Corps hasn't explained why they are pulling their programs from Kazakhstan; they've only announced that all volunteers are leaving the country with no view at the present time to go back in the future. If you're interested in the "why" of it all, another volunteer's blog explains her theories thoroughly, and I generally agree with her (coming from the north of Kazakhstan, where there are a lot more "old guards" who are suspicious of any foreigners, I'm more inclined to blame the pullout on certain hostile elements in the government rather than safety issues.) Here's another, more impassioned blog from one of the volunteers who only arrived 8 months ago. The comments on the bottom also offer some interesting perspectives about the...interesting understandings that some people have about foreigners.
Finally, if you want to read something "official," here's an interesting news article you can read, featuring yours truly in a picture I'm not sure where they found.
