Characters on the Train

Riding the train in Kazakhstan is a great cross-section of the local populace. You never know just who you’ll end up sharing your space with. I’ve had experiences ranging from the enjoyable (a 14-year-old who was finally able to help me understand the Russian card game “Durak”) to the annoying (grandmothers pushing their unmarried grandsons on me) to the painful (drunk men who just won’t leave you alone.)

This last trip found me spending 27 hours surrounded by three very different “babushkas,” or grandmothers. They politely asked me about what I was doing in Kazakhstan, if I like it here, if I was married, and how much money I make; basically, the same questions everyone always asks. Then, they delved into their own conversations, leaving me to read my book in the corner and surreptitiously make completely biased and probably incorrect assumptions about them.

I started with their tea. Since we spent the whole time on the train either sleeping or drinking tea, you can understand that there was a lot of tea drinking going on. I formed a theory that each particular type of tea reflected on each (completely biased and probably incorrect) personality that I had formed for each woman. The old Kazakh babushka across from me drank traditional Kazakh tea from a traditional Kazakh keshe, or handle-less tea cup. She took a handful of granular black tea and in a separate mug brewed a batch of very strong tea. Then, in her keshe, she poured a small amount of milk, a little of the strong black tea, and then filled the rest of the cup with boiled water. She must have downed at least 4 or 5 cups in each sitting. From this, I determined that she is a traditional woman who likes to maintain her Kazakh culture; she preferred to speak Kazakh rather than Russian, and kept her headscarf on the whole time.

The other babushka across from me was a Russian woman probably in her early 60s. She had an industrial metal mug that was probably from the mid-1960s. In it, she sprinkled loose green tea leaves. I connected this to her constant references to healthy eating and eastern medicine and decided that she was a health nut who loved to give other people advice about alternative medicine options.

The third babushka didn’t look more than 40, although she said she had several grandchildren. She was wearing a fashionable jacket under her fur coat. Her tea was also green, but she drank it from a brightly colored mug with two cubes of sugar. All day long, she only ate 2 cups of yogurt and a packet of instant oatmeal, plus at least 10 pieces of chocolate. Therefore, I judged her to be a fashionable fad-dieter who really needs to read a good nutrition handbook – or to listen to the too-readily offered advice of her fellow green tea drinking companion.

The food that was spread out during our meals was also a great excuse to make snap judgments that fit nicely into my stereotypes. “Kazakh Babushka” ate exactly what a traditional Kazakh matriarch should eat: chunks of boiled meat with the fat still clinging to it, boiled potatoes and bread. “Medical-Advice Babushka,” on the other hand, proved a bit hypocritical in her meal options. For breakfast, she had an entire half of a meat and onion pie. For lunch, she downed bread with caviar, potato salad and some sausage. And for dinner, she enjoyed fake crab straight out of the package. She offered me some, but I politely refused. (I did eat a piece of Kazakh Babushka’s potatoes, though, after she insisted that I eat some at least 5 times.)

Their topics of conversation, when I bothered to listen (they talked the entire train ride, except, of course, when they were sleeping, which was a significant portion of the day), were just as interesting as their food choices. They got into a lively debate about which region of Kazakhstan has the best tasting potatoes, decidedly concluding that it must be the north. They complained about the number of foreigners in Moscow, especially how many blacks there are. And they complained for at least an hour straight about how expensive medicines are, and how everything was so much better during the Soviet times because everything was free.

I wonder what completely biased and probably incorrect judgments they made about me? You can try, if you want: I drank rooibos tea and ate sausage with bread plus my grandmother’s dried apples that I got in my last package from home. (I also offered these to my train mates as a sign of solidarity, but they were all much more interested in the Ziploc bag than they were in my food.)

Snow City

It's a New Year's tradition in Kazakhstan (and I believe all of the former Soviet Union) to build a “Snow City” in the center of town. For the first time in a long time, our school is also building one in front of our building. They started the work on a day when it was -30 Celsius and school was canceled; I'm not sure why they chose such a frost-bitten day to work outside for several hours, but due to a combination of curiosity and a desire to integrate, I joined in. The work continued all week. Luckily, it got warmer. (-19 Celcius by Friday afternoon!)

The Snow City is basically a collection of carved snow figures, similar to very intricate, painted snowmen. You start by building a rectangular base made of packed snow.

Because the snow is so dry here, you pour water on it to make it stick together better.

If you want to be really high tech, you can use a watering can to get better water distribution.

The base must be flat on top and on the sides. Make sure everything is perfectly straight by filling in the holes with snow. (Wearing only your thin wool mittens. In spite of my attempt at “integration,” I refused to touch anything that cold. I volunteered to cart buckets of water out from the bathroom in the school instead.)


Once the base layer is finished, you can start a second tier.

Another way to make that second layer – just pile it on. And keep sprinkling water to make it all stick together – this time, using a broom to spread it around.

Now we begin to carve the shapes. Mix snow and water together to create your “plaster.” Then grit your teeth, ignore the fact that it's -30 outside, and sculpt away.
Instead of building out of snow, you can also build out of ice blocks. This is better for the more intricately carved sections, especially heads.

We're ready to carve the head of our snake from a couple of stacked ice blocks!

To carve the ice blocks, you use an ax...very carefully.

After everything is carved, then you paint your creation.

Oops, I think I broke his nose!

A bull and a horse in various stages of completion.

When the Snow City was finished, we had to take senior pictures in front of every single animal. I'll spare you the details and just show the highlights. Because there are now 11 statues out in front of my school, of varying beauty and skill. This is my favorite statue of all. I think he could brighten the most dreary January day. I'll put this theory to the test next month.

Our finished snake! (I helped carry out two buckets of water to make the "plaster," so I consider myself a part of the snake-team.) I especially like his forked tongue.

Everyone loves to take senior pictures! Ainur, my fellow English teacher who could be a model if she wanted to, poses with her friend the snow leopard.

Grandfather Frost Comes to Visit

An annual tradition in Kazakhstani schools, and across the former Soviet Union, is the Yolka (Christmas Tree) party. The party is to celebrate the New Year, which is the big winter holiday that was created by the atheist communist party to replace the Christian Christmas. It brings together all the non-religious aspects of the western Christmas, adds some elements from Russian culture, and then, just for fun, has everyone dress up like it is Halloween.






















"Children join hands and dance around the New Years tree while a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle croons a Kazakh pop song"


New Years still features a decorated evergreen tree. It also has a legendary man in a large coat and white beard who brings presents to children, although “Ayaz Ata” (in Kazakh, “Ded Moroz” in Russian, “Grandfather Frost” in English) has to walk everywhere using his giant staff – no reindeer to help him! He does have a human helper, though, straight out of Russian folklore: “Aksha Kar,” (in Kazakh, “Snegorechka” in Russian, “Snow Maiden” in English.) Aksha Kar was originally the heroine of a Russian fairy tale. An old, childless couple desperately wished for a little girl of their own, and one day they woke to find a snowgirl come alive. Things were wonderful until spring brought warm weather and the macabre end of the old couple's happiness. Somehow, this vivified snowgirl underwent a Pinocchio-like transformation and became Ayaz Ata's helper as he delivers gifts every New Year's Eve. (Or to Yolka parties scheduled the last week of school.)






















"Why is it that Ayaz Ata has three times as much food in front of him as Snegorechka? Then again, considering that he pulled down his beard and ate at least 10 pieces of candy, while Snegorechka didn't open her mouth once, I guess it makes sense."


Our school hosts Yolka parties for every grade, in groups of two; that is, first and second graders celebrate together, then third and fourth graders, etc. The parties rotate through the decorated gym, two a day for several hours all week long. These parties are sacrosanct; even though temperatures on Monday were -30 degrees, which means that classes up through 9th grade should be canceled, the 5th-6th grade and 7th-8th grade Yolkas still went forward. Considering how much work those girls put into hairspraying and glittering their hair for their costumes, it really would be cruel to postpone.

Every Yolka party is attended by Ayaz Ata and Aksha Kar, usually played by older students. Inevitably, in the 9th-11th grade Yolka, Aksha Kar is played by a boy, which never fails to draw a giant laugh from the audience. The students have to summon Ayaz Ata by chanting his name loudly over and over. In he sweeps, his shoulder bag loaded with candy which he throws to the children in greeting. Throughout the party, whenever anyone wins a game or does a performance, they are rewarded with a handful of candy from Ayaz Ata.

"The evil Russian witch, Baba Yaga"


Other characters can also make an appearance at the Yolka. Because each party is organized by the classroom teachers of the grades that are participating, there are differences in the program. But at different times throughout the week I met a tiger (because, according the Chinese calendar, 2010 was the year of the tiger), a rabbit (for 2011), and Baba Yaga, the evil witch character from Russian fairy tales. For one party my host mom played a very convincing Baba Yaga, making me slightly concerned about accepting any candy from her that night at dinner. Did she want to roast and eat me?






















And of course, all the children are dressed up too. Halloween is fun in the States, but there's something about seeing batman, ninjas, musketeers and tigers dancing around a Christmas tree that makes for a very entertaining spectacle. I discovered, though, that there is a certain age line (between 5th and 6th grade) where children stop wearing adorable costumes and start wearing party dresses covered in tinsel (for the girls) or regular clothes with a mask on top of their head (for the boys.)

Tinsel plays an integral role in the Yolka. After crossing the age line, it become absolutely essential that you wear a garland of tinsel around your neck. The resulting shininess-factor in the room tends to overload the pleasure sensors in the brain and dull the senses, therefore ensuring an enjoyable holiday party no matter what the reality. At least, that's my theory.

The Yolka party, aside from enjoying the spectacle of your classmates dressed up as tinsel-bedecked pirates, basically consists of song and dance performances alongside silly games organized by the teachers. The performances are remarkably similar: an “Eastern” dance performed by girls in belly-baring costumes, a Kazakh dance in glitter-covered costumes, and some form of boys cross-dressing, be it a ballet dance, a fashion show, or a song. There are always multiple songs sung to blaring pop soundtracks and a handful of poems which you know the students only recited for the handful of candy Ayaz Ata will give them. Also popular are “American” style hip hop dances. These were rather sloppily costumed until I came along and set the record straight. At the beginning of the year, some of my students came up to me and asked me what kind of traditional clothes Americans wear. What do you say to that question? It’s like the question, “What’s America’s national dish?” Hamburgers? Hot dogs? Pizza? As far as our “national costume” goes, I told the girls we wear jeans and t-shirts. The message must have sunk in, because since that day every American hip hop dance that has been performed featured the girls wearing jeans and white t-shirts. I’m glad I get to leave a legacy to my school.

At the end of the Yolka, for the younger children, it's traditional to join hands and circle the tree in the middle of the room while singing a song. The party ends with Ayaz Ata delivering his presents to the children. These are usually bags of candy and a small stuffed animal, although a couple of seventh grade classes were given mugs. Mugs? I came away with a handful of candy thrown at me by a very generous Ayaz Ata.






"Ayaz Ata works hard to get rid of all the candy in his bag"

Have you ever read a poem about a saguaro cactus?

The English textbook that my school uses is so terrible that I spend a great deal of my time just trying to figure out exactly what I'm supposed to be teaching on any given day. The themes repeat every year (“Having Fun,” then “Healthy Living,” then “How Many or How Much,” and finally some variation of “Animals.”) The grammar is confusing. The vocabulary is useless. The exercises are boring and rarely helpful. And I'm pretty sure that the editors spent a grand total of 17 minutes proofreading each book, but only 14 minutes on the 6th grade book, which is particularly full of typos.

Recently in the 7th grade we had the topic “The Green World.” For this, the students had to learn useful vocabulary like “spine” and “giant,” and then read a text about saguaro cacti (which informed them that saguaros grow to over 50 feet in height.) After the reading, they had to answer a series of questions, which included what is quite possibly the best question you could ever ask at a cocktail party: “Have you ever read a poem about a saguaro cactus?” How do you fill one and a half hours with a lesson like this?

That was when I came up with a very daring idea. I decided to take a chance, teach the kids the names of some trees (including “saguaro cactus,” which is apparently an honorary member of the tree family), and then have them write poems about those trees, presumably so that, if any one ever asks them if they've read a poem about a birch tree, they can answer “yes” with confidence. The prospect of asking my students to write poems was daunting, considering that most of them can barely string two sentences together about what they like to do. Therefore, I was amazed when they got very excited about the assignment and churned out some surprisingly fluent poems – although I'm not nominating any of them for a Pulitzer. Below are a few of my favorites, unedited and in their original “poetic” forms.

“Saguaro Cactus” by 7b class
The biggest saguaro cactus
The evergreen cactus
Saguaro cactus – king of plants
It grows in Arizona

Now you have a definitive answer when someone asks you whether you've ever read a poem about a saguaro cactus.

“Apple Tree” by Asel
Very spicy apple tree
Very beautiful apple tree
When there is autumn
it falls down

I believe she's referring to the apples and not the tree itself, although there is a little confusion regarding her use of pronouns.

“Birch” (a riddle) by Dilyara
Color is white, green
and little black.
It grows in forest.
It's not a crab.

This rhymes quite nicely if you read it with a Kazakh accent.

“Christmas Tree” by Rizat and Kumustamshi
Christmas tree, Christmas tree
Evergreen, beautiful tree
It is very wonderful.
It makes us cheerful.

“Christmas Tree” by Aktoty
The holiday Christmas tree
It's light and big.
We are decorate it
and it will be beautiful tree.

“Oak” by Dana
Oak, oak, oak
You very big tree
Oak, oak, oak
You me love tree

“Apple Tree” by Aigul
The green apple tree
The sweet apple tree
The beautiful flower it is
I love you red apple

Going to Work One Saturday Morning

A True Story
(Sung to the tune of “Hush, Little Baby, Don't Say a Word.”)

Going to work one Saturday morning
I go to catch the boarding school bus

If that boarding school bus don't come
I'll wait and catch the city bus

And if that city bus don't arrive
I'll call a taxi and tell them to hurry

And if that taxi breaks down on the way
I'll have to call another taxi

I'm thankful that taxi paid for regular maintenance
so I don't have to walk an hour in the mud

Jury Duty

Or, The Fall Ball

A yearly tradition at Kazakhstani schools is the Fall Ball. Although the name seems to imply a dance similar in importance to the American Homecoming tradition, in actuality the event bears almost no resemblance to anything American students participate in. Rather than a school dance, the Fall Ball is a competition, either between different classes (I guess in that way it remotely resembles Homecoming Week) or between girls from different classes. My school followed the latter pattern, and each class sent a representative to compete for the honor of receiving a special certificate of a different color than the ones they gave everybody else.

My school hosted two separate Fall Balls: one for the fifth through seventh graders, and another for the eighth through eleventh graders. I was asked to serve on the jury for both events. The jury is a highly respected institution in a Kazakhstani school. Its function is approximately equivalent to that of the panel of judges on American Idol, except that the jury in Kazakhstan has all the power and the audience doesn't get to call in to vote. There are juries for just about every special event at our school, from the New Year's celebration to classroom competitions. Usually, the jury is composed of whatever three teachers are standing in the teachers' room 15 minutes before the competition, and who are unable to think of an excuse about why they shouldn't have to sit through the whole two hour competition and actually pay attention. At least, that's how I ended up on the Fall Ball jury.

The Fall Balls for both the younger and older students were run in almost the same way, so I'll just describe them as one event. It started with the competing girls from each class parading out on stage wearing ball gowns whose elegance (not to mention amount of glitter) would put any prom dress to shame. I should note that, when I refer to a class, I don't mean the entire grade, but rather each group of students within the grade that take all of their lessons together. At my school, there are between two and three classes per grade; for example, in 7th grade we have three classes: 7a, 7b, and 7v, named after the Russian alphabet. Therefore, at the younger students' Fall Ball there were seven girls competing, while the older students had eight girls vying to be the winner. (I'd like to call the winner the Queen of the Fall Ball, but I don't think they use that term here.)

Once the girls were seated in a row onstage, the competition began. There were various tasks that they had to do, and for each task they received a score between one and five. My job, as a member of the jury, was to award these scores, which would be combined with my fellow jury members' evaluations and totaled to determine the winner. It didn't take long to convince me that I was probably not the best choice for a fair and honest jury member. The very first task for the girls was to recite a poem they had written introducing themselves. Since I hardly understood a word of their Kazakh, I was reduced to judging the competition based solely on facial expression and, most of all, copying the scores that the other judges gave them.

The range of tasks was varied. In addition to the poem, the girls had to solve riddles (I based my score on the reaction of the MCs as to whether they were correct or not) and perform a talent, ala the Miss America pageant. (Actually, a beauty pageant is probably the closest equivalent I can think of to this competition, except there was no bathing suit segment.) Most of the girls sang a song or danced for their talent, although one girl recited some poetry. There were also several tasks based around the theme of “autumn”: the girls had to see how many onions they could throw into a garbage can, and also who could peel and chop two potatoes and one onion the fastest. That last task was definitely the easiest for me to judge; a race to peel vegetables, despite any cultural objections to the implications about what girls are best at, still has a clear winner: the girl who puts her knife down first.

In the end, it didn't matter that I used unreliable and arbitrary methods to assign scores. When it came time to add everything up, one of my fellow jury members took her pen and crossed out each girl's total, saying that we should just ignore the numbers. She then proceeded to circle the names of her favorite students, and she and the other jury member debated the relative merits of each based on I-know-not-what criteria. I nodded along, relieved that my lack of language ability and cultural understanding had not affected the judging in any way, since my opinion was completely ignored. Thankfully, every girl up on that stage was a model student and deserving of the different colored certificate, so it didn't matter to me who received it. They all got a pretty certificate anyway. And even though I didn't get a certificate, I still have the self-satisfaction that I have served my civic duty on a jury.

A Kazakh Wedding (take 2)

Actually, this is take four of my Kazakh wedding guest appearances, making the number of weddings I've attended in Kazakhstan in one year equal to the total number of weddings I attended in the US in 24 years. Do people get married more over here? No, they just have huge weddings where they invite every member of the family, however distant. This particular wedding was for my host father's sister's son. At first, I was misinformed and believed it was for my host father's sister's aunt's son – and really, that's not that unbelievable.

Rethinking my former statement, though, I think people actually do get married more over here. Not only is it completely unacceptable to live together without being married, you are also expected to get married the instant you find out the girl is pregnant (though this only applied to one of the weddings I've been to.) And most importantly, every Kazakh couple must have two weddings: one thrown by the bride's family, and one by the groom's family. So I suppose, considering this, there are more than two times as many weddings in Kazakhstan as there are in America. That still doesn't account for my 1:24 ratio, though.

Only my host sister, Aziza, and I went to this wedding as representatives of our family. We had to take the only bus per day to the small village where the event was held, and I was a little worried that when we arrived an hour late the salads would all be gone. The salads are, for me, the highlight of any party, both because I never understand what people are saying, so I can't enjoy the conversation, and because I don't get vegetables at home, so the vitamins and green color are, for me, far more desirable than chocolate, which I often have for breakfast. But I needn't have worried about missing the salads. Like every other wedding I've been to here, this one didn't start until two hours after the scheduled time. So Aziza and I hung out for a while with the bride, groom and wedding party at someone's house (no moratorium here on seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the wedding), then went to the cafeteria, where the dancing had already started, presumably to help pass the time until we got to eat the salads.

For a more detailed description of the stages of a Kazakh wedding, you can refer back to my earlier blog entry on the subject. Basically, the wedding goes like this: the bride and groom enter and stand on a white cloth while the MC sings a song and people put money on a plate on the ground (to pay the MC, not the newlyweds). Then, the groom lifts the bride's veil from her face, and the official ceremony is over. Everyone retires to eat salads, followed by beshfarmak, followed (much later in the evening) by tea and dessert. While everyone is eating, groups of people are called up to the microphone to give toasts and, often, sing a short song. In between toasts, the MC sings while people often get up to dance. Between the beshbarmak and the tea, everyone, of all ages, dances for an hour or two in a very spirited manner.

Although I have begun to lose some of my American-novelty in my home town, I was still a pretty exciting party trick for the hosts in this small village to show off to their relatives. Luckily, I've perfected my toasts since the first wedding I went to, and was able to wish the bride and groom “health, happiness, and love” quite fluently and without turning bright red. I even remembered their names! And, of course, after the toast I had to sing a song. I fell back on my old standby, the only Kazakh song I can remember all of the words to, “Kozimning Karasi.” I've managed to memorize the second verse, making me feel a bit more deserving of the praise people are always heaping on me for “speaking fluent Kazakh.” I'm going to have to work up a new song soon, though, as “Kozimning” has already made the rounds of parties and weddings multiple times, and I'm afraid people may be starting to notice that I'm a one-trick pony. I was well received there, though, and was given a strand of shiny Mardi Gras beads for the effort.

Every party in Kazakhstan, from weddings to teachers' gatherings to birthday parties, features a lengthy discoteca. I've discovered a pattern that I always follow while dancing, a inadvertent schedule of sorts. I spend the first 30 minutes or so warming up, letting go of my inhibitions and getting in the mood of the music. Then I have a really fun time dancing for about 20 minutes. The final 10 minutes I spend wondering when tea will finally be served and I can escape from this madness.

As an interesting side note, I discovered that if you stay at the party long enough, this pattern repeats itself, but on fast forward. I've always left after tea, normally at about 1 am. However, this wedding started later than usual, so tea wasn't until 2:30am, and then, because Aziza and I were spending the night with relatives in the village, we stayed until the very end of the party. The disco continued until 4:30 for the the benefit of the 15 or 20 hearty souls who stuck around to the very end. I warmed up for 15 minutes, then only enjoyed about 10 minutes of it before having hallucinations about my bed.

My main source of dance moves during these discos is observation and imitation of those around me. My favorite dancer of the night to watch was an older gentleman who danced exactly as I picture Wayne Brady dancing: tight on the top and loose on the bottom. Try as I might, though, I can't imagine myself ever mastering this technique; I'm currently working on swaying in time to the music while moving my arms at the same time. This is really all that's expected for the majority of bouncy pop songs that the MC/DJ spins. I got to enjoy a new song selection that I hadn't heard before: The Rasputin Song. I really enjoyed the informative history lesson that it provided for its listeners:

“Ra Ra Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine.”

The Rasputin Song, along with Wayne Brady and the Mardi Gras beads, managed to eclipse even the venerable salads as the highlights of the evening. When I was composing this entry in my head during tea, I had included on that list of highlights “lack of creepy drunk men.” There were, of course, plenty of drunk men, but none of them could really be defined as “disturbingly creepy,” so I felt that that was a major triumph for this wedding. I should have knocked on some wood, though, because after tea, as the older, non-creepy drunks were leaving, I was forced to join the young people's circle, and my list of highlights lost a bullet point.

At the wedding there was a group of six young, unmarried men who were all friends of the groom. There were also a few young single women, but they had a tendency to disappear for several songs on end, leaving Aziza and I alone on the dance floor with a bunch of very enthusiastic partners. At some point during the evening, I acquired a self-appointed protector, Galim. (Pronounced just like Tolkien's Gollum, even down to the hard G at the beginning that comes from the back of the throat like a cough.) I and Samwise probably had similar feelings about our “helpers.” Galim was just as drunk as the men he claimed to be protecting me from, and had the same tendency to stand too close while asking for my phone number. In his role as protector, he asked several times throughout the evening whether I was being bothered by his friends, and offered to “take care of it” for me. Since I didn't really want to find out how drunk Kazakh men take care of things, I declined his offers and said I was fine.

The party at the cafeteria eventually broke up at 5am, but that didn't spell the end of the partying. Still drunk, the friends of the newlyweds headed back to a relative's house to continue drinking. Unfortunately, this was also the house where Aziza and I were spending the night before catching our bus home at 9am. I lay on the floor, tucked a pillow under my head, and pretended to sleep while the toasts continued behind me. When I got up at 7:30, I required Galim's services again, as the very tired but still enthusiastic bachelors gathered around me, kissed my hand more times than I can count, and asked numerous questions, many of them numerous times, about what I was doing in Kazakhstan.

I do have to admit, though, that even as I pretended to sleep in a room full drunk, raucous men (and some women too), or gave my hand to someone to be kissed for the umpteenth time, I never felt particularly unsafe. A bit annoyed, yes, and more than a little uncomfortable and unsure of how to respond. But I never worried that someone would do something wrong (other than make complete idiots of themselves, of course.) No one ever touched or grabbed me inappropriately, and I felt that their intentions, even muddled by 12 straight hours of vodka shots, were innocent. That didn't earn them a spot on the highlights list, but it did keep the wedding from being a total disaster.

In fact, the most unsafe I felt during the whole getaway was not with those drunk men, but when I went to the “toilet.” I don't even feel right using that word, because this bathroom didn't even feature a hole in the ground; rather, you went in an empty shed, did your business on the floor, and then threw your paper on a pile of bird feathers and rubbish in the corner. But keeping in mind my ardent suitors, I felt just as unsafe following Aziza's suggestion to just pee in the yard and leave my paper for someone to clean up later. At least the shed had a door. I used a colossal dose of hand sanitizer after my trip there, in an attempt to ward off the numerous diseases my tired mind could picture multiplying in that shed. On my Kazakhstan highlights list: the indoor toilet at my host family's house.