Go time

It’s already the fourth day of my 4th week here in Kazakhstan, and boy, what a wild ride it’s been.

The past few weeks has been exciting, but the initial fun and excitement has died down quite a bit – the honeymoon period is over, and I’m getting ready for work and ‘real life’ now.

It’s been tough to take time to sit myself down and write since every day is incredibly busy – I get up everyday at 7 (although the past few days has been 5 or so) to get myself situated for the day – depending on what day of the week it is, I either have to get to Panfilova where the hub site is for technical training, or the “malenkey schola” (small school) for language class. Hub site training usually starts at 9 or so, but I have to take the bus there, so that means I usually leave my house by 8:15 at the latest. I try to get up earlier oftentimes in order to sneak in some internet time earlier, ahead of the pack – but even that hasn’t been all that helpful as of late. Leave by 8:15, and I’ll end my technical days by 5 or so, although I usually stay around to fool around for another hour or two afterwards.

Language days, M-W-F are from 9-1 in the morning, a break in the middle, resuming at 4:30-6:30 – the breaks are welcome, because I think that it’s usually close to around 11 am or so that my brain decides to shut down for the day, and any new material is just written down, but never filed away. Usually stuff I’ve learned last week starts to filter in just about this time, so I’ve learned to let it be an osmosis-type process and try not to be frustrated as much as possible.

Next week, we start immersion teaching – meaning, I’ll be starting to teach classes with real-live kazakhstani children, being observed by my fellow classmates to see how my lesson plans are working out. I try as much as possible to be open to new ideas, and like when I write, I’m the worst self-critic in the world about my lesson plans. My supervisors seem to think they’ll work fine, but I keep fearing I’ll be permanently damaging the kids somehow – pre work jitters, I suppose.

While I haven’t been horribly depressed, last week indeed had given me a general malaise that seemed to dominate my life for a bit – after 3 weeks, the honeymoon period of coming to a new culture to explore and love a culture begins to wear thin. I recall frantically writing every new word I heard to speed my Russian the first few days I was here – now I barely have enough energy to finish my homework. In addition to that, I’ve figured that my malaise came from the fact that I was having some minor stomach issues.

I think the fact that I was coming to grips with the whole reality of being alone again also played a large part – when you care so deeply for someone, talking to them every day for six and half years, transitioning so quickly to completely cutting off contact (or rather, just a general lack of communication as a whole) tends to cause a general damper on things, and there’s just really nothing I can do about it – I desire greatly for that same support and love I had in the past, but now that it isn’t there, going home now most certainly wouldn’t make relationships magically reappear, either.

Things like this are to be expected, in many ways – such emotions are completely understandable, and it isn’t fair for me to clutch onto something like it was in the past, since my being on the other side of the world now has completely changed things. To treat things as if they were the same isn’t fair, nor is it rational…. But damn, it’s painful to let go.

So those things were part of my general malaise – but this week I’ve been much better – coming to grips with a lot of the realities in my decision to become a volunteer has helped bring me down to earth quite a bit – I’m still determined in my cause and my reasons for joining, and again, it’s one of those things you simply have to grit your teeth about and move on and hope for the best. Sitting down and wondering what could have been or crying about it can’t help anything or anyone, and if I quit now, things would hardly return to what I wish it was like. All I can do is love and hope, as all other paths would lead me to be the sort of person I don’t want to be.

This week has generally been better – I’m no longer feeling sick, and the sense of loneliness lessens a bit when you do get the occasional email from home, as well as changing your attitude about it. Hearing from my country director that I’m well-liked by the staff and the other volunteers is very encouraging as well, as it tells me that I’m at least doing some things right.

As the week wraps up, all I can do is brace myself for the next half of the training – immersion teaching starts next week, and it only gets crazier from here.