Central Eurasian Mission - Week 12 - June 4 - June 11, 2017

Except for a few instances, people in Astana are very courteous on the city busses.  Common courtesy requires that a younger rider give up his or her seat to a senior citizen.  Now, I don't know exactly why people think I am a senior citizen, but it is delightful when, just as soon as I get on the bus, someone younger than I stands up and gives me the seat.  Oh it is delightful to sit!  The busses are fast moving and take turns at a swift pace, so standing up can be a challenge.  Often, if someone doesn't stand up right away, the conductor will approach a younger person, mumble something, and suddenly I am sitting.  Or sometimes, just another passenger will tap a younger person on the shoulder, mumble something, and voila, I have a seat.  Somehow, Dad must look a lot younger than I - or maybe it is because he is a manly man - but he is not offered a seat as often as I.  Just one time, so far, there has been a loudmouth on the bus.  She was probably drunk.  I could only hear her keep saying, "free, free" (it was in Russian).    I don't think she ever paid, but she finally settled down and was quiet.  Another time there was a pitbull in the crowd waiting to get on the bus (by a pitbull, I mean a small woman with a frowny face and a determined look in her eye).  As soon as the door opened, she charged the opening, like Jaquizz Rogers, the OSU fullback, who with his small size could wiggle through tiny holes in the  football line.  She was old enough she would have been 'eligible' to sit down anyway, but oh no, she was taking no chances.  She weaved through the crowded aisle up to her desired position and then kinda body checked the seated person, and rammed her body onto the seat.  That poor person, even if he hadn't moved, she'd grabbed him by the collar and tossed him to the ground.  I stood the whole time right in front of her.  You could see the look of victory in her eyes.  Today, I spoke in International Sign Language to a woman across the aisle.  She was seated in a two person seat, I was in a one person seat, and Dad was going to sit next to her....we made eye contact, I pointed to her and then to me, and then I did the quick 'switch seat sign' by moving my index fingers back and forth-side by side.  Then we switched seats and nearly collided as the bus lurched forward.  Perfect.  Nearing our bus stop, Dad asked me what the announcement was saying.  I told him it was 'bus stop' in Russian.  Then a young woman directly facing us asked us if we were from the UK.........so be careful when sitting on the bus and don't say anything negative in English, because there are people around who can understand you.  We had a nice conversation with her.  She asked us what we were doing in Kaz, and we were actually able to say the religious words, "we are humanitarian volunteers working for the Religious Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Astana City..........by law, you can only talk about religion if someone else brings up the subject.  Dad whipped out his business card, gave it to her, and said, " if you ever hear of an organization who needs some help, let me know."  Then we were off!

Last week I took this random picture at our local grocery store.  I really took it with Bev in mind as she will remember a similar circumstance which we encountered.  No I didn't buy one!



Often, on Sunday Evenings, the Holmgren family (US Embassy HR Manager) asks the missionaries and maybe another couple over to dinner.  Last week they made burritos and orange julius -and seven layer (no maybe 5 layer or maybe 9 layer) dip with tortilla chips which can only be purchased at a couple of stores in this city)  Oh-- my --gosh it was good!!!  After dinner the YVs and all of the children present put on a Book of Mormon skit.  It was something about Ammon and a bunch of sheep - Alma 17:12-to end.  Everyone had a good time.  The weather was so nice that we sat out on their brick driveway to enjoy the entertainment (entire yard is enclosed in a privacy wall).  Here is a photo of all of gathered after the emotion ridden skit.



We tried another cafeteria.  We'd seen this sign just across the street from one of our three local bus stops..  It says, We are open 24/7.  No. 1 Astana Cafeteria.



We love cafeterias because you can point and smile!  The food wasn't any different, but the venue was.



Dad got rice and something, and I got veggies and something.



There was a rain deluge one afternoon.  It was like a desert storm which causes flash floods downstream.  But here there is no "down" in Astana, so the water gathers in low spots throughout the city.  This is in the parking lot of our apartment building.





A rain downspout- rain water coming out of the apartment building next to us and onto the sidewalk.



One afternoon we decided to take a nice leisurely walk along the Ishim River (Reservoir).  We had to take a bus down to a bridge (we showed you this bridge several weeks ago) and "cross over the bridge, cross over the bridge, leave your fickle heart behind you?  ---who can sing along with these words?



And close up with an 'artistic' intent in mind.



From the top



See those three tall buildings with the pointy things on top.  People call them the rocket ship buildings, but Dad and I call them the ketchup dispensers.  They're recognizable from many parts of the city which is nice for us because they are a landmark for our street.  We walk by them every time we walk to church.



the riversevouir  with a track along the bank



and the track



steps down to the ground and the path upon which we walked.



birch trees.  I had to stop Dad from carving "USA" into the bark :-)



we interpret this sign to mean, "don't throw your %$#()& junk into the river/"



the water was a bit high after the rain storm, and this sidewalk was closed for strolling



this was a fun walk because we were able to piece together places we'd already visited - but a river had separated everything.  Also, skyscraper free space allowed us to see horizons.  Remember the potential mini golf venue? We'd taken some photos from atop a high mound in that park.  On the top of that mound there is a tall flagpole with the Kaz flag.  Here's the flag being lowered for some reason - I almost saluted, but refrained.



Dad had an interesting discussion about Kazakh customs with Erlan, the cargo master at Air Astana, at English Club last week.  Dad wanted to show him a photo of our new baby Jane, but he quickly covered the photo with his hand.  He said it is the custom in Kazakhstan that no one should see the newborn baby except close family for the first 40 days - even photos.  He also said that the baby has special ritual baths each night before it is put to bed, and these are done only by the women of the family.  Father is out working so that Mom and Grandma can stay home to take care of the baby.  Actually it's mostly Grandma since Mom is supposed to be resting.  He also said that the firstborn male grandchild usually goes to live with the grandparents and is raised by the grandparents.  He said he was a firstborn grandson, was raised by his grandparents, and refers to them as Mother and Father.  The youngest son of the family lives with the parents and it is expected that the parents will live with him and his family when they retire.  If a man and woman have no sons, then......"they are alone".

He also was very interested in why we were in Kazakhstan as volunteers and how we were supporting ourselves, etc.  Dad explained how we had saved money over the years; he wanted to know our professions. Dad explained all of our employment history and that we had retired and wanted to serve as volunteers while our health was still comparatively good.  He said that he was very impressed and surprised as we were not what he expected from people at a church (he is a Muslim).  Hmm - so now I wonder what he thought people from a church would be like.

One evening we went down down downtown to the fancy part of town for dinner.  There is a member (Ken Bateman) from Idaho Falls who works for the Idaho National Laboratory - they do something with used nuclear waste or something (you know those big deep canyons in Idaho???).  He often comes to Kaz as part of his work and always takes the YVs and SVs out to dinner.  We wandered around looking for the meeting place (which had been incorrectly given to us) and saw these inner city sights.  This is the showcase area of Astana, the capital city of Kaz.  It is very spectacular.

This is the Bayterek Tower, but is familiarly called the lollipop tower.  There is an observation deck up in the globe part, but has been closed over the winter and is due to reopen soon.



Then this big open space with happy children in their pedal and electric cars.



We ate in the food court of a mall we'd previously visited.  I got a beef shashlik (shish kabob)- I SHOULD have ordered a lamb one.



We finally got all the paperwork we needed to submit our Mushroom Project to the decision makers in Moscow.  It took about a month to get all the documents.  We have a good video of the mushrooms, and I hope it works here.   But Dad also posted the video on Facebook.

We were pretty excited when Dad pushed send on the laptop screen - our first project!!!!



We went to visit the kindergarten people again - "HERITAGE".  We hadn't heard anything from them and wanted to visit again to make sure they know that we are interested in helping them and want to move forward.  They had a couple of kids on the floor making a fabric montage- this may have been staged for us, who knows.  They said they use this technique to help develop fine motor skills.



On this visit they definitely told us they want new learning equipment for the children and took us to another office in their building where we met with two guys who design wood articles.  Travis would like this deer head.



I'd thought the ladies at HERITAGE wanted learning toys like the Montessori Schools have, but that may have been what the moms and grandmas wanted.  These two ladies want to design their own wooden learning tools and have these guys build them - at a discount, of course.  One of the precepts of a good humanitarian project is that it is what the locals want rather than what we think they want.  I suspect that new and original wooden learning toys will be a great boon to their school.

And, of course, the obligatory group photo.



One thing I really like about the Kazak people is their nimble ability to avoiding tripping on most everything - you'll have to wait until next week for that episode.

Looking forward to tripping you!