Central Eurasian Mission - week 21 - August 7-13, 2017

When we meet people at English Club or casually, in other places, we are pretty much always asked the same questions, such as:

Where are you from?
Do you have children?
Where do you live in America?
When did you come to Astana - When will you leave?
What are you doing here?
Do you like Kazakhstan?  What do you like about Kazakhstan?

I can answer all these questions in stumbling Russian, but I finally wrote out the answers so I could confidently respond.  Here is what I composed:

My husband and I are from America. We live in Oregon, which is located between California and Washington.

We have six children - four sons two daughters and sixteen grandchildren, eight granddaughters and eight grandsons. We love them very much  and miss them.

We live on a small farm with an area of five hectares. We have our house and yard, vegetable garden, orchard, hay field, eight greenhouses, and woods. In the woods live deer, bunnies, raccoons, coyotes, and two eagles.

Now we only have a cat and a parrot but we had cows, horse, goat, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, and pheasants.

We have lived in Astana since April and will return to USA in September two thousand eighteen.

We are humanitarian volunteers for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints in the city of Astana.

We work with Associations that help children and adults with disabilities or other people who need help.

We like Kazakhstan. People here are very kind and willing to help. I don't think we will like the cold winter and snow.


All of our projects have a certain protocol that is supposed to be followed.....A project is opened when we find a group we think we can help;  we visit the group as many times as it takes to learn about the people and the project; we submit all of the paperwork for approval from Moscow; when approval comes we notify our partners;  we sent necessary paperwork to our country accountant who disperses the money to the correct places; whatever was requested arrives and is installed; we visit and check up on what was received;  everything is installed; there is a 'closing ceremony' to pat everyone on the back; and the project is closed.

When we came to Astana there were two projects that had not been closed.  In these two cases, there were problems with invoices or delivery or something which we tried to clean up.  We got a phone call from one of the groups, "Balamy", saying their products had finally be received, and assembled, and would we like to come over for a visit?  "Well, why, yes, we would!"  So another event began where we didn't where we were going, who we were going to meet, or what was going to happen.

This group helps children who need physical therapy, and LDS Charities provided them with some specialized equipment so the kids could get better therapy.  We only had to walk three quarters of the way around the building before we found the entrance.



We were escorted to a room where most of the equipment had been placed.  Most of the kids were still taking naps, so this seven year old demonstrated some of the equipment that we had donated.









After showing us the 'Sensory Room' they invited us to have some snacks - apple juice, bun things, fruit, and plof - it was like an early mini dinner!



Then they invited us to see all the kids who were now awake and up.



And,......they had prepared a Closing Ceremony where they thanked us (LDS Charities, that is) for helping them.  This was the third project we'd done for them, and it allows them to have a complete therapy facility for these children.  It really did feel good to be part of a group (the church) which gives help to those in need and asks noting in return.



Balamy has another location which serves young adults from  age18 to 35.  Next week some of our colleagues from Moscow (our bosses) will be coming for a visit, and we're giong to take them to this third location.  The woman in charge said we'd really like this group - - they're really fun to be with.

Two of our Young Volunteers returned to the USA this week. Stephan Wasser to Boise and Maren Symmons to Pocatello.  It was hard to say goodbye to them, and there were 'going home' events all week long, saying goodbye to all the people they had taught and made friends with.  We went to the Holmgren's for agoodbye dinner one evening and there was a watermelon eating contest.



After dinner of Philly Steaks we went to a big open downtown area where there is a humongous ferris wheel.  Flowers on the way.







The ferris wheel ride took fifteen minutes to complete.  Great views!  That is the big tent shopping center in the background.





Here we are with Elder Wasser and Sister Symmons



Our friends, the Larsens, from Moscow came to Astana to visit.  The are our Area Humanitarian Specialists which means they are who we report to when we have questions.  They were in the MTC at the same time we were, along with the Haldermans who are in Ukraine.  Periodically they travel to all the different cities where humanitarian missionaries live and do training and also visit NGOs with whom we have done projects.  They came late Friday night, and we spent Saturday sightseeing and Sunday at church.

First we went to the local dog and horse race track because we had heard  about a cultural event happening in conjunction with EXPO 2017.  It was called the Altyn Zhebe International Zhamby Atu Tournament.  Riigghhtt!  It is a tournament of horsemen riding horses (duh) and shooting arrows at targets as they ride by.  What could be better in August?  A rodeo!

We had a difficult time getting to the place because we must not have had the correct spelling of the location to put into our phone app which we use to call a taxi.  All we got was the message, "no taxis available."  This was very frustrating.  To be successful we had to go into the Larsen's hotel and have the desk person call a taxi, and to make things worse we had to pay twice as much as it should have been.  I hate to be taken advantage of!  We should have taken Bus #506!!!!!!!!!!

We finally got to the place and as we got out, the taxi driver gave me a piece of paper with his number on it and said to call him when we were through.  Well, that wasn't going to happen!  We ended up taking the bus home for 600 tenge rather that the 4,500 tenge the taxi charged us.

The surprise was that this was also the sight of the Kazakh Ethnovillage where there were all sorts of displays in yurts.  We'd want to go here sometime anyway - so we got two events at the same time and the price was free.

We were continually greeted by Kazakh warriors

\\



There were these cool swings.





We thought we were pretty neat until we realized that real Kazakhs stand up on either end of the platform. and some go really high.



There was an archery range with one bow with five arrows - 30 cents per arrow.  I did it - after all, how many archery merit badges did it do with my scouts.  The attendant even wanted to help me, but I brushed him away.  The first arrow helped me sight in the target (yeah, I missed) but the remaining four all hit the target.



Then to the racetrack.  It was a nice stadium, but very few people were there (they probably couldn't get a taxi either).  We saw about six horses with riders with their bow and their quivers attached to the saddle.  From the starting point the rode as fast as they could (and still have time to get an arrow out of the quiver and place it) and shoot at three targets.  I think only one rider was able to hit all three targets.





It was really very interesting and entertaining.  There was one woman rider/archer who was the crowd favorite.

By this  time were were hungry.  There were lots of big decorative yurts set up that had either food or handicrafts.  We got shis-ke-babs that were really yummy and looked at all the things for sale. Surprisingly neither dad nor I took any photos of these yurts.  We must be getting "numb" to exotic sights.  Elder Larsen bought a riding crop that had, as a handle, the forefoot of an antelope...complete with hair and hoof. Dad wanted one, but finally realized he had no use for it.

Then we headed back into the city to walk around the vast downtown outdoor mall that is like walking along the Portland waterfront (without the river) during Rose Festival.




Our goal was the far end of the mall where there is a great display of the "fat expo statures"  There probably is a correct name.  Each participating EXPO country had one of these.  Each one is unique.  I don't know how each one was designed or the artist who painted it.  They are really quite fun.

Hungary for Dolores.



North Korea for Donald



Kazakhstan for all of us expats





The very first row was, I guess, politically correct.  Right in the middle was Kazakhstan, to the left and right were Kirghistan  and Russia (both border neighbors) and on either end were the USA and China.

And another week in Kazakhstan passes by.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh!