Central Eurasian Mission - Week 32 - Oct 23-29, 2017

No - I am not going to show any food pictures this week!!!!  Well...at least not right away

We actually did some humanitarian work this week!!!  The day to submit projects was on Monday, and we were waiting (and waiting) for two partners to email us the necessary documents.  Sometimes all of this is difficult because people get sick, they go on vacations, their manager has an epileptic seizure, somebody else gets sick.........sigh..........it is never ending.  Finally, Emin sent his.  I think I've mentioned before that Emin is a real leader in the NGO community here in Astana.  He has referred us, and previous humanitarian volunteers, to many good partners.  Originally Emin had requested an embroidery machine that was very expensive (like $9000), and he had sourced it from somewhere in Russia because he could get it at a lower price.  We told him we couldn't do the Russia connection because there was no way for our Kazakh accountant to pay for a Russian machine in rubles.  We asked him to find a different machine.  Well - he did, kinda, he presented a completely different request.  So, Dad and I scrambled and redid the paperwork and were able to submit it, in time to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  Then, joy of joys,  on Thursday, we learned that the project was approved!  We contacted Emin to remind him that he had sent us a quotes rather than 'official' invoices that could be accepted by our accountant.  He sent two of the three that we needed.  Hmmm...where is the third?
He said the machine on the third quote was no longer available from the vendor, so there was no invoice.  Hmmm.....do you still want it?  Yes, I'm trying to find another one.  Okay, I say, but it can't cost more than the original one which had been approved. The next day he calls to say that he found one but..........it is more expensive.  Sigh...so now he is trying to find another one.  And it goes on.....

Tuesday we have an appointment with a completely new person.  She.....

HOLD ON - I really just got an email from Emin with a new correct 'official invoice' attached.  So, now I will deal with changing documents, getting new signatures, and sending everything to the accountant.  And that is how this humanitarian work goes.

Back to the appointment on Tuesday.  We are going to meet with the director of an orphanage who needs some help.  We don't really know where the orphanage is located, but I don't think it is in Astana.  But we are meeting the woman director here in Astana, so maybe her office is here....or maybe...  As usual, on Tuesday at 3:30 pm we will be meeting Dinara who needs something for an orphanage which is somewhere.

Tonight we had all the YVs over to dinner.  I made a chicken pot pie, which might possibly be the best one I've made so far in Kazakhstan.



When my sons were on their missions, I always wondered why they sent so many pictures of everyone sitting around a table, eating.  Now I understand....you have to eat, right?  So it makes sense, that after you have a meeting or do some sort of project, that you then eat lunch or dinner.  So why not eat together and enjoy each other's company - then go back to being with your companion for the remainder of the day...and the evening and night and next morning.

Church today was interesting.  We had a video pre-recorded Area Conference.  All church units in Eastern Europe, Russia, the Stans, and Georgia, Armenia,  and Turkey were tuned in.  Actually, it was quite good.  There were five speakers, but I only remember three.  James Martino the Area President



Jean Bingham, Relief Society General President



And President Russell M Nelson, President of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.



Presidents Nelson's remarks were perfect for our little Branch.  Miraculously, we had two groups of Kazakhs come. Our YVs had had contact with them some months ago, but here they were!  And, President Nelson pretty much itemized exactly the specific beliefs of our church.  Our visitors were happy and said they'd be back next Sunday.

Our YVs were very excited about the meeting, and even more so when I invited them over for a potluck dinner.  We provided, CP Pie, melon, and a drink.  They provided deviled eggs, brussel sprouts, and banana bread.  We had a great time winding down after the day.  We ate, told 'mission stories',  they left, and the week starts again.

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This was the week that we needed to get our flu shots.  We finally found a hospital that had the vaccine, had great on line reviews, and took our mission health insurance cards.  Originally we had been given the name of the Railroad's Hospital as being the place where we should go, but when we read the reviews, we decided that,,, uhhh,,,, let's wait and do more research..  Then Dad texted Dr Bingham who is our mission doctor, and he gave us the name of a hospital-The President's Medical Center- which accepts Aetna  So it had to be good.  And it was.  Kinda looked like walking into big hotel with a large lobby.  We checked in and were told to go upstairs to Room 44.  Not exactly like the flu clinic at Kaiser.  We went into a room where we were questioned - any allergies?,  do you wear glasses?, what is your correction, plus or minus (what - who knows this..it's in my file)?  Then they took our blood pressure and temperature - I had to ask three time for them to tell me what my BP was.  Then we went across the hall into another room where the nurse gave perfect shots.  And here we are rejoicing in the hallway.



The hospital was literally on the edge of the city.  The road to the hospital actually ended in a dirt pile at the hospital's parking lot.  Off we went to catch a bus back into town.  Since it was the end of the line, we had the bus all to ourselves---- a perfect time for a selfie.



We'd all started this event at about 9 am, the appt was at 10 and now it was about 11:15.  What to do?  So we went to Dip N Dip, a chocolate restaurant.  The YVs told us it was wonderful, and it was, but so expensive that the chocolate had a slightly metallic taste.



This plate looks like noodles with sauce and a blob of sour cream.  It is really several crepes sliced into thin strips with chocolate drizzled over them and a blob of ice cream in the center.



And this one in front of Dad is a brownie wrapped in a crepe slathered in chocolate sauce.



It was all yummy, but I may have been just as pampered with a plate of Snickers candy bars.  There are two other chocolate restaurants close by, but we haven't gone - I don't know --a chocolate restaurant seems so .....decadent.

We went over to the sister's apartment because, poor Sister Nelson was feeling terrible.  Can't breathe, nosed stuffed up, feeling weak, really tired, headache above my eyes, headache below my eyes.  Then I asked her the most important question.....do your teeth ache?  Yes!  Bingo!  I just diagnosed a sinus infection, but before giving her a sacred bottle of antibiotic pills, I contacted my online nurse (Nurse Jessica and by proxy Doctor Ryan), and she concurred.  Two days letter and Sister Nelson is a 'new woman' YV.

I took the following photos at their apartment.  They live next door to block that has pretty decrepit housing.  This is from their sixth floor apartment.



Here is a little shed..or something for rent.



This house must have been nice at one time - blue shutters, picket fence.  A typical old Russian home.



Maybe I mentioned this last week.  A teacher from Eurasia University contacted one of our members and asked if she could bring her class to the church and meet "us" and learn about the church.  We thought,"What could she want?".  We surmised that she was a teacher of some sort of class like Contemporary Religions - or - Religious Thought in the Christian World - or - your choice of ideas.  Well, "Of course", we said, "please come, and we'll tell you all about our church and our beliefs."

It turned out to be a very nice meeting.  There were eleven students/teacher.  The teacher, Olga, told us they have been visiting all of the Christian churches in Astana.  They had not known about us and so, wanted to find out --were we Catholics (no), were we Protestants (no) -and if not, where did we fit in the Christian world.  So our wonderful Young Volunteers, in about 45 minutes,  gave a really good description of our beliefs etc.  At the end Olga asked, when do you baptize children?  answer - at age eight.  She asked, what about adults, and the YV pointed to me and Dad and said, "they were baptized at 26 and 27.  So Olga looked at us and asked, "Why did you decide to be baptized?"  We were on the spot, for sure!  So we told them.  And then she asked, "how have you changed since you were baptized?"  So we told them.  It was really a great experience.



And afterwards, you guessed it, it was lunchtime, and we went to our favorite cafe at the auto market and ordered sashleek and garnishes.



In this photo, Sister Nelson is waving thumbs up to her mother because it was her mother's birthday.



Saturday was a dreary day.  Cold, white sky, no appointments.  We did some paperwork.  I made the filling for the chicken pot pie. Dad did a lot of indexing.  I binge watched a tv program.  We worked some on Emin's project.  Finally Dad said, "We have to get out of this apartment!"  We headed off to Aryzhan Mall for dinner at Mr Po's!

We wanted to get some of the delicious lagman noodles we'd gotten on a previous visit, but apparently I did not exactly remember the words I'd used before.  And....we got big bowls of HOT soup (with noodles).  Here I am with a frowny face.   The bright side is that we have to return to this place and figure out how to order the yummy noodles.  Next time I'll show them a photo I have of the correct noodles.



We'd only been to this mall in the daytime, and it was really kinda dead when we had.  But at night, on a Saturday, the place was full of people.  On the third floor is the food court (a small one) and a fun center with rides and all sorts of games for kids.  Let's see,  it is freezing outside, we have no yard, the kids are stir crazy from being in the apartment on the eighth floor, Lets go to the Mall!

As we sat down we realized we were in the middle of a children's birthday party.  I said, Let's move.  Dad said, no, it'd be fun to stay and observe.

Here is the birthday boy in a sailor suit.



I know he is the birthday boy because there is a BIG poster on the wall with his picture on it and words which say, "Timur is seven today!"



These boys are excitedly looking at Timur's gifts.  He wasn't thrilled that the boys were opening the boxes of legos and transformers.



And then they all ran off for an activity



Then this young woman comes walking up to the kids all dressed in Hawaiian clothes.  I thought, they're going on a pretend cruise!  But no, she was just gathering them together so that they couldn't see that Maui was coming!!  They were so excited to turn around and see their Polynesian hero.



They played games with him.  We felt we were almost guests.



On our way out we derided to go to the grocery store on the first floor.  It is the Alma Supermarket  chain.  Alma means apple in Kazakh.  Here it is advertised on the outside of the store.  We hadn't been in this one yet, so why not go shopping?



A tractor to advertise fresh fruit and veggies straight from the farm.

\

But..."Sitting on the Tractor is Prohibited"



Bulk cookies and bulk candy





Meat (I think it's horse) in the cooler




Chicken ready for the barbecue



On the door at the entrance to this mall was this poster.  What'll we be doing on the 31st?



And thus passed another week.

Central Eurasian Mission - Week 31 - Oct 16-22, 2017

You may have heard that there are some restaurants who are returning their "Michelin Stars" because the restaurateurs don't want the stress and notoriety because all of that takes away from their joy of cooking.  Well...our blog has been reviewed by a very high class travel and tourism blog editor (my brother), and we are happy with the review we received!



In keeping with this rave review, I want to start this week out with a food picture.  After District Meeting on Friday, we walked with two of the YVs to the big Evrasia (Eurasian) Rienook (Bazaar) where we bought some ....well, I guess it is ham like.  It tastes like ham, anyway.  It is horse ham!!  And we got some Belorussian cheese that came on one of those huge blocks of cheese that you see in documentaries.  I should have taken pictures at the bazaar, but those kind of events are now rather "normal' to us, and I don't think of photos until I am ready to write the blog.  When you come to visit, we'll treat you to some horse.  Very tasty.  This is our dinner tonight.



Then walking back to our apartment, we passed a little cafe where we'd eaten before - one behind a building and down some stairs to the basement.  The YVs (Elder Paul from Montana and Elder Bullock from Boise - (he left on his mission from Boise but will return to Logan Utah) liked it too.  The interesting thing is that the proprietor remembered us!  And it's been at least 2-3 months since we were there.  We ordered lagman noodles, but she said, "when you were here before, it was right at lunch,  Now I only have one portion, but you can order something else."



Monday we had Zone Conference.  It was a good training session.  Our Mission President and his wife are good leaders - they are training us, giving us goals, and suggestions, and instilling confidence.  Of course, Dad and I don't need any of that (nod your heads and say, yes), right? - but it is great stuff for these young volunteers who are 18, 19, and 20 years old.  Here is our Zone on the front steps of the Church



And our District in the lobby.  Lowry (Alaska), Crawford (Rexburg), Nelson ( Connecticut), Cantrell (near Tacoma/Olympia), Paul (Montana), Bullock (Boise or Logan), Gray (Zion).



Winners (Cantrell and Nelson) of the coveted Golden Plunger award for the cleanest apartment in Astana.



After Zone Conference we all went to the Hungry Rabbit which is a bowling alley and a pizza restaurant.  The YVs needed to let off steam after a day long training session.



Us outside, deciding if we should go in or go home and go to bed.











Tuesday and Wednesday we went on a travel adventure to Karaganda which is about 3 hours south of Astana.  If you want to know about this town, google this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaganda.

We went with the Mission President and his wife, the senior humanitarian missionaries from Almaty (the Taylors), two YVs to translate for us, and the senior Volunteers from Astana (us).  This was a fact finding trip to learn how receptive the city might be for new humanitarian work and also for maybe opening up  a new Branch there someday.  We hired a driver and van, drove there, spent the night, and spent Wednesday morning in Karaganda, and drove back to Astana.  The Taylors and Davis' were dropped off at the airport, the YVs dropped at their apartment, and we went home and crashed.

This is what the countryside looks like between Astana and Karaganda.  Yep - it's the steppe!



And a photo of a curbside drain at a gas station.  Beware!



Eight years ago there were senior volunteers in Astana who did a couple of projects in Karaganda - that was when there could be humanitarian projects done outside the city of Astana.  Both projects involved giving soft toys to facilities that serve disabled children.  We called them and asked if we could come by for a visit and see the outcome of our projects.  We had good visits;  the people showed us how the children love to play with the toys and expressed their thanks.

"Okay, kids.  Gather up all of the same color blocks and make a house...an so forth."





And the plastic balls that all children love!



The Taylors, in Almaty, are currently doing a project with ADRA which is the Seventh Day Adventist association which has facilities and small churches in various places throughout Central Asia.  They said, they'd be delighted to meet us.

Here is their sign on their building.
 It says, literally, "Church Christian of Adventists of the Seventh Day".





Of course there is always a feast of yummies served.  This time it was cookies, and pies, and other delicious things.  President Davis is on the right.  At the end of the table is Oleg who is pastor of the SDA chruch in Karaganda, and in the glasses is Constantine who is blind and who translated perfectly for us.



It was a very illuminating conversation with these people.  They are passionate about their church and are dedicated to helping the poor and needy.   More than once Oleg and President Davis said something like, 'You are almost Mormons; we are almost Seventh Day Adventists."  They told us about their troubles working the government which mirrors our troubles working with the government - and the trouble is that the government doesn't want to work with us.  It turned out to be a great opportunity for President Nelson to get a vision of  the future of the church in this area.

I took pictures outside the church building so Dad and I can remember the place.  It was late afternoon and really too dark for good photos.  And it was raining.

A greenhouse.



A garden put to bed for the winter



A new addition on their building - not totally finished.



By now it was dinnertime. We asked our driver to take us to the best place in Karaganda to get Shahleek - meat barbecued on a skewer.  We ended up at a spacious...........building......from the outside it looked like it was designed to be a haunted house  Two stories with opened windows on the second floor and an exterior staircase that went to an adjacent roof.  But inside...it was really elaborate - like it was supposed to be a 'destination' venue for big parties or weddings.  Inside the door was a big fresh water fish pool where there we many big sturgeon fish swimming around.  I think there were too many fish in a too small pool, but I don't think PETA has a branch here.



We ordered a massive feast of shawleek and salads - it was, quite possibly, the best we've had so far.



We visited an Orthodox Cathedral in the middle of town





And we visited a Catholic Cathedral and talked to a couple of very friendly nuns.  This building is only about 12 years old.











The organ for Dolores.





There was a full basement which was just beautiful.  There were two big dioramas - one of Bethlehem and one of Jerusalem, and a bunch of paintings.  The nun said that, in the winter, they spend very little time upstairs in the cathedral, but that downstairs it is warm and comfortable.





While in Karaganda we visited the Karlag Museum which was terrific.  Here is a link to it.

http://www.dark-tourism.com/index.php/15-countries/individual-chapters/509-karlag-memorial-dolinka-kazakhstan

I would encourage you to read it, if you're interested in the Soviet repression of Kazakhstan from about 1940 up to 1959.  You can see how the country of Kazakhstan got the short end of the stick when it came to the incorporation of their country by Russia.





Identity papers



Help!!!



Prisioners



Women's camp




The guards






Solitary confinement



Workplace for educated prisoners who were allowed to do scientific research



hospital



rooms in barracks





Typical clothing made at the camp



Interrogation room and guard









Door to a cell.  Door with food door opened'.






torture room



and what happened after you either confessed or didn't



the litter which carried you away to a mass grave



The commandant's office



neat typewriter to keep good records of inmates



Wall size mural of Stalin on left and Lenin in the middle.



The "Book of Honor" into which inmates' names would be placed if they were good or produced a lot of whatever was being made at the camp.



Many communist propaganda posters

Papa Stalin and happy children





"Don't talk too much"



This is what awaits our enemies



We will destroy Class



"The Bolshevik party forward to communism"



The Motherland Calls



Artwork by prisoners after the camp was closed in 1959

Don't let your children see - "Quiet my child, all will be okay"



I took this photo from a third floor window of the museum.  It was the living quarters of the Russian guards.  Now it is an apartment for about ten families.  It has a corrugated metal roof.



There was a patrol of Kazakh soldiers touring the museum at the same time we were.  Outside, we took their picture on the steps.  I wanted to buy all their hats and bring them home as souvenirs.



On Thursday morning at about 8 am, we had a scary incident - or a potentially scary incident with the sister YVs.  They called the elders and told them someone was trying to break into their apartment.  Or at least banging on the door, kicking the door and possibly trying to pick the lock.  They were scared.  The young men went over and nothing was really happening.  The landlord came.  The neighbors were called.  All was a bit lost in translation but, apparently the next door neighbor, who shares an outer door with the sisters, had gone out for a walk and had left her children in the apartment.  Those kids locked the outside door.....for which there is no key.  The neighbor came home, thought the sisters had locked the door and became very angry.  Anyway it was a mess. It is always frustrating to never really know what is happening because of the language issues. Eventually, all the YVs came to our apartment for some R&R.  None had eaten, the sisters were a pool of mushy goo, they need a couple of oldsters for solace.  So we made a massive breakfast of cottage fries, as many fried eggs as they could eat, as much toast as they wanted, and melon.  Finally, by 2:00 peace reigned again in our apartment.

We washed our windows.  I though it'd be nice to see out the glass.  We could see a bit better after the window washing gymnastics.



And to prove that our YVs, who are actually quite responsible, can have fun, here is E Bullock and Batman