FINALLY A POST!

Me and my Бабущка

I haven’t posted since I’ve been here in Казакстан! Its so great here! Its been an amazing beginning for a crazy adventure. I had Pre-service training in Philadelphia and it was a good time to prepare and meet the KAZ 20 crew. They are the people that will be serving with me for 2 years. There were 62 of us these included the teachers and myself we are OCAP Organization Community Assessment and Planning…which is working with NGO’s! There are about 18 of us OCAP peeps and the rest were all teachers so I have an awesome group of people to have this adventure with. There is so much I could type on this first blog but I will summarize my first few days in the KAZ…
First off the title of my blog is me and my Бабущка (bab/oosh/ka)…this means grandma. I live with a host family that consists of me and my new Kaz grandma…here is a picture of her! This was within the first minutes of meeting her. She is a blessing and calls me her son to everyone. She cooks this amazing food…does my laundry and all those great things that grandmas do when you go visit. I love her! I live in an apartment that is surrounded by other apartment buildings which other PCV’s live in. I have an awesome friend named Andrew that lives across from me. I am pretty sure this whole experience would be harder to not have him around…он ест врат (he is my brother). We also live by these amazing mountains they are right outside our apartments and the sunrise/sunset are amazing and its kind of mind boggling that this is our home until November.
A typical day for me is waking up eating завтрак (breakfast) with my Бабущка. Then I get dressed/iron my clothes because they dress up nice here then I’m off to 4 hours of language class learning Russian or Razooski! Its hard but I’m getting better at it. After 4 hours of class I then have more “class” or workshops to sit through or our practicum twice a week. After class I got home eat dinner and usually go out with Andrew to play futbol or go for a run then I go home study/do homework and finally go to bed! That’s my life but its amazing so far. I actually go to bed kind of early but I have long days.
I started my practicum and it was awesome. I will be working with an NGO at a school so I’ll be able to work with kids a lot. They want us to help with different projects that they have going on in the school, classrooms (English) and hopefully I’ll be able to coach the volleyball team. Its probably one of the best places I could think to work at J I’ll let ya know how it goes!
I got a cell phone today. The number is 8-777-704-98-72...its free for me if you call me! I don’t really know how you call it but I know the country code is 7. I have also heard its like 2 cents a minute for you to call me with skype and skype is free to download online! SO DO IT! J
If anyone talks to my parents you can tell them I’m alive and well….well until next time! I love you all and miss you! If you want more details just ask J

~джаков~
p.s. we will have DSL internet by next week so I’ll be able to keep in touch better or by the time I post this!