So Different!!!

One of the challenges of living in Kazakhstan is doing things differently for different team members.  During the last week, we have had a chance to experience this uniqueness in a pretty entertaining way.  Ember's birthday was last Friday.  Ember likes BIG, exciting, lots of attention, and a new surprise every minute.  Jason's birthday was today.  Jason likes quiet, not a lot of attention, and is not really fond of big surprises that he doesn't know about.  I think my preferences are closer to Jason's - thankfully, I got to take most of the pictures on Friday. 

  
Jason at Ember's party (below)                                                                                         

                

Ember's Party, complete with clowns (above)                                              

        Ember's Desk (below)

   Jason's Birthday Desk

Blogs as Procrastination

So, I really should be studying Kazakh now, but I don't really feel like it.  So ... instead I'm going to post some entertaining pictures. 

Thanks Ember for taking pictures!

 

Kazakhstan is a very dusty country and one of the dogs at Ken's house was filthy - to the point that I had stopped wanting to even think about petting him.  Just as we were getting ready to arrange a time for a bath, it got cold.  Thankfully, last Saturday it warmed up and we had just enough time to give Scooby a bath in between orphanage visits. 

I don't think he appreciated it much, but I certainly prefer coming near him now. He rolled around in the dirt as soon as we let him loose, but at least it was new, first-layer dirt.

A Busy Week Ahead

Well, this next week looks to be one of the busiest weeks in my year (not to mention the start of a REALLY busy month).  I figured I'd let you all know what is coming up ... maybe if I write it all down I will be a little less overwhelmed by it.  :) 

Monday - Monday is just Monday.  I don't like them ... I have never enjoyed going back to work after a weekend.  I think my biggest complaint is how early the morning starts.  I use my weekends to mess up my sleep schedule entirely (going to bed at 2am and waking up at 10:30 am and having a nap sometime during the day). As a result, Monday mornings are hard - but it is my own fault.  The Redskins play the Cowboys starting at 2:15 am Monday morning - although I am really tempted, I think I will have to miss out on listening to the game.  The day also includes a Kids Connection meeting, a meeting with Marina, getting a computer ready for our accountant that returns, and a techonology training. 

Tuesday - Olya and Jason's birthday.  I am in charge of making a peach cobbler.  I have never done this before, so we'll see how it goes. There is a possibility that we will have an Ulan birthday party in the evening.

Wednesday - I have a Kazakh lesson at 12:30, which I haven't started to prepare for yet.  I think this will be a week of procrastinating right up until my lesson.  I am supposed to sing a song in Kazakh for my teacher ... we'll see how that goes.  Olya and I are also supposed to do a teacher training at the Polytechnic College (PTL) sometime on Wednesday.

Thursday - We begin our weekly orphanage visits at Ulan orphanage.  We will spend most of the day at Ulan playing with kids.  It will be fun to see the kids and spend time with them again, but it will take a little while to get back into the routine.  We will also try to make sure all of our information is completely updated for Kids Connection. 

Friday - MY DAY OFF!!!  I plan to sleep in and have no other plans until the evening (at least that is my hope). 

Saturday - We will leave at four in the afternoon to go to Savva orphanage in order to celebrate birthday parties.  We will return Sunday night.  The advantage to all of this is that I get to go in late on Monday, which means another day of sleeping in!!!

Later in the Month - We have two delegations coming in October (they will overlap in Kazakhstan for a couple days).  So, with all the Kids Connection visits starting and two delegations, this should be a crazy, but fun month. 

A Chance to Give Back

Due to the changes in plans this summer with the Ulan delegation not being able to do camp at Ulan Orphanage, we felt it would be nice to hold a carnival for the children. We had one slight problem with this idea ... staff size. It was fun to see how this problem was solved.

Thanks Ember for taking this picture!

We have four people in Taraz that work with Kids Connection. We were able to convince two others from our staff in Taraz to join us (it actually didn't take much convincing). One of them brought her sister to help. There is also a woman in Taraz adopting from a different orphanage that volunteered to come help. This brought our total up to eight, not quite enough to run the six stations that we wanted and have a runner to anticipate problems.

We then asked our Kazakh speaking Youth Impact participants if any of them would be interesting in volunteering to help us. I was shocked by the turnout. We had 11 volunteers show up to help. They did such a great job. There were several stations where the adults didn't even have to do much because the youth did such a great job managing the stations. They were such a blessing to us and we couldn't have pulled off the carnival without them. What a joy to see them giving back to the kids from their orphanage. When we were done, they asked us to let them know if they could help with anything else. We look forward to thinking of ways to have them get involved in our work in the future.

During the carnival, my job was to be the runner. I was able to walk around the carnival and make sure all was going as it should be. This included directing, correcting, and enjoying the kids. One thing that stands out to me as I look back on that time, are the relationships that I have built with these children. I have reached a point where they will listen to what I say and usually obey. It is nice to finally be at a place where they recognize my authority and are able to laugh and joke with me. Our carnival ended up being really organized and not very chaotic at all. This in itself was amazing considering there were probably about 100 children making their way between six stations.

Smoother than Butter

Saturday was a day that surprised me. Thankfully, that surprise was a good one. We had what seemed like an impossible plan for two hours at Ulan. The plan was to go to the orphanage for one hour, both in the morning and the afternoon, hand out gifts to all the children and take pictures. IMPOSSIBLE!!!

In order to try to do the impossible, we had planned things very specifically. Two weeks ago, we started the process of preparation by asking the orphanage for a list of the children that are at the orphanage. We then compared this list with the list we had from last year. We noted any group changes, children that had graduated, and those that had come to the orphanage for the first time this fall. We also made a list of children who were on our list, but we couldn't account for. We had to go through the lists several times in order to make them match up.

On Saturday as we went from group to group we apologized for not having done a camp with them over the summer, took pictures, and gave gifts to each child. These gifts were shirts and bags that had been brought to them from the Ulan work group. Although the work group was unable to work with the children from Ulan, they had brought gifts for each child. The kids loved their new bags and shirts. When we visited in the afternoon, some of the children that had received shirts in the morning already had them on.

Thanks Ember for taking the picture!

The staff at the orphanage were extremely helpful. They made it easy for us to go from group to group. I think we were able to give out gifts to about 90% of the children. That's pretty impressive considering it ended up that we were visiting on both a school day and Taraz City day (many of the kids were at the park celebrating in the morning). It was such an encouraging day for me to see how smoothly things operated and it was so fun to be back in the orphanages again!

Note: Some children here go to school in the morning, while others go in the afternoon. As a result, it is difficult to find a time of day when all the children are at the orphanage (except in the middle of the night which is not a good time to give gifts). This only added to the impossibility of the task we were trying to accomplish.