August 19, 2011
Back in March I went to a Peace Corps conference in Almaty. We were all feeling pretty discouraged after a long winter and the usual slumps. They asked us what we would have to do to make us feel like our service was truly "a success." I gave it some serious thought and responded: "When I can walk down the street and greet my neighbors, asking about their families and how work is going, when I can have real conversations with people about their lives, and have them do the same for me, then I will feel like I've done something good in Kazakhstan."
I stand behind that answer. Teaching is important, as are the teacher trainings, English clubs and language acquisition, but for me, it's nothing if I don't take the time to get to know my community and share a bit of my life with them.
For exactly one year now, that is what I've been striving for.
It's awkward. I never know who gets a kiss on the cheek and who gets a head nod as we pass. I'm always at a loss for words and am frequently met with blank stares or "um-hmm" when the answer should be "I went to the bazaar." More often than not, I have to ask people to repeat their sentences, or I run out of conversation topics. But I plow through. Sometimes it pays off.
In one of my endless trips to the post office (don't get me started), two of my favorite "post office uncles" invited me to pull up a chair. I was on a mission, but I figured, "What the heck?!" and settled in for a few minutes. Later, I was passing the school and poked my head in to see if any English teachers were there. They weren't, but a teacher I vaguely knew was. We stopped to compare notes about our summers. On the street, I bumped into a friend and we talked about her summer job and how things went with my summer camps.
As I walked away, covering the last leg of my journey home, a wide grin stretched across my face. I just joined the man-show at the post office. I chatted with acquaintances at school, and a friend stopped me on the street. I'm getting there.
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