Сәлеметсіз бе, Қазақстан – random Christmas lights, unexpected peace and other first impressions

As I write this, I have spent about 22 hours on the ground in Kazakhstan. I had thought that I would be ready for it, that my time studying abroad earlier would have prepared me for it, but stepping out of the airport and onto a street with signs on buildings that I couldn't understand was something wholly new to me. When I went to China, I had spent two years learning the language, and I could navigate the communicative space there fairly well. Here, I spoke and understood the merest smattering of Russian, in which I very quickly and very keenly felt my own ineptitude. The extent of my Kazakh was the cheerful 'Қош келдіңіздер' (loosely, 'welcome, all') at the exit to the airport as we left on the bus, and no more. Despite the welcome, I was overpowered and humbled by a sudden sense of cosmic horror, the knowledge that notwithstanding my cohort of volunteers, I was completely and utterly alone, a stranger in a very strange land.

I searched for familiarity in my surroundings, whether real or imagined. The cars and the roads themselves looked and felt very European, and reminded me strongly of my three weeks working in Oulu in 2007 – the shape of the licence plates, the size of the cars, the wide margins with leafy, healthy trees which for some reason were painted white about three to four feet up. It was one o'clock in the morning, so there was no light, but other aspects of our first venture into Kazakhstan reminded me a good deal of China, mostly aesthetic aspects – the stone-carved guardian lions outside the sanitorium саниториум where we stayed today and last night, the other statues along the side of the driveway. The room I'm sharing with three other Trainees (Paul, Jon and Sid) reminded me vaguely of the hotels I stayed in over fall break in Sichuan. But there were these random Christmas lights all over the place as we unloaded our bags from the trucks and into our rooms.

Perhaps I should take some time to talk briefly about my cohort – at least, those with whom I have met and become familiar. They are an extraordinary group of people, and I mean that in the most complimentary sense. I was humbled as I have seldom been before by the range of their experiences, the expansiveness of their expertise and life experiences and the depth of their commitment to this service we're undertaking. Some (Erica, Andrew, Aaron and Dawn, Laura and Becca) were re-acquaintances from Facebook; others I simply met and just chatted with: I quickly struck up a rapport with the outspoken young idealist of our group, Hiromi, over Continental philosophy, Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Marcuse and applied critical theory – which I thought I had studied well in college until I heard the extent to which she has lived and breathed it. I like that she has little patience for career bureaucrats – far less so than I do. Also, Jon (my current suitemate and fellow Kazakh language student) is a fellow philosopher – though better-versed in the Anglo-American philosophy of mind than the German idealist tradition which had been my area of interest, a quiet fellow with a wry, understated sense of humour. Laura herself is just an interesting person all-around; more of a literary and poetical mind than the rest of us, I think – but she's displayed on a couple of occasions a quality and strength of will that I've only seen in a couple of other people, that is able to stand strong and pull through no matter how bad things get; she'll do fine here.

Anyway, more familiarity met me the morning after in the form of breakfast – rice gruel served warm, Chinese-style (or so it seemed to me) along with green tea, bread and yoghurt. The hall where we met for more training and orientation was more posh than I expected, but I wasn't complaining. PST/PD (pre-service training and professional development) varied between the enjoyable (the introduction to Kazakhstan the local Peace Corps workers and volunteers had prepared for us) and the mildly-irritating (the long queues for shots, medical interviews and various signups). Lots of new faces, new names, new Peace Corps acronyms to memorise (OMS, PCVTA, PCMO, etc.). But the defining moment of the day was the first Kazakh language class.

'Salemetsiz be Сәлеметсіз бе', our language teachers (Aygul, Nagima and Andrew) greeted us. 'Peace on you'.

Peace – salem сәлем. So there was peace to be found amidst everything unfamiliar here. Once we began learning and speaking and communicating, on however rudimentary a level, I thought I could start to see and hear some of that peace. Сәлеметсіз бе.

Today, we only learned some basic pronouns, greetings and questions and replies ('Қалыңыз қалай? How are you?' / 'Жақсы, рахмет. Well, thank you'), along with cardinal numbers one 'бір' through thirty 'отыз' in Kazakh. It was overwhelming – a lot to take in, lots of throaty consonants and umlauted vowels, lots of long phrases taking lots of mental regimenting to mimic; thank goodness Aygul and Nagima gave us a 'cheat sheet' to practice from, and for those of us who are visual learners to copy down and memorise. Given that we'll be meeting our host families tomorrow evening, the cheat sheet will be a true blessing.

That's something I'm still incredibly anxious about. Even though I have spoken with a couple of local workers here, living with and being part of a host family will be a horse of a far different colour. Still, in the midst of my anxiety, I can offer them what little peace I have now with my 'сәлеметсіз бе'.