Qazaq cultural comeback + give you the finger (or, how not to behave in a Russian classroom)

I apologise to my gentle readers that I have been most unfortunately remiss in my blogging. I'm going to have to play some catch-up first before I can begin to make any sense, so please bear with me, if you can, for a few paragraphs.

I am doing quite well, and have for the most part settled into a steady routine here. I am currently taking full advantage of my day of rest, sleeping and playing TES3: Morrowind before I head up to Есік to buy some supplies. However, our workload has ramped up considerably over the past week, and from what I understand we are going to be expected to do yet more. Up until now it has been mostly language, cultural training and lesson observations, but tomorrow will be my first delivered class – thankfully, Asem quickly approved my lesson plan, and after I prepare everything later this evening I should be all set.

The interesting thing about interacting with my host family and with the members of the community here, of which I have been aware for quite awhile intellectually but am only beginning now to deal with on a personal level, is the extent to which Qazaq is still very much a secondary language here, despite its status as the national language. My host brother Quanysh speaks much more readily in Russian than he does in Qazaq, and many of the non-Qazaqs speak little to no Qazaq at all. Indeed, some Russians are proud of the fact that they have not learned Qazaq. Nagima informs me that this is a remnant of the Soviet Era, which bears a sad and unfortunate resemblance to the history of the American West: the Soviets tried their hardest to stamp out Qazaq culture, teaching only Russian language in the schools and privileging the Russian ethnicity over the Qazaq. The nomadic Qazaqs were forced into sedentary living; since they were not accustomed to a sedentary style of agriculture and herding, many of them starved to death. The Soviets apparently also had an informal racist hierarchy in place – Nagima told us that during Soviet times, Qazaqs were commonly disparaged as 'black asses'.

I think the Big Bread has to be given a great deal of credit here. President Nazarbaev is very much interested in rebuilding the Qazaq national identity, culture and language: he has even commissioned a Qazaq Language Academy which is bolstering and modernising the Qazaq lexicon by adapting from other existing Turkic languages. On the other hand, he has managed to put an effective damper on interethnic resentment and chauvinism through his Trinity policy, so as to avoid the ethno-linguistic tensions faced in post-communist Yugoslavia and (to a lesser extent) in the Baltic states.

It is complex, though, and I am merely drawing parallels with what I know from America's history, which may or may not be useful. To be fair, neither the Soviet Union nor the American government of the mid- to late-1800's was entirely bad (as our good Doctor Victor would doubtless point out), though we are still seeing some of the lingering effects of their more problematic policies (in both the United States and in Qazaqstan).

Classroom culture has been another point I've been struggling with. It has been interesting to see how the schedule has been sorted out in the first two weeks of school, from the students not having enough textbooks to the classes not even having teachers the first couple of days. I think it has been mostly sorted out by now, though; the school seems to have settled into a consistent routine. I am working with Muhabbat, a young local teacher not much older than I am (still in her twenties), and we are going to be teaching English classes together in the sixth and seventh grades (11- and 12-year-old children). Though С— has a mixed-language school, the students in our classes seem to be mostly Russian, and Muhabbat speaks mostly Russian in the classroom, even during English lessons (even though her English is excellent and she doesn't even have that strong an accent).

On Friday I introduced myself to one of the classes, and on Monday I'll have my first real class (sixth grade). One of the things I have a great problem with is pointing with my finger. It is considered RCSU ('rude, crude and socially unacceptable') by most Russians to point at something, particularly at a person, with one finger – but it's something that Americans don't usually pay that much attention to. (Though it is rude to overtly point one's finger at someone in public, it doesn't carry the same social stigma it does here.) In classes, teachers are expected to use pointers – but during our introductions, Emiko (our PCVTA) noted to our entire cohort that we all pointed with our fingers. This is a habit that I'm going to have to overcome, even if I have to tape my fingers together during lessons.

I also have to get used to referring to myself and hearing myself referred to as 'Mr Matt' or 'Mr Cooper'. Students are not on a (solely) first-name basis with their teachers here (though to be honest, I wasn't really on a first-name basis with any of my teachers in the United States during grade school, even if they were good friends of the family like Mrs Loichinger or Mrs Pils). Another interesting point of Russian culture is that it isn't common to refer to someone by their surname – if you want to be formal and polite, you use both the given name and the patronymic: 'Elena Yurevna' or 'Vladimir Vladimirovich'.

Anyhow, please wish me luck, and I'll be sure to be better about keeping everyone posted. Сау болыңыздар for now!