Before I talk about my recent trip to the city of Balkhash, I wanted to show you what has become of a city park in Karaganda. This park may not have been the nicest in the world, but it was full of big trees! They could have developed the paths better and planted grass and made it better. But they decided to cut every hardwood tree in the park down to a stump.
I don't get it. I know they are wanting the trees to regrow, sprout new limbs, etc. But I doubt there is a single person in the world who thinks this looks better than a park full of full grown trees. It looks horrible. Also, I learned today why the bottoms of trees are painted white. When trees are cut back, sometimes the trunks are painted white to help protect the bark from the instant direct sunlight. There are other reasons too, but this one makes the most sense here.
A week ago I headed down to Balkhash (the "k" is silent- Ball-Hawsh). The city is located on the banks of Lake Balkhash. This is Central Asia's second largest lake and the largest moderately saline lake of Central Asia. It is 372 miles long (600km). The western half of the lake is freshwater but the eastern half is salt water.
The UN announce in 2004 that the lake may be drying out, and in becoming more shallow and saline, it may have repercussions comparable to the tragedy of the Aral Sea. From 1972 to 2001, the lakes surface decreased by 15 hectares. New islands are emerging. The water comes from Eastern Kazakhstan and China. Heavy water usage in these areas for agriculture and industry have made this possible. Over exploitation of this river has made the saline levels rise.
The Balkhash system is heavily polluted by non-ferrous metallurgy and agriculture. The main water polluters are industrial, mining and refinery enterprises, animal farms and irrigated farming. The Balkhash copper smelter factory heavily pollutes lake Balkhash with heavy metals and sulphites.
The reason a few of us came to Balkhash was that a fellow volunteer and friend was holding an English Olympiad. This is the view of the lake from her apartment. The city itself wasn't bad. I got a good vibe walking around. There was absolutely not one blade of grass, which is odd though.
These girls sang at the opening ceremony.
For the past 4 years, students from nearly all the schools in Balkhash have competed in an English competition. The first day we administered a written test. Cheating is very common and accepted in Kazakhstan classrooms. Students will stand up and say, "what is the answer to 2?" and other students will help without getting into trouble. But this Olympiad has gotten a reputation, due to the involvement of volunteers, as being a place where cheating is not tolerated.
After the students take the test, we graded them, and selected the top 10 students from grades 8-11 (no 12th grade in KZ). The following day we gave oral interviews to these students. We ranked their English skills and awarded a winner for each grade. This is taken serious in Balkhash and its quite good for a student to win, because it is not just your school, but all schools competing and they are being judged by native speakers.
After the competition was over, I boarded a bus to Almaty. Its a 10hr bus over bad roads. It was so hot the windows were sweating. Everyone was complaining but Kazakhs believe that small children need to live in a bubble of heat, so because there were two small kids on the bus, we all had to suffer. The man next to me chatted my ear off all night about 9/11 conspiracy theories. I had to fake phone calls to get a break and finally he got the hint.
People here do not have tact- or at least our view of tact. People will tell you exactly what they think and will not sugar coat it. "You are looking fat today," for instance. Volunteers know it is culture but it still irritates us because we view this as rude. The man next to me on the bus was irritating me. His first sentence was "where are you from?" and his second, after learning I was from America, was "why do you hate muslims?" He wasn't being mean. He actually said he would like to go to America because life there is better than in KZ. But its a shock sometimes because I would never sit down next to a stranger here and immediately criticize KZ politics, etc. But I often find myself having to talk my way out of these conversations. I nod a lot and let them talk, then I fake a phone call. Ha.
I was in Almaty for a day and a half before jumping on a train back up north. The train was sweltering of course and the man next to me snored all night. I hardly slept in 3 days and I'm glad to now be back in my own bed.
It is chilly here again. It is supposed to get down to freezing in the next couple of nights and up into the 40s in the day. But that isn't too bad. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!!!
