Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We are heading out in a day to Vietnam. Everyone is excited that school is done and we are going for another adventure. How lucky are we!! I just had a root canal, Dave got food poisoning and Kyla is getting a cold but we will be ready by Friday morning. Now they are predicting snow and the fog here has grounded a lot of planes but we hope and pray all goes well and we will celebrate Christmas and New Year's in Vietnam. Wishing you all a Great Christmas and a Happy New Year. Missing you all and looking forward to seeing everyone in the summer.

Happy Holidays, everyone

Greetings. We've been having trouble making posts lately, so here's a short one from Kyla. We'll be off the grid for the next few weeks, enjoying the sun and surf in Vietnam. Have a great holiday season, everyone; we'll "talk" again in 2010!

Here's a rendition of Jingle Bells corrupted by Kyla and her friends:

Dashing through the snow
On a pair of broken skis

Over the hills we go
Crashing into trees

The snow is turning red
I think I'm almost dead

I woke in the hospital
With stitches in my head

Ohhh...Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...

(You'd expect that from Cody, but Kyla?)

Mukhtar Auezov

Myxtap (Moo-gh-tar) Ah-(upside-down ‘e’)-way-(ye)zov-(3OB).

Edna and the kids are posing with Auezov, considered the father of Kazakh playwriting. He is also credited with preserving and translating local histories and stories. He was the first writer to translate and introduce Shakespeare to Central Asia in the 1920’s. Why mention him on our blog? We live on Auezov Street, Almaty, Kazakhstan.

An Imbalanced World

The map above is one year old, but the data below represents 2010. The Corruption Perception Index can be found at http://www.transparency.org/ It's worth a glance if you have the time; if not, consider the following highly abbreviated report:

The least corrupt country in the world is Denmark. Unfortunately for Somalians, Afghanis, Burmese, and Iraqi's, their governments are at the bottom of the list: #175-178

#6 Canada

#22 USA

#105 Kazakhstan

#154 Russia

#154 Tajikistan (where we have a school)

#164 Kyrgyzstan (next door to us)

#172 Turkmenistan (6th from the bottom) A co-worker here in Almaty recenly transferred from Turkmenistan. He corroborates this report. His friend was pulled over by the police for having a dirty car. If he didn't pay the standard $50, he would have lost his licence for a year.

Kazakh police are angelic compared to at least 70 other police forces.

Another Random Sampling

We went for a drive out on the steppe and this is what we saw:
-these ladies are Turkish and Uzbek; they set up a fruit stand on the side of the road in the-middle-of-nowhere. They sleep in blue tarp tents for a few months at a time.

-this guy was trying out a new toy at an abandoned airport. It's a good place for training; check out the horizon--no obstacles!

-socks and potatoes for sale on the side of the road.

Halloween 2010

Edna and her co-worker organized Halloween in our gated community this year. Trick-or-treating is unknown in this country except in enclave "villages" like ours. So we had a "compound party." Families from Poland, France, Russia, Canada, The Ukraine, The States, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tunisia and Korea attended. We had a barbeque in the parking lot. The food was exotic and extremely ethnic; ironically (or not) the hot dogs and the s'mores were very popular. That's Cody in the Spiderman costume.

Gorky Park

There's a Gorky Park in nearly every former Soviet capital city. These are our friends on the ferris wheel in Almaty's version of Gorky.

Here's Cody trying the 'drawbridge rope' in the park.

Stalin and Lenin's statues have been replaced.

Cotton candy: ubiquitous fair 'food.'

Cody's friends at school have begun calling him 'fanta.' He's rarely seen not wearing something orange, and the soft drink "Fanta" is his favourite.

Tamgaly Tas Petroglyphs

These petroglyphs are a 2 hour drive north of the city. They are 1200 years old, Bhuddist in origin, but otherwise misunderstood--Kazakh historians don’t have time or resources to study or preserve them.

Here's a faint outline of Bhudda.

If I was optimistic and more sensitive to political correctness, I would describe Kazakhstan as a "developing country" or an "emerging economy." There are so many things about living here that we really enjoy, things that we will actually miss. Tragically, the ill effects of the Soviet-era are far reaching. Colonized people around the world typically first lose their religion, then their language, then their ancient history followed by their recent history--it's inevitable that morale, values, pride, and purpose also dwindle.

Hence, this image:

This is the entry to the petroglyph site--you might call it a park, complete with a park bench. But, for a completely mystical explanation that escapes most non-Kazakhs, the amount of garbage and the profane neglect for mother nature that exists at these settings goes unseen by the locals. Soviet oppressors: bad.

Let's put the "fun" back in dysfunctional!

Only the Soviets could have conjured up this display--implements of war and destruction proudly exhibited at the "Almaty Family Fun Park."We're always a bit creeped out when we see this sort of thing amidst the balloons, popcorn vendors, and merry-go-rounds--maybe we're too Canadian.

Hey, Jerry: I think the helicopter is a Mil Mig Mi-8. Have you ever jumped out of one?

And this one, below, is either a Sukhoi S-221 or a Mikoyan Mig 195.

The image above is what aircraft should be used for: making love, not war. And they shouldn't drop bombs; they should only drop my friends at the Abbotsford Parachute Centre. Hi, Debbie.

Ili River/Kazakh Steppe

We went out for a drive onto the steppe, in pursuit of 1200 year old petroglyphs. Above Cody's head, on the other side of the Ili River (eal-ee), is an "old" nomad fortress/movie set used for the movie "Nomads" or "Mongol." The picture below is a great example of the physiography here. Flat and barren, punctuated with the occasional river canyon, or ruggedly mountainous, similar to the Rockies.

Edna and Kyla, just before we descend into the canyon, 1000 feet below.

Potatoes anyone?

We counted 30 bags of spuds in/on this car. If each bag weighs 50lbs, then at 1500lbs, I'm pretty sure the spuds weigh more than the car.

Temperature Change

On Monday, Oct 18th, it was 26 degrees celsius here in the city. Today, Oct 22, we woke up to a little bit of winter.

Autumn in Almaty

This is Almaty after 24 hours of rain and an 80km/hour wind, i.e., no smog. This is our new hiking club on top of the ridge of the photo above.

A paradigm shift in citizenship dynamics on our staff: 6/7 of the above are Canadian.

Cathy: Ottawa; the V's: BC; Peter and Judy Grey: Kamloops; Brock: Wisconsin.

The snow line is dropping here too.

Little Mosque under construction

There's a new mosque being built in our neighbourhood. Cody and I walked over to admire their craftsmanship. All brick and mortar; no wood, no steel. There was an aged, robed gentlemen at the main entry selling prayer mats and texts from the Koran. Cody and I really wanted to get into the site and meet the workers who were quite freindly and welcoming from behind the construction fencing.

I asked the gate guy "Moshe-nah? (Permission?)
He said, in Russian, "Do you speak Russian?"

I said "Nyet."

"Parlez vous Francais?"

I said "Petit," but I should have just said "non" in order to save time.

"Deutsche?"

"Nein"

"Urdu?" (the Hindustani language of the Muslim world)

"Nyet." (Holy macaroni: who is this guy? Four languages and counting.)

Patiently, as if to test me, he asked "Allah u Akbar?" (God is great?)

Finally! We could communicate! "Allah u Akbar!" I replied.

"Moshe-nah," he replied, smiling. ("Permission," and he gestured for us to enter.)

We took exactly 20 steps and then the mullah saw us (the mosque's main teacher). He stopped us and started giving the gate guy trouble. We've visited several mosques in 3-4 different countries and there are usually places within them that are clearly innapropriate for us to enter. But in Almaty, we weren't even allowed in the entry way. Maybe next time.

An entry for Grace Z'

Hi Grace Z'...how are you? (Grace is an 8 year old friend of ours in Grassy Plains, BC). You would really like it here. If you drive out of the city for 20 minutes, you can find "wild" horses. We went for a hike last weekend and we found 38 "stray" horses. We don't know who they belong to. Want one? The problem is, we'd have to pay for 3-4 seats on the plane just for one horse. And what if it got motion sick? Gross!

And besides, you'd probably want to get dressed up like these girls and take over the Southside.

Hike--That made us all CRY!!!

What a hike!! It started out so well, we first went up to this sign a month ago and thought that it was telling us not to go through the gate. So, we took this picture and had it translated--it says that we should watch out for falling rock! Not a big deal--have you seen the stairs.

The morning started out great, we did stairs for an hour and 15 but we were prepared for that and then we knew that we had a slow downhill walk for about 2 hours. After that we were going to cross the creek--up to our knees and then catch a gypsy taxi back to our vehicle. All went well and then....

The view from the top of the stairs--nice smog, eh!! The coal burners haven't even started--this is clean air!!!
The river is down there between us and that road and the ride back to our car!!!

We got to the bottom, a litte tired and very warm--it was about 30 degrees. A big problem though, the city decided to open up the dam and the creek turned into a small river and there was no way that we could cross it. We tried for about 45 minutes and there was no way. We finally had to make the decision to walk back soon before it got too late. We left just before 4:00 pm and we got back to our vehicle just before 7:00. It was not enjoyable and we were so tired. Kyla and Cody were such troopers--did I tell you that we were really low on water too. What a day but the next couple of days were not too enjoyable either. We were so stiff from doing the stairs for atleast 3 days--I am not bragging about that!!

Cody's B-day and More Hikes!!

The blog is working--so quickly down loaded a few pictures. They don't really fit together but who knows when we get the chance again.

Cody had his b-day w/in the first week of returning to Kazakhstan. It wasn't so easy to find friends that were back from the holiday but these guys made for a very fun afternoon. They wanted a tatoo and so while they waited for the water to make the tatto stick, they had to count to twenty in their native language. We heard Korean, Dutch, Kazkh, Russian and of course English.

Hike number 1--out to the apple orchards and then to the water dam which looks down upon a woman doing her laundry by hand in her front yard and you can see their outdoor shower too. The luxeries of Almaty.

Hike number 2--we drove up to Big Almaty Lake--the water supply for the city. On the way down we stopped by these statues. After a summer in Smithers with the surplus of bears--this is quite a change--this will be the closest thing we have here for wildlife!!