On November 6th, the other volunteers and I officially swore in to the Peace Corps. Switching labels from "trainee" to "volunteer" was not particularly important to me, except that now we begin accruing readjustment (ski-bum) allowance every month. Interestingly, I was selected to give a stuttering speech in Kazakh to the assembled guests, including "His Excellency" Richard C Hoagland, the American ambassador to Kazakhstan. It was done in the typical style of foreign language learners in Kazakhstan, which is to say that I was a poorly trained parrot regurgitating sounds that someone else told me meant something in Kazakh. But Kazakhs go bonkers for foreigners speaking their language, so it was fairly well received regardless.

Following the ceremony, we got to enjoy another day and a half at the luxurious Kok Tobe Sanatorium before the 30 hour train ride to Zhezkazgan. Now, I really enjoy traveling by sleeper train because it's a great opportunity to meet new people, it's relaxing, and it's generally more comfortable than most other modes of transportation I can think of. Another perk of the Kazakh trains, is that the space between the cars isn't as sealed as your local DOT inspector would probably require, which means it's much easier to imagine that you're James Bond hopping from car to car. I'm supposed to stay positive in the blog (something that is very difficult for me to do because I'm generally quite critical) so allow me to say that one major area of opportunity for an enterprising businessperson is diversifying the offerings of the on-board sellers beyond dried fish.

People in Zhezkazgan are quite keen on asking me what my first impressions of their city are. It is nearly impossible for me to couch my thoughts in pretty terms in Kazakh, so I tell people that I'm impressed with how friendly the Zhezkazgan citizenry is. And that's true. But let's just say that the Travel Channel isn't going to be running a week-long special on things to see and do in Zhezkazgan in the foreseeable future.


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I'm currently living in a two bedroom apartment (at the center of the map) with a 58 year-old host dad who's an ambulance driver, and 56 year-old host mom who is a nutritionist at the local boys' math and science boarding school. They have an 18 year-old daughter who is currently studying politics at a university in Karaganda. Their names literally translate as Life Companion and Happy Soul, respectively, and they pretty much live up to that. Since they've hosted two volunteers before, they're already broken in to some of my strange American ways, and for the most part give me the freedom I'm used to. The one exception is that my host mom refuses to let me leave the house without my thick winter coat on.