25th September

25th September

“You are commanded to be contented!” Dune

You may be wondering how I keep managing to find all these Dune quotes, and that is because there are 5 books in the series, and I have almost finished book 3. Lucky you!

I was at another wedding this weekend, this time for a nephew of my host mother, and this time it was a 4 hour train journey east, right on the Chinese border. If fact we got to see it, as they wanted some photos taken there (the “drive around town, beeping your horn and having photos taken at the local sights” that happens here is certainly different). Ill try to get a video put up on flickr, although I quake thinking how long it might take.

Balancing my need to write notes and take photos, against being shot for being a spy, I was able to walk around town and see lots of stuff. Well, see what was there to be seen. The town is called Dostuk, which means friend in Kazakh, and it is a border town in feel as well as location. Most people work either at the train depot (its currently the only train link with China, where most of the stuff sold in Kazakhstan comes from, so its suitably busy) and the large military presence here. Almost everyone lives in apartment blocks, which is a bit of a novelty for rural Kazakhstan, and this removes the most redeeming feature of villages here, being the gardens around each home, and Dostuk is a dusty and brown town because of it. It is also incredibly windy, which the lack of trees doesn’t help with, but it does provide the first wind turbine ive seen here, so there is some hope that Kazakhstan’s dependency on cheap coal might be broken in certain areas. Although on the Chinese side, they actually had a whole wind farm!

From what I could see, the town is almost totally Kazakh, and the two Russians I met spoke fluent Kazakh, which is not only a rarity, but also rather a shock. The standard stereotype of “white = Russian” is rather ingrained, and is why everyone always first greets me in Russian. The police and army presence here is also very noticeably, with many people in uniform. There was an actual fort on the way into the town, with turrets and mud walls and watch towers (although it looked relatively modern, it followed the classic design of antiquity) but I thought it best not to take a photo. I had my first police check of my stay – for volunteers in the bigger towns, this is a common occurrence. It went smoothly though, and I was able to explain why I was in town, in Kazakh, which impressed both of us!

Despite seeing a bus with Chinese number plates, there was very little to tell you how close to China this town is, which was rather a disappointment as I had been hoping for a Chinese restaurant and some different items in the local shops. I want to buy a rice cooker, and had hoped to get one here!

So, the wedding was different in a number of areas from the last one. The biggest being this time I got to go to the mosque to see the marriage ceremony. Which was rather an anti-climax as it was just the family and a few friends sitting in the Imam’s office, while he read a few things, and gave them their official certificate. It was all over in 20 minutes and on the way out the groom had to pay at £15 in cash. A fairy-tale ceremony it wasn’t!

The party was much the same as the other one, just with tapes of famous songs, not the actual artists. Lots of food, lots of dancing and this time, lots of speaking German. There was a large Kazakh presence in East Germany during the Soviet Period apparently, and with Kazakhstan having a 2 year conscription, many men in their late 30’s/40’s spent two years there. Which was enough time to pick up a smattering of the language and provides my only way to attempt communication with people once the basics are through in Kazakh.

What else is there to say about the town? Not much really, I am very glad I don’t live there. The difference between a half built, and half abandoned building here is very difficult to judge here, especially as many people’s yards resemble building sites, even in houses they have lived in for years. It leads to an overall feeling of decline, despite the obvious new building taking place. Its hard to explain. There were two schools, which was a surprise, although I guess military families = babies. I imagine ill be back here sometime in the next two years to do an “English day”.

“If you don’t study hard, you will end up with the same job as your father, just working at the train depot” An internal dialogue of mine

There are always students who do not enjoy school, or who cannot see the benefit in it (how I wish I had taken Latin now!), and this is especially true of the non-essential subjects, such as English here.

By the 8th class, the kids have a general idea of what subjects they like, or deem important, and motivating them to try in English, if it isn’t on their list, is a challenge I am working on. Trying to involve them into class activates and games, is in theory the best way to do this, as it is fun. It should also help hide some of the ability differences that they might possess, but when they cannot answer simple questions as ‘How are you?’ it makes Verb Charades rather difficult. In this case, involving them in the group only highlights their lack of understanding, which in turn is only likely to reduce their interest even more.

Finding ways to motivate them is something I haven’t had to deal with before, both professionally and in my own experiences. Having gone to private school, almost all of the students in my classes where driven by a desire to achieve at least what their parents had, and understood the work that required. As almost everyone was safely middle-class, this meant aiming for jobs that would ensure the same standard of life. And University attendance was a given. My students in Japan came from similar economic backgrounds, and their parents were paying a lot of money for my classes, but the general attitude to studying is also rather unique. It meant that I had very few students with motivational issues.

Which is what makes working in a working class village in a rather insular country - where people don’t often stray far from their home town - teaching a periphery subject, so new for me. “Study English so you can travel and work in different countries” isn’t as motivating for students here as it could be for students in Japan. Likewise, “it’s important to know English as a student, as most journals are published in English” doesn’t work when less than 1/4 of students will end up going to University.

English isn’t needed for the semi-skilled jobs that employ most of the men in the village, and with most women being housewives, its just hard to sell it is as something worth the effort. Which might also explain the attitude of the parents. Apart from my 5th classes, I don’t think I have a single class where every student has a copy of the text book. Now, the book isn’t great, and every edition of it is different (and there are 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions in most classes), but NOT having it, is even worse, and its crazy to imagine parents letting their kids go to school without the book. It costs 1000tenge, which is about £5, or in local terms, the price of a meal and drink at a restaurant. Many of the parents plead poverty, and its certainly true that there are some poor people here, but it strikes me as being a problem of priority. And English text books are very low on many family’s lists unfortunately.

I just had an amazing idea, which would see the school buy a full set of the books, plus a few spares. They would then rent these to the kids, at the full price of the book. If, at the end of the year, the book was returned in good condition, then they would get 800tenge back, meaning that it had cost only 200tenge to use the book for the year. Next year, do it again, but returning 600tenge etc, until 6 years have passed, and a whole new set of books could be bought. Between the 200tenge a book rental fee, and the full cost as a fine for damage, it seems that this could pay for itself, only requiring an initial investment by the school. Maybe I will suggest it to the director.