Real people, real places, real stories

Making friends

How do you make freinds with locals when you've only been learning their language for 5 months? We cheated and found some people who want to learn English just as much as we want to learn Kazakh!

Christmas in Central Asia: How refreshing it was to escape the madness of Christmas shopping and the expense of obligatory nights out and excessive present giving. In this town, over indulgence is not an option for most people, particularly as summer’s supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables are starting to run low.

Public Transport - Central Asian style: Travelling by public transport is certainly not a passive activity. Most people do not have private cars. Rather than parking in the parent and child section at the supermarket and then driving home with the weekly shop in the boot, a lot of people have to struggle home with their groceries on the bus, sometimes with a couple of children in tow.

When's a good time for an English lesson?

The phone rang just after 10pm one evening. That isn’t unusual. People here will often call right up till 11:30 or so, though they will rarely phone before 10am - this is a town where nobody likes to awaken early! It was my landlord on the other end of the line. She explained that her daughter forgot to come to her English lesson with me at 7:30 and she was asking if she could come now.

Life on Main Street:  In the daylight the wide sweep of Main St is alive with buses, electric trolley cars, taxis and many other vehicles all jostling and vying noisily for space in the busy double lanes. The street is punctuated by large imposing buildings, some belonging to the university and others used by the government. Many buildings are painted bright colours, most strikingly a wonderful powder blue, which though at first unexpected, works perfectly in the bright sunshine and leafy surroundings.