Our last day in Kazakhstan. Not sure when I’ll be able to post again, so here’s today’s plan – the students give their presentations this morning, the leave at one. We leave then too, and drive back to Astana.
This afternoon we will explore Astana, maybe go up the tower. Tonight we stay in the transit hotel, and tomorrow, at 4.25am.
Our last breakfast was sweet dry curds and wheat porridge.
Oh, the poor little darlings. It’s 10.22 on a Saturday night and they’re struggling to complete their presentations. The group I was just speaking to should have collected waaay more data, but they haven’t, so they’ll just have to work with what they’ve got. Another boy is stubbornly maintaining that his group are studying “the effect of Betula pendula on lake shrinkage.” An extremely interesting study, I’ll grant, but not one that can be completed in a few hours. The rest of the group, by the way, just shake their heads and carry in with what they were doing.
Suddenly, there’s only one night left here.
Breakfast was semolina porridge and yummy fried dough balls with sour cream (and hot chocolate)
Potato, beetroot, carrot and pea salad, red soup with meat and potatoes (I had Sainsbury’s instant noodles. I know, I know, but I’ve brought all this food, I’m jolly well going to eat it) chicken leg and pasta!
Carrot and seaweed salad, fried rice with meat (very tasty), sweet rolls and bananas. A good last dinner here. How can we be leaving tomorrow?
Square of omelette with chopped sausage.
Some kind of porridge, but I’m not sure which grain it was made from. Quite oatmealy.
More hot chocolate.
Tasty cabbage and carrot salad with garlic, broth with meat, potatoes and carrots (though I had a Heinz tomato sqeezey sachet soup. I felt rather traitorous but my goodness it was delicious). Meat-and-rice-ball with grain (possibly rye?). Pink.
Carrot and apple salad. Potato, meat and carrot stew. Sweet rolls.
Oatmeal porridge with butter, macaroni with meat, hot chocolate! (I brought that with me)
Cabbage and carrot salad, broth with potato, meat and mayonnaise, rice with meat, carrots and thin sauce.
Boiled eggs, cut in half then the yolk removed, mixed with smoked fish, I think, then returned to the white. Ingenious and tasty.
Cabbage roll filled with meat and rice. Very tasty. Served with mashed potato and an orange coloured sauce.
Brioche, stuffed with sweet curds. Apples.
All in all, a very good meal.
The day has been good too. We measured the lake margin again this morning (again for me, the students are different) then did random sampling at Abylai Khan glade this afternoon. This evening we calculated spearman’s rank and discussed the morning’s data.
No one has asked any questions yet – please do! I’ll start off by talking about names and spelling.
As you may know, Kazakhstan was a part of the Soviet Union until 1991 (but don’t quote me on that) when independence was declared. While under Russian governance, the Kazakh script was abandoned and Cyrillic was enforced. Many places were known by new, Russian, names. The Russian language was used for all matters of importance, and Kazakh as a language pretty much died out. Since independence, there has been some effort to reinstate the language (though I suspect the script is gone for good) for example by requiring it to be taught in schools. Many signs are also in Kazakh as well as Russian. It does feel rather like a token gesture, though, as hardly anyone can understand Kazakh now, including the native Kazakh people. Russian is the lingua franca and I expect it will stay that way.
How is all if this relevant to spelling? I hear you cry. Well, in another effort to reinstate the Kazakh identity, some places are now known by their Kazakh names, usually as a lesser-used alternative to the Russian.
For example, the lake we are visiting tomorrow morning is called Borovoye, Borovoe, Burabay or Burabuy, depending on who you ask or which map you read. Most commonly it is called Borovoye, as far as I can tell.
So if my spelling if place names varies, forgive me! I’m trying to be at least as consistent as the natives.
See? Pink! (if the photo uploads)
Potato salad, broth with meat and potatoes, meatball with barley, pink.
Beetroot, cabbage and seaweed salad, cabbage with meat in tasty brothy sauce, brioche with poppy seeds, bananas.
Internet is problematic again, in that whenever you try to get online a message comes up in Russian asking for money. I think the hotel may have exceeded its bandwidth limit! So I’m piggy-backing on next door’s, I think.
I’m sorry, the internet has been playing up for days.
On Sunday we taught methods of catching terrestrial invertebrates, then after lunch the students had to devise, plan and collect data for their own investigations in groups of 5 or 6. They then had to write a 10 minute presentation to deliver on Monday morning.
This went quite well, they worked hard and we kicked them out of the classroom at about 00.20.
On Monday morning the presentations were given, and all students did well, with some doing excellently. The students and their tutors and teaching assistants left at 1pm.
We took the afternoon off – Michelle and I went for a walk through the village, then for another walk along the lake shore before returning to the hotel and going for a swim with Oksana and Yelena. Jono went for a long walk round the lake. Well, partway then back, it’s a big lake.
After dinner we carried on working. Michelle and I sorted out the equipment store (we’ve been granted the use of the upper floor of the summer café) which took longer than expected as the management decided they needed to remove some of the tables and benches. There’s more space now though, which is good.
This done, we relocated to the classroom, where we tried (again) to persuade Michelle’s computer to recognise the printer. Her wireless dongle has broken, and her computer struggles with usb sticks (cannot find driver) so getting documents off was impossible unless we could print them. After about an hour of trying different things we gave up and went to bed.
Breakfast on Tuesday morning was boiled egg, pancakes with sour cream and possibly-oatmeal porridge.
After breakfast we went horseriding! We were picked up from the hotel and driven to the horse farm, then each put on a horse. The ride was a gentle journey through the forest on horseback, nothing too taxing, but very enjoyable. We have lots of pictures, so I’ll put those up when I get home. I’ve tried and still can’t get pictures to upload, so it’ll have to wait till we get back.
We returned to the hotel then had an hour or so to relax before lunch – beetroot salad, watery soup and meat with rice.
In the afternoon we visited Shchuchinsk to change money and stick up on water, and to visit ComputerLand, where Michelle bought a new wireless dongle, so now she can communicate again.
We then went on to Borovoye, where we visited the natural history museum and their mini zoo, then went to a restaurant for dinner. Luxury! I had pickled vegetables (the tomatoes were particularly good) then spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms with a cream sauce, which was tasty.
I seem to have come down with a cold. I’ve been sneezing for a few days, and have had a sore throat since Monday. I was feeling pretty rubbish last night, but a little better thus morning, so hopefully I’ve turned a corner with it.
This morning (Wednesday I think) breakfast was dry cottage cheese with sour cream, and some kind of cereal.
We are now getting ready and setting up in preparation for the next group of students to arrive just before lunch.
As this week will be much like last week in terms of what we do with the students, I’ll try to write some posts about Kazakhstan. Does anyone have anything they’d like to know?
Semolina porridge, brioche stuffed with cabbage (actually really tasty)
Spiced carrot and kidney bean salad, broth with meat and short spaghetti, meat with tasty sauce and pureed dried peas which looked like orange mash, pink.
Beetroot salad, meat and potatoes. Oranges. Brioche with poppy seeds and sugar.
Breakfast – boiled egg, macaroni with meat.
Lunch – grated beetroot salad, possibly with garlic. Broth with meat, spring onions and potato. Rice with thin (maybe tomato) sauce, meatball, onion garnish.
Dinner – yummy potato salad, yummy ham/sausage with mashed potato and tasty sauce, sweet rolls with curd cheese and sugar and bananas! A good evening!