Another Week in Review: taking in some culture

Warning: This post excessively long and the number of pictures included demonstrates an absolute lack of restraint on the author's part.

You wouldn't know it from the dull posts I've written these past few days, but we've actually had a pretty interesting week. Makhabbat, our housemates' interpreter, took us to several events around town this week: a soccer game, a graduation, and a concert. I thought I'd use the Sunday, week-in-review post, to tell you a little about it.

The Soccer Match

Last Sunday, we went to a soccer game: Kokshetau vs. Kostanai. The home team scored a goal at the last minute to even up the score... the crowd went wild! Final score: 1-1. The stadium isn't too terribly large, it was almost full--where we were sitting was about the only place where there were any empty seats left. There was a small marching band in the bleachers near us. Apparently, Kokshetau is a pretty poor team. Still, it was fun to be there.

Here's the band.
That's "Dougdad" and Dylan in the picture--our housemates.
Dylan ended up getting to play that drum a little.

American cheering section.

The Graduation Event

The following night, we attended a celebration honoring the city's high school graduates. The event was held in the soccer stadium and was quite the extravagant affair. The ceremony involved a recognition of the top 16 students by name and the awarding of flowers and a certificate. There was a number of student dance performances, a knowledge torch that was passed from teacher to student to the theme of Chariots of Fire, a choreographed waltz to the song "A Summer Place", a release of a bunch of balloons, and, finally, the event was concluded with a fireworks display.

As you can see from the pictures below, the students get completely decked out for this event. The dress for girls was much like a Prom here in the states (maybe even a bit more glamourous), the boys don't wear tuxedos, but they too are in fine form. It will be fun to show Evelyn and Jesse one day what the teenagers here dress and look like...(not a whole lot different from the way teenagers look here at a formal.)

Her sash says "Class of 2008".
All the graduates (boys &girls) were wearing these

These guys were very friendly and figured out pretty quickly that I was American (I think it was my saying in English "hold still so I can take a picture" that clued them in). They were pretty excited about this and immediately introduced themselves and asked where we were from in the US. Most students take English in school so the younger generation typically has some (though not a lot) of English.

See kids on cellphones? Teens are same the world around!

The three ladies in the picture are mom, Makhabbat (a local translator and a newfound friend) and her daughter. The boy is a graduate (and honors student) from the Turkish Lyceum here in town.

The girl pictured here is in traditional Kazakh costume. We were told that this would be the sort of dress a women might wear at her wedding (if she were going to have a traditional wedding) though the bride could choose any color she prefers.

The Concert

Then on Wednesday, we went to a concert featuring popular Russian and Kazakh music from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. The concert was held in the performance center in town, which is a pretty nice place. In fact, it looks pretty new. It's not a huge concert hall, but then again, it's not a huge city. In any case, the concert itself was really interesting. The performance involved a fairly decent sized orchestra and a variety soloists. Some of the songs were sung in Kazakh, but the majority were in Russian. The only difference I could really discern in style as we moved through the decades was that the later numbers were more upbeat and gave greater place to the electric guitars in the band. Still, there was really nothing like a Rock-n-Roll influence here. Very different from the popular music here in the US in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

Here are a few pictures:

This was one of the Kazakh numbers.

This is the encore song--all the performers on stage.

Saturday Afternoon Visit

As always, the main event of every day and every week is the time with our little ones, so I have to review the last visit as well.

What's most different about afternoon visits is that Jess and Evie are not as active during this time of day--or, rather, their active period is shorter-lived. Not only are they more mellow, but it also feels as if we spend the bulk of our time waiting for their bottles to show up. I don't know what's going on in their feeding schedule, but it's very clear that about 4o minutes after we show up, these two are really looking for their mid-afternoon feeding. But they don't bring the bottles till near the end of our time together (roughly 30-40 minutes after they seem to begin wanting them). By the time the bottles do arrive, Jess and Evelyn are pretty much at the end of their rope. It's a bit hard. These little guys are telling me in the clearest possible terms what they need and want and I can't do a thing for them, but just wait along with them... Well, that and do what I can to make the wait easier.

What all this means is that we spend much less time playing and more time with me finding various ways of holding, comforting, distracting them till the bottles come. It forces me to think up different things to do (different ways to hold them, just for variety's sake). Saturday turned out to be pretty great, though. I laid on my back and put them on my chest and enjoyed lots of face to face time with them. Jess, in particular, seemed to find plenty of new and interesting objects to play with during this activity:

I decided that, in the end, it'd be best to leave off the picture where he managed
to fit three fingers into my right nostril. (Such a picture does exist, but it's just too unbecoming and unprofessional.)

Although the active period is shorter in duration, Jess and Evie still manage to have plenty of fun.

My smiley boy!

This outfit is a hand-me-down from my cousins Ellie and Lucy.

The little man can travel...

I don't know why she was doing this, but she did it several times. So funny!
I think she's trying to look to see what's going on down there with the feet--
why don't they move her forward when she wants them to.

Those headstands sort of mess up your hair!

By the time the bottles showed up, there was no way I was going to make either Jess or Evelyn wait one second more. So I fed them simultaneously. (It's not that I can't do this, it is rather that I try to snuggle with each of them while they eat. Not really easy to do this with both at once.)


P.S. I'm experiencing connectivity difficulties again so may be behind in posts and emailing for the next few days...