After the last semester ended, I watched as (almost) all my friends left, and I remained with a few other year-long students. While I knew this was coming, it felt very sudden, as immediately after exams, everyone who I had spent everyday with for months were all gone. There was about a month and a half before the start of the next semester and it was seemingly just me and Almaty. I had some friends that stayed behind, but everyone essentially traveled and I couldn’t convince myself to spend the money to travel around Central Asia. Will I regret that decision in the future? Maybe, but this will also just give me another reason to return to the area in the future. So what did I do during my break? I studied, I skied, volunteered and I spent a lot of time with my host parents. I’m a person of habit, so day after day I’d leave my apartment around mid day and go sit in a cafe by my house and study. The past semester honestly hurt my soul in terms of Russian language progression. It wasn’t a bad semester, though I had some struggles in terms of language progress and it was something that rather upset me. So, I bought a new notebook and dedicated it to grammar and spent everyday studying. Having this period between the two semesters was very helpful for me to just process everything I attempted to learn the previous semester. I went skiing at Shymbulak about once a week which was a nice activity to maintain. My volunteering job really was nice to maintain during this break. My students always brightened my day even though it was just an hour of time together. It also gave me a sense of normalcy considering I had been doing it all semester.
In addition to working at the school, over break I had the opportunity to witness/participate in two different events with the school. One was a conference (too much to get into), and the other was the school's Winter Ball. While I wasn’t expecting anything too different from an American dance, it was actually very different. I got to watch each grade perform a dance in front of the school, including of course, my class. It was such a funny little last minute event that I attended, but I’m very happy I did so. Christmas came and went, just as any other day. My host mom surprised me with a present which was really sweet and unexpected. I sat in the same cafe as usual and watched my family at home open gifts from one another as I studied away. The days were passing much slower than usual and sometimes it was lonely but overall I genuinely was content to sit and study. Once New Years got closer and my host parents had holiday time off from work, I started spending my days with them watching various Ukrainian dramas and rom-com Christmas movies.
We spent days and days in a row together drinking and snacking and watching various Russian films. I had a good time and got a lot of useful listening practice during the films. One night we even left to go drive around the city and tour the New Years light displays, which was fun as well. For New Years Day, we hosted the night. My neighbors came over, and unbeknownst to me there was another American student living across the hall from me. This was honestly such a pleasant surprise, having another American girl my age to talk to after a month was really nice. My neighbors were all lovely and it was a really good experience to have for the New Year. This wasn’t my first New Year away from home, so I am happy to have the opportunity to spend it with my host family and enjoy the Kazakh side of New Years. Not long after New Years, I resumed my regular schedule of cafe and studying (I wonder what the cafe by my house thinks of me, day after day I (still) go there to study by my lonesome). To round off the end of the break, two weeks before the new semester began, I fortunately had three friends come to visit. The four of us stayed together in the center of the city and I had the opportunity to show them where I had been studying for the past several months. One of the highlights of their visit, in my opinion, was the dinner we had with my host family. My (lovely) host family invited the four of us over for beshbarmak and a huge array of various salads and other treats. The dinner consisted of my three friends and I, my neighbors, and my host parents. We were over for dinner for over 5 hours and the night came to an end when my host dad drove us home to our Airbnb. I was so happy to show them not only where I had been studying, but where and with whom I had been living with. I think this was a really good cultural experience for them to have as well. Very Kazakh, very welcoming, and a great time. My second highlight that came from my friend's visit, was my language use. My friends do not speak a word of Russian, and so, I was the sole person to navigate things for us. It’s a completely different experience to be the speaker for a group vs just yourself. With this, I don’t usually have locals or taxi drivers question me much, but when I was the leader of four Americans, sometimes people had some questions. Store owners, servers, taxi drivers – I had so many really entertaining conversations that I would not have had if my friends didn’t visit. One taxi driver in particular, we had a 30+ minute conversation as he was taking us somewhere. It was such great Russian practice and it was interactions like this that I really appreciated.
Overall, it was a long, but good break. While at times it may have been lonely, I had plenty of positive host family experiences to make up for the times where things weren’t as positive. I can say that I am happy with my decision to spend the break in Kazakhstan.