Katya Writes From Semey

Jaws White Death

          There is a creature alive today.  It has survived millions of years without change, without passion, and without logic.  It lives to kill — a mindless, eating machine.  It is as if God created the devil and gave him jaws!

          In the Shymkent amusement partk, I was waiting for my turn on the trampoline, and my Mom said, “Look at that shark over there!”  I looked over to see the giant head of a shark, rising out of a blue platform.  Mom took my picture with him.  Me and Mom are going to be writing a book very soon called “The Evil Thing”.  You can check it out.  I’ll write it nexttime.  The evil thing is a monster that looks just like a tyrannosaurus rex only it has two heads. 

          Oh, and be careful swimming this summer.  If you spot a shark fin, grab your guns!

Bye.

Life Up In the Mountains

          One day we came to the village called Aksu Zhabagly.  We went horseback riding.  My horse was a girl.  I think her name was Oliey.  My Mom’s horse’s name was Bozuk.  She was a girl, too.  I think my Dad’s horse’s name was Strife.  To make the horses go, you say “Chu, Chu.”  To make them stop, you say “Drrrr.”  My Mom couldn’t make her horse stop because she doesn’t know how to roll her rs.  At one point, Mama’s horse walked up a hill with her on it far away from us before the other horses started.

          Another funny thing that happened was this.  Mom’s horse kept galloping, so all the horses had to be tied together on the way back down the mountain.  The guide did this to control Mom’s horse.  Mom’s legs kept getting mushed into the horses’ butts, and Dad’s horse almost pooped on her leg.  The color of the horse poop was yellow.

          When we got back to the guest house, we were all very tired.  My mother sat down on a bed and, when she did, she yelled “Owww!”

The water was freezing!

The Mascara That Doesn’t Come Off

           In America, mascara is usually just a brush with fake eyelashes stuck to it.  But here, the women use black sticky stuff that doesn’t come off.  It is called osma.  We saw a woman doing it (painting it on her eyebrows in the bazaar.  I’m in a city called Turkestan, by the way.

Mommy getting osma put on

            When Mom took a picture of her, everyone laughed.  They wanted us to do it, too.   Mom went first and I thought “it might be a little too black.”  I did it because the lady told me to.

Me with osma on

          When it was done, I thought it looked weird.  Do we look like Kazakh girls?  That’s a joke!

Mom adds:  kids should skip over this part!

           Hmmm.  Fruit sellers doing their make-up … something interesting there.  I took a closer look.  One woman was making a dark line across her forehead.  She was painting it on with a black stuff in a pot that looked like tar.  ”Wow!  A uni-brow!”  I stole sereptitious looks while pretending to examine their apricots.  When my flash went off in the dark bazaar, the women ducked out of the shot.  ”Look behind you,” said Paul.  I turned to see a line of flashing gold teeth.  The sellers all thought this was hysterical.  The women I tried to photograph jokingly chastised me and pointed to a stool.  ”Okay.”  I thought to myself, “Why not look like a woman in a Qajar painting or a fruitseller from Samarkand, or an innocent abroad?  Why not?”  Katya watched the process and actually agreed to be guinea pig number two.  When it was all finished, the women smiled.  We’d provided the afternoon’s amusement.

          As soon as it was done, I got scared.  What if it doesn’t come off?  Will I be stuck like this forever?  I tried to find the words to ask any sympathetic person I saw how to remove osma.  A family selling black things that looked like beans but turned out to be something to smoke, laughed as they regarded us.  The husband with gold teeth, shook his head when I made washing motions.  ”Kraseevy” (Beautiful).  I wasn’t fooled.

          “Can we ever get back to the way we were?” I wrote in my notebook as we drank beers and a coke at a cafe.  Nearing the end of this wild ride of a trip, my question resonates way beyond this comic situation.

Trying to get my mind off osma

          Katya was unfazed and photographed me.

          “Vaseline will do the trick, honey, don’t worry,” I said more for my benefit than hers.

The Love That Was Dangerous

Katya backstage before the Prologue with Juliet, Romeo, and Balthazar

Hello, guys:

           I want to tell you that my Mom is doing the play Romeo and Juliet here.  And guess what?  I’m in it!  But I don’t get to go to all the rehearsals.  That is because my mom only does it with certain people.

Acting out the double death with Polly Pocket dolls"A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life."

          My favorite characters are Tybilt, Mercutio, and Benvoleo and the Nurse.  Dema (Dimitry) makes a funny Tybilt, because he never acts angry like he should.

Dema as Tybilt

          In the movie  Romeo + Juliet, my favorite scene is the pool hall because I like pool.  I also like how the party begins at the Capulet mansion.

          Our play at Mom’s Institute is better because the actors do a good job.  And the costumes are good.  And the lines are easy to remember.

Different Schools, Different Rules

Here I am in front of School Number 6

There are different rules at the school here that are different from my school, St. John Vianney, back in Flint.   Here are some of them.

They run in the hallways here during breaks

       2.   You can bring cellphones to school in Semey.

        3.   Here you can wear any clothes you want, as long as there is a white shirt and black pants or skirt.

         4.  You get five break times in Semey.  There are no breaks at SJV.

         5.   You don’t have to be a teacher here to draw on the chalkboard.

          6.   You may bring Game Boys and DS to school here.  They play them at break time.

Does the Tooth Fairy Come for Nauryz?

There were yurts and singers everywhere

         Hello, I’m back. Today there was a big festival for the holiday, Nauryz, that celebrates the coming of spring. The party was supposed to be in March but got cancelled because we had a big snowstorm. And guess what? I lost a tooth at the festival. I got to ride a horse, and I got a trumpet. There were a lot of music concerts, and I saw a boy who looked my age – maybe two years older – singing on stage.

They had horses at the festivalThere's blood on my handkerchief!

See the blood on the handkerchief?

          I wrote a letter to the tooth fairy in cursive. My Mom and Dad aren’t sure whether she comes here. But anyway, I asked her for vampire fangs. I wrote that if she didn’t have them maybe she could bring two dollars instead. I told her to write back to me. I think the tooth fairy will come since the Easter bunny came.

          I’ll be back in three months. Well, I miss you. Bye, Katya

A Trip to the Zoo

A Bactrian camel - designed for the extreme weather here

          I went to the zoo yesterday.  The zoo is on an island. I saw wolves, boars, bears, yaks, does, stags, ponies, eagles, and camels.  A girl there had a baby calf.  Big-horned cows were out on the road near someone’s house. 

Cows on the road between the zoo and a village

          There is a statue.  They tested bombs in this area.  That is why it is there.

Here I am sitting in the sun at the monument to people killed by bombs

Wonder Pets in Spring!

Hello,

          I’m going to tell you about some of the shows that we get on TV here.  My Dad likes BBC, but I don’t.  He also likes the Wonder Pets.  I’ve been watching the Wonder Pets, too.  Yesterday me and my Mom made clay figures of the three wonder pets.  We pretended they were saving animals and we sang all the parts (in English) even though when I watch the show, it is in Russian.  In one of the stories we made up, a skunk is stuck on top of a pole and then he falls.  We made up this funny thing to go with it:  “Oh no, the skunk is dead.  Our mission failed.  Oh well, another day.  Come on … the phone is ringing (they have a mobile) … there’s an animal in trouble somewhere.”  The super hero wonder pets are now in their boat on the river, going to help the baby kitten.  “There’s an animal in trouble … oh no, it’s us.  Ahhhh!”  They scream as their boat goes over the waterfall.  “Oh good.  Nobody’s dead.”  Now that we have the internet in our apartment, I can watch Wonder Pets on YouTube.  Mom and Dad are learning the English words to the songs. 

          By the way, it is Nauryz here.  Nauryz is the big holiday when people celebrate the coming of Spring.  Spring is taking way too long to come though.  There is a lot of snow.   Because of Nauryz, I have two weeks off from school.  I wish we could go to Florida. 

Fake flowers for sale at the Bazaar

Happy Valentine’s Day

Hi you guys!
Happy Valentine’s Day. I don’t know whether my school does much for Valentine’s Day since it was closed all last week. It was really cold … -30 every day. Tomorrow is probably open. I am taking some valentines to school with me.

Mom and Dad made me cards. I got a fuzzy pillow that has a heart on it for my bed, and Mom picked out a new blue quilt. I’ve been making “dens” with my quilts lately and pretending to hibernate. I hope you all had a good time at your party on Friday.
I miss you.
Love,
Katya