It feels quite fitting to be sitting in the kitchen at 4 AM writing to you. In fact, this middle-of-the-night blog post appears to have become a rite of passage for each new home we inhabit. Remember when I wrote to you in Malawi? And India? Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?
Well, let’s get to it, shall we? There’s lots to update you on. The flight was relatively uneventful. We departed at 6 PM on Monday night and landed in Frankfurt seven hours later. We all slept a bit on the first flight but were starting to drag by the time we got off the plane in Frankfurt. Unfortunately, we had five hours to kill before we’d board the plane to Almaty for another 7-hour flight. It was a looooooong five hours of roaming the airport. The second flight was better and I passed the time with a nap, a movie, and some reading. It had only been a year since I’d taken a long-haul flight but I was surprised at how much harder it was than I remembered. Chalk it up to getting older, I guess.
In total, we were in transit 19 hours from takeoff to final landing. We landed in Almaty shortly after midnight on Wednesday. When we exited the terminal, we were relieved to see our sponsor and a motorpool driver waiting for us; both of whom accompanied us on the 30-minute journey to our new home.
I wish I could better describe the strange mix of emotions I feel every time we open the door to a house we’ve never seen before. A house is such a personal thing, and not getting to choose your home feels like a big gamble, especially in a foreign country where home is a place you seek solace in after a hard day navigating a new culture. I NEED this space to be that for us, and I we cross the threshold and step into the entryway, I vowed to make this house our home, no matter what it took.
We eventually got to bed around 3 AM and slept until noon. Nick didn’t need to go into work, but used the afternoon to get organized for his first day of work (Thursday). This is how he spent a good chunk of hours in the afternoon. :)
Check out that awesome wallpaper . . . I know you’re jealous! Nia and I, on the other hand, were craving food and exploration, so we took off for a walk in our new neighborhood. We’re in a gated townhouse community, but just outside the gates we found a sweet little café with decent lattes and some satisfying food.
I had a lovely Asian bowl, while Nia had an odd combination of pancakes (more like crepes with a yogurt dipping sauce), hot chocolate and chicken nuggets.
Our waitress didn’t speak English, so I had my first attempt at conversing in Russian. I give myself a C-, as I totally froze up and resorted to pointing in lieu of words. I even looked up how to say chicken nuggets in Google Translate and practiced it in advance, but still butchered it. Here’s how you say it, by the way:
“Куриные наггетсы” Here’s how google says to pronounce it: Kurinyye naggetsy. I will definitely have to keep working on that one because Nia is a big fan and will surely order it again soon. Speaking of Nia, when I went into the café to pay the bill, a couple came up and started talking to her in Russian. She freaked out for a minute, but then they switched to English when they realized she didn’t know Russian. Turns out they were from the U.S.—Kazakhs who grew up in Almaty but moved to the U.S. after high school.
This experience of being confused for a local is new for us. We’ve stood out like sore thumbs in every other place we’ve lived and it’s quite disorienting to have someone come up and speak to you in rapid-fire Russian expecting a reply (it’s happened to me four times already). It’s fun to blend for once, but also feels daunting too.
When we returned home, our sponsor family’s children invited Nia to come play at the playground in our complex. We didn’t see her for three hours, which we took as a good sign of acclimation. Let’s hope this trend continues at her new kid orientation at school on Friday.
We also had two visitors pop by in the afternoon–our sponsors, as well as one of our other neighbors, an American who will be working on Nick’s team. It was really lovely to have people stopping by to say hi and check in on us. Made us feel very welcome. I think that’s a good place to stop for today. I’ll be back soon with more updates. Thanks for following our Kazakhstani adventures everyone!
