Lies and Limitations

Special oils, amazing grains, secret teas from China – I’ve had it with these people trying to sell their products to us. They come with a bottle of palm oil, PALM OIL!, and try to pass it off as some special healing medicine. If only our kids would have one tablespoon of palm oil in their tea every day, they will be healthy. That’s just great. In the meantime, I have to listen to people tell me what we NEED to buy and waste my time and my tea that I buy for me and my colleagues. I’ve become much better at taunting them and poking fun at them while they pitch their products, telling them how we cook with such oil in America and pay a fraction of the price for Chinese tea – that I’ll just have my mom sent me a case for the same cost as one 25 pack box of tea.

I am ok to good at many things, but an expert at nothing. I speak a couple languages with mediocrity, play trombone alright, can fix small, uncomplicated things, can work with different computer programs with limited ability, and can cook food that’s tasty, but not amazing. I don’t know whether that’s good or not. I’d like to have a specialty in something, like languages, for instance, but I don’t. Is it better to be the best at something or be ok at many things? It’s something I ponder as I realize more and more my limitations in different areas.

But I am making progress in Russian. I had another one of those moments of clarity last night when I was in a cab on my way back to my place and the Taxi driver muttered something, asking where to turn, and I was able to mutter back. A couple shots of vodka will take your accented, incorrect Russian and turn it into muttered, understandable Russian. It’s a great thing, really.

Things at work are ridiculous. We are so busy, running around because we can’t plan as a team, nor do they care to work together. That isn’t the only problem, but I feel like I shouldn’t be too negative on my blog. It’s a huge problem, among others, that’s preventing us from operating like a normal, healthy NGO. I’m not sure how to help nor am I sure that I can help. I’ll do what I can, hopefully the next volunteer has some more ideas.

On Saturdays, trucks back up to the sidewalk in front of the Central Market to sell their goods at a cheaper price.


The first snow of the season! It's nice now, but in four months, i'll have about had it with the snow.


First snow - night time.


Me, Maher, and Бауржан (Baurzhan) having fun in the snow.


A bad picture of me made cool by inverting the colors.


The poster I designed for the HIV/AIDS center. It's their ideas, I simply drew it up. The green man is me :-) In the quote, he is saying "Look where the way is leading!" and in curvy orange text "We choose life, and you?"