Jetlag

Saturday, August 21, 2010

It is currently 5 in the morning and I have been awake for hours. I was sooooo tired when I went to bed last night, but jetlag is funny in its way of deciding how much sleep you need and when.

Yesterday was painful, literally. Not only did we have 12 hours of training activities (with barely 5 hours of sleep after our marathon travel session here), but we had to get the beginning of our medical clinics underway. I’ve now got band-aids and puncture wounds decorating my upper arms from all the immunization shots they said I needed. On the bright side, I won’t be getting rabies any time soon. I just wish I could lift my arms.

Today we’ll finish up our crash courses in how not to completely screw up in Kazakhstan, then we’ll meet our host families. Yesterday we had an informative 2 hour language lesson to help us at least greet them in Russian, but considering that on our bodies’ clocks it was actually held at 4:30 in the morning (3:30 in the afternoon here), I’m not so sure of what exactly we’ll be reproducing when the time comes. I just hope my host family understands that when I start enthusiastically shouting “Godzilla! Godzilla!” over and over again, they know to answer that they are doing just fine, thanks, and then kindly suggest that next time I try saying something like kok-DILL-a, which is the more customary way of asking someone how they are.

Jokey cynicism aside, Matt and I are both happy to be here. We both mentioned that it felt good to be abroad again, it’s our milieu. All the strangeness and funny signs and trying to figure everything out is, ironically, our comfort zone, as uncomfortable as it is.

Hope everyone is doing well at home and that you are thinking of sending us lots of letters! Our address for the next few weeks is: