Kazakhstan – The first meeting with Olympic athletes

April 18-22

2012 is a year that promises much. From the European Championships in the summer to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, it is a year whose calendar is already packed close to capacity. There is one event that has captured the imagination of (most) British people, however. 2012 is an Olympic year, and this 29^th Olympiad will be hosted by London.

One of the downsides of living so far away from home is that the hype and anticipation isn’t quite the same in a country that isn’t inviting the world into its house for a few weeks to play sport. It is strangely difficult to get too excited about events that take place on man-made beaches in Hampton Court when my ‘local’ man-made beach is in the Khan Shatyr complex in Astana. Whereas the London Evening Standard may have at least one article a day talking about the summer’s shenanigans, media here are not yet ready to devote their time to an event that, for them, is distant both geographically and chronologically.

Luckily for us, our school has strong links with many Embassies here in Astana, including the British Embassy. On April 18^th, we joined forces with them to host an event celebrating a poignant moment in the build-up to London 2012. That date, if you are unaware, marked one hundred days until the start of the Olympic Games.

The British Ambassador, a few more dignitaries and some Kazakh Olympic officials came to the school on a bright, warm Wednesday afternoon to share this moment with us and the children. We watched a video which informed all about the importance of the whole country to the London Olympics – including places as different as the Royal Mint in Wales and an airbase in northwest England.

After this and a few speeches in various languages, we convened outside to hold two relay races. One involved the children, and the other involved the adults. For the latter, each team consisted of one male teacher, one female teacher, one member of the Embassy and one Kazakh Olympic athlete.

Did I forget to mention that Kazakh Olympic athletes were at the school? How silly of me. Admittedly there were only three of them, and they were all swimmers as opposed to the runners we had believed would represent the team. However, they proved enormously popular within the school, with children asking for autographs and hugging them. Through two girls in my class I discovered that the two female swimmers were swimming butterfly and breaststroke respectively. As you would expect, they looked very athletic and ready to accomplish their dreams this summer. Even if one of the girls laughed when I suggested to her that she would win gold.

I didn’t run in this race – partly because other people deserved a chance to run, but also because I had my own Olympic-sized mountain to climb merely a few days later. On the following Sunday I competed in my first ever triathlon. Those of you who know me and, until recently, my inability to ride a bike will realise that it is a big achievement for me. I learnt to ride less than two years ago, have hardly ridden since, and I still hate bikes.

A triathlon is three events: swimming, cycling and running, completed in that order. There were 36 people suckered into competing. The joy – or the antonym of that feeling – of a triathlon is that different people have different strengths and weaknesses, so completing three diverse events allow the playing field to be levelled.

To say the swim was chaotic would be a major understatement. Everybody swum in the school’s small swimming pool simultaneously, with six people in each lane. This meant that people regularly crashed into one another, and swimming at a reasonable speed was rendered impossible.

As mentioned before, I’m not best friends with bicycles. I borrowed one from a parent in order to compete, and had completed two practice runs of the circuit which ran through the pyramid park and under some bridges. It also went into a construction site. Until the Olympic Wednesday I had never cycled off-road before, and didn’t enjoy it.

After surviving 20km on two wheels, it was time to use my strength, my two feet, to run the final 6km. Possibly owing to my lack of speed on the bike, I had a little bit of energy for the run, and completed it quickly. I finished the whole triathlon in 1 hour 41 minutes, which I was happy with. The winner, a fitness instructor, had finished over twenty minutes before. He was in my swimming lane, and you could tell that he was going to be good from his distinct lack of body fat. A worthy winner.

It’s been a sporty week that has encouraged our children to strive for athletic perfection whilst showing them that the adults they respect – be they parents, teachers or others – that they too are capable of completing challenges that make us feel like Olympians.

Love you all

Matt

Kazakhstan – The first lantern festival

April 14-17

Hello everyone!

Spring is a time of blossoming flowers, rising temperatures and animals coming out of hibernation. In the case of Kazakhstan, the first has yet to happen, but the population has begun to enjoy the joys of wearing less than six layers of clothing. The Astana Lantern Festival was one of the first examples of this in 2012.

This was the second year that the festival has taken place. It is in the park along the River Ishim, a place that has, for the past five months, has been a desolate, silent snowscape. Now that the river has thawed, and the snow has melted, the park is now packed to the rafters at the weekend. On Sunday night, it played host to a festival of love.

The story goes (from one of the assistants at our school) that Valentine’s Day, our commercial celebration of love, is held at a time of year that is too cold for Kazakhs to appreciate. Having lived through -40’C, I can appreciate that. An alternative for the locals is to wait until mid-April, when it is warm enough to show affection to a loved one. The way they do that here is with lanterns.

We headed into the park in the early evening to stroll through the crowd, before purchasing a small, red piece of paper that is referred to as a lantern. For those of you who are unaware of how these work, you light a candle which is held below the paper.

The heat rises into the lantern, billowing and expanding it until it is ready to release.

We waited patiently until it was time for everybody to let their lantern go. Mine travelled…three metres. At least it didn’t get stuck in the trees, like many other lanterns. Slightly dangerous to release lots of lit candles into the air in close proximity to trees when there hasn’t been any rainfall for months.

Though ours ultimately bumped gently along the floor, many others soared and sailed through the serene sky. The night was illuminated by lights moving over the river and out towards the steppe. It was a stunning and unexpected sight.

This was the first weekend in a long time when we could relax and sit outside. We spent our Saturday evening sat outside the pyramid having a wonderful picnic. Astana has a surprising amount of greenery and nice places if you look hard enough, and we’re looking forward to spending as much time as possible outside and finding out much more about our city.

Love you all

Matt

Kazakhstan - The first 5D cinema experience

 April 3-13

Hello everyone!

As Morgan Freeman (almost) said in Deep Impact: The snow is receding!!

After seven months I decided to return to the Land of my Fathers to enjoy some quality family time and home comforts. It was nice to see everybody, even though not every surprise went as planned. What should have been below, for example, is a video of me surprising my sister. However, due to her reluctance to open the door, the video is so long that it is too big for the blog.

The main event that occurred whilst I was back in the UK was my cousin’s wedding. We travelled towards the mountains (though having seen much higher parts of the world, I hesitate to call them that) to Craig-y-Nos castle. Less of a castle and more of a country estate, but still pretty and a rare opportunity for me to see the green, green grass of home. It was a wonderful weekend full of fun and a lot of food.

The weather at home was stunning. It was an Indian Summer…before summer has started. This was a great contrast to the winter I experienced in Astana. Considering this, it was a rather pleasant surprise to return to a mild Kazakhstan with temperatures in double figures. Positive double figures. It is now warmer than Britain, something which I have taken great pleasure in telling the folks at home.

Winter is still very much visible. Inexplicably, the children still wear winter coats and hats as we saunter past in flip-flops and t-shirts. We have been informed that this is a by-product of the Soviet era, when summer officially stared on May 1 and winter clothes were to be worn until that time. This helps to explain the strange looks we get when we sport a relative lack of clothing. I’m hopeful that the new generation will be able to liberate themselves from that aspect of their past, as well as their coats!

The other reminder of the previous months is the fact that the river is still frozen, though it has begun to thaw. We believe that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy, but am not entirely sure which side of the line people who are still fishing on the Ishim quite fit into. It is now warm enough to run alongside the river, which I have done a couple of times from school. A combination of security guards around the President’s Palace and a lack of paving under the bridges, however, makes this a difficult task.

The warmer climate, which is now pushing temperatures up towards 20’C, means that we are more willing to venture outside. We went to watch a ‘Beatles Day’, consisting of average-at-best performers crooning classic tunes in Russian accents. We also watched a bizarre 5D movie in the same entertainment complex, which involved us being flung around in a small car and sprayed with water as we moved into different worlds. Trippy.

We went to one of our friend’s birthday party on Saturday, a girl called Gulshat.

Kazakh fun fact: The country stops to celebrate the birthday of its leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, on July 6^th. Capital City day is one of many public holidays that Kazakh citizens enjoy.

The main difference between a Kazakh and British party – well, the ones I have been too – is the volume of vodka consumed, and the number of toasts throughout the evening. In reality, they’re pretty similar. Food, alcohol, dancing and smiles were the icing on the cake that has been our very happy return to Kazakhstan.

 

 

Love you all

Matt