While I still had a couple of more days in Kazakhstan, I had mixed feelings about today, knowing that it would be my last in Taraz. After breakfast I began to organize my things so that when it came time to pack, it wouldn't take me very long. The rest of the day went by fairly quickly with "team time" with Beth, Sara, Ember, and Ken followed by a very nice home-cooked Mexican lunch. I also ended up reading the rest of the "airport book" that I had brought along.
Finally, around 10 PM, we drove to the train station. This was my third trip there, but the first with me as a passenger. Sara would be joining me on the journey to Almaty because she had to meet the members of a new delegation that were arriving. As Sara, Beth, Ken, and I chatted on the platform, I was happy to see Kiikzhan peddle towards us with his bicycle. His friendly nature and almost constant smile had been real blessings to me on the trip, and I was flattered that he had chosen to see Sara and me off that night.
The compartment itself consisted of four fold-down beds and a very small table near the window. I had taken overnight trains before and knew that it was unlikely that I would get much sleep. Sara and another woman took the top bunks, while a young guy and I took the bottom bunks. Thankfully, no one seemed to want to stay up very late so it wasn't long before we made our beds and climbed in. For a few minutes we enjoyed air-conditioning, but for some reason it was soon turned off and the rest of the night our cabin was quite stuffy and hot. I did manage some sleep, but the stuffy compartment and the poor state of the railroad tracks made it difficult indeed. I was happy and relieved when we arrived at the Almaty train station the next morning.
Sara hailed a taxi and we headed off to Teen Challenge, a drug-rehab center which also happened to run a small hotel. Sara told me that not only was it the best value in town, but it also was in a quiet neighborhood. The fifteen-minute drive went by quickly, and we were soon pulling up the wooded campus of Teen Challenge. My room was clean, comfortable, and quiet--just as Sara had described. I enjoyed a nice shower and some breakfast, happy to be free from the cramped train compartment.
An hour or so later, a friend of Sara's arrived to drive us into town. He was a friendly guy, and Sara told me that he ran a clothing shop in the city. The roads were very smooth and Almaty was very much a modern city. The driver insisted that we stop by the "Mega Mall", a very upscale and fancy shopping center. We spent perhaps 20 minutes walking through it, and I wondered what the poor villagers that I had met in Taraz would think of it. We soon left and continued our mini-tour of the city. I've never cared much for soviet-style architecture, so as we drove through Almaty I wondered if I could ever live in such a place.
Our plan was to drive to the base of Chi Bulak, a ski resort with very nice views of the city. Our driver bid us farewell and after an aborted attempt at lunch, we found ourselves in another vehicle racing through S-curves towards the resort. While the scenery was quite beautiful, we were going at such a speed that it was hard to concentrate on the view. I was happy when we arrived at Chi Bulak and escaped the vehicle. We enjoyed a nice lunch at the base of the ski lift, then bought our tickets and headed up on the ski-lift. The air temperature grew colder and colder with each meter we rose, and we saw several people in thick jackets (which you could rent). The ride, despite the now chilly air, was very beautiful. When we got off the ski-lift, we had the choice of continuing on two more lifts. As it turned out, there was a fair amount of fog, making a continued journey useless. We wondered around, snapping pictures of the resort below. It was nice to be out of the city and in the green mountains. The ride back down on the lift was just as nice as the ride up. With some apprehension we got back into the car driven by "Speed Racer" and flew back down. Sara, at my request, asked him to stop a couple of times for photos. He didn't seem to happy about it, but he complied.
Back at the base, near a huge skating stadium, we hopped on a bus and headed into town. Earlier, I had mentioned to Sara that a couple of my former students at TASIS had once attended an American school in Almaty. She knew the principal of one such school, so we hailed a taxi to take a visit. As it turned out, it wasn't the same school, but the principal was quite nice and gave us a tour. The present campus was a bit old and cramped, but she explained that through a series of miraculous circumstances, God had blessed them with some new property and the money to build a new school.
We headed back into the city-center to a pedestrian mall and looked around a bit. Our plan was to meet up with a friend of Sara's (a Kazakh woman who used to work at the Interlink office in Taraz) and a friend of a friend of mine (a Canadian guy who was good friends with a teaching colleague at ASM). We met Sara's friend first, then about an hour or so later, we met up with Albert and a lady friend that he had brought along. We enjoyed lively conversation and many laughs for the next several hours, ending our time with lots of pizza at a soviet-style pub nearby.
Back at Teen Challenge, I said good-bye to Sara. She would be leaving at 1 AM to meet a delegation. I, on the other had, would have to get up about 4 AM so that I could get to the airport by 5 or so. I was a bit worried that my Teen Challenge driver would forget, but he was there with time to spare and in about 15 minutes I was in the airport, awaiting to board my KLM flight to Amsterdam. As I sat in the airport lounge, I considered what a heart-warming and enjoyable time I had spent in Kazakhstan. I thought about all the kind people at Interlink who spent each day helping others, I thought about the orphans at Savva and Ulan and wondered what the future held for them, and I thought about when I would return to this place. Soon, I hoped.
No comments:
Post a Comment