Teams line up in preparation for the national anthems http://twitpic.com/ll6b9
Oct 15 2009
Teams line up in preparation f…
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Oct 15 2009
Pre match knockabout. 1of3 pho…
Pre match knockabout. 1of3 photos from last night’s Kazakhstan v Croatia football match. Bad data speeds @ the time http://twitpic.com/ll523
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Oct 13 2009
Someone Wants Tickets!
The anonymous author of KZBlog has posted about the Shumenov v. Campillo rematch that many have been waiting for. For fuller details, go and read the blog post linked to, but basically the Kazakh guy narrowly lost on a points decision in the last round. Obviously his supporters in the crowd felt this was wrong, and there was a whiff of a doping scandal when his opponent (Campillo) disappeared right when he was required to undergo a drugs test. Anyway, all that wasn’t the main reason I noticed the post, it was that the author can be clearly seen pleading subtly hinting for a ticket to this rematch, as he knows some of the Kazakh boxer’s family, indirectly. Good luck to both of them!
Oct 11 2009
Amabassador And Masks
OK, so here we have the start of catch up photos. First the non-Anna related ones, starting with these taken on the 30th July. We went for a walk in Astana Park, just across the road from us, with DanD and his two daughters. Whilst walking around, we randomly bumped into the (ex? He is leaving for sunnier shores soon, if he hasn’t already) British Ambassador to Kazakhstan, and nice man who works with him. Shame on me, I’ve forgotten his name, but it could well be he wouldn’t want it posted for security reasons anyway. Whilst there, I also spotted some children on go-karts with varying levels of face mask safety in use…
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- Mask In Use
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- Mask Almost In Use
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- (Under) Face Mask
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- Anna’s Pushchair, Nice Man I Forgot The Name Of, UK Ambassador To Kazakhstan and DanD
Oct 11 2009
Atyrau And Traditions Explained
AustinGirl, someone who I recently started following on Twitter tweeted that “Not allowed to look at newborn babies for 40 days nor look at baby camels. Brings ill health. Bad luck.” (This followed on from an earlier tweet “Kazakh women don’t drink anything cold for fear their eggs will freeze. And, not allowed to look at baby camels.” I’m not entirely sure how looking at the new offspring of cattle supplies your future baby with bad vibes, or whether the not looking at baby camels thing applies to all humans, but I did reply explaining that the cold drink thing isn’t believed by everyone here, sadly most doctors here do still believe that cold temperatures will lead to you getting a cold, and that whole 40 days with a newborn wasn’t specifically avoiding looking at them, just worried about their immune system. Anyway, I hope she has a great time in Atyrau, and doesn’t mind me occasionally sending her corrections or further info 🙂
Oct 08 2009
SEC SaryArka
DanD bought round a video that I had hoped to view for months – the one featuring a voice over I recorded just before I left for Britain last year. In the end, the script had major alterations, and I wasn’t around to re-record it, so DanD provided the English audio for the final release. I will try and upload a clip to YouTube soon and publish it on this blog. I’ve learnt my lesson though – I’ll create a new account as I don’t want to risk losing all the personal videos again when someone decides fair use doesn’t apply and gets my account banned once more. This particular film was on Social Entrepreneurship, which in this case basically means government run organizations that plough the profit from their ventures back into improvements for Kazakh citizens, rather than someone’s back pocket.
We first played the video back on our DVD player (the file is some sort of AVI, not yet checked if it is specifally DivX/xVid etc.), and I had a little shock when I heard my voice – as the audio was encoded with a variable bit rate (VBR), our DVD player got a little confused and ended up rendering my voice falsetto, with me sounding like Mickey Mouse! At first I thought the production company had simply sped up my recording in order to make it match the video footage they were using, but once played on our PC, all was fine 🙂
Once I rediscover the exact title for the film on Kazakh Transportation policies for the future, also recorded last year, Dan should hopefully be able to get a copy of that, and we’re hoping the work we recently did together for a film on the International Religious Tolerance conferences should also be available. Something else to add to my CV to make it stand out a little more than the rest, to potential employers back in Britain 🙂
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Oct 03 2009
Failed2post pics of Tishka’s k…
Failed2post pics of Tishka’s kittens this year.Apologies.Hoping this looks better on a PC than it does on my phone. http://twitpic.com/jzg1b
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Sep 27 2009
Strange OD/rec. drugs(?) warni…
Strange OD/rec. drugs(?) warning sign in Oasis cafe last night. No “No fishing in this toilet” sign in this place! http://twitpic.com/jbj5h
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Sep 16 2009
New Blogs For You To Read
As you may have guessed from the category this post is in, all these blogs are connected with Kazakhstan. I’ll try to remember to write a post soon re-capping all the blogs I already follow with interest, for any new visitors to this site.
Keep It Simple, But Try To Make It Swing – A Peace Core Volunteer (PCV), only around a few more months, but worth reading back through the older posts.
Even Goes To Kazakhstan – Studying at KIMEP university in Almaty. Norwegian, so not all posts in English.
ABCyrillic – Love the name, this is another PCV, who I believe has just started their time in this country. I especially related to her stray puppy story, though mine was a kitten, back when we first moved to Astana. Where are you Charlie? I hope you survived the winter after apparently running away.
hmm, thats it apprently. I had thought there were another couple of blogs I’d also found via twitter, but is there were, they’re now hiding.
Sep 15 2009
Home Delivery Report
So, Kazakhstan’s Astana’s first (?) home delivery service for supermarket shopping have made contact. It looks as though their promise of delivery within two hours of ordering (any time of day at least) is a little hopeful on their part. Given that we are the twentieth order they’ve ever taken, I can’t help wondering if as their popularity increases, their time frames will have to become a little more realistic.
As half expected, the bread crumbed chicken products (the sort of thing I can cook in an oven without starting a fire 🙂 ) were not in stock, and the 72 packs of nappies (diapers) also weren’t available.
They’ve just left. It took them 2.5 hours instead of two. Not bad. A woman looked after the paperwork and money, a man carried the bags up and drives. Four packs of nappies became three, with one the wrong size. Cheddar cheese became ordinary cheese slices. A few items weren’t in stock in the supermarket they use, and we were told, a few items were either forgotten, or simply not in stock and they didn’t tell us. The lady was polite, no one on their staff speaks English (for now), and they hope to have images on their site for each product within a month or so. The total charged was correct, and the lady gave Ira her mobile number when we mentioned we couldn’t find some products on their web site. (Some similar items are in different categories or with differing descriptions).
The charge for delivery is sliding, however in the opposite way to how I’d expected. Whereas some UK sites charge a fiver for orders under 40 pounds, for example, and then no charge for anything over, ZaKazDom charge at three different bands – the more you order, the higher the delivery charge. That said, so far, overall the prices have been cheaper than getting a taxi to a traditional supermarket there and back, and certainly a lot more convenient that hauling all the bags, Anna, her car seat and pushchair frame up three or four flights of stairs.
Overall, I’m happy to recommend trying them out, though if you have some last minute shopping to do for a specific meal, where exact ingredients are needed, a walk to your local shop might be safer. I’m hoping the few issues we encountered were down to the company being new, and that they’ll improve over time.
Oh, the web site address might be useful for you – Dostavlyika 🙂
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