romigaspirc, 22 May 2010
Kazakhstan , Almaty °

Still in Almaty

It’s been 10 days since my last message here. It took me 10 days to find out how to upload more photos. I have also written to Whereareyou.net and they promise to reply in 24 hours. No reply so far. There is no way to buy more storage while you are logged in. So I logged out and donated myself more storage. Finally I managed to pay myself through PayPal and still I am not able to upload more than 10 photos. Why things go so slow?

Anyway, I will upload more photos as soon as I will be able to. I am still in Almaty, one more week and half. We have had some more field trips, but mostly we work in the office here in the city. Every morning we walk to the office, which takes about 30 minutes, around 13 we have a lunch in nearby Uzbek restaurant, which serves wonderfully delicious food. Food here is very heavy, oily, with lots of onion, meat, but also very tasty. Plov seems to be our favourite one so far. It’s rice with carrot and lamb meat. Samsa is meat inside dough, also a great stuff. And more and more… Great food!

Today three senior colleagues left to Astana as they have workshop there and next week Tuesday they fly to Kyzilorda, take car and drive 5 hours to Aralsk and try to reach the Aral Sea or what is still left of it. I am staying here with senior colleague from work. Pieter is irrigation specialist and as junior water management expert I am here to assist with his work. We walked today to the green market and found all we needed. It seems Uzbeks are the main vegetables and food producers and sellers in this part of Kazakhstan.

Next week Pieter and I have another trip northward toward town of Taldykorgan, where we are meeting irrigation department and hope to get answers to our questions re irrigation, land lease, water rights and payments, etc.

These days it is very hot in Almaty, days are sunny, though showers here and there break in. As I am not at all city person I miss my garden and try to find some sense of being and living here in the city for few weeks now. But knowing that soon I will be seeing my dear Luka again and be able to work in our garden keeps me up and gives me courage and joy to fulfil my tasks.