Out on the steppe in the Northwest of KZ

I’m back on the steppe and feel like I can breathe again. I have been invited to teach in Aktobe, in Northwest KZ. The students and faculty here have a dedication to medicine in general and Family Medicine in particular that is refreshing and reassuring compared to the majority of experience I have had back in Almaty.

I have been giving case based master classes to medical audiences of 25-150 people over the last week. After a class I went to the cafeteria for some tea. As I entered all conversation stopped as all cafeterias are viewed as sanctums for students. Faculty rarely venture there and if they do they tread lightly. I got some tea and as I was scoping out which student occupied table I was going to join/harass I was invited to join some 1^st year, English speaking students. As is my habit I asked why they wanted to go into medicine and to a person stated that they had wanted to do so from childhood. There was one, the only guy in the group and an ethnic Korean who was sent here by his mother and upon arriving began to love medicine in its own right. Jack pot.

The presentations have been well received; lots of note taking, conversing (sometimes with animated undertones), and collegial back and forth. My hosts often apologize for the presumptuous manner in which my points are questioned as they are worried that not enough respect is being paid. I tell them that the way I know that the audience is taken in is when there is disagreement and that it is healthy for the students to see it.

The new medical center was built on the outskirts of Aktobe, surrounded by Kazakhstan’s equivalent of McMansions! Each looks like the other but for façade and the usual “ticky tacky”. Interesting all seem to be built with a craftsmanship that I haven’t seem elsewhere.

This is a three day weekend as Monday is International Women’s Day. I have always thought this was a much better day to celebrate women than Mother’s Day. So lots of chocolates and flowers in the magazines and bus stop kiosks.

To celebrate, West Kazakhstan Marat Ospanov State Medical University, where I currently teach had a huge talent show. And there is some serious talent here: a choir, three three person groups singing in Kazakh, Russian, and Turkish. (I am always reminded of the ancient Ottoman influence in this region). There were Kazakh dances and of course formal recognition of work well done for just about all of the faculty. Each was called up and given a flower and certificate. No men as medicine is virtually all female here. The masters of ceremonies were what I have taken to be the convention; a man speaking Kazakh and a woman speaking Russian. Both have the intonation of a ring announcer. Oh and in Kazakhstan, just like traffic wherein speed is either peddle to the floor or stop, volume is either ear splitting or off.

The weather here is more severe than Almaty. It hasn’t risen above 32F and there is thick ice everywhere. It is overcast most of the time and as things here are manufactured from concrete the overcast lends itself to an entirely new spectrum of white-gray-black.

It seems that most cities have at least one mall, here and in Almaty it is ‘MEGA”. All the signage is in English. The one here is about 5km from where I am staying so it is a nice walk, if not icy and cold. I walked into Mega and was immediately made for an American or at least a non-Russian speaker. Kids were walking up to me saying, “Hello. How are you?” then giggling and laughing as they skipped away.

Before I left Almaty I did a long walk that turned out to be a rather lengthy scavenger hunt. Almaty has some truly amazing graffiti. So what follows speaks for itself: