International School Teacher Blogs: “Jazzystan” (Two teachers that work in Kazakhstan)
Are you inspired to start-up a blog about your adventures living abroad and working at an international school?
Our 46th blog that we would like to highlight is called “Jazzystan” Check out the blog entries of these international school educators who work in Kazakhstan
A few entries that we would like to highlight:
Ode to the Almaty Pigeon Market
“Last Sunday, Anna and I had our good friends Frankie and Keith to visit from Bishkek, where they have recently moved. Keith used to live in Almaty and Frankie had been before so it was trickier to wow them with the ‘go-to’ visitor activities. (The top choices being Big Almaty Lake, Kok Tobe etc. which are great by the way.) So we decided to go a pigeon market we’d heard of. We have actually tried to go to this pigeon market a number of times but always end up lolling about having brunch and missing it as it closes at 12. But, finally, we made it there and it was definitely worth the wait.
The market is right next to Kazan Cathedral, the oldest Orthodox Cathedral in Almaty, debating back to 1854. The cathedral is plainer than most orthodox churches I have visited before and has a refreshing amount of fresh flowers. It is also home to a cat and a small but nifty little gift shop. I’d highly recommend the gift shop if you really like gold things with saints faces on which I really, really do. To work out where church is- check out the map on this Tripadvisor page…”
How fun to visit the local markets in your host country. You really get a firsthand look at the locals and what they are buying and selling. Of course, the best ones are the ones that are selling things that you would consider a bit strange; crickets, exotic animals, and pigeons!
After searching the keyword “market” on our Comment Search page, we found 76 comments. Here is one of them from Qatar Academy (Sidra): “Once the weather cools, there is an outdoor market next MIA (museum of Islamic Art) they sell food from around the world – Indian, Arabic, Thai, American, etc…clothes, art, knick knacks. It’s a nice way to spend the weekend outside, it’s one of the largest green spaces in Qatar and great for families too. I generally bring a blanket and a book during the winter months when it’s not hot and the sun isn’t intense for long periods of time (though there are shaded areas too.)”
“Most people in Almaty are bilingual and many speak three or four languages. The two big languages in the city are Russian and Kazakh. Linguistically unrelated, Russian is a Slavic language whereas Kazakh is Turkic. Kazakh is on the rise but in central Almaty Russian is the language you hear floating around the streets. Both are written in the Cyrillic alphabet but Kazakh has some bonus letters added. In 2015, the Minster of Sports and Culture announced that there would be a gradual move to transfer Kazakh into the Latin alphabet. We hope this doesn’t happen. The Uzbek government has been promoting the use of the Uzbek in the Latin script since the early 2000s. However, the strange mixture of Cyrillic and Latin Uzbek all over Tashkent hurt our eyes and brains.…”
It is interesting the language abilities of the local people. Good to know about these abilities before you move there so you can get prepared. Luckily, we have a comment topic related to the language of the local people. It is called: “Languages of the host city and the level of English spoken there.” Here is a sample comment from this topic from Alexandria International Academy: “Language in Egypt is Egyptian Arabic. Many younger people people some English, though the level is usually fairly low. It’s generally easy enough to get around with a basic understanding of Arabic, but the locals can tend not to be very helpful when language difficulties arise.”
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Want to work for an international school in Kazakhstan like these bloggers? Currently, we have 17 international school teachers that have listed that they currently live in this country. Check them out here. We also have one member that is from this country.
* If you are an international school teacher and would like your blog highlighted on International School Community contact us here.
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Lesson 7 (December): 
Lesson 12 (May); 
Shawntel Allen is a career teacher who has taught in Indiana, Georgia, Venezuela and Colombia. She has also lived in France and Benin, West Africa. She loves to cook foods from places she has visited and places she hopes to visit. Her classroom does not have any traditional student desks (only video rockers, bean bags, couches, pillows…) and her goal is for her and her students to be 100% paperless. She is currently teaching in a one-room schoolhouse on the remote island of Afognak in Alaska but is “back in class” looking for a position in an overseas international school for next school year.
