Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Saturday, Sep. 9 (Day Ten)

Saturday September 9 (Day Ten)

Visiting the Green House of the Arkyt Ata Kyzylorda Univeristy

We visited Green House of the Arkyt Ata Kyzylorda Univeristy with Salima, the senior teacher of the English Faculty and the Vice-Governor, Rakhim. The Green House was the result of the CIDA, Kyzylorda and Kyrgiz between 2000 and 2003. They grow cucumbers and from time to time disseminate the information and knowledge about the green house they set up to the local farmers. So far 5 green houses were set up by local farmers through this knowledge transfer. The lady in charge of the Green House is thinking about planting the flowers. Now in Almaty all the expensive flowers are imported from France and they thought it would be great to plant and grow flowers here.
I thought about Prof. Ogata, and it would be great for him to give some help for this University for the development of the Green House projects. Anyway, they don`t have any contact in Japan and Kyushu University is trying to expand the contact in Asian region.

Invitation to Bota`s House Lunch

In the afternoon we were invited to Bota`s house located in the newly developed housing area. Her house seemed to be still under construction but looked very nice compared to other houses in Kyzylorda.
It was her father who attracted all our attention. He is in his seventies and very much Kazakhs who wanted to preserve its tradition. He showed a great interest in Japan and knew very much about Japan. He said he read a couple of books about Japan and pointed out it was Japan that invented submarine first time in history, which I have never heard of. As a very much traditional Kazakh, one of his first questions about Japan was how Japanese husbands discipline their wives. We responded that it was wife not the husband that disciplines the other.
Bis Palmak, meaning foods eaten by five fingers, was the best and we ate them with five fingers following his teaching.
He almost ordered to drink up vodka and Miyuki had to drink three shots of it due to his continuous toast to Japan. Me? I cheated since he did not toast much to Korea.