Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Thursday, Sep. 21 (Day Twentytwo)

In the afternoon, we asked Lailya to guide us to the bookshop where you could buy books in English. There were lovely bookshops where full of English books, WELL REALLY English English books. We were trying to buy her several books on Economics and English but we could not find good books on Economics.

Back to Korea
Lailya had a class at night but she did not attend. She lied with smile that she told her professor that she would not attend the class. I knew that she lied to me but I readily believed her lies…
At the airport, there were some happenings due to our overweighed luggage, we got safely on board. Arik and Lailya were waving hands behind the dividing fence and we were too. I felt something very hot liquids near my eyes but I still don’t know the exact chemical composition of it. Oh.. help me God to come back to this country to know more about this land.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Wednesday, Sep. 20 (Day Twentyone)

Wednesday 20 September
Dinner at the Lyalya`s House
Lailya, doubtless the heroin of our research trip, has lived with her grandmother for a long time since her father and mother were working in Astana. Her family is a kind of typical educators, since her grandfather was one of the most eminent entomologists in Kz, (and one of examiner for Dr Roman’s doctoral thesis) and her father is nuclear physicist who got the degree from Moscow. Her mother is a university professor who studied in Germany. Her mother prepared so much foods and we really enjoyed the food. The only concern was that her grandmother did not have good health recently and she could not have a dinner with us. Maybe to her, we were like bad merchants who came to take her precious grand daughter away from her. The relationship between the grandmother and Lailya more convinced my feeling and impression. Next year Lailya will leave her grandmother and I am still very worried about her psychological damage after Lailya leaving. I wish her a great health and hope she can come to Japan to meet her granddaughter.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Tuesday, Sep. 19 (Day Twenty)

Tuesday 19 September
We went to the stationary shop for shopping. The favourites of mine during the trip are museum, bookshops where you can buy both books, music CDs and local movies and the last but not the least, stationary shop. I have something like shopping addiction for stationary and I still have those remains I have bought in the UK. And I don’t scrap them easily.
The stationary shop in Almaty was fantastic. They have almost everything I wanted to buy. The quality was good too. I bought measures made of wood for gifts for my students and maps and CDs.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Monday, Sep. 18 (Day Nineteen)

Monday 18 September
We had two appointments of interviews with two professors of KIMEP. When I sent a mail to International Relations Office of KIMEP, I did not have a big expectation about the responses. But it was simply good. The International Relations Office circulated my mail to the researchers and two professors contacted me. One of them was Russian educated in the states with an interest in educational assessment. He was a fluent English speaker. The second one was a Kz lady who had been involved in UNDP’s micro-credit scheme. She was so willing to do research on that subject and Miyuki was very much pleased to meet her. I thought she would be a good counterpart if we got the fund for further research.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Sunday, Sep. 17 (Day Eighteen)

Sunday 17 September

Back to Almaty
On the way to Airport to catch the plane to Almaty, we found a very high tower near the Airport. Bacchan explained that it was established to commemorate the Japanese prisoners who were building the bridge between the Airport and Kyzylorda. We dropped by and took a photo. That was the second traces of Japanese some of whom were forced or others voluntarily to come to this country far away from their home. In the war, they could be good guys and bad guys but they could be all victims of the history. They are all losers to the war. I paid homage to those losers.

Meeting with Taniguchi
At the Airport, our driver Arik and one lady, who is living in the apartment of Prof., Ishida were waiting for us. Arik’s jeep Uaz looked different also. It gave me an impression that I was sitting on the Mercedez.

Strange Pastor from New York
At night we had a dinner with Taniguchi and Lailya. Almost we finished our dinner, there was one Korean guy coming to us and asked a help. He looked in his sixties, and introduced himself a pastor from New York. And he told us that he lost his way duing the walk since it was his first day in Almaty. The taxi driver was with him and he was looking for a help. The only thing he knew was the name of the street where his rented apartment was. Of course he could not communicate with that driver. We asked that driver to go to that street since he told us that he would know if he was near that street. I told him to come back again if he could not find the apartment. And about 20 minutes, he came back again. This time it was a bit strange. When I went out of the restaurant to meet him he was talking with the girl sitting behind the seat. Having a suspicion about him, I asked the situation in English. He told us that he came from New York and lived there more than 30 years and it could be one test to prove the credibility of this story. He could not communicate with me and Miyuki properly. I gave money to Taxi driver and called Arik to take him to his apartment. He refused to go with us. I urged to get on the car and he got on but he strongly insist on getting off the car. He got off in the middle of the road and disappeared. I don’t know what was his purpose to approach me but Arik told me that he was coming out of the Casino near the restaurant just before going into the restaurant where we had a dinner and hanging around near the Casino before.

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Saturday, Sep. 16 (Day Seventeen)

Saturday 16 September (Day Seventeen)

Train to Kyzylorda at AM 3:30
Train to Kyzylorda was at 3:30 AM and we had to leave Aral Sea Hotel around 2;30 AM. Always it was difficult for me to wake up in the middle of sweet dream and I started reading materials about Aral Tenizi laying down on the bed. The thing
I found from that material was there was a monument on which the letter from V.I. Lenin to praise the provision of fish during the war in the square in front of city hall, which was surely a sign of the good old days of fishing industry. I suddenly wanted to go to that place to take a photo. My camera could well take a photo in the middle of the night and if we only have some time to drop by. When we met at the hotel lobby, I asked Lailya to ask Mr Askarov whether the square was on the way to railway station. Askarov asked why I asked that kind of question. And I told the story about that monument. The responses were a short remark that why I had not told him before and a grumpy old man’s face. Even before Lailya translated his remarks, I instantly understood that it was not that important whether that square was on the way to the railway station or not. My camera was capable of taking photo but he was not willing to go.

Arrival in Kyzylorda at AM 11:40
Different from our journey from Kyzylorda, we soon decided to go for sleeping. I took the upper of the bunker beds and it was not that bad. When I woke up there was already sunshine penetrating through the window. Getting off the platform, we soon found the face of our driver, Bakhchan.

Hotel Bereke
The hotel we stayed in Kyzylorda was the small inn named Bereke. It is very much small but cozy and has a good atmosphere. The only problem we had is you cannot control the water in terms of its temperature and quantity and we always complained about it. But after coming back from Aralsk, especially from that hotel Aral Sea, you cannot complain anymore. You have a shower in your room at least!!

Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Friday, Sep. 15 (Day Sixteen)

Friday 15 September (Day Sixteen)

Visit Association of NGOs in Aralsk
Too many NGOs sometimes can make a trouble for the coordinated development. It is especially so when there is not good governance and too many self-interested NGOs. One of the articles I read about Kz before I left Japan was on the situation of NGOs in Kz. It mentioned NGIs, Non-governmental Individuals bidding for funding from abroad. According to it, the NGO activities are a kind of new business of those people with an easy access to foreigners. I felt it strongly when I met managers of NGO associations and one of managers doing micro-credit scheme in Aralsk. It did not look like micro-credit in development context but a small financing for profit. He had a very bad impression about Japan since the Japanese embassy rejected his proposal for funding, which I think was very much natural since he did not follow the proper process. We could not get the information.

Reunion with Ms. Akmalak
We visited Ms Akmaral again to get the information on NGOs and she promised to give us information once we listed up things we wanted to know.

Alexander Min at the Local History Museum
After the meeting with Ms Akmaral, we decided to have a visit to Local History Museum. History always fascinates me and I never skip off the visit to Museum. Although it was very much small museum, there were a lot of things telling the story of the prosperity and decline of Aralsk. I encountered unexpected figures in that Museum, those Korean Kzs who lived there. Some of them were highly regarded as war heroes and one of them was Alexander Min. I wanted to take a photo and they asked us paying 50 for each photo. I wanted to have newspaper articles and they told me they would make a copy. We made an arrangement and went back to the Museum after spending some time at the local market. And there was a surprise. The manager of the Museum refused to take money in return for those copied materials and he told us that he saw the newspaper article about us. That newspaper article in Kyzylorda showed its influence several hundred kilometers away from it. Instant cerebrity.., you never know what it is until you feel it.