Day 5: Part I
Greetings to our family and friends on the other side of the world! After a long, tiring day in the city, many of us have resigned ourselves back to our rooms, or to the gym where our athletes continue to stay fit. We began our day at Atakent Park, which happened to be Ms. Bocquin's personal favorite from her time living here. After de-boarding the Metro bus, many of us were amazed by the 5 large arches that stood in front of the acres of lush green grass and trees that were aching to bloom. As we continued through the park, we felt an immense sense of peace as we observed the huge numbers of locals walking their pets and and even saw one person spoiling the local squirrel population with traditional Kazakh bread. Settling down to debrief the eventful night before, we had a chance to reflect on the powerful stories from our multi-national guests. We continued through the park, marveling at the lush landscape until we stumbled upon a playground where many of us, Mr. Caragher included, let out our inner child and spent time on the monkey bars and seesaws. Later on, we were surprised by the chaperones with McDonalds! Well, not quite the McDonalds that you all know back at home. The McDonalds' here are simply known as "We're Open" because the McDonalds corporation pulled out of Kazakhstan just a few weeks ago because of trade restrictions/concerns about franchise leadership here. To be honest, the McDonalds' here seemed more healthy, but nevertheless still lacked fresh vegetables. Even though many of us were stuffed from lunch, we traveled to a local "Magazine" to indulge in our favorite Kazakh drinks and snacks, neither of which were particularly healthy. However, the store was especially important as it was where Ms. Bocquin frequented during her time in Almaty during the pandemic, as it was only a few hundred meters from her apartment. Today, we also met a former Yale Global Scholars online classmate of a group member; Amina was very kind, helpful, and provided further valuable insights into life as a student here in KZ.
Part II
Continuing to our next stop, we arrived at an english learning center for Kazakh teens. When we walked in, we were graciously greeted by the Kazakh teens who impressed us with their expansive english vocabulary. To start off, we played an icebreaker game to learn everyones names. Next, we sat down to indulge in some snacks and generous meals whilst we exchanged stories and learned more Russian from the teens. Shockingly, we shared many common interests even though we were on the other side of the globe. We then traveled to the Almaty Mall, which we had previously spent an afternoon checking out the supermarket, but today we went bowling with our new friends! Although many of us were shy at first, we quickly "jumped right in" as Mr. Caragher says, and had a blast exchanging stories and attempting to beat one another's scores. The hours we spent felt like only a few minutes as we then had to say goodbye to our new friends, but not before exchanging social media information so we can hopefully keep in touch back home.
Nick
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