If I had a star for every time someone asked me why I live in Kazakhstan, I’d own half of the Milky Way by now. Ok, I know that’s a strange example. I tried out pyramids, sheep and pieces of pizza, but none of them seemed to work either. To be very honest, despite being a little overly obsessed with space, I haven’t the slightest idea how many stars are in our dear galaxy, and have likely not lived long enough to have been asked any question that many times.
My point is that I get asked this question a lot. I’m asked by strangers and I’m asked by friends. I even ask myself often enough. To the average questioner, moving from America, the country of everyone’s dreams, to the rather obscure and unknown nation of Kazakhstan is simply incomprehensible. And some days I don’t really get it either. Why did I choose to leave my friends and family and Mexican food and day trips to the beach for this landlocked, lonely alternative?
The answer varies. Some days it’s because I felt God calling me here. Or because I don’t really like America all that much. Maybe I was running from something, from the ideal of a white picket fence and the predictable rhythm of a 9-5. Maybe I was looking for something, for adventure or excitement or a place to belong.
What I can never quite seem to explain, however, is the way my soul seems to be coming home every time I step foot on Kazakh soil. It’s hard to explain because I still feel this when returning to America. I still feel rooted to the lush green farmland and firefly June evenings that raised me. My cells still house the salt of ocean air and the painted gold of backroads at sunset.
It’s just that, Kazakhstan feels like a long-lost twin, like a DNA match after years of searching. (Full disclosure, I have never actually had that experience, but I can imagine. To those of you who have actually found your long lost twins, please take no offense at my humble ramblings. Also, congratulations).
The thing about a twin, or so I presume, is that they are something of a perfect match, but also not quite you. That has certainly been the case for me in Kazakhstan. I love it to pieces and feel alive here. I also will never be Kazakh, still ride a wild roller coaster of language success and failures, and find myself at odds with popular opinions and cultural norms on an almost daily basis. Turns out I’m American through and through, except for my stomach, which is officially international, my lungs, which have breathed Kazakh air for a fifth of my life, and my right leg.
Oh, and my soul. Let’s get back to that. It is hard to explain to someone who has never travelled just what its like to fall in love with a place. Some people are very quick to love, and others hold their affections close to themselves and only pass them out to the very worthy. Looking back on my life, I must admit to being very quick to fall in love, and have been doing so since age three. According to local legends and my own vague memories, the lucky chap was a small but chivalrous boy at Hershey Park.
Falling in love with a place is not very different from falling in love with a person. It is risky and bound to lead to heartache. It can occasionally be one sided. It also comes with thrills and wonder. Most importantly, it claims a piece of you. (Hence my right leg now belonging to Kazakhstan). And, it changes you.
So here I am, a cultural misfit, stitched together by horizons. Born in America, in love with Kazakhstan. I love the wild, dusty steppe and the towering reach of its mountains. I love the faces of the people as if they were my own. I love the space this country holds for laughter, the endless cups of tea, and the passion for feasting and celebrating. I love that it’s customary to give toasts on people’s birthdays.
I also hate it. I hate it because I’ll never be good at it, especially in Russian. I hate it because I must always dread birthdays for this very reason. I hate it because it is other and it is not something I grew up with and it makes me feel like an outsider. But, I also love it, because it’s beautiful and it slows people down and calls them to love and to dream and I wish that I had been raised to wish people happiness and good health.
I love tulips in the spring. I love brides in the parks and the fireworks at New Years. I love the lights that line the buildings and the new tables for the chess players in the park. And on many mornings, I wake and wish I was anywhere but here, because Kazakhstan has broken me in more ways than I can name. For every time it has welcomed me, it has also rejected me. For every time it’s felt like home, there’s been a reminder that I am and always will be a foreigner.
But then I look to the horizon, to the birds that sweep the Shymkent skies, and I remember why I fell in love in the first place. And so, that is why I am still here. Because I am quick to fall in love and slow to fall out of it. Because I own ten house plants and I can’t fit them in a suitcase. Because the plov I make doesn’t taste a thing like the original, and the Uzbek restaurants in Brooklyn don’t deliver to Pennsylvania. Because I’m still not fluent in Russian, so I might as well stay another year and give it my best shot.
Because… love.
