Yelling at people in Kazakhstan...

...has different social meaning than in America. When I went some other PCVs to buy our train tickets home, I was put in charge of making sure with the ticket window attendant that we had understood the schedule correctly before we bought it. So after waiting our ten minutes in line, I got up to the window and asked in Russian whether the train to Ural left on Wednesday. The lady told me that this was the ticket buying window, and I had to go to the question window to ask that. I told her that we would buy the ticket if it left that day, could she please tell me whether it left then or not. She yelled at me to go to the question window. So I yelled at her to tell me when the train left and we would buy the ticket. And with that, she did what I asked.

My friends don't speak Russian and didn't know what the fuss was about. When I looked back at them they looked a little surprised at my behavior, and I realized how naturally and without actually getting viscerally angry myself I had raised my voice at a woman to get what I wanted. My tone would have been very rude in America, but here it's just the way you talk sometimes. And it doesn't mean anything personally. The rest of our lengthy ticket-buying transaction with the woman was no less unfriendly-sounding. We all had the impression that she really didn't like us. We asked if three of us could be put together on a train towards Kokshetau, but were told we couldn't because we had different destinations. "There's no way?" "Absolutely impossible," she snarled back at us. So we backed down and bought our tickets, and after some more shouting with the woman about passports and who was going where and whose money, we got our tickets and left. Only when we got outside did we check our seats and discover that she had put us together after all, possibly against the rules. Despite the ugly tone of voice and our being certain that the woman hated us, she had secretly done us a big favor.

The realization, which has been dawning on me slowly since the beginning, but which this example beautifully confirms, that the confrontational grouchiness and anger that you see all the time here doesn't belie actual animosity takes so much stress out of day-to-day life. I would go so far as to say that this realization is the number one survival skill for working in Kazakhstan.

Ryan Giordano (via Amanda Butler; also check out Waddling Thunder and Will Baude on the ortolan.)