P-Day

This week I went on P-day with the other young missionaries and a teen friend of ours. We went to the Kazakh National Park which is 3.5 hours north west of Astana via train (345 km). There is a highway that goes north bu the train is much more efficient, if not comfortable. Our train car was not too full going up there and we were able to be as comfortable as you can on barely padded seats (picture to the right is the 4 missionaries and our friend Alibek). Fortunately, on a train you can get up and walk around. Immediately the missionaries wanted to play card games but I told them I wanted to see the sites! One of them said to me, "Elder Maxwell, look outside. It looks like Nebraska! There is nothing beautiful to see." He was correct ... so I played card games with them until we got far enough north to have some hills and trees and then low mountains.
The train stopped in Shuchinsk and we searched for a ride to Borovoe where the entrance to the park is located. Some taxi drivers wanted to take us there for $100 but we found a small bus that only cost us $1 each. What a ride!! It is about 45km to the town and the bus had at least 50% more people in it than it had seats and some of the folks had large packages. Such is bus transportation here in Kazakhstan. I was fortunate to get a window seat where the window opened so I had a nice breeze the whole way ... unlike the poor missionary behind me who was stuck with 5 people on 4 seats.

The drive to Borovoe was very pretty through pine forest and small villages. The main road was paved but all side roads, even in the towns, were dirt. Some of the homes had very nice, large vegetable gardens and I was surprised to see quit a few old log homes. (The picture on the right was taken out the window as we drove past.) Once in town we easily found the entrance to the park, paid our fee - another $1 (we don't pay in $$ so it was actually 150 tenge) - and decided on which path to take.

We ended up hiking about 2/3 of the way around the lake. It was a beautiful day with a lite breeze and the path, as you can see by the picture, was very easy to follow. The park's main feature is a very beautiful lake with some interesting rock formations that have Kazakh legends. We only had about 4 hours before we needed to get back to the train station in Shuchinsk but we had a great time. Here are some photos of the area ....


















The train ride back to Astana was memorable only because it was on the 'slow' train (I was surprised to learn that the train in the morning was fast), it was packed with people so you had to 'fight' for a seat, and it stopped along the way to let people off in the middle of nowhere. It took us 5 hours to get back to Astana and the seats were harder ... but what an adventure it was! Totally fun to be with those young men and see some of God's creation in this part of the world.

A couple of odds and ends .... Quite frequently they shut off our hot water. Sometimes they warn us but most of the time they do not. The main frustration with it is the color of our water for the next 45 minutes as we run it on full to try and get it clear again. Here is what it looks like when you turn it on ....

I decided to grow some tomatoes, from seed, on the patio and it looks like we might get some ...

Viviane was thrilled to have two Skype sessions this week, other than our Humanitarian calls. One from her brother Jean and his wife and the other from her good friend Arjeree. Both are going to attempt to send us a package via the Moscow mission office so we'll see if that goes better than my letter from my Mom which I still have not received 3 months after she sent it.

Our Humanitarian projects are in the 'wait for paper work and deliveries' mode so we are spending our time fine tuning our big projects for Kyrgyzstan and Western Kazakhstan which take place the last week of June and the first week of July. We are project leaders for these two weeks of training. It is described here ...
"Neonatal Resuscitation Training – The World Health Organization estimates that 1 million newborns die each year of breathing difficulties. The Church provides a train-the-trainer program for resuscitation skills and resuscitation equipment to doctors, nurses, and midwives. In addition to training for medical professionals in advanced techniques, a new level of training has been introduced called “Helping Babies Breathe.” This program helps save the lives of newborns in resource limited countries. Since 2002, over 193,000 health care workers have been trained in these life-saving techniques."

In Kyrgyzstan alone the infant mortality rate has dropped from 80 per 1000 to 28 per 1000 since the Church began this training in their country.

We love this work!!! And it is work!!!