Most of what Kazakhs know about Americans they learned through movies, he said. For example, they think there are no poor people in America. Everyone is rich. Shootouts are common. Blacks are either rappers or basketball players. So Burns spent a lot of time dispelling those myths. That was just what he did in his spare time. Most of the time he taught English to kids in high school, which in Kazakhstan is called a "lyceum."
Scott Burns served in Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps
Cultural Exchange
North state residents visit Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps
By Damon Arthur
The Redding Record Searchlight
Redding, Calif.
September 1, 2005
When Scott Burns talks about his two years in Kazakhstan, the comparisons with the United States are inevitable and the differences are many.
A few samples: There aren't many lawns. People play basketball on dirt courts and soccer on dirt fields. Kazakhs like to go on picnics; they sing a lot and they love to barbecue "shasklik," a shish kebab-type food. Kazakhs grow most of their own produce in family gardens.
Those are just some of the differences Burns noticed while he lived and worked in Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps from June 2003 to 2005.
But Kazakhs see even bigger differences between themselves and Americans, Burns said. The 25-year-old Redding resident spent a lot of time answering questions about America.
"I think people think we are fundamentally different as human beings," Burns said.
Most of what Kazakhs know about Americans they learned through movies, he said. For example, they think there are no poor people in America. Everyone is rich. Shootouts are common. Blacks are either rappers or basketball players.
So Burns spent a lot of time dispelling those myths. That was just what he did in his spare time. Most of the time he taught English to kids in high school, which in Kazakhstan is called a "lyceum."
Burns got the travel bug while attending Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. He spent a year abroad, year traveling through Eastern Europe.
After graduating he decided to join the Peace Corps because he wanted to learn more about other cultures and help people, Burns said.
Kazakhstan is roughly four times the size of Texas and is located northwest of China and south of Russia. Except for his first three months, when he lived in Almaty in southern Kazakhstan, Burns lived in Petropavlovsk, a city of about 200,000 people near the Russian border.
"I was the northernmost Peace Corps volunteer in the world," he said.
Although Burns lived in the same country as JoAnn Landingham, he didn't meet her during his two-year stay there, he said. Landingham, 69, of Corning, worked for the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan during roughly the same time as Burns.
Landingham said the conditions in the country reminded her of the simpler times of her rural youth.
"It was like going home for me," said Landingham, a former Tehama County supervisor who was recalled from office in 1996.
But Kazakhstan is still a country deeply imprinted by the former Soviet Union's legacy, which it was a part of from 1936 until 1991, burns said.
Most people speak Russian and large, blocky architecture from the Soviet era dominates many urban cities, he said.
In Kazakhastan she taught school students from grades two to 11 in Maikain.
She said students are taught differently in Kazakhstan, where they are required to recite poetry, sing and act in plays.
"At their schools they perform. Hey, these kids use their minds," Landingham said.
This summer Landingham hosted Zhamal Ordabayeva, 27, a friend she met while working in Kazhakstan. Ordabayeva was visiting the United States on a cultural exchange program called Camp Counselors USA.
She echoed Burns' view that the U.S. and Kazakhstan are very different.
"I like this country, but there is so much difference between my country and your country and there is so much I have to digest in my mind," Ordabayeva said.
While Landingham is considering another overseas adventure, Burns is attending the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University this fall.
