2007.07.13: July 13, 2007: Headlines: COS - Kazakhstan: The El Dorado Times: Since June 2005, Alex Briggs has been serving as a Peace corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Kazakstan : Peace Corps Kazakhstan : Peace Corps Kazakstan: Newest Stories: 2007.07.13: July 13, 2007: Headlines: COS - Kazakhstan: The El Dorado Times: Since June 2005, Alex Briggs has been serving as a Peace corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan

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Since June 2005, Alex Briggs has been serving as a Peace corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan

Since June 2005, Alex Briggs has been serving as a Peace corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan

Briggs said his time in Kazakhstan gave him an opportunity to get an understanding of real people in a different country. “Even if you have left the country, but the only places you've been to are cities in Western Europe, you don't know what people are like on the other side of the world,” Briggs said. “Maybe you watch the news for half an hour every night. Maybe you read CNN.com, but until you go somewhere else you don't know what it's like.” In his spare time, Briggs was the advisor for a student basketball club that evolved into a breakdancing club. He also joined up with some friends, performing at comedy clubs, telling jokes in Russian. “I wouldn't recommend it to everyone,” Briggs said. “If you join the Peace Corps, chances are you'll more than likely be in a small village somewhere, possibly in a country you've never heard of. “There won't be a lot of Americans around you, few people will speak English around you. It will be tough. If that's what you want, I think it'll be an incredible experience.”

Since June 2005, Alex Briggs has been serving as a Peace corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan

An American in Kazakhstan

Published: Friday, July 13, 2007 12:22 PM CDT

Times Staff Report

Before the interview can officially begin, Alex Briggs has to slurp that oh-so-difficult first gulp of a McDonald's vanilla shake through the straw. This is his first taste of a milkshake in two years.

Since June 2005, Briggs has been living in Kazakhstan, where fast food cuisine isn't exactly a neighborhood staple. There's no Starbucks on every corner and no “Your Way, Right Away,” to be sure.

“There's a lot of good stuff over there,” Briggs said. “But milkshakes like this? No.”

An El Dorado High graduate, Briggs had an itch to get out of the United States and the Peace Corps seemed like an advantageous way to scratch that itch.

“I wanted to go overseas, not to travel so much, but I wanted to live and work overseas,” Briggs said, “to experience another country and culture.”

While in college, a coworker hinted around the idea of the Peace Corps and he decided to apply. After graduating from Pittsburg State University with a political science degree - which piqued his interest in international affairs - in May 2005, Briggs had three weeks to prepare for his two-year stay in a foreign land.

Though his first choice would have been somewhere in South America, in June, he went to Philadelphia to meet up with approximately 50 other volunteers headed for Kazakhstan to begin teaching English.

“There's a huge demand overseas for English teachers,” Briggs said. “As long as English is your first language, no experience necessary.”

His flight took him from New York City to Istanbul to Almaty, the largest city and former capital of Kazakhstan.

“It was the fourteenth when I left and it was two weeks later when I landed,” joked Briggs. “I got so jetlagged, I didn't have any idea. It was probably about 10 hours.”

In Almaty, Briggs spent 10 weeks training to be a teacher, learning about classroom management and learning Russian - the country's primary language, despite battles to make Kahzakh the “official” language. Briggs said three years of studying college Spanish gave his mind a predisposition to pick up another language easily.

Briggs went to the country determined to learn the language, but said even his training barely prepared him for day to day living.

“What you might learn in a year in a classroom, we learned in 10 weeks,” Briggs said. “But we still felt like we didn't know much. Fortunately, there were plenty of children eager to teach us naughty words.”

Reviewing the textbooks he would be using, he noticed that, while the books were written with English words, they employed an awkward Russian syntax. He and his classmates were also given cross-cultural lessons, though Briggs said he would probably have learned more if they'd just left the classroom and talked to the locals.

After his training, Briggs moved north to Karabalyk, a town of 8,000 to 10,000 people, where he began teaching students from fifth to 11th grade. With two parents - Don and Freda - involved in education, Briggs felt no trepidation as he stepped into the classroom.

“Maybe it's in my blood or something ... but the decision was more based on my desire to leave the country and teaching English was the most probable means to do that,” Briggs said. “Maybe it's the fact that both my parents are teachers, but I wasn't scared of teaching. I never thought for a moment that I couldn't teach.”

Briggs said his time in Kazakhstan gave him an opportunity to get an understanding of real people in a different country.

“Even if you have left the country, but the only places you've been to are cities in Western Europe, you don't know what people are like on the other side of the world,” Briggs said. “Maybe you watch the news for half an hour every night. Maybe you read CNN.com, but until you go somewhere else you don't know what it's like.”

In his spare time, Briggs was the advisor for a student basketball club that evolved into a breakdancing club. He also joined up with some friends, performing at comedy clubs, telling jokes in Russian.

“I wouldn't recommend it to everyone,” Briggs said. “If you join the Peace Corps, chances are you'll more than likely be in a small village somewhere, possibly in a country you've never heard of.

“There won't be a lot of Americans around you, few people will speak English around you. It will be tough. If that's what you want, I think it'll be an incredible experience.”

With stars like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie drawing attention to their appearances in foreign countries, Briggs said he prefers his method of service.

“Let's see Brad and Angelina go to Darfur and live there and teach English or work in a hospital for two years,” Briggs said. “I guess if you care about a cause, you give what you can. For the money I paid - which is nothing - I got a lot more out of my experience than had I just found a cause and thrown money at it.”

After his first year, any feelings of isolation associated with being a foreigner were completely gone.

“I never longed for an American,” Briggs said.

While living in Kazakhstan, Briggs came across a bootleg copy of the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” starring British comedian Sascha Baron-Cohen who poses as a rube from Kazakhstan.

“Anything you think you learned about Kazakhstan in that movie was false,” said Briggs, though he admits he found the movie funny. “You look at him, he doesn't look Kahzakh. Most people in America wouldn't know that. I think that's how he gets away with it.

“[Kahzakhs] hated everything about him, the comedian, the character. Even though he's British, they think of him as American because it's an American movie.”

Though he got back to United States on June 21, he didn't return home until July 3, just in time to shoot off fireworks. Briggs plans to “take it easy” for a little while while he figures out the next step. Graduate school is one of the options on the table, but he said he may head to the east coast to look for a job.

“We're very glad he had this experience,” said his mother Freda, who visited her son for about two weeks last summer. “It was enriching for him and for us.”




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Headlines: July, 2007; Peace Corps Kazakhstan; Directory of Kazakhstan RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Kazakhstan RPCVs





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