Schlink Attack: A Stint in Astana

Sunday, November 26, 2023

A Stint in Astana

Every year around Thanksgiving, Foreign Service stress levels fluctuate as direct hires wait to hear news about handshake offers (onward assignments, jobs) from future posts. Bidding season is like mandatory dating, and every employee has to do it about once every 2-3 years. It starts around September and lasts about 2 months. Bidding requires the churning out of resume submissions, applications, and interviews for jobs located all around the world, followed by awkward flirtations of "I like you, do you like me?" or, "If post were to offer you a handshake, how likely would you say yes? 100 percent? 90? 30?" Neither side is ever willing to fully show their hand because no one wants to be stood up. Abandoned at the altar. Put in a bind. Left hanging.

And, in between the pockets of time, families impatiently wait, combing through if-then scenarios such as "if you are offered Iraq and not Italy, then we have to send the kids to live with Uncle Paul and Aunt Cloris on the farm." Finally, the offers are made and hopefully accepted, creating a perfect commensal relationship of timing, location, opportunity, and job satisfaction. Everyone is happy, the employer, employee, and if applicable, families. Facebook blows up with next-post announcements and requests for friends/family to save-the-dates for future travel.

Mark did his bidding last year, so we have known for a long while that we will head to Astana next summer. Not sure if we will stay there for 2 years, or 4 years like we will soon do in Tashkent. However, that decision will need to be made a short 6-8 weeks after we arrive there, and along with it, our own mess of if-then scenarios. Probably the most important scenario is based on our kids' education. If we stay 4 years, then Deets will be able to attend high school in its entirety. With Margo, we'd have to find at least a 3-year posting after Astana to make sure she gets the same opportunity. I know it's not that big of a deal because in the end, the kids will graduate and go on to be respectable adults. But like most parents, we too, agonize about making smart childrearing decisions.

Anyway, because of the Thanksgiving holiday, and that Astana lies a mere 1200 miles north of Tashkent, we took an opportunity to visit the city and a couple of schools with the kids. We signed up for tours at the British and QSI International schools to see which one might suit them best. My takeaways from the visits were such: they could attend a brilliantly modern school that follows the IB program, requires uniformity, believes that competition is the key to success, and has an app for anonymously reporting bullying.

Or, they could go to a school with a love affair with a Mark Rothko palette, toffers AP classes, promotes individuality with personalized approaches to learning, and allows kids to redo exams or tests until they master the skill. I am conflicted about snobbery and endless do-overs and much as I am about the tenant of sameness versus unique expression. Kids at the British school rarely go outside in extreme weather, whereas QSI students get daily fresh air even when its -20F. That day, we watched British school kids filing out of the auditorium in total silence and nary a glance at us, whereas QSI kids hung out in the cafeteria playing music and asked us questions as we passed through.

After school visits, we learned that Astana has many, many malls. Locals enjoy high fashion, brilliant white lighting, and nearly exclusive use of electronic payment. If we had been able to access wifi more easily (Uzbek SIMs don't allow for roaming or long distance, and Kazakh SIMs require a full registration process), the trip would have been virtually stress free. Taxi services are cheap and robust, but drivers don't take cash and they require online ordering. So, we were at the mercy of free wifi to coordinate pick up and making a run to meet the cabbie when we'd invariably lose internet connection. However, we were delighted to see that nearly all drivers obey traffic law and that de-icing trucks were in abundance. Astanans (Astanians? Astanites?) take winter preparations seriously. You have to... or you die.

On the personal front, I am trying not to make issue of the fact that Astana is famously cold (come on, it's only the second coldest capital in the world), nor that Wikipedia describes the landscape as very flat, versus what, regular flat? Regardless if we stay 2 or 4 years, I will have no choice but to put on my big girl long underpants. I will learn to embrace the itch of wool, the suffocation of a balaclava, and sad, flat hair from chronic hat wearing. Semi-arid steppe isn't flashy, but I am certain I can still find many stories to tell. If I don't die from exposure first.