Slichus In Kazakhstan, Part I

The slichus began when Rabbi Wichinin asked me if I might like to do Merkos Shlichus in Belarus. I agreed, and the next morning he informed me that we would go to Kazakhstan. I did not have any more information until the day before our trip, that we would be leaving at 10 in the morning. I swung down to the Malchei Yisrael and up to the Shuk to grab some last minute preparations, and the next morning we were off to Almaty, Kazakhstan by way of Moscow Domodedovo. About 18 hours about we left Mayanot yeshiva, myself, Shimon Susskind, Alex Rubin, and Nachman found ourselves the the land of Borat (high five!). We warded off taxi drivers for about 20 minutes until our host shliach, Shevach, arrived with two other russian-speaking bochurim from Migdal Emek (Elchanan and Daniel), and his son Dan. As the sun rose over the airport, we observed the street sweepers, who were using sheathes of hay, and the made our way into the city. The first impression of Almaty is the large cement apartment blocks, either from the Soviet era or directly after the fall, and the open drainage that lines all of the streets clogs and floods whenever it rains (which is often). The city sits at the base of a very large mountain range, some of the largest I have seen, and on a clear day, like the day of our arrival, they make for a very pleasant site. Shevach brought us first to the mikvah at the local schul, and then to the school which he operates in Almaty, where we stayed. The school is really an entire complex, covering half of a city block, with gates and 24-hour security, as well as a fleet of drivers (mostly for the school buses). Inside the school, a large staff cooks and otherwise maintains the grounds. Because the semester was ending, very few kids were there (in addition, the recession has affected their funding, reducing the number of students), but we did get to spend some time with the orphans that stay there. While I do not speak russian, kids always have a way of communicating, either by sports or games, or even just laughing at your inability to speak their language. We spent a couple days there getting settled and receiving our "assignments", met the other sliach at the school, Reb Zev. We went up to the mountains for a bit to see the skating rink and the avalanche dam, and then passed shabbos. On the first day of the week, we did some hands on review on cashering a kitchen (at the school), and then after noon the hevrusas began to leave for their respective cites. Nachman and I were assigned to Taraz, Kazakhstan, and our train left at night. We would take with us a 30 kilo bag of frozen chickens, two boxes of matza, five bottles of wine, and would have to casher a kitchen in preparation for the seder on Wednesday night. To be continued...