Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007 - (Page 28)

short-term volunteer opportunites for U.S. Agency for International Development-funded projects operated by more than a dozen organizations including ACDI/VOCA, Financial Services Volunteers Corps, Land O’ Lakes and GeekCorps. www.vegaalliance.org Volunteers For Peace These grassroots projects include environmental work, construction, work with children or the disabled, agriculture, arts work and more. Placements are available globally, including the developed world. Most projects run two to three weeks, with some options up to two years. Program fee covers food, lodging, some insurance, project materials. www.vfp.org. Voluntary Service Overseas Skilled workers with professional qualiﬁcations and two to ﬁve years of experience spend one to two years advising and training colleagues in a variety of ﬁelds. Placements for nonU.K. citizens are available in 34 countries. Beneﬁts: living allowance, lodging, airfare, insurance. www. vso.org.uk Winrock International Volunteers, typically skilled, can work in a variety of countries in the ﬁelds of empowerment & civic engagement; enterprise & agriculture; and environment: forestry, energy & ecosystem services. Most assignments are two to four weeks. Beneﬁts: airfare, travel expenses, per diem, insurance. www.winrock.org WorldTeach Volunteers teach English and other subjects in one of 16 summer and academic-year programs around the world. Most candidates have no teaching experience, although those with advanced qualiﬁcations may be given a higher agelevel placement. There is a program fee, but year-long volunteers receive a monthly allowance; also arranges travel, insurance and housing. www.worldteach. org. T three by bus–is now on the verge of a wave of ecotourists being lured to the West-Altai Nature Preserve. e Zapavednic. he town is a thriving mixture of the Russian and the Kazakh with a high sense of culture and honor. I was supposed to make them aware of their environmental concerns, but they were already aware. e people of the town were in tune with their environment. On the surface Ridder doesn’t seem to need Americans or Peace Corps. e residents enjoy many of the conveniences and rights of self-expression we do. As I walked the streets I asked myself, “What am I doing here?” Is this a Europeanpaid vacation or what? It turns out, however, that there are big needs to be addressed in Ridder and throughout Kazakhstan: air-pollution, deforestation and loss of habitat. In addition, growing disconnects among the youth of Ridder and between nature and the community threaten grave consequences for future generations unless the people become stewards of their public lands. Developing this stewardship role is critical to educating future generations to the environmental processes and their role in preserving those processes. e Altai Mountain Range is one of the most beautiful regions of Central Asia: Land of the shamans, a refuge of the Turkic people and site of the discovery of mysterious petroglyphs. e largest part of the snowcapped Altai Mountain Range lies in Russia, Mongolia and China, but the eastern Kazakhstan range remains the most unknown and diﬃcult to access; therefore, all the more fascinating. Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991 and created the 56,078-acre reserve to protect and study the Western-Altai and study ecotourism. Of more than 800 species of vascular plants that grow naturally here, 25 plant species have been identiﬁed and listed in the Red Book, the nation’s oﬃcial scientiﬁc record of endangered species of ﬂora and fauna. ere are two species of ﬁsh, four species of amphibians and reptiles, over 200 species of birds and 52 species of mammal. I found the West-Altai to be a cross between Oregon’s Strawberry Mountain National Wilderness where I worked as wilderness ranger and Colorado’s Gothic Mountain where I’ve performed biological research. ince I arrived in Ridder nine months ago, I have really not had much time for myself. When Peace Corps said I would be on duty 24-7 they meant it. As I write, Ridder is entering summer after a winter season with tons of snow. I have cross-county skied and snow-shoed to remote locations for study and research. I have hiked and walked many miles on overnighters with West-Altai rangers and hiked 15 miles in knee-deep snow. I probably have made myself busier than I really need to be, but I can’t help it. I’ve applied for a grant to establish a long-term school ecology program to expand youth awareness, skills and interests of ecology and ecotourism issues. We are developing a research and ﬁeld observation training program for biology teachers at the middle-school level. I’m creating an ecotourism brochure for U.S. distribution. I speak at local schools and I’m preparing a geology Power Point for a university in Ustkamenogorsk, a day from here. e projects are so cool I can’t stop working. I’m fascinated with the web page design project for the West-Altai. I ﬁnd myself addicted to the construction of the web page and work on it day and night. Meanwhile, I am on a continuing quest, meeting the people of Ridder and exploring the resources of the Zapavednic. My life in Ridder is both good and bad, but not in a bad way, just distasteful. e best is shashleek, barbequed meat on a stick cooked on an open coal ﬁre. I can buy shashleek from Ridder street vendors but the most popular method is to spend a day at the river cooking your own. e worst is the bania, were the men get naked together and sit in the hot steam of a homemade sauna, whip and scrub each other’s backs with birch branches and then run naked into the yard and roll in the snow, or jump in the river and then back to the bania for more whipping, yelling and talking loudly in very deep manly Russian voices. I can’t understand a word so I just grunt and yell right back at them in half-Russian and English. en we towel oﬀ, go into the house to drink beer and vodka and stuﬀ ourselves until we’re burping up onions. Ultimately, my Big Let Down didn’t last. I have come to love the people and town of Ridder. I’m a happy camper in an unknown corner of the world called the Zapavednic. Before joining the Peace Corps, Robert Robles worked for the City of Los Angeles and for several years was a naturalist in Yosemite National Park and a wilderness ranger in Oregon. S 28 Fall 2007 http://www.vegaalliance.org http://www.vfp.org http://www.vso.org.uk http://www.vso.org.uk http://www.winrock.org http://www.worldteach.org http://www.worldteach.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007

Worldview - Fall 2007 Contents Presiden'ts Note Lafayette Park Introduction Interview Commentary Editor's Note Letter from Rumbek, Sudan Listings Letter from Yekaterinburg, Russia Letter from Codaesti, Romania Letter from Catia La Mar, Venezuela Letter from Gumare, Botswana Letter from Ridder, Kazakhstan Letter from Rincon, Cape Verde Letter from Port Au Prince Another Country Community News Giving Back Opinion

Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007

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