1243-Crest park

I started to select pictures for publication and understood: that in United States I was taking wrong pictures. Looks like I have lots of pictures however there is nothing to show. Hardly I chose few pictures. Same I could say in regard to signatures: I could never do them well. Always I have something like «Hardworking Marfa Petrova (from the right) with her cows»
I started to select pictures for publication and understood: that in United States I was taking wrong pictures. Looks like I have lots of pictures however there is nothing to show. Hardly I chose few pictures. Same I could say in regard to signatures: I could never do them well. Always I have something like «Hardworking Marfa Petrova (from the right) with her cows»

The theme of the workshop organized for us by USAID sounds strange for our ear — Cooperative Social Responsibility (CSR)…
Professor Khozer Elms from G. Washington University told us about positive CSR practices. For example he mentioned the fact that the company Nike, pressed by  American public opinion, ceased using child labor in the countries of SouthEast Asia. From time to time somebody’s skeptical remark interrupted the lecturer: ‘It works here in your America, but it would hardly work in our country.’  At some instant professor Elms asked us, ‘Why do you think that it would not go in your country?’
We began to enumerate our reasons: we have corruption, non-transparency in many spheres is a great problem, laws are imperfect, our people are inert and so on.
Having listened to us, she asked a concluding question, ‘In general, does business exist in your country?’ …
And it seemed to me that we spoke different languages with her. As far as I understand, she talked about Cooperative Social Responsibility of which we even don’t dream at all… But it seems we are to begin to think about it.

AMERICAN BAGGAGE
I was not the only slow-witted. Nearly all of us were leaving America with the baggage of unanswered questions. For example, Shaidulla Suerbayev, director of a business ‘hatcher’ failed to solve the riddle of a family that sheltered him.
‘That’s a normal family. The host is professor, his wife also works somewhere and earns her living. They can afford travels and good clothes. Yet their daughter during two weeks wears lacerated jogging shoes which she wrapped around with Scotch tape! Why?
Aigul Turkina wondered at her host all the time, ‘During all three weeks my host was gloomy and dissatisfied with me. Time and again he expressed his displeasure that I cleaned up his house and grumbled at me that I don’t know English at all. I thought I was too burdensome to him, but when we parted he was sad and nearly cried.
As you understand we lived in different families. I was received by Marsh and Carren, a young married couple of 30 — 35. They put at my disposal the entire ground floor with a drawing-room, bedroom and bathroom. They seldom came in to me and at that always begged my pardon, as if they were my lessees.
They patiently explained to me, ‘Mr. Lukpan, this is your room. You are the host here. That’s why we make excuses when we come to you without your invitation.’
Serik Kairshin said, with a hint of criticism, that his hostess never crossed the threshold of his room. In his opinion, she might show more concern about her guest since she invited him.

PRIVACY’S A GOOD HABIT
As you understand, our questions were mostly of private character. Quite naturally. Americans are rather squeamish about the issues of private life and private territory. Having slightly touched each other in a crowd, they hasten to make excuses. Standing in line at the cashier’s desk, they observe two — three meters of distance between each other so as not to peep, even accidentally, at the neighbor’s purse.
Vladimir from Ukraine has been living in America for over ten years. He, jesting, answered our questions in the following way, ‘You know, this country was formed by armed emigrants. If somebody was rude toward his interlocutor, he might simply be killed. Of course, the times changed, yet the habit to be polite remained. In America, private life is highly respected in everything. Parents knock at the door of their child if they want to come in. The chief does not know how much money his subordinate earns. No ministry of internal affairs exists in the country because the matter concerns the issues of private life. The laconic inscription Private can be seen on the walls of houses, doors and fences which, by the way, can rarely be seen. This nation has exerted every effort to learn to live all by itself. All the more so, it’s really miraculous that it managed to build up a society which takes proper account of all aspirations of its citizens. These ‘individualists’ cordially (and gratis!) received us, citizens of a country unknown to them. They interestedly listened to our stories about Kazakhstan and childly wondered at our souvenir yurtas and scourges. They also wondered at low prices for cigarettes and vodka and high prices for real estate. They astonished us, and we, in our turn, astonished them.
A woman from our group was nearly shocked that they knew nothing about our president whereas we know everything about president Bush. In order to understand the Americans one should try to imagine oneself as if standing on their place. We were not always successful in such our attempts. 
The booklets we were given read as follows: ‘Remember that the host families does not get remuneration for their hospitality, and they are interested in getting more information about the culture of your country.’
»No, no, it’s incredible. They have been paid for us; they simply conceal it from us’, we cunningly thought. But it turned out in the course of events that we were wrong. American volunteers can do many things absolutely free of charge. At the time of my first visit to the USA an American pensioner rode me in his car free of charge. Volunteers nurse children from poor localities free of charge, instruct tourists who went astray in Washington, take part in major actions (for example, keep order at concerts or render assistance to sportsmen at mass rounds), gather offertories and donations for arid regions of Africa. At the time of our sojourn in Washington I several times met volunteers who collected signatures for the appeal to Chinese authorities to stop violence in Tibet. It’s worth noting that even their outward appearances were not Chinese. Cordiality and sincere desire to help unknown people is the characteristic feature of volunteers’ activities.