The End of the World

by Randy Bruins, Field Staff, Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan Business Team leaving leaving Almaty and heading to Oskemen: (l-r) Ron and Jeanine Wiley, Randy Bruins, Wendy and Tim Moore, Travis Williamson

“Welcome to the end of the world!” grinned our host, Serik Abilov, as he greeted us at the airport. “All planes that arrive here turn around and go back where they came from, because there is nowhere to continue on to!” 

The small city of Oskemen may indeed be located in eastern Kazakhstan’s rugged borderlands with Russia and China, but it didn’t feel remote to us. For several years now, REI has been cultivating friendships and academic ties here at the Kazakh American Free University (KAFU).

Our team of six had just arrived for a week of presenting lectures and of meeting with students and faculty – building on these relationships. Serik and his team, and even the university president, showed us warm hospitality all week long.

A KAFU translation instructor appreciates Wendy's demonstration of a real-life translation problem, from the editing of a multilingual magazine.

Our REI team was bringing a lot of Central Asian experience, and several of us were already familiar with KAFU. Ron and Jeanine Wiley anchor REI’s relationship with KAFU, with Ron serving as adjunct faculty and both making frequent residential stays over the past five years. Travis Williamson is a software engineer from College Station, Texas who previously lived for a year in Tajikistan. Tim and Wendy Moore currently serve at REI’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado as the Directors of Short-Term Professional Teams and Communications, respectively, but previously lived and raised their family not far from Oskemen in Almaty, Kazakhstan; Tim led a short-term professional team to KAFU last fall. Randy Bruins retired from a career working as an environmental scientist in Cincinnati, Ohio and has served for two years in Almaty as an REI field representative – though he had never before visited KAFU.

A translation student practices her art while Travis shows students how to break down a complex software design problem into discrete tasks.

We taught according to our expertise, on subjects ranging from translation to project management to climate change. Students displayed a range of English comprehension and speaking ability (for example, some of the older students had fallen behind during COVID), so occasionally students of translation were assigned to translate for us. Students also ranged widely in age: in the afternoons we met students as young as ten years old who came to the university after school for language lessons, and evening students were as old as 60!

A KAFU students watches Wendy's discussion.

Equally important or more so were our interactions with faculty and other staff, since these can become longer-term relationships. An apple pie-making demonstration by Jeanine was a big hit with the students, but when the crumble-crust was burnt, the pie rescue process became a collaborative effort between Jeanine and kitchen staff from the university guest house. More friendships!

Before returning to the US, Tim, Wendy and Travis joined Randy in Almaty to spend time with students from the worldwide entrepreneurship program called ENACTUS, which REI collaborates with in Kazakhstan. We relaxed and became the learners as the students played Kazakh folk songs for us and told the stories behind each song.

In Almaty, a student from ENACTUS tells the legend of how the dombra got its hole.

That was how our Sunday-to-Saturday team experience in Kazakhstan ended.  The week was short – it’s difficult for working professionals to afford more time when long travel distances are involved. Fortunately, though, short-term professional teams are just one asset in the mix of investments REI is able to make. For example, in May 2025 REI will be bringing five students from Iowa State University to attend KAFU’s servant-leadership training and to conduct a service project; in the fall two new REI staff members will begin a two-year commitment at KAFU as Masters students. The Wileys also will soon be shifting their own home base from Samarkand, Uzbekistan to Oskemen. And when they arrive, Serik’s greeting might be a simple, “Welcome home!”