Women's Day and Debate Club

International Women's Day, celebrated on the 8th of every March, is always a big to-do in Kazakhstan. In fact, the week before Women's Day, President Nazarbayev announced to the country that Saturday, March 5 would be a working day, but the entire country would have the following Monday and Tuesday off in order to adequately celebrate the holiday. One of the best things about Kazakhstan is its unending ability to "roll with the punches" so to speak. This national announcement came only 4 days before the proposed change, and everyone in the country just went with it. Like "oh what a great idea" kind of went with it. Imagine Obama alerting you today, that you will have to change all of your plans and shlep to the office on Saturday. And that business meeting you had planned for Monday? Well, need to re-schedule that because the office will be closed. Ha!

Anyway, Women's Day is the second biggest holiday in Kazakhstan following New Years, and all men must buy a cake, flowers, candy, and gifts for the women of their life. Because I work with only women, Women's Day for us was more of a collective event, though Sasha did bring us a nice cake for the occasion. Tess and I celebrated Women's Day by having a picnic in our living room and then walking to the supermarket to buy ourselves a treat. Big day, haha. The best part was that "waiting until the last minute" to buy gifts and cake is not frowned upon in Kazakhstan like it is in America. The streets were overflowing with men on the hunt for their Women's Day goodies. In fact, I would wager that if one went to the supermarket a week before Women's Day, in search of the perfect cake, the bakery would stare in disbelief and wonder if you had maybe misread the calendar or the date on your watch. Here is a poster to commemorate Women's Day:

For the past year and a half, I have lead a Debate club at the local American Corner in the Oblast Library. When I first started the club, the participants were very unpracticed at the art of logic or differentiating between an argument and an opinion. The first few weeks were very sloppy, with our debate club being more like a discussion free-for all. Since then, the group (on average 20-25 people per week) has progressed well beyond my initial expectations, and I get such joy from working with them and seeing how excited they are each week to compose new arguments for our proposed theme (sometimes we play logic games instead of team-style debate). Recent topics have included: Nature vs. Nurture, "Is Money the Key to Happiness", Hardcover books vs. e-books: which is better?, Immigration, Legalizing Marijuana, Should Kazakhstan sell land to China, etc.

Every member of debate club is now able to recite the basic elements of an argument: claim, warrant, impact, and tell me an example of each component. I see them using argument form more and more outside of debate club, questioning the logic behind other people's assumptions in other discussion clubs, and hoping to pick apart the weaknesses therein. The best part about debate club is that it has morphed from an English practice club to a full-on critical thinking club mostly in Russian. Catalyzing independent thought and empowering Kazakhstan's next generation of leaders to examine ideas from multiple vantage points, has been one of my favorite activities as a Volunteer. My own experience in Speech and Debate has helped me so much not only in verbal and written communication, but also in problem-solving and planning, and I love that I have been able to find a place for Speech and Debate in Kazakhstan.

We are planning to have a debate tournament this Spring, and I think at least 10 teams of 2 will compete for the ultimate Karaganda Debate Championship Title. Look forward to coverage of this epic intellectual battle soon to come.