Brandon Howell | bhowell@bc-times.com | (989) 894-9639
ROSCOMMON — Not many people would want to spend two years living half a world away in a developing Central Asian country.
But that’s exactly what Katie L. Miller wants to do.
Miller, a 23-year-old Roscommon native, left Aug. 17 for a two-year tour of duty in Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps. She is the daughter of John and Marilyn Miller of Roscommon.
“I didn’t even know where Kazakhstan was on the map when (the Peace Corps) suggested it to me,” Miller said. “I really have this desire to go to a place that sounds really foreign and unfamiliar. I have a deep sense of adventure and I just think that I’ll learn more practical ways of living and getting things done than you ever learn in college.”
In a way, Miller is sort of the American version of Borat — the eponymous reporter from the 2006 movie starring Sacha Baron Cohen. Miller hasn’t seen the movie.
“I can tell you that from what I’ve been told,” Miller said, “Kazakhstan is actually nothing like what’s depicted in the film, despite the fact that it’s about the only thing in Western pop culture to have put Kazakhstan ‘on the map,’ so to speak.
“I am in fact going there to learn about Kazakh culture and bring those findings back to America. That is exactly one of the three goals of (the Peace Corps). The other is for me to bring American culture to the people I meet in Kazakhstan, and thirdly to give them a skilled worker in … teaching English.”
Miller, a 2005 graduate of Roscommon High School and 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan, will spend just over two years in Kazakhstan teaching English to schoolchildren.
Before that begins, though, she’ll have to complete three months of educational, cultural and language training.
Miller will have to learn to communicate in the native language, Kazakh, and the nation’s other major language, Russian, which she has already begun to study.
Kazakhstan — which is south of Russia, west of China and north of Pakistan and Afghanistan — is the world’s ninth-largest country. The world’s largest landlocked nation, it has an estimated population of more than 16 million people.
“I’m nervous and excited, but I think that’s natural,” she said. “I think it’ll be good because it will give me the energy that I need and make me feel that need to learn and get through the training.”
Serving in the Peace Corps will look good on Miller’s resume, but it will also benefit her personally, she said.
“I think it will also improve my confidence and my ability to make change and accomplish things,” she said. “I think that I will learn a lot by living for such a long period of time as part of a foreign community. I’ll learn about myself, about the rest of the world, about other people.”
During her tour with the corps, Miller will contribute a monthly column to The Bay City Times expounding on her experiences in Kazakhstan and comparing that country’s culture with American culture.
“I have this desire to do this long-term travel just for the change and the growth that it will give me,” Miller said, “but also to give back in some way because I’ve been very fortunate and I’ve been able to get a good education here, so I’d like to share that with people who are trying to get a good education themselves.”
Look for Miller’s column starting next month in the Social section.