More Adventures

The family dinner on Saturday night was perhaps the most surprising thing of all. My host mother’s three brothers came, one all the way from Dashaguz, and eleven-hour drive. Not only was it a shock to eat with men, and freely converse with them but men and women drank vodka together. I have only seen alcohol once in my training village, and it was only served to men, and they were in a separate room. So being asked to drink was quite a shock. Naturally, as the guest, I was called upon to make a toast. I went something like this: “I do not toast good in Turkmen. Ummmm, I think, I think. Ummm. Turkmenistan beautiful. Turkmen people friendly,” (look about awkwardly, then repeat the text suggested by other guests: “Have many children and be healthy.”) “Have the children a lot. Be healthy.” I managed to survive many toasts drinking only a shot and a half of vodka. The men, however, got very drunk. One of them kept insisting that he was 22, and my hosts explained that this was a joke, in case I believed a 35-year-old man was 22. Then he told me I was breaking his heart and I told him I was 60, which got a pretty good laugh.

The next day, the brother from Dashaguz started the drive back, but wound up in the nearby hospital instead, with kidney stones. Of course, this took a lot of work to understand. At first, I thought he had hit a rock (aka stone), and hurt his back, because my host mother kept saying rock and pointing to her kidneys. Compounding the confusion, she believed the kidney stones could have been the result of too much alcohol. So, of course, I was thinking of drunk driving. His sister didn’t seem to worried, so I don’t think kidney stones are fatal in Turkmenistan.

The village of Sakar seems to have much to offer children. There are five kindergartens, all brightly-colored, if a bit worn. There is an arts & music school where two of my sisters studied dutak, the national instrument of Turkmenistan. It is something like a two-stringed lute, with a similar-shaped body and a thin, fretted neck. There is also a daily English club for enthusiastic students of English. Naturally, as an American, I was invited to come, as one of my host sisters attends.

When I arrived, I was surprised to see 30 or 40 students there on a Sunday. The teacher was very young, not more than 30, and overwhelmingly warm. As soon as I stepped into her room, she hugged me and explained how happy she was and that, When they found out an American was coming, she waited eagerly for me. I introduced myself, talked about my family, and then they sang me a song by an American pop star I never heard of. The children here almost definitely know more about American pop than I do. Then, I was called upon to sing a song, and recite some French and Greek poetry before the students split to different levels. I was placed with the advanced students, whom the teacher said could talk about many subjects. Not knowing the level, and I think appropriately, I confined the discussion topic to family, seasons, animals, and why the students wanted to learn English. Every student said that English was interesting for them, and that they wanted to study at an American university. I wonder how much of that statement came from a real desire, and how much came from a set of answers they memorized. One thing is clear, there are many Enthusiastic English learners in this town, and hopefully that network of motivated students will help my in my health work.

Talkujta, Independence Day and Kowata, the underground lake. All of these seem so long ago, that I feel I am writing them more out obligation to increase the information on my blog, but I suppose I owe it to myself as well since this blog will be my own record more than anyone else’s.

Talkujta, I am told, means “push and shove” in Russian, and it is the largest bazaar in Central Asia., just 20 minutes outside of Ashgabat. Inside the gates, it is probably over a square kilometer, but then there is the space outside the gates, like a giant open-air grocery store. We passed the vegetable stands, sausage stands, and street-food vendors to enter in the area of traditional Turkmen crafts. These include long, colored braids of camel hair, silver jewelry sold by weight, and of course carpets that would make anyone with a good taste in home décor plotz. You could buy colorful fabric screens to hang in doorways, an embroidered coat, or one of hundreds of traditional Russian fur hats Then there was the fabric section, aisle after aisle. A quarter mile just of velvet for the party dresses, another quarter mile, stall after stall, of brightly colored synthetics, and yet another of cottons. Cotton is one of Turkmenistan’s biggest exports, so it is plentiful and cheap. I bought about 2 ½ yards for about $4.(the labor and ribbon trim cost $3.50, making the cost of the hand-tailored dress $7.50.). The rest of Talkujka may have been dubbed “Mad in China.” There was everything you might find in Wal-Mart, only more chaotically organized. Scattered throughout the market were people carrying delicious-smelling trays of food. Throughout the market, I kept thinking how much fun it would be to show friends and family around the place.

I had a more mixed experience of Turkmen Independence Day. Every American kept insisting that it was the most spectacular fireworks display, and that I would agree with. But I also had to endure several hours in Ashgabat’s central amusement park with my host niece and nephew and a four-hour stint of drinking with my aunt. That being said, the fireworks were truly spectacular. They lasted half an hour and each sequence was coordinated to music, had a color or type theme, and seemed to contain enough fireworks for a mid-sized city. Throughout the show, my five-year-old nephew crouched and covered his ears. Unfortunately, it took us 1 ½ hours to catch a van back to Herrick-Gala. Eventually, my host sister-in-law had to beg our way onto a van that was already full by explaining that she had two young children. The ids sat in strangers’ laps, and I crouched most of the way beside the door.

Kowata is an underground hot spring where they took all the trainees swimming a week ago. It is about 45 minutes from the capital and about 5 kilometers from the border with Iran. You descend down about seven flights of slippery steps with wobbly hand rails, wishing you were wearing metal cleats. As you descend the dimly lit corridor, the air grows hotter and more humid, and eventually carries the smell of eggs from the sulfurous waters of the lake. The water is lovely to swim in; about 82 degrees Fahrenheit, it is like being in a bath. The depth of the water wasn’t clear, but nobody’s feet touched the bottom. However, there were many jutting rocks and ledges where you could rest. We spent about two hours swimming before learning that a half-hour was advised, probably for the same reason that excessive time in a hot tub should be avoided. Still, the water is supposed to be medicinal for your skin, and I have not seen any ill effects. When I told my family in Herrick-Gala that I swam, however, they were extremely apologetic because they don’t know how to swim.

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I want to mention briefly about Turkmen news, as I think anyone who knows anything about the government here might be interested. Basically, the news airs stock footage of brand new Turkmen factories, gorgeous schools with computers and state-of-the-art farming. Having watched the news over breakfast almost every day, I feel fairly confident that the same images are shown over and over. The new footage is of the President cutting the ribbon at a new gas station, the President riding a horse, the President visiting China. There are also man-on-the-street interviews, but I am not sure of their subject.