Where is Turkmenistan?

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

2009-05-12T15:14:00.001-04:00

I decided that a corny movie reference (or song reference or something?) would be the perfect way to frame my week in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, where I hadn’t been in five months.

Trains

The reasons I hadn’t visited Ashgabat in five months, despite housing Peace Corps’ country headquarters and the country’s fine dining, is because it is a fourteen hour train ride from my home (plus the hour long trip to the train station).

Now before you go on imagining horrific third-world country train rides with no heating or cooling, hard seats and overpowering BO, I must confess that the trains are pretty cushy if you travel with people you know. The two times I took the train, we have gotten a sleeping car, called a coupe, with four beds stacked in two sets of bunks. Again, as long as you travel with friends, the coupe isn’t too bad, More comfortable than Amtrak, though I have never been in a sleeper car on Amtrak.

On the ride to Ashgabat, we shared all the food we had prepared for the trip, including Josh and Rebekah’s bloody marys. They had prepared the peppery tomato juice in their new blender. There was even green pepper garnish. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of vodka in Turkmenistan, the drinks were not a hit with the two Turkmen colleagues traveling with us.

The pre-conference conversation about project and service related concerns (do you have a project idea? Will this conference be a waste of time? Will we be able to speak several hours a day in Turkmen about project ideas?) was interrupted by the periodic wailing of peripatetic salespeople. “Popcorn, ice cream, silver jewelry,, bananas,” they call. Some chemical in the ice cream seems to prevent it from melting properly in the spring heat of the train. The sales women (for they are all women) carry their wares in large plastic bags or unwieldy boxes that take up the entire width of the aisle. I wondered if the salespeople always lived on the train. Well, while wandering from car to car trying to find an open bathroom (squat toilet, in case you’re interested), I saw one of the bag-laden salespeople settle down onto a mattress in a small room the size of a closet. So at least there is somewhere to sit some of the time.

Our conversation is also interrupted by the people selling sheets and the ones checking tickets. I don’t quite understand the selling of sheets, because you are required to buy them (or rather rent them), yet you must pay extra. About 21 cents. The sheets are rented out around 8 pm, and collected (one hopes) for laundering around 6 or 7 am depending on when the train arrives.

At one point that evening, the police who ride the train opened the door to the coupe as Josh was getting onto the top bunk. He had his shoes on. The policeman began to question a Turkmen colleague who was in the coupe with us, “Who are these people? Where are they from?” he barked at her. “America,” we said. Though we answered him, the policeman spoke only to our Turkmen colleague. “Well tell them that in Turkmenistan they must act Turkmen. They can act American in America, but they must act Turkmen here. Tell them that.” It wasn’t until he left that I realized the policeman was yelling about Josh’s shoes on the bed. Our Turkmen friend/colleague was very embarrassed.

While the bunk beds are hard, and the blankets scratchy, the hardest part of the overnight train is the severe stops. The train moves at a glacial pace, stopping every hour or so through the night. On the way to Ashgabat, I slept fitfully, waking up every hour, but on the way back, I was exhausted enough to sleep through most of the jerky, poorly executed stops.

Planes

We arrived at Ashgabat at 9:30 am, dropped our bags in the Peace Corps office, as the hotel wasn’t open yet, then waited around for the glorious free internet. After a lengthy lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Yes, a real Chinese restaurant with delicious beef and chili peppers, I headed over to the Aero Kasa (airplane ticket sales building) to buy my ticket to China for vacation. It’s a large, modern building with a huge decal of a TurkmenAir airplane. Despite planning this trip for the past six months, I was very nervous. Things that might be simple business transactions in America are not always so simple here. Another volunteer who came with us to the office had tried to by an in-country plane ticket in Turkmenabat, and the salesperson had insisted that she must pay in dollars because she only had her American passport, not her green Peace Corps ID. Talking to other people who had bought tickets before, this seemed to be a spur of the moment requirement.

The ticket purchase went off without a hitch. I was in line behind four people, and waiting only fifteen minutes as a women handwrote the ticket. The flight schedules and reservations are computerized for the airline, but the tickets are handwritten, so the ticket will be a nice souvenir. It should go without saying that I couldn’t have bought the ticket online if I had wanted to. Also, Turkmenistan is an all-cash economy. There is no credit unless a local seller as the bazaar wants to keep a handwritten record of his customers. As a result, I had been traveling around with all the cash to buy my ticket. It was a thrilling relief to dispense with all that cash and finally get the ticket. My plane leaves at 2:30 am in the morning on a Sunday, and gets to Beijing at 12:20 pm Beijing time. I still need to look up the time different to find out exactly how long the flight is.

Automobiles

Because we don’t know the bus roots of the capital well, and because our hotel was far from the PC office, we spent a lot of time taking taxis.

On the way back from the Chinese embassy, where I had picked up my visa application, Kelsey and I were pessimistic about finding a taxi quickly. The Chinese embassy is in the ritziest, but most isolated part of town, Berzini where lots of luxury cars drive. As a rule, drivers of luxury cars don’t pick up extra passengers to earn a few more manats. Imagine our surprise when a BMW pulled over. He even asked us to name our own price, suggesting he picked us up for the intrigue of international passengers rather than the money. Immediately he put American pop music on the stereo (it must have been a CD because it doesn’t play on the radio). We spent the whole ride in awe of the smooth roads and working shocks, a major difference from the lawn mower feel of a Lada on country roads.

Then, a few days later, a large group of PCVs heading to the hotel were surprised to get picked up by a minivan. Inside, the man quickly started up in uncertain English He was from Kazakhstan, and a Jehovah’s Witness. But he didn’t spend the time testifying for us. Instead, he wanted to talk politics. Unfortunately, responsibility towards Peace Corps prevents me from relating his political diatribe. Suffice it to say that he compared the fate of Jehovah’s Witnesses in all the Central Asian countries.

A Small Party and a Big One

2009-03-30T09:05:00.002-04:00

March 20th and 21st we celebrated the Muslim New Year, Nowruz. Many volunteers used the long weekend as a time to go back and visit the capital, but I had heard from a Turkmen friend that there was a big celebration here, so I decided to stay in town. The whole week before, I started excitedly asking people about the celebration, but they looked at me blankly, “We stay home and do housework.” Then I heard about the concert in the park and convinced my sisters to go. Everyone under eighteen was out, circling the small park in their finest dresses. The park is smaller than a city block. Unfortunately, despite the good turn out, the concert was merely a DJ who played literally two songs before packing up to leave. So much for a spring festival. The exciting part of the park was realizing how many people I know in the town, feeling like I’m starting to integrate.

There is one special thing that many families do for Nowruz: cook sumelek. “Sumelek is a Turkmen national dish,” everyone proudly tells me. It is wheat that has been boiled in a giant vat for twelve hours with constant stirring. Then is it left to sit for another 12 hours. It is a deep brown and has the consistency and likely the taste of library paste. You eat it by dipping your pinky in the bowl and making a wish. You can also make a wish if you are one of the people that helps do the twelve hours worth of stirring.

As it turns out, the big celebration this week was my host-father’s fiftieth birthday. We rented outdoor tables and chairs for fifty guests and served a seven course meal. All the women in the family stayed home to help and I pitched in later when I got back from work. The first course was the hors d’heuvres: four different kinds of salads (beet, potato, layered fish salad and mushroom), a plate of fried foods (chicken, fish, French fries, fried dough and fried meat dumplings), a plate of cucumbers, tomato, dill and scallions. Next came somsas (savory meat pies), followed by goat soup, stuffed cabbage and a sort of casing-free sausage called lule. Each of these four dishes would be a meal in itself on another night. Then came another soup, a broth filled with handmade noodles. The only relatively simple thing was the desert - plates of dried fruits and nuts, chocolates and store-bought baklava.

Throughout it all, the young people served and cleaned while I toggled between trying to help (but generally getting in the way), and sitting at a rowdy table of middle-aged woman, taking shot after shot of vodka. The older women are like frat boys seeking to initiate you, so great is the pressure to drink. Around 10:30, when only the intimate friends and relatives remained, my host uncle gave me a very emotional introduction and called on me to toast my host father. My toasting vocabulary is rather limited, so I had to repeat the toast I had already offered at a smaller table. Though I went to bed around midnight, my sisters tell me that the revelry lasted until three.

The President is Coming!

2009-03-16T01:28:00.002-04:00

Last week, for two days, the president of Turkmenistan visited Turkmenabat, the city 45 minutes from my village and the second largest city in Turkmenistan, a fact which surprises me each time I visit. I thought I would take the opportunity to describe both the city and the event.

Each Monday afternoon, after finishing my morning lessons at the hospital, I walk to the taxi station of my site. It is the town’s main intersection, next to the tiny bazaar. I should take a moment to describe taxis here. Very, very occasionally, in Turkmenabat, you will see a car with a taxi sign on it. It is a registered taxi. Those registered taxis are never in my village. Taxis here are anyone with free time and a car. Drivers wait around by the bazaar in their cars until they have enough passengers and then drive twenty minutes to Dunya Bazaar, the enormous market at the southern edge of the city. On Sunday, when many many women make the trip to the Dunya for cheaper produce, fabric, vacuum cleaners, electric kettles, yarn, car parts or anything else, the cabs fill quickly with four passengers. But on Monday, when I go, the drivers wait around for another fifteen minutes for just one more passenger.

The road between my town and Dunya is the main road for the entire Lebap region, starting at the bazaar and extending another five hours or so south to Afghanistan. In America, it would be a two-lane highway, traffic heading north and south. And it is two lanes here, too. Sort of. If the driver owns a car less then ten years old, he will pass the slower older cars ahead in an imaginary middle lane. Two lanes, main thorough-fair of Lebap, and both northbound and southbound traffic using the imaginary lane. Occasionally, I find myself wondering which is safer: a twenty-five year old Soviet Lada whose cabin is probably full of carbon monoxide and which I doubt has an impact-absorbing crumple zone, or a newer safer car, with a driver passes in the middle lane. At these moments, I turn to the camel-hair talisman hung from the rear view mirror and hope that protection from the evil eye includes automotive invincibility. At. Dunya, I hop out of the taxi and hand over my 10,000 Manats, roughly 70 cents.

Though everyone in my town calls Dunya, “the city,” my trip is hardly over. Dunya is on the outskirts, and I have another half hour bus ride to get to the internet café or another volunteer’s apartment. There is no choosing between new and old buses (or at least there wasn’t until recently, but more on that later). All the buses are Soviet era, seating about twenty people on seat cushions so worn, that I recognized a bus by the way my butt fell into exactly the same hole. Each bus has personality, as the upholstery is in assorted garish fabrics probably hand-sewn by the bus-driver’s wife. The passengers are a mix of village women in traditional dress, with covered heads and long yakas (the embroidery on the front of the Turkmen dress), and young fashionable city youth in tight jeans, high leather boots and occasionally with pierced noses. It is probably wishful thinking, but this bus ride feels like one of the most blissfully anonymous parts of my week. The mix of people makes me less conspicuous, I think.

We all bump along together at a snails pace, the ancient cassis of the bus shaking every joint. I once tried to tell my counterpart at work that the bus offered a full body massage, but I’m not sure she understood. Tooth-rattling roads are just a fact of life here. One time, the bus I was on stalled, and the driver hopped out and hand-cranked the bus back to life. All buses have a manual start option in case the alternator fails. The driver was reluctant to come to a full stop at the next bus station, so a passenger hopped out as the bus continued to crawl forward.

Despite its alleged size, the city hardly seems to bustled. In the bus window, I see squat two and three story apartment buildings in pale pinks and greys. Bright white satellite dishes hang in stark newness by every window. Few other things look so new. The stores are under-stocked neighborhood convenience stores, and occasionally restaurants or bakeries. My landmarks on the trip are the “Asia Disco,” with a sign in giant red letters framed in palm trees, and a giant unexplained statue of a rubix cube. The cube would be impossible to solve, however, because every side is full of a single color, save one yellow square on the green side. The cube has ten yellow squares, and eight green. Sometimes the whole country feels like an impossible rubix cube. If I want to go to the other volunteers’ apartment, I get off at the bronze of an ancient Turkmen hero next to an eternally empty amusement park. Otherwise, I get off a few stops later at Gok Bazaar, by the internet café, or I ride the bus to the train station then walk to the post office. Sometimes I ride the bus to the train station just to pass the time, though, since timing my arrival for two pm, when the internet café reopens can be hard.

I haven’t done much site-seeing in the city, as most people attest there isn’t much to do. There is a Russian Orthodox Church I entered, with the usual filigree icons. It is a single room, surprisingly light and the smell of incense sent me scrambling to remember all the Russian chants and hymns from my chorus days. I can’t tell the number of times I regret not bringing my Russian chorus music, because I really think the folk songs would be a great community-integrating tool, and I can’t remember the full words to many of the songs. I have also been three times to Lebap restaurant, which makes a totally decent Margarita pizza, the only thing I have eaten there. I tried, once, to order blinis (Russian crepes), but they were out. The other option is soup, but I never want to order soup, because I eat it for every single dinner. The only patrons I have ever seen at the restaurant are the other volunteers. The Bratt travel guide to Turkmenistan calls it the “closest thing to fine dining in Turkmenabat.” One time, the volunteers met at Owadan Café. I order the mushroom pizza. It was tasty, with plenty of mushrooms, but there were no tomatoes, very little cheese and it was topped with mayonnaise and ketchup. I still need to visit the Russian bath house and the city’s museum. They are probably closed Sundays, though, so I will need to take some time off work to get there.

And now on to the President. Starting several weeks (or was it over a month?) before his visit, news of the impending arrival was being whispered around, “The President is giving us a hospital, a school, new buses.” For his visit, Dunya Bazaar, the second largest bazaar in the country, was shut down for three days. My host father, who works at a pharmacy in the bazaar stayed at home, but my host mother, a doctor in the city, stayed late each day at work for meeting about the new hospital.

On Turkmen TV, whenever the president is shown (and this is very often), he is surrounded by an adoring public waving flags. This is because all employees of the government in my county ( and in the city and other neighboring county), had to go and wait for him. This means the hospital was empty of all but a skeleton staff, and all the schools were closed because the teachers went off along with the oldest grades to greet the president. The new hospital was opened along with the new school and 180 new buses were given. My hospital even got a new ambulance, though we’re not in the city. All the new vehicles have a clear message on the front, “A gift from our respected President.” My family, who watches almost exclusively Russian satellite TV, watched the Turkmen news to see the ceremonies. Children in the new school gave a concert, recited poetry and used the schools new computers. It is hard to gauge reactions to the event because most people were simply tired for waiting around in the rain for their head of state.

Women’s Day

2009-03-16T01:28:00.001-04:00

The 8th of March is international Women’s Day, and also an official Turkmen holiday, much like our Mother’s Day. Boys give their sisters flowers and everyone gives their mother something. The female employees of the hospital all got a little holiday bonus. Unfortunately, this did not include me, seeing as I am not on the hospital payroll. Though women get presents, there doesn’t seem to be a specific acknowledgement of women’s contributions to society. (Women still cooked and cleaned today, as usual).

To celebrate, my host family had an evening picnic in the desert fifteen minutes from the town. The desert nearby probably doesn’t qualify as a desert technically, seeing as it rains a fair amount here, and it was cloudy tonight, but it still looks like a desert: namely, it is full of sand and sand dunes. The plant life is all scrubby low bushes, like a beach without the water. Still, on our way their, we passed many green fields full of wheat, eliminating some of the barren-feeling of a desert.

We set our blankets in the sand with twelve other relatives near a brown and murky path of water. First came the palow and salads, then cake. The older men and women offered their vodka toasts. I assumed with the cake we were finished, but then we lit a camp fire, chatting and nobody in a hurry to go anywhere.

There is a thorny bush abundant in this particular desert that makes excellent kindling. The thorns catch fire before any other part of the stick, so that put in the fire, then taken away, the bush seems a Christmas tree full of tiny lights. I sat just watching the thorns of the bush catch fire, then a thick stew of lamb and potato came out. Meanwhile, I had already eaten the cake, but there is no saying no to Turkmen food. So I ate the stew. More toasting the holiday and good fortune. The group cleaned the picnic area, full of bowls and tea cups and salad plates and the women (on Women’s Day), did the dishes. But we were not finished; I realized my host father was frying fish. After a good forty-five minutes of fireside catch and wandering and cleaning, we ate that too. Maybe the strangest four course meal I’ve ever had: fried rice and salad, then cake, then potato and meat stew, finally fried fish.

To avoid being force-fed fried fish on my overstuffed stomach, I moved away from the picnic circle and towards my sisters sitting around the dying embers of the fire, enjoying that peaceful drowsy feeling after eating outdoors. An older woman from the picnic whose connection to the family is unclear was also by the fire. She explained that when she was a girl, she had to make tea over the fire every morning: there was no gas stove and the fire was an everyday thing. She also talked about her own children; all twelve of them. But then, one of my host sisters spotted a glowing ember at the bottom of her coat. Her coat had caught fire and was slowly smoldering. But she didn’t take it off. Instead, she sat while my sister stamped it out on the ground. The fact that she stayed wearing her smoldering coat didn’t even strike me as strange until a few minutes later. I suppose when you’ve raised eleven children (one child died), you are just more calm when your clothes catch fire.

Turkmen Health Beliefs

2009-03-16T01:24:00.000-04:00

I am too overwhelmed by the month and a half of events to try and catch up on my blog, so I’m just writing some short entries and I’ll slowly make up for the empty time in the coming entries, I hope. This entry is a summary of Turkmen health beliefs. These beliefs are prevalent enough that I have heard them multiple times, but they are by no means universal, and they are far less prevalent among doctors with whom I have talked. Despite the prevalence of some of these beliefs, I would say that many people lack confidence in their own convictions, trusting the knowledge of doctors above others to the exclusion of seeing value in what they may know already.

1. Eating apples cures and prevents anemia.

I hear this almost every day because I do an anemia lesson with pregnant women who are at risk of anemia.

2. Spinach causes high blood pressure.

I asked a doctor about this belief, and she said that spinach gives some people a headache. The same is also believed about lentils. So basically, if the food is iron rich and high in fiber, it will give you high blood pressure.

3. Headaches cause high blood pressure.

4. Eating eggs during pregnancy deforms a baby’s head.

I have a theory about this belief. There could easily be a virus or bacteria in eggs that causes birth defects. In America, pregnant women are told to avoid cold cuts because of listeriosis and German Measles does cause birth defects. But one of the doctors claims this belief just comes from eggs being expensive. I always tell the women to cook their eggs thoroughly.

5. Cold drink and ice cream cause soar throats.

I asked a doctor about this belief, and she explained that cold makes the throat more susceptible to pathogens.

6. A compress of vodka soaked towels should be put on the neck for a soar throat.

7. Food that is more than a day old should be avoided even if it is stored in the fridge. This only applies to the main course; salads, old bread, canned goods and meats are all fine.

8. If boys have sex too young, they get high levels of hormones and this can give them breast cancer.

I heard this from an oncologist who is my host uncle. He is a cancer surgeon, and he was talking about operating on a boy with breast cancer. When I commented on the fact that this was very rare, he said that breast cancer wasn’t rare in men here because boys have sex too young.

These are just beliefs I have personally encountered. I have heard other volunteers talk about other beliefs, but I am not including them here because I haven’t heard them directly. If you think you know the origin of the belief, or if you know any could medical anthropology texts, please leave a comment and recommend one.

Ahhh!

2009-03-09T06:57:00.001-04:00

MS words doesn't work on this computer, so once again, my beautifully-pretyped posts will be left to languish. And I can't seem to open the files in Google Reader either. Maybe it will happen next week.

Why I haven't posted

2009-03-02T04:05:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry about the two month blog absence. My computer was having major issues, so I wasn't able to pre-type my blog posts. However, I have at last fixed that situation. Next week I will be posting about Turkmen medical beliefs, the major city in my region, and about the arrival of spring. I look forward to updating more regularly, now. At least my fingers are crossed.

Work and Play: Part I II: New Year's Eve

2009-01-07T04:26:00.000-05:00

Arriving back form work at 10:30 am, I found one sister sweeping, and two cooking. The smell of boiled beets and potatoes filled the kitchen, and I spent the day dicing boiled potatoes and carrots for all the salads we were preparing for the holiday. We made four different salads, all involving finely diced or shredded ingredients, all involving mayonnaise. The Olivie is finely diced potatoes, finely diced cooked carrots, canned peas, cubed pickles, cubed bologna, cubed eggs and mayonnaise. It tastes just like potato salad. Another salad is shredded beets, shredded raw garlic and mayonnaise. The mimoza salad layers mashed sardines, shredded potatoes, shredded cooked carrots and shredded hard-boiled egg between mayonnaise strata. Finally, the spinach salad is shredded spinach, canned corn, croutons and mayonnaise. My host father also roasted pork over and open pit, then doused it with vinegar and finely shredded onions.

I found out that all this lavish feast, set at a table that could hold at least fifteen people was made just in case guests came, and there was no definite people coming. Turkmen New Year’s has an element of Halloween. People, mostly in their twenties or younger, wander from house to house of friends and family, eating food the whole way. I went to three different houses, each of which served me a full meal, and became increasingly distressed that I could not eat vast quantities. I had already stuffed myself on pork with my host family, then politely worked my way through a stuffed cabbage at my second house, when at the third house I was served a full bowl or soup and a huge plate of manty. I picked politely, but my stomach ached, “Eat, eat! Don’t you like Turkmen food? Why don’t you eat? Isn’t it delicious?” my host repeated. On every street, the children throw firecrackers called “Pankledaks” that explode with load cracks. With each crack my belly lurched.

For midnight, I was back at home with the family. We watched the president’s speech, then drank champagne out of pressed-glass flutes in which we had burned papers containing dreams we wrote for the New Year. There was cake, and then we went outside to burn out little fireworks. Being a neurotic New Yorker to the end, I was half terrified, as the feeble little colored streams whizzed out the end. The closest thing I’ve held is a sparkler, but this thin little firecracker has gunpowder and everything. What if one gets stuck and it explodes in my face? I genuinely felt like a “big girl” entrusted with this powerful dangerous toy. My host father also heralded in the new year with some gun powdered, firing a single shot from a rifle. It may be the only time in my life I’ve seen a gun fired. Afterwards there was a bonfire in the garden. Three sisters and five and friends danced around the bonfire. The celebration went on and on. The black smoke from three old tires rose into the night before I finally called it a day and went to bed at 2 am. I’m not sure how long the party lasted after that.

Work and Play: Part I I: New Year's

2009-01-07T04:25:00.001-05:00

The big holiday here is New Year’s day. Many details closely resemble Christmas. There are elaborately decorated Christmas trees, in a style any American would recognize, children are given gifts on New Year’s Eve and there is Ayaz Baba - Grandpa Frost - who dresses like Santa and brings these presents. He is accompanied by Garpamyk - Snow Maiden. The whole week of New Years, American Christmas movies dubbed into Turkmen play on TV, with “Christmas” replaced by “Taze Yyl,” or New Year’s. On Russian satellite TV, Russian and American Christmas movies air almost constantly, just as the week before Christmas in America. At work, my colleagues kept asking if I knew “Kevin” in a movie, and after a great deal of confusion, I realized they were asking me about “Home Alone.” Given my ignorance of Russian and Soviet culture, I’m not sure if this style of New Year’s came from the Soviets or not.

Two days before Christmas, there was a large party at work, and I couldn’t help but think of something I heard from a friend; that for adults, the work holiday party is your whole life (a tip o’ the nib to Sarah Berkowitz). In the morning, everyone at my clinic pitched in to make manty, steamed meat dumplings, for the clinic. I was whisked away by my work friend Shemshat to a local kindegarten because I had promised to take pictures of her niece. Little did I realize that I was to witness the fabled Turkmen New Year pageant, and there were four separate groups. Four times, a group of elaborately dressed kindergarteners trouped in to the sound of keyboard synth, clapped for Ayaz Baba, shouted poetry to the audience, shouted a song, received candy from Ayaz Baba, and trouped off again. The older children also performed little vaudevillian sketches. Nearly every girl was dressed as Garpamyk, with an elaborate white or gold dress, many with wands, their hair curled, silver glitter everywhere and eye shadow on their five-year old faces. Naturally, I was enchanted by a spectacle so closely and bizarrely resembling American practice, even if four times around was a bit much.

Back at work, we ate our manty in the clinic, made toasts to the New Year (I am inevitably called upon to make a toast, as a guest), then headed for the hospital wide New Years carnival. I was nervous because I had agreed to perform a Turkmen song with one of my colleagues, for which I felt largely unprepared. I found out only the day before that we would be singing with dutar accompaniment. At this same colleague’s request, I was also singing an English Christmas song. Through out this New Years season, I have been asked to supply American holiday songs, and I realize that despite the abundance of these songs, I know complete words to very very few. For the holiday carnival, I chose the first verse of “Deck the Halls” because it was lively, I knew it, and I felt it appropriately secular. As I found out at the carnival, each work unit had prepared a little skit for the day, and these skits or songs were interspersed with dancing. I had no idea what was happening in most of the skits, but I’m fairly sure that many of them mocked Uzbeks and Russians, although the exact attitudes I am unsure of. Of course, everyone was excited that an American had learned a Turkmen folksong, so the ill-rehearsed performance went over well. The next day, December 31, everyone went into work at 8 am as usual, drank tea, socialized for two hours, then went home again.

Work and Play: Part I: Play

2009-01-07T04:24:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday night I went to my second wedding at permanent side (giving me a grand total of 8 weddings attended since arriving in country). While in the Ahal region, men and women sit totally separately in wedding, both weddings I have been to here have had mixed tables. In addition, this most recent wedding had a female singer, wearing a short skirt (scandalous on two counts, the skirt and the gender). I drank vodka toasts with my host mother. Eating the palow (national fried rice dish), I settled into my favorite pastime of watching children at the weddings. I continue to marvel at how alike Turkmen and American children are at large parties. There is always the little girl dancing frenetically and with total arhythmia, and another girl who lifts up her skirt without shame in the middle of the dance floor, or takes off her shoes. And the little boys wearing tiny suits, looking uncomfortable and scrambling about underfoot. Little boys may be uncomfortable in their absurdly tiny suits, but that miniaturization charms me. People watching was interrupted an abrupt change in the music to a slow, longing wail. A dancer wearing a long tight velvet coat had taken the stage. She was acting out a scene in which she gracefully refused to be seduced, and the movements looked like belly dancing, despite the long modest costume. There was a silver V of long plastic silver sequence on the front of the coat. The music picked up pace and she began to shimmy, the silver tinsel on her breast plate flying. She kept this up for at least twenty minutes as men offered money and tried to allure her with their dancing. When I asked my host sister about the performance, she explained that this was Uzbek, not Turkmen dancing. As much as I gripe about “On the Road,” I wished the character of Dean could have described the dance, because the erratic, exotic thrill would have perfectly described my enjoyment of the dancer.

Eventually, a girl looking about nine year old joined her in the dance. The girl had obviously studied danced for a while, and performed with amazing confidence in a routine with the professional. Her proud mother or aunt gave her fistfuls of money to hold up as she danced. At the end of the girl’s performance, I could see a man, I don’t know who, offer her two crisp American five dollar bills, a good sum of money here. (It is not unusual for people that have jobs with private companies to be paid in American currency here. I suppose it is seen as more stable, but I wonder if that perception may change given the economic situation).

Work and Play: Part I: Work

2009-01-07T04:22:00.000-05:00

I have now been at my permanent site for nearly three and a half weeks, and I suppose that I should talk a little about what I’m supposed to be doing for the next 23 months, although even after 10 weeks of training and three weeks at work, that is not entirely clear.

I’m working at a small clinic (the literal Turkmen is “House of Health“) with six doctors and six nurses, but the clinic is located on the grounds of a county hospital, since my village is the county center. The clinic doctors are all family doctors and nurses who make house visits to their patients and would be considered general practitioners in the US. Each doctor and nurse pair is responsible for about 1,000 patients, and each pair is assigned to a different district of the town (doctors and nurses here are all employees of the government). At the large county hospital, neighboring the clinic, there are obstetricians, two blood labs, surgeons, dentists, internists and other specialists. These doctors do not do house visits.

In Peace Corps around the world, each volunteer is assigned a host country national counterpart, whose role in the community is relatively close to the role of the volunteer. The counterpart is the official link of the volunteer with the community and the government, but there is no requirement that the volunteer work exclusively with the official counterpart. The counterpart situation in Turkmenistan is unique for several reasons. First of all, there are no health educators in Turkmenistan, so my counterpart is a family nurse, and the only existing health education in my town is a few health posters from the government plus any information which may be passed along during patient visits. Secondly, some volunteers are paired with someone who has no interest in working with them, simply because the director of the hospital desired a volunteer. This is not the case for everyone, and many many volunteers are paired with enthusiastic counterparts, but others must work hard to find someone interested in collaboration. Fortunately for me, everyone in my clinic has been very friendly, so even if my role is unclear, I am making connections and am optimistic about building a working relationship with some of the people at my clinic.

According to the official Peace Corps training, health volunteers are supposed to do a “needs assessment” of the community in conjunction with the doctors, and we should “community integrate.” The purpose of the needs assessment is twofold; it should help decide what health programs would be relevant and possible, and it should give health workers a new tool by which they can look at their community to establish effective programs in the future. “Community integrating” means making friends, work connections, learning appropriate local culture and establishing myself as a trustworthy and helpful person. Most volunteers spend at least the first three months improving language and getting to know people at work, or so I have gathered.

To approach my needs assessment, I decided that I would try to go on house visits with every single doctor in the clinic. My plan was simply to talk about what diseases we might see on house visits and good ideas for educating about any preventable disease I saw. So I explained to everyone at the clinic that I needed to learn about the town and its diseases, and that I wanted to do this by joining them on house visits.

The idea that my job could be to observe and listen, at least at first, is pretty novel and has gotten varied receptions. When I have gone on house visits with my official counterpart, or even when she is seeing patients in the clinic, she sometimes asks me to teach about the disease immediately. For instance, we saw an older women who was crippled by a fairly recent disease (in the past five years, I think), and she wanted to know what exercises she might do. A similar question came up with a man with polio arthritis. Because there is no health education, and because many teachers do no write lesson plans, the notion that I am not ready to effectively educate yet may not be fully comprehensible. The vaccination nurse with whom I once went on house visits, thought I wanted to learn house to give injections so I could make some money on the side. Almost all medications, including vitamins, are given by injection. But, I think I have had some small victories that come on house visits. There seems to be a lot of kidney disease here, and I talk about reducing sodium in the diet to patients. Right now, I don’t have a lot of credibility, but I want to co-write a kidney disease lesson plan with a doctor. I also did have one point of credibility when I saw a patient for a house visit a second week in the row, and I talked about ways she might reduce her baby’s scalp rash (with ideas from Where There is No Doctor). At any rate, the brief talk was rewarding because she seemed genuinely interested, and I think she listened because it was my second visit to her. As inspired by the house visits, I have determined that I will work on lesson plans for kidney disease and child development, since those seem to be the issues that family doctors deal with, and one of the doctors agreed these would be good topics.

On the schedule I worked out with my counterpart, I was also going to spend each morning with a different specialist at the hospital: gynecologist, tuberculosis and infectious disease. In reality, the only specialists I have gone to are the gynecologists, because I didn’t realize how quickly there would be requests for lessons, so I need to get them written. In addition, I am teaching English six hours a week, two hours a week at the clinic, by request of the doctors. Everyone asks me to teach English to their children, or to them, but only three people have showed up to my club. And it is really hard to explain to people that I can’t give private lessons, because I can’t give them to everyone, and I can’t accept money for them. The other four hours I teach English are at an English club run by a teacher in the town. I work with the advanced students, and just try to invent games that will keep them practicing speech, since most of the classroom education only emphasizes vocabulary. The town English club has been really great to introduce me to some of the towns most energetic and dedicated students, but it is definitely tricky to figure out two hours worth of programming for each session. I hope that the relationships I build in English club will help me involve students in health activities eventually. I want to start a girls health club. Unfortunately, I don’t have time right now, because the director of the clinic doesn’t want me to start outside projects for three months, and without making room in my schedule, it’s not going to happen.

As far as community integration goes, I just try to talk to any doctor in the clinic who wants to talk, and to accept every invitation to drink tea with anyone. The third day in town, I went out on a walk, and got invited into tea with one of the doctors. I just stepped in, and was treated to a full table display by my new colleague. The next day, a total stranger recognized me as American, greeted me in English and invited me in. Turkmen people are very “myhman soyi” meaning “guest-loving.” This hospitality culture, combined with a general fondness towards the US and mandatory English for every school child, mean that being an American here is probably uniquely favorable. Other Americans abroad talk about the burden of nationality, but here being an American opens doors. People want to meet you. At almost every house visit, I am presented with tea, candy, bread, and often a full meal. After the house visit with the doctor, the mother or grandmother of the patient always asks to come visit, but I often cannot remember ho to find the house again. I’m not sure what to do about this problem, except hope that I go on another house visit. All in all, the “community integration” aspect of my job means that I spend a lot of time schmoozing in bad Turkmen and accepting invitations to visit. I guess I could call it networking.

Persimmons and Dallas, Among Other Things

2008-12-18T06:32:00.004-05:00

I am going to backtrack to a cute little anecdote about my visit to Lebap. My aunt-by-marriage there is a nephrologist in the nearby regional capital, but despite the extensive education for doctors, of course, she gets a very small salary (teachers get paid more). As a result, she is also a cosmetic salesperson. She queried me at length about which cosmetics were popular, and whether they were expensive in America. Her favorite brand is Mary Kay, and she confessed to me that her dream was to go to Dallas, Texas. When I asked her why, she explained that, of course, the Mary Kay central offices where there. I can only hope that they have a spectacular factory tour to make the trip worth it. Her wish just struck me as so charming and absurd, it just stuck with me and I wanted to include it.
The past few days have been very full of such intriguing cross-cultural encounters that I’ve made a little catalogue. Last night, for instance, just before going to bed, my host father turned on WWF pro wrestling, and my thirty-year-old sister-in-law was watching with great fascination. When I mentioned that it was from America, she was all the more rapt. I explained that WWF wrestling was theater in America and wasn’t real. I feel a did a great service to the country by letting someone halfway around the world that pro wresting was faked. This discussion had followed a brief conversation on race relations in America. My family asked me if there were a lot of black people in America, and the asked me about the black volunteers. It was astounding that they should even know about them, because they are not in the same town. But rumor spreads fast in Turkmenistan, and if you think being an American here puts you in the center of attention, try being a black American (strangers constantly taking photos of you). Anyway, my family asked me if there was interracial marriage, and if there where separate schools. I managed to convey that schools were separate 50 years ago, and that this was bad. But, terms like injustice, unequal and prejudice are still well beyond me. Well, not so much the words, because I have a dictionary, but putting them in context.

Then there have been a few amusing linguistic complications. I tried to tell my mother that I had bought persimmons (a new word that day), and she looked confused for a moment, repeated the word to me quizzically and finally said “Gutly Bolsun” which means “congratulations” and is traditionally said for somewhat larger purchases. A new dress, “Gutly Bolsun”; but a new fruit? Usually not. So I brought out the fruit to show her, and she cracked up. “Oh, you said ‘hormat’ but you bought ‘horma.’” She repeated this story later to her guests, again getting a good laugh. Finally, I looked up the word and found out that I had told her I had bought “respect.” The congratulations and confusion became clear. Last week, my training group went together to Nisa, and ancient ruin 5000 years old, and just a few minutes from our town. Despite the lack of tour guides or signage, I can tell you from my Turkmen teacher that Nisa was once the head of the Persian Empire and also a stronghold for Alexander the Great. The whole city’s outer perimeter is probably only a few kilometers, and we scrambled up and down the crumbling remains of the surrounding wall. As we were the only visitors, the whole place seemed like some private sand-swept playground. And despite the lack of information, the very proximity of ancientness was thrilling on its own. In the not-too-distant distance where the Kowpet Mountains separating Turkmenistan from Iran. Given the generous and welcoming and basically apolitical or pro-American attitudes I’ve encountered so far, it’s hard to believe that not so far away, people are burning effigies of American figures, or at least they might be if TV reflected life.

Yesterday, my birthday, was perfectly lovely. It began with a call from my parents. Then we spent the day in Ashgabat, first getting lost on the way to a museum where we were supposed to meet our teacher, then eating a pizza restaurant and heading to a bar (beer=$1). Then, three other volunteers came over to my host family as my mother had made about 10 pounds of palow (Turkmen fried rice). Keeping busy all day, I wasn’t really homesick at all until the next morning, because of course there are so many people in America I wish to share happy occasions with.
The museum we visited in Ashgabat was a spectacular marble building that looked almost brand new, but more reflected ideas about find arts museums from a hundred years ago. The first floor was full of paintings, with scenes form Turkmen life all painted between 1930-1970, it seemed, in a variety of styles, some of the quite compelling (from folk art to impressionist and vaguely Gaugin). The museum was clearly designed to be a pride and joy of the city, replete with a gift store and granite bathrooms, but I the we may have been the only ones there. We were able to talk to two curators, one of whom spoke English and wanted Peace Corps to give the museum a volunteer. That would be a really sweet job! As we were leaving, a school trip of Turkmen children was entering; they were the only other visitors I saw. Part of the reason we got lost looking for the museum was that nobody we asked knew where it was, or that it even existed, in spite of its grandeur.

The glittering marble halls were in especially sharp contrast to some conversations I had with Turkmen recently. On a visit to see my sister-in-law’s new nephew, my host brother spoke disparagingly of the absence of work in the country. He said people need to go to Turkey or Moscow for jobs, and I have heard unemployment rates as high as 80% quoted to me. My guess is that this figure does not take into account cottage industry, as many people seem to run small businesses out of their homes, as my brother who videos weddings almost every night of the week. Still, we heard that the median wage is $11,000 annually which, even account for lower costs, is very meager.
In less than two weeks, nessip bolsa, I will be sworn in as an official volunteer. Very exciting.

More Adventures

2008-12-11T19:41:00.003-05:00

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.

*************

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.

More from Sakar

2008-12-09T17:16:00.003-05:00

I slept poorly on the train and dismounted with my counterpart to a rainy city. The pocked road was full of puddles I tried to make mental notes of my surroundings, but little stuck. As it turned out, the bus took us to a bazaar where my counterpart bought a pair of boos, some toy cars for her nephew and a large blanket. I would say that I was a bit put out by this. She had had been on the same 14-hour train ride; did she really wish to go shopping? Also, a trip to the bazaar meant I actual didn’t know how long it would take to go from the village to the train station. I had heard varying estimates from 20 to 45 minutes and was interested in actual differences. On the other had, the bazaar did give a good impression of Lebap’s liberality. There were women wearing jeans and shorter (knee-length) skirts.

The taxi ride to Sakar filled me with glee. For some reason, that expression seems awkward and wrong. But with glee was I filled, because Lebap has grass and trees. There are trees in Ahal, but they all seemed stunted and half-alive, like trees that grow in the salty mist of the ocean. The trees they have in Lebap are full and proper and have fall colors, mostly yellow, but some peaking of the pinkish orange of maple. Instead of camels, there are donkeys, and with the rain, the earth smelled wet and lush. Some of the roofs are piled high with hay, giving them an almost British air. The houses are made of brick from a yellow clay, instead of the whitewashed concrete in Herrick-Gala.

Now, on to the family and house. The difference is almost indescribable and I find myself thinking: “Is this Turkmenistan?” I guess my shock is something to keep in mind any time I believe I know something bout anything. For one, the kitchen is indoors and would be, aside from the ingredients, completely familiar to any American. The bathroom (NOTE: “bathroom” means bathing room, not toilet.) is in a separate building next to the kitchen, and has a full shower and a “washing machine” which resembles a garbage can with an agitator. It doesn’t fill or drain automatically but the setup has a faucet right above to fill it. So, keeping my clothes clean and myself clean should be quite a bit easier. I know it must seem strange to go on and on about the house’s amenities, but these things really sent me into a state of material shock that I still hardly believe. It doesn’t seem right, somehow. As in how did I get assigned to a family with all this? And they have a cow, a giant marmalade at and two overzealous guard dogs.

Now, the family. I finally have my dream of sisters. I have three sisters in the house. One is 20, and a nurse at the clinic where I will work. The next is 17, the next 15 (those two are students). There is also an older sister, married with two young children, but married women move to their husband’s home. These sisters are also a dream situation, both because it is great for my language skills and because I may very well wish to work with this age group, training them to be health educators, so I have an immediate connection. All of the children speak some degree of English, and two of them said they wish for English in their careers, as English teacher and interpreter. The parents are also very educated; the mother is a gynecologist, the father a pharmacist. It is also an interesting family because the mother is Tartar and Russian is her first language while the father is Turkmen. I’m not sure that that type of union is common. The girls explained, however, “We are Turkmen, because our father is Turkmen.” When the mother speaks Turkmen, about 30% of the words are Russian. In this town, this seems fairly common. I don’t recognize much of the vocabulary, and many of the words seem to have a Russian accent. I’m going to bed now, but look forward to the following topics (as thought you must wait while I sleep).

The Party
The English Club
Exciting events yet to happen, for who knows what tomorrow will bring?

To the Permanent Location

2008-12-06T16:49:00.001-05:00

I am writing from the town of Sakar, center of the Sakar Etrap (kind of like a county) in Lebap Velayat (kind of like a state). This town will be my home for the next two years. Peace Corps sends us here, before the end of training, to gather important information about our sites, such as: mailing address (yay! This town has a post office!) and any potential problems (like the fact that m door doesn’t lock because the previous volunteer took the key). I am sitting in my host sister’s room staring blankly because I don’t know where to begin the description. I suppose at the beginning.

This past Wednesday, we found out about the election, and far more historically, our “permanent sites.” When I heard I would be in Lebap Velayat, I was thrilled because I had heard many positive things. Liberal enough for women to wear pants, better food, less gender separation, the current volunteers are cool. I was also happy for selfish reasons, because we got to take an overnight train there, which meant more time traveling with friends and less time isolated with strangers at my permanent site for an entire week.

Then, on Thursday, I met my official counterpart. She is a family doctor at the small health clinic attached to the hospital in town. She is in her late 30’s or early 40’s and has a kind face. Immediately she seemed like she would be easy to work with, an opinion supported by the fact that she is unmarried, a pretty radical thing for a woman. That Thursday was a “counterpart conference” run by Peace Corps so we could meet our colleagues in a controlled environment. We watched a video of a blind person and a sighted person running a race together. Then, I told her, “I am like the blind person because I do not know Turkmenistan well. However, with the state of my grammar, what I really said was: “I no see ‘cause to me Turkmenistan don’t good know.” She put her hand on my knee, looked deep into my eyes and said, “I will help you.” It was probably the sweetest part of the conference The rest was fairly tedious because it was a bilingual conference, which meant that it took at least three times longer than it would have in a single language. Whenever they asked if people had any questions, my counterpart would mutter “no” under her breath. So, rest assured that not just Americans are bored at conferences. In a hurried session at the end, the PC staff reviewed our travel plans with our counterparts.

Those of us in the Lebap velayat were to catch the 5:00 PM train in Ashgabat, which would travel for 14 hours to Turkmenibat, the local capital of Lebap. A have heard so many horror stories about trains in developing countries that I was surprised to find new trains, significantly nicer than AMTRAK. Me had a sleeping car, a small room with two sets of bunk beds. All the volunteers were in all-volunteer cabins and the first part of the journey was very pleasant, chatting and enjoying the train’s gentle, sluggish crawl. The drive to Lebap only takes seven hours. Later, as we began to consider sleep, some very drunk boys knocked on our cabin and proceeded to attempt conversation with us. It wasn’t threatening because there were two men in the cabin, but we got or first real tasted of Lebap Turkmen. The boys were returning from their two years of conscription in the army, and I think they somehow believed they would be able to sleep in our cabin. A policeman also briefly joined us and asked if we had an problems. I think he just wanted to meet the Americans. My host sister here in Lebap asked why people kept smiling at me. I explained that they may not have seen an American.

Food, Toys and Family

2008-11-12T07:06:00.001-05:00

Food in Turkmenistan

Every day we have lunch at one of the host families’ houses. She gets paid to cook this meal and it is wonderful that they chose her, because she is an excellent cook! There is always relatively fresh bread (more on this comment later), fresh cucumbers, tomatoes --interestingly, the Turkmen word for tomato is pomidor – a mayonnaise salad (either potato or beet), an eggplant salad and a main course which is either palow, manty, mash (lentil soup – A+) or stuffed peppers. All this week we looked forward to lunch because it was so delicious. Palow is fried rice (super-oily but delicious) with carrots, onions, meat and sometimes dried fruit. The rice here is short-grain. Manty are the Central-Asian dumpling. The two times I’ve had manty, it has been ground meat and pumpkin. They are steamed. Also, the method of folding them is very easy, at least by dumpling standards [There is a diagram which I will try to include. Ed.]

I am still getting used to the taste of goat – when our soup doesn’t have a lot of vegetables, the taste is prominent. The advantage of soup is its role in the bread situation. Every volunteer has reservations about the bread; when fresh it is soft and delicious. However, the bread is served with every meal and becomes rock-hard in two days. Thus, soup is very good for softening the bread. I just keep trying to appreciate that my body is ridding itself of preservatives. Unfortunately, there is no soup for breakfast, so the only recourse is butter and apricot jam. Also, as the guest, I get to drink the fresh cream from the cow. They boil the milk, so the cream has a skin. I’ve taken quite a liking to it, I must admit. I don’t feel too guilty, since I can barely eat the bread.

The bread-making process was fascinating. You roll out the dough until it is two inches thick, oblong and about the size of a dinner plate. I didn’t see the dough being made, but I think it must have been yeast, because it is not a quick bread (although sourdough is a possibility). Then, you poke a hole in the top and start a fire in the bread oven known as the tamtoor . This word must be related to tandoor from India. The word for cheese is paneer! Anyway, you start a wood fire in the dome-shaped clay oven with a hole on top. When the oven is hot enough, you wet the bottom side of the bread and stick it on the side of the oven. It only bakes for 10 minutes. My host mom gave me a big hunk with tons of melted butter and jam. It was to die for.

The subject of food leads nicely into the subject of parties/weddings/celebrations, known in Turkmenistan as toys. On my very first morning, I found myself, with the help of my host mother, a neighbor, and a Turkmen dictionary, invited to a toy. I was very excited, because I had heard so much about them and I thought it was a good opportunity to do some community integration, so I agreed. It was underwhelming. Sort of a backyard barbecue/family reunion with someone else’s family. I sat with a roomful of middle-aged women, was plied with food, and repeated the few Turkmen phrases I knew:

“My name is Jessie. I am 22. I am from America. I am a volunteer. I do not speak Turkmen well.” They laughed and discussed my need for a proper Turkmen dress. This region is very conservative and I have seen no alcohol consumption. Needless to say, when I was invited to another toy after being at school for eight hours, I wasn’t particularly excited. But I should have been.

From several blocks away, I hear some music with an infectious rhythm, and see a brightly-lit pavilion.. It sounds a bit like Arabic or Indian pop with traditional instruments. When we arrive, I see at least 150 women in this huge pavilion hung with brightly-colored fabric. There are dozens of tables covered in food, and hosts bring out more and more hot food. It seems the whole town is there, and this is just the side of the party with the women. We are near the back, but by craning my neck, I am able to see that there is a live band with a synthesizer keyboard that seems to play a horn part, a singer and a fabulous drummer. When he breaks out in a drum solo, a small group of men dance athletically, holding fistfuls of plastic bags or money as pompoms. Little kids are screaming, the music is too loud, someone passes out plastic party favors. Eventually, we make our way to the front to pay respects to an old woman, and I am able to conclude that this is, in fact, a wedding. A group of young women I walked over with invite me to dance, and I oblige for two songs. But my host mom looks tired, so I bow out and we walk home, the music’s notes fading before its rhythm. All in all, an awesome party.

With all the excitement, I was looking forward to a quiet Sunday of cleaning, writing letters and reading, but this brings us to the first interruption of the writing of this letter. After cleaning with Gulgemal, and my mother bring somsas for lunch from the market, they tell me to get dressed. I hear “toy” so I assume another party. I’m a bit annoyed, but we never stay long, so I don’t worry. After we leave the house, I discern that we are going to Ashgabat. My hopes rise that they are taking me to get a dress made, as was briefly mentioned earlier in the week. However, I eventually realize that we are visiting my mom’s sister. We hail a taxi (a shared van) into Ashgabat, then take a long bus ride. To make a long story short, her sister is a tailor. The have already bought fabric, and it is clearly a party dress. I am a bit disappointed not to choose my own Also, I have to figure out how to give her the money. Because it is being done by a relative, I cannot pay directly. I did figure out that the dress costs $15 but I don’t know if that includes the fabric. We spend 2 ½ hours with the sister and her screaming kids (3, 4 and 5 years old + pregnant) before hitching a ride to my mom’s brother. Except that we just hang out with her sister-in-law. As a parting gift her 18-year-old daughter gives me two porcupine quills and a dishtowel. That is not a joke. Al in all, we spent six hours in Ashgabat; I barely got anything done and I have a stomach ache.

Fun with Language

Here are some misunderstandings that have occurred:

1) Since I don’t understand every word, there is a lot of guesswork. My host mom was attempting to introduce a guest whose name contained “gerek.” This means “need.” I thought she was asking me if I needed anything and I said: “No, no.” She kept repeating the name, and I kept saying “no.” Eventually, everyone was laughing.

2) In the opposite vein, a classmate accidentally failed to lock the bathroom door. When a host sibling opened it, he meant to shout: “No, no” but instead shouted “Yes, yes.”

3) My language teacher thought it was hilarious when I misunderstood her cursive and thought that the Turkmen word for “ear” was “queak.” There is clearly a good sense of humor here.

I have made a lot of linguistic progress this week. I can now explain that 22 is too young to marry in the U.S. I can say, “When I sit down, my black skirt becomes white” (from the dust). And, I managed to say: “I locked my door, but I don’t have a key.” That was the second exciting interruptions; I locked myself out of the room. Luckily, I had left the window open so, after a failed attempt to find out if there was a Peace Corps approved locksmith, my host father removed the screen and climbed into my room. I was very embarrassed, but it was also hilarious. I will only be really bad if I let it happen again.

The mention of my host-dad leads nicely into the topic of gender relations. It is basically totally segregated. I have never talked to my host father except on the first day when I introduced myself. He does no work around the house and barely talks to his wife. However, perhaps because I do not yet have a project, the gender separation seems positive for female volunteers. There is no gray area for interaction, so we feel very safe.

What the town is like

All the roads are paved. The houses are cement brick. Most houses have one outdoor faucet. Everyone has gas heat. There is no bazaar or post office, but there is a school, a hospital and lots of small bodegas called dukans. I am 25 minutes walking distance, at most, from all the other volunteers.

My technical training consists of shadowing a family doctor a few days a week. We have a home visit tomorrow.

Meeting the Host Family

2008-10-27T19:19:00.001-04:00

October 4, 2008

I have just met the host family and things seem OK although I still have virtually no language so I can’t be entirely sure of that. The family lives in the village of Herrick-Gala, 14 miles southwest of Ashgabat. The mother is 55 and the father is 54. They have two sons, 30 and 24. The 30-year old son is married and his wife and two children – a seven-year old daughter and a five-year old son – also live here. I haven’t met them yet, as I only arrived half an hour ago. Why am I hiding in my room writing this, you may wonder? Well, having exhausted my impressively minuscule vocabulary, I got the impression that my host mom wanted a break; she kept asking me if I was tired and wanted a nap, so I figured she was asking about herself. Despite this, she is very, very friendly. She kissed me and took my hand at the hotel. At the house, she showed me how to use the squat toilet (there is an outhouse in the garden, but running water to fill the bath). The mother has four gold teeth in the front of her mouth.

I get the impression that this family is upper middle-class or wealthy. The house is one story, and plain, but very neat, with a garden in the back (as I mentioned of the outhouse) and chickens and a cow! My room has a bed, a chair and a small desk, all of which is unusual. Usually, there is no furniture, only carpets and mattresses on the floor. That way, Turkmen can host lots of people as family visits. You just pull out the extra mattress and there is plenty of room. Outside the window of my gigantic room, twice the size of the one in New York, you can see the mosque that Nyzazov (“Turkmen-Bashi”) built in his own honor. It is a kitschy replica of the Taj Mahal, with four minarets and a gold-plated dome. You can look it up, as I am sure there are plenty of pictures (Editor’s (Dad’s) note: there is one at

http://www.bdtw.tv/photos/turkmenistan/turkmenbashy-mosque).

Also, outside my window there is some kind of squash plant. There is a major road about 10 meters outside the window.

This morning we learned a little more about the progression of our training: for the next nine weeks we will have four hours of language lessons, six days a week and a meeting every day to shadow a nurse or a doctor at the local hospital. We will also be giving three health-related presentations as our Turkmen progresses. While the English-speaking volunteers work 95% in English, we work 95% in Turkmen.

… Later, same day.

I helped with dishes! Yes, I can do that when I need to make a good impression on a Turkmen family (Dad’s note: wow). And I helped feed the bull and the cow. As it turns out, they have both. I think the host mother invited me to join in, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t. When my language gets better, I may add that to my chores. I did chop onions and peppers for the goat soup, though. Then the mother made fresh pasta. She used a thin wooden rolling pin to roll it out and, to get the dough super-thin, wrapped it around the pin and rolled multiple layers together. The pasta was boiled and then served with some of the warm water, yogurt and salt. I got a big bowl of that around 5:50 and thought that was it, but we got the goat soup I mentioned before. There is still no sight of the grandkids, and I am not entirely sure they live here, although their parents certainly do.

Now for some hilarious cultural misunderstandings. We were instructed in a few key points before we met our host family:

Bread is sacred. Ensuing taboos include stepping over it, placing it the wrong way upon the plate, breaking it with one hand. OBSERVED TRUTH: They keep the bread in a plastic bag.
Burping is extremely, extremely rude. OBSERVED TRUTH: People burp here.
Father will ignore woman (me) out of respect. This seems true.
It is believed that black tea and green tea have different health effects and are good for different people. OBSERVED TRUTH: I tried to ask if a given tea was black or green and the host mother dumped it left and made another pot. Perhaps she thought I was refusing one type of tea or another.
Turkmen believe that being alone is sad and will be very protective. OBSERVED TRUTH: My host mother’s niece insisted on accompanying me to the outhouse. She was very surprised when I told her I didn’t need her to do that. I haven’t figured out how to take a shower yet, but given the level bathroom supervision, I; sure I’ll figure it out.

Premier post from Turkmenistan

2008-10-26T07:38:00.003-04:00

October 1, 2008

Greetings from the land of the Turkmen. We are staying in the Hotel Turkmentistan, which is apparently not the nicest of hotels, but is completely comfortable (at least as nice as anywhere I stayed in my trip to the Mideast). Outside our window – I have the room with a very nice girl from Flint, Michigan – you can see the Arch of Neutrality. This is the rocket-ship-like construction that supports the golden rotating statue of Niyazov, in a triumphant pose. If it weren’t a symbol of authoritarian rule, it would seem like something out of Las Vegas, as it is adorned with neon light at night, and changes color like the Empire State Building, only every few seconds.

From what I have seen of the capital, the whole city resembles the monument district of Washington, D.C. with grand while marble everywhere. Near the Peace Corps office, the buildings have Spanish roof tiles and stucco sides so that, with the dry air, you could mistake for California, if you weren’t looking too closely. As the Country Director pointed out today, Turkmenistan has tons of oil and natural gas, combined with a history of neutrality, so the wealth is evident in the capital. However, we will not be here for long; Friday we move into our small training groups for intensive Turmken study. In the Villages, the need for development will be instantly more evident.

Amid this loosely familiar scene, there is still evidence of traditional Turkmen notions. While the men wear western clothes, many of the women wear the traditional dress, with embroidery along the collar and down a panel in the front. Still other women wear pants and some I have seen wearing short skirts, but I believe they were Russian. Still, the neon glamor with post-Soviet sensibilities does not seem congruous with my fantasy of Turkmen culture. I guess I will see about the reality of that soon enough.

A few notes before I go

2008-09-28T20:57:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow, I get on a plain for Turkey, and by Wednesday at 2:45 am, I will be in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The great adventures begin.

Here are a few fun things I think may be of interest about Turkmenistan:

There are no ATMs in the whole country, so it is, quite literally, an all cash economy. Furthermore, only the crispest, most recently issued American bills are excepted for exchange. They must be perfect, not a single mark, tear or other blemish. Perhaps in an all cash economy, the physical bill takes on more significance.

There are no other major development organizations in the country. Peace Corps is truly unique there. What an incredible privilege to get to be there.

I will send more when I know more.

Welcome

2008-08-25T15:17:00.000-04:00

If you're at this page, I just sent you an email soliciting paper correspondence so I won't feel too alone on my impending adventure. Please send me your address, too, if you want to receive mail. I won't have email, at least for the first three months, and life is slower there. So, when I'm not trying to pick up a Turkic language or improve my skills as a health educator/grant writer/cultural ambassador/volunteer, I'll have plenty of time to write letters.

You may also be visiting this blog because you actually want to learn about Turkmenistan. I didn't know where it was until I was nominated by Peace Corps to Central Asia, either. Unfortunately, I'm not in Turkmenistan, yet, so I can't tell you about personal experiences. But, here are links to the best information sources so far:

Current Peace Corps Volunteer Blog (He inspired me)

Flickr Images of Turkmenistan

NYTimes on the death of their leader, changes with the new regime

State Department