End of November...

A Bittersweet November
November 26th, 2009

Literally, before my eyes, November has come and gone. And what a month it has been, Jeeze. My site mate deserted me, I aged YET another year (I am now 21, if anybody was wondering), and winter had come roaring in with a vengeance. It has been a bittersweet month, both some really good times, and some sad ones. Due to unforeseen circumstances, no new volunteers have come to join our ranks here in this sandy patch of the world, and with the previous Volunteers contracts being up, well it’s like they say in show business: curtains baby. This month begins their departures, and by the end of December, they will all be gone on to continue their lives elsewhere. It’s also a running joke here that Peace Corps Turkmenistan is a lot like being in Harry Potter Movie, as we are all divided into the five regions (Ahal, Mary, Dashoguz, Lebop, and Balkan) and have thus been given nicknames (my region is the Slitherin house, for any of you Harry Potter peops out there...still don’t know why) We see the volunteers in our respective regions most often, as we spend holiday and birthday events with one another, share work duties such as workshops and camps, and tend to travel in packs sharing taxi rides, planes or trains. So over time our ‘region buddies’ have started to become like family. And as December closes in, it has started to hit us that our family is going to get a lot smaller very soon.
Recently, all the Ahal Volunteers gathered in the capital to commemorate their last days among our ranks, and because it was the last time most of us would see each other, we decided to throw together a early thanksgiving day feast. As we went round the table giving thanks before eating our piles of delicious grub, it was resoundingly apparent from everybody how much of an impact that we have had on each other in just this short amount of time. A year ago, when we were sitting in our training rooms in Philadelphia, filling out the last of our paperwork before we boarded the plane, one of our trainers said to us. “Look around you guys. All these people are strangers now, but in ten years they will be the people coming to your weddings, and holding your babies, or sitting around the table with your families.” A lot of us laughed and were like “Ok, dude, cut down on the cheese factor a little, why don’t ya…” But to a certain degree, he was right. We have all come from vastly different walks of life as far as Americans go, but looking at my comrades around the table on our last day of celebration before they left and listening to everybody’s heartfelt speeches, I couldn’t help thinking, ‘It’s good to be around family’. I can only imagine what another year will bring. And ignoring the dangerously high rating on the cheese-o-meter, on my part, I’m thankful for family, whatever form or shape that it comes in. So, with that said, I wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving. And to Dan’s mom, remind him to write me. He will be missed. 

Go to Hell

Go to Hell!
October 29th, 2009

Fellow PCV: “So, are we still going to Hell this weekend?”
ME: “I don’t know, it might be really cold”
PCV: “Dude, even if we froze, I would still go.”
ME: “Alright, Hell it is then. But pack extra socks.”

Yeah, this snippet of conversation might seem a bit odd. Actually, what we were talking about was the Crater of Darveza, known locally as the Pit of Hell. To backtrack, a while ago some fellow volunteers has told us about a place they had heard of that was this huge burning pit literally in the middle of the desert. To reach it, you had to go north into the center of Gara Gun desert, drive off the main road a while through the sand dunes with a 4 x 4, and then camp out at the site overnight. There was no cell phone coverage, no town within a several hundred-kilometer radius, and no marked road to show where you needed to go. For a normal person this might sound like more trouble than it’s worth. For a bunch of entertainment and adventure-starved volunteers, it sounded like GOLD. And rumor had it there was a group of Russians who rented out SUV’s and for a dime or two, would take curious travelers out there to check it out. So it was then that on fall break a group of fellow volunteers and I, faced with a week of free classes, escaped our work sites, piled into SUV’s, and headed into the desert. As I hadn’t left site for nearly two months, I was more than ecstatic to be out and about. (I suffer from a bad case of zip code claustrophobia-too long in one place and I start to go a bit bonkers. Ecstatic might have been an understatement.) Although I have lived here for over a year now, working a six-day week and travel policies really limit how much of the country I have seen, and as my work site is a fair stretch from most of the other volunteers, my social calendar is pretty much slim to none. Thus far my experiences have been mostly around my region, and so little excursions do a lot to make life here a little bit more exciting.
Added that this week was the celebration of Turkmenistan’s independence, a few of us decided the best way to ring in another year of Independence would be to camp out under the stars next to a burning pit of gas. As 4 of our assembled group live in the south and the other 4 live in the north, we had to coordinate meeting up before hand. Being as there is no cell phone service or road marks, this process was a bit tricky. But we did know that the stop was exactly halfway between the capital city and the Northern city of Dashoguz (about half of a 6 hour trek in), so what we came up with was to leave at the same time, and the group with the SUV’s would pull over on the side of the road where the halfway point was and wait till the other half of the group arrived, roughly within the same hour. When the second group spotted our vehicles, they would stop, switch to the SUV’s, and we would all head into the dunes together. As retarded as this sounds, believe it or not it actually worked, and in the middle of nowhere almost without a hitch we managed to locate the correct lone vehicles on the side of the road, exchange rides, and head inward in search of the pit as the evening closed in on us.

The history of the pit is a bit sketchy, and there are a few different versions to how it came about, but most of the stories circle around the Russians drilling expeditions. One story goes that in the 50’s or so the Russians were drilling for natural gas like they did over most of the country, and they hit a small pocket, but concluded it wasn’t large enough to draw from. So they decided to burn it out it so that the stagnant gas wouldn’t be left exposed. Apparently there was more gas there than they bargained on, and 50 years later the pit is still burning. Another story goes that while they were drilling, one of the workers accidentally dropped his cigarette into the pit and it lit the gas on fire. There was no putting it out, and so they had no choice but to leave the deserted pit burning. Probably was kind of hard for him to find another job after that. Yet another story says that while the workers were drilling they hit an unexpected air pocket that collapsed underneath them and took the drill head with it. When the drill hit the bottom of the cave, it hit rock and sparked, and the sparks hit the gas, and ta-da, the oversized Bunsen burner was born. Whatever the real story is, it resulted in a large fiery pit about the circumference of a small football field and the depth of a three story building, that has been nicknamed by the locals the Gate of Hell, or The Pit of Hell, and is pretty damn cool when the sun goes down amid miles of stretching sand and dunes.
So we arrived around sunset, cooked some BBQ with our fearless Russian leaders Sasha and Vladimeer (our drivers, who proved true any stereotype you’ve ever read about burly Russian men), met some fellow travelers from Austria who had also managed to hear about this odd place and found their way out into the sand, and settled in to watch the sun go down and the flames burn bright with some old fashioned Russian vodka to keep us warm. It was a pretty neat evening all around, and a nice change from watching my family’s Russian Soap Operas, which make up our normal evening entertainment. And let me just say, who needs fireworks on Independence Day when you have an endless supply of blazing flames coming straight from mother earth? All in all, going to Hell was a good time. Even if it was bloody cold out there and I am still recovering feeling in my toes  In the future, I will definitely tell anyone to go to Hell. It really is quite a nice place.

Dirt and Glory

Uses and Abuses
Oct 5th, 2009

So, a while ago I wrote that I was going to start keeping a running tally of all the funny stuff that my students came up with. And though the last few months have been pretty devoid of interesting topics, the other day I stumbled upon an activity that yielded GOLD. Looking for something to teach modal verbs (can, could, must, should), I found a game in an old lesson-planning book, and after making a few alterations on the rules and explanations, I decided to try it out on my intermediate club to see what they could handle. Basically, the students had to come up with two separate lists; one of items, and one of people. After we had a manageable list, they had to mix and match the two lists and make up questions and answers using the phrases “What can a so-and-so do with a so-and-so?” or “Why does a so-and-so need a so-and-so?” Once they got the hang of it, my kids went wild. With the help of my dictionary, they slapped together some phrases that literally made me want to pee my koynek. Here’s a ‘lil sample of what a few of them came up with:

Q: “Why does a crocodile need a safety pin?”
A: “To catch fish with when he has no teeth.”

Q: “ What can a baby do with a beer?”
A: “ He can take a bath with it.”

Q: “What can Harry Potter do in a Chamber?”
A: “He can find Valdemort.”

Q: “What can a writer do with a chick?”
A: “He can write a book about the history of chickens.”

Q: “Why does a teacher need a cactus?”
A: “To punish bad students.”

And my very favorite, thought up by some of my rock stars…

Q: “What can an old woman do with a walking stick?”
A: “She can dismantle small children with it.”

After some thought, I have decided to call this game ‘Uses and Abuses’ and I think I am going to try it out it on some of my beginner classes to see what they can come up with. Anything to make my life a little more interesting…


The Dirty Thief
Oct 1, 2009

I have never thought of myself as a horribly dishonest person, and as an everyday rule I try to stay on the moral straight away. And, despite a few bumps along the way, I think I have done a generally good job. I know the basics: never do unto others what you would not want done unto yourself. Honesty is the best policy. Don’t ever covet anything of your neighbors: wife, husband, favorite gardening tools, or whatever. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and thus also results in a lot of doctor’s bills. Never kill anything with a social security number or passport. You know, all the general things we learn growing up. And although my family is not a particularly religious bunch, my parents did their best to instill upon us children the basic rights from wrongs, the moral guide-posts with which to live our lives by, so to speak. But this week, I failed that upbringing, and broke one of those cardinal rules: I stole.

To preface my actions, let me first just say that I was basically raised in a big Terrarium. My back yard growing up was- literally-a forest, and I am used to having such things like trees and grass and flowers and crawly bugs around me all the time. And although I have served my time in the Concrete Jungle and enjoyed it just fine, I still prefer to have natury-like things nearby. Which is why I have found one of the hardest things about this country is the lack of growing things. (* See my blog about the near tree-hugging incident) My host family here is not a particularly green thumbed bunch-they know HOW to garden, as pretty much everyone is this country does, and we have our small plot in the back yard where every once in a while we extract tomatoes, radishes, dill, grapes, sometimes figs, or other such small items. But mostly, we get our veggies at the store, and mostly our garden is a lot of weeds. During the school year I found I had no extra time to help with our garden what with all the classes I took on, and so my contribution to the effort was basically nil. And most host father was only interested when the power was out or there was nothing of interest on the TV. Some families here get really into their gardens, and added to this they grow these crazy Rose gardens and have latticed grape vines coming out of their ears-we’re talking garden of Eden style. Not so at my house. Our back yard is basically dirty sand. So in order to make myself feel a little more at home, over the last few months I have gotten lots of plant cuttings and invested, borrowed, or scrounged a variety of small pots and have installed them in my room. Among my collection I have a few vines, a spider plant, and a couple little Aloe Vera plants. These little patches of green do a lot to brighten my day sometimes, as small as they are. But flourish in the sand-mud they do not, and every week I wonder how much longer my struggling little plants will hold out.
So the other day, as I was returning from my weekly expedition to the post office to mail out a few letters, I noticed a large pile of dirt next to the road the telegraph office. But it didn’t look like normal Turkmen dirt, which is basically compacted mud. No, this dirt looked decidedly different. I opted to take a closer look, and upon inspection I made an amazing discovery. Now if you’ve ever taken a biology class, you know that what makes soil so healthy is decomposing plant life: i.e. dead trees, undergrowth, ect. And among other things, dead plants produce this great thing called Nitrogen that-wonder beyond wonders-makes stuff GROW. Well, here in the desert there is no decomposing plant life. It’s basically grainy sand, with just enough nutrients in it to support scrub grass and weedy-type plants. Thus people here just stick a tree in the sand, and hope it grows. And miracle beyond miracles, sometimes it does. But this dirt, believe it or not SMELLED like real dirt, felt like real dirt, and even had real plant parts in it! Jackpot! And it was just SITTING there, glorious and untouched. So you’re probably thinking big deal, pile of dirt, whoopee. Just grab a bucket, right? Well, let me footnote this discovery by saying that in this country every little thing here is highly coveted. Saving a dollar goes along way here, especially when you can buy a kilo of apples for 20 cents. There’s not a lot of wealth to be found, and so people guard even the smallest little scrap piles with their lives. An old metal door and some broken wood piled in the backyard? That’s a frame for the future hen house. A bunch of dusty old jars? They will cover the tomato plants when the frost comes in. That old proverb one mans junk is another mans treasure doesn’t really apply here. There is no junk. People use EVERYTHING. This also applies to grade A dirt. And this grade A dirt was sitting suspiciously near a large dug up flower-bed. So, wary of unseen eyes on me, I continued past the pile non-chalauntly, inwardly scheming of ways to get my hands on some.

As fate would have it, several days later I arrived at school to find my classes with my morning counterpart canceled, the class locked and empty (not a huge surprise) and thus two hours to kill before my next class. So, I did what any normal person would do during a long lunch hour: I decided to go steal some dirt. I arrived at the scene with two large plastic bags in my purse. After carefully checking the premises, I waited until the sidewalk was mostly empty of passerbys, then worked my way around to the backside of the dirt pile. A minute or so after I had sneakily begun to fill my little bags with the precious soil, people began to filter out of the café next door. Panicked, I began to imagine what I would have to tell my director when he asked why he had to bail his American teacher out of prison. “Well, sir. She was apprehended stealing some dirt.” The police clerk would have to say. (Don’t laugh-people are arrested here for stupider things. Just a few months ago my host father was detained for an entire day while he was jogging-all because they said he was running ‘suspiciously’) So, I grabbed what booty I could and dashed down the sidewalk as well as I was able to in my Koynek, visions of sirens ringing in my ears, my heart pounding in my ears. Lucky for me, nobody gave chase, whether for lack of interest, or for the fact they were just to perplexed by the sight of a grown woman sprinting down the street with a giant bag of dirt to do anything. So this evening, as my host siblings and I filled my new and improved flowerpots and displayed them on the windowsills, I had to ask myself, was I wrong to steal the dirt? Yes, probably. Stealing is generally not the best thing, especially when you are clinging to your citizenship by the flimsy edge of a temporary visa. But, do I regret stealing the dirt? No, not really. After all, it IS only dirt.

Until next time
The Thief

A Grab Bag

Well, I've gotten some complaints that I don't put up enough photos on here. So here's a little grab bag of some random ones I've snapped recently.

Host sisters B-day Party at our house


Pictures from work. My office, and me and counterpart.



Some pictures I snapped around my house that I house I thought were nice.

Anniversaries and Eyeballs

My site mate and I Russ,
and Dinner. Yum.


Anniversary Nostalgia and Eyeballs
Sept 20, 2009

Well, put a candle in it, because in less than 2 weeks it will mark exactly 1 year (Oct. 1st) since I’ve touched down into this crazy, interesting, and at times challenging, country. Although it didn’t seem like it at first, two years really is a pretty chunk of time to sign away to uncle Sam and go run around somewhere to play in the dirt and spread my knowledge of English verb conjugations. I’m amazed, yet again, at how strangely time passes in another country, especially when you are trying to set up a life for yourself all the while knowing it isn’t permanent. At this point it is looking like I’ll have spent the majority of my twenties overseas, and there are still times where I ask myself, is it worth it? Trying to keep ties with friends and family is hard enough when people start to go their own ways, and move on with new jobs or relationships-but add a few thousand miles and a constantly changing zip code to the mix, and it makes it ever trickier. Talking with other volunteers, it’s weird to think we’ve already put in a year here, because there are still days when we still feel like we have the cultural aptitude of toddlers, but yet there isn’t a volunteer here who hasn’t missed important events of close friends and loved ones back home-weddings, new babies, and even funerals. It’s amazing how many things can happen in such a short amount of time, and although in the grand scope of things two years is a drop in the bucket, when you start adding all those things up, you realize how precious that time really is and wonder if it’s worth it. So, to all my family and friends back home or elsewhere, I send you a grand hug, and hope everyone is well and happy!

On a lighter note: I have been through some serious gastric Olympics in the last year with the ever-surprising Turkmen cuisine, but this week I trumped my record and ate the most adventuresome thing to date. The other day my host father brought home a goat head and legs from his Mothers house, and by the giddy look on his face, I knew that could only mean one thing: Kellebashlyk. Kellebashlyk, (or Death in a Bowl, as I like to refer to it), is when they take the head and hooves of a cow, goat, or camel, and boil them till the meat comes off the bones. They hollow out the neck or crack open the top of the skull, and scoop out the brain mush and eyes, and eat them with the bone mallow broth, which is basically the leftover water from the boiled head. Sound delicious? Well, it also happens to be my host father’s favorite meal (a DELICACY, to quote him). And after months of avoiding this particular dish, this week I finally manned up and tried it. For one, I am not fasting for Ramadan and therefore had no more legitimate excuses, and two, there was nothing left to eat in the house except old tomato sauce and shredded beets. So I figured hey, what the hell, what the worse that can happen? Just yet another notch on my culinary bedpost. I’ve done weirder things, right? So I bellied up to the bar, grabbed a spoon, and dug in. The highlight of the meal? My host father, so psyched that I finally agreed to try it, dug out an especially goopy eyeball, popped out the hard center, and crammed it in my mouth. My overall feeling on the matter? Although goat eyeball isn’t really that vile, I don’t see Apple Bee’s putting it on their Super Starters Menu any time soon.
Well, that’s about it for now. Getting ready for a nice two day weekend, as there is no school this Monday due to the end of Ramadan (party!!! Because now people can EAT again), and then I’m back to the grind. My grant project is getting close to being finished, and classes are going pretty good. So bring it on year two! I’m ready for you (and if I’m not, there’s always counseling and therapy later on in life). Peace and Rainbow Skittles ya’ll.

Pondering Marriage

A Cultural Pondering of Marriage.
September 7, 2009

Well, before I left on my magical journey back to the homeland that words cannot even describe, I was twiddling away the last days of summer away by making my students do random and abstact assignments, if only to relieve my boredom from the tedious grammar train that we seemed trapped in. In some aspect, I hope it was equally interesting to them, and in any case, from several of the assignments I got some pretty funny, and enlightening results. One of my assignments, the idea taken from a fellow volunteer, and fueled by the fact that I would be soon attending a wedding myself, consisted of having the students translate the short story version of The Princess and The Pea. Once we had a translation that I thought was reasonably accurate, I had them re-write the story, using new characters and inventing different endings. I gave them three days to do the assignment, and when I got the papers back, the results were pretty hilarious. One of my girls changed the story so that the princess, once she was discovered to be a true blue-blood, didn’t want to marry the presented prince, and told her future mother in law that she was in love with a servant and that she should ‘bug off’. Then she ran off. During class, I practically peed my pants laughing while my kids read their new and improved versions of the fairytale. I will present one version here, unchanged, to give an idea of what some of my kids came up with.

The Princess and the Prince
By Bahar

Once upon a time there was two princes. Once prince was from London, his name is Alfredo. The second prince is from Mexico, his name is Carlos. The two princes lived in a very big castle with very many people. They loved one princess, who is named Jennifer. But their mother did not like the princess, and she said to them “You do not marry her!” They fight very hard for many days. But the Prince Alfredo said “No!” and talked with the princess Jennifer. So Alfredo and Jennifer deserted and they now live in another country.

The End

Now for some fun some cultural introspect: what I found interesting about most of the stories, at least the stories written by my girls, was how all the little cultural differences worked their way into the stories. Most of the stories included some version of a bride-price, which is a standard practice here. (When a couple gets married, the grooms family pays the brides family an agreed upon price for the girl). I also noticed in many of them was how important the mother-in-law was in the plot. It seemed that the relationship between the bride and her new mother in law was almost more important than the relationship between the newly married couple. Which, in this area of the world, where genders are often kept separated, is probably a pretty true idea. Normally, once a couple gets married, the bride moves into her new in-laws house, and becomes the Gelin (new daughter-in-law). Once there, if it’s a traditional family, she spends most of the time with her mother in law and sisters in law, cooking, cleaning, and helping with the chores. Pretty much, her new mother-in-law becomes her new ‘best friend’-she spends most of her time with her. So if they don’t see eye to eye? Well, it would make for some pretty uncomfortable days. The new gelin is supposed to show respect to her new in-laws by always covering her mouth with her yalik, or head scarf, in their presence. Over time, once the mother and law and her become cool, she can let down her guard, and doesn’t have to cover her face. But this rule doesn’t apply for the father-in-law. To show respect, she must ALWAYS cover her face. Sometimes, a more liberal man will ask his daughter in law to un-cover in mouth, but most of the time that little cloth guard stays up for as long as they know each other, or are in the same room together. Mostly these practices are just an accepted custom, and are not questioned more than Americans question who should change the oil in the car, or help with the dishes. (Although, yes, we sometimes debate about that).

So this assignment was yet another fun insight into the little, and big, differences between Muslim and Western practices, both for my students, and for me. (And yet another reason why I am still not dating a Turkmen dude, if anybody was wondering.) At the moment I am considering showing Mrs. Doubtfire in my next movie club. Might be fun to see how that gender bender goes over :) Until next time.

August Post

August 20, 2009
The Arrival Day

Well the day has arrived. After watching my collegues and fellow volunteers go and return from vacations, flaunting contraband goodies from the outside world such as gum and Whiskey, and telling stories of a rollicking good time, now my ticket has arrived. This week is my last week before my first official vacation-the first one in 10 months, believe it or not. Sitting at home croqueting cell phone cases during winter break does NOT count, thank you very much. This 2 vacation day-a-month policy kills me, seriously. So, starting this Wednesday, I am officially on ‘leave’. Monday, I am giving my student their last tests of the summer, locking up my office, putting up a ‘the doctor is out’ sign, and putting on pants for three whole weeks. Oh the glory. I will be boarding a plane (well, 4 actually) to return briefly to the motherland to attend a family gathering, visit friends, and stock up on good razor blades, some decent food, and hopefully * cough* cough * a LOT of good alcohol. The day I have plotted for about 5 months has arrived, and I am phyched. So if anybody is in the Glacier area August 20 until Sept 4th, hell stop by, say hey, and check out my bad tan lines and insect bites. They’re impressive. Until SOON,
Megan


August 10, 2009
Money Buys Happiness.

Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness was obviously a trust fund baby. Or a moron. Perhaps even both. Money can, in fact, buy you a number of things, believe it or not. Among these: food, housing, education, transportation, and decent medical care. For most normal human beings, (this doesn’t apply if you are Danish or Finish, as they are issued a government-supplied velvet carriage upon arrival from the womb, per standard socialism), basic necessities cost something. Show me a normal average person who has adequate housing, a full stomach, and basic medical care, and put him next to a hungry person who sleeps in a cardboard box and who happens to have a bad case of goiters, and ask them who’s happier. Honestly. None of that poor little rich girl crap. To put it straightly, in many places of the world your quality of life depends strongly upon the social, and/or financial system, that you are born into. The luck of the draw, so to speak. Just pray you get a flush. A farmers kid? Well, in most places, you’ll probably be picking potatoes until you’re fifty, unless by some chance American Idol is scouring the potato fields that week and they find your voice particularity charming and decide to ship you to Atlanta for tryouts. But a doctors kid? Well, most chances you won’t have to help your family with the sheep, and pop can probably afford to pay for those extra tutoring lessons and extra books to help you out with your studies after school. Public schools really aren’t that great anyway. And, with that little extra boost, most likely you’ll do better on your exams. Not to mention you can pay to sit for an exam, come entrance time. Every exam costs something, you know. And if you didn’t do so hot, even with all that extra help? Well, a little well greased palm here and there can help with that. All universities little a little extra contribution here and there. Everybody knows that, heck that’s how your dad got into school. And then, after graduation, if jobs are a little hard to find? Well, make some calls to dad’s buddies, return some back pats, grease a few more palms, and there you go, that chemical company that wasn’t hiring suddenly came up short one man-would you be available to start next Monday?
No, of course not, money can’t buy happiness. I mean, just ask the guy with the Mercedes Benz. He’ll tell you. So will my students who can’t pay for university.

Sincerely,
Sceptical

long time, no write

Freebird,
June 16th,

Well I haven’t written anything here in a while, but lately there hasn’t been much to report. My camps went very smoothly, the camp at the Russian School I really enjoyed and learned a lot. I was worried because with planning a camp I was pretty hard up for ideas, as I never really did the whole camp thing when I was a kid. I did a Girl Scout camp like once, and I wasn’t very good camp material, I was in trouble with the counselors pretty much the whole time there for never listening, so that was that- no more camp for this girl. Anyway, the teachers wanted to teach how to write newspaper articles and advertisements, so the theme of the camp became ‘News Channel’. We had the campers split into 3 teams; team Newsroom, team Cameramen, and team Reporters. The kids all had funny nicknames (like Audio, Print, and Microphone) that we had to call them all week, and we recruited some older students to help us lead songs, go through the morning drills, and organize the teams. I made a giant black Samsung TV out of a cardboard box and at the beginning and end of camp everyday the counselors stood inside of it and we did our daily announcements like we were giving the news report (yeah, I realize, the geek level was pretty high here). Besides doing the arts and projects, we played lots of games from bowling to bingo, organized an English scavenger hunt, and I set up a huge sports obstacle course that included an egg and spoon race, ball and cup tosses, and a Frisbee relay race. We watched Planet Earth in Russian, and on the last day had a poster competition and an ice cream party. For my second camp, only a handful of kids showed up for, so I modified it and instead of playing lots of sports games and activities, we focused more on grammar games and arts and crafts. I took some pictures from my first camp, so I’ll try and post a few of them. All in all it was a lot of fun, and one of the teachers and I decided that next summer we are going to write a grant for a region wide camp, and try and involve students and teachers from around the region. It should be a riot.

Lets see, what else. Well, now that the camps are behind me, I am finding that the only way to exist in this country is in the mannar of extremes. During the school year teachers are worked to the point of exhaustion/mental breakdown, and when the summer rolls around I find I now have the mental activity of a goldfish. Besides keeping a few of my classes at the resource center going, and showing up to the school to shoot the breeze with my teachers every once in a while, life as I know it has pretty much stopped. I wake up in the morning and the day stretches out before me in a large wastland of nothingness, and I find myself thinking, ok, so how many months until school starts again? There is literally NADA to do here in terms of entertainment, unless you call washing clothes for three hours entertainment. In the last two weeks, I have read more books and watched more dvds than in the last 6 months combined. But my host family has pretty much the same deal. My host mom and I eat b-fast, go to work for a few hours, come home before noon, and then everybody in the house passes out until like 5 pm, or watches TV, or twidles their thumbs, or decides to come annoy me with questions under the guise of making me practice Turkmen. I am thinking it might be a looooong summer at this point. So if anybody wants to write me an email or letter in the next three months, lets just say any news would be VERY appreciated. Right now I am counting down the days until July 4th-when the Embassy is having their Independence Day party in Ashgabat. They invited all of the volunteers in the country to come, as well as oodles of diplomats and political big wig types. Should be a riot-although I am mostly excited because I have heard a rumor that there is going to be actual honest-to-goodness WINE available. Dear sweet Jesus, let that be true.
-Me

To the T-18 Newbies:
June 20h

Well, just about this time last year I was checking my mailbox for my placement sheet and chewing my fingernails to find out where the Peace Corps plane would be taking me. I was one of the last ones in our group to find out my country assignment-about three or four weeks before I left, so I’m sure a good lot of you incoming volunteers have already called in your acceptances (after looking to make sure Turkmenistan is even on the map). And as it is really friggin’ hard to find out anything relevant on the net about this blessed country (other than it’s a desert and really, really HOT) I’m sure many of ya’ll have zoned in on the blogs of current volunteers, like a lot of my group did, so maybe a few of you have found mine. I think I read about 15 packing lists before I left. The typical questions: What do I bring? What gifts should I bring? How much money should I take? Do I bring money at all? Or even clothes for that matter? Am I going to DIE? You know, general stuff.
As I am sure there are10 other volunteers who have already written packing lists for all of ya’ll, I’m not going to do that. One, every site is different, so everybody needs something different. And two, I don’t have that kind of attention span to write an entire detailed list. But I am going to impart a bit of knowledge to those who are trying to decide what to cram into those lovely rolling suitcases.

1. LESS IS MORE. This should be your packing manta. For one, host nationals are always shocked at how much crap volunteers haul with them, being as life here is really minimalistic. Some volunteers in my group literally took the bag limit and then some-even the staff was taken aback at how much crap they packed. Their host families didn’t know how to deal with it. You will find you can survive just fine on a big suitcase and carry on. Second, it’s kind of unnecessary to bring two years worth of razor blades and 34 pairs of underwear. For example, it has been 10 months and I am still using the shampoo I bought before I left. And they have the same brand in the Bazaar 10 minutes from my house. Although, I’m not gonna lie, I brought a lot of bottles of my favorite concealer, and I’m glad I did, cause they don’t have it here- but normal stuff, like toothbrushes, face wash, shampoo, and all that jazz-they got it. If you are placed in a village, you can go to your etrap center every few weeks or so and restock. But you’d be surprised what you can find in the villages. I randomly found feta cheese and olive oil one week at the store near my house. We ate Greek salad for like two weeks. Whoduthunkit?

2. CLOTHES: the clothes packing thing is tricky. OK, so that whole “bring lots of loose flowing skirts and loose fitting tops” thing? Don’t. The whole little house on the prairie look here doesn’t fly. Neither does North Face Sporty Spice for that matter, especially for girls. I wore my ski coat to school once this winter and you would have thought I was wearing a skinned elephant. I swear that show “What Not to Wear” would probably do really well in this country. Talk about the friggin’ fashion police. But the business casual thing does go. Fitted skirts and blazers are a lot better bet than peasant skirts for work, if you really don’t want to wear the national dress. For winter, a really good peacoat. And if you’re like me and get placed in the conservative southern region, and can’t wear anything but the Koynek anyway, don’t sweat it. Turkmen women give material and dresses out like snickers on Halloween. It costs about 6 bucks to have the material made into dresses, so hella cheap. Myself, I have received about 10 Koyneks since I’ve been here, all free. I went out and picked out some fabric that I liked for work., and my host sister and a neighbor sewed them up for me for free. The clothes I brought with me are gathering dust in my closet. The stuff I do wear that I brought from home are mostly jeans and shirts for when I go to the capital and can stop pretending I’m a Turkmen gelneje for a day. And remember you get vacation days while you’re here, when you get to LEAVE the country and dress normal again, so bring something for that. But again, don’t overdo it in the wardrobe department-think about the clothes you want to bring and cut it down by a third, if not a half. Also, don’t bother with 12 pairs of shoes. Your shoes will get trashed here, so better to bring two or three pairs you absolutely need (I swear by my Chacos), then buy cheap shoes in the bazaar, wear them until they break down, and then buy some new ones with your living allowance. I bought a nice pair of dress shoes, and within four months I had to throw them away. It just makes life that much easier in the long run. Also, people won’t judge you for wearing the same dress 5 days in a row-as long as your belly button’s not showing or you don’t look you just stepped off a Flower Power tour bus. Some of my teachers here I’ve only ever seen wear the same three Koyneks. No biggie.

3. GIFTS: Remember: training host family, and then permanent family. Candy is good-but not snickers-they have that here. Useful things are good: Sturdy bags, t-shirts, stuff that says America on it maybe. Trinkets from your state. A little photo album for them of picture from America, friends, family. They friggin’ love photos here. My personal favorite: Tupperware. They might think its odd at first, but it’s good for both you and them in the long run. You will eat leftovers a lot-and keeping things sanitary and sealed goes a long way in keeping yourself healthy here. If anything, you can fill them with fun little stuff so it’s not just a plastic box, and then you can show them how to use it. And once you learn Turkmen (haha!) you can explain why it’s good to seal and refrigerate food. It’s a gift and mini health lesson all rolled into one. My host mom loves hers, and now brings her lunch with her when she goes to work or has to travel to see family, and occasionally even puts leftovers in it!

4. CRAFT SUPPLIES. Guess what, if you’re an English teacher, you’ll have to do an ECA or a camp at some point! And a craft workshop is really fun for everyone. A lot of these kids don’t even know how to use scissors, so it’s this whole learning process for them. The teachers I work with asked me for things like water balloons, pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, acrylic paint, foam paper-stuff like that, that they had used with a previous volunteer. We made crafts like photo frames, ladybugs, and masks out of paper plates and cups that I found in the capital. The kids loved them all, and it gave them something to take home to their families. And if you do an ECA a couple of times, have family members in the states mail you a ‘craft box’ to re-supply. Look up easy craft ideas on the web before you leave, or get a book with easy-to-do projects.

5. A GOOD PURSE/BAG. It’s part of the dress code here, for lassies. And all the purses sold hereabouts are shitty $3 China warehouse deals either encrusted with plastic diamonds or have metallic ruffles all over them, so bring one you like. If you have a bigger one to put school books in, even better. For dudes, a black satchel type thingie would come in handy-kind of like a briefcase, but not. Its weird to think that you might not have running water or a working toilet and you sleep on the floor, but people expect you to be well accessorized and have shiny shoes all the time. Go figure.

6. ENTERTAINMENT: Don’t bother with books, as sad as that sounds. The office library here has 10 million of them-and they are heavy to haul over with you. But a computer, not gonna lie-bring it. I use mine a ton for work, and for pre-typing emails to people so when I get online to send them it takes like 10 minutes and I’m free to do other stuff. Plus it’s good for movies and music on those slow days. The volunteers here have built up an impressive collection of*cough cough* p@#$ed movies, and when people get together, everybody pulls out their portable hard drives and trades new stuff. Also a mp3 player- music will save your soul. Yes, welcome to the new age: this is not the Peace Corps of our fathers. Volunteers are technologically savvy now. Plus, as there is not much here in terms of recreation, options are pretty limited. No hiking to distant waterfalls or exploring the rolling foothills or exotic campouts in the desert on your days off in this land. That’s for Thailand Volunteers. Here, we generally get together, cook, watch movies, and avoid the sun. Get togethers have to be planned sometimes months in advance. So, if you have a hobby, bring that. I am learning how to play the guitar and croquet, and people are constantly sending me yarn in care packages. It’s good for passing the hours. My tally thus far? Six scarves, three hats, two cell phone cases, a yoga bag, and a quilt-in-process. Just wait until I start croqueting tea cozies for people. I’ll be well occupied until I my service is up. Yes, I am aware that my life is riveting

7. MONEY: $500 bucks should cover it. If you run out, you can always withdraw more when you leave the country for your first vacation. I brought $400 with me for gifts and emergencies, and I only spent $100 of it thus far, for a plane ticket, so it was more than enough. But I’m a hoarder-I never even spend my living allowance; I just keep it in wads under my bed. So some people might have need for a larger amount. Also, apparently there is an ATM somewhere in the capital that works, if you get seriously hard up. But all the money you bring has to be PRISTINE-no rips, dirt, or pen marks. If its’ not up to par, nobody will exchange it, and there you have it, a useless $20 bill. Might as well use it for toilet paper. Heaven knows you might have need for that.

Well, there’s probably more, but I’m done with the whole typing thing for now. Hope this helps some of you. If anybody has more questions or concerns about their upcoming service, feel free to drop me a note.

Peace


June 12th
English is Stupid

I found this poem digging through a bunch of old stuff in my office, and it pretty encompasses how I feel about life right now. Hope somebody else can appreciate it as much as I did.

English Is a Stupid Language
Anonymous

There is no egg in eggplant,
No ham in the hamburger,
And neither pine, nor apple,
In our dear pineapple

English Muffins were not invented in England,
And French Fries do not hail from France.
And while quicksand takes you down slowly,
Why do boxers, in boxing rings, dance?

If writers write, how come fingers don’t fing?
If the plural of tooth is teeth,
Why aren’t phone booths called phone beeth?
If a teacher taught, why didn’t the preacher praught?

If a Vegetarian eats vegetables,
What does a humanitarian eat?
And why do we recite at a play,
When a play has a recital?

And why do we park on our driveways,
and drive on our Parkways?
And, in being of the human race,
we find that it isn’t even a race at all.

You have to marvel, that a house burns up,
while it actually burns down.
And when the stars are out they are visible
While when the lights are out they are invisible,

Yes, English is a stupid language,
Which makes not much sense at all,
And that is why, when I wind up my watch, it starts.
But when I wind up this poem, it ends.

The End

FINISHED!!!

May 25
The End …and another Beginning.

Well, school has officially ended for the year. I have managed to make it to the finish, yes a little worse for wear mentally, but ready to sink my teeth into something different for this summer. A change of pace is always good. I have a nice week of break while the kids all do their tests, and then come June, I am going to swing into doing my camps. Two straight weeks of hectic game-playing-puzzle-solving-and-English-leaning camp-chaos for 40 some over-suggared kids. Oh joy. I have a feeling I am either going to love it, or I am going to altogether loathe it and it’s going to stress me out to the point of insomnia and I will decide never to bear children. It’s kind of 50/50 at this point. But I hope at least, that I will be prepared and organized enough to avoid complete and total disaster. For someone who never had the slightest desire to work in the public school system, I am finding that I seem to continually put myself into these situations. Hmmm…I guess that old saying about how you can never avoid the fate of genetics might really be true. If a kid’s father is a plumber, and his grandfather is a plumber, then the likelihood of that kid being a plumber is pretty well set, no matter how much he denies it. With all the twists and turns he may take to avoid it, at some point, that kid is going to be fixing leaky pipes in some form or another. Thanks mom and grandma for being teachers. I’ve successfully been cuckolded.
Anyway, this week, classes have pretty much ground to a halt and lessons are pretty much non existent, cause the kids have turned in all the books and teachers are preoccupied with writing up all the records for the year by hand, so I have vacated the classroom and turned my focus to finishing my grant. If all goes as planned, this summer I will successfully get our English Teachers Cabinet up and running. My counterpart and I are planning on setting up a small room in our school for both teachers and students to study and prepare for lessons, and a place to keep all the new teaching materials. Hopefully we’ll get the funds needed to get some good books in place that can help the teachers supplement their lesson plans-as the government provided books (in my opinion) are good enough only for fire kindling and/or toilet paper. So this week I will cross my T’s, dot my I’s and send this sucker off to the capital for revision. And Allah willing here, we’ll get some green to get the ball rolling  Yay, progress. Wish me luck! And ting in summer!!

ALSO, in other news… I want to send a hearty congrats to my lil’ bro Lindsey and his soon-to-be-wife Jamie who are tying the knot next week!!! I wish so much that I could be there with you guys and all the Holbrook gang on the special day to wish you guys the best of luck and to welcome Jamie into our crazy Holbrook/Haggar family-that brings the body count to 9! I’m so happy to have another Lass in the gang, as we officially outnumber the men now . I’ll be homeward bound at the end of summer, so freeze me a piece of cake, have a good Honeymoon, and I’ll see you guys in August!!!

Peace and Doves,
Meg

Random pics; my litle host brother, the killing of dinner, and my garden!!

May Blogs

April 12, 2009
Stage Fright

You know that scene in movies, where the girl stumbles on to the stage by accident, or tumbles through a curtain and the whole audience is sitting there, all looking at her, and she squeaks “Ohmigod!” then runs backstage and throws up? (Well, either that or she miraculously overcomes her stage fright and goes on to perform a stunning rendition of a Whitney Huston song that brings everyone to their feet while the credits roll...) So about a week earlier my English Methodologist, who is a Belarusian woman who speaks about three words of English and Turkmen equal to my own, had mentioned she wanted me to attend both a open lesson and an ‘English party’ later that month. Like a lot of the open lessons, I figured it might be interesting, but driving all the way across town to watch a 45 minute class that wasn’t even at my school didn’t really appeal to me, as I had my own lessons to teach and I had just started tutoring a new student at home. So I put them in the back of my mind, and honestly forgot about them. Then, come the morning of the supposed teacher party, I was working with my student and the phone rings. Long story short, I was across town 10 minutes later, running through the school still putting on my coat. Suspecting the party would be a classroom, I poked my head through the door that the secretary directed me to, and lo and behold there was a full auditorium of teachers and students, which upon my arrival, all directed their attention to me. My director waved me over while everybody watched, and there on the stage was a group of waiting students, a panel of assorted teachers, several directors…. and an empty chair. Mine, apparently. The supposed teacher party was actually a Ruhknama competition. The Ruhknama is this sort of cultural guidebook that the previous Turkmen President wrote. All the kids have to take Ruhknama classes in school, and once a year they have a Ruhknama day to celebrate it. Apparently, I was one of the 5 judges for the competition, as it was preformed both in English and in Russian, so I and another teacher were the English judges. Kids from 15 schools and come, and were performing, and there I was…a no show. ‘Teachers party’, my ass. So I scurried up on staged while everyone waited, inwardly cursing my inept grasp of the Russian language for the confusion, and the show went on. After sitting through 3 hours of plays, songs, and readings and quotes from the Ruhknama translated into a bunch of random Central Asian languages, the judges had to confer, pick winners, and then give a speech to the crowd. After we had our selection, I stood up for my turn, having no idea what the Russian judges had just said, mumbled through some Turkmen, then copped out and just summed it all up in English, clapping dramatically at the end to congratulate everyone. I felt like a monkey.
In summary, I should also probably be better about studying my Russian grammar and the next time someone invites me to a party, I will ask for details. I must also kiss my stage fright goodbye if I am ever going to survive in this country.






April 24,2009
Toyy Season

In the last 6 months I have been to my fair share of weddings. Turkmen people, being the community-oriented folks they are, tend to invite everybody and their cousin, not to mention their cousin’s cousin’s cousin. Most weddings tend to host between about 250-500 people, on average. Because of this, most of them are Café weddings, held in a big Restaurants specially built for the events, because they can pile everybody in pretty easily, and they have crews of teenage boys trained to a science running around the room and feeding every body. In our town there are two restaurants that host weddings. So every time somebody invites me, if it’s a café wedding, I know pretty much what to expect, where to go, and what I’ll be eating, as it’s mostly the same event, just with a slight change of characters and a few menu alterations. My first few weddings were pretty intimidating, as inevitably the dinner part is over and the dancing commences. It usually takes about 20 minutes for most everybody to realize there is a non-Turkmen in the room, because 1) I’m over 20 and don’t wear a headscarf (I’ve decided to put my foot down on that one, it’s just not happening) and 2) I have no clue how to dance to Turkmen music. I have tried in vain, but I have absolutely no rhythm for the music here. Women dancing consists of walking in a circle elaborately swirling your arms, while side stepping and hopping to the right. I feel like a chicken trying to learn sign language- to put it lightly. So soon enough it comes to attention that there is an awkward Foreigner dancing among them, and in about 5 minutes all three-camera crews (hired especially for the event) have swarmed around whichever dancing circle I happen to be a part of, to commence filming ‘the dancing American’. I realize it’s a way of making me feel welcome, but jeeze. My first few Toyys I was pretty mortified, I dreaded thinking about how many people were going to be watching me on their home video tapes a month later, saying ‘yes, there’s that American who came to our wedding. Look at her dance, isn’t if funny?!” In fact, my fear of the camera crews and the observing crowd was so bad that I hid behind my six-year-old host sister for the better part of two hours at my first few Toyys, but inevitably, I was discovered soon enough. You would have thought after three years of being a tour guide and have Japanese tourists record me for three hours on a tour I would have gotten over it, but here it is a whole new ball game. The lights and microphones bring it up to a whole different level. Added to this hilarity, it turns out the assistant director at my school also happens to be a wedding MC, so literally every Toy I attend, he is there booming away on the microphone, telling everybody to have a good time and giving a running commentary of the event like he was broadcasting a wrestling match. “Look, so-and-so’s aunt is dancing now, isn’t she great! Come on everybody, eat that food, it’s Murat’s cow, fine meat, don’t you think!” Note to self: never get openly drunk at a Toy and call in sick to work the next day. Won’t work.
This past weekend though, I went to my first outside Toy, or Street Toy, as they are called. It was kind of unavoidable as our neighbors were hosting the event for their middle son, and the entire neighborhood, along with helping prepare the wedding, were expected to be in attendance. My host mother baked 30 kilos of chicken legs in about three hours in our kitchen, and shred about 5 kilos of carrots for salad-enough for about 300 people. The morning of the wedding, the traveling Toy stages showed up. Toy stages are large un-foldable trailers that are dead ringers to carnival trailers. They resemble the game booths of a traveling circus with a thousand flashing lights, cheesy lit up pictures, and circus music. Once they unfold, and all the lights are hung up, you can literally hear the music from about a mile away- the only thing missing is the creepy clown. I think this is why all the neighbors are invited, because if everybody is at the Toy, no one can complain about the noise. After the Trailers are set up in the middle of whichever street the wedding house is on, the preparing of the food commences. Or in this case, the killing of the food. I was sitting in my room grading some papers, when I heard the rather frantic moo of a cow. It persisted for a while, and lifting my curtain I noticed a rather sad-looking cow latched to the telephone pole in our front yard. In about ten minutes, I watched while poor Bessie was dispatched to the hereafter by my neighbor men and quickly quarted, diced and boiled for the stew, head and all. Well, at least I know now what I’m having for dinner tonight, thought I. Bessie. I enclose a photo of my unfortunate dinner as exhibit A. All in all it was a jolly Toy, besides getting my high heels embedded in the mud, stalked by several drunk random neighbor dudes who thought throwing pebbles at my shoes to get my attention was a ingenious way of courtship, and having somebody nearly throw up on my host brother. And although I will probably never get down dancing like a Turkmen girl, I can say at least that the Hollywood camera show is starting to phase me less. But in answer to some previous queries, no, I will most definitely not be having a Turkmen wedding.



April 27, 2009
Cloud Nine

Call me a mother hen, but this week I’m so proud I could burst. As of this week, two of my advanced students from the Russian School have passed the Flex exam, which gives them a full ride ticket to the USA to study at an American High School for one year come next Fall. Being as only about 60 kids out of the entire country get picked-I feel like a mother sending her kids off to Harvard. I also feel extremely lucky because while a lot of volunteers will be teaching “Murat is playing football” for the next two years here, I have a work site where I have students able to do advanced grammar and practice with, and I can actually see significant headway being made with them. In terms of a Peace Corps volunteer, I’m pretty lucky. Every once and a while, when I mention to another volunteer a comment one of my students made, they say in disbelief, “your kids know how to say THAT???” This is mostly because most volunteers have to start from square one- with counterparts that don’t speak a lick of English, with a school curriculum that is almost beyond unsalvageable, or with slim to none resources. Not I said the fly. Yes, let the jealousy flow. For example, a few weeks ago, I was giving my kids scenarios like, ‘if you found out you had 6 months to live, what would you do?’ And one of my girls, who is one of the most reserved, shy, well behaved, quiet Muslim girls you will ever find, said that she would spend her time speed-dating, at the rate of one boy every two weeks. I almost fell off my chair. One-because I don’t know where she learned the term speed date, and two, because I’m pretty sure she has never even kissed a boy before. It’s amazing how language can open some doors.
Though as much as I’m excited for my girls to depart to my Homeland, I am also extremely nervous for them. Young girls are so protected here in terms of the gender differences I am terrified to think of the shock they will have when they hit America. So this week I have been examining some of the differences between the Turkmen way of thinking and the American way of thinking in hopes of preparing them for the culture shock they are sure to have. A lot comes down to the American mindset of Independence. As a culture of rags to riches, most Americans are pretty keen on the idea of relying on ourselves, and view dependence on others as a weakness. This may be why we have such a competitive and go-getter’ type culture. We are also very straightforward. If we are asked if we want something to eat, we say no, sit down, and that’s pretty much it, case closed. Here though, you are asked if you are hungry about six times, you say no out of politeness, and then regardless, somebody puts a plate of food in front of you, so you eat out of respect-whether you were planning on it or not. So I had to tell my girls: “Ok, if somebody asks you if you are hungry, and you are, for petes’ sake, just say YES. Otherwise, they’ll believe you when you say no, and you’ll starve to death. And if you want more, ask for more. Because when you stop eating, people will assume you are full. If you are tired-tell somebody. If you are cold, tell somebody. Just say it”. Simple right? Yeah, not as easy as it sounds. People here are masters of skirting around the issues without actually getting to the real point (this I say in my annoying American mindset). In any case, I hope to get them mentally prepared by August, so they will be prepared for a year in my Motherland. I’m hoping they put them in Florida, just for the sake that they don’t freeze to death in the winter. So watch out America, Turkmenistan is coming your way. And it’s ready to speed date.
Peace,
Me



April 29, 2009
Superstitions

I am going to be known as the volunteer that brought the rain. Apparently we are having an unusually wet spring here in Tejen, and I happened to jokingly mention to my students a while ago that it tends to rain every time I do my laundry. Well, it seems quite a few of them remembered this little factoid, and Meteorological oddities aside, I think many of them have taken this quite seriously and come to the conclusion that the rain is my fault. This Monday, it happened to be raining AGAIN, and I was wringing out my skirt over the trashcan before class while my waterlogged kids dashed through the door. One of my better students sat down irately, her braids plastered to the side of her face, water dripping down her nose, and asked me accusingly “Megan, you wash dress today?” And as luck would have it, I had actually washed some clothes the day before.
“Well, nooo…” I said. It wasn’t really a lie.
“When you wash?” She said, crossing her arms.
“Umm...” I tried to avoid the question by scribbling something on the chalkboard.
“When!” She is a little bulldog when she wants to be, and wasn’t buying that for a second.
“Umm, yesterday.” I mumbled, and quickly commenced scratching out a complicated grammatical graph on the board in the hope of diverting their attention. This brought a resounding groan from my kids, though I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with the future indefinite tense. Imagine, if you will, the blame of a dozen small shivering children boring their way into the back of your skull. One of them mumbled something in Turkmen that I’m pretty sure had to do with confiscating my laundry soap.
So, as my mother would famously say: What did we learn from this? Well, it appears that I may have to be a bit more careful when it comes to mentioning things that might be taken as superstition in these parts, as the Turkmen hereabouts still strongly follow and abide by a plethora of superstitions and well cemented beliefs. I knew before coming here that I would have to deal with a lot of them. In fact, I would have been a little bit disappointed if there weren’t any, because it’s part of the fun of living, or even just traveling, in different countries. Each country and people has their own little oddities that make them unique, and I’ve found you can tell a lot about a countries people by the superstitions they have. Here, for instance, a lot of superstitions have to do with the preservation of money-pretty important for a culture that doesn’t have too much of it. Whistling inside the house, for instance, will cause the residents to lose money, or become poor. I did it once, and my host family shut me up faster than you can swallow sand on a windy day in the Sahara. You would have thought I had just stolen right out of their pocket. Needless to say, I haven’t done it since. This particular superstition though can be found in other cultures, not just Turkmen culture. In Russian Culture for instance, it has pretty much the same meaning; whistling inside=no money. In the Chinese culture, I’m pretty sure that indoor whistling invites angry spirits into your house. I also remember hearing that whistling at night also invites death in to your home, (although I can’t remember which culture that is, as I read something about ‘whistling the devil in’ a while ago and I forgot where I read it-could be Native American, could be South American…not sure). Bottom line: no whistling.
There’s another Turkmen tradition that says when you pour tea, if there’s any bubbles on the surface, you must quickly ‘snuff’ them out before they touch the rim of the cup, and then touch your ‘snuffing’ finger to your forehead. This is supposed to bring money into the house. I haven’t discerned exactly where the hell this one came from, or what basis it has, being as it’s one of the most completely random traditions I have ever heard of. But I’m not gonna’ lie, I actually do this one a lot, because by wishing them good fortune, it’s like you’re theoretically offering them five bucks. Tickles the hell of the women when I go guesting. There is another one that forbids throwing anything outdoors at night, like left over crumbs or tea. Which means every night after dinner we fold up all the crumbs from dinner, save the leftover tea water, and then toss them in the garden the next morning when it’s light out. There’s yet another belief that says that people should always bathe in the evening-never in the morning-and don’t EVER go outside with wet/damp hair. Something about protecting the oils in the hair. I made this mistake once, and walking down the street you would have thought my wet hair consisted of Medusa’s snakes.
However, after a while, some of these cultural oddities cease to be unique and interesting, and are just downright annoying. Lets take, for example, the superstition that Turkmen have when it comes to avoiding anything cold. I’m not sure if its because the country of Turkmenistan is located about three feet under the glowing ball of death in the sky they call the sun, and so thus the people here just prefer unbearable heat, but in any account, cold things are not that kosher hereabouts. Leaning against a cold wall? Well, this will cause you to instantly take a chill and become ill. You sit on the part of the floor that doesn’t have a carpet, and the wood or cement is cool? Well, if you’re a woman, this will cause you to become infertile. Naturally. This aversion to cold also stems to food items and liquids. I recently got reprimanded by a neighbor for drinking some water which I had put in the refrigerator to chill. Her and my host mother explained to me that cold things-in this case ice water-are harmful for the body, and disrupt the natural flow of your blood and the healthy function of your organs. New one to me. Added to this, at the moment of reprimand I had also been sitting against the wall, off the carpet, and I had neglected to put on socks that morning, as it was a balmy 65 degrees out. By all counts, the next day I should have been deathly ill, gone into cardiac arrest, and/or simultaneously become infertile. I explained to them that in my homeland we live in the cold about 8 months out of the year, so cold doesn’t phase my ‘organism’ and that if it does make women infertile, well then I was long past the point of no return. Although to give me host mom credit, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t give much sway to the cold liquids bit, because they’re constantly putting soda in the freezer to chill, and their addiction to Turkmen ice cream is a little scary. But I had to concede a bit and now always sit on the carpet.
So these are just a few samples of some Turkmen beliefs, quirks, and customs that I find myself adhering to in this fair land. So, added to being blamed for metaphysical anomalies such as excessive rain because of my laundry habits, my next order of business is convincing my students that talking in class will result in premature baldness and/or earthquakes…

Until next time,
The-girl-who-brought-the-rain

Also: side note…3 weeks of school and counting until summer!!!! I don’t know who is more excited about the break, the teachers or the students…. I’m thinking it might be the teachers at this point.

DID IT!!

I DID IT PEOPLE!!!! I HAVE SUCCEEDED!!!!!! Here to for, I present unto you: pictures. Just a few, but a little visual to go along with my long winded posts none the less.

Megan

Field trip to Kaka, Kopetdag Mountains, Iran border

With host Family, field trip with students, Ruins near Kaka

Picnicing with the fam, Turkmen sunset, Kaka Mosque

Anew Fam, Neighborhood football, training site mates, Turkman cutie

Presidents mosque, Anew road, Tamdyr bread baking, host family baking bread, Turkmen classroom

Anew ruins near my training site

April blog

Spring has Spruuuunnnngggg!!!!
March 25, 2009

I want to sing it from the rooftops, I am so happy to see green! Five months in a brown wasteland is enough to make any nature lover go a bit bonkers, and coming home a week or so ago, I saw a tree near my house in full bloom, flowers and all, and I almost up and hugged it right there in broad daylight. Thankfully, I stopped myself, being as the last thing I need is another bit of gossip circulating about ‘the American’ (Murat said that Jeren and Shemshat saw her hugging a TREE yesterday! Do you think, maybe she really IS crazy???) No thanks. It doesn’t matter that there is still no grass here to speak of, but just the reassurance that something grows in this land outside the well-manicured lawns of the Capital is enough for me. I was beginning to despair that my surroundings would be an earth colored monotone for the next two years of my life-but no, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it is colorful.
Added to this epiphany, I have been complaining to my host mom about the lack of nature, and announced a week or so ago that I was going to start a garden in the wasteland that is our backyard, and then this week my host father turned off the TV, arose off his caboose, popped outside, and dug out a well organized garden plot, and planted some cucumbers in about an hour! Needless to say, I was pretty impressed, not to mention a wee bit embarrassed. In preparation of this grand garden idea, I had gone so far as to check out some appropriate reading material from the Peace Corps Library, researched what kind of seeds I should get, and made plans for where I should map out the compost pile to better fertilize the soil. Although I have a bit of experience with gardening, I have never embarked upon a solo veggie garden, so I have been gearing up for it. But in a little less time than it takes me to get ready in the morning, my host father had the entire plot dug up, trenches set it, seeds mixed in, and had begun to water it. Moral of the story: in learning to do something, just ask a local-it’s a lot faster than trying to learn from a damn book. But I did my part and went and bought some tomato plants and carrot seeds, as well as some flower seeds to start a flower plot in our front yard, which somewhat resembles a crater on the moon. So this Wednesday I am going to finish the job and set in some tomatoes and some petunias, and get our little garden a’ growin! Now to see if it will actually survive the scorching hot sun of this summer-that is the true test. But I am going to save some reserves to put in flowerpots and put them in my room for a bit of color. Now I just have to remember to water the damn things….


My first Field Trip,
March 23, 2009

Over this spring break, I held a few clubs and gave a seminar, and as everyone else was vacationing, I felt that I was due for a little trip. I agreed to help my host mother, who is also an English teacher, chaperone a picnic trip with her students to Kaka, a town about an hour away from us. She had planned a lunch at the foot of the Kopetdog Mountains, which makes up the Northern border of Iran. Kaka was actually the site of some volunteer training mates of mine, who went back to America a few weeks ago, but before they left they had visited the valley and said it was gorgeous, so I was pretty excited to see it.
Monday morning, at about 5:30am we were all up and about as a bus honked outside our door. Imagine 15 16-year-olds motivated enough to get up on their own at 4:30 in the morning to pick up their teacher just for a picnic! I don’t think that would ever happen in the States! We all piled in the bus and drove about 45 minutes to a large mosque which is in this empty field miles from anything, where we all got out and walked to a huge tomb. It is a special place for my host mother, as her son is named after the Turkmen buried there, because as a new wife she had gone there every week to pray for a son, as well as for my host fathers’ safe return from Turkey, where he was working. As both things came true, she has a strong attachment to the site, and it is very holy for her. The tomb itself is impressive-a black marble structure about 20 feet wide by about 50 feet long. One by one all the students gave thanks to Malik, and we walked in a line three times around the tomb in silence, dragging our hands over the marble all the way around. After the third go around, we sat in a circle, and one of the mail students ‘read’, or prayed, for all of us. I am not a particularly religious person, but I do respect how the power of ritual can unite people, and listing to the Arabic words repeated as the sun peaked over the horizon was a pretty neat experience.
After the stop at the mosque, we continued on past Kaka, and began our accent into the Valley. It was like we had entered another world- there were rolling grass hills in every direction, and everywhere we turned there were waundering herds of goats and sheep, all kept guard by a man or woman propped atop a shaggy donkey. My little host siblings were cranky from being woken up so early, so the students cheered them up by yelling “ Huny Malik Aylar, Eshek!” (Look, Malik and Aylar, there’s a donkey!) every time we passed a heard. Our bus driver, who I nicknamed the Surgeoun, and his assistant, keep constant guard over our ancient bus the whole way up, and every time we passed a stream would stop and refill the radiator and coaxs the engine a few more miles. We finally made to this little town at the gateway of the valley, and passing through that, made towards the river. After about 15 minutes, we pulled up alongside the river and unloaded, yelling hello’s to all the other picnicers who were out. My host mother cooked a huge vat of stew with water pulled straight from the stream, and my host father and his nephew tended the fire dutifully to serve the bundle of hungry teenagers. Afterwords, we took turns exploring, and I hiked with my host sisters to the top of the bluff, where we could look out over the valley. I pointed out the mountains to one of my host sisters. “Enegul can you see what’s over there?” I asked her, referring to the snow. “Yeah,’ she said “That’s Iran.” “Oh yeah, well, that too….” says I sheepishly. All in all, it was probably my favorite day I’ve had thus far in this country, just for the mere fact that we were froliking in nature. Thus far all my trips here in T-stan have been either chore-filled or involved the capital in some way or another. On our way back the bus broke down a few times, and while the Surgeoun tore out the engine, cut some pipes and started putting it all back together on the side of the road, some of took advantage of this, and we explored the ruins of an ancient city nearby, complete with castle wall and hundreds of house foundations. Also there was this thing, which is called the Uly Tamdyr (big tamdyr) by locals, that was the bread oven which supplied bread to the entire city of a few thousand people. It literally was about the size of a tw-story house, and the brick side had a doorway width the size of three grown men. It put the little Tamdyr in our backyard to shame, to say the least. It was like a bread oven on steroids, and hundreds of years old. Definitely a pretty neat place, and totally worth getting up at 5 am for…. So after the nice holiday, it’s now it’s back to the daily grind. 8 weeks and counting until summer!!

Peace
Megan