Turkmenistan!

THIS IS THE END

2010-01-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

Dear everyone:

As of December 16th, I officially completed my Peace Corps service, and following a thoroughly rejuvenating stay in Thailand, returned home to Chicago on December 28th.

****Please find my profile on Facebook.com to look at over 200 photos of Turkmenistan (there are two albums, Turkmenistan! and Turkmen Food).****

Here is the climactic final letter I sent home:

(12/2/09)

Today is my second-to-last day of classes. After working on some Turkmen grammar (some last minute cramming for the impending end-of-service language proficiency test: "sen menin bilen bazara gelip bilsen, men sana gul alaryn" - 'if you come to the bazaar with me, I will buy you a flower') [I got Advanced Low on the test] I went to the next room over to see which other English teachers were here. I found Jeren and Shohrat, along with a gaggle of boogery kids. After some brief handshaking, Jeren asked me to greet the kids.
"Good morning!"
"Goood Mor-Neeng!" they shouted back in unison.
"How are you?" They didn't see that curve-ball coming. Half the class had blank, glazed-over stares, while the others dangled their heads in all angles, eyes probing the ceiling and walls for a clue to my riddle. One brave kid piped up.
"My name is Parahat?"
Sigh. I asked Jeren what form her students were. 4th. I asked what the lesson for the day was. Neutrality. (I couldn't make this up if I tried.) A little wisp of steam must have risen from my ears. I kind of lost my cool.
"'How are you' is easy! It's the most basic thing there is! If they don't understand 'how are you?' how can they possibly understand 'neutrality'? What 4th grader understands 'neutrality' anyway?" More importantly, why do I ask such stupid questions? Have I paid no attention for 2 years?
Sitting alone in my classroom a few minutes later, reading a Newsweek to calm down, I heard a muffled, synchronized chorus of "I am fine, thank you!" My heart nearly warmed. Though by the time I got to the next paragraph, I heard the inevitable:
"Repeat after me: neutrality!"
"Noo-tra-lee-tee!"

*****

12/10/09
Learning here goes on to the very end. At the completion of the after-meal prayers, I generally saw people pass their hands over their faces in a washing motion, from the middle to the sides. But recently I had been noticing done in the opposite direction, from the outside in, then down. I asked my host father which one was proper. He indicated the latter: "just pretend you are stroking a long beard," he said, pantomiming along.
During the first summer, I had discovered that the Amen was a very convenient time to wipe the sweat off my face. Turns out that the Turkmen elders had not only discovered that, but that they could also give their beards a once over at the same time.

*****

Throughout service, the only American music that Turkmen seemed to listen to was Enrique and Akon. You haven't heard of Akon? Good. Very lousy top-40 R&B crap. Enrique you have no doubt heard OF, but you have probably never really listened to. Oh yeah, and they of course like 50 Cent. If you go to the discos, you can also be sure to hear "Hotel California", "Mambo #5" and "The Macarena," each played at least six times. And of course their is plenty of club music, heavy on the beats. But in the last few months of service, disco got big. Real big, people blasting in their cars and homes, not just at the clubs.
A lot of these disco songs were in English, but I had never heard them before. I figured they were part of some retro-craze of 80's inspired music that was coming in. But when I went to a neighbor's house to guest on one of my last nights, he asked if I wanted to watch some "80's disco", and what else would we watch?
I was very disturbed to discover that all these songs I had been hearing were actually disco songs from the actual 80's, and many even from America (the rest from Germany and Russia, and equally appalling.) And for every song, my neighbor would ask me, "Is this popular in America? Do you listen to 'Modern Talking?' 'C.C. Catch?' 'Ottawan'? 'Boney M.?' Boney M. must be very popular in America! I have a whole DVD of Boney M." He was in disbelief that no Americans listened to this. What else was there to listen to in America?
Hate to be ragging on you Boney M. fans out there. Anyway, it appears that disco from back in the day must have caught on in Eastern Europe and Russia, and then just recently, Russia hosted a 80's Disco marathon concert with a few hundred different acts, put it on dvd, and shipped it out to the former republics. Here is one of the songs (though sadly not the live version): It is Germany's chart topping hit 'Ghengis Khan', by Ghengis Khan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_esCf2GSTI&feature=fvw
So music that is so bad that it barely catches on in the west before burbling out of existence has a still bright future in Turkmenistan.

*****

Well, this is my last letter. Tomorrow I will drive to Ashgabat and stay there for a week (administrative stuff followed by sitting around a few extra days to wait for a flight), and then Thailand for a week. Then Chicago on the 28th of Dec. I hope you have enjoyed reading about all the stuff that goes on here, (shagging sheep hats, the price of tomatoes, Boney M.) and maybe even learned a little about Turkmen culture and life. Or maybe this is just a fun distraction from the everyday drudgery.
But I also did this because I know that when I get home, and people ask "Wow, Turkmenistan! What was it like?" I won't even know where to begin, and will have forgotten much of it, and will answer something inane like "it was great!" Then the conversation will switch to football, and I will be confused because they aren't talking about soccer. And that will be that. This way, hopefully, you will have already read about what happened. Still feel free to ask me anything.
Anyway, thanks for reading and showing interest in my experience (and for helping to contribute to the Goal 3 of Peace Corps: teaching Americans about host country life and culture. You made my trimester report that much fuller. And a huge thanks to everyone who has written to me or sent a package. Being isolated on the other side of the world, even a small something means a real lot, even if it is my great aunt and uncle saying "glad you are having a blast, but we would never do that ourselves." Another thank-you to the parents and grandparents of other volunteers, who printed out my blog and sent it to their dear ones here to read. Even though they are my close friends, I see them quite often, and they experience the same things, or at least hear about it from me anyway.
Thanks Mom, for deciphering my cuneiform-like handwriting in the letters I send home and for typing them up. And thanks, Sarah, for maintaining the blog and mailing list.
For you Russkies: Spasibo! Paka!
For you Turkmen: Kop sagbol! Hos!
And for the rest of you: Thanks! Goodbye!

PS: As I was walking to the post office to deliver this letter, I saw them finally installing modern street lamp heads on the poles along Boldumsaz's main road. When will they finish? When will they put bulbs into the lamps? When will there be a reliable power supply to light those lamps? Well, these are questions for a future volunteer. But good luck, Turkmenistan!

Follow-up on Peace Corps fate

2009-12-14T23:27:00.000-08:00

Written in real time, Dec. 15th:

Good news:

I am writing this from an internet cafe in Ashgabat because the internet (and the whole network) in the Peace Corps office has been broken for a few weeks now. (That is not the good news.) The good news is that Peace Corps in allegedly ready to come back here, with some slight differences. There are 20 health volunteer positions set to be filled, to come around May. TEFL would still come theoretically in the fall. Currently everyone comes at once, which makes training more difficult. But anyway, we are not over, and the current T17's will not be lonely for too long.

Also, the FLEX (the program that sends Turkmen highschool students to America for a year) exams have been approved and are being held. The students who are selected are picked based on already impressive English skills, and they come back incredibly fluent; instead of 'hello, how are you?' they say things like 'yo man, what's up?' It is an absolutely great program. Good luck to them.

Otherwise, I COS (close of service) later today. IE as of midnight tonight, I am no longer a volunteer. Done. Success. As Shannon would say, "Sweet action". I'll be here till my Sunday 3am flight to Thailand, then back in Chicago on the 28th.

Last night I went with Noah and two local friends - the older sister of Maya, my Turkmen teacher from training, and her husband - for dinner and pool (it exists in Ashgabat. This place is amazing! Pool! I am so starved for excitement...) As I looked around at all the wealthy and stylish metropolitan Ashgabaters...Ashgabatians?...people of Ashgabat, I felt like a Dashoguz taxi driver in my old jeans and oversized black fake leather jacket. I have become well acculturated to northern T-stan. Anyway, after 2 years of not touching a pool cue, I didn't know what to expect, but luckily we were all equally bad, and I think maybe only 2 of 6 games did NOT end because of accidently sinking the 8 ball. But I finished the last game with an impressive double-bank called shot, so I showed this place a thing or two (assuming no one saw the rest of my playing...)

Also, I celebrated Hanukah in style. As the two Jewish representatives who were in Ashgabat, Noah and I were invited Friday night to a small Hanukah party held by the UN head in Tstan. It was he and his wife, a few embassy people, and a guy from Chevron with his son. Small world factor: I remembered the guy from two years earlier at an embassy's 4th of July party ("I'm Doug from Chevron.") This was quite the opportunity to see how the other half live, and by other half I mean Americans who aren't volunteers (re: salaried). Pastrami and mustard. Australian shiraz. Beautiful furniture. FURNITURE. And yet people who lead an extremely sheltered life here: they don't speak Turkmen, don't really get into the culture, and interact in Turkmen far far less (they have drivers, even.) I felt a little embarrased when I jokingly asked the host why he didn't cook the deliciously red pastrami, after I realized that he probably hasn't eaten the always cooked through Turkmen style meat. You never see meat even pink on the inside here. But it was a real fun crowd, and we had a good time.

That's all for now.

There are still some paper letters in the mail or being typed up for the blog, so please keep reading.

Letter dated 11/13/09: ...of thee I sing?

2009-12-11T12:28:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

I have the flu. No, not your wicked western Swine Flu. Just the flu. But I am taking my meds, so it is not bad. It was, however, a sure bet that I would catch it, seeing as half of my school and my entire host family is sick. That’s what malnutrition, poor personal hygiene, and living together in cramped quarters will do.

But what if it is Swine Flu? Who knows? Few people here seem to understand simple health concepts. Fact: you cannot get Swine Flu from eating pork. But it is easy to see why someone would think otherwise. That doesn’t explain, however, why women in Jaenell’s town were telling her that you could get Swine Flu from eating (drum roll, please) …bananas! (Fact: by eating infected pork, you are at risk of catching banana flu.)

There is a medicinal plant in Turkmenistan, Yuz Älek, a dry stemmy thing with round seed pods, that people use when sick. They light a small tray of it, then bring the smoldering pile through the house. The smoke is supposed to help. I think it is good for a basic cold, but not much good against the flu. Smells nice, though. But since we are all sick, my host mom basically hot-boxed the house with it.

In other news, we got a new kitten. (The old cat, Mickey, died under mysterious circumstances.) The new kitten is Shahrukh (“Shah’s spirit”.) Probably named after the huge Bollywood star, Shahrukh Khan, though I didn’t ask.

I’m not sure if I discussed Halloween in previous letters. People here do not celebrate it, although some people do know about it. With about 8 of my students, I had them bring in tools and pumpkins, and taught them how to make jack-o-lanterns. They had a lot of fun. I also helped at Courtney’s party, where students came in costume, made masks, carved pumpkins, bobbed for apples, etc. So it was a good holiday. I can’t imagine how people here view this strange American ‘holiday’ when you dress up in a goofy costume, carve (and waste) pumpkins, and eat a ton of candy. But I guess, even from the American point of view, there is not much more to it than that. Pointless fun.

Obviously, there is a perception of America and Americans formed by what people in other countries see in movies. Whether it is Jean-Claude Van Damme, 'Home Alone', Rocky, gangsters, or cowboys, this is what some people have as their only knowledge of what America is like (don’t forget 'Walker: Texas Ranger'.) That’s okay with me. In a lot of ways, these characters are America. We are brash, tough, ‘let’s shoot all the bad guys (or at least make them slip on marbles)' kind of people. Of course there is more to us than that, but it wouldn’t make as good of a movie. What I find far more disturbing is the view of Americans from Turkmen TV. All of the aforementioned, except for 'Home Alone', was from Russian TV – they like action. As I have described before, Turkmen TV only shows American movies with a dumb kid and their pet. I just had the misfortune to see a movie where a family (and yes, a white, upper-middle-class one) adopts an orangutan, who then, you guessed it, sneaks onto the son’s hockey team and of course helps them win the championship. Good God! If we are concerned about our image abroad, we won’t be helped by movies where people dress monkeys (okay, okay, apes) in clothes, let them sleep in their beds, and get shown up by them in sports. We will need a lot of Steven Seagal to undo this evil.

Letter dated 11/9/09: The finer points of language

2009-12-11T12:25:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

I am in Ashgabat this weekend taking care of some business (buying my Thailand–>Chicago ticket, writing my final trimester report, etc.) I was entering the Security Building of the Peace Corps compound to check in, and said hello to the guards. There were two on duty, both Russians, and fairly fluent in English. “Good evening,” I said. They looked at each other, and started speaking concernedly in Russian. I could hear just some snatches of the conversation, which consisted of “afternoonski” and “eveningski”. Finally, one of them spoke, “Is it not still the afternoon?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the dark, gray overcast sky, but glancing up, I saw the clock. It read 4:51.

“All right, you are right. For nine more minutes. You usually say 'evening' maybe after 5:00,” I conceded. The guards both looked quite pleased with themselves. They totally called me out. The irony is that day in and day out, I am constantly correcting students’ usage of ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon’ – it actually puts me in a good mood to hear ‘good afternoon’ after noon. And yet here I was, being just as inconsistent, though admittedly there is much less of a true distinction between afternoon/evening as there is between morning/afternoon. It will be rough getting back to Chicago. I will need to re-learn English.

Letter dated 11/4/09: Anecdotes galore

2009-12-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

It is the first bleak day of fall. The leaves are a vibrant yellow and orange, but the sky is dark and it has been raining since dawn. Amazingly, there was power at school when I arrived at 9, but no more than a half hour later, it predictably cut off. “Turkmenistan: An inspiration to the world!” declared the cover of a recent magazine publication, Diyarbeyir. Not as far as utilities are concerned, I’m guessing. Kids generally don’t come to clubs (or school) if it is raining, which is giving me time to write, not to mention play ‘Snake’ on my cell phone – I resisted the urge for nearly two years – and read “The Old Patagonian Express” by Paul Theroux.

I recently had another stay at the decrepit Daşoguz Hotel (I think I have used the word ‘decrepit’ to describe it before, so I looked just now in the thesaurus for an alternative, but ‘decrepit’ really appears to hit the nail on the head. ‘Repugnant’ implies too much (though only by a little) physical repulsion, while ‘dilapidated’ carries a certain rustic charm. Decrepit it is.) As the routine goes, you pay at the front desk, then go up to your floor, where the floor lady – in this case a sagging lady no taller than 5 feet, missing a majority of teeth – gives you a room. The first room she offered actually was past decrepit and thoroughly repugnant. ‘Vile’ and ‘repulsive’ would be equally descriptive. The walls were crumbling, and whatever paint was remaining was bubbling off from water damage. There was hot water: this is the illustrious 2nd floor. But there was no light in the bathroom. I requested to see a different room. Get the most out of your 4 dollars, right?

She took me down the hall to a different room, which in this setting, came off as cozy. Only one of the ceiling lights worked, and the bathroom was also unlit. But the walls were on the proper side of pristine. It looked like the best option, though still rather dark. I asked her if any of the rooms had all 3 working light bulbs, which apparently was too much to hope for. However, this floor lady, a creature who appeared to have spawned from the building itself, was quite friendly and helpful: “Come to my room,” she said. “I have a light bulb for you.”

Following her back down the hall to her room, she offered me the bulb – from her ceiling!

“Won’t you need that for yourself?” I asked. It was the only bulb in her room. Perhaps the creature preferred the darkness.

“It’s no problem. Just return the bulb in the morning.”

So standing on a chair, I unscrewed the bulb, and took it and the chair to my room.

Maybe this motel has a certain charm after all.

*****

A week or two ago I was coming back to Daşoguz after checking out the bazaar in Yalanly. The taxi was barreling down the road – this is the same area where a dog in the previous story got hit – and suddenly there is a slight “thump!” noise, followed by the taxi screeching to a halt. The driver starts backing up the car. I look around: trees lining the roads, the occasional house, cotton fields, but no sheep or dogs. After about 50 meters the driver stops the car and gets out. Is the car okay, I wonder. He opens the trunk. Is he getting his tools? Then he picks up a rabbit off the road, tosses it in the truck, and we continue to the city. I thought this only happened in Arkansas. The thing I didn’t resolve though, as neither answer would be satisfying, was whether he hit and killed the rabbit, or ran over an already deceased rabbit. But either way, I know what he had for dinner that night. Though maybe he sold it at the bazaar?

*****

My weekly Art Club is going well. Generally about 10 kids show up, 3rd to 5th graders. Half of them are my 4th form English Club, so I have started to push some English into the Art Club. I started with the basics: pen, pencil, marker, paper. Then yesterday I wrote, “Please give me the ____________ marker,” and added a few colors underneath to choose from, followed by “thank you” and “you’re welcome”. At first they were too shy or nervous to ask, but by the end they got into it.

As for the art itself, I try to push the creativity with varying success. I usually give a theme, but if kids are feeling it, I just let them draw what they want (flower-filled mountain landscapes, or house, or car.) But just this last Tuesday, this one boy named Hezretdurdy whipped out this impressive double-mast schooner (it would have had one more mast, but we ran out of time.) It blew me away. I have seen a few wonder-kid artists do pretty accurate horses and cars – items of cultural relevance in Turkmenistan – but the schooner was a new one for me. Made me proud!

*****

I am flying out of the Daşoguz airport this morning. They have nearly finished remodeling it, and it actually looks like a real airport now (versus a condemned 50-year-old Soviet heap.) The place is very well lit, and lined with gleaming white marble walls and sleek steel benches. And yet, as I handed the ticket-lady my hand-written ticket, I couldn’t help but notice the abacus on the counter. An abacus! With beads! Yes yes, I know it is a most impressive little device, and can handle complex equations (multiplication and division), but it is not what a modern person expects to see in an airport. (At least they don’t bring the luggage to the plane via donkey cart.)

Letter dated 10/10/09: Parades and cotton fields

2009-11-06T08:31:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

Happy Health Day! Frankly, I thought this happened already. Maybe it is twice a year. I woke up this morning in the decrepit Dashoguz Hotel after a deceptively calm disco night (deceptive because the contents of my pockets in the morning were a five manat bill, a fifty manat bill, and a ten ruble bill). Anyway, shortly after my alarm woke me and I wet down my hair (D-guz Hotel bathroom: no sink faucet, no toilet handle, no hot water, no water at all till 6 a.m., would you even want a towel?) I was greeted by the merry sounds of a parade. I went out to investigate, and sure enough: parade. Well, youth march. With no spectators. A few thousand students, athletic suit-clad, were in the roped-off street. Flowers, balls, flags and banners in hand. Yes, it was to be the beginning of quite a health day. My favorite was the two kids holding an 8 x 10 foot stretched poster of the President posing on a bike. It really captured the essence.

Right when I thought they would start their formation march, the sea of baby-blue track suits parted and they ran a few races down the street.

After that was done, the horde of students moved down a few hundred meters to surround a set-up of musicians, which was to be filmed for Turkmen TV. As the musicians strummed their dutars [mom’s note: according to Wikipedia, a dutar is a traditional long-necked two-stringed lute found in Central Asia and South Asia], the students waved their flags and flowers. To discourage the slackers, some angry Sound Director shouted to them: “Wave your flags! Flowers! Flags! Move your flowers! FLOWERS!” I assume they edited that out later.

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

My host sister Mahri offered to take me cotton picking yesterday, and I jumped at the chance. Now that I am writing this the next day, every muscle in my body is sore, and my fingers are scratched up. I spent a cool October Sunday picking in the cotton fields, and I earned 2.25 manat ($.88) after picking 18 kilos (40 lbs) of cotton.

Before you think I am bragging about my cotton picking prowess, understand this is nothing of the sort. I got schooled by every man, woman and child on the field. I am glad there were no toddlers present.

The average worker on the field (who happens to be a short, plump, middle-aged woman) picked literally twice as much as me. They laughed when I optimistically explained that actually I had picked 18.5 kilos. But I pocketed my manat with pride.

About the picking itself: I left the house with Mahri at about 8, and after we picked up our neighbor, Bagtygul (“Happy Flower”), we walked cross-town to the bus depot, and hopped on a hulking, rusted-out Soviet deathtrap of a bus. With its round contour and dull yellow color, it resembled an old dented loaf of bread. The bus was filled with about 15 other people headed for the field. We soon left the main road, and the bus bumped and wheezed down dirt roads and tractor trails for a few miles. When the bus could go no further, we walked the last half mile.

The bus ride was subsidized; you have to bring your own sack and lunch (though there was a large cauldron set up for boiling water for tea). We were spaced every two rows (so you could pick the plants clean on both sides of you).

The nice thing is that cotton is real soft. Unfortunately, the opened pod is hard and jagged, and since they open 4 or 5 ways, it is like a puff exploding between sharp teeth. Instead of taking each cotton ‘ball’ individually, you grab them all at once. Sometimes this is easy. At least Bagtygul, when showing me, made it look easy. It was fun, until A) everyone was meters upon football fields ahead of me, B) the sack hanging from my waist started getting real heavy (while cotton itself is light, the large seeds and any moisture in the cotton makes it heavier) and C) my legs and back started aching from being bent over.

I was quite happy when lunch was called, and we weighed our morning collections. I got 9 (and a half) but I think it would have been lower had the cotton not been damp with dew. Mahri, short of the 35 kilos she said a good picker could pick, still outdid me with a solid 28 kilos.

All in all, it was a pretty cool (or ‘intense-ass’ as Shannon phrased it) way to spend a Sunday, though despite numerous invitations by the girls there to come back next Sunday, I don’t think my body can take more of that. Though I would like to break the 20 kilo mark. I have gained a large respect for anyone who has picked cotton, whether forced or for pay.

Letter dated 9/24/2009: Flashback!

2009-11-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

With less than two months to go, I have started the process of leaving – giving or throwing away everything I have that I don’t absolutely need. I found a nice leather-bound journal that I had taken to Turkmenistan, and only written one entry within it. It is of my first moments in Turkmenistan. I don’t know if some version of this reached you, but either way, it is funny to read after two years:

Flashback - Jon’s first impressions of Turkmenistan

10/3/2007

Touchdown in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. I have spent the last half dozen months reading as much as I could about the country and seeing as many pictures as possible. I have heard advice, anecdotes, and tales from previous volunteers. And yet after everything, I really had no idea what to expect.

After 2 days of PST (Pre-Service Training) in Washington D.C. – lots of policy overview/cultural sensitivity training (mostly very generalized) and the first time meeting the other volunteers (37 total, TOEFL and Health), we took the journey to Turkmenistan. It lasted somewhere around 36 hours, and neither my body nor mind has any idea what time or day it should be now. The flights were D.C. to Frankfurt (lots of people), Frankfurt to Baku, Azerbaijan (smaller plane, PCVs, German tourists & Azerbaijanis) and finally, Baku to Ashgabat (PCVs & German tourists. They seriously go everywhere.) I helped an old German lady sitting next to me on the plane understand and fill out the customs form for Turkmenistan. She laughed when I asked if she was carrying weapons or drugs.

T-Stan has the reputation for having tight security. During PST we were regaled with stories of airports filled with AK-47 toting security guards. On the customs form, instead of a spot to declare items, was a spot for the security inspectors to declare our items. Full search? But when we got inside, I didn’t see a single gun. The guards, realizing there were 37 of us, didn’t feel like taking the energy to search us, and rushed us through pretty fast. There were two lines, one with an x-ray machine. It was up to you to choose your line. I opted out of the x-ray choice, and the only search they did was a peek at my guitar. And as a good omen of things to come, the guard checking passports after the passport check (the joyful redundancy of bureaucracy) was very friendly, and far more curious about the pronunciation of 'Illinois' than any problems I might have with my passport.

The predominant smells while leaving the airport were diesel fuel and what I imagine camels smell like.

We were greeted by the P.C., and brought onto buses. I’m sure they both had more of their fair share of duct-tape repairs, but the engine gave a rumble that said it had been to hell and back, and wasn’t giving up any time soon.

The ride through Ashgabat presented a view often compared to Vegas – grand hotels in the middle of nowhere. It appeared as if they were teleported in, out of the blue. I got my first glimpse of the legendary Arch of Neutrality, famed for its golden statue of (former Prez) Niyazov that rotates to always face the sun.

When we got to the Grand Turkmen Hotel, I saw my first indication of T-Stan’s new age: a large framed portrait of Pres. Gurbanguly Berymuchanmedov in the lobby, staring down at us. My room is gold and teal themed, and considering the TV, (semi) hot running water, and uninterrupted power, is pretty posh. I am sharing the room with Dan Pearlmutter, who I roomed with in D.C.

We chose to take the stairs up, to avoid the elevator line. Our room is on the '4th floor', which is actually the 6th floor. But good exercise after 36 hours of sitting.

Our room was additionally furnished with bottled water (do NOT drink the water) and Ülker Kram sandwich cookies from Turkey. The flavors are chocolate and cocoa, and cheese cream (“30% cream for extra taste”).

But an additional note about the streets of Turkmenistan, at least on our ride, regarding the odd surrealness was the lack of people and cars. It was just a land of large fancy buildings. The sole person I spotted was a security guard outside a building.

But now it is time to sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, and 27 months ahead of us. I want to be rested.

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

Back to the Present:

Some things are very clear after reading that. I can’t say that my handwriting is better now, but it was even worse then. There are some amazing feats of grammar that indicate your English skills didn’t necessarily get worse in the Peace Corps – you suddenly just realize all of your mistakes.

Grammar aside, there are small mistakes of ignorance that are only natural when you begin something as major as the Peace Corps, from cultural (I think 'Azerbaijanis' should be 'Azeris') to bureaucratic (what I described as PST was actually 'staging'). PST is the training you receive in the country of service during the first three months. One of the many abbreviations you learn and misuse, like RPCV, CD, AO, EPA, ECA, PCMO…you get the idea. But you learn that stuff over time, and it becomes second nature.

And two things noticed correctly as soon as I got here: a) Turkmenistan is a very strange land by American standards, and b) there is a sprawling overgrown yet not inflexible amount of control here. Sure, they want to check your stuff. But if you don’t want the x-ray machine, you can get in the other line.

Letter dated 10/6/09: An unfortunate (un)reality

2009-10-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

Some ominous news:

The Beginning of Something New – or Just the End?

The newest batch of volunteers heading to Turkmenistan (the T18’s) were all set to arrive on October 1st. Upon arriving in Philadelphia on September 30th, they were informed by Peace Corps what PC only learned the night before: Turkmenistan is not accepting any T18’s. This last-minute decision (and it could hardly have been ‘laster’) came despite already issuing the volunteers both Turkmen visas and official letters of invitation.

The good news: Most if not all of the T18’s have been successfully transferred to other countries for service. And as far as anyone knows, this does not affect the current volunteers (us T16’s and the newer T17’s) directly; we should be finishing our service as planned.

The bad news: Nobody knows what the reason for this is. I have heard three competing arguments of varying believability/absurdity (though sadly, those are not two sides of a spectrum, but rather mix freely).

Reason 1 – The Typo: Even for this country, this is too absurd. The rumor goes that on the official Turkmen diplomatic letter formally inviting the T18’s, the date was for 2010, not 2009. Instead of someone just whiting out the mistake and writing in the proper year, they decided to scrap the whole thing. Less paperwork for a year, right? Come on. This idea is ludicrous. Whichever volunteer started this rumor has been hitting the dollar-per-liter vodka a little too hard.

Reason 2 – The Contract: Strangely enough, we don’t have one. That’s right. While PC is supposed to have an official contract of service set out with each given country, we have been in T-stan since 1993 with only a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ – a diplomatic handshake. PC is currently in the works to iron out an official agreement with T-stan, which would set up what volunteers are supposed to do, where they should work, etc. (The lack of this does explain a lot, though not all, the complications, hypocrisies, and mysteries we face here.)

This situation is confirmed by Peace Corps. Whether or not this is why T-stan put a hold on new volunteers is not yet known – as you can tell, this place is not a model of transparency.

Reason 3 – So Long, It’s been Nice Knowing You: This is the most pessimistic conspiracy theory going around, and the most widely believed. Let’s consider the evidence.

There really is very little support for us at all. As for us TEFL volunteers, the teachers have to, or think they have to (there is no confirmed policy) follow the official curriculum using the state textbooks. These are essentially an obstacle to successful learning, and methodology is useless when the information is useless. So the best we can hope for is to teach clubs, while having zero effect on the actual school system. I won’t talk about the health volunteers, but can assure you it is just as bleak for them.
T-stan just recently shut down IREX and Counterpart, two long-running US-sponsored programs for technical and computer training.
FLEX, the program that places Turkmen students in American high schools for a year, was not re-approved this year, despite running successfully for years. It is not officially canceled, though nobody knows its fate. This is not evidence of Peace Corps getting shut down, but is a part of a wider picture.
Turkmenistan is not allowing students to leave the country to attend AUCA, the American University of Central Asia, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Many of the students have switched enrollment to universities in Bulgaria, yet are still not allowed to leave.

What does this all mean when taken together? This place is being even more isolationist: everyone in stays in, everyone out stays out. The implications for health and education (including more than just TEFL) are disturbing.

We volunteers took the news, and its implications, rough (i.e. heavy vodka drinking ensued). Despite the lack of ‘official’ change, we do create a ton of noticeable difference here. And people here, aside from telling us their appreciation for what we do, enjoy getting to meet real live Americans. The T17’s, once we T16’s leave, will have it far rougher. Once we leave, and no one else comes, their social lives/emotional support will be cut in half. Sure, most of us probably have a few Turkmen we consider friends, but very few of them can really understand what we go through. Other volunteers are our biggest support.

In an e-mail we received from Chris, our Country Director, on about October 3rd, he told us what he knows of the situation (not much) and that he would be meeting with Turkmen officials to get answers (good luck, but the American notion of “Q & A” doesn’t necessarily exist here.) In the e-mail, there were also words from Acting Regional Director David Burgess, offering comfort and encouragement (though not too convincingly). He assured us there would be no changes in the staff or program. Unless you consider our numbers cut in half to be a change. He also described the situation optimistically (or naively) as “the beginning of something new.” Nice PR spin. Really, we believe you.

Yet somehow, none of us are too sure that Mr. Burgess has any control, or even advanced warning, of the situation. So, we volunteers will deal with this the way we handle most of our stress. Just watch movies, drink and work as usual.

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

A more light-hearted, though bizarre, news item to finish this letter: with news of the bird and swine flu running as rampant as the viruses themselves, Turkmenistan is very paranoid about the viruses coming here. The most likely way it apparently would? Through packages of food sent from abroad. Because obviously, when doting PC mothers send care packages to their loved ones here, they send infected baby-back ribs and festering Peking duck.

But the real kicker is that while the Oreos you send are in quarantine for three weeks undergoing safety inspections, T-stan does not guarantee it. That’s right – your Oreos may be double-stuffed with swine flu, but they may still be eaten by the postal employees. (This is an example of how believability and absurdity are not mutually exclusive.)

Email dated 10/9/09: A request for beer cans

2009-10-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

[Posted by Jon's sister, who was forwarded this email by Jon with instructions to paste it to the blog. Rui, good luck in your search! --Sarah]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: rui ramalhete
Date: Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 7:53 PM
Subject: information asking
To: Jon Rosenzweig

Dear friend,
My name is Rui Ramalhete, and i live in Portugal. I found your e-mail contact in the web. My favourite hobby is collecting empty beer cans, from worldwide. Because i dont have any can from Turkmenistan, i decided to write you this message, to ask you for some help. Please, is it possible for you to give me some informations about the new beer brands that are now being locally produced in metal cans in Turkmenistan? I`ve been noticed that the famous local "zip" pivo is now available in cans, but i am not sure about that. Thank you very much for your time. I know you are not a can collector, but i´d be grateful if you could help me somehow in my collection. Will wait your message, hope to hear from you soon. Bye!

kind regards from Portugal,
yours friendly,
Rui Ramalhete

Letter dated 9/5/09: the most thrilling moment of my life

2009-10-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

You of course know the famous rhetorical question, “If your friends told you to jump off a bridge, would you?”

The answer is yes, I would and yes, I did.

Swimming in Turkmenistan

It is hard to imagine that I would learn to swim in a country that is 80% desert. But yet, great and varied opportunities to swim exist here. Let’s start with the normal swimming pools, available at both the Ak Altyn Hotel in Ashgabat and the Turkmenbashy Hotel in, you guessed it, Turkmenbashy. If you want to spice it up a bit, in both Bereket and Magtymguly, two mountain towns in the western region of Balkan, there are concrete pools fed by natural mineral spring water. For those who prefer the beach experience, there is a small lake just off the Amu Darya River in Turkmenabat City in the east. And of course, along the entire west coast of the country is the Caspian Sea.

Up here in Daşoguz, we don’t have fancy things like “a sea”, but we do have irrigation canals. There is one we have been to a few times in the town of Yalanly (where Courtney and Jaenell live). It is about fifty feet wide, 4–8 feet deep, and has a strong current. The bridge going over it is about 20 feet up, so what better way to test my courage than jump? And no, I have never so much as gone off a diving board. But sure enough, I came back easily to the surface without dying. While the summer was at its hottest, this was great fun and relief. Noah, Chen, Chase and I all took turns jumping.

But then it gets better. For our COS (Close of Service) Conference, held in Turkmenbashy, where all of us T-16 volunteers bonded and reflected over the past two years, and learned about what to do in our last three months (my last official day is December 16), we took a ferry ship a mile out into the Caspian, where it anchored and we (T-16s and staff) got to swim. The water was warm and really salty, and only 12 feet deep. The options for getting into the water were jumping off the first floor deck or off the second. I did both (twice), and must say that despite a psychological distrust of getting into water deeper than my height, jumping down 20 feet into the middle of the Caspian was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. So it turns out I can swim.

The Mystery of Service

One of the sessions during the conference was an art project: we were each supposed to make a poster collage reflecting on our time here in the Peace Corps. One element of my collage was an old naked man, standing knee deep in the middle of a hole in an iced-over lake. He has a hatchet raised above his head, and is preparing to swing down. I labeled it the “Mystery of Service”. Sometimes we feel like we don’t know what we’re doing, and certainly don’t quite know why, but we keep tenaciously doing it. Other elements were about bazaars (“High Fashion, Low Prices”) and the weird paradox that even though we never cease to be amazed and surprised by new and odd things in this country, we are just as often bored out of our minds.

As I said, I now know my leaving date (Dec 16) and am twittering with anticipation. I am planning to go to Thailand for a few days, then head to Australia for a week, and then get home in time for New Years.

Letter dated 8/17/09: A life worth living

2009-10-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

Big News:

There are two new members of the family: my older host brother, Serdar, had his second child, a boy named Kerim Ali. A tiny, goofy little bugger, but not too loud. Also, just this Saturday, Wepa got married. His wife, Guncha, now lives with us. In Turkmen culture, the youngest son gets the house, so this home will eventually belong to Wepa and Guncha. The celebration was held under a huge tent in the street outside the house, with a few hundred guests (including 4 conspicuous Americans – me, Chase, Shannon and Alice). Musicians and plenty of vodka to fuel the vigorous dancing. In the ongoing “small world theme”, I discovered that my host family is related to both the host family of a previous Boldumsaz volunteer (Laura) and a previous volunteer in Ýalanly (Emily). Wedding gifts included a giant cabinet/dresser set, a half dozen or so carpets, dish and tea sets, and a refrigerator. I gave a set of ornate shot glasses and some Johnny Walker to break them in with.

Welcome to Paradise, or Vacationing in Turkmenistan

During the second half of July I traveled around T-stan to get a first hand glimpse of the regions I had not yet seen (Lebap and Mary in the East, Balkan in the West) and visit my far-flung American comrades.

In a two-week-long flurry of taxi travel capped by flights out of and into Daşoguz City, I went to Turkmenabat, Mary City, Ashgabat, Magtymguly, Etrek, Balkanabat (with a day trip to Mazar), Bereret and back to Ashgabat for a flight home. I brought back with me books and DVDs from other volunteers, assorted gifts for family and friends back home (December is just around the corner) and for myself: BBQ sauce, courtesy of a small but specialized Turkmenabat supermarket.

Some highlights:

* Travel: After spending a day in Brian’s town of Etrek, a small sun-baked town with views of Iran (once you trek up to the top of its 100-meter-long “health walk”). We were sitting on the bus, waiting for it to take us up to Balkanabat. The road to his town from Magtymguly had been fairly tortuous on the posterior, despite the austere beauty of the landscape. I asked Brian if this “pavement” was any better. His reply was less than reassuring.

“There is no road.”

This was not simply Peace Corps-induced hyperbole. There literally was no road. We drove for over two hours over dust and salt flats until we came upon an actual road (which proved, ironically, to be bumpier than the salt flats).

* Swimming: You might not think it from a country that is 80% desert, but T-stan has some great swimming opportunities. I went with Robin in Turkmenibat to a small lake connected to the Amo Derya River, which was green, warm and quite refreshing. In Magtymguly, I went with Brian and Kevin to a natural spring-fed pool in the mountains, though we only got to swim for a few minutes before a police officer came and said that it was closing for the night. In Beremet, I went with Joel (this time during the day) to a similar stream-fed pool in the mountains. After nearly getting into a fight with an idiot who swam into me, we reconciled with vodka and watermelon. But the finest character we met was a middle-aged man with no hands – blew them off while fishing with TNT – who not only was not embarrassed about his lack of hands, but shamelessly active with his stumps. He hugged and ran his stump over Joel’s buzzed hair (saying it was like a hedgehog). And wiped the display screen of my camera with a handless wrist. He clearly used to talk a lot with his hands, because his speech was still peppered with motions and interactions of his wrists. He was an inspirational figure – well, not for the cleverness of dynamiting off appendages, but for having too much life in him to let that get him down. The swimming experience also included the Caspian at Huzar, which despite the far-from-clean beach, had really warm water and huge waves.

* Hospitality: This never ceases to impress me. With Brian in the front seat (he joined the vacation from Ashgabat til Balkanabat), I sat in the back next to a Turkmen woman and her teenage son, traveling from Ashgabat to Magtymguly. The lady was extremely friendly and chatty, and we talked most of the way. They shared their lunch of bread, eggs, sausage, cucumbers and cheese with me. By the time the taxi brought them to their house, the woman said I was like a son to her (in front of her actual son!) and that I was always welcome to come visit.

While at the pool with Joel in Bereket, we were given vodka, sausage, and watermelon by multiple groups of guys. This is definitely a mix of hospitality and the fact that people here truly love meeting Americans.

* The fake zoo in Turkmenabat: Along the main street in town, Gary and Robin pointed out a rocky outcropping punctuated with metal bars, behind which sat a collection of dreary looking animals. PETA need not take action however, as they were not real animals. Why the fake animals needed real cages will go down as a riddle of the ages.

Letter dated 7/11/09: British Bikers from the Future

2009-08-03T15:57:00.001-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom, photos scanned by her coworker, entry posted by Jon's sister]

I was walking home from the copy shop today when I noticed two motorcycles outside the local Nescafé (note: although there is a giant Nescafé sign, it does not mean this is an authorized dealership, nor even that they sell any. But it is a shop with an attached café.) Motorcycles here are common enough, and can be described as a 40-year-old motor welded to two wheels, usually with a protruding sidecar. But these were different. Giant. Professionally made. Rugged. Non-Turkmen plates! What the hell was going on?

Luckily, the guys at Nescafé, who I am friends with, were equally perplexed, and waved me on inside to where I found…British people?! I introduced myself, “You speak English? Good. What the hell are you doing here?”, and met David and his wife (sorry, blanking on her name). They are part of a 15-person round-the-world motorcycling group. Currently in week 4 of four months. I ate with them at the café. They graciously paid for my meal. I felt like I was using them, until the bill came to 2 dollars total, including the bottle of coke. So I figured the rich foreigners could afford it. I told them about Peace Corps, and life here; they told me about their journey so far.

Outside, I served as translator between the awestruck crowd of Turkmen and the British pair. The woman, as they were being photographed, said she felt like a movie star. “You are,” I replied. Two British people, in leather motorcycle outfits, on a giant, road-ready motorcycle, in Boldumsaz? Might as well be movie stars. Some of the local guys posed for pictures with them, and sat on the bikes too, for more pictures. This will be the talk of the town for the next week. Of course, by the end of the week, the story will be that my British parents came to visit me, and I rode away with them to Uzbekistan to find myself a wife. Small town gossip.

- - - - - - - - - -

Please enjoy the photos. A whole new bunch of food pictures and a couple of me, to remind you all what I look like.

Photo 1: The classic. Cut-up boiled organs (here: stomach, tongue, intestine, liver, kidney, and probably some heart), mixed with ripped-up bread, poured over with broth.

Photo 2: Chicken Shashlik (kabob):

Can’t go wrong with grilled chicken topped with onions, dill & parsley.

Photo 3: Summer Camp! This was at the end of 3 days of games, songs, art projects and sports. The kids here are showing off their macaroni and lentils, corn & sunflower seed garden pictures. To my right [our left, behind the kids] is Maral, a teacher who helped out. (Thanks to Jaenell for taking the picture and helping out that day.)

Photo 4: Marissa’s counterpart, Marissa, Chien, me,
Bakutiyar Khojaniyazov, Jaenell, Chase, Shasa.

Bakutiyar is a master potter who works & lives in Niyozov (Marissa’s town). This is the front of his house, which he decorated himself. Sasha is a friend of ours who works in Daşoguz.

Photo 5: Fitchi, a meat (ground beef) pie with a touch of onion & chili pepper. At the café in Gubadag, the ‘hometown’ of Fitchi. Serving suggestion: a cup of yogurt, a glass of Coke, and a shot (or bottle) of Alemgoshar (‘rainbow’) vodka. Thanks to Chase for bringing me to this restaurant.

Photo 6: A bit of false cognate.This is the Turkmen version of gyros (or donor kabab, to be more accurate.) Thin sliced meat, onions & dill, spicy ketchup, and topped with slices of fat.

Photo 7: Lagman. A spicy noodle soup with ground beef, sliced cucumber, etc.

Photo 8: Yumurtka borek.Giant egg & oil filled half-circle ravioli, with camel milk for sauce. As long as it isn’t too heavy on the oil, it’s real good.

Photo 9: Galuptsi.Okay, so I have a picture of this already, but the first one was pepper stuffed with rice and ground beef; this time it is done with cabbage. Served with green onions, bread and pickled tomatoes.

Photo 10: Juwen Kurtuk.This is very similar to gayysh: big square noodles cooked in a thick, salty broth, with a few carrots and potatoes, and meat. The large alien-like thing on top is the meat; I believe it's a section of spine from a brutalized animal.

Photo 11: Borsht (lower right).Cabbage soup. A Russian classic. The meat is on the side cooling. Also served: bread, pickled vegetables, and of course, vodka.

Photo 12: Rice cooked in camel’s milk.

Not too photogenic, but pretty tasty.

Photo 13: Victory Day: May 9.No matter where you go in the world, people hate Nazis. Here I am with war heroes from the Turkmen past. This is in Daşoguz city, with a parade about to begin.

Letter dated 5/26/09: Carrot smuggling

2009-07-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

Today was graduation day at school, with the 10th graders saying farewell. With 3 months of summer vacation, I get to rest too. I will still do a two-day-per-week club for my 6th formers and 8th formers, and a once-per-week art club for little buggers. And the first week of June, I will do a three day camp (songs, games, and art projects for 4th formers.) I also have plans to compile of CD of good classroom songs (along with the lyrics) and sometime in the summer I will take a tour around the country.

Bringing Carrots to America

I was sitting on a small stool in the backyard enjoying the pleasant spring weather and the sprouting backyard crops. A few feet away sat a host family relative, who professed that he was rather drunk.

“I know,” I said. How did I know? Well, aside from the more obvious signs, he had already told me three times already. There was silence, but I felt a thought bubbling to the surface of his mind. Then it came:

“Alright, see that bush over there?” he asked, pointing.

“The pomegranate bush,” I clarified.

“That’s a pomegranate bush. Do you have pomegranates in America? Oh, you do? But yours are no good. There’s no flavor. Here in Turkmenistan, we have the best pomegranates because of the sun.”

“Mmm,” I interjected, the non-committal ‘yeah’.

“Do you have carrots in America?”

“We sure do.”

“Ah, but your carrots are no good!” he complained.

I called shenanigans on that one. “When did you try American carrots?”

“Well, I…,” he trailed off. Yeah, that’s right.

He sat for a few seconds, but silence couldn’t stand up to his percolating thoughts.

“So, here’s what you’ll do,” he said. “When you go back to America, you’ll bring a few kilos of carrots –“

“I am not going to bring carrots to America.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” He said, battling away my objections. “You’ll bring a few kilos of carrots, a few kilos pomegranates, a bag of tomatoes, maybe a few kilos potatoes, and you can give them as presents.” (“Grandma, so good to see you! How are you? I missed you! Would you like a potato?”)

“You can’t just waltz through customs with 50 lbs of produce! There are laws against that.” I tried to explain to deaf ears.

“It’s no problem. Just go get a stamp, it’s fine.”

Granted, I have seen people here take sheep (plural) on planes, so I can understand the Turkmen version of the law. But I don’t want to end up in jail for carrot smuggling. (At the airport: “Do you have anything to declare?" “Yes, carrots.”)

Letter dated 4/17/09: Ornithology

2009-05-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by his sister.]

I would like to describe Bird Watching in Boldumsaz. Boldumsaz, my town here, as you know, is the etrap (county) center. Unlike most etrap centers, which are decidedly urban, even if bleakly so, Boldumsaz is a glorified village. And once you wander off either of the main streets (my town is like a backwards upper case “J”) this becomes ever more apparent. Three blocks north of the east-west main street will take you off the map.

The upside is that nature is everywhere in beautiful green Boldumsaz. Now that April has come, trees are budding, and the flowers… well, the tree flowers are blooming. (Not a single marigold or geranium to be seen.) Boldumsaz also has, just north of town, a gigantic forest preserve.

Before I explain further, I should explain the Turkmen style of pruning trees. Think Chicago-style voting mixed with medieval-style justice (“early and often” meets “off with his head”… is this an amazing analogy or what?) Every year, what used to be a thriving sapling gets hacked down to a stump. What you end up with is a huge stump with fifteen thousand scrawny branches poking out. Nice shade I guess, but they rarely surpass fifteen feet of height.

Back to the forest. No, not really a 'forest' in the 'real' sense of the word. It is a mix of orchards, small wheat fields lined with trees, and, well, some over-grown extra trees thrown in for good measure. Nothing is (heavily) pruned, and many of the birches reach fifty feet. There are small trails running through it, and it is a very relaxing and beautiful place to wander through.

I stopped at the edge of an orchard, the apple trees heavy in bloom, and the eight-inch-high wheat leaves a heavenly green underneath, soaking up the water that was being slowly flooded into the field (irrigation). Scores of birds still wandered about. Big black & white orca-like crows, small brownish-gray wading birds, and little finch-like birds. I had never seen birds quite like this: sleek little bodies, bluish-gray caps, a black stripe across the eye, white throats, golden-yellow breast, and two dull yellow stripes across the wings. I observed them long enough to remember the details (and to enjoy the spring day and tranquil scene), and the next day, drew a picture of the bird.

Then I wanted to find out, what is this? I asked my family and a few teachers. (“Parrot?” “Crow?” “Eagle?”) No one knew. Reminded me of The Big Lebowski:

Nihilist, holding up a bowling ball: “What is this?”
The Dude: “I can tell you’re not a golfer.”

So, feeling resourceful, I headed over to the local library, where the friendly librarians call me “Johnson". Close enough. While I was waiting for it to open after the lunch break, a guy nearby started talking to me, calling me Michael. The second time he said it, I corrected him. “Oh,” he said sheepishly, “Well, that last guy here was Michael, I’m sorry.” (Actually, that was Nick. There has never been a Michael living in Boldumsaz.) But I showed him the bird drawing. “Easy,” he said. “Serche.” He knew? I wandered away, but he called me back in a few minutes. “Michael, look,” he said, pointing to some branches at my mystery bird. “There it is!” I strained my eyes, looking for the blue plumage, the golden chest, the black mask across the eyes. Nope. Sparrow. Who would have thought there could be so many ornithologists in one town.

In the library, the ladies were very helpful. Bringing me books from all over, related in some way to animals in the general region (Asia). These books fell into two categories: “new” (fifteen years old, glossy, trilingual – English, Turkmen, Russian – Turkmen books) and “old” (fifty years old, brownish, solidly Cyrillic books with names like “Animals and Plants of Glorious Soviet Union”). None of them had this bird, though. I did see some humorously incorrect grammar though, such as in a book about an animal preserver in S.E. Turkmenistan: “Archeologists say this area was once inhabited by a man.”

But I did stumble across some interesting things during my research time at the library. (I did get bored looking at animal books, so I pulled some other random books off the shelves.) I found a tasty-sounding recipe for stuffed baked pumpkin. I found a book from 1996 about Turkmenistan. What was amazing about seeming Ashgabat from 13 years ago is how non-remarkable it looked. No white marble buildings. Only a fountain or two. Guys wearing t-shirts. (It actually really reminded me of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, in its unassuming mellowness, in a Soviet kind of way. Architecture was colorful and forward-looking, if not especially inspired. There was no revolving golden Turkmenbashy statue. Needless to say, completely non-recognizable from today.)

Also on the topic of books, when I had visited Marissa in Nyyazow, her host mother had a book on the shelf in English, titled, “On the Origin of Man”. Turns out it wasn’t actually Darwin’s work, but still impressive and rare enough to see, a critique of Darwin’s work by a Russian author. I think I may have known that Marx and the early Russian communists liked Darwin’s theories, because it was a powerful argument to debunk religion and creationism. However, he had apparently not gone far enough, because in criticizing some of the flaws in his theories, the author describes him as a ‘narrow-minded bourgeois’. Poor fellow.

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

I have never seen a traffic jam in Turkmenistan. Maybe they occur in metropolitan Ashgabat, but not up here. There are frankly just not enough cars. Lots of people take taxis or buses. Nonetheless, you still hear a lot of horn honking. Honking occurs for 3 reasons here:

A) the driver sees someone he knows – another driver or pedestrian, and wants to say “hello”
B) when passing another car. This is not a gesture to say ‘Move it, Buddy!’, because it is done actually during passing, not before
C) weddings. During the celebration process, everyone piles into cars, parading the caravan of gaudily decorated cars (there are at least 5 shops in town that decorate cars for weddings) around Boldumsaz’s 2 miles of road, honking all the way.

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

Final note:

English text book, Form 9, regarding appearance:

“Fat may sound impolite. Instead we say a bit overweight. If someone is terribly thin and refuses to eat, they may be anorexic.” Wow, good vocabulary for hangman. Or image the dialogue you could write:

“Say, Myrat, you are looking a bit overweight like a whale!”
“You’re right, Jeren, I am certainly not anorexic!”

P.S. Bonding with my host dad: He turns to me at breakfast today. “Are you going anywhere tomorrow? No? Good. Go to the bazaar. Buy a turkey and a bottle of vodka. Then we will eat the turkey and drink the vodka!” To think there was a time when you didn’t drink vodka by the bottle.

Letter dated 4/10/09: The Fortune Teller

2009-05-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by his sister]

I went with Marissa (who is teaching English in Nyyazow) to visit the town of Yalanly (literally: “with snakes”), though the name was officially changed to “Gurban Soltan Eje” (the name of Turkmenbashy’s mother) by Turkmenbashy. Freudian psychologists would have a field day with that one. Anyway, turns out there is a fortune teller (actually at least 2) living in nearby villages. We (me, Marissa, Courtney and Janelle, the last two living in Yalanly) decided to go to the Turkmen lady (thought better than the Uzbek lady.) How do you judge the skill of a fortune teller? Easy. The judgment and wisdom will clearly show itself. For example, the Turkmen lady, on a previous visit from Courtney, advised as a remedy for Courtney’s vision problem to ‘eat rabbit pellets.’ If that didn’t work, Courtney should ‘go to the doctor’. A lesser fortune teller would not have come up with such a daring and radical Plan B.

How the fortune teller works: she has a small mirror covered with coarse salt. Using her fingers to draw lines across the mirror, pushing the salt away, she reveals symbols on the glass that give the answers. First she discerns your past and present, and then divines your future.

I am not a very superstitious person, but I thought this would be fun. Especially because she very accurately was able to describe Marissa and Janelle’s past and present situations (who can say about the future?)

So, my turn came and I went in with Courtney’s Uzbek friend, who couldn’t translate as much as repeat things slower and more understandably. First she went in for my current situation.

“I see you are married,” she said , after creating a first line in the salt.

“No.”

“In a serious relationship.”

“Nope.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

“No…” She switched tactics.

“Has your mother recently been having problems?”

“No, she’s doing really well, actually.” Definitely not kosher salt.

“Oh, oh.” She found something new in salt. “You are thinking about buying a car in Turkmenistan.”

Many random thoughts enter my head at any given moment of any given day. But I can honestly say I have never considered buying a car here. ("Hmmm, the duct tape on the Lada really sets off the cracked windshield nicely.”)

She decided that my past and present were too shrouded in mystery to be clearly read. As for my future: I will return to Turkmenistan some day, and get married 3 months and 24 days after returning to the USA. As for romance, she said that there is a Turkmen girl who likes me, and about the two American girls I like – one a doctor and one a teacher – one is good and one very good. But she said relationships won’t work well here, I’d be better off with dating in the U.S.

So overall I wasn’t impressed. But it was still a fun experience. And of course, it could have been worse. She could have told me to eat rabbit pellets.

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

A curious thing here is that people often don’t remove stickers or protective plastic from items. So the ‘U.V.’ sticker on sunglass lens, or the protective removable layer of thin plastic on cell phone screens (when you first buy them) are often left on. It drives me crazy! But the fortune teller out did these. The DVD player in the living room, though plugged in on its shelf under the T.V. and in use, was still in the Styrofoam.

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

I told my barber, Guwanch, that compared to his fee of 5000 manat ($.35), $15 in the U.S. was fairly normal. He joked that if her tried to ask even $5, people would kill him.

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

I finished reading the book, “Out Stealing Horses,” about the life of a man in Norway. In his later years, he moves to a secluded house near a small obscure town. The locals meet him a few times, and based on their occasional interactions, and the few facts they know about him, he realize they paint a picture of him and his life in their minds. But of course, their created conception of him is much different from his actual self. He realizes that because of this, they cannot trouble or upset him unless he allows it. As he mentions more than once in the book, “You decide when it hurts.” Scandinavian stoicism. This is an outlook on life that of course applies to anyone, but is so readily apparent here (i.e. for volunteers living in countries drastically different from the U.S.), where so many people know of me, or have met me, yet so few people know me. Though I guess how you view that emotional and personal gulf – as a source of protection (like the narrator does) or as an obstacle to comfort and understanding – depend on if you are glass half full or half empty kind of person.

Letter dated 3/6/09: Celebrating the birthday with disco!

2009-05-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

[transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Jon's sister]

My birthday has come and gone, and having turned 25, I am a yigit – a young man at the peak of life, in the eyes of Turkmen. I celebrated the Turkmen way (vodka), but let me describe a bit better:

Friday, Feb 27th: On my actual b-day, my family threw a (respectably restrained) feast. No platters of salad, fruit and nuts (who eats that anyway?), just the good stuff: lule kabab (meat patties so delicious because there is really no such thing as ‘lean meat’ here; the juice running down your fingers congeals), slow-grilled over hot coals, and the turkey gowurma (previously described). Well, there was also kimchee, the spicy pickled cabbage beloved by northern Turkmen and Uzbeks (yes, introduced by the Koreans.) And vodka to wash it down. I was going to have all of the moustached volunteers over too, but my family seemed a bit leery of it (New people? Or the moustaches?) So Noah came over, since my host family already knew him. My host dad and brother, Noah and I split 3 bottles of vodka, and many fine toasts were made.

Saturday, Feb 28th: The big day. We started descending upon Daşoguz City in the early afternoon at our favorite Altyn Zaman (Golden Times) Café. At 4, with everyone arrived (we got 15 out of the 16 regional volunteers to show up) we swarmed like locusts (i.e. loud American locusts) to the “Daşoguz Hotel’ (motto: ‘cheaper than the other place’), where we got rooms for $4 per person per night. Definitely cheaper than the other place. And really not that worse. It was very empty so we could be reckless, loud Americans. Courtesy of Johnny Walker and Tuborg, I did not have to go through the rigors of Turkmen vodka two nights in a row.

Before dinner, we had the celebration for Moustache Month: me, Noah, and the newbies Matt, Chen, and Chase got to show off our mighty ‘staches, posing for the giggling gaggle of female volunteers/pararazzi and Dennis (“my director won’t let me grow one.”) Then we shaved that crap off our faces. After 6 weeks (I had a two week head start) a clean lip felt mighty fine.

We ate at Bathar Restaurant (motto: ‘we have burgers the size of your head’), also joined by Russians, the boyfriend of a volunteer, and Sasyia, who works at Counterpart (an educational center affiliated with the American corner of the city.) We ate hamburgers (seriously the size of your head) and danced – with each other and with random Turkmen who were also dancing. It was a lively crowd, even the daȳzas (married women) were rowdy.

A few more aperitifs at the hotel, then we headed up to “Uzboy disco” (no motto).

And this is how to create a scene at a disco: After maybe an hour of dancing, a volunteer to remain nameless discovered to her horror that her bag, money, phone and camera were missing from our pile of coats. While she cried hysterically, her life now a pile of shambles, we searched all around, questioned nearby people, to no avail. We got security to also question people, they even embarrassed some women. Had the place shut down and the lights turned on. Meanwhile, another volunteer calls the girl’s cell, which rings…in her pocket. Her bag turns up, and so does her money…in her other pocket. But, hey, the camera is missing. We screen people at the door on their way out with security. But no luck. The night having taken a sour air, we head back, cameraless, to the hotel. Upon entry into our main room, the first one in asks, “Hey, isn’t that your camera?” The real humor being of course, that she had intentionally left it at the hotel in order not to risk losing it at the disco. Then promptly forgot about it.

Sunday, March 1st: We returned to the Zaman Café for breakfast (we abuse them, but they love us). After that, many people headed home, but I went with Shannon and Alice to the bazaar to get me a birthday present for myself: a Turkmen carpet! I had recently found a great hand-made carpet with Yomut designs (my host family and counterpart are both part of the Yomut tribe). It is about 4’ X 6’, and I got it for $135, which is not bad at all. So now I have a Turkmen carpet, a Turkish carpet, a Kazakh felt mat, and two Kyrgyz felt mats. A budding collection. Next on my list is to get a Chowdur carper (Chowdur is the tribe that lives nearly exclusively in my country.) (If you are thinking of a ‘Chowdur’ joke, it had already been made.)

Letter dated 2/26/2009: Happy birthday to Jon!

2009-05-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

My birthday is tomorrow, when I will celebrate with the host family, and then on Saturday with friends (my house isn’t big and with other volunteers in the region, it would be a tight squeeze. So instead, we will party in Daşoguz city at the world class Daşoguz Hotel -$4 a night.)

I went just this morning to buy a turkey. I had talked about what we would eat with my family, and they had scoffed at my suggestion of pumpkin dumplings. Basically, if the meal doesn’t involve slaughtering an animal, it is not much of a birthday.

I bought a big turkey for just under $13. This was now the second time I bought a live turkey (hopefully not the last) so I knew about the barrage of people on the walk home who would ask how much I paid. About 30 people per kilometer. This was embellished with the other typical questions:

Guy I know: “Nacheden?” (how much?)

Me: “Yuz segsen. Ertir doglangunum." (180 thousand manat. Tomorrow is my birthday.)

Guy I know: “Gutly bolsun! Gerekmi?” (congratulations! Do you need any services?)

Small town hospitality.

With the turkey my host mother will cook gowurma: meat, fat and onion slow-cooked in its juices. One of my favorite recipes. It is basically the authentic version of Mongolian Beef you get from Chinese takeout. (Well, at least the Turkmen version.)

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Ruhnama quote of the day (Book 2, p. 45)

On hospitality and criminal code:

“The doors of our ancestors have always open…there were no events of theft [of] other people’s belongings, among our nation. If there was a thief in the village, everybody would turn his back on that person…nobody would invite him. There has been no punishment for a Turkmen more severe than this…They also used the method of amputating the hand of thieves.”

(The Ruhnama, “Soul Document,” is the book written by T’stan’s first President, Saparmyrat Turkmenbashy, and is meant to serve as the spiritual/philosophical/historical/inspirational guide for all Turkmen.)

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

My counterpart, Ogulsemal, just came from the bazaar with new shoes (today was payday). She reminded me of a congratulatory phrase she taught me recently, that you tell someone who has bought new shoes: “Dusman baş aşak” – ‘enemy heads are down’ – vanquished with shiny new shoes. (It was clarified that the heads are down due to defeat, rather than a show of respect.) Or you tell the person with new shoes: “Dushman ayat astyna!” They reply, “Menem shonung kastyna!” (Feet upon enemies! I, too, am against enemies!) It is good to see the ol’ Turkmen warrior spirit alive in the language, even if the country itself is neutral. My English/Turkmen dictionary proved useless for many of these words. The closest I found to ‘kastyna’ (my counterpart described it as ‘against’) was “kast”, which means “intentional harm, killing, revenge.” None of these phrases have verbs.

Letter dated 2/9/09: Don't YOU celebrate Mustache Month?

2009-05-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

[transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by his sister]

I walked into the English room next to mine, to retrieve my coat before going home. Jeren was teaching her 3rd or 4th grade class, and they looked up at me as I came in. That’s normal of course, but then their little jaws dropped to the floor, and their eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. Giggles mixed with awed confusion permeated the room.

Did I have chalk on my suit jacket?

Oh, yeah.

“This is called a ‘moustache’. ‘Mus-tash’.”

So, in case you didn’t realize, this month is the traditional American holiday ‘Murt Bayram’. Moustache Month, aka Febru-hairy aka Furry-February. Sport a moustache for all of February, and shave it off at the end, and throw a celebratory party.

I did not take part last year, as I was unsure of its precedent in Boldumsaz, and I was in the midst of a rocky relationship with my first host family. I didn’t want a moustache to ruin everything.

About moustaches in T-stan: They aren’t uncommon in cosmopolitan Ashgabat. In Daşoguz, they are worn, but by either Uzbeks or drug addicts ( and, of course, Uzbek drug addicts.) Old Turkmen may sport the under-the-chin beards, but the under-60 Turkmen straight-edge crowd is a clean shaven lot. Facial hair is a no-no.

But I have moved in with my new host family, who hosted 3 volunteers prior to me, the previous one having been one of the original importers of Moustache Month to this country. So as of a few months ago, my family, and even some teachers and neighbors started asking me if I celebrate Murt Bayram.

Of course I do!

So, Noah and I are growing out the ‘staches’, and some of the D-guz 17’s are doing it too (at least Chase, I don’t know for sure about the others). This is purely a Daşoguz/American tradition. Yet another reason why the isolated netherworld of Northern Turkmenistan is an amazing place.

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

Some brief notes on Turkey:

The most amazing and interesting night was my first night in Istanbul. If you haven’t heard about it, just pick up Lonely Planet’s Turkey Guide, read the second paragraph under ‘Scams’ on page 655. I got $600 back. You live, you learn.

Stories that don’t involve extortion:

* I went with Joel, Alastair & Sean for a ‘Turkish shave.’ Not a haircut, just a straight-razor shave. The first I’ve ever had, and unfortunately I had just watched Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd.” But it was very enjoyable. Good shave, and even a head/shoulder/arm massage. All for 5 lira. But the best part: how can you get rid of that pesky fuzz on your ears and upper cheeks? FIRE! These guys made alcohol-soaked Q-tip torches and went to town. That’s a shave.

* We spent a few days in Selcuk, and while touring a town nearby, met a friendly Korean. We let him join up with us, and invited him to join us later to play poker where we were staying. He showed up with 3 additional Koreans he had found, a guy and two young women. The guy had actually been working in Uzbekistan. So, there I was, in Turkey, speaking to a Korean in Uzbek. (Actually, I don’t think he really knew much, but then again, I was mostly just speaking Uzbeky Turkmen.)

Selcuk in the off-season doesn’t have much to do, so we played poker most nights. It was me, Dan, Sean, Alastair and a guy named Bob (touring the world with his wife & kids while on sabbatical – not a bad deal!) We also brought in the Turkish boyfriend of the woman who runs the pension. No chips, so we played for beans. But between high lira stakes, plenty of Efes beer, wine, and specially-imported Turkmen vodka, tensions ran high. It was a helluva fine time.

Letter dated 12/31/2008: Holidays with a twist

2009-01-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

Happy New Year! Or as we say: "Tӓze ȳyl gutly bolsun!"

On the subject of new years, a curious thing here: I have previously mentioned a Turkmen figure of importance: Ayaz Baba (‘Cold Weather Maternal Grandpa’, or a bit more poetically rendered, ‘Father Frost’). He looks like a bizarro Santa: same clothes, but with blue or teal instead of red, and a white telpek (one of the big sheep hats), and he is often accompanied by ‘Snow Maidens’ (okay, so that’s a nice addition). He gives out presents at this time of year.

Turkmen also decorate Christmas trees and put up lights inside the home. Ashgabat does parades and has a huge tree.

But this is New Years, and not Christmas. Which is fine, really, because Christmas decorations are beautiful, and gift giving is fun (done here, though not too heavily on the smaller budgets and lack of bazaar vendors offering gift certificates.) And as a celebration of Hanukah, it would be a bit hypocritical to denounce the Turkmen appropriation of Christmas traditions. Frankly, this returns Christmas to its pagan roots. (Hmm…'Pagan' might be inaccurate here, let’s just say ‘non-Christian celebration-of-winter!')

Okay, good, everyone has their cultural fun. The creepy part is watching Christmas movies on Turkmen TV. Why creepy? Well, aside from usually being the lousiest American movies they could find, and dubbed entirely by one man (a woman speaks if there is a child), they never say “Christmas”. Santa Claus, even though people here know the name, becomes Ayaz Baba, and Christmas becomes New Years. Ayaz Baba says, “Ho, ho, ho! Happy New Year!” It is actually kind of funny, because ‘ho’ is an interjection like ‘What?’, when you are taken aback, a little confused, and perhaps a bit angered or insulted.

But anyway, now we can watch Christmas movies without any risk of stoking religious fervor.

I was teaching students how to cut paper snowflakes, and the Zavuch (the right hand man, or in this case, woman of the school director) came by and saw them. She eyed them suspiciously, and told me it was fine - but to not hang anything religious by the windows.

Beware of shifty eyes and paper snowflakes.

Letter dated 12/28/2008: Ch-ch-ch-changes

2009-01-28T18:48:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

Tonight is the final night of Hanukah, and in honor of that I present some good advice:

Don’t put menorahs too close to the window! On just the third night, the heat (the flames were about 3” away from the pane) was strong enough to crack the glass. Whoops. My bad. But the Bolshevik menorah is still going strong, and the candles my mom sent fit perfectly (not to mention, look really nice.)

I am also making latkes for my family for breakfast tomorrow, which should be tasty. The secret ingredient: my fingers. The old school grinders don’t mess around.

In other news:

Word on the street is that printed material can no longer be mailed out of the country. Letters are okay, books are not. (But they can still be sent in.) So anyone who had The Romantic Adventures of Magty Guly on their reading wish-list had better cross it off. What this really means for us volunteers is that the library at the Peace Corps office will become even more glutted with discarded books from finishing volunteers. We already have 6 copies of Seabiscuit (serious.) Also, rumor has it CDs can also no longer be mailed, though I have yet to test this out. Don’t worry though: I will get you all more photos of food, one way or another.
_______________________________________________

Other big news: New money in January. The manat is dropping the zeroes. Right now the main bills are the 5,000 and 10,000. The new bills will be from 1 to 500. (The exchange from old to new is actually a division of 5,000 – an old price of 10,000 manat will now become 2 manat.)

I don’t like it. I like walking down the street with a wad of cash in my pocket. (A million-manat coat makes you currently dish out 200 bills.) Getting fresh stacks of wrapped cash from the bank makes me feel like a millionaire. Okay, millionmanataire. But whatever. With the exchange, everyone will know how poor they really are. Right now, I pick up my monthly pay of 2,620,000 manat (262 bills). Next month, I will get 524 manat, which they can give me with 6 bills. Either way is just short of 184 dollars. But at least now I don’t have to think about it.

Letter dated 12/20/08: Unsolved Mysteries

2009-01-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

It really does not take too much courage to try a small piece of intestine, especially when there is emergency chipotle powder on hand. Courage is brushing aside the chipotle, and going back for an even larger 6-inch tube of intestines as seconds. Not bad. Especially when you are eating it as cooled leftovers.

The prelude to this is wandering into the kitchen the other day, eyeing a large pot boiling on the stove, with a thick aroma in the air. The kind of aroma you instantly, perhaps instinctively recognize as boiling organs. I took a peek, and sure enough: boiling organs. One of those days.

Actually, that was one of the three days of ‘Gurban Bayram’ (the Sacrifice Holiday), made up of a lot of feasting at people’s houses. I had one of my advanced students tell me about the significance of the holiday, which I didn’t know about.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

“Well, God told one of the prophets, I forget which one, to kill his son, I forget his name, so the prophet is going to sacrifice his son, but God sends an angel to stop him, and gives him a sheep instead…”

Yep. Abraham and Isaac. Old-school stuff. And I knew the story better than my student did. Islamic tradition turned this into a holiday, and you can celebrate by eating four-legged animals (chicken: out, sheep: in, camels: in... but wouldn’t you rather eat sheep?)

So back to innards. Unlike meat, which gets cooked into recipes, the rest of the animal is just boiled and stuck on a platter. Liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, intestines, hooves, ‘head’, and stomach are the usual suspects. ‘Head’ as far as I can tell, is strips of skin with the underlying fat. Though of course, the center of these platters is usually the whole head itself. I should add that this is usually just for sheep. Cow heads are too big for that. (Plus it is mostly sheep being eaten for this holiday.)

UNSOLVED MYSTERIES OF BOLDUMSAZ*: CHAIRS, PLANTS AND DIRT

*Note: Check out Lonely Planet: Central Asia. Their map of Turkmenistan shows Boldumsaz. Right near the top of the main north-south road.

Three things I just don’t get. (Actually that is a hole with no bottom around here.)

The Mystery of the Chairs: I will be sitting in my classroom, working on lesson plans (a.k.a. doodling) and minding my own business, when a student will come and ask if he can take a chair. No problem. Then eight more kids will come. I hate giving up my hard-earned chairs, but if there is currently no class, and other students need to sit, I want to help, you know. It is better than them wasting half of their own class time looking for chairs. Other days, I come in and there are 20 chairs packed in my room for 12. It’s like a herd of students migrates about the school, devouring and appropriating every chair in its path. Or do the chairs themselves wander…?

The Mystery of the Plants: Okay, the chairs I can understand. Class size varies, and teachers don’t have fixed class locations. But the plants move too. Often. There will be a couple of jars, cans and pots of plants near the window. Then a troop of 7th graders will parade in and drop off a dozen plants from some other room. Fine. Someone is clearing space. Give the plants to the American. But then some kid will come, and say he needs to take a plant. I assume there is some old ornery Russian teacher, flustered at students. “Why don’t they understand the exercise? Might a plant help? Kakajan! Go fetch me a plant!” Then little Kakajan scuttles off and nabs one of my plants.

The Mystery of the Dirt: There is a lot of dirt in this town. It’s actually a nationwide phenomenon. And when it rains or snows (and that melts) everything becomes mud. Main streets are paved, but side streets are pure mud. It puts Elbonia (from Dilbert) to shame. We just had our first snow. As I walked down our main street, which is paved, I noticed large mounds on the side, every 30 feet or so, running its length. Plowed snow? Nope. Piles of dirt. The road was probably too ‘paved’ for somebody’s liking, and all that dirt got steamrolled down nice and smooth just today. Can’t wait for the next bit of precipitation.

The trick is actually to go to school early enough that the mud hasn’t yet thawed, to avoid mucking up my shiny shoes.

Letter dated November 25, 2008: the importance of not saying 'please'

2008-12-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

[Transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister]

You think you’ve been broke? I’m broke. For the next week I have 52,000 manat. That’s $3.65. Luckily, this is a good country to be poor in. I can afford a round trip taxi ride to Daşoguz, surf the web for 24 minutes, and then eat a hamburger.

Today I started my first non-English club: Art Club. I got 18 4th graders. I taught them how to make origami talking crows, which they then decorated with markers and crayons. Huge hit. It is great seeing the differences in artistic aptitude among the kids. Some could replicate my steps with pin-point precision, in seconds. With others, it was like horrible Frankenstein birds. Mangled abominations. But they all had fun.

It is also funny seeing the amount of students who can’t spell their names correctly. I passed around a sign-up sheet. Between the standard stock of Turkmen names, there are very regular patterns. Turkmen does not have that level of slop that English does. So maybe a quarter of the kids clearly misspelled their names. But with little kids it is kind of adorable.

I teach the club officially in Turkmen, though half the time I speak English for my own sake, and show what they need to do. 4th Formers can figure you out pretty fast.

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

I am getting a lot more confident with my Turkmen, which goes hand in hand with being confident dealing with higher-ups. I can go in and talk with my school director, sans my counterpart for translation help (and frankly this is a country where having a woman help you isn’t going to buy you any points) and get what I need. There honestly seems more respect given to me when I go in alone. I still don’t catch everything, but it shows I can handle it. It also gives me more control of the conversation, which is cool. I can say what I need to say. He needs to make sure I understand what he says.

I have also learned the importance of not saying ‘please’. Turkmen uses a variety of suffixes that suggest ‘please’, which are okay. There is also a word that means it, hayysh. But it is a grovelly kind of word. I can’t stand it. Good negotiation here demands that you simply say “Here’s what we should do,” as opposed to “please let me…,” which just takes away your power and dignity.

So I am having fun with this. Negotiating in a foreign language is a real trip. I simultaneously smoothed over a huge breach in protocol (buying Turkey tickets without getting official permission beforehand) and negotiated approval to miss a few days of school to go down to Ashgabat for the volunteers’ swearing-in ceremony. Afterwards, I sucker-punched the whole way down the hallway. And I never once said ‘please’, (though I did say ‘thank you’.)

Letter dated 11/9/08: You can't have too much of a good thing

2008-12-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

[transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by his sister]

Big day up in Daşoguz: the T-17s – the next generation of volunteers – came for site visits. This is once their sites and families have been chosen. They come to see it for a few days for a preview of what’s ahead. They will come back for real sometime in December.

Rumor had it we (the 16s and remaining 15s) were not supposed to see them during the visit – keep it more community/family/work based. So, naturally we ignored this, gathered them all up this morning (coincidentally the first freeze of the season) and took them out for lunch (with a bit of a walking tour of Daşoguz thrown in).

There are 9 new Daşoguz region volunteers (though we could only find 7). None are going to be placed in the city. Many of them are replacing 15s at their sites (the 15s are leaving next month). Impressively, 3 of the new volunteers are at brand new sites: they will be the first volunteers in their towns. Apparently the Daşoguz Ministry people were so impressed by us 16s that they were very eager to expand the P.C. presence here. Yep, we rock.

The new volunteers seem so young! Okay, sure they are, but they are the same age as the rest of us. It makes me realize how much I have experienced here, and how comfortable I am living here. I noticed tonight how much my rice-eating abilities have improved! (I no longer have to floss behind my ears.) The new kids all have that wonderful deer-in-the-headlights look, though they all seem excited to be here. Two of them said that they had read my blog, which is cool. And everyone is always like “Yeah, my grandmother always reads your blog.” One of the new volunteers, Chase, said his grandmother would give him advice for the Peace Corps and quote it, like, “This is from Jon 5/16.” He thought at first it was the Bible or something, then found out she was referencing the date of something I wrote. Noah’s grandparents (or maybe parents) have asked him if he knows this ‘Jon’ guy who has a lot of good things to read… “Have you heard of him?” Apparently they even mailed him excerpts. So to grandparents reading this: Thank you for reading! I am glad I have been able to enlighten you about all the weird crap that happens here.

On to the newest food review:

I went to visit a family I had stumbled upon while wandering with Noah a while ago. I knew some of the kids from school (though they don’t learn English). The eldest daughter, youngest son, and mother were going back to Boldumsaz in the same marshrutra, so they invited me to visit.

They are a very laid back Uzbek family, and aside from the regular plates of candies and peanuts (and of course tea) they had two plates of orange cubes. These were ice-cold cubes of fat, with white congealed pieces of fat on top (you can’t have too much of a good thing) with dill and garlic on top of that. And you probably wouldn’t guess it from my 135 pound bulk, but fat is pretty good. Especially garlic encrusted cubes of it. (I am pretty sure this was an Uzbek specialty. One more reason to love northern T-Stan.)

This place is highly Uzbek. We were recently in Gok Chage – Shannon’s Uzbek hamlet, halfway between Boldumsaz and the city. We were at an Alty-Aȳ Toȳ: the celebration commemorating the first 6 months of a baby’s life (i.e. "congrats, your parents are not completely negligent!") Looking around, we realized not a single man was wearing a tahiya (the Turkmen embroidered cap) and the vodka was good. Definitely not Turkmen.

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If anyone is planning a trip to the Daşoguz area, I would like to offer a review of the ‘Daşoguz Hotel’:

This place is squalid. No bones about it. Grimy, drafty, very dirty. The water works, but the toilet has no handle. Which is less of an issue since there is no T.P. You wouldn’t be able to pay me enough to go near the tub. The bathroom is just large enough to stand in and realize how dank it is. But I give the Daşoguz Hotel one star. Sure, you could stay at the nicer Uzboȳ or Diyar Bekir, but here is the perk: The D.H. costs only 60,000 manat per person per night: 4 dollars! (and 7 cents). You seriously cannot beat that. That’s two kilos of rice and a half of candies. It’s cheap. If you just need a place to crash for a night, what do you care about the frills? Who cares if the walls have paint? Or if the toilet works? (Survival tip: take a handful of Pepto-Bismol tablets and don’t even worry about it for a few days.) (This is probably not FDA approved.)

So, yeah, a lot of creative medicating goes on here. We all get a big plastic box of medicine and medical supplies. Pepto, antacid, Benedryl, Sudafed, Advil, Tylenol, lozenges, cough drops, antifungal cream, hydrocortisone, antibiotic ointment, eye wash, rehydration tablets, antiseptic, sunscreen, lip balm, chapstick, insect repellent, iodine tablets, and condoms. Additionally, there are bandages, bandaids, tweezers, etc., and even a rape whistle (mine has yet to be used). As Kong says in Dr. Strangelove, “A fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all this.” Some stuff goes fast. You can’t have enough Pepto. But you don’t need 5 packets of anti-fungal cream. You probably just need to wash your feet more. But you run out of stuff at times, so you find out that antacid can fill in for Pepto, or that Benedryl can cover for Sudafed (and you will have a great night’s sleep). Antibiotic ointment can be useful for acne. Mix one shot of sterilized water, one shot Arassa vodka, and an iodine tablet for a great mixed drink called the ‘clean-myrat'. That’s a joke. Don’t drink that. (Arrassa means clean, and iodine purifies water. There is a Turkmen name Durdymyrat, which sounds like ‘dirty-myrat’. This drink would be the opposite. And now the joke is fully explained and even less funny.) We just need to find ways to stay healthy.

Turkmen aren’t too much help. “You have diarrhea? It’s probably because you don’t wear socks and your feet get cold.” There is no distinguishing between a headache/sore throat/diarrhea as far as Turkmen are concerned, and the root cause is of course that you don’t wear socks often enough, or that you drank too much cold water. They also think you will get horribly sick if you eat fish and dairy together at one meal. Which just makes me yearn for lox and bagels. So I can impress my host family by eating canned fish and buttering my bread.

Email dated 11/5/08: President-Elect Barack Obama

2008-11-05T21:06:00.000-08:00

[posted by Jon's sister]

Yesterday morning, November 4th, I woke up to a blood red sky. Knowing as much as I do about sailor lore, I know this to be a bad omen. Could the sky spell doom for Obama? But I quickly reasoned that even if portents be true, the weather over Turkmenistan would not be the decisive factor. Sure enough, the sign was much more personal: later that night, on the way to the shop, I tripped, and got a 4 inch gash on my shin and a tear across my left palm. So go figure.

7 of us (Alice, Shannon, Noah, Kelly, Julia, Emily and me) gathered at Alice's place in Dashoguz city for a night of Mexican food, and so that we could wake up early today on the 5th to go watch the election coverage. We went and met Scott at the American corner, and watched BBC and Al-jazeera coverage. (The BBC correspondent was hilarious.) We all had map printouts which we colored in along with the projection results.

And then it happened. Thank you America. (I would be voting absentee in a solid democratic state which is Obama's home state. So no, I did not vote. There was no point. And thanks to Daley, I probably voted 3 times anyway.) This is the first time in at least 8 years, possibly ever, that I have truly felt proud about being an American. I can say where I am from without qualifying it. As Obama made his acceptance speech, there was seriously not a dry eye among us. (As Scott phrased it, the room got a bit dusty for all of us.) I liked Clinton, he was a fun guy. But Obama is truly incredible to watch. He makes me for the first time have pride in the President of the USA. And hey, it is amazing to face the prospect of a president who speaks English (and is one of the greatest speakers I have ever seen). I now have faith that the US can dig itself out of a very worrisome place.

So well done. I am glad it is morning here, because I would not be able to fall asleep otherwise. This is a nice way to start a Wednesday.

Letter dated 10/16/08: one year anniversary of living in Turkmenistan!

2008-11-02T04:59:00.000-08:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

Believe it or not, and sometimes I don’t, I have now been in Turkmenistan for over a year. My Turkmen is fine enough to navigate most situations, but the fact of the matter is that you actually need very little understanding to survive, or to put it more positively, there is far more to living (and communicating) than proper grammar. With a patient Turkmen, I can discuss the finer points of philosophical views on life. With others I can barely understand prices quoted at the bazaar (but they were probably Uzbek).

To celebrate my arrival anniversary, I went to the bazaar and bought a turkey. I have never bought a live animal (that I intended to eat) before. He was a nice little fellow that I paid 150,000 manat (a little over $10) for. On the way home, I started wishing I had splurged on the big turkey, but he was 250,000 and I am trying to save up money for the biggest Turkey of all (the country). But the smaller one was okay, as I had to carry him a mile home, and after a mile, even a little turkey starts feeling heavy.

So, he got butchered, and cooked with onions, garlic and a lot of oil. Tasty fellow.

I also saw big white geese at the bazaar. Probably pricey, but maybe for my birthday. Nothing brings out your inner carnivore like a trip to the animal market.

At school, I have opened an English library in my classroom. There are in all about 57 books (courtesy of Darien Book Aid), magazines (courtesy of P.C. and my dear family) and workbooks (courtesy of a previous volunteer-written grant). The library has proven to be very popular - a little too popular. Despite a one-book-at-a-time policy (followed fairly well), at the end of the day, the shelves are usually bare. They are not bare due to broken policies, so much as that when a kid brings a book back, there are 6 kids directly behind him clammering to get the book. Popular choices include “The Cat in the Hat” and “Where’s Spot?”. Needless to say, I want a lot more books. I have another shipment of 20-30 books from Darien Book Aid being sent. I am also cooking up a book drive project. It is not official yet, but stay tuned to hear more.

My clubs are well attended – though there is huge turnover (which seems to be a common volunteer experience, so I have not taken it personally). My 6th formers are the same as last year. My 7th formers, the very loyal and enthusiastic 6th form girls, all randomly disappeared, and my 8th form dissolved down to 2. My advanced 9/10th class disappeared, but that in its prime was only 6 students. But I started a beginner 5th and a beginner 9/10th form class, and both are packed full of students.

In more random news, as I was walking home from school yesterday, I was stopped by a lady who started talking to me in English. She lives in Konya Urgench, a city about 45 minutes away (opposite Daşoguz city; Boldumsaz is between them). Her name was Guljemal, and she was probably about 30. She told me she used to attend the clubs of a previous volunteer in Konya Urgench, but now he had gone and she had no one to practice with. I told her there was a new volunteer in K.U. (Julia), if she wanted to take classes.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I get plenty of practice reading my bible.” Bible? “I’m a Jehovah’s Witness.” Well, I’ll be damned. They are everywhere. It was very unexpected. I don’t know any churches in Turkmenistan, and Santa Claus himself has been appropriated by New Years, and renamed Ayaz Baba ("cold weather Grandpa"). You are either Muslim or Catholic, as far as most people know. So it was interesting to see the diversity that has trickled in.

There are now 45 or 50 newly arrived volunteers in Turkmenistan, wide-eyed and fearful for their lives. Unused to squatting, awe-struck by massive piles of cash, wondering why ‘meat’ is mostly intestines and bone fragments.

Oh they have so much to learn.

Stay tuned for a photo-packed CD coming soon.

Letter dated September 9, 2008: modern technology at its finest?

2008-10-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

I remember when we volunteers first arrived, horrified at living in a place so backwards that there was no reliable access to Facebook. (Note: Facebook is now accessible from Daşoguz city.)

Phone access was another big issue. My training village (Bolshewik) had a phone, at the telegraph (sadly they didn’t actually have a telegraph). My current town has phones in probably every house, the irony being that the phone lines don’t work. To call Peace Corps, for instance, ½ the time I can get a dial tone, then 1/10 of those times I can get a line out of the village, and 1/10 of that time I can reach Peace Corps. And then the line will cut off after a few minutes of talking. My favorite, though, is when you pick up the phone, and before you even dial, you hear another conversation on the line (not from your house).

Boldumsaz was so ridiculous to call, that P.C.’s method of contacting me was to try for a few times, then three days later, calling Shannon and having her come deliver the news in person.

Well, a few months back, Daşoguz got cell phone access, and suddenly every kid and his aunt had a cell phone. They rarely talk on the cell phones, as much as play Enrique. Because everyone has the super-duper phones with music, cameras and all that jazz. And so then I felt like a provincial lout.

So I finally broke down and bought a cell phone. Nothing fancy. Actually, I don’t even know if there is voice mail. But it can call and text message.

The simple joys of modern living!

But now I have that problem where I need to always see if someone called, or I am paranoid to turn it off, just in case someone calls with that urgent message (especially since Shannon is on vacation). So long story short, after 3 days, I hate my phone.

Letter dated September 8, 2008: chipotle powder makes it all better

2008-10-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

Jon’s Guide to Eating Unidentifiable Organs from Unidentifiable Animals:

We’ve all been there: what you thought was just a regular ol’ pot on the stove is actually a pot of soup and a thing. Some large, veiny, rubbery flap, the odd tube here and there, and a few stray bits of meat to keep you guessing. And of course it ends up in your bowl.

Historical tangent: the Native American custom of not wasting any part of the animal is a complete myth. A sham. They only started once the first white-man (i.e. chump) showed his face. “Of course we eat the rectum! It is a delicacy. Well, there is only one, and since you are the guest of honor…”

The flappy-thing was not swimming alone. His good friend calcifying-bone-to-be (edible!), mockingly holding onto a few measly bits of flesh, was along for the ride.

So, what do you do?

Option A: Run. Fast. Simple, but if I had ever been the type to actually consider that route, I would not have survived this long.

Option B: Throw it out the window. I had a moment alone, and a clear shot. Wish I thought this one up sooner.

Option C: Southwestern Mesquite- Chipotle Powder*. Oh baby. You know the old saying: if you add enough salt, it will taste just like salt. Well, Turkmen actually follow that advice often enough. But if you sprinkle (barrage) flappy organs with enough mesquite-chipotle powder, they turn into finger-lickin’ fun. I can’t recommend it enough (the chipotle powder, not the amorphous innards.)

*(Major thanks to Katy for sending it!!)

In more, ahem, delectable news, the Daşoguz region has held its very first annual chili cook-off, complete with BBQ bacon cheeseburgers and Coca-Cola. Held right here in Boldumsaz. Heinze BBQ sauce (courtesy of Kyrgyzstan – seriously, the other ’Stans don’t mess around.) By Daşoguz, I am referring to me, Noah, Kelly, Dennis, Shannon, Julia and Emily (7 out of 12 of the region’s volunteers). We all cooked up some extra burgers for my family, who enjoyed them (or at least graciously accepted our weird food).

We did become aware of how hypocritical we volunteers can be: “God, the food here is horrible – all of the ‘food’ is just so fatty and salty. What I wouldn’t give for a regular old bacon double cheeseburger and fries.”

What I won’t give for a chipotle-powdered sheep lung.

Letter dated August 21, 2008: Vacationing in the 'Stans.

2008-10-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

It is never good when you wake up and the minibus is spinning along multiple axles. Another truck cut us off, we swerved onto the gravel shoulder, double fishtail, miraculously avoid oncoming traffic. Pull a 180, nearly flip… and live. The funniest thing is that in the whole process, we lost a wheel. No, not the tire, but the entire wheel.

We switched to a new marshrutka. Only 3 hours to Bishkek.

Chapter 1: 3 Volunteers. 12 Days. 2 More Stans

I set off with Noah and Kim (a volunteer near the Caspian) on the 8th to Almaty, Kazakhstan after rendezvousing in Ashgabat. The plan: a few days in the city, famous in the minds of P.C. Turkmenistan volunteers as a Central Asian paradise: rumors of movie theaters, escalators and Sparro’s Pizza abound. We had to see it for ourselves. From there we would go to Bishkek, meet some Turkmen friends of Kim, stay there for a few days, head to the mountains and trek, then make our way home. That is the most detail we ever planned.

Despite the Almaty airport looking very modern, we are definitely still in this weird world of Central Asia: there are a fair amount of melons coming along the baggage carousel, and every bag other than ours is wrapped in plastic.

After a long pricey taxi ride, which started amiably enough with Noah singing a duet of ‘Hotel California’ with the driver, but devolved into the taxi driver getting lost multiple times…despite yelling over the phone for directions, heated arguments spanning English, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Russian between us and the driver (he wanted us to buy him a new phone card, and pay him while we were still lost) and PC K.Stan, we finally found the office (volunteers are required to ‘check in’ while on vacation.) Admittedly, it was hard to find. The Ashgabat office entrance is in an alley. The Almaty office is on the edge of town, down a dirt path hidden by trees.

But we checked in, and met a bunch of Kazakhstan volunteers, traded war stories and the like. They showed us a bit around the city, and helped us find an apartment (around here in cities, you can just rent a room for a few nights). Almaty is a beautiful city, with mountains surrounding it, huge trees everywhere, and modern western stores (Baskin Robbins, Tiffany and Co.) The city is very classy, but pricey to match.

They also have a very realistic and practical currency. $50 US dollars in Turkmen gives you a stack of seventy 10,000 manat bills. In Almaty you can do it in two bills, a 1000 and 5000 tenge. We were totally unaccustomed to such a wimpy pile of bills.

The city was, despite its modernity and beauty, very dirty at the same time. There was litter everywhere, unlike Ashgabat, where an army of women keep the place swept clean.

Some highlights: a bazaar stall selling bras and refrigerator magnets, another vendor with a small wooden model of the Mayflower, a gun shop with AK-47s ($626), horse jerky (it tasted like alfalfa) and people using seat belts.

Chapter 2: An Ode to Corn

We had to deliver the passport of a Turkmen Kim knew to the grandparents in Almaty. They were an old Russian couple. I can say about a dozen things in Russian, and they knew about that much in Kazakh (which is similar to Turkmen) so there was very little actual conversation. But they fed us well and chatted with us for over an hour. You always pick up just enough key words, names or international words to keep going, but more importantly they just kept talking.

At one point they kept saying the word kukuruz, which Noah suddenly remembered means rooster. Best way to double check the meaning? “Kukuruz?”, he sang, mimicking a cockle-doodle-do, which was enough to elicit a confused look from the couple. The old lady scuttled off, returning with a picture of their grandchildren eating corn. Okay, so rooster, corn, close enough.

Throughout the trip we do pick up some Russian. ‘Kukuruz’ = corn, ‘kuritza’ = chicken, ‘atkuda?’ (it sounds like ‘hakuna matata’) = where are you from, etc. In Almaty practically everyone speaks Russian.

Other highlights: ultimate fighting on TV, and grocery stores. In our first one we were so blown away by the selection (picture a normal grocery store - that does not exist in any shape or form in T.Stan) that we were seriously surprised it wasn’t listed in the guide book (“Oh, wait...this is ‘normal’?”) After a nice few urban days, we head on our way. Also, I found out at the first ATM, (another marvel unknown in Turkmenistan) that my card was expired. That made my 2 week budget $72, which is distributed by the P.C. quarterly as travel funds. $20 was used for the taxi from the airport. It is good I was traveling with friends.

$8 Dollars for an International Bus Ride

The 6 hour ride to Bishkek gave a nice view of scenery: a mix of mountains, flat green expansive steppe, and scorched yellow badlands. I was sitting next to a talkative Russian, who showed off his knowledge of (the names of) American presidents. And quizzed me on Russian rulers (I forgot Brezhnev). I picked up that he had a daughter teaching English in Bishkek, a son – a championship boxer – in Almaty, and he himself was a truck driver with multiple country IDs. He also referred at one point to Marilyn Monroe as a ‘sex bomb’ and said he liked America because of the ‘stinger missiles’ – even pantomiming firing a shoulder mounted launcher. Friendly enough guy. He also said he had 5. I did not ask for any details.

Hospitality is still huge here, even on the road. At a rest stop, another passenger tried to tell me something that I couldn’t understand. He ran off, coming back with baklava, which he gave me.

We got back on the road, and passed the horrible carnage of a minibus/car collision. I also managed, in Russian, to argue (correctly) the age of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps with the ever talkative Kazakh on my left.

I don’t know if he either thought I knew far more Russian than I do, or just didn’t really care.

Chapter 3: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

We arrived in Bishkek in the afternoon, and disturbingly easily found the P.C. office there. Only the guards were there, but we waited til Kim’s Turkmen friend, Roshen, found us and brought us to his apartment. We were pleasantly shocked by weather in the 70’s (only 60 degrees cooler than T.Stan). There is also non-irrigated grass in the city, and more huge trees everywhere. Bishkek has a few official looking buildings, but mostly looks and feels like the residential area of a big city, with mostly small, unassuming buildings. It was very clean, especially compared to Altamy.

The day after arrival, I went to the P.C. office to meet the local volunteers. One of them, Lydia, took me to Zum, a big department store (we took the bus, because the 85 degree heat made it “too hot to walk.” I laughed.) At Zum I made a very important purchase: ‘The Dark Knight’, fresh off the bootleg press. I am now a hero in northern Turkmenistan for it. An interesting thing Bishkek has that is absent in Turkmenistan: souvenir shops. There are some stores, like one in the Ak Altyn Hotel in Ashgabat, designed for tourists to buy hats and carpets. But you never see knick-knacks, t-shirts, ashtrays, etc. All souvenirs from Turkmenistan are authentic, and people use them. That being said, I did get some good souvenirs, a 2’ x 4’ Kyrgyz felt rug, and two 1’ x 1’ embroidered/ dyed felt mats. If Turkmenistan is worthy for its carpets and sheepskin hats, Kyrgyzstan is renowned for its felt/embroidered mats, and its tall embroidered felt hats. Very stylish, though I didn’t get any hats.

[Jon’s drawing of a Kyrgyzstan felt hat]

Chapter 4: Not Getting Mugged in Bishkek

Noah and I pooled our collective wisdom by trying to walk to a club we had never been to, at night, in a city we were new to, which had ample travel warnings about violence aimed at foreigners. We got lost, and soon found by two cops, who on finding out we were foreigners, were actually amazingly helpful and even drew us a map. About ten minutes later, we heard a guy running up behind us, definitely not a cop, asking for documents. Obviously a bad deal, I was trying to get out of there. Noah was going the route of explaining to the would-be-mugger that he didn’t want to cooperate with a mugging. The logic of my idea to run, once the second, and burlier, would-be-mugger suddenly appeared. So we ran. And we did not get mugged in Bishkek.

Chapter 5: The 5th Layer of Hell: The Bishkek Meat Market

[Transcriber’s warning – this chapter is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach.]

The next night we were going to cook dinner for Roshen and his roommate, so we went to the bazaar for food. Kyrgyz numbers are nearly identical to Turkmen, so shopping and haggling are no problem (my haggling skills are definitely getting quite refined). Most of the bazaar is made up of stalls and stands, but the meat was in its own building. It smelled, not of meat, or rot, but just death. Hooks hung everywhere with wretched chunks of flesh dangling off, frightful and menacing. A table of sixty sheep heads ($2 each) stood in the corner. Old ladies yelled at us to buy, but wouldn’t sell anything less than a whole flank. The air was thick and oppressive, and despite large windows, the room felt dark.

Then we descended to the lower level. In the basement, the walls were painted red. Bare bulbs hung occasionally to dimly illuminate chains and hooks. It almost sounded like there were far off screams and moaning. We didn’t worry about the price of the meat, our two main concerns were finding meat that wasn’t black or bone-ridden, and finding a vendor that would sell only a pound of it.

We finally got it, and crawling back upstairs, the outside air hit our faces, and felt like we awoke from a long, horrible dream.

Chapter 6: Issyk Köl

After a few days in Bishkek, we set off for Issyk Köl, a huge alpine lake (you can’t see the other side), second largest in the world, only smaller than Lake Titicaca. It is a huge tourist destination for Russians. We just stayed a day in Bosteri, a town on the northern shore (right next to Cholpon-Ata, the main town). We swam in the salty lake, and I tried some whole smoked/cured fish, which turned into a bad habit. (I later found out only the small finger-sized ones are from the lake; the larger ones are from the Pacific. But smoked fish is smoked fish.) It was great to see blue sparkling water after so long. It was easy to find lodging. We stepped off the bus, and within minutes there were old Kyrgyz ladies asking us to rent apartment rooms for $10 each/night. Not bad. We ate lots of lagman, a spicy noodle dish, and I tried the cheapest Kyrgyz beer I could find, which is better than the cheapest American beer you can find.

Chapter 7: Karakol

We left the lake and headed down to Karakol, a few hours away at the base of the mountains. The town has both an impressive Russian Orthodox church and a Chinese mosque. Noah and I introduced ourselves to the guys there who seemed really happy to meet us.

We first went to the Ecotours office to find out about trekking options, but wisely decided against it, as between us we had no real experience, and not even a pair of hiking boots (I forgot mine in Daşoguz city at Dennis’s apartment, where we stayed before going to Ashgabat.) We went then to the Yak Tours office/guest house, where we got a cheap but classy room (carpets, piano, solid wood desk…) . This was a common jumping off point for trekkers, and we met hikers from Germany, Japan, Korea, and France. We also met an American guy our age, Krister, who had just finished a stint working for the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan. I normally try to avoid Americans on vacations abroad, but after Turkmenistan, with P.C. being the only American presence and nearly no foreigners, and the rest of Ka- and Ky-stan, which have plenty of tourists, but extremely few Americans, it was refreshing to run into another Yank. He was also going into the mountains the next day, so he joined our group.

Chapter 8: Altyn Arashan: the Mountains

Yak Tours has a mountain lodge, accessible by a five hour hike or a one hour jeep ride. The ‘road’ to Altyn Arashan (a couple of cabins and yurts in a valley) should not be confused with a road. At times even the most crack-pot cartographer would struggle to even define it as a path. But we had a crazy Russian at the wheel who proved what that jeep was worth. Picture an SUV, and add: 30 degree slopes, boulder-ridden dry stream beds, and at times quite-flowing streams. The only reason this could be called a ‘road’ is that the Russian clearly had driven it before (developers were beginning to upgrade parts of it to gravel). We had to also be wary of moving obstacles: we got stopped by 300 sheep moseying by.

The road finally gave way to Altyn Arashan. ‘Town’ is not the right term, it was just 3 or 4 properties in the valley. Yak Tours ran one, which was composed of the main lodge and a handful of yurts. We four stayed in a small, semi-collapsing yurt.

The place is run by Valentin, an old Russian with a huge mustache, his daughter, and a few women of unknown relation. The guests were made up of Russians, Czechs, more Germans (I got a lot of practice on the trip), Irish, Belgians and Koreans. I think everyone had the same copy of ‘Lonely Planet: Central Asia.’ Conversations rambled between the various languages.

The mountain directly next to the lodge (already at 3000 ft) was treeless but green, with little rock exposed, so we decided to climb it. It looked small. It was certainly larger than it looked, and took us 3 hours to get to the top. It allowed for some spectacular views of far off snowcapped mountains, and another valley invisible from our own. (Remember how I had left my boots in Daşoguz? I climbed in $14 Chinese-made sandals.) We had just enough time for photos and a brief rest before the weather started to turn. We all climbed down in what I would describe as “semi-controlled free fall”. There was no path, and mostly grass and plants covering the steep sides, so sliding was a common means to get down. We were all tired, cold and hungry, so we were relieved when a fire was made at the lodge, and a warm meal was served.

Chapter 9: Altyn Arashan, Part 2: Horses

We joined the Germans, Koreans and Russians for a horse trek. This was the first time I had ridden a horse since I was maybe 10 in Yellowstone. I had a really great horse; it was responsive and took orders well. Kim’s was the same way. Noah’s had a bad habit of laying down and rolling. Krister’s was on its deathbed. But we took off with 2 Kyrgyz guides – one was just a young teenager, and her ride a donkey. We started off on a dirt road which soon became a rocky oft-angled path and eventually to wilderness. The day was very foggy, cool and drizzly, so we all became soaked. We arrived at a small lake, the end destination, and after 10 minutes in the rain, unanimously decided to head back. The weather was dismal, but the ride was a lot of fun.

Chapter 10: Altyn Arashan, Part 3: Hot Springs

Altyn Arashan (“Golden Spa”) is famous for its hot springs. After being cold, wet and sore from the horse trek and the previous day’s mountain hike, we headed down to the neighboring property, which has 3 buildings set up for the springs. Kim had already gone, so I went with Noah and Krister. Turns out hot springs are hot. Painfully, but bearably so. We slowly and tediously made our way up to our necks in the sulfury water (1.5’ deep pools). After a few minutes of soothing pain, we did what we saw some crazy Kyrgyz do, which now seemed possibly like a good (not so bad) idea: we jumped into the icy, rushing stream 30 feet away, and submerged fully. We got out after about 2 seconds, running back to the hot springs. We did that twice before our bodies told us to knock it off.

Chapter 11: The Last Night

We got back to the lodge for another friendly, fire-lit night with fellow trekkers. The night before we had borrowed the guitar of one of the ladies who helped run the lodge. This night I actually got requests for a repeat performance - how you can tell your skills are getting respectable. Once I ran through most of the songs I know, it was late. So the rest of my companions hit the hay in the saggy yurt. I stayed to enjoy the fire for a few more minutes, this was our last night in the mountains. Valentin reappeared and invited me into the kitchen, where the caretakers and the Czechs had gathered, taking shots of cognac, wine and vodka, so I joined and played a ‘cowboy song’. After that, the Kyrgyz lady played some songs. There was a small wooden cookie bowl on the table, which had apparently been made that day by one of the Czechs, a forester by the name of Richard.

He had made it with a chainsaw. “Chainsaw is my hobby,” Richard told me. He made a bowl with a chainsaw.

Chapter 12: Not Getting Mugged In Almaty

The next morning at 5:30 we woke up and trekked down the mountain back to Karakol, arriving after about 4 hours. We got a minibus back to Bishkek (it was on this ride that we nearly died), and stayed another day or two with Roshen and his (now 4) roommates. They were all Turkmen studying at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) in Bishkek. I actually knew one of the girls from Daşoguz. On the 19th we hitched a bus back to Almaty. At the bus station, a guy told us we should follow him, because he was also going to the airport, except… the bus didn’t go to the airport. So we were in the middle of Godknowswhere on the outskirts of Almaty with a random Kazakh who said that he would drive us there, we just had to follow him through the dark streets to his house. We were all sketched out, but had few other options. And there were 3 to 1 odds, us vs. him, so why not? “Just up these stairs.” I think we were all ready for someone to pull a gun on us. It was 9 at night (we had a 1 a.m. flight) but when he opened the apartment door… little kids. His wife offered us tea and food (we politely turned down both). Then he drove us, free of charge, to the airport, and we got home to Turkmenistan.

Central Asia: they either mug you or offer you a mug of tea.

Letter dated August 8, 2008: Summer school

2008-10-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

It is 106 degrees in the shade. I don’t actually mind though, because it makes the house’s 93 degrees feel like air-conditioning. The summer is in full swing, which means life here is slow. I am still teaching my summer club four days a week, which has slowly morphed as the weeks have gone by. There was basically no one for the first month (I actually had a day with no one, and also a day with one kid, which was frankly worse.) But then, word-of-mouth slowly worked its magic, and kids started coming. It is now up to around 8 or 10 students per day (I had a whopping 14 today!), and a mix of middle-school age students who know some basic English, middle-schoolers who know about nothing, and little kids (1-3 grade) who can’t read. The common ground for activities is games. And come on, it’s the summer. I wouldn’t have them write essays. Team games are necessary, because the little kids would cripple a game like telephone. So I have a solid mix of Hangman, Memory (very popular, but ends in a tie surprisingly often), & Fly Swatter (you write numbers, for instance on the Board, call one out, and the students have to slap the right number. I recently bought actual fly swatters for this and the kids went wild.) Usually good games that haven’t worked as well with the lower educated are Pictionary (their vocab is limited to “apple” and “cat”) and board races (call out a word, whoever spells it first wins). The big problem too is that young kids don’t study on their own, and I am not going to assign homework in a summer club. So when I gave students words today, which I taught yesterday, for Pictionary, they had no idea (“pants?”).

My main concern for the next year though, is working with the teachers – that whole ‘sustainability’ issue. If you think it is hard learning English from teachers who don’t know methodology, don’t have decent or available textbooks and generally don’t know English, you’d be right. For the first and third points, I need to start up a regional teacher’s conference, and work daily on conversation with my school’s teachers. For books, I have started requests for books through Darien Book Aid for an English library at my school. So I have my work cut out.

In the mean time, I am playing a lot of guitar (up to 26 songs memorized) and trying to keep a constant supply of distilled water (between power outages and a thirsty family, it’s not always easy, but they are being trained to run the distiller themselves).

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

I have been in Turkmenistan long enough now, especially with the lack of information and media here, that things can really catch me off guard. Another volunteer brought back a DVD of “The Assassination of Jesse James…” from Thailand. It was like, ‘What? When was Brad Pitt in this? How had I never heard of it? Oh, yeah…! I’ve been in Turkmenistan for ten months.’

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

With October just around the corner (yes, two months here is ‘just around the corner’) buzz is in the air about the next batch of volunteers. (There are allegedly already 35 or so signed up for here). We are very isolated, so 3 dozen Americans is huge.

They have no idea what they’re in for.

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

I went with my host brother, Wepa, to a local craftsman (who had made my bookshelf) to ask about prices for tables (Shannon [another PC volunteer] is outsourcing the construction for her clinic’s research efforts). On the way there, we passed a house that had just had a fire. Luckily, it looked like just one of the sheds had burned, but the odd thing was, it was still burning. I asked if Boldumsaz had firemen.

“We do,” he explained, “but just a few. And when they run out of water, they go home.” Hence, still-flaming wood. “But that’s life. That’s Turkmenistan.” His tone was more prideful, or at least accepting, than resentful. “It’s our life.”

Letter dated 7/21/2008: tea, telling time, and trips

2008-08-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Jon's sister)

Last weekend, in what I later found out was 130 degree heat (the silver lining: the fleas have left for vacation), I drove with my family to Daşoguz city for an older host sister’s house toy, or celebration of their new house. I thought this meant they had moved out of their apartment – which I had seen a few months ago – but no, same place, just a belated party. Although this time, the apartment was fully furnished.

I was sitting with the men in the man room, drinking some hot tea (sadly, no temperature, inside or out, makes it too hot to enjoy tea; iced tea does not exist here), when in came a man. He was a man of definite Gogolian character – neither young nor old, but expansive around the middle. He was wearing a traditional Turkmen coat, and had a head like a ripe watermelon, which his glasses struggled to span. Unlike a watermelon, he had a goatee. Between all this and the fact that everyone stood up to shake his hands, I could tell: this was a man of God.

So yes, I met my first Mullah, and even poured him some chai (not ‘chai’, the delicious spiced beverage - chai here just means tea). He didn’t stay all that long. He made small talk until the dograma (bits of bread, meat and onion with broth, in case you forgot) came, which he ate like a true man of God (with his hands). The rest of us all used spoons. He said a brief prayer before the meal, and a half dozen after, then hurriedly left, though not before accepting gifts for his coming. It is funny how a slovenly appearance [or] a massive bulk might make you pity the homeless, but revere the holy. They are so busy with the pursuit of dogmatic fulfillment that they can’t be bothered with worldly worries like getting a pair of glasses that fit. Never trust a well-dressed saint.

*****

I bought myself a stylish watch the other day at the bazaar (a side-effect of reading too much Newsweek). I expertly haggled the price down from $4 to $3. It is a Hayufa! Not quite a Rolex. It is like buying a knock-off of a Hyundai instead of a Rolls Royce, but for $3 (with a working battery) you can’t go wrong.

Then I found out just two days ago that the method of telling time I had been using is in the Amal dialect (in which we all learned Turkmen). Here in Daşoguz there is a completely different way to express the time. Luckily, the one up here is actually a lot more logical. Down in Amal, if it is 4:05, you say what sounds like 5:05. Big difference. Here it makes sense. Though I found out after 7 months.

*****

Next month, in mid-August, I am going with Noah and Kim to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It’s now official. We have plane tickets and visas. From the cosmopolitan city of Almaty, to the breath-taking alpine vistas of Kyrgyzstan, this trip promises to offer everything that Turkmenistan (according to Lonely Planet, the 'North Korea of Central Asia') lacks.

Letter dated 7/20/2008: Jews and Euros

2008-08-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

I was at the bazaar maybe two weeks ago, and passed by a money changer. “Dollar barmy?” he asked. “Dollar yok,” I replied, ("Got dollars?" "No dollars.") and as I continued past him on my way, I was sure I heard him say a Russian word, yevry: Jew.

How’d he know? But this raised many questions (none of which I asked, I just kept going). In a land where hardly anyone has even heard of Jews, let alone knows about them, how is it that the word is still used in a derogatory way? How is it a “Jew” thing to not have dollars? And what sort of ironic twist of history is it, when the money changer calls someone else a Jew?

I mostly forgot about the occurrence until a few days ago. I was traveling via van to Daşoguz city, and started talking to the man next to me, who coincidentally, turned out to be a money changer. He opened his duffle bag and showed me the stacks of Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmen, and American currency. And he mentioned, seemingly out of the blue, "and there were a lot of Jews in the city." Could it be Turkmenistan has a small and relatively unknown population of Jews? I know Bukhara, nearby in Uzbekistan, does. This would be quite a discovery. But I still needed to double-check I understood him correctly.

“Yevry? Musavy?” I asked, the Russian and Turkmen words for Jew/Jewish.

“What?!” he asked, confused. “No, yevro, yevro.”

What is yevro, I wondered, and asked him.

“Yevro, Yevro. Germaniya. Italia. Espania – Yevro!”

Euro!! There are indeed no Jews in Daşoguz, just Euros.

The original money changer in the story wasn’t throwing around slurs, he wanted to know if I had any European cash! The riddle was solved.

Letter dated 7/11/2008: To Be(ard) or Not To Be(ard)

2008-07-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

One of the main things pounded into our heads before we came here was that facial hair in Turkmenistan is a no-go. Now, some old men rock the half-foot-long forked goatees. And you do see some Uzbek mustaches walking around. But for the young folk, the clean chin is key. In fact, on arrival in Turkmenistan, those with beards and/or excessive head hair had mandatory shaves: “You must respect their culture.” Well…

We can actually get away with quite a lot, because frankly, we aren’t Turkmen, and the Turkmen know this. And though I think it was important that we had respectably-shaven jaws when we first came (because we were making plenty of other cultural mistakes), now we can relax a bit and let our hair down.

I came back from the Ashgabat conference with a few days of stubble and decided to test the cultural waters, so I went to teach my club without shaving. I saw my director and asked him if it was a problem. “Normal!” he said. I love this guy. He has probably been beard-conditioned by “Walker: Texas Ranger,” a popular show here. Beard at work: check. Next, beard-at-home test. I touched up the sides to make it more beard-like and less hobo-like and showed my host father. Keep in mind this is the man who doesn’t let me leave the house with shorts, because, “this is Turkmenistan, not America.” But he showed a huge grin and let out his old man “Whaaaaaho!” of approval.

As of the 14th [of June - Sarah] (this letter is taking a while to write) I have had 3 negative responses, and 5 positive responses. So it seems on par with what would happen if I grew a beard in the U.S.A.

(There seems to be no correlation between opinion of the beard and the age/gender of the viewer.)

The main issue this is all making me think about is: is the separation between on the one hand respecting the surrounding culture, trying to adopt its ways and values, and on the other hand, not only preserving your own values and culture, but sharing them as well? 1/3 of the Peace Corp ‘mission’ is to teach Turkmen about America and our culture. For those wondering, the other 2/3s are teaching Americans about Turkmen culture – part of the inspiration for this Blog – and (in the case of TEFL volunteers) is teaching and improving the teaching system here. And you thought this was all fun and games.

Speaking of fun, I can now add ‘lung’ (from a sheep) to the list of delectable animal organs I have eaten here. It is like firm tofu, with an occasional tube running through it. There is not much flavor, but cool lung on a hot day is refreshing (especially when compared to hooves).

Letter dated July 8, 2008: What's on second, I don't know is on third.

2008-07-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

I started reading a book about Central Asian musical practices and traditions. It made mention of a Russian composer who, during the Stalinist purges, was exiled to Tashkent (in present day Uzbekistan). Instead of living a life of dejection, he ‘went native’, joining a group of Uzbek workers and teaching himself fluent Uzbek. Inspired by his linguistic accomplishment, I put down my book and took out my Turkmen language guide. But fate held a different route for me to “go native.”

Revenge is a Dish Best Served Pureed

Sixteen years ago to the day, we visited The Farm, a petting zoo in Wisconsin. I, an innocent young boy, had no idea what awaited me. An upstart goat with an upset digestive system decided my leg looked like a good place to relieve itself. Ever since I have held a grudge. [Sarah's note: this anecdote is part of our family lore.]

The day before I went to Ashgabat for the conference, my host family bought a goat. This is a country where you often buy your food still mooing, clucking or bleating. The goat didn’t survive to see my return. I came home late on Sunday to see my host father picking at leftover goat head. I politely declined, because frankly, if I am going to eat goat head, I want it served fresh.

Back to tonight. I came out for dinner, and the main course was a simple scrambled eggs with tomato, onion and pepper. There was fresh bread and a small bowl of what looked like paté.

“Brain”, my host brother eloquently explained. So, long story short, I tried goat brain, and though not bad, it was mostly out of spite of that one punk goat that I went back for seconds. I did not scoop the bowl clean (my host brother did that), but I did lick the brain off my fingers.

Who’s going to Kazakhstan?

The old joke, ‘Who’s on first?’ works quite well in Turkmen.

I am planning a trip to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with Noah and another volunteer, Kim. I had to drop off some documents for Noah, but he wasn’t yet home, so I hung out with his host brothers for a bit, and told them about the trip. As it happens, kim is Turkmen for ‘who’, and saying “her name is Kim” sounds just like “what is her name?”

Them: “So, how many people are going?”
Me: “3, Me, Noah and Who.”
Them: “Who?”
Me: “Yes, What is her name?”
Them: “What is her name?”
Me: “What is her name. Really. It is. Who.”
Them: “ So…there are 2 people going?”
Me: “No, 3. Me, Noah and Who.”

This continued with a lot of laughing, for about 5 minutes. They thought it was hilarious, if not a little confusing.

Fourth Language Conversations

I have had a few conversations in Russian, mostly in taxis, which is impressive considering I don’t speak Russian. My Turkmen is functional, but my Russian is limited to about 6 key phrases (including “I don’t speak Russian”, and a lot of vocabulary that Turkmen borrows. But I can usually pick out key words from what people say or just guess from the context, and then find some (semi) appropriate one-word response. Strangers usually think I am from Russia (not entirely off-base) but become very impressed and in awe when they find out that I am American, and what I am doing here. Surprisingly often, they respond with “Ay, maledetz!” which is like, “Well, good for you!” Then they ask which I like more, Turkmenistan or America, if I am married, and how much cars cost in the U.S.

Letter dated July 5, 2008: The trip back home

2008-07-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

The last of the volunteers made their ways back to site. By now, a lot of us are really good friends. So it is always a bit sad leaving. I did make plans to visit some guys, Brian and Dan, down next to Iran (Brian can allegedly see Iran from his town) during fall break.

We had a 9 p.m. flight, so we got to the fairly empty airport where security takes 5 minutes, and you can keep your shoes on. I did, on request, take out my guitar, and played for the guards. The young woman working the X-ray machine asked if I would take her to America (and she was married). I told her she’d have to wait a year and a half. In another ‘small world’ moment, we met Emily’s host father at the Daşoguz airport, which is amazingly helpful, because he had a minivan waiting, and more importantly, we were all crashing at his house that night.

Letter dated July 2, 2008: Post-conference multilingual party

2008-07-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

In the evening, after the conference, we went to the American Embassy for their Independence Day party (the Embassy is rather close to a massive Turkmen flag, attached to a 150 meter-tall pole.)

Sadly, diplomats are picked for their skills with words rather than oration. We sat though some rather dull speeches before getting to eat dinner. The exciting thing was the Southwestern theme of the evening, so dinner was tacos. (It was tasty, but made me and a dozen other P.C. volunteers and staff violently ill the next day. The price you pay for generic yellow cheese....)

The party was an interesting mix of embassy staff, P.C. volunteers & staff, and lots of foreign dignitaries. Interestingly enough, all of the speeches given by the Turkmen diplomats were in Russian, not Turkmen. The American Embassy staff themselves don’t learn any Turkmen. As someone explained to me, “It is not their aim to understand Turkmen culture.” I was standing next to two Americans and a Turkmen in the buffet line. I asked, “Gowumy?” (‘How are you?’) to the Turkmen man, and the Americans were blown away. I also met some guy named Doug from Chevron, and Deniz, a Turkish woman starting her own energy company in Turkmenistan. No job offers, but I got a business card.

Letter dated June 30, 2008: Volunteer conference

2008-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

Tickets in hand, I went with Noah, Shannon, Alice, Dennis and Emily (the other Daşoguz volunteers were arriving separately) to the train station for our 20-hour cross-country ride. (If the highways were fully paved, it would probably be a 6 hour drive via car.) We had 4-person sleeper cabins, so we had plenty of space, and could sleep when we wanted to. Mekan joined us. As he kept practicing speaking with us, his English noticeably got better. We talked a lot about politics (he had trouble seeing how Americans can feel patriotic, but refuse to fight in the war), and cultural traditions regarding marriage (he is getting married in October) and sex. Turns out people all over the world have the same anxieties.

We got to Ashgabat at 6 in the morning on the first of July, with invitations to all to come to Mekan’s wedding.

The Conference

Unlike past years, the all-vol conference is now the only time when all volunteers – T-16s (my group) and T-15s (the group that arrived last year) are all in the same place at the same time. I had met most of them already, but there were a few T-15s I had never seen before and may never see again. We stayed at the Ak Altyn Hotel, one of the nicest, and the biggest, in Ashgabat. The outside pool (not a common thing in Turkmenistan) was a nice way to beat the heat (though the hotel where the conference was also held, was even air-conditioned). The Ak-Altyn also has a great disco, so a lot of us spent most of the nights there. I brought my guitar, so I had some jam sessions with some other volunteers.

I went with Noah and Kim (she is a volunteer in the Balkan Province, next to the Caspian) and bought plane tickets. In August, we are flying to Almaty, Kazakhstan, staying there a few days, then driving to Kyrgyzstan for a week.

The funny thing about Ashgabat, the Turkmen capitol, is how few people speak Turkmen. Most people speak Russian, and a fair amount of people speak fluent English. We found one taxi driver who couldn’t understand our Turkmen, because he was Armenian. On the way to the Kazakh Consulate we happened to get a Kazakh driver.

Letter dated June 29, 2008: the intricacies of parties with 300 guests

2008-07-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

My host father celebrated his “Pension Toȳ”. (Toȳ is Turkmen for celebration or wedding.) He just turned 63, which is when Turkmen begin receiving their pension, although they can still work if they want to (which he is going to do). It is also an important birthday, because it is the age the Prophet Muhammed lived to. For Turkmen parties, they often rent out reception halls, but still do all the cooking, in this case for 200-300 people. The day began with the slaughtering of chickens en-masse. I haven’t done it myself yet, but I have observed enough to figure out the technique. The morning of the party, there was a boiling cauldron of twenty chickens. (Recipe: water, chicken, onion, and a few cut-up tomatoes, dill and mint, and of course salt, slow boiled for 2 – 2 ½ hours (the chicken was pre-browned over an open flame.) The chicken was then removed, and 300 meat-stuffed green peppers entered the broth (this is how to cook for 300 people using a single three-foot diameter pot.) I ate about 8 meals that day. Noah came over in the afternoon. Shannon was going to join us, but was feeling sick. At the party, because my host father works for the Education Ministry, I saw my director and supervisor, and danced with the latter and his friends (dancing with the opposite gender is more common here in the north, with the Uzbek influence, than down in the south, but same-gender dancing is still prevalent. There are also some men & women group dances.) And I nearly forgot – how do you provide for 300 thirsty and toast-happy guests? 5 bottles of wine, 5 bottles of cognac, and 71 bottles of vodka (38 liters).

That weekend I also finally met the host sister I just recently learned I had, who is the mother of the little girl I thought was my host sister (but is actually my host niece). I also learned that one of my other host sisters, who is married, is married to her first cousin, which is apparently okay here. And our neighbors are also host cousins, though I am not sure of the exact relation.

Letter dated June 28, 2008: the usefulness of fluency in German

2008-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

I just finished my dinner of noodles and chicken neck, reflecting on what a wild few weeks it’s been. This past week was the all-vol conference in Ashgabat (when all the volunteers from across the country come in) so the week before, on June 23rd, we Daşoguz volunteers went to get train tickets. Because plane tickets have recently sky-rocketed from $2 to $17, there is much higher demand for train tickets. So we met up the night before in Daşoguz City, pulled an all nighter, and arrived at the train station at 4 a.m. to be first in line. (By 8 o’clock, when the ticket booth opened, there was a horde of a few hundred people choking the station.) But when we arrived it was just us, a few guards and train engineers, and a few other early birds. The guard tried to tell us something, which we didn’t understand, so he found another Turkmen to translate…into German. This guy turned out to be a 23 year old English teacher who admitted that he was embarrassed speaking much better German than English. (There are still some specialty high schools that teach German.) So we hung out with him and the employees for a few hours, in an odd mix of Turkmen, English and German. If we didn’t understand the workers, or if our new friend, Durdymyrat (nickname - Mekan) couldn’t find the words in English, he would tell me in German, and I’d tell everyone else in English.

By the time the sun came out, we were good friends with the workers. We found our way to the ticket window, where (now friendly and sympathetic) guards pushed the hordes back. Mekan helped check our tickets, and since he was also going to Ashgabat the same day, we invited him to join our group (we had seats in two sleeper cabins).

Letter dated May 23, 2008: Exploring Boldumsaz with Noah

2008-07-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

Last week all of us Daşoguz volunteers were supposed to meet up in Koneurgench for Julia’s English Club’s party, but then the Kazakh Ambassador came to town and the city got closed, and travel was a no-go. (Hence the expression ‘The Kazakh Ambassador came to town’ as in “Why didn’t you take out the garbage like I told you to?” “I was going to, but then the Kazakh Ambassador came to town!”)

Noah, who came a day early for the party, was essentially kicked out of the city, but figuring he had earned his weekend off, came to visit me. I took him out for what I thought would be a mundane tour of Boldumsaz (being what I thought was a mundane town) but on what turned out to be an incredible journey, we discovered Boldumsaz has:

- Apartments
- Camels (2)
- A horse (though quite bony)
- Freshwater clams (or oysters or some sort of shellfish) in its canals and big too! These things were 4-5” long!
- Woods! I didn’t even think this existed in Turkmenistan, but my village has a small woods (though not a full fledged forest).

And to conclude all that, while finishing the tour with a trip past the (closed) bazaar, we spotted an inner-tube hanging on the door of the tire shop across the road, which Noah bought after the most impressive round of haggling I have ever witnessed in this country. What better way to spend a horribly hot summer afternoon than floating down a river in an inner-tube? (I think it probably got up to about 100 degrees today, and it is still a week til June. Inside it stays a pleasant 80 degrees. (Since then I have measured 114 degrees.)

The other day a neighbor came home from the Army, so there was a big celebration with palow (fried rice) and cow head. Cow head, in case you haven’t tried it, actually does have some pretty good meat. Yeah, it has a slightly sour flavor, and it is more ‘soft’ than ‘tender’, but… but… oh God, what have I become? For future Peace Corp volunteers coming to Turkmenistan, frantically reading as much as possible about the country you probably haven’t heard of, let me explain that it is not so much that your standards will lower, as much as they will dramatically change.

But the fact is, most food here does not involve animal heads (though maybe it should?) and most of it is pretty straightforwardly good, assuming you like meat-stuffed dough in over a dozen varieties.

Turkmen food

2008-07-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

(posted by Sarah)

These pictures are all of home-cooked (except for the somsa) meals. All made entirely from scratch (except for the kielbasa). I know of four meals that I still need photos of, but this is the vast majority of what’s eaten here.

Chorek: Turkmen bread, being baked. Instead of sitting flat on the bottom of the oven, Turkmen bread is baked stuck to the sides of the oven. The oven (tamdyr) is a 3 foot wide hemisphere, with the opening on the top.

Bilishi: Deep-fried meat-filled rolls.

Bogursak: Deep-fried fist-sized dough, with or without sugar sprinkled on top.

Chorba: Soup (pictured with meat, potato and rice).

Fried eggs with meat: self explanatory. A common lunch.

Gatlama: Deep fried flat bread, with or without sugar on top.

Gay-ysh: Possibly my favorite. Noodles with meat, potatoes, onion and green onion or dill on top (if fresh). Served with the broth from the meat.

Grechka: Buckwheat noodles, meat and carrots.

Kohlbasa: Fried kielbasa with onions and hard boiled eggs. Another lunch food.

Manty: Steamed meat dumplings, served with yogurt (and occasionally ajyka, a spicy sauce.) Dill sometimes goes in the yogurt, which makes it even better. I have learned 4 ways to wrap manty.

Palow: This is the Turkmen meal. Fried rice with carrots and meat. Finicky volunteers scorn it. I love it. It is eaten at every celebration for any occasion.

Pilmen: Meat tortellini, in broth.

Freshly wrapped pilmen, waiting to be boiled.

Prashka: Deep-fried dough pockets, with meat.

Shashlik: Meat shish-kabob. This here is pork (a Russian influence.) On the plate to the left you will see orange wedges [mixed in with the meat]. These are solid chunks of fat. Also featured: tomato, cucumber & green onion salad, and local Boldumsaz vodka.

Söle (pronounced 'shole'): Like palow, but cooked with milk. Extremely filling.

Somsa: Baked hot pockets. These were bought at the bazaar. Everything else is homemade.

Sous: Meat, potato, carrot. Can’t go wrong.

I am wearing a traditional Turkmen don (the coat) and telpek (the hat). Next to me is my host brother, Wepa, holding my other host brother’s baby daughter, Leylinur. Because she is my brother’s daughter, due to Turkmen culture, I call her my sister. Behind us are our grapevines and satellite dish.

Letter dated June 22, 2008: Never Wash Your Pants Before Toasting

2008-07-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

I still haven’t bought a fan. I am seeing if I can tough (sweat) it out. But I did buy some linen pants as an alternative to jeans (I have two pairs of shorts, but Turkmen are very suspicious of shorts and my family doesn’t let me leave the house with them. Turkmen are also very suspicious of cold water, especially ice water. While in the USA, drinking ice water is a very common and refreshing way to stay cool, here in T-stan it is the verified cause of headaches, colds, the flu, stomach aches, and even diarrhea. It doesn’t really matter what you have. It’s probably because you drank cold water. But back to pants: my host father muttered something about cola and my host mother said that I needed to wash the pants before I wore them. So I went ahead and washed them…Foolish! Apparently, what my host father was saying was that we needed to toast the new pants. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I know things like new cars and houses are celebrated. But pants too. So here’s to you, dear pants!

The other day I was a guest at a neighbor’s down the street. He is a sports teacher and the father of one of the students I had taught. He is a good example of the fact that the ability to talk effectively in a new language is really the responsibility of both people involved. He could speak very clearly and at a reasonable pace (but not condescendingly slow or overly enunciating). On top of that, he was very good at explaining words that I didn’t know, and had a lot of patience. Other people I have met, let’s say I didn’t know the word ‘blorg’, would say, “You know, ‘blorg.’ ‘Blorg!’ You know?” No. But this guy was real easy to talk with, which provided a good hour of Turkmen practice.

He mentioned that in a few months his 2nd oldest son would be turning seven, which in Muslim culture means circumcision. The kid, hearing his name, looked up from the truck he was playing with, with a grin on his face that only a six-year old ignorant of circumcision can show. That kid has no idea what he’s in for.

*****

My students are definitely improving and though they still obviously make mistakes, they make them with correct grammar. (“What do you want to be [when you are older, for a profession]?” “I want to be a cat.”) And the students are real good at catching the others’ mistakes, and laughing when, let’s face it, a little laughing is called for (if politely done). This summer I am continuing my class, but because of the fallout in enrollment, I combined all grades so I teach 5-10th grade students twice a week, about 14 kids, which considering it is summer and this is school is pretty impressive. I’m not giving homework (I am trying to keep it more of a club than a class for the summer) and keeping the classwork mostly review as far as my content goes.

*****

I have been walking a lot lately, to get out of the house and explore my town, which is deceptive in size. The main streets are just a “T” more or less, and you don’t see many houses at all. But once you start exploring the side streets and paths, Boldumsaz has some serious sprawl. I have found a lot of apartment buildings (which I was totally ignorant of for a while), a couple more schools, a few kindergartens, and some surprisingly green, tree-lined streets. And I’ve now seen half a dozen lizards and snakes swimming in the irrigation canals. Note: swim in the Boldumsaz canals at your own risk.

Letter dated 6/10/08: “I Vant to Buy Your Veemen”

2008-07-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

So this past weekend I went to visit Noah in his small town. And because of all of the coins I had collected from kids paying for their photos I took at graduation, I paid for the entire trip (2 taxis and 2 vans) entirely in change (also a good way to annoy some drivers).

The highlight was breakfast, which we ate with a neighbor. She was on the older side of middle age, and apparently had a good-looking daughter of marrying age. So Noah decided it would be a ‘funny joke’ to push my cause to marry the girl. As the conversation pursued, one thing became fairly clear: the irony was lost in translation. Despite the fact that I had never even met the daughter, the mother was giving this proposal serious thought. I think this is probably the same way the early settlers bought America for beads: “It’s just a joke, they won’t actually think we’re serious… Oh jeez, they did!” However, there were some issues that we didn’t know Peace Corps policy on, such as where would we live after the wedding, and if we could secure grant money to pay for a bride. In the end, though, it seemed that the mother preferred Noah as a son-in-law because he already lived in the village, and I was two hours away in Boldumsaz. Oh well.

After breakfast we walked to a neighboring village to visit his friends who weave carpets. They (3 girls) were working on a 5’ x 7’ carpet, which takes 25 days. (The small 2’ x 3’ carpets take only a week.) I learned how to tie in the wool yarn, which to my surprise, really isn’t tied in. Each small piece is looped around two warp strings, and further held in place by the weft. Then it is trimmed to length. In other words, each bit of wool coming up from the carpet is its own piece, and looped, rather than tied, to the structural skeleton of the carpet. As for the 4-color pattern of the carpet (using black, red, white and orange) they memorize the whole thing. To loop in the yarn, you take two adjacent warp strings, pass the yarn between, behind, and around the one on the left; between and around the one of the right; and cut, leaving around a half inch sticking off. They somehow do that in one motion. It took me about 15 seconds just to grab the correct two strings.

To make up for my horrible Turkmen, Noah talked up my artistic skills (being a health volunteer, he actually speaks Turkmen all day; I get paid to speak English, so my Turkmen is lacking). They put me to the test by asking me to design patterns for dress collars. “Now?” So they gave me a pen and paper, and thank goodness for creativity that can work on the fly. I whipped out a few designs, including a pretty snappy one based on the Star of David, which they are going to embroider an example piece for me. All right, I am now a fashion designer.

The amazing thing with speaking Turkmen is the different reactions you get from different people, which is usually based on whether or not they have met other volunteers. In the van ride to get to Noah’s place, once the other people realized I was an American, they were all asking me questions and totally impressed at my handle of Turkmen (which considering I can hold a decent conversation on varying standard topics, after only speaking the language for 8 months, isn’t bad – many students, even after 10 years, get confused by ‘How are you?’) And on top of that, Turkmen is not a language typically learned by anybody outside of T-stan, so they thought it was cool I knew some.

However, if you meet the host family of another volunteer, they snicker and say things to the effect of, “So, you don’t really speak Turkmen…” And then ask the other volunteer questions about you, even the totally basic questions like “How old is he?” and “Does he have some kind of learning disability?” So you assert yourself, and answer with perfect grammar how old you are, and yes, you can speak Turkmen. And you feel proud and triumphant until they ask the next question. The next question comes in one of two forms. Option one: you understand absolutely nothing of it, and stare at them. You can vainly ask them to repeat it, or just answer anything and try to re-steer the conversation. (“Yes, my father is a programmer, what do you do?”)

The other kind of question they ask is when you understand all the words, but you just can’t figure out what they are asking. Example: “Are you airplane house after Wednesday sister blue eggplant?” Me: “Eggplant?” Them: “You know, the vegetable.” Me: “Yes, yes, I know eggplant…but eggplant what?” Them (to the other volunteer): “It is such a generous thing you are doing, looking after him and all…”

The flip side though, is that many volunteers start to lose their English skills after speaking exclusively Turkmen. Another volunteer said to me: “Those Turkmen language guides [given by the Peace Corps] are great, not just for my tutoring, but between classes if I want to practice what I learned, like write some sentences or do some exercises on my own time…” Me: “You mean homework?” Them: “That’s the word!”

Letter dated May 5, 2008: Jon’s (Ongoing) Guide to Fitting in to Turkmen Culture

2008-06-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Jon’s sister)

Dear Y’all,

I would like to present “Jon’s (Ongoing) Guide to Fitting In to Turkmen Culture.” How well do you fit into your new culture and society? Linguistic virtuosity? Well, that certainly helps, but that’s not the end of it (and I’m not saying that just because I’m not quite the most diligent student there is).

Here are some other areas to excel in:

1. Squatting - and this is not just for relief efforts. Turkmen don’t use chairs. When you eat, you sit crosslegged or with one leg up, but if you are just hanging out with the guys on the street, you squat. For a while. (I usually take a standing break about every 10 minutes or so.) This may not sound like a skill, but a lot of Americans can’t do it.

2. Finding creative ways to tell drunkards that you won’t give them money for vodka. Turkmen culture is very much about indirectness, except when someone wants your money to get drunker. But you can’t just say no, it just goes in one ear and out the other. Excuses I have used, all in one sitting: “I have no money on me” (true), “My home is too far away to get my money” (it was a half block away), “I don’t have money” (not quite the truth), “My paycheck isn’t for vodka” (quite true, and the other guys present laughed), and the ace up my sleeve: “Muslims aren’t supposed to drink alcohol.” The usual response is “I’m Russian” but it didn’t come to that.

3. Eating rice with your hands. So fine, I still end up with a lot of rice in the cuffs of my jeans (they are like magnets). But I have learned to at least take the big-sized (imagine a snowball) scoops, so my eating at least outpaces my metabolism during meals. I get less comments about rice in my eyebrows than I used to.

4. Shining your shoes. I’ll be frank – Turkmen judge you on your appearance. Hair longer than an inch and a half? Shaggy. Your tie knot? If you don’t know the Windsor, you can’t even get an entrance visa. And yes, those black leather shoes had better be black. I brush my shoes clean twice a day (morning and afternoon, before going to school, with cream when necessary). But no, this isn’t an all-day thing. When professional Turkmen are off the job, the flip-flops and t-shirts are on in a second.

So, practice these diligently, and someday you too can be mistaken for a Turkmen (it also helps if you don’t have red hair.)

-----

Also presenting: “How to Insult Someone in Turkmen by Comparing Them to a Fruit or Vegetable.” You may call them a(n):

1. Ajy sogan – “strong/spicy onion.” Equivalent to a ‘bad seed’ or ‘rotten apple.’

2. Bosh kädi – “empty pumpkin.” It’s like ‘air head.’ Someone a bit vacant up top.

3. Erkek käshir – “man carrot” (my personal favorite). It is used by women to insult other women who are like men in the kitchen. Instead of ‘you throw like a girl,’ this is ‘you mince like a man.’

Letter dated May 1, 2008: More travel tales, a conference, and Turkmenistan news

2008-06-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

Transportation continues to be one of the greatest sources of wonderful stories. This past Monday, we were supposed to fly to Turkmenbashy for a conference. The story was that a week before, we would go pick up tickets reserved for us at the ticket office. Horror stories abound about the need to show up at 5 in the morning or risk standing in ‘line’ (horde) for 5 hours. I took my chances and went in the afternoon at 3, after the lunch hour, which was rumored to be a decent time. Sure enough though, there was a mob, but I had a burst of insight that reserve tickets would be at a different counter. I found out where that was – wonderfully with no line. (Peace Corps uses an agency to reserve plane tickets, but they, like everyone else, can buy domestic tickets only 8 days in advance and the tickets go extremely fast.) I told the lady I was with P.C., and she gave me some trouble, but sold me a ticket. That Thursday, 4 days before the conference, I found out the conference was being switched to Ashgabat – because P.C. could not get tickets for the volunteers. (At that point I realized I had probably bought an unreserved ticket, and had been in the wrong line, but the ticket agent had given it to me anyways after slight annoyance.) So then P.C. was supposed to get us tickets to Ashgabat – which never came. How then, you might ask, does one get to Ashgabat, hundreds of miles to the south, on the other side of the Garagum Desert?

***9-hour Taxi Ride! (Going rate: 20 dollars.)***

We Daşoguz volunteers loaded into two taxis at 6 in the morning. Our taxi (me, Noah, Val and Alice’s counterpart Yulia) stopped to get gas for the journey, only to find out: no gas. The station was out. That would have been daunting to a lesser taxi driver, but not to Bagtdyr. He drove home, hopped out, and fetched a jug of gas. In no time, we were off.

After leaving the green outer rim of Daşoguz, we entered the desert. There is actually a fair amount of brush and low shrubby bushes in varying hues of green and yellow. The morning was not yet hot, but it was dusty. Turkmenistan has a lot of dust. When people figure out what to do with dust, T-stan will have a great new natural resource. Anyway, with the windows down for air, passing trucks would kick up billowing clouds of dust, which, if the windows weren’t rolled up fast enough, would fill the car. The black-haired members of the crew soon looked years older.

The route from Daşoguz City to Ashgabat is a nicely paved highway in the south, but what would be better described as a ‘dirt road’ in the north. It actually pushed that definition to its limit. Rocks, holes, piles of gravel, encroaching sand dune and camels all provided us with obstacles of varying speed. (Even out in the desert where they seemed to roam free, all camels are apparently owned by herders.) We also saw flocks of 200+ sheep. Our driver, Bagtdyr, at times abandoned the road altogether, choosing to drive on the noticeably smoother salt flats.

I did at least make good use of my ample time, by learning Russian from Yulia. I can now say such useful phrases as, “I work at school #1 in Boldumsaz,” and “Do you like to eat red tomatoes in the library?”

Well, by noon it was hot. The Amal Province got up to 40 degrees that day (40 degrees = 105 degrees, and that was still April). Those last 3 hours proved to be sweaty ones for everyone involved, and the cream in the wafers we bought had melted out.

The ‘small world’ moment came when, while stretching out our legs on the side of the road, Noah spotted his host uncle driving by in a big-rig and flagged him down. We all chatted for a bit.

All in all, probably because I like car trips, and I got to start learning Russian, I thought it was a fun adventure. I would describe it as a 9-hour scenic tour through a blowdryer (ever feel 100-degree wind?) – not something for every weekend, but if you suffer through it with friends, it can be entertaining in its own way.

Conference, conference. Blah blah blah.

The Ak Altyn (our favorite hotel) was unavailable, so we were booked at the Nagina. (Imagine a Soviet Best Western.) The good news was that the shower had hot water. The bad news was that there was only hot water. What is the best way to shower with scalding hot water? I don’t know either, but I got clean.

It was good to see volunteers from the Balkans Province, who were also at the conference. Everyone was able to catch up on the news and gossip. While Daşoguz is notorious for its overly salty water, it could be worse – in the town of Esenguli, near Iran and the Caspian, they don’t even have water and it hasn’t rained for 8 months. Puts things in perspective. I also got to hear tales of and rumors of various volunteers across the county who are close to breaking points. Unfortunate, but it happens. We have had a fairly low drop out rate so far (3 out of 39) but once the true summer heat kicks in, I think that will raise.

The return trip proved to be much more relaxing – we all had actual plan tickets. When we got to the airport, the security guards at the entrance asked us a question when the metal-detector-wand beeped at Val’s bag. They were speaking Russian though, which none of us understood (and he wasn’t talking about tomatoes.) Luckily, because of my German, I have an easy time picking out international words, like bombe. He confirmed my guess when he made an explosion with his hands, and then a ‘stabby’ motion. I laughed. “Yik yor, pychak yok, bombe yuk!” (No, no, no knives and no bombs!) He smiled and waved us all through, without even unzipping the bag.

We landed at Daşoguz after a short flight. Getting off on the tarmac, we were greeted by some amazing 70 degree weather and then we saw it:

You know how some people travel with their little dogs in little bags? Turkmen travel with their sheep. A man had a (not large) duffle bag with not one, but two sheep stuffed in it, their heads sticking out opposite ends. I don’t even know how you would get them in there. They bahhed a bit indignantly. This place never ceases to amaze me.

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

Big news in the culture front: the country is about to get a bit more normal. The month names are going to go back to the Russian names (pretty close to the English). No more Turkmenbashy, or Gurbansoltan. The week days, also renamed by the former President, are being changed too, but back to the traditional Turkmen names (though people mostly use Birinjigun, Ikinjigun (First Day, Second Day, etc.) rather than the “official names.” The currency, the manta, has finally met a compromised value between the official and black market (“commercial”) rate, and the next edition of the bills will be dropping the zeros – 5 and 10 manat bills instead of 5,000 and 10,000. Not only that, but Niyazov’s portrait will be removed from both of them, in favor of prominent Turkmen historical figures. Niyozov is getting the boot.

Letter dated April 25, 2008: Music

2008-06-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I could try to blame it on the peer pressure, which was strong. But it was nobody’s fault but mine. I thought this would never be me. Only morally depraved people with poor taste could sink so low.

So, I can play Enrique Inglesias on the guitar, which you probably guessed by now. It always starts off innocently enough. Your host sister asks you to write down the lyrics to one of his songs. So then you listen to it a dozen times to get all the words right. (Her: “What does ‘Ring my bell’ mean? Should I ring Enrique’s bell?” Me: “Uh…hey, look at the time!”)

Then you find yourself absentmindedly humming the tune, and you think you might as well figure out the chords (E minor, G & D, in case you were wondering). So you bring your guitar to school for English week, and of course the kids are asking if I ‘know Enrique?’ (Seriously, the man is a god here. Okay, not a god, but at least a prophet.) And what else could I say? “Do I?” Strummed a few chords and the kids went nuts. I even know the first line of the Turkmen version (“Har eden, har eden! *inhale*”)

Seriously though, these kids love music. At first I was trying to wow them with Beatles – I taught "Hello/Goodbye", and "She Loves You (Yeah, yeah, yeah)". But it was hard to find songs that are appropriate, devoid of 9 minutes of guitar solos, and with lyrics that are easy enough to learn. I did teach “This Land is Your Land”! But even short goofy songs - “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” the "Hokey-Pokey" (I had just taught body parts), and “Singing in the Rain” - proved to be huge favorites. I can still hear kids wandering the halls singing “I’m singing in the rain...” usually devoid of melody, but that is asking a lot for 5th graders. And even my 10th graders loved the “Hokey-Pokey”. They are not too cool for it.

My performing skills are definitely coming along, in the classical ‘jumping in the deep end’ (well, not quite) way – more than a few times now I have been asked to play music for large hordes of Turkmen. My standards are “Your Song” (Elton John) and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” Most people don’t have the patience to listen to more than two songs in a row in a language they don’t know.

In other news, the weather here is starting to get summer-like. It is not yet May and it got up to 90 degrees today. But it stays at least 15 degrees cooler inside (despite a lack of AC) and I drink a lot of water, so, so far, it’s not bad. (…but yes, it is not yet even May.)

And: a huge secret that the dry cleaning industry doesn’t want you to know: you know those pants you have that say ‘dry clean only’? It’s a lie. You can wash them the old-fashioned way. As if people only started cleaning clothes once dry cleaning came along. Plus, in this country, that seems to be a non-existent luxury.

Letter dated April 18, 2008: Kirsten wins a new pair of socks!

2008-06-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

There are very few Americans in Turkmenistan. And I know most of them. Aside from Peace Corps, there are Embassy people, but they work in Ashgabat. I had (thought I had) heard UNICEF had some presence here (at least in the past) but I haven’t seen anything of them.

In these conditions, you build up a sixth sense for detecting someone who doesn’t belong. I was at the American corner the other day, killing time, and in walk a girl and a guy. The guy is obviously Turkmen, but my spider sense is warning me about this girl. Long blond hair? Well, could be Russian. But there is something so quintessential to Americans, that no one else possesses (especially when they are in new or unfamiliar environments) which is bubbliness.

And then you hear them talk, and although you can’t hear the words, there is that unmistakable American accent – seemingly always with a hint of the South. At this point you feel an odd mix of curiosity (an American?!) and defensive territoriality (what are you doing in my country?)

Turns out she was doing an internship at the Embassy but was making a whirlwind tour of the country, hitting the major sites and cities (including Dashoguz). But embassy people miss out. They all live in ‘compounds’ and seem to miss the best part of Turkmenistan: organ meat. (“Wait, what else is there to eat?” I asked in shock?) And is life even worth living without chicken necks?

-----

So the votes have been counted, and the winner of the Hobby Challenge is Kirsten in D.C. who suggested calligraphy. Kirsten will receive a lovely pair of Turkmen socks. (All the other suggestions came from family members, who will be receiving socks regardless. How many socks do you need, anyway?

On the 28th I am going to Turkmenbashy (on the Caspian) for a P.C. conference. I will swim in it, weather permitting (it has been cold & windy these past few days). Hopefully, its mystical salty waters will enlighten me with the answer to the old riddle: is the Caspian a lake or a sea? This is not just a question or semantics, but a serious geopolitical issue. I won’t explain about it (you have the internet. Google it.)

So in May, I will start learning Russian from a teacher at my school. And I am going to resume actual Turkmen lessons because my skills there have been stagnating since training (aside from swears). Right now in Russian (I taught myself a little bit, but the amount that I learned is probably offset by the complete lack of proper pronunciation) I can count to 100, ask your name, say mine, and make general pleasantries. Otherwise, my pantomime skills are top notch. I was at the bazaar getting deodorant, but only saw the spray kind. So I asked, “Do you have *Whick-Whick* [with a wipe motion]? I don’t want *Pshh-Pshh* [with a spray action].” Very effective: I got the right stuff.

Letter dated April 15, 2008: “Linguistic Universalisms vs. Relativism in Turkmenistan”

2008-06-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

I am proud to present:

“Linguistic Universalisms vs. Relativism in Turkmenistan”

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t consider myself some linguistic authority for taking a class or two at a liberal arts college (because I didn’t – I once looked at someone’s homework). But I have made the important step of language learning that is truly indispensible: learning how to swear.

I can now swear in 3 Turkmen dialects (including my local ‘Chowdur’ dialect) and Uzbek. I will not write them, nor their English equivalent (suffice it to say it describes one’s less-than-noble intentions toward someone else’s mother).

Which leads to this letter’s theme: it seems no matter where you go in the world*, you can insult someone in this fashion. So give a point to Universalism**.

(*‘World’ in this case meaning the USA and Turkmenistan – there is a lot of the globe I haven’t seen.)

**Also interesting linguistically is that while the word for ‘mother’ varies between general Turkmen, ‘Chowdur’ Turkmen and Uzbek, the work for the particular ‘modus operandi’ is the same.

But the deeper truth here is that swearing is fun (probably didn’t see that one coming.) It removes that veneer that makes language dull and sterile. (“I am from America.” “The ball is on the table.”) It is how people actually think and talk (sometimes). It gives an emotional depth to language that can be lacking and reveals slang that while not polite, is a vital and colorful aspect of colloquial language. I taught some teachers a few basics of the English language – F., D., H., and S. and they loved it (I doubt any other language has swears as grammatically flexible as ours – particularly the good ol’ F., which can be an interjection, command, and readily an adjective, adverb and noun.

But here’s a point for relativism: though the F. word has its equivalents in all languages (I know of) the direct object is variable. English and Turkmen can both employ ‘mother’. Urdu can use ‘dog’ and ‘uncle’. German uses ‘knee’ and ‘bum’. Turkmen can also use ‘in-law’, which is pretty funny.

-----

Some people are wondering if I will write a book. I even had two Turkmen men last night tell me I should – a different experience from some volunteers whose Turkmen co-workers were paranoid about the possibility of ending up in print.

Frankly, I don’t know who would read a book about outhouses and cow-slaughtering (oh, except you) which seems to be the extent of what I write about. But I will take the diplomatic approach, and in my finest political style say: I have no current intentions to write a book, but I am not ruling anything out.

Letter dated April 7, 2008: Skulls! Zombies!

2008-06-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

*EXCITING POST* - Skulls! Zombies!

Now that I have your attention, on Saturday I went with my family to the graveyard in Boldumsaz to make Tzadaka (an interesting linguistic link between Jewish and Turkmen culture). Tzadaka here is less about charity and more about giving thanks to God – in this case for my host brother finding work after 1 ½ years of nothing. [Transcriber’s note: while today the word tzadaka in Hebrew is understood to mean giving charity, in the Torah it was used to refer to a righteous person.] At the graveyard, we walked around the tomb (3 times) of a long-ago important Turkmen, holding our fingers to the brick and occasionally touching the fingers to our foreheads. Outside of the wall-encircled tomb we said a prayer. (Note: I may be turning Muslim…I’ll keep you notified.) In a small building to the side of the graves we ate dograma (‘bread soup’) and plenty of other food (various fried breads). There were three bulbs wired to the ceiling and a metal tube radiator running the length of the wall, but looking around I realized there was nothing here to indicate the 21st century, or even the later 20th.

So you’re like, great, get to the zombies. Alright. Turkmen graveyards are very surreal – the ground was all white from salt. But mainly because there are ladders coming out of the ground. The graves/tombs themselves look like miniature brick houses – a square base with an angled roof, all about 4 feet high. Others are a square wall with an ornate higher end, which look more mosque-like. And at all of them, there are ladders coming out of the ground. And yes, with all of my maturity and cultural sensitivity, all I could think was, this is just inviting the zombies to crawl up out of the ground. (No, I did not actually see any zombies.) But I asked around. In Islamic tradition, they bring the body to the grave by carrying it on a ladder (sans coffin). The Turkmen extension of that is to stick the ladder halfway into the ground (they were unsure about the exact significance of that.)

On Sunday I went up to Kone Urgench (probably locatable with Google Earth) to meet up with the rest of the Dashoguz volunteers. We went to the ‘360’- an extensive area of tombs and graes of 360 Mullahs. Aside from plenty of small graves, this area is famous for its giant tower and mausoleums. (There are Turkmen tourists who come here!) If you visit the site 7 times, it is equivalent to making Haji to Mecca. My current count: 1. The whole area is filled with trees (small ones) and is quite a sight to see (I’ll send photos.) Many of the mausoleums are in various stages of being ruins due to Turkmen’s least favorite historical figure: Genghis Khan.

There is a hill near the tower. If you roll down it (I did not, I will do it to complete my Turkmen Haji) it is supposed to predict your future based on if you veer to the left, right or go straight.

As I mentioned, Turkmen are not buried in coffins. As a result, if the land around the body erodes, out comes the body. Around the sides of this hill were numerous bone fragments: a pelvic girdle, a few arm bones, an intact set of lower teeth, and one readily viewable skull. (No zombies.)

Not too shabby for one weekend.

In other news: a warm hello goes out to Alice III, and to Don Kim.

Well, the hobby suggestions have started pouring in. Whittling, calligraphy, food documentarian, and Dungeons & Dragons. (You can guess which was from Ari.) No, I could not taint Turkmenistan, pure in its void of non-six-sided dice. Though it could have its merits as a teaching tool (alright, class. What is the present perfect of ‘to polymorph’?)

That’s it for now. Yes it gets boring at times. But this is also my way to not only keep in touch with a lot of people (indirectly) but also to let you learn about this fantastic world I now live in.

Please make sure you have the most current address if you write to me.

Suji Turkmen Nahar! Delicious Turkmen Food!

2008-05-01T00:47:00.000-07:00

I heard there is a dire lack of available online photos of Turkmen cuisine. I will remedy that.

Letter dated April 4, 2008: six months of cultural acclimatization

2008-04-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

As you may or may not have noticed, I have now been in Turkmenistan for 6 months. Sometimes I sort of forget, with all the regular day-to-day business. But it is usually when I look up and see the ol’ Green and Red waving proudly in the air, or when I gaze at one of the omnipresent smiling portraits of my dear Gurbanguly that I am reminded where I am. Yep, although there are still many things I am not quite used to, or haven’t experienced, I have now discovered ‘regular’ life in Turkmenistan. Basically I am in the stage of acculturation where you have come to accept most things around you as ‘normal’, no matter how odd they may have seemed at first. By the way, I watched a rooster get slaughtered and butchered. Nowhere near the pomp and circumstance as the cow slaughter – for instance it only took one man, and there was considerably (you might say ‘disappointingly’) less blood. But yeah, sucker did kick around for a while after his head was cut off ( and given to Rex the dog).

Russian, Turkish and Central Asian (Turkmen & Uzbek) pop music is growing on me (though I an not much of a fan of traditional Turkmen music, I like their pop). But I refuse to like Enrique. Turkmen pop has the general Cathay aesthetic of pop music, but is still most definitely & distinctly Turkmen (and I am starting to be able to pick out the words). [Sarah's note: YouTube has some Turkmen pop videos if you're curious. I wasn't able to figure out who Enrique is, unless Jon is referring to Enrique Iglesias, which is possible - a current Turkmen musical trend is to emulate foreign singers.]

With the spring here now, pickled vegetables are finally being replaced with fresh vegetables. I think green onion is now my main source of vitamins. (About 95% of the food here is meat, carrot, potato, and rice… and of course fat in all its glorious forms). I try to balance tea consumption (from non-distilled water) with water from my distiller. The distiller is too slow to provide enough for tea and cooking – about 2 hours per liter, but it also takes out the salt, which is about a tablespoon per 3 liters. That’s enough to cut through the taste of green tea (not to mention cause major long-term health risks for the heart, liver and kidneys.)

Also with spring, the new photos of the President are going up. Last year’s photos featured him looking out into the future, and wearing a red tie. Now, he is looking directly forward, and wearing a blue tie. Very stylish. Still optimistic. But perhaps now his look shows an intention to challenge and implore the Turkmen to do their best for their country.

I think the greatest realization to me currently is the vastness of the world. In some ways the world is small and always getting smaller – with cell phones, internet, global commerce, planes, etc. But at the same time, especially coming from the U.S. where the prevalent sentiment is 'we are the world', I am now in a place where they don’t speak English, our politics don’t extend here, there is no Christianity or Judaism, they don’t listen to the same music (aside from a few MTV staples), and the value system itself is very different. So, yeah, I can go to Daşmoguz, pay a dollar a minute to call the other side of the world, watch MTV, drink Coca-Cola and relax on a “regular ‘ol” Friday afternoon, but this is still a very different place. Or to put it much more accurately and get to the nature of it, I am remarkably different. This is the harder thing to accept: not that this country can be the norm, but what I – and you – are used to might be unknown. (And to respond to a letter I got, people here are not necessarily ‘pro-west’, though they are certainly not against it. The country is very proudly neutral. They don’t get involved with demonizing others. There also is of course a general isolation from and lack of knowledge about the rest of the world. But no, they don’t “hate our freedom”.

That’s all for now.

A Camel-filled Taxi Trip to Ashgabat

2008-04-30T01:04:00.000-07:00

This week we are in Ashgabat for a PC conference. It was supposed to be in Turkmenbashy on the Caspian, and we were supposed to fly, and then due to a long series of odd events, it got switched last minute to Ashgabat and...no plane tickets. So how do you cross the country without plane or train? Automobile! Us Dashoguz (province) volunteers met up in Dashoguz city the night before, woke up at 4:30 in the morning, downed some goose-egg omelets and hopped in 2 taxis at 6am. Transportation costs here are very different than in the US. A plane ticket costs 2 dollars, if you can get it. Or you can drive via taxi cross-country for 20 dollars. (28,000 and 300,000 manat, respectively.)

Anyway, we started off. Turkmenistan, where people live, is fairly green. There are no forests, but there are a lot of trees in villages, and the fields are now green with crops. But once you leave the edge of the country, you enter the Desert. Now, you may be used to 8 lane smoothly paved highways, but the highway connecting Dashoguz to the south would be better described as a 'dirt road'. At points it even pushed that concept to its limit. Piles of rocks, creeping dunes, holes, and numerous camels provided ample moments to swerve. And a few times the driver decided the road wasn't for him at all, and just drove on salt flats.

About noon, as it turns out, the desert gets hot. It got up to about 100, so with the windows open, it felt like we were driving through a blow-dryer. And when the occassional truck would pass, we would get enveloped in dust. Eveyone had grey hair by the end. Even our bags, covered by a tarp, sealed in the trunk, were covered with dust.

Letter dated March 21, 2008: The Nitrogen Cycle in Türkmenistan, a tale in 3 acts

2008-04-28T07:52:00.001-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

In regards to contact via e-mail: the internet access in Daşoguz could be described as generally lacking. There are two places to use internet: the American corner and the Internet Café (there was another internet café, but it was closed under mysterious circumstances). Both are in Daşoguz city, which I go into maybe every two weeks. But the real factor is whether or not the internet ‘works’! It is hit or miss. You are still better off writing letters.

---

Prologue: Turkmen names

All names here have meaning. A lot of girls have names with gül, which means ‘flower’ – Güljemal, Gülayim, Gülistan, etc. Oddly, though, gul (u without the dots) means ‘slave’, and people don’t always use the dots when they write.

Ogul means son, but is often used in girls’ names. My favorite is Ogulgerek (“[We] need a son”.) What do you do if your fifth baby in a row is a girl, even though you want a son? Name her Ogulgerek. (Actually know an Ogulgerek with a younger brother, so I guess it works.)

The Main Story: The Nitrogen Cycle in Türkmenistan

Act I:
One day my host brother Wepa (‘loyalty’) was digging in the garden, so I went out to help him. Now this wasn’t a hole for a flower or something, it was big – once completed it was about 2’x5’ and 3’ deep. I took a turn digging, and after a few minutes of substandard scooping, Wepa had asked if I had ever worked in the yard before. The problem is how you define ‘working in the yard.’ His definition was ‘digging a trench’. Mine was “Hey mom, look, I planted oregano!” So, I’m like, “Uh, yeah, I’ve worked in a yard. Who do you think I am?” Then I sat down in the shade and caught my breath.

I asked if the hole was for a tree, and he said no, it was for seu – ‘water’. They had little irrigation ditches around the garden, so I assumed this would be some main reservoir. The problem is, seu has some variant meanings (you can use it to mean soda, among other things).

Act II:
Later that day I was relaxing in my room with the window open. My window faces the yard, and is the only one on that side of the house. But suddenly there was just a HORRIBLE SMELL. In the small villages I would blame it on flatulent cows. But there aren’t really any cows in Boldumsaz. It lingered for maybe an hour, but I didn’t think any more about it.

Act III:
Late in the afternoon, I headed to the outhouse, which turned out to be surprisingly clean and... empty. And that hole in the yard: no longer a hole. Now I knew about other methods of outhouse cleansing, which involves a truck with essentially a large shop-vac, but this method would be described as "my host mother and a bucket". Then Wepa had to slowly smother the extracted dirt back into the 'quagmire'. I didn’t help him with that (though I did watch out of horrified fascination.

The next day the garden seemed fairly normal except for the one large patch of dirt which was browner than the rest.

Epilogue: (This, like the prologue, has nothing to do with the main story.)
There is certain traditional Turkmen music that sounds all right, though other songs prove hard to appreciate by my western-toned ears. An entirely different concept of scale, harmony and melody than I am used to. I have always wondered, does that to a Turkmen sound like American pop music does to us? And do they think ‘pop’ sounds bizarre and atonal? But then I realized two things: A) western-style pop music is very popular here, and B) I listen to bands like Led Zeppelin and Cream, who have plenty of moments devoid of – let’s call it ‘pop aesthetic’ – anything resembling melody or the like. And that's part of the reason I enjoy them. So carry on, Turkmen music! Throw melody to the dogs!

Post Epilogue:
I decided to splurge and buy a pack of Mach 3 razors. They are $10 for 4, which, when you consider my monthly pay of $150, is considerable, but I have gotten maybe 8 uses out of the previous blade and it still cuts better than the Chinese disposable razors. So the Mach 3 razors were 215,000 Manat, which is only 10,000 (one bill) cheaper than the ‘shoes’ I bought.

Letter dated March 12, 2008: lots of eating and thinking

2008-04-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

Turkmen stoves! These are wonderful devices. They generally have 2 settings: ‘off’ and ‘flamethrower.’ This keeps the hairs on my knuckles perpetually singed. I once, out of curiosity and morbid fascination, turned it up all the way. It seriously made a FOOOSH sound, accompanying a 6" high flame. Turkmenistan is sitting on quite a lot of natural gas, so I guess the philosophy is “Let’s use it up!” If you turn the gas on but don’t light it, it sounds like a windstorm.

---

My favorite word in Turkmen, incidentally the most commonly used word in the country, is iýiber! Iý is the command ‘eat’, and -ber is a suffix indicating ‘polite encouragement’, according to the P.C. grammar guide. So it is like, “Please eat some more!” or “Won’t you have another bite?” Though the catch is that people generally say it with the vocal inflection and facial expression of, “Eat more or die!” And you are perpetually told this (okay, only during meals). If you are sitting idly during a meal: “Iýiber!” If you are eating soup: “Iýiber!” (with the bread pushed towards you). Then you start eating the bread. “Chσrba iýiber!” ("Eat more soup!") You’re like, “Son of a…” and you start eating the soup again. Then they tell you to eat more soup… while you are eating the soup. Well, if you give me another spoon, I can eat with both hands.

---

I previously talked about the massive feasts that happen for Turkmen birthdays, and the pacing needed to survive. But day to day, the necessary pacing is for drinking tea. Turkmen drink a LOT of tea. Imagine a lot of tea, then double that. Then add 4 more cups. Then have another. While the book Three Cups of Tea talks a lot about Afghan culture, the Turkmen version would be called Two Gallons of Tea. And, like eating, you are told to drink more. The trick, aside from peeing often, is to start saying you are done/full about 4 cups ahead of time. You’ll probably still need to drink a cup or 2 more than you want, but that’s not bad.

---

On a non-food note: you have quite a lot of time to think in the P.C., cuz there isn’t much else to do. This is not a good place to come if you are afraid to be alone with your thoughts. Today, after paging through a mistake-laden English textbook, I had one of those moments of philosophical horror: how much of everything we think we know is wrong? Maybe not completely wrong, but not fully correct. But what about completely wrong? Some bit of knowledge you read in a book, and you probably don’t refer to it often, but it helps form your world view.

All of these kids in town and at school, they are not in my classes but they know that I am the American. No matter what time of day it is, they say, “Good morning!” Their sole bit of knowledge of English is wrong. (Hey, at least ½ of my Turkmen is probably wrong).

I taught the family’s dog to sit (in English – a bilingual dog). He is not one of Turkmenistan’s Alabay dogs, but some sort of shepherd-like breed. But the tops of his ears hang down (he is actually a minority here: his ears and tail are not cropped). Smarter than I first thought he was, but still an enthusiastic nut. I think I might be able to teach him to role over, but one day at a time.

---

A final word: Taxis. Glorious taxis. It is well known enough that a taxi here is any car that pulls over. Another difference from American taxi culture is that here, if you are the only passenger (and in a larger city, like Dashoguz – this won’t happen in Boldumsaz) you might not go directly to your destination. The driver will ask, “Do you mind if I stop and run in here? Just 2 minutes!” And you’re not really in a hurry, so why not? He comes back soon enough, and after another block says, “Just one more stop!” (Quite the courier!)

So many things happen here on a regular basis that would normally be considered ‘odd’ or ‘out of the ordinary’ that I don’t even try to worry about it. A 6-year old driving a van? No, of course he isn’t buckled, nobody in this country buckles. (Except P.C. volunteers! Of course.)
What good is a seat belt when the car is held together with packing tape?

That’s all for now.

Letter dated 3/7/08: appreciating women, good shoes, good jokes, and pickled peppers

2008-04-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

Dear All,

Okay, so I am starting on a disappointed note. What’s the deal, America? Why is it that I have to come to TURKMENISTAN to hear about International Women’s Day? Okay, so the possibilities:

I am just an idiot. It happens every year in the US, right? (No, not Mother’s Day) Maybe…well if so, forgive me. But I never remember hearing anything about this.*
It is not really ‘International.’ Kinda like ‘World Series’ (Canada is, after all part of the world.) Fine, but still, why does Turkmenistan have it but we don’t?

*The deciding factor: Does Walgreen’s sell International Women’s Day cards? If not, it ain’t no holiday…

Let’s be frank, Turkmenistan is a place that would make Feminists riot. Women are supposed to stay home, cook, wash the dishes, wash the laundry (both by hand), sweep, clean… you get the picture. And many have jobs outside the home, too. I heard someone say he thought Hillary would set a bad example as President. Why? "Because she’s a woman."

Now, at the same time, Turkmenistan at least shows its appreciation to its women (there is a Men’s Day, too!). And this isn’t just words, like “let’s leave no child behind.” At least at my school, they paid 200,000 manat to each family for each girl student (i.e. one family has 4 girls at the school? 800,000 manat). Okay, so 200,000 manat is equal to $10, but it's more like $100 for local purchasing power. (Oh, going back to the plethora of work women do: women here are ripped. You see 70 year old grandmas here with juggernaut arms.)

So I’ll end my rant. America, show some love to your women. Cook them all a nice breakfast. Tell them they are looking pretty today. To all of my women readers: Happy International Women’s Day! You are all wonderful. Thank you for everything you do so well! Cuz hey, we men wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.

---

Ok, back to the regular bit. I bought new dress shoes (the old ones – 2 ½ years old, from Vienna – finally died.) So, I went to the Daşoguz bazaar, and …YIKES. If I haven’t mentioned cheap imported Chinese goods before, I will now. I mean cheap. Single piece molded rubber shoes. Shoes here I guess are supposed to be rubbery, because the vendors were all too happy to demonstrate that you could twist the shoes completely around with no ill effect. So I bolted from the bazaar, and went to the American corner (the embassy-run English education center with highly fluent students and student employees). I enlisted the help of a willing Turkmen to help me pick out a pair of decent quality shoes at a decent price. Which was a good idea. He would ask questions like “are your shoes high quality?” and actually get honest answers, like “no.”

So I got a pair. But I think they are maybe a little too big, so I will probably have to buy a new pair (there is no ‘returns’ desk at the bazaar). But I get more than enough money from the Peace Corps for life out in the etrap (country).

---

There are these great breakthrough moments in teaching, like when your students finally nail the pronunciation of a word. My students kept pronouncing ‘guitar’ like GITter and finally, I’m just like, "NO!!!!! It guiTAR!! GuiTAR!!!"... and then they said it! My heart skipped a beat. And I realized too, after working on ‘coffee’, that they will all sound like Chicagoans.

---

The hardest part about starting a language from scratch and being isolated from other fluent speakers is humor. Humor is so heavily language-based, with puns, slang, and cultural nuances. It would be completely in vain to try to tell the Saddam Hussein/Little Miss Muffet joke*. So I am slowly evolving humor. The first stage is Harpo Marx. Perfect! He didn’t even talk. Pantomime a sheep being slaughtered. Pretend to hit your little 6-year old host sister with a guitar. (Note: little kids find it hilarious).

*One of my step-father’s many jokes.

Next, surprisingly enough, is the bully stage. Let’s face it, making fun of people is funny. Okay, keep it in good fun, and know your bounds. But explain that if you eat too much more, you will get fat like your host father. Or, call kids crazy.

Third, as your language skills are improving, comes the Jerry Seinfeld stage. You are not really making jokes as much as pointing out situations that may have inherent humor.

I am really just on the cusp of this exciting new stage. So I have no good examples. (Okay, fine. “So what’s the deal with camels?”) After that probably comes smashing melons or something.

---

My new culinary love is anything pickled (almost anything… I didn’t much care for pickled cow's stomach). Pickled tomatoes are great, along with cabbage, carrots, garlic cloves and peppers (I once ate a whole pack!). And then you drink the brine, which is cool and refreshing (yes, my standards are a bit ‘off’.

---

So my host family (little sister, brother, ‘mama’ and ‘papa’) all say hi! They are all awesome and have great senses of humor*. My little host sister is as cute as a button and has a huge grin when anything happens.

* And because they have had a lot of volunteers before, they are used to American ways, and sympathetic to the Peace Corps situation. Sadly, this town has a bad track record for volunteers. Out of the 4 I know of, apparently at least 2 or 3 either ‘terminated early’ or were ‘administratively separated’. “Boldumsaz” is close to the Turkmen for “the music stopped.”

---

Sadly, though probably for the best, my cushy schedule of a 3-day work week is coming to an end. Peace Corps says that we are only supposed to work 20 hours a week, but I get the impression my counterpart Ogulje wants me at school more often. Also, since most of my host family is older (there is another brother and sister who don’t live at home) they’ve said, “So, you’re going to work… right?” Plus my predecessor, Nick, who lived with this family AND had the same counterpart, was apparently a work horse. Way to set the bar high, Nick. Way to go.

Your chance to see Jon (and Istanbul!)

2008-04-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

(posted by Sarah)

Jon's winter break is Dec. 31, 2008 – January 13, 2009. He will be vacationing in Turkey, primarily in Istanbul (which was once Constantinople).

Jon's mom and stepdad, along with Sarah and her boyfriend, are planning a trip to visit Jon while he is in Istanbul. If you are interested in coming along, send an e-mail to Jon's mom and she will assist you with trip arrangements. You can contact her at jschaffer726@hotmail.com.

Photos!

2008-04-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

(posted by Sarah)

Me, Rachel & Julia in Ashgabat (at ‘Disneyland’)

Me, Maya (our Turkmen culture and language teacher), Rachel & Julia at the Mosque in Ruhabat (near Ashgabat)

Me (alone) near Nissa

Me (with the white dog & young kid) outside Bolshewik (my training site). Who is the kid? I don’t know. I would walk & kids would show up.

Letter dated March 3, 2008: speaking and teaching English

2008-04-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

Dear Everyone:

I am living with a new host family. They are super cool and have hosted volunteers (such as Nick, my predecessor). They have older children – well, not children – who are my age, which I like. My host siblings all speak varying degrees of pretty good English, which is helpful for avoiding confusing issues, and let’s face it, it is refreshing to be able to talk easily and normally. My host brother also plays guitar and he can teach me a thing or two.

They also have a very friendly pet kitten (Mickey) and a mutt puppy (Rex). The dog is kept in the yard, but Mickey wanders in and out of the house. It is finally spring in Turkmenistan, which is wonderful. The air is warm and I can sleep with the window open. Apparently, this winter was especially cold. And they ain’t seen one like this since ’69, I reckon. There is, as lore reports, an extra-cold winter every 40 years or so, and this was right on schedule.

The great thing with small-town Turkmenistan is that everyone seriously knows everyone. One of my students asked me where I moved to, and all I said was “Kurt Bagshy Street” (which yes, has more than one house) and she responded, “Oh, with Nick’s family.”

Another funny thing is the common combination of 6’ wide satellite T.V. dishes in people’s yards next to outhouses. I am thankful for them both, but they do make odd companions.

When my students don’t understand the homework (out of 5 grades, I had one girl understand a homework assignment that called for them to “write 10 sentences about anything, be creative”), they usually just copy passages out of the Ruhnama (the late, former President’s spiritual guide) or the textbooks. I am starting to recognize which lesson they are copying and I can spot Turkmenbashy’s writing from a mile away. But I make them read it out loud and it is better than nothing.

I taught the present continuous tense (I am reading) today. Oh my God, it was amazing. I hate the simple present (I read). It’s like I can talk again.

That’s all for now,

Take care,

Love, Jon

Letter dated February 27, 2008: Birthday and teaching techniques

2008-03-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

Hello from Turkmenistan!

So I am teaching 5th through 10th, 12 students in each grade (well, the most is 12. Most have leveled out to about 9 or 10. The class is extracurricular, and some decided it wasn’t for them.) My 9th grade class is only 6 students. There are no 11th or 12th forms in Turkmenistan and in fact, 10th was only recently reinstated along with making English mandatory in all grades.

I use a lot of games, for a few reasons. If my class is optional, and the kids are coming to school in their free time, it had better be fun. Also, when done respectfully, games can be a good way to learn. Also, my 8th graders, for instance, all seem to have A.D.D., so a long presentation on the finer points of syntax won’t do it for them.

Some volunteers, like Dennis in Daşoguz, are at school with National Olympiad winners who do ask about those points, or about the future perfect conditional tense. He is at a very different school. I just recently introduced the simple past tense. (A few minds were blown!)

So I am writing this on my birthday. How do you say birthday in Turkmen? Chocolate!! (Actually, doglangün). Just from my students (a good way to gauge your popularity), I got 7 bars of chocolate, one big bar and two boxes worth. I also got 3 pens, 3 address books, one pad and a picture frame. I felt like having a stress-free day at school, so I had the kids sing the birthday song, then did word jumbles and Pictionary. Some kids fly through the jumbles. Pictionary is actually a great way to see which words students remember – not the students guessing, but whoever has to draw.

Another game that students love is Telephone (or "PS PS PS"). It is actually a good way to get the smarter students to push the weaker students, but they all have fun.

Homework is always great to read, because they are getting pretty good and some of the students are getting creative. I had a lesson on descriptive words for people – tall, strong, fat, etc. – and one of the homework sentences was “My camel is big, fat and strong.” Awesome!

The Friday before my b-day was a party weekend in Daşoguz – a disco on Friday night, and on Saturday…homemade chocolate and sprinkle-covered donuts. Wow. Nothing else to say. I ate about 12.

Letter dated February 18, 2008: Uzbekistan

2008-03-22T09:05:00.001-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

Dear family and friends,

By now you have probably guessed it: I have a slight love-affair going on with Uzbekistan. Actually, the feelings only go one way. Uzbekistan does not know me (yet!). I guess that makes me less of a Romeo and more of a stalker.

-----

You know you’re in Turkmenistan when:

Uzbekistan looks like paradise*. From its state-of-the-art T.V. industry to its glorious mosques, from its men who know how to sport the 'stache to televised children’s kick-boxing (it is seriously a remarkable T.V. industry), Uzbekistan has it all. Sure, some will say that they have human rights abuses, but come on, name one country (aside from Iceland) that doesn’t, which leads to…

* a progressive country

You also know you’re in Turkmenistan when you are explicitly forbidden from traveling to 3 out of the 4 neighboring countries. Sorry, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Even within Turkmenistan, I need to tell my counterpart and host family where I will be at all times, even if I just need to go to the bazaar. A volunteer in last year’s group traveled across the country without telling anyone. Peace Corps found out about that and sent him home (I am now the only Jon). They are serious about policy.

Oh yeah, the 4th country, which I can go to, is Kazakhstan. I still don’t know anything about it that I haven’t learned from "Borat", which actually means I know less than nothing about it.

-----

I did finally find someone who had heard of Jews. All they really knew was that Jews were supposed to be clever*. I asked if she thought I was, and she said yes. I replied it probably wasn’t because of being Jewish (“but thanks”.)

*Actually I had heard the ‘clever’ bit from a real good friend and neighbor in Bolshewik. Now I am not quite sure if that is a ‘quick thinking, astute’ kind of clever or an ‘I’ll trick you and swindle you out of your money’ clever, but whatever.

Letter dated February 16, 2008: Feast!

2008-03-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

Dear All,

Greetings from Turkmenistan –

Now a word about Turkmen feasts:

If you go to a birthday party in Turkmenistan, even for a two-year old, there will be lots of food (and vodka). The idea is not ‘who is going to finish this rice?’ – but rather ‘if there is no rice left, something went terribly wrong.’

So I went with the English teachers and various members of the administration to the birthday party of one of the teacher’s two-year old daughters. The table (i.e. a 12’ long table cloth spread on the floor) was bedecked with plates of peanuts, walnuts, salted shanyk (a kind of nut), raisins (black, red and yellow), potato salad, beet salad, bread, fried flat bread, meat somsa (home cooked hot pockets), pickled vegetables, sausage, cheese, dill, cookies, apples, oranges, cucumber, pomegranate, candy (Turkmen regard Russian candy as the best, but I am partial to Ukranian sweets), cake (which is saved for later) and lots of tea. There are also two or three small groves of bottles – juice, water, vodka (this is Turkmenistan after all) and Turkmen wine (we would call it Schnapps. They shoot it).

Now we had been working all day, and were all hungry. But like with the bottomless basket of breadsticks at The Olive Garden, only a true fool fills up at this stage. Eating, after all, is a sport, and the seasoned athlete knows to pace himself. But the food is good, and it is the Turkmen culture of hospitality for everyone to tell you to keep eating, so you start to get kind of full. Well, then the main course comes out – bowls of meat dumpling soup and platters of turkey (with cucumber and dill). If I had not already described it, Turkmen eat almost everything (except for soup) with their hands. They don’t carve the turkey, they dismember it. Scrawny by Thanksgiving standards, but lean and tasty nonetheless. By now the vodka and toasts start flowing. So by now you are full and feeling mellow from the vodka and the women are making you dance (not young Turkmen maidens, but the old Assistant Director of my school). And you are not much of a dancer by American standards, let alone with the Turkmen moves. AND they are filming this. But hey, why not?

Eventually the dancing winds down, and the cake is cut and eaten (washed down with more vodka. And old Turkmen women can drink with the best of them). So now you are stuffed, despite your best judgment. And you have that spider-sense tingling that more food is coming. Sure enough, they bring out plates of shredded pickled carrots. You think "how odd, pickled carrots for dessert?" But naturally, you are wrong. It is an appetizer. Of course! The palaw (rice with lamb) platters come out, and you stuff some down symbolically, or maybe just hide it in your cheeks for later.

All of this was added to by a Turkmen man asking me for advice about his HEMORRHOIDS. I’m not a doctor. My advice was to see a doctor.

I have never slept so soundly as I did by the time I got home.

The odd thing with Turkmen parties is that you never see all the people – and this is not a ‘standing-up let’s schmooze’ party, but ‘sit-down and eat’. There will be at least one other room with people and food, and other family members who just have to cook and serve, and probably some random people you just don’t know about.

Letter dated February 12, 2008: Hobbies

2008-03-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom and posted by Sarah)

Dear All,

This letter is dedicated to hobbies…

****READ BELOW ABOUT AN EXCITING CONTEST!****

There is not so much to do here in my nice town of Boldumsaz. Turkmenistan in general has its beautiful ruins and carpets, and a glistening white marble capitol, and there is always plenty of tea and dograma (bread soup). And there are some discos in big cities – the Ak-Altyn Hotel in Ashgabat has a great disco (well-used by P.C. volunteers) – but I am not in a BIG city, let alone Ashgabat (unlike some volunteers *cough*Kate*cough* who won’t be named).

Boldumsaz has roughly the hustle and bustle of Kenilworth [transcriber’s note – a very small wealthy Chicago suburb]. There is a post office. Ok, there are a few cafes and a bazaar, so it is like Winnetka [a slightly larger wealthy Chicago suburb] minus 10 billion dollars.

We do get Uzbek T.V. I have learned from Uzbek weather forecasts that the easternmost state in U-Stan is Andijon. Excellent. There is also a state called Jizzax.

Back to the topic: This is a good place for hobbies. I only work 20 hours a week (actually 18) and I have no internet to kill time with. So I have been:

Playing A LOT of guitar (just learned ‘Hey Joe’ – that’s right, my guitar now plays Hendrix) – I now know songs by heart. And drawing – just had a huge burst of 5 new drawings, and I am designing a dragon tattoo for Alice in Dashoguz City.

And Sudoku – I still have my book from the airport. ‘Difficult’ is for losers. I do the 16x16 square ‘challenger’.

I have completely and obsessively reorganized all of the photos & music on my computer (multiple times).

Reread Lord of the Rings. Even the Appendices [you Lord of the Rings fans know what that means].

Does flossing count?

And it still gets boring. I have started learning Russian, which will help fill time.

But…

****CONTEST****

I need new hobby ideas. The best idea thinker-upper will be awarded a dazzling pair of Turkmen socks (You gotta see ‘em to believe ‘em). But – to enter you need to actually SEND ME A LETTER – internet here is unreliable at best.

Stay tuned!

Letter dated 2/4/08: Illness, classes, and the economics of shaving

2008-02-27T23:45:00.000-08:00

(transcribed by Jon’s mom and posted by Sarah)

Life here is pretty good. I finally got sick – I had stayed healthy all through training – the kind of sick you only read about happening in third world countries (let’s call it Genghis Khan’s massive revenge). All in all it made for the most unpleasant night in my life. I may have gone into graphic detail about the cow slaughtering, but I edit this story out. Just one hint: Levi’s survive ANYTHING.

Classes are going well. In case I didn’t tell before what I am doing, the Director gave me free reign over my work: choose the students, schedule and curriculum. So I wrote a test for grades 5-10 and chose the 12 ‘best’ students from each grade. Each class meets 3 days a week (M,W,F). Everyone is more or less at the same level, so I have the same lesson plan for all grades.

The class I teach is technically extracurricular – everyone still has their regular English class too, which is why I am free to disregard the Turkmen textbooks (which are difficult to learn and teach from). I will also (in the future) start holding student clubs (English, art and a sports club)… yes, I am highly aware of the irony of me running a sports club. I will also run a teacher’s club (English conversation/ teaching methodology).

The teaching is fun. The students I have are pretty smart and generally figure out what I am trying to teach them pretty fast. (I am also in the process of figuring out how to teach, so the learning curve applies to everyone.) The kids enjoy coming to my classes (well, the 6-8 who show up… but that is a normal amount here) and seem to have fun, so it always feels rewarding.

Have you ever thought, “Well, it’s all right, but it’s no ramen”? (I hope you haven’t.) If you ever try instant noodle packages from Russia, you will. Imagine broth like warm, flat, watered-down mountain dew. Then add noodles. So next time you are eating your $.08 per package ramen, tell yourself: this is the best instant noodle package $.08 can buy. Then again, the Russian stuff was probably cheaper.

Likewise, I am contemplating the economics of 350,000 manat for a pack of 8 Mach-3 razors vs. 10,000 manat for a pack of 5 disposable razors (a Chinese product called “Dorco”…) It comes to about 5 times the price of the Dorco to use Mach-3 (per shave, based on my dubious calculations). But Mach-3… heavenly. You can find a fair amount of western personal care products here: Head ‘n Shoulders, Colgate, Axe (I have not yet seen any mouthwash). They generally cost what they cost in the US, but they compete with far cheaper Russian & Chinese (and the occasional Iranian) products. Good toothpaste is certainly worth the money ($1.50/small tube). Turkmenistan is like a ‘Scared Straight’ program for dental hygiene. Lots of gold teeth. Turkmen eat a lot of cookies and candy, and a lot of meat… ever floss after eating ribs? You know what I’m talking about. I have started flossing nightly for the first time in my life – my gums have never felt better, and I don’t think that I would return to the US with all of my teeth otherwise.

Letter dated January 9, 2008: language, rice, hats, and music

2008-02-16T11:54:00.000-08:00

(Transcribed by Jon’s mom, and posted by Sarah)

I am truly and proudly following in my father’s footsteps. Years ago while in Morocco, he grew increasingly frustrated when a group of soldiers on the street could not tell him where the camel market was. It was not due to their lack of knowledge of the city, but rather that, in his “perfect” French, he was asking where his house was….which leads me to my tip of the day:

HOW TO AVOID BEING CONFUSED FOR A NATIVE SPEAKER

This morning with absolutely impeccable grammar, I asked my host mother if she was going to work. She looked quite puzzled, but said that she was going. As I was walking out the door, I realized why she was confused – I had asked her, “Are you going home?” as she stood smack in the middle of her living room.

---

Meanwhile, my rice-eating skills have been upgraded from ‘barbaric’ to ‘slovenly’. Rice here is eaten with the hands. Turkmen use their fingers to effortlessly mold the oily rice into tablespoon size lumps, and pop these into there mouth. My rice mostly ends up in the cuffs of my pants, in my hair, behind my ears, etc. Everywhere but my mouth. When the Turkmen eat, there will not be any rice left on their fingers after the bite. I have pieces of rice clear up to my elbows (which are hard to lick off.) It is actually a good dieting technique (not that I needed it) – it takes as much energy to eat the rice as the calories I gain from it.

---

Well, Dasoguz indeed gets cold – it was -25 the other night. Which is just like Minnesota… or would be, if Minnesota got up to 130 in the summer. At the end of December, I got peer pressured by my host family into buying one those 1920s’ style caps. I’m not sure if they actually do too much warmth-wise, but they are all the rage here.

They cost about 250,000 manat, and I told my host family that I only had 350,000 left until February (after buying the coat). They replied, “Alright, good. When do you want to go?” Long story short, I am broke, but warmish and quite trendy.

---

Boredom and isolation (when combined with mild obsessive compulsiveness) can go a long way for self improvement. I am working out everyday and getting in great shape. And I am playing and practicing guitar a lot. Although I am running low on sheet music, I have taken to memorizing songs and transcribing new ones off my I-Pod. I now can sing and play about 15 songs. Mick Jaggar would not have been cool if he had had to read off paper while on stage.

There is actually a fair amount of cultural diversity in the media here (once you include Russian satellite TV.) The regular channels have some Uzbek shows (including a Japanese show with Samurai, dubbed into Uzbek.); Russian TV shows; English, French and German movies dubbed into Russian; and non-dubbed English, German, Turkmen and Russian music videos. Russian music is growing on me. Imagine punchy pop music with accordians.

Stay tuned for more!

New mailing address

2008-01-29T11:33:00.000-08:00

Now that Jon is in Boldumsaz, the town he will be in for the next 24 months, he has a new mailing address, which you can see to the right. Please be sure to use this new address from now on when you mail him letters or packages.

May 2008 be a happy and healthy year for you!

-Sarah

Letter dated 1/3/08: The journey to Boldumsaz

2008-01-29T11:31:00.002-08:00

(posted by Sarah)

A special note: This blog is dedicated to Wayne, the marine on duty, by himself, inside the reception booth, at the deserted American embassy in Ashgabat on Christmas Day. Wayne, I can't imagine what you must have done wrong to deserve that. But merry Christmas, buddy, and have a happy new year!

---

So I know I have told plenty of gruesome tales of my new dietary habits, but I had an odd realization tonight, while enjoying my intestine soup. (For the last time, no, I am not joking.)
It was not the fact that I was eating intestine soup and enjoying it (I had seconds... it is extra good if you add yogurt), but rather that I was seeking out the intestines from the murky broth, that made the situation so magical. And yes, it made me just a touch sad that I didn't save them til the end.

So I said goodbye to Bolshevik, and toko the long marschrutka (van) ride up to Boldumsaz. The caravan was made up of 3 vans, 3 Turkmen drivers, 8 volunteers (Noah, Dennis, Val, Alice, Kelly, Shannon, Julia and myself), and more luggage than anyone ever thought would fit. We left at 4:20 in the morning, with a voyage rumored to take 14 hours.

But wait! You are probably exclaiming, Turkmenistan is not that large of a country, and the north-south route is quite short. How could it take 14 hours to drive that highway?

Because, of course, there is not actually a highway. Nor street. Forget about boulevards altogether. Frankly, 'dirt road' would be a euphemism. At best, we were driving on the shoulders of gravel roads under construction.

Adding to that pleasure was the windshield of my marschrutka (I was riding shotgun). This thing was a jumble of cracks and splinters, with the epicenter of destruction directly in front of my face. It looked like there was an assassination attempt on the previous occupant. Every time some piece of gravel came up and hit the hood or the glass and I saw a crack expand, I was like "Only 12-1/2 more hours!"

So the beginning of the journey was slow. It seemed like the drivers pulled over for a cigarette break every 20 minutes, often to wait simultaneously for the third van, which somehow got lost on a straight road. Meanwhile, it is cold, and of course I was foolish to expect a heated marschrutka (more on those later). I am trying to not only sleep but also to avoid freezing to death. My feet were fairly numb, and the rest of me was huddling awkwardly in my coat. And sadly, the tape of Uzbek pop hits the driver was playing, though it warmed my heart, didn't do anything for the rest of me. (Trivia: How can you differentiate Uzbeks from Turkmen? The Uzbeks grow great big Burt Reynolds-style moustaches. I also saw a big fat man in Dashoguz City who had a Hitler moustache. But I digress.) Around 6, the drivers pulled over for gas, and went into a hut for about half an hour, I think for tea. Seriously, they drink a lot of tea in this country.

Eventually the sun began coming up and we got a view of our surroundings - desert. Turkmenistan is 80% desert.

Fast forward through a few hours of desert and we move into Dashoguz (the northern velaýat [state, approximately], home to Dashoguz City, its major population center, and Boldumsaz, my permanent site.) I can tell, because the tan of Amal (Ashgabat's velaýat) has changed to brown, and there is beginning to be vegetation. A fair amount of cow scrub and cattails can be seen in boggy areas.

We drive up to Koneurgench first, to drop off Julia. Koneurgench is home to a lot of old ruins (mosques, a tower, some graveyards, etc.) that we stopped to look at. Very nice, but it was way too cold. I will return in the spring.

Yadda yadda yadda... Boldumsaz! Quite the step up from Bolshevik: Boldusaz is a bustling metropolis of 14,000 people. Instead of the "|" that made up Bolshevik's main thoroughfare, Boldumsaz is like a "T". I have not seen any roadside early-morning cow slaughterings, but then again, I have two years.

My new host family is very nice, very polite and fairly quiet. There are two boys, 12 and 9ish, and a 6 year old girl. They are disturbingly well-behaved. It is a really nice house, centrally heated (no more furnaces in the middle of rooms), with satellite TV, a heated shower, and a phone. And I have a bed again. No, I am not quite roughing it. Though I still have to squat (I am not that spoiled).

Oh, so marschrutkas in Boldumsaz are wild! The first one I was in today, the windshield was not only fractured to bits (that is normal... I no longer trust cars with solid glass), but was held together with glue and colored tape. It seriously looked like stained glass. The second one had a solid windshield (bad sign). To start the engine, the driver got out and, using a 3-foot metal shaft, hand-cranked the engine to rev it up like an old propeller plane.

Later I was in a taxi that seemed quite luxurious (despite the intact windshield). Then I realized it was a 1980s Daewoo. That is what we are dealing with here: Daewoos as a symbol of superior automotive engineering. The rest are old Soviet-era bunkers on wheels, half metal, the rest plastic and plywood held together by duct tape and parquet flooring. You never wear seat belts here, because even if the seat belt would be necessary, the rest of the car would probably break around you.

Jon's speech from the swearing-in ceremony

2008-01-29T11:31:00.001-08:00

(posted by Sarah)

Good evening! To everyone who is here with us tonight, welcome!

We - the T16 Peace Corps volunteers - came to Turkmenistan less than three months ago. We left our homes, families, friends, and the life we knew.

We came for varied reasons: to help people improve their way of life, to improve our own professional skills, to learn a new language, and to experience a different culture in a different part of the world. And Turkmenistan is vastly different from the USA. We don't have camels, let alone eat them. And you don't have McDonald's.

So these past few months have been a real learning experience for us. We have learned - well, we are still learning the Turkmen language and culture. We have also learned how to do our jobs being health and English teachers. Before we came to Turkmenistan, we were not teachers or doctors, and few of us had professional degrees. But what we do have is energy, enthusiasm, a desire to help, and the knowledge of a different way of doing things.

We are not here to change your politics or culture. But at the request of the Turkmen government, we are here to work alongside you, help identify what can be improved, and help you to improve it.

I want to give thanks.

I want to thank the Peace Corps staff, who have made this whole process as smooth as possible for us.

I want to thank our counterparts, for letting us work alongside them and learn from them, while they learned from us.

I want to thank our wonderful LCF's, who have worked so hard to teach us the Turkmen language, and guide us through the culture. They are not just our teachers, but also our dear friends.

I want to thank the rest of the Peace Corps volunteers, whose humor, determination and friendship make this as enjoyable as it is.

And I want to especially thank our host families. They have welcomed us in with such warmth and hospitality, and have shown a patience and understanding that only family could.

What will we experience in the next two years? Aside from half a million cups of tea, none of us know for sure. But we are ready and eager to find out.

Officially a Volunteer!

2007-12-24T05:45:00.000-08:00

So after 3 months of training, we are now officially volunteers. We had a big swearing-in ceremony, and I got to give a speech. It was pretty intense. I was up in front of the rest of the volunteers, PC staff, all of the host families, our teachers, possible representatives from the government, and the American ambassador. I wrote the speech in english, then translated it myself into Turkmen. Maya, my Turkmen teacher, looked it over, and translated it into actual Turkmen. Each word gained about 30 suffixes, or 3 inches, depending how you measure. By the time I finished (it was a page long), my mouth felt like it was packed with cotton, but it was definately a rush. I threw in a joke about eating camel for good measure.

I bought my first leather jacket. The winter here actually does get to about freezing, and Dashoguz is colder. When I went up to visit the site, my counterpart and family warned me that if I didn't buy a winter coat, I would die. (Though if women get too cold, they will just become infertile.) These past few months didn't involve much pay, but volunteers make more, and we got 'settling-in' allowance. So Noah and I went to the Talkuchka Bazaar with 3 million manat in cash on me. I love cash economies. There is nothing more fun than walking around with bundles of cash - one million manat (100 bills, 10,000 manat each) in my left breast pocket, one mill in the right, and 800k in my outer suit jacket pocket. I felt like a gangster. I now understand the appeal.

Talkuchka is crazy - it is a huge sprawling beast. it is in the middle of nowhere, snow capped mountains to the south, Iran on the other side. It was about a 20 minute bus ride from Ashgabat. The first time I was there, we arrived at the main entrance, which has a huge brick archway. But we arrived this time from a different side, and it was like walking into a city of vendors. We never saw the main gait, but the vendors just grew thicker around us as we waded in. It had been raining the past few days, so the lanes between the vendors were 3 inches of mud. Plus it was a Sunday (bad idea - sunday in Turkmen is called 'Bazar Gun' - 'bazaar day' - so everyone and their mother was there.) Now in Turkmenistan, there is haggling, but not really too much price will come off. But I found a lined leather jacket, real sweet, for 2.125 mill, which I was happy about. Most people advised that coats will start around 2.5 to 3. I haggled the price down to 2.050 million, which made me feel good until I realized I saved myself a solid 3 dollars. Though 3 dollars goes a long way here.

There is an odd sense of christmas here, because Turkmen decorate trees with lights for new year's, and a lot of stores have a picture of Santa in the window. But Santa here is not quite Santa. Here he dresses in green and blue, and is called Ayaz Baba ("cold weather [maternal] Grandpa") I haven't quite figured out what he does.

Well, I am off to Boldumsaz on wednesday - It will be a lovely 12 hour van ride through the desert.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Geography Woes

2007-12-08T02:36:00.000-08:00

So I know Turkmenistan is very isolated when it comes to information and the flow of media. But people still manage to surprise me occassionally. Example one:
I got a postcard from Washington DC (thanks Kirsten). It features a nice view of the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. In the top right corner in big red letters, it says "Washington, D.C.". I showed this to my family and some other people who were over. More than one person asked "Ashgabat?" I mean, okay, they both have large white marble buildings...but...
Example two: Up in Boldumsaz I had a great hour or two conversation (in Turkmen! I don't know how it happened. I even explained about working at an iron foundry in Germany. It is amazing how you can figure out how to explain things when you frankly shouldn't be able to) with a Turkmen fellow. We got onto the topic of geography, and specifically, where the equator is. I maintained that it runs through brazil, runs south of the sahara, and cuts through indonesia. His countertheory was that is goes through mexico, saudia arabia, and china. It became quite heated, and we needed closure. Unfortunately, the only map to be found was in the 20 year old soviet english textbook, "Happy English 1". The world map was about 3 by 4 inches, hand painted, and sadly, did not show the equator. Worse yet, it was a bit skewed, so the middle of the map was at the mexico level.
I really need to get my hands on an atlas or map.

Dashoguz!!!

2007-12-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

So we visited our permanent sites this past week. I will be in the northern Velayat (state) of Dashoguz, and the city of Boldumsaz (I have heard a few translations of the name, my favorite being "I became music". Poetic. Mysterious. Bodes well for the guitar, and dutar once I get my hands on one. The city is a dozen miles from Uzbekistan, which has an influence in the dialects and food. The food is great. Lots of meat pies of varying sizes and styles. Nice bazaars too. Dashoguz feels and looks very soviet, and actually gets pretty cold. I will have to buy a winter coat. I feel like the dopey hero in any number of Gogol stories, walking down the street in his shabby jacket, thread-bare with patches on the patches, while the rich fat cats walk down the street in their plush fur lined coats. Turkmen may not be rich, but they know what to spend money on. And they don't skimp on the coats. They all think I will die of cold. The secret to survival is tea, which I easily drank a few gallons of each day. The Dashoguz specialty is black tea (gara chay) with milk, which is pretty good.
My Dashoguz host family is very nice. They are very shy and quiet, but the kids are all very good mannered and well behaved, and the little 6-year old girl is adorable. They are all eager to learn english, and ask me how to say things. The house itself is pretty posh. It has a whole wing for bedrooms and living rooms, with Turkmen carpets everywhere. There is a squat toilet, but honestly they are starting to win me over. They actually have a shower, but after the first day I was there, they started renovations in the bathroom, so it has been a good half week of deplorable grooming habits. Hair actually reaches a nice status quo on the fourth day.
I went to the school, and aside from Nick, a volunteer from last year who only stayed 6 months, I am the first TEFL volunteer the school has ever had. So the teachers are really happy I am coming, and the director gave me basically free reign. He told me to hand pick the students I want to have in my classes, and he okayed my demand to not use the Turkmen textbooks. He claims he will get me a computer....the school currently has no computers, not even in their computer-class classroom. (Yeah, that one is a puzzler.)
I asked some kids how are you, and instead of the typical "I am fine, zank you, how are you?' that Bolshevik kids spit out, these kids actually said "I am fine" "I am wonderful" etc - It brought a tear to my eye - individual, honest answers. God bless Nick. He got through to them.
These should be a good two years.
Sunday we (all the Dashoguz volunteers) met up in Dashoguz city. We cafe-hopped across the city, and went to an amusement park, which was...amusing. It was cold as hell, but we went on the (hand cranked) ferris wheel, which provided scenic views of Dashoguz, such as the 24-floor building. The bumper cars were great, and actually went pretty fast. The best though was the Spinny Ride - we all sit on a long bench in a box. The bench stays in places but the box spins...and keeps spinning. Finally it stops, but no! Now it goes the other direction. After about 5 minutes of boredom, confusion,light nausea, and yet an odd sense of amusement, the ride ended. We went for dinner after that, and then spent the evening hanging out at an apartment in the city. I really like the other volunteers in the region, the fellow T-16's and the T-15's too (who have been here for a year.) So it was a very chill and enjoyable evening.
Turkmen airlines: very nice. The security: you do not need to take off your, shoes, belt and jacket. You can take lighters and pocket knives through without a problem (I did both). Ahh...a sense of preserved dignity.
Even on the plane there is a picture of the president.

11/7/07 - Candle-Lit Bath,Turkmen Style

2007-11-29T08:30:00.000-08:00

(transcribed by Jon's mom, and posted by Sarah)

So the light switch out in the bathroom wasn’t working this morning. It hasn’t worked for the past day or two, but having woken up after dawn, there had been enough light coming through the window to brighten the room. Today, I had to get up early to go to Ruhabat (a town outside Ashgabat) for a P.C. [Peace Corps] meeting. The sun wasn’t up yet, so the bathroom was nearly pitch black (save for the small flicker of flame from the water furnace.) I decided to wait for the sun to come up, and since it wasn’t too cold, I stood outside looking at the stars (the planet Venus was quite clear).

My host mother came out to start preparing breakfast (the kitchen is in the small building with the bathroom, across the yard from the main house.) I told her about the problem.

She thought for a brief second, then fetched an extra gas hose (a long rubber tube with a foot-long metal tube at one end) and connected it to the main. She lit the end, which erupted into a foot-long flame of fire (which she turned down to a respectable 8 inches). She put it down on the concrete floor of the bathroom.

“Don’t stand over it,” she said with a wry grin.

In case you have forgotten, ‘bath’ means me standing (in this case with a gigantic open flame a few feet away) in the middle of a room, pouring cups of (today well heated) water over myself.

The true humor of the situation was how quickly and nonchalantly my host-mother came up with her solution. I think she has done this before. McGuiver’s got nothing on her!

So my village, being quite small, has only me and two other volunteers (for training). One of the larger towns has 11. The others are Rachel and Julia. We get along really well, definitely in part due to good and compatible senses of humor. We make fun of each other a lot, in a good way. Our Language/Culture teacher, Maya (an 18 year old Turkmen girl) is also great to have in the group. She corrupts us with Turkmen swears and puts up with (but loves) our craziness. The P.C. even on good days can still be a pressure cooker, so you get to know the other volunteers – who are the only people you can talk to – very well very quickly.

By the way, word has it that Julia’s family has found my Blog. Good work! Hello, Julia’s family. (I liked the maple candies that you sent.)

-----------------

There are at least 3-ish (2 full and 2 half) Jews here in US T-16’ers, so I am going to take it upon myself to throw together a Hanukah Party. I know a blacksmith in my town, so I may even see if he can make a simple Menorah (pictures will definitely follow.)

Funny thing about being Jewish here. There is such a spirit of fear or distrust towards Muslim countries in the U.S. And from Jews and non-Jews alike.

“You are going where? Are you nuts?” I heard that from a few people (though very few). I did know that religion is not a big thing here (Turkmenistan is about 92% Muslim and 8% Russian Orthodox) Turkmen generally assume Americans are Christian.

My host uncle asked me one evening if I was Christian, and I said no. “Mus-Elman?” (Muslim) No. He looked confused. He made the sign of the cross and then a hat gesture and asked “Pope?" I said no. I tried to explain ‘Jew’, but he didn’t understand. I got some paper and drew a Jewish star. After staring quizzically at it for a minute, he looked up. “Oh!” He said that he knew the symbol and understood, but had no idea what the name was.

This is such a contrast to living in Germany, where anyone who heard my name knew my religion. I have never felt as religiously tolerated or ignored as I do here.

-----------------

I love hearing the morning and evening prayers broadcast from the Mosque loud speakers. The evening one is a bit more beautiful sounding, but it is refreshing to wake up with the a.m. one (at 6:45 – I wake up between 6:30 and 7).

-----------------

I continue to enjoy Turkmen milk. The beverage I originally described as milk was something else. Actual milk here tastes more or less like what is in the U.S., but sweeter. There are a lot of curds. The amount of curds and the thickness of the milk varies every time. Sometimes it is like drinking cottage cheese. It keeps me happy and healthy.

MORE PICS!!!!

2007-11-24T02:54:00.000-08:00

Here we are with all of the kids at our ECA day camp during fall break. Me in the center, Rachel in the hat and Julia in white.

Ever wonder what happens to the parts of the sheep that aren't eaten? I don't anymore.

Julia is working on ideas for our day camp. Note the tiny chairs in our room, meant for first graders. Rachel displays her amazement at events.

PICTURES!!!

2007-11-24T02:19:00.001-08:00

Some local kids who I met on top of the Gala ("fortress"). It appeared to be a gigantic hill of dirt outside of of town. Alledgedly, about 2000 years ago it actually was a fortress (in the form of a giant mound of earth.)

My host siblings, Suleyman, Aylar and Aygul.

A view of Bolshevik (5000 people) with the Kopetdag Mountains in the background.

My very own Bolshevik-made Menorah. Price: 80 cents. (My design, my neighbor's welding skills)

Turkmenistan for 2: a Romantic Comedy

2007-11-24T01:37:00.000-08:00

TURKMENISTAN FOR 2: A ROMANTIC COMENDY

So here is my script for a romantic comedy set in Turkmenistan:

Jon (these names are not based on real people) and the pretty yet modest Julia are serving as peace corps members in T-stan. At first they hate each other. Well, hate is a strong word. But they always bicker and make fun of each other, like about Julia's seven inch yaka, or how Jon always tells the same stories, thinking they are new.
Meanwhile, their frumpy friend Rachel is trying to catch the eye of Rex, the hunky PCV with a heart of gold. But why would he ever notice her?
But as time goes by, and through the hardships they get through together, Jon and Julia realize that their animosity towards one another is actually just unrequited love. Julia and Rachel meanwhile go shopping at the bazaar for new yaka's. Julia gives Rachel a makeover (changes the part, takes off the glasses, exchanges the frumpy clothes for a skimpy koynek with a stylish round yaka), and Rachel realizes how beautiful she truly is. Julia gets a tiger print koynek with a killer yaka. Modest, yet alluring!
After teaching one day, Julia walks out into the schoolyard. There Jon stands, with a horde of 50 small cute-as-a-button turkmen children, all wearing knock-off sweaters stitched with the words "I lov you", identical to the one Jon is wearing.
'Alright, now what did I teach you?' asks Jon to the kids.
'I AM FINE, ZANK YOO. HOWA ARE YOO?' bellow the kids with giant grins on their faces. Jon sighs. 'No no, the other thing....'
'JOOLIA, JOOLIA, VEEL YOO MARRY MEEEE??!'
Julia's heart is all a-twitter. She doesn't know what is more touching: Jon's expression of his feelings, or the fact that unbeknownst to her, he had secretly been training a small army of little weasel-butt kids.
'Yes! Yes!' she cries!
But sadly, not everyone gets a happy ending. Rex gets run over by an over-zealous camel. Rachel goes into mourning, and yet in an odd twist of fate (an dubious legality) marries the camel.

The End.

In other news: CHICKEN-STOMACH SOUP FOR THE SOUL

We got chicken soup for lunch one day. As I rummaged through the bowl, I noticed the usual potatoes, pumpkin, and then...meat of some sort. I fished out a piece, which looked like a oddly-shapped glob of...chicken. I mean, from the chicken. But not chicken. I asked Maya what this was. She told me it was stomach, with a worried look on her face. Without missing a beat, I popped it in my mouth and ate it. I mean, why not?
It wasn't too bad; a little hard, but meaty enough in flavor.
Later Julia or Rachel gave me a drumstick they didn't want. I started eating it, but it was the toughest meat I had ever had.
"Guys, I never thought I would say this, but I prefer stomach to leg."
I did get a sternum from someone else's bowl, which was pretty good.

A night or two later, my family served palaw (fried rice) with lamb spine. After I picked the meet off the bone, I realized there was still a lot of something tasty looking inside...spinal chord! I was trying to slurp it out discreetly, which is hard to do. I ended up scraping it out with the back-end of a spoon. God. My standards for good eating are so skewed.

MUSLIM MENORAH

With Hanukah just around the corner, I realized I didn't have a menorah. There is no way to get one shipped from the US fast enough, and I don't think there are too many Jewish shops at the bazaar. So I drew up a design and brought it to my neighbor, who is a blacksmith (ie welds furnaces together.) I brought Maya to translate.
He was freaked out at first, because I had drawn the design on graph paper, and he thought I wanted it exact. But we assured him that wasn't the case, and in fact I wanted it a bit crude. So four days and 20,000 manat (80 cents) later, I got myself a locally-made Turkmen menorah.

10/18/07

2007-11-11T15:53:00.001-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

You've heard of Battle of the Bands? Here there is Battle of the Weddings. As I mentioned before, now that Ramadan is over, wedding season is in. Tonight there are (at least) two weddings going on, both within blocks of my house (but in opposite directions). There is no need for the iPod tonight. I can practically sing along with either wedding band (well, COULD, if my Turkmen was better).

I think it was Julia who made the analogy of parties at college to describe weddings in this town. If you want to find one, just follow the noise and see where the people are at. Or if you don't like that one, you can easily find another.

10/17/07 - The most popular kid in school

2007-11-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

I'm serious (okay, it's a tie with Julia and Rachel). Flocks of screaming children run over to us, barraging us with a cacophany of "Hello"s, "Goodbye"s, "How are you?"s, and "What is your name?"s, in no particular order. That generally runs through their knowledge of English. If I ask "How are you?" back, half the time they will not know how to answer, or are in just too much shock to get out an answer. The term 'flock' is fitting, as they descend like pigeons, and either talk with us or stare in joyful curiosity. Or they will march past us, each taking turns to shake our hands.

Never at New Trier [Jon's high school - ed]. Never once.

10/17/07 - Things I miss

2007-11-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

Steak
Pesto sauce
Bacon cheeseburgers
Ice tea
Chinese take-out
Milkshakes
Anything medium-rare
Microwave popcorn
Wine
Lox and bagels
Seafood in general
Bagels in general
Gyros
"Corn" "bread" from Jewel [Chicago-area grocery store -ed]
Pringles
Those crumbly "Carr's" crackers in the red box
Smoked gouda

Don't take this the wrong way. I actually do love the food here, and even eat more here than I did back home. But it is hard to forget old friends.

10/17/07 - $1 = 24,000 manat

2007-11-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

I was at first planning on bringing extra cash with me, for vacation and/or emergency money, but heard that the Peace Corps offices were no longer supplying safes. I didn't want to keep that kind of cash laying around, and I hate those tourist cash pouches you wear under your shirt. So I stuck the money back in my account in D.C.

There is something oddly enjoyable about being on the other side of the world with $30 in manat to my name.

10/17/07 - Further thoughts on cows

2007-11-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

Upon further reflection of the cow butchering [see next blog entry -ed] what truly struck me was the real lack of any pomp or ritual to the event. Even at the time, I at first tried to imagine how the scene would have been directed by Tarantino ("Apocalypse Now" also came to mind... Coppola really knew how to kill a cow). But I realized that would never work. This was a moment devoid of soundtrack or epic magnitude. It was all very quiet, save the wind and the sound of knives. It was a grand occasion only because of the impending wedding. And because in a small rural town in Turkmenistan, they can't afford to be killing cows everyday. But when all was said and done, it was a very routine task. Just another part of life.

10/14/07 - My very first cow slaughter and butchering, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the hamburger

2007-11-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

***WARNING: This is a very graphic and accurate account of a cow being killed and butchered. If you have any problems with that, skip to the next blog post.***

-----

Friday marked the end of Ramadan, which also marked the beginning of the popular times for weddings, since there is no more fasting. In this village of 5000 people, I have already gotten invitations to multiple weddings in this very week. (The joke is that one will be mine without me realizing it.) On Saturday, after our language lessons in the morning, we went to the school director's house for lunch (as usual). After the meal, the director himself came by (he doesn't eat lunch with us). He asked if any of us wanted to see a sheep get slaughtered. Julia and Rachel, the other volunteers in this village, declined (girls just don't know how to have a fun time) but I (perhaps too readily?) said yes. I don't necessarily get pleasure from seeing animals killed, but I have never seen a slaughter before, and I wanted to get the full Turkmenistan experience. So after tea, I went out with the director to the yard.

To my surprise, it was not a sheep but a cow, which was part of a procession of 26 men and boys. Tools included a large metal bowl, a cup, half a dozen (presumably razor-sharp) knives, rope, an ax, two shovels, and a video camera.

We followed to a nearby field. The first task was to get the cow on its side, which is no small feat. Two men would twist its head backwards, grabbing the horns and nostrils. Four more men would pull at its body. It took a few tries to flip it over. They had to tie the front legs before they succeeded.

Once the cow was down, while a few men kept it held in place, another man tied the back legs to the front. The cow looked worried.

At this point, two men used the shovels and dug a bucket-sized hole next to the cow's neck. The metal bowl was filled with water, and the knives and ax got a last-minute sharpen.

By now, it was ready for the slaughter, so the video camera was turned on (this was an important pre-wedding event - this cow would feed a lot of guests).

While one man held the horns down, another man used the knife. As he made the first slice into the front of the cow's neck, it let out a low drawn-out moaning noise. A cow's neck is rather thick, so it took a lot of cutting to get through. Once some of the larger cuts had been made, a light red, fairly chunky liquid began pouring out, which soon filled the hole. Once the trachea was severed, the cow no longer moaned, though it remained alive for a few more minutse. Once the major neck artery was severed, the more familiar image of blood - dark red and liquidy - began pouring and spurting out (up to four feet away). The head was not fully severed, but the neck was cut back to the spine.

A pile of sticks was gathered and placed over the hole to keep the head (and the various men) from falling in. Water was poured into the neck to clean out the blood. A cord of hair was used to tie shut the esophagus.

By now, the cow was rather dead, though there was the occasional limb twitch for a few minutes to come.

The ropes were untied from the legs. A few men now worked, each with knife in hand, cutting off the skin. How this worked: a ring was cut around each ankle, and a slit cut up each limb. A slit was cut up the stomach. The skin was peeled off each limb, while they began removing the skin off the body. They kept it all in one piece, and let it remain on the ground under the carcass to keep the body clean. The body now looked like a large bloated rindless orange, but splotched with purple, orange and yellow. The skin was taken off the tail, and the left hooves were removed (the right pair was kept on a bit longer to make it easier to flip the carcass over).

The udders were removed. Some excrement got on the carcass, which was promptly washed off. Some of the more explicit chunks of fat were trimmed off the body. At this point, they cut off the front legs. There was a slit cut in the forearm (between the tendons) and in the upper section, which made for make-shift handles. The meat was hauled to the plastic-lined trunk of an SUV. The rest of the meat from the lower abdomen was removed and brought to the truck, which began to shuttle it away.

I was happy to see the grade school English teacher (who I have been observing) make an appearance and help out.

Now it was time to open up the cow (at this point, it is a skinless tail attached to a limbless and skinless body, connected to the untouched head by only the spinal cord). There was a small bit of muscle, above where the hind leg would be, that was still twitching.

They sliced upwards along the lower belly, allowing the bulbous stomach and intestines to spill out. The cavity of the ribcage was washed out. The liver and some other organ (a large fat dark grey blob attached to the stomach) were removed and put in a tray (transferred to the truck when it came back). The trachea/lungs/heart were removed and washed.

The ax now made its debut, chopping apart the hips and ribcage. The rib sides were removed in sections and driven away. The hooves at this point were still lined up on the ground, a few meters away, though I have heard they are eaten too.

By now, though, before I got to see what would happen with the head, hooves, spine, skin, and abdominal organs (not to mention a random organ I spotted laying on the ground a few feet away), I was ushered away to some wedding festivities.

I can't say I'd rush to go watch another slaughter, but I did appreciate getting to observe a ritual that is so important to village life. (And I have no problem still eating meat - I just had a wonderful fat stew for lunch - i.e. stew with large juicy chunks of cow fat in it. It was delicious.)

10/13/07 - You know you're in the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan when:

2007-11-11T14:35:00.000-08:00

(transcribed and posted by Sarah)

You know you're in the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan when:

You can shower with a gallon of water
You know of the common practice of using notebook paper as an alternative to TP. You scoff at this, having tried it. But you will probably do it again.
You enjoy lumpy milk... or was it yogurt?
You carry TP in your backpack with you at all times.
You wash your clothes in barf.
You are the most popular kid at school.
Your neighbor has a camel.
You do NOT pet the dogs.

Willage Life

2007-11-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

So we came into Ashgabat this morning. We took a taxi (ie a car I flagged down) to Gokdepe Proper, (the site of a notoriously bloody battle between the Russians and the Turkmen back in the day) then a van to the city. I decided to bring my guitar to brighten the spirits of the fellow volunteers at the office. While we were waiting at the depot for the van, a guy started asking me about the guitar. I told him about it and showed it to him. He wrote down his name and number(s), and told me he wanted me for his band. Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs presumably.

Dan (who I roomed with in DC and Ashgabat) says hi. He says his host mother also says hi.

I heard a great description of the cars in Turkmenistan (by a volunteer - I forget who). Imagine a kid's drawing of a car. That's how they really look. When I travel by taxi with Rachel, Julia and Maya (our Turkmen language/culture teacher, and more importantly, our buddy), girls are not supposed to sit in the front seat of taxis, so I always get shot gun. I love it. The cars here are in various states of disrepair, with wires everywhere. One of the last cars we were in had a panel that kept falling off. And imagine the driver's ed simulators that are supposed to look like a car interior but don't - I have now actually been in that car.

Ate duck neck. Not bad.

The term 'meat' here is very important. In the US, you have steak (rib eye, porter house...), filet mignon, ribs, loin, chicken, pork chops, etc. Here, you have meat. You are never quite sure what animal it comes from, and even less about where on the animal it came from. I mean, have you ever thought I hope this is liver? But it is all good. Occasionally you find a ring of cartilege in the soup, but I hear it's healthy.

Got my blood pressure taken by some PC health volunteers. 136 over 96. That would be good...if I were bowling.

And now, PICTURES: Actually you will need to wait another week. I need to scale the pictures down, because I am crashing this country's internet. But just imagine: beautiful landscapes, scrappy kids on motorcycles, burning sheep heads...

2007-11-04T04:15:00.000-08:00

So TV here is quite a creature. For people with satellite TV, they get all the russian channels. This is a mix of naked women and bad action movies, surprisingly not together. The naked women come in the form of a mix of candid camera and...naked women. An innocent museum-goer looks at a mummy...and out pops a naked woman! Hilarity.
I don't know how the russian channels do it, but they find some of the most obscure action movies ever created, and then dub them into Russian. Ever seen American Ninja? I haven't. But I have now seen American Ninja 2: Confrontation.
My family does not have satellite, so we just get the four official Turkmen channels. They show a lot of movies, dubbed into Turkmen, showcasing the classic archetype of a young American boy and his crafty pet who triumph over adversity. The obvious choice was Air Bud. Saw that. Air Bud sounds a lot like the Turkmen word 'erbet', which means 'bad'. There was also an old American movie, featuring a ten year old boy and his pet duck. They need to escape from the ill-intentioned scientists who chase them around town. And finally, another movie (American too - when did they make these?) about a scrappy 13 year old and his pet parrot who have to thwart international treasure thieves. I love it!

Direct From Ashgabat!

2007-11-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

Hello from the PC office in Ashgabat!

So the sad news here is that my host dad (Chary) was doing some repairs to his car, yadda yadda yadda, got burns on his forearms and lower legs. He has been in the hospital for the past week or so.

A few days ago, my host uncle (who works at our school) met us and invited me to come to Ashagabat with him to visit Chary. I was told he would pick me up at 6pm. My host mom was worried I might not be fed, so she gave me dinner. At 6:00 I am all ready, but nobody came. At 6:15 I am told I am actually supposed to go to my uncle's house - luckily he just lives down the street. So I walk over, and meet him in the side house. The furnace - literally just a lit gas line attached to a metal box - kept the room at about 95 degrees. After we sat for about an hour drinking tea and sweating, I got....another dinner. We were waiting for the car to pick us up, and waited another hour. Finally guys came in and talked with my uncle. The car was dead.
My uncle turns to me: "Well, should we go watch a movie?"

Next Blog: "American Ninja 2: Confrontation"

Letter 1

2007-10-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

(transcribed by Jon's mother Marilyn, and posted by Sarah)

Rice, meat and fat. That is what the Peace Corps told us about the Turkmen diet. But that was of course not too accurate. I have not been served any rice yet.

There is a lot of meat, and despite rumors of knuckles, my family mostly eats duck, which they raise. Zygyzdek is a recipe for small pieces of fat from the sheep’s tail, cooked in oil. It is pretty good, though I couldn’t eat much before my veins felt tighter. Other foods include a variety of bread, salads (mostly with cabbage – a Russian influence) and a dish with pieces of bread and meat with enough broth to moisten it all. You wash it all down with mainly tea (about 12 cups per day, at least) or orange or melon soda, or camel’s milk. Camel’s milk is watery with clumpy foam at the top. The taste is sweet, sour and salty. It smells like stinky cheese. Yet it is not too bad, surprisingly.

I’m still figuring out the best strategy for the squat toilets. Good thing I’m not sick.

Turkmen houses have carpets everywhere, which is good because you sit on the floor. There are no tables, chairs, couches or desks. Most people also sleep on the floor, though I am one of three volunteers (out of 38) who get a bed. The shower is in a building (attached to the outhouse) across the yard from the house. There is a large tub with cold water and a large caldron over a furnace filled with warm water. The idea (I am now pretty sure) is that you take a third bowl, mix in water to your liking, and pour it over yourself while you stand on the floor. The first day I got here I thought the tub with cold water was a regular bathtub, and got in – though it was way too cold, so I stood in the water and bathed. Us silly Americans.

My host family: my family is extremely friendly, respectful but curious. The mother stays at home and the father is a taxi driver. There are two girls, aged 11 and 8, and a boy, age 6. They love playing soccer & volleyball with me, or hearing me play the guitar. I have met their cousins, who live down the road, and a lot of their little friends. One speaks English, but I know just enough Turkmen to communicate my needs. There is of course a lot of pantomime. You have not truly lived until you have enacted being a sheep with its legs getting tied together, slaughtered and cooked, and eaten. I also joke with the father about eating too much duck and getting fat.

Everyone has enjoyed seeing my family photos, and I know the word for father (kaka… odd if you know some other languages) or sister (giz – pronounced ‘geeth’). But I have no idea how to stay things like ‘step-father’, or ‘divorce’ and I am not sure if my pantomimes were effective. I also gave a book of photos of Chicago as a gift, and everyone was amazed by the skyscrapers.

I was shown photos both by my family and also my host’s cousin, which involved a lot of weddings (toý).

The biggest surprise is probably the variance of observance of traditions. I have been able to talk with girls close to my own age, though I went to a Ramadan ‘break-the-fast’ (in the house just next door) and men and women ate in separate rooms. Everyone gets very dressed up for school. But at home, regular pants (but no jeans) and shirts are worn. My host sister was wearing shorts the first day I got here (the father jokes that she was American) even though we learned that women never wear shorts (and guys generally don’t either.)

Oh, and I can’t forget Turkmen television! Though many people have satellites, my family just has the four station State channels, which are fantastic. There are many programs with orchestras or news about the President [of Turkmenistan - ed.], or cartoons. I got to see “Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers” dubbed into Turkmen.

All in all, after three days in the opulent capital, village life is quite different. But with the mountains to the south and the desert to the north, it is very beautiful. Old men wear the big furry hats, and I heard morning prayers through crackling speakers at 6:45 a.m. There are a lot of stray dogs that you definitely do not pet (and yes, we got rabies shots). And everyone I have met has been wonderfully hospitable (I got invited over for TV and family photos by a distant cousin of my host family.

Well, that is all for now!

A short email from Jon

2007-10-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

(posted by Sarah)

I wanted to let you know I am safely and happily in my little Turkmen town of Gokdepe Village (more commonly known by its former name of Bolshevik). I love the food, I have a nice family, and I even get to sleep in a full size bed. I am picking up the language well enough (considering we have been here for less than three weeks.)

I don't want to give any specific anecdotes, because there are a lot in my letters to Sarah (which she will blog) and I don't like repeating myself (mmm laziness...)

But there are a lot of camels, gas costs 3 cents a liter, I have perfected my routine for squatting, and showering with a gallon of water. Sadly today the gas wasn't working, so there was no hot water, nor was the bathroom warm (it just got cold yesterday.) So no shower today. Luckily it is so dry (and currently not hot) here that a day without a shower really is not a problem.

Greetings from Turkmenistan!

2007-10-11T22:55:00.001-07:00

Jon here, I am visiting the Peace Corps Office in Ashgabat, so I am getting to use this glorious thing called 'internets'. My actual village (about 50km away) has a phone.
Language note: "Dogan" is more of 'older sibling'. There is no single word for brother. 'Oglan' means boy, so 'oglan dogan' is older brother, and 'oglan jigi' is younger brother. My language training is coming along pretty well considering I have been here for only a week.

I have gotten my second set of shots today. Apparently rabies shots don't actually make you immune to rabies, but it gives you more time (48 hours instead of...4?) to get the post-bite shot.

There are a lot of great anecdotes to tell, but I just sent two letters to Sarah to get blogged up, so you may have to wait a few weeks to read them. Sorry.

But all in all, I love the food, am getting used to the squatting, have not gotten run over by any camels, and have adjusted to Turkmenistan life pretty smoothly.

Destination: Turkmenistan

2007-10-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

This is Jon's sister Sarah, with a "test post" to make sure I can use Blogger. It looks pretty easy, so I don't think I'll have any problems. I will be transcribing Jon's letters onto this blog as I receive them.

I have been glancing through the Turkmen/English Dictionary, which was prepared by previous Peace Corps volunteers working in Turkmenistan. A few words that I found (I don't know their pronunciation):

brother = dogan
courage = batyrlyk
excited = göçgünli
patience = çydam
May peace be upon you = salawmaleÿkim

So I can say that my dogan has batyrlyk and I am very göçgünli for him. We will be awaiting his letters with çydam. Salawmaleÿkim to you all!

-Sarah (sarahrosenz@gmail.com)

And...LIFT-OFF!

2007-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I am almost gone: this is my last night in town. Til 2010. So what was the proper thing to do? Get the most American food in town. I went with three of the guys in my program, and walked down to a BBQ place, where I got brisket (with 6 different bbq sauces to try), biscuits, collard greens, deep fried okra, french fries, and Sam Adams. Granted, it wasn't the best, but it was a nice way to end our time here.
Orientation here in DC has been lots of talking about safety, protocol, cultural sensitivity and stuff that mostly boils down to common sense. There are 36 other people traveling with to Turkmenistan, mostly all around my age, and I have somehow managed to learn most of their names. We are all very excited. I don't know much else of what to write, because Turkmenistan itself will blow this out of the water for interest level.
Tomorrow we leave at 11 am, with a 4:20 flight to Frankfurt. Get in at 615am, leave at 2pm. Stop in Baku, Azerbaijan, but we won't leave the plane. We will get into Ashgabat at 11:45 pm local time. Then we will get to sit through about 4 hours of the bureaucratic loveliness. Training starts bright and early the next day.
This is going to get so cool.

We have now been told not to expect to get online for the next 3 months, but I will be sending letters to my sister Sarah to publish here. So do check back.

Take care.

Turkmenistan here I come!

Packing

2007-09-27T21:06:00.001-07:00

So with just a day left before I leave, I am packing -- and not just for the Peace Corps, but also packing up everything else to be stored for a couple years in my parents house.

The trouble with planning for the kind and amount of clothes I will need stems from the fact that I have grown up in Chicago, gone to school in Minnesota, and am going to Turkmenistan for the Peace Corps. In case I haven't mentioned it, or you haven't read it, T-stan (that is the 'hip' way to refer to it.) is a desert. Sort of the anti-Minnesota. It gets down to around freezing in the winter, but up to 130 F in the summer.

So basically I am staring at my closet, unsure of how I can take any less than 5 sweaters and sweatshirts. The logical part of my brain is shouting 'fool!' while the midwestern part of my brain is asking 'why not an extra layer? wool perhaps...'

Learning Turkmen, one number at a time

2007-09-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

I decided I would start teaching myself Turkmen once September came by, and now on the 6th I am going to hold myself to that promise. There is really nothing as intimidating as learning a new and completely foreign language from scratch. I mean, if you learn French or Spanish, you already know probably a dozen words ("Vould monseur like a Taco avec his escargot?"). Turkmen? No such luck.

Luckily, they (now) use the Latin alphabet, after already having tried Arabic and Cyrillic, so discerning the letters is not an issue. And of the few sounds that English doesn't use, German does (return of the umlauts!) They even have some unexpectedly American sounds, like 'j' and 'a' (an a with umlauts sounds like the Midwestern 'a').

The fun thing with starting though, is you can truly only get better. And the only way to do it is memorize memorize memorize. So today I tackled numbers. Learning to count in Turkmen does have one small advantage - they do not use unique words for the teens. Instead of eleven or twelve, they just say 'ten-one' and 'ten-two' (like twenty-one or twenty-two.) So that saved me probably a minute's worth of extra memorization.

I can now count up to 199 - I don't know if 200 is its own word or if you just say 2-100. If the latter is the case, I can count a lot higher. My favorite number so far is 88 - segsen sekiz - pronounced 'thegthen theckeeth'. Maybe a favorite number isn't the most important thing when learning a new language, but it is the little things that count.

Less than a month til I go!

Just a few more weeks

2007-08-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

Well I guess I started this blog a bit prematurely, with over a month left until I leave for Turkmenistan, but with very little to be done in the mean time, it can get a bit antsy at times. And just in case some other guy named Jon feels like keeping a blog while in Turkmenistan, this url is totally mine.
There is not much to do between now and Sept. 29th, just a few more bits of paperwork for the PC. Mostly I am relaxing (the calm before the storm), and enjoying my last bit of time in the USA, with all of the American goods and culture I have come to love and take for granted. The new question of the moment is "so you know what they don't have in Turkmenistan?" (thanks Sean) followed by "turkey sandwich/the heartland cafe/free speech/water/music/ [insert anything you are possible about to enjoy]". Well that is a bit harsh. Turkmenistan probably has music. But in all seriousness, I am excited to find out what we don't have in the US. (Answer: Turkmen.)
I am now teaching ESL twice a week (partly to gain more teaching experience, partly to use up free time) at the IAC (Indo-American Center). I teach the level 2 (upper level) class, which has between 2 and six students on any given day. The amazing thing I have found is how eager people can be to learn English. The IAC is free, and there are no semesters or anything like that, you just show up when you want. I had had a student about a month back (when I was only teaching once a week), a thirty-year-old nepalese man. He had been a math teacher back home, but here he had just gotten a job as a waiter. Because of his new job, he had to work the days I taught, and I no longer saw him. A few days ago, I got some lunch with Dan and it happened to be at the restaurant where the man was now working. He was so excited I was there, and explained how eager he still was to be able to come to class, and learn English (specifically with an American accent.) I explained that I was now working Tuesdays, which happen to be his day off, so he promised to come (and made me promise to be there.) In appreciation, he first brought me a free drink, and then later explained that my whole meal was on the house. (Dan still had to pay.)
What struck me was his sincerity and gratitude. And such a deep desire to learn a foreign language that I have rarely if ever encountered from Americans (think of the 'ugly American' who can butcher a few words in Spanish, and expects everything to be English.) Though to put things in perspective, he was not in the US for vacation. His was trying to raise money for his family in Nepal, and he was bussing tables instead of teaching math. I can understand his desire - and need - to learn English.
I will have 27 months to learn Turkmen, and it is out of practicality and dorky eagerness. But I am making progess quickly - I have already learned my first word:

"Shishlek!" -- shish kebab!