Hello friends! I hope this email finds you well and eagerly anticipating the arrival of spring! It’s been a long time, eh? Well, totally out of character, I had nothing to impart the last time I came up to the city. And it was a Sunday so the internet café wasn’t open either. But you know what they say … no news and good news go hand in hand.
I mean, theoretically, of course. I could have been kidnapped by Afghani hoodlums and held for ransom in a dark cave near some treacherous border lines – hungry and dirty but not too smelly. It would’ve been difficult to send email in such a situation.
Fortunately for you, I wasn’t kidnapped! No indeed! Happy-go-lucky as always, here I am, yet again, with some scribbling straight from my Central Asian abode. Today I present thoughts on rain, cows and cardboard (etc).
So a few weeks ago, Mommy[1] says to me, “How’s the weather?” And I respond something to the effect of, “Blech. Last week was beautiful, warm and sunny and now it’s gross and rainy.” Mom says, “Rain? I thought you lived in the desert.” Au contraire! It’s rained at least once a week for the past month or more! Once it rained so much our back yard became a pond and algae began to bloom! If it had been warmer, I would have wondered about malaria and things. Surely this can’t be desert! Time for a geography lesson!
Turkmensitan: indeed, much of the country is occupied by the Karakum (or Garagum) Desert – one of the world’s largest sand deserts! According to my Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Deluxe Edition (woo-hoo!) desert makes up nine-tenths of Turkmenistan’s territory. However, due to my relatively close geographical situation to the Amu Darya river, Halach and the surrounding areas are considered to be an oasis of sorts. No palm trees or anything here, but we do have an extensive canal system that diverts river water to our villages. I live in one of the most fertile and verdant areas of the country (if not THE most fertile and verdant). This is a great advantage because we have fresh veggies (more or less) year round (I think some are imported, but a lot of food is stored as well). Now, interestingly enough, the swath of oasis is not very wide. The river lies to the east of me (5 miles?) and the desert is just west – just another couple of miles. When we took the train to Halach, we were travelling through sand and scrub brush. When we drive up to Charjew, we drive through sand and scrub brush. Because of our close proximity to the river, we don’t have water shortage issues, either – also a plus.
Now, compare this to the Balkan region in Western Turkmenistan. Balkan has a diminished water supply. As in nearly zero water. The ground is not especially fertile. Things just don’t grow. In fact, it’s so depressed for vegetation that I’ve heard tell of people feeding the cows cardboard.
Let’s just consider cows for a moment. Currently at home (America, that is) there’s a movement afoot regarding cows and what they eat. Thanks to Michael Pollan and books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma (which I thoroughly enjoyed), people are beginning to question why cows eat so much corn when they’re not biologically equipped to be corn eaters. It turns out that corn isn’t as good for cows as fresh sweet grass and that grass fed cows are better for us humans than corn fed cows. Damn you, government subsidized corn!!! Anyway, as I was attending to business in the outhouse this morning, I wondered: What would we prefer our cows ruminated upon? Corn or cardboard? And though I know corn is bad for their bellies, I can’t imagine cardboard is any more nutritious. In which case, I suppose we should be lucky that our American cows are at least eating food stuffs and not paper.
This does beg the question, however: would I rather eat cows fed on paper or rendered cow bits? I’m undecided on this one. Wasn’t that outlawed though? Cows can no longer eat other cows for dinner, no?
Luckily, I do not live in Balkan and our cows do not eat cardboard. As best I can tell, they eat hay and the occasional food scraps. Including garlic, which may explain the sometimes sour taste of our dairy.
Anyway, by March 12 the rainy, muddy transition from Winter to Spring ceased and a warm weather pattern has settled in. The fruit trees flowered and are now budding leaves. Bees are busying themselves will pollen collection. And best of all, the air has that dry, fresh, almost chlorinated scent that I love so much about the air in Southern California.
Having no thermometer, I don’t really know what the temperature is. But I no longer need to wear long underwear beneath my skirts and I can play outside in a t-shirt, capris, and sandals quite contendedly. High 60s maybe? 70s? Spring here really seems like early summer for us back home in the Northeast. We kinda skipped right over all that 40s and 50s business.
Celebrating this lovely weather, I ventured to school one day wearing my beloved Teva flip-flops. After all the stares from students and teachers commenting “Oh, Spring has arrived for you!” I got the hint that Tevas aren’t going to cut it at work. That and my counterpart said “No” when I asked her if I could wear them. Sigh. Teachers are supposed to dress “professionally” and that includes wearing closed-toed shoes. According to my counterpart, they’re not even allowed to wear open-backed shoes, but they do anyway because no one from the Ministry of Education comes to check. I still can’t wear my flip-flops though. Or my Chacos. Well, just not to school, that is.
I’m not really a shoe person. As I write this I realize it’s a blatant lie. I suppose it would be more appropriate to say I’m not a summer shoe person. I’d much rather be barefoot in summer than wear shoes. On the other hand where shoes are required, I do have quite a collection of cute footwear to prance around in. I’m not quite sure how to reconcile these two sides of my personality into a witty comment.
You know what else spring in Turkmenistan brings? Ants. Lots of ‘em. Recently, the ants have been marching in full force. Around our “dining room” table, ants come out of the woodwork searching for food. Attempts to thwart them are in vain. Shoving tiny rocks in the cracks makes more work for the little black guys, but soon, they remove the obstructions and venture forth freely again. It would be interesting to lift our house up and have a look at the ground underneath. I wouldn’t be surprised, but I’d be kind of disgusted, to find one ginormous ant hill.
My host mom brought out a bag of cookies recently and offered me one. I don’t care for these cookies and I declined. Boy was that a good move. She removed one for herself and it was covered with ants. Upon further inspection we realized that the whole bag was teeming with the little buggers. So what did she do? Shook them out and ate the cookies. I gagged.
Despite this recent resurgence of ant activity, my ant problem began weeks ago. In a box I received for Christmas was a book covered with crushed bits of candy cane that didn’t quite survive the trans-Atlantic crossing. Nothing thinking much of it, I placed the new book on the shelf. A few days later, I noticed a great increase of ants in my bedroom and upon investigation realized they were going for the pepperminty goodness of those miniscule candy cane crumbs. Bah humbug indeed. I took the book outside, shook off all the ants, cleaned the cover, put it in a zip lock bag and stashed it in my suitcase. Unfortunately, the ants didn’t take the hint and the following few weeks were marked by a steady ant presence in my boudoir. At first I killed them with abandon, but I started to feel guilty. They weren’t hurting anything, right? Just looking for some tasty food to take back to the hill. They had a route – come in through the crack in the door way, climb up the wall, traverse the wall towards the window, sniff around and return.
Then I started finding ants in my clothing. I got bit by ants at the breakfast table. I would feel a tickle on my neck and scratch and an ant would be on my hand. Ants crawled across my computer while I was watching movies. My counterpart picked an ant out of my hair once. And twice, I was woken up in the middle of the night to a strange sensation on my face only to discover that, yes, there was an ant scaling my nose. Then I became upset. I moved my bed away from the wall, tightly packed all my food, and kept vigil on the ant situation. Over time, they began to lessen.
Then spring came and with the warmer weather, more ants came out to play. Out in our main room, they use the molding as their main highway. In a line, too many to count, they make their way to the table and back to all the cracks in the walls. My room became of interest again. I watched them come out of a crack in the door frame. I nervously fell asleep at night, not wanting another ant disrupting my dreams.
Mom called and told me to try cinnamon. I dusted it around my door, shoved cinnamon into the cracks with a Q-tip. It turns out the ants do not like cinnamon. They wouldn’t walk across it. They didn’t emerge from cracks sprinkled with the spice. A few days ago, I found a number of ants clamoring for a piece of noodle that was on my bedroom floor, presumably from my clothing. I sprinkled cinnamon on them. They cowered. For the time being, I have won.
Every now and then I still find a few ants roaming about my walls, searching for most delicious treats. But it’s rare now. As I am writing, I don’t see any travelers. A few weeks ago, I could count dozens walking the path towards my window. I am at peace.
Ironically, my family finally bought some “medical chalk” at the bazaar last week. Apparently ants don’t like it. I have a hunch it’s lyme. Anyhow, they drew on the molding, on the floor, around my door jamb. The ants, wily creatures that they are, walked all over the lyme.
The other day I watched an ant struggle to carry a large crumb across the carpet. You have to admire a creature so tenacious and determined. To haul such an awkward and heavy load must be one heck of a workout for an ant. It reminds me Sisyphus and his rock. Only unlike Sisyphus, the ant is certain to succeed.
An ant haiku:
Middle of the night
An ant crawls across my face
I wake up, annoyed.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed this week’s tale of daring and adventure from Turkmenistan! Happy spring and Happy St. Patty’s Day! And remember, if you’re not going to go barefoot, wear cute shoes!
Love,
Jess
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