Hi friends! Happy Father's Day!
Have I mentioned it's hot in Turkmenistan? Well, I've got a good experiment for you all to try. Find a hair dryer, turn it on high, and aim it towards your face. Instant Turkmenistan!
I had a revelation last week about napping. I wrote this last Wednesday, so "today" in this text isn't actually today in time. Anyhow, here goes:
What's the great thing about napping in the afternoon? It means I need less sleep at night. The sleep cycle that I currently find myself in is one that I actually enjoy, despite the disparaging remarks I've made about sleeping mid-afternoon. Indeed, these afternoon naps serve a purpose. I mean, what else can you do, really? There's no air conditioning. There are no soothing breezes. The air is hot and still. The only thing worse would be humidity. The heat lulls you to sleep; it's like a coma – you're body says, "F this man. Wake me up when it's a few notches less than sweltering outside." It's a coping mechanism and it makes perfect sense. A few weeks into the summer and I think I'm finally overcoming my Western aversion to sleeping away the afternoon – or at least an hour or so of it.
The naps get you through the hottest part of the day, but like I mentioned, they also have altered my sleeping rhythm. During the school year (a period of no naps), I would go to sleep around 11:30 and wake up at 7:30. Once the sun started rising earlier, I did too – first 7:15, then 7:00, 6:45, 6:30. Waking up earlier and going to bed at the same time decreases the amount of sleep a person gets, obviously. But by taking an hour nap in the afternoon, I can maintain a schedule of going to bed 11:30 and waking up anytime between 6 and 6:30. Which is nice. It makes me feel like I'm making full use of my days.
Today, however, I woke up at 5:00; I had to pee. I've woken up at 5 before to go to the outhouse, but usually I say to myself, "This is way too early to be up, I'm going back to sleep." But this morning I didn't have a sleep hangover. In fact, I felt pretty damn perky. I emerged from the outhouse with a few new flea bites and ready to take on the day. But what is there to do at 5:30 in the morning? I thought about it and decided that a morning stroll would be a pleasant way to bide my time. I did my kickboxing routine last night and didn't feel obliged to do any cardio today, especially because that would entail showering afterwards. Even though we have plenty of water, I still have the irrational impression that a shower every day is excessive. A nice, leisurely walk before breakfast would be great. It wouldn't make me super sweaty and it would kick start my metabolism, a bonus since the heat has made me lose my appetite, and I haven't felt like eating most mornings lately (although I do, just less). I put on some light clothes, grabbed my ipod, slipped on my running shoes, and walked to the front of the house. Then I stopped. I really was feeling great and the weather at (now) 5:30 was ideal. What's the big deal about taking a shower two days in row anyway? If I got sweaty, all I'd need was a quick rinse. And these days it's not like I do anything but throw my hair in a ponytail anyway. I went back into the house and put on a sports bra.
And I ran. It was so relaxing. What a great way to greet the morning. One of the few lovely things about summer in Turkmenistan is the fact that there are more daylight hours here than in Pennsylvania. The sun was rising when I went outside at five this morning and it doesn't fully set until well after 8:00 in the evening. If it just weren't so damn blistering hot, summer here would be ideal.
After living in Turkmenistan for over a year and a half, making new discoveries is a real joy. I found a new place to run a few weeks ago when I did my first run of the season. I travel out the road towards the desert and then run along the sand road next to the canal. It's a lot more interesting than doing laps around the school. Usually I feel the need to listen to fast music in order to keep my cadence up. Today though, I didn't feel like I had to push myself, I just wanted to enjoy the morning. So instead of putting on my "workout" play list, I listened to an episode of This American Life.
Have you ever listened to This American Life? It's broadcast on public radio on Sundays. Before coming to Turkmenistan, I didn't listen to it much, just whenever Mom and I happened to be driving somewhere on Sundays when it came on. Mom invariably listens to NPR in the car; I generally listen to WXPN – both public radio stations, just different programming options. She likes WITF's Sunday lineup of shows. I do, too, but I always preferred Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me to This American Life. Well, all that has changed in Turkmenistan. When we T-17s moved to our permanent sites in Lebap, we joined a community of NPR loving Peace Corps Volunteers. My former site mate, Elliott, gifted me with hundreds of episodes of TAL, beginning from the very first when it wasn't even called This American Life but Your Radio Playhouse. Personally I think This American Life is a much more suitable name; Your Radio Playhouse just makes me think of Pee-wee Herman. Anyway, Elliott was such a fan that he even had a drawing of Ira Glass, the shows host, taped to the wall next to his computer.
In the 21 months that we've been here, the rest of us have become fans, too. We talk about our favorite episodes, make each other listen to particularly poignant pieces that had us in stitches or in tears or both. We listen to music from the show – Penguin Café Orchestra anyone? Good stuff. We talk about what the contributors might look like. We fantasize about one day having our own pieces performed on the air, or even performing them ourselves (okay, I don't know if that's a "we" so much as an "I." I fantasize about it. A lot.) We half-jokingly talk about sending Ira fan letters from Turkmenistan – wouldn't that be a hoot? I bet he doesn't have a clue that he has fans in Turkmenistan. And then one day, a small letter from some far away forgotten Central Asian Republic will find its way to WBEZ in Chicago and inform the staff there that not only do they have fans in Turkmenistan, but also that they're probably some of the most dedicated fans in the world. Or at least in Central Asia.
Why do we like This American Life so much? I've been thinking about this all morning. I should note that not all volunteers are TAL aficionados. We're mostly from the Lebap province of Turkmenistan. Even within Lebap not everyone is a devoted listener, but the majority of us are. There are a few factors that contribute to our enjoyment of the show. Obviously we have a lot of time on our hands and we're media starved – that helps. Moreover, this show is such a quintessential aspect of home that when I listen, I almost forget that I'm in Turkmenistan. It's easy to close my eyes and imagine I'm in the car with my mom, maybe driving home from a hike in Mt. Gretna, dogs in the back seat and bellies full of root beer floats. As much as I've grown to love Turkmenistan, you can, I'm sure, understand the pleasure to be had in being transported away for small chunks of time. And, really, the show is tremendously entertaining and intellectually stimulating, which helps when the closest English speaker lives 45 minutes away from oneself.
But there's more. I invite you to consider for a moment where we are – far, far away from home, almost completely cut off from the outside Western world, and, in a country of six million host country nationals (give or take), the only representatives present of our own culture. There is no expat community to speak of, no crappy international fast food chains, virtually no visible reminders of what life in the United States is like. Maybe TAL fills that void. It keeps us connected to all that is wonderful, quirky, and even tragic about life back home. It's our oasis of Americana in the Garagum desert.
TAL episodes are an hour long and, for me anyway, listening to radio shows requires active concentration in order to stay involved with the stories. But I can't just sit still in my room for an hour and listen. I need to do a relatively mindless activity simultaneously so I'm physically as well as cerebrally occupied. Listening while making cards or writing letters doesn't work. Listening while doing laundry, cooking, cleaning or lifting weights does. And of course, radio shows are perfect for long car trips to and from the city when there's nothing else to do but sit. I can get four episodes done during one round trip as long as I don't fall asleep on the way.
Until today however, I'd never listened to the show while running. I'd contemplated it, but always thought I needed fast, thumping drum beats to maintain a quick pace – dance music, rap, rock and roll. Listening to conversation, stories or poems doesn't exactly inspire one to run one's fastest mile time. Today, however, wasn't about personal bests or how far I could go. I just wanted to get my blood flowing and work up an appetite for breakfast. I hit play on episode number 81 ("Guns") and set out on what I intended to be a short twenty minute jog. Before I knew it, twenty minutes had come and gone, but I was so engrossed in the show that i decided to run for 30. And then 30 minutes passed, then, 35 and so on before I finished at 51 minutes, feeling rather proud of myself and also quite excited. This American Life makes running a breeze. The discovery that I can run and at the same time listen to Ira and friends, becoming so involved in the show that I barely pay attention to the chronograph on my watch has made me very happy. I had been suffering from running ennui – the same 10 laps and the same music, week after week. Whereas lately I'd been finding all means of excuses for not running, now I'm eager to run so I can get through more episodes!
As of this morning, I resolved that I will gladly snooze the afternoon away if that's what it takes in order to wake up at five a.m. I just hope I feel the same way when the sun comes up tomorrow. Which isn't going to happen as early as I'd like unless I take a little siesta right now – it's past my nap time.
Lots of love,
Jess
P.S. I think I'll send this to Ira Glass and we can consider it his fan letter. And yes, I have been keeping up with the morning runs.
P.P.S. My host dad bought an air conditioner on Friday!!!!!!!!!!! Now we just have to hook it up. It am desperately hoping that by the time I return to the city, our house will be noticably cooler.
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