The end is nigh!

 

 

Dear friends,

Our two years’ correspondence will shortly be ending; I’m coming home the third week of November.  I still don’t know the exact date, but I promise you, my feet will be on American soil sometime between November 15 and November 20.  Most likely the latter half of the week, but the third week nonetheless.  And I feel…how?  To be honest, it’s been an interesting emotional switch: before our COS (close of service) conference, I was not overly excited about leaving Turkmenistan.  I didn’t feel ready, whatever ready feels like.  But after our date selection lottery, after getting an idea of when I’d be leaving, I became consumed with thoughts of going home.  Obsessed.  Couldn’t wait.  Time suddenly began to stand still and I thought November would never come.

Part of the problem was that I wasn’t working.  After the conference I went back to school, but â€" though it will boggle our western schedule-oriented minds â€" there was no set schedule of classes for the first 3 weeks of school.  This made life difficult for me, as I couldn’t plan my clubs because I didn’t know when I’d be teaching lessons at school.  I spent my days filling in the correct answers to exercises in English books which was mind numbing as well as butt numbing.  I thought my boredom was rooted in my newfound desires to beat feet out of Turkmenistan, but now that I have a regular schedule and have begun teaching I’m immensely happier.  Clearly I am just a creature of habit and don’t do well without a) something engaging to do and b) structure.  My parents can vouch for that (see: Jess’s emotional breakdown day one in Paris).

Where do I stand now?  Time has resumed a normal pace which is good.  I don’t perpetually think about leaving anymore, but I do think about it daily, just because I have so much to do before then.  Like pack.  Ugh.  I’ve started the Big Purge already.  Also, my family FINALLY hung the new curtains I bought last spring, and it’s made a dramatic difference in my room; instead of being dark and cramped it’s now bright and it seems so spacious.   Sounds bounce off the walls whereas before the gross, sun-shredded curtains muffled everything.  I love it.  And â€" I don’t know â€" having an updated room makes the time seem like it will just speed along by.

My host sister and I made a list of things she wants to learn to make before I leave.  Our peaches are nearing the end of the season now and we’ve been making peach cobblers nearly weekly â€" she really likes them. 

Anyway.  That’s what’s up with me these days.  Busy and happy and looking forward to coming home.  I don’t have a single story for you today â€" I have a post-it of ideas that I have yet to elaborate upon â€" but I do have a several shorter observations I’ve made over the last few weeks.  I hope you find them entertaining :)

Hugs,

Jessica

 

From September 13:

™    At the bazaar this morning Zohre purchased a kilo of grapes for 4,500 manat (or.90 new manat or approximately 32 cents) from a very rotund woman presiding over her wares in a manner strikingly reminiscent of Jaba the Hut.

 

From September 15:

™    Baby chicks are a little bit like lemmings.  I guess you can’t blame them â€" what baby thinks its mother will steer it wrong?  We’re totally dependent on our mommies when we’re young.  We rely on them to keep us safe.  Unfortunately for our new baby chicks, this thinking has not served them so well.  Or, I should say, it hasn’t served one of them well.  For while there used to be 11 fluffy peeps, there are now ten.  The mother hen, ever in search of greener nibs of grass, led her cheeping entourage to the field yesterday, whereupon one of them fell into an irrigation ditch and drowned.  Thanks a lot, Mommy.

 

™    I took a ride in the car with Gapur today, and marveled at the fact that in Turkmenistan, I really don’t go anywhere.  Unless I have to travel to Ashgabat for business, most of the time I don’t leave my village.  You could draw a circle with a 2.5 km radius around me and 95% of the time you’d find me in it.  Heck, you could probably even make the circle smaller.  Going to the bazaar and going for runs take me the furthest distances from my home.  Except, of course, every two weeks or so, when you’d find me about 200 km away from home.  Which is a pretty big jump, when you think about it.

Of course, this all makes my lack of automobile accidents more understandable.  Yes, there’s less safety when I am in a car, but I am so rarely in cars that I suppose the chances of anything happen don’t go up by any significant amount.  Or maybe not.  Either way, I’m trying to avoid taxis from here on out.

™    Turkmen babies, in general, do not wear diapers (called “pampers†in Turkmen).  But not for environmental reasons.  It’s economics.  Diapers are expensive; single diaper costs 5,000 manat, or roughly 30 cents.  f the baby must be taken somewhere â€" a relative’s house, a wedding â€" moms can buy single diapers from the various shops around the village.  But at home, no diapers.  Instead, they wear pants.

 

These pants are made of the world’s clothing scraps. They in all colors and patterns for all seasons.  And, they, like diapers, cost 5,000 old manat a pair.  The savings are obvious.  The pants can be and are reused.  When the baby pees, take off the pants and put on a new pair.  Most of the time they don’t even bother wiping the baby or even washing the pants; they just dry them for the next use.  The pants are, however, washed for number two.

 

This seems like an economical and environmentally friendly way to deal with baby waste.   Great idea, right?  There is, however, a drawback.  Yhlas, the one-year-old from next door, was visiting this afternoon, having fun taking all my spice containers out of my cabinet and handing them to me.   After he left, I noticed a wet spot on my floor.  Puzzled, I looked around for my water bottle thinking maybe it had spilt, but we hadn’t been playing with it.  In fact, we hadn’t been playing with anything liquid.  Then it dawned on me.  Yhlas peed on my floor and the pants didn’t really do a thing.  Yes, they are cheap, environmentally friendly, and plentiful, but they sure don’t keep in the mess.

 

At least wasn’t not smelly.  It could have been worse.

 

From September 17:

™    Remember those anthropological studies about the universalities between humans.  You know, we all cry when we’re sad and smile when we’re happy.  That kind of stuff.  Well, I’ve discovered another trait that crosses cultural and continental boundaries: baby talk with animals.  One need only listen to my father cooing to our cat to comprehend that treating our animals like infants is not American or Western.  It’s human. 

From September 19:

™    In what might be considered a slightly ironic regression, I have, as of late and despite the fact that my family has a functioning shower, begun taking bucket baths.  You see, we recently turned on the hot water heater since the temperature’s been dipping so low at night.  The hot water heater is tremendously powerful and when the water level is low, as it is now, it heats all the water such that only the tiniest trickle comes out of the cold faucet.  The hot water side has no regulation between warm, warmer, and hot, only near-boil.  Even turning on both faucets results in a steady flow of water hot enough to turn shrimp pink â€" certainly too hot for a person to shower in.  Ever the astute problem solver and never to be deprived of my post-run showers, I’ve begun filling up ¾ of a bucket with cool water from the faucet in the back yard.  I take it into the bathroom and let it fill the rest of the way with the scalding water from the shower faucet and am thus left with a bucket of water at a most pleasant temperature.  The heat from the water heater also heats the bathroom; despite the fact that there is no steady shower of warm water atop my head, I do not shiver.  The added benefit is that I am forced to use less water â€" this bucket holds less than 5 gallons.  Showering takes a little longer, but I’m still squeaky clean and glowing when I leave the bathroom. 

From September 24:

™    One of my students gave me a pomegranate today in class.  Sometimes life in Turkmenistan is really fun.

From September 25:

™ I made the mistake of saying hello to an old man as I ran past him today.  He wanted to talk so I slowed to answer his questions.  He knew who my  host father was, so I thought he was  innocent enough, but them he put his  arm around me, kissed me cheek, and copped a feel.  I deftly removed his roving fingers from my left butt cheek and got the heck out of there.  Lucky for me I’m faster than the average octegenarian.  Perv.

 

 

 

 

--
Greg