Gifts and Gossip

My Dear Jess-turk,

Have you received any boxes yet from Dawn and I or were they "Lost".--in a time traveling loop? "Lost" is on tonight, the show with the movable island. The show is really getting interesting now as it dabbles into quantum physics. I love Jack and "Freckles" but Sawyer is okay. I do hope the boxes of materials arrived safe and sound. More stuff to pile in the desert--or you could find ways to help the locals reduce, reuse and recycle.

Dawn said she misses you and hopes you had a happy Valentines Day. You did exchange Valentine's Day card in your clubs, right? Maybe not. But that was fun when I was in primary school in Pennsylvania and Texas. Hey, I learned to Square Dance in elementary school. Maybe you could teach some Square Dancing to your club students? So much time. So little to do. Keep busy "Popeye" and stay confident. Your shape is perfect regardless what you weigh. I could use a hooka (sp?) pipe, for decorative purposes only, if they are permissable to ship or bring home. Aunt Jenny's mother in law, and Mike's mom died, which was a relief as she had agressive cancer and was in hospice. Charlene was more upset by Hedwig Barnes passing than dad's--but familiarity can breed contempt in a wife.

Love,

Billy--Dawn and the Hondo Pack

PS. You should have received four boxes. If, or when, they arrive we have six more to send you, you foxy Turkwoman. I do find the Turkwomen to have beautiful smiles, complexions and figures, which is no small feat in your part of the globe.

Photos!

Alright:  I have made all my photos public so if you've been unable to access them, hopefully it will work now.  I'm trying to upload some more but it's rather slow and this time isn't free, so there will only be a few new photos.  

Here's the link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/11696456@N08/

Horray!

Please don't be Turkmen and tell me how much weight I've gained :)

About airplanes, Madrid and normalacy

Airplanes are missing from my night sky.  At home we live under a flight path for planes landing at the Harrisburg International Airport ("International").  Planes are a part of life.  Sometimes they're so low coming in you can tell what airline the plane belongs to.  Sometimes when we fly home from travelling, we can spot our house from up in the air.  And in the States, on any given evening, you can look up and see small white pseudo-stars traversing the night sky and imagine the people inside being ferried to all sorts of destinations –adventures, work trips, or romantic rendezvous. 

 

I often contemplate the constellations at night.  In my village there are only 2 street lights about a quarter mile apart.  The light pollution isn't very great and the stars and planets are brilliant.  I can easily find Orion, the Big Dipper and Delphinus.  Venus is really bright right now, too.  But I can see other groupings, too, that I'm sure are constellations and if I only had my star chart, I'd be able to name them all.  I have, however, never seen a plane.  It can be very isolating to realize that no one is flying over my airspace.

 

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It was the Russian dance music that brought back memories of my semester in Madrid.  Well, the Russian dance music and Shakira.  Sitting down to lunch, my favorite Russian song of the moment came on.  My sister turned up the volume and we bopped our heads in time as we ate.  Once it ended, Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" began. I smiled and sang along under my breath.  Shakira's pretty popular all over the world, I suppose, if even Turkmen kids know who she is.  She was a staple in the Spanish bars and clubs I frequented during my four months in Madrid. 

 

Madrid has oodles of bars and clubs and pubs.  I went to many of them.  My friends and I would flirt with European tourists, drink pints (pints!  I think I had my first pint in Madrid [and yes, it was probably cider because I hadn't yet developed a taste for beer]), take shots of tequila and dance the night away until some awful hour when either the metro was about to close or the night buses were soon departing.  Other evenings, I followed Santiago (professor/friend/mentor) around the crooked streets to some hole in the wall bar or restaurant that I could have never found on my own. 

 

Listening to Shakira this afternoon, I remembered how liberated and independent and cosmopolitan I felt in Spain.  How I could navigate the city streets on my own (most of the time without becoming lost) and how I had enough command of the language to be entirely comfortable.   How I felt that, after four months, I belonged in Madrid.  I could survive there; live there happily, be a madrileña.   It was home.

 

My experience in Turkmenistan is outrageously distinct.  Now, it makes me laugh to think that just three springs ago, four months was an eternity.  As much as I loved Spain, I was ready to go home after those four months were over.  I had a boyfriend at the time which complicated things, of course.  But I was in awe of the students who studied abroad for a whole school year!  And who didn't go home for Christmas!   Who doesn't spend Christmas at home?!

 

Tomorrow is February 1, 2009, my four month anniversary.  I can't imagine going home tomorrow.  The time has not caught up to me yet; I still feel like I've just arrived.  I guess this just means my subconscious knows that I'm here for the long haul and so I'm adjusting accordingly.  That's relativity for you, right?  And, of course, the Turkmen kids don't even know who Einstein is…

 

After four months in Turkmenistan, I certainly don't feel very cosmopolitan, but that's hardly surprising because I live in the boondocks of the boondocks.  Certainly I can survive here and while I had a huge linguistic advantage in Spain having already studied the language for 6 years before I went, I can communicate (more or less) effectively in Turkmen.  And most of the time I'm content.  But I miss the feeling of absolute freedom – the feeling that anything is possible, the options endless. 

 

What do I mean?  Knowing that the world is small and large at the same time. Knowing that more exists outside of my small town, my state, my country. Understanding that there is much more to life than what I see on a daily basis.  Waking up and decided to go to Europe or Australia or Colorado or just the mall and being able to do so.  Having my own money, knowing how to buy a plane ticket or being able to plan and successfully complete a road trip.  But I don't really miss these things for myself – I miss it for all the girls I know who will never have these experiences.  The feeling of total freedom this knowledge gives me is something few of them will ever experience.  And they will be happy and their lives will go on, they'll get married and pump out babies, but for most of them, travelling to the other side of the country is as exotic and foreign as they get.  They think Ashgabat is the most beautiful city in the world because it's the most beautiful city in Turkmenistan and the only real city they've ever seen. 

 

I still blows my mind to think that every week I took an art history course in the Reina Sofia museum and so many people here wouldn't even know a Picasso or Dali if they saw one.  God, I miss Spain.

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I gave my first test this week.  It was an exercise in patience, that's for sure.  There is no word in Turkmen (that I have in my dictionary) for cheating.  Going into the test, I knew that in school cheating is rampant – although is it really cheating if it's accepted?  I told the students no talking, no peeking, no looking in notebooks.  I split them into small groups and tried to give each student his/her own desk.  I threatened low scores.  And still they cheated.  Blatantly.  And repeatedly, even after I'd caught them.  So I took off five points for every student that I saw cheating and told them that in the end, it doesn't really matter if they cheat or not, but it does mean that they're not learning English. 

 

Some students didn't even bother to answer the test questions and I wonder why they even come to club?  But on the other hand, why do I bother to give tests?  Luckily the students haven't figured out that the tests are pointless; the school isn't worried about their grades, only me.  There's no real incentive though, except for the students who genuinely want to learn English.  And there are some exceptional students, and I want to help them as best I can.  Jobs are so scarce here that if I can help someone get a leg up, I'll feel like I've achieved something good.

 

I've also noticed in clubs how many kids are unable to think independently.  They incessantly ask me in which notebook they should be writing.  They copy from the blackboard exactly what I've written.  If I've run out of room and continued on another area of blackboard, they'll do the same, even if their notes are disjointed and unorganized as a result.  Some of them think that because I print, they must print, too. It makes a teacher want to bang her head against a wall sometimes.  Or drink beer, which is what Elliott did last Sunday to my great relief.  Still, it's pretty pathetic and thus it's another goal of mine to show them that they can in fact make their own decisions and that it's okay to deviate from what I do.  I don't think it will be easy, especially if this is the way their teachers expect them to behave in school. 

 

Have I mentioned before that they all write exactly the same way?  Everyone forms their letters exactly the same way.  Everyone writes in cursive.  Turkmen don't print. This school is so normalizing!  And all the schools are the same.  I've started readingLenin's Tomb which I got for Christmas and though I'm not very far along, reading about all the normalization that was carried out during the Soviet Union makes me wonder if this uniformity is left over from the Soviet school system.  I would feel so stifled!  But if I were Turkmen, I probably wouldn't know any better!   

 

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A few days ago I learned that all our non paper trash gets taken out to the desert and left there.  I can't stand the idea of adding to a pile of non-biodegradable stuff.  Guess who's going to come home in two years with a suitcase full of empty plastic bottles and toothpaste tubes? 

 

Hugs from the other side of the world,

Jess

The Rape of the Sheep Head and Other Tales

The Rape of the Sheep Head and Other Tales

It's been a while, friends, since I regaled you with a story of gastronomic delicacy,and now I think the time has come to revisit this beloved topic.  The following incident occurred on January 4, 2009 at about 6:00 in the evening.  It is now 7:00 on said night; the events are still very, very clear in my mind and, as a result, I'm still feeling a bit, um, grossed out.

This afternoon, my host father was telling me about the wonderful dish he would be helping to prepare for dinner tonight: liver, kidneys, and lungs.  While it sounded fabulous, I informed my family that I would gladly cook my own meal because organs just aren't my fav.  I watched as my host sister and mother cleaned said body parts. And then I saw them again as they were brought out from the kitchen:  carefully wrapped and sewn up in fat.  And to think I turned my nose up at this. 

6:00 rolls around, the smell of cooking sheep organ begins to waft into my room and it's time to eat.  Much to my initial chagrin, one of my host sisters had gone ahead and cooked for me.  I had been looking for making some yummy food of my own with my private olive oil stash, but alas.  Thing is, I know she did it because she wanted to be nice and she likes me and blah, blah, but I was still a little bummed.  Next time…next time.  Anyhoo, they have a pot of stuff boiling on the electric griddle in our eating area, and my host pop, Gapur, fetches a slotted spoon and begins extracting various sheep parts.  While I knew of the bound organs, I was wholly unaware of the sheep head and sheep hoofs also in the pot.  Yum!

He places all the food on a plate and they begin to eat.  And Gapur, man, he is really digging in.  He tackles the head first – the poor, sad sheep head that still looks like a little sheep with its seemingly empty eye sockets, little nose and nostrils still intact, and sheepy smooth ears still there but no longer sheepy smooth.  And, oh, the littlepatas.  Small and sweet and you can just imagine a sheep prancing happily on its stewed hoofs.  Sigh.  The next thing I notice, after wistfully looking at the still cute sheep snout, is that one of the ears is missing.  What?  Oh, wait, no.  It's being chewed on.  Yes, Gapur has sawed off the ear, which I can only imagine is entirely cartilage, and is rapturously chewing away. 

I'm eating my milky rice dinner (rice cooked in milk served with a few pats of butter too many for my taste: basically tapioca with rice instead of whatever tapioca is) and thinking that it's rather fortunate that I'm not eating what they are, when Gapur puts one of the organ bundles on a plate for my sister Bägul (pronounced "baaah" [like a sheep] ghoul – it means "rose."  It you accidentally mispronounce it like "bagel" they don't understand for some reason. ß Just kidding. Not about the bagel part, though, I really did that).  Bägul then proceeds to cut open the packet of yummy and extracts whatever organ is inside.  I don't know if she ate the fat casing or not.  It mysteriously wasn't there at meal's end.  The boiled organ reminded me a lot of Murcia in texture – that's what I thought anyway, just looking at it.  Then, THEN they say, "Jess!  Iý! It's healthy!  People eat this for health!"  Oh, my least favorite Turkmen word: Eat!  Eat! But, if I'm not here to challenge and stretch myself, then I don't know why on earth I'm here, so I very carefully put a tiny, tiny, miniscule bit on my spoon, hope I don't die, and eat.  And it tastes like organ.  Or, what I imagine organ would taste like.  Very earthy and rich (but not a rich that I particularly like).  There's a perfect adjective for earthy and rich that I can't think of at the moment (liverish?) …anyway, not to my liking.  I satisfy myself by eating my milky rice and watching the destruction of this poor sheep continue.

After Gapur satisfies himself with the ear, he picks up a hoof.  And eats the hoof.  And probably the foreleg, too, I missed that part of the show.  Lest you begin to think it's all over, oh no, the best part is yet to be consumed: the head.  Gapur grabs a knife and starts gnawing at the nose.  I worry that he's going to cut it off and eat the nose! Except, then he changes course and begins to cut elsewhere, the objective being just removing the skin from the skull.  Once achieved, it's a free for all.  Every piece of available meat is searched out and eaten.  Fingers and knives are used to push and prod and pull.  Those "seemingly" empty eye sockets?  My mistake.  He locates an eyeball, tries to get it out of the socket.  This proves to be a little difficult and he has to poke from a variety of angles.  Finally, the eye is freed.  He gingerly removes the pupil and the iris and some of the nerves in the back.  He pops the white and a few remaining nerves into his mouth and chews.  And swallows.  And appears to be enjoying the taste explosions in his mouth.

Once all the meat has been excavated from the surface of the skull, it's time to smash that mother open.  Knife in hand, a few good bashes are sufficient to break open the skull.  Then, the knife is inserted in the cranial cavity, and the brain is scraped out into Bägul's plate.  It looks like chunky paté I think, looking at it and again thanking my lucky stars that I don't have to eat it.  I am met with expectant stares and again they say, "Eat!"  I hold up my hand and say, "No," because I had learned my lesson the first time.  But he says, "Try, try!" and I think, well, what kind of story teller would I be if I didn't at least try the brain?  Trying it gives me more credibility and I'm all about being an informative and factual journalist.  They say it needs salt; they add salt.  I again take a very, very miniscule amount onto my spoon and pop that sucker into my mouth. I can tell you that in fact, it is the texture of chunky paté (I think I've eaten paté?).  I consider the brain and take another very small piece onto my spoon and eat that, too (I may have eaten a quarter of a teaspoon total.  I know, I know, I strive to be adventuresome, but I'm a long way from hosting Bizarre Foods).  The brain, I decide, tastes like wet cat food.  And yes, I know what wet cat food tastes like.  Or rather, I did some 19 years ago and frankly, the brain brought those memories flooding back. Feeding the cats, helping myself to a bit of their food…it happens.

Seeing that I am not overwhelmingly put off by the salty cat foodesque brain, they encourage me to take another spoonful, and a big one this time!  However, I decline because I've had about all the brain I can stomach for one evening.  In fact, I can't rid my palate of the brain taste and I grab an apple for some taste bud cleansing.  The raping and pillaging of the head continues; scraping and scratching all remaining dregs of meat/fat/cartilage available.  Gapur sucks the bones like a straw in order to get the marrow out.  And finally, there's nothing left to eat.  The organs are gone, the head is naked of meat.  All that's left is bone.  Job well done, really.  Gapur orders more water boiled for tea.  They are sated.  I am thinking how wonderful it is that I'm virtually a vegetarian here – I rarely eat meat anymore and this is why.  Now, if only they'd serve fish more often…

Gapur invites me to have another käse of tea, but I'd been guzzling them down during the whole dinner event and I decline.  Instead, I jump up, eager to write down all the thoughts about this meal whizzing about my head which, thankfully, will (most likely) never be tossed in a pot to cook. 

The thing is, I have to respect them for eating parts of animals that I wouldn't dream of eating even in the most desperate situations.  In some cultures, they eat and/or use everything out of respect for the animal (Eskimos, right?).  I doubt that's why Turkmen scavenge their animals so.  Rather, I speculate that it's related to a tradition of scarcity many, many years ago.  People had to eat everything or they wouldn't eat.  And so the taste preference is learned generation after generation.  I mean, I don't even know if there was scarcity of meat but most of Turkmenistan is desert.  I think it's a pretty safe assumption.  I've also heard that meat is expensive so maybe it's just a matter of getting the most bang for your buck.  Or, in our case, the sheep that we slaughtered was ours.  So perhaps we're just getting the most out of the labor that went into raising that sheep.  Whatever the case is, there is no waste.

I mean, it really takes simple living to a whole new level, doesn't it?  I don't know though…I'm all for being as sustainably minded as I can but I'm not an organ eater. And I'm neither a brain eater nor a marrow sucker. 

Meanwhile, the house still smells of boiled sheep matter. 

 In other news…

I shouldn't complain; I'm healthy and have been since I moved to Lebap.  That is a definite plus.  And they have caught on to the fact that I don't like fat – I don't eat butter on my bread (because it tastes sour), I pick fat off my meat, and I try like hell to avoid eating all the grease in soup.  As a result, my food's been less fatty and greasy. And I am running again!  I feel healthier and skinnier already!  Amazing!  Now, if they'd only let me cook for myself sometimes, life would almost be perfect.

I have, by the by, gotten over the whole outhouse thing.  Now every time I have to pee, which is frequently due to the large amounts of tea I imbibe, regardless of time of day/night and/or weather, it's off to the outhouse I go!  And the only hitch in the otherwise normal event of voiding one's bladder is the talkative sheep.  I read in National Geographic that sheep can recognize faces and so maybe this is a sweet sheep and he just knows my face and wants to be friendly.  But this sheep, he is a wily sheep.  The sheep pen abuts the outhouse and this sheep likes to squeeze in the small space between a stack of hay and the outhouse.  And so there I go merrily inside to conduct business and all of a sudden I hear, "blaaaaah."  It has on more than one occasion made me jump, as much as a person can jump whilst squatting.  Nearly every time I go to the outhouse now it says hello, "blaaaah."  Maybe it knows they just ate a friend – it does remind me an awful lot of that stewed head.  Silly sheep, I think it gets a kick out of bleating when I least expect it.

On January 3, we had an earthquake!  My host father was spending the night at school (guard duty) and the shaking of his bed woke him up.  The next morning they asked me if I felt anything during the night, but I slept right through.  My first earthquake and I totally missed it.

Someone told me that many of the cars in Turkmenistan are stolen cars from other countries.  This may or may not be true, but I have seen a number of cars with American university stickers on the windows/bumpers.  The other day I saw a car with a Brown sticker.  I've seen scuba diving symbols, honors student stickers…  So cars definitely make their way here from the U.S.  Maybe they're just used car lot rejects? Turkmenistan is where cars that no one wants go to die.

 Over break, I was carted off to a teachers' conference in our regional center. Boooring, but they asked me questions about our American educational system and what I thought about the Turkmen education system.  I was quite diplomatic in my response, not wanting to offend anyone (when I was really thinking, um, yeah, I'm so glad I didn't go to school here).  Anyhow, a man approached me during a break and said, "My friend's car is showing this and we don't know what it means.  Can you tell me?"  He had written, "MAINT REQ'D" on a piece of paper.  I said, "It means something is wrong with the car and it needs to be fixed."  And then it occurred to me that I don't even know if there are auto-body shops here.  I mean, I would assumethere are by the simple fact that there are cars here and sometimes cars need to be fixed.  And then I wondered if the guys working in said hypothetical shops would know how to fix whatever maintenance bug the car has.  But I guess a car's a car, right?  All the same stuff more or less under the hood.  Might just need oil. 

During my little speech, a man asked me how many days a week we study in the U.S. When I reiterated that we have a 5 day work week (I had already mentioned it), he got really ticked and started telling our methodologist (the region's head of English teachers) that he wanted another free day.  I hadn't meant to incite a protest; I was merely telling the truth.   I have two free days here because I'm no dummy.  A six day work week sucks!  And I need a business day free to run errands.  But then I started adding up the hours: Turkmen teachers don't have to be at school unless they're teaching and that's a perk we don't have.  And really, they give maybe 10 minutes of homework a night which means they don't have to spend a lot of time grading. Furthermore, the tests are a joke.  In English class I've seen tests that are only about 5 questions and the teachers practically walk the students through the whole thing.  They don't assign papers; there are no worksheets to correct.  So, one can only assume that they don't have a lot of outside grading to do.  In which case Turkmen teachers probably work far fewer hours than American teachers despite only having one day off.  If only he knew…

One of the teachers expressed her frustration to me that some students just aren't interested in school. Of course this is a universal problem, but if you sat in on a Turkmen class, you wouldn't blame the students. The teaching straight from the book style is dry and dull.  Even I, miss "I love school!" would be bored.  I get bored observing classes.  But how do you say that to a room full of teachers?  It's best to show by example and that's why I'm here.  It was nice that this woman showed such concern.  In fact, I got a little jealous on our way home from the conference because it seems like she would be very receptive to new teaching styles – were she my counterpart, I'm sure she'd be all about co-planning, co-teaching and trying new things in class.  My counterpart has never expressed an interest in co-planning with me.  Her idea of co-planning is telling me that I'm supposed to coach the Olympiad (like Quiz Bowl) students tomorrow.  On what?  "Grammar."  What grammar?  "Just grammar." Oh, right.   On the bright side, I have two years with her – with a little patience we should be co-planning by the time I leave.

 

 New Year's!  How could I forget!  The anticipation leading up to New Year's Eve was tremendous – everyone antsy and talking about how they can't wait for "täze ýyl" (that's New Year in Turkmen).  And New Year's Eve roll around and I'm gearing up for a huge celebration and it turns out they celebrate New Year's just like every other Turkmen holiday of importance.  What a let-down.  Here's what we did:  We went to people's houses and ate food.  Now this is slightly different because for Gurbanchylyk, the holiday we had in the beginning of December when I first got here, it seemed like only a few people had parties.  For New Year's, everyone had food out in case people stopped by.  And that's just what you do, drop in on people and they feed you. Gulaýlek and I went to her friend Jemal's house where we sat and ate.  Jemal is kind of annoying.  She kept making me take pictures with her and would place my arms where she wanted them.  Ugh.  I need to stop hanging out with 14 year olds.  She practically begged me to go to her party though and she gave me a present, too, so I felt obliged. 

After Jemal's I went with my other sister Bägul to yet another house where we sat and ate some more.  And whether it be a birthday party, New Year's, a wedding, or other big events, the food is largely predictable.  A Turkmen party spread consists of homemade pickles, peanuts, rasins, candy, vanilla wafers and chocolate covered tea cookies, homemade juice, soda, tea, tomatoes if in season, palow (rice, carrots, meat), and cake.  Cake in Lebap, while not nearly as good as what yours truly can make, is oodles better than cake in Ahal.  New Year's, being the most important holiday of the year, had a few culinary surprises.  In addition to the food above, we also ate fish! From the Amu Darya!  And it was huge!  And delicious!  In fact, the first house I went to baked the fish in a skillet with diced tomatoes and onions and other yummy stuff.  It was probably the best food I've eaten in Turkmenistan thus far.  My family fried our fish, which was also tasty.  And we also barbequed!  They made a fire out of sticks, skewered the meat, and then set the skewers on bricks over the fire.  We had barbecued pork and gazelle.  Really.  Both were also very tasty.  I didn't think Turkmen ate pork but my family does.  I asked my family if they eat fish a lot and they said yes. However, this was the first time I'd been served fish here, so I remain skeptical.  I would LOVE to eat fish more often.  We'll see.

After Bägul's party we came back home.  My host father poured me a shot of vodka and we took one shot together.  Then I went to our uncle's house and ate some more food and took another shot of vodka.  At home around 10:30 I fell asleep.  Then some other relatives came over and I had to do another shot of vodka.  Each time you drink, someone gives a toast and I ended up giving 3 or 4 toasts that night (in English). Everyone who's drinking takes a turn giving toasts.  With each shot, someone else takes a turn.  By the end of the night my host father was pretty drunk.  I was just tired. At midnight we watched fireworks on TV and then at 12:30 I went to bed.  More people came over the next night, but I didn't have to drink.  My host father got drunk again.  But he's just a sloppy drunk, not aggressive or mean or angry or whatever. 

So that was New Year's.   Yay!  Happy New Year!  I miss pork, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes. 

 

My host sister made crepes!  Not the prettiest crepes ever because she had to scrape them out of the skillet with a fork, but crepes nonetheless!  In Turkmenistan!  Who knew?  As I was standing in the kitchen watching her make them, I couldn't for the life of me think of what we call them.  It was frustrating; I'm too young for these senior moments.  But, at last, it "crepe't" up on me.  Haha, I had to tell that story just because of the pun J I thought of that myself, thanks.

January 15, 2009.

I learned how to make carpets!  I was invited to a carpet making studio where four teenaged girls were squatting on pillows making a carpet.  It's tedious work; they showed me how and let me weave a few strands.  Let me tell you, those people do not sell those carpets for near enough money for the amount of work that goes into making just one carpet.  It takes more than a month!  And you weave each individual strand!  Ay!  A person wanting to set up a carpet export business to the U.S. would make a killing.  The carpets sell in Turkmenistan for the equivalent of a couple hundred dollars but people in the States would pay at least $1,000 if not more, for the same carpet.  I was, of course, appallingly slow but the girls assured me that with more practice, I'd be speedily weaving along, just as they did.  They seemed to be having fun and it'd be a great bonding experience: spending hours in a dark studio, talking and making a carpet. 

 I spoke to my mom yesterday and she asked me, "Is running water the only modern convenience you don't have?  Do you have electricity?"  Well, I think Mommy KNEW that I have electricity, but she was just double checking.  Her question was a wake-up call for me:  as tough as I think I am living here without my favorite foods, hot showers every other day, and flush toilets, I realized that I'm not really roughing it as much as I imagined.  I was taking my electricity for granted!  In Turkmenistan!  How dare I? 

Now, according to other volunteers, the electricity can be unreliable and randomly go out for hours at a time.  When I first visited Lebap, Elliott gave me a candle for these very situations (and for its good smell, too).  But since I've been here I've only experienced outages a handful of times.  And if it's dark, well, sleep is always a good past time.  If the laptop is charged, watch a movie!  Daytime – read!  Play outside!  It would be much more difficult living without electricity.  I'd have to learn how to make solar cookers and rig a way to charge my laptop battery by bicycling or something. And though that could be pretty fun, I'm quite pleased with and thankful for my electricity. 

 

My clubs started this week!  This morning, 50 students showed up for the 6-10 grade club and another 50 came for the 4 and 5 grade club (some second and third graders snuck in).  Now, 50 kids were manageable in the 12-16 age group, but 50 fourth and fifth graders was rather tiring.  Not sure yet how I'm going to proceed with this "dilemma."

 

And finally, I absolutely adore my neighbor, Gözel.  She's the school librarian; her husband is a Russian teacher.  He speaks to me in a mix of Turkmen and Russian and then throws his hands up when I don't understand and admonishes me to learn RussianJ  Anyway, whenever Gözel sees me, she gives me a great big hug.  It's amazing. Being a person who enjoys frequent hugs, it's a relief from my otherwise hugless life. No other Turkmen hug me, except PC staff and my LCF Maisa (well, and Gözel's daughter in law).  I bet the English teachers would if I initiated it, but the great thing about Gözel is that she hugs me first and she means it.  She likes me a lot.  I had dinner with her and her daughter-in-law last night (like I said, the daughter in law always hugs me and she gives me a kiss on the cheek, too!)  Gözel told me to come to their house everyday – I don't know if she meant it or was just being nice.  But, if she's sincere, I think dinner once a week would be lovely.  I told her I liked her because she hugs me, and she told me she'd be my mother.  Now, of course, no one, no matter how they endeavored, could ever replace my own mother to me, but it was sweet and I'll admit, it's nice to have a doting mother figure around.

 

I apologize for the length of this email; brevity is clearly not my strong suit.  Writing these rambling entries is relaxing and therapeutic for me, so I thank you very much for reading J 

I'll be back in Turkmenabat (or Charjew as its more commonly called [it means 4 roads in Farsi!!]) in two weeks (with, most likely, a much shorter email).

Hope you're all healthy and happy,

 

Love,

Jessica

This is Turkmenistan?

Hello hello!

 

I posted new pictures today!  Link below!  Hooray!!!

 

Okay, brace yourselves.  This will be my last email for an indefinite period of time.  Please, please, hold back your tears.  I'll be back before you know it.  Here's the deal:  tomorrow at 5:30 am I am getting into a mini-van and 5 of us are heading east to Lebap.  The van will be packed because although we only came with 100 pounds of luggage, the amount of stuff we have has grown exponentially in the two short months we've been here.  Sigh.  Can't get away from stuff. 

 

So we've been in the city since Thursday.  I have been in awe of the fact that in my hotel room, there is a toilet not 15 feet from my bed!  Indoors!  Ah, it's heaven.  Paradise.  Pure happiness.  I will miss that.  And running water.  And hot showers.  But, enough. Small sacrifices.  I get to come home eventuall, after all. 

 

Thursday evening, we went out to dinner at a place called "City Pub."  This restaurant has soccer paraphernalia all over the walls.  They played English language music.  I had pizza -- it was so-so, but it was pizza.  Afterwards, we went to the "Zip bar."  Had a beer and smoked a hookah with several other people.  Then, we decided to go to a disco.  I didn't even know Ashgabat had discos, but it makes sense.  The Russian population here is pretty western and they have just as much desire as anyone to get their grooves on.  It was deserted when we got there around 10:30.  And, the DJ wasn't there so the music wasn't very danceable.  Around 11:00 more people came, the DJ came, and the music got better.  They played Kanye West (for those of you who know who that is) and I jumped onto the dance floor to shake my booty.  It was a lot of fun.  Then the turned on the green strobe light which was fun at first but a bit dizzying after while.  The fun thing about this disco was that, other than the Americans, the other patrons were Turkmen men and prostitutes.  They were scantily clad and danced mostly with themselves or with potential clients.  Prostitution is not uncommon in the city.  And I hear they don't make a lot of money which is unfortunate.  I mean, if you're gonna sell your stuff, at least make some bank.  IMHO. 

 

What was cool about the whole evening was how un-Turkmenistan it was.  We really could have been anywhere -- we could have been home.  It was a very "normal" night out.  It was also a lot of fun :) 

 

Yesterday, we woke up, gussied up, and headed to our swearing in ceremony.  Our host families, counter parts, Turkmen government officials and US Embassy folks were all invited and present.  Our CD spoke, a representative from the Turkmen Edu. Ministry spoke, and the Ambassador spoke.  He administered our oaths to us and presented us with our certificates stating that we are now all official Peace Corps Volunteers.  The oath said that we would do our best to protect the constitution of the US while here and things like that.  Not very Peace Corps if you ask me, but I have a feeling all government employees take this oath (or something similar).  Even though we're not "technically" gov't employees. 

 

After the ceremony we had more information sessions at Peace Corps.  We got our first month's salary and settling in allowance.  I got 4.16 million manat which is about $250 dollars.  Not too shabby.  I've never had a million of anything before, so that's pretty cool.  But it doesn't go very far, unfortunately. 

 

For dinner last night, a HUGE group of us went to a Karaoke bar (again -- Turkmenistan?).  It was a fiasco really  -- too many people for the kitchen to handle and well-intentioned people trying to make life easier by limiting our orders but ultimately being obnoxious by limiting what I could order. Grr.  The evening was saved by singing Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer."  Bon Jovi makes everything better. 

 

Today our CD had us over to his apartment for breakfast.  His apartment building is beautiful inside and out.  It was so crazy to see his house -- it was so American!  A sofa!  Hardwood floors!  A flat screen TV! Oh, and he and his wife have a gorgeous kitchen.  The plumbing is still weak -- can't flush paper-- but still, he has a very comfortable living situation.  And, because we won't be in the city for Christmas, he had a Christmas tree for us.  My training group and I took a picture in front of the tree -- I haven't uploaded them yet but I will as soon as I can.  It's great -- we look like a happy group of siblings :)  But you may not see it until January :)

 

After brunch, I went shopping!  I spent 740,00 manat.  Ugh.  I bought soap, a trash pail, cooking supplies, a bread pan, a water pitcher, a plate (for monitoring how much I eat), a plastic mug, shoe polish, shout for stain removal, fabric softener (this was a mistake: I meant to buy liquid laundry detergent but it was in foreign languages I don't know...), soap, soap dish, a cup, candles, more minutes for my cell phone...

 

It adds up quickly.  I headed back to the office by bus, dropped my stuff off, and went shopping again!  I bought olive oil :)  This makes me very happy.

 

So, it's been a busy day.  A busy few days. 

 

We have a friend who had to go to Thailand for medical reasons -- she got a rectal infection of all things and needed minor surgery.  She's back but still not 100%.  Anyhow, she had a great time in Thailand despite being in pain and in the hospital for a week.  She met PCVs from Thailand and she says that they all have internet and indoor plumbing in their homes.  Ah, well...  Indoor plumbing is for weenies.  Real PCVs squat :)

 

I've posted several more pictures today, so look at those when you get a chance :)  Here's the link again in case you need it: 

http://www.flickr.com/gp/11696456@N08/8Dt169

 

 

Also, I gave you all my address in Lebap.  I've talked to several PCVs there and it sounds like the post office in T-bat is just as reliable as Ashgabat's, so you can send your letters there, too.  Here it is again, just in case:

 

US Peace Corps Turkmenistan                  Türkmenistan

P.O. Box 46                                                    Lebap Welayaty

Central Post Office                                      Türkmenabat – 22, 746100

Turkmenabat – 22, 746100                         Merkezi poςta, abonent 46

Lebap Welayat                                            Korpus Mira

Türkmenistan                                               JESSICA HOOVER                            

JESSICA HOOVER                                      TÜRKMENISTAN        

TURKMENISTAN

 

 

This address is slightly different from the one I gave you before.  In Turkmen, write "Korpus Mira" instead of "Parahatcylyk Korpusy."  Korpus Mira is Russian and is the name the postal workers know Peace Corps as. 

 

I'm sure I had more I wanted to tell you -- I know I mentioned a cultural discussion last email, but we'll leave that for another time.  I hope you're all doing well.  Only 19 more days until Christmas!  Happy Holidays!!  Feliz Navidad!! 

 

Love and hugs,

Jess

 

P.S. My Country Director reads Junot Diaz.  If you know who that is, you won't be surprised know that I freaked out when I saw the books on the bookshelf and had to tell him that I read Junot, too :)

 

P.P.S.  There is a dusting of snow on the mountain tops now.  It's beautiful :)

Thanksgiving in turkmanistan and the Incredible Spontaneously Cumbusting Apple Pie

Loved ones,

 

These two items are, in fact, unrelated.   I appreciated all the Happy Thanksgiving wishes.  What's Thanksgiving like in T-stan?  Well, kind of a blip, really.  It's not a holiday celebrated here.  Some groups took it upon themselves to cook a "real" Thanksgiving dinner.   We just kind of let it go – there are only 4 of us and one is a vegetarian.  Not thatTurkey is a total necessity but it just seemed like a lot to take on.  We were going to mooch off of some volunteers hosting T-giving dinner for themselves at the office, but most of them are about to leave the country  and we don't know them very well, so we didn't crash their party because of anticipated feelings of awkwardness.  (We did happen to be in the office during their festivities and they brought us a plate of food:  real salad, turkey, stuffing w/gravy, sweet potatoes!  oh, it was heaven!  I ate a ton, my second lunch that day.  Worth every calorie).   On Thursday we each taught in the morning.  Went to lunch where we had our cook's version of pizza.  We'd gotten a can of cranberry sauce from PC the day before so we had that, too.  Only we didn't have a real can opener.  So we got this ghetto one from the cook and she tried to open the can from the wrong end.  In the end, we managed to get a bit pulled back but the thing looked like a case of tetanus waiting to happen.  We also had gummy bears, courtesy of my loving daddy J 

 

And…. yes, I made a pumpkin pie!  It was alright; probably could have cooked the pumpkin a bit more. But even Summer ate some, and she says she never eats pumpkin pie.  I have pictures; I'll try to post them. 

           

On Saturday we took the day off and went to the city.  We went to a shopping center called "Yimpash" (the 'y' is silent) which was incredible.  It was like a department store and a grocery store all in one.  Three floors – food court on the third floor.  We had cheeseburgers and sodas for lunch and then the 5 of us shared a banana split.  Heavenly.  After eating, we shopped and I dropped 111,000 manat on baking supplies: butter, powdered sugar, corn starch, whipped topping mix, baking powder.  It was amazing.  It was a little slice of Western decadence right in Ashgabat and it was as comforting as a mother's love.  I'm sighing a little sigh of happiness now. 

 

 Arms laden with cooking supplies, I left Impash with the ladies and we headed to a salon to have our eyebrows done. Rather than wax, threading is the common method of hair removal here.  Basically, the lady twists a piece of thread together, holds on end in her mouth and the other in her hand, and runs the twist along the hair.  Somehow it gets pulled out.  I'm not exactly sure how it works because my eyes were closed and I was trying hard not to flinch the whole time, but she did a good job.  For 30,000 manat ( a little over $2 ) I am a new woman.  Or, at least one with shaped eyebrows.

 

From the salon, it was off to Peace Corps.  Briefly checked mail, ate tons of food as I mentioned, and then with happy hearts we headed home.  On the way back, I stopped at a bazaar to buy 4 kilos of apples for my apple pies. 

 

THE APPLE PIE

Can't get much more American than that, right?  So, we're discussing pie last week at home and I am telling my host sister about the different pies I can make.  She was particularly intrigued by apple pie so I told her that rather than go to the city, I would stay home on Sunday and teach her how to make it.  I bought all the requisite ingredients.  My friend's were trembling with the thought of eating fresh baked apple pie.  Mmm… I even have cinnamon!  And nutmeg! (also thanks to my dear father)  Amazing!

 

This will awkwardly tie together eventually:

 

Sunday rolls around and I need to do some laundry.  And by some I mean probably a load and a half/two loads worth in a washing machine.  But, I can't get into the banya to do my washing because it's occupied the whole morning.  So, resigned to waiting, I sit and begin to read an American newsweekly.  My host sister comes in and says we're leaving to her aunt's house.  It's nearly 11:00 and I'm moderately upset because I want to do my laundry!  But I trudge along because that's what a good anthropologist would do.  Sit with a bunch of young girls around a plastic table cloth laid on the floor.  Admire the celing – exposed wood beams!  How log cabin quaint!  How familiar! Eat fried bread.  And more fried bread.  And tons of pickled veggies.  Every time I try to stop eating, someone sees and says, "Jess, eat! Eat!"  Damn those Turkmen and their incessant hospitality.  I'm gaining weight here!  Argh!  Anyhow:  then lunch comes out.  Steaming, hot bowls of… goat soup!  My favorite!  Luckily, my host sister explains that I don't eat goat and I'm spared the discomfort of having to sip at the goaty broth.  And really, the "soup" was goat broth and goat.  Not just meat, but tongue, cheek, gross, squishy white chunks of either fat or brain (or both).  So I gorged on pickled veggies and it was good.  Don't get enough veggies anyhow.  And I'm satisfied that this family, with whom I will be living only another 3 days, understands that I do not like goat. 

 

We head home and I do my barge load of laundry.  I can definitely forsee developing carpal tunnel because after 2 hours of washing and wringing, I was in pain.  I need a wrist brace for that kind of manual labor.  Laundry hung, it's time for pie.

 

As a baker, I am very attached to my measuring cups.  Cooking without measuring scares me.  Out of necessity, I cooked for myself all last winter, and I must say, I made great strides in "winging it".  Nonetheless, for this pie I had to measure three cups of flour with a tea cup and it made me slightly anxious.  But then I thought that the home bakers of yesteryear probably did without measuring, so maybe I could to.  My host sister and I each made a pie.  It was hard to describe to her how exactly to make pie crust – she's used to making dough for bread and at one point, started kneading her dough!  Big no-no in pie crust making!  She ended up not using enough liquid but whatever.  It worked. My crust turned out beautifully much to my surpise – no measuring and no food processer.   My dad would be proud: he cuts his butter into the dough with his hands and now I can to.  I'm quite pleased, actually. 

 

Things are going swimmingly.  The random fly is buzzing around, landing on my arm, my face, my head,  as wantonly as though I were a dead puppy [there is, by the by, a dead puppy in the no man's land outside our town, decaying in a trash heap.  Sad.]  Then one landed on the dough and Towus (my host sister) tried to brush it away.  The fly wasn't going for it.  So she PICKED IT UP and tossed it aside.  Seriously.  These flies are freakin' domesticated. Nothing scares them and I so loathe them and their audacity.

Next comes peeling and slicing 4 kilos of apples.  No sweat, except my hands turned orange.  But the apples smell and taste so wonderfully delicious that looking like an oopma loompa is totally worth it.  Roll out the dough -- little difficulty with her dough here but no biggie --  and we're in business.  Assembling the pies – rolled the dough too thin and the bottom layer's leaking all the juice and the perfectionist in me is screaming bloody murder – but then I think, "hey, I'm in Turkmenistan, who says I have to make a perfect apple pie every time?  It'll still taste the same."  Feeling good about not being overwhelmed by my temporary baking shortcomings and sit back as Towus puts the pies in their brick oven.

 

Not even 2 minutes later she calls my name and both pies are out of the oven, top crust layers scorched.  Huh. Apparently there were flames.  I didn't think to check the temperature on the brick oven.  Which is total sarcasm because there is no temperature to check!  It must have been mighty hot to burn the crust so quickly.  I entertained thoughts of Hansel and Gretel and Sweeny Todd.  So she turns the gas waaaay down and we put the pies back in.  I try to explain that they need to cook for a long time, but she stood there anyway, waiting for them to cook.  And took them out nearly every 5 minutes for me to check.   I stood with her, enjoying the heat radiating from the bricks, listening to the juice in the pies bubble.  That oven would be an amazing marshmallow roaster.    So, lah-dih-dah the pies are done and I slice one up into 9 pieces for everyone to try.  One plate for me, 8 pieces in the pan for everyone else to eat out of.

 

Now, I could have only made one pie, but silly me assumed that it would be a big hit and two would be best.  Besides, that way Towus would learn by doing!  Alas, as I devour my piece of pie, I am met with sheepish grins and giggles and spoons being lowered to the plastic tablecloth.  They don't like spice it turns out.  The cinnamon was too much. But frankly I bet the results would have been the same sans cinnamon.  My host mother said, "Turkmen don't like spices.  We use salt and pepper and that's all."  Which is true and highly unfortunate for them, IMO.   And rather remarkable, considering the close proximity of such spicy empires as, say, India.  She also said, "We only eat Turkmen food."  My heart breaks for them. 

 

So they don't like my pie which is fine.  My feelings aren't hurt.  It's a damn tasty pie.  My host mother made me eat two pieces (yes, she made me.  You seriously do not understand how important it is for you to have food in your mouth at all times here.  She wanted me to eat three pieces but I put my foot down there. )  But them not liking my pie is good because now they understand me not liking goat (I told you there was a tie-in!)  This makes it easier for me to refuse gross food for the next 3 days.  Then I'll have to make another apple pie for the next family to turn their noses up.  The only problem was that I had a pie and a half left.  My fellow Americans happily ate our homemade slices of America  yesterday and today.  And burnt though it was, my crust was flaky and delicious.

  

I learned my lesson: when cooking tasty American food for Turkmen, underestimate the amount of food needed. 

 

I wrote a rousing journal entry on (the lack of) diversity in Turkmenistan and its cultural implications but I'll leave that for another time when I'm not waxing poetic about apple pie for 2 pages.  It just occurred to me that very shortly I will be without internet for an indefinite amount of time (as of Dec. 7 – the big move!)  So, keep that in mind. I'll be in Ashgabat until Saturday so I'll try to get in another email before then. 

 

I still fit into my skinny jeans,
Jess

 

Photo Update - you don't need to join Flickr...

Hi!

 

Okay, I spent some time and figured Flickr out today.  I'm sorry I sent you all the invite; it turns out I can send guest passes!  So here's the link.  PLEASE let me know if this works!  There are 21 pictures for you to see so far. 

 

Yay photos!

Jess

 

http://www.flickr.com/gp/11696456@N08/E38769