Saturday, December 8, 2007

visiting Balkan


Last week I left Ahal Welyat (think province or state) for the first time to visit my permanent site in Balkan. I will be living in Hazar (Soviet name: Cheleken), which is a small city on the Caspian Sea. I’m really happy with my site assignment because there is a huge beach, so whenever I get stressed I can go watch the waves. It’s not Hawaii or anything, but for Turkmenistan it’s nice and there are even full-sized trees in the city, which I’m sure is no easy feat considering the desert goes all the way to the shore. To get there I took a flight from Ashgabat to Balkanabat, and then came an awesome 90 minute gypsy cab ride through the desert. There are no towns along the way, just lots of power lines, and the desert invades the road such that you need snow plows to push back the sand dunes (I suppose in T-stan you’d call them sand plows).

2 comments:

Brian M said...

I like the idea of sand plows. I suppose you can really do a lot of the same things with sand you do with snow. Except for it's not sticky usually. And it doesn't melt usually.
I need your new address!
love,
brian

Betsy said...

crazy!

ditto about the new address. i just got a letter from you and am working on a response this week.

exciting that you got your placement, can't wait to hear more about details!