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).

Underground Lake

A few Saturdays ago all 37 of my fellow PC T-stan trainees gathered at Kow Ata, an underground lake west of Ashgabat. There are only four other trainees living in my village, so it’s always really exciting to be with a big group of people, all of whom I have the language skills to converse with. Also, I have friends in other villages that are always good to see. We spent the morning just hanging around outside the mountain, being really loud and wearing jeans (It’s not really acceptable for men or women to be wearing jeans in the village; they get relegated to being your special Ashgabat wardrobe). We also had a cross-cultural session on generalizations and the differences between Turkmen and Americans, and then binged on all the non-meat filled food at lunch—hooray vegetables!

Kow Ata is basically a big sulfurous pool in the bottom of a mountain. To get there you simply walk down a long, steep staircase into a dark cavern. About two-thirds of the way down is a changing area with a few plastic shower curtains (I think I went behind one with purple dolphins; a festive touch). Below that is another flight of stairs that lead directly into the lake, which is as warm as bathwater and smells like the boiling mud at Yellowstone. Other than a single light near the base of the stairs, the lake itself isn’t lit, so after about 2 minutes in the water I got out to get my headlamp. Bringing a headlamp was my friend Shannon’s idea, and it was a good one. Along with a group of trainees I went exploring to find out how big the lake was (at most it was a 50m swim to the far wall). It was really cool to be able to swim around in a dark cave with just one little flashlight, and at one point I turned it off and it was completely black. The PC safety officer got concerned and swam over to tell us to come back towards the light because there might be dangerous things in the water (sharks?). After that I ditched the headlamp and dove off a big rock a few times. But eventually I started to feel and smell like a hard-boiled egg, and it was time to get out.

disclaimer

The contents of this web site are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the U.S. Peace Corps.

men chagalar

For the first time ever I am living with small children and learning about what that entails. Luckily, my host children are pretty cool. My host brother and sister-in-law, Hatija (also very cool), have two kids ages 5 and 2. Sometimes I feel a little like their aunt, but most days I feel more like a sister, another trouble maker that Hatija has to take care of.
Gulshat is 5, has really short hair (she just got it cut again this week; it looks—neat), and wears awesome leggings. She likes to talk really fast and say a ton of words to me, most of which I have no chance of understanding. Whenever I say something to her in English she acts like she understands and says “yes,” which is nice. This week she picked up two new habits: giving me a thumbs up all the time, and kissing me on the cheek really forcefully. She also spends a good amount of time following me around and yelling my name. Basically she’s the reason I don’t have any alone time and if any of my stuff gets broken/destroyed it will probably be her fault. Regardless, I love this kid and I have to give her props for showing my how to do things when I first arrived.
Yslam, her little brother, is one of my favorite people ever. He does not wear diapers, he does not have a high chair, he does not wear a bib, he does not have a sippy cup, he doesn’t even wear pants half the time. He’s always moist, either from the constant drooling or frequent pants wetting. He is usually eating something, and spends the day doing dangerous things like playing with broken glass or running in the street barefoot. I know more words in Turkmen than he does so hanging around him makes me feel a little smarter; when he says things like “grandpa!” I understand. He also likes to dance and make high squeaky noises. Adorable.

shots

I'm at the PC office in Ashgabat getting shots which seems to be important given all the health threats around me (dogs, children, whatever). I'm not sick at the moment which means I'm in a pretty decent mood, however I'm getting frustrated trying to learn insane amounts of vocab and grammer in a very short time period.

first week in the village

I've been living in a village with a host family for the past week. There are 4 other PC trainees in my village, and we have Turkmen language class for about 4-5 hours each day, which means too much vocab for my brain to process. However the people in my group are pretty cool and our language teacher is awesome; she's 18 and is fluent in 4 languages. I hope hanging out with a bunch of Americans isn't a bad influence on her.

My host mom is a sweetie and about the same age as my real mom. I live with her, her younger son and his wife (who are each a few years older than me), and their two kids; and 4 year old girl and 2 year old boy. The 4 year is really good about showing me how to do things and correcting my pronounciation. The 2 year old is a cutie and super funny; I know the word for "mischievous child" in Turkmen and it comes in handy.

Traveling With Russians

10/1/07
I was psyched for my Lufthansa flight because I thought it would be more luxurious than my last international flight, which was on Aeroflot (a Russian airline). I was initially dismayed to find I was sitting behind some Russian sailors from Kaliningrad who were busy knocking back shots of amaretto and Jack Daniels. But then Genye, the giant and somewhat foul man across the isle, offered me a drink and we stared talking (in Russian). After a while I decided these guys were pretty alright, and definitely more entertaining that in the in-flight movie. At the back of the plane, another sailor, Demetri, showed me his pictures from Ghana, Congo, and New Orleans on his laptop. We were getting in a heavy political conversation (he knew a decent amount of English) when an old American guy said, “It’s 4 am. I’m trying to sleep. Keep it down.” Not quite true. It was 4 am Frankfurt time—our destination. Our flight had departed from Washington, DC were it was only 10 pm. However, by this point the whole back half of the plane was probably getting annoyed with us, so I broke up the conversation. A couple of my fellow volunteers had quietly asked me if it was OK. Yeah, I’m fine. It’s not my first time traveling with Russians.

Where?

Turkmenistan is in Central Asia, the most interesting region you've never heard of (that is until I told you that I was moving there). Centuries ago it was a stop on the Silk Road, and more recently a part of the Soviet Union. But nowadays independent[!] Turkmenistan is busy building a national identity, and things are on the up and up. Check out the map, start knowing Turkmenistan!