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!