18 July 2008
Kazakhstan, part 1
This is a series of blog entries I wrote while on vacation in Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. It's not narrative-style, just random musings. Hope that's not too frustrating for the more linear-minded.
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In Kazakhstan I spent most of my time with my friend's huge extended family. There were uncles, aunts, great uncles, great aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, and about 40-odd unaccounted-for individuals whom I simply referred to as "cousins". One aunt (at least I think she was an aunt) asked me if my own family was this large.
"Nope," I replied. "Growing up, it was pretty much just me, my mom, and my dad."
"You don't even have any brothers or sisters?!" she asked, astounded.
"Well, we had a lot of dogs," I offered.
The aunt laughed so hard tears came from her eyes. Throughout the night she'd repeat what I'd said to the others, to fresh laughter every time.
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Like in Turkmenistan, many Kazakh families take great pride in stuffing their guests so full they can't move. The tables groaned under the weight of the meals we were served. Most of the older generation only knew a few phrases in English: "Okay, no problem", "Sit down please", and "You like? Eat more!". They used these phrases often. At one point I was grabbing for yet another slice of tender spiced roast beef, and an uncle said, "You like?"
"I sure do," I replied, taking a big bite.
"Is horse!" he said proudly.
I stopped chewing.
"Oh my god, I'm sorry, I should have warned you!" My friend said. "Are you okay?"
I took a moment to reassess my feelings about the meat. Still tender, still tasty. I swallowed. "I like it!"
The uncle beamed and clapped me on the back with a huge hand, nearly sending Mr. Ed back up. "Good girl!"
That wasn't the last time I ate horse in Kazakhstan. I ate horse sausage, horse steak, horse jerky... Not the weirdest thing I've eaten in the past 2 years, and I'm sure there'll be weirder to come.
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My Russian is less than perfect (pretty bad, actually), and I tend to confuse common words that sound like each other. For example, "to write" and "to pee" are only one letter different from each other in Russian. One evening I was writing in my journal when some of the little cousins came in and asked what I was doing. I thought I'd spoken correctly, but when they erupted into giggles and shrieks I knew I must have just told them that I was peeing in my journal. Oh well, that's sometimes not altogether untrue.
Out of all of the academic pursuits I've undertaken, learning languages is the most forgiving. If you make a mistake in a foreign language, everyone has a chuckle & it's a good time. A goof on a computer programming assignment is generally not met with such mirth.
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Sacha Baron Cohen is persona non grata in Kazakhstan. If you've seen the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", you understand why. Kazakstan is represented by a film exec's idea of what a backwards 3rd-world village should resemble. I've seen backwards 3rd-world villages. And I've seen Kazakhstan (cities and villages). Not the same. I mean, for one thing: the "Kazakhs" in the movie are *white*. Kazakhs are Asian. This isn't at all the most ridiculous incongruity. Portraying Kazakhs as anti-semitic and misogynistic is a cheap shot (and not true); granted, the movie is a comedy and shouldn't be taken seriously, but Kazakhs realize as well as anyone that the world knows very little about Kazakhstan. A movie like Borat is all most Americans will see of the country, and the roughly 51% of America that takes pride in its ignorance will accept the portrayal as gospel.
A lot of Kazakhs asked me if I'd seen the movie, and wanted to impress on me that Kazakhs aren't like Borat. I told them there was no need; I could see that for myself. I also mentioned that the movie made Americans look racist, misogynistic, and ignorant as well - and unlike the faux "Kazakhs", the Americans weren't actors. They were being themselves. I then asked the Kazakhs to please not judge Americans based on that movie, and I'd try to spread the word to people back home about Kazahstan. They graciously accepted the deal.
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18 July 2008
Update, finally
It's taken me awhile to update this blog. My excuse is I've been busy drinking water. You have no idea how much water you have to drink to stay hydrated in 130-degree heat (and no air conditioning). I go through more than 3 liters a day, plus my usual cola/coffee consumption which I'm not giving up just because it's summer, heat be damned. I should probably just hook myself up to an IV drip. Anyway, I'm doing the Kazakhstan/Georgia/Ajerbaijan trip account in installments, with the first couple following this post.
25 May 2008
School's Out For Summer
The school year, inexplicably, is over. It seemed like it just started, but there you have it. On Saturday we had our graduation ceremony.
I was asked to give a speech. I was asked the morning of, so I didn't have any prior warning. This was a good thing, as it saved me a sleepless night of preparing and agonizing, and my speech wouldn't have been any different even if I had prepared. Once the speeches part started, I discovered that, although I'm getting better at understanding Teenager Russian, my School Administrator Russian is still lousy. I understood very little, so I had to listen carefully for my cue. Finally I heard "(Russian, russian, russian) Amerikan," --my ears perked up-- "(Russian, russian, russian) Britney!" And then my kids cheered. My cue!
I started with introducing myself to the parents and telling them, "I'm a teacher. But I've also learned a lot from this school. When I came here, I thought I'd see how different everything was. But I was surprised to learn how similar we actually are." The rest was your standard graduation speech - congratulating the students on their hard work, telling them that they have their whole lives ahead of them and they can accomplish anything they set their minds to, etc. When I was done speaking, my kids had a surprise for me - they'd gotten me a bouquet of roses! I almost cried, but managed not to.
Besides speeches, the ceremony had live entertainment. Since the school is half Turkmen, half Russian, there was one Turkmen singer and one Russian singer. It was interesting to watch how each side enjoyed the entertainment (for the Turkmen and the Russians were seated separately; Russian students and parents on the right and Turkmen students and parents on the left).
For the Turkmen singer, most of the Turkmen kids stood where they were and listened. The dancing that did happen was segregated - boys with boys, girls with girls.
When the Russian singer started up, the Russian kids ran out en masse to the center, and promptly paired off boy-girl, boy-girl and danced as couples. The Russian teachers also danced. People sang along and clapped.
During graduation, the parents also responded differently. On the Turkmen side, the parents watched with quiet dignity, making no noise or facial expressions when their child was handed the diploma. On the Russian side, it was just as you'd expect at an American graduation ceremony. The parents cheered loudly as their kid's name was called, and several moms burst into tears. There was a lot of hugging afterwards (I got hugs too, sometimes from parents I didn't even know). Seeing the contrast between Turkmen and Russians, I got a little insight into why some volunteers occasionally find it difficult to integrate here. When people display emotion so differently from the way you display it, it's easy to assume that your emotions must be different from theirs - even when that isn't the case.
After the ceremony was over, doves were released, and then so were the kids. I'm going to miss this year's graduating class, and I hope they're happy and successful in everything they do!
22 May 2008
Swallows
There are swallows all over the place these days, and some of them have even built nests in the stairwells of my apartment building. What I like most about them is that they mate for life, so they go everywhere in pairs. They take turns watching the eggs and bringing food for the babies. They're also very curious birds, and not at all afraid of humans. So when I left my porch door open the other day I got more than the cross-breeze I'd been hoping for. I also got several myhmanler (guests). They would fly in, always two at a time, and sit along the wall where the wallpaper was peeling off. Then they'd bob their heads up and down as they watched what I was doing. At the time, I was trying to clean my floors with no water (water shortage), and wasn't too sure how I felt having an audience. If it'd been a Disney movie, the birds would have all been pitching in with the housework, perhaps whistling a jaunty tune to speed things along. As it was, their chattering sounded a bit more like mocking to me. "What's she doing?" "It appears that she's washing the floors without water." "Hahahaha!"
20 May 2008
Racial Tension
Today I broke up a fight in class. This is not entirely unusual; fights happen from time to time, but it's generally nothing serious and the kids end up being friends again by the next period. Today was different in two respects: The first was that the kids were only in 5th grade, and the second...
It started with a boy and a girl squabbling over seats in class. The girl got the seat the boy wanted, and he called her a hen. She called him a sheep, he called her a cow, etc. Calling someone a farm animal is a standard 5th-grade insult. Then the boy knocked a couple of the girl's books on the floor and she got really mad. She said, "You're black!"
The boy flew into a rage like I'd never seen. He grabbed her by the hair and started hitting her in the face. I jumped in at this point and separated them. The girl was crying, of course, because he'd whacked her pretty good. But what surprised me was that the boy was crying much harder. I asked him, "Why did you hit her like that? You can't be hitting people!"
He sobbed, "She called me black!"
I said, "So what?"
The other kids in the class all looked at me in disbelief. One girl said, "It's a very bad thing to say."
I said, "I don't understand. Why is it bad?" The boy who had been called black was indeed a couple of shades darker than the other kids. It was a Russian class, but he was clearly of mixed descent. Far from funny-looking, the kid had enormous brown eyes and cheekbones any girl would die for, and I assumed he was probably quite the heartbreaker (or would be in a few years).
Everyone looked uncomfortable at my question. The girl replied, "It just is."
I said, "No, I still don't understand. Many of you think 50 Cent is cool, right? And Snoop Dogg, and Akon, and other American rappers who are black?" The kids nodded. "None of those men think it is a bad thing to be called black. They are proud to be black. So why would you say it is a bad thing?" Nobody said a word.
I said, "America's next president might be a black man. In fact, I hope he wins. I will vote for him."
The kids looked surprised at this. One boy asked, "Why do you want a black man to be president?"
"Not just me," I replied. "Many people want him to be president. We want him to be president because we think he is a smart man, and a good man, and he will help our country. That's why."
The kids all just looked at me like I was slightly weird, but the little boy who'd been called black had stopped crying and managed to smile little bit. I figured this would be a good time to lighten things up, so we played Grammar Tic Tac Toe and there was no more talk of black or white. Although a few kids did call each other "sheep" and "hen" still.
18 May 2008
Happy Magtymguly Day!
29 April 2008
Of Dutars and Goats
The other week I got to go to a concert in Ashgabat, the first I've seen of its kind. It offered a sample of music from some of the major cultures in Turkmenistan: Turkmen "halk" (folk) music, Persian music, and Tchaikovsky. I'm glad to note that there was also opera, which had been outlawed under the previous leader. In addition to the music, there was a performance of a traditional Turkman folk tale (the above picture is from that).
The concert started with the Turkmen traditional music. This consisted of two men sitting in chairs, with one man playing what looked like a tiny violin sculpted from a gourd (I was told that the name is something like "gijik", but I may not be spelling that right), and the other man playing dutar and singing. The vocals were uniquely Central Asian: the singer would belt out a couple lines of song, fall into to a middle-eastern sounding wail, and then the wail would be interrupted by what sounded like violent hiccups. He actually bounced up and down in his seat, going "hic! hic! hic!" I couldn't help but giggle at that, but the audience went wild every time he did it - applauding, cheering, etc. They loved those hiccups.
After the hiccuping man and his accompaniment cleared the stage (with much applause), a few more microphones were brought out along with four sets of bongo drums. One man stood in the middle and began to play. Gradually, he was joined by another man, then another, until there were five men on stage. Four played drums, and one had a tambourine. The beat intensified and sped up, and then a man with flowing black hair and a crimson shirt strutted on stage holding something that I can only describe as a dead goat that had been converted into a saxophone. A goatophone, if you will. And he began to play. He blew into that thing with more moxie than I've ever seen anyone use on a goat carcass. He danced all over the stage and filled the concert hall with awesome sounds for song after song, with one of the drummers occasionally adding vocals. I am now a huge fan of the goatophone and of Persian music in general. (By the way - if anyone knows what that instrument is actually called, shoot me an email, will you?)
Tchaikovsky and opera were next. It was well done, but everything after the Persian music was anticlimactic. Then there was the Turkmen folk play, and the story (as best as I could discern, not being completely fluent) was as follows: A young Turkmen guy from long ago is wandering around playing his dutar when he stumbles across a mystical camp full of beautiful girls. He tries to woo the prettiest one with his dutar playing, and almost succeeds until the old camp mother hears what's going on and cusses him out. She moves all of the girls to the highest peak of a mountain, and tells the guy he can only marry one of them if he can throw an apple to the top and the girl catches it. So the guy runs off to tell his buddies about the secret stash of hot chicks that he found, and they all run to the mountain and start flinging apples. None of the guys succeed until the dutar guy tries. Of course, he makes it, and the girl he likes catches his apple, and that's where the play ended. I assume she held up her end of the bargain and married the guy, unless she decided to hold out for someone who could toss a watermelon or something.
The concert was overall a mindblowing experience, I got some great video footage, and I am kicking myself for not having gone sooner. For my last 8 months of service I am definitely going to try to soak up more culture.
Goatophone virtuoso
20 April 2008
What Turkmen/Russian students want to know about American students
I had my students make up a list of questions they would ask American high school students if they had the chance. The list is here if you're curious.
03 April 2008
Adventures in 3rd World Dentistry
You know how awkward it is when the dentist is elbows-deep in your mouth and asks you all sorts of questions about work, family, etc.? Imagine that but the questions are in Russian. That's how I spent my afternoon. It was pretty painless, although I did keep having "behind the Iron Curtain" moments. Whenever the dentist would hold pointy, whirring instruments up to my face and interrogate me in Russian, I expected her to start demanding the location of the secret documents. Even though it was a nice, smiling lady asking me how I liked my work, and not a grim-faced guard.
The verdict on 3rd World Dentistry: not all that scary, actually. I mean, they can't really make all those instruments look more intimidating than they already are.
01 April 2008
April Fools!
It's April Fool's Day again (still tied for my favorite holiday). I decided to make a little more of a production of it than I did last year. This year I decided to play a couple of pranks on my kids. Nothing big, just made a couple of fake tests that were a conglomerate of Spanish, Latin, and Greek; I also did the "Where's your homework?" gag (there was no homework, we're just getting back from spring break). For my 6th form class, I wrote "The Jabberwock" poem on the board. First I had one of them try to read it (the brave girl who volunteered did an astoundingly good job pronouncing everything), and then told them to translate it. After a few tense minutes punctuated by frantic flipping through dictionaries, hands started to shoot up. "Teacher!! We don't know ANY of these words! They're not in our dictionaries!!" Panic ensued when I told them we'd gone over these words in the previous semester. "Come on, guys, 'brillig'! What's it mean?" One kid suggested hesitantly that "toves" must be something you cook on, and some of the other kids made arbitrary guesses as well. Eventually I felt bad for them & crossed out the poem and wrote "April Fools!" above it. There was a collective groan. Mildly sadistic, but a teacher's gotta have fun once in a while.
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimbol in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe!" (Brillig boldi, we wabede olar slithy toveler gyrediler we gimboldiler! Borogovelar oren mimsy boldi, we mome rathler outgribediler!)
25 March 2008
Chubby Baritone Turkish Aliens = Comedy Gold!
Just watched the Teletubbies dubbed in Turkish ("Teletabiler"). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, it's these little fat aliens that run around and say "Eh-oh!" in squeaky voices. For those of you who ARE familiar, you may be wondering why they had to be dubbed over, since the Teletubbies don't really speak English - they just make goofy sounds and fall over a lot (kind of like a Peace Corps volunteer on holiday). I'm not sure what the reasoning was for the overdub, but it seemed like the only difference was that the Turkish voices were in a much deeper register. It sounded like a very large albeit slightly effeminate pro-wrestler was doing Tinky Winky's voice. Laa-Laa sounded like Mickey Rourke just after finishing off a carton of Marlboro filterless. Dipsy was channeling Barry White, and Po was a perfect copy of Doctor Girlfriend. So did the Turkish TV channel feel that the British tubbies weren't manly enough? Are all of the aliens in Turkey beefcake? This is something I will ponder further as I plan my June vacation to (among other places) Istanbul.
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Turkey: where men are men, women are women, and teletubbies eat broken glass and play kickball with boulders!" (Turkiye: Yeri erkekler erkekler bolyarler, ayaler ayaler bolyarler, we telatabiler dowuk chuyshi iyarler we futbol dashleri bilen oynayarler!)
02 March 2008
The Cabbage Fairy Was Here!
Gas for everybody!
22 February 2008
Oozhus Weather
We've been having a crazy storm for the past 3 days, almost like a hurricane but with dust instead of water. I woke up the other night to what I thought were explosions, but turned out to be stuff being blown into my windows. Keep in mind I live on the top floor of my apartment building, and heavy things were making it up that high. The big problem is the "dumpsters" here are just 3 short cement walls marking where you should put your garbage. When the wind picks up, the garbage goes everywhere. I was trudging to school the first morning, just concentrating on staying upright, and got blindsided by a huge carboard box almost as big as I was. That's a hell of a thing to be startled with, especially before your first cup of coffee!
Dresses were also an issue. Most women here don't wear pants (the fact that even *some* do shows how liberal the town is; in the village, no woman would ever wear pants). Every woman in town was having "Marilyn Monroe" moments for the duration of the storm. Take 3 steps, your dress flies over your head. Grab it and anchor the damn thing back to earth, take another couple of steps, lather, rinse, repeat. At one point, I was struggling with my dress at the same time an old Russian lady a few feet away was struggling with hers. She turned to me and said something I didn't understand, and then, "Oozhus!" I could tell by the way she said it what that meant, so I said, "Da, oozhus."
I heard that word about 30 more times before the storm blew itself out. On another day, I was entering a shop with a couple of my students, and it took the combined efforts of all 3 of us to close the shop door against the wind. When we finally managed it, we collapsed against the door, worn out, and one of the girls muttered, "Oozhus."
But the funniest part of the storm was the walking birds. The wind was so bad that the birds refused to fly. So all over town I was seeing birds waddling around on foot. I saw one on the way to school, walking all hunched over just like I was. The wind kept blowing him off course, and his feathers were dissheveled. As I passed him, he looked over at me with the most disgruntled face I've ever seen a bird make. His beak opened slightly, and I could've sworn I heard him say "Oozhus."
15 February 2008
Post-Valentines Day
Today one of my 7th-grade Turkmen girls was caught writing a love note in her 2nd period class. I wasn't there when it happened, but I'd heard all about it. The poor girl was catching a lot of flack from her classmates for being so "forward".
Later in the afternoon, during one of my free periods, the note-writer (we'll call her Guljemal) and another girl (we'll call her Bahar) burst into my room.
"Brit, can I see your dictionary?" asked Bahar breathlessly.
"Sure," I said. Bahar grabbed my Turkmen-English dictionary and began paging through it. Then she yelled triumphantly and turned to Guljemal.
"'Shameless' is the word. You are a shameless girl!" Bahar scolded. Guljemal scowled and grabbed the dictionary.
After a second of looking she said, "Well, you are backwards!"
"Backwards?" Bahar asked. I handed her the dictionary and she looked it up.
Aha, I thought. Now the girls will have a debate about traditional vs. modern values (maybe with a little feminist theory sprinkled in). And I will be able to facilitate, and maybe teach some new English words to boot! I love my job!
Bahar thought for another second and then turned to Guljemal. "Shameless!"
Guljemal squealed indignantly and gave Bahar a little push. "Backwards!!"
The 2 girls ran out of the room, jostling each other as they went. I could hear their voices carrying as they ran down the hall. "Shameless!" "Backwards!" "Shameless!!" "Backwards!!!"
I love my job, I love my job, I love my job...
12 February 2008
Bush Legs
Occasionally on a trip to the bazaar I'll see a bunch of people waiting in line for something (well, a line would suggest something orderly. It's more like a clot really). Things go scarce now and then, depending on the weather, on the goings-on in Iran, Russia, etc. and sometimes people have to wait for things like eggs or milk.
Recently, I saw one such line and was curious as to what people were waiting for, so I asked somebody. "Bush ayakler!" ("Bush legs!") one of the merchants said, grinning. Turns out the U.S. is trading frozen chicken legs for something, probably oil, and now chicken is available in Turkmenistan! Chicken For Oil, not a bad idea. If anyone from the U.S. gov't is reading this, I'd like to suggest a few more things that we could use out here:
Frank's Red Hot for oil (we have the chicken, let's make hot wings!)
Ben & Jerry's for oil
Guacamole for oil
Nintendo Wii for oil
The list is actually pretty long, so drop me a line if you want the rest.
I really hope this becomes a trend. There are so many splendid non-violent ways for America to get the energy it needs, and so many people in third-world nations who have yet to experience the joy of sacking out in front of a video game with a Mountain Dew in one hand and a burrito in the other.
17 January 2008
More of a Good Thing
My collection of pictures of feral dogs munching on skulls is growing. I don't know why the sight amuses me so much, except that I figure any place where the dogs use cow skulls as chew toys is certifiably hardcore. Won't find any pantywaists sipping pumpkin lattes here, no sir. We want a morning jolt, we hook ourselves up to the tractor battery. (Or maybe that's just me.)
12 January 2008
Back In The (Former) USSR
Goodbye, civilization! Just 30 hours of travel on the way back. I didn't sleep at all, but I fared better than the unfortunate woman who was seated behind me. I say "unfortunate" because somebody had replaced her children with 3 hyenas. She apparently hadn't realized it yet and I didn't have the heart to tell her.
30 December 2007
Jesse Jackson <3s My Mom
I'm back in the US after 33 hours total travel time. My flight from Germany was delayed so I missed my subsequent flight to Cleveland and had to stay in the DC airport overnight. The whole place was empty except for the night shift janitors and a strangely cheerful man who was skateboarding up and down the airport hallway. I settled myself down in the corner for a good long sulk, figuring I was in for a hellishly boring night. Next thing I knew, someone with obscenely bright green sneakers plopped down next to me. I looked up and it was the skateboarding guy, holding out an orange. "I tried to find you a flower, but there aren't any here," he said. "But it's a good orange." I took the orange gratefully (it was my only food in 14 hours) and we chatted a bit. Then one of the janitors brought me a coke, and another guy offered me a cig, and I ended up hanging out with several cool people for the duration of the night and it wasn't so bad after all.
Arriving in Cleveland, I got off the plane just in time to see Jesse Jackson embracing my mom. Deprived of sleep and in a daze, I merely assumed I'd gotten off in an alternate reality where Jesse Jackson was my dad. He walked over to me and shook my hand and said he respected what I'm doing overseas.
I wonder if he'd respect me less or more if he knew I'd been stewing in the same underwear for 2 1/2 days.
Anyway, apparently Jesse Jackson was on the flight that came in before mine, and my parents got to chat with him and told him I was in Peace Corps Turkmenistan. So as far as I know, he is not my dad and this isn't an alternate reality. Which means I still live in the same universe as Dick Cheney, but also the same one as nice people who give strangers oranges and cokes.
Happy New Year, everybody!
Me trying to sleep on the Dulles airport floor
Not my dad
Today's Advice For the New Volunteers: Your mom was right: Always bring a change of underwear and a toothbrush with you wherever you go.
30 November 2007
Kid Logic
So today I'm in one of my afternoon classes. I give the students an exercise to do in class, and just as it gets quiet, one of the kids turns to a classmate and utters a string of curse words that could strip the paint off a fence. Very colorful, grammatically correct, and IN ENGLISH. Of course I yell at him. Then I ask him, "What were you thinking? If you'd said all that in Russian, I might not have understood you. But you said it in English and got in trouble. Why?" He says sheepishly, "Because this is English class!"
Today's Advice For the New Volunteers: That cough accompanied by fatigue and achy back is probably just a garden-variety cold, not Dengue Fever. And it's almost certainly not going to cause you total nervous system failure in 5 to 7 days. Seriously, don't worry about it.
12 November 2007
Lost a Whole Lot of Underwear Last Night
Freak wind storm came in the middle of the night. Took it right off the line. Probably some guy in Iran is pulling it out of his trees right now. Well, at least it was clean.
05 November 2007
Now I Can Be Incoherent In Three Different Languages!
I've been studying Russian ever since I moved to my new site, and I can now speak and understand it at a (very) basic level. Which is awesome, because it means I can understand just about anything my students are talking about in class, even when they don't want me to understand what they're talking about. So they can no longer talk about who's dating who and then claim (with feigned indignance) that they were actually talking about the lesson. I can also tell them to do their homework in three different languages, so that nobody can claim that they didn't understand me. Of course, working trilingually can also be confusing. I can ramble on about a subject for a few minutes and then realize I have no idea which language I was just speaking in.
When I first got to my site, my students asked me which languages I knew. Without thinking I replied, "Ya znayu Turkmenski. Orscha gowy bilamok." That is, I told them in Russian that I knew Turkmen. Then I said in Turkmen that I didn't speak Russian very well. I have no idea why it came out that way. Nobody even questioned it.
02 November 2007
A Bag of Dragonflies
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I've gotten used to sharing my living quarters with all kinds of exotic bugs. Killer bees, legions of hairy-legged flies, half-ant half-spider mutants (aka "spants"), etc. I take pride in the fact that very little shocks me anymore with regard to insects in my house. But the other day even I was surprised by what I found when I came home from school: my home had been invaded by dragonflies.
Keep in mind I had never even seen dragonflies in Turkmenistan before. As far as I know, they prefer swampy climates, not the desert. But dozens of them were flitting around my apartment when I walked in, a couple of them dive-bombing my head as if in greeting. My first thought was, "Ugh! Bugs!" and I swatted at them frantically for a few seconds. Then I saw their pretty, glistening wings and thought of what an enigma they were -- water-loving bugs in the desert? I felt bad for wanting to kill them. But there were a lot of them, and pretty or not, I didn't want them in my house. So I got a plastic bag and began collecting the dragonflies.
It was fun; kind of like chasing fireflies as a kid. Sometimes I'd catch one just to have 3 or 4 escape, but eventually I got all the ones I could find. The bag was buzzing with frantic insects. I briefly considered saving them for school the next day to show my kids, but I wasn't sure how long the bugs would survive. So I went out on my porch and opened the bag. Dozens of dragonflies poured out and soared away, their wings sending off blue-green rainbows under the sun. Not something I ever thought I'd see here, nor expect to see again. One of the little neighbor kids happened to be passing by, and looked up in amazement. After the dragonflies disappeared into the sky, he looked around as if to see if anyone else had witnessed this. He didn't see me up on my porch, and there was nobody else outside at the time. After a minute or two, he walked on, tugging his wagon behind him. I wonder what that little kid was thinking as he walked home.
Today's Advice For the New Volunteers: If the egg floats, it's gone bad. If the duck floats, it's a witch!! BURN IT!!!
17 October 2007
All I Want For Christmas Is Some MSG
You know what I miss? Preservatives. All those unpronounceable, carcinogenic ingredients that you never really appreciate until they're missing. I don't get many preservatives out here, and I wish I did. I drank some fresh milk the other day and was pretty grossed out. Why? Because it tasted like it came from the inside of a cow. Now, don't start writing me smarmy emails. I know where milk comes from. I would just rather not be reminded of it.
I also miss the FDA for setting limits on the number of rat hairs and cockroach parts we get with our food. Because I now know what it's like to get unlimited rat hairs and cockroach parts with your food. If you know anyone who works for the FDA, give that person a big hug and tell 'em it's from me.
12 October 2007
Life in Bizarro World (aka the Russian suburbs)
I've spent the past year of my life getting used to being the funny-looking pale person who's taller than just about everyone else. Then I walked into my new school.
Have you ever been in one of those optical illusion rooms like they have in funhouses? The kind where you go in one end and you tower over everything in the room, and then you go to the other side and now you're tiny and everything's huge? That's what it was like going to my new school and meeting all the Russians. On my first day there, I stepped into the principal's office to ask for directions. She said, "I'll have a couple of the 7th grade English students take you where you need to go." I looked down for the students, since the 7th graders at my old school barely made it to my collarbone. Then I looked up...and up. *These* were seventh graders? The girls were taller than me! And blonde, and freckled! I tried not to gape like an idiot, but then failed completely when the girls started speaking to me in fluent English. They said they were glad to get the chance to work with a native English speaker, especially since the school (like most schools here) doesn't have textbooks. It's hard to perfect your grammar without having anything to refer to. Then they told me about how they were planning to have an English-only day camp over the fall holiday, and then a Halloween party the week after that, and would I be able to go and help out? I stammered something in the affirmative, probably sounding like I was the one for whom English was a second language.
I observed a 9th grade English class that morning. I was the second shortest person in the room. The kids were politely interested in my presence there, and asked a few questions about America. Then a cell phone went off, and then another. The teacher sighed and stood up. "You know the rules. Hand them over." She collected the students' phones and said, "You can get them back after class is over." Yes, in Bizarro World, the students all have cell phones and mp3 players, but no textbooks.
That evening, some of my future 9th and 10th graders took me for a walking tour of the town and pointed out places of interest, such as the gymnasium (complete with exercise machines and public swimming pool) and the amphitheatre where concerts are held ("Yeah, Avril Lavigne's playing here next week," one of the girls said sarcastically, and laughed). As we headed back towards home, we were approached by a couple of girls from the school - a blonde and a redhead, both in blue jeans. My students introduced me. "This is the new teacher from America?" they said, and eyed me rather disappointedly. "You don't look American. You look just like us."
Today's Advice For the New Volunteers: If you ever drop anything into the hole in the outhouse floor (shoe, flashlight, neighbor's kid) let it go because man, it's gone.
27 September 2007
Dom Sweet Dom part 2
The best thing about my new apartment? The bathroom doors. Instead of the shower and toilet being together in one room, they're separated into two smaller rooms. And just so you know which is which, the doors each have a little illustration. The shower room has a picture of a girl in the tub, and the toilet room has...
26 September 2007
Dom Sweet Dom
I am no longer the Peace Corps equivalent of "Couch Guy" - I have my own place now! My new site is a primarily Russian suburb of Ashgabat. Since it's near the city, I'm able to live in an apartment.
Chateau Brit (as I am now calling it) is 3 rooms plus bathroom and shower room - larger than my entire house back in the village. Nobody'd lived in it for over a year so the amount of dust inside defied belief. I could (and did) write my name in the dust on every wall. How does dust even coat a vertical surface? You'd think gravity would have a thing or two to say about that.
But minor things aside, I'm insanely psyched to have this place. I almost feel like I'm not a real volunteer anymore now that I have luxuries like privacy and running water. It's nearly enough to make one feel guilty. But not so guilty that I'm not going to enjoy it!
Anyway, that's all for now...updates will continue to be sporadic as I settle in at the new school and figure out how to sweep my walls.
Today's Advice For the New Volunteers: The Jedi mind trick does not work on Central Asian police officers. Therefore, when passing through a police checkpoint, you should NOT say "You don’t need to see my identification, these are not the Americans you are looking for."
11 September 2007
How Hot Is a Turkmen Summer?
Well, Summer's back is broken and it's now a balmy 100 degrees fahrenheit during the day. But just a few weeks ago it was a different story - we're talking 130 on some days.
If you really want to know what a Turkmen summer is like, just dump a half pound of sand into an industrial-sized hair dryer. Aim it at your face, and turn it on to "high". But if that doesn't give you a good enough idea, check this out:
How hot is a Turkmen summer?
- So hot that my lipstick turned to liquid in the tube, and my eyeliner disintegrated on my eye and turned me into the little dog from "Spanky and Our Gang".
- So hot that in the cities, the asphalt is soft and spongy like moss.
- So hot that only rabid dogs and Peace Corps volunteers are awake between the hours of noon and 3 pm.
- So hot that the chickens lay hard-boiled eggs.
- So hot that the dust devils come in to town to beg for a drink of water.
- So hot that you can't find chocolate in any markets anywhere because of its stubborn refusal to stay in solid form.
Read that last one over to yourself. No chocolate for four months out of the year. Now you all know how truly tough we have it over here.
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Dude, where's my chocolate?" (Chuy, menin shokoladem nirede?)
10 September 2007
Long Time No Blog
As lots of you have noticed, this blog was on hiatus for much of the summer. That isn't because nothing happened, or because I got sucked into a wormhole and temporarily ceased to exist. It's because for July and part of August I was medevac'd (medically evacuated) to the United States.
I actually got to go back to my hometown for a few days, which was great. Shocked the hell out of my parents when I showed up, since I hadn't given them any advance warning whatsoever. My mom nearly fell backwards into the pool when she saw me, which would have been a *great* picture to add to my photo gallery if it'd happened.
Now I'm back and better than ever (thanks to the free nose job I got when my chart was accidentally switched with some other patient's). Soon I will be teaching in another part of the country under safer conditions. I'll give you the details on my new place as soon as I get settled in.
Until then, here's a few highlights from the pre-U.S. part of my summer:
- I saw a dust devil, about as big as half a Buick at its point, and watched as it left swirly tracks in the sand. At one point it overtook a tractor, and I was warned by some villagers that getting hit by a dust devil will cause all sorts of diseases, including cancer. (Does the Surgeon General know about this?)
- I spent several lunchtimes sitting on the sand under a clear blue sky. I tossed bread to doves and ate sweet, juicy watermelon the likes of which America has never tasted.
- I met some Nevada State Troopers who were sent to Turkmenistan to teach proper police procedure to the KNB. I wish them the best of luck in that venture.
- On a sad note, there was a car wreck in my village; 2 cars full of teenage kids were speeding up and down the road at 95 miles an hour, driving side by side (it's a common activity during wedding parties). They hit a truck headon. Nobody was wearing seatbelts; 4 kids died.
- I was stuck in a traffic jam on the way out of my village. Cars were backed up quite a ways. In light of the previous week's accident, I dreaded finding out what was causing the holdup, but I got out and looked anyway. A cow and a bull were blocking up the entire road while engaged in the act of procreating. We waited for them to finish and continued on our way. None of the locals in the cab seemed to think this was at all amusing or out of the ordinary.
20 June 2007
Where the Kochelar Have No Name
Bono would love this place. My village has only 2 streets that are marked with names, and nobody really knows what they are because they are printed once each, very faintly, on the sides of crumbling concrete structures (relics from the Soviet era). Anytime I've referred to these streets by their "proper" names I've gotten looks of confusion. People only know streets by who lives on them. Which is fine if you're a local, because you know everyone in town. But if you're a foreigner like me, getting directions anywhere is next to impossible.
"You know Ogulfrey? Well, take a left at her cousin's house and keep going until you get to the pasture that Atamyrat brings his sheep to. Then make a right, and at Maham's aunt's house make a left. They have a new outhouse, very clean - you can't miss it. My house is halfway down that road, just across from the biggest haystack." It was with those directions last week that I attempted to go to dinner at my friend Gulshat's house. After 45 minutes of tromping through dusty roads and sheep pastures, I located the street and found the house across from the largest haystack. Surprised at how easy it was, I walked up and knocked on the door.
"Hello! I'm here!"
I was greeted by several smiling faces - two women, a little girl of about 4 years old, and a baby. "Come in, come in!"
I sat down as directed and accepted the tea gratefully.
"We'll eat in a half an hour," one of the women said.
"It already smells wonderful," I remarked to her. She beamed, and handed me the baby to play with while she worked in the kitchen. At one point I called in to her, "So, when is Gulshat coming?"
"Gulshat?" She asked. "Oh, I don't know, maybe later."
A few minutes later, the door opened. Expecting Gulshat, I looked up and said, "Hello!"
Two men appeared. "Hello! You came!" The older one said.
"Yes," I said. "It's very kind of you to have me over."
"Not at all, not at all. So how is your work?"
We talked awhile until dinner was brought out. No sign of Gulshat, but everyone else was eating, and I was encouraged to do the same, so I did.
Afterward, I played with the kids some more, and tried to teach the little girl how to say "Hello" and "Goodbye" in English, much to everyone's amusement. Finally, it was getting dark. Gulshat never arrived, but I had to get home.
I thanked them all again for their hospitality. "I'm sorry to leave, but I must go now. Please give my best to Gulshat."
"Of course," they said. "Come back again soon!"
A few days later, Gulshat found me at the school. "Brit! Are you okay? What happened?"
"What do you mean? And where were you the other day? I went to your house and your family fed me, but you never showed up!"
Gulshat looked extremely confused. "No, they didn't. I was there; we waited for you for hours!"
"What? This was Wednesday, right? I went to your house. I met your mom, and your sister and her kids, and your dad and your brother. They were all really nice. But you never came!"
"I don't have a brother."
"What?!"
"You went to the wrong house."
"No! Everyone there knew who I was. They fed me!"
"You went to the wrong house."
"I followed your directions exactly."
"You took a left a Ogulfrey's cousin's house?"
"Yes, and then turned right after Atamyrat's field."
"You saw the new outhouse?"
"Yes, and your house is the one across from the biggest haystack. That's where I went."
"Ohhhhhhhh...."
"What?!"
Gulshat giggled. "It isn't the biggest haystack anymore. Aman's cows got into that field and ate half of it. Now the biggest haystack is across from Mehri and Serdar's house."
"So I ate at..."
"Mehri and Serdar's house. Oh, you got to see Anajemal's new baby! Is he cute?"
"Yes, he is..."
"Was the food good?"
"Yeah, she made polov."
She giggled again. "I bet they were surprised to see you. Oh, well, next week I'm going to be at my mom's house. You have to come have dinner with me there, okay?"
"Okay, sure! Is it far?"
"No, not at all! Just take a right past Guljemal's cousin's house..."
*True story. Okay, perhaps slightly embellished.*
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Where's the bathroom? Just go outside, take a left at the goats, and it's the second shack on the right."(Nirede hajathana? Dine dasharda yore, chepinde gecilardan git, we ol ikinji saginda jay.)
08 June 2007
Further Adventures in Third-World Consumerism
Today I went to the store to get my daily diet cola, and I also wanted to get vinegar so I could make salad dressing (fresh veggies are in abundance now - like delicious, flavorful tomatoes for less than 20 cents a kilo). Well, the Turkman word for vinegar wasn't in my dictionary. So there I was trying to ask the shop lady for vinegar without actually knowing the word for it; I went into all these vast descriptions of "something that is like water but very sour". And "sometimes it's made from old wine or old apple juice". I described its appearance, its various uses, etc - it was like playing that party game, Taboo. There were a bunch of women in the store and they all joined in, trying to guess the item. At first I was embarrassed at sounding like a complete ignorant foreigner, but they seemed to think it was great fun. They were pulling down everything from cognac to sewing needles to bottles of mineral salts. Finally, I said, "When you make shashlyk (Turkish barbecue), you use these ingredients..." and I listed them all out, leaving vinegar last and saying "...and then the thing that I need!" One of the women said, "I know! I know!" and grabbed a bottle and held it out - it was vinegar! I said, "Yes, yes, that's it!" Everyone laughed and cheered! That's Peace Corps. Something as mundane as going to the store for vinegar ends up being a big crazy cross-cultural adventure.
Turkman Word of the Day: Yoda = Path
03 June 2007
He Was Probably Trying to Sell Me Car Insurance
This morning I was sleeping comfortably when I felt something like a hand come to rest gently on the top of my head. I figured it was just a dream, and dozed on. Then I felt the hand move. I grabbed at the top of my head and something squirmed out from between my fingers and landed with a plop on the pillow beside me. Fully awake, I opened my eyes and found myself being stared down by a sand lizard (about 5 or 6 inches long, kind of a drab khaki color, big beady eyes). I blinked, he didn't. I wasn't in the mood to go chasing a lizard all over the place so I shooed him off the pillow & he skittered across my bedroom floor.
Freaky, but by no means a worst case scenario. I can think of many things that would be scarier to meet eye-to-eye first thing in the morning. Giant spiders, cockroaches, and Keith Richards all come to mind.
25 May 2007
Contest!
Guess the famous Shakespearean play this feral dog is performing and win a prize!
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Alas, poor Yorick...I knew him, Horatio."(Wa-hey, Yorik janwar...Men ony biledim, Horatyo.)
21 May 2007
Things I've Learned in Turkmenistan
1.) Never wear lip gloss in a sand storm.
2.) Never yawn in the outhouse. (Flies + an open mouth = an unanticipated protein snack.)
3.) Roosters do not merely crow at dawn. They crow at dawn, dusk, 3 pm, 3 am, and whenever they damn well feel like it. As a matter of fact, if my neighbor's rooster were to meet with an unfortunate accident, I might be very grateful...
4.) The fewer time-saving devices there are, paradoxically, the more spare time you have.
5.) Whoever said "A dry heat is more tolerable" should be placed in a mental institution. Preferably one without air conditioning.
6.) Kids are the same the whole world over. So are mothers.
15 May 2007
The State of Equality in the New Marker Economy
Introduced another new holiday to the kids: Mother's Day. Same as with Valentine's Day, I explained a bit about the holiday and passed out paper and school supplies for the kids so that they could make cards for their moms. I had recently gotten some markers sent from the States, so I brought those in to supplement the other stuff. Turkman bazaars do have markers and they aren't terribly expensive so the kids are at least acquainted with the concept of markers. But when they saw the American markers they got really excited and proceeded to argue over who got to use the cool new American markers. "Guys," I said, "Markers are markers. The Turkman ones are just as good as the American ones." No, the kids insisted. the American ones were definitely better. I wasn't able to convince them otherwise until one of the more observant kids read the backs of the marker boxes and announced, "Hey, the teacher is right!" The other kids said, "What? Why?" He held up the marker boxes and said, "The Turkman markers and the American markers were both made in China!" The squabbling over markers stopped after that.
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "American components, Russian components...all made in Taiwan!"(Amerikan shayler, Rus shayler...hemme Taywande eldildi!)
21 April 2007
Whereupon Your Intrepid Adventurer Discovers That There Are Killer Bees in Turkmenistan
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Egad."(Wiyy.)
16 April 2007
The American gets Punked
In a brief fit of good judgment I decided not to introduce April Fools' Day to the kids of Altyn Asyr (it's one of my favorite holidays, but the teachers looked awfully nervous at the prospect of hundreds of kids "celebrating" a season of pranks). I did tell some of my teacher friends about it, though. So on the Monday after April Fool's day, I was teaching my 4th-form class as usual, when one of the little girls stood up and said quite primly and in perfect English: "Excuse me, teacher, I have to pee." I was totally thrown! Finally I said, "Okay, you're excused!" The other kids kept straight faces for about 10 more seconds and then they all busted up laughing. I said, bewildered, "Did you guys understand what she just said?" Yup, they did. Then I noticed a couple of the other teachers peeking around the corner and giggling...
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Everyone's a comedian."(Hemmeler degishgen.)
11 April 2007
Walkabout
Here's what I saw today when I went out for a walk:
I went outside and my host mom's laundry was decorating the line. It was flapping around in the wind and looked like a bunch of colorful birds that were trying to escape some snare. I walked down my street and a grouchy old man was yelling at a bunch of kids for pestering his donkey. Some of the kids were from my 4th-form class and as they ran away giggling they yelled in English, "Hello teacher!" I went past the grazing field full of spring lambs. The shepherds stood motionless, all wrapped head-to-toe in billowing white sheets with only their dark eyes uncovered. Ghostlike sentries, they silently watched both sheep and passers-by. I stopped to say hi to the old lady who sells sunflower seeds. She instructed me to buy her seeds and settle down with some nice young man, although I'm not sure in what order she wanted me to do that. A little boy darted past us, focused on his favorite toy: A long thick wire with a wheel at the end of it. He steered it down the path with rapt contemplation, as though it were a hundred times more engrossing than anything Nintendo could invent. Maybe it was. Then, just as I was rounding the path that would lead me past the school, my little buddy from the 6th form startled me out of my reverie by jumping out in front of me from absolutely nowhere. He said, "Hey Br3it! Come with me!" He grabbed my arm and made me run with him to the town's general store and pointed to the bottles of cola. Score! The merchant lady had Diet Coke! So I bought a liter of it and went to the curb to sit and enjoy my favorite beverage. I offered some to my buddy (sort of like a finder's fee), but he said, "No sugar? No thanks!" We sat and watched the dogs chase each other around the street, and he pointed out all the old men who looked like Santa Claus, and then it was time for home and dinner.
So, even the days where nothing happens here - I mean the days without princes or elections or festivals - you can't really call them uneventful.
03 April 2007
World Festival
There was a big international arts & folklore festival in Ashgabat today, and I watched some of the coverage on TV. It was supposed to be for "all of the world's nations" but not everyone was represented (I imagine there's a few countries that are still looking at the invite and scratching their heads. "Turkmenistan? Where? Did this thing come with a map?!") But there was an interesting variety, anyway. Of course, most of the people attending were from Iran, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan (those being the countries that border Turkmenistan), but there were also people from Brazil, Japan, India, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and - strangely enough! - some Native Americans from Arizona! I didn't catch which tribe they were from, but it was really cool to see them there. They sang and did a tribal dance. I was proud to point out to my host mom that they were Americans, although she then asked why they don't look like me. That led to a rather complicated discussion which maybe I'll post about at a later date.
Here's an interesting little factoid that I plan to pursue further: The Turkmen have a mythological figure (pre-Islamic) that is identical to the Native Americans' Kokopelli. He's the same hunchbacked, spiky-haired, lame little flute-playing god that you see all throughout the American southwest. How is it that the Turkmen tribes share a symbol with the Native American tribes?
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "No, Borat wasn't invited to the festival."(Yok, Borat festivala chagyrulmedi.)
31 March 2007
This blog entry brought to you by Aunt Ogulshat's melons
A few days a week I have combination English/American Civics classes for the English teachers at my school. They ask me questions about American culture & government and I respond in (mainly) English, and we have some dictionaries handy to look stuff up when necessary. I also bring in American magazines, civics books, etc. for them to look through. Awhile ago we talked about advertising and commercials in America (which as you may know is the advertising capital of the world). There's hardly anything resembling advertising out here. Turkman magazines & newspapers don't have them. Russian television channels have some commercials, but the Turkman channels don't really have them. Even the word Turkmen use for "commercial" is Russian: reklama. I told them that was something I liked about Turkmenistan - there aren't billboards every few feet to mess up the scenery like there are in America. There also aren't any big "chain" stores. Out here it's the land of the "mom & pop" shops - literally, because what they call stores are usually some old lady selling melons in her front yard.
I started an English club awhile back, and one of the first things I had the students do was make posters to hang around the school telling about the club - when it meets, etc. The next day one of the teachers came up to me, laughing, and said, "You American! You're here just a few months, and already there are commercials in the school!" She was kidding of course, but wait until she sees the five Walmarts and seven Starbucks I'm opening up here next month...
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Nine out of ten men who have tried camels prefer cigarettes."(Dokuza-ondan duyanlari edip goran adamlar chilimlari saylayarler.)
23 March 2007
You gotta fight for your right to eat chorba
Turkmen celebrate the arrival of spring by throwing lots of toys (parties). At toys, the villagers get together and gorge themselves on food and then sing & dance all night. There's typically one huge pot where the main dish is prepared, usually chorba (soup) or palow (rice). The pot sits over a fire outside & everyone takes turns helping with the preparation. When the food's ready, there's a specific order in which the meal is served. Honored guests from outside of the community get served first. After that, the hierarchy is: elder males, younger males, elder females, younger females, and children. There's always more than enough to go around, and besides the main meal there's candy, fruits and vegetables (at this time of year, all of the produce is imported from Iran, because of course the crops in Turkmenistan have just started growing). After everyone's eaten his fill, it's time for the music and dancing. At some toys, the music is performed live with guitars and flutes, and people take turns singing. At others, there's a more modern DJ setup with speakers and a CD player (or sometimes even karaoke). Even though the work is hard in spring, with land to till and crops to plant, Turkmen always find the energy to dance. One time I danced for almost four hours straight until I collapsed into a chair, too exhausted to take another step. Still people continued to dance; several of my friends called over to me and said, "Why aren't you dancing? Join us!"
I've seen toys where everyone danced in a circle around a huge bonfire, singing and laughing. The toys where there's a fire are my favorites; it's awe-inspiring to watch the elders stand around the fire, their faces illuminated by the flickering light, singing songs in their old tribal dialects. At one such toy, I watched the young men take part in a game to demonstrate their prowess. They put on suits of shiny red satin which looked as though they were made from the fire itself. They lined up, and while the women sang, each man took a running start and leaped over the bonfire. Then when every man had taken a turn, they lined up and did it again, until everyone had gone three times. I never saw anyone stumble or get burned this way.
Today's Turkmen Lesson: "Please pass the sheep-head soup!"(Goyun etly chorba berayda!)
Official Disclaimer:
This is a personal blog, owned and operated solely by the writer, Britain Anderson. The contents of this blog reflect the opinions of the writer and do not in any way reflect any policy or position of the United States Government or the Peace Corps.