Grant Writing, 4th of July Embassy Party, and Staff Changes July 14, 2009

Hello again everyone! Hope this blog is finding everyone well! A lot has been happening since my blog, but not a lot of time for me to sit and type this out for you guys. So I’ll do a little highlight of everything for you guys!

After the frustration of the camp I have been working a lot on writing my grants, that has basically consumed my work. I finished one grant to get volleyball equipment so I can have a volleyball club for my girls. The grant is basically for just some volleyballs and 2 nets for the school. I’m hoping it passes because I have a few girls who really want to play, which would be awesome because it would give them something to do. The 2nd grant is my big grant for English resources which includes books, a cd player, a guitar, and a dutar which will be used in the fall music club. I actually am in the process of finishing that one and should hear about approval by the end of August. Overall, I think I’ve got some good things happening for the fall and I am thoroughly excited for the fall to actually start a school year at my site. I think starting a new school year will be so much better than coming in at the middle of the year, I can start setting down the ground rules from day one and stay firm with these rules.

Also had the opportunity to celebrate the 4th of July with all of the volunteers and Embassy workers at my first US Embassy party. It was a really fancy party with amazing food and an open bar (not a very good idea for PCVs, but I think we handled ourselves ok). Anyways the party was really cool the US Ambassador gave a speech, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to hear it because there was a problem with the microphone. From what I hear though he said something about Turkmenistan relying on the youth that study abroad to be the leaders of industries and the country in general. The party was also a bit of a goodbye party too because we lost 4 PCVs and our Training Officer. The PCVs were ending their service while the Training Officer left to go be the Training Officer in Romania, all of them are missed, but we all hope they are doing amazing things. The 4th party was technically celebrated on the 2nd, leaving us PCVs around Ashgabat for the next few days to catch up and hang out which was a ton of fun. On Friday we actually played a game of softball, T-16s VS T-17s, to celebrate just being American. Ended up that my team the T-17s was slaughtered by the T-16s, but we all had fun nonetheless (although we decided that next year we will play kickball instead of softball). Overall, it was a great way to celebrate Independence Day.

As I kind of mentioned, Peace Corps Turkmenistan has been going through some staff changes. Our old PTO, Betsy, left us to go to Romania so we now have a new PTO, Melody. Our Health Program Manager, Jannet, will be leaving at the end of July to go study in Amsterdam leaving no one in the health position. Our Training Manager, Mahri, who has worked for Peace Corps Turkmenistan for 14 years, is leaving to get her masters in Costa Rica, again leaving her position open. Finally, just the other day our Country Director, Stephen, announced that he too was being transferred to be the new Country Director in Macedonia. All of these staff changes have taken me by surprise. I know that as with most government agencies Peace Corps does a usual 2 year rotation with staff, but I didn’t expect it all to come at the same time. I will deeply miss the old staff as they have been so supportive to me and just a consistent positive force in my life here. That’s not to say that the new replacements will not be the same supportive force, but it’s just dealing with changes again. I guess change is a part of life though, which is a lesson that I am constantly learning here.

Trip Around the World With Abby Teacher Heartbreak June 27, 2009

It’s been a challenging week here in Turkmenistan, but all things considered I am doing well. I had been planning this summer camp for kids at my school for about 3 weeks on and off and it was supposed to be this week. I did a bit of publicity for it at school before the year ended and when I had free time went around the village to tell all of the kids about it to come. Overall, I had gotten a pretty good response from the kids about it and expected somewhere between 15-20 kids to show up (a big response rate for my school as you will see). The camp was called “5 Days Around the World with Abby Teacher” with the general plan of visiting 5 different cultures and transforming our classroom into a cool cultural trip with the culmination being a Mexican Fiesta complete with a homemade Piñata (that I spent the better part of 3 days designing and making). So I was really pumped up for a good week when Monday rolled around and all of my plans and ideas came crashing down. On Monday I had 4 kids and one older student that I recruited to help me show up and those 4 kids weren’t really too interested in doing much of anything. We tried to do the activities that I had planned for Chinese New Year, but they were just overall not really interested. I tried playing some games with them outside, but again it was like they just didn’t care about anything. After a very frustrating Monday, Tuesday was even more of a crushing day when just 1 student showed up to learn about Australia. Not really being prepared for just one student I basically told him a little bit about Australia and then we watched Finding Nemo (as it’s based in Australia). Wait let me back up a bit and say this camp was designed for 4th-8th graders.

Being completely heartbroken about the lack of attendance I decided to talk with one of the programming managers at Peace Corps to figure out just what I should do about this dilemma of complete apathy and attendance on the part of my village. She listened to my story and thought about all of the advertizing I had done and was able to see that I really made a good effort to make this week a success. She ended up coming out to my school to talk with me and some of the teachers at my school (not English teachers mind you) about the lack of students. Well, I was under the assumption that the students had just forgotten, but that wasn’t the case. It turns out that parents had actually told their children they couldn’t go to the camp for one of two reasons: 1) they thought it was too hot and didn’t want their kids outside and 2) the parents didn’t want their kids learning from the American (though they see me in the community all of the time and I always make an effort to be friendly and talk to them). This was totally crushing to me. To hear that students wanted to go, but that their parents had actually said they didn’t want their kids spending time with me because I was American! It was totally heart breaking and I had serious considerations of just saying forget it, I’m going home, nobody wants me here anyways.

Fortunately, the other teachers were able to see just how frustrating and upsetting that was for me and they told me that I could work with a first grade camp that was going in and help the teacher with games (which basically meant Abby makes futile attempts to teach basic English to 35 screaming 1st graders while the other teacher goes to the store, another teachers house, and eventually home without so much as consulting or considering helping me wrangle the kids). So I spent the rest of the week trying to figure out how to teach to 35 screaming 1st graders that barely understand Turkmen let alone English, but I gave it my best effort. Today, Friday, was my last day working with the 1st graders for the week and now I can take some time to actually design some sort of age appropriate lesson plans before I have to go back next week (I’m only going to teach on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays though). Today was kind of fun though because I let the first graders attack the piñata, unfortunately I forgot my camera at home. They thought it was a ton of fun and only 2 kids almost lost their heads by the wielding of the bat (just kidding! No children were injured during the piñata game Thank God!).

So after the heartbreaking beginning of the week I realized a few things about my community, again. First off, I need to keep reminding myself that I am the first volunteer at my site, thus Americans are not trusted in the community and I probably won’t be until I am about to pack my bags and leave. Again the work I am doing is to set up the next volunteer to be a bit more successful in my village, I sure hope they appreciate it. Second, the teachers at my school really have no idea what to do with me and are really surprised that I am intent on working during the summer (hello it’s my job), but they’re letting me work with the first graders so I’ll take it I guess. Finally, I need to continue to invest in those students that do want to learn English, particularly the older girl that showed up every day faithfully to help me with the kids. If I can work with her and my host sister and help them achieve their goals then I can say I was a successful volunteer, even through all of the hardship (which honestly is a lot).

The Beginning of the Turkmen Summer aka “It’s hotter than Hell and it’s only June! I might die in July or August!” June 20, 2009

Hey there readers! Well, I’m back in the T-stan after a minor mishap getting back from Thailand. I am safe and overall doing well. I’ve been back for about 2 weeks now and honestly have nothing to report work related because I really haven’t done any work! My first week back all of my teachers were repainting their classrooms and insisted that I didn’t help, though I did help a little bit. Then this week all of my English teachers just kid of disappeared for some reason leaving me to just sit at school by my lonesome. It was ok though because I occupied the time by fighting with paper mache and a balloon to make a pinata for my summer camp next week. Which was a pain to try to explain to the other teachers because there isn’t really a word for paper mache in Turkmen and they were all thoroughly confused! Anyways when I do work at the school during the summer its only for about 3 hours a day, just liek the other Turkmen teachers. You really can’t work much more because its way too hot, this week I’m certian that it was about 105 degrees F! No humidity thank goodness, but still hot!

I have been finding other ways to spend my time though, unofficially working. I’m trying to spend more time in the community just walking around and visiting houses talking to people. Yesterday I had a nice dinner with three of my students and their parents (the mother is also a teacher at my school). Its nice to have time to just go out and walk around the community, if only for like an hour in the evenings. I am finding my walks are becoming increasingly more difficult though as sometimes I just want to walk, but everyone wants me to sit and drink tea with them. Alas such is the life of a PCV… everyone wants to be your friend.

I’ve also been able to spend some quality time with my family. Every evening I help them in the yard to pick cherries and appricotes from our trees so we can make jam and juice. Its overall good times and makes me think of Good Ole Cedar Michigan and Uncle John’s Cherry farm. As a kid I never really had the opportunity to go and pick cherries (probably because as my mom would put it “You would whine the whole time there!”) so its been nice to get that experience that many of my cousins and aunts and uncles had in their childhood. Beside from cherry picking my family and I also had some good family bonding a few nights ago when we went to Turkmen Disney World! Now, I am 24 years old and have never been to Disney World, I know to some of my friends (mostly Liz and Jacki) thats almost a crime against humanity, but we just never did that growing up. But I can say I hav been to Turkmen Disney World! The actual name of the “theme park” is Fairytale World, but everyone calls it Disney World, I’m sure the Disney Corporation Loves that! Anyways, in American standards TDW is nothing more than a county fair. There are the standard rides like the tilt-a-whirl, ferris wheel, and merry-go-round. There’s even a small rollercoaster and mini Splash Mountain. So nothing too extreme by our standards… it’s no Cedar Point by any means! But the way my family carried on about this place you would think they were at Disney World! They loved every minute of it and I just loved watching them have fun. My sisters thought I was so crazy when I had my hands in the air on the rollercoaster, but after they saw that I survived they tried it too and screamed their heads off the whole time. It was seriously great!

Next week my sumemr schedule should start to pick up considerably. I am having a summer camp at my school titled “Travel the World in 5 Days with Abby Teacher!” It’s basically a 5 day trip in the classroom around the world stopping to visit different cultures. we’re going to learn about China, Austrailia, Africa, USA, and finishing off the week with a Mexican Fiesta complete with a pinata (hence the need for paper mache). I’m really excited about it and I have talked to a lot of kids in my village who are excited to come too. I’m hoping to get a good turn out. After that week I will be really busy with working with other organizations and their summer camps and working with my teachers (who should re-appear soon) to do some good lesson planning. Then on August 15th I will fly out to meet Mom, Cherelle, and Danielle Drumm for a girls week in London! Overall its going to be a good/hot summer!

Bangkok Trip with Special Guest Bloggers! June 5, 2009

Salam from Bangkok, Thailand! Well, I am just chilling here in the hotel before I head off to the airport to head back to Ashgabat at 4am. To give you a short over view of the week I have had a great trip here in BKK. It has been wonderful to be out of Turkmenistan for a bit and even better to spend the week with friends. Cathy and Kenny have been great hosts around BKK and I have really enjoyed spending time with them and just seeing the city. They are awesome tour guides and can take you to anywhere you want to go in Bangkok, even the not so good districts which I am convinced they might have stumbled upon on previous trips.
Cathy and Kenny have actually spent the majority of their time here in Massage School learning how to be trained Thai Massagers (hit them up for it later!) so I have been left to wander the city by myself for the most part. I have gotten to tour most of the big temples and the grand palace spending a lot of my time down by the river (if you know me I can usually be found around water… with the exception of T-stan). I also got to venture to some of the shopping districts and found some good new clothes that actually fit (considering that the majority of my clothes are like 4 sizes too big for me).
I would have to say that the biggest changes that I faced were just adjusting to “civilization” again. I just realized today that I went from a country that had 6 million people to a city that has over 14 million people, that’s a huge jump! So for the first few days I had to go through a little bit of culture shock. It was kind of funny on the second day we were here we went to a big shopping mall that had a good international food court that you got to chose whatever you wanted. Well, Cathy and Kenny were able to find their food pretty easily, but I just remember standing there looking at all of the options and feeling completely overwhelmed. All I really wanted was some sort of shrimp (not getting it in t-stan), but was faced with over 15 different options of a shrimp dish from 3 different cultures! It was a very overwhelming experience I seriously walked around for about 7 minutes before I ended up getting some good Vietnamese shrimp soup.
Anyways, I won’t take up too much time here because I have asked Kenny and Cathy to give you all some updates (three bloggers for the price of one! Sounds like a good Thai deal!). I’ll just rundown a few of my highlights: All of the temples; especially the Golden Palace and Emerald Buddha, the zoo, hanging out by the pool, actually seeing a movie on the big screen (Angels and Demons), Bacon, McDonalds, and other delicious food, crazy jumping fish (see video at the bottom), getting regular internet to actually see and talk to Molly, Molly, and Jason, and of course spending quality time with Cathy and Kenny!
All right, now onto our guest bloggers!!!
Here’s a note from Kenny:
Well, hello from Thailand everyone. Abby has assured me that this will get moved to the top since Cathy took a long time and a lot of space below, and did an excellent job describing the trip and time spent with Abby. She is doing very well, a little lighter but still her ever cheerful self. She is loving working with the children and helping improve her adopted home. She has made many friends, and loves showing off the pictures and talking about all of her experiences.
Time spent here was busy, starting with meeting each other at the airport with Cathy waiting near starbucks and me walking back and forth between the 2 exits of international passengers. Fortunately the starbucks somewhat over looked this area and I saw 2 sets of arms waving for me to come up and join them, and the travels begin…One of the highlights you should see is the video of the girls feeding the fish along a pier, I still am not sure who was more excited – the fish or Abby and Cathy. Cathy does a good job summarizing the trip so I will be short, but know that Abby is doing well in both mind and spirit, misses all of her family and friends, but is doing great work in helping our small little world.
Here’s Cathy’s note:
Greetings from Thailand. Abby has asked Kenny and I to write a guest blog. Abby arrived here in Thailand the same night as us, about 1 week ago. She is now heading back to Turkmenistan on a 4 a.m. flight – in about 6 hours. During our time together, we’ve rode the sky trains and river taxis, taken a tuk tuk, and had a few taxi adventures. We’ve visited the Wat Arun and Jim Thompson’s house – and done some shopping and experienced culinary enjoyments apparently not available in Turkmenistan. During the week, Kenny and I were in massage school, so Abby ventured off on her own to see some other temples, the Grand Palace, shopping, and a few other sights. Abby is very industrial and spirited, so she enjoyed venturing off – Bangkok is quite safe and easy to get around in… but we had cell phones just in case we needed to get in touch with one another.
Some quick observations on Abby from a first hand view — Abby has lost a tremendous amount of weight. She is thinner than when I first met her as a freshman in college. You can really see it in her face. She looks very healthy, but you can tell that the Turkmen diet has made an impact… Abby’s hair is also quite long – about 10 times longer than the usual Abby haircut. She wears it back in a ponytail at the base of her head most of the time. She even got a hair cut when we were here – cost her a whopping $8, but the back of her hair is nice and even now, and all of her split ends are gone. I was excited to learn that she’s considering growing it out during her time abroad and donating it to Locks of Love/Beautiful Lengths or another agency that makes and gives away wigs to individuals suffering from cancer or other diseases that result in hair loss. As you can guess, Abby’s spirit hasn’t changed – she’s the same ol’ quirky good-hearted, sincere, caring, giving girl that we all know and love.
As for a quick Thailand story…
Kenny and I had wanted to take Abby on a dinner cruise for her birthday. But, Abby being the frugal soul that she is, she just wanted to go down to the riverfront to see the sun set and river life in the evening. A dinner ticket on a nice dinner cruise ship would have run about 1440 baht, or about $30 per person (which isn’t bad!). So we took the sky train to the river (approx. 40 baht / person), hopped the river taxi (18 baht per person) and rode it past the temples lit up at night (beautiful), and watched river life. We got off at stop 15, because it was toward the north of BKK city center and we could see a nice riverside restaurant there. We were able to sit outside right on the river at the pier, order several dishes for dinner, watch the catfish in the river (see pictures and video to follow), have live music sung by an acoustic guitar player, and enjoy good company and ambiance. We laughed because the Thai guy at the next table was singing loudly to every song that the musician sung…. We figured we were sitting next to the male Thai version of Abby. And when the musician played “Happy Birthday” (don’t ask why, we have no clue, but it was in English and has one of those tunes that you can’t help but recognize), Abby sang along too. The food at this restaurant was very good. They also sold bags of day old bread that you could throw down to the fish in the river. The fish are well trained, because they go crazy when you toss a slice in. So, you know us, the simply entertained…. Abby got a 40 baht bag and we fed the fish. And it was great. You have to click and watch the video. We had a good time; we’ll leave it at that. So…. Best part – when the bill came, it was 705 baht – about $15.00. So we spent 120+54+40+705 = 914 baht for all of us, or 2/3 the cost of one dinner cruise ticket. And we had a great time. Good company, great atmosphere, cheap entertainment (feeding the fish), what more could you ask for?

Abby has enjoyed wearing shorts, eating pork, getting in the pool upstairs, having the sun on her skin and enjoying the reasonable weather here, and being around English speakers and diversity. We’ve enjoyed having her here with us, catching up on her Turkmen adventures. We’ve also gotten a kick out of her hoarding and gorging of pork products, Pringles, Mtn. Dew (we brought it from the states), licorice, and other western products. She always laughs when we ask, “So, do you have ________ in Turkmenistan?”. The answer is pretty predictable – if it is commercial, western, a chain (like McDonald’s or Starbucks), or otherwise universally found everywhere in the world – it’s not in T-stan. Funny. I have never seen anyone woof down Pork products like Bacon at breakfast like Abby. We went to the grocery store the other day – Abby stocked up on Pringles and spices to flavor her foods – Italian flakes and curry and a few other non-central Asian spices. For those of you that mail her things, those little envelopes of pre-mixed spices might be a wonderful treat in the mail. She describes the food in T-stan as bland and having no flavor, so flavoring and spices will likely be a big hit with Abby. For those of you mailing packages – I would recommend Abby care packages containing Pringles, licorice, drink mixes like Kool-Aid, crackers, and anything sugar loaded and calorie packed (she needs all that she can get).

We have thoroughly enjoyed spending our time with Abby here. I’m glad we were all able to meet up here. I remain very proud of her and even more impressed at her resolve to do much to improve the education system for the children in her village. Like I said at the start, her spirit remains intact and stronger than ever. She’s strong in spite of the toll the diet has taken on her body. She’s now, more determined than ever to make a difference in the world. She and Ghandi have that in common. I have faith in her resolve that she will. Keep her in your thoughts, prayers, and mailing lists. Take care!

First Birthday in Turkmenistan May 29, 2009

Hello all! So I’ve got some time to kill before I take my first vacation as a PCV to Thailand. I just thought I’ld give you all an update about my first birthday in Turkmenistan. I must say it was a pretty rememberable experience. The celebration actually started off the day before my birthday on Wednesday. I was surprised by some of my friends in Ashgabat when they told me they had planned a dinner for me that evening. So I had a real nice dinner with Amy, Andrea, Mayagozel, and Maya on Wednesday then I traveled with Amy back to her site for the evening. The next morning, my actual birthday, Amy and I ventured over to Mayagozels’s house for a delcious breakfast and conversation. Then it was off to my site for my weekly English club (I ended up showing up late, but my girls were cool with it). Anyways after I had my club I was just going to go home and start packing for Thailand, but I was stopped by 3 teachers and my director who told me I must wait at the school for something. I was a bit perplexed because normally they let me come and go as I please. So I waited around making small talk with some of the other teachers until I was dragged into my directors office.Then every teacher who happened to be at school that day was also called into the office just for a special birthday announcement for me. Then the whole staff presented me with a boquet of flowers and 2 new pieces of material to get dresses made. The director and my english teachers just really wanted to show me how much they appreciate me being here and it was really special. I was really touched by their outpouring of love for me. I really wasn’t expecting anything from them, but the fact that all of my teachers were there showing me just how much they care for me and appreciate me.  It was so humbling too because I know they don’t have a lot of money, but they just poured out what they could give. I’m going to be taking pictures of my dresses when they are done so you all can see them. Overall, it was a very special birthday celebration.

And on that note off to Thailand! Look for my next blog “Abby’s Adventures in Bangkok” next week sometime. Hopefully with two guest bloggers Cathy and Kenny Warner!

End of the Year Craziness!!! May 21, 2009

Hey there everyone! Once again I have fallen into a slump in updating this blog, I apologize again. I am finding though that not a lot of stuff happens one a weekly basis here so thus I am usually at a loss of what to write. Since I last wrote though I have been very busy with projects, trainings, and just plan old end of the year BS that every teacher has to deal with (yes teachers, that end of the year craziness is a world phenomena and teachers world wide count down the days until that magical time we call summer vacation… you are not alone!). I’ve also found some time to get outside and enjoy the Turkmen spring before all hell breaks loose (quite literally in a metaphor for the heat summer will bring). Anyways, today I have some time to update you all a little bit about the last few weeks of my life.

Let’s start off recalling the end of the school year with teaching. At the end of April/beginning of May my counterpart and I worked feverously to plan a demonstrative lesson for teachers from my district. The idea was to show our teamwork and demonstrate a “communicative classroom”. Well, the lesson wasn’t as communicative as I thought it could be, but in the end it turned out to be a pretty successful endeavor. We had about 20 teachers from the district show up mainly to see me and the methods that I use to teach English, some of them drove over 2 hours to see me teach and listen to me talk about communicative methods. I was very humbled because they all considered me to be an “expert” in teaching when in actuality I have only been teaching for less that 7 months, while some of them had been teaching for 20 years. Everyone was very receptive to what I had to say and I can only hope that some of them took part of our lesson back to their own classrooms. It was one of those rare days that I left work and felt like a real Peace Corps Volunteer.

After the demonstrative lesson I was able to teach a few really good lessons at my school and I could actually see my students making some progress. The two lessons I can recall involved describing a person. One day we took a stack of pictures and wrote simple sentences using the verb “to be” and an adjective. For example, I had a picture of an old woman and my students wrote sentences like “She is kind,” She is beautiful,” ect. Then the next day we learned how to use the verb “to have” to describe a person, “she has a nice smile,” for example. It was great because the kids were actually starting to get it. After 6 months, I would say that at least 3 students in every class made some sort of progress, some classes even more than that; overall amazing progress! So I feel comfortable about the work I have done this past semester, I can see visible results and it’s awesome.

About 2 weeks ago I had a special training with Peace Corps. I was selected to be a member of what is called “Peer Support Team.” To explain it, I am basically a confidant that my fellow volunteers can come to when they are struggling with service and just life in general. Fortunately for me I feel as though my previous RA Training and Social Work studies has helped me prepare for this role of service to my fellow volunteers (thank you CMU Res-Life and SWK Dept!). So I had this training with a group of about 20 other volunteers. We learned about issues PCVs face and how to be empathetic active listeners. Overall, the training was very good, I really enjoyed the real conversations we had about culture and diversity, but what I enjoyed more though was the opportunity to get to know more members of the group that came here the year before me (T-16s). Another cool thing about being a Peer Supporter is the opportunity to reach out to the new group of volunteers coming in October; it’s hard to believe that they will be here soon!

Other than the constant work and training I am also working on getting ready for my summer activities! I have decided to start up a few new clubs during the summer: 2 new English clubs for interested students (if there are any), and a volleyball club (yes, I know… I dropped freshmen gym for band because I was forced to play volleyball… that and I missed music. But my kids like it and besides we play outside, not inside, big difference!). Before I announce those new clubs to my students though I am going to have a weeklong day camp at my school! The camp is called “Travel the world in 5 days with Abby Teacher!” I decided to have a camp teaching my kids about different countries because many of them have never thought of the world outside of Turkmenistan and I want to give them a chance to “experience” other cultures while learning some English too. I hope to teach about Chinese New Year and make some cool crafts, the African savanna’s animal kingdom and sing a classic song from high school choir “Se Ya Humba” (Powers Choir Grads should know what I’m talking about), have a Mexican fiesta with a homemade piñata, and some other cool stuff that I have yet to research! Overall, I might be more excited for this camp than my kids are, but I announced it in classes this week and they seemed pretty pumped. I’m also going to finish up working on my grant and do a training session with my teachers about how to lesson plan.

I’ve also got an opportunity to work with some other organizations in my area this summer. For the first organization my good friend and current Turkmen tutor Ayna recruited me. Ayna works for an American organization called IREX with their program called Tech Age Girls (TAG). TAG is basically a combination of leadership, computer, and community project organization training for 14 and 15 year old girls in Turkmenistan. Anyways, Ayna asked me to help her write and present 4 trainings about leadership for her girls (knowing my passion for leadership development I of course said yes). So Ayna and I are teaming up to give those presentations and I will also help her out with the TAG conference that will happen in July. The second organization is an organization in the town next to my village called the Anew Resource Center. I was approached by Peace Corps to work with this organization to help them organize a summer camp for kids in the Anew area who can’t afford to go to an expensive special summer camp. I am also going to help teach a weekly club with ARC because I thought it was a very cool organization and the students (who are more advanced than my students) could really benefit from having a native speaker in their classes. Overall, I hope to keep myself busy this summer! Now I know what you’re thinking, “Abby, you’re supposed to relax during the summer!” Have no fear… more on that later!

My final activity that has kept me away from my computer and updating my blog has been the beautiful weather! It’s been so sunny lately and it’s wonderful after the weeks of rain we have had. My family and I have taken to doing more outside activities like playing games outside and just sitting outside talking to our neighbors. It’s been really nice, but the kids wear my out with their Turkmen dodge ball! I’ve also had a few opportunities to go explore my mountains again. About 3 weeks ago Ayna and her family took me to their village just outside of Ashgabat on the foothills of the Kopetdag Mountains. It was so beautiful because it was so green and lush from all of the rain; there was also a field of beautiful red and yellow flowers! From the top of the hills the field of flowers looked like a Turkmen carpet, it was gorgeous! Then last weekend I got to go visit Mayagozel again with a group of Turkmen and American friends to celebrate her birthday by having a picnic in the Gokdepe Mountains. It was so great to see Mayagozel again and spend time with all of the girls just exploring the Desert Mountains. Pictures to come soon!

So you see I have been very busy wrapping up the end of the year! I will say though that I am in need of a vacation and a little time outside of Turkmenistan. Which is why in approximately 8 days I will be boarding a plane for a 1-week excursion to Bangkok to celebrate the end of the year and my 24th birthday (which is a week from today I might add) to go see my good friends Cathy and Kenny in Thailand! I couldn’t be more excited to see a bit of home and see the coolness of Bangkok with two experts (I think Cathy and Kenny have been there like 3 times in the last 5 years). It’s also nice to get to experience one of the many perks of being a PCV, cheap vacations! So that is all I have for now. I promise you all I am still alive! Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and positive thoughts! Hope all is well back home! Until next time, Paca (see ya in Russian)!

PDM Conference April 16, 2009

Hey all! Just thought I would give you all a bit of an update about the happenings here in Turkmenistan. Last week was an interesting week because I had a week long conference in Ashgabat all about community development and grant writing. It was a very interesting conference and basically covered everything I learned about community development in college. Needing community support and working with community and whatnot. The interesting and stressful portion of the conference was trying to explain that concept to my turkmen counterpart. It was interesting because this concept is completely foreign to Turkmen. It was crazy frustrating though because he was just focused on one thing throughout the whole conference: getting money to buy a resource room for the school. I kept trying to tell him that we need to evaluate what our community needs and get community support for a project that our village needs. I also kept trying to stress the idea of sustainibility to him: that is something that will continue on after I leave. I had a fear during the conference that building a resource room for the school would not be helpful to them because I doubt that the teachers would use the materials after I left. So I just kind of let the conference go by and let my counterpart learn what he could and I took new skills away from it too.

The interesting thing was that after the conference when I went back to school and talked to my counterpart about the conference he actually siad to me “You know what I have been thinking about our project for the past few days and you know what I am not sure that we would really use a room after you left and honestly I don’t really want to go through all of the hassel that it takes to get something that might not be used. Let’s try to look at doing something that our school could actually use and will use after you leave.” I was so floored and happy that he said that and that he came up with that on his own. So now we are looking at doing some community assessments to see what our school could use which is exciting because I am actually using some of my social work skills. Just today in fact I had my english club with my girls and talked with them about what they think our school could use. They came up with the ideas of improved toilets and a net for our volleyball court and a volleyball (so we can actually play volleyball). So it was cool to see what my kids are thinking about. Next I am off to see what my other teachers think we could use. Either way I’m excited to use the new assessments I learned from Peace Corps. Either way interesting stuff is going to happen!

Parties, Parties, and More Parties and The Negative Impacts of American Culture April 1, 2009

Hey everyone! Well, spoke with the parents last week and I promised Mom I would update this thing today. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me so allow me to try and recapture some of it for you. Last week was my school’s spring break, which basically meant that I didn’t have to teach classes, but still had to work. I spent the week trying to lesson plan with my counterpart. I am working on actually co-planning and co-teaching with my teachers, unfortunately that is very difficult, but we’re making progress I think. Anyways, on top of the lesson planning attempts I also had the Turkmen equivalent of a work luncheon, a bridal shower, rehearsal dinner, wedding, and baby shower all in the course of 4 days. Now for the guys out there reading this you may not know how boring bridal showers and baby showers are, but I am sure I speak for all women when I say how boring they are when you actually know the language that is being spoken. Most women hate going to those social obligation parties and the only people who really enjoy them are the ones throwing them. Now ladies just imagine going to a bridal shower and a baby shower in the same weekend where you don’t understand anything anyone is saying. Oye como va is about all I can say.

The wedding was actually kind of fun though. It was at a really nice restaurant in Ashgabat and the food was actually really decent. Another cool part about it was that the family hired professional dancers to do traditional dances during dinner. They were really sweet. Also at every wedding I have gone to (3 now) I always meet one random person who speaks English fairly well and this weddings person was actually pretty cool. She was 14 and studied at one of the best schools in Ashgabat. She is actually preparing to take a test called the FLEX Test, which could allow her to go to America to study abroad for a year. Her English was amazing and I can honestly see her going to the US to study next year. Anyways, her family reminded me a lot of my own extended family. Watching them dance all night reminded me of a classic Peplinski wedding. I could actually see mom and “the sisters” cutting a rug on the dance floor to the mix of Turkmen and Russian music. Although there was no DJ for anyone to hit with their shoes when they decided to kick them off like what happened at one of our weddings… love you mommy! All in all a fun wedding.

On a bit of a funny/sad note I had a few experiences last week that showed me just the negative impacts of American Culture on the world. The first story happened during the week of lesson planning. I was working with my counterpart on doing some visual aids when he decided to put on some music from his computer. Well, the music he put on just so happened to be Dr. Dre and Eminem “Forgot About Dre” in which one of the lyrics included something like ‘F*ck the police!’ I asked him if he understood the song and he said “Sometimes you just have to listen to this stuff!” Knowing him he clearly didn’t understand the song, but it made him feel better about life I guess. The second story is a bit funnier and even sadder. I was walking home the other day and ran into a kid from my school He must have been like 13 or 14 and like every kid I see in the streets he yelled “hello!” to me. Being nice I said hello back and tried to see if he knew anymore English so I asked him “how are you?” to which he responds “Hello Motha-F*cker!” I was completely shocked and didn’t know what to say so I just kept on walking. On the down side he had basically just cursed me out, but on the upside he said it in perfect English. Either way I think our culture could do a bit to clean itself up, we need to give a good impression of our culture. We have a lot of good things going on as Americans including rap music, but seriously ya’ll let’s clean up the words a bit huh?

Not much going on March 11, 2009

Hey guys!
I just thought I would update a little bit, not too much has happened here in a while. I keep teaching every week which has gotten a bit better. My kids are getting a bit more involved in the lessons, but I fear that I am becomming the game person… In fact I know I am because every lesson I teach the kids expect to have a game. It’s ok as long as they actually try and are learning something, which theyy are so big bonus there I guess. I am up to 3 clubs now. Teacher’s club which is going well, I have had a few new teachers showing up now which is great. My girls club has dwindled a bit, but I have about 7 girls that come regularly which is great. Last week they all had a simple conversation in English, I was so happy/proud that I literally almost cried. I also have a boys club of about 3 boys for my 6th grade students. They are really good students and learning really fast. They have gone through about 4 lessons in about a week and a half. So I am really happy with the progress that is being made here.

In other project news I am starting to look at grant projects. Just today I received 2 big bags of books from the Darrien Book Exchange full of English books to use at my school. That was very exciting. I am also looking at writing a grant to buy musical instruments for my school. My hope is to start a music club where I teach students english through learning music. I know some people in my village who can teach music and willing to help out and I have always loved music. I know that my kids would be interested in this and it’s a great way to learn English and a new skill, learning to embrace music. So that is the first project I am actually looking to tackle! It’s very exciting.

Other than work I have been spending a lot of time just wandering around my village and getting to know more people. Now that the weather is nicer (probably 60s) I am taking walks at least 3 or 4 times a week. Good for my health and good for my community integration because I am always stopped and asked into homes for tea. That’s a huge plus.

Last weekend was really fun because I was finally off of what we call site restriction, that is where you can’t leave your home for the first 3 months of service. I took firday night and visited Mayagozel and her family, which was wonderful. Then on Saturday a bunch of us PCVs in the area spent the evening bar hopping around Ashgabat. We hit all of the sites: Zip bar for cheap beer, English pub for live music, The Grand Turkmen Hotel for kareokee, and the Florida Room for dancing. It was a ton of fun and we even ran into some of our Peace Corps Staff members at the Florida which was hillarious… not many people can say they have danced with PC Staff at the disco, but I officially can. It was good times. Overall, things are going well and I am really excited about my new prospects! Until next time! Be the Change You Wish to See in the World and Sog Bol!

Camel Grazing and Important Realizations February 11, 2009

11 February 2009

Hey all! So I wrote a blog last week and then I was a jerk and didn’t post it. Sorry I forgot my flash drive at my house. But bonus news for you all… an extra blog about my happenings!

So every Sunday I take a walk around my village just to get out of the house and into the community a little bit. Well, this Sunday I had quite the awesome experience. I found a little road on the far edge of my village that led off to the mountians. I discovered that my village is even closure to the mountians than I imagined which was really exciting. It wasn’t as exciting as what I saw in the field between my village and the mountains though, I saw this huge herd of camels (probably between 50 and 100) grazing in the field with goats and sheep. It was so beautiful! For one, being American and not knowing much about camels I had no idea that they actually grazed like cows and sheep, but they do! For two it was so majestic and beautiful to see them all against the beautiful back drop of the mountains. It was wonderful! Unfortunately for you all, I am stupid and forgot to take my camera on this walk so I don’t have any pictures of this glorious site so you can’t really see what I saw (though I am not sure a picture could truly capture it). I will try again next week though, I am certian that the camels were not wild and odds are their owner takes them to the field daily. So hopefully next week I’ll get a picture.

Which leads me to another cool thing! As you may know the internet here is extremely slow and it makes uploading pictures for you all very difficult. Well, I sent my parents a CD of all the pictures I took from October until my Swearing In Ceremony and they are now in the process of uploading those onto Flicker for you all to see. My account is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tstancarmean Feel free to check those out and hopefully one day I will go through and tell you all what exactly you are looking at. I’ll be mailing CDs home every few months so Dad can upload them for all of you. I hope you enjoy them!

Now back to my life here in T-Stan. With the help of Mayagozel I can to an important realization yesterday as to why my older students don’t come to my English clubs (even though they want to) and why it has been difficult for me to have any student clubs here. After an again failed attempt to get my older students to come to clubs I asked Maya for her imput on my problem and her frankness blew me away. She said “Abby, you are the first volunteer in the village. Village life is difficult for students, especially older girls because they are expected to go home after school everyday and work at home sewing and cooking. Their parents don’t want them to go to clubs because they don’t think that English is important. Your job as the first volunteer there is to tell the community is to pave the way for future volunteers by showing the community that English is important. It’s difficult, but you are strong and you will do it. I know it.” All of this was things I knew deep down, but was kind of refusing to accept. Now hearing that from someone that actually grew up in a village and understand what it is like for students in a village I understand, I can empathize with my students more. I can have a clearer understanding of my purpose here and just in general of what I need to do. I also learned that I need to accept what is good that is going on here. In my prayers last night the Lord led me Philippians4:8 “Whatever is true, whatever is nobel, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable if any is excellent or praise worthy think of these things.” Except the Lord told me to Cling to these things. Cling to the good that I have and He will take care of it all for me. It was a nice humbling realization. So that is now what I am doing.