1st Christmas in Turkmenistan December 28, 2008

So I have officially survived my first Turkmen Christmas. I’ll be honest it was difficult to be away from home, the holidays are my favorite time of year because I literally get to see everyone; family, friends, everyone. It’s the only time of year that ever really happens. My Christmas wasn’t that bad though. I started to celebrate as I would at home, on Christmas Eve. That day the class I had been working with preformed the drama we had been practicing all week (it was for English Week at our school) for the administration staff and English department. I was so proud of them, they worked really hard and everything turned out great, especially the grand finale when the whole class sang Jingle Bells. It was great. Then that night after spending some time with the family for a bit I read the Nativity story and watched the Nativity movie. I was humbled to see the faith of the characters and how the Lord provided to reaffirm their faith with Jesus. It was very encouraging.

On Thursday I went to work again with the kids. Heard Jingle Bells like 15 times, but some of the teachers remembered that it was Christmas and wished me a Merry Christmas, that was very nice of them to think of me. Later that night my folks called from the US, it was great to talk to them. My host mother here also recognized that I was a bit sad and gave me a huge hug and said “Oh Abbyjan (if you love someone you throw a ‘jan’ at the end of their name)… it’s ok…” it was nice to feel empathy from her, apparently it’s rare to get empathy from a Turkmen (or so the other volunteers say, I might disagree with that). My host family also made my favorite Turkmen dish that night which was very nice of them.

Today (Saturday) a ton of volunteers from my region came into Ashgabat for a Christmas party. I got there a little late so didn’t really help with the cooking, but the others made some delicious breakfast burritos, hashbrowns, and pudding. We also had a random assortment of things that included girl scout cookies (thin mints… they were so good) and caviar (yeah we’re high class here in the Ahal region). After we gorged ourselves with the food we played “Yankee Swap Christmas” (we all are a little obsessed with the show The Office) some people would know it by it’s more popular name “White Elephant.” We all brought gifts that were 20,000 manat or less and duked it out for the good presents, I ended up with a sweet rubix cube and some sparklers. It was good times. It was really nice to see people that I don’t usually see. Some of the folks came in from 4 hours away. It was great to talk to them about their sites and what has been happening for the last month. We all pretty much agree it’s been a slow transition. Overall, it was a nice Christmas.

I also want to take the time to wish you all a very merry Christmas. I realize it’s late, but its still the Christmas season. I am still sad I could not be home to be with you all for Christmas, but in a lot of ways I felt as though I was at home. I am so loved and blessed to have two sets of amazing friends and families: American and Turkmen. God has truly blessed me and I pray He would bless all of you this holiday season.

Twas the Night Before Christmas-Peace Corps Turkmenistan Style December 16, 2008

So I’ve been working at my new school for a few days now and the teachers want me to tell about Christmas in America and compare it to Turkmen New Year. Not having experienced a Turkmen New Year I was unsure what to do. So I found “The Night Before Christmas” online and read it to my teachers to help them get an understanding of a Christmas tradition. All of that got me thinking about spending my first Christmas in Turkmenistan and inspired me to re-write The Night Before Christmas with a Peace Corps Turkmenistan Twist. I hope you enjoy it. At the bottom there will be a list of new Turkmen words that I used for you all to learn. Here Goes!

 

Twas the Night Before Christmas-Peace Corps Turkmenistan Style

 

Twas the night before Christmas and all through my jay

Not a creature was stirring, except one pesky fly

My cheshkas were hung by the pitch with care

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there

My family was asleep on the floor

When I snuck by on my way through the door

So I in my koynek got ready for bed

I rolled out my dushchek and laid down my head

 

When out on the lawn I heard such a clatter

I sprang from my dushchek to see what was the matter

Away to the window I flew like a flash

I push open the bars and peeked through the sash

The dogs started barking and going insane

I knew there was no way I could go to sleep again

I looked down the road and what did I see

A stout old camel rounding the neighbor’s tree

On his hump there sat a driver with a pack so thick

I thought to myself “Is this the Turkmen St. Nick?”

 

Due to no snow on his camel he road

That old trusty camel had quite the large load

They rounded our jay to the gapy he came

On a closure look he appeared just the same

Saw red suit and a big huge belly

That shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly

 

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He said not a word and went right to work

He filled up my cheskas and then turned with a jerk.

He handed me a letter and went on his way

I was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say

I opened the letter to see what it said

With tears in my eyes this is what I read:

 

“Dear PCV we miss you this holiday season,

You’re not here, but it is with good reason.

You’re serving with peace in a land so far

Serving your country in a far away land.

Helping the people of Turkmenistan

You felt called to serve so to there you ran

We love you and pray that you are all right

Keep up the good work and have a good night.”

 

I look at the words and feel a surge of encouragement

I know that the letter is truly a God-Sent

As he mounted the camel I thanked him for the best gifts he could give

The greatest family and friends who had ever lived

He just smiled and drove the camel out of sight

And he exclaimed “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

 

 

Jay: Turkmen for House

Cheskas: Turkmen Socks

Pitch: Furnace

Koynek: Traditional Turkmen Dress

Dushcheck: Thin Mattress for sleeping

Gapy: Turkmen for Door

Dec 5-Dec 12 December 13, 2008

5 December 2008 Swearing In an Official T-17 Volunteer

Well folks it’s official. I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer as of 12pm (Turkmen Time). Before I get into that though I should inform you all that I did indeed pass my LPI test! I received a score of Intermediate Low, which basically means that I can hold a simple conversation in Turkmen if people talk slow enough. I felt really good about that and am sure that if I had a few more weeks on training I could have scored Intermediate Medium. By the way, training used to be 3 weeks longer, but was cut down due to budget cuts this year. So yay me!

Anyways, the Swearing In Ceremony was pretty cool. We all got dressed up in fancy clothes and took tons of pictures it was fun times. The actual ceremony was really cool and there were many T-17s involved in the process. It started off with Janelle and Heidi singing the American National Anthem (which was beautiful I must say, made me feel very proud to be serving my country here). Then Stephen our Peace Corps Country Director in Turkmenistan addressed us all, he congratulated us on our completion of the training and encouraged us to continue the work we began. After Stephen addressed us Richard Miles the US Ambassador to Turkmenistan addressed us. Ambassador Miles thanked us for our courage to serve and encouraged us to continue to heed the words of President Kennedy when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I really enjoyed listening to Ambassador Miles; he was humorous and very inspiring. Our last speaker was the Turkmen Education Minister, she spoke a lot about the impact that Peace Corps has on the future of Turkmenistan. Especially in the realm of education as the Turkmen President is requiring all students to learn English. She said that our being here would, “Help Turkmenistan continue to move into its Golden Age.” I really found all of the speeches to be inspiring and encouraging.

After speech-time it was time for all of us T-17s to swear in as volunteers and then we received a certificate for the completion of our training. We all had to raise our right hands and take an oath to be good ambassadors and represent our country honorably. It felt a lot like a graduation ceremony, and in a way it was, we all were called up on stage and received certificates from Stephan and Ambassador Miles and got our pictures taken. Ambassador Miles had some witty comments to get us to smile well for our pictures; he’s really a funny guy. Once we all had our certificates it was time for some of our T-17s to show off with our knowledge of the Turkmen language and Culture. First off we had two volunteers, Nancy and Joshua, give speeches of gratitude to our Turkmen families and counterparts in Turkmen (I’ll be honest I could barely understand anything that either of them said… although after talking to Nancy afterwards she didn’t have any idea what she said either… that made me feel better). After the speeches Russ sang a popular Turkmen song that the crowd just ate up. Finally, Joel wowed the crowd with his traditional dutar playing while being accompanied by a professional singer (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her on Turkmen TV). Overall, the crowd was very impressed and I must say it was cool to see the different talents that people from our group had. The afternoon rounded out with a crazy luncheon complete with some good Turkmen finger food and very little room to move. I had a really hard time finding my family, but eventually was able to find them and chat a little bit. My host mother, brother, and sister came to the event and I was really glad to get to say goodbye to Atajan and Enejan (I left too early the day before to say goodbye). My host mother also brought me a gift of congratulations; she made me a beautiful Turkmen carpet purse! It’s so pretty and it is very special to me. I know that it will be on display at my house for a long time to come. Overall, an awesome ceremony and a good day in general. I’m excited to officially begin my work here in Turkmenistan.

10 December 2008 New Host Family, Goat Killing and “Swing Your Sins Away!” The Gurbanbyram Holiday!

Hey all! Well, I am officially moved into my new host home. My new family is pretty cool. I have a mother, father, younger brother (Tirkesh, 21), and younger sister (Merjen, 14). They are very welcoming and I enjoy spending time with them. I also have 2 older sisters who are married: one lives far from here in Dashoguz (not sure of her name) and the other lives about an hour from here in Bagyer, her name is Tazegul. My mother and Tazegul (she’s visiting for the holiday that I will tell you about soon) just stopped in my room while I was writing here and they told me to say hello to you all. Anyways, my family is really great and I’ve got a pretty good home location, just a 5-minute walk from school. Overall, good stuff!

So I got here on Sunday and yesterday (Tuesday) Turkmenistan started a 3-day holiday called Gurbanbyram! I think I’ve got a good understanding about what this holiday is about. It’s a combination of a Muslim and a traditional Turkmen holiday. The Muslim portion comes from a story out of Genesis (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have the same first 5 books: the Torah). It’s the story of Abraham and God testing Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. If you know the story then you would know that just as Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac an angel comes and tells Abraham to put down his knife and save his son. The angel then tells Abraham to sacrifice a goat (that had appeared) instead as a sign of his devotion to God. So every year Turkmen (only Turkmen, I think, not other Muslim cultures) will sacrifice a goat to remember their devotion to God. Every family gets their own goat to sacrifice and they have tons of family parties throughout the 3-day holiday to just celebrate together and remember their blessings that God has provided. These parties are called hudayyolys and everyone goes to their neighbor’s houses to celebrate, it’s a really cool communal celebration. There is a lot of dograma (traditional Turkmen dish) and goat that is consumed due to the fact that there are tons of goats that were slaughtered. Also you are supposed to greet everyone by saying “Kabul Bolson,” which means “God bless you!” So that’s the Muslim portion of the 3-day holiday.

There is another important aspect of the Gurbanbyram holiday that comes from traditional Turkmen culture, which is the Gurbanbyram Swing. So the swing part of the Gurbanbyram holiday comes from some unknown source. Basically, the swings are these two huge planks strung up on these huge poles that kids will stand on and swing on. It is thought that if you swing on these swings an angel will come down and take all of your sins away. Thus I like to think of it as the “swing your sins away” holiday. I guess the swings are also a really good place to meet a boyfriend or girlfriend if you are like 16-20. All of the girls get really dolled up and the boys drive around the swings hoping to pick up a good-looking girl, it’s really kind of funny. Apparently some of the older kids actually elope after meeting at the swing. I was warned by Mayagozel not to stay by the swing too long, or else I may find myself with a lot of unwanted attention. Anyways… Every Gurbanbyram you are also supposed to wear a new pair of clothes in order to symbolize your sins being taken away by swinging on the swing. Oh and every time you see someone in a new outfit you are supposed to say “Gutly Bolson,” or “congratulations on the new clothes.” Turkmen say Kabul Bolson and Gutly Bolson a lot over the course of the three-day Gurbanbyram holiday. So basically, everyone wears tons of new clothes, goes to a ton of hudayyolys to eat goat, and swings on a giant swing. Overall, all good elements for a great Turkmen holiday! Thus far I am well into day 2 of the holiday and have been to 7 hudayyolys. I moved here at the perfect time because it allows me to meet a lot of my neighbors. Overall, I enjoy the swinging holiday! Stay tuned for my take on Neutrality Day (Friday) in my next entry!

12 December 2008 Gurbanbyram Part Duex

Ok so I lied… I’m not done with Gurbanbyram… Apparently, the 3^{rd day (yesterday) of Gurbanbyram is the biggest day of all! Yesterday I went to 8, yes 8, hudayyolys! My mother actually sat me down before we left and told me not to eat a lot at all of them because we would be going to so many. She said something along the lines of “I know you like dograma, but you can’t eat a lot at every party because otherwise you’re stomach will hurt.” The funny thing is that I actually hate dograma and had eaten “a lot” the two previous days because I didn’t want to be disrespectful to my hosts who kept shoving dograma at me. Anyways, yesterday was the marathon hudayyoly day… I am pretty sure we went to 5 hudayyolys in an hour and a half (that includes walking 20 mins to get to one). I think over the course of the past 3 days I have eaten more goat then I ever cared to. Don’t get me wrong; goat isn’t that bad, but when it’s all you eat for 3 days it gets a little old! Unfortunately, I don’t think I am done with goat for a while as we have tons of it left over (and not the pleasant parts either… like the liver and head and stuff… oh what I would do for some good old American food now…).}

Anyways sorry for the goat tangent, after the hudayyolys my mom took me to the big swings where apparently the whole town had showed up to have a huge party. It was really cool. There was a big stage with a band and all of the kids were dancing. It was really neat to see the whole community out for the event, and gave me some good face time in the community. At least now I am sure that people know I am here, which is good in my book. The music and dancing was pretty interesting. As I said it was only the kids (13-16) who were dancing, the adults just stood around watching them, not talking, just watching. If I was one of the kids I would have felt extremely uncomfortable, but maybe not because dance here is a lot different from dance in the states. Back home at like school dances and stuff there’s a lot of what the kids like to call “bumping and grinding” (if you don’t know what that is just turn on MTV or VH1, it will give you a good visual) and of course the occasional group dance: cha cha slide, soulja boi, billy jean, love shack, the Macarena, the alligator, ect (wow come to think of it we have a lot of stupid group dances in our culture… that’s ok though because they are tons of fun). Here there is no grinding, no soulja boi, actually no physical touching or sudden movements at all (only in the discos), especially not for the girls. The Turkmen have perfected what I like to call circle dancing, that is, everyone dances in a big circle and on occasion someone will go in the center of the circle and wow the crowd with some stupid or legitimately cool dance move. We have that in the states too, but as I said the Turkmen have perfected it. That’s in fact all they do. Typically it looks something like this: the girls will form the actual circle, wave their hands in little circles, and shuffle around in a clockwise fashion. The boys will take up the inner part of the circle and do a lot of kicking and wave their arms from one direction to another. Never will the girls go into the inner circle, but the boys are allowed to join the shuffling in the outer circle. That’s basically it. It was slightly amusing to watch. The music was also amusing. If I had to compare it to any genre I would say it would be most like polka for the sole reason that both genres have a unique fascination with the clarinet and the accordion. Seriously, if anyone out there plays the clarinet or accordion come to Turkmenistan, you’ll be a pop legend! So between the circle fanlike dancing and the clarinet/accordion jamming it made for an entertaining evening!

2 December 2008: Teaching, Thanksgiving, LPI Test, Cool Turkmen Must See Sites, and TRAINING IS OVER!!!!! December 3, 2008

Ok so a lot to update for you all night. As you can guess, I’ve been really busy since I last updated this thing. I apologize, but now hopefully I will be able to update more regularly because…. TRAINING IS OVER!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!! Last week was a crazy busy week studying and preparing for my LPI exam. On top of trying to prepare I also had to teach a ton of classes and clubs, which meant tons of lesson planning. So I have been insanely busy. The language learning finally slowed down for a bit and I actually felt really comfortable with the language I had learned. That was very comforting with the LPI coming up. The lesson planning was a little annoying, but I know that it is totally necessary. I had a moment after one of my lessons that I taught where it was like, “wow these kids really get it…” In one 7^th grade class I taught them about the various directions (NSEW) and a few prepositions (on, under, near, ect… yeah that’s right I know stuff like prepositions… take that Ms. Talbot! Just kidding).  To make the lesson more fun I decided to hide a piece of candy somewhere in the room and had two kids try to find it using the directions I had written on the board (East, under the chair). So they totally had a ton of fun with it, but I wasn’t all that sure if the students understood it. Well, as I was walking home from school one of my student was following me (actually there were about 15 kids following me home… a normal occurrence, but this one was brave enough to actually try to talk to me) so I decided to ask her a few questions to try to make conversation. I asked her (in Turkmen) where she lived and she responded “West!” and pointed in the western direction. It was one of those moments where I was like wow they are really getting this stuff! I had another one of those moments on Saturday walking around Ashgabat with Mayagozel and another trainee, Janelle. We were in a store and all talking in English when suddenly the girl behind the counter asked if we were American and spoke English, to which Janelle and I responded yes and we were Peace Corp volunteers.  The girl then got very excited and started speaking to us in perfect English, she said that she had just met another volunteer last year and he had taught her English in his English club! She had only been learning English for a year and her English was spectacular! It was an awesome moment and when we left the store Maya, Janelle, and I were totally pumped. It’s little victories like that that encourage us to keep doing what we’re doing! 

            So Thursday was Thanksgiving and it was a bit weird being out of the country and not with my family. I think we all felt it, in fact I know we did. We did our best to celebrate by having our favorite Turkmen meal: Manty! Manty is basically a boiled dumpling that can be stuffed with just about anything. Our group has been “Manty Pioneers” here in Turkmenistan because we put a combination of potato, garlic, and cheese… oh man is it delicious…. Anyways, we spent a lot of time talking about our families and our home Thanksgivings and it really helped us feel better about being here, though we really missed home. I also coped by teaching my English club about how and why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. The kids loved it and afterwards I asked all of them what they were thankful for: almost all of them responded “I am thankful because I have a great English Teacher.” Overall, that totally made my day.

            So yesterday I had my LPI test and man can I say how glad I am that that is over!!! My tester was really cool; she’s actually one of Maya’s good friends, which was fun. Overall, the interview was pretty good. I was super nervous, but overjoyed when it was over. As soon as my tester turned off the tape recorder I do believe I said “Oh thank you, Jesus!” to which the tester just laughed. I know I made a few mistakes, for example in my situation where I had to ask for a hotel room and ask a variety of questions I first asked her if they had “Gassy Water” as opposed to hot water (by the way ‘gassy water’ mean soda). I got it right eventually though which was good. You have no idea how much of a huge weight it is to be done with the LPI. I’m not sure what my score is yet, I’ll find out on Thursday. The main Peace Corp Office in Washington has set a standard for volunteers to score “Intermediate Low” on the LPI, there are no consequences if you don’t score that, but I think it has something to do with program funding because they make a really big deal about it. If by chance you don’t score Intermediate Low you are asked to find a Turkmen Tutor in your permanent site that PC will pay for, that’s kind of dumb though because just about everyone needs to hire a tutor in either Turkmen, Uzbek, or Russian. I personally know that I am going to focus on learning Turkmen this year and Russian next year. Right now though I am just so relieved that I am done with training.

            As a result of finishing up training I got to experience a few cool cultural things this weekend/week. On Saturday Janelle, Annie, Owez (another Turkmen LCF), and I went out to go see Neysa: a really old fort. Owez told us that it was from the “Parthian” but none of us knew what that meant. Basically, Neysa was this really cool old fort ruins. It looked like something that was pre-Roman Empire. I’m going to do a bit more research and get back to you on that, but either way it was wicked cool. I would love to do an archeological dig there, but alas I am not an archeologist or an anthropologist. There was also a lot of clay pieces just laying around that we thought could have potentially been ancient pottery shards (probably not though) so Annie and I smuggled some out of the fort to take home with us. We were a little bitter because some dude charged us 5,000 manat to take pictures in the fort. Granted, 5,000 manat is like 50cents, but it’s the principle of the matter. Overall, a sweet trip.

My other cool cultural activity was today. Mayagozel took Janelle, German, and I to go see the Turkmenbashy Mosque just outside Ashgabat. The Turkmenbashy Mosque is, apparently, the largest Mosque in Central Asia and 2^nd Largest in the world right behind Mecca. The whole Mosque was beautiful! Unfortunately, because we are American and some police members think we are CIA spies we were not allowed to take pictures of the Mosque (that and it’s highly disrespectful to take pictures inside of any Mosque). The outside is gorgeous; it has this huge dome roof that is made of gold and the traditional mosque pillars, to mark the four main directions, also topped in gold. The inside was also just as beautiful. If you’ve never been in a mosque (this was only my 2^nd time in a mosque both times in Turkmenistan) you should know that there are tons of little rectangles (hundreds in this mosque) that line the carpeted floor where the people pray (only men pray on the first floor, women on the 2^nd).  Each rectangle is big enough for one person to kneel and bow, and all of the rectangles are facing Mecca (in an American mosque this would be East; Turkmenistan it is West). Anyways, the Turkmenbashy Mosque’s inside dome had what looked like a mosaic tiled ceiling with the word “Allah” written in Arabic in the very center of the dome. There were also 48 windows that surrounded the lower portion of the dome to represent the terrible earthquake that happened in 1948. On the floor under the dome there was this huge beautiful 8-cornered carpet that covered the regular praying carpet where people could walk. The carpet had 8 corners because there were 8 main entrances to the mosque and the large carpet allowed visitors to come inside to see the beautiful dome (you’re not allowed to walk on the praying carpet). If you stood directly in the middle of the huge carpet and looked up you would be directly under the Arabic Allah and thus would be looking at God. Also on the inside the walls were all made of marble and there were beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Overall gorgeous mosque. The Turkmenbashy Mosque is also the gravesite of Turkmenistan’s first president, Turkmenbashy (gee I wonder why it’s called ‘Turkmenbashy Mosque”…) and his family. Actually, Turkmenbashy, wasn’t his real name, that means the Father of Turkmenistan. Anyways, Turkmenbashy’s tomb is a separate from the Mosque and looks like a smaller version of it (same gold domed roof). Two soldiers who are supposed to be like the soldiers at Buckingham Palace and do not move or break concentration always guard the tomb. Unfortunately, these soldiers weren’t very good at that game because they totally looked at us as we entered into the tomb, I’m pretty sure one even smiled at us, it was funny. Anyways, inside the tomb was completely covered in white marble while the tombs themselves were made of black marble. There was also this interesting statue of Turkmenbashy’s mother trying to save him and his brother’s from the earthquake. Unfortunately, only Turkmenbashy survived the tragedy. Once again, the tomb was beautiful. Overall, it was a beautiful place, I only wish I had been able to get a picture.

Alright, well that is about all I have for you tonight. On Thursday I will leave my current host family and move to a hotel in Ashgabat for a few days (totally sad about leaving my family… they are awesome). Then on Friday I will swear in as an official volunteer… woo hoo!!!! Finally Sunday it’s off to meet my host family and begin my 2 year service as a real volunteer!