Dec 5-Dec 12

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!