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?