They make speak quickly, but they don't bite!

I was recently asked, "Annie, is it possible for these foreign students, who do not speak a word of the local language to live in this community and manage to communicate with people?" I honestly believe that half of communication is just being mentally and physically present. Anyone can do this, but few put conscious effort into it. Am I really here? Do the people around me really feel like I am 100% here? In an age of multi-tasking, we are used to stretching ourselves across different times, places or responsibilities. Sometimes the hardest part is to just be. You share a lot in common with someone when you are physically present, sitting with them, eye to eye, without saying anything. Maybe the words around you make no sense, but you are there, and this is half the battle.

I was at a birthday party. I love celebrations, but at this point in my life I dreaded the large gatherings because I had a hard time following a fast conversation. I kept turning my head right and left, trying to look at the ladies who were speaking, trying my best to piece together words in the hopes of understanding what they thought was so funny. While they were laughing, my eyebrows moved towards each other as if a scowl could help me comprehend this new language. One of the ladies noticed that I was the only one not laughing, patted my leg and said slowly and definitely, "Annie, you will soon understand. You are here. Listen and you will laugh with us soon." So, I continued to attend the birthday, wedding and baby parties, looking forward to the day when I would laugh at the jokes and chime in with my own. About six months later I was attending another birthday party and I had my "ah-ha" breakthrough moment. The ladies were laughing again and this time I understood.

"The other day I saw the funniest thing," the story began, "two cows were running down the street with their ropes broken. I knew the cows belonged to our neighbor..."

And then I understood where the story was going. The week before I was in the banya doing my laundry when my host-family's cows broke free from their ropes and ran out into the street. I immediately threw on my dress and ran out into the street without shoes or a headscarf over my hair. I was yelling at the cows in English, cursing under my breath as I realized that all the neighbors had come out to watch me try to herd the cattle.

"And instead of Rahat, guess who runs out onto the street? Annie! Annie was running around without shoes, up and down the street, yelling Masha, Dasha at the cows. Cows don't know their names!"

As the women around me started to giggle, I could feel my face turn hot and red. I understood the story, and now I was aware that everyone was laughing at me. What progress!

"But," the storyteller interjected. "She caught the two cows as they were eating Baygul's flowers and lead them home. See, she understands our language, and she can catch our cows!"

The lady sitting next to me turned to me and said, "You are now Turkmen and you can never go home to America because you don't have cows there!" With that everyone, including me, laughed. They laughed at this new Turkmen Annie, and I laughed at the absurdity of thinking we don't have cows in Idaho!

If you take it a step at a time, focusing on where you are right now, at home or far, far away, your energy and presence speaks for itself. This aspect of communication is cross cultural and transcendent. Don't be too hard on yourself if you struggle in the present, because with time communication becomes easier and the bridges of cultural, linguistic and philosophical differences can be crossed, even if they think cows don't exist in America.

This project is what has kept me busy for the last three months, and what will continue to bring me back to the Philippines for many more years to come. I wrote this article on the project's developments for Stairway Foundation, the sponsoring organization.

For years now, Stairway Foundation (SFI) has been reaching out to the local indigenous Iraya Mangyan in an effort to help uplift the community from poverty. In 2009, SFI purchased some land in one of the local Iraya communities called Baclayan. During the time of purchase, we observed a community that was struggling on many levels. Because of this, Stairway Foundation has since started several community development to partner with the community in creating positive and sustainable change, especially for the young generation, the children.

Stairway Foundation volunteers recently jumpstarted a long-term project in Baclayan that focuses on working with the local basket weavers. Basket weaving has been a part of Iraya Mangyan culture for many generations. Traditionally, girls learn to weave baskets when they are 7-8 years old, beginning with simple pieces and working their way up to complicated designs. Both men and women know how to weave baskets, but it is more common for women to use basket selling as a means of livelihood. For many years, Stairway Foundation has invited the women of Baclayan to come to SFI to sell their baskets every week. SFI has become one of the most consistent purchasers of baskets in the community, but the Foundation was looking for a more in depth way to work with the Iraya women to help them learn practical business and marketing skills in order to more successfully sell their baskets at large.

The first goal of the project is to create a community of empowered women who possess self-esteem and a desire to change their community. Volunteers conducted several life-skills sessions in the hopes of identifying local women leaders, who can become future life-skills trainers. There was a noticeable change in the women, a “sparkle,” as one person described it. They became more outspoken, gregarious and assertive. They displayed a keen desire to learn more about smart marketing practices, and to use their creativity to create new products to give them an edge in the market. They took great pride in the new knowledge and skills that they were acquiring, and have expressed an interest in teaching more local women what they have learned.

The second goal of the project is to have a community of women who have the capacity to successfully market their baskets. A volunteer facilitated sessions on product diversification, organizational skills, and marketing strategy, with the long-term goal of capacitating the women with the ability to market and sell their baskets domestically and internationally by themselves.

One very exciting development that happened was the creation of new product—hand-woven earrings. By using their creativity and innovation, the women designed several styles of earrings, from hoops to circular spirals. The women attended a short training on attaching the metal earring hooks and rings, and soon were producing large quantities of beautiful earrings. All of the earrings were quickly bought by customers, amazed by the craftsmanship and detailing.

In order to start labeling their products, the women learned how to create tags for the baskets. They first attended a training to learn how to make hand-made paper from banana stem fibers and indigenous cogon grass. While perfecting their paper-making skills, they participated in the design stage of a tag, creating a label that features a photograph of an Iraya woman and the story behind the basket.

Although this project is very long-term, and will hopefully develop for many years to come, it is off to a successful start and has already generated positive feedback from the women. Stairway Foundation is dedicated to working closely with these talented artisans, capacitating them with valuable skills and knowledge, thereby putting them in a more empowered position to stand up for their rights as women and as Indigenous Peoples.

I was so busy in the Philippines with work and playing at the beach, that I did not have time to update my blog. What began as a two-month committment extended to a six-month period of volunteer work at Stairway Foundation, Inc. Despite not writing on my blog, I was busy writing several pieces for the Stairway Foundation website.

Stairway Foundation has a residential program for former street kids from Manila. I had the opportunity to care for one of the Stairway boys after jaw surgery. Having gone through jaw surgery myself, I was eager to help him in any way I could post-operation. The following is the story that I wrote about this incredible little boy:

"A New Smile, a New Voice, a New Taste"

A big part of my summer was working with Stairway Foundation's local scholarship students. Click here for a description of the program that I wrote for the website. I was in charge of preparing a curriculum of tutorial sessions for students struggling in English and Math. I taught several groups of students in different municipalities. At the end of the summer, we invited 25 of the most motivated and active scholarship students to attend a leadership camp entitled, "My Right to be a Leader." The following is the article that I wrote about the summer camp experience:

"We Should Not Judge Other People, and Discriminate Them." -Stairway Scholar

Stairway Foundation is located in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro. The property faces the ocean and backs up against the mountains that rise straight from the sea. It is a place of not only beauty, but serenity and acceptance. Life sometimes takes you exactly where you need to go, even if you don't know it yourself. I learned this lesson when I stumbled upon Stairway completely by chance, not knowing what I was getting myself into, and found a truly magical place where I could connect with people, learn a lot about myself and dive into work that is extremely meaningful to me. I hope that everyone has the opportunity to stumble upon their own oasis.

In my opinion, the monkey, ox, rooster or rat can't beat the rabbit in cuteness or cuddliness! After the ferocious year of the Tiger, 2011 will be more quiet, reflective and possibly more tame. I personally could use an uneventful year. In Chinese mythology the rabbit represents longevity and is thought to derive its power from the moon. The rabbit symbolizes graciousness, kindness, good manners and a sensitivity to beauty. Although the rabbit may seem timid and overly deliberate at times, the rabbit is very self-assured and occasionally conceited. But this rabbit doesn't look so narcissistic...

This year is my first Chinese New Year in Taiwan. I love holidays, and I love learning about holiday customs in new countries. I believe that one can learn so much about a culture from paying close attention to holiday traditions.

The Chinese New Year preparations began well ahead of time, as people shopped in Di-Hua Street, a narrow side street converted into the central lunar new year shopping area.

檢視較大的地圖

All of the specialty foods enjoyed during the New Year are sold in jam packed stalls below fluttering lanterns and lights. In the days leading up to the New Year, Di-Hua Street is so crowded that one cannot fight the crowd, but must be pulled along in all directions up the road. It is a frantic mix of smells, sounds, hip-hop dancing vendors, samples in tiny cups, and excited people. Bags of snacks, fruit and gifts are brought home, distributed among friends and family and enjoyed over the holiday.

Being a neophyte, I was anxiously waiting around on New Year's Eve for something 'holiday like' to happen. As the sun set, food was prepared and set in front of the Buddhist alter as an offering to the ancestors. For our own dinner, we enjoyed various dishes eaten in the traditional communal way, when everyone takes some from one plate. After our meal, more dishes were prepared and set out on a table near the window. This offering of food, fruit, flowers, desserts and money was set out for the Gods.

Incense were lit at 11:15pm when the New Year begins according to the Lunar Calendar. When the incense were half way burnt, we went down onto the street to burn the paper money as an offering to the Gods.

In a metal container, we folded the money and set it on fire piece by piece.

When we were back inside, the bang and crack of fireworks had already begun. According to a Chinese myth, the New Year Monster does not like the color red or the sound of fireworks. In order to scare off the monster, people hang bright red decorations on their houses and light off fireworks during the week of celebration. For the last four days there has been a constant bang of fireworks as everyone plays their part in scaring away the monster.

Because everyone is enjoying a week of vacation, shops, restaurants and businesses are closed, and there is a general feeling of relaxation. People are at home with their families, enjoying this rare time together. On Tuesday everything will open again, and the quiet streets of Taipei will transform back into the thriving metropolis that it was before the New Year holiday.

Going running for the first time in a new country is always an unpredictable experience. I love heading out the door not knowing where I am going or where I am going to end up, but often a tall Caucasian girl running by herself attracts the wrong kind of attention or invasive curiosity from everyone passing by. Because it is so common for women to run in America, we tend to take the relative anonymity we have while exercising for granted. Despite the obesity problem in America, and the attention that it placed on our expanding girth, many Americans enjoy exercising and playing sports in their free time. There is a growing importance placed on staying fit and eating healthy, and this is reflected in the increasing amount of Americans who are exercising. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 35% of adults engage regularly in leisure-time physical activity, according to a nationwide survey done in 2009. This statistic was higher than the 2008 estimate of 32%. Yet obesity continues to plague America because exercise can only burn so many calories. Maintaining an all around healthy lifestyle is what Americans need to work on; eating better is crucial. I have always lived in areas in America where I could easily exercise, and in particular run. I took up running regularly because it seemed like the most convenient sport for someone who constantly moves around the world. When the stress of a new environment is wearing me down, I can always lace up my shoes and get lost in the hypnotic rhythm of my sneakers hitting the ground. But often running in a new place isn’t as straight-forward as running along a familiar trail back home.

When I lived in Costa Rica and tried to run along the jungle-enclosed street where my house was, I was stopped by one of the local drug gangs and prohibited from continuing along their road. In Russia I couldn’t stand all of the snide comments and soon resorted to working out in a local gym. In Turkmenistan I ran in a skirt and carried rocks to throw at the overly aggressive dogs in my town. The last three countries in which I lived all offered different challenges when it came to stepping out the door for a run.

In these I received a huge amount of attention from people around me and I tried my best to run in places and at times when I hopefully wouldn’t see anyone. My initial mistakes cautioned me, and taught me what was appropriate in the local culture. I would run in the dark, or run out of town, away from everyone. This didn’t ever completely stop the harassment I received, but it minimized it down to a point when I could get back to focusing on the rhythm of my feet and the sound of my breathing. I believe that the level of harassment I receive while running is in direct correlation to the level of women’s rights in the country. In countries where women are not allowed to exercise in public, or where it is highly frowned upon by the men, I have received the highest level of negative attention. In Turkmenistan there were a few women I saw who defied the social norm and ran in public. This was more common in the city, and in the countryside where I lived, a few women in my town started running in the mornings along the same path I took. When I first saw this young woman out jogging in her pale blue tracksuit, I broke into the biggest smile because I finally had another companion out on the road. Running in Turkmenistan was a lonely business, and when I moved to Taiwan I was excited to lace up my shoes and see what I ran into in Taipei.

If one wakes up early enough in Taiwan one can see groups of people in parks practicing Tai Chi, or speed walking around the local track. As the sun sets, another round of people will go out and exercise at dusk. There are lots of people, young and old, who enjoy walking outside. I see grandparents running up and down the track with toddlers, couples wheeling an elderly grandparent along the bike path, marathoners running in sweat soaked shirts. According to the National Council on Physical Fitness and Sport, “scientific research testifies that proper sport activities are beneficial to physical fitness…and contribute to a higher living standard, social harmony…” and there is a general understanding in Taiwan that physical activity is beneficial to overall health and lifestyle.

In rain or shine people are out and about. When it rains I see people jogging around the track holding an umbrella above them, an answer to my rain predicament question I had not yet considered. When it is sunny I put on less clothing in order to soak up the sun, and the locals wear long sleeve shirts to protect against tanning of any degree.

When I run in Taiwan I still get stared at, but the attention holds much less hostility than in other countries. It is not unheard of to see a woman running, and so I will often receive a glance but not much attention after that. I am and will remain the only Caucasian girl running in the neighborhood where I live, but there are other women who exercise and this is welcome company for me after my negative experience in Turkmenistan. I still feel a little silly in my running outfit and Ipod as I make my way to where I begin running because I stand out so much, but once I get to the running track or the bike path then there seems to be a general understanding of “this space is for exercising, so even that white girl running is normal.”

The bike path runs along the Keelung river embankment as it winds its way from the ocean down toward Taipei. I like to glance down at the water to find the dense schools of fish along the banks, hiding in the deepest parts of the river. There are two cows that are always happily chewing grass along the banks below me, and I occasionally meet the farmer along the bike path as he leads them to graze. Because of being wary of an animal’s reaction to a running human, I tend to slow down around the cows and this always causes the farmer to erupt in laughter and ask me questions I don’t understand.

Sometimes I am more entertained by the parade of dogs, than by the people I see along the way. Taiwanese women are always out walking their miniature dogs. Often the dogs don’t get much of a walk themselves because they are being pushed in a doggie stroller, leaning out the side with their tails wagging and tongues hanging out. I wonder if the women pushing the stroller realize that they have a dog in there and not a child. The other day a woman was weeding some flowers along the path, and her little Chihuahua decided to race over to me and try biting my ankles. I resorted to hopping around in order not to kick the little thing in the face, but the worst part about it was that the dog was wearing a bumblebee costume. And again, the owner responded to my reaction with a shrill of laughter and a slur of Chinese words. The most I could do was shoot the Chihuahua in its bumblebee costume a dirty look, and run away faster than its little legs could carry it.

Now I have a set route that I take when I run, but occasions like the Chihuahua attack still catch me by surprise and prevent my runs from ever being boring. I don’t want to carry around rocks to throw at the dogs like in Turkmenistan, because it is only the tiny ones who consider my ankles nice enough to bite, but I will never again underestimate a four-pound dog in a plush insect costume.

December 10th was the 60th Anniversary of Human Rights Day. The theme for this year is “human rights defenders who act to end discrimination.” Human rights defenders speak out against human rights abuses and violations, often taking risks themselves in order to raise awareness and create change. I recently had a Taiwanese acquaintance tell me that he thought Taiwanese did not care about human rights. I have to disagree with him.

Since arriving in Taiwan, I have been introduced to a unique and dedicated group of human rights defenders. They do the work of hundreds by mobilizing the general population, organizing volunteers and putting together large events and human rights demonstrations. From what I have seen, these Taiwanese do care about human rights. More than just caring, they are fervently passionate about human rights.

During my first weekend in Taiwan, I was invited to march in the annual Taiwan Pride Parade. I have been to several pride parades in America, including New York’s epic parade, and I was not sure what to expect in Taipei. The first parade was held in 2003, and it was the first of its kind in the Chinese-speaking community. It was a small event, but it drew big attention from the local and international media. Taipei’s Mayor, and current president, Ma Ying-jeou, gave a speech at the end of the parade, saying that major cities around the world have large gay communities, and that the support and respect of these communities is important to the city. Since 2003, the number of participants and support for the event has grown each year.

Taiwan is the most progressive Asian country in terms of anti-discrimination laws protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. In 2007 the Legislative Yuan passed a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in the work place. The Gender Equity Education Act prohibits discrimination in education, and beginning in 2011, school textbooks are required to include topics on LGBT human rights and non-discrimination. Taiwan’s Ministry of Education is hoping to promote an environment of tolerance and respect. A poll done by the National Union of Taiwan Women’s Association/Constitutional Reform Alliance in 2006 found that 75% of the 6,439 adults interviewed believed that homosexual relations are acceptable.

Despite having some legislation in place to stop discrimination, there is little written in law to give the country’s LGBT citizens the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts. “The concept of ‘partner’ does not exist in Taiwan,” Lu Hsin-chieh, convener-in-chief of the march, and director of policy advocacy at Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association said. “Taiwan’s Civil Code defines a couple as ‘a husband and a wife.” The Basic Human Rights Law, which approved same-sex marriage, was drafted during former president Chen Shui-bian’s term, but has never been voted on due to opposition from cabinet members and legislators. This year three openly gay candidates ran in Taipei City’s legislative elections, and this new presence in local politics coincided with this year’s parade theme.

Taiwan Gay Pride - no comment

Uploaded by nocommenttv. - Up-to-the minute news videos.

On October 30th, the pride parade theme was “Out and Vote,” an attempt to focus on getting concrete legislation passed by the government in order to protect LGBT rights in Taiwan. Everyone congregated in front of the President’s Office, filling up the large square and spilling over into the nearby streets. Clusters of brightly clad men and women met at the closest metro stations to walk together, and drag queens paraded around striking poses and blowing kisses. Participating groups were split up into colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. As the parade snaked around the city, sharing the streets with cars, buses and motor scooters, at times it was hard to distinguish between the parade participants, spectators and people passing by. Every person along the sidewalk was filming the parade on a camera phone, either out of support or sheer curiosity about what was marching down the street. When people in our group waved to passing cars and buses, we received blank stares or big smiles in return. The weather could not decide to rain or stop, and this left us continually putting up our umbrellas and pulling them down as we walked. Because we were sharing the road with the usual traffic, we had to stop at red lights and then make a run for it when they turned green in order to catch up to the group in front of us. I heard one guy behind me say, “I didn’t know this was the gay marathon,” as we sprinted through an intersection. At the end of the march, all of the color sections lined up in a pseudo rainbow to get a panorama shot of the entire group from atop a nearby building. Looking at the picture later on the Taiwan LGBT Parade website, I could feel the enormity of over 30,000 people and the giant voice of a group of people united by one cause.

Despite only having one day out of the year designated the official Human Rights Day, in many peoples’ lives human rights is a constant priority. LGBT rights is a relatively new fight in Asia, and I believe that Taipei is going to continue to be the leader in this struggle against discrimination.

External Links:

Taiwan Pride Parade Slideshow

United Nations Human Rights Day Website

I recently put up my blog on the Taiwanderful website, a great website full of information about Taiwan and all the best blogs coming from this little island. I know that I only recently joined the website, but I am going to throw this one out to everyone who reads my blog (a number that I only recently found out, and was surprised by) and ask them to please vote for me in the Taiwan Best Blogs Award if you enjoy reading my little blog. You can click here...and then click again under the plus sign. I write my blog because I enjoy sharing my observations and listening to the feedback of my readers! Thanks for reading!

Last week I went to a cupcake shop called “Ginjer” and I enjoyed a carrot cake cupcake complete with a little icing carrot on top. Across the street in this back alley were a number of restaurants, each one offering a different type of cuisine. There was Japanese, Korean, Italian and Cantonese food. Tucked into the tiniest crevices are Taiwanese street food stands—noodles, soup, dumplings and rice balls.

Taiwanese love food, and they like to enjoy different kinds of culinary delights. I am used to living in a place where there is little availability of international foods. It is so exciting to be living in a place with restaurants every ten feet offering a broad selection of cuisine. There is fast food and traditional food. There is fancy dining and plastic bag carrying night market food. There is 7-11 on every corner for all of your snacking needs. There are chain style ubiquitous restaurants and cute vintage themed coffee shops and stylish modern cafes. Taiwanese are relatively adventurous when it comes to trying new food, otherwise the abundance of international cuisine restaurants would not be in business. I have experienced plenty of places where people turn up their noses at anything unfamiliar. I find Taiwanese quite tolerant of new tastes, and willing to try anything once.

In Turkmenistan there were about five national dishes that were made of the same ingredients—meat, carrots, potatoes, rice and pumpkin. There was little left to the imagination. I taught my students how to make pizza and pumpkin pie. I taught my closest Turkmen friend how to make Thai peanut noodles and rich chocolate brownies. Some Turkmen loved to learn how to cook new dishes, but most sided with familiarity. In Taiwan I recently cooked spicy Mexican tacos complete with tortilla chips and salsa. Taiwanese love spicy foods, so this dish went over well.

Being new to the country, I need the same outlook as my Taiwanese counterparts—try anything once! In a country where the smell of stinky tofu wafts on countless street corners, there are many adventurous dishes to be sampled.

One of the most famous dishes in Taiwan is the aforementioned stinky tofu. I have heard many colorful descriptions of the smell of this dish. It has acquired the name stinky tofu because it is exactly that—very, very stinky. It used to be a staple for soldiers patrolling China’s borders, and as wars ended and Taiwan’s night market culture expanded so did the availability of stinky tofu on the street. It is made by marinating tofu in a brine made from fermented vegetables, shrimp or fish stock. The fermentation process of the vegetables or fish can take up to 5 months, but marinating requires only 6 hours. Taiwan has a famous stinky tofu eatery, Dai’s House of Stinky Tofu, which is famous for its vegetarian version. Once the tofu is marinated, it is cut into bite-size pieces and most commonly deep-fried. This is a dish that either intrigues you or repulses you. Taiwanese will admit that it doesn’t smell good, but they will try to convince you to sit down and take a bite. And you should try it!

I have tried stinky tofu a few times, but it does not make my favorites list. As for me, I love bubble milk tea, and specifically bubble tea from the “50 Lan” shop. I enjoy a large cup, half sugar, less ice, big bubbles to go…phew! A lot of details for one cup of tea. I had to learn lots of vocabulary just to get the right cup of bubbly, chewy satisfaction. The teashop attendants pile soft, sweetened tapioca bubbles into the bottom of the cup and shake up milky tea and ice in a cocktail mixer. They pour the milk tea over the bubbles and drop in a little ice. The cup is dropped in a machine that seals a thin plastic top onto the cup. They give you a fat straw wide enough for the tapioca, and you have to poke the straw through the plastic top to enjoy that first sip of sweet tea and chewy tapioca. Bubble tea has become so popular that the fad spread all the way to America where a popular Taiwanese teashop started a branch in California. There are many bubble teashops to chose from here, but I am very loyal to “50 Lan.” The bubbles are always soaked and cooked perfectly, and they use rich milk that makes the taste of the tea really stand out. Maybe I end up over analyzing my cup of bubble tea, but when it comes down to it, the idea of mixing chewy tapioca into a traditional cup of tea is an example of the quirky and adventurous taste buds that Taiwanese have. They combine tastes and aren’t scared of incorporating different textures, which make Taiwanese street food so interesting for me.

Lately I have been thinking about cultural differences. I am not talking about cultural differences between America and Taiwan, but cultural differences between Turkmenistan and Taiwan. And I have been thinking about how living in one country can greatly affect your experience in the next. I am more prone to notice and appreciate certain things about Taiwanese culture that I may have overlooked before. Living in Turkmenistan for almost two years in an extremely isolated and politically rigid environment left me hyper sensitive to the lack of restrictions and autonomy that Taiwanese (and I) have here.

On November 27th was a special municipality election for mayors and city councilors in Taiwan. Five cities in Taiwan voted for mayors and local representatives. The streets of Taipei were lined with flags from all the different candidates and huge banners covered bridges and buildings. In the last few weeks leading up to the election, it was commonplace to see a candidate riding around in an open-air car waving to everyone on the street. There was a last minute break in social order when the son of former vice-president, a supporter of a Taipei councilor candidate, was shot while on stage at a rally the evening before the election. Political parties pointed fingers at each other, but there was little conclusive evidence compiled in the few hours before the voting booths opened.

There are two main parties in Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the more conservative, pro-China party, and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the pro-independence party. There is a Green Party as well that is a much more serious contender in the elections than the Green Party in America. Taiwanese do not need to register to vote, but are eligible to vote at the location closest to their address on their national identification card. Voters need to bring their national identification card and their personal stamp that has their name carved into it. I peered into a voting booth that was situated in a tiny Japanese style building in a narrow alley at the base of the mountains in Nangang. Voters had their identification verified and were handed the ballots. They took the ballots into the voting box and stamped what looks like a peace sign missing one of the downward pointing lines next to the candidate they are voting for. Voters dropped the ballots into color-coded boxes and exited out of a different door. The weather was bright and warm, and less voters stopped their sunny day activities to go to the voting booth than if the weather had been rainy. Yet, despite the lower turnout of voters than previously recorded, about 70% of the residents in these five special municipalities voted. The KMT won three of the city's mayoral election, but overall majority of the votes went to the DPP.

Geographical political differences are common in many countries, and the “blue north and green south” still rings true in Taiwan. The KMT, or “blue party” held onto the capital, Taipei and two other municipalities in the north, while the DPP, or “green party” clung to the South. Watching the blue and green flashing election results on the television reminded me of a tiny reversed version of America where the conservatives rule the north and the liberals rule the south. It is common for a country’s capital to be the melting pot of the nation, full of people from all over the world with different ideologies and political expectations. In Taiwan, the DPP has never won a majority of votes in the capital. Taipei has the largest concentration of Mainlanders, those Chinese who moved to Taiwan with the separatist government in 1949, and their descendants. Many Mainlanders hold allegiance to Mainland China, despite having fled with the ROC national government, and will pick a Mainlander candidate over a Taiwanese who considers himself/herself a local. The stronghold of KMT voters consists of the older generation, a group of people who was possibly born in China, lived through the Japanese occupation, and still has family in China. The younger generation seems to be more pro-independence and there was recently a campaign with the slogan “Taiwan is my country!”

Despite an obvious split in party ideology, there is a general consensus among Taiwanese about the importance of their democratic system. From what I saw, there is a genuine appreciation and respect for freedom of speech in Taiwan. After living in Turkmenistan, where elections take place for show, and nobody has the freedom to express dissatisfaction with the government, the respect for civil rights in Taiwan has bolstered my appreciation for this tiny nation, and the sovereign government they have built without the full recognition or acceptance of the international community.

These are two beautifully done videos shot around Taipei City. They take the hectic urban landscape and slow it down in order to enjoy all the colors and movements of the metropolis.

Please click on the following links to take you to the cinematographer's personal site:

Taipei

Taipei: Day to Night

Yesterday I was walking around downtown Taipei. My head was beginning to spin from inhaling the car exhaust along the busy road, and I had to zip up my jacket to block out the cool evening air. I went to toss my coffee cup in the nearest garbage can but I stopped in my tracks before I even got close. There, stuffed into the top of the garbage can was a red and blue school backpack, unzipped and scuffed with dirt. The name of the school was printed across the front of the bag in gold, and the tiny size indicated a young student in the first or second grade of elementary school. I don’t know how the backpack got into the garbage, but this abandoned school bag seemed to me like an appropriate act of rebellion by a young, exhausted pupil against the school system. At ten o’clock at night, I have seen the subway crowded with worn out students going home from a fifteen-hour day in school and after-school classes, sleeping standing up on the train, or trying to get a start on their home work while they can still keep their eyes open. A few hours later I walked by the garbage can again and the backpack had been extracted from the trash, zipped up and carefully balanced on top. This intentional act seemed an attempt to place things back in order—the action of an adult to give the young one another chance to pick up their school bag and continue marching with all the others.

As in other Asian countries, there is enormous pressure on Taiwanese students to excel in the classroom. Taiwanese children can start kindergarten as early as two years old. There are six grades in elementary school, three in junior high school and three in high school. Once students complete junior high school, they can take exams to enter specialized vocational high schools. After three years in high school, Taiwanese students can enter universities in Taiwan through high recommendations from their high schools, or entrance exams. Through out a Taiwanese student’s schooling, there is the option for them to attend what are referred to as “cram schools”—academies that specialize in one subject such as English, math, computers, art, and offer evening classes after traditional school hours. On one hand, these “cram schools” can allow a student to focus on one subject that they enjoy, to socialize with their peers and to spend less time at home alone. Yet they can also end up as a babysitting service for parents who work late, and don’t know what to do with their children. In addition, “cram schools” often becomes mandatory for students who have parents that push them academically, and believe that taking additional classes is the only way to scholastic success. Attending classes until ten at night leaves little time for students to enjoy recreational activities, or to relax during unstructured downtime. Not all parents require this of their children, but in such a competitive environment, children are also left feeling like they must take extra courses to keep up with their classmates.

It has been a challenge for me to find a teaching environment here in which I feel that the children’s creativity and unique personalities are being nurtured. The environment is often cutthroat, and the system offers little room for free and creative thinking. After teaching for two years in a very constraining academic environment in Turkmenistan, I am eager to teach in an institution that values originality and fosters imagination. Unfortunately, I am beginning to realize that my ideal teaching environment is atypical in many countries around the world. In a system where children have their identification number embroidered on their school uniforms and bags, there is often more importance placed on compliance, order and repetition than there is on individuality. In a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society in Washington D.C., professor Shen-Keng Yang of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) wrote:

Serious educational problems [in Taiwan] are also caused by the imbalance between competition and social justice, between power of private sector, parents, school and government. Most of the teachers are in need of in-service training to adapt their teaching methods and attitudes so as to meet the challenges of educational reform.

(Dilemmas of Education Reform in Taiwan, pg15)

This is not to say that the education system here produces individuals who completely lack creativity. Taiwan prides itself for being on the forefront of technological design and production—a reputation that it has gained because of talented and ingenious individuals. In his Inaugural Address, former President Chen Shui-Bian stated, "We will seek a consensus among the ruling and opposite parties, academics and public to carry on with educational reforms and build a healthy, proactive, lively and innovative education system, which will allow Taiwan to cultivate first-class, outstanding talents amid the fierce international competition. We let Taiwan move gradually toward a "learning organization" and a " knowledge-based society.” The Humanistic Education Foundation, whose mission is to promote development of human-centered education in Taiwan, is a leader in the education reform movement in Taiwan; it has after school programs for at-risk children, and frequent meetings with the Ministry of Education about permissible punishments and practices in schools. There is a growing awareness of alternative educational methods, but the government is showing little sign of shifting away from its traditional methodologies. There are a few international schools, Montessori schools and alternative schools, but these are far outnumbered by the State run schools. The educational reform that is currently under debate is largely in response to the increase of globalization and internationalization. As the global economy becomes more competitive, Taiwan’s government feels the added pressure to produce students who are exposed to other languages and cultures in addition to a strong knowledge base about local traditions and social identity. On this small island, there is big pressure on the students currently sitting behind desks.

When I saw the little backpack crammed into the trash can, I couldn’t help imagining a little child stuffing it in there using all the strength in their eight year old arms. As global economic and social trends have strong impacts on educational development, the big wheels that turn this world are weighing down on the shoulders of those who are too young to understand the source of this immense pressure. While I believe that academic success should be encouraged, and achievements should be rewarded, there is much more to education than a 15-hour school day—a child’s education takes place both inside and outside the classroom.

This morning I stood out in front of Taiwan’s High Court of Criminal Appeals along with over one hundred other anxious and eager people to hear the verdict for the long running and controversial Hsichih Trio case.

Taiwan has over 200 ongoing criminal cases that have lasted over 10 years. In Taiwan’s appeal process, trials for murder and other serious crimes can bounce between the High Court and the Supreme Court (the highest level of judiciary in the country) because any appeals to the Supreme Court can be handed down to the High Court for an unlimited amount of retrials. This results in judicial ping-pong, and a stalemate in very serious cases. The most infamous ongoing case is the murder trial involving three suspects known as the “Hsichih Trio,” named after the place of murder in northern Taiwan. The trio—Su, Liu Bing-lang and Chuang Lin-hsun—have been waiting for a final verdict for almost 20 years.

In August 1991 these three men were arrested on suspicion of murdering a husband and wife. They were convicted of murder, robbery, and rape, a combination of offences that hold a mandatory death sentence in Taiwan. All three claim to have been tortured and forced into confessing, and there has never been any direct or physical evidence to link them to the murder scene. In February 1992 the three men were found guilty on all accounts and sentenced to death. In the next three and a half years the case was twice sent to the lower courts for retrials, but again, despite any direct evidence or witnesses, inconsistencies in the confessions and the coroner’s testimony that there was no evidence that the female victim had been raped, the conviction was upheld in February 1995. Allegedly, during the district court trials, the judges had refused some of the defense witnesses, including people who had seen the three men elsewhere on the night of the murder. Taiwan’s Prosecutor General made several attempts to have the Supreme Court review the case, but each of his appeals was rejected.

Thus, Taiwan’s justice system condemned three men to death without any substantial evidence, and based the conviction almost entirely on their confessions. This violates Taiwan’s Criminal Procedure Law, revised in 2003, that prohibits confessions from being the primary source of evidence, and forbids the use of confessions extracted through methods of torture. “Torture was clearly recorded during police questioning and the officials involved were impeached by the Control Yuan, while officers involved in the torture were found guilty by the court and sentenced to death,” Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) executive director Lin Hsin-yi said.” “Yet the Court only deleted part of the confessions that were clearly the result of torture, while keeping other parts.”

In 2003, in yet another retrial, the courts overturned the previous rulings and after spending 12 years in prison awaiting death, the Hsichih Trio was briefly acquitted. Yet on June 30, 2007 the court overturned the verdict of not guilty and re-sentenced the three men to death. In the past three years the Trio has continued to fight for their lives while walking “free” on the street, trying to maintain some form of pedestrian life.

In a public statement from Amnesty International entitled “Taiwan: Miscarriage of Justice: Hsichih Trio re-sentenced to death,” the international human rights organization stated that they “express deep concern at the…2007 sentencing to death…Amnesty International considers the defendants to have suffered repeated miscarriages of justice over the 16 years that the case has been in the Taiwanese court system.” Amnesty International, along with other international organizations and Taiwanese organizations, that oppose the use of the death penalty have appealed to the President for clemency with no success. At the judicial level, there has been much hesitancy by the judges to overrule the verdicts of their predecessors even in the name of justice. “Experience shows that the longer a case runs, the less likely it is to be either truthful or just,” declares the Judicial Reform Foundation on their website.

On October 15, 2010 Taiwan’s Judicial Yuan passed the proposed “Fair and Speedy Criminal Trials Act,” which aims to stop long-running cases like that of the Hsichih Trio. It states that if a case lasts more than 10 years, the courts would be empowered to drop it or to commute the sentence; if a case lasts more than 6 years, and has been found innocent three times by the High Court, the non-guilty verdict would be final. This draft has yet to be put to a vote in the legislature, and continues to attract criticism from law experts, academics and local human rights groups. Critics argue that amnesty should be granted after a certain amount of years if lack of evidence prohibits the trial from moving forward. Even Myanmar, a country with a horrible history of human rights abuses has a law that prohibits defendants from being detained for more than 5 years without a final verdict.

Around the world there have been 129 countries, which have abolished the death penalty through law or practice. Today, what I saw on the steps of the courthouse is the core of the anti-death penalty movement in Taiwan. Busy bodied volunteers had strung hundreds of postcards written to the defendants, lawyers and judges between the trees along the street. Members from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) were handing out bright yellow banners, which people wrapped around their arms or heads. Prior to the appeal, dedicated supporters had purchased “We Are Free Men” t-shirts that have silk-screened shadow images of the Trio along with the slogan “waiting for justice since 1991.” The court allowed 112 members of the public inside, and the rest waited on the steps to hear the outcome. There was palpable tension in the air around 10 a.m. when the verdict was being read inside. After a 30 second delay, a shriek of triumph flew out of the courthouse and the news that the 2007 guilty verdict had been overturned brought tears of joy to many of those holding yellow banners. The crowd chanted in support as the judges came outside to speak to the press, and there was loud applause as the three members of the Hsichih Trio emerged from the court as free men (again). Everyone bowed their head in one minute of silent prayer for all of those have been sentenced to death by the state and executed. As the heads came up and the tears were wiped away, the Trio was escorted from the court, trailed by a long line of cameras and microphones. The news spread quickly that the prosecution plans to appeal within 20 days, but this took little away from the day’s victory, and the shared feeling of accomplishment amongst all the people present. As the crowd began to disperse, a few drops fell from the one rain cloud in the sky, as if to remind everyone that fate, like the weather, can change very quickly.

For more information on the Hsichih Trio Case visit:

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty

http://www.hsichih-trio.url.tw/index.php

Taiwan Association for Human Rights

http://www.tahr.org.tw/

Today the weather turned cold and the rain never let up. The wind whipped the rain into the windows and the “tap tap” of droplets on the roofing echoed through the apartment. When I peered out the window, down onto the street, there were no bright umbrellas bobbing down the narrow ally. All I could see was the stream of glistening water running down the gutter. Everyone was staying inside. So, I pulled out my umbrella and headed out the door. Walking in the rain has never bothered me, and with the crowds off the streets, the tiny roads were open for me to stroll around.

I am living in Northwest Taipei County, on the tropical island of Taiwan. The apartment is close to the mountains, meaning lots of rain when the clouds hit the barrier and release all of their moisture. It is about 30 minutes into Taipei City by train, and from the station I can switch to the subway or a local bus.

But my walk today took me only around my neighborhood. Out the door I took a left onto a narrow, partially covered street that houses the morning market. Each day the street is full of stalls bulging with fresh produce. Amongst the stalls are small food carts that serve steaming bowls of fish ball soup or cups of soy custard with tapioca and red beans. This afternoon the street was nearly empty with all the metal doors pulled down to close the shops. I walked under the awnings to prevent walking in the downpour off the roof. Past the market area the street narrowed even more and I emerged into the courtyard of the neighborhood temple. The red and gold paper lanterns across the road blew in the wind and the chimes sang a melancholy song. Past the temple the little street intersected a main road and I had a feeling I should turn left. There were still no pedestrians on the sidewalk, but cars turned in and out of side streets and motor scooters sped by, forcing me to step back to avoid being splashed. My instinct to turn left onto this main road turned out to be correct, and I ended up at the train station, just a block from the apartment.

Because I speak so little Chinese, my ability to do simple, everyday things like order food is very limited. Because I have yet to learn food vocabulary, I chose to buy my lunch in a 7-11 convenience store, thereby avoiding the need to order off of a menu. I browsed through the prepared foods section and selected a nice pack of dumplings. To drink, I chose a box of soymilk. When the young man behind the counter asked me something, I knew that I should nod my head and say “I want” because he was asking me if I wanted my dumplings heated up. Head nod and mumble, “I want” in the wrong tone. I have never been so intimidated by a language. Chinese just reeks of obscurity and complexity that is beyond my intellectual understanding. I know that if I sat myself down with my Chinese textbook and started tackling it word by word, I would slowly begin to feel more confident about living in Taiwan. But, for now, I will get by on the occasional grunt, nod and look of complete and utter confusion to get me by. I stashed my dumplings in my shoulder bag and the shop girl said something to me that I took to mean, “the container is hot.” Again, I nodded my head and this time flashed her a quick smile and ran away in case she had asked, “Do you want a bag?”

My dumplings were cold by the time I had sloshed home through the rain, but I managed to successfully work all 4 keys to make my way into the apartment. Overall, I considered my outing a success. I had avoided as much unwanted attention as I could get by going out when few people were on the street, and I even settled my growling stomach with some warm(ish) food. I hope that in the next few months I can graduate from prepared convenience store food to fresh homemade cuisine, but first I need the vocabulary to get me there, and that will take hitting the books in the most diligent way.

When people ask me why I am traveling right now, I tell them that this trip is a gift to myself. One could argue that I don’t have enough money, that this trip was not in my budget, or that I should be more productive with my time and energy. I argue that there is no experience apart from traveling the world that gives me so much happiness. If this isn’t enough reason to have left home again, then someone had better correct me with a reason to stay in one place. This trip is a gift because I know that it isn’t entirely necessary, but that my feet would feel more comfortable on different soil. It started with a plan to visit the United Kingdom for a week, and then it expanded to a month-long excursion in four countries. When I had the UK planned, I couldn’t just stop there since I was already going to be across the Atlantic. I decided to add Spain, Morocco and Tunisia to my itinerary. A week before I was scheduled to depart, my travel companion found out she could not accompany me. With everything originally booked in doubles, it had turned out to be a solo expedition. It is always fun to travel with a friend, but traveling by yourself gives you an excellent sense of how much you can handle on your own—a test of strength, will, courage and patience.

But the one thing I really dislike about traveling by myself is going to the bathroom when I have all of my luggage. It is so much nicer when one person can sit with the bags while the other goes to the restroom, and then switch. Traveling with a carry on backpack I have to angle my body around the door, scooting inch by inch closer to the toilet, leaning over the toilet without touching my legs to the seat in order to get myself and my backpack in the stall. The useful hooks that used to be inside bathroom stalls have all been removed and this leaves me with the choice of either 1.) putting all my bags on the floor or 2.) precariously squatting and hovering with a backpack and my messenger bag. The first option ends up with who knows what on the bottom of my bag and the latter ends up with me getting a thigh workout and hoping my balance is pretty good that day. I usually opt for the second option which makes me feel like an accomplished traveler who has all kinds of tricks up her sleeve. I high kick the flusher with the bottom of my shoe, and reverse angle myself back around the door to exit. What people see emerging first from the stall is a backpack followed by a girl who looks as though she is a slave to the backpack.

I visited the UK often as a child, but this was the first time that I had gone on my own accord. And apart from the UK and Ireland, I had never traveled in Western Europe. I focused much of my travel on lesser known destinations, specifically choosing countries that were still developing and changing quickly. In my opinion, I knew Western Europe would be there in a decade; it would be probably much the same with updated technology and the same throngs of tourists from all over the world, walking around with money belts under their shirts and camera lenses pointed at the spires and towers of some famous cathedral or castle. I have always thought of taking wine tours in France and gondola rides in Italy, but I never wanted to see Europe on a “shoestring.” I wanted to do it right. Basically, I needed enough money to afford it. This time I had enough money to fit in two European countries, but that was the limit. Sorry, no October Fest this year (but every Aussie I have met is headed there).

Going to the UK always feels like going home for me. I can easily feel my mother there, and the life that she came from. I can remember the numerous trips to see my Gran when she lived out in little villages here and there. Her streets always had cute names, and there were baby bunnies hopping around her yard, nibbling grass—stuff from a child’s dream. For Easter she would hide giant Cadbury eggs, big enough for a stuffed animal to be placed inside and make us Queen’s Pudding in a crystal bowl. I also remember the time my sister and I were taking a stroll on the path across from her house, looking for the bunnies, but all we ever came across was a man relieving himself into the nearby brush. Most of it was out of a fairytale. Now, as an adult, things aren’t quite as picturesque as through a child’s eyes, but I still greatly appreciate the rolling green fields separated by mossy stone walls, overflowing hanging baskets of flowers, and tiny corner bakeries selling pastries with funny names like Flapjack and Eccelscake. My mother’s childhood town of Brewood (pronounced Brewd) was a quaint as any village I have seen. Cobblestone streets took you past the barbershop to the Jubilee Hall where my Gran used to star in local theatrical productions. Down the hill, behind the mossy church and gravestones was the local pub. Brewood Convent School for Girls was now masquerading as St. Dominic’s, but strong faith or strong architecture had kept it standing even through the difficult students like my mum, who was twice threatened with expulsion. In order to get to school everyday, my mum would ride her bike through the country lanes up to the village. Life back then seemed so carefree and relaxed compared to a child’s life today. The parents never had to fear for their children’s safety, and this allowed my mum and her brothers to bike miles away to see friends or have a swim in the lake. I suppose that my childhood memories of England compare to my mum’s upbringing—the same freedom in small town, rural England.

Google Earth image of Brewood

When one guest asked me who was the most fascinating author attending that night’s dinner, I didn’t need to think for a second. I had idolized him since high school, referencing him like other teenagers did Brad Pitt or Leonardo Dicaprio. One of his books had fallen into my hands courtesy of a friend, but despite all of our talk about the author, I couldn’t remember the name of the book. Stuck In The Mud, a far cry from the actual title, Lost In Place, was my fabricated name. Since devouring the first book, and finally remembering the correct title, I swept through all of his titles, taking up each book like my next adventure—with eagerness and an open mind. He spoke with a humor and frank honesty about his awkward childhood that I related to. If he had been quirky enough to spend hours on end in a home-made cardboard spaceship, training himself for the real hardship of outer space exploration, then surely singing infomercial theme songs in the pantry with my sister was mere folly, to be outgrown at a later age. Maybe Stuck In The Mud, was more of a reflection of my childhood spent in rural Idaho than it was for his in suburbia, but I connected to his stories more than I had with any other author.

When I left for Peace Corps I decided to take one book with me—Iron & Silk, an account of his two years spent teaching in rural China in the 1980s. Not knowing what to expect in Turkmenistan, and not knowing how I was going to react to my new surroundings, I did know one thing; I needed a book that would be able to make me laugh. At that point, even looking at the book made me feel happier because I had read it enough times to remember each individual story inside the book. My memory conjured up images of him on the bank of the river, appearing like a ghost misted in the morning fog when the fishermen pulling up their nets spotted him and froze from fear and surprise. To free the fishermen from their fear, he smiled wide and offered a morning greeting, which created more disbelief because the white man spoke their language. Other than laughter, I knew that I would need a reminder—a push to get me out the door to meet people when I was sitting by myself at home. All of his great adventures in China happened when he put himself out there, and opened up to the locals. I had to remind myself that when I felt removed from the community, it was probably my fault for lack of trying. I did not re-read Iron & Silk while I was in the Peace Corps, but just knowing that it was always there if I needed an old friend helped me through some lonely moments.

After idolizing someone for so long, when you get the chance to meet them you hope they do not turn out to be egotistical and disinterested in you, their biggest fan. My chance to meet my favorite author coupled with my employment for the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. In its 15th year, the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference attracted some high profile authors and political figures, all vying to be invited to speak. Henry Paulson, Justice Breyer, Ethan Canin, Ishmael Beah, David Kennedy and Niall Ferguson were some of the lucky chosen to attend the conference. My favorite referred to himself as, not one of the warriors, but as the “conscience” of the conference. He was responsible for blowing on the little fire that kept things alight and awash in flames. Mark Salzman was not one of the heavy hitters, but presented one of the best sessions at the conference, definitely a crowd favorite by all means, keeping everyone laughing by mostly poking fun at himself. His talent for crafting entertaining stories out of seemingly banal everyday occurrences from his life back in suburbia might only be compared to that of David Sedaris. When this guest asked me who was the most fascinating author in the room, I don’t think he was prepared for the 90 second rundown of all Mark Salzman’s books accompanied by my personal opinion on each. My goal for the conference was to befriend Mark Salzman without him issuing a restraining order against me. He was shorter than I had imagined, but I was the one wearing three inch heels. His hair was parted on the left side and a few of his teeth were crooked, a detail only noticeable by looking at his profile. He shook my hand with an approving bob of his head and a firm grip. I jumped into my story about only taking his book with me to Peace Corps, all the while feeling my face heat up with embarrassment. He seemed genuinely flattered, but I immediately started to feel the stalker obsession come on. I had never understood those teenage girls waving handwritten signs and crying at the sight of their pop idol, but now, with Mark Salzman in front of me I had to stop myself from dishing all of my personal secrets (like he cared) or stealthily cutting off a lock of his hair (too creepy). In the end I decided that asking him to sign the very book I took to Peace Corps would be the most socially acceptable thing to do. While flipping through to find a blank page, he came across my friend’s note scribbled next to a young Mark Salzman photo, “can you believe he’s as old as he is? He’s so cute!” Mark slapped his legs with nervous laughter, and once again I felt myself turn into the color of a ripe tomato. Me opting for the easy route of book signing left me sweating, red in the face and wondering why I had not just snipped a lock of his silky brown hair and run far, far away.

Way back when one of my Russian tutors was from Kazakhstan and the other was from Turkmenistan. My tutor from K-stan explained what the suffix -stan means. Her explanation included a story told by her grandfather, whether or not this is fictional I don't know exactly, but I liked the story anyway. When most of Central Asia was nomadic, he began, the communities lived in small yurt villages. Each family was able to carry their home in carts or side bags carried by their animals. The yurts could be pulled down or put up in a matter of hours, and when the community needed to move, they could in a hurry. They selected the area where they would set up their yurts with care. It needed to be safe and close to food and water sources. The yurts were put up in a circle formation, and the people referred to this yurt community as their "stan." The word "stan" had tribal connotations as well as territorial implications. I have not done any research to confirm that this is historically accurate, but considering the implications of "stan" in today's language, it seemed that this explanation might well have been the origin of the common suffix.

Linguistically speaking, the suffix "stan" is an ancient Persian and/or Farsi word meaning country, nation, land or place of. The suffix appears in the names of many regions, especially Central and South Asia. The country Turkmenistan therefore means "place of the Turkmen." In Persian the suffix is used more generally in words such as rigestan 'place of sand' or desert. In Sanskrit devasthan, 'place of devas' means temple. The root of -stan, "sta" is also the source of the English words stand and status.

Although I have left Turkmenistan, I have not changed the name of my blog Anniestan because literally this translates to "place of Annie," and that is exactly what this blog is. It is an expression of my place and journey on this earth. I may not be in a -stan country anymore, but wherever I go automatically becomes my Anniestan.

My training village was a tiny dot off a bumpy road leading into the desert. It was so small that there was no need for street names, let alone paved roads. Everything was dusted in a thick layer or fine dirt that never went away. Camels roamed through yards, and thorny tumble weeds blew down the streets. A walk through town took ten minutes, running from the growling dogs and brandishing rocks to scare off those brave enough to charge. The little white stucco buildings lining the roads were dwarfed by the plastic covered greenhouses behind them. When nobody answered from inside the house, one could be sure that the family was busy back in the greenhouse. Every house had at least one greenhouse to call their own. They were long 40 foot wooden frames that were covered in the cold months with plastic sheets. All year long tomatoes, cucumbers, lemons, oranges and apricots flourished in the warmth. Families connected their main gas lines to smaller pipes that fueled small stoves in the greenhouses. Children carted buckets and buckets of water from the wells to dump on the rows so carefully dug out months before. When everything was barren, brown and desolate outside, entering one of the greenhouses felt like stepping into a jungle--hot, steaming, green and lush. I never saw another village with a similar abundance of greenhouses. I asked around and found out that they had been a UNICEF project completed five years before I arrived. I witnessed the daily devotional routine practiced by every family in my village--water, weed, pick, prune. The growing produce demanded so continual manual labor, but the pay-off in the end, selling it all at market, was the motivation. For a tiny village with few jobs or opportunities, each family was able to support themselves with the help of the UNICEF project. I could see dedication and determination reserved specifically for the greenhouses. They were cared for, respected, and well used. More importantly, they had lifted the entire village up on the socioeconomic ladder--they had created sustainable economic opportunities for generations.

Just up the road, in the courtyard at the local school sat another UNICEF project. Most students tried not to use the bathroom at school, but waited until they got home. This was for good reason. One could smell the stench 50 feet away, and tried to stay up wind whenever possible. This bathroom was not the UNICEF project. Obviously they had seen the toilet situation at this village school, and had built a new bathroom to improve sanitation. Near the old toilets was a small building with containing a boys side and a girls side with locking stalls, flushable toilets, sinks and screened windows. Maybe at some point there was plumbing, but by the time I arrived, the desert sand had begun to take over the bathroom, and every hole was filled with dirt. The sinks were lizard homes, and the toilet paper holders were broken. Maybe, at some point, the door was unlocked. The sturdy metal door had a brand new lock, and only the school director had the key. "It's locked because it is new and we don't want to ruin it," he explained. So the children continued to hold it until they went home, and we learned that the teachers used the neighbor's outhouse behind the gymnasium, next to her cow. "She doesn't mind", we were told. This was my first encounter with a complete failure of a project in Turkmenistan. UNICEF had good intentions, but unlike the greenhouse project, this one had failed to be sustainable.

In my village I was faced with the challenge of developing a sustainable project in my community. Creating sustainability, for me, is the ultimate goal of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps commitment is two years precisely for the reason that grass-roots projects are slow going. A sustainable project is not going to be accomplished in a short time, and proper community assessment is a time consuming and meticulous process. Much of community assessment is asking lots of questions to people spanning a diverse population. One must include all demographics to be completely thorough, and gaining the trust of so many people takes time and patience.

Because I spent the most time with my students, I brought up the idea of a project first with them. I had them draw a picture of their community, including everything important to them. This straight forward exercise caused a lot of tension between students because each had their own idea of how the map should look. They all suddenly became very territorial and possessive of their community. When they had each used their marker to

Shopping List: Lettuce Radishes Cucumbers Tomatoes Strawberries Apples Oatmeal Buckwheat Lentils I always take my time and walk along the rows before I start buying the day’s purchases. I look over the fruit and vegetables and causally ask a few vendors their prices. I have found that the lettuce and radishes are cheapest in the back where the vendors have their produce laid out on plastic tarps and crates. The apples are freshest in the front where the vendors display their shined and washed fruits and vegetables on recently renovated stalls. Women bustle around, hardly appearing burdened by the large bags they have hung over their arms. The men with carts yell “tachka, tachka” to warn you that you have about two seconds to move out of the way or else you will be run over. I pick up one of the apples and ask the vendor the price. “15,000 manat per kilo,” she says ($1.05). “No,” I say. “Give them to me for cheaper.” “12,000 manat,” I suggest ($0.84) and eventually she settles for 13,000 manat and I save a fraction of a dollar. Sometimes I evesdrop on Turkmen shoppers to hear the prices the vendors tell a native. By now I know the going rate for tomatoes or oatmeal, and I scoff at an inflated price and move on. The cell phone card lady greets me with a familiar “sen” used for friends, and she asks about my work. Every week I buy the same card from her, and when I skip a week she asks me where I went. The oatmeal lady lives in my town, and she gives me a good deal on a kilo of oatmeal that lasts me almost a month. The moneychangers incessantly ask me in furtive murmurs if I want to change dollars even though I have told them from the beginning that I only have manat. As I walk around I can hear people whispering, “she’s American” and this echo around the bazaar has become familiar along with the squawking of the birds, the pounding of heavy feet, the yelling of greetings across aisles and the crinkling of plastic bags as they are handed to the customers. Every Monday I take my reusable bag to the bazaar in Turkmenabat and try my hand at bargaining away at my shopping list. As the weather warms, the stalls at the bazaar swell with fresh produce. The winter months bring slim pickings for fresh fruit and vegetables, and in the spring new produce appears overnight. My shopping list is incredibly simple and straight forward compared to what I used to have in America. I make everything from scratch here. Therefore, the products listed are raw products, straight from the local farms around the city. The strawberry lady assures me that she grows the strawberries herself in a small village 30 minutes outside of the city. The cauliflower that I happen upon also comes from a village in my region. Most of the vendors sell produce that they have grown from seed. Of course the occasional pineapple or kiwi is most definitely not grown locally in Turkmenistan, but the kinds of imported produce I can count on one hand. Although I complain about the slim pickings in the winter, I have come to respect the idea of truly eating what is in season, and what is available locally. If it isn’t grown here and now, you won’t find it in the bazaar! I am acutely aware of what I am eating, where it is from, and that it is in season. The idea of “locally grown” is not a choice here, and it is the way that all Turkmen eat. We have lost this in America, where we can get anything at anytime of the year. When are lemons in season? They’re in season in the fall in Turkmenistan, but in America who knows, because they are always available. There are few ready-made foods here, and by making everything from scratch I know exactly what I am eating. An oatmeal package that one can buy in America is full of processed sugars and chemicals, but here I am sure my oatmeal consists of oats, milk, water, apple and honey. Cooking oatmeal from scratch takes more time than 30 seconds in a microwave, but I am certain that what I am ingesting is good for me. This new style of shopping, cooking and eating has increased my appreciation for the clichéd “circle of life.” I don’t think Turkmen would need to go through this realization because they are used to eating what is in season, but as an American I can really see the difference between the shopping and cooking experience here and in my home country. When I return to America, I will take my reusable bag to the local farmer’s market, browse the aisles and select the best produce. Unfortunately in America part of the fun is cut out because the prices are non-negotiable, but the farmer’s market is by far a more enjoyable experience for me than a supermarket.

A few students at school number one, where I teach, have designed two

community service projects to celebrate Global Youth Service Day. To

celebrate Earth Day, on April 22nd, they picked up trash around the

school and made the school grounds look cleaner than I have ever seen.

Second, they are helping an elderly lady, who lives by herself, with

her spring cleaning and gardening work. On April 27th they will also

cook for her and bake her a cake, which they hope will make her very

happy. The idea of volunteerism in Turkmenistan is not widely

understood, and in preparation for Global Youth Service Day, I

discussed volunteerism with this small group of students discussed. I

posted our project on the Global Youth Service Day project (we are the

only project in Turkmenistan), and I hope that this small practice in

volunteerism will inspire these students to serve in their community

in the future.

This past weekend consisted of a three-day ongoing celebration of my 25th birthday. I had little to do with the majority of the planning of the events, but the surprises kept coming. On Friday my intermediate level class organized a surprise party. None of them showed up for club, and then one student bust through my door out of breath and muttering, “May I come in teacher?” I asked her if the others were on their way and she shook her head and said, “No, come with me.” They had set up a huge table with all of my favorite foods. We spent the evening gorging ourselves with food and getting up to dance in between courses. I think that I have previously mentioned that Turkmen love to dance. Music or no music, they will dance whenever and wherever. They taught me some traditional Turkmen dances that I had seen done at weddings, but never learned before. Then I reciprocated and taught them a hip-hop dance I made up on the spot. All of the shaking and spinning didn’t help digestion, but it made for one of the most memorable evenings in Turkmenistan.

On my actual birthday I was bombarded at school. Students were skipping classes to go home to get me presents! With one of my sixth grade classes they wanted to sing and dance for me. I heard Turkmen and Uzbek songs and a perfect rendition of a Bollywood song and dance number by two boys. The grand finale was something planned by the boys. From what I saw, it looked like a human pyramid in the shape of a camel. I am not sure if this is what they were going for, but that is what came to my mind and I applauded vigorously for creative ingenuity. On Sunday my host-family wanted to take me and my friends to the forest for a barbeque. I invited several Turkmen and American friends and we drove out sandy back roads to one of the Black Wood Forest areas. These trees are going extinct because, unfortunately, their dry wood makes for perfect barbeque firewood. My host-dad started the kebab fire with some of the fallen wood, and once the fire had died down to hot coals, we laid the kebab sticks across the fire propping them up on a few bricks placed on either side of the coals. We made salad, washed fruit, piled plates with candies and cookies, and cracked open bottles of beer. My host-dad makes some amazing barbeque and despite our best efforts, we were nowhere close to finishing all of the meat. I made a banana cake with dark chocolate frosting and despite the high winds that day, a few volunteers managed to get about 10 candles lit by using the flat, circular bread to shield the cake from the gusts. That move could only be done in Lebap where they follow to the sacred bread rules on a more lenient basis. We played volleyball with my host-brother and talked about hunting season with my host-dad. When the volleyball rolled into the river, Collin ran after it and ended up in the water himself. There was no way it was planned, but he happened to bring an extra change of clothes. An afternoon barbeque in the forest of by the river is real Turkmen recreation. There were several other families we saw driving out there. It made me really happy that I could top of my birthday weekend by enjoying a picnic with my closest American and Turkmen friends that I have here!

First, I got back to Turkmenistan on March 2nd and, as per my plan, I hit the ground running and got back to work as fast as I could. I did give myself 24 hours adjustment time in Ashgabat before I flew back to my region, but I was anxious to get back to my town and see everyone. Nobody in my community knew that I was back in Turkmenistan until I called a few people from Ashgabat. When I left Turkmenistan I couldn’t say for sure if I was returning. My decision was pending on my mum’s health, and what I felt comfortable with. This left my community wondering whether or not they would ever see me. My students especially were anxious about my return. When I did get back I received an extremely warm welcome from everyone. When my students saw me at school it was like out of a scene from a movie. They would spot me in the hall, run towards me and throw their arms around me with big smiles and a whirlwind of questions. As a coping technique to deal with the transition and homesickness, I busied myself with work. I immediately got started on my grant proposal. I had previously approached the physical education teachers about doing a project together, and on my first day back at school I had cornered them and asked if they were still interested in the grant ideas. From the start they were really enthusiastic about everything, and helped me compile all of the data, prices, measurements and information I needed for the grant proposal. Although I had lots of support from the teachers we still needed permission from the director—then the school director needed permission from his director, then the etrap director needed permission from his boss, then that left us with no other option than to go to Turkmenabat and meet with the head of the Ministry of Education himself. At this point I thought that our project was as good as dead. But with help from some other teachers we typed up a letter stating the project’s goals and objectives and I went with the physical education teachers to Turkmenabat. The head of the Ministry of Education in Lebap region is widely feared and has a reputation of shutting down volunteers’ projects. In Turkmenistan everyone fears their director, and government officials have a talent of making any grown man stutter over his words. Before we got to his office one of the teachers had told me, “I am not afraid of him. The only thing I fear is Allah.” But as we climbed the five flights of stairs to his office, this same teacher looked at me and said, “Okay, now I am scared.” Because I have not been raised in this culture, I understood why everyone was afraid, but I was trying to play the part of the optimistic American. After waiting for almost an hour for him to come back to his office he saw us for maybe two minutes. As the sports teacher stammered through his reason for being there, the minister didn’t even notice me there—maybe my dress blended in with the shiny wallpaper. It was only until I had squeezed my way into his office before the door closed that he realized I was part of the group. My name was included in the letter, and while he was reading he looked at the paper, looked up at me, looked at the paper and the nodded his head in understanding of why I had not said a single word. I have found that trying to hide my American-ness helps in circumstances like this, with basically any encounter with the Turkmen government. He tapped his hands on the desk, glanced at me and asked in Turkmen, “So, how’s your work?” Maybe I was more nervous than I will admit, because I said “Everything is great at my school,” and I gave him a juvenile thumbs up with a dopey look on my face. He asked how well students know English at my school, and this time I answered with my hands in my lap. Our letter and my spastic responses must have passed the test because he placed his hands on his desk and said, “I will call Ashgabat [the head of the ministry] and tell them about this.” Ta da! And in two minutes we had permission from basically every person on up to the president himself! Somehow, with help from some higher power, within two weeks we had finished the grant proposal for a USAID Small Project Assistance Grant. We proposed to renovate our school gymnasium, buy new sports equipment, expand the after-school physical education program, and start a big brother, big sister program that matches older students with younger students to teach them about healthy living, sportsmanship and physical education. Now the rest is out of our hands as our grant passes through the hands of several review committees in Turkmenistan and in America. We should hear back in about a month, and then, if funded, we will begin the renovations after classes end in early June. If you have read this far, you have committed to read to the end! My other big piece of news is that Jennet had her baby on Easter Sunday. She was born at 12:20am at our local hospital and because of complications I was not present for the birth, but I got there as soon as I heard the good news. My host mom delivered the baby and wanted to come home and tell me, but had to go deliver another baby immediately after Jennet. As I previously wrote, Jennet wanted to name her Enejan, after me. I didn’t know about the family politics of naming a baby until the second day after she was born. Jennet was in tears about pressure from her in-laws about names. They told her that she could not name the baby Enejan and that she would have to choose another name. To me this is absurd, and I told her that she should name her baby whatever she wants. But, this is forgetting that Jennet has to deal with these people for the rest of her life, and when your mother-in-law prohibits something, you had better listen. Turkmen women have a real talent for starting gossip and Jennet was afraid of backlash if she ignored her in-laws. Jennet decided to name her Aylar, which means “moons.” She thought that I might be mad about the name change, but I assured her that the name means little to me and that she is my goddaughter no matter what. They don’t usually allow visitors inside the maternal ward, but they let me in for a few minutes during my first visit. When I held Aylar, when she was only 8 hours old, I partially felt that instinctual maternal love for a baby that a mother has when she sees her child for the first time. She has Jennet’s nose. I noticed that immediately. Her tiny olive shaped eyes were so small. While I was holding her she started cooing at me, and I quipped that she already speaks my language. In my arms was my life-long connection to this country, swaddled in a blanket and weighing no more than 8 lbs.

I recently started having my students write journals. I remember one

of my Russian friends telling me that she wrote her journal in English

because it was the best daily practice that she could get. My

intermediate students have been less diligent about writing than my

advanced students. For my lower level students the journals are still

like an annoying homework task because they can still struggle with

grammar in present simple. For my upper level students their journals

have become a place where they divulge their secrets, dreams and

thoughts. Over and over I have marveled at their writing skills, and

their ability to be quite precise by fully utilizing their vocabulary.

I decided to share a journal entry by one of my top students.

Journal entry by Leyla Rahimova

Sometimes I sit in the yard and watch the sky. I saw it’s very big,

wide and high. Birds fly in the sky. Trees can’t touch it. It’s so

high. When I watch it, I realize that people can do what they want,

but it’s temporary. When I watch the sky I understand that time goes

and we must do something important then we’ll not be pity. I

understand people should not pass their time free. Even trees and

birds or plants don’t pass their time free. Trees grow, make leaves,

then drop their leaves. It’s their work. Blue color approach to sky.

Life’s color is blue. Water has blue color too. When I watch the

sky, I go to dream. I can do my work without problems. Sky’s blue

color is tender. So people can dream and fly. When I watch the sky I

think only about good.

I advise you to watch the sky and you can feel how that’s amazing.

At night I watch the moon. Of course if there is a moon. If there is

a moon it is so white and light. When the moon is clear it looks very

beautiful. When I watch the moon I feel the moon watches me, too.

Yes, when I watch the moon or stars I rest. When I watch the sky I

rest, too. They have an unknown power. This power helps us, give us

dreams, opinions and we can feel at ease.

Yesterday I had a dream,

In the dream I flew to the moon,

I saw the moon was hungry,

And she had in hand a spoon.

The room was dark and there was a flimsy divider that blocked off the

patient from the view of people passing in the corridor. I perched on

the edge of the table with my hand on Jennet’s leg as the doctor

spread cold jelly onto her protruding stomach. As the doctor pushed

the wand around, the fuzzy image began to sharpen on the television

screen. There is the head. Do you see it? Yes. There is an arm.

Do you see it? Yes, but are there two? There is a leg. Do you see

it? Yes, there are two legs also. Jennet, you have a girl! I let

out a muffled laugh as I caught Jennet’s eye, which I hope the doctor

didn’t interpret as indifference or mockery. First, let me take you

back a few months.

Last fall I was Jennet’s bridesmaid. This event was perhaps the most

remarkable and memorable of my entire Peace Corps experience, but with

the news of Jennet’s pregnancy, I realized that the wedding was just

the beginning. Her pregnancy has been difficult, and she has had

plenty of volunteers offering their advice, extra multi-vitamins and

knitting skills to make petite baby socks. Before I left for America,

Jennet asked me to help her during her birth, and I accepted but

quickly realized that I knew next to nothing about the real birthing

process. Despite having a mother who had my sister and I at home

without any painkillers, I have not bothered to ask her much about the

technicalities of giving birth. I realized how much Hollywood and

feet stirrups played into my idea of birth, both probably not really

applying to Turkmenistan very well. Back in the US, I perused the

birthing and baby book aisle not without a few furtive glances in my

direction. The book I finally settled on has recently been my go-to

resource more than any of my TEFL (teaching) books. If Jennet has an

ache in her leg, I dash to the glossary and find the most plausible

cause. Her nieces and nephews have taken interest in the book,

particularly in the live birth pictures, which caused an awkward

moment until their mother said that she didn’t care. Jennet had been

waiting for me to come back to go get an ultrasound. On my first day

back, we jumped in a taxi and went to the big hospital in Turkmenabat.

As far as I know, this is the only ultrasound machine in the entire

welayat (region). I had heard horror stories about lines out the

door, and pregnant women passing out from the congestion and hours of

waiting. We were lucky and our wait was two hours, and we spent most

of the time looking at the birthing book and talking to the other

women about exercises and healthy eating habits. They were all

fascinated by the book, and it made me sad that they don’t have any of

this information available to them. Practically every Turkmen woman

will have at least one child, and they go through pregnancy and birth

relying mostly on the advice of other women in their family, which

often can be outdated or inaccurate. For example, Jennet was

experiencing pain in her joints, and she was told by a family member,

who is a doctor, that she should drink vodka to get rid of the

infection. I practically screamed when I heard this, but was relieved

to know that Jennet ignored the advice and has not been taking shots

of any kind of alcohol. As we were waiting on the hard, wooden

chairs, we agreed that we didn’t want to know the sex of the baby.

Jennet has been wanting it to be a surprise, but in the excitement of

seeing the baby, both of us forgot to mention this important request

to the doctor. Woops, and it’s a girl! But both of us were grinning,

and quickly lightened up at the news. The baby is healthy—two arms

and two legs, about which Jennet made sure to ask. I hope Jennet’s

husband doesn’t get wind of my blog because he still doesn’t know the

sex of the baby. Actually, only Jennet and I, and now the entire

world wide web community if they so care, know about it. Jennet has

named me the Godmother of this baby, in another touching outreach of

her faith in me and in our friendship. I was secretly hoping for a

girl because in addition to being named the Godmother, Jennet told me

that she wants to name the baby after me. Her name will be Enejan, my

Turkmen nickname. Ene means mother in our dialect of Turkmen, and

–jan is the suffix to create a diminutive. So, in essence, Enejan

means, darling (or dear) mother. This might seem like a strange name

for a newborn baby, but adding the diminutive –jan onto words like

mother, father, grandmother and grandfather are common names. After

the ultrasound, Jennet told me that when he asked about the sex of the

baby, she told her husband that she didn’t know. Then when he asked

about baby names, she said that he can pick the boys name and she can

pick the girls name!

(The cover art for Zumer Chas' latest album, featuring RuDe. Image courtesy of the Darkroom Posse FaceBook fan club)

In American rap music you can often hear the rapper refer to their city, but you will be hard pressed to find a song entitled after a city and entirely about a city. In contrast, rappers from Turkmenabat, a city about 40 minutes south of my town take great pride on rapping about their city. I first heard the song "City Turkmenabat" at my student's birthday party and all of the guests were up and singing the song which left me the only one still sitting on the floor not knowing a single word in the lyrics. The rapper, Mano Faruh, is from Turkmenabat and raps entirely about the city and about how great it is to live there. One of my students has started recording his own rap songs and I asked him about why Turkmen rappers often rap about their hometowns or cities. He told me that in the underground Turkmen rap world, there are rivalries between different welayats, regions, (click for a map of Turkmenistan and the different welayats) and their regional capitals. He had me listen to a rap song from Mary Welayat that threw insults at the Lebap Welayat rappers and rap culture. The Lebap rappers were already busy with creating a rap song to toss back into their rivals' faces. It reminded me of the East Coast--West Coast hip hop rivalry in the United States.

Despite its isolation, in the past few years a unique Turkmen urban culture has materialized. Western rappers remain popular, but the rise of Turkmen artists has fed the youth subculture that didn't exist a short time ago. The Turkmen government has tried to control the spread of this new form of expression by prohibiting the use of swear words and banning Turkmen artists to leave the country for concerts. This has forced Hip Hop underground. Rap music holds connotations of violence and rebellion, but from what I have seen so far, Turkmen rap music is not nearly as violent as American rap. I offered to help my student write a rap song in English and when I asked him what he would like to sing about, he replied, "mothers." Okay. A rap song about mothers. This isn't exactly what comes to my mind when I think of rap music, but this disparity reflects the differences between the American and the Turkmen rap culture. Someone like AKON who has a past criminal record and who raps about murder and redemption can be idolized in America and around the world, but a Turkmen rapper must still tread carefully and remember that even harmless rap subculture in Turkmenistan can be seen as a threat to overall order.

When asked about why rap is popular in Turkmenistan, Zumar Chas, one of the most famous Turkmen Hip Hop artists, said:

My aim is to tell about my life and to share my experiences with the people. I think everyone has got a problem somewhere. The more you share those things the more life becomes easier, it helps to foster thinking. By singing about them, we [the rappers] are turning these life experiences into artwork. It’s a different feeling, it’s a kind of self-realization and boosting self-confidence. And the people have got interest in those real life experiences.

To listen to some Turkmen rap and to watch some Turkmen music videos, click on the following links:

City Turkmenabat by Mano Faruh

iStreet by RuDe featuring Arman (Darkroom Posse Music)

Palestine by Zumar Chas and Syke (Note: This video contains graphic images of Palestine after bombings)

When speaking about how he created 'Palestine,' Zumar Chas explained:

The ‘Palestine’ song came as it came and there was nothing planned about it. My band partner Nazar had sent me some beats to consider for our album ‘1 Galam 1 Deprek EP’ and suddenly dispute and struggle crossed my mind. It was the time when Palestine, a Muslim country, was being bombed. So, I began to write the [lyrics] with Syke. There are two things about the song. First, Syke and I were not in a good relationship earlier. We were attacking each other with ‘disrespect’ songs publicly. But some time later we decided to give it up and became friends. There was a surprise reaction to ‘Palestine’ with the listeners [in which they asked] ‘What’s happening to these guys?’ when in fact we were trying to send out a message of peace, as I say at the end of the song, ‘with this song we are calling upon the people to peace.’ We intended to show to them the result of a fight in an intelligent way. Secondly, with this song we wanted to contribute to the end to tribalism [among Turkmens] as people from Teke and Yomut and other tribes in chat forums are attacking each other. We did a lot of work on writing the lyrics of the song and out came a good result. Our listenership increased and we got a lot of attention from Turkmenistan.

I slowed to a walk, breathless and sweaty under my layers of clothing. I turned around the corner to my small, paved street where my house sits second on the right, situated between a tiny, stucco house with long grapevines out front that swallow the building, and a massive two storey house that sits abandoned, only visited by the large colony of pigeons that nest in the tin roof. I took out one of my headphones and turned down the blasting music, my self-defense against the catcalls of the farmers along my running route. Squatting down, with his rear end hovering millimeters above the dirty street in a position that I know I will never be able to comfortably perch in, was one of my students. He was calmly talking to a young stray dog, trying to coax her over to him. At a young age, puppies learn not to trust humans, and they cower and run away with a slight raise of your arm. Very young puppies will look you in the eye and their tails wag as they scurry towards you. They are naïve and still trust that you won’t hurt them. When full grown, the dogs are either constantly terrified and scatter at any noise or quick movement, or are ferocious and want to attack anything that moves. My student understood that he had to be very gentle and calm for the puppy to come towards him. He continued to make little noises and saying “good dog,” but the puppy remained seated on her haunches and didn’t seem fooled. His back was facing me, so he didn’t know that I was watching him. Whenever he would stand up the dog would skitter backwards and he would squat down again, and the puppy would mirror him and sit back, too. I could tell that he didn’t know what to do next. I circled around and squatted down next to him, in my clumsy, wobbly squat that immediately gives away that I grew up in a culture that often uses chairs and couches. He looked over at me and said, “Annie teacher, can you help me get this dog because my dog died and I want to take this puppy home.” He stared up at me, his eyes, pleading eyes of a boy much younger than his age, looked at me searching for answers. His dirty, baggy black hat was much too big for him and it touched the top of the scar that runs along his cheekbone and up to his temple. From working along side his father in the fields, his skin is dark and tough. His tiny frame is consumed by the frayed and stained coat that has been rolled up at the sleeves but still occasionally slips down to cover his hands. I pat my hand against my shin, in my attempt to call the puppy over and she notices. He pulls back his coat sleeve and mimics my movement. In English I say, “come here girl” over and over in a singsong voice. Her ears perk up, her tail begins to wag, and shyly she starts to make her way over to me. She rolls onto her back to let us pet her soft, but dirty belly. I gently pick her up in my arms and she clings to me being so far from the ground suddenly. I tell him to hold his hands out, but instead he looks at me and says, “Annie teacher, I don’t know how to hold her. Can you take her for me?” I tell him that it isn’t hard and that he can try for a minute to hold her. “Meh,” is what I say next. There is no translation for this word, but it can mean something like here. “Meh,” I mumble again as I put her in his arms. He awkwardly holds her with two legs sticking out that he forgot to include. He looks down at the puppy and then looks up at me with a wide smile that makes his scar curve into a crescent shape. “Annie teacher, we did it!” he beams. I tell him to hold her tight until he gets home and I watch him as he walks slowly up the road a ways and then squats down to readjust his holding position. He takes a quick glance over his shoulder to check if I am still there and I wave back. He jiggles his head back and forth as he laughs, and continues on his way, leaning back to offset the weight of his new puppy.

My advanced students came over to my house to celebrate Christmas. We made pizza and baked pumpkin pie. It was Alisher's first time cooking, and the girls teased him mercilessly as he struggled to cut the mushrooms into even pieces. While we were waiting for the pizza to bake my students decided to entertain everyone with funny laughing contests--then they got me involved. This is a video of us doing our loudest, funniest laugh. I had never seen my students so comfortable and silly as this time. I felt like they were being carefree kids, and were including me in their games!

I took this video of my students while they were busy making Christmas cards. This is my 4th-6th grade class with one girl who is in the 9th form but barely knew any English when she started coming. I also have some little sisters in the group who come because nobody is at home and they tag along with their siblings to English club. This is by far my biggest class, and I have to squish up to 4 students at one desk. I had to turn away new students because I had run out of chairs. They didn't know that I was filming so they just continued to work and chatter among themselves.

I am not in Turkmenistan right now, but my thoughts continually drift to my students and my community on the other side of the world. So far my time in America has consisted of lots of lounging around and spending time with various family members, especially my mom. I expected to be hit by a big wave of culture shock, but my reaction has been very different than I had imagined. For the first week I felt like my brain was on standby. When in an overwhelming situation, I remained silent and just took everything in. The only situation when I felt like I needed to take a step back was at the supermarket. It was just so big, and there was such a selection! I experienced an “Ah” reaction and turned to my mom and said, “I don’t think my Turkmen friends would believe me when I told them how many kinds of shampoo there are!” It is hard not to constantly compare America to Turkmenistan, but I am trying to separate them and see them as my two different lives.

I am returning to Turkmenistan on March 1st and my plan is to land in Ashgabat and hit the ground running. I am really excited about a new project that I am designing to keep me busy when I get back. I am collaborating with a British photographer to design a photography project that is inspired by the documentary “Born Into Brothels” in which a professional photographer worked with children in the red light district and teaches them to look at the world with new eyes. My vision is to teach my students about the art of photography, to give them cameras, and to have them create a self-portrait in several assignments focusing on self, family, community and dreams. I love photography and Turkmen love photos even more than me. I constantly see my students snapping photos on their cell phones, and I am inspired to teach them about how to take photography from snapshots to artwork—developing creative powers and providing a catalyst for written word. This project is still in the developmental stages, but I believe that it could really engage my students and give them an opportunity to document their lives in a new and innovative way. Like I said before, my mind keeps wandering to my students and now, being removed from my work and life in Turkmenistan, can I truly see how deeply I care about everyone with whom I live and work. I am glad that I got a taste of how it is going to feel when I finish service in December because I will definitely go back to Turkmenistan and fully appreciate my experience there and the friends that I have made.

I will keep you posted on anything exciting to come!!

The transition back from vacation is a practice of patience in

readjustment. The evening after returning from Thailand I forced

myself to leave my house and be social. I started walking in the

direction of a friend’s house. The sun had just dropped below the

horizon, making everything awash in an orange glow—my favorite time of

day. I greeted some students and other people along the way. Even a

brief walk in my town always involves many hellos and inquiries about

health and work, even salaries sometimes. By now I know most people

in my community, and on this particular day I had the energy to smile

and greet everyone I passed (not all days are like this). As I

approached my friend’s house, my student and her family shouted the

usual “come drink tea with us.” They have extended this invitation

about every time I walk by their house, and this time I decided to

accept. Not all “come drink tea” invitations are in actuality an

invitation. It acts as an addendum to “hello, how are you?” At first

I felt obligated to go drink tea, but that would turn out to be a cup

of tea at each house along the road I was walking. My Turkmen friend

told me that it is acceptable to reply with, “Inshallah, when I have

more time.” This time I felt like I knew the family well enough to

have an enjoyable cup of tea, and I was feeling extra gregarious, just

having returned from 10 days relaxing in Thailand. I should have

known that tea was not just going to be tea. I walked into their

living room where a huge tablecloth was laid out with sitting mats all

around. They were celebrating the completion of their renovation, and

were having some friends over, now including me. I sat with the two

sons and watched a DVD of Bollywood actors’ children singing their

parents famous songs. The two boys had already memorized the words

and were singing along. I had to smile at this. I ate the soup,

wondering how my body would handle the oily food again, and managed to

remember my Turkmen enough to pull off a decent toast. In ducked out

early to go to my friend’s house, my original mission. My student’s

mother rushed to the kitchen and came out with a plastic bag with two

breads, an apple and candy for me. In the end my friend wasn’t home,

but the whole evening had been even better than expected. During

vacation I saw how Yi made friends with people all around her by

opening up to them and seeing everyone on an even plane. Whether it

was other travelers or the longtail boat driver, she made people feel

comfortable and in turn they would open up to her. The constant

attention that I get here, whether it’s positive or negative, is one

of the hardest things for me to deal with. I can never blend in here,

and people will always be curious about me. Sometimes I want to only

look at the ground so that I don’t see people’s stares. Sometimes I

want to be invisible so that people will stop whispering about me the

moment I come into sight. But during vacation I was inspired by how

Yi treated people with respect and was genuinely interested to hear

people’s stories. I have less than a year here, if that, and I don’t

want people to remember me for my coldness, I want people to remember

me for my friendship and effort that I made to integrate into my

community. As I was leaving, my student’s mother said that they are

now renovating the other two rooms, and that one room can be my room.

I told her that I already have a host-family, but that I will come

back to visit soon. And I really did mean it when I said, “we will

drink tea together again soon.”

Twelve sets of attentive eyes were glued to the book that I held in my hand.  “And then the very hungry caterpillar age through three plums.  But he was still hungry,” I read upside down.  After a few pages they knew that the little caterpillar would be looking at them from the backside of the page after he had eaten through the apple or the four oranges or the five strawberries, but their outbursts of anticipation made it seem like it was the biggest surprise in the world.  When the caterpillar “wasn’t so little anymore” after eating through cakes, sweets and sausages, they giggled and said in Turkmen, “now he’s a fat caterpillar.”  I was translating only a few words, but a full comprehension of one of my favorite children’s books wasn’t my goal.  I wanted my students to enjoy the experience of having a book read to them.

 As a child my room was filled with books and by a young age I could already tell any interested party about my favorite books.  I liked books.  I enjoyed getting lost in a book and letting myself be consumed by the story.  My parents always read to me, and when my sister was born I would read to her whether she liked it or not.  I was instilled with a respect for books and with an understanding that books were fun. My first encounter with a book in Turkmenistan was in the toilet.  I am not talking about a magazine rack with a leisurely selection to be enjoyed while pondering life on the pot.  No, this book had been destroyed.  What had been a Russian novel in a former life currently had half of its pages missing.  The missing pages could be found in the waste bucket, crumpled up after past toilet goers had used them and disposed of them.  This book was my toilet paper.  Looking at the destroyed book I felt an internal dilemma begin on an almost moral level.  I had been brought up to appreciate literature, and here were the remains of Soviet books staring at me while I squatted on the toilet. What kind of culture rips up a book for toilet paper?  My first encounter with a toilet paper book was only the beginning of me trying to comprehend how little most Turkmen value books. Most houses I have been in have no book shelves or books at all.  There is always a satellite dish and a television.  Most of my students admit to never read more than their school textbooks, if they even bother to read those.  Parents don’t read to their children and there is a lack of books in the Turkmen language.  I remember how much I enjoyed being read to as a child, and it makes me sad to think about all the children in this country who will never be read to.  Those stories gave me creative inspiration.  I got to glimpse into a various worlds.  I was so full of different stories that I intuitively understood that there was always a unique way to look at life.  As a result of growing up in a culture that doesn’t value creative expression and literature, my students have a hard time thinking multilaterally.  They find it difficult to approach something abstractly, without being dictated each step.  I have realized that reading to children begins as a bonding experience between child and parent yet the effects of it continue to influence you for the rest of your life.  I read stories to my students, all of my students, and with out fail they are always more attentive during story time than any other time in class.  If they don’t understand the words, they are fixated on the pictures.  If they understand the story, I can hear them translate it to themselves in whispers as I read.  I walk around the classroom to each desk so that the students can get a close look at the pictures.  Reading can be fun, I hint at them, sometimes subtly and other times not so much.  Sit back and listen to me read.  “Let me tell you the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” I say, and story time begins.

I know that I am a month behind, but I wanted to see if the T-18s had made the news and because Turkmenistan isn't such a hotspot for news stories, they actually did make national news!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/09/ap/asia/main5373489.shtml

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091009/ap_on_re_as/as_turkmenistan_peace_corps

We are now hearing all kinds of rumors about why the T-18s weren't allowed to come and about when the next group will arrive. I am just hoping for the best, but trying to prepare myself to never get a site-mate, and to have to deal with isolation for another year. The T-16s start leaving in two weeks, and Turkmenistan is already beginning to feel emptier as we begin to say goodbyes. I am burying myself in work and running around trying to start a youth development project in my town. No matter if another group comes or if we are the last Peace Corps group in Turkmenistan, I am determined to do all that I can here until my last day of service. The T-16s have told me that time will speed up again after the new year and that the second year goes by even faster than the first. This is hard to believe, but considering that the past year has flown by, I can forsee that the count down until closing of service will speed it all up even more!

I guess that I should backtrack to Turkmenistan’s Independence Day (Happy 18 years Tstan), which I spent in Ashgabat.  While our apple carrot muffins were baking, Tess and I felt the apartment walls shake before we heard the bangs of the fireworks.  We bundled ourselves and went out to the street to watch.  The Turkmen driving by and walking with friends didn’t seem at all interested in the fireworks. As for me, there was a moment when it felt just like the Fourth of July.  My favorite fireworks are the big white kind that explode and then trickle down until they fade.  They remind me of the fairy dust I once had for a Halloween costume.  As I gazed up at the sky, and gasped and applauded at the ones I liked, I felt like I was home.  It is amazing how something familiar can trigger so many memories and make you feel transported elsewhere.  It only lasted a moment, but for that brief instant it was me, Tess, fireworks and the feeling of home.

 Back in the classroom after my trip to Ashgabat made me remember how unpredictable and hilarious my teaching experience can be.  I was teaching one of my sixth grade classes a Halloween song.  I was singing the song and pointing to the lyrics on the board.  The song went like this: “Halloween is coming soon, coming soon, coming soon.  Halloween is…Oh my god, what is that?”  The last sentence isn’t part of the song, but my reaction to a tiny critter that I saw scurry across the back of the classroom.  One of my students had decided to pack his hedgehog in his backpack and bring him to school.  The student scooped up the hedgehog and plopped him on his desk, where the little animal politely remained for the rest of the class and didn’t attempt to escape again. Most of my students are familiar with Halloween from seeing it in movies.  They know about pumpkins and scary costumes, but I promised them a Halloween party to show them more of the holiday traditions.  I asked each student to bring a little pumpkin and I had parents come to ask me why their children needed a pumpkin for English club.  We played pin the eyes on the jack o’ lantern and decorated pumpkins.  I taught them about trick or treating and they went around the school to knock on a few doors where I had teachers stationed with candy.  They brought lots of candy, cakes and cookies and I completely underestimated how much junk food 22 young children could devour in a short amount of time.  When all of the little ones were out the door, leaving behind a mess of feathers and crumbs, my older students arrived for their Halloween party.  I haven’t tried bobbing for apples in over ten years, but I got it in my head that this was a worthwhile American tradition to teach.  Their first attempts at feebly poking at the apples, trying not to get wet, were not successful.  I decided that I should demonstrate, and quickly dunked my head in the water and came up with an apple.  I was soaking wet, dripping all over my floor but my students had got the idea.  In the end each student got at least one apple and we took a photo of all of us triumphantly soaking wet.  Teaching about this American tradition and some others of equal absurdity make me wonder what people would think if that is all they were exposed to of American culture.  A people who catch apples in tubs of water, dress up in weird costumes and demand candy from strangers…really?  Take it all out of context and it starts to sound bizarre; I suspect that is true of many traditions.  Bobbing for apples was definitely something that took my students out of their comfort zone, but in class I often ask them to try to think outside the box and to take risks.  Practicing this odd tradition was another opportunity for them to see that there isn’t only one way of doing things and that acceptance and tolerance are important parts of learning about anything new.  Teaching about my culture is an opportunity to teach my students about a different way of life.  Even if it is silly to them, they are being exposed to a new culture and I believe learning about cultures is invaluable on an individual level and salubrious to the overall development of a country.

Everything happened so fast. The entire day was hectic and I barely had time to breath. I ushered the bride here and there, lifting up her dress so that she did not fall, trying to be one step ahead of everything, but not understanding half of what was being said. The day started off with a much-needed cup of coffee to get me up and out of the house. I put on my Turkmen housedress and my headscarf and I walked to Jennet’s house where all of the wedding preparations were well underway. Several women from her family and from her fiancé’s family were seated on the floor with huge bowls of vegetables and meat in front of them. They talked to me while chopping and slicing, never glancing down at their hands. The only thing more numerous than vegetables in that room were the flies that swarmed around as the children lightly waved scarves over the bowls to keep them from landing in the food. Jennet and I went to the ‘toy salon,’ an all in one locally run business that organizes everything from wedding dresses to wedding cake and makeup. Through the hairspray haze I could see maybe ten other brides and bridesmaids already in the hair salon. Every bride is told to bring three cans of hairspray, and from the smell of the room it seemed to me like every ounce of hairspray was being used. Jennet had her hair done first in an up-do with a fake ponytail attached to supplement her own hair. She had fake nails put on which left her unable to do anything with her hands, and therefore put me in charge of answering her phone, lifting up her dress, and doing any other action that would involve using her hands. I took a chance and also had my hair done. What started out looking like a beehive ended up as a French twist, kept in place with a bottle of hairspray. Despite feeling like I was wearing a helmet, the hairdo looked good from afar and went well with my dress. I escaped to the dressing room after dodging the makeup artist who insisted that I needed my eyebrows penciled in. A group of women ever so gently slipped on Jennet’s wedding dress and the hairstylist attached her veil. Her fiancé arrived with flowers and so began the daylong photo shoot. They filmed me gingerly laughing while pretending to fix her veil. Then she had to look longingly into the mirror and smile coyly, because Turkmen brides are supposed to be shy, but really nothing about Jennet says timid. The cameraman announced me to be a “super model” and so beautiful that he forever wanted to film me, and he continued to be that creepy though out the day. The cameraman wanted more photos, but Jennet demanded that we go because we were already so late after spending almost four hours in the salon. The bride, groom, bridesmaid and best man traveled in a decorated new model Toyota to the café where the wedding ceremony would take place. The woman from the wedding registration office recited a little speech about “independent and eternally neutral Turkmenistan and the respected president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov declaring” the bride and groom married on October 19, 2009 and they exchanged wedding bands. I got to sign the wedding certificate as Jennet’s witness, and they opened a bottle of champagne and cut the cake to celebrate. It is tradition to drive in a long line of decorated cars to various monuments and parks to take photographs. We drove to the neighboring district to take photographs on the “catamaran” as it was beforehand described to me. The “lake” turned out to be more like a puddle and the “catamaran” broke down while we were on it. The boat captain pushed us back to shore with a piece of wood. It would have all been very funny except for that at the same time the wedding singer canceled without any notice. This left us sitting on the inoperative boat as Jennet furiously dictating to me how to use her cell phone to call another singer to see if they were free to come immediately. I held the phone to her ear as she arranged for the new singer to go straight to her house where the wedding would start in less than an hour. Except for a few of us in the wedding party, nobody noticed that anything went wrong and the singer was setting up the stage as we arrived back at Jennet’s house. The best man and I held a fringed piece of fabric over the bride and groom’s heads as we walked out of the house and onto the street. The bride and groom walked out from under the protective fabric hand in hand to go dance. It was still early and there were only a few people standing on the street. In village and town weddings on the street people come and stand on the side of the road to watch, and go to the center when they want to dance. In less than an hour it felt like the entire town had shown up and was staring at us. The four of us were seated on a little stage decorated with frilly ribbons and gauze. Being the bridesmaid, I had to say my toast first and I struggled to remember my trilingual toast as I started to tear up and get emotional. Jennet had dared me to say a toast in three languages and half way through the Russian portion I started to cry and had to abandon the rest of it. I made Jennet cry too, but we were both wearing waterproof mascara so it was not too serious. When I got to the part about Jennet being my Turkmen sister, I couldn’t hold back the tears and I think the Turkmen are still confused as to why I was crying. Everyone except the bride is supposed to be really happy at the wedding and I broke tradition by crying. Maybe they will blame it on an unknown American wedding tradition. Throughout the evening the music was interrupted by guests making toasts to the couple and presenting gifts. A total of eleven Peace Corps volunteers attended the wedding. As a group we made a big toast to the couple and this time I didn’t cry. We danced with Jennet’s family and found out that her mom can shake it better than Shakira. It was quite the spectacle for my town to have eleven Americans there. Hundreds of students and teachers came and it was by far the most people I have ever seen at a Turkmen wedding. Jennet’s sister handed out the little sachets of two sugars wrapped in lace, which symbolize a sweet life together. Whenever Jennet and her husband, Tolkun, got up to dance people would give them money and wish them prosperity. One of Tolkun’s sisters followed them around with a bag to collect the money. The wedding at Jennet’s house ended with a Turkmen tradition that consists of covering the bride in a large shawl so that her face and arms are covered. The groom is dressed in a Turkmen robe and traditional Muslim hat. The groom’s friends throw him up into the air three times and then he leads the bride into her house to say her goodbyes to her family. Like most Turkmen young women, Jennet has lived with her parents for her entire life and will be leaving her parents’ house forever. The Turkmen verb ‘to get married’ for women literally translates to ‘go out for life.’ It refers to the tradition that the new bride will move into her husband’s parents’ house, and take on the demanding role of a new bride that includes housework, cooking and cleaning. This final moment of the wedding is really emotional for the bride and her family. The couple stands in a room as a group of older women sing and pray for them and a final prayer is said before the daughter leaves the house forever. The veiled bride kisses her parents goodbye and is ushered to the waiting wedding car that will take her to her new home, and to another wedding party that will last long into the night. Two of her sister in laws and I accompanied Jennet to the neighboring district where her husband lives. A smaller, more intimate wedding party was already set up and the singer and dancer were already entertaining when we arrived. At this point we were exhausted and it was beginning to get cold. We had kept ourselves warm dancing, but were now too tired to get up much. We listened to toasts and accepted presents much like the first wedding party. Around eleven thirty I ushered Jennet into the house to prepare her for the wedding night. All of her possessions and new bedding and linens her mother prepared were already set up in their room. We were not allowed to be alone in the room and somebody from each side of the family had to be present at all times, but we finally got a little time to relax and eat something. I opened up the back of Jennet’s dress and took down her hair. We were both so tired, but still giddy because it had all gone so well in the end. I waited with Jennet until it was time for her and her husband to be alone. I had been so preoccupied with the wedding for the past few weeks and all of a sudden I had nothing else I had to do. It was all over. Up until this point I had done everything with Jennet, but now she was living in a different town with a different family—it is going to take some getting used to. This entire wedding experience was a once in a lifetime chance and I was involved in every aspect of the wedding. This was my first time as a bridesmaid and it was possibly the most unique first experience I could have. I was honored to be her bridesmaid and I have already invited her to be one of my bridesmaids in my wedding. Luckily for me, I can have more than one bridesmaid because I couldn’t pick just one of my friends to do the job. I am sure of two things after this wedding—1.) I will definitely have all of my best friends at my wedding and 2.) I will definitely not be wearing fake nails.

October 1st marked one year in country for me. Already a year has passed since I first arrived to this isolated and mysterious place. October 1st was also the date that we were all anxiously expecting the T-18 group of volunteers. We arrived with 44 volunteers and now our T-17 group is down to 37. We had been counting the days for some months now until the new group of PCVs arrived. A year ago we had been the newbies, fresh off the plane, scared and unsure of this new and unfamiliar place. This year my group, the T-17s, would play the role of the veteran PCVs, the ones who were settled and seemed at ease in this country. But we never got that chance and most likely we will not. We found out on September 28th, two days before the T-18s were scheduled to arrive, that the Turkmen government had not granted the proper permission for them to come. When I received a text message from a fellow volunteer simply stating, “The T-18s aren’t coming”, I quickly texted her back, “Don’t joke around.” As it turns out, she wasn’t joking and it all turned out to be one big disappointment. Of course I am extremely sad about the T-18s not coming, and I was so looking forward to having a site-mate starting in December, but the saddest part about all of this is that the whole situation does not surprise me. The entire fiasco mirrors my daily battle of securing permissions in Turkmenistan, albeit on a larger scale, but there are direct correlations that I can see. First, the government acted at the last minute. Typically, I find out about everything at the very last minute here and it leaves me rushing around to try to accomplish anything. Second, the refusal was done in an indirect manner. Two days before they were due to arrive, the Turkmen government sent a letter saying, “The T-18s are invited to come the Fall of 2010.” At first Peace Corps thought that it must be a typo, but there was no mistake. Instead of completely prohibiting the trainees to come, they have been delayed—similar to me going to the train station, asking about tickets and being told to come back tomorrow, then going back the next day and being told to come back the following day. This pattern will continue, and in the end I will still not have any tickets. Third, there was no concise reason given about why the volunteers can’t come. Last week my counterpart went to get her wedding registration and the lady told her to come back the next day. There was no explanation given, and the languid lady just went back to drinking her tea. My counterpart went back the following day and was told that she should have come sooner because it is now too late to get the registration by the wedding day. All in all the system is nonsensical from my point of view. But this doesn’t change the fact that this system is what runs this country. I didn’t expect the cancellation of the T-18 group, but the way that it paned out does not surprise me in the least bit. I am trying not to feel too sorry for myself because I have lived one year here without a site-mate and I will survive the next year by myself, too. I also don’t blame anybody or any institution because I don’t completely understand the reasons behind the decision. I do feel badly for the T-18 group who had done all of the material and emotional preparations for leaving, only to be told at the last minute that they wouldn’t be coming at all. I clearly remember the emotional rollercoaster that I went through the last few weeks before departure, and a last minute let down would have been enough to send me into depression. I also feel sorry for the Peace Corps staff that has been working non-stop to prepare everything for the 49 expected T-18s. I had no idea the extent of the work that happens before our arrival and I marvel that some of the Turkmen staff were able to work through Ramadan month while fasting and barely sleeping. The Turkmen staff are so dedicated and so believe deeply in the Peace Corps program that they travel all over the country to find homes and workplaces for us, always with our best interests in mind. I know that the T-17s are all sad and angry that things have turned out this way, but we will figure out how to keep going just like we have up until this point. It might be a little lonely at times with less than forty of us here, but I imagine that by December 2010 we will be a very tight group of friends. I think that in the next fourteen months we will really find out how much we can take care of each other, support each other, celebrate victories together and mourn losses. Despite the setback, we will be okay…it is another product of “the system” and knowing how to handle “the system” and maintain our sanity and happiness at the same time is a highly unrecognized PCV Turkmenistan talent!

What is family for you? I believe that the answer to this question will vary drastically according to your culture and heritage. Recently I discussed family with my advanced students. We are reading a book about an American family, and while pre-reading it, I realized that the family in the book is very different from what a family consists of in Turkmenistan. I asked my students to do a fifteen-minute creative writing assignment about what family is for them. One student wrote, “Family is such a difficult word to write about because it is the most important thing in our lives.” Family is everything in Turkmenistan. Sons may live with their parents their entire lives, raising a family under the same roof where they grew up. Daughters typically live at home until they marry and then move to their husband’s house and become part of a new family unit there. My students were shocked to hear that I hadn’t lived at home for longer than a three-month period since I was eighteen. And more importantly, that this was my choice. Many families want their daughters to stay at home rather than to enroll in university because they need help with the domestic work. I told my students that my parents supported my decision to do Peace Corps, but if they hadn’t, I could have defied them and come anyways. Disobeying parents is viewed as a huge loss of face in this culture. There is a huge amount of respect for elders, and rebelling is rarely heard of. A friend of mine got married recently because her parents had decided it was time and quickly arranged a husband for her. She told me that it was her parents’ wish and that she could not confront her parents because then the entire community would gossip about her parents’, especially her father’s, lack of authority in the house. Another of my students wrote, “I think that family is my mother, father, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles. My cousins are also my brothers and sisters.” Typical families in Turkmenistan are very large compared to the average American. My host-father has nine brothers and one sister. Family in Turkmenistan means extended family members and not just the nuclear family. When I speak about my family I will list my mom, dad, sister and my dog. My entire family consists of many more people, but my instinct is to talk only about the family members with whom I lived. When I ask my students about their families, they will attempt to list out every single family member they can remember (and most often they can’t remember all of them because the families are so large). One student wrote, “Family for me are the people I can’t live a day without seeing. If I don’t see my mother for one day, I am very sad.” Turkmen families tend to live in the same community, so they see each other often. My students couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen my mother’s side of the family for seven years, because they are constantly seeing family members float in and out of their houses. My student, Chynar, wrote that she believes “family is more than just a mother, father, sister or brother. Family can be friends or, I know this may sound silly, animals too. Family is anyone or anything that you love very much.” What Chynar wrote was controversial in our class. Most of my students believed family consisted of only people you were related to. Chynar argued that it was how much you loved someone or something that should deem it family. I mentioned that I considered my friends at college as family because we lived together and were each other’s family when we were all away from home. I also argued that my fellow volunteers here are like family because we are all in this situation together and have to support and help each other so much. More than friends being considered family, it was animals being included that sparked some heated discussion. Animals in Turkmenistan are mostly kept outside and dogs are abused so much that they are either scared of everything that moves or want to bite everything that moves. Some students said they had pets they loved, but thought they were too dirty to be in the house and part of the family. I told my students that my dog is the best listener in the family because she will listen to you forever and snuggle if you pet her. They thought this was funny. But I have seen children kick dogs way more often than pet a dog. All in all, animals are not considered part of the family, or even close to it. I believe that a distinction in family values is one of the biggest cultural differences between America and Turkmenistan. The family unit in both cultures is important, but defining exactly what family is unveils cultural values that run much deeper than just family. We value individuality, independence and personal success much more than Turkmen. Whereas Turkmen prefer to do things in a group, among family, Americans are more likely to want to distinguish themselves individually. If we fail, then it is our personal responsibility, but in Turkmenistan, if you are a disappointment to the family, then this will reflect poorly on your entire family in the community at large. But I believe that family here is less likely to allow something bad happen to one of their own than in America. The extended family is the social support network in Turkmenistan and if you need something, family will be there for you. I think that many families in America do not help support each other emotionally and financially like Turkmen families. For me, a traditional Turkmen family meal is the perfect expression of the communal and family centered life-style. Sitting on the floor around a rectangular shaped mat, families will often share food off of the same plate. The entire family will sit down to eat together and the meal will last one or two hours until the teapots runs dry. There are so many families in America who don’t eat together, and this daily act of coming together as a family has been replaced by each individual’s hectic schedule that make family meals too inconvenient. Sometimes I think that American families would benefit from just sitting down together and drinking some tea. We focus so much on our individual pursuits and the fastest way to do things, that the need for a strong family foundation based around communal meals and conversation is more and more being seen as a waste of time. It might be wise to learn a little from Turkmen about family. With stronger families, there are more connected communities and a system of support and assistance when you need it. In Turkmen culture, the beginning of a relationship always starts with a cup of tea. Slow down and drink some tea!

I would have to write a blog post everyday in order to fully describe my life here. And the honest truth is that I don’t have enough time each day to sit in front of my computer and write a recap of my day. This being said, I feel that lots of little things are being left out that I feel just as compelled to share as the big things. Sometimes the subtle details in my day are the most moving and have the biggest impact on my life. There is one little boy in my sixth form class who is more interested in playing with his ruler than ever learning English. He fidgets and stares out the window until my counterpart yells at him or the other students call him “stupid” and “an animal.” This little guy would be a lost cause for most Turkmen teachers and would sit in the back of the class and never learn a word of English in ten years. When I am teaching, I consider all students equal no matter how the Turkmen teacher would treat them. I call on the students in the back and I immediately stop any snickering when the slower students stutter over new words. We were learning the days of the week and I throw a hack sack that I made to each student to drill them on the new vocabulary. I tell them to pay attention because it might come flying at them at any moment. Once again this particular student was giving all his attention to his ruler when I threw the hack sack at him and it slid onto his ruler in front of him. He looked up at me wide eyed like he was under the impression that nobody could see him. I asked him how to say “birinji gun” and after a brief pause he said “Monday.” Correct. So, he had been listening. I gave him a huge smile and said good job and he grinned back at me. Now, he had put down his ruler and was watching me. We played a memory game after this and he didn’t win. But he got second place and was so excited that he did a little dance in the aisle. This was a brief moment of celebration that I wish could have lasted longer; I was so proud. My Turkmen tutor got married last month and she informed me ahead of time that she wanted me to make a toast. At Turkmen weddings the music and dancing are periodically interrupted by various family members and friends taking the microphone and making toasts. Ever since going to my first wedding back in training and being forced to say something in front of several hundred Turkmen, I promised myself that I would learn how to say an extraordinary toast that I could repeat at every wedding from there on out. But, I had failed to do this and still resorted to saying my toasts in English because I had yet to memorize anything past “congratulations…” For Gowher’s wedding I sat down and actually memorized all of the toasts she had taught me six months earlier. At the wedding I was just asking Robin about how I would know when to go up there when the master of ceremonies announced that Gowher’s friend from America would come up to make a toast. Okay, so that is how I know when to toast. The wedding reception was in a large converted movie theater, and as I walked down the stairs to the stage in the front, my hands began to shake I was so nervous. Another English teacher from my school was making a toast after me, and a few of us lined up on the side of the stage. The cameraman stuck his camera 3 feet from my face and the bright light made me sweat even more than I already was from the nerves. I began my toast with the pedestrian line “congratulations on your wedding” but then continued in Turkmen with every congratulation that I still remembered. A few words into my second sentence, the English teacher behind me elbowed me in the ribs and hissed “In English, In English!” Through the entirety of my toast, she didn’t let up. I grabbed her arm and forcefully held it at bay so that I could continue until my final congratulation and wish for my friend. Most people actually want me to toast in English at their weddings because they want me on film as proof that there was an actual real blooded American present, but Gowher had asked me to say it in Turkmen since she is the one who has taught me almost everything I know. The older women in Turkmenistan feel no shame in telling you what to do, and this 60-something year old teacher felt that it was completely acceptable to elbow me until I conceded. For me, this was an intrusion into my personal space and right to say what I want, but just like the babushkas in Russia, the older women here have been through enough, and have been around long enough, to have the authority to tell anyone what to do—even what language to speak, I guess.

The school year is off to a chaotic start. But I had expected this. The piles of handwritten documents, schedules, grade books and curricula have yet to be completed and everything is at a standstill until they are signed and stamped by the director. The Soviet system of "spravki" (paper documents) for everything from permissions to equipment requests is still very much alive. When I lived in Russia we spent a few months studying "spravki" in all its forms, and how to properly write them. After months of learning about "spravki" I never wanted to see one again, but they are asked for everywhere still in former Soviet countries. The schedule for all 10 grades had to be hand written. There are four groups of each form, so a total of 40 schedules were painstakingly written in cramped letters. With each change, a new schedule was written out. The schedule covered 12 pieces of 8" by 11" white paper. Of course it had the director’s stamp of approval as well. I too have gotten used to handwriting everything for classes because of a lack of a copier. If I don’t have time to individually handwrite all of the exercises or texts, I will write them out on the chalkboard and the students will copy them into their notebooks. My chalkboard doesn’t work very well and I must first wipe where I want to write with a wet cloth and then write. If I try to write on it dry, the words are barely visible. I appreciate the efficiency of technology and the convenience of whiteboards more and more. It is cotton season now in Turkmenistan. During the Soviet Union, the government basically drained the Aral Sea by diverting the two biggest rivers in the area, the Amu Derya and the Syr Derya, to make Central Asia fertile cotton country. The Syr Derya runs west through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan until it empties into the Aral Sea. The Amu Derya runs north-west from Turkmenistan to Kazakhstan and also empties into the Sea. The fields around where I live are still watered by the Amu Derya. From about 1960 the Aral Sea’s water level was drastically reduced because of the diversion of water from the rivers for agricultural irrigation. The Soviet government converted large acreages of untilled land in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan into irrigated farmlands. By the 1980s, during the summer months, the two formerly great rivers dried up before even reaching the lake and the Aral Sea began to quickly shrink due to the evaporation of its unreplenished waters. The increased irrigation on the hot, dry regions around the Amu Derya has resulted in evaporation that has left salt deposits that make the soil infertile. Also, surface runoff has transported the salts to the river, increasing the salinity of the Amu Derya. The farms in my region water using a flood technique. They will open up the canals that come off of the Amu Derya and completely flood their fields. When the huge amount of excess water evaporates, there is a white blanket of salt on the surface. The water in the region north of Lebap, Dahoguz is too salty to drink and entire communities are suffering from health problems related to the salinity of the water. The salt is slowly leaching down to northern Lebap and I first noticed the salt left over after irrigation last fall when I was out on my usual running route. I run on the small dirt roads that weave through the fields, and with each step my shoes would break through a thick crust of salt that had formed after a routine flood irrigation. My town has been ripping up the streets to lay pipes for fresh drinking water, but the smaller villages have no such luxury. The Aral Sea is of great concern to environmental scientists, but the leeching of salt into the surface water in Turkmenistan has the potential to cause great health problems and is not being addressed. This entire environmental catastrophe began with the vision of creating a vast area of fertile cotton fields that would supply the Union with cotton enough for everyone. To this day, Turkmenistan is still very proud of their cotton. When the school children learn about the "riches of Turkmenistan," gas, oil and cotton are included. My sixth grade class learns the verb "to pick" before they learn the verb "to study." They learn the word "cotton" before they learn "family." The cotton season began last week and will continue for two months. There are some cotton-picking machines, but the majority is picked by hand, and not by choice. The teachers at my school are required to pick cotton each day after classes. Under the old president, children were allowed to skip school to go pick cotton, but this has since been prohibited. Still, I have seen a drop in student attendance in the last week (and this is even more true in the smaller villages that are still collective farms). At the end of a shift, they must weigh the cotton and fill out a "spravka" that states how much they picked. For each kilo they are given 1,000 manat (7 cents). My counterpart told me that she picks about 17 kilos in a four-hour afternoon shift (17,000 manat =$1.20). For those who don’t have time or don’t want to pick cotton, they pay someone to pick their quota of cotton. As long as the quota is met, it doesn’t matter who is actually out in the fields. No matter who collects the cotton, it is loaded onto huge trucks that take it to the cotton plant on the edge of town. The government owns the cotton. The entire cotton industry is government owned just like the gas and oil industries. Fittingly, it is called "Turkmen Cotton" and the green government trucks all share the same logo showing a cotton boll with white fluffy cotton fiber inside. For now, cotton picking is the priority and all of the fields must be emptied of "ak altyn" (white gold). During the Soviet Union the comrades were required to pick cotton as a collective, to gather it all together and to send it off somewhere. Now, the only difference is that they are paid a few cents for their work, but not much else has changed in the white gold industry.

"…and the only way to endure it all was the perfection of irony." -Lenin’s Tomb, David Remnick Although this quote refers to the tumultuous last years of the Soviet Union, it seems to somehow embody my life here. I wish that I could find all of the irony humorous, but sometimes it translates into frustration before I look back on it and see the actual absurdity of what happened. Sometimes I need to laugh at myself. Sometimes I need to turn my back and walk away to hide my laughter over situations that Turkmen find completely normal. Sometimes I laugh when everyone else does just because I have no idea what is really going on. Sometimes I laugh with my students about something that we know we couldn’t talk about anywhere else. There is irony in my everyday life. I believe that it happens because of the incongruity between how I am as an American, how I want to be seen in my community, and how Turkmen actually see me. Also, the irony stems from my expectations and pre-assumptions as an American and the way things actually work here. I think that the best way to illustrate the irony that often escalates to ridiculousness in my life is by example: "Get out the doctor’s alcohol." One is often pressured into drinking shots of vodka while guesting but when the vodka runs out you can always have "doctor’s alcohol." There is already a room full of drunk Turkmen, one slightly displaced and confused American and no more alcohol. Oh, wait, there is some more! Get the wife to fetch the rubbing alcohol and continue toasting. See, there was never any problem to begin with. The gamble here: do you drink and wake up blind the next morning or do you not drink and hope that nobody remembers in the morning? "Permissions" I changed houses. It has already been two months. I got permission from Peace Corps, the local police did a background check on the family to make sure there weren’t any suspicious characters, and I got the approval to move. Within three days of moving, I need to notify immigration of my new address. In my policy and procedure book the explanation of this process spans a few sentences. In reality, two months later, and four trips to the immigration office, it has not been successful. First, I had to track down my counterpart who has no cell phone and no house. She lives in the back of this farmer’s bank in the village and it took me a week to just find this random building. Turns out she had gone to the city with her family, so there was no way to contact her. I waited and waited. She turned up at school and I explained that I needed this registration similar to what we did when I first arrived. Easy enough, right? Wrong. We drafted a letter to the immigration. First trip—the address for the immigration office was wrong and they needed a new letter. Second trip—they need a copy of my host mother’s passport and a copy of the host family contract. Third trip—the letter doesn’t have the director’s signature or stamp. My counterpart tried to ask the director to sign the letter, but he refused because I did not ask his permission to move. I had told him about moving, but I didn’t think to ask his permission because since when does one ask permission from their boss to move? Even Turkmen teachers wouldn’t ask the director for permission. It all culminated at the local education ministry in a meeting with me, my counterpart, the director, the Etrap methodologist and the Etrap head of education. I tried to stand up for myself, but in the end the director refused to sign, stating that I needed to ask his permission before I moved and that I shouldn’t have moved. The conversation was in such fast Turkmen and I tried to keep up but ended up just going home and crying by myself. Fourth trip—the immigration guy said that the letter still needs the director’s signature since he is my supervisor. When my counterpart said that the director refused to sign, the immigration guy, who gave all of the new volunteers such trouble with the initial registration back in December, said, "why does he refuse when she has the right to move?" Even this guy supports me! Why is nothing as easy to accomplish as stated on paper? Two months of trying to deal with this and it has all ended with no registration and the director now not even acknowledging my "hellos" or basic existence at school. "A PCV on vacation" You can take the PCV out of Turkmenistan, but you can’t take Turkmenistan out of the PCV. We would like to think that we can still go back to the developed world and abide by the social norms, but when one PCV’s family had to extract her from the produce aisle after she had spent copious amounts of time fondling all the vegetable and voicing her great affection for the wild berries, this assumption turned out to be incorrect. We spend large amounts of time thinking about what we miss from home, mostly food and decent alcohol, and then when we come face to face with our fantasized Guinness beer or dark chocolate bar, we tend to overreact. This starts a cycle of wondering about exactly where we belong. Most people at home haven’t even heard of Turkmenistan, but they wonder exactly what goes on there when they see the weird habits we brought back. Don’t you tap the bubbles in your tea on your forehead for good luck? Don’t you spit several times into your shirt after something scares you? Right, that is in Turkmenistan. We go on vacation, but we have to stay on the middle of the bridge, not totally reintegrating at home in order to make returning to Turkmenistan easier. We want to throw ourselves into western culture, but only this is when we realize just how "Turkmen" we have become. "Back from vacation" One PCV told me that there is nobody who needs a vacation more than a PCV who just came back from vacation. Sadly, this is true. Coming back from vacation is a practice of difficult reintegration and a personal struggle with how badly you actually want to be here. The PCV boards the plane from London, Delhi, Bangkok, Istanbul and wonders if anybody has ever not returned from vacation and just gone home. Getting back to site is like dipping your toe in a hot bath—you can’t just get in all at once. The PCV tells and retells about the fabulous time "across the border," but also tries to forget how nice it was to have a shower and sharp cheddar cheese. Now we feel like we have a long ways to come back to our simple life in the village. After feeling worn out, tired and frustrated at site, we have spent the vacation trying to get a break from Turkmenistan, and once back it feels like that respite hasn’t made anything easier. "2 years" It seems like a long time. It felt daunting when I left, but now I have already been here for almost a year and I am starting to feel like I don’t have enough time to accomplish everything that I would like. I know that a year is still a decent amount of time, but when I look at it in terms of vacations (since that is a PCV way of telling time) I only have 2 vacations left. The new group is coming and the old group is headed out and I feel like I am still just getting to know them. I am in a mid-service crisis and I want some project to work on other than my clubs. But staying true to the grassroots philosophy, I am still trying to do community assessment to create the best project for them. Really, I just want to start something…but then I would feel like a Peace Corps traitor. Two years in grassroots time is enough to sit down and drink some tea. I have time, but things do seem more pressing than 8 months ago when I felt like I had all the time in the world. "Intravenous drip" I was over at my friend’s house and we were hanging out and talking when the nurse came over. It was time for my friend to be hooked up to an IV for her saline drip. Her mom got out the T shaped mop handle, used a scarf to tie it to a chair, and the nurse hung the IV on the mop. As I watched around the door as all of this happened in less than five minutes, everybody forgot I was there or didn’t know what to do with me and considered ignoring me the best option. The nurse asked for vodka and cleaned my friend’s arm. Then I watched as she inserted the needle and started fiddling with the IV drip to make it work. I don’t know if it ever started working because I went over and told my friend that I was leaving and the nurse gave me a look of surprise like I had jumped out of nowhere. It was another moment where I was watching all of this and analyzing from an American point of view, finding it all a bit strange and then realizing that it was all completely normal for them and that I was the most out of place thing in the room.

Last week was the long planned summer camp that I had been stressed out about for the past month. It wasn’t so much the work that had to be put into the camp that was stressing me out, but it was the possibility that the director or anyone else could suddenly tell me I couldn’t have it and that would be the end of it. I had been promising my students that I would try my best to have this camp, and I know that they were rooting for me to get permission. I think that their undying support did help me gain permission in the first place. All the way back in the end of May I advertised for the camp at my school and had any interested students come take a test. They all thought that they had to get a certain score to get into the camp, but little did they know that the test was merely a tool for me to see how many students I should expect. Because the last volunteer at my site four years ago ran into problems from the director when she applied for a grant to cover the cost of a summer camp, I decided to avoid money all together and used some supplies sent to me by family friends and then got creative with everything else.

The camp was six days long and split into two groups of three days each. For the first three days we had 4th-6th graders and for the second part we had 7th-10th graders. I had three Turkmen teachers assisting me and another PCV from the neighboring etrap came to help, too. We had more than enough help, but the younger kids still exhausted us by the end! Each day of camp started with “Morning Assembly” that consisted of trying to wrangle all the students and then sing a few songs. I taught them “Boom Chicka Boom” and once they had learned it, we sang it different ways. I think they found my sobbing version of “Boom Chicka Boom” with my flamboyant fake crying and wailing the most hilarious. They don’t often see adults acting as silly as that, but putting myself on the extreme end of things allowed them to act goofy as well. Following the songs, we did group games and team activities. The girls turned out to be extremely skilled at carrying a ball on a spoon. My theory is that they have carried so many hot bowls of soup in their lives, that they know how to keep their hands steady while walking. They struggled to work together on the 3-legged race and got extremely competitive at the relay races. On the last day we filled up water balloons and did a balloon toss outside. Several students got wet eventually, but the balloons weren’t breaking very easily. One girl got completely soaked by a balloon and she was a good sport about it and just laughed at herself. With the older kids we had pairs of students make shapes with their bodies while having their eyes closed. The older students displayed excellent teamwork and communicated very well even when I had them blindfolded or not allowed to speak. I was impressed by how well they worked together even when given the difficult tasks that I had set (like the trust fall or leading your partner blindfolded through a course). Overall I think that we did lots of games with the students that they had never done before, using objects that they all have around the house. I was happy that I could do something new and creative with the students that challenged them to step outside their comfort zone and try something different.

After the games we split into groups and did different activities with the smaller groups. Despite the extreme weather, the first day we had a dance session. To see a group of Turkmen teenagers doing the Chattahoochee like they are in small-town Kentucky was incredible! Turkmen love to dance and although some of the younger kids had a problem keeping rhythm they were tapping, shuffling, turning and Macarena hand jiving away no matter if they were way off beat. In addition to the dance, one of the Turkmen teachers taught them origami and they made flapping birds and little dogs. The second day of camp was Christmas themed and we watched Mr.Bean’s Christmas with the younger kids and Elf with the older kids, made Christmas boxes out of origami and I taught a Christmas English lesson. The camp was conducted all in English and this lesson was the only official lesson, but of course it was fun. In addition to vocabulary and a reading activity, I taught them Jingle Bells and we played “pin the star on the Christmas tree.” For the third day we had a Halloween theme. The younger students made scary Halloween masks and went trick-o-treating through the classrooms. Definitely the highlight of the last day was the puppet show. With the first group I gave them printed dialogues with cats, bats, witches, ghosts and monsters. They made a puppet according to their dialogue, practices with their partner and performed behind a makeshift puppet stage for the class. With the older students I gave them freedom to write a dialogue themselves about anything they wanted. We had a Frankenstein monster and his love interest, Indians, rabbits, witches and one character called “Bad Boy.” Some of my more advanced students came up with witty and entertaining puppet shows that had us all laughing and enthusiastically applauding at the end. Because of the low English ability of the younger students, I was more limited with what I could do, but the older kids impressed me with their creativity and ease performing in front of their peers. The camp ended on a high-note after the puppet show as we tried to squish ourselves together to get one last memory, a group photo.

At the end of the camp I talked on the phone to my Turkmen friend with whom I went to college. During her childhood she attended PCV camps and looks back on them as some of her fondest memories. As I expressed that I wish that I could so something more for these kids, she reminded me that my little camp could be the most exciting thing that they do all summer, or that the “camper of the day” certificates could be their biggest achievement. Sometimes I forget to put my work here into perspective and that even the small projects I organize and the small changes I see in my kids are little victories I must not overlook.

When I get a chance to look at the news headlines each week I usually see a story about the war in Afghanistan. Since I arrived in Turkmenistan I have been scanning over these headlines, yet not often clicking on them to read the full story. Frequently stories of success are tainted by the overwhelming majority of stories about death and bombings. Sadly, these stories about soldiers and combatants who have perished during the war are so common that they have become trite. I do want to stay informed about what is happening in Afghanistan, and recently I read the story about American troops pulling out of towns and cities and I have been keeping up to date on the situation in Basra after the “changing of the knights.” Although Turkmenistan and Afghanistan border, one may live in Turkmenistan without even knowing that there is a war to the south. Life here seems so far from the turmoil across the border; the only evidence of the war is the refugee camp in southern Mary Welayat filled with mostly Afghan refugees. When my parents called me last week and told me that a guy who I have known since I was little had been taken hostage by the Taliban, I was shocked. This news made the headline I later saw on Al Jazeera (my English language news channel) of personal concern, and I would have probably barely noticed it otherwise. All of a sudden, I felt so far away from home. And all of a sudden I realized that each soldier mentioned in those headlines means the world to their family and friends back at home. Here I am so close to Afghanistan and I thought about what my parents would do if they got news that I was in danger over here. I think about my safety constantly, and so does Peace Corps. Because of the government’s control, this country is extremely safe and despite my previous concern about the close proximity to Afghanistan, I have never felt in danger here. My heart goes out to Bowe and all of his family and friends back in Idaho. After telling the other PCVs in Lebap about Bowe, we decided that we need to go on a Peace Corps rescue mission to go find him. We all think about our family and friends back in America so often and find comfort in the memories and photos that we bring along with us. It is difficult enough being so far away from all of your loved ones, and I can not even imagine how much courage it takes to make it through the day in Bowe’s situation. Of course our rescue mission is implausible, but what we all were attempting to express was how much we commiserate. We are praying for Bowe and his safe release. The second goal of the Peace Corps is to teach host-country nationals about American culture and traditions. The third goal is to educate Americans about the country where you are doing/did your service. After my primary work as a teacher, my job is to build an understanding between cultures. With so much resentment, anger and frustration across the border, Turkmenistan is next door to a country where America is viewed more as an invader than as an ally. I want to be a part of the process to build awareness about cultural differences and to educate about tolerance and appreciation of foreign cultures. I am not talking only about teaching Turkmen about America, but I believe that Americans also have a lot to learn about the world at large. Did you know exactly where Turkmenistan was before you saw the little map on my blog? Do you know that there are an estimated 2 million ethnic Turkmen living in Afghanistan? Because I am cut off from most news sources here, I have been religiously reading any magazine (Economist and National Geographic have been my favorites) that I can get my hands on. Because of my lack of news, I am making a huge effort to try to stay informed, and the result has been me staying more informed that I often was in the U.S. I never thought that this would be the case. It is not easy to stay up to date, but with some effort (and everything takes a bit more effort here) it is entirely possible and necessary. I may live in an isolated country, but I do not want to feel isolated myself. I have spent this past week thinking a lot about my family and about the people I care the most about. I will be honest and say that it was not the easiest week for me, and it was probably the most homesick that I have been so far. Yet even when I miss all my loved ones so much, I know that I don’t really want to leave. I am so lucky to have so many people who are supporting me and encouraging me through all the hard times. In less than one week my feet will be on British soil and I will be gorging myself with avocados and digestive cookies, freezing my butt off in the 26-degree weather and catching up on the last 10 months with some good mother-daughter time. Recently I have become addicted to watching Top Chef and I have almost blown through a whole season in a week (I spend lots of time working as you can tell). I basically sit in front of my computer and squeal about all the good food that I can’t have. The losing dish on each episode looks great to me. I have already started my list of “foods I must eat in England” and I want to write to Top Chef and recommend they do a Peace Corps volunteer quickfire challenge where the contestants have the rudimentary cooking facilities, supplies and equipment of a PCV. Let’s see just how good they are when they have cotton seed oil, rice, moldy carrots, onion, one pan, one gas burner that barely works and a knife that barely cuts garlic (those are the only ingredients my first host-family had available at one point last winter)!

On Wednesday I spent about 15 minutes scrolling through the one thousand plus television channels that my new host family has. Each Turkmen house, no matter how small, is towered over by a large satellite that picks up everything from Russian to Chinese to Arabic channels. At my former host family I was never able to have the television to myself, and very rarely watched TV at all. When my new host brother handed me the remote because he had to go out and kill a chicken for dinner, I relished in opportunity to look for news channels broadcast in English. Eight hundred channels later, I found Aljazeera in English and plopped myself on the floor in front of the television. The big story on the news was the unrest in Urumqi in western China. I was previously aware of the tension between the Han Chinese and the Muslim minority in the region, the Uighur [weegher]. Interestingly enough, this is something I didn’t know until I got to Turkmenistan, the Uighur speak a language very similar to Uzbek (See Uighur women in first photo and an Uzbek woman in the second photo). The region where the Uighurs live used to be in Turkestan and they speak a Turkic language. One of my friends here just went on vacation to China and she searched for a Uighur restaurant where she could show off her Turkmen language skills. She tracked down a restaurant, ordered entirely in Turkmen and ate a meal that is standard in Lebap—palow, yoghurt and naan. On Monday I had just talked with her about the Uighurs and we weren’t aware of what was going on in XinJiang. As I was watching this story on Aljazeera, my host family came in with lunch and we kept the television on as we ate. Although there were no sound bites of the Uighurs speaking, my host family drew the conclusion that they were Uzbek because of their clothing. My host family is educated and pretty aware of world events, but the resemblance was so uncanny that I understood their confusion. The materials, dress styles and hats are almost identical to those in Uzbekistan. The women on the television were wearing traditional knee length shirts, loose pants and square hats, similar to those worn by many women in my town. It took me several minutes to explain to my host family that these people they were seeing on the television were Chinese and not Turkmen or Uzbek. I don’t know if they actually ended up believing me, but I told them the story of my friend in China and my host mom’s response was, “mmm…maybe,” still pondering whether of not I was trying to trick her. “No, really, she spoke to them all in Turkmen and they understood,” I declared. Again, “mmm…maybe” was the response I got. I understood their incredulity because even for me it was unreal to see shots of demonstrations in what looked like my town on the international news. It reminded me of how recently Central Asia was full of nomadic tribes and how cultures and languages moved fluidly across non-existent borders. Now with immigration laws, and tight border control, Central Asian people are not able to wander like they did less than 100 years ago. Forced to settle in countries not necessarily split along already pre-established tribal borders, they have now taken up the identity of their country rather than as a more broader Turkic peoples who spread across former Turkestan.

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails."

-Peace Corps, 1992

In the past week I moved in with a new host family and went to Ashgabat for two days to attend the July 4th party. It seems like so much has happened in the last 7 days, that I almost feel like I have entered into a new period of my Peace Corps service. On July 1st I had been in Turkmenistan for 9 months. A friend of mine, a fellow PCV, sent me a text message that read, "If you had gotten pregnant on the day we arrived, you would be in labor right now—happy 9 months!" Thankfully this isn’t the case, but I have been here three-quarters of a year and I have indeed seen more babies born than I ever have in my entire life. I had previously decided to move host families and found a great family that lives close to school. My new host-mom, Maya is a gynecologist and my host dad, Genji works at a company in Turkmenabat. I have two younger host-brothers. Aziz is in the 8th grade and is rarely at the house, but out in the village where all of his cousins live. Azad is going to be a sophomore at a university in Ukraine and is home for the summer vacation. At my new house I have my own separate side of the house that consists of my room and a kitchen. I have my own entrance to my room and this gives me more privacy and more freedom to come and go as I please. Before I moved in, I discussed the food situation at my previous host-family and expressed my concern about the nutrition of my food. I had been cooking almost all of my meals myself at my previous host-family and I was spending too much of my money to try to compensate for the lack of nutritious food that they had available. Maya asked me specifically what I would like to eat and today she bought everything I mentioned and had placed it in my kitchen for me. We have an outside kitchen and an inside kitchen, and she has given me the inside kitchen until it gets too cold to cook outside. My host-mom lived in Cyprus for a year and she is so fascinating to talk to. We speak all in Russian together and last night we spent two hours together sharing photographs and talking about our pasts. I never spent that much time with my last host-family and I already feel more comfortable here than at my previous residence. It is common for PCVs to switch host-families and usually the families that the volunteers find themselves work out better than the Peace Corps selected families. Since I have been at my site for over six months, I have many connections and I was able to search for a family with certain characteristics that I had decided were important to me. Mostly I was looking for a family where I could have more privacy and where I felt more comfortable with the host-parents. Americans’ desire to spend much time alone is weird to most Turkmen because they are very communal people, but there are many times when I am so exhausted by the time that I come home that I just want to relax and feel like I came back to a place I feel comfortable. It was difficult explaining why I was leaving to my host-family and I know that they took it personally. I still hope that I see my host-sisters in my yoga club and I will see all of them in the cafeteria every day once school begins. I am sure that I will encounter challenges with my new host-family, but I am already much happier at my home and I know that this will positively effect my overall experience here.

It was a whirl-wind of a trip, but the majority of Turkmenistan PCVs went to Ashgabat for the July 4th US Embassy party. It was also our chance to say goodbye to our Programming and Training Officer who is leaving to work in the Peace Corps Romania program. She was one of the first people who greeted us at the airport when we arrived 9 months ago, and I am sad that I won’t be able to finish my service with her still here. She supported me greatly over the past months, especially in the beginning and I think that our new PTO has big shoes to fill. In addition to saying goodbye to our PTO, we said a really sad goodbye to four PCVs who are leaving this weekend to go home. It came as a shock that four are leaving at one time and we will miss them all greatly. Everyone deals with it differently, but I was extremely upset when I found out because I am especially close to one of them and Turkmenistan will never be as quirky and interesting without him (especially the dance moves at the Ak Altyn disco). Over the course of nine months we have had a total of seven T-17s leave. This most recent batch to leave was definitely the hardest because we have all grown so tight as a group. It shows how much we depend on each other and how much we have bonded as a group. I came here with 43 strangers and I was met by another group of 35 T-16s. Even if I have just met a new PCV, which did happen at the July 4th party, we fall into conversation like we have know each other for years. We are all so connected by this unique experience, that we will forever share a huge part of our lives together. As four of my friends depart Turkmenistan, it leaves me to think about my desire to be here and to analyze my experience so far. I have realized since being back from vacation that even on the most frustrating days, I can still say that I truly want to be here. I believe that everything happens for a reason and I am happy here in a way that sometimes I can’t explain. I found the quote at the beginning of my blog entry today in a teaching article I was reading and I know that the author was referring to changing our actions and the way that we do things to work with what we cannot control, but I also think that this quote can relate to emotions and the necessity to having a go with the flow attitude. My mom sent me a postcard that has a picture of roller skates and printed below, "just roll with it." She is right to say that this must be how I approach things in Turkmenistan. There are events, like losing 4 of my fellow PCVs, that I cannot change, but I must adjust my own sails and keep on going wherever the wind sends me.

Despite the heat that comes with the summer, this season has brought about some unexpected surprises. I have been dreading the high temperatures of the summers, but I have started taking note of the best parts of the summer rather than focusing on the sweltering heat. Here is my "Top Ten" list for the best things about the Turkmen summer. Disclaimer: remember that not all of these things apply to Turkmenistan in general and that this list refers to mostly Lebap specific things. So, if you find yourself in Turkmenistan for any reason and you can’t find what I am talking about, don’t come complaining to me! 1.) Gazly Suw I talked about this briefly in my last entry but I feel that gazly suw deserves more explanation as it tops my list. Suw means water and gazly is the adjective form of gaz, which means gas. So, literally this would translate as "gassy water" in English. It is more accurately called carbonated water but gassy makes it sound less bourgoise (and maybe less appetizing) considering that it costs less than 7 cents. Little gazly suw stands that were closed for the colder months have opened everywhere. You can have plain carbonated water or you can pick a syrup of your choice to flavor the water. My favorite is coconut and I usually ask for only a little syrup so that it is refreshing rather than overly sweet and dehydrating. The drawback to the gazly suw stands is that once you are done chugging the drink there, they put your cup on what looks like a little metal plate, press down and water squirts up in the middle to wash (and I am using this word lightly) the cup for the next customer. You can either think about all the sicknesses and diseases you could catch from this cup, or you can hit every gazly suw stand between you and the post office and hope the guy before you wasn’t too dirty. 2.) Kvas This one comes in a close second to gazly suw. Kvas is a Russian drink that came here during the Soviet Union. It is not found in other Welayats, but in Lebap it is very popular and most gazly suw stands also offer kvas. Kvas is a drink made from fermented bread and some describe it as the Russian rootbeer. My favorite kvas lady is in the bazaar in Turkmenabat and sells a cup for 2,000 manat (14 cents). I am sure that she makes hers from scratch and doesn’t dilute it like some of the other vendors. Kvas is not for everyone and you either love it or totally hate it. You will have to try it yourself to decide. 3.) Soft-serve Ice Cream I just realized that my top three picks are food related and it shows how my life in the summer revolves around getting yummy drinks and cold ice cream. The Turkmen ice cream in general is not the best quality and I only really like the Turkish ice cream bars, Magnum (if you haven’t noticed that already). In the center of my town there is a little gazly suw stand that sells soft-serve ice cream. When my friend Kelsey and I were in the new cafй having lunch, another customer had a large beer mug full of soft-serve ice cream and because it looked so much like a milkshake, we decided we wanted one. It turned out to be way more ice cream than we wanted; we both finished a beer mug full of soft-serve but couldn’t figure out why we had wanted it in the first place. Since then I have turned down the offers of pints of ice cream and stick with the mini cone. At 1,000 manat it is the same price as gazly suw and satisfies the sweet tooth as well. 4.) Watermelon (or any melon) I don’t want everyone to think that all I do is loiter around the gazly suw stands waiting for my next cup or cone. No, I also enjoy the array of fruit that is now in the bazaars. The melons are in season right now and are definitely the most amazing fruit that Turkmenistan has to offer. Consuming a half of a watermelon for lunch is not unheard of and especially when it is cold, it is crisp, juicy and sweet. The Turkmen watermelons are the best that I have ever tasted. The only better thing about watermelons in America is that you can find seedless melons, but they don’t have the sweetness that you get here. When Kelsey was here to visit I cut up a half of watermelon for us to take outside to eat and when we both picked up a piece, the first thing we did was lurch our upper bodies forward in our seats so as to prepare for the stream of juice that would be dribbling down our faces. We did this at the exact same time and laughed because we both know you have to eat watermelon leaning over the ground in order not to ruin your clothes. 5.) The Beach About a 15 minute walk outside of Turkmenabat there is a little piece of heaven that costs 1,000 manat to get into. On the banks of the Amu Derya river there is a public beach that is maintained, cleaned and the perfect place to spend a hot afternoon. The entrance fee actually goes into the maintenance of the beach and not into the guard’s pocket, and it shows. There is sand, cold water and enough space for a roudy group of volunteers. 6.) Long days Because the daytime is so hot, the early mornings and late evenings are the only times when you feel like being active. Being a desert country, it does cool off at night and the hours close to sunrise and sunset are the only respite one can get from the sweltering sun. My schedule has changed so much from what it was during the winter. I get up early to go running but even then I desperately want to jump into a cold shower when I get home. I feel so lethargic during the afternoons that I usually take a nap. In the evenings I open my window and hope that some of the cool air will make it into my room. You have to take advantage of the long summer days because you can barely function during the hours when the sun is directly overhead. 7.) The 4th of July US Embassy Party Coming up next week is the big social event of the season! The US Embassy has invited us to attend the annual Independence Day party. For the occasion I had my tikinchi (dressmaker) make a special halter dress out of dark pink silk/cotton fabric that I bought at the bazaar. It is rumored that the theme this year is Hollywood and considering that they flew in Native American Indians to complete the theme last year, I can’t imagine to what extravagance they will go to this year. Although the invitation says "causal dress," we all know that this does not mean Peace Corps casual dress. I don’t think they want me to show up in my blue paisley print house koynek! This party can be compared to the Peace Corps prom where we can hobnob with all the Embassy staff with whom we usually are prohibited from fraternizing. Most of the volunteers are going into Ashgabat especially for the party and the T-17s have heard this is a must attend event no matter how many hours you have to spend on the train, or in a taxi or mini bus to get here (or for those of you rolling in manat, a 45 minute airplane ride). 8.) Short koyneks This one might be specific to my site and more liberal communities in Lebap. During the summer women wear short versions of the winter koynek with short sleeves or no sleeves at all. I recently got a summer koynek in a bright blue and orange Indian print made. It hits about mid calf and has short cap sleeves. I am lucky that this revealing of a dress is common in my town because other volunteers are amazed that I can wear this in my community. I wear this koynek mostly in the house because it is comfortable and light. Some girls in my town wear spaghetti strap dresses and mini skirts but I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing this in my community so I err on the conservative side to be safe. But when I go into Ashgabat it is a whole different set of rules and I wear exactly as I would wear in America. 9.) Ninja scarves and umbrellas Sun block does not yet exist here in any mainstream form. I am sure you could find it in some foreign import cosmetics store, but the majority of people who are going to be outdoors for extended periods of time in the summer use clothing as their sun block. The women wrap their scarves around their heads so that there is only a slit for their eyes and they look peculiarly enough like ninjas dressed in paisley and floral prints. You can see groups of these ninja clad women going out to the fields in the morning carrying their tools and looking like they might be going into battle rather than to plow. In the city only the women who sweep the streets wear the ninja scarves and most women prefer a brightly colored umbrella to block the sun. I have adopted the second option and take my shiny silver umbrella wherever I go; I am both in style AND protecting my skin. 10.) Cold showers In the winter I could only take a shower when the water was hot and now I only want to take a shower when the water is cold. My host-family still likes the banya nice and hot and steamy for a shower, and I nearly pass out if I wash my hands for 2 minutes when the banya is post-shower suffocating. I take at least a shower a day now, which is a huge leap from once or twice a week during the winter. If I have done housework or washed my laundry and am feeling especially hot and grimy, I will fill up buckets of ice-cold well water and dump them one after another over my head. The chill of the water makes me lose my breath but I know that within 5 minutes after freezing myself I will be hot again. It is 40 degrees on average now, if not higher at mid-day and I wonder how much hotter it is going to get! Maybe I don’t want to know.

When my plane lifted off from Turkmenabat I looked down on the city and for the first time realized how truly tiny it is. It consists of two main roads that run parallel the entire length of the city, and where these streets end the village begins. From the air I could see exactly where the pavement stops and where the smaller, primarily dirt roads begin. Apart from the villages clustered around the perimeter of the city, the country becomes desolate and unforgiving. The ground is baked dry by the intense summer sun, sucking the color out of the soil and leaving barren dunes to shift with the wind. I soon grew tired of looking out the window as there was no change in scenery until we circled over the Kopetdag mountains outside of Ashgabat. The emptiness of the landscape reminded me of how much of this country is uninhabited. The middle of Turkmenistan consists entirely of desert and most of the 6 million inhabitants are clustered around water sources forming a line of towns and cities that curves along the borders with Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. If you were to trace your finger from Turkmenbasy on the Caspian Sea, along south-east to Ashgabat along the Iranian border, south to Mary along the Afghan border and then up to Turkmenabat and onto Dashoguz along the Uzkek border you would hit most of the inhabited area of Turkmenistan. My first plane ride in-country took a thrilling 45 minutes in a Boeing 737, just enough time to drink a cup of Sprite, eat the waffle cookies served and write a letter. I had treated myself to a 45 minute plane ride in place of the over-night train because I figured that I would pull out all the stops for my first trip out of country. Although the individual days go by slowly, I feel like the first eight months of my Peace Corps service have gone by quickly. I was making plans for my trip back in April because everything takes twice as long to get done here and because there was no way I was going to miss that plane to Taiwan! It was nice going on a vacation to a semi-familiar city and meeting up with very familiar people so as to minimize the culture shock of leaving Turkmenistan. The first thing that struck me about Taipei was the amount of people out on the street and the amount of activity and bustle at 10 at night. Because of the 11pm curfew in Turkmenistan and because there are not that many people in general in Turkmenistan, the streets are fairly empty during the day and completely quiet at night. The speed and efficiency of life in Taipei shocked me. With the mix of modern technology and a competitive work ethic, Taipei runs like a machine—the streets are clean, the metro is extensive, there are businesses flourishing everywhere, and all of the newest technology is on display as people chat on cell phones and browse the internet at the Starbucks. It was all overwhelming for me, but I was so excited to be able to be swept away by the hustle and energy around me. The first day I got my hair cut to a short bob and I felt like I had transformed from the Turkmen Annie into someone who was ready to do everything that I don’t have the opportunity to see, eat, drink and do in Turkmenistan. We visited a tea house high up in the mountains outside of Taipei and enjoyed tea, tea jelly, tea muffins, tea mochi and…chicken feet. Those were not tea flavored but tasty. We went to a Mexican restaurant and I consumed my beloved guacamole that I had been craving since I left America. We went out dancing one night and I was pleasantly surprised that I was more up to date on new music than I thought. I recognized Akon songs thanks to my students and sang along to a remix of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” Everyday I made a point of consuming at least one large bubble tea. I have my favorite tea shops and ordering bubble tea is about the only full sentence I remember how to say in Chinese! After a month of suffering from severe stomach problems, my digestive system was happy to be eating clean, dairy-free food that was not swimming in oil. I love the tofu pudding and any kind of dumpling, noodle or rice cake. Basically, any meal not Turkmen was okay with me. To get out of Taipei, we took a three-day trip out to the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait. We stayed at a little place right on the bay in the city of Makung and explored the beaches and surrounding islands by bike. Because it was still low tourist season, the beaches were deserted and we had all of the white sand and turquoise water to ourselves. The current was not strong and we could just float out in the water for hours. It was heavenly! I was careful to apply lots of sun block because eight months of exposing little more than my wrists has left me quite pasty, and even I was shocked and appalled by the whiteness of my ankles when I saw them. Ten days in Taiwan went by too quickly and I was back in Turkmenistan before I knew it. I was greeted in the Peace Corps office by a large group of volunteers who were in Ashgabat for the weekend and I immediately knew that the best thing about coming back was seeing all my friends again. Since being back I have made a big effort to get out and foster all my friendships in my community. I have done so much guesting in the past week and I feel assured that I have a place in my community. My summer teaching schedule is on the lighter side and I have plenty of time in the afternoons and evenings to go see friends, walk into the center to get soft-serve ice cream or, my new favorite, to down a cup of “gazly suw,” or carbonated water with flavoring of your choice. My favorite flavor is coconut and I just try to ignore the fact that they reuse the cups after a little rinsing. “Gazly suw” stands have popped up all over the place and costing 1,000 manat (7 cents) it is something I can afford on an almost limitless basis! “Gazly suw” doesn’t replace bubble tea, but I keep reminding myself that I will be back in Taiwan before I know it.

Although Jennet is not my official counterpart, she has become my closest colleague and friend here. Her family in turn has become my second family and her mother especially has taken the role as my guardian in my community. Last week Jennet’s house was as noisy and child filled as a kindergarten. Her brother from Dashoguz and her sister were visiting and the child count maxed at 9 or 10 depending on if you counted the neighbor’s kids too. Her nieces call me ‘opa’ which means aunt in Uzbek and kiss me on the cheek twice when I come to visit. Working on her Fulbright application at her house was pointless but one day I stopped by on my way home from work to run over one of the drafts with her and was ambushed by her nieces while she was making tea in the kitchen. They poked and proded at my computer and somehow hit the keyboard so that it opened up my Photo Booth application and my built in webcam activated. Their little faces popped up on my screen and they squealed at their reflections, pushing each other around trying to dominate the entire image. I took this video of three nieces, Rayhan, Aynura and Yulduz, as they ogled over the novelty of being on camera. I think that this video is adorable; I hope you think so too.

There was a fleeting moment when I could see my mom on the screen, short spiky hair, and red glasses. “Annie can you hear me?” she repeated as I sat glued to my chair laughing with happiness because this was the first time I had seen my mom in seven months. Then, just as fast as the image had appeared, it disconnected and my attempt to talk to my mom via video chat ceased to work. I was sitting in the conference room on the 4th floor of an Ashgabat hotel, using the only wireless internet that I know about in Turkmenistan. For a moment there I thought I had just happened upon the most incredible technology available here, but then it failed to meet my expectations and I didn’t get to see my mom after that first attempt.

It was okay, though. I had seen my mom, even for a second, and I had glimpsed the searching look on her face as my face came upon her computer screen at home. She looked healthy, and I left through the hotel doors as happy as could be and hailed a taxi straight back to the hotel where the Lebap Peace Corps Volunteers and our counterparts were staying.

I was in Ashgabat for my second visit, this time going into the capitol for a Peace Corps organized conference. I brought Jennet with me as my counterpart, and our three days together working through project design and management proved us to be a solid team. We volunteered to lead a morning warm-up session and facilitated various team building activities, ending the 20 minutes with a group massage session. Our efforts were awarded with Peace Corps mugs depicting the stars on the American flag flying off the flag and morphing into a dove. As an example project, we decided to develop the yoga club that we had already started a few weeks back. We created a goal and broke it down into different objectives. One of our objectives included getting mats and a CD player for our class. Another of our objectives involved creating a yoga instruction manual in Turkmen and printing this for national distribution. This project was one of 13 ideas that we brainstormed during the conference. After the three days I felt motivated and excited about returning to site to start on a whirl-wind of projects. I wanted to plan an English immersion summer camp, a new English resource center, a girl’s sports club…the list went on. Jennet and I completed a beautiful poster outlining our proposed project, completing it with little stick figures in various yoga poses. We received certificates, stating that we had successfully completed the conference, and I headed back to site with a feeling of motivation that I hadn’t felt since I first arrived. It was all too good. During my travel back to site I was struck down with a bad case of food poisoning and forced to stay in bed for a week, impeding my ability to get anything accomplished. Just like the Skype conversation with my mom in Ashgabat, I was struck with a fleeting moment of success. The reality of the situation is different. I have had so many ideas from the community about projects and classes that they want me to pursue, but because I only have one and a half years here it is vital to think about what projects will continue after I leave. I have never thought so much about sustainability as I have in the past 8 months. I don’t want my work to stop once I leave, but I want it to continue long after I am gone. Maybe I will never get to see the true outcome of my work here, but I hope that by the time I leave I will have affected my community enough for my work to be continued by the community members themselves.

Sometimes grassroots work is the most frustrating because the victories can be so small. As for me, often my personal expectations are not met because I naturally have big goals and want to achieve things that aren’t necessarily wanted or possible here. My experience here has taught me that not always the most obvious way for me to go about things is going to work. Often here I have attempted to get permission for one club or another and have failed. What seems to me like a simple permission is enough to stop the whole thing from happening. Although the first attempt was not successful, I have learned to look past these setbacks and to talk to the community members about other possible ways of starting up. Although their way of going about things might not be apparent at first, the Turkmen know the system (and how to get around the system) so much better than I do.

The last week of classes and the celebration of the “last bell” brought an end to my first academic year in Turkmenistan. Although it feels like summer arrived way too quickly, summer plans are in motion and a new schedule to accommodate the scorching afternoon temperatures was set. I am excited about my work during the summer because I will be free to pursue other projects and to do some traveling to help other volunteers with their summer camps. I am sure that this season will fly by with watermelon consumption, swims in the river and afternoon naps to keep me from boiling in the 120+ temperatures!

For the past month or so I have combined my advanced and intermediate clubs into one group to work on a movie, written and produced by them. I came up with this idea based on the fact that my students are obsessed with taking movies on their cell phones and watching “clips” (basically movie videos). They all have cell phones and use them more for watching “clips” and listening to music than for actually talking. Like typical teenagers, they idolize movie stars and musicians. They constantly ask me for translations from pop and rap songs, and want to know what movies I have from America. Ever since I first realized their obsession with the famous, I decided that I would find an opportunity to give them a chance to feel what it is like in front of a camera. I have been working with this group of students for about 6 months now, and it has taken me this long to develop a trusting relationship with them. Creativity isn’t something that is encouraged in the traditional education system here. Classes consist of copy and repeat drills, and individual ideas are disapproved of. Imagination and creativity are things that I have had to prompt my students on. I began simply with activities that pointed them in the right direction, but left room for them to make it their own. At first there was confusion when I wouldn’t tell them exactly what to write. They just didn’t know what to do for fear that they would get reprimanded for writing it incorrectly. While some stories suspiciously turned out the same, I made sure to praise those students who chose to be inventive. Slowly I noticed that they were taking more risks in their writing assignments. The creativity began to come out more on paper than in their spoken responses. Maybe they knew that I would be their only audience with homework and worried more about the criticism of their classmates. I started to give them the option of reading out loud to the class. At first only a few volunteered, but without any bad repercussions, the number of students reading out loud began to grow until all the students felt comfortable sharing with the class. We recently completed a unit about descriptions involving lots of adjectives, ending with physical appearance and personalities. After I felt the students had increased their vocabulary with enough adjectives, and were able to describe people, I brought up the idea of creating a movie together. I told them that we were going to make a film with a long dialogue and then each of them would be an actor in the film. The second that I said the word ‘actor’ all of their faces lit up and I knew they were up for the challenge. I explained that before we started actually writing any of the script, we had a few questions to nail down: who, what, where, when and how? Before class ended that day, we had answered who, where and when. For homework that class, I asked each of them to bring in an outline of a movie they would like to make, answering what and how. I will be honest and say that I was still a little unsure of what kind of story I would get out of them. These are some teenagers with very strong personalities, but I wasn’t sure if they could agree on a plot together, and I still doubted the level of imagination they would put into this project. But in the first few minutes of brainstorming, all of my doubts were put to rest. My students decided on a film about American witches and aliens. The film would take place in the future in India. I asked, “why India?” And one student explained, “because the witches need a Buddhist talisman for their potion to take over the world, and the aliens also need this Buddhist talisman for their guns to take over the world.” Oh, and I doubted the depth of their imaginations! And she said all of this in English! I was in total amazement. They had met earlier that day to talk more about the film and to come to an agreement about the plot before they even arrived in class. So, we have witches and aliens in India. “What happens next?” I asked. “The aliens and the witches go to India and fight over the talisman. There is a big war. Then one witch and one alien fall in love and have a baby. The baby is human. Not witch. Not alien. They do not want to kill all the humans to take over the world now because the have a human baby, so they hide the talisman. Then they write out this story for their baby and the baby finds it later and destroys the talisman and saves the world.” “Is that it?” “Yes. And, oh, it is a comedy.” “Right.” Their ideas continued to pour out. One student wanted to create a rap song for the aliens as their theme song. One student imagined a scene with the talisman high in the mountains of India, and I sadly had to remind her that the closest thing we have to a mountain here is the sand pile in my neighbor’s yard. Their imaginations were running wild, and I had to pull them back and remind them that this was not a multi million-dollar production. Sorry, I don’t think Akon will be doing the soundtrack for this movie, but we can play one of his songs in the background if you want. The classes spent brainstorming and writing the script have thus far been some of the best experiences for me in the classroom. I have a feeling of gratification, knowing that I have gained their trust enough for them to feel comfortable to create a crazy movie. We have not filmed yet, but so far I feel like this has been the best most ambitious but most gratifying project I have done yet. My students make me laugh so much and I am extremely proud of them for how far they have come since I started teaching them back in December. They have decided on the title ‘Witchals: The End Of The World’ because it combines the word ‘witch’ and ‘alien’ together. Get in line to get your pirated copy of ‘Witchals: The End Of The World.’ Premiering soon in Garashsyzlyk Etrap! (Starring me as the Buddha because, as they explained, I am tall and can do yoga)

Masha and Dasha

Last Wednesday afternoon I was in the banya doing my laundry when I heard the click-clack sound of hooves on the cement outside. I peeked out the door to see what it was and found myself nose to nose with Dasha, our large pregnant brown cow, trailing a piece of broken rope. Opening the door had spooked her and she spun around and started to run away. Our backyard is fenced in, so there was really nowhere for her to run to, and she is too pregnant to fit through the door in the gate. I glanced over at the cow pen and then realized that the other cow had broken free as well. Both cows had gone! I imagined them cooperating in their escape, one breaking the rope and then chewing off the other’s rope to free her friend. Dasha, being so huge couldn’t make it far, but Masha, the smaller white cow, had broken through the back gate and I could see her hoof prints in the muddy bank of the canal behind the house. First Dasha, then I will deal with Masha. Being the only one home, I had no choice but to go after both of them. I didn’t want my host-family coming back only to find the oblivious American but no cows. I coaxed Dasha close enough to me to grab her rope and then pulled her back to the pen where I quickly knotted her back up, thankful she hadn’t put up a fight because she is really big. I followed Masha’s tracks over to the neighbor’s house where I found her contently munching on their hay she had found. When she saw me, she bolted around me and back in the direction of our house with me slipping on the mud after her. But as Dasha had been too big to fit out the front gate, Masha is smaller and she only stopped briefly in the yard to steal a furtive glance at me and then ran full speed out the front gate into the street. A neighbor was sweeping the street and Masha ran right up behind him and stopped about a foot away from him with out him even noticing her. Only when I yelled to him, asking if he could grab my cow for me, did he turn around and see Masha hiding behind him. It was really like she thought that I couldn’t see her behind the neighbor, the way she just suddenly stopped right there. As he reached out to grab her, she again bolted and I jumped out of the way as she ran back through the gate and into the yard. I locked the gate behind me, and I grabbed some cornhusks to try to lure her to me. She was distracted enough by the food to let me take her rope and tie her up again. Right as I was cleaning my hands, my host-sister came through the gate and I yelled to her, with a flurry of waving arms, “the cows left. But I found them. Don’t worry!” I retold the story to each family member and the neighbors have all told their versions of the story as well. Like all gossip in Turkmenistan, each account differs greatly, but they all included a lively impersonation of Annie wildly waving her arms and yelling, “that’s my cow! Can you get my cow for me please!!” And that part is definitely true.