Christmas Eve and Introductions

Today is Christmas Eve, and I am in Turkmenistan. You will all be surprised to know that Ashgabat is decked out in true Christmas fashion. Multicolored lights snake around and around large, previously unadorned trees. Garland, in a wide variety of colors, hangs above many doorways and even above the blackboard in one of my classrooms. According to reports, the bazaars are far more packed than usual. The only thing is, Turkmen, as a general rule, do not celebrate Christmas . These decorations are not Christmas decorations at all! They are New Year's decorations. It seems that New Years here in T-stan is celebrated in much the same way as we celebrate Christmas in the US. This makes my answer to the question, "How do you celebrate Christmas???" really anticlimactic. My answer to the question, "How will you be celebrating tomorrow?" is even more anticlimactic. I will be teaching at the institute. On second thought, this isn't anticlimactic at all. I am truly enjoying my time at work.
Because I have a full two week rotation, I am still in the long process of meeting all the classes and all of the students with whom I will work. In each class, I do a variety of get-acquainted activities. In all the classes, I allow each student to ask me one question about myself. Here are some of the questions I am asked (the order of questions doesn't vary much between classes) :

What is your name? (Response to my answer: that is a really long name)
How old are you? (Response to my answer: oooohhhh, young)
Are you married?
Why not? (My answer: in America, I am far too young to marry)
Do you like Turkmen boys? Will you marry here?
What is your favorite Turkmen national meal? (My answer: Manti!!!)
Do you like the Turkmen national dress? (My answer: yup because its super comfy)
Why are you here? (My answer: your country asked my country for English teachers)
What is one thing you like in the world?
What are your hobbies? (My answer: reading, running, and I used to play soccer) (Response to soccer: mouths dropping open)
Tell about your family.
How do you define love?

Etc.

I hope this give you some insight into my day!!

Merry Christmas!

I love you all and stay safe!

Bazaars and Brain Barf

Where I am and what I’m doing:

Permanent site WOOT! I’m living in the big city (A-BOT) now with a new host family. I’m learning the bus system, walking around in an attempt to situate myself, spending quality time with the new family, cooking (I made tortillas and salad dressing from scratch) and exploring the bazaars. I love bazaars. I am particularly familiar with four bazaars here in T-stan.

I frequented the small bazaar in Anew throughout training and would like to take a moment to wish both the cake vendor (who allowed me to bargain for the unbargainable: the Turkmen cake) and the Russian dukan (shop) woman (who provided me with school supplies and moist gingerbread) the best. For better or worse, I have moved on to bigger and more expensive bazaars.

Teke bazaar is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing of the A-bot bazaars. The entire front side is populated by flower vendors. Teke only recently ticked me off by providing me with four almost entirely meatless chickens for Thanksgiving dinner. Before this little incident, Teke was indisputably my favorite because of the flowers and because of its convenient location next to the Peace Corps office.

Note: Despite the insufficiencies of the “turkey,” Thanksgiving Turkmen style was a huge success. Pictures are on their way.

The Russian Bazaar is quickly replacing Teke as the favorite. The Russian Bazaar is much larger and provides a wider variety of dukanlar. One end of this bazaar is dominated by this huge white abstract sculpture that towers over the fruit and vegetable section. I have made friends here. My most notable and most visited of these friends is the shaslick (spelling?) vendor. A shaslick is a small piece of Russian deliciousness. Laura, I hope for your own sake you have experienced the wonder of the shaslick first hand. Also at the Russian bazaar I discovered soy sauce. The purchase of said soy sauce furthered my endless scavenger hunt for ingredients I know how to cook with! Hurra!

Finally, there is Talkucka. I am so very intimidated by Talkucka. Talkucka, located a ways outside A-bot, claims to be the largest bazaar in Central Asia. Here, reputedly, are the best deals. I believe it. However, I have no idea how to find them amidst the general chaos and the dust. Talkucka did, I must admit, provide me with some incredibly warm winter man boots. For this I will be eternally grateful despite my intimidation.

Why am I not working? During my first full day at my permanent site, I taught two lessons. Both went well. Day two at my permanent site marked the beginning of four day national holiday (plus weekend) hence the exploration of bazaars. I am itching to get started.

The following probably warrants its own post. Prepare yourself mentally for a drastic shift in tone. Take a deep breath. Maybe take a bathroom break or go make yourself a cup of tea. Ok. Now continue reading.

What I feel:

I feel entirely undereducated. What have I done with the last 23 years of my life? Yesterday, I rediscovered a large patch of white hair. These white hairs are quickly developing into a white streak. A white streak! I am far too ignorant to have a white streak. I am the antithesis of distinguished. Someone please take my education in hand. It is long overdue.

No. No. I need to take myself in hand. I need to self-educate. Too bad I don’t even know where to start. I am daunted because I know nothing. History? History would be a good place to start. But I fear I would never catch up to the present. Economics? I know nothing of economics. Yes, it is bad that gas prices are so low. That means less money spent which is bad because that means there is no money to spend. Which is bad. I know exactly what I’m talking about. Just press me on this, and I’ll come up with this incredibly eloquent defense of the above statement. Or not.

So economics. But then how deep do I go? How long do I spend dwelling in the realm of Mr. C, the monotonous high school kill-joy? How do I doll out the days of my life to the diversity of subjects at hand? How do I go about the deliberate process of learning everything in an observable, measurable, and achievable way? If and when I do in fact achieve this, how ever will I retain all this information?

And here is the thing: If I spend the necessary time, if I devote myself fully to the study of [insert whatever is most important to learn] and give this discipline the attention it deserves, my present will cease to exist. This is horrifically unsatisfying. I hold my college experience up as an example of full and unsatisfactory devotion to learning. Four years of present-less living drove me to the Peace Corps, brought me to Turkmenistan, and now, here I am willing and ready to give up my present once more. I am faced with so many conspicuous opportunities for immediate action, but instead of embracing these opportunities, I am ready to go back into the closet of in-action.

Buck up! Support yourself with all those wonderful motivating clichés! Grab hold of the reins and ride! Take that leap of faith! Etc.

But no, this isn’t it either. It isn’t one or the other. It isn’t learning or action. I must take action and hope and pray that my knowledge acquisition can keep pace with all the doing that will quickly commence. No, that’s not right either. Hoping and praying isn’t enough; I must inundate my free time with books.

Even if I read fiendishly, I will not always have the knowledge to support my actions. I should face this fact now. I should face this fact and prepare myself to admit this openly to my students, to my colleagues, to my host family: I messed up because I had no idea what to do, but I had to do something.

And this will be ok. It will be ok when I fail. If I accept this, I can relax. I can enjoy learning and doing without trying to conquer all knowledge. I can admit that I have a lifetime. This is not some test. I cannot learn everything in time. This is true for two reasons. First, I can’t learn everything. Second, my time is unlimited. I mean the whole thing about death, by disregarding that little hindrance, I’ve got all of eternity. So, give me some more of those nice resource books, please Peace Corps. The heavier the better. I am ready to sift! That is when I’m not fully occupied with functioning in an absolutely new present I have found here in T-stan, a present that requires energy and focus because it is so entirely new. The bazaars are a very good example of this newness. You like that little tie in?

I am whelmed. And content.

I miss you all!

Just a Few Pics

First picture: Camel hair belt vendor in Talcucka, the largest outdoor market in Central Asia. Check out the typical Turkmen dress!
Second picture: view from the health walk.
Third picture: My host mother, me (in koinik), host sister during training.
Fourth picture: Learning Turkmen!
Fifth picture: Me in front of Turkmenbasy's Mosque- I'm stylin'!
Sixth picture:Kristen, Annie, Me, Chase, and Ariel in Blue Mosque during layover in Istanbul.
Seventh picture: Host family sisters and I cooking in Anew during training.
Eighth picture: Typical apartments in Ashgabat.

T- T - T - TRAINING!!!!

Laura and company, I finally concede. I cannot live my life at a normal pace. I have managed, since my last blog post, to fill my days to the brim. This morning, I backed out of our training group’s weekly cultural field trip to preserve my own sanity. In my ‘free’ time, I went for a long run, took a longer shower (yes, I have a shower. I’m a spoiled brat), vacuumed my room, shook the rugs, did tons of laundry, refilled my water filter, and did the dishes. Mom, you probably wouldn’t recognize me; I now engage in household chores to relax. At 12, I will head to language training.

Thank goodness there is only one week of training left. That’s right. ONE WEEK. Then I will be a full fledged volunteer.

What does this mean? For one, this means a change in location. I will be moving from Anew, a small city outside of the capital into the heart of the capital, Ashgabat. I will be changing host families. Formalized language training will end. WOOT! And I will start teaching at my permanent site, the language university.

Asgabat, in case I haven’t told you, is big time. On Sundays, our one free day, most of the volunteers make the trek into the city so we are becoming more and more familiar with it’s ins and outs. It is a beautiful city full to brimming with tall, heavy, white buildings and Soviet style monuments. Everything is trimmed in green and gold. Once I make the big move, I will live in one of these tall white buildings near a monument affectionately nicknamed ‘8 legs.’ Thanks to irrigation, the streets are lined with trees. All of the trunks of these trees are painted a brilliant white for aesthetic purposes. The streets are well-paved and empty of traffic. It is a Houstonian’s dream come true! Because there are so few cars, all cars function as taxis. A taxi ride within the city costs about 66 cents. Also, perhaps the most exciting part, there is a big Russian population here. Why is this exciting? This means I will not stand out. Already, as long as I don’t open my mouth or move in big packs of volunteers, and if I wear my 1 koinik (traditional dress), I blend in! I’m working on the language thing.

A while back, all 43 of us new volunteers made permanent site visits. From our training sites (all clustered around the capital) we spread out around the country to meet our host families and permanent site counterparts. Some of us had a 24 train ride, some a 45 minute plane ride, some a 5 hour bus ride. I personally had a 30 minute taxi ride.

My new host family is great. I feel like I’ve been so lucky with host families! Knock HARD on wood. My current host family is wonderful: laid-back, kind, welcoming, and tolerant of my ignorance. There are 3 college students in my current family. In all of T-stan, there are approximately 4,000 college students. Lucky. Me. Very. Furthermore, my host sister speaks good English and has been plotting with me to start an Environmental club. Her excitement is rubbing off on me.

But back to my next host family . . .

My future host family consists of a younger couple, maybe around 35, and their three kids ages 10, 8, and 4 months. That’s right. Four months. They are also kind, welcoming, and tolerant of my American ignorance. Plus, they let me skip the whole guest stage (see previous blog). During my visit, I held the baby, sang to the baby (please avoid comments about horrible singing voice, thanks), cooked some Manti (steamed ravioli-like dumpling things), played frisbee, was sent to buy bread etc. I enjoyed my time with them.

The job. The job is INTENSE.

Note: Maybe I should stop with the block letters. I may come across as a hyper-emotional teenager. Then again, I feel a little bit like a hyper-emotional teenager here!

At the language institute, I will be replacing a current volunteer. She is fabulous and has truly paved the way for me. Thank you Toni if you happen to be reading this! This week and next week, instead of working in Anew I have been and will be commuting to Asgabat to get a jump start on the real job. So, I have been spending a good chunk of time picking her brain (and observing classes).

From what I understand, I will be teaching twenty different model lessons in twenty different classrooms with twenty different teachers and with twenty different groups of students every two weeks. HAHAHAHA. Breath. Ahhhh. It is daunting but surprisingly manageable. The exciting part is I get to teach pretty much anything I want. I will not be restricted by the required curriculum. Instead, my lessons will be viewed as supplementary. This set up doesn’t exactly meet Peace Corps request for sustainable projects, but I’m not about to start changing things before I figure out how the university works. My biggest worry, and it really isn’t very big thanks again to Dr. Heckelman and company, is proving myself as a teacher. Because I’m the same age as many of my students and younger than some and because Toni had many more years of teaching experience under her belt prior to this job, all eyes are on me. Oh, and classes are 80 minutes long. That is a long time.

Language learning: Continues. I’m frustrated.

Hypothesis: Afternoon coffee drinking correlates with level of frustration.
Observations:

When I drink coffee (by coffee I mean offbrand Nescafe packets with the word ‘STRONG’ in bold), my brain clears. I want to move quickly.

Procdures:

1. Stop drinking coffee.
2. Observe results. Or have someone else observe results if I am asleep.

In other news, I’m building a wardrobe. I have one dress made. One being made. And I recently bought a beautiful brown velvet fabric for parties. I will be so styling. Oh and I bought winter boots. It was a struggle. I searched long and hard to find the only pair of women’s boots in the biggest bazaar in Central Asia that would fit my enormous feet (thanks dad). They are hideous but so very warm. I am in love.

Finally, here are my current goals:

1. Learn Turkmen. Learn English Grammar. Learn Russian. In that order.
2. Floss Daily. Turkmen enjoy their sweets. Solely to integrate culturally, I have been indulging.
3. SLOW DOWN.

Sorry this is so long! There is so much to tell you!

Write me! Letters are amazing. Alternatively, send warm clothing.

Tess

Tons of fun in Turkmenistan

I’ll start off with today. Today was amazing and not at all representative of my daily life here. Here it goes anyway. I have decided the shortened version will sound much more impressive and much more off-hand (cause I’m that gosh darn cool).

I woke up, went running, showered, ate some chorek (bread), put on a bathing suit, sweater, and pants, put a skirt over my pants, got in a van with 10ish other volunteers, drove for an hour, took off the skirt, got out, climbed a small mountain, climbed back down, ate kebabs for lunch, took off the pants and sweater, swam in an underground sulfer lake, tried to rock climb the walls of the sulfur lake, dried off, put on the pants and sweater, drank a beer, put on the skirt, got in a bus, drove for an hour, got out of the bus, ate an ice cream, and came home. Whew. It was a big day.

But today was, like I said, not real life in Turkmenistan. Today was Peace Corps Fun Day to recognize that I am half way through training! Woot. And I am. I can hardly believe it. I have been here for 5 weeks.

Daily life here in Anew, where I am doing my pre-service training, is fabulous but in a peaceful, productive, full kinda way rather than a crazy, cool, bragging rights kinda way (above).

My day consists of six main components: walking, technical training, language training, family, wishing I had the dedication to study more, and eating.

I start my day off by donning the obligatory ankle length skirt, dress shirt, and dress shoes. I then drink 3-5 cups of tea with my morning bread before embarking on the 30 minute walk to school. I am often accompanied by my family’s dog whom I have affectionately nicknamed Chuck Norris. He smells. Like woah. Like a port-o-pot with four inch legs and a tail. Regardless, this walk gets my brain ready for the mental acrobatics I put it through.

Technical training is in the morning. This generally means spending quality time with my assigned counterpart in her classroom. And I have to say, my counterpart is superwoman. For all of you teachers out there, she has six preps. SIX. In one week. She teaches 4th graders and she teaches 10th graders and she teaches various other grades in between. Grade level really doesn’t matter though because grade level does not determine language ability. Inconsistent language instruction has made life pretty confusing. She teaches English in Russian for some classes and in Turkmen for others. This past week she picked cotton after school with the other teachers from Birinji Mekdep (1st school) in their government assigned field. She even teaches on Saturday.

My job, as I have defined it thus far, is to alleviate some of her hefty, hefty work load. Along the way, I hope to introduce various new teaching techniques (Peace Corps goal). Friday, I taught my first and second full lessons in Turkmenistan. I had done some 10 and 15 minute-ers before but this was the real deal. It felt so good to be in front of a class! Thank you Dr. Heckelman and company for preparing me for anything.

Lunch=Feast with 6 other trainees in group.

Language Training = Brain Beating. To all you pre-meds out there, I think I feel your pain. We have four hours of in-class language and in those four hours I attempt to shove as much Turkmen in my brain as I possibly can. But it the cramming does not end in class. Oh no. This is a ‘round the clock endeavor. This is absolutely positively the marathon of language learning. I enjoy the challenge and am doing my best to keep up my pace. Struggling. But doing my best.

On my thirty minute walk home, I am often accompanied by the green dress wearing/black suited school kids who get out at about of the same time. All of them are ready to try out their English.

HULLO. HULLO. HOW ARR YOU? I AM OK. I LUV YOU. GOODBYE.

I do a ton of informal English teaching on my walk home to preserve my own sanity.

Dinner here is huge. Honestly, most meals here are huge. Turkmenistan is quite proud of its guesting culture. They have a pretty simple and telling saying: the guest is king. The king requires copious amounts of food, copious amounts of cay (tea), and copious amounts of candy. Also, the royal family stops by often. All the time in fact. For the record, I think this concept of visiting is absolutely fabulous and enjoy helping my family prepare for guests BUT if I don’t break out of the role of king ASAP I’m going to gain 200 lbs real quick.

After dinner, I chill with the fam some more, do the dishes, study (too much my host cousin told me), and generally fall asleep with my face firmly in the pages and pages of Turkmen vocab for which I am responsible.

Yes, I am exhausted, but I love it here. I am consumed by my work, by my life. I am fascinated by the culture in which I will spend the next two years. This is what I want.

More later. Internet is super unreliable so don’t know when!

I miss you guys. Write me! Letters are amazing.

QUICK UPDATE

I'm living with a very kind host family for the first three months. I'm learning to eat sitting on the floor, properly poor tea, use a squat toilet, and of course the langauge. I'm also adapting to the long skirts. That's right. Tess in long skirts ALL THE TIME. Believe it.

We have five hours of language training per day but I'm picking it up quickly. I can't wait till I can actually communicate! Simple sentences is all I can manage at this point.

I have also met my counterpart (english teacher) who I will be working with for the first three months and she seems very nice and very experienced. I will be learning more from her than I could ever possibly give to her. Humbling. Fabulous.

More later! Write me letters!!

Mailing Address and Fun Disclaimer!

Hello committed readers!

I am enjoying training in Philadelphia. I'm learning like crazy. It is very reassuring to finally speak one-on-one with someone intimately acquainted with Turkmenistan. My uncertainties and questions are vanishing quickly as I soak up all kinds of fun info.

For those of you waiting anxiously to send me lots and lots of letters from home, my mailing address will be as follows:

US Peace Corps/Turkmenistan
P.O. Box 258, Krugozor
Central Post Office
Ashgabat, 744000
Tess Elmore
TURKMENISTAN

I hope to hear from you soon. Because of the restrictions placed on blog use for the Peace Corps, letter writing and e-mailing may be a more personal way to get in touch with me.

Hope to hear from you soon!!

Kickoff

As many of you know, I will be leaving for the unknown wilds of Turkmenistan THIS SATURDAY. If this seems somewhat absurd to all you readers out there, let me assure you it is. Based in large part on this abusurdity, I anticipate my experience to be blog-worthy. We shall see . . .