Three Cheers for Cultural Exchange

To my loyal blog readers, I apologize for the belatedness of this post. It will probably happen again. Hang in there with me!

I had amazing classes yesterday. Lately, my life has been awash with the kind of cultural exchange to which Peace Corps aspires. These classes epitomize these experiences.

My first class was studying education, specifically the education system in Great Britain. This isn’t particularly applicable to them for a number of reasons. First, if these students were to leave the institute for a year abroad, they would not be allowed to continue their studies here. Second, the Britain only provides a couple of scholarships to Turkmen, and even these target those seeking graduate degrees. Enough background.

After tossing a ball around to review the basic tenses and playing hangman to review vocabulary, I decided to have them present on education in Turkmenistan. I modeled the presentation with a short presentation of my own on education in the US.

My students were astounded by the following: my university was small with only 3,000 odd students. UT, with over 50,000 students, was beyond their comprehension as was the fact that the US has over 2,000 colleges and universities. The cost of college, of course, was unreal to them. Me too, I said!

I, in turn, was surprised by the following information: when my students were at school, there was no physical education. Now, students in schools and universities have PE once a week. I also learned that there are specialized public schools: economics and management, languages, math, science, etc. Finally, to enter the institute to study English, three exams are required: English, Turkmen, and Holy Ruhnama.

In my second class, we discussed a text entitled “A Friend in Need.” After debating the relative worth of happy vs. unhappy endings and good vs. bad characters, I asked them to produce a list of five qualities that they seek in friends. “Tidy” and “polite” cropped up among the expected answers of honesty, kindness, and intelligence. I doubted both as a mis-translation but was convinced by follow up that these two words were exactly what my students meant.

We went on to discuss the following situations: If your friend needed money, would you give it? If your friend needed a place to stay, would you let them live with you? If your friend stole something, would you tell? If your friend asked you to write an essay for them, would you?
My students said that they would absolutely give their friends money, would absolutely let their friends live with them indefinitely, wouldn’t tell unless the crime negatively impacted another friend or family member, and would absolutely (with one exception who had studied at an American HS for a year) write the essay for them. They did not consider this cheating.

At this point, I am bursting to share with them the differences between their answers and those I would expect from American students. Emphasizing that identifying differences is different from passing judgment.

In other news, I have changed families yet again. One thing you must learn about living in a foreign country, any foreign country, and perhaps particularly in Turkmenistan is that things change suddenly, without warning. Perhaps this is because I am not savvy enough or experienced enough with Turkmen culture to pick up the signs or perhaps this is simply a fact of life in for millions of people. Perhaps as Americans, we take the relative stability of our lives for granted. Then again, perhaps I was merely protected from the winds of fate and fortune J by my wonderful parental unit.

Enough of rambling. My new family is wonderful. I live with two sisters, 19 and 23, and their uncle who is 70. The girls family, parents and three other sisters, visit often from a suburb of Ashgabat where they live. The girls are about as different as can be. The younger one is bubbly and open-hearted. Her English is good and she talks with me every chance she gets. The older one is quieter and motherly. However, she has a strong sarcastic streak that has made us fast friends. They both work.

The uncle is fabulous. At 70, he runs regularly and eats two walnuts before breakfast and after dinner everyday. He also drinks a concoction of vinegar, vodka, and walnut extract everyday. He remembers some English words from his 1 year of English class during 7th grade. Now, he is eager to learn more. I eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast and he has dubbed this “Gerculees” (Hercules). He plans to join me in my morning consumption of Gerculees.

From my new family, I have learned:
· lots of Turkmen vocabulary such as blessing, tradition, unfortunately, to augment etc.
· that if my palms itch, money is coming my way
· never to flick water from my hands after washing
· how to make borsch
· how to crack seeds open with my teeth and extract the meat with my tongue

That’s all for now. If you’ve made it this for, congrats. You are a super-committed blog reader. Thank you.

I’m off to Istanbul, Turkey for a week of vacation! I’ll tell you all about that soon!

Me