One Year Ago

I found out in March 2008 that I was coming to Turkmenistan, about one year ago I found the packet on the floor of my room at about 12:30am on a Sunday night. At that moment, it was the last thing that I wanted to see. I was nervous about reading my country placement and then not having anyone there to calm me down when I freaked out. I went to pick it up and put it on my desk, intending to open it in the morning, but as I looked down at it, the letter inside had just shifted enough for me to see “…assignment Turkmenistan…” in the address window. My first reaction was to panic because there I had it in my hand, the country in which I would spend the next two years of my life. Once my emotions had subsided, I realized that I knew next to nothing about this country. I had a good friend from college who was from Turkmenistan, but she was always vague about her home country when I asked her questions. I had read about the former president who went by the name Turkmenbasy, and about his cult of personality. But where was Turkmenistan exactly? What language did they speak there? And what was my job? They mentioned students but they also talked about teaching teachers.

The last year applying to Peace Corps had been a long, tedious process of forms and medical exams and now I actually had it here in my hand, an eight-page booklet intended to be my introduction to the next two years. There were, of course, more forms and the instructions to contact Peace Corps with-in the next 10 days to either accept or decline the invitation. I was petrified. My first thought was, I can’t go to a place I know nothing about, but even then I knew, with fear still making my heart beat rapidly I would make that call to Peace Corps and I would accept. I sat down at my computer and searched for Turkmenistan. Obscure pages came up, mostly focusing on the outlandish personality of the former president. I couldn’t find any information about culture, daily-life, people, or boring, normal things. All I read were titles like, “this is the weirdest country I have ever visited,” “not a place I would ever go back to” and so on. This didn’t help me at all. I decided to search for Peace Corps blogs and I found one in particular, written by a T-16 also named Annie that I found most comforting. She related her experiences to novels she was reading, and marveled at the peculiarity of her life, but also reveled in the unique experience she was having. I read her stories until I felt like I could be that Annie in the blog.

I accepted my placement in Peace Corps Turkmenistan without any hesitation, and suddenly it was like all of my anticipation for my service compounded and I felt like it was tomorrow I would be leaving. I continued to search for information about Turkmenistan and I got my hands on anything and everything I could find; I YouTubed videos of Turkmen singers and dancers; I read other Peace Corps blogs; I looked at photographs of Turkmen rugs, dresses, horses and people. I examined all of these things, searching for a taste of what my service would be like. I desperately wanted a glimpse into what my life might be like in this mysterious country.

I quickly figured out that there simply wasn’t a lot about Turkmenistan. Everything is on the Internet, but a search for Turkmenistan came up with slim pickings for reputable information. Turkmenistan is a closed country. It is isolated and not many people come here and not many people are compelled to write about the normality of life when there is the eccentric figure of Turkmenbashy who will attract so much more attention. I decided to give my research a rest and to stick with reading the Peace Corps blogs because those seemed as real and accurate as I could find.

After almost six months of living here myself, I am that Annie in the blog. My life at time still seems foreign to me, like I am in a dream, but I have a schedule, I have work, I have friends and I just go about my life. When I think I am adjusted, something will happen and I know, nope, I am far from settled. My life in Turkmenistan is not like what I imagined as I read through the eight-page introductory booklet. There is nothing that could have prepared me for what my life is like here except for coming here and experiencing it day by day for myself. Maybe if a T-18 is reading my blog now, panicked by the thought of this far away country, they should know that it isn’t necessarily the country that makes your experience unique, it is you that makes it worth it. Life in Turkmenistan is different for every volunteer here, and it is the people you meet, the students you see everyday, the friends you bond with and all of the personal relationships that you create that make your service your own. I think that it is a common dream of volunteers to enter Peace Corps with the lofty intention to save the world, but when any change happens, it must happen on an individual basis first and then gain momentum as the idea catches on. I will not save the world in two years, but I will try my best to gain the trust needed in my community to start some small changes and to affect people on a personal level.

I arrived in Fall, survived the mild Winter and already there are signs of Spring—blossoms, buds, warm wind, sun and green grass. I am a world away from that day I received my placement, but I am still Annie just like I was then and I know a lot more about the real Turkmenistan than anything I could ever find on the Internet.

I can hear the next-door neighbor's rooster cock-a-doodle-doing and it
is nine o'clock at night, pitch dark and definitely not dawn. Isn't a
rooster supposed to send out a morning wake up call? This rooster
definitely has a different understanding of what his job description
is. Usually I can hear him in the morning too, but not always.
Though every evening he incessantly makes the world know that he is
ready for nightfall. Maybe he got tired of waking up early and
decided to change his post. Or maybe he is confused. Or maybe
roosters don't actually cock-a-doodle-do at sunrise, but that it is
just a nicety written in children's books. Or maybe roosters in
Turkmenistan are different from America. No matter his reason, it
strikes me that I am like that rooster, slightly confused and
anomalous in my life here.

If I begin to feel like things are normalizing, there is always
something that reminds me that I still have a long way to go until my
life settles here. My routine helps me feel like I have some
direction, but what is written out on my schedule doesn't necessarily
make it happen. I never find out schedule changes until after the
fact, so inevitably my classes get switched without me knowing and I
wander the halls in search of my students when everyone else knows
what is going on (except for me of course). Then last week I found
out that I had mice in my room and although I was grossed out that I
had a rodent infestation, it was the panic at 2 a.m. when I realized I
had no idea how to solve the situation that made me feel helpless.
Being outsmarted by the Turkmen vermin really put me at a low-point
and I just kept thinking to myself, I would know exactly what to do at
home, go get a trap and put a piece of cheese in it, but here I just
don't know what to do. In tears I moved out to the living room where
I slept until my host-mom found me curled in a ball on the floor.
With-in minutes after stammering through my story, she had thrown the
cat in my room and with-in an hour the cat walked out with breakfast.
Usually I despise cats, but I have been sleeping with Kesha in my room
every night since. Even a perfectly solvable situation can feel like
a conundrum because the solution that I know is not possible. Or
there are little things, like the stove that I constantly have
problems with. I light a match and set it on the burner and since
there is no handle on the knob that controls the gas, I have to use
the end of a spoon or fork to turn it. About two-thirds of the time I
nearly burn my eyebrows off by turning it too high or accidentally
turn it off when I try to turn it down a bit. My host-mom or
host-sisters will see me struggling and try to help, but that almost
makes it worse because I feel like I can't even manage something
simple by myself. I want to find my independence here but since a
first grader is probably more adept than I am in Turkmen ways, I still
often rely on my host-family to hold my hand. It is okay that I am
still unsettled because I am learning and observing how Turkmen handle
things.

On the other hand, even if the Turkmen way is not my first instinct, I
can teach my host-family and friends about how I do things in America.
I peel bananas from the top and they peel bananas from the bottom,
and although it may not seem like a big deal, I always get comments
about my banana peeling technique. I am often told that my way is not
the correct way to peel bananas, but I shrug it off and say that there
is often more than one way to do things. So many of the simple things
that I do raise alarm because they are not the Turkmen way and the
questions never stop. I have been fortunate enough to travel and see
other cultures and traditions, and I consider myself accepting of
things foreign to me. For many of the people in my town, I am the
only foreigner they have ever met and I am so unusual and interesting
for them. My glasses are strange (I have been told that Turkmen all
have perfect vision). My shoes are different (but I had a lady offer
to buy them off my feet). The way I walk is weird (my steps are too
big I have been told). I smile too much and I carry a water bottle
full of water (not tea). I am constantly stared at and watched no
matter where I go. Sometimes I forget how much of an anomaly I am
until I pass someone who openly gawks at me. It is nice to escape into
the city where there are enough Russians so that I can go unnoticed.
I miss anonymity. I miss being able to escape into a crowd of
people—black, white, tall, short, blonde, brunette—and being
invisible.

Every volunteer is different, and every site gets to experience a
different type of America. And that is exactly what makes America so
fascinating—the diversity of its people. A student came up to me the
other day and asked me if it was true that America now has a black
president. She asked me how that could happen since Americans are not
black. There is not one face that can represent America because it is
a melting pot of all races, religions, backgrounds and beliefs. My
America is totally different from that of Jessie's or Tess' or
Megan's. But when we all come here, we all unite in the one big thing
we have in common—The America! Among each other we melt back into our
American selves and we speak freely in our common language. We can
understand each other's frustrations and problems, sacrifices and
victories.

There goes the rooster again. Cock-a-doodle-do. Still not morning.
Yes, I am like the rooster that doesn't know sunrise from sunset, but
he goes about his business day after day without fail and so will I.
He doesn't seem to care that all the rest of the roosters announce the
sunrise, he sings whenever he feels like it, and so will I!

The Road To Pedagogy

My life has fallen into somewhat of a routine now that my schedule has
been finalized. My teaching schedule has changed dramatically since
my counterpart left after New Years holiday and I have been working
hard with the other teachers at my school to set up new clubs. Peace
Corps says we have a mandatory 18-20 hours a week at our primary job
site. As of right now I have about 25 hours per week and I feel like
it is a good amount for me. Not close to the regular forty hour work
week in America, but I come home twice as exhausted as I did back in
the states.

My students are honestly the joy of my life here. I work with about
100 students in my clubs and several hundred more in all the classes
that I help team-teach. I started with clubs for the 7th through 10th
grade students and now I have expanded to include all grades and
teachers. I have an "Art and English" club with my adorable 1st-3rd
grade students. For my first club, one of the mothers who had brought
her son had lined up all of the students outside my door in a line
that curved all the way around the corner, and I panicked a little
when I saw more than twenty eager little faces staring up at me. How
could I manage twenty tiny ones with my Turkmen skills? These kids
are amazing. They listened attentively, hands on the desks, minds
alert as we recited the alphabet song and worked on the first page of
our illustrated ABC books. "A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat, D for
Dog." I have never seen young students that respectful in America!
They are so cute and I am so happy to work with all of them. Their
energy and eagerness just light up my day and restore my faith in what
I am doing here.


Last Sunday was the Garashsyzlyk Etrap Olympiad and three of my
advanced students won first place in their grade and will move onto
the Lebap Welayat Olympiad. Every school has a preliminary Olympiad
and the 1st and 2nd place students in each subject then compete at the
Etrap level. For English, they take a grammar and vocabulary test and
are then given a topic to write a short composition about and then
speak about in front of the judges. I am so proud of my students.
Jennet and I have been spending free class periods with them reviewing
advanced grammar topics like passive and active voice, which to be
honest, I am still unsure of how to explain clearly. Although they
need to know these really difficult grammar topics for the Olympiad,
they breezed through the basics so fast that they still need review,
and I basically started back at the beginning with them. We began
with greetings, but I wanted to expand on the "Hello. How are you? I
am fine." dialogue that they know, and I gave them new greetings like
"What's up?" and "How's it going?" and many adjectives of mood so that
they can actually express how they really feel (you don't always have
to be just "fine"). We are now onto the present continuous tense with
the question "What are you doing?" An example of one of my lessons is
as follows:
1.) Warm-Up: Greet each student. Collect homework. Play around the
world with the previously learned vocabulary.
2.) Presentation: Present Continuous Tense
- Teach these eight verbs: okamak=to read, oynamak=to play, yatmak=to
sleep, gitmek=to go, yazmak=to write, dinlemek=to listen, okatmak=to
teach, owrenmek=to learn
-Review the verb 'to be'
*I am
*He, She, It is
*You, We, They are
-Explain in Turkmen that this tense is simple and the verb 'to be' is
used as a helper verb and that the subject of the sentence must always
be said first
-You must first take the 'to' off of the verb and add the suffix -ing
-Write on the board: Subject + 'to be' + main verb + ING
-Write on the board some examples: Men okayaryn= I am reading, Ol
(oglan) oynayar= He is playing
3.)Practice: I give them a subject (I, You, He etc.) and I act out the
verb. Tell the students to make a sentence in the present continuous
tense using the verb that I am acting out.
-Repeat this until all the students are translating well
4.)Application: Charades
-Divide the class into two teams. One student must act out a verb and
their team must make a sentence using the subject that I give them.
If they make a sentence, they get a point. If they can't, ask the
other team.
5.)Homework: Write seven present continuous sentences, one for each
subject, using the new verbs.

My lessons all include interactive games and activities that get the
kids speaking as much as possible. Most lessons here are teacher
centered, and my goal is to have my kids speaking more than me in
class!

Apart from these two clubs, I have a Beginner 7th-10th grade club, an
Intermediate 7th-10th grade club, a Beginner 4th-6th grade club, an
English Teachers club and a non-English teachers club. I have more
than enough kids in each club and I have had to start turning kids
away because I can't take anymore. For my first 4th-6th grade club I
wrote on the poster, and told all the kids that they couldn't be late
to the club. I had a full room at 2pm and I locked the door. I still
had kids knocking, but all I said to them was, "I told you not to be
late!" I know it seems harsh, but if they had really wanted to be
there, they would have been there. There are 1,400 students and I
have to set my limits on numbers or else the effectiveness of my
teaching decreases by so much. I arrive at school around 9am and I am
usually there until 4 or 5pm. I eat lunch when I can at the school
cafeteria where my host-mom and host-sisters work. I get soup and hot
pumpkin filled pastries almost everyday. When I have free periods I
prep for classes or go drink tea with the other teachers. Now that my
days have a routine, I am beginning to feel settled in (to a certain
extent). We joke among the PCVs that some days all you can manage is
showing up to work—that's the hard part. Once I get to my classroom,
all decorated with the various school supplies I have been sent, maps
and pictures from home, I can pick up the chalk and write out the new
words on the blackboard. Then when the kids come bounding into my
room, they bring all the energy that I was missing that morning when I
woke up, and suddenly I am ready to teach.

Na, Na, Na

Peace Corps goal number 2: Helping promote a better understanding of
Americans on the part of peoples served.

I have been working with a group of five hand picked students on a
pretty regular basis. These five students from the 9th and 10th
grades have the highest level of English in my school of 1,400
students. They win the Olympiads, have dreams of studying in America
or England, enjoy learning English and show up on time, homework
prepared, ready to study English. When asked what they wanted to
learn in English club, one boy said, "everything." Okay, I'll try.

These kids know more about American culture than one might think.
They can tell you all about Britney Spears. They watch episodes of
South Park, Next!, Pimp My Ride, and Room Raiders on the Russian MTV.
TV programs like Lost, Scrubs, and C.S.I air nightly. From their
telephones blast ring tones of Rihanna, Enrique Iglesias, 50 cent,
Beyonce and Shakira. They ask me to translate phrases like
"Womanizer," "I'm from the hood" and "Smack That" (which I refused to
translate). I have never been the one to ask about the latest music
and I couldn't tell you who sings the songs that I used to hear daily
on the southern California radio stations. Now that I am in
Turkmenistan, it is highly likely that my students will know of
American pop-culture long before I do.

Last week, I decided to share with my students a jewel example of
American pop-culture that I had been sent over email. Out of all the
American artists out there, the one they have asked about the most is
Akon, and I happened to be in possession of an Akon song not found yet
within the borders of Turkmenistan (except for on my laptop of
course). I wanted to get them really excited about this, and blow
away all the skeptics of interactive teaching methods. Even with this
seemingly unintelligent and useless song, I was going to teach my
students grammar and phraseology. The song "Right Now (Na, Na, Na)"
has 4 verses and a chorus that goes like this: "I wanna make up right
na, na, na. I wanna make up right, na, na, na. Wish we'd never broke
up right na, na, na. We need to link up right na, na, na. (repeat)"
This song could be the only Akon song that doesn't have swear words,
uses smart examples of English language idioms and it repeats a lot so
it is relatively easy to understand. I had the students listen
through once for pure enjoyment and then it was down to work. I gave
each one a verse with words taken out and a complete copy of the
chorus (to sing along). I replayed the song and they filled in the
blanks to the best of their ability. Immediately the questions came
up. Teacher, what does "you're the apple of my eye" mean? That
doesn't make any sense. Students, Valentine's Day is coming up, and
this is the idiom you want to use on your valentine. It means that
you are my everything, that I can't see anything but you. Teacher,
what does "link up" mean? It means that we need to get together, like
a chain links (bad picture of a chain drawn on the board). Teacher,
what does "I want you to fly with me" mean? Humans can't fly, can
they? No. What can fly? Birds, airplanes. Good, it means that we
will be so in love that our hearts will be so happy that they fly off
together (bad picture of a heart with wings on the board). Heads to
the desk, pens to the paper, they madly scribble all of this down.
Valentine's Day is coming up and I happen to know all of them have a
boyfriend or girlfriend and they want to make sure they have all of
this material right. I teach them these idioms, explain how "I wanna"
is the slang version of "I want to" and how it is common for Americans
to slur the endings of words, blame it on us being lazy with speech.
We listen again for pure enjoyment, but this time everyone is singing.
They beg me to play it again, knowing they are quite possibly the
first Turkmens to hear this song. We all are tapping our feet,
nodding our heads to the rhythm, looking up occasionally from the
lyrics to make sure the others are doing the same. We sing the last
chorus with full enthusiasm, end the lesson, all out the door with it
stuck in our heads for the rest of the day na, na, na.

Dancing the New Year In

I talked about the pomp and circumstance of the New Year celebration
in past blog posting and I can now say that it is all it was hyped up
to be! The New Year parties for me began on December 30th with the
Russian school's student concert. I am working one day a week at the
smaller school in town still referred to as the Russian school
although classes are now taught all in Turkmen. Some of the girls
performed a dance to Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" and topped her with
their hip shaking and belly-dancing moves. There is so much Uzbek
influence in the dance in Lebap that it resembles nothing like the
hand swirling dance the women did in Ahal. After the Shakira dance,
the boys brought in a board for break dancing. Outfitted in baggy
pants, hoodie sweatshirts and the attitude of Akon and 50 cent
combined, they spun, flipped and broke it down with every move they
had seen on Russian MTV. In these two performances, I was amazed by
the break from tradition. They were really pushing the boundaries and
expressing themselves in a unique way. These students broke away from
the conventional and did something different from the traditional
Turkmen performances that dominate the media and government sponsored
events. It may seem like a small thing, but it also demonstrates the
big generational gap that has happened. The new generation, the first
generation to grow up after the Soviet Union, has more and more
exposure to the western culture and they are increasingly drawn to it,
creating a separate identity from their parents' generation. Upon
leaving the Russian school to go to my school, I encountered a rather
sad looking cow tied to a tree outside the building. Some of the
students had take it upon themselves to dress him up and make him the
mascot for the year of the cow. Poor cow, you could tell he knew how
ridiculous he looked. But it did happen to be the funniest thing I
have seen in Turkmenistan, so of course I took a picture.


The poor New Years mascot that I found tied up to a tree outside the Russian school.

The 10th grade party was already underway when I arrived back at my
school. All of the 10th form classes and a hand-full of teachers were
sitting at tables surrounding the New Years tree. We ate a full meal,
but the real reason that they students were there was to dance. And
they LOVE to dance! A wedding singer was blasting out all the latest
Turkmen and Russian dance hits and the students would be up on the
feet at the first note of a song. It was nothing like the awkward
high school dances I remember. Everyone danced together and nobody
was excluded from the dance circle. Jennet and I danced with the
students and there was only one annoying kid who kept following me,
taking a video of me with his camera. I danced for several hours with
the students and got home so exhausted and worn out. I wanted to go
to bed, but some extended family members of my host-family were having
a New Years party and I was invited to go. I got my party face on
again and walked there with my host-sisters. The host was my
host-mom's, brother's, son's, daughter (I don't even know what that
would be classified as). I sat with the other women in one room, the
kids were in another and the men in yet another room. It is still
difficult for me to follow group conversations, and after a while I
was lost. It takes so much energy for me to just be present, that
when I am tired I can't understand Turkmen. I forgot how much energy
it takes to function in a non-English speaking environment, and I can
be exhausted at the end of the day not even doing anything. At about
11:30 I called it a night and the cameraman (yes, there was a
cameraman there too) followed me out of the house and had the camera
in my face as I put on my shoes and tried to explain to one of my
host-mom's sisters that there was nothing wrong, but that I was just
tired and needed to sleep. I know why celebrities get into fights
with paparazzi— having a camera a foot away from your face is so
annoying and invasive. I didn't get mad at him because I don't want
to be known as that volunteer who decked the cameraman in the face
(most likely he is somehow related to my host-family too, so better
not break his nose).

On December 31st, I attended the teachers' party at school. It is
still a little awkward for me to be by myself with all the other
teachers since I can't really have a full conversation with them yet
unless they speak to me in Russian. As I was sitting, trying to look
busy as I nibbled on some bread, my counterpart showed up and I was
relieved to have her there to talk to.

We ate the first course and with just as much
excitement as my students the day before, the teachers got up to
dance. In this country it is okay to be the only one up dancing by
yourself, but most likely everyone else will join in as well. In
America I feel that many people are self-conscious about dancing, but
here everyone is "the dancing queen" and has no hesitation to get up
and dance. Dance, dance, dance! That seems to be what this holiday is
all about! I went home early and took a nap and then spent the rest
of the afternoon in the kitchen preparing cookies, another apple crisp
(better than the first time) and spicy spinach and cabbage salad. I
went out around 8:30pm with my host-sister and one of her friends,
thinking we were going guesting at some neighbors' houses, but then
when we passed a friend on the street, my sister announced we were
going to the "discoteka." What? I wasn't at all prepared for this.
The "discoteka" turns out to be a big room turned into a "village
disco" as my sister referred to it. I love dancing, but the room was
full of all of my 9th and 10th grade students and I felt incredibly
awkward being there. I tried to play it incognito and sat in my coat
in a chair along the wall. We weren't there for very long, and I was
relieved to go. I don't want the students to start gossiping about
how Ms.Annie goes to the disco and then to have the other teachers
find out. Turkmen love to gossip and I know I am constantly being
watched wherever I go, so I have to be mindful of my reputation and my
actions. We headed back to the house and sat down to the huge feast
that we had all prepared earlier.

The photo of our table on New Years. There was so much food, you
couldn't even fit another plate on the table. My pie is on the very
end (soooo yummy). You can see the circular, flat bread in the front
and the dishes of fish and chicken. There were trays of salads, nuts
and raisins, cookies and candies, juice, beer and vodka. We ate the
same thing for the next two days. I pretty much just inhaled the
pie!!!

Food,food and more food! At midnight we ran out onto the street and lit
fireworks and sparklers and whooped and yelled along with everyone
else in town.

Back in the house we danced to
the new sound system my host-family recently bought, too bad we only
have one music CD, so the same 10 songs were on replay for hours. In
the early hours of the morning, I called it a night as the same 10
songs were still being pounded out as my host-sister and her friends
continued to dance. New year's day marked three months for me in
Turkmenistan. I can't decide if it feels like much longer or like
yesterday that I arrived. The New Years holiday was so much fun and I
really enjoyed feeling like part of the community as I went from party
to party, dancing the most I have ever danced in my life!

The ABC Party

When students in the first form have learned all of the letters in the
Turkmen alphabet, they have a party to celebrate. I was invited to
Jennet's niece's ABC party a few days before Christmas. The night
before we went to the "toy salon" where there were rooms full of
sparkly, dazzling wedding dresses and a little room with mini-wedding
dresses small enough to fit a 7 year-old, but with as much glitter as
the full-size version. We picked out a dress and crown to match, and
on the party day Jennet's niece had glitter in her hair and glittery
eye shadow. The little girls walked around knowing how pretty they
looked and with as much poise as someone four times their age. The
boys wore little suits and ties but were more concerned about kicking
around the balloons than keeping their clothes in order. The teacher
pinned a letter onto each of the students and they performed songs and
dances with as much organization and synchronization as a group of 30
first graders can manage. To make sure that the occasion be
remembered for centuries to come, the cameraman didn't stop shooting
for one minute. And when there was anything of importance said, the
electric keyboard man would pound out a few notes to drive the point
home. My favorite was when groups of students went to the front of
the room and announced what they wanted to be when they grew up. The
biggest groups were the future doctors and teacher (Jennet's niece
wanted to be an English teacher like her aunt), then there were some
potential business men and army officers, and the last little boy,
with as much gusto as all the rest declared he wanted to be a goat
herder! It made me remember how we did the same thing at my
kindergarten graduation and I had decided, after much thought, that I
wanted to be the tooth fairy when I grew up. Too bad it didn't work
out, I hope the future goat herder has more success.


This is Jennet's niece (center) and two other girls who sang a
Turkmen song accompanied by hand swaying and the electric keyboard
(notice the cameraman on the left)



Jennet's niece in her ABC party outfit. I like this photo because
everything else is a little out of focus except for her. She just
happened to turn around and look at me and I snapped the photo.



This is the "Father Frost" or "Ded Moroz" that came to the ABC party.

The New Year

The New Year holiday is a big deal in Turkmenistan. It is celebrated
much like Christmas in America. At the bazaar, lots of New Year
booths pop up out of nowhere selling ornaments, masks, cards, and
decorations. School ends on December 30th and a two-week holiday
break begins (I will still be holding my clubs, though). Families buy
a "yolka" (tree) and decorate it with so many garlands and ornaments
that you can barely see that it is supposed to be a tree. On December
31st families and friends gather and exchange presents, cook a big
meal and celebrate together. "Ded moroz" (father frost) comes door to
door and gives presents to children after they recite poems or sing
songs for him. For the past 10 years Jennet has been the "ded moroz"
for my town and the children would always wonder why father frost had
a woman's voice. This year though, she has decided that she is going
to retire the "ded moroz" costume and pass the job onto someone else.
In the evening, before mid-night, the vodka comes out, various animal
masks are put on and dancing commences. I don't know where the mask
tradition came from, but wait until I send you the pictures!! A huge
spread of food is laid out on a long tablecloth—salads, fruit, cheese
and meat, soup, palow (Turkmen national rice dish), bread, tea, soda
and vodka. My host-family has requested, take a guess, chocolate chip
cookies. I am going to get a bit more courageous and will try another
pumpkin pie and an apple pie as well. I will be thinking of you all
as I bring in the New Year with my huge Turkmen family and friends,
wearing a plastic animal mask and dancing to American pop music in
Turkmen. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!


My New Years Resolutions for the Year of the Cow:
1.) Learn Turkmen (continue with Russian)
2.) Learn how to make bread in the Turkmen tamdyr
3.) Keep running
4.) Make friends
5.) Be patient with myself and others
6.) Be the best teacher I can be
7.) Keep writing letters
8.) Save enough money for an airplane ticket to Taiwan
9.) Stop being a man carrot (erkek kashir)
10.) Don't fall into my toilet (or drop anything in)