Ashgabat: Day 42

Dearest family and friends, February 26, 2009

Well, goodness. Here I am in Turkmenistan. How did this happen? And what a strange place! The bread is good, Jonathan, but fortunately, not as good as in Azerbaijan, AND difficult to find it hot…all kinds of state run bakeries churning out thousands of loaves that are distributed to state shops, and other shops, all over the city. Within a block of my apartment, there are, I would say, 15 shops, most the equivalent of small Quick Stops. Some are the size of a large closet. Some have no walls; the vendor sets out bags of potatoes, carrots and onions. An old woman huddles with recycled Coke bottles of fresh milk, and another commands a rickety platform stacked with eggs. To get cheese, fruit and fresh greens, you must go to the big bazaars, the nearest to me, the Teke Bazaar, being about a mile away, and the Russian Bazaar, maybe 1 ½ miles away. I love the walk but don’t like the carrying home part. I could take a taxi but am reluctant to try. Taxis are unmarked here—just guys driving around without the hassle and expense of licenses. To flag a taxi is easy: stand in the road and hold your hand down and slightly out with palm side in. But then you have to give the name of your street, and that is where my confidence fails. Tomorrow.

A new culture to discover. Working within another culture requires an intricate flexibility. That is an understatement. Working within another culture makes me very quietly happy at times and makes me want to scream at other times. Of course, I can’t scream and that makes me want to scream even more. Time is fluid. Time is a puddle. Rules are stretched and bent and tied into knots. My most recent assignment was to oversee the intake of students for a new English program for gap year students—students between high school and compulsory military service. One newspaper did not list the time. One newspaper did not run the advertisement. The sign posted on the building gave the wrong hours. The teachers drifted in like plastic bottles on waves…almost here, then disappearing only to reappear two hours later. I answered one hundred questions with, “I don’t know,” and my boss told me that was the right answer. We envisioned a program for 1200 students and imagined that at the peak on sign up day we would be turning away hundreds of students. Despite the visions, we had present only seven teachers with ink pens. To my surprise, only fourteen students applied Friday, seven of whom may be ineligible. But this is typical apparently, and I must be flexible. Flexibility means a lot of things, and it never means what you think will be required of you in the new job site. Flexibility in other cultures really means that on Day 1 you know nothing, you are a baby, and God willing, you won’t be run over before you understand that the cars drive very quickly.

There are some perks here, though. One night as I walked around the neighborhood, I saw three women come out of a building. They were each carrying a mountainous cake. I made a sharp left into the building and discovered the Shirin Sha—a tea and cake shop. There were scores of cakes, some 8-10 inches high, multi-layers held together by rich looking butter cream frostings, covered in flowers and French lace, crushed walnuts and pistachios. I could order a pot of tea and a piece of cake, or take a piece home—carry out cake! And I do. Cake is the key to flexibility. I work, I walk home, I eat cake, drink tea, eat lunch and I am flexible again.

As to the city, Ashgabat, the city of love, I am still discovering it. Sunday I walked to the bus station near the bazaar, chose a bus at random, and rode its route, to the southern edge of the city as it turned out. Ashgabat is bordered on the south and southwest by the Kopet Dag Mountains which run along the border with Iran. I can’t tell you anything about the mountains yet except that they make a beautiful backdrop to any walk. The scene I was most interested in was the new architecture. There are two things to know about Ashgabat’s architecture: first, the city was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake in 1948; second, the former President (the first president after independence from the Soviet Union, and who died about two years ago) undertook a modernization program that, among other things, clears out entire neighborhoods and erects relatively narrow12-14 story buildings that, by law, must be covered in 14cm by 28 cm rectangles of white marble. In neighborhoods of single story houses, or four and five story Russian style apartment buildings, these white monoliths pop up like weeds that got all the fertilizer. Ashgabat has fewer than one million people, and Shanghai has 16 or 18 million, but I am reminded of the eerie quality of the neighborhood of skyscrapers in PuDong, the sci fi set of Shanghai’s new business center east of the river. Older government buildings are also being remodeled and covered in these white marble rectangles. And there are many, many government buildings. State architecture. Not stately.

Turkmenistan shares some cultural features with Azerbaijan—both Silk Road destinations, both peopled by some of the same mixes of people, so I can’t help but draw parallels, and I compare the capital cities. Often while walking in Baku, I observed evidence of the lack of the most basic state or civic responsibility: a school yard filled with broken glass and trash. Here, I pass by several school yards on my routes to classes and the bazaars and the grounds and buildings are charming. Bright pictures painted on the covered areas, yards full of trees and flowers, interesting wooden shelters open on one side where kids can play out of the rain. On the other hand, I see evidence of a control that is disturbing. One morning I noticed a strip of the road had been torn up. Next day, the chunks of asphalt were gone. Next day, new asphalt was laid. This efficiency is not normal, though it is something I longed for in Baku: can’t someone just FIX this? I know this seems silly to be distrustful of a government that performs efficiently. And Ashgabat is clean. Garbage is in the garbage bins, and a small army of women constantly sweep the streets and sidewalks. The streets are tree lined, and the trees are clean. Really! Walking to work one morning, I saw three men walking along the street, followed by a water truck, manning a heavy water hose washing the dust and dead needles out of the pine trees. That is a sight I will remember.

Once again I am in the midst of ‘redenomination’ of the currency. I experienced this in Baku also, and it is very confusing for everyone. Previously, the largest note ( I think this is correct) was 10,000 manat. That is about 67 cents. To make a major purchase required sacks of money. That note has now become 2 manat: divide by 5 and drop three zeros. In a way it is a relief not to pay 40,000 manat for a litre of milk. Shopkeepers are still confused and I had to show one man my conversion chart to convince him that I had paid enough for the potholders. And speaking of changing money, someone took me to exchange $200. We were standing in line at a little plastic building for a minute when a woman approached us. “How much did we want to exchange?” $ 200. “Ok, come with me.” My helper and I went with the woman who stopped at her late model car and opened the back door. The back seat and floor boards were covered in sacks of money. She grabbed a bundle and counted out two million eight hundred fifty thousand manat. I felt rich. Really. But it was funny…standing on the street counting millions of manat—a transaction that began with two $100 bills. For one day I kept track of expenses: 60,000 water; 75,000 bread, pasta and tomato paste; 51,000 salt (1 kilo), sugar (1 kilo) and 250 grams of kielbasa; 57,000 for two pieces of cake; and 17,000 for a box of 25 Lipton tea bags.

My greatest pleasure so far has been to come upon a wedding. I was searching for a small tandir bread bakery—of course. Everything hinges on food. Anyway, I heard music so I traced it to a house with people standing in the driveway and decorated cars crowding the road. As in Azerbaijan, most houses are behind walls and heavy gates. After some time, the gates opened and the musicians came out. Women milled around and guys hung out in the street. The musicians got into a car and dashed off to the wedding palace, I suppose. Finally, the groom came out, hopped into a car then everyone piled into cars and took off. In Azerbaijan, the man and his family go take the woman from her home, and everyone goes to the wedding palace for hours and hours of feasting and music. I should also say that in the rural areas of Azerbaijan, the man’s wedding celebration is usually separate from the woman’s wedding celebration, though in Baku, they often have just one together. I don’t know the details for Turkmenistan, but I have a feeling they are similar. I will find out. But I was so very happy to hear the music and get some photographs. Photographs come later. I have no good way to arrange them for email right now.

This has been a strange five weeks. My original posting was to be in Mary, Turkmenistan, but the Fellow in Ashgabat had to return to the states to care for her husband. Just days before arriving, I learned that I would be staying in the capital. I arrived on January 16, and on January 23rd, returned to Cairo for the Fellows conference. I was there 9 days, and though it was exhausting, I got to see Emily and Jill and Tariq again though I could never make connections with Ahmed, my Yemeni student. Back to work in Ashgabat, then came Flag Day, and I had a five day weekend, so I made a short trip to Baku to stay with Kamran’s family. To eat Talysh food again! To have hot tandir bread! To drink a Guinness at Finnegan’s! That was very, very nice. Now I am back to work, and no more long weekends for the duration.

I am good. I teach five groups of mostly adults. Two groups are older post graduate students working on advanced degrees that require an English course. These students are doctors and lawyers, teachers and researchers, economists and linguists, one ethnomusicologist, and one veterinarian who specializes in poultry stress: nervous chickens, I say. Teaching adults is new for me and I enjoy it. I will also get to travel to the regions to hold teacher training workshops.

My apartment is comfortable, and the only shortcoming is that it is on the second floor and I have no access to the outdoors. I shop at the bazaars which I love. I can walk to each of my job sites and that makes me happy. My contract here runs to the end of July. At this point, I don’t know if it will be renewed, or if I would renew if offered. Internet service is limited and international calls are expensive. I don’t rely on those two things to be at peace, but I do need some connections to other worlds. I can not encourage anyone to visit: attractions are modest and distances are great.

I hope everyone is well. God bless you all in the here and now.

Love to all,
Janet