The Week of Village Life

Okay, I miss home now. I never realized how hard it was going to be to be the only American within a huge distance. Dashoguz Turkmen is a lot different than the Turkmen I (sort of) learned in training and its really hard to communicate with people in my village. I can tell they really want to include me in things, and they all seem really nice, but I just want to cry at how hard it is to understand them, and how much I miss having another American around to talk to when I’m feeling stressed. Right now my most significant confidant is the cat who lives with me. His name is Puffy (it used to be “cat” until I got here, but I decided to name him) and he is now my official boyfriend in Gok Chage.

Turkmen don’t really celebrate Christmas, but they most defnitely celebrate New Years. It’s a huge deal around here and they actually celebrate new yers in a fashion very similar to how most Americans celebrate Christmas. They have a “New Years Tree” and “Ayaz Baba” (who bears a striking resemblance to Santa Clause). They also have a tradition of visiting a huge amount of houses on New Years Eve, and doing a massive quantity of vodka shooting at each house before they move on to the next stop. Welcome to a new year in Turkmenistan. When it finally came to midnight, I had managed to drink upwards of seventeen shots of vodka and multiple glasses of cognac and champagne. I gotta tell you, Americans have nothing on Turkmen when it comes to alcohol tolerance. Meanwhile, I could hardly focus to see the hands of the clock tick to midnight. Welcome to 2008.

For the rest of the work week I tagged around with Bagila as she went on house visits (aka patronage), and worked in her office. As much as I found it fascinating to watch her work with the villagers, it still seemed incredibly frustrating that I could hardly understand anything she said to me or any of the conversations that were going on between her and the villagers. I know I’m whining right now, but I really wish someone in Gok Chage spoke English!

By Friday my linguistic isolation was driving me stir crazy, and I decided to do something about it. I knew that Jon (another T-16) lived in Boldumsoz, which is a village only half an hour up the road from Gok Chage. I couldn’t exactly remember where he lived there, but I figured that in my desperate state, I would be able to sense his American-ness regardless of his location. At least I hoped so… I tried to go both Friday and Saturday, but each time something managed to come up that prevented me from making it out there. I did manage to go to a wedding and a few birthday parties though.

Sunday was such a relief; I finally managed to get over to Jon’s village and after asking around for “the American”, we managed to find his house. He and I talked (in English!) and he came with me and my family to run errands in Dashoguz city. We had planned on trying to check our e-mail and the post office box while we were there, but were unfortunately informed that both the internet café and the post office were only opened Monday through Saturday. At least I got to see another American, even if I still wasn’t able to hear from anyone “on the outside”. I realized it’s the first opportunity that I have had to speak conversational English (unless you count the cat) since the 27th of December when I had a chance to talk to Noah.