Summers in Turkmenistan
6-4-06
Summers in Turkmenistan
What is Turkmenistan like in the summer?
The mornings are cool until about 7:00 am when you wake up in a hot sweat.
It’s women in white head scarves with just a slit for their eyes sweeping the dusty streets, watering the flowerbeds around the Turkmenbashy statues, and painting the curbs in white a black with a sponge.
It’s Turkmen men sitting under an old pagoda, smoking cigarettes while playing chess and the Turkmen version of backgammon making the board snap with the crack of the die against the edges of their wooden boards.
It’s old Russian grandmothers donning purple parasols, pink faces, smiles of gold teeth, and bottleneck glasses standing by the side of road waiting for the next broken windshield van.
It’s sipping fountain sodas made from syrup and mineral water made in front of you for two cents.
It’s Turkmen boys in their underwear swimming in the chocolate brown canal water while their friends try to pelt them with the pebbles from the shore.
It’s caramel colored little girls with puff balls of shiny silver mesh adorning their pigtails, skipping along hand in hand eating the Turkmen ice cream that doesn’t melt.
It’s pick up soccer games in sandals and bare feet with a flat ball in the courtyard until 11:00 at night. Shouts of young boys saying, “Pass it to me! Look! Hey stupid, what are you doing?”
It’s old Turkmen women, bent over from a life of sweeping and cleaning with hand brooms sitting on the cracked sidewalk selling cigarettes, gum, and sunflower seeds.
It’s middle-aged women adorned in Turkmen traditional dresses with bright colors, colorful patterned collars, and head wraps selling fresh plums, cherries, and apricots out of buckets in the shade of the freshly painted curbs of the street.
It’s the rotting smell of sewage coming from the same drain that a woman with tangled hair, is washing her family’s clothes.
It’s the occasional whiff of burning trash.
It’s a walk home from work through an alleyway where the smell of lilacs wafts to my nose.
It’s sitting out on the family metal porch on carpets trading anecdotes and vodka shots.
It’s playing basketball where the hoop is a piece of sheet metal with a metal ring of rebar for the rim.
It’s the occasional meal at a restaurant with a luke warm beer, underneath a pavilion of grape vines, sashlik kabob cooking nearby over an open flame while you share stories with other Peace Corps Volunteers of what has happened in the past week.
It’s wedding season. Caravans of white Toyota Camries wrapped up in ribbon like a giant Christmas present, honking and speeding past each other and taking up all three lanes of the avenue. The bride, with the traditional carpet over her head, and her party pose for pictures without smiles in front of a plastic scene of Hawaii. A statue of the only “acknowledged” Turkmen poet Magtymguly rising up behind them and a child in a long since broken big wheel is seated in front of them.
It’s Turkmen yelling from half a block away “Chang-uh Dollar?!”
It’s a walk through the park where couples of young Turkmen men and women crouch on benches and lean on trees smooching, necking and snookering since they can not do anything at home.
It’s rides on the rusty Ferris wheel where the enthralling part of the ride is not the view from the top, but the thought that the groaning coming from the gears will be the last thing that you ever hear.
It’s classrooms, with rows of plywood chairs bolted to the floor, the light blue paint chipping off, where teachers sip endless cups of tea and chat about the hard work they are doing.
It’s sitting on carpets in the courtyard in the evening with raisin, dark cherry faced Turkmen elders with sparse beards down to the middle of their stomachs remembering the memories of those that have passed.
It’s reading letters over and over again in the post office while you wait for permission from the manager that your mail meets approval and you can leave with your mail.
It’s the midday heat that can reach 110 and stay hot until the sun sets at 9:00 pm where all you want to do is sleep.
It’s shaving you head with your friend so you can finally feel cooler from the heat.
It’s dust storm sunsets; beige, fascinating and stinging. Turkmen boys, with scarves on their faces, smacking the rumps of their camels and cows to hurry them back along the road to their pens as the sand blows in sideways.
It’s the neighborhood Turkmen kids knocking on the door of my apartment, then running away squealing with laughter when I answer.
It’s sweating through your shirt thirty seconds after you walk out the door.
It’s reading back copies of New Yorkers, sipping on freshly made coffee, while listening to Bob Dylan on my ipod delaying making the lesson plans for next week.
It’s teenage soldiers in uniforms three sizes to big for them polishing the golden bust of the President Turkmenbashy statues.
The evening brings on a coolness and with it the mosquitoes or chibin as they are named, that you have to brush away with a dish rag.
It’s realizing that this strange place that just a few months and another lifetime ago you thought that as the end of the earth is now your home.
What do you think? Does it sound like something that you might want to experience?
Summers in Turkmenistan
What is Turkmenistan like in the summer?
The mornings are cool until about 7:00 am when you wake up in a hot sweat.
It’s women in white head scarves with just a slit for their eyes sweeping the dusty streets, watering the flowerbeds around the Turkmenbashy statues, and painting the curbs in white a black with a sponge.
It’s Turkmen men sitting under an old pagoda, smoking cigarettes while playing chess and the Turkmen version of backgammon making the board snap with the crack of the die against the edges of their wooden boards.
It’s old Russian grandmothers donning purple parasols, pink faces, smiles of gold teeth, and bottleneck glasses standing by the side of road waiting for the next broken windshield van.
It’s sipping fountain sodas made from syrup and mineral water made in front of you for two cents.
It’s Turkmen boys in their underwear swimming in the chocolate brown canal water while their friends try to pelt them with the pebbles from the shore.
It’s caramel colored little girls with puff balls of shiny silver mesh adorning their pigtails, skipping along hand in hand eating the Turkmen ice cream that doesn’t melt.
It’s pick up soccer games in sandals and bare feet with a flat ball in the courtyard until 11:00 at night. Shouts of young boys saying, “Pass it to me! Look! Hey stupid, what are you doing?”
It’s old Turkmen women, bent over from a life of sweeping and cleaning with hand brooms sitting on the cracked sidewalk selling cigarettes, gum, and sunflower seeds.
It’s middle-aged women adorned in Turkmen traditional dresses with bright colors, colorful patterned collars, and head wraps selling fresh plums, cherries, and apricots out of buckets in the shade of the freshly painted curbs of the street.
It’s the rotting smell of sewage coming from the same drain that a woman with tangled hair, is washing her family’s clothes.
It’s the occasional whiff of burning trash.
It’s a walk home from work through an alleyway where the smell of lilacs wafts to my nose.
It’s sitting out on the family metal porch on carpets trading anecdotes and vodka shots.
It’s playing basketball where the hoop is a piece of sheet metal with a metal ring of rebar for the rim.
It’s the occasional meal at a restaurant with a luke warm beer, underneath a pavilion of grape vines, sashlik kabob cooking nearby over an open flame while you share stories with other Peace Corps Volunteers of what has happened in the past week.
It’s wedding season. Caravans of white Toyota Camries wrapped up in ribbon like a giant Christmas present, honking and speeding past each other and taking up all three lanes of the avenue. The bride, with the traditional carpet over her head, and her party pose for pictures without smiles in front of a plastic scene of Hawaii. A statue of the only “acknowledged” Turkmen poet Magtymguly rising up behind them and a child in a long since broken big wheel is seated in front of them.
It’s Turkmen yelling from half a block away “Chang-uh Dollar?!”
It’s a walk through the park where couples of young Turkmen men and women crouch on benches and lean on trees smooching, necking and snookering since they can not do anything at home.
It’s rides on the rusty Ferris wheel where the enthralling part of the ride is not the view from the top, but the thought that the groaning coming from the gears will be the last thing that you ever hear.
It’s classrooms, with rows of plywood chairs bolted to the floor, the light blue paint chipping off, where teachers sip endless cups of tea and chat about the hard work they are doing.
It’s sitting on carpets in the courtyard in the evening with raisin, dark cherry faced Turkmen elders with sparse beards down to the middle of their stomachs remembering the memories of those that have passed.
It’s reading letters over and over again in the post office while you wait for permission from the manager that your mail meets approval and you can leave with your mail.
It’s the midday heat that can reach 110 and stay hot until the sun sets at 9:00 pm where all you want to do is sleep.
It’s shaving you head with your friend so you can finally feel cooler from the heat.
It’s dust storm sunsets; beige, fascinating and stinging. Turkmen boys, with scarves on their faces, smacking the rumps of their camels and cows to hurry them back along the road to their pens as the sand blows in sideways.
It’s the neighborhood Turkmen kids knocking on the door of my apartment, then running away squealing with laughter when I answer.
It’s sweating through your shirt thirty seconds after you walk out the door.
It’s reading back copies of New Yorkers, sipping on freshly made coffee, while listening to Bob Dylan on my ipod delaying making the lesson plans for next week.
It’s teenage soldiers in uniforms three sizes to big for them polishing the golden bust of the President Turkmenbashy statues.
The evening brings on a coolness and with it the mosquitoes or chibin as they are named, that you have to brush away with a dish rag.
It’s realizing that this strange place that just a few months and another lifetime ago you thought that as the end of the earth is now your home.
What do you think? Does it sound like something that you might want to experience?
posted by Schirm 2605 | 4:03 PM
<< Home