An Explanation, Not an Excuse
OK I admit it: I'm not very good at this whole blogging thing. Blogging just doesn't fit neatly into the guiding forces of my life. Three forces guide me through life (aside from love and all that mushy stuff): guilt, deadlines, and laziness. (A few people may want to add or subtract from this list, but it will do for my present purposes.) Freud may have had his eros and thanatos forever battling within us, but I have my guilt and laziness. My laziness arises in large part from an essential contentedness with life and its wonders: I have lived a charmed existence (knock on wood) and the people I know continue to astonish me with their creative thoughts and passionate deeds. As a result, I often want to simply lull about in the better parts of life. However, the other part of me realizes that I have done little to earn the contentment that I feel with life. (In fact, I often find myself doing my best to sabotage what I have.) From this part arises the guilt, the duty to do right so as to feel that I can earn my keep on this planet. Deadlines then exist on the axis between the settled resistance of laziness on one hand and the unsettling duty of guilt on the other. If I have a deadline I know what I need to get done and when it needs to be finished so as not to disappoint anyone. Deadlines produce a harmony between my spheres, and a purpose in me.
This blog doesn't have any fast-and-hard deadlines. There are no professors to enforce the deadlines, no referees to blow the whistle. It's just me, this old laptop, and a world of ideas floating around in my head. I know: an explanation, not an excuse.
The Last Bell and the Structure of a Turkmen Dance Party
Spring has turned to summer here in Mary, and school is out til September. Classes finished a couple weeks ago with a "Last Bell" ceremony and an afternoon dance party in the school courtyard. The Last Bell ceremony was an all-school assembly that primarily celebrated the graduation of the tenth form (think 'grade)' students. After the teachers asked, prodded, and forcibly moved the rest of the school into place, each of the three tenth form classes paraded in with their teachers in tow and made a circle surrounded by the rest of the school. A village elder and local police commissioner as well as many retired teachers attended and presented awards to different students and teachers. First form pupils (i.e. students but smaller) then presented flowers to the tenth formers, and the tenth form students gave a ceremonial big key to the first form pupils. Then a couple of first formers grabbed bells, the biggest tenth formers lifted the kids with bells onto their shoulders and the whole form ceremonially exited the school grounds. Once outside the school gate each class released a dove and the assembly broke into chaos/celebration.
In the heat of the afternoon most of the kids returned for a school-sponsored dance party. In the six months that I have lived in the village I have attended quite a few of these dance parties, and there are a couple of constants involved. First and foremost, there is always monotonous Turkmen dance music interlaced with impromptu speeches about favorite educators. Turkmen dance music usually involves a tacky techno beat overlaid with repetitive love lyrics. The song may change, but the beat doesn't. Although all of the music is recorded, there will always be a young man lip-syncing the performance, more interested in dancing than in accurately reenacting the lyrics. I can't be sure when or where this ubiquitous lip-syncing tradition arose, but I suspect that it may have arisen during the years that recorded music performances were outlawed by the Turkmen government. Whatever its genesis, the lip-syncing can be quite entertaining, especially when the music switches from Turkmen to Russian or some other sampled language.
The second constant: there is always a surplus of bulky 90s-era video cameras hovering about the crowds capturing every last moment from multiple flattering angles. Four such cameras hovered around and dove through the Last Bell party, one rented by each tenth form class and a fourth of unknown origin or purpose. The raw footage of this three hour dance party will not be so much edited, but more spliced, repeated, and montaged so that every brilliant dance move may be analyzed, every shining smile framed, and every poignant moment captured for years to come. This "editing" process will result in VHS tapes with three hours' worth of footage sold to the students and watched marathon-style by family and friends (and poor English teachers) alike. On a personal note, this lack of editing configures the cameras as my enemies or, more specifically, as opposing spies: entities to be avoided at all cost, except when directly confronted. If confronted, one must put on a show of confidence and coolness to surpass all shows of confidence and coolness. Thus, I tend to hide in the shadows during these parties only to emerge momentarily to throw down some underappreciated dance moves and retreat to the shadows before the cameras can get a second shot. Still, the cameras almost always find me in some cringeworthy pose with eyes half shut or sweating like a pig. Maybe I need to become better friends with the cameramen.
The third constant: there are always girls dressed to the hilt in shiny koyneks (full length dresses) and big hairdos. Traditionally, long hair is synonymous with beauty in Turkmen society, so Turkmen girls receive one very short hair cut when they are young, and then they let their hair grow for the rest of their youth. So there's a lot of hair to work with. Many of the girls spend the entire preceding night waiting for one of the few village hairdressers to do their thing. The result is something akin to the big hair of the 1980s (not that I was there to see it), with much more hair. The girls also spend significant amounts of time finding mata ("dress material") and choosing a tikimchi ("seamstress") to make their dress koynek. The koynek is the standard piece of clothing for all village women in Turkmenistan. It is always full length and has short or long sleeves. All koyneks tend to be colorful, but dress koyneks are straight up bright. This year's most popular colors were mustard yellow and scarlet red, usually in a silk or cashmere-like material. Though they spend hours getting ready, the preparations do not stop them from dancing Turkmen-style in a circle under that afternoon sun.
The whole thing is quite a sight. And the thing is, even if I forget, somewhere there's a VHS tape that has the whole experience.
Summer Fruits
I finished school a month ago, and teaching has been wonderful ever since. I started three new clubs this summer, which brings me fifty new students. I do all of my teaching in the morning because the afternoon's are so hot that everyone sleeps the day away. As a result, I have a lot of personal time to read books, watch movies, and do yoga. A couple health volunteer friends turned me on to yoga, and I still do it most days. If I can make it through the morning classes, the rest of my day is pretty relaxing.
Better still, I have become a lot more comfortable in the classroom, especially with younger students. Part of it is time: I've now been teaching for the last six-month full time, and I've learned an awful lot. I know how to teach better, and, more importantly, I know how to act like I can teach much better. Secondly, I'm teaching three of my clubs the same beginner material that I have taught to the older groups. As you can imagine, going back through the second time is much easier, especially with a full set of customized lesson plans. Most interestingly, I have found that I real enjoy teaching younger students. My favorite classes are my two young groups, with kids ranging in age from ten to thirteen. They are eager to learn, and easily amused with the same set of grammar games. Of course, it's always more rewarding to work with beginners, because you can actually see their progress. Whatever the reasons, I am really enjoying teaching for the first time in country.
I'm also looking forward to my vacation to Germany and France in a couple of weeks. I'll meet my family in Frankfurt, and then we'll tour the vineyards and beer-yards (?) for a couple of weeks. Luckily, I've been able to speak with my family almost every week (they skype my home phone). However, nothing can replace actually seeing them for the first time in ten months.
