My Swing Perch

My Spring Perch My swing sits in the northwest corner of my house’s extended concrete foundation, perhaps a yard away from the little trench canal that separates our property from our neighbor’s. The canal runs between the two houses and is lined with diminutive but well-yielding pomegranate trees. A small white plank, more piece of wood than board, connects the two properties, as it probably has for many years. The swing itself consists of a painted white iron frame supporting nine pieces of tired and flaking wood that make up a seat and seat back. Its size corresponds to that of a true love seat: too big for one person but too cramped for all but the most intimate pair. Lacking a partner myself, I usually spread out facing the southward sun. Frankly it’s a rather uncomfortable seat, with a metal ridge that juts out into your back and iron side poles that leave no position unpunished. Still it’s my favorite spot in my little village world. Since early February I’ve hoped for the right amount of heat, sun, and wind to make the spot a viable option for my morning breaks. That way I can get out of my dark room and into the sunlight. The swing also allows for a strange sort of privacy. Strange and surprising, because the swing itself is perched between two properties, and I usually receive quite a bit of attention whenever people catch sight of me in the village. From my swing, though, despite the fact that I can observe all the comings and goings of two households, and even though I can be observed by any of the house members, people mostly leave me alone. They probably leave me alone for many reasons, but I think they leave me alone for one reason in particular: I read on the swing, and someone reading in public is a unique sight in my village. Even though few people spend much time reading in the village, everyone seems to have the highest respect for the practice. So, as my thinking goes, when they see me perched on the swing reading, almost everyone simply nods and moves on with their business. There is, however, one exception: the elder son of my next-door neighbors. Probably about six, the kid loves talking to me, even if our conversations regularly produce more confusion than understanding. When he notices me he always creeps on over to the edge of his property between the house and the raised platform that covers their well and begins questioning me. There is a definite pattern to our conversations. First, he tries to comprehend why I don’t speak Russian even though I appear, for all intents and purposes, to be Russian. After I try and fail to convince him of my American-ness, he curtly moves the conversation on to describe the exploits of his friends. After a few minutes caught up in his own story and just as I’m beginning to get the hang of the story, he will again switch the topic back to me and my strange desire to read. And no matter how I try to convince him, he remains suspicious of this reading activity. I just can’t seem to convince him that staring at a book for a while is pleasant. Usually at this point his little silent brother wanders up or his mother begins to call him away. At first he resists these pressures from the outside world to end his spirited, rather one-sided discussion with me. Eventually he relents, though, and leave me in peace, amused and exhausted by the weight and surreality of our worlds’ meeting, but, more importantly, content because, for a few moments, I’ve met a fellow traveler in this perch between two worlds.

Ringing In The New Year!

Catching Up


Happy belated holidays to all. It’s safe to say that quite a bit has happened since new words last graced this page. Half a year has passed, and with it a good chunk of my service:

- In August I vacationed with my family in Germany and France. I estimate that we spent about 60% of our time in local cafes or restaurants sampling the local delicacies and enjoying each other’s company for the first time in ten months. The rest of the time we spent wandering ancient castles or looking for said restaurants and cafes.

- In September I began teaching my second full semester at School #16 in Sakarchage. My semester schedule has included co-teaching four regular English classes and teaching five English club groups. Also, in September Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary with a big shindig in Ashgabat that was well attended by the international community.

- In October I traveled to Balkan weleyat (think “province”) to visit my friends in the western part of T-stan and then (kind of) witnessed T-stan’s 20th anniversary of independence.

- In November everyone threw their coats on and prepared for an extraordinarily cold winter as it began snowing at the beginning of the month. I celebrated the Muslim holiday of Gurban Byram (“Eid-al-Adha” for Arabic speakers) with my family in the village and Thanksgiving with the American community in Ashgabat.

- In December I celebrated getting yet another year older with my students, friends, and family in Mary. The last week of my semester culminated in yet another “English Week”, this year’s aptly themed “Christmas and New Year’s Celebration”. And, of course, it has come with another story to tell.



“Kevin!” and Other Selections


In America the Holiday season opened with a two-way glut of Thanksgiving eating and Black Friday shopping. In my little village in T-stan, the holiday season opened with a dearth of Holiday-themed materials and ideas. As a post-Soviet Muslim-majority country the people of Turkmenistan don’t celebrate Christmas. Instead, interestingly, the people of Turkmenistan enthusiastically celebrate New Years’ with many of the same symbols and traditions that Americans associate with Christmas. For example, last year’s New Year’s celebration concluded with what appeared to me as Santa Claus and his granddaughter dancing around a Christmas tree. In fact, the scene would directly translate into English as Grandfather Frost and the Ice Princess dancing around a New Year’s tree. This unique mixture of holiday traditions likely first arose when the Soviets decided to continue celebrating a winter holiday without its previously religious connotations, thus reversing the ancient Roman’s incorporation of the then-new Christian religion into the pagan winter solstice celebrations. All of this combining and separating has resulted in a wonderfully post-modern winter celebration in Turkmenistan: a majority-Muslim country celebrates a secular holiday, New Year’s, with an avowedly Christian main character, Santa Claus. So while the students of my village do not know much about the Christian history of the holiday, they do recognize many of the same symbols, songs, and traditions as their own.

As a result, though my school community was enthusiastic about celebrating the holidays, we had few Christmas-themed materials to work with at first. Luckily, the unlikely combination of the internet, my mother, and Macaulay Culkin came to the rescue. In early December I copied dozens of Christmas songs from my friends and then scoured the internet for their lyrics. In the end, students performed hits ranging from the Chipmunks’ “Christmas Don’t Be Late” (with yours truly as Dave) to Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “Jingle Bells”. In yet another lifesaving package my mother sent me gads of decorations to hang all around my school. My own students added to the atmosphere with dozens of their own drawings and decorations.

With songs and decorations under control, my advanced club needed a play worthy of ending the “big show”. We found the answer in the holiday movie that crosses all cultures, Home Alone. Whereas my students knew very little about Christmas, they all immediately recognized Home Alone, or “Kevin!” as they call it. It turns out that one of the national Turkmen channels plays Kevin! every holiday season, and all of the kids love it. So we went about casting and rewriting the classic for a small stage and intermediate English speakers. What we ended up with was a stark reproduction that left a lot (including the fire) up to the imagination. Hoping that hundred rowdy students in attendance would recognize our efforts we began in haste. Kevin’s loneliness proved difficult to reproduce with no house or even curtains to hide the backstage actors. However, the audience really enjoyed the final battle sequence, with Marve (played by Lukman) and Harry (played by Sherip) hamming it up with fake ice and nails. When Kevin’s family finally returned home (from across the stage) we all let out a sigh of relief as we led the crowd in a final rendition of “Jingle Bells”. My school had withstood yet another riotous English Week, and I escaped to Ashgabat with my dignity and nerves intact.



My Swollen Holiday Hand, or The Gift That Kept on Giving


My holiday in Ashgabat started out auspiciously with good Chinese food and another American football victory against the marine/embassy team. However, as the weekend progressed, my right hand began swelling quicker than the Secret Santa bag. Earlier in the week I had noticed a small bite on my right middle finger, but it had escaped my attention until it began to noticeably swell on Christmas Eve. By Monday, my whole hand looked as though it might float away. Instead of going back to my village I went to the Peace Corps doctor. She opened up the wound, and found a huge infection. I’ll spare you the details, except to say that there was not a nest of baby spiders in there as some people had suspected.

All told I spent the next week and a half in Ashgabat nursing my hand back to health and its original size. Unfortunately I missed the last school week of the year with all of its parties and good cheer. Still, I lived pretty well in Ashgabat alongside my friend Tim who was hobbled with a sprained ankle. We played host to several other friends and had a memorable New Year’s. It was an unexpected but much appreciated break from village life. I was also able to get to know Ashgabat much better. I ate at some of the best restaurants in the country and soaked in the incredibly over-the-top holiday decorations across the city. There really is no city like Ashgabat anywhere else in the world.



The Beginning of the End


The time away from my village has also allowed me to begin thinking about the future. I will finish my service in about ten months. Time moves in two very different registers here. In many ways life in my village is timeless. Everything has a rhythm and that rhythm rarely changes. Class schedules never change, and every Turkmen toy (“party”) begins to look the same. Sometimes days just never end. Every time I leave the village, however, another week has slipped into the past, and the world has changed in some fundamental way. The clock of my service does not tick and slide, it readies itself and leaps forward. Before I know it this clock will leap with me around the world again, and my life here will be like a dream.