February 17, 2008
That’s right- I am proud to announce that we are now a hydrated house. Flowing, clean H20 has burst back into our lives and it is an incredible, joyous occasion.
Well, it doesn’t exactly flow…it kind of sort of drips and trickles slower than molasses out of the metal pipe from the well. But the important thing is that it’s there, right?
I washed every singe piece of clothing I have this weekend. Some hadn’t been washed since I left U.S. soil.
That’s pretty gross.
But I am no longer gross. I spent hours and hours scrubbing and cleaning and scrubbing and I’m all shiny and clean like in my dreams.
Since the snow has melted, Yoleten has turned into a giant pool of mud creating a catastrophic battle against cleanliness.
But at least now I can clean. I can clean and clean and clean and it’s a wonderful feeling to have the ability to make things better.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Que Paso?
February 15, 2008
Watching the kids make Valentines’s Day Cards yesterday was adorable…they had a blast, although some of them just gave me a blank stare- huh? What do you want us to do? Make what?
Just create! I said. It’s a day of LOVE!
Then they would giggle and ask me to help them draw hearts and stuff. It was really cool because I think it was the first time they’ve had a chance to do that in class.
We still have no water at home and my host mom is getting angry. We’ve been bumming buckets from the neighbors like cigarettes. Because of the crappy water situation I haven’t done any laundry for…well…it’s been awhile. It seriously can’t be put off any longer. The situation is getting out of control.
For some reason the price of fuel has skyrocketed, causing taxis to be double the cost now which is completely and totally lame.
At the request of the kids in my school I’ve opened up a Spanish Club and it is SO MUCH FUN because there are so many Spanish words that have been replaced with Turkmen words in my mind and this gives me the opportunity to keep the language alive.
Pretty sweet!
Watching the kids make Valentines’s Day Cards yesterday was adorable…they had a blast, although some of them just gave me a blank stare- huh? What do you want us to do? Make what?
Just create! I said. It’s a day of LOVE!
Then they would giggle and ask me to help them draw hearts and stuff. It was really cool because I think it was the first time they’ve had a chance to do that in class.
One student made me a valentine and wrote inside: "I hope you find your true love. And I hope he is in Yoleten so you can stay here forever."
We still have no water at home and my host mom is getting angry. We’ve been bumming buckets from the neighbors like cigarettes. Because of the crappy water situation I haven’t done any laundry for…well…it’s been awhile. It seriously can’t be put off any longer. The situation is getting out of control.
For some reason the price of fuel has skyrocketed, causing taxis to be double the cost now which is completely and totally lame.
At the request of the kids in my school I’ve opened up a Spanish Club and it is SO MUCH FUN because there are so many Spanish words that have been replaced with Turkmen words in my mind and this gives me the opportunity to keep the language alive.
Pretty sweet!
What Goes Around…
Feburary 9, 2008
Getting ready to head out to Mary yesterday for my weekly Friday morning trip I was on a rampage to find a taxi driver. Everyone was charging too much and as I stood in the cold arguing with several stubborn men over the cost of taking me into the city I heard a familiar voice.
“Angela!”
I turned around and it was a driver that I had ridden with once awhile back.
“SALAM!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screeched with joy, asking him how he was, complaining that I needed to get to Mary.
“Well let’s go!” he said with a smile and pointed to his car, which already had three other people inside, ready to go.
As we were driving he was chatting away with me and I wasn’t making much of an effort to listen and understand. I was tired, weary, and didn’t want to speak Turkmen. But then he lifted up his cell phone and I noticed he was describing my special REI alarm clock that I had lost in his car a month ago.
My head snapped up and I grabbed his shoulder in excitement.
“YOU FOUND IT???????? YOU FOUND MY CLOCK??????????? DID YOU REALLY FIND IT????????” I yelled.
“Yes but it is your present to me, no?” he said, laughing.
“Oh man I CRIED when I lost it! I was looking everywhere!”
“Alright, he said. You can have it back.” He explained to the other passengers what the excitement was about…how cool my little American invention was, and how it was lost when we skidded off the road that day almost completely over the snow bank.
So we drove to his house and he took me inside to meet his family and then produced my fabulous REI alarm clock/calculator/weather indicator/currency exchanger. He even taped up the area where it was broken before.
His wife then told me to come and eat with their family, but I had to get to Mary. Plus I don’t think the other passengers would’ve been too pleased to wait that long.
As we left Yoleten to head out to Mary he asked me why I didn’t just live with him and his family, since his kids go to my school and he could just drive us there every day.
“You could live with us for free!” he persisted. “You won’t have to walk to school!”
I laughed and thought about how humorous the situation was. A random taxi driver that had given me a ride once a month ago returns my alarm clock, takes me to his house to meet his family and wants me to move in with them.
But the funny thing is that he isn’t the first to ask me to move. One of my 8th form students asks all the time.
“Why, Angela? WHY can’t you live with me? I want you to live with me! I can just picture how it would be if you lived with me; oh it would be so good if we could live together…”
The truth is, I couldn’t have a better home than the one I’m in right now, and I couldn’t ask for a town with better people.
I’m one of the luckiest people I know.
Getting ready to head out to Mary yesterday for my weekly Friday morning trip I was on a rampage to find a taxi driver. Everyone was charging too much and as I stood in the cold arguing with several stubborn men over the cost of taking me into the city I heard a familiar voice.
“Angela!”
I turned around and it was a driver that I had ridden with once awhile back.
“SALAM!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screeched with joy, asking him how he was, complaining that I needed to get to Mary.
“Well let’s go!” he said with a smile and pointed to his car, which already had three other people inside, ready to go.
As we were driving he was chatting away with me and I wasn’t making much of an effort to listen and understand. I was tired, weary, and didn’t want to speak Turkmen. But then he lifted up his cell phone and I noticed he was describing my special REI alarm clock that I had lost in his car a month ago.
My head snapped up and I grabbed his shoulder in excitement.
“YOU FOUND IT???????? YOU FOUND MY CLOCK??????????? DID YOU REALLY FIND IT????????” I yelled.
“Yes but it is your present to me, no?” he said, laughing.
“Oh man I CRIED when I lost it! I was looking everywhere!”
“Alright, he said. You can have it back.” He explained to the other passengers what the excitement was about…how cool my little American invention was, and how it was lost when we skidded off the road that day almost completely over the snow bank.
So we drove to his house and he took me inside to meet his family and then produced my fabulous REI alarm clock/calculator/weather indicator/currency exchanger. He even taped up the area where it was broken before.
His wife then told me to come and eat with their family, but I had to get to Mary. Plus I don’t think the other passengers would’ve been too pleased to wait that long.
As we left Yoleten to head out to Mary he asked me why I didn’t just live with him and his family, since his kids go to my school and he could just drive us there every day.
“You could live with us for free!” he persisted. “You won’t have to walk to school!”
I laughed and thought about how humorous the situation was. A random taxi driver that had given me a ride once a month ago returns my alarm clock, takes me to his house to meet his family and wants me to move in with them.
But the funny thing is that he isn’t the first to ask me to move. One of my 8th form students asks all the time.
“Why, Angela? WHY can’t you live with me? I want you to live with me! I can just picture how it would be if you lived with me; oh it would be so good if we could live together…”
The truth is, I couldn’t have a better home than the one I’m in right now, and I couldn’t ask for a town with better people.
I’m one of the luckiest people I know.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Sharing is Caring
February 7, 2008
When I learned I had to share my room, I was appalled.
Frustration and anger convulsed within me and I spent hours trying to devise different plans to get my unwelcome roommates to leave.
But what did I expect? Chocolate mints on my pillow and fresh towels next to the tin cup in the banya?
Don’t be such a priss, I told myself.
So my little six-legged and eight-legged friends and I are slowly learning to share the living space. Sometimes they multiply and I get angry, sometimes I spend way too much time fighting them and sometimes I just leave them the heck alone because I’ve stopped caring.
“Do you have ants in America?” a relative asked me yesterday.
“Oh yes, of course we do,” I replied.
“But inside the house?”
“Well…we have this thing called Raid…”
“Ahhhhh” said everyone in the room. Another clever American invention.
I don’t really care that much anymore, but it’s still fun to flick the fat ones across the room and watch them struggle trying to get themselves back on their feet.
Hey, when entertainment is minimal, ant-flicking does have it’s glory.
When I learned I had to share my room, I was appalled.
Frustration and anger convulsed within me and I spent hours trying to devise different plans to get my unwelcome roommates to leave.
But what did I expect? Chocolate mints on my pillow and fresh towels next to the tin cup in the banya?
Don’t be such a priss, I told myself.
So my little six-legged and eight-legged friends and I are slowly learning to share the living space. Sometimes they multiply and I get angry, sometimes I spend way too much time fighting them and sometimes I just leave them the heck alone because I’ve stopped caring.
“Do you have ants in America?” a relative asked me yesterday.
“Oh yes, of course we do,” I replied.
“But inside the house?”
“Well…we have this thing called Raid…”
“Ahhhhh” said everyone in the room. Another clever American invention.
I don’t really care that much anymore, but it’s still fun to flick the fat ones across the room and watch them struggle trying to get themselves back on their feet.
Hey, when entertainment is minimal, ant-flicking does have it’s glory.
Winter Blues
January 24, 2008
We have no water. The well is frozen.
We melted snow last night and I felt like I was living in an episode of Little House on the Prarie.
My bruises from slipping on the ice are multiplying ever since I lost my snow shoes…swallowed by the snow.
I can’t wait for spring.
We have no water. The well is frozen.
We melted snow last night and I felt like I was living in an episode of Little House on the Prarie.
My bruises from slipping on the ice are multiplying ever since I lost my snow shoes…swallowed by the snow.
I can’t wait for spring.
You Funny Girl
January 24, 2008
Studying Russian is like learning to read all over again.
The kids in my English club are teaching me little by little, but it’s hard. I keep complaining about it, but it’s a major point of my frustration.
On a happy note, though, my Turkmen is improving tremendously…mostly because everywhere I go people want to talk to me and every time I get in a taxi the entire hour-long ride into the city and back is filled with rapid conversation because EVERY person inside the car wants to know everything about me. It’s always the same questions every time…
It’s going to be culture shock going back to the U.S. where nobody really cares that I’m an 27-year-old unmarried Turkmen-speaking American English teacher who makes a hundred dollars a month.
Studying Russian is like learning to read all over again.
The kids in my English club are teaching me little by little, but it’s hard. I keep complaining about it, but it’s a major point of my frustration.
On a happy note, though, my Turkmen is improving tremendously…mostly because everywhere I go people want to talk to me and every time I get in a taxi the entire hour-long ride into the city and back is filled with rapid conversation because EVERY person inside the car wants to know everything about me. It’s always the same questions every time…
It’s going to be culture shock going back to the U.S. where nobody really cares that I’m an 27-year-old unmarried Turkmen-speaking American English teacher who makes a hundred dollars a month.
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