life is beautiful

I’m feeling MUCH much better. I think a lot of the reason why I was so sick was because I was dehydrated…I didn’t have my water filter up and running, and also the bathrooms at the school ridiculously lack privacy so I was purposely trying not to drink too many liquids during the day. But now I’ve stopped all that nonsense because when ya gotta go, ya gotta go and it doesn’t really matter where you go as long as you go right?

I’ve started drinking soda again because it’s like one of the all time favorites here. Apple soda, apricot sodas, orange sodas etc. I keep thinking about the times I made fun of Danielle for drinking orange soda . The Turkmen word for sweet is also the word for delicious, so my first night here when I was offered some fabulous Turkmen orange soda and I said no, “halamok, sujyk” meaning I don’t want it because it’s too sweet, but found out later I was saying no I don’t want it, it’s delicious. Pssshh!

Turkmen is coming along steadily and language classes are a ton of fun. I usually help one of my host sisters with her English homework, and today we had a lovely cross cultural experience. I said “Oh My Gosh!” over something…I forgot what exactly, and she was like “Ohh…meey…goshe?” And I tried to explain the expression, comparing it to ‘Oh My God’ and then she was like oh! “Allahjan!” Which means, Oh Allah! Hahahaha Same shit, different country. I also tried to teach her “Oh Shit” also but I don’t think she got that one.

So apparently they have a telegraph office here and on a whim we decided to go check it out. I’ve only ever seen one on a Little House on the Prarie episode, so it was pretty interesting. My fellow volunteer, Kevin, tried to send one to another volunteer in a different village and after he finally filled out the form and turned it in it took about ten minutes for them to explain that they don’t send messages in English, which was hilarious!

Tonight I went out to the washroom to take a bucket shower and was half way done rinsing out my shampoo when I realized I had forgotten my towel. I just stopped and thought ‘awwwww man…I’m retarded.” And I pulled on my clothes even though I was sopping wet, with sopping wet hair and muddled through the compound in the freezing cold rain to my room to my fabulous ‘fast drying towel.’


Alrighty I should take off now. I miss everyone! And I really really really miss your hugs. I’ve had about three hugs since I’ve been here and it’s just not the same.

See ya!

Love Angela