Celeberties
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2004
1
16
27
Trip End
Dec 28, 2006
Danew,
Turkmenistan
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Hello again from Turkmenistan! I hope this email finds you well in the New Year and you all had a good holiday season! It is nice to know that this holiday not one piece of plastic was used to buy presents because the idea of a credit card has not hit this country, let alone a bill bigger than 10,000 manat. To put it all in perspective, I get paid 2.2 million manat every month! There are 2 bills and two coins, 10,000 and 5,000 bills and 1,000 and 500 coins. So my stack of money I get every month is crazy. It is a good feeling, but then you realize that it is only about 80 dollars! But it is the best volunteer job I have had, coming home with a bag full of money to live off of!
Anyway, my New Years was great. It was actually much better than I expected and much crazier than I expected. It included Christmas trees, vodka, guesting, eating pigeon, and doing that about 3 more times. There was more food that I have ever seen and I cooked my family their first pizza! They were quite impressed! So I was I, it was a damn good pizza at that, with all natural ingredients. I made my own sauce from tomatoes, I used our neighbor's goat cheese, veggies from our garden and the dough from the bread my mom cooks each week! It was quite a hit. The only problem now is they expect me to cook more. It is just so much work to cook so much. I call it the theory of 20. The amount of time it would take you to do something at home, multiply it by 20 and you have the amount of time it takes to do here. For example, making a phone call: in America you pick up the phone and dial the number, average time 20 seconds. Turkmenistan, pick up the phone, no line. Pick it up again, the 5 doesn't work. Pick it up again, no line. Pick it up again, it dials, but doesn't go through. Do it again, the line has crossed with someone else. You do this process until you think you will never get through to a house less than a mile away and it works! Average time: 6.6 min. That goes for everything in life here, cooking, doing something, walking somewhere. There are always obstacles and really you can never plan on something going with no glitches, then I wouldn't be in Turkmenistan!
This week I wanted to talk about two things. One is the random dance parties and second is the celebrity status I receive here.
RANDOM DANCE PARTIES:
Have you ever been sitting around a mat on your floor with your family, have a few bottles of vodka and decide to get up and dance? Well if you have you would fit in very well here in Turkmenistan. My host family, as I told you in an earlier blog, has an amazing stereo that is usually the form of entertainment for the night. We sit down and eat, and then about the 2nd bottle of vodka in, the dance party begins. Now, they do really like to dance, but my theory is that they think it is the funniest thing that I can't dance like a Turkmen. They don't understand that I don't naturally go in a circle snapping my fingers, lifting a foot off the ground very naturally. Now the big finale is when I my brother runs to my room and gets one of my cds, usually Eminem, and they have me dance like an American. Yes, all by myself in the living room, with the family staring at me. The best part is when guests are over, they tell them, "Oh Katy, she can't do the Turkmen dance. It is so funny, she doesn't move her hands much and her feet, oh, you should see it. Actually, Mysia, put on the music so we can show the guest how katy can't dance." And I proceed to make the whole party laugh at my dancing. It is painful. Usually by dinner I am so tired. Days here just mentally exhaust me because of the amount of thinking I have to do, and at this point I just want to go to bed. But no, I get to dance for the neighborhood!
I really have learned that Peace Corps is really about doing a lot of things you don't want to do in order to do the things you want to do. The dancing is just a small part of it, but when you do these things, you get more into the community and they understand you are different. Really the people here have never thought that people dance differently, let alone think about everything else that I do. It is small world from them and there are only two cultures they have ever been exposed to: Russian and Turkmen. Doing the things that I don't want to do everyday also makes me a much stronger person. I really have learned to laugh at myself at everything I do. I have learned there is no reason to sit there and say I can't dance, just to get up and try it and laugh with them. It is actually getting fun when at first it just pissed me off. So yeah....that is the dancing story. When you wake up every morning, I am probably going around in a circle trying to dance gracefully; I have two years...maybe I can do it!
LIFE AS A CELEBERTY
Everyday I walk to school on the exact same route and the same kids hang out of the apartment building and scream "HELLO KATY, HOW ARE YOU?" And when I come home from school at 5 pm they still yell, "GOOD MORNING TEACHER!" I just yell back good afternoon and give a wave. The smile is enough to make me do it day after day.
Well the other day, I was thinking about it. I have decided that my life is like Julia Roberts living in Walsenburg, CO or Window Rock, AZ. I have put this whole analogy together in my head and I hope that you can imagine what I am saying. But let's say that Julia Roberts moved to this small town to teach everyone how to become a good actor or actress. She volunteered all of her time and life to acting clubs and camps all in hopes that one day someone will know how to act. She even works with the local schools trying to get the acting teachers more confident in their work and get the school more money for plays through grants. She decides that it isn't safe for her to live in an apartment on her own (and there aren't too many apts in these small towns), so she lives with a wonderful family. They feed her very well and are embarrassed if she doesn't like the food. The offer to do everything for her, and they protect her from the local people that might rip her off when she tries to buy the wood from the mom and pop hardware store.
Now, everyone in this small town claims they want to be a big movie star and learn how to act. Many people come to a few of her clubs, but it is more just to get a picture with Julia or to see her great smile. There are a few students that really are committed to being a great actress and some teachers that do want to learn how to improve, but all in all it is few and far between. Many of the locals know their reality and it really is staying in the small town and getting a job at mom and pops hardware store. Maybe they will move to the city and work at 7-11 but the acting skills will probably not get them too far.
The daily life for Julia is hilarious to her. She doesn't understand how people can live off of so little. She takes pictures of the small diner where she eats, shops at Sears for the first time, and starts to live how real people do in small town America. Walking down the streets she gets the stares (is that really Julia?), she gets the giggles, and there is always one person in the group of children brave enough to say hello and she responds with a pleasant hello and a smile. She walks to work and kids start to yell out her name from the window of the apartment Julia, Pretty Woman, Richard Gear or anything they can associate with her and her career. But she thinks she is really getting into the community.
All the taxi drivers know her and offer to drive her everywhere. Proposing to her daily, giving her the best of service. Everyone knows where she has been, what she has bought, what time she got home and how much money she makes. It is just how it is in small town America. She thinks it is normal. She hopes that one movie star will come out of this small town. Because it is possible, anything is possible. That is what she is spreading, but if no movie stars come out of her project, at least she has taught small town America that movie stars are people and she will be remembered forever.
Well now, take that story and replace Julia with the PCV that is teaching English instead of drama. It will make you think a little bit, and know what my life is like. It is stressful. Some days the little cute kids are just dirty bastards. It is hard to know if teaching those English is the best thing for them. It is an interesting place to be in, and being an American here really does put you in the spot light. I question everyday if learning English is imperative to these people's lives, but I do hope that one kid will come out of here speaking English and get a better job from it, and if one does I have done my job. If not, at least they know what an American is all about and I at least do bring smiles to those kids' faces everyday. It is fun. Not always easy, but it is fun being the celebrity, but I am glad it will only be for 2 years and then I am a legend.
I hope that made some sense to you, it makes perfect sense to me. You can play with it more in your head and take it more places, but that is exactly how my life works here. It is fun, trust me!
Ok, I gotta go work on my dance moves! Have a good few weeks!
I love and miss you all!
katy
