PICTURES!
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2004
1
17
27
Trip End
Dec 28, 2006
Danew,
Turkmenistan
Friday, February 4, 2005
HELLO! I GOT THE PICS OUT THROUGH SOME SNEAKY PROCESS! Via Turkmenistan, Italy, Texas, to Alicia cowdrey...I got some pics to you all! I hope this works, it might give you an idea of what I am doing. No fat jokes and no dress jokes...k? They are on the following link:
http://photos.yahoo.com/aliciacowdrey
I hope you had a great ground hog¡¦s day. That day killed me; did the ground hog see his shadow? Funny quick story about that, my retarded theme for the day was American holidays and I decided to do ground hog¡¦s day. Well, I taught the whole day doing lessons on the holiday and what it means if he sees his shadow what it means if he doesn¡¦t, and that night I was talking to my site mate and was like, ¡§I wonder if Woody saw his shadow.¡¨ He asked me what the heck I was talking about and then informed me that the ground hog is not named Woody and I am very retarded! So if you are ever in Turkmenistan on Ground Hog¡¦s Day and someone asks you about Woody, go with it!
These past few weeks have been full of frustrations at school. I am having trouble doing anything and everything I do accomplish, gets destroyed. I did have a small success in telling the director that I needed my own room, but there were strings attached. I have to teach at a seminar about the most interesting theme of comparing the flags, and I have to have one person a week watch my clubs. This weeks problems included: 48 kids showing up to a club where usually 4 show up, doing an awesome magazine project with my kids only to come back to the room with them all taken down ¡§because the girls in magazines are not ethical¡¨, my counterpart beating the living crap out of a student that is already beat at home and picking up more hours. It was a rough week, but it is always interesting to know what next week brings. I have gotten so used to work being so frustrating I don¡¦t know what I am going to do when something actually works! Not to say this is all bad, I am super excited that 48 kids came to my club, I get my own classroom and the project made the kids think¡K.it is just hard not getting any recognition for it all. I am defiantly swimming upstream and they have never seen a fish even attempt that!
This week the cold finally came. It is freezing and when you walk over 2 miles a day, it is even colder. Really, it isn¡¦t all that cold; it is just the wind and no gas anywhere. I had to teach in gloves the other day! Eek. But from the cold all the mud and puddles turned to ice and I started a week long hockey camp! I have these kids on my block that are sometimes cool, sometimes my worst enemy on my way to school. They are the ones that I don¡¦t know if I will get a polite ¡¥Salaam Teacher¡¦ or rocks chucked at me. But I was walking to school and noticed that this ¡§puddle¡¨ aka 3 foot deep, 40 yard long lake froze. So on my way to school I stole cotton sticks from houses that were supper thick and flat rocks. My counterpart thought I lost it and was about to put me on the plane home until I convinced her to come home with me and watch what I was about to do. I got about 10 kids together, gave them a branch, and played hockey! It was so much fun! We have been doing it every morning, it is funny all I want is for it to get warmer, but this is one of my highlights of my day. Plus anytime I am cold, I think about how much I enjoy this to 130 degree summer that is looming around the bend.
With the cold, I noticed the ridiculousness of my diet. The other night my host mom made plov and I was so excited. I sat down and chatted with her and the family sat down for dinner and we began to eat. All of the sudden I lost it in laughter. I looked at my plate and noticed how fricken happy I was that I was eating rice and carrots drenched in cotton oil with pickles on top! This has come to be one of my favorite meals. But really there are no veggies right now, we have the potato, carrot, pumpkin and onion. And don¡¦t forget the oil. It is actually really disgusting how much oil they put in food. My host uncle comes to our house to sell the oil and people buy probably about 15 gallons at a time. The worst part is, the first time I saw it I had to ask, ¡§is that for cars or food?¡¨ Now you can imagine what color and consistency it is, and there is always a nice puddle of it on the bottom of your bowl. Dude, even the ramen noodles come with a little package of oil for the soup. And I wonder why I have gained so much weight and my skin is giving me my first troubles?
A talent that I did learn to do recently is sew curtains. I asked my mom to help me buy some for my classroom. I said I just wanted some white and blue ones. When she came home, I am not kidding you, she had new curtains for everyone on the block. Ok, not everyone, but I ended up sewing 5 sets of curtains. I learned how to use the sewing matching (the playing dumb in hopes my host mom would do it didn¡¦t work, and then the I will make this stitch as bad as possible in hopes my host mom will do it didn¡¦t work)! FUN! But my classroom looks awesome and I am much more domestic with a 1938 sewing machine!
The month of February doesn¡¦t have much in store as of now. We will have a conference in Ashgabat the 28th to the 7th, but it does mark our freedom. We have now been at our sites 3 months and we are allowed to take vacation. As of now, I don¡¦t have any big plans. I am planning on saving my days for the wedding in America and an escape from the summer heat. But it is nice to know that if I get super frustrated I can get on a ferry to Baku and get some McDonalds! The idea of traveling is overwhelming. I don¡¦t know where I want to go, how much money I have or any clue of how to get out of here¡Kbut it will come soon. For now, I think I am in country until June. Unless someone has a better idea!
Just a quick FYI, I found a good rug dealer fº He is in Ashgabat and for about 200 dollars I can get some nice carpets. Let me know if you are interested, I may buy my first one at conference.
Ok, I am off. I am going to watch some more Indiski movies with my host family and probably eat some grapes.
Miss you all! Write lots, my post office trip can make or break my day!
Katy
