"Yes we Can" Turkmenistan

A typical Turkmen party in a small village. 500 people attended. This is a party for a 7 year old Turkmen boy's circumcision.

2009-10-02T08:07:00.000-07:00

Turkmen Village Party

2009-09-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Hello family and friends! We apologize for the delay in our postings. We are no longer able to access the blogger website at the internet cafe in our city, so we can only post on the rare occasions when we are in the capital.

We are on our way to Nepal for our first vacation since we arrived in Turkmenistan exactly one year ago! We are looking forward to the break and a chance to be among mountains and wild rivers again :^). The big news in Peace Corps Turkmenistan is that a new group of volunteers will not be arriving today, as was planned. The Turkmen government has denied visas to the incoming group. Most likely due to political reasons outside of our control. We are pretty sure that we will be allowed to serve the remainder of our term, but we will keep you posted.

Joshua and I are doing well. We will try to post a video of a recent Turkmen party we attended in a village nearby our city. The internet here is slow, so the video upload may not work.

The Dinosaur Prints!

2009-07-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Visiting "Kyrk Gyz" cave (cave of 40 girls)

2009-07-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

Pics from our neighborhood health club

2009-07-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

... and one picture picnicking beside the canal that runs near our apartment.

A summer update...

2009-07-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

Our summer has passed relatively quickly so far. Work has been busier because we are teaching health lessons at summer camps and we are working on a diarrheal dehydration prevention intervention. The focus of the intervention is about Oral Rehydration Therapy, a simple sugar and salt drink that can help prevent severe dehydration among young children whom are at risk of death from dehydration due to diarrheal fluid loss. IF the education intervention is successful, we are hoping to expand the project.

In our last blog entry I mentioned our neighborhood health club. I posted a picture of Joshua and the club kids holding empty water bottles. The kids drew faces, arms, and legs on the water bottles and [after Joshua and I poked holes in the appropriate places], we used the bottles to teach about how the body loses fluid and how we need to replace it. The activity club has been a great way to get to know the kids and parents in our apartment building. Plus, it gives us a chance to teach about basic health.

Last weekend we took a break from our regular schedules for a brief trip with a few other Peace Corps volunteers to one of the only places of natural beauty that exists in Turkmenistan. The nature reserve is called Kugitang, and it boasts and impressive set of incredibly preserved dinosaur prints found on a limestone slab no a hillside. The footprints are remarkable. They were verified as authentic by scientist in the 1980’s. Four-hundred dinosaur footprints are found on the limestone slab, the largest with a diameter of 2.5 feet! The slab is thought to have once been the bottom of a shallow lake that was a common crossing for dinosaur herds. Scientists theorize that a local eruption encased the footsteps in lava that later uplifted and slowly eroded until the footsteps were visible again. The footsteps date back to the Jurassic period.

An interesting human-altered feature in the park is a cave covered in small pieces of fabric that hang from the ceiling like stalagmites (or is it stalactites?). Nationals who visit the cave make a wish and throw a piece of torn fabric with a mixture of clay and water to the ceiling. The cave is called “40 girls,” named after a legend in which 40 girls were facing capture by bandits and prayed that they would be protected. The legend goes that God opened up the cave to allow a safe-haven for the girls.

Joshua and I were easily impressed by the site of steep canyon walls, clear mountain creeks, and green vegetation in the reserve. Nine months in a flat, dusty desert makes all natural beauty look other-worldly. The air was cool and fresh so that we slept better than we have since the weather started breaking 100 every day at our site.

It was not easy getting to the nature reserve… entry to the area, like many in Turkmenistan, is restricted by the government. We waited for a month for visas that allowed us to enter the region. It was an 8-hour drive on rough roads through the vast, empty desert, with multiple government check points where we had to wait because the check-point officers were confused by our foreign visas (they don’t get many tourists in Turkmenistan). Along the way we would occasionally pass the crumbling ruins of another fort of the ancient Silk Road—I let my imagination wander to what this place must have been like 150 years ago. The trip was well the trouble of getting to Kugitan-- it was rejuvenating fuel for the soul.

This weekend we are in the capital again helping the Peace Corps physician teach a cooking and nutrition class for other volunteers. Because of the traditional diet of fatty meat and bread here, it is difficult for volunteers living with host families to get adequate nutrition. The training is to teach simple nutritious meals the volunteers can cook for themselves. All cooking here is completely from scratch, so many volunteers are learning how to cook this way for the first time. We helped teach the same session last month and it was a lot of fun.

Thanks for staying posted on our lives. We are so grateful for your thoughts and prayers. We would love to hear from you. We will not be back to the capital city again until the end of August, so it will be some time before we can post another blog entry.

All the best, Rebekah and Joshua

Joshua's Birthday

2009-07-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Joshua's Birthday in style at an annual Fourt of July bash at the US embassy. It was bittersweet because we are also saying goodbye to three fantastic Peace Corps staff members whom have received scholarships to study abroad, and four great Peace Corps volunteers who completed their service in country last week. They will all be missed, and it was an enjoyable way to say goodbye.

Joshua and I have been busy this summer at our clinics and starting a club in our neighborhood. The club has been a lot of fun. We meet every week with the kids in our neighborhood and do a health-related art activity or game. They seem to love it... and we do too :^)

The weather has become much more hot since mid-June. Temps are over 100 almost every day. We find relief from the heat in the cool canal that runs through the park close to our house. It is usually full of neigborhood kids that swim all day now that they do not have school. On hot days after work we swim for awhile as well-- we are grateful to have water in the desert, but we have read that it is at the expense of the Amu Darya, and the Aral Sea which are drying-up as a result of all the heavy irrigation in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It is a complex issue-- and very concerning environmentally. The canal is as thick as chocolate milk with silt from the desert--- we usually look pretty dirty when we get done swimming (we never go in above our chest :^)).

For Joshua's birthday I bought a couple of old tire tubes and we have even gone tubing down our canal *lol*. When you live in a flat desert-wasteland, you find ways to make life a little fun. Our neigborhood kids think it is pretty funny... they informed us that "tubes are for little kids who don't know how to swim." We told them that they make fun toys for "old people" too :^)

We miss you all so much! Sorry for the less frequent posting, we know longer have access to our blog from our city, so we can only post new entries when we are visiting the the Peace Corps office in the capital.

This is a shot of Rebekah in the desert and a picture of me on a really old rusty ferris wheel.

2009-06-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

A yurt in the middle of the desert in a nature reserve that we visited.

2009-06-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

This was at a house party and the son of our landlord plays the accordian really well. Here is some classic Turkmen dancing as well.

2009-06-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

House party with Turkmen!

2009-06-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

In front of my health clinic with my coworkers

2009-06-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

Starting our garden with all of our neighbors help!

2009-05-22T21:22:00.001-07:00

2009-05-09T07:19:00.001-07:00

The picture below is having a dinner with our landlords. They are great people!

2009-05-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

2009-05-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

New Apartment Tour

2009-04-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

Coming soon...

2009-04-03T21:37:00.000-07:00

The internet is really slow today, so we will try posting a video of our new apartment next week :^).

Finally another post with pictures

2009-04-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Our favorite local laundry detergent...

2009-03-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of photos lately-- the battery charger for our camera is broken, but we will be replacing it soon and updating you with pictures again:^)

overdue update

2009-03-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been so long since we have posted anything, but after living in a place for a while you settle into a routine and I didn't want to bore you with our daily schedules. We have also been busy this past week with moving into our very own apartment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are pretty excited. We have been looking for a place of our own for the past 3 months and just starting to come to peace with the fact that we probably would be living with a host family for a lot longer when the Lord provided the perfect place for us. It is amazing how over and over again in our lives we stress about little things and worry that something will not work out, and over and over again God provides. We have such short term memories. The Lord has provided for us throughout our lives and we still have trouble trusting in Him.
A friend of our host family here had us over for dinner one night when we had first arrived in this city and during the course of dinner he found out that we eventually wanted to move into our own place. He told us then that he had a vacant apartment that we could move into and that it was very nice and spacious and that he really wanted us to live there. This was in the back of our minds these three months and when we asked our family about it they told us the price which was way out of our price range so we forgot about the whole thing. After searching for three months we finally handed it over to the Lord and told him that it was okay if we stayed with a host family and that it was completely up to the Lord where we lived. We felt like it was selfish for us to keep obsessing about having our own place when maybe that wasn't God's will. Two days later this friend came over to our house and asked us if we were interested in his apartment. We explained that we were not paid much by Peace Corps and that we could not afford it. He responded saying that he told us that he doesn't care about money but that he just wants to have us living in his apartment. He said all we had to do was name our price and pay what we could and that he could care less about the money. In a week we had moved in. He has been the best landlord fixing up the apartment and making sure we have everything we need. This is amazing in a culture where usually anything will take months to get done. We ask him about something and he takes care of it the next day. We feal so blessed. He is also one of the first persons we have met here who is not obsessed with money and how to make more which is really a blessing. Thank you all for your prayers!
We need to buy a new battery charger for our camera, but once we do we will take pictures of our new place and post them so you can see where we are living. It is really starting to warm up here and we are hearing horror stories about how hot the summer gets. It was in the upper 80's the other day and it is still March. We told them that it doesn't get this hot in the middle of the summer in Seattle. The word is that it hits 130 in the summer so we are getting ready to bake.
At work both Rebekah and I have been busy teaching pregnant mothers and also teaching at the kindergardens in town. It has been fun to teach kids and play games with them in the kindergardens.
Happy St. Patricks day to everyone!!!!! We will be thinking of all you Irish friends on that day. If you get a chance drink a guiness for us. Love you all and thanks for keeping in touch.
-Joshua

BAKING BREAD--- Turkmenistan Tamdor style.

2009-02-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

Bread plays a central role in all meals in Turkmenistan. Bread (called Chorik or Naan) is on the table at all meals, and it is expected that everyone eats some of the bread. Eating the bread at the meal offers respect to times of hardship in Turkmenistan’s history when bread was the only thing to eat. The bread is traditionally made in a large mud-walled Tamdor oven seen in the pictures. The photos series shows Mural, one of the women we live with, making the bread. Mural bakes bread every Saturday so that the family has bread for the week.

Preparing the dough

Heating the Tamdor by burning cotton plant branches (find in excess in T-stan after cotton season is over).

Placing the dough on the walls of the Tamdor. Hot coals in the center of the Tamdor heat the walls of the Tamdor so that the bread cooks from the heat from the walls and the heat from the center coals. Turkmen women make it look easy--- it isn't.

Cooling the Chorik/ Naan

Joshua practices with the pros...

2009-02-06T20:42:00.000-08:00

February 6, 2009

For better or worse, life in Turkmenistan is beginning to settle into a steady rhythm. Joshua and I work at separate health clinics, and are learning more about our role at these clinics every day. We started Russian language classes every MWF. Russian is by far the most challenging language I have ever studied. Currently, we use Turkmen [language] in our clinics, which is the language we’ve been studying since our arrival in Turkmenistan, but we have both discovered that we have many patients whom only speak Russian. Throughout Turkmenebat city, Turkmen and Russian are used interchangeably, and are frequently intertwined in a dialect called “Charjowski.” This makes learning both Turkmen and Russian challenging, because we are never fully immersed in either language. There are very few English speakers here, however, so we are learning and speaking Turkmen (and starting to speak Russian) as best we can. The more we talk, the more we’ve seen that our communication with people around us is improving. We are enjoying the ability to finally hold intelligible conversations with coworkers and neighbors. This is only relative to how we were speaking when we first arrived, however. We still have MUCH to learn.

Joshua continues to practice with the Turkmen pro-soccer time he stumbled upon at the dilapidated stadium where we run when it is too muddy to do our normal route. He has enjoyed getting to know some local athletes, and I find it amusing to say that he is practicing with a pro team.

Thanks to all for letters, cards, and emails to all whom have sent them. It means so much to us to hear from you.

Some Pictures

2009-01-23T20:27:00.000-08:00

Pictures from top to bottom:

1. Rowmawn and Jennet modeling the new scarves that mom's friend, Leona, knit and sent in a package.

2. Joshua scooping chicken waste from our family's chicken coop. Yum:^)

3. Our first snow in Turkmenebat! We don't get very much precipitation in the middle of a desert. We went for a walk in the city park. That is, in fact, a ferris wheel in the background. It is still "functioning," but it is looking pretty rough (I'm sure it was built before independence in 1992), so I have my doubts about taking a ride:^)

Pictures of home and family

2009-01-09T20:43:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!

I hope you all were able to spend the holidays with friends and family. We were thinking of all of you over the holidays and wishing we could be with you. Here in Turkmenistan, the New Year’s celebration is similar to Christmas in the states in that on New Years everyone decorates a tree, gives gifts, takes pictures with Santa Claus and waits for him to bring them presents. It is just one week later. It is also very much of a family holiday and it is tradition to stay with your family on New Years eve to hail in the New Year or it is said that if you are not at home during this time, then you will spend the whole year wandering away from home. So we found it fitting that we were not home for New Years this year. Our host family, however, being quite controlling, made sure that we were home early to spend the evening with them because they are quite afraid that something bad will happen to us if we are out past 7 or 8 in the evening. It is quite endearing, but of course it also can get old as well. We did go out earlier in the evening, however, to a park near our home where they had put up an enormous Christmas tree covered in disco colored flashing lights. They had a huge outdoor stage where bands and dancers performed. It was quite an impressive show and we had fun dancing with them and taking in the show. At midnight we were able to see the fire works in the park from outside our house, so Rebekah and I enjoyed watching them and singing Auld Lang Sine together to hail in the New Year.

Last Sunday we got together with all the other volunteers in our welayat (state) for a Christmas celebration at Gary and Robin’s (a couple who are also volunteers in Turkmenabat and have been here for a year and have an apt). It was fun to celebrate with other Americans and we had fun doing a gift exchange and making a lot of delicious food together. I tried my hand at my first batch of home made Baileys which turned out quite well and I was surprised at how easy it was to make ( I am learning so many important life skills here ). The only alcohol that they drink here is vodka and so it was nice to have a little change and enjoy some homemade Baileys in instant coffee.

Work life here is settling in and I am feeling like I have more of a schedule even though it changes every week still. For the most part I go to work at the health clinic I am assigned to and sit with a doctor and work on studying the language and asking questions about the health system here. I do not do much yet because I am still learning the language and trying to figure out what I am supposed to do there. The clinic I am working at has never had a PC volunteer before and so they have no idea what to do with me and I am not sure either what to do with them. I have a lot of time though so I am spending my time studying Russian. I decided to start studying Russian because there are so many people that only speak Russian in this city that I feel like it is important to know this language. It is difficult to start from square one again with learning a new language. We are hiring a tutor to work with us on Russian every week so hopefully that will help. I am excited to be studying a language that will be more useful after these two years as well, since Russian is spoken in so many countries in Central Asia. This week I am starting a sport club with some of the teenage boys here. I hope to play a lot of sports with them and teach about fitness as well during the club.
We miss you all so much and we love hearing from you.

Joshua

Our Mailing Address

2008-12-19T21:46:00.000-08:00

This Mailing address has been slightly altered from our past post (but if you already sent letters, don't worry, the changes are minor). Our Current and Correct Mailing Address is safe for letters and packages:^) We LOVE to hear from you...

Rebekah and Joshua O'Halloran PCV
LeBap WelayatyTurmenebat - 22
Merkizi Pocta, Abonent 46, Korpus Mira
746100
Turkmenistan

A Christmas Message

2008-12-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

Turkmenebat city is exactly as you might picture a post-soviet city—lots of dilapidated cinder block apartment buildings in rows. Large statues of the former president (whom renamed himself “Turkmenbashi,” which means Lord of the Turkmen) are on many corners.

Our new host family lives on the outskirts of the city, which gives us the benefit of having a small garden with two cows, a sheep, and twenty chickens. Our host family is very loving and welcoming—thank you so much for your prayers about this! We live with an older retired couple, and their daughter-in-law whom is 30. Miral (the daughter-in-law) has a son and a daughter ages 6 and 7. The kids are great, and it is fun to have them around. We feel like we are living with our grandparents, which is endearing, and Miral and I have enjoyed getting to know one another and cooking together, etc. We have an outhouse and a bathing room separate from the house. The bathing room is thankfully heated by a gas stove so that bucket baths and hand-washing clothes in the cold winter are not bad. I often think of my grandmother's stories of having to use the outhouse at night in the middle of the Nebraska winter :^). I really like our home—it is simple and cozy. For some reason it reminds me of how life might have been in the US in the 192 and 30s (this is solely based on movies, since I wasn’t living at the time *lol*).
The winter is getting colder here, but snow hasn’t arrived yet. It doesn’t usually snow a lot here because we are in the desert, so there is generally very little precipitation of any kind. The ground is already frozen, however. Last winter was exception, and the region received a tremendous amount of snow, and temps dropped to 20 below for two full weeks—so we’ll see how this winter goes:^).

Joshua and I have enjoyed cooking for ourselves and trying to be creative with the foods that we can find at the bazaar here. Vegetables are still available, and we’ve heard rumor that carrots, onions, potatoes, and squash are available throughout the winter. We’ve also heard that apples and mandarins might be available for a good part of the winter (so we might have fruit and veggies this winter afterall)! Many Turkmen families can vegetables and fruit in the summer to hold them over for the winter—we got here too late to do that this year, but we will have to do it next year. Whole-grain flour or bread is not available, but we discovered that the food that Turkmen give to the chickens is actually what is left after they process the wheat into white flour—it is the wheat germ! The humans are eating the white nutritionally-depleted flour, while the chickens get all the nutrients! Upon this discovery, we bought some chicken food, cleaned it, and we have started mixing the chicken food with a little flour in our baked goods *lol* (Don’t tell our host family, they think it tastes great!!! :^). We haven’t decided yet what we should bake for Christmas. We had plans to get together with other volunteers for Christmas day, but the T-stan Peace Corps staff put the word out that we were not allowed to miss work on Christmas Day (aka. They canceled Christmas). Given that it is a celebration of Christ’s birth, Joshua and I will somehow think of away to celebrate together—but we wish we could celebrate with others.

We miss you all... have a wonderful holiday!!!! Christ is Born!!!

Turkmen Music

2008-12-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

This video is a clip is from our swearing-in ceremony on Friday. The group is performing traditional Turkmen music with a ‘dutar.’ Our last host family listened to this type of music all of the time. The clothing worn by the musicians is traditional Turkmen clothing. The attire that the woman is wearing is still the common street-wear in Turkmenistan, but men mostly wear suits and ties on the streets of T-stan. In smaller villages, it is not uncommon to see older men wearing these beautiful red robes and white wool hats (called “Telpecs”) as everyday wear.

Swearing-in Ceremony

2008-12-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

The ‘Arch of Neutrality’ is an arch that was built by the former President of Turkmenistan after the United Nations officially granted Turkmenistan politically ‘neutral’ status. The tower is topped with a golden statue of the former President, and the statue rotates so that it is always facing the sun. The bright orange color visible on the arch in this picture changes to fluorescent pink, blue, green, and yellow, remarkably reminiscent of a lava lamp.

The swearing-in ceremony was yesterday. We are now officially Peace Corps Volunteers. Joshua gave his speech in Turkmen at the ceremony yesterday, and he did an excellent job.

The last week in our training village...

2008-11-29T19:41:00.000-08:00

We are wrapping-up our final week in Yalkym, our training village. In the past, training has been 12 weeks long, but this year training was shortened by 2 weeks due to Peace Corps budget cuts (we even feel the effects of the economy over here). So we are heading to our permanent site with much more Turkmen to learn, but over time we will master it. Peace Corps will pay a small amount for us to get a tutor at our permanent site—we will likely do this since knowing the language will be crucial for effectiveness at our health clinics. There are about 45 doctors at the clinic where I will be working, so it is quite large. Joshua will be working at a clinic with about 20 doctors—also quite large compared to the clinic we’ve been working in for training (only 3 doctors!).

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Many of you were probably waking up early to put the Turkey in the oven at about the same time we sat down for dinner. The Thanksgiving Day meal preparation here was a lot of fun. We had to take our Turkey down the road to an oven that was working properly, so I’m sure the village was chatting about the “crazy” Americans *lol*. Coincidentally, road workers were repairing the road on the same day, so we looked pretty ridiculous carrying a turkey platter as we weaved our way down the dirt road between road workers and construction equipment. Some Turkmen friends joined us for the meal, and they enjoyed all of the food except the pie (Which we made from scratch:^) I guess the texture of pumpkin pie is probably new to them—and Turkmen don’t use cinnamon or nutmeg in cooking [or any spices for that matter]}. The spices you can buy in bulk at the bazaar are for the Russian population that lives in Turkmenistan.

Our Turkmen is slowly improving so that every week we are able to do a little more in our community. We’ve been teaching some health and hygiene classes in the school. I will try to post a picture to the blog for you to see. The students in this school are so well behaved—I have been very impressed.

We have verbal language exams on Monday, administered by the US government. These tests are administered to justify the cost of language classes for Peace Corps Trainees. We will take a similar exam at the end of our volunteer service. This coming Thursday, 43 current Peace Corps trainees (including Joshua and I) will be officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers! It will be a big to-do here, with several Turkmen government officials, the US ambassador to Turkmenistan, all of our host families, and all of our coworkers at the health clinics and schools. In all, there will be about 500 people. Our head language director asked Joshua to give a speech to this crowd in Turkmen!!! I am so proud of him! He will give a speech to 500 people in a language he has only been studying for 9 weeks.

Pictures

2008-11-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of us teaching, butchering a sheep for our brothers going away party into the army, and a Turkmen bride. All the brides wear this costume that weighs about 120 pounds with all of the metal.

An important note about our mailing address

2008-11-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

We found out this address is fine for packages and letters. We will be there starting December 7th.

Our new mailing address [STARTING DECMEBER 7TH]:

Rebekah and Joshua O'Halloran PCV
LeBap WelayatTurmenebat22
Merkizi PoctaObonet 46, Korpus Mira
Turkmenistan 746100

More pics

2008-11-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

The landscape in the Ahal region where we currently live.

One of the things I really appreciate about Turkmenistan is the sense of national identity. Women in the Ahal region all where the traditional Turkmen 'koynek' (dresses) with beautiful embroidery around the neck. Beautiful, locally hand-made carpets are used to decorate all of the houses, and impressive hand-knit wool socks with amazingly detailed national patterns are worn by everyone. There is a strong sense in the Ahal region of what defines a 'Turkmen.' The pictures below are of the Talkuchka Bazaar (purportedly the largest market in Central Asia). The bazaar is about 30 minutes from our village.

The Talkuchka Bazaar-- buying groceries to cook a meal for our host family.

These embroidered pieces are sewn into the neck-line of all of the traditional dresess. Almost all women in the Ahal region (where we live) where these dresses every day. Women sew the emboidered pieces with a sewing machine and sometimes by hand and sell them in the markets. The emboridery is amazinglyl detailed.

New pics from T-stan

2008-11-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

Visiting the ruins of the ancient city of Nissa (only 30 minutes drive from our village)

Joshu helping our host mom and sister make a traditional meal called 'Manty.' Manty is meat (and sometimes squash) wrapped in dough, covered in oil, and steamed.

Joshua sitting in language class. Roshen is our Turkmen language instructor. He is from the city of Dashaguz in the Nortern-most part of the country. Notice that even for class we sit on the carpets on the ground.

Joshua walking on the road from our home to our language class in Yalkym village. The mountains border Iran to the South. We would love to go explore them, but it is a restricted area that people are not allowed to freely visit.

Underground Lake

2008-11-22T18:42:00.001-08:00

Imagine a lake that is buried deep in a cave, at a depth greater than the length of a football field. You enter a small hole in the earth’s crust and began a steep descent into a cave that opens up into an underground world reminiscent of the cave in the folktale of Aladdin. A few lights guide your descent, and the cave opens into an enormous theater-size tunnel. When you arrive 55m below the earth’s surface, an impressively large lake fills the bottom of the cave and continues back under a ledge into darkness.
The Kow Ata underground lake is a remarkable seen. The lake is actually a warm springs and Joshua and I went for a swim a few weeks ago. I was more than impressed with the size of the lake, with a length of 70 meters, and a depth of 10+ meters. With our headlamps in tow, Joshua and I swam to the end of the lake to explore the back walls of the cave (we even managed to do a little bouldering, Abram!).
A giant water monster is said to prowl the lake. Legend has it that scuba divers once attempted to explore the depth and length of the cave as it disappears under the back cave wall. After many hours the divers did not return, and when the tether from the cave-mouth to the divers was retrieved, it appeared to be chewed by some ghastly beast! No need to worry, we made it back safely without a water monster attack:^)

A VODKA MASSAGE

2008-11-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

[This entry was written 3 weeks ago. Before reading this entry, rest assured that now (3 weeks later) Joshua has recovered]
Joshua organized a group of boys to play some pick-up soccer yesterday. Somehow while he was playing he threw-out his lower back, and he limped home unable to stand up straight. He rested his back for a couple of hours in our room, but when dinner time came around, we had to explain to our host family why he was walking like an old man. Our family was extremely sympathetic and concerned. After dinner, Ejem (host mom) suggested that we take Joshua to a traditional healer whom would give him a back massage. We agreed, and he started bundling up for the walk (the temperature has dropped significantly in the past week), but as we were leaving, Ejem decided it would be best to ask Peace Corps before receiving care from a healer. Since it was after-hours and the Peace Corps office was closed, this would not be possible. The host fam quickly arrived at an alternative solution. In rapid Turkmen and enthusiastic hand motions they suggested that I give Joshua a back massage with what I could only interpret as some kind of medicine.
“Derman!” (Medicine!) they urged, as they showed motions of massaging Joshua’s back, and then they would point at me saying, “Sen, Sen” (you, you). At the time, we had only been studying Turkmen for three weeks, so our family was kind to simplify the language to an elementary level we could decipher. “Arak bilen, Derman!” they continued to urge. We got the basic idea, they wanted me to give Joshua a massage, they wanted me to use some kind of medicine to massage him, and they wanted me to do it right there in the family room. As our younger brother left the room to retrieve the medicine, Joshua remembered that “Arak” (the medicine our family was referring to) means vodka—it is commonly used for external and internal medicinal uses here.
Our host mother proceeded to pour a mug of vodka, which was then heated on the small gas stove used to heat the room. After heating the vodka, it was mixed with a small amount of animal fat. Joshua was instructed to lie on the bed in the room and pull up his shirt to expose his back. In some pain, Joshua managed to position himself stomach-down on the bed. With my host mother, host sister, and host brothers watching with great interest [and keen to give comments on my massaging techniques], I proceeded to massage the vodka onto Joshua’s back until the mug was empty. After we completed this 20-minute process, Joshua was instructed to wrap a waist band around his waist that was likely used previously on someone twice Joshua’s size. The waist band fell loosely around Joshua’s hips, but our family was so generous to offer the gift, so Joshua obliged and, after thanking our family, made his was to bed for the night.

New Address

2008-11-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

Hello to all! This a brief message-- we'll be living in a new city starting December 7th. We just visited this weekend. Russian language is very common there, so we will likely be learning Russian before we realized. We are looking forward to settling in there eventually, but we will continue our Turkmen language studies here in Ashgabat for the next month. Thank you for your notes on our blog! We want to hear how you guys are doing-- we love news from your lives, so keep us updated.

Our new mailing address [STARTING DECMEBER 7TH]:

Rebekah and Joshua O'Halloran, PCV
LeBap Welayat
Turmenebat
22 Merkizi Pocta
Obonet 46, Korpus Mira
Turkmenistan 746100

Video Clip: Baking with the fam...

2008-11-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

We taught our family and friends how to bake carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies! Our neigbors came over too, so we felt like we were on a cooking show:^). We baked them in our neigbor's brick fire oven that is traditionally used to bake the local flat bread. Next we're going to try to bake a pizza in it! Our host brother was helping our neighbors clean their fancy car while we baked.

More pics

2008-11-03T04:58:00.000-08:00

A picture of our bedroom (furniture is uncommon, but the carpets are handmade and beautiful!). The heater in the middle has been a necessity in the past week-- the air is cooling and winter is on the way here!

Joshua teaching our host sister how to bake a carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies in a brick fire oven (arent' you proud of us, Rachel!). They don't have baking powder here, Rachel. Can you send us some?

We LOVE letters from home-- it is great to know what is going on in your lives. Email access is infrequent, so snail mail works best. Send you address and we'll be sure to mail you back! Our current mailing address is :

Joshua and Rebekah O'Halloran

US Peace Corps/ TURKMENISTAN

PO Box 258, Krugozor

Central Post Office

Ashgabat, 744000

TURKMENISTAN

If you feel like dropping us a treat... here are a few things we can't get here...

Real coffee (anything not instant!)

Baking powder

Peanut Butter

Some Photos from T-stan!

2008-11-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

A few pics (in no particular order):

Visiting Adrienne in Istanbul on the way to Turkmenistan A

A picture of our host family with my host sister sewing beautiful embroidery that is used in the women's dresses (in our living room)

A picture of Rebekah in our bedroom (furniture is not common, the rugs are handmade and beautiful!)

Joshua baking with our host sister

We are still alive and well

2008-11-02T02:59:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone from Turkmenistan. We are doing well and enjoying ourselves. Time is flying by. I am sorry we have not updated earlier but this is the first time back in the capitol this month and we get very limited time to use the computer. We will post pictures as soon as we have more time. We find out where our permanant sites are going to be next wednesday so it will be a big day for us. We are learning the language steadily and can communicate in sentences now. We have led a couple of clubs now and the kids are great. With how frequently we get internet I think snail mail may be a better option for contacting us. Hope you all are well. We have to go but we are thinking about all of you. We will post pictures as soon as we have enough internet time. Pictures take forever to upload. Love you all.
Joshua and Rebekah

From Turkmenistan!!!

2008-10-08T04:05:00.001-07:00

Greetings! We arrived safely in Ashgabad October 1st, after a brief visit with Rebekah's cousin, Adrienne, whom is living in Istanbul, Turkey. We had a wonderful visit with Adrienne and have also really enjoyed our time in Turkmenistan.

We are living with a host family in a small village called Yalkym. Our family is very loving and we are enjoying our time with them as we learn the language. English is not spoken here at all, so we have been doing a lot of pantomiming. We study Turkmen language with two other volunteers four hours a day and it has been going well. We go to the village health clinic the second half of each day to shadow a doctor. With our limited language skills, our tasks are limited at the health clinic. We will stay in Yalkym for 10 weeks for our language and health training. In mid-December we will be posted to a permanent volunteer site elsewhere in the country.

Our host family has three children. Tawas is 22 (girl), Ishen is 19 (boy), and Begenche is 15 (boy). We have two cows and a family garden that we help tend. All home interiors in Turkmenistan are covered in beautiful Turkmen carpets. Furniture is very uncommon-- we eat and sleep on the carpets. Women wear dresses to their ankles and often wear head scarves (thanks for the dresses you made, Mom! They really did mean to ankle length!).

Joshua and I attempted to go for a run this morning and may have woken up the entire village from all the dogs barking. We retreated to our family's yard to jump rope instead, but the family dog wouldn't stop barking. We finally devised a plan with one of us taking a turn petting the dog while the other jump-roped (I hope our host family doesn't think we're crazy!) *lol*.

Thanks to all for your thoughts and prayers! We will have many stories to tell you. We will keep you posted as we have access to the internet (once or twice a month).

Philly-NYC-Istanbul-Ashgabat

2008-09-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Rebekah and I have been having a great time in Philly during staging the last couple of days. We said goodbye to Seattle and all our friends and family :( and now we have been in Philadelphia enjoying meeting all of our fellow Peace Corps volunteers going to Turkmenistan. It is a huge crew! There are 44 of us flying to Turkmenistan to replace half of the volunteers currently serving there. We have been learning a ton in training about the country, training, and what to expect when we get there. So here is the low down: Tomorrow we will take a bus in the morning to JFK in NYC, from there we fly to Istanbul (10 and a half hour flight). In Istanbul we will have an 11 hour layover and so we have been able to get in contact with Rebekah's cousin, Adrienne Clark, who just moved there and she is going to show us around the city. Then back to the airport and we fly into Ashgabat, Turkmenistan arriving at 3 in the morning. We will be there for 3 days to get immunizations and then on to a village for language training. Rebekah and I will be living with a host family together! This is wonderful news as we thought we may be separated into different host families during language training. Thats as far as we know for now, but I guess thats enough. We have been running around trying to finalize last minute things before taking off so it has been a whirlwind. We will be out of internet and phone access at least for the first two to three weeks after we arrive so do not expect to hear from us. Thank you so much for all of your prayers.

Joshua

What-a-stan?!

2008-09-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

We are about to set out on a 27month journey working as Peace Corps volunteers in Turkmenistan! During our first three months in Turkmenistan we will be doing intensive language study, after that time the Peace Corps will decide exactly what area of the country we will be placed. Joshua and I will both be working in the field of public health, but our exact assignments will be identified during our three months of language training. As part of my Masters in Public Health program at the University of Washington, I will also be conducting research during our volunteer service.

You are likely wondering... "what-a-stan? Where is that?!" Such an astonished inquiry is not uncommon when we announce where we are moving:^) (we had to find the country on a map too). Here are a few facts about our soon-to-be host country:

The former Soviet Union was once home to almost 60 million Muslims. Most of that population now lives in the former Soviet Union's five Asian republics-- Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan-- which are the most isolated and least known of the 12 countries that make up the loose federation known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. Turkmenistan formally declared its independence from the Soviet Union and joined the CIS in 1991. Turkmenistan is dry with a desert terrain. Winters can be snowy and cold with bitter winds, summer temperatures can reach as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit (HOLY SMOKES, FOLKS!).

There are approximately 5 million people living Turkmenistan and it is roughly the size of California (California has a population of 36 million!). The largest ethnic group is the Turkmen. The three main minority groups are Russians, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs. Turkmen are extremely friendly and warm and volunteers enjoy both the Turkmen and Russian hospitality.

Joshua and I have taken much time off of work in the past month to visit family and friends before our final farewell in just a few days! Our time with family has been wonderful. We will miss everyone dearly. We are very excited about how God will use us in Turkmenistan!