Our Mailing Address

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

[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

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...

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

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!

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

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!!!

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

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?!

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!