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).