Friday, October 2, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Turkmen Village Party
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Pics from our neighborhood health club
... and one picture picnicking beside the canal that runs near our apartment.
A summer update...
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
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
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Joshua's Birthday
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.
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.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Coming soon...
The internet is really slow today, so we will try posting a video of our new apartment next week :^).
Friday, March 13, 2009
Our favorite local laundry detergent...
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
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
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
Friday, February 6, 2009
BAKING BREAD--- Turkmenistan Tamdor style.
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...
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.
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.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Some Pictures
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:^)
Friday, January 9, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Happy New Year
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
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
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