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