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.