Lines From the Front |
I provide the medical care in Turkmenistan to the Volunteers and also am the Sr. Medical Officer for the Embassy along with the Russian MD. (Duct tape is probably the most important item I tell the new Volunteers to bring with them!!) Turkmenistan is a Peace Corps country located in Central Asia, and is a former Russian Republic. The population is Turkman and Russian, so there are two languages to learn ... er … stumble through! The country is about the size of California. Ashgabat is the capitol; the population roughly 500,000, one President. It is very safe here ... every home/ground floor apartments have steel grates on the windows and lots of keys for the gates and doors: it takes three different keys for me to get into my house. The police and KGB do a good job to keep us safe as guests of the country.
Housing is very different here. The Turkmen houses are in compounds with a high wall facing the sidewalks/paths/streets. The residential streets are long, tree shaded block walls with solid steel gates, so every home is very private. Several generations live together and use a central courtyard for lounging and idle time. Many homes have a raised metal framed, wooden platform about a foot tall, which is carpeted, called a T-Bed. They are great! No chairs to worry about, as everyone who is a real Turkman can squat! Try it. Feet flat on the floor, pointing straight ahead, knees bent, and posterior barely off the ground! (I knew you couldn't do it!) The only hitch is we who are not proficient at this don't get to cheat and sit on a pillow. It's a cultural thing ... never sit on a cushion or a blanket ... so I suffer sitting flat with my legs tucked under.
Last month I went to the nearest large city, Mary, (pronounced Marie), for a site visit to see some of the Volunteers. It is a five hour drive through scrub land, desert, and salt water seep areas. We (four of us: one American (me), one Russian driver, and two Turkmen women) finally found a truck stop area with 8 to 10 small block shacks lining a canal, with cooking pots outside. The menu was fish. Period. We drove in and picked out our 2 kilos of fish, chopped into chunks, which was dropped into a boiling vat of oil. We seated ourselves on the T-Bed platform (the only guests) and were served tea and bread while we waited. The tea cups had been sitting in the dust so we asked if they would mind washing them?? No problem. He took the cups and rinsed them in the canal water for us before pouring the tea!
Dinner was great! No other dishes to worry about ... just grab a chunk of bread and put it on the floor/cloth and balance a chunk of fish on it while picking it apart with fingers. We even had a salad of tomato chunks! The fish, salad and tea all tasted "fishy" but, I was hungry and enjoyed the meal. Hand washing was pretty neat too. A can was suspended on a short pole outside, and a string pull would let canal water run over your hands ... to clean off the fish smell! No, I didn't get sick ... can't imagine why!
The house is sparsely furnished so the empty boxes also make do as end tables, dressers, closets, and coffee tables. The landlord promised me a large china cupboard, with drawers, more than a month ago so I could unpack the dishes and glasses. I have been making do with two plates, so yesterday I had a brain storm! I unpacked it all, put the whole mess on the table, and will tell the landlady (who is also my cleaning/cooking lady) that I will have a dinner party this coming week! Let her figure out where to put everything!