10.19.2008 (Sunday)

(Note about these blogs: I don't have much time to use the Internet, so I am just copying and pasting from my pen drive. Some of the formatting might be off, and when I have some more time later, I will edit these posts and correct some things. And also these are not daily posts. I am trying my best to update whenever I have some time. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you would like to hear about. Comments and suggestions are much appreciated. I miss you guys.)

This morning, I was woken up with an amazing surprise. I groggily heard my name being called and a light knock on the door. It was Sunday, and I looked at my watch. Barely 9 AM. I had hoped to sleep in for longer. I sat up and hoped that my host sister or mom would go ahead and eat breakfast without me. However, I heard my name again, so I scrambled to put on a long skirt and opened the door. It seemed that my host mom was rudely woken up too – by a phone call…I dashed to the phone placed on the floor and hoped. And it was. I heard my mom’s voice on the phone, and my voice hitched when I said tentatively, “Mom?”

It was the most amazing moment; my mother had called from America to check in on me. I still exist in the minds of my family and friends. Once I had my existence validated, I eagerly launched into pouring out everything as fast as I could. It costs $10 for 25 minutes of talking or $0.40/minute. My mom said that for this same calling card, she can call to China for 600 minutes. Wow.

I described everything that came to mind. The diarrhea, my host family, briefly the culture that I have encountered, my adjustment from living in California to living in Turkmenistan – both the easy and hard parts. But mostly the diarrhea. Now on hindsight, I should’ve asked about my mom and my family back in California. Like how she’s doing and also how my sister did on the SATs that she took on Oct. 4, 2008. But I did manage to express all my worries and thoughts during that phone call.

When I did put down the phone after the 25 minutes, the homesickness hit me like a Mack truck, and tears instantly sprung to the fore. All the while, my host mom and sister were eating breakfast and looking at me expectantly. They didn’t know who had called me so early in the morning. I quickly told them that my mom had call and escaped into my room to collect myself. This moment once again reminded that I was in Turkmenistan and not back in my comfort zone. All the differences, adjustments, and sickness surfaced, and they made it hard to go about starting my day once again. Nevertheless, as I was washing my face and brushing my teeth, I was still glad that my mom had made contact, after so long – 3 weeks. The phone call again reminded me of how important family was to me, and how much I appreciate my family, especially my mom, for how hard she works. It felt so good to know that someone across the ocean is thinking of me.

After, I ate breakfast with my family, and then I waited for the rest of my group to come to my house at 11 AM. We had planned to get together today to make some American food – specifically eggplant parmesan. The day before, we had gone to a small bazaar to buy lots of vegetables. We have lots of meat in our daily diet, and we wanted vegetables for a change. So I spent an hour just organizing my room before our cooking adventure. I hardly cook in the states, but I am definitely trying to learn, and I have never made eggplant parm before, so I am excited about that. Actually, I am excited about the prospect of anything that deviates from the routine of just bumming around the house on Sundays.

When everyone got here, we started to chop the vegetables and prepare the ingredients. It was strange at first, since none of us had cooked by ourselves in this country yet. We didn’t really know where the cooking ingredients are, and the gas stove kept going out, and we had to repeatedly light matches. Although the kitchen didn’t have the technological appliances as the ones in the states, we made do, and it turned out great. I went with another volunteer, a male volunteer, to buy Coca-Cola, Fanta, and desert to complete the meal. We went to a couple of little street-side stores, and I eventually realized that people are giggling at us. In this culture, when a girl and boy walk together, they are on a date. Whoops. We bought the drinks and ice cream despite the cultural faux pas, and they were delicious treats. The final production presented on the Turkmen serving cloth looked delicious and as American as we could make it, and we took pictures before we dug in. I urged my host mom and sister to eat, but they took the obligatory bite and said that they were full, although I knew that they hadn’t eaten yet. It was an odd situation. Usually, I feel like the outsider of most cultural exchanges between me and my host family, but at the lunch, they probably felt awkward, since we were six American volunteers, and they didn’t understand our manner of eating and the huge dish of eggplant we were consuming. Maybe they also felt the hesitation (thinking what should I do and how I should comport myself) that I often feel.

Anyways, after the meal, we ate ice cream, and the creamy vanilla ice cream was much welcomed. It was definitely a rare treat, especially that deserts in this culture usually mean tea. I consider it pretty American to top off our vegetable meal with ice cream. We discussed the possibility of having such a get-together each Sunday and to rotate the houses in which we cook in. I think it’s a great idea, and hopefully it works out. We had picked my family since our family was smaller, and hopefully we hadn’t inconvenienced anyone too much, although I felt bad that later the family was eating their own meal. We had pushed their lunch time back by 2 hours. I seek to be culturally sensitive, and on hindsight, we might have seemed like a raucous group of insensitive Americans who just wanted to please ourselves. Hopefully, it wasn’t like that.