I am here in Turkmenistan to work, so naturally work is pivotal to directing the tide of my emotions. It halts or speeds up the roller coaster of my feelings every single day. And in the past month, it was hell. A slow hell. There was nothing for me to do except sit there and watch the nurses and doctors write, what I don’t know, but the paperwork never ends. I have to believe that they carry a necessary, non-redundant purpose. After a couple of days of watching, I found ways to sit there and look occupied. At first, I wrote some obligatory letters; then I read “Into the Wild” and “Life of Pi.” The books are highly acclaimed, I reassured myself. I am enriching my learning and not wasting my time in Turkmenistan. But then things spiraled downwards. I skimmed the entirety of the “Best of the Onion.” My counterparts were amazed at the substantial size of the book and commended me on my undertaking during one of our awkward silences, which made me feel guiltier than ever. And then I couldn’t stop myself: I started reading random books in English, and some of them were admittedly trashy.
So I sighed, caved reluctantly, and took out my super thick Turkmen language workbook that has been calling for a while. I was just not looking forward to finally acknowledging that I need to learn Turkmen on my own and actually undertaking it. That requires a lot of self-motivation. I mustered up some resiliency, and now I am one third through the book and in the process have garnered more confidence with my language capabilities. Learning Turkmen and utilizing it is like digging a tunnel. Every other week, I would realize that I could understand more and more of the undertones of a conversation, especially when my family is talking about me. I could see more and more of the peeking light at the end of the tunnel.
However, I didn’t want to just study Turkmen during clinic hours. So I ventured out of my comfort zone and asked my kind but oblivious staff what I could do to help them. Of course, I could lighten their paperwork load. That might sound easy, but it was not. Their alphabet is similar to ours, but their writing seemed like illegible drawing to me, like a long signature. Another volunteer related the tale of how he tried to help out and mimic their handwriting for a report, and his staff never asked him to write anything again. I was scared that I would too fail in this simple task. On my free time, I practiced each of the 30 letters and read different documents. This alphabet has squiggles underneath the c’s and the s’s, and in everyday writing, they are indistinguishable, and my task was to transcribe about 30 pages of patient names onto another journal, which seems completely redundant to me, but then I come from the world of copying and pasting. However I was determined to seem useful. For some weird reason, they didn’t like it when I write standard letters like those on a computer document, so I drew and swirled with a cautious hand. I guess I was successful. Now my staff sets aside the most important documents for me to write. Have I created a monster?
Nonetheless, I now help out with the paperwork, not in transcribing but in documenting family visits. We have to visit all the people in the village at least once a year, and for babies, we have to see almost every month to track their neurological development. I go on family visits almost every single day with my nurses and doctors, so the paperwork could pile up, but then in the United States, the paperwork or computer work could also be overwhelming, from my experience of shadowing doctors.
In addition, although I have a specific counterpart, I find that my staff and I are like a family, and they all share the responsibility of guiding and helping me, and I am actually closer to the nurses that don’t sit in my room, although I appreciate each and every one of my staff. And I think they in the course of the last month have realized that I am not completely useless and that I come with a college degree. I have helped translate many of the directions on medical labels, since much of the writing is in Russian and/or English. It kind of alarms me that they don’t fully understand what they are prescribing, especially the drugs that UNICEF give out for free and the drugs that come from other countries. Therefore, I have gone through all their medicines and have translated anything in English into Turkmen for them. From some of my family visits, I have noticed that many drugs are similarly packaged, and one of my nurses was temporarily confused to which shot to give, so I am also planning to divide their medicines into simple categories: analgesics (painkillers), nutrition, saline/placebo treatments, and treatments designed for specific diseases (anemia, hypertension, diabetes). My staff consists of responsible care providers, but in terms of knowledge, some nurses and doctors are more experienced. In addition to this campaign, I am starting a preventative health campaign to educate my staff in that a few addition words of advice to families on routine family visits could help them take note of certain health issues, such as boiling their water, washing their hands after touching livestock, and keeping a clean, ventilated environment for children. This project is actually critical to fulfilling one of the major goals that Peace Corps asks of us health volunteers: to educate care providers to teach about preventative health.
Of course, all these campaigns have only just started. In the first two months, I just helped out with the paperwork, did a weekly English hour for the clinic staff, and did a three-times-a-week English/health club for 5-7 girls, who are mostly the doctors’ kids. The fact that I am American and know English opens a lot of doors, although the fact that I am Chinese and not Caucasian incurs some questions about my actual ability to speak English, especially when I run into British books. I had no idea that they pronounced ‘z’ “zed.” That is so weird. Since Turkmen kids take the written word to be unspoken truth, I had to fight to maintain my credibility and also to get them to learn “rooster” instead of “cock.”
Despite my Asian appearance, people still flock to me for English lessons, and wanting to help, I had tried to help as many people as possible, but just this week, I have to turn people away. I am here in Turkmenistan to teach health, not English, and I told them that if they want to discuss health-related topics in English, I am all for it, but I can’t make time for private English lessons, though they are welcome to come to my English clubs. I have also started teaching health at the kindergarten, although the lesson plans now just consist of many poems and songs. Five and six-year-olds are absolutely hooligans, and me against twenty-one of them gives me a headache twice a week. Is it worth it if they know that “This Is the Way You Brush Your Teeth?” Despite all my grouching, I think I can teach them some good habits early on. They are really dirty: while some of them pee and poop in the hallway, others are snacking on sweets. And the doctors tell me that they get worms quite frequently, but although I tell them to wash their hands, how feasible is it really? There is no water at my clinic, and surely there is no water at the kindergarten, and although there is bottled water for the adults to use for cooking, I doubt that the kids get to use it. Looking after these kids two times a week is already wearing me out, and I can understand how the adults just want to keep the kids quiet and with as little fuss and work as possible. I am just hoping that they know to wash their hands, even though they don’t have the means now. Therefore, despite the long walk full of whistles and catcalls from stupid high school boys, I try not to drag my feet every Wednesday and Friday.
So that’s a lot of what I am working on now, and compared to the rut of December and January, work and thus things in general is definitely looking up. I actually have reasons to get up every day in the morning. Add to that, I can definitely smell spring in the air or hear the bees buzzing outside my window. At this point, I am comfortably settled but ready to take more steps to accomplish what I came here to do. At the beginning of my service, each volunteer had to write an aspirations statement, and I had requested to read mine again, and I hope it would reaffirm all that I am doing right now and give me ideas for future projects. I have had trouble gaining permission to teach health lessons at the school, which is a stone’s throw from my clinic and from my house, but I still got my fingers crossed. In the school, there is a ready-made audience of kids who are eager to spend time with me, just because I am American. Impressionable and eager minds…what more could I ask for. I could do good work at the school, and I hope the director would agree with me. In the meantime, I have started an exercise and sports club with some of the kids there. The administration couldn’t possibly object since I was just exercising and playing soccer with my neighbors. And if the kids don’t mind the occasional discussion on good nutrition, why should anyone else?
I guess I have found a place for myself here, and having a routine feels good. I have a schedule and everything! So that people can find me at various times of the day. I am still integrating into the community, and I hope to establish enough rapport with my community that I can go on family visits myself to talk with anyone who’s interested about various health issues. I am a resource, and I want the people to approach me with their problems or just want to hang out with me. As for establishing sustainability in my work, I want to work with interested youth and take them on family visits with me, and they could teach their fellow Turkmen neighbors to take good care of themselves. That is just something I am working on.
