1.27.2009: Only in Turkmenistan

Our phone line got cut off today by the telegraph. It turns out that my mother hasn’t paid last month’s phone bill yet. She explained that she will pay it as soon as she has the money. Fortunately, my dad’s van started working, and he started working today, taxiing people to and fro the big bazaar in the neighboring town. My mom says that on a good day, my dad can make 200,000 manats, which is about $13. That is actually pretty good, considering that the actual person makes 70,000 manats ($5) per day. Intrigued and excited that he can finally work after a long dry period when he didn’t have money to repair his van, I calculated the number of trips he has to make to make 200,000 manats in one day. His van at maximum capacity can hold 15 people, and for one trip, each person pays 3000 manats. Unless my math is wrong, he has to make more than 4000 individual trips and about 2000 round trips. That doesn’t sound quite right, but then along the way, he could let people off and pick up other people. My mom also said that my dad charges people at a cheaper price, 3000 manats instead of 4000 manats, so that everyone would choose his van instead. I just came from home at 4:30 PM, and my dad is already home, and he said that work was good. I am just glad that my mom doesn’t have to shoulder the burden of feeding the entire family and paying the bills on her teacher’s salary.

In this country, a taxi driver like my dad makes twice as much as my mom, a biology teacher. That goes against everything I know having lived in China and the US, but then again, the transportation in this country is at worst unorganized and unpredictable and at best totally inspiring. You see, almost every single vehicle can serve as a taxi. I have seen children, housewives, and elderly people being transported on huge dump trucks, and I have seen taxis ranging from cars that are tilted on one axis to shiny BMWs and Mercedes, although most of the taxis are pretty beat up cars. Anyone who has time and wants to make some extra manats can stop and pick up a passenger on the way. This concept still strikes me as surprisingly efficient: hitchhiking is not only accepted, but it’s the best way to get around! I guess it’s the luck of the draw if you get a creepy taxi driver or a creepy hitchhiker. Well besides hitchhiking, there are also busses, although they don’t really follow a schedule, but Turkmens are very patient. There are also the specialized vans like my dad’s that hold 14-17 people; they are called marshrutkas. They are pretty cool, although it can get pretty crowded, and sometimes there is that occasional whiff of body odor, although it’s winter now and it’s not that bad. Women, especially unmarried women, are also not allowed to sit at the front with the driver, and they are encouraged to not sit at the back of the van. If one goes against such unspoken traditions, she is portraying herself in an unsavory way and is inviting advances, such as the hand on the knee or the marriage proposal – if she is American. Yeah, I definitely had to learn many of these traditions that result from the different roles men and women hold in this society, such as that I cannot walk into a bar by myself or with just a guy. Ah…the complications if I ever find myself thirsty. Anyways, the marshrutkas are a recommended way of transportation. Usually they have to be good and stable vehicles because they travel long distances, although you have to wait until it fills up completely before the driver starts the engine. I definitely prefer these to the taxis because they seat more people, so they are more standard, and the drivers are less likely to cheat me or say weird stuff to me because I am a foreigner. And they are way cheaper! Taxis usually just carry you and your party and at maximum four people. I was bored one day on a marshrutka when I was traveling to the capital city from my village (such a ride could take up to one hour; in this country I actually spend lots of hours traveling), and again I calculated how much this driver would make. It turns out to be a relatively exorbitant amount! He carried 17 people, and each person pays 7000 manats for the trip, and on this particular trip, everyone but me got off somewhere along the way and the driver had picked up another crop of passengers, thus doubling his profits. So on one trip, he made 230,000 manats per hour, and if he made 7 such trips in one day, he would make 1.6 million manats in one day and 48 million manats ($3000) in one month. That’s awesome. But then that’s on a good day. Nonetheless taxi drivers are living the good life, while doctors struggle with their 2.5 million monthly salaries. I hope this sort of inverted reality only exists in Turkmenistan.

Yeah, I really wish the home phone would be operational soon. Because my cell phone costs are sucking me dry. I was saving up for a pineapple to cheer myself up, but because of my compulsion to communicate with other volunteers, I never reached my goal. It’s stupid really. Pineapples here should not cost more than those in the states. Lamentably, they are now out of season.