move in with my current host family. This also helped save me. My first family was horrid. They were nouveau riche with all the class associated with it. The mother was controlling and regarded me as a status symbol. She showed
me off to friends as if to say “look, we got an American” the same way someone would show off a Rolex. I could go
into specific horror stories that are now rendered hilarious because I escaped, but I’ll save it for my memoir.
The point is, my real host family, the one I’ve lived with ever since I moved out of the dungeon in late February 2011, is awesome, and I love them dearly. I’ve said this before, but I bring it up again because of something that happened
today. I went to the weekend bazaar with my cousin and aunt, and on the walk home, my aunt asked what my old
host mom’s name was. Turns out she works with my aunt and said I was bad and lazy and didn’t teach her son
English. My aunt told her, “no, she lives with my sister and she’s clean and quiet and she plays with Leyla.” I told my aunt that my old host mom was a bitch and my aunt said “yeah, she’s a bitch at work, too. They used to be poor and when they got money, they got stuck up.”
This is amusing to me for a couple reasons. One, it’s great to know my family has my back and that other people have formed that opinion of my old host mother independently of my influence. Two, my sitemate has an almost
identical story. Her first host family was also horrid (how does Peace Corps pick them?) and ended up having a
similar connection to her permanent host family. Someone from the first family bad-mouthed Lindsay to her permanent family, calling her lazy and saying she would never eat anything, and they replied, “no, she’s not like that with us.” (Hmm, must be you, then.) It is common in Turkmen culture to be called lazy if you don’t do something someone wants you to do, like come home from working all day teaching English to teach it to your host brother who obviously has zero interest in learning it. I find this hilarious because ‘industrious’is about the last adjective I would use to describe Turkmen culture.
Anyway, I’m so grateful to have this family, both my immediate family and my cousin, Ramina, and her family. Today I went to Ramina’s and modeled a couple dresses I had made, including the one for COS conference. My host brother jokingly proposed marriage, and I got some really cute pictures with Leyla. But I won’t post them yet, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise of the dresses. Here’s one of us from earlier this summer and one of just her taking after her sister.