On Friday, December 10, 2010, we had our swearing in ceremony. We all got dressed up in our nicest threads. Guys actually wore ties, girls put on our finest koyniks (dresses). I wore the koynik Läle helped me get made. It was a silky purple with lace over the bust. The same purple lace material was used to make a jacket to go over top and cover my shoulders. It was gorgeous. The ceremony itself was a little boring (though the fact that we were all up until the wee hours of the morning didn’t help our perception, I think). We got framed certificates stating that we’re now officially Peace Corps Volunteers and PC tack pins which the guys put on their lapels and the girls will probably never wear (at least not in T-stan). Läle was there, of course, and we gave her a gift of a photo frame, promising to make her copies of the pictures of us all dolled up at swearing in. Later, as I was getting ready to go, she found me and said I looked beautiful at the ceremony and the other LCFs were asking, ‘who’s group is she in?’ to which she replied, ‘mine, of course.’ She’s so funny. She told me she’s not my teacher anymore and I’m not her student. We are friends. She hugged me and told me to call her when I got to permanent site. What a sweetie.
We were carted off to the hotel to carry our bags down to the lobby and check out. It took me three trips. After check out, we had lunch in the hotel before heading off to permanent sites. It was one of the longest goodbyes I’ve ever been a part of. We started in the hotel lobby and continued in the parking lot as people loaded up vans waiting to take them to the airport or to site. I got several bear hugs from fellow trainees and climbed into one of the two marșrutkas (vans) going to Balkan. That’s when things went downhill. There was apparently no communication with the drivers on the part of PC because they just divided us and our luggage up willy nilly so that both vans had to travel to the first couple sites. They didn’t know how to get to each house, so they had to stop and ask for directions each stop. After dropping off Gerry, getting stopped by the police twice and stopping for a potty break just outside of Serdar, they figured out that they should put Casey and Ilana in one van with their luggage and head for Serdar, while Charles, Andy, Lindsay and I progressed in the second van. We dropped off Charles and when we got to Andy’s place, the van got stuck in the sand, so Linds and I waited at his place for a bit until they got it out. We left Ashgabat at 2pm and Linds and I didn’t get to my place in B-bat until 11:30. We didn’t stop for dinner either, so we had all subsisted on the snacks I brought. Ten hours in a marșrutka is a kind of torture. I was so dead when I got home. My host mom made soup for Linds and me, which I was not about to refuse even though I was tired. Then Linds went home and I fell into a coma for ten hours. My family put me in the tiny room where I stayed during site visit. My mom said I’d be in the big room the next day, but their stuff is in the big room and that’s not supposed to happen according to PC policy. So I called PC the next day and after talking to my mom, they told me that this will only be for a couple weeks while my family is remonting (remodeling) the next door apartment which is where I’ll be sleeping.
Lindsay and Andy
Lindsay is my site mate at B-bat. She’s a T-18a, which means she came to T-stan in March. She’s great. She really helped me navigate B-bat and will be a good source of comfort when I need an American girl to talk to. She and I went to the bazaar today to get Christmas decorations. I bought a small tree and some ornaments. It was fun to see all the tinsel and things for sale, even though it was all cheap junk and the Santa ornaments were creepy. She also showed me where the internet café is so I sent a few emails and will return soon to post this very entry. She’s fun to chat with about things in PC and how we think things are going with administration and communication (or lack thereof). We vented to each other about yesterday’s harrowing van ride and how ridiculous it is that PC forbids us to travel at night due to safety reasons yet they arranged for our travel yesterday that was done mostly at night.
Andy is stationed in Gumdag about a half hour taxi ride from B-bat. He’s also on the editorial board of the paper that will replace the old one that PC had in T-stan. Did I mention that in my blog? He, Greg, Jason, Charles and I are on the editorial board of a paper that we’re going to put out for volunteers. It will replace the old one that got shut down for reasons I won’t go into here, but you might be able to guess. So Andy and I chatted about that during the ride and brainstormed ideas for articles and such. Our first order of business was to decide what to call the thing. The board had talked ad nauseum about it. I had suggested Big Brother. Other suggestions were Welyat Wayfarer; Chai, Chorek, and Chorba; Turkmen Times; and the infamous Desert Machine. Greg finally suggested Murphy’s Law Review to me at the Ak Altyn and I brought it up to Andy in the van. He liked it, as did I, so I said let’s make an executive decision to make it the title. So, Murphy’s Law Review it is. Andy’s a good guy and will probably visit Linds and me frequently since he’s so close and B-bat is exponentially cooler than G-dag. In fact, he’s planning on visiting tomorrow so we can take Linds out to lunch to celebrate our arrival.