Wednesday

I love Wednesdays!
And today was no exception (1/21/09)! I begin every Wednesday with my weekly trip to the kindergarten. If you haven’t already heard this is one of the highlights of my week. There are several reasons for this. Firstly; it is the only real Peace Corps Health related activity that I have right now. Secondly; I get to see around 75 children ages 3 – 6 who are generally well behaved and are gradually getting more and more used to me. Today on my way to the kindergarten (a half hour walk away) someone said hi to me before I said hi to them – progress! When I arrived at the K-garten I went to my first classroom (4 – 5 year olds) and the teacher who is my father’s sister was there. She is wonderful! As I was walking into the classroom a particularly cute little girl sees me and runs to give me a hug. She is one of the most enthusiastic children in this classroom and it immediately brightens my day. I teach my lesson which includes “head, shoulders, knees and toes” then a short lesson on why fruits and vegetables are important to us. I’m in the middle of a very long nutrition theme at the moment. The children then all draw pictures of their favorite fruit or vegetable. Then they all gave them to me. So, in addition to the few that will make it up on my wall I’ll probably be sending some home in letters in the future. Then I move onto the 5 – 6’s. Each classroom has a special place in my heart but this classroom is special because these students usually understand my message better than the other two classes, and they really get into any games or songs we do. They sing along, loudly, to “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and at the end of the lesson I tried fruit basket mix up, it was entertaining! Then I moved onto the 3 – 4’s. I’m still working on this classroom, several of the children are scared of me in this classroom. They do the motions for the song but only one child actually sings it with me. At the end of their lesson I also had them draw pictures of their favorite fruit and while some children understood the concept others weren’t quite there yet. Today was my third week at the kindergarten and each and every week after I’m done the cooks in the kitchen have boiled pumpkin ready for me to eat. They know I don’t eat meat and that I really like pumpkin (this is Turkmen pumpkin and it is slightly different than what we have back home). So, I sat in the kitchen talking with the cooks while eating my pumpkin. I left to walk home. After the enjoyable walk I arrived home to the smells of one of the most surprising meals I’ve had while here. Even though I had already eaten almost an entire meal at the kindergarten I ate some of the foil dinner. I then retreated to my room to take a nap because I knew I was going to help get ready for a birthday toý this evening and I would need as much patience and brain energy as possible. I awoke and my parents, who were sitting outside in the beautiful weather, said that I should go over to Aysoltan’s (my counterpart) to help prepare for the toý. This particular toý was a birthday party for my counterpart’s one year old granddaughter, Enejaň. (Translation of this name is mother dear. A lot of times when someone dies the next child born in that family receives this name or the male equivalen Atajaň or Babajaň, the children also receive a second name that is used more informally I believe Enejaň’s is Lila or something similar to that). I put on my toý koýnek (party dress) and walked the two doors down to help prepare for the toý. I basically placed a bunch of different kinds of salads on various plates and then brought those plates to one of the five different rooms where food was set up. During this process I, naturally, tasted the food as I went along. There were four different kinds of salad. The first was a beat and mayonnaise salad. The second was a cabbage, dill, pickle, garlic, salt, and mayonnaise salad. The third was basically a potato salad containing potatoes, carrots (baked), pickles, peas, and mayonnaise. And finally, my favorite, the bread salad which has peas, spinach, little pieces of bread (kind of like stuffing sized bread), cheese and mayonnaise. Then we put compote (homemade pickled juice) into bowls. There was erikli (apricot), almaly (apple), pomidorli (tomato), and another fruit whose name I can’t seem to recall in either English or Turkmen. I was then taken to one of the five rooms which was where I was supposed to eat. I sat and relaxed while people arrived. This toý was particularily exciting because I knew a lot of the people who came to it. Several of the doctors and nurses came and I was able to talk with them. Several of my sister-in-law’s siblings as well as friends of my family who I had previously met were all in attendance. This makes talking a lot easier. They all know about where my level of Turkmen is. We have some history together which makes talking much easier and they all like me, I hope! The pinnacle of the evening was when Enajaň received her gifts. I was the evening’s photographer because I was the only person with a real camera. There were two other people taking pictures (or video) on their cell phones. The present giving was essentially Enejaň and her mother sitting on a sheet in the middle of a room with probably 50 other people crowding in trying to give their presents, most of which were 10,000 manat bills which they stuffed into her clothes. She was obliged to try on everything she received which was just about enough to make a person cry. It certainly was enough for Enejaň. When my watch finally read sometime after 9pm Dilber (sister-in-law) asked if I wanted to go home. I was most certainly ready to retreat so I said my farewells and went outside planning to walk home alone and found my brother who escorted me home (the whole two houses over). We talked about the toý and he mentioned that he doesn’t like a lot of people. I mentioned how we had that in common. The evening is winding down and on the way back from my nightly trip to the bathroom I looked up into the sky to see the beautiful sky filled with bright stars. I truly love being so far from main cities at night. It makes the sky so much brighter and more beautiful. Today was a beautiful day!