Tears

Tears are an interesting cultural phenomenon, well, more specifically crying.
Weddings in Turkmenistan are huge, long affairs. They are usually at least four days of formal activities plus sometimes small family celebrations both before and after the actual wedding. On the final day of wedding there is a lunch at the bride’s family’s house. All of the women in the bride’s family gather around her and have a last meal. After the meal all of the very small children gather around the bride (who is wearing a velvet dress, probably 40 pounds of gold and ornamental jewelry and has her hair braided down to her waist using fake hair). The small girls cling to her like their life is dependent upon it and they place their heads in the brides lap and cry. The bride covers her face and she cries. It is symbolic of a time when your wedding meant a total removal from your family and the fact that you may never see them again.
The crying goes on for about 10 minutes until the women from the groom’s family arrive. They then pry the small girls one by one from the bride and shove them in the opposite direction. When the bride is by herself they lift her from the ground and lead her out the door to an awaiting vehicle. The vehicles bumper is covered with more small children – both boys and girls – who are also crying. The bride has her face covered this entire time with a small white cloth and is supposed to be crying.
The tears in probably 90% of weddings are fake. If the girl getting married loves the man she is about to marry it is all a show, however, I have seen real tears. You can tell because the atmosphere in the room with the bride is completely different. If there are fake tears everyone else in the room is joking around, laughing, and generally really happy. If the tears are real everyone is upset. Remember, the room with the bride is filled with all of the female members of her extended family and her friends. The weddings I’ve been to with real tears are girls who are getting married to a man they hardly know, or getting married quickly after finding out that their boyfriend married another girl.

Anecdotes

I got into a taxi to travel from Charjew back home. There were two passengers already sitting down, both men. I put my ipod headphones in my ears and lean back and relax. The man sitting in the back seat with me reaches across my legs and into the seatback pocket of the drivers’ seat. He pulls out a half empty bottle of vodka and proceeds to pour himself a shot. I rode the entire way back (over 2 hours) with this man’s pores leaking putrid stale vodka. Luckily he slept most of the way and wasn’t loud or obnoxious.
On one of my many trips back from Charjew we pass three tractors. They are all exactly the same, brand new, beautiful, and each and every one of them had a picture of the current president in the upper corner of the drivers’ side of the front window. A rather large picture – from where I was sitting I could not see the drivers of any of these tractors, just the presidents face and the body of a person sitting behind his head.
Last night I went guesting (a dinner visit with another family or friend) and the family I visited had the most quaint potholder. They had taken an old pair of jeans, ripped the back pockets off and tied them together with a very long string. Now, I’m not sure why they didn’t have just one, but I guess maybe having a set of two attached would be helpful for carrying big pots of things. They only thing I saw it used for was the teapot. Then they would use one pocket to hold the handle and the other pocket was held in the other hand.
On the road from Charjew home there was very suddenly some disturbance in front of us on the road. A police car with its siren blazing (something I have never heard here before) and a second one followed very closely behind. We pulled over to the side of the road and what should appear but eight boys on bicycles riding down the road. They were followed by an ambulance, a bus, three regular vehicles and an additional two police cars. The last police car was holding back the traffic behind to be sure they wouldn’t try and pass the boys on bikes.
Last night after eating dinner with my host family we were sitting down and watching some TV (Turkmen music videos) and a ‘commercial’ came on that was about this sports center – it looked like it had a ton of state of the art exercise equipment. I asked, “Where does that exist in this country?” and then answered myself, “just Ashgabat?”. My host family agreed with me and I asked, “why is it only available in the capitol and not everywhere?”. My host family said, “well, no one actually uses it so it doesn’t matter, all the people in this commercial are musicians – they all posed for this video”. I asked, “So, why even show it?”. Their reply was, “because the president paid for it and wants people to know he paid for it”.
This morning at work I came in to the clinic at the same time as this woman who was 36 or 37 weeks pregnant, who had a broken hand and a goiter the size of a baseball. Patients don’t visit my clinic all that often, so when they do I get really excited! My counterpart directed the patient to go with her nurse to get her hand checked out and gave her instructions for getting rid of the goiter. I can’t imagine how long she has been without iodine. Just goes to show the wonders of iodized salt. The free salt from the government isn’t iodized (at least not in Lebap – I’ve heard it is elsewhere).
The floor in my clinic, just outside my office is really weak! It was essentially wood laid down on piles of bricks that were randomly interspersed. So there are large areas of the floor that are unsupported. The wood has begun to rot and that leaves large patches of very weak floor. I am sitting in my office making sure my students are doing their work when a larger woman falls through the floor making a huge crash. It is probably a foot and a half between the wood floor and the subfloor. Quite dangerous. At least three children have fallen through in the past, but they are usually agile enough not to hurt themselves, a quick save. It is rather entertaining seeing a child who is only about three feet tall standing in a hole that goes up to their waist. The good news in all this is that my grant includes a remodel which means we will have a new floor! One that won’t allow people to fall through.