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The Peace Corps Benefit Package

I found myself lying awake last night wondering how difficult it would be to compute my hourly wage. There are many things that have to go into the accounting process. Firstly there are all of the specific allotments that we receive. There is the living allowance (the money we actually get every month), travel allowance (money that is given to us on a quarterly basis specifically for travel out of country), readjustment allowance (money that is given to us once we complete our service) and settling in allowance (a one time payment used to furnish your living space). Then you have to take into account that most of the money we don’t get until we are finished with service (in my accounting I discounted this and added it in as if I were getting it spread throughout my service). You also have to account for mandatory expenses, namely, my monthly payment to my host family. Finally, being a PCV is a 24/7 job.
After changing all of the manat payments into dollars and calculating the hourly amount of each of those allowances listed above I have determined that I am making a grand total of $0.52 every hour of my service in Peace Corps. If you decide to join Peace Corps for the money you will be disappointed (until you get 1/3 of your readjustment allowance upon leaving the country). However, I assume most people do not join Peace Corps to make their fortune.
I am just beginning to learn about the wealth I am reaping from this experience. I have been in Turkmenistan for the past 9 months (yes it has been that long) and every day I seem to gain something new. I have had ample opportunity to think about my life and where I am headed in the future, I have anthems of children’s voices following me everywhere I go, I have reflected upon what opportunity truly means and realized just how privileged I am having been born in the US, I have several good friends who will live here for the rest of their lives, and I can truly appreciate how frustrating grass roots change can be. These are just some of the things that I will cherish for the rest of my life, much longer than the money I’m making will last.
I truly believe that wealth lies not in money but in experience, knowledge and love. I will gladly live on $0.52 an hour when it comes with such an amazing benefit package.

Public Transportation - PC Turkmenistan

Getting around is, generally, a universal concern. As such, I figured I would talk a little about how I get around and compare it to my host family and other Turkmen that I know.
I travel to visit other PCV friends, to go to Ashgabat for PC business, to go to Halach for my monthly living allowance, to go to Charjew for internet and mail, and to travel to other countries for vacation.
The first step for all of these trips is to catch a taxi. I am lucky to live less than 15 minute walk from the one road that travels between Charjew (and north of the city) and the Afghan border. Every vehicle traveling along the road serves as a taxi. Essentially I am hitchhiking, I throw my arm out to my side and wait for someone to pull over. I inquire if they are going where I am going and then (according to PC policy) I am supposed to ask how much it will be. For most trips that I usually take I know how much they will charge and therefore rarely ask.
There are four ways to get from Lebap to Ashgabat: train, plane, taxi, or marshrutka. The train costs 70,000 ($4.92) and takes 14 hours to get from Charjew to Ashgabat. I can take the train from a village near my village and it costs an extra $.50 or so but takes an additional 5 hours. The plane leaves from Charjew and costs 250,000 ($17.59) and takes 50 minutes. The taxi and marshrutka I hear are extremely painful ways to travel and while they are between the cost of train and plane it seems like something I won’t do without large amounts of encouragement. When I moved to my site I took a marshrutka with 3 other volunteers and all of our belongings and it was extremely cold. We all pulled out sleeping bags in order to stay warm. I was lucky enough to be able to join a Peace Corps driver coming out to Charjew on my way back from vacation but the PC vehicles have air conditioning and are very comfortable, clean, and the driver is nice and not constantly bugging you.
My host family has a vehicle which they use when my host father goes places, however if my sister-in-law needs to go to the bazaar but my host father isn’t going she takes a taxi just like I would. When traveling within my village the most common modes of transportation are walking or biking, however after dark cars are most often used.

 

How hot is hot - Installment 1: Spring

I have been warned repetitively about the horror of the summer heat. Some of the common expressions I’ve heard regarding the heat include: “insufferable”, “more than halfway to boiling, literally”, “there are flies landing on my butthole”, “debilitating” as well as a few phrases I won’t print here.
This leaves me wondering – is it really going to be that hot? My Encyclopedia Britanica on my computer generously given by a fellow volunteer (thanks Elliot!) says that in the summer the temperature rarely falls below 35 C (95F) and in the southeast Kara Kum (pretty much exactly where I am located) can be 50 C (122 F) IN THE SHADE! The average yearly temperature is 14 – 16 C (57 – 61 F).
I figure many of you may also be wondering what the temperature really is here in the desert. Therefore I have decided to start a small series of blog posts. I plan to spend about two weeks each season taking several daily readings on the thermometer that is attached to the outside of our house and report my findings here to you. The last two weeks were a great time to start because I didn’t have all that much to do considering I am leaving on vacation as I am posting this entry.
Please note: I am not a meteorologist, not do I aspire to be one, and our thermometer is attached to the brick exterior of our house and is in perpetual shade. So, this is what it was really like the past two weeks as far as the weather is concerned. Enjoy!
Date Temp F Time
Tuesday May 5, 2009
66.2 8:30 AM
82.4 2:00 PM
83.3 5:00 PM
Wednesdsay May 6, 2009
85.2 9:30 AM
86 2:00 PM
Thursday May 7, 2009
71.6 8:00 AM
77 12:00 PM
82.4 2:00 PM
Friday May 8, 2009
69.8 7:45 AM
84.2 3:00 PM
Saturday May 9, 2009
66.2 8:00 AM
77 12:00 PM
Sunday May 10, 2009
66.2 8:00 AM
77 12:00 PM
71.6 9:30 PM
Monday May 11, 2009
71.6 9:00 AM
77 5:00 PM
Tuesday May 12, 2009
71.6 8:00 AM
82.4 4:15 PM
Wednesday May 13, 2009
73.4 8:00 AM
89.6 3:00 PM
78.8 7:45 PM
Thursday May 14, 2009
71.6 8:30 AM
87.8 5:00 PM
Friday May 15, 2009
69.8 7:45 AM
71.6 9:15 AM
77 11:45 AM
87.8 3:00 PM
Saturday May 16, 2009
69.8 7:30 AM
95 3:00 PM

Adventures with Money

Many of you may have heard from me at one point or another some of the issues surrounding the change in currency from old manat to new manat here in Turkmenistan. There have been countless times when the things that come out of my mouth just don’t make any sense, or I’ve gotten exceedingly confused on a taxi ride, or when telling people about my Peace Corps income. I’ve decided to write up a few stories and share them with you.
First, you will need some background information to attempt to make sense of the following puzzles. The old manat bills were nearly all 10,000 bills. There were also 500, 1,000 (bills and coins) and 5,000 bills. With the exchange rate 14,215 manat to the dollar you can imagine many purchases were made with large bundles of bills. I was even considered a millionaire once or twice during those first few months in country.
As of January 1 (this year) both sets of currency are legal tender and will be until January 1 of next year when only the new currency will be considered legal tender. Many Turkmen were very worried about this transition because a similar change in currency happened several years ago that left many Turkmen hurting. I don’t know the exact specifics but I understand it had to do with the exchange rate with the dollar. Many people here keep their savings in their homes in US dollars rather than in manats or in banks.
The new manat has been changed so that 5,000 old manat = 1 new manat. They have also introduced a cent type unit called the teňňe (pronounced teng-ay) with 1 teňňe being 50 old manat (yes 50, not 500, or 5,000). The coins come in 1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 (the 1 and 5 are utterly useless) and the new bills come in 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and supposedly 500 (I’ve never seen these). While having a large range of bills is helpful getting too many 50’s and 100’s at the bank can be not helpful when I’m buying a kilo of tomatoes at 15,000 (old manat) a kilo. The new exchange rate is that 2.843 new manat = 1 dollar. So, please enjoy some of the following stories all about the strange changeover of bills.
A fellow volunteer (Jessie) and I were debating if we both ended up paying the same price for a taxi ride and I said, “I gave him a 5, you gave me 10 and he gave me 2 so you would owe me another 2.5 if we’re both even”. Let’s review that again, “I gave him a 5 (new manat = 25,000 old manat), you gave me 10 (10,000 old manat), and he gave me 2 (new manat = 10,000 old) so you would owe me another 2.5 (new manat = 12,500 old) if we’re both even”.
While arranging with a taxi driver the price of a potential ride across town (in Ashgabat) he said “10”. This is an EXTREMELY confusing answer! It could mean any one of the following possibilities – none of which would be totally outrageous for a taxi driver to ask a group of foreigners. 1) 10,000 total for everyone involved – a very cheap taxi ride one that I would take. 2) 10,000 per person – this is an expensive taxi ride but depending on the time of day and how desperate or in a hurry might consider. 3) 10 new manat which would be 50,000 old manat and again very expensive. I wouldn’t take this ride no matter what, but that won’t stop a greedy taxi driver from asking for that much.
The first montly living stipend we got in 2009 was in new manat. We picked it up at the bank and it was about 530 new manat (a huge difference from our 2.5 million stipend before). Because it was so new the bank teller gave each of us (myself and two other volunteers near me all go to the same bank) 5 – 100 bills, 1 – 20, 1 – 10 and a few 1’s. I took a look at it and asked if I could have different bills, but they didn’t have any. In order to be able to buy anything – anywhere I had to ask my family if they could break one of my 100’s. (Again many Turkmen have large amounts of money hidden under their carpets in their homes.)

The Flies

When I think of flies the first thought that comes to mind are the HUGE horseflies in northern MN that always used to find the one bit of skin outside the water during the summer and bite down hard. I do associate flies with the summer, but they never really bothered me (except horseflies of course). As the summer season starts I find myself exceedingly annoyed by flies.
A few weeks ago while a fellow volunteer was visiting and we were sitting in my room watching movies, or chatting I got so annoyed that I pulled out my mosquito net (one that many volunteers return unopened at their close of service) and rigged up a system so I could sleep under it (and continue watching movies with Jessie and not be so annoyed).
As I sit on our porch during lunch I find myself constantly moving my arms, toes and head to keep the flies from landing on me and hovering over my portion of food to protect it from the nastiness that define flies.
I am currently working on teaching a series of lessons to the kindergarteners about flies. We spent a week learning about the animals, then made small paper models of them, then put their small feet into some green paint (representing feces) and then each child took their fly and flew it to our lunch time meal (represented by a very nice drawing of food that I had created the day before), and finally we will be talking about the disease spreading capabilities of flies and expanding that to the constant issue of diarrhea during the Turkmen spring and summer.
Those of you who know me know that I do not advocate killing anything (no, I don’t even kill mosquitoes during the WI/MN summers) and I have felt no moral issues with the small trays of fly poison that my family has lying around our house and kitchen. My only concern is that I will end up ingesting some or, worse, Kervan will.
My biggest concern right now is that they will only continue to get worse. This is what I’ve been told and what I am dreading will happen.
Wish me the best in my battle with the flying insects.