TURKMENISTAN ~ 10 Lessons Learned (May 15, 2012)

Witnessing a nation defining itself.  Diversity of the 'stans.'  
A gentler Islam.  Turkmen patience & dignity. 
 

It has been a rich 15 months since I left Washington DC for a job as Director of Program and Training in Peace Corps Turkmenistan.  As I stuff my backpack and ship things to self storage, here are 10 reflections about Turkmenistan. Some of the “private” stories are more colorful, of course, but we all self-censor when we write.  

1.                   An incredible time to be here – a nation defining itself

Expo model of "Ashgabat, the White City", 2012

Ashgabat should one day be a world class convention city.  It would be already, if only tourists were granted visas to enter the country.  It will host the 2017 Asian Games, and there are a conglomeration of cranes, 25 at present, busy constructing stadiums, hotels, apartment buildings and highways.  It is a show-off city, the government pouring millions into infrastructure.  There is an outward attention to form and protocol (university and elementary students stand for long hours, lining parade routes, missing classroom learning). 

We Americans, admirers of dynamism, diversity and informality, tend to be uncomfortable with such attention to external appearance, calling it superficial or neglectful of deeper needs (quality education, free elections).  It reminds me of one of my Wisconsin colleague’s comments, “Technology education needs equal parts hardware, software, and teacher training.  You can’t just buy kids a computer.”  Ashgabat’s buildings are the “hardware” of a new country emerging.  It is more difficult to create the software (construction of civil society) or to do the training (public schools, professional development) at all levels that modernizes a country.

Still, the formality has an Asian accent.  I am often reminded here of Japan’s attention to form (fashion, beautiful interiors) and protocol (bowing, tea ceremony). Beyond infrastructure, the government’s deeper philosophy seems to be building a city that will define Turkmenistan to its own citizens and to the outside world.  It is an amazing, swift, and coherent vision rising out of the dust of the rumbling trucks and hundreds of construction workers and engineers from France, Turkey, and Pakistan. 

When I google “TURKMENISTAN / Images” I see that nearly every photograph is outdated.  It has been truly an incredible time of change to witness.

Tblisi, capital of Georgia

2.                   The 'stans' are incredibly diverse 

Professionally, I still haven’t quite overcome the disorientation of looking for a job in Africa and somehow ending up in Central Asia.  Without historical background, Russian proficiency, or (like most Americans) unable to name the 15 countries that broke out of the Soviet Union,[1]  I often felt a trespasser.  The diversity of the “stans” was brought home to me in my opportunity to work in Kyrgyzstan (open, dynamic, more democratic, with mountains like Norway’s) and to visit Georgia (also beautiful and open, a bridge between East Europe and West Asia, trying to heal conflicts over its two disputed regions). 

Beneath the politics of the last 20 years of independence and the preceding 70 Soviet years, Turkmenistan’s culture has deep nomadic roots which can be felt in its hospitality, poetry, storytelling, music, fashion, and knowledge of animals.

 Institute students in red velvet school uniforms

3.        Creating a Turkmen identity 

Related to (1) above, there is a self-consciousness – maybe I imagine it – about “what does it mean to be Turkmen?” Having been fascinated by womens’ elegant koyneks (dresses) and having found sister seamstresses Lola and Aziza to sew seven of them for me, I was startled to hear that they’d only been donned in recent times since 1991.  The President expressed a desire for women to once again resume national dress and overnight young women emerged in long red velvet gowns and caps as school uniforms, and married Turkmen women appeared in scarves and koynek.  In the decades before 1991, Turkmen women dressed as the ethnic Russian women here continue to dress, in Western-style fashions.  I’m comfortable with a foot in each shoe (high heel) – both modern (slacks and pants suits or shorter skirts)or traditional. I admire the elaborate traditional weaving and embroidery and I like living in a country where people personally know who sewed their clothes.   

To solidify and celebrate identity, there are many new Turkmen holidays (Melon Day, Tekke Ahal Horse Day, Maktymguly the Poet Day, Carpet Day), each with formal proclamations, parades, TV coverage, and fireworks. The wide-ranging Rukhnama[2], written by the first President Niyazov, detailing his version of Turkmen history since Ögüz Kahn (omission of references to nomadic or Soviet contributions), is still required study for students and forms part of the university and government employment entrance exams.

I recently flew back to the US, passing through five international airports.  After Istanbul, I was conscious of the disappearance of anything Turkmen – people, clothing, souvenirs, language – just a few labels, “Made in Turkmenistan,” glimpsed on terrycloth towels, since cotton is a major export.  A culture reduced to a label.

Friend Bahar at Goktepe Mosque

4.                   Gentle face of Islam 

This is the first time I’ve lived in a secular Muslim country.  Though Turkmenistan is 89% Shi’a Muslim, most Muslim people I’ve met  seem much more interested in holiday and family connections to religion (weddings, funerals, blessings, fasting) than anything one imagines as Islamic extremism.  The government keeps close watch over the activities of religious leaders, seeing to it that their power and influence are limited.  This is different from in the Kyrgyz Republic, where Saudi Arabia was funding and helping to erect mosques in every town and village. With the US being so cautious of Islam, funding opponents to it, fanning the flames of fear and ignorance amidst the American public, it was somehow touching to find the reality of living among 5 million Muslims so gentle and non-threatening.

5.        Gender segregation and why I lie

Ethnic Turkmen & ethnic Russian men on Peace Corps staff

Both because of Islam and old traditions, men and women here live separate social lives.  At parties, men and women are seated in different rooms.  Showing respect, host fathers refrain from talking with the female Peace Corps Volunteers who live with them. 

My main contact with Turkmen men, other than at the office, was with taxi drivers, since I often hitched to work. (Stick out your hand and any old car stops).  Within a minute, the driver, always male, would ask if 1) I had children and 2) if I had a husband in America.  Having neither, I’ve long ago “borrowed” (ie., claimed) my four “adopted” Tibetan kids in Madison as “my” four children.  So I'd lie, "Yes, I have 4 children."  The driver would nod approval.  As for the question about my husband, I shrug and simply answer, in English, “Bye bye.”  The man would laugh; women laughed at this answer too.

If I know someone personally, I’ll share my true identity as being a child of the 60’s with an array of manfriends, once married, once divorced, currently childless and wandering the world.  Women in this part of the world are amazed that such a female exists, and want to hear more. But to strangers, I’m happy to lie.  My rightful place as a woman settled, the taxi driver careens on through traffic.  No more questions.

Back in the states recently, I visited one of New York City’s four “international schools” for immigrant students who’ve been in the USA less than 5 years.  My teacher friend Ruth reminded me, “Most of these children have never before been in a classroom with the opposite sex.”  It is a sobering thought.  We educators assume so much.

6.                   Elegance of tri-lingualism  

Turkmen was hard to learn, not because it was difficult but because my brain is older, and because I was a lazy student. If I did speak it well, it would help me in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan.  I love the sound of it – lots of z’s, soft th’s, tricky y’s.

There is a cool elegance to living in a tri-lingual country.  Staff at work  often speak three consecutive sentences in three different languages, without pausing a second or thinking it unusual.  When I walk into a room and people are speaking Turkmen, they switch, mid-sentence, to English.  On the other hand, if I’m holding a staff meeting and someone disagrees with me, there will be a sarcastic comment in Turkmen.  I’m understanding more and more, but usually things like “Want cream in your coffee?” and not sarcasm.

7.                     Proud to be an expat

Turkmenistan has a distinguished Ambassador at present, who made me proud to be part of the ex-pat American community.  This job was the first time I’d lived near a US Embassy compound.  Different than my stereotypes, I found much to admire.  With all the benefits, I wondered why on earth I hadn’t considered a foreign service career, and then remembered years of US foreign policy I’d have had to uphold, from Viet Nam when I graduated college to Iraq today.  Question answered.  We may be children of the times in which we are born, but paths veer.

I did help to activate a chapter of InterNations  (www.internations.org).  When I discovered it, the Ashgabat chapter had 42 on-line members but no meetings.  Now, with a vivacious woman named Debbie, we’re holding monthly meetings at restaurants around the city, 204 people are signed up on line, and almost 100 people attended the last meeting.  Normally, I eschew hanging with expats.  But in Ashgabat, where social life is so constrained, and where nationalities tend to cluster – French with French, Chinese with Chinese -- it seemed a wonderful project to bring people together – mix ex-pats with the many Turkmen who’ve had international experiences and crave contact with outsiders.

8.                   Elections:  The freedom to disagree with the idiot in power

I was perfectly positioned to witness not one but two national elections, Kyrgyzstan’s and Turkmenistan’s, both very different from one another.  2012 is one upcoming USA election when I’ll admire all the debate, media frenzy, clashing opinions, and relish the disgust my friends pronounce about lies and proposals of “idiot” candidates.  The two elections I witnessed here were much more constrained.  Palpably heightened security preceded both.  Hundreds of election observers flocked to Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, for what was later proclaimed one of the first free and fair elections in all of 

Central Asia since 1991.  An insider named Atambaevwon with 60% of the vote.  Despite grumblings from the losers, the whole country breathed a sigh of relief, since two previous election attempts had been marked by hundreds of deaths, fires bombs, and Kyrgyz-Uzbek violence in the south. 

By contrast, few election observers came to Turkmenistan.  The 8 candidates were all from the same party, ministers who in their speeches praised the President.  He won with 97% of the vote of the 96% of Turkmen people reported to have voted.   At the beginning of the campaign he invited opponents in exile to come back to the country, but it seems no one took him up on the offer.

9.  Career envy and retirement planning 

Envy is not a good thing.  People tell me they envy my travels and I think to myself, “If only they knew!”  Well past 50, I look at resumes of the people at the top of their fields, respected experts whizzing around the world, giving speeches, writing books.  With hindsight I see critical places where I made decisions that hurled me onto less traditional roads.  I always picked “interesting” and “fulfilling” over “lucrative” or “boring.”  A lot of now rich and famous peers must be laughing now.  On the other hand, it is instructive to see people like Garrison Keillor and Oprah Winfrey who stepped off traditional career paths and created rich, amazing lives, in the process giving courage and inspiration to the rest of us.

Like many of my Baby Boom friends, I’m not heading for traditional retirement.  I’d like to continue doing exactly what I’m doing -- finding solid, inspiring, needed work in a variety of world settings.  Color my citizenship global. 

Program & Training Staff at Peace Corps Turkmenistan

 10.  Strongest lesson:  Patience and dignity

What I admired and learned most about in Turkmenistan is the patience, dignity, and intelligence of the Turkmen people.  They are wise in politics, and have a deep love for family.  This love gives them patience to wait for better times. There are 5 million Turkmen in Turkmenistan.  Another one million live and work in Russia, more in other countries, part of a vast brain drain.  Like other poorer countries where I’ve lived, people do not choose to work outside of their country.  They feel they must, to give their children a better life.  I loved the love that Turkmen have for Turkmenistan and celebrate all who stay here, accepting the “less” of dreams deferred that is the price for the “more” -- more time with children, closer contact with parents, centeredness within one’s own culture, celebration of daily gifts. 

Sag boluń to dear colleagues and friends in Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan and especially to outstanding Peace Corps Volunteers in Turkmenistan.  From here I’m taking the long-route back to Wisconsin, via Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran, enshah'Allah. 

Mailed as Public Letter 8 on May 15, 2012 to friends and family

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[1] 15 countries (I know them now):  Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan  .

[2] Rukhnama  “By his sacred command sent the Prophet Noah scriptures including holy orders.  The Prophet Noah distributed these to the people of his time.  The essence of these pages was, indeed, beautiful ethics.  There were sayings like honor and honesty to the young men;  virtue to the girls;  intelligence, sagacity, and  dignity to the old men and women; nobility to the brides.”  (Rukhnama, 1^st Section)