Live Glimpse of Life in Turkmenistan

Okay, better late than never...

My mom has been back in Colorado for almost as long as she was here in Turkmenistan in the first place. I think she's almost readjusted her circadian rhythm, just like she'd done just before leaving here ;)

Mom, Ruth Anne, Neil and I, left Colorado on Saturday, October 17. Ruth Anne was so excited to hear it was an airplane day she didn't even want to wear her Superman shirt, but she did roll her own suitcase up to the check-out counter. It was super cute.

For my mom the highlight was when both children woke up crying on the trans-Atlantic. I got them to stop by cradling one in each arm, standing in the bulk head. My mom offered to take one baby for a diaper change while I nursed the other. "I need to go to the bathroom," I confessed.

I did. We were half way home. A few hours later we were in Frankfurt. A few hours later we got on the next plane. A few hours later we were in Baku. A few hours later we finally met up with Joe.

Since by the time I pack up Ruth Anne's carseat I always miss the bus to the CIP (c/kinda, c/sorta important person) lounge, we managed to by pass the H1N1 screening coming into the country. No one got to put a thermometer in our outer ear but Turkmenistan remains flu free (oh, wait, that's another post).

By the time we arrived home it was Sunday, almost Monday. We introduced mom to the water distiller and showed her to bed.

Monday, she met Mehri. Mehri and Ruth Anne played in the morning. It was like our usual schedule except that RA didn't want to nap after lunch so I didn't get to nap either. I woke mom up from her nap and suggested that she ride the bus with Mehri to the Embassy and keep herself awake for a few hours before bed. So she got to see where Joe does his thing too.

The next day we returned to the Embassy in the car. On the way we stopped a the Central Square and rode the two dimensional (diagonal) elevator up the tower commonly known as "Three-legs". It has a pretty good view of everything except, the gold statue which rotates with the sun (that's on top of the tower).

Both of the return trips from the Embassy were in the car. Luckily mom had seen the traffic patterns with Joe. Otherwise my driving would have scared her even more than it did. Lanes, who needs lanes?

Wednesday we had lunch at a hotel with some other American Embassy ladies. I've seen Chinese food everywhere I've been but every country has it's own take on Chinese food.

Thursday, we went to see a Turkmen cultural performance by the students at the International School.

Friday we made banana bread.

Saturday we all went grocery shopping. Our usual sellers at the market were really thrilled to see Neil. The egg lady gave him a blessing and a manat (money). Mom has a cute picture of this. Some other market ladies were also kind as to the ward the evil eye off him.

After we put the food away we went for a tour of the carpet museum. It's just moved into a huge new building. We had to park in back, then walked around to the huge front doors. As we stood in awe at the bottom of the the steps a guy whipped around the curve of the driveway and honked at us. We moved onto the steps and he stopped and stared. Some hurry he was in after all. They opened the doors for us though. We engaged a Russian-speaking tour guide and Joe translated. The first words of the tour I understood very well, "". Once the guide got into all the stuff about the gul (patterns) and whose sons were represented by the quantities of gul I was glad for Joe's help though.

The guide led us to the display yurt, which is where the English-speaking expert found us. She cheerfully listened to Joe's translation until he got to the part about how you'd think people might use some ratty carpet as a doormat but Turkmen use beautiful carpets even at the door way. "Threshold" the expert corrected him in English. She took over the tour from there. By the end, even though there was no time for tea, we were all good friends. She gave my mom a felt wool necklace and kissed her farewell with warm wishes for her journey.

The last stop of the day was the Turkish supermarket/department store. We'd never been to the food court on top. There was a funny sign... What was that sign, mom?

Sunday, Joe took my mom out to the big bazaar. We thought he could avoid the service entrance this time (reference the April post "Exchange Value"). No such luck. There mom got to see the really stellar driving and bought some souvenirs. No carpets though. I stayed home because there was starting to be news of trouble with the flu but we all got to see the fly-overs in preparation for Independence Day.

Monday was quiet until nightfall when the fireworks started. We ran out barefoot on the grass to watch. Ruth Anne objected but I explained that it was okay for the "4th of July."

Tuesday Joe had the day off for Turkmenistan's Independence Day. In the afternoon we went to the nunciate because Father Andre wanted to have tea with my mom. It was very sweet. We took him a bag of Halloween candy because by then we'd heard that the Embassy Halloween parties and trick-or-treating had been called do to flu.

Early (4 AM) Wednesday morning mom caught her ride to the airport. She arrived in Denver a little after 4 PM the same day. There was a blizzard in the metro area and schools were closed but fortunately my dad was able to get her home safely since the roads weren't too bad.