You’d Better Start Swimming Or You’ll Sink Like a Stone

Written February 7

As the previous post mentioned, February is turning out to be a rocking awesome time in the short span of KT in the Peace Corps. Each day just seems to get better than the last, which is weird. I use weird a lot these days. I keep bracing myself for a crash—to be lonesome, homesick, frustrated, and wretchedly ill—and it hasn’t come. That partially worries me, but for the moment I am enjoying the settled feeling I am starting to get.

I have a routine that I like and I, rather than Peace Corps, am responsible for creating. Also, I am getting to a point where deviations from the routine aren’t causes for stress and panic but new adventures. I embrace the weddings, the summons from neighbors to kiss babies, and the lingerie parties that happen periodically in the clinic. Some of the nurses have side jobs buying things at the bazaar and reselling them at work. It’s a sweet deal and someday I will figure out how the Chinese size bras.

I am making friends. I am teaching the pharmacist at my clinic English; he is incredibly bright and already knows about as much English as I speak Turkmen. His wife is Uzbek, and I’ve been invited for better palow when the official restriction on my whereabouts is lifted. Peace Corps whereabouts is less strict that GS, but still, I am Nyyazow bound for the next month or so. It chaffs a bit because people do want me to come visit, and in this land of hospitality an invitation to dinner usually extends to breakfast. That’s a rare quality of kindness.

I am also being included a bit in the medical discussions at my clinic. People have started to discuss symptoms and treatments when patients come it. Also, I have been taking a fair amount of blood pressure readings for the Hypertension project that I am not really implementing. I feel a bit bad about it, but despite my strides in language, anything more complicated than a discussion of Hilary versus Obama is beyond me. American politics are an interesting topic here.