A Thing Called Rain

Written April 14, 2009

First, this is a major thank you to the fantastic parentals (and sibling) who mailed me a new flash drive to replace the one that fried. I will take good care of it, and as a result, the blog is back in business. So here we go…

When I first researched Turkmenistan, I was pretty sure that it was most (up to 90 percent) desert. As I continue my time here, I am coming to doubt that information. This spring has been constantly damp, cool, and most assuredly not desert-like in the least. Since February it’s rained at least once a week and usually more than that.

My Turkmen friends are mostly excited because it bodes well for their tomatoes, eggplants, and cucumbers. Also, it means their gardens will be in better shape this summer when most of the water is diverted to the cotton fields. The Soviets planted huge fields of cotton during their reign, and the logic behind this baffles me. While cotton does well in sandy soils, it is very water intensive crop. To grow it here, the Soviet created the Garagum canal, which basically drained the Aral Sea. The legacy remains; the Aral Sea shrink more every year, and cotton is a major part of the Turkmen economy.

While all this rain is no doubt good for farming, my experience of the village is not much improved by the water. The rain transforms the thick layer of dust that covers everything from the roads to the small children into lethally slick muck and puddles. For someone like me, with no innate grace or balance, this is a very bad thing, especially as I walk just about everywhere. When it rains, most of the roads are impassible on foot. The mud and puddles are just to deep. This leaves just little raised paths on the sides of the roads. They are very narrow and with every step I take, I slide down towards the mucky-muck.

I’ve been waiting for this day for a while; I finally fell. It was cartoon-animation worthy; the only thing missing was the banana peel. I confidently stepped forward, only to find the ground unstable. Both my feet slipped out from under me, and I scissor kicked the air in a futile effort to halt the inevitable. All I thought with my back perpendicular to the ground was “this will suck.”

I land with a massive splat, of course in front of an audience of small Turkmen children. The children were clearly torn between laughter at and concern for the fallen American. To give them credit, they held off the laughter until I had picked myself and my bruised dignity off the ground. It took about an hour to wash all the mud from my hair, and at least that long to wash my dress. The dress will never be the same again.

So, I find myself thinking something I will kick myself for later. Please summer with your unceasing heat and merciless sun, come quickly. Because, while I might be dehydrated and dusty, I’m not washing what might very well be cow poop from my hair!