Daily Life in Turkmenbashy's Golden Age by Sam Tranum

Author:Sam Tranum [Tranum, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Turkmenbashy, memoir, Central Asia, travel, Turkmenistan
Publisher: Sam Tranum
Published: 2010-09-25T22:00:00+00:00

19.

My Three-Part Plan

In the United States it would have taken me a week to put together an Internet center. One day driving around strip malls, shopping at hardware, electronics and second-hand furniture stores, and I would have had all the materials I needed. A few minutes with a telephone and the yellow pages and I could have arranged everything with a locksmith, a carpenter, the phone company, and an Internet service provider. But with no phone, no car, no yellow pages, and a first-grader’s grasp of the local language, shopping was a challenge. It took me weeks to arrange everything, little by little, step by frustrating step.

I spent my mornings at Red Crescent or running errands for the Internet center. I spent my afternoons at home. Although I’d planned to live with the Burjanadzes for only a couple weeks while I looked for someplace permanent, we’d gotten along so well that they’d invited me to stay. One of my household chores was to bring home a loaf of fresh chorek every day for dinner. As summer ended and fall began, this became difficult because of a flour shortage, which brought high prices, long lines, and empty shelves at the bakeries. So after work, I would go from bakery to bakery, searching for bread.

At home, I’d hide the bread in a giant Tupperware so the cats couldn’t eat it (they loved fresh chorek) and sit down for a cup of coffee with Ana. Once the sun was low and the day’s heat had passed, I would change into my sweatpants, lace up my shoes and go running. The neighbor kids, who were always playing soccer in the street, would abandon their game and follow me, pelting me with questions as we ran.

“Do you have PlayStation in America? How much does it cost to play for an hour?”

“Do Snickers bars have more peanuts in America?”

“Why can’t you speak Russian right?”

“Have you ever seen a black person?”

“Do you own a car? What kind is it? How much did it cost?”

“Where are you going?”

At the edge of town, only a few blocks from Ana’s apartment building, they would usually turn back. I would continue on through a wasteland of sterile soil, crushed concrete, twisted bits of rebar, and piles of garbage. It was as if a whole concrete neighborhood had been demolished and the remains had been run over with a giant steamroller again and again until they were nothing but gravel.

Further on, the farm fields began. The cotton was ready: white puffs dripping from green bushes. There were no fences, hedgerows, or trees to divide the fields. The cotton stretched unbroken to the horizons. I ran on dirt roads, leaping irrigation ditches and dodging the occasional tractor. To my left, a sign on a barbed-wire fence warned: “Restricted Area.” A series of empty guard towers watched over what looked to me like just more farm fields. On hot days, I’d take off my shirt and drop it next to the road. I knew no one was going to steal it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.