This ends happily

Let me begin by telling you all the end – this story is going to have a happy ending.

Last Sunday I was unceremoniously kicked out of my host family house (where I’d lived for over a year) -- in the middle of the night in the dead of winter -- because someone in the house stole every cent I own (and some that wasn’t mine) and I told them I was required by PC law to look for a new family. I left exchanging insults and curses with my host sister and slept for a week in a friend’s back closet on a pad on the floor. Last Wednesday we found a new host family, really nice people, and I moved in. Three days later as I was leaving for the city I heard the keening of human beings in heart-breaking pain from the adjoining house and learned my host aunt (age 30 with 5 kids) had died the night before from a sudden brain aneurism and I may have to move out. I left for the city. I went to the bank to withdraw money and was told my debit card came up in the system as lost or stolen and they were required to take it and cut it up. I went to sleep over at my best friend’s new apartment and was told by her angry Russian land lady that no girls are welcome to guest on her property because all females are thieving liars. A good fit of begging meant I could still stay over for that one night, but my overnights in the city may be at an end. The next night was the farewell party for two of my very good PC friends who are COSing (“close of service”) on Tuesday before returning to America. At the party I got to baby-sit four friends who by mixing beer, vodka, and absinth intoxicated themselves past the ability to sit in a chair. Then I got to watch a guy I had a major crush on a few months ago go home with a girl he met five hours before. The next morning I found myself so low on cash I couldn’t even buy a sandwich and then, starving, I went back to Baharly.

Remember that bit where I promised a happy ending? I found out there is a secure way to send money through the embassy, so even if my debit card never works here I can still go on vacation in the future (late July I’ll be back in Maryland for two-three weeks, fair warning). My friend worked on her landlady and called me to say she’s hopeful I will be able to stay there in the future, so long as I don’t come in wearing a ski mask and a trench coat. When I returned to site I immediately received two pieces of wonderful news: 1) I don’t have to permanently move out of my new host family, 2) for the first week of wailing (Turkmen funeral traditions dictate the family must sit in a room and scream and cry 24/7 for the first week after death and be served food by neighbors) I don't have to stay there. I get to stay at my friend’s house in her closet (it is a very nice closet, very Harry Potter, and I love her happy lively family who like me and know me). And everyone involved was wonderfully mature and chill with everything. My friend, Altyn, is happy to have me around, her children are ecstatic. From a miserable weekend of financial worries, sad good-byes, irrational rejections, and wretched parties, coming home to happiness and friends felt like, well, coming home.

In other news, it’s Christmas. Happy holidays, everyone. There is no Christmas here, by the way. I had to go to work and no one knew why I kept looking at the calendar date and making a silly face. The large decorated evergreen trees you see everywhere around Ashgabat and Baharly and the illustrations of Santa Claus, stockings, ornaments, reindeer, gift-wrapped presents, and shiny streamers are all in honor of New Year’s. They even sing “Jingle Bells.” In English! They’ve never heard of Christmas, they just stole the decorations and paraphernalia the same as we stole it originally from the pagan Winter Solstice festivities. When they dub over American Christmas movies, (“Home Alone” is probably the most popular American movie in the world after “Titanic,” but they refer to it as the “Kevin!” movie), they substitute “New Year’s” for “Christmas” whenever it is mentioned. It’s therefore really frustrating to try and explain to them that New Year’s is a relatively minor holiday in the states with few real traditions: getting really drunk and making promises you don’t intend to keep is pretty much it. For Turkmen, on the other hand, New Year’s is a huge deal, worthy of bankrupting yourself to buy enough food to feed the hundreds of people who will come from all corners of the town to eat food at as many houses as they can visit. It’s like Halloween, Chinese New Year's, Marti Gras, and Christmas all rolled into one. Good times.

Happy holidays everyone and a very happy New Year’s. Consider this my gift to everyone – a big box of schadenfreude wrapped in old horoscopes wishing us all nothing but the best.