Seasons of bugs and religion

The rainy season (as in, the season when it rains occasionally instead of never) has begun. As winter approaches I remember the colors of the produce section of Safeway with misty-eyed reverence. Autumn in Turkmenistan means the leaves fall from the trees with no intermediary color display and the days continue to be sweat-soakingly hot except for once a week when it rains for 15 minutes. This is lovely because it means days are generally a little cooler with less dust storms. It also heralds the arrival of bugs so plentiful and alarming I’m sure a Turkmen would greet Old Testament plagues with a huff and a shrug. Mosquitoes are out in force and I’m getting eaten alive. They attack at night, leaving me with itching burning lumps as wide as a quarter. Some nights I can’t sleep due to one big itch stretching across my legs and arms, and I wake to dig around the medicine box for the few remaining anti-itch lotion packs. With so much white paste over me, I look like mid-career Michael Jackson.

There are also 36 spiders in the outhouse, several of which have red marks on the back. Surely a bad sign. Several sections of the sidewalk have turned black due to the concentrated swarming of ants. My host mother lost the use of her right arm to the elbow for three days last week after being stung by a bee the size of a baby sparrow. Regular- size bees are getting territorial of the dying grape vines next to the driveway so the trip to the outhouse resembles a harrowing bomb dodging war reenactment.

Monday was the end of Ramadan so school was cancelled (hooray 3-day weekend!). It’s possible that other families actually celebrated the end of fasting, but we didn’t. You have to fast to make eating again a bit deal, I guess. As is the pattern in these parts, we only celebrated the parts of Ramadan that are done publicly. At the beginning we gave out treats to the singing children, and last Wednesday we made pilov and distributed it to all the neighbors (and ate their distributed pilov for dinner instead of our own). I wish I got a picture of my host mom in the kitchen surrounded by the dozens of plates of neighbor’s pilov covering every surface of floor and countertops. But the other parts of Ramadan – the fasting, the praying, the private communion with Allah, eating after sundown, all of that is unenforceable by society so we didn’t do it. And so Ramadan ends with as little fanfare as when it began and we got Monday off because of it. Reminds me when we had snow-days in all Montgomery County when there was ice in Poolesville, but the rest of us had clear skies.

For better or worse, Turkmenistan ensures my last two months will not be boring. To my library contributors I say “thank you” once again, the shelves are under construction, the books are now the official property of the school and under the supervision of the Turkmen librarian (hooray sustainability), kids are borrowing them and giving them back at a responsible and encouraging rate, and we should all be pleased and proud of how well it’s turning out. Pats on the back, everyone!

December 2

Received my Close of Service (COS) date.

See you then.

:)