N___ has quickly become my counterpart #2 and local friend #1. I came to work today to find she’d cut herself bangs. I was so excited—she looked great! She’s tall with long hair and glasses. Sometimes she wonders why I’m here. It’s strange because when I explain the reasons, she still wonders. Then, again, so do I.
She doesn’t need anything from me and rarely asks for favors. This leads to her receiving more from me than anyone else. I say “no” when people ask for English lessons, but N___’s English improves every day we are together. She doesn’t want me to make her workload lighter, but instead she asks me to play concerts on the side and to work together.
Her boyfriend is in Ashgabat where she lived the past seven years while attending school. They can’t marry yet. She owes the government 2 years of work in the school of their choice in exchange for the education. He can’t get a work visa to move to her city because one has to find the job first and there just aren’t any. His name is A___, and he sits patiently whenever we rehearse together. He doesn’t get jealous or selfish with her time even though they see each other on weekends only.
Being from two different worlds can make for foreign feelings, but we have such a great deal in common that she makes me feel at home. I’ve had difficulty understanding why people don’t just leave here. Her presence helps explain this phenomenon. She wants things to improve here and has a startling understanding of the realities of life beyond T-stan. The fact that N___ has never considered moving out of her cute apartment and even farther from her already remote boyfriend makes me trust that there’s something worth saving here. I get frustrated and think of ways out. She gets frustrated and thinks of ways in. She trusts me and my work because she thinks of moving here as crazy. I trust her in return.
Of the many people who want to visit or move to the States, she is one who could actually be successful there. Somehow I feel that she wouldn’t have the culture shock any normal Turkmen would. We giggle about how long the mail takes although she’s never seen faster. She hates the inept piano tuners and longs to start her own music school.
Many people here ask for my help or my company out of greed and need. Many won’t stop asking. With N___ it’s refreshing not to be seen as “the American”, but just as a friend. I’ve felt like I needed her help, her connections, and her time. But today intuition tells me she needed my excitement over a simple thing like a haircut. I’m her window to reality in a way. She left her friends in Ashgabat and perhaps even in former lifetimes. I doubt anyone else she knows would express such excitement about a haircut, play music with her, speak English with her, enjoy the company of Andrei, and encourage big hopes for the future all in one day. She went from being rejected by the English Institute here because getting a 2nd degree is not allowed—(Yes, that’s right, folks—restricted education!)—to dreaming of performance opportunities and world travel. In the meantime we work on little things—convincing a father that his 8-year-old son doesn’t need a full size violin even though the small one isn’t very masculine, and finding a bucket to catch the water dripping from the ceiling.
We’ll probably spend the rest of our lives thanking each other, or at least trying to, for just being here. She’ll question how I could spend 2 years working at this music school when I could be somewhere else, and I’ll smile and ask her right back.
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