Ashgabat or bust

It takes a really crappy experience to reveal the good experiences.

On any other day, my taxi to Ashgabat would have felt just 'ok'. Carrie and I left Nebitdag in a small, cramped taxi driven by a driver with red eyes. We sped along at 140 k per hour on bumpy roads. I sat in the middle back seat, and my head literally hit the ceiling of the car a couple of times. The bobble-headed dog on the dashboard vigorously disagrees with us when the road is mediocre and suffers from epileptic seizures when the road gets bad. We suffer through two hours before the driver pulls off in all-too-familiar Serdar. (Judith, our medical officer agrees that "Serdar is the pits.") The driver says he'll be back in 5 minutes. Carrie and I decide to exercise our free will and get out of this guy's car--we grab our bags out of the trunk and look for a better car. We know he'll be upset, since we're only halfway there and only plan on paying what it would cost to go to Serdar. (Nebitdag to Ashgabat-100,000 manat. Nebitdag to Serdar-35,000. Serdar to Ashgabat-40,000.) The confrontation begins with me telling him we won't go any farther with him, and here's 40,000 manat for the ride. He answers "What, are you stupid or something?" I'll leave out the contents of the argument, but let's just say I was incredibly loud, logical, and persuasive. He was merely loud.

We get away and find a mini-sized Russian man named Dima. After a somewhat shady deal (4 men talking to Dima, Dima driving off with two, coming back with one, motioning us to cross the street and quick get in the car. . . ), we're off to Ashgabat. They try out their English in a most polite conversation and put on an American tape to make us feel at home. The conversation in Russian is political and logical. The passenger seems to have bought out the whole car and we are riding as a nice gesture--to whom, we're not sure. The passenger stops and gets us all ice waters and an hour into the trip stops off for a few baskets of fruit. Carrie and I get to eat 5 apricots. The car has air conditioning. Everything is about as pleasant as can be.

Had this been a car in the states, I would have had plenty to complain about. The seats were itchy, the music was a bit loud. I could go on. However, getting out of a bad situation and into a better one changes everything.

I hope this is an analogy for my return to America. I hope that when I go to the grocery store I'll be less worried about wasting time and more excited about having choice. I hope I'll be happy just to read the newspaper. If I start to lose that feeling, I hope I can find something to remind me of places that were tougher.