Uncle Sanjar

Well the verdict is partially in. Our friend who was unfortunately related to the minister of oil and gas who was fired, is now officially on the outs. He lost his job. No one else is allowed to hire him. He was told he has 10 days to vacate the apartment he owns. No one else is allowed to rent to him. I asked why he doesn't flee the country--they have Russian passports. I was told that they'd stop them at the borders. They're not allowed to leave. I'm not sure what purpose that serves the government, since even if they put up a big stink in Russia, we'd never hear about it anyways. So they are asking any families they know to come and buy things from them; furniture, decorative things, anything they have at home.

At school their eldest daughter has been harrassed by her own teachers. The minister had been accused of having a hidden chest of "gold things" and one million dollars buried in his garden. (What kind of idiot would bury a million dollars in his garden. . . ) Her teachers ask her where the money is. They call her by the 'clan', or family name and tell her that she should be ashamed. Where will this family go? They can't leave the country, but they can't work or live.

This isn't the first time this has happened here. Internal exile is common. I wish there was somthing I could do. That seems to be the theme here. I can't actually help anyone with their real problems. With the fact that in the last corruption index I checked, Turkmenistan was 130-something out of 145. America was 19. The only countries with more corruption were Haiti, Camaroon, and a few other places with recent war. We have no wars, just corruption.

(In 2005 we've made it to third from the end in corruption. Chad and Bangladesh are lower.)

Australia

My mom has talked recently about moving to Australia. Coincidently enough, two of my best students, a mother and her 6-year-old daughter, just emigrated there. I was doing some research on how my host family could get a visa, so I dropped them an email. Here's the response:
Hello, dear Kari. I glad that you rememder our family.
We live in wonderfull city Sydney.There are many parks, musemes and
other intresting places in the center of Sydney. We went to the famous
place Opera House, it's biger and extroardinary place in Sydney.
Misha found the jod and Dasha goes to school. She has girlfreinds
there, and she lakes at school very mach. Our apartment is near the
school, it is very good for us. Mainly I lake birds and natures, and
people very kindly, always smile and help. In the weekend we went to
the beach and to observed how seagulls eaten the bread from our hands,
they don't be afriad of human at all, I was so surprised.
My apologies for bad mistakes, my English is not very good, but I hope
soon will be better.
Wish all the best. Thanks a lot for your message. Vika.


I have at least one success story.

Stoned

Last night at 9:30 pm I walked a friend home half way from a piano recital. 4 kids screamed at us as they passed (trying to scare us) and we ignored them. A little shaken, we waited to split up hoping they'd go away. They milled around a while and didn't do any harm, so we split up and walked our seperate ways. I was the lucky one who got to walk past the 8 or so boys and one military worker. First one shouted 'gel', which is the command form of 'come.' I ignored that. Then the first rock hit me in the lower back. The second was about the size of a fist and hit me on my right thigh. I flung around and grabbed the closest kid to me, threw him up against the wall (I don't think they were expecting a white girl in high-heels to fight back) and choked him with my left hand and yelled "who did that?" a few times. After roughing up the kid for a few seconds, I turned to the military boy who didn't feel the need to take part in the altercation, and asked him if he was working. He said he didn't understand Russian. I asked him why he didn't do anything and then took out a pen and asked for his name and surname (one of our most powerful weapons--the pen.) He started backing away. I wasn't going to get any farther with that route, so I turned and walked away. I have a welt from the rock about the size of a fist and it hurts to sit down. I'm going to call peace corps and report it, but how many reports of stone throwing do they get? I've heard from volunteers in rougher areas that they'd never bother calling in over a rock. It happens too often. I also plan on taking a picture of my bruise as a fond memory. Thanks, Balkanabat.