I thought I'd write about how lovely of a tradition they have going on here regarding lunch.
In the office in Almaty and also here in Dushanbe, lunch is provided for a very nominal fee. It's damn tasty, healthy, and very, very convenient. The company I worked for many moons ago in Russia also had the same gig. (I still remember Leonid's blinis from 1993. Hubba-hubba.)
So generally they hire a sweet lady (little/old optional) who goes to the market every morning, buys whatever looks good, and then comes into the office and gets a-cookin'. In Almaty the aromas from the kitchen wafts up to my office on the 3rd floor, and by 12:15, when it's time to eat, my stomach is already a-rumblin' from the tantalizing smells.
There is always at least two homemade salads with fresh veggies, and usually three. The ripe summer tomatoes are always featured in these salads, as are the national herbs, parsley and dill. So are cukes and eggplant. As we move into fall, they'll switch to cabbage, cauliflower, and other seasonal veggies. And also in Almaty generally a soup, as well as a meat, starch, and other side. Pick and choose as you wish.
In the Dushabe office there is always a bowl of fruit, so I finished off today's meal of stuffed green Bulgarian peppers in broth with some red grapes and a peach. I am a total fruit and veggie 'ho both here and in Almaty, because the produce is just so damn fresh and tasty. Don't get me started on the melon stands that Uzbeki's set up all over town in Almaty. There are types of honeydew that I have never seen before, with a dark orangey-yellow skin. You can smell the sweetness of the melon through the thick skin, and when you get home and cut it open, it's like a honeysuckle field exploded through your kitchen. On more than one occasion, melon has been my dinner.
So now I'm sitting in a post-lunch food coma, sipping some black tea. I have also become a tea 'ho. Drinking tea is the national pasttime in Central Asia, and I have adopted it heartily. (Except that I like to use honey or sugar in every other cup, which is usually deemed unnecessary. But I like it strong and sweet.) I probably drink 4-6 cups a day. All those antioxidants are good for me, right? And no teabags, thankyouverymuch. You use loose-leaf tea and set up a "starter" teapot with a strong batch of brew. Boil water in the ubiquitous electric teakettles (they boil in 60-90 seconds), then you pour a bit of the "starter" tea into your cup and add the hot water. Viola! Your tea is ready. Our Almaty office cook adds in her own herbs and spices to the "starter," and boy is that stuff G-oooooo-oooood with a capital G!
To all my fellow coffee addicts: Fear not, for I have not foresaken you. I still need a good strong cup of coffee in the morning and travel with my french press. :) And the first item on my list of things for Steve to bring me next month when he visits was a 5# bag of coffee from Costco...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
D is for Dushanbe
(note: blogger is not cooperating with photos today....I'll try to get them up for your viewing plelasure next time)
I almost titled this post "D is for depressing," but that wouldn't be an entirely accurate statement. I strive to report accurately, and I should not color my whole trip negatively because of one stripped-down former amusement park. (More on that below.)
Sunday I didn't have to work, and so spent the day wandering around Dushanbe. It's bigger than I thought, but definitely has that "small-town" feel. No skyscrapers, no towering buildings. Only 4 or 5 flights a day (one arriving around 8:30 in the morning, I can hear the rumbling of the engines from the kitchen in my flat), and that's a busy day.
It was nice and dry and hot and sunny. Got a little tan going, but also took care to walk lots in the shade. First I stopped at the main monument in the main square. I gave a policeman a heart attack by attempting to actually walk too close to the monument. *rolls eyes* If people were not meant to walk up the damn thing, why are there stairs there???
I wish I could tell you what the monument is to and what it means, but I have no idea. There were no explanations of anything I saw and photographed. So while I could appreciate their deisgn, structure, beauty, etc, I had no idea what it was meant to represent. I will ask one of my colleagues about them when we have some down time.
Behind this monument were several fountains (one of the four was actually working, and two boys were bathing in it) and a lovely garden. The designers made the lampposts look like flowers themselves. Nice touch. Mne nravilos' (I liked it).
Shortly after this square, I reached a park. The gates were padlocked the last time I walked by it, so I was pleased to see that the park was open. In I went.
My first reaction was that there weren't really a lot of people there, given all of the others strolling about on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Then I got a little further, and could see why.
Once upon a time this had been an amusement park. Now it was a Soviet-era junk heap. Many of the rides/stations had been stripped, but a few vestiges remained. A decrepit ferris wheel. Whirly-gig chairs chained together, still hanging from the spinner-thingie at the top. Some rusted-out go-karts, but no track. An old Soviet train car where I think people may actually have been living.
I don't know what was more depressing: the park itself, the people who were picnicing in the park, the men who had stationed themselves at the entrance with this filthy, 20+-year old giant teddy bear who would charge you money to take a photo with said bear, or the fact that the park abruptly ended at the other side by massive piles of dirt dug up by tractors (they're building a road there).
Now, this amusement park cemetary is on the main drag of Dushabe. We're talkin' Michigan Avenue in Chicago, or Independence Ave in DC, or Light Street in downtown Baltimore. Not the sort of thing that brings in tourists, yannow?
Perhaps the government decided to leave the dead park as a metaphor for past Soviet times. There is a statue of Lenin at the entrance, pointing straight ahead (a common pose for his statues--pointing for all to see and follow to a shiny, happy, prosperous Socialist happy ending). I snorted as I imagined Lenin pointing the way out of this place. Flee, ye! Get the hell out while the gettin' is good! Of course, he's wearing his vest and holding his little workman's cap. Power to the people, I'm one of you guys, and all that. Boy were those Soviet propagandists good with their symbolism.
Fortunately, the walk got much better as it progressed. I shall post more another time. Gots to crunch some more numbers....
I almost titled this post "D is for depressing," but that wouldn't be an entirely accurate statement. I strive to report accurately, and I should not color my whole trip negatively because of one stripped-down former amusement park. (More on that below.)
Sunday I didn't have to work, and so spent the day wandering around Dushanbe. It's bigger than I thought, but definitely has that "small-town" feel. No skyscrapers, no towering buildings. Only 4 or 5 flights a day (one arriving around 8:30 in the morning, I can hear the rumbling of the engines from the kitchen in my flat), and that's a busy day.
It was nice and dry and hot and sunny. Got a little tan going, but also took care to walk lots in the shade. First I stopped at the main monument in the main square. I gave a policeman a heart attack by attempting to actually walk too close to the monument. *rolls eyes* If people were not meant to walk up the damn thing, why are there stairs there???
I wish I could tell you what the monument is to and what it means, but I have no idea. There were no explanations of anything I saw and photographed. So while I could appreciate their deisgn, structure, beauty, etc, I had no idea what it was meant to represent. I will ask one of my colleagues about them when we have some down time.
Behind this monument were several fountains (one of the four was actually working, and two boys were bathing in it) and a lovely garden. The designers made the lampposts look like flowers themselves. Nice touch. Mne nravilos' (I liked it).
Shortly after this square, I reached a park. The gates were padlocked the last time I walked by it, so I was pleased to see that the park was open. In I went.
My first reaction was that there weren't really a lot of people there, given all of the others strolling about on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Then I got a little further, and could see why.
Once upon a time this had been an amusement park. Now it was a Soviet-era junk heap. Many of the rides/stations had been stripped, but a few vestiges remained. A decrepit ferris wheel. Whirly-gig chairs chained together, still hanging from the spinner-thingie at the top. Some rusted-out go-karts, but no track. An old Soviet train car where I think people may actually have been living.
I don't know what was more depressing: the park itself, the people who were picnicing in the park, the men who had stationed themselves at the entrance with this filthy, 20+-year old giant teddy bear who would charge you money to take a photo with said bear, or the fact that the park abruptly ended at the other side by massive piles of dirt dug up by tractors (they're building a road there).
Now, this amusement park cemetary is on the main drag of Dushabe. We're talkin' Michigan Avenue in Chicago, or Independence Ave in DC, or Light Street in downtown Baltimore. Not the sort of thing that brings in tourists, yannow?
Perhaps the government decided to leave the dead park as a metaphor for past Soviet times. There is a statue of Lenin at the entrance, pointing straight ahead (a common pose for his statues--pointing for all to see and follow to a shiny, happy, prosperous Socialist happy ending). I snorted as I imagined Lenin pointing the way out of this place. Flee, ye! Get the hell out while the gettin' is good! Of course, he's wearing his vest and holding his little workman's cap. Power to the people, I'm one of you guys, and all that. Boy were those Soviet propagandists good with their symbolism.
Fortunately, the walk got much better as it progressed. I shall post more another time. Gots to crunch some more numbers....
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Dushanbe and Yevan, Tajikistan
Hello dear readers,
Apologies for the long hiatus. I had two back-to-back trips, and on my two days in Almaty I had to prep for three weeks in Tajikistan.
I was in Karaganda, Kazakhstan for four days. That was mining country. Everything is named after miners--stores, their soccer team, the stadium, restaurants..... Other than mines and factories, there wasn't much to see. The sanitation in the hotel we stayed in needed work, but I'd prefer to forget about that. More maternity hostpials, more pregnant women, more newborns, more data. But in one maternity, there was cognac. Lots and lots of cognac. Replete with long toasts. Over lunch. At least I was going back to a dataset and a computer. They were going back to the delivery ward. Lord have mercy.
Here in Dushanbe it's still summer. But it's nice and dry during the day, so it's pleasant and liveable without AC, and the nights are nice and cool. It was a stunning approach into Dushanbe, I'm glad I asked for a window seat. The mountains surround the city, which is tucked into a valley. Just gorgeous. And for the next three days I got the see lots of the mountains, since we were working at a site an hour outside of Dushanbe, up in the mountainside. The project has two massive LandRovers that were donated to them by Merlin after the civil war here in the early 90s. So we wound and bumped our way up to Yevan through the mountains and villages. The drive reminded me of the drive from Thessaloniki to Skopje Steve and I made a few years back, and I felt the same sense of freedom and happiness during these drives. You know how sometimes you're driving down the road and you see a dog with their face stuck outside a car window, half-panting, half-smiling at the wind rushing over their head? That was me driving to Yevan. *woof*
Alas Yevan was poor, poor, poor. No running water in the hospital, no hot water piped in at all. There is a water source right outside the hospital, and very time we came in and out there were always a bunch of kids filling up antifreeze-sized bottles with clean water, then lugging them home. It made me sad--they were no more than 6 and 8 years old and they should have been running around, playing and being kids. But instead on the drive up I saw them herding sheep, goats, riding donkeys, fetching water, farm stuff.....I know that farm kids are expected to pitch in whatever their age, but it still made me sad.
Recently the president has initiated some interesting poveryt alleviation schemes to try and help the populace. I am told that Tajiks respect tradition, and for certain events like weddings, funerals, circumsicion parties, they invite tons of people and have lots of food, drink, etc. But then they starve the rest of the time, because paying for these events wipe out their savings. So the president has decreed that only 150 people can attend any wedding. Yes, there is a person who stands at the door and counts, and when the numberof guests reaches 150, no one else can enter. Any number can attend a funeral, but only a pre-apportioned amount of plov (national rice dish) can be served. I didn't ask whether there were government employees dispatched to every funeral to weigh the plov before it was served.
I keep hearing the phrase "our Tajik men" here which is interesting. As in "our Tajik men expect their wife to have at least four children, so to have to perform a hysterectomy on a woman with only two children is a tragedy, for he will surely get another wife to bear him more children." I will refrain from further comment. But suffice it to say that whenever I hear "our Tajik men" I know that I won't like the rest of the sentence.
The Tajik language is very similar to Iranian, so it's very unlike all of the other 'Stans, whose langugages have Turkic roots. They also speak Russian with a very interesting accent outside of Dushanbe. Their grammer is perfect, but the intonation, accent, and where they hit the dominant syllable is very non-Russian. It's like listening to a native of India Speak English--they say the right words, but in such a different lilt that it's almost like it's another language. So that's been very interesting to listen to. Makes me feel like a native Russian when I talk! LOLO
My GI tract wasn't as strong as I thought it was, and I think I got a mild case of Giardia, 'cause I had a fever the other night (as well as some other symptoms I won't disgust you with). So I busted out the Cipro and after two days I feel like a totally different person. I will not contribute to antibiotic resistance, however, so will continue to take the meds for another three days. Right now I'm checking out the contraindications with alcohol, because I really, really want a beer tonight. :)
Tomorrow I don't have to work (gasp, shock, surprise!) so I am going to wander and play and explore all day. Hopefully I'll have interesting things to post for my diligent readers, including some good pictures. Mare, I went out of my way to post today, thanks to your prodding. :) Now I know at least one person is reading this blog other than mom and dad! LOL
Apologies for the long hiatus. I had two back-to-back trips, and on my two days in Almaty I had to prep for three weeks in Tajikistan.
I was in Karaganda, Kazakhstan for four days. That was mining country. Everything is named after miners--stores, their soccer team, the stadium, restaurants..... Other than mines and factories, there wasn't much to see. The sanitation in the hotel we stayed in needed work, but I'd prefer to forget about that. More maternity hostpials, more pregnant women, more newborns, more data. But in one maternity, there was cognac. Lots and lots of cognac. Replete with long toasts. Over lunch. At least I was going back to a dataset and a computer. They were going back to the delivery ward. Lord have mercy.
Here in Dushanbe it's still summer. But it's nice and dry during the day, so it's pleasant and liveable without AC, and the nights are nice and cool. It was a stunning approach into Dushanbe, I'm glad I asked for a window seat. The mountains surround the city, which is tucked into a valley. Just gorgeous. And for the next three days I got the see lots of the mountains, since we were working at a site an hour outside of Dushanbe, up in the mountainside. The project has two massive LandRovers that were donated to them by Merlin after the civil war here in the early 90s. So we wound and bumped our way up to Yevan through the mountains and villages. The drive reminded me of the drive from Thessaloniki to Skopje Steve and I made a few years back, and I felt the same sense of freedom and happiness during these drives. You know how sometimes you're driving down the road and you see a dog with their face stuck outside a car window, half-panting, half-smiling at the wind rushing over their head? That was me driving to Yevan. *woof*
Alas Yevan was poor, poor, poor. No running water in the hospital, no hot water piped in at all. There is a water source right outside the hospital, and very time we came in and out there were always a bunch of kids filling up antifreeze-sized bottles with clean water, then lugging them home. It made me sad--they were no more than 6 and 8 years old and they should have been running around, playing and being kids. But instead on the drive up I saw them herding sheep, goats, riding donkeys, fetching water, farm stuff.....I know that farm kids are expected to pitch in whatever their age, but it still made me sad.
Recently the president has initiated some interesting poveryt alleviation schemes to try and help the populace. I am told that Tajiks respect tradition, and for certain events like weddings, funerals, circumsicion parties, they invite tons of people and have lots of food, drink, etc. But then they starve the rest of the time, because paying for these events wipe out their savings. So the president has decreed that only 150 people can attend any wedding. Yes, there is a person who stands at the door and counts, and when the numberof guests reaches 150, no one else can enter. Any number can attend a funeral, but only a pre-apportioned amount of plov (national rice dish) can be served. I didn't ask whether there were government employees dispatched to every funeral to weigh the plov before it was served.
I keep hearing the phrase "our Tajik men" here which is interesting. As in "our Tajik men expect their wife to have at least four children, so to have to perform a hysterectomy on a woman with only two children is a tragedy, for he will surely get another wife to bear him more children." I will refrain from further comment. But suffice it to say that whenever I hear "our Tajik men" I know that I won't like the rest of the sentence.
The Tajik language is very similar to Iranian, so it's very unlike all of the other 'Stans, whose langugages have Turkic roots. They also speak Russian with a very interesting accent outside of Dushanbe. Their grammer is perfect, but the intonation, accent, and where they hit the dominant syllable is very non-Russian. It's like listening to a native of India Speak English--they say the right words, but in such a different lilt that it's almost like it's another language. So that's been very interesting to listen to. Makes me feel like a native Russian when I talk! LOLO
My GI tract wasn't as strong as I thought it was, and I think I got a mild case of Giardia, 'cause I had a fever the other night (as well as some other symptoms I won't disgust you with). So I busted out the Cipro and after two days I feel like a totally different person. I will not contribute to antibiotic resistance, however, so will continue to take the meds for another three days. Right now I'm checking out the contraindications with alcohol, because I really, really want a beer tonight. :)
Tomorrow I don't have to work (gasp, shock, surprise!) so I am going to wander and play and explore all day. Hopefully I'll have interesting things to post for my diligent readers, including some good pictures. Mare, I went out of my way to post today, thanks to your prodding. :) Now I know at least one person is reading this blog other than mom and dad! LOL
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
the karma wheel
So I guess I've been bragging a little too much about how things are so great here and it's really not so different from Europe or even the States.
I believe that karma decided it's time to be a bit more modest, for I haven't had hot water since I got home from work on Monday. It's already the second time for me without hot water. (The first time was literally one day after my arrival--welcome to the former Soviet world.)
See, in Soviet times they "prophylactically" would shut the hot water off in certain regions while they worked on the pipes. It was so that they wouldn't have any problems in the winter, where it would be really ugly without hot water. I remember being able to tell what people in my office in St Petersburg didn't have hot water for the month--they were bathing more sparingly than usual. Evidently this prophylaxis is still in use, but not for month-long stretches at a time.
Although I must admit, there's a little part of me that enjoys going to the faucet each time, wondering if the hot water will be there. Sometimes I try to guess what the odds are that it will be there. Other times, I do the "oh please oh please oh please" before I turn the faucet on. Depending on the outcome, you can do the happy dance if your hot water has returned, and be all "Damn!" if there isn't.
See what you guys take for granted over there???? I bet you don't give cranking the hot water handle on your faucet a second thought. And here I've developed a whole ritual around it.
This morning, common decency wouldn't allow me to go without showering for another day, so I woke up a half-hour early to do the heating water dance. I pull out all of the pots I own, fill 'em up, light all four burners on the stove, and drink some coffee whilst patiently waiting for the water to heat up. Then I arrange the hot water pots strategically around the tub, then mix with cold water. I have the perfect-sized saucepan for pouring water over me. Thus, I bathe.
The first time it took me all 4 pots of water. This time, I was done after using only 2. Am I getting good at economizing, or what????
Have I mentioned that there is a recycling bin right on the streetcorner from me? I did the happy dance when I spotted it my first weekend here, and my friends laughed at me. They assured me that it goes in the trash with the rest of the garbage. Regardless of what is indeed the case (I can't believe they'd go to the trouble of putting over 100 of these bins throughout the city and then not actually recycle), I faithfully recycle on my way to work every day.
Tonight I'm going to my friend's house to make them gazpacho and pizza. They also were asking me about chili, which I'll make for them once the weather is cooler. They have a bottle of Tobasco they are very excited about using. Which leads me to the question: How did the McIllenhy (sp?) family manage to get Tobasco into every country in the world? It's everywhere.
I have my SPSS syntax nearly perfect for the provider data collection forms and am spewing out indicators for each site like there's no tomorrow. Then I'll do the women's pregnancy and postabortion forms, then the neonatal ICU. The goal is for me to generate all of the data for three time intervals for the five sites in the Karaganda oblast I am visiting next week. Then we can look at the data, see what they're doing well, see where there may be data entry error, and work with the clinicians to talk about ways to improve the indicators that need improvement. I'm seeing some "rebounding" in some sites. The baseline data show very high numbers of un-sound, non-evidence based practices (like giving women spasmolytics during labor). Then the numbers decline drastically at the second data collection time, after they've had training on best practices. Then the numbers start coming back up again during the third data collection--especially if they've had a lot of staff turnover. Which is why we have mentoring visits. A WHO-trained/approved expert comes and reinforces what is evidence-based, what is not, and where they need to improve.
I believe that karma decided it's time to be a bit more modest, for I haven't had hot water since I got home from work on Monday. It's already the second time for me without hot water. (The first time was literally one day after my arrival--welcome to the former Soviet world.)
See, in Soviet times they "prophylactically" would shut the hot water off in certain regions while they worked on the pipes. It was so that they wouldn't have any problems in the winter, where it would be really ugly without hot water. I remember being able to tell what people in my office in St Petersburg didn't have hot water for the month--they were bathing more sparingly than usual. Evidently this prophylaxis is still in use, but not for month-long stretches at a time.
Although I must admit, there's a little part of me that enjoys going to the faucet each time, wondering if the hot water will be there. Sometimes I try to guess what the odds are that it will be there. Other times, I do the "oh please oh please oh please" before I turn the faucet on. Depending on the outcome, you can do the happy dance if your hot water has returned, and be all "Damn!" if there isn't.
See what you guys take for granted over there???? I bet you don't give cranking the hot water handle on your faucet a second thought. And here I've developed a whole ritual around it.
This morning, common decency wouldn't allow me to go without showering for another day, so I woke up a half-hour early to do the heating water dance. I pull out all of the pots I own, fill 'em up, light all four burners on the stove, and drink some coffee whilst patiently waiting for the water to heat up. Then I arrange the hot water pots strategically around the tub, then mix with cold water. I have the perfect-sized saucepan for pouring water over me. Thus, I bathe.
The first time it took me all 4 pots of water. This time, I was done after using only 2. Am I getting good at economizing, or what????
Have I mentioned that there is a recycling bin right on the streetcorner from me? I did the happy dance when I spotted it my first weekend here, and my friends laughed at me. They assured me that it goes in the trash with the rest of the garbage. Regardless of what is indeed the case (I can't believe they'd go to the trouble of putting over 100 of these bins throughout the city and then not actually recycle), I faithfully recycle on my way to work every day.
Tonight I'm going to my friend's house to make them gazpacho and pizza. They also were asking me about chili, which I'll make for them once the weather is cooler. They have a bottle of Tobasco they are very excited about using. Which leads me to the question: How did the McIllenhy (sp?) family manage to get Tobasco into every country in the world? It's everywhere.
I have my SPSS syntax nearly perfect for the provider data collection forms and am spewing out indicators for each site like there's no tomorrow. Then I'll do the women's pregnancy and postabortion forms, then the neonatal ICU. The goal is for me to generate all of the data for three time intervals for the five sites in the Karaganda oblast I am visiting next week. Then we can look at the data, see what they're doing well, see where there may be data entry error, and work with the clinicians to talk about ways to improve the indicators that need improvement. I'm seeing some "rebounding" in some sites. The baseline data show very high numbers of un-sound, non-evidence based practices (like giving women spasmolytics during labor). Then the numbers decline drastically at the second data collection time, after they've had training on best practices. Then the numbers start coming back up again during the third data collection--especially if they've had a lot of staff turnover. Which is why we have mentoring visits. A WHO-trained/approved expert comes and reinforces what is evidence-based, what is not, and where they need to improve.
Monday, August 6, 2007
lazy Vera
Boy did I have a nice, lazy weekend where I did a lot of catching up on sleep and old American movies. I did manage to drag myself out to a bon voyage dinner Saturday night and take care of some errands/shopping at the Green Bazaar Sunday, but the vast majority of the weekend was spent on the couch. I didn't even bother to head to the office or cafe to blog, that's how lazy I was. But I enjoyed every luxurious minute of the laziness and the naps, because it's the first I've had in a loooong time. And the last that I'll have for quite some time, given my hectic work/travel schedule (Aug 12-16 in Karaganda, Kazakhstan and then Aug 19-Sep 5 working through 4 sites in Tadjikistan).
I saw an old, old, spotty version of Gone With the Wind on TV last night, which was evidently a German version translated into Russian. (The letter when Scarlett's husband died was all in German, as were other written items. I wonder how many changes in nuancing/translating were made by doing a German version into Russian!). It's one man who does all of the voiceovers in the same monotone. It was too much effort to put togther the voice of this extremely disinterested Soviet man with Elizabeth Taylor's (over)emoting as Scarlett, so I switched the channel. I did catch Four Weddings and a Funeral, which at least had one male and one female dubber. Good dubbing is important--it's when I can hear the English underneath the Russian or even before the Russian that it makes me nuts. So much so that I will switch the channel, even when it's something good that I want to watch.
There are two Russian TV shows that I really enjoy and make an effort not to miss. One is called "Happy Together." The plotline: a sitcom of a couple where the woman is an overly made-up, spend-crazy, red-headed housewife, the man is an impoverished shoe salesman waiting on women with fat Russian legs, their daughter is a ho with an IQ of about 14, and their son is a dork. Yes, they have a dog and their neighbors in the flat across that hall are oversexed, nerdy bankers. Sound familiar? If you've guessed that this is the Russian version of Married With Children, you are indeed correct!!! Except for some reason, this show is a lot more entertaining to me. So every Monday-Thursday at 8 pm Almaty time, you can find me watching this show on DTV.
The other is "Borzovski Friends, subtitled, All Men are Swine." It's about 4 women living in Moscow in their early 40s who are all very good friends and support one another through their ups and downs with life, love, and work. One of the main characters is a shrink named Vera who narrates the events that unfold. There is a blond, a brunette, a redhead, and the ho lawyer who changes the color of her hair often. The women meet out in restaurants and cafes, and generally are well-to-do Muscovites. Most of the time, they are discussing men, sex, and fashion. Sound familiar? If you guessed that this is the Russian version of Sex and The City, you again are correct!! It's on Mon-Thurs from 11pm to midnight on NTV.
I also get BBC World in English, Animal Planet (dubbed), Fox News in English (lord have mercy, even over here I can only tolerate about 60 seconds of it before it's time to move along), several Discovery channels, and a bunch of other stuff including a French and Italian channel. Yup, I have cable. Let the record show, ladies and gentlemen, that I am living larger in Almaty than I was in B'more.
I promise that I will post about more cultural things like all-wooden churches built with no nails, Medeo (the world's highest elevation skating rink) and all of the other lovely things that Almaty has to offer in the future. At a later date I will talk about the lovely Turkish lady I buy homemade yogurt and bread from who calls me endearing words (I'm told) in Turkish, and the sweet Uzbek man who force feeds me samples of his delicious dried fruits. I will talk about taking the bus and the trolleybus and the lack of personal space and use of deodorant. I do more than watch TV here, honest! :) But today, that's just what happened to come out as I decided to blog.
Here are a few more shots of Turkmenistan...
the tripod is the one with the rotating gold dictator atop it. The "bleu heur" shot is of some library or ministry or university or something. Then there's the market shot, and the photo that needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the right is the ministry of gas/energy. It looks like a lighter, doesn't it? Yes, that was on purpose. I don't know who copied whom, but evidently there was a similar building in Astana (the new capital of K'stan) that everyone called "the lighter", too. Which was also the ministry of energy. But that one happened to burn to the ground. Being the superstitious lot they are around here, everyone says that it's the name that caused it to burn the ground. We'll see if that happens to the one in Ashgabat....
the tripod is the one with the rotating gold dictator atop it. The "bleu heur" shot is of some library or ministry or university or something. Then there's the market shot, and the photo that needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the right is the ministry of gas/energy. It looks like a lighter, doesn't it? Yes, that was on purpose. I don't know who copied whom, but evidently there was a similar building in Astana (the new capital of K'stan) that everyone called "the lighter", too. Which was also the ministry of energy. But that one happened to burn to the ground. Being the superstitious lot they are around here, everyone says that it's the name that caused it to burn the ground. We'll see if that happens to the one in Ashgabat....
Speaking of superstitious...one last TV-related comment. There are all sort of psychics now on TV, fleecing the poor public (mostly elderly ladies with various maladies wanting to know if their will get better, or desperate, single women in their mid-30s wanting to know if they'll ever get married/have babies). These women all have dagger-clawed manicures, dons of makeup, and very lacy clothing. They also wave their hands around a lot and waggle their fingers over candles, feeling callers' energy/sending callers energy. I found it entertaining for about 3 minutes before I made me sad. These women are not nearly as sweet as Madame Cleo. I find them more than a bit disturbing.
Ok, from here on in, no more TV talk--I promise!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Busy, Bisy, Bizy
(I'll bring back a nice gift for the first person who correctly identifies where I got the above title from.)This is a shot of one of the many Turkmen warrior statues standing guard all the way around the Turkmenbashi museum in Rahmana park (see below). Those mountains ringed Ashgabat, and at some points it felt like if I could just streeeeetch my arm out far enough, I could touch them. Just glorious, that Ashgabat with it's mountains, fountains, and white marble buildings.
Things are really heating up here and I'll be spending the next 7 work days in more maternities in Kazakhstan, and then off to Tadjikistan for 2 weeks. Then when I get back I'll have 2 weeks to analyze a BUTTLOAD of data and get it in shape for our reporting requirements before Steve comes. Yikes! It is going to be ovaries to the wall.
Since I worked through lunch I don't feel guilty posting a quick few photos of Turkmenistan. My friends came over yesterday and I was telling them all about it...they wanted to go. And I want to go with Steve. But getting visas without letters of invitation are tough, and I don't know that I want to burden the people I worked with with the bureaucratic rigamarole of writing us letters, submitting them, etc. Besides, I don't have time or the willingness to wait at the Turkmenistan Airlines ticket office for days on end, trying to bribe people for a ticket. So it appears my Turkmen vacation dream will remain just that, a dream...
Here's a shot of an aparment building with those ubiquitous satellite dishes. They look (and spread!) like mushrooms, no?
Here's one of the Ministry of Health. Imagine a city full of massive white marble ministries of varying shapes. Just lovely.
And here are a few shots of this enormous park dedicated to Turkmenbashi (leader of all 
Turkmen, what the last president/dictator named himself), which depict the writings in his book, Ruhnama. He wrote this book to explain the history/religion/everything about the Turkmen people, and mandated that everyone memorize it, including schoolkids (what fun!). There are copies in every hospital I've been to, in multiple languages. Not to mention the statues (usually gold) and massive portraits of the man hung everywhere. Talk about a cult of personality. This guy leaves Stalin in the dust. (There's a gold statue of him that rotates constantly in the center square so that he's always facing the sun. Popular opinion is that it's so that he can keep an eye on everything going on in Turkmenistan....) There's a massive copy of 
the Ruhnama in this park that opens every day at 6 pm. I was informed by more than one Turkmen that this book was in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest electronic book. :) What you can demand be built for you when you're a dictator! Any random whim can become some poor engineer's nightmare.
Turkmen, what the last president/dictator named himself), which depict the writings in his book, Ruhnama. He wrote this book to explain the history/religion/everything about the Turkmen people, and mandated that everyone memorize it, including schoolkids (what fun!). There are copies in every hospital I've been to, in multiple languages. Not to mention the statues (usually gold) and massive portraits of the man hung everywhere. Talk about a cult of personality. This guy leaves Stalin in the dust. (There's a gold statue of him that rotates constantly in the center square so that he's always facing the sun. Popular opinion is that it's so that he can keep an eye on everything going on in Turkmenistan....) There's a massive copy of 
the Ruhnama in this park that opens every day at 6 pm. I was informed by more than one Turkmen that this book was in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest electronic book. :) What you can demand be built for you when you're a dictator! Any random whim can become some poor engineer's nightmare. Sorry, folks, but that's all I can manage for today. I'll come back and upload more this weekend.
And after a data day like today, all I have to say is that SPSS kicks STATA's ass.
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