Picture Dictionary
Lives of Other PCVs
Zombies in Turkmenistan?
Editor’s note: We asked Jon Rosenzweig, a PCV in
Turkmenistan, to give us a glimpse into his service
there. He sent us this dispatch.
On Saturday I went with my family to
the graveyard in Boldumsaz to make
Tzadaka (an interesting linguistic link
between Jewish and Turkmen culture).
Tzadaka here is less about charity and
more about giving thanks to God – in
this case for my host brother finding
work after 1 ½ years of nothing. (While
today the word tzadaka in Hebrew is
understood to mean giving charity, in
the Torah it was used to refer to a righteous person.) At the graveyard, we
walked around the tomb (3 times) of a
long-ago important Turkmen, holding
our fingers to the brick and occasionally
touching the fingers to our foreheads.
Outside of the wall-encircled tomb
we said a prayer. In a small building
to the side of the graves we ate dograma (‘bread soup’) and plenty of other
food (various fried breads). There were
three bulbs wired to the ceiling and a
metal tube radiator running the length
of the wall, but looking around I realized there was nothing here to indicate the 21st century, or even the 19th.
Turkmen graveyards are
very surreal – the ground was
all white from salt, but mainly
because there are ladders coming out of the ground. The
graves/tombs themselves look
like miniature brick houses –
a square base with an angled roof, all
about 4 feet high. Others are a square
wall with an ornate higher end, which
look more mosque-like. And at all of
them, there are ladders coming out of
the ground. And yes, with all of my maturity and cultural sensitivity, all I could
think was, this is just inviting zombies to
crawl up out of the ground. No, I didn’t
actually see any zombies, but I asked
around. In Islamic tradition, they bring
the body to the grave by carrying it on
a ladder (sans coffin). The Turkmen extension of that is to stick the ladder halfway into the ground (they were unsure
about the exact significance of that.)
On Sunday I went up to Kone Urgench (probably locatable with Google
Earth) to meet up with the rest of the
Dashoguz volunteers. We
went to the ‘360’- an extensive area of tombs of 360
Mullahs. Aside from plenty
of small graves, this area is
famous for its giant tower
and mausoleums. (There are
Turkmen tourists who come
here!) And get this: if you
visit the site 7 times, it is
equivalent to making Haji to
Mecca. My current count: 1. The whole
area is filled with trees (small ones)
and is quite a sight to see. Many of the
mausoleums are in various stages of
being ruins due to Turkmen’s least favorite historical figure: Genghis Khan.
There is a hill near the tower. If you
roll down it (I did not, I will do it to
complete my Turkmen Haji) it is supposed to predict your future based on if
you veer to the left, right or go straight.
As I mentioned, Turkmen are not buried in coffins. As a result, if the land
around the body erodes, out comes
the body. Around the sides of this hill
were numerous bone fragments: a
pelvic girdle, a few arm bones, an intact set of lower teeth, and one readily viewable skull. But no zombies.
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Thoughts on Team Teaching
By Snezana Djordjevic
Counterpart
My name is Snezana Djordjevic and I
have been teaching English at Kumanovo’s gimnazija for eleven years. During
this time I have had a chance to work
with three Peace Corps volunteers, the
first one being from the MAK 4 group
back in 1998.
Personally, I find working with PCVs
very interesting and somehow, the whole
idea of team teaching seems very appealing to me. However, it does present
many challenges, and the challenge of
earning students’ trust stands above all.
Most of our students have been together
for years, starting back in elementary
school, because the towns in Macedonia
are mostly small and people know each
other well. So when a teacher enters the
classroom there are always clusters of
students grouped together, suspiciously
looking at the “intruder” and not readily
opening their minds to him or her. At
14 - pauza
this point, the counterpart is a valuable
intermediary. Put another way, the concept of going “na gosti” is transferred to
classrooms because students aren’t supposed to leave the rooms all day. Many
unexpected things—like a broken chair
or desk—can welcome a teacher. The
counterpart can help a volunteer handle
these difficulties
Regardless of these obstacles, I
have the impression that Macedonian
students like having a native English
speaker in the classroom. It gives them
personal interaction that TV, songs, and
computers cannot provide, and they
have a chance at first-hand conversation
with an American. Traditionally, I have
allowed students opportunities to ask
PCVs questions about American culture, lifestyle, almost anything as long
as it’s decent. Thus, many stereotypes
and prejudices they have been pulled
down or questioned. Students often
have interesting views of American and
the people there. PCVs are a good way
to show reality.
This personal interaction also helps
students get used to the accent of a native English speaker. Many Macedonian English teachers have never had
a chance to travel or live in an English
speaking country, so this is indispensable. In fact, many language ambiguities we have as teachers are solved with
a PCV’s help.
Another important advantage is that
they come from a totally d ??????????????????????????????Q??????????)??????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????)????5??????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????()????????????I??????]?????()??????????????((0