Exhibit A:
2002. I’m in Turkmenistan, my first job that requires ongoing negotiation with government officials. I am in the anteroom at the Ministry of Health, for my introductory meeting. I am very, very nervous. Natasha, our project manager and my translator for this meeting watches me fidget. She tells me, “I will translate what you say, and if I don’t understand something, I’ll just stop and ask you.” I calm down. She’s literally not going to let me say anything stupid.
Exhibit B:
Rural Turkmenistan, beginning a long gauntlet of meetings with doctors, hospital directors, and local health officials. They are good, friendly meetings that build our rapport and help our programs succeed, sometimes catch a small problem before it gets big, but they get tiring after a while. I sigh a little as I get out of the car. My colleague Zulfia hears me. “Alanna,” she says, “just keep smiling that American smile.”
Great series, Alanna… Looking forward to future installments.
Can I ask what program you were with? I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan from 2006-2008, and my understanding was that there was virtually no one else doing projects outside Ashgabat aside from small MSF and UNHCR programs, dealing exclusively with refugees, in southeast Lebap (about 40km south of where I lived, though we never saw them).
I actually left (or was pressured to leave) early because of ongoing conflicts with our tyrannical regional education director — who, I found out from an embassy staffer, had been blacklisted as a human rights abuser for threatening the families of FLEX/AUCA students. I recall one funny incident where he stood outside the American Corner in Turkmenabat yelling at them as they walked in to attend an informational seminar that their parents would be fired from their jobs if they left the country for school; when the embassy people were notified, they invited him in and he acted like he was super interested in and supportive of everything they were doing, and chided me for not handing out enough books. I had wanted to arrange a training seminar on how to use the books — very nice trilingual visual dictionaries — in the classroom, but he denied me. He also vetoed our summer camps, and PC insisted that we simply apportion the money ($3,000 or so) to each volunteer and spend it on random crap. I bought some balls, a pump, and a volleyball net for my school — which now can never receive another SPA grant, you know, for “sustainability” reasons. Thankfully that cheap Chinese air pump is certain to never break. Oh, and even though I was supposed to be helping improve English teaching by working with teachers, I was assigned to a school which had NO English teacher when I arrived, and forbidden (by the regional education director) from visiting the former English specialized school in a neighboring village which had 15-16 English teachers, some of whom actually knew English and might benefit from working with me.
I could go on and on. It was certainly a stark lesson in how NOT to do useful development work… and a great introduction to intransigent local bureaucracy!
I was in Turkmenistan long before you got there, although my project is still going on today. I’d rather not have the search results point to this blog, but it’s clear enough where I worked from my LinkedIn profile. I will say that you were misinformed; there are a number of USAID-funded projects working outside of Ashgabat.
I’m sorry you had such a rough time in Turkmenistan. I have been told that the Central Asia volunteers are the bitterest volunteers in the corps, and the other RPCVs avoid them because of it.
OK got it. I think what I meant to say was “expats working/traveling outside Ashgabat.” I know there were a number of USAID/Embassy funded projects around, but run by locals. Which is as it should be.
You are right about Central Asia RPCVs. In my case at least it had a lot more to do with Peace Corps than the region itself; after leaving I moved to Kyrgyzstan and really enjoyed it there. It was just terribly frustrating to be in such a unique position but so constrained from actually doing anything by host country and Peace Corps bureaucracy. I understand all development orgs have their silly bureaucracies, but in PC it wasn’t even superficially aimed at ensuring our work was effective or necessary; more like a children’s summer camp with English/health teaching in place of arts & crafts.
Not that I’M bitter or anything!
(Enjoying both your blogs by the way — keep up the good work)
Jon, I’ve got to reiterate what Alanna has said, and broaden it to say that it’s not just you personally, but all PCVs in Turkmenistan who are currently quite, er, under-informed. While Alanna did leave years ago, there are/were still a small handful of Americans working on at least 4 projects throughout your time there (myself being one of them, working on a different USAID health project from Alanna). We all travelled occasionally outside of Ashgabat and our projects have constant collaboration with our satellite sites in the velayats; for the projects that didn’t have resident expats, there were expats who would fly in from other ‘stans to do periodic visits (which would usually involve trips to the regions). But as I said, you’re not alone in not knowing this. I can’t tell you how many times in my time living in T’stan I ran into PCVs who were shocked to see other young Americans working outside of the auspices of the Embassy or Peace Corps. It’s quite sad, I think – in a country like Turkmenistan, I wish the few of us there working in development were working a little more collaboratively.
And while I agree with you that locals need to be invested, and ideally lead the projects on the ground, you should know that the expats that work with them generally lend a great amount of ‘cover’ to the locals – it’s easier for them to justify the project’s actions if they can say to the Ministry of Whatever: “We did this because an American told me we had to…” It sucks, but that’s the way it is. But I digress. I don’t need to tell you about the trouble that locals face when they buck the system; just know that the expats there are usually (not always, but usually) there to help the competent local staff do their jobs with less harassment. Glad to hear you enjoyed Kyrgyzstan – I’ve actually just relocated from T’stan (hence my wild use of the internet here!) to Kygyzstan, myself!
P.S. Alanna, is that a lemonarium that you’re in in the picture? One of my fondest memories of T’stan is a visit to an friend’s uncle’s lemonarium…:o)
D – It was a greenhouse that grew lemons and not much else, on the grounds of a hospital. The hospital sold them and spent the money on hospital improvements.