In a remote world, a spirited ride

A religious holiday in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan gives the author a rare opportunity to experience a Turkmen tradition.

By SAM TRANUM
Published March 20, 2005

	[Photo: Sam Tranum]
	Turkmen children swing to clean away their sins during a Kurban Bayram celebration at an apartment complex.

ABADAN, Turkmenistan - The milk girl woke me, her arms loaded with plastic soda bottles filled from her cow that morning, her hair modestly covered in a green scarf. It was 7 and still dark as she stood in the stairwell of my Soviet-style concrete apartment building, ringing my doorbell.

I opened the door, told her I didn't need any milk - the stuff here can carry a disease called brucelosis - and closed the door before too much winter wind could push inside. It was the first day of Kurban Bayram, the three-day holiday when Muslims remember God's mercy in rescinding his request that Abraham sacrifice his son, Isaac, and allowing the father to sacrifice a lamb, instead.

In Turkmenistan, where I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer, that meant time off from work, feasting with friends. It was also a chance to take a turn on one of the giant swings that my friends assured me would wipe away my sins as I pushed higher and higher - closer and closer to God.

A few minutes later, bundled up against the winter, belly full of hot coffee, I followed the sidewalk past dozens of four-story apartment buildings identical to mine. A satellite dish sprouted from nearly every window.

I could see, across town, steam billowing out of the electrical plant's cooling towers. Ahead, the crumbly, snow-sprinkled Kopetdag Mountains rose like a wall off the desert floor, separating my town from Iran.

As I walked toward the bus stop, I watched a man with a mouth full of gold teeth kneel on a sheep, slit its throat, hang it by its back legs from a nearby telephone pole and start peeling off its hide. His wife would use the meat to make dograma, the traditional food of Kurban Bayram in Turkmenistan. Imagine croutons, chunks of lamb and chopped onions doused in enough bouillon to make a thick soup.

The 45-minute ride in the crowded minivan from my little town of Abadan into the capital cost me 4,000 manat, or about 16 cents. Out the window, I watched mosques, bare cotton fields and leafless vineyards roll by. The other passengers chatted in Turkmen and sometimes, in Russian (their country was a part of the Soviet Union until 1991).

When we passed through villages, I saw camels tethered in yards of one-story concrete block homes. Women pulled loaves of sacred Turkmen flat bread called choreck out of clay ovens. Children kicked half-deflated soccer balls around dirt roads.

From the country, where indoor plumbing was rare, electricity was unreliable and food came from dusty bazaars, we rode into the center of Ashgabat, all white marble and reflective glass.

Towering over it all was the Arch of Neutrality, topped by a golden statue of President Saparmurat Niyazov, a statue that rotates during the day so its face is always toward the sun. The energy ministry, which oversees the country's vast natural gas reserves, isn't far away.

About 9 a.m., I met a group of eight friends and we caught a bus to Chuli, a shady oasis in the mountains. Around a smoky campfire near a stream, we played a guitar, drank vodka and talked in Russian and Turkmen about America's war in Iraq and, as the vodka bottle emptied, about love.

When the sun started to fall behind the mountains, we packed up and rode the bus back to Ashgabat. My friend, Rustam, and I managed to have one drink at a dimly lit bar before a couple of police officers barged through the door, threw out all the customers and chastised us for drinking on a Muslim holiday.

Tired and smelling of wood smoke, we rode a taxi to Rustam's brother's apartment. As are most Turkmen homes, it was furnished with little more than carpets. No tables, no beds, no couches. We slept on thin mats on the floor and, in the morning, rolled them up and sat cross-legged around a tablecloth, drinking black tea from small bowls.

Rustam and I spent the next day with his parents, shuttling by taxi from one relative's home to another. In each house or apartment, we drank tea and ate dograma with the men, while the women ate in a separate room and the children carried dishes in and out.

At one house, a cardigan-clad dentist asked me how many tribes there are in America. At another, we talked about the pros and cons of various digital video cameras. At a third, a man asked why I spoke English if I was an American - shouldn't I speak American?

That evening, stuffed full of dograma, I rode a minivan home to Abadan. When the sun set, I walked to an abandoned lot where a few dozen young people crowded around a 20-foot-tall swing set. It was one of many that stand in towns across the country, waiting all year for Kurban Bayram.

When it was my turn, I stood on the huge wooden swing seat, facing a satellite dish repairman named Kakajan, my back to two other young men. We gripped the ropes and swung our weight forward and backward.

As we swept through the air, higher and higher, the Turkmen teenagers milled around below, watching us, drinking sodas and gossiping about who liked who.

The desert spread out into the distance, the strings of colored lights draped from the swing's frame rushed past, and the stars - so many stars - moved closer and closer.

Sam Tranum is in the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan.

[Last modified March 18, 2005, 10:15:04]