September 2007
This was the second night I had been in Turkmenistan, and the weirdness was still fresh in my mind as we went out for the night. There were three of us, our guide, an Armenian woman who worked for the Turkmen government as our official chaperone, who happened to like Chris, my fellow traveller who had been paired up with me by the tour company so we could cut costs, and yours truly, who was oblivious to the tension that the other two were feeling. I had just come in from Turkmenabat, crossing the border from Farab in Uzbekistan, but Chris had been in the country for a few days already, having taken the boat from Baku, Azerbaijan, travelling by car to Ashgabat, the capital, and then having taken a two-dollar plane ride to come and meet us in Mary to start the second leg of his trip. Apparently something happened between the two of them on the road from Turkmenbashi that I was not privy to at the time.
We were heading out to the home of our guide's friend, a Russian woman in her early 40's, who coincidentally happened to work, in Soviet-style 16-24 hour shifts, at the hotel we were staying at. (I think we were the only people staying at the hotel actually, we never saw any other cars or people the entire time. I don't think there was even a separate chef.) We did not know what to expect. She lived in a Soviet-style apartment building. The tenants of the apartment who hung around the front of the building, near the small booth that acted as a convenience store but really only sold fizzy water, chocolate and cigarettes, eyed us up as we walked by. I got the impression that foreigners didn't often come by there, especially at night.
We were welcomed into her home with a huge smile. The apartment was nicer than I had expected. It was reasonably modern, and well cared for. There were 3 rooms plus a kitchen. She had a TV and a stereo with a CD player. Three of them lived in the apartment, a girl of about 16 who I assume was her daughter, and a man of indeterminate age, who looked to be Turkmen. I couldn't place if he was her husband/lover or son. It was kind of weird. They looked at us as we looked at them, and then the mother motioned for us to head to the table. There was huge spread of Russian and Turkmen foods. Prepared salads, breads filled with mince, kebabs and fruit made up the bulk of the meal, along with a few bottles of vodka on the side. When these started flowing things began to heat up.
Chris, who had told me earlier that he was into jailbait, couldn't take his eyes off the daughter (from here on, Jailbait). The mother seemed to notice this and made sure she stayed in the conversation. The daughter knew some English, but everything else was in Russian. Our guide was drunk, and possibly jealous of the attention Chris was paying on Jailbait, and she stopped translating a few hours in. The daughter kept trying to speak English though. She kept telling us about how she liked to hang out in the clubs, and what music they played. We were amazed that there were clubs in Mary, and wanted to know more about them, but we couldn't get far. The guide started flinging the stuffed animals that lined the couch at Chris, who tried to dodge as best he could while keeping eye contact with Jailbait. Sondad showed us some of the CDs he had, and the girl picked one that was playing in the clubs in town. They don't have much access to the Internet in Turkmenistan, but usually one stall in the market will have a connection. They download new music, burn them to CD and put them up for sale. This one CD had about 600 tracks on it. The girl picked one track and stood up to dance. It was some hard core gangsta rap, that I knew I had heard somewhere before, but it was all remixed to fuck and I couldn't pick anything out. She started gyrating in the middle of the room to the beat. The mother pretending to be oblivious to the icy daggers thrown from the eyes of our guide grabbed Chris and flung her into Jailbait. Chris shot me a "what the fuck is happening here" sort of look as Jailbait placed his hands on her shakin booty.
Our guide passed out, and the mother grabbed me and started grinding me next to her daughter and Chris, in total cougar fashion. Sondad just kept playing with the remote on the CD player, skipping through the different remixes of this song, staring intently on the flashing names on the TV, while I had my attention focused on the cougar mom in front of me teaching me how to dance like only an oppressed communist could. She whispered two words into my ear over and over again in an inhumanly deep husky, almost manly but definitely Russian voice, that I was "supairrrr" and a "naturrrelle."
At this point I realized 3 things simultaneously. One, I was in Turkmenistan, being ground upon by the mother of a 16 year old girl who she had dance with a man who was clearly double her age and clearly into her all while our intrepid guide was passed out on the couch (the angry stare was seemingly to much for her this late in the evening, she had had at least a whole bottle to herself), and I had no idea what I was going to do if this got crazier. Two, I was in Turkmenistan, therefore there is no way that there could be any clubs around where we were, and in fact the CD was not what was playing in the clubs, but was in fact a remix CD of the song "In Da Club" by 50 cent, 600 tracks of the same song. (We were currently listening to the Turkish remix, which was somewhat like a Bollywood audio production, and perhaps that is what triggered it.) And finally three, everyone was going to feel like shit tomorrow, and we had a 3 hour trip into the desert to see Gonur Depe, and that yes, I was in Turkmenistan, and it was awesome.
And then as quickly as it started, the guide got up, we said our good byes, and we each got a stuffed animal for playing along. Our guide called Chris an asshole for groping Jailbait, and we continued on as if nothing had happened. She's a professional after all.
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