From July 15

Dashowuz is obviously rural in a way I hadn't noticed in other parts of Turkmenistan. Clothes are more often homemade, and less well-made than what you see in Ashgabat. It is absolutely stifling hot here in this ceremony room. I am drenched and dripping in sweat. I figure that if I pass out from the heat, at least there are plenty of people around to provide medical attention.

The trip to Turkmenbashi was everything I would have hoped for. The resort place turned out to be eight little cottages on a stretch of shore that almost qualified as beach. There was no pool, but there were also no sea snakes. We alternated between basking in the sun and splashing around in the water. The place was family run, and the whole family was in residence while we were there. Which was good, since we were their only customers. It would have been pretty lonely without them.

The trip to Turkmenbashi was hot. The Ashgabat airport is hot enough to mean that waiting for a flight requires occupying a pool of your own sweat. The plane was no better. If you're on a Boeing, then it will have climate control once you're in the air, but the old soviet planes just remain whatever temperature they were on the tarmac. So, hot. We were, of course, on an old Soviet plane. Not quite as small as a yak-40, but nonetheless quite small. It's much like a school bus with wings.

When we arrive at the Turkmenbashi airport, all the passengers got off the plane and began walking across the tarmac to the airport exit, only to be waved to a halt for no apparent reason by a uniformed official. We stood out there in the heat and waited for nothing we could see. And then we saw. A plane taxied at high speed right across the place we were going to walk. The sound was so loud you could feel it in your breastbone and through the ground in your feet. We could smell jet fuel, and my hair was blown back in the hot wind that came off the plane. It then braked a bit, and turned so it was coming right at us. We flinched en masse, and were told to hold still. We stared in terror as its nose advanced toward us. At the last minute it turned again and parked. I may never forget the intensity of that experience.

I am writing this on the dais in the room for our closing ceremony. It should have started by now, but due to a series of coincidences involving the local government and a visiting UN delegation, none of our winners are here yet. Not exactly practical to start an awards ceremony without them. The nurses are all arrayed in front of me in there best clothes and white coats on top, but all we can do is sit here. They fan themselves, I type. If I spoke more Russian or Turkmen, I could work them room a little. Walk around; ask people where they're from and what they do. As it is, all I can do is periodically smile apologetically out at the crowd and do my best not to pass out from the heat. I am thinking that I should have bought a nice paper fan when I was in San Francisco. I mean, they had them in Chinatown, and people actually carry fans here. It helps.

A couple of things struck me about Turkmenbashi. The first was the oil refinery you pass on your way from the airport to the city. The territory of the refinery reminded me very strongly of Syracuse. We have giant oil holding tanks like than, and inexplicable pieces of industrial equipment, and a similar smell near Onondaga Lake. Yes, an aging Soviet factory complex reminds me of my hometown. Come from Syracuse, and there is nowhere to go but up...

Lilya is off upstairs, waiting for the UN delegation to come out of a meeting so that she can send them on their way and visit the clinic where our people are waiting, so our people can come here. I offered to go with her, but she said no quite firmly. She said why should I wait on them. Seems to be a point of pride for her that I am too important to stand around waiting for the UN. Doesn't matter much to me either way, but I trust her judgment.

I just dawned on me that I'm hungry, probably because I ate breakfast at 5 am before the flight here and it is now twenty to eleven. They've cranked up the music in this room, apparently hoping we'll mistake it for a club and not mind the heat.

Screw penicillin and automobiles. Air conditioning gets my vote for best invention of the 20th century. Followed closely by sunscreen, which I have decided is far more important than the internet.

The Caspian was supposed to be full of sea snakes. Surrounding you, just dense with them. Instead we saw one little school of snakes, only about two inches long, and they darted away from us just like minnows. Hard to be upset by snakes like that.

I fly on Saturday. Ashgabat-Istanbul-New York. The on Sunday I fly from New York to Syracuse. On my way in I'll stay overnight with Gwen. In the other direction, both she and Suspect will be out of town. They offered use of their apartments, which I suppose I'll take them up on. The other options aren't good. I could take a greyhound to NYC and then taxi to JFK, but it would be a major pain.

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USAID is one of many donors for the project I work for. The views expressed herein are the author’s own views and do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer or especially those of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. And I mean it. I probably give the US government heart attacks.