“Most of my important lessons about life have come from recognizing how others from a different culture view things.”
Edgar H. Schein
In 2004 I was contacted by a representative from the United States Department of State, who asked if I would be interested in participating in an international program that sponsors scientists from other countries. At that time, I was working for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as a senior scientist overseeing over 50 statewide wildlife conservation projects, including those that benefited large and small mammals as well as endangered species and multi-species projects. The State Department official described to me a program administered through the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), a non-profit organization that helps facilitate education and leadership opportunities worldwide. After learning more about this interesting program, I agreed to host a visiting professional from Turkmenistan. I was especially enthusiastic to participate because seventeen years earlier in 1987, I co-hosted a visiting scientist, Dr. Victor Fet, and his family – coincidentally also from Turkmenistan. Dr. Fet edited and co-authored “Biogeography and Ecology of Turkmenistan,” the first book to detail the flora and fauna of Turkmenistan. As an ecologist and scientist, I became absolutely fascinated with this unique and ancient desert region that is home to so many important ancestral plant and animal species. The more I learned from Dr. Fet’s book, the more enthralled I became with the Turkmen culture and other parts of Central Asia. To many westerners, this area in general and the Turkmen culture in particular, are relatively unknown.
I will always remember the first time I met Gochmyrat Gutlyyev at the Sacramento airport, where he arrived after about two weeks of intensive training from the State Department in Washington, D.C. – a crash course about American culture and customs. Not knowing what he looked like, I stood beyond the security checkpoint holding a sign with his name on it. I scanned the sea of people coming off planes until at last, a slender, dark-haired fellow wearing a navy blue wool pea coat spotted my sign. He immediately broke into a huge grin, a smile that animated his entire face. “You must be Gochmyrat,” I said. After we greeted each other, we got his luggage and I drove him to my home. My daughters had decorated our front door with a homemade sign that said, in brightly colored crayon, “Welcome, Gochmyrat!” I was anxious to get to know Gochmyrat and I also felt a huge sense of responsibility because I wanted him to have a good experience in this international exchange program. I tried to picture how he must be feeling: I imagined myself coming to a country on the opposite side of the planet, a country about which I knew only what I had read and what a crash course had just taught me. Where would I even start? And what would it be like to stay with complete strangers?