Much later, during the last week of my four months long tour in miraculous California, I remember sitting with Steven Torres himself in a cozy café at the outskirts of Sacramento at the local Farmers’ Market. We talked thirstily, of endless themes and experiences. He reflected on my journey and challenges, and I needed to explain in more details, how “now-became-theirs” this visitor from the opposite side of the globe entered into their everyday mode of life relatively easy. My now true friend in half voice remarked: “I am astonished how calmly you are feeling yourself among us, Americans. If I should appear in strange country, I do not think I would be able to behave with the same confident manner among those folks”. I told him that there was a period of life where I was the leader of the only alpine club in Turkmenistan. My challenge was to introduce a course of lectures aimed for beginners that required considering the “subtle manners of behavior in remote areas, in order not to touch the feelings of local people”. And I added that even before this period of my life I developed my own steady habit to trying to find any written materials regarding a region and the people of it, as preparation for where I travel. Naturally I acted the same way too, when getting ready for a trip to the United States in order to take part in Contemporary Issues Fellowship Program. That’s why it was quite an explainable matter that in my case a cultural shock was not detected so sharply as it was for some of the other participants of our round. Besides, I was ready to face any habits/behaviors of Americans which might seem strange for a foreigner, and to expect their possible funny questions. Nevertheless, I made several observations on the issue which may cause a smile, even for those who experienced themselves with the Americans’ mode of life.
I should admit that during a friendly party during this trip, I caught me myself with the worrisome fact (of course, not burst out aloud): “though, if preparing for a trip to my country, and try to look for literature related to everyday life of Turkmen, you would spend a lot of efforts for the task, and you would not find anything written in an intelligible style, at all…” Surely, there should be some dry scientific treatises covering a FEW aspects of traditions and rituals of Turkmenistan somewhere? But what about popular versions designed for a common person interested in the culture and customs of an unknown nation? Just then and there a vague idea started to develop in my mind: “why don’t I try to write something like a guide-book on mentality, traditions and mode of life of my own folks?” Let me add that this idea was born not on a blank slate of stone, but laid into prepared soil, sorry for an agricultural concept.