Living in 21st century Turkmenistan on the US government's tab is life in the poor man's Raj. Like the clerk of Queen Victoria's most remote outposts before him, today's USAID functionary can't spend much time in country without a few encounters with exotica and suspicion, a few tales of astounding hospitality and ancient history. You won't find many regimental balls or high teas, but a tour of duty in the Silk Road's desert guarantees its share of ancient architecture, colorful customs, and blazing hot sun.
Which is not to say that a memoir of such a stint will be the stuff of E.M. Forster.
Unknown Sands is John Kropf's account of his experiences working for USAID in Ashgabat in 2000-2002. Fascinated by the past splendor and present peculiarities of the region, he takes every opportunity to extend his tether from the capital to explore what he characterizes as "the world's most isolated country." He visits Merv and the villages of Kopet Dag; He walks the eroded ramparts of Abiwerd and drives the length of the Amu Darya on the eastern border; He builds friendships, talks politics, eats plov, celebrates the Eid, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and develops the requisite whimsical fascination with a native collectible - in this case, yurt bands. ("Like early European merchants must have felt when they walked into a strange bazaar, I saw things that I didn't know existed an decided I needed them," he writes).
Kropf's subtitle promises "journeys" and his chapter headings suggest swashbuckling adventures -- "Two Hours Beyond the Ends of the Earth" and "In the Footsteps of Alexander." He has done enough research to provide a minimum of historical background for his road-trips and is a fair guide when it comes to recreating the atmosphere of his wind-swept destinations. But it is really his own journey that interests Kropf, and the roads of Turkmenistan function as a means to his own end. He spends more words describing the hazards of driving on desert highways than on the unchallenged despotism of his new home's government. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. He takes us to far-flung villages for a peremptory sketch of poverty before climbing back into his jeep. It is more a journal than a journalistic portrait. As he concludes at the end of his tale, "It was truly a lifetime experience, expanding and changing my views like a two-year Outward Bound course."
Part of the trouble is that Kropf is mesmerized by the strangeness of his surroundings. Certainly he is right to establish early on that Turkmenistan defies the notion of a routine posting. Its deserts, despotism and immense natural gas reserves are unsurpassed, and yet the country keeps a low profile on the geopolitical radar. Even mid-level State Department officials, apparently, are a bit surprised to find that the country might require the representation of the United States. To add to the cultural vertigo, Kropf had never lived abroad before. And his mental unpreparedness for the assignment dominates the book.
He is honest about his ignorance, which is measured in the clichés of his expectations of "Taj-Mahal-like domes of blue" and "safari-style khakis and pith helmets." He acknowledges his "infantile Russian language ability" and his sensation of "being inside of a bubble" when in the residential compound. But these admissions are exasperating rather than endearing: Kropf makes the job of convincing us that we have something to gain from sticking with him on his travels a much more difficult task than it should be.
Unknown Sands does have moments of wit and insight. Kropf himself coined the felicitous "poor man's Raj" purloined at the beginning of this review and remarks upon the legacy of Soviet urban planning as he pauses in Ashgabat's "public places without the public." In a fascinating episode he tells of finding human bones among the pottery shards of a dig site remnants of "sky burials" in which parents left the corpses of their children out for the desert to reclaim. At the same site he inadvertently destroys part of an ancient wall and laments, "I've just destroyed the link to the fifth ancient civilization."
After September 11, Kropf's job in Ashgabat gains some stature as he is called upon to help coordinate relief efforts for displaced Afghan refugees. He sends his wife and daughter home, but he resolves that with a war next door, "the idea of putting food in the hands of a family that was hungry was very tangible and very immediate and unlike anything I had worked on in Washington." The effort engages him for several months.
Preoccupied with his own alienation, Kropf makes little attempt to contextualize his journeys. Nor does his curiosity merit his narrative: he tells of driving past an old man on the side of the road surrounded by bottles of a mysterious liquid. "Out of pure curiosity I was half-tempted to stop and ask him what he was selling," he writes. But he doesn't. Ultimately, Unknown Sands hounds the unknown, but is indifferent to the sand.
Elizabeth Kiem is a freelance writer based in New York.
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