Days 8-10

On Saturday we slept in a little and then we went to breakfast at a restaurant called, "Coffee House". After breakfast we went to the Russian Market and the mall to shop around for souvenirs. We saw lots of clothes shops that had many t-shirts and jeans. Most of the t-shirts had American brand names on it and we learned that this was because Turkmenistan exports lots of clothes for these companies. We found a few t-shirts that said Turkmenistan on them, so we bought a few. Then we went to a traditional lunch. At six o'clock we went to the Tech Age Girls hotel to attend their closing ceremony. There they presented a power point about the Tech Age Girls program and what they learned. They also presented the two iMovies that they created during our training with them. They were a big hit. After the presentations we had dinner, talked, and took many pictures with all of the Tech Age girls. When it was over we went out to a hang out spot to have ice cream and fun games. We bowled for a while and then went back to our hotel and went to bed.

On Sunday we woke up at 6:30 am to go to the big market on the outskirts of the city. At the market we got to see much of the Turkmenistan culture as we mingled with the locals. We saw things being sold from traditional stuff to home goods that you can see in the United States. So there was a big variety. We Also were able to see the animal market there. This was very interesting because we saw many camels, cows and some goats being preped to be transported. After seeing everything we went back to the area where they sold the traditional Turkmen items. Now to spend our manats. We bought all kinds of souvenirs like sheep hats, braclets made from camel hair, little stuffe animal camels, jewlery, and more. We had lots of fun and got some good deals thanks to Mehri's bargaining skills. After buying all of our souvenirs we went to the Coffee House for Brunch. Then we decided to go back to the hotel and relax by the pool and to take some short naps. That evening we took a taxi to Myles' house for a barbeque. We ate dinner and talked for a while, then we watched a few episodes of the office. Afterwards, we went back to our hotel and went to bed.

Today we ate breakfast at our hotel and then went to Irex to continue our teaching. We worked with multiple groups on creating iMovies and Anna taught another group how to make Pop Art in Photoshop. Then in the afternoon while Anna was teaching another group, Mr. Shields and Kenny presented our "Life in the US" documentary to a group called, POET. That night we went out for dinner and had lots of fun before returning to our hotel.