Friday August 6
Last day! I skyped with Evan for three hours this morning because I finally didn’t have class to have to go to at 8:30 am. After that I hung around the center for a little while and used the internet for a little while. I went to Morning Star and ate with Jeremy, Reza and Joe and then headed back to the center for my test at 2 pm. It was the last section of the proficiency test, the writing section, and was also the most annoying to take because it takes so long. There were only 35 questions but some of the reading passages were 2 pages long! So its just tedious and takes a lot of energy to concentrate for that length of time. BUT, we finished and then we were done!! DONE! Done with our classes, done with our exams and done with being in Tajikistan.
We started the party soon after everyone finished their exams. After we got all the food ready, my class performed our play. Just when we got to the end, the part where the jen comes in and we are all scared, Atepha leaned on the ping pong table and it collapsed with all the salads and bread on it! The legs completely fell out from underneath it so the surface of the table fell flat on the ground! All the food was ok tho, we only lost part of the fruit salad and one of the vegetable salads. I rinsed off all the spoons and forks so everything else was still ok. The party was a success, the aush was good and I think we finished off the salads. After everyone had finished eating we made some speeches, thanking the teachers, and gave them flowers. Then Jake and Niso, my host mom, came around with little gifts for all the students who are leaving. We danced a little after that and talked and hung out at the center for a little while longer and then people started leaving.
I went with Kyle over to the other office building and we booked a hotel room for our time in Paris. So now we will definitely have a place to stay and keep all our stuff. When we had finished at the center I went home to change out of my Tajiki clothes and then went over to Brett’s house for a little while. I got home around 10 pm when they were all heading off to go to Opera or Samera’s house.
Saturday August 7
I got up and went with my mom to the bazar pretty early today- I think we got there around 7:30 or 7:45 and then we were home by 10. We just zipped in, found the things that I wanted, and then left. I only had to go to get a few last gifts for friends and family. My host mom tried to buy most things for me and I tried not to let her but she succeeded a few times. When we got home I found out that my host dad was taking the kids and Nodira to a honey exhibition so we jumped back in the car and headed out with them. On our way to the exhibition we stopped at the food bazaar and got a huge sack of flour and then delivered it to an orphanage. I think that it was part of my host dad’s job or something to drop it off.
When we got back to the house I was really tired from all the walking around and going to and fro and getting up so early in the morning. I rested for a little while but then got back up to pack up all my stuff to be ready to leave tomorrow night. I called my mom and talked to her for a while until my phone ran out of money and then the call got cut off because they suspended my service. Have to put more money on it tomorrow...
Sunday August 8
Last day in Tajikistan! I slept in a little bit and then hung around the house for the day until 3pm when I went to the office to fill out the evaluation for the summer and then I walked down Rudaki with Max on a few last minute errands. He was trying to change a few Euros into Somoni and I needed to put money on my phone so that I could call Evan tonight. On my way back to the house I stopped at Merve to get some baklava to give to my family as a going away gift.
For dinner I ate with Nodira and my host mom because Nasiba and the kids were still at their grandmother’s house. We had a good dinner and chatted for a while afterwards. Then I went back to my room to finish packing. I gave my last gifts to Amena and Azamat and the chocolate I had brought for my host dad. I talked to Jake today about the “rules” for giving gifts and he said in Tajik culture that you give gifts when you arrive somewhere and you receive gifts when you leave somewhere. So, I got even more gifts from my host family on this, my last night. Nasiba gave me a necklace and my host mom gave me another gift to give to my brother.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Within our grasp...
Saturday July 31
The last day of July! Today being Saturday, I slept in and then stayed in bed for a while reading. I started Wuthering Heights a few days ago and I think I am now about halfway through it. I also went to morning star with Rob to work on what we are gonna do tomorrow for our externship. We are not really looking forward to it just because we are so close to being done and, at this point, just want to get it over with.
A couple more cultural things I have learned-
When Tajiks shave off their little girls hair, it is customary to give bread and candy to all the neighbors. We got a bag the other day with a loaf of bread and some candy bars.
For Tajik weddings, two days before the wedding is “Aush Nahar” which means lunch of Aush. All the men in the neighborhood go to a restaurant and have Aush together. Then the day before all the girls in the neighborhood go over to the brides house for lunch together.
Sunday August 1
First day of August! Woohoo! We’re getting close to the end! Today Rob and I had our externship. We went out to a summer came for young teenage Tajik kids and talked about community service and volunteer work in the US. After we talked we opened it up for questions and some of the kids had more questions about what kind of work we had done in the states but then we got other questions like do we like living in Tajikistan, what is our favorite Tajik food and have we ever been to a rap concert? After our presentation and the q&a time we started the games that we had planned for. We had organized five challenges/critical thinking games that could be played simultaneously by 5 teams. So, we did a river crossing, blanket turn, relay race, swimming race and spider’s web. It all went really well, I was really happy afterwards and Rob and I got a lot of practice talking in Persian/Tajik.
Monday August 2
Last Monday of class! My journal has just reached the 30th page and I am SO excited about going to home. Ok well Europe first, then home. I am very excited for both. It might be a little ridiculous to say this but I may be more excited about getting home and eating oreos and milk in the airport than I am about going to Paris and Barcelona. Its a close call.
Instead of having Persian class and doing actual work today we continued working on the backdrop for our play on Friday with Atepha. Then we had our last Tajik class because instead of having a lesson tomorrow for our two hours of Tajik we are going to Zarinna’s house to make sambosas. This is also very exciting since I don’t know if I can handle another two hours of Tajik.
Tuesday August 3
5 MORE DAYS. We can now count down on one hand!
We had two hours of Persian today and we did some real work on more grammar structures and then worked more on the play for Friday. I’m glad we are doing that instead of a real final. We also read and recorded our final compositions about world problems which was our last speech!
After Persian class we headed over to Zarinna’s house for sambosas! They were soooo good. We made them with butternut squash inside instead of meat which I liked a lot better. This also meant that I finally went an entire day without eating meat. I think this is the first day since I’ve been here that I have successfully avoided meat.
My host dad this evening said that he wants to go somewhere this weekend with me and Nodira and someone else, I wasn’t exactly clear on what he said. But he suggested going to Hisor Fort until my host mom told him that I have already gone there so then he said he would think of somewhere else to go and would get back to me later. So that seems to be the plan for Saturday. After that we talked about whether I am going to come back to Tajikistan or not and my host dad told me that I should come back and visit after I finish college because he can give me a job and will find a husband for me. When I told him I had a boyfriend who lives in the States he was like “Oh, how old is he? What does he do? When are you going to get married?” So after I answered all his questions about Evan he was like, “You know, after you get married is when the kids come.” Fortunately, I was saved from replying to his awkward statement by my host mom who stepped in and told him to stop pestering me.
Wednesday August 4
I started packing last night just because I was getting so antsy not doing anything and wanted to accomplish something productive. So I got out my list of what I need for Paris and Barcelona (which I wrote last week) and started putting things in my suitcase.
This morning I skyped with Evan before I had my Tajik exam. The test went pretty well, I was only confused on one small part where we had to fill in the blanks in a paragraph because I didn’t know what one of the words meant. But everything else went well. Tomorrow we have two proficiency tests for Persian and then one other one on Friday afternoon right before the party and our play. After that, we will be done!
Thursday August 5
Today we have two proficiency tests- listening in the morning and writing in the afternoon. I don’t think very many people are studying or anything because they don’t affect our grades, they are just to see our improvement since studying here for the summer.
Hmm, bad news, Babak just told me that his friend we were going to stay with in Paris apartment flooded. So now, we are going to be in Paris in 4 days and we have nowhere to stay. Great. Oh the upside, today is Thursday which means that tomorrow is Friday and tomorrow we will be able to say, tomorrow is Saturday and the day after that is Sunday which is the night that we leave! Of course, Kyle also pointed out that, while we're at it, we might as well say that "and after that comes Christmas!" so we may just start a countdown for that too lol. BUT, in all seriousness, the end is within our grasp, on the very tips of our fingers, and we are all very excited.
The last day of July! Today being Saturday, I slept in and then stayed in bed for a while reading. I started Wuthering Heights a few days ago and I think I am now about halfway through it. I also went to morning star with Rob to work on what we are gonna do tomorrow for our externship. We are not really looking forward to it just because we are so close to being done and, at this point, just want to get it over with.
A couple more cultural things I have learned-
When Tajiks shave off their little girls hair, it is customary to give bread and candy to all the neighbors. We got a bag the other day with a loaf of bread and some candy bars.
For Tajik weddings, two days before the wedding is “Aush Nahar” which means lunch of Aush. All the men in the neighborhood go to a restaurant and have Aush together. Then the day before all the girls in the neighborhood go over to the brides house for lunch together.
Sunday August 1
First day of August! Woohoo! We’re getting close to the end! Today Rob and I had our externship. We went out to a summer came for young teenage Tajik kids and talked about community service and volunteer work in the US. After we talked we opened it up for questions and some of the kids had more questions about what kind of work we had done in the states but then we got other questions like do we like living in Tajikistan, what is our favorite Tajik food and have we ever been to a rap concert? After our presentation and the q&a time we started the games that we had planned for. We had organized five challenges/critical thinking games that could be played simultaneously by 5 teams. So, we did a river crossing, blanket turn, relay race, swimming race and spider’s web. It all went really well, I was really happy afterwards and Rob and I got a lot of practice talking in Persian/Tajik.
Monday August 2
Last Monday of class! My journal has just reached the 30th page and I am SO excited about going to home. Ok well Europe first, then home. I am very excited for both. It might be a little ridiculous to say this but I may be more excited about getting home and eating oreos and milk in the airport than I am about going to Paris and Barcelona. Its a close call.
Instead of having Persian class and doing actual work today we continued working on the backdrop for our play on Friday with Atepha. Then we had our last Tajik class because instead of having a lesson tomorrow for our two hours of Tajik we are going to Zarinna’s house to make sambosas. This is also very exciting since I don’t know if I can handle another two hours of Tajik.
Tuesday August 3
5 MORE DAYS. We can now count down on one hand!
We had two hours of Persian today and we did some real work on more grammar structures and then worked more on the play for Friday. I’m glad we are doing that instead of a real final. We also read and recorded our final compositions about world problems which was our last speech!
After Persian class we headed over to Zarinna’s house for sambosas! They were soooo good. We made them with butternut squash inside instead of meat which I liked a lot better. This also meant that I finally went an entire day without eating meat. I think this is the first day since I’ve been here that I have successfully avoided meat.
My host dad this evening said that he wants to go somewhere this weekend with me and Nodira and someone else, I wasn’t exactly clear on what he said. But he suggested going to Hisor Fort until my host mom told him that I have already gone there so then he said he would think of somewhere else to go and would get back to me later. So that seems to be the plan for Saturday. After that we talked about whether I am going to come back to Tajikistan or not and my host dad told me that I should come back and visit after I finish college because he can give me a job and will find a husband for me. When I told him I had a boyfriend who lives in the States he was like “Oh, how old is he? What does he do? When are you going to get married?” So after I answered all his questions about Evan he was like, “You know, after you get married is when the kids come.” Fortunately, I was saved from replying to his awkward statement by my host mom who stepped in and told him to stop pestering me.
Wednesday August 4
I started packing last night just because I was getting so antsy not doing anything and wanted to accomplish something productive. So I got out my list of what I need for Paris and Barcelona (which I wrote last week) and started putting things in my suitcase.
This morning I skyped with Evan before I had my Tajik exam. The test went pretty well, I was only confused on one small part where we had to fill in the blanks in a paragraph because I didn’t know what one of the words meant. But everything else went well. Tomorrow we have two proficiency tests for Persian and then one other one on Friday afternoon right before the party and our play. After that, we will be done!
Thursday August 5
Today we have two proficiency tests- listening in the morning and writing in the afternoon. I don’t think very many people are studying or anything because they don’t affect our grades, they are just to see our improvement since studying here for the summer.
Hmm, bad news, Babak just told me that his friend we were going to stay with in Paris apartment flooded. So now, we are going to be in Paris in 4 days and we have nowhere to stay. Great. Oh the upside, today is Thursday which means that tomorrow is Friday and tomorrow we will be able to say, tomorrow is Saturday and the day after that is Sunday which is the night that we leave! Of course, Kyle also pointed out that, while we're at it, we might as well say that "and after that comes Christmas!" so we may just start a countdown for that too lol. BUT, in all seriousness, the end is within our grasp, on the very tips of our fingers, and we are all very excited.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Final Countdown!...
Wednesday July 21
18 more days til we leave! We started counting down in days instead of weeks because saying 2.5 weeks seems like such a long time and the numbers go by faster by counting down in days.
A few comical things…
1) The kittens that we adopted both left for a little while and then one of them came back. The other morning Azamat came to the office with my host mom and was playing with the one who had come back. However, he doesn’t really understand how to play with it or hold it properly so he was carrying it around in the most convenient way for him. Unfortunately for the kitten, the meant being carried around by the neck. The poor kitten looked terrified and was trying to run away as soon as Azamat would put her down. I am now convinced that it is because of Azamat that they ran away in the first place.
2) Since Azamat was holding the kitten by the neck the other day, this morning Atepha tried to teach him how to hold the kitten properly. When that didn’t work she took the cat away, put his arms in the right position and then placed the cat in them. She was then stroking the cat and telling Azamat to be gently with him and be nice. Then, while still saying be nice and gently, she patted Azamat on the head too. To which he responded, “I am not a cat!” and ran away from her!
3) Amena has gotten quite attached to me and sometimes cries when her mom takes her away from me so that I can eat. Its so cute. She makes me feel loved lol.
4) We have dance parties on a regular basis. This makes the RUF side of me very happy. Amena is just old enough to be able to bob around to the music and try not to fall over when she makes herself dizzy and Azamat is now old enough that his aunt, Nodira, is trying to teach him how to dance like a Tajik man instead of just waving his arms around randomly.
5) Last night (Wed July 21) Nodira and I took Amena and Azamat for a walk since the weather was nice and cool today. We made it up the street to the Ped Institute where we stopped to let Amena run around on the grass and chase a bird and Azamat climb on the fence and ride his little car on the sidewalk. We were about to continue our walk down Rudaki when Nodira and I noticed a brown stain on the back of Azamat’s shorts. We thought he had sat in a mud puddle until he kept pulling on his pants. Nodira went over to check and, yep! Sure enough, Azamat had made a mess in his shorts. We made him sit back down on his little car so that no one would see and quickly made our way home before anyone could say “Aye aye aye!”
6) Since the weather has gotten pretty hot Azamat now runs around semi/completely naked on a regular basis, claiming “Ab bazi mikonam!” (I’m playing with water/swimming/taking a bath) but I’m pretty sure its just an excuse lol.
Thursday July 22
Hmm...I’m pretty sure that today was just class as normal, I don’t recall anything special happening. We are continuing the countdown to the day we leave but it seems to be going slower and slower the closer we get. That probably has something to do with the number of times we think about it every day. If you think, 17 days left, five times in the same day then the number isn’t really going to change…
Friday July 23
Today was the last day for the Cali kids so we had a party with Persian food after the film class ended. We had gormeh sabzi and gehmeh botemjoon with salad shirazi and mostakhiar, fruit salad and some sort of Tajik dessert that Jacoba made with Soltanat (Zarinna’s daughter). I ate so much food that it was slightly uncomfortable but very satisfying. It has been pointed back to me that this is somewhat a contradiction in terms but, if you have eaten way too much Iranian food, you will understand. It was totally worth it.
After the party at the office was over I went over to Brett’s house with a few other people and then went home when they all headed over to Samera’s place. By the end of the week I am always so exhausted that I don’t feel like going out or doing anything on Friday nights. Yeah, go ahead and call me an old lady, I can take it.
Saturday July 24
I had planned to sleep in today but have decided that that is just completely impossible in this city. The sun is blazing in my window at 6am and then by 7 there are children crying and playing in the streets, making lots of noise. So I gave up on that plan and got up at my normal time like I do to go to class- 7:15. My host mom commented that I was up early and asked if I was going somewhere. Nope! Not goin anywhere because Saturday=laundry day. I told my host mom that I was staying at home for the day and planned to do some homework, read and do my laundry. I had a lot to do because I haven’t done any for 3 weeks so it took me about 2 hours all together to get it all done.
While we were sitting in the family room eating breakfast I saw an old man walking through the courtyard and told my host mom “Um...someone came in…” She looked around and said “Oh, thats my father.” So I met my host mom’s dad aka Amena’s great grandfather. He was probably the oldest littlest man I’ve ever seen. He took a nap on the couch after eating breakfast while I did my laundry and then stayed for lunch and left.
Sunday July 25
I started reading the Kite Runner this morning and was halfway done by lunchtime. After lunch I went to SFC with Gaby to work on our homework for Monday’s class. I had one of their fabulous milkshakes for the first time- I got pineapple, Gaby got strawberry. I then finished the Kite Runner before I went to bed. I thought it was really good. Good enough to read in one day at least.
I got home from SFC in time to help my host family finish getting ready for the dinner party we were having for the guests visiting American Councils from some of their other offices. Atepha and Zarinna also came along with Jake and his wife Amelia. It was kind of a running joke throughout the evening who was going to help clear the dishes and serve the next course and all. I was one of the people allowed to actually help and do things, like a true Tajik daughter.
My host dad insisted on pouring everyone wine, even after people saying they didn’t want any (Amelia protested and my host dad insisted and then Jake said that he didn’t give her permission to drink but that STILL didn’t work and he poured her a glass anyways). When he tried to refill Atepha’s glass she had to refuse by saying “In the name of God, NO!”
Monday July 26
Last full week of class! Meisam is still hurt and unable to teach so Atepha will be taking both of our Farsi classes for the rest of the summer. We talked about our final exams today and for composition class we are going to do an out of class essay and just turn it in on our last day, next Friday. But for conversation class we are going to do a play! It should be fun- all the characters are animals and it kind of pokes fun of different aspects of Persian culture. Apparently we are going to perform it at our party next Friday and I’m sure it will be video taped...some definite blackmail potential material there...
After classes I hung around the center and got some work done and then went home early for dinner. I was feeling kind of sick and didn’t really want to eat all that much food. We were also having soup which I don’t really like in general so I didn’t have very much of it. After dinner my host dad told me, 1) that I don’t eat enough food. Do I not want to get fat or something? and 2) that Amena, my 1 year old host sister, ate more than I did.
Tuesday July 27
After classes today I went with Kyle, Dan and Gaby to another Iranian restaurant farther down Rudaki called Persia. It was really good- we had salad shirazi, non, gormeh sabzi and farenjoon. While we were there one of the waiters, who was not our waiter by the way, came over and asked Gaby if she would be interested in going to parties with him at the Iranian embassy, since she speaks Persian and all. So could he have her number so that he could let her know when stuff was going on? I was wondering how she was going to get out of it but she dodged nicely and said that she is always on her email so he could just send her an email instead of a phone call. We could barely wait to pay the bill and get out of the restaurant before bursting into laughter. The guy had guts thats for sure, the entire meal we were joking around about how it was a double date because Dan and Gaby were sitting across from each other and Kyle and I were across from each other and we got two of everything and shared food. Why he didn’t think that Dan and Gaby were together I don’t know. Definitely took some courage.
On our way back to the center after lunch we stopped at the video store and I traded in the three movies that I had gotten before for other movies that work in my computer (I brought my laptop along so that I could make sure before I left the store). So I now have three new movies- Star Trek, Avatar and The Hurt Locker. We watched the Hurt Locker when we got back to the center and will probably watch something else tomorrow afternoon.
Gah! I had just caught up a week’s worth of my journal as I was sitting in my room late in the evening watching a movie. My battery signal said I had 7% life left so I was going to plug it in in a minute when all of a sudden it crashed and I lost everything I had just typed for the last hour! I was so frustrated that I retyped everything really quickly so that I wouldn’t forget and went straight to bed.
Wednesday July 28
Today was our short day of classes so Dan Kyle and I went to Fast Food for lunch and then stopped at Sum to get some gifts before we go back home. As we were walking around and looking at everything we realized how incredibly expensive everything is there compared to at the bazaar, even after you bargain for a better price. So, we decided to just skip Sum and go straight to the bazaar- Bazaar Karvon, the biggest one in the city. We met up with Diana back at the center and then set out. I may have said this before but just in case, the bazaar, because its so big, its way outside the city, so it takes a mashrutka and a taxi to get there. We all got some gifts for friends/family and then headed back home. I wasn’t able to get everything that I wanted because we went somewhat late in the day and a lot of the stalls in the bazaar were closed until the next morning so we’ll have to go back sometime later to get everything else that we wanted to find there.
Thursday July 29
Ahh, second to last late morning of class. I awoke to the sound of rain which is something that I haven’t seen for a while. The sound of it on the courtyard floor was such a soft pitter patter that I fell back asleep and woke up an hour later, read a chapter of Wuthering Heights, ate breakfast, picked up my room and then headed to the center. Today was another one of the days when we don’t have all that much time for lunch so we went to Morning Star since its the closest place. I am finally becoming tired of eating there, its a good thing we only have a week left because I think I have ordered almost everything on the menu at least once.
Friday July 30
I had the strangest dream last night- I dreamed that my brother, Dana, was going to be a freshman at the University of Maryland and I was showing he and my family around campus at his orientation weekend. Dana said that he wanted to look into joining the marching band even though they had sent him a letter trying to recruit him and he hadn’t been interested before. So I took him over to the band building and he was able to walk on to the marching band without auditioning or anything! Then he was immediately invited to the banquet they were having that afternoon. He was so excited and they seemed thrilled to have him in the band. It’s strange because Dana doesn’t play any instruments at all...
Last Friday of class!!!! This next week is going to be a week full of lasts for us- quite exciting for those of us who are going. We had our second to last weekly meeting with Jake the RD this afternoon and he was warning us that we should look up the baggage restrictions for Turkish airlines for our flights home so that we don’t get into trouble when we show up at the airport next week. Kyle and I looked at the website after the meeting and we may be in some trouble. Since we are not flying straight back to the states but are going to Paris instead, we are only allowed to have one checked bag and one carryon...looks like we may have to pay some overage charges for an extra checked bag. Grr…
During film class today we all jumped at a very loud noise and I opened the blinds to find that it was thunderstorming. We were all really excited, me especially because I love storms and they are such a rare occurrence here during the summer.
By the way, my journal is now 28 full pages, single spaced, on Microsoft Word. Seems two months worth of my thoughts and daily adventures take up quite a lot of space!
18 more days til we leave! We started counting down in days instead of weeks because saying 2.5 weeks seems like such a long time and the numbers go by faster by counting down in days.
A few comical things…
1) The kittens that we adopted both left for a little while and then one of them came back. The other morning Azamat came to the office with my host mom and was playing with the one who had come back. However, he doesn’t really understand how to play with it or hold it properly so he was carrying it around in the most convenient way for him. Unfortunately for the kitten, the meant being carried around by the neck. The poor kitten looked terrified and was trying to run away as soon as Azamat would put her down. I am now convinced that it is because of Azamat that they ran away in the first place.
2) Since Azamat was holding the kitten by the neck the other day, this morning Atepha tried to teach him how to hold the kitten properly. When that didn’t work she took the cat away, put his arms in the right position and then placed the cat in them. She was then stroking the cat and telling Azamat to be gently with him and be nice. Then, while still saying be nice and gently, she patted Azamat on the head too. To which he responded, “I am not a cat!” and ran away from her!
3) Amena has gotten quite attached to me and sometimes cries when her mom takes her away from me so that I can eat. Its so cute. She makes me feel loved lol.
4) We have dance parties on a regular basis. This makes the RUF side of me very happy. Amena is just old enough to be able to bob around to the music and try not to fall over when she makes herself dizzy and Azamat is now old enough that his aunt, Nodira, is trying to teach him how to dance like a Tajik man instead of just waving his arms around randomly.
5) Last night (Wed July 21) Nodira and I took Amena and Azamat for a walk since the weather was nice and cool today. We made it up the street to the Ped Institute where we stopped to let Amena run around on the grass and chase a bird and Azamat climb on the fence and ride his little car on the sidewalk. We were about to continue our walk down Rudaki when Nodira and I noticed a brown stain on the back of Azamat’s shorts. We thought he had sat in a mud puddle until he kept pulling on his pants. Nodira went over to check and, yep! Sure enough, Azamat had made a mess in his shorts. We made him sit back down on his little car so that no one would see and quickly made our way home before anyone could say “Aye aye aye!”
6) Since the weather has gotten pretty hot Azamat now runs around semi/completely naked on a regular basis, claiming “Ab bazi mikonam!” (I’m playing with water/swimming/taking a bath) but I’m pretty sure its just an excuse lol.
Thursday July 22
Hmm...I’m pretty sure that today was just class as normal, I don’t recall anything special happening. We are continuing the countdown to the day we leave but it seems to be going slower and slower the closer we get. That probably has something to do with the number of times we think about it every day. If you think, 17 days left, five times in the same day then the number isn’t really going to change…
Friday July 23
Today was the last day for the Cali kids so we had a party with Persian food after the film class ended. We had gormeh sabzi and gehmeh botemjoon with salad shirazi and mostakhiar, fruit salad and some sort of Tajik dessert that Jacoba made with Soltanat (Zarinna’s daughter). I ate so much food that it was slightly uncomfortable but very satisfying. It has been pointed back to me that this is somewhat a contradiction in terms but, if you have eaten way too much Iranian food, you will understand. It was totally worth it.
After the party at the office was over I went over to Brett’s house with a few other people and then went home when they all headed over to Samera’s place. By the end of the week I am always so exhausted that I don’t feel like going out or doing anything on Friday nights. Yeah, go ahead and call me an old lady, I can take it.
Saturday July 24
I had planned to sleep in today but have decided that that is just completely impossible in this city. The sun is blazing in my window at 6am and then by 7 there are children crying and playing in the streets, making lots of noise. So I gave up on that plan and got up at my normal time like I do to go to class- 7:15. My host mom commented that I was up early and asked if I was going somewhere. Nope! Not goin anywhere because Saturday=laundry day. I told my host mom that I was staying at home for the day and planned to do some homework, read and do my laundry. I had a lot to do because I haven’t done any for 3 weeks so it took me about 2 hours all together to get it all done.
While we were sitting in the family room eating breakfast I saw an old man walking through the courtyard and told my host mom “Um...someone came in…” She looked around and said “Oh, thats my father.” So I met my host mom’s dad aka Amena’s great grandfather. He was probably the oldest littlest man I’ve ever seen. He took a nap on the couch after eating breakfast while I did my laundry and then stayed for lunch and left.
Sunday July 25
I started reading the Kite Runner this morning and was halfway done by lunchtime. After lunch I went to SFC with Gaby to work on our homework for Monday’s class. I had one of their fabulous milkshakes for the first time- I got pineapple, Gaby got strawberry. I then finished the Kite Runner before I went to bed. I thought it was really good. Good enough to read in one day at least.
I got home from SFC in time to help my host family finish getting ready for the dinner party we were having for the guests visiting American Councils from some of their other offices. Atepha and Zarinna also came along with Jake and his wife Amelia. It was kind of a running joke throughout the evening who was going to help clear the dishes and serve the next course and all. I was one of the people allowed to actually help and do things, like a true Tajik daughter.
My host dad insisted on pouring everyone wine, even after people saying they didn’t want any (Amelia protested and my host dad insisted and then Jake said that he didn’t give her permission to drink but that STILL didn’t work and he poured her a glass anyways). When he tried to refill Atepha’s glass she had to refuse by saying “In the name of God, NO!”
Monday July 26
Last full week of class! Meisam is still hurt and unable to teach so Atepha will be taking both of our Farsi classes for the rest of the summer. We talked about our final exams today and for composition class we are going to do an out of class essay and just turn it in on our last day, next Friday. But for conversation class we are going to do a play! It should be fun- all the characters are animals and it kind of pokes fun of different aspects of Persian culture. Apparently we are going to perform it at our party next Friday and I’m sure it will be video taped...some definite blackmail potential material there...
After classes I hung around the center and got some work done and then went home early for dinner. I was feeling kind of sick and didn’t really want to eat all that much food. We were also having soup which I don’t really like in general so I didn’t have very much of it. After dinner my host dad told me, 1) that I don’t eat enough food. Do I not want to get fat or something? and 2) that Amena, my 1 year old host sister, ate more than I did.
Tuesday July 27
After classes today I went with Kyle, Dan and Gaby to another Iranian restaurant farther down Rudaki called Persia. It was really good- we had salad shirazi, non, gormeh sabzi and farenjoon. While we were there one of the waiters, who was not our waiter by the way, came over and asked Gaby if she would be interested in going to parties with him at the Iranian embassy, since she speaks Persian and all. So could he have her number so that he could let her know when stuff was going on? I was wondering how she was going to get out of it but she dodged nicely and said that she is always on her email so he could just send her an email instead of a phone call. We could barely wait to pay the bill and get out of the restaurant before bursting into laughter. The guy had guts thats for sure, the entire meal we were joking around about how it was a double date because Dan and Gaby were sitting across from each other and Kyle and I were across from each other and we got two of everything and shared food. Why he didn’t think that Dan and Gaby were together I don’t know. Definitely took some courage.
On our way back to the center after lunch we stopped at the video store and I traded in the three movies that I had gotten before for other movies that work in my computer (I brought my laptop along so that I could make sure before I left the store). So I now have three new movies- Star Trek, Avatar and The Hurt Locker. We watched the Hurt Locker when we got back to the center and will probably watch something else tomorrow afternoon.
Gah! I had just caught up a week’s worth of my journal as I was sitting in my room late in the evening watching a movie. My battery signal said I had 7% life left so I was going to plug it in in a minute when all of a sudden it crashed and I lost everything I had just typed for the last hour! I was so frustrated that I retyped everything really quickly so that I wouldn’t forget and went straight to bed.
Wednesday July 28
Today was our short day of classes so Dan Kyle and I went to Fast Food for lunch and then stopped at Sum to get some gifts before we go back home. As we were walking around and looking at everything we realized how incredibly expensive everything is there compared to at the bazaar, even after you bargain for a better price. So, we decided to just skip Sum and go straight to the bazaar- Bazaar Karvon, the biggest one in the city. We met up with Diana back at the center and then set out. I may have said this before but just in case, the bazaar, because its so big, its way outside the city, so it takes a mashrutka and a taxi to get there. We all got some gifts for friends/family and then headed back home. I wasn’t able to get everything that I wanted because we went somewhat late in the day and a lot of the stalls in the bazaar were closed until the next morning so we’ll have to go back sometime later to get everything else that we wanted to find there.
Thursday July 29
Ahh, second to last late morning of class. I awoke to the sound of rain which is something that I haven’t seen for a while. The sound of it on the courtyard floor was such a soft pitter patter that I fell back asleep and woke up an hour later, read a chapter of Wuthering Heights, ate breakfast, picked up my room and then headed to the center. Today was another one of the days when we don’t have all that much time for lunch so we went to Morning Star since its the closest place. I am finally becoming tired of eating there, its a good thing we only have a week left because I think I have ordered almost everything on the menu at least once.
Friday July 30
I had the strangest dream last night- I dreamed that my brother, Dana, was going to be a freshman at the University of Maryland and I was showing he and my family around campus at his orientation weekend. Dana said that he wanted to look into joining the marching band even though they had sent him a letter trying to recruit him and he hadn’t been interested before. So I took him over to the band building and he was able to walk on to the marching band without auditioning or anything! Then he was immediately invited to the banquet they were having that afternoon. He was so excited and they seemed thrilled to have him in the band. It’s strange because Dana doesn’t play any instruments at all...
Last Friday of class!!!! This next week is going to be a week full of lasts for us- quite exciting for those of us who are going. We had our second to last weekly meeting with Jake the RD this afternoon and he was warning us that we should look up the baggage restrictions for Turkish airlines for our flights home so that we don’t get into trouble when we show up at the airport next week. Kyle and I looked at the website after the meeting and we may be in some trouble. Since we are not flying straight back to the states but are going to Paris instead, we are only allowed to have one checked bag and one carryon...looks like we may have to pay some overage charges for an extra checked bag. Grr…
During film class today we all jumped at a very loud noise and I opened the blinds to find that it was thunderstorming. We were all really excited, me especially because I love storms and they are such a rare occurrence here during the summer.
By the way, my journal is now 28 full pages, single spaced, on Microsoft Word. Seems two months worth of my thoughts and daily adventures take up quite a lot of space!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Comical Sidenotes
A few comical things…
1)The kittens that we adopted both left for a little while and then one of them came back. The other morning Azamat came to the office with my host mom and was playing with the one who had come back. However, he doesn’t really understand how to play with it or hold it properly so he was carrying it around in the most convenient way for him. Unfortunately for the kitten, the meant being carried around by the neck. The poor kitten looked terrified and was trying to run away as soon as Azamat would put her down. I am now convinced that it is because of Azamat that they ran away in the first place.
2) Since Azamat was holding the kitten by the neck the other day, this morning Atepha tried to teach him how to hold the kitten properly. When that didn’t work she took the cat away, put his arms in the right position and then placed the cat in them. She was then stroking the cat and telling Azamat to be gently with him and be nice. Then, while still saying be nice and gently, she patted Azamat on the head too. To which he responded, “I am not a cat!” and ran away from her!
3) Amena has gotten quite attached to me and sometimes cries when her mom takes her away from me so that I can eat. Its so cute. She makes me feel loved lol :)
4) We have dance parties on a regular basis. This makes the RUF side of me very happy. Amena is just old enough to be able to bob around to the music and try not to fall over when she makes herself dizzy and Azamat is now old enough that his aunt, Nodira, is trying to teach him how to dance like a Tajik man instead of just waving his arms around randomly.
5) Last night (Wed July 21) Nodira and I took Amena and Azamat for a walk since the weather was nice and cool today. We made it up the street to the Ped Institute where we stopped to let Amena run around on the grass and chase a bird and Azamat climb on the fence and ride his little car on the sidewalk. We were about to continue our walk down Rudaki when Nodira and I noticed a brown stain on the back of Azamat’s shorts. We thought he had sat in a mud puddle until he kept pulling on his pants. Nodira went over to check and, yep! Sure enough, Azamat had made a mess in his shorts. We made him sit back down on his little car so that no one would see and quickly made our way home before anyone could say “Aye aye aye!”
1)The kittens that we adopted both left for a little while and then one of them came back. The other morning Azamat came to the office with my host mom and was playing with the one who had come back. However, he doesn’t really understand how to play with it or hold it properly so he was carrying it around in the most convenient way for him. Unfortunately for the kitten, the meant being carried around by the neck. The poor kitten looked terrified and was trying to run away as soon as Azamat would put her down. I am now convinced that it is because of Azamat that they ran away in the first place.
2) Since Azamat was holding the kitten by the neck the other day, this morning Atepha tried to teach him how to hold the kitten properly. When that didn’t work she took the cat away, put his arms in the right position and then placed the cat in them. She was then stroking the cat and telling Azamat to be gently with him and be nice. Then, while still saying be nice and gently, she patted Azamat on the head too. To which he responded, “I am not a cat!” and ran away from her!
3) Amena has gotten quite attached to me and sometimes cries when her mom takes her away from me so that I can eat. Its so cute. She makes me feel loved lol :)
4) We have dance parties on a regular basis. This makes the RUF side of me very happy. Amena is just old enough to be able to bob around to the music and try not to fall over when she makes herself dizzy and Azamat is now old enough that his aunt, Nodira, is trying to teach him how to dance like a Tajik man instead of just waving his arms around randomly.
5) Last night (Wed July 21) Nodira and I took Amena and Azamat for a walk since the weather was nice and cool today. We made it up the street to the Ped Institute where we stopped to let Amena run around on the grass and chase a bird and Azamat climb on the fence and ride his little car on the sidewalk. We were about to continue our walk down Rudaki when Nodira and I noticed a brown stain on the back of Azamat’s shorts. We thought he had sat in a mud puddle until he kept pulling on his pants. Nodira went over to check and, yep! Sure enough, Azamat had made a mess in his shorts. We made him sit back down on his little car so that no one would see and quickly made our way home before anyone could say “Aye aye aye!”
Iskander Kul
Friday July 16
Tonight we went out to dinner, all the flagship people, with Michelle and Khorshed. Sarah has a pretty bad case of food poisoning from the vegetables she ate at lunch yesterday that weren’t washed properly so she stayed at the hotel to rest up so that she can still come on the excursion this weekend to Iskander Kul. We took a mashrutka to Merve, a Turkish restaurant, on the other side of town. I ordered a Turkish pizza called a “pide” with chicken and cheese. They are so good, I had one when I was at the airport in Istanbul flying over here too.
After dinner I went home and packed for our camping trip in the mountains this weekend. I’m so excited to go camping again!
Saturday July 17
We left this morning at 7:30am in three jeeps to drive about three and a half hours to Iskander Kul. The group was just the flagship kids, Michelle and Sarah who were visiting from the states, Khorshed who is like the operations manager here in Dushanbe, and the drivers. The trip there was beautiful- we stopped several times on the side of the road to take pictures of the mountainous scenery. Since we were driving through the mountains and getting farther and farther away from the city, the road got progressively worse. Large potholes, no asphalt, rocks etc were making our jeep bounce around quite a bit. I think it might have been especially bad for Kyle and I since we were sitting in the back of the jeep, over the axle, bouncing up and down over all the holes rocks etc.
We arrived at Iskander Kul around 12pm. Again, the view driving in, going down the mountain on switchbacks at a rather high speed, was glorious. The lake there is a beautiful teal blue color and is crystal clear. It is also freezing cold since it is fed by mountain streams from melting glaciers.
Khorshed said that there is snow on the mountain tops from October to May and that the lake completely freezes over during the winter. There are no fish or anything in the lake because the water is always so cold and then with all the ice in the winter, they aren’t able to live there. We drove all the way around the lake to get to our campsite along the river that feeds into the lake. There are a few older men who have a trailer with a kitchen there and they let groups rent their property and they cook all the meals. It was a pretty nice location- our tents were already set up for us and they provided sleeping bags for us. The only bad thing was that we couldn’t see the lake from where we were and there were also a lot of mosquitoes since we were right next to the woods.
After lunch we went for a hike to see the waterfall. Probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. There is a balcony built over the top of it that you can stand on so that you are literally standing on top of the falls. The waterfall is 40m straight down which is 131.23 feet which is a 13 story building. The water pouring down is so powerful that the spray it creates causes a rainbow. Next to the falls there was a tree with lots of strips of cloth tied on to the branches. We asked Khorshed and he said it was a wishing tree. People who hike to see the waterfall will rip off a piece of their t-shirts or something and tie it onto the tree while making a wish. Michelle used a piece of fabric she found on the ground to make a wish but gaby actually pulled off part of her sleeve to use for her wish.
When we had finished admiring and taking pictures at the waterfall we hiked back the direction we came and then kept going for a little while until we reached Snake Lake. We climbed up on the hill next to that lake and were able to see Snake Lake on one side and then turn around and see Iskander Kul lake on the other side.
Once it got dark enough we went out after dinner and laid on the bridge that crossed the river to get to our camp and looked at the stars. We could see so many stars! We were able to see a few constellations that we recognized and also the Milky Way. So pretty- I wish I could have taken pictures but they just didn’t show up on the camera very well. When we got too cold from laying on the bridge we went back to the campsite to sit around the fire and then headed to bed.
Sunday July 18
Breakfast was at 8am and we got into the jeeps shortly thereafter to drive over one of the mountains to the valley on the other side and go hiking from there. Once we crested the mountain top, we could see down into the valley. It looked so lush and green and was filled with wildflowers.
We drove down the other side of the mountain and through the valley, passing through a small village on our way. Its rather out of the way (and by rather I mean INCREDIBLY out of the way, several hours from any grocery store or anything like that) but how cool would it be to live at the foot of a mountain like that!? When we got to the place where we were going to start hiking I looked out the window and saw an abandoned bus which looked exactly like where Chris McCandless lived when he wandered into the Alaskan wilderness in “Into the Wild.”
We started hiking up one of the mountains and stopped when we reached a freshwater spring that was coming up from the ground. It was freezing cold but tasted really good. After resting there for a while we continued hiking up the mountain, going towards a small cave at the top. The top also being the foot of another mountain…standing at the bottom of them all, in the valley, it felt as if you could climb forever and never reach the top. As soon as you get to the top of one hill there is another bigger one right behind it.
After our hike we went back to camp and had lunch and then packed up our stuff and headed home. We got back to Dushanbe around 4:30pm. It was a very fun weekend all in all but not restful at all. When I got home I was completely exhausted and not in the mood to do any homework at all!
Monday July 19
Back to school as normal. Meisam had to go to the emergency room over the weekend because he was in so much pain from his back. I think he has a slipped disc or something similar to that. But anyways, he will not be able to teach all this week so Atepha is taking back our classes while he rests.
Tuesday July 20
In Tajiki class this morning Zarinna mentioned India food so then we were all dying to go to Deli Darbar for lunch. Kyle and Gaby waited at the center for Kyle’s conversation partner while Rob and I went ahead to the restaurant and ordered for everyone. It worked out really well because the food takes quite a while and by the time the rest of them got there it was ready. I have had the same thing all three times that we have been there because I like it but am also too scared to try anything else. The menu is probably the most confusing thing I have ever seen and looks like a website from the 90s. I always get vegetarian spinach and cheese with white rice. Its so good and exactly the right amount of spiciness.
Tonight we went out to dinner, all the flagship people, with Michelle and Khorshed. Sarah has a pretty bad case of food poisoning from the vegetables she ate at lunch yesterday that weren’t washed properly so she stayed at the hotel to rest up so that she can still come on the excursion this weekend to Iskander Kul. We took a mashrutka to Merve, a Turkish restaurant, on the other side of town. I ordered a Turkish pizza called a “pide” with chicken and cheese. They are so good, I had one when I was at the airport in Istanbul flying over here too.
After dinner I went home and packed for our camping trip in the mountains this weekend. I’m so excited to go camping again!
Saturday July 17
We left this morning at 7:30am in three jeeps to drive about three and a half hours to Iskander Kul. The group was just the flagship kids, Michelle and Sarah who were visiting from the states, Khorshed who is like the operations manager here in Dushanbe, and the drivers. The trip there was beautiful- we stopped several times on the side of the road to take pictures of the mountainous scenery. Since we were driving through the mountains and getting farther and farther away from the city, the road got progressively worse. Large potholes, no asphalt, rocks etc were making our jeep bounce around quite a bit. I think it might have been especially bad for Kyle and I since we were sitting in the back of the jeep, over the axle, bouncing up and down over all the holes rocks etc.
We arrived at Iskander Kul around 12pm. Again, the view driving in, going down the mountain on switchbacks at a rather high speed, was glorious. The lake there is a beautiful teal blue color and is crystal clear. It is also freezing cold since it is fed by mountain streams from melting glaciers.
Khorshed said that there is snow on the mountain tops from October to May and that the lake completely freezes over during the winter. There are no fish or anything in the lake because the water is always so cold and then with all the ice in the winter, they aren’t able to live there. We drove all the way around the lake to get to our campsite along the river that feeds into the lake. There are a few older men who have a trailer with a kitchen there and they let groups rent their property and they cook all the meals. It was a pretty nice location- our tents were already set up for us and they provided sleeping bags for us. The only bad thing was that we couldn’t see the lake from where we were and there were also a lot of mosquitoes since we were right next to the woods.After lunch we went for a hike to see the waterfall. Probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. There is a balcony built over the top of it that you can stand on so that you are literally standing on top of the falls. The waterfall is 40m straight down which is 131.23 feet which is a 13 story building. The water pouring down is so powerful that the spray it creates causes a rainbow. Next to the falls there was a tree with lots of strips of cloth tied on to the branches. We asked Khorshed and he said it was a wishing tree. People who hike to see the waterfall will rip off a piece of their t-shirts or something and tie it onto the tree while making a wish. Michelle used a piece of fabric she found on the ground to make a wish but gaby actually pulled off part of her sleeve to use for her wish.
When we had finished admiring and taking pictures at the waterfall we hiked back the direction we came and then kept going for a little while until we reached Snake Lake. We climbed up on the hill next to that lake and were able to see Snake Lake on one side and then turn around and see Iskander Kul lake on the other side.
Once it got dark enough we went out after dinner and laid on the bridge that crossed the river to get to our camp and looked at the stars. We could see so many stars! We were able to see a few constellations that we recognized and also the Milky Way. So pretty- I wish I could have taken pictures but they just didn’t show up on the camera very well. When we got too cold from laying on the bridge we went back to the campsite to sit around the fire and then headed to bed.
Sunday July 18
Breakfast was at 8am and we got into the jeeps shortly thereafter to drive over one of the mountains to the valley on the other side and go hiking from there. Once we crested the mountain top, we could see down into the valley. It looked so lush and green and was filled with wildflowers.
We drove down the other side of the mountain and through the valley, passing through a small village on our way. Its rather out of the way (and by rather I mean INCREDIBLY out of the way, several hours from any grocery store or anything like that) but how cool would it be to live at the foot of a mountain like that!? When we got to the place where we were going to start hiking I looked out the window and saw an abandoned bus which looked exactly like where Chris McCandless lived when he wandered into the Alaskan wilderness in “Into the Wild.”
We started hiking up one of the mountains and stopped when we reached a freshwater spring that was coming up from the ground. It was freezing cold but tasted really good. After resting there for a while we continued hiking up the mountain, going towards a small cave at the top. The top also being the foot of another mountain…standing at the bottom of them all, in the valley, it felt as if you could climb forever and never reach the top. As soon as you get to the top of one hill there is another bigger one right behind it.
After our hike we went back to camp and had lunch and then packed up our stuff and headed home. We got back to Dushanbe around 4:30pm. It was a very fun weekend all in all but not restful at all. When I got home I was completely exhausted and not in the mood to do any homework at all!
Monday July 19
Back to school as normal. Meisam had to go to the emergency room over the weekend because he was in so much pain from his back. I think he has a slipped disc or something similar to that. But anyways, he will not be able to teach all this week so Atepha is taking back our classes while he rests.
Tuesday July 20
In Tajiki class this morning Zarinna mentioned India food so then we were all dying to go to Deli Darbar for lunch. Kyle and Gaby waited at the center for Kyle’s conversation partner while Rob and I went ahead to the restaurant and ordered for everyone. It worked out really well because the food takes quite a while and by the time the rest of them got there it was ready. I have had the same thing all three times that we have been there because I like it but am also too scared to try anything else. The menu is probably the most confusing thing I have ever seen and looks like a website from the 90s. I always get vegetarian spinach and cheese with white rice. Its so good and exactly the right amount of spiciness.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Varzob and the Visitors (from America)
Friday July 9
Таҷикй мишавам (I’m becoming Tajiki). Its true. Diana and I wore our Tajik clothes to classes today so that we could take pictures. They are surprisingly comfortable- I thought that they would be really hot because almost all of your skin is covered up and you are wearing pants and a long dress but the fabric is really breathable so its not actually all that hot to wear. I also had my first mosquito bite sometime this past week, up until then i hadn't had any problems with bugs. Rob and Dan almost went into shock since they have had so many bugbites. "Are you actually Tajiki? How have you not had a bugbite until now?" "Yes, yes I am."
Saturday July 10
Today is Rob’s birthday and, since there have been a number of other birthdays in recent past, we decided to go back to Varzob, the same place as last time, Goli Meida (Little Flower) for a day of rest, relaxation, swimming, eating and, of course, drinking. The whole day was a lot of fun- the pool was slightly less freezing than last time so I was actually able to stay in and swim for a few minutes instead of jumping in and immediately climbing out.
I took a taxi home with Gaby, Dan and Jeremy in time to change my clothes and get ready to go to a wedding reception with my host parents and uncle. Dilshod came along too, to drive, because my host dad was planning on drinking at the reception. Its kind of funny how responsible they are about drinking and driving when normally they drive at incredibly high speeds and completely disregard traffic regulations. I definitely appreciate how conscientious they are about it.
The wedding was pretty interesting and in a very pretty private banquet room at Chai Khaneh Rohat. We got there and moved tables three times because the mother of the bride kept asking us to switch tables to make room for other relatives/guests. Once we were settled in, we sat there for a few minutes before a rather loud sound of trumpets was heard, announcing the arrival of the bride and groom. They walked into the room proceeded by a group of drummers and trumpet players. This was pretty much the only unusual part of the evening or, the only thing that was different from American wedding receptions. The only other thing was that, while people were making toasts and dancing, the bride and groom would stand up for almost the entire time and the bride would put her right hand over her heart and bow constantly to show her respect and thanks to the guests. I felt sorry for her after a little while because they would be trying to eat their dinner but then her dad would get up to make a toast/speech and then they would stand up. They they would sit back down but in a few minutes people would start dancing again so they would stand up again. Up down up down, I am glad that is not a custom in the US.
The other notable thing was how much food there was! The tables were loaded with food and I thought that that was going to be the dinner so I tried to eat everything that my host family put on my plate
Sunday July 11
I slept in a little bit today, tired from hanging out at Varzob and the going to the wedding reception the night before. Then Gaby and Dan and I went to the bazaar because I really wanted to get more dried fruit and take some pictures. After the bazaar we hung out in Rudaki park for a little bit to wait for Kyle and then went to DBD, another Iranian restaurant, for lunch. I thought it was pretty good altho a little bit more expensive that Fast Food but Dan and Kyle didn’t like the jujeh kabob so they said they probably wouldn’t want to go back there. The only nice thing is that they have gourmeh sabzi if you call ahead and tell them that you want them to make it so we might do that sometime before we leave.
I went home to try and skype with mom and dad at 4 but they didn’t get my message that I was online so it didn’t work out. Plus it was really hot sitting outside on the sidewalk so I gave up after about 20 minutes of waiting and went back inside to rest before dinner.
Monday July 12
Class as normal...not much interesting happened.
Tuesday July 13
Michelle and Sarah are finally here! Their flight got in early this morning I believe so they will probably rest today and then come to visit classes tomorrow. They are also going to come on our excursion this weekend to Iskandurkool. I’m getting really excited about it- we are going camping and the scenery is gorgeous, its going to be a lot of fun.
Wednesday July 14
Boo, Michelle missed her flight so she has been stuck in Turkey for the last 3 days. I think that she is going to be here tomorrow tho. Sarah came in today for a little while and then went to the meeting with all the teachers this afternoon.
Our midterm for Meisam was due today but he was sick so I emailed it to him again. Its rather frustrating typing things in Pages on my Mac and then having to export them to a word document before I can send them to anyone else. All the formatting gets messed up and sometimes, like today when I tried to print it out, it switches so that it reads from right to left (backwards) and all the letters become disconnected. There has got to be some sort of solution to this, people type in Persian all the time- does everyone have this problem?
After dinner tonight I talked with my host sister, Nodira, for a while and she was telling me about her job, what she does and all. She had a long work day today because she had to finish some reports and deliver them to the President’s office. We also kind of got back onto our conversation about marriage and all from a few weeks back. She was saying how she wants to be able to support herself before she gets married and would expect her husband to be in the same position. She doesn’t like the way it works now, guys getting married while still living with their parents. But she doesn’t make enough money at her job to be able to support herself, even though she has graduated from college. Even with that education, she only makes 330 som per month which is about 75 USD.
Thursday July 15
Michelle is finally here! She came in to the office after our first class with Meisam was over. Sarah sat in on our class today which was a good day for her to do that because we played the memory game again but with body parts instead of objects. It was fun, and helpful because now I know more body parts than I did before but also was a little creepy. We all groaned when Gaby said she put ten eyes in the boat.
Таҷикй мишавам (I’m becoming Tajiki). Its true. Diana and I wore our Tajik clothes to classes today so that we could take pictures. They are surprisingly comfortable- I thought that they would be really hot because almost all of your skin is covered up and you are wearing pants and a long dress but the fabric is really breathable so its not actually all that hot to wear. I also had my first mosquito bite sometime this past week, up until then i hadn't had any problems with bugs. Rob and Dan almost went into shock since they have had so many bugbites. "Are you actually Tajiki? How have you not had a bugbite until now?" "Yes, yes I am."
Saturday July 10
Today is Rob’s birthday and, since there have been a number of other birthdays in recent past, we decided to go back to Varzob, the same place as last time, Goli Meida (Little Flower) for a day of rest, relaxation, swimming, eating and, of course, drinking. The whole day was a lot of fun- the pool was slightly less freezing than last time so I was actually able to stay in and swim for a few minutes instead of jumping in and immediately climbing out.
I took a taxi home with Gaby, Dan and Jeremy in time to change my clothes and get ready to go to a wedding reception with my host parents and uncle. Dilshod came along too, to drive, because my host dad was planning on drinking at the reception. Its kind of funny how responsible they are about drinking and driving when normally they drive at incredibly high speeds and completely disregard traffic regulations. I definitely appreciate how conscientious they are about it.
The wedding was pretty interesting and in a very pretty private banquet room at Chai Khaneh Rohat. We got there and moved tables three times because the mother of the bride kept asking us to switch tables to make room for other relatives/guests. Once we were settled in, we sat there for a few minutes before a rather loud sound of trumpets was heard, announcing the arrival of the bride and groom. They walked into the room proceeded by a group of drummers and trumpet players. This was pretty much the only unusual part of the evening or, the only thing that was different from American wedding receptions. The only other thing was that, while people were making toasts and dancing, the bride and groom would stand up for almost the entire time and the bride would put her right hand over her heart and bow constantly to show her respect and thanks to the guests. I felt sorry for her after a little while because they would be trying to eat their dinner but then her dad would get up to make a toast/speech and then they would stand up. They they would sit back down but in a few minutes people would start dancing again so they would stand up again. Up down up down, I am glad that is not a custom in the US.
The other notable thing was how much food there was! The tables were loaded with food and I thought that that was going to be the dinner so I tried to eat everything that my host family put on my plate
Sunday July 11
I slept in a little bit today, tired from hanging out at Varzob and the going to the wedding reception the night before. Then Gaby and Dan and I went to the bazaar because I really wanted to get more dried fruit and take some pictures. After the bazaar we hung out in Rudaki park for a little bit to wait for Kyle and then went to DBD, another Iranian restaurant, for lunch. I thought it was pretty good altho a little bit more expensive that Fast Food but Dan and Kyle didn’t like the jujeh kabob so they said they probably wouldn’t want to go back there. The only nice thing is that they have gourmeh sabzi if you call ahead and tell them that you want them to make it so we might do that sometime before we leave.
I went home to try and skype with mom and dad at 4 but they didn’t get my message that I was online so it didn’t work out. Plus it was really hot sitting outside on the sidewalk so I gave up after about 20 minutes of waiting and went back inside to rest before dinner.
Monday July 12
Class as normal...not much interesting happened.
Tuesday July 13
Michelle and Sarah are finally here! Their flight got in early this morning I believe so they will probably rest today and then come to visit classes tomorrow. They are also going to come on our excursion this weekend to Iskandurkool. I’m getting really excited about it- we are going camping and the scenery is gorgeous, its going to be a lot of fun.
Wednesday July 14
Boo, Michelle missed her flight so she has been stuck in Turkey for the last 3 days. I think that she is going to be here tomorrow tho. Sarah came in today for a little while and then went to the meeting with all the teachers this afternoon.
Our midterm for Meisam was due today but he was sick so I emailed it to him again. Its rather frustrating typing things in Pages on my Mac and then having to export them to a word document before I can send them to anyone else. All the formatting gets messed up and sometimes, like today when I tried to print it out, it switches so that it reads from right to left (backwards) and all the letters become disconnected. There has got to be some sort of solution to this, people type in Persian all the time- does everyone have this problem?
After dinner tonight I talked with my host sister, Nodira, for a while and she was telling me about her job, what she does and all. She had a long work day today because she had to finish some reports and deliver them to the President’s office. We also kind of got back onto our conversation about marriage and all from a few weeks back. She was saying how she wants to be able to support herself before she gets married and would expect her husband to be in the same position. She doesn’t like the way it works now, guys getting married while still living with their parents. But she doesn’t make enough money at her job to be able to support herself, even though she has graduated from college. Even with that education, she only makes 330 som per month which is about 75 USD.
Thursday July 15
Michelle is finally here! She came in to the office after our first class with Meisam was over. Sarah sat in on our class today which was a good day for her to do that because we played the memory game again but with body parts instead of objects. It was fun, and helpful because now I know more body parts than I did before but also was a little creepy. We all groaned when Gaby said she put ten eyes in the boat.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Таҷикй шодан (Becoming Tajiki)
1) Diana and I in our tajik clothes
2) My Tajik teacher tying my headscarf for me
Thursday, July 8, 2010
New teacher and Persian dinner
Monday July 5
Dan and I went to the bazar and talked about theology/philosophy at 11 and picked up some dried fruit and nuts to take to Atepha’s house at 4. She had invited all the Flagship kids over to her apartment to cook Iranian food and hang out for the evening. It was a really nice time- we talked mostly in Persian, at least when she could hear us, and then in English for the time when we were in a different room then her, just like being at school! We made salad shirazi, fruit salad, moustakhiar, spagetti and chicken “sandwiches” which were made of pita like bread rolled up with shredded chicken inside. It was really nice to have some Persian food, it was soo good and strangely comforting at the same time.
We also met the new teacher who came over from the States to take one of our classes and a few classes from the other programs. Atepha was just overloaded with all of the classes that she had so they asked for another teacher to come over and help her out with her workload. We were all afraid that we were going to get a worse teacher, because Atepha is really awesome and we like her a lot, but the new teacher turned out to be Meisam, the man who did all of our OPI tests back in February before we came here. I’m really glad that we got to hang out with him outside of class and before he started teaching us because I got comfortable around him. When I first learned that he was the guy coming to be the new teacher, the same guy that did our OPIs, I immediately thought it was going to be really awkward just because my OPI was so uncomfortable over the phone. And I sounded like a complete idiot. That of course didn’t help either. But he came to dinner and we talked to him and he is actually a really awesome guy so I’m excited to have class with him tomorrow morning.
Tuesday July 6
Back to class today after our second long weekend in a row. Atepha pushed back our homework while we were at her house last night so that everyone could go smoke hooka after dinner. One of the benefits of hanging out with your teachers outside of school…!
Today was our long day of class again, four hours of straight Farsi and Tajik. This shouldn’t be particularly difficult but I think that since we had another long weekend it was harder because we weren’t used to being in class. I was also really tired from getting up early so I was practically falling asleep during the second hour of Tajik.
Wednesday July 7
For lunch we went to Deli Darbar, the less expensive Indian restaurant on Rudaki again. I was afraid to try anything else so I got the same thing as last time, the spinach vegetarian dish with cheese. This time I got garlic bread and rice to go with it and then ice cream for dessert. So good! It was one of the more expensive lunches I have had here. And by expensive I mean it was almost 10 dollars instead of less than 5. It is awesome how inexpensive living here is but also slightly sad at the same time. But the country is definitely growing, the economy getting bigger and stronger, etc. Talking to Jake who was here as a student about 4 or 5 years ago, he said the differences between now and back then are amazing. I think that would be really cool- to move somewhere not very advanced, a country just getting started, and then live there for a while to watch it grow. And because Jake is an American, he is tied to Tajikistan because this is where his job is, but not permanently so. He has another home back in the States. I think that I could maybe do something like that, be a RD in another country, if I had my family here (like his wife lives here with him) but I don’t think I could do some thing like that on my own. Two months is going to be long enough for me. I’m definitely going to be ready to go home.
Thursday July 8
Emlyn’s birthday is today, he is one of the guys in the Eurasia program who is going to be staying the full 8 weeks with us while the kids from Cali are going home after 6 weeks. Jake got another cake from the Turkish restaurant, Merve, and brought it in to the office so we all gathered around, sang happy birthday in Farsi, and then divided up the cake.
Today also marks the one month mark. As of 3:30 this morning, we have been here for exactly one month. One month and change left to go! Everyone told me how fast the time would go. I didn’t exactly believe them but their predictions have come true. Time has flown by and will hopefully continue to do so.
Atepha was sick today so she couldn’t correct our speeches for tomorrow for us. Mine is going to be pretty rough lol. She is gong to visit another class instead of teaching ours tomorrow so we have to record our speeches while we read them outloud and then send them to her as an mp3 file. That will be interesting to say the least.
I rescued a dove today. It flew into this little sunroom at the main office through a small window and then couldn’t get back out so I picked it up and held it out the window. Silly dove. This one and another one were trying to build a nest in the window so it probably fell inside and then got stuck.
Dan and I went to the bazar and talked about theology/philosophy at 11 and picked up some dried fruit and nuts to take to Atepha’s house at 4. She had invited all the Flagship kids over to her apartment to cook Iranian food and hang out for the evening. It was a really nice time- we talked mostly in Persian, at least when she could hear us, and then in English for the time when we were in a different room then her, just like being at school! We made salad shirazi, fruit salad, moustakhiar, spagetti and chicken “sandwiches” which were made of pita like bread rolled up with shredded chicken inside. It was really nice to have some Persian food, it was soo good and strangely comforting at the same time.
We also met the new teacher who came over from the States to take one of our classes and a few classes from the other programs. Atepha was just overloaded with all of the classes that she had so they asked for another teacher to come over and help her out with her workload. We were all afraid that we were going to get a worse teacher, because Atepha is really awesome and we like her a lot, but the new teacher turned out to be Meisam, the man who did all of our OPI tests back in February before we came here. I’m really glad that we got to hang out with him outside of class and before he started teaching us because I got comfortable around him. When I first learned that he was the guy coming to be the new teacher, the same guy that did our OPIs, I immediately thought it was going to be really awkward just because my OPI was so uncomfortable over the phone. And I sounded like a complete idiot. That of course didn’t help either. But he came to dinner and we talked to him and he is actually a really awesome guy so I’m excited to have class with him tomorrow morning.
Tuesday July 6
Back to class today after our second long weekend in a row. Atepha pushed back our homework while we were at her house last night so that everyone could go smoke hooka after dinner. One of the benefits of hanging out with your teachers outside of school…!
Today was our long day of class again, four hours of straight Farsi and Tajik. This shouldn’t be particularly difficult but I think that since we had another long weekend it was harder because we weren’t used to being in class. I was also really tired from getting up early so I was practically falling asleep during the second hour of Tajik.
Wednesday July 7
For lunch we went to Deli Darbar, the less expensive Indian restaurant on Rudaki again. I was afraid to try anything else so I got the same thing as last time, the spinach vegetarian dish with cheese. This time I got garlic bread and rice to go with it and then ice cream for dessert. So good! It was one of the more expensive lunches I have had here. And by expensive I mean it was almost 10 dollars instead of less than 5. It is awesome how inexpensive living here is but also slightly sad at the same time. But the country is definitely growing, the economy getting bigger and stronger, etc. Talking to Jake who was here as a student about 4 or 5 years ago, he said the differences between now and back then are amazing. I think that would be really cool- to move somewhere not very advanced, a country just getting started, and then live there for a while to watch it grow. And because Jake is an American, he is tied to Tajikistan because this is where his job is, but not permanently so. He has another home back in the States. I think that I could maybe do something like that, be a RD in another country, if I had my family here (like his wife lives here with him) but I don’t think I could do some thing like that on my own. Two months is going to be long enough for me. I’m definitely going to be ready to go home.
Thursday July 8
Emlyn’s birthday is today, he is one of the guys in the Eurasia program who is going to be staying the full 8 weeks with us while the kids from Cali are going home after 6 weeks. Jake got another cake from the Turkish restaurant, Merve, and brought it in to the office so we all gathered around, sang happy birthday in Farsi, and then divided up the cake.
Today also marks the one month mark. As of 3:30 this morning, we have been here for exactly one month. One month and change left to go! Everyone told me how fast the time would go. I didn’t exactly believe them but their predictions have come true. Time has flown by and will hopefully continue to do so.
Atepha was sick today so she couldn’t correct our speeches for tomorrow for us. Mine is going to be pretty rough lol. She is gong to visit another class instead of teaching ours tomorrow so we have to record our speeches while we read them outloud and then send them to her as an mp3 file. That will be interesting to say the least.
I rescued a dove today. It flew into this little sunroom at the main office through a small window and then couldn’t get back out so I picked it up and held it out the window. Silly dove. This one and another one were trying to build a nest in the window so it probably fell inside and then got stuck.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Happy 4th!
Friday July 2
Today is Dan’s 22nd birthday and so we all sang to him, numerous times as different people found out that it was his birthday, and had cake. Lots of cake. I don’t think I have ever had more cake in my life actually. Altho it was our own fault. Let me explain. For lunch we went to MorningStar Cafe. After we ate, Kyle and I decided we wanted dessert. So we got a piece of German chocolate cake and a piece of carrot cake and shared them. This started a chain reaction. The chocolate cake was so good that Gaby and Rob had to get one to share too. After eating we went back to school for our Friday afternoon film class. When we got there, there was another cake waiting for us. Jake had picked it up from the Turkish restaurant, Merve, in honor of Dan’s b-day. So we all had another piece of cake. THEN, after our Friday afternoon meeting with Jake at 5, we all walked over to Dan’s house for a birthday dinner that his host family had invited us all to. There was so much food and...you guessed it...another cake. Which looked and tasted fantastic. So, I had four pieces of delicious cake in one day. Its now going to take me two weeks of situps and pushups to work it off haha.
Dan’s birthday party at his house was a lot of fun altho it was very crowded with all of us trying to crowd around the food while sitting on the floor crosslegged. After we finished eating we decided to go to an outdoor bar/restaurant next to the opera ballet for drinks and to watch a World Cup game. It turned into quite the evening with lots of drinks and laughs. I think we were there in all for about 4 hours. I think I drank more than I ever had before, I had a beer and 4 shots of vodka over the course of maybe 2 hours. However, on the way home, I was the one holding my own.
Saturday July 3
I wanted to sleep in a little bit this morning since I got home somewhat late last night but we had a field trip to the Talco aluminum factory and were leaving at 7:15. The factory employs 11,000 people and makes up most of the country’s economy. The aluminum they produce is shipped all over the world, a lot of it gets put straight on a train to be shipped to the metal market in London. The factory was incredibly big- probably the biggest thing I have ever seen in my life. I wish I could have taken some pictures of the inside of it but its considered a state secret- the government doesn’t want anyone else copying their ideas so they don’t allow cameras inside. There was one room where they have large blocks of carbon that are burning in order to heat the aluminum and melt it down to liquid form. They burn at 1652 degrees F. Then all of the melted aluminum is collected in these huge vats. We saw one of the vats being filled and it was so amazing- it looked like lava- so incredibly hot I can’t even imagine. They said the highest temperature it reaches is 2912 degrees F before they pour in into moulds to shape it into the bars of aluminum. Then a bunch of the bars are stacked together after they cool and wrapped up, ready to be loaded into train cars. Each one of the stacks of aluminum bars weighs one ton. The entire process was just ridiculous- the building was so big and so hot inside with the open flames and giant stacks of hot aluminum bars sitting around.
After we left the aluminum factory we stopped at a rice factory and a flax seed oil factory on our way home. The contrast between the two was ridiculous- the aluminum factory was huge, international, modern and full of machinery while the rice and flax seed oil factories were small, run by families, patronized by locals and had very few machines.
After we got home from the factory I was totally exhausted so I stayed home for the rest of the day, took a nap, had dinner and hung out with the family a little bit.
Sunday July 4
Happy 4th of July! This is the first 4th I have ever spent out of the country. I hung out at home for most of the morning, did my laundry and waited for my host parents to get home from the bazaar. When they did, my host dad said that we were going to celebrate and drink in honor of the day. I told him that Kyle was going to come over at 2pm to borrow my computer adaptor, my host dad said that he needed to come over at 12 instead for all of us to have lunch together because he was making aush. Of course, since we were celebrating, there was lots of alcohol involved and poor Kyle had probably 6 shots of vodka, again. I had a few shots of mulberry wine and was definitely feeling the effects because we hadn’t had any food yet so my stomach was empty. After eating we felt much better because all of the food here is so greasy.
At 5 we met up with the other Flagship kids and all set out together, grabbed a couple of mashrutkas and went out to the US embassy for the 4th of July party. It was a really nice evening- I totally forgot that I was in Tajikistan for the night, everyone there was American and everyone was speaking English and just the environment in general is very Western and American looking. We had hamburgers and hot dogs and margaritas (legit ones this time) and just hung out, talked, played basketball, and the marines set off some bottle rockets in place of fireworks when it got dark enough. It was a very nice time. We pretty much shut the place down because we started a small dance party in front of the bar and were almost the last ones to leave.
Today is Dan’s 22nd birthday and so we all sang to him, numerous times as different people found out that it was his birthday, and had cake. Lots of cake. I don’t think I have ever had more cake in my life actually. Altho it was our own fault. Let me explain. For lunch we went to MorningStar Cafe. After we ate, Kyle and I decided we wanted dessert. So we got a piece of German chocolate cake and a piece of carrot cake and shared them. This started a chain reaction. The chocolate cake was so good that Gaby and Rob had to get one to share too. After eating we went back to school for our Friday afternoon film class. When we got there, there was another cake waiting for us. Jake had picked it up from the Turkish restaurant, Merve, in honor of Dan’s b-day. So we all had another piece of cake. THEN, after our Friday afternoon meeting with Jake at 5, we all walked over to Dan’s house for a birthday dinner that his host family had invited us all to. There was so much food and...you guessed it...another cake. Which looked and tasted fantastic. So, I had four pieces of delicious cake in one day. Its now going to take me two weeks of situps and pushups to work it off haha.
Dan’s birthday party at his house was a lot of fun altho it was very crowded with all of us trying to crowd around the food while sitting on the floor crosslegged. After we finished eating we decided to go to an outdoor bar/restaurant next to the opera ballet for drinks and to watch a World Cup game. It turned into quite the evening with lots of drinks and laughs. I think we were there in all for about 4 hours. I think I drank more than I ever had before, I had a beer and 4 shots of vodka over the course of maybe 2 hours. However, on the way home, I was the one holding my own.
Saturday July 3
I wanted to sleep in a little bit this morning since I got home somewhat late last night but we had a field trip to the Talco aluminum factory and were leaving at 7:15. The factory employs 11,000 people and makes up most of the country’s economy. The aluminum they produce is shipped all over the world, a lot of it gets put straight on a train to be shipped to the metal market in London. The factory was incredibly big- probably the biggest thing I have ever seen in my life. I wish I could have taken some pictures of the inside of it but its considered a state secret- the government doesn’t want anyone else copying their ideas so they don’t allow cameras inside. There was one room where they have large blocks of carbon that are burning in order to heat the aluminum and melt it down to liquid form. They burn at 1652 degrees F. Then all of the melted aluminum is collected in these huge vats. We saw one of the vats being filled and it was so amazing- it looked like lava- so incredibly hot I can’t even imagine. They said the highest temperature it reaches is 2912 degrees F before they pour in into moulds to shape it into the bars of aluminum. Then a bunch of the bars are stacked together after they cool and wrapped up, ready to be loaded into train cars. Each one of the stacks of aluminum bars weighs one ton. The entire process was just ridiculous- the building was so big and so hot inside with the open flames and giant stacks of hot aluminum bars sitting around.
After we left the aluminum factory we stopped at a rice factory and a flax seed oil factory on our way home. The contrast between the two was ridiculous- the aluminum factory was huge, international, modern and full of machinery while the rice and flax seed oil factories were small, run by families, patronized by locals and had very few machines.
After we got home from the factory I was totally exhausted so I stayed home for the rest of the day, took a nap, had dinner and hung out with the family a little bit.
Sunday July 4
Happy 4th of July! This is the first 4th I have ever spent out of the country. I hung out at home for most of the morning, did my laundry and waited for my host parents to get home from the bazaar. When they did, my host dad said that we were going to celebrate and drink in honor of the day. I told him that Kyle was going to come over at 2pm to borrow my computer adaptor, my host dad said that he needed to come over at 12 instead for all of us to have lunch together because he was making aush. Of course, since we were celebrating, there was lots of alcohol involved and poor Kyle had probably 6 shots of vodka, again. I had a few shots of mulberry wine and was definitely feeling the effects because we hadn’t had any food yet so my stomach was empty. After eating we felt much better because all of the food here is so greasy.
At 5 we met up with the other Flagship kids and all set out together, grabbed a couple of mashrutkas and went out to the US embassy for the 4th of July party. It was a really nice evening- I totally forgot that I was in Tajikistan for the night, everyone there was American and everyone was speaking English and just the environment in general is very Western and American looking. We had hamburgers and hot dogs and margaritas (legit ones this time) and just hung out, talked, played basketball, and the marines set off some bottle rockets in place of fireworks when it got dark enough. It was a very nice time. We pretty much shut the place down because we started a small dance party in front of the bar and were almost the last ones to leave.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Comments from the author
Hello all my dear readers,
I have just a couple of quick notes...
1) The picture behind the title of my blog is now actually a picture from Tajikistan. I took it standing on top of the hill next to Fort Hisor. The previous picture was also one I took but was of Guanajuato Mexico.
2) Sorry for the delay in posting things- I try and keep up but most of the time when I am online, during the day when I don't have classes, there are lots of other people online at the same time and its really slow to upload things. Such as blog entries and pictures. But I'll try to keep up.
3) Lastly, if you have any questions or want to know anything in particular instead of just reading my thoughts and various experiences, feel free to comment and ask!
I love and miss you all!
Emily
PS- Happy 4th of July!
I have just a couple of quick notes...
1) The picture behind the title of my blog is now actually a picture from Tajikistan. I took it standing on top of the hill next to Fort Hisor. The previous picture was also one I took but was of Guanajuato Mexico.
2) Sorry for the delay in posting things- I try and keep up but most of the time when I am online, during the day when I don't have classes, there are lots of other people online at the same time and its really slow to upload things. Such as blog entries and pictures. But I'll try to keep up.
3) Lastly, if you have any questions or want to know anything in particular instead of just reading my thoughts and various experiences, feel free to comment and ask!
I love and miss you all!
Emily
PS- Happy 4th of July!
The girl in the red heels
Monday June 28
Today I normally would have class but because it is a national holiday we had the day off. I got up early and went with my host mom and sister to the biggest bazaar in Dushanbe. It is so big that it is on the outskirts of town, not in the city itself. To get there, we took a mashrutka then got out, walked across the street, and waited for a different mashrutka. We got into one but were immediately approached by a police officer who asked us to get out because the driver did not have a proper license. So we grabbed a taxi and zoomed down the street, passing trucks illegally on the opposite side of the road.
Or perhaps not so illegally- there don’t seem to be very strict traffic laws here. Instead of being pulled over for speeding, cars are just randomly pulled over by police officers looking for bribes (they are underpaid so that is the best way that they can provide for their families). There is just one line to divide the road in half for two-way traffic and even this is often ignored by people trying to pass large slow moving vehicles. Beyond that, there doesn’t really seem to be any rules...cars weave in and out of each other as they please, creating their own lanes, barely stopping for red lights and creeping through intersections before the light even turns green.
Once we made it safely to the bazaar we headed in to the chaos. There are two sides to the bazaar with a large street running through the middle so to get from one side to the other you have to avoid more speeding taxis, busses and mashrutkas. The first side we went to had a lot of clothes, shoes and household goods. I decided to get some fabric to have a new dress made. I got a really cool looking fabric that is dark purple with a lime green pattern. I plan on shortening it to wear as a shirt when I get back to the US. After walking around for a little while there we went over to the other side where there were more clothes, shoes, household items, and also some dried fruit vendors. In one of the shoe stores we stopped in I found, FINALLY!, the perfect pair of red heels.
They are exactly the color I wanted- cherry red- and have a medium heel with square toes and a buckle. So cute, I was super excited when I found them and was terrified that they wouldn’t have the right size for me. But they did! Yay!
We were there for a couple of hours total and then headed back home, a trip that involved another zooming taxi and crowded mashrutka. But we made it back alive, had some lunch and then headed to our rooms for a siesta. Yes, thats right, the Americans are introducing the siesta to central Asia.
Tuesday June 29
Ahh back to class...today was our long day- four hours of straight classes, two hours of Persian and two hours of Tajik. At lunch we were all talking about how bad we feel for Zarinna because we are all completely exhausted and out of it by the time we get to her class. But I think she understands because she gave us a really long break in the middle. She also said that she isn’t going to give us any homework, all of our work would be done in class. I think we all appreciate that because, we are here to study Persian after all, not Tajik, and also, our Persian teacher is giving us enough homework as it is.
After a long lunch I went back to the office to get some work done and ended up staying until 6:30 talking to mom on gchat. When I went home for dinner, I found that we had guests again. My host father’s niece, husband and two children were over for dinner and were going to spend the night because they were flying out to Dubai the next day. So, they were staying here at the house on their way to the airport. Dinner, of course, came with shots of vodka. Apparently a lot of them. They must have been doing shots before I got home because they didn’t have all that many when I was there. But when my host dad’s sister’s daughter’s husband got up from the dinner “table,” he staggered and fell into me, almost knocking me over into my host mom. So all the guys of the family, my host dad, Dilshod, Azamat and my host dad’s sister’s daughter’s son helped him out to the street and down to the river until he recovered himself. It was quite the interesting experience, everyone got all silent and uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do until they went outside. I haven’t quite figured out what the Tajik theory/mindset is on drinking. They don’t seem to drink all that often, at least my host family doesn’t. Its not like we have vodka with every meal. But for special occasions the alcohol comes out and then they consume it in rather large quantities.
On a sidenote, I say “table” in quotes because it is not a table, the place we normally eat dinner. It is more like a giant wooden bed that they lay a carpet and cushions down on with a tablecloth in the middle that the food and plates go on. Dinner is eaten sitting crosslegged or semi-reclining, Roman style. Its quite fun. Unless you sit there for a while because then your knees and back just get really tired and sore.
Wednesday June 30
The last day of June...also happened to be our short day of classes. Started today at 8:30am and finished at 10:45. Then we had the rest of the day to do as we pleased. I ended up going for lunch with a small group- Rob, Gaby, Kyle and a guy named Joe from the Eurasia program for lunch at another Indian restaurant called Deli Darbar on Rudake Ave. It was pretty good, Indian still isn’t my favorite but I liked the vegetarian dish I got and they had amazing ice cream. After lunch we headed back to the center to hang out, Skype, upload pictures, etc. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon.
Thursday July 1
Ahh, the first day of July. Summer is fully upon us. This is both good and bad news. Good because, as of 3:30am this morning, we have been here for exactly 3 weeks and therefore have exactly 5 weeks and one day left of classes/exams. Then a weekend to pack. Then a flight home! For me its a little longer until I will be back stateside, 6 weeks and 2 days to be precise. The bad news however is that the hottest weather will soon be upon us. I checked the weather widget on my computer dashboard today and it said that the weather this weekend is going to 105 on Saturday and 104 on Sunday. In a land with not very many air conditioners. Oh joy!
Persian class this morning was really fun, I liked it a lot. We were looking at some old ads from Iran, pre and post revolution. I liked it because we were analyzing them and discussing why they were effective which is just like the section we did on visual rhetoric in my class my first semester at school. I hope we do more stuff like this because I really liked it.
Tonight after dinner I had a really good conversation with my host mom and sister. We talked about this woman in the city who has identical triplet daughters. Nodira saw her on the street once and couldn’t tell the difference between them at all. I also learned that my host mom is afraid of infants. She doesn’t want to touch them because she is afraid she will drop them. She said she wouldn’t hold her grandkids, Azamat and Amena, until they were about three or four months old. I asked what she did when she had Nodira and Dilshod and she said that their grandmother, who lived with them, held them. I thought that was really weird and hilarious at the same time because I love infants. They are so tiny and delicate yes but their little ears and toes and noses make holding and taking care of them totally worth it. We talked about their dog and his mom. His mom belonged to a neighbor of theirs and so they were there when he had her 9 puppies and after a few days they got to pick one and take it home.
We also talked a little bit about this young boy who lives somewhere in the neighborhood who was born recently (I didn’t understand exactly how old he is). They kept saying over and over again that he was sick and how sorry they were for his family and finally I got them to explain what specifically was wrong with him. They said that he is not intelligent or not smart. Something is wrong with his head and it is a genetic disorder he got from his mother because she was sick when she gave birth(?). I’m not entirely sure if he is mentally retarded or has autism or something (if such a diagnosis exists here). But they said that Dilshod, my host brother, was at their house visiting and playing with him. When they were explaining this, it was a really interesting change of tone to their voice, almost reverent, that Dilshod would go and spend time with him. They said that ever since he was little, Dilshod was not afraid to touch people who are sick and he will go and talk to them and spend time with them and touch them so that it helps them get better. It reminded me of some people’s belief in healers, people with some sort of special sense or power to help sick people. If Tajiks believe in a kind of person like that then that’s what they would call Dilshod- a healer.
Today I normally would have class but because it is a national holiday we had the day off. I got up early and went with my host mom and sister to the biggest bazaar in Dushanbe. It is so big that it is on the outskirts of town, not in the city itself. To get there, we took a mashrutka then got out, walked across the street, and waited for a different mashrutka. We got into one but were immediately approached by a police officer who asked us to get out because the driver did not have a proper license. So we grabbed a taxi and zoomed down the street, passing trucks illegally on the opposite side of the road.
Or perhaps not so illegally- there don’t seem to be very strict traffic laws here. Instead of being pulled over for speeding, cars are just randomly pulled over by police officers looking for bribes (they are underpaid so that is the best way that they can provide for their families). There is just one line to divide the road in half for two-way traffic and even this is often ignored by people trying to pass large slow moving vehicles. Beyond that, there doesn’t really seem to be any rules...cars weave in and out of each other as they please, creating their own lanes, barely stopping for red lights and creeping through intersections before the light even turns green.
Once we made it safely to the bazaar we headed in to the chaos. There are two sides to the bazaar with a large street running through the middle so to get from one side to the other you have to avoid more speeding taxis, busses and mashrutkas. The first side we went to had a lot of clothes, shoes and household goods. I decided to get some fabric to have a new dress made. I got a really cool looking fabric that is dark purple with a lime green pattern. I plan on shortening it to wear as a shirt when I get back to the US. After walking around for a little while there we went over to the other side where there were more clothes, shoes, household items, and also some dried fruit vendors. In one of the shoe stores we stopped in I found, FINALLY!, the perfect pair of red heels.
They are exactly the color I wanted- cherry red- and have a medium heel with square toes and a buckle. So cute, I was super excited when I found them and was terrified that they wouldn’t have the right size for me. But they did! Yay!We were there for a couple of hours total and then headed back home, a trip that involved another zooming taxi and crowded mashrutka. But we made it back alive, had some lunch and then headed to our rooms for a siesta. Yes, thats right, the Americans are introducing the siesta to central Asia.
Tuesday June 29
Ahh back to class...today was our long day- four hours of straight classes, two hours of Persian and two hours of Tajik. At lunch we were all talking about how bad we feel for Zarinna because we are all completely exhausted and out of it by the time we get to her class. But I think she understands because she gave us a really long break in the middle. She also said that she isn’t going to give us any homework, all of our work would be done in class. I think we all appreciate that because, we are here to study Persian after all, not Tajik, and also, our Persian teacher is giving us enough homework as it is.
After a long lunch I went back to the office to get some work done and ended up staying until 6:30 talking to mom on gchat. When I went home for dinner, I found that we had guests again. My host father’s niece, husband and two children were over for dinner and were going to spend the night because they were flying out to Dubai the next day. So, they were staying here at the house on their way to the airport. Dinner, of course, came with shots of vodka. Apparently a lot of them. They must have been doing shots before I got home because they didn’t have all that many when I was there. But when my host dad’s sister’s daughter’s husband got up from the dinner “table,” he staggered and fell into me, almost knocking me over into my host mom. So all the guys of the family, my host dad, Dilshod, Azamat and my host dad’s sister’s daughter’s son helped him out to the street and down to the river until he recovered himself. It was quite the interesting experience, everyone got all silent and uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do until they went outside. I haven’t quite figured out what the Tajik theory/mindset is on drinking. They don’t seem to drink all that often, at least my host family doesn’t. Its not like we have vodka with every meal. But for special occasions the alcohol comes out and then they consume it in rather large quantities.
On a sidenote, I say “table” in quotes because it is not a table, the place we normally eat dinner. It is more like a giant wooden bed that they lay a carpet and cushions down on with a tablecloth in the middle that the food and plates go on. Dinner is eaten sitting crosslegged or semi-reclining, Roman style. Its quite fun. Unless you sit there for a while because then your knees and back just get really tired and sore.
Wednesday June 30
The last day of June...also happened to be our short day of classes. Started today at 8:30am and finished at 10:45. Then we had the rest of the day to do as we pleased. I ended up going for lunch with a small group- Rob, Gaby, Kyle and a guy named Joe from the Eurasia program for lunch at another Indian restaurant called Deli Darbar on Rudake Ave. It was pretty good, Indian still isn’t my favorite but I liked the vegetarian dish I got and they had amazing ice cream. After lunch we headed back to the center to hang out, Skype, upload pictures, etc. It was a nice and relaxing afternoon.
Thursday July 1
Ahh, the first day of July. Summer is fully upon us. This is both good and bad news. Good because, as of 3:30am this morning, we have been here for exactly 3 weeks and therefore have exactly 5 weeks and one day left of classes/exams. Then a weekend to pack. Then a flight home! For me its a little longer until I will be back stateside, 6 weeks and 2 days to be precise. The bad news however is that the hottest weather will soon be upon us. I checked the weather widget on my computer dashboard today and it said that the weather this weekend is going to 105 on Saturday and 104 on Sunday. In a land with not very many air conditioners. Oh joy!
Persian class this morning was really fun, I liked it a lot. We were looking at some old ads from Iran, pre and post revolution. I liked it because we were analyzing them and discussing why they were effective which is just like the section we did on visual rhetoric in my class my first semester at school. I hope we do more stuff like this because I really liked it.
Tonight after dinner I had a really good conversation with my host mom and sister. We talked about this woman in the city who has identical triplet daughters. Nodira saw her on the street once and couldn’t tell the difference between them at all. I also learned that my host mom is afraid of infants. She doesn’t want to touch them because she is afraid she will drop them. She said she wouldn’t hold her grandkids, Azamat and Amena, until they were about three or four months old. I asked what she did when she had Nodira and Dilshod and she said that their grandmother, who lived with them, held them. I thought that was really weird and hilarious at the same time because I love infants. They are so tiny and delicate yes but their little ears and toes and noses make holding and taking care of them totally worth it. We talked about their dog and his mom. His mom belonged to a neighbor of theirs and so they were there when he had her 9 puppies and after a few days they got to pick one and take it home.
We also talked a little bit about this young boy who lives somewhere in the neighborhood who was born recently (I didn’t understand exactly how old he is). They kept saying over and over again that he was sick and how sorry they were for his family and finally I got them to explain what specifically was wrong with him. They said that he is not intelligent or not smart. Something is wrong with his head and it is a genetic disorder he got from his mother because she was sick when she gave birth(?). I’m not entirely sure if he is mentally retarded or has autism or something (if such a diagnosis exists here). But they said that Dilshod, my host brother, was at their house visiting and playing with him. When they were explaining this, it was a really interesting change of tone to their voice, almost reverent, that Dilshod would go and spend time with him. They said that ever since he was little, Dilshod was not afraid to touch people who are sick and he will go and talk to them and spend time with them and touch them so that it helps them get better. It reminded me of some people’s belief in healers, people with some sort of special sense or power to help sick people. If Tajiks believe in a kind of person like that then that’s what they would call Dilshod- a healer.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Aush and shopping
Thursday June 24
On Monday in Tajik class Diana asked our teacher, Zarrina, if she could teach us how to make aush. She agreed and told us that we could all come over to her house and we would cook. So, today was the big day! We finished Farsi class at 12:45 and then walked with Zarrina to her house, about 15 minutes away. We cooked aush on a fire outside and had salad and the most amazing bread and vodka and tea and campote (which is this amazing drink of water boiled with fruits) and cookies...ahh, kheli ba mazast bood (it tasted really good).
The weather today was perfect for such a wonderful afternoon outdoors. It rained earlier this morning and cooled everything off so that it was actually comfortable to be outside instead of just bearable. And later tonight after dinner there was another thunderstorm with lots of lightening- my favorite!
Oh, back to the campote for another second- I was asking my host mom how to make it and she offered to teach me so I think we are going to make some soon. I am excited to learn how to cook all these different foods- hopefully I will be able to reproduce them when I get home.
Friday June 25
Best class ever. So far at least. We had Tajik class at 8:30 then a break, then Farsi class. Our teacher showed up to class with a watermelon which I cut up and we all ate while giving our speeches. How awesome would it be if professors in the US showed up with watermelons! We have been eating a lot of watermelon lately, I think it is the most popular fruit for the summertime.
Saturday June 26
Today was the start of a long weekend- Monday is a national holiday so there are no classes. A small group of students, 9 people, had decided to take a trip on their own to Panjakent and Khujand. I decided to stay here in Dushanbe and had the opportunity to go to Hisor Fort, about half and hours drive out of the city.
The fort itself was small but interesting- the gate was built in the 16th century but the original walls were much older and have been around for thousands of years. We climbed up the hill/small mountain next to it and had a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside. We were able to see down the valley and overlook the fields and small villages nearby. After climbing around on the fort and taking adorable pictures in large quantities, we walked across the street to visit a museum. The museum is inside an old Islamic school and contains clothes and pottery and tools and other such things from the people who used to live and work at the fort.
When it was time for dinner I came out and found that we had a guest- my host father’s brother had come to visit. We all sat down to eat and then someone else knocked on the gate- his other brother! So I met some more of the family. Of course, any kind of gathering in Tajikistan must be accompanied with vodka and toasts so the men had several shots and I had a few small glasses of mulberry wine. After dinner I was talking with my host mom and she asked if I was planning on going to the exhibition and bazaar from Afghanistan that was in town for the weekend. I told her that I had planned to go with Kyle and Gaby on Monday but she said that the last day for it was actually tomorrow, Sunday, so we changed our plans and decided to go then.
Sunday June 27
This morning at 10am my host mom, sister, little brother, Kyle, Gaby and I set off to go to the Afghan bazaar.
It was the last day so some of the stalls were not open anymore but there was still plenty of merchandise available and things to look at. I ended up getting a wallet/clutch and some jewelry and Kyle got a few presents for friends. My host mom was able to get a couple of things as well to save for birthday presents and other such random gifts.
After we got home I was pretty exhausted so I helped make lunch and then went to rest. I read for a little bit and then ended up falling asleep until dinner time! I am also wondering if I have some kind of sickness because my upper legs are strangely sore even though climbing around on Fort Hisor and the hill was not all that strenuous. I think I will just wait to see how it goes tho and then maybe take something for it if I don’t get better.
On Monday in Tajik class Diana asked our teacher, Zarrina, if she could teach us how to make aush. She agreed and told us that we could all come over to her house and we would cook. So, today was the big day! We finished Farsi class at 12:45 and then walked with Zarrina to her house, about 15 minutes away. We cooked aush on a fire outside and had salad and the most amazing bread and vodka and tea and campote (which is this amazing drink of water boiled with fruits) and cookies...ahh, kheli ba mazast bood (it tasted really good).
The weather today was perfect for such a wonderful afternoon outdoors. It rained earlier this morning and cooled everything off so that it was actually comfortable to be outside instead of just bearable. And later tonight after dinner there was another thunderstorm with lots of lightening- my favorite!
Oh, back to the campote for another second- I was asking my host mom how to make it and she offered to teach me so I think we are going to make some soon. I am excited to learn how to cook all these different foods- hopefully I will be able to reproduce them when I get home.
Friday June 25
Best class ever. So far at least. We had Tajik class at 8:30 then a break, then Farsi class. Our teacher showed up to class with a watermelon which I cut up and we all ate while giving our speeches. How awesome would it be if professors in the US showed up with watermelons! We have been eating a lot of watermelon lately, I think it is the most popular fruit for the summertime.
Saturday June 26
Today was the start of a long weekend- Monday is a national holiday so there are no classes. A small group of students, 9 people, had decided to take a trip on their own to Panjakent and Khujand. I decided to stay here in Dushanbe and had the opportunity to go to Hisor Fort, about half and hours drive out of the city.
The fort itself was small but interesting- the gate was built in the 16th century but the original walls were much older and have been around for thousands of years. We climbed up the hill/small mountain next to it and had a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside. We were able to see down the valley and overlook the fields and small villages nearby. After climbing around on the fort and taking adorable pictures in large quantities, we walked across the street to visit a museum. The museum is inside an old Islamic school and contains clothes and pottery and tools and other such things from the people who used to live and work at the fort.
When it was time for dinner I came out and found that we had a guest- my host father’s brother had come to visit. We all sat down to eat and then someone else knocked on the gate- his other brother! So I met some more of the family. Of course, any kind of gathering in Tajikistan must be accompanied with vodka and toasts so the men had several shots and I had a few small glasses of mulberry wine. After dinner I was talking with my host mom and she asked if I was planning on going to the exhibition and bazaar from Afghanistan that was in town for the weekend. I told her that I had planned to go with Kyle and Gaby on Monday but she said that the last day for it was actually tomorrow, Sunday, so we changed our plans and decided to go then.
Sunday June 27
This morning at 10am my host mom, sister, little brother, Kyle, Gaby and I set off to go to the Afghan bazaar.
It was the last day so some of the stalls were not open anymore but there was still plenty of merchandise available and things to look at. I ended up getting a wallet/clutch and some jewelry and Kyle got a few presents for friends. My host mom was able to get a couple of things as well to save for birthday presents and other such random gifts. After we got home I was pretty exhausted so I helped make lunch and then went to rest. I read for a little bit and then ended up falling asleep until dinner time! I am also wondering if I have some kind of sickness because my upper legs are strangely sore even though climbing around on Fort Hisor and the hill was not all that strenuous. I think I will just wait to see how it goes tho and then maybe take something for it if I don’t get better.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Are we on vaca?
Saturday June 19
Today we had an excursion to Varzob for a day of mountain climbing and swimming. The view was amazing, the drive there, the scenery from the top of the mountain, looking down across the valley, it was gorgeous.
We were going to this recreational area/private park where you can rent out little places, like cabanas, along side of the river to relax and eat lunch in. We brought food with us and the staff there cooked it for us so we had salad and aush. The entire day was nice and relaxing. We arrived around 9:30am and immediately a group of us set out to climb the mountain. Of course the boys leading it chose the most difficult path and so we were climbing up a mountain of sand and rock at about a 65 degree angle. Gaby and I went up to the first peak of the mountain and then decided that it wasn’t worth it to go all the way to the top so we leisurely made our way back down while the rest of the group continued upward. When we got back down we were hot and tired so of course we decided to jump into the pool! 
The water was freezing! We estimated it around 45 degrees. They had filled the pool just a few days before we arrived with water from the river. The river had one of the fastest currents I have seen and was almost overflowing because of the melting snow from the mountain tops. So, sustained swimming was just too painful but we jumped in a few times and then sat out to warm up and then would go jump in again when we got hot. After lunch I went swimming again for a little while and then laid down to read and nap. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable day away from Dushanbe, as if we were on vacation instead of being halfway around the world going to school.
Saturday night I went to SegaFredo’s to meet up with friends and upload more pictures. I stayed almost until they closed at 11pm with Brett and then we took the bus home together.
Sunday June 20
Sunday morning I slept in a little bit. When I got up, everyone else in the house had gone except for Nodira. Nasiba and Dilshod and children always go to visit Nasiba’s mother on Sundays and my mom and dad had gone to the bazaar. So, Nodira and I had breakfast and then I asker her to show me how to use the washing machine to do my laundry from the past two weeks. After being told that we wouldn’t be able to do laundry, being able to was quite a pleasant surprise and I did not mind the difficulty of using a third world washing machine. The washing machine is divided in half. All the first half of the washing machine does is jostle the clothes around in the soapy water. Then the rinsing must be done by hand in the bathtub. Then you put the rinsed clothes back into the other side of the washing machine and it spins them to get some of the water out. Then the rinsed partially dry clothes go out on the clothes line to finish drying in the sun. After almost two hours, I now have clean clothes!
The rest of my Sunday afternoon I spent around the house, helping make lunch, doing some homework, took a shower, read a little bit, watched a movie, and then went to bed, ready for school on Monday.
Monday June 21
I realized today that it is June 21. Firstly this is significant because it is the summer solstice and normally we have a party at my house which, obviously, I will be missing out on. The second reason this is significant is because I was shocked by how close it is to the end of June. This is much more pertinent to me as it means that I have exactly just eight weeks left before I will be home! And only seven weeks of class/being in Tajikistan left, the week in Paris and Barcelona doesn’t really count. This was quite relieving to me. After thinking about that length of time with the mindset of how quickly my time here has been going by, I think I’m going to make it.
I stayed late at the office to try and catch up on email and picture uploading. The internet connection is much faster at that time of night because there are less people around trying to use it. At other times of the day the connection is just too weak to accomplish things that need a lot of bandwidth.
For lunch we only had a short break and Rob and I had an even shorter one as we had planned to meet with Jake about our externships before our afternoon classes started. We headed over to the Morning Star Cafe for a quick bite. Rob and I had to rush back to talk to Jake and the woman we would be working with. We are going to help out for a day or two at a summer camp for 14 and 15 year old Tajik kids. The woman organizing it wants us to talk to them for a short while about our community service experiences in America and ways that we are involved in our own communities. We also are responsible for organizing some activities to lead the kids in such as touch football and a ropes/obstacle course of some kind. The purpose of the camp is to further the kids’ knowledge of how to work in teams, how to be leaders, that sort of thing. So they want the activities to promote those concepts in some way or another. I think its going to be fun- the camp will be one of the last two weeks in July and be in the mountains so hopefully it will be a little bit cooler up there. I’m excited for it and also a little bit nervous. I will have to prepare my speech ahead of time so that I know all the words I’ll need to explain myself properly and also make up some vocab lists to familiarize myself with so that we can teach them how to play the games we are organizing.
Tuesday June 22
Today for lunch we went to the Turkish restaurant on Rudaki street, Merve (Mer-vay). We had gotten ice cream from there before but never real food and so we decided to give it a try. It was pretty good- Kyle and I got cheese pizza and marinated chicken and shared both. Then we got ice cream! I’m glad that we found a spot to get ice cream that doesn’t make us sick because I think we are going to be getting it a lot this summer. AND! Bonus! Its only 50 cents (US) per cone! Its the small things like this that are gonna make living here more fun.
When I got home after school I had another surprise waiting for me. Remember my little sister’s bad haircut? I thought it couldn’t get any worse but nope! It did! She is now completely bald. They shaved her head. She really does look like she is in a concentration camp now. Or a convict. Its so strange, I am very glad that that is not a custom in America.
Wednesday June 23
We went with another guy who is here studying Uzbek to a Russian cafeteria that is right across the street from us. The food was good (I was expecting it to be terrible since it is a cafeteria after all) and very inexpensive so we will probably go back sometime. Walking into the building tho I was not entirely sure if we were allowed to be there because the outside of the building looks very official. The inside is a long hallway with a carpet running down the middle and plaques on the walls above locked white doors on either side. I am pretty sure it is some kind of government office and the cafeteria is there so that they don’t have to leave the building for lunch. Twas a little intimidating but no one said anything about us being there and the RD said that it was a favorite spot for previous students because of its proximity to school.
Today we had an excursion to Varzob for a day of mountain climbing and swimming. The view was amazing, the drive there, the scenery from the top of the mountain, looking down across the valley, it was gorgeous.
We were going to this recreational area/private park where you can rent out little places, like cabanas, along side of the river to relax and eat lunch in. We brought food with us and the staff there cooked it for us so we had salad and aush. The entire day was nice and relaxing. We arrived around 9:30am and immediately a group of us set out to climb the mountain. Of course the boys leading it chose the most difficult path and so we were climbing up a mountain of sand and rock at about a 65 degree angle. Gaby and I went up to the first peak of the mountain and then decided that it wasn’t worth it to go all the way to the top so we leisurely made our way back down while the rest of the group continued upward. When we got back down we were hot and tired so of course we decided to jump into the pool! 
The water was freezing! We estimated it around 45 degrees. They had filled the pool just a few days before we arrived with water from the river. The river had one of the fastest currents I have seen and was almost overflowing because of the melting snow from the mountain tops. So, sustained swimming was just too painful but we jumped in a few times and then sat out to warm up and then would go jump in again when we got hot. After lunch I went swimming again for a little while and then laid down to read and nap. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable day away from Dushanbe, as if we were on vacation instead of being halfway around the world going to school. Saturday night I went to SegaFredo’s to meet up with friends and upload more pictures. I stayed almost until they closed at 11pm with Brett and then we took the bus home together.
Sunday June 20
Sunday morning I slept in a little bit. When I got up, everyone else in the house had gone except for Nodira. Nasiba and Dilshod and children always go to visit Nasiba’s mother on Sundays and my mom and dad had gone to the bazaar. So, Nodira and I had breakfast and then I asker her to show me how to use the washing machine to do my laundry from the past two weeks. After being told that we wouldn’t be able to do laundry, being able to was quite a pleasant surprise and I did not mind the difficulty of using a third world washing machine. The washing machine is divided in half. All the first half of the washing machine does is jostle the clothes around in the soapy water. Then the rinsing must be done by hand in the bathtub. Then you put the rinsed clothes back into the other side of the washing machine and it spins them to get some of the water out. Then the rinsed partially dry clothes go out on the clothes line to finish drying in the sun. After almost two hours, I now have clean clothes!
The rest of my Sunday afternoon I spent around the house, helping make lunch, doing some homework, took a shower, read a little bit, watched a movie, and then went to bed, ready for school on Monday.
Monday June 21
I realized today that it is June 21. Firstly this is significant because it is the summer solstice and normally we have a party at my house which, obviously, I will be missing out on. The second reason this is significant is because I was shocked by how close it is to the end of June. This is much more pertinent to me as it means that I have exactly just eight weeks left before I will be home! And only seven weeks of class/being in Tajikistan left, the week in Paris and Barcelona doesn’t really count. This was quite relieving to me. After thinking about that length of time with the mindset of how quickly my time here has been going by, I think I’m going to make it.
I stayed late at the office to try and catch up on email and picture uploading. The internet connection is much faster at that time of night because there are less people around trying to use it. At other times of the day the connection is just too weak to accomplish things that need a lot of bandwidth.
For lunch we only had a short break and Rob and I had an even shorter one as we had planned to meet with Jake about our externships before our afternoon classes started. We headed over to the Morning Star Cafe for a quick bite. Rob and I had to rush back to talk to Jake and the woman we would be working with. We are going to help out for a day or two at a summer camp for 14 and 15 year old Tajik kids. The woman organizing it wants us to talk to them for a short while about our community service experiences in America and ways that we are involved in our own communities. We also are responsible for organizing some activities to lead the kids in such as touch football and a ropes/obstacle course of some kind. The purpose of the camp is to further the kids’ knowledge of how to work in teams, how to be leaders, that sort of thing. So they want the activities to promote those concepts in some way or another. I think its going to be fun- the camp will be one of the last two weeks in July and be in the mountains so hopefully it will be a little bit cooler up there. I’m excited for it and also a little bit nervous. I will have to prepare my speech ahead of time so that I know all the words I’ll need to explain myself properly and also make up some vocab lists to familiarize myself with so that we can teach them how to play the games we are organizing.
Tuesday June 22
Today for lunch we went to the Turkish restaurant on Rudaki street, Merve (Mer-vay). We had gotten ice cream from there before but never real food and so we decided to give it a try. It was pretty good- Kyle and I got cheese pizza and marinated chicken and shared both. Then we got ice cream! I’m glad that we found a spot to get ice cream that doesn’t make us sick because I think we are going to be getting it a lot this summer. AND! Bonus! Its only 50 cents (US) per cone! Its the small things like this that are gonna make living here more fun.
When I got home after school I had another surprise waiting for me. Remember my little sister’s bad haircut? I thought it couldn’t get any worse but nope! It did! She is now completely bald. They shaved her head. She really does look like she is in a concentration camp now. Or a convict. Its so strange, I am very glad that that is not a custom in America.
Wednesday June 23
We went with another guy who is here studying Uzbek to a Russian cafeteria that is right across the street from us. The food was good (I was expecting it to be terrible since it is a cafeteria after all) and very inexpensive so we will probably go back sometime. Walking into the building tho I was not entirely sure if we were allowed to be there because the outside of the building looks very official. The inside is a long hallway with a carpet running down the middle and plaques on the walls above locked white doors on either side. I am pretty sure it is some kind of government office and the cafeteria is there so that they don’t have to leave the building for lunch. Twas a little intimidating but no one said anything about us being there and the RD said that it was a favorite spot for previous students because of its proximity to school.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Cuture shock!
Thursday June 17
I didn’t have class today until 10:45 but I went to the office early to post more pictures. The internet here is struggling because so many people are trying to use it at one time. This is frustrating but I guess I should just be happy that we have Wi-Fi here at all.
For class today we just had Persian composition. Or was it conversation?...The classes are almost exactly the same so I have no idea which is which. But either way, our teacher corrected our homework in the workbook while we wrote our speeches for tomorrow and then she corrected those for us too. Its good that she is being so particular and correcting us on everything because none of our previous teachers have done it like that and so we have gotten used to consistently making the same mistakes.We finished classes for the day at 12:45 and decided to go to an Indian place that we had heard was pretty good. The outside of the building was wild looking- like something out of a theme park.
I wasn’t very impressed with the food there and it was kind of expensive as far as Tajik standards go so I don’t think I will go back. At least I won’t order a full meal again, I would go for just a drink and dessert or something. I ordered the orange chicken (they had mexican, chinese, indian and mediterranean food) but instead they gave me lemon chicken. I know what you are thinking- they are both citrus so whats the difference? But they are NOT the same lol.
When I got home I helped my host dad make aush for dinner. I am beginning to wonder if I will ever eat enough to satisfy them. Tonight I ate SOOO much food! And STILL my host mom said to me when I finished “tut tut, you didn’t eat anything!” Ok so she didn’t actually say “tut tut” but whatever she did say was totally equivalent. But honestly, I simply can’t eat anymore!
Friday June 18
Had class today, hooray for fridays! It was a long day because we had four hours of straight classes, two hours of Tajik and two hours of Farsi, then a break for lunch, then back for film class for two hours, then our meeting with Jake at 5pm. So my day started at 8:30 for class and finished at 5:30. For lunch we went to Southern Fried Chicken for lunch. It was so good. As soon as we walked in the door it smelled like home because it was exactly like Chick-fil-a. Very comforting. I now have another place to go when feeling homesick- SFC and SegaFredo’s which is the European style coffee bar.
I decided that I am going to start a list of all the good places to go in town to pass along to future students who come here. It will be like the little black book of insider secrets that gets passed down through the classes. Everyone can edit it and add new places as they discover them.
After I got home for dinner I looked on in horror as my host family shaved the head of the little girl, Amena. Tajiks think that if they shave off the hair of little girls, it will grow back faster and thicker. I believe the thicker part, but faster? You just chopped off two years worth of hair! I couldn’t believe they were doing that to her, she now looks like a boy. And even worse, they did it with a pair of scissors so you can clearly see each part where they chopped it off. So not only does she look like a boy, she looks like she just got out of a concentration camp or something. I was completely horrified while they were doing that but I couldn’t do anything and was to stunned to say something so I just stood there watching as they held her down while the grandfather went to work. After a few minutes of sitting in front of him on a stool she got tired of it and wanted to get up. But they weren’t done yet so the grandmother and her mom had to hold her down and clamp her head in place so he didn’t cut her or something. She was crying and trying to get away- she is only 1 so she had no idea what was going on. So upsetting- I’m so glad I got pictures before they cut her hair off! But I guess thats part of the whole point of coming here- to experience a new culture! And I'm sure I will get used to her new haircut- she is so adorable how could anyone resist!?
I didn’t have class today until 10:45 but I went to the office early to post more pictures. The internet here is struggling because so many people are trying to use it at one time. This is frustrating but I guess I should just be happy that we have Wi-Fi here at all.
For class today we just had Persian composition. Or was it conversation?...The classes are almost exactly the same so I have no idea which is which. But either way, our teacher corrected our homework in the workbook while we wrote our speeches for tomorrow and then she corrected those for us too. Its good that she is being so particular and correcting us on everything because none of our previous teachers have done it like that and so we have gotten used to consistently making the same mistakes.We finished classes for the day at 12:45 and decided to go to an Indian place that we had heard was pretty good. The outside of the building was wild looking- like something out of a theme park.
I wasn’t very impressed with the food there and it was kind of expensive as far as Tajik standards go so I don’t think I will go back. At least I won’t order a full meal again, I would go for just a drink and dessert or something. I ordered the orange chicken (they had mexican, chinese, indian and mediterranean food) but instead they gave me lemon chicken. I know what you are thinking- they are both citrus so whats the difference? But they are NOT the same lol.When I got home I helped my host dad make aush for dinner. I am beginning to wonder if I will ever eat enough to satisfy them. Tonight I ate SOOO much food! And STILL my host mom said to me when I finished “tut tut, you didn’t eat anything!” Ok so she didn’t actually say “tut tut” but whatever she did say was totally equivalent. But honestly, I simply can’t eat anymore!
Friday June 18
Had class today, hooray for fridays! It was a long day because we had four hours of straight classes, two hours of Tajik and two hours of Farsi, then a break for lunch, then back for film class for two hours, then our meeting with Jake at 5pm. So my day started at 8:30 for class and finished at 5:30. For lunch we went to Southern Fried Chicken for lunch. It was so good. As soon as we walked in the door it smelled like home because it was exactly like Chick-fil-a. Very comforting. I now have another place to go when feeling homesick- SFC and SegaFredo’s which is the European style coffee bar.
I decided that I am going to start a list of all the good places to go in town to pass along to future students who come here. It will be like the little black book of insider secrets that gets passed down through the classes. Everyone can edit it and add new places as they discover them.
After I got home for dinner I looked on in horror as my host family shaved the head of the little girl, Amena. Tajiks think that if they shave off the hair of little girls, it will grow back faster and thicker. I believe the thicker part, but faster? You just chopped off two years worth of hair! I couldn’t believe they were doing that to her, she now looks like a boy. And even worse, they did it with a pair of scissors so you can clearly see each part where they chopped it off. So not only does she look like a boy, she looks like she just got out of a concentration camp or something. I was completely horrified while they were doing that but I couldn’t do anything and was to stunned to say something so I just stood there watching as they held her down while the grandfather went to work. After a few minutes of sitting in front of him on a stool she got tired of it and wanted to get up. But they weren’t done yet so the grandmother and her mom had to hold her down and clamp her head in place so he didn’t cut her or something. She was crying and trying to get away- she is only 1 so she had no idea what was going on. So upsetting- I’m so glad I got pictures before they cut her hair off! But I guess thats part of the whole point of coming here- to experience a new culture! And I'm sure I will get used to her new haircut- she is so adorable how could anyone resist!?
Friday, June 18, 2010
Settling in
Saturday June 12
Today being Saturday, I told my host mom that I didn’t know what time I would get up and she encouraged me to sleep in if I wanted to. Of course I took her up on her offer and got up at 9 to shower and eat before heading to the American Councils office to check email and publish pictures and a note on Facebook. As I was eating breakfast, Azamat came in with his blocks that his grandmother had gotten for him the night before and dumped them all on the floor. But instead of playing with the blocks, he decided to throw the box around the room, almost knocking over piles of dishes and the teapot. So I got to practice all those commands for “Stop! Don’t do that! Don’t touch that!” He didn’t listen. I wonder if I am saying them wrong or he is just being difficult and pretending to not understand me…
A couple of us were wondering what was happening in Iran today because it is the one year anniversary of the election and start of the protests last summer. I guess nothing huge went on because there was nothing on the news and we didn’t hear anything about it. The government was probably really cracking down on anything that was scheduled to happen to keep the situation under control.
For lunch I went with some of the kids from Cali to an Iranian restaurant called Fast Food. I’m not sure why its called Fast Food because it is a sit down restaurant. But they have good kabobs. I got vegetarian pizza that came with peas, corn, peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms on it. I thought the peas and corn would be a little weird but it was surprisingly good. After lunch we met up with the rest of the group and Jake who took us to show us where to buy cell phones, sim cards, and the little ATM like machines to put more money on your calling/texting plan. These machines are amazing, I don’t know why someone hasn’t thought of them in the US because you can do so many things in one convenient location including put more money on your phone plan, pay your water, gas and electric bills and even pay your taxes!
After that I came home to get my computer and then headed to a European style coffee bar that had Wi-Fi with Kyle and Rob and Diana and Tommy to try skype and upload pictures. It was really nice inside with leather couches and cool lamps that reminded me of Starbucks. Jake said some of the previous students recommended going there when we start to feel homesick and I can see why- its has a very western feel to it. I ended up leaving by myself because I told my family that I would be home by 8:30 and it was already 8:45 when I left the coffee bar. It was also just after sunset so I decided to take the bus back so that I didn’t have to walk alone. The busses here are very convenient and are only 60 cents in Tajiki money which is like 20 cents US money. They run up and down the main road so you just give the guy your money, jump on and then get off whenever you want to. Usually I try and have exact of very close to exact change but Jake said that if we don’t have coins then we shouldn’t worry about not getting our change back when we get off because the money collectors have an amazing capacity for remembering who they own and how much. Even when there are 5 people getting on and 5 people getting off at the same time, they always give the right change to the right person.
When I got home my family immediately pulled together a bunch of stuff for my dinner which was totally unnecessary because I can only ever eat about half the stuff that they put in front of me. They also caught me up on what I had missed that day which included the little girl, Amina, saying her first words! She said “Mi Ohm” which means “I’m coming!” It was terribly exciting, I’m bummed I missed it.
I was going to stay up late and watch the USvEngland World Cup match but none of the channels that I get on the tv in my room were showing the game. Oh well. I went to bed instead. Extra sleep won’t hurt me any.
Sunday June 13
This morning I accidentally slept until 10:30. I guess all the walking yesterday made me really tired. I just turned off my alarm and went back to sleep, a little longer “snooze” than I intended but oh well, I won’t be able to sleep in all that often after today because classes start tomorrow at 8:30am.
Kyle and Gaby and I went to the Bazaar Shahmandoor to check it out and I wanted to get some dried fruit and possibly sandals.
I was successful concerning the dried fruit- I got banana chips- but left the shoe shopping for another trip. We met up with Tommy and decided to buy a watermelon to share. So, armed with dried fruits, watermelon and a knife we set out to walk back to the Opera Ballet to sit outside and carve our booty. While we were sitting at one of the tables at the outdoor restaurant in front of the Opera house, we saw the old man who walks around the city with a bear! He keeps the bear on a leash and has a cane that he uses to prod the bear to do tricks such as stand up on two legs to pose and roll over on the ground as people watch and take pictures. So many random things that would just never happen in the US…
After eating our watermelon Kyle and I decided to head home as, at breakfast, I had promised to be home early to learn how to make Ash Pollo with my host dad. I got online to check my email really quickly and ended up being able to video chat with mom before she went to church! We talked until my computer died (I have to go sit in the street to get a wireless signal from the american councils building lol) and then I went in to learn how to cook. My host dad had already done mostly everything but I watched as it was cooking. Then he went to go and get drinks and I sampled mulberry wine and two different vintages of wine (from grapes). I tried to ask if he had made the wine from the grapes that they grow in their courtyard but I don’t think he understood my question. It was just three of us for dinner- my host mom was at a wedding and the son and his family had gone to visit the wife’s mother as they do every sunday and they were gone all day. After dinner I finally got to do something useful and helped the daughter clean up and wash the dishes. We talked for a while over tea and dessert which was a lot of fun because I hadn’t spent much time with her until then.
Monday June 14
Today was the first day of classes. Before we left DC and at the orientation when we arrived here they told us that since we had already taken the test for American Councils, we didn’t have to take any placement tests because our schedules were already set. However, this was not the case when we showed up for our Tajik class this morning at 8:30. Our Farsi teacher told us that we needed to upstairs to a classroom to take the placement exams and that our Tajik teacher wasn’t coming that day. After dealing with all that confusion, we ended up having to take 4 placement exams in reading, writing, listening and something else that I have forgotten already. Incredibly frustrating but I guess thats what they meant about a sense of humor and flexibility being necessary.
For lunch we went to Morning Star Cafe which is very close to the offices, maybe a 5 minute walk. I had a Greek Wrap which was shredded chicken, yogurt sauce and diced cucumbers, tomatoes and olives.
It was really good, I will probably get it again while I am here. They also had really good bean salad and waldorf salad if I just want something small and light instead. It is a little ridiculous how inexpensive everything is here- today 12 people had a nice lunch for less than $50 and on our first day here when Jake took us to the Tajik restaurant, 33 people ate there for less than $100.
After classes finished around 2:30 I skyped and caught up on my picture-uploading and Facebook posts, saving finishing my journal for later. After I got home, I changed into the clothes that my host mom bought for me. When I walked outside into the courtyard everyone was surprised and said “You have become a Tajik!” I guess I kind of do look like it, maybe half Russian or something European. My skin has gotten a little darker from being in the sun so much so it is mostly just my hair that is different looking. I had dinner with the family except that my host mom was still at the office working on the class schedules for tomorrow. Dilshod, my host brother, took Azamat to get ice cream and brought back one for me too which was really nice of him. I am still waiting for a dinner when everyone is home at the same time to give them their presents that I brought from the US! I promised my host dad tonight as he was cooking that I would make an American meal for them one night so now I need to research and see what kind of ingredients the grocery stores have here. I was thinking maybe macaroni and cheese as that is kind of a southern comfort food. I know they have macaroni pasta here because we had some for dinner tonight but I’m not completely sure about what kinds of cheese they have...I’ll have to find that out before I get started. After we finished eating and cleaned up, my host mom was still at the office working, so we took Amina and Azamat over to play ping pong while she finished up and then walked back all together.
One last note before bed- its kind of funny, everyone told us that it never rains in Tajikistan during the summers so we should be prepared for it to be incredibly hot and dusty. But I think it has stormed every afternoon that we have been here...not that I am complaining- I love storms and they definitely help to keep the dust down and also lower the temperature- two very good things here! But still I find it slightly amusing. I think that once it gets further along into the summer months tho then the rains will stop.
Tuesday June 15
I didn’t have weird dreams last night! I had a normal dream. Normal for dreams that is. I dreamed that I was in the grocery store buying cheese. This may seem pretty weird but actually I sort of expected to dream about that because I was thinking about shopping for cheese right before I went to sleep. Again, weird? Nope- I promised my host dad that I would make American food for dinner some night and was then pondering what I would make and if macaroni and cheese would be feasible. If you have any suggestions for what to make let me know!
Today was our first real day of classes since we just had those placement tests yesterday. Our teacher seems like she is really good, hopefully we will learn a lot this summer. We had our afternoon free so we decided to head over to Fast Food, the Iranian restaurant, for lunch and then go next door to get our sim cards and cell phones. The guy at the counter was really difficult to communicate with- I tried speaking as much Tajik as I could and he didn’t understand anything I was saying but he would reply in broken English. But when I spoke English he couldn’t understand me either… I guess he spoke Russian and some English and some Tajik but I still have no idea why we had so much trouble. There was a lot of pointing at phone plans and gesturing in lieu of talking. But, cell phones acquired. All in all a successful afternoon. Now we will be able to communicate.
I got home and had dinner with most of the family except for my dad and brother because they were both working late. Afterwards I gave everyone their gifts. I had been trying to wait until everyone was all together but, seeing as it has been almost a week and that still hasn’t happened, I gave up on that plan and decided to just give them to the people who were there. Everyone really liked them I think and its a good thing that I went with the bigger size flip flops because those were the ones that fit them! I still have one bar of chocolate that I will probably save for dessert some other time.
When Azamat first got his coloring book and crayons he was really excited and started playing with them right away. But when I gave Amina her rattle, he started to throw a fit because he wanted that instead. So they gave him the rattle and her the empty crayon box to play with. While he was figuring out how to use the rattle, they were trying to convince him that it was a baby toy and he was too old to play with that toy and that he should play with his big boy toy instead. Their tactic was successful and he soon went back to playing with the crayons. I got to help teach him colors which was fun- he still can’t remember any of them yet but maybe he’ll get them down by the end of the summer.
After dinner I did some homework and then went to bed- I was pretty tired from all the walking that we did earlier today.
Wednesday June 16
Today was a pretty chill day- we had Persian class for two hours and then were all done for the day. A few of us went to Morningstar Cafe to grab lunch and then came back to the center to use the internet and talk to people back home.
I got a little bit of homework done and then went home when the center closed at 5pm. When I got home they were starting to make dinner- we were having dumplings!
I helped make them and took a lot of pictures and some videos. They were soo good.
After dinner I helped clean up and then played around with the kids for a little while before heading to my room to rest and do homework and try to catch up on my journal. I don’t know why I am so exhausted today because I didn’t really do all that much…
Today being Saturday, I told my host mom that I didn’t know what time I would get up and she encouraged me to sleep in if I wanted to. Of course I took her up on her offer and got up at 9 to shower and eat before heading to the American Councils office to check email and publish pictures and a note on Facebook. As I was eating breakfast, Azamat came in with his blocks that his grandmother had gotten for him the night before and dumped them all on the floor. But instead of playing with the blocks, he decided to throw the box around the room, almost knocking over piles of dishes and the teapot. So I got to practice all those commands for “Stop! Don’t do that! Don’t touch that!” He didn’t listen. I wonder if I am saying them wrong or he is just being difficult and pretending to not understand me…
A couple of us were wondering what was happening in Iran today because it is the one year anniversary of the election and start of the protests last summer. I guess nothing huge went on because there was nothing on the news and we didn’t hear anything about it. The government was probably really cracking down on anything that was scheduled to happen to keep the situation under control.
For lunch I went with some of the kids from Cali to an Iranian restaurant called Fast Food. I’m not sure why its called Fast Food because it is a sit down restaurant. But they have good kabobs. I got vegetarian pizza that came with peas, corn, peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms on it. I thought the peas and corn would be a little weird but it was surprisingly good. After lunch we met up with the rest of the group and Jake who took us to show us where to buy cell phones, sim cards, and the little ATM like machines to put more money on your calling/texting plan. These machines are amazing, I don’t know why someone hasn’t thought of them in the US because you can do so many things in one convenient location including put more money on your phone plan, pay your water, gas and electric bills and even pay your taxes!
After that I came home to get my computer and then headed to a European style coffee bar that had Wi-Fi with Kyle and Rob and Diana and Tommy to try skype and upload pictures. It was really nice inside with leather couches and cool lamps that reminded me of Starbucks. Jake said some of the previous students recommended going there when we start to feel homesick and I can see why- its has a very western feel to it. I ended up leaving by myself because I told my family that I would be home by 8:30 and it was already 8:45 when I left the coffee bar. It was also just after sunset so I decided to take the bus back so that I didn’t have to walk alone. The busses here are very convenient and are only 60 cents in Tajiki money which is like 20 cents US money. They run up and down the main road so you just give the guy your money, jump on and then get off whenever you want to. Usually I try and have exact of very close to exact change but Jake said that if we don’t have coins then we shouldn’t worry about not getting our change back when we get off because the money collectors have an amazing capacity for remembering who they own and how much. Even when there are 5 people getting on and 5 people getting off at the same time, they always give the right change to the right person.
When I got home my family immediately pulled together a bunch of stuff for my dinner which was totally unnecessary because I can only ever eat about half the stuff that they put in front of me. They also caught me up on what I had missed that day which included the little girl, Amina, saying her first words! She said “Mi Ohm” which means “I’m coming!” It was terribly exciting, I’m bummed I missed it.
I was going to stay up late and watch the USvEngland World Cup match but none of the channels that I get on the tv in my room were showing the game. Oh well. I went to bed instead. Extra sleep won’t hurt me any.
Sunday June 13
This morning I accidentally slept until 10:30. I guess all the walking yesterday made me really tired. I just turned off my alarm and went back to sleep, a little longer “snooze” than I intended but oh well, I won’t be able to sleep in all that often after today because classes start tomorrow at 8:30am.
Kyle and Gaby and I went to the Bazaar Shahmandoor to check it out and I wanted to get some dried fruit and possibly sandals.
After eating our watermelon Kyle and I decided to head home as, at breakfast, I had promised to be home early to learn how to make Ash Pollo with my host dad. I got online to check my email really quickly and ended up being able to video chat with mom before she went to church! We talked until my computer died (I have to go sit in the street to get a wireless signal from the american councils building lol) and then I went in to learn how to cook. My host dad had already done mostly everything but I watched as it was cooking. Then he went to go and get drinks and I sampled mulberry wine and two different vintages of wine (from grapes). I tried to ask if he had made the wine from the grapes that they grow in their courtyard but I don’t think he understood my question. It was just three of us for dinner- my host mom was at a wedding and the son and his family had gone to visit the wife’s mother as they do every sunday and they were gone all day. After dinner I finally got to do something useful and helped the daughter clean up and wash the dishes. We talked for a while over tea and dessert which was a lot of fun because I hadn’t spent much time with her until then.
Monday June 14
Today was the first day of classes. Before we left DC and at the orientation when we arrived here they told us that since we had already taken the test for American Councils, we didn’t have to take any placement tests because our schedules were already set. However, this was not the case when we showed up for our Tajik class this morning at 8:30. Our Farsi teacher told us that we needed to upstairs to a classroom to take the placement exams and that our Tajik teacher wasn’t coming that day. After dealing with all that confusion, we ended up having to take 4 placement exams in reading, writing, listening and something else that I have forgotten already. Incredibly frustrating but I guess thats what they meant about a sense of humor and flexibility being necessary.
For lunch we went to Morning Star Cafe which is very close to the offices, maybe a 5 minute walk. I had a Greek Wrap which was shredded chicken, yogurt sauce and diced cucumbers, tomatoes and olives.
After classes finished around 2:30 I skyped and caught up on my picture-uploading and Facebook posts, saving finishing my journal for later. After I got home, I changed into the clothes that my host mom bought for me. When I walked outside into the courtyard everyone was surprised and said “You have become a Tajik!” I guess I kind of do look like it, maybe half Russian or something European. My skin has gotten a little darker from being in the sun so much so it is mostly just my hair that is different looking. I had dinner with the family except that my host mom was still at the office working on the class schedules for tomorrow. Dilshod, my host brother, took Azamat to get ice cream and brought back one for me too which was really nice of him. I am still waiting for a dinner when everyone is home at the same time to give them their presents that I brought from the US! I promised my host dad tonight as he was cooking that I would make an American meal for them one night so now I need to research and see what kind of ingredients the grocery stores have here. I was thinking maybe macaroni and cheese as that is kind of a southern comfort food. I know they have macaroni pasta here because we had some for dinner tonight but I’m not completely sure about what kinds of cheese they have...I’ll have to find that out before I get started. After we finished eating and cleaned up, my host mom was still at the office working, so we took Amina and Azamat over to play ping pong while she finished up and then walked back all together.
One last note before bed- its kind of funny, everyone told us that it never rains in Tajikistan during the summers so we should be prepared for it to be incredibly hot and dusty. But I think it has stormed every afternoon that we have been here...not that I am complaining- I love storms and they definitely help to keep the dust down and also lower the temperature- two very good things here! But still I find it slightly amusing. I think that once it gets further along into the summer months tho then the rains will stop.
Tuesday June 15
I didn’t have weird dreams last night! I had a normal dream. Normal for dreams that is. I dreamed that I was in the grocery store buying cheese. This may seem pretty weird but actually I sort of expected to dream about that because I was thinking about shopping for cheese right before I went to sleep. Again, weird? Nope- I promised my host dad that I would make American food for dinner some night and was then pondering what I would make and if macaroni and cheese would be feasible. If you have any suggestions for what to make let me know!
Today was our first real day of classes since we just had those placement tests yesterday. Our teacher seems like she is really good, hopefully we will learn a lot this summer. We had our afternoon free so we decided to head over to Fast Food, the Iranian restaurant, for lunch and then go next door to get our sim cards and cell phones. The guy at the counter was really difficult to communicate with- I tried speaking as much Tajik as I could and he didn’t understand anything I was saying but he would reply in broken English. But when I spoke English he couldn’t understand me either… I guess he spoke Russian and some English and some Tajik but I still have no idea why we had so much trouble. There was a lot of pointing at phone plans and gesturing in lieu of talking. But, cell phones acquired. All in all a successful afternoon. Now we will be able to communicate.
I got home and had dinner with most of the family except for my dad and brother because they were both working late. Afterwards I gave everyone their gifts. I had been trying to wait until everyone was all together but, seeing as it has been almost a week and that still hasn’t happened, I gave up on that plan and decided to just give them to the people who were there. Everyone really liked them I think and its a good thing that I went with the bigger size flip flops because those were the ones that fit them! I still have one bar of chocolate that I will probably save for dessert some other time.
When Azamat first got his coloring book and crayons he was really excited and started playing with them right away. But when I gave Amina her rattle, he started to throw a fit because he wanted that instead. So they gave him the rattle and her the empty crayon box to play with. While he was figuring out how to use the rattle, they were trying to convince him that it was a baby toy and he was too old to play with that toy and that he should play with his big boy toy instead. Their tactic was successful and he soon went back to playing with the crayons. I got to help teach him colors which was fun- he still can’t remember any of them yet but maybe he’ll get them down by the end of the summer.
After dinner I did some homework and then went to bed- I was pretty tired from all the walking that we did earlier today.
Wednesday June 16
Today was a pretty chill day- we had Persian class for two hours and then were all done for the day. A few of us went to Morningstar Cafe to grab lunch and then came back to the center to use the internet and talk to people back home.
I got a little bit of homework done and then went home when the center closed at 5pm. When I got home they were starting to make dinner- we were having dumplings!
I helped make them and took a lot of pictures and some videos. They were soo good.
After dinner I helped clean up and then played around with the kids for a little while before heading to my room to rest and do homework and try to catch up on my journal. I don’t know why I am so exhausted today because I didn’t really do all that much…
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