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!?