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!