The ex-pat waxes poetic

In the last month I spent a good deal of time celebrating Halloween.  I celebrated it in Khujand, in QurganTeppa, and of course, in Dushanbe.  I indulged in every Halloween habit I could successfully imitate.  Tajik students ate up the games…particularly donut on a string.  Javid and I choreographed a fantastically amateur salsa piece to a gruesome cover of Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson.   I went to the freakiest costume party of my life at a club called Snap.  There, I saw a little Tajik girl dressed up in a pregnancy suit with the fetus ripping out of her stomach while listening to a Tajik hard rock/metal band.  Gulp.

I also get a roundabout look into the culture of the armed service.  And here is the point at which my steel ex-patriot coat starts to chip and erode.  I believe Henry James wrote a novel called The American with a very sympathetic lens toward the foreigner in a foreign land.  I’ll have to start that book soon and maybe better undersand my fellow Americans… 

A very sweet Marine gave me a ticket to the US Marine Ball.   I have never had such a candid look into military culture.  Most of the Marines in Tajikistan are early in their career and have never been exposed to another culture.  They live in a very cushy dormitory style complex, they have a personal chef, and 90 different games for PlayStation.  They stay truly American, and spend unbelievable amounts of time together.  At the Ball, they participated in the ceremonial cutting of the Marine’s birthday cake dressed in their “blues” or heavily embellished felt uniforms.  We watched a video heralding the merits of Marines and listened to a sentimental 70 year old marine who vouched the Marines were the toughest and bravest of all the American servicemen and women.  In fact, nothing about the ceremony, the rhetoric, or the ceremony surprised me.  It was exactly what I imagined the armed service was like – protected and a little cultish, lots of booze and back patting.  But I let myself take part and acted like a good date.  I took pictures and laughed at Marine jokes.  I crossed my ankles and lied that I completely understood the United States mission to Tajikistan.  It was interesting to find out why each of these men decided to join the Marine Corps.  I can’t say I agree with their life decisions or with using arms and threatening warfare, but even the Marines acted because they really believe in their country and out of passion. 

One thing that I have learned is to stay out of the ex-patriot cult of partyism.  There are a many things that I could be remembered as, but “the craziest partier” should not one of them.  There is enough alcohol and isolation in this country to  easily find people who are running from something.  What I mean to say is although there are many fulfilled and happy expats working here, there are also those who are cunning and deprived of attention.  This means any party can devolve into a sticky college nightmare if you are not sure of your friends and your exit plan.  I will be slowly ducking out of such expat engagements for the foreseeable future.  

Pop, whiz, bang.

Here we are.  Two months into my time in Tajikistan.  One-fifth of the way through.

Since my last post on my birthday, approximately one month ago, I have done a good amount of traveling around the northern region of Tajikistan, I have added Debate to the classes offered at the American Corner, I have become a consistent attendee of the Aga Khan Humanities Project’s fall Intro to Humanities course as a volunteer teaching assistant, I have moved even further than I already was into my host families hearts ;) and my mother has visited Dushanbe for ten days from America, on a whim.  I would describe the last month as a tornado in a valley, spinning pointedly around me.  I know there is much more I could do, but I already feel swept up in activities every day, minute, hour.  Most of them are small social obligations that I am struggling to fulfill – like a dinner with a new friend, a brainstorming tea time with a coworker, finding the right house-ware for my host mother’s apartment, negotiating shortest way home from a new building, or a day trip with my mom. 

In between these units of community building, I desperately try to maintain a semblance of preparation and lesson planning.  Usually I run with the first idea that comes to my mind for the four Beginner and Advanced classes I run.   I also try my best to attend services at Jamatkhane and make it to regular workouts. 

My favorite part of the city, just as it was the first week I arrived, is running into familiar faces.  In fact now, I constantly wish under my breath that the various units of activity that build up my day will all be scooted aside by an unexpected visitor.  

My biggest setback amidst all of this movement is that the Tajik language buzzes right by me.  I have not soaked it Tajik the way I soaked up Arabic when studying in college.  Arabic was like a hot lemon olive oil that brightened me up.  Tajik sits on my skin like cold grease.   That’s not to say I do not enjoy listening to it or studying it.  Even the coarsely ground specks of Tajik-Russian that the minibus drivers spit at me has a rugged charm.  (Perhaps because I cannot catch all that they are saying to the ignorant, Asian-looking, privileged little American devoshka).  But I do not have the time to steep in Tajik language the same way I did in Arabic-speaking countries The responsibility of constantly teaching English was not an issue while in Syria and Jordan, so I had plenty of time to learn.  It will take a renewed commitment on my part (a commitment I renew each morning) to learn Tajik as fast as I know I can.  Or as fast as I should, since after all, it is one of the most grammatically simple languages I could ask for.

Arabic has an interesting presence here.  A few young men I have met here have started learning Arabic very seriously in order to better understand Islam and the Qu’ran.  My host mother’s brother, who was present at the Eid celebration last weekend, gave me a fifteen minute talk on the merits of praying five times a day in Arabic.  We talked about dhikr, or meditation, in Arabic, and he quoted parts of the Quran that mentioned forms of prayer.  We didn’t come to any agreement on the essence of organized prayer in Islam, but at least it gave me a chance to practice Arabic.  My Arabic is being slowly sacrificed for Tajik (bad Eid-e-Khurbon pun intended).  I was replacing Arabic prepositions and conjunctions with Tajik ones all willy nilly.   Its funny how much faster the mouth is at forming words than the brain…

Meanwhile, other departments of Tajik living, like the weather, are kind of blissful.  I know everybody dreads the winter, and the snow, and the lack of street salt, and lack of sidewalk demarcations, and lack of minibuses, and presence of grey muck, and insufficient indoor heating.  Despite ALL of that, the fall is perfectly orange and yellow. The pumpkins.  Oh, the pumpkins.  And I’ve never experienced so many perfectly crisp light sweater days in a row.  And it’s having a narcotic effect on my mood to where everything seems light and easy.   

Weekends

Undeniably, one of the industries best suited to expand in Tajikistan is tourism.  Ecotourism to be exact.  Many of the best English speakers I have met here have spend their summers guiding American and European tourists around the spectacular mountains and countryside of Tajikistan.  It is in a way the natural extension of the culture of hospitality here.  Tourism has the potential (according to many Tajiks I have talked to) to employ thousands of people and stimulate an economy that is too dependent on illicit drug trade.

I got my own taste of this over the weekend.  A group called Hike Tajikistan, which caters primarily to westerners who can afford to pay for a good hike, offers scenic medium level hikes throughout the mountains for around $20 a person/ a day.  This is a lot of money in Somoni, but trust me, as a cheap student traveler, even I though the $20 was worth it.

We set off at 9 AM from the northern end of Dushanbe for the foot of Khoja Obi Garm.  The medium paced hike took us about two hours, and we all picnicked at the top of the mountain for close to an hour.  I dunked my feet into the icy blue water of the snowmelt stream for about 30 seconds before I could bear it no longer.  It was enough to cool me off completely.

We hiked back down the mountain after filling up on bread, cheese and coffee.   The weather was magnificent, and there was not a cloud in the sky.  Of course we had the luxury of a foreigner-fortified bubble and two clever hiking guides.  However, if all of the hikes in Tajikistan are half as good as this one, I can safely say, Tajikistan is a top tourism site. Period.

Moreover, I didn’t see one piece of litter or have one uncomfortable confrontation the entire trip.  I suppose this is crucial for a good tourist experience. But anyways personality of a tourist in Tajikistan probably isn't that of the seven day sunbather or the mocktail sipper or the passive spa goer.   I think it takes a certain amount of engagement, gumption and adventurousness to take on Tajikistan.  So I think the kind of tourist this country would attract would be especially invested in keeping the mountainsides as clean and stable as they are now.   Besides, the mountains here are some of the most humbling in the world.   

The Art of Pumpkin Sambusa (one of the best things in TJK)

Open Gutters

There are things I can’t go a day without noticing like how the gutters in Dushanbe are open.  Unlike in the States, I am hard pressed to cross a street in Dushanbe without gliding (ungracefully) over one of the precipices lining its sides.  Sometimes the gutters emerge in the center of the road or creep down an innocuous alley and block the entrances to a row of magazine stalls and barbershops. The gutters are stressed hand-me-downs from Soviet urban planning. A typical street-side gutter is a foot wide and anywhere from 4 inches to 2-3 feet deep.  A native urbanite once patiently explained that gutters were open to make them easier to clean and maintain.  Indeed, although a slow trickle of grayish-green water flows inside, every murky stream I’ve traversed is odorless. 

But maybe it’s because I am a foreigner in Dushanbe, and better acquainted with the subtle grails in Sugar Land, Texas, which conceal underground sewage activities, that I first noticed Dushanbe’s gutter system. 

In the daylight of early autumn, these gutters present genuine entertainment – Dushanbe is an adult-size obstacle course.  But it takes a few inches of December snow or February sleet for these very same gutters to become treacherous sinkholes.  I thought by my fourth month, I could predict the gutters’ zig-zags; but instead, my first winter in this valley city was ripe with hesitation.

While taking careful stock of every variety of awkward gutter, I began to notice that they challenge and entertain most residents of Dushanbe - not only me.  I suppose many Tajiks are new to this city too.  It wasn’t so long ago that families from villages all over the mountains of Tajikistan relocated here.

Beginning on Monday morning, I leave the complex of Soviet blockhouses behind the Avtavaksal where I live with my host family in the building furthest from the main road.  I follow the fence around a neighboring elementary school, which is encircled by the most burdensome gutter-pit I’ve seen.  My host mother, who was born in Dushanbe, purchased one of the many flats that were abandoned by citizens fleeing the civil warfare before 1997.  She bought it for 2000 USD.  Despite complaints from her mother and daughter, she feels no urge to leave her flat and move closer to the road just to shorten her walk time.  As the morning wears on across our apartment, schoolchildren are scooped up and swung over the gutter by rushed parents.  There is the slightest breeze, and while mother grunts in irritation, her daughter floats over the trench smiling – blessedly unaware of what her parents know.

On Thursday evening after work, I jump across a medium-sized gutter and walk toward a famously detached and overpriced Italian café that caters to the Western crowd.   I look north of the café to where the gutter intersects another, and I pause to look at a young boy of sixteen or seventeen at the carwash next door.  He washes his towel in the gutter’s steady stream, and wipes his brow with his wet hand. Washing cars secures at least some regular pocket cash since cars in Dushanbe are fined if they collect too much dust.   When he feels my gaze, he looks up and without blinking and returns this stranger’s stare.  I instinctively look down and quickly disappear inside the café feeling both inappropriately rude and wildly mysterious.  

By Sunday, I am walking in a small bazaar behind the train station, close to the edge of Dushanbe.  Houses are somewhat different from those in the city center.  They have high mud walls built up around ornate, pastel-painted steel doors.  These doors guard havlis.   The Tajik havli-style house reminds me of the open Algerian and Turkish courtyards in houses we studied back in university class.  Glancing in front of me, I see, a crowd of 20 young men blocking the alley ahead.  Above their heads a cloud of dust and smoke billows and the smell of burning rubber fills my nostrils.   This smell is not the sour, earthy smell of burning trash.  Creeping closer, I see a gray Mercedez with two rear wheels sunk into the gutters.  The open gutters have claimed another traffic victim who tried to reverse recklessly.   The exasperated driver has brought together a team of nearby shop owners to hoist up the back bumper.  A small boy, not older than thirteen, stomps on the gas pedal trying to accelerate the car and burning the tire rubber.   He is pretending to drive and the front two wheels flail left and right like the fins on a stranded dolphin. 

The gutters get the best of us all.  I don’t understand their existence yet, but I accept them as part of Dushanbe.  The gutters are intimately tied to the construction of the city.  Just today I saw streets near the Presidential Palace torn up and repaved for the obnoxiously fast Presidential convoy, and being lowered into the ground: those same open gutters!

Meanwhile, this is the fourth week of my residency in Dushanbe and I have completed two weeks of teaching at the American Corners.  I wrangled with a few issues as I started setting up classes here.  Perhaps parsing them out will help illustrate the situation a bit:

1.     How to feel like a real teacher – I always loved school and I deeply admired my best teachers.  I respected them because my parents grew up in a culture that feared teachers and never questioned their authority.  So if in any situation I had a problem in school, the problem was always mine, and never my teacher’s. I also respected teachers who could put on a seamless performance and deliver a seamless lesson.  I want to be the kind of teacher that really changes lives, but that kind of cultivation and relationship with students doesn’t happen overnight and certainly not when your students are all from a different culture than you.  In these two weeks, I realized I to keep a professional distance from my students so that they have a sense of respect for me.  Then hopefully over time, they will see the care that I put into each lesson (anticipating a lot of care to go into these lessons) and will be “inspired” to perfect their English.

2.     Deliver to the people that which they need – From my observations thus far, American diplomacy is very customer oriented.  Of course, the diplomatic staff I have the most access to belongs to the Public Diplomacy cone.  This section of the US “Mission” to Tajikistan exists in order to make real connections with the citizens of the country in which it operates.  That means they provide a few Tajiks with opportunities to visit America.  But that’s one thing I really like about my job.  For example, many students come up to me asking for ways to study abroad or for ways to get financial aid at a US university or to learn more about consular services at the Embassy.  Finally, I have resources (scholarships, grant opportunities, contact information) that I can pass along.  It may not mean that every single student gets to go abroad, or that even most of the students I teach can secure unnaturally good opportunities.   But I do feel truly satisfied to see the few who I can connect to the right people.

3.     Set your own schedule and stick to it – Since we do not have a schedule laid out for us, I am often asked by many people to promise my time to their organization or their family member, etc.  I want to help everybody, and not always for selfless reasons.  Rather, the more sectors of society (family members, organizations, universities) I help, the better I understand Tajikistan.  Or at the very least, the better I understand education in Dushanbe.  That is why I am quick to say yes.  However, when there is so much to do, and so much of it has to happen between 1 PM and 6 PM (after school hours), it is very easy to double schedule a 30 minute block here or there.  But waking up one morning only to realize that I have double scheduled even two very minor meetings leaves me feeling completely useless to everyone.  That is why from here on out I resolve to make a rigorous schedule and write everything down! This is true for TJK or anywhere in the world.

4.    Teach what you want to learn – Despite the intense orientation I had in new methods of English Language Learning, and the many liberal minded teaching guides I read that reiterate that language cannot be taught only through grammar or in a vacuum, I still find myself falling into traditional teaching patterns. That is, I have started many classes with a classic lesson in grammar rather than a story or a cool new video.  I guess it’s my own deep-seated need to do something “productive” in each lesson.  But looking back, I can’t believe how boring I let some of my classes become.  I wouldn’t want to sit through a class with a know-it-all teacher with a strict grammar agenda.  I need to remember that in an ESL setting at the American Corner, I can do better by the kids to put fun first. Seriously.  What a ridiculous thing to have to remember.  So for the next few weeks my personal mantra will be “out-of-the-box commonalities and easy-to-appreciate oddities.”   This may be a disaster, but as I’ve also come to realize, it’s really hard to mess up when your job is primarily to get to know students using English...

5.    Dream big – I really would like to start a theater group here.  There are a ton of obstacles that I could face trying to start it.  Primarily: no space to rehearse on the weekends, students’ awkward and inconvenient school schedules, not enough money to produce a show, my own inexperience directing, lack of English skills...but still, an acting troupe of Tajik high school students…a troupe that also acts like a community and safe space to create… That is my personal goal and I don’t want to speak too much about it.  But I’m officially putting it out in the universe so that I can hold myself accountable for it. 

I will end by documenting here that my 23^rd birthday in Dushanbe (September 21) was one of the better birthdays in my life. I cannot agree completely with thirty-somethings out there who are tremendously nostalgic for their twenties.  Of course, I am having a great time as a twenty-something.  But I also have a good track record of each birthday being better than the last.  It probably has to do with the fact that I always have low expectations, which means whatever my birthday is, is better than I expected. But at this rate, I think 30, 40, 50 will only be ecstatic.  Right?  I’m very excited for wisdom to set in, and for the new and the different.  And even though 23 isn’t a huge milestone, I am grateful for it.  #Karaoke, Al Sham, Georgian wine, Fulbright fever, share taxis, Tajik hospitality. 

When the bazaar was on fire

Dushanbe is the Tajik word for Monday.  The Soviets selected the site of the “Monday  Bazaar” or “Dushanbe Bazaar” to build the capital of Tajikistan.  Before I arrived, a few people warned me against staying in Dushanbe since it was a concrete jungle, where no one will speak to you on the street.  To me, Dushanbe is a great mix of city and country.  Inside stores, homes, and libraries, people are welcoming and patient.  Outside, in buses, open markets, and walking home, people keep their distance, and I am fine with that as well.

Still the city feels small enough to bump up against the daily trials and triumphs of those around me.  Walking home from services at Jamatkhane last week, I saw a huge plume of smoke.  Larger than a plume – this was a massive, assaulting mega cloud of purple and gray and it felt much more ominous than rain.  It was so odd that I made a mental note of it.  Later that evening, my host family told me there was a fire in Korvon, the largest bazaar in Dushanbe.  Many fine rugs, wood carvings and antiques had been looted or burned from a whole stretch of stalls.  Apparently, this happened many times a year.

The next morning was a Thursday.  I stepped out of the National Library, where I work on the fourth floor, around 11:30 AM after a morning session at the American Corner.   The Library is within a few blocks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Palace and the Mayor’s Office so it was a central spot to meet with my new Tajik tutor.  We sat on a bench opposite the row of identical fountains lining the pathway. 

After around 15 minutes of chatting, my tutor, who is about 45 and wears the same golden Tajik tunic at each of our lessons, kept darting looks behind me.  I kept looking over my shoulder and didn’t notice a thing.  I felt as though she was spotting ghosts.  Another five minutes passed and the swarm of people gathering, shouting and calling the name of God, attracted due attention from everyone around us.   By the time I turned back to face my tutor, she had already picked herself and her bags up off the bench and ushered me to follow away from the crowd.  From a safe distance, we turned around to watch the ensuing punches the crowd was throwing.  Their anger was directed toward the policemen restraining them at first, and then it turned on each other.   The most dire snapshot from this chaotic scene that I can recall was of a stress-ridden young lady, maybe in her late 20s, slouching on another lady and throwing tired punches into the air while yelling at the top of her lungs at a police officer as he poked her and her supportive friend away using the tip of his baton. 

By this time, my Tajik tutor had asked a passerby about the situation.  She informed us that at the center of the crowd were young shopowners whose entire livelihoods had burned in the bazaar.  They had taken their grievances to the Mayor’s office, but were quickly batted away by the city police, unable to even meet the Mayor.  In such a situation, no Tajik is guaranteed money from the city or insurance, although they pay monthly fees to both to maintain their bazaar stalls.   Some speculated it was a way for the city to commandeer land without having to pay landowners.

At that moment, I realized my tutor and I were watching some of the deeper wounds of the people of Dushanbe being salted.  I knew I should leave, but as a natural reaction, I stayed on a little longer to watch.  My tutor had retreated 50 feet behind of me and two men shoved me as they ran toward the mob.  I knew I had to leave right then, even though I didn’t feel personally threatened or in any danger.  I just wanted to see the slouching lady once more to know if she had hit her target, or had finally collapsed under the weight of her situation.

Sleepless in Dushanbe

Week three is in swing.   I had my first conversation class with students at American Corners yesterday.  I chose a topic of general interest to me:  “What Would You Put Inside Your Time Capsule?”  But after completing my first one-hour session, I realized a few things:

1.     Do not judge an English student by their expression. When you are dealing with multiple levels of English, there is not an easy way to get everyone to speak.  Some kids will look bored while other students will look like they are in great pain.   I didn’t find any cure all for the multiple levels, but it helped to announce at the beginning that, “Everyone must speak.”  At least all students HAD to be patient when I called on quiet ones.

2.      When leading a Discussion Group, don’t talk too much.  In moments when no one had an opinion, I felt compelled to take over the discussion.  I did not have constructive ways to probe the students.  Part of this had to do with the question I was asking; since there is no wrong way to fill a time capsule, there is no reason to contradict or try something new.  The question of “What Would You Put Inside Your Time Capsule” did not stir a strong range of positive and negative emotions.   However, after asking the same question for 30 minutes and using many examples to ill, more and more students grasped the concept.  Many of the higher-level English speakers took time in small groups to explain the concept to those who didn’t understand.  But that explanation was in Russian/Tajik, which was perhaps defeating the purpose. 

3.     Manage numbers.  When leading a conversation club, I have to decide early what is possible and what isn’t.  For example, I could not have broken the large group into small groups if there was more than around 30 or 35.  I also could not do break out groups around the Corner if there had been other students sitting and working on the side tables.  I also could have had a topic where “everyone speaks” if we had been pushing 40.

4.     Have your classes (formal and informal) inform your Discussion Group.  I am starting to sense what is important to most of these students.  They spend a lot of time criticizing what is wrong in their city, and thinking of solutions.  They are also very interested in comparing Tajikistan to Russia and the US.  Although I want to pick a variety of topics, there is no shame in using these go-to topics as fire starters.   

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school of kids all over Dushanbe.  Traditionally, all students attend the first day in their finest attire to present their teachers with flowers.  They are dismissed around 10 AM to roam around and enjoy their last, sweet and sweaty day of summer break. 

Since every kid in Dushanbe from primary school through college is expected to dress in their finest at school, the streets were filled with sharply dressed packs of university boys, teenage girls in new black heels (some of them quite stylish), prim first graders holding their mother’s hands in oversized, confectionary hair bows that plume from the top of their braids, and tidy little boys who shuffle about like ring-bearers waiting for their cues.

Walking around this morning, Kyle and I pondered what Tajiks visiting America must think when they see how, let’s say, comfortably kids dress for school. 

I was in an especially good mood because September means the beginning of the school year almost everywhere in the world.   September is my favorite month since it’s a time for setting high goals, buying new pens, starting fresh.   Back home, it’s the start of the holiday season: Labor Day, my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years...it’s one, three-month-long party. Even in Dushanbe, I feel that particular September energy.

The second week of our orientation in the Embassy took a much slower pace.  We began to make arrangements for a ten-month stay in our cities. Work at the American Corners begins on September 4.  We cannot be placed in Tajik schools as English Teaching Assistants due to the long bureaucratic process with the Ministry of Education.  In Tajikistan, the Embassy would like our help with running classes, hosting interesting speakers, and programming cultural events at the American Corners.  This is not true of Fulbright ETAs all over the world, and not all countries have American Corners.  However, I will be in the American Corner Dushanbe.

Living in the capital means I have a leg up on certain amenities.  People in the regions, particularly the south, will not have the variety of goods, apartments, and English speakers that I will.  This also may mean my Tajik will not improve as rapidly since more people tend to speak English here.  But I do think Dushanbe is a good place to access the entire country.

A few months back, I told many people that I wanted to go to Khorog, a town that was 98% Ismaili, in the geographically isolated and semi autonomous Gorno Badakhshan region in the Pamir Mountains.  My original vision of Tajikistan had to do completely with this eastern part of Tajikistan where the Aga Khan Development Network’s work is most prevalent.  However, I have learned so much more about the country since I first applied to be a Fulbright teacher.  Due to the recent turmoil in Khorog, and Tajik military intervention, foreigners have been barred from entering the region.  Thus, the decision to remain in Dushanbe was indirectly made for me.  However, now I am even more interested in local perceptions of the Ismaili Muslim minority in the capital city; Dushanbe is the capital of a country that is seems to be terrified of potential religious extremism and, dare I say, unrestricted religious expression.

I have been fortunate to meet a lot of opinionated, intelligent people in the last week, who express to me (in English) the likable, unpleasant, and loathed parts of life, society and civic issues in Tajikistan.   Interestingly, I attended an English language debate club practice this morning that took on the issue of “Hate Speech.”  I was blown away by the passion, composure and graciousness the students brought to the debate.   But it goes without saying, despite all the intelligent people I have met in two weeks, there are also plenty of people living here who I would not understand or agree with at all.

Between these little moments of enlightenment, I walk around and take in the day-to-day of Dushanbe.  Essentially, I’m trying to wean myself off of the Embassy’s warm, generator-backed bosom.  

This morning we sauntered through the Green Bazaar.  I imagined myself buying groceries, with broken but improving Tajik.  In a new country, smaller feats like grocery-shopping mean a lot. I imagined conversing with the stall owner, who recognizes me as the English teacher (this new identity is growing on me).   I also see myself coming to some conclusion about my next career goal.  I see myself surrounded by earnest students.  I see myself in some tough, awkward, and embarrassing situations.  I see myself being very lonely, but see myself making lifelong, intellectual best friends.

See, isn’t September wonderful?

Small World

I may have on my honeymoon goggles, but I dare say Dushanbe is starting to feel like home.  When you run into folks that you know on the street (granted the only people I recognize work indirectly for the Fulbright program or are friends of these people) then a place starts to feel cozy.

This was our first weekend in Dushanbe and it was a warm, full two days spent running into new friends.

Sunday, we attended a nationwide dance competition held in Dushanbe.  As official sponsors, the US Embassy Public Affairs Section scored an entire row of free seats.  Kyle (a girl, my fellow Fulbright ETA, and current roommate) and I took advantage of this offer and arrived just in time for the first round of dancing.  We had our fill of cute 10 year olds swinging to latin beats showing off their salsa and tango.  We ooh’d and ahh’d at the B-Boys from Khujand and Dushanbe City and I was again struck by the ubiquitous legacy of Tupac Shukur (also to be found in Jordan and Syria).  We braced ourselves for 5 rounds of “techtonik” dance, which we still can’t understand, but maybe, one day, will better appreciate.  Kyle and I ducked out before the rounds of “electronic boogie” took the stage.

Walking down the road to a fairly westernized café for some iced coffee, we ran into two fellow Fulbrighters.  We slipped into a fresh, corner booth next to them and chatted away as they paid and left.  On the way home, we decided to stop at the nearest ATM to reload of Somoni. 

Just as I cautiously slipped around a $100 worth of Somoni into my black wallet, I felt the tug of an angry stranger on my left elbow.  The grip was stronger than Kyle’s and the voice of a strange man shot my nerves.  I turned around panicked, unable to take further action. 

It took protracted second and a half before I realized the man was an American friend of ours who worked as a security officer here in Tajikistan.  “Was that a test?!” I squealed at him. “Because, if so, I failed miserably.”

He chuckled with a half-empty Baltika in tow.  He and his friend  (also his predecessor in Tajikistan) were going to the new pool in Dushanbe and apparently it was not to be missed.  Reluctantly, Kyle and I agreed.  Despite our adventurousness, both of us are not ones to shift gears recklessly.  However, they were insistent and the general motto when traveling abroad is “say yes to crazy, new experiences.”  This experience turned out to be, without a doubt, astounding.

Let’s just say, I did not expect my first weekend in Dushanbe to be spent at a hip hop dance show and then at a brand new, shining water park complex complete with a bar, electronic lockers, and 6 ridiculously fun water slides.

We were like kids again.  My friend’s 4X4 bumped along the poorly paved Dushanbe streets like a Fisher Price motor vehicle.  As we pulled up the this pool/water park, I realized we were approaching what looked like an adult-child’s summer paradise.  Never mind that it was “spouse day” at the park and our group just happened to consist of two guys who were recently acquainted with two girls, and we all just happened to run into each other at an ATM.

Everything went swimmingly.

A conversation I will never forget occurred after 10 continuous turns down the park’s rainbow colored slides while we started drying off.

My new friend mentioned he spent time training in DC.

I responded I, too, had lived in Washington DC while working at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

He told me that on his first date after 9 years, he decided to take this girl to the Center for the MLK Special featuring Bobby McFerrin. 

I told him I was at the same concert as January 16, 2012, was my first day in DC and the day before my internship started. 

He said it was a great show and he sat on the tier just above the Obamas. 

I said I too was on the tier above the Obamas, and that I distinctly remember a government agent-looking man in his early 30s, who was also clearly on a first date, telling me to look over the balcony to see President Obama’s head. 

He said he was in the front row and encouraging people next to him to look over, while taking pictures of the President’s head. 

I widened my eyes and said, “I think I was sitting next to you…” and I excitedly recalled a memorably cute kid two rows back who kept making noise throughout the concert. 

He told me he remembered that kid and how the young boy’s mother kept shushing him. 

Now that we are both doubly astounded, we start laughing at the touching serendipity of it all.  I tried to wrap my brain around meeting a total stranger twice.  I tried to stretch my brain even further to encompass all the times I have possibly encountered strangers multiple times throughout my life travels.  It was enough to give me chills.  When he dropped Kyle and I off at home, he waved good-bye and asked me to kindly stop stalking him.  I laughed and waved back, thinking to myself, at this rate, I can’t make any promises.

This first weekend in Dushanbe closed in the very epicenter of hospitality: my host mother’s kitchen.  Other Fulbrighters joined us for a giant meal and we finished the night with a photo shoot in the living room and melodious renditions of Les Mis.

I know there is so much more outside these walls, and I’m not sure how I received this opportunity, or how the days and months ahead of me will play out.  But at this moment I am filled with so much gratitude to have landed in this tiny niche, in this tiny country, and in this eclectic mix of people, ideas and random rendezvous.

Road trip pit stop

Mighty Mouse

Our first days in Dushanbe have been drenched in warm laughter and comic relief, which alleviate otherwise serious situations.  More importantly, a fellow Fulbrighter and I have been graciously afforded housing with an unbelievable generous, genuine, and compassionate host mom, who I will henceforth refer to as Mighty Mouse.

 

Who is Mighty Mouse?  She is a single, Tajik mother who, despite all cultural taboos and a combative family, still chose to divorce her husband after learning he secretly took another wife.  She is someone who has bucked the system that she grew up in.  She is someone who survived the Tajik civil war and watched her closest, brightest friends leave their country with their families.  She is someone who has worked her way up to a responsible position at one of Tajikistan’s most prestigious foreign institutions and earned enough money to sustain her daughters.  She is someone who has managed, through her work, to travel to Paris, Bangkok and New York (places up to 90% of her countrymen will never see).  She is a woman who still loves her country despite the hardship she has endured and despite the pessimism she feels while looking up at the second highest flagpole in the world (which is currently in downtown Dushanbe) and passing the unremarkably gilded mega-monuments that her so-called chosen government has erected.

Mighty Mouse is my uneven lens into Tajikistan.  Could some of her observations be skewed?  Perhaps.  But she is an anthology of women. 

Smoking her fifth Esse Light Elite cigarette, she talks to us about the differences between our respective cultures.  She shuts her eyes while recounting another hilarious cultural conversation she had, “I once was talking to my friends in Russian about living with a man, and I said to them scratching my head, ‘So I don’t think there is anything wrong with a man and women living together before marriage!”

Her friend, also a Tajik, replied in deadpan tone, “you are saying you would let your [oldest daughter] live alone...with a man?”

A flood of childhood innocence rushes to her eyes, and anyone watching her closely can see that this youthful certitude has been protecting her throughout the meanest of times.  She gasps, “No!”  Because she is Tajik, after all. 

We continue to talk about the reality of life in Tajikistan.  I try to engage her with tales of my mother and father, about my sister who is sixteen like her younger daughter.  But my heaviest stories are just unnecessary details compared to her long-lived, deeply felt and guarded experiences. 

“I don’t trust one doctor in this city,” she continues,

“Once my daughter was suffering all night from fever.  I awoke to check on her and realized her tongue was stuffed back in her mouth, her eyes had rolled upward, and she was not breathing. I wailed in fear so that the neighbors heard me.  One man jammed his hand in her mouth and rolled her on the side to open her airways.  I rushed her to the hospital down the street.  By that time my daughter had bit my index finger down to the bone as I tried to keep her from choking on her tongue.  The hospital gave her an injection to calm her down and sent us to the specialist. 

Rather than rushing to help my daughter, this specialist yelled at me. ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU COME TO US FIRST?! YOU SHOULD BE PAYING US YOUR MONEY, NOT THEM, FOR THAT INJECTION.  WHO TOLD YOU TO GO THERE?!’

Aghast, I shoved my finger in the doctor’s face.  ‘Do you know how to treat this?’ I asked him.

Any doctor or trained nurse should have learned this simple procedure.  But this doctor looked up above my head and asked the crowd, ‘Can anyone fix this?’

I told him right then, ‘Take my daughter, and I can take care of myself.’”

As Americans, as well-off Americans, well off, well-educated Americans, we were humbled.  This is why we came to Tajikistan – to better understand the reality on the ground and have honest conversations.  Teaching English felt like a meager contribution when one considered the gravity of interlinked problems in the country.  But we still tried in our own way to comfort her, and mostly show the tremendous respect we had for her.  I wanted to ask even more about the experiences in the war and her time in college.  We wanted to understand how her daughters were spared from the other Tajik students who endured corruption and bribes in schools.  We also explained how conservatism sometimes barred women’s rights in the States, and how some Americans grew up governed by policies set by behemoth financial institutions, were financially illiterate and unwittingly plagued by consumerism.  We hadn’t necessarily lived enough to know what true hardship was like.  However, as we kept a subtle understanding of the ever-present inequality in this situation, we felt something of a real awakening.

Regardless, what will always stick with me about the amazing conversation we had tonight was the strength of Mighty Mouse.  I will always think of her has a role model, whether she realized it or not.  I think she will probably not, because she is too humble and too concerned with empowering us in other ways.  But by being herself and sharing her experiences, I feel a little more grown.

Disclaimer: I snapped a pic of these finely dressed, little girls in Kulob, not Dushanbe.

The Art of Schlepping (or Four Days in Istanbul)

Istanbul was a hodge podge of outrageous activity and quiet, beautiful normalcy.  We arrived in Istanbul 2 hours late, waited out the line at customs and the first thing my travel buddies (two fellow Fulbright ETAs) and I noticed was the mixture of nationalities around us.  The second thing we noticed about Turkey as we walked out to take a taxi: there are signs in English!  

As three self-proclaimed travel lovers, anxious to understand the world by its roots and not just take it by storm, we concluded that a $40.00 taxi ride to our hotel would not be nearly as trying and exciting as taking a cheaper metro (4 Turkish Lira).  So we patiently rolled luggage (which contained enough clothes, books, and goods for a year in Tajikistan) across the airport concourse level, down a ramp, down an elevator, and to the “Jeton” machine only to learn we did not have the right bills. 

I will not lie, in that moment, my year living in the comfort of Boston, then DC, amongst working professionals who are nothing if not efficient got the better of me.  I searched my travel buddies’ eyes and hunched shoulders for signs they would yield and take a taxi.  Nothing doing.  It dawned on me that two years ago, an extra hour or two to take the long way and save $35 would have been absolutely reasonable.  It was an eye opening moment, where I began to again appreciate the lifestyle and priorities of the traveler. 

So on we went for two hours from Ataturk airport, crowding the metro with SIX bags, through two train transfers, enjoying polite conversation with a French weekend traveler on holiday with his son, climbing uphill in the old city’s cobbled streets, and arriving huffing and puffing to the Blue Tuana Inn.   From the balcony, I saw the Blue Mosque just a stones throw away, and suddenly, the last 24 hours of traveling where worth it.  It was a little after 6 o' clock and the hazy sun was beginning to nestle into the horizon and it was at this time of day that the skyline of Istanbul is was best viewed. 

Our very first stop that evening was the Blue Mosque.  The Mosque of Sultanahmet, as it is also called, was built in the early 1600s by Sultanahmet to outshine the Hagia Sofia that is around 500 meters in front of it.  Standing between the two towering mosques, I was simultaneously enchanted and mortified by their grandeur.  What an unbelievably beautiful feat!  What a stupefying culmination of imagination and artistry!  And what unquenchable, power wielding regime must have existed to conceive and execute both of these buildings?   

Standing in the manicured quad between the two superstar mosques, one sees felt-clad, vaguely Ottoman characters, who are dressed up similar to characters in Disney World.  They offered to take pictures with interested tourists wandering about.  The youngest tourists got a picture for an especially discounted fee.  I heard the clatter of coke bottles and smelled dust mixed in with sunscreen that wafting up from tour groups.  I could point out distinct swarms of European, American, Middle Eastern, African, South Asian, East and Southeast Asian families of tourists.  As I too was a part of this mass, I felt no shame in snapping a gratuitous number of pictures in front of the same dome. 

Though severly jetlagged at the time, when I finally entered the Blue Mosque, a structure I have referenced often as a Middle East studies major, I still felt I was approaching something unparalleled in the world.  I was struck by the care put into piping each thin line of grout between each spectacular inlay of tile.  The enormity, profundity, and singularity of craftsmanship were quickly blurred by the sly irreverence of international tourists, myself included, snapping pics from the back as Turkish men prayed up front. 

In my opinion, however, of the two mosques in the quad, the Hagia Sophia is the real star.  The Hagia Sophia is a testament to interaction over time between and organizations and religions.   What do I mean by this?  Well, take a close look at the peeling paint that the Ottomon’s painted onto the vaulted ceilings, and you will see the Orthodox cross staring through in the color of dried blood.  You can easily see the grand disks reading Ya Allah Ya Ali and Ya Muhammad attached in front of the stained glass of the Virgin Mary and Angel Gabriel.  The Angel Gabriel also revealed the message to Muhammad (s.a.s.) and is a particularly poignant figure to represent.  The Qiblah, faces Mecca, and stands slightly off to the right in the existing alter – proof that both the Muslims and Christians before them, found their faith from the same forefathers.

After traipsing through the Basilica Cistern, following the masses into Topkapi Palace, taking an egregious amount of pictures of the same breathtaking skyline every angle allowable, we were exhausted of the tourist mold.

And that is why the best part of traveling always is running into old friends who know more about living in a place that guidebooks can reveal.  Indeed amongst the three of us, we had the chance to cross paths with a number of good friends in Istanbul.  I met Norah (who was studying in Istanbul) in the Old City, and four hours before we left Turkey, Norah, Javid, Alfred, Kyle and I walked up to the Galata tower to share fresh juice and creme soda under the shade of a corner café. 

We talked about old friends, rehashed our experiences together in Syria, and then my fellow ETAs and I offered Norah our unique approaches to Central Asia.   We ended with a group review of our favorite travel experiences and Iranian films.  I believe the best travel experiences are memorable because of such meaningful crossing of paths.  As much as we tried to find meaning in the tourist destinations, we wanted to make a personal connection that was unique to us in Istanbul.  For me, Norah was one such connection.

Finally we set out on a Turkish Air flight to Dushanbe (one of two flights that are available per week).   Flying is no friend of mine, and I hoped our time in the air was not grossly exacerbated.  For the first time in my life, I took a sleeping pill, which I will never do again.  Not only did I knock out for the four hour flight, but for 48 hours afterwards, I felt nothing but a sticky jetlag under my eyelids.

Arriving in Dushanbe was fraught with every kind of bureaucratic inefficiency a frightened passenger could imagine:  an entire plane load of people jogging to passport control, squeezing into a triangular crowd in hopes of making it to one of two passport officers at the front of the room.  Once through, bags were lost and people were frustrated.  But as we neared the glass doors leading outside, Tajik families were reuniting; and as we stepped out of the exit into the early Tajik sun, to our left was smiling embassy staff.  

Our short stop in Istanbul was calming and beautifully timed.  Despite the hectic shuffling between planes, shuttles, taxis, and trains, all the while porting our year's worth of baggage, the extended stop over in Turkey helped me ease into my new reality.  This reality is ten months in Tajikistan, a brand new country.  I hope this blog will be a place I can come back to, update often, and evaluate the process of living abroad as it unfolds.

Cheers,
Areebah