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