The Unexamined Life

Lately the little voice in the back of the traveler’s head that continuously nags the traveler to document has been getting louder.

I am guilty of not reflecting even though I know documenting now is the only way I will make sense of this experience (to myself and others) later.  It's just that I don’t feel those erratic shifts of time and place that usually prompt a crisis, a lesson, a rip in my personal space-time continuum... 

The quotidian incidents in Dushanbe still make the city peaceable and onerous.  These are occurrences such as a quiet, but stern-faced waitress insisting we finish the food we ordered before we leave the restaurant; a trio of bumbling, underpaid policemen creating trouble for a noncompliant taxi driver over a three somoni bribe (roughly 70 cents); or a small pack of Tajik teenagers, blasting Justin Beiber, exchanging a laugh over the foreigner with a giant backpack taking up as much space as the four of them on the street.

But as I examine these moments now, they all seem like facets of real life.   It isn’t strange to be called out for taking up space.  It isn’t impolite to ask that we finish the food we ordered.  I don’t even miss the regular shopping trips I could take if I were in a more commercially open country.  Instead, I like that I spend a lot of my time talking to friends and colleagues about absurdly regular things.  Work deadlines, movies, love lives (who’s getting married and who isn’t), news headlines, food issues, weekends, men, lack thereof…and none of it seems terribly out of place.

There are moments when taking a mashrutka to work, smothered to the right of a gold-toothed 25 year old who is carrying a 6 month old under her striped Chinese shawl, and to the left of two adolescent schoolboys in black and white pressed uniforms, sitting nearly one atop the other and paying the fare for one rider, that moment is more normal than jumping onto any sort of rigorously scheduled subway from Pentagon City or GPS-located bus down Newburry Street. 

I smile knowing that in maybe half a year, I will be walking through a glazed mall in Sugar Land, Texas, eyeing aisles and aisles of shoes and overpriced jewelry, and thinking, “where am I?”

Five months ago, everything was “charming” or “remarkably post Soviet” or “undeniably Persian” or the “mark of crumbling infrastructure” or “the outcome of recent civil war.”  

But, for better or for worse, I have let my background (American Fulbright Teacher from Texas/Rhode Island) and foreground (foreign teaching assistant, aspiring communications professional in Tajikistan?) blur together.  Maybe it’s out of a desire to not feel out of place anymore that I have let the focus lens soften.

Granted, there is still a constant flow of projects: a new hybrid contemporary Tajik jewelry line that I want to help produce and retail, a new grant proposal to sponsor national debate tournaments, discussion clubs, welcome dinners for new arrivals, Tajik classes, laundry Sundays, Jamatkhana Fridays, recipes, gossip.  And though I should, I can’t stop to examine what seems unusual or novel, because it’s much more interesting to just be living it…

Ongoing debate

I always considered speech and debate noble pursuits.  Speech skills pervade every aspect of life from confidence building to critical thinking skills, and being a good speaker necessitates having empathy and worldliness.  

When I found out there was an international debate community here around 7 years ago, I was pretty interested in what possibilities exist now.  It turns out that 5 years ago, the money for international debate leagues ran out, and all English language debate clubs and schools and universities suffered.  I heard from older debaters that at its height, the debate movement was a way to shake off the hopelessness after the civil war.  But if money and organizers were the only obstacles, and actual interest existed for debate teams, then my existence as a Fulbright ETA in Dushanbe was a blaring solution. 

Indeed, using some Embassy resources, I organized a small but proper debate tournament at the Ismaili Center for my students from American Corner who showed superior language skills and students at a local university.  From the Corner, I hand picked six of the most committed kids who had the best English to form a team.  We practiced debate every day, and they were so eager to prepare that came to each class with research.   I admired their tenacity, and they pushed me to be a better teacher, coach, and resource. 

We were set to debate against a slightly more experienced team from University of Central Asia.  The students had a week with the topics to prepare.  The day of the tournament arrived and we had two teams of three competing.  The first round's resolution:  "This House believes the Internet does more harm than good to children."  Internet accessibility is particularly significant in our context since the Tajik Communications Ministry has been dangerously flirtating with censorship since July 2012.  Many times we wake up to find Facebook, Twitter, and a hundred of other Russian/Tajik news sites blocks for a few weeks at a time.  One of my teams lost, but the other one hailed victorious

The surviving team also made it through the semis where they debated the resolution, "This House would support International Adoption."  Smiling, they went into final round, but this time they did not have the topics in advance.  It was revealed to them 15 mins before the round. The topic turned out to be specific to Tajikistan's cultural history: "This House would ban New Years on December 31st in favor of Navruz (Persian New Year)." This debate was essentially about the cultural legacy of the Soviet Union and Tajikistan's struggle to re-identify itself with its Persian civilizational roots, without become Islamicized or radicalized. 

American Corners had to defend the ban, and lost the round.  In the end, we came in second out of six teams.  Regardless, I was thrilled.  That morning, the other organizers and I feared we were in for 4 hours of stumbling speeches and loopy arguments. But after the final round ended around 5 PM, even the head judge (a local Fulbright Scholar who founded the only gallery place in Dushanbe, Art Ground, and has debated abroad for 7 years) said the level of debate at the tournament surprised him.  The resulting speeches were coherent, the research well grounded, the exposition quite colorful, and the final victory hard earned.  

After the tournament I took my six debaters out to eat some kurutob with Alfred, who was visiting for the weekend from Kulob.  By the end of the meal, my conversation with Begin, Khairina, and Kamila (my formidable muskateers and star high school debaters) turned to the topic of the summertime military invasion of semi-autonomous Khorog.  Khorog is home to many of the leaders of the opposition from the civil war, which ended in 1997.

Although they were born and raised in Dushanbe, two of the girls' families are Pamiri, and so they were in Khorog visiting extended family when the Tajik military invaded the semi-autonomous region.  They recounted to me the events of July 24, 2012.  Since their grandmothers and aunts lived close to the main square in Khorog, their homes were amongst those that the young soldiers invaded first, firing incessant shots without clear direction or training.  Begim told me the attack started at 3:30 in the morning, and her younger brother and grandmother had to hide on the floor of the bedroom until the military forces slowly thinned out. 

After that frightful night, the resulting public outrage and confusion in Khorog resembled military interventions and conflict zones I read about in the papers.  The girls recounted feeling peace was fickle and fleeting.  They described the noise and the smell of charred metal.  They described sitting at home, eyes shut, in panic.  At age 16, they had understood how quickly their country may lapse if not tightly controlled.    

Now as I watch world news,  I see that the same uneasiness is becoming a ubiquitous feeling around the world.  Despite the region or country in which conflict occurs, whenever I read about a military invasion, I can see the same smoke, I can smell the same burnt metal, I can hear the same wails that the girls described.  

Deep down I am nauseously aware that such an experience is not far from any one individual, no matter where he or she lives – Palestine, Russia, California, or Tajikistan.  My young, innocent, bright-eyed debate girls continued sharing the alarming transpirations from the summer invasion. Kamila, who was still in Dushanbe, vividly described sitting at home, pale in the face, waiting for her best friends to call her from the Pamirs while she knew the government had cut off access to the entire region for days without explanation. Of course, Tajikistan is a small country, and there are not many degrees of separation when it comes to internal violence.  But that summer, a dark, black hole had appeared where her best friends’ calls, texts and faces used to be.  It seemed to me deeply unfair. Her story was just one from hundreds.  

I suppose that is why they come to each class of mine with such eagerness.  I don't always understand why I am treated with such gratitude, such respect, and tolerance.  My students, in general, regard any time they spend in my class as a rare gift.  It can be overwhelming and humbling.  But without the student's unbridled support, I wouldn't always have the patience and courage to keep trying new ideas, proposing schemes or events for students to learn English.  

Strangely, as I write this, I remember these are the highfalutin ideals of the Fulbright Program - to bridge barriers through honest dialogue and people-to-people communication.   I know it doesn't seem like I can do that every single day.  But I can see through moments like after a successful debate victory and honest conversations over kurutob, how I've started to come closer to understanding life in Tajikistan. 

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.