Farewell, Tajikistan

July 14, 2012

I realized as I sat at the bachelorette party for my former student, Dilbar, that I had just taken the last shared taxi ride in Dushanbe with another very immature driver who insisted on passing every other vehicle so he could grab whatever fares were waiting by the curb. This was also the last event I’d attend  where  women looked like proud peacocks in their multicolored velvet dresses worn in spite of the oppressive 97 degree weather. In addition, it’d be the last meal where the table would be laden with food most guests would not even touch, and where courses after courses would be served so they could be barely sampled or left untouched.

I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to most of the people I had worked or socialized with as most of them had left the country while I was at the summer camps in either Istaravshan or Khorog. The staff at the PedInst had always ignored me or simply didn’t even know I existed, so there was no loss there. I told Pariso through Facebook of my imminent departure and she wished me good luck. There was no love lost there, either.

I was too tired and frazzled to even think about what things I might eventually miss about the country and its people. It would definitely not be the bland food except, of course, for the flat bread I could eat all day especially when it had been served freshly baked. I had thought that if I had decided to fly straight to the United States, I’d have brought a suitcase full of it to freeze for the rest of the year. I will miss Eraj, my student from PedInst, who became an indispensable interpreter and go-in-between for all my problems and whose infectious smile I really treasured.

I will miss the music from Khulob with its throbbing drum beat so reminiscent of Africa and so similar to our Dominican merengue music that I could dance to it all day to the amazement of the local people.

Most of all, I will miss all the strangers who smiled at me so openly whenever they encountered this dark woman with curly hair who had managed to survive in their country for ten months in spite of not learning the language, and who insisted on teaching English to anyone who was willing to learn it. I will miss their curiosity about me and the United States, all the questions they asked and above all, their generosity of spirit for being willing to share the little bit they had with someone who already possessed too much in terms of material wealth. 

July 13, 2012

I was too antsy to sleep through the night and got up before 4:00am to get ready for my last presentation in Dushanbe at the ETM conference. At least I didn’t have to create another PowerPoint presentation since Carol had asked me to use the same one I presented to the teachers last April. I sent my revised itinerary to Georgetown hoping that this time; they will issue me my ticket for the leg of my trip between Germany and Florida. I emailed my supervisor requesting approval for the last expense report submitted and thanking him for his support during my fellowship.

The day had turned hazy and hot even by 7:30am when I walked to Rudaki Avenue, got into a taxi and rode to the hotel where the ETM was being held. Carol was waiting for me in the lobby and we had a few minutes to chat before the participants started arriving and greeting me. I was shocked to find out that the workshop was being conducted without the aid of a computer or LCD projector and that I had brought my flashdrive for nothing. She asked me to talk about my presentation on the importance of mentoring new teachers, but without having even looked at the topic recently, I didn’t have that much to say. The discussion lasted for about an hour and I was dying from being placed on the spot totally unprepared.

We then had a tea break and another chance to dance as one of the participants had brought along his organ and played several Tajik songs. Carol then presented some board games for which she had prepared the actual boards and dice encouraging the teachers to create their own according to their needs. Lastly, she had then write a story based on a single photograph with the participants collaborating in putting together the details about the person on the photo and then allowing them to write their own stories based on the sketch provided already. I had planned on having lunch with Carol, but she had brought along a packed lunched as it was too hot for her to venture outside. We sat in the empty classroom and discussed our mutual experiences while teacher training with Carol talking about the four years she spent in Kyrgyzstan.

I returned to the apartment as Dili was coming by to pick the bag with the remaining teaching materials I wanted to send to the teachers in Shahriston. We chatted for a while about the job she had recently received making 500.00 somoni a month after spending a fortune getting her degree in the United States in economics. She’d rather stay home than work in a place where her brain might rot for lack of intelligent things to do.

Although I had planned on visiting Mariam and Nilufar for a couple of hours to say goodbye for good, I couldn’t contemplate the idea of going there without someone to interpret for me as neither one of them speaks enough English to hold a conversation. Ryan returned from his trip to the Tatarstan region and took the kids shopping while I got ready to attend Dilbar’s wedding.

It was being held at a restaurant not too far from where Corrie used to live and I felt weird going there on my own as Manzura informed me she was one of the attendants for the event and needed to remain at Dilbar’s side the entire time. She reassured me that other PedInst students would be and I could sit with them. There was a receiving line and I mentioned Manzura’s name to a burly guy and was taken to a long table where several stout women were attacking the spread of food array on it. A few minutes later, a former student, whose name I couldn’t recall came and sat at my side wearing a gorgeous outfit, her face made up as if for a photo shoot and wearing such high heels she could barely walk straight. I noticed the absence of any men and she told me this event was only for women and that the actual wedding was to take place on Saturday when both sexes could attend.

I was urged to eat when the samosas came around, still warm, and then soup, and finally something that looked like a kibbe, or quipe, as Dominicans call this concoction, served with a side of white rice. In the meantime, Manzura and another former student of mine, entered the hall on each side of Dilbar while she, looking gorgeous in every outfit, stopped at each table, had her photo taken with the group of guests and bowed her head repeatedly in a sign of respect. She sat at the dais for a bit and then groups of women proceeded to dance in front of her while Dilbar bowed her head every so often. She went through two changes of clothes, I didn’t know the significance of this and my student was unable to explain. By 8:00pm, most of the women started to leave and Manzura asked to dance with her, which we did to the consternation of the older women who couldn’t believe I was able to make a decent effort at dancing just like them.

I presented Dilbar with a gift of cash, gave Manzura her photos in a CD along with the CDs of Latin music and tangos she had requested and left at 9:00pm when the event was over. Ryan’s dinner was over when I got there and I went to the bedroom to catch a few winks before leaving for the airport. He arranged for the taxi and went with me and a teenager from the building to help out with my heavy bags. I was so glad to have left one bag at Ryan’s as I could barely maneuver the two I had brought along while going through security and then the check in process.

I was told I was carrying 18 kilos of excess baggage and at 5 Euros per kilo, needed to pay $117.00 before they issued me a boarding pass. Disgruntled, but knowing I had no choice, I went to the window to pay and proceeded through immigration. I still had almost three hours before the flight took off and thus settled down to begin reading “A long way Gone”, a book about a child soldier from Sierra Leone who gets to escape that hell, comes to live in the United States and gets to write about his ordeal in very eloquent manner.

The flight in itself was uneventful, but I was not able to eat the dinner they presented us with: boiled chunks of beef with some overcooked pasta on the side, no sauce of any kind for either one, cold salad, hard roll and so on. I had some apricot juice, try without success to inflate the pillow I had brought with me, as none were provided by the airline, and then went into a fitful sleep for the next seven hours of the flight.  

July 12, 2012

What a hectic day indeed. I slept relatively well in the cool and dark cave that is Ryan’s bedroom having turned up the A/C full blast for the night. My goal for the day was to be able to complete and mail my last expense report from the embassy along with my lengthy letter to Stephanie before returning my badge and saying goodbye to everyone for good. It took some doing to get the staff to allow me use of one the computers as one available to guests offers only Internet access and I needed MS Office to finish my report. Tahmina already has a replacement in training, Khurshed, and he was gracious enough to help me out. I received my grant money to cover the return fare from Khorog and learned from the cashier that Vali had been diagnosed with leukemia recently and was undergoing treatment. She did confirm I could find him on Facebook and I promised to send him a message.

I was able to finish the report and mail it along with the letter. When I went back to the office to retrieve my water bottle, I met a young woman from Jamaica whose husband is being transferred to Chile and who wanted to learn Spanish. Although it was too late for me to do anything for her, I promised to put her in touch with Dagma since she’s teaching at Jamshed’s institute.

I called Takhmina, at Caritas, and agreed to stop by to say goodbye and perhaps have lunch with the group. Furkat was out of the office, but Khurshed and Nigina joined us at the Morning Star Café where I had a bowl of soup and half of a tuna sandwich along with their superb coffee. The guys refused to let me pay alleging they had funds for hospitality expenses and my lunch would be covered under that line of expenses. Takhmina informed me she has been accepted by the Canadian university near Toronto she had applied to and will be going there next September. We promised to try and see each other either in Canada or when she comes for a visit to the States. Khurshed told how much he has enjoyed the albums I have posted to my Facebook pages and urged me to continue as he was learning things about his own culture he had never realized before.

Hakim, Carita’s driver, gave me a ride to the souvenir shop across from the Rohat Teahouse so I could buy a few things for friends and relatives, and then I walked to the cobbler store to ask for my handbag to be sown on the sides since the seams had come undone. The cobbler had repaired two pairs of shoes for me in the past and refused to charge for the service. I was very touched by his gesture and mimed to him that I was leaving for good the next day. He wanted to know if I’d ever be back and I said: “Who knows?”

When I got to the flat, it was time to tackle Ryan’s kitchen and the mountain of dishes left behind after he had prepared champurrado and smoked fish for the kids in the building. It must have taken me over an hour to scrape all the plates and pans and clean the stove of all the burned out crud on its surface before I could take a break and resume my packing. I got a text message from Manzura inviting me to Dil’s wedding tomorrow, one of my former students. Since the reception is at 6:00pm, I might have a chance to attend it for a couple of hours before heading to the airport. Manzura indicated that money would make a good present for the newlyweds.

After discussing with Takhmina how usurious Somon Air rates are for excess baggage, it occurred to me that I could leave one of my bags, the one containing winter gear, at Ryan’s place and pick it up at some point in the future when an assignment has been clarified for me. I emailed him and he promptly replied yes. It was time to reshuffle my bags once again. He then called me to say he was preparing a farewell dinner for me and had instructed Farrukh to buy the beef for the shish kebabs. I informed him of my plans to attend my student’s wedding and then show up here, and that was fine with him.

By the time I went to bed, I still couldn’t fit everything into the two bags and then heard from Ruth, currently in Istanbul, telling me that even with just two bags; she had to pay $120.00 in excess baggage. These airlines are all in cahoots to bleed us to death with their additional charges. I guess they know that even when we pay through the nose; it won’t stop those of us with wanderlust in our veins from continuing to travel.

July 11, 2012

I had another sleepless night as the room was too warm and the fan provided little relief. I got up at some point and opened the window risking getting mosquitoes into the room, but hoping for some cool breeze to allow me to sleep. I was up before five and busied myself with making coffee in the adjacent kitchen, repacking my bags and finishing “Sister of my Heart” so I could take it to the American Corner as a donation.

I exchanged money to buy my airline ticket, 440.00 somoni or $93.00, and headed to the American Corner to use their Internet service where a very young woman greeted instead of the coordinator who had something personal to do in the morning. I notified her that the Internet access was not connected and to please do so for me, but she had no idea what to do and called somebody else to help her, a guy, and still there was no service. Madina came in at this point, since she led a group of small children in some kind of lesson there, and recommended I go to Logos to use their service in the meantime. The staff allowed me use of their computer and even ordered tea for me seeing that I was eating a chunk of bread with the last of my Nutella spread.

Tamriz called to say he was at the airport securing my ticket, but the flight was going to be delayed since there was a military parade scheduled for the day and the airport runway was the only flat place in town where they could hold it. He couldn’t give me a specific time and recommended that I go to a museum or some other place to kill time for a while. Logos lost its Internet connection and I decided to pay for my hotel room, bring my bags to Logos and return to the American Corner in the hope that their Internet connection was now working.

Tamriz picked me up at 12:00pm and took me to the airport, but the plane hadn’t arrived yet, so he took me to visit the Serena Inn nearby where dignitaries and famous personalities get to stay when they visit Khorog. The place was built by the Agha Khan Foundation and represents the traditional Pamiri-style house. The grounds were meticulously kept and the area facing the Panj River was an oasis. I wondered how much it’d cost to stay there for just one night, but Tamriz didn’t know. We saw my plane approaching and it looked like one of those toy planes kids manipulate with a remote control. I had to pay another 56.00 somoni or $12.00 for excess baggage as only 10 kilos were allowed per passenger.

The flight constituted one hour and fifteen minutes of bottled up terror as the tin can we were in, a 17-passenger plane probably 40-50 years old, appeared to be buffeted by the clouds as it flew over the awesome Pamir range, or what the locals like to call “The roof of the World”. Some people fell asleep shortly after takeoff while other, myself included, shut their eyes most of the time. A European couple had sat on opposite sides of the plane to be able to get good photos and I handed them my camera to have a couple of shots since I didn’t have a window seat. The views were spectacular even when I couldn’t wait to start seeing villages and cars to indicate the plane was initiating its descend.

                                       Awesome view of the Pamirs Mountains.

                                              Another one

                                               One last one.

                          The tiny plane I flew in with my stomach tied in a knot the entire time.

I got into a taxi right away and got the key to Ryan’s flat from his neighbor as he was currently in Moscow. It was a relief to come to a cool place and have some privacy for once as he’ll be gone until Friday. I tried to get Farrukh to go with me to the offices of Somon Air to obtain my ticket as the website informed me I was too late to purchase a ticket online using a credit card. He was scheduled to see his math tutor at that time and couldn’t do it, so I braved the situation and went on my own. The young woman at the Somon Air counter told me she was closed even though it was exactly 4:45pm when I got there. She sent me next door to the first of the five different travel agencies, little hole-in-wall spaces selling tickets for a small commission for people who don’t know how to use the web or wait for too long like me. I finally got a guy who spoke some English and understood I didn’t need a visa to travel to Germany and sold me a ticket for $367.00 dollars.

I then went to visit the seamstress to find that despite having had an additional ten days to finish my outfits, she wasn’t done. I called Sanifa to help me understand and to tell the seamstress I was leaving for the States and needed my clothing ready right then and there. She agreed to have them done in 2.5 hours and I had to make another trip there. I bought some bread and cheese and had that for dinner as I didn’t feel like cooking.

It was quite pleasant to walk around after eight when the weather cooled off a bit and I could see lots of young men and women walking around gaily talking to each other and laughing in a carefree manner. I knew I’d miss this place and had started to do so already.

July 10, 2012

I was up at five in the morning aware of the fact this would be my last chance to gaze at the Pamirs Mountains as the sun just started its ascend over their jagged peaks. I updated the folder with the photos for Logos and managed to pack my belongings into two bags as I had given Mavluda most of my teaching materials now that I was finally done with teacher training and couldn’t afford to carry them back to the States in my luggage.

I once again turned down the breakfast and had bread and Nutella with tea before repairing to the classroom to set up the board for the “Swat it” game. The students were divided into two teams and were fiercely competitive arguing with Mavluda as to which was had been the first to swat the proper word on the board. Following that, we went outside to form two circles and practice interviewing their classmates with the questions given to them on strips of paper. After several rounds of this game, one student commented that he had never spoken so much English in his entire life and had a headache as a result of having to think so hard.

I had urged the students to wear the Logos t-shirt they had been given earlier in the week so we could take a group photo for the embassy’s Facebook page. Some of the male students refused to do so and their teacher didn’t insist, an action I strongly disagreed with. Three of these students followed me to the house to help me with my luggage since it couldn’t be rolled along the rocky walkways leading to the school. The mini-bus came in on time, and Mavluda suggested that I travel with Tamriz to be more comfortable and avoid the noisy atmosphere that the students would create in the bus. And they were noisy as they greeted villagers along the way and the five cyclists, either Europeans or Americans, they encountered along the way.

When we got into Khorog, I immediately went to the Megaphon office and inquired why my service had been unavailable despite the numerous phone calls Mavluda had made on my behalf. They now claimed that Eraj had made a mistake when talking to the clerk in Dushanbe and my 50.00 somoni payment had been added to the unlimited coverage service and not the limited one I had asked for so the money would last until July 15. That was why after only four days the money was gone and now I had no way of disputing their version of events with Eraj in Germany and my unable to speak the language. I called them thieves and worse and told the woman how happy I was I would not need their services anymore. I was so angry that I didn’t even feel like going to lunch at the Indian restaurant I had so much looked forward to in the last few days.

The restaurant in question was a dark place with no air conditioning at all, but the waitress brought a floor fan and placed it directly in front of me when I complained of the heat. Most things I asked for from the menu were not available including the popular tali plate and lassi usually offered by all Indian restaurants. After the waitress made several trips to the kitchen window to speak to the cook as to what was or wasn’t available, I walked up there myself and convinced the cook, who was from Calcutta, to prepare a tali plate for me with lamb, but was instead served another portion of tough beef chunks. The vegetable raita was made with sour milk instead of yogurt and thus tasted more like vinegar. At least everything had plenty of spices thus compensating for the awful food I had had to eat these past ten days.

We had passed the American Corner on the way to the restaurant and so on the way back, I stopped there to use their Internet connection. I met the coordinator, with whom I had been in touch hoping to offer some teacher training during my stay not knowing I was going to be posted out in the boonies, and got to catch up on my emails and Facebook postings. Mavluda and Madina had offered to accompany me to the botanical garden, the one located at the highest altitude in the world, and they came to the hotel promptly at five with Firuza joining us as her husband had offered to take us there.

I could have skipped this visit entirely as the place is in complete disarray, overgrown and obviously not looked after by a team of botanists or even skilled gardeners. There were no flowers to look and not one of my companions could tell me if the garden was supposed to be composed of separate areas. We found an abandoned greenhouse where many starter plants had been left and some lavender bushes were growing wild. We did find a wedding party, two young people looking childish as if they were wearing costumes instead of formal wedding attire. The tea house I had been told would really impress me was occupied by government officials and we were barred from even getting nearby to take a good photo of it.

                                   Two of the few flower specimens found at the botanical garden.

Although I wasn’t even a bit hungry, the Logos staff insisted on taking me to dinner at a local restaurant where I ordered a bowl of razolnik soup and was served another tasteless broth with bits of beef and vegetables. Madina and Firuza said goodbye after dinner and Mavluda took me for a walk in the central park of Khorog maintained by the Agha Khan Foundation. When I returned to my hotel room, I was glad to find satellite TV available and was thus able to catch up on the news after taking a long shower and washing my hair under plenty of water.

July 9, 2012

It was our last full day at the camp and I decided to skip the usual porridge breakfast to have chunks of kolcha bread with the Nutella spread I had brought with me and just tea. We had the students play “Jeopardy”, which they enjoyed immensely, and also take part in a scavenger hunt for words and their definitions. Their last assignment for the day was to complete a worksheet about “The best of everything” that had ever happened to them. Mavluda informed me that July 11 was a holiday in the Pamirs as they celebrated some important Muslim event I couldn’t quite understand and that Tamriz had arranged for the band to return to play in the evening after the students had a chance to recite some poems, sing and dance for the occasion.

As part of the holiday, a group of villagers showed up at the school before lunch to display typical dishes from the region along with some handicrafts. I had just had some biscuits and tea for the coffee break and wasn’t even a bit hungry, not that I needed to be as none of the dishes looked appetizing since they were just different versions of the wheat and dairy combinations that had appeared at our table for the last seven days. The women had placed huge wooden spoons by their dishes and people were eating from these spoons in the absence of any dishes or cutlery of any sort. I took some pictures and tried to look truly contrite at not being able to even sample the wares.

 These village women prepared local food delicacies and offered them to the campers for free on a  holiday commemorating some important Muslim date. Most dishes consisted of flour and milk products cooked together and eaten from a common spoon.

At lunch, we were served the vilest dish yet: some small beans reminiscent of our pigeon peas, but hard and flavorless, accompanied by what looked like pieces of the ears of an animal, as they looked like cartilage of some sort. It was a little bit like the “cuajitos” Puerto Rican like to eat fried, but it smelled terrible and the dish lacked even salt. We had been served fish soup before and the kids had refused to eat it as they had never even heard such dish existed. I had eaten the pieces of white fish, but left the broth intact as it didn’t have any flavor whatsoever. I excused myself and turned down Mavluda’s offer to accompany me to the café for a proper meal. I told her I had some chocolates in my room and would be fine after all.

I took a snooze in my room and then compiled the photos I had taken during the week so the IT person at Logos could create a slide show for the closing ceremony. Mavluda had told me there had been a minor crisis in their office when Tahmina called to remind them that embassy personnel would be there on the 12 instead of the 16 for such ceremony. They group went  into a panic as the students hadn’t rehearsed enough and even the hall they had rented had been reserved for the 16.

When I went back at 4:00pm, Tamriz was already there making the arrangements for the evening program and lifting my spirits by telling me the cooks were preparing plov for dinner. I helped Mavluda with the spelling and proper wording for a couple of speeches the students would be delivering, and then sat for a while to read “Sister of my Heart”, which was getting quite riveting toward the end.

Musicians were present, and had dinner served outside, while we prepared the room for the evening program. I sat through the rather repetitious program with the students offering the same material I had seen for the Fourth of July celebration. I had  play “Pop my Balloon”, and they had a blast. I agreed to stay for a little bit only as I was already tired and needed to start packing my bags for the next day. I danced one lively number, took some photos and left accompanied by the school coordinator who has been so helpful during the entire week. The night sky seemed darker than usual, and I marveled at the number of stars visible at that time and continued to gaze at them as I brushed my teeth and walked to the pit toilet.

Despite my best intentions of devoting the rest of the evening to packing, I got quite engrossed in reading the novel “Sister of my Heart” and ended up leaving the task for the next day.

July 8, 2012

I was up at the crack of dawn and couldn’t complain about getting up so early because when I looked up on my way to the pit toilet, I saw the sun just coming out and kissing the peaks of the Pamir Mountains on the Afghani side of the border. Since I had no Internet connection once again, I settled down to write the overdue letter to my friend Stephanie until it was time for breakfast.

Mavluda told me the cooks had caved in and cooked the butter tea, made with milk, butter and salt, that the students had been clamoring for since they got here. They made rice pudding just for me and it was the usual bland kind, so I wasn’t disappointed. We played “Concentration”, “Where am I” and finally tried to get the students to write a paragraph about “The best meal ever”, but if felt like pulling teeth as they weren’t even used to answering the 5Ws in regards to the topic. I felt a bit frustrated seeing the quality of the writing as they couldn’t even spell “juice” or and kept calling me to ask for translation of words I had no idea what they meant in their Pamiri dialect, Sudgni. I had asked Mavluda why she never addressed the students in English except when in the classroom and in my presence as they obviously needed more exposure to spoken English and that’s what the camp was supposed to provide. She seemed taken aback by my comment and muttered something about it being easier that way.

My mood lifted immediately after I was notified that a wedding was taking place in the village at 1:00pm and I was welcome to attend it in the company of Vilna, our village volunteer who knew the bride, and Schanoz to serve as my interpreter. The bride’s house was just a few minutes from the camp, and we found the backyard already full of guests sitting on the ground under the trees to avoid the scorching mid-day sun. The bride was the daughter of one of the camp’s cooks and she immediately came to us to find me seat at a table under some partial shade. The table was groaning with food that had been covered with a tablecloth to avoid the army of flies flitting around us, and I decided on the spot to avoid any of the salads, most of which contained mayonnaise, just in case as I had no idea how long the long had been laid out there.

The bride and groom arrived exactly at 1:00pm, I guess no photo shoot around war memorials had taken place as they do in Dushanbe, and the music started immediately. The groom was sat at a tapchon with his aunt and best friend while the bride occupied a different one surrounded by her former classmates and girlfriends. The rest of the groom family didn’t attend the event as they were busy preparing a reception for the couple later on in the afternoon. Plov was served accompanied by the same dry and tough bread I dislike so much as it hurts my gums and the roof of my mouth when I try to eat it. The portion of plov was very generous and quite tasty, so I ate most of it and had some watermelon for dessert. The green tea was transparent and there was no sugar around, so a couple of sips did it for me.

I noticed that although the bride was not bowing down to her guests every so often, she kept her head down and was not allowed to eat or drink in front of her guests just like the other brides I had observed. Schanoz told me she was supposed to look despondent about leaving her family home and eating or drinking anything would contradict such posture. The groom, on the other hand, was eating heartily while chatting with his friends. Oh, the injustice of it all. The band was quite good and the cook insisted I dance at least once with her and I had to comply in spite of the heat. At least they had reserved the dance area for place under a tree providing generous shade. After people saw me dancing, and gave me some thumbs up for being able to follow the beat, an older guy invited me to dance. I was pleasantly surprised to see guys and girls dancing together, although without touching each other, instead of the segregated dancing that takes place in Dushanbe.

It was time for the bride to change into another outfit to make the trip to her in-laws’ house and we followed her inside to watch the poor thing put on another dress, a red velvet one, on top of the one she was already wearing and then the complicated process of wrapping seven shawls around her head and shoulders that could only be removed by the in-laws when she got to their house. I don’t know how the bride didn’t pass out in the July heat once the process was over although her married sister did walk with her trying to fan her face the whole time. In the meantime, the guys were busy loading the bride’s dowry (carpets, duvets, pillowcases and the like) and her hope chest filled with her trousseau into the top rack of an SUV.

Back at the camp, Mavluda informed me she had taken the students swimming at the river, or swimming pool as they like to call it, and there were no other activities planned. I returned for dinner to find a few tablespoons of overly cooked rice floating in that disgusting gravy with three little chunks of tough beef on top. I took one taste of it and it wasn’t even hot. I refused to eat, and Mavluda offered to walk with me to the truck stop restaurant where I had another bowl of lagman soup, also greasy and only lukewarm, and some kolcha bread. Mavluda had been to the States and sympathized with me as she was not able to eat everything she was offered while staying there for over five months.