January 15, 2012

More rain greeted me this morning and I wondered how long it would last before it turned to snow. Jamshed showed up around ten to work on the pump only to discover that there wasn’t anything wrong with it as Dilya had led me to believe, but the problem was that the filter was completely clogged with so much silt that the water could not go through. Once he removed it and cleaned, and put it back in the water flowed unimpeded. He reminded me that my landlady’s driver would be picking me up at 11:00 and that I should just bring a change of clothes to her house to take a shower there. It seemed weird to arrive at this house for the first carrying a bundle of clothes, but I knew it was the logical thing to do since it would be a while before I had enough hot water in the tank to take shower at home.

It was snowing by the time the driver arrived and my landlady was sitting in the front seat holding a huge sheet cake covered with chocolate chips. She lives across from the busy Green Market, which despite the snow and previous rain, was a beehive of activity. We turned into a non-descript alleyway and pulled in front of building entrance. Somehow, I had thought she lived in a single family home and not just a regular Soviet-era apartment complex. I learned she shares her two-bedroom flat with her two grown sons, their wives and four grandchildren. In fact, she and her husband gave up their bedroom and sleep on cushions on what was the formal living room so that each son could have his own bedroom. She has two married daughters, one of which lives in Brooklyn, NY.

                                        Lunch at my landlady's apartment

When I stepped into the hallway and attempted to remove my boots, Maryam restrained me and told me that was the job of one of the daughters-in-law. I tried to free myself so I could bend over and finish the task, but the young woman quickly came over and removed my boots. I was so embarrassed I could not look at her in the eye for a while. I was directed to see on the cushions lining up the low table and the display of dishes started with bread, jam, butter, cookies, cake, yogurt, salads, mantu(a sort of dumpling filled with chopped beef and cabbage) and finally, of course, plov. In between, I was plied with coffee and tea. I had trouble finishing the slice of cake served at the end despite the fact that it was quite moist and not extremely sweet.

I did manage to take a shower between the appetizers and the main dish as one of the daughters-in-law brought a space heater into the bathroom and made sure there would be plenty of hot water for me to wash my hair. It felt so good to have abundant water to do so for once.

I was allowed into one of the bedrooms to look at the newest grandchild, a two-month old girl named Yazmeen, and the mother showed me her two albums covering her wedding. She was 19 and Alodin was 21. They’ve been married for two years. The oldest grandson, and who my landlady claimed could serve as an interpreter, could not even tell me what school he went to, probably an expensive private one, but was ready to sing three ditties he was taught at school when his grandmother prodded him probably without understanding a word of what he was saying.

I was dropped off at home with barely enough time to join Maryam for dinner at her friend Mauzama’s flat. We walked there under light snow and ended up at the building where I had been shown a vacant apartment and refused to take it because it was on the sixth floor and the elevator was a narrow, dark and slow thing that made me feel claustrophobic. The second apartment was dreary, dark and cold furnished with mismatched pieces of furniture and dim lighting. More salads, pickled vegetables, flat bread and of course, plov was served. I had come only for the companionship and had a couple glasses of red wine.

What I found most astonishing about whole gathering was how freely the women felt to discuss politics and blame the state of the nation on the people from the south of the country. According to Mauzama, during the Soviet domination era, people from the south only had the choice of becoming police/army personnel if males and agricultural workers in the cotton fields if female. There were very few schools and no universities in the southern region of the country and the people from the north looked down upon them considering them to be similar to the nomads of Afghanistan to whom many are ethnically related. Mauzama felt that the city of Dushanbe was no longer beautiful, safe or exciting because so many people from the south had migrated here in search of work. She felt that these people were coarse, uneducated, criminally-inclined, and prone to drug-addiction and so on. In her opinion, only people from the north, used to the Russian system of education, able to travel and get a decent education and surrounded by like-minded people should be able to live in Dushanbe. She predicts that when elections take place next spring, in the absence of any political opposition since the opposition has been muzzled, the president, who has been in power for 18 years  will win again and thus unleash another civil war. All three women wish to emigrate before that happens.