January 19, 2012

I took the printer to the same shop that had refilled the cartridge in the hope they could figure out what was wrong with it. While waiting there for the clerk to take care of another customer, a young guy in line asked me where I was from and on finding out I spoke neither Tajik nor Russian wanted to know how was able to get around. This was the same question one of the teachers at the training center had posed two days ago when someone knocked on the door and started a stream of Russian talk aimed at me. I told both of them that sign language goes a long way along with a few words of Tajik, Russian and a smattering of English for good measure.

It was cold, but the abundant sunshine seemed to warm up the place. I walked to the American Corner, handed Bakhtyor my flashdrive and asked him to make sure the PowerPoint presentation, including the songs and the video portion of it would work from his computer. After a few minutes, he reassured everything looked good. Caroline came by and I helped her put together some materials for the portion of the presentation that related to Asian-Americans.

Of course, as luck would have it, when my presentation got to the point where I was supposed to have music, i.e., Ricky Martin, Shakira, Don Omar, Daddy Yankee, and the video clip from the musical “In the Heights”, there was no sound to be had. I was so mad I could spit nails and wanted to jump across the room and strangle Bakhtyor who instead of carrying out his duty as coordinator for this place seems to spend all his time romancing all the girls that come in. He made a pitiful attempt at playing with different cables and knobs, but no sound was produced and Caroline just wanted for me to move on.

                        Waiting, with Caroline, for our presentation to start at the American Corner

Caroline spoke about the history of Asian people in the United States and brought a cloze passage for them to complete, which was really a great idea and one I’d love to copy in the future as they had to listen carefully to complete the gaps in the text. We had soup and bread at the usual bistro; I bought a few staples at the supermarket next door and then made my way home.