February 29, 2012

Stopped by Operation Mercy and got the DVD from Johan. My classroom was open and a couple of female students from my former 101 group were huddling around the space heater and told me they had been barred from their class for arriving late. As I was organizing my cards to play adjectives and their opposites, they asked questions about it and I had them tried to play, but they didn’t recognize any of the vocabulary, not even the word “ugly”.

Students from my former 112 group, the one who seemed to be making the most strides while using the Headway textbook, saw me and they all came to hug me and asked me why I was no longer teaching them. I told them to go ask the dean as I simply didn’t believe his explanation that they had done very poorly in their final exam. Oigul said that in fact her group had done very, very well and she wanted to continue to have me as her teacher. We exchanged numbers so we could keep in touch.

The student who had asked me the previous day to excuse him from class walked in and asked me why I had not done so as the dean had called his parents about his absence and now he was in trouble. I bluntly told him I had seen no evidence of illness and was in no position to excuse him. He stormed out of the classroom. The rest of the students sat down and we went through some similes before they paired up to complete the list of items in the “Odd One Out” game. Nigora came in at this time and helped a group of students with their answers and explanations. While we are supposed to be co-teaching this class, her modus operandi is to pop in for a few minutes while busily texting on her phone and then walk out under some pretense or another. This time, she stayed until the end of the class, texting all the while nonetheless.

My conversation class at Caritas dealt with children and parents and their answer to one question about adoption left me dumbfounded. Both Nigina, who is a doctor, and Takhmina confirmed that children born out of wedlock are simply abandoned by their mothers at the maternity hospital and the nurses sell the babies to families who haven’t had a chance to adopt or don’t want to go through the lengthy procedure. Furkat, the pious member of the group, kept his head down the whole time as if indicating he didn’t feel comfortable talking about it.

I then traveled to the embassy where Sandy had compelled me to come in and help out in the interviewing process for teachers wanting to participate in an exchange program that would take them to the United States for two months during which they’d have a chance to visit Washington, D. C. and observe classes at a local school in other states. I had initially refused to participate since I feel that the embassy doesn’t give a hoot about me and only contacts me when they need something. Since Caroline is out of the picture now and Corrie claimed she had classes in the afternoon, Sandy had made a personal appeal for me to come in and even agreed to ask the questions so I didn’t have to talk so much.

It was Sandy’s birthday and there goodies to be had in the office. She told me to avail myself of the carrot cake and cookies and then come to her office to start the interviewing process. Tahmina said hello and I barely looked at her. Sandy appeared all flustered when she sat down and then told me she had just found out that one of the Fulbrighters under her supervision had returned to the States last December and never reported it. This was Emily, the one doing research on the dancing practices of women in Tajikistan. Sandy never mentioned the fact that she had obviously failed to keep track of Emily’s whereabouts and her supposed research. I took the opportunity to inform her that due to her office negligence in not informing me that my request for an extension had been denied, I had not been able to apply for a Fulbright fellowship by the deadline of February first. Sandy asked me if I didn’t mind waiting until we were done with the interviews before we talked about my situation and I agreed to do so.

She called on twelve candidates, asked three to four questions and I took note of their respective answers. At the end, we rated their answers, selected three for the available posts and an alternate just in case. Turning to my case, she started to fidget on her chair and saying things like “I don’t know how to say this”, or “Let me say that…”. I told her to spare me the diplomatic B. S. and just come to the point, but she would not stop trying to rephrase whatever she started saying before. I finally told her I had come to the conclusion that the PedInst request for another ELF had to do with my skin color and ethnicity to which Sandy appeared to react with horror and reassured me that wasn’t the case. Supposedly, the institute had indicated that there problems communicating with me to which I retorted that why wasn’t I made aware of that? She said she had discussed the case with her supervisor and that she had meant to talk to me privately, but then things happened, she got distracted and apparently forgot all about it. I was supposed to believe that Harry had not been instructed to deliver the news to me, much less told to tell to me  talk to Tahmina upon my return to Dushanbe. She tried to downplay the situation by telling me that Harry had a post to offer me in Kazakhstan and I said I felt like a charity case now. So what was I, rejected goods? She again tried to look aghast and said that wasn’t the case, it just that there wasn’t a good fit between the PedInst and me and she now plans on making sure that the next ELF at that post speaks Russian, so administrative details can be conveyed in that language and cut down on misunderstandings.

I left the embassy and proceeded to F1 where Ruth and Corrie agreed to meet me to say goodbye to Caroline. Daroush and Aziza, along with her husband, joined us later on. Ruth kept going on about how great things are going for her at the Language Institute and how she had bought erasers for all twenty teachers at her department so none of them has to use a piece of rag to erase the board. She feels great that they are so appreciative and make her feel like a goddess. Caroline and I exchanged glances as if to say “enough already, woman”.

Daroush offered to walk us back to the apartment to help me carry the bag of Forum magazines I had brought from the embassy to distribute at the workshop. Caroline stopped at the supermarket and bought two bottles of beer for us to drink while saying goodbye. Corrie had arranged for the taxi to come for her at 3:30am and to accompany her to the airport as she herself was traveling to Uzbekistan by land and was leaving early as well.