April 26, 2012

I refused to set up my alarm the night before for the dean had never called me to confirm if I was to report to classes or not. I slept until 7:00am and was just finishing my coffee when Sohib, from the interpreter’s class, called asking if I was going to show up. I told him it would take me quite some time to get there and he offered to come in his father’s car and pick me up. In that case, I agreed to go and got ready for him. There were only eight students in the classroom and I had them try describing a person by giving them a choice of laminated photos, a list of vocabulary to describe physical features and one for personality types. I knew this would be a challenging activity simply because they’d have to use their imagination to come up with details about the person in the photo. The student closest to me couldn’t even write the simplest of words without making a mistake. It’s a struggle for them to just identify a woman as “she” and not a “he”. The dean came in at this time and informed me he had given permission to some of the students to go to the new public library. I told him he owed me an apology for not calling or replying to my email, which he acknowledged receiving, but he just brushed me off.

The class of teachers did not show up at all. I called Eraj and he told me he was accompanying his aunt to the doctor, but knew students were gone for good. I went to the dean’s office and asked, again, as to the schedule for the next few days, not even bothering to inquire as to the rest of the semester. He told me students will have a test beginning on Monday and then an exam, but since I don’t really understand the difference between the two, he tried to explain, making things even more confusing in the process. I’m expected to take part in one of the exams alongside Nigora, who hasn’t bothered to tell what day or time this is supposed to happen.

One of the teachers corralled me again as he had numerous questions on a passage about taking a vacation on a cruise liner. It must be indeed daunting to try and teach about something you have never even seen such as the ocean, a ship, first class tickets or accommodations, hitchhiking along the highway and so on. I do pity them sometimes.

I stopped at the butcher’s where I had requested a whole oxtail last week, but had been unable to pick it up by Saturday. The butcher told me he had tried calling me with no success, but had the oxtail waiting for me. He had even chopped into chunks about the same size as we do in the States. I paid 31.00 somoni or about $7.00 and couldn’t have been happier thinking of the slow simmering method I’d use to make them so tender that the meat will fall off the bones. I need a decent red wine to finish the sauce. I’ll cook it for the potluck we are planning with the staff from Caritas next week.

Hillary emailed me to cancel our dinner date for tonight when we were planning on discussion my possible trip to Moscow/Saint Petersburg. I offered to cook dinner sometime next week when I might not have any classes and spare time to go shopping at the market. Takhmina emailed me to say I had an envelope waiting for me. She’ll drop it off at the American Corner so I can pick it up from there.

Tohir called me to say he had been notified just today that he didn’t make the cut for the position as an interpreter for the ICRC, but he has an interview tomorrow with the NGO Handicap International and will let me know the outcome. Ruth called to comment on the ETM and its participants as she was wondering how some of them had made it through the interviewing process unless, of course, Tahmina conducted it in Tajik. While she didn’t begrudge them the chance to obtain additional professional development opportunities, she did feel that the benefits of this expensive conference had been lost on many of them.