May 11, 2012

Nigina had confirmed her intention to come have dinner with me instead of going to one of the restaurants in town that have so little appeal for me. She asked if she could bring a friend along to which I said yes. The rain had continued unabated all night and it was still raining heavily when I had no choice but to go to the nearby supermarket and get the ingredients needed to make chili con carne, polenta and white rice. I found the Parmesan cheese and boneless beef I needed and was glad Nigina had offer to bring a salad, the weakest part of repertoire when it comes to cooking.

 I sent Corrie a text message to remind her of our presentation tomorrow at the Access camp and she called to say she didn’t know anything about it although we had talked about the camp earlier in the week. She reluctantly agreed to meet at 9:00am where the taxis depart for Varzob even though I told her I could go alone if she didn’t feel up to it.

Zoir kept dialing my phone, but I didn’t pick up because I didn’t want to have company today. I had promised Elbek we’d have a two hour class in the afternoon since we hadn’t had any this week and needed time for other chores. I marinated the beef, soaked the beans, did the dishes and started the polenta so it’d have a chance to set while listening to some of my favorite tunes.

Elbek came for his class and he’d a lot of difficulty with the audio portion as he’s not able to understand contractions and accents of any kind. We were interrupted by Zoir who showed up anyway with another first year student, Nigina, because she wanted to know, wonder of wonders, how she could go to America to join her sister. I was practically fuming at their coming without having received prior approval from me and then furious at being asked the same inane question. I don’t seem to be able to get it into their heads that visas are not easily obtained even if you have a friend or relative living in the United States and the moment I mentioned that a student visa requires the passing of the TOEFL, they immediately panic knowing full well they are not prepared to take on such test. Mercifully, they left early as they had tickets to a performance at the Opera Ballet Theater.Zoir insisted it was the right time to visit his village and we tentatively set the date for next Thursday. I only committed myself to spending one night there as I plan to have a dinner party here the following Saturday.

Nigina came in accompanied by a co-worker, Muhyyo, a delightful young woman from Khujand who insisted we practice Latin dance movements after our dinner. Even though I was still sore from the workout I had received during the week, I complied with the request and showed her my best moves.