May 8, 2012

I realized when I woke up that I had made a mistake in the printing of the certificates as I had used the same template as the ones for the PedInst, but hadn’t changed the location. I could have kicked myself for always doing things in a rush and then having to redo them. I got them reprinted and went across the street to an Iranian store Michelle told me carried good quality coffee at reasonable prices. I found an 8-oz bag of Sumatra coffee for only 20.00 somoni or $5.00 and I got some cocoa as well.

I made my way to the #22 mini-van to make the trek to the U.S. embassy and ran into two of my students from the first year group. Glaso indicated her mother wanted to see me again, but she speaks too little English to make a visit bearable. I barely made it to the cashier’s office before it closed at 4:00pm. I informed Vali about the Latin night and encouraged him to join us which he promised to do even if rather late. I gave Tahmina the certificates and she promised to return them to me on Thursday already signed. There were no interesting books or magazines to lift from the CLO office, so I left.

Hillary had agreed to go to the Latin night event at the club and we agreed to meet there at 7:00. Eraj showed up at my door a little bit after six saying he’d tried calling me, but my battery had died and hadn’t even noticed it. He needed to print another letter from Germany and had other questions as well. I asked him to come along with me to the club while we talked. When we got to the club, I was shocked to find out they wanted 50 somoni per person as a cover charge. I only had 70.00 on me and thus wouldn’t have been able to admit both of us. I bluffed my way in when I recognized the waiter from the previous night and asked him to let me in to see if Hillary was already inside. He agreed and then I never went back to pay.

Several tables lining up the dancing floor were already occupied with lots of women, some of them smoking like chimneys. Hillary wasn't in, but Corrie and Michelle came right on my heels and we occupied the same booth as the previous night. They both commented on how expensive the cover charge was and how that would cut off a lot of young people from coming to the event. The organizers explained the fee was only for the dance lessons, but the club would be open to everyone beginning at 9:00pm. The music was the same as the previous evening and they were showing the same video with some awkward men and women trying to look like strippers, but with little success.

At 7:30, a young woman gave a speech and opened the floor to a pair of children who did a pretty good simulacrum of a dance number, I guess as advertising for the young woman’s dance studio. It was then the turn of a group of teenager dancers who gyrated on the floor pretending to be hip hop dancers with lots of effort and little grace. The audience seemed quite appreciative of their efforts and applauded loudly at the end. I couldn’t see what their dancing had to do with a Latin night.

The instructor finally moved on to show the moves for the bachata section of the evening and did so while standing on the small raised platform. I got Eraj to try the moves for a little while, but he quickly gave up telling me he had never done dancing as part of a couple and felt extremely self-conscious doing it  here in front of all those strangers. When we sat down, he pointed to some of the skimpily dressed young women on the dance floor and said he was perturbed by their attire and felt, as many Muslim are taught to feel, that they were provoking him sexually. In spite of the deafening music, I told him that such belief was a myth and that the more he was exposed to women with little clothing on, the less power they would have to get a rise out of him. He didn’t seem to buy it and left shortly thereafter. I might have pushed him too far this time.

The instructor announced that she was going to demonstrate salsa this time and I went back to the dance floor only to hear merengue music instead. I tapped her on the shoulder and informed her of the mistake. I don’t believe that her English was fluent enough for her to understand my point as her reply was that she needed to get the students to learn the steps slowly. I asked her if she had salsa music to play and she confessed the DJ didn’t have the right music, so I offered one of the two CDs I had brought for Michelle and which had been rejected by the same guy earlier in the evening when he informed me his playlist was already prepared and he couldn’t deviate from it.

To sum it up, the evening was a disaster. Hillary and three other people with her refused to pay the cover charge and left. The DJ played one track from my CD and quickly sent it back to me. The instructor didn’t know how to tango and had brought an older woman to give a demonstration after which the dancers were left on their own to practice. I said goodbye to Corrie and Michelle and turned down their offer to accompany me as they had paid money for the chance to listen to crappy music and be nearly suffocated by cigarette smoke and ought to enjoy it. I walked all the way home as I don’t feel comfortable taking a taxi by myself at night.