June 28, 2012

I woke up to a gorgeous morning, took a simulacrum of a shower, as very little water was delivered through the shower head, and joined Bakhtyor on the way to the canteen. We had some kind of porridge and none of the teachers could tell what it made from and then I saw the other diners being given the two cold boiled eggs and a hot dog that I’ve come to detest. I ate two bowls of the porridge, some flat bread I’d brought with me and tea and begged to be excused from the table just as the server brought in some cold crepes the teachers referred to as omelets. There was no cream, no filling or syrup to eat these with and I turned them down to the look of horror on everyone’s face.

I went next door to start assembling my materials for the day-long activities, but couldn’t gain any momentum as there were not sufficient chairs for everyone until breakfast was done and over with. Firuza approached me to let me some of the students wanted to scrap the English classes altogether so they could work on the talent show they would be presenting that evening. I totally disagreed reminding her that the purpose of the camp was to strengthen their fluency level and only agreed to cancel the afternoon session entirely so they could have an additional three hours for rehearsal. I then had a great deal of difficulty in getting the students to pair up according to the cards they had been given and work with their shoulder partner. The girls made faces at the thought of working side-by-side with a boy, and I had to Firuza and the other two teachers to intervene to get the issue settled.

It was hard work to make it to 12:30pm when I was too exhausted to even consider another activity and we allowed the students extra time to memorize poems, rehearse dance moves and plan their outfits for a fashion show. I shared the remaining handouts with the three teachers present as the fourth one had not shown up at all for two days. I took my bag back to my room and was quickly joined by Nigora and Parvina who wanted to let me know how much they had learned from me and how much they wished to keep in touch in the future even if I never set foot in Tajikistan again. Although they currently have no Internet access, both of them wanted to have an email account to keep in touch when they do visit Khujand. I opened one for both of them and they were delighted.

We had kichiri, the soupy rice dish we Dominicans might call an “asopao”, for lunch after the customary soup, and I mentioned to the group that I had never eaten so much soup in my entire life. I asked about the agenda for the next day’s closing celebration and was told one needed to be made and no one could tell me what the agenda for the previous’ year celebration had looked like. The teachers told me they were going to work with their students on their respective presentations, and I went back to my room hoping for a short nap at least before joining Firuza and Gulijon for a massage, not done by a human as I had wished, but by a machine. Sleep turned elusive as the construction crew continued their hammering and drilling practically outside my window and people went up and down the stairs talking whole time. Firuza knocked on my door an hour later and I followed them to a rickety room with three machines that supposedly stimulated the flow of flood in your legs and another room with black chair staring ominously at me.

It cost 5.00 somoni for the massage and I found it relatively painful even through my clothes as it pinched and kneaded my sides and scalp in too blunt a way. Firuza followed me and for the first time removed both of her head scarves to show a long mane of luxuriant hair. When I asked her why she wore two scarves instead of just one as many women did, she had no answer for me only saying it was the tradition. I paid for all three massages and left as we were expected to become members of the jury for the talent even when I protested that I didn’t know what the criteria was to give them points for. There were three mothers serving as part of the jury and they also complained they didn’t even know the names of the contestants although they were wearing numbers. We watched the students sing, dance, model traditional and Western –style clothes and then the girls had to demonstrate they could cut carrots in the perfect shape to make plov while the boys had to peel a potato without gouging it too much.

I had to have two bowls of barley soup for dinner as the main entrée was once again buckwheat and chicken. I can understand the place being a sanatorium and the chef being interested in providing healthy meals, but the repetitious menu must surely get on some people’s nerves. I asked Nigora if I could at least request French fries instead of the mashed potatoes, but she said no as that option was reserved to be made at home only. I was glad to have a whole watermelon in my room that a student’s mother had given me and planned on eating most of it that evening to compensate.

Firuza told me we needed to meet to discuss the famous agenda as she had no recollection as to what was done the year before. I brought the watermelon from my room; the kitchen provided the knife and even cut it for us. I wrote down the time slot for each act beginning at 10:00 and going until 11:40 when certificates were to be handed out to 23 graduates. We went next door to help out with the process of voting for the best poster and help out with the decoration, but after a few minutes, I could barely keep my eyes open and begged to be excused so I could go to bed at a decent time.

June 27, 2012

I slept relatively well, made coffee and sat at my computer hoping that Gulruhsor would not come knocking on my door to accompany her to the rehearsal the hokey pokey song. She didn’t, and at 7:00am I could hear the music pumping from the field next to my building. I was glad to see she had enough confidence to pull it off on her own. Parvina and Nigora came to get me for breakfast and we got the same rice pudding of two days ago, this time without even enough sugar, and since I had mentioned the fact that I didn’t care for cold boiled eggs, we got two fried eggs and the requisite hot dog this morning.

We had to wait for a while to get the chairs from the dining room to complete the set up for our classroom and then set out to get the students to describe a picture using the corresponding handouts. Groups then had a chance to read their description while showing their pictures. They were very proud of their work and I encouraged the other students to applaud their efforts. They played board games after that and I discovered that their favorite one was the board games that call for them to perform an action such as winking, whistling or skipping. Most of these actions were unknown to the students and their teachers, and so I was constantly being called to tell them what the word meant. When the student went around performing the action, other students hollered and clapped while laughing the whole time. I followed that with a modified version of a treasure hunt using the vocabulary for occupations. Again, the students were most enthusiastic and came up to me the over and over having made the wrong match, but willing to go on.

I was going to do one last game before lunch when the older teacher in the group told me it was enough as most likely I was extremely tired and if not I, then the students. I told her that wasn’t the case and she replied it must be my drinking coffee as opposed to tea that gave me so much energy for she was tired just from observing me. I wanted to say something to the effect that the difference was that I was passionate about teaching and they didn’t seem to be. For instance, it had bothered me to no end to see the one teacher who had taken part in the English Teacher Mentoring program, and who had a chance to travel to the United States for additional training, sitting down during most of our sessions just gossiping without helping out at all or providing any suggestions or ideas for the sessions. She skipped today’s sessions entirely claiming she had something to do at home or school. I skipped the last game, and the students were given additional time to work on the posters they were making for the display during the closing ceremony.

I cannot recall what we had for lunch, it was that memorable, but one of the student’s mothers came by with some watermelon and we were presented with three platters of it. I ate as much of it as I could before we went back to my room to plan for the next day as Nigora had informed us that we were going to have English classes for both the morning and afternoon sessions. The teachers had suggested having a session on environmental education and another on the educational system in the U.S.A. but I told them what the students needed was additional vocabulary instructions as they had difficulty in expressing even simple ideas. I showed some of the activities I had for that purpose and transferred them to a flashdrive for Nigora to take into town and make the corresponding number of copies.

Dinner was again lagman soup, a piece of chicken with mashed potatoes, and a buttermilk drink. I had two bowls of the soup and skipped the main dish altogether hoping I’d not get too hungry during the rest of the night. Nigora informed us that since it was a holiday in Tajikistan, Consolidation Day, a concert was planned around the front courtyard of the building beginning at 7:00. We went there and saw many of the elderly visitors sitting around a low stone wall enjoying the music from a three-piece band with some of the women dancing together. I started to dance the minute the band played something lively and was called by one the ladies to dance with her in front of the band. Never too shy to be the center of attention, I quickly jumped in and started to dance with her, which encouraged some of our students to join us and Ekram came in and danced with me in spite of having a twisted ankle from playing soccer.

I was having the time of my life when Nigora called me aside to say we were leaving and going back to the classroom for the students didn’t like to be looked at while dancing and wanted to continue the fun in private. It took forever to get the stereo system hooked up and functioning, but the music wasn’t the same and we never regained the momentum we had had in the outdoor courtyard. Ekram came to my room to retrieve the CD I had recorded for the opening celebration and told me how much he wanted to study to become an interpreter at the PedInst, but I told him that university wasn’t the best choice based on the quality of its teachers and told him to pursue his education at the Institute of Foreign Languages where there would be an English Language Fellow posted next September. He asked me for help with the process, but I really don’t know what is necessary for him to enroll.

June 26, 2012

I had received a call from Tahmina, at the embassy, to remind me that Nigora and I were scheduled to attend the closing ceremony for another summer camp nearby at a place called Ghonchi. We were to depart immediately after breakfast as Nigora had been able to arrange to have her husband, the local banker, to take us there. Gulruhsor came along too and we rode in a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser with the windows down as the temperature was still cool early in the morning. We were greeted like dignitaries with a receiving line and much bowing from teachers and students. The director of the program, Ms. Sattorova, had the usual spread of food waiting for us in her office and as soon as the local bigwigs gathered there, the students put on a show that included singing both American and Tajik traditional songs, telling jokes and performing role plays. All of this took place in the tiny courtyard under the sun while the visitors took refuge under the roofed area of the building.

I was truly impressed with the level of English of the students, their numerous posters on a variety of subjects, and their eagerness to demonstrate what they had learned in the past ten months. At the end of the performance, there were the obligatory speeches from the local head of government, the director of the program and myself all to the effect of being extremely grateful to the United States for providing such an opportunity for the students to increase their fluency in English, strengthen their leadership skills and form lasting friendships. We were treated to an early lunch consisting of cold cuts, salads, shorbot soup and fresh watermelon, which I ate until I could eat no more. As we were preparing to leave, the director informed us they were cooking plov for us yet, but Nigora apologized profusely and insisted we needed to go.

Clouds were gathering in the horizon as we approached the camp and rain soon started to fall in huge drops while the wind picked up very quickly. We barely made into our rooms when the power went out and the downpour started. Two of the teachers came to my room to tell me they were scared of both thunder and lightning and didn’t like to be alone when they were happening. Although I told them I had eaten enough for the day, I was obligated to accompany them to lunch as they claimed it was part of our routine now. After the requisite soup, the server brought something I never had had before: a combination of rice with vegetables and flecks of beef that tasted quite good and which I ate even though I wasn’t the least bit hungry. Apparently, this is a dish only served in this part of the country.

We had switched the sessions and now it was time for our English training; therefore, we set out for the makeshift classroom we had and tried to regroup the students according to the previous set up, but some of them had gone home for some reason and we had to form new ones. They were given flip chart paper and told to write a summary about their reading. One of the teachers had told she had sat with her group the night before discussing the reading, going over the vocabulary and practicing the writing of their summary.

Once finished with that task, the students did a gallery walk to determine which one they liked best, but it turned into a popularity contest with the students voting for their best friends’ summary regardless of its merit. Lesson learned for sure. I had them play the game “Can you help me?”, which they thoroughly  enjoyed, followed by “Tic, Tac Toe” with the topic of Countries, Languages and Nationalities and finally, we took the group outside to engage in the “Speedy Interview” game whereby they formed two lines and interviewed each other with questions handed out to them. Even the teachers were enthusiastic about this one commenting on how it gave the girls a chance to talk to all the boys without any negative repercussion to their reputation.

It back to the dining room for dinner with the usual buttermilk in individual glasses, soup and then buckwheat and pasta crowned by some tough chunks of beef. I had the soup, turned down the buttermilk and inspected the main course, but knowing there was no sauce of any kind to give flavor to the pasta or the buckwheat, I just passed and told the rest of the group that I wasn’t hungry while planning all along to eat the piece of cake I still had from Gulruhsor’s birthday.

After dinner, I was conscripted into visiting a nearby monument to Lenin even though all I wanted to do was go to bed early. The entire group was going, so I felt bad about not participating and with threatening skies about us and the light of day slipping away, we set out for the hill where 365 or 389 steps separated me from the giant bust of the Soviet hero. The two teachers present did not attempt the climb and just waited at the base for the rest of us. Students, especially the female ones, grabbed their chance to hold my arms or hands and talk to me without the presence of their teachers to hamper their efforts. We took tons of photos at the top and had to go down really fast as rain started to fall on us again. It was a pleasant outing and a great opportunity for them to talk to me individually. When I told one of them that I liked flowers, she immediately left the group, picked a pale lilac rose and brought it to me. How sweet!

June 25, 2012

My new room still stank of raw sewage even after keeping the window open all day and night. Firuza knocked on my door at 8:00 so we could have breakfast on time and start our session sharply at 9:00am. We had another kind of milky porridge, two boiled eggs and the Russian bread I’m not fond of, but that the others prefer to the flat bread because many of them can’t afford to buy it on a daily basis. Nigora had left the camp the night before to accompany a student for his high school consultation or the chance to talk to some of the Khujand area universities about his chances of entering one of them. She had made no arrangements for us to secure a place for the English language session and thus we had no room, tables or chairs, erasers or paper or even a stapler. I was fuming mad while facing 62 students ready to engage in some interesting activity.

We had to wait until everyone had finished their breakfast to be able to borrow the tables and chairs from the dining room area. Students quickly gathered with their friends at a particular table until I told them they were to be randomly assigned to a table according to the color of the card we gave them. Some of the girls frowned and hesitated about joining a table where mostly boys were seated, but I told them there was no choice in the matter as eventually they would have to work with males and better get used to the idea. I started out by completing a KWL chart by asking them what they knew about the Fourth of July celebration and what they wanted to know and wrote their answers in the tiny whiteboard we had available. We passed out the handout about the Fourth of July celebration and I instructed them to do a round robin of reading a paragraph aloud while the rest of the group followed reading silently; however, this was obviously something they had never done and most of them wasted time going over every page of the handout without actually doing any reading.

After twenty minutes of reading, I told them we’d complete the “What we have Learned” portion of the KWL chart by having each group complete a summary of the article on chart paper and display around the room the following day. We then proceed to play “Concentration” with irregular verbs, a game they found fascinating, and then “Where am I”, which did not work out so well as the students have had little practice in asking questions and couldn’t follow the rule of not telling their friends at what particular location they were. Even the teachers didn’t know some of the places the cards mentioned. Overall, the students were ecstatic with the activities they had done and came to me with words of gratitude and praise.

Lunch was slightly better as we had the usual bowl of soup, lagman this time, and then a tiny portion of plov. It was Gulruhsor’s birthday and Nigora came back in with a cake in the shape of a turtle, something incongruous for a woman turning 25. I was hoping for a chance to take a nap, but all four teachers repaired to my room to learn more about the resources I had available in my laptop and I ended up putting together a folder with enough material to fill a CD. Nigora promised to bring blank CDs as the ones I had brought with me had been intended for Manzura and Eraj’s photo albums. The students, males in this case, had a football game in the late afternoon and we were supposed to be present to cheer them on, but I turned down the invite and stayed in my room reading.

Dinner consisted of more soup and then a small piece of flavorless chicken with a piece of potato and carrot by its side. I handed the chicken to Firuza and ate the vegetables, soup and bread. Gulruhsor followed me to my room so she could obtain some American music from me, and we ended up talking until it was time for bed. She is completing her masters at a university in Dushanbe and volunteers at a group that receives foreigners when they come to visit the city. She desperately wanted to improve her fluency and wanted to hang out with me every minute possible. We decided to have the students rehearse to dance the hokey pokey song for the closing ceremony, which meant I have to be ready at 7:00am when they do their morning exercises.

June 24, 2012

I woke up to the sounds of birds singing from the numerous trees surrounding the resort property. Nigora had secured a hot plate for my room along with a coffee mug and a spoon so I could have my coffee as soon as I woke up. It was a gorgeous morning as I stepped into the balcony to see some of the students walking or running around the property as part of their physical education component. My bathroom stank of raw sewage and the toilet didn’t flush properly, so I decided to request another room, one where hopefully pipes and electric cables would be enclosed somewhat and not hanging around me.

The students knocked on my door to remind me breakfast was being served at 8:00, and Nigora arranged for me to move into another room after that. We had porridge, something that looked and tasted it like Johnny cakes accompanied by a hot dog and tea. I passed my hot dog on to Gulrukhzor who was happy to eat it. I was introduced to the three other English teachers taking part in the camp: Nigora, Firuza and Gulrukhzor, who had just arrived that morning. Firuza had lost her father a couple of months ago and was wearing all black clothes as a sign of mourning. She approached me with what was a very tentative agenda, and I told her it looked quite different from the one Nigora had sent me previously. Once I checked online, I realized that the one I had received was last year’s and had nothing to do with the one for this camp.

The day had been broken into two huge segments with the English teachers bearing the brunt of the schedule as they were on from 9:00am to 1:00pm with a supposed coffee break at 11:00 that was later eliminated. The topics were as broad as “The Education System in the U. S. A.” and “Holidays in the U.S.A.” and to compound the problem, none of the teachers had brought any resources to cover these topics: no handouts, movies, videos, music, songs, or even posters. I know that if Nigora had asked Tahmina with sufficient time, the embassy would have provided resources to celebrate a Fourth of July picnic for instance. I suggested that we teach a session on the history of the Fourth of July celebration and had Nigora copy the corresponding handout from my electronic resources.

The teachers had no suggestions for any games to enliven the class and make sure it didn’t seem like a drag. All of the games I had brought with me were new to them and they wanted to know the rules for each one, something I was loathe to do then. We sketched the lesson for Monday, did some brainstorming for the one on Tuesday, environmental education, and talked briefly about the educational system in the States for Wednesday. We still need to come up with activities for both Thursday and Friday morning.

The students, meanwhile, had been busy rehearsing for the opening night when some dignitaries were expected to show up. It rained all afternoon and the weather cooled off significantly enough to allow me to snooze for a bit and to require a sweater when I went back to the canteen for dinner. We had lagman soup with nary a sign of salt in it, a smear of mashed potatoes and buckwheat and some tough pieces of beef on top. I was hardly hungry and could forgo most of it despite the ever present pressure to eat more and more. We left the dining room quickly so the students could decorate the place before the visitors arrived. I took a couple of photos of the striking girl that has been our server since we arrived Saturday and who sports eyebrows a la Frida Khalo.  She’s only 17, has beautiful features and the cutest dimples possible, but is scheduled to be married by her parents very soon.

We returned at 8:00 to find the room rearranged, but except for some balloons on the floor, I saw no signs of any decorating efforts. Some bigwigs from the local Department of Education and teachers along with some parents came up and were seated at the front along with me and we all had to say a little spiel about how happy we were to be taking part in  the camp and how we wish our students every success in their future endeavors. We then listened to poems being recited, hardly audible, songs being sang and typical dances performed. Of course, the piece de resistance happened to be the one performed by two girls, one dressed as a boy, of Shakira’s hit “Soy Loca por mi Tigre”, or its equivalent version in English. The students applauded, sang along and tapped their feet while the two danced around each other only twirling once.

It seemed as if every student wanted to have his or her photo taken with me and it took me a while to extricate myself from the place. I was then asked when they would be able to get prints of the photo and I’ll do my best to have them printed by the end of the camp to give them away as farewell presents.

June 23, 2012

The heat had been relentless and I was up at the crack of dawn when the roosters in the courtyard started their racket at 4:30am. I went out looking to see if anybody was up and then overheard the husband conducting his Muslim prayers and went back to bed to wait until a more decorous time to importune someone with my need for coffee. At six, I found Subhi, wearing the same outfit as the night before, coming out of one of the rooms and then her daughter, also in the same dress, coming out of yet another one. She turned on the propane gas stove and I was able to have my caffeine fix. Water was heated for my bath and breakfast, French fries and two fried eggs, was prepared for me. In the meantime, I transferred a pile of documents and presentations along with games for Subhi to use with her classes.

We proceeded to her university where an informal teacher training session took place with some of my favorite activities and games. I was then given a tour of the facilities including the many listening labs equipped with computers and Internet access and the library, where a card catalog reminded me of the year when first started college. We went to the canteen for a bite to eat, soup, salad and bread, before returning to her house so I could pick up my bags and leave for Istaravshan. When we into the mini-van to go to her house, a thin woman asked me in English if I had ever heard of the Jehovah’s Witness religion and wanted to invite me to become part of her group. I was stunned as I had never been approached in public about joining a religious group and curtly told her I wasn’t interested. She insisted on asking why and I told her I was not a believer to which Subhi quickly interjected that I was a believer, but not in her type of religion. She seemed to be at a loss for words and mercifully, our stop came up next and we were able to get rid of her presence.

Subhi spotted a taxi just waiting for additional passengers to depart for Istaravshan and negotiated that we be taken to her house for my luggage and then to the city for 30.00 somoni as I’d be paying for two passengers. The front seat was already taken by a woman carrying a large tray with an enormous cake on it while her child rode standing up between her legs. The other rear seat passenger was a woman with a baby in her arms and a little girl by her side. The woman could have been the grandmother as her weather-beaten face showed only tiredness and she promptly fell asleep for the entire ride. The little girl stared at me while the driver and the front seat passenger chatted all the way to the city.

I had called Nigora so she could tell the driver where to drop me off and as she was at a gathering of prominent women from the city of Istaravshan, she asked him to bring me directly to the restaurant where they had reserved a room for the occasion. There was the usual table laden with food, a flat screen TV playing Tajik music videos and an assortment of middle age women who worked as bankers, doctors, nurses and so on. I was urged to eat and they wouldn’t listen to my saying that I had had lunch not even two hours prior to arriving there. Meatballs were ordered for me, juice, fruits and nuts and even slices of watermelon, which did have, we did the perfunctory dance and I received lots of invitations to visit their houses before returning to Dushanbe.

Nigora took me to her house so she could pack, and I asked her to allow me a 20-minute nap before heading out to the camp as I was very tired already. She took me to a bedroom and immediately attempted to turn on the TV, but I dissuaded her from doing so but was glad to have a powerful floor fan to help with the heat. Nigora reassured me that the camp was located at some distance from the city and it’d be decidedly cooler there. I slept for a bit and then got up to make myself a cup of coffee. The taxi showed up right after that, a miniscule car where my legs barely fit over my shoulder bag and where Nigora, a stout woman to begin with, had to wrap herself in the back seat. We then stopped at the place where her NGO operates and she gave me a brief tour of her classroom, the sewing room where girls are trained to become seamstresses and her office. She had just received five notebook computers from a German NGO. We picked up two other passengers and I don’t know how they were able to cram themselves into the car. We drove 15-20 minutes out of town and into this so called “resort”, a two-story building dating from the Soviet era, but undergoing some of the shoddiest remodeling I’ve ever seen. The weather did feel slightly cooler than it had been in both Khujand and Istaravshan.

I had requested a quiet room and was given one on the second floor containing a sitting area, balcony and attached bathroom. Everyone seemed taken aback by my insistence in having the entire room to myself and the one student helping with my luggage wanted to know if I weren’t afraid to sleep alone at night. The door leading to the balcony had no lock, the bathroom stank to high heaven and the bottom portion of the water heater had detached itself, the key to the front would rotate but not open the door and the lighting was not good enough to doing any reading, which I was hoping to be able to do during the week.

Dinner consisted of dumpling soup, mashed potatoes and fried chicken, which I quickly passed on to Nigora, and more tea. I could hardly eat as it was given the three meals I had already consumed, but politely took a few sips from the soup and ate the mashed potatoes. Students accompanied me back to my room as they wanted to practice their English as much as possible and stayed for about an hour before being called to help out with the decoration of the camp. I read long enough to finish “The Tiger’s Wife”, an unsatisfactory ending for that matter and was obligated to listen to the racket next door until almost eleven.

June 22, 2012

I got up early to make sure I was ready to be picked up by the embassy vehicle by nine. Eraj didn’t show up by eight as he had promised, and I left his things with a note for Ryan to deliver them to him at his convenience. Two embassy SUVs showed up and Elbek, my former student from the first floor of my apartment complex, materialized out of nowhere and helped me with my bags. I ended up sharing a vehicle with a driver who is a graduate from the PedInst, class of 2007, and had who studied under Tahmina whom he considered a great teacher. We had a spirited conversation about the shortcomings of the institute and he swore it used to be different when most of the professors were Russian and not given to taking bribes. He vaguely remembered the deputy dean mostly because of his arrogance in believing his knowledge of the English language was far superior to the rest of the faculty members.

Manucher, who subsequently became a teacher and actually taught for a few years before giving up the profession due to the low salary it paid, ended up being a consular employee in Russia until his father was killed while crossing the street and he needed to come back to Tajikistan to keep his mother company. We had a smooth ride until we got to the terrifying five kilometer long tunnel still under construction when the two five-gallon canisters full of gasoline that the drivers must bring with them as the embassy doesn’t allow them to buy gasoline from local suppliers, started to leak onto the trunk. I thought I was going to pass out from the fumes and felt almost a narcotic effect, as if going under anesthesia practically. When we finally emerged from the tunnel, Manucher had to take out all the luggage he was transporting for the musicians, plus my own, to air out the trunk. He suggested that I switch cars and go with the older driver, who spoke no English whatsoever, but I decided to stick with him and just asked that the windows be kept open the whole time.

We stopped in Ayni for lunch at what we might consider a truck stop, and I had no luck as neither place, facing each other, had plov to offer. It was back to the usual shorbot soup, salad and flat bread. I insisted on paying for the lunch tab, 47.00 somoni, and the drivers were quite taken aback by my gesture. Going up the mountains we encountered heavy hail, and then rain mixed with snow. We continued our journey until traffic came to an abrupt stop at the highest point of the Shahriston Pass where a landslide had blocked the road and everybody indicated they were waiting for a tractor to come by and remove it. It only took three and half hours for it to arrive, and Manucher and I exhausted many topics of conversation to keep each other entertained while I pitied the older driver ahead of us who alone in his car. At least we had good music to listen to while I picked Manucher’s brain about Tajikistan in general.

I called Subhi, Corrie’s friend, to let her know that I was getting into Khujand just before 8:00pm not realizing her house was in a village on the way there. Manucher delivered me to the bus stop where she was waiting for me and told me that if anything was not to my liking to just call him and he would return for me. I was so touched by his offer that I didn’t even know what to say while also knowing that whatever the conditions in Subhi’s house, I’d never refuse to stay with her. Once we got to her house, I made a beeline to the bathroom and was then introduced to her husband, son and daughter. I was not shown the house and was instead given a tour of the vegetable garden, orchard, chicken coup and barn where goats and sheep are kept. Manure was kept within the enclosed courtyard and the smell was almost overpowering not to mention the presence of an army of flies that pestered us all evening while we ate dinner al fresco.

Subhi’s daughter got to work on some borsch soup, the brother started a brazier to grill the fish his father had caught that morning, and the parents chatted with me about this and that. The fish was delicious, lightly salted and served with chopped garlic, sliced onions and quartered tomatoes. I tried to refuse the second one, but they would have none of that and I stuffed myself to the gills. After such a heavy meal, my eyes could not stay open much longer and I begged to be excused from the table. The daughter heated up water for me to brush my teeth and Subhi got the bed ready for me. There was a fan in the room that just pushed the hot air around and I could find no way to stay cool, so sleep eluded me for a long despite how tired I was.

June 21, 2012

It was heavenly to be able to drink my coffee while catching up with the news and reposting interesting materials to my Facebook page. Ryan got up to remind me he was meeting with the president of Tajikistan at his summer dacha to get his signature on some important documents the UN needs in order to proceed with some projects. I had agreed to meet with Eraj at nine to go to the seamstress and we met on Rudaki Avenue, proceeded to her shop and practically drove her insane with my various and intricate requests. She told me the outfit I had made in Dangara could not be redone and it was best to just donate it to somebody else. She’ll have the outfits ready by June 30 when I return from Khujand. Eraj was on his way to Qurgonteppa for an outing with a group of classmates.

I returned to the apartment to color my hair and then proceeded to the American Corner to retrieve Saddriddin’s certificate and drop the outfit in their donation box intended for a local orphanage. Corrie and Ruth were waiting at the Segafredo’s Café to have lunch as both of them are leaving Dushanbe this weekend. Corrie suggested the tomato soup, which contained flecks of fish here and there, and the roasted vegetables and I ordered their delicious freshly squeezed carrot juice. We had a delightful time reviewing our experience in Tajikistan, talking about those who had left already and those whose plans are to move on to other countries. Hillary and Meghan were having lunch at a table outside and we chitchatted with them a bit before leaving. I promised to visit Ruth in New York next time I was in the neighborhood.

I got in a mini-van to make it to the embassy to start the process of obtaining my travel permit to the Pamirs. Jennifer, who is being transferred to Russia to my dismay, informed me that an embassy vehicle was being sent to Khujand on Friday to transport the musical instrument for a bluegrass band that is scheduled to perform there on Saturday. She immediately got on telephone to secure me a seat on that vehicle and save me the hassle of getting there by shared taxi. I gave her my passport and 200.00 somoni to cover the cost of the permit and wished her the best of luck at her new post. I went upstairs to cash a check and found out that Vali was seriously ill and on his way to the hospital, but the woman taking over his duties refused to reveal the nature of his illness.

The ride back to the apartment took forever as riders kept getting in and out in the scorching heat and blinding sunshine. The thermometer read 41C degrees or about 91F, but it definitely felt hotter than that. I called Uhmed to let him know I had the certificate and he indicated he’d stop by in the evening. I did a load of laundry and started the process of packing up again to go to Istaravshan. Manzura call to remind me I’m to visit her village before returning to the States for good and I promised I’d do so for sure. Takhmina also called wanting to have me come over to her house, but I had no clue where she lived and it was too hot out there to risk getting lost. I promised to see her too before my departure. Jennifer called to confirm the embassy car would be picking me up between 8 and 9:00am.

Corrie came by to retrieve her taxi receipts and a CD of Juan Luis Guerra I had burned for her roommate Michelle. We said goodbye hoping to meet again at some point, hopefully in the States. She had dropped a package for Subhi containing mostly books earlier on and I told her how happy I was to be traveling in the embassy car and not have to worry about lugging everything myself. I called Subhi in Khujand and informed her I’d be able to spend Friday night with her and then take a taxi on Saturday to reach Istaravshan. Uhmed came by and I gave him more teaching materials, including lots of games, as he has been hired to work as a camp counselor for another English program. He advised on the proper gift to offer to Manzura’s family, hard cash, to compensate them for all the expenses they had gone through for me.

Schannoza came by to chat for a bit and I gave her a couple of kitchen items still hanging around among my belongings. She asked why I was given her these things and I said I knew she liked to cook and didn’t think she had a pair of tongs and a set of measuring spoons/cups. She was delighted with her new acquisitions, but returned a few minutes later to offer me a headscarf in return. I knew it was in poor taste to refuse the gift and promptly placed it in my bag.

Ryan had some leftover plov on the counter and told me he was going out to dinner, so I heated it up and ate it for dinner along with a bit a salad and a very sour plum. I did the dishes and spread the wet clothes throughout the dining room area in hopes that they would be dry in the morning since I do need those outfits for my trip. It was one hectic day for sure.

June 20, 2012

I woke up a 1:30am bathed in sweat as the A/C had been turned off again by Valerie probably before she went to bed. I got up and found my hand-held fan and tried futilely to move the air around the sofa and go back to sleep. When 5:00am rolled around, I got out of bed to make coffee and finish packing my belongings. Valerie got a call at 6:25 indicating the taxi was downstairs and she offered to go down with me. The ride to the airport was relatively long, but there was hardly any traffic and we made it there in less than twenty minutes. I still had some tenge bills I wanted to get rid off and attempted to get dollars back at the currency exchange window only to be told at both of them that they only had $100.00 bills for exchange and were out of small bills. I called them liars to their faces as obviously their day was just starting out and they just wanted to force me to spend the money buying crap at extortionary prices.

I ended up buying three chocolate bars and two packets of lozenges and still had some small change. Once I went through security and check-in, I saw a sight that gladdened my heart: a Tajik woman dressed in the traditional kurta dress in my favorite color, cobalt blue, and wearing a silk scarf around her head. I was going home for sure as she came around me and immediately her face opened into a wide smile just because I was wearing a similar outfit to hers. Final assessment on Almaty: the place is too big, too crowded, its people too cold, its culture too hidden from view, the whole place just looks too Russified for me.

 I had noticed a young African-American male in line ahead of me, but he had his IPod on and seemed unable for a talk, but when we got into the bus to get to the plane, he saw my U. S. passport and initiated a conversation. He was a Marine at the embassy in Dushanbe and was returning from a visit with friends to Astana where he had a ball. The flight was once again uneventful and I just thought as were exiting the plane to ask him if he wanted to share a taxi so as to save me the hassle of dealing with army of taxi drivers that practically wrench the bags from you as soon as you exit the building.

Orlando, that was his name, informed me he was having an embassy car pick him up and offered to give me a lift. He also told me not to bother standing in line for the immigration officer as he had a “handler” to deal with such nuisance. I handed my passport and luggage check to a local person who went through both procedures for us and escorted us out to the parking lot where the driver from the embassy was waiting for us. What a pleasure that was! Orlando and I exchanged views on our respective visits to two different cities in Kazakhstan and promised to stay in touch through our Facebook pages. Ryan’s apartment was quiet and cool and I wanted nothing but to take a nap while also remembering that he tends to come home for lunch, so I decided to wait until after his break to take a nap.

Corrie texted to confirm my arrival and plan for the evening outing. I told her I was exhausted and would not mind cancelling the plans for dinner. She was more than happy to do so as her friends had asked her to babysit so they could celebrate their anniversary. She did offer to accompany me to Tajik air to book my return ticket to Khujand. The sky was overcast, the air insalubrious and the heat unrelenting as we made our way to the bazaar area. I was told I could not travel on the airline unless I had my passport with me as a photocopy of it would not do. I needed the passport for the embassy to request my permit to travel to the Khorog region. I was simply stumped and couldn’t decide what to do. Corrie suggested cancelling one or another of the camps or traveling by road for both of them, suggestions that seemed unpalatable on more than one level.

I decided to sleep on it and make up my mind the next day for I was so sleep deprived I knew I wasn’t capable of making any rational decisions then. Takhmina, from Caritas, called to arrange meeting tomorrow. Eraj called to inform me he had obtained a 4.00 out of 5.00 mark on his final exam and thought the merit went all to me. He’ll accompany me tomorrow to what I hope is my last visit to the seamstress to have the two atlas dressed made with the materials Mariam and Manzura have given me. Ryan wanted to go out to a new Chinese restaurant in town, but I reminded him that my stomach was still slightly upset and I wasn’t hungry in the least. He left with some of the kids and sat down to talk to Schanozza, their mother, with whom I had never had a chance to talk to alone. She showed me her wedding album confessing she didn’t know what she was doing at the time and was just following her mother’s advice. Her relationship with her mother-in-law is a difficult one still.

I cleaned up the kitchen, took a long bath, gathered all my fabric and trims to be ready in the morning, and then finally retired to bed to continue reading “The Tiger’s Wife”.

My Father's Death

June 19, 2012

I woke up this morning to find out that my father, who had been in the ICU for a few weeks, or perhaps months, had died. My brother Luis had posted just on Sunday, ironically Father’s Day, that he had gone to the hospital to visit him and my father had, in his customary fashion with his other children, kissed his hand before he left. My brother sounded hopeful that his father was going to make it through the aggressive form of cancer that had been diagnosed in his jaw merely a couple of months before.

How did I react to the news? As I had mentioned to my sister Esther when his cancer was first diagnosed, I didn’t have any particular feelings about it since this person had stopped being someone I really cared about much. He was 86 years old and had had many chances in his life to extend a bridge to his other children, but had instead decided that the children from his second marriage were to be the center of his almost fanatical devotion.

 I had practically written him out of my life entirely until upon the recommendation of my friend Stephanie, who felt my corrosive feelings toward him were affecting me negatively, I gave in and extended an olive branch back in 1995 and decided to visit him in Puerto Rico. Although he had not seen me since the death of my sister Lidia in 1989, I got the usual dry peck on the cheek upon arrival at the airport and his non-stop chatter about how much he hated Puerto Rico and its people.  When I remarked that he had managed to live in that island for forty-five years in spite of his overt hatred, he stated he was only waiting for his social security benefits to kick in before retiring to a more civilized place.

My father never showed the slightest interest in my studies, the jobs I held or my future plans, much less inquired about his granddaughter. The last time I visited him in 2004, at his pleading after a medical scare, I gathered the courage to ask him why he had deserted our mother with five kids to make a new life in Puerto Rico. In his typical selfish manner, he told me, a 49-year old woman then, that I would not be able to understand the reasons, but he was writing his memoirs and everything would be explained then. All of this was said while his eyes never left the TV screen as he had refused to turn it off to listen to my query.

My father was a journalist in the 50s and as voracious a reader as I have come to be and the walls of his house were lined with bookshelves groaning under the weight of countless volumes. Realizing the treasure they contained, I tried to ask my father back in 1996, in a most delicate manner, what plans he had made for the disposal of his library upon his passing and in his usual short-sighted way he responded that his books were going to stay where they were.

The incident that will always remain engrained in my memory is of my father warmly greeting one of my sister Emma’s girlfriends when she arrived at the house for dinner and then standing behind her while caressing her hair until he then finally took her hand and kissed it tenderly. I had been watching every one of his moves hating the fact that my father had never gone beyond the usual peck-on-the-cheek greeting for me. As he finished, my father said in the most casual of manners: “I love this girl as if she were my daughter.” To what I felt like retorting: “So what am I, your own daughter? Chopped liver? I had to leave the table under the excuse of having to get up early for my flight while fighting back the tears all the way to my room.

The last time I saw my father, he had flown in to attend my brother’s 60^th birthday in November 2010, and we barely exchanged a couple of cordial sentences including an acknowledgement on his part that my roast pork had met his very demanding standards. I believe he realized then that his presence in our lives was really superfluous and he never attempted to call me again. His children in Puerto Rico have written eloquent obituaries on Facebook describing a man I really never met: a caring, compassionate, devoted and loving father they will miss for the rest of their lives. I wish now that at least one percent of that man had manifested during one of my visits.

June 19, 2012

I had told Valerie I’d be leaving the apartment early to make it to Kok-Tobe and the art museum on my last day of sightseeing. After making coffee, I connected to the Internet only to find a message from my sister informing me that my father had passed away. I’ll write a separate entry on this blog about my feelings regarding his death. I sent the appropriate condolence messages to both my sister and brother in Puerto Rico and took a shower. When I came out of the bathroom, Valerie was up and seemed impatient indicating she thought I’d be gone by the time she got up and now she was running late even though her cell phone alarm started going off at 8:00am. I told her the news about my father, and she only asked if I had been close to him. No condolences were expressed.

We left the apartment together and I set out to the Kok-Tobe site only to find out it was closed until 3:00pm and I couldn’t understand why. It was a beautiful morning albeit warmer than I’d have liked for walking around; nonetheless, I set out for the Monument of the Republic, the much publicized statue of an armored man atop a snow leopard and got hopelessly lost was I was looking for the Hyatt Hotel as the landmark to turn right and never came across it. Instead, I stopped at a small, tidy and antiseptic looking supermarket where I purchased a couple pieces of pastry, flat bread and more water as the bottle I was carrying was almost empty already.

It took me forever to find the monuments, even longer to locate the art museum where a French exhibit was taking place. The clerk wanted to charge me 1500.00 tenge and I argued, in English of course, that it seemed a bit steep since I knew the locals weren’t paying that price, and the woman relented and let me pay 500.00 instead. It was a huge relief to be inside an air conditioned building and I contemplated staying there for the rest of the day if only I could find a quiet corner where to take a snooze. That was not to be the case as every room was being supervised by some old woman and no benches to just sit around as instead they had been fashioned as listening stations for museum patrons to listen to French music, opera or classical compositions. The exhibit in question didn’t contain any pieces by big name French artists, except for a couple of sculptures by Degas and some photographs by Henri Bretton-Cartier.

I took two buses to get to the Kok-Tobe place to be as highly disappointed with it as with everything in Almaty. A shuttle took me from the base of the mountain to the top where a complex of restaurants, zoo, amusement park and souvenir stands were waiting. The viewing platform stood in the direct sunlight and the view in itself was clouded by smog all over the city. It looked just like Los Angeles on a good day and not really worth the trouble on a really scorching day. I ordered a glass of beer and found a table in the shade to drink it while watching families with small children parade by on their way to the different tourist traps available to get hold of their cash. I walked around the souvenir stalls proffering the usual kitschy mix of key chains, magnets, dolls and pseudo ethnic clothing, but not the spoon James would like me to find for him.

There was nothing left to do there as not even a cooling breeze could be felt and I went back down to the city and to the apartment where Valerie was sconced in one of the easy chairs going over her TOEFL preparation book. The windows were open letting in the hot air and bright sunshine I was just trying to escape from not to mention the infernal sound of traffic coming from the street. She didn’t seem interested in what I had done, but I politely asked about her day and she mentioned having gone to the U. S. consulate for some unknown reason and then to her university. As much as I wanted to go online to check on email again, Valerie told me her plug had stopped working and she would be going out to replace it. I asked her to bring me one as well so I could charge my laptop overnight and have it available at the airport. She never offered to let me get online again.

We set out for the Korean restaurant I had found on the Lonely Planet guide and after another long, sweaty and tiresome ride in another bus with no A/C, we got to this grocery store, walked past it to find a warren of rooms and were directed to the biggest one where a flat screen TV was shouting at no one. We were the only customers at the time and I selected another room while asking the waitress to please turn down the volume so we could talk. Valerie indicated she was familiar with most Korean dishes as she grew up in a neighborhood outside Atlanta with many Korean stores and restaurants and so I let her order soup for me and three other dishes including kim chi. My soup was hardly edible and three other dishes were apparently for Valerie only as she didn’t even offer to share them. I picked at the kim chi and took two pieces of beef, wrapped it in lettuce leaves and drank my apple juice. When the bill came, close to 5000.00 tenge, I offered to pay the whole thing to get the meal over with. Valerie had her leftovers packed to take home and I offered to pay for a taxi as I could not stand the idea of riding another bus and it was close to ten o’clock anyway.

I packed my things, had Valerie called Danielle, who knew how to secure a taxi ahead of time, and drifted to sleep until the A/C was turned off again.

June 18, 2012

I had the clearest view of the mountains this morning, and they were a sight to behold. Had to wait until the usual ten o’clock in the morning for Valerie to stir from her slumber and then to make up her mind that we should go to Medeu and then up to Chimbulak for the views. She seemed a bit irked when I asked what else was there to do there besides the view. The power went just as I was getting ready to iron one of my Tajik outfits and had to settle for my cargo pants and a t-shirt. We agreed that I’d spend Tuesday, my last day in the city, on my own and meet up with her at the apartment around four to plan what to do for dinner. I ate the remaining muesli for breakfast and we set out to find the number 6 bus that would take us to Medeu.

The ride up the mountains was a refreshing change of pace as the city was getting pretty hot and Valerie is not keen on turning on the A/C. We went past what looked like a suburban area with large homes surrounded by wooded areas. The bus was packed with tourists and we had to ride standing the whole 40 minutes or so the ride lasted. Medeu is only a skating rink during the summer, but supposedly a beautiful ice rink place during the winter months popular with all of Almaty. There was nothing to see or do there, but we were approached by a Czech tourist asking us to share the cost of a taxi up to Chimbulak, which would still cost us each 1000.00 tenge or $6.75 each way. We took it and the driver stopped at one scenic area where the sporting facilities for the recently held Asian Games had been built. It was cooling off a bit at least and we continued up the mountains to where the actual ski lifts and lodges were located.

There were some pretty Swiss-style chalets, a bevy of restaurants and some families enjoying the refreshing breezes. We sat down at a Japanese restaurant, and I had a cup of Miso soup for about $4.00. We had asked the driver to return in an hour to pick us up and as we walked out of the restaurant, he was disgorging another load of tourists. Given the fact that we had nothing to do there except look at the numerous downed trees, perhaps the result of a recent earthquake, we left with him. After a relatively short wait, the bus came up and we went back to Almaty at least this time comfortably seated and I had a chance to snooze on the way down. We stopped at the corner grocery store to buy ice cream, but the power was still out and the ice cream was melting. The apartment was a furnace and across the street the hotel was holding an outdoor concert on the terrace that would go on past my bedtime.

Valerie went out to find out if the other Fulbrighters and buildings nearby were also in the dark and I dozed off in spite of the heat and the insufferable noise that was passing for music coming from the hotel. She confirmed several buildings had had no power all day either and she brought some large jug of water just in case. The power came back in time for me to reheat my leftovers in the microwave and have a cheerless dinner to the beat of some of the Beatles’ most famous tunes. I read, or tried to read, from some of the U. S. magazines that Valerie had received from friends and family before giving up entirely. When I announced I was going to bed in spite of the bedlam outside the windows, Valerie got from her table, closed the windows and turned on the A/C for perhaps just long enough for me to fall asleep and then it was off again. I woke up a little while later to see her cooking something for her own dinner. Just one more night I said to myself before drifting off to sleep again.

June 17, 2012

An apparent routine has developed: I get up relatively early, make coffee and sit down to write my blog, and look at the photos taken the day before while Valerie sleeps usually until ten. It had started raining lightly before she woke up and thus the day didn’t seem like a promising one for doing anything outside. Valerie informed she she’d give me the key to the apartment as she’d spending all afternoon at the American Corner doing TOEFL preparation and then running a movie club. I made myself a cup of muesli and after exchanging some money, set out for the Panfilov Park beyond which I would be able to visit the Grand Mosque. I was off by a couple of blocks and ended up at a brand new Christian Orthodox Church being built behind the Zeilony Bazaar. The neighborhood was a grim one with one story houses looking as if they had been through a civil war, and no paved sidewalks which made it difficult to walk after the heavy rains the night before.

I retraced my steps and found Pushkin Street and then the mosque, built in 1999, to which a lot of families seemed to come in just to have their photos taken outside while wearing their finest Sunday clothes. I didn’t go inside being aware of the prohibition for women to enter the general area and instead retraced my steps to the Panfilov Park so as to get my bearings while seating under a shaded bench. By looking at the map, I noticed I wasn’t too far from the Gorki Park and made my way there as the rain sprinkled on and off. There was a grand entrance to the park where vendors were hawking all kinds of knick knacks intended mostly for children such as balloons in the shape of Mickey Mouse and the like. It cost 50 tenge, or 33 cents, to get in and the place was jammed packed with families, couples and hordes of teenager males looking bored. The highlight of the day at the park was a presentation by a group of Tatarstan people who had come in their traditional costumes to offer songs, dances and goodies to sell. I noticed that most of the entertainers were decidedly on the senior citizen side and no young people could be seen around helping out in any capacity.

Gorki Park is a combination urban park, amusement park, Aquatic Park and a favorite place to celebrate weddings. I walked for hours pausing a couple of times to ask a few women to allow me to photograph them with their impossibly high heel shoes with which they walk all over town without apparently ever toppling over. I managed to communicate with the bus driver that I needed to get off at Furmanov Avenue in order to meet with Valerie at the American Corner and then decide what to do for dinner. She dropped me off at the right intersection and I made a detour to the Tsum Department Store to find another magnet for Ryan and look for that elusive spoon my brother-in-law would like to add to his collection.

Just as the Lonely Planet had described it, the first floor was a beehive of cell phone vendors each jammed with many customers admiring, trying on or buying new cell phones. I really cannot explain the appeal of this type of set up. I went up directly to the third floor where souvenir stores are gathered and quickly found a magnet for 580.00 tenge or under 4.00 dollars. I walked around trying to find the spoon, but only found cigarette lighters, key holders, flasks, and wooden spoons. A couple of sales ladies who spoke some English also tried to help me out, but with no success. I made it to the American Corner as the movie was about to end and caught with my email for a few minutes.

Valerie decided to join the Fulbrighters in the area who were free now that Tech Forum was over and we met them at a restaurant near her apartment. I was thirsty and ordered a big bottle of water with gas and was brought the tiny Perrier bottle costing 600.00 or $4.00. I told the server I wanted a big bottle of the local water and he responded that was all he had to offer. I returned the bottle of Perrier and decided not to order anything. Jenna, Danielle, Maria and a guy from the UK had already eaten and were in the middle of smoking a hookah pipe as were most of the diners at the tables around us. Valerie ordered plov and was brought a tiny round container with plov decorated with strips of beef and vegetables. She had drunk her little bottle of local water in one long sip.

When it was prudent enough, I bid everyone goodbye as I made my way to the supermarket to buy my dinner: water, plov, marinated eggplant and Greek salad, and I paid about ten dollars for everything. Valerie returned to the apartment with Danielle as she had a meeting with her new landlord and needed someone to interpret. Internet access had been available at the apartment the whole time she’d been here, but she didn’t know it. I decided to watch a movie, “Arranged”, about a friendship between two school teachers, one Jewish and the other Muslim, that had been recommended to me and which I found full of clichés. Valerie tried to skype with her parents as it was Father’s Day in the States. I had only realized that after checking the postings on Facebook.

I went to bed at nine as I could not keep my eyes open any longer while  wondering how I was going to spend the next two days as I seemed to have pretty much run out of options unless I chose to go out of town, but without someone who spoke the language, that option seemed moot.

June 16, 2012

I slept until 7:30am in spite of the noise from the street and the clanging of the elevator right outside our door. I made coffee, took a look at the photos I had taken so far, and set out to write a memo to Sandy which outlined my accomplishments in the past eight months so she could write a letter of recommendation for me. It started to rain shortly after I got up and the mountains were barely visible through the clouds. I cooked the muesli while still waiting for Valerie to wake up and felt frustrated at not being able to find any spices to add to it, so I had to be satisfied with just milk and sugar.

When she did get up, I informed her of my plans to set out on my own to find the market and other sights nearby and to meet her at the American Corner around 1:00pm. She thought that perhaps we could take the cable car in the evening to see the Kok-Tobe Tower . The rain had stopped but the skies remained dark and ominous.  I paused to take pictures of the convenience stores that here are located inside the bus stops to facilitate the purchase of snacks by the riders, and the kiosks that still sell newspapers, magazines and tobacco products as they used to the in States ages ago.

The monuments to both World War One and Two are impressive structures located in the same urban park as the cathedral and are intended to leave the visitor in awe. I had no trouble locating the public market beyond that and found it to a much more sanitized version of the one in Dushanbe with stall neatly arranged and few people circulating about. I started to snap pictures, with the necessary permission of the stall owners, only to be stopped later on by an administrator who gently pointed at the image of a camera with a cross on top informing me that photos were prohibited. I saw only one couple speaking English, but couldn’t tell whether they were Americans or British. Two things were new to me, the array of Korean salad vendors offering samples of their products, which I didn’t the stomach to taste at that time of the morning, and the stalls selling sheep heads which are intended to be offered to the guest of honor at Kazak celebrations.

I saw a sign for a second hand shop and out of curiosity, for I certainly didn’t need any more clothing,  walked in to sample the merchandise only to be faced with signs indicating that most items were being sold in the price range of 3500-5000.00 tenge or $23.00-33.00. No wonder Valerie had said clothing was extremely expensive here even at the second hand shop. It might also explain how poorly people seemed to be dressed here, not in rags, but in style. The clothes just seemed to be ill-fitting, in odd colors such as orange and somewhat mismatched. For all their boasting about having access to such stores as the Gap, Dolce & Gabbana, and Tiffany’s, people here, and especially the women, seemed to have thrown together outfits without regard to any style conventions and simply looked frumpy .

I stopped at the Interfood supermarket Valerie had mentioned, a German chain, and found everything to be very expensive while the array of packaged goods was beyond impressive. On my way back through the park, I found the requisite wedding parties getting ready to be photographed in front of the war monuments, something still inexplicable to me. It started to rain as the one brides got out of her Hummer limousine and fussed with the crinoline hoop that kept her dress all puffed up. I retraced my steps and found the right intersection to take the bus to the American Corner where I needed to use the Internet while waiting for Valerie to finish her participation in the conversation and games club they offer there. It was raining heavily when I got there and it never let up.

I was impressed to see two young girls conduct the conversation club on the topic of vegetarianism with Valerie only chiming in at certain points. They had even prepared a PowerPoint outlining the advantages of becoming a vegetarian, some famous people who were vegetarians and quotes from them as to the advantages of being one. Attendance was somewhat high taking into account the dreadful weather outside and when the attendees broke into smaller groups, their talk was quite lively and passionate, whatever camp they happened to be on. I wondered whether the conversation club in Dushanbe was run along the same lines. When this activity was over, Valerie played a game of “Taboo” with the topic of famous personalities whereby the attendees had to describe the person without mentioning the name and had one minute to do so. I liked the game and hope to incorporate it into the list of activities I’m considering for the Access program summer camp.

It was thundering and raining heavily when we took the bus to the Coffeedelia restaurant where I ordered a cup of tomato soup only as my stomach seemed to have been upset all day. Smoking was allowed outside, but the smell filtered back into the restaurant every time someone came in or left, and seemed worse than in Dushanbe since here both men and women smoke in public. We made our way through flooded streets back to the apartment where I had a mug of hot milk, talked to Valerie for a bit and went to sleep early. I had no idea what I’d do the following day and felt somewhat out of sorts.

June 15, 2012

The noise level must abated some for I was able to sleep on and off until 8:00am. I made coffee using the new espresso one I had purchased the night before and enjoyed a delicious mug of java all by myself. Valerie didn’t get up until ten and then we talked nonstop about our colleagues, embassy people and other subjects matters. I toasted the kolcha and had some cheese with it  along with a cup of café con leche.

Valerie showed a walking tour featured on her Lonely Planet guidebook and offered to show me the beginning of it so I could continue the rest by myself. When I raised the issue of having access to a key for the apartment, she seemed reluctant to do so alleging she’d never done one, but suggested we could just agree to meet back at the apartment at a specific time.  We walked several blocks and came upon the Ramstore she had mentioned numerous times where ex-pats like her could find all sorts of American groceries labeled “Shop Rite” as if coming from the New Jersey chain of supermarkets. The store had an impressive array of groceries and household goods and we were both delighted to find Red Mill muesli mix in one of the aisle, which although expensive by U. S. standard, $7.00-8.00, was a great option for me for breakfast and we both purchased a package.

We walked past the impressive building housing the national museum, for which there are no English explanations for anything on exhibit,  a very fancy hotel, The Dostyk, swarming with guests, and numerous parks. Once back at the apartment, Valerie said she intended to go to her university to clarify some issue or another, but then changed her mind and decided to visit a friend who lives nearby to use her Internet connection as she hadn’t ordered one for herself yet. I stayed behind reading for a while.  Upon her return, we walked to the all-wood cathedral I had read about in the book and found it to be magnificent with its multicolored roof and multiple facades, each more intricate than the last. It reminded a lot of similar houses found in Savannah, GA. The building is located within a huge urban park where families were strolling and couples could be seen holding hands.

Valerie’s former landlord was expected to come by to collect payment for the utilities left unpaid and thus we returned to the flat not before I stopped at another supermarket and bought a piece of fried fish and some pickled salad, this time eggplant, to go with it. The total came up to a little more than $9.00. I shared the salad with Valerie, as she had chosen to eat some lentil stew she had cooked sometime ago, had some juice and prepared for bed. I plan to strike on my own tomorrow and see the city on my own terms even if I get entirely lost doing so.

June 14, 2012

I hardly slept the whole night as the traffic outside the building never abated and we even had to suffer through some drunken men shouting in the middle of the night probably from the terrace of the hotel across the street. I felt simply exhausted as the noise level here is even worse than the one outside of Ryan’s apartment. I got up at six, made myself a cup of coffee, and started to read through the guidebook on Kazakhstan Ruth had given me a couple of weeks ago. I kept getting distracted as I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the stunning view of the Altai Mountains the rain had brought into sharp display.

I had agreed to go with Valerie on her round of assignments for the day so I could get better acquainted with the layout of the city. We started by going to her university where she had a conversation class with some teachers. The building was much more modern than the PedInst with wide hallways covered in tile flooring and ample windows that let in lots of light, but also strong sunshine. The room where they met had no fan or air conditioner and only five teachers showed up that day. I felt myself drifting off due to my lack of sleep, the slowness of the session and the insufferable heat in spite of my fanning myself continuously. When the session was over, we went looking for a currency exchange place and a decent place to eat, but it took forever to walk to the different places as most eating places around us were just fast food joints catering to the students and commuters.

Valerie remembered a restaurant nearby that Harry had taken her to and we went there to find a very pleasant place with lots of plants and very efficient service. We had a local variety of soup called solyanka which featured cubed beef and ham and two slices of lemon in it. I ordered French fries as I felt a craving for it and a local beer. Valerie ordered the same soup, the grape leaves stuffed with rice and plain water. The bread was cold and not particularly appetizing, but overall, we had a nice meal for about $27.00. We went back to the apartment hoping to take a short nap, but the bus system here is extremely slow and unreliable and we reached the flat just with enough time for Valerie to pick up the materials she needed to conduct a music club session at the American Corner and her evening conversation class for the Lesbian-Gay Coalition group.

We had walk great distances to reach the right bus stop and then had to wait there for the appropriate line with much hesitation on Valerie’s part as she had recently moved into a new neighborhood and was still becoming familiar with the bus lines serving different parts of the city. I felt my energy level precipitously dropping as the afternoon drone on. We got to the American Corner and found around ten people of different age levels waiting to participate in the session. While Valerie set up, I went next door to buy some water as I felt dangerously dehydrated at that point. The store was owned by a Korean family and the mother was very nice in explaining what type of local currency I needed to pay for my purchases. They had an attractive fruit stand set up outside and I was tempted to buy the fresh strawberries and apricots, but knowing we weren’t going directly to the apartment after the session, deterred me from doing so. I was tempted by a bar of ice cream covered by chocolate and ate one of them while standing on the sidewalk and watching people go by.

Valerie presented “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen beginning with a biographical sketch of the artist, some vocabulary included in the lyrics and then had the attendees read each stanza while explaining the meaning. At the end, she played the song only once. We then took another bus to what seemed like the end of the world as it was rush hour traffic by then and the buses don’t have air conditioning here while being packed to gills with commuters. We were lucky to find seats after a little while and were then packed like sardines until about an hour later when we were able to exit in a run-down part of the city where the main business seemed to be auto parts stores. We walked to a dilapidated set of buildings, some of which had their windows missing and covered with just plastic sheets. The place looked desolate in spite of the few children playing in the concrete courtyard. We took another rickety elevator to the 12th floor and had to walk to the 13^th before knocking on the door of a dreadful flat housing an NGO funded by USAID to distribute condoms and provide health counseling to gay and lesbian people in the area.

The class ran from 6:30 to 8:00pm and the topic this time was travel. Valerie started by asking the six participants to write the name of a place they’d like to visit in the future and not show their paper to anybody else. We then had to guess who had written which country. There were five men and one woman in the group all of them with very low levels of vocabulary and thus much of the discussion took place in Russian. I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open and even stepped out into the tiny balcony for a few minutes to get some fresh air. When the class was over, we took yet another bus to the supermarket so I could buy a few things for breakfast including coffee, milk, bread, yogurt and cheese. I found a vast array of Korean salads on sale and bought two containers for dinner. We waited for the bus for quite a while, but our number never showed up. Valerie suggested walking to another intersection for a different line, which I regretted for my bag of groceries was getting heavier and heavier and then couldn’t find that bus either.

We offered up to pay for a taxi home and didn’t get there until 10:15pm. I was starving by then and greedily ate most of the combined salads I had purchased, along with one cup of yogurt. I forwent my evening shower and got ready for a much deserved night of sleep.

June 13, 2012

I must be really losing my marbles for I got the departure time for my flight confused with the return flight and got up at 5:30am, after waking several times, only to find out my flight departed at 11:30am. I made small talk with Ryan before heading to the airport managing to hail a taxi on my own and sticking firm to the 20.00 somoni rate I had paid before. At the check-in counter, they refused to allow my carry-on bag onboard claiming it was too large for the overhead compartment. The immigration officer asked me for the green piece of paper I had received when I arrived from Nepal in February, but I had no clue as to where it might be. In the waiting lounge, I spotted two former colleagues from the PedInst and tried to get the female one to come to my aid, but she had gone through the security check  already and was not allowed to leave. The officer then called on someone else with more authority, and this person waved me through.

I joined my colleagues and I learned they were both on their way to Hyderabad, India where they had been awarded a summer scholarship to improve their teaching skills. It was the first time both of them were taking a plane, and not knowing the procedures, they had packed their snacks in their bags and these had been checked straight to New Delhi. I reassured them it was a standard procedure and their bags would be fine. We were later joined by a young woman, Halima, that seemed to know me and who was heading for a technology forum in Almaty. Our flight departed on time and it was completely uneventful. Valerie was waiting for me and we had  difficult time fending off the aggressive taxi drivers who even followed us as we tried to make our way out of the airport to take a bus as the taxi drivers were attempting to charge as much as $35.00 to take us to her apartment.

It took us about an hour to get on the right bus and then ride to her building. Her apartment is located on a busy intersection right across from the Kazakhstan Hotel and has a great view of the mountain from her eighth floor perch. It’s is only a big studio with a double bed and a comfy sofa. The building is the typically dreadful Russian-built style one with a rickety elevator and dark hallways. She pays $650.00 and it’d be considered a bargain in this city. Valerie had a bag of Dunkin Donuts coffee and a French press, so she made me a cup of coffee before we headed out to the American Corner  where she’d conducting the last seminar for the “Shaping the Way we Teach English” series. We were a bit late getting there, but none of the employees of the library had bothered to set up the equipment for the transmission and people were just sitting around the round table waiting. I went straight to the bank of computers and read the latest emails and Facebook postings while listening to the presentation on teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP). It ended at 7:30 and there was no time for discussion, which seemed unfortunate, as the public library was about to close its door.

Two of attendees joined Valerie and me as we made our way to a pedestrian mall nearby where we ordered a shawarma for each of us while the rain started to sprinkle all around us. The burrito-style concoction was still a bland affair of chopped beef and some vegetables, French fries, and tons of mayonnaise. The students walked with us for a while, but as we approached Valerie’s neighborhood, the rain started in earnest and neither one of us was carrying an umbrella. I got soaking wet before getting to the apartment, took a shower and tried my best to make myself comfortable on the sofa.

First impression of the city: It’s a big one with tons of stores on the first floor of most buildings and apartment and offices on the remaining floors. It’s green with tree-lined streets and numerous pocket parks, it’s also relatively clean as the authorities have placed numerous trash bins for people to dispose of their trash. I only saw an older woman wearing a head scarf and was absolutely floored by the number of women walking around wearing micro short pants, sky-high stiletto heels and even midriffs being shown around. Pregnant women wore tight shirts and teenager girls walked around wearing the tightest jeans I had ever seen outside of Miami.

June 12, 2012

I was up at my usual six AM as Ryan’s bedroom window faces the street and the busy traffic right outside the Gynecological Hospital picks up just about then. I got to work on doing the questions and summary about the topic Eraj needed to develop for his final exam and emailed it him. Ryan got up at seven and while drinking his coffee expounded on the system the Philippines had created to provide a universal health care system. Manzura texted me to confirm I’d be visiting her village after I went to the embassy and then texted again an hour later to say she was already waiting for me at the Sadbarg Market.

I decided to go with her first and then stop by the embassy. We met at the Green Market and bought some fruit to add to the luncheon she was preparing for me. We got into a mini-van and then a taxi which took us directly to her doorstep. The road was awful, full of potholes and dusty, and the village looked desolate and unattractive. Her house is still under construction as her father is working on another addition to the compound. Manzura commented that most houses around hers were occupied by relatives and that she didn’t like living there because it was too far from Dushanbe and its inhabitants too traditional. Her sister-in-law, who is only twenty and just got married, last October, greeted us at the door and immediately set out to bring us food of one kind or another. I was starving and didn’t turn down the fresh flat bread and homemade apple juice that she offered me. Her husband is in fact a first cousin, and Manzura acknowledged they were aware of the possible consequences of birth defects to any future offspring. Manzura’s brother lives in Russia and the poor wife has nothing to do all day, but a few household chores. I saw staring at the floor for quite some time.

                                                     The new bride

 Her family lived just two doors down and she asked me to accompany her to meet her mother, sister and sister-in-law who were busy baking bread for the week. The kitchen contained three tandoor ovens and was so full of smoke it was difficult to breathe. I got the usual questions about my name, marital status, number of children and age to then get the quizzical look of “She can’t possibly be 57!” We took back a round, fluffy piece of flat bread and fresh Sakharov was prepared on the spot. I watched carefully as she poured some hot water on the tabac plate, added chaka and stirred it a bit, and then added what we might consider Tajik fresh salsa, the flat bread torn into pieces and then more salsa on top. I was asked to eat it with my hands and water was provided to wash them. The grandmother and I made mincemeat of the dish in no time at all. It was delicious and made me wonder how come I had never eaten this particular dish before. Then came the lagman soup and fresh fruit for dessert.

                                           The finished shakarov

Manzura thought I was going to spend all day at her house, but I reminded her I needed to be at the embassy before four, so her plans to cook plov for me had to be scrapped. I got to watch the video of her brother’s wedding and to ask tons of questions about the etiquette involved. They had held the wedding at their house; rented the bride’s dress and made the bouquet themselves while also decorating the car that drove the couple to the wedding registry. Manzura had invited her English teacher to come and meet me and she explained some of the procedures going on while telling me that a wedding on that scale could cost around $400.00.

The sister-in-law invited me to see her room, a small, dark and overstuffed place with a bedroom set that took up every inch of space and a pile of korpachas reaching the ceiling. She insisted on placing all the hats she had worn for her wedding on my head and taking a photo of it along with a sleeveless ankle-length vest with much embroidery along the openings. As I was about to leave, Manzura presented me with a piece of atlas material and the embroidery trim to go on the pants’ hem. I felt embarrassed for I had brought nothing for them, but the kilo of cherries we had purchased at the market, but she insisted it was their tradition to offer a present to guests that visited the village for the first time. She accompanied back to the Sadbarg market where I was able to catch a shared taxi to the embassy.

I had two pieces of mail from Stephanie waiting for me along with the Benadryl Crysta had left for me. Tahmina wanted to know about my plans for Istaravshan and Khorog and I took the opportunity to ask her if funding could be found for my transportation to Khorog since I now knew that Nancy and David were getting theirs covered by the embassy. She asked me to wait for Sandy, who was in a meeting, and that most likely I’d get approved for it. I cashed a check and got Tahmina to print my flight information along with Valerie’s message with instructions upon my arrival.

Sandy and I reviewed what I had done so far and asked me to represent the embassy at the closing ceremony for the Istaravshan camp while recommending that I travel to Khorog by road as the plane ride could be as scary as my ride through the pass had been. She agreed that my travel expenses should also be funded and confirmed it before I left the office. I was one happy camper.

I came to Ryan’s flat to find the same mess in the kitchen I had left as apparently his cleaning lady hadn’t shown up, if there’s really one. I had to scour the stove, counter and tile backdrop as they were all greasy and full of dust. It took me good hour to do the entire kitchen, but then I needed to earn my keep anyway. Ryan set up a tapchon outside and entertained the kids in the meantime.

Corrie called to say she was back from Khujand and wondering if we could do dinner tonight, but I still had to pack for tomorrow’s flight and didn’t think it’d work. She also wondered if I could get my trip to Almity written off as part of my PAA if Valerie and I got to do the presentation at the American Corner. I told her I wasn’t concerned about it and just wanted a short vacation where I could drink decent coffee and have some fabulous food for a change. We’ll try to meet next week before my departure for Khujand.

June 11, 2012

After a relatively good night of sleep, I was delighted to have a mug of real coffee after eleven days of having to make do with just instant imitation of the stuff. Ryan hooked me into his Internet connection which is paid for the United Nations and thus much faster that mine. I took advantage of it to upload the tons of photos I had taken during my long trip.

I walked to the Kazak embassy and got lucky as there was person in front of me speaking decent Russian and I could see the clerk handling a photocopy of an American passport. He turned out to be an employee of the American embassy and happily interpreted for me letting me know the visa was ready and I just needed to go to the bank and pay the $30.00 fee. I made the long walk realizing along the way that I had dressed in my skinny jeans and polo shirt and now all the men were staring at me since Eraj was not by my side anymore. After paying for the visa, I noticed a sign for Air Astana on my left and inquired about buying a plane ticket from them. Jorge, from Argentina, tried to sell me a ticket at least one hundred dollars more than what the website had shown me and I refused to pay that much even when he tried to entice me with the notion of paying with my credit card through a secure vendor.

Govher, one of my students from the interpreters group, had called to arrange a visit so she could obtain teaching materials from me. She arrived just in time for us to have lunch at the cafeteria next to the Puppet Theater where only kurtob is served. It was just like I remembered it: soggy layers of bread covered with a yogurt-like liquid and then sprinkled with some kind of herb and lots of sliced onions. The cherry juice had been made with the local water and had an awful aftertaste. I stopped at the travel agency next to the supermarket and the young woman called Air Astana for a quote as she didn’t have access to the website she claimed. She gave me a quote for $550.00 and I told her it was way too high.

We returned to the apartment to find Ryan getting ready for a nap after having had his lunch. He helped me navigate the Air Astana website and I was able to book my ticket for Wednesday for 317.00 Euros or about $394.00.. I sent an email to both Valerie and Harry notifying them of my upcoming arrival. I also notified Harry that I refused to travel to Istaravshan through the horrific pass I had come through on the way back from Khujand. Neither one of them replied right away. Govher transferred some of her movies in English to me and did the same for her. We talked about her future plans, and she confirmed she’ll be returning to her country, Turkmenistan, to become an English teacher at the end of this month.

We walked together as far as the supermarket so I could buy some cheese and cold water as I was not about to cook dinner. When I got back to the apartment, Ryan had come back from work with two bags loaded with groceries as he had invited another Couch Surfer to dinner. The guy was from one of the Balkan countries and told us he had been traveling for the last 62 days spending on average two Euros a day or $2.51. He also claimed he let his beard grow before traveling through Afghanistan and then pretended to be deaf-mute so he didn’t have to talk and garnered quite a bit of pity from Afghans who, supposedly, never suspected him of being a foreigner. He told us he was on his way to China to teach English for a while even though his English was faltering at best.

When he left, Ryan and I commented that neither one of us would ever embark on a trip if we didn’t have enough money to be somewhat comfortable and able to eat what we wanted. I cleared the table and left all the dishes in the sink as Ryan told me the cleaning lady comes in on Tuesdays and I really didn’t know where things belong anyway.

Ryan’s bed is simply a box spring and he has no korpachas to soften the hard surface. I read for a while trying to finish the book “The Tiger’s Wife” which has turned out to be quite engrossing.