Farewell, Tajikistan

July 14, 2012

I realized as I sat at the bachelorette party for my former student, Dilbar, that I had just taken the last shared taxi ride in Dushanbe with another very immature driver who insisted on passing every other vehicle so he could grab whatever fares were waiting by the curb. This was also the last event I’d attend  where  women looked like proud peacocks in their multicolored velvet dresses worn in spite of the oppressive 97 degree weather. In addition, it’d be the last meal where the table would be laden with food most guests would not even touch, and where courses after courses would be served so they could be barely sampled or left untouched.

I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to most of the people I had worked or socialized with as most of them had left the country while I was at the summer camps in either Istaravshan or Khorog. The staff at the PedInst had always ignored me or simply didn’t even know I existed, so there was no loss there. I told Pariso through Facebook of my imminent departure and she wished me good luck. There was no love lost there, either.

I was too tired and frazzled to even think about what things I might eventually miss about the country and its people. It would definitely not be the bland food except, of course, for the flat bread I could eat all day especially when it had been served freshly baked. I had thought that if I had decided to fly straight to the United States, I’d have brought a suitcase full of it to freeze for the rest of the year. I will miss Eraj, my student from PedInst, who became an indispensable interpreter and go-in-between for all my problems and whose infectious smile I really treasured.

I will miss the music from Khulob with its throbbing drum beat so reminiscent of Africa and so similar to our Dominican merengue music that I could dance to it all day to the amazement of the local people.

Most of all, I will miss all the strangers who smiled at me so openly whenever they encountered this dark woman with curly hair who had managed to survive in their country for ten months in spite of not learning the language, and who insisted on teaching English to anyone who was willing to learn it. I will miss their curiosity about me and the United States, all the questions they asked and above all, their generosity of spirit for being willing to share the little bit they had with someone who already possessed too much in terms of material wealth. 

July 13, 2012

I was too antsy to sleep through the night and got up before 4:00am to get ready for my last presentation in Dushanbe at the ETM conference. At least I didn’t have to create another PowerPoint presentation since Carol had asked me to use the same one I presented to the teachers last April. I sent my revised itinerary to Georgetown hoping that this time; they will issue me my ticket for the leg of my trip between Germany and Florida. I emailed my supervisor requesting approval for the last expense report submitted and thanking him for his support during my fellowship.

The day had turned hazy and hot even by 7:30am when I walked to Rudaki Avenue, got into a taxi and rode to the hotel where the ETM was being held. Carol was waiting for me in the lobby and we had a few minutes to chat before the participants started arriving and greeting me. I was shocked to find out that the workshop was being conducted without the aid of a computer or LCD projector and that I had brought my flashdrive for nothing. She asked me to talk about my presentation on the importance of mentoring new teachers, but without having even looked at the topic recently, I didn’t have that much to say. The discussion lasted for about an hour and I was dying from being placed on the spot totally unprepared.

We then had a tea break and another chance to dance as one of the participants had brought along his organ and played several Tajik songs. Carol then presented some board games for which she had prepared the actual boards and dice encouraging the teachers to create their own according to their needs. Lastly, she had then write a story based on a single photograph with the participants collaborating in putting together the details about the person on the photo and then allowing them to write their own stories based on the sketch provided already. I had planned on having lunch with Carol, but she had brought along a packed lunched as it was too hot for her to venture outside. We sat in the empty classroom and discussed our mutual experiences while teacher training with Carol talking about the four years she spent in Kyrgyzstan.

I returned to the apartment as Dili was coming by to pick the bag with the remaining teaching materials I wanted to send to the teachers in Shahriston. We chatted for a while about the job she had recently received making 500.00 somoni a month after spending a fortune getting her degree in the United States in economics. She’d rather stay home than work in a place where her brain might rot for lack of intelligent things to do.

Although I had planned on visiting Mariam and Nilufar for a couple of hours to say goodbye for good, I couldn’t contemplate the idea of going there without someone to interpret for me as neither one of them speaks enough English to hold a conversation. Ryan returned from his trip to the Tatarstan region and took the kids shopping while I got ready to attend Dilbar’s wedding.

It was being held at a restaurant not too far from where Corrie used to live and I felt weird going there on my own as Manzura informed me she was one of the attendants for the event and needed to remain at Dilbar’s side the entire time. She reassured me that other PedInst students would be and I could sit with them. There was a receiving line and I mentioned Manzura’s name to a burly guy and was taken to a long table where several stout women were attacking the spread of food array on it. A few minutes later, a former student, whose name I couldn’t recall came and sat at my side wearing a gorgeous outfit, her face made up as if for a photo shoot and wearing such high heels she could barely walk straight. I noticed the absence of any men and she told me this event was only for women and that the actual wedding was to take place on Saturday when both sexes could attend.

I was urged to eat when the samosas came around, still warm, and then soup, and finally something that looked like a kibbe, or quipe, as Dominicans call this concoction, served with a side of white rice. In the meantime, Manzura and another former student of mine, entered the hall on each side of Dilbar while she, looking gorgeous in every outfit, stopped at each table, had her photo taken with the group of guests and bowed her head repeatedly in a sign of respect. She sat at the dais for a bit and then groups of women proceeded to dance in front of her while Dilbar bowed her head every so often. She went through two changes of clothes, I didn’t know the significance of this and my student was unable to explain. By 8:00pm, most of the women started to leave and Manzura asked to dance with her, which we did to the consternation of the older women who couldn’t believe I was able to make a decent effort at dancing just like them.

I presented Dilbar with a gift of cash, gave Manzura her photos in a CD along with the CDs of Latin music and tangos she had requested and left at 9:00pm when the event was over. Ryan’s dinner was over when I got there and I went to the bedroom to catch a few winks before leaving for the airport. He arranged for the taxi and went with me and a teenager from the building to help out with my heavy bags. I was so glad to have left one bag at Ryan’s as I could barely maneuver the two I had brought along while going through security and then the check in process.

I was told I was carrying 18 kilos of excess baggage and at 5 Euros per kilo, needed to pay $117.00 before they issued me a boarding pass. Disgruntled, but knowing I had no choice, I went to the window to pay and proceeded through immigration. I still had almost three hours before the flight took off and thus settled down to begin reading “A long way Gone”, a book about a child soldier from Sierra Leone who gets to escape that hell, comes to live in the United States and gets to write about his ordeal in very eloquent manner.

The flight in itself was uneventful, but I was not able to eat the dinner they presented us with: boiled chunks of beef with some overcooked pasta on the side, no sauce of any kind for either one, cold salad, hard roll and so on. I had some apricot juice, try without success to inflate the pillow I had brought with me, as none were provided by the airline, and then went into a fitful sleep for the next seven hours of the flight.  

July 12, 2012

What a hectic day indeed. I slept relatively well in the cool and dark cave that is Ryan’s bedroom having turned up the A/C full blast for the night. My goal for the day was to be able to complete and mail my last expense report from the embassy along with my lengthy letter to Stephanie before returning my badge and saying goodbye to everyone for good. It took some doing to get the staff to allow me use of one the computers as one available to guests offers only Internet access and I needed MS Office to finish my report. Tahmina already has a replacement in training, Khurshed, and he was gracious enough to help me out. I received my grant money to cover the return fare from Khorog and learned from the cashier that Vali had been diagnosed with leukemia recently and was undergoing treatment. She did confirm I could find him on Facebook and I promised to send him a message.

I was able to finish the report and mail it along with the letter. When I went back to the office to retrieve my water bottle, I met a young woman from Jamaica whose husband is being transferred to Chile and who wanted to learn Spanish. Although it was too late for me to do anything for her, I promised to put her in touch with Dagma since she’s teaching at Jamshed’s institute.

I called Takhmina, at Caritas, and agreed to stop by to say goodbye and perhaps have lunch with the group. Furkat was out of the office, but Khurshed and Nigina joined us at the Morning Star Café where I had a bowl of soup and half of a tuna sandwich along with their superb coffee. The guys refused to let me pay alleging they had funds for hospitality expenses and my lunch would be covered under that line of expenses. Takhmina informed me she has been accepted by the Canadian university near Toronto she had applied to and will be going there next September. We promised to try and see each other either in Canada or when she comes for a visit to the States. Khurshed told how much he has enjoyed the albums I have posted to my Facebook pages and urged me to continue as he was learning things about his own culture he had never realized before.

Hakim, Carita’s driver, gave me a ride to the souvenir shop across from the Rohat Teahouse so I could buy a few things for friends and relatives, and then I walked to the cobbler store to ask for my handbag to be sown on the sides since the seams had come undone. The cobbler had repaired two pairs of shoes for me in the past and refused to charge for the service. I was very touched by his gesture and mimed to him that I was leaving for good the next day. He wanted to know if I’d ever be back and I said: “Who knows?”

When I got to the flat, it was time to tackle Ryan’s kitchen and the mountain of dishes left behind after he had prepared champurrado and smoked fish for the kids in the building. It must have taken me over an hour to scrape all the plates and pans and clean the stove of all the burned out crud on its surface before I could take a break and resume my packing. I got a text message from Manzura inviting me to Dil’s wedding tomorrow, one of my former students. Since the reception is at 6:00pm, I might have a chance to attend it for a couple of hours before heading to the airport. Manzura indicated that money would make a good present for the newlyweds.

After discussing with Takhmina how usurious Somon Air rates are for excess baggage, it occurred to me that I could leave one of my bags, the one containing winter gear, at Ryan’s place and pick it up at some point in the future when an assignment has been clarified for me. I emailed him and he promptly replied yes. It was time to reshuffle my bags once again. He then called me to say he was preparing a farewell dinner for me and had instructed Farrukh to buy the beef for the shish kebabs. I informed him of my plans to attend my student’s wedding and then show up here, and that was fine with him.

By the time I went to bed, I still couldn’t fit everything into the two bags and then heard from Ruth, currently in Istanbul, telling me that even with just two bags; she had to pay $120.00 in excess baggage. These airlines are all in cahoots to bleed us to death with their additional charges. I guess they know that even when we pay through the nose; it won’t stop those of us with wanderlust in our veins from continuing to travel.

July 11, 2012

I had another sleepless night as the room was too warm and the fan provided little relief. I got up at some point and opened the window risking getting mosquitoes into the room, but hoping for some cool breeze to allow me to sleep. I was up before five and busied myself with making coffee in the adjacent kitchen, repacking my bags and finishing “Sister of my Heart” so I could take it to the American Corner as a donation.

I exchanged money to buy my airline ticket, 440.00 somoni or $93.00, and headed to the American Corner to use their Internet service where a very young woman greeted instead of the coordinator who had something personal to do in the morning. I notified her that the Internet access was not connected and to please do so for me, but she had no idea what to do and called somebody else to help her, a guy, and still there was no service. Madina came in at this point, since she led a group of small children in some kind of lesson there, and recommended I go to Logos to use their service in the meantime. The staff allowed me use of their computer and even ordered tea for me seeing that I was eating a chunk of bread with the last of my Nutella spread.

Tamriz called to say he was at the airport securing my ticket, but the flight was going to be delayed since there was a military parade scheduled for the day and the airport runway was the only flat place in town where they could hold it. He couldn’t give me a specific time and recommended that I go to a museum or some other place to kill time for a while. Logos lost its Internet connection and I decided to pay for my hotel room, bring my bags to Logos and return to the American Corner in the hope that their Internet connection was now working.

Tamriz picked me up at 12:00pm and took me to the airport, but the plane hadn’t arrived yet, so he took me to visit the Serena Inn nearby where dignitaries and famous personalities get to stay when they visit Khorog. The place was built by the Agha Khan Foundation and represents the traditional Pamiri-style house. The grounds were meticulously kept and the area facing the Panj River was an oasis. I wondered how much it’d cost to stay there for just one night, but Tamriz didn’t know. We saw my plane approaching and it looked like one of those toy planes kids manipulate with a remote control. I had to pay another 56.00 somoni or $12.00 for excess baggage as only 10 kilos were allowed per passenger.

The flight constituted one hour and fifteen minutes of bottled up terror as the tin can we were in, a 17-passenger plane probably 40-50 years old, appeared to be buffeted by the clouds as it flew over the awesome Pamir range, or what the locals like to call “The roof of the World”. Some people fell asleep shortly after takeoff while other, myself included, shut their eyes most of the time. A European couple had sat on opposite sides of the plane to be able to get good photos and I handed them my camera to have a couple of shots since I didn’t have a window seat. The views were spectacular even when I couldn’t wait to start seeing villages and cars to indicate the plane was initiating its descend.

                                       Awesome view of the Pamirs Mountains.

                                              Another one

                                               One last one.

                          The tiny plane I flew in with my stomach tied in a knot the entire time.

I got into a taxi right away and got the key to Ryan’s flat from his neighbor as he was currently in Moscow. It was a relief to come to a cool place and have some privacy for once as he’ll be gone until Friday. I tried to get Farrukh to go with me to the offices of Somon Air to obtain my ticket as the website informed me I was too late to purchase a ticket online using a credit card. He was scheduled to see his math tutor at that time and couldn’t do it, so I braved the situation and went on my own. The young woman at the Somon Air counter told me she was closed even though it was exactly 4:45pm when I got there. She sent me next door to the first of the five different travel agencies, little hole-in-wall spaces selling tickets for a small commission for people who don’t know how to use the web or wait for too long like me. I finally got a guy who spoke some English and understood I didn’t need a visa to travel to Germany and sold me a ticket for $367.00 dollars.

I then went to visit the seamstress to find that despite having had an additional ten days to finish my outfits, she wasn’t done. I called Sanifa to help me understand and to tell the seamstress I was leaving for the States and needed my clothing ready right then and there. She agreed to have them done in 2.5 hours and I had to make another trip there. I bought some bread and cheese and had that for dinner as I didn’t feel like cooking.

It was quite pleasant to walk around after eight when the weather cooled off a bit and I could see lots of young men and women walking around gaily talking to each other and laughing in a carefree manner. I knew I’d miss this place and had started to do so already.

July 10, 2012

I was up at five in the morning aware of the fact this would be my last chance to gaze at the Pamirs Mountains as the sun just started its ascend over their jagged peaks. I updated the folder with the photos for Logos and managed to pack my belongings into two bags as I had given Mavluda most of my teaching materials now that I was finally done with teacher training and couldn’t afford to carry them back to the States in my luggage.

I once again turned down the breakfast and had bread and Nutella with tea before repairing to the classroom to set up the board for the “Swat it” game. The students were divided into two teams and were fiercely competitive arguing with Mavluda as to which was had been the first to swat the proper word on the board. Following that, we went outside to form two circles and practice interviewing their classmates with the questions given to them on strips of paper. After several rounds of this game, one student commented that he had never spoken so much English in his entire life and had a headache as a result of having to think so hard.

I had urged the students to wear the Logos t-shirt they had been given earlier in the week so we could take a group photo for the embassy’s Facebook page. Some of the male students refused to do so and their teacher didn’t insist, an action I strongly disagreed with. Three of these students followed me to the house to help me with my luggage since it couldn’t be rolled along the rocky walkways leading to the school. The mini-bus came in on time, and Mavluda suggested that I travel with Tamriz to be more comfortable and avoid the noisy atmosphere that the students would create in the bus. And they were noisy as they greeted villagers along the way and the five cyclists, either Europeans or Americans, they encountered along the way.

When we got into Khorog, I immediately went to the Megaphon office and inquired why my service had been unavailable despite the numerous phone calls Mavluda had made on my behalf. They now claimed that Eraj had made a mistake when talking to the clerk in Dushanbe and my 50.00 somoni payment had been added to the unlimited coverage service and not the limited one I had asked for so the money would last until July 15. That was why after only four days the money was gone and now I had no way of disputing their version of events with Eraj in Germany and my unable to speak the language. I called them thieves and worse and told the woman how happy I was I would not need their services anymore. I was so angry that I didn’t even feel like going to lunch at the Indian restaurant I had so much looked forward to in the last few days.

The restaurant in question was a dark place with no air conditioning at all, but the waitress brought a floor fan and placed it directly in front of me when I complained of the heat. Most things I asked for from the menu were not available including the popular tali plate and lassi usually offered by all Indian restaurants. After the waitress made several trips to the kitchen window to speak to the cook as to what was or wasn’t available, I walked up there myself and convinced the cook, who was from Calcutta, to prepare a tali plate for me with lamb, but was instead served another portion of tough beef chunks. The vegetable raita was made with sour milk instead of yogurt and thus tasted more like vinegar. At least everything had plenty of spices thus compensating for the awful food I had had to eat these past ten days.

We had passed the American Corner on the way to the restaurant and so on the way back, I stopped there to use their Internet connection. I met the coordinator, with whom I had been in touch hoping to offer some teacher training during my stay not knowing I was going to be posted out in the boonies, and got to catch up on my emails and Facebook postings. Mavluda and Madina had offered to accompany me to the botanical garden, the one located at the highest altitude in the world, and they came to the hotel promptly at five with Firuza joining us as her husband had offered to take us there.

I could have skipped this visit entirely as the place is in complete disarray, overgrown and obviously not looked after by a team of botanists or even skilled gardeners. There were no flowers to look and not one of my companions could tell me if the garden was supposed to be composed of separate areas. We found an abandoned greenhouse where many starter plants had been left and some lavender bushes were growing wild. We did find a wedding party, two young people looking childish as if they were wearing costumes instead of formal wedding attire. The tea house I had been told would really impress me was occupied by government officials and we were barred from even getting nearby to take a good photo of it.

                                   Two of the few flower specimens found at the botanical garden.

Although I wasn’t even a bit hungry, the Logos staff insisted on taking me to dinner at a local restaurant where I ordered a bowl of razolnik soup and was served another tasteless broth with bits of beef and vegetables. Madina and Firuza said goodbye after dinner and Mavluda took me for a walk in the central park of Khorog maintained by the Agha Khan Foundation. When I returned to my hotel room, I was glad to find satellite TV available and was thus able to catch up on the news after taking a long shower and washing my hair under plenty of water.

July 9, 2012

It was our last full day at the camp and I decided to skip the usual porridge breakfast to have chunks of kolcha bread with the Nutella spread I had brought with me and just tea. We had the students play “Jeopardy”, which they enjoyed immensely, and also take part in a scavenger hunt for words and their definitions. Their last assignment for the day was to complete a worksheet about “The best of everything” that had ever happened to them. Mavluda informed me that July 11 was a holiday in the Pamirs as they celebrated some important Muslim event I couldn’t quite understand and that Tamriz had arranged for the band to return to play in the evening after the students had a chance to recite some poems, sing and dance for the occasion.

As part of the holiday, a group of villagers showed up at the school before lunch to display typical dishes from the region along with some handicrafts. I had just had some biscuits and tea for the coffee break and wasn’t even a bit hungry, not that I needed to be as none of the dishes looked appetizing since they were just different versions of the wheat and dairy combinations that had appeared at our table for the last seven days. The women had placed huge wooden spoons by their dishes and people were eating from these spoons in the absence of any dishes or cutlery of any sort. I took some pictures and tried to look truly contrite at not being able to even sample the wares.

 These village women prepared local food delicacies and offered them to the campers for free on a  holiday commemorating some important Muslim date. Most dishes consisted of flour and milk products cooked together and eaten from a common spoon.

At lunch, we were served the vilest dish yet: some small beans reminiscent of our pigeon peas, but hard and flavorless, accompanied by what looked like pieces of the ears of an animal, as they looked like cartilage of some sort. It was a little bit like the “cuajitos” Puerto Rican like to eat fried, but it smelled terrible and the dish lacked even salt. We had been served fish soup before and the kids had refused to eat it as they had never even heard such dish existed. I had eaten the pieces of white fish, but left the broth intact as it didn’t have any flavor whatsoever. I excused myself and turned down Mavluda’s offer to accompany me to the café for a proper meal. I told her I had some chocolates in my room and would be fine after all.

I took a snooze in my room and then compiled the photos I had taken during the week so the IT person at Logos could create a slide show for the closing ceremony. Mavluda had told me there had been a minor crisis in their office when Tahmina called to remind them that embassy personnel would be there on the 12 instead of the 16 for such ceremony. They group went  into a panic as the students hadn’t rehearsed enough and even the hall they had rented had been reserved for the 16.

When I went back at 4:00pm, Tamriz was already there making the arrangements for the evening program and lifting my spirits by telling me the cooks were preparing plov for dinner. I helped Mavluda with the spelling and proper wording for a couple of speeches the students would be delivering, and then sat for a while to read “Sister of my Heart”, which was getting quite riveting toward the end.

Musicians were present, and had dinner served outside, while we prepared the room for the evening program. I sat through the rather repetitious program with the students offering the same material I had seen for the Fourth of July celebration. I had  play “Pop my Balloon”, and they had a blast. I agreed to stay for a little bit only as I was already tired and needed to start packing my bags for the next day. I danced one lively number, took some photos and left accompanied by the school coordinator who has been so helpful during the entire week. The night sky seemed darker than usual, and I marveled at the number of stars visible at that time and continued to gaze at them as I brushed my teeth and walked to the pit toilet.

Despite my best intentions of devoting the rest of the evening to packing, I got quite engrossed in reading the novel “Sister of my Heart” and ended up leaving the task for the next day.

July 8, 2012

I was up at the crack of dawn and couldn’t complain about getting up so early because when I looked up on my way to the pit toilet, I saw the sun just coming out and kissing the peaks of the Pamir Mountains on the Afghani side of the border. Since I had no Internet connection once again, I settled down to write the overdue letter to my friend Stephanie until it was time for breakfast.

Mavluda told me the cooks had caved in and cooked the butter tea, made with milk, butter and salt, that the students had been clamoring for since they got here. They made rice pudding just for me and it was the usual bland kind, so I wasn’t disappointed. We played “Concentration”, “Where am I” and finally tried to get the students to write a paragraph about “The best meal ever”, but if felt like pulling teeth as they weren’t even used to answering the 5Ws in regards to the topic. I felt a bit frustrated seeing the quality of the writing as they couldn’t even spell “juice” or and kept calling me to ask for translation of words I had no idea what they meant in their Pamiri dialect, Sudgni. I had asked Mavluda why she never addressed the students in English except when in the classroom and in my presence as they obviously needed more exposure to spoken English and that’s what the camp was supposed to provide. She seemed taken aback by my comment and muttered something about it being easier that way.

My mood lifted immediately after I was notified that a wedding was taking place in the village at 1:00pm and I was welcome to attend it in the company of Vilna, our village volunteer who knew the bride, and Schanoz to serve as my interpreter. The bride’s house was just a few minutes from the camp, and we found the backyard already full of guests sitting on the ground under the trees to avoid the scorching mid-day sun. The bride was the daughter of one of the camp’s cooks and she immediately came to us to find me seat at a table under some partial shade. The table was groaning with food that had been covered with a tablecloth to avoid the army of flies flitting around us, and I decided on the spot to avoid any of the salads, most of which contained mayonnaise, just in case as I had no idea how long the long had been laid out there.

The bride and groom arrived exactly at 1:00pm, I guess no photo shoot around war memorials had taken place as they do in Dushanbe, and the music started immediately. The groom was sat at a tapchon with his aunt and best friend while the bride occupied a different one surrounded by her former classmates and girlfriends. The rest of the groom family didn’t attend the event as they were busy preparing a reception for the couple later on in the afternoon. Plov was served accompanied by the same dry and tough bread I dislike so much as it hurts my gums and the roof of my mouth when I try to eat it. The portion of plov was very generous and quite tasty, so I ate most of it and had some watermelon for dessert. The green tea was transparent and there was no sugar around, so a couple of sips did it for me.

I noticed that although the bride was not bowing down to her guests every so often, she kept her head down and was not allowed to eat or drink in front of her guests just like the other brides I had observed. Schanoz told me she was supposed to look despondent about leaving her family home and eating or drinking anything would contradict such posture. The groom, on the other hand, was eating heartily while chatting with his friends. Oh, the injustice of it all. The band was quite good and the cook insisted I dance at least once with her and I had to comply in spite of the heat. At least they had reserved the dance area for place under a tree providing generous shade. After people saw me dancing, and gave me some thumbs up for being able to follow the beat, an older guy invited me to dance. I was pleasantly surprised to see guys and girls dancing together, although without touching each other, instead of the segregated dancing that takes place in Dushanbe.

It was time for the bride to change into another outfit to make the trip to her in-laws’ house and we followed her inside to watch the poor thing put on another dress, a red velvet one, on top of the one she was already wearing and then the complicated process of wrapping seven shawls around her head and shoulders that could only be removed by the in-laws when she got to their house. I don’t know how the bride didn’t pass out in the July heat once the process was over although her married sister did walk with her trying to fan her face the whole time. In the meantime, the guys were busy loading the bride’s dowry (carpets, duvets, pillowcases and the like) and her hope chest filled with her trousseau into the top rack of an SUV.

Back at the camp, Mavluda informed me she had taken the students swimming at the river, or swimming pool as they like to call it, and there were no other activities planned. I returned for dinner to find a few tablespoons of overly cooked rice floating in that disgusting gravy with three little chunks of tough beef on top. I took one taste of it and it wasn’t even hot. I refused to eat, and Mavluda offered to walk with me to the truck stop restaurant where I had another bowl of lagman soup, also greasy and only lukewarm, and some kolcha bread. Mavluda had been to the States and sympathized with me as she was not able to eat everything she was offered while staying there for over five months.

July 7, 2012

I got up extra early as I needed to be ready for the ride into Khorog. I had just finished my coffee when I got the usual twitter sound from my Internet provider informing me that I had ran out of money when in fact I had paid just last Saturday. I was practically fuming when the volunteer knocked on my door to tell me the newly improvised shower in their backyard was ready for my use. I grabbed my towel and soap and headed for the square space covered in plastic sheeting on top of which they had placed a 5-gallong container full of warm water and somehow attached a hand-held shower head to it. I got a trickle of water, not enough to wash my hair as it had been my intention, but at least remove the layers of dust accumulated the last four days.

I barely had a chance to get dressed when another knock told me the car was ready for me, but I asked for a few minutes to scarf a bowl of porridge at the school canteen before jumping into it. It took an hour and twenty-five minutes to cover the 50 kilometer distance all the while driving on alongside the River Panj with magnificent views of the mountains on the Afghani side and its villages among clusters of trees. We passed many small villagers, a couple of cemeteries, and then arrived at Khorog, a very clean place with a lively center where Madina and Firuza were waiting for me to take me to their NGO, Logos. I first asked them to take me to Megaphon, upon the recommendation of Mavluda, to find out about my Internet connection. The clerk indicated the 50.00 somoni I had paid last Saturday had never been credited to my account and couldn’t be done today as the employee who made the mistake was out. She took Mavluda’s number and promised to call tomorrow when it was rectified.

After visiting the NGO’s offices, a very dark, small and cramped place, very similar to Multikids in Dushanbe, I requested to be taken to the Afghan market I had heard so much about and we boarded a mini-van to get there. There was nothing to purchase or do there as only a few merchants were offering fabric, old shoes, some toiletries and scarves most of it on the ground. Madina then informed me that the merchants were prohibited from selling produce or milk because there had been some problem in the past with the quality of these items. Except for the fact that the vendors were dressed in the typical garb I had seen so many times in the news, and the fact that the place was overrun by soldiers in Afghan uniform, there would have nothing to differentiate this market from any other. I was hungry and we stopped at a hole-in-the wall place where several soldiers sat smoking. They were only offering plov and I agreed to have it standing outside to avoid the smoke. The dish in itself was insipid to the max, only lukewarm, and had so much oil in it that I refused to eat the bottom layer. No cold water was available and I had to settle for some execrable orange soda.

I begged to leave and make a stop at the local market in Khorog since one of the students had been wearing a set of pretty earrings that appeared to be made of stainless steel with the design of a peacock inside. We searched high and low, but only found some other tin earring in a variety of color and I bought five to offer to my friends in the States since I can’t buy anything heavy to add to my suitcase. Back to the Logos offices we went and then Tamriz offered me a ride back to the camp thus giving me a chance to ask him questions along the way. He stopped a couple of times to allow me to take photos and rue the isolation that has been imposed in this region making it so difficult to achieve anything for its inhabitants.

Students were just finishing lunch when we arrived and I was offered a bowl of really oily soup with just one piece of potato and one chunk of carrot. So as not to deviate from their established pattern, the beef was tough and flavorless. I ate a few cherries while discussing the agenda for the closing ceremony to which people from the embassy are expected. I have tried to impress on the Logos personnel that this would be their chance to make their students shine by showing what they have learned so far and that the entire ceremony should be carried out in English as the NGO in Istaravshan had done. I could see the furrows on Mavluda’s forehead the minute I mentioned that interpreting everything that was said would make for a very long and tedious event.

So far, the students don’t know any songs, poems or jokes in English and have barely started to rehearse the “Hokey Pokey”. I have the impression that they are never spoken to in English except when I’m present in the classroom more for my edification than for their benefit and I can’t see how they could conduct themselves as masters of ceremonies when their English is so halting at best.

I went back to my room to sift through all the photos I had taken so Tamriz can transfer the best ones to his computer on Monday as I suggested that they do a slide show summarizing the camp experience as the Qurgonteppa group had done. Dinner was the usual bowl of soup, barley this time, and buttermilk, which I can’t drink. Mavluda accompanied me back to my room and I realized then I had left my shawl at Tamriz’ offices and the weather had suddenly cooled enough to make me shiver.

July 6, 2012

Although the bath should have been ready for me this morning, the one guy in the house that speaks a bit of English told me there was no hot water available yet and I should come back in an hour. I had no choice but to get dressed without bathing and proceed to the school where Mavluda excitedly informed me that now that a fridge was available, fried eggs were being served for breakfast for the first time. I had two of them accompanied by my kolcha bread and several cups of tea.

We had the students play “Taboo” with famous personality names and it was pandemonium in the room as they two teams didn’t understand they should not be feeding answers to the opposite one. They made a lot of mistakes when trying to identify the personality by indicating their country of origin and so at the end  had them play a game of Tic Tac Toe with countries, languages and nationalities with almost the same results as both teams shouted the answers for the other. It just told me how unused they were to actually playing competitive games. After their coffee break, which some of them didn’t even take so they could complete the activity “A Few Questions about Colors”, we finished that one and lastly had a ranking exercise with occupations. I hated the fact that the little whiteboard they provided is barely big enough to write five lines in it and not big enough to write all answers at once for a good review.

Corrie called during the break to let me know her trip to Kazakhstan had been just fine and she was getting ready to leave Tajikistan tomorrow. We filled each other in on our latest happenings and promised to stay in touch in the near future. She asked for Ryan’s telephone number so she could return the guidebook for Kazakhstan I had loaned her.

Lunch was shorbot soup, not bad, salad and some kind of pasta with the usual bits of tough beef on top. My stomach had been acting up all morning and I decided that the soup would have to do, but then they brought watermelon and I had several slices. As it is my routine now, I went back to my room for a nap, or at least a rest, and didn’t return until 4:30 when an outing was scheduled. I had a chance to make a cup of coffee and chat with the guy for a little bit listening to his request to participate in the classes just so his listening skills could be sharpened. I told him he was free to drop in whenever he wanted.

The volunteer took us to another village nearby where we stopped at a dilapidated house and sat on a tapchon where she brought out all kinds of kitchen utensils, farm implements and even clogs to show us how the people in the region used to live many years ago. I asked the owner why they had not sold the collection to a reputable museum instead of having them just lying around, and she responded that tourists came by to see them every so often. She didn’t say whether they paid for the privilege, but I assumed they did. This woman was only 43 years old, but she had had seven children, three of which had died, and was now looking after a toddler. Her clothing was torn and she was missing several teeth while most of her hair was gray. I felt so bad for her that I could barely look at her in the face. She commented in passing that she was related to the people I was staying with. 

It was time to head back to our village and check on our dinner. We had lagman soup on the menu again and it was fine with me for I didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. Mavluda followed me to my room so I could type a translation for a brochure Logos is about to print advertising their English classes for children. The original text had been written in Russian and the words didn’t translate well into English despite Mavluda’s best effort. I did what I could and promised to deliver it to Tamriz tomorrow when I go into town for the Saturday market in Khorog.

Eraj called from the airport to say goodbye as he was going to be on his way to Germany early tomorrow morning. He promised to email me his contact information once he arrives there, and I hope to see him in Freiburg at some point before his return to Tajikistan.

July 5, 2012

Another beautiful morning in this idyllic village. Having drank my coffee, checked my emails and replied to Facebook postings, I made my way to the school canteen where Mavluda had another bowl of porridge waiting for me. We had the students start by writing a portrait using the laminated photos I had with me and the respective handouts. This was an entirely new activity for them and, even though their writing skills were quite poor, they managed to put together a decent written portrait of the person in the photo and then presented their posters to the rest of the class. As a follow-up, the students chose three adjectives to write in a piece of paper that described their personalities and the rest was to guess the name of the student when the piece was read. The game caused lots of confusion as they kept identifying themselves as soon as the description was read instead of waiting for guesses from their classmates.

We had no power all morning and thus when the IT person came to hook up the school printer to my laptop, nothing could be done. I looked at the old printer and doubted it’d be compatible with my Windows 7 system, but hoped that additional drivers could be located online. I went over the other games available yet and made a tentative list of the ones that seemed most promising for that age group. Mavluda has been very attentive to the games taking the time to write all instructions in her notebook as I promised to leave most of my materials with her now that I won’t needing them anymore.

Lunch was buckwheat, this time cooked with carrots and beef, just like plov, and even though I normally hate it, I decided to try it in this new incarnation as I didn’t feel like walking to the restaurant in the mid-day heat. I ate the soup and a bit of the buckwheat and was full enough. I took my customary nap and returned at 4:00pm for an outing  to a nearby waterfall that the local volunteer had organized for us. It was an uphill climb to reach a poor village hidden among the trees and then a scary walk on a ledge between the precipice and a canal where we had about a foot of space to make our way there. I was terrified and hung on to a strong male student, as sure-footed as a goat, who pulled me along until I could hear the rushing waters of the waterfall and where I took a couple of snapshots before deciding it was too scary for me. We walked back to the village and the students set out to eat mulberries and sour cherries as if the trees belonged to them. Mavluda talked to some of the female residents and answered questions about the program.

We returned to our village exactly at 7:00pm, but dinner was still being cooked, vegetables in one pot and rice in another, and I decided I didn’t want that for dinner. I walked to the truck stop only to find out they had been without power all afternoon as well and had little to offer. I was brought a bowl of greasy shorbot soup and the Russian bread I don’t particularly care for. A plate of sliced tomatoes was brought out at the end. I went back to the camp to find the students just lining up to eat and promised them to show them the “Hokey Pokey” dance before heading back to my room.

Students must have rushed through their dinner in anticipation of the dance for soon I was surrounded by male students asking me to play a variety of songs from my laptop from Shakira’s “Waka Waka” to Michael Telo “Nosa”. I didn’t have any speakers, but took the laptop out into the courtyard to lead the students into the first round of rehearsals for the dance so they can present it during the closing ceremony. Mavluda didn’t have any ideas on the steps to follow for such ceremony, and I offered her the agenda we had designed at the camp in Istaravshan so she could pick and choose activities from it. These students are certainly at a lower level than the former and thus unable to sing songs in English or recite poems either. I suggested some role plays, but she wanted for me to provide the materials and that I can’t do as it should be representations of situations familiar to the students in this area.

Mavluda and a group of students accompanied me to my room and I started to read “Sister of my Heart”, an engrossing novel by Chitra Divakaruni now that I had finished the novel “Embers”, a most satisfying read, and given it to Schanoz to keep.

July 4, 2012

I could pinch myself every morning as I can barely believe that I have a chance to spend eight days surrounded by the highest mountains in Central Asia while doing something I love doing: teaching English. My morning started with my usual cup of coffee, catching up with my emails and Facebook posting, ironing my kurta outfit and then walking to the school where Matluda waited for me with a bowl of rice pudding that neither enough sugar nor salt. The school principal came by to open her office so we could have access to her computer and printer neither one of which she knew how to  use. The computer had version 5 of the PDF program and would not open mine. When I tried to open the Internet to download a newer version, the principal had no idea what to do and said we needed to call the IT person in another district to come by. Then the power went out and we waited all morning for it to come back in vain.

The students completed the “Give an Example” worksheet with much difficulty as their vocabulary level is pretty low and they didn’t seem to be used to working in groups to share their answers. I asked Matluva to take over for the rest of the session and she had them put cut up pictures in sequential order and the complete the story at the bottom of the page, but she herself didn’t know the proper vocabulary such “go grocery shopping” or “go to work out/exercise at the gym’ and I had to chime in repeatedly.

Since it was the Fourth of July in the States, Tamriz had asked the kitchen to prepare plov for us in addition to soup, salad and lots of just-picked cherries. Everything was delicious this time around and I back to my room to take a short nap and promising I’d be back at 4:00 when a group of musicians were going to perform and some of the students would participate in the entertainment forum. I saw the musicians unloading their equipment, but there was no power and hadn’t been any since early in the morning. No local people had been invited to the event, so the students started out by singing and dancing traditional Tajik or Pamiri songs and dances and a few recited poems. This group is decidedly shyer and less used to perform in public than the one in Istaravshan/Shahriston. The power came back at the right time and the band kicked in allowing the girls to show their moves while the boys sat looking on. The music was too slow for me, but I had to join in any way to please the students.

We played a game of “Can you help me?, and the three students who tied for first place had to try and inflate a balloon with their hands tied. The girl outdid the two boys and won the round, and then the power went out again. The acoustic guitar player and the drummer then decided to play slow songs, mostly for the benefit of the girls, and we listened to them until it got relatively late and dark.

A local young man approached me speaking English in an Indian-inflected accent and told me he studying to become an officer at the military academy. When I asked him why he wanted to become a professional soldier, he responded he wanted to protect his country. “From what”, I inquired, “Who are your enemies?” He was taken aback and couldn’t say anything, but managed to say, very softly, “Well, Uzbekistan is killing some of our people.” We got into an energetic discussion about the waste of money and human potential that an army normally entailed and how it was usually mobilized to suppress the local population while creating phantom enemies to fool the public.

I can’t remember what was served for dinner, probably another insipid bowl of soup, but do recall seen a brand-new refrigerator being unloaded and brought into the school’s kitchen. It’d be the first time they have had refrigeration. We can call it “seeing our hard earned tax money at work” in a remote village of Khorog.

July 3, 2012

The bedroom I was occupying had a bank of windows facing the east and thus I woke up at 5:30am when enough light poured through its sheer curtains. It was very quiet and no one was up yet when I walked to the open air kitchen to start my coffee. The homeowners had built some kind of open air sleeping quarters with a plastic tarp around it for privacy, and I could make out at least four people sleeping under their respective korpachas. A young woman heard my movements while pouring water into my coffeemaker and promptly got out of bed dressed in her traditional Tajik dress. Then, what appeared to be the grandmother came out from inside the building and after smiling at me, promptly set out to spading in the courtyard garden. The young woman brought warm water to a contraption hanging from a tree that dispenses water through a faucet so I could brush my teeth. I took my coffee back to my room to use the Internet since I now only have access to it between midnight and 8:00am.

I was really enjoying my second cup of coffee and catching up on my email when Matluda, the only English teacher present at the camp, knocked on my door to introduce herself. She informed me that breakfast was to be eaten at 8:00 at the school’s canteen and offered to escort me there, but I told her I had not taken a bath yet and needed to iron one of my dresses first if an iron was available. She went to speak to my host family and came back to tell me there was a communal bath available some distance from the house and that an iron was being procured. The bath in question took some 5-7 minutes to get to it and contained a sauna and hot water. I was most impressed with how clean and spacious it was and the guys who seemed to be its attendants even brought me soap and sample packets of Pantene shampoo. It felt exhilarating to take a long bath and get rid of  all the sweat and grime from the previous day. I ironed my blue skirt and blouse and accompanied Matluda to the canteen where I was given a platter of cold porridge, cold flat bread that appeared to have been baked in a pan, and butter. I hated to be so picky, but I can’t eat a bowl of cold porridge under no circumstances and I requested that it be heated up. They complied and after having had to eat many biscuits to stave off my hunger, I was able to eat the reheated porridge.

Matluda confessed she had brought no resources for the ten-day camp except for the students’ textbooks and workbooks although she too had been to the States under the Humphrey program, she in fact had been part of the same group as Subhi, and yet had no ideas on what to present to the students all this time. I once again suggested doing the Fourth of July reading if she could manage to print the handouts by the next day. She didn’t have any CDs, DVDs, games or any other resource of any kind. I made up a list of what we had used in Istaravshan and she phoned Tamriz to get him to bring them for his afternoon visit. I had the students break into pairs and introduce themselves. There were 19 of them with some as young as 13, not particularly the age I most enjoy working with young adults. There was a break for tea and then we resumed with the class playing “How often do you…. ?

Lunch was a total disaster for it wasn’t even ready at 12:30 as listed on the agenda, and when we went into the patio behind the canteen, we only saw two huge cauldrons in which some chunks of beef, carrots and potatoes were boiling in one and rice on another. Those were to be the first and second courses for our meal and supposedly only ten minutes were needed to finish them. I looked doubtful, but sat down anyway trying to keep a conversation going while my eyes began to shut themselves down involuntarily. By 1:20, some greasy and tasteless soup was placed on our table along with the same tough and dry bread I had tried in the morning. Matluda said that the flat bread prevalent in the city was not normally available in the villages and each family baked their own. I fished out the carrot chunk and potato pieces and gave up on the tough pieces of meat or the oily broth that seemed to have been started with mutton fat. Next came a plate of white rice with bits of beef on top and apparently the same broth as the soup I had just discarded. The rice wasn’t cooked all the way through and I could not stand the taste of the beef or the gravy in which the rice swam.

I apologized to Matluda and begged to go to my room where I could have some water and just go to sleep. She insisted I eat something else and requested a couple of fried eggs, but at five minutes to two the eggs were nowhere to be seen and just said goodbye promising to join the group for an outing in the village at 4:30. I was able to take a really nice nap in my cool and quiet room until someone knocked on my door to take me back to the school. The outing lacked any organization and thus we just meandered around one street or another until we got to the river and the kids started to take some photos. Further up, we found a restaurant catering to trucks and SUVs traveling to and from Dushanbe and I was able to order a bowl of razolnik soup and kolcha bread which tasted heavenly compared to the awful thing that passed for bread at the school canteen. The server even told me she could send meals for me at an additional charge whenever I felt like it. Such offer sounded like the answer to my prayers.

The students played an enthusiastic game of volleyball while Matluda and I talked about the students and how some of them led a very difficult life as many lived in a boarding school having been abandoned by their parents. Some of the boys insisted on taking a swim in the nearby river when the game was over even though the water was nearly freezing. The girls can’t swim for the most part and were not allowed to join in as their teacher can’t swim herself and she was responsible in case anything happened to them.  I said good night when they returned to the canteen at 7:00pm for their dinner. Matluda wanted to organize some kind of after dinner activity, but I told her she was on her own tonight as I was still exhausted and needed to go to bed early.

One thing I certainly didn’t realize when I agreed to come to this summer camp was the fact that everyone here would be speaking a different language, Pamiri, which is completely unrelated to either Russian or Tajik. My exhaustion after the trip must have prevented me, until late afternoon, from becoming aware that I couldn’t understand a word that was being said around me.

July 2, 2012

It seems predestined that I must be sleep deprived while finishing my assignment here. The reason this time was the match between Spain and Italy which took place between 12:00 and 2:00am and which had to be watched in Ryan’s bedroom while I tried my darndest to sleep. Every time someone scored a goal, the room would erupt in cheers and others would pipe in with comments and predictions. When my alarm went off at five, I felt as I had just fallen asleep a few minutes before. I made my coffee, finished packing the clothes that had been drying, and collected all of my cables to be able to plug everything I might need at camp. Fernando got up at half past five and was ready at six when Farid called confirming he had secured a taxi for us and would be coming by shortly to take us to the station where the taxis for Khorog departed.

This station is relatively close to the airport and had the look of an open air market. Farid took us to meet the young driver of a Toyota Land Cruiser claiming it was the best car in the lot to take us on the arduous trip to Khorog. Farid had forgotten that Fernando was with me, and being quite tall, needed to ride behind me and not in the third row of seats as the driver wanted him to do. We were fortunate to have Zack, from Oregon and working in the Khorog area for the last three years, come up at that time and discuss the issue with the driver in Pamiri as he didn’t speak Tajik at all. I had met Zack at Operation Mercy last January when I was doing the series of presentations on Washington, D. C. for their Access program. We left at 7:00am and had only driven for two hours, at what I thought was a rather slow pace, when the driver pulled over indicating something was wrong with the left front wheel and he had phoned his buddy, who was coming behind him, to help him figure out what was wrong. We stood under the scorching sun, six adults and two toddlers, some of us taking advantage of the desolate location to relieve our bladders, until Zack suggested that the driver move the car to a shaded area.

We pulled across a roadside restaurant where I ordered a bowl of dalda with plenty of hot sauce while Fernando only drank water having had plenty of biscuits and chocolate in the car already. Zack had stayed behind with the driver and returned to tell us we ready to roll as he had diagnosed the problem as being a lose wheel missing a bolt and having the other three just about to come lose.  I immediately lost all confidence in the driver and his vehicle and wondered what else could be wrong with it. I could see other vehicles overtaking us all the time until the driver confirmed his car was fueled by diesel, which was a cheaper fuel, and overheated easily, so he had to drive slowly. The sun was beating on my side of the car the entire time and I could find no relief by just fanning myself. There was no need to ask the driver if his A/C worked as even when it does, as in the one from Istaravshan that was brand new, people here believe it would make you sick.

We stopped for lunch at a truck stop where we were served something called “Bishkek”: a ground beef patty, buckwheat, mashed potato and shell pasta under something that looked like gravy. Fruit juice and flat bread rounded out the meal and we shared the table with the two sisters who had each a toddler with them. These children were the best behaved children I’ve seen for they rarely cried or complained even though they were riding at the back of the SUV and it must have been like a furnace back there. Their mothers had them strip down to their disposable diapers, but it must have been quite uncomfortable after so many hours. Zack had indicated we should have been able to make it to Khorog in about 11 hours in a good car, but our driver had to stop several times to cool the engine and add water to the radiator.

When we stopped for dinner at 6:00pm, plov and salad for me, Zack told me we still had six more hours to go and I thought he was pulling my leg, but it was the saddest truth. Although Fernando and I had been enjoying the views of the Afghanistan side of the border all afternoon, once the sun went down, there was nothing but the light of the moon reflecting on the Panj River and I was really concerned about our driver who must have been up since who knew when. In fact, Zack had remarked that he had come to the station with the idea of asking which driver had not seen the match the night before to insure he found someone who had gotten enough sleep. I had been fighting the urge to sleep all day, but once night fell the car was completely silent and I dozed off along with the others only waking up when the driver made a sudden stop or took a curve too sharply.

Tamriz had been in touch with the driver , and Zack told me I’d be getting off at a village one hour before Khorog. At 11:20pm, almost sixteen and half hour after leaving Dushanbe, the car stopped on the side of the road and two guys with flashlights came to help the driver unload my bags. I said goodbye to Fernando and Zack glad that the latter had offered to host Fernando for the night until he could locate a  hotel the next day. I followed the guys to a house where a separate room had been arranged for me furnished entirely with korpachas. I simply placed everything on the floor, brushed my teeth outside, was shown where to use the pit toilet, clarified where I could make my coffee in the morning  and promptly went to sleep without even bothering to change into my nightgown.

July 1, 2012

I had ground all the Italian roast coffee beans I had purchased in anticipation for the camp and was disappointed to see how light it was and how little body it had compared to the French roast I normally get. The guys got up much later than I did and confirmed we’d be going to Varzob for lunch to join the crowds from Dushanbe avoiding the heat. I did a load of laundry and tried to spread the pieces around the kitchen as the clothes rack in the bathroom was packed with Ryan’s clothes and it got no air whatsoever. I had a bit of leftover muesli for breakfast and more coffee once Ryan made his usual pot of weak coffee.

Although Ryan had mentioned the night before that his landlord’s vehicles were at his disposal now that he was in Moscow, we ended up taking a taxi for 20.00 somoni per person round trip. The taxi driver took us to what must have been an acquaintance of his restaurant and we secured a tapchon pretty close to the river and where the raging waters barely allowed us to talk. I saw most women dressed in their traditional dresses while the men and the children wore swimsuits or at least t-shirts and shorts. Many families had brought many bags with foodstuff to consume and many of them were already asleep due to the heat. I passed up on the soup and only had a piece of shish kebabs, salad and fruit. Fernando made himself comfortable and also took a nap while Ryan and I made small talk. The driver came back in two hours and we quickly left as there didn’t seem to be much to be done unless you went swimming at the pool as the river was out of bounds.

I still needed to go back to the seamstress for my remaining dresses, but all I wanted to do was take a nap, something I had told Ryan and Fernando I couldn’t do in a public place. Ryan turned on the TV the minute we got in and Fernando asked about the possibility of visiting the Antiquities Museum. I offered to show him where it was on my way to the seamstress only to find out it was only open between 10:00-2:00pm on Sundays. Fernando was reluctant to go back to the apartment and said he would walk around and have a cup of coffee somewhere. I stopped at the seamstress and she had not been in at all or called Eraj to let him know my dresses would not be done. I left her a note informing her of my new returning date and left.

It was back to the apartment to seek refuge from the heat until 5:00pm rolled around and I went to the second wedding of the week with Nigora. I ironed my atlas dress and waited for bit, but no phone call came from Nigora as something was wrong with my phone and she was getting a message indicating that it was out of service. I had to hire the same driver who had taken us to Varzob, and who conveniently waits outside the maternity hospital, to take me to the restaurant where the wedding reception was about to begin. Nigora’s daughter, who had studied in the U.S. for five years, was outside waiting and took me into a relatively shabby hall with tables lined up at an angle and no stage set for the musicians as I had seen two days before. Most of the food was once again on display with the difference that once the men sat at different tables, someone brought lots of bottles of vodka and even offered one to me, which I quickly turned down.

The wedding party was late, as usual, coming back from the photo session and I could only pity the bride standing out there in the 100+ temperature in a gown and veil stoically being photograph for posterity. Dili informed me this had been a love marriage and the groom’s parents had not approved of it at the beginning. The bride’s mother was dead and so her sister was the one directing the show as the neither the father nor the brothers of the bride are allowed to attend it supposedly because it might be too embarrassed for them to know she’ll be having sex for the time that night. The band was all right and they had brought a young woman in an elaborate costume to start dancing immediately.

At the urge of Nigora, I did dance a few times, but didn’t quite find my groove. There was group of young women dressed in Western-style dresses, one even wearing a strapless short gown leaving little to the imagination, and they danced as a group the whole time. The men surrounded the hired dancer making suggestive movements toward her and the end, even the groom came down from his perch and danced with her while his buddies hollered and clapped along. The poor bride had to keep bowing the entire three hours the reception lasted. We were served shorbot soup the way I had read about with the broth served in a tea cup and the meat and vegetables on a saucer. An entire cooked chicken has been placed on our table and then cut up into four pieces, but I passed it up and ate mostly salads and bread.

Attendees urged me to take photos of two toddlers dressed in identical suits and seated at a table in front of the newlyweds who were being showered with money and candy, but no one could explain what their role was in reference to those getting married. When the three-hour time limit came around, we were escorted out of the building as many guests filled plastic bags with the remaining food on the table. Dili had told me that kitchen is instructed to cook for 450 people and whatever is not consumed is given away. The driver came for us a little while later and dropped me off at the apartment where I found Ryan, Fernando and Dagmara outside on the tapchon finishing their dinner. After chitchatting for a little bit, I went inside to start packing and Fernando informed me that they were staying up late to watch a soccer match even though we had agreed to get up at five to be at the terminal by six.

June 30, 2012

I was not able to sleep past my usual six am and found myself in the kitchen groggily trying to make coffee with the beans Nigora had been so kind as to place in my luggage. The beans had been roasted very lightly and thus contained little flavor or oil, but it was still better than nothing. When Ryan got up, he told me had another Couch Surfer staying with him, this one from Spain, and he had been forced to sleep on the korpachas on the floor. He was a lawyer who was also interested in traveling to the Pamirs and perhaps we could travel together. Once he was up, Fernando told me he was trying to obtain a visa to Kirgizstan in the morning and then find out about buying an airline ticket to Khorog. I cooked some muesli and had it for breakfast delighting in the fact that I had access to all my favorite spices: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla for once.

Eraj called me to say the seamstress still didn’t have my dresses ready even though it had been over two weeks since I had given her the materials. She said she’d try to have them ready for four in the afternoon and Eraj agreed to come by Ryan’s place then so he could also accompany me to Megaphon for my last payment on my Internet service. I took a marshrutka to the Iranian store to buy decent coffee only to find that all prices had been hijacked to almost double what they were the last time I shopped there. I ended up buying just    8 ounces, or 250gr, of some Italian roast beans for 30.00 somoni or about $6.00. I also noticed while at the supermarket that the exchange rate for the somoni had gone up and now they were only offering 486.00 instead of 490.00.

The sun was already scorching as I made my way back to the mini-van and had no choice but to ride in one with all windows closed, except for the driver’s, as Tajiks, especially the women, believe that fresh air on their faces will make them sick. Thank god it was a short ride as I felt that I was suffocating back there and could pass out any minute. I went to the supermarket and bought juice, toothpaste and detergent to do some laundry and forgot the toilet paper we had run out of. I took refuge from the heat in Ryan’s kitchen before he invited one of the kids for lunch and left. Fernando returned to say he had been granted the visa to Kirgizstan and now needed to find out about booking a plane ticket to the Pamirs. He hadn’t eaten and I was already hungry, so we went to the F1 café and had a rather insipid meal there before proceeding to the travel agency I knew of near the supermarket, but it was closed.

We came back to the house to do some online research on Tajik Air, but nothing specific would come up. Ryan returned loaded with groceries and two of the kids and then there was no peace to be had as he set out to marinate beef chunks to make shish kebabs that evening. Eraj also showed up at the same time as he had been at the university trying to comply with all the requirements needed so he can do the additional year of studies that would confer a master’s degree on him. Ryan advised Fernando to go directly to the airport to obtain information about the flight for the next day as that was the fastest and surest way to do it and since the marshrutka to the airport stopped right in front of the apartment, very convenient to get there.

Eraj and I worked for a little bit on the PowerPoint presentation he needed to take to Germany and then it was time for me to get to the dressmaker who only had one dress out of three ready. At least, it was one of the atlases one and I could wear it to the wedding tomorrow evening. She promised to have the rest done by tomorrow afternoon, and if not, she’ll call Eraj to let him know. We proceeded to Megaphon which would not let me pay half of the amount for my unlimited connection to the Internet until July 15. Instead, I had to settle for another plan whereby I can only access the Internet between 12:00am and 8:00am for 50.00 somoni or about $12.00. That still beat having to pay $30.00 for the month when I won’t be able to use all of it. Eraj got me into a taxi so I could proceed to the embassy not before promising that if needed, he would accompany me on Monday at 5:00am to take the jeep to Khorog. The sun was hot enough to melt steel and the thermometer read 41C. The taxi had no A/C and the sun was facing me the whole time while the young driver maneuvered around trying to load up more passengers unsuccessfully.

Once at the embassy building, I ran into Nigina who was there with a group of friends to partake of the Fourth of July celebration the embassy was sponsoring complete with a band, the sale of hot dogs, hamburgers, cole slaw and potato salad along with cold drinks. Nancy and David were right behind me and I tried to catch up on the details of their trip to Khorog before I went searching for Shofoat as she was holding my passport with my travel permit for the Pamir region. There was a good crowd there in spite of the extreme heat and merciless sun and tables had been arranged under what normally served as a carport for embassy vehicles. I retrieved my passport and joined David and Nancy for a cold beer as I wasn’t hungry yet, and especially not hungry for that kind of food. They told me their trip had been a bust as the person who was to serve as their interpreter, and who works for the USAID, had refused to travel with them and they had had to find their way back to Dushanbe on their own. I couldn’t quite understand the reason behind that change in attitude as the place was really loud and it was hard to hold a conversation.

Sandy and her family joined our table a little while later and casually mentioned that I seemed to be the last person from our program left in Dushanbe and that based on what had transpired during our conversation after the mid-year conference in February, I was the last person she expected to be still standing there. I just nodded my head and said to myself: surprise, surprise. Nancy and David decided to share a taxi with me as I had made an appointment at 7:00 to have a pedicure done as my toes looked terrible. Rebecca came up from behind me to say hello and to show me she was wearing the Tibetan earring I had brought her from Kathmandu. She mentioned she had seen my postings on Facebook and I seemed to be everywhere these days.

I said goodbye to Nancy and David and made it to the salon ten minutes late, but Tahmina was waiting and diligently set out all her equipment to try and make my feet look somewhat decent. The beer was having its effect on me and I was practically dozing on and off while she ministered to my feet for the warm water and massage friction were inducing some sort of stupor on me. It took her over an hour to finish and I felt bad that she was working so late on a Saturday night, but she said she lived nearby and it wasn’t a problem.

I stopped at the store to buy toilet paper and got to the apartment courtyard to find out that Ryan was cooking the shish kebabs on coals arranged around three concrete blocks right on the ground in front of his window. He had arranged the traditional platters full of flat bread, fruit, salads and drinks on the makeshift tapchon and 5-6 kids were partaking of the meal in addition to Fernando whom I had failed to see in the darkness. I had considered having another bowl of muesli and going to bed, but they all insisted I had some of the meal, including the very chewy pieces of meat that had not softened despite Ryan’s assertion that soda and beer added to the its marinate would automatically make the meat tender.

Mosquitoes were beginning to eat at me and Fernando mentioned he had been beaten by some of them the night before while sleeping, so Ryan sprung to his feet, went inside and sprayed the bedroom with a foul-smelling substance that made me gag when I went in to bring my dishes. He promised the smell would be gone in 15 minutes and I’d be able to go to sleep undisturbed. He might be a doctor and all of that, but that smell was strong enough to send me into a coughing fit that had me in tears. I didn’t want to go back outside where more mosquitoes were waiting for me, but had Fernando turn on the A/C and after s suitable interval of time, and with the possibility of impairing my breathing apparatus, I went to sleep.

June 29, 2012

It had been a major mistake to eat approximately a quarter of a watermelon immediately before going to bed. I woke up at least four times with an urgent need to empty my bladder, and found out later on that both Nigora and Parvina had been in the same boat. I wasn’t even able to make it for breakfast on time as my body was so sluggish and I just didn’t feel like moving. I told them I’d meet them in the canteen later where I was served the rice pudding with hardly any sugar at all. I added both sugar and a pinch of salt and Firuza looked at my alarmed letting me know this porridge was supposed to be sweet and couldn’t understand my argument that there needed to be a little bit of salt in it to balance all the sugar. Fried eggs and a hot dog followed and I ate a bit of the eggs, took a group photo and went to my room to iron my dress for the ceremony.

According to the Google forecast, the morning would have been free from rain, and so Nigora arranged to have the ceremony outdoors as the classroom lacked any form of ventilation whatsoever. Parents had been arriving bringing with them tons of food and drinks, and the teachers were busy arranging the tables and directing the students to place balloons and other decorations at strategic places. Only a handful of male parents were present and no one from the local government showed up contrary to what Nigora had promised. Instead of starting at 10:00 as the agenda stated, the program began at 11:20 and ended two hours later. I was starving by then as I had been standing most of the time either having my photo taken with the students and their parents, signing “autographs” in their books or handing out the certificates, and of course, joining in the dancing when the program was over.

All the activities had gone on without a hitch from the reciting of poems, to the dancing of the hokey pokey, singing yet another rendition of “My heart will go on, playing the game “Can you help me”, telling jokes in English I couldn’t get, and a hilarious skit in Tajik that everyone seemed to enjoy. Students, teachers and parents expressed their gratitude to the U. S. embassy in Dushanbe for sponsoring the program fully aware that learning even a little bit of English would make a significant difference in their children’s lives.

We retired to dining room and had plov brought, by the parents from Shahriston, salad and more watermelon. Students started to say goodbye as some of them were departing with their parents, and then the tears started to flow as one group was graduating and moving on to college or other endeavors and this had been their last time to be all together. I was touched to hear that even the tough rapper in our group had shed tears when saying goodbye to what had become a tightly-knit group of teenagers who during one week a year could forget all about homework, farm chores and familial constraints and just enjoyed each other’s company.

I went to my room and a group of boys followed me there to tell me all of them wanted to go to the States and when I mentioned that the right program for them was the FLEX high school one, they told they had applied for it, but had been eliminated after the first round, the simple interview, because their English fluency was too low. As most of them are already 17, this possibility is barred for them and attending college in the States would be out of the questions as they couldn’t pass the TOEFL either. As sad as I felt for them, no computers, no Internet access, teachers that lack fluency themselves, there was little I could do. I had to shoo them out of my room so I could start packing. Nigora had invited to stay overnight at her house so I could attend a wedding party that same evening and had offered to take me to Dushanbe as she had yet another wedding there on Sunday. I was relieved to know I’d not have to find transportation back on my own.

The wedding in question was a dispiriting affair with mostly middle-age women conservatively dressed with head scarves and just a smattering of young men who were friends of the groom and who chose to sit in another room adjacent to the main where we were seated. The eight women at my table, some of whom I had met the previous Saturday, just sat there gossiping and eating the whole time. When the bridal party arrived from having had their photos taken all over town, the orchestra played while the bride continuously bowed from her stand never speaking, eating or drinking. We were served cold cuts, samosas, and then meatballs before Nigora informed me that instead of leaving for Dushanbe on Saturday, her husband and driver were ready to leave that minute. I couldn’t say no and we said goodbye to everyone at the table.

                                Friends of the groom dance in a spirited fashion in front of the couple.

                                                      Mistress of Ceremony

                          The bride keeps her head down and bows repeatedly the entire time showing respects for her guests.

                        Trumpet players rejoice as the couple enters the reception hall and take their seats.

                                                  The hair on this bride is 100% hers.

                                             Fancy canopy for the couple to walk through

                                 Area dedicated to the groom and bride and an attendant on each side.

The pass was dry and dusty this time and I could see the lights of cars and trucks as they started to make their ascend, and couldn’t believe that I had agreed to travel at night through such dangerous terrain, but then we were riding in a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser with a driver that Nigora swore was very experienced, and I had been given the front seat as Nigora and her husband wanted to ride together in the back. We got to Dushanbe at 1:30am and a sleepy Ryan opened the door for me after I had texted him about the change in plans. I was beyond exhausted as it had been one long day.