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.