Arrival in Tajikistan

Returning to Central Asia is every bit as exciting as I thought it would be. After several years away, it is so good to be back, and so exciting to experience the ways Tajikistan is unique. So far, I love it, although I have only really been in a small part of Dushanbe, going back and forth from class to the apartment where I stay with two other students.

Dushanbe is a small city, and where I live is near the center and therefore I suspect one of the nicest parts. It is hot during the day and very sunny, but where we stay there are a lot of trees so it is shady. The streets are full of people-women in the national dress , a brightly colored long dress worn over lose pants, young men wearing Western clothes and old men wearing traditional clothes, and children playing. Kids are all over, and the boys always seem to have a soccer game going in our courtyard. They also swim in the canals and drainage ditches (which always seemed kind of gross to me).

The food is delicious, and summer is the best time to be here with the abundance of fruits and vegetables. In my group, most of the people are terrified to eat the local food, which strikes me as funny since as far as I am concerned , stomach problems were just a necessary thing to get over. They won’t eat soup, drink tea and carefully consider each thing that they eat. I am not willing to live that way and am fine, while four other people have food poisoning. Figures. Of course, I am happiest about the produce, especially the fruits and really especially the melons. I went to the green bazaar once to stock up on fruit and vegetables and it was great. It’s full of dried fruit, nuts, fresh fruits and vegetables, and also so colorful and full of life and energy. I missed the bazaars so much and I didn’t even realize it!

The language classes I am taking are great. The morning starts with one hour of Tajik class, and then three hours of Farsi. Both the Tajik teacher, who is from Dushanbe, and the Farsi teacher, who is from Tehran, are amazing and even after a few days I can tell I am learning a lot. In the afternoon, both teachers offer private tutoring, which I take advantage of. I am spending a lot of time with the Tajik teacher since that is what I am actually interested in more than Farsi. Today we went to a real local restaurant out from the center and had soup and sambusa (like samsas) or meat-filled pastry. Then we went to a park and rode the ferris wheel which gave a great view of the snow-capped mountains that surround the city. The best part was that I was practicing Tajik the entire time, so hopefully despite the short length of the program I will make some progress. It was really great to get out of the center of the city too, which I think might get kind of boring after a while.

I have also met the neighbors in my apartment as well. This came about fairly quickly when the lock on our door broke with one of us locked inside and two others (myself included) locked outside. The neighbors became involved in the efforts to open the door, and finally after three hours the lock was broken out of the door and a new lock installed. Our next door neighbor had the two of us on the outside of the door for tea while this was going on. She is a Tajik woman who speaks no Tajik, only Russian, so I felt pretty useful. Her son, on the other hand, speaks perfect Tajik so this seems an example of the trend occurring in the country. Then, a few nights later, the neighbors upstairs invited us for dinner. They made plov or osh, the national rice dish that as so delicious, as well as fruit, candy, nuts, tea and so on. It was so much fun to speak with them. They seem much more religious and traditional than most of the people I knew in Kyrgyzstan-the girls left dinner to pray, and the men didn’t join us, not even the little boys. Of course, this doesn’t mean this is the case for everyone, but it seems much more prevalent.

I am disappointed I am not staying with a family but hopefully I will start to visit more people. It would be nice to get away from the center of Bishkek as well, where the really upper-class people seem to be concentrated.

I will try to update this at least weekly and I hope it was somewhat interesting. The first week has been a blur of impressions, and I’ve been fighting jetlag the whole time but this is a short recap of what I’ve seen and done so far.

Countdown!

Just a few more days, and I leave for Tajikistan! I will participate in a summer language program in Dushanbe, where I will study Farsi and Tajik. I am very excited, as this is my first long visit to Central Asia (I was in Kyrgystan for a few days in 2005), since the end of my Peace Corps service in 2004. I studied Central Asia in my MA program for the past two years, and focused on Tajikstan as much as possible. I also plan to focus on Tajikistan for my PhD in anthropology starting this fall. Now, finally, I'll see it for myself!