Two Months

October has come and gone, marked by visitors and cooling weather, and now I'm left wondering how two months could have passed already, since I think I wrote that it was one month only yesterday, and so how it could possibly be November.

The weather patterns are changing; it rained for the first time last week, and again on Sunday. I can tell that the air is more humid. When I was in Shahristan (high up in the mountains) two weeks ago the leaves were beginning to turn; when Sarah was there one week ago it snowed. Now in Khujand (in the valley) the leaves have fallen in droves. But it is still autumn: cold two weeks ago, and pleasantly warmer last week - a slight reprieve from the fall towards winter.

Our apartment is colder inside than the street outside in the sun. We have experimented with our heating systems: two wall-mounted AC/heating units we turn on in the evenings when we get home, an oil-filled radiator in the kitchen, and sweaters inside. We sleep under all of our blankets. I am taking inventory of what we should buy before winter truly sets in: more blankets, another space heater, another sweater, gloves.

I have added scarves to my daily wardrobe. I still wear sandals sometimes - but with socks. That is a perfectly acceptable fashion trend here. My flats are not much warmer, and I don't want to break out the boots yet, because I know I will be wearing them all winter.

In the bazaar, tomatoes that were 80 dirham or 1 somoni per kilo now cost 8 somoni. Apples and persimmons are the 1.5-2 somoni seasonal fruits. (I had never had a persimmon before, to the shock of some friends when they offered me a khorma. I didn't even know what the English word for it was, until I came home and asked Sarah, who grew up eating the fruit in the South.)

And in the midst of the changing seasons, there was some living. I was sick with a cold, and read A Song of Ice and Fire in bed. I cooked more. My Tajik is (hopefully) improving (very slowly). I have been teaching my classes at the American Corner, and am somewhat better at planning for them. I have gotten to know the American Corner coordinator better, and have been glad to have the chance to talk to her outside of work hours.

We had visitors. ETAs/Embassy friends from the south came for the first six days of the month. We got to play host, and show off our apartment, our work places and our city. We had three (or four) people sleeping in our beds and on the floor, and dinners and movies or parties in the apartment every night. After our friends came two different official embassy visitors, the Regional English Language Officer and an English Language Specialist. With each of them we went out to dinner and spent a lot of time talking about what it means to be an ETA/ELF. Two other visits from Embassy staff not directly related to our work said hello and brought gifts from Dushanbe and took us out to dinner.

And then there have been many dinners with other Khujand expats; some at the pizza restaurant and some in people's homes. There are a few new faces since September. Some short-term volunteers have come and already gone.

Almost every week I have travelled somewhere in Sugd: to Kairakkum and Istaravshan to help interview students for new English Access Programs, to Istaravshan for a concert sponsored by the Embassy, to Ghonchi and Shahristan with the English Language Specialist to help with teacher training (by teaching the students). When I went to Shahristan I spent the night with one of the Access Program teachers and got to meet her family, eat all of the many salads she prepared for me, and hear her very interesting life story. I hope to do more of this.

October brought news - a new tunnel opened that will make it faster to get to Dushanbe! - and so will November: the President will visit for an important anniversary. In the U.S., the election will come and go and then Thanksgiving. I will celebrate both by teaching about them, and hoping that when November has gone, I will feel that I have spent the time well.