Баҳор омад. Spring comes.

This past week was Tajikistan's most important national holiday, Navruz. It literally means "new day" but is the Persian New Year and marks the spring equinox. When I wrote this to my Grandmother, she replied,

The people over there certainly have the right idea – new year beginning in the spring.  How sensible.  

I have to agree.

It means almost a week off school for concerts and parties. Everyone wears national dress. There is much dancing. There is much poetry, much of which involves the phrase баҳор омад (bahor omad, spring comes).

Here, people are eager to say that it is an International holiday, which someone declared a few years ago, since today people celebrate Navruz in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, parts of China and probably elsewhere I am forgetting. Sarah and I were interviewed to discover our thoughts on Navruz as foreigners, but we didn't see the TV special when it aired. Several of our students and neighbors did, though, and some have approached me since to excitedly, "You speak Tajik!"

At the library, the celebration on the 20th included: a competition of who has the most beautiful table of food (scores could be augmented by poetry recitation), poetry recitation, dancing, a holiday tableau, the arrival of girl in white as "spring", who showed off the haft seen and haft sheen, a poetry contest, a humorous skit, displays of national dress, and speeches. I was encouraged to stand up and congratulate everyone on Navruz in Farsi and English, and later a representative from the Iranian embassy's ministry of culture presented me with a gift. It ended with everyone dancing as the women cleaned and put everything away.

Navruz (21st) in Khujand seemed to be an excuse for kids to run off and play with their friends. Two of the volunteers from the American Corner showed me around the crowded park, where people were selling shashlik every three yards. We went on the Ferris wheel, on a boat ride, and talked as we walked past everyone in their finest clothes.

Sarah and I missed the official Khujand celebration on the 22nd, because we were guest-ing in different parts of Sughd for the rest of the weekend. On the 21st we went to Mangit village in Ghonchi, where one of Sarah's students lives. He took us immediately taken to the village party and we danced. I chose the 11-year-old girls as my partners instead of the teenage boys. 

 

We stayed two nights, and went to many other family members' houses to be guests, which means introducing ourselves and drinking tea and eating food. Both nights included dance parties with all of the neighbor kids outside of the house. Sarah and I apologize for being poor representatives of our country when they put on a J-Lo song and told us to "dance American".

 

We also visited some women making сумалак (sumalak), the traditional Navruz dish. I was only told the story of sumalak the next day, but it is beautiful and goes something like this: Once, long ago, a widow had nothing to feed her children. The children cried to their mother that they were hungry, but she had nothing to give them. One night, the mother threw seven stones into a pot with wheat and some flour and fell asleep with despair. While she slept, thirty angels (see malak) came and stirred the pot. When she woke up in the morning, the woman tried the dish and found that it was delicious.

  

Now people make sumalak in the spring, when the shoots of wheat are young. It must be cooked from 12-24 hours, and women stay up all night, adding wood to the fire and water to the cauldron as they stir and sing to keep themselves awake. If you make a wish while stirring sumalak, it will come true. Sarah and I did not stay so long, but we visited for a little while.

Later that night, I got my hair braided in the traditional style: many little braids finished by cotton tassels at the end of each braid. It took less than two hours, and it is usual for everyone to ask how many braids you have. I ended up with 24 - traditionally one should have 40 braids.

The next day I went to Shahristan. The first night, instead of staying with an English teacher we know, I ended up being the excuse for five 16-year-old girls to have a sleepover. They giggled and talked all night and in the morning we all beautified ourselves with усма (usma). Now, to most Westerners, this is not beautiful. I have plucked my eyebrows at least since I was thirteen. But with usma, you draw your eyebrows thicker, darker, longer, and they are supposed to meet in the middle. It is a green plant that they make into a juice. You paint it on three times, letting it dry some between each application, and then you wash it off - gently! the girls told me, alarmed as I splashed my face.

There is also a story behind usma, which again I learned only after the fact: people believe that on judgment day, all of your body parts will be forced to tell their sins from your life. Your hands, for example, will say that you stole, and your eyes will say that you looked on something covetously. But if you put usma on your eyebrows, they will be so grateful for your care of them that they will lie for you, saying that they are above all and can see everything and that you did good deeds. In conservative villages where fathers will not allow their daughters cosmetics, usma is still encouraged (and some girls sneakily put it on their eyelids as well to simulate the makeup they're not allowed to wear).

My makeover was made complete with либоси мелли (lebosi melli), which literally translates as "national dress." When I mentioned that Sarah had an adras dress (made of this particular fabric and pattern) and I did not, they secretly went to the bazaar, bought some fabric, and brought one student's sister over to measure me "for no reason." In the morning, she arrived with the dress she had worked on all night and took no money for. It might be the most thoughtful gift I have ever received.

This was all for the Navruz celebration that the students had prepared in Shahristan, which involved everyone in national dress, poetry, songs, a skit, and more dancing. Sarah and I were forced to have a dance competition. We walked, played a game, and the reward when I won was that I had to dance for all of them.

 

Photo credit to Sarah and her iPhone.

When we stayed with the teacher that night many more people came to see us, but more exciting was that I finally learned how to make osh-e plov, the national dish of Tajikistan. In the morning we helped bake the bread in the tandur (outdoor oven).

Then we came home and still had a day and a half to sleep before the library opened again.  I tried to answer some emails. I showed my colleague how to make chocolate chip cookies. I welcomed spring.

This house believes that debate is a valuable teaching/learning tool.

I have spent most of my time and energy since January preparing Tajik students to debate in English. 

I must first admit that I used to be prejudiced against debaters. Though I enjoyed debates as a class activity - to learn about the creation of Israel, for example - I am generally conflict-adverse, and it seemed that debate emphasized conflict, and seemed to feature too much of that teenage-male certainty that they are right about everything.

I am glad to report that I have changed my views. I not only think that debate is a great tool to use in a classroom, but also in extracurricular practice and competition. In preparing my students - both school-age and university - I have realized that the tools of a good debater are important tools for success in other arenas as well.  When a friend and I gave a presentation about using debate during our conference in Nepal, we started by talking about the various reasons we chose to start debate clubs. 

Students first came in order to practice English speaking skills. They desperately want practice speaking in English and they don't get that in their school or university English classes. I have had the pleasure of seeing a few of my debaters turn from shy, stuttering speakers who could hardly continue for 30 seconds into confident first speakers who can present their ideas for 6 minutes (plus three minutes answering questions). Obviously this involves not only English language skills but also the art of public speaking. For one girl who would only look at the floor, I moved around an American flag so she would look up (even if not at our faces). The group I have been working with has a ways to go, but is much more confident. 

Debating is an accessible way to approach controversial subjects, and to practice critical thinking. In the words of the International Debate Education Association, whose website we plunder extensively for ideas, 

Debate is an essential tool for developing and maintaining democracy and open societies. More than a mere verbal or performance skill, debate embodies the ideals of reasoned argument, tolerance for diverging points of view, and rigorous self-examination.  

I have seen my patience rewarded as my students have slowly moved towards these ideals. Students don't often get a chance to express their own opinions in the educational system here. We have moved from circular, non-arguments like "it is good because it is the law" or "because it is" to actual arguments in defense of a position that they may not agree with. I banned the use of the phrases "right" and "wrong" in order to move towards logical reasoning. We worked through the ideas that you are not expressing your own opinions and it is not personal - it is about ideas, and how well they are expressed. I think some of them finally understood this in our first competition when a team with better English skills lost to one with much better arguments.  I have repeated many times that debate is about respect: respecting your opponents.

As someone who teaches writing it is also satisfying to see that those same debating skills are ones that students could apply to writing: a clear introduction, outline, evidence and examples, and conclusion. They must do research. They must plan ahead. These are also foreign skills for most of them, and I love to see that it is the same process of thinking that will serve them well in writing.

Now that we have prepared and participated in two tournaments [see many more photos from the first tournament and photos from the second tournament], it is also heart-warming to see the camaraderie and friendship that have built up between students of different ages. The winners of the first tournament were a woman in her mid-20s who graduated from university with a law degree, a fourth-year university student in telecommunications, and an 11th-grade boy. At the second tournament, I inadvertently become a matchmaker in putting together the members of one of the teams.

I enjoyed organizing the tournaments; I remembered that I like producing events, and my experience producing theater shows at Yale served me well.  But I still don't like conflict, and I don't like judging. I would much rather guide the preparation process. I care too much to be a passive audience member; I was tense watching my students and waiting to see who won (and I was a bit crushed when a group lost that I thought should have won). We were lucky enough to have guest judges who would be impartial. As Sarah pointed out, one of the coolest things about these competitions is that they were fair, as opposed to many competitions here, which everyone knows are rigged because of a relative or where you are from or some other factor. 

The students were extra-excited at the second competition because the winning debaters would get the opportunity to debate in Dushanbe. My Dushanbe counterpart has been organizing a National English-language Debate tournament there, and flurries of emails have been flying back and forth about every aspect of the tournament. It is finally happening this coming weekend, and Sarah and I will go with the debaters to help manage and judge the three-day tournament. 

Also exciting, but less tangible and looking less likely, is that we have the opportunity to send some high school students to the Asia Youth Forum, a two-week debate tournament/seminar for school students all over Asia, which is taking place in Kyrgyzstan this year, near Lake Issyk-kul. This would be an amazing opportunity to learn infinitely more than I could ever teach about debate and meet peers from dozens of countries. But the scholarship process has left us in the dark, and it is still unclear what will happen.

More than the competitions, though, training these students has given me the opportunity to spend more time with them. I have gotten to see them think and talk and worry and then go out to lunch with some of them and talk more outside of the confines of debate. I am excited to meet more debaters in Dushanbe this weekend, but for me this national tournament is less important than the work that we have already done in Khujand. I am proud of all of the debaters I have been working with.

More information about training a debate team and many sample debates at idebate.org.

Buzkashi and Links

Buzkashi literally means "goat (buz) - pulling (from kashidan)".  It is the Central Asian horseman's game, similar to polo but with the headless body of a sheep. There aren't many rules; the goal is to  get the goat in the pit at one end of the field. Only there are no field boundaries - spectators periodically must run out of the way of the galloping horses.

When I was in the Pamirs in 2011, I went to a sort of Buzkashi exhibition/practice in Murgab, the Kyrgyz area, with some other expats. A friend took some photos, and then later I was introduced to a professional photographer who has won international awards for his Buzkashi photos (he also happens to be a Yale grad). Check out his amazing photos at www.theodorekaye.com. (Going to his website again informs me that he has published a book with his photos and an essay.)

All rights reserved Theodore Kaye. From http://www.theodorekaye.com/buzkashi/#2

I went to my first real game a few weeks ago. It was in Aperlevka, near a gold mine where some Americans we know work. Men kept crowding around to talk to the foreigners. I acquired a bouncer who would field questions to me as we talked in Tajik, and then periodically remind the crowd, "The goat is that way! Watch the game, not these people!" Mostly, I think, so that he could talk to me himself, about how we should come next weekend to Adressman, his town, which is much more beautiful and less dusty. He also informed me that almost everyone at this game was Uzbek. Buzkashi is is mostly/traditionally played in southern Tajikistan, but Kyrgyz and Uzbek (countries to the north) also play, so there are games in Sughd, but few of the players are Tajik. (I apologize if that is confusing, but that is life in these squiggly border areas where nationalities and ethnicities are thoroughly mixed.)

Below is a less-professional but more local video that one of the geologists made of his photos from Aperlevka (comments and discussion near the end are not necessarily condoned by me). The video was from the weekend before I went.

A short film made in Kabul was nominated for an Oscar this year (the two young stars were flown to Hollywood and went to Disneyland - what an impression of America!). I have not seen it but want to.

A documentary made about Buzkashi players in southern Tajikistan:

The other week for a movie night we watched the 1971 movie The Horsemen, starring Omar Sharif, set  and filmed in Afghanistan, and featuring an extended Buzkashi segment near the beginning. Apparently it can be viewed in full on YouTube.

A Five-Paragraph Essay in Response to the Question I am Asked Everywhere in Tajikistan

Dedicated to the people I am teaching to write essays. (Universities here focus on translation and oral exams rather than writing, so thesis statements and topic sentences are mostly new ideas.) 

Whether in a taxi or at a university, whenever I meet people in Tajikistan, they are invariably eager to ask questions. Most have never met an American in person, and want to find out whether their ideas about America are correct, and what my corresponding ideas about Tajikistan are. They are particularly excited that I can speak Tajik, although at times the conversation gets confusing when I do not understand what they have asked, and instead answer from my mental list of expected queries. These interactions, I sometimes think, are more important than my formal teaching here. So this is my response to the most important question: yes, I do like Tajikistan, because of the great natural beauty, the hospitable people, and the opportunities to learn.

Outline, on ХГУ notepaper.

My first impression of Tajikistan was from photos of the mountains and rivers, and I thought that it was beautiful and that I wanted to go. Since arriving in the summer of 2011 and again in the fall of 2012, those pictures have been surpassed by my own awe at the 93% mountainous country, both in Badakhshan and in Sughd. I admire the peaks of the mountains that frame Khujand, as well as the valley's water features: the Syr Darya ("Secret River") and the Kairakkum Reservoir (the "Tajik Sea"). I cannot wait for the spring, when the mountains will spring up in green and the trees will blossom. The fruits of those flowers are sweet, juicy, and endless: apricots, peaches, figs, mulberries, apples, pears, pomegranates, persimmons, and more. These delicious fruits take over my kitchen and fill my stomach in many forms. Whether in tasting or viewing, in Khujand or Khorog, the natural wonders of Tajikistan make every short trip a chance to see and taste something amazing.

Not only is Tajikistan's nature worth experiencing, but also the kindness and generosity of its people. Tajik people treat me not as a foreigner, but as a guest. The questions about my well-being are underscored by concern that I have been treated as a guest ought to be. "Come to my house for tea," they say. "I will make you plov." "Thank you, thank you," I reply, and even though I do not go to most of those houses, it is the earnest offer that is special. Every culture has a parable about welcoming guests, but Tajik culture fulfills this universal value in a way that is not universal. In America we are taught to think about our own grades, our own profession, our own close circle. Tajik culture teaches people to be more generous, and to spread that care beyond yourself to others, whether as a host or as a guest. This teaches me to think more about others, and also makes my time here so pleasant, since everyone is always eager to welcome me. 

Draft, with edits.

The people in Tajikistan welcome me enthusiastically, and also make every interaction a source of new information about history, culture, or language. I talk with people around a dastarkhan and they tell me about the three-day invasion of Khujand just after the Civil War. I teach an English class about Halloween and trick-or-treating in America, and I learn about Navruz and boichechak. I think that "archa" means "New Year's Tree," and then I learn from following a six-year-old around a park that it actually means "evergreen." Though I can read about history, culture and the Tajik language in books, it is through meeting people that I learn. 

My experience in Tajikistan is the sum of more than learning, people, and nature, but together they provide a good beginning to answer what I most appreciate about this place. And once I have begun, they can continue: "Do you like plov?" "Are you married?" "I will find you a Tajik husband." "What is your work?" I reply with invitations to the American Corner and my own questions: "How many children do you have?" "When did he leave for Russia?" "What is that called?".  The conversation ends with one or both of the pleasantries that do not mean goodbye, exactly, but well wishing. The first is хуш омадед (khosh omaded), which literally means "(your) good coming,"and is translated in dictionaries as "welcome," though they say it both when you arrive and when you leave. The other is саломат бошед (salomat boshed), which means "be healthy," and is added at the end of any store interaction or conversation. So: хуш омадед, саломат бошед. 

Five Months

On Sunday I submitted my Mid-Year Report, which is required of all Fulbright grantees half-way through their grant period. Which means that it has been five months since I landed in Dushanbe, and now there are less than five months left. All of a sudden, ten months seems not long at all, and I realize that I will soon be one of the Sharons and Davids that people here remember coming and leaving. 

Marking January 1st - while fun - was not as meaningful to me. I still measure my life in school years. If I am to measure by calendar year, then I should be reflecting on all of 2012: writing my senior essay and hanging out in our common room and graduating and the Cove and Tajikistan. It is a colorful and exciting collage, but not a cohesive whole. Rather than making New Year's Resolutions, I have made Fulbright Resolutions, or perhaps Fulbright Realizations: what I have realized since August 20, and what I plan to realize by June 13, when I fly back to the U.S.  

My Fulbright Renewals are the result not only of realizing I am half-way, but also the result of returning after a month of traveling. First to Nepal, then return-trip detour to Almaty, then back in Khujand for a week of winter, then to Italy, where I met my family and celebrated Christmas. I arrived again in Dushanbe on New Year's Eve and came back to Khujand three days later when my baggage arrived. 

I was met at the American Corner by a flurry of students finishing their applications for the Global UGrad progam. I was swept into essay-reading and turning away reference requests. In the three weeks since, I have made myself much busier than I was September-November. I now have morning classes, instead of lazy planning sessions. One is my new series of TOEFL preparation trainings (the American Corner as a Public Organization is not legally qualified to teach 'classes,' only provide 'trainings'). That involved a sign-up, a test to scare people away, and fighting away late-comers. I also have a "Reading Club" (read-aloud time) and a Hunger Games book club. I am teaching an advanced writing workshop (we are working on essays, starting with a biography - think middle school). I am trying to start a competitive debate club, rather than my open-to-all debate/ activity/ discussions. I have had extra classes with visiting groups of 30 kids each from two different nearby towns. I have put a lot of time into thinking about how to teach about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the inauguration.

I have benefited from taking to heart another ETA's self-identification as an after-school programmer rather than a teacher. Extracurricular is a better word: you cannot be 'after school' if there is no school. The government declared there would be no school in January this year because it was supposed to be too cold to heat classrooms - something that does not happen every year, but did happen last year. University students are either in exams or on break. The American Corner is crowded. 

This means I come home more tired and stay up late planning - but now I have real coffee to help me get up in the mornings. And when I am teaching, I am moving and thus warmer than sitting in one place. 

January has been milder than (the one week I saw of) December, but it is still cold. My winter wardrobe includes a scarf every day - worn tied behind my head with the ends hanging - plus leggings, pants, turtleneck, sweater, coat, gloves. All of those are worn inside as well as outside. It used to include black boots, but the heel broke and I haven't had time to take it to the cobblers at the bazaar (they fixed both zippers on the same boots for 5 somoni). 

Our water is not the most reliable: pipes have frozen twice, and the pump stopped working once, but now it just ebbs and flows throughout the day so sometimes we have to turn on the pump to get any warm water or even to get enough to wash the dishes. 

I eat a lot of soup. I made some delicious braised cabbage this week. I try to remember to get vitamins somehow, even though vegetable selection is sparse and I forget about the fruit when it is not shoved at me (apples are now 7 somoni a kilo instead of 1 somoni/free in buckets in the fall). I drink a lot of honey-and-lemon. Lemons here are large and sweet and more lemon-y. 

More plans to realize: See a game of buzkashi. Celebrate Navruz exuberantly. Go hiking. Use my binoculars and my new Guide to the Birds of Central Asia. Try to learn more Tajik music. Actually study Tajik vocab. Spend more time with people. 

The hardest questions for me to answer in my mid-year report were in the "Cultural and Social Adjustment" section. 

1. What were your strategies for getting acquainted with the people and the culture? 
2. What kind of changes did you make in order to adjust to the local culture?  

"Were," "did;" do they mean that my adjusting is all in the past? I am comfortable here, and I think I often know what to expect, so in that sense, yes. But while I might be "adjusted," I am merely "acquainted" with people and culture, and I agree - I do not feel that I know much of anything. I ended up answering in the past tense what I was really meant as directions to my future self for the rest of my time: Be available and present with people.  Listen more than I talk. Work on figuring out when and how to hang out with people. Continue trying to figure out everything.

Mice

Mice are usually good at hiding, and yet recently they have been scurrying their way into my life. Not live ones, luckily; though I do think they can be cute, I had most of my sympathy driven out of my vegetarian heart when part of my job at summer camp was to be "Mousketeer" and set traps to catch the rodents that ate holes in our clothes and threatened the kitchen. I do not welcome them inside, and our apartment here has proven rodent-proof. That does not mean that my heart is hardened to fictional mice.

I have started a new "Reading Club" at the American Corner: I inherited one when I first arrived that became frustrating, since I had to figure out what to read and how much to print since new people would come every time and I wouldn't know how many and what level they would be. So I canceled it, since that is the wonderful prerogative of my position. But at the conference in Nepal, our main presenter emphasized that she believes that reading aloud helps students at all levels. New research supports reading aloud to ESL/EFL students because they can listen to correct pronunciation, not worry about comprehending every word, and understand more than when they try to read aloud themselves (I know I experience this: when I read aloud in a foreign language, I focus on words and my brain cannot also focus on meaning; I have to either read it quietly before or after). I seized upon this suggestion, and decided it could stand on its own. Read-aloud story time in libraries is a time-honored American Library Tradition. And the American Corner is in a Library. And we are all about teaching American Traditions. Most importantly, I really enjoy reading aloud.

I looked through our collection of lower-level books, and considered something like Old Yeller or Sarah Plain and Tall, but settled on The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. It is a recent children's classic and winner of the Newbery Medal in 2004. I was a little older than its target demographic when it was published, but my mother bought it for my younger brother, and I was taken by the hardcover's soft-pastel drawing and the pages' deckled edges, and quickly swallowed the story of the mouse who falls in love with a human princess. I didn't really remember the plot when I picked it off the shelf at the American Corner for consideration, but its fate was sealed when I found a PDF teachers' guide that advertised using it in a class for ESL students, as well as parents' reviews that said it seemed to be written as a read-aloud novel. Participants at the American Corner have now learned the words "scurry" and "despair." [If you would like to learn a new word, mouse in Tajiki is муш (mush), which is comfortingly close to English, but a bit cuter-sounding.] They are still figuring out the graphic organizers I have given them (they didn't seem to want to draw). But I am excited to reach the second section next week, when we learn that the king has banished soup from the kingdom due to a series of events involving a rat. There is true despair in the kingdom over this - and there would be here, too, because soup is an important staple of the Tajik diet (I know a Tajik girl who went to the U.S. for university and wrote home asking for soup recipes to make in the dorm kitchen because she was homesick for soup and couldn't find any).

I took several books from the shelves of the American Corner; one night I read The Tale of Desperaux in bed, and the next I read Maus, Art Spiegelman's graphic novel about the Holocaust. Both have careful illustrations, but the latter took my breath away from darkness rather than light. I had always wanted to read it and was recently reminded of its existence when the ELF in Almaty told me she is using it in her university English classes. So it caught my eye when I saw it here. We have a fairly random collection of books that are mostly too advanced or too specialized for most of the people who come to the American Corner, like 400-page biographies of Benjamin Franklin, or to a book by Julia Alvarez co-written with her husband Bill Eichner. 

But this week Christmas came in the form of hundreds of new books - from Scholastic! It was like book orders in middle school, only many times better - and many times heavier. Several people waited for the truck on Monday, but by the time it arrived there were only five of us left, and it took over two hours to carry all of the them up to the fourth floor of the library in the dark. I carried books, and the boys paired off to carry the new shelves and tables. We still don't exactly know what's in all of the boxes, since the embassy ordered them, but we understand that they are easy books more appropriate for people just learning English, and I cannot wait to find out (maybe Stuart Little is there?). We have managed to investigate the one large box of DVDs, which included many good movies, but I was most excited about An American Tail.

Sarah and I have been talking about showing this movie since September, when we realized that it would be a great way to discuss what it means to be an immigrant and temper the mania for visa requests. It is about the trials of a Jewish-Russian immigrant family to New York in 1885, from getting separated from family to being swindled by rats who take advantage of recent arrivals. And, yes, these characters are also mice. (Wikipedia informed me that Art Spiegelman thought director Stephen Spielberg plagiarized his idea, but decided not to sue.) Before arriving, the family is certain that "There are no cats in America/ and the streets are paved with cheese!", but, of course, there are cats in America. Spielberg makes our hero Fievel Mousekewitz heart-breakingly cute, especially when he and his sister sing "Somewhere Out There." Previewing the movie at home, I was surprised to realize what a little kid Fievel is; I remembered him as my age - which shows that I last watched it when I was about 8. When I showed it yesterday people weren't ready to talk about it, but they did say they enjoyed it - and they stayed until the end, which often doesn't happen when we show movies. 

I went home with another one of the new DVDs, since I have a cold and needed something to curl up with alongside my honey-and-lemon 'tea'. It shockingly doesn't feature mice: You've Got Mail instead has everything comforting that doesn't require thought: bookstores, Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, and a happy ending.

Mouse update 26 Jan: To keep the theme going, during our Burns Night I read his "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785." I love the image of the him stooping to talk to the mouse - though we also speculated that perhaps his tendency to stop and write a poem instead of continuing to plough his field might have contributed to his failure as a farmer.

Notes about Nepal

Nepal was amazing. My overall impressions were "Color!" and "So Many People! (including Tourists!)" I have never been to South Asia, and this was a fascinating introduction. 

I was skeptical before we went:excited to go (on the State Department's dollars), but also confused about what we were going to be conferring about and how it could help us. In the end, it was mostly an opportunity to talk with our compatriots in other countries. 

Hike on our third day: from Telkot to Changu Narayan.

We were technically attending the "Fulbright South and Central Asia Regional English Teaching Assistant Enrichment Seminar." It involved not only the ETAs, but also teachers leading sessions on teaching skills and tools, some of which were very helpful (I was inspired by an energetic and wily older British woman who has been an English teacher in Nepal for over 30 years; one potential future self).

The Tajik ETAs strike a Lenin pose in front of a view on the hike.

We spent all week talking about our teaching experiences - the difficulties - and bragging about our host countries - why you should come visit us. For some it was a mental health break from hard posts. For us, it was an exciting window into other cultures. In the words of one of my colleagues (sorry, a common word here): it was a good kick in the butt. Though our experiences are so different in different countries, so many of the other ETAs were inspiring, or at least exciting to get to know. 

One of our teaching sessions with a Senior ELF in the courtyard of our hotel.

There were 40 of us: we four from Tajikistan, two each from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and then eight from our Nepali host country, four from Bangladesh, five from Sri Lanka, and fifteen from India. We were all together during our Pre-Departure Orientation in Austin last June, but we were also grouped with Sub-Saharan Africa, and countries tended to flock together, so I don't remember meeting anyone in the India group. We are all at different stages in our grants: the India group left the U.S. two days after our Austin meeting, while the Bangladesh group haven't even started teaching yet. Even more diverse are our teaching placements: Tajikistan is the only country where ETAs are not placed in schools. Elsewhere in Central Asia, they are in universities as well as American Corners. In India and Nepal, they are placed in elementary school classrooms, often with classes of 50-70 kids, dealing with first-graders and 10th-graders. So our teaching challenges are very different. But sharing was still worthwhile. 

Areebah and I gave a presentation on Debate in Tajikistan. Others 
presented on different classroom techniques and challenges.

We felt a responsibility to let the rest of the conference know that Tajikistan exists. We started our presentation acknowledging that no one in America knows it exists.  I also put forward a (fragile) hypothesis that we are the fulcrum of cultures that makes sense of South and Central Asia together. We are closer to the rest of Central Asia and the post-Soviet culture, but the Persian language and culture connect us to South Asia and via language (Urdu is heavily influenced by Persian) and visual culture (i.e. clothing: Tajik kurta and izor are similar to shalwar kameez).

Tajikistan group presentation with the slide showing the above link.

The conference was technically only four days: Monday-Thursday. We were supposed to arrive Sunday and leave Friday. But, of course, there are not many flights from Central Asia, so we had to arrive Saturday (which meant leaving Dushanbe Friday, which meant leaving Khujand Wednesday night to make sure I arrived in time). Then we wanted to spend extra time, as long as we were flying such a long way, so I stayed until Sunday, and the other Tajikistan ETAs decided to stay until the next Wednesday. [In the end I arrived back at the same time as the others, due to my travel glitch.]

A Nepali (Buddhist?) traditional parting gift during our closing ceremony.

The four Tajikistan ETAs.

It was also a luxurious vacation: I had real coffee most days, and there was WiFi available for friends with smart phones. Food was made for us. We talked furiously the whole time in real, fluent English. I went to a movie theater, where I saw Life of Pi in 3D (and it was amazing) (and in English). I spent money on souvenirs in Thamel, the shopping area fiendishly cheap and enticing. An area I actually wanted to shop: scarves, warm woolen things (pashmina, cashmere), and handmade paper goods (stationary! journals!). I got to see tourist sites and learn about cultures I know nothing about. I learned about Hinduism and Buddhism - or just the hints at how little I know, and how little of the temple iconography I understood. 

Holiday Card photo at Bhaktapur.

The photos are mostly from our more touristy excursions: Boudhananth, a Buddhist stuppa where I couldn't stop myself buying two thanka (Buddhist paintings), Pashupati, where Hindus burn their dead, and Bhaktapour, an old city nearby filled with temples. Areebah and I also went on a plane flight and saw Everest. I could say more about all of them, but this is already too long - I recommend going yourself.

Boudhananth stuppa.

At the thanka workshop next to Boudhananth.

At Swayambunath when it got cold, with a new scarf.

At Swayambunath.

View from the plane. Everest is the pyramid-shaped peak in the back-right. What was amazing was not so much Everest as the many mountains that are nearly as tall, and the many peaks down below the clouds.

Everest is the pyramid-shaped peak in the back-center. Apparently these flights don't have the best safety records, but we just had to do it.

Because if you didn't get a certificate, then it didn't happen. This is something we see a lot here, so Areebah and I laughed to be given certificates after our 6 a.m. flight. (Yes, it is "Yeti Airlines".)

[More photos of Nepal from my friends are on Facebook, since I am bad at remembering to take photos]