Summertime and the livin is easy

The summer solstice may not be until June, but as far as I'm concerned, summer has come. The first fruit has come, syrupy sweet: strawberries first, which became bars and two strawberry rhubarb pies in one week, followed by cherries and almost, now, apricots.

The trees along the street produce a sickeningly sweet pollen. Among those trees are too many swallows to count. Along the roadsides I spy gorgeous Rollers in all their blue and rufous glory. There are dragonflies and butterflies winging along the river.

Poppies began spreading along the roads and into the fields in April.

Outside the library.

On May 1st, roses have erupted everywhere, and they have been multiplying in a fury ever since. "Rose" in Tajik is " садбарг (sad barg)," which literally means "100 petals." A row of men sell flowers under a САДБАРГ sign every day of the year, while a restaurant behind them takes the same name, and is one of the nicest places to sit outside with an ice cream under their willow trees. 

From our kitchen window.

Ice cream is part of my daily diet. 

In America we mark the beginning of summer with Memorial Day. Here, we began May with two holidays from the Soviet era: 1 May (Labor Day) and 9 May (Victory Day). Regardless of the holidays' purpose, our celebrations were pure summer.

May 9 involved a long hike in a village. Students kept asking me why I was looking at the sky (wishing I had binoculars to look at the hawks).  I stopped and took photos of flowers, and this grasshopper, but didn't get a photo of my first Tajik toad.

I spent both days the following weekend having picnics. Sarah and I taught schoolchildren to pay modified American Football in the Botanical Garden on Saturday, and then on Sunday a group of students from the American Corner kept trying to teach me how to throw a football correctly during our daylong excursion by the river away from the city (I tried to tell them that I have been a failure at this my whole life in America, but that did not deter them from trying). 

Explaining the rules of our game

Botanical Garden Picnic.

I wear sandals every day. Sometimes I wear sunglasses. When on a picnic or kayaking, I wear a hat.

It may not be high summer - there is not yet mellon, and I can't say that "the cotton is high" - but all of these things unequivocally mean summer to me. 

Walking to the river near Палос (Palos). 

Playing Hearts by the river as the wind picked up.

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.

Winter Wonderland

It is so nice to be home in Khujand. I realized when I arrived that I had missed it. It is so nice to know where things are, and to know what people are saying. It has become true winter. It snowed this week. The library put out carpets along the granite walkway so people don't slip. The supermarket also put carpet on its steps - and I had to step around a stray dog who realized that that was the warmest place he could be. Khujand's winter wind has arrived with it: last Sunday it was "12F, feels like -6F." I am in more layers than I wore in Almaty.

Sorry for not specifying earlier, but the travel home from Kazakhstan was eventually successful. It was not certain: after missing the flight Tuesday, I went to the very helpful men in the USAID travel section, who told me that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was closed on Wednesday and 'they often take five days to process visas, so you need to be prepared to not make your flight on Friday'. But I did. Of all the potential answers to "everything happens for a reason," the most compelling is that I was meant to arrive in Dushanbe with all of my fellow ETAs. And then I hopped straight onto the plane to Khujand, and spent a very pleasant flight talking to a new friend who even drove me home to our apartment.

Once home, though I was happy about snow, our apartment building was not happy about the cold: we were without water for three days, and the eventual solution involved breaking into the empty apartment next door with a crowbar and holding a hairdryer against the dusty pipes until the water unfroze. Now we are supposed to keep a constant drip of running water to prevent re-freezing (I'm sorry, Burgundy!).

But we could stay warm with my souvenirs and gifts from Kathmandu: scarves for Sarah and Madina, and wool throw blankets for the apartment, which became a stylish shawl when worn to the American Corner. I gave a presentation about Nepal, showing them thankas and rupees and prayer flags. They were excited to hear, and I was excited to be back at the American Corner and to share.

My TOEFL students are my favorite (don't tell), because I actually see them regularly and have gotten to know them. Our last class was on Wednesday, and I had prepared surveys for them to fill out, printed out certificates (with out new color printer!), and made brownies. I was utterly surprised when they had a present for me. It was so sweet, and they were all so earnest in their thanks. They wanted me to know that they appreciated the class, but also that they were thinking of me since I was far from my family for the holidays. The present was one of the decorated cardboard New Year's boxes that they sell in the grocery, with chocolate inside (I think I talk too much about how I like chocolate). Only when I got home did I see their note, written on a 3D Christmas tree card.

Well, not Christmas tree - New Year's tree (in Tajik, archa). I had no idea how much Russian New Year's celebrations and decorations have become part of the Tajik December. In the middle of Lenin street there is a huge tree, which is lit up at night, and a stage behind where there are now concerts every day at 2 p.m. We foreigners see Santa faces on the tree, and tinsel and other Christmas decorations in the bazaar. They see a New Year tree and "Boboi Barfi" (Father Snow).

The courtyard between the mosque and Panjshanbe bazaar currently features a large New Year's tree and several Father Frosts willing to take a photo with you. 

Either way, 'tis the season. The week has been full of talking and dinners: at the Grand Hotel with Embassy visitors, in our kitchen with a neighbor bringing coffee and at a friend's apartment with pasta, tea and decorations. I downloaded albums from my two favorite singers of Christmas songs: Michael Bublé and Nat King Cole. They've been on repeat as I drink Seattle's Best Coffee from our new drip coffee maker.

Although it's been said, many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you.

Three Months

November was a month full of events: the election, International Education Week, Thanksgiving, the President's visit (library closed), and Flag Day (concert beginning early Saturday morning and flags everywhere). The government blocked Facebook this past Monday (which made some American news sites; the article on RFE/RL includes a great picture of Zuckerburg (photoshopped?) which Tajiks have been sharing even though the site is still blocked).

In my third month, I have noticed things that I didn't notice before. If my first month was finding my way around and noticing everything new - more like travelling - and my second month settling in - becoming totally accustomed to plov and shashlik and the bazaar and questions about marriage - in my third month I started noticing the little things that I didn't have mental space to notice before, or didn't manage to see: that the nighttime lights on the main street are the colors of the Tajik flag (they are not constantly red and green for Christmas), that our apartment has one flight of 6 steps, then four flights of 9 steps; and that every woman wears a scarf differently.

A rumol is the headscarf that most Tajik women wear. I had noticed the general pattern before: that in the villages, every woman wears one of the headscarves, often brightly colored, tied not unlike a bandana, and that it is less common in the cities. It is not the same as hijab, since it does not cover all of your hair: not so much religious as cultural (and practical if cooking or picking cotton). But only now have I noticed how unique every woman's scarf-tying is: most tie a sort of knot around a bun at the back of the neck, some leaving the ends hanging down their back; some tie the ends back up around the head like a headband; some wrap the ends around their neck; some let the hair hang out the back like a ponytail. Then there are the Russian-style women who tie more like we would a bandana; then the look we associate more with the Middle East of a scarf wrapped over the head and around the shoulder (also associated with women in a convertible), then the old women who drape a large white shawl over their heads and fasten under the chin. Some women do wear hijab: also fastened in an endless variety of ways, but with the tight under-scarf cap that covers all the hair, and careful pins to keep the scarf secure. Their scarves are more often the silk (or fake-silk). Rumol are more often cotton or rougher material. I only started noticing the various permutations when I tried to wear a rumol for the first time. I wanted to wear something on my head, as it has gotten cold.

It is cold, but I am told that it is not yet winter; the wind has not come. Nonetheless, I am in boots every day - usually the black, heeled, fleece-lined boots I bought at Somon Bazaar (who would have thought that Tajikistan is where I would learn to wear heels?), sometimes the brown snow boots I brought from home. My coat is my constant companion, and I love its double layers dearly - though I am also beginning to admire the ankle-length, heavy coats that women here wear. A friend helped me buy a pair of leather gloves, since I forgot to pack something for my hands (50 c instead of 75 because he knew the salesperson). In our apartment we have two air heaters mounted on the walls, and Sarah and I have acquired two more oil heaters; we love them (as you can see in this picture that Sarah took of me the other day). Our beds are the warmest places. 

The American Corner is also warm; I enjoyed my presentations for various events this month, and I have come to love my TOEFL class. Not only my students, who are wonderful, but also figuring out how to teach the class. I felt more comfortable teaching, even as I also felt that at times I burrowed under my covers to sleep. There is always more to do. I think I will change my schedule again after the opportunity to talk to other ETAs in December. I look forward to a cold few months, but also the comfort of a home and increasingly meaningful relationships here. And before the real winter, an exciting December of travel, and the surprisingly strange feeling of leaving Tajikistan (and Khujand) for a little while to do so. 

фол. Fortune.

This woman sits near Panjshanbe Bazaar on busy days calling out that she has fortunes. I was curious about her and her bird, but I did not stop until I was showing visiting friends around the city.

When you stop, she asks your name, and whispers it to the bird. She recites something as she holds the bird over the bundle of fortunes and it picks at a couple before choosing one for you. The bird chose several for me; the woman told me that was lucky. One somoni per fortune. I demurred and took only one.

I went back later to ask if I could take her picture, now that I am slightly less shy of my camera.  Of course I got another fortune. I asked her bird's name and she smiled.

My fortune:
Бахт шарику хамрохи шумост. Дар тичоратмуваффак мешавед. Корхои шахсиатон барор мегирад.

Шумо мехохед оиладор гардед, бахтатонро бо дустоштаатон бинед маданиятатонро аз даст надихед. Накшахоятон амали мегардад. хушбахт мешавед.

Luck is your partner. You will succeed in trade/commerce.  You will be successful in your personal work. 

You want to get married, You will see your luck with your love. Do not lose your culture. You will be lucky. 

She is far from the first person here to tell me that I want to get married, but is the first to mention going into business. With my experience driving the Astro van I think I could become a great mashrutkeh driver....


[N.B. a 'mashrutkeh' is public transportation: these vans have routes in the city and serve as taxi/bus. Usually 1 somoni per ride, or more depending on the distance. People often get packed in as tight as they can fit.]

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.

Abraham's Stars; or Many Holiday Thoughts

Friday was Eid-i Qurbon (Иди Қурбон), known elsewhere in the Muslim world as Eid al-Adha (adha and qurbon are both Arabic words for sacrifice, the later used in the Persian world). Somehow amongst all of the times I have heard and read about Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, the second great festival of Islam escaped my notice. Tajikistan has helped me rectify that omission, by hearing about Eid-i Qurbon from Tajik friends, and reading about it, and experiencing it. Like the holiday, this blog post encompasses too much: celebration, language, giving, religion, contradictions, traditions, vacation and family.

I asked the American Corner Coordinator, Madina, to explain it to me. She explained that it is the "Feast of Sacrifice," celebrating Abraham's near sacrifice of his son, and thus passing his test of faith. It is the end of the Muslim year, and the time when people go on Hajj to Mecca. The festival always two months after Ramadan, and so cycles about eleven days earlier each year. Some people fast for ten days before Eid-i Qurbon. During the holiday, people spend time with their families, and visit older relatives. Those who are able should sacrifice a sheep, and share the meat with family, friends, and those less fortunate.

When a thirteen-year-old on student said "Congratulations on our holiday!" Thursday morning, I explained that though "Eid-e mubarak" does translate "congratulations," that's not usually what we say in English. We like to say "Happy [insert holiday]," or "Have a good holiday." Imagine my delight when I learned later in the day that many people say "Иди нагз гозарид (Eid-i nagz gozareed)," which translates almost exactly to "Have a good holiday."

On Thursday afternoon, I spent time with some American Corner volunteers taking food to families in need. One of the volunteers had been inspired to put out a donation box earlier in the week, and on Thursday the money was collected and taken to the grocery. They came back with flour, rice, buckwheat (grechka), sugar, oil, black tea, soap and shampoo. We grabbed at the items hastily to put together fourteen bags in the road behind the taxi so we wouldn't have to lug the food to the Corner on the fourth floor. Five of us piled into the taxi to look for the homes on the list that the mosque had provided. The others joined us later via mashrutkeh and walking. As we walked to a house, we played the "What is this in English/Tajik?" game ("Sunflower" is офтобпараст - oftobparast - lit. sun-worshipper, which is delightfully similar. We spent ages as they tried to explain to me a small bird is in the hopes I would know the English name.). The experience was entirely similar to Thanksgiving and Christmas volunteering run by schools and churches at home.

I first heard Abraham's story at church when I was young: God tested Abraham's faith, asking him to sacrifice his son. Abraham was ready to cut Isaac's neck when an angel appeared to stop him and he sacrificed a ram instead. Since he has passed the test, God made a covenant with Abraham: he would have as many descendents as stars in the sky.

When I heard the story in church it was mostly upsetting ("Mom, would you kill me if God asked you to?" The answer better be 'no'). Of course that is exactly why it is a powerful illustration of faith.

But I got a very different reading junior year in a seminar entitled "Bible as Literature" with an inscrutable old professor named Leslie Brisman. It was a secular class based in the English department, and involved comparing different translations and discussing the text in relation to the documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch (four different authors). Brisman delighted in surprising us with literary analysis, and I particularly remember his explication of Genesis 22. If there are different authors, one intends the story's moral much as I first understood it: God sends his angel to stay Abraham's hand. Another reading - if verses 11 and 12 are excluded - is that an angel did not appear, but the ram did, and Abraham took advantage of its presence to sacrificed it instead of his son. The moral of this story is not blind obedience but ingenuity and problem-solving in the face of a difficult task; can he obey to the extent that is reasonable, and figure out when not to obey.

I was interested to read (a translation of) the passage in the Koran. I had heard that it is Ishmael who is nearly killed, not Isaac, but figured the message is the same. There is an interesting twist, though: Abraham actually asks his son whether he is willing to die. Ishmael agrees, which is seen as a sign of his own faith and maturity. The faith of both father and son is important. This is in contrast to Genesis' Isaac, who seems to be ignorant of what is going on, though smart enough to catch on to the fact that something is not quite right since he notices that there is no sheep as they are headed to the sacrifice. Abraham basically lies and tells him not to worry about it. Both versions of Abraham show him as a father to one boy - in one personal and emotional moment. This is more relatable than Abraham, Father of Three Religions. The scripture gives a story which is then layered and refracted through the rituals of Hajj and Abraham's vast legacy; this is a time to celebrate.

I experienced the celebration on Friday mostly as a holiday in the British sense; no work or school. The streets were quiet without the gangs of black-and-white-uniformed children. Somon bazaar was closed. It rained for the first time in the months I have been here, which led to Sarah and I sleeping in and then making a luxurious breakfast of crepes (banana and nutella) and American coffee. The afternoon was clear and chilly, but not cold. So we went out on a walk, and realized that fall has come as we walked over fallen leaves and past yellow trees. We walked over the river and through the mosaics to Ismoil Somoni's statue.

I was obligated to take photos for my parents and my local coffee shop. My parents sent me the coffee via a coworker's husband's visit to Dushanbe and then an Embassy delivery north. The coffee is from Misha's, the Alexandria coffee shop  that my dad and I visited every Saturday morning from when I was three years old through high school.  On their fridges, Misha's posts photos of people holding their coffee cups in far away places. I would like to think I have made some sort of record.

I held a cup from home and it felt like a fall holiday, so Sarah and I started talking about our Thanksgiving traditions at home. For our Thanksgiving holiday here, we plan pumpkin pie and a bird and some cranberry sauce via Bishkek if we are lucky. Perhaps even some American Football - we have a ball at the American Corner. I can practice being thankful for what I have learned and had time to think about, and plan for how to explain our own holiday in its own glory of story and history and contradictions and tradition all wrapped in language.

Fall Food

I procrastinate by baking, and have done so since high school. I have a sweet tooth, and baking is my way to both satisfy that craving and feel that I have accomplished something tangible (and edible). These are the products of feeling restless and unprepared to sit down and plan lessons.

This pumpkin bread is cooling by shells from the Tajik Sea, which is what people call the Kairakkum Reservoir. Pumpkins are available in abundance here, though they are not always the perfect round and deep-orange pumpkins from home. Many are elongated gourds of a lighter hue, or fat, ridged beasts streaked with green. The only problem with the pumpkin bread was that it doesn't use much pumpkin, and I had to make another batch. This was the second loaf, more successful than the one made before we found nutmeg. 

I have made several apple pies, since there are so many apples here. This quintessentially American recipe travels well to Central Asia, where apples originated, and was happily consumed by folks from Europe. Though usually pies are seen as part of old family traditions, the source of my pie-making is not my parents or grandparents but my camp family. I think of West Virginia as I cut butter into the dough.

Yesterday I had a sudden desire for scones, so this morning I got up and made some, even though I knew we were also making pancakes at 11. Our oven can be temperamental, so I was glad that these turned out beautifully browned, baked all the way through without burning. I ate my first drizzled with raspberry preserves made and given to us by one of Sarah's friends. The others were eaten with the apple syrup I made to go on the pancakes. I had to take their photo with the tree behind them; I have loved the yellows appearing this week.

Walking Advertisement

I am fairly certain that there is a flashing neon sight above my head that says: "Visa here!" Or maybe it says, "All visa questions answered!" Or perhaps, to some young men, "Marry to go to U.S.!" I'm not positive because I, of course, cannot see this sign; when it was installed, it was made visible only to some Tajiks. At the end of a long day, the desperation this sign invites can become grating, and Americans complain to one another about the feeling that people are constantly accosting us.

Mostly, though, I am sympathetic. I wish that I could do more, but the truth is that I have no power with the consular office. And I don't know that much about U.S. visas having never had to get one. The most I can do is help people understand the U.S. websites that explain visa regulations.

A different question often posed to me is, "Can I join your TOEFL course?" It hasn't started yet, so I say "Yes, come, and we will discuss who will be in the class." At the moment I am terrified because there are so many people signed up, and I need to figure out a fair system of who can be in the class - and turning the rest away. I was telling to the American Corner coordinator that though I want to help the students, I just can't make everyone happy - and I will have to turn some away - if they can't come at that time we can't change the time, it is just be too bad for them - we'll have another class start in the spring - and she said, "You sound like a counselor officer." And that was how I realized that it is the same concern and the same question: "How can you help me get to the United States? This is very important to me, and you are the best hope I have come across."

For them, that is why I am here: to help them with their English so that they have a better chance of winning scholarships and spots in exchange programs and getting to visit or stay in the United States. Or so that they can get better jobs here, as interpreters or as local staff in international organizations like the U.N. or foreign embassies. The stakes are higher than in a standard high school Spanish class in the United States, when no one really cares about learning the language - not the way that people here want to learn English.

And I can help them. Some days that is suffocating and other days it is empowering. Mostly I remain somewhere in between, with a sense of responsibility to do my best by my students. Usually I feel this responsibility more heavily than my sense of responsibility to the U.S. Embassy or the U.S. State Department or the U.S. taxpayers who are paying for my grant stipend. I am lucky that the two loyalties do not conflict in my job description, but I can see more and more clearly how my presence is viewed differently by different people. That flashing neon sign above my head is dimmer to some, and has different words for different people. I can try with writing and speaking, but I don't think I can fully control what the sign says to you.

One Month (+)

When I arrived in Dushanbe six weeks ago, it was hot. And still hot when I arrived in Khujand, nearly a month ago. Every day I put on my sandals to go out the door, and put on my sunglasses. It is always sunny (Yesterday was the first cloudy day I have seen). It is still in the 80s and hot in the sun in the middle of the day, but autumn has fallen: when I sit by the window in the kitchen in the morning with my Nescafe, I wear a flannel shirt because of the breeze.

I am still figuring out a daily schedule. Until this week, I have had the luxury of waking up slowly without morning appointments. I moved my Tajik lessons to 9 am, so on Tuesday and Thursday I now have to get up. I spent the mornings going to the bazaar for food or planning lessons. I have added classes slowly at the American Corner as I get to know the students and volunteers there. They are all eager to talk to a native English speaker, and want TOEFL lessons, and want to know how to get accepted into programs to go to America, and I spend a lot of time just talking with people.

In the evenings Sarah and I make ourselves dinner. We've been invited out many of the nights: to eat with someone visiting from the Embassy, or (twice) to talk to a group of American tourists, and Friday nights the small Khujand expat circle gathers for pizza and beer.

On two Saturdays I have gone with a group of volunteers from the American Corner to talk to students in the regions about American exchange programs and volunteering. I enjoy getting the chance to hang out with them and try to practice my Tajik, mostly listening hard. The coordinator of the American Corner is a wonderful woman I want to get to know better, and most of the volunteers are male university students, who are also students in my classes.

Sundays have been varied: last week I was sick in bed, today I went shopping at both the bazaar and the 'supermarket'. Tomatoes already cost more than they did when we arrived. Though there are fewer raspberries, there are apples everywhere, and they are delicious. I have made two apple pies since arriving, and at the moment I have an apple cake in the oven cooking for a friend's birthday.  Last night we had a bonfire and grilled beef and mutton while enjoying the full moon, and Sarah and I spent a long time explaining to Europeans why we so badly needed marshmallows.

I am looking forward to enjoying the rest of fall. Everyone is bracing for the winter, and warning us to cherish warmth while we can. I am also looking forward to teaching more, and hopefully learning more Tajik. In addition, I am looking forward to more baking, guitar-playing, and swimming - none of which I expected to be a part of my time here.

Khujand.Хуҷанд

See also in Google Earth

I will start by quoting an email my friend Michael sent me:

You are...bound for the northernmost Persian-speaking metropolis in the world. You also can now drop things in conversation like, "Yeah, I was living in a city near the crossroads of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. You know, the four squiggly corners."

Stats:

• Latitude: 40 deg 17' (compare to New Haven, 41 deg 18'; closer to Pittsburg, 40 deg 28')
• Elevation: 1,000 ft
• Population: 165,000 
• The city formerly known as Leninabad (along with many others in the former USSR). 
• Home to the tallest statue of Lenin in Central Asia (removed last year from his place of honor and relegated to a lower pedestal away from Lenin St; in his place is a large statue of Ismoil Somoni).
• Ancient history: Alexander the Great established a base here in 329 BCE. In the local museum there is a room filled entirely with Grecian-style mosaics telling Alexander's life story.
• Geography: at the mouth of the Fergana Valley, which extends north into Uzbekistan. 
• Capital of Sughd region of the country. Sughd is the most fertile and prosperous part of the country. The biggest crop is cotton, which is all picked by hand. People are beginning the 'cotton campaign' now to pick it; that usually includes students being yanked from classes for several weeks-two months to take part.
• Travel from Dushanbe: about a 6-hour drive through a Tunnel of Death and then the Shahristan Pass (ie Pass of Death). A new tunnel (built by a Chinese company) is due to be completed at the end of this month (a year late). It should make the drive about 5 hours. There are also daily flights, which is the safer option in the winter when the roads are bad.
• My home for the next ten months. I live near the center of town so we can walk almost anywhere we need to go. Outside our window we have walnut and sycamore-like trees blowing in the wind, as well as some cedars. 

Do You Have a Family?

On one of my first days in Dushanbe, a young man asked me, "Oyleh dareed?" [Do you have a family?] I answered, "Of course. My mother and father and two brothers are in America." "Na," he responded, "Shohar dareed?" [No - Do you have a husband?] This is one of the first questions that people ask here. There is only one word for family, but when you are old enough, "family" means "your own family with husband and children because you should be married by now and if not you should marry a nice Tajik boy."  For me, "family" means my relatives in America, and it also means my friends here, who are my Tajik family.

My family in Dushanbe was obvious from landing: myself and the three other ETAs arrived on the same flight and stuck together from then on. Embassy workers often commented on how we were always together. When we went to a talk with students in Qurghonteppa, one of them asked, "How long have you known each other?" We thought about it - we had been together in the country for a week at the time, but we met in Austin, TX, in June for four days - "Three months?" "I thought you had known each other since childhood," the students responded.

ETAs, our embassy contact person and one ELF get silly during a long photo-shoot evening.

Our mother - or Fairy Godmother, depending on the day - was the woman that Areebah and I stayed with for two weeks. Shafoat is a local embassy worker who let us sleep in her daughter's beds, lent me her clothes (and gave me some), cooked for us and taught us to make sambusas. Areebah and I stayed up late talking to her about Tajikistan and America, education and healthcare, college and her daughters: one sixteen and indecisive, one eighteen and now a Freshman at Goucher College in Baltimore. Shafoat was our host, our guide to the city, our friend, our mother, as well as host to the other ETAs and ELFs for frequent dinners, inviting over her other friends from the embassy and generally easing our transition into the country.

We put the "bright" in Fulbright.

Leaving Dushanbe was unexpectedly sad because I felt like I was leaving this family. Now in Khujand, I have a smaller family so far: Sarah, an ELF (English Language Fellow - her ears do not seem to be pointy). She arrived a week after the rest of us, but was just as much a part of our pack in Dushanbe. We were glad to find that we liked each other enough to propose: "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but do you want to live together, maybe?" We both enjoy singing, and have become something of a traveling minstrel show. On our way to Khujand, we stopped at three English classes, and ended up singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane." After the first one, we brought the guitar in (we bought the guitar in Dushanbe). Our apartment is beautiful, and we are glad to have each other to talk about our impressions of our jobs and the places we go and the people we meet.

We took this picture to advertise how ready our home is for visitors - 

particularly for our family spread elsewhere South in the country, but also for others.