Khujand Thanksgiving

I considered writing a play along the lines of the First Thanksgiving plays we make Elementary School children do; then I thought about writing a recipe for our Thanksgiving. Instead this blog post is going to end up one part teaching reflection, one part food blog, and one part social report. 

At the American Corner, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I used my regular Discussion Club to make everyone think about what they were thankful for. We also listened to part of a TED talk roughly about being thankful (or appreciative). 

Reading a First Thanksgiving play.

On the day itself, I gave a presentation that went through the basic historical facts, and then I made them read through a simple Thanksgiving play. This is a real American Cultural experience, because it really is what all American schoolchildren do. It was an interesting decision of how much to include, and to look at different websites that advise teachers. I think that public history is fascinating and important, so I started with the basic story: which, again, is what Americans get, and even if you learn more later, it is the narrative that we are celebrating as a country. Every country shapes its own story of itself - Tajikistan very obviously at the moment with Somoni - and the idea of the Pilgrims is an important part of our identity. I also mentioned the Virginia Company, and how it was different; and that things weren't always so happy at Plymouth - you know when the kid in the play says he's hungry, Mom? That's because half of them died that winter. And, right, all of the killing and deaths. But because I wanted to talk about the holiday today in America, I moved on fairly quickly. I talked about food, football, and in my family, the Alexandria Turkey Trot. I served Pumpkin pie.

Cutting the pie while they fill in Thanksgiving crosswords.

Then I ran home, where I was in the middle of cooking a turkey. I was very proud of this turkey, given my lack of experience with meat as a vegetarian for six years. We were very excited to find frozen turkeys; my friend came upon them and seized them both, since they are rare birds. We cut off the necks together in the morning, and she cooked one while I did the other. I was thankful throughout to my boss at the Embassy. She gave us the cookbook that she and her husband wrote in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, which has helpful things like how to cook a Thanksgiving turkey in a finicky oven and without access to fancy ingredients.

This is where the blog will take a turn towards photos of the cooking:

The beginning of the pumpkins.

The night before, making many pumpkin pies.

To make more pie pans I had to take apart frying pans.

Note the tupperware full of roasted pumpkin seeds.

Apple pie beginning in the morning.

The final pie display.

I didn't take photos of the turkey because my hands were too covered in raw meat juice. 

Running back and forth with pies and turkey all day was good exercise for my biceps. At the end of the cooking, we ended up piling into a taxi to take it to the home of the dinner. 

Serving myself from our buffet.

Finishing the gravy in the other kitchen.

Our meal included mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (imported from America via a Canadian living in Bishkek's boyfriend), salads, mulled wine, and Canadian Beaver Tails along with the pies for dessert. Our feast fed fifteen people: 5 Brits, 4 Americans, 2 Canadians, 2 Tajiks, 1 Austrian and 1 German. Sara was particularly excited that one of the Canadians was a real Mountie. I inflicted the non-Americans with a dramatic re-telling of the Thanksgiving story (though they were lucky, because Sarah and I considered making them do a play). We went home at the end of the night exceedingly thankful, and happy to have celebrated in style.

Giving Thanks

This year, as every year, I am thankful for many things: my family, my friends, my health. I am thankful that I have internet access to be able to keep in touch with my family and friends. I am thankful for the new friends - the family - I have made here. I am thankful for the Fulbright Program, and the many people at the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe who are so supportive.  I am thankful that I can mostly do what I want. I am thankful for the opportunity to be in Tajikistan.

Being here also reminds me to be thankful for many things that I take for granted in the United States:  an education system that teaches to standards and requires hard work; a democracy that holds contested elections, as ours reminded me; and cultural structures that value women as equals to men. Today I want to dwell on how thankful I am for my rights as a woman.

I am thankful that my parents always encouraged me. In everything. I am thankful that they expected me to go to school and to go to college. I am thankful that my teachers and community encouraged me to play sports and participate in every activity as well as my male peers. I am thankful that I still have my parents' support as I figure out what is next.

"When do you plan to get married?" a Tajik male asked me. I have no plan, I told him. It depends on when I meet someone who I think I want to marry. "When do your parents want you to get married?" he persisted. My parents have almost no say in the matter, I told him, to his surprise. I am so thankful that my husband will be my choice: both who and when. 

When and if I marry, I am thankful that my husband and I will not have to live with his family if we do not want to. I am thankful that we will share cooking and cleaning duties. I am thankful that I will not ask my husband permission to travel, and that he will be supportive of me working. I am thankful that I have the education to understand my legal rights should he not treat me well. I am thankful that my family would not be disappointed if I gave birth to a daughter.

Not everything is perfect for women in America; we have plenty of recent news and politics to show us that. More subtly, our assumptions are not always so different from those here. Americans also obsess over dating and marriage. The time scale is different - "If he hasn't been married by 45, something must be wrong with him," an American acquaintance remarked the other day - but people still think you should marry. And there are spheres that are almost exclusively male. "Even in America it is not common for women to be boxers?" a Tajik friend asked, surprised, when borrowing Million Dollar Baby. No, I said, not at all; it is a men's world. [A Tajik woman won a bronze medal in boxing in the Olympics this summer. This fall she got married and announced that she is taking a year off from the sport.]

But though not all is equal in America, there are people trying to change that. In Congress or on the editorial pages of newspapers, there are many people defending a woman's right to participate in sports, or to stay single, or to do anything else. I am thankful that I was born in a time and a place where I was told that women can and should expect rights equal to men's, and that if it is not the case, then I should fight for those rights.

Of course there are people fighting for those rights here, and many women have seized them for themselves. I have met women who are lucky to have support from their parents in their job, or in choosing their husbands (which is more common now). I have met women who are do not feel constrained by some of the things I would find constraining. I am thankful for the chance to learn from many different opinions on these issues, from students and friends, male and female.

I am thankful for all of the opportunities I have been given without regard to my gender, and thankful that I have the time here to realize that. 

Coming soon: The Story of Tajik Thanksgiving. Featuring: Turkey! Pies! More Thanks!

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.

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.