Having bid my family farewell at the airport a few hours ago, it would seem that I am now officially a fully fledged independent adult, or as it keeps on being portrayed to me, “a member of the fellowship of educated men and women,” although I wish they said “people.” I am a member who, in precisely one week, will be climbing onto a series of jets over the course of two days to travel to Tajikistan. The belongings are stored, and the duffel is (almost) packed. It’s finally hit me that this is really happening.
The program that I’m joining is an intensive language school for Persian, a language which by some measures is among the 20 most frequently spoken languages in the world when bilingual diaspora communities are included, with estimates of over 100 million native speakers. Primarily found in the region of South Central Asia (along with Beverly Hills), it is currently the primary language spoken in Iran and Tajikistan, and the language spoken by about 40% of Afghanistan. I have already studied the language for three of my four years of university, but I have yet to achieve a level of reading proficiency that satisfies me, and am hoping to greatly improve my vocabulary, listening, and speaking through the immersive experience that only comes from in-country study.
On this journey we are all living with individual host families in Dushanbe. I had indicated on my forms that I was very interested in public health, and as luck (or an effective housing screen) would have it, I am living with a doctor and a nurse, one of their parents, and their two young daughters, ages 3 and 5. From what I gather, this is going to be one of the most amazing parts of the experience, and I can’t wait to meet them.
Until then, it’s an adventure; this weekend we are all gathering for our orientation sessions, meeting a new group of exciting, inspiring, and passionate scholars and people who all have in common a passion for this language. It’s quite possibly the largest adventure that I have ever embarked on in my life. And I’ll be documenting it at every chance I get with photos, journals, and blog entries.
And so here I am, bidding farewell to my home of four years, to find a new home of two months, before finding another. Something about this seems familiar, namely the moving into a new room every 2 to 4 months for the past 4 years. But there’s something far more exciting about this. Even though it’s nowhere near the farthest I’ve ever been from home as the crow flies, it certainly will be as the A321 flies – Dushanbe is only accessible on a major airline twice a week from Istanbul.
At my commencement, we were told to “run towards,” and take the risks that life demands of us to grow as people. This is me “running towards,” even though it’ll be farther away than I’ve ever run before.