We arrived in Tajikistan at 3:30 in the morning a few days ago, and since then I have a lot to report, partially because I have not had a lot of access to the internet. On our first day, we spent most of the day trying to orient ourselves after having had very little real sleep for several days. After clearing customs, we were bussed over to a hotel in the center of the city to rest for a few hours before eating and having an in-country orientation. We all had thought that we would immediately pass out for the entire rest period, but many of us ended up sitting around using the internet to update friends and families as to our location and arrival (this was when I posted my last blog, assuming I would have internet the following day to post another). After finally being able to fall asleep, though, many of us regretted the decision because we were so sleepy when we woke up. After our orientation we had lunch at a Persian restaurant, and then walked around the city for a few hours.

Dushanbe is the most beautiful city in Central Asia according to many sources, and I have to say wholeheartedly agree. The city is mainly aligned along a six-lane road called Rudaki avenue, which is lined with massive tall trees that keep almost the entire length of the road completely shaded. Trolleybuses, buses, minibuses, cars, and “marshrutkas” zip by at quite a fast pace. There are trees and flowers everywhere, and in several giant squares there are beautiful monuments, some in the Soviet style and others in their own style in the Soviet tradition. One of my favorites is a massive arch in the central “friendship square.” It has a statue of Ismail Somoni, an ancient Tajik hero, and a map of the lands he conquered. Not far away is the world’s tallest/largest flag pole (this is debated, but the point being that it is GIANT) with the largest flag that I have ever seen. The Tajik flag itself is quite beautiful, and there’s something very regal about the large banner.

After returning from our walk, we were introduced to our host families and sent on our way to the various houses around the city where we will be living the next two months. My host family lives in the very north end of the city, in a little neighborhood off of Rudaki avenue near a few other students from the program. When I arrived, I met first the grandmother in the family, who I can understand some of the time but not always because of her heavy accent. As I write this three days later, I think I’m getting better at understanding her words. She showed me to my room, which seems to be about the same size as my dormitory room back at school (around 200 sq feet). It has a floral wallpaper and a beautiful and intricate carpet over the hardwood floor. In the corner is a little desk, in another is a massive wardrobe. When she arrived, my host mother apologized that one of the three parts of the wardrobe is full of her clothes and insisted that she clean it out, but I reassured her that the two other parts of the wardrobe could hold far more clothing than I had brought with me.

My host mother is so wonderful. She has a big heart and is extremely patient, and has been a host mother for students visiting Tajikistan for some time, which I appreciate because she has a very good intuition and understanding of me even when I can’t figure out how to explain something. She is a very good cook, too, which I already appreciate a lot. What is most helpful, though, is that she speaks slowly with me and makes sure that I’ve understood what she said, and when I don’t, she tries to find a new way to express it while I take a few guesses at what it was. Last night was probably one of the funniest of these, when she used the word for “weird,” and I understood the idea, but not the word, and so to confirm it was what I thought, I just said, “that word means when someone is like this?” and made a face and acted really weird for a second, and she laughed.

The next day, we had to be up extra early for placement tests. More accurately, it was more like just a hard test. Many of us were utterly lost in parts of it, and are just hoping that we get a group of people that are sympathetic to each other. Because our group is 40 people (the largest group in a single site in the entire program), it can be a little impersonal, but it also means that rather than 3-5 levels that we get sorted into, we will have probably 7-10 groups, which will be difficult from a scheduling standpoint, but great in that we will have groups around our same levels. We then had an hour long session where we were taught Tajik vocabulary that is different from Farsi. After a good lunch at one of the largest “chaykhona,” or tea houses, we had some more briefings to make sure we had a good sense of where we are. The health briefing ended up being quite hysterical, mainly because many of us are either already experiencing some symptoms or have consumed things like dairy and fresh fruit that the doctor insisted will give us deathly gastrointestinal illness. My personal favorite question was “hypothetically speaking, how long would it take between eating, say, strawberries, and getting sick…” We had been warned that strawberries in particular will almost always make us sick.

I fell asleep shortly after dinner. It must be the combination of jet lag and a little adjustment sickness, but I’ve needed a LOT of sleep here so far. I don’t think my host family minds; they seem very understanding about it, which I really appreciate a lot. I just want to get myself fully rested and ready to go for when our intensive classes start on Monday. Let the games begin!