Today I fell in a hole in front of a giant crowd of Tajik students. Whoops.

I’ll back this story up to provide some context to what so far has been the funniest thing to happen to me since arriving in Tajikistan. Here there are a lot of open areas for water drainage – the rare rain that comes can cause major flooding, and so the city has a very effective system of water drainage from sidewalks and streets.

However, this results in many open holes and channels, or jubes, that are occasionally hazardous to people and Ladas alike. We had been warned that we should always look where we were going because of “open manhole covers,” as it was put to us, but having only seen one that was actually a manhole, I sort of brushed this aside as I walked along chatting with some people after class.

And then suddenly there wasn’t ground under my foot and, “like a train wreck in slow motion” in the words of one of my friends, down I went. It was noon at one of the busiest intersections in the city, and people were already watching us. I blinked for a second before jumping back to my feet. All we could do was laugh and walk quickly before I blushed too much.

Lesson learned: watch your step.