It’s been a VERY long week it seems, probably because of the 15 hour-long days that start at dawn and go until well after dark. I’m definitely sleeping well, but more from exhaustion than from the bed. It is comfortable, but has taken some getting used to, particularly the part where it’s not extra-long like my dorm bed. Luckily, the temperatures in the evening drop into the 60’s from the 100’s during the day, which means I actually have to sleep with a blanket or something (usually my sweater – it’s too warm the first half of the night to have it on).
My house is nice, and understanding my host grandmother has gotten a lot easier. My host mom and I get along great; she is very warm and caring, but also very patient and willing to help me try out grammatical structures and use new vocabulary. I took it as a very positive sign (and a great practice opportunity) when today she asked me to translate a sunblock package into Tajik so she could understand it, then since she had not used sunblock really before, asked me how I would advise her to use it. She also had me translate and describe how to use foot and hand cream. I think giving beauty tips in Tajik definitely helped my language skills.
Our classes started this week, which was both exciting and a shock. I somehow managed to test into the Advanced Persian class, which I was shocked and terrified by. I like to say that I speak the language, but I by no means am quite comfortable yet calling myself advanced. Maybe it’s an internalized inadequacy complex, or maybe I just haven’t studied hard enough. Personally, I think it’s a little bit of the teachers having pity on the fact that I’ve studied for three years but still can’t tell you to save the life of me the word for “to make” (I plan to add it to my flash cards this weekend).
Classes are tough. It quickly became apparent within the first few days that I was at least a year behind some of the students. Entire minutes would go by where I was completely lost. As the week went on, I came to realize that our group is extremely diverse. One student is a heritage speaker whose speech is absolutely fluent, but who reads at about my level. Another two speak well but actually read slower than me (which is definitely compensated for my their much larger vocabulary). Then there is the one student who reads and speaks completely fluently. Then there is me and one other student, and we both speak and read about the same level. We’ve bonded a bit over it becaue we both know that vocabulary is our big weakness. While that often means in this class that we will be occasionally fed to the lions when we don’t understand a word, it also will keep us on an appropriately steep learning curve. With some effort, we should be able to catch up over the summer, especially at the rate I can tell that I’m improving at.
With classes comes homework. Like the time our professor was all, “hey guys, so read these ten pages in Farsi where you don’t know half the words by Friday.” That was rough. With the Tajik classes, it’s going a bit better because we are improving by complete osmosis, including reading and writing. We can literally study by walking down the street and reading the signs. I now know Cyrillic (Russian, I’m looking at you next), and have even had to employ my extremely limited Russian vocabulary a few times, specifically to tell a policeman that I only understand Tajik and not Russian when he asked me for a bribe. That’s a whole other story, though (just for your peace of mind, I got out of it without any trouble and without giving a bribe).
Back to homework – I’m actually glad to have a lot of writing homework – it is good practice and gives us a chance to practice with new vocabulary. Next week, my homework load is going to increase to three or four hours a day because I’ll begin doing some extra prep work for class to not look as dunce-y when asked about new vocabulary. We’ll see how that goes. I have 15 pages to read and present by Friday, which will be… interesting to say the least!
As far as life in Dushanbe goes, so far, so good. I have another post on the way about the food, but suffice it to say, I am VERY well fed. Lots of carbs. We are all being careful about dairy and other perishables (like meat) because of the risk of illness – with temperatures exceeding 100 most days, we have power outages every few days that last anywhere from an hour to, according to one student, 36 hours. Needless to say refrigerators are not cooperative with power outages, and so it can be risky to eat some perishables. I still am eating eggs for breakfast every day, but so far many of us are keeping to familiar foods for our lunches, such as Iranian kabobs, or more familiar fare at Cafe Segafreddo. Yes, there is an Italian espresso joint whose locations are San Francisco, Rome, and, for some strange reason, Dushanbe, Tajikistan. In any case, it’s been a safe bet for food while our stomachs find their footing, but I think we are all ready to branch out a bit more. If our stomachs aren’t, our wallets certainly are – at one place we went, a samosa, gretchka (barley), and Fanta cost barely one US dollar, while a BLT, fries, and espresso costs more like ten. Point being, I’m fed, and I (knock on wood) only had Tajik Tummy for the first three or four days.
It’s been a long week; we’ve done a lot of walking, a lot of exploring (I’m typing this as I sit in, of all things, an Irish pub. Of which there are two in Dushanbe), and less sweating than I would have thought. We have to (by which I mean we are strongly encouraged culturally) to wear long pants here, so I’m wearing jeans and dress shoes in 100 degree weather walking miles in mixed sun and shade.
In short, all is good so far. I’ll post some shorter topical pieces in the next few days. Please don’t hesitate to e-mail me questions either! The address is on my contact page. Again, one of the goals of this blog is to introduce everyone I can to a country few of us (myself included) really know anything about, so please help make this a conversation!