On August 1st, which I remember because it was National Day in Switzerland, my host mother came into my bedroom not long after dinner, just after dark as was typical during Ramadan. Her tone a combination of excited urgency, she said “Some foreigners just came by and they were speaking English and I think they needed help.” Not one to skip an adventure, I grabbed my book and set out in the direction she had pointed me. Two blocks up, sure enough, was a short young Irish woman with a rolling suitcase staring confusedly at her map in the dark. Her husband soon joined from down the street, where he was trying to get directions in his very good Russian. In what was likely one of the weirdest moments of their trip, the white guy (me) walked up to them and began speaking to them in English.
Tag: Posts About Tajikistan
Cutlery on Porcelain
Another postcard has gone live over at The Harvard Crimson! Head on over and check it out!
It’s 3:10 in the morning, and in the starlight, I can make out the outline on the tablecloth of bread, teacups, a tub of Turkish Nutella, and two bowls of “shirchai,” a warm soup made from whole milk, butter, and tea leaves. I sit in the darkness with my host grandmother, and as I eat my fill of the smorgasbord, I can hear the soft clinking of forks, knives, and spoons against bowls and plates across our neighborhood and across Dushanbe, the capital of the small mountainous republic of Tajikistan.
A Lada Melons
We saw this today… A Lada full of matching melons.
That is all.
Attack of the Tajik Tummy
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I finally got sick. But the ever-discussed “Tajik Tummy,” the fear of which has been struck into us for over a month now as one by one each of us has fallen, is quite an adventure to behold here in the global capital of gastrointestinal illness. Continue reading “Attack of the Tajik Tummy”
Tales From The Trolleybuses of Tajikistan
Remember how I was waxing poetic about Dushanbe’s marshrutka system? I really glossed over a lot of the other routes of transportation. In particular, I did not do justice to Dushanbe’s beautiful rusty old trolleybus network. My love for this relic of Soviet Russia has grown many times like flower in pot. These elegant green and white and iron oxide colored buses quickly whisk people from one stop to the next, manned by a driver and a fare collector who rides in the door and tells the driver whether to stop and mercifully wait for people running for the bus or to drive by completely without stopping. In general, they are far more eager to take an extra one Somoni fare from a passenger than to maintain a “schedule,” though, so I rarely miss them like in the US. Here are some of my favorite stories about the trolleybuses so far.
Continue reading “Tales From The Trolleybuses of Tajikistan”
In Tajikistan, “It’s A Thing” Is A Thing
Many in our Tajik classes are not too thrilled to be diverting attention to the local dialect of Persian here in Tajikistan. As security studies majors, they see it as a little-needed language that will not help them outside of communicating with their host families here. When their hair falls out because they couldn’t read the label on a shampoo bottle, the rest of us will be laughing, but in all honesty, I actually really enjoy our Tajik classes, partially because most of my language practice here is actually in Tajik, not Farsi, and partially because our Tajik teacher is so hysterically funny. Continue reading “In Tajikistan, “It’s A Thing” Is A Thing”
Tajik National Unity Day
Yesterday was by far one of the most spontaneous and interesting days we have had since arriving in Tajikistan. June 27th is National Unity Day, and marks the anniversary of the signing of the peace accord that ended Tajikistan’s brutal civil war that devastated the country from 1992-1997. On that day 16 years ago, representatives from the government and the opposition met in Moscow under UN supervision to sign an accord and begin a process of reconciliation that seems to me to have brought a national pride and unity to the country. I’m sure that somewhere, people are unhappy, but that’s the way that countries work. In any case, it is an important day to Tajiks, and serves as a solemn reminder of their country’s suffering on its journey to independence. Continue reading “Tajik National Unity Day”
“Wow, this internet is faster than dial-up!”
I’m actually shocked that I’ve been able to get so many blogs up this week. When we first arrived in Tajikistan, we traveled for two days without really any internet, then had some slow internet at a hostel where we spent the first morning. From that Thursday until Monday, we did not access the internet in any form. It was some serious cold turkey quitting going on. But, when we finally did have access to the internet, actually loading a page was another issue entirely. Continue reading ““Wow, this internet is faster than dial-up!””
Managing Marshrutkas
Dushanbe is a small city, but it’s even easier to get around than you might think. Everything is only a few blocks off of the main drag, Rudaki avenue, and if that weren’t enough, there is a robust network of public (and easily accessible private) transportation.
Easily most visible are the rusty trolleybuses that ply Rudaki as bus route 1, many of which have a Tajik flag billowing on a little mast above the driver’s cab. You step on at any of three doors, and pay an attendant one Somoni for the ride. As many a Tajik have learned, you then assess where the sun has been hitting the vehicle most recently. Since Rudaki runs north-south, depending on the time of day, one side of the bus is considerably hotter than the other because it’s in direct sunlight. Maybe that’s why so many people looked at me strangely for the three days I chose to sit on the sunny side of the bus before realizing on the fourth that the right side of the bus was a good twenty degrees cooler. Continue reading “Managing Marshrutkas”
A Lada Love
A few days ago I took my first hair-raising ride in a Lada. I had just meant to catch a marshrutka or shared taxi to go to a restaurant with some friends, but when the first one to stop was a black old-fashioned Lada, I couldn’t help but hop right in and smile as we began to weave our way through Rudaki avenue at 80 to 100 kilometers per hour. Given that I’ve cracked at least two jokes at the expense of this automobile, I figured it only reasonable that I write a post all about them. Continue reading “A Lada Love”