Week 1: 1st Day with My Host Family! (Рӯзи Аввал бо Оила мизбонам)
My first ~special day~ post: meeting my host family!
POSTS
Because I had limited WiFi in Dushanbe, I decided to journal everyday and upload blog posts / highlights after I returned. Warning: it might be a mix of at-the-time journaling with current comments I add. And don't count on the tenses being consistent; I was tired every day in Tajikistan!
I’ll be breaking these up into weekly posts, with key events or days that made my Tajikistan experience special. I hope you enjoy reminiscing with me on my six-week journey. I miss it already. :)
We headed down for breakfast - our last one at Hotel Guliston! Goodbye, nice crepes and WiFi.
I was perfectly fine hauling the almost half my weight suitcase down the stairs (hey, I did it up the stairs just fine) but a hotel guy did it for me! Things happened in a blink of an eye - suddenly our машрутка was at the American Councils office and I met Muharam, my host mom! My complicated phrase аз шиносоӣ бо шумо шодам flew out the window - хеле шодам works too. Elaine and I took the same taxi to drop her off, then me! My home opened into a courtyard with the family table at the opposite end of the courtyard, my room at the left, the other rooms and families on the same side as the table with bathrooms, kitchen at the right.
I met Firuza, a bright and bubbly fourteen year old, her friend Shahnoza from Uzbekistan who has good English and Tajiki, and also Shahnoza, one of Muharam’s daughters who’s in her thirties. They gave me a second breakfast, bread and chaka! The two girls spent a while showing me drawn pictures of animals and scenes - so now I have many flash cards with animals I don’t know, hooray! I also helped them make little dumplings that the younger girls weren’t good at, called “тушбера.” But I’ve made wontons before, hehe - and they’re the same shape, only super small. Муҳарам хеле ҳаирон буд! "хеле зебо" гап зад.
I showed them pictures of my family, my map with where NJ was in relation to DC and NY. I also went to a small booth selling watermelon, cantaloupe, and chaka! Outside, I met a bunch of neighboring kids playing soccer and fooling around, including Aziz, Hassan, Umar. I also rode their slightly big bike and the brakes weren’t working, which almost led to my death by crashing into a fence!! A couple of kids at some point were putting a live chicken in a bag (to kill?) and Shahnoza tickled its red crown. Suddenly, I remembered the whole “DONT TOUCH LIVESTOCK/ANIMALS” spiel from orientation. Anyways, we soon ate lunch!!
We passed a lot of time just digging through all my suitcase. The stars of the show were the carrot fan, my laptop, and my phone - see all the filter photos in my album for proof. Firuza danced with me while Muharam played music on the drums. They also discovered my dancing videos and piano video on my phone! I guess phone-snooping is a universal skill families have, haha. I spent some time putting away my things in my room, but decided to leave my room to be social and start studying at the table. Not productive at all! It was fun though - Firuza and Muharam were there, and looked at my work, including the passage I wrote about my family. I briefly met Sherali, my host dad, who brought a box of ice creams - I ate one, managed not to eat two. Did I mention how mentally exhausting it is to be talked at without understanding what they’re saying? It’s rough dude. I can catch bits and pieces - gotta say, the adjectives saved my butt. Good thing we learned them yesterday!
Ex: asking for clean water - тоза?; saying I’m a lil nervous - асабӣ; saying I’m full when they keep wanting me to eat - сер
Also, the talk about family members? I actually recognized тағо, хола, амак, ама. And Firuza calls me апа!
Carly dropped by with my adapter, which I am forever grateful for.
Around 7 pm, after a very long conversation I didn’t get, Firuza convinced me to change my clothes to go out - I finally remembered reading in the participant guide that Tajiks often have going out/home clothes. Now, all I heard was либоси зебо, and I threw on yesterday’s outfit. I thought we’d just eat at the Food Station outside the main road near our street, but we kept walking. Walking. Walking. Crossed the street through the tunnel. To the area with the flagpole and scenes and museums and fountains and little playgrounds and strength games! Everyone stared at me when I walked past. The hard thing was not making eye contact. Usually, I just casually glance at people who might do that, and also I just like observing people, but here, making eye contact seemed to surprise the people who look. The sunset view was absolutely gorgeous, and I took a LOT of photos (so did Firuza). We also got ice cream - okay, my second one of the day, but I was dying of thirst because I did not know we’d be taking this super long walk?! Anyways, there were kids running around, guys showing off at the strength games, a couple talking but standing like 6 feet apart (conservative here?), families, lots of people doing those playground machines! Firuza was a wonderful photographer for me throughout:
Three things happened!
a guy that дар муқобили ман tried to scare me by sort of lunging at me when I walked by. I have a RBF and I think I maybe had a delayed, mildly surprised reaction, but that was it.
We were in the way of a dude on a hover board - I don’t even think we were blocking the path completely, but he made annoying comments so Firuza apologized.
A group of boys were bothering us - one pretended to stumble past me right аз дар паси ман, another did the same to Firuza and sorta did the jumping thing at her, and the group regrouped in front of us. Firuza shot back with some comments, and I just looked forward and walked faster.
It’s 8 pm, and I was already confused that we weren’t eating dinner outside. I tried to make clear my point that I was tired, and we headed home!! Along the way, we took pics and passed a government building of Tajikistan - a guard was eyeing us, since Firuza was taking selfies дар наздик but not explicitly of the building. Eventually, we made it home around 9 and began to eat. I wolfed down some dumplings, poke at the savory salad, devour some sweet, sweet тарбуз, and drank some water! They noticed I don’t eat the salad, and I sheepishly said ман помидор дӯст намедорам. Thankfully, they were okay with it.
At night, I practiced sentences on my flash card ring as Shahnoza, Muharam, Firuza sat there and talked. I finally turned in when my sister called.
Cute convos I had with my host family:
People being so kind about me being there, and being really interested in the US
My host sister’s crush on our local coordinator, where she listed these qualities: he looks like Harry Potter, he’s super smart, and good looking - I died of laughter and she just looked at me amusedly
When I talked about learning English, Chinese, Japanese etc. and was studying at dinner, Shahnoza turned it into a lecture to Firuza about studying more, to which she protested “I know Tajiki, sorta English/Russian!”
I was really apprehensive about meeting my host family. I thought they might find me boring, or just won’t like me for some reason, but they’ve welcomed me into their home so warmly. I can’t wait to get to know them better. Well then, Шаб бахаир!
