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Week 4: Hitting My Stride

ITINERARY

7/12 - Aquapark & Co.*

7/13 - A Nice Ol’ Friday**

7/14 - A Visit to ‘Murica & Britain**

7/15 - College, Ice Cream, & Lentils: A Trio**

7/16 - ~Normal Day~

7/17* My Big Fat Tajik Wedding***

7/18 - Excerpt from “The Miz on Tursunzoda” - “Halvo”*

* partial day described; ** whole day; *** whole day in separate post

 

Because I had limited WiFi in Dushanbe, I decided to journal everyday and upload blog posts / highlights after I returned! 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. :)

 

POSTS

Week 1: Welcome to Dushanbe

Week 1: 1st Day with My Host Family! (Рӯзи Аввал бо Оила мизбонам) - full day

Week 2: Easing In, оҳиста, оҳиста...

Week 2: Bet on It, Bet on It (A “Bazaar” Day)

Week 3: Tests, Dictionaries, Other Nerdy Things

Week 3: Embassy PARTAY & Hike!!!

Week 4: Hitting My Stride

Week 4: My Big Fat Tajik Wedding

 

7/12 - Aquapark & Co.

After class was our Aquapark trip!!! The bigger waterpark had way too many people, so we had to switch to the smaller one. After Carly took an obligatory picture of us to show our parents we’re having fun, we headed to the rides! There was this one English-speaking dude that kept talking to Mikaela and me in line for the rides, and even asked us for our social media at the really end. I think he said he almost made the FLEX program but would study in Beijing soon.

Anyways, Mikaela and I went on all the slides! There was a curvy one with the float/lights (it was pretty leisurely), the scary bowl one where there’s a waterfall thing at the end, and a slower small slide. Later, a few of us went down the super tall slide with a big drop!

We also hung around the pool a lot, which came with a number of issues. 1) The same height issue. Treading water is actually tiring. 2) All the guys doing flips everywhere and splashing us 3) That weird dude with the cute little boy (his brother?) that knew English! He was actually really cute and clung onto Mehroj, but his brother or whoever was really weird and purposely splashed Carly and Mikaela, repeatedly. 4) A bunch of guys who I think said offensive remarks to me. I’m talented at tuning out and ignoring rude people, but they were definitely trying to imitate English/Chinese. I was fine at first, but they started again with the “ni haos,” so I immediately got out and left (though I came back later with Mikaela). Generally, people stared at us, especially when we were walking around and going on the slides (They were especially surprised we went on the bowl one, since “girls don’t go on slides” or something like that.)

After, Gholib drove us home around 6:30! My family told me that Carly visited, and they also showed me some zarbulmasals. I took a 17-minute nap (2 to fall asleep, 15 to sleep), woke up, took a shower, tried to study, then fell asleep in 2 seconds. Ah, the life of a busy NSLI-Y student.

 

7/13 - A Nice Ol’ Friday

I woke up at 7 to try to study (key word: try). I ate каша for breakfast, which is sort of like shirbirinj but just the porridge part, and sweeter. Anyways, our test today was EXTREMELY long. There was typical translation, sentence writing/fill-in, but there were THREE lengthy questions - writing a letter to a friend about Dushanbe, describing a picture, and then one where you write about your future profession. So basically, 45 sentences total. We were in there for nearly two hours... Some of us took a break outside in the Havlii, and we went in individually to do the oral test. I personally felt I could have done better, even though it was relatively painless. It included casual conversation about myself, the weather, some poem recitations. I was so surprised that I got 5/5, 5/5 on both oral / written! I’m actually really proud of what I wrote, since I spent SO much time on it. And I used Carly’s words from the Cultural Center on it, like society чамъиат, traditional анъанави, customs урфу одатҳо. I don’t think we did much in our afternoon class. Some of my classmates wrote amusing poems on the board though.

We headed to хола's house to make mantu from scratch. There was the classic meat mantu, but we also chopped onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, potatoes for veggie mantu. Everyone was so shocked by my beautiful folding skills - and I made one normal-sized wonton, haha. Here are a collection of food-related words:

  • елак кардан = sift

  • пӯст кардан = to peel

  • булғорӣ = Bell pepper

  • реза кардан chop

  • knead тоб додан

  • часпилан to stick

Around 5 pm, we ate our mantu masterpieces, then Mikaela and I headed home. I ate dinner around 7 with my family -- noodles with meat/veggies, and also some cake to treat myself. Then, Firuza and I headed to Gulnoza’s (her aunt) house! There’s 18 year old Ҳилола, her dad Donio, her mom Majoya, her older brother, her sister, and I think there’s another sister. Unfortunately, the WiFi didn’t work on my phone... but I showed them pictures, tried to help translate an Olay bottle and toning bottle and their usages (истеъмол), and ate a third dinner! They asked me questions, so I made it clear to them I was born in the US but my parents immigrated from China. The dad asked if I knew karate??? I didn’t really know how to react to that stereotypical Asian comment, so I laughed along uncomfortably.

Gulnoza was really trying to make me eat the potatoes and meatballs, and I really couldn’t. I drank tea and possibly tap water. I said I didn’t want to gain weight / I would abstain, and she said 1) is being fat a bad thing?, and 2) here in Tajikistan, there is no “abstaining” here (пархез кардан).

When I left, I think they were amused that I said хеле мамнунам (nice to meet you!). And with classic Tajik hospitality, they invited me back to their home (unless I misunderstood, which may be possible).

 

7/14 - A Visit to ‘Murica & Britain

I was able to wake up at 6 am to exercise for about 30-40 minutes. After showering at 7 am, and managing to eat one egg and not a lot of bread, I headed to Rudaki to pick up water and sunscreen with Mikaela and Abby. I successfully asked the lady where the sunscreen was (sun = офтоб)! I spent literally $4, about 30 somoni total, on it.

On the bus ride to Camp America, I tried to nap for a while, and woke up to some interesting sights.

  • A brilliant blue bird with black tipped wings

  • A fisher dude

  • A field of sunflowers

  • A donkey pulling a cart

We finally arrived at Camp America in Sarband around 10:10 am. If you're wondering, Camp America is a week-long camp run in various locations in Tajikistan in the summer. It aims to provide authentic, American camp experiences to local Tajik kids, to kick-start their interest in American culture, English, and global awareness! And as typical American kids, my NSLI-Y classmates and I had A LOT of expertise to offer about summer camp.

We started with some outdoor activities - a name game, where you say the name of the person who throws the ball to you, and the name of the next person. In my group, there was Нодира, Умеда, Шахло, Меҳри, and one counselor I can’t remember :(. After that, we did a holding-hands game where we jump to the left, right, front, back based on what the counselor yells out (чап, рост, реш, хафо). And she made it later so you jump to the right instead of left, etc., so you’d have to follow the opposite of the command. A final fun activity we did a “bobsled” game where you’re in lines of 5, and either change (first person goes to back of line), switch (2nd, 4th person change spots), or reverse (turn around) based on the commands. At the end of these activities, us ~American~ students helped provide feedback on the activities and how they were explained, to help out with their camp-planning for the kids.

Our final, and most important task, was to brainstorm activities for the camp’s first day! I was in the crafts group, and we helped plan the process of making name pins for the campers. For instance, there would be an assigned color for the small rectangle name plate based on their group and a chart to help them convert their names to English.! We also made a fortune teller (фолбин) and showed them how it works, because I thought we’d be pitching original American camp craft ideas as well.

At the end, we took some pictures with the Tajik counselors and headed to Qurghonteppa, where we went to the Teppa Center, which was started by the Duke of York! It’s a British-based education center with about 30,000 books, the largest collection of English books in Tajikistan. There were also three very cute dogs, of increasing moodiness (friendly, slightly aloof, moody). We even met, and chatted with, some of the English-learners there! After, we ate pizza, fries, chicken at a pirate ship-shaped restaurant, right next to the AC.

We soon went back to the Center for English discussion with some of the students. There was a cute 13-year old named Лижа! Anyways, we also looked at the books (discovering some erotica among the shelves) and checked out their laboratory for environmental, and flora/fauna research. They also do environmental projects, as well as promoting English education!

At the end of all this, we briefly visited local regional museum, though I was quite delirious by then. Did I mention it was 110 degrees? My host grandma said I got darker within the day. At some point, we dropped by a convenience store for water, and we headed home around 5 pm. My dinner was potatoes/carrots, a pepper stuffed with meat, and some bread. I passed out pretty quickly, since I was exhausted.

I’ll end with a poem by Rudaki, since our bus ride passed by a statue of Rudaki with this famous poem that we memorized for class:

Ҳеҷ шодӣ нест андар ин ҷаҳон,

Бартар аз дидори рӯйи дӯстон!

Ҳеҷ талхӣ нест дар дил талхтар

Аз фироқи дӯстони пурҳунар!

General Translation:

There is no happiness in the world

better than seeing your friends.

In the heart, there is nothing more bitter

than missing your friends.

 

7/15 - College, Ice Cream, & Lentils: A Trio

I slept the longest amount of time in a while - from 11:30 pm to 7:30 am. How refreshing!

In the morning, downstairs at the AC office, my NSLI-Y mates and I planned our presentations about American universities and schooling, to present to Tajik students at the American Space. Rayyan, Yannick and I had to talk about extracurricular activities, others were discussing college choice/scholarships, college social life, sports, etc.! Around 10 am, we headed to AS, where we presented to the English Discussion Club. It was quite long, but I really hope we conveyed what high school/college applications/college would be like! We even had mini group discussions afterwards, where I ended up providing a healthy amount of SAT advice to worried Tajik students.

After everything ended, Mikaela and I got roped into a very long conversation with a few fascinating students, including a guy who lived in New Jersey for 6 months, and another who knows German and about five languages total, which is CRAZY. It was hilarious because they told us how people never use adabi words (ручка, not хома; стол, not миз; стул, not курсӣ). Mikaela and I also were learning the SAT words they knew - pernicious? And they listed synonyms of hardworking, industrious, laborious... it was hilarious. We were teaching them Tajiki, and they were teaching us English! How ironic.

We soon made our escape, and Mikaela and I grabbed ice cream on the way home. No one was manning the stand outside, so I went inside the shop and asked the counter dude if we could get ice cream - the ice cream guy was actually sitting under a tree and didn’t notice we were there. Anyways, they were very excited about us getting ice cream (and us using Tajiki), and even called us back to give us a generous amount of napkins.

At home, I ate some osh for lunch!! I then took a nap, woke up, translated the newspaper article, exercised for about an hour, and even watched some Voltron too, from my downloaded Netflix episodes. I snuck out to buy a 1.5L bottle of water and found out the guy who works there is named Ali (English name, Alex).

I ate the same dinner, only this time, with fried tushbera - tiny fried wontons! I even spent a while teaching my family simple words/phrases in Chinese and English. I think they found family words in Chinese fascinating, since they repeat and are easier.姐姐!妹妹!(JieJie, Meimei = older sister, younger sister). The neighbors also brought a bag of lentils from Uzbekistan that were American, and I lowkey translated the super simple directions. If anyone ever comes across these American-Uzbek lentils, here are the directions:

  1. Boil it

  2. Simmer for 35 min, or until they’re soft

  3. 1 cup lentils with 8 cups water

Side note: lentils: наска or чичивитса (Russian)

 

7/18 - Excerpt from “The Miz on Tursunzoda” - “Halvo”

Note: I recently wrote a personal essay about my Tajik food experiences, so here’s an excerpt from it about the morning of 7/18. (original proverb: бо "ҳалво" гуфтан даҳан ширин намешавад.)

HALVO. A gelatinous, sweet-paste cake made with overripe banana and ghee butter. A viscous chestnut-brown, the hue of light gleaming off Firuza’s waist-length braid.

Chist? What is this?” I ask myself, slipping onto the cushions at the Miz (table). I had heard Khola bustling around outside, but the havli is empty, save for a few muzicha pigeons.

Instead of the usual shirbirinj awaiting me, there’s a bowl of red-brown, gelatinous cake. I slide my metal spoon through its surface and insert in my mouth a mud-moon crescent, which dissolves in a syrupy sweetness as I swirl my tongue around it tentatively.

“It’s halvo.” Khola pops her head out of the kitchen, wringing her hands on a washcloth. Her laughter-lines seem more defined as of late, since her younger daughter and grandchildren have been houseguests recently.

The melt-in-the-mouth honey of the near-tofu consistency begins to stir my hazy memories. “Bo halvo guftan dahan… shirin nameshavad.” I whisper to my teacup. Saying “halvo” doesn’t mean your mouth will become sweet — imitating sweetness doesn’t make you kind.

Khola hears the fruit of my late-night proverb memorizations as she emerges from the kitchen. A surprised chortle bursts forth from her belly, which heartily ripples her loose, magenta-floral dress and sends the havli’s wide-eyed muzicha into a titter. She shouts, “Firuza! Did you hear that? ‘The mouth does not become sweet by saying ‘halvo!’ Anisa’s learnin’ her proverbs!” Pride swells in my chest. I eat the halvo bowl clean, and its sweetness lingers on my tongue the rest of the day.

 

Sorry it's been a while since I updated with a blog post! Senior year has been quite busy. I was recently accepted to Yale (yay!), so hopefully I'll have more downtime to finish uploading. Stay tuned for my wedding adventures next post!

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