Oh, what a dusty Dushe

Khello Dir Frehnds!

I write from the air conditioned confines of the ACTR program office in Dushanbe, sitting on our new shiny black leather couch with the rest of the program folk.

As is often the case when travelling, five days here already feels like a month. The teaching has settled into a routine, as has life with the host family. Dushanbe doesn't exactly extend itself like Samarkand, but it's friendly and it's growing on me. It's hot and dusty and very, very Soviet. It seems there hasn't been much of a building boom in post-Soviet Dushanbe, so all the museums, schools, apartments all have a very post-Soviet imperial feel. But apart from the main avenue - called Rudaki - there are large sections of makhallas, or traditional neighborhoods with traditional central Asian dwellings called hovles, which are centered around a courtyard. Thankfully I've wound up in one of those, with a host family that is Uzbek (but of course, speaks TAjik and Russian also).

My host father, Bakhtior, is rotund, affable, and immensely proud of all things Uzbek (including plov, watermelons, and Islam Karimov). When I don't understand what he says in Uzbek, he simply repeats himself until I suddenly and miraculously "get it." We also speak Russian but technically I'm not allowed to use it. My host mother is named Saida, and she's a primary school teacher at the Uzbek-Tajik school; her favorite word is "conscience." Her everyday house-smock is light blue. Bunyod is my twenty year old host brother. He's a part time student at the local Russian-Tajik University, hoping to study in Turkey in teh coming years. He works days at a warehouse and has rooted for Russia, Spain and Turkey in the Euro championships. In our chess matches I've won two and stalemated one. My host sister is Sherzoda, she is in her mid twenties but I have not been formally been introduced, and clearly will not. Why? I'm not sure, but she has two small kids and seemingly no husband, so I guess some sort of scandal occured. She is confined to the back side of the courtyard where she cooks and makes tea for the male folk, when she's not working as a cook for Southern Fried Chicken. She did emerge yesterday to give us tea and it became apparent that she had forgotten to give me a phone message. Bunyod, usually mild mannered bawled her out, and I'm pretty sure I heard a "stupid girl" in there somewhere. This is a myster that I'll be working on all summer. More updates to come.

The lights of my life at the moment are two adorable host niece and nephew. Muhammad Amin is 8 and was delighted to get my soccer ball as a present. He has been appointed my "assistant" by Bakhtior and will do my bidding, as soon as I can figure out how to give orders in Uzbek. Hopefully we can take our courtyard soccer matches to an outside pitch sometime soon. Finally, there is 4 year old Malika, which means "Princess" in Uzbek. She's rambunctious, either smiling or sobbing, and has investigated all of my belongings from shampoos, computer, notebooks, toothpaste, etc. She's earned some sort of nickname for her "capriciousness." She loves her Detroit Red Wings tee-shirt and likes to list the features of the face for me in Uzbek. She gets to join the menfolk at dinner because she's just a babe. But most of the time me, Bakhtior, Bunyod and Muhammad Amin eat on our own. I wouldn't mind changing this up beause Bakhtior takes great pride in slurping his food, grunting, and wiping everythign up with his fingers. He also demands that I eat more food.

random facts:
- waterpressure is set to 1983 levels. People keep illegally tapping the lines, and so the pressure is down to a trickle. For instance, I shower by letting the drips accumulate in a basin and poor it over my head. Then I repeat. The government could technically raise the pressure, but to punish all the illegal buildings, the rest of us suffer.
- an Iranian "peer tutor" for the Farsi kids is married to a filmmaker. He's doing a series on Tajik culture and she says that they aren't friends with most of the local Iranians, who all work for the Iranian government, spreading the good word (inshallah).
- technically, proselytizers of all religions are to be deported or jailed. I guess I live in a neighborhood that is known to have a Lutheran church. So I've been warned not to go there or risk potential deporting. Not to worry.
- there are a number of Afghan refugees here but I haven't figured out where they live yet. Later in the summer I hope to attend the US embassy run day camp for Tajik and Afghan kids. Essentially it's indoctrination camp. I'll report all the worst I see.

My apologies for the list format of this email; florridness will come.

And so dear readers, till next time......

Will Charles finally be introduced to Sherzoda?
Will he find the Afghan kids?
And will the kids ever be able to understand his Uzbek?

Stay tuned.

Charles