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Tajikistan Intensive Language
Component
June 7, 2010 to July 23, 2010
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
California State
University - Fullerton
Photo by Kelly Lacefield
SLI - Strategic Language Intitiative Scholarship Program
Roxanne Neely's Tajikistan
Journal
Learn more about Roxanne
Pictures Archive
(Photos by Roxanne unless otherwise noted)
Map
Courtesy Univ. of Texas
Roxy
at home prior to departure.
After a week in Tajikistan.
June 6, 2010 - Sunday
Travel
from LAX
File photo
to Dulles in Washington, DC - Overnight at
Dulles
File photo
After arriving at Dulles Airport, I
sought out the hotel shuttle and got checked in quickly.
The suite that Dad reserved for me was real nice. Huge
king bed.
Web site photo
I didn't sleep much at Momonjoon's; figured
I'd sleep on the plane - didn't work. When packing my
things for the trip, I wasn't exactly sure what to
bring, don't know the level of modesty, or how things
are different from the city to the rural area. I know
that my clothes are gonna get real dirty lol.
After
checking into the suite, and Skyped with
Farhan (my
boyfriend) for a
bit, I went on the trek to find my cousin Sanaz and have dinner
and chat. I have another friend in DC Sam Howell who is
in Georgetown for a program.
I took the Shuttle with Antuone (from
the hotel) and
then the 5A bus to Rosslyn. Sanaz and I had dinner at a
nice pizza place and just enjoyed the company. :) The
shuttle service closed at 11:30pm but I might've gotten
a special ride from Antuone so that I wouldn't have to
pay for the taxi. Instead, I waited a cool 40 minutes for the 5A
to take me back to the airport where I eventually ended up taking a taxi.
Slept about 10 hours in the King sized
bed - no lie. The housekeepers were knocking on my door
because I was supposed to checkout at 12 (whoops).
Antuone was at the front desk and said it was cool if I
got out like by 2pm (schweet).
June 7, 2010 - Monday
- Report to
Orientation Site in Washington, DC - Embassy Suites
Web
site photo
Once I made it over to the hotel, I met up
with Vida, Babak, Behrod, va (and) Mona. We went looking for
converters, webcams, and books on Tajikistan from Borders.
Orientation Schedule
Monday - June 7, 2010
1600 Check in at Embassy Suites
1745 Walk to American Councils Office
1800 Dinner
1830 More orientation materials and
information
2000 Finished
Tuesday - June 8, 2010
0745 Breakfast
0845 Walk to ACCELS
0900 Health and Safety
1000 Living with a Host Family
1030 Academic Culture in Eurasia, Cultural
Adjustment
1100 Self- Managed Learning in the Study
Abroad Environment VP
1200 Lunch
1715 Depart for Tajikistan from Dulles
Airport to Frankfurt, Germany, then Istanbul, Turkey
After the evening orientation on the first
day I finished up with my online Anthropology test, paid my
Nordstroms bill, and turned in my Poli Sci paper.
We walked
around and found a pub and had a couple of drinks before
embarking on the trip. I wanted to become more tired for
today so I decided to workout a bit that night and tire
myself more.
June 8, 2010 - Tuesday
The orientation in the morning was just
more of answering questions and mostly about food and what
to avoid:
Buying sweets on the street that have been
out for hours
Meat dishes
Police - try to get bribes, best move is
to cross the street because they'll check your documents.
Under no circumstances allow them to take you to the
station.
Tap water
Night clubs typically have prostitutes.
Always take taxi home after dark
A couple of guys were talking about events
they didn't expect.
They bought a hedgehog, and then let it go.
The
grandmother was really upset that they let it go because -
they could've had hedgehog soup for dinner....
File photo
An incident that happened in Khujand
- someone took a picture of a building they
thought was cool, got whisked away and questioned for 4 hrs.
If he hadn't had his cell phone and other important
documents, it would have been even more difficult to find him.
All the dangers are super-rare situations,
but it's important to know that they exist.
Hey! I found out that we'll have internet access at an
internet cafe and at the school that we'll be at. We're
going through some orientation and informative stuff right
now and our flight is at 5pm. Just wanna be there! Im so
stoked!
June 9, 2010 - Wednesday
Right now, I'm pretty tired, purposefully,
didn't sleep on the 7 hr flight to Frankfurt.
During the flight I stayed up and studied some
Persian,
practiced my reading and wrote some definitions. The foot
space was horrid, and the movie selection was lame.
Right now in Frankfurt, the ladies and I
had some German foods.
Got a
little bit of sleep on the flight to Istanbul, Turkey. We're
at a restaurant that offers 'free' wifi with an order.
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File photo
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June 10th, 0:16 Thursday
I just arrived at my
host family's house and met my host family father and mother.
Just before this, we went through the sardine hell of the
marshrutka (minibus) and found everyone's host family.
Some students are quite a ways
from the ACCELS center. I'm fortunate to be living quite close
to it - maybe 5 minutes walking.
The airplane ride was
very interesting. We started to get hints of the male domination
feeling. Boys were staring, and that really happened outside of the
airport. Many, many looks at our group 'the Americans'. Brett and
I sat next to a girl named Fattona. She's a student
attending Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey Bay! I would really love
to meet her family and friends and I'm sure I could invite her
to meet my host family sometime.
I asked her to verify the
information that ACCELS provided for us. I also had tons of
questions about her experience in California compared to her
life in Tajikistan. I asked her about Judo and she said it's
huge in Tajikistan, along with track and field, and tennis.
Tajiks love to dance. Many women get married young
- 17 or maybe even
15. Twenty-five is considered 'gettin up there'. Many women are
starting to value education more.
Movies are normally pirated.
They don't get much else. It doesn't rain much in the summer
which lets the dust pick up.
Older women wear the national dress
(a scarf covering the hair and a loose comfy dress).
Younger women often
wear loose skirts, but many wear jeans and T-shirts. Boys like to
wear soccer clothes and/or suits.
Men and women are
allowed to be in public together and date. Many women work in
sewing. My host mother is a pharmacist. My host father
worked for the UN and now chauffeurs.
As
soon as I came home my host mother,Mamlekat, had food ready.
It consisted of yogurt, bread, jams, coffee, tea,
boiled egg. She refused to accept that I hadn't finished my food
- Hah Hah. I had to finish the yogurt. Declining food is gonna be
difficult. Tonight we're having Palov which contains potatoes, beef,
some vegetables, rice, onion, and cumin.
File photo
The house has a large
'garage' with an open roof.
I'm sleeping in a room upstairs and
its WAY more than I expected, a large bed, vanity, night stands,
closets and shower. I'll be leaving soon to go the center for
more orientations - Yay.
It has been a long time
since I've been so excited
about taking a shower and brushing my teeth - not since
Costa
Rica.
6/11/10 Friday
Today we did a fair amount walking all around the South area of
Dushanbe.
Walked all the way to the Bazaar, were pointed out different
restaurants and markets, the bus routes and best places to get
cellphones. Once we got to the bazaar we turned right around and
walked back.
Group decided to eat, so our Resident Director decided on an "Arab"
type restaurant which was very good. They also have hookah at this
restaurant.
We were there for a while (about 2 hours at least) . My
meal, a fattonah salad, with bread and bottled water, including tip
came out to 6 dollars.
We took a bus and walked another 30 minutes to the 'Prospekt'
clinic, where a German doctor monotonously explained all the health
concerns, symptoms, treatments, places for treatments, timeliness of
treatments, most common places for treatment and quality, etc etc
etc. then walked back to the American Councils Center.
File photo
Normally the students spend time using the WiFi at the center before
our activities in the morning, and after.
And now we have to wake up to go take a test that the SLI/Miremadi
is giving us. Its the same test that is given for even before every
semester apparently.
On the walk home from the center there was a large storm coming in
and I was anxious to get home and walk around the city with my host
sister Zarina. I also met the younger sister Nodina. They're both
very sweet and smart and we talked about that Russian is used in
school, not Tajik. I was explaining that cyrillic was somewhat
difficult because some letters are very close to english. Nodina
likes Arabic and can read and write, but doesn't understand what
she's reading. I wrote out the alphabet for them and they were very
interested. I showed them my Persian music collection and Arab
collection, they like and listen to these musics.
Even though it was still raining a bit , we took the MASHRUK to Sina
street where there is a large lake. Normally there are carnival
activities and many people, but because of the weather no one was
there. Walking back the 'freeway' or Sina street doesn't have an
many tall building like Rudaki street, therefore you can actually
see the mountains! So beautiful! We walked around to Rudaki park
around the same places we walked earlier today but it was much nicer
at night. It's not as hot, the clouds and sun through them give an
interesting background.
Took some pictures and videos. We ate at an OshXona (different from
a cafe, or restaurant, offering more Tajik choices like Mantoo,
Lagmon, Osh, Palov). The bill came out to 40 Simone (10 dollars
total) for salad, tea, bread, 2 plates of lamb and potatoes and
tip).
Throughout dinner we watched the RSA and Mexico Fifa game and talked
more. We joked a lot that my Tajik and Farsi was better than hers(
because they use a lot of Russian), and that her English was better
than mine (haha).
On the way back we stopped at the SkyTel Internet Cafe where Zarina
had to scan and email a picture. Brett, Gabby and Diana were there
as well Skyping. Brett told me we had some interesting pizza
(mayonnaise, eggs and hotdogs for toppings...mmmm yummy lol)
At home we washed our feet and talked more with Mamlekat and Nodina.
We all get along and joke very well together. Mamlekat (mom) and I
were joking that the mosquitoes don't like our blood because Nodira
and Zarina has mosquito bites.
Nodira and Nodina (Host sisters).
My host sister, Nodira, and me.
They asked about if I pay for school, and I told them that because I
play a sport well, the school gives me money to play. I'm going to
have breakfast with Zarina in the morning. Some of the group would
like to go to the restaurant where there was hookah and watch the
Fifa game later at night.
June 12, 2010
Yesterday (Saturday), we went in the morning and took
Professor Miremadi's
Reading comprehension test, nothing really new.
Took a nice 4 hour long test and got
into Advanced Farsi class! That was the easy part...Now time for
classes to start! We decided to go for the Jujeh Kabob at "Fast Food".
I had a Turksih Kabob w/Lavash that wasnt great (the meat was a lil
sketchy, but they have good kabobs and rice). After walking around
quite a bit, Mona and I decided that we were going to go somewhere
where they have jalyeun (hookah).
We'll this was quite an experience. First we went to a different place
than we had originally planned (a "club" instead of a restaurant). After
asking around where they do have jalyeun, we went to this club where
the 'entrance fee' was 40 simone. Fine. We went inside and sat at the
couches. Then they tell us its 20 simone to sit at the couches and
the chairs were an extra 10 simone. Fine. There were not very many people at the
club and they were playing techno, eminem(slim shady), 50 cent (go
shawty its ya birthday) and pitbull (I know ya wan me, ya know I
wantcha).
So we finally got the jalyeun and it worked here and
there. The waiter had to fix it a few times, put more coals on top,
get a new one, etc. Then the dancers came out. Hilarious! They were
dressed
skimpily, dancing somewhat provocatively but, it was a comedy.
Eventually people started to dance on the floor. We had a couple of
beers but the hookah had to be messed with every now and then to
work right.
We were ready to leave, and the waiter gave us our bill
of 135 simone! What?? it was 40 to sit and do jalyeun, 45 for the
beers and thats what we shouldve paid. Apparently there's and extra
fee for the 'show' (ha), and they charge 15 simone for replacing
coals for the jalyeun! (I think they added tip too - 10 simone). We
were negotiating with the waitor but he couldnt understand us as we
were trying to explain that we shouldn't have to pay for these
things because 1. What is the entrance fee for? 2. Who puts an extra
fee for coals? 3. The jalyeun didnt work for some of the time. 4.
They don't tell you what they would be charging you for, unless you
ask them up front.
The best thing about the experience was being
able to negotiate in Farsi and using sly cultural tools to get what
you want. We ended up paying less than they billed us for, but
ultimately it was pretty interesting and less than 20 dollars per
person for jalyeun, a few beers, and a comedy dance show was totally
worth it hahah.
June 13, 2010 Sunday
This morning Jessica and I went for a run around the area.
I met Jessica at the large green trash bin, Max was supposed to come
with us, but he didn't show. We decided to run in the direction of
his house in hopes that he might've been late. It was a real nice
run, got lost for a bit, but found our way back and the route we
took ended up taking us right back to the American Councils street
after a mean incline.
Today we plan to go to the Bazaar.
Supposedly the best day to go is Sunday.
June 18th - Wednesday
I'm enjoying it here.
My host family is soooooo amazing :) I love them! I bought a cheapie vball and
was teaching my 15 year old some passing and setting last night. I got them the
MJ This Is It movie for her (and me) to watch :) Class was easier today and I
wasn't so frustrated :) Everyone was in a sh__ty mood yesterday. all is good now
though :) happpyyy birthdayyy soonn!!! only a bit longer until the big 2-1!! ♥
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June 17th, 7:28 (Thursday)
- Homesick and Frustrated
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Skype photo
I realize it's a little soon to be homesick, but I think the collection of
missing my family and friends, not being able to play volleyball (or
practice judo like I originally thought I might have been able to do), and
also having really difficult homework (aka looking up every 5th word), as
well as our teacher assuming the class knows all the words that she's using,
is all hitting me today.
Thank God I have my classmates that I've become close with from last summer
to do homework together. I asked Jake (resident director) for a tutor, but
he said no because there are too many students. I met up with our counselor
for our projects for SLI.
Even worse, Dr. Miremadi thinks we're going to write a 20 page paper IN
PERSIAN for a project. YA RIGHT! Even the counselor thought that would be
ridiculous.
June 18th (Friday)
I was getting a lil homesick yesterday but I'm a lot better
:))) I really am enjoying myself here though!! its so interesting and new! But I
can't wait to come back either! :)
I'm enjoying it here though! My host family is soooooo
amazing. I love them! I bought a cheapie volleyball and was teaching my 15 year
old host sister some passing and setting last night. I got them the
MJ This Is It movie for her (and me) to watch.
Class was easier today and I wasn't so frustrated. Everyone was in a foul mood
yesterday. All is good now though. Happy birthday soon!!! Only a bit longer
until the big 2-1!!
June 19th (Saturday)
June 22, 2010 Tuesday
Drinking a BigBear energy drink at the 'Southern
Fried Chicken' listening to Country music in Tajikistan doing my Persian
homework . niiiiiceee!
Its been pretty hectic lately but class is slowly
getting easier (hopefully I didn't speak to soon). Mrs. Saedi gives us 4-6 pages
of pictures/articles/questions to do/discuss in class.
We have a History and Culture time slot, Persian
Conversation, Mass Media (with Mr. Boymatov) and Tajik Intensive(only on
Fridays).
We have so much work to do its not easy, I usually write when I
don't have internet. I go to bed early and I wake up early to exercise.
I'm scheduled for a meeting with my counselor today regarding my
project.
I've been keeping tabs about what to write so that I don't forget. I
will write tonight about the weekend. Im hoping the pictures (on
Facebook) were sufficient. I still need to put captions on them.
I just met with my project advisor for 2 hours and am
now at Merve a Turkish food restaurant getting a medium sized pizza for the
equivalent of 2 dollars (8 simone).
Once I start getting research and data then I may ask for help if my
counselor doesn't assist me. But, I'll figure that out later.
After I eat I'm going to go to Southern Fried Chicken
which has good wifi for me to translate my homework assignments. Things here are
so cheap which makes it harder to be frugal, but then again the sellers are
difficult with foreign buyers(like Americans). I haggled the price for a
volleyball to mess with as well as for my baby host sister from 65 Simone to 50,
but I only haggled because I really only had 50 simone on me lol. If Vida was
there she would've gotten it for 40 or less haha. The walk back from the Opera
Ballet is about 2.5 miles and its a +35 C here. Can you do conversions?
(+35 C = 95 degrees
F).
The weekend was busy, busy, busy but very relaxing.
There are places here called "resting/relaxing place" and they have many "Kot"'s
with a couple of "Mardon"s and large beautiful challenging "Kooh"s (Bed, Pool,
Mountain). I brought my volleyball if anyone wanted to play. A few of us went up
the mountain and being an athlete has its advantages. :)
The hike down with Behrod was a litttttttttle
scarier. It was steep downhill for the most part, I was psuedo sand boarding
down some parts, Indiana-Jones'd it across a few rocks and swung to others using
roots from the mountain. the last jump was about a 12 or 15ft drop and we looked
like we had superpowers while jumping off. Lived.
After the
hike we went back to the Kot's which are these AWESOME beds (that
I'm definitely putting in my house whenever that is) napped and refueled with
Osh (rice dish with beef), Tarboz (watermelon) and water. I played some
volleyball with Ryan Herring and then some Tajiks came over to play. A
volleyball net or net is called "Sekteh" . Worked up a sweat to get into the
pool. It would've been inappropriate to swim in just a bikini, so everyone was
wearing some sort of covering like a t-shirt and shorts.
Hanging and washing clothes, getting cellphone (that
doesn't work), working out.
June 24, 2010 - Thursday morning
Classes from 0800 to 1:00 PM today.
Lots of homework after classes end at 1:00 PM. I think Dr. Miremadi
is supposed to come during the last week.
Skype photo
Trying to decide whether I should go to a resthouse with my
host family this weekend or take a trip up north about twenty miles (to Pugus?)
with a group of
students.
I'm thinking about having a dress made. It doesn't cost
much.
It has been hot so I sleep with my window open. I try to run
at 5:00 AM.
June
25th, 2:59
A Kitten, Tajik HW, Nail
Salon Experience
I'm enjoying myself, but the learning part is tough right now. Too much
translating Persian history for homework. I'm tryin' to workout over here but
it's limited to a couple of hours ar
5:30 in the morning before the heat kicks in.
On the way to her house, Vida found a kitten and
came back to the center. Everyone was looking at it petting it and holding
it. Vida gave it some yogurt and it cleaned the plate. It seems that it's
whiskers were cut off, it was somewhat thin, about 10 weeks old, and it's
ears were cut up too. Vida asked who could take it home, and I said I could
try. When I came home I asked and let the question simmer while we ate
dinner and the cat ate more yogurt. She is very docile and calm, not
skiddish or aggressive. Beautiful cat. The family let me keep if for the
night. Our Resident Director, Jake, has actually been looking to get a cat
with his wife, but because of the hassle of getting shots and quarantining
it when going to the states, they hadn't made a decision. Vida called Jake
and he and wife are deciding to keep it.
Earlier, after dinner, I played some
volleyball with my sisters and they could keep the ball in play pretty
well. Nodira was laughing her butt off over something, probably making fun
of her sister, Zarina. Nodira loves to laugh, she's so sweet. Zarina
is more serious but tonight I saw her laugh hysterically while we were
peppering. Zarina helped me translate questions for my project into Tajik,
and I asked Nodira to look at my Tajik homework for Friday. I was rewriting
the words that she wrote in cyrillic, and while trying to sound out words,
I'm sure I sounded like Borat. The funniest one I think was 'Washington',
(The w sound looks like a B) so I said something like "Bosingtan".
Earlier today I told Nodira that we
should get our nails done (I took pictures of the salon), and boy is it
interesting. All the women smoke all the time while doing nails. They had
maybe 15 choices for colors. When I told the lady that I wanted white all
over she said "bezeb neest?" (won't that be ugly?). lol They were all
interested in me and surprised that I could understand Tajik. One guessed
that I was Iranian, but she may have figured that out based on my Farsi.
Nodira got a manicure (about 3 dollars) and my pedicure (about 8 or 9
dollars) we're nice. The women in the salon seemed, dirty.. All they did was
smoke, lay around, play with their hair, and they dressed in clothing
showing their midriffs/pooches lol. Not doing that again lol.
Yea.. I spoke too soon
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roxygirllove
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June 26th, 3:01
Our classes are still very,
compressed. We basically do all history. Our Persian Conversation class is
exactly like out History and Culture class. We have many papers and packets
from Khanoom Saedi.
After class we spend hours using the internet translators to translate our
homework. In class we might read through the text. The texts are in a
'wikipedia' type form, we haven't read any original material from
literature. We only read what the professor writes for us. We haven't
listened to any audio - except for a wikipedia quickly read track about
Iran.
Today was better because the classmates deliberately asked and told the
teacher at every section where we had problems understanding. We don't get
much repetition. It takes a very long time to get through
the text's that she gives us. Today she gave us a vocabulary list of Farsi
to Farsi translations of vocabulary that would be in the text (Good!).
I'm going to start recording myself reading through the text's and making my
own vocabulary list through Quizlet.com - a flashcard website. I would
really like to know more expressions and idioms. I'd also like to do more
than history lessons.
We haven't watched or listened to any real news like Jam e Jaam, Iranian
times, etc., but the Persian Newspaper Reader is a good textbook that we use
for Mass Media class.
These complaints are of the whole class (not only mine). Saedi is a very
hard working teacher and has pressure from the 'department' to give
a particular curriculum, but she is flexible and I hope that she will
accommodate some of our needs to learn more effectively in such a short
period of time.
My vocabulary hasn't increased very much, probably 30+ words. Maybe I should
lower my expectations and be more patient.
This is a good experience also in another sense of slowly finding what helps
ME learn and what methods help me learn(and which ones don't). I feel like
because I am a (semi) heritage speaker, I need both heritage (farsi to farsi
explanations) as well as non-heritage (english to farsi, farsi to english
explanations) methods of help.
We also have the project that was assigned to us my Dr. Miremadi to deal
with, along with presentations for our class (2 presentations, 2 short
summary papers). Soon we will be having tests. Andrew suggested that having
small group sessions outside of class to go over material would be great
(agreed!). I'm going to get back to my homework.
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The Beautiful Mountain Hike
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June 27th, 3:15
Today we woke early at 6:50 to eat breakfast
and get ready to go to the mountains. I thought that my whole host
family was going but it ended up being just the sisters and Zarina's
friends.
We took an hour drive up to this mountain, and paid for a guide (40
simone). One of the girls brought her own really large backpack and
I guess that was where our lunch was packed. The guide carried it.
He took us from the base, all the way up the mountain to where you
can see snow! It was 8 kilometers(4 up and 4 down). The smells of
the plants and river we're so fresh and natural. We got fresh water
from the river, nice and cold.
About half way up, a mom of one of the girls said my last name as if
she knew who I was. Then I remembered that...I never told her my
last name. She hardly even knows my first name. It turns out that
she and her daughter make national dresses and my Dad had emailed
them before I came Tajikistan asking about dresses for me and
pictures of what they might look like. So, she knew who I was. Small
world! I told her that my Dad said he was sending something to them
but I wasn't sure when it was going to arrive. So crazy one of
Zarina's friends and her mom happen to be the business that my dad
had corresponded with by email.
The road we walked through was risky. Lots of
rocks, slipping and sliding. Especially so when we had to cross the
ice pass - and potentially fall to a rocky death. The guide had us
go in two groups and take us across. He would just ride down the ice
to come back - no sweat. I took some videos of the girls gasping and
screaming when they slipped or thought they were going to fall - Ha
Ha. We we got to our destination, a large patch next to a waterfall,
we ate bread, "spam", chicken, sausage, cheese (sandwich) and
cookies. It took much less time to come down and everyone was
excited to have completed the hike.
I'm trying to decide if I have enough energy to
do a 'home workout'. Tonight the USA team is playing (futbol) and
I'll see where the guys are going to watch the game.
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Thoughts
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June 27th, 3:09
There’s
nothing you can change, the only thing you can do is just absorb as
much as possible, I mean it's only 4 more weeks. Obviously I need to
be patient, I'm just not progressing as fast as I wish I were in a
"study abroad" environment. But it's not really immersion; everyone
speaks Tajik, Uzbek, and Russian. Iranians are rare and therefore
Farsi is rare. But everyone feels the same way with how he or she is
progressing. We are each trying to find different techniques to
learn from one another.
Maybe my frustration springs from anxiety for
volleyball.
I've had so many issues with how things have
gone with the team and coaching. Sometimes I wonder what it would
have been like to have played under different circumstances. I'm wondering what it will be like to coach.
According to my best friend, Ariel (left in photo below), and from
what I have observed, her coaches and co-coaches seem great and
focused on the players. I said I would coach and I really hope I
like it. I hope I can find someone to sort of mentor me through it. We will
see.
Photo/Kelly Paris
I was talking to Andrew about Master's programs
and how many students want work experience, regardless of grades
etc. Gabby, a girl who is staying here for a year, received the
Boren Scholarship. I may have not gotten it because I didn't propose
a whole year (I only proposed 8
months). Andrew also said that studying abroad is not close to what
we are experiencing here. He studied abroad for Arabic.
A few of us have joked about and/or considered
doing the SLI program for Arabic - together. Today we were talking
about how there are so many more resources for learning Arabic than
for Farsi. Probably 60% of the words in Farsi are Arabic or Arabic
based anyways. Andrew seems to have a much larger vocabulary than us
heritage speakers just because of that.
Back to volleyball.
I just hope the season isn't like this study
abroad. Short and not sweet, coming out disappointed. I hate the
feeling of not being satisfied. I want to play, and then train after
the season is over and try working under a different coaching style.
Maybe I can travel over the winter and do
the tour at the very least.
It's difficult to impossible to control my
calories while I'm here because the food is so high in fat. If I can
keep my lunches small then that will help. The first week, we were
all going out for lunch everyday. It costs too much (even though
it's much cheaper), it takes a lot of time to go out/order/pay/walk
back, so I've been taking a sack lunch to hold me over 'til dinner.
I just need to stay consistent with going to
bed around 11:00 PM and doing my workouts at 5:30 AM. Working
out early in the morning has it's benefits, but my host dad is
against doing weights in the morning. He believes it's hard on the
heart and tires you for the rest of the day. It's not like I'm doing
power cleans, squats, and deadlifts. I just have the kettlebell.
My immediate goals are leaning out, power,
jumping, and strength. My goal for the season is to be an
All-American. The difficultly is getting into the best shape at the
beginning of season and maintaining it until the end. When school
starts, and stresses build up, conditioning goes down hill. Plus,
last season I was dating Jafar towards the end, which really screwed
with my head.
If anything, Farhan is a higher-level athlete
himself, and would only inspire me. So nice that he plays a sport
he's passionate about. Jafar sat on the bench all year and just
talked crap, judged, and was so negative. But, he does try and train
– I’ll give him that.
I'm watching Center Stage
because it's the only movie I have downloaded on my computer. I've
watched This Is It (Michael Jackson)
and I'll probably keep watching it because I love watching him
dance, and all of the behind the scenes. Today was the first
anniversary of his death (lil fun fact). I wish I had brought more
movies, I suppose I could keep buying them, I mean they're only 3
dollars (NIIICE). lol.
Going somewhere with my
host family tomorrow.
July 1st, 2010 - Friday 12:45 PM
I'm having the problem of "damn I should be good at this
by now". Except that everyone else feels that it's difficult and no, it doesnt
come that quickly. All I can do is enjoy and soak up as much as possible and
ESPECIALLY not expect to be fluent in 4 weeks - Ha hah. Because that's not going
to happen. Just tryin my best :)
I'm continuing with the work but getting anxious to
return home. My mother says my Farsi is really getting better. Talked to my
parents on Skype for about 45 minutes during my lunch break. Asked my Dad some
questions about Hammurabi and his laws because we had a question about it in
class. Dad said the people of Babylon apparently had not discovered swimming so
one of their test for truth was to throw a person in the Euphrates river. If
they survived, they were telling the truth. If they drowned, then they were
obviously guilty. I sent him an interesting like to a
Monty Python - like video
about testing witches which sounds similar.
Dad asked me what the language center was like. I told
him it was an older converted house.
A group is going to visit the aluminum mill this
weekend but I may decide to skip it. I know aluminum is one of the primary
exports for the entire country and that the technology they are using is out of
date.
Am thinking about going along on an excursion next
week end. They are going to visit some ancient Persian ruins in
Iskander Kul (Photos) -
Iskander means Alexander (after Alexander the Great) in Tajik and Kul stands for
lake. Sounds like more
fun than visiting an aluminum processing plant.
It's located about 60 miles north on the M24 to Chorbog, Varzob, Pugus,
Kalon, Anzob, then west to Ravat where we will leave the M24 highway and travel
dirt roads south to the village of Dzhidzhik and then on to the lake.
photo Matthias
Segregated birthday
party!
July 3rd - Saturday
The day before yesterday was my host Dad's birthday
party. The family had been running errands and cooking, cooking, cooking
all day and morning. They had to prepare salad, desserts, osh, tea,
fruit, juice, bread, nuts, sweets, for about 40 people. Everything was
done from scratch, even the desserts. Each dessert was rolled up by
hand, walnuts ground after being taken out of the shell, dough for bread
made and kneaded to bake in the ovens in the basement. The girls had
help from some friends throughout the night.
I felt bad that I couldn't really help with the
cooking, but I helped with cleaning, chopping vegetables for salad,
throwing trash away so that the dishes could be cleaned.
There were men everywhere. But the women don't sit
with the men, so the women were in a separate room socializing. My host
dad's friends, colleagues, family were scattered on the 'kot', inside
the tv/living room, at tables and standing next to the pot of osh.
After some time, the religious leaders came (and the
women can not even be seen at this time). I was startled because while
we were all sitting in the open kitchen area, Nodira
all of the sudden took my arm and said
'come come come! we have to go inside,' (in Tajik). The older
(religious) men read the prayers for pre-dinner meal. Only men can come
out to bring the food as long as the religious men were there.. So - all
of us chilled in the kitchen until the prayer was finished. Then, we had
to deal with the men requesting more of this and that and giving it to
them quickly.
The system they had for serving tea was interesting.
There were probably 15 teapots that needed water all at once, so they
had 2 large pots of water boiling and used a tool to pour water
from the pots to the teapots and serve the 15 teapots all at one time.
Everything was put on small plates for the guests (as opposed to one or
two large plates and guests semi-serving themselves), so there were a
lot of dishes. I probably clean 300 items (teacups, utensils, plates,
saucers, glasses, osh plates, for 40 people).
After the traffic of serving food and washing dishes
died down, there was a plate of osh in the kitchen saved so that we
could eat (with our hands) we were got hungry.
Once, the party was finished, I saw Vida and Behrod
outside and Behrod said he was going to watch the Spain/Paraguay game at
11:30 at ChaiKona Rohat. I hadn't done anything earlier that (except
spend 5 hours at Southern Fried Chicken surfing the internet and
skyping).
The futbol game was uneventful until the second half
and finally Spain made a goal after kicking it off the goalpost twice.
Sidenote: Some hot super model from Paraguay made a public statement
that she would sleep with the futbol team if they won the world cup!!
hahah. Too bad they lost.
July 4th, 2010 Sunday
US Embassy - July 4th party
July 5th, 17:07
A cold Coca-Cola from the can can't be beat!
The US embassy was holding a party for the 4th of July and
rumors were that there were going to be hamburgers and hotdogs and cold beers.
No one had had a really cold beer this whole trip. Haha. Unless you wanna go to
the Hyatt and pay hella. Well, the hamburger was ...meh. At least the ketchup
was Heinz and the mustard was French's.
Ok from the start. We get to the embassy - Babak is worried
about his host brother getting into the embassy but no problems. It's like an
airport. They check our passports, we have to check in our passports and all
electronic devices (no cellphones, internet drives, USb drives, cameras,
nothing) and put our things through the x-ray machine. The embassy is pretty
awesome. Tennis court, basketball court, volleyball nets, soccer 'field', the
works. As we walk in, they're playing the national anthem. We stand in line to
pre-pay for our food. The first thing everyone gets is a cold beer.
Our group-mates were all scoping out the fields and people
and just thinking "this is SO typically american - all the parents were
color-coordinated in red, white and blue. The embassy has grass and sidewalks.
The American families had their dogs, There were many military guys there, but
overall it's nice. It was really relaxing being around Americans and consciously
switching back to American cultural norms such as smiling at people, looking,
saying 'excuse me', talking with randoms - all of that.
Gradually people started to play volleyball.
I didn't want to impose or be selfish, so I waited until a
side needed a player/was kind of not doing too well, until I came in to play. No
one in our California program has ever seen me play so finally they got to see a
little bit of rough-around-the-edges play. Everyone was pretty impressed (of
course they were – I’d hoped they be, OMG I've been playing for more than a
couple of years lol) and it was really fun, finally got my fix. When we
were playing the 2nd match, I squatted down to pass a ball and...... RIIIIPPPP
there went my pants. Thank God for Jacoba and Tiffany's scarf because my butt
was practically hanging out - I ripped the back of my pants from the back of the
knee up to the top of my bottom. Got that scarf and kept on playing - of course!
The military guys were all really chill just drinkin
beer and playin and having some fun.
"Man, can one of these 4 yr old get me a beer". "Oh MAN ,
I've been 'around' Khujand, *sigh* - oh hi hunny!" .
After some time I was ready to have a cab and get home. I
appreciated Scott's company and an enlightening experience but I wouldn't want
to disrespect my host family by being really late, so I came home about the same
time as I would from watching a late futbol game. They were all asleep but,
they'll see me in the morning for breakfast. Happy 4th!
July 9th, Friday 2010
Dad: Your instructor
(Mr. Abrorov) seemed very nice? Your mother enjoyed seeing and meeting him (on
Skype).
From the Persian Slang Dictionary on Facebook
Persian SLANG: Just a Sample
-Abdollah, Asghar, Ghazanfar: Funny names, usually mean
being retarded
-Ab Shangooli: Alcohol
-Amar: information about something or someone
-Ananas: A gay person
-Aragh sagi: High Percent % alcoholic beverage or Moonshine
-Asghar taraghe: Fiery, short fuse, or hot tempered personality
-Atighe: Something that's not useful at all
-Avizoon, sirish, kane, zigil: A person who is always annoying you and doesn't
let go
-Bache Mosbat: Someone who is generally a nice person and does everything which
is morally right
-Bacheye nikeh roozegar: Someone who is a kind person
...
-To khoobi: You sarcastically say this when someone is being critical for stupid
reasons
- Heh heh heh hendoone: You say this when someone thinks they said something
funny which is not funny at all.
-Service kardi: You say this when someone is annoying you.
-Engar az koone fil oftade: You say this about a person who is a really big snob
and gives attitude all the time.
-Behesh Migam: A response when someone proposes something outrageous.
-Khamoosh shodi? : why are you quite?
-Khodeto Chos nakon: Don't make an ass out of yourself
July 15, 2010 - Thursday
Tomorrow is Friday. This week
is almost finished AND after next week I'm FINALLY coming home! Then the summer
starts!!
July 16th - Friday
I'm in practically the (former) Soviet Union for the summer,
but I'm a be back in the (Lan)caster on the 26th!
July 19th 2010 - Sunday
My Cat just had 5 kittens!!
p.s. we're trying to keep one - aka if anyone in the valley would like one, I'm
advertising :)
July 22nd 2010 - Thursday
I'm almost done !!!!!!!! One hour of testing today, and like
an hour tomorrow and I'm done. Then Im just gonna relax/hangout/workout 'til
Monday!!
July 23rd - Friday
3 more
days, I think can. I think i can. I think i can. Another day at the bazaar.
Relax at Salsa and just get ready for 3-a-days (workouts) in the (Lan) 'caster
(California).
July 25th 2010 - Sunday
Bahahh awesomeeeee!!! I'm leavin in 3 hours!!!! I'm gonna
miss my host family ;(( , But I'm excited to return home!!!!
July 26th 2010 - Monday
Culture shock observations upon
arrival in Istanbul, Turkey: No one is starring at the Americans. Starbucks Chai Tea
Latte is DELICIOUS. First instinct is to throw toilet paper in the trash can.
Where's the button for the faucet? Oh. The paper dispenser isn't detecting
me...(cleaning lady pushes black button). Oh. and (Darn),
ything is expensive here (no, everything is just
cheap in Tajikistan).everything is expensive
here. No, everything is just cheap in Tajikistan!
July 30th 2010 - Reflection on Last Days in
Tajikistan
Man, there's a lot of turbulence. I'm writing on my flight
to Frankfurt, Germany.
My last post was around 10 days ago. At that time I was
reaching my limits of frustration with our instructor's methods. Classes became
a sneaky time to use the internet. During class I would record lectures to use
later for practice and repetition, because those were things that we did not get
in class. After class we would go to Morning Star (a Christianized cafe with
'American Food') for their sweet iced tea.
I had been trying to make a few more trips to the bazaars
for material for my projects. Tajiks use a print named "Ikat" that is popular in
Uzbekistan and Central Asia. It's ridiculously cheap. 1 meter for 6 som. ( a
dollar and half). I got a lot of it :). I'd also been trying to find gifts of
souvenirs for friends at home, but in all honesty, there isn't anything unless
your a Soviet Union buff. I found some old Lenin pins. I'm keeping bills from
the different countries and going to make a shadow box/collage/framed something
or other. I stole the maps from the plane's SKYLIFE magazine and will do
something creative with that as well. I'm anxious to decorate my side of the
loft with my colorful fabrics :).
Back to Tj. Our finals were kinda of a joke. Very short, and
not in any way a measure of progress. I'm over it - at least I got some
materials and useful resources from other students that I can use at home. One
thing I learned through this experience is that "Studying Abroad" is/can be
overrated, depending on your destination. "Studying Abroad" is not absolutely
necessary for learning a language, 'Immersion' is different. Living with my
Tajik family didn't exactly help with learning Farsi, it kind of helped with
teaching it. "In Tajik what is X? Oh in Farsi it's Y."
We all stayed up until I left. I packed and exchanged
Zarina's Russian music for my English movies. Zarina is getting married at the
end of the year, their brother in February, and Nodira when she comes to
California to seek out Jacob from Twilight.
The only thing I've eaten out of Tajikistan is a Starbucks
Chai Tea Latte. I'm scared to eat the tasteless processed foods that are
everywhere. Even the fruits and vegetables that have been bred to be large,
colorful and tasteless. I want my bazaar-fresh naturally saturated with
khoshmazi-ness. I've decided in the states that I will go to the Farmers Markets
to buy local (if I can help it). By the second week in Tajikistan, my
roots(hair) had grown out at least half an inch. Either its the oil in the food
(excessive) or the amount of fruits and vegetables I ate that weren't bred with
hormones or whatever they fake-up foods with these days in the West.
Forest Fire near home on return to Lancaster, CA.
Roxanne and Lida (mother) in hammock at home - Lancaster, California
END of Journal
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June 20-21, 2010 Saturday - Sunday - Weekend trip
It was 102 in Taj. yesterday, and only gettin hotter!!