A Holiday Weekend in the Not-Quite Danger Zone

So a much belated ‘Eid-e Mobarak” to all those who celebrated over the last weekend, and I sincerely hope that all of you who did had as marvelous time as I did for my first real Eid. And (unlike the majority of the readers here) Eid-e Qorbon meant I got a long weekend off from classes, which needless to say was also a heavily appreciated break after a week of midterm-related unpleasantness. I’m hoping this isn't going to be a long update, just a quick recap of everything from this weekend.

Friday was the start of the general Eid weekend, and rather than sitting at home, doing nothing but engaging in awkward, forced conversation with relatives of the host families who I've never met before (don’t worry, I don’t get out of this entirely), one of our professor’s was kind enough to invite us along as he made the rounds to visit his family and friends. Now, if you’re new to what Eid-e Qorbon (or Eid al-Adha, if you’re so inclined, and I am not) is, think Thanksgiving dinner. Now think that with more dessert, multiple times (our run on Friday was 5 different houses), and of course, the centerpiece of the holiday, the sacrificing of the lamb/goat/cow. Yes, Eid-e Qorbon is, if you ignore all of the symbolism, a murderous Thanksgiving that’s been, as much in Tajikistan as in the rest of the Muslim world, rapidly commercialized. I suppose that makes it more of a murderous Christmas then…

In any case, Eid-e Qorbon was, in the short space of just 5 hours, an excuse for me to eat more food in Tajikistan than I've eating in either Tajikistan or America. Period. Also, there were the lovely edition of “Trick-or-Eid-ers”, the rather un-witty nickname given to the kids who go from house to house reciting their little mantra for money or, more likely, Chinese-made chewing gum. And then we get to my favorite part of day 1, the Quran carolers, or kids who go around singing lines from the Quran that have to do with the day (I think? I honestly forgot to ask them what they were saying).

Now that I think about it, Eid in Tajikistan is a strange combination of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. In any case, it was awesome.

Speaking of Halloween, Saturday seemed to be the lull day in the weekend, which was spent mostly spending time in the park watching the encroaching snowcaps on the mountains around the city. Until that night, for you see, the building where we brave few study abroad-ers go for class is also the center for the FLEX program, or a program that sends Tajik students to the US for a year to study English. And the FLEX alumni were putting on their annual Halloween party. Now, while this was, for lack of a better phrase, a big high-school style house party, it was a welcome break from what is rapidly becoming monotony on the weekends, and if any FLEX kids/alumni ever end up reading this, you guys put on a damn good party, and I’d like to see if you've got any plans for St. Patrick’s Day…

And that (in quick passing) was my Eid weekend in a nutshell. Any questions, specific or otherwise, are greatly appreciated. As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.

زمستان داره می آمد

So midterms are almost done, and I figure that, with all my “free time”, I figured it’d be time for another update. And there’s so much to talk about…well, sort of. I realized the other day, as I was going through my previous posts, that I’d never actually done what I’d said I’d do after my first post (in my now defunct first blog), laying out my various plans for what I’d hoped to accomplish in my year here.

I’ll be covering that after my usual update of what’s going on in Tajikistan. Last weekend was out last major excursion outside Dushanbe for the program, and we headed to the village of Shahritus down south in Khatlon. A 5-hour drive (one way), Shahritus had its small-town charm, and there we saw Khoja Mashhad, which is the remnant of an old madrasseh destroyed by Genghis Khan, and, more importantly, the mountain springs known as “Chulichor Chasma”, which had some of the clearest (and safest to drink) water I've seen in Tajikistan.

And the fact that Shahritus is our last major excursion brings another major fact to the forefront: Winter is coming. It’s a common phrase (or maybe it’s a joke) that Dushanbe only has two seasons: summer and winter. I can see my breath on a regular basis, the mountains around Dushanbe now have picturesque snow caps, and sweaters are now the fashion in the capital, so I’m going to hazard a guess that winter is almost upon us. Now, I've described how the compound is set up before, and as winter closes in for the proverbial kill, I’m starting to realize that the short walk through the courtyard I have to take to the bathroom or, more importantly, the shower, feels like running the gauntlet through the frozen plains of hell. I’m personally waiting to plug in the electric heater that the family provided for me until things get particularly bad, but if you've ever lived in a house without any sort of heating or insulation, you don’t have an idea of how winter in Tajikistan is going to be (needless to say, I have no idea how this is going to be).

So, what are my plans for Dushanbe? Well, I've had several, and my time in the city has certainly changed what my plans have been. Most recently, I've worked out a deal with one of the current peer tutors to start learning Hindi next semester (or maybe earlier?). Why Hindi you may be asking. And by “may”, I assume you probably are. Initially, I’d planned to take Russian, as Russian is the de facto language of Central Asia, and most of the post-Soviet sphere. And yes, Russian is incredibly important in Tajikistan (as I've been learning while people angrily accuse me of being an ethnic Russian that’s just trying to make things difficult by not speaking my “mother tongue”). But for a number of young, college-age Tajiks I've talked to, Russia is old news, the option for when you need money and the threat of skinheads beating the living hell out of you because you’re a tad too dark for their liking is mitigated by the lack of options here (i.e. the parents of these college-age students, cruel realities are abundant here). For them, there’s “a new land of opportunity, and it’s not the US, it’s India”. It’s worth noting that last sentence is a quote from a Tajik I was talking to earlier today.

And it’s that which brings me to my next point, and my next focus. First and foremost, I am a student of international relations, and in Central Asia, that really means only one thing: the New Great Game. Now this isn't a political blog (or at least I’m doing my best to keep it from being one), so a basic rundown of the aforementioned idea is that every power that can swing its influence in Central Asia is trying to. From the US, to Russia, to China, to even more distant countries like Japan and Turkey, Tajikistan is at the forefront of what may be the 21^st century’s greatest (if not one of the greatest) geopolitical flash zones, where countries and ideologies and non-state groups all collide and try to come out on top. I’d hoped to do some sort of independent research on this, but given how hard it is to get people to talk about anything even remotely political (at least their politics, I get plenty of dialogue in on the American elections or the war in Afghanistan…), this seems like it might be a bit too ambitious for me on top of even just the Persian classes I have now, let alone anything more daunting. Granted, I've never let that stop me before, but as of this post, that’s been put on the backburner.

Then there are the other things, like trying to find an internship, summer plans, still trying to be involved in AIESEC in another country, reading the Shahnameh in Farsi, blah blah blah…

Any suggestions, either for topics to write about or how to get around my current research-related dilemmas, are greatly appreciated. As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.

شما سوال کردید، من جواب میدهم...

With midterms coming up next week, and a shocking number of actual questions, I figured that I’d be able to write a (somewhat) substantial post answering some of the questions put forward thus far. So here we go…

How Muslim is Tajikistan?

This one covers questions ranging from “How’s the dating scene?” to “Are you allowed to drink?” to “Does the call to prayer wake you up in the morning?” Tajikistan is, officially, 95% Muslim, mostly Sunni and Shi’a. And that’s the simplest part about it. On one hand, this is a country where you have to look to find pork products (and no one will cook them) and the social norm is several degrees to the right of the United States, or the Western world as a whole. On the other hand, getting a drink here is about as difficult as walking into a grocery store and giving them 2 somoni (a whopping $.40) for a beer.

Now obviously it gets more complex than that. My host family is a bit more religious than (seemingly) the vast majority of people here, to the extent they pray regularly, cook halal food, and don’t partake in drinking themselves. However, I’ve never personally encountered a problem with my own drinking in this country (which I don’t blatantly do when the family is around). For the average person on the street, religion and its importance seems to vary. There are about as many hijabs and traditional garbs on the streets of Dushanbe as there are form-fitting clothes and ungodly amounts of makeup.

There are still a lot of remnants of Tajikistan’s conservative (but not necessarily Muslim) past. And while I can by no means comment on all of these, the majority to seem to focus around, I’m sure you guessed it, women. The main one, that’s the most noticeable, is the idea of marriage here. If you’re a woman, and you’re 25 (or, astaghfirullah, 30!) and still single, well tough luck for you, have fun being a spinster. And if you’re lucky enough to get married at 18, prepare to be chained to the house (often of your husband’s parents) for the rest of your life. Now, in case it seems like I’m being overly negative about this, it should be noted that this seems to be what a fair number of young women in Tajikistan want.

So globalization, eat your heart out.

How’s the food?

In a word: delicious. Here again, my stay has been different than most, in that until last week, my family was keeping to an oddly vegetarian diet of various soups and stews. However, there are very few things I’ve had in this country that I haven’t enjoyed, and the collection of grilled and fried foods is simply marvelous. The national dishes of Tajikistan are osh, which is fried rice pilaf, usually topped with carrots, mutton, and onions, and qurutob, which is bread soaked in chakka, a sour yogurt base, and topped in onions. The first is amazing (and a welcome sight on the dinner table), while the second is an…acquired taste.

Oh, and there’s tea. Everywhere. All the time. It’s amazing.

How’s the poverty/quality of life?

In another word: bad. I may be living in the rich part of town, but when we lost water for a few days, it made a point abundantly clear, even inside the compound, this is the developing world. The perpetual smell of rotting filth and shit near our class office is another reminder, as are the perpetually unpaved roads. And that’s in the capital. In Khujand, the second largest city, there were routine blackouts, in addition to the above. As for the villages, good luck if you even get power or water. People can hate the Soviets for some of what they did, but the infrastructure that they built here was pretty nice…until about 1992.

What are you doing for fun?

Playing with the host kids, going out with my program mates, hiking in the mountains, relaxing in the park, drinking at the Operakhona. You know, the usual.

That’s really all I can think of for now. I will admit, I’ve been writing this while having a bit of a pre-midterm ‘party’ in the office, so I think that this is as far as I’ll get. With any luck, I’ll have something notable to write about after midterms end. As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.

Seriously, Help Needed

Well, here we are again, another lovely week of an update. And…I have nothing. Seriously people who say you’re reading this, I need ideas, and I can’t just have adventures all the time. Losing water in the entire city and eating "soop-e kadoo" is only fun so many times…

As far as where did I go this week, our group visited the city of Hisor in western Tajikistan, famous for its historical fort, some of the bricks of which are about as old as the very idea of an Iran itself. There’s also a lovely mosque with a somewhat mystic tale about 39 armless, legless people who control the fate of everyone in existence, and a cultural center that has some artifacts they've dug up over the last few decades. And…that’s about it; Hisor is one of those places (i.e. a good chunk of this country) that has an incredibly rich history, but not too much going for it in the present. Nowadays, seems like the lumber yard is the big news for the old Silk Road…

In other news, a sad day from the home front as our resident Irishman, Andy, is leaving Tajikistan after three months working here. As someone who helped me integrate into the family and, to a lesser extent, the expat community, many thanks are in order, and I wish him the best for any future endeavors.

So yeah, ideas are appreciated, and by appreciated, I mean needed. As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.

Surprises, Surprises...

So, with another week past, I must admit, I had expected to write about something regarding some vague aspect of Tajik culture that had been interesting me. After all, with a weekly excursion so lovingly marked as “Tajik and Iranian bookstores and Afghan restaurant”, this certainly wasn't going to be a weekend to remember, right?

Wrong.

True, the actual excursion was nothing to write home about, and due to the Iranian bookstore being closed (for reasons that really didn't make much sense), I only came home with a Tajiki language copy of Rudaki’s works. Similarly, the “Afghan restaurant” was a Tajik restaurant, but the Afghan osh (the local Central Asian variant of rice pilaf) they served was a marvelous change of pace from the near constant menagerie of vegetarian soups that my host family has been giving me for dinner.

But then I got home…

Now, as opposed to the other two host families, my homestay has been relatively quiet. A real of lack of guests, aside from the host mother’s nephew (and his wife) and her sister (and her husband) have graced my adopted household. But Saturday night…it was a party the likes of which I’d never seen! True, it seemed to be solely for the grandfather figure of the family and a collection of other men (my inclusion to the affair was the matter of intense debate, but my promise that I would speak Farsi and change into a suit seemed to seal the deal). Upon entry, I learned the reason for the snazzy shindig…cockfighting. Apparently, harmless little Baba Bozor and his friends get together on Saturdays and watch the birds they've been raising fight to the death.

You might be wondering if I’m complaining, but wait, I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. After about an hour of having old men randomly trying to engage me in various topics in Farsi/Tajiki, the food was here. And it was (I seriously hope someone has guessed it by now)…chicken. Yep, we ate the losers. That made Saturday the first day in Tajikistan that I've had meat in all three meals. And it was glorious. Must say, ‘animal rights’ be damned, I love me some Tajik chicken…

Alright, alright, so my Saturday turned out to be eventful, which means Sunday was a day full of homework, yes? Haha, again (I imagine you definitely saw this one coming), false. I decided to go on a nice, relaxing, 15 km hike. Yes, a friend of mine somehow convinced me that the way I wanted to spend my Sunday was to go a hike with a bunch of expats in the small mountains north of Varzob. And yes, it was certainly beautiful, and yes, falling face-first into one of ponds next to the waterfall (and emerging from said pool freezing but with all my electronics working) was certainly nice. But I think I’ll wait before my next hike…

No idea what my next post will be on/when it’ll be. Ideas always appreciated. As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.

Тоҷикистон, бедор шав!

(EDIT: Thank you to reader Parvina for correcting my attempts at the Tajik alphabet)

Let me be perfectly honest about this particular update: I didn't want to write it. Ever since I got to Dushanbe, I've been hoping I would find something that would prove certain conceptions I’d had about the country wrong. It’s been a little over a month, and while certain elements of the content have changed, the basic message has not. I know I’m not qualified to write this, nor am I, as an American, someone who can or will do anything to alter circumstances as they are. But I’m writing this, in the hope that someone who can make a change, who should make a change, will.

That being said: Тоҷикистон, бедор шав. Tajikistan, wake up.

Over the last month here, I've met people ranging from housewives to academics, octogenarians to students. And even after a month, I can say with 100% certainty that every single person I've talked to has given me a common consensus. That being, the government of Emomali Rahmon, the PDP, and their related branches are ineffective at the best, and corrupt and worthless at the worst. This is a country where there are massive water shortages, yet more fountains than you can shake a stick at (which never seem to stop going at the President’s Palace, of all places…). This is a country where infrastructure is an afterthought. This is a country where the biggest sources of income are foreign aid and remittances from guest workers abroad. This is a country where food and power shortages will kill people, lots of them, when (not if) the winter comes.

And I have to ask, why?

Why, 15 years after the end of a civil war, why 21 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is Tajikistan still the poorest of the poor? Oh, there are reasons. The fact this was, to use the “professional” term, the Russian Empire/USSR’s “resource bitch” didn't help the lack of infrastructure. And the civil war was bad, yes. But these are excuses, not unchangeable facts of nature. This is a nation of around seven million people, an actual multiethnic society. Oh, it still has problems, if Khorugh in July is any indication.

But after a month here, and after talking to people (some of whom I would like to consider friends), I want this country to wake up. I want this country to realize that things aren't working, that things are wrong, and that they have the ability to change them. What I am calling for is for Tajiks, in the government, in the universities, in the businesses, in the homes, to look at themselves. There are people here who know 4 or 5 languages and are, in their respective fields, some of the smartest and most insightful people I think I've ever met.

And half of them want to leave the country because there’s nothing left for them here.

This is your greatest loss Tajikistan. Not your freedoms, not your securities, not your (relative) prosperity, but your mind, your youth, your life-blood. This is what will perpetuate a culture of corruption, inadequacy, and degradation that has taken hold over much of the former Soviet Union. It will take time to fix; nothing can be solved quickly, because revolutions don’t fix anything. But as one Tajik said, “Things are safe now. We aren't afraid of war, or violence here.” That’s good, but that’s complacency, and complacency doesn't breed success.

Hell, at this point, I’m not even saying the change has to come from the bottom up. Rahmon and his ilk have situated themselves nicely in a position of power, maybe (however unlikely) they can be agents of change. 

Such leaders have been “enlightened” before. But something has to change. I don’t say this in the sense that there will be violence. I say this in the sense that Central Asia is about to change radically in 2014, and if no one, not just Tajikistan but the rest of the lot, is thinking about what to do afterwards, (aside from the apparent mentality “buy guns and mine the borders”) and how to encourage people that there are alternatives to despotism, whether secular or religious. Give people a stake in the system, because the current one is a shaky peace at the cost of socioeconomic ruin.

Well, that’s all I've got. If you read this far, many thanks, I know it was a struggle, and I’ll try not to make this blog a soapbox so I can voice my concerns about things going around here. The fact I’m writing this in English, as opposed to Tajiki or Russian doesn't exactly help my argument. And naturally if you think I’m wrong, tell me so, and we’ll see what we can do about educating me properly.

But if you take one thing away from this post, take this: There is hope, here in Dushanbe at least, for Tajikistan’s future. But it’s not hope that builds greatness.

As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.