So, a few days ago, I went to a bridal shower. That was pretty interesting. There was a bride, of course, and lots of women. Most of the guests didn't seem too interested. But the most shocking part was to actually see the look on the bride-to-be's face. For several minutes, I kept thinking, wow, she must be really unhappy about the groom and really upset to be getting married at the ripe age of (21??). But actually, I then remembered someone having told me awhile back that the bride is actually forbidden from smiling. I questioned my family here about this and they expressed their dismay that I should have already understood how serious marriage is, and that if a bride smiles (even among women) she's giving a bad sign and being disrespectful. Of course, I hadn't realized how bad (from my cultural upbringings) it would be to have this gloomy look, until I actually saw a bride, in a typical bride's dress, but with a pout.
I've learned two things about Islam - Tajik style since I got here --- actually many things, but let's see what I remember....
1) Muslims speak little, sleep little and eat little. (this is apparently a saying)
2)Muslims pack up their entire bed every morning and hide it somewhere.
3) Muslims (women, or men I guess) cannot shave their legs.
4) Muslims must wake up after the morning prayer and stay awake for the rest of the day (I guess that goes with sleeping little., cause the morning prayer is really really really early, or at least this meant waking up at 4 am when I stayed the night with the grandparents outside the main city).
--I know I'll think of other strange things my family has attributed to Islam. Yesterday, my French friend definitely reminded me correctly that because the Tajiks were so isolated during Soviet times from the Muslim world, when they were free again to practice their religion, they just assumed that whatever cultural practices they had were actually because of Islam. Naturally, that wasn't the case.
I know that I need to post some photos, and I will do my best to do this by Monday. I have some great photos with statues of Lenin, left over from the Soviet Union. My host mother asked me last week whether I liked Lenin, but I simply didn't know what the politically correct statement would be, so I said, "a little." ha ha. She probably thought I was insane.
Toda, on the other hand, I added a book bag and wore a little makeup and the entire city seemed to be staring as I got on the marshutka(mini-bus).
The marshutkas are amazing - basically tap taps like in Haiti, but they have kept some of the nice upholstered seats. In the space where none of the seats are, about 2 feet wide, about 8 people stand upright with their bodies smooshed into each other. Personal space is definitely less appreciated, but I suppose for less than 10 cents a ride, I shouldn't complain about standing up while the van drives 50 miles an hour and a person's head is smooshed into my back.
But I have to say that living here in temperatures above 100 degrees every day is really starting to take its toll. Yesterday, I met a fellow classmate I went to grad school with in Geneva,...she's been on and off in Tajikistan for 4 years. Apparently, one of the first times she came, she got typhoid. And she had even gotten the vaccine...I'm glad now I got the vaccination...although just the day before I left at the BU Health Center.
Until tomorrow...
Love,
Karin
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
TAJIKISTAN
Hi friends and family,
Greetings from Tajikistan. Although I do not know how to begin telling you about my travels after already two weeks, I will have to begin somewhere. I am definitely enjoying my stay - although it has actually been over 100 degress every day thus far. At night, it is even still 85 or so. Of course, I am estimating this because I don't know celsius in terms of feeling once it passes 28. It was one week before I even had a fan. After I got the fan, I realized that the family here believes that fans are the same as air conditioners and that you can't have the window open at the same time as a fan is on. I do anyway, obviously! I have been thus far out of Dushanbe (the capital) only once, and that was a for a huge celebration for the circumcision of a 7 year old boy. He had belly dancers, a throne, and a king's robe and scepter. He sat on his throne counting money, bill after bill, while his grandmothers danced next to the professionals. There was vodka on all the tables, upsetting the more religious Tajiks and thoroughly pleasing the Russians at hand. Otherwise, occasionally I go to the grandmother and grandfather's house a little outside the center of Dushanbe. There, I am thoroughly reminded of Haiti, because at any time there are twenty to thirty family members and friends in the house or courtyard talking, singing, sweeping, cooking or watching the people pass by. The women have been cooking countless stews of berries and fruits to preserve them for winter. Fresh figs and berries or cherries are the favorites. I normally eat for dinner Pilav or PLOF - a rice mixed with garlic flavor and lots of carrots, or I have a stew of vegetables and chickpeas with buckwheat. Here, I am just simply going to lots of large community festivities and learning to cook exotic Tajik foods - although I hear that after two weeks the variety of food becomes small and we lose our appetite. I live in a family of 5 children and two parents. There is one daughter named Idigul and there are four boys, all of whose names I cannot remember. The mother is exactly how a mother would need to be in order to manage 5 children in a three bedroom apartment. The daughter gets her own room...! The youngest boy is 10. We all eat together on the floor and Tajiks really like to eat their PLOF with their hands or scooped up with bread. I live on Somoni street.
Everything in Tajikistan is named after Ismail Somoni, and the short lived Somoni rule. I have not yet learned much about this, but I do know that Iranians like to laugh at the idea of any Tajik history. Here, the Tajiks simply call Iran a brother country and think of Iran as an equal. Iran always has been very proud, I suppose.
I do not live close to my classes, and so I am required to every day take the Trolleybus to and from the Central Asian Development Agency, where we rent rooms for classes. The Trolleybus though has actually been dangerous as the electric line has fallen down and we have had to evacuate the bus and step over the live electic line. One boy thought it would be funny to jump on it, causing the men who were trying to lift the line back to the sky to go running after him, chastising him. Yesterday my host mother chastised another young boy for sliding down a cement incline on a plastic bottle. It was a make-shift slide, but he was becoming horribly dirty after each ride ...Children outside the U.S. find a million ways to play without computer games. ...Now, I am on my way to a regular Tajik dance class that I take at a dance theater next to the Presidential palace.
Greetings from Tajikistan. Although I do not know how to begin telling you about my travels after already two weeks, I will have to begin somewhere. I am definitely enjoying my stay - although it has actually been over 100 degress every day thus far. At night, it is even still 85 or so. Of course, I am estimating this because I don't know celsius in terms of feeling once it passes 28. It was one week before I even had a fan. After I got the fan, I realized that the family here believes that fans are the same as air conditioners and that you can't have the window open at the same time as a fan is on. I do anyway, obviously! I have been thus far out of Dushanbe (the capital) only once, and that was a for a huge celebration for the circumcision of a 7 year old boy. He had belly dancers, a throne, and a king's robe and scepter. He sat on his throne counting money, bill after bill, while his grandmothers danced next to the professionals. There was vodka on all the tables, upsetting the more religious Tajiks and thoroughly pleasing the Russians at hand. Otherwise, occasionally I go to the grandmother and grandfather's house a little outside the center of Dushanbe. There, I am thoroughly reminded of Haiti, because at any time there are twenty to thirty family members and friends in the house or courtyard talking, singing, sweeping, cooking or watching the people pass by. The women have been cooking countless stews of berries and fruits to preserve them for winter. Fresh figs and berries or cherries are the favorites. I normally eat for dinner Pilav or PLOF - a rice mixed with garlic flavor and lots of carrots, or I have a stew of vegetables and chickpeas with buckwheat. Here, I am just simply going to lots of large community festivities and learning to cook exotic Tajik foods - although I hear that after two weeks the variety of food becomes small and we lose our appetite. I live in a family of 5 children and two parents. There is one daughter named Idigul and there are four boys, all of whose names I cannot remember. The mother is exactly how a mother would need to be in order to manage 5 children in a three bedroom apartment. The daughter gets her own room...! The youngest boy is 10. We all eat together on the floor and Tajiks really like to eat their PLOF with their hands or scooped up with bread. I live on Somoni street.
Everything in Tajikistan is named after Ismail Somoni, and the short lived Somoni rule. I have not yet learned much about this, but I do know that Iranians like to laugh at the idea of any Tajik history. Here, the Tajiks simply call Iran a brother country and think of Iran as an equal. Iran always has been very proud, I suppose.
I do not live close to my classes, and so I am required to every day take the Trolleybus to and from the Central Asian Development Agency, where we rent rooms for classes. The Trolleybus though has actually been dangerous as the electric line has fallen down and we have had to evacuate the bus and step over the live electic line. One boy thought it would be funny to jump on it, causing the men who were trying to lift the line back to the sky to go running after him, chastising him. Yesterday my host mother chastised another young boy for sliding down a cement incline on a plastic bottle. It was a make-shift slide, but he was becoming horribly dirty after each ride ...Children outside the U.S. find a million ways to play without computer games. ...Now, I am on my way to a regular Tajik dance class that I take at a dance theater next to the Presidential palace.
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