I Made It After 24hrs of Travel

2/4/11

So I made it to Dushanbe, Tajikistan safely. I haven’t been affected too badly by the time difference because I slept so much on the flight over so it was easy to jump right into the schedule. My host family is really awesome and nice.  We live off the main road that runs through Dushanbe called Rudaki Avenue. The father teaches computer engineering at the university the mother stays at home, the son is 17 and goes to school and the older sister,25, is stay at home because she cannot find a job. She has a degree in economics. They have a cat but I haven’t been able to find it. I have seen pictures of it though so it exists but because of the language barrier I haven’t been able to figure out much out about it…but I will. They are very patient with me as I have to be with them because of the lack of language skills on my end. Also the dialect of Tajik is slightly different from the Farsi dialect so sometimes there are words that they don’t understand that I use and vice versa but each day it gets easier to communicate. Also their default language is Russian so when they try to re-explain things they sometimes switch to Russian because most foreigners here are Russian. So far with the American Councils, the program I am attending, we have been touring the city and getting situated. Formal classes don’t start to Monday and I have them for about four hours straight a day expect weekends where there are out of class trips. They keep us busy. There are four of us entering the spring semester, 2 grad students and 2 undergrads. They are all really cool people and most have been abroad through other programs similar to this one. So for right now It looks like my class will only consist of me and one other girl. There are more students here about 13-14 most of them part of Flagship so they have their own classes and the rest are doing academic year so they have been here for a while. I am really excited to continue exploring the city it’s so easy and cheap to get around. Today was my birthday so my host mother knitted me some socks for around the house. Because of the snow we didn’t visit the city as much. But Kramer, another student who has lived in Tajikistan for 8 months before this program, took me sightseeing. We saw Somoni Statute which is the person on their money and we visited a Rudaki Park. It was beautiful to see in the snow, but very wet. Hopefully I will get a chance to go back to take more pictures.  The food here is super greasy so that gets some getting use I don’t think I have ever seen so much even in American food. It varies from restaurant to restaurant and my host family makes good food too, not too greasy.When it gets warmer there will be more fruits and vegetables and hopefully trips with my family. The only veggies I can find right now are potatoes, tomatoes, onions and green radishes. Like I said before I will try to update this weekly but things will pick up on my end when classes start. On top of interacting with my host family and going to class I will probably get a peer tutor to talk to a couple hours a week. There are so many souvenirs I want to buy but I just got here and have plenty of time. I need to find out common prices from locals and best places to shop so I have bargaining power. I write this entry on my birthday and  it is now three days later and so much more has happened. Hopefully today I will have time to write and upload another one.

My bed sooo comfy and the covers are super thick

wardrobe to left is huge and my desk

I put my clothes especially socks on the heater and put them on...so toasty

My host mother gave these to me for my birthday

Statute of Solomoni the guy on their money, I had Kramer act as look out for cops while I took this, they like to mess with foreigners and like to give people trouble if they think they will get a bribe from it

In front of a cinema that only plays films in Russian, My host sister Bashira was taking me to a local bazzar to buy boots

STAY TUNED FOR MORE.....