Roghun

As you've read here, and perhaps in the Financial Times or NY Times, Tajikistan has energy problems. The current administration is addressing those problems by building a huge dam. They plan to finish a partially constructed dam over the course of several years. The Roghun (pronounced Roh-ghoon, with the 'gh' like a gargling sound from the back of your throat) hydroelectric power plant was started back in the 80's under the USSR, but then scrapped when the empire collapsed. When it's finished, it will be the highest dam in the world, about 1000 ft, and will supply enough electricity for all of Tajikistan.

The thing is, the Tajik gov't hasn't been able to raise the money from external sources, so each citizen is being asked to buy a 'share' in the plant. The president has reiterated that this is a voluntary contribution to the future of Tajikistan. Here is a poster, one of many around Dushanbe and the entire country, encouraging Tajiks to buy shares. It reads: "Roghun, beaming and bright, warmth of the nation and the development of our dear and incomparable Tajikistan"

Another one, across the street from our apt, reads: "Roghun, the beaming light and foundation of Tajikistan". Hopefully, Roghun will be finished on time (2014-2016 for the first phases) and supply Tajiks with enough power for everyone to be warm all winter.

Vodka

Vodka is everywhere in Dushanbe, although the number of people that drink here seems to be fewer than in Armenia, and the amount consumed much less. Walking through a supermarket, I was excited to see this familiar bottle, usually a sign of quality vodka. Then I noticed that it was not the brand I was familiar with, but another. Look closely.

Yes, only in Tajikistan can you find 'White Goose' vodka. Grey Goose must have ripped off the image and label, and changed the flag colors from red/white/green to red/white/blue. The Tajik producer should sue. What's especially amazing about this product (besides the taste, I'm sure) is the fact that it's 'Made in Tajikistan', and yet at the same time 'Imported'. The brand team managed to convey nationalism and quality through this unique combination of terms.

Winter (shiver)

Our greatest fear upon arriving in Dushanbe back in September '09 was the cold of winter, given that we heard horror stories about electricity being out for days at a time in the homes of expats paying >$1000 per month, and our housing budget was significantly smaller. We spent 2.5 weeks looking at different apartments, trying to figure out if the central heating would really work (landlords all swear it does, in order to get you into the apt), or, if the place didn't have central heating, would the electricity supply be constant, or rationed?

What kind of windows does it have? What kind of walls? Stalin-era buildings are known for insulating because they're made of porous rock, which acts as insulation. But Brezhnev-era buildings are made of thin concrete, and they're often colder than outside because they radiate cold during the day.

The place we settled on is a Stalin-era building, and the landlord said he had worked on it to make it comfortable for the winter. Of course, many landlords had told us the same thing, and we really didn't know what that entailed. But we took this place, figuring that, all other things being equal, we liked it the most.

As it has turned out, this winter has been relatively mild--to our immense relief. The temperature, even at night, has only dipped below freezing a few times. Days have been downright warm, regularly reaching 55 degrees. Yesterday it snowed several inches for the first time, previously the most we'd seen was a dusting. Today is cold again, but tomorrow is supposed to be warm again. All this means that people aren't running heaters 24 hours per day, so there's been no rationing of electricity in our part of the city (although there has been in the center, where the higher rents are!!) Thus, we have been warm :)

People are beginning to talk about Navruz, the spring festival, which will arrive on March 21st. There are only about 40 days until then, although we've been told this is the 'chila', the coldest 40-day period. At this point, though, we're reaching the end of the winter season and if it's cold for a couple of days, there's light at the end of the tunnel. The number 40 is important here, as it was in Armenia, as well. The 40 days after a wedding, funeral, or birth are special periods during which certain rules must be strictly observed--for example, only relatives are allowed to see a newborn.

When Navruz does arrive, there will be celebrations all over the city. In Iran, and maybe Afghanistan?, there's a week off from work, although here the vacation is only 2 days (inherited from the atheist Soviet Union). There will be large feasts, and Buzkashi matches. Buzkashi literally means, 'Goat Dragging', and it's a game like polo, played on horseback, in which players must reach down off of the horse to grab the body of a headless goat (~150lbs) and carry it to a 'goal' circle, dropping it in the circle to score. It's every man for himself, with 20-30 riders, and you can punch, kick, or run over your opponents in order to get the goat from him. There is no 'field', so spectators must occasionally dodge a stampede. I can't wait to go and watch.

Look up 'Rambo buzkashi' on YouTube for an example.

Tajikistan Travels, Jan 2010

A map of the places we've gone so far in Tajikistan:

I traveled to the south, to Kurghon-Teppa and Kulyab, to assist physicians, who were conducting interviews for a Project HOPE survey, to choose the patients they would interview. Our trips to the north, east and west have been for pleasure, to hike in the Varzob valley north of Dushanbe, and to see the towns of Vahdat and Hissor, to the east and west. Both of those towns are 20 minutes away from Dushanbe, but have rationed electricity supplies in the winter. So, they have electricity for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. Many people use wood stoves to heat the house.

The area to the east that is very mountainous is called the Pamir. Marco Polo wrote about it on his trip to China. It is a high-altitude plateau, much like Tibet. We hope to travel there in the summer, when the road is open (and there are fewer rivers to cross by car).

Learning Tajiki

I've been studying Tajiki for six months now, although I'm not sure I've gotten anywhere at all. Tajiki presents several difficulties for me that other languages haven't, and my studying methods have been different, as well. I'm thinking about this a lot right now, as I just conducted a training in Tajiki (although I don't know how much I trained and how much I confused), and to prepare for it I asked several sources to help me translate and convey the correct message. They all gave me different answers.

Tajiki draws vocabulary from several languages: Arabic, Farsi and Turkic/Uzbek mainly, but the word for anything technical is Russian, because of the Russian and Soviet influence from the late 19th century until now. I can't think of any examples right now for synonyms in all four languages, but, for example, the word 'condition' could be one of the following:

vaz' (Arabic)

vaz'iyat (Arabic)

hol (Persian)

holat (Persian)

khel (Persian)

This is fine, we have synonyms in every language, but it makes comprehension difficult when speaking with those who are unfamiliar with my level of understanding. In addition to the official, dictionary words, there are tons of slang words thrown in to mean the same thing. The slang used depends on the geographic origin of the speaker. There is a different dialect in Sughd region, Khatlon, Dushanbe, and the Pamir (where many speak a completely seperate, though Persian, language). The result is that, unless someone speaks in literary Tajiki (nobody does), with correct syntax (ditto), using the synonym I know (Murphy's Law), I will be thrown off by something in the sentence. If the average sentence contains 3 or 4 key words that modify the meaning dramatically, the chances of my understanding are low. In reality, I only completely undersstand when individuals make a concentrated effort to communicate with me--although I catch much of what's going on otherwise, it's not enough to give answers or make decisions.

When studying Armenian, while there were definitely plenty of synonyms, the roots of words were usually unchanging, and grammatical forms had fairly set constructions. So,

happy-urakh : sad-tkhur

happiness-urakhutyun : sadness-tkhrutyun

happily-urakhutyamb : sadly-tkhrutyamb

And any word that contains 'urakh' automatically means something about happy. In Tajiki, however, the ending 'i' or 'y' changes the word from a noun to an adjective--although if you don't know the word already, you don't know if it's an adjective or a noun. Further, another, additional 'i' can be added to either an adjective or a noun, in which case it makes the noun either an adjective or possessive, and an adjective becomes a noun--but you have to have known that it was an adjective otherwise you might mistake it for a possessive noun. The context gives clues, but there's a lot of decoding going on while trying to listen to the rest of the sentence.

Part of this confusion arises from the fact that Tajiki used to be written in Farsi/Arabic script, and then was changed to Latin letters by the Soviets (because they implied 'modernisation'), and then to Cyrillic by Stalin because serving in the army was easier if people could read the Russian instructions on, say, a tank. In the transition, decisions were made on which letters would 'replace' the old script. There is no 'double i' ending in Farsi script.

Aside from the synonyms from different languages and confusing 'i's, creating further mental mayhem is the fact that many technical terms are now being shifted to Tajiki/Persian words from Russian. Anything that involved science or higher education in the sciences was taught in Russian, or used many Russian loan words. The only authority on how these should be translated into new Tajiki words is a government body that releases new words every once in a while. The only way people find out about them is by listening to state television, where anchors are often obviously speaking a language that is new to them, as well.

So, when I ask my three tutors, "How do you say, the 'target group' of a study?" I get 3 different answers. Someone at work tells me the way they say it in Russian, because they don't know what the Tajik is. I prepared the training in English, translated it to Tajiki, then got my tutors' advice, then changed everything when the Project HOPE translator proofread it, then changed the technical terms that we had directly translated from Russian into the official, 'new' translation with the help of a technical monitoring officer who was up to date on these things (but doesn't speak English so I couldn't work with him from the start).

I'm nearing the end of my language study grant, and I'm glad that I won't be running around the city anymore trying to get from lessons to work to lessons. I'm also glad that I'll be able to just focus on picking up vocabulary and syntax from conversations with Tajiks, instead of being too exhausted from lessons to engage people. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I'll miss the opportunity to have someone to answer all my questions for 3 hours. I think I have picked up quite a bit of the language, after all, and I'm confident that I can get around just fine here, or in other Persian speaking areas. I have to take a test at the end of the language grant period, and it will be interesting to see how I am graded, and how that compares to other Persian learners here. I feel as though I'm at the same level I was after 4-5 months of Peace Corps--which is good, since I had the benefit of a host family and full immersion there, whereas here my immersion is watching local TV.

So, now on to Russian!

Update: I wrote this about 3 weeks ago, and since then we traveled to Romit, a small village on the Kofarnihon River to the east of Dushanbe, and I had the chance to speak with the national park ranger there. We had a normal converstaion, I understood him clearly! He spoke 'clean' Tajiki, that is, the Tajiki I know, so that I didn't need anyone to translate to either English or literary Tajiki. It was nice to have happened upon a location where my language skills came in handy--finally!