What happened to March?

Wow, again it's been a long time since I last posted. The past few weeks have been quite busy for me at work, as we've been analyzing data and preparing abstracts for a couple of conferences and I prepared and delivered a training on a software package. Since I didn't know the software myself six weeks ago, there was a lot of learning going on before figuring out what to teach. That training took place last Thursday and Friday and went well, although both the Country Director and myself are wondering how much will 'stick', because the staff will only be using the software occaisonally. I gave 'homework' for everyone to have an opportunity to practice their new skills, but I'm not sure that I'll receive many completed assignments back.

The big news now is that tomorrow I'm headed to a place just south of Kulyab, near the Afghan border, where a large proportion of the 6,000 villagers have tuberculosis. A nearby village with a similar problem was highlighted in a BBC article/video last year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7773139.stm). Project HOPE wants to determine how much multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is there, and I'll be testing out my questionnaire for my own, smaller project.

I hope to take lots of pictures while I'm there (if local people are okay with that), so I hope soon you'll be able to get a sense of what life is like in a Tajik village, and perhaps how TB is affecting individuals and society.

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!

New Year's Eve

Diana and I had plans to watch Russian movies with some friends at their place, but then at the last minute those plans fell through, so we decided to spend a quiet New Year's at home, relaxing. We had heard that there would be fireworks at 8pm, which made sense, because in Dushanbe everything closes and the streets are always empty by 8:30. Whenever we've been out past 9pm, it feels like a ghost town. While in Armenia everything happens at midnight, like in the States, we just figured that, like everything else happens earlier, so would the fireworks.

I think the 'earliness' is due to the civil war, which, when it was fought in the streets of Dushanbe, was on a schedule which began at dusk or dark. Everyone had to get home before the fighting started, so the theatre took place at 4pm, work ended at 5pm at the latest, and usually began at 8am to account for the early closure.

So we jumped into a tangem at about 7:30 and headed for the city center. As usual, the streets on the way there were already barren. But as we arrived at Rudaki, the main drag, we saw that this night was not at all like all other nights. Crowds of young boys mobbed the streets, joking with and pushing each other. Police lined the streets. The gunshot-like pop of single firecrackers rang out repeatedly. We had heard these near our house from early December, but that was just once in a while, and now it was every couple of seconds.

One of my teachers had told me that, immediately after teh civil war ended, it was difficult for many to listen to the firecracker bangs and not be worried about gunshots. While far less dangerous than guns, these firecrackers were wielded by young males who didn't share the same sense of personal responsibility for others' safety as many of us do. The teacher one time had a jacket ruined because someone tossed a firecracker into the air and it exploded near her shoulder, burning off a patch of fabric.

Having heard that story just several hours before Diana and I got out of the tangem and entered the downtown mayhem, I was somewhat 'on guard'. We cautously made our way towards where we thought the fireworks would be, watching every passing group of boys for signs of firecrackers. Bangs did go off around us, but thankfully on the ground and not too close. The police were also watching (unsuccessfully) for firecrackers, because they're illegal, and thus can be confiscated... for great profit.

While neither of us felt comfortable in the crowded streets, it probably wasn't as dangerous as I might have made it sound--there were families with children, and girls out as well. I think it's safe to say that we were more accustomed to 'safety culture', though, and judged the situation with a different perspective, which is why we eventually decided to head back home early.

Trying to find out what was going on, and why people seemed to be moving towards the Ismoili Somoni statue, Diana asked a family, "What's going on over there?" The wife replied in Persian, "Sorry, I don't understand Russian. We're from Afghanistan."

When Diana's language skills don't work, I take over in Tajiki. "We were trying to find out what's going on over there, and why the police aren't letting poeple through," I said. "There's going to be a concert, and they're checking people. The concert isn't going to be until 9pm, though." "Do you know if there will be fireworks?" I asked. "We heard at midnight there will be fireworks. Where are you from?"

"America." For a split second, the husband and wife both looked like they had been slapped, the woman's face seemed to tighten and her eyes became wide with something I didn't catch, but they quickly regained their composure. "We live here now," I explained. "Well, the Police will probably begin letting people through now," the Afghan man said, "Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year!" I replied, and we walked away in opposite directions. I don't know what they were thinking or what caused them to be taken aback when I said I was from America--it could have been that Diana spoke Russian and I spoke Tajiki--but the problem is there are currently so many negative reasons for them to have reacted that way that I was filled with a sense of shame.

It was New Year's Eve, though, and since I can't change my country's course from here, we decided to people watch and take some pictures. I had forgotten to bring my passport, registration and visa copies with me, so passing the police lines might have meant paying some bribe if they decided to ask for those. We probably missed an amazing lip-synched concert, but we'll live.

At the entrance to Rudaki Park (formerly Lenin Park, formerly with real trees, now with electric trees in a country with energy issues)

Selling...something food-like
A firecracker launches

After taking some pics, dodging firecrackers and watching the crowds for a while, we found a tangem and headed back home, where we celelbrated New Year's with each other for the first time. Hope everyone had a similarly interesting and exciting New Year's celebration, and, in the words of many an Armenian Tamada, may 2010 bring you happiness, success, good health and the fulfilment of all of your dreams!

I just don't know what Santa ('Winter Grandpa' here), a bear and a tiger have to do with each other, but I think for a couple of somoni you can have your pic taken with one of them.

Seeing people out this late made Dushanbe look very strange.