July 15th, 2019

We class we learned about infinitive phrases, which will be helpful when conversing with our host families and expressing more complex ideas. After class, the dressmaker came back with the dresses the girls and along with the shirt/pants set one of the guys got. She still had to do some measurements for some of them and they’ll get their clothes the day after tomorrow. I kind of wish I had got some traditional fabric and had a shirt made too, but I was sick the day of the bazaar trip and guys don’t really wear stuff with the traditional fabrics here. Nothing really interesting happened today. The novelty of life abroad is wearing off in the heat I guess. This week has been particularly hot. Walking home from school, which doesn’t take more than 15 minutes at most, will leave me drenched in sweat and not just because I am out of shape. It happens to everyone. Some one did point out today that this weekend will be our last weekend with our families, since next weekend we go to Khujand and the weekend after we are on a plane. I am excited for Khujand.

Our homework today is to describe our favorite meal. It is making me miss non-Tajik food so much. They feed you so much here and it’s all drenched in oil. I have gained weight and it’s only been three weeks. You can’t refuse because they get offended and will keep telling you to “Eat! Eat! Eat!” or “Take it! Take it! Take it!” (direct translation). Something else I have noticed is that when I am writing the English translation of a Tajik word during class or after doing homework when I have only been writing in Tajik or am rushing I will mix up the Latin and Cyrillic letters, sometimes writing the word phonetically in Cyrillic script. When I write especially on paper it is pretty much only in Cyrillic now, though of course I am typing in English/Latin alphabet everyday I think the muscle memory is different.

I have been starting to think about how I will continue with my Tajik studies in the US. I like the language quite a bit. While challenging, it is relatively straightforward in terms of languages. Compared to all Latin or Greeks various case construction and dozens of declensions Tajik grammar is pretty simple, or maybe we just haven’t gotten to the super tricky stuff. I imagine compared to learning English it would be a breeze. It is still challenging for me though, even just in terms of the sheer amount of vocabulary we have to know. I will probably make the jump to Farsi as I think the State Department hopes (Farsi is much more of a security language than Tajiki, since only one of those countries does it seem like we are heading to war with). Though I wonder how much of it will be applicable, since there’s a whole new alphabet and quite a few different words. Tajiki has a lot of Russian influence in the language. There are a lot of loan words. Unfortunately my internet access is sparse to non-existent as usually, so I haven’t had much of a chance to research ways to continue Persian.