July 19th, 2019

I left Boston on June 19^th for Chicago where our orientation was and the start of this whole adventure. That was one month ago today, though months are a weird measure of time since some have 30 days, others 31, and one even 28. Can you tell that pace of life is slower here?

            I did pretty well on the test, but there was this story section I completely botched by misunderstanding the directions (despite understanding the story), so I didn’t do as well as I could have but on the vocabulary section I got 100%, which hasn’t happened before. I am not going to post my test scores on the internet anymore, since I don’t want those on here forever, but I did like the sense of accountability. Plus my host mom keeps telling she is praying for me to do well. If she knows I have a test (like I do every Friday) she will make sure I don’t send too long playing with the kids and quiz me on my poems. She always tells me that if she knew how to read English she would help me with flashcards, but my solo active-review strategies seem to be working for vocabulary.

            After the test today and lunch, one student jokingly asked our teacher if we could go form a field trip. After explaining what a field trip was, one student suggested jokingly we should go get ice cream. She agreed much to our surprise and we practiced reciting our full performance, while passing our perplexed RD on the street. We got to practice using our recent food and ordering vocabulary, but to be fair we have been ordering ice cream since day one here. It was a nice break from the monotony of class.

            After class and our weekly group meeting, we headed back to the library room in the youth center for the opening ceremony of the library. There were a couple people from the embassy there, along with the director of the youth center, the country director from American Councils, and another NSLI-Y Tajikistan 2019 alum in addition to the one that founded the library. There was a ribbon cutting, and students from ACCESS read aloud a Tajik book to the few younger children assembled. A NSLI-Y student read aloud an English book, and someone read a Russian one too. The student who founded the library along with the country director and the folks from the library said a few words to the students and other attending. I got a chance to talk to more students in ACCESS one-on-one. Their English isn’t very strong, especially compared to the FLEX alums (who have spent a year in the US) or the Study with US college prep kids (who were all from Dushanbe and were clearly of a high SES).

            The paintings in the library turned out super nice. In the rest of the building the painting, which I am sure was once bright like in the library room, was faded to pastels from the sunny and peeling. It was a marked contrast, especially with the library room’s new flooring compared to the well-worn concrete (crumbling at times even).

            Also, I learned a bit more about the ACCESS program from the students as well. It is a “micro-scholarship” that covers the cost of transport (many of the students came from villages), books, and lessons in English. In most schools, they normally have just two hours of English a week according to my teacher, due to their block schedule, so ACESS gives a real chance to learn English. They have class three times a week. There are in 11^th grade (their senior year) plan on applying to FLEX, which would let them spend a year in the US, going to an American high school and staying with a host family. The ACCESS students also shared some of their dream jobs in the future: English teacher, interpreter, entrepreneur, businessman, lawyer, and dentist. ACCESS students are 24 students in one ACCESS class. Most of the students in the ACCESS program who also going to “American spaces” run by the US embassy every so often. It was nice to talk Tajik kids again. We might be meeting up with them and some FLEX alum to play soccer later. Since their English wasn’t super strong, I also got to practice my Tajik with them. If I said a sentence in English that they clearly didn’t understand I would say a simplified version of it in Tajik, which they usually understood. One student even said I was good at Tajik!

            One thing we did with the ACCESS kids was give them “American names” just like we had been given Tajik names in our class. It’s pretty common in languages classes, but they didn’t do it in their English classes. They found it hilarious, but it felt a bit wrong westernizing all of their names. Some names students ended up with: Harry and Henry (formally both named Hussein), Molly, Danielle, Phoebe, Alex, Isaac (which is actually a Russian name they have in Dushanbe), Sarah, Hank, and others. I like sharing my culture, but I don’t like forcing it on others. Right now I am trying to figure out what that looks like.

            This whole library has also forced me to think about what service looks like as well, while being an American learning a language in a country with a very different culture from my own. I worry about “white savior complex” and this idea of Tajiks or for us to change them. I feel like “changing Tajiks is a goal” is a simplified version of what we hear frequently when it comes to talking about our interactions with Tajiks. But the alum who founded (not quite the right word but close enough) seems like she included a lot of Tajiks (especially FLEX alums) and tried to listen to a need in the community. It’s still a tricky line to walk. Sorry I am not very good at articulating this.

            It’s hard to believe four weeks has already past. It feels like just yesterday I was sitting terrified in the bus to waiting to be dropped off at most host family’s home. I also have successfully written everyday, and today I hit 20,000 words, which feels somewhat noteworthy. Also I was right about my family being more mindful now that they know how much I understand. This morning my host mother and her daughter in law were fighting about something. It was related to the kids, but then they realized I was sitting at the table and switched to Russian, before I got the full story.