July 21, 2019

Last night, after I wrote the post, my host mother’s sister along with two of her grandkids and the family’s daughter in law came. One of the grandkids was a 14-year-old boy. We spent a very long time talking, or as I should say he spent a vary long time talking and I would interject a sentence or two when I could. He spoke very quickly and I would often remind him to slow down. While in Tajikistan so far I have often bemoaned the fact that our conversations are limited to sports, weather, or food. We are, for the most part, unable to have the deeper conversations about Tajik history or culture. This did not stop the boy who I spoke with. While I couldn’t understand most of what he said I did the following words: Lenin, Jesus, Bible, Koran, America, England, President, Poetry, Iran, Classics. I understand other stuff as well, but those sentences were the ones I most wanted to understand. He also was in English class in school. But at two hours a week of class, he wasn’t learning much. Occasionally he would interpret his stream of words to say the English version of a word, but since his English was not that good it was always a word I already knew, since he only knew simple English words and I only knew simple Tajik words. It was really the more complex Tajik words I needed him to translate, but he didn’t know the English for them. It was funny to hear him translate only words I knew what the Tajik was.

            It was also interesting to note that the concept of cousin or niece/nephew don’t really exist as terms. My ten-year-old host sister referred to are also ten-year-old cousin as her sister (translation). Here just as a form of address you will call a man your own age or older “aka” which just means older brother. Terms used for family as used for address on the street as well. Here just as a form of address you will call a man your own age or older “aka” (or “akajon”), which just means (dear) older brother.

            This morning we watched a Tajik movie about this poet called Farzona. I understood very little. I don’t even remember the title, but it had the word red in it somewhere. Afterwards the friend of the filmmaker answers our questions. The Tajik students from the college-application-prep program joined us. They asked most of the questions and quickly switched to speaking in Russian, leaving me even more confused. The movie/documentary in itself was also very confusing. Unlike conventional (more blockbuster style) movies, this was an indie surrealist documentary movie dealing with abstract messages with very academic language (according to our local coordinator since I couldn’t understand most of the words academic or otherwise) and no narrative. The movie had all sorts of recurring images of apples, red, and this woman in a boat with a butterfly. It was very strange. It would switch between straight shots of people talking (talking head style but full body shots), the woman in the boat with the butterfly reading poems, and surrealists scenes with ever changing color schemes. Sometimes the only color was red, other times it was full color (the butterfly was blue if any one cares). An example of a surrealist scene was a woman reciting a poem in a forest in front of a floating windowpane and table. I think I would have found it less weird if I understood more. In the question/answer portion, the friend of the filmmaker did try to explain the apple imagery/theme and what the deal with the red part was. I didn’t really understand, but I think it was something to do with the poet getting apples as a children from a woman whose children just got out of prison and also her growing up in the CCCP. The Tajik kids didn’t seem to like it much either.  This afternoon we also went to Taj, which was an Indian restaurant. It wasn’t half bad. It was a nice break from Tajik food. My host mom is making osh again tonight.

            We watched the movie at one of the internet café we had been to, which also had a room was some rows of seats and a blank wall on which to project movies. While there I managed briefly to get some wifi, and got some notifications including from the New York Times, where I am unable to load the articles, but still get notifications on wifi. One of the notifications I got was about Iran seizing two British oil tankers. This kind of information is relevant to us, but it is never talked about. News and current events here just isn’t a big deal. I also noticed that when my host father went to load the news at the breakfast table (news.tj) it didn’t work and he had to use a Russian news site instead because it was blocked. I really wish I knew what was going on.

            Today was 120 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the one student with mobile data access (thanks, T-Mobile).