July 29th, 2019


We had another day of class today, but got let out early so we could rehearse for our final performance on Thursday. We are all reciting a few poems and then singing these two Tajikistan songs. The two classes will also each do a skit. After we did the poems and recitation we got a chance to work on our skits. Our skit will be amount a King and his Vizier and based on a short story we read in class. The college students from ERLP will also be preforming at the party, since they are leaving at the same time as us. We met one of them in a store today. He seemed very friendly and spoke positively about the impending ERLP performance, though he noted he was the only one of the group actually studying Tajik here. Everyone else is either studying Farsi, Dari, Uzbek, Russian, or a couple of other languages.
Apparently the HIV researchers are sick, so they couldn’t come to lunch.
After class we went to Chatr again and once we got home I spent too long playing with my two host siblings. I am starting to realize how much I will miss my family and the students I have been learning alongside for these past five or so weeks. It is crazy how fast it has gone by. I always thought I would have more time, but we leave Saturday morning.
Completely inane observation: the crocs I brought have warped and shrunk in the sun. I have been wearing them the past few weeks after my host mother insisted I wear them instead of my hotter normal walking shoes. But everyday I have to leave them out in the hot Tajik sun for about 6 or so hours while I am in class. Now they are smaller and much narrowed since they have sort of curled up inwards. It makes them feel pretty uncomfortable since my heel isn’t all the way on it. In the crocs’ defense I have had these for over three years at least, if not more, so my feet have also grown, but they still basically fit when I packed them. So far I have ruined two pairs of shoes on this trip. I also only brought two pairs of shoes. Or maybe me being too big for my shoes is a physical representation of my personal growth during the program, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s the right explanation for many reasons.

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