July 6th, 2019

Today we met with Tajik students who are part of a program called Education USA run by American Councils, which helps guide students through the process of applying to colleges and universities in the United States. We gave a short present using our knowledge of the college process and talking about our college essays or extracurricular activities. The director of the program told us they wanted the Tajik students to get a sense of who their competition would be, since they don’t have much a sense, even though the program participants are top students in Tajikistan. In Tajikistan, there is very little in the way of extracirriculars or when sports teams. American Councils and the embassy through the American Corner tries to organize clubs, but the school system is just set up differently. Students take sometimes upwards of 17 classes, when a weird rotating schedule. To go to university students in Tajikistan take an exam in class 11 (our grade 12) and from there learn which university they can go to. It is very simple compared to complex American system. Having us, as American high-school students, give them college advice seemed a little weird to me, especially considering only 4 of the 12 of us are high-school graduates and some of us are only juniors (4 of the 12) who have little insight into the process. Moreover even for those (American) students going into senior year their exposure to the college process also varied a lot due to the variety of quality of college counseling found in the United States. But getting to hang out with the Tajik students was fun. They speak very good English (a requirement of admittance into the Education USA program, since students will have to the TOFL to apply to US schools). When we practiced our Tajik with them, though, they would laugh. Their teacher scolded them and told them that was what their English sounded like when they started.  We are going to hang out with them in the future again though. Hopefully they’ll know somewhere fun to hang out. Dushanbe hasn’t been exactly riveting.

Today was also the mid-program home visit by our Resident Director. She is visiting every house when both the students and families are home. The conversation went well but in situations where I am nervous my Tajik gets worse, so I couldn’t contribute much to the conversation. After she left my host mother and I had a nice conversation about the day’s volunteering and plants (food is one of my strongest vocabulary areas) among other things. I did understanding a surprising amount of the conversation between my Resident Director and my host family, but there were definitely times they were saying stuff about me I couldn’t understand. They kept teasing me about getting a cold in Tajikistan and how the air conditioning in my school must of caused it. Either way, my resident director was impressed by how comfortable we seemed with each other and how attentive they are. I think the visit went well, but I am still embarrassed by my Tajik ability.

Stray thought: I thought that writing everyday would improve my writing, but it occurs to me that there is no way my writing will improve if I am not getting feedback or every revising my writing. I don’t even proofread, let along revise or edit. Trying to write everyday has given me a lot of respect for the kids who journal everyday.

Tajik moment of the day: walking into the bathroom and seeing a watermelon sitting in the bathtub with water running over it. The bathroom was completely dark minus a knock-off Care Bears night-light, since the normal light had gone out and doesn’t seem like it will be replaced.

Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz and the Tajik civil war

Over the past through days, I have also been speeding through Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. The book is an exploration of lingering Southern attitudes towards the (American) Civil War. I immensely enjoyed it, though I disagreed at times with Horwitz’s interpretations and own attitudes. The whole subculture just isn’t something I am exposed to, though is by no means surprising considering racial attitudes today.

It was also fascinating to read while in Tajikistan, a country whose own civil war ended around a mere 20 years ago as opposed to about 160 years ago. The Tajik civil war was devastating to the country in terms of human cost and even economically. The country has yet to recover to the GDP of the pre-war, soviet-era GDP. The war also had the highest rate of causalities of any of the post-soviet civil wars. The exact details of the war I don’t know, since I didn’t do extensive research before (which I deeply regret) and nobody here talks about it. The subject is very taboo. Two Thursday’s ago it was “National Unity Day” which is a national holiday apparently. It took me awhile to determine what is was recognizing, but I eventually figured out that the date aligned with the end of the war, but it is a national holiday that isn’t really observed and when I asked my host mom about she just said it was a day about national identity. The war was from 1991-1997 I believe, so almost everyone who is alive today lived through the war, but it is still never brought up. When anyone is my host family is talking about the past it never comes up. When our teachers talk about the past or the schools they went to or the jobs they had, the war is avoided, despite the military service of our male teacher. (See On the civil war 6.25.19)

This contrasts with the idea that Horwitz found of the wounds of the war being like yesterday. Time and time again Horwitz encounters in his journey through the South this feeling of the death of great-great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War being freshly dead. The “Lost Cause” of the civil war feels very alive to the people with whom Horwitz interacted. The war keeps going for them. The flag and the groups they form remain to carry on their message, whereas here, it’s not on the table at all. This probably has something to do with the current Tajik government being very restrictive, but the collective identity of Tajiks is also very important. The American Councils Country Director was stressing how in Tajikistan there is a pride in being similar to one and another (See On main differences 6.25.19) and how in every house the food is relatively similar, along with the clothes, layout, and everything else. In America, there is much more of a desire to be an individual and set yourself apart and be unique. Yet the living-on of the Confederate States of America poses a funny challenge to that distinction since for the people Horwitz interviews there is a collective identity as Southerners and neo-Confederates, but it is through their individual identity as descended from Confederate veterans in many cases. The loyalty to some version of a state remains to a certain extent. Sorry this doesn’t really make any sense. I just wanted to start getting some thoughts out.

P.S. When I was trying to explain to my host mother what the book was about I mixed up the word for war (jang transliterated) and grapes (angor transliterated) for reasons I still don’t understand and accidently told her the book was about “grapes from 1861-1865.” She didn’t even question it and focused on correcting my pronunciation of 60 instead.

On Tajiks’ relationship with Water

The Tajik’s have a very strange relationship with water. The tap water, for Americans, is not really drinkable. It caused me (and a few other students) to become sick when I inadvertently drank it. My family has this dispenser that has a big jug of water, but when it ran out instead of buying another one from the store they just refilled it with tap water without telling me. We were warned against the tap water multiple times as well. The locals don’t share our inhibitions nor our gut biology. The streets are lined with these gutters, about a foot wide and maybe 2/3 as deep. At irregular intervals you will just see a random hose running into the gutters. Tajiks will often just pick up the hose and drink from it when they are thirty. Into the gutter random trash is thrown along with rotten fruit and other things swept in. Every night there are also street cleaners who wash the street with copious amounts of water. In homes there is frequently a hose or tap running. I haven’t yet asked why. Another students shared that there is this one tap in their house that is always on, but when they turn it off their family always turns it back on. Yet for all this use of water, the neighborhood has lost water completely for at least twice for a dozen hours each time and some houses also run out of water since there water just comes from a tank on the roof that is refilled occasionally. Water seems scare but abundant at the same time. In terms of what we Americans can drink, it’s a lot of bottled water. I have three 1.5 liter water plastic bottles in my room at the moment. Tea and a sweet drink called Compote are also always boiled, so I have been having a lot of those. Tea is usually served also still boiling. Cold water (especially when eaten with cucumbers) is supposed to make you sick, so cool drink drinks are hard to come by, even when you buy bottled water. I am in a room with air condition right now (which is rare) and there is condensation on the inside of my water bottle, being the room is colder than the water I just bought. Somebody told me the Tajik aversion to cold drinks comes from the fact that their teeth are very sensitive due to there not being fluoride in the water or in toothpaste.