June 27th, 2019,


·      Rose: Today we went to Hissor Fortress. It is one of the few ruins actually found in Tajikistan, though as we saw in the National Museum that we went to yesterday Tajikistan claims all Persian heritage as it’s own, including sites in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The fortress, in reality, is almost entirely reconstructed, similarly to the National Museum. But we had an awesome guide, who would talk in Tajik and in English. He told us about the last Emir who lived there and how he had like 40 wives and 100 concubines who were 16-19. When I tried to ask how old wives were he told me in Tajik that they could be as young as 10 or 11 because people lived shorter than, so married whenever they were biologically ready. That was later translated for me. At the moment I didn’t really understand, but my Resident Director’s face told me all I really needed to know.

·      Thorn: I definitely worried that I hurt the two-year-old. After going through my backpack and seeing my water bottles he would keep asking me for water, since we had been playing in the sun a lot. I would give him a little. At some point he started spitting it back out, but he still kept asking for water. He kept following me into my room and demanding water, screaming when he didn’t get it. So I gave him a small glass. After chugging it he spit almost all of it back up and started coughing. He seems fine now but I worry I seriously hurt him.

·      Bud: We got a verb sheet yesterday. Once I memorize them I look forward to having more in-depth conversations, as opposed to saying the subject and the object and letting the person I am talking to supply or guess the verb.

·      Bee/Pollen: My host mother helped me today during our conversation by being very patient, correcting my pronunciation, and helping me find the right word.

·      Roots: had an interesting conversation with another participant (in English unfortunately) about SDLC (the Student Diversity Leadership Conference) today, but I really hope I didn’t offend him. I’ll probably talk to him about it tomorrow.

·      Soil: Goshdarn it is so hot. We went back to the mall (Rudaki Plaza) today, but I felt so tired that I just wanted to leave once we got there. I really feel like I was acting like a real Debbie-Downer.

·      Flower: I had my first extended conversation today, and I am pretty proud of myself.  This morning I woke up late, but I didn’t have to be at the school for our trip until 10:00am, so I had to sit for a while with my host mother. We were able to talk about languages, where she had been, her job, my family, where they were from, etc. This was more topics than I had very addressed before. I only had to get my dictionary half-way through. She was still supplying most of my verbs though. Verbs are always at the end of Tajiki sentences, so I can see how people get impatient since it does take me a while to conjugate them and add the correct suffix in my head. A lot of the time I don’t even know the verb.

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