Alan Abroad: NSLI-Y Tajikistan Summer 2019

They talked about in our "re-entry meeting," but I didn't think it would be super noticeable but it is. A few things that have really stood out to me once I've been back. I was hiking, and we reached the summit I went off to take photos. When I looked back I saw my trip leader down in child's pose, doing yoga, except I thought he was praying. In Tajikistan, I awkwardly walked in on people praying so frequently that I just assumed. The first reasons my brain thought he wasn't praying was because I noticed he wasn't facing east (the sun was setting so it was easy to see the cardinal directions), even though in Tajikistan they pray facing west. It was only after that thought went through my head that I remembered I was in the U.S. that ever few hipster yogi white men are actually Muslim, and he was actually doing yoga. I kept putting my toilet paper in the wastebasket in my bathroom instead of in the toilet since I had grown so used to doing that in Tajik

Needless to say I did not get any sleep last night before the flight. Though I was able to sleep on the plane to Dubai. As I write this I am on the plane to Chicago. It’s 14.5 hours of hell. I am not very good at expressing my emotions, but I am very sad. In six short weeks I have begun to feel at home in Tajikistan and comfortable in that environment and navigating in the language. In the Dubai airport I kept trying to speak Tajiki to people, before catching myself and realizing that I wouldn’t really have any place where folks will understand it back in the states. We nearly missed our flight to Dubai as well because our RD’s ticket had been canceled and it wasn’t rebooked. It was quite the scare. In the airport I was wearing my tokii (traditional Tajik hat) and got lots of compliments on it. I think they treated me better at security because of it. In the Dubai airpot I have started hearing a lot of English spoke all at once by people not in my group for the first time. Sometim

The morning dawned too early for our last day in Tajikistan. In the morning we took our final exam (which was really just a chapter test and didn’t contain any cumulative vocab). After lunch, we had the speaking portion. We had decided that we wanted to have a dance party after the exam, but everybody seemed in such a low mode it wasn’t much.             Then we had our re-entry meeting which basically just outline reverse culture shock and had us fill out a reflection. When I get back to normal wifi I will upload a photo of the reflection. Our RD emphasized the many ways to pursue studying abroad in the future, as well as the importance of sharing our experience in our home communities. We even practiced elevator pitches about our NSLI-Y experience, which seemed in my opinion excessive. The worksheet also provided us with a list of potential skills we might have developed as opposed to letting us find our owns ways of measuring personal growth.             After that I

Our farewell party was tonight along with ERLP. It was loads of fun and went off mostly without a hitch. The MC for the ERLP students however spoke very fast and intense Farsi, making her difficult to understand. We performed multiple poems, three skits (at the doctor’s, at the disco club, and a short story about a bear and a lumberjack), a traditional dance, and two Tajik songs (one about a river and the other about flowers). The audience seemed to find it amusing, if a bit weird. An ERLP student stole the show with a traditional Chinese instrument accompanied by three Tajik musicians. We couldn’t hold a candle to them. We dinned on osh afterwards while chatting with our families, other students, and American Councils staff who had also attended. We also gave our teachers, resident director, and local coordinator presents. Our RD and local coordinator also gave each of us presents.             After the meal we played a mix of Tajik and American music and danced with var