Talking Tajik: A Good Week

So despite having been in the same small city for two and a half months and not being allowed to leave the country until December (according to my visa), I somehow managed to do a bunch of new things this past week. Where to begin...

Oh, early last week we had a huge snowstorm. It snowed for about a day and a half straight. The first day was fun because it was everyone's first time seeing snow in Tajikistan. The next day wasn't as fun, because everything just kind of turned to slush or ice overnight. Also I'm pretty sure Dushanbe is even worse at handling snow than Philly or DC is. Really anytime it precipitates here, people just kind of run for cover and hunker down to wait out the storm. That's what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday. No one salted the roads and no one shoveled the sidewalks and no one plowed the roads. To make things trickier, there are a ton of gigantic trees that line Rudaki Street (the main street in Dushanbe). So as the snow melted in the trees, chunks of it would fall on to random unsuspecting passersby. I was fell victim to the falling snow drifts not once, but twice. All this made for quite an interesting (perilous) couple days on the roads and sidewalks.

This past Friday brought further unexpected excitement in the form of a FIFA World Cup qualifying match. Tajikistan's national team was scheduled to play Japan's national team as part of the preliminary rounds leading up to the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. In case anyone hasn't gotten it, I'm talking about soccer. So anyhow, we only found out the game was being played a few hours before it started. Everyone was really pumped and we all made our way over to the stadium. This game was only a big deal to us because it was being played in Dushanbe. The Tajik team is terrible and their field is in such bad condition that the Japanese team almost didn't participate. The first time Tajikistan and Japan played a few months ago, the Tajiks lost 8-0. So Friday's 4-0 loss for Tajikistan was actually a little more promising.

At first, we thought we wouldn't be able to get in, as a number of riot police (yes, there were riot police holding back the ~50 people trying to enter) told us the tickets were sold out. Thanks to my friend Amanda's persistence though, we eventually were let in by one guard. When the guard's friend questioned him, all he said in Tajiki was "Foreigners! Foreigners!" Our first perk for being Americans in Central Asia couldn't have come at a better time. The stadium was packed and the atmosphere was surprisingly similar to a pro sports game in the USA. People were doing the wave and sarcastically cheering for Japan each time they scored a goal. At the end of the game, they raffled off a car. The thing looked like it was built in the 1950's, but everyone was still excited about it. Unfortunately, I wasn't eligible to win as I didn't have a ticket. All in all, the game was a pretty awesome experience.

On Saturday, we went to this place called Korvon. It's basically just twenty bazaars all in one. The bazaar that puts all other bazaars to shame. We all had a great time pushing through crowds, haggling in Persian, and eventually coming away with some pretty cool purchases. As I'm sure you can imagine, the traffic to get in and out of Korvon is a nightmare. Well, really all traffic in Tajikistan is a nightmare, but the area around Korvon was particularly dicey. There was some extreme gridlock and sort of just one continuous chorus of car horns. Thus, we had our marshrutka (Tajik vans that act as insanely cheap public transportation) drop us off at a Uighur restaurant nearby. We ate lunch there and then dove into the chaos of Korvon. It was a great time. A very authentic experience.

Yesterday American Councils organized a trip to the local zurkhoneh for the group. A zurkhoneh is a traditional Iranian gymnasium where Persian men would typically go to wrestle and lift large weights (in the form of giant clubs). Zurkhonehs are not popular in Tajikistan and they're losing popularity in Iran as well. This ancient sport is dying out, so it made our trip that much more intriguing. Also, all of us are just pretty into Persian culture. Really we'd go anywhere we could to soak in some bona fide displays of Iranian culture. The Persian guys at the zurkhoneh put on a sort of exhibition of various zurkhoneh activities. Later we got to try to lift some of the weights and learn the proper techniques. The whole visit to the zurkhoneh was pretty fun and not something I thought I'd be able to see while in Tajikistan.

The only other bit of news to report is that I have a new peer tutor. Azimjon was just not cutting it, as far as interesting and useful Persian conversations go. He is married with a kid and never leaves his house, except to go to his classes. Azimjon is about 25 years old, but in American years, that's like 40. So he wasn't super helpful for practicing conversing with a Persian youth. My new peer tutor is named Hani. She is from Tehran and is only here to go to school. I meet with her with my friend Amanda about twice a week. Hani likes to take us to various social hotspots in Dushanbe and also talks about things we can relate to or that matter to us. The best part is that she has a Tehrani accent, which is the accent I eventually hope to learn. It isn't very different from regular Farsi, but there are a few subtleties I'm trying to pick up. Anyhow, I'm very glad I switched tutors.

I'd say this past week was unexpectedly tons of fun.

There are some pictures below to help illustrate my anecdotes.

^ snowy Wednesday on Rudaki Street

^ outside of the stadium; where our foreigner privilege came in handy

^ the most Tajiks I've seen in one place so far

^ the field was not up to Japan's standards

^ an injury

^ I asked a Tajik man to take a picture of us with the field in the background. He didn't tell us to smile. At least there's a really lovely shot of the chairs.