Head For the Hills

I had a good writing day, and the weather outside was gorgeous, after a very, very rainy day yesterday. My treat to myself was to take a walk.

I headed east on Timur Malik and liked the look of the hills off in the distance, just over the crest:



And as it happens, that is exactly where I went.

I continued east past the students milling around at the Ag Institute, wide neckties and all. (Apparently another empty rule about form over substance in Tajikistan is that the men at institutions of higher education are required to wear ties. Some would say they ought to actually learn things and be encouraged to think critically before they're forced to do a Windsor knot each morning, but who am I to judge?)

Skirted south through the sorry little park in front of (our local) statue of Rudaki. Noticed a billboard that had a notice about what seemed to be repairs in the sorry little broken down park, and a photo mockup of better looking fountains in the park. Noticed the date was 21 April. Got interested. Then noticed it was 2007. Got a little disappointed.

Then I headed east again, on Karamova and decided, why not make my ascent close to home? I started my little climb just west of Tursunzoda. I passed the requisite group of kids who yelled stuff in English at me. Today it was "oh! let's go!" At least that's a little more creative than "hello!" Then I passed the requisite adolescent boys who greeted me in Russian. Then I got a young woman peeking out over a roof, who asked, strangely, whether I had a pen.

I continued a short way and the paved road ended, and a dirt path doglegged north and kept going upward. I rose up up up above the neighborhoods below me and got some beautiful views of the green foothills and the snowy mountains:


Then the Tajik woman who'd wanted the pen appeared again, and we had a friendly conversation in Russian. I continued on and two kids on bikes were hanging out enjoying the view. Had a short conversation in Tajik with the friendlier one, who, after of course asking me how old I was (another requisite question), said the Tajik equivalent of "dang, you're old!" (My main clue was 'pir.') Then I think he was trying to recommend some more good places to enjoy the view (I kept hearing 'tamosho'), but my Tajik was ebbing and I decided to leave while the time was right to have more walking time to myself. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon treat!