Around (Part of the) World in the Past 80 Days

A non-chronological rundown from A to Z of what I’ve neglected to report since I last wrote:

A – Archives, in both Russia and Tajikistan. I have been surprised in the last six weeks to learn just how much bureaucracy and apparently arbitrary and informal adjustments to bureaucratic rules really do differ between TJ and RU. I’m sorry I have to be reminded, but I do often forget that it is wrong to lump these two together into a single category. If you want to be wowed, I suggest you work for several months just trying to get registered and allowed to see documents in the sad national archive of a regressing Central Asian nation, and then go overnight to the beautiful oasis of the main reading room at GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation), with its computerized index system and terminals at each reader station. But be careful not to faint from shock.


B – Buzkashi. The art of dragging around a goat carcass and fighting over it from your position atop a galloping horse. See photo essay.


C – Cheeses. Twelve of them, packed in multiple plastic bags, ziplocs, and stuffed together with a gift freezer pack in Paris into suitcase #3, only to emerge upon arrival in Tajikistan still cool and smelling wonderful. Now awaiting experimental freezing.


D – Disease. Luckily for Anya, only “angina” which, I guess contrary to our use of the word in English (from the Latin for choking or congestion) in reference to chest constriction and heart disease, in French refers to something like tonsillitis or strep throat. It was the sickest she’s actually been her whole life, but she was still a trooper. And our visit to the French pediatrician in Tonnere, France, renewed our already high respect for socialized medicine – bring on that Obamacare, thank you very much!


E – Embroidery. To my great disappointment, I must admit, the needlework has stalled out! But for a good reason: renewed research inspiration and necessity (much-procrastinated research trip to Moscow) made me turn away from the embroidery kind of right at the point where I was going the strongest on it, unfortunately. But I am really glad to feel the new boost in creativity and production, and the work is fun. Whether to keep up with the crafts in this current phase of Dushanbe life is my next decision…


F – France. Mmmmm, 2 weeks binging in the heartland of duck confit, terrine and paté, fromages hard and soft (especially soft and runny Epoisses and Chablis, my favorite of our discoveries), red wine (Burgundy, to be exact), and escargots (Anya to Dan: “dai mne eshche ulitku! [give me another snail!]”). Throw a few raw oysters – and whelks and winkles – on top and you pretty much have our vacation in a nut (or snail) shell.


G – Grandparents. Had a great time with 2 of them in the French countryside – Anya for 2 days longer than we did, and apparently all 3 of them had a blast.


H – Hotels, good and bad. FYI, in Autun, it's probably wise to splurge on the Hotel les Ursulines up in the old town, with the beautiful enclosed garden, despite the nondescript rooms. The incompetent front desk manager at the Hotel St. Louis et de la Poste downtown (together with the single, yet surely not solitary, cockroach we spied) made that one a bust. And the experience kind of ruined the whole next 24 hours, to be honest.


I – Insects. Fleas to be precise, which are the most bothersome ones that have visited us (and apparently left, during our vacation) over the last few months. But with the onset of spring the aphids on the fruit trees in our yard have also come out of hibernation. We are trying to spray with soap and water, but is it possible that Central Asian aphids are immune to this approach?


J – Jeans. In addition to the fact that the fashion right now is very clearly to tuck these into your tall, but flat-heeled, boots, I gleaned many other fashion tid-bits during my many hours walking from archive to archive, and people watching, in Moscow.


K – Kyrgyzstan. In truth, this doesn’t really deserve to be on this list, since ironically (and probably luckily) we could hardly feel further from the unrest and changes there. That is not to say that it might not spill over – you definitely never know. But so far it really seems not to have one iota of an influence here in Tajikistan, and in a practical way for us that is a good thing. In the larger picture I am not so sure that it is in the best interests of Tajikistan’s citizenry to be so complacent, but I am not complaining right now. The “revolution” – or maybe “coup” – occurred while I was in Moscow, and actually I probably knew more about it learning about it from that location than from home in Dushanbe, since while I was there I had the time and the inclination to watch the news quite diligently (and even discuss all of the very interesting, mainly tragic or disturbing, current events, from Kyrgyzstan to Katyn to the Moscow metro, with my landlady). It kind of felt like I was at the center of a much more connected universe while I was in Moscow, while here in Dushanbe everything typically seems very insular, very isolated from what is happening in the outside world. In any case, I include this mention here mainly since so many people have asked us about events in the neighboring ‘stan.


L – Lady drivers. It seems I’m one of them again. More precisely, for some reason when spring arrives in Tajikistan, not only do the local men do a typical double-take for women walking and perhaps wearing something pretty (a revealing mid-calf kurta, or what have you), apparently they also have a habit of looking twice and even staring when they see a woman behind the wheel. Come to think of it, women and kids will crane their necks to check it out, too. It’s just that shocking a sight to see.


M – Moscow! What a big, bewildering city it really is – I had a great time, and although after two and a half weeks there I was ready to get back to the slow pace of life in Dushanbe (and my peeps), the hustle and bustle was pretty fun to experience. It was my first time really living in the city (and right downtown, in a great location, steps away from Kievskaya metro station) and exploring it myself – the town I know best is Petersburg, and Nizhnii Novgorod I suppose is a close second. (Sorry, Vladivostok, I guess you take bronze.) I think I might not even mind spending some extended time in Moscow in the future (although maybe I’d get sticker shock if we really were to live there for a stint, not just visit short term).


N – Navruz. After a week of sun and warmth leading up to the biggest Central Asian holiday of the year, with people getting positively punch-drunk on the weather, it was a big dud. Rainy and cold. Certainly not inspiring for anyone to wear their new kurta, especially if it is still far from being completed…


O – Other scholars/academics. This spring has brought a lot more contact with researchers here in this part of the world, surprisingly many of them here in Dushanbe. It started with the German grad student, studying Soviet history, whom I met by sheer luck near the end of her 5 year stint here in Dushanbe. (5 years because she is also a spouse and mother raising her small kids here; she wasn’t spending the entire time doing full-time dissertation work.) Then it gathered steam with the grad students I met in Moscow, and now, partly because it is summer (those US based academics are smart: avoid Tajikistan in the winter. What a good idea!), there are 3 grad students here in town whom I know. I also met an inspiring independent scholar from Canada and I hope soon to formally meet the German scholar who was working at the desk next to me at the archives today. It’s gotten to the point that I am seriously planning to have an academic dinner party soon, before some of these folks cycle out of here and the population dwindles again.


P – Potty Progress. Hooray! Big girl undies (thin, no soaker panel) + possibly an unusual time-out from preschool teachers in response to her last real accident = I guess a month or more of dryness and a nearly perfect (I’d say ‘spotless’ but that wasn’t actually our problem…) record with trips to the toilet.


Q – “Quiet time.” This was how I explained to Anya what the side chapels in the several French cathedrals we visited were for. She started wanting to go in them with me to catch some together.


R – Rain. Unfortunately we departed from rainy spring weather in Tajikistan (where it is at least warm) only to be met by rain and half-century record low temperatures hovering at or under 10C in France. And now we've returned to TJ, where the rains are just an annoyance in Dushanbe but have left over a thousand people homeless and camped out in the stadium in the southern city of Kulob. Anya and I tried to make a small contribution to help Monday when we brought 4 bags of things of hers and mine that are either no longer worn or have been outgrown to donate for local efforts to assist in Tajikistan’s south.


S – Spring! and the arrival of the “Season”: the season for produce in Tajikistan, that is. When even the neighborhood bazaar has strawberries (sad and soggy though they may be) for sale, you know the highwater mark of fruit and veg season is just around the corner. Sure, you’re still advised to make the trip to Green Bazaar for really good quality and selection, but the season has arrived, for sho’.


T – Train travel. And the miracle of catching our Frankfurt-Paris train, for which we had planned a layover of 3 hours. Ultimately we had to run for it in the 45-minute interval that Somon Air's delayed arrival afforded us. (Anya to Lisa the night before the return trip, in Paris: “Will we have to run for the train again? I didn’t like that.”)


U – Umbrella. Anya was pleased as punch to be given a Winnie-the-Pooh children’s (hey, they probably make them in adult sizes, so I might need to specify) umbrella, after a shopping spree in the hypermarché outside Autun. (Shopping therapy after our bad experience at the hotel? It’s possible.) It made the trip home just fine packed in a suitcase and still hasn’t broken. Surely better quality construction than the 9-somoni jobbie I bought her at the bazaar in Khujand in the winter.


V – Vaccines. The polio outbreak in Tajikistan has given me reason to renew my earlier interest in polio vaccines, both injected/inactivated and oral/live, albeit from a very different perspective. Anya got her first round of the OPV booster series today. The situation is truly serious, but for kids who have received good quality vaccines so far and are up to date like Anya there should not be an extreme risk. With that firmly in mind, I actually think it might do us a lot of good if more academics had to deal with their topics of heated abstract discussion in direct and concrete relationship to their own or their kids' lives. But I guess that probably isn't a widely applicable or appropriate thing to wish for. The experiences is actually very enlightening and provides fascinating insight.


W – Water, dirty. Spring rains (well, any rains, really) bring “brown baths,” as Anya has called them since her first ever dip in the tub here in Dushanbe, a year and a half ago. The water from the tap used to be brown all the time, but shortly after we moved in the city did some improvements (yes, it happens), and the quality on a typical day improved. But we are reminded right now of how extremely cloudy and dingy that water can get. At least it serves as a good reminder that it wouldn’t be wise to drink out of the tap!


X – Хозяйка. Or khoziaika. That is, “landlady.” I had a really good one in Moscow for the 2 weeks I rented a room in her apartment – it was a surprisingly nice arrangement for me, working for many hours during the day and into the evening at the archives, and coming home to have a bit of dinner or tea in the kitchen with Inna Zinovievna.


Y – Yoga! So glad that Dushanbe has seen a renaissance (or I guess simply naissance?) of it in the last 6 months. I am happy to say I’m back to 2 times practicing per week (when not on vacation – but I did go to 2 overpriced yoga sessions in Moscow!).


Z – From Anya Z. (Vladivostok friend) through the mid-alphabet, mid-Europe Meilak, to Berkeley’s own Z-spot, visited with lots of friends we hadn’t seen in years during the past few months’ travels. It's a good thing to do, since living over here, even in this internet-, Facebook-friendly age, means we still aren't able to keep in contact as often as we'd like with people we care about. Sometimes the isolation here just makes us sluggish and complacent in that frame of mind, and the months stretch on and the messages (and blog posts) don't get written. So it was really good to reconnect with so many friends (and family) over these past 80 days.

Cornuccopia

Reporting in here at the close of a long, relaxing weekend that started with a classic all-American Turkey Day, continued with a day off of preschool due to local swine flu concerns, kept on going with Tajikistan's idiosyncratic celebration of Eid al-Adha on Saturday (one day later than the rest of the Muslim world -- and here they call it Qurban). After a rainy Saturday Eid, we had a glorious, sunny Sunday with a fancy breakfast and a walk in the Botanical Gardens. And today, Tajikistan's public holiday in honor of Eid, the 3 of us took our first long drive of the season, into Takob valley for a romp in the snow!

Thanksgiving was a real delight -- a buffet laden with a bounty of dishes at the home of our good friends, shared with a bunch of other good friends. Several kinds of stuffing, a corn pudding, a beef fillet, gravies both meat-based and vegetarian, baked sweet potatoes topped with golden-brown marshmallows, and two cranberry sauces. All of that was accompanied by the meat carved off a 23-pound monster of a Butterball turkey, which was shipped into Central Asia via Bishkek (Manas Air Base), detoured through Tashkent, and then afforded a special US Embassy escort to Dushanbe (frosty relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan make the connection much less realistic than it ought to be).

We were the ones responsible for the bird. Since I guess up to now I'd never been solely responsible for the turkey on Thanksgiving, I was a little nervous about how it would turn out. Least daunting of all was the roasting: receiving the fully frozen bird on Monday and given a defrosting schedule of 4 pounds per day in the fridge didn't get us quite all the way to Thursday. A cold water bath for the turkey on Wednesday evening got us the remainder of the way to thawed.

Prep on Thursday morning, despite Dan's protests, and roasting pan into the oven at 10:45AM still had us scrambling at a quarter to 5 to get the turkey to our hosts' house in an attempt to stick to the projected 5pm call to table. We sat down late, but I think we were not the only reason, and anyway, the freely flowing wine and "White Ladies" (something involving enough lemon juice to mask the taste of gin) and blue-cheese stuffed dates kept the rest of the other guests at bay almost the whole time.

And then there was dessert! So many pies, let me see if I can remember: apple, sweet potato, two pumpkins (one with "vodka crust"), chocolate pecan.... and something else I'm forgetting. As well as turkey-shaped sugar cookies, thanks to the smallest of our hosts.

It was a great holiday in Dushanbe!

Tajik Progress

Ҳоло ман бе шумо мехоҳам дар бораи забони тоҷикӣ гап занам. Ё нависам. Ана дар ҳақиқат фарқ дорад? Дар ҳақиқат дорад, лекин барои ман инҷо муҳим нист. Ман мехоҳам нақл кунам, ки ман нӯҳ моҳ забони тоҷикӣро меомузам, кӯшиш мекунам гап занам...

OK, so I continue to try to learn Tajik, taking private lessons two hours per week since right about the start of this year, or about nine months. I continue most of the time to feel as though I am making glacial-speed progress if I'm moving forward at all, although every now and then I feel some positive energy that allows me to think that maybe I actually am getting somewhere.

I always need to remind myself, I have after all studied Russian on and off, in and out of the classroom, since first beginning it in 1988 -- for twenty-one years! I can't expect, er, Dushanbe to be built in one day, right?

I think part of the difficulty is the variation and lack of standardization in Tajik. Especially if Russian is the yardstick, Tajik is really much different: the regions of Tajikistan are so separate, and you're constantly hearing how different from one another in culture and dialect the north and south are.

The written language and the spoken language are pretty far apart from one another, too -- not unlike in Farsi, but this pair with its own Tajik idiosyncrasies. You can't learn everything of course, so I guess if anything I'm trying to build up some basic ability in spoken Tajik, and then I also try to read some twentieth-century non-fiction (hoping that maybe in this coming year I can hobble through a few newspapers and journals) with my teacher.

Still, it's frustrating -- and I know that ironically part of the reason I don't make faster progress in Tajik is that I do speak Russian fairly comfortably, if not always totally fluently. In any of the interactions where I'd otherwise be forced to practice my Tajik and barely muddle through that way, the most obvious answer from the point of view of efficiency is to just switch into (or, really, remain speaking) Russian. Why speak like a 3-year-old (and that is being very generous to me, or very insulting to a 3-year-old Tajik), when I can speak pretty much from my own stage of mental development in Russian?

The one exception remains the bazaar.
















This is why I'm so reluctant to ask someone else to take over our routine shopping: I could ask the housekeeper to get things for us, or the odd-jobs guy we are considering hiring since our friends and his employers left Dushanbe... But if I did that, I'd never practice my Tajik outside of class!

Just this weekend, for instance, my visit to the bustling pre-Eid Barakat bazaar was a fun little chance to see the sellers I regularly buy from and practice a little Tajik. (For some reason I chose the Saturday before Eid to set out to out the Green Market again after a long absence, despite oaths that I would avoid it and the parking hell that reigns on the streets surrounding the market. I could tell several blocks before the bazaar itself that this was a bad idea and luckily was able to turn and escape all of the mishigas. I guess what had inspired me go was the news from along the expat grapevine that avocadoes and limes had been available from one of the sellers. My friends bought the guy's entire stock, but I was tempted to see what other goodies I was missing out on. I think post-Eid I am going to try to go once every couple of weeks... In any case, the Barakat pavilion interior in the photo here was from earlier this summer, on a very empty weekday afternoon.)

At Barakat, the older lady who sells chakka (thick, pasty, tart Tajik yogurt) just inside the pavilion greeted me warmly after my absence (with the traffic torn up and redirected in this part of downtown, I haven't gotten to Barakat as often as I used to). We had the typical greeting exchange, asking after each other's health, and then she sold me my usual 2-somoni handful of chakka, and invited me to her house for Eid on Monday. I did what I hope is an acceptable way of not actually accepting the invitation, smiling, thanking her but stopping short of saying I would come. At least this is what I have been doing about once a day with our next-door neighbor ever since we arrived, in response to his everyday invitations of "coming by" and having plov or tea.

The homely potato-carrot-and-onion seller I go to at the bazaar was also happy to see me. He is actually the brother of the usual guy, but normally they are there working their stand together. Originally I chanced upon the brother who wasn't there today, who at least in my experience seems to be the front man of the operation. To my surprise, he came out with shockingly good English the first time I bought my taters from him (surely choosing to do that because it is clear from about 5 miles away that I am not local -- the really naive ones must think I'm Russian). With this pair of brothers, I usually try to speak Tajik to them and the one brother tries to speak English back to me, as a kind of equal exchange. Today the English-speaker was gone, but the brother who apparently has just the typical Tajik and Russian greeted me with a crooked smile and tried to explain to me everything about fasting for Ramadan (like I hadn't already gotten used to the concept for the past month, but whatever -- it's about the cultural exchange, not about the content, much of the time...).

Then I went to the only melon seller on the side of the pavilion where I was (Barakat was a mess of pre-Eid shoppers too, I wasn't going to traipse around any more than I had to), and here I was out of my element and didn't have anyone familiar to go to. These melon guys immediately started out in Russian, which on the one hand I speak better, but on the other already feels to me like I'm down a few chips in the bargaining process and I have to work to clamber back uphill. Unfortunately I think I got a jacked-up Eid-eve price on my sweet melon -- not necessarily because I'm a foreigner, but it probably didn't help matters.

All that really matters is that I had a pleasant, relatively quick, shopping trip, re-connected a bit with my bazaar peeps, and ensured we'd eat at least one last melon before the season ends. And, as an added bonus, the sellers assured me that I was buying the sweetest melon of the bunch: "guaranteed to do wonders for a lady's figure!" I think they stopped just short of offering a "one-time special price" just for me.

Baba Yaga (Bzzz Bzzz)

I was reminded a few days ago that, while it is clear from my recent Anya language update that Baba Yaga is beauty-challenged in the nasal department, not everyone may know who she is. As usual, Wikipedia offers a not-too-shabby overview of the classic Slavic fairy-tale witch character. (Apparently Georgii Milliar, in the picture here, was the actor who played Baba Yaga in several Soviet films from the 1930s to the '60s, and sort of seems like the quintessential B. Y. to those who've seen his performances. He's profiled in Russian in the link.)

But Baba Yaga also typically plays a central role Soviet/post-Soviet kiddie New Year's celebrations like the ones we've been taking part in.

For some reason the article I referred to in last year's rundown of this holiday unfortunately has disappeared (together with the source, Moskovskie novosti). But if you look at the many Russian party scripts posted online for ensuring a fun New Year's holiday, my memory of that description is confirmed: Baba Yaga actually shows up in these rote celebrations as more of a laughable, bothersome hooligan character than a truly scary witch. She plays the humorous foil to good ol' Grandfather Frost/Dedushka Moroz and his sidekick Snegurochka, threatening to break up the party because she's been left off the invitation list. The MC (Russian events always need to have an MC...) tries to talk her out of ruining it, high jinks ensue. But ultimately the kids win out with Ded Moroz and Snegurochka's help, and the forces of good reassuringly overcome what was surely in the Communist era meant to be a mildly anti-Soviet example in Baba Yaga.

---

I threw these notes up last week and then, wouldn't you know it, we had the chance for yet another of these staged New Year's gatherings, and my understanding of Baba Yaga's role was borne out and then some!

On Wednesday, Anya's sadik had a field trip to the Dushanbe "Lukhtak" Puppet Theater. I had asked ahead of time what the performance was slated to be, but all the teachers could tell me was it would be in Russian. What they weren't able to predict was that it wouldn't really contain any puppets. (The closest we came to real puppets was the small crow character who outs Baba Yaga after she puts a spell on Ded Moroz in her attempt to spoil the kiddies' fun. Otherwise, all were live actors.)

The show was not so much a play as an extended version of the yolochka party -- unfortunately not the most captivating format for the 2-year-old set when seated in the audience instead of watching more free-form in the lobby. The performance did include some chuckles for the adults, though, beginning with the fact that our "host," the little girl Mashenka, got a phone call a few minutes into the proceedings (when she came on stage with a cellphone on a lanyard around her neck, I first thought this was an indication of a low level of professionalism and concentration on the part of the Lukhtak company, but it soon became obvious that it was an intentional prop). Her half of the conversation allowed us to surmise that it was Snegurochka calling to let her know that Ded Moroz was on his way. Mashenka was only slightly disappointed when Sneggie told her she wasn't going to make the party because she had to greet some guests from Paris.

In another beat or two our attention was drawn to a little alcove at stage left, where Baba Yaga was just waking up, and generating giggles from the older kids as she stretched her limbs, stiffly attempted her morning "zaryadka" (exercises), and admired herself in the mirror as she got dressed for an aerial tour of her woodland fiefdom. (Curiously, Tajik ideas about how a humorous witch ought to dress have a suspicious amount in common with the way crunchy Western NGO-types tend to dress on the weekends, right down to the brightly colored fleece zip-up vest....) At this point, Anya decided she was scared of B. Y. and started crying and protesting, so we had to take a break.

But the funniest part of the "play" for me was when Baba Yaga got her present from Ded Moroz (she'd been convinced to reverse her spell on Ded M., so he'd made his grand entrance, echo-laden mic effects and all): a yellow and black striped floppy hat, whose corporate origins the 4-year-olds next to us immediately identified with enthusiastic shouts of "Beeline!"

The Many Faces of Anya's New Year's 2009

I finally uploaded a selection of pics from the embassy holiday kiddie bash.

As you can see from the images, we went from inquisitive to happy and engaged, to interrupted and bratty, to bored, to interested in our own visage, all in the space of about an hour and a half. I guess that is what being two years old is all about.

Mid-Holiday Breather

We had a relaxed, if partly sick, long holiday weekend -- everyone was sick with something, but luckily not all at the same time. Now of course it is a brief work week before we do it all over again for New Year's (although without W.'s present of Friday off, I expect).

Anya got to see Santa Claus/Ded Moroz a bunch more times, perhaps most excitingly at a children's performance at Dushanbe's Russian theater, the Mayakovsky. (Just down the street is the much grander Tajik theater, the Lohuti, and in my understanding of language and cultural policy in the USSR, it's pretty typical both that the two would exist and that they would have been fairly important institutions in the capital of Tajikistan, placed prominently in the heart of downtown -- despite the Russian theater's decidedly less glamorous visual representation. I'm interested to know more about them, though -- both about their lives in Soviet times as well as the life each of these institutions has led during Tajikistan's independence. The Lohuti also happens to be one of my favorite examples of architecture downtown -- gorgeous robin's egg blue walls and pure white columns, with beautiful Orientalist detailing at the capitals and archways of what is otherwise of course a familiar Soviet neo-classical temple.)

A fellow mother from sadik invited us to see a New Year's play -- I thought it was just going to be the usual public "yolka" presentation in the theater lobby, with Father Frost and his granddaughter Snegurochka, but it turned out that was just the beginning. (That yolka link shows you some interesting photos of Soviet yolkas in decades past -- the contemporary version has to be remarkably similar to what came before.)

We had a great time at the first part. Anya was particularly fascinated by the ugly fake nose worn by the Baba Yaga character, and also liked the "boogie voogie" song we danced to (which really was a fairly literal and direct translation of "the hokey-pokey," complete with right feet in and left feet out and all the rest).

Luckily we had been tipped off that this would be followed by a full-fledged play on the actual stage. Unfortunately, since we were sitting about halfway toward the back of the orchestra, and due in part to the moaning baby in the seat next to us (who, together with his grandmother, to my surprise, actually started attracting glares and comments from adults nearby), we didn't really hear or understand very much of it. And even after the grandmother finally took the hint and stepped outside, we'd already lost too much headway to really get into the story. But it had its moments. For Anya, those included the snowstorm (represented by swirling lights on the scrim, apparently generated by an offstage disco ball), and the red Russian peasant dress the main characters chose to dress their female scarecrow in.

From what I can tell, this was actually a recent play by a living playwright, entitled "Snegurochka Dasha." I could tell we were watching something in which two regular characters were stand-ins for Father Frost, his young sidekick, and the humorous bad guy figure of Baba Yaga, complete with a dream sequence in the middle that gave them to us in their full fairy-tale likenesses (think "The Wizard of Oz" in Russian with more red-nosed old guys and fewer animal characters. And a lot less music, unfortunately for those under 3 and for those hearing- and/or linguistically-challenged!). Luckily I had enough bear crackers and baby cookies to tide us over the hour or so it lasted and all the way home.

Hopefully our next public performance, a possible trip to the Dushanbe Circus next week, will be easier to follow and more small-kid-friendly than "Dasha."

Christmas Press

Not to be all Debbie-Downer on you, but Tajikistan made it onto the front page of the New York Times today with this article. We hear about this kind of thing a lot from our friends here, the fear of how the financial crisis ultimately will affect migration to and employment in Russia, which together produce the remittances that seem to keep Tajikistan's population afloat.

In other news, the weather turned much warmer for Christmas Eve day and now on Christmas Day, too. The sun yesterday made it positively balmy, and a warm breeze wafted in as I rode the marshrutka (fixed-route taxi van) back to town after a morning of work at the Embassy. It was great, until I sat for too long and the marshrutka made an unexpected (for me) turn, and I had to backtrack to get to sadik in time to pick Anya up. (One thing Dushanbe really needs: transport maps!)

We have had a building-themed holiday week, with Legos and Intelligence Blocks (a lego-type toy that Anya received as 2nd prize in the 2-and-under coloring contest) coming our way, and the two most favored things to build are apparently: 1. towers, and 2. Christmas trees (sometimes expressed in Russian as "Yolochka!").

We (well, OK, I -- unfortunately Anya wasn't really in the mood to make cookies, just to sample them; and Dan was out doing our grocery shopping) made a big batch of oatmeal cookies for the two parties on our circuit last night. I need to get moving on whatever it is I'm making for the family Christmas dinner that some fellow expats in our neighborhood are organizing this afternoon -- I think it's going to be apple tart, for lack of much imagination or energy for anything else.

Happy Holidays!

Sad Barg

I went shopping today for some more little holiday gifts (Hanukkah? Christmas? who can say...) and left feeling just kind of fed up and depressed with local offerings. "Sadbarg" is sort of like a central department store, post-Soviet style. Meaning that in its interior halls it is filled to overflowing with a combination of little glassed-in storefronts and counters, but the goods on sale leave something to be desired.

They are OK -- I have kind of followed a strange trajectory on them. In the beginning everything just looked like cheap trash. Then I started to distinguish the super cheap from the sorta cheap and the things that were made with some degree of quality. The turtleneck sweater that I bought for Anya, to go together with a little pink sweater dress, for the kids' New Year's party at the Embassy this afternoon, both of Chinese manufacture, actually seems to be better than expected. Others have even commented that they're surprised I found it at Sadbarg. I'm tempted to go back and get another from Dilshod, the friendly proprietor of the glassed-in shop "Fashion Kids."

But I guess today I was on the downturn again, and everything just looked like shoddy crap to me. I think the way everything is crammed together, with very little rhyme and reason (OK, yes, clothing is generally separate, and there are other sections where drugstore-type items and cleaning supplies are sold, but there is still a sense that you might find the category of thing you're looking for or you might not -- I am a little tired of that insecurity and the subsequent need to traipse all over town if I really want to find a particular thing). And no wrapping paper in sight, just little Christmas bags.

*Sigh* Luckily I have a few things bought locally, and a few things bought online, and I think I'll be OK. And I am telling myself to buy some supplies for the future online, as they come on post-Christmas discount, and (as always) to think about this earlier in the year next time around!

An Early New Year's

Tomorrow they are organizing a New Year's party at sadik -- so many kids will be leaving for the holidays that they decided this was the best way to include everyone. They have been getting the kids ready for the past few days by bringing out the Santa (Ded Moroz/Father Frost in Soviet tradition) costume and putting it on.

Apparently Anya is the only one of the 10 or so kids there who was afraid (or maybe just didn't like so much) when the teachers and kids tried on the fake white beard. (Despite my having dutifully taken her to her first post-Sov "yolka" New Year's party last year in Vlad.) The suggestion was that we talk up Santa a little bit at home, so she won't be scared at the party, but have fun with the rest of the kids instead.

Since part of getting ready for the Embassy Christmas-New Year's party in several days is to color in a picture of Santa and some presents, I figured why not use that as the occasion to talk about Santa (as if she won't have her whole childhood to hear about St. Nick and the presents he brings to good boys and girls...). I showed her the drawing, asked her who that is, and she promptly told me: "Is it Nargis [sadik teacher] wearing a beard?" Smart kid.