Day Eight

This is a smaller town, or should I say village. Have you ever been greeted by an entire village? I was for the first time today, and I have the photos to prove it. It was like being in a parade, but instead of being in a parade, you are the parade. Everyone is there to see you, to say welcome, or to shake your hand. People want to have their picture taken with you. Multiple people are taking your picture! Of course on the flip side, some person from the other side of the world with a big camera wants to take a picture of a simple person like you. I have photographed at least 500 to 1000 faces since I have been here and its not even a whole real week yet!

Okay, from the beginning. We had spent the night at a house in Chorbogh. So we freshened up a bit, ate some breakfast. They have a dish that is like a rice pudding, but much more rice, it may be a rice/yogurt mix. They serve it warm, with a slab of butter in the middle. The serve everything, beside soups, communal. One big "dig in" set in the middle of a seating section. It is for you and everyone who can reach it. If you have been given a small dish, you take a portion for you, but typically, you either use your spoon and eat from the big-dish, or you tear a piece of naann (their flat bread) and dip/scoop up whatever it is. The national dish is traditionally eating with fingers, no utensils. But before serving that, someone comes to you with a pitcher and bowl and you rinse your hands at your seat. Its not just a “tradition” written about, its real because I've done it more than once! Back to breakfast, your juice, fruit, nuts, yogurt, breads, cookies, coffee, and tea are of course on the table, as they are on almost every meal. Well, I shouldn’t say table, because its on the floor if indoors, or on a kot if outdoors. Basically food is around on a rectangular cloth and then long cushions are placed around, and regular cushions if you want something to put behind your back or to lean on. If you have good knees and good circulation, this is fine. If you don’t you have to keep changing position every 10-15 minutes.

Traditionally in the home here, shoes come of before you enter or right at the entrance. I guess I keep saying “traditional” when I should say the ‘Tajik way’ because its not a thing of the past, its how most people here do things.

Well, lets leave breakfast, off we go to the school, but we don’t make it to the school, at the end of a street there is a gathering of people, so we have to stop. Upon closer inspection is a welcoming party! The girls were dressed in their beautiful Tajik dress, we were greeted with the bread and salt, and then came our drums. They played the drums and we were mesmerized by 5 tiny dancers. As usual, there is always one that even though some low age, they look like they been dancing twice as long as they been alive. And they don’t really have dance school here, they learn a little a school, but more at home and with friends and elders. Speaking of elders, they was a lady their with medals on both sides of her jacket. She been around and served her country well, though I a guessing it was during the soviet era.

After the small presentations, we walked by the school, to an old watermill still in operation to grind flour. Then we took the scenic route back to the school. This school also prepared a mock wedding and also a demonstration the national cradle used for first day, to bring good luck. They put a real toddler girl in it, strapped her in and then the one playing the mother did a wonderful lullaby. They showed us the other parts, the dress, the old and new style groom outfits, and as soon as we hit the foyer, there is the old lady showing her Tajik dance skills, and the 5 little ones join her after a bit. One of my favorite things is watching the Tajik dances. I have had to do them twice, and I’d much rather watch.
After finishing the outdoor part of the wedding process, the kids start wanting to take pictures with us. We honor all request without hesitation. Then our handlers rushed us off for another walk to actually see how the Tajik breads are made.

This was also fun. First we have to walk through the village and people are again coming out to see us walk by, great photo opportunities for me as I’ll lag behind the main group. We get there and she is making bread, demonstrating the different type and such. She also has been librarian somewhere for a long time. Andy volunteers to be the American bread maker. To the great smiles of the crowd he went through the paces. He didn’t have the ‘slap it up against the side” thing down so well, so he started doing something wrong and sliding down instead of cooking. I guess it was well described by someone because all onlookers were laughing now. The baker lady was making comments about women vs men and such and I can say is there was no one who wasn’t smiling. We also got to try it freshed baked for the first time – what a difference. These things are larger than a large pizza, but I bet if I had enough beverage, I could eat the whole thing – it is delicious. I am so glad we got to experience this.

Let me make something real clear to my readers back home, it like comparing “going to see the Alamo” to “visiting the Alamo while a real battle is going on”. That is what most of our experiences are like. We are doing and experience things that most people only read or see a picture of. These are not actors, this is real life!

After the bread, guess what, someone had a drum and here comes some more dancing, but these were the neighborhood women. Remember, we are three men, so they are ready to show off for the visitors! Its just plain fun.

We finally get to go to lunch. So we walk to this guys house who used to be a professional wrestler, like an Olympic type, but I assume during soviet times, that was a paid position. He was 62 and solid as a rock, lots of gusto for life. The man had 10 sons and explained how strong, hard working men produce boys. He was a character. Not all his sons are married so he was teasing the two female members of our party, doing a matchmaker kind of thing. All in good spirits. There was a lady making fresh butter by hand right outside the front door when we got there. After lunch, this guy was quite proud of his garden ( 13 different fruits produced) so we did a walking tour with him.

Finally we are off to the school. Andy did a team skills presentation and it went over well. I did my first one on letterboxing, and since I was preparing during Andy’s it went well too. Our projector was working good, so we had good displays. I explained the process and then we were off to find our first letterbox. This was actually a historical event, because it is the first letterbox ever in Tajkistan! I had hid th eone I made during Andy’s show, so I would have to say, I think the kids understand what they have to do now. I left carving tools, erasers, markers, notepads. All they had to do was start carving and start hiding. I hope it goes well. It’s a hobby that will work fine within their socio-economic situation.

Time was a little more critical, as today it was expressed that our driver’s mother had become deathly ill. So we rushed off to the next town so that he could drop us off and head home.

We arrived ina complex of apartments, later in the day when everyone was home and all the kids were playing in the central park area. I had been wearing one of my ‘american flag’ type bandanas. This got attention everywhere and the town does not often get visitors so we were quickly mobbed by little children who just want to see what we looked like or to say their 1 word they knew in English to us. I started pointed my camera and it like when you throw feed out to pigeons, every single one in the area swarms! They all wanted to appear in a photograph they would never see! We were shown where we would be sleeping and dropped our stuff their, and then head to the net building for dinner. Now the children were outside waiting for us. I got George to use my camera and take a few shots by telling the translator to announce I want all the children around me. The photo tells the feelings I had!

Here, we stayed with the family of the ILC manager. Two years ago she did a similar exchange and had spent 3 weeks in California with other teachers from Tajikistan. She says it as like a dream and if she didn’t have the photos to prove it wasn’t she would still think it was only a dream! That is a great way to describe this visit. Besides managing the ILC, she also teaches English to the upper grades, and her mother is also a teacher of English at another school in town, to other grade levels. So they are able to converse with use in English. Also, the manager had her best student there, who also spoke very decent English to us. I guess the funniest part of the whole evening was that a friend of the family showed up, a women of Afghan roots, but raised in Tajikistan. I often caught her and the daughter-in-law looking at me and discussing something. Then our translator and the mother got into the conversation, often with looks in my direction, so I announced “is there a question” as I was very sure they were talking about me. The translator said that they had expressed that I look very much like a Tajik man, more than American. I explained that I come from Puerto Rico and we are a darker people, so I probably do look more Tajik, especially since I have been in the sun the last few days and have been getting color. Then the Afghan-Tajik woman said something that got translated “she is glad to meet me and would be pleased to cooperate with me” then the women made some kind of wise-crack in Tajik and the 4 of them could not stop laughing, our translator was laughing so hard she had to leave the room and was still laughing when she came back. Apparently it related to the type of “cooperation” she meant, and one had ventured a guess. Of course everyone who didn’t hear any of the comment was laughing because our translator was laughing so hard, as well as the other women in on the joke. This atmosphere and the English conversation made dinner very pleasant for everyone.

Soon we went to the apartment we were sleeping in. Here, I received fantastic news. The had a ‘western’ style toilet. That does not mean there are picture of cowboys and indians on it, it means it look like one at home, instead of a hole in the ground! The best news of all, there was a shower. I had not bathed in three days at that point, so who cared the water felt like ice, it was clean and very refreshing.

One thing of note, before yesterdays photography, I made CDs of my photography so far and gave to my co-teachers. It seems I had shot over 2100 images since arriving in California, and yesterday I shot over 450, and it is not the midpoint of the trip yet. I had predicted I would shoot around 3000. This appears to be an underestimate! I’ve got my camera setting more optimized and I got a decent technique for shooting in the moving car. The other two had voted, since we are all sharing our pictures with each other, I would always sit in the front seat and do my photography because all three of us benefit that way. Works for me too. I brought a all in one zoom lens, wide angle to 10x zoom, but in digital is 1.5 more magnified, so its not as wide, but zoomed all the way out they are 15x closer than a normal lens. I am able to get great face or head and shoulder shots of the people here.

One of the things I definitely have learned and need to share to so maybe others can learn too. I knew very little about this part of the world in general, just some geography from my days of stamp collecting, or my involvement with cameras from the Ukraine. Well, if I saw people dressed in typical clothes as I see here on the news or photos, I had always assumed they were simple and uneducated. This is untrue totally. I will never again “judge a book by it cover”. They have reason for all their clothes and they are a culture with 2700 years of history, that’s more than 10 times our history. Their fashion meets the needs of their climate and beliefs. Just as at home I know if someone wears a cowboy hat doesn’t mean they have ever ridden a horse, the clothes do not tell you everything about the wearer.

This country is beautiful. We have been in at least 5 cities since we have been here, and this is supposed to be a poor country, yet I have not seen a beggar! I have the photos online showing the homeless guy in California. I have traveled to poor parts of South America and saw beggars everywhere. I had been to restaurants down there where children wait by the trash receptacle to prevent you from throwing any uneaten food away. No one seems without a home here, nor have we seen anyone begging. Apparently everyone takes care of everyone. I think it was expressed that it would be an embarrassment to the family if a member had to beg.

Oh, and these are some hard working people. This country does a lot of agricultural the way it was done 50 to 100 years ago. You go by a field and there is a group of people each with their own hoes tilling the soil. Everyone goes out and collects sticks for burning. Everyone cuts grasses and such to bring home to feed the animals. There is not as much trash as one would imagine and I think this is because they are not wasteful. For instance, they grow cotton in many areas. Its mostly picked the old ways, by person with bags. But the plants are not plowed under; they are left to dry and then used by the people to burn, either for heat or for baking.

All their live stock is free-range. So chickens, sheep, goats, turkeys and even cows, wonder about to eat and the children are often the herders and observers. Everyone works hard here! That is probably why no one looks like they have my body shape!