Day Five

Another day beyond my dreams. We had our usual morning pickup by the driver and we went to office get our RI-SOL teammate/translator. She is really nice, but I don’t think she knows how much we are really enjoying this adventure.

I had always kind of joked around back home about this trip that it would be like National Geographic. Today was! We began our day with a journey to Gissar. On the way, we stopped at a village that had been destroyed in a 1989 earthquake. Everyone was killed beside an infant found in her crib. The village was next to a small mountain, which the earthquake caused it to break and turn into a landslide, crushing or covering the entire village. The little girl had no remaining relatives, so I don’t remember who they said took her in, but they named her after the village. The village has been rebuilt, but you can see where the land mound broke, they mine sand there now for brick making. While exploring around we caught the attention of a few locals, greeted each other and got them to pose with us for a group photo. I hope we made a positive excitement in their day.

Because of being under Russian control for a long period, many of the Tajiks speak Russian. It funny to hear us referred to as “Americanskis”.

After the village we made it to our first stop, the area known as Gissar. This area has a fort from the 1400 years ago there, or the reminants of. The main gates were reconstructed, and are beautiful. Actually, on their currency here, the back of the 20 has a image of this fortress. If you think about the locations on the back of our, you know how important it is. The town also boast the first mosque built by the Arabians in the region of the world. The town was significant because it is on the ‘silk route’. While exploring the fortress, their were many children there, some even followed us in because we were ‘different’. While taking photos, I started interacting with the children. Luckily the translator was with me, as the other guys went up the mounds out there. They had made soapbox cars without the box, they were riding these down the slopes, and having a good time.

One of the boys yelled out “Papi chulo” to me. I didn’t think I heard him right, so I said it back, and he repeated it exactly. So I wasn’t still sure I heard it right, maybe it just sounded like that. Remember, I’m on the other side of the world, and in a remote village at that. I got the translator involved, and sure enough, these kids have heard some Spanish rap! Too funny. So now we are conversing with the kids because of this and watching some also play with turtles, which apparently are very common out there. I happen to have a pair of “ring & chain” setups in my pocket, so time for some magic. It is great when I do it and have another person trying at the same time. I had 10 kids around us in no time at all. Even had a ‘village elder” come to see what all the commotion was about and he requested I do it for him. He asked if “magic” was involved! He said he liked the trick. The kids and I had a lot of fun. I regret that I didn’t think to bring a bunch of these, and especially that I didn’t raid my daughters magic kit to bring some stuff with me. I remember watching a David Blaine special about street magic where he went into ‘poor’ non-english speaking areas and was just bringing huge smiles onto these people faces. I could have had a lot of fun with the children doing a few very simple tricks! We are trying to get me more rings/chains, so I can start leaving them at each school. I bought enough in California, at the last minute, to be able to make three, so I only have two left, but 10 more schools to visit. Pray they find me some rings!

We left the fort and went across the street to the museum. Got our own little tour from a very knowledgeable guide. The majority of the artifacts are just there, we even had permission to touch a few. Remember, I am learner, so I was having a great time, and I got to photograph stuff too.

We finally left to head towards lunch. We at in a restaurant, that apparently also has a bakery, the smells were absolutely incredible as soon as we stepped out of the car. Two little girls were walking down the street towards us, who had made wreaths to wear on their heads from some plants they found, they were just adorable as I took their photo. An unexpected result for them. Its funny, if you take a photo of a kid and show them it on the digital, they’ll tell you thank you, as if you did something for them. I really wish I had also followed another piece of advice I have know about. When going to areas like this, and you’re a photographer, its highly recommended you bring a Polaroid type camera so you can give them a photo to keep. My nexty adventure I’ll remember that one! Well, lunch was grand, a multicourse thing, and the final course were like four sausage shaped meat-loaf texture meat things. Tasted good, but I could only get one down because I had filled up on the prior courses, all meat related! You know I was happy. Actual quote from me: “Hey, there is a brick of meat in my soup”. It had these really big chunks of roast like meat. That was followed by a meat filled pastry, about the size of a typical turn-over.

We had one detour before the ILC, we needed some bricks and boards for a teamwork activity Andy was doing with the teachers and students. We raided some friend of the driver’s and borrowed some. We got there and we greeted by a drummer and clarinet(?) It was the second time we were great by the drum, so now it feels like “our song”. We are treated with a great amount of respect and reverence here, and it a new feeling to me, and I think to my teammates. Its amazing, to have this room full of strangers so excited and proud to have you visit. Each school it seems has prepared something for us to observed. The first time was the mini wedding with mini feast, including music and dancing. This time we got great by a musical performance outside. Then we get inside and the students give us a history of Tajikistan lesson in ENGLISH. That is followed by a demonstration of Tajiki dancing to music played by the students again.

Well, its finally our turn to do something, so we started to get the computers and projector ready. The schools computer room has its own electric generator provided by RI-SOL, but something about it wasn’t compatible with our projector, so we finally gave up and Andy was just going to do it holding up his laptop screen and walking around the audience. This was supposed to be a lesson for the teachers, but we had another 35+ kids there, so he modified as needed. There were a lot of team building activities, indoor and out. We didn’t know how apprehensive they would be about touching each other, or mixed gender touching. They did everything with eagerness.

Of course, after a while, I got out the chains and the students (and some of the teachers) were very entertained. Then it was picture time. And certain students were fighting about which got to stand by us. Back inside, individual students would request for pictures with us. Some wanted email, one just wanted autographs. We had had our usual question and answer session. The students often want to compare some aspect of their school to ours. This time they wanted to know how realistic high school movies like AMERICAN PIE were…ahhhh! It is sad to think of the stereotypes and such we promote worldwide with some of our movies.

After the school visit we were invited to the home of one of the students, Inobat. Her parents hosted us for tea and sweets. It was such a down to earth – real experience. We had been told ‘the people of Tajikistan are very hospital and they will accept a stranger into their home and offer them tea and sweets and often will feed them”. I thought of that as a nice “fairy tale”. It was amazing to find out it is 100% true. We were treated like neighbors and friends. We asked questions, they asked questions and we had some laughter. It is another on the long list of things I will never forget. We even got blessed by the babooshka.

For dinner that night we went to a Georgian restaurant. If you don’t know your geography, this has nothing to do with the state near Alabama. It is a region of Russia, such as Ukraine. I ordered a recommended dish. Don’t do that! It was chicken covered in sauce, but the sauce was so thick you could not tell what was meat and what was bone. The appetizers were splendid. First was a cheese bread, kind of like a sauceless pizza. The other was like a baked pastry with cheese inside.

The next day we were off for a 4 day/3 night trip. We spent the night packing and preparing the supplies we would need for a presentations during this period. Most of us went to bed around midnight.