Last night was sitting on quilts laid out round a feast of yoghurt, shurbo, bread and fruit, apricots and figs from the garden. The meal was laid beside a waterfall, whose steady sparkling flow provided the soundtrack to our meal as well as sporadically splashing us with the clear springwater that Justin and I have begun to trust drinking.
We are sitting on a hill side sharply falling, below the host’s houses where three families live, to the fast flowing river Panj below, which can just be heard behind the roar of the waterfall and the reunited family’s laughter. Two car loads full drove to Darvaz from Dushanbe today, a twelve hours drive. The Panj river flows into the Amu Darya or Oxus river and makes up its headwaters.
The hillside is green and fertile with plane trees, silver birches and gnarled apple trees. They provide shelter and protect us from the sun.
Across the river is Afghanistan. So close – the river is scarcely 150 metres wide at this point. So close that the village of Narghav on the other side of the river can be clearly seen with its simple mudbrick houses, whose colours blend in to the mountain behind. Donkeys can be made out, slowly carrying their loads up the dirt tracks which connect this village to the rest of the country. There are no roads and no electricity pylons. Life does not seem to have changed much when seen from this distance from that which was lead in the nineteenth century.
You can also see people, going about their daily lives, washing clothes in the river, rocking a baby and the effect seems down the wrong end of a telescope, far away but so close.
The difference is stark in the development of Afghani Badakshan compared to their relations across the border. Many Tajiks, especially those who could not bear to have the practice of their faith curtailed by infidels, fled there after the Soviet invasion. The children of these refugees were invaded again half a century later south of the Oxus.
It is hard to escape the conclusion however that whatever else the Soviets did or didn’t do, they bought roads, literacy, light and schools to this population, which would otherwise, perhaps, be more like Afghanistan today if Tajikistan had not become part of the soviet empire.
Many families are related and once these two villages separated by the river, were seen as one. The relations keep in touch with Tajik mobile phones, and meet in the Tajik bazaar where Afghans may cross the river to buy and sell there, but not leave the bazaar area to enter the rest of Tajikistan. The Tajik police see to that.
It is a truly magical spot here, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Last night we saw the full moon rising behind the Afghan mountains and I felt at peace.
Today we crossed the road below the house which is the main road between Dushanbe and the Chinese border, and went to see the Durobak mazar of Khoja Fathulloh which we had covered in our film. The mazar keeper is F’s relation, who sat with us last night, in what looked to be the same tupe [hat] that he wore in the film.
There is a new entrance here, which has been built since the film was shot. This takes worshippers down a long flight of steps to the mazar. The mazar itself is on many levels on the banks of the Panj, it is shaded by century old chinar or plane trees which are forbidden to be cut down. So that even if they fall the wood may not be removed and they are left there. There is a sacred spring just inside the entrance which Justin and I decided contained the sweetest, most delicious water we had ever drunk. From the spring the water flowed across a large area which has been enclosed with large white stones, other white stones spell words and dates, I could make out 2005-2015 but the words are hard to read, even for F.
The largest chinar trees are down by the water, and these are massive affairs. The biggest one has a crack so that people may climb in. many pilgrims come to this place and meditate inside the tree, which could easily hold four of us sitting there. I could easily imagine spending some time there alone just being inside a tree.
After the mazar we walked along the road which followed the curves of the river between the high mountains either side, a few cars speeding along, making the most of a bit of tarmac on the flat to give it full throttle. Also said hello to a couple of western cyclists with all their kit, struggling along.
We walked to the presidents Darvaz dacha set in the most amazing landscape at the intersection of two rivers, along the side of the clear blue- green waters with bridges and follies, kitsch in the extreme but lifted by the fantastic, literally like a fantasy, nature there.
And now, having woken from a sleep beside the waterfall returned for the laptop and sitting here.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Sacred Places film
I got back to Dushanbe and was thrown into working on making a film on Tajkistan’s sacred places. This anthropological project was one of the results of four years of research by the Anthropological Centre under Professor Muhammadali Muzaffar. The project was funded by the Christensen Fund USA and was thus something that we had to complete before their planned visit in exactly five days time.
So, F sent me the English text for the introduction which I then edited. Most of it was taken from the English version of the Professor’s books on Sacred Places. But some he translated himself, his English is excellent – so I was just there to put it into native speakers speech and to transform a body of information gleaned from various sources into a continuous text which flowed and would sound right on film.
Then there was footage from two groups of mazars: from Badakhshan and from Sogd, which Farid watched and tried to discover which mazar was being discussed. Sometimes not an easy, or an impossible task. Professor had met with the mazar keepers or mutawwali and listened to their stories about the myths and legends which surrounded their mazar. He had also talked to visitors there, about the purpose of their visit.
The Badakshan mazars were in the high places, centred on springs, trees and sacred stones, those in Sogd were more often the graves of famous people set in city graveyards.
There was a lot to do.
As F watched the films in the evening I sat next to him, not watching the footage but copying out the information from the books, editing the English as he discovered that they were talking about one mazar or another. Mazar of Khoja Abdullohi Balogardon, Mazar of Khoja Ayyubi Ansori, Mazar of Khoja Shakkar Husayn and Mazar of Zaynalobiddin. They were names to conjure with.
The stories were fabulous, talking of men coming out of the river bearing gold and water brought through the rocks of the mountain to gardens, of kings killing their baby sons for looking on the faces of his harem and children disappearing into the mountain but leaving their handprints behind.
And I copied them out of the book, understanding that these were not fables but truth to the mazar keepers as well as F and the Professor.
Each night I slept at the Professor’s house in their visitor’s room, where we had eaten the Eid feast on my first visit.
In the daytimes we went to the radio station, passport in hand to give into the security on the door. Through once grand corridors – worn and torn like most things in Tajikistan. But like many things on the eve of the 20 years celebration being repaired. Remont is everwhere.
Up on the first floor F was working with a young guy who could use the film making program, who went by the great name of Mohammadamin Mohammadaminov (which was difficult to fit into the credits!). He was a sound engineer by trade who was hoping to get into film work.
He worked in an office with two other guys, all of whom seemed to spend their time turning their speakers as loud as possible to do whatever work they were doing, or games they were playing, so that the joint cacophony of sound was annoying in the extreme. I couldn’t write there and in the times where I wasn’t recording, looked for a quieter place to work, in a random person’s office or studio, they must have thought who is this woman!
And my recording, I went down to one of the studios on the ground floor and there, the other side of a soundproof door with glass between me and the engineer and two large mikes in front of me, I recorded the text that I had written the night before, changing tenses modifying words spinning it into a story. And I read it like a story as well. F wanted it slow and so that’s what I tried to do, even if at times it was hard to take the tone of my voice seriously – I sounded like I was reading from the bible. But it was serious, and it was about the sacred. So a certain timbre seemed appropriate, or just laughable depending on your point of view. I leave to people to judge - once its on youtube!
During the recording the most difficult thing was the names, to say them naturally and correctly! Especially those with many syllables. Here I did my best.
After the recording I sat with the sound engineer and J as he deleted my pauses and tried to remedy where I had tripped up or garbled a word or a name. I got better at just repeating the offending phrase, so that less time was wasted trying to cut just that part out of the file. Not an easy task when the sound engineer does not speak English!
And then that file was saved on Mohammadamin’s computer and they took it and meshed it with the visuals to create the film.
I never thought that we would get it done in the time we did. F and I worked all the hours of the day. I felt that somehow I was giving birth to something, so being looked after by the professor and his family with care as I worked hard.
The next day, as I was once again at F's house, collecting my bags, I had lived like a hobo for the last two weeks, with contact lens fluid in one place, cleanish clothes in another and my laptop in the third. It was only my laptop that I was sure where it was! Going with me everywhere like my daemon.
We drank a couple of beers as he had promised in the dark period between days two and three, when it seemed as if we would never finish on time, and watched the film. There were a few points that I would have changed, mostly with what I had done. But in general I was really pleased, as were F and J.
And now it is finished. For a day I hardly knew what to do with myself! I had spent the last five days doing that and the last five days before that with N , so that at no point was I either on my own or able to do my own work.
The last couple of days have been staying with J , who as I write is singing a sweet sad song as she gets ready for us to go to the Professor’s house for lunch.
So, F sent me the English text for the introduction which I then edited. Most of it was taken from the English version of the Professor’s books on Sacred Places. But some he translated himself, his English is excellent – so I was just there to put it into native speakers speech and to transform a body of information gleaned from various sources into a continuous text which flowed and would sound right on film.
Then there was footage from two groups of mazars: from Badakhshan and from Sogd, which Farid watched and tried to discover which mazar was being discussed. Sometimes not an easy, or an impossible task. Professor had met with the mazar keepers or mutawwali and listened to their stories about the myths and legends which surrounded their mazar. He had also talked to visitors there, about the purpose of their visit.
The Badakshan mazars were in the high places, centred on springs, trees and sacred stones, those in Sogd were more often the graves of famous people set in city graveyards.
There was a lot to do.
As F watched the films in the evening I sat next to him, not watching the footage but copying out the information from the books, editing the English as he discovered that they were talking about one mazar or another. Mazar of Khoja Abdullohi Balogardon, Mazar of Khoja Ayyubi Ansori, Mazar of Khoja Shakkar Husayn and Mazar of Zaynalobiddin. They were names to conjure with.
The stories were fabulous, talking of men coming out of the river bearing gold and water brought through the rocks of the mountain to gardens, of kings killing their baby sons for looking on the faces of his harem and children disappearing into the mountain but leaving their handprints behind.
And I copied them out of the book, understanding that these were not fables but truth to the mazar keepers as well as F and the Professor.
Each night I slept at the Professor’s house in their visitor’s room, where we had eaten the Eid feast on my first visit.
In the daytimes we went to the radio station, passport in hand to give into the security on the door. Through once grand corridors – worn and torn like most things in Tajikistan. But like many things on the eve of the 20 years celebration being repaired. Remont is everwhere.
Up on the first floor F was working with a young guy who could use the film making program, who went by the great name of Mohammadamin Mohammadaminov (which was difficult to fit into the credits!). He was a sound engineer by trade who was hoping to get into film work.
He worked in an office with two other guys, all of whom seemed to spend their time turning their speakers as loud as possible to do whatever work they were doing, or games they were playing, so that the joint cacophony of sound was annoying in the extreme. I couldn’t write there and in the times where I wasn’t recording, looked for a quieter place to work, in a random person’s office or studio, they must have thought who is this woman!
And my recording, I went down to one of the studios on the ground floor and there, the other side of a soundproof door with glass between me and the engineer and two large mikes in front of me, I recorded the text that I had written the night before, changing tenses modifying words spinning it into a story. And I read it like a story as well. F wanted it slow and so that’s what I tried to do, even if at times it was hard to take the tone of my voice seriously – I sounded like I was reading from the bible. But it was serious, and it was about the sacred. So a certain timbre seemed appropriate, or just laughable depending on your point of view. I leave to people to judge - once its on youtube!
During the recording the most difficult thing was the names, to say them naturally and correctly! Especially those with many syllables. Here I did my best.
After the recording I sat with the sound engineer and J as he deleted my pauses and tried to remedy where I had tripped up or garbled a word or a name. I got better at just repeating the offending phrase, so that less time was wasted trying to cut just that part out of the file. Not an easy task when the sound engineer does not speak English!
And then that file was saved on Mohammadamin’s computer and they took it and meshed it with the visuals to create the film.
I never thought that we would get it done in the time we did. F and I worked all the hours of the day. I felt that somehow I was giving birth to something, so being looked after by the professor and his family with care as I worked hard.
The next day, as I was once again at F's house, collecting my bags, I had lived like a hobo for the last two weeks, with contact lens fluid in one place, cleanish clothes in another and my laptop in the third. It was only my laptop that I was sure where it was! Going with me everywhere like my daemon.
We drank a couple of beers as he had promised in the dark period between days two and three, when it seemed as if we would never finish on time, and watched the film. There were a few points that I would have changed, mostly with what I had done. But in general I was really pleased, as were F and J.
And now it is finished. For a day I hardly knew what to do with myself! I had spent the last five days doing that and the last five days before that with N , so that at no point was I either on my own or able to do my own work.
The last couple of days have been staying with J , who as I write is singing a sweet sad song as she gets ready for us to go to the Professor’s house for lunch.
Takhte Sangin
After the real work, the writing of notes and the taking of photos there was some time left in the day down in southern Tajikistan and we decided to find the Graeco-Bactrian site of Takhte Sangin which I knew was somewhere on the Amu Darya – which is today the border with Afghanistan. We found the site on my antiquities map, but it was no where near a road. Doubling back on ourselves we crossed the bridge at Shartuz and went down the left hand fork.
Just when we were about to give up hope – and not for the last time, we saw a sign Takhte Sangin signposted towards the cliffs of the Teshik-Tash range as I found out, through dusty fields where no one seemed to be working we snaked our way higher along the bumpy road, south towards the river. We hoped that our letters from the Academy of Sciences would be allow us access to what was surely a military zone. Suddenly we came to the top of the rise between the rocky cliffs and there was the river the Amu Darya of old, and behind Afghanistan hazy in the early evening light. We were quite alone as we took in the scene- wild and remote the river shining in the late sun. Borders are always areas of possibilities, of crossing, another culture and life brushing up against the one you’re in. But the border with Afghanistan speaks of dangers and drug smuggling, P and U were joking about selling N and me at the market across the border.
The road forked and forked again, signs forgotten and as I scanned articles to try and discover a more precise location we found out it was between the Teshik-Tash range and the river – just where we thought. We went down one ‘road’ thankful for the 4x4 until it disappeared in the dust and the same seemed to happen with the next, we knew it was inaccessible hard to reach, defensible at the time on the caravan route guarding the river to the other side of the Oxus from our side Transoxiana, the land which was named by the civilisations to the south. We drove around the cliff face on a treacherous road cut into the rock, unpaved and twisting round, so that we had to almost drive off one side before we swung in, hugging the cliff face, I was glad that P had told me that U was the best driver in TJ – I knew that he drove UN people so just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
We thought we must be on the right road now, but then the road again petered out and was split into mini crevasses and massive rocks. We sat and watched the tame roller birds, not knowing people as we discussed where next. Again we turned back. We could see the towers of the military posts on the border in the background.
We returned almost to where we saw the sign, P and N both assuring me that we would get there, if not today then they were not going to give up. Me too, appetite to find this site had been well and truly whetted. Then turning down another road, there was a boy riding a donkey who pointed us in the direction of a responsible adult – a farmer sweating from the fields, in wellingtons and a broad face from the steppes. He agreed to come with us and show us the way, we said we would only be half an hour, and back we went along the snaking cliff road – again down by the river with the sun lower and the hour later this time. We continued along the rock strewn road. Until two soldiers spotted us, well they could see us all along and beckoned us over, with whistles. We later found out they might have shot us if we hadn’t complied. And then the waiting game started as we explained and reexplained what we wanted and why we had come here, turned tail and returned, to a series of young soldiers posted here in this remote but key location for their military service. We waited for an officer to show our letters to. And waited as the sun got lower. Finally we drove to the camp, what we should have done at first, P reminded us he had said all along, obviously we hadn’t listened or he hadn’t persuaded us with any kind of loud argument!
And there we waited, until we thought that we would just have to go home anyway as it was getting dark when the final higher ranking officer came out, tall and older. N managed to persuade him that if we took one of his men with us to make sure we did nothing stupid could we go?
Mailash!
And then I knew that we would get there. So now we had two hitchhikers along for the ride, a farmer and the soldier, or as we later learnt a worker in uniform, and again we bumped along the road with the river on our right, and a barbed wire fence dotted with signs saying beware of the mines – the pictures left little to the imagination. One of the soldiers was kneeling down machine gun in hand, pointing at an unknown target, not in our direction, but still it was a scene that I had only ever seen on TV before.
And then suddenly in the shadow of a watchtower – we could take photos one way, but not towards the river – suddenly there were columns and ashlar masonry walls, such as have never seen in the Central Asian mud brick architecture.
I imagined the Temple of the Oxus – a fire temple built to a river god, covering the bases as it were, and the site full of gold. Some now in the British Museum and other parts scattered to the winds of the world.
The site is large and as my info said, largely inaccessible between the mountains and the river – on the narrow stretch of valley between the two. It was a Graeco-Bactrian site so founded in the 3rd Century BCE. This temple controlled the river crossing on the ancient caravan routes and information highways between Iran, India, China, Afghanistan and Transoxiana the area we now call Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Archaeologists speak of an ancient citadel with palace buildings around a spacious square, paved with large bricks. Takhte Sangin – the name means stone platform, and certainly the stone surprises here, eyes which have been used to clay brick. The temple of the Oxus was built in the 3rd century BCE. It was here that offerings were placed over centuries. Gold, ivory and more gold.
The ‘soldier’ told us that we could take photographs towards the site, but not in the other direction towards the river where a watchpost towered over the ruins.
He pointed out some steps going down in the direction of the river, saying that a few Turkish people had tried to dig under the river(!) I was skeptical about this, would take more than a few people, Turkish or otherwise to dig under that mighty river. What was more likely it was people trying to dig under the mine fields, but why they would do this just under a watch tower seems a bit odd. However with the walls and trenches of the dig, there was better cover here than elsewhere on that dusty river plain.
My friends returned again a few weeks later and noticed that some of the stones had been moved, whether by the army or someone protected by them? Makes me angry that people just think they can do this…
We later discovered that we weren’t meant to be there in this sensitive border area, especially the couple of foreigners. A couple of days prior had been an incident – read a drug smuggling operation so the border area was meant to be well and truly closed.
For anyone else who wants to visit - apparently the way to do it apparently, or that is what we were told, is to inform the military base at Shartuz that you are coming and then they will inform this base. However when my friends did that a few weeks later - there was still a rigmarole to get in. Seems the easiest way to do it is just p-p-pick up a soldier.
We left with the feeling driving back hugging the cliff face on that treacherous road in the dark feeling we truly had an adventure…. Touching a piece of the past rarely seen, especially by foreigners.
Just when we were about to give up hope – and not for the last time, we saw a sign Takhte Sangin signposted towards the cliffs of the Teshik-Tash range as I found out, through dusty fields where no one seemed to be working we snaked our way higher along the bumpy road, south towards the river. We hoped that our letters from the Academy of Sciences would be allow us access to what was surely a military zone. Suddenly we came to the top of the rise between the rocky cliffs and there was the river the Amu Darya of old, and behind Afghanistan hazy in the early evening light. We were quite alone as we took in the scene- wild and remote the river shining in the late sun. Borders are always areas of possibilities, of crossing, another culture and life brushing up against the one you’re in. But the border with Afghanistan speaks of dangers and drug smuggling, P and U were joking about selling N and me at the market across the border.
The road forked and forked again, signs forgotten and as I scanned articles to try and discover a more precise location we found out it was between the Teshik-Tash range and the river – just where we thought. We went down one ‘road’ thankful for the 4x4 until it disappeared in the dust and the same seemed to happen with the next, we knew it was inaccessible hard to reach, defensible at the time on the caravan route guarding the river to the other side of the Oxus from our side Transoxiana, the land which was named by the civilisations to the south. We drove around the cliff face on a treacherous road cut into the rock, unpaved and twisting round, so that we had to almost drive off one side before we swung in, hugging the cliff face, I was glad that P had told me that U was the best driver in TJ – I knew that he drove UN people so just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
We thought we must be on the right road now, but then the road again petered out and was split into mini crevasses and massive rocks. We sat and watched the tame roller birds, not knowing people as we discussed where next. Again we turned back. We could see the towers of the military posts on the border in the background.
We returned almost to where we saw the sign, P and N both assuring me that we would get there, if not today then they were not going to give up. Me too, appetite to find this site had been well and truly whetted. Then turning down another road, there was a boy riding a donkey who pointed us in the direction of a responsible adult – a farmer sweating from the fields, in wellingtons and a broad face from the steppes. He agreed to come with us and show us the way, we said we would only be half an hour, and back we went along the snaking cliff road – again down by the river with the sun lower and the hour later this time. We continued along the rock strewn road. Until two soldiers spotted us, well they could see us all along and beckoned us over, with whistles. We later found out they might have shot us if we hadn’t complied. And then the waiting game started as we explained and reexplained what we wanted and why we had come here, turned tail and returned, to a series of young soldiers posted here in this remote but key location for their military service. We waited for an officer to show our letters to. And waited as the sun got lower. Finally we drove to the camp, what we should have done at first, P reminded us he had said all along, obviously we hadn’t listened or he hadn’t persuaded us with any kind of loud argument!
And there we waited, until we thought that we would just have to go home anyway as it was getting dark when the final higher ranking officer came out, tall and older. N managed to persuade him that if we took one of his men with us to make sure we did nothing stupid could we go?
Mailash!
And then I knew that we would get there. So now we had two hitchhikers along for the ride, a farmer and the soldier, or as we later learnt a worker in uniform, and again we bumped along the road with the river on our right, and a barbed wire fence dotted with signs saying beware of the mines – the pictures left little to the imagination. One of the soldiers was kneeling down machine gun in hand, pointing at an unknown target, not in our direction, but still it was a scene that I had only ever seen on TV before.
And then suddenly in the shadow of a watchtower – we could take photos one way, but not towards the river – suddenly there were columns and ashlar masonry walls, such as have never seen in the Central Asian mud brick architecture.
I imagined the Temple of the Oxus – a fire temple built to a river god, covering the bases as it were, and the site full of gold. Some now in the British Museum and other parts scattered to the winds of the world.
The site is large and as my info said, largely inaccessible between the mountains and the river – on the narrow stretch of valley between the two. It was a Graeco-Bactrian site so founded in the 3rd Century BCE. This temple controlled the river crossing on the ancient caravan routes and information highways between Iran, India, China, Afghanistan and Transoxiana the area we now call Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Archaeologists speak of an ancient citadel with palace buildings around a spacious square, paved with large bricks. Takhte Sangin – the name means stone platform, and certainly the stone surprises here, eyes which have been used to clay brick. The temple of the Oxus was built in the 3rd century BCE. It was here that offerings were placed over centuries. Gold, ivory and more gold.
The ‘soldier’ told us that we could take photographs towards the site, but not in the other direction towards the river where a watchpost towered over the ruins.
He pointed out some steps going down in the direction of the river, saying that a few Turkish people had tried to dig under the river(!) I was skeptical about this, would take more than a few people, Turkish or otherwise to dig under that mighty river. What was more likely it was people trying to dig under the mine fields, but why they would do this just under a watch tower seems a bit odd. However with the walls and trenches of the dig, there was better cover here than elsewhere on that dusty river plain.
My friends returned again a few weeks later and noticed that some of the stones had been moved, whether by the army or someone protected by them? Makes me angry that people just think they can do this…
We later discovered that we weren’t meant to be there in this sensitive border area, especially the couple of foreigners. A couple of days prior had been an incident – read a drug smuggling operation so the border area was meant to be well and truly closed.
For anyone else who wants to visit - apparently the way to do it apparently, or that is what we were told, is to inform the military base at Shartuz that you are coming and then they will inform this base. However when my friends did that a few weeks later - there was still a rigmarole to get in. Seems the easiest way to do it is just p-p-pick up a soldier.
We left with the feeling driving back hugging the cliff face on that treacherous road in the dark feeling we truly had an adventure…. Touching a piece of the past rarely seen, especially by foreigners.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Galasitora
Seeing whole hosts of stars in the city garden feels like a gift. I learnt one of my favourite words so far in Tajik the other day, while sitting chatting with the mother in the dusk. Galasitora , which means constellations of stars.Sitora is linked linguistically to our word star – evidence of a common language between European languages and Persian thousands of years ago.
Do feel at ease in this house, and the garden and the space is a big part of that. Space and peace to do my work. Watch the flowers grow, and the strawberries form into pale green shapes that will soon be red. Their delicate flowers glistening round the plants lined in the well watered earth. It feels like the simple life, and then in 10 minutes you are on the main street, catching a cab in 30 seconds and riding in a share cab for 26pence down the tree lined main drag with pastel coloured buildings mainly dating from the 1920s, with rich and tumbledown stucco work placed somewhat haphazardly either side.
I remember first getting into bed, on my first night here, on a pile of traditional Tajik quilts, or kurpacha , and feeling so comfortable and at peace, somehow. Feeling good about where I was. I just go and look at the flowers grow, browny orange wall flowers, roses that are not yet out, another orange flower which I have forgotten the name of. When I read these travel books. Minaret of Djam, the Short walk in the Hindu Kush, the authors know all the names of the flora and fauna. Was this just the age, this is what they knew, or did they take detailed notes about what they saw so then they could ask people back home. Of course now we would just check the internet. Must even be a site where you can upload photos of birds for example and someone will tell you what it is.
It is funny how people don’t read here; people do not sit on benches, newspaper in hand turning the pages finding out what is going on elsewhere in the world. They do not reach in their pockets for a paperback while commuting to Circ, or the west of the city. They sit. They might chat, but often you see people sitting just sitting at the side of the road.
At home, and this seems to be pretty universal, in many of the families I have stayed with, the TV is on from morning to night, a friend and a window on the world. From cartoons, to badly Russian dubbed films, to ubiquitous Russian, Tajik, Persian and American dance music. Most surprisingly I even saw How clean is your house, dubbed into Persian! I leanrt that Iran is the dubbing capital of the world, even in front of France! They also have a show similar to our Come Dine with me all with Iranians living in London,and speaking Persian!
However, you cannot fault the little kindnesses that the guest receives in the Tajik house, the shoes lifted down from the rack as you go by so you can put your feet directly in them. Rinsing my clothes, both of us , me and S going hech gap ne, no problem. She won, and carried on washing them saying ‘you are my sister’. I feel looked after here. The beaming smile of N which lights up her face when she sees me, even though we can’t really chat. I smile back.
Saw Z the other day. It was late as I left my and I was surprised to see a picheni or biscuit cottage industry going on in the main room. N was icing one type of picheni, while S and Z were rolling pastry and cutting out others.
So I sat down with them, and while S talked on the phone to her boyfriend on the handsfree, her hands were busy rolling and shaping, pinching and placing. I was impressed at how she made dough by eye, adding flour, butter and eggs, rolling it into fine sheets which then were cut into squares, a slice of caramelised apple placed in each and then folded over and covered with icing and chocolate shavings. All this activity was in aid of the tui the next day, the wedding of their uncle’s daughter. I am sure that as S talked to her fiancée rolling the pastry, she thought of her own wedding.
Z was well and busy, she wanted me to come and talk to the students, which of course I agreed to. She also said that we would work out a time for me to meet her father and ask him some questions – I am thinking he would know who I could talk to about getting in to see the Museum under the statue.
I finally left them at 1am, I heard next day that they were up for another hour. Z had to give an 8am lecture the next day, bless her.
Do feel at ease in this house, and the garden and the space is a big part of that. Space and peace to do my work. Watch the flowers grow, and the strawberries form into pale green shapes that will soon be red. Their delicate flowers glistening round the plants lined in the well watered earth. It feels like the simple life, and then in 10 minutes you are on the main street, catching a cab in 30 seconds and riding in a share cab for 26pence down the tree lined main drag with pastel coloured buildings mainly dating from the 1920s, with rich and tumbledown stucco work placed somewhat haphazardly either side.
I remember first getting into bed, on my first night here, on a pile of traditional Tajik quilts, or kurpacha , and feeling so comfortable and at peace, somehow. Feeling good about where I was. I just go and look at the flowers grow, browny orange wall flowers, roses that are not yet out, another orange flower which I have forgotten the name of. When I read these travel books. Minaret of Djam, the Short walk in the Hindu Kush, the authors know all the names of the flora and fauna. Was this just the age, this is what they knew, or did they take detailed notes about what they saw so then they could ask people back home. Of course now we would just check the internet. Must even be a site where you can upload photos of birds for example and someone will tell you what it is.
It is funny how people don’t read here; people do not sit on benches, newspaper in hand turning the pages finding out what is going on elsewhere in the world. They do not reach in their pockets for a paperback while commuting to Circ, or the west of the city. They sit. They might chat, but often you see people sitting just sitting at the side of the road.
At home, and this seems to be pretty universal, in many of the families I have stayed with, the TV is on from morning to night, a friend and a window on the world. From cartoons, to badly Russian dubbed films, to ubiquitous Russian, Tajik, Persian and American dance music. Most surprisingly I even saw How clean is your house, dubbed into Persian! I leanrt that Iran is the dubbing capital of the world, even in front of France! They also have a show similar to our Come Dine with me all with Iranians living in London,and speaking Persian!
However, you cannot fault the little kindnesses that the guest receives in the Tajik house, the shoes lifted down from the rack as you go by so you can put your feet directly in them. Rinsing my clothes, both of us , me and S going hech gap ne, no problem. She won, and carried on washing them saying ‘you are my sister’. I feel looked after here. The beaming smile of N which lights up her face when she sees me, even though we can’t really chat. I smile back.
Saw Z the other day. It was late as I left my and I was surprised to see a picheni or biscuit cottage industry going on in the main room. N was icing one type of picheni, while S and Z were rolling pastry and cutting out others.
So I sat down with them, and while S talked on the phone to her boyfriend on the handsfree, her hands were busy rolling and shaping, pinching and placing. I was impressed at how she made dough by eye, adding flour, butter and eggs, rolling it into fine sheets which then were cut into squares, a slice of caramelised apple placed in each and then folded over and covered with icing and chocolate shavings. All this activity was in aid of the tui the next day, the wedding of their uncle’s daughter. I am sure that as S talked to her fiancée rolling the pastry, she thought of her own wedding.
Z was well and busy, she wanted me to come and talk to the students, which of course I agreed to. She also said that we would work out a time for me to meet her father and ask him some questions – I am thinking he would know who I could talk to about getting in to see the Museum under the statue.
I finally left them at 1am, I heard next day that they were up for another hour. Z had to give an 8am lecture the next day, bless her.
Bags, bags, bags
One person I did know at the Wedding party was Johan, who is J’s friend from South Africa. I went to his workshop a couple of days before. He was a lawyer once, who decided however he was sick of making money and wanted to do some good in the world. So he is here in Tajikistan running a workshop making leather bags. He realised that people were throwing the sheep and goat skins to their dogs to eat, rather than doing anything more useful with them. Equally there is so little small scale industry here, the people are not yet used to thinking about shifting for themselves so used to working on the collective farm or kolkhoz.
In the countryside, either they think about working the land, or if that cannot support them, the only other option they seem to find is going to Russia. This obviously splits up families, and often causes divorce, or the husband returns with HIV and gives it to his wife. Now around 12 families are supported by this workshop, which as he says is a drop in the Amu Darya, however it means at least 12 families won’t be split up.
Johan has trialled various tanning techniques using all natural ingredients, one of the best emulsifiers is found in fresh brains! However none of these being forthcoming, he has found alternatives such as cotton oil.
These skins all get sent to the workshop in Dushanbe from around the country, he pays between 30 and 40 somoni for each skin. Here they get made into bags, slippers etc. We went round the workshop with J, her friend, N, F the Professor’s son and J’s boss Mr Tamavadeh. He was lovely and unpretentious and we had a joke about Iranian taarof. He was from Iran!
So we sat in Johan’s flat, eating biltong and drinking tea, having a conversation which veered between Persian and English, with only F being able to understand both, and to a lesser extent J and then Johan – who speaks some Persian. I bought a bag to carry round my extra stuff in when I have my laptop.
http://www.tajiktrading.com/index.html
In the countryside, either they think about working the land, or if that cannot support them, the only other option they seem to find is going to Russia. This obviously splits up families, and often causes divorce, or the husband returns with HIV and gives it to his wife. Now around 12 families are supported by this workshop, which as he says is a drop in the Amu Darya, however it means at least 12 families won’t be split up.
Johan has trialled various tanning techniques using all natural ingredients, one of the best emulsifiers is found in fresh brains! However none of these being forthcoming, he has found alternatives such as cotton oil.
These skins all get sent to the workshop in Dushanbe from around the country, he pays between 30 and 40 somoni for each skin. Here they get made into bags, slippers etc. We went round the workshop with J, her friend, N, F the Professor’s son and J’s boss Mr Tamavadeh. He was lovely and unpretentious and we had a joke about Iranian taarof. He was from Iran!
So we sat in Johan’s flat, eating biltong and drinking tea, having a conversation which veered between Persian and English, with only F being able to understand both, and to a lesser extent J and then Johan – who speaks some Persian. I bought a bag to carry round my extra stuff in when I have my laptop.
http://www.tajiktrading.com/index.html
Visit to the sacred spring or mazar
On Monday we went to Romit, with J and the Professor, I had such a good afternoon out, slightly feeling like I was winging school, sitting in a nice car eating icecream when should have been working! We drove out past Vaksh, in the direction of Kulob and the Pamirs. Along Aini street, past J’s old flat, along a dusty section of unsurfaced road, without markings where the cars raced rally style as they jostled for position. Another wacky races moment. The road had been like that for eight months.
However we soon left the city behind and at Vaksh, which is a major city in Tajikistan, took a left and started climbing, first along a plain with the mountains in the background, and then along the banks of a river, passing ever more simple villages, with farmers herding goats and sheep, past holiday homes for the Academy of Sciences, the railway workers the police, all left over from Soviet times and still used today of course. The Professor drove slowly and it was a joy to be outside the city, with friends.
We drove as far as Romit, where there is a national park on one side of the road, we three and our picnic of bread and yoghurt drink hopped over the gate on the other side and climbed through the old Soviet garden with sweet smelling white lilac, where we came to the mazar or Sufi sacred spring, where there was a tree next to it hung with cloths of people who had visited the mazar. The spring was there beside it, sparkling down the rocks, looking out over the valley with the river at the bottom. Someone had tapped the spring higher up, and there was a water pipe running high over our heads to a place in the valley.
On our way home we stopped at what looked like a gutter, which apparently was fresh spring water, the Professor and J drank their glasses of water with gusto, I was slightly more cautious but drank it down anyway, trusting it would be alright. It was and I am fine, having no worse than the usual which seems to come and go just as quickly as my body accustoms itself to new diet (!) and bacteria.
The next day we saw the Professor’s garden and his den, the library on the top floor reached by a precarious set of metal steps, into the roof space. It was a magical place, and one I could dream of having one day, full of books and pictures on esoteric subjects. After showing us books of tankas of Tibeten health, of philosophy and yoga, he gave me a book on Aryan anthropology, one of his. I will have to get it translated.
After a quick breakfast, TV on of course, a host of Iranian singers accompanying J wherever she goes, of cream, non and walnuts as well as two fried eggs (well maybe it wasn’t that quick) we set off. The Professor kindly dropping me home in time for my Tajik lesson.
However we soon left the city behind and at Vaksh, which is a major city in Tajikistan, took a left and started climbing, first along a plain with the mountains in the background, and then along the banks of a river, passing ever more simple villages, with farmers herding goats and sheep, past holiday homes for the Academy of Sciences, the railway workers the police, all left over from Soviet times and still used today of course. The Professor drove slowly and it was a joy to be outside the city, with friends.
We drove as far as Romit, where there is a national park on one side of the road, we three and our picnic of bread and yoghurt drink hopped over the gate on the other side and climbed through the old Soviet garden with sweet smelling white lilac, where we came to the mazar or Sufi sacred spring, where there was a tree next to it hung with cloths of people who had visited the mazar. The spring was there beside it, sparkling down the rocks, looking out over the valley with the river at the bottom. Someone had tapped the spring higher up, and there was a water pipe running high over our heads to a place in the valley.
On our way home we stopped at what looked like a gutter, which apparently was fresh spring water, the Professor and J drank their glasses of water with gusto, I was slightly more cautious but drank it down anyway, trusting it would be alright. It was and I am fine, having no worse than the usual which seems to come and go just as quickly as my body accustoms itself to new diet (!) and bacteria.
The next day we saw the Professor’s garden and his den, the library on the top floor reached by a precarious set of metal steps, into the roof space. It was a magical place, and one I could dream of having one day, full of books and pictures on esoteric subjects. After showing us books of tankas of Tibeten health, of philosophy and yoga, he gave me a book on Aryan anthropology, one of his. I will have to get it translated.
After a quick breakfast, TV on of course, a host of Iranian singers accompanying J wherever she goes, of cream, non and walnuts as well as two fried eggs (well maybe it wasn’t that quick) we set off. The Professor kindly dropping me home in time for my Tajik lesson.
Being spoilt by the Ambassador...
Went to the Ambassador’s residence (even a crest on the wall, thought it would be all a lot more subtle!) for the Royal Wedding Party on Friday, knowing practically no one. As I got there, suddenly felt awful had brought no gift – thought it would be smarter than in reality it was. Thought everyone would be very much in their glad rags! But no – a few dresses smattering the crowd (for the ladies), but also some more everyday attire. I suppose that the kind of people who come and work in Tajikistan are mostly working for aid agencies. Nobody comes here to get rich! Strange to be surrounded by expats, and so many Brits!
The wedding was being watched on big screens, with union jack bunting aplenty decorating the garden where it was held. I made sure that I had to mingle during the sermon.
Most of the most interesting conversations I had that day were with Tajiks, however, with Mukhibullo, the British Ambassador’s political advisor who I had met at SwordeTeppaand Shurat who works for DFID, who I might interview. He knew quite a lot about the Samanid period, which he said he had learnt at school during the Soviet times. He spoke about IsmoilSomoni cancelling the people’s taxes to maintain the upkeep of the city wall of Bukhara, saying “I am the wall of Bukhara”, I had to interject that, just to show I knew what he was talking about!
Also spoke with the French ambassador, who goes by the quite fabulous name of Henry Zipper de Fabiani. He came up to me saying you’re a historian, let’s talk! He was very well informed and we chatted for a while about archaeological sites and museums in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
As I left I could have kicked myself, I had talked to two ambassadors, and not once had managed to fit in the immortal line, “Ambassador, you are spoiling us”!
At my local Morning Star café on Sunday was next to a group of English people who had met at the party the day before. We started chatting. They were interesting, lived in Istaravshan, teaching English and learning Tajik. They are planning to be there for the next four years! Wow, having been to that town, that is pretty hard going. But at least there are a few of them.
They were talking about people using fire to cleanse during an illness as well as not having a broom standing in the house. It is interesting how many of the Tajiks they were talking to thought these were Islamic customs. And they even said that you can find mention of them in the Qur’an. They are much more likely to be pre-Islamic Zoroastrian beliefs which are still being used and believed in almost 2000 years later.
The wedding was being watched on big screens, with union jack bunting aplenty decorating the garden where it was held. I made sure that I had to mingle during the sermon.
Most of the most interesting conversations I had that day were with Tajiks, however, with Mukhibullo, the British Ambassador’s political advisor who I had met at SwordeTeppaand Shurat who works for DFID, who I might interview. He knew quite a lot about the Samanid period, which he said he had learnt at school during the Soviet times. He spoke about IsmoilSomoni cancelling the people’s taxes to maintain the upkeep of the city wall of Bukhara, saying “I am the wall of Bukhara”, I had to interject that, just to show I knew what he was talking about!
Also spoke with the French ambassador, who goes by the quite fabulous name of Henry Zipper de Fabiani. He came up to me saying you’re a historian, let’s talk! He was very well informed and we chatted for a while about archaeological sites and museums in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
As I left I could have kicked myself, I had talked to two ambassadors, and not once had managed to fit in the immortal line, “Ambassador, you are spoiling us”!
At my local Morning Star café on Sunday was next to a group of English people who had met at the party the day before. We started chatting. They were interesting, lived in Istaravshan, teaching English and learning Tajik. They are planning to be there for the next four years! Wow, having been to that town, that is pretty hard going. But at least there are a few of them.
They were talking about people using fire to cleanse during an illness as well as not having a broom standing in the house. It is interesting how many of the Tajiks they were talking to thought these were Islamic customs. And they even said that you can find mention of them in the Qur’an. They are much more likely to be pre-Islamic Zoroastrian beliefs which are still being used and believed in almost 2000 years later.
Friday, 22 April 2011
A village house in the capital
As I walk down between carefully planted strawberries, and fig trees beginning to show their wares, I feel happy with the warm morning sun on me. There are geraniums, lemon mint, roses and vines under the cherry trees. When I arrived ten days ago the blossom was in its full glory, but now it has scattered on the ground like confetti for an unknown wedding. The eldest daughter S is getting married next month and has a smile and happy air about her as she cleans and cooks, her phone playing music wherever she goes. This is the family I am staying with, for how long, who knows, but it is good for my Tajik as they speak no English.
I have met my supervisor who likes the direction of my work and her present, and has even written an article along the lines of my topic.
So the mother was telling me that when they arrived there was nothing in the garden apart from a couple of trees and lots of stones. Now it is a veritable paradise, all through her hard work. But as she says, it makes her happy. All of this I understood in Tajik. So felt pleased, however basic. I had my first Tajik lesson yesterday, so hopefully this will help.
This wonderful garden is not on the outskirts of Dushanbe down some minor road. But it is just five minutes’ walk from the Rudaki Street, the Oxford Street, Whitehall and West End rolled into one, there is only one main street here. The house is behind the Ped or Pedagogical Institute near the Botanical gardens.
The house is simple with an outside drop toilet and bathroom with concrete floor but shower and hot water. But it is comfortable and I make my bed on piled thin mattresses every night, Tajik style.I feel back to nature, as it were, pissing with a pile of wood near me, looking at the ants crawl in the warm earth.
Last week I went to Kurgan Teppa and gave my presentation at the English Language Day event. How much actually was understood past the general excitement of the day, the microphone which had the opposite effect, and you would be better off shouting. But it was great to be involved, met the English Ambassador Trevor Moore who was guest of honour and got a Royal Wedding party invite out of it, at the Ambassadorial residency next week. Royal weddings are not really my thing, but parties, especially where there is a chance I can say “Ambassador you’re spoiling us”, definitely are!
The funny thing was that even after being introduced as the guest of honour, admittedly using the poor microphone, and giving out all the certificates, a few of the students came up to me to ask me who is this tall man with the mop of grey hair?
I have danced around the living room with my Iranian friends, J & N and N’s teenage daughters and drunk vodka to the Rumi quotation, “One heart is better than one language” hamdil az hamzabani khushtar ast.
I have met my supervisor who likes the direction of my work and her present, and has even written an article along the lines of my topic.
So I feel happy and am beginning to settle back into my Central Asian life.
Friday, 11 February 2011
Notes from the gender coalface 2
The following comments are directly taken from conversations I had mostly with Tajik women (and one man) about their country and its various attitudes to women. Many of these people were Pamiri Ismailis who see themselves as having a markedly different culture and attitudes than other Tajiks. They have their own slant on things. This is what they wanted to tell me, and I have put in very little of my own interpretation, except to add in web links where I believe these may be useful.
In many Tajik families (but seemingly less so among the Pamiris), the wife is seen as a cook, cleaner and baby-maker, who does not eat with the husband if he has guests. Pamiri Ismailis however, maintain that these attitudes are less common among their community.
An Ismaili male friend F told me that, following the Aga Khan’s teaching, the education of girls is seen as more important than the education of boys, among Ismailis. This is because it is women who spend more time with their children during their child’s formative early years. Thus it is seen that educating women is raising the education standards for the whole of society.
The husband, F, works in IT and the wife P works in a supermarket. They live in Dushanbe, having moved here recently from the Pamirs. The fact that the wife works, and with young children, would be much less common outside the capital. Their two year old son is sent to kindergarten.
Their 6 year old elder daughter is currently being looked after by her grandparents in the Pamirs. As a Pamiri girl her education is seen as paramount, and she can be educated well in the mountains. It seems to be more common and accepted in Tajikistan that children live with someone else in the extended family, often the grandparents.
Ismaili women tell me that it is seen by some people that men should be educated more than women, or to put it another way women should be less educated than their husbands. So a woman could be overeducated to find a husband.
They tell me that it is an imported idea, which is taking some hold amongst Tajiks and even some members of their own community. Marriage is still seen to be the main aim for women today in Tajik society, and many people wonder what the point of educating a woman is if she is just going to sit at home? Indeed that is the literal translation of khaneshin, or housewife in Tajik, ‘she who sits at home’. There is no credit in this word paid to the hard work women do, looking after home and family.
An educated woman is seen to be less likely to be submissive to her husband and his family, and also more likely to know her rights and want to stand up for herself.
Now it is against the law to leave school before 18 years, a law which just changed in 2009. However it still seems that many girls, especially in rural areas do not continue much past primary school. One woman in L’s apartment block is keeping her 12 year old daughter at home to help with the baby. L wanted to report her to the police, but knew that it would not do any good, and only result in a fine or bribe for the poor woman to pay, and the daughter still wouldn’t go to school.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/tajikistan-teenage-girls-dropping-out-school http://iwpr.net/report-news/tackling-early-marriage-tajikistan
http://acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0184/326
L is an intelligent and feisty Pamiri woman, who won scholarships to study in the West, as did her husband. She also has a strong Ismaili faith and is involved with her community. However now, after a long time abroad, both her and her husband are back in Tajikistan, working for international aid organisations. They are trying to change the country from within and contribute to its development. She is really sad about women not working or getting a worse education than used to happen during the Soviet period.
She told me the sacrifices her father went through to give her and her brothers and sisters an education. During Tajikistan’s civil war (1992-97), she had to walk for an hour each way through the mountains in the mountainous Pamirs to go to school. Often there were not enough clothes to wear in the bitter winters when the Pamirs were cut off by snow from the rest of the country. There was hardly any food to eat, apart from what could be grown in the mountain valleys. Their family, like many others survived on a food similar to porridge. As there were no goods in the shops most of these were closed.
When her father discovered that she was one of the finalists to go to America to spend a year at American high school, he sold one of their cows for meat. She protested, as this was the main source of income for her family. This money enabled her to travel to Dushanbe for the final competition. It was 1994 and she was fifteen years old.
Her first time in her capital city was fraught with danger. She did not know anyone, the fighting of the civil war that she had largely escaped in the mountains was raging round Dushanbe, and the city was under constant curfews. However in spite of all this she won the competition and travelled to the US to attend high school. This naturally was a huge culture shock for a young girl who had hardly even travelled round her own country. She is still in touch with her American host family, which she regards as her second family.
L believes things are going backwards in Tajikistan, especially where women’s rights are concerned. In the share taxis and minibuses there are often religious tapes playing. One time she told me she stood her ground, saying “Either you give me my money back or stop the tape now as I cannot bear this any more!” The man on the tape was saying that if a woman raises her voice at her husband then it would literally take years off his life. The message was clear: whatever a husband did, there was no justification for a woman to speak out or back. L told the other women in the taxi “How can you stand to listen this? You have to think about what they are saying and what it means for women and how we are treated!”
However, sadly in general, L she thinks that no one is speaking about what happens to women, no one is writing about it, although when she and her friends get together they feel bad that they are not doing it either. At the moment her job with an international organisation means she cannot speak out about such things, at least under her own name. However she feels something should be done.
Today there is a very high rate of female suicide and it is steadily mounting. Women often do not see any way out when their husbands or their husband’s families treat them badly. It is seen as wrong or impossible to return to their own families, and very few women have independent means to live without either their husbands’ or their own families’ support and protection.
Often I was told (by women) that a girl is only wanted if it is the third or fourth child, is seen as only good for marrying off and then to produce children. And that if they don’t do either of those what is the point of them?
Women I spoke to told of the difficulty women have being unmarried in their mid thirties. One female friend, Z, told me that her brothers are supported by the family much more than her or her sisters. For example the sons were bought flats by her parents but the daughters were not. While her older sister has managed to get her own flat she has not been able to. Sons traditionally have to support families of their own, thus their own parents will do their utmost to help them. Whereas traditionally daughters should be supported by her husband and his family. Buying an apartment is almost impossible without parental help.
Although Z’s parents have helped her, she knows that at 34 she is very old to get married. She is not provided for by her husband or her family – in the same way as the sons.
A curious teenager M came to visit, keen to meet me, an English person. She couldn’t believe I was able to travel round Tajikistan on my own, not speaking the language! She speaks very street Tajik, and doesn’t understand the Tajik word for ‘research’, or Arabic words like ‘jadid’ meaning ‘new’, that is commonly used in Persian. These are words that an educated Tajik would understand. L thinks that she doesn’t know or understand that there are different registers, and that she is not being taught these words in school. L does not believe that it is a very good school.
M was shocked that L’s husband was doing the washing up, letting his heavily pregnant wife relax. L had to tell him to stop as it would get round the whole apartment block, and his role as a husband would be undermined and remarked upon negatively by others.
People in heat of summer used to chuck used nappies out of the window, these were not put in a plastic bag. When L complained about this to a neighbour, they replied that those people are from a family who lives near Kulyab, (where the President, Imomali Rahmon is from), and many of them are in the military or are traffic cops.
The other woman said “ Don’t complain as it’s not worth it, it won’t do any good. They won’t change their ways, as they are the ones who think they’re educated. They think they are better than everyone else.”
L is trying to improve her landing in the apartment block, which is shared by four flats. They were all grateful when she put electric light in, as before the landing was in darkness. However none of them had thought to do it, or wanted to pay for it. L cleaned the landing for a long time by herself before the other flats agreed to get together a rota.
Now she has grander plans, painting the landing, and getting the lift going to the 6th floor where they live, instead of having to walk down from the seventh. This would be much more difficult with a pram. Not that many parents have prams in Dushanbe. The state of the pavements mean that most children get carried around clutched to the chest of the mother or father.
L told me that Sunni Muslim women are not allowed to enter most mosques to pray. Indeed, while I was in Dushanbe last October, the only ‘Women’s mosque’, where they could pray next to the men was burnt down apparently by arson. According to the same article, women have been forbidden from attending mosque prayers since 2004.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Islamic_Party_Cries_Foul_As_Tajikistans_Womens_Mosque_Burns/2200792.html
It is fairly common for men to have three or four wives, it is happening both in the villages and among government ministers. The latter are educated people who provide luxury homes for each wife. But in Tajikistan it does not work as it does in Arabic countries, where it is the law to provide equally for all wives. In Tajikistan if a husband has a favourite wife, there is nothing to stop the him favouring her whilst the children from his unloved wives are left to starve.
My friend also questions how can they support four luxury households on their government salaries, which might be $1000 / month. They obtain much more than this from corruption.
Talking to Z, it is easier in the country for men to have up to four wives, as with a bit of land they can feed themselves. The fathers don’t think about educating their children just having as many as possible, as this is important to show their virility build a power base and have some security when the couple is older. So many children are not going to school and are hanging around the bazaars, working from an early age. My friend wonders how are they going to get on?
Her niece goes to school which costs $500 pa. which is prohibitive for most families.
It seems that the practise of taking multiple wives also stems from the Civil War, when many men died, leaving an estimated 50,000 orphans and 20,000 widows of to fend for themselves.
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Country_briefing_papers/Women_in_Tajikistan/women_in_tajikistan.pdf
Second wives are not legal under Tajik law, although widely accepted. So if the husband wishes to divorce them, which he can do by saying se talaq “I divorce you” three times, they have no rights to property or to any recompense for themselves or their children. Under Islamic law, husbands should look after their divorced wives, but this is not happening.
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1252188255899&pagename=Zone-English-News%2FNWELayout
These husbands sometimes divorce wives by text message – which is in contradiction of Islamic law, which states that the se talaq should be in the presence of the woman.
Today, with so many men migrating to work in Russia and Kazakhstan, women are left at home with the husband’s family, often for years, hoping that the money keeps coming for their upkeep. Sadly these men often find other wives in their new homes.
Z also told me that it is becoming more difficult being a woman in Tajikistan. She thinks that Tajik men would like to do the same to women as in Afghanistan – but the women here are more protected under the law. However reading the following article, the law does not protect women in reality
http://iwpr.net/report-news/gender-equality-dead-letter-tajikistan
Contraception in TJ is practised but many men don’t like wearing condoms – (as anywhere). They also think that for a woman to have an orgasm is a sin, and don’t want her to come as then she might look for pleasure elsewhere.
She also talked about how at the moment in Tajikistan in the event of a divorce the children stay with the mother. However it is possible that the law might change to bring them more in line with other Muslim countries, so that the children stay with the father. At the moment if there are two children the father might take one if the mother agrees. At the moment both children would not go to the father like in Iran for example.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/divorce-leaves-tajik-women-out-cold
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2009/02_09/02_02_09/020209_tajikistan.htm
In many Tajik families (but seemingly less so among the Pamiris), the wife is seen as a cook, cleaner and baby-maker, who does not eat with the husband if he has guests. Pamiri Ismailis however, maintain that these attitudes are less common among their community.
An Ismaili male friend F told me that, following the Aga Khan’s teaching, the education of girls is seen as more important than the education of boys, among Ismailis. This is because it is women who spend more time with their children during their child’s formative early years. Thus it is seen that educating women is raising the education standards for the whole of society.
The husband, F, works in IT and the wife P works in a supermarket. They live in Dushanbe, having moved here recently from the Pamirs. The fact that the wife works, and with young children, would be much less common outside the capital. Their two year old son is sent to kindergarten.
Their 6 year old elder daughter is currently being looked after by her grandparents in the Pamirs. As a Pamiri girl her education is seen as paramount, and she can be educated well in the mountains. It seems to be more common and accepted in Tajikistan that children live with someone else in the extended family, often the grandparents.
Ismaili women tell me that it is seen by some people that men should be educated more than women, or to put it another way women should be less educated than their husbands. So a woman could be overeducated to find a husband.
They tell me that it is an imported idea, which is taking some hold amongst Tajiks and even some members of their own community. Marriage is still seen to be the main aim for women today in Tajik society, and many people wonder what the point of educating a woman is if she is just going to sit at home? Indeed that is the literal translation of khaneshin, or housewife in Tajik, ‘she who sits at home’. There is no credit in this word paid to the hard work women do, looking after home and family.
An educated woman is seen to be less likely to be submissive to her husband and his family, and also more likely to know her rights and want to stand up for herself.
Now it is against the law to leave school before 18 years, a law which just changed in 2009. However it still seems that many girls, especially in rural areas do not continue much past primary school. One woman in L’s apartment block is keeping her 12 year old daughter at home to help with the baby. L wanted to report her to the police, but knew that it would not do any good, and only result in a fine or bribe for the poor woman to pay, and the daughter still wouldn’t go to school.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/tajikistan-teenage-girls-dropping-out-school http://iwpr.net/report-news/tackling-early-marriage-tajikistan
http://acr.hrschool.org/mainfile.php/0184/326
L is an intelligent and feisty Pamiri woman, who won scholarships to study in the West, as did her husband. She also has a strong Ismaili faith and is involved with her community. However now, after a long time abroad, both her and her husband are back in Tajikistan, working for international aid organisations. They are trying to change the country from within and contribute to its development. She is really sad about women not working or getting a worse education than used to happen during the Soviet period.
She told me the sacrifices her father went through to give her and her brothers and sisters an education. During Tajikistan’s civil war (1992-97), she had to walk for an hour each way through the mountains in the mountainous Pamirs to go to school. Often there were not enough clothes to wear in the bitter winters when the Pamirs were cut off by snow from the rest of the country. There was hardly any food to eat, apart from what could be grown in the mountain valleys. Their family, like many others survived on a food similar to porridge. As there were no goods in the shops most of these were closed.
When her father discovered that she was one of the finalists to go to America to spend a year at American high school, he sold one of their cows for meat. She protested, as this was the main source of income for her family. This money enabled her to travel to Dushanbe for the final competition. It was 1994 and she was fifteen years old.
Her first time in her capital city was fraught with danger. She did not know anyone, the fighting of the civil war that she had largely escaped in the mountains was raging round Dushanbe, and the city was under constant curfews. However in spite of all this she won the competition and travelled to the US to attend high school. This naturally was a huge culture shock for a young girl who had hardly even travelled round her own country. She is still in touch with her American host family, which she regards as her second family.
L believes things are going backwards in Tajikistan, especially where women’s rights are concerned. In the share taxis and minibuses there are often religious tapes playing. One time she told me she stood her ground, saying “Either you give me my money back or stop the tape now as I cannot bear this any more!” The man on the tape was saying that if a woman raises her voice at her husband then it would literally take years off his life. The message was clear: whatever a husband did, there was no justification for a woman to speak out or back. L told the other women in the taxi “How can you stand to listen this? You have to think about what they are saying and what it means for women and how we are treated!”
However, sadly in general, L she thinks that no one is speaking about what happens to women, no one is writing about it, although when she and her friends get together they feel bad that they are not doing it either. At the moment her job with an international organisation means she cannot speak out about such things, at least under her own name. However she feels something should be done.
Today there is a very high rate of female suicide and it is steadily mounting. Women often do not see any way out when their husbands or their husband’s families treat them badly. It is seen as wrong or impossible to return to their own families, and very few women have independent means to live without either their husbands’ or their own families’ support and protection.
Often I was told (by women) that a girl is only wanted if it is the third or fourth child, is seen as only good for marrying off and then to produce children. And that if they don’t do either of those what is the point of them?
Women I spoke to told of the difficulty women have being unmarried in their mid thirties. One female friend, Z, told me that her brothers are supported by the family much more than her or her sisters. For example the sons were bought flats by her parents but the daughters were not. While her older sister has managed to get her own flat she has not been able to. Sons traditionally have to support families of their own, thus their own parents will do their utmost to help them. Whereas traditionally daughters should be supported by her husband and his family. Buying an apartment is almost impossible without parental help.
Although Z’s parents have helped her, she knows that at 34 she is very old to get married. She is not provided for by her husband or her family – in the same way as the sons.
A curious teenager M came to visit, keen to meet me, an English person. She couldn’t believe I was able to travel round Tajikistan on my own, not speaking the language! She speaks very street Tajik, and doesn’t understand the Tajik word for ‘research’, or Arabic words like ‘jadid’ meaning ‘new’, that is commonly used in Persian. These are words that an educated Tajik would understand. L thinks that she doesn’t know or understand that there are different registers, and that she is not being taught these words in school. L does not believe that it is a very good school.
M was shocked that L’s husband was doing the washing up, letting his heavily pregnant wife relax. L had to tell him to stop as it would get round the whole apartment block, and his role as a husband would be undermined and remarked upon negatively by others.
People in heat of summer used to chuck used nappies out of the window, these were not put in a plastic bag. When L complained about this to a neighbour, they replied that those people are from a family who lives near Kulyab, (where the President, Imomali Rahmon is from), and many of them are in the military or are traffic cops.
The other woman said “ Don’t complain as it’s not worth it, it won’t do any good. They won’t change their ways, as they are the ones who think they’re educated. They think they are better than everyone else.”
L is trying to improve her landing in the apartment block, which is shared by four flats. They were all grateful when she put electric light in, as before the landing was in darkness. However none of them had thought to do it, or wanted to pay for it. L cleaned the landing for a long time by herself before the other flats agreed to get together a rota.
Now she has grander plans, painting the landing, and getting the lift going to the 6th floor where they live, instead of having to walk down from the seventh. This would be much more difficult with a pram. Not that many parents have prams in Dushanbe. The state of the pavements mean that most children get carried around clutched to the chest of the mother or father.
L told me that Sunni Muslim women are not allowed to enter most mosques to pray. Indeed, while I was in Dushanbe last October, the only ‘Women’s mosque’, where they could pray next to the men was burnt down apparently by arson. According to the same article, women have been forbidden from attending mosque prayers since 2004.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Islamic_Party_Cries_Foul_As_Tajikistans_Womens_Mosque_Burns/2200792.html
It is fairly common for men to have three or four wives, it is happening both in the villages and among government ministers. The latter are educated people who provide luxury homes for each wife. But in Tajikistan it does not work as it does in Arabic countries, where it is the law to provide equally for all wives. In Tajikistan if a husband has a favourite wife, there is nothing to stop the him favouring her whilst the children from his unloved wives are left to starve.
My friend also questions how can they support four luxury households on their government salaries, which might be $1000 / month. They obtain much more than this from corruption.
Talking to Z, it is easier in the country for men to have up to four wives, as with a bit of land they can feed themselves. The fathers don’t think about educating their children just having as many as possible, as this is important to show their virility build a power base and have some security when the couple is older. So many children are not going to school and are hanging around the bazaars, working from an early age. My friend wonders how are they going to get on?
Her niece goes to school which costs $500 pa. which is prohibitive for most families.
It seems that the practise of taking multiple wives also stems from the Civil War, when many men died, leaving an estimated 50,000 orphans and 20,000 widows of to fend for themselves.
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Country_briefing_papers/Women_in_Tajikistan/women_in_tajikistan.pdf
Second wives are not legal under Tajik law, although widely accepted. So if the husband wishes to divorce them, which he can do by saying se talaq “I divorce you” three times, they have no rights to property or to any recompense for themselves or their children. Under Islamic law, husbands should look after their divorced wives, but this is not happening.
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1252188255899&pagename=Zone-English-News%2FNWELayout
These husbands sometimes divorce wives by text message – which is in contradiction of Islamic law, which states that the se talaq should be in the presence of the woman.
Today, with so many men migrating to work in Russia and Kazakhstan, women are left at home with the husband’s family, often for years, hoping that the money keeps coming for their upkeep. Sadly these men often find other wives in their new homes.
Z also told me that it is becoming more difficult being a woman in Tajikistan. She thinks that Tajik men would like to do the same to women as in Afghanistan – but the women here are more protected under the law. However reading the following article, the law does not protect women in reality
http://iwpr.net/report-news/gender-equality-dead-letter-tajikistan
Contraception in TJ is practised but many men don’t like wearing condoms – (as anywhere). They also think that for a woman to have an orgasm is a sin, and don’t want her to come as then she might look for pleasure elsewhere.
She also talked about how at the moment in Tajikistan in the event of a divorce the children stay with the mother. However it is possible that the law might change to bring them more in line with other Muslim countries, so that the children stay with the father. At the moment if there are two children the father might take one if the mother agrees. At the moment both children would not go to the father like in Iran for example.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/divorce-leaves-tajik-women-out-cold
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2009/02_09/02_02_09/020209_tajikistan.htm
Friday, 4 February 2011
Notes from the gender coalface
My friend P told me about her family, one day sitting in the cosy dining area just off the kitchen, which in the night time served as the parents’ bed. The children were fed and she was enjoying a brief hour’s relaxation. “During the Soviet period”, she told me, “My mother, S, was not allowed to go to school, she was stopped from attending by her own father as she was a girl.” It was not thought desirable or necessary to educate girls, as they were only going to grow up to become wives and mothers.
P describes her grandfather as being like an Afghan man. Because the family lived in the village, near Kurgan Tepe, in southern Tajikistan, it was easy enough for him to keep his daughter out of school, even during Soviet times. If they had lived in the city it would have been more difficult. Teachers did come round to try and get the grandfather to let his daughter attend school, but he was known for being a hard and angry man, and the eventually the teachers gave up.
S’s mother died when she herself was only three or four, and her father took new wife who was also horrible to her. She ended up being a cleaner at the university – which was a good job then paying a living wage, (although no longer today).
P’s mother got married, but her husband (P’s father) died at the early age of 23, after which she took another husband. Even if she had not wanted to, it would have been very difficult for her to live on her own. P underlines what a very hard life her mother had. She apologises for telling me a sad story.
However, P got a university education, getting a Tajik language diploma, a leap forward indeed from her own mother’s education. She would like to return to work teaching at the Lycee perhaps, but this depends on her husband. He has said that maybe when her youngest child is 14, in two years’ time, she will no longer need her mother so much and P may go to work.
Talking to many Tajik women they told me how women are expected to leave work when they get married, which indeed is what often took place in the United Kingdom only 50 years ago. Most women, it seems, according to one woman I spoke to, are happy to do this. My friend, N thinks in Dushanbe maybe 60% of women give up their jobs on marriage but in Kurgan Tepe over 80% do. This is because the southern city is more conservative. There is also a higher level of education in the capital.
Staying with P, I got into the rhythm of family life, discovering that naps after lunch are quite the done thing. Women who are housewives and their children returning from school, curl up on their mattresses in the corner for an hour or so. I was considered slightly strange for managing a whole day without a nap! Women at home are grabbing a well -deserved moment for themselves, a moment to indulge their daydreaming. They are often first to rise and in the evening they are busy cooking, serving and generally looking after the rest of the family. I guess this also makes extra sense in the summer, when the sultry days mean that getting up earlier when it is cooler is preferable.
P is wondering about getting a washing machine, which her husband could afford, having a well-paid job; unlike the majority of Tajik women who wash clothes by hand, for whom the cost would be prohibitive. But, she says that “The clothes washing for a family of four keeps me thin, as its high energy work, and there is so much of it”. She often wondered about the slim women on TV and grabbed her flesh, wondering how she could be like them. I told her that these women would work out at the gym many times a week. P hardly ever left the flat and eating, it seemed, was one of the few pleasures she could indulge in easily.
She told me that the bikinis being worn by the Miss World programme were bad, but that didn’t stop the family sitting down and watching the event! Tajiks are used to Russian television with its female flesh on show, so as long as it wasn’t their daughters perhaps, they didn’t mind watching a bit of ‘saucy’ family entertainment!
N said that her father did not mind her wearing a bikini in a swimming pool, and would wear it in front of him but this is unusual, I think. I remember even my own (Western, but traditional) father being slightly shocked at my string bikini! Many Tajik girls and women, if they do swim, would be fully clothed.
However, what ever they might wear in the water, one thing is definite: a girl must be a virgin when she marries. In the villages they still show the bloody sheet after the first night to show that the bride has been a good girl. Z is worried about her friend, whether she has been ‘good’ or not. The prospective sister-in-law paid Z a visit to try and find this out from her as Z is one of her best friends, and also the equivalent of the bridesmaid for the forthcoming wedding. Z told the prospective sister-in-law that it was nothing to do with either of them.
P describes her grandfather as being like an Afghan man. Because the family lived in the village, near Kurgan Tepe, in southern Tajikistan, it was easy enough for him to keep his daughter out of school, even during Soviet times. If they had lived in the city it would have been more difficult. Teachers did come round to try and get the grandfather to let his daughter attend school, but he was known for being a hard and angry man, and the eventually the teachers gave up.
S’s mother died when she herself was only three or four, and her father took new wife who was also horrible to her. She ended up being a cleaner at the university – which was a good job then paying a living wage, (although no longer today).
P’s mother got married, but her husband (P’s father) died at the early age of 23, after which she took another husband. Even if she had not wanted to, it would have been very difficult for her to live on her own. P underlines what a very hard life her mother had. She apologises for telling me a sad story.
However, P got a university education, getting a Tajik language diploma, a leap forward indeed from her own mother’s education. She would like to return to work teaching at the Lycee perhaps, but this depends on her husband. He has said that maybe when her youngest child is 14, in two years’ time, she will no longer need her mother so much and P may go to work.
Talking to many Tajik women they told me how women are expected to leave work when they get married, which indeed is what often took place in the United Kingdom only 50 years ago. Most women, it seems, according to one woman I spoke to, are happy to do this. My friend, N thinks in Dushanbe maybe 60% of women give up their jobs on marriage but in Kurgan Tepe over 80% do. This is because the southern city is more conservative. There is also a higher level of education in the capital.
Staying with P, I got into the rhythm of family life, discovering that naps after lunch are quite the done thing. Women who are housewives and their children returning from school, curl up on their mattresses in the corner for an hour or so. I was considered slightly strange for managing a whole day without a nap! Women at home are grabbing a well -deserved moment for themselves, a moment to indulge their daydreaming. They are often first to rise and in the evening they are busy cooking, serving and generally looking after the rest of the family. I guess this also makes extra sense in the summer, when the sultry days mean that getting up earlier when it is cooler is preferable.
P is wondering about getting a washing machine, which her husband could afford, having a well-paid job; unlike the majority of Tajik women who wash clothes by hand, for whom the cost would be prohibitive. But, she says that “The clothes washing for a family of four keeps me thin, as its high energy work, and there is so much of it”. She often wondered about the slim women on TV and grabbed her flesh, wondering how she could be like them. I told her that these women would work out at the gym many times a week. P hardly ever left the flat and eating, it seemed, was one of the few pleasures she could indulge in easily.
She told me that the bikinis being worn by the Miss World programme were bad, but that didn’t stop the family sitting down and watching the event! Tajiks are used to Russian television with its female flesh on show, so as long as it wasn’t their daughters perhaps, they didn’t mind watching a bit of ‘saucy’ family entertainment!
N said that her father did not mind her wearing a bikini in a swimming pool, and would wear it in front of him but this is unusual, I think. I remember even my own (Western, but traditional) father being slightly shocked at my string bikini! Many Tajik girls and women, if they do swim, would be fully clothed.
However, what ever they might wear in the water, one thing is definite: a girl must be a virgin when she marries. In the villages they still show the bloody sheet after the first night to show that the bride has been a good girl. Z is worried about her friend, whether she has been ‘good’ or not. The prospective sister-in-law paid Z a visit to try and find this out from her as Z is one of her best friends, and also the equivalent of the bridesmaid for the forthcoming wedding. Z told the prospective sister-in-law that it was nothing to do with either of them.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Back in the smoke
8 November 2010
Felt, a little, just a little, like coming home, returning to Dushanbe – I got a lift with Paul, Umed, N and Joe who were coming to the city to see the Zoo. It felt relaxing travelling with them, knowing that you would be taken to where you wanted to go, that you could communicate with them and maybe even have a laugh! First though before anything else, was lunch which was a mountain of pizza and mixed grill eaten at Merve Restaurant. I just had a pizza and my favourite Ayran – some of the others, who will remain nameless, had my size pizza for starter, and a huge mixed grill for main. Eating this amount of food is a military operation, but it was not taken too seriously!
Last night was dancing round the living room to Lady Gaga with a one year old having drunk (me not her) two shots of Arak with her grandfather! He raised a glass to people everywhere being the same, wherever they came from. The little Amina loves dancing and cries my name when she sees me, dragging me to sit down next to her. Watching her move her little body, spinning like a dervish, made the whole family laugh.
We were talking about Christmas, in English unfortunately, N relaxed her strict rules for once that we only speak Tajik because we were both into the conversation, and it was crystal clear to us both that I would never be able to follow in Tajik. It was interesting that in Soviet times, they celebrated New Year on 31t December/ 1st January with a tree and presents for the children. Basically tacking on the traditional Christmas celebrations to a secular day of fun. The pagan celebration comes full circle. However since independence the government no longer celebrates this day, no more Christmas trees in schools. Noruz is the main holiday instead. For N it is too late to change her traditions like that, although it might work for her younger countrymen and women. She misses the end of New Year.
The family lives as is normal in Tajikistan with three generations together, the parents with the youngest, or only son and his wife and children. The father (or grandfather, rather) is a bit of a joker and we laugh together, even though we can’t understand eachother, maybe even because we can’t understand eachother. He is a kindly grandfather who sits feeding his grandchildren (the girl of one and her older brother who is three), dandling them on his knee. He helps in the kitchen more than I have seen many men here. The mother is a silent ghost, with a sweet smile, who just seems to follow round her children, sorting them out with their many ups and downs.
What is not so normal is the house where they live, a beautiful house in the centre, (not an apartment) in a desirable location behind the Ped (or Pedagogical) Institute. The father is in construction, and has obviously done well. N, his wife works for the American Council as Academic Coordinator. She often has American students studying Persian staying in this room. The house is a traditional one, round a courtyard, with beautiful wooden doors and beams. So my room is in a separate building from the rest. Great when I want to play my music loud, not so great when I want to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and have to skip past the dog.
Yes the dog, Filia, whose name belies his guard dog build and his capacity for semi-violent play, not to mention his sex. His mouth fits comfortably (for him, rather than me) round my arm. And when he jumps up, his paws are almost on my shoulders. I am not scared of big dogs, but him… at least until he got used to me, I was not over keen. I had to learn the word for sit pretty quickly, as I realised that “down” was not going to work, as he had never been taught English (!). Now I just say “Beshin” or sit! However it is better not to catch his eye at all. Definitely no playing. At least though, he seems to be good with the kids.
I will be staying here until the end, being a “Centre Girl” as H called me, thinking I won’t go visiting to anyone out of the centre any more. I was staying with H who used to work for the Institute, also on the website, for a few days before here. She is about to give birth any moment, and I am so thinking about her and wishing her all the best.
It has been a busy couple of weeks, meeting academics and art professionals, trying to gather as much information to work on in the next few weeks before I come back out here. I also visited the Ismaili Centre which is the most wonderful building, they do tours on Sundays open to anyone, and I strongly recommend anyone who comes to Dushanbe to go there. It has been so beautifully thought out, such a meaningful mix of ancient forms and modern functions, a really exciting building. It has just dawned on me I have four days left in Dushanbe!
I also visited Hissar fort, an easy day (or half day) trip from the capital, with a group of economics students and their lecturer, looking at the tourism provisions in this important historical site. These as we all agreed left much to be desired, so I was able to give both a tourist and museum professional take on how these could be improved, so I was brought in to speak to the students the next day, and even am taking part in some kind of university challenge event, between three universities in Dushanbe, on Saturday on the same subject. I am just waiting to be thoroughly confounded by Mr Paxman himself!
This week of course was Eid, which was highly amusing first meeting up with G and going round with her and her youngest sister to various classmates’ homes. The younger sister, who was a sweet twelve year old, everyone we visited assumed she was my daughter, rather than G’s sister, and indeed in colouring we were much more similar – and perhaps even in looks. Eid is hilarious, as you move around the city visiting friends, and so the whole city is on the move, dressed up and carrying sweets in the case of the children. In the evening I met with my Iranian friend J and with her and her friend went to the Professor’s home in Circ, near where I used to live. The spread was amazing, I have never seen such a tablecloth of food laid out. Nuts, sweets, fruit as well as plates of chicken, onion and chips. There I met a lovely German woman who spoke great Tajik. The others decided, laughing, we shouldn’t have been put together as we were chatting too intently!
Last week, I went to a nightclub again with J and her friends. J loves dancing too, so that was really fun. Dancing the night away on cups of tea! The dancing was great, the guys looking like they were taking part in an ancient ritual, having slaughtered a sheep! The clubs here are in some ways pretty good, in that you sit down have some food, see a variety of acts, from belly dancing (hmm) to traditional music, fused with dance beats and dance. The stage of this one was shaped like the prow of a ship and various ladies in various little costumes draped themselves over the wheel. The name of the place was Nine Bar, which I didn’t really see how that fitted!
Today I have just taken part in a tourism round table event at the Ped Institute. I thought it was going to be a group of students, but in fact they were listening, mostly, and it was mostly heads of various tourism organisations. I suddenly became an expert on museums and heritage! Hmm!
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Roast chicken with all the trimmings
2/11/10
A few days ago the father had suggested that I cook a traditional British meal for them, which sounded like a good idea, if only to give the mother one meal off cooking. I couldn’t think of anything more traditional, most likely to be enjoyed, and comparatively easy to buy (or so I thought) as roast chicken with all the trimmings. In my house, this always includes bread sauce, as many vegetables as possible and gravy.
And so the mother and I went to the market which is a short taxi ride away. Everyone here travels by taxi as it is the only way to get around the city. There is no public transport. But the fares are only 1-2 somoni and it seems to work fairly well, especially since the influx of second hand western cars which means there are many more taxis plying their trade.
When I remarked on the fact that she was wearing her thick gold chain, she replied “I am with you so my heart is strong”. Bless her!
Yesterday we were talking about wearing jewellery. She was saying that she usually just wears it for celebrations, as people can sometimes rob you for your jewellery.
Yesterday we were talking about wearing jewellery. She was saying that she usually just wears it for celebrations, as people can sometimes rob you for your jewellery.
The chicken is not sold often here, I think more people eat beef. But am glad I didn’t attempt roast beef as that is a tricky one to get right. We found one frozen chicken, which I thought had come from Iran as there was Persian writing on it mentioning halal etc. It was only when I got it home and looked at the packaging properly, I realised it came from Brazil. Now that is one overtraveled bird! Oh well. We found carrots and potatoes which was not worried about. I thought we might find leeks, called piroz – but these turned out to be spring onions. We also bought beetroot, maybe not your traditional roast fare, but I love roast beetroot so why not! Also cauliflower was bought as well. The bazaar is full of people with their few vegetables and herbs laid out, each one with the weighing scales. We hop in and out of the crowd. It is nice to see the mother in the outside world, rather than just in the flat. She tells me that she usually goes to the market in the morning as the food is fresher.
Getting home we start cooking, I realise we only have one hob and the oven is plugged in on the floor. Because it is almost cooking time for everyone in these flats, the oven doesn’t get very hot. It will work better later on, when there is less competition for power. M tells me what an important part of a new bride’s identity it is to be able to cook well for her husband, his family and their guests, as otherwise she will literally be laughed and gossiped about. She says that when she was first married she didn’t know how to cook, and that it was only by practising and asking the neighbours, that she learnt how. She told me everytime she cooked plov or osh, the pilau rice with carrots and meat that is the national dish of Tajikistan, she got a headache, as she was so worried how it would turn out!
Now she was taking notes at my cooking, which I wanted to ask her, to say, wait see if you like it, before you write it all down!
The father and older brother come home, and the little girl is saying she is hungry eating bread. It is almost ready. Just the gravy to make, I start laughing, when I realise that due to the beetroot, I will be serving pink gravy tonight! The meat is served, and I tell the father about the British custom being that the father of the household carves the meat. This he does and the food is laid out. I was interested to see whether the family would like the bread sauce, (I wondered if this was the first time this had been served in KT)! But I was pleased when I tasted it that the meal tasted just as it should. If they didn’t like it, then they just didn’t like roast dinner, it was not that I hadn’t done the dish justice.
They all seemed to enjoy it, and of the mountains of vegetables that I thought much too much, most were polished off. When they thanked me, I said it was a small token of my appreciation of their hospitality, and they seemed to be pleased.
Family life
31/10/10
It is interesting staying with a family and seeing life unfolding in a way that you could almost never imagine to be part of when you are back in your own life in the UK or watching some film on TV.
I got asked yesterday “Have you ever spoken to a black man?” by S the older son from the father’s first marriage. He had wide eyes when I explained that I have black friends and live in a very black area. It is hard for them to comprehend maybe that Britain and America, especially in the big cities, are not filled with white people and that are a multicultural and multilingual mix of people.
His other comment made me smile, apparently according to him, in New York they will comment if you wear the same thing twice two days in a row. I didn’t know how to answer, but said that yes, usually for work you would change your clothes every day.
It is Sunday, and cleaning day today, M, the little girl is sweeping the kitchen floor, we have been watching Scooby Doo cartoon in Russian. I haven’t seen Z yet. Her mother is also busying around, we agree that a woman’s work is never done, and there is always something to do in the home. It isn’t possible to come home from work and relax.
The youngest boy is meant to stay with his family and living near by, the daughter in law is meant to cook for her parents in law, which is how they will judge her value, by the deliciousness of her dishes. However the husband, according to his wife, wants Z to move away, possibly to seek better opportunities in the West, and she is sad that her young son might not live near them but sees that it might be better. She has a great desire to travel and increase her knowledge herself, and asks me about the places I have been to. “What is Geneva like, are there poor people in Africa?”.
The girls marry early as they cannot have a boyfriend without marrying them, otherwise they will be poorly looked on by the family of the prospective husband.
The little girl goes to a different school, as I understand it a less academic one, than the boy. This gives her more time to do her art. The mother would love her to go to Germany to study to be a doctor, but the father believes she is more an artist than a doctor.
A woman told me about her mother who was not allowed to go to school – she was stopped from doing it by her father as she was a girl. She described her grandfather as being like men in Afghanistan. Because they lived in the village it was easy enough for him to do this even during Soviet times. The teacher came to get her a few times, but in the end the grandfather, who was known for his temper, won. If they had lived in the city it would have been more difficult for him to get his way.
Women in Tajikistan are expected to leave work when they get married, similar to the UK 60 years ago. Most women are happy to do this. Nizora thinks in Dushanbe maybe 60% do but here in KT over 80% do.
Tajik Halloween
31/10/10
Well I didn’t think when I got to KT that my involvement in the preparations for the party would involve designing the menu and cooking, as per my instruction, for between one and two hundred people!
I think I have only ever cooked for 20 at a push before!
This realisation dawned on me on the actual day that Paul hadn’t been joking and that if I didn’t do it, I don’t know who would! So on the menu was pumpkin soup, of course, pasta salad, green salad, chicken skewers, corn on the cob, bread sweets and biscuits.
So after a pumpkin carving workshop in the morning, also led by yours truly, so that we had enough flesh for the soup, we went to the market with about 10 helpers to carry all the bags. There were many things on the menu that I was never going to find in a Tajik market; tins of tuna, green beans I thought I might – olives I knew might be difficult. I didn’t know that corn on the cob would be, as you see it boiled everywhere, but apparently people don’t cook it on a bbq.
So, some of the dishes had to be drastically redesigned while running around the massive bazaar – up and down stairs weaving in and out of other shoppers. Tuna pasta salad turned into an aubergine dish with pasta – which ended up being rather good, and went down fast.
Kilos and kilos of onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples for apple bobbing which never happened, parsley, dill and cumin, spring onions and radishes, tins of tomatoes, balloons, glittery hairspray and one red lipstick, shrek drink (!) peppers, chicken legs (not perfect for skewering, until Paul took an axe to them) mayonnaise, carrots, potatoes, pasta, oil, aubergine, 200 paper cups and plates, skewers, lettuce, eggs for the pasta which were turned into egg mayonnaise instead and buns for another game - limbo donut, that sadly also never got played in all the excitement.
For those of you who don’t know it this is best done with jam donuts which are hung on a string, which party people have to limbo under while taking a bite of said donut. ‘Blood’ dripping down the face!
Oh well, the Tajiks will have to wait for another year, before their introduction to such fun!
A couple of guys followed me and Nizora around, carrying most of the shopping. Nizora was haggling and I was handing out the money and checking the item off the list while marking down how much we had spent.
When we got back it was straight to the kitchen while Nizora rustled up an army of helpers. I was soon directing operations, setting people to peeling, chopping and mixing. The kitchen had two hobs and a mound of dirty dishes there, the rest didn’t look too clean either, so it was a big clean before we could start…. The lady who normally cooks there, dishing out plates of greasy chips, was not the best help.
But in four hours or so it was done! The girls were great, squatting on the floor chopping the vegetables, there were about ten to fifteen of us at it, setting out sweets and biscuits on trays. The division of work is clear. No way would any of the boys been seen in the kitchen. They were all hanging around the sound system, messing up the levels once Joe had coaxed both the speakers and the PA system to work.
The barbeque area that Paul and Joe had built this week looked fab, with two large grills either side of a massive cauldron, just the size for the pumpkin soup (which turned into vegetable soup, as there was not as much pumpkin as we hoped). Unfortunately for Tajik tastes, I had not tipped half a litre of oil into it, so they were not so keen. They like their grease, do the Tajiks! But the other food was really popular and once the judges had done their business judging the best of the other food which was brought in, then the hoards of zombies, ghosts and ghouls, as well as a couple of mummies, count Dracula, a witch and a wizard descended like raiders from the mountains on the rest. There was not much left, which all the cooks took as a complement!
Sadly I missed the burning of the alien Guy Fawkes – as this event has now been subsumed into Halloween in KT. Did see someone leaping the fire (not allowed, obviously) to disappear into the crowd. We might have had another Guy! I also missed, the young hooligans, so-called by Paul, and he’s maybe not wrong, chucking all our pumpkins done by us and the kids into the fountain. Nizora was upset as well but felt slightly better when I said that the same thing might easily have happened at a party with young people in Britain, if there were 150 of them. It was probably the exciting thing happening in the city that night (that year, Paul added to my comment), and although the guards were not meant to let in anyone not connected with the Centre, in the dark, it was hard for them to keep tabs.
The party was hilariously surreal, from the choice of music, ranging from Celine Dion (please) to Meatloaf via Tajik rap and strange dance tracks to seeing young people aged from about 12 to 20 or so dancing together in a range of costumes. The boys had gone to town more than the girls, but that might have been something to do with many of them involved in the cooking until late. Z and M from the family I am staying with were both there. I had the sweetest dance with the little girl, M who was just beaming away hands moving up and down in the air.
Zombies, Skeletor and Count Dracula loomed out of the night, I had just managed to swap my filthy cooking and pumpkin making clothes for a witch costume with poison ivy. Green plastic leaves which I had lovingly painted earlier in black and purple as part of my costume. Worn with dark eyes and the red lipstick from the bazaar.
After all the kids went home, Joe and I decided it was time to break open the bottle of red wine from the kitchen upstairs. We thought we deserved it!
This is the one after dark party that Sword Teppe does each year, for some of the kids it is their first experience of Halloween. But all of them seemed to get into the spirit rather well!
Kurgan Teppa
27/10/10
Now in one of the main cities in the south of Tajikistan, Kurgan Teppa, or KT as it is known amongst friends. The streets are wide and dusty, fewer trees here. The city is near the Vakhsh river which is wide and powerful at this point, bringing meltwater down from the Pamirs.
I took a shared taxi to get here, and it was a painless journey, apart from being squeezed between a rather large lady and a sleeping man in the middle of the back seat, who had both managed to get in at the same time in a kind of pincer movement, which ensured I got middle place! The landscape is wild and rocky, there are no trees giving shade to the donkeys and herds of goats we passed. These were the only things moving in the landscape apart from a stray cow who looked as if it had lost its way, but was munching contentedly, however, on the few strands of grass.
Our driver was good and drove fast but well, talking in Russian to a smartly dressed, elderly woman with hair curled upon itself in a chignon. A journey of 89 km was only 15 somoni or £2. An hour later we were pulling up. I even got taken right to the door. Better than a bus!
It was good to see Paul again; he was out back directing cement mixing operations for the new patio taking place behind the Sword Teppa centre. I also met Joe, another English guy, who had stayed after this summer’s Roof of the World Rally from London, but is soon returning home. The centre works as a hub for English teaching and indeed is the only English organisation which carries out this role in Tajikistan. So the British Ambassador visits here; he is informal “Please call me Trevor.” When Paul demurred, stating lessening of respect for the office and such like, the response was “I order you to call me Trevor!” We wondered if the response had come down from on high to seem less removed from the commoners!
They are wondering whether the Ambassador might come to the Halloween party, but as he has to be back within Embassy walls by dark, it is unlikely. All the talk now is about the upcoming Halloween party, and much of today has been spent planning it. It has been merged with Guy Fawkes, and we now have an excellent Guy with rubber gloves and baggy trousers and all.
Sworde Teppa is also a centre for studying the environment and research into malaria and other diseases. This is Paul’s side of the work. He works together with the Natural History Museum, which is how I know him, through my moth curator friend, Geoff, who works at the NHM. Last week the Centre was organising a series of climate change events for school children, next week it is a similar thing with university students, however this week seems to be all about Halloween!
The centre is looking for another British national to run their English teaching programme. I also met a lovely lady N, who works with the centre too. It was interesting to hear their take on things, as Paul has worked in Tajikistan for 11 years or so, he is a wealth of information about the ‘charity scene’ in the country.
N then kindly took me to the family I will be staying with for the next week. When I arrived the mother M laid out an amazing spread; trays of sweets and cakes and then after we arrived kept bringing out other dishes such as plates of chips and sausage and freshly crushed walnuts. We sat drinking black tea, chatting. Their flat is comfortable family home for parents and two children, a smiling girl M of 12 and a boy Z of 15.
The father is a bank manager so for Tajiks is fairly affluent, as he also has a shop in the market too. He brings down men’s shirts from Dushanbe and he and the salesman both add a couple of somoni on each; and this does good business.
By chance, this family and N are all Ismailis, they were so happy when I told them that I worked at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. The father asked me whether I had met His Highness, I was sorry to disappoint and answer in the negative.
However he had met many of the IIS governors and staff members during their various lectures and presentations here. The family is devote, and the father is warm and open and speaks well about his religious beliefs, telling me that God wants many different flowers in the garden, religions of many different forms and hues.
The father likes the peace of the countryside and the simplicity and straightforwardness of country people from the villages. But he urges his sons to study in US and try and improve their English. One, Z wants to be president! – “How should I get there” he asks me?!
The daughter is 12 and good at art, and the father hopes she might study design, architecture or painting. She shyly showed me her paintings and they are good, both the colours that she uses and the forms. She was either painting from her imagination or copying from books
How revered the Aga Khan is here, he came into conversation a lot and interesting that he spoke about the importance of the Samanids to the Tajiks.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Changing of the seasons
24 October 2010
It is getting noticeably colder. Perhaps more towards what is usual in Dushanbe for this time of year. In the flat the winter clothes are coming out of the voluminous cupboard, which houses most of the three women’s and one young boys’ possessions. This means more to me, somehow, than the putting on of jumpers and jackets as we do in the west – at least for the women. Many women, while they love wearing their traditional dresses in the summer, and are a riot of colour, pattern and pizazz, in winter it is warmer to wear western dress.
So G went to the Kurvon market today, and bought a dark grey polar neck and paler grey cardigan and sheer tights – which she is now wearing with a knee length skirt with oversize buttons and stilettos. My idea that women’s clothes here expressed their different ideas, whether traditional or modern, was wrong. If it is true that Tajik women have been able to escape the massive politicisation of what they wear that goes on elsewhere, then I am glad. Though I know that Rahmon has tried to ban hijabs in the past, however women here still wear them, and apparently their numbers are growing. I even saw a young woman in a hijab and a knee length skirt and tights today!
As a counterpart to what is going on surrounding Islamic women, whether in France, Turkey or Iran, I was shocked and fascinated that a local council in Italy, Castellammare di Stabia might try and ban miniskirts as well as football games and sunbathing by the beach! Especially as the party agitating for this calls itself the People of Freedom Party! As a subversion to the events in France, see this link on two Muslim women wearing niqabs and miniskirts, sashaying around Paris, waving at police.
It is interesting to think that a visitor here in summer could (if they thought as I did) have a completely different idea of women than someone visiting in the winter.
Sunday was a quiet day, but even today a cleaning and a scrubbing takes place by the other women in the flat. I have been holed up in my room, picking at grapes and pistachios, learning my Persian. I have decided that even though it is different from Tajik in words, where Tajik has taken on Russian words and Persian retained an Arabic vocabulary, that if you can speak Persian well (ha ha) you will be able to communicate in Tajikistan as well.
Meetings and greetings
22/10/10
It has been a busy few days juggling attending a conference where I understand nothing but there are academics I want to meet, meeting new friends and having impromptu Persian lessons and being introduced to other scholars.
Have been trying to work through the intricacies of Iranian taarof and balance peoples’ needs, both stated and unmentioned, from different directions and cultures. Which is all normal life, I suppose, and part of staying put somewhere for a while!
So on Wednesday, I had plans, people to see places to try and find (!) but when I checked my email they all changed as the President of the Institute of Sciences, Professor Ilolov, was happy to meet with me. I had to hurry, wearing the wrong clothes and arrive as soon as possible. S had fixed it for me!
He met me in the boardroom near his office and he was really helpful, said that he would speak to the Director of the National Museum who works with him so that I can go and research the collections, which is fantastic. I have also learnt from him and one of his colleagues at the Institute of Sciences, a Professor of Anthropology more about what the Samanids mean to the scholars. It is important to them not just that the empire stretched far and wide, ruled by a strong dynasty, or that it was just the resurgence of Persian culture and language but that it was a time of great intellectual prowess, with the best minds of the age such as Ibn Sina, Biruni, al-Ghazali. These scholars are still highly rated today.
People are more polite here on the bus, certainly they will get up for older people, the infirm, people carrying bags etc. (rather worryingly that also includes me, as a woman, or a foreigner – or maybe just old!). More disturbing however is the number of children working on the buses taking money for the rides, during the school day. I do not know how many children don’t attend school on a regular basis here. There are no tickets here, just as there used to be no receipts, meaning the opportunities for corruption were and still are rather large.
I have just returned from J’s comfortable home, where I ended up staying last night. Where I am living is not on the main road, and the thought of trying to explain to a taxi driver the snaking path through the tower blocks did not really appeal. Even with my map drawn by G – look out for the nine storeyed tower block.
J is an Iranian woman living here in Tajikistan doing research on the Shahnahme, which I am reading at the moment. The book is the Persian book of kings, which tells the story of creation until the beginning of the Arab invasions. It is full of heroes, dragons and evil divs or devils. It is one of the great works of Persian literature, claimed by Iranians and Tajiks alike. The book can be compared to the great Homeric epics or to the Hindu Ramayana. It is full of deeds of derring do, battles and feasting, clever women and beautiful men built like cypress trees. Great way to end my day, reading from it.
We spoke about so many things, J is a lovely, open and fascinating woman, who feels close to all cultures, thoughtful and good fun too. She gave me a Persian lesson, and has promised more in the future.
She cooked a delicious lunch of Gorme Sabzi – chicken and spinach with rice and beans, which does sound rather Caribbean, now I write it, but the flavour is completely different, subtle and saffron scented. Very Iranian dish. An Iranian could serve you a feast fit for a queen in their own palace and still complain about their poor cooking and the desert that is their home!
The Professor came round for lunch and I managed to ask him some questions. Interesting hearing about the differences between now and the Soviet era. He was kind and spoke good English, even though he enjoyed having someone else translate for him. There were continuous exhortations to learn Persian, and then he could really have a proper discussion with me.
Later we watched a Robin Hood cartoon that I remembered from my childhood, with fox as Robin, Prince John (PJ) is the thumb sucking lion and his evil snake henchman. It brought back old memories. Now it is watched by Iranian and Tajik children on a Persian satellite channel. Strange!
Staying in an Iranian house is fraught with taarof dangers! Don’t whatever you do, complement anything too profusely, it might be offered to you. Do not, like I did, enter such house with holes in the toes of your socks (shoes obviously come off at the door), you are likely to be given some new ones! It was safe to praise the wallpaper – which I did, in the kitchen, as it can’t be removed. J kept on saying “I know your customs are different Katherine, but you are in the East now, and this is how we do it here”!
My dress is nearing completion at the tailors, S who is making it for me is a sweet faced nineteen year old studying fashion design who wants to go to USA and continue her studies. The place rang with “Hello Katherine” and offers to come for lunch. Such a wonderful, welcoming female atmosphere.
Later I got back to the smell of baking bread, made in the traditional Tajik way with pinched edges and patterned with imprinted circles on top. The loaves are usually circular and a hand span thick. G told me to try the bread baked in tandoors on the street, which is delicious. Her mother can bake it like that but she doesn’t have the knack, as it means stretching your arm into a boiling oven, without blistering it.
It is full moon tonight, I saw it looking over the family groups on flashing rollerskates as they circled the Circus, or Circa as it is known. Many Soviet cities seem to have their permanent circus building, I think it is still in use, on an irregular basis as its original function.
Cyrillic letters are funny, the word can start quite 'normally' T – A – X – for example, and then as it continues you realise you are at sea, that this is not the tax office. The sounds are not what you expect and there is no dry land of the Roman script to cling to. At least with Persian script you know that it is totally different and there are going to be no clues offered, but no false friends either, to those who know the Roman one. People strangely seem to be impressed with my Persian writing, which is good (that they are, not that the writing is), if only in comparison with my awful speech.
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