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.

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.

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

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.

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 31^t  December/ 1^st 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!

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. 

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!