About time . . .

Wow. After a good two days of trying to figure out this blog thingy i finally figured out how to post stuff haha. We're good now.

Alright, so my name is Austianna and i'm participating in a cultural exchange program in Tajikistan. I am here with two other American students and one teacher. We are here to learn about the country, get to know the Tajik students (and help them with their english), and get to know each other. We are staying in a small house with a guy from Relief International named Garth. He rented the house so that we could stay in a normal home and have a "base camp", which we call the Pink Palace.

So lets see, i've been in Tajikistan for 2 days now. The flights over here were brutal. I caught a plane in Seattle at 7am and flew to Atlanta, GA. I then flew to DC and met up with Patrick, Silviano, Marty and Andreea. Patrick and Silviano are the students and Marty is our "chaprone". We explored DC for a few hours at night and once more in the morning before flying out to Chicago. We flew from Chicago to Moscow, Russia on a 10 hour flight. Yea, 10 hours. It was a very loooong flight, but we had little TVs, which did help. We spent NINE HOURS in Moscow waiting for our plane to go to Dushambe (the capitol of Tajikistan). It was the longest 9 hours of my life and i now have a strong disliking for Russian airports. Anyway, we arrived in Dushambe at 3am on Friday and went to Garth's house.

So yay! Now we're sorta up to date. Our first day here we explored Dushambe and walked around taking pictures. This city is actually quite advanced for a third world country, but Garth told us that the President of Tajikistan has put all the country's money toward making Dushambe a better city FOR HIMSELF. There are huge palaces that the President has build for his own personal use, which makes the city look impressive, but also makes the people more poor. None of the country's money is going toward improving homes, food supply, electricity, running water, or anything like that. It's all going toward the President and his own personal wants. Right now he is building a giant mansion in the used-to-be city park that he took for himself to be his own front yard. A once thriving city park full of families, fun, and games has now been fenced up and turned into a private "home". It makes me angry when i think about it lol.

Anyway . . .

So Dushambe is a very cool city. There are a lot of little shops everywhere. There is a Bizare near Garth's house that sells different kinds of foods and goods and stuff that is really fun to walk through. Last night we ate at a real Chinese restaurant. Not imitation Chinese, but real Chinese food from China. It was so different than what i'm used to, but most of it tasted pretty good haha.

Yesterday we also went hiking in some nearby mountains which was were so beautiful. It would have been an amazing hike, but it was so hot that i was having trouble focussing on the scenery haha. Even though it was cooler in the mountains, i was still baking. When we had hiked about a mile and a half Patrick, Marty, and I decided to head back to the car while Silviano and Garth went on ahead a little farther. Garth is a hard-core mountain man by the way. So on our way back, Patrick and i came to this huge stream. Actually it was a network of streams and we decided to create a new stream. It took us . . . oh i'd say about an hour, but we finally diverted the entire river to this new and improved stream. We named it the Patianna (which you have to say with a Russian/Asian accent or is sounds lame :D) and headed back to camp. We met these guys on the way back that wanted a picture with us. At first we thought they wanted to take a picture of us and sell it to us, so we were like "no no, we're fine" but then they started speaking English and said that they just wanted to take a picture with us. I guess they dont come across to many white people over there haha. The guys turned out to be from Pakistan, which im not gunna lie, made me tense up and get all nervous haha. But they were very nice.

Ok, funniest story ever.

Patrick, Marty, and I made it back to the car before Silviano and Garth so we chilaxed and ate some bread and cheese that we had bought in the market the day before and waited. When they got back a really old man came up to us and started speaking to Garth in Russian. (Most Tajiks speak Russian as well as Tajik because it used to be apart of the Soviet Union) Garth all the sudden said, "Alright, we're leaving." I was actually expecting to be invited for tea, because that's what Tajiks do. They invite guests over for tea even if they dont know them because they believe they will recieve 70 times the kindness and hospitality that they gave when they die. Or something like that. Anyway, so Garth was loading everything in the car and looked at me and was like "Just so you have an idea about how nice that old man was, he said that you were a beautiful woman and wanted you for 5 minutes to . . . ya know . . . " Oh my gosh i was MORTIFIED! This old guy was 97 years old! And wanted . . . me for five minutes! EWWWW! Patrick and Silviano make fun of me all the time and call me 'Big Five' and stuff haha. Pretty embarrassing.

Hmm, let me think ...

OH YEA. So I think the neatest experience I've had so far was when we were driving to this mountain or whatever and Garth had to stop and ask for directions. He asked this guy on the side of the road who ended up inviting us into his home for tea. I was so surprized when Garth was like "We're going to his house for tea." I was like "Oh, you know him?" and he was like "No. We're just going to his house for tea." That was not normal I didnt think. I was thinking 'We dont know this guy, he could be a serial killer or something. We could be taken hostage' all this stuff. He took us into his home and treated us like honored guests. He (ok, actually his wife and daughter) served us tea, soup, bread, and candy and were just so happy that we came to his house. It was just genuine kindness and hospitality and that really hit me hard. How trusting they were to just let us into his house with all his children and just serve us. Even though we were thanking him the whole time he just kept thanking us for coming over and eating his food. Garth said that any other Tajik would have done the same thing. Every time. That is just so cool to me.

So now for today, we went to the American Embassy this morning early to see a lady there that has been helping Garth plan this exchange. The embassy was so cool and it had the first piano i'd seen in Tajikistan. They let me play it, which I enjoyed of course lol. We ate at the cafe there and it was pretty good food. Also, they had a REAL bathroom that was just like the public bathrooms in America, which is a few steps up from the other public bathrooms here in Tajikistan. I was so happy haha. After we went to the Embassy we went to the American Councils for International Education building and cordinated a movie night with students that have been to the USA on student exchange trips for school. Like they stay with a host family and go to school in America . . . yea. So we're going to have a movie night with them on Thursday and i'm really excited to see how good their English is and ask them how they liked America. I am now in the Relief International's building, sitting in a "comfy" arm chair with a lap top, talking to Silviano who is uploading pictures on another computer. Patrick is very sick today and is taking a nap on the couch in the other room. Marty i think is also blogging, but i'm not sure. So yea, i'm up to date!

More blogs to come . . .

--austi <3