I know my way around Tajikistan now! I can get on a bus, and actually know when to get off and stuff like that . . . haha.

[[[This is a pre-message before you read this blog. It's late and I'm tired, therefore I may spell things wrong or forget punctuation marks or even forget to put in important words. Please forgive me.]]]

I love having nothing to do. I love waking up knowing that I can lounge around in my PJ's eating chocolate all day, with no where to be but home.

Of course that's not how my day went down. That would have been just TOO nice. I would have enjoyed that TOO much, so of course I had a very busy day which produced multiple blisters and frizzy hair.

I woke up at 11am and had to run out the door. That seems to be happening to me a lot lately. I did have time to eat though, which is more than I can say for yesterday morning. Anyways. Garth was already at the office when I woke up, and Silviano and Patrick told me that we were scheduled to have lunch with the '08 Alumni (the students that just returned from the US after a year-long exchange) at the PLAZMA Internet Center Cafe. We took a bus there and arrived a wee bit late. When I got there I was surprized to see about 30-40 Alumni waiting for us. I had only met about 10 Alumni prior to this lunch date and I didn't realize how many students were sent to America from Tajikistan. I also found that they had been expecting us at 10am because they were going to have a disscussion thingy with us about life in the US and Tajikistan, but obviously there was a glitch in our communication and we arrived at about 12:15. Oops.

The students told us (Silviano, Patrick, and I) all about their opinions about the US and how their exchanges affected their families, their towns, their host families lives, and their personalities. It was amazing to hear how spoiled they were in the US compared to in Tajikistan. In the US they had their own rooms, had late curfiews, had no chores, and had no real responcibility, which is about the exact opposite of their homes in Tajikistan. Children in Tajikistan are expected to clean, cook, watch younger children, wait on guests, be home by 8, and must always show deep respect toward elders. A lot of the Alumni were very hostile towards their parents and families when it came to fulfilling responcibility and they were seeing a lot less unity in their homes since they have returned from the US. Of course that is a very negative result of going to the US, but there was so much promise in the student's lives now that they had seen how independent they can be in the US. ALL of the Alumni want to go back because they don't believe that they will have a future in Tajikistan. They are pretty much right. Most of the girls will be married by the time they are 18 and the men will either be in the Tajik army or working in the same profession as their fathers. It's really sad.

So the time that I spent with the Alumni today was very ... educational you could say. I learned so much about Tajik life for teens and how the FLEX program affects their country. Very nice haha. I also made a bunch of friends and got a bunch of emails. It was a good afternoon.

After leaving PLAZMA Patrick, Silviano, and I walked to a small grocery store called Orima and I exchanged some money. We then caught a bus and went back to the Pink Palace. I forgot to "dib" the computer so Patrick and Silviano got to hog all the computers with internet so I was stuck with a comp that only had Solitare. Bummer. So I played 26 games of Solitare and then Malika and Sitora called us and invited us to go to the Botanical Gardens with some of the Alumni. So of course we walked to the Gardens (which were totally lame) and hung out with the "gang". Afterwards we all walked to a restaurant next to Orima and I ate a ton of Tajik food. I thought I was going to explode!

Tajik food is so yummy! They use a lot of oils, onions, dairy products, and meat. My favorite Tajik food is Plov (the food we had at Sachrinar), but I also like Samosa which is fried bread pockets stuffed with onion and beef. Deep fried anything is good, but this Samosa stuff is AMAZING! There is also a ton of bread and all bread here is fantastic! It's always fresh and soft and just so good O M G!

Haha, ok so after we all ate we send our goodbyes and P, S and I went back to the Pink Palace and I haven't left the house since. We got home at about 7:30pm so it was a pretty full day. Garth is actually at the US Embassy at a party and Marty is ... asleep I assume. Silviano is singing like a ... drunk or something. He's mindlessly singing Old McDonald, the "L is for the way you look at me . . . " song, and The Wheels on the Bus. It's getting annoying, but he's so tired that i'm sure it won't last much longer.

So while I'm here. Blogging. Waiting for Garth to get home. I guess I could think of other stuff that I have done that maybe I forgot to tell you.

Oh yea. I walked down to Orima to buy chocolate. Big shocker haha. When I looked at the price it said 3.5 D so I thought that that meant 35 Diram. Which is SUPER cheap. So I was like SCORE! I only had 7 Somani (100 Diram is 1 Somani) so I was so happy that I wouldn't have to spend all my money on chocolate since it was so cheap. So I get in line to checkout and (by the way I went to the store with Patrick) all my chocolate and my water bottle rang up at 23 Somoni! OH NO!! Apparently the chocolate was NOT 35 Diram, but 3.5 Somoni. My bad. So I only got 2 candy bars and my water which was 9 Somoni all together so Patrick had to spot me 2 Somoni, which isnt even a full American dollar. But still. I was so annoyed that the chocolate was so much more expensive than I thought. Grrr . . .

That was my stupid little shopping experience I just felt like sharing.

Also another thing I feel like venting about is the fact that I'm the only girl on this trip. Like what the heck. The boys are driving my CRAZY and there is no other girl to vent to or get picked on with. They are rude and they smell bad and they fart a ton and they make fun of me and they won't let me sleep next to the AC and they don't share their chocolate with me and there's not a speck of gentlemen in any of them and and and . . . yea I'm sick of the boys that I'm here with. I guess that I need a Girls Night Out or something. I really do miss Reinna and Rachel and Kayla. *sigh*

Hm. Well. So I'm getting sorta drowsy so I think I will go to sleep now. Tomorrow Patrick and Silviano are going shopping with Malika and Sitora AGAIN, but I'm going to stay home and sleep in. I need a rest day so that I can live my fantasy that I described at the beginning of this blog. Hopefully it turns out alright . . .

-- <3 austi