One Month Left?!

That’s right. Today, November 19, 2011, is one month from my departure date. I can’t believe it. The semester has gone so quickly! While I’m bummed about leaving (most people on this program are coming back for the second semester), I’m starting to get things in order for Kenya (leaving January 2^nd!) and I’m getting really excited about that.

Last week, Tajikistan played Japan in a World Cup qualifying match, in Dushanbe. Who even knew Dushanbe had a soccer/football stadium?? The last time they played each other, we lost 8-0, so we didn’t have such high hopes, but we still thought it would be fun to see the game, so we convinced one of our professors to let us go instead of one hour of class. We got to the stadium around half-time, and there was a crowd of Tajiks waiting outside the gates, being held off by armed police officers, wearing vests and carry shields. Not joking. We were trying to figure out where we might be able to buy tickets, when suddenly the crowd started to run back towards the streets. Not sure what was happening, but also not wanting to get trampled by Tajiks, we ran with them, and when we got the chance to look up, saw that the police were chasing people back away from the gates with horses. One of the students I was with went up to someone and asked about tickets, but was told that they were all gone. Not deterred, she asked someone else, and was finally directed to the other side of the gate, so we followed her. Again, we were told that the tickets were finished, but suddenly one of the guards said “oh, foreigners, foreigners” and ushered us through the gate. We reached literally a line of armed guards who asked for our tickets, but we said that we didn’t have any. Several of the guards just shook their heads and said “not possible” but one of them again said “foreigners” and stood aside to let us through. Weird. The stadium was really not that impressive. I’m pretty sure we were the only women in the stands, but I think people were more shocked by our foreign-ness than anything else. The Tajiks did the wave. A lot. With great enthusiasm. Also, we only lost 4-0, so improvement! And it was a lot of fun to see the game, even if it wasn’t played so well. On Sunday, we went to the Zurkhane to see an exhibition of Iranian weight training. It was exciting, and also hilarious to watch my American classmates try it out.

Last week was pretty standard… The rain and cold of November in Tajikistan has sort of curbed my interest in wandering around Dushanbe, so I have spent a great amount of time in cafes and at school. Classes are still going well – It’s cool to have only language classes, and it’s going to be hard to get back into the swing of deep thinking and paper-writing. I read Winnie the Pooh in Farsi, but was dismayed to learn that in the Persian version Winnie is the rabbit, so it’s actually Winnie and Pooh. I was extremely confused for some time, because I kept reading “Winnie said to Pooh” and becoming quite concerned, thinking that Pooh had developed a serious personality disorder.