A Central Asian Thanksgiving

As a proud red, white, and blue-blooded American, last Thursday and Friday I shirked my responsibilities and took off work to celebrate Thanksgiving. I spent all day on Thursday cooking at a friend’s place, and we managed to pull together a decent dinner. Everything went smoothly, except for all the things that didn’t.

Now, the elaborate meal demanded by the holiday requires a great deal of preparation in a place where the appropriate ingredients can be hard to come by. Our dear host, Kate, and I began discussing the menu and guest list in early November. Luckily, we had a friend coming in just before the big day, and she delivered dried cranberries and cream cheese all the way from our cherished homeland. The weekend before, we went to the bazaar and got the items that could be purchased in advance. On Wednesday night, I would return from Qurghonteppa, and on Thursday morning I would make an early trip to the bazaar and get all the things that needed to be bought fresh. What an excellent plan!

Except when my alarm went off at 7:00 on Thursday morning, I could hear rain hitting the window. Who wants to go to the bazaar in the rain? Not me. So, I will get another half hour of sleep, and then when I wake up it won’t be raining and I’ll go. But it was still raining at 7:30. And then it was still raining at 8:00. And still, at 8:30. This is the point at which I realized that I can’t actually control the weather by sleeping in thirty minute increments, and I got out of bed.

So, I started about an hour and a half later than I had originally intended, but that was all right. No big deal. I stopped at Kate’s to catch up on any developments that had occurred in my brief absence, then headed out to do the last of the shopping. It was a pretty quick and painless excursion, even taking my circuitous route through the stalls, which I have developed in order to avoid the pepper man who always demands to know why I haven’t called.

With a reusable shopping bag filled to capacity over my shoulder and an abnormally large cabbage cradled in my arms, I made my way back to the kitchen around 11:00. I piled my plunder on the table, grabbed a cutting board and a knife, and made the first cut into a pumpkin, when—darkness.

Now, ok, I am exaggerating a little. Windows exist, so it was not a complete darkness, you’re right, fine. It was actually still pretty bright. But the important bit is that the power went out. And electric stoves need electricity to function. That’s what I’m getting at here.

So, what do I do? Do I swear out of frustration? Do I curse the memory of Benjamin Franklin? No! No, of course not. I handle it very well. I stoically continue cutting, peeling, and chopping while Kate calls her office to ask when the power is expected to return, a half-baked cheesecake in the oven and a bowl of cracked eggs on the counter. Under the assumption that the electricity will return “in the early afternoon,” we soldier on and hope that “early afternoon” means “exactly at 12:00 because that is when the turkey needs to go in.”

Not too long after but not at noon, the power came back on, the cheesecake finished baking, and the turkey swapped in around 1:30. It was a setback, but it also gave us the opportunity to be the underdogs making a dramatic recovery. We could do this. We could still be champions.

The thing is—there was not really room for anything to be in the oven at the same time as the turkey.  The other thing is—I am not great at estimating timing. As a matter of fact, I am pretty terrible at it. So when people began turning up around 6:00 under the assumption that dinner would be served at 7:00 or 7:30, I was just squeezing the stuffing that wouldn’t fit in the bird on the rack above the turkey. And two separate vegetable dishes had to go in after that. And also the turkey was still not done.

And that’s about when one of the people who had RSVPed as unable to attend texted to wish me a happy Thanksgiving. I responded in kind and said that he and housemates should stop by if they got a chance, thinking that they either wouldn’t come at all or would turn up sometime after dinner. And he said, “Ok, we’re on our way.” Oh boy. Kate’s not going to be happy about this.

I confessed what I’d done, and she pardoned me (I think). The guests—both expected and unexpected—had arrived. “Come on, let’s get them seated,” Kate told me.

“But the food’s not done yet.”

“It’s almost 9:00. We’ve got to get started.”

So I went and shouted at some people because I am a lady, and they all came to the table. There was just enough room for the sixteen of them, as long as Kate and I stood weirdly by the sink and ate standing. And you know what? It all came together. Not all at once, obviously, but in stages. There was a field of roasted vegetables, salad, mashed potatoes, pumpkin sambusas, couscous, cranberry sauce, stuffing, cornbread, and the main event—the turkey that Kate had lovingly tended to/repeatedly molested over the course of the day. The table was ravaged, and I found myself confronted with a carcass of dirty plates and empty bowls. Crap.

I had grudgingly started collecting the dishes and piling them in the sink when the surprise guests came over. “We’re doing the dishes.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll do them.”

“No, come on. We’ll do them.”

“No, it’s ok.”

“Move.”

And that, friends, is why you should always let whoever turns up at your door into your home (or, in this case, your friend’s apartment).

After the majority of the dishes were washed and stomachs were given time to digest, we served dessert. People ate, hung out, and chatted. Over the course of the night, I only hid from everyone twice. It was a lovely evening, and the last of the guests left around 12:30. Except for me. I was tired.

“If you let me sleep on your couch I’ll do the rest of the dishes tomorrow.”

“It’s a deal.”

When I finally woke up around 11:00, Kate was just about to head out for work.

“Here’s the spare key. You won’t hate me for leaving you alone with the dishes?”

“No, of course not! That was the plan.”

She paused for a moment, surveying what having eighteen people over for dinner had done to her apartment. And then, proudly, “I can’t believe we pulled it off.”

“Yeah, it really turned out great!”

Kate nodded with satisfaction and declared, “I’m never doing that again.”

Fair enough.

I live like a king.

In my last post, I wrote about a trip to the salon to get my feral hair tame enough to enter civilized society. As you may recall, I was very impressed with the result. So you know what I did today? I went back!

No, I didn’t get another haircut. I’m saving that for my (temporary) return to the Land of the Free next month. This time I got a manicure.

“A manicure‽ You? Who are you!” I know, I know. I hear you. I surprised myself, too. Hear me out. My hands looked and felt terrible. They hadn’t been that bad since high school, when my after-school activity was scrubbing pots and pans and washing three hundred-ish senior citizens’ dinner dishes. So I thought, Why not?, and used my lunch hour to go make an appointment.

I went in and walked up to the counter. A woman wearing a black t-shirt printed with the name of the salon, the same outfit as the rest of the staff, asked me how she could help me. (Sidebar:  I am very impressed by matching t-shirts. This is not a sentiment limited to places of employment. Also encompassed are t-shirts printed to identify the members of large groups visiting amusement parks together, to proclaim affiliation with History Club, to commemorate participation in an athletic tournament, you name it.  I know it’s cheesy, but there you have it.) I told her I wanted to schedule an appointment for a manicure, and she said, “Right now?”

I answered, “No, I’d like to come in tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? What time?”

I hesitate. “Umm…”

“Right now?”

“No, I think… uh… hmm….” This is not something I had bothered to think about before I came in.

“Right now?” She sees that I’m weakening. “It only takes half an hour.”

“Well… ok. Right now is good.” I check my phone to make sure. “Yes, right now.”

“Here, she will take care of you.” And she passed me off to a black t-shirted employee standing nearby.

“Hello!” the second woman greets me. “This way please.”

She leads me into a little booth near the back of the salon and sits me down. “My hands,” I begin. “My hands—they’re really bad.”

She examines them. “Yes, they’re very bad,” she reprimands me. “You pick at them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I admit sheepishly.

“When is the last time you got them done?”

“Well…” I start, pretending to think. I know the last time was in middle school at some classmate’s thirteenth birthday party, and even then it was really just the color. But I can’t tell her that. She’ll write me off as a lost cause and send me packing. “It’s been years,” I decide to say. True enough.

She looks at me knowingly and gets to work rehabilitating my crone hands while I enjoy the extravagance.

Now, I know I’ve complained that there are certain comforts found living in the United States that are not available here. For example, the apartment does not have a dryer. In the heat of the summer, this was not an issue, but now that the weather is changing, clothes take about three days to dry fully. The stove shocks us consistently. Central heating is the stuff of legend. The electricity cuts out fairly regularly, as does the water. The weeks I stay in Qurghonteppa, I have to leave the dormitory and go outside to a separate building to use a bathroom shared by eight (?) people at night and thirty (?) people during work hours. People I barely know tell me it’s about time I got married and started producing uterus fruit, and sometimes the police want me to give them my passport. Poor me, right? Wimpy little snot.

Anyway, these are all minor inconveniences that I knew were possibilities/probabilities/eventualities before I came out here, and these are the things that I’ve told some of you about. However, what I’ve been quieter about is that I also live in opulence.

“You’re just saying that because you got one manicure and now you think you live in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.” Not so! Let me explain. Here, I enjoy many things that are either out of my reach or reserved for special occasions back in the States.  For example, two weeks ago I went to the Marine Corps Ball. At the most expensive restaurant I ever go to, I spend ten dollars to feast on vegetable curry and garlic naan, and I get to take leftovers home. So I eat Indian food three or four times a month. My bed is a blanketed monstrosity, not some little twin in a college apartment. I go to the bazaar, and then the kitchen is stocked with fresh vegetables. I meet people from all over the world. And you know what else I did recently? I’ll tell you. I took a dress—one that was in danger of smelling permanently like a certain Dushanbe nightspot—to the dry cleaner’s. Now, maybe I’m revealing myself as a weirdo with dirty clothes, but I generally consider a tag that says “Dry Clean Only” to mean “Never Needs to Be Washed Ever YAY!” I do not think I am alone in that interpretation, though it’s possible I am. I don’t think so, though. Anyway. I brought the dress, the nice people took it, and then the next day it was fresh and clean. What riches! What abundance!

Ok, so now you know I’ve been misleading you in my declarations of deprivation. The next time I start to whine about my feigned destitution, just throw everything I wrote now back in my face. Back to the manicure! So. I’m sitting there marveling at my Weird Sisters-y claws morphing into the refined hands of someone who actually takes care of herself, while also making a pretty successful attempt at salon chit-chat—a victory of its own. The manicurist finishes up salvaging my damaged nails, but she doesn’t let my hands go. Holding me in place by the metacarpals, she earnestly looks me in the eye and chastises me, “Stop picking at your nails. Stop biting them, too.”

“Ok,” I promise, cowed by her authority. “Ok, I won’t.”

“Good!” She is satisfied with my response and helps me put my coat on so I don’t smudge my not-quite-dry nails. I walk out admiring her work and vowing to take better care of my hands from here on out. As I walk up to the main road to catch a shared taxi back to work, I think to myself, Gee, my neck sure is itchy!

So, yeah, that lasted about five minutes.

Taking the plunge

Well, I finally did it.

I went hesitantly and with great trepidation where everyone who spends any significant period of time here goes eventually.

I got a haircut.

Now, I am rather fond of my hair. It is dark, and it is thick, and it is shiny, and it is on my head. So, I am a little protective of it, and there are only two people I truly trust to cut it off. Every now and then, in my desperation and/or frugality, I have allowed other people—people with scissors and dubious qualifications—near my head.* And let me tell you, friends, four months without a haircut can make a person desperate.

So, I thought about my options, which were as follows:

1.       Don’t get a haircut at all.

2.       Suck it up and go to a salon in Dushanbe.

3.       Cut my own hair.

Over time, the first option stopped being an option. I tried to delude myself for a while, thinking Hey, it’s not so bad! This is a good thing, really. I’m growing a winter coat like a grizzly bear. Yeah! Psh. Right.

On to the second! This was also not a particularly attractive option. I reiterate:  I generally do not trust people with cutting implements to hack at my head. This ingrained aversion, combined with the language issue and what I assumed to be all stylists’ inadequate training, made me reluctant to go to a salon. Well, what else are you going to do? Do it yourself? Idiot, I thought to myself.

And that was the most compelling argument I could have made to convince myself that that was exactly what I should do. Just in case you read that with sarcasm, I’m going to repeat myself, and I want you to know that I genuinely mean the words I am about to write:  I knew it would be terrible, and I judged that to be an argument in favor of option 3.

I want to pause here to emphasize what a rational being I am. Going to a salon would be a risk. The person holding the scissors would either have the skills necessary to cut my precious hair or would not. I, on the other hand, am definitely unqualified. The outcome is known. So it would be the safest choice. Why hazard someone else ruining my hair when I could just go ahead and mutilate it myself?

I’ll get back to that.

Before making a definitive decision, I did some research. I asked friends with nice hair where they get theirs done. Ruling out all the answers along the lines of “I get my hair cut in Istanbul” and “There’s a guy in Almaty who does a pretty good job,” a clear frontrunner emerged. That is, if I decided that the salon would be the way to go.

I also used the World Wide Web to look up how to cut one’s own hair. I found one site that divided the process into pretty clear steps and had pictures. Ok, fine, the instructions were a little bit in Italian and the pictures were weird cartoons. But it looked manageable.

Being an active person who never puts off making decisions, I gathered this information and then did nothing for two weeks. Then one day—some call it Monday—I woke up, looked at myself in the mirror, and thought, You look like a barbarian. Fix it.

So! Ok then! Ok! What’s it going to be! What are you going to do! Say it! Say it now!

And I went to the salon and made an appointment. And you know what? I even kept it! The next day I went in and put my life into the hands of a young woman named Aziza. And you know what else?

She did a fantastic job.

Sure, when she shampooed my hair, she also shampooed my forehead, cheeks, and neck, and it’s still a little long for me, and she styled it with an amount of volume that would have been more appropriate thirty years ago than today, but those things aren’t really a problem. My hair is still dark, and it is still thick, and it is still shiny, and it is still on my head. Now it has the added benefit of being shorter, having layers, and not looking beastly. Who knew you could pay a professional instead of erratically opening and closing scissors behind your own head? What a world!

My eyebrows, however, remain off limits. For the time being, anyway. Maybe. We’ll see. No. But maybe.

*Remember the Tragedy of 2012? I do.

Computers, poetry, and skin diseases

This week I began teaching a basic computer class at a local institute, focusing on basic Word, Excel, email, so on. Last Wednesday I had gone in to meet with the staff and plan the schedule:  I would come in Monday of this week, and they would be ready for me.

I had never taught a computer class before—not even in my native language—so I was nervous but excited. I was meant to teach for an hour and half, but I was running a little late on Monday afternoon. No matter, I thought. They won’t be ready for me on time on the first day anyway.

When I walked in the door ten minutes later than intended, I was greeted by two women and led into a room to sit. I sat and the women left. Three minutes later, a different woman entered with a man I had not met the week before.

“Hello, Emily! How are you? How’s work?” she asked.

“Hello. Everything’s fine, thanks. And you?” I asked.

“Good, good. This is our English teacher!” She gestured enthusiastically to the silent Tajik man.

“Oh, hello!” I said, forgetting to switch to the language of his profession. “How are you?”

“I am fine, thank you.” He answered pointedly in English. Oops.

The three of us sat down. There was a pause, and then, “Have you ever been to a Tajik wedding?”

“Yes, actually, I went to one yesterday!” They were pleased with my answer, and we spent the next couple minutes looking at pictures of the woman’s son’s wedding earlier this summer, while in either my imagination or reality the English teacher glared at me. In the middle of all the “beautiful, beautiful,” “Where is this?,” and “Congratulations!,” one of the original two reentered with another man.

“Emily, this is our director!”

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”  While smiling and shaking hands, it occurred to me that I might not even teach today, and no one seemed too concerned. All right then.

Just as this thought was passing through, someone said, “Come this way,” and the crowd moved into the hall. The English teacher asked, “Have you seen the room yet?” And I thought, It’s happening! Ok! Let’s do this! I was about to answer when someone said, “No, Emily, this way,” and I found myself ushered into another room behind the director.

“Sit,” he said. “Just a moment.” And then he signed papers while I stared at him and wondered what I was there to talk about. Computers, probably?

What a fool I was back then! No, I was not there to talk about computers or computer classes. The subject at hand was Persian poetry, which I should have known, as well as my command of the Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic alphabets, which I should have anticipated.

“Here, read this,” the director said, handing me an open book and pointing to a line of text. I reached out, took the book, began to read, and—“What’s wrong with your hands?”

“What?” I held my hands out in front of me, palms down, and considered them. They look fine… Oh. “You mean my skin? I have vitiligo.”

“How do you get rid of it? Have you been to the doctor?” And so on, until he decided it was finally time to release me to the students. He gave me the collection of poetry to borrow and sent me on my way. Great!

The class itself went fairly well, aside from the fact that no, there wasn't a room ready, there were three or four people to a computer, a fair number didn't know how to type, and the lesson ended up being cut short by forty minutes. Afterwards, I was not allowed to leave until after tea, during which one or two other people noticed my unsightly affliction and suggested ways to get rid of it. Wednesday went about the same but with fewer computers. On Friday I was yet again running late and left for the institute at the time class was supposed to start, only to receive a call a few minutes later telling me not to come in today, there’s something else going on, see you next class, ok bye.

I do think the English teacher forgave me, though, so that’s good.

Showing off my (lack of) language skills

After spending my first day or two in Osh catching up on some much-needed sleep and responding to emails from friends and family curious about my whereabouts, I've used my time since wandering aimlessly around the city.  Because I've chosen to walk most places, the extent of my interaction with drivers has been:

"Taxi?"

"Nyet." And then I continue walking.

Now, I think this is a remarkable display of language ability, and I'm very proud of myself.  However, where I truly shine is at restaurants.  As of the time I'm writing this, I have gone to zero restaurants with English menus or English-speaking staff.  How in tarnation do you manage that?, I can hear you say.  Well, there are a couple of different approaches:

1.  I ask the waitress whether she speaks Tajiki.  She stares at me, and then she says something in Kyrgyz.  After this initial interaction, I continue speaking in Tajiki.  I have consistently employed this technique through all my interactions with waitstaff in Kyrgyzstan.

2.  I skim the menu and look for an item I recognize.  Oftentimes, this item is lagman.  Easy!  That's what I order.  Done.

3.  Unless it isn't done.  If there isn't something that I recognize and like (I often recognize things, but—and I apologize for this—shashlik just isn't for me), or if I order it and they don't have it, I try to prompt the waitress to order for me, a target which has me performing Charades at the advanced level.  This has about a fifty percent success rate.

4.  Lastly, I order off the menu.  As mentioned above, I speak Tajiki through all of these exchanges.  As a result, I have learned that "thank you" and "egg" are the same in Kyrgyz and Tajiki.  One day, I ate four eggs over the course of the day.  And I was very thankful.

Some of you may wondering if the people who work at these restaurants think I am just some foreign fool who has come to their country ignorant and unprepared, which I think would probably be a fair stance.  However, that is not the case!  Everyone in Kyrgyzstan has displayed nothing but the greatest hospitality.  I have been greeted enthusiastically everywhere I've gone, and the waitstaff seem to think my wild arm-flapping, shrugging, and "harasho, harasho" are endearing.  On the occasion or two when I've returned to the scene of the crime, I've been remembered and welcomed.  At every restaurant, from small, dingy joints to larger establishments, everyone has been hospitable and accommodating.

Still.  I should probably learn that Russian.

Crossing the second 'stan off the list

So, here I am in Osh, Kyrgyzstan!

Why?, you might be wondering.  That would be a fair question, since I told most of you I was moving to Tajikistan, and fewer of you, that I was going to hang out in Istanbul while  waiting for my new visa.  And to one or two, I mentioned the slight possibility that I'd be back in the States. So if there's any confusion floating about, I can maybe see its origin.

But enough of that! I'm in Kyrgyzstan now, and that state will continue for twelve more days, after which I will be back in dearly beloved Dushanbe.  But how did I get from there to here? Story time!

At the last minute—meaning two days before my visa's expiration date—I realized that the Istanbul plan was fatally flawed, and I needed to come up with a quick replacement. Meaning, I needed to get to a country where I either didn't need a visa or could get one on arrival, and it had to be cheap.  However, I found myself in a bit of a pickle when I couldn't find a flight on the appropriate day to any places that fit the criteria.  Uh-oh.  What to do? Beg for help!

A team of the greatest people in Central Asia took pity on me and united forces to get me out of this predicament:  the friend who suggested to abandon travel by air and just take a series of cars over land and then organized the entire chain, the group leader who rolled with my sudden change of plans and helped me get approval, the friend who helped me look for return flights on crazy websites who refused to turn from Russian to English even when I kept clicking that damn button, the driver I met a year ago who remembered me and ushered me to the places in his city I needed to go, the friend of a friend who met me when I arrived in an unfamiliar city and made sure I ended up in the right places at the right times, more!  Heroes, the whole lot of them!

Ok, time to stop gushing and get to the actual story, I suppose. Anyway, to get from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to Osh, Kyrgyzstan, you've got to do a bit of hopping about.  So, first, I had to ride from Dushanbe to Khujand, about a five hour trip.  The morning before my visa's expiration, I went up to where the drivers to Khujand hang out.  As soon as they saw me coming, I was surrounded.

"Where are you going?"

"Are you going to Khujand? Come with me!"

"Panjakent?  Panjakent?"

In the midst of all this, I feel someone grab my arm.  Unacceptable.  Utterly unacceptable.  I start to turn, son of a b—and it's a face I recognize.

"Hello, hello!  Do you remember me?" The driver reaches to shake my hand.

"Of course I remember you!" I accept his hand and we shake enthusiastically.  "You were with us last year in the Pamirs!"

"Where are you going? I'll take you!"

We exchange phone numbers and the necessary information, and then I head back down to where I came from, feeling satisfied that the sole leg of the trip that I had to organize myself was taken care of.  Victory!

I spend the rest of the day running all over Dushanbe, heading to the airline office to purchase my return ticket, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to my host family's, in and out of the American Councils office, dragging the luggage I planned to leave in Dushanbe down streets and into the backs of shared taxis.  Smelling good and looking pretty.

When the time finally comes to head to Khujand, I call the driver.

"Hi! I'm ready to go. Where are you?"

"Oh, hello! I'm in Khujand."

"You're already in Khujand?" Well.  The one part that was my job, and it's fallen through.  Now what do I do?

"Yes, yes, but it's ok.  I have a friend who is driving.  I'll call him and he'll call you."

He hangs up, and I wait.

After half an hour, I'm getting nervous.  He should have called by now.  I call him again, and he seems confused.  "What do you mean?  My friend didn't call you?"

"No."

"Ok, hold on."  He hangs up again.

Not five minutes later, I get a call from an unknown number.  "Are you going to Khujand?"

"Yes, yes.  Are you driving?"

"Yes."

"When do you leave?"

"Right now.  Half an hour."

"Right now?  Or in half an hour?"

"Yes, right now in half an hour."

What?  Whatever.  "Ok, fine.  I'll be there."

Well, I guess that's taken care of.  I guess?  Then I get another call from the original driver.  What could possibly be wrong now?

"Hello.  Did he call you?  Did you talk to him?"

"Yes, I did.  I'm meeting him in half an hour."  At least, that's when I'm going up.

"Good.  I told him you had to sit in the front so you wouldn't be uncomfortable in the back.  And I'll meet you up here and take you where you need to go after that."

And just like that, he was completely forgiven for veering off from the plan!

Despite the surprise change, I arrive in Khujand with no problem.  The first driver meets me, shows me some statues, buys me a meal, and then takes me to the area where I'll get the car to Isfara, the next stop on my journey.  When I try to pay him, he refuses and says, "We're friends!  Friends help each other."

I get in the cab to Isfara, continuing to follow the plan my friend/unofficial travel agent organized for me.  When I arrive, his friend is there to meet me.  I'm a couple hours early for the next car, so he takes me to Isfara's American Corner
to hang out for a while.  There, I ate tons of watermelon, spoke with students eager to practice their English with a native speaker, and helped write messages on the awards they were decorating for the participants of one of their camps.  When my new friend finally said, "Ok, it's time to go," I wasn't ready to leave.  But, what must be done, must be done!  And I got in the last car, the one to Osh, Kyrgyzstan.

Not long after, we arrive at the Kyrgyz border.  I'm feeling a little nervous about my lack of relevant language skills, but what can you do?  I wait in line for a minute or so behind two Kyrgyz women and then it's my turn to talk to the border guard.

He looks at me with doubt in his eyes.  "Ruski?"

"Nyet," I say, and with that one syllable I've exhausted half of my Russian.

He holds out his hand and I give him my passport.  He starts flipping through and after a minute asks, "New York?"

"Nyet.  Pennsylvania."

He's quiet, and then he calls another guard over to consult.  They speak, and the first guard hands my passport to the second.  Now it's his turn to take a look. After a pause, he asks, "Pennsylvania?"

"Da.  Pennsylvania." There goes the rest of my Russian.

Next, he says something that I can tell is a question, but I have no clue what he wants to know.  I take a guess.  "...America?"

"America!" The second guard looks incredulous.  Ok, so that clearly wasn't the right answer.  He waits for me to supply an answer that makes sense, and when I don't he flaps his arms and repeats, "America?"

"Oh! Nyet, nyet," I say and laugh.

The guards laugh too, which I take as a good sign, and then the guard asks, "Osh?  Bishkek?"

I reach up over the counter, which is to my chin, and point to an imaginary map.  "Osh, Bishkek," I say, trying to communicate my travel plan with gestures.

They all smile, and then the second waves his arm as if pointing to a far off destination and says something that I interpret as meaning, "And then America!"  

I'm still smiling, smiling wide, and I redraw my imaginary map, "Osh, Bishkek, Dushanbe!"  And then I wave my arms pointing at an even farther point than the guard and say,  "Then America!" 

All three of the guards are laughing, having a great time, this is so much fun!, and—hold on.  There's three of them now.  When did the third one get here?  He's got my passport.

The three of them are talking to each other now, and I stand there, straining to listen, thinking maybe I'll miraculously catch on to what they're saying.  Finally, the first guard is holding my passport again and flipping through it.  He goes to the page with my picture on it and holds it up right in front of my face.  He squints, looks at me, back at the picture, back at me.  The third guard finally speaks.  "Tourist?"

"Da, tourist! Da!"

They all repeat, one at a time, "Tourist."

The first guard picks up a stamp and sets it back down.  He picks up a second and turns to the second guard.  They seem to be uncertain about which to use to mark my passport.  Finally, they settle on the first stamp.  The guard tenderly sinks it into the ink and then presses it on a page of my passport.  He considers his handiwork and then shows it to his two friends.  It appears that they all agree, it looks pretty good.  Finally, the guard hands me my passport.  I take it with my right hand, left hand over my heart, and do a little nod.  That ought to convey the message.  I start to turn, but the first guard calls back my attention when he smiles, waves, and cheers, "Obama!"  I answer with the same, and they all wave as I walk away.  That's it, I say to myself.  Time to learn Russian.

After that, the trip went pretty smoothly.  When we arrived in Osh about four hours later, there was a bit of trouble finding the hostel, but it eventually turned up and I checked in.  Last night I shared a dorm with a bunch of Europeans fresh from the Pamirs, and today I did a little walking around and lots of nothing.  I'll stay in Osh for a couple days and then head to Bishkek, where I have a flight back to Dushanbe on the 20th.  So, there you go!  Explained.

How to get a custom-made Tajik kurta

First, you go to the bazaar.  Do this as early in the day as possible.  You can’t escape breathing the dust, but you can avoid the worst of the heat.  Cram into a marshrutka that would comfortably seat ten but uncomfortably seats sixteen.  Sweat on your neighbor(s) for twenty minutes, give or take.

You’ve arrived!  Cross the street to get to the fabric section, and do your best to not get hit by a car.

Ok, now you enter the labyrinth and start browsing, feeling like you’re in a box of crayons.  You move slowly at first and then get sucked into the tornado of patterns, hues, and textures.  When you see stalls displaying predominantly velvet material, rush past—unless, of course, you’re either thinking of the cold months in the distant future that may never come or feeling the need to wear a furnace.  Your call.

It’s time to start getting serious.  You’ve got a goal here, after all.  Look for fabrics that have only one motif.  Cheetah print interspersed with shimmery purple roses may work on some people, but not on you.  Find a fabric with a simple but pretty pattern.  Decide that the color might be a little much for you, and convince yourself that you shouldn’t buy the first thing you see.  Really, you can always go back and find it later, if you want to.  Now turn the corner and keep looking.  Realize that you have no idea where you started and that you will never see that fabric again, not even in the end of days.  It’s in The Void now.

You’re doing great!  A few minutes later a dark-colored fabric with a pink and green design catches your eye.  You’ve got some friends with you and take a poll.  They all agree! It looks great! Buy it!  Strut away feeling proud of yourself and your accomplishments.

You planned to get two new kurtas, so you keep looking.  You’re feeling really good about your sensible and subdued selection, so when you notice a print that’s a little busier than you’d normally choose, you stop to think about it anyway.  It’s a pretty color, and the whirling peacock-inspired print isn’t so bad.  You decide to go for it!  Live a little!  Now ask the man perched on top of the pile of fabrics to cut you three meters of that one over there.  Yeah, that one.  Oh, it comes with rhinestones or without?  Hell, you’re already being bold.  Go all in!  Sure, rhinestones aren’t exactly your thing, but, “Hey, ‘when in Rome,’ am I right?”

You’re not right.

This is the part where you realize you’ve made the worst decision of your entire life.  Stop your friends and ask their opinions.  Make them console you.  Be sure to keep bringing it up throughout the day, and preferably for a few days after that, too.  When the earth is back on its axis, start moving again.  Your friends are still shopping.   Keep up.

Later, when everyone is just about ready to leave, notice a rich, dark green fabric with a delicate design.  Make everyone stop and wait for you while you stare at it.  As you’re contemplating its beauty, the woman you didn’t notice in the back of the stall calls out to you: “Can I help you?”

“Oh, I was just looking at this fabric right here.”

She stands up and comes over to help you, the valuable paying customer that you are.  “Which one?”

“This one right here.”

She’s listening.  Excellent.

“See, I bought this one earlier…”  Take out the twinkling material and show her.  Remember, this is the greatest tragedy that has ever befallen you.  You should feel free to share this information with strangers. “…And I’m just not sure about it.  This one, though, is beautiful.  I love it.”

“Well,” she begins, “the one you already have is for someone your age.  This one, here, is for an old woman.”

“Oh.”

Thank her for her help and honesty, and then be on your way.  It’s time for you to leave this place.

Step 1:  Complete!  Now you’re ready for Step 2:  Find a Tailor.

Back to it—finding a tailor is actually not very hard to do.  Every female in Dushanbe has a tailor.  You, however, can’t remember where exactly the tailor you went to last year is.  You need to ask your current host, but go ahead and put it off for a couple days.  Feel really awkward about interrupting your host family’s lives to ask a member to take time out of her schedule to cater to your needs.  Finally, bring it up when you’re feeling uncharacteristically competent in your language skills and role in the household.  Rave about your host mom/sister-in-law/unclear relation’s beautiful kurta.  The colors!  The pattern!  The glory!  And, most importantly, be really proud of your subtlety.  Now bring up the fact that you bought fabric last weekend and don’t know what to do with it.  Again, here’s another good time to talk about your misfortune and the gleaming rhinestones.  Moments later, you’re standing in the middle of a room littered with sewing paraphernalia while a stranger measures your shoulders.  Boom!  You now have a tailor.

See, isn’t Step 2 easy?  Now all you need to do is pick up the creations a week or so later.  Look at that!   Two new outfits better suited to the ever-increasing summer heat than your usual jeans and t-shirt ensemble.