Manijeh Sabi

08 November 2009 | 5 | sabim

One aspect of life in Dushanbe that has surprised me is role of Islam. I arrived in Dushanbe during the month of Ramezan. It was rather strange to see so many people fasting. I have heard about the creeping Islamization of Tajik society, but I did not expect to see all my young students and teachers fast from morning until evening during hot September month.  This is very different than Azerbaijan. I was there during Ramezan too, but did not notice at all that it was Ramezan. Of course, I was in Azerbaijan 13 years ago, and it could be different now.

At the end of Ramazan, there was a big feast and my landlady took me to her sister’s house. We sat on the floor and had lots sweets, bread with soup, and fruit. Also, children went from house to house and ask for candy. It was like Halloween.

Eid Ramezan – Food

Visiting Mosques for Friday prayer

Two weeks ago on Friday at noon, I saw a large crowd in the center of the city. I followed the crowd and ended at Hajji Yaqub mosque. I decided to enter the mosque and listen to the Friday prayer sermon. To my surprise, I was informed that I can’t enter the mosque because they do not have women section at all. Last Friday, I decided to go to Hazrat Movlana mosque, which is the oldest mosque in Dushanbe. This mosque is outside of Dushanbe and it took about 20 minutes to get there. I decided to participate in the Friday prayer no matter what. I got there early and found a corner and sat on the floor, hoping no one will notice me.  Suddenly, there were about 400 men in the mosque and they noticed me. They asked me to leave, but I insisted to stay. Finally, they gave up and found a corner behind a wall and let me stay. They even gave me a prayer rug. I was the only women! I even took a few pictures quickly. I am kind of stunned to see that there are no women sections in mosques.  This is not true in other countries. Oh well, everything is different here.

Here are some pictures of people.

Crowd at the Friday Prayer

Young boys praying

I am really concern with growth of Islamic fundamentalism here. You can see shops, like the one below, selling Islamic head covers (hijab).  I even heard that mini buses now refuse to give ride to women who are not wearing traditional clothes. Actually, I have not experienced this and I take mini bus often. It is rather scar — after all, this place is very close to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Display at a shop

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20 October 2009 | 5 | sabim

The time passes by quickly here and I am not keeping up with my blogs. This time I am hoping that my blog will be a little more sophisticated and I add some pictures from outside of Dushanbe. The pictures are all over because I am not that much familiar to post pictures properly.

During Fulbright orientation in Washington DC, they told us about the famous Sunday hikes outside of Dushanbe. Every Sunday about 40 expatriates gather at one location in Dushanbe and mini buses and private cars take the hikers to various locations outside of Dushanbe (about 1 to 2 hours drive). We usually pass spectacular sceneries and traditional villages. The roads are not that safe and often there is only one lane for both sides of traffic.  In addition, on our way we are stopped by policemen several times who ask for bribes.  Paying bribes to policemen are entirely accepted here.  The drivers are quite nice to policemen and they just pay some money.  I suppose local people look at it like highway tolls we pay in the States. Drivers do not question the reason for paying bogus charges. We were told that policemen also ask money from foreigners and we should avoid them. So far, I have not had any problems. In fact, I ask policemen direction for different locations or just talk to them. Of course, they love to hear my Persian accent and keep on asking me questions wondering why I am in Tajikistan.

Usually, there are two hikes: Easy and one for experts. At first I wanted to go with the experts, but they did not let me. Then I found out even the easy one is much harder than I expected.  For my first hike, I went to Sirkent Valley, a difficult hike of 15000 feet climbing up. We were told we can see dinosaurs’ footprints, but I did not see anything close to it. The next Sunday we went to Sangalt Valley along the Sangalt River with clean blue waters. We passed the picturesque canyons and crossing the river is by the wooden bridges. I have some of the pictures below. I am the only Fulbright Scholar in Tajikistan (also the first one), but there are three Fulbright students here. You can see my picture with Diana, Jesse’s who is a Fulbright student researching Tuberculosis stigma in Tajikistan.  Diana is from Armenia and we spend a lot of time together.

Sangalt Valley

Wooden Bridges

With Dianan

Also went to Diamalik Valley just last Sunday and I have added some pictures from that hike below.

Another adventure was my trip to Norak Dam, which holds the Vakhsh River to create Lake Norak. The Dam is the highest in the world and one needs local police permission to visit. My landlady took me there right after I moved to my apartment. She is very influential and usually solves my problems immediately. We spent one day at Norak Dam on a barge, swimming in lovely clean water and cooking special local food on fire. Many people are surprised that I have already visited Norak Dam Here are pictures of the lake, my landlady with her colleagues, and the captain of the barge.

I am not able to post more pictures.

Teaching has been quite eventful here. Every day, something new happens and I need time to summarize my teaching experiences. One of these days I will get to it.

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26 September 2009 | 5 | sabim

This is the first time I am blogging and I have not figured how to add pictures yet. In addition, the Internet connection is slow here. I was instructed to have at least one posting per week. I hope to have interesting stories to tell each time. For this blog, I will write about the first 10 days of my adventures!
I left Albany on August 27 for London via Boston and left for Istanbul on September 2. The 4 hours layover at the Istanbul airport went by quickly because it happened that my brother and nephew were in Istanbul and managed to come to the Airport 3 hours before their flight to London. Finally, I arrived Dushanbe, Tajikistan at 3:30 in the morning. It was managed chaos in the baggage area and I did not find my suitcases. They were left in London and I was not the only one with this problem. With Turkish Airline flying only twice a week to Dushanbe from Istanbul, it meant 5 days with three T-shirts, one jeans, and sneakers. The American Embassy had made arrangements with a taxi service company to take me to a relatively clean hotel in the center of the city. A professor from Technological University of Tajikistan (TUT) came to my hotel at 11 and took me to a meeting with the vice president and a few other professors. I am sure they were not impressed with my appearance because that was the only meeting I had with the higher authorities of this university far.
After my experience in Azerbaijan, I knew finding a nice apartment will not be easy, but I did not expect the prices to be so high. In three days, I saw at least 25 apartments. I had four groups helping me (the embassy, TUT, a participant from my Soros project, and my Iranian connection). Finally, I found an apartment that I liked through my Iranian connection, which made the others very unhappy. There was another problem, the apartment was not ready for a week and had to move to a temporary apartment again through the Iranian connection. Now, everything is under control: my suitcases arrived, I hired a driver, moved to the new apartment which has a maid service including washing and ironing my clothes, I registered with the police (this is not easy in Tajikistan), got the Internet connection at home, and cleared my teaching schedule at TUT.
Dushanbe is typical Soviet city and it is like a big village. The city is very dusty due to winds from Afghanistan. The city does not any old section like Baku. People are extremely nice and I really enjoy communicating in Farsi. They love my Persian accent! I am learning Tajik accent, which helps lowering prices in outdoor markets (that is where I do my shopping). Most women wear traditional clothes, and I did not expect it. All the countries I visited in this region (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Armenia) woman wear western style dresses. Well, there are many things different here and everyday is an experience for me. I will tell all about my teaching experience and places I have already visited in my next blog.

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