Sughd trip

My last week in Tajikistan, I joined three U.S. embassy colleagues on a trip to the Sughd region, north of Dushanbe. They were monitoring and celebrating the Access program (which provides two years of extra English and leadership instruction to underserved youth) in four different towns.

We spent three nights based in Khujand, and our last night in Panjakent

I was doing three-hour workshops for teachers.

Teachers in Shahristan

Teaching in Isfara

These teachers work in small towns or even remote villages with few resources, including limited access to the internet. The weather was hot during our workshops and some of the participants were observing the Ramadan fast (no food or water during daylight hours). But they were all excited about new teaching ideas and enthusiastic about their work.

Teachers in Bobojun Gafurov

One part of the trip that was especially sweet was seeing people I already knew. I had deliberately reached out to teachers who had been part of the English Teacher Mentor program I taught in July 2013 and I was happy to meet Maisara and Dilrabo in Khujand, and Muzaina in Isfara. But it was an unexpected treat to have a young teacher in Shahristan say that she recognized me. We figured out that when she was a student in the Institute of Foreign Languages, I had visited her class in 2011 (my first quick visit to Tajikistan) as a guest of her teacher Susan Layman. She recognized herself in a photo I had on my laptop.

It was great to see more of the country too, including scenery, history, every day culture, and people.

Driving on M34 between Shahriston and Ayni (Khujand to Panjikent)

At the Abdulatif or Kok-Gumbaz mosque in Istaravshan, with Tahmina, Sitora, and Lucy.

The region around the town of Isfara is famous for apricots.

It's watermelon season here in Tajikistan! At Panjshanbe Market in Khujand.

At the Sughd Historical Museum I met these school girls who had won a trip there. (Because of fundraising they'd done? The reason was lost in translation.)

There are more posts and photos about the trip and my teaching at https://www.facebook.com/tesoltrainer/