Brands

In current usage, “brand” means the perception people have about a product. It’s been interesting to see both what trademarks and brand name products are available here, with or without the knowledge of their parent companies, and what the brands of different countries are here in Tajikistan. When people think of country X, what comes to mind?

For example, as in the U.S., Switzerland is associated with high-quality watches:

near Rudaki

The U.K. is associated with soccer:

on-line sports betting

Europe in general seem to be associated with fashion:

near Rudaki

TSUM, near Rudaki

The fashion-related brand connected with an American name is more informal:

near Sadbargh

(Lee got a pair of jeans here. The store is similar to a smaller version of Old Navy. It’s actually a Turkish company.)

There are Adidas and Reebok stores here, but there is also a Chinese athletic apparel company:

near Rudaki

Besides clothes, there are also American-related references when it comes to food, some with more trademark protection than others:

in Dushanbe sports complex

 The upside-down M is actually the shape of the "sh" letter in cyrillic, so the sign above reads "Shawrma."

on Rudaki

ad at Nawruz, in Ashan shopping center

There are lots of coke ads, but RC cola is more widely available:

U.S. "brands" are chosen to appeal to children:

In Ashan shopping center

Understandably, entertainment is a big part of the American brand here:

The new "Pirates" movie showing in Dushanbe in May

And sometimes food and entertainment together:

Ice cream kiosk

"Minions" kids playground on Rudaki

Besides Universal’s Minions, Dushanbe also has children’s indoor playgrounds with the themes of Disney’s Aladdin and Tristar’s Jumanji, 

Brands can be quite multinational, e.g., Lay’s potato chips and Lionel Messi

Sometimes Americans are surprised which aspect of U.S. life an international brand has selected as its representative, e.g., this Polish energy drink company:

 

Another very sad association with America is evident from this flyer for an event at a bar:

Flyer posted on Rudaki Blvd

I hope that during our time here we’ve been able to help at least a few people in Tajikistan associate the U.S. with something more than fashion, food, entertainment, and dubious morals.

June in the Dushanbe Botanical Garden

Today after church Lee and I went to the Botanical Gardens for a picnic. 

Since it’s Ramadan, it’s not very crowded. There are no wedding parties taking photos and there are many fewer families out. Still, there was a group of classmates celebrating the end of the school year:

  …friends enjoying each other’s company…

  …and families:

The foliage was green, some fragrant tree was perfuming the air, and there was a cool breeze—a welcome change from the recent temps in the high 90’s and the dusty wind from the south known here as “afghanitz.”

Trip to Gharm

Wednesday and Thursday I went with some embassy staff to the town of Gharm, a four-hour drive east of Dushanbe in the Rasht Valley.

The drive took us through green hills and craggy mountains, past little streams, and beside rivers both red and brown.

...along straight smooth stretches, and along roads where the only maintenance seems to be an occasional guy moving stones to one side.

 

It’s the season when shepherds move their flocks up to higher mountain pastures, so we ran into a lot of sheep:

 

We also drove past the Rogun Dam construction site. 

For more on this massive project (controversial, expensive, but set to make Tajikistan an energy exporter) see this from the BBC and and this from The Diplomat

Gharm itself is a pleasant looking town, cooled off by nearby snow peaks and rivers, and easily walkable from one end to the other.

It has a nice bazaar where we saw evidence that the Rasht Valley people are wonderful farmers.

We walked through a park with a restaurant perched over the river. It would be a nice place to eat—but because of Ramadan, most places are closed during the day, so I settled for a photo.

(Those in the group who weren’t fasting ate a good dinner and breakfast in our guest house.)

The reason for me to go to Gharm was to do a workshop for teachers at the American Corner. I had ten guys in the workshop, ranging from an instructor in the local pedagogical institute (who’d been all over the U.S. during his time as a Tajik language instructor in Kansas), to several of his students (one of whom just started teaching a week ago), to an alumnus of a Teacher Mentor Program I taught in July 2013.

Listening to my English for three hours (during the Ramadan fast) and participating in an interactive workshop that demanded they use English was tough for some of them, but they cheerfully persevered. Hope they can pass on good things to their students.

On the way back to Dushanbe, I got to find out one of the things Jeff the Information Officer at the U.S. embassy does. He asked the driver to pull over when he saw a bunch of bee hives, and proceeded to ask the beekeeper if he wouldn’t mind being interviewed, recorded, and published.

In his fluent Tajik, Jeff started off along the lines of, “Here I am in the beautiful Rasht Valley, talking with…sir, what is your name?” and proceeded to ask a few questions about the bees. He told me later that the goal is communicating with the people of Tajikistan that the U.S. is a partner who appreciates and respects their nation. 

It was fun to see the bees and where the keeper stays while he’s away from his village.

There were also three boys (the beekeeper’s sons?) playing in a nearby stream. With his clay model, the guy on the left might become an architect instead of a beekeeper.

 Of course we had to buy some honey at a stand down the road:

And speaking of roadside stands, our final stop before returning to Dushanbe was next to an orchard:

What a great trip! You might wonder where Lee was. During these two days he had some board meetings which entailed being on skype late at night. Since we weren't sure of the internet in Gharm, he decided to stay in Dushanbe. Ironically, the internet at home went out and he couldn't participate with the board as planned. You just have to laugh!

Mosques and more

Since Ramadan has begun, and we’re all thinking a bit more about Islam, I thought it would be a good time to give you some pictures of mosques in Dushanbe. This one is the Haji Yakub mosque, near our apartment.

  This photo was taken on a Saturday in April. On a Friday, especially this month, there would be much bigger crowds of men.

Women attending the nearby Islamic school wear the more conservative head scarf, that covers their all their hair and their necks, instead of the usual Tajik back-tied kerchief.

   
There’s a giant new mosque under construction in the northern end of the city.

For those of you who might be curious as to why the president is building (with the help of Qatar) a mosque which will be Central Asia's largest, big enough to seat 115,000, and costing $100 million, see this article. National pride? An attempt to control messages coming from mosques?

Most of the people I spend the most time with here in Dushanbe are not traditional,  conservative, or religious. For example, out of the six teachers I interact most with, only two are fasting this month. So I haven’t had much opportunity to learn at a personal level about the tension Tajikistan faces— a clear movement of people toward more devout Islam (after years of imposed atheism during the Soviet period) on the one hand, and a fear of terrorism and doing whatever it takes (including governmental monitoring of messages appearance, and dress) not to turn into its neighbor Afghanistan on the other hand.

The photo above gives a picture of this tension. The two young moms on the left are wearing their head scarves in the traditional Tajik way, while the one on the right is wearing a scarf in a more conservatively Muslim style. Note that in many contexts (schools, other government jobs) wearing a scarf in this hijab-style is not allowed.

But just to show that a single picture isn't enough to explain a complex situation, when I asked about the growing numbers of hijab wearers I've seen in Dushanbe in spite of regulations, I’ve been told that some women started wearing their scarves like this because they were following a fashion trend sparked by a popular Turkish (?) soap opera--in addition to those who do so because they’re more devout (or their husbands or mother-in-laws are).

The above is a mosque in another area of Dushanbe, a bit of east of where we live. A friend who lives here says that all the women in this neighborhood dress conservatively. 

 

Dushanbe is a city where the call to prayer is not broadcast. But it's also a city where the fast food kiosks and ice cream and drinks vendors are closed during the day for Ramadan:

 

This is a place with an emphasis on what can be seen or heard--whether it's the government trying to regulate religious expression or a religion trying to influence people's behavior. It's much harder to attend to what is inside our hearts (Luke 6:43, Luke 11:39-41, Micah 6:8).

Anniversary dinner out on the first day of Ramadan

It's the first day of Ramadan. Some (but not all) cafes, food kiosks, ice cream and soda vendors have closed shop during the day. (I wonder how they can survive if they're not working for a month.) The meal to break the fast can be eaten after 7:40 pm.

We haven't eaten out much in Dushanbe and we thought it would nice to celebrate our anniversary with dinner in a nice restaurant. But where to go, given it's Ramadan here? 

We chose to walk a block to the Tajikistan Hotel where we'd heard (no big signs anywhere) there was a Chinese restaurant. When we got there at 6:15 (walking through a cavernous empty lobby), sure enough, the smell of garlic greeted us. The restaurant was already half-filled, mostly with Chinese patrons. There was an extensive menu (the kind where English translations are not very idiomatic, such as "welded vegetables" (mixed?) and "saliva chicken" (mouth-watering?)). The Tajik wait staff were knowledgeable. The Chinese hostess said the chef was from Xinjiang. We got three dishes--green beans, eggplant, and beef.

The authentic (i.e., oily and flavorful) taste took me back to days in China. The rest of the experience was unique. Coming into one ear was a TV station playing a Russian channel and into the other ear was a table full of men speaking Mandarin; in between were the wait staff speaking Tajik. We threw a few English words in for good measure.

Somehow, it was a perfect celebration of our 34 years together!