Hike in Shirkent - fossil country

Today the HikeTajikistan group went to Shirkent, a "nature-history park" about 90 minutes west of Dushanbe, past farmland and an aluminum factory, toward the mountains.

This place is known for evidence of amazing geologic activity, as this slab with a record of ripples of sand on a beach shows...

at the outset of the hike

...and as do the up-ended layers in the mountains:

We followed a mountain stream up through what became a canyon.

Unfortunately, a group of five slower hikers, including me--in fact, I was in the lead of this slow group so it was my fault--lost sight of the people ahead of us, and chose a wide path, instead of the narrow (dare I say, invisible?) path along the stream. This led us up a steep hill, which we climbed for almost an hour before leader #2 got a bit of cell phone signal and leader #1 came back to connect with us and direct us to "keep following the stream."

"Wide is the path that leads to..." the poor slow hikers having to add lots of unnecessary altitude (left arrow)

There's a spiritual lesson in there, right?

Eventually we reached a spot where Lee had been looking for us and then the lunch spot by a beautiful waterfall. 

 The other hikers had gone on to the next destination--a spot on the stream across from which one can view dinosaur footprints in the cliff. Since we didn't make it, I'll have to use a photo from the internet, alaya-reisen.

 We did get to see other cool things, like these fossilized mollusks and this crystal formation inside a rock. (Thank you, German geologist Jan, for good-naturedly finding and explaining things to us.)

Besides rocks, I also had to take at least one photo of a wildflower:

The wild red tulips had either all been picked (I've seen village women selling bunches in Dushanbe) or were past blooming--but here was one!

This reminded me of Psalm 1:3--a tree planted by streams of water...

Lee's app said he walked 8.9 k.  I probably did 10 with my detour.

We ran into a few locals on our hike. This woman was gathering wild arum or calla lilies.

These women looked like they were coming from one higher-up village to visit friends lower down:

There were several groups of guys picnicking, usually with a carpet to sit on and a little fire to grill shashlik.

When we got down to where the cars had parked, we saw even more picnickers:

And one of them even insisted on giving us a bag of wild rhubarb. Tajik kindness!

A day with much to be thankful for!

The recent work week

One of the special things about this week was that my colleague Nancy Ackles, whom I know from various connections in the U.S. and who has a Fulbright grant similar to mine this spring in Tashkent Uzbekistan, came to spend a week doing the English Teacher Mentor (ETM) program. We were able to share several meals together, including this Sunday afternoon picnic in the Botanical Garden.

Since she had to catch a plane before the ETM finished, on Saturday at 11 am she passed the baton on to me...

...and I wrapped up with these English language teachers from around Tajikistan. Groups of three were doing 15-minute demo lessons and then the rest of the cohort were supposed to give them feedback. I drew from their feedback and provided advice on best practices for observing colleagues and mentoring others.

I was thankful that Nancy was able to do the bulk of this intensive program, with a M/T/W group of secondary teachers and a Th/Fr/Sa group of university teachers, since that enabled me to do my regular job.

My job this week started off with me being a judge for the national spelling bee at the American Corner…

It was inspiring to see all the work everyone had done--contestants, AC staff, and AC volunteers. The latter included a robot (made by students working in AC's Maker Space) to do the sample, amazing decorations, fun mascots, a flash mob, and a surprise birthday party for the coordinator.

I also taught my regular classes including my methodology class at MGU--with a couple of new teachers joining us.

Ethno-Jazz Festival in Dushanbe

On Friday night we decided to go to the Dushanbe Ethnojazz Festival.

Having been assured that such events rarely fill up the theater, we decided to buy tickets just before the 6 pm concert. Uh oh! Sold out. But the buzz among those waiting in the lobby was that there were available seats inside and that maybe we'd be let in. By 6:30 they opened the doors to us hopeful ones (no tickets required now) and we snuck in during some speeches about jazz as a medium of connections, peace, and understanding and about the generosity of the various government agencies, NGOs, and embassies who'd sponsored the festival.

Once the concert started, we saw why the theater was full. The two groups we heard were outstanding. Salt Peanuts is a Kyrgyz group, equally at home with traditional American jazz (their band name comes from a Dizzy Gillespie song), Kyrgyz folk music, or a creative fusion with Kyrgyz instrucments such as the komuz (like a banjo) and temir komuz (mouth harp).

Avesta is a Tajik group with a singer who reminded us of  Mama Cass, with enthusiastic and skilled musicians, and with a huge fan base among those in the audience. Lee especially liked their Latin jazz finale.

If you want to hear a video Lee took of the astonishing komuz player trying to outdo all the band members:

And here's more from Avesta's pop sound (with hotel guests dancing to "Spring Breeze") and on local television.

 

Cemetery

I learned from an MGU professor of Russian language and literature that yesterday was the second Tuesday after Easter, the day when Russian Orthodox Christians visit the graves of departed loved ones. They traditionally clean the graves and leave Easter bread, eggs, and flowers.

That prompted me to visit the Church of St. Nicholas and the Russian cemetery after work.

I was a little distracted by a man repairing a mosaic...

 ...and I had to ask for directions to find the road up the hill to the cemetery, but soon I found it.

At the entrance, a small flower stall was selling pussy willows, which I learned the ancient Slavs associated with spring. Since the coming of the church to Russia, they have been associated with the resurrection.

Since it was the end of the day, not many people were still there, but I saw a few carrying paper flower wreaths or bread.

And I saw evidence that people had been by earlier.

 

The cemetery was quiet and peaceful, fragrant with lilacs, and lovely with irises.

Some graves had been tended; others were neglected—since many Russians left Tajikistan at the time of independence and in the subsequent civil war.

As I made my way up the hill, I saw that a section of the cemetery was devoted to Jewish graves. A caretaker with a little notebook approached me and asked if I was interested in a particular family grave. I later read that Bukhara Jews, once centered in Samarkand but spread throughout the Persian empire all the way to Dushanbe, have now mostly settled in New York City; they pay for upkeep of this area of cemetery. The Jewish population of Dushanbe peaked in the 1940s at 30,000, but by 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union it was down to 15,000. After that, the 1992 civil war in Tajkistan and the dismal economy made others flee, so there were just 300 in 2015.

What a lot of history in both of these places!

 

Housing in Dushanbe

After posting about our courtyard apartment, I thought some of you might like to know in what kind of other housing people live. Traditionally, Tajiks prefer a "compound" or havli.

Behind a wall is a courtyard--often with a grapevine for shade, a platform that can be covered with a carpet for sitting outside, and a place for kids to play--surrounded by one-story buildings/rooms (a few or many, depending on the size of the compound) in which various members of the extended family live.

 In the city, some people are using their plot of land to accommodate extra family members (sons and their wives and children) by building up and creating "mansions":

Many people live in the four-story walk-up apartment buildings the Soviets built in the 1930s.

Some include stores on the ground floor facing the main street. Others are more completely residential.

To tackle a housing shortage in the city, high rise apartments began to be built, not necessarily in desirable neighborhoods, in an appealing style, or with high quality.

 Other more recent apartment buildings seem to be fairly nice:

Others seem unnecessarily fancy (favoring a grand scale), and very likely, un-affordable:

Although many of these high rise shopping/apartment complexes along the central boulevard of the city appear to still be largely empty,  there are many more being built. The following three photos are within a mile of each other (and the photos above):

Next to the schematic and drawing of this future bank/apartment building, the statement on the sign is a quote from the president. "The national currency is one of the main pillars of the state. It definitely plays an important role in the development of the country."

Will people be able to move to a fancy high rise from a neighborhood like this one below even if they wanted to?

An article from 2011 describes "an expensive urban makeover that is exacting a high social cost." The pace continues now in 2017.

All this makes me grateful for our apartment, with its seasonal views from the kitchen window and its courtyard full of life.