Sunday, July 29, 2007
After seven weeks in Tajikistan, I am savoring my last day here. For many reasons, my trip to Tajikistan has been unlike any other trip I have taken. I walk away with amazing experience in Tajik dance training with my beloved teacher, Sharofat Rashidova, as well as a newfound creative inspiration, motivation, and energy for my own dance career. I walk away with a newfound courage to actually start speaking the language I have been studying in an academic setting over the last two years, thanks to my Farsi tutor, Goli Khanom, as well as all of the conversations I have had with the many wonderful people I have met here. I walk away with memories of the stunning scenery of the Pamir Mountains in southern Tajikistan, as well as an awe of the Pamiri people who continue to thrive, despite their isolation from the rest of the country and the sometimes-harsh climate they live in. I was certainly faced with some challenges while here, many of them very unexpected, but I believe that these challenges are the most beautiful aspects of traveling outside of familiar territory, the most beautiful aspects of pursuing the aspirations lingering inside our minds – because it is from these challenges that I believe true growth emerges. My time here has supplemented my life experience in a very precious and important way, even in ways I hadn’t expected. For this, I am deeply grateful. It is moments like now, as I reflect upon the past seven weeks of my life, and as I get ready to return to the people back home whom I love, that I realize just how precious, beautiful, and profound life really is.
Like usual, I was overly ambitious in that I had hoped to post writings about my entire time in Tajikistan by the time that I left. Though I wasn’t quite able to pull this off, my first installment should be sufficient in relaying an idea of what my first couple weeks in Tajikistan were like, as well as a little bit about myself and the events leading up to my leaving for Tajikistan. I invite you to check in soon for further installments. Enjoy!
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Greetings from Tajikistan! It has been a little over three weeks since my arrival to the country. It has only been during the past couple of days that my schedule has loosened up enough to start getting together some of my writings and pictures for the blog. The past three weeks feel like they’ve gone by both slowly and quickly, and have been a combination of delightful and exhausting. In a nutshell, my days in the capital city, Dushanbe, mainly consisted of intensive training in Persian/Farsi language two hours a day with an Iranian woman studying for her PhD at the university, as well as traditional Tajik dance two to four hours a day with the lovely Sharofat Rashidova at Theater Padida. Now I am in Khorogh, the small capital city of the Autonomous Region of Gorno-Badakhshan (GBAO), which is located in the Pamir mountain range of southern Tajikistan… Ah, so much to share, but where shall I begin?
For those of you who may have stumbled across this blog while randomly searching online yet don’t know me personally, or for those of you who are acquainted with me but aren’t aware of the details about my trip, please allow me to share with you a little of my personal background and how it is that I have come to Tajikistan.
I am currently a student at the University of Washington pursuing a double major in Near Eastern Language and Civilization (with a focus on Persian language and literature) and Cultural Anthropology, and a minor in dance. The three university departments of which I am involved in exemplify my life’s passions and sum up much of what I’ve been dedicated to and involved in for over ten years of my life – Near Eastern culture (including arts, language, literature, poetry, music and singing, religion, social justice and women's issues), and dance. I was introduced to the music and dance of the Near East eleven years ago. The love and relationship I developed for and with these arts ignited further interest in learning – from the literature of the Sufi poets of several centuries ago (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez, Attar, Nizami) whose words offer a glimpse into the Gnostic experience of irfan (wisdom of the heart), to the 20th century poets and writers from Iran, Turkey and the Arab world who utilize the power of the word to speak to the hearts of those who wish to live and love and against the systems that cage this desire (Forugh Farrokhzad, Ahmad Shamlu, Ali Shariati, Naguib Mahfouz, Orhan Pamuk), and finally to the contemporary writers among the Iranian, Kurdish, and Arab diasporas and younger generations who are writing to define themselves within a world in which world politics are increasingly creating erroneous “mis”-definitions – Marjane Satrapi, Suheir Hammad, Choman Hardi, Azadeh Moaveni. In addition to literary works, films made by the many talented Iranian and Arab filmmakers have enlightened me, moved me, and inspired me. And let us not forget the music! I have spent hours upon hours alone at home listening to and becoming transfixed by the great vocalists and musicians of Persian classical music – Shajarian, Alizadeh, Kalhour, Eftakhari, Moradi, Nazeri. My year studying classical Persian singing and Radif with master of Ney, Hossein Omoumi, and his soulful renditions of classical poetry greatly influenced me in pursuing learning Persian language at the university. Additionally, I have been amazed by the talented, new musicians whose innovations speak profoundly about the experience of these younger generations standing at crossroads of traditions and new worlds – Hamed Nikpay, Kiosk, Abjeez.
My love for these arts and forms of expression has mainly been a journey traveled within my mind and my heart, yet I have also had the fortunate opportunity to travel a few of the countries in the Near/Middle East and Mediterranean – Morocco, Turkey, Afghanistan (www.golistan.blogspot.com), Spain, Greece – where I experienced such incredible hospitality which increased my affinity. Lastly, my own art and form of expression is dance. There is no other music that moves me like the music of the Near East and Central Asia. There are no other movements that express my heart’s emotions like those that make up the dances of the Near East and Central Asia. I have mainly been trained in the dances of the Iranian world (Guilaki, Qashquai, Kurdi, Bandari, and contemporary/classical styles), dances of the Arab world (North Africa, the Levant, and the Gulf), and more recently in the dances of Bosnia/Herzegovina, among many other forms. After ten years of studying and performing these dances, I cannot imagine my life without them. On a physical level, the movements have planted themselves in my muscle memory. On an emotional level, no other movements serve as an outlet to express my joy and my sorrow quite in the same way.
Whether one sees me perform dance, discovers that I study Farsi, or discovers that I am familiar with any of the poets, authors, filmmakers or musicians I have mentioned, it is inevitable that I am asked: “Being that you were not raised among any of these communities, how did you become interested?” I have always been challenged by this question. The best way I have found to reply thus far is this: I don’t feel like any of us choose our passions, our interests, our art, our forms of expression. I believe that they choose us.
Following the events of September 11th, I became increasingly disheartened by the amplified misunderstanding of the Near East and Islamic world in the mainstream media and among much of the American public. Around the same time, I was invited to participate as a dancer in a traditional Iranian music ensemble, which was engaged in a cultural education program, and performed and lectured about Iranian culture in Seattle area elementary schools. It was at this point that I realized the extent of my passion, the magnitude of my art. Among a tense political climate, my art had become a form of social activism. In its own way, my art is a voice that continues to speak against the systems we face in our own society that, I believe, attempt to instill fear and perpetuate misconceptions in order to rally support for political agendas. It is this belief that has fueled me even further in my involvement and my learning. In fact, whenever I am asked by Americans why it is that I am so interested in learning about the Near/Middle East and the Islamic world, my response is this: Considering the current political situation and the disturbing foreign policies of our current administration, I believe that it is the responsibility of each and every concerned American to broaden our understanding about the Near/Middle East and the Islamic world in any way we can. We cannot continue with ignorance… There is no question in my mind as to what my life’s work will be. Though it remains unclear exactly what my career will be after finishing my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, I remain committed to this passion, to this art, and to this social activism imbued within them.
At this point you may be wondering – what does all of this have to do with Tajikistan?? Quite honestly, Tajikistan is the most recent addition to my knowledge bank. A little over one year ago, I was only aware of its geographical location, that it is a former Soviet Republic, and that it is one of the three Persian-speaking nations (the other two being Iran and Afghanistan). I frankly never thought of coming to Tajikistan, mainly because I had had my heart set on going to Iran in order to study Farsi. I was even accepted into a summer language program at Dekhoda Institute in Tehran, but then was denied the visa to enter the country. At this point, a student of Persian language has only one option for study abroad – Tajikistan.
There was one very special thing, however, that Tajikistan could offer me which Iran absolutely could not – formal training in folkloric and classical dance. In fact, Tajikistan promotes its folkloric and classical dances as an essential part of its national identity and many of Tajikistan’s dance ensembles are state sponsored. National holiday celebrations and many important political events are accompanied by music and dance performances. Tajikistan’s classical dances (i.e. Shashmaqam) and many of the folk dances are danced to classical, spiritual Persian poetry and are regarded by many as a valuable part of spiritual expression. As many of us know, this is certainly not the case in Iran. Yet many of the stylistic elements of Tajik folkloric and classical dance are very similar to what is defined as ‘classical Persian dance’ and many of the Iranian folkloric dance styles that I have been learning and performing in the United States for several years. Despite the differences between current dance practice and perspectives in Tajikistan and Iran, if you consider the width of the various Persian dynasties throughout history, and the shared cultural elements of the Persian-speaking nations, the similarities in dance style comes as no surprise.
Finally, my best friend and dance partner, Sonja Hinz, went to Tajikistan for six months in 2006 in order to conduct fieldwork on Tajik dance for her Master’s Thesis (www.sonjaandandy.blogspot.com). She was asked to participate in the Tajik Dance Initiative/TDI, a project developed by U.S. dance teachers and directors Robyn Friend and Sharlyn Sawyer/Afsaneh Arts and Culture Society with support from the Christensen Fund. Sonja’s involvement with TDI enabled her to travel to remote areas of Tajikistan and learn/document many of the folkloric dances. Thus, for me, the opportunity to study both language and dance, as well as Sonja’s enthusiasm and wonderful stories about her experience in Tajikistan, inspired me to further pursue a study abroad opportunity in Tajikistan rather than Iran (not to mention the reality of being able to obtain a Tajik visa!)
In November of last year, the Near Eastern Language and Civilization (NELC) department at my university offered a new scholarship called the NELC Cultural Travel Immersion Award. The scholarship would provide $5000 to seven recipients who had desire to travel, study, and research in a Near Eastern country. In my scholarship proposal, I shared my plans of studying Persian language in Dushanbe with the American Councils program. This program in Dushanbe is the only accredited international study abroad option for studying Persian. I planned to apply for and study with that program and then study dance with a local teacher in my spare time. By the first week of January, I learned that I had been selected as one of the recipients of the award. I was elated at the fact that traveling to and studying in Tajikistan was becoming a reality. Within a few weeks, word had gotten to Robyn Friend (the Tajik Dance Initiative assistant director) that I was planning to be in Tajikistan during the summer. Robyn then extended the invitation to participate in the TDI project. I sent my CV and dance resume to Sharlyn, who had yet to meet me, and within a short time it became ‘official’ that I was apart of the project. But I had university bureaucracy to contend with. Was my department going to support my decision to forgo studying at American Councils in order to participate with the TDI project? The scholarship initially did not have stipulations that required recipients to be involved in an accredited institution and I approached my department chair with this point. Additionally, I have become slightly stubborn during my time in the university about defining and developing my own education in a way that will serve what it is that I am passionate about and what I believe will most benefit my education and career goals. My department and many of my professors have come to know me as someone who often thinks outside of the box, and as much of a pain it can be for them, I ultimately tend to gain their support for my ideas. And finally, after running around from office to office and person to person, I was granted the permission to utilize the NELC scholarship in order to participate in the Tajik Dance Initiative project.
As stated by Sharlyn Sawyer and Robyn Friend, “The Tajik Dance Initiative was launched in May 2005 by Sharlyn Sawyer, director of Afsaneh Art and Culture Society, and Dr Robyn Friend, director of The Institute of Persian Performing Arts, in partnership with The Christensen Fund, for research and development of dance and related arts in Tajikistan. The initial goal was to learn something meaningful about the position of dance in Tajik society, particularly in the Pamir mountain region of Gorno-Badakhshan. [Another goal of TDI is to] scope the needs of, and identify ways of providing support to, traditional dance and related cultural expression in Tajikistan. Related arts include fields such as traditional music, crafting of and performance on, traditional musical instruments, traditional theater and poetry, and the crafting of traditional costumes for dance.”
Two components of TDI are the Humanities Link and the establishment of a TDI local NGO.
About the Humanities Link, “The program engages young Tajik scholars and artists with their international counterparts for field research expeditions, fostering a team spirited, collaborative, non-extractive approach to research and bio-cultural stewardship. Our project intends to address [Tajik artists’] issues by supporting livelihood development in dance and related arts, and through the formation of local institutions that can bring dance and its place in a cultural context into the self-understanding research agenda of young Central Asian scholars, so that this cultural jewel is a part of the context of the shifting economic structure of Badakhshan, as worked out by the Badakhshanis themselves.”
The TDI Local Tajik NGO mission statement is:
“This organization is formed in order to support projects that promote development, research, and the sustainability of dance and the related expressive arts of Tajikistan, within their cultural context and in relationship to the global arts community.”
Please visit the TDI blog at www.baacstajik.blogspot.com, though at time of this writing, the TDI blog is quite long overdue for an update.
Needless to day, I am excited to be apart of the TDI project, as it exemplifies the type of work I hope to do in my own career and will help develop the required skills in the three disciplines of which I am engaged in studying – dance, anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork, and Near Eastern studies (and Persian language).
My personal writings from Tajikistan will mainly be about my own experiences, but I will also throw in some factual details whenever possible in order to provide context and information. Before coming to Tajikistan, whenever I would talk with people about traveling to Tajikistan, it was almost inevitable that I would be asked, “Where the heck is Tajikistan?” Thus, to begin, I will give some historical and political background about Tajikistan, as well as its geographical location.
Tajikistan is a mountainous, Persian-speaking republic in the predominantly Turkic-speaking region of Central Asia. China lies to the east, Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, and Kyrgyzstan to the north. Tajikistan is currently comprised of mainly ethnic Tajiks, but also includes Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Russian and other smaller communities. Tajikistan shares many historical and cultural ties with Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, which trace themselves back to the Persian Samanid dynasty (9th – 10th centuries C.E.), in which Bukhara (now in present-day Uzbekistan) was the dynastic capital. Bukhara became the Islamic world’s center of learning, nurturing great talents such as the philosopher-scientist Abu Ali ibn-Sina (known in the West as Avicenna) and the poet Rudaki. The Samanid empire and the Sassanian empire of the 3rd to 7th centuries C.E. (to which the Samanids had ancestral ties) were instrumental in conjuring pride in Persian culture, language and identity after the Islamic conquest. During the Samanid dynasty, the great towns of Central Asia were Persian, which is said to be the basis of Tajikistan’s modern-day claims on Samarkand and Bukhara (even as recently as 1989, the government of Tajikistan approached the Soviet leadership in attempts to persuade them to return the area lost in this cultural fragmentation). Things changed dramatically toward the end of the 10th century with the succession of Turkic invaders whose battlefield successes were followed by cultural conquest.
The nation-state of Tajikistan was created when it was incorporated into the Soviet Union in the early 20th century, which is when ‘Tajik’ came to denote a distinct nationality. Previously, ‘Taj’ was just a term for a Persian speaker. According to Sonja Hinz in her Master’s Thesis, “When the Uzbek and Tajik Soviet Socialist Republics were created as part of the Soviet Union, attention was called to Uzbek and Tajik ethnicities. Each republic was encouraged to develop its ‘national’ culture. This resulted in ‘national’ dances, ‘national’ music, ‘national’ heroes and many other expressions of ‘national’ Uzbek or ‘national’ Tajik culture, despite the fact that in past centuries there were not such distinctions.”
Following the failed coup in Moscow and the declaration of independence by other Central Asian states, Tajikistan proclaimed itself an independent republic on September 9, 1991. Clan based tensions in Tajikistan existed long before the Soviet era and independence only exacerbated these tensions, which resulted in a civil war that claimed over 60,000 lives and made refugees of over half a million people. After highly disputed presidential elections in 1992 and 1994, the current president, Imamali Rakhmanov, was elected. Finally, after five years of civil war, a ceasefire was declared in December of 1996 and a peace agreement was made in June 27, 1997.
Tajikistan today seems to be slowly picking up the pieces after independence and the civil war, yet because Tajikistan had always been the poorest of the Soviet republics and had heavily relied on imports of fuel and many other standard commodities from the Soviet Union, picking up the pieces has remained a challenging task. As of 2004, the annual national budget remains less than the budget of a Hollywood movie, the GDP per capita hovers around US $170 a year (on par with Eritrea), and the legal minimum wage was just recently tripled to US $1 per month.
Despite these facts, I have found during my short time thus far that Tajiks remain hospitable and positive people. People generally appear flexible and industrious within their circumstances. While walking around the tranquil center of Dushanbe, it is hard to imagine that it has been only a decade since the civil war that ravaged the same streets. But my time here has been and will be short. Sonja and Andy, who stayed in Tajikistan for 6 months and experienced a winter in Dushanbe, relayed stories about periodic shut downs of electricity and water in the middle of winter, among other things. While shopping for small gifts to bring home the other day, one of the saleswomen, after asking if I have enjoyed my time here, lamented about the lack of jobs and low wages. Knowing these challenges faced by the Tajik people, I have become in awe and inspired by my time here and by those I have met. I am honored, especially, to learn from the artists, namely dancers, who work so hard and remain so dedicated to their art despite the extremely low pay as well as an often-lower societal status…
Thus I begin my own reflections and experiences:
Wednesday June 13, 2007
Sitting in the Istanbul airport, typing, passing time until my flight to Dushanbe. I am pretty exhausted. My flight from Seattle to New York went by quickly since I fell right to sleep, waking up for our arrival at 8 AM. It was an incredibly long wait at the airport – from 8 AM until 6 PM, at which point I boarded my flight. The hardest part, however, was once we boarded our plane, we ended up having to sit and wait in the plane for another three hours since thunderstorms prevented any planes from leaving the airport. Most of the passengers, including myself, were disgruntled from sitting and waiting inside the airplane, but fortunately I was sitting around a group of really funny people, so I was relieved by a lot of laughing and joking around. As soon as we took off, finally, I fell asleep again and pretty much slept the entire ten hours that it took to get from NY to Istanbul. Fortunately, despite the 3-hour delay, I am still able to make my connecting flight from here to Dushanbe.
It would have been nice to have arranged a layover long enough to stay a night in Istanbul. Because of lack of funds and time, I intentionally chose to fly straight through. But now as I sit and drink Turkish coffee, hearing Turkish music playing from a kiosk, I feel reminiscent about my last visit to Istanbul seven years ago and long to hop into a taxi toward downtown. It will just have to wait – I must keep my thoughts focused on Tajikistan. Dushanbe is just a few hours away.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
After two days of travel, I have finally made it to Tajikistan early this morning. The flight from Istanbul went smoothly and we landed in Dushanbe at 3:00 AM – not quite the greatest time to land in a foreign country you’ve never been to before, but I’ve found that exhaustion and grogginess help ease nerves. You just kind of sleep walk your way through the whole process of adjusting during those first initial moments. Interestingly enough, there were three graduate students from my university who were on the same flight as I was. I had heard about them going, and that they would perhaps be on the same flight as me, but it still felt coincidental and bizarre to see them out of the context of our campus. Two of them are going to attend the American Councils program for language studies. The other one, a woman named Anna, has been to Tajikistan several times before and is in the process of moving here for work. It was good to see her, especially when it came to being in line for customs and filling out the forms, in which she was able to help me with a few of the confusing questions.
Customs went fine, which was a relief since the bureaucratic mess you have to deal with in order to come to Tajikistan leads you to believe that anything official is going to be a headache. But fortunately it was not. And my luggage showed up! That was my other concern. The only problem was that I had somehow lost my baggage ticket, or it was never given to me at the NY airport, so I was forced to explain to the guy checking the baggage tickets on the way out that I didn’t have mine – my first test at attempting Farsi in Tajikistan! “Meybakhshed (Tajik use for bebakhshid), nemidaanam an kojast! Gom shod – I’m sorry, I don’t know where it is. It’s lost.” He continued to talk to me in Tajik, which I really couldn’t understand. “Vali identification ba nam-e man daram! But I have identification with my name!” He pointed to me to sit down. I searched everything but to no avail. I thought to myself that perhaps I was going to have to bribe the guy. It had been suggested by many sources to keep a small stash of ten US dollars bills readily available for corrupt officials. I personally hate trying to bribe, not so much because of the money lost, but because I worry about insulting the person or not knowing if it is appropriate. But oh well, I thought, and slipped a ten-dollar bill into my passport.
When the guy had a minute free from checking passenger’s baggage tickets, I insisted again that I had my identification as I handed my passport to him. He opened it, shook his head no, and handed it back without taking the ten-dollar bill. Since my attempts at bribing myself out of the situation didn’t work, I continued to wait and see what was going to happen. Finally, after most of the people on the flight had gone through, he looked at my passport again, still not taking the ten-dollar bill, looked at the name on my luggage and finally let me through! Man, I was just about to break a sweat.
After exiting the Dushanbe airport, I walked into a small, outside open area where taxi cab drivers, friends and family wait. Everything was so calm, and even the taxi cab drivers weren’t overly persistent. Jahongir, the main administrator for the TDI Project, and I had arranged that he would pick me up from the airport, but he hadn’t arrived yet, so I sat and waited in the cool, morning hours of dawn – the sun just beginning to rise, birds beginning to sing. Within 20 minutes or so, Jahongir arrived and we got into a taxi to head into the center of town where my apartment is located.
Jahongir is an incredibly nice man hired through the project to take care of administrative details, as well as assist anyone on the project with visa issues, housing, etc. He had kindly arranged an apartment for me for my two-week stay in Dushanbe while I wait for the other American participants on the team - Sharlyn, Aliah, and Will. From what I understand, they will be here by July 1st, when our team will have a presentation at the Gurminj Museum here in Dushanbe, showing the films made from last year’s work in Badakhshan (the southern region of Tajikistan). It will be within the couple of days following that we will then head down to Badakhshan to continue with the project.
My studio apartment is really great. It is located right in the center of town, it’s completely furnished, and though it is small, it is a perfect size for me, with its own bathroom/shower and kitchen. It even has air conditioning, an added plus, since it supposedly gets to nearly 100 degrees here during the day.
Jahongir left shortly after he showed me to the apartment. I will be seeing him again within a day or two when he will return to assist me with registering my visa with a governmental office called OVIR, one of the requirements of the Tajik bureaucracy. It was about 6 AM by the time I got to sleep and I had set my alarm for 10:30 AM in an attempt to become accustomed to the Tajik time zone. These initial attempts were completely in vain and I ended up sleeping until almost 4 in the afternoon.
I awoke parched and starving. I didn’t have any drinking water (Dushanbe tap water supposedly isn’t safe to drink) or food. So I decided that I would make the plunge into my new environment, walk for a little bit, exchange money into the Tajik Somani, and buy some water and food to bring home. When you are new to a country and are not fluent in a language, even the most simple of tasks can seem so difficult, challenging and intimidating. But I figured I might as well get over the initial challenge as quickly as possible and head out into midst of it. I had planned on making it quick since I had anticipated that Jahongir might stop by my place at some point to take me to the OVIR office.
Though my apartment is in the center of town and located one block off of the city’s main street, I wasn’t able to find any obvious moneychangers or food stores directly close by this during this first time out. However, I enjoyed the walk. The main road through the center of town, Prospekt Rudaki (Prospekt means Avenue) is quite peaceful, clean, lined with tall trees, and really not crowded at all. I found during this initial introduction to the city that it is quite easy to blend right in since there are many different communities of people living in Dushanbe. I was expecting that perhaps I would stick out and draw attention as a foreigner, but this simply was not the case, and I was able to leisurely stroll along, enjoy watching people and looking at buildings. I eventually came to a vegetable market and gathered the courage to buy some grapes, peaches and melon. It was at this point of buying fruit from a Tajik woman that I realized just how different the Tajik accent is from the Iranian Farsi I am accustomed to, and it took my asking her to repeat herself a few times before realizing that I actually knew the words she were saying. Aside from accent, however, there are also some vocabulary words that are completely different from Iranian Farsi. But I found that she understood my meager Farsi, so that was good, and at least pointing to what I wanted was easy and naming off numbers for the amount and the cost is the same in both Tajiki and Iranian Farsi.
After buying the fruit and buying a case of 6 liters of water, I began to head back to my apartment. I felt silly since I knew I could have bought water closer to my place, but you know, once again, when you are in a new country and feeling somewhat vulnerable, buying what you need in a place that looks inviting and easy to figure out is worth the 20 minutes of carrying something heavy! Then, what should have taken 20 minutes ended up taking much longer because I had somehow gotten completely lost! I have no idea how it happened. Something I am usually quite good at (in this case, directions) turned into a complete fiasco! The big challenge for me is that all of the signs for things are not in the Persian/Arabic script. Unlike Iran and Afghanistan, the two other Persian-speaking nations, Tajikistan uses the Russian Cyrillic alphabet rather the Arabic/Persian script. Before the late 1920’s, the Arabic/Persian script had been used in Tajikistan. Between 1929 and 1940, the Soviets imposed the Latin alphabet, and the alphabet was finally changed again in 1940 to the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, which is still in use today. With the whirlwind of life before leaving, I did not have time to learn Cyrillic before coming!! So yet again, due to problems, I was forced to communicate in Persian.
I knew I had somehow strayed away from the main street (Prospekt Rudaki) and so I initially approached a group of men who looked like police or military and were sitting behind a gate to what looked like a governmental building. “Mebakhshed, Prospect Rudaki kojast? Excuse me, where is Avenue Rudaki?” They talked among themselves for a moment as I continued to point toward two different streets, “In taraf ya an taraf? This direction or that direction?” They pointed in one direction and so I continued my way toward it. Within just a couple blocks, I knew, however, that they either had no sense at all of where Prospekt Rudaki was (which was highly unlikely), or that they thought they would have a fun time causing me to become even more lost. I knew it wasn’t the right direction. So I approached an older man working at a little window selling food. He pointed the direction that I had first come from, which I had personally guessed was the way I needed to go. A big lesson learned – trust little old men at food stalls more than a group of “official” looking men!
Eventually I decided that I needed to stop being so stubborn about finding my own way and walking while carrying heavy fruit and six liters of water and get a taxi. Taxis are everywhere, and within a block, I approached a man standing outside his cab and told him where I wanted to go. I didn’t even ask the price. At this point I felt that even if I was overcharged, it probably still wouldn’t cost me more than a few US dollars and it was well worth it. Within a mere 5 minutes, I was home, exhausted and starving. So much for my quick 20-minute walk for food and water! Instead I ended up being gone for two hours!
Dushanbe currently has a population of about 700,000 people – Tajiks, Russians, and various smaller communities. It was when Tajikistan became a Soviet Republic that the town began to grow into the capital city it is today. Beforehand, it was only a small village known for its Monday market, hence its name (Dushanbe means ‘Monday’ in Persian). Though it is the capital city, however, it still definitely has a feel of a small town. The center of the city is situated along the wide, tree-lined Prospekt Rudaki, which crosses through the Maydoni (square) Azadi. This square is surrounded by government buildings and is under the stern gaze of the monstrous sized statue of Shah Ismail Somoni, the founder of the Samanid dynasty. My apartment is a minute’s walk from the statue. This statue of Ismail Somoni ousted a statue of Lenin in 1999 on the 1100th anniversary of the Samanid Dynasty. A large part of the statue is lined in gold, and so guards prevent anyone from walking close enough to touch it. The statue is surely a revered symbol of the people’s pride in Tajik culture and history.
Friday, June 15th, 2007
Jahongir came to pick me up and we went to register my visa with OVIR. I swear, just having all of the paper work in order to be a tourist in Tajikistan is so uniquely challenging. I don’t see how anyone would be able to navigate the system without some serious help from a local person, especially without Russian-speaking skills. The OVIR office is completely outside of the center of town, and consists of several offices that require you to go from one person to another for various things, all of them standing behind windows barely marked in numerous different buildings. OVIR, apparently, is left over from the Soviet bureaucracy, and makes little sense to me. From what I understand, it also exists in other Central Asian ex-Soviet republics. It’s times like these that I realize I have a lot of learning to do regarding the ex-Soviet Union and all things related! Anyhow, I have been so immensely thankful to Jahongir for all of his help in these not so pleasant procedures.
After leaving OVIR, we made our way to Theater Padida where I will be taking my dance lessons with Sharofat Rashidova. The theater is an amazing and beautiful old building with a stage, outside amphitheater-like seating, courtyards, and an inside classroom. We met with Sharofat and her husband, Habibullah, and sat down with them in their office for coffee. It was so great meeting them since I had heard a lot about them and had seen pictures and video of them from Sonja and Andy. It was also great to see a few pictures of Sonja and Andy in their office. Both Sharofat and Habibullah were lovable right from the beginning. Habibullah is apparently a well-known actor and has lived and acted in movies in Iran before the Revolution. He kept on showing Jahongir and me several photos of himself in movies. He is certainly an expressive character, and Jahongir mentioned to me how much he always enjoyed his conversations with Habibullah. Because of Habibullah’s time in Iran, he had a great sense of Iranian Farsi, of which I am most familiar with, and so speaking with him was a little easier for me than speaking with Sharofat. Sharofat was so sweet upon meeting her, though definitely busy and a little distracted at first, but then she finally sat down and joined us, mostly to talk about business. She and Jahongir began to discuss the details of my private lessons. We established I would be studying for two to three hours, five to six days a week for the two and a half weeks I will be here, depending on what would be necessary for me to complete up to three choreographies. We discussed which styles I would learn – one Shash Maqam, one Falak, and one folkloric Kulobi. I am familiar with Shash Maqam (the classical dance of Tajikistan, considered a spiritual form of expression, utilizing music of the classical genre known by the same name, whose lyrics are often from such Sufi poets as Rumi and Hafez), I am familiar with the folkloric Kulobi style (Kulob is a region south of Dushanbe), but I am not familiar with Falak, so that will be something entirely new for me. I am both excited and nervous – excited because this is such an amazing opportunity yet nervous about how well I will do. I have never done such intensive dance training in such a condensed amount of time before but I am finally doing what my hectic life schedule with school and work prohibits me from doing at home – dance several hours every day – my idea of time well spent! I figured that Sharofat would suggest that we start our lessons on Monday, but instead she suggested starting tomorrow. So I better gear up!
Thursday, July 21st, 2007
Today marks one week that I’ve been in Dushanbe. I’ve gone from feeling completely overwhelmed, confused, and somewhat apprehensive during my first days here, to finally finding my way around quite easily, settling into my daily routine of dance and Farsi lessons, and not feeling so freaked out about not understanding someone or if they don’t understand me. It’s been quite a different experience being somewhere that there isn’t even a small bit of tourism – both in good and difficult ways – in good ways for the fact of living real life (more or less) which enables less contrived experiences with lots of great people, and also for the fact that I don’t feel like I stick out so much (with people assuming, perhaps, that I live or work here); in difficult ways because of the lack of such things that cater to the non-native speaker of the native language – in this case Tajik or Russian (with signs, services, etc). The difficulties with a large amount of the basic things, however, have subsided already as I make my way around every day.
Today will be my fourth day of lessons with Sharofat. Upon first meeting her with Jahongir, she seemed pretty distant at first, as we spent ten minutes or so meeting and discussing the details of my classes. Since then, however, it has become evident just how sweet and wonderful she is, and we are always hugging and smiling and being very sweet with each other. This makes me very happy since, in the beginning, I actually felt quite shy. She has certainly made it to where I feel completely relaxed and welcome – almost as if I am apart of the family that is Theater Padida.
And I have seen just how hard Sharofat works! My god, that woman is dancing several hours a day – and the folkloric stuff is SO vigorous that sometimes I can barely stand any longer and am completely drenched in sweat! She has the most amazing endurance and drive for anyone any age, while she has to be at least fifty years old. In addition to private and public lessons (the public lessons mainly catering to ex-pats and wives of foreign ambassadors), she also directs and choreographs for the Theater Padida dance ensemble, which consists of 15 – 30 young women, as well as a few young men. The fact that the Ensemble is NOT state sponsored adds another challenging element for her and Habibullah, who assists her at the Theater. According to them, they are the only independent ensemble in Dushanbe. Independent status means that while state-sponsored ensembles have all of their costs for studios, costumes and wages for the dancers paid for by the government, Padida is left entirely to their own devices. They have to conjur enough income to pay for all of the repairs at the theater (and while an old theater may seem novel to someone like myself, it is a constant headache for them who have to keep up with it), as well as wages for their dancers and paying for costumes. Sharofat and Habibullah are by far some of the most dedicated and hard-working individuals I have ever met.
Sharofat’s love for dance is immensely contagious. While watching her, I become intoxicated by her emotion, by her smile, by her ability to relay emotions. I have been learning a kind of generic “Tajik” dance style as technique, which are mainly Kulobi moves. This is the stuff that gives me a workout like none other. The first choreography I have learned is Falak. As mentioned, Falak is also a musical genre that utilizes spiritual lyrics in their songs. The piece I am dancing is to the poetry of Rumi. After some time, I hope to translate the lyrics, although the movements in her choreography often reflect the lyrics, which in itself, has helped me to with translation.
Today I have begun to learn the Shash Maqam choreography. While Falak is quite rhythmic in percussion, the melody of Shash Maqam leads the rhythm of the movements. In a way, it’s nice because it is not as vigorous as Falak and the Kulobi technique (and so do not end up completely pouring in sweat) yet it is also a bit more difficult since the rhythm is and execution of movement are much more ambiguous, not to mention how much facial expression and emotional expression is needed to dance it well. But is a very beautiful dance form and I have been enjoying it – as I have everything I have been learning from Sharofat.
I really have come to love Tajik dance! It is everything Persian dance not been able to provide me over the last couple of years. There is such a wide range of vocabulary, movements I have been longing for, but didn’t know how to create. I certainly think this has opened up the creative obstacles that I feel have been running up against for the past couple of years regarding dance.
Though I love what I am doing, I have been so extremely exhausted every day – more so than almost any time before that I can remember. It is partly the jet lag, but it also is the heat! It is almost 100 degrees here now. To do any where from 2-4 hours of day of dance and 2 hours a day of Farsi lessons with Goli (who I started studying with on Monday), between the two I am just so mentally and physically exhausted. It’s worth it, I know, but after a brutal few weeks of moving out of my house and final exams right before leaving for Tajikistan, I somewhat fantasize about lying around for a few days, if not a week or more. But enough of that lament!
To be continued with more writings and photos very soon!
