1 week down...

So here it is, the end of my first full week as GSO at Embassy Dushanbe. I have to say, although work is extremely busy, I’m enjoying myself quite a bit. I have some great people on my staff and I find the work challenging and rewarding for the most part. One slightly annoying task today required about 15 minutes of my time. I finally got the password reset on my office voicemail and when I logged in, the electronic voice said the mailbox was full. Thinking I had missed many voicemails over the last week, I started listening to them right away. However, the first NEW message was from September – I thought it was odd but soon figured out that it was a voicemail from my predecessor. Thinking it was accidentally left by my predecessor, I went to the next message and quickly discovered that all these NEW messages were starting from last September (or so I thought). So I started rapidly deleting each message, pausing every so often to see what the date was lest I miss a message for me. But lo and behold, there were no messages for me and the time stamps circled back into September again – there were 2 years of NEW messages for my predecessor in the voice mailbox! In all I deleted over 300 of them. Fortunately that was a one-time job and from there I was able to get back to real work.

I’m also starting to meet more people in other sections of the embassy and we seem to have a great little community here. As we head into the weekend, the dust storm is slowly dissipating. I can now see the hills across the street, but not much more. At least it doesn't look like we're on another planet anymore. I’m also pleased to report that my Tajik Tummy has cleared up nicely and I’m now able to continue my culinary exploration of Tajikistan.

Yesterday, I got the second in a series of three rabies vaccine shots so my arm is a little sore, but it sounds like it’s worth it. Apparently rabies is rampant here and there have been many reports of people being bitten by rabid dogs. Of course now whenever I see a dog I start looking for rocks to throw in case it goes all Cujo on me. As if I could actually hit a dog with a rock if it was more than two feet away, (I’m talking about my poor throwing skills, not my willingness to ward off a mad dog intent on killing me). Fortunately, it hasn’t been necessary to test my skills with a projectile so far. We’ll see what happens when I run the Hash on Saturday – it seems this weekly event attracts a lot of attention from the rabid animal community. The Hash (short for Hash House Harriers) is an international drinking group with a running problem that has clubs in many international cities. I’ll be sure to share my experience next week.

After work yesterday there was a happy hour at the Marine House, which was a lot of fun. Stephanie was here for her Tajik lesson so she came along and we had a really good time – what was especially nice was that there were beverage options beyond Baltica 3 and 7, (Russian beers without much character – numbers 4 and 9 are better, but 3 and 7 seem to dominate the market here). Afterwards, on the way home, we stopped by the famous Rohat Teahouse for dinner. It took us a few tries to order something that was actually available, but we ended up with a delicious shashlik (kebab), and a dish of sautéed meat with mushrooms and onions that were quite good. We were disappointed that they didn’t have the national dish of Tajikistan – plov – but I’m sure we’ll experience that soon. An amazing point about the meal – the whole thing cost less than $7 including bread and a 1.5L bottle of water – CHA-CHING! Interestingly enough, it cost 40 dirham (equivalent to less than a dime) to use the bathroom, which was basically a closet with a hole in the floor. I guess you have to make your money somehow.

Rohat is an interesting mélange of architecture, with a main building that resembles a Roman temple, which sits in the midst of a surrounding building that brings to mind a Japanese palace. In between, there is a rather nice garden with a fountain and the overall effect is not unpleasant. I’ll have to post pictures once I get up and running with the internet at home, which should happen…drum roll please….next Tuesday! Now, if the speed of service at restaurants is any indication, I won’t hold my breath for a quick installation, but it’s nice to see the possibility on the horizon. We’ve also learned that a couple of shipments of our belongings are here and we hope to get them delivered early next week - maybe even today. Again, not holding my breath but it will be nice when we get some of our things to make the house feel more like home.

So I guess all in all, things are pretty darn good in Dushanbe. I’m sure I’ll have more to share next week, so until then, stay classy.

Nick