Hi-ho, hi-ho...

As predicted, this week has been almost entirely about work. The whole embassy seems particularly busy. At least all you readers can rest assured that your tax dollars are hard at work. A few key highlights from this week:

I've gotten to work a bit more with the political section as some issues I've been having overlap with some of the current hot topics on the local scene. It's always neat to get involved outside my little fiefdom in the General Services Office.

Also, an important lesson for one of my staff was that if you substitute the 'u' in 'guys' with an 'a', it changes the meaning of the word entirely. Especially when you meant to say '...contact the guys if you need help'.

Then, an epic e-mail throw-down between two local staff caused an inordinate amount of time to be spent sorting the whole situation out. Just call your friendly GSO for all of your conflict resolution needs.

In other notes, I'm appreciating the company of our sponsoree on my daily commute. Since he lives so close, we usually meet up in the mornings to catch the marshrutka. The experience is a lot more fun with someone else along to enjoy it.

One day we had a particularly bizarre ride. I was sitting in the front seat and he was sitting behind me with his back to me. We soon discovered that the back of the seat was rather thin and not very sturdy so that when accelerating and braking we each had to work not to fall over on the other.

And now that the wintry weather has passed, our running crew has started up again. We're now running six strong and make for quite a sight on the early morning streets of Dushanbe.

Other than that, we went out with a group of friends for dinner at a local Indian restaurant on Monday and went to a Salsa lesson on Tuesday. Stephanie has been very busy at work as well so we haven't had as much free time as we'd like.

Now, it's just a little over 24 hours 'til I depart for DC. It will be nice to get a taste of home, but I'm a little disappointed to be missing the parliamentary elections in Tajikistan. If I were here, I'd probably be participating in observing the elections. It will be interesting to hear if anything notable happens.

The Big Visit

For a four-day week, this sure didn't feel short! Hard to believe it's been a week already since I last posted, but with good reason. Last week was crazy.

In addition to the normal hustle and bustle, I found myself covering for the Facilities Manager while he is on vacation, getting ready for the arrival of a new officer that Stephanie and I are sponsoring, working with an advisor from our regional support center, and wildest of all, preparing for a visit from Richard Holbrooke - the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Being acting facilities manager doesn't put all that much of an extra burden on me as the staff are very competent. It's mostly just more to pay attention to, although we did have a partial roof collapse at our motorpool to contend with due to the lingering snow. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Getting ready for the person we're sponsoring was fun, but knowing what it was like to arrive in a strange place in the middle of the night, we wanted to make sure everything was perfect. This mostly involves making sure the house is ready and that there is some food available before they get here. Then when the guy arrived, I went to the airport to meet him and made sure he was settled in at home.

The new guy is very cool and Stephanie and I both get along with him well. The nice thing is that he lives only a couple of blocks away from us - which is great since so far, we've been the only ones in this part of town. Part of being a sponsor is also to help get the person settled in at the embassy and around town. We've had fun doing that as well since it gives us another good reason to be out and about.

So being a sponsor is more fun than work in my book. It's just unfortunate that this experience coincided with the Holbrooke visit, which was unmistakeably work-ish. It's no secret by now that Special Representative Holbrooke has been on a whirlwind tour of the region over the last week, so Dushanbe was by far not the only embassy scrambling to prepare for a quick visit.

Preparation included making sure we reserved the appropriate rooms at the Hyatt as well as setting up a control center (basically a fully equipped impromptu office) for the staff to work from, not to mention putting together comprehensive transportation planning for the trip. There are an amazing number of moving parts involved with a visit like this including coordination of access to the airport and the presidential palace for the meeting, as well as making the most of public diplomacy opportunities - not to mention arranging security for the entire visit.

The visit was only scheduled to last from an arrival Friday evening to a departure Saturday morning but it had most of the embassy hopping for over a week. Fortunately, everything went more or less smoothly, and we handled several unexpected schedule changes and special requests without a hitch. I even got to enjoy a free breakfast at the Hyatt on Saturday morning. The only hiccup (which was not our doing) was when the group prepared to leave and had a problem with arrangements at their next destination. Suddenly, my stint at the Hyatt changed from a four hour day to an eight hour day. Still, at least I was stationed at the Hyatt and not at the airport in the rain.

Finally around 3:30pm we got the 'wheels up' notice and were able to shut down and go home. Saturday night, we blew off some steam at the embassy Valentine's Day party - better known as 'The Love Fest' and then went on to a friend's house for some more dancing. We had a great time and it was a much needed release after a rather tense week.

Today, the weather finally cleared after a couple of weeks of rain and snow. It was actually a rather warm and beautiful day. We took our sponsoree around town to help him get familiarized with the area and to do some shopping at the bazaar. On the way I was able to snap some photos:

The town hall...

A car with some interesting cargo...

And a tandoori sambusa oven at the bazaar...

As the weekend winds down, I have no doubt it will be another busy week as I need to catch up on things that didn't get done while I was tied up with the Holbrooke visit. Since I'm leaving for my conference in Washington next Saturday, I really need to get everything in order.

And finally, the most amazing thing is that as of this weekend, we've been here for 6 months!! It's hard to believe we're already a quart of the way through our tour. In another 6 months we'll already figuring out where to go next. And so the adventure continues.

Chillin' In Dushanbe

As I'm writing this post, on the evening of President's Day, I'm looking out on a quiet snowy yard. Now, I know this is nothing compared to recent snowfalls along the east coast back home, but it is nice to finally have it look like winter for an extended period of time. Apparently it is rather unusual to have snow on the ground for more than a day or so. Actually, for most of the week it was snowing pretty much constantly, but not accumulating too much, which is perfect in my book.

On Saturday a group of people from the embassy went to the Museum of National Antiquities.
While not what you would call 'world class', it does have a pretty nice collection of artifacts showing the different cultures that have washed over this part of the world throughout history - the Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Mongolians, and others have left there mark.


Among some of the interesting items were the skeleton of an ancient princess who towered over 6 feet tall in life,

dating back to the time when Zoroastrianism was the main religion. We also saw a set of skulls, one of which had the oblong shape that some cultures in Africa achieve by wrapping the head in tight cloth at a young age.
There were also statues and parts of statues showing evidence of the presence of the Hindu religion...
stone tablets written in Arabic...
and the main attraction an enormous stone Buddha, which took up an entire room by itself.
I also noticed a painting which showed the founding myth of Rome (Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf) - which you may remember I was perplexed a statue of the same scene when I was in Khujand.
Our guide explained that it was evidence of trade between ancient Rome and this part of the world. Pretty impressive.


Interestingly, our guide also glossed over an entire section of stone age artifacts, stating that as a converted Christian, he didn't believe in the stone age. We held our tongues and enjoyed the rest of the tour very much.


After the museum, Stephanie and I took in the sights of a snowy Dushanbe and had lunch at a Georgian restaurant.
For more pictures of Dushanbe in snow as well as from the museum, click the picture below.

Museum

On Saturday night, we braved a rather heavy bout of snow to attend a Marti Gras party at the Deputy Chief of Mission's residence. Despite the weather, a lot of people showed up and we had a really good time drinking hurricanes and dancing the night away.




We celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday by going to brunch at the Hyatt with another couple. It was a nice treat and the food was great as usual. It's certainly nice to be able to go to the Hyatt once and awhile and pretend that we're not in Tajikistan. While we like it overall, it can be trying at times.


Today was pretty cold so we mostly stayed in. Our only excursion was to go to the dentist for a cleaning. The experience was... interesting. My Russian is not well developed in the area of Dentistry and only one person spoke any English. The first order of business was to ensure safety. Our medical officer recommended that we purchase single-use kits of dental tools for hygienic purposes so we did. But then there were several instruments that were not in the kit. The dentist explained that they had been auto-claved but we called the medical officer to confirm it was ok.


With that done, the check-up was more or less uneventful. The only really painful aspect was that the water pick used very cold water - which was less than comfortable. Neither of us felt that it met the standards we are used to in the U.S. but figure it's better than nothing. Not to mention, it only cost us about $25 altogether!


And so closes another three day weekend. I've decided I like three day weekends ending in Monday better because it's easier to come off a three day weekend to a four day week than a full week.

Winter Finally Caught Up to Us

Good old Murphy and his law apparently maintain a stronghold on the events of life even in Dushanbe. So of course, over the weekend after we learn our car is worthless, we get hit with the first real blast of winter weather so far this year. The weekend itself wasn’t too bad, mostly rain, but it was enough to keep us mostly homebound. On Sunday night, it started to snow.

Usually rain will change over to snow in the evening and then back to rain in the morning, but not this time. We were fortunate to have a friend who was willing to give us a ride to the Marine house on the compound to watch the superbowl at 3:30 am on Monday morning. We were also fortunate that we could watch the game there instead of at home because the snow blocked the signal on our satellite dish. (The Marines were able to go out on the roof to clean theirs off - we would have fallen off if we tried that). All in all, it was a great game, and we had a good breakfast while watching it. The only thing I really missed were buffalo wings and the commercials – we don’t get to see them on the Armed Forces Network.

The snow continued all day Monday and into Tuesday morning – making for very beautiful scenery and very treacherous commutes. First, when I tried to leave the house, I discovered that our large metal gate was frozen. Not having had a large metal gate previously, I was unprepared and had to run inside to get hot water to melt the lock so I could leave. Then I had to go back inside again for more hot water when I learned that I had to melt the outside of the lock too in order to close it behind me.

After a rather treacherous walk to the bazaar, I managed to catch a marshrutka relatively easy. It even had a pair of red fuzzy dice on the mirror. Alas, that wasn't the end of my adventure. About a kilometer or so from the embassy, the marshrutka gave up the ghost and ceased working. Any other time I probably would have just hoofed it, but the conditions were not conducive to walking so I caught another one and got to work almost an hour late.

Tuesday night, Stephanie and I had planned to go to another salsa lesson, but then we realized that we couldn't both go out or we'd be frozen out of our house when we came home.

Today (Wednesday, has still be quite cold, but things are improving. No issues with the commute this morning and the facilities team came to unfreeze our gate. We're getting ready to head out to dinner with some friends and tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. Almost Friday!

Dirty, Rotten, Blankety-blank

As of my last report on Sunday, I had received my car from the shop and everything was hunky-dory. That didn't last long. By the end of the day Monday, it was making a weird noise. Now, you may remember that I was paying our head mechanic to do the work outside of business hours. He's also the same guy who helped us purchase the car. Considering I'm his boss, I felt fairly comfortable working with him, but with all of the repairs, I'd been having my doubts.

I asked around and found another local mechanic who is used by many of the locals at the embassy and is widely considered to be reliable and trustworthy. I took the car in this morning to have the weird sound fixed but also to have him take a look at the car overall so that I can have a second opinion. As it turns out, my suspicions were EXTREMELY well founded, and the truth was much worse than I expected.

The mechanic called back about an hour after I dropped the car off to report that among other things, the welding job that our mechanic had done on the engine mount was shoddy and they had used a piece of wood to prop up the engine. WOOD! And not even a solid block of hardwood, but an 8" X 3" X 0.5" piece of particle board - I never would have seen it if I hadn't taken it to the other guy. Then there was a litany of other problems that would undoubtedly need repair before long. But still, the piece of wood was the most unbelievable thing. I don't know how to do much beyond filling the windshield washer fluid and changing a flat tire, but I defintely know that particle board will not support an engine.

What it comes down to is that we are probably better off selling the car and buying another one. But to add more insult to insult, (there hasn't been an injury - but that's probably only because I didn't see the embassy mechanic today, haha), I learned that the car we bought should probably only have cost $3000 vs the $4500 we paid. So on top of telling me the car was in good condition, our mechanic was most likely also involved in a scheme to overcharge us so he could pocket the money.

Now, knowing the local modus operandi, I expect a little over charging or even to have the mechanic suggest some repairs that might not be completely necessary. (I try not to generalize, but my growing impression of the locals is that while perhaps quite hospitable, they are generally not terribly honest or scrupulous. I think this bears that out.) But misleading me to this extent, where the problems with the car could have endangered the driver (I think of Stephanie), was just shocking. This guy lied through his teeth that the car was in good working condition.

The general consensus among the mechanics who worked on the car today is that it is probably better to sell the car and start over. Knowing what I know now, I agree. But we'll certainly lose money in the deal, not to mention the time and headache involved in the process. It's infuriating.

Of course, I plan to talk to the embassy mechanic about this - I just don't think it could have been done appropriately today. But there are really only two possible explanations. Either he screwed me over, or he knows absolutely nothing about cars. I'll be interested to see which one he chooses.

On the bright side, I finished first two times this week among our morning running group. Both times I was holding pretty close to a 7 minute mile for almost 5 miles. Also on the bright side, I have a wonderful wife who baked me brownies to cheer me up, and good friends at the embassy who are happy to let me vent.

We also have lots of great things to look forward to. We're planning to take a long weekend in March to go to Uzbekistan with some friends. And over the last week I've been working on the preliminary process of planning our R&R in Italy at the end of April through mid May! As always, we're setting an ambitious plan and half the fun will be planning it. As Stephanie so rightly reminded me, the important thing is not to let a few idiots, (That's the censored description. I can think of quite a few more appropriately severe words to describe these people and have used most of them at some point today), ruin an otherwise great experience.