The Change

This week has been mostly consumed with orchestrating a switch in mobile phone service providers at the embassy, a rather exhausting process, but I found time for a few other activities while I was at it.

This week we managed to both sell our junk-mobile and buy another car. We are now the proud owners of a 2006 Volkswagen Jetta GLI. We won't be able to take it offroading, but we will be able to have fun with it. The final hurdle is to get the Jetta registered, which could be painful, but we're optimistic we can get it done by the end of next week.

Last night, (Wednesday), we had a management team dinner at a shashlik restaurant perched on a hill just under Victory Park - about a mile from our house. We got there a little early and took in some great views overlooking the city at dusk.

The weather has been amazingly warm, with highs in the upper 70's and low 80's. Spring is in full swing in Dushanbe and, as you can see in the pictures, many of the trees are in bloom. It's very nice.

The shashlik (grilled meat) was some of the best we've had since we've been here. The music... was interesting. First, they played music videos that didn't match the songs. For example, there was "Macho Man" with a bunch of scantily clad women dancing on the screen. And they played "Cotton Eyed Joe" with a lone Tajik woman dancing around. They even played a song I haven't heard since I was a kid - "Star Trekkin'", it's a goofy song that was on a compilation of weird songs, like "Flying Purple People Eater", called Dr. Demento. Bizarre doesn't even cover it.

Also in bizarre news, was an odd request during the mobile phone transition. Of course, there were many issues and requests throughout the process, but one of my colleagues approached me to ask if we could switch his number with one of his local staff's number. The reason was because the number had '666' in it and the employee believed it would be unlucky. However, when I went to make the change, the last 4 digits only had two 6's, not three.

I asked my colleague about it. Apparently this particular employee is under the impression that anytime you have more than one 6 is a bad sign. No, that's not a local superstition, I asked around. Of course, we went ahead and made the switch. But it's interesting how superstitions can get twisted around through cultural translation.

Fortunately, my week is over. we're taking Friday off to head to Uzbekistan with some friends for the long weekend. We're planning to visit the ancient cities of Samarqaand and Bukhara. Monday and Tuesday are local holidays so I get a nice 5 day vacation to recover from a rather long week.