A Real Headache

Nice things first. On Sunday, we took a trip sponsored by the embassy to Nurek lake. It's a man made lake created by the construction of the Nurek hydro-electric dam during soviet times, and I believe it's still the tallest dam in the world. More than 80% of Tajikistan's power is generated here. The problem is that in particularly cold winters, the lake can freeze to the point that no electricity can be generated, causing nationwide power outages. Last year was mild, fingers crossed for this year.

Our first stop was to see the outflow plumes, where excess water not used for power generation comes pouring down these massive chutes and then flies high into the air. It's like seeing a vertical waterfall.

Pretty impressive.

Here's a short video to get a better idea.

Unfortunately, due to security measures, it isn't possible to see the dam itself.

From there we went to an overlook point to see the lake. Despite the hazy summer weather, it's still very picturesque. The tops of hills that were drowned stick up like improbable islands.

We spent the rest of the day by a small lake created by bypassing some of the outflow. It was a nice afternoon just relaxing, snacking, and enjoying the cooler weather by the water.

The not so nice thing has been what seems to be a migraine headache. I haven't gotten them very often, so it's hard to tell, but I don't really care what it is as long as it goes away. It started Sunday evening and I just thought it might have been from not drinking enough water, so I drank water.

Then it got progressively worse through work on Monday. By Monday night I couldn't really sleep despite tylenol and ibuprofen. So on Tuesday, I went to see our medical officer and she gave me a big dose of demerol before I went home - enough that I was feeling pretty good in the marshrutka. Unfortunately, a dose that should have lasted 10-12 hours wore off in about 2 and the muscle relaxer/sleep aid didn't work at all, so I spent another sleepless, head-pounding night.

Today I had a meeting at the British Embassy that I couldn't change, so I went in for half a day in the morning. Before I went home, we tried an injection specifically for migraines. It was one of those spring loaded injections and I've never had a shot hurt so much, except for a epidural I had once. Fortunately, that pain was brief and my headache quickly faded. So far it hasn't come back, but we're going to do another injection as prescribed to be safe. Plus I'll take a little ambien to make sure I can sleep well. Pretty good medical care for the third world - all thanks to the medical center at the embassy. I can only imagine what it's like for people living here without these resources.

Speaking of living here, I saw a prime example of what's wrong with governance her in Tajikistan on my way home today. I was in the marshrutka and when I was almost home, there was a huge traffic jam because they were trying to repair the trolleybus lines in the middle of a major intersection. In true local style, everyone abandoned all reason and crowded their cars into the intersection trying to get through first. Inevitably, this led to grid lock.

So the driver of our marshrutka decided to go a different way, (they're supposed to follow set routes), which would have taken me away from home instead of towards it. With no alternative, I got out to walk and not 20 feet from the traffic jam was a traffic cop. Not trying to sort out the gridlock, but looking for people to pull over for bribes. Oh, he glanced at the mess once or twice, but here it's all about the money. I suppose I could have pointed out that if he could get traffic moving, there would be more cars coming by for him to pull over, but I think it's more of a lost cause overall.